CHAPTER 4
My “friend,” as she put it, was Namid, the runemyste. And it was a measure of how much time Billie and I had been spending together that Namid would choose to wait for me here as opposed to at my home or office.
I walked the rest of the way up the path and halted in front of her. The sun shone in her eyes, making them gleam like gem-cut emeralds. I kissed her, drawing a reluctant grin.
“Hi.”
“You should have told me you had a pet before we got involved.”
I laughed. “I don’t think Namid would like being called a pet any more than he likes being called a ghost.”
“Like I care. He should have thought of that before he started sitting like a statue in the middle of my dining room.”
“At least he doesn’t eat much.”
She smiled again, even as she shook her head. “Get inside, and get him out of my house.”
“That might take a while.”
“The sooner he’s gone, the sooner you have me to yourself.”
Well, there you go. That’s called motivation.
She pulled the screen door open and I stepped past her into the house. As she’d said, Namid was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her dining room, as still as ice.
Namid and his fellow runemystes were created by the Runeclave, an assembly of powerful sorcerers, centuries ago, in an act of sacrifice and self-abnegation so profound I can barely comprehend it. Namid and the others were weremystes, like me, but far more skilled. At the time, the magical community was split between those who believed runecrafting ought to serve the greater good, and those who saw in their talents a path to domination of the non-magical world. Thirty-nine weremystes were put to death and then brought back in spirit form to be eternal guardians against practitioners of dark sorcery.
Namid, who had been a Zuni shaman, was one of them. He had once been my dad’s mentor; now he was mine. On some level he believed he had failed my father, and that his failure had led to my dad’s early descent into insanity. That, it seemed to me, more than any inherent promise I possessed as a runecrafter, explained why Namid had taken such an interest in me.
He could be an exasperating teacher. He was terse to the point of rudeness, he expected me to master with ease spells that I knew were beyond my meager talents, and he was reluctant to answer questions that weren’t relevant to what we were doing at any given moment. But he was powerful and wise, and on more than one occasion he had saved my life.
He was also the the most beautiful being I had ever seen. No doubt because he had been in life a member of the K’ya’na-Kwe clan, the water people, his spirit had taken a form appropriate to that ancestry. He stood as tall as a warrior, muscular and broad in the shoulders and chest. But he was composed entirely of faintly luminous waters. Often, as now, he appeared clear and placid, like a mountain lake at dawn; at other times his surface roughened, leaving him roiled, impenetrable, and steel gray, like the sea in a storm. Always, though, his eyes shone from his chiseled face, as bright and clear as winter stars.
He peered up at me now as I crossed into Billie’s dining room, his expression unfathomable. “You are late in getting here. Where have you been?”
Let me tell you, it was a little disconcerting having a centuries-old watery ghost talk to you like he was your mother.
Billie had followed me into the room and was watching me, expectant, also waiting for an answer.
“Kona called me,” I said, more to her than to the runemyste. “She needed me to swing by a crime scene over near the interstate.”
“Needed you. As in, someone used magic?”
“Yes. Two people were killed at a fast-food burger place. The restaurant wound up looking like a magical battlefield.”
I could tell she wanted to ask me more, but Namid cut in with his usual charm and social aplomb.
“These matters can wait. Ohanko needs to train.”
Ohanko was a name he had given me years ago. In his language it meant something akin to “reckless one.” I didn’t mind it; in his own way, I think Namid used it with affection. And I could hardly argue with what it said about me and my behavior over the years.
“Fine,” Billie said, turning her back on us and seeking sanctuary in her kitchen. “Train as much as you like. But try not to make a mess of my house this time.”
“Have we made a mess?” Namid asked, his liquid brow furrowing.
I pulled off my leather bomber jacket, and the shoulder holster I wore beneath it. “You have a tendency to throw things at me: books, silverware, CDs.” I took my Glock from my bomber pocket and secured it in the holster. Then I lowered myself to the floor opposite him.
“I am trying to teach you to defend yourself from a variety of assaults.”
“I know. But they’re Billie’s books and silverware and CDs, and this is Billie’s house.”
The runemyste stared after her, seeming to contemplate this. “I see. I will try to make my attacks less . . . disruptive.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”
“Clear yourself,” he said.
