Hotter Than Helltown: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Preternatural Affairs Book 3) (8 page)

It was stamped with a craftsman’s mark and the material felt like butter in my hands. Inside, I found compartments built specifically to cushion glass vials, which contained all the standard herbs I used as well as a few more obscure ones.

“Check the back,” Fritz said. “I asked Belinda to put in a pocket sized for your notebooks. I know how much you love those Steno pads.”

Now I felt even worse for throwing mental shade at him over the jock jams. “Gee, Fritz. You shouldn’t have. It’s not even our anniversary.”

“Think of it as an early congratulations for passing your aspis licensing test. You’re ready to take the test, right? It’s coming up on Tuesday.”

My mouth felt dry. “Oh, yeah. Definitely. One hundred percent ready.”

“Good,” Fritz said. “Because once you pass the test, we’re doing the binding ritual the next day. I’m looking forward to the benefits of your protection.” He plucked a jar of salt out of the briefcase. “Furthermore, if you’ve studied the handbook thoroughly, you’ll already be familiar with the spell required to reconstruct the murder.”

“Reconstruction spell,” I said. “Yeah. Right.”

I hadn’t gotten that far in the handbook yet. It was probably in the truncated Book of Shadows at the end—the contents of which would, in fact, be included on the test. If a witch couldn’t cast those spells, then he wouldn’t be able to cast the binding ritual, either.

But…
Jesus
, that was complex magic. It required a big ritual. Much bigger than anything I ever did.

Domingo could have done it, easy. Suzy could probably do it in her sleep.

I wasn’t my brother or my partner.

Fritz’s hand settled on my shoulder, heavy and reassuring. He steered me into the corner and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Someone in the office has contacted the vice president.”

“Lucrezia de Angelis?” As if there was another vice president that Fritz would be worried about.

His expression was almost neutral, but his lips had gone so tight that they were white around the edges. “She heard about Belle’s visit. I don’t think the VP knows what Belle can do yet, but she’s asking questions about why we would have another witch consulting on cases. Some of those questions also involve your readiness to become my aspis.”

My heart sank. Not just down to my stomach, but past my gut, down beyond my knees, six feet deep in the earth below the basement.

I’d accessed OPA files above my clearance level on a job in Reno. Apparently, this was a problem. A big problem. The kind of problem that Vice President Lucrezia de Angelis believed might require crossing me off her list—permanently. Fritz’s solution had been to take me as aspis, claim responsibility for my knowledge and behavior, and save my life.

If the vice president already doubted my ability to become his aspis, then she was probably thinking about what she’d do about me if I failed the test, too.

“It was Janet,” I said. “She saw Isobel. Bet she has Janet spying on us now.”

“Then you’d better do well with the reconstruction spell,” Fritz said.

I licked my dry lips. “Okay.”

I could tell by his expression that Fritz was thinking pitying thoughts in my direction. Both of us knew that I wasn’t a good enough witch to be aspis to Fritz Friederling, director of the Office of Preternatural Affairs.

But I had to be good enough, because if I wasn’t, then I would be too dangerous to keep around.

Fritz raised his voice and addressed the forensics team. “Everyone head out. Your legally mandated fifteen-minute break is overdue. Not you, Agent Takeuchi. You and Agent Hawke need to supervise the scene.”

Janet and her cohort, Chekov, emerged from behind the boiler. She looked annoyed. “I’m in the middle of something, sir.”

“No, you’re not. Head upstairs to take a break.”

Her eyes flicked between us, but she couldn’t argue with Director Friederling. Not without giving away her new hobby as vice presidential stool pigeon.

“Yes sir,” she said.

Fritz gave me a significant look. “Fifteen minutes, Agent Hawke.”

Fifteen minutes to cast a spell that was beyond my skill level.

No problem.

THE BASEMENT WAS EMPTY within seconds, leaving Suzy and me alone with a mangled body.

“Okay,” Suzy said, jerking the briefcase out of my hands. “What bullshit does Director Friederling have you doing this time? You can’t tell me he cares about legally mandated break times. We’re never going to get audited for that crap. We don’t even exist.”

“I need to cast a reconstruction spell before everyone comes back, Suze,” I said. “I’m so fucking screwed.”

