Ashes and Arsenic

by SM Reine

  “Not exactly,” Lenox said. She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Not for about…three more minutes, I’d say.”

  “What’s in three minutes?”

  “Horrible murder, of course.” She laughed. It would have been a pleasant sound if she hadn’t been laughing at me. “Silly man. Nothing terrible is happening. My coven is in full compliance with the law, and we have no intention of hurting you.” In an instant, she went serious—eyes dead, face slack. A chill raced down my spine. “All I wanted was a good look at your face.”

  Yeah, and she was trying to tell me she wasn’t evil.

  “Great,” I said, getting to my feet. “Then I’ll get out of here.”

  Aisha and the other goons aimed their guns at me. I stopped, lifting my hands. No sudden moves.

  I watched Lenox. Challenged her to tell them to back down with my gaze.

  She took another long drink of her tea before saying, “He’s all right, ladies. Remember—we’re in full compliance.”

  Reluctantly, the women put their guns away.

  That was when someone knocked on the door.

  “What now?” I asked. “Going to bring in another gunman to politely not-threaten my brother and me?”

  “This is your ride from the hotel,” Lenox said.

  The door swung open.

  Of all the people I expected to see, Aniruddha wasn’t one of them.

  Yet there he was. Suzy’s new piece of ass. He’d obviously come in from work. He was still wearing the monkey suit, the Bluetooth earpiece teams used to communicate with each other, his fake FBI badge clipped to his belt.

  Lenox greeted him by holding a hand out. He took it, and she pulled him down to pat his cheek. “Good to see you, Agent Banerji.”

  “You too, ma’am,” he said.

  “Nice, Aniruddha,” I said, too loudly for them to ignore. “Real nice.”

  “Don’t talk, Agent Hawke.” He gave me a warning look, jaw tight, eyes wide, nostrils flared. Like he was resisting the urge to punch me in the face.

  “Why? Don’t want to hear how much trouble your ass will be in once I escape?”

  “I’m not the one in trouble.” He turned back to Lenox. “Let me be the first to apologize for what’s happened here. Agent Hawke will be disciplined.”

  Lenox shot a smile at me. Now that I’d seen how quickly she could go from laughing to dead-eyed, that smile made me cold all over. “Oh, don’t go too hard on the boy. He’s just looking out for his brother. Who can blame him?”

  Shit. Double shit. Triple shit.

  She’d told Aniruddha about Domingo. There was no way I could keep him out of the case now.

  “Here’s his sidearm and badge,” Lenox said, pointing to the table. “We confiscated them for our safety, of course.”

  “Of course,” Aniruddha said. “I understand.”

  He handed my badge back to me. He hung on to the Desert Eagle. I didn’t like him getting his dirty paws on my gun, not one bit.

  “How’d you get this asshole on your side?” I asked Lenox. “Buy him out? Enchant his brain into obeying you?”

  “Hawke,” Aniruddha said sharply. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  I glared at Lenox. She smiled back serenely. “I’d appreciate it if you could get your agent out of my hotel room. I’m not as energetic as I used to be, and all his unfounded accusations have caused me emotional distress.”

  She was probably about as fragile as a fucking cinderblock.

  “Of course,” Aniruddha said. “My apologies. Again.” He gave me a look that was probably meant to be withering. “Let’s go, Agent Hawke.”

  Aniruddha had come to the hotel in one of our agency’s unmarked black SUVs, so he was definitely there on business. That was in direct contrast to me, who had been doing his best Hardy Boys impression in a privately owned shitmobile accompanied by an equally shitty brother.

  Sinking into the leather passenger’s seat surrounded me with an oppressive sense of guilt. The vehicle was OPA space, reminding me of OPA business and all the OPA laws I’d been trying to break.

  And I had to share that space with the guy I’d punched in the face earlier that day.

  “What is your problem?” Aniruddha hissed at me as soon as he got into the driver’s seat.

