"Sorry," I muttered after we'd driven for a few minutes in silence.
She glared. "Forget it."
"Fine," I mimicked her. "Don't let me be sorry."
"Why are we going to archives?" She changed the subject, but not the icy tone.
"Case files from before 1980 are stored there," I said. "I need to take a look at Cedar Hill."
"For what?" She looked suspicious.
"For clues to the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa. To figure out who's controlling Stephen Duncan, Sunny. What do you think?"
"With you, I never know. So who do you think this blood witch is?"
"Don't know."
"So we're flying blind against someone who tortures women for pleasure? I'm reassured."
"Why is it only with me that you automatically assume the most morbid, terrible scenario you can imagine?" I snapped.
Sunny gave me a somber look. "Years of experience."
"Very funny. Watch the traffic." I was glad she seemed to let the spat go. I had enjoyed tormenting her when we were girls, but girls do that. Sunny, for all her trappings of witchiness, was saner than I'd ever be. I needed her to stay just that way.
"So are you going to answer my question?"
"I did!" I said irritably. "I'm looking for anything that can tell me who we're dealing with. Photos, murder weapons, autopsy reports. They're bloody. You'll probably have to shield your eyes from the graphic violence."
"I meant about what happened at the station," she said.
"That I am not talking about," I said tightly. Let Sunny stew—I wasn't about to tell anyone I had just been fired. I wasn't even admitting it to myself. If I wasn't a detective, what was I? The wannabe druggie kid who had hopped off the express bus in Nocturne City? The fry cook, then night clerk, then cocktail waitress who drank too much and felt sorry for herself a lot? Without the job I was no better than a piece of seaweed washed through the dirty currents in Siren Bay.
"We're here," said Sunny, pulling up to a meter in front of the shiny glass-and-steel archive complex. She handed me a quarter for parking. I almost told her to save it; no one would ticket a cop's cousin. Then I felt the absence of weight from my gun and the empty spot on my waist where my shield would sit.
I put the quarter in the meter before going inside.
* * * *
The evidence depot held endless metal shelves piled high with endless cardboard boxes that held the bits and pieces of evidence making up cases cold, unsolved, and simply buried. Filing something into the depot was as good as shoving it into a black hole and wishing it gods-speed.
A sign on the wall by the check-in desk warned me that no unauthorized personnel were permitted beyond this point.
The little plastic window, akin to a ticket booth with a big slot below it for passing items, was occupied by a clerk who resembled a mountain troll in business casual more than anything. The troll's name tag read BRENT. He wore a well-concealed waist rig under his cotton shirt.
"Yeah?" he said, crossing his arms over a chest that could have served as a battering ram.
"Detective Wilder," I said in the most officious voice I could muster. "I need to check out the evidence from the Cedar Hill killings." I rattled off the case number and fixed King Kong Clerk with my most bitchy, impatient stare.
"Let's see some ID," he rumbled.
You have got to be kidding me. An evidence clerk who follows procedure. What next, a vegetarian were?
"My badge number is—" I started.
"The number won't do you any good without the badge, missy," he said. Missy? Begging to have his head smacked against something hard.
"Look, Brad, just give me the box and then you can go back to pumping iron or working your glutes or whatever it is a gentleman of your size does to kill time."
"It's Brent," he said. "No ID, no box."
"You're a real credit to your job," I informed him.
"Golly gee, thanks, miss. When you grow some charm, feel free to try again."
He was so lucky I was wearing my veryold-veryexpensive Yves Saint Laurent blouse today.
Foiled, I stormed back down the hall to the open doors. Down the wide steps Sunny sat in the convertible fiddling with the radio. I could kick and scream and hit Brent in the face, which would be therapeutic but not terribly productive, or I could take a deep breath and find a new strategy.
Maybe I really was getting a handle on this were rage thing. And maybe someday soon, a blood witch would jump on a broom and do a lap around the city limits.
I bounded down the steps and knocked on the car window. "Sunny!"
She bolted upright and blinked at me in alarm. "You scared the crap out of me," she declared, rolling down the window.
