Yes, I did. And like an idiot, I don’t stop there. “I wonder if you even realize she’s got you under her spell? Talk about a raw deal, Gorgeous—she gets all the control, you get none of that ass.”
Nick seems unfazed, damn him, but his eyes flick to others in the office. I follow his look to see that the fey enforcers are casting annoyed glances at me. The trolls are less subtle. They stare me down with flared nostrils.
Nick speaks in a very patient, nonthreatening tone. “Agent Davies, let me ask you: have you ever actually met Nora Jacobs?”
He knows I haven’t, but I see what he’s doing, and I better play along if I want to continue living. I clear my throat, as if embarrassed, and admit, “No.”
“I see. So, the truth is, you have no clue what the hell you’re talking about.” To the trolls, Nick turns his palms up. The trolls snort dismissively and turn back to their business. The fey enforcers dip their chins in a regal nod, as though justice and dignity have been restored to the office. Nick roasts me with a severe look that says, You’re welcome, but next time, I let them pull your spine out through your mouth.
I lower my voice. “Look, all I meant to ask is, have you made any progress on the revenant case, or not?”
“That’s a big old not. Obviously, things have been a little busy around here.”
“Which is why I should be working the case, and not you.”
“Wrong on both accounts. You can’t work it, because revenants come from sorcerers, and the sorcerer community has banned you for life. And I’m not working it, because Director West wants to oversee this case personally.”
I hang my head. “Director West? Isn’t that a conflict of interest? She won’t go after a sorcerer. The only thing she cares about is protecting their image.”
Nick shoots to his feet, clamps my elbow in a vice grip, and hauls me out of earshot from the others. Leaning in closely, he speaks in a calm but forceful tone that somehow feels more menacing than if he were shouting. “I’m going to do you a favor and spare you from embarrassment—or worse—by letting you in on something that everybody else here already knows. Have you ever wondered why Madison West is so respected by the entire underworld, and especially by the sorcerer community? Think about that for a second. I don’t know if you noticed by now, but sorcerers don’t do law enforcement. It’s blue collar. Beneath them. They’re tycoons, or senators, or dukes and duchesses, all that Old-World bullshit.”
He doesn’t have to tell me. Despite being one of Detroit’s most powerful witches, Elvira Harrington became the most controversial figure of the sorcerer community overnight when she aided me in the case against King Paul. The younger sorcerers think it’s badass—every eligible bachelor wants to court her—but the entirety of the older generation, including her own parents, has banned her from stepping foot on their estates.
“And yet,” Nick continues, “here’s Madison West, Miss High Sorceress, not only working for the Agency, but its director, its champion. And still, she commands total respect from her peers. Why?”
“Because she’s the boss. It’s a position of power.”
“Wrong. It’s because when it came to a choice between the underworld and the only man she ever loved, she chose the underworld. And when I say chose, I mean she had to kill him with her own hands.”
Beyond the gut punch of such a tragic and unthinkable scenario, I feel the sting of failure. As the consummate street roamer and eavesdropper of Detroit, I once considered myself the keeper of all gossip in this city. But I’ve never heard anything about this.
Nick’s shoulders droop, the fire leaving his eyes. Smacking me with that punch line was fun, but he finds no joy in sharing the details. “You should have seen her back then. With him, she was different. Those two…it was the real deal, Shayne, like you could only dream of with Brenner; I don’t care what you think you guys got.
“But it was that same old story—too good to be true. He wanted to be somebody more than he was, and he got in over his head with the wrong people. He hid things from her, and by the time she found out, the Agency was being called in to end it. When he put up a fight, we had no other choice, but Madison sure as hell did. She could have defended him, protected him. Hell, I half expected her to join him. The thing they had, nobody would have blamed her.
“But she didn’t. When it came down to it…she did it herself. I was there. I would have done it, but she wouldn’t let me. This was her thing to do. And she didn’t look away, Shayne. She looked him right in the eyes when she did it.” His gaze pierces mine, as if in demonstration. “Could you make that choice?”
Fear robs me of the bravado to lie. Some things simply cannot be faked. The best I can do is try to sound defiant when I croak, “I’ve already shown that I won’t.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” he says, surprisingly with no hint of gloating.
Encouraged by the apparent moment of truce, I say, “Just one more thing, Gorgeous. Tell me what Agent Hillerman said? Brenner is what?”
“She said…” Nick sighs, reluctant to share. “She said, ‘Brenner’s just the sort of human we need right now.’”
Involuntarily, my hands clasp together. “She said that?”
“Then she asks me, she says, ‘When’s the last time you heard of a human who knew about the underworld, but didn’t absolutely despise it?’”
I lean in, not even caring how obvious it is that I’m desperate for his approval. “I know, right? And? When was the last time?”
Again, he sighs. “There isn’t one, because I’ve never heard of it.” He raises a warning finger. “But the jury’s still out on Brenner, far as I’m concerned. Just because he loves you don’t mean he loves the underworld.”
My breath hitches. “You think he loves me?”
He mutters, “Oh, hell no,” as he strides away.
I would have followed after him, but in that moment the door to Madison West’s office opens. She walks out, followed by vampire Parker Reed, her deputy director. When they both step aside, all eyes in the office are drawn to an impressive man in the doorway. He’s tall, lean, and impeccably groomed, not one styled hair out of place, not one imperfect line shaping his smooth beard. His mouth is open just enough to feature the two sharpened points of fangs. For a master vampire, his look is incredibly modern, with a fluffy fur coat over a T-shirt, gold chains, and track pants—all straight out of a hip-hop music video celebrating the billionaire thug life.
All of the dejected vamps in the office suddenly perk up when this guy appears. The loud chaos settles into a low buzz of anticipation. I join Ren and Darla behind their desks, where we can ogle inconspicuously. “Who’s he?”
“Theo Coltrane,” Darla says between heavy breaths. She tongues popcorn out of her hand while raking her eyes up and down his body.
“He’s the master of Cleveland,” Ren adds with a rapturous sigh as he too digs into Darla’s popcorn tub. “Come to take in these strays.”
“What, he just gets to claim all of Henry’s leftovers? Does that mean Detroit’s now his territory? What if he’s as bad as Henry?”