Precinct 13 (29 page)

“Yes,” I said. “Sorry.” I carefully removed my coat to examine my arm. It was numb, though the sensation of pins and needles slowly returned to my fingertips as I massaged them. The tattoo remained, resettled into its usual position. There was a red-gold sheen along the curve of its body, as if it were still burning slightly.

Hanging on to Valentine’s shoulder, I watched as Jack and the others were similarly helped upright by a troop of officers and paramedics. A group of the latter clustered around Devon, who cupped his eye as though it were injured.

I overheard someone tell him, “The loss of vision in that eye is likely temporary.”

Christ, I’d blinded the vampire.

“I need to figure out how to control my magic,” I told Valentine.

“Obviously,” he drawled.

“Is everyone okay?” Before he could even reply, the image of the pile of mud and twigs came rushing into my mind. “Oh! What about Stone? Is she…Can they fix her?”

“Probably,” Valentine said casually. “At least, it’s possible if they call the right person. The question is, will they?”

“What? Why wouldn’t they?”

“Your fairy princeling seems to think it’s unethical.”

My anger gave me the strength to pull away from the shelter of Valentine’s arm. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Careful,” he said with a tease in his voice. “Watch your language. You don’t want to blow the place up again.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that,” I fumed.

My anger only spiked when I found Jones crouched next to Stone’s remains. His head was bowed and his hat was against his chest, as if in respect. Bile rose in my throat. “Jones, you piece of…”

Valentine’s hand clapped on my shoulder, cutting me off. “Seriously”—this time there was real warning in his tone—“be careful. We don’t need a war with fairy over his untimely demise, as satisfying as that might be.”

“His mom doesn’t even like him.” My eyes fixed on a spot on the back of Jones’s uniform. If I could control my magic, I’d be burning a hole right through his heartless chest.

Valentine’s voice sought to soothe, calm. “Regardless, the good folk are capricious in their affections; Maeve might hate him today, but still choose to avenge his death with a mother’s fury.”

I didn’t want to talk about reasons to spare Jones’s life. I stood over him, careful not to disturb a single rock in Stone’s pile. My hands balled into fists at my hips. “What is wrong with you?” I demanded. “She was your friend. Wasn’t she? At the least she was your partner.”

“She died in the line of duty,” he said. His voice was scratchy with emotion. “It’s an honorable death.”

“Bull—” At the harsh intake of Valentine’s breath, I stopped myself. “That’s just a copout. You don’t want her reanimated because she’s unnatural.”

He didn’t deny it. Instead, he stood up to look me in the eye. I could see wetness at the edges, but his expression was tightly controlled. “She was an exemplary police officer. She deserves an honorable end to her career.”

“If her career is so awesome, why end it at all?”

Jack and Peterson joined us by Stone’s body. Devon, led by Hanson, made his way into the grove as well. Everyone watched Jones.

“I don’t want to,” he said. He scrubbed his face and his shoulders slumped. “But she’s rogue.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Jack answered, “When her maker died, she was supposed to die as well. Traditionally, golems don’t have souls. They’re made for a purpose, and when that job is over…” He shrugged, not looking at the dirt at our feet.

“She obviously had a soul,” I said.

Devon surprised me by adding, “And a purpose.”

When I turned to regard him, I could see the damage my magical blast had done to his eye. The iris had whitened and the pupil had shrunk to a tiny pinprick.

“Serve and protect,” Devon said, quoting the police officer’s pledge.

Jones’s eyebrows jerked upward slightly, and then he stared down at the muddy human shape for a long moment. Slowly, he began to nod. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll make some calls.”

Several of Stone’s brothers in uniform volunteered to stand as an honor guard over her body until a rabbi could be found who was willing to perform the magical rite to reanimate her.

The rest of us agreed to meet back at the station house for debriefing. Though I expected he’d take off now that the excitement was over, Valentine stayed. Somehow he, Devon, and I all ended up crammed in the back of Jones’s squad.
Jack sat in the front, in Stone’s usual spot. The dent of Stone’s finger was still visible in the center of the Refocus.

