Ashes and Arsenic

by SM Reine

  “Keep an eye here. I’ll guide the team in.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  Suzy headed outside to make the call. Alone, I paced around the circle, eyeballing the other elements of the ritual.

  I kept a small collection of things I’ve found at crime scenes. Nothing big—souvenirs, I guess you could call them. Things that don’t need to be stored for safekeeping in the OPA’s warehouse but are interesting enough to warrant further study.

  I knew better than to fuck with evidence for an open investigation, but I started mentally shopping for souvenirs I’d like to take from the ritual later. The spell was pretty unorthodox. In addition to the usual ingredients, these witches had left trinkets I didn’t recognize. Looked like some little gold sculptures. Maybe idols to gods I didn’t worship?

  Kneeling, I snapped a few shots with my cell phone. As soon as I got reception again, it’d sync with the OPA database, start running searches.

  Somewhere in the warehouse, a door opened and slammed shut again.

  The door I’d entered through had been too burned out, too weak, to slam like that. And the footsteps I heard crossing the catwalk were too heavy to be Suzy’s.

  I took cover behind the toppled desk at the back of the loft. I couldn’t see much around the fire pit. Couldn’t see who was approaching.

  Women spoke.

  “I’m telling you, he’s around.” That came from a woman. “We picked him up as soon as he got within a half-mile of the circle. He’s dumping energy everywhere.”

  “Then where’d he go?” Another woman.

  I peered over the top of the desk. The newcomers were arrayed around the circle, faces illuminated by flame. They were all female. All of them wore pentacles, bells, and holsters.

  Witches. Four of them, carrying guns.

  That probably sounds weird—witches with guns. Who needs bullets when you can blow shit up with the right combination of herbs, oils, and crystals?

  Witches. That’s who.

  Magic’s not real convenient for fighting. The kind of spells that can be deadly are also complicated. It takes the right conditions, preparation, and ritual. Even if you’ve got your circle set up in advance, you’re still likely to get shot in the face before you can execute your spell.

  Every time I’ve come across witches with bad attitudes, they’ve had guns. More OPA agents die of gunshot wounds than curses.

  I hadn’t gotten shot yet.

  But it was still early in the day, to be fair.

  Something clicked behind me. A muzzle nudged the back of my head. Modern guns don’t need to be cocked before they’re fired, but it’s a distinctive sound—good for effect. Great for when you want someone to hear it and know shit’s about to get real.

  “Drop the weapon,” said the woman behind me.

  Five witches. There were five of them.

  I engaged the safety, opened my hand, let the Desert Eagle fall to the floor. The woman behind me kicked it away. She was wearing motorcycle boots with buckles.

  “Don’t turn around,” she said. “Just stand up. Hands over your head.”

  Not much point in arguing with a lady who was one twitch of the finger away from blowing my brains out.

  When I stood up, the four witches around the fire spotted us. “Aisha! You found him!” A short, old witch headed around the circle to inspect me. Her fist clutched a golden statuette, a lot like the one inside the circle. She gave me a critical look. “You’d have been smarter to run.”

  “He was armed,” Aisha said. I finally got a good look at her, rather than just her legs.

  Aisha was a black woman with curly hair. I’d seen her before.

  She’d blown up my brother’s house just that morning.

  One of the other witches approached. She had the look of a woman who’d stuck her hairpin in a light socket, all jittery-eyed under wild curls. “What’s that?” They’d spotted the FBI badge sticking out of my pocket.

  “I’m a federal agent,” I said when the old witch lady reached for it. “You need to put down all your weapons right now.”

  Crazy Eyes wavered. The others didn’t.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Aisha snapped. “He’s not a goddamn FBI agent. He’s obviously working for the priest we’re looking for.”

  Priest? She meant Domingo.

  They probably weren’t hoping to take him out to a nice dinner. Not with all the guns and charms they were carrying.

  Good thing I’d sent him off to buy drinks at the gas station.

