Gunmetal Magic (14 page)

Ascanio emerged into the room and bowed his head. Normally either Kate or Derek gave Ascanio a ride. He couldn’t be trusted with his own vehicle. Today he had the privilege of Curran’s company. I didn’t envy him the car ride home.

Kate came out of the kitchen, carrying a plastic sack. She waved at me and the three of them went into the night, closing the door behind them. The car pulled away.

I was all alone.

I sat down and drained half a bottle of my Georgia Peach Tea in a single long swallow.

To rewrite my life, I had to own all of the choices I’d made and deal with their consequences. I could take off and start over somewhere else. It would be easier. So much easier than bending my knee to my new bitch alpha and seeing Raphael and his happy bride at every clan gathering.

I laughed at the thought. It sounded too bitter and I stopped and headed to the shower instead. The night was still young. It was barely past six-thirty. I could get cleaned and sift through my evidence some more.

From the moment I was born, I learned that I had two choices: to fight or die. I wasn’t the dying type. Atlanta would respect me. The Pack would value me. And Raphael…Well, Raphael would come to regret replacing me, because I would prove to him that I was a much better choice.

I awoke in the closet again.

I kicked off my blanket in disgust. I’d dreamt of being beaten. The memory of the dream fluttered in front of me, still vivid. It was my eleventh birthday, and the older boudas had chased me into an old farm equipment store. I’d hid in a metal drum trough, the kind used to feed the pigs. They’d found me, poured kerosene into the drum, and set me on fire.

I remembered the smell of my hair burning.

I pulled my knees to my chest. My dream wasn’t just a nightmare; it was an actual memory. I had spent years trying to suppress it, but the stress and all the talking with Ascanio must’ve caused it to resurface in my subconscious. I reached over and touched the closet wall to remind myself the dream was over. The sleek paint felt cold to my fingers. Since I made such frequent visits here, maybe I should just move in. Install a toilet, a sink, build myself a nest…heh.

The day was starting outside. It was time to get on with it. I needed to get dressed and visit Anapa’s office. In my human shape. At least the magic was down. If I got irritated, I’d shoot my way out of it.

I left the closet. Outside my window, past the bars, thick gray clouds clogged the sky, promising rain. Against that faded backdrop, the crumpled husks of once-tall buildings hunkered down, dark and twisted, tinseled with green plants stubbornly trying to conquer the crumbling city. On the fringes of the business district graveyard, new construction sprouted, stout buildings of wood and stone, no more than four stories high and built by skilled masons. Human hands, no machines.

In the distance, police sirens wailed. Just another fun morning in post-Shift Atlanta.

I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom. The woman who looked back at me seemed sharper than she’d been yesterday. Meaner. Stronger. Too rough around the edges for most of the things in my wardrobe. Normally I wore jeans, khakis, off-white shirts. Neat professional attire, meant to inspire confidence and communicate safety to prospective petitioners for the Order’s assistance. The motto was confident but nonthreatening.

I was done with being nonthreatening. There had to be something in my closet that fit the new me.

Input Enterprises had a southeast address, on Phoenix Street. Despite the ruined condition of the neighboring blocks, this street was clean of garbage and refuse, brand-new houses lining both sides like soldiers on parade. There must’ve been some serious money behind that rebuilding project, because the houses had been tastefully embellished with cornices and decorative brackets. Even the bars on the bay windows were stylishly ornamental, with metal squiggly shapes. The area clearly was making an attempt at becoming a respectable business district.

I parked the Jeep in a small lot and walked, looking at the building numbers. The overcast sky finally decided to cry on my shoulder. The rainwater turned the asphalt dark. It was good that I wore a hat.

When I found the right number, instead of a building I saw a stone arch with a sign that read
INPUT ENTERPRISES
on the wall, complete with an arrow pointing inside the arch. Fine.