"I need your talents," I said.
Sunny stared at me in silence for a second and came back with a predictable "Excuse me?"
"I need you to make some sort of scene to distract the Manthing watching the door while I sneak in and get the Cedar Hill boxes."
"And why can't you just make him give it to you?" said Sunny. "You're a police officer. You have authority."
"About that…," I said, looking at the black patent-leather toes of my shoes.
Sunny closed her eyes. "Oh, no. Not again."
"It's not suspension this time," I said quietly. "Roenberg fired me."
I expected Sunny to get that disappointed look she always wore when I did something typically boneheaded, the one that I hated because it made her look like my grandmother.
Instead she snapped off the radio and got out of the car. "This isn't right."
"You're telling me," I muttered. "But hey, who needs a city job with benefits and retirement, right? I'm sure the ChickenHut will be thrilled to have me back on the fryer."
Sunny started up the steps to the archives.
"Sunny?"
"Come on," she called over her shoulder. "We're wasting time."
I took the steps two at a time and caught up with her. "Where are you going?"
She went through the door and took a hard left, stopping about twenty feet from the plastic window where Brent lurked. I quickly ducked back into the main lobby before he saw me. "Sunny!" I hissed. "Get out of there."
She looked over her shoulder at me. "You wanted a scene."
Sunny opened her mouth and screamed. It was a piercing, panicked sound that made my head vibrate. Brent jumped straight up like a ferret had bitten his rear end. Sunny stood in place, mouth open and eyes wide, shrieking at the top of her lungs.
Brent banged open the partition and ran over to her. "What? What?"
Sunny took a deep breath in and then shouted at the top of her lungs, "Rats!"
"Rats?" Brent looked confused, surprisingly natural on him. "What rats?"
"Right there in the lobby!" Sunny shrilled. "Two nasty foul rats running right across my feet!" She grabbed Brent's arm and jerked him away from the depot door with force. I slipped behind his back as they went by and edged toward it.
"Look, lady, we don't have rats in here," said Brent. "I think you're imaginin' things."
"I most certainly am not!" Sunny shouted. "And I take exception to your attitude!" She grabbed Brent's chin. "Look at me when I am talking to you, you… civil servant!"
Brent locked eyes with her, and Sunny said calmly, "So my will becomes yours, yours becomes mine," and released him. Brent kept staring, glassy-eyed, seeing Hex-knew-what because Sunny had glamoured him. Like a dominate, only with hallucinations. Since my run-in with Cassandra, I knew all too well the kind of warm-bath stupor he was in.
"He'll be out for a few minutes at least," she whispered, making the go signal with her hands.
"You're turning positively evil," I told her.
"Yes, waiter, more key lime pie would be divine," said Brent.
The half-plastic door creaked with disuse as I stepped inside and pulled the shade to shield me from anyone who happened to be curious.
Just to the left were tall filing cabinets full of evidence
logs indexed by case number. A single sheet of paper inside noted the name of the victim, the nature of the crime, and the row, shelf, and box number where the evidence linked to them could be found.
CEDAR HILL sat between CAESARO, PETER and CENTER DRIVE ALL-NIGHT DINER, a browned folder with the case number and name typed crookedly at the top. The folder itself was empty.
I tucked it under my arm and walked down the spotless white hallway past a series of metal doors marked with case numbers and years.
The door to 1975-80/LGF was locked, of course. I fished in my jacket pocket for my wallet and took out my gold card. With all the abuse I put the poor thing through via the Internet, this seemed only fitting.
I knew how to jimmy a lock before I joined the department, but seven years had refined my technique. I slipped the latch in under thirty seconds.
Good thing, too, because I heard footsteps and bass voices coming up fast. I jumped inside the dark file room and shut the door except for a tiny slit to peer out.
Two shadows passed in the hall, and I shrank against the cool plastic, holding my breath.
"You take that stuff to the burn pile yet, Leo?" said one voice.
A grunt, then, "I'm workin' on it."
