Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels)

by E. A. Copen

  “Are you sure that was wise,” whispered Reed as we closed in on the door. “If she suspects we mean her employer harm, she'll call security in to interrupt.”

  “Don't worry,” I said back in an even quieter whisper. “This won't take long.”

  Walking through that door was like stepping back in time. The VIP room she pointed out was dark and full of the most amazing sweet-smelling smoke I'd ever smelled. Normally, I'm not a big fan of dark, smoky rooms but this place had an energy that was hard to hate. A club remix of something Madonna vibrated through the room, the lyrics spoken at a volume that existed so far below the bass that only the most attentive listeners could have heard what the queen of pop was saying. Leather upholstered seats lined the walls occupied by men and women, nearly all of whom were engaged in some level of sexual activity.

  I scanned the room for Robbie's familiar, fiery red hair and spotted him sitting alone at the far end of the room, the bright red flame of a lighter illuminated against a wall of gray. An empty shot glass sat in front of him. “All right, Ed. Get your game face on.” He growled and put his ears back the way he had out in the parking lot. “Padre, you hang back and keep an eye on the door, just in case.”

  Robbie didn't notice us as we closed in. He was too busy sucking on a big, long pipe, his head thrown back and eyes closed. I waited until he had a nice, big mouthful of smoke before walking up and saying, “Hiya, Robbie.”

  Robbie coughed and choked, gasping as he sat up and started waving the smoke out of his face. He gave Ed and I a look of surprise and then glanced back down at his pipe. “Now I know this is some good shit because you two cannot be in here.”

  “Oh, we're here all right,” I said, sliding into the booth across from him. “And you're out of time. You're going to tell me where Maria is right now or else.”

  “We've been over this,” said Robbie, rolling his eyes. “I fucking can't.”

  Ed growled and put one paw on Robbie's chest, pushing him back against the seat. The fae immediately went stiff and raised his hands in surrender when I sat my gun on the table. “Easy!” he pleaded. “Easy, love! I'm being straight with you. Words going around that you’re poking into the Kelleys. I’ve got more than my business to worry about now. I’m not about to piss off my business partner. She’s a fucking vampire and she’s a right mean cunt when she wants to be. If I even think about talking, she’ll be here faster than you can say Bob's your uncle.” He drew a finger across his neck. “I'll be short one head I can't do without.”

  “Allow me to rephrase.” I pushed myself up and climbed up on the table. Robbie's eyes went as wide as saucers at the sight of me approaching. He stammered over another excuse while I squatted down and pressed the barrel of the gun against his nose. The barrel, being largely composed of steel derived from iron, sizzled when it came in contact with his flesh and he jerked his head to the side wincing. “I want to speak with Maria now.”

  “I can't,” he stammered. “And you bloody well know it.”

  Ed growled and moved his paw up to Robbie's throat, glancing at me afterward for approval that I gave with a slight nod of my head. I trailed the gun down his face, leaving behind a path of red, blistering skin. He still didn't budge, not even when I reached his bare chest. All he did was grit his teeth and stifle a few grunts of pain...until I pushed the barrel between his legs. “Fuck, woman,” Robbie hissed. “I can't just clap my hands and make it happen, you know,”

  I pushed the gun against him harder. “You've got exactly three seconds before I blow your dick off. One...Two...”

  “All right,” Robbie cried in desperation. “All right, I'll do it just don't pull the goddamned trigger!” I pulled the gun away and waved to Ed who shrank back but not out of range of snapping at Robbie if need be. At least he had some sense. Robbie scrambled to adjust his pants. “Jesus fucking Christ. You ever consider a career as a dominatrix? There's some blokes that'd pay good money for that treatment, love.”

  “Where is Maria?” He rubbed at a line of burns on his stomach but didn't answer me. “Robbie. Where is Maria?” The way he looked up at me, rage burning in his eyes just below the surface, I knew I was going to pay for his help and I wasn't going to like what it cost me down the road. That's fine, I thought. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

  “I can take you to her,” he said after a long pause. “But that will require me to alter our original agreement, since I'm taking a much more significant risk this way.”

