Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery) (6 page)

Dear soul swapper, I’m in desperate need of help. Please respond. I can pay.

The writer hadn’t signed the note, but she—a guess based on the flowing handwriting—had left the date. It was written two days ago.

Peachy. I’d come to remove the container for good, before it got me in more trouble. But now… I debated for less than a minute before writing a response.

Regardless of my feelings about Caroline or any of Lucen’s addicts, I didn’t like to see people suffer. And I was intensely aware, all day long, of how much suffering there was around me. I couldn’t shut off my ability to sense it. I could only intensify my ability to feel and identify its particular flavor if I concentrated. So if I had a chance to prevent more suffering before it began, then I should.

Then I would.

After all, it had taken years for word to spread about my ability to help those in need. How could I be so callous as to cut that off? Even tonight, someone was hoping for my help, believing in my ability to provide it.

Did that make me sound self-important? I didn’t care. I wielded a pred’s power because I was part pred. I liked being able to use that evil power for good. It had taken me a long time to realize I controlled my gift and that it didn’t define me.

After sticking the container back in the ceiling, I returned to the main room. Steph was at the bar talking to her cousin, and I joined her. A few musings about politics and the Red Sox later, we ordered.

Kilpatrick’s had to make some of the greasiest fish and chips in New England, but they paired well with a Guinness, and it was dinnertime. Good thing I’d skipped breakfast, given the way I was eating today. As it was, my pants probably wouldn’t button tomorrow. We took our beers to a corner away from the pool tables while we waited for our food.

Steph tossed her hair over her shoulders. “What do you think?”

I assumed she was asking about the new wig she was wearing. “It’s a lot less red.”

“It is, but I thought the blonde in this one was more summery.”

True, and it was summer, but I didn’t usually think summery when I thought of Steph. Five-foot-ten—and that’s when she wasn’t in heels—with a wardrobe that consisted of blacks, grays and more blacks, and an attitude to match, Steph was more of a winter sort of girl.

I sipped my beer, searching for a polite but truthful response. “It’s not bad, but not what I’d expect from you. Honestly, I’m going to have to get used to it.”

“Don’t bother. It’s not me. I just wanted to see if you’d lie like everyone else. But never mind that. I’m waiting to hear what went down with you and the Gryphons yesterday. Learn anything new about Victor?”

“No, but look at this.” I pulled my ID badge out of my bag. “Impressed?”

Steph choked on her beer, then grabbed the badge. “Is this real, or did one of your satyr friends forge it?”

“It’s real. I’m an honest-to-goodness special consultant for the Gryphons.” For the second time in almost as many hours, I related what happened yesterday.

Our food had arrived as I finished, and I picked at my French fries while Steph processed my story by ordering a second beer. “This is awesome.”

“Sorry? Did you miss the part about me being blackmailed into working for them?”

Steph gave me her best
oh, please
look. Some people would cower from that, but I knew her too well to take her seriously. “You’re overreacting, and that’s something coming from this self-acknowledged drama queen.”

“They tried to arrest me for murder.”

“Yeah, because Victor did a damn good job of framing you, and you had a bit of bad luck.” Steph paused her rebuke as she squeezed a lemon wedge all over her fish. “Look, we always knew the soul-swapping thing was sketchy, so that’s beside the point. Clearly the Gryphons recognize you have an amazing—if somewhat creepy—gift and some kickass skills to go with it, and they want to see you do some good with them. It’s an opportunity to do what you’ve always deserved to do.”

I crushed a fry between my fingers in annoyance. “I’m not being given a choice.”

“What would there be to choose? Would you actually have turned them down? You always said you wanted to help humanity. This is your chance.”

“I’ve been helping humanity just fine without the Gryphons. In spite of the Gryphons even.”

“Come on, Jess. Yes, you’ve helped people, but now you get to take a bigger role and earn real money for doing it. I can’t believe you’re upset about this.”

“And I can’t believe you’re not indignant on my behalf. Do I have to remind you about what you helped me do recently?”

Apparently not. Judging from Steph’s sour surge of fear and anxiety, she knew I was referring to how she’d helped me hack into the Gryphons’ servers. “No, but that was done for a specific cause—you. Not because I have something against the Gryphons. I like knowing there are people out there risking their lives to watch over my soul. I like it even more knowing someone smart, capable and dedicated—AKA, you—will be one of them.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. Steph’s feelings were genuine, including the flattery. She didn’t know that a big part of the reason I was bothered was because I was part satyr, and the reason she didn’t know was because I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. Steph, like most sane people, lived in fear of preds. She disliked them, distrusted them and disapproved of me having anything to do with them. Even my gift pushed her squick buttons too far on occasion. Sometimes I wondered if she’d be my friend at all if she hadn’t met me before my gift had turned from normal to pred, and she hadn’t seen the way I’d freaked out when it did.

