“Yeah, well, I don’t get involved in Family politics,” I said.
Whittaker snorted again. “Hell, Dani, you don’t get involved in any politics. Cops have stabbed you in the back more times than I can count, but you just flip them the bird and barge ahead like a bull in a damned China shop. Pay a little more attention to what’s going on around you before it gets you killed.”
I felt my face warm. “Okay, message received, but where does that leave us? I started out trying to find Sarah Benning, and it seems to have blown up into something else. I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with her.”
“I think it’s obvious,” Novak said. “Johansson kidnapped and sold her. A daughter from a Hundred Family. That was pretty stupid, and someone up the food chain found out you were searching for her. Assassinations of business rivals is one thing, but attacking a Family’s children is off limits. If it became public, it would bring all the Families down on him.”
“Johansson was head of his Family,” I said.
“Yeah, but he has other Families tied up with him, including Moncrieff, Tanaka, Nakamura, and most importantly, Akiyama,” Novak said. “It looks to me as though someone decided to be proactive and take care of him before they might be implicated.”
“I interviewed one of the Moncrieff kids,” I said. “He’s friends with Sarah Benning. He actually helped me zero in on Martin Johansson. Said Johansson had a thing for young girls.”
Novak rolled his eyes. I realized that he was smarter than I’d given him credit for. And I felt dumber than I thought I was.
“Mychal,” Whittaker said, “in your spare time, try to educate your new partner on Family alliances and politics, and why she should care. Consider it an exercise in self-preservation.”
Novak gave me a smirk that I deserved.
Whittaker headed up the stairs, with Novak and me following, and led us outside. We walked past all the cops and ambulances to where his car was parked near the street in the front parking lot.
“Okay,” he said, turning to us and leaning against his car. “I’m pretty sure that Akiyama isn’t involved in the trafficking. Not directly, in any case. Other than Johansson, I can’t think of any Families stupid enough to get their hands that dirty. I also can’t imagine any Family employing vampires for a hit on a couple of cops. We’re usually more subtle than that, and what fool would trust a bunch of vampires? So, who else might have been doing business with Johansson?”
Mychal shook his head. “Heads of Families, no. Younger or dumber members of Families? You can’t automatically dismiss everyone.”
I took a deep breath. “Ashvial.”
Whittaker stared at me for a full minute, and I could see his mind working. Then he slowly nodded. “That makes some sense. The question is, how would we penetrate his organization?”
I took another deep breath. “He hit on me once. The question is, how could I protect myself from being enthralled?”
“Or possessed?” Novak asked with a raised eyebrow.
Whittaker shook his head. “Magiteks are immune to that. As to enthrallment, I think we can provide a charm.”
“I am?” It was the first time I had heard that I couldn’t be possessed.
“Yes,” Whittaker said. “Something about the magik that magiteks and spirit mages have blocks demonic possession. We learned that early during the Rift War.”
I could check that with my grandmother, but I was skeptical about the efficacy of a charm. “Hang on a minute.”
Stepping away from them, I called Kirsten. When she answered, I asked, “Can you make a charm that guards against demonic enthrallment?”
She chuckled. “Planning on taking Ashvial up on his offer?”
“Something like that. It’s work related.”
“Yeah, I can make you a charm, but I can probably do something even better.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure. Let me check with my mom.”
“Thanks.” I hung up and turned back to Whittaker and Novak. “Kirsten says it’s possible. I still want backup. Tight backup.”
Whittaker nodded. Novak looked skeptical.
Chapter 27
Back at the station, I used magik to bypass the lock on Cordero’s phone. She had received a call shortly after Novak and I left the Social Services office, and then made three calls within a ten-minute span. I gave the three numbers to Novak to check out.
He came back a few minutes later.
“The call she received was from the Social Services office,” he said. “The first call she made after that was to Johansson’s phone, and it lasted less than a minute. I’ll get his phone from the evidence room, but he was dead before that. The second call was to Dorothy’s Dungeon, and the third call was to the apartment where she picked up the girl.”
“Yeah, get his phone and I’ll unlock it,” I said. “But I think that settles that she was working with Johansson. Have some uniforms pick up the girl’s mother and bring her in. Let her stew overnight, and we’ll interview her in the morning. I’m going home, and I suggest you do the same. I think we’ve done enough for one day, and neither of us have eaten.”
I packed up, dropped by Whittaker’s office to tell him what we’d learned, and took off. I got my bike from the parking garage under the building and rode home. By the time I negotiated traffic and crawled off the motorcycle, I was bone tired and wanted a drink. My side throbbed, I couldn’t straighten up properly, and I felt as though I’d been beaten.
No sooner had I sat down with a shot and a beer than Kirsten walked in.
“Hey, you’re home early,” she said.
“Bad day.”
She got herself a beer from the fridge and sat down in her favorite chair.
“Friend of yours stopped by the shop today.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Osiris Dillon.”
Dillon was the head of security for the Findlay Family. “And when did Osiris become my buddy?”
