Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery) (4 page)

In fact, once the words “magic” and “F” were mentioned, the cops became even more jittery, which naturally made me jittery too. With only a single cup of coffee and no breakfast in my stomach, their emotional buffet was all that was keeping me awake. Alas, this sort of anxiety made me feel like I’d OD’d on sugar instead of anything nutritious. I bounced on my toes, trying to keep focused.

Anna, I soon learned, was basically a magic analyst, and her super-sensitive charms detected a couple empty envelopes in the Stacys’ trash that showed faint traces of F in them. She left soon after the bodies were taken away, not having discovered anything else.

I shadowed Andre around the house for another hour while he explained what he was searching for and answered my questions with surprisingly good patience. If he was annoyed at being stuck with giving me on-the-job training, I couldn’t detect it.

We finally got to leave when a second team of Gryphons arrived to secure the place. By then, I was yawning since the jittery cops had long disappeared, and my stomach was begging for food.

“So no car?” Andre asked, unlocking the Gryphon-issued SUV.

“Who needs a car? I live right near a T stop, and I have my Dragon’sWing if I need to get really far away.”

Andre whistled. “You have a Dragon’sWing? Those are nice bikes.”

I grinned. “Very nice. I got it from one of the people I used to work with, for probably half of what it should have cost. Only reason I could afford it.”

“How did you manage that?”

I put my sunglasses on as Andre pulled out onto the street. “She seemed to think she owed me. Plus, it was her soon-to-be ex-husband’s, and I think she was trying to get rid of it cheap to piss him off. I’m the one who got her proof of his cheating. Detecting deception is easy when you can taste it.”

I figured Andre would want to talk about the case on the way downtown, but he kept things more personal, asking about my family and where I’d grown up. Not once did he steer the conversation toward my unusual abilities, the Aubrey case or why a certain satyr had been willing to help me hide out during it. I couldn’t decide if he was avoiding the topic because he knew too much already, or if he simply wanted to get off to a good start on working with me. Either way, I appreciated that he was smart enough to avoid those topics.

“Lunch?” Andre asked as we slowed for a red light. “Like Chinese? I know this great hole-in-the-wall place. It’s a quick detour through Chinatown.”

I didn’t see how any detour through Chinatown could be considered quick, but I was hungry and in no rush to get to Headquarters. “Starving, and sure.”

As it turned out, Andre wasn’t kidding in his description of the restaurant. If he hadn’t sworn he’d eaten there on several occasions, I wouldn’t have trusted it. My plate of fried squid and hot peppers, however, was amazingly good. Just not my usual breakfast food.

Across the tiny table, Andre dug into his beef and broccoli. “So what do you know about F?”

Finally, it appeared we were going to talk about the case. “Only what most people know. It’s an aphrodisiac, usually, if not always, made by satyrs. Some people call it the worst of the date-rape drugs because it makes people want sex who wouldn’t otherwise want sex, so it’s a great and terrible way to overpower someone’s will. I’ve never heard of it killing anyone though.”

Andre swept some rice around on his plate. “You never tried it?”

“Are you, a magical law enforcement officer, really asking me if I’ve ever done any illegal drugs?” I hadn’t tried F, but I sure wouldn’t admit it if I had.

He chuckled. “Half the people I know tried it at one point. Physiologically, I’d say it’s far less harmful than alcohol. But it’s not an aphrodisiac in the usual sense.”

I took a long swallow of water, my mouth burning. “No?”

“That’s too mild a term. It’s like calling a Lamborghini a car. It’s true, but it’s not in the same class as my busted-up Focus. F—pure F anyway—is powerful stuff. You’ve been around satyrs. It’s like their ability to mess with your head all distilled into a nice white powder.”

I hadn’t heard anyone describe F that way before, but it made sense. If satyrs made it, odds were it did have some of their magic in it. Andre was almost making me curious to try it, if only to see if it had any effect on me since satyr magic in general didn’t. “So you’re saying it’s an instant orgy.”

“Just add people.” Andre started to say something else, but his phone rang. “Work. Got to take this, sorry.”

I went back to my food, pondering. What Andre described coincided with what I’d heard. F wasn’t harmful as long as it wasn’t used in a deceptive or cruel way. All it did was make people horny. So just because those people in Newton probably had F in their systems when they died, didn’t mean that F had anything to do with their deaths. Right?

Then again, under normal circumstances, people didn’t die for no apparent reason in the middle of getting their freak on. I couldn’t think of a way F wouldn’t be a contributing factor.

