Shadow's Blade, page 10
“Yes, of course there is,” he said, his voice rumbling like flood waters behind a dam. “Have I not told you before that runecrafting is a living art? If the spell has not yet been used, then you must create it yourself, but there is always a way.”
“But I’d have to cast it,” my father said. “Isn’t that right? If Justis does it, and she knows his magic, she might still know where he is, no matter how we cast the spell.”
“You may well be right,” Namid said, sounding impressed.
Dad jerked a thumb in my direction. “He thought of that, not me.”
“Well done, Ohanko.” His glowing eyes narrowed. “If you can dampen your magic in some way, you might make yourself invisible to those of us who can sense such things.”
“Right. That’s what I was thinking. But I don’t know the spell.”
“Do you?” Namid asked my father.
Dad shook his head, but his gaze flicked toward me, and I had the feeling that he was protecting my feelings.
“Of course you do,” I said. “It’s all right. Tell him.”
“I don’t know that I can explain it,” he said, an admission of sorts. He frowned, eyeing me the way he might an old broken down car he wasn’t quite sure how to fix. After a few seconds, I felt magic stir the air around me. The skin on my arms pebbled.
Namid’s eyes widened. “Good, Lokni. Very good. That is a powerful glamour. I do not sense him anymore, and yet there he stands.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
Dad shrugged. “I thought of a blanket, one of those silvery thermal ones that the astronauts took to space. And I imagined it covering you so that your magic couldn’t be seen or felt.” He shrugged again, a small grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “I guess I can still cast new spells when I have to.”
I smiled. “I guess.”
“I will leave you now,” Namid said. His bright gaze lingered on me for a few seconds. “Saorla has done more than follow you. I sense this. You would prefer not to discuss the matter now, and I will respect your wishes. But this is a conversation you and I will have eventually.”
I had the distinct impression that he wasn’t asking for my acquiescence so much as expecting it. I nodded and watched him fade.
“Sounds like you have a trip to the wood shed in store.”
“Yeah,” I said, still staring at the spot where Namid had been. “But I can’t worry about that now.” I faced my dad. “There’s one more thing I need you to do. I’m going to cast the spell I’ve used to muffle my conversations. Between that spell, and my car sitting by your trailer, I should be able to convince Saorla that I’m here with you. But the ruse will work better if you’re inside the trailer rather than outside.”
A frown flitted across his lined face. I felt much worse asking this of him than I had asking for the truck. Sitting outside and watching for birds was one of the few pleasures he still had in his life. Making him give that up, even for one day, seemed unfair.
He was a trooper, though. After that initial reaction, he fixed a smile on his face. “Sure, why not?” he said. “It’s been a while since I used that fancy disc player you got me for Christmas. I think I’ll watch a movie or two.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
The smile faded. “If it helps you with Saorla, it’s worth it. At some point you’ll tell me more about this woman you’re trying to help, right?”
“I’ll be happy to. I’d tell you more now, but the truth is I know very little about her, beyond the fact that she’s got two kids with her. Eight and five.”
The expression in his eyes hardened in a way I remembered from my childhood. “Then you should get going.”
“Yes, sir.” I stood, kissed the top of his head, and reached for my lawn chair, intending to fold it up and put it away.
“Leave it,” Dad said, standing as well. “I’ll leave mine out, too. It’ll make it seem that there are two of us inside the trailer.”
“Good thinking. You don’t seem muddled anymore.”
He grinned. “You and Namid have that effect on me. Now, go.” He didn’t wait for me to answer, but stepped into the trailer, and closed the door behind him.
I cast the muffling spell, hoping it would be enough to fool Saorla of Brewood. Then I climbed into my father’s pickup, turned over the old engine, and started back toward the interstate.
CHAPTER 8
The drive from my father’s place to the southern end of Phoenix took me through some of the busiest sections of the city. We were past the worst of the morning commute, but still the roads were crowded. Bumper-to-bumper traffic moving at sixty-five. NASCAR had nothing on Phoenix’s highways.
