Dirty Magic Read Free Page B

keeping an eye on Babylon,” Eldritch offered, “waiting to see who would step up to fill the power vacuum.”
    I snorted. “No one would be dumb enough to do that while Uncle Abe’s still alive.” As I spoke I kept a careful eye on Gardner to see her reaction to my casually claiming Abraxas Prospero as kin. She didn’t even blink, which meant she’d known who I was before she walked into that room. Part of me was relieved not to have to explain the connection or how I’d walked away from Uncle Abe and his coven a decade earlier. In fact, the last time I’d seen him was when I watched his trial on TV with the rest of the city. During the testimony, he’d smiled at the camera like he’d been savoring a juicy secret. I shivered, shaking off the memory.
    “So you figure whoever ordered that antimony is trying at least to consolidate the Votaries.” I crossed my arms and tried to sort through all the angles.
    Votary
is another name for wizards who specialize in an alchemical form of dirty magic. In the dirty magic food chain, Votaries are at the top, followed by the Os, who specialize in sex magic, and the Sanguinarians, who deal in dirty blood potions.
    “That’s one of our theories.” Gardner was watching me carefully now that she knew I had criminal blood in my veins.
    It had been five years since Abe earned his all-expenses-paid trip to Crowley Penitentiary. Before his downfall, he’d been the grand wizard of the Votary Coven and the godfather who’d kept all the other covens in line. Once he was behind bars, no one had the balls to come forward and declare themselves the new kings of the Cauldron, so the covens splintered, which resulted in lots of turf battles. If Eldritch and Gardner were right about someone’s trying to make a power play, we were looking at a lot more dead bodies piling up before this was all said and done. But that was a pretty huge
if
.
    “Antimony has lots of uses besides alchemy, Special Agent.”
    She crossed her arms and smirked at me. “That’s true, I suppose. But we’ve checked the official shipment manifests of every freighter that’s come into Babylon in the last month. No shipments of antimony showed up. That means whoever received it was trying to keep it off the record.”
    “Look, even if you’re right and the antimony was used in the potion Harkins was on,” I countered, “it doesn’t mean we’re looking at consolidation of power. It could just be a new wiz who wants to make his mark.”
    “You could be right.” She nodded. “That’s one of the reasons we sent Harkins to make a buy. We were hoping that once we knew who was dealing the potion we could convince them to flip on the distributor.”
    “But he got hooked before he could report back to you,” I said.
    She nodded.
    “What’s the potion called?”
    Gardner exchanged a tense glance with Eldritch, who’d remained tellingly silent during the exchange. No doubt about it. Special Agent Gardner was in charge. “The street name is Gray Wolf.”
    “Clever,” I said.
    “Why?” Eldritch asked. He’d worked the Arcane beat for years, but he was still a Mundane. Sometimes the intricacies of the craft eluded him.
    “The gray wolf is the alchemical symbol for antimony,” Gardner explained.
    “Shit,” I said. “If this stuff takes off, we’re toast.” From what I’d seen, Gray Wolf created both immunity to defensive magic and a ravenous craving for human flesh. Plus it acted incredibly fast on the user’s body chemistry.
    “And now that Harkins is dead, we’re back at square one,” Gardner said.
    My stomach dipped. I didn’t regret killing Harkins, but I was sorry my actions made getting the potion off the streets more difficult. “How can I help?”
    “Nothing beyond a detailed report on your altercation with Harkins. Maybe you saw something we can use.”
    I nodded absently. “You mentioned that you thought Gray Wolf was alchemical. Does that mean you had a wizard analyze the