Cursed Moon

by Jaye Wells

  “Look.” I sighed. “I know you want to go after this guy, but you need to leave this to us.”

  “You haven’t been out of the game long enough to have grown that naive,” he said. “If I get a chance at this asshole, I will fertilize my night plants with his blood.”

  “You do realize that if the guilty party shows up dead,” Morales cut in, “the statements you’ve made today will make you the lead suspect.”

  “The city labs are so overworked and under budget that without strong evidence that poison was used, most won’t do the specific tests for common poisons when another cause of death could be used.” He smiled tightly. “Besides, you’d have to find a body in order to charge someone with murder.”

  “You seem to have done your homework on how to beat the system,” I said.

  “Let’s not play coy, Detective. I make my living selling sex as religion. It’s in my best interest to know how to work around the laws.”

  Morales looked at me. “He has a point.”

  I shot him a look. “You’re not helping.”

  My partner shrugged.

  I glanced back at the hermaphrodite. “It would be nice if you could provide us a list of your enemies.”

  The air shifted again, and suddenly Aphrodite was back. Now she was a Lefty again with her graceful gestures and serpentine smile. She licked her lips, as if tasting the air. “The list of allies would be shorter, Detective,” she purred.

  Pressing my lips together to ensure I didn’t speak the curse that would push me further up her enemies list, I changed tactics. “We’ll also need to speak to those who were at the temple at the time of the robbery.”

  “I suppose I could allow you to speak to the priestess who was on duty last night.”

  She’d just thrown us a bone, so I didn’t mention again that with a couple of calls I could get a warrant to gain access to her client roster. She was smart enough to know that herself. I just hoped for both our sakes her employees could give us some concrete leads so the warrant wouldn’t be necessary. “That would be great. May we speak with her now?”

  She made a pout. “So soon?”

  I tilted my head. “You do want your property back, correct?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I suppose.” She snapped her fingers at the guard who was standing sentinel near the door we’d entered through. He came over and listened as she whispered instructions.

  “Gregor will take you to meet her. If you need anything, she can help you.”

  “Thank you,” Morales said.

  She raised her left hand and pointed a single dragon-lady fingernail at him like a gun. “Of course, handsome.”

  I didn’t bother suppressing the urge to roll my eyes. While I did that, Morales leaned forward and handed her his business card. “You think of anything else that might assist us, don’t hesitate to call us.”

  She dragged her eyes from my partner with great reluctance to shoot me a resentful glance. “Is this your personal number?” she asked.

  “It’s the main number to our office,” he said. “Anyone who answers will be able to reach us.”

  “I’d feel better if I had your direct line,” she said, looking up at Morales.

  He smiled wide, flashing his teeth. “Sure thing.” He took the card from her, and I noted she managed to fit a brief finger-to-hand caress as he took it. In a flash he’d jotted down a number and handed it back.

  I stood to end the meeting and made quick work of excusing us from the hermaphrodite’s revenge garden. It wasn’t until we’d returned to the lobby that Morales executed a full-body shiver. “She didn’t even buy me dinner before she fucked me with her eyes.”

  I snorted. “You didn’t seem to mind the attention when we were in there.”

  “I was playing good cop.”

  “Seemed more like you were playing horny cop,” I teased.

  “Trust me, Cupcake, when I’m horny you’ll know it.”

  I grimaced. “Ignorance is bliss, Macho.”

  He chuckled and looked around. “So where’s this other girl?”

  The elevator on the other end of the lobby dinged. The doors opened. Gregor emerged first, but I caught movement behind him. I assumed it was the whore Aphrodite had told us about. I nudged Morales, who turned to look that direction.

  At that moment trouble emerged from behind the bulky guard. Piles of glossy black hair piled on top of her head in an intricate updo. A red silk corset hugged her torso, and her bottom half sported a pair of ruffled black underpants on top of fishnets and a pair of sky-high red stilettos.

  It took me a second to recognize her through the sugar skull makeup all of Aphrodite’s girls wore when working. But once I realized who she was, I groaned.

  “Shayla King,” I spat like a preacher cursing the devil’s name.

  She paused with one hip jutted to the side. “Katie Prospero.”

  “Kate,” I snapped. “As in Detective Kate Prospero.”

  She pointed a thumb at her ample bosom. “And I am Priestess Shayla.”

  Morales cleared his throat beside me. I shot him a look that I hoped indicated how unhappy I was with this turn of events. His smile told me he was going to enjoy watching me squirm almost as much as he liked eyeing the whore’s revealing getup.

  Turning away from me, he went to introduce himself to our tour guide. Her gaze took in his height like she was a monkey looking for a new tree to climb. But when he held out his hand to shake hers, she paused.

  She looked down, shocked he’d offered it. A lot of cops would never deign to touch an O Coven whore, but Morales wasn’t most cops. He might have an edge to him, but he wasn’t a prick. Despite my obvious bad history with the girl, he was going to treat her with respect until her actions dictated otherwise. After a second’s hesitation, she finally put her palm into his and gave it a lingering shake. “Wow, Prospero,” she said, “you hit the jackpot.”

  I grimaced. “Where’s the crime scene?”

