SkinThief

by Sonnet O'Dell

  “Can you imagine how determined he’d be for someone who was blood? And when he’s got magic on his side to boot, then I would be worried—wouldn’t you?”

  He rolled his eyes and blew his breath out through his teeth.

  “Pfft. Magic? Really!”

  I held up my hand and made fire come to it. He was so startled that he knocked over his chair as he scrambled for the nearest corner.

  “Have you ever seen real magic before, Mr. Powell? I don’t mean card tricks or sawing a woman in half. I mean real power, over objects, over people?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he’s walking around with power—the power to take over anybody he pleases. You’re a walking bull’s-eye, and your assassin could be anyone, anyone you pass on the street, who comes to your door. You’ll always be waiting for that one moment...”

  Hamilton opened the door into the interrogation room.

  “Cassandra, enough! The lawyer is on his way.”

  “And suddenly it’s all gone,” I said, making the fire vanish from my hand. I scooped up the photos, stuck them back in the file, and followed Hamilton out of the room. He closed the door and smiled at me.

  “You think he’s cracked?”

  “I got him to cry lawyer. Fifty-fifty chance that he’s either going to negotiate, or he’s going to clam up and take his chances. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  * * * *

  We watched Kensington Powell talk to his lawyer through the one-way glass. They were arguing, his lawyer trying to persuade him of something while Powell buried his head in his hands, shaking it a lot.

  Benjamin, Rourke, Hamilton and I were all crammed into the little room; if it looked like he was capitulating, we had to figure out what we wanted and how we were going to use him to trap Petrovich.

  “So what is it we want?” Hamilton asked.

  “The name,” Rourke said. “I want to know the guy behind them all. Mr. Big. Once we have it, we can involve Organized Crime for more manpower.” Hamilton nodded and turned to me.

  “I want to know the details of Nikki Lewis’s death, what happened to the granddaughter? And I want his help in catching Petrovich.”

  “You want to use him as bait?” Benjamin asked.

  “Does he deserve any better?” I asked.

  Benjamin shook his head. “No, I agree with you. He’s the perfect bait for a sting. I have an idea.”

  Benjamin described the perfect setup for a way to trap Petrovich. I threw in some ideas that we could work into the plan. Benjamin said it would be best to use me as the inside person, because even Petrovich would not believe Rourke as a flirty girlfriend for the purposes of the plan. The lawyer tapped on the glass; they were ready to talk to us directly.

  “How are we handling this?” Hamilton asked.

  “You and Cassandra talk to the lawyer; D.S. Hodgeson and I will set up the sting.”

  They filed out and I stared after them for a minute, my mouth open. Benjamin coming up with a good idea was like watching a miracle. You know it can happen, but you’re still really surprised when it does.

  “You okay to do this?”

  I nodded and followed Hamilton back into the interrogation room. The lawyer had calmed his client and was resting his hands on Kensington Powell’s shoulders, keeping him in his chair.

  “My client is ready to talk for the promise of immunity and police protection.”

  “We can agree to that,” Hamilton said, crossing his arms and letting me take the chair. “As long as he meets our conditions.”

  “Those being?” the lawyer questioned. He was a slick-looking man in his thirties.

  “We want his boss; we want to know about Nikki and Anna Lewis; and we want his cooperation in a sting to catch Petrovich.”

  He whispered into his client’s ear, and I watched him nod slowly. He took a deep breath and raised his head.

  “I work as the personal assistant of Robert Sardi.”

  “The millionaire property tycoon,” Hamilton said. Powell nodded again very slowly. He seemed drained. Had I really scared him that badly?

  “That is his main legitimate enterprise, but he handles a lot of different side ones, a great deal of them illegal. He was dating Nikki on and off for years, even during her brief marriage to that Lewis character. When Anna turned twelve, Sardi noticed something about the girl—a resemblance to his mother that made him get her blood tested.”

  I jumped in, figuring out the story.

  “Anna was his and Nikki had lied about it?”

  “Yes, but testing her behind Nikki’s back really pissed Nikki off. She was a tenacious, controlling woman at the best of times, just like Sardi, which is why they broke up so often. She threatened to take Anna and vanish.”

  “So Sardi ordered her killed?”

  “Yes but that task was given to Dietrich. I don’t know this Warner guy, never heard of him, and I don’t know what it had to do with Charles. He is—sorry, he was one of Mr. Sardi’s personal bodyguards.”

  “He was there,” I said with determination. “He was there because Sardi was there—he went to watch. Sick bastard.”

  “Maybe; I don’t know. Mr. Sardi called me. I was just supposed to go to the school and pick Anna up. I’ve done it before, and I took her back to Mr. Sardi’s place. She’s fine as far as I know.”

  “Can you move on Sardi with that information?” I asked, leaning back to look up at Hamilton.

  “As soon as we have Petrovich. As long as Mr. Powell sticks to his willingness to testify and help us catch Petrovich.”

  “How do we trap him?” Powell asked, his eyes darting between Hamilton and myself.

