Shadow's Blade, page 28
I didn’t doubt it. South Mountain Park was one of the places where the Blind Angel Killer murdered his victims, and I’d seen enough of what Saorla’s weremancers did to know that they were constantly looking for ways to enhance their power.
“Anyway, Gracie tried a few blood spells.” He shook his head again, though this time he wore a faint smile. “You should have seen it. Blood magic, with the power she already has? She summoned a wind that literally blew people over. That’s how she got on their radar. It wasn’t anything I did. Not directly at least. We left that night, and she never came with me again. But every time after, when I went alone, they asked about her. ‘When’s your wife coming back?’” He laughed, dry as the Gila River bed. “They didn’t give a damn about me. They wanted Gracie.”
“Was Fitzwater one of the ones you used to see in the park?”
He tensed visibly at the mention of the name. “How do you know him?”
“He’s one of the ones who’s after Gracie. You know about what happened at the burger place, right?”
Neil nodded. “That was Fitzwater?”
“Yes.”
“Did he kill all of them?”
“No. Just the one outside. I’m afraid Gracie killed the other two. She did it defending herself and the kids, but she’s in a lot of trouble.”
“That much I’ve figured out.”
“One more question,” I said. “And then I really have to go. Did you tell the others that Gracie is a weremyste and a were?”
He pressed his lips thin, his gaze sliding away. There was my answer.
“It was after that night she came with me to the park. They were asking questions about her, probably trying to figure out where all that power of hers comes from. I guess I was bragging, making myself seem more important because I was married to her. Of course, I didn’t let on that our marriage was tanking. I just talked, and, yeah, I’m sure I mentioned that phasings in our house tend to be pretty interesting.”
The phasing. It would begin tomorrow night, and I had no idea how to keep the kids safe, from Gracie and from me.
“What did you do with Emmy and Zach during the phasings? When you and Gracie were still together, I mean.”
“My parents live in Avondale,” he said. “And you know that Gracie’s folks live near here as well. Sometimes, the kids would spend the phasings with one set of grandparents or the other. Or they used to. I don’t know what Gracie has done the last few months. Other times, I’d keep the kids with me. Compared to what others go through, my phasings aren’t all that bad. I get scattered and imagine things. But the advantage of my magic being weaker than hers is that my reaction to the full moon is mild by comparison. I worry about her shifting into her cat and hurting the kids, or running off into the wilderness and leaving them alone.”
“I’ll make sure they’re safe, and Billie—that’s my girlfriend—she’ll stay with them.”
“Thank you. It was never easy dealing with her phasings. And of course it got a lot worse after she started changing into a cat at other times.”
I had been gathering myself to stand and leave, but those words immobilized me as if a spell. “When did that begin?”
“Not long after she came with me to the park. She didn’t go with me again, but as I found out a while later, she wasn’t done with those dark sorcerers I knew. It’s not like she had an affair or something. But someone contacted her. A woman. And they met. Gracie told me that the woman cast a spell on her that would make the phasings easier. She wouldn’t have to shift if she didn’t want to. That’s what she thought. But the reality was different, and things wound up getting a lot worse.”
That much didn’t surprise me. In gathering weres to their cause and bending the unwitting to their purposes, Saorla’s legions had done the same to lots of people in the Phoenix area. I was reasonably sure that most of the weres I’d encountered over the past few days—the wolf by the Casa del Oro Motel, the owl in Billie’s living room, the mountain lion and coyotes on the trail at Sonoran Desert National Monument—were conscripts rather than volunteers.
“They were turning her at will,” I said. “Their will.”
“Exactly. It would start without warning, and she’d take her cat form and run off into the night, or even the day, one time. It scared us both, but by then we weren’t talking that much. And then right before she left me, it happened one last time, and she vanished for more than a day. When she finally came back, she was hurt, covered with bruises and cuts and bites from another animal.”
There it was, the connection I’d been looking for and hadn’t imagined I would find.
“When was this?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager. I had some idea of what he would say, though.
“A couple of months ago. Late in August, I think. Why?”
To this point, I had avoided any mention of the Sgian-Bán, but I wasn’t sure I could go on that way. Not now.
Combining what Neil had told me with what I already knew, I thought I could piece together a plausible explanation for what had happened to Gracie that night. Sure, it was a guess, but I was confident that it was a good one. In her bobcat form she had gone to the Gila River Community, to Lucas Quinn’s shack, where she was supposed to find and steal a stone knife that she would then hand over to Fitzwater. She did as she was told, not knowing that she would find more than just an old Akimel O’odham collector. Lucas’s widow was there, and when her territory was invaded by another were, she shifted to her wolf and fought Gracie off.
I didn’t know how the old woman had gained the ability to shift at times other than the phasing. Maybe someone had given her that power with a spell. Maybe she came by it some other way. But I was sure she had inflicted those wounds on Gracie. And I was also sure that though she drove Gracie away, she didn’t do so until after Gracie found the knife.
Neil’s question still hung between us. He watched me, waiting for an answer, maybe wondering if I would refuse to tell him this, too.
“Is that when the knife came into your lives?” I asked.
