Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery) Read online

  “Promise.” Cynical as I was, I pitied anyone jaded enough to make jokes about nine dead people. Even if they were naked and in some, uh, interesting positions.

  Andre patted my arm. “You all right? You look pale.”

  I glanced down at his tan hand contrasting against my pasty skin. No kidding. “I’m fine. I’ve seen worse. What should I do again?”

  “Stand back and observe.”

  “Got it.”

  There were four other—living—people in the room. Two uniformed police officers, a man who I assumed was the police detective, and a second Gryphon. The cops appeared to be searching for clues, and the Gryphon had a portable magic scanner she was using on one of the bodies.

  “Have you found traces of magic?” I asked.

  Andre cast a glance at the other Gryphon, and she raised a finger in a give-me-another-minute gesture. “No overt signs, but we’re checking. The Newton police called us because the scene seemed off, if you know what I mean. No noticeable causes of death.”

  I nodded. “Looks like a lot is off. Um, no pun intended.”

  Andre shot me a dirty look and went to consult with the detective.

  While he did whatever trained Gryphons did in these situations, I took in the rest of the scene. Dead bodies aside, the basement wasn’t a bad place in a brothel kind of way. The carpet beneath my boots was thick, three of the walls were painted black and red while the fourth was entirely mirrored, and the furniture appeared every bit as expensive as the stuff upstairs. There was also a high-end stereo and set of speakers.

  Minus the dead people, the swing and the manacles bolted to one of the walls, this place was in better shape than my apartment.

  The superfluousness of my presence was sinking in when Andre returned to my side. “This house belongs to Michael and Shannon Stacy, twenty-eight and twenty-six years old, respectively.”

  So the guy was my age. “Nice digs for such a young couple.”

  “Yeah, apparently he’s a corporate lawyer in daddy’s firm. That’s all I know so far.” Andre pointed to one of the dead men. His wrists were bound over his head with fluffy red handcuffs. I didn’t think the crime-scene photos were going to help the firm’s PR.

  “I suppose the woman on top of him isn’t his wife?”

  “Not based on the wedding pictures upstairs.” Andre gestured to a lifeless threesome by the mirrors. “She’s over there.”

  Right. Well, that wasn’t a surprise.

  “Hey, Andre.” The other Gryphon finished her scanning. “We got something.”

  Andre motioned between us. “Anna Scott, meet Jess Moore.”

  Anna’s eyes opened wide in way of greeting. “The infamous one? Is it true what they’re saying about you?”

  “Depends on what they’re saying.”

  “That you can suck on emotions like a pred.”

  I winced. “Yeah, sort of.”

  Her brown eyes widened farther. “Wicked. Hope I get to test your blood later. Anyway.” She showed her scan to Andre. “There’s strong levels of insoluble magic in all the victims’ blood. I won’t know for sure until I can take it back to the lab, but these markers are a pretty good indication of what we’re dealing with. Just as a guess—I’d say these people were all sky-high on F when they died.”

  I tried to hide my reaction, but mentally I swore. It figured that this would be the case the Gryphons were bringing me in on. F was a potent and highly illegal aphrodisiac produced and sold by satyrs. And if satyrs were involved, then my new consulting job with the Gryphons had just gone from being a minor annoyance to a major relationship disaster.

  I stood around some more while Andre and Anna related their discovery to the detective then called it in to their supervisor at headquarters. From the sound of it, the Newton police would officially have to turn the case over to the Gryphons later, but unofficially, it was theirs already. All the evidence they’d collected would be passed along, and whatever the autopsies uncovered would be reported to them, as well.

  In fact, once the words “magic” and “F” were mentioned, the cops became even more jittery, which naturally made me jittery too. With only a single cup of coffee and no breakfast in my stomach, their emotional buffet was all that was keeping me awake. Alas, this sort of anxiety made me feel like I’d OD’d on sugar instead of anything nutritious. I bounced on my toes, trying to keep focused.