She chuckled and took a swallow of her beer. “I think your grandmother sent him. He wanted to tell me I should strengthen my wards, both at the shop and here at home. He also said to tell you to go by and see him. What’s going on?”
I said something that probably would have shocked my grandmother. Osiris was not an errand boy. If Olivia sent him in person, then she wanted us to take things seriously. I told Kirsten about Johansson’s death and the ambush at the sex dungeon.
Kirsten set her beer down on the table and said, “Well, maybe I should check the wards before I finish that.”
She set out on a tour of our house, sketching a rune and chanting a spell at each window and outside door. It took her about half an hour, and then she came back, sat down again, and took a long pull on her beer.
“Okay. I think we can probably withstand anything anyone can throw at us. But if someone is gunning for you, you should probably go see Osiris.” She gave me an expectant raised-eyebrow look. “You’re okay, aren’t you?”
“It seems as though my search for Sarah Benning has drawn a lot of attention.”
That prompted Kirsten to say something unladylike. “And how does all this connect with making you an anti-demon charm?”
“I think that Johansson was dealing with Ashvial.”
“Great. Did you ever consider getting a safer job? You know, something like wrestling crocodiles, or testing parachutes? Or maybe—you know, just maybe—turning a blind eye and walking away from bombs with lit fuses, like ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of all the other cops do?” Kirsten’s voice was gradually growing louder. “Or—this is just a wild thought—taking the job your mother offered you that pays more and is absolutely safe? Or—wait for it—take the job your uncle offered you that pays ten times as much?” By that time, she was shouting. “What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?”
I would be bored out of my mind doing either of those jobs, but the problem with my current situation was that I was putting Kirsten in danger.
“Maybe I should move over to Findlay until this all gets straightened out. It’s not fair to put you in danger. I’ll go over and talk with Osiris tomorrow.”
Kirsten leaped to her feet. “That’s your answer? You’re going to abandon me? You’re going to go hold up inside Findlay’s fortress, and leave me outside unprotected? Thanks a whole helluva lot, Lieutenant James!”
She cocked her arm as though she wanted to throw her beer bottle at me, then thought better of it, and took a swig. She sat back down and glared at me.
“Hell, Kirsten, I didn’t ask for any of this. Whittaker asked me to check into a missing girl as a personal favor. When I figured out that Johansson might be involved, I was shocked. It never occurred to me that it might go even higher. But when someone assassinates the head of a Hundred Family, it’s got everyone’s attention. I’m not alone in this thing, and I’ll talk to Whittaker and Osiris about your security. Okay?”
She stared daggers at me for another minute, then said, “I need another beer,” got up, and went to the kitchen. When she came back, I was struggling to stand up so I could go to the bathroom.
“What the hell? You’re hurt.”
“Just a bit of a bump.”
She followed me into the bathroom, made me take off the Kevlar bustier, then gave me a potion to drink, and cursed a blue streak the entire time she taped a pair of poultices against my ribs. The bruising was as bad as I’d feared.
After we ate dinner, I went out to my shop and created a magitek security enhancement for her shop. Her wards were fine when everything was locked up, but she couldn’t do business if no one could walk through the door.
Since Kirsten wasn’t a mage, she couldn’t activate a magitek device with her own magik, so I had to build a mechanical switch to trigger the magik. That was the difficult part.
“What is it?” she asked when I handed her the first two little metal boxes.
“Stick one on either side of your shop’s front door.” I held up another little box with a button on it. “This turns them on and off. Put it in your pocket and carry it around all the time. When it’s engaged, it sets up an invisible beam between those two boxes. Anyone who breaks the beam closes an electrokinetic circuit between the boxes, and it electrocutes them.”
“Electrocutes? Kills them?”
I nodded. “It’s lethal.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. I hope I don’t forget and kill myself.”
“When it’s turned on, the control box will warn you if you or anyone else gets too close to the door. Just make sure you keep it on your person at all times.”
Chapter 28
I knew Osiris would be up at the crack of dawn, so the following morning I rode north from the city to Findlay as soon as I could make it out of the house. My side felt a lot better after Kirsten slapped a magikally medicated plaster on my ribs when I got out of the shower.
Osiris Dillon was in his office in the business annex. A large, burley mage who looked like a thug whose nose had been broken several times, he had a cunning mind and a gentle heart. Officially, he couldn’t tell me what to do, since I was Family, but unofficially he was the one who had cleaned up my messes since I was in high school. We understood each other, and as grumpy and irascible as Osiris could be, I got along with him a lot better than I did with most of my actual family.
“I wondered if you’d bother to come,” he said when I stuck my head through his office doorway.
I grinned at him, sauntered into his office, and sat on the corner of his desk. “I have a favor to ask. A couple of favors, actually.”
Osiris hmphed and glowered at me, but I saw the corners of his mouth twitch. “That figures. What the hell is it?”
“First, what does Grandmother want? It would be nice to talk to her without getting completely blindsided.”
“Fair enough. Martin Johansson’s murder. You are aware that the Johansson Family is allied with Akiyama, aren’t you?”
“I am now. I didn’t know before he was killed.”
