Spell Blind (15 page)
Authors: David B. Coe
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Contemporary, #Urban, #Paranormal
I spotted it about a block short. Like Orestes’ house, it was dripping with magic—between Orestes and Antoine, I was beginning to feel like I should go home and put a few spells on my place. It seemed there were some heavy clouds looming on the magical horizon.
I couldn’t tell for certain in the daylight, but Antoine’s magic did appear to be a very pale green, about the same color you might see on a traffic light. At least I knew that he wasn’t our killer.
I drove past the house and parked two doors down, not wanting to spook him. I tucked my weapon into my shoulder holster, walked to the door, and knocked.
No answer. I raised my hand to knock again, and as I did, several things happened at once.
I felt a pulse of magic aimed at me through the door—an assailing spell—and without even thinking, I warded myself. When in doubt, go back to what you know best. I used a deflection spell.
I didn’t know what ’Toine had in mind for me when I redirected his assault at the first thing I thought of: his door, to be precise. But given the way the door exploded inward, I guessed that he wanted me blown up. The wood shattered with a sound like thunder from a too-close lighting strike and fragments of the door and flecks of old white paint flew through the house like flakes in a snow globe.
My initial thought was that Orestes had sold the kid short, making him sound like some kind of hack conjurer. He wasn’t a master yet—if he had been, I’d have been killed by the explosion—but he was better than Orestes had made him sound. I should have recognized Brother Q’s attitude for what it was: professional jealousy. ’Toine was every bit the sorcerer Orestes had been the first time I busted him. Give the kid a few years, and he’d be a force in this town.
In the next instant I realized that I’d heard another sound after the door vaporized. A second door had opened on the far side of the house and a moment later a screen door had slammed shut. I sprinted through the house and out the back in time to see a young black man disappear around a corner. It was Robby-freaking-Sommer all over again. And my leg still hurt.
But ’Toine had tried to kill me, and I was pissed. It was amazing what a bit of anger could do to strengthen a person’s magic. Turning that same corner, I saw Mirdoux running away from me, and I tried the most basic assailing spell I could think of, something so simple that he never would have expected it, something so harmless that if he reflected it back at me, it wouldn’t do any damage.
Three elements. My hand, his foot, his momentum. As I’ve said, the words don’t matter; it’s all visualization.
’Toine went down in a heap, the way he would have if I’d been close enough to grab his foot in the middle of his stride.
I ran toward him, warding myself as I did. I almost pulled out my Glock, but then I thought better of it. I didn’t want him panicking, and I didn’t want to give him another target for his magic.
As I got near him, I slowed to a walk. He had sat up, and was glaring at me. I expected him to cast a spell my way at any moment.
“Don’t even think about it, Antoine,” I said, still easing toward him. “I’m a better conjurer than you are.”
“The hell you are, man!”
“Have you seen your door lately?”
He said nothing, but if he’d been able to turn that glower into magic, I’d have been little more than ash.
Antoine couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old, and he was surprisingly clean-cut for a kid who’d tried to splatter me all over his front steps. His hair was short and neatly cut, his face was square, his skin smooth. It was hard to tell with him on the ground, but I don’t think he would have stood much more than five-six or five-seven. He was broad in the shoulders and lean, and he wore a diamond stud in his left ear.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked. ’Toine may have been from Haiti, but he had no accent, and I had the feeling that he could have spoken like a news anchor if he’d chosen to.
“You’re trying to kill me, and you don’t even know?”
“I know you don’t belong ’round here. I know you got no business knockin’ on my door.”
“So you’d have tried to blow me up even if I’d been selling Bibles?”
“You don’t look like no Bible salesman.”
“No? What do I look like?”
“A cop.”
I guess it never really goes away. It’s not like I could argue with the kid. “It would have been pretty stupid to blow up a cop.”
“Man, what are you talkin’ about with that blowin’ up shit? I didn’t try to blow up nobody.”
“No? Then what was that spell you threw at me through what used to be your door?”
“Nothin’ you ever heard of, man.” He grinned. “It’s one of my own. It would have felt like somebody shattered a beer bottle on your head. Would have put you out cold.” The smile vanished. “Instead, you gotta go and destroy my house.”
Either he was lying or I was far more powerful than I’d ever thought and had unwittingly found some way to amplify his assailing spell. Guess which one I was betting on.
“I’m not a cop, Antoine,” I said. “I’m a private investigator.” I pulled out my wallet and showed him my PI’s license. “My name is Jay Fearsson. I’m doing some work on the Blind Angel murders.”
