“Thanks,” I said, and then reached out and grabbed her by the neck, digging my fingers into the cordlike tendons on either side of her throat. Talon got out a strangled yelp before I whipped her into a standing position and slammed her into the wall hard enough to rattle mortar loose on our heads.
“What the hell …” Fagin started, but Bryson shook his head.
“Take a knee, Boy Scout. Watch the lieutenant work.”
“You’re … hurting … me …” Talon squeaked.
I pressed harder on her windpipe. “Yeah, so I am. You want to know why?” I phased out my claws a bit and let them prick her throat. “One, because you’re a nasty, arrogant little gutterwolf who deserves to learn where she really stands in the pecking order, and two …” I pushed harder and Talon lifted up on her tiptoes. She was heavy, like a sack of bricks, but I didn’t let my arm shake and didn’t let her see the effort expended to hold her there. She had to think I was stronger than her for the dominate to work, physically and willfully. “Because I don’t have time to mess around with being nice. Or legal.”
“You … can’t …” she choked.
“Do you really think that Agent Fagin or Detective Bryson is going to tell anyone that I did anything but talk to you? Do you really think that guard out there won’t erase the tape of this as soon as I leave?” Speaking of which, I’d have to make sure to steal the security footage before I left. The guard didn’t look like he was inclined to go along with my scheme.
Talon didn’t know that, though, and I saw the tiny threads of doubt creep across her face, her mouth slackening and her cheeks pinking as she struggled to breathe. Everyone knows the cops in Nocturne City are crooked as a country road, and I wondered what horrible visions of phone books and hands slammed in doors were cascading through her head.
I took my opening, looking her directly in the eye, pushing on her with the will of my were. Dominant, strong, predatory.
Talon should be stronger than me, being part of a pack, but she also didn’t know where I stood in the greater order of weres. And she was scared shitless, whereas I was just tired and pissed off. I felt her will weaken against my battering, and then break. A tear slid down her cheek, and she began to shake all over like she was going into shock.
It was an awful thing, a violation, and I let go of her, suddenly not wanting contact. My were snarled in the forefront of my mind, flush with victory, wanting to draw blood to cement Talon’s humiliation.
Instead, I put my hand on her chest, pressing her back into the wall again, and said, “How are the Thelemites getting information from my squad?”
Talon was sobbing now, trying to get away from me. I was the dominant were, and I could force her to do anything my will could contain. Dominates are raw, primal, and ugly. I had lived in fear of them for half of my life, before I broke the hold the man who gave me the bite held over me. And now I was doing it to another confused, anchorless woman. I was going to hate myself when this was all over.
“Tell me,” I snarled. “I know you worked with Grace Hartley. I know she’s one of them. Tell me now.”
“Barrow Park,” Talon shouted. “They meet in Barrow Park under the Saint Michael statue! That’s all I know!”
Barrow Park was a few miles from the Plaza, far enough that the informant wouldn’t run into anyone they knew. The Saint Michael statue occupied a remote corner, home mostly to bums looking for a place to sleep or hustlers looking for privacy.
“Good girl,” I said, stepping out of her space. “You straighten up and fly right, hear? Crime doesn’t pay, et cetera.”
“Bitch,” Talon hissed under her breath. “Do you know what my pack will do to me when I can’t use a dominate?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” I said, turning my back so she wouldn’t see the look on my face. “I have a feeling you’re going to be locked away from your pack for a long, long time.”
Will saw my expression and banged on the bars. “Open Seven, please!”
He took me by the shoulder and guided me out of the cell. “Hold it together, Luna. Just until we get out of here. Walk.”
“Make sure you get the tape,” I said, dully. “Don’t want anyone finding out we were here.”
“David,” Will said. “Do you mind? I’m going to give Luna a hand.” He guided me through a door and into bright fluorescent lights, which blurred under the tears that had started.
“Shit,” I said, swiping at my face with the back of my hand. “Shit. That could have gone better.”
