“I don’t lurk.”
“You most certainly do lurk,” I replied. “Why are you here?”
“Your cindercorn has separation anxiety, so she called me.”
I rolled my eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you serious?”
“You left her for the entire day, maybe eventwo, Josefina. Then she realized she left you with a cadet. You might be doomed or something.”
“Doomed?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Stuck with a cadet without any form of birth control or condoms.”
I slapped my forehead. “What iswrongwith that woman?”
Alec tittered and sipped his coffee. “Do we only have to pick one thing? I have a list. It adds to her charm, though.”
“What charm? She sent the Devil here to do what?”
Lucifer laughed, snapped his fingers, and manifested an overly full bag from the pharmacy down the street from my work. “She bought all of this stuff for you. She put in so much effort trying to secure your happiness.”
As I couldn’t tolerate the thought of rejecting the crazy cindercorn’s help and thus hurting her feelings and adding more chaos to the general insanity at work, I accepted the bag. “Please remind your niece I am perfectly capable of handling my own birth control purchases as they’re needed, should they be needed. Virgin doesn’t mean ignorant or stupid. It just means I am more stubborn than you are.”
“I’m going to feel that burn for a while. I’m going to tell my wife that, and she’s going to reward you. She might even take pity on me for a change.”
“I wish you the best of luck with that, but don’t hold your breath, Lucy.” I braced for the worst and peeked inside the bag. With at least six boxes of condoms, if I decided to end my days as a virgin, I’d be set for a while. “Did she buy the entire selection of condoms?”
“I think so. My nephew actually went with her and attempted to contain the insanity, which is why there is only one bag of items.”
“Remind me to thank him for that later.” I held the bag out to Alec. “I think this hint is directed at you.”
Alec headed for the nearest fish tank setup and set his coffee on one of the lower shelves before taking the bag, crouching, and investigating the purchases. “You mean beyond the hint I received when I came into work this morning? She cornered me and said I had a chance because she’d booked us a special room at a nice hotel not too far from here.”
The cindercorn would drive me insane. “Even if we were to make use of any object in that bag, we will keep our status secret,” I informed him.
“That’s going to drive her right off the edge into the realms of madness,” Lucifer warned.
“But will she be bringing us coffee while she’s going mad?” I replied with a wicked smile.
“I’m telling my wife you are a flirt,” the Devil complained. “That’s just evil, and I love it.”
“I have no interest in flirting with you, Lucifer.”
The Devil clutched his chest, fell to his knees, and reenacted a death scene. While he went about his slow and agonizing death, I angled for Alec’s coffee, drank down half of what was left, and offered the rest to him, which he guzzled. “Now that I have felled one source of great evil, let’s see if we can get some actual evidence about this case, Mr. Mortan.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Good luck with your heartbreak, Lucifer,” Alec replied, chuckled, and set the empty cup beside the Devil. “Once you’re done there, if you could throw that out for us, that’d be great.”
Eight hoursafter discovering the aquarium, we had gotten some substantial evidence regarding the kidnappings of those forced to care for the millions of fish in residence. The credit card purchases all fell in line with the operational costs of his facility. With the awareness of the number of custom tanks, ponds, and various other habitats, we were able to pinpoint all associated transactions. We had no idea where he’d earned the money for his projects, but I suspected the crime lords had paid him off to make the victims disappear.
For a rare change, the victims were worth more alive than dead.
In an effort to ease proceedings, someone had gotten the idea bring in experts from around the United States to check in on all of the inhabitants. It didn’t take long for them to acknowledge the expertise of those who operated the aquarium.
The setup amazed the professionals, as did the number of successful breeding projects other aquariums had tried without luck for years.
We even found an entire huge pool dedicated to the toxic hagfish, and they shared space with some coral, clown fish, and a few unidentified species of fish.
According to the caretakers of the hagfish, one had gone missing. At last count, they had over a thousand of them, and they bred early and often, which made tracking them, even with magic, rather difficult. They’d only noticed because the missing hagfish had a reputation of being the first to show up for dinner and the last to leave after their meal had been served.
