Wretched Wicked

by S. M. Reine

  Fritz donned his jacket. “I’m afraid so.” He slid his sunglasses into his hair, surveying the waitress as she leaned across the table. Her skin glimmered bronze in the lights over the nearby pool tables.

  When she straightened, she wobbled with the weight of too many glasses. Fritz rested his fingers on her elbow to steady her.

  She turned wide brown eyes on him, and her breath caught in her throat. Her pulse fluttered under her jaw.

  Fritz knew how to let his chilly expression slide away. He knew how to turn instantly from aloof to accessible. This woman, like so many others, wavered under the intensity of his sudden interest. The hairs stood on the back of her wrist.

  He let his knuckles wander up her sleeve so that his thumb could trace the corner of her mouth, painted with lipstick the same shade of matte brown as Cèsar’s irises.

  “Are you almost done working?” Fritz asked.

  They fucked in an alley behind the Olive Pit, hidden from the security camera in a corner of the loading dock. Fritz lifted the waitress’s skirt. She pulled her panties aside. He entered her in a single movement and braced an arm on the wall beside her head as he took what he needed. When his thumb contacted her clitoris, it took only moments for her to dissolve into a weeping orgasm.

  He left without her phone number or name, the case file for Suzumi Takeuchi locked in his glovebox.

  Fritz went home. He’d driven himself to work that day, so he came home behind the wheel of a Porsche 918 Spyder. He stepped out on loafers from Jason of Beverly Hills and slid Chopana sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to survey manicured topiaries that only looked like exquisite boxwoods. The plants had once been in the ethereal city of Araboth, tended by an ethereal botanist over the centuries until Fritz purchased them. They were rare, dangerous pieces that broke up the otherwise safe monotony of cultured landscaping.

  Dangerous artifacts were suitable decor for the sprawling mansion. When a man’s money reached fuck-you levels, it stopped mattering if he owned two or ten million-dollar cars. Even the imported marble lining his six pools was merely par. Fritz’s family had become rich mining in Hell, so it was only right that he should distinguish himself as superior to his peers by stealing pieces of Heaven.

  He was greeted at the door by one staff member and helped out of his coat by another. They brought brandy to his study so that he could drink.

  When Fritz sat in front of the fire to kick up his feet and catch up on OPA emails, he was alone, one pinprick of a soul among the vast hollowness of his mansion.

  His phone pinged. He saw Agent Hawke’s new agency email address in the From field and opened it. Cèsar had written, I’ll find your artifacts by the weekend.

  Fritz turned his phone off, emptied his brandy, and took a shower in a cavernous tiled room.

  Yet even though Fritz had fucked and drank and relaxed, he could not sleep. He spent hours in his bed, eyes unable to close, heart beating a little too fast. He wondered if Cèsar was working, or if he’d sunken into his beaten couch to watch hours of Battlestar Galactica again, or if he was also lying sleepless in a vast, empty night.

  At midnight, Fritz stopped pretending he was going to sleep.

  He sat up.

  Fritz scrolled through the emails on his BlackBerry, his hand rimmed blue from the light of its screen.

  There were developments in the case of the missing artifacts. Both Banerjee and Herd had spent a few hours at The Olive Pit, and Agent Swallow had searched their homes. She’d located one of the missing artifacts in Herd’s basement. Banerjee was clean.

  Another email had come from Agent Hawke too.

  Surprised, Fritz opened it.

  Got a lead, the message said. If I close my case tonight I’m not coming into work tomorrow. Ha ha.

  Setting his phone back on its charging base, Fritz rose, stretched, and strode to the balcony. Gardeners quietly moved through his grounds. Crickets sang. From here, the road was too distant to hear traffic noises, but light pollution dimmed the stars to yellow smudges.

  The near-full moon provided enough light for Fritz to see his cultivated pathways and the garage where he kept his favorite cars. The fountain between them was softly splashing, its surface slashed by moonlight.

  The Friederlings had spilled blood for the money that bought all this. They’d sacrificed dozens, probably hundreds, of mortal lives in order to get a foothold in Hell’s industries. They had bitten and scratched and climbed over innocent others to reach the top of society, and that legacy was theirs.

