The Frozen Witch Book One

  Chapter 13

  I walked back into the office, so confused, my head was nothing more than a swirling mess of thoughts.

  Before I could mooch over to my desk, Middle Manager Ben appeared in front of me like an apparition.

  I doubled back.

  He crossed his arms tightly. “Had a big day, then? Caught the perp and convinced him to hand himself in? Ideas above your station?” he added with a growl.

  I shrugged, latching a hand onto the back of my neck. “He was a friend. I just… didn’t want to see him go down. Things got a little out of hand,” I added, gesturing to my blood soaked top. It looked a lot less impressive now my face wasn’t mashed up.

  Ben flicked his judgmental gaze down my top, tutted, then narrowed his eyes. “You think I’m impressed? You’ll have to do a lot more than that to impress me, and a lot more than that to earn your freedom. Now go get cleaned up.” He jerked a thumb toward my desk.

  Shoulders deflating, I walked through the room. Again everyone’s eyes were on me. Though I wanted to sink through the floor, that feeling stopped when I saw Cassidy jump up from her chair.

  “Oh my god, what happened to you?”

  “What happened to you? You and Alice disappeared into the shop, I beeped the horn, but you didn’t come out.”

  “Portal spell,” Alice growled as she appeared from behind her cubicle. She took one look at my top then frowned. “Where the hell did all that blood come from?”

  “My nose,” I said as I tentatively brought up a hand and patted my face once more. Seriously, it was fine. No pain at all. In fact, I’d caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror on the way here, and I looked better than ever. Those nasty dark shadows under my eyes from all that lack of sleep and worry? Gone.

  Heck, even the discoloration and sunspots that had encroached over my usually pale skin this summer – they were gone too.

  “You had a nosebleed?” Cassidy asked, frowning with compassion.

  “No, I had my nose punched in by a warlock working for Chaplain.” I sighed glumly as I shifted past, pulled my chair out with my foot, and sat heavily.

  “He mustn’t have done a particularly good job – your nose looks fine,” Cassidy said, confusion obvious.

  “Trust me, if you’d seen me a couple of minutes ago, you wouldn’t agree. But I guess it is fine now.” I continued to pat at it.

  “Wait, I don’t get it.” Cassidy scooted over on her chair, grabbing hold of my desk and peering at my face closely. “You’re not lying, right? But us lower detectives don’t have access to healing magic like that.”

  I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  “No, what do you mean?” Alice turned the question on me as she scooted over and took up position on the opposite side of my desk. She frowned at me. “Vali healed you, didn’t he?” Her tone suddenly dropped so low it couldn’t carry.

  Cassidy sucked in an excited breath.

  If I had any hope of controlling my expression, it was dashed when Alice shot me a questioning look.

  She quickly came to her own conclusion. “He did heal you.”

  “Oh my god.” Cassidy crammed her hand over her mouth and spoke between her fingers.

  “What? He said I didn’t deserve the injury. Said he needed me fighting fit for the job tonight.”

  Cassidy shot Alice a meaningful look. Then she leaned in. Somehow she managed to control her tone, even though she was usually as loud as a firecracker. “He’s never done that for one of us. You keep coming to his attention, ha?”

  Tingles escaped up my back. I tried to shrug off her comment, but with the both of them seated around my desk staring at me, it was hard.

  “Anyway, you did good. Especially for your first job,” Alice conceded as she shifted back and crossed her arms. “But why the heck didn’t you call?”

  “I tried to. Oh crap! I left your phone in the taxi.”

  She snorted. “Doesn’t matter. It’s already back. Seriously, though. When we didn’t appear, you should have called. It would have saved you a broken nose.”

  “I had no idea how to call you. I didn’t recognize any of the symbols on your phone.”

  Cassidy made a face. “Really? You haven’t been inducted yet? Oh my god, you really are behind.”

  “Inducted?” I put a hand up and scratched my neck, that sick confusion returning. And hot on its heels? The anxiety. It started as a hard knot deep in my gut then began to climb my spine one vertebra at a time.

  Maybe Alice could tell that I was becoming undone, because she cleared her throat in a strong, officious move. “There’ll be time for that. Let Middle Manager Ben know – I mean Ben,” she corrected as she cleared her throat. With a surreptitious look around the office, she continued, “And he’ll find someone to take you through the ceremony. You’ll be able to read runes after that.”

  “Runes?”

