Blood & Ash: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 1)

by Deborah Wilde

  “If you don’t talk, you’ll rot in here.” I pulled up a stool that was shoved in one corner, careful to keep it behind the white line painted about ten feet from the cell bars.

  “Better in here than out there,” he said.

  “Why’s that?”

  He held up a spoonful of potato. “The Michelin-starred food.”

  I got as comfortable as I could on that stool. “Yitzak, Yitzak, Yitzak. You’re a man of mystery. Why the Star of David? You could have chosen any design as a ward.”

  “I like triangles.”

  “That’s nice. I like men who aren’t duplicitous bastards. Is the Star of David a code of some sort?”

  Yitzak stilled for a second, then he shrugged.

  “What does it mean? Who uses it?”

  He took a bite of potato, making a big deal of chewing loudly.

  “Who made you ward me up in the hospital?”

  Yitzak laughed, meticulously separating his potatoes from his meat. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  One thing confirmed, at least. This had happened right after my surgery when I was thirteen.

  Fifteen magicless years. What a waste. Then I remembered the craving for Birthmark Man’s magic and reconsidered.

  “This isn’t a joke,” I said. “Nefesh are dying and you could stop it.”

  “People die every day.”

  I tapped a finger against my lip. How was I going to make him crack? He was sitting there eating as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Oh. That was it. I stood up. “I’m going to get the House to release you.”

  A flicker of fear crossed his face. “You can’t do that. I’m guilty of assault.”

  “But I’m the plaintiff and I’ll recant my statement. Levi can probably get the cops to knock down the other assault to a fine and community service or something. It’ll be a very public release. Big apology from the House and their thanks for all your help. See, the press believe there’s a magic virus out there killing Nefesh so they’re camping outside the building trying to get comments. We’ll make sure they know you’ve been a real help. With everything.”

  His spoon clattered to the tray. He bowed his head, his breathing shallow. Then, as if he’d come to a decision, he met my eyes. “I’m not a rat and I would never help you.”

  “What’s your problem with me? I bathe. I pay taxes. I don’t kick puppies.” I stepped up to the cage, a flatness coming over me as my magic went null. “What awful thing did I do to you that you put that goddamned ward on my head?”

  “How dare you take his name in vain?”

  “His–God? Is that why the Star of David? You’re religious? What does that have to do with me?”

  He returned to his food, dismissing me.

  Levi and I were in a weird place that could have really bad repercussions for working together, Miles was pissed off at me for toying with Levi, which I hadn’t, and now this Van Gogh who had fucked with my life all those years ago, was blowing me off?

  “Talk already, you piece of shit!”

  “You’re the worthless one. ‘And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her.’” Spittle flew from his mouth, the finger he pointed at me shaking with indignant fury.

  “Am I the dog or the whore in this scenario, because either way, not cool, dude.” Was he some kind of god-warrior lunatic? “We’ll see if you change your tune once you’re released.” I left the room.

  Miles was gone, but one of the security guards on monitor duty in the isolation ward phoned him and relayed my message.

  “He’s coming back.” The guard tossed his empty coffee cup at the trash and missed, so he got up to dispose of it.

  The monitor displaying Yitzak’s cell flickered.

  “Did you–” I peered closer at the screen. Yitzak’s cell was no longer glowing. The magic wards were down.

  The guard hit an alarm and sirens wailed. There was a grinding noise like a steel gate coming down.

  I sprinted around the corner, limboing under the gate that was sealing Yitzak’s corridor in.

  “Come back!” the guard yelled.

  I crept to the door of the jail room and peeked inside. The magic nulling on the cell was still disengaged and a slender man stood inside it.

  “… and we are very disappointed.” He spoke with a heavy German accent.

  Yitzak crowded into the far corner, cowering. “I didn’t say anything, I swear.”

  “I would like to trust you, but it’s not only my decision.” The German pulled out a knife.

  “No.” Yitzak threw his hands up to cover his face. “I’ll never talk. I promise. Please.”

