Chapter 5
My mushy feelings quickly faded in the back of the taxi.
January in Vancouver always depressed me. Regardless of my frustrations having Christmas shoved down my throat the second Halloween was over, once the sparkle was turned off and the lights hung limply off eaves, with inflatable figures languishing like forgotten dolls in the rain, I almost wished for the anticipatory lead-up to the holiday back. Instead, I was left feeling trapped in a city-wide gloom, where future good times felt too far off to inspire joy.
It didn’t help that shortly before the new year, posters and graffiti had exploded around the Lower Mainland, like the angry slogans illuminated by a sickly yellow streetlight in the dark night sky that we drove past.
“Fuck Trads” was spraypainted on the side of a low building, then crossed out in favor of “magic is the work of the devil” along with posters for the reelection of Jared Casey, featuring his fake smile and blond combover.
Video had recently been “leaked” of Jared during a hunting party with some buddies. In full regalia, he’d been caught sneering that “real humans don’t need magic.”
Then he cocked his rifle.
It went viral with a vengeance.
When pressed by media, Jared insisted his remarks had been taken out of context and that he’d been talking about hunting deer. Yeah, right. What a shithead.
I rested my head against the seat, my shoulders and neck tight, and placed the maggot bag on top of the backpack. Speaking of shitheads…
Ever since Ezra’s dad, Natán, had tried to bribe me into staying away from his son, he’d set up minions to stalk me 24-7. They couldn’t enter my home or workplace, and through a series of Mission Impossible –type maneuvers, I’d given them the slip for this side quest into the Brink. I didn’t want them reporting back that Ezra and I had been together or where my investigation into this vampire ritual was at.
Natán had previously attempted to bribe me with insider information about the missing infernal blood that was key to vamp procreation. I refused to have him one-upping me on this investigation, manipulating events so my choices were either stop this ritual or stop seeing Ezra.
I’d given Ezra a heads-up about it, and he’d been understandably furious, ready to charge back to his father or take the vamp minders out himself, but showing that it bothered either of us handed Natán a vulnerability I refused to give him. I’d convinced Ezra to leave it be.
Sure enough, I exited the taxi in front of my condo tower and a figure peeled away from the shadows. She came only a few feet forward, her intent not to make contact or even scare me, just to let me know she was watching.
I hitched the backpack higher on my shoulder and strode up to the building’s front door.
A few minutes later, I entered my apartment with a happy sigh. After setting the plastic bag down for a moment, I slid the backpack off and removed my hiking boots. “Honey, I’m home.”
Silence.
I peeked in the kitchen, hoping the metal Moka pot sat on the stove, filled with espresso and ready to brew, but alas, my dreams of coffee went unfulfilled. Stomach grumbling, I peered in the fridge, but it was basically empty save for a troubling number of half-full pickle jars.
Sadly, I’d already polished off the Japanese potato salad that Sachie’s mom, Reina, had sent over. Despite it being one of my bestie’s favorite dishes, she “refused to succumb to creamy blackmail.” I’d nobly consumed it in the interests of preventing food waste, but damn, it would have hit the spot.
I’d hoped that in the wake of Sachie’s dad’s heart attack, she’d resolve her argument with her parents about joining the Spook Squad, but the opposite happened. The health scare freaked Ben and Reina out, their fears of mortality manifesting as an overwhelming desire to protect their only child. Sach was understandably trying to help them out and keep an eye on her dad, but she always returned from the visits depleted and angry.
I was trying not to take sides, but they were treating Sach like a toddler about to run into oncoming traffic, and I felt for my friend.
I texted her that I was safe and home, wondering if she was out with Detective Olivier Desmond. The two of them were spending a lot of time together, which was wonderful. I wasn’t jealous in the least. I was simply hungry and tired and would appreciate her making time for grocery shopping since she’d been in a reality with supermarkets and I’d been in a barren desert hellscape with the Great Bone Wall of Emo-ness.
When I didn’t immediately get a reply, I decided that the first order of business was peeing, then caffeine and any meal I could cobble together, and finally a shower.
I’d stowed the maggot in the bag of water in my room, emptied my bladder, and was walking back to the kitchen when I was tackled from above. I hit the ground with an “oomph,” one arm pinned above my head. I swung my other arm backward and grabbed my attacker’s hair, pulling hard.
The second their weight shifted, I threw them off enough to awkwardly roll out from under them.
Sachie jumped to her feet before I did, grabbed me in a headlock, and choked me out.
Wheezing, I slammed the palm of my fist backward into her nose, twisting her away and reversing our positions. “You like that?”
She stabbed me in the stomach, blood trickling from one nostril. “Die, infernal!”
I experienced a bright moment of panic until the realization that the blade was a prop knife whose blade had retracted on contact sunk in. Adrenaline thrummed uselessly though me. “Was that really necessary?”
“Yes, seeing as I’m trying to keep you alive.” She tipped her head back, stanching the trickle of blood. “But you persist in remaining human when you’re in mortal danger.”
