CHAPTER 6
I left Amaya’s house a short time later, once we had worked out the details of our business arrangement. He didn’t like my new rates, but we both knew that with all the high-profile cases I had solved in recent months, I could charge pretty much anything I wanted. And it wasn’t as though Jacinto could plead poverty.
Once I was outside, one of his guards gave me back my Glock. I walked to my car, slowing as I gazed up at the moon. A week until it waxed full, six days until the phasing began, and already I sensed it pulling at my thoughts, like a cat unravelling a ball of yarn.
I opened the car door, but continued to stand there, staring up at the face of the quarter moon. Something about that silver-haired man had bothered me since the moment Kona first mentioned him to me. Something other than the ease with which he could kill. But only now, bathed in moon glow did I realize what it was.
He was that rarest of magical beings: an old weremyste who seemed to be functioning and sane. How could that be?
I knew that Saorla had protected the weremancers who worked for her from the monthly effects of the phasings, and I wondered if she had been guarding this man from the moon’s influence for enough years to preserve his sanity. I had also learned from Namid that the more skilled and powerful a weremyste became, the more he or she could resist the worst of what the runemyste called “the moontimes.” Perhaps the sheer might of the magic this man wielded was enough to keep him from losing his mind. Either way, I wasn’t looking forward to meeting him, particularly if that encounter didn’t happen until the phasing began.
I climbed into the car and started back toward Billie’s house.
I was about halfway to Highway 101 when I figured out I was being followed. Whoever was behind me didn’t have much experience tailing people. I could tell, because I had a ton of experience. He was following too closely, maintaining a short distance between us.
No doubt it was another of Saorla’s friends.
I continued past the on-ramp to the highway, figuring I would be safer on surface roads if my shadow decided to attack. I steered myself onto Scottsdale Road, and followed it through the heart of the town. It made for slower going, but I was fine with that. I even took a few extra detours onto side streets, each time making my way back to the main road, so that I could be certain the guy in the trailing car really was following me.
He made every turn with me, sometimes idling at red lights right on my rear bumper. Eyeing him in my rearview mirror, I could nearly make out his features. I knew he was alone, and though I suppose it was possible that this was the silver-haired weremancer, I somehow doubted that such a dangerous enemy would prove to be this much of an idiot. Whoever it was drove a Hyundai sedan, late model, metallic green. Not exactly a muscle car. I probably could have shaken him if I tried. But I wanted to talk to him.
At the next side street, I made a sharp right, accelerating through the curve and speeding down a narrow residential lane. The Hyundai came after me. I made a second right onto another residential street. It was empty except for a few parked cars. I hit the brakes and spun the wheel so that I came to a stop blocking both lanes of the road. Moments later, my shadow slung around the corner and, seeing me, slammed on the brakes. He threw his car into reverse, but I’d had enough of this.
Three elements. His tire, my hand, and a long, sharp knife. I heard the tire blow, watched as the car swerved and slowed. When it came to a complete stop, the driver’s side door opened and the man inside got out. Despite the dim light, I could make out the smudge of magic across his face.
I warded myself and climbed out of the Z-ster. For the moment, I kept my Glock holstered.
“You were interested in speaking with me?” I asked. “Or do you just tail strange cars at night as a hobby?”
He was about my height, light brown hair, handsome in a non-descript way. He might once have been an athlete, but he had developed a small paunch that his flannel shirt couldn’t quite hide.
“I want to know where my wife and kids are.”
I nodded, knowing that I should have expected this. “Neil Davett.”
“That’s right. Who the hell are you?”
“You followed me without having any idea of who I was. That’s pretty dumb, Neil.”
“Screw you! I can take care of myself. Now where are they?”
“I had been planning to look you up and ask the same question,” I said.
He scowled. “I don’t believe you.”
I took a few steps in his direction, muttering an attack spell to myself, in case he threw a casting my way. He had some power; I could tell that much from the amount of blurring on his features. And clearly he didn’t lack for confidence. But I didn’t believe he was much of a threat. Unless, of course, I managed to tick him off.