  “The language we use when we work for Vali. It’s on all of our phones, on all the files, on everything – only those who have been inducted can read it. But go back to the bit about a warlock from the Chaplain gang hitting you. Did you get a good look at the guy?” Alice peered closely at me.

  I frowned. To be honest, I should have gotten a good look at the guy. He had been up in my face, after all. But now I pressed my memory into the task, I realized I hadn’t been able to note anything defining. The guy looked like a cookie-cutter, huge, strapping goon.

  Alice sighed when I didn’t immediately answer. She shifted back and ran a hand through her short hair. “It’s a pet project of mine.”

  “What?” I frowned.

  “Alice is out to get every mobster she can,” Cassidy said matter-of-factly as she pushed off my desk, skidding back in her chair. “It’s a personal project,” she added.

  “You’re allowed personal projects?” I questioned.

  Alice let out a harsh chuckle. “Only when those personal projects are criminal bastards like the Chaplain gang. And only… when you lost as much to the mobsters of this city as I did.”

  Just as a commiserating smile spread across my face, she put up a stiff hand.

  “They bribed me, and I took a bribe – I’m not trying to apologize for that fact. I’m trying to make up for it. So you sure you couldn’t remember what the guy looked like?”

  I offered her a rough description and promised to tell her if I remembered anything else.

  Like a dutiful detective, Alice brought out a pad of legal paper, produced a pen from somewhere, and scribbled down every word I said.

  It took until the end of the interaction to realize how easy it was. Just this morning these women had been nothing more than felons to me. Now? They were quite possibly my only friends.

  The rest of the afternoon passed easily. Cassidy took me under her wing, inducting me as Alice rumbled and quipped from beside us, commenting whenever she could.

  It was easy and weirdly normal. Sure, we were all magical sinners, but it was the friendliest interaction I’d had in days.

  It could not, however, take away from the fact that in several hours I’d be attending my first real job with Vali himself.

  I could still remember Megan’s expression as she’d stalked from the room. Her cold cheeks, her pale eyes, the sweat slicking her brow.

  Cassidy had wandered off to rustle up some food, and Alice had gone back to writing fastidiously on her legal pad, her teeth clenched and expression dark. She wrote with the same gritty determination she held her magical gun with.

  Though it looked suicidal to interrupt her, I cleared my throat.

  She flicked her gaze up to me. “What?”

  “I was just… I was just wondering… who Vali’s secretary is? Megan?”

  “Megan Ross,” Alice reeled off, “28, has been working for him for eight years. Solstice witch. One of the strongest in the city, if not the country. She’s Vali’s go-to witch for the tough jobs.”

  I blinked quickly.

  “That was a lot of information for you, wasn’t
it? Let me break it down slow.” Alice leaned back, tapping her finger against her pen. “A solstice witch is also known as an equilibrium witch. Her magic comes from balance. It’s kind of esoteric, and it will take you a while to wrap your head around. Basically, she can turn someone’s magic against them, tipping the balance, as it were. She can make water flow backward, make the wind suddenly change direction, make a fire burn back on itself.”

  I made a face.

  Alice snorted. “See, like I said – hard to understand. But trust me, she is powerful. That’s why Vali takes her on the big jobs.”

  “And what exactly is a big job?”

  “Simple sinners like you and me,” she shrugged as she indicated me with a flick of her pen, “we don’t really change much. I’m not using that as an excuse,” she brought her hands up in quick defense, “I’m just saying that in the grand scheme of things the sins we commit don’t affect too many people. But there are sinners out there,” her voice suddenly dropped low, “whose crimes affect us all. You’re talking mob kingpins, drug dealers, serial killers. The guys with truly evil hearts. The irredeemable, cold, and soulless. When Vali goes out to take one of these guys down, he requires backup.”

  My nose scrunched. “I don’t get it. He’s a god.”

  Alice shot me an even look. “Technically. But that doesn’t make him all-powerful, and it sure as hell doesn’t make him invulnerable.”

  I blinked in surprise. “It doesn’t?”

  Alice let out a rattling sigh. “Crap, you really need to learn this stuff; you’re walking blind here, kid. Saunders is an incredibly strong practitioner, but at the end of the day, he’s still mortal.”

  “I don’t get it. How can a god be mortal?”

  “Beats me. All I know is that Vali isn’t all-powerful. And when it comes to taking down the kingpins, he has to tread carefully. Especially in this city.”

  “Why? What’s so special about this city?”

  “Because there’s magic everywhere. Even before I… took the deal,” Alice punched her tongue against her lips in an obvious move of shame, “I started hearing about it. You’d see it on cases sometimes – things just wouldn’t add up. Rumors, legends – they’d fly around. After a few years on the force, I knew something was up.”

