Shadow's Blade, page 11
As it turned out, that wasn’t the danger.
The spell hit me between the shoulder blades with the force of a cannon ball. I went down hard, my face and chest slamming into the sand and gravel. My mouth throbbed painfully. I could tell I had split my lip; I hoped I hadn’t lost a tooth as well.
Before I could get up, a footfall scuffed behind me.
“Don’t even breathe,” a woman’s voice said. If she was scared, she hid it well. “Keep your hands where I can see them. And if I feel the slightest touch of magic, I swear to God I’ll blow your head off.”
I heard the tentative crunch of another step.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Who the hell are you?”
“My name’s Jay Fearsson.” I had trouble forming the words. My lip was already swelling, and I was talking into the ground. But I forged on. “I’m a private detective. Your parents hired me to find you.”
She laughed, dry and harsh. “That’s bullshit. Did Neil send you?”
“No. I swear, your parents did. I met them at Jacinto Amaya’s house. He’s paying me, but on their behalf.”
No answer. Apparently she hadn’t expected that.
“I guess your mom—Marisol—she teaches at Chofi’s school. That’s Amaya’s daughter. She loves your mom; Amaya said she’s the kid’s favorite teacher.” I was babbling, but I hoped that at least some of what I said might convince Gracie I was telling the truth.
“How did you find me?”
“Your mother said you like to camp, you and the kids. And after what happened at the restaurant, I figured you’d want to find an out-of-the-way place to hide, somewhere cheap, something you could pay for without using a credit card. The campgrounds near Saguaro National Park would have been another choice, but it’s too obvious, too close to Tucson. So I guessed you were here.”
“Crap.” She said it in a low voice; I’m not sure she realized she had spoken aloud.
“It was either here or San Diego,” I said, still talking for the sake of it. I didn’t imagine I could win her trust with this soliloquy, but maybe I could keep her from shooting me. “The spell you put on I-10 around Casa Grande was a little heavy-handed. But then you didn’t use any magic at the exit off of I-8, which was smart. I think most people would keep driving toward California.”
“You didn’t.”
“That’s because I spoke to your mom. If she hadn’t mentioned camping, I wouldn’t have thought to come here.”
She said nothing, and for several seconds all was silent except for the distant liquid song of a canyon wren. Thinking perhaps I had convinced her to trust me, I moved my hands, bracing them on the rough ground so that I could push myself up.
“Don’t!” she said, before I could raise myself off the ground.
I raised my hands off the dirt. “I was just going to get up.”
“I know damn well what you were going to do. And I’m telling you not to.”
“I’m here to help you, Gracie.”
“I don’t need help.”
“I disagree. I know who’s after you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean. Who do you know?”
“I know Saorla. And I also know the Phoenix police. I used to work for them.”
“A weremyste cop? I’m not sure I believe that, either.”
“Tell me about the silver-haired man.”
She didn’t answer right away. “What do you know about him?”
“I know that he can kill with a touch, that he can pull blood for a spell without having to cut someone. Do you know his name?”
“No.” She said it with some hesitation, leaving me unsure as to whether I should believe her.
“Had you seen him before the restaurant?”
“Possibly. I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember? He strikes me as someone I’d have trouble forgetting.”
“Well, that’s you. Get up.”
I planted my hands again and pushed myself up, every movement deliberate, slow. I got to my feet and faced her. She wore jeans and a white tank top that revealed toned brown arms. Her hair was a good deal shorter than it had been in the photograph her parents showed me, barely reaching her neck. It was a good look for her. Magic obscured her features, but I could make out an oval face, and large dark eyes.
I had no trouble at all seeing the silver and black Ruger SR9 she had trained on my heart. She held it with both hands, a standard grip. I had a feeling she knew her way around a pistol and was probably a good shot.
“You shouldn’t have come after me. My parents are . . . they don’t understand.”
A drop of blood fell from my chin. I ran my tongue over my split lip, tasting blood and wincing at how much it stung.
“They’re worried about you,” I said. “And about your children. Where and when did you first see the silver-haired man?”
“I told you, I don’t remember. And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.”
“You don’t know that. Anything you can tell me might matter.”
“I don’t know who he is. That’s the bottom line. The rest—” She shook her head. “What was that name you mentioned earlier?”
“Saorla?”
“Right. Who is that?”
I licked my lip again. “Do you know what a runemyste is?”
“Of course.”
“She’s like a runemyste only not. The runemyste I know calls her and her kind necromancers. Their power is similar to that of the runemystes, but they use dark magic, blood spells and the like. She’s powerful and she’s ruthless and she hates me a lot. I think she knows about you. Right after Amaya hired me, she warned me not to interfere.”
“You should have listened to her.”
“Well, I didn’t, and I’m here now. So instead of trying to drive me away, maybe you should accept that I’m here to help you, and even consider that having an ally might be a good thing.”
I cast the spell without hesitation, without bothering to repeat the elements three times. The transporting spell again. Her weapon, her hand, my hand.
