by Rhys Ford
The case we’d pulled—a missing shrine god—was a simple one on the surface. But when all was said and done, anything in C-Town’s inner coil was complicated. Shrine gods were important—each with their own hidden meaning—and a missing one could mean either the start of a blood war or a meeting over tea between the two parties where the apologies were heartfelt and all was forgiven but not forgotten.
One thing always led to another in Chinatown. Pulling a loose thread meant things unraveling to a shitstorm, and I never had an umbrella to take the brunt of the crap. My badge would clear away most of the shit I knew would hit us once we crawled into C-Town’s underground, but sometimes a flash of gold brought its own world of troubles, and glancing at the man sitting next to me, I realized I didn’t quite trust Inspector Leonard to have my back.
Still, my badge felt good. I’d never realized how much I’d miss its weight on my belt until IA took it from me. The gun I could give or take, but my badge—that was something different. It was as much a part of me as the three black stars on my wrist or the starburst on my shoulder blade, so it was damned good to have it on me again. Familiar. Comforting.
Unlike the looming presence of Inspector Leonard sitting in the passenger seat of our department-issued vehicle.
I didn’t know what was more unnerving, the half-suspicious odd looks I caught him giving me or the way he clutched at the door when I hit Chinatown’s busy streets. Both were annoying, but short of shooting yet another partner, I didn’t know what I could do to stop it. I didn’t have to wait long for something to change, because Leonard cleared his throat and tossed in a bit of chaos he’d been cooking up while I drove.
“There were rumors someone might pull you as a partner, so I read up on you. I mean, once I found out there was an opening in Arcane.” He hadn’t said much before then. A few grunts and a nice to meet you or two, so I was surprised by his honey-smooth tones. With his mass, I guess I’d been expecting something more guttural. “You’ve got a history of not following the rules. I will admit it made me pause, but everyone I talked to said you’re the best on the job.”
“Don’t know if I should be worried that you read up on me or that there’s actually stuff to read up on.” I could only imagine what he’d found asking around about me or even what he could have found. “What’s there to read? Can’t imagine my mother left a diary or something.”
“Reports mostly. And well, rumors,” he admitted. I eased into the next lane and rolled to a stop behind a delivery truck. I heard a darkness in his tone as he muttered, “A Hell of a lot of rumors. Some of them I don’t even want to ask you about, and some just plain scare me.”
“And you still wanted the job?” I whistled under my breath. “Brave man. Let’s have them.”
“Have what?”
“The rumors.” I’ll admit to a curiosity deep enough to rival any cat or dragon. “Beyond me shooting Arnett. You know that’s the truth. What about the rest?”
“He’s not the only one you’ve shot.” I hadn’t needed that little reminder, and his jaw firmed up when I eyed him from across the car. “Mostly that you’re a very human-looking splice and the department’s—”
“I’m not a splice. Natural born. It happens.” It was a common misperception. No matter how many times I corrected Arnett, he seemed to be stuck on that sorry refrain. “And even if I were, what difference would it make? Any splice made before the Demarcation Act is a legal citizen, and any found to be created after that point is immune from prosecution. Life is life, Leonard.”
It was an old soapbox. One I’d climbed up and down from time and time again. When Child Protective Services found Tara and Kristine in a back-alley lab, they’d contacted John to help with placement. He hadn’t planned on falling in love with them, and suddenly I found myself with two little girls who actually looked like they were mine. They’d only been mine a year before stupidity took them—and John—from me, but I was still willing to do battle for their right to live even as their ashes were scattered alongside John’s in my fae clan’s mourning pool.
My wrist itched, and I scratched at the three stars inked black and deep under my skin.
“You asked for the rumors. That’s one.” He was right. Gossip both fascinated and engaged me, especially since so much of my work involved sniffing down rumors and innuendo. I blame my fae blood. As a species, we found something oddly comforting about a murmuring under the shadows. “That and your mother ate your father’s head off.”
