Detective Fred Ash. Master of deduction and masculine nonverbal communication.
“Know where the supply is coming from?” Ian asked. My partner was the master at ignoring questions, direct or implied.
“That’s the reason I’m glad to run into you two here,” Fred replied. “We’ll continue to investigate, but let’s just say we’ll only be able to get so far.”
Ian swore mildly, like a man who knew he wasn’t going to have time for more fancy lunches anytime soon.
Fred nodded. “Yeah. I’d bet my next paycheck that Brimstone came from out of town.”
3
WHEN you worked for SPI or were clued in to the supernatural world, “out of town” didn’t mean Hoboken.
A supernatural criminal entrepreneur was cutting him- or herself a slice of New York’s drug-dealing pie. The highly profitable, upper-crust part. That wasn’t going to make the city’s established drug lords and ladies very happy. And when they weren’t happy, and that much money was involved, blood would start flowing.
What lunch I’d managed to eat hadn’t even had a chance to settle before we got the call.
The goblin manager of an upscale apartment building had received a tenant complaint of heat and a really bad smell coming from the apartment next door. Suspecting a fire of some sort, he’d quickly knocked, and when no one answered, he used his master key to open the door.
He saw what was inside and promptly closed it.
He then called SPI, not the NYPD.
There was a dead body, it was a supernatural, and the stink was sulfur.
Sulfur could mean one of two things: demons or a black-magic-spawned portal. Or both. None of the above signaled fun times ahead for us.
Sulfur was another name for brimstone.
Coincidence?
I wasn’t gonna hold my breath on that one. Especially when we learned who the dearly departed was.
Sar Gedeon.
Elf, exiled aristocrat, and drug lord, who was most definitely from out of town, just like the new designer drug.
The apartment building was only two blocks from Café Mina.
We were there within minutes.
Normally Ian and I weren’t part of an initial response team unless the investigation required the services of a seer, but we were the closest agents. Our job was to secure the scene from mortal authorities until SPI’s crime scene investigators could get there.
Like humans, supernaturals died every day in New York, and everywhere else for that matter. There was a problem when supernatural deaths involved a crime. Crime meant police, and police meant the potential for exposure.
Literally.
Supernaturals who didn’t look human needed a glamour to disguise themselves. Any glamour, regardless of the power of the spells that held it in place, faded within one hour after death. In a murder investigation, that meant that the victim would go through a quick and rather startling transformation, either before the police arrived or while they—and the body—were still on the scene. Those were the tough ones.
Each major city had its own supernatural medical examiner’s office that reported suspicious deaths to the regional SPI office.
Supernatural families also notified SPI in the case of any unusual deaths, and our investigators and medical examiners responded. Humans have local morticians and funeral homes, and so do supernaturals. Each race has cultural or religious beliefs that dictate what is done with a body after death—without attracting the attention of mortal authorities. But when supernaturals made themselves a part of human society—or were inconsiderate enough to get themselves murdered in public—things could get dicey.
That was the situation we were dealing with now.
* * *
Ian discreetly showed his badge to the doorman at the Murwood.
The man glanced down at the ID and at Ian’s face without moving anything except a pair of cool gray eyes. He wore the double-breasted, quasi-military style of long coat and hat that seemed to be the uniform of doormen at upper-crusty apartment and condo buildings citywide. His bearing said ex-military or police, loud and clear. Then his face took on the neutral and faraway expression that signaled someone was speaking to him on his Bluetooth earpiece. Either that, or he was having an out-of-body experience.
“Mr. Nadisu is expecting you.” Not taking his eyes off either us or anyone else on the street nearby—which was a nifty trick—he reached back and opened the door for us.
The lobby of my apartment building was more of a foyer with mailboxes against one wall. It was almost impossible to squeeze past anyone checking their mail without way too much intimate contact with a neighbor whose name you didn’t know.
At least a dozen of my lobbies would have fit in the Murwood’s.
The goblin who met us there looked like his day was going worse than ours.
Goblins liked being in control of themselves and everyone and everything around them. You’d never see a goblin frazzled, at least not in public, and definitely not in front of strangers. This guy was frazzled. He wanted to be cool and collected, but today just wasn’t his day to get what he wanted.
As Ian and I could attest, there was a lot of that going around.
There was no one else in the posh lobby, but Ian still kept his voice down as he introduced us, even though Jesin Nadisu knew who we were. Official protocol had to be observed.
Anyone else, Ian included, would see a human man, in his mid-thirties, impeccably dressed in a suit that probably made him fit right in with the building’s wealthy tenants. He wouldn’t want to offend his tenants’ sensibilities by wearing anything that came off the rack. Other than that, there wasn’t anything that made him particularly noticeable.