“You’re about to take the aspis test. Reconstruction spells are included. You should already know how to do them.”

“Yeah. I
should
know them.”

“But you don’t.” She didn’t look surprised. “They’re fucking with you again. Aren’t they?” All of her cynicism, her humor, her warmth had drained from her features.

The same case that had gotten us assigned to special investigations had led to Suzy’s incarceration in a Union detention center. They thought she’d killed someone, and she’d spent a day locked up in the desert north of Los Angeles.

Whatever had happened in there, it had changed her. It had made her a little bit harder. And it had definitely wrecked her trust in our employer.

I didn’t want to tell Suzy the details of what was happening with Lucrezia de Angelis. It would only endanger her, too. So I just gave her a Look. The same kind of Look I used to give my brother, Domingo, when I was begging-without-begging for him to get me out of trouble. He called it my bitch face. Domingo was kind of an asshole.

Luckily for me, Suzy wasn’t.

“You’re going to owe me big time for this, Cèsar. I own your balls. I’m serious.” As she spoke, liveliness returned to her features. She concealed her hard center like an Almond Joy concealing tooth-breakingly stale nuts under a delicious chocolate coating.

“You already own my balls, Suze. You said you owned my balls for buying me a Coke from the vending machine last week. Remember?”

“Yeah, but I
really
own your balls this time.” She ripped open the briefcase and looked inside. “At least you’ve got the good stuff. Let’s get this done.”

I could whip out potions faster than a greasy Slytherin head of house. I could do small circles, too. They helped contain the energy when I brewed potions. Allowed me to make better poultices. That kind of thing.

Complex spells were a lot more precise and much less instinctive.

You had to know which cardinal direction you were facing to the exact degree. You had to know just how to balance the elements at the four corners to facilitate the flow of energy. You had to be able to draw runes within the circle without breaking the perimeter.

Fuck anything up and you get to start over.

For this kind of ritual, the circle was more than half of the magic. It was the foundation, the walls of the house, the roof. Once it was made, all that remained was filling in the rooms with the witch’s power. Tough stuff.

Watching Suzy cast the circle of power was downright impressive. She made it as quickly as she could throw back shots of tequila at the company Fourth of July party.

“You watching, Hawke?” she asked as she spilled salt around the edge of the circle. “You have to do this alone next time.”

“I know. I’m watching. I can do it.”

Good thing, too. The clock on the rest of the team’s “break time” was dropping rapidly.

Suzy talked while she worked, conspicuously leaving part of the circle open so that she could move in and out without breaking it. “Once you’ve got the circle set up, it’s easy. You’ll just have to close the circle and place the target. Use this.” She tossed a crystal from the briefcase at me.

“Put this on the body, right?” I asked.

“Exactly.” Suzy grabbed a piece of chalk and continued to speak as she drew a few runes. “You won’t need an incantation for this one. I’ll build everything you need into the runes. Runes are your friend, Hawke. If you just memorize the runic alphabet in the company Book of Shadows, you can put anything together.”

She spilled magic from her fingertips, flooding the runes with energy. My eyes watered. I sneezed.

“With runes and practice, of course,” she added.

“Runes, practice, and memorizing the whole company Book of Shadows,” I said thickly, rubbing at my nose with my sleeve.

“Just the appendix. It’s kind of like trying to do a speech in sign language just by finger spelling the alphabet. Slow and difficult, but hey, at least you’re talking.”

She sprinkled herbs over the circle. Clapped her hands.

The power pulsed like a beating heart, and I sneezed again.

We were out of time. The door had opened and the forensics team was on its way back down with Fritz at the rear. My future kopis looked incredibly bored, like he couldn’t care less about whether or not I could pull off the spell.

Suzy was fast. She crouched over the body across the room before anyone made it down, like she was just searching for evidence, and I was left standing by the circle with the focus crystal. It looked like I’d just done all the work myself.

And they say cheaters never prosper.

“Ready?” Fritz asked, his tone as cool and detached as his eyes.

“Almost done,” I said. I could fake it about as well as Suzy. I picked up the salt, stepped into the circle, sprinkled it over the hole in the circumference.

The circle clamped shut around me.

