Josefine started her search for Anna at Pluto's Hardware and Accessories—where the 'accessories' referred to the alcohol. Her Uncle Finn then directed her to Marconi's Refrigerator and Supply, which, last Josefine had heard, belonged to the Italians, but she went anyway. Otsha's underground is divided almost exactly in half between the Irish and the Italians, everyone else just picks a side—Josefine's father was the bottom rung of the ladder for the Irish, but all she remembered him doing was drinking and gambling. She didn't learn more about the feud between the two sides until she joined the Bureau. They have nicknames for the leaders on both sides: Rufino Vitali is called the Saint, mainly for the irony that a man named for St Rufinus explodes on an almost daily basis just to keep his temper in shape. Anna Manhattan is called the King because beneath all of the skirmishes and sudden take-overs, she's there pulling the strings; Anna is Vitali's polar opposite, calculating and soft-spoken, but terrifying the rare times Josefine had seen her angry.
Needless to say, whatever Anna was up to at Marconi's, she was hoping it had her in a good mood.
Anna's laugh reached her almost immediately as Josefine gave the password and was let inside, so she followed the sound to find her raking in cash at the poker table.
"Ah, my little Wolfe," Anna sounded in a well enough mood as she urged her into the seat next to hers.
"Anna," Josefine began, waving off the dealer when they offered to deal her in; she knew better than to play against Anna even if her father hadn't permanently put her off gambling, "I'd like to speak with you if you have a moment." She wondered briefly if she sounded as nervous as she was as Anna flashed her a knowing smile. That smile on her lips felt predatory, enough so Josefine could swear she felt Wolf—Wolf who laughed at the idea of danger—shrink back in fear.
"I know why you're here, little Wolfe," Anna said as she checked her cards, the little four-leaf clover tattoo on her hand on full display under the bright lights; 'who needs luck anyway', it read to go along with the scissors cutting off one of the petals.
"Then can we—" Josefine focused back on the topic at hand, trying not to react when Anna raised the bets to an even two hundred despite the mediocre cards in her hand. Two of the other players folded, and the third called with a look like he stuck around for pure spite.
"We can discuss your murder in a bit, let me finish my business—Ah, here they are." Josefine followed her gaze to find a pair of large men in neat suits—both armed beneath them—approaching the table. They came to a halt on either side of Anna, both towering over her lean frame, but the predatory smile never faded.
"Boss wants a word, miss," one of the large men spoke, voice low with hidden meaning.
"Word it you've been swapping cards," the second didn't bother with discretion. One brow quirked up at the accusation before Anna laughed again, amusement the only thing Josefine could read in her liquid mercury eyes.
"In this dress?" She gestured to the form-fitting dress that hugged all of her curves and the men's eyes followed, "Do tell b'ys," raven hair fell over pale shoulders as she smiled up at them, her normally odd mix of Scottish and Glastonbury accent dropped like a switch had flipped and suddenly it was all New York Bronx in a medley of stolen sounds with a thick undertone of Irish attitude, "where did they say I was hidin' them?" The two men—Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Josefine had decided—exchanged looks she didn't get the chance to dissect before Tweedle Dee straightened.
"Boss wants a word," he repeated and she watched as Anna's smile widened further.
"Fine b'ys, lead on," she relented in her pressing. He turned to lead the way while she and Josefine rose to follow, Anna's firm grip on her wrist enough to deter Tweedle Dum from stopping her before he brought up the rear. Tweedle Dee led them into the back behind the bar and stopped to knock at an office door.
"Bring 'er in," a voice called from inside thick with Italian so he opened the door and ushered the two of them through where they found a short, greasy man seated at a desk with his fingers tented in front of him. "So you was caught cheatin'," he eyed Anna, gaze lingering on curves in a way that had her stifling a laugh. "You think it's funny? Do ya know what we do to cheaters here at Marconi's?"
"You pour them a pair of cement shoes and introduce them to the edge of Otsha," Josefine broke her silence with a deadpan answer to a question she belatedly realized had been rhetorical, but that didn't slow her down, "I've always wanted to ask about the cement shoes 'cause people don't float up here and the cement usually breaks on impact down there." Anna really did laugh then and the man—Marconi, Josefine supposed?—turned red with anger as he shot to his feet and slammed his hands on the desk.
"I'll be fitting you both for cement shoes—" he began and her hand drifted to the pistol secure under her overcoat—it wasn't a shootout Josefine would win, or even survive in all likelihood, but she figured she could take a few of them down with her.