I had in mind to go south again, beyond the outskirts of the city. That was the direction Gracie had driven, and I still remembered how the afternoon before my instincts had screamed for me to keep driving past Casa Grande. But first I stopped at the Burger Royale.
The restaurant hadn’t reopened, and the parking lot had been cordoned off with bright yellow crime scene tape. I only saw two cars in the lot, both of them cruisers. Only one car had anyone in it; the police wanted to keep people away, but for now at least no one was actively working the scene.
I parked by the expanse of tape and got out of the truck, my wallet already in my hand.
The cop in the cruiser rolled down his window. “Can I help you?”
I held up my wallet, which I had opened to my PI license. “My name’s Jay Fearsson. I was here yesterday with Kona Shaw in Homicide. I’m wondering if I can take a quick look at something.”
He eyed me, squinting in the sunlight. “Fearsson. You the guy who killed the East Side Parks Killer?” That was what cops had called Etienne de Cahors before the press dubbed him the Blind Angel Killer.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“That was a nice piece of work.”
“Thank you.”
“I can’t let you go inside the restaurant. Even Elliott Ness can’t get in there. But you can walk around the lot if you want.”
“Works for me. I appreciate it.”
He raised a hand, acknowledging my thanks, but he had already turned his attention back to his smart phone.
I ducked under the tape and walked to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, where those large trash bins still lay on their sides, surrounded by garbage and, at this point, covered with swarms of flies and yellow jackets.
I hoped to catch a glimpse of Gracie’s magic, but after twenty-four hours, most of that rust-colored glow had faded. The glare of the morning sun on the bins didn’t help. I circled them, found a spot that was still in shade and bent lower to get a better view.
Magic residue still clung to the plastic, shimmering weakly, like a candle flame on the verge of burning itself out. I started to recite a spell that, at least in theory, would work as a sort of magical Geiger counter tuned to her magic in particular, so that I could track her and know when I was getting close. After only a moment of this, I stopped myself. It sounded too much like what Saorla had been doing to me. The silver-haired conjurer wouldn’t have left this place without attempting something similar. What’s more, Gracie probably knew that. In which case, either she had found a way to mask her magic, much as my dad and I had done, or Saorla’s friends already had her. I was betting on the former.
She had switched off her cell phone because she didn’t want Neil tracking her with the signal. I assumed that she had done something similar with her runecrafting. Which begged the question, how was I supposed to find her? I straightened and gazed southward, my eyes following the interstate to the horizon.
What had her mother said? Gracie had spoken of living in Tucson, and she liked to camp. With the kids with her, she could only disappear so far into the wilderness. She would need bathrooms, food, a safe place to pitch a tent. There were a few spots like that in the Tucson area, but the ones that came to mind were too obvious, too easy to find. Anything Marisol would have thought to tell me Neil would know as well.
That left another choice, one that was more remote, and offered her more possibilities if she needed to run.
I didn’t have a tent or sleeping bag with me, but that was a problem for later. I pivoted on my heel and strode back to my father’s truck.
“Thanks,” I said as I walked past the cruiser.
The cop didn’t even look up. “No problem.”
I stopped at a nearby gas station and filled the tank before getting on I-10 and heading south. Once clear of the city outskirts, traffic fell away. The truck had an AM/FM radio and a cassette player that might have worked still. But Dad kept no tapes in the car, and I couldn’t find anything worth listening to on the radio. I drove with the windows down, the desert air on my face and neck, and I tried to sift through the smells of sage and truck exhaust for the elusive scent of magic, dark or light.
Where could Gracie be headed? She had run away from her husband, and had abandoned the refuge of her parents’ home. She had escaped the dark sorcerers at the restaurant, so was strong enough to take care of herself. She had resorted to killing, so she also must have understood how much danger she and her kids were in from the people pursuing her. And after all that transpired at the restaurant, she had to know that the police would be after her as well.