  Since I wasn’t the guy they’d been expecting to find, the witches didn’t seem to know what to do with me. I didn’t want to give them time to figure it out.

  I elbowed Aisha in the gut. She hit the floor, scuffed the chalk line with her knee.

  The old woman drew her gun. “Shoot him!”

  I planted a hand on the railing, launched myself over the side of the catwalk. That instant of free fall made my stomach leap into my throat.

  Gunshots exploded behind me. My ears rang. I covered my head with my arms and plunged feet-first into a cluster of wooden crates.

  I didn’t feel the shock of impact until I was already rolling away from the damage. Didn’t have time to dwell on it. Couldn’t decide if the stinging in my shins meant that I’d broken my legs or just gotten scraped.

  A bullet smashed into the concrete beside me.

  My momentum carried me back to my feet, and I raced across the warehouse, trying not to look back. The darkness in the warehouse was doing me favors—or else the witches were horrible shots. Bullets peppered other crates, the walls, shattered the glass. Nothing struck home.

  The burned door was open. I threw myself into daylight.

  Crossing the wards made me sneeze so hard that I lost my footing. I stumbled, hit the sidewalk, burned my palms on the sun-heated concrete.

  Couldn’t slow down. Domingo needed to be warned.

  He’d been right about everything—the witches, their powers of illusion, his innocence. I hadn’t believed him. Damn it, I hadn’t believed a goddamn thing they’d said and now they were going to sacrifice him like Ahmed and Susana.

  Suzy was standing on the corner, watching for the arrival of the Union unit. I raced toward her. As soon as she spotted me, she jerked her gun out of its holster. “What happened?” she asked.

  There wasn’t time to explain. The witches were emerging from the warehouse now, and I could tell just by Suzy’s expression that they were still armed.

  “Get down!” I roared.

  I hit her like a linebacker, carrying her to the sidewalk just in time for bullets to buzz over our heads.

  The impact had to hurt her. I was easily twice her size. But she didn’t make a sound—just grabbed my shirt, dragged me around the corner of the building. “Where the fuck did they come from?” she asked, disengaging her safety. Sounded like she was talking from three blocks away. My ears were still aching from proximity to the gunfire.

  “They were there the whole goddamn time,” I said.

  Suzy glanced around the building, popped off a couple shots. She jumped back in time to evade the hail of gunshots that turned the corner to brick dust. “Fuck!”

  “They’re after Domingo. I have to get him.”

  “Don’t you fucking go anywhere,” Suzy said. “The Union’s two minutes out.”

  In two minutes, Domingo might be gone.

  Suzy shouted at me as I ran, heading around the block toward the gas station. My body dragged in the heat. Couldn’t seem to get my feet moving fast enough.

  The sound of gunfire faded.

  Momentary guilt tweaked at me, but Suzy would be fine. If anyone could handle half a coven’s worth of gun-happy witches, it was Agent Suzume Takeuchi.

  The gas station was a couple blocks down. I was almost there. I could see my car parked in front of the pumps.

  Domingo emerged from the front door. He had two hot dogs in one hand—a feat of digital dexterity—and an extra-extra-large soda in t
he other that had to be at least gallon-sized. He looked pale and tired, but he hadn’t been taken yet. He was okay.

  “Get in my car!” I shouted.

  Domingo took one look at me and dived for the sedan.

  It’s easiest to ward stationary objects, but vehicles can be warded, too. Warded against people, warded against demons, warded against magic. I wasn’t good enough to protect a car like that. But the OPA had witches who were, and I’d stuffed a few charms in the glovebox that would help protect Domingo until we could escape.

  I activated them with a charm in my pocket. The car seemed to blur when the magic kicked into gear, and I almost sneezed—but I was far enough back that it didn’t hit me too hard.

  Domingo locked the doors. Crawled over the center console to reach the driver’s seat.

  I was still half a block away when he punched the gas and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving behind nothing but the smell of burned rubber.

  I ran faster, waving my arms over my head. “Hey—hey! Domingo! Wait for me!”