“I take it your satyr friend isn’t too happy about this?” Steph asked. “At least you don’t have to work for him anymore.”

I stabbed my fish. “No, he’s not happy, but I didn’t mind working for him.”

“I don’t understand why not. I know you basically wrap your soul in dragon hide when going into Shadowtown, but I can’t imagine working for a guy who could hurt you that way. Friend or not.” She sounded dubious about whether Lucen could be a friend.

Again, I couldn’t blame her. Most of my life, I’d felt the same, and I’d sure never told her how my relationship with Lucen had changed recently.

“I trust him,” I said. “But speaking of trust and people I don’t trust, what’s up with those files you got from the Gryphons?”

After Steph had hacked into their servers to get me the information I’d needed on Victor Aubrey, she’d done a bit more poking around. I supposed her appreciation of the Gryphons and all they did for humanity couldn’t overcome her curiosity. The Gryphons had patched the security hole she’d created, but before they did, Steph had discovered a file with my name on it, and four other similar files. One of those other files had Victor’s name on it. Given what I knew about our magical similarities, this was interesting.

To put it very, very mildly.

Alas, our names and “Philadelphia” were the only readable parts of the files. Steph had tried to decrypt them with no luck.

She chewed her fry slowly. “I might have gotten the name of someone who could help, but I’ve been warned he’s not necessarily trustworthy.”

“I’m looking for someone to break the encryption on what are stolen, probably top-secret Gryphon files. Anyone willing to do that is unlikely to be trustworthy by definition.”

She made a face. “True. But you’re working for them, so don’t you think—”

“No.”

“But you might be able to find out more by poking around.”

I threw my lemon wedge at her. “How? Poking around, asking about information I’m not supposed to know in the first place?” When Steph didn’t answer right away, I went on. “If you don’t trust this guy enough, I can ask Lucen. I’m sure there’s someone among the satyrs who can do it.”

That got her back up. “Forget I said anything. I’ll set up a time to talk to my guy. Just consider this a warning. We don’t have any idea what dirt those files might have on you, and if he can decrypt them, he’ll be the first to find out. If it’s something you’d rather not be shared…”

“Point taken.” I drained my beer and tucked into my fish. “And don’t worry. I have an idea for how to deal with the lack-of-trust situation.”

Steph gave me a wry look. “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

Chapter Six

For the second day in a row I woke up to my cell phone’s ringtone. This time, however, I was in my own bed, which cut down on the disorientation. Rubbing my eyes, I checked the caller ID.

Also, for the second day in a row, it was the Gryphons. “Yeah?”

“Jess, it’s Andre. Sorry for the lack of notice, but the lab finished analyzing the Newton blood samples an hour ago. Can you come in to talk about it?”

I rolled onto my side and sat up. Sunlight glowed around the edges of my curtains. It was almost noon. Apparently, I’d really needed to catch up on my sleep. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great. Can you get here by two? We’re pulling together an official team meeting.”

Beyond my door, I heard one of my roommates thudding about in the hallway. That’s when it dawned on me. “It’s Sunday. Don’t you people get any time off?”

Andre laughed, but it sounded humorless. “Occasionally they let us out of the cage, yeah. But seriously, we got nine dead people in Newton. Time off will be in short supply for a while.”

“Yeah, right. Nine dead people.” And a possible connection to the satyrs. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, wishing I could crawl back under the blanket. “I can be there.”

Two hours was plenty of time to shower, eat and hope the magic analysis had discovered something totally different than what I feared. It was also, as it turned out, a long time to try to dodge my roommates. Geoff cornered me while I was in the kitchen settling down with the egg white omelet I’d made myself.

“Where have you been?” Geoff stretched his hairy arms and took a soda from the fridge.

“Busy.” I dumped salsa on the eggs, silently cursing myself for not taking breakfast into my bedroom.

Geoff rested his elbows on the tiny counter. His casual stance was a total cover-up. Inside, he was a jumble of discomfort, and the taste of it did not mesh well with my breakfast. “Val ran to the store. If you have a minute, we should talk when she gets back.”

In an effort to leave before that happened, I shoveled egg in my mouth. “No minutes, sorry. I’m running late and need to get to work.”

“Already? I thought you worked at a bar these days.”

“Quit.” I still felt like Lucen had fired me, but I’d gotten fired from my last job thanks to my inability to get to work while hiding from the Gryphons, and I didn’t feel like saying I’d been fired a second time. It sounded pathetic. “I got a better paying job, and I’m running late on my second day. Sorry.”

I dumped my plate and coffee mug in the dishwasher, and hurried to my room to put on my shoes.

“Can we talk later today?” Geoff called after me. Some of his anxiety had lifted, which suggested he didn’t want to have this conversation any more than I did. His reluctance didn’t bode well. I had a feeling we weren’t going to be discussing the electric bill or who kept leaving their hair in the shower drain.