Magic electrified the air, and an instant later, I held the Ruger. I didn’t aim it at her; I kept it lowered at my side. But I warded myself from attack spells, and cast a second warding to keep her from taking her pistol back.
The glare she threw my way could have flayed the skin from my bones, but she didn’t try to cast.
“Not bad,” she said, her tone grudging. “I should have been ready for it.”
“Yeah, you should have. Just like I should have been ready for the attack that knocked me down.”
I walked toward her and held out the Ruger for her to take.
She frowned, but took it. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m not here to hurt you, and right now I’m not even interested in taking you back to Phoenix. I meant what I said. I came here to help. You’ve got some powerful mystes after you. I think you could use an ally.”
The frown lingered, but she hadn’t yet pointed the pistol at me again, which I took as a small victory.
“I’ll think about it,” she said after some time. She started away from me, back toward her campsite. “For now, keep your distance.”
I watched her walk away before making my way to the nearest of the campground restrooms to clean up my lip. Once the blood was gone, it didn’t look too bad. It was going to be swollen for a couple of days, but that was the price I paid for turning my back on another weremyste without warding myself.
I retreated to my site, and then, because there was nothing else to do, I pulled out my tent and set it up on a wide expanse of fine dirt and gravel some distance from the road. A hummingbird buzzed around the brush and trees as I worked, its purple throat glistening in the twilight sun. When I finished I walked to the station at the head of the campground loop to pay for my site. I took the long way around when I went, but on the way back I passed by Gracie’s campsite.
This time, she and both children were out of the tent. They had a small camp stove set up on the picnic table and appeared to be making some kind of flavored rice dish. Gracie glanced my way as I approached the site, but she said nothing to me. The boy held a smart phone in his stubby fingers and wore ear buds. He seemed completely absorbed by whatever was on the screen.
The girl, though, watched me, as she had earlier when I drove in. I tried smiling at her again, but she didn’t smile back. Something occurred to me then—I should have thought of it before, when I was lying on the ground, but my mind had been focused on other things. I considered stopping to ask Gracie more questions, but she had told me to stay away, and I wasn’t going to win her trust if I ignored her wishes.
I dug into the food I’d brought and made myself a sandwich of avocado, tomato, and cheese, which was something of a camping tradition for my dad and me.
The sky darkened. The moon climbed higher, bright white against deep indigo. A few stars began to emerge in the velvet, and nearby a great-horned owl hooted, low and resonant. Airplanes passed high overhead, blinking like fireflies, the muted drone of their engines trailing behind them.
I heard Gracie talking to the kids, although I couldn’t make out a word of what she said. At one point the boy squealed with laughter, bringing a smile to my face. Soon after, they grew quiet. I thought they must have gone to sleep, but a short time later magic hummed in the ground and the air. Before I knew it, I was on my feet, striding toward their site, my Glock in hand, my pulse racing. I stopped near the minivan. I didn’t see any new cars, or, for that matter, anything else to indicate that they were in trouble. I had heard no voices since the boy laughed, but I could make out the rustling of sleeping bags.
I scanned the nearby campsites, but they were still empty.
Now that I thought about it, the magic I’d felt could have been a warding. With only a tent over their heads, Gracie would want to have magical shelter as well. My heartbeat slowing, I made my way back to my site. I would probably be smart to ward my tent before I went to sleep, too.
I sat on top of my picnic table and stared up at the sky again. The moon was too bright for the stars to be truly spectacular, the way they can be sometimes in the middle of the desert, but still it was as beautiful a night sky as I had seen in some time. I needed to get out of the city more.
I heard the high metallic whine of a tent zipper, and a moment later the scrape of approaching footsteps.
Gracie had put on a fleece jacket, and she had put away her weapon, though I assumed she had it on her. I would have in her position. She stopped in front of my site, but remained on the road, her hands buried in her jacket pockets.
“May I?” she asked
“Sure.”
She hesitated, then took a step, seeming to think that something would happen when she crossed the boundary of my site. When nothing did, she stepped to the table and sat as far from me as possible.
“I heard you a couple of minutes ago,” she said. “You came to our site.”
“Yes. I felt magic, and thought you might be in trouble.”
“It was a warding. And it’s a good thing you didn’t come closer. It would have burned you to a crisp.”
I let out a harsh laugh. “Thanks for the warning.”
She stared back at me.
“Don’t you think it would have been a good idea to tell me that before you cast the spell? What if I had come closer?”
“I told you before to keep your distance. That’s all the warning you should have needed. Either you really are here to help, in which case you would have done as I said, or you’re lying to me, in which case you would have deserved what you got.”
It was my turn to stare. “Boy, you are a piece of work, aren’t you?”
“Do you have kids?” she asked, her tone hard, the words reminding me of her husband.
“No, I don’t.”
“Then you can’t possibly understand. I’ll do anything to keep them safe. Anything at all. And I make no apologies for that.”
