Chapter 15

Torture it was.

Good thing Sachie and I fortified ourselves with a hearty lunch at the Jolly Hellhound, because our interrogation back at Maccabee HQ turned out to be questioning by committee. Michael was joined by two Authority Council members via video call. Dr. Olsen was the specialist Michael had brought in to break Maud’s story about being compelled to kidnap Calista. Thankfully, it passed muster.

I’d never met Dmitri Kozlov, the other council member joining us on the call.

Dr. Olsen took the meeting while walking along the shore of a brilliant blue lake, while Kozlov’s austere office had a view of a gloomy river.

Our HR manager, Lars, rounded out the panel, clearing his sinuses with a series of wet snorts, honks, and snuffles for the entirety of this session in his office.

I talked them through the drug lab bust until I was hoarse, then Sachie and I fielded endless repetitive questions about our findings on the copycat demon and why we suspected vamp mob involvement.

“Operative Saito.” Dmitri pushed his wire-frame glasses up his nose, revealing a hole in the elbow of his dad cardigan. “You’ve had an interesting trajectory with our organization.”

Sachie gave a polite smile. “I’d say all trajectories with the Maccabees are interesting.”

Dmitri chuckled. “That’s true, but it’s rare that Eishei Kodesh operatives choose to work exclusively with their vampire counterparts.”

My stomach twisted and I darted a glance at Michael, willing her to step in as our director and shut this down.

She placidly watched the screen, but there was a coiled quality to her posture, like she was poised to strike.

“Is that a question or a statement?” Sachie said. “Because I don’t have conclusive data to tell you whether or not that’s true.”

“It’s a statement,” he said. “What drew you to them?”

“The Maccabees were founded to fight vampires and shedim.” She propped her ankle on her other knee, her hand creeping down to whatever weapon she had stashed in her boot.

I coughed—loudly and pointedly.

She dropped her hand. “It’s the battle at the heart of our organization. I wanted in.”

“It’s unusual is all,” Dr. Olsen said. The older woman’s phone bobbed with each step, her face free of makeup and her hair in a messy bun.

“Enough, Lena. You too, Dmitri.” My mother clicked her cheap ballpoint pen. The more she deemed a meeting total and utter BS, the lower the quality of her writing implements.

No one ever noticed that about her.

Today, Director Michael Hannah Fleischer had chosen plastic. “Stop browbeating my operatives,” she said. “I approved Saito’s request to work with our vampires, just like I approved the request to have Silas assist on this investigation. Do you plan to tell me that my actions were unusual as well?”

“Of course not.” Dr. Olsen momentarily dipped out of the screen before righting the camera. “But speaking of Silas, whose idea was it to bring him into the investigation?”

“Mine,” I said. “Just like I brought Sachie onto this case. I would have asked my colleagues on the lab bust, but one of my fellow members was dead, and my team leader and the other operative are still healing from shock and physical injuries at the hand of that shedim, so they weren’t available.”

“Don’t take that tone with us, Operative,” Dmitri said coldly.

“We’ve done everything by the book,” I said.

“Bringing a vampire with hacking abilities?—”

“Who works for the Maccabees,” I retorted.

“Operative Fleischer,” Michael chided. “Calm down.”

I ground my teeth together. Her oh-so-rational tone of voice was thrusting me into warp-speed fury like I was fifteen again. It was okay for her to be angry with this bullshit, but I had to sit here and play nice?

“Silas has known ties with a vampire Mafia,” Dr. Olsen added.

I waved a hand around, my chest tight. It was taking all my willpower to keep Cherry from breaking out. “His friend’s dad. That’s known ties? Yikes. Sachie, what happened with that tax audit of your mom’s? I wouldn’t want my known ties with her to get me in trouble.”

“Avi,” Sach murmured. “They’re not worth getting disciplined.”

No, they weren’t, but I couldn’t stop myself. This entire trumped-up charge, this questioning, targeting Ezra—all of it was unfair.

I gripped the armrests, unable to slow the anger spewing out of me. “You had no issue with all these facts about Silas for decades. Same with Ezra’s past when you brought him on and had him play spy for you for four years. Or when you gave him carte blanche to show up here in Vancouver and let us meet Silas in the first place.”

“You mean when we placed your ex in your path?” If snakes could smile, they’d wear the one on Dmitri’s face.

The loud gasp in the sudden silence wasn’t mine. I checked. Twice.

“Did you use my chapter as bait?” Michael’s voice dripped ice.

