by Jaye Wells
I pasted on a smile and looked up at Morales. “What fear?”
The corners of his lips rose and he tipped his chin as if to say “Atta girl.”
I turned back toward the shore, where a contingent of prison guards had already gathered to escort us to the main gates. Morales was wrong to assume it was the distant past that had me worried. Instead it was more recent events—just six weeks earlier to be exact—when I betrayed my family and my team by cooking a dirty potion and then covering up the secrets the magic had whispered in my ear.
“Kate?” Morales called from the dock. I shook myself, realizing he’d exited the ferry without me noticing. I raised my chin and climbed out of the boat without accepting his offered hand. If Abe had invited me to my doom, I damned sure was going to go down fighting.
The guard showed me into a white room. A single white table with a chair on either side. There was also a pane of two-way mirrored glass next to the door, so we could be observed. There were no handles on the interior of that door. Prison guards waited on the other side to open it if there was trouble. Two fluorescent bulbs buzzed overhead behind steel cages. But mostly the room was just a white box.
Before I’d been allowed in, they’d made me empty my pockets and check in any Arcane substances or magic defense weapons. I didn’t balk at any of these demands. An alchemical wizard as powerful as Abraxas Prospero could MacGyver a magical weapon from little more than some pocket lint and a discarded paper clip.
He stood in the dead center with his hands bound at his waist, his ankles chained, and his back ramrod-straight. His jumpsuit was blinding orange, like a street sign warning of a need for extreme caution. His white hair was combed neatly back, and his sharp blue eyes glinted like shards of glass behind simple wire-framed glasses. To someone who’d never met him before, he’d probably look like a mild-mannered accountant or someone’s grandpa. But I knew him better than most, and was well acquainted with the monster that lurked under that placid facade.
“Katie Girl.” Hearing my name so casual on his lips took me back to a time when I was small and he seemed larger than life. Even bound and trapped in prison, he exuded a power that made memories rise up to haunt me like hostile spirits.
“Detective Prospero,” I corrected in an even tone.
Those X-ray eyes narrowed, as if I’d taken him off guard for the first time in my life. “My, my—look how far you’ve come.”
I raked a scornful gaze down the jumpsuit and simple canvas sneakers on his feet. “And look how far you’ve fallen.”
“Smart to attack my vanity.” He chuckled, but the sound was more menacing than amused. “I trained you well.”
“You didn’t train me to attack at all, Abe. You taught me to take orders like a good girl.”
He raised a single steely brow. “Fat lot of good that did me, eh?”
I ignored that and sauntered toward the table. “You look like shit, Abe. The prison chow not agreeing with you?” It was true. He looked thinner. Not more fragile, but sharper, like a blade.
“If I look poorly, it’s because I’m troubled over recent events.” He shuffled toward the table, making his chains scrape against the concrete. He settled himself in his chair before continuing. “How is dear Danny?”
I froze. If my name on his lips made me uncomfortable, listening to that poison mouth uttering my little brother’s sent a spike of icy fear and hot anger through my core. “Better now, no thanks to Ramses Bane.”
Abe’s eyes narrowed and shifted toward the two-way mirror behind the table, where Morales watched our conversation. I could practically feel him trying to puzzle whether I knew of his own connection to Bane’s crimes. “I assure you,” he said lightly, “Ramses Bane is no friend of mine.”
A quick flare of relief sparked in my chest. He’d decided to wait for me to outright accuse him of being involved. Which, of course, I’d never do with Drew Morales—or any member of my team—listening.
“Whatever alliance Bane and I had in the distant past,” Abe said, “was severed when he went after my blood.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” I said in a flat tone.
He could try to distance himself from Bane’s blunders all he wanted, but I’d never forget the role he played in concocting the plan to begin with. Still, best to let him believe I wasn’t holding that grudge. At least until it benefited me to do so. Guess the old man had taught me a few lessons that stuck, after all.
“Although I must admit,” he continued with a heavy sigh, “I was disappointed to hear Bane didn’t manage to rid the world of that traitor John Volos.”
I could practically feel him trying to bore into my head. I might be intimidated by the man, but I knew better than to invite an emotional vampire like him inside. “I’m surprised to hear that, Uncle. After all, without Volos’s discovering the key to the antipotion, Danny would have died. Ironic, no?”
“Volos rarely helps anyone without expecting a boon in return, niece.” He leaned forward and pointed a finger. “Remember that.”
“What I remember is you’re the one who taught him that lesson.”
“True enough.” He dipped his chin. “Tell me, Katherine, how did you reward him for his help?”
There was a challenge there, and also, I thought, an accusation. One I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of answering. I leaned back and crossed my arms. “Why am I here today?”
I watched him quickly file my evasion away to analyze later. Instead of answering my question, Abe leaned to his side with a sly smile. “You still smoke?”
I shook my head. “Quit when I was twenty.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Impressive. I’ve never been able to kick the habit, myself.”
I shrugged. “It was a breeze compared with giving up cooking.”
Those lips pressed together in a thin line. “You say that like you’re proud of turning your back on magic, but you ask me, it was the worst decision you ever made.”