Fagin put his hands on my shoulders. “What’s wrong with you? What happened in there?”
“I … I …” I took a long, deep breath, getting my heart back to a normal rhythm. “I broke her will. She’s defenseless now if she meets another pack were.”
“You did what you had to do,” Fagin said. “It always comes down to who’s the better predator, and that was you, Luna.”
“I don’t see it that way!” I screamed, shoving him away. “You don’t know what it was like to feel someone’s will pressing down on me, taking away everything that was me, making me nothing.”
Memories of Joshua Mackelroy flooded up, the night he gave me the bite, and then later, when I’d met him again and he’d used his dominate to nearly beat me to death. The crushing feeling of his will on top of my own.
And I’d done that to Talon.
“Luna.”
I came back to myself, aware that I’d slid down one green-tiled wall, next to a row of urinals. I blinked at Fagin. “Is this the men’s room?”
“It was closer. Get up.” He pulled me to my feet, holding me at arm’s length. “I’ve seen you,” he said. “You’re a good cop. I know you only did what you had to do. You are not like whoever it is you’re thinking of.”
“I didn’t think,” I said numbly. “I don’t think, and I hurt people and all I can do is regret it.”
Will pulled me into his arms. “That’s not just you, Luna. That’s me. That’s everyone.”
I let myself rest against him for a moment and shut my eyes. “Everything is falling apart,” I whispered. “The case, my team, my career.”
“So what do you do?” Will said. He lifted my chin with his finger and looked into my eyes. “You pick up the pieces and you keep going.”
“I just want it to be easy,” I sighed. “I feel like I’m fighting until I break, and for what? So someone can sell me out to the witches and the department can shut my squad down? I’ve never had it easy, Will. It’s not fucking fair.”
“Of course it’s not,” he said. “But you’ll manage it, because you’re strong. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”
Will slid his hand to the side of my face, and leaned in before I could pull myself together and stop him. Once his lips touched mine, I didn’t particularly want to. He didn’t hold any of the hesitation Lucas did, just an intense, needful embrace, like he was starving and I was the cure. I wrapped my arms around him and one of Will’s hands went into my hair, pulling me flush against him. I floated, letting my hands dig into his back and pretending there was no reason why we shouldn’t be together.
Will started to guide me toward the bank of sinks, his free hand feeling for the buttons of my shirt, and with the cold touch of his fingers on my stomach I dropped back into the real world, hard. “Stop. This would never work, Will.”
“How do you know until we try?” He was breathing harder than I’d ever seen, and his pale face was flushed with color.
“I know. Believe me.” I stepped back, and ran water into the sink to splash on my face. “Now I’m going to walk out, have Bryson take me home, and you and I will forget this ever happened.”
Will gave me one of his darkling smiles, full of promise. “I don’t think I can do that. Are you honestly saying you can?”
I looked at myself in the mirror, Will a shadow behind me. “I have to,” I said. “It’s complicated, Will.”
“Complicated I can do,” he said.
I shook my head. “I can’t do this right now.” I put my hand on the door. “Will … it’s just … Right place, wrong time.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” he said.
Twenty-Three
“You’re quiet,” Bryson said the next morning as he shoveled scrambled eggs onto his plate. “You want some breakfast?”
“No,” I said. I was back in work clothes, and I fidgeted with the onyx cuff links on my tailored tuxedo shirt.
“You want a stiff drink?” Bryson said, sprinkling cheese over his eggs, dousing them with ketchup, and shoving the entire mess into his mouth.
“No!” I snapped. “I just want to focus.” The plan Bryson and I had decided on was a simple one: I would receive a fax from the “Commissioner”—that would be Fagin—telling me that I had to move the heartstone out of the evidence locker due to complications with Hartley’s search warrant. I’d fax an order back that the thing be moved via the old bunker tunnel under the Plaza, at a specified time, to the central crime lab in the morgue building.
