“If there’s anything I can do—you know that, right?”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. Problem was, the one thing I needed help with, I had to do alone. If Morales knew I was calling him right before I headed out to help a known criminal brew a dirty magic potion, he’d be speeding over to arrest me. I forced a laugh. “I thought you saw me as a pain in the ass and wanted me off the team.”
He chuckled low, the sound oddly intimate. “Oh, you’re definitely a pain, but as it happens you’re also not a total loss at this cop stuff.”
“Flatterer.” I sighed because I couldn’t force myself to fake a laugh. “Anyway, I think it’ll all be better soon.”
“I hope so.” In the background, I heard Gardner’s voice echo through the gym. The shuffling sound that followed was probably Morales covering the receiver with his hand. A muffled response filtered through the earpiece. A second later he came back. “Hey, listen, I need to go. BPD just got a tip about a Bane sighting. Shadi and I are going to go check it out.”
“Got it. Be careful, okay?”
He paused for a second and I imagined that maybe he caught something in my tone. But instead, he just said, “Don’t worry about me, Cupcake. Just take care of yourself and the kid.”
I hung up and went to do just that.
* * *
The address Volos had sent ended up being the old Iron Hop Brewery building. The place closed back in the eighties and had remained abandoned since. The red bricks and old chimneys squatted on the banks of the river. This part of the riverbank hadn’t benefited from Volos’s plan to attract Mundane dollars into the Cauldron. Thus the area was decorated with trash and puddles of stagnant water and graffiti from the covens’ Heralds instead of expensive multiuse real estate developments.
I parked down the road from the building and used a pair of binoculars to scope out the broken windows and boarded doors. There weren’t any cars parked out front, which meant Volos either hadn’t arrived or had parked elsewhere. His text had said to meet in an hour, which meant I still had ten minutes to case the joint.
I didn’t see any lights on inside the warehouse, but it wasn’t dark enough outside yet to tell for sure. The sun was setting on the far side of Babylon, where Lake Erie spread out like a freshwater sea. The splashes of reds and pinks might have been pretty to the naive eye, but to my jaded ones, they were just reflections of the pollution that tainted everything in this city.
Before long, a black sports car pulled through the gates and drove to the large bay door set into the facade of the building. It wasn’t a vehicle I’d seen before, but I definitely recognized John’s profile through the window.
I was relieved to see he’d come alone. Part of me had been wondering if he’d bring that bitchy lawyer along, too, just to make my indentured servitude legally binding.
How do you know this isn’t a trap? my practical inner voice challenged.
“Only one way to find out,” I said aloud. I threw off the seat belt, checked the piece at my shoulder, and touched the amulet hidden inside my shirt for good luck. “Here goes nothing.”
The street was so empty it might as well have had tumble-weeds blowing down the center. The algae stench of stagnant water mixed with the stink of trash from the landfill down the road. Most of the buildings in this part of town were warehouses and abandoned tenements. Inside they were like ant farms filled with potion junkies, hookers, and mentally ill homeless people who’d never touched a potion but had nowhere else to turn. Maybe I imagined the eyes glittering in the shadows like polished dimes, but I doubted it. Not much happened in the Cauldron without someone seeing it. Problem was, when shit went down, witnesses had a tendency to scatter like rats escaping from a sinking ship.
When I finally reached the building, I knocked on the metal door to the right of the larger bay. Not five seconds later, it opened and the void it left was filled with John Volos. He didn’t smile or offer a greeting. He just grabbed my arm and pulled me inside before I could slap his hand away. Once he slammed and locked the door behind us, he jerked his head, saying, “This way.”
Several things hit me at once. First, the air stank of wet concrete and stale urine. No doubt the walls had seen their share of vagrants exchanging all sorts of indignities for hits of a cheap buzz potion. The temperature was a good ten degrees cooler here than it had been outside, but my palms were sweating. The front of the warehouse was empty except for the car, which clicked as its engine cooled. “Hold on,” I said, grabbing his shirtsleeve when he turned to walk away. “What the hell is this place?”
His jaw clenched with annoyance. “I just bought the building for a new business venture.”
I raised a brow. “A legal venture?”
He shrugged.
I nodded. “Do you have the supplies in the car?”
He smiled like I’d made a joke. “Everything’s already set up. Come on.” He looked eager, like a kid who wanted to show off a forbidden treasure. I shook off the thought as soon as it arrived. John wasn’t the mischievous teenager I used to worship anymore. He was a man with an addiction to power.
“Kate?” he called, sounding impatient. I jerked my head up to see him standing twenty feet away next to a set of stairs. I jumped into motion. The sooner we could get this done, the sooner I could get as far away as possible from the confusing feelings that rose up every time I was around him.
The stairs curved up to the second story and dumped us at the edge of what used to be the brewing floor. Huge metal-encased windows on three of the walls provided late afternoon light. The sun I’d watched earlier was now positioned perfectly to send a warm glow into the old building, making the decay and ruin look almost otherworldly.
“We still have a lot of work to do just to get the place cleared out,” he said, almost apologetically.
“So you’re going to what—gut the joint and turn it into a mall or lofts?”
His lips twitched at my jaded tone. “Nope. This will be a pet project. A new hobby.”
I raised my brows.
“A few years ago I found an old alchemist’s grimoire at an estate sale. Inside were the most wonderful recipes for spirits and liqueurs. And then it hit me: Alchemists basically invented distillation, so why not start an artisanal alchemist liqueur company?”
I blinked at him. “Really?”
His smiled wobbled. “Yeah, why?”