by Jaye Wells
My Uncle Abe had had his own sister—my mother—murdered because he thought she was defecting to another coven. It wasn’t hard to imagine the torture he would have put a cop through if he’d been exposed as a mole.
“Look,” Morales said, “I know I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I’m sorry. But I never thought it would go this far. I thought once we arrested Hung and Yü Nü, we could put it all behind us.”
“Only, now they’re still free and I’m about to be the one thrown to the wolves at IA,” I said. “And here you are, still lying to Gardner to save your own ass.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me as if I’d betrayed him. I resisted the urge to back down because I knew I’d be betraying myself.
“When you’re ready to tell her, I’ll be there. Until then, I’m going to need some space.”
With that, I walked away with as much dignity as the high heels allowed. He didn’t try to stop me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As I stormed away from Morales, I realized I didn’t have many choices when it came to escape routes. I could either go to the lobby, where guests were waiting for the doors to open into the theater, or I could find access the backstage area.
Since I didn’t really feel like mingling with the who’s who of Babylon Adept society at that moment, I went with the latter option. Luckily, I found an unguarded door tucked inside an alcove.
Inside the dark hallway, I stopped and leaned against the wall. My indignation was burning off fast, and taking its place was a cold, creeping dread.
Duffy was going to report me to Internal Affairs.
The irony would have been rich if it hadn’t been my ass on the line. Ever since I joined the MEA, I’d been the one warning my teammates to follow protocol. I’d been pretty self-righteous at times, if I were being honest. But in the end, trying to do the right thing hadn’t protected me. The political currents of law enforcement in Babylon had a strong undertow that could suck anyone down without warning. And there I was, without my water wings.
I took off my heels to give my feet some relief. I realized that I could just leave. Walk out of that theater, go home, and put on some sweats.
But, try as I might to convince myself otherwise, I wasn’t the kind of person who hid when things got tough. I had a stubborn streak that saw trouble and dove in headfirst. Prosperos were like sharks that way—we never quit swimming.
With a sigh, I pushed myself off the wall and put the shoes back on my feet. But just before I turned to go back out into the reception area, someone down the hall began shouting. I followed the dark corridor toward the noise.
Up ahead, the hall opened onto a room to the left of the stage. When I walked in, I found the wedding planner smacking his assistant over the head with a handful of tulle. “I told you to use a square knot!” he shrieked.
“Yo!” I called.
The planner stopped and turned, the tulle raised high. “What?” he snapped.
“What the hell’s your problem, buddy?”
“What business is it of yours, bitch?” He tossed the final word out like a dare.
I smiled. If he’d known me better, he might have recognized it as my oh-you’re-fucked-now smile.
“Well, for starters, you’re assaulting that man, and since I’m a cop, it is my business.” I pulled my badge out of my purse. “What’s your name?”
The guy under the tulle made a whimpering sound.
“I’m Stefan” the wedding planner said. “And I’m pretty sure this tulle isn’t hurting anyone.”
He lowered the fabric to reveal his assistant’s face. I’d seen the pair earlier from far away, but now that I could see them up close, I realized that the assistant was Asian and he looked awfully familiar.
“Your name’s Leon, right?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Can I see your IDs?”
Stefan huffed and put his hands on his hips. “This is ridiculous. We don’t have time for this.”
“Then I guess you better hurry,” I said sweetly.
As they each complied, I pulled out my cell and pulled up the picture from earlier just in case. But I shouldn’t have bothered. Stefan thrust his wallet at me. I spared it a quick glance.
Leon stood frozen, watching me with a wariness that seemed excessive given my simple request. “Sir? Your license?”
He whimpered. “It’s in my bag.” He pointed vaguely across the room at a chair that held a messenger bag.
One with a Korean flag patch.
“I’ll be damned,” I said. Leon, the put-upon assistant, was the guy from the massage parlor.
“Leon, hurry up and show it to her,” Stefan said. “We have to get the crucifix set up!”
I frowned at the mention of a crucifix, but I kept my eyes on Leon. He looked from the bag to me to Stefan, then back to me.
I waved. “Hi, there. You been moonlighting as a tea courier lately?”
“What are you talking about?” Stefan said. “I told you we don’t have time. Aphrodite will kill us if the ceremony starts even a minute late.”
Meanwhile, Leon had gone pale at my mention of tea.
“Damn it, Leon!” Stefan said.
It happened fast. One second, Leon looked like a trapped mouse, and the next, his fist shot out and clipped Stefan in his porcelain veneers.
The resulting howl bounced around the room. Before I could recover from the shock, Leon took off, hurdling boxes of tulle and silk flowers like Jesse Owens. He vaulted the stairs to the stage and disappeared.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled my phone out of my purse as I took off after him. While the phone rang, I dodged workers who were doing last-minute setup of one of the most bizarre wedding sets I’d ever seen. Three little people dressed as cupids milled around a low altar in the center of the stage. Fontina Douglas stood behind it, straightening an archway draped with green and white ribbons. When she saw me, she froze and scrambled for a phone from her pocket.
I ran past her without a second glance as Gardner answered on her end.
“Where are you?” she snapped.
