by Jaye Wells
“Fuck off. No she doesn’t!”
“You’re like the worst detective ever.” He shook his head sadly. “That woman sees more snatch than an ob-gyn.”
My face mashed up into a grimace. “Charming.”
He grinned. “No? I thought that was kind of clever, myself.”
“You would.”
“Anyway,” he said, clicking the button to open the SUV’s doors, “not that I’m not into lesbians or whatever—I mean, what heterosexual man isn’t?—but Shadi’s like my sister.”
I climbed into the passenger’s side. Bringing this topic up had been a huge mistake. “Got it,” I said, hoping he’d let it drop.
He buckled his seat belt and put the key in the ignition, shaking his head the whole time. “You’re a trip, Prospero. Me and Shadi. Ha!”
“I said I got it.”
“Besides,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “dating a fellow cop is bad news.” He looked across the car at me. Something shifted in the atmosphere. “Right?”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “I was just making conversation.”
His gaze held mine for a few more seconds, like it was an interrogation and he wanted me to admit something. “Conversation,” he said, finally, “sure.”
“Just drive, jackass.”
Chapter Four
Morales pulled up in front of the building and stared at the facade. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Yep.” I set down the unhelpful incident report Eldritch had left us and pointed to a small brass plaque discreetly set beside the revolving doors.
“Temple of Cosmic Love?” Morales read. “Jesus.”
To the uninitiated, the sex magic temple looked like a typical Babylon office building. Four stories of brick and windows that looked like every other office building on the corner of Hope and Bleaker Streets. As it happened that corner was smack in the center of the border between Sanguinarian and Votary territories. That was because Aphrodite Johnson, among other things, was a shrewd strategist. Unlike the blood magic wizards and bathtub alchemists, s/he refused to choose sides in the street magic battles. S/he ensured the O Coven remained the sexy Switzerland of the dirty magic world. But even though the Hierophant kept the coven out of turf wars, that didn’t seem to stop her/m from creating enemies as if it were a hobby.
As I passed through the revolving door, I felt static in the air that indicated some sort of magic detection system was scanning us. It was like a metal detector, only it was trying to catch people bringing potions into the temple. Usually I was annoyed by such invasions. But this time I found myself enjoying the tingle of energy across my skin and the adrenaline surge from the contact with magic. Since neither of us was wearing a protection amulet, we passed through without incident. When I emerged from the doorway, I cleared my throat, hoping Morales wouldn’t notice the slight flush to my cheeks.
A security guard dressed in a sharp business suit met us by the front desk. “The Hierophant is expecting you in the garden,” he said.
“Our task force wizard will be arriving shortly to begin the forensics,” Morales said. “His name is Kichiri Ren.”
He nodded. “I’ll show him to the room where the potions were taken, and you can join him after you speak to Her Holiness.”
I glanced meaningfully at Morales, so he’d take note Aphrodite was presenting as female that morning.
As the guard walked away, I hung back to give my partner some last-minute advice. “Whatever you do, don’t touch anything while we’re out there.”
“That’s a good rule of thumb in most whorehouses, isn’t it?” Morales asked with a cocked brow.
“True,” I said, “but I was talking about her garden.” I used the feminine pronoun since we knew Aphrodite was presenting as female that day.
He paused and shot me a sardonic grin. “I definitely never touch whores’ gardens, Prospero.”
I gave up. He’d see what I meant soon enough, anyway. “Whatever. Just try to behave.”
A few moments later we stepped out into a large courtyard in the center of the building. According to local legend, this space had served as the setting for many an orgy for Babylon’s rich and famous, but it was also home to the madam’s famous collection of poisonous plants, which was famous in Cauldron lore.
Aphrodite herself stood at the rear of the courtyard, bathed in a shaft of sunlight. I was pretty sure she’d planned the position for effect. When we entered the courtyard, she looked up and flipped the long side of her hair back over her shoulder. The left half wore a formfitting red wiggle dress with red stiletto, while the right half wore half a collared shirt, slacks, and a single black wing tip. As she moved forward, she led with the left side and a femme fatale smile.
