Dirty Magic (26 page)

I opened my mouth to keep arguing, but Gardner cleared her throat and shot me a look. Pushing Eldritch on this might hurt our chances of continued cooperation. But damned if I didn’t feel like brushing Bane’s alchemical accomplice to the back burner didn’t worry the hell out of me.

Once I backed down, Gardner turned to Eldritch. “We need to have a team ready to go in.”

Eldritch nodded. “It’ll have to be in the morning.”

“Why not tonight?” Morales asked.

“The Arteries are too dangerous at night,” I explained. “Even for an army.”

“Which is what we’ll need,” Eldritch said. “Those tunnels are ambushes waiting to happen. I’ll call in a favor to the sheriff’s office to lend us some of their tactical wizards.”

“Once he gives us the location, I’ll get the paperwork started for the no-knock warrant.”

“How long will that take?” Mez asked.

“Usually not too long, but Judge Akins is on duty today.”

“Who is that?” Morales asked.

Stone frowned. “They call him Judge Dread. Likes to watch harried attorneys jump through hoops.”

“Just do what you can,” Gardner said. “Morales, you and Prospero will need to take lead on our strategy for the raid.”

“Now hold on,” Eldritch cut in. “This will be a BPD operation.”

Gardner raised a brow. “Bullshit. We brought you the evidence, the perp, and the deal that will secure the evidence we need to prove it’s Bane.”

Eldritch crossed his arms. “And you’ll need BPD and county personnel to pull it off.”

Gardner gritted her teeth. “I’ll let you make the statement at the press conference once Bane’s in custody.”

Eldritch’s mustache twitched as he considered the deal. Seeing the back-room negotiation for camera time left a bad taste in my mouth. “Fine,” the captain said finally. “I also get to do the perp walk.”

Gardner’s eye twitched. “No dice. My bosses will want the MEA to get some camera time.”

Eldritch shrugged. “Let’s just say whichever agency nabs him gets to do the walk.”

She nodded curtly. “Acceptable.”

Stone made a world-weary face. “Now that that’s settled, we just need to hope this little shit comes through.”

As if Stone’s words summoned him, Spalding rapped three times on the two-way mirror to indicate they were ready for us. Behind him, Harry slumped defeated at the table. Gardner smiled. “Shall we, gentlemen?”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Harry was in cuffs and being led out of the room. Eldritch, Gardner, and Stone all shook hands with Spalding and then with each other.

Stone nodded. “I need to get back to my office to get the paperwork rolling. In the meantime, you can put him in lockup.”

Morales, Mez, and I went into the hall to watch Harry be taken back to booking. “See ya around,” I said as soon as Hanson led him past.

“The game’s not over yet, bitch,” Harry spat back.

I laughed. “Maybe, but you lost this round.”

“True enough.” Harry tilted his head and looked me straight in the eye. “But when the final buzzer rings, you’ll be the one crying, bitch.”

Hanson jerked his arms and pulled him away. “Let’s go.” Even though Hanson and I didn’t get along as a rule, no cop liked to hear another one getting threatened.

As they walked away, Mez whistled under his breath. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a fan there.”

I shrugged. “Harry’s had it in for me since we were kids.”

“Why?” Morales asked.

“Who knows?” I said with a casual indifference. But I was lying. I knew from an early age that Harry resented the fact that Abe was grooming me to take over the Votaries eventually, while Bane treated Harry like a nuisance or an errand boy. His jealousy had oxidized over time and added to the insult of being forced to betray his coven.

“Anyway,” Morales said, not sounding very concerned or interested, “we need to get busy on a plan for tomorrow morning.”

I sighed and nodded with a glance at my watch. It had already been five hours since I dropped Danny off to hang with Baba. “Would you guys mind meeting at my place?”

Morales frowned. “You worried about the kid?”

I nodded. “Baba’s been known to doze off and I don’t want to risk his sneaking out because I’m out late.”

