Dead Waters

3

As our cab shot down Broadway to the East Village, the two of us jostled around in the back of the vehicle. Still distracted by the intense jealousy of the tattooist coursing through me, I almost jumped out of my skin when Jane’s hand brushed up against the back of mine.

“Brandon’s going to be pretty cheesed off by the amount of damage we did in there,” Jane added.

“We didn’t do the damage,” I said. “That creepy tattooist lady did it all. Granted, she was tossing stuff at us left and right, but we didn’t do anything except try to stay alive through all that.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

“Let the Big Biter on Campus try to collect damages,” I said. “Ha! Compensation from the Department of Extraordinary Affairs during a budget crisis? Good luck with that. Don’t worry. Aidan’s just worried what his boss will think of all the damage done under his instruction like a good little vampire lapdog.”

“Fangs and all,” Jane said. “You’re right. Connor will probably talk some sense into them.”

“Let’s hope so,” I said. “Hopefully a little brotherly love should calm Captain Emo and his master down.”

I laid my head back against the seat and remained silent for the rest of our cab ride. When it dropped us off at our East Village coffee shop cover operation on Eleventh Street, we hit the sidewalk right outside of the large red doors that led into the Lovecraft. We raced out of the rain and into the café, embracing its warmth and its dark wood floors and exposed brick walls that were adorned with movie posters on both sides of the long, open space. Most of the décor was a clutter of mismatched furniture—comfy chairs, low café tables—and a long, wooden counter ran along the entire right side of room. The coffeehouse wasn’t full, but the faces I did see gathered around in the café area were all people I knew from the Department hidden beyond the cover operation.

“Looks like half the Department is on a coffee break,” I said, acknowledging the throng of coworkers that had assembled in the public café area.

“What’s going on?” Jane asked. “Why is everyone up here in the coffeehouse?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe they’re fumigating the Department again. Don’t tell me. . . they can’t get the smell of rotting zombies out of the curtains in the hidden office area.”

An especially familiar face came into view as my partner, Connor Christos, came walking over to us. “Not quite, kid,” Connor said, his hands jammed down into the pockets of his beaten old trench coat. His clothes underneath it were a bit dressier than my usual jeans and T-shirt but my partner always looked a little wrinkled around the edges. His simple black tie was loose and skewed to one side. As if the thick white streaks in his sandy brown hair weren’t enough, the grim look on his face made him look older than his midthirties. “We were in the middle of one of our all-night financial meetings, when the Inspectre took a call from Dave Davidson downtown. Quimbley’s got the details. Wouldn’t tell me a thing except I needed to get you down here.”

Ever since a set of even more draconian Departmental cuts than usual a few weeks ago, and the loss of lots of ancillary staff members, I knew things had been rough, but I hadn’t realized it was so bad they had to be going over the books in the midnight hours. I switched my focus to farther back in the coffeehouse over by the service counter where Inspectre Argyle Quimbley was surrounded by a few other people. The old Brit leader of Other Division was in his usual tweed, twirling the ends of his walrus-like mustache as he looked over a folder. Next to him was a dark-skinned woman whose hair was pulled back off her shoulders in a no-nonsense ponytail—Allorah Daniels, doing double duty as a member of our governing Enchancellors as well as our resident vampire hunter. She held a folder identical to the one in the Inspectre’s hands.

I headed across the room to them, addressing my boss. Connor and Jane followed. “Inspectre. . . ?”

Despite the concern on the old man’s face, he smiled when he saw me. “Hello, my boy,” he said.

“What’s going on?” I asked as a horrible thought dawned on me. “We’re not. . . fired, are we?” I could barely say the words, and when I did, a panic rose in my chest. The last thing I wanted was to be forced back into a life of thieving to survive in the skyrocketing real estate market that was Manhattan. My apartment down in SoHo was my last holdover from those days, the one thing I had kept to ease into the transition to using my powers for good.

The Inspectre sighed. “I won’t lie,” he said. “The budget doesn’t look good.”

“That’s an understatement,” snorted Allorah from next to him. “We’ll be lucky if the Enchancellorship keep their jobs.”

Something in me snapped. “No offense, Enchancellor , but I’m not worried so much about the upper management,” I said. “Most of them are retirement age, anyway. I’m worried about me and my fellow agents.”

Allorah gave me a dark look. “Your compassion is underwhelming, Mr. Canderous,” she said.