  “Whatever you want, consider it done.”

  Ed whined at me. Even he knew how dangerous it was to write a blank check to a fae like that but what choice did I have? Every minute that I wasted negotiating with Robbie put me that much further from Hunter. Time was the more immediate enemy.

  Robbie grinned. “You must be truly desperate. You're getting sloppy with your words, Agent Black. You don't even know what I want yet.”

  “Fine. What do you want?”

  “A lock of hair and an ounce of blood.”

  “No,” I snapped without thinking, even though I'd already agreed to it. “That's two things. I only owe you one.”

  Robbie tapped a finger to his chin and leaned back against the booth provocatively. “This is my master that I'm disobeying, love. The Master won't take lightly to it. Fine. If you'll only part one with one, I have more use for an ounce of blood than a lock of hair.” I started to roll up my sleeve. “Oh no, love. That's not how we're going to seal this deal.”

  He motioned for me to bend down with two fingers. Ed immediately jumped up between us, his growl more genuine than I'd heard all night as he took up all the space between Robbie and I. Robbie's eyes changed color from their normal light blue to a sparkling indigo. “Down boy,” he commanded. “The adults are sealing a deal. Let the lady do as she pleases.”

  “Ed,” I said in a cautious tone. “Please.”

  Ed whined at me, tucked his tail and slinked off the table.

  “Now,” said Robbie with a smirk. “Where were we? Oh yes. Sealing the deal with a kiss.” I took a deep breath and thought about the worst kiss I'd ever had. A harmless kiss and an ounce of blood seemed a small price to pay to get my son back. I would have paid a whole lot more. “Tick tock, Judah Black.”

  Now or never, I thought, closing my eyes and leaning down for the kiss. The second my lips brushed against his, Robbie grabbed my waist and jerked me off the table to land on top of him. I tried to pull away but he put a hand on the back of my head and held my mouth against him. Fire crawled into my mouth while claws sank into my hip, forcing me even harder against him. I tried to move away but he held me there with the strength of ten men. The burning feeling traveled through my mouth, tracing back and forth briefly across my tongue before retreating. Sharp teeth bit into my lower lip and drew my blood up as if they were straws.

  When he was done, he shoved me out of the booth and let me fall to the floor awkwardly. Then, he retrieved an empty shot glass from his desk and spat a mouthful of blood into it, my blood, presumably. “There,” he said, raising it to the light and swirling it around. “Are we all in agreement that I've taken no more than was owed?”

  “Bastard,” I mumbled and started trying to wipe my mouth clean. “What the hell was that?”

  “Don't lie to yourself, love. It’s perfectly ok to admit that you liked it. No one’s ever said they didn’t.” He smirked and offered me a hand up. “Shall we go?”

  I knew better than to take Robbie's hand. I got up on my own and Ed came to stand between us, growling. “My car is in the parking lot,” I told him.

  Robbie giggled. “Oh, love. There are much more convenient methods of travel.”

  He clamped his hands down on my forearms. I blinked and, when I opened my eyes back up, we were standing in the middle of a cold, dark cell with iron bars at our back and rocks to our side. Ed and the rest of Aisling was gone, left behind when we moved through space.

  The room was simple. There was a
single cot shoved up against one wall, a toilet and a bucket of dirty water. The cell didn't even have a proper door. Lying on the cot was who I could only assume was the man known as Maria. She was wearing a dirt stained white tank top, a red bandanna and full sleeves of ink on either arm. She sat up casually, puffing on a cigarette. “Look what the cat dragged in. A fairy boy and someone who stinks of wet dog.”

  “Judah Black,” Robbie said, straightening his tie and gesturing to the prisoner. “Meet Alejandro Escobado, also known as Maria Castella.” Finally, I knew her real name.

  She smiled and crossed one leg over the other. “I prefer Maria and female gendered pronouns, if that’s okay with you.”

  “You'll excuse me if I don't have time for pleasantries,” I said walking away from Robbie. “But there are lives at stake. I need answers and I need them now.”

