“I, uh, didn’t think of that,” Jessikah answered, looking down at the now writhing Richard. “That was reckless, though. You could have killed him.”
“Do I come across as some cold-blooded killer to you?” I asked, staring at her and seeing the answer in her face. “Never mind. I didn’t kill him.”
“What is that smell?” she said, stepping back from Richard. “Did he soil himself?”
Peaches chuffed and padded away.
<I’m not biting him now.>
<No need, boy.>
“Persuader rounds,” I said, tapping Grim Whisper as I holstered it. “They take the fight out of mages, along with anything currently in their bowels.”
“What are persuader rounds?” she said, covering her face and stepping back even farther as Richard moaned in pain and gastrointestinal distress. “That smell is horrid.”
“Persuader rounds are designed to scramble neural networks,” I said. “For mages, it means no more spell-casting for a good ten-to-twenty minutes.”
“It suppresses runic energy?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
“In addition to making the target lose control of all bodily functions,” I replied, pulling out my phone. “That’s the stench you smell. Richard here was a little shit. I just helped him reveal his true nature.”
“That’s…quite effective,” Jessikah said. “Undignified, but effective.”
“It’s hard to focus on killing someone when your bowels no longer listen to you and expel, well, everything,” I said. “I use Persuaders when lethal force is not the answer, contrary to popular belief.”
“You are the known associate of a dark mage,” Jessikah answered. “What was I supposed to think? The amount of destruction you and your partner have caused in the past is staggering. Even by mage standards.”
“There were extenuating circumstances,” I said, raising a finger. “Give me a moment. We need to have your friend here picked up.”
“He is not my friend,” Jessikah answered, covering her nose. “Disgusting.”
The call connected.
“I was just about to call you,” Ramirez’s gruff voice answered. “Where are you?”
“I’m down the block from the deli,” I said. “I need a pick up.”
Everyone knew about Ezra’s, especially the NYTF. They made sure to give it plenty of latitude—considering who Ezra was—but they kept an eye on it…from a distance.
The New York Task Force, or NYTF, was a quasi-military police force, created to deal with any supernatural event occurring in New York City. Ezra’s Deli more than qualified as supernatural.
“Have you been near City Hall in the last few days?” Ramirez asked. He was fishing. “Anywhere near City Hall park?”
“I haven’t even been in town for the last few days.”
“Do you have someone that can back up your story?” he asked. “Someone besides the mage?”
“Since when do I have to verify my whereabouts?” I asked, somewhat bothered. This was unlike him. “What’s going on? This is me you’re talking to, Angel.”
“That’s exactly why I’m asking,” he said with a long sigh. “I got the brass all over my ass on this, and I thought maybe there was a simple solution…like you, the mage, and your cute puppy of destruction.”
“What happened?”
“Apparently someone decided City Hall Park needed a massive makeover,” Ramirez answered after a few seconds. “There’s a crater where the park once was. Had all the looks of your detective agency’s work.”
“It wasn’t us,” I said. “Why would we blow it up?”
“Same question I ask every time I’m standing in rubble, courtesy of the Montague & Strong Detective Agency,” Ramirez said. “Why would they blow this place up?”
“Not fair,” I countered. “You know it’s usually in self-defense.”
“Is that what we’re calling wholesale destruction these days? Self-defense?”
Ramirez had a point, and we were catching some heat for the destruction in the city. It probably had something to do with the targets being destroyed, more than the destruction itself.
“Still,” I said, “why do you assume it was us?”
“Are you kidding?” Ramirez answered with a short laugh. “Every day I wake up and I marvel at the fact that you two haven’t reduced my city to a crater.”
“Hilarious, Angel, really.”
“I knew it wasn’t you two,” Ramirez added. “This job was actually neat, surgical even. No runic backlash or residue, just plenty of old-fashioned C4 used by someone who knew what they were doing.”
“What was destroyed?”
“Mostly the park, but the brass is raising a stink about some landmark sculpture that’s been on the site forever,” Ramirez answered. “Irreplaceable, I’ve been informed, along with priceless. That’s what made me think of you. I know how you like to preserve the city’s historical landmarks with explosive renovations.”
“You’re in rare form today,” I said, ignoring the last remark. “I need a pick up.”
“For you?”
“No, some mage rookie tried to attack me,” I said, trying to keep Jessikah under the radar. The last thing I needed was the NYTF investigating a Black Orchid mage. It would create all kinds of the wrong questions. “He must have had me confused for someone else. I persuaded him to stop his attack.”
“You used Persuaders?”
“Would you have preferred I actually used something lethal?” I asked. “Entropy rounds?”
“Those are banned,” Ramirez said, his voice grim. “You better be fighting for your life if you’re using those.”
“I know,” I said, trying to calm him down. He got growly when the law was being bent, or in my case, twisted into a pretzel. “Look, this is messy, but at least he’s alive.”
“Just one?” Ramirez asked with a sigh. “Tell me it’s just one.”
“Just one. He had a pair of friends, but they were smart and ghosted him when it got serious,” I said, looking down at the still writhing Richard. The effects would last for at least another ten minutes. A lifetime for poor Richard. “Get one of the EMTEs down here to pick him up. Give him a three day vacation with a warning. Should straighten him out.”
EMTE stood for EMT Elite. The NYTF used these paramedics whenever they encountered some kind