I grabbed my bag. “Yeah, sure. Later is good.” Then I dashed out the door before he could say anything else.

Thanks to my roommate-avoidance efforts, I got to the Gryphon’s building twenty minutes early. I bought a large latte at the shop across the street, then called Andre because I didn’t know where to go. A few minutes later he met me in the lobby.

“This is great that you’re early,” he said as we approached the elevators. “I can show you your desk.”

“I get a desk? Fancy.” And here I’d been feeling special for simply being able to flash my shiny new ID badge at security.

Maybe Steph was right. Maybe I was looking at this blackmail thing the wrong way. I could stew over it, or I could embrace what I couldn’t change. Throw myself into this opportunity and take some pride in what I was doing. Olivia Lee might have forced my hand, but that was no reason this wouldn’t necessarily work out for the best.

Such cheery thoughts lasted about thirty seconds. That’s when I caught a glimpse of the painting in the lobby and remembered what I was. Besides, me plus bright-siding went together about as well as peanut butter and salsa.

Nope, Little Miss Misery—that was me.

“What was that?” Andre had been talking, and I hadn’t been paying attention.

“I was saying most of the meeting rooms are on the fourth floor. Your desk is on the third. IT should have your computer set up for you to use today.”

Andre gave me a quick tour that included a stop at my new quasi-office. It wasn’t much of one—a space partitioned off with a half-wall along a mostly empty corridor, no window, and barely enough room for both of us and the desk—but I was impressed in spite of myself since I hadn’t expected as much. After that and a tutorial on how to use my badge to unlock the interior doors, we reached the meeting room.

Two other people were already in it—Anna, who I’d met yesterday, and one of the assistant directors named Brian, who I was told would be supervising our work. We sat around a long conference table while Anna brought some data up on the screen in the front of the room.

Brian regarded me with some suspicion but was otherwise cordial. I didn’t sense any true negativity from him. My gift merely confused him, and that wasn’t something I could hold against anyone.

After the introductions were over, he shut the door. “Anna, walk us through what the analysis found.”

With a press of a button, Anna dimmed the lights, then presented slide after slide detailing the magical components found in each of the victims’ blood. Without any background in magical chemistry beyond the very basics, most of what she showed was lost on me, but I got the gist.

There were two types of magical debris or dust—for lack of a better word—that could show up in blood. That debris was called natural magic if the person had a gift themselves, like I or any of the Gryphons did. It was called unnatural if the person had no gift, and the debris had been left by someone or some
thing
else. In the Newton victims’ case, the debris left a signature behind that resembled the signature left by F.

I balled my hands into fists, wishing there was a better way to release my tension. Punching someone would be nice, and Olivia Lee’s face came to mind for having dragged me into this mess.

“All that means is the people had F in them when they died, right?” I asked. “That’s not exactly shocking.”

Anna brought up another slide, this one covered with the complex lines created by another type of scan. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

She looked extremely pleased about something, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “See, here’s where it gets interesting. See this and this?” She pointed at various spots on the scan that meant nothing to me. “All the victims showed this same pattern, but I’ve never seen magic like that associated with F before. I don’t know what it is, but it was something seriously strong.”

I hoped my sigh of relief wasn’t too obvious. “So the F didn’t kill them?”

“I wouldn’t make that assumption at this point.” Anna turned off the slides, and the lights came back on.

Andre had a laptop open and was taking notes. “What about the envelopes you found in the trash? They had F in them.”

“Yeah, but just residue.” Anna sat down. “There wasn’t enough to get a clear reading off it.”

Brian rubbed his hands together. “And no other evidence of magic was found on the bodies or at the scene?”

Andre shook his head. “Nothing, but those people had been dead for at least six hours before we got called in. If there was another weak source of magic around them, it could have dissipated before we got there.”

“Or been removed.” Brian paged through his papers. “Who found them again?”

“Michael Stacy’s father. According to his statement, he was dropping off his son’s golf bag that he’d borrowed. Newton PD claims he was in serious shock.”

“No wonder,” Brian said. “It seems unlikely he’d have tampered with anything if he didn’t try to cover up the scene itself. But it can’t hurt to do some digging at this stage. You might turn up more ideas. In the meantime, the most likely explanation is that additional magic trace Anna found came in on the F. There’s a good chance we’re dealing with someone selling contaminated drugs.”

I frowned. “Contaminated? Why would someone purposely add extra magic to them?”

“Could be a lot of reasons,” Andre said. “Preds will often throw extras into the charms they sell to humans, or outright lie about what they’re selling. It’s no different when the charm comes in the form of a magical drug.”

Anna yawned, stretching out on her chair. “Nope. It’s actually not that different than a human dealer cutting their non-magical drugs with cheaper drugs or other chemicals. Sometimes it’s harmless. Sometimes it’s not.”