Fagin, Bryson, and I would be in the tunnel waiting at the specified time when the crooked cop showed up, ostensibly to shoot us in the heads and take the heartstone back for their Thelemite masters.
“What if a bunch of those Thelema witches show up?”
Bryson said, finishing his eggs and starting in on his hash browns and bacon.
“That’s not going to happen,” I said, more to reassure myself.
Bryson snorted. “Encouraging. You been honing those psychic powers, Wilder?”
“Look, David, you want the truth? This is my last resort and if it doesn’t go off, we’re screwed. And we’ll probably be dead. Is that enough honesty for you?”
He swallowed his bacon. “Plenty. Now I’ve lost my appetite.”
After our abortive breakfast, we drove into the lot at the Plaza, and I sat in Bryson’s Taurus, counting down the minutes until I could follow him in. It had to look like we didn’t arrive together.
I let seventeen minutes go by, watching the Halloween decorations flap in the wind and trying to keep my palms from sweating as the tension ratcheted up inside me.
Tonight was supposed to be a night of imaginary demons and ghouls meant to frighten away the real thing. Only Will, David, and I would have to look into the eyes of something really monstrous, someone who’d eaten out the heart of the SCS.
I got out of the car and walked across the lot, trying to ignore the chill in the air. Soon there would be a frost, a scrim of sheen on everything to hide the deadness underneath. The elevator made its groaning way to the basement just like every other day, and I took a deep breath as the doors rolled open.
“Lieutenant.” Norris gave me his usual tight-lipped grimace. “Welcome back. Your messages have been forwarded to your extension.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, brushing past him. I had myself on lockdown now, smiling and nodding and doing everything that I should be doing. I located Bryson at the coffee machine, out of the corner of my eye, and he didn’t look back at me.
“Hey, Luna!” I jumped as someone clapped me on the shoulder. Way to go. Wilder. Acting just as normal as can be.
“Hey yourself, Javier. What’s up?”
“We’ve been working the case,” he said with a shrug. “Hitting a lot of dead ends. How about you, jefe? You find a new place to live? Any evidence on who set the fire?”
“Everything is moving forward,” I said.
“Okay, well … you need anything, you just call me, all right? No one messes with my LT.” He gave me a friendly punch on the shoulder and went back to his desk. Andy looked up at his arrival and waved at me.
Gods, what would I do if Zacharias or Javier walked out of that tunnel tonight? It had to be someone else. My instincts weren’t that bad.
My eyes drifted to Kelly, hunched over the fax machine, poking and cursing. Kelly, who could move without scent or sound, who always looked at me like I was a steak and he was a Doberman.
I checked my watch. Almost ten, when Will had said he would send the fax. Kelly was just standing there, like a block of unfriendly granite.
“Hunter.” I came to his side, tapping him on the arm. “Problem?”
“Goddamn paper jam,” he muttered. “I was trying to send an expense report to HR.”
“Good luck getting blood from that stone,” I said. “I’m expecting a message … would you mind trying later?”
He glared down at me. “I guess you take priority, huh?”
“That’s correct, Kelly.”
“The paper is still jammed,” he grunted, surly. I was starting to sweat under his gaze. Could he see the nerves, the deception coiled in my guts? What was Hunter Kelly, besides a bad cop who might be a hell of a lot worse than I’d imagined?
“Here.” Annemarie shouldered her way to the fax machine with a fresh sheaf of paper. “You just have to reach up in there and pull the jam out. Good to have you back, ma’am.”
“How are you holding up, Annemarie?” I asked as she reloaded the fax with paper. Five to ten. Get out of the way, Annemarie.
“Just fine, ma’am, and yourself?”
“All right,” I said. “You get an appointment to talk to the counselor yet?”
“Sure did. I see her next week.”
“Good,” I said. “Take it easy.” The fax whirred to life, a blocked number. Smart. I waited for the printout and then took it over to Bryson.
“David, a word?”