I walked through the long narrow tunnel and emerged into a wide space. A large patio stretched in front of me, all sand-colored stone, with vegetation confined to narrow rectangular flower beds, running in two lines toward the building in the back. The structure rose three stories high, but the three floors were oversized, pushing the height of the building to a dangerous level. Another foot or two and magic would take notice of it.

The main part of the structure was all modern office: glass,
steel, and pristine white stone combined into a sleek elegant whole. The top of the building suddenly broke with the plan and turned into a cupola of glass and crisscrossing metal beams with a golden sheen.

I walked through the front doors. A polished tile floor rolled from where I stood to the marble counter, manned by a receptionist. She was in her early twenties, her makeup was heavy, her suit powder blue, and her pale brown hair was arranged in a picture-perfect French twist. Behind her a large banner affixed to the wall, golden letters on black, read,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOSS!

I walked across the tiled floor. The receptionist looked up and did a double take. I wore a light brown duster. I had left it open in the front, and it showed off my blue jeans, combat boots, black T-shirt, and twin Sigs in the hip holsters. An old cowboy hat sat on my hair.

I stopped by the counter, tipped my hat, and drawled in my native tongue. “Howdy, ma’am.”

The receptionist blinked. “Ehhh, hello.”

“I’m here to see Mr. Anapa.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. I’m investigating a murder on behalf of the Pack.” I handed her my PI ID.

The receptionist gave me a practiced smile and nodded at the low couches on the right. “Please take a seat.”

“Sure. So boss is having a birthday? Is he throwing a party?” Raphael had mentioned getting an invitation. It nagged at me so I thought I’d check it out.

“It’s tonight,” the secretary informed me.

Ha. Either my guns had made an impression, or nobody had explained to her that she was not supposed to give strange women confidential information. Most receptionists would’ve told me to shove off. “Wonderful. How old is he?”

“Forty-two.”

I went to the couches and sat. Minutes trickled by, slow and boring.

A quiet creaking of plastic wheels rolling came from the hallway. A man emerged—Latino, late fifties, early sixties. He pushed a bright yellow industrial mop bucket and he walked slowly, his eyes tired, his shoulders sloping forward. Probably
part of the night cleaning crew, wrapping up his shift. As he passed the counter, the receptionist cleared her throat.

He glanced at her.

“There is a mess in the second-floor kitchenette,” she said. “Someone spilled coffee.”

“My shift was over half an hour ago,” the man said.

She stared at him. My opinion of Anapa’s reception staff plummeted. How difficult was it to clean up your own coffee spill? Get a rag and mop it up. If the man’s shift was over, let him go home.

He heaved his shoulders. “Fine. I’ll get it.”

I watched him roll away. The building lay quiet again.

I studied the stone tile: golden brown with slight charcoal and russet undertones. Beautiful. Raphael had a similar type of tile installed in his place. I could never understand the man’s aversion to carpet. His house looked like a castle: stone tile on the floor, beige and gray wall paint, Azul Aran gray granite countertops. He’d actually hired an artist to come in and paint stone blocks on the foyer’s walls. Cost him an arm and a leg, but it looked awesome, especially once I bought him a pothos vine and installed some tiny hooks to keep it growing in the right direction. He also hung bladed weapons on the walls.

I could picture him as a hidalgo, ruling some grand castle like Alcazar, dressed all in black. My imagination conjured up Raphael, his muscular body hugged by a black doublet, leaning against a stone balcony, a long rapier on his waist…with a seven-foot-tall blond bimbo by his side.

I had to stop obsessing. It was like my mind was stuck on him—every moment I wasn’t actively thinking about the case, my thoughts went right back to Raphael. Sometimes I plotted revenge, sometimes I felt like hitting my head against the wall. These bouts of feeling sorry for myself and daydreaming ways of making him regret he was ever born had to stop.