"What the hell do I pay you for, you big dumb ox?" demanded the other voice, nasal and very managerial. Leo sounded more like a disgruntled longshoreman.
"I said I'm workin' on it."
"No excuses," said Boss. "Discarded evidence, incinerator, now."
A tap of men's shoes walking away. Leo muttered under his breath. "Dick."
He grunted away and I cracked the door. The hallway was deserted except for a broad, retreating back encased in a white muscle shirt and khaki work pants pushing a cart of evidence boxes stamped with the red legend DISCARD.
I would never make it as a thief. My heart was hammering and the door handle was slick from my sweat when I touched it again.
My tiny penlight flashed on row after row of boxes stacked to the ceiling. Dust tickled my nose as I found the right aisle and shelf for the Cedar Hill records.
I was not entirely surprised when the spot was empty. My shoulders slumped as the tension of the hunt ran out of me. That was it, then. Another dead end, another spot I'd been beaten to by the witch and his seemingly endless influence.
Before I stepped out into the hall I picked up the wall phone, dialed Sunny's cell, and told her, "I'm done, start the car."
"You know, out of all the jobs in the world, 'wheel man' was one I never considered. You've opened up so many new worlds to me, cousin."
I rolled my eyes and hung up on her. The proverbial coast was clear, until I heard Leo coming back and whipped the door shut again.
He stopped and looked right at me, eye-to-eye. Don't check the door, I prayed. For everything Hexed and holy, just keep walking.
Leo blinked and continued pushing the now empty cart toward the front office.
"I have more boxes for the ovens, Leo!" his boss shrilled. "Back you go."
"Put you in the oven," Leo grumbled.
The incinerator was at the end of a long hall, and I could feel the heat from ten feet away. Boxes were piled to the ceiling in the glow from the door of the oven.
"Great," I muttered. This would take hours.
I dove in, tossing files and evidence bags aside as I rooted for my particular Ark of the Covenant.
Finally, under a stack of faxes from some long-forgotten day-trading fraud, I saw a plain lidded box with the handwritten case number on the side. I grabbed it, then yanked my hand back with a yelp as a sizzling pain shot through it.
I risked turning on the lights and saw why. The Cedar Hill box was covered in wards, inked on the top and bottom and each of the four sides. If anyone not the witch who placed the wards attempted to mess with the box, they would get the surprise of a lifetime.
I kicked the pile of old evidence and cursed. I don't know what made me madder—not being able to look at the file after all I'd gone through to get it or being outsmarted by the nameless blood witch yet again.
I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my hands, driven now. If I could just upend the box and see what was inside…
"Who the hell are you?"
I spun, box in hand, to see Leo in the doorway with his cart and an expression of bovine surprise.
"Um." Not my most eloquent lie, to be sure.
Leo shoved the cart out of the way and started for me. "You made a big mistake coming in here, lady."
"I just needed this, I'll be going now!" I chirped, holding the box between me and the evidence thug. The wards hissed as they singed hand-shaped holes through my jacket.
I really liked this jacket, too.
Leo rolled his shoulders as he loomed up to block my route to the door. "Stealin' from the depository is a crime. I'm here to make sure it doesn't happen, and I'm already having a royally bad day, so you're pretty much screwed, you little thief." He pointed to the floor. "Get rid of the box and put up your hands."
As the smell of expensive leather on fire grew stronger, I did exactly what Leo asked. I shoved the box hard into his gut and darted around him to the door.
Leo screamed as the wards crackled across his unprotected flesh, fronds of blue fire racing up both arms. He flung the box away and fell into a pile of other evidence, raining it on his own head.
The Cedar Hill file slid to a stop just shy of my toes, the wards sparking angrily but already fading. The witch hadn't taken the time to make them stick, and their batteries were out.
I picked up the box again, wincing as it burned my palms, and told Leo, "Play with someone your own size, although for you, that would be Sasquatch."
Leo roared an unintelligible curse and got to his feet swinging. I kicked the door shut in his face and took off down the hall for parts unknown.
"Hey you!"
