Home > Bell, Book and Scandal(3)

Bell, Book and Scandal(3)
Author: Josh Lanyon

“Do you think she’s in love with him?” He didn’t look at me.

“I don’t know.”

“I hope not.”

I went to join him at the desk. He said, “You see how, no matter their position, his face is hidden? That’s not coincidence. He’s part of this. He set her up.”

John was right. Or at least, he was right that in every photo, the face of Jinx’s companion was obscured. Personally, I thought the giant sigil carved on the gentleman’s back would be kind of a giveaway in a lineup.

Not that having sex with the police commissioner’s sister was grounds for arrest or even being thrown into a lineup.

Not so far anyway.

“I see.”

“Maybe, just maybe, this time they’ve slipped up.”

“But are you sure this is connected to your extortion case? It could be a co—”

“I’m sure.” He sounded sure, no lie.

I considered John’s stern profile.

“John…”

He glanced at me. Once again, his face seemed to lose some of its hardness. “What?”

“I think I could be of help.” I tried to phrase it carefully because I knew he would be instinctively resistant to my offer. “When I opened the envelope, there was scintilla. Just a trace.”

“A trace of…a trace? What?”

“Scintilla. It’s hard to explain in words, hard to translate.”

“I know what scintilla means.”

“No, but in this context—”

His reddish brows drew together. “What context?”

“The context of-of Craft. Of magic.”

Instantly, his features grew shuttered, closed. “No.”

“You haven’t heard me out.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with magic. This is extortion. Plain and simple—and all too human.”

I said quietly, “I’m human, John.”

His whisky-colored eyes widened. “I know that,” he said quickly, and put his arms around me, as though sheltering me from his words. “That isn’t what I meant. You realize that, right? I understand that you want to help. I appreciate the offer. But no. This is not a time, not a situation for magic. This is police business.”

“I understand, yes. But—”

He brushed my hair back from my face. “I don’t want you involved. This is an ugly, sordid, god-awful mess, and I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

I tried to interject, but he was still speaking.

“And you promised you would stay out of police business. Remember? You promised you would try not to use magic.”

I had promised. I had promised not to use magic as a first resort. In fact, I had sworn to only use magic as a last resort.

I closed my mouth. Swallowed the words he did not want to hear.

“I’m holding you to that promise, Cos.” His voice was gentle, but he was dead serious. “I’m touched that you want to help, but I mean it. I don’t want you involved. I don’t want you to use magic.”

I said nothing. My heart was pounding very hard, as though I was facing some terrible threat, but the truth was, this was a promise I had made willingly, had made with all my heart.

John was still gentle, still steely. His eyes saw too much, saw everything. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said huskily. “I understand.”

 

 

Chapter Two

 

Oakland’s earliest inhabitants were the Lisjan Ohlone people. These Huchiun natives lived there for thousands of years, so safe to say, there were plenty of posterns in that part of town, and I had no problem landing on Ambrose’s doorstep.

Well, not literally his doorstep. More like the landing of the Bancroft Avenue apartment he shared with his grandmother.

I don’t know what it was like in prehistoric times, but these days Eastmont is not a great neighborhood. In fact, the violent-crime rate is just about 700% over the national average. But the place looked okay. Bruised and battered but still standing. The blue building was gated and surrounded by autumn-colored trees. It was also surrounded by other apartment buildings and busy streets—and all the ground floor windows had bars across them—but there were definitely worse places.

No sound came from inside the apartment. I knocked softly on the peeling white door—and then knocked again.

I was getting ready to knock a third time when I heard locks turning and door chains sliding. The door swung open, and Ambrose stood in the doorway. A slight, almost frail-looking twenty-one-year-old in ripped jeans and a black sweatshirt. That afternoon his wiry dark hair looked wilder than usual, and he was wide-eyed—not with delight.

“C-Cosmo!”

I said, “Hey. I happened to not be in the neighborhood but decided to swing by anyway.”

He gulped. “I— Didn’t Blanche tell you I had to—that it was a-an emergency?”

“She told me.”

His creamy complexion went ghostly. He raised his chin to meet his fate head on. “Are you here to fire me?”

“I hope not.” I was sincere about that. “But we definitely need to talk. May I come in?”

Ambrose threw an uneasy glance over his shoulder, hesitated, but then moved aside. “I guess so. Yes.”

I stepped inside. The apartment smelled of candles, thyme, and stewing beef. It took my eyes a second or two to adjust to the gloom. The blinds were closed tightly, and the only light came from a small reading lamp at the end of a sagging sofa. A large book lay open on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Next to the book was a calligraphy pen set and a small indigo bottle of ink.

“GramMa is sleeping,” Ambrose whispered. “She had a bad night.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Did you…want to sit down?”

“Thank you. I would.” I went to the sofa, but the book on the coffee table caught my attention. I stared down at a diagram of the Cygnus constellation, looked up to find him watching me warily.

“You’re working on your grimoire?”

He nodded, dark eyes watchful.

Some of my tension eased. In June I had agreed to take Ambrose on as my apprentice in the Craft, which made firing him complicated. It would be difficult to continue as his master if there were hard feelings over his losing his job. Then again, I had started wondering if maybe he needed a different master anyway because we had argued repeatedly over his lack of interest in my training methods—in particular the building of his grimoire. It had turned into such a point of contention that I had refused to teach him another spell until he showed me that he had made some progress on his personal Book of Shadows.

To be honest, he could be so muleheaded, I hadn’t expected to win this battle so quickly. Or at all.

“May I see?”

Ambrose nodded again, moving to the table, picking up the book and handing it to me.

I took it carefully. Handling another’s grimoire must always be done with respect—and caution. But as I turned the fragile pages, I smiled. He had taken a book on natural history from the 1920s and overlaid several pages of text with his own notes, diagrams, and the spells I’d shared with him. The full-color plates of creatures both real and imaginary remained intact. It was beautifully done.

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