  Herd was trying to steal it.

  He returned to his phone and drafted a new message to the OPA dispatch team. Fritz cc’d Lucrezia, since the Vice President would want to know that Fritz was cleaning house. And then Fritz got dressed to go to work, painted by yellow starlight and warmed by anger.

  Fritz was in the first of three SUVs that quietly parked a block away from Agent Herd’s house. He ordered the other men to stay back and progressed alone, ignoring objections from dispatch over his earpiece.

  He entered Agent Herd’s house through the back door. He slid soundlessly across kitchen linoleum toward the basement door, which Agent Swallow had marked on diagrams of the house.

  The basement was cluttered, dim, cobwebbed. The only clean corner held a box underneath a white drape. Fritz whipped it aside, expecting to find one of the stolen artifacts—an egg the size of a bowling ball.

  But the box was filled with nothing more than a jumble of medical equipment. Fritz lifted rubber tubing, confused, and found a binder underneath. Home Hemodialysis. It was inches-thick with instructions and logs. There were also medical bills jammed down the sides of the box. Agent Herd was millions in debt. His wife had reached her lifetime maximum from the government insurance company.

  A click.

  Fritz turned.

  Agent Herd stood at the bottom of the stairs, cradling the stolen egg-shaped artifact in one arm. He held a handgun in the opposite hand. He was wearing pajamas, and his eyes were rimmed with the black bruises of exhaustion. The man was as sweaty as he’d been at the Olive Pit, but it took on a different cast here in the basement.

  “It’s not my fault,” Agent Herd said.

  Fritz’s mouth had no moisture. “You’ve been stealing and selling magical artifacts that belong to the United States government. How do you plead?”

  “Innocent. Fuck, I’m innocent.” Agent Herd pointed the gun at Fritz’s skull. “This is all your fault, Director Friederling.”

  Fritz was a good fighter because he was well-versed in body language. He sensed no willingness to kill from Agent Herd. The man didn’t have the guts. He’d try to run, Fritz wagered, and the agents would arrest him outside.

  Agent Herd would never shoot.

  Except then a gunshot split the air of the basement.

  Fritz flinched.

  But it was Agent Herd who dropped at his feet, and on the other side stood Cèsar Hawke with a Remington.

  “I quit,” Cèsar said.

  It was two days after Agent Herd’s arrest. Cèsar had not returned to the OPA office in the elapsed time. One day was reasonable; after all, he had emailed to say that he would take a day off if he resolved the case of the missing artifacts. Two days was something different.

  Fritz had hopped into his favorite Bugatti to go check Cèsar’s apartment. That was how Cèsar had answered the door.

  “I quit.”

  Just like that.

  Frankly, if Fritz had any sense of morals, he’d have walked away at that moment.

  “I don’t accept your resignation.” Fritz brushed Cèsar aside and entered his apartment. It was slightly bigger than a closet and smelled like a bachelor pad. That distinctive scent hadn’t been communicated through the scrying ball, yet it was somehow as familiar to Fritz as Cèsar’s sorrowful expression. “Close the door.”

  Cèsar obeyed. “I’m quitting, and you can’t make me not quit, sir. It’s that—look, I’m grateful for the job. Okay? I thought I’d
like having someone else pay my employment taxes. But you said there’d be no dead bodies, and I’ve already killed my desk mate.”

  “Agent Herd lived. You didn’t kill him,” Fritz said.

  Cèsar sat down hard, as if relief had turned him boneless. “He’s alive?”

  “You only shot him once,” he said. “Frankly, your aim isn’t very good. I’ve already written a recommendation for you to get time at the firing range where the Union trains.”

  “I will never go,” Cèsar said. “I’m still quitting. I don’t think this is the right work for me.”

  “Herd was a thief,” Fritz said.

  “He brought me coffee,” Cèsar said. “We were coming up with a funny team name, like a 70s cop show. Hawke and Herd!” He folded his hands into the shape of a gun and swung it around like he was one of Charlie’s Angels. “Did you know his wife has kidney failure?”

