Aphrodite Johnson was the Hierophant of the Mystical Coven of the Sacred Orgasm. As a sacred alchemical hermaphrodite, Aphrodite was both a he and a she, and both sides were vindictive as hell.
“If the John Doe is Basil,” Morales said, “whoever killed him is gonna have themselves a real bad day once Aphrodite gets ahold of them.”
“That’s assuming Basil is the victim and not the one who set fire to the lab,” Val added.
“Either way, I’m pretty sure someone’s going to be visiting the Hierophant today,” Morales said. “And I’m really hoping it’s Detective Duffy and not us.”
“No shit.” To Val, I said, “It safe to go inside yet?”
She nodded. “Arson investigator is inside with Duffy. They said you should go in when you got here.”
Morales and I left them and headed inside.
Homes in that area of Babylon had been built in the 1920s to house steelworkers and their families. The bungalows had deep porches where people used to gather on warm nights to chat with neighbors. But once the steel industry died, neighborhoods like this one had gone on life support. The ones not being used as hex dens or cook houses sat abandoned, just like the dreams of all those workers who lost their jobs.
Two darkened window frames resembled bruised eyes, and the doorway gaped in a silent scream. We went up the brick stairs and picked our way through the rubble to walk inside. A potion fire doesn’t behave like a normal fire. Depending on the types of chemicals and magic used, the reactions can be extremely varied. In this case, the explosion turned everything made from natural materials deep blue. All of the synthetic materials, from plastic to polyester, melted on the spot.
From the outside, the structure had still been recognizable as having once been a house, but on the inside, it looked like something out of a nightmare. Anything not destroyed by fire or transformed by magic had been ruined by the water used to douse the flames. As we entered, our boots sank into a slurry of dark-blue water and black ash.
The walls between what would have been the living room and the kitchen were gone. In the other room, Duffy spoke to a man with a head as bald and black as an eight ball.
“Took you long enough,” Duffy said by way of greeting. He had a receding hairline but the fit frame of a man who refused to surrender to the gravity of middle age.
“They got every road leading in here blocked off,” Morales said.
The man I didn’t know responded, “Had to evacuate earlier on account of all the chemicals.” He stepped forward and held out a hand. “Ralph Perry, arson investigator, BFD.”
Morales introduced himself and the fact we were with the MEA task force. “And this is Detective Prospero, Kate.”
He wasn’t a wizard, so I shook with my right hand. If he’d been an Adept, aka a “Leftie,” I would have used my dominant left hand instead. “You had a chance to determine whether the blaze was caused by a cook gone bad?”
“Someone sure wanted us to think it was.” Perry’s lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile. “But it’s pretty clear to me based on the fire pattern that the perpetrator used the Bunsen burners to set fire to the chemicals.”
“How is that different from a normal potion-lab explosion?” Morales asked.
“Most explosions in alchemy labs happen when a wizard doesn’t know what he’s doing and mixes two chemicals that don’t play well together. That can create a nasty fireball like we had here, but that sort of explosion doesn’t leave much behind.” He waved us to follow him further into the house. “Our boy had his lab set up in the master bath.”
“Why not the kitchen?” Morales asked.
“It’s too exposed,” I said, answering automatically. “Bathroom labs are easier to hide from nosey neighbors and defend if someone breaks in to steal the stash.”
Perry shot me a look.
“Prospero used to be a cook for the Votary Coven,” Duffy supplied in a shitty tone.
“She’s right, though,” Perry said.
I decided I liked him a lot.
Down the hallway, we went to the second doorway on the left. Or what used to be a doorway. Dr. Thomas Franklin kneeled on the broken tiles that used to be the floor.
“Franky,” I called.
“Prospero, you slumming today?”
“Oh, you know, I like to be where all the action’s at.”
He snorted and rose from the crouch until he towered over the cramped room. His white lab coat contrasted starkly against his dark skin. “Shiiiiit, I thought you were here to see me.”
Duffy cleared his throat. “Can you update them on the vic?”
The ME moved to the side so we could get a better view of the body. The skin blackened with patches of pink and red showing through, and the clothes had melted like shrink wrap to the trunk and limbs. The smell was beyond description. Hot bile rose in the back of my throat.
“Damned shame when a perfectly good white boy gets fried like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
“How do you know he was white?” Morales asked.
“The DL they found was a Caucasian male named Basil Valentine,” Duffy said.
“Of course, that could have just as easily have fallen out of the perp’s pocket,” I said.
Franklin nodded. “Agreed. I’ve got my assistant calling in the dental records, so we’re not confirmed on identity—or the race—yet. However, I have been able to identify cause of death.”
Morales held out his hands. “Gee, could it have been fire?”
Franklin pursed his lips. “No, smartass, he was dead before the explosion.” He knelt again and used a gloved finger to tilt the head. A wet crunch filled the small space.
That sound, combined with the nauseating scent of charred flesh, meant I wasn’t too far from needing to excuse myself for some fresh air.
“He’s got a bullet hole here.” He pointed to a dark hole about the size of a fingertip next to the vic’s left eye.
“Why blow up the place if he was already dead?” I asked.
Perry answered. “Because criminals are dumb. Or maybe they were sending a message. Or they just liked to watch things burn. We won’t know the answer until y’all find who did this.”
When he said that, he was staring at Morales and me, not Duffy, who was the lead homicide detective for the BPD. “Um. Duffy?” I said. “You forget to explain to Perry that you’re the lead on this case?”
Duffy cleared his throat. “Can we talk?” He held out a hand, indicating we should precede him farther down the hall. Morales and I exchanged a look but marched back into the kitchen.
Once we were out of that cramped hallway, I sucked in a lungful of cleanish air. The windows there had been blown out, so a slight breeze reached me. It still smelled like smoke, but at least it didn’t have the nauseating ozone and barbecue scent that permeated the bathroom.
Once Duffy came out, we rounded on him with identical bullish expressions.
“All right, here’s the thing,” he began. “I’m sure you’ve heard that murders are up for the last few weeks.”
I didn’t nod, and neither did Morales. Any indication we sympathized with his plight would only encourage him.
“Well, Captain’s been riding my ass about closure rates. It’s not our fault. Bodies have been stacking up since Easter. My detectives are working overtime just to process the scenes.”
“What’s that got to do with us?” Morales said.
He waved a hand back toward the hallway. “You saw it yourself. That’s a potion lab, which means the guy who got whacked is probably a wizard for one of the covens.”
“The main word in that sentence was whacked, as in homicide. We work arcane crimes that violate federal statutes.”
“How many of those you closed lately?” he challenged. “Last I heard, your bosses in Detroit weren’t too happy with how few major coven leaders you brought to justice lately.”
He wasn’t wrong. Less than a week earlier, our boss, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Miranda Gardener, had read our team the riot act about our lack of big busts.
“Pretty sure the suits in Detroit wouldn’t consider solving the murder of a low-level wizard a win,” Morales shot back.