by Jaye Wells
Speaking of the shaman shifter, the panther growled and attempted to shift its heavy weight. But its sides heaved from pain and the effort, and it fell still again. I patted Mez’s shoulder, ready to relax. He and Gardner both needed medical attention, but at least we were all alive.
A sound came from the opening above us. Morales and I had guns pointed up before we realized it was just Shadi coming to join the party. She shot us a give-me-a-break glare before descending the ladder into the hold. When she reached the bottom, she jogged over.
“You missed all the fun,” Morales said.
“Some of us don’t cheat,” she said, hefting her assault rifle up onto her hip. Despite her petite frame, she looked like a total badass. “While you were beaming up here like some Star Trek motherfuckers, I had to rappel down a building, climb up a ramp, and climb down a deep-ass ladder.”
Morales bumped her shoulder. “Pussy.”
She pursed her lips and dismissed him. “Where’s the boss?”
“Here.”
We looked over to see Volos helping her stand. For a man who thought we’d planned on trading his life for our boss’s, he was being suspiciously helpful.
But before I could stand and wrap my mind around his cooperation, the panther on the ground began to shift. The fur disappeared and the paws morphed back into hands and feet. The process moved more slowly than it had the first time—a result of the blood loss and pain. Morales, Shadi, and I formed a shield around Mez. We had lots of guns trained on the man-imal, but we didn’t want to take any chances.
When Souza completed his shift back into his human form, he was naked and the right side of his body was covered in blood. He staggered to stand and pulled himself up to his full height. His eyes were glossy from pain, but his expression was nothing short of enraged. “How did you work this magic?” he asked. I assumed he was referring to the way Volos and Morales had materialized in the ship.
I raised a brow and tipped my chin toward Mez. “The cartels aren’t the only ones with powerful wizards.”
His chin lifted and he made a dismissive sound. “You have accomplished nothing. My lawyers will have me out in less than a day.” He smiled. “Next time, A Morte will send an army.”
“Your first mistake is in assuming you’ll walk out of here.” I spun around. The threat had come from Gardner, who limped forward with Volos’s help.
She stopped next to Morales, who rose from his crouch. She held out her left hand without speaking. Morales paused, but lay his gun across her palm.
“Sir?” My stomach dropped.
She eyed me. Her pupils glowed with a violent fervor that had me shifting my weight to the balls of my feet. “What, Prospero?”
I held up a hand. “Think about what you’re doing.”
Her left brow, which was split apart, lifted ironically. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about since this bastard landed the first punch.”
“If you kill him, more will come,” I said. “It’ll be like kicking an anthill.”
She smiled. “Not if we hide the body and no one knows he’s dead.”
I looked around to the rest of the team. Shadi had fallen back with her eyes down. Mez was inspecting a particularly nasty wound on his arm. Morales met my gaze, but shook his head to tell me I was fighting a losing battle.
I ignored my partner. “Arrest him,” I urged. “Make him face justice. Maybe he’ll turn on his superiors.”
Behind me, Souza snorted. I knew the suggestion had been insane. Cartels demanded ultimate loyalty from all their people. As an insurance policy, the leaders collected lists of family members’ names from everyone who was accepted into the cartel. Snitching on your bosses lost a lot of appeal when you knew the cartel knew your mom’s maiden name and address. I’d heard stories about family members being boiled in acid in retaliation for disloyalties as minor as even mentioning the name of the cartel you belonged to.
“Okay, fine. Maybe we can’t flip him, but we’re not murderers, sir.” I’d done a lot of shitty things on this case, but that was a line I was not willing to cross.
Now it was Volos’s turn to snort. I shot him a glare, but he smiled at me with an ironic tilt to his lips.