  She reluctantly released Morales’s hand and turned toward me. “Your other colleague is already up there dusting for prints.”

  Morales shot her a smile that had a little too much dimple to be professional. “Can you show us the way, ma’am?”

  “Of course. This way, please.” With that she turned and sashayed back toward the elevators. I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering to the black ruffles and the twin red seams that licked her legs from ankle to ass.

  An elbow nudged my ribs. I glanced up to see Morales shooting me a pair of raised brows, as if to ask what the story was. I shrugged and shook my head. I wasn’t about to explain my history with Shayla King right in front of the bitch. There’d be time enough for that later. For now, I needed to focus on the case.

  “Ready?” Shayla called in a syrupy voice from the elevators. Gregor stood in the rear of the car like a statue.

  “To the sex chambers,” I said under my breath.

  Morales’s smile was back. “Oh goody.”

  Chapter Five

  Once we were in the elevator, Morales started in. “On which floor did the robbery occur?”

  Priestess Shayla turned toward him, which meant her back was to me. “The fourth.” She turned to me. “So, Kate, you talked to John lately?”

  My jaw clenched so hard I think I felt a couple of teeth crack. “No.” I tried to talk to John Volos as rarely as possible.

  She pouted. “That’s too bad. He really was so upset after you left.” A dramatic pause. “Luckily I was there to console him.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said, keeping my tone bored. “How much did he pay you to be his consolation prize?”

  “John Volos doesn’t have to pay for sex.” She laughed. “Unless you count all the orgasms he gave me.”

  A warm hand touched mine—a gentle reminder from Morales to keep my cool.

  I pushed a hot breath through my nostrils. “Did the intruder come through the lobby?”

  She pulled back and pressed her lips together like she was savor
ing the flavor of victory. “All of our visitors who registered at the desk last night have been cleared.”

  “Cleared how?” Morales asked.

  “We have security cameras in all of the treatment rooms. We were able to trace when each client entered and left the rooms, as well as when they exited the front doors, since there’s only one entrance and exit. Everyone who arrived through the front door last night also left through it, and they did it without any detours to the fourth floor. In addition, the camera in the foyer shows the floor readout on top of the elevator. Not once last night did it go to the top floor.”

  My eyebrows shot up and I glanced at Morales, who was frowning. “Roof?” he asked.

  She nodded. “We believe so. All of the buildings on this block are connected. It would not be difficult for a person to jump from roof to roof.”

  “How do you know they didn’t go to another floor and just take the steps to the fourth?” I asked.

  At that point we’d almost reached the third floor. Shayla stepped forward quickly and punched the button. The elevator doors didn’t open. “All the floors require special key and code to access.” She held up a key card and slid it into the slot. She turned her back, and the keypad beeped as she entered numbers. Two seconds later the doors whooshed open.

  The elevators opened to a dark hallway lit only by dim red lights. It stretched out from the elevator like a long throat. Several doors led off the center hall. We stepped out of the car at Shayla’s insistence. “It is possible without a key card. But you cannot enter the fourth floor without one. Which is why we think they entered from the roof.”

  She beckoned us with a hand as she started down the hallway. About halfway down, a door opened. Another woman in the skull makeup emerged. She had long blond hair, but instead of a corset she wore only a thin silk robe bearing a red hexagram in the center of a spiral. The spiral represented the kundalini energy of the root chakra. The hexagram, however, is an alchemical symbol for the unification of opposites—a nod to Aphrodite’s dual nature.

  When the whore saw us, she hesitated in the doorway.

  Shayla backtracked. “It’s okay, Priestess Fiona. They’re here to find the thief who threatened the sanctity of our temple.”

  The woman instantly bowed her head and pointed her gaze to the floor. With a quick nod, she ducked back inside the room. But not before I caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man getting pegged by another skull-faced priestess wearing a strap-on. By the time the door shut, I felt like I’d been punched in the face.

  “What’s wrong, Detective?” Shayla said, laughter slithering through her words.

  I shook my head. She thought I was being a prude, but the sex hadn’t shocked me. Any innocence I’d come to the force with—which wasn’t much—had dissolved within a week on the job. Working the Cauldron was a crash course in all the depraved shit humans do to one another. But I was fine letting Shayla believe I was a prude. Because the alternative was to admit that the scene I’d just witnessed brought back a memory from my childhood. One I’d forgotten—or suppressed.

  A different door had opened at the wrong moment. A different woman, one I knew all too well, in memento mori makeup had engaged in a sexual act with a different man I didn’t know. That time, the woman had quickly pushed the man’s face away from her crotch. The candles the priestess had lit for the ritual glistened off the wetness on his face. As I stood in shock, staring up at them, my mother strode to the door in the nude and slammed the door in my face.

  I’d been five years old at the time.

  Just like that door slamming twenty-two years earlier, I shut down the memory. I’d come to terms with my mother’s profession a long time ago—long before she’d died, even. The memory was only coming up now because we were in a temple similar to the one where she worked.

  “Prospero?” Morales nudged me.

  I looked up. The teasing smile I expected wasn’t there. Instead his stubbled face held an expression of genuine concern. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I guess I had, in a way. “Yeah, I’m good.” I looked over at Shayla. “Where are the stairs?”

