The Rational Faculty (Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  “Well, that was a disappointment.”

  Jonny Moraes was young, black on his father’s side, Brazilian on his mother’s, and tonight, inside the puffiest down jacket Somers had ever seen, he looked miserable.

  “It’s winter,” Somers said. “You might think about getting something warm.”

  “My mom’s people come from the tropics. Thin blood, you privileged fuck.”

  Somers grinned. “How bad is it over there?”

  Moraes followed his glance, studying the line of demonstrators who sat, handcuffed, on a snowy curb. “Only one of them is really mad; the rest are pretty pleased with themselves, I think.”

  “The pastor?”

  “Hoffmeister is a moron.”

  “He’s facing assault charges already for the damage he did at the last demonstration. He’s been riding a desk for two months. Why the hell would he risk something like that again?”

  “Hoffmeister,” Moraes said, shivering inside his massive jacket, “is a moron.”

  “Is the pastor hurt?”

  “Dignity more than anything else.”

  Shouts on the stage drew Somers’s attention. The woman in the camouflage jacket was still prone on the platform, hands cuffed at the small of her back. Although having her face planted in the boards must have made it difficult, she was still delivering threats with as much air as she could pull into her lungs.

  “—every treacherous, traitorous, overbearing, illegally-appointed and unconstitutionally-authorized government official intent on depriving citizens of their rights will be drawn and quartered after facing the righteous judgment of a free people—”

  “So is she your date?” Somers asked.

  “Your mom was busy,” Moraes said.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you from inside that coat.”

  Moraes flipped him the finger. “I don’t get it. I thought the mayor was on the good side of these lock-and-load assholes. Wasn’t that the whole point? That’s how she got elected, right?”

  “Something must have changed,” Somers said.

  “—in the new and everlasting matriarchy that will be established, built as a circle of equals instead of a masculine line of power, with the womb as the locus of creation and the vagina as the chalice of life—”

  Moraes scrubbed at his forehead. “Yeah, something’s definitely changed.”

  Kelly and his cousin Foley were getting the woman upright. As she came up, she started spitting and hissing, kicking out, writhing like she meant to pitch all three of them off the stage. She managed to throw off Kelly with the first burst of movement, and he stumbled clear, his face twisted with rage.

  That look twisted something in Somers’s stomach; he launched himself up onto the stage and darted forward, catching Kelly’s arm as Kelly grabbed his service weapon.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Somers said.

  Kelly planted a hand on Somers’s chest and shoved, but Somers shifted his weight.

  “Drop your fucking hand,” Somers said, his hand still holding Kelly’s wrist in a pincer. “Right fucking now.”

  Behind Somers, Foley shouted, “Down, bitch, back on the fucking ground, down, down, back on the fucking ground.”

  “Every news station in the country is going to see this,” the woman was screaming, “everyone in the whole country is going to see this. Everyone is going to know that the fascist pigs in this shit heap are running everything, everyone’s going to know, everyone’s going to—”

  Somers threw a look over his shoulder; Moraes was helping Foley subdue the woman again, and together, they dragged her toward the steps. Somers stayed where he was, hand locked on Kelly, until they had shut the woman in a patrol car; her screams came through the glass, muffled but still full of rage.

  “If I ever see you touch your service weapon—” Somers began.

  “Fuck off,” Kelly said, catching Somers hard enough with another shove that, this time, Somers spilled off the stage and into the snow. Somers swam in the drift, trying to get his feet under him, his whole world narrowing down to one objective: beat the shit out of Conor Kelly. “You just stood there and watched the whole thing. If you hadn’t been so busy grabbing ass with your fag—”

  “Hey guys.” The voice that interrupted was bright, friendly, everybody’s best friend. “Hey Somers.”

  From within the drift, Somers rolled his eyes and nodded at his partner. “Hi, Gray.”

  “Kelly,” Gray Dulac said.

  Kelly stared at both of them, his face flushed almost as red as his hair.

  “I think I must be having a hard time hearing,” Dulac said, running a hand through tousled dark hair. “I know I just said hello to Officer Kelly, but he didn’t say hello back. And I thought I heard Officer Kelly use an offensive slur against another member of the department, but I know that can’t be right, because Officer Kelly is a new guy, low man on every fucking totem pole in the city, and I’d hate it if I had to spend the next week making sure his ass got kicked to the curb.”

  Everything froze except the flicker of Christmas lights.

  “I guess I better test my hearing,” Dulac said. Under the thick smattering of freckles, he wore the same expression he always wore: so intensely earnest that he reminded Somers of a kid who could play altar boy half the day and spend the rest of it burning down orphanages. “Hi, Kelly.”

  Another heartbeat passed. “Detective Dulac.”

  “Well, look at that. I guess my hearing is back to normal. So I didn’t hear that other thing, right? That was a mistake?”

  “You didn’t hear anything,” Kelly said, stalking toward the steps and bounding off the platform.

  “I could have handled that,” Somers said from inside the drift. Snow had filtered up his sleeves and under his shirt and was melting now in icy trickles.

  “I know,” Dulac said, dropping into a squat so he and Somers were face to face.

  “Thanks, though.”

  “Sure,” Dulac said, smiling like he’d just tricked another kid to paint a fence for him, or some Tom Sawyer-shit like that. “We’re partners, right?”

  “Right, but—”

  Still grinning, Dulac grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it into Somers’s face.

  “Now let’s get back to the station,” Dulac said, strolling away while Somers sputtered and tried to decide if his face was frozen solid. “We caught something.”

  Acknowledgments

  My deepest thanks go out to the following people (in alphabetical order):

  Justene Adamec, for reading the draft I sent her and getting back to me so quickly with feedback on clarity and consistency. Most importantly, she caught my ‘dun-dun-dun’ moment and helped me get rid of it.

  Austin Gwin, for always being so encouraging and generous with the drafts I sent him, and for helping me to think through the complexities of Hazard and Somers’s trust issues. As always, he put his finger on the pulse of their relationship and helped me diagnose it.

  Steve Leonard, for making sure this book had the same Hazard and Somerset tone, for catching countless errors and omissions, and pointing me toward some of Hazard’s insecurities that are at the heart of this book.

  Cheryl Oakley, for her wonderful mind for plot and character. Cheryl lasered in on the weakness in this murder; if it works, she deserves the credit. Everything from the knife to the trap door to character motivation—even the minor characters who are barely on the page. Thank you, Cheryl, for taking the book on its own terms and, figuratively at least, holding its feet to the fire.

  Tray Stephenson, for catching so many errors in his proofreading, for providing encouragement (and humor) with his emails, and for the kind words about Dulac’s character!

  Jo Wegstein, for so many suggestions and corrections big and small. Jo’s careful proofing caught a multitude of errors, but her suggestions extend to the text as a whole. In particular, I owe her a debt of gratitude for all knowledge apicul
tural. Those changes made not only this book better but also the ones that follow. Every time I think I know who Jo is, she surprises me with another facet!

  About the Author

  Learn more about Gregory Ashe and forthcoming works at www.gregoryashe.com.

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