Dragon shit on toast. If F was involved, and I was expected to investigate, it wasn’t only my relationship with Lucen that was going to feel the strain. My friendly relationship with the satyrs as a whole—and their Dom, Dezzi, in particular—was going to go downhill fast. Why couldn’t I have gotten brought in on a case involving a magi selling bad charms or something?

I stabbed another hot pepper. Obviously, because Olivia Lee had called me in specifically because she knew about my relationship with the satyrs and had thought death by sex would be a case I could be useful on.

Between the super-spicy food and the tension in my muscles, my stomach didn’t feel so good.

Andre hung up the phone. “Sorry about that. Another case I’m working on. Where were we?”

“F. It’s not dangerous, but it’s not surprising that people having a sex party would be taking it. So it’s possible something else killed them, right?” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince—me or him.

“Possible, sure. Anything is right now.”

“Also, if this had anything to do with F, then wouldn’t there be other cases? Other victims? Have you heard of anything like this before?”

Andre captured the last piece of his broccoli but didn’t eat it. He seemed to consider me instead. “You’re friends with some satyrs, aren’t you? That’s who was helping you during the Aubrey stuff.”

I pushed my plate aside. “I’m friends with
a
satyr, and I’m just trying to think this through. F isn’t an uncommon street drug. Seems like there’d be other incidents if it was involved.”

“The day is young, and there’s always a first. But we will be looking into other cases for similarities, so don’t worry. We won’t know more until we get the full analysis done on the victims’ blood and the autopsy reports come in. Speaking of which, we should get to the office. You’ve got to give some blood too, I think.”

We’d paid when we ordered, so I finished my water and got up. “Wait, Anna was being serious? You want my blood?”

“It’s standard procedure. They take a bit of blood from all of us from time to time to keep in storage. You never know when you’re going to get blasted by a nasty spell, and it helps the lab techs develop counter-charms if you have an untainted blood sample for comparison.”

Great. Lucen and I had once wondered what the Gryphons would find if they did a full analysis of my blood. Now that I knew I was part-satyr, I was even less thrilled at the possibilities of what they might discover.

Chapter Four

When we got to the Gryphons’ building, Andre went to file his report and I was dumped at HR. Apparently, I’d been right to think that the Gryphons didn’t hire consultants very often because the HR woman who was stuck with me didn’t know what to do until several phone calls clarified the situation.

Unfortunately, the clarification left me with a mountain of paperwork I had to fill out for her. After that, a photo was required so I could get my own spiffy ID badge with SPECIAL CONSULTANT printed on it. My photo was awful, but the badge meant I wouldn’t have to go through normal security checks again, and I could carry charms into the building. My knife, however, remained off-limits. Only Gryphon-issued weapons were permitted, and I was not permitted a Gryphon-issued weapon.

From HR, I was shuffled to another section of the building where I was made to endure a physical, followed by the promised blood-drawing. I was poking at the bandage taped over my stab wound when Bridget entered the exam room.

She was wearing her regular uniform today, and her light brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. “Coffee? I thought it was time to have the one we didn’t have yesterday.”

“That depends.” I adjusted my shirt. “Am I allowed to leave yet, or is there more of my brain to pick and my body to poke?”

She didn’t even smile at my quip. Typical Bridget. “I meant I brought you some coffee. And, no. Or, yes. I get to take you to your last stop for the day.”

I joined her in the hallway where she handed me the promised cup of coffee. “I need this. Thanks.”

“I thought you might. Andre said you were yawning a lot earlier.”

“Yeah, I had to work late last night and was not expecting a call this morning. Speaking of which, what are you doing working on a Saturday? Don’t you get time off?”

Bridget rubbed her eyes. “It’s the Aubrey case. The furies aren’t cooperating—big surprise—but neither are the sylphs. You’d think they’d want justice, but they trust us so little that they’d rather stew.”

The sylphs probably didn’t consider Victor going to jail to be justice. Neither did I, for that matter, since Victor had merely been the murderous puppet. His fury master needed to be brought in too. But also I knew firsthand the sylphs wouldn’t be satisfied until all involved were dead, and they’d prefer to handle that business on their own. As any pred would.

“Any leads on the fury who was pulling Victor’s strings?” I asked as we turned a corner. I knew which fury had addicted Victor, but by sight only. I didn’t have a name, and Raj—the furies’ Dom—was playing dumb, protecting his own.

Bridget wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Nothing yet, and Aubrey isn’t being helpful. He knows that given how many people he killed, he’s not going to get much for himself by cooperating, but I don’t understand why he’d protect the fury.”

