Chapter 5

I polished off my cookie during the descent to the Spook Squad’s digs, carrying my empty dish past sturdy, brightly colored, oversized couches and chairs. The furniture was grouped under multicolored silk lanterns hand-painted with delicate flowers, which infused it with a jaunty air.

The Hanukkah decorations extended to this part of the building as well, though with no windows in the basement of the former garment factory, they’d forgone the gel letters for a large Happy Hanukkah banner.

There was one downside to the space. With no natural light—and no sense of day or night—hanging out here made me feel like I was in a Vegas casino where time was irrelevant. Sunshine wouldn’t have hurt the three vamps who Sach worked with, since they’d all been Eishei Kodesh in life and could withstand the sun’s rays to varying degrees, but any Trad vamp suspects who made it this far would be fried in their cells if exposed.

My chest twisted as I passed Bentley, the large unicorn stuffie riding a stumpy palm tree in a fancy Italian tile planter, who currently had a bag of chocolate gold coins hanging off his horn. Bentley was the squad’s unofficial mascot and the beneficiary of a mint green hat, knitted and bestowed with great care by my ex, Ezra Cardoso.

Did running the Copper Hell leave Ezra any time to unwind with his favorite pastime? The unwanted image of him thrusting into me, his hands gripping my hips, from our last encounter two months ago, rose unbidden.

I tasted blood. Wincing, I freed my bottom lip from my teeth and licked the wound, quickly looking around to confirm none of the vamps were present. They’d smell even the faintest hint of that copper tang, and while they were trained to control their urges, it was still a crappy thing to bleed in front of them.

I followed Sach into one of the conference rooms. Ezra could do whatever he pleased with his free time. I slammed the empty plate onto the table.

Sach opened the file folder and reviewed the notes she’d made on her copy of my report.

I logged into the Maccabee database. “It would make life so much easier if shedim could be categorized by a species and type instead of being mostly evil randos.”

My partner opened a browser on her phone. “Which demon do you want to research?”

“I’ll take Bratwurst.”

We didn’t get much more about the original Crackle demon than it had an anteater’s snout and green fur, whereas mine didn’t have any nose at all and looked like a sausage with sloth digits.

“There’s a note on the file, added after operatives tracked and killed the original shedim who produced Crackle,” Sachie said. “It ingested a lichen species specific to the Queen Charlotte Islands in northern British Columbia, which, when combined with a demon enzyme, was presumed responsible for the euphoria-inducing secretion.” She looked up from her screen. “Your shedim was outside Revelstoke in the southeast corner of the province. Is that lichen found there?”

I typed in the query. “No.”

“What if it ate a different kind of lichen and that variable in the enzymatic process accounts for why people were hurting themselves instead of going after a demonic rush?” she said.

“Could be.” I clicked through a few more results. “Get this. Scientists in 2007 discovered thirteen tree-dwelling species of lichen specific to the Incomappleux Valley, right by the lab. The area is an inland rainforest and the only temperate rainforest in the world to grow four to six hundred kilometers from the ocean.”

“I had no idea,” Sach said, now crowding me from the next seat to read over my shoulder. “It’s also the only rainforest in existence to derive most of its moisture from snow.”

“There was no lack of that,” I muttered. My thighs still ached from our snowshoeing trek. “Okay. The Eishei Kodesh were manufacturing the synthetic version, but at some point, they teamed up with the shedim to produce organic Crackle, assuming her secretion would have the same effect as the other demon’s.”

“The trouble was,” Sachie said, twirling a dry-erase marker between her fingers, “that she’d eaten a different type of lichen, and her secretions produced a different effect. You’re ruling out the vics being psychically compelled?”

“Yes, because I wasn’t affected.” Even as Cherry, I would have felt the compulsion, regardless of whether I could resist it. “That means it was a physical transmission. So how, specifically, did it occur? It wasn’t direct physical contact, so blood? Sweat?” I flashed back to the jail cell, leaning back in my chair with my hands folded across my stomach. “You know how asparagus makes pee stinky whereas beets can turn urine red but don’t make it smell? Maybe what she’d eaten had a different effect on her urine? There was a chamber pot full of pee with the shedim.”

Sach wrinkled her nose. “Edward didn’t touch her chamber pot though. And Francesca and Paul didn’t touch the shedim— Ew! You’re telling me that all these people died because no one in that drug op washed their hands?”

