A Mate Worse Than Death

by J. L. Ray

  Tony got very still. “Rhymes? He was rhyming? How long did that last?”

  Guard Edwina looked confused, then considered the question. “Huh, you know, it lasted about five or six days, give or take. I didn’t pay much attention except for when it finally quit, y’know? Like you don’t notice how much pain hurts until it stops.”

  “Had he been visited by a female Being right before the rhyming started? This is really important.”

  “Gotta check the records, but I think so.”

  “Ah, hell.” She turned and looked back at the table and its occupants. “Gimme a minute, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ah, Guard Edwina?”

  “Yo?”

  “You wearing a charm against glam?”

  “In here? I got the whole nine yards. You name a charm, I got it. We got all kinds of Beings in here, no lie, and most of ‘em would just as soon glam, damn, and thank you ma’am, even an old fart like me. I’m warded up the wazoo.”

  “Okay, then. Good to know. Like I said, gimme a minute.”

  “You got it.”

  Tony walked back to her seat, but stood, looming over both Phil and Adonis. “You had lots of ‘friends’ at Monster-Mate, didn’t you?” she asked Adonis, trying to use her height to intimidate him. He tended toward being a dominant, but she thought she could back him down to submissive, just because of the atmosphere of Lock Up itself and because it sounded like his problems started a long time ago with two very dominant women lovers. If she came across as a dominant, then he might start to picture her that way.

  “Lots of friends,” he murmured, “lovely, soft, with skin that was easy to mark--”

  Tony interrupted, suddenly aware that even listening to Sammeal hadn’t made her skin crawl like this. She slammed her hand down on the table in front of him, startling both him and Phil. She saw the guards move out in the edge of her peripherals, but Guard Edwina must have reined them in. “Which of those friends managed to fuck you on a visit here in Lock Up recently?”

  Adonis started laughing and for a few minutes she didn’t think he’d quit, but finally he calmed down enough to answer. “Detective Tony Newman, I am a new man myself, or perhaps I should say new, but no longer a man. I have nothing with which to fuck.” He giggled some more. “Nothing in my pants, nothing in my pants, nothing at all in my pants.”

  “That’s not entirely true though, is it? I’m sure a creative entity like yourself found some way to get off. I can’t imagine you would let Serena come all the way up here without giving her the warmest welcome you could manage.”

  Phil started at the sound of his executive assistant’s name, but he managed to keep quiet.

  Adonis, so obviously out of his mind at this point, giggled some more putting his head down on his arms for a while. Then he turned his head and looked up at Tony from his folded arms, “Oh she received a warm, wet welcome,” and he licked his lips.

  Tony slapped the table again, this time in relief that she could end this nasty fiasco of an interview. “And that’s a damn wrap, folks. Guard Edwina, let’s go crosscheck some files.” She looked at the guards. “Take him back to his cell.” And she and Phil followed Guard Edwina out the door, walking a bit faster than needed, trying to outrun the sound of Adonis’s mad giggling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After leaving the interview room and picking up their personal items, Tony and

  Phil went to Guard Edwina’s office, where she pulled up the visitor’s log and checked the listing. A month ago, a nymph had visited Adonis, and while the name listed wasn’t Serena Melinoe, neither Tony nor Phil had any doubt at all that she was the one. Guard Edwina shook her head as she realized that somehow, that particular visitor had figured out a way to circumvent all the failsafes in place to keep a Being like Adonis from touching or being touched by a visitor. Because of his crimes, a conjugal visit would never have gotten approval from any authority. Yet somehow, that is exactly what had to have happened.

  “I’m gonna find out who let that crap happen on my block and then I’m gonna rip that person a new one, right before I stuff the idiot in a cell myself,” Guard Edwina growled, her hand sitting on her gun and almost twitching with the urge to shoot someone for such a huge infraction of the rules for criminally insane prisoners.

  Tony called the Lieutenant at that point, to make sure that he knew what they were up against. Serena seemed too amazingly ditzy to be capable of planning and executing so circuitous a plot against Monster-Mate and Mephistopheles, but apparently the dumb blonde act was exactly that, an act.