He stared past me. “Never heard of them.”
“No? Maybe you heard that Claudia Deegan was killed.”
“Never heard of her, neither.”
Well, now I had to reconsider, because ’Toine was about the worst liar I’d ever met. What the hell
had
happened to his door?
“You know what? I think you’re full of shit. I think you ran away from me because you’re into something that you can’t handle and you’re scared out of your mind.”
“Whatever, man.”
“Claudia Deegan was killed with magic.”
“Bad luck.”
“Every Blind Angel victim was killed with magic.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“I used to be a cop. And I’m a weremyste, too. Remember? I saw the magic on them.”
“Then you know it’s not mine, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. I know that it belongs to someone with real power.”
“Fuck you, man!”
“The magic that killed those kids was red. Deep red, almost the color of blood. And the magic on Claudia Deegan had faded nearly to nothing in the span of about two days. There can’t be more than five people in the entire country with power like that.”
He refused again to meet my gaze. But he was clenching his jaw, and I had the sense that he was considering another assailing spell.
“Like I said, man, if you cast, then you know what my stuff is like. It ain’t red, and it don’t disappear after no two days. So you know it wasn’t me.”
“Maybe, but I think you know who this sorcerer is.”
“You think wrong, then,
cop
.”
I squatted down and got right in his face, forcing him to look me in the eye. “Like I said, little man, I’m not a cop anymore. But I’ve still got friends on the force. And who do you think they turn to when they’re working cases that involve magic?” I tapped my chest. “Me. All I have to do is give the word and they’ll be all over you. You’ll spend the rest of your life rotting in jail, wishing you were a good enough conjurer to get yourself out, and wondering why you were so stupid as to piss me off.”
He was working up to another attack. I could see it in his eyes; I could hear it in the rasp of his breathing. I pushed hard enough, and I got exactly what I expected. For all his talent and potential, ’Toine was still just a kid, playing with toys he didn’t quite understand.
The spell he threw at me was similar to the one Robby Sommer had used against me—a basic fire spell. Rudimentary stuff. But he was angry enough that this time he might have been trying to kill me, and so I went with
de
flection rather than
re
flection. I didn’t want to hurt him. But he needed to know that he didn’t want to be screwing around with me. I aimed the bounce at the wall directly behind him, so that ’Toine’s own fire flew past the side of his head, missing him by maybe an inch and blackening the wall with the sound of sizzling fat.
“Shit!” he spat, ducking away.
“Next time, I won’t miss,” I told him. “Tell me who this guy is, or I’ll bring the cops down on you. I’m a PI; I just want to get paid. And all the cops care about is clearing the case. None of us gives a crap if you go down for it. Hell, if I tell them that it’s your color on Claudia Deegan, they’re not going to know any different.” I shrugged. “Now, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve got nothing against you. I’d rather see this other guy off the streets. And I bet you wouldn’t mind using a bit less mojo around the house.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man,” he said. “I don’t know any red magic sorcerer.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Who sent you here, anyway? Somebody got it in for me?”
“Who is he, Antoine? Why is everybody so afraid of this guy?”
For a second I thought he’d spill it all. He was scared, terrified even. I glimpsed it in his eyes—I’d seen that fear before, in little kids who were being abused by their parents. Terror, helplessness, the memory of pain, the desperate desire to end the abuse, but all of it overmastered by the belief that no one could end the cycle and the certainty that if he tried, if he dared tell a soul, he’d be punished even more severely than before. ’Toine felt trapped, and he had no faith that I could set him free.
At last he fixed his eyes on the street. It was almost like he expected to see the sorcerer strolling past. “I don’t know nothin’,” he muttered again. “Whoever told you I did was bullshittin’ you.”
He was lying. But again, as with Robby, I couldn’t do anything about it.
I stood. “Fine.” I fished out my business card, and tossed one down to him. It was a waste of time and paper, but what the hell. “If you reconsider, give me a call.”
He laughed. “Yeah, right, man. I’ll be callin’ you.”
I started to walk away.
“We can chat, man,” he called after me. “Like we’re old friends, you know?” He laughed again.
I made my way to the Z-ster, Antoine’s laughter still ringing in my ears. I had been preparing myself all day, planning what I’d do if I felt the Blind Angel Killer’s power again. But like an idiot, I allowed the kid to throw me off balance.