  “Freeze!” I yelled.

  The German didn’t even glance back. With one swift motion, he slashed Yitzak’s throat and disappeared.

  I ran to the cell but it was still locked.

  Blood gurgled out of Yitzak’s throat and he reached out for me.

  I screamed for help but it was too late. His eyes glazed over and he went still.

  The alarms wailed for another five minutes and when they suddenly cut out, my ears continued to ring.

  Miles and Levi ran into the room. I tore my gaze away from the crimson puddle.

  “Whoever that was waltzed past all our security, magic and human, disabled the magic nulling on the cell, and got inside despite it being locked.” Miles’ voice was tight and he glowered with a barely leashed anger.

  If Miles was a hot rage, Levi was scary cold.

  “Fix this,” Levi said. “I don’t care what it takes to secure this building, think of every possible vulnerability and plug it.”

  “I will.”

  “Wait a sec.” Both men turned to me. “Who knew that Yitzak had been charged with the assault?”

  “A number of cops. Why?” Miles said.

  “How did the killer know Yitzak was down here in isolation and not in the regular holding area unless he was tipped off?”

  Levi and Miles exchanged a grim look.

  “Who do you trust on the force?” Levi said. “Put together a task force of a half dozen of those men and get me a meeting. Also get your people digging for financial problems, anything that could indicate a crooked cop.”

  I added a little shooing motion to Miles’ dismissal, which was petty but I was still angry about our earlier conversation.

  Miles narrowed his eyes at me and jogged out.

  Levi stared down at Yitzak, a thoughtful look on his face. “Come with me.”

  Back up to his office we went. Levi gave his receptionist, who it turned out was actually his Executive Assistant, a bullshit task to run so we were alone.

  “The House is warded with my blood,” he said. “Paid a Weaver a lot of good money for it.”

  “What’s the point when anyone can walk into the building?”

  “Think of a time when you wanted to kill me and then try and enter my office.”

  I eyed the doorway doubtfully. “With a set up like that? No, thank you. What would happen? Smote by lightning? Eviscerated by fire?”

  “Like I’d let that happen to you.” I felt somewhat pleased until he added, “I’ve already paid you a quarter of your fee. Not getting that back if you burn up. No, you’d be rooted in place and the ward would null your magic. It senses intent and guards against hostile emotion.”

  “Clever.”

  “You’d be surprised how many buildings have it.”

  “The killer knew about it. Did someone get hold of your blood to disable it?”

  “No.” Levi squatted down on the carpet outside his office door. He pulled out a pocketknife and cut his finger, squeezing a couple of drops onto the floor. A glowing white ring ran the length of the office wall. “My office has an extra ward on it. Still intact, as you can see.”

  Wiping off the blade, he handed it to me.

  I didn’t take it. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “We’re going to work on you being super suspicious of everything I say. I�
�m testing a theory. Plugging a hole. Help me out.”

  I shivered, the memory of Birthmark Man’s magic swamping me with a dark craving. This wouldn’t be the same.

  Would it?

  But if I refused, Levi would get suspicious. “I don’t need the knife.”

  I touched it and Levi’s magic which anchored the ward danced to its surface.

  “Can you break it?”

  “No problem.” I rubbed the back of my neck. It was just a ward, not a person. No one would get hurt.

  “Any time now,” Levi said.

  “It’s a delicate operation,” I muttered. I called up a drop of my blood and hooked my magic into the glowing ring. The second it locked down, a rush of pure bliss surged through me. I twirled my finger in the air, wrapping the ward’s magic around it to pull it out like taffy and make it mine.

  It was an amber gold thread, a visual reflection of how Levi’s magic smelled.

  “Scotch and chocolate,” I breathed.

  Levi caught my chin in his hands, stared into my eyes, and swore. “Shut it down. Now.”

  I blinked slowly at him. “Yeah. Okay.” I fell deeper into the sweet sensation, leaning so far forward that my hair brushed the ward.