Clearing was a technique runecrafters used to focus their thoughts and enhance their spellcasting. In truth, the most skilled of my kind didn’t need to work on such things, and even I didn’t take the time to clear when I was out on the street, casting to save my life or to attack an enemy. But Namid tended to push me hard in our training sessions, and the act of clearing had become a ritual of sorts, one that allowed me to set aside possible distractions—Billie, my father, whatever work I was doing for clients, and, on days like this one, whatever investigations I had taken on at Kona’s request—and concentrate on my runecrafting.
I closed my eyes and summoned a memory from my childhood of a camping trip my parents and I took to the Superstition Wilderness. This was when I was no more than ten or eleven, before my dad’s phasings got so bad that his mind started to quit on him, and before my mother died in a scandal that poisoned my youth and left me essentially orphaned. It was the happiest I could remember being. One afternoon we hiked out to a high promontory, and while we were there, I spotted an eagle circling above the desert, the sunlight reflecting off the golden feathers on its neck, its wing tips splayed. Whenever I needed to clear myself, I focused on that image of the eagle until the rest of the world fell away.
This was what I did now, and when I felt ready to cast, I opened my eyes again, meeting the runemyste’s bright gaze.
“Defend yourself,” Namid said, his voice rumbling like distant floodwaters.
Namid had never been one to ease into a training session, and true to form, he started me off with a wicked attack spell. I flew off the floor and slammed into Billie’s ceiling, my arms and legs spread wide. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and had no idea how to get down. It was as if he had strapped me to the ceiling with invisible steel cables, including one that constricted my chest.
Billie emerged from the kitchen holding a towel and damp bowl, no doubt drawn by the noise I’d made when I hit. Spotting me suspended above her dining room, she rolled her eyes and walked back into the other room.
I had learned that the images I called to mind when envisioning Namid’s attacks often held the secret to defeating them. I’d thought of myself being strapped to the ceiling with cables, and so that was how I conceived of my warding. Me, the steel ropes holding me in place, and a magical cable cutter to slice through them.
It was only when I felt the spell tickle my skin that I remembered one crucial detail. And before I could do anything about it, I was falling.
I landed on my stomach in front of Namid and let out a grunt and then a groan.
“Your predicament required a more nuanced solution,” the myste said, so calmly he might have been talking about the weather. “If you had been held one hundred feet above the street rather than nine feet above this floor, you would be dead now.”
“In my defense, I realized that right after I cast the spell.”
He lifted an eyebrow but offered no other response.
I sat up, my movements stiff and painful, not only from the fall, but also from my earlier battle with GQ and Vogue. But I repositioned myself so that I was facing the myste again, sitting cross-legged as he was, and I waited for his next assault.
“Defend yourself.”
For the next hour, Namid attacked me with an array of spells, some of them familiar, some of them new and terrifying, including one that ripped gashes in my wrists, so that abruptly blood was gushing onto Billie’s oak floors. I didn’t think that she would be any happier about massive bloodstains on the polished wood than she was about the scattering of her books across her living room, but I also didn’t think Namid would want me fixating on that while I bled out.
An instant later, my situation grew far more serious. Even as I started to grow light-headed with blood loss, Namid hit me with a second casting, this one a fire spell. I was not only bleeding, I was burning, too. I didn’t know if the flames were real enough to threaten Billie’s house, but they were hot enough to sear my skin and to scorch my lungs every time I inhaled.
Panic gripped me. Which was the greater threat: flame or blood loss?
I couldn’t think of a single spell to combat both attacks, and so I went for the flames first. Me, the fire, and a dousing of water.
The flames sputtered and went out.
But another spell struck at my chest. It felt as though the blaze had rekindled inside my body, charring my heart, heating my blood to a rolling boil. This was all too familiar, though not because Namid had ever used the spell against me. Back in the spring, Etienne de Cahors had tortured me with a similar attack; he had very nearly killed me with it.
I tried to sheath my chest in a magical shield that would block the pain, but it didn’t work. I was growing dizzy and weak. The flow of blood from my wrists was slowing, not because I had done anything to heal the wounds, but because I was dying. I sat in a pool of my own blood. If Billie had come out into the dining room at that moment she would have screamed.
The blood.
I tried the spell again, but with a twist this time, and seven elements rather than three. Namid, me, my heart, his attack, the pain, a magical warding within my chest, and all that blood to fuel the casting. The room seemed to hum with power. Namid’s eyes widened. But the pain stopped. Relief flooded me, brought tears to my eyes. It was several seconds before I realized that the blood around me had vanished. I cast another spell. In recent months, Namid had taught me some healing magic, and I used it now to repair the arteries and close the gashes on my arms. When I finished I raised my gaze to meet Namid’s. His features seemed to have turned to glass.
