Shadow Burns: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Preternatural Affairs Book 4) (18 page)

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“You walked into Helltown while it was raining, shot two members of the Silver Needles, and threatened Pete the apothecary. You’re not subtle.”

Jesus.
Fritz really did know everything.

“The woman at the desk said I had an appointment,” I said.

“I assumed you’d called in sick to find Ander. Again—you’re not subtle. I had you tracked.” Fritz sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. He looked exhausted. “I told you not to get involved in this investigation. You don’t listen well.”

Yeah. Literally
everything
.

He’d had me followed, for fuck’s sake. Did that mean that he’d seen Isobel at my apartment, too?

Fritz pushed his chair back and stood. He was carrying a silver-headed cane and actually leaning on it, so his leg must have still been bothering him. “You’re wasting your time following leads in this direction, though. Ander has been retired for years.”

“He’s behind Paradise Mile,” I said. “He’s still sticking people under contract. That’s what happened to all those victims at the retirement village.”

“Sure,” said another man. Ander himself emerged from behind the velvet curtains in the corner, ruffling them as he passed. “I took them under contract, and then I lost them. I’ve lost everything at Paradise Mile. Rub it in, Agent. I’m sure it makes you feel good to pick on an old man.”

I turned the gun on him, but didn’t fire. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“I sold my business years ago,” Ander said.

Fritz leaned harder on his cane, knuckles white on the silver head. “By ‘sold,’ he means that he surrendered ownership in return for his life.”

“Either way, I’m out of the game. Paradise Mile wasn’t meant to cause trouble. The deaths of all the people who lived there with me—I didn’t do that.”

I realized that I was still holding the gun, but nobody seemed interested in fighting. I engaged the safety and eased it back into my holster. “They weren’t killed by carbon fucking monoxide, either.”

“Definitely not. But it was also not my fault because I’m not in the murder business anymore.”

“Then who is?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“I am,” Fritz said. “I bought Ander’s business, and almost all of his remaining contracts, four years ago.”

The news sank in slowly.

Fritz owned some kind of crime syndicate that traded in souls.

The same syndicate that had somehow obtained Hope Jimenez’s soul when she died.

“She said that a kopis saved her from Ander,” I said. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I wanted him to deny it, because if that was the truth, then Isobel really had been continuing to lie to me.

My heart sank when he said, “Yes, I’m the one who saved her from Ander.”

She’d kept that information from me for a reason. I wasn’t in a place where I could try to wrap my head around the reasoning. Surprise had piled on surprise like the layers of the worst parfait ever, and, frankly, I just didn’t have the mental capacity to process it all at once.

“So you saved Isobel and then bought the business afterward. Jesus Christ, Fritz, you own a business in Hell. I thought you were a trust fund baby. You never told me what kind of businesses you’ve run.”

“You’ve never asked. There’s a lot of money in Hell. That said, in this particular instance, the investment was intended to protect Isobel.”

“I’d have tracked her down and killed her if he’d left me to my devices,” Ander said pleasantly, like that was just the natural thing to do. “I was pretty angry about the whole thing. Her escape, Fritz’s involvement, the Calhoun Deppe affair…”

I wasn’t really listening to the demon. “You own Isobel’s soul.” I couldn’t stop staring at Fritz. He looked different to me all of a sudden. Like he was this stranger wearing the face of some guy that I considered to be a friend.

Fritz didn’t look any happier about it than I felt. He took a few limping steps around the desk, and then stopped by its side, like he wasn’t sure he should actually approach me. “Acquiring a business means acquiring all its assets. In the case of this particular business…”

“Souls.”

“Contracts dictating the terms of several individuals’ lives. Yes.”

Ander inspected his fingernails. Picked at a peeling cuticle. “If it helps, he’s got her contract, but it’s locked down like most of my contracts were. He can’t make any changes to it. That means he can’t manipulate Hope with it unless he sells it back to me.”

No, it didn’t help. It didn’t fucking help at all.

“I’m not selling,” Fritz said.

“That’s because you’re a stubborn dick.” Ander still sounded entirely too chill about this. “You’ll change your mind, though. If not now, then by the time spring comes around, you’ll change your mind.”

