Chapter Six

Fifteen minutes later we were at an intersection near the construction site for Volos’s pet project, the Cauldron Community Center. The groundbreaking had been six weeks earlier, and the crews already had the foundation poured and the framing up for the walls. We’d just passed the sign announcing that the center would open by Thanksgiving when Morales tapped the brakes. “Hey, Prospero?”

I pulled my gaze away from the side window I’d been glaring out of for the last five minutes. “Yeah?”

He was pointing out the windshield. “Isn’t that Mary?”

I squinted in that direction. Sure enough, a six-foot-tall lumbering hulk of a woman was crossing the street about a block up. As always, Little Man was strapped in a baby carrier on her chest. “They’re usually at the park this time of day.”

“Nice of them to save us some time by meeting us halfway.” Morales pulled the SUV to the corner closest to where Mary had just crossed.

I rolled down my window. “Yo, Mary.”

She glanced back over her hunched shoulder, and her eyes widened. Instead of stopping, she lumbered away faster, her lanky brown hair swaying like oily fringe at the back of her neck.

I frowned. “Mary?” I called. She shot a worried glance over her shoulder and picked up the pace even more. I threw open the door and hopped out to follow.

They were far enough away that I couldn’t hear, but I could see Little Man waving his arms and shouting instructions to her every time she turned to look back.

Mary and Little Man had been my snitches for going on five years. They’d also met Morales a couple of times, so she had to have recognized him, too. In other words, there was absolutely no reason for her to be afraid of us. My instincts forced my legs into a jog. “Mary, wait!”

Morales caught up with me and we fell into a run together as Mary turned the next corner. “What the hell?” he snapped.

I shook my head. A second later we both skidded around the corner in time to see Mary duck into a city bus. The large vehicle belched away from the curb. I kicked up my speed, pulling my badge from my pocket. “BPD, stop!” But the grinding of the bus’s gears drowned out my demand.

“We lost ’em,” Morales called.

I stopped running and bent over with my hands on my knee. “Damn it! What the hell was that about?”

Morales put his hands on his hips. “Guess they weren’t in the mood to talk.”

I rose and cast one last annoyed glance at the bus’s rear end as it grew smaller in the distance. “Something’s going on.”

He shot me an ironic look. “This is the Cauldron, Cupcake. Something’s always going on. C’mon, let’s grab some grub before we get an update from Mez on the evidence he gathered at the temple.”

I stood watching the space where the bus had been a few moments earlier. Even with the Blue Moon fast approaching, my day thus far had been… strange. Given I worked in a magical slum, that was saying a lot.