“So first you follow me, not knowing who I am, and then you call me a liar. You’re not the brightest bulb on the marquee, are you?”
“And that’s the second time you’ve called me dumb. Now, I’m going to give you one more chance to answer my questions. Who are you, and where the hell is my wife?”
“My name is Jay Fearsson. I’m a private investigator, and I’ve been hired by Eduardo and Marisol Trejo to find your wife and children.”
He had been coiled, readying himself for a fight. But he straightened at that, his brow furrowing. “They don’t have the money to hire a PI.”
“No, they don’t. But they have a friend who does.”
“Amaya.”
Maybe he wasn’t quite as dumb as I’d thought. “That’s right. They say that you’ve been abusing Gracie. They think that’s why she ran away.”
His jaw bunched, and I thought for sure he’d throw a spell at me. But he kept his temper in check. “That’s between Gracie and me.”
“All right, then tell me this: do you have any idea why dark sorcerers might be after her?”
“What makes you think they are?”
I stared back at him, keeping my expression neutral. If he didn’t know about the confrontation at the burger place I wasn’t going to tell him. But his bearing had changed, becoming guarded, wary. He wasn’t bristling with testosterone anymore. If anything, he appeared scared. Talking about Gracie and the kids was one thing; he didn’t like the turn our conversation had taken.
“Answer me!” he said, sounding more whiny than threatening.
“I have my reasons,” I said. “You been playing with blood magic? Maybe getting Gracie involved in stuff she shouldn’t be doing?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. And you don’t know anything about Gracie. She doesn’t—” He stopped himself and leveled a finger at me. “I don’t care what you’ve been hired to do. You keep away from my family, and you stay the hell out of my way.”
I’d had enough. I released the attack spell I’d allowed to build inside of me. I figured that Neil had warded himself, but I also thought that my crafting would be more than enough to get his attention, even through his magical shield. I was right on both scores.
The spell I cast was the equivalent of a fist to the gut, if that fist happened to belong to a magical Rocky Balboa. Neil doubled over with an audible grunt. A moment later he dropped to the ground, landing on his butt.
He raised his eyes to mine and gritted his teeth, giving me warning enough to brace myself. Magic charged the air and his spell hit me full in the chest, knocking me back on my heels. I had hit him in the gut rather than the face because I didn’t want to risk drawing blood that he could then use to enhance his casting. Even so, his crafting was more potent than I had expected.
A second spell hit me, much like the first. But though the impact staggered me, my warding held.
“All right,” I said. “We’ve proven to each other that we can cast, and that our wardings work. What now?”
He reached around to his back and the next thing I knew, something in his hand flashed with the cool glow of a nearby streetlight. I grabbed for my weapon and leveled it at him.
“Don’t do it, Neil!”
He hesitated, the knife blade hovering over the back of his hand. I didn’t want to see what he could do with blood magic.
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
“I will if you draw blood for a spell. I won’t have any choice, will I? And now that you’re holding that knife, I can claim it was self-defense.”
Doubt crept into his eyes.
“I used to be a cop. I know how these things work.”
Still he hesitated.
Three elements. His hand, his knife, my hand. It had been a while since I had worked on my transporting spells, but I’d pulled off a complicated one earlier in the day, and this one was as rudimentary as such a casting could be. One moment he was holding the blade, and the next minute I was. His eyes went so wide I almost laughed.
As a precaution, I warded my hand and pistol. I didn’t want him using the same spell against me.
“When was the last time you saw Gracie?” I asked him.
Nothing.
“Believe it or not, you and I want the same things. I haven’t met your wife or your kids, but I want to find them. I want them to be safe.”
“Her parents hate me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They seem to. But what do you expect? You’re a gringo, and you married their baby. She goes by Gracie instead of Engracia—”
“That was her choice. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded if she had wanted to go by Trejo instead of Davett. It was all her.”
“I believe you. But they never will. Especially if you keep hurting her.”
I knew as soon as I said it that I’d made a mistake. But guys who hit women piss me off. Always have, from even before I joined the force.
