Magie Noire

By Rurouni Star

A/N: Susan is, by far, my absolute least favorite character in the entirety of the Dresden Files. But it's not her fault, I've decided. She's written like a moron. Consider this my attempt at rehabilitating her character.

Chapter Six

Thank god my source was a cheap date.

I peered approvingly around the pub she'd chosen. It wasn't cheap cheap, mind you. McAnally's was a basement bar with a low ceiling and a few rickety fans, but it had a certain hole-in-the-wall quality to it. I could smell the wood-burning stove as I headed up to the bar. I was a little surprised to find it open this time of day, but it had the feel of a community bar — I recognized a lunch crowd when I saw one.

I ordered a pint of Guinness, and got something clearly home-brewed instead. Beggars with splitting headaches can't be choosers, so I headed over to one of the tables against the wall and nursed the drink while I waited. Maybe it was the beer, or just the atmosphere, but the pain in my head lessened just a little bit.

The woman I was waiting on showed up about ten minutes after I'd sit down. She was a dark-skinned, brown-haired woman, with a few inches on me and a whole lot more appeal. Even in business attire, Susan Rodriguez turned heads. I envied her legs, but not her high heels.

Susan smiled brightly, and click-clacked over toward my table. She threw herself into the chair opposite me. "Well," she said fondly. "If it isn't my favorite grumpy cop. You're looking even grumpier than usual today, too. One of Mac's beers should help with that. He's kind of like a miracle-worker."

I frowned to emphasize my mood, but Susan was right — the beer was fantastic, now that I was of a mind to pay attention to it. I filed the pub away in my head for a rainy day, and vowed I'd come back to try the drinks when I was in a better place to appreciate them. "I'll pay for lunch," I told her, though I'd already implied it over the phone. "I'm afraid I can't give you any hot tips today. This one's sensitive, and I haven't told next-of-kin yet. But if you can do me a solid, I'll keep it in mind for later."

Susan nodded. She knew I was good for my favors. I trusted, in turn, that she'd keep her mouth shut when I really needed it. That was a rare quality in a reporter. It was downright shocking for a woman who worked at a rag one step up from the tabloids. "I take it you've been working a day or two already," she observed. She didn't point out the big black circles under my eyes or the clothes that were starting to look a little too well-worn. She was classy like that.

"Yeah," I said. "And getting nowhere. Well. Maybe somewhere, but nowhere I want to be, and nowhere useful." I jerked my head toward the bar. "Let's go grab some food. God knows when I'll get the chance to eat again."

Susan ordered a steak sandwich and fries, and took back a pint of the same beer I'd been given. Now that I looked, I wasn't sure the bar sold any other kind. I shrugged, asked for another of what she was having, and set some cash down on the bar. The tall, graying man behind the counter silently counted out my change, and I realized that I still hadn't heard him say a word. He'd grunted every once in a while, in a general, affirmative manner, but that was about it.

Maybe he was having a shitty day too.

Susan and I watched as the bartender fried up our food on the woodstove right behind the bar. I knew it would have been polite to try and make small talk while we waited, but I just didn't have it in me. Eventually, the bartender slid our food out to us, and we headed back to our table near the wall.

I slid back into my chair, and considered Susan seriously over bites of sandwich. "You've got your ear to the ground," I said. "You heard anything brewing around Marcone and his outfit?"

Susan let out a breath. "Damn," she said. I saw the hunger in her eyes, and knew it wasn't just the food in front of her. She knew I was working a case related to the mafia now. That made for good print. But she swallowed down her curiosity with great effort. "Yeah, I know something. I'm sure the timing isn't a coincidence." Susan lowered her voice. "There's been a lot of Three-Eye going around lately. Marcone's not a fan. He's started taking out dealers."

I shivered in spite of myself. Susan shot me a careful look. My history with Three-Eye was far from secret. In fact, Susan had published some of the most righteous screeds on my behalf when I went to testify — it was how we'd first met. Say what you will about tabloids, but lots of people read them. I often suspected the only reason I still had a job was because Susan had riled up so many people and made it impossible to sweep me under the rug.

"I thought Three-Eye was a niche market," I said. "I didn't realize there was enough volume available to threaten anyone, let alone Johnny Marcone."

"The volume picked up," Susan told me. "A lot. Whatever you ran into way back when, I think it must have been experimental. Someone's refined the process, and they're mass-manufacturing it now."

"Damn," I muttered. "How come we haven't picked up on this yet?"

"I can't imagine how you wouldn't," Susan said. "Last week got pretty exciting. Some street-level dealers disappeared all at once, a few of their customers got the living hell scared out of them…" She paused uncertainly. I knew the same thought had occurred to both of us.

"...Marcone's rats," I said. "They've slowed down their paperwork, dragged cases in the wrong direction. He's got to be burning through a lot of influence, even for him." I shook my head. "This is a big deal. I should have figured as much, but now I know for sure."

Susan chewed at her lip. "What do you think he's doing?" she asked me. "Why go to so much trouble to keep this quiet?"

I leaned back in my chair. God damn, I was tired. But this revelation, small as it felt, was just enough to get my brain going again. Progress. Hallelujah. I remembered Marcone's conversation with me. He wanted me to call him first. I'm probably not the only person who got offered that deal. "I don't think he's just got his rats delaying things. He has them looking all over town. I don't think he knows who's behind the Three-Eye. That's gotta have him freaking out."