The moment Devon sat down beside me, I blurted, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. Of course, he happened to sit with his bad eye closest to me, so he had to twist around awkwardly to see. “You burned the magic out off all those zombies. It was awesome.” Then, as if an afterthought, he added, “It’ll heal eventually. Maybe even the next time I feed. Of course, if you feel really guilty about it, you could volunteer a little blood.”

“Funny,” Valentine said in a way that made it clear he didn’t find Devon’s offer amusing on any level. His head tilted back against the seat, his eyes closed, he sat with his hands resting lightly in his lap. The pose reminded me far too keenly of how he’d looked the last time I’d seen him in the back of a cop car. “Considering your current predicament, I’d think you’d be wiser about your choices in dinner companions.”

Devon bristled. Trying to get a good look at Valentine, he asked, “Excuse me, do I know you?”

“Oh, I guess you two haven’t officially met,” I said, feeling very much in between these two men in more ways than just physically. “Devon, this is Valentine. He’s my, uh…”

“The dragon,” Devon said, his eyes widening slightly. “So you
do
exist.”

Valentine lifted his head and opened one eye. “There was some question?”

“No,” I said. “Devon’s just being a jerk.”

“Nothing new,” Jack muttered from the front.

Jones just shook his head, obviously concentrating on driving and thoughts of his own.

Valentine lay his head back down. Devon turned his bad eye to me, and watched the buildings pass through the window.

“I hope Stone will be okay,” I said to no one in particular.

“It’s hard to say,” Jones said, fiddling with the heat knob on the dash. “The rabbi I talked to had a few concerns. If you’re right”—he found my eyes in the rearview—“and Hannah has a soul, she could be restored exactly the way we remember her. But he thought it could be an illusion. If that’s the case, she could come back nothing more than an automaton, a robot.”

I frowned. In that scenario, it might have been better to let her go. It would be ghoulish to see her walking around the office devoid of her personality. It’d be like having a zombie in her clothes.

Valentine squeezed my thigh.

He looked at me, imploringly, sympathetically. He didn’t have to say anything; I knew he had my back no matter what. Anyway, I was sure she had a soul. I should hold on to hope.

We turned into a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. I was about to make a joke about cops and their penchant for sweets when I realized that it was less than half a block from the precinct house. It was actually a clever place to leave a police car.

Jones and Jack got out and opened the doors for us.

We fell into a kind of order as we made our way along the sidewalk. Jones and Jack walked side by side in the front, leading the way, Valentine and I in the middle, and Devon in the very back. When we approached the door, Valentine slowed to walk beside Devon. He leaned in closely and murmured something. Whatever he said shocked
Devon into doing a double take, and coming to a complete standstill.

Devon watched Valentine walk away with his mouth hanging open and a deep blush creeping up his collar. He smiled dopily, like he’d just found out he’d won the lottery.

I held the door open for Valentine. “What did you say to him?” I whispered.

“I told him I know of a spell that may free him from his bondage to the fairy prince.”

The atmosphere in the conference room was muted and somber. Everyone turned out, however, to hear the news about Stone and the necromancer case. The crowd parted to let Jones through to the front, where he started to remove all the photographs and notes from the dry-erase board.

Valentine and I found an empty spot near the door. Most of those gathered watched Valentine with concern and gave us a wide berth. Across the room, Denis, the George, caught my eye and waved. I almost thought he might come over and chat with us, but Valentine glared at him and he stayed put.

Someone bumped my elbow. I turned to see Boyd, who I recognized from his freckles and the fact that he was holding the necromancer’s toe tag. “I guess we won’t need this, eh?”

“Yeah,” I said, but I frowned at him. Had he picked nothing up from it? Jack had been so excited that I’d remembered to grab the tag; it seemed strange that Boyd had never even gotten around to reading the vibes or whatever it was he did. I shrugged. It seemed my autopsy had really messed up the necromancer. He hardly seemed human at the graveyard. I didn’t know how Boyd’s powers worked. Maybe he
could only read human traces. It was possible there wasn’t much residue of anything coherent on the toe tag.

Jones finished putting away the last photo. The only thing left on the board was the cow mutilations. He started to erase those, but stopped. He turned around and raised his hands for everyone’s attention.