  She glanced from Robbie to me and back again. “Let me guess. You're here about Elias Garcia.”

  I sat down on the cot beside her and tried to hide how hard my hands were shaking. “Andre LeDuc has my son.”

  “And your plan is what? March in, find him and kill him? Sugar, it ain't that simple. No one just walks into LeDuc's and walks back out. And killing him...If even Marcus is afraid of him, what does that tell you?”

  “Marcus,” I said quietly. “You mean Marcus Kelley?”

  Robbie shifted his weight and scratched the back of his neck. “The Master.”

  “He's not my master,” Maria spat. She crushed her cigarette out on the damp floor and leaned forward into a ray of light coming through a crack in the rock. The moonlight illuminated a silhouette of her face, lighting up briefly a series of deep purple bruises on her neck, arms and chest.

  “Maria, do you know where LeDuc and Zoe are?” She nodded. “Will you help me?”

  “If I help you, you have to do something for me.”

  Of course, I thought. Why should I expect to get something for nothing? Everything had its price. “What is it you want?”

  She turned to me, her eyes pleading. “You have to kill me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sal was right. You never forget the first person you kill. I'm sure his experiences were quite different from mine, since he was a werewolf and all. He didn't have as much control over the situation as I had. The blood on Sal's hands had been spilled in the defense of another. He’d killed two people to save one. Maybe it didn’t even out in the end but he’d had good intensions. Whenever the memories haunted him, he could tell himself that. I didn't have the luxury of excuses.

  Mine was a sixteen-year-old girl, standing on an overpass with her father's gun pressed to her temple. I was still technically in training but only days out from my final set of field tests. The board, my mentor and all of my instructors thought I was ready to hit the street and see what life on the beat was really like. It was early spring. In the Midwest, that means there's still plenty of ice and snow on the ground and very little sunshine. The slush was coming down out of the sky just fast enough to make driving difficult. My mentor and I were cruising around, not expecting much from the day. After all, Charleston was quiet that time of year because no one wanted to be out in that mess. The ten fifty-six came in just before lunch and we decided we'd respond. I thought I was doing my good deed for the day. Talking down a suicide should have been easy.

  Instead, I spent two hours out in the sleet as it shifted to snow, begging her to come back two inches and talk to me. Her name was Kathy. She'd just tested positive for magickal abilities during a routine school check. Her boyfriend left her, her parents disowned her...The poor girl was convinced there was nothing left to live for. I did my best to save her but I hadn't really understood the most important thing about Kathy. She'd never really wanted to be saved. She just wanted someone to be there with her when she pulled the trigger.

  When Maria asked me for a favor in return for the information that could save my son, I'd expected her to ask me to free her from her prison, maybe bring her a burger or something. I didn't expect her to ask me to kill her. Asking me that brought back my memory of Kathy's body falling, limp, lifeless and bleeding to the pavement forty feet below.

  “No,” I said sharply and crossed my arms. “I won't kill you.”

  “It's a mercy,” Robbie whispered and turned his head away. “Death would be kinder.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Maria stood and went to stand in the moonlight, brushing aside her long black hair so that I could see the bruises on his neck a little better. In the stronger light, I could see that there were several rosy red marks in the center of most of the bruises. Some were large and swollen while others were barely noticeable. A long black line ran through the vein in her neck, stretching down beneath the collar of her shirt. “Holy Hell,” I whispered. “Are those...”

  “Vampire bites,” said Maria, flipping her hair back and returning to her place on the cot.

  “They're turning you. Why?”

  “Because I'm an investment.” The cold way Maria said it made me think she was repeating something she'd been told. “Because he wants to use my body as a weapon.” She turned empty eyes on me. When she blinked, a tear fell, though she didn't acknowledge it. “You have to do it with a stake through the heart and cut off my head.” She lifted a bit of sharpened metal from under the cot and held it out to me. It looked like it had once been a cross bar to something, sharpened against the cement floor. “Leave my body where the sun will find me or burn me to ash. Any other way and they might try to resurrect me. I'm too far gone to do it any other way.”

