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

choked with weeds. Sort of like Babylon’s justice system.
    I walked across the lot toward the front door of Rooster’s Gym. Downstairs, the building housed a bodega that sold cold drinks, cheap smokes, and titty magazines. Upstairs, though, was the space the MEA task force used as our office. It used to be one of those old-school boxing gyms before the steel bubble burst and the economy dried up faster than flop sweat on the mats.
    Climbing the steps up to the gym, I inhaled the scent of body odor on stale vinyl and old varnish on scarred wood. Sunstreamed through huge steel-framed windows, casting an ethereal glow on the old boxing ring that dominated the center of the huge room.
    In the center of the ring was a large whiteboard covered with a map of Babylon, where Gardner kept track of calls we responded to on behalf of the BPD. Technically, we were only supposed to lend a hand in the Cauldron, but with the double full moons that month the circuits had been so overwhelmed with calls, we sometimes had to venture into the Mundane parts of the city, too. I was the only local cop on the task force; the map helped the rest of the team find their way around.
    At that moment Morales ducked a head from behind a wall of the makeshift lab our team wizard, Kichiri “Mesmer” Ren, had erected to separate his work from the investigative side of things. Mez cooked up defensive weapons for us and broke down potions to help solve cases there, but the space also served as the coffee room. I went to join them.
    The two men stood over the coffee siphon with mugs at the ready. Morales stood about half a head taller than the wizard. Mez’s long dreadlocks were their natural brown this morning, but the sunlight caught the small bells and magical amulets he’d woven into the strands. A lab coat covered the top of his outfit, but the distressed jeans and motorcycle boots were visible below. In addition to basically being a magical genius, he was also the team’s snappiest dresser. Technically, he was a civilian employee of the MEA instead of a sworn officer, but he was as integral to our success on cases as any of us cops.
    The coffee contraption looked like something out of a mad scientist’s lab. A glass siphon sat on a metal stand holding another glass bulb of water. Using gravity and the alchemy of heat, water, and strong coffee beans, the machine turned out a brew that wasn’t a potion, but sure tasted like magic.
    Neither spoke to me as I approached, but I didn’t mind. Watching the coffee percolate through the contraption was something of a morning ritual. As usual, Morales had his favorite SEMPER FI marines mug. Mez’s had a picture of Sir Isaac Newton and the quote I CAN CALCULATE THE MOTION OF HEAVENLY BODIES, BUT NOT THE MADNESS OF PEOPLE .
    I went to the cabinet over Mez’s collection of Erlenmeyer flasks and pulled out the WORLD’S BEST SISTER mug Danny had given me for Mother’s Day a few years earlier.
    “Aha!” Mez said, suddenly. “It’s ready.” He started to elbow Morales out of the way.
    “As ranking agent I should get the first cup,” Morales said.
    A throat cleared from the doorway. We turned to find Special Agent Miranda Gardner standing at the entrance of the lab. That morning she wore simple brown pantsuit with an ivory shell. Her shoes bore a no-nonsense inch-tall heel, also in brown. The only jewelry she wore was a tiger-eye cabochon ring she never seemed to take off her middle finger.
    “My office, two minutes,” she said. She had that look on her face. The one that meant she either hadn’t had her coffee yet or had just gotten off the phone with Captain Eldritch. In her hand she held a simple white mug half-full of the instant coffee she preferred, so it was safe she wasn’t about to pull rank at the coffeepot. “And Morales?” she added.
    He raised his brows. Mez took advantage of Morales’s distraction to fill his own mug.
    Gardner smiled tightly. “Make that second highest