“Backstage. I found Duffy’s Korean.”
“What?”
“The guy who left the tea for Krystal. I’m chasing him backstage.” I dodged a woman wearing a moon headdress. Stars dripped from the sleeves of her silvery gown. Next to her was a man in a sun headdress who wore a yellow leotard with painted orange and red flames licking up the side. “There are too many people back here and I need backup.”
“Where’s Morales?”
“I don’t know.” Not the time to explain that my partner and I were currently not speaking.
“I’ll find him or Duffy. Stay on the line and keep me updated on your location.”
“Copy.” I lowered the phone but kept it connected. Up ahead, Leon shot a wild look back in my direction before ducking into the backstage area on the other side.
As I gave chase, my mind spun with the potential ramifications of Leon being at Aphrodite’s wedding. Had the Chinese sent him to infiltrate the crew and sabotage things? Morales claimed the Koreans and the Chinese didn’t play well together, but that was hardly conclusive proof Leon didn’t work for the Fangshi.
I leapt down the steps on the other side of the stage and followed Leon down a ramp into the bowels of building. “Leon, I just want to talk to you!” I yelled.
He sped up.
I lifted the phone. “Sir, I’m going down a ramp on the west end of the building into the production areas.”
“Morales and Duffy are both on their way. Mez and I are dealing with a situation in the lobby.”
“What kind of situation?” I panted.
“Alexander Hung just arrived with four distraught Chinese women and Mayor Volos. They’re claiming Yü Nü is missing.”
“What the fuck?”
“Just focus on catching your guy. We’ve got this.”
“Hanging up now. I’ll call back once I have him.”
I pu
nched the button, shoved the phone in my cleavage, and bore down. Leon was fast, but I was determined to find out what the hell was going on. He turned down a new hallway, looked back over his shoulder to clock me, and tripped over a pile of black clothes.
He slid headlong into a closed door. I grabbed him by the coat and pushed him against the panel. It took me a second to catch my breath to speak. “Just wanted to talk to you,” I said between gulps of air.
A low groan sounded behind me. I looked over my shoulder. Leon hadn’t tripped over a pile of clothes, after all. He’d tripped over a beaten wizard.
“Harry?”
The leader of the Sanguinarian coven looked like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound sack. Whoever had beaten the wizard had been thorough. In fact, if not for the white hair and the vague outline of the black ankh behind the bruising, I might not have recognized him at all.
Leon wiggled in my grasp. “Let me go, lady,” he said.
“Shut the fuck up, Leon. I need a minute.”
“Harry?” I called again.
No response. Whoever had beaten him had left him for dead.
“Shit.”
“I swear I didn’t do anything.” Leon whimpered.
I swiveled my face back at him. “Then why did you run, dumbass?”
His gaze skittered away.
“Prospero!” Morales’s voice carried down the cavernous backstage area.
“Down here!” I shouted back, relieved. Once he reached us, he could help me handle both Leon and the fact that someone had kicked the shit out of Harry Bane.
I turned my attention back to Leon. “Who are you working for?”
The sound of running footsteps told me that Morales and Duffy were almost on us. Once they arrived, Duffy would want to take over with Leon, and we’d have no choice but to let him. But I wanted to know the answer for my own sake.
“Did Alexander Hung hire you?”
Leon frowned. “Who?”
“Someone hired you to deliver that package to the massage parlor. Who was it?”
The door behind Leon flew open. He fell backward and I fell forward, landing in a heap at the feet of the person who opened the door. I saw two black shoes and black pants legs. Rolling over, I realized it was Gregor looming over me.
Then I saw the fist.
Then I didn’t see much because a lightning bolt of pain flashed through my skull.
Shouts seemed to come at me from all angles.
And then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Something poked my arm. It felt like a stick. My mind was so muddled that for a moment, I wondered how I ended up in a forest.
I opened the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. My vision blurred and I instantly regretted my curiosity as pain slammed into the backs of my eyeballs. I blinked to clear away the static in my head.
Finally, my one-eyed vision cleared enough to see that I was lying on the floor, my hands bound behind my back, and that it had not been a stick that poked my arm, but Yü Nü’s freaking horn.
She saw I was about to speak and shook her head. I squinted at her, and she jutted her chin to the side. I cut my eye toward the direction she’d pointed and caught my breath.
Aphrodite was dressed in white robes with a copper wreath on their bald head. At least, I thought it was Aphrodite. It was hard to tell because they wore a sun mask over their face and a moon mask over the back of their head. The effect was unsettling because no matter where you were, it seemed like one of those masks was watching.
The Hierophant paced in front of a pair of chairs that had been set up in the massive area. In those chairs sat Morales and Duffy. They were bound and bloodied, too. On either side of them stood massive guards with big guns.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“The hermaphrodite lost her damned mind,” Yü Nü hissed. “Wants to use me to become immortal.”
“How?”
She looked up and crossed her eyes to look at the horn. “I told her she has to be pure and do the rites, but she said she don’t have time. She gonna cut off my horn.” The scorn in her voice indicated her opinion of that plan.
I nodded to show I understood enough of the gist to know we were in deep shit.