Crap.
Brent and the manager of the depository were advancing on me down the narrow hallway. "You're not authorized to be in here!" Boss sniped at me, pointing a hostile little finger.
"Drop the box," Brent said, aiming the contents of his shoulder rig at me.
My survival instinct whispered fight or flight. Since I'd already had a go-round with Leo, I turned tail and hauled ass down the hallway toward the red sign that blinked EXIT.
A bullet pulverized the wall behind me. Brent wasn't kidding. He was also a lousy shot.
"Stop her!" Boss screamed. "Do your job!"
The EXIT sign led me to a tiny stairwell—a stairwell that was boarded up and chained with a NO ENTRY sign. How ironic was that?
A door to the outside was boarded over with two-by-fours and a flimsy lock. I threw my shoulder against it with all my were strength as Brent came barreling up behind me.
It cracked only a little. I cursed loudly and hit it again, because I hadn't come this far to end up dead in a crummy stairwell. Especially not at the hands of a hired goon named Brent.
I slammed into the door again and this time the timbers gave with a groan.
The exit led me to a loading dock connected to the street by an alley. I have no idea what kind of image I made, racing for freedom carrying a blackened, smoking cardboard box, chased by a man who could be an extra in a Steven Seagal movie, but I'll bet it was pretty damn hilarious.
"Stop or I'll shoot, lady! Again!"
Yes, definitely hilarious.
I poured on more speed, hearing Brent's heavy panting behind me, and then I was at the mouth of the alley, dodging between startled pedestrians, Sunny's convertible blessedly idling at the curb.
I screamed at her. "Sunny!"
She whipped her head around, eyes wide when she saw Brent and his pistol emerge onto the sidewalk behind me.
"Sunny, open the door!" I dove into the passenger's side, flung the burning box into the backseat, and looked at my cousin. "What the hell are you waiting for? Drive!"
She was watching Brent. "Is he really an employee in the archives? I remember them being a lot les
s gun-toting."
Brent landed on the trunk of the car with a crash and pressed his gun against the window. "I'll blow your fucking brains all over this little girly ride, lady!"
"Sunny, I don't want to die."
"Okay, okay!" she shrieked. "Hex me, I didn't think he was actually going to shoot us!"
"In the real world, Sunny, people with guns usually wave them around with that exact thing in mind."
"Don't get snippy with me! I'm driving!"
Her foot hit the accelerator and we left Brent in the dust, sprawled in a thirty-minute parking space in front of the city building. Sunny's hands were bloodless as she gripped the wheel and she stared at me with wide eyes.
"What on the Hexed earth have you gotten me into, Luna Wilder?"
I sat back and took a deep breath, expunging the smell of burning wards for cool, blessed air. "I wonder that myself most of the time, Sunny."
"That is not funny," she said quietly.
"I know," I muttered. Sunny took the turn onto Heron too fast and changed lanes before she said anything else.
"We're in danger."
"When have I not been in danger, Sunny? Walking the streets as an Insoli were is like having a giant sign on your back that says, HELLO, I'M INFERIOR AND WOULD LIKE THE CRAP KICKED OUT OF ME."
"I didn't mean you," she said quietly. "I meant the rest of us."
I sighed. "I'm sorry."
"What are you going to do about it?"
I pointed over my shoulder. "Find a quiet place where I can look through this file and find some answers."
Sunny nodded and put her blinker on. "I know a place."
Nineteen
The placed turned out to be Faery Food, a tearoom and bookshop run by a caster witch in Sunny's loose circle of friends. The owner greeted Sunny warmly—I don't think I've ever heard so many "bless you within the circles" at once—but looked at me with suspicion.
"You're the cousin?" she asked me.
"Luna, this is Genevieve. Gene, Luna."
I held out my hand. "Can't say I've heard a lot about you, but hi."
"It's nothing personal, but I don't shake hands with weres," said Genevieve. "Their energy is too unpredictable."
"Gene is a touchseer," Sunny explained. "She can read people by touch."
Night Life Page 19