“Wrong clan. My mother was Odonata. And the Mantoida haven’t done that kind of thing in centuries.” I sniffed in mock outrage. “And my father’s fine. I think. Last time I checked he was alive and singing lullabies to otters.”
“He’s also Ken Takahashi’s son.”
I could have almost driven onto the sidewalk. Probably would have if we hadn’t been at a dead stop behind two noodle trucks blocking the way as they made their deliveries. Keeping my hands on the wheel wasn’t hard. I was clenching it hard enough my knuckles were white, bony juts across the back of my fingers.
“Or is that a secret?” Leonard asked in his soft, golden honey voice.
“Not a secret,” I said carefully. “Just not something I talk about.”
“Is it a problem? Talking about it?” He was pushing, testing his boundaries in a way Arnett never had. But then Arnett was never supposed to be a permanent deal. My dragon-munched-on partner had just been a thorn everyone’d took turns stabbing into their side in the squad’s duty roulette. “’Cause I don’t care one way or another. We’ve all got our skeletons.”
“It’s only a problem if you make it one,” I cautioned. I still hadn’t shaken off the dread Goma smeared on me the night before, so digging through my family’s closet wasn’t high on my list. “I don’t have anything to do with my father’s side of the family. I was raised by my mom. She and my father were a quick flash thing, something hot and dirty both of them needed to work through. I was a mistake—a weird mistake—but sometimes, crap happens. Only thing tying me to Takahashi is my dad, who walked away from that kind of shit years before I came along, so no, not a problem for me.”
I wasn’t going to bring up my grandfather’s uncontrollable need to shove at the edges of my life because, well, that was my own personal albatross to hang around my neck every morning after I brushed my teeth.
“Fair enough,” he conceded. “Look, they’re moving.”
The trucks began to fire up, promising we’d move a few more feet before some other asshole in a truck parked across the narrow street. A trill of iridescent gulls swept over us, their screeching calls rattling the unmarked’s windows. I thought I saw Leonard flinch when their rainbow-spotted bodies filled the windshield, but the twitching wince was gone before I could really say it was there.
“So, question to you.” I pushed the car into Drive to coax it a bit more up the steep hill. “Why’d you want to work Arcane?”
“Why’d you want to?”
Flashing him a grin, I shook my head, not willing to let a rookie gain a foothold in our relationship. “Don’t answer a question with another question. That’s why I ended up shooting my first partner.”
I had my own answer for joining the Chinatown Arcane Crimes Division. Most of us in the Asylum did. It was a fascination with the arcane as a whole. For me it was the exploration of the unknown and the hunt for people who violated the law. My shoulder blades itched for the chase, phantom wings frilling at the adrenaline in my blood. Even something as simple as locating a shrine god got my blood up, and I could taste the possibilities in my mind.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a magician. Then I found out that kind of magic was all illusion and sleight of hand.” He shrugged, and his massive shoulders sucked up most of the space in the car until they settled back down. “So I went chasing after the real thing.”
I wasn’t going to bring up the whole military presence rolling off of his skin or the hard eye scan he gave everyone we passed by. Inspector
Trent Leonard had secrets, dark ones, considering the clench of his jaw and the faint spiderweb scarring I could make out on his face and down the side of his neck. The damage had been patched up, nearly flawless, but I’d seen that kind of lightning strike bloom on someone before—a dead someone who’d tangled with the wrong qirin and was served up as that week’s stale yakitori by the time we found his body floating in the Bay.
Qirin were rare, and usually by the time one was spotted, the spotter was dead. But here was my new partner, with what appeared to be scars from a qirin. Looked like he’d found his magic and it’d bitten him back.
And as stupid as it was, I wanted to bite him too.
It was insane to want someone I didn’t know, much less someone who was going to sit next to me for however long he survived in the Asylum. But there I was, fighting off urges I hadn’t felt fire through me since… forever. Or at least it seemed like forever.