Osiris shook his huge bald head. “Try to use your head for something other than a decoration. Paying just a little attention to the world around you might come in handy someday. Danica, whether you like it or not, you’re a member of this Family, and you’re also Hunter James’s granddaughter.”
I barked out a laugh. “You don’t have to remind me. Damned near everyone I meet is quite happy to let me know what they think of my father’s family.”
“There are two halves of your family, and only one of them is still around to protect you. I suggest you keep that in mind. When everyone else in the world is out to get you, which currently seems to be the case, Findlay has your back. We always have, and we always will, as long as you don’t do something stupid and betray us.”
That sobered me. “You know I would never do that.”
“Yeah, I do. I believe in you, and I always have. So does Lady Findlay-James. She wants to talk to you about a number of things, your safety among them, and you should keep your smart mouth shut and listen for a change.”
“Just for you, Osiris. Assuming, that is, that you do me that second favor.”
He stared at me, waiting.
“I want you to assign a couple of your best men to guarding Kirsten, day and night. Mages. People who will take it seriously and not get her or themselves killed.”
He jerked his head once. “Done.”
That was too easy, and it made me even more anxious about my meeting with my grandmother.
He seemed to study me for a few moments, as though trying to decide something. Finally, he said, “Your Aunt Courtney asked about you yesterday. Wants you to stop by.”
“Thanks for the warning. Anything else going on?”
That earned me a grin and a wink. Then the expression on his face turned serious. “Danica, in addition to your problems, there are rumblings about Akiyama pushing into our markets for medical supplies. Lord Findlay and your grandmother seem to take it quite seriously. As long as you’re playing games with that Family, keep your ears open for me as well, will you?”
“Sure, no problem. There haven’t been any supply disruptions, have there?”
“One problem down in Atlanta. Could be a natural storm, or it could be magik. Caused a real headache with the customer.”
Most organizations would tread lightly around Findlay, but the Akiyama Family was almost as wealthy and powerful, and the two Families had been rivals for decades. The Family head at Akiyama had died three years before, and the new Family head was aggressively trying to expand their businesses and influence. All’s fair in war and business, and the Families were always either fighting to climb up the ladder, or fighting to hold onto their place.
When I left Osiris’s office, I stepped outside for a few moments to call Whittaker and Novak and tell them I would be in late, then took to the servants’ stairs. I didn’t know if Aunt Courtney was anywhere on the premises, but I had no intention of seeing her if I could help it.
I managed to reach my grandmother’s suite without running into any other family members. I knocked and one of her maids opened the door. When she saw it was me, she stood aside to let me enter.
“She’s on the veranda, Mistress.”
“Thank you, Hilda.”
Olivia Findlay-James sat at a white wicker table eating her breakfast. The veranda overlooked the back garden and was my favorite spot in the whole huge house.
My grandmother was one hundred ten years old and appeared to be half of that. That morning, she looked as though she was posing for a magazine. Her lovely face was still unlined, her natural light-brown hair was elegantly coifed, her blue eyes sparkled, and her dress probably cost more than my weekly wage. When standing, she only came up to my shoulder, but there was nothing frail or fragile about her, and she could still beat the hell out of me at tennis.
She gave me a satisfied grin. “My, I’ll have to send Osiris for you more often. Seems to work better than leaving messages on
your phone that you never return.”
I bent down and kissed her on the cheek, then took the chair across from her. She poured me tea.
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, but I’ll have one of those tarts, if I may.”
She smiled and motioned for me to take one. They were still warm. Raspberry.
“You look well,” she said. “Dodging bullets must agree with you.”
“You heard about yesterday.”
“I think the whole metropolitan complex heard about yesterday. Martin Johansson’s murder in the morning, then the shootout at a brothel, and you were there for both. You’re quite photogenic, you know, and your height makes you stand out.” She gave me a smile that held no humor. “The media types enjoy taking pictures of you, and of course, your name is rather catchy. It makes for good ratings.”
The tone of her voice didn’t convey much in the way of approval.
“I didn’t ask to be ambushed.”
“I’m sure you didn’t, at least not directly. I am gratified to know that you can defend yourself. I truly hate funerals, especially those of people I love.” She gave me a very stern look, took a sip of her tea, and said, “But that’s not what I need to talk to you about. You getting shot at on the news vids is just an unfortunate coincidence.”
She bit her lip, turned her head, and stared off into the garden. That moment of hesitation, a slight lack of confidence, unnerved me. I braced myself.
“Dani, I want you to come home,” she said when she turned her face back to me. “Findlay needs you. George and I think the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan, and having a magitek of your caliber working with us could make a big difference.”
Not at all what I expected her to say. “Come home? You mean, move in here?” I had never thought of Findlay House as my home. Home was with Kirsten, and before that with Mom.
A faint smile. “You do have a suite of rooms here, which I have dusted regularly, but that’s not exactly what I mean. I mean quit the police force and bring your talents back to the Family.” She leaned forward, putting her arm on the table. “Dani, no matter how you may attempt to avoid it, you are my heir and a potential heir to the Family leadership.”
Magitek (The Rift Chronicles Book 1) Page 13