“Kate—Oh, excuse me, I mean, Detective Prospero,” she said, giving me a once-over that left me feeling like I’d come up lacking. Her seductive voice twined through the room like smoke. She sashayed toward us on one high heel and one thick-soled men’s dress shoe.
When I’d told Morales that Aphrodite was half-female and half-male, I’d meant it literally. The left side of the face was perfectly made up with a shimmery nude eye, bold black eyeliner, and half a mouth lacquered in bold red lipstick. The other half bore carefully cultivated stubble, a bold, unwaxed brow, and not a single lick of makeup.
The weird part was that her lady side was as beautiful and conventionally feminine as her right side was ruggedly handsome and conventionally male. The gender differences extended down her entire body from the clothing to the body hair to the way she was graceful on the feminine left and confident on the masculine right. But to me, the most disconcerting feature was how the voice would change depending on which gender the Hierophant chose at the time.
When she caught sight of Morales, her cat eyes flared with prurient interest. “Who’s your friend?” she asked me in a feline tone, but she kept her eyes on him.
Morales took her hand and bent over it like a chivalrous knight. “Special Agent Drew Morales, MEA.”
Aphrodite’s eyes flared and her lips jutted forward into a pout. “Whatever have I done to deserve the interest of the Magic Enforcement Agency?”
“Nothing yet,” I said. She looked over at me grudgingly as she continued to hold Morales’s hand. “The BPD is backlogged with the Blue Moon coming, so we’re taking the case to help out.”
She shot a terse glance at my partner as he not-so-subtly pulled his hand from her grip. “I must admit the idea gives me some comfort. Forgive me, Detective, but I’ve had somewhat disappointing dealings with Babylon’s finest in the past.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“You also remember I was friends with your mother?” she asked with a sidelong glance.
My mom and Aphrodite were whores together back in the day. Then the O’s were still controlled by Matahari Jenkins from a temple closer to the center of Votary territory. Word on the street was she and Uncle Abe had been sort of an item. Aphrodite had been Matahari’s top moneymaker, and my mom had been number two. As far as I knew there hadn’t been much competition between the two—Aphrodite’s sacred status had given her a huge edge over my mom. So they had been friendly, but not best buds, either.
Anyway, Mom died a decade ago, and since then Aphrodite had taken over for Matahari and built this new temple.
“You were also friends with my uncle,” I added.
“Still am. Poor dear,” she said, batting her lashes. “How is he faring in prison?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Our eyes met and held. Despite the somewhat disconcerting experience of looking into one heavily made-up eye and one naked one, I held her gaze steady. The look seemed to communicate that without her fondness for my mother, whom she respected, my poor standing with Uncle Abe would have prevented this conversation from happening at all.
“I appreciate you speaking with us,” I said diplomatically. “This shouldn’t take much of your time.”
She seemed to acce
pt that. “So let’s get to it, shall we?”
Morales pulled out his pad to take notes. “Ms. Johnson—”
“Aphrodite, please.”
“We’d like to ask a few questions about the break-in?”
“Of course,” she said, motioning to a seating area arranged around a fire pit on the perimeter of the courtyard.
To get there, we skirted the large pergola, which dominated the center of the courtyard. Underneath it was Aphrodite’s infamous garden.
Leafy moonseed vines with their deadly bright red drupes climbed up pergola’s wooden columns. Oleander shrubs, with their white flowers and fatally toxic leaves, dotted the borders of the bed. The purple petals of devil’s cherry and wolfsbane added deceptively cheerful spots of color. The green and purplish starbursts of castor bean leaves with their fuzzy red pom-poms added depth to the display, as well as access to the deadly poison ricin. And in the very center, the wide branches of a Brugmansia plant with its large, drooping angel trumpet flowers. Those celestial petals contained a triple punch of the toxins atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine.
