Had Bailey stopped to think about her shift for the day, she would have realized five was their scheduled time for departure. As I lacked enough information to appease myself, despite coming to the understanding solving the cases immediately wouldn’t change Alec’s circumstances, I decided to work late, maintaining the appearance I intended to leave at a reasonable time until the chiefs exited the building. As the cindercorn had managed to make it all the way back without prancing or attempting to buck me off, Samuel had taken her away from work temptations right at five.
That he had needed to toss her over his shoulder to get her to exit the building would amuse me for the rest of the night.
Either emboldened by the realization he held no true responsibility for the deaths surrounding him or he was simply tired of my company, Alec returned to his home, departing with one of the patrols heading in that general direction. Without an audience in my office, I could begin the real work, which involved sorting through the cases, populating my digital board, and prioritizing cases based on the probability of being able to solve them.
More than a few went into the cold case category, including the mystery of the disappearing steam rollers. Without the steam rollers or any actual evidence of what had happened, who the true target was, or even a why, I suspected the case would go into the unsolved mysteries file for years to come.
All magic came at a price, and according to the handy notebook of general rules detectives needed to follow, we faced strict limitations on what information we could peel out of angels.
“Peeling is so unpleasant. You could ask, but we’d have to say we cannot tell you,” Sariel stated from somewhere behind me.
“If I put up a sign asking angels and archangels to please knock before teleporting in, would you heed it?” I asked once I remembered how to breathe.
“Probably not. It is quite interesting testing the little mortals for reactions.”
As I couldn’t imagine an archangel popping into my office without a good reason, I turned and asked, “How can I help you tonight, Sariel?”
“My brother is complaining that you are a free-willed being who has already overcome the aversions mortals suffer to test him. As he will complain for all eternity should he be thwarted, I informed him I would discuss the matter with you. I did not promise I would do anything more than discuss this matter with you. He seems to have forgotten to secure a more solid resolution for his current issue.”
What sort of horrible things had I done in a past life to deserve the attention of the Devil and his archangel brother? “Well, once it became clear that there was no real and substantial risk to those around Mr. Mortan, and that this curse is more of a magnet for these inevitable events, it seemed reasonable to allow him to resume as much of a normal life as possible while he decides how he wants to handle the situation. My job is to try to solve as many of these cases as I can—his is to decide how best to live his life. I can’t make those choices for him. As I have no idea what I’m doing, I want to start with organizing everything before asking another detective for help learning the ropes.”
“On that front, you will be fine.” The archangel sat on my couch and relaxed. “My brother is a sentimental creature and dislikes when people he likes suffer through regrets, and he feels you will regret allowing Mr. Mortan to walk out of your life at this stage. In truth, a little regret will not hurt you and will make whatever future you decide stronger and brighter. In the end, the results are similar, but one is better. My brother can be an impatient soul despite having more patience than most for many of his plans. Then again, you make his precious cindercorn happy, and he takes that seriously.”
“I smacked her between the ears today,” I informed the archangel. “I’m not sure how that could make someone happy, but I wasn’t fired.”
“That definitely would have made her happy. She does not like the awe-inspired reactions some give her. By smacking her between her ears, you demonstrated you had expectations of her—expectations that don’t involve you worshipping the ground she walks on. She still learns how to handle adoration. So, I am here to plant seeds of regret and curiosity. What would have happened if you had done something like ask Mr. Mortan on a date?”
I raised a brow at the archangel, wondering what his expression might be if he possessed a head. “I would have experienced horrified embarrassment.”
The archangel’s laughter chimed. “I was more thinking an abandonment of your virgin ways, but this is also accurate. While he is not an incubus and not gifted with an incubus’s magic and skill, you will find him to be a considerate lover. He abhors the idea of hurting someone, which is what led to you meeting. For some unasked for advice, if you would like him to make it hurt good, you will have to do certain things, like beg. Sufficient begging will bring out his wilder side. Some spice is always good for a relationship.”
What the hell? “Are you, an archangel, offering me advice on my non-existent sex life?”