And so, when the red sorcerer suddenly had me in his sights again, I was utterly unprepared. I tried to ward myself, knowing as I did that anything I came up with he could defeat, knowing as well what he was trying to do with these teasing encounters. But I made the effort anyway.
The feeling was much more vivid this time. I knew he was close. Too close. I turned a quick circle, but I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to find him. The hairs on my neck and arms stood on end and my skin grew cold, as if I was in shadow and the rest of the city was in brilliant sunlight. If he had wanted to kill me in that moment, he could have, though I would have put up a fight.
But he was toying with me. For a split second, I thought I could hear laughter. Not ’Toine’s, though I heard that, too. This was deeper, more menacing, more elusive. I turned again, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. But it was everywhere. Around me, above me, below me. It was in my freaking head.
You’re mine now,
I thought I heard someone say.
And then it was gone. The laughter ceased, the sun shone on my face and arms, a warm wind touched my skin.
Three times. Once outside of Robby Sommer’s place, once outside of Robo’s in Tempe, and now here, in front of Antoine Mirdoux’s house. Was there a connection there, something linking the three of them to one another and to this sorcerer with the blood-red magic? Or was it mere chance, the random choices of this bastard who was hunting me?
I should have been concentrating on those questions, trying to figure out what Robby, Robo’s, and Antoine had in common with the Blind Angel victims.
But all I could think was that he’d done this to me three times now. He’d touched my mind with his magic; he’d tested my defenses and seen how I would respond to an attack, how I would ward myself.
Three times.
There’s power in numbers. He knew me now. I was his. And the next time, if he chose to attack, there would be precious little I could do about it.
CHAPTER 12
I drove back to Chandler, my heart pounding out a salsa beat, and my hands sweating so much the steering wheel grew slick and I had to wipe my palms on my jeans every few seconds. I spent more time glancing up at my rearview mirror than I did looking ahead. I don’t know what I was watching for—maybe some red glowing car, driven by the bald guy I’d seen in my stone. Every time a car drew too close to my rear bumper I started to hyperventilate.
By the time I reached my office, I’d stopped shaking, for the most part. But I was still jumpy; walking from my car to the office, I must have glanced back over my shoulder a dozen times. I hated this. I’m not one to go through life scared; I’d spent too long on the job for that. But this sorcerer had gotten into my head.
More than anything else, I was mad at myself for letting him get the better of me. I knew full well that I couldn’t stay locked up in my house or office and still do my job.
Usually when I was in a mood like this, Namid was the last person I wanted to see. But as soon as I was inside my office, I called for him, something I had never done before. I didn’t even know if it would work.
It did.
His name was still echoing off the walls and wood floor when he began to take form in the middle of the room.
“Ohanko,” he said. “You summoned me.”
I took a breath. “Yeah, I did. He found me a third time.”
“It was inevitable that he would.”
For reasons I couldn’t explain that made me feel better. “I know that. But . . . I’m not sure what to do now.”
“You do what you always do.” I thought I saw a smile creep over his glimmering face. “You tread like the fox, and you do your job.”
“I heard him laughing, and I heard his voice.”
Namid didn’t seem overly impressed by this, but he asked, “What did he say to you?”
“Just that I was his now.”
“It means nothing.”
I nodded, glanced toward the bank of windows. Why had that gray sedan slowed as it drove past?
“Listen to me, Ohanko.”
I faced him.
“It means nothing,” he said again, his tone more pointed this time.
“We both know that’s not true.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Three times. He knows you now. This increases his ability to do you harm. But he had that ability already. His main purpose in doing this is to track you, to know what you do from one moment to the next.”
“So he can do that?”
The runemyste nodded. “He can.”
“And this is supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes, Ohanko,” he said, the way he might if he were explaining something to a ten-year-old. “If he wanted to kill you, he would have already. He tracks you to follow the progress of your investigation. There may come a time when his purpose is darker. You must be wary. You must learn to ward yourself at all times, with spells more effective than deflection. But this was true already.”
I walked to the windows. The gray sedan was gone. It was just another day in Chandler, and no one on the street seemed the least bit interested in me or my case.
“So then, I really do keep going about my business.”
“Is that not what I said?”
I laughed. “Yes, it’s what you said.”
He sat, that familiar, expectant expression on his face. “You need to work on your craft. Now more than ever.”
I checked the clock. It was a few minutes past two o’clock. I felt like I’d been awake for thirty hours.
“Yeah, all right,” I said, sitting opposite him. “But not too long. I have a date tonight.”
He frowned. “Distractions,” he said.
