Page 79 of Lovesick Gods

“Do you know what you want, sir?” Janey asked Dunkirk, even though he hadn’t turned back to her. She wasn’t fazed by someone who looked tough and was capable of flashing several 100 dollar bills in her face.

“Sean isn’t here for the Danishes, Janey,” Mal said, keeping his hands folded and Lucy behind him. “Why don’t you step into the back?”

While Janey caught wise of the situation and gave a swift nod before making scarce, Dunkirk squared his shoulders. Thankfully, there were no other customers.

“Can’t a man order an afternoon snack in peace?” Dunkirk said with his faint Irish brogue, hand drifting inside his jacket.

“He can. As long as he doesn’t follow up his order by asking directions to where his ex and son live.”

“And unborn baby, you’ll recall.” Dunkirk flashed a nasty grin and took a slow step forward. “I’m entitled to what’s mine, Cho. Something you fail to understand. I know they’re still inthe neighborhood. I know Carla works at that bar. Smart move, making sure she always has an escort when she leaves. You pay the bouncer extra? Or is that just part of the favors they owe you? And here I thought men like that usually paid you on their knees.”

Lucy’s hip subtly nudged Mal’s. Trash like Dunkirk wouldn’t rattle him, but he didn’t care for bigots falling to low tactics just to rile him. Flicking the switch for the cold field, he started to slowly expand the radius toward Dunkirk. With Lucy close behind him, she barely even shivered.

“I’ve warned you before, Sean. You stay out of my streets. Period. I don’t care what you think is yours. This neighborhood isn’t. It’s only a courtesy to your father that you’re still breathing. So back down, back off, and get the fuck out. Next time, I won’t ask nicely.”

The field encompassed Dunkirk before he could take another step, his expression instantly betraying that he felt the change in temperature. Shuddering, he scowled as a thin coating of frost began to form over his exposed skin—good. If it was powerful even against Dunkirk, it would work on Zeus too.

“You f-freak,” Dunkirk snarled. “Can’t even f-fight me like a man?”

“You only get a pass today because I’m in a good mood,” Mal inclined his head, “and Lucy does so love this bakery. Would be a shame to rough it up.”

“I don’t know, Mickey,” Lucy draped her arm over Mal’s shoulder, leaning tight against him but peering around his body with a wicked smile. She let a coil of vines grow from her fingertips gently down Mal’s arm, while keeping her other hand behind her, ready to summon the underground weeds through the floor to ensnare Dunkirk if he tried anything. “I could be persuaded to be bad. We could pay for any repairs. I’m sure Janey would understand.”

“True…” Mal expanded the radius as Dunkirk tried to back out of it, not allowing the man to escape its chill.

Teeth chattering now, Dunkirk raised his hands to show he hadn’t drawn his weapon. “I’ll b-be on my way.”

Mal waited for a fresh shiver to leave Dunkirk before he turned the cold field off completely. He knew this only postponed a future confrontation, but he didn’t look forward to an all-out war with the Irish if he killed the man. Another option would be preferable, but if such a thing presented itself, it would not involve this asshole getting his way.

When Mal and Lucy moved from the entrance to let him pass, he paused and said, “See you real soon, Cho,” even with the frost still flaking from his skin.

Removing his sunglasses, Mal watched through the shop windows as Dunkirk headed away from the neighborhood.

“Coast’s clear, Janey!” Lucy called, retracting her vines from Mal’s shoulder.

For now,but this problem was not going away on its own.

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The case against Ludgate had hit another dead end. Danny had nothing new to go on after failing to catch the man on his patterned routes, and he knew he wouldn’t get lucky twice. Sightings of Ludgate had grown fewer and farther between, and no new evidence from the heists had presented itself.

Old-fashioned legwork and investigating led Danny to the glassworks and other old acquaintances of Ludgate’s. None of them had seen him, and he didn’t have any real friends. But it was strange; Ludgate’s paper trail only went back so far. Before then, he didn’t seem to exist.

Danny knew the signs of a false identity when he found them, so he dug deeper and it didn’t take long to discover the truth. Ludgate’s real name was Cassius Dougal Junior. His mother had changed his name after she divorced the father. A Metal leaning mother and Dark leaning father had led to a Light Elemental—it wasn’t unheard of, even if elements tended to be hereditary, a recessive gene could still slip through. Ludgate had a record under his current name—petty thefts, mild public disturbances. There were similar charges for young Cassius.

“Maybe he isn’t targeting Zeus for the fame,” John said. “You might have had something to do with bringing him in once.”

“These cases were too long ago,” Danny argued. “Ludgate lost his mother a few years back. Instead of his record escalating, that’s when everything slowed down, after she died and he got his job at the glassworks. I didn’t meet him as Zeus until the other night.”

Ludgate had been fired from the glassworks for unprofessional conduct.

“He was always unstable. Had a temper,” the assistant manager, Chris Stantz, told Danny when he questioned him. “But, man, six months ago, helostit.”

Six months ago, when Thanatos was defeated—that was too great a coincidence. There was a bigger piece to the puzzle Danny was missing. Rick would have been able to figure it out, even with the lacking evidence. They’d always complemented each other so well, noticed things the other didn’t. Danny and his father thought too much alike to make good partners in quite the same way.

Every time he passed other officers in the precinct, he felt their eyes on him, as if they were thinking the same thing—that Danny was useless without Rick. It didn’t help that John always lingered when he was in the office, like he wanted to take upRick’s desk and fill the gap left behind, but he never asked. And Danny didn’t offer.

He gamed with Andre Thursday night as promised—notHeists. They playedDiablo III; Andre a Crusader, Danny a Demon Hunter. It was definitely more fun than the previous game night. But something hung in the air, the sense that Andre was using kid gloves around him and trying too hard to cheer him up.

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