As we passed, I gave the garden a wide berth, not wanting to accidentally prick myself on the deadly thorns or get any poisonous sap on my skin. But Morales stopped next to a plant bearing bright red berries. He reached a hand toward it, but I slapped it away. “That’s a rosary pea,” I hissed under my breath.
“So?” He frowned.
“The seeds contain a poison called abrin,” Aphrodite explained. “It causes severe vomiting, liver failure, bladder failure, bleeding from the eyes, and convulsive seizures before it kills you.”
“If it’s that deadly, why do you have it in your garden?” he demanded.
The corner of her mouth lifted. “So your partner didn’t already tell you about my revenge garden?” She glanced at me with a raised brow. When I shook my head, she chuckled.
Morales frowned. “Revenge garden?”
She leaned forward, allowing the bodice on the left side of her body to show an impressive amount of one-sided cleavage. “Every plant in that bed is lethal. I nurture that garden like a child to warn my enemies of what will happen if they cross me.”
I slapped my hands together. “All righty, then. Let’s get to the robbery, shall we?”
Aphrodite crossed her arms. “I already filed a report with the officers who responded to the call last night.”
“Yes, we have that.” I held the report file up for her to see. “But they were working it as a regular robbery. We’re MEA, so our concern is making sure the potions that were stolen don’t end up on the streets.”
She frowned. “What can I tell you to help?”
“First, we’ll need a list of all the potions that were taken,” Morales said. “Including their formulae, if possible.”
She laughed. “I can give you the list, but I’m not about to reveal the recipes for my formulae.”
“Without the recipe we won’t be able to know if any potions we find are the same as the ones taken.”
She pursed her lips. “Just read the energy signature.”
“Not possible,” Morales said. “We don’t have an Adept who can do that on the team.”
Aphrodite’s eyes snapped toward me. “Why not have Kate do it?” My stomach dropped. “Back in the day she was famous for being able to read the signature off any potion.”
Morales’s gaze snapped toward me, but he covered his reaction to this news smoothly. “Detective Prospero’s talents not withstanding, the testimony of an Adept gathered through Arcane means won’t hold up in court. We’ll need the ingredients for our forensics wizard to be able to prove the potions are yours.”
She sighed. “Fine. All of my potions contain fiery cinnamon and virgin copulins. Surely your agents are capable of doing simple chemical tests to detect those ingredients.”
Morales glanced at me for confirmation. “I’m pretty sure our team wiz can identify cinnamon and copulins, but there’s no test to confirm they were extracted from a virgin.”
“If your wizard is any sort of professional, he’ll know how,” she said.
Morales raised a hand. “Dare I ask what a copulin is?”
Aphrodite raised a brow in challenge, but I nodded to her to go ahead. “Copulins are pheromones.” She looked at Morales with a black widow smile. “Did you know a woman’s pussy contains magical properties, Special Agent?”
I squirmed on the inside. I don’t care if you’re a seasoned cop or a rode-hard-and-put-up-wet prostitute, there’s something electrifying about hearing that word spoken aloud. She knew it, too, which was why the Hierophant’s gaze stayed on Morales’s face when she enunciated it.
But Morales, God love him, did not even blink. “I’m well acquainted with the magical powers of pussy, ma’am.”
I bit my lip to cover my amusement. Aphrodite laid her hands on the armrests and leaned back, eyeing my partner like a Serengeti lioness watches a juicy gazelle.
“Have you had any personnel problems lately?” I asked. “We’ll need to see those files, too.”
Aphrodite looked up sharply at me. I simply raised my brows.
Something in her face changed. As if the power center of her being shifted from left to right. Her shoulders squared and her jaw muscles engaged, as if the body instinctively felt the need to take up as much space as possible to command more authority. That sly smile dissolved into a neutral expression that gave nothing away. And when the half-painted mouth opened to speak, the voice that emerged was no longer the seductive purr of a madam, but the baritone of a pimp. “My files are not public record, Detective.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the Hierophant morph between genders, but I’d never get used to the unsettling shift. “They could be with a simple phone call, Mr. Johnson.”
