Chapter Twelve

Morales was quiet the entire ferry ride back. As much as the guy liked to tease me, he also had the good sense to know when to shut the fuck up. My hands gripped the railing until my knuckles ached. For a few moments I indulged in a fantasy of imagining it was Uncle Abe’s throat.

Once we exited the ferry and were back by his car, Morales pulled out his phone and held it up to the sky to check the signal. I guess he found one because next thing I knew, he was speaking to Gardner through the mouthpiece. Leaning against the SUV’s bumper, I listened as he gave her a nuts-and-bolts version of what had happened. He left out the embarrassing details that made me look like an emotional wreck, bless him.

Instead of watching the water spread out like a stainless-steel ocean, I raised my face to the sky. The midday sun stabbed at my corneas, seagulls shrieked like banshees, and the cold wind felt pushier than it had earlier. Despite the less-than-idyllic scene, I realized it was worlds better than the sliver of sky visible through Abe’s cell bars. He might be the king of Crowley State Penitentiary, but I was a pauper with access to the whole world. That freedom gave me the upper hand. I had choices. He did not.

And since I was the one with choices, I decided to take the meeting with Abe at face value. As far as the Johnson case went, he’d offered very little in the way of convincing evidence. Sure, we’d check out his story about Dionysus, but I didn’t plan to take his story as gospel.

Morales nudged me. I glanced up, ripped out of my thoughts. “She wants to talk to you?”

I cleared my throat and put the phone to my ear. “Sir?”

“What’s your read on this?”

I chewed on my lip for a moment. “He’s fucking with us.”

“That’s my gut reaction, too.” The sound of her chair creaking back cut through the line. “Unfortunately, the mayor has called a meeting. You and Morales need to meet me at City Hall in an hour so we can debrief him.”

I closed my eyes. What I needed was a stiff drink, not a meeting with the fucking mayor. “Any way we can put him off?”

“Not a prayer.”

An hour later Mayor Owens slammed a newspaper on the desk. The headline shouted the news about Aphrodite Johnson’s temple being robbed by a criminal they dubbed the Aphrodisiac Bandit. “Anyone want to explain to me why I had to hear about this asshole from Abraxas Prospero instead of my own fucking police force?”

The Honorable Skip Owens, mayor of Babylon, Ohio, was not an attractive man. His nose was too big, his chin too weak, but what he lacked in looks, he made up for with charisma and sheer force of personality. He had salt-and-pepper executive hair and wore a nice navy suit with a tie as red as his Republican blood. On his right hand he wore a signet ring depicting the seal of the city of Babylon. On it, a lion with two emerald eyes guarded a gate bearing the city’s name. Judging from Owens’s proud posture, he considered himself the king of this particular concrete jungle.

“Sir, with all due respect, we’ve been briefing Captain Eldritch of the situation almost daily.”

Owens turned to glare at Eldritch. “Well?”

“Sir, I handed the Johnson case to Special Agent Gardner but she has not provided updates as promised.” He shot a glance in the direction of his boss, Chief Stanley Adams.

Chief Adams sat stoic as a statue beside his employee. As near as I could tell, the man rarely got his hands dirty with Cauldron politics, preferring instead to court the favor of wealthy Mundane citizens in the nicer parts of Babylon. He’d even lobbied to have the Cauldron’s violent crime statistics kept separate from those for the rest of the city because, he claimed, they were an anomaly due to the high percentage of Adepts who lived in that part of town. Not surprisingly, like all the brass in Ohio state and local law enforcement, he was a Righty.

Gardner’s posture stiffened. Standing next to Morales and at the back of the room, I shot him a worried look. Watching a bunch of power brokers play political hot potato wasn’t my idea of fun. Especially since we didn’t have the luxury of time. With less than a week remaining until the Halloween Blue Moon and the threat of a possible Raven at large, we needed action, not the blame game. Not that I was going to be the one to point that out to the four people in Babylon who could guarantee I’d never find work again.

“All right, let’s try another tack. What did Abe Prospero have to say today?”

All eyes turned toward me. I cleared my throat and stepped forward.

“Mr. Mayor,” I began.

He held up a hand. “Who the hell are you?”

I blinked. “Detective Kate Prospero, sir.”

The man’s eyes widened. “Abe’s niece, right? I do not appreciate being your messaging service, Detective.”

I nodded. “Sorry, sir.”

His eyes narrowed. “You were in the middle of the Ramses Bane case, as well, correct?”

Grimacing, I nodded again.

“Why do you keep coming up in all the cases that cause a pain in my ass lately, Prospero?”

I shrugged. “Just talented, I guess.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Proceed.”

“According to my uncle, the theft was perpetrated by a man who believes he is the modern incarnation of the god Dionysus. He’s a Raven—a wizard who robs other wizards.”

Owens frowned. “So he’s insane?”

I nodded. “It would certainly seem so, if Abe’s telling the truth.”

He tilted his head. “You don’t believe your uncle, then?”