“Hey, I’m just saying that since you got the order a few weeks back to trim the fat, I think it would make sense to keep the agents out in the field. If we’re going to clean house, start at the top. Mediocrity rises, after all.”

“Don’t worry,” Allorah said, looking through her folder. “You Other Division people are always safe when it comes to the budget.”

Connor laughed. “Of course we are,” he said. “Us Other Division folk are such multitaskers by designation that we can be set to any task. We’ve had to kiss any downtime good-bye these past few weeks.”

“We had downtime?” I asked. When no one answered, I felt my blood rising. “I thought all this would have changed when we became the heroes of the city. Money should be raining down on us, right? Didn’t the Mayor hear that we saved the city from a bloodbath of vampiric proportions?”

Connor walked past me and threw himself down into one of the lounge chairs nearby. “That’s the problem, kid. There wasn’t a bloodbath.”

I looked at him, frustrated. I tossed up my hands. “And that’s a problem how?”

“Not enough of a body count,” he said. I went to speak, but Connor held his hand up to silence me. “Think about it, kid. If you have a regular-world shooting in this city, suddenly there are all these extra resources to go around. . . more cops and cars on the street. Puts on a big show, sends a message out to the general public: Bad guys beware! But what we do, well, it’s secretive. Everything we do is masked in seclusion. And let’s face it. To the power brokers down at City Hall, nothing bad happened, technically. No one died, so how are they going to justify putting a lot of money toward the Department? There wasn’t enough of a bloodbath to justify more money coming toward us.”

“That’s insane,” Jane said. She grabbed onto my arm and squeezed like she was trying to hold herself up.

“Insane?” the Inspectre asked, sadness filling his face. “No. That, my dear, is simply bureaucracy.”

“So, now what?” I asked. “Do we hope for a high body count or something so we can reappropriate some funds?”

Allorah gave a grim smile at that and sighed. “I’ll talk to the Enchancellorship,” she offered. “They have some pull when it comes to dealing with City Hall. I think we may know where a skeleton or two of theirs may be buried.”

“And if not,” Jane offered, “I’m sure someone over in Greater and Lesser Arcana can always reanimate a few . . .”

Allorah fixed Jane with a look of disdain that I knew well, as it had been directed at me a few months ago when I had been hiding knowledge of New York-based vampires from her. It had been an uncomfortable look to have directed at me, but seeing it focused on my Jane hurt even more.

She was clearly going to let loose on Jane, but the Inspectre cut her off. “Enough,” he said, stern. “The both of you. We shouldn’t fight among ourselves. To answer your question, Simon, before you jumped down Miss Daniels’s throat, no. None of you are being fired. We’re already reduced to a skeleton crew as is. That is not why I called you in tonight. You were requested by Mr. Davidson from the Mayor’s Office of Plausible Deniability. We’re waiting on him to arrive, I’m afraid.”

Jane looked concerned. “Begging your pardon, Inspectre, but I have to ask. Is that just an expression, or are we talking actual skeletons?”

“A fair question, but no,” he said, taking it seriously. “In this case, it is just an expression, my dear girl.”

The main doors to the Lovecraft Café opened behind me, causing a sudden hush in my circle of people. Connor looked past me and his face turned dark, his hands digging into the arms of the chair, but he didn’t move to get up. I turned around with caution while discreetly slipping one hand inside my coat and unlatching the safety loop on my retractable bat hanging there.

Mayoral liaison David Davidson had just entered the bar, a dripping wet umbrella in hand. I relaxed my hand. Davidson was a bureaucrat through and through, but he wasn’t enough of an evil entity for me to go all Babe Ruth on his ass. Politicians walked a dangerous line awfully close to it, though.

The few coffee shop customers who weren’t employees of the Department of Extraordinary Affairs took no notice, but the rest of us eyed him. He slowly lowered his umbrella and shook it out over the floor mats before sliding it into the umbrella stand off to the left of the door. Once Davidson spotted us, he walked back to our group with slow, deliberate steps, taking his time. He wore all the trappings of his political office—a dark gray suit, a red splash of color from his power tie, and a much nicer trench coat than the one Connor was wearing. His tie was, as usual, knotted perfectly and his graying black hair parted and all in place despite the stormy weather he had just walked in from.

As he approached us, his eyes were wary.

“How’s the mayor?” Connor asked from his chair with a little venom to his words. “Busy with support groups for the zombie hordes that pop up every now and then? Let me guess. . . they’re probably lobbying to be called the Formerly Living.”

