Dirty Magic (44 page)

“It is my hope that the Cauldron Community Center will be a safe place for kids to go after school to learn a new hobby or practice a new sport or just hang out in an environment that fosters creativity and confidence. Every child deserves to grow up feeling safe—especially those who have been marginalized by circumstances beyond their control. For too long the Adepts of this city have been treated as second-class citizens.”

The Mundanes in the crowd shifted uneasily, but the Adepts burst into a round of enthusiastic cheering.

“Fortunately, Mayor Owens agrees that it’s time to start healing the rift that magic created in our community. In fact, he and I met just yesterday to discuss plans to build a free clinic in the Cauldron. The clinic will help those ravaged by addiction by offering discount antipotions, which will be provided by Volos Labs and subsidized by the City of Babylon. Our hope is that by next summer, we will be able to put a dent in the dirty magic problem in this city by addressing the demand side of the equation.”

I snorted. Yeah, they’d be putting a dent in the magic problem by putting extra coin in Volos’s pockets. Was there any opportunity he couldn’t find a way to profit from?

John glanced back toward the end of the stage where the mayor and Captain Eldritch sat. “The Volos Corporation is also donating $100,000 to the joint BPD/MEA task force to help address the supply side of the equation.”

Morales nudged me with his elbow. I grimaced up at him. I hated the idea we’d be using Volos’s money to fund our operations, but since the task force was already on thin ice with the mayor, refusing the donation wasn’t exactly an option.

Eldritch came forward to accept a check from Volos. The men shook hands and smiled politely for the cameras. I thought it was interesting Gardner hadn’t been invited onstage, too. Instead she stood to the side, looking unimpressed by either the spectacle or Volos’s generosity.

“I’ve heard enough. Let’s go ride some rides.” I tugged on Danny’s shirtsleeve. “You coming?” I asked Morales.

“Will you buy me some cotton candy?” He shot me an amused look.

“No.” I smiled. “But I’ll let you buy me a beer.”

He held my gaze, his eyes sparkling with something that made me nervous. “Deal.”

* * *

The inevitable happened an hour later. I sat alone on a bench with a rapidly warming beer in my hand. The sun was warm on my face and the leaves were turning colors in the distance. Danny and Morales were somewhere high up above me on a ride that appeared to exist solely to induce nausea in its riders. I was smiling when the shadow fell over me.

“Having a good time?” Volos’s voice was warm like the sun, and just as likely to burn.

“Yeah.” I squinted at him. “I was going to call you.”

“Liar.” The corner of his lip lifted. “How’s the kid?”

“Better.” I shoved my hands in the pockets of my worn jeans and shrugged. “Thank you.”

He watched me for a moment, as if he was trying to figure out if I was thanking him for asking or for saving Danny’s life. Either way, he nodded. “Any side effects?”

“Low-grade fever for a couple days, but that’s cleared up.” I shook my head. “Nightmares, too, but I’m not sure if that’s a side effect of the potion or the ordeal.”

He nodded too quickly, as if he’d experienced the same problem. Instead of thinking about that because it might make me feel bad for him, I soldiered on. “But his appetite’s normal and he’s bitching a lot, which is a good sign.”

“If anything changes, be sure to let me know.”

“Of course.” I looked away because now was the time to offer my heartfelt gratitude. But I couldn’t do it.

Volos cleared his throat. “Thank you, by the way.”

I jerked my head up. “For what?”

His color was high and he couldn’t quite meet my eyes. He rubbed his chest in an unconscious gesture. “For shooting me.” His lips lifted in irony.

“My pleasure.” I smiled to let him know I meant it. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you survived and all because of Danny, but I kind of enjoyed it.”

“I guess I deserve that.” He sat next to me on the bench. I scooted over. He looked at me with a raised brow. “If you’d been able to, you would have killed me when I was freaking on that potion, wouldn’t you?”

I looked away quickly as the memory of his snarling face flashed behind my eyes. “No, but only because it would have meant Danny died.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Whatever. I did what I had to do.”

“Regardless, I know what it cost you.”

I clenched my jaw and said the words I’d been fighting. “Thank you for saving Danny. I wasn’t sure you’d send the antipotion.”