If I hadn’t already guessed Trent Leonard was bad news, the growling want in my belly would have been a good clue. And since I’d always hungered for the things—and people—who were the worst possible choice I could make, I could see a mess of trouble just waiting for me to take the bait.
“Anything I should know about being your partner?” Leonard’s voice cut into my lust, fueling all kinds of fantasies centered around his husky rasp. “Other than you won’t be biting my head off and eating it.”
“That’s an only after sex thing, and once again, not my clan, but for you, I’d make an exception.” My shoulder blades twitched again, keen on the hunt, and this time, not for the case. My body sensed a thread of something erotic coming off my new partner. Either that or it’d just been too long since I’d last visited Madame Woo’s Golden Dragon Club. I actually couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to Woo’s. Hell, I wasn’t even sure the bathhouse was still in business. “I also don’t usually sleep with my partners.”
“You sleep with any of your partners?” His question was a subtle jab of something, and it sizzled between us, drops of cold water on a too hot skillet. “Or just the ones you don’t plan on shooting.”
“I hadn’t planned on shooting Arnett.” I was beginning to resent his digs, mostly because I couldn’t shake the idea of Leonard lying on my bed, naked and ready for me. Not something I needed to deal with when weaving through Chinatown’s thickening traffic. “I also wouldn’t have touched Arnett with a ten-foot pole. Even before the crested lizards got to him. The guy was an asshole and in love with his gun. I was his last chance on the force.”
“Good to know. I’ll try to keep my asshole tendencies down. You know, to have a fighting chance.” He nodded, a serious expression on his face, and I got the feeling I was being mocked. Leonard eyed me, a slight smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “Because I noticed you said usually.”
“You always hit on your partners?”
“Just making conversation, MacCormick.” A couple of pretty women trotted across the street in front of us when the light turned yellow, their generous hips swaying, and one threw a grin at us before she got to the other side. Leonard didn’t even blink or smile, staring at something off in the distance. “Although, I wouldn’t say no if you said yes.”
As blatant propositions went, it was bold. The only way he could have been more obvious was if he leaned across the car and kissed me. Thing was, his body language didn’t match what he was saying. Other than the heat in his hooded eyes, Inspector Trent Leonard could have been ordering a taco at a food truck.
“I’ll keep you in mind,” I murmured, turning left to head up to the temple where we’d arranged to meet one of the monks about the missing statue. “If ever I’m crazy or stupid enough to have sex with another cop.”
“Okay, here’s a question. What about your eyes? They’re—”
I didn’t get to tell him about my eyes or my opinion on his needlepointing.
One second we were following a delivery truck through slow traffic on Grant, and the next we were staring up the short ceremonial robes of a squat two-foot-tall Chinese man sporting an impressive Fu Manchu mustache when he landed on the windshield.
The glass gave under his—its—heavy feet, leaving two enormous starburst crinkles across the windshield. Part of me was amazed at the level of detail someone’d gone to, because the squatting golem’s robes flapped as the wind caught the hem, and we were gifted with the sight of its smooth, low-hanging sac pressed against the glass.
“Okay, correct me if I’m wrong,” Leonard muttered. “But doesn’t that look like the damned statue we’re supposed to be looking for?”
“Well, shit.” I tried to maneuver the car to the side to take it out of traffic. The thing swayed and rocked, riding the windshield as it buckled a bit more. “What the Hell is going on?”
The golem leered, waggling its tongue at pedestrians. An old fae woman gasped when it grabbed the ends of its robes and pulled them up, unfurling the anaconda sex organ it’d been given. It shook its mighty cock at the people on the sidewalk, its raspberry-red tongue circling lewdly around its fat lips. The lurid colors on its loose robes were vivid enough to burn the paint off the car, and its odd carnation-pink skin was mottled with faint dark crazing.
I felt the kick of its power, lust roiling under my skin and tightening my throat. Shrine God, my ass. The damned thing was fae-cursed, a fertility totem someone’d inexplicably dumped too much mojo into, and now we were going to have to rein it in.