“You cast with blood,” he said, an accusation in the words.
“Yes, I did. And I’d do it again if it meant saving my life, or Billie’s, or my dad’s. Or yours, for that matter.”
“That is dark magic, Ohanko.”
“Why? Because my intent was evil?”
He blinked. I couldn’t keep a small smile from my lips. It wasn’t often that I managed to render the runemyste speechless.
“I was protecting myself by using every magical tool at my disposal. Including my own blood. I didn’t take it from someone else; you know I would never commit a murder to strengthen my magic. I didn’t even have to cut myself. The blood was there, a consequence of your attack on me. How can my use of it be dark?”
“Because it is,” he said. He had recovered from his surprise at my initial question. “Blood magic is dark magic. This has always been true.”
“But—”
He held up a finger, stopping me. “I cannot argue with what you have said. Neither your intent nor your means of harvesting the blood was evil in any way. And I will even admit that as an act of desperation a blood spell might be forgiven. But the fact remains that blood magic has always been the province of the dark ones.”
“I used blood to fight Saorla and her weremancers. That day when we fought them on my father’s land.”
“I remember.”
I stared hard at him, trying to read the thoughts lurking behind that impassive clear face.
“This is why you cut my wrists. That wasn’t some random choice. You were trying to tempt me with all that blood and those other attacks.”
“We should have spoken of this long ago,” he said. An admission. “Weremystes who use blood for spells soon find themselves relying on blood. It strengthens their runecrafting, and so spells cast without blood begin to feel weak. With time it becomes like a drug, something they cannot do without.”
“An addiction,” I said, my voice low.
“Just so.”
I started to say that I hadn’t used blood to strengthen a spell since that evening out in Wofford, when my father and I, joined by Jacinto Amaya and his men, fought Saorla and a number of her dark sorcerers. But I stopped myself because I had used blood in a spell only a few hours ago, when I fought the weremancers outside the Casa del Oro motel.
“You have used blood to cast recently,” Namid said, perhaps sensing my hesitation or reading the doubt in my eyes.
I considered denying it, but I knew about addiction. In addition to being well on his way to madness by the time I was fifteen, my dad was also an alcoholic. These things were genetic. I’d been halfway to becoming a drunk myself before Namid came into my life and took responsibility for my training. And I had the sense that addiction to drugs or booze couldn’t have been so different from an addiction to blood magic. More to the point, I knew that lying about problems like these made matters worse.
“Yes,” I said. “I did earlier today. I could tell you that this was the first time since our fight with Saorla, but I don’t know if that’s true. To be honest, I can’t remember if I’ve done it other times or not.”
“It is good that you did not lie to me.”
“I guess I’m not that far gone down the path to hell. Not yet at least.”
Namid frowned.
“Blood spells are more powerful,” I went on. “They allow me to do things my magic might not otherwise do.”
“Then you must continue to train, and thus refine your runecrafting. A true runecrafter does not require blood to cast. He knows that power resides in all things. Blood is a crude source.”
I thought of what Kona had said at the restaurant, about the mom drawing power from the building’s electricity. “When you say power resides in everything—”
“I mean precisely that. For a long time now, I have wanted you to cast without reciting elements, without having to put your purpose to words. When you cast by instinct, you are more apt to draw upon the energy around us, and, as a result, less apt to rely on other sources of power for your runecrafting.”
“Like blood.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never suggested that blood spells can replace training,” I said. “I even understand what you’re asking of me, what you want for me to do. I’d like to be able to cast that way. But I’m not there yet. And if I’m up against a dark sorcerer, and he’s my equal in terms of skill and power, he’ll beat me every time, because he’s willing to use blood in his castings, and I’m supposed to resist the temptation.”
The runemyste considered this. At length he lifted his liquid shoulders in a small shrug. “I cannot argue with this logic. I do not believe you will often find yourself in a battle with a conjurer who is your exact equal in ability, but if you do, then yes, until you learn to harness other sources of power, you will be at a disadvantage. That is the price of adhering to the laws of the Runeclave.”
“And you don’t see a problem with that?”