Great. I had heard about that sort of thing happening, and Andre was right. It wasn’t uncommon at all. The Gryphons, as well as various government agencies, often put out PSAs, reminding people why they should only buy charms from trustworthy sellers. Of course, such sellers never included preds, and F wasn’t a legally produced spell in the first place.

Brian cleared his throat. “All right, here’s how I’m suggesting you approach this. Andre, you should do some digging into the victims’ backgrounds. We need to rule out other motives or possible causes for their deaths. Jess, this case is going to exemplify why Director Lee thought you’d make a valuable consultant. You’re going to need to use your connections in Shadowtown to help us find out about the F.”

I shifted in my seat. “I don’t exactly have connections in Shadowtown.”

Brian appraised me, his gray eyes hard through his glasses. “You have stronger inroads there than we do, as evidenced by the satyrs helping to protect you. The satyrs—or certain satyrs—will be the ones who produce F.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Then I need you to use your connections with them to see what you can find out about the producers, or who their dealers are.”

“There are a few hundred satyrs in Boston,” I said, pulling a number out of the air. I didn’t actually know, but it seemed like a reasonable guess. “The ones I’m on friendly terms with all work at or own legitimate, legal businesses. They’re not drug dealers or F producers.”

“You sure about that?” Andre asked. “You’re friends with Lucen, aren’t you?”

I spun my chair to face Andre, my stomach twisting unpleasantly. “Yeah, but he owns a bar.”

Andre raised an acutely skeptical eyebrow. “We can’t keep track of all council members, but we do our best with the inner triads. We know Lucen is number three on their Dom’s council. How does a bar owner legally get enough powerful addicts to bump him to that sort of position?”

Obviously, the answer was he didn’t. I’d pretty much known that, but I didn’t think Lucen’s not-legal methods included making or selling drugs. I’d have seen evidence of that by now given all the time I’d been spending in his company recently.

Saying as much, however, would lead to more uncomfortable conversations. These people didn’t need to know how long I’d known Lucen or how close we were.

If
we were. After all, I’d only discovered Lucen was Dezzi’s number three a few weeks ago. I was out of my depth with Lucen, the satyrs and the Gryphons. The more I learned on all ends, the more I realized I didn’t know.

So instead of admitting anything, I deflected. “That’s a good question, and I’m not friendly enough with Lucen to know the answer. But it also means he’s not exactly going to share whatever information he has with me.”

“That’s why we want you to do some digging,” Brian said. “You’re obviously a clever woman. I’m sure you’ll think of something. If nothing else, you can ask questions and see what sort of answers you get. You’re more likely to get their cooperation than we are.”

I raised my hands in defeat. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t make promises. I assume you have some leads on dealers or something I can use to get a start?”

Brian, Andre and Anna all looked at each other, and it was Andre who responded. “Not really. Busting illegal magic operations is tricky. When it comes to F, we can pick up the lowest of the low-level dealers, but working up the chain is problematic unless we’re dealing with stupid preds.”

“And whoever produces F within Boston,” Anna added, “isn’t stupid.”

“How so?”

“They use a variation on a compulsion spell,” Andre explained. “It’s not uncommon in this type of situation. Any time we reach a human dealer who might know something, we find they’ve had the compulsion put on them. They can’t tell us anything about the F or who they get it from.”

Interesting, and nope, definitely not stupid. Compulsion spells didn’t wear off the way charms did. I’d only had a single experience with one, and its effects lingered.

Devon, or one of his employees, had set one up at the club Devon owned, and I’d tripped it. The spell had tried to prevent me from entering the club’s basement. Possibly because I was part satyr and the spell had been intended for a full-blooded human, I’d managed to overcome it. Yet despite my ability to fight off part of the spell, I’d been unable to talk about it afterward, even to Devon himself. In fact, that I remembered what I’d seen at all had seriously confused Devon.

But just because a spell didn’t wear off, didn’t mean it couldn’t be broken, and I asked about as much.

“We can’t break the compulsions on the dealers,” Andre said.

“Why not?” The satyrs had given me a crash course on charm-breaking once. I was no expert, but I figured a Gryphon ought to be.

“Well, can’t might not be the best word, but it’s tricky. If the person who put the spell on the dealers knows what they’re doing, they could tie their spell to another spell that would cause serious harm to the person. There have been cases when the compulsion spell is rigged in such a way as to destroy memories rather than block them if attempts are made to break it. In most cases, we’ve been unwilling to take the risk. Frankly, when it comes to search-and-destroy missions for dangerous magic, F is very low on our priority list. There are far worse charms and curses being peddled.”

“The bigger dealers are usually lust addicts, as well,” Brian said. “That adds another layer of complications when breaking spells because addicts have so much pred magic in their blood. This is why your role is going to be important, Jess. We’re glad to have you on board.”