My ears caught the sound of distant footsteps. I rose. Three people strode out of the hallway, a trim woman in a beige business suit in the lead. She wore glasses and her light brown hair had been braided away from her face. Her clothes and hair said “business.” Her posture and eyes said “combat operative.” A man and a woman in tactical gear and dark clothes brought
up the rear, holding cop batons. Each sported a sidearm on the hip.

“Good morning, Ms. Nash,” the woman said, her voice crisp. “Mr. Anapa sends his regrets. His schedule is full and he’s unable to see you.”

“I’m investigating murders on behalf of the Pack,” I said. “I only have a few questions.”

“Mr. Anapa will be very busy this entire week,” the woman said.

“He isn’t a suspect.”

“Whether you suspect him or not is irrelevant. You’re no longer a member of law enforcement. You’re here as a private citizen. Please leave our premises.” She turned, squaring off with me.

If I’d still had my Order ID, I’d have made her swallow those words. I considered my options. I could go through the two guards, but the faux secretary would provide a problem. The way she kept measuring the distance between the two of us telegraphed some sort of martial arts training, and her stance, square and straight on, said law enforcement experience. She was trained to wear body armor. Most shooters would
blade
their body sideways, minimizing the target area. People in bulletproof vests tended to face the danger.

Law enforcement meant she knew the rules and understood exactly what I could and couldn’t get away with. If I made a scene and got in to see Anapa, she’d sound the alarms and the cops would be on me like wolves on a lame deer. I could see the headline now: “Shapeshifter terrorizes local businessman.”

A part of me, the bouda part, wanted to do it.

I had to back off. She knew it and I knew it. “I’ll be back,” I told her.

“Bring a cop with a warrant,” she said.

I reached the door.

“Ms. Nash!” she called.

I turned. The “secretary” smiled. “This lobby isn’t big enough for the two of us, Ms. Nash.”

I shot her with my index finger. “I’ll remember you said that.”

Outside, the cloud cover had broken. I squinted at the sunlight and turned to examine the building. Anapa didn’t want
to be questioned, but that didn’t make him guilty. It might just make him an ass. Except that I’d questioned hundreds of suspects over the years and this was far from a typical reaction. Usually when you walked up to a place of business and told the employees that you were investigating a murder, natural curiosity took over and everyone gathered around to find out more. People are voyeurs and most of us are fascinated by morbid things. You tell someone, “I’m investigating a murder,” the next question is usually, “Who died?” Anapa’s receptionist had asked no questions. Neither had Anapa’s knight in beige business armor.

The beige business suit woman must’ve taken the time to research my background to punch me with that “you’re no longer a member of law enforcement” bit. True, the Order had retired me, but before that my career was distinguished and nothing in my resume indicated that I gave up easily. She didn’t strike me as the type who missed details. It would have been so simple for Anapa to chat with me for ten minutes and clear his name. He would be off my suspect list and I would go away and stop bothering him. But he used his security people to chase me off instead. All sorts of alarming flags popped right up. Why all the secrecy?

When I was training, my instructor, a grizzled and scarred ex-detective named Shawna, taught me to eliminate suspects rather than look for them. Look at your suspect pool, pick a most likely one, and try to prove that he didn’t do it.

Right now that process of elimination had excluded only Bell. Anapa still remained on my possible perp roster, and now he had managed to bump himself right to the top of my suspect list.

I surveyed the building. Barred windows, surveillance cameras—which would work only during tech—and, if the rest of the security was anything to go by, probably really good wards on the windows. As a shapeshifter, I had a natural resistance to wards, but breaking one would really hurt and create enough magic resonance to make anyone in the building with an iota of magic sensitivity scream bloody murder.

I circled the building. On the north side, a small window three floors up had no bars. The security cameras were also conveniently positioned to cover other approaches. I stood for
a while and watched them turn. Sure enough, the pattern of the cameras offered about twenty seconds of undetectable approach to the building. They’d built a trap into their defenses. I chuckled to myself. Clever. Not clever enough, but it would fool your average idiot.