  “I could alphabetize the list for you, if you want,” I said. “Or arrange it by priority.”

  “I’m glad you think this is funny. Do you have any idea whom you’ve insulted? Have you given any thought to what this means for your job?” He turned on the car, but as soon as the dashboard computers initialized, he disabled them. The screens went dark.

  “My priority is saving lives, not filling in all the checkboxes on whatever forms the bureaucracy throws at me. What are you after?”

  Aniruddha shot an exasperated look at me. “You can save lives within the constraints of the law.”

  “Yeah, sometimes.” I didn’t much feel like arguing with him. Now that I’d escaped the witches who wanted to pump me full of bullets, I was exhausted. “What’s the deal with you and Lenox? You working for the Half Moon Bay Coven? Don’t tell me. You’re the high priest to go with the sociopathic high priestess.”

  “Lenox Pryce is consulting on the murders of Ahmed MacFarlane and Susana Barb,” Aniruddha said. “I asked her to help me figure out the pattern being established by this ritual.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  Aniruddha had called in witches to consult on ritual murders. And the witches he’d called in just so happened to be the ones who’d done the killing.

  He pulled out of the parking garage into traffic, which was exactly as terrible as you’d expect at seven o’clock at night. I was going to be stuck in the car with him much longer than I wanted.

  At least the dashboard computers were off. That meant nobody back at headquarters would be listening.

  Actually, why had Aniruddha turned those off?

  “What are the odds you’re going to try to kill me in the next ten minutes?” I asked.

  “Suzume never told me you were suffering from paranoia.”

  Suzume. For the love of hairy fuckballs. Exactly nobody called Suzy by her full name—she hated it. “What did she tell you about me?”

  “She said you’re tolerable once you get past the oafishness. That’s a huge compliment coming from her.”

  He was right about that, but I was stuck on the first part. “Oafish? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re—”

  “I know what an oaf is. Thanks.”

  “She told me you’re loyal and good at your job,” Aniruddha said. “She also said you color outside the lines on your investigations. I should have listened to her. I never would have expected to catch you harassing one of our best local consultants. After your unfounded accusations, Lenox could rain all kinds of hell on our heads.”

  “Local consultant? I wouldn’t call the Bay Area local.”

  “Her coven expanded to the area five years ago. They just never changed the name.”

  I watched his face, trying to tell if he was lying to me. I didn’t know him well enough to be familiar with his tells. He looked serious, though.

  “Five years,” I said. “You got the paperwork on that?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. I pulled it up to double check our contacts when I called Lenox.” He tossed his cell phone to me. The OPA database was already open.

  The Half Moon Bay Coven had filed paperwork with the OPA. It had several signatures on it—including that of my boss and kopis, Fritz Friederling. They were registered with our office.

  Registration meant they’d been given a list of laws they needed to obey, a waiver for the laws they didn’t, and special privileges for good behavior. Things like the ability to order obscure ritual ingredients from our suppliers.

  The address on the application was in Hidden Hills—and the date was from 2004.

  Aniruddha was telling the truth.

  W
hat did that mean about Domingo’s story about the Half Moon Bay Coven invading?

  “Shit,” I said.

  Aniruddha took his phone back. “You could have ruined this entire investigation.”

  “It seems I’ve been working on bad information.” Or at least confusing information.

  “I haven’t included Domingo Hawke’s involvement in my reports yet. The fact I’ve picked you up from Lenox’s hotel isn’t going in my reports, either. That’s why I’ve turned all this equipment off. Our conversation’s off the record.”

  “Why would you do that for me?” I asked. “You don’t owe me anything. We’re not friends. I punched you in the face.”

  Aniruddha lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I like Suzy. She likes you for no obvious reason. I don’t think she’d forgive me if you got fired, no matter how much you deserve it.”

  Suzy wouldn’t have a clue if I got fired. Every OPA agent’s contract included a clause that would magically wipe our memories if we were terminated early, removing all information about the OPA. It also wiped our coworkers’ memories. For all I knew, I could have had a hundred coworkers in the three years I’d worked for the OPA that I no longer remembered.