  After returning to the hanger and retrieving Nick, they flew in silence for a short time, Tony too preoccupied even to fire up her favs list. Phil had been surprised by the extent of the obvious mental damage to his predecessor, despite knowing that Adonis had never been the most stable of Beings. Too many years of being passed back and forth from Persephone to Aphrodite. Still, the extent of his insanity had been quite frightening. After living so many years, perhaps the only thing older Beings still held onto was the self and the world one inhabited in the now. The Now had to count to keep from lingering in the Not-Now. To be so out of touch with that world and that self, to descend into such darkness--Phil couldn’t, no he wouldn’t, imagine what that was like.

  Tony finally broke the silence. “So. What do you know about Serena?”

  Phil thought for minute, then said to her. “She worked for Aphrodite first, so she has been with the dating service since the very beginning. I believe that she actually started when it did in 1989, at the beginning of the invocation of the Geas and before it was a dot com. I agreed to keep her on.”

  “She’s older than I thought,” Tony murmured. She glanced back at Phil, “I guess most of you are older than I thought, huh?”

  “A hit, a palpable hit,” Phil grinned and murmured back, quoting one of his favorite clients. “Your comments about age aside, she is relatively young for a Supernatural being. I have her application forms.” He held his hands up in between himself and Tony and muttered a few words. Between his hands, a viewer formed that showed the application file for Serena Melinoe. “Hmmm.”

  “What?”

  “She came over after the Geas was invoked.”

  “Well, shit,” Tony turned back to look at Phil. “So the Geas could leave her alone if we don’t get her.”

  “Or it might not.” He looked down at the display between his hands. “I had forgotten she originated in the Greek Isles when she came over.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “It means that she would have had contact with Aphrodite prior to working at Monster-Mate. The ‘Greek gods’ are the Greek gods because of their point of origin from Fairie.”

  “Hmm. So Aphrodite asked for Adonis to take over for her. Their story is?”

  “Ah, so that one does not make it into the school books? Unsurprising. Mundanes in the Americas are still more prudish than their European cousins.”

  Tony sighed and told Phil, “You have a nice long chat with Melly about that some time. I’m sure that’ll be something that she studies in one of her cultural anthro classes. And I’d bet money that one is in the books here. It’s just not in mine. Enlighten me.”

  Phil’s mouth twitched. “Well, then the quick version?”

  “Any version would be nice at this point.”

  “Aphrodite fell in love with a beautiful youth and used him as a sexual partner. When I say youth, I mean a twelve year old boy.” He felt Tony stiffen and shake her head. “Oh, it gets worse. Persephone wanted him, too. The two goddesses fought over him and finally compromised by passing him back and forth between them. From the age of thirteen on, he was passed back and forth between the two like a favorite toy.” He shook his head. “I always thought he had an unhealthy relationship with the two, and I stayed away from them all, both in Mundania and the Fairie Realms. He acquired enough power to break free, yet never seemed to choose to do so.”

  “So, do you suppo
se he has Stockholm syndrome?”

  “I think that having spent his youth with two powerful Beings who used him sexually, he never had a chance at being a normal anything.” Phil shook his head, “And now we see the end result of all of that.”

  “He’s a scary guy,” Tony agreed quietly.

  “He is a victim, too,” Phil declared calmly, adding, “but that does not excuse his actions. And if he and Serena both served Aphrodite, either Aphrodite herself is connected to the plot, or Serena and Adonis have a long-term relationship that is the motivation for Serena to help him. However, I have to point out that there was no clear indication that she was involved with or knew what Adonis had been doing until right at the end when the Geas...well...when he was taken away to Lock Up.”

  “Who had access to the office reports that might have implicated her?”

  Tony felt Phil stiffen, then sag. “Yes, of course. Serena did. Serena has access to everything at Monster-Mate. Who would ever suspect such a child of anything so heinous?” She felt him heave a sigh. “Certainly, it would never have occurred to me or I would not have kept her on at M and M when I let most of the rest of the staff go to other assignments.”