Neil shut down on me, clenching his jaw, murder in his eyes. I half expected him to fire another spell at me.
“When did you see her last?” I asked again.
“Go to hell.”
I probably should have seen that coming.
“Fine.” I holstered my weapon and dropped his blade where I stood. “I’m leaving now,” I said, backing toward the Z-ster, my eyes fixed on his face. “You can try to follow me, but with that flat you’re going to ding up the wheel rim. Don’t get in my way again; next time we meet, I won’t be so easy on you.”
I opened the car door and started to ease into the driver’s seat.
“It’s been almost two weeks,” he said. “It’ll be two this coming Sunday.”
I stopped, straightened once more, one arm resting on the roof of the car.
“Where did you see her?”
“A park near my house. I had the kids for the weekend; she was picking them up.”
“Was there anything unusual about her behavior, or maybe about things the kids said while you had them? Anything at all that might explain her disappearance?”
He shook his head. “She was distant, but that’s been the case for a while. And the kids . . .” His gaze slid away. “Do you have kids?”
“No.”
“Then you wouldn’t understand. I wasn’t watching for signs, I wasn’t trying to read every gesture or guess the hidden meaning behind every word. I had them with me, and that was enough. I was trying to soak up the time. Enjoy them, you know?”
“When are you supposed to have the kids again?”
“I’m supposed to have them every weekend. Those are the terms of the separation agreement. She was supposed to call last Friday to arrange the drop-off. She didn’t, and I never heard from her. I went by her parents’ house, just to see that they were okay. I saw them in the yard, so I drove off. I didn’t want to start a fight. I wanted to see my kids, that’s all. But when she didn’t call again today I got mad. I went by the hospital where she works, and she wasn’t there. I started feeling scared, worrying that they were in trouble . . . So I went to the kids’ school. They hadn’t been in, either. By then I was really scared. That’s when I started trying to track her down.”
“You were following her parents. You found me through them.”
He faltered, then shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do. The phasing is coming up, and I want them with me for that. It’s safer.”
I frowned. “You and Gracie are both weremystes, both subject to the phasing. Why should the kids be any safer with you?”
Neil’s gaze flitted away, giving me the impression that he wished he’d kept that last remark to himself.
“Unless,” I said, “you’re using blood magic to protect yourself from the moon.”
“I want my kids back,” he said, refusing now to look my way. “And my wife. I miss my family. That’s the only thing that matters to me.”
One of the insidious things about abusive relationships was that abuse and love could exist side by side. The love was twisted by violence and a desperate, almost pathological need to control, but it was there nevertheless. Neil sounded like a guy who loved and missed his wife and kids, and wanted them in his life. I could even believe that his concern for their well-being was sincere. But that didn’t mean the abuse wouldn’t start up again as soon as he and Gracie were back together.
I didn’t know what to say to him. A part of me felt sorry for the guy; another part of me wanted to kick the crap out of him. Once we started attacking each other with magic, he’d been quick to go for his knife. I thought about my conversation with Namid earlier in the evening. It seemed that Neil was used to using blood in his spells, which told me that he had more than a passing familiarity with dark magic.
“I have every intention of finding them,” I told him, feeling that I ought to say something. “And I’ll do whatever I have to to keep them safe.”
He nodded.
I got in the car and drove away, watching Neil in my mirrors to make sure he didn’t do anything foolish. Once I had turned off that small lane, I made my way to the highway and headed back to Billie’s.
The house was dark when I got there. I parked out front, alarm bells going off in my head. I had my Glock in hand before I was out of the car. I opened the screen door and found that the front door was still unlocked. I turned the knob and then pushed the door open with my foot, both hands on my weapon.
Billie lay curled on the couch, a blanket around her shoulders. I could see that she was breathing. A candle sat in a shallow bowl on the coffee table beside her, cool wax pooled around its base. Everything else seemed to be in order. I started to holster my weapon.
A faint rustling, made me whirl, the pistol raised to fire, my heart in my throat.
I froze.