  If I got fired, none of my coworkers would have any clue they’d ever known me. Nobody except Fritz.

  Most people didn’t know about that, though. Our contracts were convoluted. Few of us had hired lawyers before signing on the dotted line.

  And if Aniruddha’s ignorance was the only thing keeping Domingo’s name out of OPA files for the moment, then I wasn’t going to try to explain it to him.

  “I don’t want to owe you anything,” I said.

  “Then do me a favor. All right? Don’t fuck up this investigation.”

  “It’s mine to fuck up. I’m in charge right now.”

  “Just don’t,” Aniruddha said, massaging his temples. “Go through official channels. Do it correctly. Make it easy to cover up the mistakes we’ve already made, and keep Suzume and me in the loop so we can do our jobs right. Okay?”

  Domingo wouldn’t like it. But was I really supposed to care what my brother thought? He’d ditched me, after all.

  “Fine,” I said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  EVERYONE WHO WORKS FOR the Office of Preternatural Affairs has a work-issued cell phone allowing us to connect to the OPA databases. We also receive updates about our cases via text message. And I’m pretty confident that our phone calls are recorded, reviewed, and backed up for eternity on OPA servers.

  That was why I also had a second cell phone. It wasn’t anything fancy—just a cheap flip phone, the kind of electronics that were rapidly going the way of the sabertooth tiger.

  Inside that cheap phone was a special chip to prevent it from being traced. And the sticker on the back concealed a rune that blocked magical interference, too. I hadn’t used it much yet, but I was confident it would work.

  It had been a gift from Fritz Friederling, after all.

  I called him on the way back to my apartment after work. Domingo still had my car, so I had to take the bus. I liked public transportation about as much as I liked getting herpes—thanks for the scare, Jennifer—but it had its advantages.

  For instance, there’s no better place to be anonymous than crowded public transit. It was also a good place to make a private phone call.

  Ever tried to bug someone’s conversation in a public place? I have. The interference is horrible.

  Nobody would be listening in on my chat with Fritz.

  He didn’t answer the initial call, but he rang back two minutes later. When the phone vibrated in my pocket, the man who was sitting way too close to my side shot a dirty look at me. Hey, it wouldn’t have bothered him if he’d been keeping to his own seat.

  “Cèsar. What’s wrong?” Fritz asked as soon as I answered.

  The guy next to me was listening. I turned away, watching the traffic surrounding the bus. “I need you to get into some files for me. Files beyond my clearance.”

  “Oh, really?” He sounded vaguely amused. Fritz might have been the director of the Magical Violations Department, but he had a soft spot for breaking rules.

  “Yeah. Everything on the Half Moon Bay Coven and my brother, Domingo Hawke.”

  “I’ll have them dropped off at your desk as soon as possible. Should I come back early?”

  Tempting. “No, the summit’s more important.”

  Every fifty years, powerful demons and angels got together to talk shop with human demon hunters acting as mediators. The semi-centennial summit was a big deal. The OPA had decided to get involved this year.

  Our best guys were on location at the summit, including Fritz—and a lot of Union soldiers, just in case things went south.

  I didn’t know exactly where the summit was or what they’d be discussing. Even as Fritz’s aspis, my clearance wasn’t high enough.

  Fine with me. The fewer demons I had to deal with, the better.

  Judging by the amount of rustling on Fritz’s side of the call, he was trying to prepare for another meeting. Or possibly running for his life. He always sounded calm, so it was hard to tell. “I take it that you’ve called me on the private phone because things aren’t going well at the office,” Fritz said.

  “You could say that. We’ve got a bank robbery, multiple murders, and a turf war between covens.”

  “Is that all?” As a kopis, Fritz was used to dealing with problems of an apocalyptic nature. It probably sounded like small potatoes to him.

  “It’s enough,” I said. “Trust me.”