“You didn’t meet Isobel because you wanted her to talk to your dead ex-wife or grandfather or childhood dog or whatever line you’ve been feeding me,” I said. “Did you?”

“She has spoken to my late wife and grandfather before,” Fritz said. “Both of those are truths, of a sort. They were favors, however. Not jobs. Belle initially entered my life in a very different way.”

Because he’d saved her from a contract with a demon.

He gathered the papers on the desk, sliding them back into their individual folders. “I’d prefer if we kept this conversation between us. Specifically, the parts about my ongoing involvement with the syndicate.”

“Doesn’t she know that you bought it?”

“Isobel’s aware that I have business partnerships in Hell. As far as she knows, however, I’m only the kopis who spared her from an expensive mistake. An ordinary rescue. Part of my job.” Fritz sat on the edge of his desk, stretching his leg out next to him. “A man will do very stupid things for the right woman.”

My growing anger fractured when he said that.

I couldn’t understand all the lying. I couldn’t understand wanting to run a business that had fucked with so many lives, either.

But I could understand doing stupid things for a woman.

Especially a woman like Isobel.

“So wait,” I said. “If we’ve got some kind of…I don’t know, gentleman’s agreement between a kopis and demon, swapping soul contracts and businesses…then how did everyone at Paradise Mile die?”

“Gertie,” Ander said. “I lost control of her. I’m still not sure what happened there. Nichols was definitely involved—he violated our contract to cast that spell in the basement, and that spell somehow released Gertie. She’s a very powerful demon, you know. The most useful asset of all. I picked her up after my forced retirement and she made Paradise Mile at my direction.”

“Where’s Gertie now?” I asked.

Ander gave a half-shrug, as though he couldn’t care less. “It doesn’t matter. I’m done with Paradise Mile.”

“I’d say it matters where the kid went,” I growled. “It matters a hell of a lot. What the fuck has happened to Isobel?”

Fritz’s lips drew into a deep frown. “She’s been hiding out with you ever since you risked her life by taking her to Paradise Mile.” He didn’t need to say it outright, but disapproval dripped from every word.

“She’s missing,” I said. “Vanished about an hour ago because of
that
guy.” I pointed at Ander.

I’d chased him into Helltown “guns blazing,” as Fritz had said, because I’d been so confident that it was Ander’s fault that Isobel was gone. But I wasn’t feeling all that confident about it anymore, especially now that both Ander and Fritz looked shocked.

“I had nothing to do with her disappearance,” Ander said. “I told you, Friederling—someone’s out to get me. Someone directed Nichols to free Gertie. The boy was an idiot; he wasn’t smart enough to figure out that ritual on his own.”

“Someone?” I asked.

“I don’t know who. Everyone hates me. Could be anyone.” He shrugged. “Consequence of being a highly ambitious businessman.”

That was one way of describing his job. Not the way I’d do it, but fine.

“I’d be looking at your other contracts to find the culprit.” I drew the butcher’s knife from my belt and hefted it so that the others could see. “Gertie helped me make this while I was at Paradise Mile.”

I might as well have just whipped out a grenade with the pin missing, considering how fast Ander was out of his chair, half-hiding behind the back.

“Where did you get you that?” the demon asked sharply.

“That’s interesting,” Fritz said, massaging his temple with two fingers. “It’s enchanted. I can feel it.” Probably through our bond. “And it matches Herbert’s knife.”

“The one he used to kill himself?” I asked.

“I killed Herbert with it,” Ander said. “After he attacked
me.
I never wanted to hire Herbert; it was Nichols’s suggestion. I thought that Herbert had simply gone insane when he ran at me with that
thing
.” His catlike gaze sharpened on me. “You say that Gertie gave it to you. But why would Gertie want you to have such a powerful demon-slaying knife?”

So it really was intended for slaughtering the big bads. Good to know.

I was getting an ugly mental image of the events at Paradise Mile Retirement Village. Herbert had gone into the kitchen the night of Nichols death and found Gertie. She had given him a weapon, same way she had given me a weapon, and instructions on how to use it. Herbert had gone after Ander and died instead. I was still missing pieces of the puzzle, but the developing picture was frightening.

Gertie—or whoever was controlling Gertie—wanted me to go down the same road as Herbert. A road that had ended in bloody death.