“Absolutely. While I am an archangel, I would like to remind you that your chief is my grandson, and there are certain mechanics involved in such things.”
Right. I had known that, too. “Forget I said anything. Wouldn’t you say Alec deserves a say in his fate, Sariel?”
“Absolutely. That is why I only promised to discuss this matter with you. But I would like to remind you that you, also, deserve a say in your fate. But it is not your nature to take the offense when it comes to men, and you do not like aggressive men.”
I shrugged. “You don’t work as long as I have as a cop without seeing the darker side of humanity. And if anything, the men who are the recipients of abuse have an even harder time than the women. Society has told them they are failures if they admit they have been victims. Women are expected to be the victims, so there is less shame in that. That’s not right, but it’s harder identifying when men are the victim. They work to hide the truth.”
“Yes, they do. But since I am here offering free advice, your plan to get closure for those files on your desk is a wise one. You will reap the rewards for your hard work in the future.”
Well, that was something. “Anything else I should know? Please consider that a request for additional information rather than a rhetorical question you simply answer yes to without elaboration.”
“It did not take you long to learn the truth of that,” the archangel replied in an amused tone. “There is something to be said for fresh starts, so I recommend you clear off as much from your desk as possible in a timely fashion. Most of these cases can be recorded and filed away, a few are good starter cases for you to get your feet wet in your new career path, and the rest shall be cold cases determined to thwart you for some time to come.”
“I don’t suppose you could sort those into the appropriate piles for me, could you?” I gestured to the mess of filing boxes taking over my office. “You could consider it making up for sucker punching me in the gut.”
The archangel laughed. “That was quite rude of me. You are a bold human. It is easy to see why my brother likes you. But as for your question, yes. I can. I will even be considerate and label which are which. It is a small matter, and it does make up for my brother’s meddling, so it balances the scales nicely. I will leave you with this: there are better days ahead.”
The archangel snapped his fingers, and a flash of golden light enveloped my office. When it dimmed, Sariel had vanished. The boxes had also vanished, leaving neat stacks of files in sequestered piles across my office. Notes written on golden cards declared what was in each pile, offering me direction on how best to proceed with my time.
I began with the starter cases within my capacity to solve, as I understood I had a great deal to learn in little time.
Everything else could wait.
Thanks to Sariel’s masterful sorting of my files, I conquered the first few cases with relative ease, asking for help from several of the veteran detectives as I went through the process of questioning everyone involved and associated with the murders. The first one proved to be the easiest; cameras had caught the murder on tape, the woman’s death had been witnessed by numerous people, and the culprit, once apprehended, caved under the first sign of real pressure.
Jealousy coupled with abusive tendencies had cost a woman her life, an unfortunately common occurrence that never failed to make my heart hurt.
In his twisted, selfish, and hateful mind, if the killer couldn’t have her, no one could, thus leaving the world bereft of a bright soul many had cherished.
Solving the murder wouldn’t bring her back from the dead, but acquiring justice might one day bring peace to those left behind in a senseless act of greed.
By the time I wrapped up the third case, which took a staggering two months following my promotion, I came to understand a great deal more about Alec Mortan’s curse. While our quip of his life being a list of 101 ways to die remained accurate, I discovered it was less about the ways in which people could die and more about the nature of what drove people to kill each other. Society blamed passion for many deaths—murder most often occurred in the heat of the moment.
The first three cases counted, if I scraped at the surface of the mystery.
In reality, humanity harbored the capacity for violence and evil as much as we held the capacity to do good in the world. Like a spinning coin, every person could land on either face—or stand on its end in defiance of probability.
The deeper I delved into the mystery surrounding Alec Mortan and his uncanny knack for showing up where people would die—or cursed to witness humanity at its worst—the more I grew to respect the man for his indomitable will and determination to persist.
Death continued to haunt him, but after leaving my office to resume his life, he didn’t return to my precinct.
Life had taken him to the far side of Long Island to a new job, and while reports of cases involving him as a witness hit my desk from time to time, other detectives handled the questioning, giving me paperwork to file into the collection in case I found some connection leading to the source of his curse.