  I swallowed. That's murder, I thought. That's not even suicide. It's outright murder. She's still a living, breathing person with thoughts and feelings. Every fiber of my being screamed that killing her was in no way justified and yet...And yet, if I didn't agree to kill her, I would never find Hunter in time.

  “First,” I started, taking the stake and letting my arm hang limply, “you tell me everything you know. Tell me how it went down with Elias and why. Tell me what LeDuc is and how I kill him.”

  Maria smiled weakly. “How do you kill a shadow like LeDuc? Even if you stop his heart, LeDuc doesn't die. Bullets, poison...Elias even tried silver. All it ever did was make him angry.”

  “So I was right,” I breathed. “You and Elias went together to try and kill him, didn't you?”

  She took a deep, quivering breath and looked up at Robbie. “How about another? For old time's sake?” Robbie gave her another cigarette and lit it for her. “Thanks, man. Whatever I owe you, I guess you'll collect later, huh?”

  “I consider it paid forward,” Robbie said, shifting uncomfortably. He crossed his arms and paced off into a corner. “You two should hurry. It won't be long before we're discovered. The Master won't be pleased that I've brought you here.”

  “Yeah.” Maria nodded and tapped the ash from her cigarette onto the floor. Smoke drifted up around her soft features and into the moonbeam like a halo. “When I met Elias, he was so hooked on the barbs that he didn't know which way was up. Like me, he couldn't afford a treatment program but I'd gotten involved in these trials. I'd show up at this shady lab out in the middle of nowhere once a week. They gave me injections, transfusions and put me on a regiment of experimental drugs. Then, they'd hand me fifty bucks. At first, I didn't think it was doing anything. I still had my magick. I still kept testing positive for abilities.”

  “You're a wizard or a sorcerer or something?” I asked, leaning closer. To me, both words meant the same thing: a human with access to magick. There were some in the community who preferred one term over the other.

  “Was,” she corrected. “After eight months of the treatments, I passed my first test. Of course, I didn't really have much talent to begin with, just enough to be troublesome. Just enough to exclude me from normal folk. Elias, he was a different case. He barely saw any results at all and he was in the program for almost four months.”

  “Okay,” I p
ushed. “What does any of that have to do with the kids they've been grabbing up?”

  Maria sucked on the cigarette. “None of us knew at first. We didn't make the connection that our success had to be someone else's failure. It was Elias that first started asking around, trying to figure out how the cure worked. He thought that, maybe, if he knew how it worked that he could somehow do something to make it work better for him. When no one would give him any information, Elias got suspicious. I told him he was crazy but he convinced me to help him break into the clinic after hours. What we saw there...” She shook her head. “I don't know the details of what they were doing but the children are all part of the experiment. He's taking something out of them, mixing it with something else and then injecting it into people. Andre LeDuc is a monster.” She finished her cigarette and flicked it off by the first one. “Anyway, I stopped the injections as soon as I found out and spent the next week puking my guts up and scratching at bugs under my skin. No one told us the substance was addictive. No one told us that when the treatments stopped everything would come back with a vengeance. I managed, but it almost killed Elias. He had to go back for more, at least until he figured out how to quit for good.”

  As close as we were, I should have been able to feel some of Maria’s body heat, especially since the room was so cold. I felt nothing. “Tell me about the night you showed up at Valentino's with Elias. I know there was a fight.”

  “I'd convinced Elias to stand up to Valentino,” she explained. “I thought we could make him listen, make him accept that Elias was who he was. Their fights had been so brutal that it nearly destroyed Elias. Being rejected by his brother, by his pack, that’s what drove him to the drugs in the first place, you know? We both thought that if he could just get Valentino to recognize him, to see him, he could make that last jump and get completely clean. So, we went together and I stood there, holding his hand while he did the bravest thing I thought Elias could ever do. Valentino was furious, of course. Called Elias every name in the book and then told him to get his shit and be out by that time the next day. Then, Elias went inside. Valentino told me he'd kill me if he ever saw me again and that was that.”