I rolled over a little to take stock of the situation.
A little wiggling revealed that while I was passed out, someone had divested me of all of my weapons. So, not only was I unarmed, I’d also been groped by some asshole to boot. I looked down where the amulet should have been rested between my cleavage, and noticed it was gone too. The only good news was someone had also taken my shoes, so my feet didn’t hurt any more.
Yü Nü watched me wiggle with a passive stare. For someone being held captive, she sure seemed unworried. Easy for her, seeing how she was immortal.
Giving up on the possibility of calling in the cavalry or overpowering a guard with a weapon, I turned my attention to my surroundings.
The ceiling was high overhead, but it didn’t look like a normal ceiling. The sound of clomping footsteps echoing from above told me that we were in a space under the main stage. A pulley system near the center of the ceiling indicated where the stage would open up so large set pieces could be raised from the basement level.
Directly below, on the floor, was a large platform holding a crucifix. I realized it must be the one Stefan mentioned earlier.
“What is going on?” I whispered.
“We got to get the fuck out of here,” Yü Nü said.
“Oh, you’re not going anywhere.”
My heart stopped for a beat and then galloped ahead like a spooked horse. That voice, though muffled by the mask, had been Aphrodite’s, and it told me two things. First, they knew I was awake. And second, they weren’t too worried about the ramifications of kidnapping three cops, which meant they thought they had nothing left to lose.
Where the hell was our team, though?
Knowing I wouldn’t have any answers until I jumped through the hermaphrodite’s hoops, I schooled my features and prepared to play ball.
“This is the weirdest bachelorette party I’ve ever been to,” I said. “When does the stripper get here?”
Aphrodite ripped off the mask. “Yes, laugh it up while you can.” The voice had been calm with a hint of scorn, but those eyes were alight with a level of crazy I hadn’t seen there before.
“How about you untie me so I can apologize?”
They snorted. “You’ll be untied when the time comes. Until then, you will stay there and keep your mouth shut. Or I will make your boyfriend bleed.”
Boyfriend. Somehow, Aphrodite had found out about my relationship with my partner and intended to use it against us.
My gaze jerked toward Morales. He looked relatively unharmed, but I didn’t have a lot of hope that would remain the case. His eyes met mine across the room. He looked up toward the pulley system. I nodded to let him know I’d seen it too. At that point, it was probably our only chance for getting the hell out of there, since Aphrodite had armed guards posted at the locked door.
The Hierophant wandered behind Morales and ran a hand through his hair. He clenched his jaw and stayed totally still. “Every bride needs something old.” They jerked their head toward Yü Nü. “Something new.” They looked toward the crucifix. “Something borrowed—that’s you. And something black and blue.” They patted Morales’s face and laughed.
“And why, exactly, did you borrow me?” I asked, trying to stay calm.
Aphrodite walked over to the corner of the room where Harry’s unconscious body had been dumped unceremoniously—at least I hoped he was just unconscious. “This asshole here fucked me over. Said he could help me cook the potion for immortality. But at the last minute, he chickened out.” They nudged Harry with a golden sandal. “Pussy.”
“Why would you ask Harry to make an immortality potion?” As the head of the Sanguinarian coven, his specialty was blood magic. While there probably were blood potions that could make s
omeone live forever, I was pretty sure it would also turn them into something pretty close to a vampire. Not that Aphrodite couldn’t rock a pair of fangs, but it didn’t seem like their style.
“Because I couldn’t trust any of the Votaries to help me,” Aphrodite said. Then they laughed, bitterly. “Guess I should have known not to trust anyone in this godforsaken town. Used to be there was honor among the covens. We had each other’s backs. But now you can’t trust anyone not to fuck you over.”
It struck me as odd that the person railing against the dearth of honor in Babylon was currently holding three law enforcement officers hostage, but I figured they wouldn’t enjoy the irony. I did need to keep them talking, though.
“If you couldn’t make Harry cooperate, how do you figure Yü Nü will instead?”
“Not willingly, of course.” They laughed. “I have to thank you for being such a shitty detective, by the way. I mean, Jesus, how many clues did I need to plant for you to arrest someone from the Fangshi?” They shook their head as if we disgusted them. “Anyway, I never would have been able to get to that horn once she was in prison. So, thanks!”
“Leon works for you,” I said, finally putting it together. “Not the Chinese.”
“Ding, ding, ding!”
“Which means you killed Basil, too,” Morales said. “Your own nephew.”
“I knew you were the smart one,” they said, winking at him. “Yes, I killed Basil. It wasn’t my original intention, of course. I simply wanted to remind him of his loyalties. But that Votary bitch seduced him too well.” Aphrodite sighed and shrugged. “After Gregor put him down, we saw the Chinese potions in the fridge and knew what the police would think—you are so predictable, after all. We torched the place and got out of there.”
“Why kill Krystal?” Duffy asked.
“Well, she was just fun to kill. Plus, I needed to send a little message to my old friend Abe to remind him what happens when you fuck over Aphrodite Johnson.”
“You went out of your way to make it look like it was the Chinese who did it.” Morales said. “How does that send a message?”
