Cursed Moon (Prospero's War) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Hierophant of the O Coven, Aphrodite Johnson was in possession of both.
    I sighed. “More than I’d like, honestly. The Hierophant was an old ally of Uncle Abe’s.” Aphrodite also knew my mother very well, but I didn’t want to get into my mother’s scandalous associations at the moment.
    “How did she escape getting caught up in the net when he was arrested?” Morales asked.
    I didn’t bother correcting his presumption of using the feminine pronoun with Aphrodite. We’d get to the Hierophant’s gender situation eventually.
    “The O’s are a special case,” Eldritch said with a scowl. “Back in the ’seventies the Hierophant’s predecessor, Matahari Jenkins, figured out how to get the coven registered as a religious organization on account of them using sex magic as a form of worship, which is why they call Aphrodite a Hierophant instead of just a wizard. Anyway, now they get to skirt all sorts of pesky laws and avoid paying taxes.”
    Morales laughed. “That’s actually kind of brilliant.”
    “It would be if it didn’t mean that a lot of their members get away with everything from prostitution to human trafficking and rape,” I added. That wiped the smile off Morales’s face. “Why are you asking about Johnson, sir?”
    Eldritch crossed his arms. “It seems one of the O’s ‘houses of worship’ was robbed last night.”
    I frowned. “Okay? What does that have to do with us?”
    “She claims the thief got away with about fifty thousand dollars’ worth of sex magic potions.”
    “Again,” Gardner said, “how is that our problem?”
    Eldritch sighed and dropped the combative expression. “Look, I’m up to my ass in potion freaks who think the full moons are excuses to raise hell all over the city. I don’t have enough detectives on staff to deal with Johnson right now, especially with Prospero on your team.”
    Technically, I still worked for the BPD. The MEA paid for my overtime, but the city of Babylon still cut my paychecks. The task force model had been pioneered by the MEA a few years earlier to get more local law enforcement involved in bringing down large covens. It helped the feds navigate around some pesky jurisdictional issues, and allowed local cops like me to get experience and major federal busts under their gun belts.
    My brows rose. “In other words, you suspect this is another vengeance stunt.”
    “Something like that.” Eldritch nodded.
    “Explain,” Gardner said.
    “Aphrodite is famous for holding grudges over the slightest insult. S/he’s called the cops a couple of times after framing enemies for crimes they didn’t commit.”
    “If you knew she was framing them, why isn’t she in jail?” Morales asked.
    “She’s slippery,” Eldritch said. “And has a lawyer that’s a crafty son of a bitch.”
    “So let me see if I understand. You don’t have the manpower to send on a wild goose chase, but you’re more than willing to send federal agents on one? We’re already saving your ass by backing up your patrols. And, by the way, we’re still waiting on those extra officers we were promised to help my team bring down the covens.”
    “You were cleared to have Detective Duffy from the First Precinct.”
    The First was the main precinct in the Mundane areas of Babylon. Despite being an Adept, Duffy had managed to work his way up to a reputation as one of the best homicide detectives in the city. In Gardner’s opinion, the more Adept cops she could get fighting the covens, the better the MEA’s chances of closing some major busts. Problem was, most Adepts in law enforcement went into forensics or lab work. We tended to be pretty scarce on the investigative side, since most cops distrusted Adepts to solve cases without employing magic.
    Upon hearing Duffy’s name, I grimaced, bracing for Gardner’s explosion.
    Instead of yelling, she gritted her teeth. “You know damned well Duffy turned us down.”
    Eldritch shrugged. “Yeah, I heard that. Too bad,”