Women of the Otherworld 10.5 - Counterfeit Magic

 

Home Sweet Home

“Cortez-Winterbourne Investigations.
How may I help you?”

I smiled as Savannah’s voice echoed down the hall. Even the fake-cheerful lilt was a welcome sound.

Cortez-Winterbourne Investigations.
Not the Lucas Cortez Agency. Not even Cortez and Associates. After three days of being treated like my husband’s assistant, it was good to come home and hear my own name.

Lucas had been on a case when his father called. Emergency meeting at Cabal headquarters in Miami. Could Lucas attend? No? How about me, then? I’d gone with some trepidation, but Benicio had treated me as his son’s partner, soliciting my opinions and listening to them. Unfortunately, he was the only one who had.

“Paige!” Adam swung out from his office. “Damn, I’m glad to see you.”

“Laptop on the fritz again?”

“Yep.
I put it in your office. When can I expect it back?”

I launched a knockback spell, but he ducked it,
then
followed me into the meeting room. Adam and I have been friends forever, and joined the agency as soon as it opened. His business card says “investigator.” That’s not untrue—in an agency this size everyone does investigative work. Adam’s official position, though, is head of research. Yes, he’s the librarian. And when Savannah put that on his cards, he used his half-demon powers to light them on fire. Anyone seeing them would think it was a joke, anyway. With sun-bleached light brown hair, an athletic build, a year-round tan and blazing grin, Adam looks like the only thing he should be researching is new techniques for his surf-board.

“How was Miami?” he asked.

“They asked me to serve coffee again.”

Savannah strode in. “I hope you dumped it over their heads this time.”

“No, I simply suggested that was a task better suited to the administrative staff. And on that note, a tea would be wonderful.”

She snorted and plunked into a chair. That was the problem with having a twenty-one-year-old admin assistant who used to be your ward—a definite lack of proper employee respect. Adam was a little more cognizant of proper conduct, maybe because I’ve been bossing him around since we were kids. When I hinted at a tea, he poured me a cup of steaming water, passed it over and flipped me a tea bag.

I smiled. “It’s good to be in charge again.”

“Yeah?”
Savannah said. “Well, don’t get too comfy, boss. You have a new client arriving in five minutes. Plus, I put a pile of managerial work on your desk.”

“As long as you don’t ask me to check with Lucas before I do any of it. For three days, I couldn’t go five minutes without hearing, ‘Shouldn’t you run that past your husband?’ and, ‘What’s his opinion?’ and, ‘Are you sure you’re authorized to answer for him?’ ”

“Condescending bastards,” Savannah said. “I’d have smoked ’
em
with an energy bolt.”

“Didn’t Benicio stand up for you?” Adam said.

“He did.”
Which only made things worse.
I didn’t want my father-in-law defending me. I wanted the Cabal board of directors to hear my opinions and say, “Hmm, she has a point.” It had been three years since a family crisis forced Lucas to start playing a role in the Cabal. Three years of trying to prove myself. Yet no matter how hard I worked, nothing changed.

I kicked off my shoes and took a long sip of tea. “I’m just happy to be home, where people actually want
me
, not Lucas. So, there’s a client coming?”

“
Er
, right.” Savannah got to her feet. “Actually, I don’t know what I was thinking, telling her to come by as soon as your plane landed. You’re tired. Let me reschedule—”

“No. I’ve had my pity party. Getting back to work is the best thing for me.”

“Hello?” a woman’s voice called.

“She’s here?” I said.

“Apparently,” Savannah muttered. “She’s a
Tripudio
”—a low-level teleporting half-demon—“so I had to break the wards before she came by earlier.”

“And you forgot to reactivate them?” Adam said. “Nice one.”

“Hey, even
I
wouldn’t be rude enough to teleport through someone’s front door.”

“Hello?” the voice called again.

Savannah strode into the hall.
“Oh, hello, Ms. Cookson.
I’m
sorry,
I didn’t hear you ring the buzzer. I’d really suggest you do that next time. We have some seriously nasty security on this place and I’d
hate
to see you—”

“Is he here?”

“Mr. Cortez isn’t available, but—”

“I thought you said he’d be here.”

“No, I said you could come by for a case intake session. Ms. Winterbourne will be handling that.”

“Who?”

I stepped into the hall. The woman was younger than I’d have guessed by her voice. No more than a year or two older than Savannah.
Tall, blond, slender and fashionably dressed.
And, judging by the way she was squinting at me, in serious need of glasses. The scowl on her face didn’t do her any favors either.

“Paige Winterbourne,” I said, extending my hand.

She looked at it, then back at me. “Oh.
The wife.”

“No, the
partner
,” Adam said, coming out of the meeting room.

“The
boss
,” Savannah said. “The woman who will decide whether we take your case or—”

I stopped them both with a look, then said, “Lucas is away until later this afternoon, so—”

“I’ll wait.” She sailed past Adam and into a meeting room chair. “I take my coffee black.”

“And bitter, I’m sure,” Savannah muttered under her breath. She raised her voice so Ms. Cookson could hear. “There’s a coffee maker right behind you. It does a cup at a time.
Very easy to use.
You may want an espresso, though, to keep you awake. It’ll be a while before Lucas gets here and even longer before he’s ready to talk to you. He’s been away from his wife for a week, so he’ll want to… visit first.”

I shot Savannah another look. I got a look, too—from Ms. Cookson. A slow once-over that said, really, she couldn’t imagine why Lucas would bother. Now she was just being a bitch.

I walked to the coffee maker. “Mild, medium or dark
roast
? We have flavored, too.
French vanilla and hazelnut cream.”

“His,” Savannah said, shooting a thumb at Adam. “He’s such a girl.”

I waved them off. Savannah went. Adam lingered, giving me a look that said I should be kicking this girl out, not making her coffee. That was his way.
Savannah’s, too.
Yet when people insult and underestimate me, it only makes me all the more determined to prove myself.

It’s not as if being overshadowed by my husband is anything new. Even back when I was Coven leader and Lucas was an unemployed lawyer, he was still the one whose name made people sit up and take notice.

My father-in-law is the CEO of the most powerful Cabal in the country. Lucas is his illegitimate youngest son. He’s also the one Benicio had named his heir, despite the fact that Lucas had devoted his adult life to fighting Cabal injustices.
Pretty hard to compete with that reputation.
So I’ve never tried. I believe in his cause—helping supernaturals—and I joined him knowing I’d always be “that witch who married Lucas Cortez.”

When we’d opened the agency, he’d wanted to flip a coin to see whose name went first. I’d refused. He was the renowned crusader. He was the one clients came to see. I understood that, and I’d built up my own reputation until it was a rare customer who insisted on having Lucas
handle
his case.

Then came the night everything changed. Lucas’s two oldest brothers had been murdered, leaving only Carlos, whose greed and amorality might make him a decent Cabal leader if he wasn’t so damned incompetent.

Benicio needed help. Benicio needed Lucas.

There’d been a time when Lucas would have let the Cabal crumble. Now he was older, no less idealistic but more realistic, and he’d come to realize that as corrupt as the family business was, it was the best of the North American Cabals. If it failed, the supernatural world would suffer.

Lucas still refused to claim the role of heir, but he did play a role in that family business. Within those misogynistic halls, any credibility I’d gained in the supernatural world was lost. I wasn’t just a woman; I was a witch, the lowest of the low, tolerated only because Benicio insisted on it.