The whole thing made so much more sense now. Marcone was trying to use the department to bring down his newest rival. He was pointing us like a weapon. We are allies, he'd told me. Marcone knew about my previous run-ins with Three-Eye. I hadn't been in a mood to hear him make his pitch, but he had to know I'd figure out the connection at some point. He thought there was a good chance I'd swallow my disgust and work with him, if it meant getting the drug that had fucked me over off the street for good.

I tested the thought carefully. Was Marcone right? Did I feel any desire to call him, to offer a grudging one-time deal?

Nah. He was still pond-scum. Much as I hated Three-Eye, the revelation of its involvement only made me more determined to grind my way to the bottom of this case myself.

Susan sighed. "You have that look," she said. "Please tell me you're not about to insert yourself into the middle of a gang war, Karrin."

"I'm not gonna put myself in the middle of a gang war," I told her. "...on purpose, anyway." I quickly changed the subject. "Hey, what can you tell me about the Velvet Room?"

Susan eyed me skeptically for a moment. "Karrin?" she pressed.

"Hey," I told her. "I don't have a deathwish." Carmichael's comment echoed in my head, and I realized it had been rattling around in there along with everything else from the last day. I frowned. "I'm not trying to get killed, but if the evidence drags me somewhere dangerous, I'm gonna do my job. Marcone doesn't keep the streets clean, god damnit. He just makes it easier for people to ignore the trash."

Susan sighed. "One of these days, you're going to have to learn to pick your battles," she told me.

I shrugged. "I pick my battles," I said. I thought specifically of Lieutenant Walker, sitting frustrated in his office. I could have gone to Internal Affairs, warned them he was cutting corners and leaning on people to close cases by any means necessary. But I didn't have any evidence, and I knew there was no way I'd keep my job if I went hard at the Lieutenant of the only division that would still take me. All I had to do was keep people honest and wait for Walker's career to implode on its own.

Susan raised an eyebrow, delicately nibbling on a fry. "See?" she said. "I can see you strategizing."

I rolled my eyes. "I pick my battles," I repeated. Then: "The Velvet Room, Susan?"

Susan finally gave up, and accepted the change of direction. "I can tell you lots of things about the Velvet Room," she said. "But you won't like them."

I groaned. The tabloid Susan worked for, the Chicago Arcane, wasn't entirely full of shit a hundred percent of the time. But maybe fifty percent of the time, it was totally full of shit. "Don't tell me," I said. "Bianca's an alien?"

Susan gave me a deeply offended look. "Karrin," she said. "I know you don't believe in this stuff, but I do. If you don't want to hear it, you can just say so, and not make fun of me."

I sighed. "You're right," I said. "I'm sorry. I'm in a really shitty headspace. You deserve better."

Susan shifted in her seat, somewhat mollified. "Anyway. Aliens don't exist, Karrin. Bianca's a vampire."

I closed my eyes, and slowly — very slowly — forced myself to count to ten.

Susan's a nice woman, she's just got weird hobbies, leave it be.

"Okay," I said.

"She is," Susan told me. "She never comes out during the day. She hasn't ever aged that I can tell. There's rumors that she drinks blood from her girls, that she can hypnotize you if you look her in the eyes—"

"She what?" I snapped back to attention. Hard.

Susan raised her eyebrows. "Drinks blood," she repeated. She must have figured that was the most relevant part.

I shifted back in my seat. Don't, I told myself. This is how people end up falling down the rabbit hole into crazy conspiracies. You hear one coincidental detail and get hooked.

"All right," I said. "It's probably not relevant. But thanks."

Susan wrinkled her nose. "You owe me a scoop," she said.

"I never forget," I reminded her. I was tempted to drain the rest of my glass, but too much of a good thing would compound with my headache and my too-few hours of rest, and I knew I had to drive. Reluctantly, I pushed the glass away, still half-full. Damn. That really was good beer.

"Yeah," Susan agreed. "I know." Her dark eyes followed me as I stood up from my chair. "But you've got to be alive to give me a story."

I rolled my eyes, and collected my coat. Susan wrote sensational stories every week. Naturally, she had a certain flair for the dramatic. "I'm a big girl. I've been doing this a while now." I patted her on the shoulder as I passed. "I know when I'm in over my head. I promise, I'm not there yet."

0-0-0-0

I spent a while in the car, looking down at Rachel's phone number.

She probably wouldn't answer, I reflected. It was after lunch now, but I couldn't imagine I'd left the Velvet Room on good terms with Bianca.

Then again, what did I have to lose?

I punched the number into my phone and hit the call button.

Ring.

Vampires. God, that was over the top.

Ring.

While I was at it, hypnotism was a crock too.

Ring.

The phone picked up.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end was still a little sleepy. It was hard to tell, but I thought it sounded like the woman I'd talked to the night before.

"Hey," I said. "Rachel?"

A long pause ensued. I thought I could hear her thinking about hanging up. I seized the moment, feeling oddly urgent. "Rachel," I said. "What happened last night?"

"I can't talk to you," said the voice on the other end of the phone. She sounded scared. But I noticed that she didn't hang up.

"You can," I told her. I remembered her reactions at Bianca's mansion. She was responsive to a soft touch. "Please. I don't remember anything. Did I get myself into trouble?"

"...please don't call me again," Rachel said. "Bianca knows who you are, Detective. I don't know why she let you leave, but I don't think she'll do it a second time, if you keep doing this." She paused. "I don't want something bad to happen to you. But I can't help you."

The line went dead.