“Careful, Katie. It’s a long fall down from a high horse.”
I gritted my teeth and resisted rising to his bait. “So to recap: You made a completely untraceable truth serum, which has now been stolen by a fucking lunatic who plans to unleash some kind of weapon on the city in two nights.”
He thought it over a second. “ ’Bout sums it up.”
“Not quite,” I said. “Because now you want me to help you find him. Right?”
“Yep.”
My laugh was bitter. “You got a pair of brass fucking balls. I’ll give you that.”
“Look, Kate, I know you’re mad at me. I probably even deserve it.”
I snorted. “Oh, you definitely deserve that and more.”
“Regardless, we have the same goal where Dionysus is concerned.”
“Not really. I want to stop him before he can hurt innocent people. You just want your property back.”
He tilted his head. “Jesus, you’re so jaded. What the fuck happened to you?”
I thunked my glass on the table. “Life happened, John.”
“As it happens, I have just as much investment in protecting this city—more. Especially now.”
Something in his tone made the hair on my neck stand on end. “Why now?”
He leaned back and looked me directly in the eyes. “Because I’m running in Owens’s place for mayor.”
The words were so incomprehensible and unexpected, they left me punch drunk. “Wha—”
He nodded. “The special election will be held in March.”
“What the fresh fuck? You? Mayor?” I laughed out loud now that my brain had started working again. “That’s fucking hilarious.”
His face hardened. Not with doubt but with that look proud people get when they’re doubted. “I don’t see what’s so funny about it.”
“You can’t be serious. You’re a criminal.”
An eyebrow rose. “With a sealed record thanks to an immunity deal.”
I paused. I’d forgotten about that part. After John turned on Uncle Abe and testified against him, he’d gotten a clean bill of legal health thanks to the US attorney’s office. “Hernandez isn’t running?” After Owens died the head of the city council, Pablo Hernandez, took over as acting mayor until a special election could be held. Hernandez was one of Owens’s longtime cronies. I’d just assumed the mayor’s office was as good as his.
John picked at an invisible speck on his leg. “Mr. Hernandez has had a change of heart about his ambitions. He’ll serve until the election is over, but he won’t be running.”
I frowned. “What about Rebis?” Anton Rebis came from old steel money. Despite his full coffers, no one had expected him to give Owens much of a problem in the election. But now Owens was dead. Would the city really pick an Adept, like Volos, over an old-money Mundane candidate?
“Soon Mr. Rebis will be busy doing some damage control over an unfortunate incident involving a minor.”
I blinked. Owens was barely cold, but John had already managed to not only launch a bid for mayor, but also ensure any opposition would be destroyed. “Holy shit,” I said. “You really want this?”
He nodded. “I really do.”
“What’s your angle?”
He shook his head. “Why does there have to be an angle, Kate? Why is it you’re the only one allowed to serve this city?”
That brought me up short. “I didn’t say that—”
“Anyway,” he said, standing, “regardless of my motivations, I’m entirely too busy with the campaign to seek vendetta justice against Dionysus.”
Something clicked for me in the subtext of his little speech. “Oh, wait. I get it.” I stood, too, and went to stare out the windows overlooking the lake. “Now that you’re running for mayor you need to keep your nose clean.”
“Yes,” he said, coming to stand next to me. “Plus, I would like to announce my candidacy on November first.”
I looked up at him and laughed bitterly. “And displaying Dionysus’s head to the masses will do wonders for your campaign.”
His lips twitched. “I knew you were a smart girl.”
I closed my eyes. A sensation of water closing in around me, rising up to cover my head. The moral part of me, the one that had principles, wanted to tell John to go fuck himself. To walk away and let the whole fucking city sink to the bottom of Lake Erie. But the cop part of me—the watchdog—couldn’t surrender the henhouse to wolves like Uncle Abe and Dionysus. I knew which side of me would win. It was always the part that won despite the murky grayness of the choice. When I opened my eyes again, I found John watching me with a solemn expression.
“You hate me again.” A statement.
“I never stopped.”
Turning away, I went to go look at the pictures. I’d have to spin whatever information I got from John with the team. But I reminded myself that one more half-truth in a history of lies wasn’t so much a sin as a means of survival. “What do you know that I don’t about Dionysus?”
“That’s the problem.” John refilled his glass. When he held up the bourbon as if to ask if I wanted a top-off, I shook my head. Now that I knew the score, I couldn’t risk it. He shrugged. “I’m not sure I know much more than you. This guy’s good. Thorough.”
I nodded. “He’s been one step ahead of us this whole time. We only find clues when he wants us to find them.”
“What do you know about his motivations?”
I looked up from the pictures. “The usual. Mom and Dad thoroughly fucked him up, so now he’s making the world pay. Only he’s charismatic enough to sell his revenge as a new sort of religion.”
I started pacing around the living area. Helped me think better as I talked. “So far we know he’s stolen a rape potion and a truth elixir. So it’s a good bet whatever he’s planning involves those two things.”
“Nothing tears down society’s foundations faster than truth and sex,” he said. “What’s his delivery method?”
Worrying my bottom lip with my teeth, I made a pass by the kitchen. “Water sources?”
“Lake Erie is the water source for the entire city. Too large.”
“But he could dump it into one of the filtration tanks.”
“Maybe, but that seems too quiet for his MO. He’ll want fireworks.”