  “Ash,” he barked and knocked me sideways, severing the connection.

  The thread snapped and disappeared.

  Hissing, I caught him around the throat.

  If he’d shown fear, I might have given in to some hunter instinct and taken his inherent magic as well, but all he did was raise his eyebrows at me.

  “Whoops.” I laughed weakly and pried my trembling hands off him.

  Levi put his arm around my waist and led me into his office and the comfy sofa. He poured me a finger of scotch. I could still smell his magic, so this was like he’d poured his essence into a glass. Except once that weird thought was in my head, I couldn’t unthink it, and sat there blushing and staring at the tumbler until Levi frowned and pressed the drink into my hand.

  “L’chaim.” I shot the entire thing back. And now I’ve swallowed him. Oh my god, brain, stop! I peered into the empty glass like I was scrying to predict into the future. Anything to avoid looking at him.

  My one lifeline in this horror show of embarrassment was that ward magic wasn’t the same as magic that was alive in a person. Shutting down my connection to it hadn’t caused the same level of withdrawal as with Birthmark Man. I’d gotten off with tight, hot skin.

  Levi didn’t press me. In fact, we didn’t talk for a long time.

  “The killer wasn’t someone with blood magic,” I said. “We can’t teleport.”

  “There must have been an accomplice. Miles will review the security footage.”

  “Even if you caught the ward being taken down, they wouldn’t be sloppy enough to show their faces.”

  “Probably not. Thoughts on why the killer went after Yitzak?”

  I stared into the bottom of the glass and a single drop of scotch that was the same color as the ward magic. “When Yitzak first attacked me, he was trying to put the ward back on because he didn’t want someone to know about my magic. He was terrified. The German killer must have been one of those people.” I placed the glass on the table. “The German said that killing Yitzak wasn’t just his decision. You saw the sketch of Lillian and Santino?”

  Levi nodded.

  “I think that whoever is selling smudge magic is part of some religious group, and the Star of David is used as some kind of emblem or code. Me, the smudges, this group, it’s all tied together.”

  “Are the others with blood magic working with them or being kept against their will?” Levi said. “Either way, if Yitzak knew about your magic, why didn’t he hand you over instead of warding you? You were a kid. There wouldn’t have been much you could have done about it.”

  “A more compelling magic kept him from it.”

  “Speaking of compelling, how are you going to keep yourself from taking people’s magic if it’s like a drug?” Levi didn’t sound judgmental, merely curious.

  There was no point denying what he’d seen. “Willpower?”

  “There has to be another way,” he said. “If there’s been even two people every hundred years with this blood magic stripping others of their powers because it was too addictive, someone would have heard something. The fact that blood magic has stayed off the radar all this time means that there’s a way for you to not crave it.”

  “That would be good. Listen, I’m sorry someone invaded your House. I should never have brought Yitzak here.”

  “Not your fault. There was nowhere else you could have taken him.”

  “True.” I sighed. “When I solve a case, I cast a wide net looking for possible suspects. That net gets smaller and smaller as I verify alibis, knock out red herrings, and account for evidence. But what do we have here? Magic on the rampage because of powers that aren’t supposed to exist, a dead body courtesy of a shadowy organization, and at the heart of it, a Mundane who found out she wasn’t so Mundane after all. This isn’t a net, it's a spiderweb.”

  Levi’s fingers twitched like he was going to reach for me and his expression softened in the way it did right before someone was going to say something pitying. Really had to watch my verbal diarrhea around him.

  “Did I mention that Yitzak called me a whore?” I stood up. “Talk about false advertising.”

  “He did what?”

  “Okay, not a literal whore. But he called me Jezebel. She’s some famous biblical harlot, right?” I Googled her on my phone. “No. That can’t be… No.”

  Reality turned to quicksand. Even though my life these days was a crazy mystery and I had no idea what position on this gameboard I played or even a clear picture of my opponents, the rules, or the point, I still believed I’d find my way through. It might take a while to untangle, but my instincts were sound and I was smart. But reading what I just had? If the one truth I could always count on was a lie, how could I ever trust my instincts again? How could I move forward if I had no barometer of what to believe or who to trust?

