Chapter 4

Chapter4

The video continued innocuously enough. The gallery claimed that Eishei Kodesh were behind the theft because our kind couldn’t bear to have the truth come out, then the report cut to a close-up of the most infamous artifact: Sire’s Spark, a rough octagonal pinkish crystal about the size of a man’s palm. According to legend, it had belonged to Abraham Ben Haim, a Yellow Flame and one of the world’s most powerful healers, who lived in a shtetl in Poland in the late 1700s.

“Shtetl” was the Yiddish word for a small town with a predominantly Jewish Ashkenazi population. Abraham supposedly imbued the crystal with his magic and it became known as Abraham’s Spark.

It was renamed Sire’s Spark during the rise of the Nazis. Abraham meant “father of many” in Hebrew, and given Nazi interest in the occult, the owners were afraid that the Germans would not only take the artifact, but destroy it due to its Jewish roots.

The reporter listed the many great feats of healing attributed to the crystal: broken bones fixed, brain tumors dissolved, bullets expelling themselves.

“Act now and not only will you get this amazing healing crystal,” I said, “we’ll throw in a free set of knives guaranteed to remove any organ simply by pressing the flat of the blade against the body.”

Darsh chuckled wryly. “Regardless, Trads will get the case, not us.”

None of the crystal’s miraculous properties was anything more than urban legend, since the gallery’s Eishei Kodesh experts hadn’t detected any magic on it, so non-magic officers had jurisdiction over it.

“I hope whoever lands it isn’t bigoted against magic,” I said.

I was about to stop the video when the reporter said something that chilled me to the bone.

“It was widely believed that Abraham passed his magic into the crystal by infusing it with his blood, where his power lived. That gave the artifact both its alleged magic properties and its color,” the reporter said. “According to the legend, the crystal’s magic was based on that universal element of connection. As the sage himself said, ‘blood calls to blood.’”

I’d never expected to hear that phrase in a news report, and I couldn’t ignore it.

Dr. Athena Metaxas, the other perp in our last case, was an infernal. We suspected she’d found their half-shedim victims, but her partner offed her before we could find and question her.

Did the puppet master pulling Roman’s strings expect Sire’s Spark to be a foolproof infernal detector? Or was this crystal—and more half-demon blood—key to furthering their cause in a different way?

“Could someone intend to use infernal blood with this crystal to make vampires invincible?” I said. Whatever invincible meant. We hadn’t been given an explanation, just a villainous hint. “You’re the one who told us that blood could be used to amplify magic in some ritual. Could this artifact be used for it?”

Darsh tapped his fist against the armrest. “I only know that some power word was involved. By the time I learned about there being a ritual, the exact details were lost.”

“Could this artifact be a substitute for the power word? Or a modification?”

“Neither should be the case,” he said, “because this crystal heals. Healing doesn’t use blood magic unless it involves a vampire. And our power isn’t the same thing as a dark magic ritual. Besides, Sire’s Spark was debunked.”

“I get all that, but what if the experts didn’t find its magic because it has to be unlocked? With blood?”

“Aviva,” he said sharply. “The case with the murdered infernals is over, and like I said, the Trad cops will get this one. We have more pressing problems to solve.”

“Right,” I muttered. Infernals never made the priority list.

He glared at me.

“I agreed with you! It’s not our case.”

“But?”

But Ezra and I were still investigating. Admittedly, it had only been a few days since we’d wrapped the murder investigation up, so we hadn’t made any headway into which high-level Maccabee we suspected was involved with finding half shedim to drain of their blood, but we weren’t going to give up.

I’m not sure what prompted Ezra’s interests, but mine were basic survival. Roman Whittaker had whispered that “they” would find me. How?

Because blood called to blood.

I had to find them before they found me.

However, I couldn’t tell Darsh any of this because he didn’t know I was a half demon. The world wasn’t ready to embrace people like me, and I couldn’t risk losing my friends—like I had with Ezra, my first love—when I shared my secret.

“But nothing.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I can’t get those poor people’s desecration out of my head.”