I grinned. Then I closed my eyes and summoned that clearing image of the golden eagle. After a few moments, I opened them again.
The runemyste nodded once. “Defend yourself.”
For the next two hours, Namid threw a wide variety of assailing spells at me—the stinging and fire spells he’d used the night before, a suffocation spell, which scared the crap out of me, and one spell that blinded me temporarily. That one was frightening as well, not to mention frustrating. It took me several minutes to come up with a warding that would defeat it, and all the while Namid was using his power to throw books and CDs at me. By the time I could see again, I was covered with bruises and my office was a mess.
Despite all that, however, Namid seemed pleased when we were done.
“You conjured well, today,” he said, as I stood and stretched my back. “You are starting to cast by instinct.”
I was sweaty and tired, but I felt good, the way I would after a long workout. “Well, you don’t give a person much choice.”
“I will leave you,” he said. “You have a big date.”
I laughed. “Yes, I do.”
He started to fade.
“Namid, wait.”
The fading stopped, and a moment later he was as substantial as he ever is. Once more I had the urge to reach out and touch him, just to see what it was like. He was staring at me, and I realized he was waiting to know why I’d stopped him.
“What you told me before about the red sorcerer—is it true?”
“About him tracking you?”
“About him not being able to hurt me anymore now than he could before. I thought that once an enemy tested you three times—”
“We call it ‘sounding’.”
“Sounding,” I repeated. I’d heard the term before, though in my fear I hadn’t yet connected it to what the red sorcerer was doing. “Well, he’s sounded me three times. I thought that means he can do anything to me, and I’m powerless to stop him.”
“A runecrafter can always ward himself.” He paused, eyeing me, perhaps trying to decide how honest he could be. “The danger to you is greater, it is true. But your skills are increasing as well. And as this crafter learns more about you, you also learn more about him. You are linked to each other now. He can hurt you more easily, but you can sense him sooner. The sounding is not without risks for him as well.”
“He must be pretty confident then. He probably knows that I can’t hurt him.”
“You are more than you think you are,” Namid said. “You would be wise to take precautions; keep yourself warded. But he would be wise not to underestimate you.”
“Thanks. Really,” I added. “I mean that. Thank you, Namid.”
He tipped his head to me, and then started to fade again. This time I let him go.
I drove home, showered and changed before getting back into the Z-ster and driving to Tempe. It was early still, but I hoped that maybe Billie would be done with her work already. I kept an eye on the mirrors, but no one was following me. I tried to make myself relax. Even without any reassurances, I knew that Namid was right. I was getting stronger, and just as magic was an act of visualization and of will, so too was it a product of faith, of belief in oneself. If I convinced myself that this red sorcerer had power over me, I wouldn’t survive his next attack. If, on the other hand, I believed that I could protect myself from whatever he threw at me, I at least gave myself a fighting chance.
I found Billie’s house without too much trouble, and parked out front. I started to climb out of the car, but then stopped myself, making certain once again that I hadn’t been followed by the red weremyste. Satisfied that he wasn’t nearby, I walked up the path to her door and knocked. The house was small, built in Spanish Mission style, and it seemed to have been well cared for, at least from the outside. There was a little garden out front with flowers and a few small cacti, and a small lawn that had recently been cut.
Billie came to the door in a t-shirt and jeans, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Seeing me, she gave a puzzled smile, her forehead creased. “Hi!” She peeked at her watch. “I know I told you not to be late. . .”
I shrugged. “Yeah, sorry. I’m kind of through for the day, and I thought maybe, if you were, too, we could get an early start. But if you’re still working I can come back later.”
“I have a bit left to do. Not much. What did you have in mind?”
“I was thinking about a walk in the desert.”
She wrinkled her nose. “The desert?”
“You’ve never taken a walk in the desert?”
“Well, no. I mean, why would I?”
I stared at her, shaking my head. “Amazing. Why did you come to Tempe if not for the desert?”
“I came for a job,” she said. “An editing position at a publishing house. I stayed for the sunshine. But the desert . . .” She gave a shrug of her own. “I guess I’m kind of a city person. A Northeastern city person.”
“One walk in the desert will change that,” I said. “You game?”
She smiled at me, and I knew she’d say yes. “You still taking me to dinner?”
“Of course. No sense walking in the desert if you’re not going to eat afterward.”
“All right,” she said, pushing the door open so I could come in. “I need ten minutes to finish and post the piece I’m writing.”