The way he gaped at me, you would have thought I’d turned his kitchen table to solid gold. “How did you know that?”
“Educated guess. Saorla has been using weres as servants, sending them on errands she’d never think to assign to weremystes like Fitzwater.” I paused, thinking it all through. “That’s why you didn’t file a report on the break-in, because you knew exactly who had come and what they were after. Did you realize then—with the break-in—that Gracie had taken it when she and the kids left? Or did you think it was stolen that day.”
He shook his head, his expression clouding. “I already knew she had it. She thought that it was worth a lot of money, and that it might be her ticket out of the marriage, and out of this place.” I assumed he meant Phoenix.
“So she wanted to sell it back to them.”
“Something like that. We weren’t really talking, so I’m not certain. But that would be something she’d try to do. She’s fearless.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“You think they’re after her for the knife.”
“I know they are. They want her, too, for the magic she wields, and because she’s both were and weremyste. But as valuable as she might be to them, the knife is more important. Saorla is determined to have it.”
“I tried to warn her about it,” he said. “I didn’t want it in the house, but she wouldn’t listen.”
I hardly found that surprising, but I thought it best to keep that sentiment to myself. Besides, it was past time for me to be leaving. I stood. My head still hurt, but not nearly as much as it had. The dizziness had passed.
Neil didn’t move. “So maybe she was right, and this was all my fault after all.” He met my gaze but couldn’t hold it for long. “It started with my blood magic. And then I told them Gracie’s a were—if I hadn’t done that, the knife never would have come into our lives.”
“Neil—”
“Her being a were is unusual, I know it is. That’s probably what also clued them into Emmy’s power, isn’t it?”
“You know about Emmy’s power?”
The look he gave me made me feel like an idiot. “Of course I do. She’s my kid. It’s not something I’m likely to miss. Gracie and I never talked about it, probably because it scared us both. But she’s not casting spells yet, is she? I mean, she wouldn’t mean much to Saorla’s army. She’s only eight years old, for God’s sake.”
“Saorla has lived in her present form for centuries,” I said. “She’s practically immortal, though I’m determined to kill her. Years don’t mean as much to her as they do to you and me. She can afford to be patient. And if she can get her hands on Emmy now, if she can train her in the use of blood magic from the moment Emmy crafts her first spell . . .” I let the thought go unfinished.
“I’d like to help you kill her. I understand why you’re reluctant to trust me. I haven’t handled any of this very well, and with all that Gracie has told you, you probably think I’m either evil or the dumbest guy on the planet. But I have a little power, and I’m not afraid of a fight, especially if it means keeping my kids safe.”
I was torn. I wasn’t sure I trusted him. I was certain, though, that Gracie would be good and pissed if I returned to the campground tonight with Neil in tow. In that moment I wasn’t sure I cared. We were two weremystes against all of Saorla’s weremancers. Amaya and his guys would help us if I managed to get word to them in time, but that was a big if. By the same token, Neil could only help us so much; increasing our numbers from two to three wouldn’t make a lot of difference if Saorla came at us with twenty of her closest friends.
Before I could decide what to do, destiny took a hand—I seemed to have Casablanca on the brain today.
An explosion from outside shook the house and drove Neil to his feet.
“What the hell was that?”
But I think we both knew: GQ and Vogue.
And friends, as it turned out. Four of them stood in front of the house. GQ and Vogue stood on the small lawn. Their clothes were rumpled, and Vogue bore a nasty bruise on her forehead, but otherwise they looked little the worse for their time underground. A weremancer I didn’t know stood with them, a man in jeans and a dress shirt. I couldn’t make out much of his face for the blur of magic that obscured his features.
Lionel Fitzwater stood on the path leading to the house. A dog lay crumpled at his feet, no doubt the latest victim of his magical blood letting. What kind of twisted, evil conjurer kills a dog for a spell? I would have liked to pull out my Glock then and there, and shoot the bastard, but I figured he was warded against bullets and just about anything else I might throw his way. Including cracks in the sidewalk.
Neil’s front door had been blown in, and lay smoldering on the oaken floor of his living room. I assumed that the house had been warded. Otherwise, a blood-fueled spell this powerful would have caved in the entire front of the structure.
“Mister Fearsson and Mister Davett,” Lionel said, his accent making him sound like the narrator of a nature documentary. “It’s unfortunate that you’ve decided to work together. I believe Saorla would have preferred you remain at odds.”
The moon hung low in the sky behind him, a shade shy of full, its weight on my mind enough to make my thought process sluggish and disjointed.
“What do you want to do?” Neil asked under his breath.
“You mean aside from kill him?”
“If you can, be my guest, but I’m guessing you’re no more capable of that than I am.”
Fitzwater made a small motion with his hand. GQ and the new guy started toward the open door.
I cast a quick spell; an attack spell designed to knock them back. I didn’t expect to break through their wardings. I wanted to stagger them, make them think twice about simply marching into the house and taking us. I succeeded in the former, but they kept coming.
