I found a lightly traveled side street and landed a few blocks from the northwest precinct station. We drove the rest of the way on the ground. Mychal seemed relieved. Personally, I felt better in the air where I didn’t have to worry about people running stop signs or turning across multiple lanes.
I pulled into the station’s parking lot, sending magik to the electric keypad to open the gate. I did the same thing when we hit the station door. Mychal tried to follow me through and set off the alarm, earning a scowl from the desk sergeant. He had to go back out and scan his badge.
“How come you don’t have to scan in?” he asked when he caught up to me.
“I did.”
A tall woman with wild red hair and freckles came down the hall toward us. She was wearing a gray pantsuit, the jacket covering a white shell. Dr. Ruth Harrison was a force of nature, with a wicked sense of humor and zero patience with fools.
“Novak, be careful of what you say,” I muttered as an aside. I didn’t think his ego could survive Ruth if she was having a bad day.
“Dani!” Ruth gave me a big smile. “How are you doing? How’s your roomie? We need to get together soon. It’s been far too long.” She leaned close and gave me an air kiss next to my cheek.
We made small talk on our way to the ready room, where we were to meet the uniforms assigned to our raid.
“Ruth, this is my new partner, Mychal Novak. Mychal, this is Dr. Ruth Harrison, psychiatrist and the best magik detector in the business.”
She looked Novak up and down. “Novak? You’re joking. Who did you piss off?”
He looked confused. “No one, that I know of. Why?”
Ruth laughed. “You aren’t much of a detective, are you? Do your homework, kid. Danica’s partners have their own row allocated at the cemetery.”
“That’s not true!”
She laughed harder. “Okay, not all of them die. The rest end up in the Danica James wing at the mental hospital.”
Lieutenant Billie Cargill met us with a scowl at the door to the ready room. As usual, her uniform looked like it had just came back from the cleaners. She looked at Ruth and me and said, “You two.” Then she caught sight of Novak and brightened. I introduced them.
“Best thing you’ve ever dragged in here, James. Try not to get him killed, okay?”
Cargill was a tall Black woman with a short afro and an attitude. We had gone through the police academy together, and she had finished second in our class. After ten years, she had never forgiven me for some reason.
“Whatever you say, Second Place. Any of these guys you’re giving us have more than two weeks experience?”
About that time, one of the uniforms turned around. “Hey, Dani! They didn’t tell me this was one of your ops. Hey, guys! Buckle your armor on tight and get ready for a wild one.”
“Hey, Rob. Good to have you along,” I said. “Sergeant Robert Larson, this is my new partner, Sergeant Mychal Novak.”
Cargill and Novak scowled. Harrison and Larson grinned, and Larson gave Novak a friendly salute. Mages didn’t shake hands, which didn’t matter because most normals didn’t want to shake hands with magik users.
Novak eyed Larson and his band of merry men, then asked Cargill, “Do you have a vest I can borrow?”
She stared at him, as stunned as I was at the request.
“You’re not wearing armor?” I asked.
“Bad move,” Cargill chimed in. “Are you sure you understand who you’re partnered with?”
He looked me over. “You’re not wearing armor.”
With a smirk, I opened my jacket, then unbuttoned my shirt, revealing my lace-trimmed blue bustier. “Kevlar, and the stays are stainless steel. They come in several attractive colors, although I never buy them in maroon. I don’t want to confuse any doctors as to whether I’m bleeding or not.”
Harrison and Cargill both snorted.
“And my motorcycle jacket is lined with ballistic cloth.”
“You always wear that?” Novak asked.
“Only when I leave the house.”
“Even when you’re off duty?”
“What’s that?” I turned to Billie. “Do you give your detectives time off?”
Straight-faced, she said, “They can apply for vacation time.”
“Oh, yeah, that. I had one of those once. Hell, if I could find a boss that gave me time off, I’d transfer. Whittaker calls me all hours of the day and night, and always expects me to be at the scene in fifteen minutes, no matter where it is.”
“He’s always run a lax ship. Real policemen are expected to meet ten-minute response times,” Billie said, proving that she did have a sense of humor under all that starch and spit-polish.
I briefed the assault team, then we all loaded up and headed out.
Chapter 8
Fredo’s massage parlor and escort service was located on the edge of a business district where it could attract customers from office buildings during the day and from bars and strip clubs at night. The massage parlor, sleazy as it was, simply served as a front for his less-savory activities.
That part of town was a completely different world from that of the Novaks and the Bennings. Hell, it was a different world from anything Kirsten had ever experienced, and her closest connection to the life of a Hundred’s Family was screwing a few of them.
To the south was the Waste—the area engulfed by the nuclear firestorm. For some reason, the start of every nuclear war involved nuking Washington. It had been bombed three times, even though the last two were wasted.
On the east was an area where the Rift had manifested multiple times. Quality of living there was only marginally higher than in the Waste. Dive bars and nightclubs were mostly located to the west, and the business district and fashionable restaurants to the north—in Bethesda and Silver Spring. Fashionable being relative. In the part of Baltimore where I lived, they would be considered borderline dive bars.
I watched Mychal’s reaction with interest as we drove