  Anna, I soon learned, was basically a magic analyst, and her super-sensitive charms detected a couple empty envelopes in the Stacys’ trash that showed faint traces of F in them. She left soon after the bodies were taken away, not having discovered anything else.

  I shadowed Andre around the house for another hour while he explained what he was searching for and answered my questions with surprisingly good patience. If he was annoyed at being stuck with giving me on-the-job training, I couldn’t detect it.

  We finally got to leave when a second team of Gryphons arrived to secure the place. By then, I was yawning since the jittery cops had long disappeared, and my stomach was begging for food.

  “So no car?” Andre asked, unlocking the Gryphon-issued SUV.

  “Who needs a car? I live right near a T stop, and I have my Dragon’sWing if I need to get really far away.”

  Andre whistled. “You have a Dragon’sWing? Those are nice bikes.”

  I grinned. “Very nice. I got it from one of the people I used to work with, for probably half of what it should have cost. Only reason I could afford it.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  I put my sunglasses on as Andre pulled out onto the street. “She seemed to think she owed me. Plus, it was her soon-to-be ex-husband’s, and I think she was trying to get rid of it cheap to piss him off. I’m the one who got her proof of his cheating. Detecting deception is easy when you can taste it.”

  I figured Andre would want to talk about the case on the way downtown, but he kept things more personal, asking about my family and where I’d grown up. Not once did he steer the conversation toward my unusual abilities, the Aubrey case or why a certain satyr had been willing to help me hide out during it. I couldn’t decide if he was avoiding the topic because he knew too much already, or if he simply wanted to get off to a good start on working with me. Either way, I appreciated that he was smart enough to avoid those topics.

  “Lunch?” Andre asked as we slowed for a red light. “Like Chinese? I know this great hole-in-the-wall place. It’s a quick detour through Chinatown.”

  I didn’t see how any detour through Chinatown could be considered quick, but I was hungry and in no rush to get to Headquarters. “Starving, and sure.”

  As it turned out, Andre wasn’t kidding in his description of the restaurant. If he hadn’t sworn he’d eaten there on several occasions, I wouldn’t have trusted it. My plate of fried squid and hot peppers, however, was amazingly good. Just not my usual breakfast food.

  Across the tiny table, Andre dug into his beef and broccoli. “So what do you know about F?”

  Finally, it appeared we were going to talk about the case. “Only what most people know. It’s an aphrodisiac, usually, if not always, made by satyrs. Some people call it the worst of the date-rape drugs because it makes people want sex who wouldn’t otherwise want sex, so it’s a great and terrible way to overpower someone’s will. I’ve never heard of it killing anyone though.”

  Andre swept some rice around on his plate. “You never tried it?”

  “Are you, a magical law enforcement officer, really asking me if I’ve ever done any illegal drugs?” I hadn’t tried F, but I sure wouldn’t admit it if I had.

  He chuckled. “Half the people I know tried it at one point. Physiologically, I’d say it’s far less harmful than alcohol. But it’s not an aphrodisiac in the usual sense.”

  I took a long swallow of water, my mouth burning. “No?”

 
“That’s too mild a term. It’s like calling a Lamborghini a car. It’s true, but it’s not in the same class as my busted-up Focus. F—pure F anyway—is powerful stuff. You’ve been around satyrs. It’s like their ability to mess with your head all distilled into a nice white powder.”

  I hadn’t heard anyone describe F that way before, but it made sense. If satyrs made it, odds were it did have some of their magic in it. Andre was almost making me curious to try it, if only to see if it had any effect on me since satyr magic in general didn’t. “So you’re saying it’s an instant orgy.”

  “Just add people.” Andre started to say something else, but his phone rang. “Work. Got to take this, sorry.”

  I went back to my food, pondering. What Andre described coincided with what I’d heard. F wasn’t harmful as long as it wasn’t used in a deceptive or cruel way. All it did was make people horny. So just because those people in Newton probably had F in their systems when they died, didn’t mean that F had anything to do with their deaths. Right?