I cast a second spell, a warding this time. I tried to do what Gracie had described: I attempted to twine my magic with the electricity in the house, and for a moment I thought I had it. But maybe my surprise at almost succeeding was enough to keep the spell from working. I didn’t have time enough to make a second attempt. With another apology to Namid, I bit down on the inside of my cheek and cast my protective spell, exhaling hard as I did, the power torn from my chest. I wasn’t sure I’d ever tried a shield spell of this magnitude and strength. But as soon as the magic left me, with a charge that made the air pop and my skin tingle, a gleaming wall of blue-green magic took form outside the house, not only where the door had been, but all around it, along every wall and window.
“Nice,” Neil said.
“That’ll hold them for a minute or two. But we can’t stay here.”
The third spell I intended to try would require more elements, not to mention quick action on my part once it took effect. That last crafting had taken a lot out of me and I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.
The house shook again and Fitzwater’s friends went down like duckpins. The old man kept his feet, but even he reeled back a couple of steps. Whatever spell he’d thrown at my barrier had rebounded without doing any damage to the house. He frowned and readjusted his fedora.
“Butch, be a good lad and come here a moment, would you?”
Butch and the new guy eyed the older man, but Butch made no move in his direction. Apparently they weren’t eager to lend their blood to the great cause.
“Now!” Fitzwater said, his voice like the pealing of a church bell.
Butch took one halting step toward him. I could see he was fighting whatever magic Fitzwater had used against him.
“Butch, no!” Vogue ran to him and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back.
Tired as I was, I knew that this was the best chance we were likely to have.
“Be ready,” I said, keeping my voice low. At the same time, I reached into my pocket.
Neil glanced my way, but I was too intent on the elements of my spell to meet his gaze. Seven elements this time: the living room where we were standing, Billie’s car, me, the driver’s seat, Neil, the passenger seat, and the distance we’d have to travel. I let the images swirl in my mind as I repeated the words six times. On the seventh go-round, I released it.
Cold and darkness swallowed me, like some great ravenous beast. I heard Neil cry out in surprise, his voice sounding flat and muffled, and yet nearby. It was the only sign I had that he had made the jump with me.
Transporting spells always seemed to take longer than they actually did. It probably had something to do with the lack of air in that inky, frigid in-between, the growing pressure in my chest, the panic that clawed at my mind. I’d done a good number of these castings, and enduring them was no easier now than it had been the first time.
But just when I thought I couldn’t last another heartbeat, I emerged from the blackness and found myself sitting in Billie’s car, Neil beside me, eyes wide, mouth agape. My hand was still in my pocket and I pulled out Billie’s key, shoved it in the ignition and started up the car.
Checking the mirrors, I saw Fitzwater and his friends whirl toward the sound. Fitzwater strode forward, intent on Butch, who stared at the car, blissfully unaware. Vogue screamed Butch’s name, but by then I had the car in drive and was peeling away from the curb.
Eyeing the mirrors again, I saw Fitzwater grab Butch, and hold out a hand toward the Honda.
“Ward us,” I said, shouting the words.
To his credit, Neil didn’t hesitate. He muttered a spell, and the thrum of his magic filled the car. At the same time, I swerved to the other side of the road, hoping the glamour remained on Billie’s car and that Fitzwater was aiming his attack by sound rather than sight
An instant later the spell hit. Despite the warding and my efforts, the car shuddered at the impact and the rear wheels lifted off the pavement. For one terrifying instant I thought we would flip over. And still Fitzwater hadn’t hit us with the full force of his spell. The rear of an SUV parked along the curb caved in, the rear windshield exploding in a shower of glass. The SUV’s alarm blared. Billie’s car righted itself and I floored the gas, refusing to give the weremancer a second chance to attack us. The last thing I saw as we turned the corner, tires screeching, was Fitzwater removing his hand from the back of Butch’s neck, and Butch dropping to the ground like a stone.
CHAPTER 20
We drove a good distance without saying a word, my hands gripping the wheel so hard my fingers ached, my gaze drawn repeatedly to the rearview mirror as I tried to determine which of the myriad sets of headlights behind us might belong to weremancers. I hoped that whatever magic Fitzwater had tried to use against us hadn’t removed the glamour from Billie’s car, but of course, I couldn’t be sure.
Neil stared straight ahead, holding himself perfectly still, his tension thickening the air in the car like a fog. I couldn’t tell if he was still recovering from what had happened at the house, or was already thinking about his coming reunion with Gracie, Emmy, and Zach.
“She won’t want to see me,” he said, an answer to my unspoken question.
“The kids will,” I said. “Zach talks about you all the time.”
He looked at me. “You just saying that?”
“No. Every time we’re about to encounter someone new, he asks if it’s going to be you.”
He nodded, faced forward again. “Still, Gracie won’t be happy.”
“She’ll deal with it. I wasn’t about to leave you there.”
“Thanks.” A pause, and then, “Look this is kind of weird considering all that we’ve been through in the past hour, but I can’t remember your name. Fitzwater called you Fearsson.”
“Yeah, Jay Fearsson.” I offered my hand, and he gripped it. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“You’re the guy who killed the Blind Angel Killer.”
I was famous in this town for exactly one thing, but it certainly was a big deal. “That’s right. I’m a private detective. I used to be a cop.”
