Fire Water (3 page)

Once we were outside, I clapped my hands. “Okay, guys, round up.” They ignored me and continued to the course. A field next to the training center held the obstacle course. Cargo nets were suspended from poles; walls without ropes to climb up, crawling obstacles, and other stations were spread across the field.

“Gather 'round,” Reams shouted in a take-no-prisoners voice. Everyone complied immediately. I joined my wayward team, but none of them would step aside to allow me to stand beside them. “Each team will have to assist each other through the course. You'll all have paint guns, which members of the team will use to ward off attacks by training officers. The point is to work together and protect your team. Fastest time wins. Got it?”

After that, everyone broke out to strategize. My team circled up near the front of the course. “All right,” Batson said, “Garza and—”

“Excuse me,” I said. “I'm the leader of the exercise.”

A shitty smile turned up his lips. He crossed his arms. “By all means.” His tone was patronizing as hell, but I gritted my teeth and focused on the mission.

“All right,” I said, “it looks like our most vulnerable obstacle will be the wall. We need two people to get over it first. I think we should station Batson at the bottom for cover and I'll help the others up.”

Garza snorted. “Who's going to help you up?”

That's pretty much how the rest of the discussion went. I laid out a reasonable plan and one of the guys would contradict me. In the end we ran out of time when our group number was called.

I spent the next seventeen minutes and thirty-four seconds getting shoved out of the way or cursed at. The men on my team totally ignored my plans, choosing instead to bicker their way through the course.

In the end, we got last place.

“Thanks, Prospero,” Batson said after the times were announced. “Way to lead out there.”

“Excuse me?”

“I told you we shouldn't have taken that formation on the wet obstacle.”

My mouth fell open. The maneuver he referenced had been his idea. But before I could call him on it, Batson stormed off. The others followed in his wake, but a few choice words blew back toward me on the breeze.

Later, Sergeant Reams found me sitting on a bench in the women's locker room. I had my clothes on, but couldn't find the energy to grab my bag and head home.

“Tough day, Prospero?” Reams wore a white tank top and green cargo pants. She leaned back against the lockers and grabbed the ends of the towel around her neck. I nodded and stared down at the blisters on my hands from climbing the obstacles. “The problem is you're trying too hard to make them like you.”

I looked up. “Shouldn't a team get along?”

“Teamwork doesn't require friendship. It requires everyone to do their jobs.” She pointed at me. “It requires trust and confidence that all members will hold their own when shit goes down. And no one, especially male cops, want a polite chick around when that happens.”

“None of them wants a chick around, period,” I grumbled.

“Hey,” she said, “it's not easy but it can be done. I've been on the force for twelve years now.”

Being reminded that it was actually possible to rise up through the ranks helped me calm down a little. “How did you do it?”

She smiled, but there wasn't any warmth to be found there. “You want to fit in as a cop, you gotta make them forget you're a chick. The last thing a man wants to worry about when he's under fire is his ingrained instinct to protect a woman. You got to prove to them you can hold your own. Actually, more than that, you got to prove you could kick any of their asses.”

I snorted. “That means I have to be better than all of them.”

“Pretty much,” she said. “But that's not all. If you're gonna succeed you have to figure which one you are.”

“Which what?”

“A woman in law enforcement has three choices. You can be a dyke, a slut, or a bitch.”

I blinked at her. “That's all? Those three?”

She nodded.

“Which one are you?” I had a guess, but I didn't want to assume and end up insulting her.

She laughed out loud. “You really need to work on your poker face, too, Prospero. It's no secret I'm a big old lesbian. My partner and I have been together for eight years. She's an EMT.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, I'll leave that one to you then.”

She eyed me up and down. “Regardless of which option you choose, you'll still have to be faster, smarter, and a better shot than most of them men on the force in order to get noticed. And Lord help you if you ever cry or say one goddamned word about your period.”

I hesitated. “Okay.”

“I've seen your test scores and you've gotten high marks from the cops you've been shadowing. You'll do fine out there as long as you keep your head and don't let all the dick swinging distract you from the job.”

“Understood.” I can't say the talk made me feel better, but at least I had more insight in how to navigate the good-old-boy system than I'd had earlier. I blew out a breath and rose. “Thanks, Sarge.”

“Hey, I heard you pulled river patrol duty.”

I shrugged. “Yeah.”

“How's Cap'n?” There was an amused fondness in her voice, as if she knew the old man well.

“Salty,” I said. “He's forbidden me to speak.”

A laugh escaped her lips. “That's Cap'n, all right. Don't let him give you too much shit. He's mostly bluster.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, thinking of the way he'd yelled at me that morning for accidentally dropping a line into the river.

“It's too bad,” Ream said. “Back in the day he was one of the top cops in the Cauldron.”

I frowned. “Really?”

She nodded. “Back before the accident.”

I frowned. “I thought he was put on river patrol duty because of his age.”

She shook her head. “He took a bullet during a raid of the Arteries.”
The Arteries
was the nickname for the abandoned subway tunnels that ran under the Cauldron. The project had been stopped before completion, and now the underground labyrinth was the domain of the Sanguinarian Coven and magic junkies looking to get their fix. Every cop in the city knew going down there was bad news. “It was about ten years ago,” she continued. “Mayor decided to clean up the tunnels and sent a group down to round up the potion freaks. But I guess someone tipped off the Sangs. Cap'n took a bullet to the leg.”

I blew out a breath at the thought of him lying injured and vulnerable in the rat-infested darkness.

“He was never the same after that. He was given a choice between a desk or river patrol.”

I nodded. “I can't imagine Cap'n stuck behind a desk pushing paper.”

“Right,” she said, pushing off the lockers. “He seems to enjoy the patrol, but I don't think he ever recovered from the injury. The brass is just letting him serve out his time there until he can collect his pension.”