I suspected I did. Victor had liked being the thing’s addict. He got a high off misery, like I did, but unlike me, he’d never wanted to use his freakish ability for good. He’d wanted an excuse to chase the high, and the fury gave that to him. On his master’s orders, Victor got to torture and kill, and soak up all the suffering he caused. He’d loathed himself for it, but being an addict meant he didn’t have to take responsibility, at least internally. It was the perfect fucked-up relationship.

“Where are we going by the way?” I asked. We’d been walking with a purpose, but since I had no idea where anything was on this floor, I was totally turned around.

“Right here actually.” Bridget opened a door to a long room similar to the one we’d left, only this one, instead of being decked out with a blood pressure monitor, scale and other basic medical equipment, contained what I thought might be charm-making supplies.

A couple obsidian bowls sat on a stone counter that spanned the length of the room, along with an assortment of knives, several mortars and pestles, and multiple sinks. One of the shorter walls was lined with locked cabinets. The room’s only living occupant was a white-haired man who was reading a magazine.

Bridget pulled a chair over for me. “Andre said you’re supposed to get protective charms.”

Before I could respond, the man set down his magazine. “Yes, if you’re Jessica. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive.”

I started to say I didn’t need any protective charms, then caught myself. If I said it, I’d have to explain why I felt that way, and I wasn’t willing to enlighten the Gryphons yet.

So what the hell. I might as well take advantage of what they could do seeing as I didn’t have a choice about working for them. After all, a protective glyph or two wasn’t going to hurt me. Not too long ago, I’d have needed to pay a lot of money for such a thing. It was kind of satisfying to be given this sort of charm for free.

I’d learned a bit about magic during my time at the Academy. Enough to realize I didn’t know salamander spit about how to do anything, and enough to appreciate why high-quality charms cost so much. On one hand, magic was an awful lot like chemistry, but grosser given what went in to making many spells. On the other hand, there was a certain art to it that required the person creating the spell to be able to sense the magical properties of every ingredient and adjust them on the fly. As such, even though all Gryphons had to learn basic spells, only certain ones specialized in magic.

Fascinated, I watched this one, who Bridget introduced as Mike, combine the charm components into a paste.

Once the paste was ready, Mike rolled a wooden dowel through it until it was coated. Then, with a pair of tweezers, he took a tiny red salamander egg from a spelled container, set it in a large obsidian bowl and dropped a lit match on it.

The fiery creature burst from the egg and scampered around the edges of the bowl, unable to get out. In its baby state, it was almost cute. Flaming, but cute. The ones that had not so long ago destroyed a good chunk of the city, courtesy of Victor, had been huge and anything but.

Mike stuck the paste-covered dowel over the bowl, and the salamander obliged, chomping down on it with burning teeth. As the magical fire cooked the paste, it turned from brown to bright blue, and the salamander grew bigger.

I’d owned protective charms before, but nothing like this. The more you used charms, the faster you used them up. I’d bought cheap ones, which were nonetheless expensive. They’d come in refillable charm vials, and I’d only worn them when I was going into Shadowtown. Such was my best effort to help them maintain their potency as long as possible.

But spells could be worked in several ways. One of them involved a complicated series of glyphs, almost like a spell-caster’s alphabet. A glyph or several, applied directly to the skin and made of the correct ingredients, could produce far more potent effects than my vials. They would also be used up much faster, but I supposed that didn’t matter to the Gryphons.

The paste had turned a bright cobalt blue by the time Mike removed it from the salamander. He waved the dowel a few times, as if trying to cool it down. “We put these as close to your heart as possible. Most women prefer their backs to their chests though. Up to you.”

Looked like this would be the second time today I was taking my shirt off without anything fun to show for it. “My back is fine.”

I sat on the stool Mike indicated and pulled up my hair and shirt. The paste was warm on my skin, and I wondered how many glyphs he was drawing because it felt like a lot of writing.

“The standard is two glyphs,” Bridget said, as if reading my thoughts. “One is for all-purpose protection. The other is specific to countering the effects of pred magic. That one should make it a lot easier for you to go into Shadowtown without having your soul violated.”

“Sounds good.” Or it would if I had to deal with that problem.

The pressure on my back ceased, and I let go of my hair and shirt as Mike dumped the improvised pen on the counter. “You’re all set. Those should last between two to four weeks, depending on how much trouble you get in, or how many preds try working their magic on you.”

“This is great,” Bridget said as we left the lab room. “We’re finally getting to work together, although we won’t be working on the same case.”

