Dim Sum Asylum(18)

For me, it was more of a tickle. From a really ugly woman with sharp nails.

Something about the front room felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it didn’t seem right. The room was a long shotgun space, leading to a hallway dimly lit by the occasional sconce. Folding chairs and three card tables kept a small shrine company, a memorial space with a bowl of overripe tangerines and a handful of half-burned incense. The Formica-topped tables were tired, their corners worn down to the pressboard, and the inset cushions on the chairs were faded and stained. At least two ashtrays sat on each table, a few overflowing with butts and soot, and on the table farthest from us, a beer bottle lay on its side, a yeasty liquid grave for a dead, floating cockroach nearly the length of my thumb.

“San Francisco PD! Entering the premises!” I called out, but other than my voice bouncing off the buckling drop-in tiles above us, there wasn’t so much as a cricket chirping in the place. It felt empty—except for the crawling dead tickle—but I wasn’t taking any chances. “Police! We are entering the building!”

“Nice place,” Leonard muttered from behind me. “Can we find that damned thing now?”

“We don’t even know where it is. Let’s hope there isn’t a back door. Or it doesn’t make its own back door.” I couldn’t see a staircase leading to the upper floors, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. “Cover me. I’m going to upend one of the tables to block the hole it made. If you see it, bag it.”

I liked the silence behind me even less than I liked the one filling the building. I turned and caught my partner’s sheepish grimace.

“Um….” Leonard scratched the back of his head. “Shit. Want me to go back and grab a bag?”

“No, I’ll use my jacket.” I eyed his suit. “Or yours. Let me guess—you didn’t bring salt or black tea leaves either.”

“I didn’t know I was going to be in the field. First day and everything. Hell, I wasn’t even expecting to get a partner yet. I thought it was just a meet-and-greet with Gaines, then paperwork until IA cut you loose.” He shrugged off his jacket as I maneuvered the table into place. “I fucked up.”

It took a steady soul to admit he’d screwed up, and an even bigger swallow of pride to sacrifice what looked like a custom-tailored job because of it. I nodded to one of the chairs. “Leave that there. We’ll use mine. It’s old leather and can take more of a beating. And for all we know, the statue’s going to spurt ectoplasm all over the place if we break its curse. Better something we can wipe off.”

I dug the salt and tea packets out of my jacket pockets and handed half to Leonard. Locking the door behind us, I motioned for him to stay behind me, and from the ruffle on his forehead, bringing up the back wasn’t in Leonard’s behavioral profile.

“I’ve never de-cursed something before.” He ground his words out. “But I read up on it.”

I was trying not to resent Leonard’s lack of arcane knowledge, his shiny loafers, and even the massive gun he had tucked under his armpit in the shoulder holster fitted tight against his back and side. With his jacket off, Leonard was even more massive. I wasn’t certain the seams of his dress shirt were strong enough to hold in his breadth, and for some reason, I was fascinated by him unknotting his tie. His jacket’s hem had been covering a taut, firm ass, his round cheeks filling out his pants nicely. Leonard was human, built, a little bit seasoned, and had a touch of stern authority on his strong, handsome face. He was like a marked-off checklist of everything I liked in a guy.

Except I wasn’t getting the vibe I was anywhere near the type on his checklist if I put aside the overt flirting he’d tossed my way in the car.

When we got back to the station house, I was going to have a serious talk with my godfather about giving me a partner I wanted to lick chocolate off of.

“I’d feel better if we went in armed.” His holster creaked a little as he walked, so maybe it was newer than I thought. My own rig was old, darkened by sweat and warped to fit my body, smelling a bit of gun oil and coffee. “I’ve got a gun and a penlight. I’d like to use more than the penlight.”

“You are armed,” I corrected. “I gave you salt and tea leaves. Watch our six.”

Five feet in, a hallway jogged off to a tighter corridor, a dark thin space I had doubts my partner’s shoulders could fit through. Since none of the main hallway doors were punched through or open, we were looking for our cursed prey somewhere down the building’s side corridor. A door set into the end of the side hall was ajar, so it was probably our best bet.

And there were other clues the damned thing fled through the cramped hall. The paneling bore signs of the statue’s pinball-frenzied flight, long chalky scrapes and digs marking the thin wood veneer. Leonard’s light flashed on something white near the second door, and I stopped before I stepped on the writhing object, angling my shoulder so I could see what it was.

“It’s lost a hand.” I had to step back quickly, because the wriggling fingers hooked into the rough industrial carpet to work its way toward my foot.

As tempting as it was to step on the damned thing, it looked to be porcelain, and all I’d end up doing would be grinding sex spell–cursed powder into the carpet. If shooting a society member was bad public relations, leaving a lust curse behind so its elderly patrons would be driven to hump themselves raw probably wasn’t the best course of action.