The man laughed. At this point, the head bouncer decided to get involved. The man put the bouncer’s head through the wooden bar, which indicated to Barb that she should use her shotgun. Unfortunately, the magic wave had hit and the shotgun misfired. The man confiscated the shotgun and bashed Barb over the head with it. Her recollection of the following events seemed understandably murky.
One of the regular patrons, one Ori Cohen, twenty-one, got up off his chair and held up a locket to the hairy man. According to Barb, the man “snarled like a dog” and backed away. He continued to retreat and Barb thought that Ori would “walk him right out.” Unfortunately, a tall person in a cloak entered the bar through the back door and chopped through Ori’s neck with an axe. The hairy man then proceeded to demolish the place, while the second intruder watched.
The descriptions were vague at best. According to Clint, Barb’s second in command, the first man was a “giant, shaggy sonovabitch with glowing eyes . . . veins on his arms the size of electrical cords.” Not exactly a quality description. “Hi, I’d like an APB on a giant shaggy sonovabitch . . .”
The second man was described as tall. Nobody saw his face.
Because of the unusual height and near naked status of the intruder, the incident was classified as a possible Steel Mary sighting. The Steel Mary had struck in Savannah the night before, and the Savannah Biohazard preferred to err on the side of caution.
The report came equipped with several photographs. I spread them on the desk. Ori, a thin, slight man, curled into a ball in the middle of a trash-strewn floor. The second shot showed the body from the back. Ori’s face stared right at the camera, his cheek resting in a puddle of thickening blood. He looked at me with milky dead eyes. His face was clean shaven, narrow, and shockingly young.
Just a kid, really. A kid who saw a bully, stood up to him, and was crushed. The good guys didn’t always win.
The third photo showed Ori’s toolbox, tucked neatly under the bar. Somehow it survived the destruction. Inside the box lay chisels and brick trowels, stacked, clean, organized. A small wicker box tied with a pink bow sat on top of the tools. Close-up of the box. Chocolate-dipped strawberries.
Masons earned good money, but he was barely old enough to be a journeyman. Chocolate was expensive and strawberries were way out of season. He must’ve saved up for weeks to buy them. Probably planned to give them to somebody special. Instead he ended up on the filthy floor, discarded like some piece of trash.
“We have to find this bastard,” I told the attack poodle. “We’ll find him and then I’ll hurt him.”
I flipped through the stack of pictures. A close-up of Ori’s hand. A broken silver chain wound about his dead fingers. Something must’ve been attached to it. An amulet, an idol, maybe a charm of some sort . . . Something that made the Mary back off.
I flipped through the report to Barb’s interview. It mirrored the report summary until I came to the “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”
Barbara Howell stated that the hairy man laughed like a woman.
The phone screamed at me. I picked it up. “Kate Daniels.”
“I’m done with this game,” Curran snarled.
I pushed the disconnect button and pressed Maxine’s extension. “Maxine, if he calls again, please don’t put him through.”
“Dear, that was the Beast Lord.”
“Yes, I know. Please screen his calls.”
“Very well.”
I looked back at the paper. The hairy man laughed like a woman. Just like the undead mage.
Why the hell was Curran calling me anyway?
I picked up the phone and dialed Christy’s number. Christy was my closest neighbor—she lived only a few minutes down the road from my house near Savannah. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey, it’s Kate. How are you?”
“Fine, fine. What’s up?”
I’d regret this later. “I need a favor. Could you go up to my house and see if there is a note anywhere by my door?”
A month had passed. Unless he stuck it under the screen door, which had glass panels, even if the note had been there, it would be long gone.
“Sure. I’ll call you back in a few. Your job number, right?”
“No, my apartment is better. Thanks.”
I hung up. Even if there was a note, it changed nothing. Nothing at all.
If the big and shaggy man who attacked Barb’s bar did laugh like a woman, and if the second intruder was the Steel Mary, it meant they were batting for the same team. Was it a new faction trying to carve a territory in Atlanta? Argh. The deeper I dug, the more confused I got.