  “I don’t concern myself with my employees’ lives.” It was a simple statement, a matter of fact. If Herd had asked Fritz for help with his wife’s medical bills, there may have been something they could’ve work out. He hadn’t. His fate was determined the moment he chose to steal from the MVD.

  “I guess you don’t,” Cèsar said. He either looked haunted or hurt. Fritz didn’t like either expression. It was very much the way that the man had looked while sitting at his sister’s bedside in the hospital. “I shot Herd. I can’t forget that.”

  “Actually,” Fritz said, “have you sent in a resignation letter yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Just making sure.” Fritz’s thumbs moved over his BlackBerry, and he sent an email to the Vice President of the agency. “There’s a clause in the contracts that all OPA agents sign. When terminated, they forget their time employed with us. All of their colleagues ranked below me will also lose their memories. It’s a matter of security.”

  “You mean...” Cèsar raked a hand through his hair. “I’m gonna forget this? The whole last couple of weeks?”

  Fritz squared his shoulders before saying, “Yes. Essentially, you’ll find yourself unable to recall any moments where you were working with Herd. Our magic is good in this regard. Everything else about your time in the office will remain intact, as if he’s an article cut out of a newspaper.”

  Cèsar’s upset turned to relief. “I won’t remember shooting a guy?”

  “Nor the investigation,” Fritz said. He also wouldn’t remember whatever theme song he’d been inventing for the Hawke and Herd TV show.

  Cèsar sank against the back of the couch, shutting his eyes. “Thanks, sir.”

  Five minutes later, when Cèsar was looking for a drink to offer Fritz other than protein shakes, he suddenly stood up straight and looked confused. He checked his watch. He looked down at his pajama pants. He turned back to Fritz. “Why’d you visit me, again?” Cèsar asked, scratching his chin.

  “You were late today,” Fritz said in a neutral tone.

  Cèsar looked even more confused. “So you came to my apartment? Don’t OPA directors have other stuff to do?”

  “I hired you personally. What kind of man misses work without calling in while still in the probationary period?” Fritz asked. “It makes me look terrible.”

  “Oh yeah.” Cèsar looked sheepish. “Sorry. I’m not even sick. I guess I got so used to working for myself that I forgot I can’t sometimes stay in my pajamas all day.” He shut the refrigerator. “Give me a second. I’ll get dressed and head in.”

  Cèsar disappeared into his bedroom, and Fritz uncapped a protein shake to sip at it. He liked hearing the thump of Cèsar hurrying to dress on the other side of the wall.

  The apartment—and Cèsar’s companionship—was a pleasant, boring, and yet somehow completely comforting place to be.

  Fritz put the next new agent at the desk with Cèsar.

  Her name was Suzume Takeuchi, and she became the strongest witch in the Magical Violations Department from the moment they dressed her in one of those black suits. She also had the worst psychological and personality assessment scores.

  Agent Scott had investigated her for using magic to expand the size of her townhouse, and he’d determined her spells were illegal. She’d been given the option to go into detention or work for the agency. Now-Agent Takeuchi had spit in the face of the agent who suggested it, but she’d signed the employment paperwork.

  Agent Takeuchi was adequately respectful when first meeting Fritz, but she’d told every other OPA employee she met to go fuck themselves, and he was not fooled by her veneer of politeness.

  If she was going to go the way of Agent Herd, then Fritz liked thinking Cèsar was capable of shooting her. Cèsar no longer had a clue that he’d shoot someone to protect Fritz, but Fritz knew it, and that was enough.

  As it turned out, Cèsar and Agent Takeuchi—or Suzy, as he called her—became fast friends and excellent partners. Fritz wasn’t surprised that a human as bitter and caustic as Agent Takeuchi would quickly fall smitten with Cèsar. He just seemed to have that effect on people.

  Chapter 3

  Black Jack was not an especially dangerous witch, but he was a prolific one. Few witches committed their lives to mass-scale magic, and none but Black Jack used mass-scale magic for petty mischief. Enchanting entire city blocks took prohibitive amounts of skill, time, and small animal sacrifice. But that was never a barrier for Black Jack. Obsession was the trademark he graffitied over the American Southwest.