He goggled at me, and then got up. I walked him out of the bullpen, but still in full visibility of everyone. “Just play along,” I said, bending close to his ear. “I want to make sure the mole knows this is important.”
I read the fax aloud, standing up straight and projecting to the cheap seats. Sometimes it’s not about subtlety—it’s about the mark thinking that they’re smarter than you. “ ‘This is to inform your staff that the item seized in reference to the Hartley case, numbered three-two-three-four-four-oh, must be removed from your storage facility no later than close of business today and remanded to the central crime laboratory.’ ”
“That thing will be a bitch to move,” Bryson said, equally loud.
“We’ll take it through the tunnel,” I said. “No use trying to get it onto the elevator again.”
I put the fax in Bryson’s hand. “I have a meeting to go to.”
He gave me a salute and walked back to his desk, laying the fax conspicuously in his in-box. Bryson was less of a screwup than his pink tie and yellow shirt would lead a person to believe. Now I had to leave, and find a way to fill the next eight hours.
“Have a nice day,” Norris told me on the way out. I flipped a hand at him, trying to look unconcerned.
My last stop was Pete’s office, and I came in through the rear door, the one that led to the hallway and the restrooms. “Pete,” I said.
He leapt up from his rolling stool, scattering DNA scans all over the floor. “Hex me, Lieutenant. Why are you sneaking around here?”
“I have my reasons,” I said.
“Would those be more of the reasons I’m not supposed to know about?”
“They would indeed, Pete. Now, tonight after shift change I need you to lock up the heartstone and make sure it’s well hidden. Put it in with those storage bins we confiscated from the weekend Satanists. And if anyone asks you, it was moved to the central lab.”
Pete raised his eyebrows. “After this, I better get to know what these wacky schemes are about. The suspense is killing me.”
“You will,” I promised him, in a manner that rang hollow even to me.
“Uh-huh,” Pete said, picking up his slides. “Believe that when I see it.”
I backed out of his office and rode the elevator upward, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my bones. It didn’t go away.
That day, I drifted from place to place. I bought a paper and looked at ads for condos, none of which I could afford even on my new salary. I ate lunch in the Devere Diner
, with the insane notion that it might be the last time I got to enjoy their bacon cheeseburgers.
Mostly, I found a bench on the waterfront, near a crumbling warehouse and another crumbling warehouse that had been turned into a crackhouse, and thought. I thought about the SCS mole, about Lucas, about Will.
What to do about the pair of them? Lucas was completely wrong for me, a fugitive, a killer when he had to be. But he was loyal. He was who he said he was, and none other. Will had four hundred years of baggage, and he was just like me—abrasive, cocksure, and couldn’t censor himself to save his life.
Neither of them were what I should be thinking of. I drove the LTD through the fading light, gobs of children straggling along the sidewalk in their too-large costumes, clutching bags of candy. A few adults in costume shepherded them, and the clubs along Cannery were open early, dry ice sending swirls of fog into the street to be stained gold and red in the last remnants of sunlight.
I parked at the morgue, passed through the metal detector, and took the elevator down to the service level.
Fagin was waiting for me, leaning against the wall, an unlit cigarette between his lips. “I used to be cool, you know,” he said. “The fifties, the sixties, especially the seventies. Chain-smoking cops were very popular in the seventies.”
I took the cigarette from between his lips and tucked it into the breast pocket of his suit, next to his white handkerchief. “Thanks for that trip down memory lane. You still in to help me with this?”
“Can’t do anything else,” Fagin said. “We’re close to the Maiden. I’m close to dying. I can put up with you a little bit longer if you can put up with me.”
“I suddenly feel so much better about not making out with you in the men’s room.”
A smile ghosted his face. “Then I’m glad I stuck around. Your peace of mind is important to me, doll.”
The fire exit banged open and Bryson appeared, holding a police-issue shotgun. “I was the last one in the squad room,” he said. “And I snuck out through the emergency door. We ready to lock and load?”
Witch Craft Page 21