I went back to the evidence photos. A wide image of the bar. The inside of the Barbwire Noose had been demolished. Everything that could have been broken was. Splintered chairs. Crushed tables. Shattered glass. Holes in the walls. A chaotic twisted wreck that might have been a pool table at some point. The definition of “fury” in the dictionary had this picture under it.
One of the shots captured an amulet, photographed under wooden debris. Two inches long, the amulet resembled a hollow silver scroll with a piece of paper peeking out on one side. It was a common amulet: the scroll contained a piece of paper or parchment with a protective spell. The caption under the picture said: SEE EXHIBIT A.
I opened the lead box. Inside, in a small plastic bag, waited a piece of parchment. It was two inches wide and about four inches long, with tattered yellow edges that had been creased and torn too many times. Gently I flipped it over.
Blank.
Just once, just once I would’ve liked evidence that wouldn’t make me jump through burning hoops.
The notation stated that the parchment was found inside the amulet and it was blank. Whooptidoo. According to the follow-up, Ori lived alone. One of the carpenters he worked with stated that Ori was afraid of getting sick and carried the amulet as a protection against disease. She didn’t know what sort of magic it had or how he got it.
I dug around until I unearthed the lab report. It had Gone With the Wind ambitions—at least two inches thick. I started with the first test.
All evidence had to be routinely m-scanned. The m-scanner picked up traces of magical residue and recorded it as colors: blue for human, various shades of red and purple for undead, green for most shapeshifters. The m-scan of my parchment was blank, too. Lovely.
The next item was titled “Franco Emission Test (FET).” I hadn’t the foggiest what that was.
I pulled a reference volume of magic laboratory procedure off the shelf. Apparently FET involved placing the object of interest on a white sheet of paper, exposing it to intense chant or an item emitting heavy-duty magic, and then m-scanning it. If the tested object had no enchantment, it would saturate with magic, if only for a few moments, enough to be picked up by m-scan. The copy of the post-FET m-scan showed a pale blue piece of paper with a nice parchment-sized blank space in the middle. The parchment had an enchantment. Surely, one of the tests would nail it down.
Thirty minutes later I had learned way too much useless trivia about what bored Savannah PAD mages did for fun. Their conclusions after seventeen tests on the parchment amounted to: it’s blank, it’s magic, we don’t know what it is, and we can’t read it. Toodles.
Something good had to be on the parchment, something that made Ori stake his life on it. I picked up the bag and held it up to the window, letting the light shine through. Nothing but parchment grain.
A door clanged to the left, followed by heavy steps echoing through the hallway. The knight-protector entered my office, growled at my attack poodle, and sat down in my client chair. Wood and metal groaned, accepting his weight. Ted fixed me with his flat stare. “What do you have?”
CHAPTER 10
“YOU DON’T HAVE MUCH,” TED SAID AFTER I HAD laid out my case.
“I’ve had the case for thirty-six hours.”
“Thirty-eight.” Ted leaned forward and glared at me with his lead eyes.
Ted had a fondness for Western cloth
ing. Today he wore jeans, cowhide boots, and a turquoise shirt with black patches on the shoulders, each patch embroidered with a white Texas star. Ted Moynohan, channeling a cattle rustler at the prom.
Trouble was, the knight-protector ran about forty pounds too heavy for the outfit. Not exactly fat, but thick across the chest and carrying the beginnings of a gut, Ted had the build of an aging heavyweight boxer. He wouldn’t run up a staircase for fun, but if you slammed a door in his face, he would punch through it and knock you out with the same blow.
Despite the outfit, being on the receiving end of that stare was like peering into the mouth of a loaded .45 with the safety off. I wondered what he would do if I screamed and fainted.
His voice was low, almost lazy. “What is the Order’s primary directive?”
“To ensure the survival of the human race.”
