Chapter 25

Chapter25

Stomping along the sidewalk past the café, getting soaked, because of course it was raining, wasn’t nearly as satisfying as revving into the night. I couldn’t get in my car and run because it had been blown up, and I was too messed up to try to steal another one. To add insult to injury, every drop of rain was an icy reminder of all the ways Delacroix could hurt me.

I’d just gotten home and taken a hot shower when Sachie banged on my door. “Ezra really killed Calista?” she said, her voice tight.

I flung the door open, pajamas on and my towel wrapped around my wet hair. “He told you?” I gaped at the chunky green scarf wrapped around her neck. “More importantly, he knit you something?”

Sachie patted it. “It’s warm and soft as petting a bunny rabbit.”

“And you accepted it? From the man you warned me off?”

“I warned you off the man, not his knitwear. Those are of impeccable quality. And to answer your other question, Ezra showed up at HQ, calmly dropped that bombshell about Calista, and refused to elaborate, beyond insisting you had nothing to do with it. That’s when he gave me the scarf.”

Holy shit. Calista’s murder wasn’t something he could hide, but I didn’t expect him to march directly to HQ, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, and confess either.

“What part of ‘rescue mission’ wasn’t clear?” Darsh growled from our living room.

I sighed, and followed Sachie down the hall.

Darsh was coiled on the edge of our sofa, his expression grim and a beer bottle–sized blood beverage cracked open in front of him. The popular brand was magically infused with a high alcohol content, allowing vamps to get drunk. Darsh’s serving was half gone.

He still wore his toque.

How come they got gifts and I didn’t? I had Ezra’s literal blood running through my stupid veins. Surely that was worth a pair of socks.

I took the chair farthest from Darsh, impressed at Sach’s utter nonchalance in throwing herself down next to our murderous-looking friend.

“I tried to stop Ezra from killing her,” I said. “It happened too fast.”

Darsh nodded, and a knot unwound in my chest now that I knew he wasn’t mad at me. “Calista had to die,” he said, “but not until after we’d caught our suspect.”

“Wait.” I crossed my arms. “You condoned her murder?”

“She was a Prime,” he said. “She wasn’t going to forgive and forget. Whether today or years from now, she’d have her revenge.”

“On Maud,” Sachie said.

He shook his head. “On anyone who witnessed her humiliation. Memory loss wouldn’t matter.”

“Then why wait to kill her?” Sachie said.

“Why did the Crimson Prince work so hard to become a Maccabee spy?” Darsh said.

I shrugged. “No clue.”

“Me neither, but he did.” Darsh scraped at the corner of the label on his bottle. “A revenge kill during an active investigation case is enough to get him booted out of the entire organization. I told him as much, and you know what he said?”

I shook my head.

“It saved him a resignation letter.”

I flinched. “That’s not right. Darsh, we need to speak to him.”

“No,” he said firmly. “We do not. That’s an order.” Darsh hadn’t given many direct orders on this investigation, but this was categorically one with no room for interpretation. “Not until this is all over,” he added. “Ezra will be lucky if the Maccabees only kick him out and don’t decide to treat him as a liability.”

“Like they meant to with you?” Sachie said.

I eeped and darted a fearful glance at Darsh.

“That’s what they do, Sach.” He sounded resigned. “Our overlords are only benevolent up to a point. And in Ezra’s case? The Crimson Prince, holder of secret intel, going off into the wild? I don’t want any of us near that shitshow until we have the leverage of this closed case on our side.”

“They could kill him?” I choked out.

“I don’t know.”

Sachie went into the kitchen.

“Tell them it was self-defense,” I insisted.

“After he confessed otherwise to me and Sachie?” Darsh arched an eyebrow. “How many people would you like to implicate in lying for him? Besides, he seemed pretty set on leaving.”

Sachie returned with the good bottle of vodka we kept in the freezer and poured us both shots.

“The asshole was growing on me.” Darsh took a healthy swallow of alcoholic blood. “I tried to protect him.”

A dull, heavy silence descended on the room.

Sach and I half-heartedly clinked shot glasses. The cold booze had a sharp kick going down, but when it hit my stomach, a warmth blossomed through my system.

Sadly, it wasn’t enough to overcome my fears about Ezra. I understood a world where he’d hurt me. It was dark and painful and lonely, but eventually, color and laughter would return.

I couldn’t fathom a world where he no longer existed at all.

I didn’t want to.

“Please tell me something good,” I said.

“Delacroix will be out of your life soon,” Sachie said.

“Right,” I muttered. “So long as I stay alive until then and we have a precise timeline of when Maud is going to attack in order to stop her, I’ll be peachy.”

Sachie refilled my shot glass. “Good thing we have exactly that.”

A tendril of hope snaked through me. “We do?”