I’d grown up on the same streets he had. We’d played Wiz versus The Fuzz with all the other Adept kids. No one ever wanted to be the cops because to a bunch of kids raised in the Cauldron, the police were definitely not the good guys. But I needed us to be. I needed to know that I wasn’t like Uncle Abe or Harry Bane. I needed to believe that where I’d come from wasn’t my destiny. And if I stood by and let Gardner do this, then I was no better than the coven leader I’d been groomed to become.
I glared at Morales, urging him to help me. He looked from me to Gardner, indecision clear in his expression. In the end, his shoulders dropped and he looked away.
“Shadi?” I said, my voice raising with panic.
She shook her head. “Sometimes the only choice is to put down a rabid animal.”
“She’s right,” Volos said in a quiet tone.
I looked at him. Of course he agreed. He was the kind of man who disposed of anyone who stood in his way regardless of the law or morality. But that wasn’t who I was. Not anymore. I’d become a cop because I truly believed I could do good. Sometimes we had to do bad things to reach the good result, but the line had to be drawn somewhere. If we murdered an unarmed—not to mention naked—man, no matter how evil he was, then we’d never be able to get back over that line.
“Sir,” I said, “killing him won’t bring them back.”
She froze. The gun in her hand twitched. Her gaze slowly pulled away from the shaman to zero in on me like a laser. “What did you say?”
I cleared my throat and stood straighter. “This won’t balance the scales. Your old team is gone. Resorting to cartel tactics won’t make you the winner in this. It’ll just mean you’re no better than him.”
Her eyes jerked toward the Brazilian again. He ignored her and smirked at me. His teeth were threateningly white against his onyx skin. “The MEA ain’t the good guys, girl. Who do you think armed the cartels to begin with?”
I looked at him. “What?”
“We helped your president unseat some dictators in South America. In exchange they gave us weapons and raped our lands. The only way we could recover was to get into the supply side of the potion trade to ensure our people had enough to eat.”
I raised a brow. “Now who’s moralizing?”
“Enough,” Gardner said. “I hear what you’re saying, Prospero. But he’s right. He’ll be out by noon tomorrow. Then he’ll disappear back into the jungle and the cartel will send a crew of assassins after all of us.”
“Not if you give me Volos.”
All the air in the hold disappeared. Gardner and Morales exchanged a look. I glanced at Volos, who, for the first time, looked worried.
“He’s who they want,” Souza said, referring to his bosses. “You let me walk out of here with him and you won’t have to worry about either of us again.” Hector shot a challenging look at Gardner. “Your life would be easier without him around, right?”
I felt sick to my stomach because Souza was right. Volos had caused one complication after another since I’d joined the task force. He might have convinced the people of Babylon he deserved to be mayor, but he was as dirty as any cartel hit man or coven wizard.
The question was: Did Gardner agree? It seemed likely. If not for Volos, A Morte would have left Babylon alone and Gardner never would have been tortured. On the other hand, if she agreed to Pantera’s deal, she’d be allying herself with the cartel that had killed her team.
Chewing on my bottom lip, I glanced at Volos. He raised his chin, but said nothing to save himself.
Something shifted inside me. A realization that if we let Pantera take Volos, he’d die without ever publicly facing consequences for his actions. He’d die, sure, and probably painfully. But what I finally understood was that I didn’t want Volos dead—I wante
d him exposed.
“Sir,” I said, my voice hard. “I demand that you read this man his rights.”
Gardner’s hand twitched. Her eyes had gone unfocused, as if she was so busy fighting an internal battle she’d had to withdraw from the scene.
“Morales,” I said, “talk to her.” The edge of desperation had seeped into my voice, but I didn’t care. I knew if Gardner killed Souza it wouldn’t just be the end of his life—it would also be the end of my time in the MEA.
“I understand your hesitation,” Souza said. “But be reasonable. I have no beef with you at the moment.”
I raised a brow. This guy was a real fucking piece of work.
“Give me Volos and you won’t see me again.”