“Hey, that’s cool,” Mez said. “I’ll call Shadi to come meet us.” She was keeping an eye on the Arteries to make sure there weren’t any signs of circling the wagons.

I gave Mez the address. He ran off so he could stop by the gym on the way over to get some files and supplies. After he was gone, Gardner came out of her meeting with the attorney and the captain. We told her the plan. Her eyes flared when she heard we were meeting at my house but she didn’t comment. Instead, she said, “Don’t fuck this up.”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” Morales responded drily.

Our boss crossed her arms and looked at both of us with an expression not unlike that of a general before a battle. “Encouragement implies failure’s an option.”

W
hen Morales and I got to the house, Danny came upstairs from his basement room looking like someone cancelled Christmas. “I thought you’d be working late.”

“We are. We’ll just be doing it from here.” I held up the box of pizza we’d picked up. “Hungry?”

“No.”

Shit, I thought. Teenagers never turn down pizza.

I turned to Morales. “Give me a minute, okay?”

He nodded and turned to chat up Baba. As I led Danny back down to his room, I heard the old lady say, “Uh-oh!” A thud followed—like the sound of a remote hitting the floor. “Would you be a dear and bend over to pick that up for me?” I shook my head and kept going. Morales didn’t seem the type to need saving from geriatric sexual harassment.

“I thought you were gonna work,” Danny complained as I pushed him toward his room.

I closed the door behind me before I spoke. “In a minute,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “All right, so you want to learn magic. I get it, okay? But what you did today was not only incredibly stupid and the exact wrong way to get me to change my mind, it was also dangerous.”

The way he jutted that stubborn chin out it might as well have been a middle finger.

“John Volos used to be your friend—”

“He was your friend, too, Kate.”

I gritted my teeth and sighed. “Was, past tense. Now, he’s a suspect in an investigation I’m working on.”

Danny’s eyes flared. “Really?”

I nodded. “And when you showed up at his apartment, you put both the case and my job at risk.” I wasn’t lying. At the time, that had been true. I didn’t feel the need to tell Danny that Volos appeared to be innocent now. It worked in my favor for the kid to believe the worst about his former hero.

“I-I didn’t know,” he said.

“It never occurred to me that I’d need to warn you. But even if I wasn’t investigating him, you should know better than to leave school grounds without permission so you can show up unannounced at a stranger’s house.”

“He’s not a stranger!”

“Fine, but, Danny, you know John used to be wrapped up in dirty magic.” Still was, probably, I amended silently. He might not be behind Gray Wolf, but I hadn’t forgotten that he had imported a large amount of oil of rose quartz. Just because he hadn’t committed the crime we suspected didn’t mean he was innocent of all crime.

Danny crossed his arms. “You used to cook dirty, too, and you’re a good person.”

His logic made me press my lips together into a grimace. Damn kids and their ability to make things so simple. So black-and-white. “When you’re older you’ll thank me for looking out for you.”

He snorted.

“Anyway,” I said, “magic discussion aside, you’ll be in detention after school for the next week for skipping school.”

“Come on!” He threw up his hands.

I shrugged. “You should get on your knees and thank Pen for convincing them not to suspend you.”

He sighed from deep in his lungs. “This really sucks.”

“Could have been worse, kid,” I said. I shuddered inwardly to think about how bad it could have been. He could have remembered that Ramses Bane was his godfather and gone to him instead.

“Whatever.”

I clenched my fists and pasted a fake smile on my face. “All righty, then. I have to go plan a raid on the Arteries.”

His face perked up. “No shit?”

I didn’t even bother to correct his language. The curse jar was all the way upstairs, and, frankly, I was starting to wonder if the ban on cursing was more for his benefit or mine. “No shit.”

“Will it be dangerous?”

I considered lying, but clearly my attempt to whitewash the darker aspects of my job had backfired big-time recently. “Yeah, but I’ll be careful.”

“Are you going to use any protective potions?”

I chewed on my lip and changed my mind about honesty. What Danny didn’t know might save him lots of worry. “Sure,” I said, “the MEA requires them.”