“The problem is irrelevant,” Namid said. “When you served on the police force you were bound by a set of regulations and laws, were you not?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice flat. I knew where he was going with this. I really hated arguing with Namid when he was right, which was most of the time.
“Breaking those laws might have helped you catch the criminals you sought, but still you did not break them. Why?”
“Because to break the law in pursuit of criminals makes me no better than they are,” I said, as dutiful as a school boy.
“This is no different.”
“All right.”
Of all the things I had said this afternoon, this seemed to surprise him most.
“That is all? You do not intend to argue further?”
“Would I have any chance of changing your mind?”
“No.”
“Then if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to lose this argument and get on with my evening.”
“Very well. I will leave you. You trained well today. Each day, I see the improvement in your runecrafting.”
“Thanks, Namid.”
He inclined his head and faded from view.
I climbed to my feet, my back and chest and legs aching, from my fall, from my confrontation with the fashion models, and from sitting for too long. I noticed that there was no sign of blood or burn marks on Billie’s floor. Moreover, my arms were completely healed; there weren’t even any scars. No one who saw them would ever guess that I had nearly bled to death a short time before. If I had. Either Namid had healed me and repaired the damage to the floor before leaving, or the magic he had used on me had been nothing more than an illusion. I couldn’t decide which option I found more reassuring.
I stumbled into Billie’s kitchen, my stomach making enough noise to rouse the dead. I was famished, and whatever she was making smelled great.
Billie stood at the stove stirring a pot of deliciousness. “You’re done?” she said, glancing my way.
“For today. Sorry you wound up doing the cooking.”
She shook her head. “It was my turn. You’ve cooked all week.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m all right,” she said. But she wouldn’t meet my gaze.
Billie had recovered from the worst of the injuries she suffered when Saorla blew up our favorite restaurant. The compound fracture of her arm had healed, though she was still going to physical therapy, trying to work back to full mobility. And the symptoms of the concussion had vanished for the most part, though she still had occasional headaches and brief bouts of dizziness. The rest of her bruises and cuts were nothing but a memory. But memories were the hardest part of what remained.
We had both been watching for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, and we’d seen a few. She wasn’t sleeping well. When she did sleep, she had terrible dreams, many of them of the explosion itself. And we hadn’t eaten out since the attack. We’d gotten food to go, but she admitted to me that she felt vulnerable in restaurants. At my urging, she had started talking to a therapist, but she was struggling still.
I was, too, but in a different way. The explosion wasn’t my fault. I knew that. Saorla had used it as a warning, as intimidation. She wanted me to help her kill Namid, and she was willing to resort to threats and torture in order to bend me to her will.
But even knowing this, I blamed myself for Billie’s injuries. If she hadn’t been with me, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Plain and simple. The logic of it was as immutable as anything Namid had ever said to me. I had been selfish. She was funny and smart and beautiful and I wanted her in my life. The problem was, my life was dangerous, and for someone like Billie, who didn’t possess magic, spending time with me could well prove fatal.
I probably should have told her as much and ended our relationship. Doing so would have broken my heart, but it would have been the best thing for her. Problem was, I loved her. Talk about addictions. I’m not sure I could have given up Billie Castle even if someone developed a twelve-step plan for me.
I crossed to where she stood, took the spoon from her hand and rested it on the edge of the pot, and took her in my arms. “How are you feeling?” I asked again.
She answered with a self-conscious smile and put her head on my shoulder. “It’s been a hard day,” she said, her voice low. “There was a loud boom earlier—I don’t know what it was. And then a few minutes later I heard a bunch of sirens as the fire trucks drove by over on Southern. I haven’t been able to do much of anything since. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t read. I didn’t want to leave the house.” She pulled back to look me in the eye. “That’s why I started cooking. It was the only thing I could do with myself. It was either cook, or curl up in a ball and hide under the covers.”
“I’m—”
She held up a hand, silencing me.
I’d made a habit of apologizing for her symptoms, which Billie found annoying and her therapist called inappropriate.
“I was going to say that I’m famished,” I told her, “and whatever you’re making smells great.”
That coaxed a smile. “Liar.”
I kissed her. “Best I could do on the spur of the moment. And whatever you’re making really does smell amazing.”