  He was gone in a heartbeat.

  There wasn’t any point in running now. I slowed to a stop, braced my hands on my knees, struggled to catch my breath.

  What the hell?

  I’d just alerted my brother to danger and probably saved his life.

  And he’d run off without me, taking my car with him.

  A woman cleared her throat behind me, and I turned with a surge of dread crawling up my throat. One of the witches from the warehouse had somehow caught up. It was the old one with the gray hair and the idol. She didn’t have a gun, but she didn’t need one. She reeked of raw magic.

  The old witch touched my shoulder.

  The sting of magic made my sinuses itch, but I didn’t get a chance to sneeze.

  My muscles went slack and I hit the ground, unable to move. Unconsciousness sucked me under. Again.

  Goddammit, Domingo.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ABDUCTED TWICE IN TWO days.

  I was starting to feel popular.

  These guys didn’t have the courtesy to knock me out for long. I woke up right after I hit the ground with a bag over my head and tape on my mouth. They carried me to their car and left me to sit in boring darkness as they drove.

  Something hard pressed into my side for the entire ride. Considering all the shooting at the warehouse, I had a feeling that was an actual gun, not a beer bottle.

  They didn’t shoot me, though. After a while, I was dragged out of the car. The gun in my side transferred to my spine and propelled me forward.

  I didn’t need to see in order to know when I’d been taken inside a building. It was suddenly thirty degrees cooler, cold enough that it felt like my sweat would freeze, and my shoes started squeaking against tile.

  We went up in an elevator. Down a hallway. Through a door.

  The gun pushed again, forcing me to kneel.

  Someone whipped the bag off of my head.

  Blinking at the sudden light, I struggled to focus on the room around me. It looked like a hotel. A nice goddamn hotel—the kind where everybody has a concierge assigned to their room. Latticed wood separated the living room from the bedroom, which was filled with fresh flowers, fluffy pillows, and polished hardwood.

  I was kneeling at the feet of a distinguished older woman, maybe around sixty years old, who was relaxing in a chair by the window. Gray hair fell straight down her back. Her skin was creamy dark brown. She was aging well; she had a few age spots, but not a lot of wrinkles.

  Her neck and wrists were dripping with bells just like those that the gun-toting witches had worn.

  “Take that off,” she said, flicking a finger at me.

  One of her goons ripped the tape off of my mouth. Probably took half the skin on my face with it.

  At least that took care of my five o’clock shadow.

  I worked my jaw around, grimacing at how much my cheeks burned.

  Three of the five witches who had surprised me at the warehouse were in the hotel room with us. All of them were holding their guns at the ready. They were obviously protective of this woman.

  And all female.

  I hate it when the bad guys are women. I can’t punch a woman, even if she does have a gun to my head. My survival instinct is fractionally weaker than my principles.

  There was no way I’d be fighting my way out of the room, so I’d have to rely on my good looks and charm to escape.

  Yeah. Right.

  The white-haired woman took a compact off of the table next to her, like the kind that ladies keep makeup in. She ran a finger through it, leaned forward, smeared a little of the white paste on my face. As soon as the salve touched my skin, it stopped stinging. It didn’t just soothe the place the tape had ripped up. It soothed my sunburn, too.

  “There you go.” She snapped the compact shut. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Lenox,” I guessed.

  “Good. And you’re Agent Cèsar Hawke.” She had my fake FBI badge on the table. Lenox spooned a tiny portion of sugar into a teacup and stirred it. The spoon clinked pleasantly against the china. “What were you doing in my warehouse, Agent Hawke?”

  “Your warehouse, huh? Your warehouse, your creepy altar, your—”

  “I’m not admitting that I have anything to do with that altar,” Lenox said. “I own a lot of properties throughout California. I can only keep such a close eye on them.”

  Uh-huh. Sure.

  “I was in that warehouse to investigate a bank robbery,” I said. “And two murders. You’ve been busy.”