  Tony sat silently for a minute, thinking. Finally she said, “Do you really think Aphrodite is involved?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “She got permission to leave Mundania and go back to Fairie from the Powers That Be. That’s pretty unusual, right?”

  “Almost unheard of. Especially for a being who had so much power and had used it so ill in Mundania in the past. In fact, she may be the only case I know of in which that boon was granted.” Phil shrugged. “I did not believe that it was possible. And for her to go back, the Powers That Be would have investigated her thoroughly before allowing the spellcasting.” He turned to Tony to make his point. “The Great Outing and the effects of the Geas allowed the Powers That Be to trap some of the worst creatures of Fairie here in Mundania where the Geas then controlled some of the worst of their actions. Compared to Fairie, Mundania lacks much in the way of serious magical charge, so many creatures here are comparatively powerless. Keeping them here is what you call a win-win situation, I believe. It is to the Fairie Realm’s benefit.”

  Tony snorted and responded, “So that’s what happened to you? It doesn’t seem as much of a win for the Mundane side of that equation.” She thought for a second. “But that suggests that Aphrodite had to be at least reasonably clean to be able to pass muster with the PTB, or she wouldn’t have been kicked through the gate.”

  “They don’t actually kick people through.”

  “You know what I mean,” Tony smiled.

  “Yes, I suppose I do. ”

  “I’m not a big fan of Aphrodite all of a sudden. I’d like to see her get a good swift kick.” She paused for a moment. “We can probably cross Aphrodite off the suspect list, but I’ll ask the Lieutenant.”

  “I agree that she probably is not a part of this, but yes, there is no point in assuming.”

  “There you go--you’re on to whole issue with the assuming thing now,” she smiled at the back of Nick’s head in front of her.

  Cal and the Lieutenant had gotten Heraphina’s home address, an apartment in Georgetown. Its location made it a pricey kind of place for someone who worked as a receptionist, but the area near the university held a kind of bohemian air that appealed to some of the fae, especially witches.

  “How is she paying for this place?” Cal muttered as they found a parking space nearby, thanks to the Super Bureau’s mandatory equipment, in this case a Meter Made, which would free up a space for a police vehicle by shifting the other vehicle into a limbo Realm. Nothing ever happened to the cars shifted out of Mundane space, and if the owner showed up looking for the car, then it would shift back by taking the place of another non-police vehicle nearby. While it had, at first, led to lots of cases of unnecessary tests for dementia or memory loss for the Mundane car owners, the general public adjusted to the new reality and got in the habit of looking in adjacent spots for the cars they’d left parked on side streets in parking space challenged cities.

  “I suspect Heraphina still does some spellcasting on the side to help pay the rent on this place,” the Lieutenant told Cal as they got out of the vehicle. “Or perhaps she and her sisters are more financially solvent than most witches.” He stood for second by the police car, then said, “If she is at her apartment, there is a good chance she’ll try to run. Are you prepared to give chase?”

  “On the ground, sure, Lieutenant. But what if she grabs her broom?”

  “Ah. Good point.” The Lieutenant turned back to the police vehicle and popped the trunk. “There should be--yes, there is. Here. A T-Charm.” The T-Charms had been developed to take down broom-riding witches using a small, magic-controlled tornado that was set to the broom’s rider like a guided missile. Witches had become a nuisance in Mundania because so may had gotten caught on the wrong side of the Realms when the Great Outing happened. The T-Charm had been developed by police mages to help catch particularly egregious offenders, witches or the occasional and, happily, quite rare wizard. “Let’s go.”

  The building, a relatively older one from the 1940s that had beautifully well-maintained wood floors and recently renovated exposed brick walls in the stairwell, had no elevator. It also had no Supersized doors, so Cal and the Lieutenant entered carefully and walked up three flights of stairs. All the while, Cal had to mind his head. He got conscientious about it once he’d banged it against the structure above him a few times. Azeem simply went into a stalking crouch. The two entered the third floor hallway where Heraphina’s apartment should have been located. There was just one problem. The entire section of the building where her apartment should be seemed to have vanished.