  “I’m guessing this is all related to the call I received from processing earlier today.”

  I cringed. I hadn’t gotten to bring Fritz up to speed on that yet. “You guess right. What’d you tell them?”

  “Nothing yet. Ivanna left a message. What should I tell her?” Fritz asked.

  “Just tell her that I messed up evidence collection and that the envelope belongs to the last case, the one with the drug mules. All right?”

  His response was clipped. “Fine. Is there anything else I can do from Nevada?”

  “Probably not. How are things at the summit?”

  “Terrible. Do you remember Gary Zettel?”

  He was a commander of a Union unit. We’d worked together on a case in Reno, Nevada that had involved a murderous cult called the Apple and the nastiest werewolf I’d ever seen. Of course, that was the only werewolf I’d ever seen, so there wasn’t much competition.

  I’d have had to work hard to forget that case.

  “What about Zettel?”

  “He’s fucked everything up. I’m not sure this man’s qualified to be a grocery store greeter. We haven’t been able to get audiences with the ethereal and infernal representatives.”

  “So you’re literally getting nothing done,” I said.

  “It’s a clusterfuck. Look, I’ll be back soon. If your problem can hold out until Monday, I can save you when I return.”

  “And let you get in on the fun? Hell no. This is all mine.” Domingo had made sure of that. I might have been pissed at him, but I was still going to insulate him from as many people who worked for the OPA as possible. “I’ll probably need help on cleanup after the fact, though.”

  Fritz was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke again, he said, “I’ll see what I can do about damage control. If that’s it, then I should—”

  “Actually, there is something else.” I sighed. “I could use Isobel’s help. Is she in town?”

  His response was clipped. “No.”

  “Ah.” I wanted to ask where she was, but I could hear the unsaid none of your business in Fritz’s otherwise friendly tone. Isobel wasn’t around, and that was going to have to be good enough for me.

  Something had changed between the two of them in the last few months. I had no idea what it was, considering I’d been completely cut out of Isobel’s life, but I could guess. And I couldn’t really blame Fritz for wanting to keep me away from Iso
bel.

  His tone went lighter again. “How many murders are involved here, exactly?”

  Talking dead people was more cheerful than talking about women.

  My life, ladies and gentlemen.

  “We’ve got at least two bodies on the ground,” I said. “So far.”

  “Try to minimize the number of dead people, eh? I’ll see you on Monday.”

  Fritz hung up.

  He had great timing. The bus was pulling up at the station nearest my apartment.

  I fought to escape my seatmate, who immediately sprawled out in the space I’d occupied. Half the riders got out at the same station. My apartment complex was inhabited by a lot of people who couldn’t afford cars.

  Nobody was getting rich working for the government, but I made enough money to live somewhere nicer than my current apartment. Not a lot nicer, mind you, but somewhere without bars on the windows and several bullet holes in the walls.

  The problem was that I’d gotten a reputation for being a bad tenant. Have one bloody murder scene in your bathroom and suddenly nobody wants to rent to you. But this apartment had rented to me despite my history of killing a half-succubus at home, so either they hadn’t checked my references or they didn’t care.

  It was a classy place. I had to step over a few broken bottles and two people passed out in their own piss to reach my apartment door.

  Sticking my keys in the lock, I shot a quick text to Suzy to let her know that I was okay. She responded almost immediately. “Aniruddha told me. Don’t do that again.” It was terse, even for Suzy. She must have been pissed at me for running off. But hey, she’d survived.

  Pocketing my phone, I reached out to open my door.

  Before my fingers could touch the metal, I realized that something was missing.

  It wasn’t the fake potted plant in the corner beside my door. It wasn’t my apartment number, either—although a nail had fallen out and left one of the digits upside down.

  No, I was missing some magic.

  My wards, to be specific.

  I made sure I was alone in the hallway before I eased my Desert Eagle out of its holster. Then I lowered to a crouch slowly enough that my clothes didn’t make any noise.