  Her smug look made me want to punch that makeup off her face. She thought she’d somehow discovered a weakness. She was wrong, though. Weakness came from shame, and I was not ashamed of my mom or my past.

  And maybe if I kept repeating that over and over in my head, I’d finally believe it.

  Shayla pointed farther down the hall, where a red EXIT sign indicated the stairwell’s location. This one didn’t have a keypad like the elevator did. Looked like even the powerful Aphrodite Johnson couldn’t circumvent the fire marshal’s laws.

  I nodded, catching up. “So the perp could have used these stairs to access the lab.”

  She nodded. “But I already told you the video doesn’t show anything.”

  I crossed my arms. Her patronizing tone made my spine tighten.

  “And you said you verified all the people who came and went through the front?” Morales said.

  Her eyes skittered sideways. That’s when I knew they had a suspect. Probably someone they saw on the tapes, but they didn’t want to tell us in case we got to him first. Morales had been wrong. Aphrodite didn’t need us for shit.

  “Where’s the tape?” I said.

  “I already told you—we already checked them.”

  Morales smiled tightly. “Regardless, we’ll need a copy.”

  “But—”

  “We could get a warrant, but then the theft will be public knowledge. I’m sure many of your clients would be distressed to learn about such a major security breach.”

  I clucked my tongue. “Might even be a few lawsuits.”

  Shayla crossed her arms. “I’ll get you the tape,” she said through clenched teeth. “But I’m telling you, there’s nothing there to help with the robber’s identity.”

  “If it’s all the same, we’ll leave that up to our audiovisual forensics specialist.”

  I shot Morales a quick glance. I assumed he meant Shadi, but she wasn’t exactly the specialist he claimed. More like she got the surveillance duty by default. Either way, the fib got the desired result.

  “Come on,” she said. “Maybe your forensics wizard has found something.”

  Telling, I thought, that she didn’t sound hopeful.

  Now that we’d called her on the bluff Aphrodite told her to pull, her demeanor was different. As she walked up the stairs, her ass twitched with each tense step.

  When we reached the fourth floor, she made quick work of getting through the security and threw open the door. She stood to the side so we could precede her. As I passed, her eyes were twin shards of ice.

  Mez was standing at a lab table covered in an assortment of cooking supplies.

  “How’s it going?”

  He put down a beaker he’d been dusting for prints. “Best I can tell, whoever did this came through the window.” He motioned Morales and me toward a pair of tall windows set into the brick wall.

  “You found a print?” Morales asked, inspecting the jamb, which was covered in gray powdery residue.

  Mez twirled the small feather applicator he used to apply the powder. “Not a one.”

  I raised a brow. “You check the exterior?”

  “Not yet.” He used his gloved hands to open the window. Then he bowed like a butler, offering me access to the outside. “Why don’t you look for yourself?”

  Grimacing, I ducked out and turned, resting my butt on the windowsill. Morales put a steadying hand on my knees to ensure I didn’t perform a backflip to the street below. I took the brush and small vial of powder Mez offered and applied it all over the surface—the glass, the wooden frame, the bracers, the brick surround. Nothing. Not even a partial.

  “Damn it,” I said, ducking back inside. “Wait, you sounded pretty sure they’d used the window. Why?”

  “Elementary, my dear.” The wizard smiled like I’d just walked into a logic trap. “When I came i
n, the window was open.”

  I glanced at Shayla for confirmation. “It was open when we discovered the robbery this morning.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Information you could have mentioned sooner.”

  She shrugged and yawned. The move distended her jaw like a boa constrictor’s. The image more disturbing on account of the memento mori skeletal makeup.

  Dismissing her, I turned back to Mez. “What else?”

  Mez pointed across the room, and my eyes followed. Someone had spray-painted symbols all over the wall, like a mural. I hadn’t noticed it when we came in because it shared the wall with the door.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Oh,” she said, “whoever broke in did that.”

  My brows rose. “If they took the time to do something like that, they knew enough about the alarm system not to expect someone to come busting in on them.”

  She frowned. “I guess so.”

  Morales and I moved closer to inspect the symbols. It was hard to mistake the central image—a three-foot-tall phallus.

  “Are those veins?” Morales asked.

  I shook my head. “Vines, I think. See? They’re green.” There were also two bunches of purple grapes at the bottom in lieu of testicles.

  Whatever they were, they wove around the shaft of the penis. In the left-hand corner, a large blue circle that could only stand for the upcoming full moon. And on the right, a large pentagram.

  A lot of Mundanes associate the pentagram with satanic cults, but the symbol had a long and complex tradition in a lot of different magical traditions. There were no obvious reasons to assume the image was some sort of threat—yet.

  Morales frowned. “Not exactly original to paint a penis in a whorehouse.”

  I took out my phone and clicked a few pictures. Mez’s first step when he’d arrived would have been to catalog the room, including taking official photos, but I wanted some for my own use, too. You never knew when you’d be stuck without a file on the run.

  And we’d definitely be running on this case. If my hunch was right, Aphrodite already had a major head start on finding the thief.