Heart Strings (Black Magic Outlaw Book 3) (10 page)

 

 

 

 

When Carla had warned a storm was coming, I thought she was speaking metaphorically. You know, like a contemplative scene in a movie where the good guys realize everything's about to go south.

Nope. Turns out she meant an actual rainstorm.

The
Now You See Me
wasn't harried by uninvited silvans, but the storm sure hit us full force. It wasn't a hurricane or anything—trust me, this area of the world knows how bad wind and rain can get—but the Caribbean waves finally lived up to their choppy reputation. I was too focused to get seasick, but a deeper fear pervaded my gut. We were going to be late. The delay would eat up my half-day head start.

Hey, if I didn't cut things close, you'd think less of me.

It was a hard night. The sun broke through the clouds the next morning and gave us some relief. Carla hit the motors as hard as she dared. Good for me she was fearless. We made Key Largo with little time to spare. I was squared up with Carla already (she takes full payment in advance) so I thanked her for her skills and ran to my truck.

With some light speeding and fortuitous traffic, I could actually get to the fund-raiser before it ended. Late, yes, but in attendance. I slipped the key in the ignition and was greeted with an empty click.

"You've got to be kidding me."

I worked the starter several times. Fast key-turn repetitions, pounding the steering wheel, waiting a minute and trying to surprise it—my slew of mechanically sound tactics failed me. After I took a breath and thought about it, I realized the old pickup wasn't getting any electricity. My battery was bad.

I furrowed my brow. Except I'd just had the mechanic put in a super heavy-duty weather-guard model, precharged and ready to go. I wasn't dealing with a dead battery—I was dealing with a dead body. Or a presence, at least.

My boots stomped the gravel as I circled the front of the cab and lifted the hood. The battery was there, fresh grease on the terminals, good as new. Hell, it
was
new.

I let my pupils overtake my eyes, feeling out the shadows with my dark vision, looking for signs of a spirit. It wasn't as straightforward as it sounds, though.

Ghosts aren't the glowing phantasms you see in overexposed photographs or CGI. Spirits live in the Murk, a sort of mirror world of ours where the dead temporarily reside until they meet destiny. It's unlikely, but some manage to cross back to our side and inhabit physical objects. We call these poltergeists. I can't see them, exactly, but I can sometimes sense a signature on the objects themselves. So I could see that the car battery, to put it in the technical supernatural parlance, had been jacked up.

I leaned into the engine and whispered, "Listen up, you little gangbanger ghost. You don't like me and I don't like you, and maybe you have good reason. I killed you. But you tried to kill me too, so as far as I'm concerned, we're even. So cut this shit out with the battery and let me get to where I'm going or I'll send you back to the Murk. You hear me?"

I waited, but nothing answered.

I sighed and reached into my belt pouch. This particular spirit was stubborn. I'd opted to drive around the last two weeks rather than expel him, but it wasn't for lack of trying. For whatever reason, the usual extermination tricks didn't work. Strange, because the ghost was already defeated. By all accounts he should've retreated to the Murk and given up, but he was sticking to his guns. Luckily, he was declawed. The poltergeist could do little more than turn my wipers on unexpectedly.

But once in a while he became a real pain in the butt.

I withdrew a small mirror from half of a compact. (Yes, Cisco Suarez carries makeup products. No, he doesn't show them around.) The sun was already setting, but the sharp angle of light was a plus at the moment. I held the mirror so the beam reflected onto the battery as I spoke a word of power. Opiyel commands the shadows but also guides the dead. Think of me as an undead guidance counselor on retainer.

There was a small sizzling from the center of the battery and my engine ticked a few times, like it might when it cools after shutting off. I pulled the mirror away and nodded. "Thought you'd see it that way."

This time, when I climbed into the seat and turned the key, the sound of a healthy V8 greeted me. If only all my problems were that simple. It wasn't a coincidence that I was staring at Emily's photograph on the sun visor as I thought that. I slammed it to the ceiling and out of sight. Emily was far from simple, but photographs I could handle.

US 1 was flush with cars but we all moved efficiently. A line of ants with single-minded focus. The evening was in full swing by the time I made it to Coral Gables but I ran into no more detours. I parked in the open lot and strolled the perimeter.

The Biltmore Hotel is an old, fancy place. Distinguished is a good word. It's the type of hotel that presidents stay in when they visit Miami. Surrounded by the lush trees of a quiet Gables neighborhood, it towers over the canopy and makes you wonder who thought to put a hotel there. But that's part of the beauty.