It amazed me how a short, frantic time could make such a difference, but I found I missed his quiet company. It took time to understand what Sariel had meant about having regrets in a way. However, I found an appreciation for what I might have gained but had chosen to lose.
I had met one man I could see attempting to form a relationship with, which offered the hope others were out there.
I also learned remaining a virgin drove the incubi and succubi involved with my life absolutely wild, as I refused their advances and enjoyed luring them to the end of their ropes. Of the people I worked with, Bailey had caught onto my ploy, and she laughed every time my status as mostly young, available, and virgin got the best of the nosy divines, demons, and others known to prowl the precinct.
I enjoyed the game, inciting the Devil and his crazy family just from living my life as I wanted rather than to their expectations.
Sometime when the summer began to creep into spring’s turf, Bailey bounced into my office armed with one of my travel mugs filled with coffee, which she presented with a flourish.
“How did your checkup go?” I asked, accepting her gift with a pleased sigh. The coffee would make whatever she needed of me easier to handle, and if she thought it would sour, the drink would be laced with some pixie dust so I could make the most of the situation.
She grinned at me and flopped onto my couch. “The tiny terrors are doing well, and I won’t have to give up the ambrosia of life until two weeks before delivery, and I get to be weaned off it this time in a sensible fashion. I also won’t be off it too long. The busybodies want them on pristine milk for the first month, then I can start exposing them through second-hand joy.”
I chuckled, as my chief’s entire family went to extremes making sure their cindercorn and her foals all made it through pregnancy without major mishap. “And how is Sam?”
“He’s strutting like a peacock as usual. He is inflicting his peacock ways on his grandfather at the moment, who was this week’s examiner of developing troublemakers known as babies.”
“I will sucker punch him in the gut if he even thinks about invading my office,” I warned her with a grin. It’d taken me a full month to realize the archangel enjoyed when the lowly cops got rowdy, so I’d taken to joining Bailey in her futile efforts to launch surprise attacks on Sariel.
“He is planning on invading your office, as he enjoys honing your self-defense and offense skills.”
“Is that what we call this? Honing my self-defense and offense skills?” I pointed at my digital board, which was all of three weeks old thanks to having successfully chucked an archangel into its predecessor. “Honestly, I’m more impressed Sariel replaced it after I broke it.”
“I’ve been trying to throw him for months without success. You nailed him on your first try after completely catching him by surprise. You earned his adoration for life with that stunt.”
“Along with an office full of feathers.” As I’d been warned I’d be entertaining a feathery foe soon, I set my coffee in its safe spot, a present from the Devil’s wife, who insisted I needed a place where my coffee would never spill. I reached into my drawer for the latest trick in my arsenal, which was a foghorn meant for a boat. I also pulled out two pairs of earplugs still in their protective packaging, and I tossed a set to Bailey. “Thank you for informing me that angels have auditory sensory organs in the vicinity of their shoulders, by the way. I have chosen my weapon in my latest attempt to prove to the archangel he sucker punched the wrong woman.”
“Are you trying to earn an invitation to a triad, Josefina? That sounds like you’re trying to apply to become the human member of a triad.”
“No. I am not confident I can handle one man. Two of them would take me to the brink and push me over. Engaging in a relatively harmless prank war with an archangel seems like a good way to test my fortitude, however. How long do I have before he shows up?”
Bailey checked her watch. “I would say no more than two minutes.”
“If I break any of my hardware this time, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure Sariel will end up replacing it with something better, and you’ve put your coffee in the safe place, so it’s fine. We all need a little excitement in our lives today. Well, you don’t need any more excitement in your life today. We have been given cadets, and Queeny has decided you are being bequeathed with a cadet. When I left, he was digging through our closet looking for a bow.”
In so many ways, moving to Manhattan had been a huge step up in life, as long as I recognized both of my bosses were a little crazy. I couldn’t even call them a few cans short of a six pack; they needed at least one can to qualify between the two of them, and I held serious doubts they could manage that much.