  Then again, under normal circumstances, people didn’t die for no apparent reason in the middle of getting their freak on. I couldn’t think of a way F wouldn’t be a contributing factor.

  Dragon shit on toast. If F was involved, and I was expected to investigate, it wasn’t only my relationship with Lucen that was going to feel the strain. My friendly relationship with the satyrs as a whole—and their Dom, Dezzi, in particular—was going to go downhill fast. Why couldn’t I have gotten brought in on a case involving a magi selling bad charms or something?

  I stabbed another hot pepper. Obviously, because Olivia Lee had called me in specifically because she knew about my relationship with the satyrs and had thought death by sex would be a case I could be useful on.

  Between the super-spicy food and the tension in my muscles, my stomach didn’t feel so good.

  Andre hung up the phone. “Sorry about that. Another case I’m working on. Where were we?”

  “F. It’s not dangerous, but it’s not surprising that people having a sex party would be taking it. So it’s possible something else killed them, right?” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince—me or him.

  “Possible, sure. Anything is right now.”

  “Also, if this had anything to do with F, then wouldn’t there be other cases? Other victims? Have you heard of anything like this before?”

  Andre captured the last piece of his broccoli but didn’t eat it. He seemed to consider me instead. “You’re friends with some satyrs, aren’t you? That’s who was helping you during the Aubrey stuff.”

  I pushed my plate aside. “I’m friends with a satyr, and I’m just trying to think this through. F isn’t an uncommon street drug. Seems like there’d be other incidents if it was involved.”

  “The day is young, and there’s always a first. But we will be looking into other cases for similarities, so don’t worry. We won’t know more until we get the full analysis done on the victims’ blood and the autopsy reports come in. Speaking of which, we should get to the office. You’ve got to give some blood too, I think.”

  We’d paid when we ordered, so I finished my water and got up. “Wait, Anna was being serious? You want my blood?”

  “It’s standard procedure. They take a bit of blood from all of us from time to time to keep in storage. You never know when you’re going to get blasted by a nasty spell, and it helps the lab techs develop counter-charms if you have an untainted blood sample for comparison.”

  Great. Lucen and I had once wondered what the Gryphons would find if they did a full analysis of my blood. Now that I knew I was part-satyr, I was even less thrilled at the possibilities of what they might discover.

  Chapter Four

  When we got to the Gryphons’ building, Andre went to file his report and I was dumped at HR. Apparently, I’d been right to think that the Gryphons didn’t hire consultants very often because the HR woman who was stuck with me didn’t know what to do until several phone calls clarified the situation.

  Unfortunately, the clarification left me with a mountain of paperwork I had to fill out for her. After that, a photo was required so I could get my own spiffy ID badge with SPECIAL CONSULTANT printed on it. My photo was awful, but the badge meant I wouldn’t have to go through normal security checks again, and I could carry charms into the building. My knife, however, remained off-limits. Only Gryphon-issued weapons were permitted, and I was not permitted a Gryphon-issued weapon.

  From HR, I was shuffled to another section of the building where I was made to endure a physical, followed by the promised blood-drawing. I was poking at the bandage taped over my stab wound when Bridget entered the exam room.

  She was wearing her regular uniform today, and her light brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. “Coffee? I thought it was time to have the one we didn’t have yesterday.”

  “That depends.” I adjusted my shirt. “Am I allowed to leave yet, or is there more of my brain to pick and my body to poke?”

  She didn’t even smile at my quip. Typical Bridget. “I meant I brought you some coffee. And, no. Or, yes. I get to take you to your last stop for the day.”

  I joined her in the hallway where she handed me the promised cup of coffee. “I need this. Thanks.”

  “I thought you might. Andre said you were yawning a lot earlier.”

  “Yeah, I had to work late last night and was not expecting a call this morning. Speaking of which, what are you doing working on a Saturday? Don’t you get time off?”

  Bridget rubbed her eyes. “It’s the Aubrey case. The furies aren’t cooperating—big surprise—but neither are the sylphs. You’d think they’d want justice, but they trust us so little that they’d rather stew.”