  Levi caught my elbow. “Ash.”

  “She said no lies. No games. It was the rule. And I believed her. Oh, god.”

  “Who?” he said.

  “My mother.”

  Chapter 16

  The Vancouver headquarters of the Untainted Party were located on the twenty-third floor of a bland downtown office tower, whose only distinguishing feature was that it was the only real estate in the city more expensive than House Pacifica’s. They had offices in the provincial legislature building in Victoria, British Columbia’s capital, but when Parliament wasn’t in session, like now, or they had meetings or fundraisers here, it was important to have a base in Vancouver, the largest city in the province and the financial center.

  The business suits fogged up the elevator with their disapproval when I got on. I was still in my turtleneck and leggings, my dark wavy hair in a messy, sweaty ponytail.

  I seethed my way up to the Party’s floor, ignoring a haughty thirty-something who was headed up to the investment banking firm one floor up. Entitled and possibly sociopathic, I “accidentally” elbowed him with more force than necessary getting out of the crowded elevator.

  A few people on my mother’s floor greeted me, but I barely responded, stalking directly for Sinaya, Talia’s no-nonsense Filipina-Canadian secretary who’d assisted her for years.

  “Tell Talia I want to see her, please.”

  “Can you wait ten minutes? She’s on deadline reviewing a policy amendment.”

  “That wasn’t a request.”

  Sinaya blinked at me, since I’d never been anything other than unfailingly polite. “Is something wrong?”

  I gripped the edge of her desk. “Sinaya.”

  She picked up the phone and informed Talia that I was here. “Go ahead,” she said, her brow furrowed in concern.

  I nodded my thanks and entered the lion’s den.

  Talia’s office was tasteful and efficient.
One wall contained a bookcase filled with law books and political history relevant to her position as Senior Policy Advisor. Her antique desk was bare of anything other than her chrome laptop and a pen, while the chairs set out for visitor use, while aesthetically pleasing, weren’t comfortable enough to encourage lingering.

  My mother took off the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and set them on the desk. “You’ve been avoiding my calls.”

  “Is that what you’re starting with? Because I thought we could go with how you ruined my life.”

  “Didn’t we cover this in therapy after the accident? Sit down.” She motioned to a chair. “You know I hate having to look up.”

  I composed myself, as one did, by stuffing all my fury and resentment into a tight fist that pulsed in the center of my chest. Emotion wouldn’t get me anywhere with her.

  “Bubbe and Zaide were extremely religious,” I said. “Kosher kitchen, segregated seating at synagogue, an all-girls’ orthodox school for you, the whole nine yards.”

  “I was there,” she said dryly.

  “As a burgeoning feminist, you didn’t agree with the sexism and outright misogyny implicit in Judaism, and so, in grade eleven, you did your religious studies project on the Bride of Yahweh as a big fuck-you. Since Judaism had not yet become a monotheistic religion in that section of the Old Testament, the Bride was mentioned multiple times. She was even worshipped by many, including King Solomon, before the Yahwehists stamped out all mention of her.”

  Talia leaned back in her twelve-hundred-dollar Herman Miller chair. “Am I on trial?”

  “I’m establishing context. The Bride had a very loyal handmaiden who did everything she could to keep her goddess’ name and spirit alive. But the patriarchal Jews were having none of it and, in the end, she was thrown off a balcony, eaten by dogs, and her name and reputation dragged through the mud by Yahwehists. Poor Jezebel. They pulled off a pretty good smear campaign if she’s still dealing with all that painted whore crap.”

  The Internet was a gold mine.

  “And you were named for the Bride,” she said “The goddess Asherah. What’s your point?”

  “No point. A question. How did you convince the Van Gogh? How did you even find him?” I slammed my fist on her desk. “Did you think you were keeping me safe?”