If she was smart, she would leave the country, but without passports for the kids I didn’t think she would get past the border police. In her position, my next choice would have been L.A., or perhaps San Diego. Both were big enough that a Latina mother with two kids—even a woman with power like hers—could melt into some quiet, obscure neighborhood without leaving a trace. But moving to either city would require money, and unless she was carrying gobs of cash, she would have to rely on credit cards, which were easily traced.
That didn’t leave her with many options.
As I neared Casa Grande, I felt that same impulse to keep driving south. It was almost as if Tucson were calling for me. For a moment I gave serious thought to abandoning my plan and remaining on I-10.
This time, though, it occurred to me that what I’d assumed yesterday was instinct might actually be magic. I wasn’t sure how Gracie had done it, but she had left a spell on the road that was making me want to keep driving. It was clever, and yesterday it had very nearly worked. But I knew she hadn’t intended the spell for me, and though loath to admit it, I had a feeling that the silver-haired weremyste was probably too smart and too powerful to be fooled by such a conjuring.
I exited I-10 at the exchange with I-8, which cut east to west, from Casa Grande through Yuma, and, ultimately to San Diego. Once again, as I left I-10 I felt the road tugging at my head and heart, with the power of a gibbous moon. Even knowing it was magic, I had to grip the wheel until my knuckles whitened to keep from turning around.
Gracie might have thought her spell clever, but it was too strong, too obvious. Rather than putting Saorla’s weremancers off her trail, it would serve to keep them on it. I could only hope that they hadn’t found her already.
I drove west on I-8 for about an hour, watching my mirrors for any sign of dark sorcerers. During the summer I had been attacked by a weremancer in a sleek silver sedan of unknown make. And I knew every make there was.
Today, though, I didn’t see any unusual cars. Lots of semis, and a few campers, but no sedans with smoked windows and ungodly acceleration.
At Gila Bend, I took the exit for state road 85, which headed south toward Ajo and then Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I had thought that when I took this exit, I would feel that same spell-induced urge to remain on the freeway. I didn’t. I felt nothing at all.
It was enough to make me wonder if I should keep going toward San Diego. I pulled into a gas station near the exit and sat for several moments with the engine idling, wondering what to do. If Gracie’s spell at Casa Grande had been an amateurish attempt to throw sorcerers off her trail, then chances were she and the kids were headed toward the California coast. But what if she was more clever than that, more clever even than I had credited? What if that first spell had been a more subtle ruse designed to mask this second exit?
After some thought I decided that if she was on her way to San Diego, there was little more I could do for her. I would never find her there. Earlier this morning I had come up with a plan. I was going to stick with it.
I pulled back out onto the state highway and drove south. I stopped in Ajo to buy a cheap tent and sleeping bag at a sporting goods place, pick up some food, and put more gas in the truck. Compared to the Z-ster this thing gulped down gasoline, and the Z-ster wasn’t exactly a Prius.
Then I continued on to the national monument, the terrain growing more dramatic with every mile I drove. Miles to the west, in the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge, the Growler range rose from the desert floor, its worn peaks stark against the azure sky, the deep folds in its mountainsides casting dark shadows across the rocky faces.
Closer to the road, huge saguaros grew beside equally impressive clusters of the organ pipe cacti for which the monument was named. They shared the desert floor with brittlebrush and creosote, mesquite and paloverde, chollas and ocotillos and prickly pears, creating a stunning palette of soft earth tones. A woodpecker flew across the road to one of the larger organ pipes, its wings flashing white and black, and a covey of quail ran along the roadside, the curved plumes on their foreheads bobbing comically. Ahead, beyond the entrance gate, the sheer, rugged cliffs of the Ajo Mountains appeared to glow red in the late afternoon sun.
