Morales frowned. “You worried about the kid?”
I nodded. “Baba’s been known to doze off and I don’t want to risk his sneaking out because I’m out late.”
“Hey, that’s cool,” Mez said. “I’ll call Shadi to come meet us.” She was keeping an eye on the Arteries to make sure there weren’t any signs of circling the wagons.
I gave Mez the address. He ran off so he could stop by the gym on the way over to get some files and supplies. After he was gone, Gardner came out of her meeting with the attorney and the captain. We told her the plan. Her eyes flared when she heard we were meeting at my house but she didn’t comment. Instead, she said, “Don’t fuck this up.”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” Morales responded drily.
Our boss crossed her arms and looked at both of us with an expression not unlike that of a general before a battle. “Encouragement implies failure’s an option.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
When Morales and I got to the house, Danny came upstairs from his basement room looking like someone cancelled Christmas. “I thought you’d be working late.”
“We are. We’ll just be doing it from here.” I held up the box of pizza we’d picked up. “Hungry?”
“No.”
Shit, I thought. Teenagers never turn down pizza.
I turned to Morales. “Give me a minute, okay?”
He nodded and turned to chat up Baba. As I led Danny back down to his room, I heard the old lady say, “Uh-oh!” A thud followed—like the sound of a remote hitting the floor. “Would you be a dear and bend over to pick that up for me?” I shook my head and kept going. Morales didn’t seem the type to need saving from geriatric sexual harassment.
“I thought you were gonna work,” Danny complained as I pushed him toward his room.
I closed the door behind me before I spoke. “In a minute,” I said, gathering my thoughts. “All right, so you want to learn magic. I get it, okay? But what you did today was not only incredibly stupid and the exact wrong way to get me to change my mind, it was also dangerous.”
The way he jutted that stubborn chin out it might as well have been a middle finger.
“John Volos used to be your friend—”
“He was your friend, too, Kate.”
I gritted my teeth and sighed. “Was, past tense. Now, he’s a suspect in an investigation I’m working on.”
Danny’s eyes flared. “Really?”
I nodded. “And when you showed up at his apartment, you put both the case and my job at risk.” I wasn’t lying. At the time, that had been true. I didn’t feel the need to tell Danny that Volos appeared to be innocent now. It worked in my favor for the kid to believe the worst about his former hero.
“I-I didn’t know,” he said.
“It never occurred to me that I’d need to warn you. But even if I wasn’t investigating him, you should know better than to leave school grounds without permission so you can show up unannounced at a stranger’s house.”
“He’s not a stranger!”
“Fine, but, Danny, you know John used to be wrapped up in dirty magic.” Still was, probably, I amended silently. He might not be behind Gray Wolf, but I hadn’t forgotten that he had imported a large amount of oil of rose quartz. Just because he hadn’t committed the crime we suspected didn’t mean he was innocent of all crime.
Danny crossed his arms. “You used to cook dirty, too, and you’re a good person.”
His logic made me press my lips together into a grimace. Damn kids and their ability to make things so simple. So black-and-white. “When you’re older you’ll thank me for looking out for you.”
He snorted.
“Anyway,” I said, “magic discussion aside, you’ll be in detention after school for the next week for skipping school.”
“Come on!” He threw up his hands.
I shrugged. “You should get on your knees and thank Pen for convincing them not to suspend you.”
He sighed from deep in his lungs. “This really sucks.”
“Could have been worse, kid,” I said. I shuddered inwardly to think about how bad it could have been. He could have remembered that Ramses Bane was his godfather and gone to him instead.
“Whatever.”
I clenched my fists and pasted a fake smile on my face. “All righty, then. I have to go plan a raid on the Arteries.”
His face perked up. “No shit?”
I didn’t even bother to correct his language. The curse jar was all the way upstairs, and, frankly, I was starting to wonder if the ban on cursing was more for his benefit or mine. “No shit.”
“Will it be dangerous?”
I considered lying, but clearly my attempt to whitewash the darker aspects of my job had backfired big-time recently. “Yeah, but I’ll be careful.”
“Are you going to use any protective potions?”
I chewed on my lip and changed my mind about honesty. What Danny didn’t know might save him lots of worry. “Sure,” I said, “the MEA requires them.”
He visibly relaxed. “All right. Good.”
I nodded. “Good talk,” I said awkwardly. “I’ll, uh, leave you to your homework then.”
“Hey, Kate?”
I paused. “Yeah?”
“You used to like magic, right?”
I paused. Not sure why the question caught me off guard. Maybe I’d spent so much time avoiding magic because it had caused so much pain. But he looked so open and honest, I couldn’t wave off the question with a flippant response. “Yeah, I did like. A lot. Too much.”
“Hmm,” he said. “It’s a shame then.”
“What?”
“That you had to give up something you loved.”
“Sometimes we love things that aren’t good for us, Danny.”
“I just—I wonder if things were different and you tried using magic to help people maybe you’d be happier.”
Something bright and hot exploded behind my eyes. I don’t want to call it an epiphany, but it was definitely one of those sharp moments that mark some significant shift in one’s perception of the world. Problem was, I was wholly unprepared for it, and, besides, I had a kitchen full of cops who were waiting for me to help them plan a raid on people who used magic to hurt people.
“I, uh,” I stammered, “yeah, I guess.” I swallowed hard. An emotion I couldn’t name was swelling in my chest and I suddenly felt ridiculously close to tears. “I need to get upstairs. Don’t forget to do your—yeah, your homework and stuff.” With that I exited as fast as possible, closing the door behind me. I leaned back against the painted surface and tried to catch my breath.