“Not enough to combat the effects.” I shuddered. “That answers the first couple of questions. First off, this wasn’t the same type of shedim, though lichen plus a demon enzyme produces the secretion. Next, the effects are transmitted through directly handling the urine or touching someone else who came in contact with it.”

“That leaves how the Eishei Kodesh got hold of the shedim.” Sachie shook her head. “Sector A. Damn. I’ve heard their rehabilitation program to cleanse people’s minds of demon existence is even worse than the prison itself.”

The very mention of Sector A made me physically ill. Eishei Kodesh who knowingly colluded with shedim or rogue vamps were automatically sent there, regardless of the crime they were convicted of in the justice system. They were just quietly transferred when their trial ended and never released.

As determined as I was to reach level three and make an indelible difference in this world as a force for good and change people’s attitudes about half shedim, I lived with a constant low-level anxiety that if the Maccabees didn’t kill me outright for having infiltrated their ranks, they’d shove me in Sector A and I’d never see the light of day again.

“I doubt Jasmine and her crew called Bratwurst forth from the demon realm,” I said, “but even if the shedim was already on earth, did they strike a deal or bind her?”

“Binding demons is almost impossible.” Sach stood up and cracked her back. “It’s hardly a stretch that she willingly joined forces. She must not have expected to be locked up. But how did they find a demon with their exact needs?”

“Is there some demon matchmaker out there, hooking shedim up with humans to go forth and be evil together?”

Sach grinned. “He sits at an old computer with these grainy profile photos, entering answers from questionnaires like: magic ability, preferred geographic location of match, and favorite dictator in history.”

“His office is in the back of a hair salon. One of those places with faded glamor shots from forty years ago in the windows that never seems to have any customers but still stays open.”

Sach held up crossed fingers. “Now I really want to find this guy.”

“Me too. Something to ask Jasmine when I interview her.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “We’ve got two different demons who both eat lichen to spread their evil, and both use Crackle as a delivery mechanism. There’s one other thing.” I paused. “The shedim killed herself.”

“That’s weird,” Sachie said, returning to her seat. “It wasn’t in the report.”

“Michael didn’t think it was relevant,” I said snippily.

“Is it? So long as she’s dead.”

I shook my head. “I don’t like it. The shedim was wounded, down for the count. But instead of some last-ditch attack, she kills herself.”

“A fuck-you?”

“Or pride, I guess, but right before she died, the shedim proclaimed she wasn’t going back. Maccabees don’t arrest demons, so what was she hoping to avoid?”

“You sure you heard her properly? You were concussed.”

“I heard her,” I said in a frustrated growl. It was bad enough my best friend was dismissing my concerns but coming on the heels of Michael insisting it didn’t matter, that my insights and observations were of no relevance here, it was hard to keep my cool.

“Hey.” Sach touched my shoulder. “You lived through a horrible, senseless situation. It’s normal to be looking for a way for it to make sense, but some overwrought demon declaration may not be it. Maybe you aren’t remembering it correctly.”

I brushed her hand off me with a sharp jerk.

“You were injured and in the middle of a battle,” she said. “Or she was confused. I mean, she was so weak she hadn’t bothered to escape while she was in the cage. She could have been worried you were going to put her back in it and keep starving her.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Like a compulsion?” Sach tried to check my temperature with the back of her hand to my forehead. “Could you have gotten the tiniest drop of her urine on you and it’s tearing you apart psychologically, instead of physically? Do you want to go back to Sarah or a healer?”

“Absolutely not.” Any doubts about my mental acuity and I’d be sidelined. “You’re probably right that the suicide was born of starvation and confusion.” I checked my notes, moving on. “The lab setup was suitable for manufacturing small batches of synthetic Crackle in a small distribution chain, but they brought a shedim in. That implies bigger plans, more dangerous ones.”

Sachie whistled. “You thinking they’re working for one of the vamp mobs?”

Vampires had long ago folded most human Mafias into their own organizations.

“That might explain how they were matched with this demon. Vamps know about shedim. Who controls Revelstoke?”

My friend snorted. “No one that I’ve heard of. Unless we have a secret snowshoeing vampire Mafia on our hands.”

“Which means Jasmine’s crew could have reached out to any mob, anywhere.”

Sachie spun a tiny white dreidel on the table, grimacing when it landed on the Hebrew letter “shin,” which would have required her to pony up a coin for the pot. “Let’s divvy up vamp mobs by territory, crosschecking for any drug busts involving shedim.”

