I shot him a look. “Peachy.” I snatched the package of cigs from him and closed the door before he could offer any advice.
Returning to Abe, I tossed the pack across the table. “There.”
“Old Goat Ultra Lights?” he said with distaste. For years the old man’s brand had been Viceroyals, with their purple rolling paper and golden filters. In a place like Crowley the “king of cigarettes” would be more precious than diamonds.
“You’re not exactly in a position to be picky here.”
He smiled as he made a show of packing the smokes against the table with his bound hands before selecting the perfect specimen. He looked up expectantly for me to do the honors. The damned lighter was stubborn and took five flicks to catch. On the outside, I probably looked annoyed. But inside, I was counting to ten over and over and reminding myself to keep it together.
Finally, he leaned back and exhaled his first drag in a plume of gray smoke. “Blue Moon’s coming.” He’d said it too casually to be idle chitchat.
“I’m well aware.”
He paused with the cancer stick jutting from his mouth. With the fiery tip and the smoke spilling from between his lips, he suddenly reminded me of a dragon. The comparison was apt, I thought, because one wrong move would definitely get me burned.
“Freaks keepin’ you busy?”
All he got was a tip of my chin in response.
He raised his cuffed hands to remove the cig from his lips. “Gonna be a lot busier soon enough.”
I sighed. If I let him, he’d play this game all day. “Which begs the question, why am I here when there are criminals back in the city I could be arresting?”
“Because I want to do you a favor.”
With a snort, I leaned forward, glaring. “Sell that load of bullshit to someone who doesn’t know you.” I glanced at the digital clock over the two-way. He’d already wasted fifteen minutes of my time. “Start talking or I’m out of here.”
He tilted his head down. “As you wish. It may surprise you that even in this prison, I still receive updates from some of my previous business associates—”
“You mean the midlevel potion cookers who can barely hang on to their corners now that the coven’s disbanded?”
“Don’t interrupt me, girl!” His hands slammed down on the table so hard the cigarettes flew to the floor.
The outburst was so unexpected and violent, I reared back. When I was younger, I’d known how to tiptoe around the land mines of Abe’s temper. But the years and distance had dulled those old protective instincts, and I’d clumsily tripped over the wire that was his obsessive hatred of disrespect.
But I wasn’t an awed teenager anymore. I was a grown-assed woman who’d stared down her share of psychos as well as loaded guns. Abe’s temper was as hot as the barrel of a discharged gun, but he couldn’t hurt me anymore. At least not with his fists.
“If you speak to me like that one more time, I will walk out of this room and never return,” I said in an ice-shard voice. “Am I clear?”
His jaw clenched and unclenched, like he wanted to chew me up and spit me out. But as much as my refusal to bow down and show my neck to him pissed Abe off, he still needed me for something. So he unclenched his hands and set them in his lap, and the anger on his face cleared as quickly as a summer shower.
He cleared his throat. “As I was saying,” he continued in a quiet tone, “my associates have informed me there is a new player in the Cauldron.”
“What kind of player?” I hooked an elbow over the back of my chair to portray a casualness I didn’t feel. My heart was still thumping from the outburst. I might have called him on the bluster, but the shadowy part of me that remembered the sting of his fist had flinched.
“Raven.”
My brow rose and my heart quickened from something much more optimistic than fear. Morales and I had just talked about the possibility that Aphrodite’s thief might be a Raven. They weren’t usually strong potion cookers themselves, so in addition to money, they stole potions from coven stashes to sell for even more profit. As one might expect, they were considered the bottom feeders of the magic world. And if the Cauldron had a new one in play, things were about to get interesting.
“So?” I said to Abe, not wanting to betray my interest. “What’s one more vulture in the ecosystem?”
“During a Blue Moon?” He raised a brow and pursed his lips to challenge my casual attitude. “Especially one this psycho.” Abe leaned forward, pointing the cig at me for emphasis. “Calls himself Dionysus on account of he thinks he’s the reincarnation of that deity.”
My brows slammed down. “Dio—the Roman god of wine?”
“Greek,” Abe corrected. “Regardless, he’s crazier than a shithouse rat. And you know what happens when you mix reckless with crazy, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, shooting him a pointed look. “I’m pretty familiar with that particular combination.”
“Please, Katie. You can do better than that. Besides, I am many things, but I am never reckless.”
He had a point. Everything Uncle Abe did was calculated to impose maximum pain. Which begged a question. “Why are you coming to me with this? You could have contacted the coven leaders.”
He shrugged. “Yes, Aphrodite in particular would surely pay handsomely for this information.”
I kept my features poker-straight, but inside I was wondering how on earth he’d heard about the robbery so fast. “So why not approach her instead?”
Abe took another drag of his cigarette and blew out a succession of rings. I couldn’t help but imagine them as little nooses.
“As it happens, I seem to have developed a troubling condition since I’ve been in prison.”
I frowned. If he’d been diagnosed with some sort of disease, surely I would have been informed. “What’s that?”
“A conscience.” He chuckled, but the insincerity made it sound rusty. “As I get older and the days grow shorter, I’ve had to come to terms with certain truths.”
“Such as?”
“One day I’m going to die. And when that happens, what will I have to show for my time on this planet? Since you and the boy left, I have no blood family to speak of.” He shook his head sadly. “The regrets compound with each passing day.” He at least made an effort to sound sincere, I’d give him that. I briefly wondered if he’d even practiced that look in the scrap of polished metal that passed as a jail cell mirror. Either way, I wasn’t buying the expression or this performance.