I forced a smile because “great” didn’t quite describe it for me. I got what Bridget was saying, and it sure beat fighting with her, but no matter how many friendly people I met around this place, I had to consider the Gryphons a threat. And that wasn’t even getting at the blackmailing bit.

Anyway, I’d see soon enough if Bridget still thought this arrangement was great when my blood analysis came back. Just what would she—and everyone else in my life—think if she discovered that the human with the cursed gift was not so human at all?

The question made my stomach turn, so I pushed the thought aside and finished my coffee. There was nothing to be done about it. I was what I was, and as far as I knew that couldn’t be changed. It was best, therefore, not to think about it until I was forced to.

“So am I free to go, and how do I leave?”

“You are free.” Bridget dumped our empty coffee cups in the trash. “Andre will call you when the analysis is done. I can walk you out.”

“Actually,” came a new voice from behind me, “I’d be happy to do that. I’d very much like a chance to meet Ms. Moore.”

Bridget and I had entered a busier part of the floor, and I turned around. The man who’d spoken acknowledged Bridget with a slight tilt of his head before facing me.

He smiled, but something in that smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he held out a hand toward me. “Tom Kassin.”

Confused by my immediate distrust of him, I took it. “Nice to meet you.” Or not.

No, probably not. I wished I knew why.

Tom Kassin was only my height, and with his round baby face, pale blond hair and blue eyes he was almost cherubic. Almost. Because something about him got my hackles up, and I couldn’t figure out what. Thanks to my misery-sucking abilities, I was usually a very good judge of character, and this new Gryphon was setting off all my alarms. Yet when I stretched out my gift toward him, I got nothing. That disconnect left me uneasy. For humans anyway, I always had a good reason if I distrusted someone.

Bridget didn’t seem to share my strange antipathy toward Tom Kassin. She merely shrugged at his request. “Sure. I’ll talk to you later, Jess.”

“Yeah, okay.” I returned my attention to Tom, half wondering if I was ever going to get out of this building today.

He began walking. “I’ve read a lot about you in the files from Victor Aubrey’s case. The gift you described is quite unusual.”

I was beyond sick of hearing that or similar phrases. “So it seems.”

We reached the elevators, and Tom pressed the down button, making a few more vacuous comments about my gift as we waited. He had a faint accent, British of some sort, only it wasn’t the same accent as Devon’s. In fact, it didn’t sound quite right. Some of Tom’s words almost had a Southern twang to them, as well.

That wasn’t the only odd thing about him either. He had a red-and-gold pin on his uniform collar, something I’d never seen before. Gryphons gave out medals for extraordinary service, but they weren’t the sort of decorations that were worn.

“You look puzzled,” he said as we stepped into the elevator.

“I’m trying to piece together your accent.”

He smiled again, and again something about it didn’t sit right on his face. Bridget never appeared truly happy when she smiled either, but this wasn’t the same thing. Tom’s smile was patronizing. Smug. “I’m originally from Savannah, and I worked out of the Atlanta office for several years before transferring to London and eventually to World in Grenoble.”

I blinked. “You’re from World Headquarters?” Maybe the pin on his uniform had something to do with that.

“I am.” The elevator arrived on the ground floor, and Tom waited for me to step out. “I’m here on a special assignment. People are very interested in what the furies were up to. While Agent Nelson works on the Aubrey end of the case, I’m doing some investigating for a commission that was formed regarding the furies’ actions.”

I paused. We were in the lobby, and freedom wasn’t so far away. Yet Tom had gotten my full attention at last. “What is it about the furies that’s so curious?”

“Surely you realize how unusual their behavior was. Furies thrive on rage and chaos, but to attempt what they did here, instigating fights among various pred races and the magi, that’s not normal.”

I swallowed, remembering something Lucen had said during the Aubrey business. He and Dezzi had worried that the furies were trying to start a war. It might have been for kicks, which was entirely possible given the furies, but it also might have been for something worse. Lucen had suggested that the power the furies would raise by feeding off so much suffering could be used be used for a variety of nefarious purposes.

“You think they’re up to something more than just starting fights?” I asked.

Tom’s face was perfectly neutral, and his emotions didn’t give anything away. He was like a block of ice—cold, hard and unpleasant. “That’s part of what I’m here to find out. It was nice to meet you, Jessica.”

Only once he left did I realize he’d said that was
part of
what he was here to find out. I had a feeling if I’d probed about the other part, I’d finally have gotten a good taste of deception and lies from him.