Dead Waters Read Online Free PDF

and all,” Jane said. “You’re right. Connor will probably talk some sense into them.”
    “Let’s hope so,” I said. “Hopefully a little brotherly love should calm Captain Emo and his master down.”
    I laid my head back against the seat and remained silent for the rest of our cab ride. When it dropped us off at our East Village coffee shop cover operation on Eleventh Street, we hit the sidewalk right outside of the large red doors that led into the Lovecraft. We raced out of the rain and into the café, embracing its warmth and its dark wood floors and exposed brick walls that were adorned with movie posters on both sides of the long, open space. Most of the décor was a clutter of mismatched furniture—comfy chairs, low café tables—and a long, wooden counter ran along the entire right side of room. The coffeehouse wasn’t full, but the faces I did see gathered around in the café area were all people I knew from the Department hidden beyond the cover operation.
    “Looks like half the Department is on a coffee break,” I said, acknowledging the throng of coworkers that had assembled in the public café area.
    “What’s going on?” Jane asked. “Why is everyone up here in the coffeehouse?”
    “I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe they’re fumigating the Department again. Don’t tell me. . . they can’t get the smell of rotting zombies out of the curtains in the hidden office area.”
    An especially familiar face came into view as my partner, Connor Christos, came walking over to us. “Not quite, kid,” Connor said, his hands jammed down into the pockets of his beaten old trench coat. His clothes underneath it were a bit dressier than my usual jeans and T-shirt but my partner always looked a little wrinkled around the edges. His simple black tie was loose and skewed to one side. As if the thick white streaks in his sandy brown hair weren’t enough, the grim look on his face made him look older than his midthirties. “We were in the middle of one of our all-night financial meetings, when the Inspectre took a call from Dave Davidson downtown. Quimbley’s got the details. Wouldn’t tell me a thing except I needed to get you down here.”
    Ever since a set of even more draconian Departmental cuts than usual a few weeks ago, and the loss of lots of ancillary staff members, I knew things had been rough, but I hadn’t realized it was so bad they had to be going over the books in the midnight hours. I switched my focus to farther back in the coffeehouse over by the service counter where Inspectre Argyle Quimbley was surrounded by a few other people. The old Brit leader of Other Division was in his usual tweed, twirling the ends of his walrus-like mustache as he looked over a folder. Next to him was a dark-skinned woman whose hair was pulled back off her shoulders in a no-nonsense ponytail—Allorah Daniels, doing double duty as a member of our governing Enchancellors as well as our resident vampire hunter. She held a folder identical to the one in the Inspectre’s hands.
    I headed across the room to them, addressing my boss. Connor and Jane followed. “Inspectre. . . ?”
    Despite the concern on the old man’s face, he smiled when he saw me. “Hello, my boy,” he said.
    “What’s going on?” I asked as a horrible thought dawned on me. “We’re not. . . fired , are we?” I could barely say the words, and when I did, a panic rose in my chest. The last thing I wanted was to be forced back into a life of thieving to survive in the skyrocketing real estate market that was Manhattan. My apartment down in SoHo was my last holdover from those days, the one thing I had kept to ease into the transition to using my powers for good.
    The Inspectre sighed. “I won’t lie,” he said. “The budget doesn’t look good.”
    “ That’s an understatement,” snorted Allorah from next to him. “We’ll be lucky if the Enchancellorship keep their jobs.”
    Something in me snapped. “No offense,