I laughed out loud. “Says the man in prison for magical crimes.”
A thundercloud passed behind his eyes. Abe cleared his throat, and the threat of a storm passed quickly. “Don’t suppose you could rustle up a coffin nail for your old uncle?”
I stared him down for a few seconds. Part of me wanted to tell him I wasn’t his damned errand girl or nicotine dealer. But I also knew he’d never share his bombshell until I’d jumped through some hoops. “Hold on.”
I went to the door and knocked, sure to keep my body turned to the side so I could keep on eye on Abe the whole time. Not that I expected him to attack me physically—mental anguish was more his style—but you could never be too careful. The door opened, and I found Morales standing on the other side. He shoved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter through the crack. “You okay?”
I shot him a look. “Peachy.” I snatched the package of cigs from him and closed the door before he could offer any advice.
Returning to Abe, I tossed the pack across the table. “There.”
“Old Goat Ultra Lights?” he said with distaste. For years the old man’s brand had been Viceroyals, with their purple rolling paper and golden filters. In a place like Crowley the “king of cigarettes” would be more precious than diamonds.
“You’re not exactly in a position to be picky here.”
He smiled as he made a show of packing the smokes against the table with his bound hands before selecting the perfect specimen. He looked up expectantly for me to do the honors. The damned lighter was stubborn and took five flicks to catch. On the outside, I probably looked annoyed. But inside, I was counting to ten over and over and reminding myself to keep it together.
Finally, he leaned back and exhaled his first drag in a plume of gray smoke. “Blue Moon’s coming.” He’d said it too casually to be idle chitchat.
“I’m well aware.”
He paused with the cancer stick jutting from his mouth. With the fiery tip and the smoke spilling from between his lips, he suddenly reminded me of a dra
gon. The comparison was apt, I thought, because one wrong move would definitely get me burned.
“Freaks keepin’ you busy?”
All he got was a tip of my chin in response.
He raised his cuffed hands to remove the cig from his lips. “Gonna be a lot busier soon enough.”
I sighed. If I let him, he’d play this game all day. “Which begs the question, why am I here when there are criminals back in the city I could be arresting?”
“Because I want to do you a favor.”
With a snort, I leaned forward, glaring. “Sell that load of bullshit to someone who doesn’t know you.” I glanced at the digital clock over the two-way. He’d already wasted fifteen minutes of my time. “Start talking or I’m out of here.”
He tilted his head down. “As you wish. It may surprise you that even in this prison, I still receive updates from some of my previous business associates—”
“You mean the midlevel potion cookers who can barely hang on to their corners now that the coven’s disbanded?”
“Don’t interrupt me, girl!” His hands slammed down on the table so hard the cigarettes flew to the floor.
The outburst was so unexpected and violent, I reared back. When I was younger, I’d known how to tiptoe around the land mines of Abe’s temper. But the years and distance had dulled those old protective instincts, and I’d clumsily tripped over the wire that was his obsessive hatred of disrespect.
But I wasn’t an awed teenager anymore. I was a grown-assed woman who’d stared down her share of psychos as well as loaded guns. Abe’s temper was as hot as the barrel of a discharged gun, but he couldn’t hurt me anymore. At least not with his fists.
“If you speak to me like that one more time, I will walk out of this room and never return,” I said in an ice-shard voice. “Am I clear?”
His jaw clenched and unclenched, like he wanted to chew me up and spit me out. But as much as my refusal to bow down and show my neck to him pissed Abe off, he still needed me for something. So he unclenched his hands and set them in his lap, and the anger on his face cleared as quickly as a summer shower.
He cleared his throat. “As I was saying,” he continued in a quiet tone, “my associates have informed me there is a new player in the Cauldron.”
“What kind of player?” I hooked an elbow over the back of my chair to portray a casualness I didn’t feel. My heart was still thumping from the outburst. I might have called him on the bluster, but the shadowy part of me that remembered the sting of his fist had flinched.
“Raven.”
My brow rose and my heart quickened from something much more optimistic than fear. Morales and I had just talked about the possibility that Aphrodite’s thief might be a Raven. They weren’t usually strong potion cookers themselves, so in addition to money, they stole potions from coven stashes to sell for even more profit. As one might expect, they were considered the bottom feeders of the magic world. And if the Cauldron had a new one in play, things were about to get interesting.
“So?” I said to Abe, not wanting to betray my interest. “What’s one more vulture in the ecosystem?”
“During a Blue Moon?” He raised a brow and pursed his lips to challenge my casual attitude. “Especially one this psycho.” Abe leaned forward, pointing the cig at me for emphasis. “Calls himself Dionysus on account of he thinks he’s the reincarnation of that deity.”
My brows slammed down. “Dio—the Roman god of wine?”
“Greek,” Abe corrected. “Regardless, he’s crazier than a shithouse rat. And you know what happens when you mix reckless with crazy, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, shooting him a pointed look. “I’m pretty familiar with that particular combination.”
“Please, Katie. You can do better than that. Besides, I am many things, but I am never reckless.”
He had a point. Everything Uncle Abe did was calculated to impose maximum pain. Which begged a question. “Why are you coming to me with this? You could have contacted the coven leaders.”
