Two weeks was a long time to go without speaking to a single human being.
A single live human being, that was. I spent a lot of time talking to good old Lennie on Law and Order. Like a perp collared in a sting operation, I told him how I’d fallen hard for Nick. How I’d put the entire Eastern Empire at risk by telling secrets I had no right to share. How I’d lost my powers despite half a dozen idiotic attempts to bolster them—with spells, with runes, with herbcraft and more.
I confided my worry that Nick was working harder than Lennie ever had on a case. Even now, Nick could be finalizing his dossier on the Empire. He’d be reporting to his superiors. He’d be coordinating an attack by the dozens of law enforcement agencies in DC. Secret Service, FBI, US Marshals, National Guard, Capitol Police, and more—they’d all be going after imperials any day now.
Lennie only shook his head as I babbled, snapping on the figurative handcuffs and consigning me to my inevitable fate—solitary confinement until such time as the hospital was shut down around me. Then, banishment forever.
For a fortnight, I survived on food I stole from the kitchen late at night. Saltines and yogurt were my two major food groups, with red Jell-O coming close behind. If Natasha noticed, I never heard her protest.
I changed scrubs a few times. Even took a handful of showers.
Now, as the sun climbed toward noon on Sunday—with Midsummer Eve a few hours away—my TV continued to flicker across the room. I’d turned down the volume because I knew this episode by heart. My beloved Lennie was bending over a corpse in a rain-slicked alley. The victim’s doctor would turn out to be the killer, hoping to become a millionaire in a complicated drug diversion scheme.
There was no way my medical credentials would ever make me a millionaire. But someone sure would be, after turning a pretty penny selling my stolen Vitriol.
Of course, that someone had high costs… Paying off a banshee thief couldn’t be cheap. And had the same person paid for the shuck to rampage through the hospital? What was the purpose of that attack, anyway?
Lennie would have had the answer by the second round of commercials. I still hadn’t figured things out. Maybe if I’d had a badge, forcing the bad guys to confess… Or a partner to bounce ideas off of…
At least I didn’t have to follow all the rules that bound New York’s boys in blue. I could ignore fancy legal concepts like entrapment. I could lure the bad guys into the open without worrying about their rights against self-incrimination, their rights to a fair trial, any of that legal mumbo-jumbo.
Whoever was trying to destroy Empire General had already proved they cared a lot about money—as illustrated by the Vitriol theft. What if I pretended to have a secret stash of another drug?
No single pharmaceutical was as valuable as Vitriol. But I could come up with something too tempting to pass up. There was moonflash, a potion that helped shifters transform to their human shape if they got trapped in their animal form. There was oakwater, too, guaranteed to arrest dry rot in any woodland spirit, and Hecate’s Seal, an elixir that healed broken bonds between witches and warders. That trifecta should lure anyone with a longing for cold, hard cash.
All I had to do was pretend to have a secret stash of the drugs. I could offer them for sale at a specific time, in a carefully chosen location. I could show up with my magical armament, cast a few spells, and capture the guilty party, making up—in some small way—for all the harm I’d caused the Eastern Empire when I told our secrets to Nick.
There was only one small problem. I couldn’t actually bring any so-called magical armament. If I picked up a wand, it would crumble in my hands. If I touched crystals, they’d turn to dust. I couldn’t cast the most basic of spells.
But once I’d come up with the idea of trapping the bad guys, I couldn’t let it go. Sure, I might not be able to defeat the lousy thieves who’d destroyed my professional life and taken away the job I loved. But if I could lure them out into the open, I could turn them over to the Night Court.
I made a bargain with myself: If the fake theft still seemed like a good idea after I brushed my teeth, took a shower, and put on real clothes, I’d do it.
Teeth brushed.
Hair washed.
Jeans and a clean T-shirt donned.
Sweet Hecate, I was actually going through with this.
The beauty of my plan was that I didn’t actually need to take anything from the hospital storerooms. I only had to announce I had the goods. And fortunately for me, my Empire-wide broadcast system was sleeping in a chaise lounge in an overheated bathroom downstairs.
Taking a determined breath, I opened my bedroom door.
Well, I was already wrong about one thing. Musker wasn’t lazing around his sauna. He was sprawled in a dusty beam of sunlight, right at the end of my hallway.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, utterly nonplussed.
He skittered over, casting a sidelong glance as if he expected me to start chanting in tongues. “Keeping an eye on you?”
He turned his answer into a question. Of course he did. Becs must have told him to watch my every move. My familiar was nobody’s fool—he didn’t want to get caught between a witch and her warder.
“Fine,” I said, because I didn’t really care. “I need you to do something.”
“Okay?” He flicked his tongue over his lips, still wary.
I told him my plan.
“That doesn’t sound safe,” he said.
“Of course it isn’t safe. But I can’t come up with anything better.”
“Why do anything at all?”
“We can’t all be as lazy as you are.” My retort was sharper than I’d intended.
Musker gave me the evil eye. “Not that anyone could tell from what you’ve been doing the past two weeks. Or should I say ‘not doing.’” He was my familiar, though. It wasn’t long before he yielded a little ground. “If you do go, you shouldn’t do it alone.”
“Don’t you dare tell Becs.” The last thing I needed was to drag my warder into this. My career was ruined, but she could still team up with a perfectly good witch when all of this was over. There had to be someone in the coven who could see past the fact that Becs was a woman.
“I just think—”
“I order you not to tell her.” If I’d still had my witch’s powers, I would have tugged on the bond between us to secure his cooperation.
Musker edged a few steps sideways, scratching his belly as if he were brushing away mites. “Okay,” he finally agreed. I hadn’t meant to give him a choice. Oh well. He wasn’t going to rat me out.
I reminded him: “I just need you to reach out to the other familiars. Say you saw me take the drugs and let them know where I’m going. Tell them I’ve finally gone crazy.”
“At least the last part’s true.” He grumbled, but he stared off into the distance. His head bobbed a few times. He licked his lips, and his khaki shirt rose and fell with his rapid breathing.
“Okay,” he finally said. “They know.”
“Thank you.” I pushed real gratitude into the words. “You can go downstairs now.”
“I’ll come with you.”
He meant it. My lazy, good-for-nothing familiar was offering to join me in a hopeless battle against an unknown enemy, a fight where I had no weapon to carry and couldn’t imagine any type of real victory.
“If I had my powers, I’d take you up on that in a heartbeat,” I finally said.
I left before either of us followed up with something mushy.
While I’d stood in the shower, I’d tried to think of where to stage my confrontation with the thieves. I’d considered all the major monuments and the National Mall, even the steps of the Capitol. But I needed some place off the beaten path. I didn’t want innocent mundanes harmed by a supernatural battle.
I’d finally hit on the perfect location. It was walking distance from the hospital. There’d be a few visitors on a Sunday, people taking quiet strolls, walking their dogs, seeking out a peaceful place for contemplation. After dark, the place would be deserted, perfect for an imperial battle.
Humming softly to myself, I headed over to Congressional Cemetery.