Ander looked like he still expected me to have an answer for him. Why would Gertie have given a duplicate of Herbert’s knife to me to me? To kill Ander, obviously. But why did she want him dead? That was a whole different can of creepy possessed vines.

“Maybe she didn’t like being under contract with you,” I said. “I don’t fucking know. But everyone at Paradise Mile died for whatever drama’s going on between you guys, and now Isobel’s gone too.”

Fritz’s mouth twisted with hatred. I wasn’t on the receiving end of his scowl, but it still chilled me. I’d seen that guy cut the heart out of a fallen angel’s chest looking much less pissed off than that.

He limped toward the door. “We need to return to Paradise Mile. Right now.”

TO SAY THAT SUZY was annoyed to hear from Fritz and me was an understatement.

Her tiny fist slammed into my bicep, instantly numbing my arm from the shoulder down. “It’s always something with you, isn’t it, Hawke?”

“Hey!” I leaned away from her and rubbed my arm. “What was that for?”

“Because you’re getting into trouble again! You, and…” She trailed off when she turned to Fritz. Suzy wasn’t familiar enough with our boss to go off on him, although I could see that she wanted to. “Can’t I investigate one normal case without you guys messing it up?”

“You investigate plenty of cases without my interference,” I said.

“None of the interesting ones, though,” Suzy said. “Get into the right lane, Director Friederling. I’m off the next exit.”

We were all piled into one of Fritz’s cars. Not one of the especially nice ones; just a boring old Porsche, which definitely hadn’t been designed with three passengers in mind.

Even though Suzy was tiny, she was compressed in the space between Fritz and me, and looking wholly frustrated by the experience.

The Porsche hugged the road as we took the cloverleaf down into the suburbs.

Suzy lived in a neighborhood of two-story townhouses, which all looked exactly the same from the outside. The only thing that distinguished hers from the rest was a bright blue door. Not sure how she got that past the homeowner’s association, but it had been like that for as long as I’d known her.

The blue door thing is common among witches. Meant to ward off bad spells. Not sure if that’s true or not, but most of the people in the Magical Violations Department do something similar to their homes.

When you’re a big guy like me, you get invited over to coworkers’ houses to move furniture all the damn time. I knew way too much about the lifestyles of the witchy and overworked.

Suzy opened the garage using the keypad on the outside, and Fritz moved the Porsche inside.

“Don’t mind the clutter,” Suzy said. “I haven’t been home much lately.” Her cat, Cat, greeted us at the door by yowling and running off into the depths of her townhouse.

If you cast a lot of magic in one place, it leaves a residue over time. Most people can’t sense it. It doesn’t even bother some witches. But for those who can detect it—like me—it bothers us a lot.

My ability to breathe vanished when I followed Cat’s bushy ass inside. And then I tripped over a laundry basket in the hallway.

When my eyes stopped watering, I saw how uncomfortable Fritz looked in Suzy’s space. And then my vision cleared enough to see that her space would make just about anyone uncomfortable. She had boxes stacked to the ceiling around all the walls. Unlit candles and incense on every surface. Blankets thrown over her furniture.

“What the hell, Suze?” I asked.

“Don’t mind the clutter,” she said again through gritted teeth. “If it’s a problem, then
maybe
you assholes shouldn’t have insisted on visiting my private residence for what should be government work!”

Okay.
We weren’t discussing the squalor that she was living in. I could deal with that.

“Where’s your ritual space?” Fritz asked.

But she was already heading upstairs, stomping on every step, muttering epithets under her breath.

Suzy was our best bet for finding the herniated dimension known as Paradise Mile. And she’d agreed to help us find it off the books, even though she was also investigating it on the books.

That didn’t mean she wouldn’t make us regret asking her for the favor.

I had to trip over a few more boxes and struggle through another sneezing fit to get upstairs. The magical residue had risen to the second floor like a wave of heat. It coated everything in Suzy’s house with glimmering flashes of kaleidoscopic color, red and orange and blue and yellow.

The second bedroom was the only uncluttered spot in her townhouse. The shelves more closely matched the orderly behavior I expected to see coming out of Suzy. The window was covered in plywood, though, which still gave the whole place kind of an
eau de
trashy.