I had been here once with my dad, many years ago, but I had forgotten how beautiful it was. More recently, the monument had been saddled with a bad reputation as one of the least safe of America’s national parks and monuments. The monument sits right on the border with Mexico, and since its establishment back in the 1930s, the park service had resisted efforts to put large fences along its southern edge. They preferred to keep the park scenic and natural, and to allow the free flow of wildlife through that section of the desert. I can understand their thinking. But as a result, Organ Pipe National Monument had long ago become a popular place for illegal crossings by immigrants as well as drug couriers. And in 2002, a park ranger named Kris Eggle was killed in a shootout with members of a Mexican drug cartel. That tragedy focused attention on the problem and convinced the service and border security to take more decisive action. They constructed a steel fence along the southern edge of the monument, which had curbed some of the motor traffic across the border.
Still, illegal crossings continue to this day, and the monument’s reputation as a somewhat dodgy vacation destination persists. This was one more reason why it seemed to me the perfect place for Gracie Davett and her kids to lie low. The campgrounds wouldn’t be crowded, and if they decided that fleeing the country made sense . . . well, the porousness of the border worked both ways.
I paid an entrance fee at the park gate, and drove through the scenic core of the monument, known as the Valley of the Ajo. Those stark cliffs loomed to the east, basking in the golden sunlight. Black vultures circled over the drive, the silvery patches at the ends of their wings catching the light, and lizards scuttled across the road, their tails held high as they vanished into the saltbrush. I couldn’t help but smile. At some point I would have to bring my dad back here.
I passed the visitor’s center, which was named for Eggle. Soon after, the road wound into the Twin Peaks campground.
For a few hours now, I had been wondering how best to approach Gracie. I didn’t want to scare her, but I knew that as soon as she saw the blur of magic on my face she would assume the worst and would throw assailing spells at me. I had confidence in my ability to ward myself against whatever spells she tried. Then again I’m sure the two guys she killed at the Burger Royale had been confident, too.
I eased the pickup onto the campground loop, and followed it to the far end, where the tent sites were located. I didn’t figure Gracie was driving an RV. I turned onto the first of the two “tents-only” rows, driving slowly past the sites like any newcomer trying to find a good place to pitch a tent. Some of the sites were taken. Two or three had tents pitched on them but no cars parked on the sites. People milled about on several of the others. But more than half of the campsites were empty. Reaching the end of this row, I had to circle all the way back to the front of the loop to try the second row, which was also the last row in the campground, farthest from the ranger station. About halfway down this road, I spotted what I’d been looking for. A silver Honda minivan sat parked next to a large blue and white domed tent.
At first I didn’t see any adults. But as I rolled past the van, I spotted a little girl sitting at the picnic table by the site’s fire grate. Pretty and grave, her skin nut brown, her dark hair hanging loose to her shoulders, she watched me, unblinking. I gazed back at her, remembering the picture of Gracie I’d seen at Amaya’s. This girl had to be her daughter. After a moment, I smiled, but her expression didn’t change. And as soon as I was past their site, she jumped up from the table and ran to the tent.
I hadn’t wanted to alarm them. Seems I’d failed already, and I had yet to say a word to any of them or even get out of the truck.
I pulled into an empty site two down from theirs and climbed out of the cab. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I felt the moon. My eyes were drawn to it; it’s pull was magnetic. It hung low in the eastern sky, pale and large, paralyzing in its beauty. It was still a half-dozen days shy of full, but its weight on my mind felt as solid and real as the door of the pickup against my hand. Every phasing was bad—I had no reason to think that this one would be any worse than last month’s or the one before that. But at that moment, I found it hard to believe that we were still days away from the full. Maybe it was being out here in the desert, far from the city. Whatever the reason, the moon’s pull seemed more powerful here, more insistent.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and walked around the campsite a bit, making it seem as though I were figuring out where I would place my tent. I made a point of not looking back toward Gracie’s minivan or that blue tent. The last thing I wanted was to spook them into leaving.