“What’s the piece about?” I asked, stepping past her into the house. Her smile faded as she stared at me, and I knew. One question: that was all it took to put me on my guard. “It’s about the Blind Angel case, isn’t it?”
Billie nodded, as wary as I was.
“Do you mention me in it?”
“No. We’ve been off the record, and I’ve been focusing on other aspects of the story.”
“Like what?”
“The Deegan family mostly. The senator is getting a lot of sympathy right now, but the fact that his daughter was using drugs might come up eventually. I’m writing about the risks his opponents would be taking by raising the issue, and how he might deal with it if they do.”
“Sounds interesting,” I said, relaxing a bit.
She exhaled, her relief palpable. “Thanks. I won’t be long. Make yourself at home.”
Her computer sat on what appeared to be her dining room table, surrounded by piles of papers, several magazines, a newspaper, and a dictionary. She sat down in front of it, stared at the screen for a minute, and then began to type.
I wandered around the living room. The house was as nice inside as it had appeared from the street. Wood floors, high ceilings; she didn’t have much furniture, but all of it was tasteful. Her walls were covered with framed black and white photos of people and city scenes. None of them was signed, and I wondered if they were Billie’s. I turned toward her to ask, but she was typing furiously, her brow furrowed in concentration. I figured I’d be wise to leave her alone.
After about ten minutes she sat back. Still she frowned at the screen for another few seconds, before hitting the ‘return’ key.
“Okay,” she said, standing and grabbing her denim jacket off the back of her chair. “I’m ready.”
“Will you get lots of comments on your blog?” I asked.
She nodded. “Hundreds probably. Some of them will say that I’m brilliant; others will call me a stupid bitch. I make a point of not reading them. I get to have my say with the article. My readers can say what they want after I post it.”
“That’s a mature attitude.”
She smirked. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
We walked out to the Z-ster, with which she appeared only mildly impressed. Not a car person. That was okay. She wasn’t a desert person either, but I was about to cure her of that. I started up the car and on the spur of the moment decided to go south. I put us on Interstate 10.
“So, where are you taking me?” she asked after we had driven for a few minutes in silence.
“Sonoran Desert National Monument. It’s between here and Gila Bend on State 238.”
She nodded. “All right.” Another brief silence. Then, “Tell me what you like so much about the desert.”
“What?”
“Well, I want to know what I should be looking for.”
I considered this for some time, taking the exit off the interstate and getting on the state road.
“Fearsson?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m thinking. It’s a bit like asking me why I like chocolate.”
“But that I understand.”
“The desert is uncompromising. It’s so severe and it forces everything that lives there to be the same way. It says ‘die or adapt.’ There’s no middle ground, no getting by. And yet, it’s also incredibly beautiful. Some of the beauty is harsh, austere, you know? And some of it is as delicate as a spider web.” I glanced over at her, only to find that she was watching me, her expression unreadable. I faced forward again and shrugged. “Anyway, that probably doesn’t really explain it very well.”
“Sure it does. You’ve spent a lot of time at this place we’re going to? Sonoran Monument?”
“Some. I’ve spent more time in the Superstition Wilderness, but that’s a longer drive.”
“Is that where you took the last woman you wanted to impress?”
I laughed. “Is that what you think this is about?”
“Isn’t it?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember the last time I took a woman anywhere.” I smiled. “At least not one who I wanted to impress.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
Because I’m a weremyste who doesn’t take blockers. Because my father’s nuts and someday I will be, too. Because my life is wrapped up in so many secrets that I can hardly tell anymore where the mask ends and where the real me begins.
“It’s complicated,” was all I said, staring at the road once more.
“You’re strange. One minute you’re as open as a kid, and then bang, it seems like you shut some door somewhere inside you and I find myself staring at a wall.”
“It’s not intentional.”
“Isn’t it?”
See? This was the problem with getting involved with smart people. Or maybe it was the problem with getting involved at all.
“We’re still off the record, right?”
“Yup.”
“All right,” I said, eyes fixed on the double yellow. “Then what do you want to know?”
She didn’t answer for several seconds, and I started to hope that she’d let me off the hook. No such luck.
“What’s the real reason you stopped being a cop?”
Smart. That was the $64,000 question, wasn’t it? That was the one that led to every other secret in my life.
I glanced at her. “After this it’s my turn, right? I get to ask questions, too?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“All right,” I said. Deep breath. “I left the force because I was going to be fired. The department’s Professional Standards Bureau had determined that I was incapable of fulfilling my duties as a police officer.”