That Samuel, the saner of the two, searched for a bow for some poor cadet meant one thing: they’d both lost what little grasp they had on reality.
How had I become the sole bastion of sanity in our precinct?
“You owe me,” I informed my chief, and before she could argue, I put the ear plugs in, held my foghorn under my desk, and eyed the woman in challenge.
She decided wearing her ear plugs beat having her ears ringing all afternoon due to my ongoing war with an archangel.
On the two-minute mark, the archangel popped in. He said something, which was muffled by the earplugs. I stood, pointed the foghorn at him, and let rip.
As expected, feathers flew everywhere, and the archangel abandoned my office in a flash of golden light. Smiling, I removed my ear plugs and placed everything on my desk. Bailey hooted her laughter, kicked her feet, and fell off my couch, rolling as her mirth got the best of her.
A few moments later, a rather rumpled archangel teleported back into my office. “That was evil of the highest order, and I commend you for having won that round.”
I loved how honest archangels tended to be, especially in the face of defeat. “Archangel feathers are worth at least a thousand a pop on the internet, and I have an office full of them now. All I need to do is get a statement from you about their authenticity, and I’ll have enough money to date a man for at least a week. I’ve heard men are expensive, but I wouldn’t know because I keep foisting the available men on unsuspecting co-workers.”
Sariel’s laughter chimed. “Did my brother send over some incubi again?”
When wasn’t the Devil sending over incubi for my amusement? The last batch had resulted in a lively run of the Game of Life during a break, and while I’d lost the game, I hadn’t lost any clothes—and I’d made a few suggestions on which co-workers would enjoy a visit from an incubus along with the reasons why.
At least one couple would be getting a welcome addition to their household thanks to my distribution of sex demons around the precinct.
“I do appreciate having people to play board games with during breaks.” I scooted back in my chair and opened the cabinet that held my fledgling game collection. “I almost thought about Monopoly, but I play by house rules, and I’m not sure my bosses would have appreciated fifteen hours of profanity laced play coming from my office.”
“I would have forgiven you, but Sam would sulk that he hadn’t been invited,” Bailey reported, climbing off the floor and brushing off the archangel feathers sticking to her clothes. “Shed a few extra feathers as compensation for having to deal with Lucy’s idiocy. Last week, he sent over twenty-three incubi. Then he sent over a succubus just to make certain which team Josefina bats for. We’ve determined she prefers team incubi, but she admitted team succubi offers a lot of damned fine incentives.”
“We went for a manicure and pedicure, Bailey. This is not a hint that I want to start dating succubi. Well, unless the dates are for manicures and only manicures. She’d starve within a week of being in a relationship with me, but her nails would be beautiful.”
“I feel my brother has bitten off more than he can chew, but it is so much fun watching him try to crack her shell. At the rate he sends his demons over, she will be immune to their magic by the end of the year. She will have even more resistance than you do, Bailey,” Sariel teased.
“Resist an incubus twice, and you’re flagged for life,” Bailey complained. “I have the only incubus doohickey I need in my life, and that’s that. But if you could talk to Lucy and tell him Josefina doesn’t need the attention of twenty-plus incubi a week, that would be nice. At the current pregnancy rate in this precinct, half our staff will be on paternity or maternity leave within eight months. We do not have enough cadets to cover half the precinct being out for leave due to incubi spreading the love, correcting formerly unknown conception issues, or generally helping couples become pregnant. And no, I don’t care if they were helped with permission! Do you know what I have on my hands, Sariel? I have a staffing problem on my hands, all because Uncle Lucy can’t keep his sex demons at home.”
“But everyone is so happy,” the archangel teased.
“Everyone except Josefina,” Bailey grumbled.
I stared at the pregnant cindercorn with a raised brow. “I’m very happy, thank you. I have a good job, it turns out I’m not utterly shabby at being a detective, and I’ve only had to go out four times so far this week to add new cases to my count.” Two of the cases would be easy; the evidence pointed at an obvious culprit, and all the work I’d done yesterday led towards an easy conviction. Between the camera footage, the DNA evidence, fingerprints, and everything else I’d meticulously gathered from the site, I would be closing those cases and adding them to my tally by the end of the week, assuming the results came back as expected. The other two would be tougher, and I expected the one would go into my pile of cold cases.