Gardner’s gaze sharpened as she plugged back into the moment. “Your promises hold as much water as a desert, Shaman.” She lowered the gun. “You have the right to remain silent…”
I blew out a breath and allowed the adrenaline to drain out of my limbs. While Gardner continued to read the shaman his rights, Morales moved forward with his cuffs. Souza’s expression went from cajoling to deadly. If he’d been able, he probably would have turned back into the panther and attacked.
I ran a hand through my hair and met Gardner’s eyes as she continued to Mirandize Pantera Souza. She nodded and held my gaze. I knew it was probably as close to a thank-you as I’d get from her, but it was enough.
Morales completed clicking the iron cuffs onto Hector’s hands and stepped to the side. The shaman lifted his chin, a sneer on his face. “You will regret this, bi—”
His words exploded into a shrapnel cloud of bone, skin, and blood.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The blast from the gun ricocheted against my eardrum. In slow motion, I crouched and turned toward the noise. Volos stood still with the gun in his hands. The shaman’s body slammed to the ground in a pool of blood.
I blinked once, twice. My brain sped forward, putting together what Volos had done.
“No!” Before I knew what I was doing, I launched myself at the bastard.
Shock registered on his face a split second before I slammed into him. The impact of my body into his forced the weapon from his hands.
“Son of a bitch!” My fist connected with his jaw. Pain exploded in my hand and radiated up my arm. Red bloomed from his lips, but instead of warning me to stop, it spurred me on. Bone crunched into soft cartilage with a satisfying crunch. I raised my throbbing fist back to punch him again, but two strong arms wrapped around me from behind.
I screamed and fought against the backward momentum. Unable to connect with his face, I kicked my legs.
“Damn it, Kate!” Morales grunted in my ear. “Stop!”
“Let me go,” I screamed.
Morales jerked me away and all but threw me. I landed on my side a few feet away. The impact stunned me, but I quickly got my feet under me.
Volos wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. The smile on his bloody lips made me lunge again.
This time Morales was ready for me and caught me around the middle. His arms were steel bands and the impact knocked the air out of me. “No,” I panted. “No!”
“Enough!” Gardner’s voice cut through the air. “Stand down, Prospero.”
Morales’s muscles tensed around me, as if he expected me to start kicking again. But all my strength escaped me as the full weight of what had just happened settled on my chest. I sagged against Morales’s chest. His grip changed from restraining to comforting.
“He just fucked us,” I whispered.
“Wrong.” Volos’s eye was rapidly swelling, his nose was bleeding freely, and the cut on his mouth was already swelling. “I saved you.”
I could only shake my head and try to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
“Explain yourself.” Gardner hadn’t moved through the entire altercation. Her arms were crossed. Behind her, the man Volos killed had been reduced to a rapidly cooling, bloody mess on the ground.
“Sir—” I started to tell her not to listen to him. But a hard squeeze on my arm and a shut-the-fuck-up glare from my boss closed me down.
Volos pushed himself slowly off the floor. He was listing to his right, as if in pain, but managed to look confident anyway. “Kate was right. You couldn’t kill him. It would have bitten you in the ass down the road.” He straightened his collar. “And I couldn’t have him put in jail because Mr. Souza was also right. Once his lawyers cut him loose, we’d have had a real war on our hands.”
Gardner sucked at her teeth. “So your solution was to commit murder in front of federal agents, Mr. Mayor?”
Volos smiled tightly, but the move caused him to cringe. “You got a tip that a cartel shaman was receiving a shipment of illicit supplies. You assembled your team and set up a raid. Only when you arrived, Souza and his cohort were both dead. From appearances it looked as if one of Mr. Souza’s local accomplices betrayed him for trying to take over Babylon’s dirty magic trade.”
Fear sizzled up my spine. How in the hell had he formulated that plan in such a short time?
“That’s bullshit,” Morales said. “No one would walk into this scene and believe that story.”
“They would if we disposed of the murder weapon and the injured members of our party leave before the BPD arrives.”
“There is a slight wrinkle to your plan,” Gardner said.