A small owl sat on the top shelf of her bookcase, yellow eyes gleaming in the dim light cast by the moon and the streetlights. Gray and black streaking, small tufts on its head similar to those of a Great-Horned Owl. I knew it right away for a Screech Owl. But what was it doing in here?
I chanced a quick scan of the room and saw that the screen on one of the open front windows had been slashed. I even thought I saw a few wisps of down clinging to the edges of the opening the owl had created.
I took a slow step toward the bird. It watched me, but didn’t flinch or give any indication that it intended to fly. I eased closer.
When I had covered half the distance between us, I spotted the tiny roll of paper attached to the owl’s right foot.
“You’re a were,” I whispered.
It cocked its head to the side.
Weres had long been stigmatized in our culture, portrayed in movies and television shows as vicious, tortured animals that could pass their curse on to normal humans with a single bite. In truth, they had much more in common with weremystes than with monsters. On the nights of the phasing, they transformed into the animal that shared their bodies. But they wielded no magic beyond this, and they could not assume their animal forms at other times.
The spells Saorla and her weremancers placed on them changed this. The dark sorcerers had been using weres as servants—wereslaves, I called them. They claimed to have magic that would free the weres from the moon, and allow them to control when and where they took their animal form. This magic, they assured their victims, was a gift.
In reality, it was anything but. All it did was give control over the weres to those who cast the spells. They could turn the weres at will, and compel them to do their bidding.
Six days remained until the start of the phasing, which meant that this were had probably been forced into owl form by a dark sorcerer, probably for the express purpose of delivering a message to me. Confident now that I wouldn’t spook the bird, I crossed to the shelves and carefully removed the note from its leg. Then I held out my arm.
“I’ll let you out. It’ll be easier than trying to squeeze through that hole in the screen.”
The owl clicked its beak before hopping to my arm, its wings opening as it sought to keep its balance.
“You’re a beautiful bird,” I said. “I wish my father could see you.”
I opened the door and stepped outside. At the first touch of the night air, the owl leapt off my arm and flew away, wings beating silently. It flashed beneath the streetlamp, but after that I lost track of it. I scanned the street, but saw no one, and then went back inside, taking care to lock the door.
Billie was awake and sitting up, her hair a tangled mess, her eyes puffy.
“You’re here,” she said.
“Yeah. Sorry it’s so late.”
She pushed a strand of hair out of her face and yawned. “What time is it?”
I stepped into the kitchen, switched on the light and checked the clock on the stove. It was only a few minutes past ten, though it felt much later.
“Ten after ten,” I called to her.
I unrolled the tiny piece of paper I’d taken from the owl, and read.
You are not to interfere—S.
It was written in a tight, neat script. I had no doubt as to who “S” was. Apparently the circle of people interested in Gracie Davett was expanding by the hour.
Saorla had included no warning in her missive—there hadn’t been room on the scrap of paper for much more than what she’d written. But the fact that she had sent the wereowl here, to Billie’s home, was threat enough.
“Fearsson?”
“Yeah.” I balled up the paper and threw it in Billie’s trash.
A moment later she shuffled into the kitchen, squinting against the light. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. I was checking the time.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “You wear a watch.”
Even drowsy, she was smarter than me—I?—although I’m not sure that was saying much.
“Does whatever you’re hiding from me have anything to do with that big tear in my screen?”
I winced, scratched the back of my head. “Yes, it does. There was an owl waiting here for me when I got back.”
Her jaw dropped. “An owl? In my house?”
“It was a were, and it had a note tied to its leg.”
“Was the note for me or you?”
It was my turn to cock an eyebrow.
“Yeah, all right. Stupid question. Who was it from?” Before I could answer, she put up a hand. “No, let me guess. Saorla.”
“You’re getting good at this.”
“I don’t seem to have much choice. There was really an owl in my house?”
“A wereowl.”
She gave a roll of her eyes and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I suppose it could have been worse.”
“Weresnakes?”
Billie scowled. “I was thinking of Saorla herself showing up. But thanks. Now I’ll be scanning the floor for weresnakes every time I walk into my kitchen.”