“I know. Enchilada suizas. They’ll be done soon, so make yourself useful and open a bottle of wine.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We ate a quiet meal: good food, nice white wine, candlelight. Billie didn’t have much to say about her day beyond what she had already told me, and so I wound up describing for her in some detail what I’d seen at the Casa del Oro and then later at the burger place. There had been a time when I tried to hide from her the more distasteful aspects of my job. Not anymore. She wanted to know about all of it, and the truth was, I enjoyed being able to talk about my work without fear of saying too much. We had placed only one condition on these conversations: unless we agreed explicitly that what I was telling her was fair game for her blog, all that we discussed remained off the record.
Billie had grown quiet when I mentioned Saorla and her minions, but now, after a lengthy silence, she asked, “Why would Saorla keep sending weremystes after you? She’s not allowed to hurt you; Namid is still protecting you, right?”
“She and Namid have an agreement. I don’t know exactly what he’d do to her if she went back on her word, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be gentle in whatever it was.”
“So then why?”
I hesitated. I had done my best to stop keeping secrets from her, but this was one I’d yet to reveal.
“Fearsson?”
“She’s convinced that Namid won’t always be so vigilant, and that eventually she’ll be able to have her revenge. And until then, I guess she likes to remind me that she’s out there and that I shouldn’t get too comfortable.”
I took a sip of my wine, watching her over the rim of my glass, wondering if this would satisfy her.
It didn’t.
“Does Namid know about these attacks?”
Not from me. “I’m not sure how much he knows. He senses a lot of what happens to me.”
“But you haven’t told him.”
I traced a finger along the stem of my glass. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t run to Namid every time some magical kid steals my lunch money.” Which was true, as far as it went. “He’s not supposed to intervene in our world. The only reason he was willing to step in with Saorla was that she has no more right to mess with us than he does. I can’t depend on him. I have to deal with her myself.”
“That’s not very convincing.”
“But it’s the truth.”
“It’s true, but it’s not everything,” she said, eyes flashing in the light of the candle. “And you know it.”
This was the problem with falling in love with someone as smart as Billie. She missed nothing, and she didn’t tolerate bull. More than that, she didn’t like it when I tried to protect her. She regarded me now, her cheeks bright red, but the rest of her face pale, her lips pressed thin.
I tried to hold her gaze, but I couldn’t for more than a few seconds.
“I think Saorla keeps sending her weremancers after me because she wants to make certain I don’t forget about . . . an arrangement that she and I have.”
“An arrangement? What the hell does that mean?”
“She would say that I owe her a boon.”
“A boon,” she repeated. “You mean you owe Saorla a favor of some sort?”
“Yes.”
She glared at me. “I don’t understand. Why would you promise her anything? She’s insane. She tried to kill you!”
“More than once. I was there, remember?”
“Then why—?”
She broke off, her eyes still fixed on me. I saw understanding wash over her. Blood drained from her cheeks and her anger sluiced away, leaving her wide-eyed with fear and guilt.
“You did it for me, didn’t you? That day she came to my hospital room.”
I reached across the table and took her hand. Her fingers were frigid.
Saorla had appeared in Billie’s room in Banner Desert Medical Center only a few days after the explosion at Solana’s Taqueria, and had threatened to kill Billie if I didn’t join her there. I managed to fight the necromancer to a stalemate, but the threat to Billie remained. I begged her to spare Billie’s life, and she agreed, but only after I promised that I would owe her a favor as payment for her mercy. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but at the time I didn’t see any other way to keep Billie safe.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry, or to feel responsible.”
“What will you do?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’ll ask for something benign. Maybe she’ll want me to pick up her dry cleaning or something like that.”
She laughed. “You’re a clown, you know that?”
“So you’ve told me.”
“Seriously, Fearsson, what are you going to do when Saorla calls in her chit?”
“I’m going to find some way to fulfill my end of our bargain without doing anything illegal or immoral. And failing that . . .” I shrugged again. I had been planning to say, Failing that, I’ll refuse to do what she wants, but that would leave me back where I was during the summer, with Billie’s life hanging in the balance.
Fortunately, before I could say more, my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket, expecting to see Kona’s name on the screen. Instead, there was only a number, though one that struck me as vaguely familiar.
I opened the phone and said, “Fearsson.”
“Jay.”
At the sound of the voice, my heart seemed to stop beating. The only thing worse would have been a call from Saorla.
“This is Jacinto Amaya.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, my mouth dry. “I recognized your voice.”
“Really? You don’t sound glad to hear from me.”
To which I had nothing to say at all.