I spun on my heel and headed for the kitchen. “I am human. What I am not is in mortal danger from a plastic toy.”
She followed right behind me, still plugging her nose. “You know what I mean.”
“Sach, I can’t armor up every time I come under attack.”
“Why not?” She grabbed a rag from under the sink, wet it, and wiped off her nose.
I’d taken almost thirty years scared to tell her I was a half shedim in case she recoiled in disgust or was furious that I’d hidden this from her, and I’d lose her. Instead, she’d leaned right into it as a means of self-defense. Of all the possible reactions, I hadn’t seen this one coming—or how annoying she’d be, attacking me at all hours of the day and night (yes, even from a deep sleep) in her effort to have me deploy my shedim scales at the least provocation to stay safe.
“Because I enjoy walking down the street without someone trying to exorcize me between the grocery store and home.” It was like trying to explain drowning to someone who’d never seen water—this bone-deep knowledge of what happens when you’re different.
“Better outed than dead! It’s a miracle you’ve survived this long. Especially with You Know Who always attacking you.” She scooted around me to block me from the cupboard with the vacuum-sealed espresso tin.
I glared at her. “Right. No training or experience about it. Just divine intervention again and again. And Delacroix isn’t Voldemort. Saying his name doesn’t make him any more or less dangerous.” I’d shared the truth of my demon daddy with her about a week after dropping my half-shedim form on her. Luckily, our apartment was warded against him.
She had the good grace to look sheepish. And better still, fill the Moka pot for me. “All I’m saying is that if I had this at my disposal, I’d use it and you should too.”
I sat down at the table. “Can we have this discussion for the gazillionth time after I’ve eaten?”
Sachie flicked on the burner. “Pizza should be here any minute.”
“Hawaiian?”
“Yes. I ordered your disgusting pineapple.” She sponged the few bloody drops off her shirt.
“Wait. How’d you know I was on my way back?”
“Ezra texted me.”
I smiled sappily. He’d been inundated by his employees and still took the time to make sure I was safe.
“Quit it.” She tossed the damp rag in the sink, where it landed with a splat.
“Like I haven’t seen that look on your face a time or two recently.” My stomach grumbled again, but as if on cue, the intercom sounded.
Sachie went to get the pizza while I enjoyed the quiet hum of the kitchen and waited for the Moka pot to steam. She returned with two boxes while I was pouring myself a strong shot of espresso. She’d ordered from our favorite thin-crust place, and I shoveled three pieces in in rapid succession.
Only then did I have the energy to retrieve the maggot from my room and set the bag on the table between us.
Sach stared deadpan at the thrashing creature. “Our lease doesn’t allow exotic pets.”
“Oh damn. And here I had a sparkly collar picked out for it and everything.” I checked that the bag wasn’t leaking water. “It’s not a pet. Out of curiosity, how long were you perched up in the corner of the ceiling like a gecko, waiting to attack me?”
My friend raked a lock of pink hair out of her eyes. “No time at all, but for the record, I prefer spider.”
“I prefer you not be a giant weirdo who scales our walls.”
“Aww. You’re welcome.” She flicked her finger against the bag.
The maggot freaked out, bashing against the sides of its plastic prison so hard that it rolled the bag a good foot closer to the edge of the table.
I moved it back into the center and filled Sach in on my adventures. When I got to the part about this maggot being the most recent supplicant’s name, Sach grimaced but looked up full moons on her phone.
“There’s one on Tuesday,” she said.
“Then my social calendar for that night is set.” I stood up and, yawning, reached for the dirty plates.
Sach was already dumping the coffee grounds in our counter composter. “I got this. Go sleep.”
“Thanks.”
My shower’s hot water eased my tense muscles. I threw on the crimson sweater I slept in more often than not, and fell into a deep sleep, dozing on and off all through Sunday as well.
Monday morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I cornered Michael in the kitchen at Maccabee HQ, smirking as a level one operative insisted the director take the last apple turnover, then left looking crestfallen.
“Silly child,” I said. “He hasn’t learned that when it comes to food, it’s every Maccabee for themselves.”
“Mmm.” Michael swallowed her bite of pastry and grinned. “But it always works out in my favor.”
This playful side of my mother was new to me. I wouldn’t say our relationship was suddenly perfect, but we were learning to trust each other, and there’d been more laughter than arguing in the past month.
Looking around, even though it was obvious that the closest operatives were a good twenty feet away from the open-concept kitchen, plus they were working with their headphones on, I leaned on the counter and lowered my voice. “Impressed that I didn’t miss work?”
Michael and I had made an agreement about me taking time off to go into the Brink and find the fortress. She hated the prospect of vampires having babies as much as I did, and certainly didn’t want that news getting out. Not on top of the low morale among the operatives over the corrupted magic in our rings.
I’d been certain that the Authority Council would make up some excuse for why we’d been banned from using the magic cocktail in our rings, or worse, not say anything at all.