“We can start in the last ten years and go from there.”

It was a good plan, but hours later, after many more cups of coffee, a questionable package of beef jerky, and a late-night hailstorm, we were no closer to answers. We’d taken a number of dance breaks, however, a practice implemented by Darsh on our last case to shake off brain fog.

“I wish Jasmine would wake up,” Sachie said. “She might have something to contribute on the subject.”

That made one of us, because I was relieved the Eishei Kodesh woman remained in shock and under guard, unable to mention Cherry Bomb’s presence at the lab. Right now, Edward’s death and all the injuries were attributed to Bratwurst, but if it came out that there was another shedim, even a half-human one present? A shudder ran through me.

It was thanks to me that Paul, Francesca, and Jasmine were rescued, but even so the director—my own mother—disapproved of Cherry’s suspected appearance in this case, and that was merely in regards to how I’d kept myself safe. Others would conflate Cherry with the injuries. I wasn’t about to muddy the role I’d played with unfair allegations, speculation—or worse.

What could I say? Shedim self-preservation instincts were outstanding.

“Hopefully Jasmine will become conscious soon,” I agreed. I think I sounded believable. I spun one of the dreidels, which landed on “gimmel.” Winner takes all. “We need a different way to investigate. Just because we haven’t busted anyone and don’t have any official reports doesn’t mean the vamps aren’t a part of this.”

Sach stretched her neck. “If only we knew someone with crazy hacking abilities who could dive into channels we can’t access? Someone who is also a Maccabee and could be authorized to work with us?”

I laughed, the thought of Michael’s and Darsh’s heads-exploding reactions to this idea filling me with delight.

The director might be the one person who wanted Ezra to stay far from Vancouver more than I did, and her feelings about the Prime extended to his vampire best friend. To be fair, Silas was lovely, the personification of Southern charm, but for Michael, he was guilty by association. As for Darsh? His utter indifference to any mention of Silas these past two months made Sach’s reaction to Olivier seem embarrassingly eager.

I smirked. “If only.”

Sach and I agreed that our best chance at having Michael sign off on Silas working with us was to wait until tomorrow to ask her. She was always in a great mood on the day of the Hanukkah party, and the fact that she’d be distracted with everything she had to attend to didn’t hurt either.

We cornered Michael’s assistant, Louis, bright and early Tuesday morning.

I stood there, stone-faced with my arms crossed, while Sachie convinced him to let us speak to the director.

Louis played guard dog against everyone wanting a moment of Michael’s precious time, but he was most aggressive about it with me. He knew what case we were investigating and given what had happened, he should have ushered us right in, instead of acting like Michael’s speech for the Hanukkah party was of paramount importance. Half the operatives would be hammered by the time she gave it, and honestly, she gave some variation on the same one every year. She was a good speaker, but only the Maccababies hung off every word.

I didn’t thank him when he finally relented. I didn’t strangle him by his stupid skinny tie either, so I was still the bigger person.

Michael jabbed her index finger at her monitor. “There are only so many ways to describe light vanquishing darkness. Give me some good news to inspire me.”

We filled Michael in on everything: the lichen, how the self-mutilation compulsion had been transmitted via urine, and that this was a copycat demon.

“That’s all we need.” Michael pressed down the silver foil on a dented edge of the menorah on her desk. “Other demons with those abilities connecting with humans to manufacture various drugs.”

I’d made that menorah out of modeling clay when I was seven years old, painstakingly covering each holder in aluminum foil, and putting a glittery six-pointed gold star on the raised back. My mother inexplicably trotted it out every single year, setting it among the neatly stacked folders on her desk in a place of pride.

I swallowed through my thick throat. It had been a long time since I’d received that same delighted smile as when I presented her with that gift.

She definitely wasn’t going to don it once we asked her to approve Silas. Hence the reason for Sach’s and my heated rock, paper, scissors battle earlier to determine who’d be stuck as the designated speaker.

Michael adored Sachie, so I doubted she’d suffer the fate common to messengers.

“Speaking of manufacturing,” Sachie said, “Aviva and I have come up with another aspect of this case that we believe should be investigated.”

Michael motioned impatiently for us to get on with it, her focus half on her speech.

“We want to rule out the involvement of vamp mobs,” I said. “It might be how Jasmine and the shedim were paired up and factor into proposed distribution plans.”