Invisible iron bands crushed my chest, and it was all I could do to keep standing. Forget making myself look like I wasn’t surprised by the force of the magic. For a few long seconds, it was all I could do to keep breathing.

When it relaxed, my vision was murkier. Everything outside the circle was shrouded in gray mist. Everything inside blazed with light. The lines Suzy had drawn on the ground, the jars of herbs, even the salt looked to be on fire. A dome shimmered over the circle.

Domingo had told me it was like that, but I’d never been able to cast anything like it.

“Wow,” I said.

Judging by how unimpressed the others looked, they couldn’t see it.

What had Suzy said to do next?

The crystal
.

I couldn’t walk over the line without ruining the spell. I had to pick up the ritual knife—something else Suzy had pulled out of Fritz’s bag of magic tricks—and use it to cut an invisible doorway into the energy dome. That was something I already knew how to do: Bury the point of the knife in the base of the circle, drag it up the magical wall, open it like a veil. The energy parted easily.

When I stepped through the door I had cut open, the circle didn’t break. The energy continued to pulse around me. I took shallow breaths through my mouth to keep from sneezing as I approached the body.

The colors weren’t as vibrant now. The blood was gray, the nurse’s skin was white. It didn’t look so grotesque.

I placed the focus crystal on the body.

Immediately, the whole room changed. Lights flickered to life where all the bulbs had blown. The equipment that we had brought into the room vanished, leaving a smoky haze where they had stood.

Nurse Sullivan suddenly appeared on the stairs. He looked as real as any one of Isobel’s apparitions, so perfect and so detailed that I could even see the glassy plugs in his earlobes.

“Nice,” Janet said. Everyone could see what I was seeing now.

Fritz took a quick step away from the vision of Nurse Sullivan, betraying his usual composure. “Well done. That’s the best reconstruction spell I’ve ever seen.”

High praise. It would have felt nice if it had been aimed at me.

As I watched, Nurse Sullivan took cigarettes from his pocket. He was already holding a lighter. A Zippo with one seriously ugly flaming skull stamped on the side.

“Did anyone find that?” Suzy asked.

Chekov shook his head. “We’ll look again.”

We wouldn’t find it. I already knew the ugly flaming skull Zippo had gone missing, just like the pieces cut from Jay Brandon.

Another trophy.

Nurse Sullivan’s mouth opened in a silent cry. He pitched off the stairs, twisting as he fell, slamming the back of his head into the floor. The cigarettes flew from his hand.

Another apparition had pushed him. This one was human-sized, draped in bleached white blankets. Stolen hospital linens. It was enough to hide the attacker’s head, shoulders, upper body, but it wasn’t enough to hide its feet—although cloven hooves probably don’t qualify as feet.

“Definitely a demon,” I said.

The killer was on Nurse Sullivan before he could get up. Human hands pinned him down by the throat. The demon wasn’t holding hard, but the victim couldn’t move.

I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t want to watch him die.

Movement on the stairs made me turn. Our murdering demon wasn’t alone.

Another human-like figure stepped briskly into the basement wearing a baggy black sweater. The hood was lifted and I couldn’t tell if the wearer was male or female, fat or thin.

The second figure lifted a hand into the air. My sinuses exploded, and I hit the ground on my knees, sneezing so hard that it felt like my nose was going to fly off my face.

My throat clamped shut. I wheezed. Struggled to breathe.

A hand gripped my shoulder. “Agent Hawke?” I couldn’t respond to Fritz. The magic was attacking me, plowing along the tracks of the spell Suzy had cast to crush the heart. “Agent Hawke?
Cèsar
!”

His fist pounded into my back.

The magic vanished. Air rushed into my lungs, filling me with dizzying oxygen.

I blinked rapidly as my vision cleared. Everything looked normal again and the apparitions were gone.

In fact, the magic was gone from the room, too. All of it. Every scrap of the circle that Suzy had cast, the apparition of the demon attacking Nurse Sullivan, the gray haze.

I wiped my upper lip. I was surprised when my hand came away wet with blood.

Hell of a sneeze.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

Suzy looked just as shocked as I felt. “In my professional opinion? I think we just saw a witch predict our investigation and prevent us from seeing what happened to Nurse Sullivan.” She lifted her eyebrows at me. “And Cèsar just got bitch slapped for being the one to look.”