The ifrit smiled slightly and picked a tray filled with small idols and loose items off the glass countertop, returning it to the display case below. “Certainly more profitable.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Is the owner in?”
“You’re talking to him.”
Patrick came to a stop in front of the ifrit, sizing the demon up. His fingers twitched with the urge to reach for his dagger. The ifrit looked human, with dark brown skin, black hair and beard, and a smile that wouldn’t look out of place on a car salesman selling secondhand vehicles. He wondered why Kelly hadn’t mentioned the owner was an ifrit, unless she didn’t know. Witches weren’t mages on the power scale, and most mages didn’t have Patrick’s unenviable ability to recognize and hunt the darker aspects of the preternatural world.
Patrick looked away from the demon to take in some of the items for sale in the display cases before him and the shelves on the wall. Magic of varying power was embedded in some of the pieces, making them artifacts in their own right. Even more were nothing more than common, everyday items.
The place looked legitimate, but the owner—by virtue of what he was—said it wasn’t.
Patrick hooked a thumb around the chain his badge hung from and lifted it for the ifrit to see. The badge didn’t have his name, just his agent identification number on it. The less information he gave up here, the better. “I’m with the SOA. I’m here to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course you are.” The ifrit smiled. “Words are fine. I deal in words all the time. But if you don’t have a warrant or subpoena for anything else, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
Patrick hummed thoughtfully before unsheathing his dagger and laying it down on the glass countertop. The ifrit froze, his smile becoming tacked on as he stared at the matte-black blade resting between them, all the power of the heavens and their many prayers capable of incinerating him with one little cut bound to the weapon.
“I’m not from around here,” Patrick said mildly. “I know what you are, just like you know what this dagger can do to you. I’ll come back with a search warrant if need be, but you’re going to tell me the truth when you speak today.”
Patrick kept his fingertips resting on the hilt of the dagger, his attention locked on the ifrit’s pale face. The demon leaned away from the counter a little, putting some distance between himself and the threat of death in the shape of sharp edges.
“Ask your questions,” the ifrit spat out, the veins on his face pulsing fiery red, like lava, beneath his skin for a second before calming down.
“People are selling you favors, but we both know that’s not what they’re actually giving you.”
The ifrit licked his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Patrick dug out his phone and unlocked it, finding the photo from earlier of the pawnshop slip. He turned the phone around so the ifrit could see the screen. “Don’t you?”
Brown eyes flicked from the phone to Patrick’s face. “Favors are legal.”
“Souls aren’t.”
“I don’t see souls mentioned in the itemized line.”
Patrick smiled thinly and put his phone away. “Of course you don’t. This favor someone sold to you. I want to see it.”
“I can’t show you.”
“I don’t need a warrant to see something I want to buy.”
The ifrit shook his head. “It’s been bought already.”
Patrick knew if he asked to see the records on who had purchased it, he’d be denied. That was information he’d need a warrant for, but getting one required probable cause, and the SOA didn’t have any they could use yet. It was up to Patrick to find it. Hearsay wouldn’t hold up in the courts after all.
Patrick picked up his dagger and flipped it around with deft fingers, sliding it back into the sheath on his right thigh. The ifrit didn’t relax even after the weapon was put away, glaring at Patrick and keeping his distance.
Patrick rapped his knuckles on the glass countertop. “See you around.”
He left the pawnshop, feeling the ifrit’s gaze boring into his back on the way out. Once outside in the cold, Patrick didn’t lower his shields. The group with the low-riders was gone, but the car now parked in one of those spots carried its own set of problems.
The black woman sitting behind the wheel wasn’t looking at him, but her phone. She might have been just another person running errands if his magic didn’t recognize her as a werecreature. There’d been one in the hotel lobby that morning, and one walking past the SOA field office when he’d arrived. He hadn’t seen one when he’d left, but it was looking more and more like Patrick was being followed, judging by the latest arrival.
Patrick got into the SUV and started the engine. He backed out of the spot and headed for the street. He kept half his attention on the road and the rest on the rearview mirror. He wasn’t surprised in the least to see the black Chevrolet follow him onto the street ten seconds later.
Patrick cast a silence ward in the SUV, static washing through the frame of the vehicle. He lifted his hips to get to his phone, glancing at the screen a couple of times in order to unlock it and call Wade.
“Where are you?” Patrick said when Wade picked up.
“Uh, why? Are you in trouble?” Wade asked.
“Not yet, but I’m being followed.”
“Werecreatures? I saw a couple this morning before I lost them.”
Patrick scowled and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “And you didn’t think you should go back to the hotel once you identified them?”
Wade snorted. “The hotel doesn’t have good snacks. I’m at Target getting better ones.”
“Of course you are.”
“It’s not like I can’t tell what they are, and I’m good at ditching people in a crowd. I’m not being followed right now. Trust me, I’d know if I was.”
“Get back to the hotel, Wade.”
“After I get snacks. And maybe another hot dog.”
“Wade.”
“Food first, fight later, bye.”
Wade ended the call, and Patrick swore. “Fucking teenagers.”
Patrick shoved his worry aside, knowing Wade could fend for himself these days. Patrick and Jono had made sure he could. That didn’t stop Patrick from wishing Wade would listen.
He didn’t know what was more annoying that morning: an uncooperative teenager or the werecreatures who kept following him around Chicago. When Patrick finally made it back to the hotel room for a late lunch and found Wade on the bed, surrounded by an overabundance of chips, candy, crackers, and other snacks, he decided it was teenagers.
Wade shoved a handful of goldfish crackers into his mouth. “I’m not sharing.”
Patrick rolled his eyes.
Definitely teenagers.
4
Jono parked the Mustang in front of a cluster of red-bricked residential buildings in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Midwood. It was a couple blocks from the Q stop, but it was late enough and cold enough that Jono had opted to drive rather than take the subway.
Leon opened the passenger-side door and took a deep breath. “I don’t smell anything out of the ordinary.”