"Wait," Anna cut in, stifling residual snickers with her hand, "I wasn't cheatin' but I have a counteroffer for you if this is how we're gonna play this." She smiled as she approached the desk, all supernatural charisma as she reached out to pull him closer by his tie. For that moment, it didn't matter how much the Irish and the Italians seemed to hate each other because Anna was a very attractive woman and he was a healthy heterosexual male; Marconi was about an inch from her with a sort of dazed and aroused look when she pulled a lot harder, dumping him headfirst over the desk and onto the floor with more force than he or Josefine expected. Then Anna twisted on her heel to settle on the desk, making a show of crossing one leg over the other in the picture of power. "I like the setup here, so I'll ask once that you hand it over," her predatory smile was back, "if I must ask a second time, I'll just feed the lot of you to my Hounds," she gestured briefly to her side as a massive Theron Hound—a breed of wolf-dog Josefine could swear was more monster than dog—slipped out of the shadows beside her as if he'd been there all along, "and take it by force." At her words, the Hound stalked forward with a silent snarl.
"You'll die for this, you bitch! Vitali will have your head!" Marconi spat the words, about to scramble to his feet again except the Hound was that much closer, sharp, vicious teeth on clear display.
"Oh?" Anna only looked mildly amused at the threat, a reaction that would've seemed almost suicidal coming from anyone else, "By all means, let him try."
#
Once Marconi and his men were driven out and the Hound had settled at Anna's side, she looked up at Josefine from her search through the desk drawers.
"Now, let's discuss the matter of your murder." She gestured for Josefine to take a seat but nerves and Wolf's urge to flee her presence kept her upright.
"Peter Lukas. He was frozen solid mid-stride at 11:15 last night. The magic that did it wasn't human and Solomon tells me you keep tabs on all things supernatural in town." Anna smiled.
"Things like your little Monster?" Josefine chilled as she was called out and she could swear she felt Wolf shrink further into the dark. "Yes, I suppose I could tell you exactly what you've stumbled across, but where would the fun in that be?" Her brow furrowed at Anna's words, "No, I won't give you the answer, but I'll give you a hint: your man was killed by an Ala, a demon." Josefine actually smiled as she thought over the hint; demons, she'd learned, could be bound and directed.
"The Ala is just a tool in this, I work the case as normal and the trail will lead me to the summoner." Anna's smile widened.
"Off you go little Wolfe. Send Solomon my regards." She'd barely finished speaking when Josefine was out the door.
#
Between her in with the Otsha Police Department through Detective Andries and her official sanction to work the case from the Bureau, Josefine was able to get her hands on every file they had regarding Peter Lukas. The contents ranged from recent projects he'd been on—a request to refurbish the city's two lighthouses—to who'd been the last to see him alive—his head secretary when she'd left the office at 9 pm that same evening.
A day had passed but all Josefine had learned that might serve as a motive for the murder was that most of Lukas's "late nights at the office" had been spent with either his secretary or a gentleman down the hall doing everything except work.
The only problem with that theory was that the wife didn't know about any of it and neither of his intimates knew about the other; Josefine had already asked and dealt with the resulting mix of grief and anger they'd each responded with so she was certain they weren't lying about it.
She'd returned to combing through the files for some other lead when there was a knock at the door and she set aside what she was reading to answer it.
"Schultz," she resisted the urge to close the door in his face, "What is it this time?" He shoved another paper cup of coffee into her hands like it was some kind of bribe.
"There's been another body."
#
Shanti Misra was found by her husband in her bed at home. There were no marks on her body to say she'd died of unnatural causes except that she was frozen just as solid as Lukas. There was no watch to tell Josefine the exact time of death this time, but based on the husband's summary of events, it was a safe estimate to say Misra had died sometime in the night as well.
Before this body, Josefine and the Bureau had been operating under the assumption that Lukas was a one-off, but now things were looking like the beginnings of a serial.
Josefine and Schultz now stood in a small room off Misra's living room that was populated by a strange altar within a salt pentagram with various rune-esque shapes, herbs, and trinkets between the points; to Josefine, who was at least somewhat familiar with real magic, the set up looked like a hodge-podge collection of things that were supposed to have power according to various cultures but really didn't unless they were in the right hands.
Schultz crouched to pick up what looked like a business card and whistled as he looked it over.
"Your boy is looking a lot like our best suspect," he said as he flashed Josefine the card and she recognized the raven on its perch motif that represented Raven's Roost.
"So they frequent the same bookstore," she replied even as she knew that was exactly the sort of coincidence that she'd normally take as a red flag, "there are only two bookstores in the city, the odds were fifty-fifty." Except Emil sold more than just books, the various herbs and crystals arranged around Misra's altar probably came from him and the evidence was painting him in a very bad light.