  Some of his most impressive magic was also the most subtle, like when he’d magicked a grocery store to make everyone inside forget what they needed. They looked at their shopping lists and saw blank pages. They called home to ask for help and couldn’t hear the replies. Everyone left the store empty-handed, confused, and uneasy. But that was it. There had been no other shoe to drop. Black Jack hadn’t taken advantage of the distraction to steal or kill. He’d just…confused people.

  All his pranks were like that. Little things. Irritating things. Illegal things that were impossible to trace back to him, even though everybody knew it was his fault. The OPA had sent him warning letters on multiple occasions. He’d ignored them. They’d sent agents to talk to him once. He’d sent them back with skin turned turquoise, like a midday desert sky.

  Black Jack and Fritz Friederling frequented the same illegal gambling ring, run by a demon named King One-Eyed. They had bonded over a shared admiration of baccarat, agreeing it was undeservedly obscure and that King should have held more baccarat tournaments, usually while they were playing something prosaic like hold ‘em.

  Though King only held games every few weeks, Fritz and Black Jack had gotten to know each other well over the course of steady years. This was nothing unusual. Fritz was friends with many disreputable people. More disreputable ones than reputable, realistically speaking.

  As a courtesy, Fritz’s criminal contacts pretended he wasn’t upper management at the Office of Preternatural Affairs, and he pretended he wasn’t investigating them. This kept social events flowing smoothly. There was no need to interrupt gambling, whoring, and lethe-smoking parties with petty things like reality.

  He never warned his contacts, whether they met at parties sober or faded, when the OPA would finally crack down on them. He simply did it. If his contacts were smart, they didn’t besmirch Fritz’s name by yelling for his help while they were dragged to a detention center. And if they were patient, he might help them. Someday.

  In this regard, Fritz’s relationship with Black Jack was unusual.

  “You’ll never see the light of day again if you keep selling hexes like that,” Fritz had said during their first meeting, shaking hands before sitting opposite each other at a red-velvet table.

  At their second meeting, when Fritz had been flicking another ten-thousand-dollar chip onto the pile, he’d said, “The OPA is aware you exist. We’re building a case against you.”

  And when he learned that a Phoenix-area OPA office had taken an interest in Black Jack, Fritz said, “If you don’t
go into hiding, I’ll be at your doorstep within weeks.”

  Each time, Black Jack responded with the same Gallic shrug, a gesture that said everything and nothing, simultaneously bashful and guiltless. He heard Fritz. He might do something about it. He might not. Black Jack’s poker face was appropriately perfect, so there was no way to tell.

  “If you don’t fold, I’m going to walk away tonight with all your money,” Black Jack said, changing the subject from his imminent arrest.

  Fritz looked at his hand. They were playing hold ‘em again. He had the king and jack of spades. There was a ten and queen of spades on the table. It was an impossibly good hand, and Fritz would have suspected anyone but himself of cheating. “You’re wrong.”

  Black Jack smiled the way the moon smiled the night before it vanished, thin and bright and cruelly sharp-edged. “How confident are you? Would you bet those nice sunglasses tucked in your jacket pocket?”

  “You mean, bet them in this hand?”

  “Separately,” Black Jack said. “If I get all your money tonight, I get the sunglasses too.”

  Fritz’s fingers played over the folded arms of his sunglasses. He’d been gifted those sunglasses by his late wife, years ago. “What do I win if you don’t get every last penny?”

  “Then you can arrest me.” The witch unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up, as if prepared to be apprehended.

  “I’m going to arrest you regardless of the game’s outcome,” Fritz said.

  For the first time all night, Black Jack showed a hint of emotion. Surprise. They had been part of the same circuit for over a year, so the witch had as much dirt on Fritz as the other way around. “Really? You’d really arrest me?”

  “Yes.” Fritz would arrest anyone. He’d have arrested his own childhood nanny if she’d broken his laws. He was as cruel as his father, from the tips of his hair to the tips of his toes, and nobody would be spared the merciless sweep of his fist.