“Delacroix probably thinks you’re dead anyway,” Darsh said.

“Thanks, sunshine, but I’m not counting on that as an absolute. I’m safe so long as I stay here behind wards, but I can’t do that indefinitely, and sadly, wearing a mezuzah around my neck won’t help.”

“Seeing as you’re not a door,” Sachie said.

“An aspiration I never before had.” I fired back my second vodka shot. “The thing is, getting from here to the portal at the pub will be risky for me.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take.” Sachie shuddered, making a face at the vodka she’d swallowed. “Sharnaz was very helpful. There are only a handful of Eishei Kodesh in the world capable of attaching a glamor using digital scans of a real person’s fingerprints and retinas. Fewer still who could make them fool demon magic and take control of the portal. The closest person is in Los Angeles, and guess who flew down there this morning?”

I closed my eyes briefly against the surge of relief. And possibly because the vodka was making me feel nicely blurry. “Any idea how long it’ll take to glamor Maud?”

“Sharnaz assured me we’re looking at a twenty-four-hour minimum. Even without factoring in travel time from the LA airport to the Eishei Kodesh glamorer and then Maud getting to a portal to the yacht, she won’t show up at the Hell before tomorrow morning.”

Darsh propped one of our decorative pillows behind his head and slid the fuzzy blanket that was folded over the back of the couch over his body. He had an open invitation to crash here, and honestly, I’d feel better with him around. “We’ll head for the Jolly Hellhound around 8AM,” he said, “which will still get us there before her. For now, get a good night’s rest.”

Sachie held up the vodka bottle, her eyebrows raised.

I nodded and held out the shot glass. “Purely for medicinal purposes so I don’t lie awake brooding.” Or shaking, after this bitch of a day.

“I’ll drink to that,” Sachie said. We fired back the vodka.

“Maybe Delacroix will take his anger out on Ezra,” Darsh said, his eyes already closed.

“Maybe.” Except I didn’t want that either.

Happily, I swaddled myself in my blankets and slept like a baby until my phone woke me. It pulled me out of such a deep sleep that I felt nauseous and disoriented. “Hello?”

“Aviva?”

“Huh? Who’s this?”

“It’s Jordy. Rukhsana is laying low for a while, but if you want to meet, I’ll bring the donuts.”

Did I? Not really, but if my last act was to ensure he was safe and sound, that wouldn’t be so bad. Delacroix hadn’t sent his “no can refuse” invitation portal the second Calista died, so he wasn’t keyed to her in some way. Hopefully, news of her demise would take time to make its way back to him.

Damn, I did not want to be the messenger when we got to the yacht. It would suck to get the jump on Maud only to have Delacroix kill me. Especially since I intended to kill him first.

I agreed to meet Jordy, throwing on a warm black hoodie, black jeans, and a pair of flat ankle boots in the dark. Today’s mission did not call for a nice pantsuit and heels. It required something that would hide demon blood.

It was only 6AM, but I woke Darsh when I tiptoed into the living room. I told him I was going to see an informant on some other business and that I’d be back before we had to go to the portal.

Fifteen minutes later, my Uber pulled up to the address I’d been given—an older apartment building in the West End. I’d spent the ride twitchy, convinced I’d be sucked through a portal to face Delacroix’s wrath since I wasn’t behind mezuzah wards, but I arrived in one piece.

Jordy buzzed me into a gloomy lobby that smelled like dryer sheets and popcorn, with a carpet that was a 1970s vision in faded paisley. He waited for me halfway down the hall on the second floor, his hands jammed into his pockets. His ZZ Top beard was gone, revealing a baby face cuteness and a weak chin.

“Looking pretty good for a corpse,” I said.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Sorry about that.”

I was relieved, pissed off, and tired, all in equal measure. “You better have ponied up for the good donuts and not some supermarket shit.”

“I did.” He glanced around once, then ushered me inside before turning two dead bolts on the door.

The studio apartment had a futon in one corner across from a flat-screen TV on a steamer trunk, a cheap wooden table, and a heap of boxes.

“Are you coming or going?” I sat down on one of the two chairs.

“Camping out temporarily?” He took the seat across from me and cracked open the bright yellow donut box from my favorite bakery.

“Should I still call you Jordy or do you have a new name?”

“George Green is dead. Long live Jordy Gill.” He’d taken Rukhsana’s surname in his new alias? Why not. The young woman played mom to her crew. A mother lion, but still.

I helped myself to a jelly donut. “Why’s Rukhsana being framed for stealing the exhibit artifacts when we both know that’s not her style?”

Jordy blinked at me. “You believe she’s innocent?”

I swallowed my mouthful of pastry. “Well, I did. Of theft, at least. Am I wrong?”

