When I got to the office, Ascanio opened the door with an expression of profound alarm on his face. “Take me with you. Please. I’ll do anything.”
I stepped inside the office and saw the source of his panic. It sat behind Kate’s desk. It had blond hair two shades lighter than mine, wore a blue T-shirt and a black skirt with layered ruffles, and looked to an outside observer like a cute teenage girl. And she was—at fourteen years old, Julie was cute and very much conscious of her position as Curran and Kate’s adopted child. Most of the time she was a perfect Pack princess, polite and poised—except when Derek, Kate’s sidekick, or Ascanio were in the room. Derek got frosty replies studded with spikes and if Ascanio was present, she turned into a foul-mouthed sarcastic devil.
It was hard to be a teenage girl. I had been one and I didn’t care to repeat the experience.
“Take me with you,” Ascanio begged.
“He can’t go. He failed the test on the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh,’” Julie said, her voice iced over. “Kate told him to sit here and study it.”
Ascanio turned to her and said a single derision-soaked word. “Snitch.”
“Crybaby,” Julie said.
“Harpy,” Ascanio said.
Julie gave him a look of concentrated scorn. “Pussy.”
Ascanio glared at her.
Julie crossed her arms.
“Where did Kate go?” I asked.
“To the Mercenary Guild,” Julie said.
Probably still trying to settle the dispute over who was going to be running the Guild. They had a bit of a power vacuum and Kate, as one of the veteran mercs, had seniority.
“Did you pick up that check from the mechanic?” I asked. “For that woman’s vehicle?”
“It’s on your desk.” Ascanio turned to Julie and mouthed, “Bitch.”
Just couldn’t let it alone, could he?
“Is it me or does it smell in here?” Julie waved her hand in front of her nose.
Oh no, she didn’t. Accusing a shapeshifter of reeking was the ultimate insult.
“You’re so dirty, Ascanio.” Julie grimaced. “Be careful, you might get fleas if you keep going this way.”
Ascanio bared his teeth at her. “Be careful you don’t get lice. They’ll shave you bald.”
Julie rolled her eyes. “It’s not necessary to shave your head if you have lice. You simply use a solution containing an extract of pyrethrin or any other of the wide variety of antilice herbal compounds and then comb the lice out. Your ignorance is staggering. I sometimes wonder how you survived to sixteen years of age. I’m curious, did you live most of them in Bubble Wrap?”
That kid sounded more and more like Kate every day.
“I had no idea you knew so much about lice,” Ascanio bit back. “Speaking from experience?”
“Yes, I am. I lived on the street for a year. Remind me, where did you live?” Julie tapped her finger to her lips, pretending to think. “Ah yes, you lived in a religious commune, sheltered and coddled, where you spent your time trying to nail anything that moved—”
That’s enough of that. “Quiet!” I barked.
Two mouths clicked shut.
I looked at the check. It was a business check from “Gloria’s Art and Antiques.” Antiques. Why would an antique dealer visit a reclamation company unless she knew that they were bidding on a building that contained a vault full of antiques? Reclamation companies didn’t deal in antiques; they dealt in metal and stone. Not much else survived a fallen building.
“Here’s the address.” Ascanio handed me a piece of paper. “I looked it up.”
“Thank you. Very nice of you.” I looked at the address. White Street, Julie’s old neighborhood. Right on the edge of the Warren, a poor part of Atlanta where beggars, gangs of homeless kids, and small-time criminals of opportunity made their home. Most of them wouldn’t know what “antiques” meant, let alone buy them. This case was getting stranger and stranger.
“Please don’t leave me here with her,” Ascanio murmured.
I looked at him. “Did Kate tell you to stay put?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay put. Study your epic, get yourself straightened out, and I’ll take you with me next time.”
I turned and walked out of there before he did any more begging.
White Street received its name when an unnatural snowfall covered it with two feet of pristine powder. The snow refused to melt for a couple of years and most residents had decided that discretion was the better part of valor. If a street’s magic could sustain two feet of snow in the middle of the scorching Atlanta summer, there was no telling what else it could do. By the time the snow finally melted, most of the people living in its buildings had fled. As I drove down the crumbling pavement, the abandoned houses stared at me with dark rectangles of empty windows, like the black holes of a skull’s orbits. If I wasn’t a seasoned former member of law enforcement, I’d admit that the place gave me the creeps, turn my vehicle around, and drive away screaming like a little girl.
Gloria’s Art and Antiques occupied a large rectangular building. The front facade was a typical two-story brick affair, but the structure extended from the street, over a city-block deep. Enough space there to warehouse a lot of antiques. Or a small herd of tanks. Or some vicious magical elephants…
I checked my Sig-Sauers and tried the door. Unlocked. I swung it open. A little bell chimed with a silvery tone as I stepped inside. In front of me, a narrow room stretched, framed by twin glass counters. The floor was polished wood, the counters glass and steel, the walls a silvery gray. The whole place was the exact antithesis of antique.
The air smelled of jasmine, not the purified scent of the perfume, but real jasmine: dark, slightly narcotic, with a hint of indole. There was something ancient and savage in that scent and it set my teeth on edge.
I walked over to the counter on the right and examined the contents of the glass case. A magnifying glass with an ornate metal handle. A metal toy car with faded, half-peeled-off green paint. A small round box filled with blue and white glass beads. A cheap pocket watch. Some coins, an assortment of beat-up knives, a set of antique glasses, dark red at the bottom and gold-yellow on top, a glass punch bowl with a grape pattern on the side and an odd yellow patina…This was crap. You could find pricier stuff at a flea market. Did she have a warehouse full of this junk?
A tall woman strode from the depths of the store. She wore a brown and beige suit. Her light brown hair was coiled into a complex arrangement on her head. Her eyes behind black-rimmed glasses were dark and calm. Neat, trim, professional.
“Hello,” she said. “Can I help you find anything?”
“Hi. Are you Gloria?”
“Yes.” The woman nodded.
“My name is Andrea Nash,” I said. “I’m investigating a multiple homicide on one of the Pack’s business sites.”
Gloria stepped behind the left counter and walked toward the door. I had to turn to keep facing her.
“Multiple homicides?”
She was up to something. “Yes.”
“Who was killed?” Gloria set a large plastic bin onto the counter.