Sachie rested her hand on her ankle, her fingers twitching, and Lars finally reached for his tissue box—but just to blot his forehead.

The director’s glacial tone only spurred my anger into the stratosphere. It wasn’t a surprise that concern for her chapter superseded any for her only child, but damn.

Dr. Olsen gave Michael the same “don’t be melodramatic” shake of the head that my mother had used on me throughout my life.

I was so numb that I couldn’t even enjoy seeing her on the receiving end of it.

“If his position with the Maccabees had become untenable,” Michael said, “then you should have spoken to me directly, instead of playing games.”

I waited for her to add something about not using her daughter, or even just not using her operatives, but nope, that was it.

“Questions had arisen about how Cardoso inveigled his way into the Maccabees,” Dmitri said.

Fair. I wondered about that myself.

“And he was getting harder to control,” Dr. Olsen said.

I turned my snort into a cough. What about Ezra suggested he was easy to control at any point in time? His biddable manner? His easygoing acquiescence?

He acquiesced to you easily enough when you wanted to get naked , Cherry reminisced fondly.

I thumped my fist against my chest to clear my cough.

“We expected you’d be displeased with the carte blanche he was given on that case,” Dr. Olsen said to Michael. “You’d want him gone as quickly as possible. We were hoping that you’d find something we could use, since expelling him without a serious charge was not possible, given his connections.”

Didn’t want him marshalling any vamp Mafia buddies in retaliation? Good call.

“Instead, Michael, you allowed him to work a second investigation,” Dmitri said.

“Because a Prime was abducted,” she replied. “His insights were valuable.”

“Indeed. So valuable that he walked away with all of them,” Dmitri sneered.

Michael stiffened.

“Cardoso somehow perverted justice and freed Silas,” Dmitri said.

Sach’s eyes widened. “Silas is free?”

I looked down at the table to hide my smirk.

Dmitri sat back, his arms crossed, and his knobby elbow poking out of the hole in the fabric. “What about your relationships with both vampires, Operative Fleischer?” he said, not missing a beat. “Were you part of this jailbreak?”

“No,” I said evenly. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.” I frowned. “Are you saying someone waltzed into a Maccabee jail and sprung him? Do you have footage of any suspects?”

A muscle ticked in Dmitri’s jaw. “The footage isn’t usable.”

Because it showed the chapter director and a top operative escorting Silas out with help from other operatives? Yeah, I bet it wasn’t usable.

Silas faced an impossible battle to clear his name, and if they charged me with collusion, my career, my life was fucked. Sector A . Sector A . Sector A . The name of the prison thudded in my head like footsteps leading to the gallows.

“That’s a very serious charge,” Michael said. “If you have proof, then show it.”

Dmitri waved his hand like hard evidence when someone’s life was on the line was of no importance.

“That’s what I thought,” my mother said.

Lars sniffled three times in rapid, nervous succession. “Can we conclude that Operatives Saito and Fleischer were not manipulated or compelled by Silas, and they both acted in good faith?”

Dr. Olsen calmly agreed, though Dmitri conceded the point with a reluctant nod, looking like he’d stepped in dog shit.

I unclenched my hands, which I’d been painfully twisting in my lap. “What about the charges against Silas?”

My answer was corporate speak for “Mind your own business.”

I was permitted to interview Jasmine, my orders clear: learn how she found the shedim. If there was a middleman involved (they didn’t use the term “matchmaker,” but in my head, the song from Fiddler on the Roof played on a loop), find out who it was. The Authority would put other people on it to track that middleman down.

“Any Eishei Kodesh who is guilty of colluding with shedim must be rounded up and sent to Sector A. And if another shedim or a vampire is involved, they will be killed.” Dmitri removed his glasses. “I trust you can handle one simple interview to get that information and enable the Maccabees to prevail in this fight against evil.” He folded his glasses and set them on his desk.

It took everything in me not to stare at the unnaturally sharp jut of his elbow. “You can count on me.”

“Good, because I’ll be frank.”

Like he’d been holding back so far. Inwardly, I sighed. End this stupid interrogation already.

“I don’t like your personal relationships with people in positions to severely undermine our organization,” Dmitri said. “Get answers, wrap this case up, and don’t give me any reason to doubt your loyalty.”

Sachie and I were dismissed.

I stepped into the hallway with my fists clenched and my jaw tight, almost vibrating at the strain of keeping Cherry under wraps instead of busting her out, going back in, and vowing to make them all pay.

“Fuck them,” Sachie said.