He visibly relaxed. “All right. Good.”

I nodded. “Good talk,” I said awkwardly. “I’ll, uh, leave you to your homework then.”

“Hey, Kate?”

I paused. “Yeah?”

“You used to like magic, right?”

I paused. Not sure why the question caught me off guard. Maybe I’d spent so much time avoiding magic because it had caused so much pain. But he looked so open and honest, I couldn’t wave off the question with a flippant response. “Yeah, I did like. A lot. Too much.”

“Hmm,” he said. “It’s a shame then.”

“What?”

“That you had to give up something you loved.”

“Sometimes we love things that aren’t good for us, Danny.”

“I just—I wonder if things were different and you tried using magic to help people maybe you’d be happier.”

Something bright and hot exploded behind my eyes. I don’t want to call it an epiphany, but it was definitely one of those sharp moments that mark some significant shift in one’s perception of the world. Problem was, I was wholly unprepared for it, and, besides, I had a kitchen full of cops who were waiting for me to help them plan a raid on people who used magic to hurt people.

“I, uh,” I stammered, “yeah, I guess.” I swallowed hard. An emotion I couldn’t name was swelling in my chest and I suddenly felt ridiculously close to tears. “I need to get upstairs. Don’t forget to do your—yeah, your homework and stuff.” With that I exited as fast as possible, closing the door behind me. I leaned back against the painted surface and tried to catch my breath.

All this time, I thought I’d been a good role model. I’d tried my damnedest to give Danny a happy life. But to hear he saw me as an unhappy person felt as if someone had let all the helium out of my balloon. Not to mention, it never occurred to me to think of magic as something I had a choice in using for good or bad. I’d struggled so much with leaving the coven behind that I’d had to convince myself that being near any magic at all was like exposing myself to poison. Back then it was a matter of self-preservation. Still was. And when I’d decided to become a cop I figured it was a way to balance the scales. Erase all the bad stuff I’d done back in the day. Never once had I considered using magic to make amends.

I shook myself. It was ridiculous. Yeah, some people used magic to help others, but my addiction to cooking had come from a selfish place, not an altruistic one. Besides, I did plenty of good as a cop.

“Yo, Prospero?” Morales’s voice called down the stairs.

“Yeah?”

“You got any beer in this joint?”

And with that, my brief existential crisis skidded to a halt. I didn’t have time for what-ifs or some noble, happy life filled with aiding the downtrodden. I had a raid to plan and a dick partner who sounded like he was going to riot if I didn’t make it Miller Time STAT.

* * *

My kitchen was cramped for a preraid strategy session, but we made do. The blueprints of the Arteries that Shadi scored were spread across the table and held in place by a beer can on each corner.

“Harry said that Bane keeps the stash near his throne room—here,” Morales was saying, pointing to the spot on the map. “Makes sense he’d want it close enough to monitor.”

“Looks simple enough,” Shadi said. “We’ll only have to go down a couple of branches of the tunnels to reach it.”

“Navigating won’t be the problem,” I said.

“What will be?” Mez asked.

“Getting to it before Bane’s Sentinels can destroy the evidence.”

“What’s a Sentinel?” Shadi asked.

“Bane’s blood fiends,” I said. “He pays for their loyalty with blood potions. One or two won’t be a big deal. But he’ll have several guarding the stash and more on the lookout for intruders.”

“Not to mention,” Morales added, “he might have some assholes hopped-up on Gray Wolf waiting for us.”

“Which means we’ll need major firepower,” I said.

“Not a problem.” Shadi smiled. “I’ll take lead on ammo and hardware.”

Morales turned to Mez. “And we’ll need you to bring some magical weapons, too.”

The wizard rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. I’ve been wanting to try this new potion bomb I developed. Causes paralysis and temporary blindness.”

“Remind me never to piss you off, Mez,” I said. He winked at me.

“All right, so the plan is to go in with the tactical wizards, make sure they have the main tunnel under control, and then split off to find Bane and his cache.”