“I don’t believe you. If you’re up to something, tell me now, because I refuse to have you going lone wolf on a tangent during what will already be a fraught investigation.”

“You’re not the lead yet,” I snapped.

“I will be,” he said with maddening certainty. “And unless you want your role on this case to be a single written report of what you saw at the crime scene, you’ll come clean about anything else.”

“You can’t⁠—”

“I can and I will.”

My eyes got a tingly pins and needles sensation that made my nose twitch. Fuck. Cherry Bomb would be bursting out onto the scene any second now if I didn’t get myself under control. I quickly ducked my head, my fists clenched, and visualized punching Darsh until the sensation passed.

It took twenty-three imagined uppercuts and jabs, but when I faced Darsh, I was confident that my eyes had not turned from light brown to toxic green. “There’s nothing to tell,” I said evenly.

“There better not be.” He crossed his arms.

The air between us turned bristly. Was I aware of the hypocrisy of acting like Ezra and keeping my secrets close? Yes, but I wasn’t withholding information about our current case. It was an important distinction.

I wasn’t jeopardizing anything.

Cherry snorted. Whatever lets you sleep at night, babycakes.

The door swung open, and my best friend, Sachie, waltzed in. She’d decided to grow out her pixie cut, but it was newly dyed her favorite fire engine red and matched the hoodie she’d paired with black jeans and Doc Martens. “The Three Musketeers are on the caaaa—” She stopped dead, looking between us with narrowed eyes. “Did I interrupt a pissing contest?” Her saccharine-sweet smile didn’t reveal either of her dimples, and she’d already unearthed a small switchblade that she danced over her knuckles.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sachie Saito. Ready and willing to instigate peace via bloodshed. Thus far, I’d never incurred more than a menacing jab, but there was always that sliver of unease that my best friend would shiv me if necessary.

In her defense, she’d feel really bad about it after.

I think.

No worries this time, though, because Darsh disarmed her in the blink of an eye. He tossed the blade up in the air and caught it in his fist. “I’m keeping this.”

Sach scowled at him. “Hey!”

“Sit.” He pointed at the chair he’d vacated.

“Avi wasn’t this bossy when she was lead,” Sach said, sinking into the seat.

“Co-lead,” Darsh corrected.

“Not that Darsh has been made lead now.” I shoved my feet back into my heels.

That earned me twin looks of pity.

I threw up my hands.

Michael finally returned, closed the door, and sat down behind her desk. “We’re all here. Good. Sachie, you and Aviva will report to Darsh.”

Screw you, Darsh, for always being right when it came to Michael.

Sach gave a little fist pump. She’d worked toward being a part of the Spook Squad for a long time, and now she was on her first official case as a member of that team.

There weren’t many vampire Maccabees in our global organization and zero full-demon ones. There weren’t any other half ones in our supernatural police force either, but aye, there was the rub. If they did as good a job as me as hiding it, I’d never know.

There couldn’t be many more, if any. The public loved quoting the fact that very few infernals were carried to term. It helped people sleep at night.

Regardless, vamp operatives didn’t have levels to achieve like their human colleagues. Once they graduated as novices, all undead operatives went into a general pool at their chapter called a Spook Squad. These squads were given cases to investigate, like any operative, but they focused on rogue vamps and shedim activity, not policing Eishei Kodesh.

Vancouver had three vamps in their squad: Darsh, Nasir, and the most senior operative, Cécile.

Sachie had been angling to become their first human teammate for a while. Her request was granted after our last investigation—the first time either of us had ever worked with vamp operatives on a case.

Unlike the rest of us, the Spook Squad got to combine all the fun challenges of solving crimes with more fighting and stabbing. Plus, there weren’t the same strict protocols around arrests since their targets weren’t human.

All of that appealed to my bloodthirsty bestie, and I smiled at her, happy she’d achieved her goal. It had cost her, both in a brutal training regime and certain friendships with other operatives.

I happened to catch Darsh’s eye.

The fucker smirked at me.

My smile flickered, and I scratched my cheek with my middle finger.

Michael sent us both a sharp look.