“Get ready to get out,” I barked, searching for someplace to park, but it was too hard to see through the people. A hint of yellow paint on the curb gave me an out, and I eased the car forward, hoping to keep the damned thing straddling the glass from slipping off. “See if you can grab it.”
The statue had other ideas. It skittered down the hood, then dug its toes into the damp metal. Who or what animated it was still bound by the laws of physics, and while it had mobility, it was still simply stone bits, ceramic, and paint. I couldn’t spare a brain cell to figure out how it gained elasticity or how much it could move, but there were limits, and they were being stretched. Bits of multicolored glaze crumbled from its limber joints, leaving a powdery slick on the car’s crumpled glass and scratched metal.
The thing turned its head, cranking its neck about, and stared at me over its shoulder. An eerie intelligence filled its leering face and dead eyes. It was ridiculous, me somehow projecting a stupid sensation of malevolence and anger on a piece of glaze and baked clay. The statue wiggled its cock at me, a lurid and dusty taunt, and then it was gone, bounding off the car and scurrying down the sidewalk before I could catch my breath.
Beside me, Leonard was sucking in air, one hand on his gun and the other on the door handle, his sharp eyes tracking the thing moving through the crowd. People dodged out of its way, and it left behind a wake of intense confusion and fear.
“What the fuck was that?” he growled, struggling to get his seat belt off. “Statues don’t come to life. They just… don’t. How the Hell are we going to deal with that?”
“Grab a containment bag. We’re going to treat it just like anything else wild and dangerous.” I tucked the car up against the curb and shoved an on-duty placard onto the dashboard. Loading zone be damned, I wasn’t going to risk losing that thing. “Hurry your ass up, Leonard. We don’t bring that statue back with us, Gaines is going to have our dicks mounted on his wall to hold up his jackets, because I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life.”
Five
TRACKING THE cursed statue should have been easy. All we had to do was follow the trail of horrified looks and amused smirks along the crowded sidewalks. Chasing a two-foot-tall possessed golem would be difficult in the best of times. These were certainly not the best of times. Either Chinatown was having a half-off egg tart day or someone’d dumped five busloads of tourists right at the corner of Clay and Grant, because Leonard and I suddenly found ourselves swamped in a sea of immovable people.
“Do you see it?” he shouted
above the chatter around us. “I can’t find—”
“There!” I pointed at a couple leaning against the wall next to a discount import shop. They were deep into each other’s throat, hands groping whatever body parts they could reach. The fae’s wings were plastered against the bricks, a pair of badly painted lion dancers nearly hidden behind her fluttering spread. Her human companion was larger, dwarfing her slender body, but his shoulders were nearly buckling under her strong grip. Normally I’d have dismissed the couple as an inappropriate display of affection, but something told me the human cop and the fae delivery girl who’d dropped someone’s noodle order all over the sidewalk hadn’t planned their torrid rendezvous.
The shrine god had definitely kicked up its juice. Gone were the smirks. Instead there were wing frills, furtive glances, and even bolder touches scattered through the crowd. Heading up Sacramento in a full pound, I left Leonard behind and could only hope he’d catch up. The statue was moving quickly, driven by its curse, but I had no idea what it was chasing.
The people thinned out, and I found myself at Waverly, staring down the slender lane and peering off the lantern-lit street in the hopes of spotting my tiny prey. Leonard jogged over me, slightly winded but not blowing air. The hill was steep. I had to give him credit for taking it as fast as he did in his loafers. There were reasons I wore Converse and jeans to work. I never knew when I’d have to chase down something or someone through crowded or tight streets.
Waverly, unlike Sacramento, was a locals-only street. Only a few yards away from the main corners, it offered very little to the casual traveler. A church took up residence in an old brick building that once housed a triad’s headquarters. The Triad itself was still around, moved to a more discreet location a few doors down and marked as a benevolent society.