Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

the federal government, Luna. They have a case against this guy, and they’re going to slap you with an injunction if you don’t give them what they want.” He sighed. “You fight the good fight, kid, but you lost this one.”

“And what about the Duboises?” I said. “Do I just roll over for them, too?”

“Hell, Luna, I don’t know,” said Mac. “Weres are your territory. That’s why you’re in charge of the SCS. I have faith in you. You’ll figure it out.”

I stood up and gave Mac a half-smile. “That makes one of us.”

“You don’t look good, Luna,” Mac said as I opened his door. “You been sleeping?”

“I had a bad nightmare,” I said. “The dead girl.”

“Huh,” said Mac. “She talk to you?”

I nodded. Mac stubbed his cigarette out in an oldcup of coffee. “I had a kid once, a boy about sixteen. Shot to death in the street over a fifty-dollar watch. Nothing special about him, but I saw him for years, those three bullet holes staring back at me like eyes.” He laced his fingers. “I’ll have Sunny give you a call. Have some girl time or whatever it is you women do when you’re not painting your nails or cooking delicious casseroles.”

I gave Mac the finger and a friendly smile as I left the 24th. It felt good to be back. When was the last time I’d had a desk within view of a window?

My BlackBerry rang as I cleared the front steps and I ducked into the Nova to avoid the rain that had started to fall like the last tears of someone too tired to cry anymore. “Luna Wilder.”

“Miss Wilder. You’re a hard woman to get ahold of.”

I groaned and pressed my forehead against the steering wheel. “Hello, Mr. Dubois. What can I do for you?”

“Is it true that you have a new suspect in my daughter’s case?”

“Hex me, where are you getting this from? This is a confidential investigation, even, I’m sorry to say, to a victim’s family.”

“Reporters have their sources,” Nate Dubois said. “I have mine. You close this case and nail this bastard or the pack is going to consider you an enemy along with this John Black.”

They didn’t have his real name yet. I had a little time. “I don’t appreciate being threatened, Mr. Dubois. Or didn’t Teddy tell you that?”

“You have our warning, Miss Wilder,” he said, shortly. “Now I have to go make arrangements for my daughter’s funeral, when you people finally release the body.”

“And you have mine,” I said, cold. “Good-bye, Mr. Dubois.”

When he hung up, I started the car and drove, too fast, just to drive and try to shake off all of my problems. I ended up at the Port of Nocturne again, which in daylight was as sad and run-down a spot as you could ever end up in. I turned onto the access road before the gate and drove down to the vast columns of the Siren Bay Bridge, humming softly from the traffic above.

There’s a troll under the Siren Bay Bridge. He—at least, I think it’s a he—came through the temporal rift left by a Wendigo hunger god when he was reborn. Exploited by the Thelemites, he now lives safe and sound, bound by magic and the sea.

“Hey there, big guy,” I said, getting out and sitting on the hood. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and mist rolled off the bay, obscuring the roadbed of the bridge two hundred feet above us.

The troll was dozing against the cement embankment. It cracked open one eye when I pulled up and then went back to sleep.

“So,” I told it, “I have a case that will never be closed and a were pack that will kill me if it isn’t. And I have a day to make it right. Got any ideas?”

The troll grunted and shifted, scratching its scaly green back against the concrete.

“You’re a big help,” I said. “I suppose if we caught Salazko in the act, we’d have something to hold him on and the district attorney could tie up the federal prosecutor long enough for me to find some evidence.”

The bills of lading were still in a plastic baggie in my glove compartment and I felt for them, reading the tiny, faded type. All of the shipments were outgoing from the same berth in the port, a week or a week and a half apart.

“You know what they say,” I told the troll. “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. No offense, if you two are related.”

I’d have one night, at the most, for my plan—stake out the port, get hard evidence of Salazko importing girls or exporting gods-knew-what, and get him in custody before Agents Hart and White caught on to my scheme.

For that, I’d need help, and I wasn’t going to find it sitting around talking to a troll. “Appreciate the help,” I told it, before I got back in the car and called Will.

CHAPTER 7

“So let me get this straight,” Will said, once I’d assembled him, Bryson, Batista and Zacharias in the conference room of the SCS. “You want us to stake out the Russian mob on their turf under the nose of an ongoing FBI investigation that we’ve specifically been told to stay out of?”

“Yes,” I said. “Which is why we need you, my darling.”

Will shrugged. “I don’t follow.”

“If you are leading the operation then it’s not our fault, is it? The FBI has nothing to screech about.”

Batista nodded. “I like that. Who the Hex does the FBI think they are, anyway? Coming in here, stepping all over us.”

“Yeah,” Bryson said. “Fuck ’em.”

Andy blushed, but he looked excited, like I’d suggested sneaking into an R-rated movie. “I agree, ma’am. This is our investigation.”

“You do realize that if my supervisors find out about this, I’ll be written up and probably lose my job?” Will said. I gave him my best innocent expression.

“Please? For me? I’m adorable.”

“Sure,” Will snorted. “For you.”

“And you get a chance