  “Well,” I said with a jubilant smile, “you and I are going on a date.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I was given an hour to go home and freshen up. LeBron went with me, driving us in his own car rather than a police cruiser so that we didn’t attract any attention. I let us into my apartment to find my duffle sitting on the couch and Nancy curled up in the armchair. She opened one catty eye at me and checked out LeBron.

  His elfness left the bag; he seemed less than happy. You two fighting again?

  I nodded toward Nancy as answer. LeBron, although into the supernatural for a normal guy, was too new to it to be introduced to the idea that my cat had once been a fully grown woman and would be again in approximately two years. She and I were friends, and if I hadn’t gone with her, I was sure she would have done a lot more damage than she did; it was still enough to get her turned into a cat for five years. Nancy had issues with authority, and blowing up her mentor’s lab at the magical school had been the last straw. She’d told me we were just going to play a prank on him. I’d gotten off really lightly—slap on the wrist, really—but the wizard council had seen fit to punish Nancy severely. She, of course, now resented them and their authority even more. I also suspected that she resented the fact the council refused to take authority over me. I didn’t know why; the only excuse they’d ever given me was I wasn’t a witch.

  These days, that bothered me a lot more than it had. If I wasn’t a witch, what was I? There were many different words for humans who used magic—witch, sorceress, wizard, warlock, sorcerer, shaman; I wondered if each different word was also a different classification. I pushed it to the back of my mind, along with all the other questions I was saving up for the next time I saw Virginia. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas; she had said she would call me when she’d gotten a new grounding element for the spell to help cleanse my aura. I also wondered if what Truth had said—that my aura was changing color—would affect that spell.

  I shook my head and tried to focus on the task at hand. I made LeBron a cup of coffee, sat him down on the couch and told him he could watch whatever he wanted on the TV while I took a shower. I went into m
y bedroom, closed the door and started to un-braid my hair. I got a quarter of it un-braided before I heard a crackling sound, and dried blood flaked onto my clothing like dandruff. I stripped down and climbed in the shower. Hot water felt good, and I had to lather, rinse and repeat three times before I was sure I had gotten all the blood out of my hair. I dried off and started looking through my wardrobe for date clothes. I wasn’t really going on a date with Kensington Powell—he was far too old for me, for a start, without the excuse of being part elf like Magnus. We just had to make it look like a date, enough to fool Petrovich.

  Benjamin’s plan was simple. He was sure Petrovich had to be watching Powell’s home by now, waiting for him to come back, for the chance to get him alone. Powell would use the service entrance to his apartment building, sneak up, change for the date and come out the front, where Petrovich would see him and follow. He would meet me at the restaurant, where we would have a dinner just long enough for Rourke and Hamilton to establish that Petrovich was indeed following us; then we would head for the hotel. Benjamin had taken out two rooms, one for myself and Powell, while he and LeBron would be in the one next door watching through cameras. I’d already been to the room to check it out and drawn a circle with some symbols into the carpet. It was basically a magical cage. All I needed was for Petrovich to stand in it and I could activate it with some of my blood—which was another reason I had to be in the room with Powell. Once we had Petrovich, Hamilton and the organized crime boys were going to put into play an operation to take Sardi and extract Anna Lewis from his grasp. It was all pretty well thought out, which was unusual for Benjamin, to say the least.

  I pulled a little black dress out of my wardrobe. It was low cut without being slutty, and the skirt, although short, was a decent-enough length. It looked good with black tights and the ankle-high black boots I intended to wear. I dried my hair with the hairdryer before dressing and sitting at my makeup table to put on my face. I had decided that I should leave my hair down—I didn’t want Petrovich to recognize me—but still, it was a distinct lot of brown hair. I stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. It was an easily fixed problem with a little concentration and some magic.

  Glamour—a spell affecting the eye, making objects appear different from what they really are. It was basic magic 101. I laced my fingers over my forehead and concentrated my power into them, my will to affect the change I wanted people to see. Slowly I dragged my hands back over my hair, changing its color from my own lovely chestnut brown to shimmering golden blonde. I smiled at my reflection and started brushing through my hair. When I pulled the brush away, the hair I saw was still brown—the blonde color was just the illusion it was supposed to be. I’d changed the color of my hair this way once or twice before. It was a lot of hair so I could only do it for about a night or so. I could change the color of my eyes, too but I never had. I liked my eyes; they were my mother’s eyes, right there in the middle of my face, an eternal reminder of her with me always. I kept my locket on just in case this ended up rolling on till morning. But as soon as I could get out of there, I needed to. The locket was losing power, slowly, but enough that I knew it would burn out before too long and would have to be recharged again.

  I stepped out of the bedroom, finally ready, and watched LeBron’s face as he took me in. He stood up and gave me a generous amount of consideration.

  “You look good as a blonde.”

  Nancy raised her catlike face to me, and it wrinkled in an unpleasant way.

  You really don’t.

  I grumbled a little and picked her up with a mean glint in my eye.

  “It’s time for the fluffy wuffy kitties to go outside for the night.”