He nodded. “We keep the order. We force monsters to coexist. We ensure peace. Forty-eight hours ago, this city functioned. As we sit here, the People are paranoid that someone has better undead than they do and is coming after their slice of the pie. The shapeshifters are pondering their own mortality and imagining their children dying of epidemics. The mercs are flailing because the Guild’s head has been chopped off. Biohazard wants to declare a citywide quarantine and PAD is shaking down every homeless person in a dirty cloak. The city is headed to hell in a hand basket. Do you know what happens when monsters, thugs, and cops get scared?”
I knew. “They stop playing nice.”
“We must restore order. We have to simmer Atlanta down at any cost, or it will boil over with panic and chaos. If I had a female knight more competent than you with better experience and a longer track record, I’d pull you off this petition and give it to her.”
What is Andrea, chopped liver? “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Assigning this petition to a man is out of the question. I have to rely on an Academy dropout with a discipline problem and a big mouth.”
I wanted to jump on the table and kick him in the mouth. “My heart bleeds in sympathy.”
Ted ignored me. “You have the full power of the Atlanta Chapter behind you. Fix this mess. What do you need to make it happen?”
The urge to pull off my ID and hand it to him was so strong, I had to fight not to touch the cord around my neck. Here, you deal with it. You try to run around with the weight of a possible pandemic riding you, you carry the responsibility for people dying, and I’ll sit back and tell you where you fall short. A year ago I might have done it. The memory of Ori’s crumpled body flashed before me. But then again, maybe not.
I squished my pride into a ball, sat on it, and plucked the lead case from the evidence box. “This is the parchment that stopped him before. I need to know what was written on it. I need to know what hurts him and who he is.”
“You need an expert.”
I nodded. “I want to take it to Saiman.”
“The polyform. He refuses to work with the Order.”
“He’s the best”—narcissistic pervert, sexual deviant, greedy hedonist—“expert in the city. We don’t have time to import anyone else and Savannah PAD has exhausted all the standard test possibilities. Given the proper financial incentive, I’m confident Saiman would work with me.”
“How confident?”
“Very confident.” He wants to get into my pants and I’ve been throwing his flowers away. He would be overjoyed if I called. “But he doesn’t come cheap.”
Ted wrote down something and put it in front of me: $100,000. It was an exorbitant sum, even for Saiman. “This is your limit. Call him. Now.”
He showed no signs of moving from my chair, making it crystal clear: he didn’t believe me.
I reached for the phone. Saiman answered on the second ring.
“Kate,” a familiar male voice breathed into the receiver. “I thought I was forgotten.”
Ugh. “No, only avoided.” I put him on speaker.
“You’re as blunt as ever. Shall I save us some time? You’re calling because Solomon Red’s insides erupted from his body and attempted to infect the city’s water supply.”
“Yes.” That was expected. Saiman dealt in information, he paid well for it, and mercs were always short on cash.
His voice could’ve melted butter. “Do you require my expertise?”
“The Order requires your expertise.”
“Oh, but I won’t work for the Order.” He laughed. “They’re too lawful for my taste.”
“My apologies for disturbing you, then. I thought you might be interested. I was wrong.”
“But I’ll work for you. On my terms.”
Here we go.
“In fact, I would be excited to work with you. Your call couldn’t have come at a better time.”
He sounded happy all over. This would cost me.
“Let’s get the simplest things out of the way,” Saiman stated. “For the ease of accounting, yours and my own, I will require a flat fee of fifty thousand dollars for my services.”
“That’s a rather large number.”
“I’m a rather expensive consultant.”
“Thirty grand.”
“Oh please, Kate, don’t haggle. Ted Moynohan likely authorized double this amount. I know this because he called me this morning and offered me fifty thousand to consult on the case. Which I refused, of course, given that I dislike him personally and find the Order’s fanaticism constricting.”
Ted’s face was granite-hard.