I nodded. I might not have kids, but I had Billie and my dad and Kona, and I knew the lengths to which I’d go to keep them safe. “I understand more than you think I do.”
She considered me, her expression unreadable in the pale moonlight. I thought I saw some of the tension drain from her shoulders.
We sat in silence for what felt like a long time. Finally, she stood. “Well, I guess I should get back. Zach doesn’t sleep well when I’m not there.” She started to turn away.
“Your daughter is already showing signs of possessing magic, isn’t she?”
Gracie went still, like an animal unsure of whether it should bolt or attack.
“When you threw that spell at me today, you did it without seeing my face, and without having seen me drive in. After I was on the ground, you told me specifically that if you felt a spell, you’d shoot. She saw the magic on me, didn’t she? She told you I was a weremyste.”
She jerked into motion, walking swiftly back to her site. “Leave us alone,” she said over her shoulder. “If you come near us again, I’ll kill you.”
CHAPTER 9
I let her go, unsure of what else to do. But I listened for the zipper on her tent, and only when I knew she was back with the kids did I cast a warding over my site and retire to my own sleeping bag.
Before I went to sleep, I checked the reception on my phone. I had a couple of bars and so called Billie.
“Hey there,” she said upon answering. “I had hoped to see you tonight. Did you get the message I left you?”
“Did you leave it at my house?”
“Yeah. Where are you?”
I started to answer, but stopped myself. “I’m not sure I can tell you,” I said. “I’m fine, I promise. But I have to operate on the assumption that someone’s listening in on our call.”
“Someone?”
“Saorla. I wanted to check in and let you know that I’m thinking about you.”
After a long pause, she said, “I don’t like this, Fearsson.”
“I know. I don’t either.”
“Can you at least tell me what you’re doing?”
“I’m trying to keep someone safe, although that’s not going so well right now.”
“That doesn’t sound so good. How long are you going to be . . . wherever you are?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”
She didn’t answer at first. “Well, I guess I’ll be talking to you sometime.”
“I love you, Billie.”
“I love you, too. Hate your job, though.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I get that. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Fearsson. Be safe.”
I closed the phone, folded my bomber jacket into something resembling a pillow, and lay down, shifting every few seconds until I found a position that was comfortable. It had been some time since last I slept on the ground. It wasn’t quite as much fun as I remembered.
The owl hooted again, and coyotes howled from nearby, their cries echoing off the cliffs. But I was listening for voices and the hum of car engines. I didn’t expect I would sleep much.
The next thing I knew, though, morning sunlight was filtering in through the nylon of my tent. I heard the puttering of a car engine and felt a frisson of magic over my skin. I grabbed my weapon—the Sig Sauer—zipped open the tent, and scrambled out on my hands and knees.
The engine belonged to a small pickup that idled by Gracie’s site. The truck had a park service insignia on the door, and a ranger stood on the road, chatting amiably with Gracie, who was making breakfast for her kids.
I placed my pistol back in the tent, where the ranger wouldn’t see it. Weapons were allowed in national parks now—not too many years ago they hadn’t been—but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by letting him see it. The ranger climbed back into his pickup and rolled toward my site. As he approached, I cast a spell removing my warding from the previous night; the moment I released the magic, Gracie glanced my way. So did her daughter.
“Good morning,” the ranger said, getting out of his truck. He held a clipboard and scanned it for a few seconds before looking my way. “You paid for a single night. You leaving us today?”
“I’m not sure. I was thinking of staying on for another night or two. My plans are a little unsettled, so I’m paying as I go.”
“Good deal. As you can see, we have plenty of room. But remember to pay again this morning before you go off hiking or something.”
“I will. Thank you.”
He jotted something down, raised a hand and smiled, and got back in his truck. As he pulled away, I glanced at Gracie. She was watching me still.
She said something to her kids, then started in my direction. She halted several feet shy of my site. Her hands were in her pockets again, and she toed the ground, her gaze lowered. She seemed at a loss as to what to say, and I’ll admit that I was in no rush to help her out by breaking the ice.
“Who’s Billie?” she asked, which was about the last thing I’d expected.
“Magic that lets you listen in on other people’s private conversations. That would be handy in my line of work.”
A faint smile touched her lips and dimpled her cheeks. She shrugged. “I told you I’d do anything I had to. Given what that could mean, eavesdropping seemed mild.”
A fair point.
“Billie’s a friend. She would have been worried if I hadn’t called.”
Gracie nodded, glanced around the campground. “I’m sorry for . . . I shouldn’t have threatened you like that. But I still don’t know much about you, and what you said last night . . .”
Comprehension came to me about twelve hours too late. “They’re not after you at all,” I whispered. “They want the kids.”
Tears welled in her dark eyes. After a moment, she nodded again. “They want all of us,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper as well. “But Emmy in particular. She’s much more than she should be at this age.”
“Does Neil know?”
She flinched at the question, but then lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve tried to hide it from him, but it’s possible that he figured it out for himself. That’s why I left. I was afraid he’d notice, or that she’d tell him.”