Davidson gave Connor a dismissive look. “His Honor is fine,” Davidson said. “Thank you for asking.” He turned his attention away from Connor and looked to the Inspectre and Allorah.

The Inspectre fixed Davidson with a fake smile that beamed out from beneath his walrus-like mustache. “Your call sounded urgent earlier, so what can we do for the Office of Plausible Deniability this rainy evening?” the Inspectre asked.

Davidson pointed at me and Connor. “I was hoping to wrangle up those Other Division troops of yours I called about earlier to check something out for me tonight,” he said.

I laughed. “I don’t know,” I said, bitterness in my words. “I mean, with all the recent cuts and layoffs, we’re already looking pretty swamped. I’ve probably at least doubled my caseload lately. You can thank the mayor for me personally.”

Davidson narrowed his eyes at me, but kept his politician’s smile. “There can always be more,” he said, unflappable as always.

“Wow,” I said, spitting my words out in his face. “An idle threat.”

“Simon,” the Inspectre interrupted. There was a warning in his tone. “That is conduct unbecoming a member of the Department, not to mention one from the Fraternal Order of Goodness.”

I felt my anger twist into embarrassment, wishing it wasn’t all happening in front of Jane. She must have sensed it because she squeezed my hand and gave me a thin smile. “Sorry, sir,” I said.

Davidson looked around the group of us like he was king of the hill. “May I continue?”

“By all means,” the Inspectre said.

Davidson jerked his thumb toward Jane and looked at Inspectre Quimbley. “You mind if I grab her as well?” I felt a weird flare of jealousy, and tried to damp it down. I still couldn’t shake Cassie’s feelings.

“Jane?” the Inspectre asked, his eyebrows rising. “Whatever for?”

Davidson ran his eyes up and down her. Despite his usual politician’s polish, he almost looked lascivious when he did it, or at least that was what the twinge of jealousy I felt from the tattooist was telling me. I pushed it down.

“We could use a woman’s touch on this case,” Davidson said.

Jane squeezed my hand. Hard. “Wow,” Jane said. “Sexist much?”

“No kidding,” I said. I put myself between the two of them, as protective jealousy rose up in me. “And why’s that exactly?”

Davidson held his arms up, hands open and empty. “Easy, Mr. Canderous,” he said. “I’m just saying we might need someone with her particular assets.”

I turned to the Inspectre. “Sir?”

The Inspectre hesitated, and then gave a slow, stern nod.

“You want to tell us what’s up?” Connor said, still seated.

Davidson’s smile faltered. “I’m not really sure yet,” he said. “We’ve got a crime scene. The regular cops who showed up on the scene wouldn’t say. They just called it in to my department and left it at that. Whatever it is, though, they want nothing to do with it and when a call comes in on something like that, well. . . it’s usually something in your realm of expertise. We’ve got a dead teacher on our hands.” Davidson pulled out a small notebook and flipped it open. “A Professor Mason Redfield.”

“Mason?” the Inspectre asked. The color drained from his face as if he was seeing a ghost. “A gentleman around my age?”

“I’d say so,” Davidson said. “Not nearly as lively as you, clearly. You know him?”

The Inspectre stared off across the room, lost in thought, and gave a slight nod. “I did,” he said. “Long ago.”

“So, I can have a few of your people?” he asked.

The Inspectre nodded again, his face sad and distracted. “Take whoever you need,” the Inspectre said, and then turned to me. “You take point on this.”

I looked over at Connor, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Are you sure, Inspectre?” I asked.

“Very,” he said, his face dead serious now.

“Great,” Davidson said, trying to speed things along. He gestured toward the exit. “I think Simon, Connor, and Jane should cover it. Shall we?”

My eyes stayed on the Inspectre. I had never seen him so unnerved before.

“Go,” the Inspectre said, closing the folders in his hands. “I’ll let Director Wesker know that Jane went with you. He won’t be too pleased that I allocated one of his people to Davidson, but there are some perks to being the senior ranking officer around here, I suppose.”

“I’ll try to return them in one piece,” Davidson said, the sparkle returning to his smile. “Promise. I have a police van waiting outside. It will spare you having to cab it back uptown. I know how tight you folks are for cash around here.”

Connor stood up and brushed past Davidson, heading for the front door of the café. “Don’t get too toothy there, smiley,” he said to me. “I call shotgun.” Davidson started after him.

“Dammit!” I said. “I wanted shotgun.”

“Fine by me,” Jane said. She took my hand and ran off after them, practically dragging me. “I call flamethrower.”