  Bitch, it’s cold out there.

  I opened the front door and threw her out into the hall. She started cursing at me in her head for treating her like a cat and throwing her outside when there was still snow on the ground. I shut the door, and LeBron looked at me, puzzled. I was sure he found it weird that I had such a satisfied grin on my face. I grabbed my jacket and went to the duffle in search of the other bits and pieces I might need. I’d had a mind to put my keys and my phone in my jeans pocket at the hospital, but I’d left things like my wallet and my ID in the duffle, which I’d left in the back of Magnus’s car after our earlier fight. I was glad he hadn’t been angry enough to hold on to it to spite me. I really had some bridges to mend when I had some time.

  I sighed. We’d only just made up as well, and now we were back to fighting again. It was the only problem with dating an older, old-fashioned man—he was set in his ways and tried to get you to conform to them. It was probably another reason I hadn’t gone for Aram, although vampires were very good at adapting to the times.

  “You ready to go? Hamilton wanted you back before we go to the restaurant so he can put a wire on you,” LeBron said.

  I nodded sadly, wishing I had the time to call Magnus and sort things out with him before I went and put myself in danger again, but I just didn’t.

  I followed LeBron back down to the car, and he drove us around to the police building. We got several whistles as we walked through the corridors, which made LeBron shout at his fellow officers. I ignored them; I had heard worse this week. We went up to Homicide. Hamilton was intently focused on some equipment when I sat on the edge of the desk. I crossed my legs over each other, waiting until I had his attention. He rolled his eyes up and his gaze stayed on my head, staring.

  “Something the matter, Hamilton?”

  “You’re blonde?”

  “You’re quick,” I said, trying not to laugh. “Didn’t want Petrovich to recognize me.”

  “Magic?”

  “Magic!” I re-crossed my legs, and his eyes followed the line of my black tights. “LeBron said you want me to wear a mike or something.”

  “Yes,” he said, routing in the little pile of technology he had there and pulling out a little ball with a small wire and a thin battery pack. “We need to tape this to your lower chest, and the pack should clip nicely to the back of your bra. Just hold still and...”

  Rourke appeared behind him and snatched the mike and pack off him.

  “I’ll do that,” she said and shooed Hamilton off.

  “Why Rourke, are we not wanting to share?”

  “Enough cheek, you,” she said. “Now breathe in.” She was very clinical about fastening the mike into place and then the battery pack. She touched me as little as possible but made sure it was all in place. She handed me an earpiece, which I pocketed for later. “You’re all right to do this?”

  I looked at Rourke; it must have been the first time I had seen even slight concern on her face. I hopped down off the desk and made sure the pack didn’t rattle.

  “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

  “When I was told to give you that case, I thought it was just going to be a bunch of crap, really. I should have known, though—the minute you get involved, things escalate.”

  “Trying to say you think I’m a danger magnet?”

  “If only it were that simple. I don’t know what it is about you, Farbanks, but people seem willing to follow you. Hamilton is taken by you, LeBron swears by you, and even under all his snideness I know Hodgeson thinks you’re brave.”

  “But you still don’t like me.”

  She fought a little smile.

  “Not even one little bit.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t die.”

  I watched her walk away from me and thought that was probably the nicest thing she was ever going to say to me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I sat across from Kensington Powell in an Italian restaurant on the corner of Edgar Street, within walking distance of the Fownes Hotel where our rooms were. I knew Hamilton and Rourke were just around the corner, sitting in a car and watching the street as secretly as they could, looking out for Petrovich in Oliver Warner
’s body.

  I was twirling pasta around my fork, watching Kensington order more champagne for the table. I shook my head but tried to look like I was enjoying myself. We could be seen through the window, which was the reason we had chosen this table. I had to look like I was happy to be on a date with this man.

  “Are you sure you won’t have some champers?” he said, and he hiccupped a little as he did. I rolled my eyes and looked at the waiter to help me out here.

  “Can we have some water, and can you cut him off from the bar, please?” The waiter nodded, and I stared at Kensington as he topped off his glass. The bottle ran dry and I was thankful for that. He looked around for the waiter.

  “Where’s my champagne? I’ve ordered more champagne. Why aren’t they bringing it?”

  “Because I told them not to,” I said, breaking a breadstick in half. He glared at me.

  “This might be my last meal, and you’re spoiling it for me!”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, Kensington. I’ll make sure of that, but this isn’t going to work if you’re too soused to make it back to the hotel room.”

  I adjusted the strap of my bra because the battery pack was uncomfortable; when I looked back at Kensington, he was staring down my dress with no shame.

  “You know you’re very pretty for a cop,” he said, smiling at me a little sloppily. I stuck the end of the breadstick in some sauce and bit the end of it. Kensington licked his lips.

  “I’m not a cop—I’m a Paranormal Investigator.”

  “You’re hot. Do that thing with the breadstick again.”

  I cocked my eyebrow at him and then returned to eating my pasta. I wasn’t going to let him order anything else unless it was coffee. He rested his cheek on his palm.