He went behind my back. My memory served up Mauro, bringing me the box of evidence. Why would Mauro have it? All packages came to Maxine’s desk and he never once carried them down to me. Unless the package was in Ted’s office and Ted told him to do it.
Ted had gone through my evidence and then sat there with a straight face as I recapped my findings.
“Kate?” Saiman’s voice prompted.
I picked up my coffee cup and stirred the coffee with a spoon. I’d read somewhere that doing small repetitive movements like stirring or doodling helped reduce stress and I needed to reduce my stress or it would erupt and smash into Ted Moynohan like a ton of bricks. “I’m thinking.”
“Have you noticed that your criminal doesn’t target women? Either they possess a natural immunity to his power or he simply doesn’t feel they’re a threat.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Then you must realize that Moynohan’s options consist of you and Andrea Nash. Moynohan despises Nash—I’m not sure why, but I’m sure I’ll eventually find out—so you are the only viable solution. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s sitting in your office right now listening in on the conversation just so he can be certain you’ve ensured my cooperation. Your back is against the wall, Kate. Under these circumstances, a fee of fifty thousand is a gift. Accept it graciously.”
The spoon bent under the pressure of my fingers. I pulled it out and began bending it with both hands, back and forth, back and forth.
“Very well,” I said. “You will be paid the sum of fifty thousand dollars when we have conclusive proof that the Mary is dead or apprehended.”
“Or left beyond your jurisdiction. I don’t cherish the prospect of chasing him all over the country.”
I bent the spoon some more. “Agreed. What’s the real price, Saiman?”
“You will accompany me to an event, Kate. It will be a public function, you will wear an evening gown, and you will be on display on my arm. Think of it as a date.”
The spoon snapped in my hands. I threw it into the trash can. “The last time we tried that, I ended up covered in demonic blood.”
“I assure you, you will be perfectly safe. In fact, the function in question takes place at one of the safest locations in Atlanta.”
“It’s not my safety that concerns me. It’s your company. You seem very gleeful at the prospect of displaying me. Is there an ulterior motive?”
“There’s always an ulterior motive,” Saiman assured me. “But aside from t
hat, I find your presence delightful.”
I found his presence irritating.
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t wish to force you into a sexual relationship. I want to seduce you. That takes far more skill. I’m afraid I do require an answer. Yes or no?”
“Yes.” The word tasted slimy, as if I’d bitten into a rotten orange.
“You say it with such distaste. I count myself lucky to be out of your striking range at the moment. Do we have an agreement?”
“We do.”
“Marvelous. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine p.m. I shall send the gown to your house. It will be there by eight tonight with a matching pair of shoes. Do you require anything else, stockings, intimates . . .”
Chaperoning sexual deviants to parties wasn’t on my agenda in the near future. “That’s rather short notice. I’m a little busy with an epidemic-spraying maniac trying to break down the city. Can this be postponed?”
“Absolutely not. It has to be tomorrow night or our arrangement is off.”
What the hell was so important? “Fine, but I’m wearing my own clothes.” There was no telling what crazy outfit he’d come up with.
“I assure you, the dress I’ve chosen is exquisite.”
“Perhaps you should wear it instead. I’m sure you’ll be the belle of the ball.”
Saiman sighed. “Do you question my taste?”
“The last time you dressed me up as a Vietnamese princess. I’m wearing my own dress.”
“Having you wear the right dress is infinitely important to me. I’m taking a huge risk.”
“My heart bleeds for you. If you wanted me to wear your gown, you should’ve covered it in our agreement.”
“I propose an exchange.” Saiman’s voice was smooth as melted chocolate. “You answer my question, and I’ll drop the issue of the gown.”
“Shoot.”
“How do you always recognize me no matter what shape I wear?”
“The eyes,” I told him. “They give you away every time.”
He was silent for a long minute. “I see. Very well. I should be free in about three hours. I would like to begin my evaluation with the scene of the Steel Mary’s last appearance. I’ll require the presence of at least five witnesses.”
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