  The sylphs probably didn’t consider Victor going to jail to be justice. Neither did I, for that matter, since Victor had merely been the murderous puppet. His fury master needed to be brought in too. But also I knew firsthand the sylphs wouldn’t be satisfied until all involved were dead, and they’d prefer to handle that business on their own. As any pred would.

  “Any leads on the fury who was pulling Victor’s strings?” I asked as we turned a corner. I knew which fury had addicted Victor, but by sight only. I didn’t have a name, and Raj—the furies’ Dom—was playing dumb, protecting his own.

  Bridget wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Nothing yet, and Aubrey isn’t being helpful. He knows that given how many people he killed, he’s not going to get much for himself by cooperating, but I don’t understand why he’d protect the fury.”

  I suspected I did. Victor had liked being the thing’s addict. He got a high off misery, like I did, but unlike me, he’d never wanted to use his freakish ability for good. He’d wanted an excuse to chase the high, and the fury gave that to him. On his master’s orders, Victor got to torture and kill, and soak up all the suffering he caused. He’d loathed himself for it, but being an addict meant he didn’t have to take responsibility, at least internally. It was the perfect fucked-up relationship.

  “Where are we going by the way?” I asked. We’d been walking with a purpose, but since I had no idea where anything was on this floor, I was totally turned around.

  “Right here actually.” Bridget opened a door to a long room similar to the one we’d left, only this one, instead of being decked out with a blood pressure monitor, scale and other basic medical equipment, contained what I thought might be charm-making supplies.

  A couple obsidian bowls sat on a stone counter that spanned the length of the room, along with an assortment of knives, several mortars and pestles, and multiple sinks. One of the shorter walls was lined with locked cabinets. The room’s only living occupant was a white-haired man who was reading a magazine.

  Bridget pulled a chair over for me. “Andre said you’re supposed to get protective charms.”

  Before I could respond, the man set down his magazine. “Yes,
if you’re Jessica. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive.”

  I started to say I didn’t need any protective charms, then caught myself. If I said it, I’d have to explain why I felt that way, and I wasn’t willing to enlighten the Gryphons yet.

  So what the hell. I might as well take advantage of what they could do seeing as I didn’t have a choice about working for them. After all, a protective glyph or two wasn’t going to hurt me. Not too long ago, I’d have needed to pay a lot of money for such a thing. It was kind of satisfying to be given this sort of charm for free.

  I’d learned a bit about magic during my time at the Academy. Enough to realize I didn’t know salamander spit about how to do anything, and enough to appreciate why high-quality charms cost so much. On one hand, magic was an awful lot like chemistry, but grosser given what went in to making many spells. On the other hand, there was a certain art to it that required the person creating the spell to be able to sense the magical properties of every ingredient and adjust them on the fly. As such, even though all Gryphons had to learn basic spells, only certain ones specialized in magic.

  Fascinated, I watched this one, who Bridget introduced as Mike, combine the charm components into a paste.

  Once the paste was ready, Mike rolled a wooden dowel through it until it was coated. Then, with a pair of tweezers, he took a tiny red salamander egg from a spelled container, set it in a large obsidian bowl and dropped a lit match on it.

  The fiery creature burst from the egg and scampered around the edges of the bowl, unable to get out. In its baby state, it was almost cute. Flaming, but cute. The ones that had not so long ago destroyed a good chunk of the city, courtesy of Victor, had been huge and anything but.

  Mike stuck the paste-covered dowel over the bowl, and the salamander obliged, chomping down on it with burning teeth. As the magical fire cooked the paste, it turned from brown to bright blue, and the salamander grew bigger.

  I’d owned protective charms before, but nothing like this. The more you used charms, the faster you used them up. I’d bought cheap ones, which were nonetheless expensive. They’d come in refillable charm vials, and I’d only worn them when I was going into Shadowtown. Such was my best effort to help them maintain their potency as long as possible.