  Cal and the Lieutenant looked at each other, and for once, even Azeem was at a loss, jaw hanging open, ears down, tail flat.

  “What the hell? This should be the floor, right?” Cal asked.

  “I can honestly say that I have never seen such a thing in all my years on the force.” He stared at the empty space. It seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. “Yes, Cal. She must have gotten away. We’ll have to look for her elsewhere.” He turned back to the door that led to the stairwell.

  “Uh, Lieutenant? What about--”

  Azeem interrupted him, “Next of kin? Yes, detective, we’ll have to try the other sisters next. Now, come along, Cal.”

  They went through the door, and Azeem stopped as soon as it had shut behind them. “She’s still there,” Azeem told Cal in a whisper.

  “What? Still where?” he asked.

  “The apartment has been spelled so that it looks like it is gone, but that wall faces the street where we parked. It was there, yes?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess so, sir. I mean,” Cal scrunched his face and tried to bring up the memory. “We woulda noticed a big gaping hole, am I right?”

  Azeem nodded. “So if you aren’t here to see her, no worries. If you are, when you get to her door, no door, no walls, no apartment, no Heraphina. Only, that’s what she wants you to think, right?”

  “Indeed. But we are on to her, and now she can’t escape.”

  “Indeed,” Cal said, copying the Lieutenant and savoring the word. Tony said he needed to work on his diction, and when he had time and looked that up, he found out it meant word choices. Well, here he was, dealing with witches and word choices, all in the same day. He grinned. “So whadda we do, sir?”

  “We’ll need a charm to counteract her spell. It isn’t standard issue, so I’ll call Glinda for a special request. Then we’ll have to stay here until it is delivered. I am afraid that if we leave, Heraphina will truly disappear.”

  “So, we wait?”

  “We wait.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  While they were waiting, Tony checked in with them on her f-light from Lock Up. Her news had both her partner and supervisor riled. Azeem’s tail flicked so hard he actually slapped Cal sever
al times. The ogre found himself in the unenviable position of asking his boss to keep his flapping tail to himself. Azeem took it better than he expected. As Tony filled them in on her conversation with Adonis and her suspicions about Serena, Cal was all but jumping out of his skin.

  Once Azeem ended the conversation with Tony, Cal railed,“I gotta be the most gullible ogre on the face of the planet! That little nymph played me like a violin.” Then he grimaced, “I wonder if Heraphina is even involved in this whole plot? Are we wasting time here? ‘Cause we are seriously running low on time to waste, am I right?”

  “Do not fret, Detective Kelly. I am sure that we are ahead of any potential...deadline.” Both Beings winced. “I am also quite sure that Heraphina is involved. I believe that she has realized that Serena is ready to sell her out to cover her own involvement. Heraphina is a pawn in all of this.”

  Cal paled to a pastier yellow shade than normal, “That’s bad. That’s really, really bad. Witches get very angry over shit like this. Pied Piper of Hamlin angry, French Revolution angry, bringing back shoulder pads for women’s suits angry, y’know?”

  Azeem stared at his detective, fascinated by the low-voiced diatribe as they still sat in the stairwell, awaiting the Visi-Charm to bring back the apartment to a visible spectrum. “You have been watching What Not to Wear reruns again, haven’t you?” Azeem asked.

  “Berthell! Berthell has been watching--I just watch to keep her company!” Cal whispered furiously. “Sure, it’s a great show. And I am totally aware that Clinton is not even a distant relative. I get coincidence, y’know? I mean, I love the show now, but it’s Berthell who got me started.”

  “Of course,” Azeem agreed.

  “What?”

  “I’m sure Berthell got you started on it.”

  Cal narrowed his eyes. “I wonder how much longer before the charm gets here.”

  “Oh, any time now.”