He shrugged. “Yes, Aphrodite in particular would surely pay handsomely for this information.”
I kept my features poker-straight, but inside I was wondering how on earth he’d heard about the robbery so fast. “So why not approach her instead?”
Abe took another drag of his cigarette and blew out a succession of rings. I couldn’t help but imagine them as little nooses.
“As it happens, I seem to have developed a troubling condition since I’ve been in prison.”
I frowned. If he’d been diagnosed with some sort of disease, surely I would have been informed. “What’s that?”
“A conscience.” He chuckled, but the insincerity made it sound rusty. “As I get older and the days grow shorter, I’ve had to come to terms with certain truths.”
“Such as?”
“One day I’m going to die. And when that happens, what will I have to show for my time on this planet? Since you and the boy left, I have no blood family to speak of.” He shook his head sadly. “The regrets compound with each passing day.” He at least made an effort to sound sincere, I’d give him that. I briefly wondered if he’d even practiced that look in the scrap of polished metal that passed as a jail cell mirror. Either way, I wasn’t buying the expression or this performance.
“I’m gonna save both of us some time.” I held up a hand to stop him when he made as if to continue his line of bullshit. “There is no way in hell I am ever going to believe that you called me here for a reconciliation. Further, I’m not naive enough to believe you’d hand me a lead on a case out of the goodness of your heart.”
He had the nerve to attempt an offended expression. “Why not?”
“Because there is no goodness in you—or heart, for that matter.” I stared at him with a challenge to try to convince me otherwise. When he remained silent, I said, “So stop insulting me and tell me what you want in return for this information.”
He crushed the cigarette out right on the table. Then he took his time, brushing any stray ashes off his pant legs. Once he was settled again, he looked up. All traces of remorse were gone. Now his eyes gleamed with the calculating light of a seasoned criminal.
“Naturally, if the lead I’m giving you results in a major arrest for the MEA, I’d expect a good word with the parole board.”
The words hung there between us for a good thirty seconds before I responded.
“It’s now my turn to teach you a lesson.” I leaned forward. “You listening?”
He narrowed his eyes, but he nodded.
“The day I put a good word in for you with anyone is the day I put my Glock between my teeth.”
His smile was tight, restrained. “You keep disrespecting me like that, little girl, and I’d be happy to help you pull the trigger.”
Silence crouched between us for a good minute before I responded. Even as I tried to keep my calm, Gardner’s voice kept rolling through my head. If I stormed out and this Raven caused big trouble, it would be my badge that got melted down for scrap metal.
“You want help, I’m going to need something more traceable than an assumed alias.”
“Does this mean you’ll talk to the parole board?”
“It means I’ll tell my supervisor about your request. I don’t have power with the board.”
Abe pursed his lips and watched me for a moment. Whatever he thought during that time, it must have convinced him to take the gamble and play along. “All I know is he escaped from some mental institution in New York.”
I pulled out a small pad and wrote down a couple of notes. “Anything else?” I asked, looking down at the words I’d written. When Abe didn’t immediately respond, I looked up.
A grave expression had taken the place of his calculating smile. “My associate had reasons to believe this guy has plans for the Blue Moon.”
“What kind of plans?”
Abe raised his cuffed hands in a helpless gesture. “Don’t have anything concrete, but this came from a gu
y I trust.”
“What’s your associate’s name, then?”
“That I definitely can’t tell you.”
“Won’t, you mean.”
He shrugged, as if to imply I was splitting hairs.
“Why do you care if this Dionysus has some dire plans for the city?”
“I’m not a good man, Katie Girl. We both know that. No sense pretending otherwise.” He nodded toward the pack of cigarettes on the ground. With a martyred sigh, I threw them back on the table. He removed one and waited for me to light it before he continued. “But my ambitions have always been about money and power.” He looked up to see if I agreed. I nodded. He chose to believe the move was agreement, but I meant it as encouragement to continue. “Ravens? Those assholes have no honor.”
I snorted.
“Laugh all you want. Least I live by a code. Take care of my people, my family, and I give a man a chance to prove I can trust him. But Ravens are a different breed. They get off on chaos. Ain’t no more chaotic time than the Blue Moon. I’m tellin’ ya, there’s some dirty shit coming, Katie Girl.”
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him hard. “Why should I believe you?”
“Says the girl who turned her back on her family to go work with the Mundane pigs.” He let feigned hurt seep into his words. I didn’t take the bait, simply stared at him without a lick of remorse on my face. Finally, he shrugged. “Think of me what you will, but the Cauldron is mine. Always has been. Cops thought that would change if they stuck me on this island.” He blew out a plume of smoke. “They were wrong.” He licked his lips, and the resulting shine reminded me of venom. “I won’t let some fucking Raven destroy everything I built.”
Unlike Gardner, I could put up with some bullshit in my life. But there was a limit to how much I was willing to wade through from my uncle. He’d overplayed his hand with the martyr routine. “And we’re done here.” I scooted the chair back. “I’d say it’s been nice chatting with you, but I’d rather have spent the last hour getting a root canal with a rusty hook.”