This case had been a nightmare from the moment I strapped on those stupid snowshoes. Now they were threatening me with doubts about my loyalty? After I’d spent my entire career going above and beyond to dedicate myself to the cause and the Maccabees?

We walked down the hall to the elevators.

“Let’s grab dinner,” she said. “We’ll be a bit late lighting the Hanukkah candles tonight, but it’s still within acceptable leeway.”

I smiled faintly and did my best to shake off churning emotions. There were plenty of years when we couldn’t light the candles at dusk because of work, so we agreed that keeping humanity safe was “acceptable leeway” for our lateness.

The temptation to hang out with my best friend and salvage this horrible day was overwhelming, but there was one more awful task I had to undertake.

“I want to get Zaven’s address and check his place out. Would you wait for me to light the candles? I won’t be long.”

She stepped into the car. “You sure that’s wise? Maybe let this drop for a while?”

“I have to go in before anyone realizes he’s missing and destroys any valuable evidence. It’s not ideal, but…” I sighed.

Sach had suggested last night that given only vampires were involved in the blackmail attempt against Maud, and none of them were going to file a complaint, that we treat this as an off-the-books job, meaning no paperwork.

I’d gratefully agreed because there’d be no official record of any suspicion about my sister. The downside about no paperwork, though, was that Zaven’s family wouldn’t get any answers. When operatives staked vamps, next of kin were notified, but his death wasn’t recorded.

I owed it to his family to look them in the eye, even if I wasn’t about to admit my role in their tragedy. Or that they didn’t yet know there was any tragedy at all. I could call it furthering my investigation into who’d hired Maud, and it was. But it was also penance.

I hit the elevator button. “It won’t raise any red flags to get the last-known address of a man on record as Eishei Kodesh.”

Sach drove me to his place, and even offered to grab some takeout for me. “You didn’t have to take all the blame for bringing Silas on,” she said. “It was my idea.”

“You wouldn’t have been on the case if it wasn’t for me.” I stared bleary-eyed out the window.

“Still.” She pulled up to the curb at an apartment building close to the abandoned laundromat that housed the rift into the Brink, smack dab in vamp territory.

Surprisingly, this was a sought-after neighborhood. Vamp mobs who owned the areas around urban rifts were savvy enough to pump a lot of money back into those neighborhoods to keep them safe and desirable areas. It was smart on a lot of levels: having regular people live there meant that anyone shady or too official looking (Maccabees and Trad cops) would stand out.

“You sure you want to go in on your own?” she said.

“Yeah. They won’t hurt a Maccabee who’s just asking questions.” Should any vamp discover we were covering up those deaths, it could go very differently. I got out of the car and waved her off.

A human father and his tween daughter breezed past on bikes.

Since the vamps had eyes everywhere, I didn’t bother hiding my Maccabee ring with gloves that would be perfectly suitable in this weather.

The female vampire sitting on the stoop of Zaven’s apartment building pulled her earbuds out. Being December, it was already dark in the late afternoon, so I couldn’t tell if she’d been Trad or Eishei Kodesh in life. She stood up, fangs visible.

Unconcerned, I pushed past her. “Yeah, you’re very scary. Run along and report back to your emo overlord.”

I wrenched the door open and stomped up the stairs to Zaven’s place on the second floor.

His wife, Carine, served me sweet tea, helped her son, Davit, build a tower of blocks, and answered my “routine questions” about how long her husband had been a vampire, all with the same serene demeanor, while I tried not to squirm uncomfortably.

Zaven hadn’t registered his vamp status with the Maccabees. That wasn’t unusual, especially when the newbie in question had a rap sheet when human, but it was the perfect excuse for my presence. If he wouldn’t answer the questions on the form, then his family had to.

Carine didn’t know who’d turned him, just that it happened right after he got out of prison.

Davit thrust a red block in my face with a chubby hand and a grubby smile. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of years old, having been born while Zaven was locked up. A conjugal visit baby.

I wasn’t great with kids at the best of times, and sitting here in their small but cozy living room, pretending like his father wasn’t dead, and oh yeah, that I’d killed him, did not make for the best of times. I overcompensated hard, doing some freaky dance with the block on my head that made the toddler cry.

I dropped the toy to the carpet. “It can’t have been easy, having your husband become a bloodsucker.”

Carine flinched, just a bit, but that crack in her easygoing disposition spoke volumes. “Zaven does his best for us.”

Her husband was a criminal who’d done hard time. That wasn’t my definition of doing his best for his family, but I simply smiled politely and nodded.

