Spellcasters (53 page)

Lucas barely earned a living wage. Most of his court and investigative work was pro bono, helping supernaturals who couldn’t afford a lawyer or PI. What little money he made usually came from doing legal paperwork for wealthier supernatural clients, many of whom could easily and more conveniently have hired a local lawyer, but who retained Lucas as a
way of supporting his pro bono efforts. Even that made Lucas uncomfortable, smacking too much of charity, but his only alternative would be to stop taking nonpaying cases, which he’d never do.

It hurt like hell to see him sleeping in fleabag motels, barely able to afford public transit, saving every penny so he could pay part of our expenses. I had enough for both of us. But how could I turn down his contributions without belittling his efforts? Yet another kink in the relationship we had to work out.

We stumbled back into the hotel room just before midnight, having followed dinner with a few rounds of pool and more than a few rounds of beer. Definite advantage to the whole chauffeur/bodyguard deal: built-in designated driver. The downside, though, was that Troy beat me in two out of three pool games, a serious blow to my ego. I blamed it on the booze. Deadened my reflexes … though it did wonders for helping me forget the rest of the day. As for Lucas, he was feeling better, too.

“I did not cheat!” I said, struggling to wriggle free of the upside-down over-the-back-of-the-sofa position in which I found myself pinned.

He pulled my blouse from my skirt and tickled my ribs. “You
so
cheated. Second game. Seven ball, left corner pocket. Minor telekinesis spell.”

I squealed and swatted his hands. “I—the ball rolled.”

“With help.”

“Once. Only once. I—stop—” Another embarrassingly girlish shriek. “You—third game—the eight ball. You moved it out of the way of your shot.”

He toppled us over onto the couch and slid a hand under my skirt.

“Diversionary tactics, Counselor,” I said.

“Guilty.” He hooked his fingers over my panties and peeled them off.

“Not so fast, Cortez. You promised me spell-casting.”

“I think you did enough of that at the pool hall.”

He stifled my sputtering with a kiss.

“Wait. No—” I wiggled sideways and dropped to the floor, then scooted out of reach. “How about a game? Strip spell-casting.”

“Strip—?” He rubbed at his smile. “Okay, I’ll bite. How do you play?”

“Just like strip poker, only with spell-casting. We take turns trying the new spell. Each time we fail, we remove a piece of clothing.”

“Given the difficulty of that spell, we’ll likely both run out of clothing first.”

“Then we’ll have to get more creative.”

Lucas laughed and started to say something, but a knock cut him off. He looked at the main door. I pointed at the one linking our suite to Troy’s. Lucas sighed, heaved himself to his feet, and peered around. I picked up his glasses from the floor.

“Thank you,” he said, taking them. “I’ll be right back.”

“Better be. Or I’m starting without you.”

Lucas buttoned his shirt on the way to the door. I crawled onto the sofa, straightened my skirt, and stuffed my panties between the cushions.

Lucas pulled open the adjoining-room door.

“There’s been another attack,” Troy said.

“Where?” I said, popping up from the sofa.

“Here. In Miami.” Troy ran a hand through his hair. His face was pale. “I just got the page. They—I’m on call this week. No one took me off the list tonight. Can you phone in and let them know I can’t make it?”

“Come in,” Lucas said.

“I need—I’ve got some calls to make. It’s—it’s Griffin. His oldest boy. Jacob. I should—”

“You should come in. Please.” Lucas closed the door behind Troy. “Are you saying Griffin’s son has been attacked?”

“I—we don’t know. He called the emergency line and now he’s missing. They’ve sent out a search team.”

“Why don’t you go with them?” I said. “We’ll be fine.”

“He can’t,” Lucas said. “He’d be severely reprimanded for leaving me behind. A problem easily solved if I go along. Care to join us?”

“You need to ask?” I said, getting to my feet.

“No way,” Troy said. “Dragging the boss’s son and girlfriend along on a search-and-rescue wouldn’t get me reprimanded, it’d get me fired. Or worse.”

“You aren’t dragging me anywhere,” Lucas said. “I’m going to help, therefore you’re obligated to follow. I’ll phone in for details on the way.”

I
sat in the front seat of the SUV, giving Lucas privacy in the back as he called the security department for an update.

A drizzling rain pattered on the roof, just enough to make the road slick and shimmery in the darkness. Our windshield, though, was dry, improving Troy’s visibility tenfold. Seeing that, I understood how Troy knew Robert Vasic. Like Robert, Troy was a Tempestras, a storm demon. The name, like many half-demon cognomens, tipped into melodrama and bordered on false advertising. A Tempestras couldn’t summon storms. He could, however, control the weather within his immediate vicinity, calling up wind, rain or, if he was really good, lightning. He could also, like Troy, do something as small but practical as keeping rain off his windshield. I thought of commenting, but one glance at Troy’s taut face told me he was in no mood for a discourse on his powers. He was so intent on his driving, he probably didn’t even realize he was shunting the rain from the windshield.

“Can I ask something?” I said quietly. “About Griffin’s son?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure.”

“Is he a runaway?”

“Jacob? Shit, no. They’re tight. Griffin and his kids, I mean. He’s got three. His wife passed away a couple years ago. Breast cancer.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, Griff’s great with his kids. Real close.” Troy eased back in his seat, as if grateful for the chance to fill the silence with something other than the patter of rain. “Griffin comes off like an asshole, but he’s a good guy. Just takes the job too serious. He used to work for the St. Clouds, and they run things different. Like the fucking military … pardon my French.”