I hated the idea of going in blind, but I was already late. There was no time to prep. At this point in the week, I was about done with information gathering anyway. If I didn't take action soon, someone else would take it for me. Again.

As I entered the old building, I glanced at the Spanish tower looming above. There were ghosts there. Like I said, you can't see them. (Not unless they're a necromancer-turned-wraith bound to a Spanish powder horn, anyway.) It was a sense, more than anything. Call it the confidence of experience.

You see, the sprawling pool and Mediterranean architecture aside, the Biltmore served as a hospital in World War II. It had seen its fair share of blood. I just hoped to avoid some of that tonight.

 

 

 

 

The Biltmore isn't Fort Knox. It's a luxury hotel. Extravagant, inviting, and full of strangers. As such, I had free roam of the place without bother. I wandered under hand-painted ceilings and intricate chandeliers, ignoring the glitz because I knew the world was a dirtier place than it let on. Soon enough, I found what I was looking for. It wasn't hard. I just had to listen for the corny jokes and duplicitous laughter.

My destination turned out to be the Granada Ballroom, a large banquet hall that looks like a Catholic church. Stone columns set off hallways along both sides while tables set with champagne and linen consumed the inner space. It all drew the eye to a grand backdrop of ornate windows overlooking a garden.

So this was where wannabe mayors impressed people.

Applause washed through the crowd as I entered, pleased supporters all with their backs to me. With more preparation I could've worn a straw mask to cover my face. Spun an illusion with shadow. But this was a seat-of-my-pants operation. No premeditation in sight.

I pulled the shadow over my face. It wasn't a surefire disguise, but hopefully the ballroom had more interesting things to look at than me.

Strolling in casually was the easy part. Events like this aren't locked, but they are watched. I kept my head down and moved to the outside wall, passing a huddle of security personnel. Acting like you belong is ninety percent of the work, right? Unfortunately, my scuffed jeans and sweaty tank top didn't scream high society. A large Viking-looking fellow peeled away from his detachment and followed me.

"Excuse me, sir," he called over the dying applause.

I continued moving in feigned ignorance, but that was just to buy time. Ten seconds in and the jig was already up. Oh well. I would have to earn my disguise the old-fashioned way.

This wasn't a nightclub where small infractions might be met with violence but, despite the large gentleman's manners, I knew he had a mean streak. I calmly walked under the cathedral archway of the outer hall and smiled.

This area was set off, empty like the walkways of a theater, with hanging lanterns providing dim mood lighting. The decorator did a hell of a job. The orange lights accentuated every sculpted column and every fold in the wall-length curtains. It was a stunning effect.

I huddled into the dark corner, where it was blackest, and doubled over into the wall.

"Excuse me, sir. Are you okay?"

I waited until I felt the hand on my shoulder, and then I drew the shadows around us deeply. Anybody ten feet away would have a hard time noticing us. I grabbed the security guard's hand, twisted around, and locked my arm around his neck.

I squeezed, flashbacks of Jade filling my head, but I released the man as soon as he was asleep. It was the type of up-close-and-personal deed that was dirtier than it sounded, and doing it made me wish my spellcraft extended to sleep charms.

Still under the guise of shadow, I dragged the man behind a curtain. I was lucky. This wall ran along a darkened yard; there was nothing outside the window. In the small rounded nook between the window and the curtain, nobody would see us.

I felt foolish unbuttoning the pants of a sleeping man, but it needed to be done. I wore his jacket over my tank and pulled his pants over my jeans. Everything was still so oversized I had to fold the arms and legs at the cuffs. I felt like a child wearing his father's clothes, but at least I didn't stick out so much.

I emerged from the thick curtain buttoning my jacket, checking up and down the hall and into the main room. Nobody cared about Cisco Suarez. Under normal circumstances I would've been offended.

Keeping a subtle shadow over my face, I took slow steps up the hall from column to column, scanning the well-off men and women sitting around tables pawing fancy glassware. They were toasting the speaker, who happened to be one Miami City Commissioner Rudi Alvarez.

"It is a real honor," he said with a dramatic flair, "to see each and every one of you here, supporting something we all believe in."

I rolled my eyes. Two seconds of politics was too much for me, but the crowd was eating it up. Every word out of Rudi's mouth drew more smiles. I paused to watch him work. He told a story about his father coming to America. A lot of Cubans had similar stories. Rudi got a few laughs from dad jokes, not especially funny but told in earnest. He was a good speaker. A good charlatan. A good little puppet.