“I checked the conditions of Zaven’s parole,” I said. “It doesn’t prohibit him from working for a vampire employer, but I require a name to follow up and make sure his job is all aboveboard.” Come on, lady. Get me a connection to one of the local vamp Mafias.

Carine bounced Davit on her lap to soothe him. “He hasn’t found a job yet. I’ve been supporting us. I’m a nurse.”

“Are you?” My smile turned to a grimace. She was out there taking care of people and I’d killed her husband.

“Zaven is on daddy duty when I work.” She rubbed her nose against her son’s. “Isn’t he, sweet baby?”

I swallowed down the sour taste of vomit. “Can I use your bathroom?”

Luckily, Carine didn’t realize she was pointing a monster down the hall to the second door on the left.

I locked myself in and splashed water on my face with shaking hands. I’d widowed a lovely nurse and thrust her baby into the arms of a succession of shadier and shadier babysitters.

Get hold of yourself , Cherry growled in my head. You are losing your shit .

I pinched my cheeks hard to get some color back into my pale cheeks and let the sharp bite smarten me up. Suppose Zaven kept Carine in the dark about his vamp acquaintances and his plans to impress one of their ilk—for her safety. I’d looked up his record. He wasn’t affiliated with any vamps prior to his incarceration and wouldn’t have come into contact with any there. But something made him decide to not only get turned but go after Maud. Could someone he met in prison have pointed him to Maud?

I stepped back into the hallway.

Carine was running the tap in the kitchen, singing to Davit.

I hurried into her bedroom, quickly searching through nightstand drawers and running a hand between the mattress and the box spring. It was clean enough under the bed to have a picnic and I didn’t find anything in my frantic search of the pockets of Zaven’s clothing in the closet.

I returned to the living room as Carine exited the kitchen.

“Are you okay? You were in there awhile.”

“Yes. Thanks. One last question. To your knowledge, is Zaven in contact with any of his former cellmates?”

Carine frowned. “That’s not a parole violation, is it?”

“As long as they aren’t up to anything illegal.” I picked up the registration papers that I’d brought with me. “It’s my experience that vampires who don’t register aren’t going to answer questions about who turned them. And we really need that information for our records. You’ve got a lot on your plate with your job and a small child, and I don’t want to cause more problems for you. Now, I can hang around and wait for Zaven, but if he still refuses to cooperate?” I shook my head sadly. “This becomes an official mark against him and he’ll end up back in prison. But if you can provide me with the names of any friends of his from during his incarceration and they lead me to the vampire who turned Zaven, well, that vamp becomes the one in violation. We’ll charge him as a rogue and your husband will be off the hook.”

I wasn’t lying. Not entirely. Technically, vampires were supposed to provide notarized consent forms when they turned someone. Otherwise they’d be charged as rogues and staked, but actually enforcing that, especially if the newly turned vampire refused to give them up, was next to impossible. Still, in that event, Zaven would be off the hook—were he actually around to be off the hook, that was.

I mentally crossed my fingers that Carine didn’t invite me to wait around for her husband to get home and answer it himself.

“His bunkmate was Jimmy Tucco,” Carine said. “A Red Flame, I think. But Zaven mostly mentioned another man, Darby Connor. He’s a White Flame.” She peered at me anxiously. “Does that help?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Cellmates could be found via internal prison records, which, given I wasn’t officially investigating anything, I couldn’t access. Getting the name of a friend, though, was better.

Davit entered the room doing that weird zombie lurch common to small children. His mom had taken his sweater off, revealing his shirt with the logo of a vamp soccer team.

The same logo Ezra had on his shirt that night we’d slept together and he’d decamped for the Hell that had prompted me to look up the team. My heart stuttered. Oh, please no. I pointed at the logo. “Is Zaven a fan of the Bloodhounds?”

Carine laughed. “You have no idea. Davit’s room is full of their memorabilia. My husband never cared much about anything besides hockey, but I guess they watched a lot of soccer in prison, because he became obsessed with the team. Goes on about stats. Knows everything about the owner too. He promised Davit he’d take him to a game soon and they’d get to meet all the players.”

“That’s nice.” I gathered my jacket and purse, hoping Carine didn’t see my shaking hands. “Thanks so much for your help.”

For the life of me, I have no idea what Carine said as I was leaving, because my blood was rushing in my ears. The second the door closed behind me and I was back in the building hallway, I sagged against the wall.

The Babel Bloodhounds had been a mediocre team until a new owner infused a ton of cash into them and raised them to vamp superstars.

Natán Cardoso. The ultimate vampire for Zaven to impress.