Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

“Maybe I’m just playing dumb so you won’t have me killed.”

“Always bluffing. Honestly, it works. Every time I think I’ve got you pegged, you surprise me. I’ve been looking into this group ever since the thing with King Paul at the Christmas party, and I’ve gotten nowhere. But you, who I expressly ordered to stay away from the sorcerer community, blow the case wide open.”

“Is that an official reprimand?”

“On the contrary, it’s a commendation.”

“Great. Were you there tonight, or not?”

“I was not. I’ve been here all night with Parker and Oliver. They can witness.”

“No good. Sorcerers and vampires aren’t exactly on my nice list right now.”

“I can’t say I feel any different at the moment. Obviously, I was wrong to trust Theo Coltrane. Very wrong. And now Windsor will also retaliate. War is coming, and Detroit will be the battlefield.”

“Well, you can count me out of that fight. The band is officially broken up. Jay is…” My voice threatens to break again. I shift in my seat, summoning anger for strength. “He’s gone. Russo’s down. And Hillerman—”

“I thought you hated Hillerman,” she interrupts.

“Yeah, I do, but she’s…useful. And now I’m sure she’ll be taken off the case.”

“It’s already done. Hillerman’s been called back to Washington, reassigned to a desk job, effective immediately.”

My throat tightens again. For Hillerman, this is a fate worse than death. And I don’t care so much that she’ll blame me. I just…I don’t know, I guess what I’m feeling is that I might, maybe, have something close to a negative-like feeling if I never see her again.

“Unsurprisingly, Washington is having a severe reaction to all this. All kinds of new oversight will be the natural result, I’m sure. Tightening our leash. They’re already insisting that I keep a bodyguard around the clock. Security’s not just going to be tight, it’s going to be a choke hold.”

“Great. The office will be hell for everybody, and it’s all my fault.”

“You know, if any of us needs a bodyguard, it might be you, Shayne. Do you think anybody at the masquerade might have recognized you?”

My mind flashes to the image of me sitting at the poker table without a mask on, announcing my name to the entire place before putting them all under arrest. “Um…yeah, it’s safe to say I was made.”

Director West stares down at the beer in her hand. “Shayne, I wonder if I could trust you to discuss a delicate matter with me? It couldn’t ever leave this room.”

“That’s fine. It sounds like I shouldn’t ever leave this room, either.”

“It would be safer.”

“I’m not getting a bodyguard.”

“I don’t blame you.”

I slump back into my seat, pulling the blanket tighter around my neck. “I’m not really the delicate subject type, you know. I don’t see why you’d tell me.”

“A couple reasons, one of which is simple: you were at a secret meeting, and I am wondering if you might have seen a certain individual there. The second reason is that this individual creates a certain complication—for me—in a way that you, given what has happened tonight, might understand.”

“I don’t even understand anything you just said, so I don’t think I’ll be much help.”

“Do you remember back to the Christmas party at the Pauls’, when King Paul addressed me directly? He said something very…specific.”

I’m surprised to find that I do remember that moment. I mean, I don’t remember the words, but he looked right into West’s eyes and said something that made others in the crowd murmur as if it were significant. “I don’t remember what he said. Sorry.”

“He said, ‘The Agency giveth, and the Agency taketh away.’”

“Okay, yeah. Something like that.”

“Not like that. Exactly that. I know, because I had heard those words before. Many of us at that party had. Those were the last words of Marco Deus, right before I killed him in front of our friends and colleagues.”

The name sparks in my brain. “Marco Deus? Wait, that’s a name? I thought it was Latin for something.”

“You’ve seen it?”

“At Elmwood Cemetery. There was a Latin inscription. Something-something-Marco-Deus.”

She stands suddenly, setting the beer down too hard on the desk. “His mausoleum.”

“Right. We went inside. That’s how we got the deets for the secret meeting.”

“Inside. There was a coffin.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And…it was empty. Are you telling me it shouldn’t have been?”

“I told you, I killed Marco Deus. I laid him to rest in that coffin with my own hands.”

The whole story clicks into place. “Oh. Marco Deus was…he was your…”

“My husband,” she finishes, then sits down. “I’m sure you heard something about it.”

“Maybe, yeah, but…” I close my mouth.

“But?”

“I wasn’t told why. What did he do?”

Her chin raises an inch, as if steeling herself against whatever truth she’s about to reveal. “He was a necromancer. Or, I suppose we have to admit now, he is a necromancer. Somehow, somebody has found a way to bring him back.”

Instantly, a face materializes from my memory. “Middle-aged, good-looking? Salt-and-pepper in his beard? He was…I don’t know, like, a gentleman.”

Director West’s eyes shine with emotion. “So he was there. You saw him.”

“I can tell you something else. He couldn’t have been brought back. I mean through necromancy. He’s not a revenant.”

“How do you know?”

“His eyes were normal. No cataracts. He has to be something else—an illusion, or a dopplegänger, some sort of powerful glamour, I don’t know.”

That gives her a lot to think about, apparently, because the debriefing is suddenly over. Turning her chair away from me, she says softly, “You’re probably tired, Shayne. We can finish this later.”

I don’t want to go. I sit there for a while, just listening to the silence. When she clears her throat, I trudge out of the office. With that obligation over, I’m given no other alternative but to face the inevitable. I take a bus, then a taxi. During both, I am able to hold myself together with the help of my blanket wrapped tightly under my chin. But when the taxi drives off, leaving me alone in front of the house, I feel a