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her. She snuggled against my chest.
“Have I mentioned that your job sucks?”
“A couple of times. And that’s just today.”
“What did Amaya want?”
“He hired me on behalf of an older couple. Their daughter and her children are missing, and they want me to find them.”
“That’s sad. But as things with Amaya go, it doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Not of the face of it, no. But I’m almost positive that this is the same woman I told you about over dinner, the one Kona is after.”
She frowned up at me. “The one from the burger place?”
“I think so.” I described for her my conversation with the Trejos and my encounter with Neil Davett. “And,” I said, “I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that there was a note from Saorla waiting for me when I got back here.”
“So the husband’s a weremyste, too.”
“Yes. And I think he’s into dark magic. I’m positive that if I’d given him the chance, he would have drawn blood for a spell.”
“Do you think he’s working with Saorla?”
It was a good question, one I didn’t know how to answer. I had little doubt that the weremancers at the burger place worked for her, the men inside who hadn’t been carrying ID, as well as the silver-haired man outside who could kill with a touch. But I had the impression that Neil was on his own. Saorla didn’t mess around, and she didn’t place her trust in amateurs. Even the couple at the motel earlier in the day had been powerful and professional enough to pose a threat to me. Neil had been careless; Saorla would have said that he was ruled by his emotions.
Billie rapped her knuckles lightly on the side of my head. “What’s going on in there, Fearsson?”
I smiled. “You’ve got me thinking. To answer your question, no, I don’t think her husband is working for Saorla. At least not on this. He struck me as a guy who was desperate to find his wife and kids.”
“So that he can abuse them again.”
I tipped my head, conceding the point.
“You need to find them before anyone else does.”
“Yes, I do. But first I need to sleep, and so do you.”
She canted her head to the side, the depth of her smile quickening my pulse. “I slept already. I’m not tired anymore.” She kissed me. “And I seem to remember somebody letting it slip that he’s in love with me.”
“I remember that, as well.”
“Good. Then take me to bed.”
“That’s easily the best offer I’ve had all day,” I said. I scooped her up into my arms, eliciting a giggle, and carried her back to her bedroom.
It was a late night.
Unfortunately, it was also an early morning.
I awoke to a faint, familiar chiming that at first I couldn’t place. It took three tones before I recognized the sound of my cell phone. It was still in the pocket of my bomber jacket, which lay on the floor near Billie’s bed.
I scrambled out from under the sheet and blanket, grabbed the bomber, and fumbled for the phone. The clock readout read “7:12.” And the caller ID beneath it read “Kona at 620.”
I opened the phone and sat back on the edge of the bed. “Fearsson.”
“Billie charging you rent yet?” Kona asked. “I can hardly reach you at your own place anymore.”
“No,” I said, still trying to wake up. “No rent yet.”
“Get your head in the game, Justis. I need your help.”
“Yeah, all right. What’s up?”
“I’m holding the ME’s report on Merilee Guilford, the woman who was killed outside the Burger Royale.”
The Medical Examiner’s report. That got my attention. “And?”
“Cause of death was blood loss.”
I shivered, as if Saorla herself had run a cold finger down my spine.
“Blood loss,” I repeated.
“That’s what they say. Now how do you suppose that silver-haired gentleman took her blood when we didn’t find a cut anywhere on her body?”
I didn’t want to speak the words.
“Justis?”
“We need to find this guy, Kona. You’ve seen what blood magic can do.” She and Kevin had witnessed our battle with Saorla and her weremancers during the summer. They had also investigated a series of ritual killings committed in the weeks leading up to that confrontation. “And you’ve seen that dark sorcerers have no qualms about taking blood from people without their permission.”
“Yeah?” she said, seeming to brace herself for what I was about to say.
“Well, I think this guy can take their blood just by touching them. He’s like a magical vampire.”
For a few seconds, she didn’t answer. “You know what?” she said. “I must be spending too much time with you and your magical friends. Because that’s exactly what I was afraid you were going to say.”