In a rare show of solidarity, Darsh and I beamed innocently at her.

Michael sighed with great weariness of the soul. “Should we confirm without a sliver of a doubt that our missing victim, Emily Astor, was a Prime,” she said, “this will be the most sensitive case we’ve ever had. I’ll move Cécile and Nasir to other digs for the duration and give you run of the basement, but make sure not a single word of this leaks.” She shook her head. “I spoke to our healers. They can’t say whether Ms. Keller, Rachel, and Mason will get their memories of the events back.”

Sachie frowned, not yet up to speed, but she saved her questions for our squad debrief.

“Did they just lose memories of the crime or of other parts of their lives as well?” I said. Their minds had been violated, but it would be horrible if they’d also lost precious personal memories.

“The crime,” Michael said.

“That’s worse.” Darsh slouched lazily against the wall. “It means someone with incredible power focused the memory loss.”

“Ms. Keller has been put under guard,” Michael said, “but she’s understandably upset and concerned about how long her business will be out of commission. I realize we’re starting at worse than zero, since we don’t have the victim or any evidence, but crack this as soon as possible.” The director paused. “It’s a given that you’ll run into other vampires over the course of the investigation, and if our murdered woman was a Prime, they’ll be powerful. Keep this under your hats and do not underestimate anyone you come in contact with or the potential threat to the investigation at any point.” She looked directly at me.

“I won’t,” I said.

“We may cross paths with one of the vamp Mafias,” Darsh said.

My mother pressed her lips into a thin line, and I wondered if she was thinking about Natán Cardoso, her former good friend and fellow Maccabee. He’d been turned and had risen to head up the Kosher Nostra, one of the most powerful vamp mobs.

He was also Ezra’s father. I’d never met him, and I had no desire to. What kind of sick individual raised their only son to be a trained killer?

“I want updates in real time,” she said. “Understood?”

Darsh nodded. “Got it.”

A body thudded against the door.

I jumped.

“Yabai!” Sach said under her breath in Japanese.

The door opened.

“You can’t go in there!” In all my years, I’d never heard Louis raise his voice. He may have been a supercilious, overprotective asshole, but he was generally unflappable, which made him the perfect assistant for Michael.

I bolted up, already halfway out of my seat to take arms against whatever misfortune was about to befall us.

Ezra strode in. Unlike his first visit to the director’s office, he didn’t deploy his legendary charm, and his easygoing grin was nowhere in sight. He wore all black, his expression grim. His silvery-blue eyes held turbulent darker swirls and his body was rigid.

Louis hovered anxiously behind him. The assistant’s suit jacket was badly wrinkled on one side. “I tried to stop him.”

“It’s okay, Louis,” Michael said. “Leave us.”

He nodded and withdrew.

Sachie shot me an “oh shit” look, her eyebrows raised.

Darsh lounged against the wall, his relaxed pose belied by his gaze tracking each second of this encounter. I had no doubt he’d spring into action at the smallest provocation.

Ezra, at six feet, was a smidge taller than Darsh, with a good thirty pounds more muscle. He was a Prime and an assassin. However, my friend had the elegance and lethalness of a jungle cat and was older and more cunning. I couldn’t say who’d win a physical altercation, and I didn’t want to find out.

Michael looked at the framed parchment on the exposed brick wall certifying her appointment as director like she was checking her name was still on there and this wasn’t someone else’s mess to deal with.

Anyone else would have just seen a quick glance sideways, but I’d spent a lifetime deciphering her every little twitch in case I’d fucked up and let my infernal side come out, even if only in front of her.

“To what do we owe the great pleasure of you still being here in my city when your investigation wrapped up three days ago?” she said.

“I stuck around to take in some of the attractions,” he said flatly.

My mother glanced at me.

I clenched my jaw. Hard to say what was more insulting: that she lumped me in with the aquarium, or that she thought I’d lost my freaking mind and hooked up with him again.

“You’re lucky I stayed,” he continued seriously. “As the sole Prime Maccabee, I’m investigating this murder.” He glared at me. “I told you to lock it down until I got there. This is on you.”