Page 6 of Deadly Avarice
“Sorry, Captain,” I answered.
“Don’t apologize for a feeling, O’Hare. They are hardly easily controlled. I was simply concerned.”
I nodded and clicked on the minimized report. “Just a warning, it’s graphic and hard to watch.”
Captain Cicely leaned over my chair, staring at the screen. I couldn’t watch a third time. While I couldn’t feel her emotions the way she did mine, Captain Cicely’s harsh intakes of breath and wide eyes let me know she was just as disturbed. “May Gaia have mercy,” Captain Cicely said as the report ended and I minimized it again.
“Yeah.” It was all I could come up with. Gaia wasn’t my religion, but I wouldn’t turn her mercy away.
“Does Boone know?”
I shook my head. “Not that I know of. The time stamp indicates this truly is breaking news and he’s either at a cemetery in Louisiana or on the road back.” Boone did listen to the radio but since this took place in New York, I doubted it would make it to local radio.
Similar to Becks, Captain Cicely placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Let me know if you need some extra time off to deal with the fallout. Necromancer Boone is important to this precinct. He’s also important to you, and besides, I like him. Take care of the home front, O’Hare.” With a final pat, Captain Cicely walked away.
As if he knew I was now alone, my phone buzzed with a text from Boone.On the road. Back in two to three hours.It was followed by a heart emoji.
I sat there, staring at my phone before finally typing back,Be careful. See you soon. Love you.
I got another heart emoji in response.
Leaning heavily back into my chair, I scrubbed my face before running my fingers over my short ginger hair. My earlier lunch sat heavy in my stomach as I contemplated the conversation Boone and I needed to have tonight.
“Fuck,” I murmured, the bullpen too loud for anyone to hear or maybe care. That’s the way police precincts were. No matter what your problem, someone else had it worse.
Boone looked like shit. His eyes were red rimmed, and I could tell he’d been crying. What in the hell happened? I hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell him what occurred earlier in New York. For a hot minute, I thought he’d already heard.
“I heard from Pops today,” Boone said as he opened the lid of the pizza I’d picked up on the way over. I needed to start making healthier takeout choices. Either that or one of us needed to learn to cook better. While I loved Momma Boone, she wasn’t much help in that area. Lydia Boone made excellent sweet tea, but when it came to the stove or the oven, she gracefully bowed out.
I wasn’t sure how much pizza I’d be able to eat. Bringing up Warlock Holland’s name didn’t make me any hungrier. Somewhat reluctantly, I asked, “Anything wrong?” And that’s when Boone related the fact that the Warlock Council had decided to sit on their damn hands and not release the names of recent necromancer mothers. At least that would have given us a starting point trying to track down the necromancers that were out there and currently off the grid.
“No point,” Boone scoffed. “Can you believe that shit?” He shook his head while viciously biting into a pizza slice. Boone rarely spoke disparagingly of the general way warlock fathers abandoned their necromancer sons. He’d often said he wasn’t in a position to judge. While I begged to differ, I also understood that, as a human, this wasn’t my culture. There were a lot of bat-shit crazy things humans did that the other species looked uponand simply turned a confused, blind eye to. Most of our nuances were benign but not all of them.
I let Boone vent and if he didn’t notice how little pizza I ate, all the better. It had taken Boone and me a couple of weeks to fall in love with pizza again after hearing that Aurelia killed one of her previous masters by smothering him in the warm, gooey joy of pizza.
My ears perked up when Boone hesitantly said, “I asked Pops about contacting Tenzen Huxley.”
“The Magical Usage Council guy?” I asked. “The one that called and you said gave you a creepy feeling?” I raised an eyebrow.
“That’s the one,” Boone confirmed.
“What did Warlock Holland have to say?” I was genuinely curious.
Boone swallowed hard and took a drink of sweet tea before he answered. “I think Tenzen gives Pops the willies too.”
I paused, slice of pizza halfway to my lips before setting it down on my plate. “That doesn’t do my sense of calm a lot of good.”
“Nor mine,” Boone agreed while chewing on his bottom lip. “I can’t say that I’m eager to open that door. I’m just not sure what else to do.”
The sound coming out of my throat was more groan than sigh. Shifting my chair, I came to Boone’s side and reached for his hands. His fingers were smaller and far slenderer than mine. His milk-pale skin practically glowed next to my rougher, ruddier hue. I traced patterns along the back of his hand with my thumbs while quietly mulling over what I knew needed said.
“Franklin, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. There was too much that was wrong to put into words. “Something happened today.”
“At the precinct?”
“No. At least not where I work.” My gut twisted, the one and a half slices of pizza I’d managed to eat threatening return. “This is going to be tough to hear, so I’m just gonna say it, rip the bandage off.”