“Not especially.” I shook my head. “He’s not exactly known for his honesty, you know?”

Owens pursed his lips and crossed his arms. “I’d agree with you if I hadn’t received correspondence from this Dionysus myself.”

My mouth fell open. From the corner of my eye, I saw that everyone else had stiffened like pointer dogs on the trail of a juicy squirrel.

“He contacted you, sir?” Eldritch asked carefully.

The mayor nodded and went to retrieve something from his desk. He shuffled something around in the drawer before removing an envelope. “This letter arrived this morning.”

He brought it to me. Not wanting to get more fingerprints on it than necessary, I pulled the cuff of my shirt up to cover my fingers as I took it. Moving toward the meeting table in the middle of the room, I placed the envelope on the surface. “Morales?” I asked, looking up. “I have a pair of gloves in my pack. Can you bring them to me?”

He nodded and brought them over while everyone else circled the table. With the gloves on my hands, I opened the envelope and pulled out the sheet of paper. A Polaroid fell out on its face, but I ignored that for the moment.

The missive itself resembled a ransom note, with each letter cut out of a magazine. Not sure why the guy bothered when any computer and printer would suffice, but he obviously loved a little drama.

Mayor Owens,

The Blue Moon’s coming. Are you ready for a party? I’ll bring the refreshments.

Sincerely,

Dionysus

My stomach flip-flopped in my gut. Not because of the threat, but because that short note confirmed that Uncle Abe hadn’t been lying. And for some reason, knowing he was telling the truth about wanting to help me scared me more than the idea he’d been lying.

I shook off that thought. First matter of business was finding Dionysus. I’d deal with being in Abe’s debt once we’d arrested the asshole.

“How did this arrive?” I asked.

Owens shrugged. “Through the mail.”

I flipped over the envelope; there was no postmark. I showed it to Gardner. “Planted it in the mailroom, probably,” I said.

“Sir,” Gardner said, “we’ll need to take this and have our lab wiz look it over.”

“Not so fast,” Chief Adams said. “This is a BPD case.”

Gardner’s eyes widened. “If it’s a BPD case, why did your captain hand it over to my team?”

“That was when we thought the case was about some potions being stolen. That letter is clearly a threat to the entire city, which means it’s a BPD matter.”

All eyes turned toward Owens. He rubbed his lower lip with his finger. “What did he take from Aphrodite Johnson?”

I exchanged an anxious glance with Gardner. Once this was out, there was no way the case wasn’t going to become a media circus. “He took a large stash of a potion we believe makes the user sexually aggressive. Extremely so.”

The mayor’s face paled. “So this man who just threatened my city has a stockpile of rape potions?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The bad news hung in the air between for a good thirty seconds while Owens considered the angles. Probably he was wondering how to play this so he came out looking like the hero. Finally, he snapped at Eldritch, “I want an APB for this asshole and his name plastered on every TV set and street corner in the city.”

The captain shifted uncomfortably. “That’s going to be a problem, sir.”

“And why is that, Captain?” Owens crossed his arms.

“Because we don’t know what he looks like,” Gardner offered. “We don’t even know his real name.”

Without answering, Owens flipped over the picture I’d forgotten about. He handed the picture to Eldritch. He showed it to the chief and Gardner. The three of them exchanged a worried look.

“May I?” I asked, taking it in my gloved hands.

The image was grainy, like it had been taken with a vintage camera. In the center, a shirtless man whose torso, neck, and arms were littered with tattoos stood with his arms spread like Jesus on the cross. His head was back but his eyes were aimed at the camera, daring you to look away. His black hair was wild, and a large beard clung to his jaw. Despite the unkempt appearance of his hair and beard, his torso was toned with muscle and a pair of suspenders lay over broad shoulders and down to the waistband of his low-slung jeans. He wasn’t traditionally handsome by any means, but he exuded untamed sensuality and recklessness.

I shook myself. The last thing I’d expected was such a visceral response to a simple picture.

Morales pulled the photo from my hands. “He looks familiar.”

I looked again and shrugged. “Maybe.” Something tickled at the back of my brain, but I couldn’t access it.

“Now you have the picture,” the mayor said, “I want to know who this asshole is. I want to know why he’s picked my city. But most of all, I want every available law enforcement agency in this town working to find this Sinister son of a bitch.”

Sinister. Hearing my city’s mayor use such a derogatory slang for Adepts made me cringe. Granted, Dionysus wasn’t exactly a stellar example of my kind, but still, Owens’s attitude reflected that of so many of the city’s officials. According to too many Mundanes in power, Adepts were to be either controlled or feared. Usually both.

Eldritch stood. “Yes, sir. We’ll have his photo plastered all over the city within the hour.”

“And you,” Owens said to Gardner, “find out what he intends to do with that potion.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, ignoring a glare from Eldritch and the chief.

“All right,” Owens said. “Keep me updated on progress. And make no mistake about it: I expect progress yesterday, am I understood?”