“I’m not all bad, Kate. Maybe one day you’ll accept that.” He rested an elbow on the back of the bench. Tipped his head back and watched the tracers of light from the rides overhead for a moment before answering. “You didn’t tell them about Abe.”

I turned toward him fully. “I didn’t have a choice, did I?”

“Sure you did. You just didn’t like the alternative.” He turned his head to look at me. “Besides, you know I would have sent that antipotion anyway. I wouldn’t screw the kid over like that.”

I glanced away. Maybe deep down I had known, but I didn’t want to admit that Volos was capable of that much humanity. It was too confusing. “No, I didn’t.”

“I have a theory.”

“Oh?”

“I think you didn’t tell them because you’re curious to find out what I’m going to do to Abe.”

I licked my suddenly dry lips. “That’s ridiculous. I’m a cop, John.”

“A detective now, right? Congratulations, by the way.”

I grimaced because I wasn’t about to let him wriggle out of this conversation with flattery. “Cut the shit. What are you planning?”

“What makes you think I’m going to do anything?” At my don’t-bullshit-a-bullshitter look, he shrugged. “I can’t tell you that,
detective
. But rest assured, Uncle Abe’s going to experience a reckoning.”

I looked down at my hands. A sort of shameful excitement filled my midsection at the idea of John’s exacting vengeance on Abe. I told myself the feeling was a normal reaction for someone who’d almost lost a loved one because of a bad man’s actions. But something deeper inside me whispered that I’d just plain enjoy watching that bastard burn.

Still, as a cop, I couldn’t exactly condone a citizen’s targeting another citizen for murder. Even if I thought the target deserved it. “If he dies, I’ll have no choice but to report that you’ve threatened him.”

“I’d actually love to see you try to fast-talk your way through that discussion.” His lips quirked. “But you can relax, Kate. Having Abe killed isn’t on my agenda. It’s far too easy a punishment for the crimes he’s committed against me and people I care about.”

People I care about.
I cleared my throat, trying to exorcise the spike of pleasure that comment conjured, but it didn’t do any good.

John brushed my arm in an almost caress that could easily be written off as an accident. “Forget Abe for the moment. There’s something else we need to discuss. A favor.”

I didn’t want to talk about Abe anymore, but I knew we’d have to eventually. But I also knew pressing him would only earn me a brick wall of silence. “What is it?”

He crossed his arms, as if he was uneasy. “I need you to be my trump card.”

I didn’t bite. Just raised my brows and tried to look bored by his flair for drama.

“It won’t be long before the MEA task force turns its microscope on me. I need you to warn me when that happens.”

“Why, Mr. Volos, I thought you were a legitimate businessman.” I raised my brows. “A pillar of the community.” I batted my eyelashes like a Southern belle and used my best sweet-tea voice. “Why on earth would the MEA investigate you?”

“Cute.” His lips stretched into a tight line. “I’m not interested in playing coy here, Kate. The bottom line is that if you want to keep your job on the task force you’ll tell me what I need to know.”

Boom.

There it was. The other shoe I’d foolishly convinced myself would never come just dropped like an anvil into my lap.

The ride Danny and Morales had been on stopped and people started weaving out of the gate like drunks from a bar. Eventually I saw Morales’s dark head looming over the group. His lips were spread into a wide smile as he teased a very green-looking Danny.

I crossed my arms over the raging bile in my stomach. “What do you mean, keep my job on the task force?”

I kept my eyes on the pair exiting the ride. When Morales’s eyes landed on me sitting next to Volos, he jerked and started over. I shook my head. The last thing I needed was for him to add his gas to the already highly flammable situation. He nodded and steered Danny in the other direction, toward another ride.

Apparently, Volos saw Morales spot us, too. “What do you think your new partner would do if he found out that you lied about the reason you were at the brewery that night? Or that you willingly performed illegal magic? Or that you intentionally omitted information about your uncle’s involvement in the case?”

Our eyes met and held. Electricity zinged between us. Unlike a decade earlier when that look would have resulted in a passionate kiss and a roll in the sack, this time the energy made me want to put a gun in his face and finish the job I’d started back in that warehouse. His bulletproof magic wouldn’t stop a shot to the forehead.