  Her spoon stopped moving. “Bold, young man. Very bold. Do you have evidence I’ve committed those crimes?”

  “If I did, would you kill me right now?”

  “Let’s not bother with hypothetical scenarios. You don’t have evidence. Don’t go mouthing off if you can’t back it up.” She tapped her spoon against the rim of the teacup, then set it down. The tea was steaming. It didn’t smell like anything I’d want to drink. It was strong, earthy, bitter. A spoonful of sugar wouldn’t do anything for that. “You know who I am, so you probably know what I do. I’m the high priestess of a powerful coven.”

  “What’s a coven?” I asked. Your typical FBI agent wouldn’t know anything about the preternatural. If there were still any chance I could save my ass by acting like an FBI agent, I’d shoot to win a fucking Oscar.

  “Please don’t pretend. I’m familiar with the Hawke family. Very familiar. You’re witches, all of you.” She lifted the teacup, took a sip, set it down. Measured movements. “I want to know why the Office of Preternatural Affairs is taking sides in a conflict between two covens. You are an OPA agent, aren’t you?”

  Lenox shouldn’t have known about the OPA. We were a secret government organization, after all. Emphasis on “secret.” Most demons didn’t know we existed until they got arrested. Even the denizens of Helltown mostly thought we were nothing more than rumor, maybe a loose alliance of federal agents who were getting into preternatural shit.

  And most witches didn’t know about us until we recruited them.

  She’d probably dropped that question to knock me off kilter. But she’d given me information at the same time, maybe accidentally.

  Either the OPA had tried to hire Lenox at some point, or they already had.

  “The OPA isn’t taking sides in anything,” I said. “We always try to keep the peace.”

  Lenox smiled faintly, as though pleased that I’d given up pretending I didn’t know what a coven was. “Would you like to know how I’m familiar with the Hawke family?”

  “Because you’re trying to kill my brother?”

  “Your brother killed members of my coven first.” She took another sip of her tea. “Surprised to hear that? You shouldn’t be. I’ve run a background check on Domingo Hawke and it was an enlightening read. I’d be surprised if you didn’t know about his history.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear her accusing Domingo of murder. Hell, that wasn’t much w
orse than a five million dollar robbery.

  She’d probably accuse him of conspiring to assassinate the president next.

  “Domingo’s not a murderer,” I said.

  “He killed my brother,” said one of the guards savagely. It was Aisha, the one who’d found me crouching behind the table. “He cut DeShawn open and—”

  “Not now, Aisha,” Lenox said.

  The guard glowered at me, eyes burning. If she hadn’t looked so hateful, and if we hadn’t met at gunpoint, I would have thought she was pretty hot. The leather leggings were doing a lot of favors for her legs. And that low-cut black shirt… She could have had a future as a model. People would pay money to stare at her.

  The two other women were equally attractive. We’re talking killer bodies to go with the killer firearms. Looked like the Half Moon Bay Coven was recruiting women from the Playboy Mansion.

  Probably shouldn’t eyeball people who want to kill me.

  I turned my attention back to the high priestess. “You were talking about evidence earlier. Where’s your evidence that Domingo’s a killer?”

  “When we can prove it, we’ll take it to the OPA,” Lenox said. “Trust me, we want justice. We’ll get it legally, too.”

  “So you don’t know anything about Ahmed MacFarlane or Susana Barb.”

  “I know that they’re members of your brother’s coven.”

  “And you abducted me because…why? For fun?”

  “My girls got carried away.” She was smiling again. Felt like she was laughing at me. “They thought you were helping Domingo Hawke and his coterie, and they were…angry. We apologize for the mistake.” Her gaze sharpened. “You wouldn’t be aiding a murderous witch, would you?”

  “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” I asked.

  Lenox fingered one of the bells on her necklace. The air hummed with magic. She was thinking about cursing me—I could tell. “I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”

  “All right. I’ll play your game. If your girls just got ‘carried away,’ then I can walk out of here whenever I want. Right?”