I had nothing except a single partial fingerprint, insufficient to narrow the pool of culprits down to something sensible, and a hair without the blasted root tissue needed to become sufficient admissible evidence. Without the tissue attached to the hair’s root, the best I could hope for was some mitochondrial DNA evidence from the interior shaft of the strand.
Mitochondrial DNA evidence wouldn’t get me the conviction I needed.
I moved my mouse so I could check the time on my computer. “Of course, that’s partially because I’m scheduled for desk work this week, as I hadn’t been informed there’d be new cadets coming in. I’ve only been taking cases when the other teams couldn’t take the calls right away.” For whatever reason, I still lacked a partner, but it worked well enough; when I went to a crime scene, an established pair went with me. They handled everything I couldn’t, and I focused on investigating.
One day, I would get a partner. One day.
Bailey grinned. “There is a cadet. One cadet. This cadet is for you. We’ve decided you’re keeping this one as a present. Thus the bow. Technically, this cadet is a while off graduation, due to a complete lack of practical experience, but he’s solid on the book smarts. Since we’re going to be losing staff like crazy in the upcoming months, Sam wanted to get cadets working with us as soon as possible. Our staffing budget is fucked, but we’re going to see if we can crank performance through cutting the number of street hours and spreading the high-stress workload. If it works out, we’ll get a better budget to work with. A safer public is a happier public, and a safe and happy public means we get a better budget.” Bailey wrinkled her nose. “Your cadet passed the knowledge portion of his exams already, so we’re going to be trying a new training system. You’ll show him the ropes, teach him how the streets work, and educate him on the general nature of detective work. You’ll be on rotation to work a patrol with your cadet once a week. We’re currently planning an eight-month trial with him before he’s issued his badge. The commissioner wants to test this method. If it works out, assuming the cadets pass the knowledge tests after two months at the academy with a minimal error rate, they’ll be assigned to a pair to get further education while in the field.”
I could see the ploy working—assuming the cadet was partnered with a knowledgeable and patient pair of cops. “We’re going to end up with a quartet if I tag along with another pair,” I pointed out.
“It’s your fault for being so efficient and just dragging out a pair when you need to investigate a crime scene. If you weren’t so damned good at it, we would have forced a partner assignment on you already,” my chief complained. “But you keep performing well, and Sam hates breaking things that aren’t broken. He’s going to cry if the cadet breaks the working system.”
Cadets could make a mess out of things in a hurry, especially if they were the kind who wanted the prestige and power of being a cop. Those tended to wash out early in our precinct.
If Samuel didn’t catch onto them, Bailey did. If by some miracle those two didn’t, the rest of us sniffed out the dangerous, unwanted behaviors and either sent them packing or kicking them back to the academy until they figured out they served the people and not the other way around.
“All right. As you don’t want Samuel to start crying, I have to evaluate and make certain this one doesn’t wash out.”
“Correct.”
“Is this a bad time to remind you that I’m a jackass with the cadets and have one of the higher washout rates? It took all of three weeks working with the cadets to figure this out.”
“If he survives you, everyone will know he is quality material.”
I couldn’t argue with that, so I didn’t. “All right. Send him in, and warn him I’m tough on a good day, and he doesn’t want to see me on a bad one.”
Bailey chuckled, got up, brushed herself off, and headed for the door. “You do love making the cadets squirm.”
“If they survive me, they turn out to be better cops, so let them squirm.” I waved, got up, and began to gather my collection of archangel feathers. “Thank you for your contribution to my dating fund, Sariel.”
The archangel laughed. “As He did not tell me I could not, I will even authenticate your feathers to maximize your reward for having landed yet another surprise attack upon me.”
“It’s nice to see angels aren’t assholes all the time,” I replied.
“It keeps you mortals on your toes.”