"One day," he said proudly, "we will look back and know that the Passport to Latin America revitalized this city."

"Revitalized the drug business," I muttered. I couldn't believe these saps. I felt like screaming out, interrupting his eloquent speech and outing him for the lying, cheating bastard he was, right in front of his donors.

But without evidence, nobody would listen. I'd just be the crazy, anti-establishment homeless guy.

Down the center aisle, Lieutenant Evan Cross and Sergeant Ronaldo Garcia approached the stage and split off to either end of it.

Crap. Evan's team often ran personal security for the muckety-mucks. I should've counted on him being here. I had to assume the entire DROP team was running a protection detail. I realized the man I had dispatched was only a greeter, not the meat of the security. So much for easy.

How had my best friend and I gotten on opposite sides of this? Rudi did business with the people involved in my murder, for Pete's sake. I needed to get to Evan alone. Talk to him and convince him I was in the right. He'd bluster and put his hands on his hips and boss me around in his usual cop bravado, but he was a good guy. He'd understand the situation.

I inched closer to the stage, careful not to draw my friend's eyes. I scanned the VIP tables for other threats and familiar faces, and I found one. Son of a bitch. Front and center was Connor Hatch. In the country. Must be nice to have a private jet. Here I'd been two days at sea, and Connor probably didn't have enough time to finish his beer before landing in Miami. I wondered if him being here meant the stuff about the private island was BS.

Thinking of Simon, I searched the audience again. I didn't see him, but that didn't mean the Society wasn't in attendance. This crowd was rife with hotshots who could buy the law. Something about Simon Feigelstock told me his people were of the same stock.

As before, Connor was dressed nicely, but everything from his wavy red hair to his slightly overgrown beard and his suit was just a little too casual compared to the others. That told me he was rich enough and powerful enough to not care. His prominent position in the room confirmed his place among Rudi's boosters as well.

Evan broke off from the stage and headed into the hallway on the other side of the room. As he made his way to the back, I followed on my side. If I could reach him away from the action, we'd have time to talk.

I increased my pace and marched around the back of the room to beat him to the corner, but stopped short when I saw him lean into a table at the back and kiss a beautiful blonde woman.

It was my ex, Emily.

 

 

 

 

I'd had a few weeks now to get used to the idea that Emily was married to Evan. I even accepted it. What had me jittery was the thought of dealing with her betrayal. After discovering she was somehow involved with the Covey, I'd kinda shut down that part of the investigation, choosing to follow politics over Emily. It was easier to confront arcane creatures than my old flame.

But Emily was irrevocably tied to this. Her connection to Kita was what had gotten Evan his political appointment to begin with. Emily, more than anybody else alive today, made me doubt my actions the most. It's not that I wasn't right. But if I kept butting heads with the people I loved, how would things end?

Before I snapped out of my funk, Evan cleared away from the table and positioned himself by the front stage again. It had just been a quick hello to his wife, and now she sat beside the empty chair that was his. I'd missed my chance. But I could take another.

I sat down. "Hi, Em."

She spun around, face frozen in shock. Her hair was straight and rested on her bare shoulders. I'd seen another blonde up-close-and-personal recently, but Emily was all sophisticated class. Long earrings accentuated her thin neck and made her seem fragile, but I knew better. Emily was strong and had an admirable hard-to-get quality. It was what had attracted me to her in the first place.

"You can say something," I said. "I'm easy to talk to."

She frowned. The last time we had a private talk, in her kitchen, she admitted to playing me for a fool, making me fall in love with her, and bread-crumbing my way to discovering a deadly necromantic artifact. The fairer sex, I tell ya.

"You were always easy to talk to," she admitted with a soft spot in her voice. I didn't know if she was playing me again, but damn she could be convincing. "You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you, Em. The commissioner's not a man people are gonna want to be associated with."

Her laugh was a light tickle in the air. "So Evan has said."

I nodded toward him at the stage. "What's he doing up there? He has the DROP team. He should be taking a load off and enjoying champagne with you."

"He takes his job seriously. He knows there are people like you around."

I put my hand to my heart like it was wounded. It was a joke, but the truth was it would never heal.

"How's Fran?" I asked.

Emily thought for a minute and stared at her empty dessert plate. "She's happy."

I leaned back in the chair. I didn't know if two better words could've been said about my estranged daughter. I didn't know how to be a father—I'd never acted as one—but something paternal in me knew that, if I could hear those two words every day for the rest of my life, nothing else mattered.

"Have you thought about letting me see her?"