“No, but…”

“But why am I convinced? She does very well for herself in terms of money and power with her current operation. Why would she risk that for a bunch of mostly worthless non-magical artifacts when she’s never engaged in B&E before? Plus, she claimed her attacker was misguided. I concluded she was framed. How am I doing?”

“Pretty well.” His general good humor had been restored, and he bit into a cinnamon old-fashioned with a smile.

“And the murdered man? The other George Green?”

Jordy’s smile faded. “That wasn’t Rukhsana either. Green was behind the gallery job, but his fence ratted him out to a powerful client.”

“Who got the wrong idea because of his name. This client killed Green and assaulted Rukhsana?”

Jordy nodded and took another bite.

“Why’d Green steal them in the first place?”

“I can’t talk to the dead, Avi,” Jordy said with a laugh, “but my money is on the money. It doesn’t matter if the artifacts were debunked of magic, there are still collectors who’ll pay a tidy sum for them.”

I sat back on a rush of disappointment. I’d been positive that Sire’s Spark was stolen because of some tie to the missing infernal blood, and that someone high up in my organization had ordered the theft, just like they’d ordered those people’s murders.

This wasn’t some nefarious plot to help vamps become invincible, but the one artifact that mattered was still out there, in play somewhere.

“I doubt the fence left an anonymous tip for the cops to come and get them,” I said.

“Nope. He was so mad.”

“Who has Sire’s Spark now?”

He shrugged.

I didn’t buy it. I took a deep, steadying breath. “Are you still in danger? Is Rukhsana?”

He grinned. “I told her you cared.”

“I do. So let me help you both. Tell me who attacked her.” That person might know something useful about Sire’s Spark.

“They don’t matter anymore,” Jordy said. “She dealt with them.”

I sighed. However, as he hadn’t explicitly said the person was dead, I could still plead plausible deniability if Olivier demanded answers. Ah, damn. Olivier. “The Trad cops are investigating,” I said.

“We know. They won’t find any loose ends.”

“That’s great for you, Jordy, but honestly, I feel I’m owed more than an admittedly delicious donut and some cryptic small talk.”

Jordy wiped sugar crystals off his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why? About what?”

Sire’s Spark. But how could I tell Jordy that I wanted to see the healing crystal for myself? Hold it in the palm of my hand in case…

In case what?Cherry scoffed. Your shedim blood activates it? Then what?Would you help with the vampires’ quest for invincibility?

Most people with a devil on their shoulder have an angel balancing it out, I fired back.

My head rang with laughter.

Jordy peered at me, munching on his second doughnut. “You okay there? Your face is twitching weird.”

“I’m fine. Look, the Trad cops know I’m connected to Rukhsana, and I’ve gotten some heat on that score. I kept my mouth shut that you weren’t the dead man.”

In a blink, the burly man’s affable good nature was replaced by something darker. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a request. If Rukhsana has any leads on the missing artifact, I’d appreciate them so I can restore some good will with my fellow officers.”

He didn’t answer, suddenly very busy brushing crumbs off his shirt.

I narrowed my eyes. “Not a lead. She knows where it actually is.”

“Not exactly.”

My already hair-thin patience snapped. “Where’s the fucking artifact, Jordy?”

He hesitated but caved under my glower. “Rukhsana believes a Maccabee took it.”

“Why the hell didn’t you lead with that?”

He shrugged. “I had to make sure she could trust you.”

I blinked. “Rukhsana thought it was me? Why?”

“An anonymous tip to the Trad cops with all the artifacts left nice and neat for them to find, except the one with this supposedly incredible magic power? Come on, Avi, she knows you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said coldly. My blood pounding in my ears sounded like a voice whispering Infernal over and over again.

“Admit it. You were mad that Trads got this case instead of Maccabees. You’d want this artifact off the streets to get it verified by your own experts and lock it away if necessary. If it went into the evidence lockup at Trad HQ, you’d never get your hands on it. Not anytime soon at least. The politics involved would be a nightmare.”

I relaxed. “Okay, yes, that’s fair, but I didn’t do any of that. Also, I’m hardly a seasoned thief. The likelihood of someone seeing me if I did attempt to take it would be pretty high.”

“So what? You could make them forget you were there.”

“I’m a Blue Flame,” I said. “We illuminate weaknesses, we don’t cleanse memories. That’s Yellow Flame territory.”

He laughed. “Yeah, right.” He drew his brows together. “You really don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Blue Flames can wipe memories,” he said.

“No, we can’t.”

“It’s really rare, but it’s possible for a Blue Flame to meld their consciousness with an actual flame, giving them fire sight. I don’t know if there’s a technical term, but they see what’s happening via flames.”

“They spy via fire?” My eyes widened. There were candles in the spa. “How does the memory loss play into it?”

“If the Blue Flame wants to extinguish the memory of the events they’re watching, they snuff out their magic in a certain way. I don’t have the specifics.”