When I didn’t back down, that mouth tightened into a thin line, and that’s when I knew I’d made it onto his shit list. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time.
“Surely you keep some sort of information on your followers,” Morales said, playing the mediator.
“I’m not the MEA, Agent Morales. I don’t keep dossiers on my congregation. They’re not criminals. I’ve already said all this to officers who responded last night. So if there’s nothing else I am quite busy—”
“Keep your wig on,” I snapped. Not my coolest moment ever—the Hierophant would see any reference to the feminine when the masculine was in charge as a direct insult. “For someone who was robbed you’re awfully reluctant to help.”
The wig comment earned me a death glare, but the implication got me a dismissive snort. “Why would I rob my own temple, Detective?”
“Beats me,” I said with a shrug, “but if you continue to stonewall us it’s an option we’ll be forced to investigate further.”
He squinted at me and sucked his teeth for a moment. He was wondering if the years had dulled the infamous Prospero stubbornness out of me. I smiled to let him know they had not. If anything, being on this side of the law had only solidified those tendencies.
“Now that I think about it,” Morales said to me conversationally, “Mr. Johnson does seem awfully composed for someone who was just robbed of thousands of dollars’ worth of potions.”
I crossed my arms and glanced at him, playing along. “You may be right. Maybe we should call Judge Dread after all and ask for a search warrant. I bet we’d find all sorts of interesting things in those files then.”
The Hierophant cleared his throat. “What do you want to know?”
I was impressed at how smoothly Morales digested the victory. His face betrayed none of his emotion, didn’t give anything away that Johnson could use against us. Like it or not, the guy was a pro. “For starters you can tell us which of your enemies was most likely to do this.”
He pursed his lips. “It could be any of a dozen wizards.”
“The report the officer filed said there was no sign of forced entry,” Morales said. “Any idea why?”
He
shrugged his right shoulder. “Beats me.”
I leaned forward. “Look, if you’re concerned about us arresting any of your girls for solicitation, don’t. We’re just here to find the thief.”
“Detective, most of the girls and boys that find their ways to my door are trying to escape something.” His voice lowered even further into what I assume he felt was a sincere tone. “Abuse, poverty, discrimination. I give them a safe place to practice their skills and find a higher purpose. Very few happy individuals walk away from their lives for this kind of tough spiritual work.”
Morales’s brows shot up. “I’m surprised to hear such a fatalistic summary of what you do.”
“I may be a believer, Agent Morales, but I’m also a realist. We do real work here. Work that helps people. But I am not in the business of selling sunshine and rainbows.”
“Understood,” Morales said.
“What I don’t get is why you called the BPD in the first place if you’re so set against helping us find the thief?” I asked.
“I have to provide a police report to give the insurance company.”
My eyes narrowed. “Ah. I get it. You’ve got your own people on this, right? Guess finding out the MEA was getting involved put a crimp in your plans.”
“The MEA is way more than a crimp, but as it happens, yes, I do have some of my personal security team investigating the matter. If they find anything, I’ll be sure and pass it on.”
I laughed. “Don’t bullshit us. If I find out that you’re keeping evidence from us, you’ll be in jail alongside the asshole who robbed you.”
“It’s so optimistic of you,” he drawled, “to assume he’ll live long enough to go to jail.”
I sighed. The truth was I couldn’t blame him for not trusting us to get the job done. In the Cauldron, the wizards were the law. Plus, no kids grew up in the magical ghetto feeling like the BPD was there to protect and serve them. Aphrodite had grown up a decade or so ahead of me, but I was willing to bet I wasn’t the only one who grew up watching relatives being taken away in cuffs. Hard, then, to grow up and trust a cop to settle what you saw as a personal offense. Especially when you had your own ready supply of poisons for just that occasion.