Hearing the story made me more sympathetic to the crotchety old guy. “Thanks for telling me.”

She held up her hands. “Do yourself a favor and don't bring it up. Cap'n's a proud man.”

I nodded. “Thanks for the advice, Sarge.”

She tipped her chin. “Good luck, Prospero. You'll need it.”

I kicked in the front door of my apartment at seven that night. In my left hand, I held my keys and my duffel bag. In my right, a bucket of fried chicken. Behind me, Danny carried a bag of sides and drinks.

“So then David said that Ava told him that Riley wants to kick my butt,” he said.

I put my stuff on the counter and turned to relieve him of his burdens. “Why?”

“I don't know. He tripped me on the playground this morning, too.”

I frowned. “What did your day camp counselor say?”

“She told me I shouldn't antagonize him.” He crossed his arms. “It's not fair. He tripped me.”

I ruffled his hair. “Dealing with bullies is never fair, kiddo. Pass me some plates.”

He sighed and turned to grab paper plates out of the tiny pantry beside the fridge. The entire kitchen had less space than the interior of my Jeep, so he bumped me as he moved past. “Here.”

I took the plates and started filling them with food. “Look, I know you're frustrated, but if we get this new place, you can start at Pen's school.” My best friend, Penelope Griffin, was a counselor at Meadowlake, the exclusive prep school Danny would start in the fall. The house I was hoping to rent wasn't in the same neighborhood, but it was only about fifteen minutes away as opposed to our current place, which was more like thirty without traffic.

He frowned. “But I want to go to middle school with my friends.” Since it was summer, Danny was in a summer school program at the moment, but in the fall all of his friends would be going to a public middle school. I'd visited the place, and, even though it was far nicer than the prison parading as an educational institution I'd attended, I wanted something better for my brother.

“You'll love it there,” I said. We'd had this argument before, so I wasn't about to get into it again. “Let's eat!”

We took our plates to the living room and sat on the sofa, which would fold out to become my bed later. I flipped on the TV and we dug into our chicken. I was starving after a full day working on the boat, followed by the obstacle course debacle. Probably, I should have tried to get something more nutritious, but the chicken place was convenient and cheap, which pretty much checked every box on my must-have for life at the moment.

Danny flipped channels to find his favorite cartoons. I tuned it out and thought about Sergeant Reams's advice in the locker room. Truth was, as much as I wanted to deny that women were still required to fall into such narrow categories in order to succeed, I'd seen the dynamics at play over and over again at the academy and in the real world. So the question was, did I want to fight against the system or try to figure out how to work inside it?

It didn't take me much thinking to realize that the latter choice was better. In addition to being a woman, I also had the whole Adept thing working against me. A lot of cops were suspicious of people born with the ability to work magic. It went beyond the typical prejudices against Adepts because in police work, evidence gathered through Arcane means wasn't admissible in court. Still, a lot of Mundane cops saw their Adept counterparts as people who cheated the system to close cases. That's why most Adepts in law enforcement went the CSI route instead.

So really, I had no choice but to try to play within the boundaries of the system. When Reams referred to the dyke stereotype, she wasn't really talking about sexual preference so much as an attitude. But I wasn't sure I could butch it up convincingly enough to fit in. That left two choices: slut or bitch. While the slut thing sounded fun, I wasn't exactly a vixen. Nor was I willing to use sex to gain favor in the department. That meant that, by default, I was going to have to be the bitch.

If you asked any of my classmates from the academy, they'd probably tell you I already had it down pat. After growing up in one of the covens, I certainly understood how to employ swagger and a few choice words to shut down anyone who stepped up to me. Still, I wished it were okay not to have to play any role. I just wanted to be me.

I sighed and poked at my food.

“Hey, Katie?”

I looked over at my little brother. He had a smear of grease on his cheek, and his shaggy hair was in desperate need of a cut. “What's up?”

“Can I have your biscuit?”

“Sure.”

He snatched it off my plate like an experienced pickpocket. I shook my head at him with a smile.

My phone rang over on the counter. I hopped up to grab it. “Turn down the volume, buddy.” He grabbed the remote and pressed the button, but left a grease slick in his wake.

I grabbed the phone on the third ring.

“I'm trying to reach Kate Prospero,” said a male voice.

“This is she.”

“It's Bill Tanner,” he said, “you applied to rent my house on Maple Avenue?”

“Oh, this is her.” My stomach sank. In my head I was already hearing him tell me we didn't get the place.

“I was just calling to let you know the place is yours.”

“That's too bad—” I froze as his words sunk in. “Wait, we got it?”

“Baba recommended you highly.”

“She did? I mean, that's great!” My right hand shot into the air and I did a little victory dance.

“When will you be able to move in?”

I paused and thought about it. My lease had been up a couple of months earlier so I was paying month-to-month until I could find a place. “Actually, I could move in as early as next weekend.” Even as I said the words, I couldn't believe this was really happening.

“That'll be fine. I'll be out of town on a business trip, but I can leave the lease for you to sign and the keys with Baba.”

“Perfect,” I said. “I'm really excited. Thank you, Mr. Tanner.”

“Don't thank me—thank Baba. She convinced me to give you a chance.”

I paused. “That was generous of her.”

He grunted. “Just pay your rent on time and don't break anything and we'll get along fine.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Thank you again.”

I hung up the phone and spun around. “We got it!”

Danny looked up with his cheeks packed with biscuit. “Mmph?”

“The house near your new school. It's so great, Danny. You'll love it. There's a big tree and you'll have your very own room.”

He swallowed and smacked his lips. “But I don't want to move schools.”

I went to join him on the couch. “I know change is scary, but I really believe you'll be happy there. You'll get to see Pen every day.”