The wood creaked under my weight as I twisted the gold Maccabee ring on my finger, calling up every detail of the crime scene I could remember. Was Maud actually a Blue Flame and that’s how she’d erased the memories?

Part of me was annoyed that I’d never known this about my magic type, but more of me was seriously pissed off that Maud got a cooler ability than me.

I sat back in my chair. Except…her yellow flame magic was a matter of public record. Poker player, Cherry said. Which came first? Maud hiding her real magic to become a world champion poker player or using that cover to hide her magic? For her magic to have been hidden through childhood, her mother was involved.

I gave a bitter smile. It always came back to the mother.

I straightened out a bend in the lid of the donut box. Constantine had told the truth that he wasn’t part of the abduction. He wasn’t shocked that I knew Maud was involved, he was stunned that she’d kidnapped Calista in the first place.

I didn’t feel bad for killing the vamp bouncer though. A death for an attempted death and all that.

Okay, so Maud, a Blue Flame, lied to Quentin to secure his help to stake Calista, spied on us at the spa through the candles, and wiped Mason’s, Rachel’s, and Dawn’s minds of the crime. For her grand finale, she dragged Calista out of the can and into the basement, where she imprisoned her to scan her retinas and fingerprints and get control of the portal leading to the Copper Hell.

It was quite the plan.

Having gotten all I could out of this meeting, I stood up. “I expect an invitation to Rukhsana’s new place of business.” Look at me, making plans like I had a future.

“Now that we know you weren’t involved in any part of this robbery, you’ll get one.”

I nodded and headed for the door. “Thanks for the donut.”

“Next one’s on you.”

I made it home, collected Darsh and Sachie, and got to the Jolly Hellhound, still unharmed. The pub was closed, but Darsh had arranged for the owner to get us into the back room. The protocol of ordering a Bitter Abyss was trumped by Maccabee authority. By which I meant Darsh’s “do not fuck with me right now” attitude when the dude tried to enforce it.

Before we stepped through the portal, Darsh gathered Sachie and me into a tight circle, and placed his hand in the middle. “Count of three,” he said.

“Wait.” I held up a hand to stall the chant we used to kick off nights out together. “There’s something I need to tell you both.” In order to fill them in about Maud’s unique blue flame ability, I came clean about investigating Sire’s Spark to Darsh. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. “I’m sorry I lied,” I said. “I didn’t compromise this investigation, but I did defy your no-secrets rule, so I’ll take whatever punishment you see fit.”

It was a relief to confess.

“Since we’re sharing,” Darsh said slowly. He fiddled with the beads in his leather wrist cuff. “I used to be a regular visitor to the Copper Hell.”

“Did you know Calista was the Prime involved from the start?” Sachie said.

“I suspected. Strongly. But I didn’t know that staking her wouldn’t kill her. I swear that was news to me.”

Sach crossed her arms. “Did you have history with her?”

“No. I barely knew her. I had no personal feelings about her one way or the other.”

My head was reeling. “You should never have been lead on this.”

Sachie glared at me. “This isn’t about you not getting to be in charge.”

“That’s not what I meant. Well, okay, maybe I meant it, but you kept this secret for a reason, so there was more to it than visiting the Hell. You could have compromised our case.”

“I didn’t though,” Darsh said. “Not at any point. Nor will I.”

I narrowed my eyes. “It compromised you. You got hurt going back there.”

“More emotionally than physically. I—” He squeezed the leather cuff. “I lost someone because of that place.” His gaze went distant and haunted.

“Who?” Sach spoke softly but that one word was infused with steel.

“My younger brother. Patrin.” Darsh shook himself like a dog shaking off water. “And that’s it for story time today.”

“You shouldn’t go back,” I immediately said.

“If you and Sachie want to take over, go ahead. But I’m seeing this through to the end,” he said.

“Because you want to do your job or because of what will happen to you if you screw up as a Maccabee?”

“Can both matter?”

Yeah, they could. I knew that better than anyone, but still I hesitated when Darsh placed his hand in the middle of our circle.

“Please,” he said softly. “I need this band to stay together.”

I slapped my hand over his. “So do I, you idiot.”

Sachie sighed theatrically and placed her hand on top. “I was going to have a fantastic solo career.”

“No, you weren’t,” Darsh said. “You can barely carry a tune. On three.”

At his countdown we chanted, “We are fabulous!”

“We got this,” I said.

“And we’ve got safety in numbers,” Sach added. “Even Delacroix will think twice before harming three Maccabees. He wanted Calista back so he could feast on the misery that his business generated? Well, if he gets the organization up in arms over our deaths, the only misery will be his. It’s not worth it.”

It was a comforting thought. Too bad that when we stepped into the portal, I was the only one who stepped out.