“First, because I know most of you have probably heard that something happened to Officer Stone, I can confirm. Unfortunately, it is true. The word was erased from her forehead.”

The room erupted in gasps and murmurs of concern.

Jones lifted his hands to quiet the room. “I can only say that, while there is a chance she can be reanimated, we won’t know how successful it will be until after the ceremony is performed,” he said, sadness etched in his face.

He paused, leaning both hands heavily on the table. “I’m afraid there’s more bad news. Devon has been blinded in one eye, and, effective immediately, I’m putting myself on administrative leave, until Internal Affairs can make a full inquiry into my conduct on this case. Alex,” he said, looking up and pinning me with his gaze. “Why don’t you take over this meeting?”

In the stunned silence that followed, Jones sat down and bowed his head.

Everyone shifted to look at me. Beside me, I felt Valentine bristle defensively.

“It’s okay,” I told him. Even so, he followed as I made my way through the parting crowd to the front of the room. Jack gave me a smile as I passed him. Even Devon gave me a little nod of a salute, though maybe it was for Valentine, since he beamed almost goofily at him as we continued on.

It was weird to be the focus of so much attention. From
this perspective, the room was populated by an inordinate amount of blue police uniforms. That was disconcerting to say the least, especially since I wasn’t even sure where to begin. I was grateful I’d have the whiteboard to write on. I chose a blue dry-erase marker from a group on the table, and wrote, “Steve, the necromancer,” in squeaky letters across the top of the board.

Valentine settled against the back of the wall, like my shadow.

“We still need to confirm a lot of what happened before we can close the case,” I said. “But it seems that Steve has…uh…”

“Dematerialized,” Jack offered helpfully from the sidelines.

“Right, dematerialized, and Brooklyn, his sister and accomplice, is in custody.”

An officer I didn’t recognize raised his hand and simultaneously asked, “How did that happen, the dematerializing?”

I looked to Jack, who shrugged. Right, he was passed out. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. My fingers traced the still aching edges of the snake’s body. The outside, which had been rimmed in red, had faded to a yellow. I turned to Valentine. “The snake bit him, the necromancer, I mean. Could that have caused it?”

“A paradox, perhaps?” Valentine suggested, looking to Jones, who had perked up at this part of the conversation. “Spell bites creator?”

Jones nodded, as though thinking through the implications of Val’s suggestion. “Combined with her spontaneous improbability?”

“Could work,” Jack agreed. To me: “You cursed him, I presume.”

“Six ways from Sunday,” I said. “But I didn’t think it was working.”

“Spontaneous improbable magic can be unstable and unpredictable,” Jack said. “It’s the magic of miracles.”

I tried to keep my eyes from rolling. It would be my luck to get magic that was hard to control.

“So that’s it then,” Boyd said from the back, still sounding relieved, but in a strained way. “The necromancer is gone. Threat neutralized.”

“Why is Spenser resigning?” someone else wanted to know. A lot of others took up the same question.

“Uh…” I looked at Jones, but he was studying the wood grain in front of his interlaced fingers where they rested on the tabletop. I supposed I could go through all the instances of Jones’s negligence, but it didn’t seem right, especially since he was going to have Internal Affairs look into the case.

“I passively obstructed the case,” he said, his eyes still cast down, but his voice clear.

A lot of people seemed truly shocked by this revelation.

He stood up, slowly. “I’m sure people still have a lot of questions, but the team needs to go over the case. I’m appointing Peterson as the acting head of the precinct; I’ll answer any questions you have, privately.”

It was clearly a dismissal for everyone but the team working the necromancer case, but it took a long time for the room to clear. People seemed to be in a daze, and clung together in a clot, as if for comfort.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it seemed that Jones was well liked and respected by his colleagues.

When everyone finally filed out, the room felt expansive and empty. Devon and Jack took seats on either side of
Jones. Boyd, still clutching the toe tag, hung near the back of the room.

“Look, I’ve got that other case, guys,” he said apologetically, glancing at the still-open door.

“Sure,” Jones said, apparently forgetting he wasn’t in charge anymore, and waved him off.