However, in an astonishing move of transparency, the Authority had come clean about how when the cocktail was created in the 1600s, a shedim attack corrupted the foundational strain that allowed the five types of Eishei Kodesh magic to work in combination and destroy demons.
Using the magic in our rings didn’t kill them, like we believed. Instead, it transported them to demon-created and -operated prisons that were disguised as love locks. The shedim jailers moved these padlocks around like batteries, leaching evil into the world and contributing to some of the worst events in history, both human-made and naturally occurring.
Apparently, there’d been a heated debate among the members of the Authority about whether to order the magic cocktail drained out of our rings, but they’d voted in favor of leaving it. Yes, it sent shedim into prisons that other demons could use to sow evil, but when facing a demon attacker, it was still a human operative’s only chance of survival.
That said, we were no longer allowed to actively hunt shedim—that was left to vamp operatives whose innate magic let them truly kill demons.
While we discovered all this only last month, the Authority wasted no time putting their best and brightest on creating a magic formula that worked as we intended.
It wasn’t even like the majority of Maccabees faced down shedim, and certainly not on a regular basis, but learning we’d been played by demons for hundreds of years had been a gut punch.
One more reason why this January sucked. And why Michael had me keep mum about going into the Brink.
I accompanied Michael to her office and was showing her a picture of the maggot when her guard dog—I mean, assistant, Louis—threw himself inside the room, his back pressed against the door. “Chief Constable Davis is on the war?—”
The door was pushed wide, knocking Louis forward.
Keira Davis was the first female chief constable of the Vancouver Trad police force, running a tight ship with the same lack of patience for bullshit and corruption as Michael. With so much in common, it was surprising I’d never heard about my director interacting with the chief constable before.
The redhead had steel in her green eyes, striding forward with a purpose that dynamite would hesitate to interrupt.
Michael’s expression hardened. “Thank you, Louis.”
He bolted.
I rose out of my seat, but the director made a short sharp cutting motion in the air, and I dropped back down.
“I’m in a meeting,” Michael said coolly. “You love your proper channels. Use them.”
The chief constable saw me for the first time and stopped. I said hello, totally not expecting the broad smile she trained on me which was as vibrant as her purple and black heels. The ones I’d coveted forever at my favorite shoe store but couldn’t afford. “Operative Fleischer. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“Should I leave so you can speak in private?” I once more half rose.
“You may stay.” The chief constable took the chair to my right. “I understand you’re a level three now. Congratulations.”
I wasn’t surprised that the commander of the Vancouver Trad police force was aware of me and I expected that Michael kept tabs on those officers as well.
My mother uncapped a small bottle of screen cleaner and sprayed liquid onto a soft cloth. “What’s this about?”
“Sorry, quick question first, Chief Constable.” I slid my phone in my suit jacket pocket. “When have we met before? I’m afraid I don’t remember that.”
“You wouldn’t.” She shot an almost sly look at my mother. “Seeing as you were a toddler the last time your mother and I spoke socially.”
“We have more important things to discuss than a walk down memory lane,” Michael said. “Like you getting to the point.”
“I’d forgotten how much you suck at small talk.”
“And I forgot how much you drag it out when it’s entirely irrelevant to the situation at hand.”
I covertly pinched myself to make sure I was awake, and this wasn’t some fucking fantastic dream. “Chief Constable?—”
“Call me Keira.”
Uncertain about whether that was appropriate, I glanced at Michael. Her tight expression confirmed any qualms I had about taking the chief constable up on her offer.
That said… Sure, my mother and I were in a good place, but come on. Whatever was going on here was gold, and I was a prospector with a shovel and a get-rich attitude.
“Thanks, Keira,” I said brightly.
Michael wiped her monitor screen with unnecessary violence. “Get on with it.”
“You dumped a bullshit case on us.” Chief Constable Davis wagged a finger at my director. “Bad form.”
The bladed edge to her smile was immediately reflected back. “That’s quite the accusation.”
Front row viewing to a shark fight. Where was popcorn when you needed it?
“Cases are assigned according to the legal division of which community the perp is most likely to belong to,” Michael said. She recapped the cleaning solution and placed the supplies in her desk drawer. “Tell me the vic’s name and we can discuss why you feel this way.”
“Chandra Nichols.”
This was the matchmaker who’d released shedim from their lock prisons to sell to Eishei Kodesh criminals. I’d been questioning her when she was murdered and barely survived her shedim killer myself, but I hadn’t reported witnessing that or even phoned in the death.
Certain members of the Authority at the time were looking to crucify me for my personal relationship with Ezra. They’d charged his best friend, Silas, on a bogus corruption allegation (I’d helped jailbreak him), and Silas had found Chandra for me.
Everything connected to Chandra Nichols was a giant spiderweb, albeit one that was stuffed in a high corner that no one had to look at. But now Keira had grabbed hold of a sticky strand and the whole thing could come tumbling down, secrets, dead corpses, and all.
I choked on my imaginary popcorn.