Volos shot her an incredulous look, as if he couldn’t fathom any angle he hadn’t covered. “What’s that?”
“Your flaw is assuming anyone in this room would be willing to cover this up for you.”
“You hexed me and kidnapped me with the intention of handing me over to a known murderer. No jury would find me guilty for killing a man to save my own life.”
My stomach dipped. The bastard had our balls in a vise and he knew it.
When no one argued with him, he continued to press his case. “You think he’s the last wizard who’s going to try to take over Babylon, Special Agent? Trust me, Souza was a choirboy compared with some of the sick fucks who have their eyes on this town. If you let me go down, who will protect this city from them?”
“We will, asshole,” Shadi said.
“Right,” Morales said. A vein worked in his neck. “You’re the reason that fucking shaman came here to begin with, remember?”
“I’m also the one who got the job done.” Volos stared down Morales. “Face it, the only way to protect this city is for all of us to team up. The MEA is limited by laws that can’t touch me.”
“Jesus,” I breathed, “you’re not above the law.”
“Which is exactly why we should already have this murderer in cuffs, sir,” Morales said to Gardner.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Agent Morales.” Volos’s tone was quiet but damning.
Gardner glanced quickly at Morales. My partner’s expression went as blank as any professional gambler’s. My throat felt tight, as if a noose had closed around my neck. I’d tried so hard to do the right thing by encouraging Gardner not to kill Souza, but as usual Volos had twisted the situation into a complicated moral knot. His threat was clear: If we arrested him, he’d bring all of us down.
“Enough,” Gardner said. “He’s right.”
Morales’s expression went cocky. “Damn straight.”
“Not you,” Gardner said. Morales looked at her like she’d just crotch-kicked him. “Volos is right. If we arrest him, every wizard with a product to sell will swarm into Babylon. We don’t have the resources to stem that tide. But if we all work together…”
Morales’s expression turned into a mask of frustrated anger. “You motherf—”
“Special Agent Morales,” Gardner snapped. “A word?”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but the expression on her face hinted that would be a really fucking bad idea. Gardner limped toward the other side of the hold with Morales following like the dutiful soldier he was.
Shadi made a disgusted sound a
nd shook her head, as if she was done with everyone in the ship. She turned her back on me and went to kneel next to Mez. It wasn’t until then that I realized the wizard had passed out from pain and missed the entire confrontation.
“Kate?” Volos called softly.
I refused to look at him. My fists clenched at my sides. I felt fractured, like I’d never be able to pull all my pieces together again. I’d walked into this case believing I knew the difference between right and wrong, but now nothing seemed right. There were no good guys left in this scenario. Just scavengers scrambling to save their own asses.
“Katie.”
My chest felt full. Like dirty water had rushed in through all my cracks and I was drowning. Like I’d never know the miracle of breathing clean air again.
“Please look at me.” There was an emotion I couldn’t place in his voice.
Something dark swirled in the dirty water. A beast born of grief and fed by my anger. It consumed what little hope remained for a good life, a decent one. One where every decision wasn’t tainted by magic and death.
I could see John’s shoes from the corner of my eyes. Drops of blood marred the expensive leather. I knew this wouldn’t be the last time I’d see blood on John Volos. And considering the deal Gardner was about to make, it wouldn’t be the last time I’d be forced to help him clean it up.
He didn’t speak again. The only sound in the cargo bay was the whispered argument between Morales and Gardner. I already knew she’d talk him into doing what she wanted—what Volos wanted. Morales was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a snitch or a rebel. He’d toe the line because that’s what good soldiers did.
I glanced toward the arguing pair. Morales looked up then, and our gazes collided. It was instantly obvious they were talking about whether I could be trusted to go along with the plan.
Was I a good soldier?
I used to be. I used to take orders and carry them out. Only back then, I’d had a different commander. Uncle Abe might have been a criminal, but there was no doubting that the street rats, cooks, and corner boys under his control were his private army.
