“I think that Johansson was dealing with Ashvial.”
“Great. Did you ever consider getting a safer job? You know, something like wrestling crocodiles, or testing parachutes? Or maybe—you know, just maybe—turning a blind eye and walking away from bombs with lit fuses, like ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of all the other cops do?” Kirsten’s voice was gradually growing louder. “Or—this is just a wild thought—taking the job your mother offered you that pays more and is absolutely safe? Or—wait for it—take the job your uncle offered you that pays ten times as much?” By that time, she was shouting. “What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?”
I would be bored out of my mind doing either of those jobs, but the problem with my current situation was that I was putting Kirsten in danger.
“Maybe I should move over to Findlay until this all gets straightened out. It’s not fair to put you in danger. I’ll go over and talk with Osiris tomorrow.”
Kirsten leaped to her feet. “That’s your answer? You’re going to abandon me? You’re going to go hold up inside Findlay’s fortress, and leave me outside unprotected? Thanks a whole helluva lot, Lieutenant James!”
She cocked her arm as though she wanted to throw her beer bottle at me, then thought better of it, and took a swig. She sat back down and glared at me.
“Hell, Kirsten, I didn’t ask for any of this. Whittaker asked me to check into a missing girl as a personal favor. When I figured out that Johansson might be involved, I was shocked. It never occurred to me that it might go even higher. But when someone assassinates the head of a Hundred Family, it’s got everyone’s attention. I’m not alone in this thing, and I’ll talk to Whittaker and Osiris about your security. Okay?”
She stared daggers at me for another minute, then said, “I need another beer,” got up, and went to the kitchen. When she came back, I was struggling to stand up so I could go to the bathroom.
“What the hell? You’re hurt.”
“Just a bit of a bump.”
She followed me into the bathroom, made me take off the Kevlar bustier, then gave me a potion to drink, and cursed a blue streak the entire time she taped a pair of poultices against my ribs. The bruising was as bad as I’d feared.
After we ate dinner, I went out to my shop and created a magitek security enhancement for her shop. Her wards were fine when everything was locked up, but she couldn’t do business if no one could walk through the door.
Since Kirsten wasn’t a mage, she couldn’t activate a magitek device with her own magik, so I had to build a mechanical switch to trigger the magik. That was the difficult part.
“What is it?” she asked when I handed her the first two little metal boxes.
“Stick one on either side of your shop’s front door.” I held up another little box with a button on it. “This turns them on and off. Put it in your pocket and carry it around all the time. When it’s engaged, it sets up an invisible beam between those two boxes. Anyone who breaks the beam closes an electrokinetic circuit between the boxes, and it electrocutes them.”
“Electrocutes? Kills them?”
I nodded. “It’s lethal.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. I hope I don’t forget and kill myself.”
“When it’s turned on, the control box will warn you if you or anyone else gets too close to the door. Just make sure you keep it on your person at all times.”
Chapter 28
I knew Osiris would be up at the crack of dawn, so the following morning I rode north from the city to Findlay as soon as I could make it out of the house. My side felt a lot better after Kirsten slapped a magikally medicated plaster on my ribs when I got out of the shower.
Osiris Dillon was in his office in the business annex. A large, burley mage who looked like a thug whose nose had been broken several times, he had a cunning mind and a gentle heart. Officially, he couldn’t tell me what to do, since I was Family, but unofficially he was the one who had cleaned up my messes since I was in high school. We understood each other, and as grumpy and irascible as Osiris could be, I got along with him a lot better than I did with most of my actual family.
“I wondered if you’d bother to come,” he said when I stuck my head through his office doorway.
I grinned at him, sauntered into his office, and sat on the corner of his desk. “I have a favor to ask. A couple of favors, actually.”
Osiris hmphed and glowered at me, but I saw the corners of his mouth twitch. “That figures. What the hell is it?”
“First, what does Grandmother want? It would be nice to talk to her without getting completely blindsided.”
“Fair enough. Martin Johansson’s murder. You are aware that the Johansson Family is allied with Akiyama, aren’t you?”
“I am now. I didn’t know before he was killed.”
Osiris shook his huge bald head. “Try to use your head for something other than a decoration. Paying just a little attention to the world around you might come in handy someday. Danica, whether you like it or not, you’re a member of this Family, and you’re also Hunter James’s granddaughter.”
I barked out a laugh. “You don’t have to remind me. Damned near everyone I meet is quite happy to let me know what they think of my father’s family.”
“There are two halves of your family, and only one of them is still around to protect you. I suggest you keep that in mind. When everyone else in the world is out to get you, which currently seems to be the case, Findlay has your back. We always have, and we always will, as long as you don’t do something