“That’s fair. You have my permission. Any available vamp operatives can help.”

“Not just the local Mafias,” Sachie said. “But the larger players globally.”

“Like Natán Cardoso’s?” Michael raised her eyebrow. “Something you want to tell me, Aviva?”

My hands clenched into fists. With great weariness of soul and incredible self-control, I unclenched them. “No,” I said pleasantly. “I haven’t spoken to Ezra since he left the Maccabees and I’d certainly never keep dangerous intel like that from you.”

But also, how dare she jump to that conclusion?

“This is honestly a general theory we both think is worth pursuing,” I said.

“All right, but you want something. What is it?”

I nervously licked my lips, my heart pounding in my ears.

That was my heart, right? And not the fake Sire’s Spark stuffed deep in my purse in my locker downstairs that I swear was beating like something out of a story by Poe. I was positive Michael could hear it and had cottoned on to what I had planned for later.

Sachie shot me a weird look.

I stopped listening for a steady thumping shivering up from the floorboards.

“Uh…” Sach glanced at me for help, but I’d earned my silence when I won our game. Thank you, years of friendship, for my savvy psychological insights that my friend would throw scissors. Though given all the blades hidden on her person, it wasn’t all that insightful.

Michael crossed her arms. “Spit it out, Operative Saito.”

“Allow Silas to dig into it with us.”

Michael laughed bitterly. “Are the two of you trying to kill me?”

“He isn’t part of the Copper Hell,” I said.

“No,” Michael said, “he’s just best friends with Natán’s son, a Prime who wormed his way into the Maccabees to play spy, then went scorched earth with years of dangerous secrets in his possession to align himself with a shedim.”

“The Maccabees haven’t taken action against Ezra, so they’re at least neutral about his decision.” I said this with certainty, but it was a total fishing expedition.

She rooted around in her desk drawer for something, didn’t find it, and shut the drawer harder than necessary. “They can’t take action against someone who doesn’t leave the Copper Hell.”

I flinched. “You mean the plan is to kill him?”

Even Sachie gasped.

Darsh had thought it a possibility, but when Ezra was left alone all this time, I’d relaxed. Michael’s pronouncement now made all those fears come rushing back.

“The Authority is waiting to see what Ezra does when he leaves the yacht,” Michael said. “If his business doesn’t interfere or harm ours in any way, there won’t be an issue. However, if he forces their hand…” She fiddled with the menorah I’d made. “Well, there’s no point speculating before then.”

I gripped the armrests.

“Silas is still a Maccabee,” Sachie said, “and he has skills and connections we need. Ones our local vampire operatives don’t.”

Michael pressed her lips so tightly together they were nothing more than a white slash of disapproval.

“Michael,” I said evenly, focusing on something I could control, “the reason you’re sitting in this director’s chair is because you rooted out unthinkable corruption in our organization, a group dedicated to fighting evil. You trusted your gut about that belief and amassed the proof you needed.”

“Proof I wished had given me the opposite outcome,” Michael said.

“Still,” I said, “once the idea was in your head, you of all people couldn’t ignore it. No matter how unthinkable it was. If the bigger vamp mobs are seeking out demon secretions to produce drugs, this will have terrible consequences, which is why we can’t ignore it. You’ve always told me how hard it was to fight corruption alone. We need Silas.”

“Hopefully we’ll find the proof to rule it out,” Sachie added.

Michael exhaled slowly and deeply. “Fine.”

My gut uncramped. A bit. Part of what made Michael such a great leader was her ability to accept and act on new information without a lot of bluster or denial, but I hadn’t expected her to green-light Silas this quickly.

“He’s working out of the Tokyo chapter,” I said. “And if it helps, he hates Natán.”

“You’re still in touch with Silas,” she said flatly. “How lovely. And you want me to arrange the transfer with Director Abe. Are there any other Hanukkah miracles you’d like me to manifest?”

“Nope.” Sachie grinned at her. “Thank you, Michael.”

“Uh-huh. Go away and let me finish my speech.”

We’d gotten Michael’s approval to bring Silas here. If vamp mobs were using shedim, that would be a whole other can of worms, but one that the Maccabees would throw all their resources behind.

As for Ezra? Hopefully he’d stay walled up at the Copper Hell. Out of sight, out of mind.

I left my mother muttering metaphors about vanquishing darkness, wondering what this year’s speech would sound like.