"Cisco... After everything—"

"Look," I cut in, drawing the eye of an older woman a couple chairs down. I lowered my voice and leaned toward Emily. "Whatever you've done to me, you must've had your reasons. That's not an excuse, but I know you weren't there. I know you weren't
directly
responsible for my death. So you played me, but you didn't kill me. In some twisted way, that means the world to me."

She took a heavy breath as I spoke.

"We don't have to love each other anymore, Em. We don't have to even like each other. But I'm not going to come after you. You're the mother of my daughter. My best friend's wife."

Now the old woman was flat-out staring. I met her eyes and glared until she looked away. Then I turned back to Emily.

After a minute she still didn't open up. "Is your sister here?" I asked, changing the subject.

She turned away. I didn't really expect her to answer. Unlike Emily, Kita Mariko had come at me hard and strong. The paper mage was only avoiding me now because I'd proven to be a formidable rival.

Watching my ex clam up, I noticed a metal locket around her neck. A heart. I knew she wasn't mine anymore—I understood that—but seeing keepsakes, personal treasures from someone else's life that couldn't be mine, pulled my heartstrings.

I fell solemn, doing my best to say what I came to say without fucking everything up again. "Emily, I'm giving you a chance to get away from the darkness."

"The darkness is attracted to you like flies to light, Cisco."

I winced. She wasn't wrong. And I was quickly losing confidence in my approach.

"I need to talk to Evan," I said. "Away from the crowd. Tell him about what I've found. I want you both on the right side of this. I don't want anything to hurt Fran."

A familiar glint sparkled in Emily's eye, a kindness in her that I'd known to be good and true at one time. "What do you want?" she relented.

I smiled, and for that second I lived in a world where Emily and I were on the same team. It was just a second, but it felt good.

My happiness was diminished when I noticed Evan's sergeant pulling a distressed greeter from behind the curtain. If this were a video game, the guard would've had the decency to stay unconscious until I cleared the level. As it was, he was out for longer than normal in real life. Garcia motioned for another man to assist him.

I sat up straight and considered my options. Ideally I could get hard evidence while everybody was around. Splash it in the faces of Rudi's hard-earned boosters. Some of them were dirty, I was sure, but for every criminal in here there was a saint who'd be horrified at what Rudi had done. Money didn't discriminate. There were good people here with the clout to do something about what I knew. At the very least, the egg on Rudi's face should put him on the defensive.

"Talk to Evan," I told her as I stood. "Tell him to meet me on the patio. Only him."

"Cisco..."

"Just do it." I hurried away from the table as Sergeant Garcia swept by. With a tug of the shadow, I slipped out the patio door.

I was lucky. The courtyard was an events space all its own, but nobody was renting it tonight. The walkway and fountain were lit for the ambiance, but the mass of the yard was dark. I squeezed into the bushes along the wall of the Granada Ballroom and peeked through the window. The curtains limited my view but I got the broad strokes.

Two DROP team members posing as guests came out of the woodwork, following Ronaldo Garcia's lead. Strangely, Evan Cross remained by the stage. At first I thought he chose to stay on the commissioner, but his pose was too relaxed. He was still smiling from the kiss with his wife. That meant Sergeant Garcia was running his own op. Could be he didn't trust Evan to capture me anymore. Could be he was right.

For their part, the police were discreet. Rudi Alvarez wasn't speaking anymore and he sat by the stage without a care. The crowd clapped as a female violinist commandeered the mic. A few shy words were her only introduction before the most beautiful piece of classical music I'd heard took over. The Granada Ballroom was enraptured while Garcia and his men searched for an interloper.

I shifted my angle and saw Emily in her seat, typing in her phone. Good. She realized how urgent the situation was becoming and was doing as I asked. After she returned the phone to her purse, I shifted back to my original position and watched Evan.

The music was loud enough to hear outside. Unfortunately, that meant Evan couldn't hear his notification. Was I seriously gonna run out of time because he forgot to set his phone to vibrate?

The sergeant finished scanning the tables and had his men check the outer halls. That included window checks, and I jumped to the side as one of the officers shone a flashlight through my window.

I took a few breaths and waited for the beam of light to turn off. Then I slowly leaned in to check the crowd.

Connor Hatch was checking his phone. His sharp features went alert as he glanced around. The red-haired man excused himself and marched down the aisle, exiting out the back of the room. The entire time, Evan stood blissfully unaware, and it sickened me to realize why he hadn't received a text.

Emily had just sold me out.