I snorted. “Your word against mine.”

“Wrong. Your word against the security footage of you reading Gray Wolf’s energy signature in my lab.”

“You fucking filmed me?” All around the bench, passersby jerked their gazes in the direction of my raised voice. I cringed and slid down a little. “Your video also shows you helping me.”

“No. It doesn’t, actually.” He crossed an ankle over his knee, all casual, as if he weren’t a shark circling everything I held sacred. “Don’t look at me like that. I’d prefer not to have to do this, but it’s unavoidable.”

“Like hell,” I hissed. “Is this some sort of sick revenge for leaving you?”

He tilted his head and shot me a disappointed look. “Kate, please, we’re not children. I understand your anger. I know you must hate me.”

I nodded eagerly, which earned me another censoring grimace.

“But the ends will eventually justify these unavoidable means. I’m sure of it.” He smiled reassuringly, as one would to a child who didn’t know how to see through the bullshit. “In the meantime, I just need you to warn me if the MEA decides to dig in my sandbox.”

“This isn’t a fucking game.” The words were delivered in a diamond-hard tone I’d never heard come from my mouth before. Guess I’d been saving it for a special occasion.

John chuckled. “When are you going to learn? Magic is always a game. What was it Uncle Abe used to say?” He cocked his head and quoted the man he’d just threatened a couple of minutes earlier: “You either cook or you get burned.”

Considering the rage smoldering in the center of my chest, I had a pretty good idea which category I fell into.

My left hand lifted before I made a conscious decision to slap him. His hand caught my palm before it made contact. “I’m sorry.” Raised my fingertips to his mouth. Planted a kiss there while he stared into my angry gaze.

I ripped my hand away and cradled it to my chest. “Get the fuck away from me.”

He smiled tightly. Paused and regarded me with a look I couldn’t identify. I just knew it scared me a little. But finally, he nodded. “All right, I’ll go.” He glanced down at his watch. “But I’ll be talking to you real soon, Kate.”

In shock, I watched him walk away. But before I’d taken two breaths, I realized I couldn’t sit on that bench and wait for Morales and Danny to come find me in that state.

I stood and walked away on wooden legs. Away from the grating racket of the carnival. Past the clearing where the community center would stand next year. Toward the gate that used to lead down into the Arteries.

Since the raid, the mayor had had every entrance to the tunnels sealed shut with cinder blocks. I placed a hand over the red paint that spelled the words
KEEP OUT
. Behind me, the screams of joy from the carnival-goers mixed with the noise from the freeway and the melancholy horns of the riverboats.

I climbed up a grassy rise to the top of the road that ran over the old tunnels. From this higher vantage point, I could see most of the Cauldron.

I looked around. Really looked. The sun was setting in the distance over Lake Erie. That massive body of water was filled with mutated fish, dumped chemicals, and more bodies than the Babylon Eternal Rest Cemetery on Highway 52.

Closer, a tenement down the road was lit up like a faerie dwelling, but no mythical faerie-tale creatures lived in there. Instead, its walls were thin prisons that barely contained the despair of its residents. Magic was the least of their worries. Instead, poverty, addiction, and abuse were more abundant than clean water, fresh produce, and a decent education.

I wasn’t sure how long I looked around at the fetid landscape before the sounds of sirens echoed in the distance. Before the mom walking by with her toddler screamed and knocked the kid upside the head because he tripped. Before the gaunt, blond junkie stumbled out of the alley and offered the teenaged Adept who worked that corner a blow job in exchange for a diet potion.

Eventually I watched the immorality play long enough that my shoulders slumped and what was left of my optimism seeped out like a leaky balloon.

The future John Volos had promised the citizens of the Cauldron was a mirage. All those families who gathered to listen to his pretty words wanted to believe he was offering them a dream come true. Instead it was more like a hallucination fueled by dirty magic and his own ambitions. Ambitions he’d see realized no matter whom he had to fuck over in the process.

I pulled my gaze from the urban landscape to see Morales climbing the hill toward me.

“Where’s Danny?” I asked, suddenly afraid for him to be alone.

“He’s throwing baseballs at a clown with Pen and Shadi.”

I nodded and sighed, my gaze on the lights of the midway.