  “Are you saying there’s more magic in Saint Helios than elsewhere?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. And I’m saying the city’s criminals – the big guys – they all know about it. That’s why Chaplain’s gang went after you today with a couple of warlocks.”

  I sucked in a calming breath, cramming a hand over my stomach as nerves welled in my gut. This was kind of too much. It was a hell of a revelation to be told that the city I’d grown up in was steeped in magic. And more than that, magical crime.

  “Anyhow. The really big guys, the guys who run the cartels, the trafficking rings, the drug dealers – they all invest in magical protection. Vali has to plan for months, sometimes years to take one of them down. When he does, he needs backup like Megan.”

  That cold sensation in my chest suddenly returned. On overdrive. It felt like a blizzard started to swirl in my sternum. I tried to keep my emotion in check as I took a stuttering breath. “So… so one of these big jobs, they’re… important, right?”

  Alice nodded earnestly. “You bet. But don’t look so pale, kid. I doubt the function Vali is taking you tonight is a job. He’s not suicidal. You’re a newbie. My guess is he’s giving you an opportunity.”

  My stomach sank. “An opportunity?”

  “He gives them to us occasionally.” Her tone dropped. “I missed the last one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An opportunity to redeem yourself. Think of it this way – every time we successfully solve a case, we buy back some of our sins. But occasionally we come across a case so big, so pertinent, that it can reduce a sentence by half. Maybe he’s feeling sorry for you – and maybe you’ll get one of those opportunities tonight. My only advice to you is to take it.”

  I just sat there. When I didn’t react, she leaned forward, clapped me on the shoulder, and offered me the Alice version of a commiserating smile. “You’ll be okay. Like I said, it won’t be a job. It’ll just be an opportunity.”

  There was a problem. It was a job. Vali had already admitted that to me right in front of Megan.

  But there was another problem, wasn’t there? What if this was also a so-called opportunity?

  I started to freak out. Who wouldn’t? As the enormity of the situation struck me, my breath became ragged.

  Alice returned to her work, but crumpled her brow and ticked her gaze toward me. “Don’t freak out, Lilly. Take a deep breath. Even if you miss out on your opportunity, there’ll be others.”

  Sure. Others. “Um, Alice? What do you know about Hank Chaplin? I’m only asking because… because I think I heard one of the guys mention his name today.” I weaved together a pathetic lie. “Ah, he sent them,” I added weakly.

  Alice sat up straight. “Really? They mentioned Hank personally? He sent them? Not one of his lackeys? You sure? That’s a clue.”

  No. I was lying out of my ass. But right now I had to learn everything I could about my target for tonight.

  Alice took several seconds to scribble something on her pad. Then she looked up. “He’s a bastard, that’s what I know about him.” There was such conviction behind her words, I almost didn’t want to press her for more information. But I had to. “Why? What’s he done?”

  “What did you do before you started working here?” Alice asked.

  “I was a waitress.” I shrugged.

  “Kept your head down, then? Didn’t go out much?”

  I agreed with a nod.

  “Hank Chaplin owns most of the strip joints in Saint Helios. He’s a real piece of work. Has his fingers in a lot of pies, and all of them are unsavory. Back when I was still working for the legitimate police force, we were trying to bring him in on trafficking charges.”

  “You mean drug trafficking?” I asked innocently.

  She shot me a grim look. “No, I mean human trafficking. Where do you think he got his strippers and prostitutes from?”

  I think I became as white as snow as I leaned back and pressed a hand over my mouth. “That’s awful.”

  “Which is why Hank Chaplin is a bastard. I didn’t realize he had any connection to Larry McGregor, though,” Alice said excitedly as she continued to scribble on her pad. “I would have thought Larry was too small a target for Chaplain. Something must be up.”

  Feeling seriously guilty for lying to her, I cleared my throat. “I think that’s what they said. Maybe Hank didn’t send them personally. Everything just happened too quickly,” I muttered.

  “Information is information,” Alice said, looking up. She clipped the lid on her pen, pushed her pad away, tilted her head, and looked at me. “You’re kind of pale.”

  Kind of pale? It was a surprise I hadn’t blended in with the white wall behind me.

  I felt sick. Thoroughly, thoroughly sick.

  I hadn’t signed up for this. I hadn’t signed up for anything at all. I was being dragged into this world. And tonight? I’d be dragged into a far, far darker world.