“The St. Clouds are the smallest Cabal, right?”

“Second smallest. About half the size of the Cortezes. When Griffin’s wife was sick, the St. Clouds made him use vacation time for every minute
he took off driving her to chemo and stuff. After she died, he gave two weeks’ notice and took an offer from Mr. Cortez.”

At a click from the backseat, Troy glanced in the rearview mirror.

“Any news?” he asked.

“They have two search teams out. Dennis—” Lucas looked my way. “Dennis Malone. You met him at the meeting today. He’s been called in to coordinate the operation from headquarters. He advises that we begin several blocks from where Jacob phoned. The teams are currently searching the blocks on either side of that point.”

I twisted to face Lucas. “Do we have any idea what happened to Jacob?”

“Dennis replayed his phone call for me—”

“Nine-one-one?”

Lucas shook his head. “Our personal emergency line. All Cabal employee children are given the number and told to call it instead. The Cabals prefer to avoid police involvement in any matter that may be supernatural in nature. An employee’s family is told that phoning this number ensures faster response times than calling nine-one-one, which it does. The larger Cabals have security and paramedic teams ready to respond twenty-four hours a day.”

“So that’s who Jacob called.”

“At eleven twenty-seven
P.M
. The call itself is indistinct, owing to both the rain and poor cellular reception. He appears to say he’s being followed, after leaving a movie and becoming separated from his friends. The next part is unclear. He says something about telling his father he’s sorry. The operator tells him to stay calm. Then the call ends.”

“Shit,” Troy said.

“Not necessarily,” Lucas said. “The cellular signal may have been disrupted. Or he may simply have decided he was making too big a deal out of the matter, become embarrassed, and hung up.”

“Would Griffin let him go to a late movie with his friends?” I asked Troy.

“On a school night? Never. Griff’s real strict about stuff like that.”

“Well, then, that’s probably it. Jacob realized he’d be in trouble for sneaking out and hung up. He’ll probably crash at a friend’s place, and call his dad once he works up the nerve.”

Troy nodded, but didn’t look any more convinced than I felt.

“Jesus,” Troy said as he pulled into the area where Dennis had advised us to park.

He’d squeezed the SUV between two buildings and come out in a tiny parking lot only a few feet wider than the alley itself. Every building in sight was rife with boarded-up windows, the boards themselves rife with bullet holes. Any security lights had long since been shot out. The rain swallowed the glow of the new moon overhead. As Troy swung into a parking spot, the headlights illuminated a brick wall covered in graffiti. My gaze swept across the symbols and names.

“Uh, are those …?”

“Gang markings,” Troy said. “Welcome to Miami.”

“Is this the right place?” I said, squinting into the darkness. “Jacob said he was at a show, but this doesn’t look …”

“There’s a theater a few blocks over,” Troy said. “A gazillion-screen multiplex plopped down in the middle of hell. Just the place you want to drop off the kiddies for a Saturday matinee.” He shut off the engine, then dowsed the lights. “Shit. We’re going to need flashlights.”

“How’s this?” I cast a spell and a baseball-size blob of light appeared in my hand.

I opened the car door and lobbed the light out. It stopped a few yards away and hung there, illuminating the lot.

“Cool. I’ve never seen that.”

“Witch magic,” Lucas said. He cast the spell himself, conjuring a weaker ball of light, and leaving it in his palm. “It has a more practical orientation than ours. I’m not as accomplished at this spell as Paige yet, so I’ll keep my light at hand, so to speak. If I throw it out … well, it rarely cooperates.”

“Splats on the sidewalk like an egg,” I said, tossing him a quick grin. “Okay, then, we have the flashlights covered. Troy, I’m assuming you can handle umbrella duty. So we’re all set.”

We walked to the edge of the parking lot. The skeletal remains of a building rose from a vacant slab of land at least the size of a city block. Scrubby trees, half-demolished walls, piles of broken concrete, ripped-open trash bags, discarded tires, and broken furniture cluttered the landscape. I bent to lift a sodden sheet of cardboard draped over a large lump. Troy kicked a syringe out of the way and grabbed my hand.

“Not a good idea,” he said. “Better use a stick.”

I peered across the field, in one glance picking out a score of places where Jacob could lie low and wait for help.

“Should we try calling him?” I asked.

Troy shook his head. “Might attract the wrong kind of attention. Jacob knows me, but he’s a smart kid. If he’s hiding out here, he’s not going to answer us until he sees my face.”

Though none of us said it, there was another reason for not just calling his name and moving on. He could be injured, unable to answer. Or worse.

“The rain is easing and Paige’s ball casts sufficient light for us all to search,” Lucas said. “I suggest we split up, each taking a ten-foot swatch, and make a thorough sweep.” He stopped. “Unless … Paige? Your sensing spell would be perfect for this.”

“A spell?” Troy said. “Great.”

“Uh, right. The only problem …” I glanced at Troy. “It’s a fourth-level spell. Technically, I’m still third level, so I’m not …” God, this stung. “I’m not very good—”

“She’s still refining her accuracy,” Lucas said. That sounded so much better than what I was going to say. “Could you give it a try?”

I nodded. Lucas motioned for Troy to follow him and start searching, giving me privacy. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and cast.

The moment the words left my mouth, I knew the spell had failed. Most witches wait for results, but my mother had taught me to use my gut instinct, to feel the subtle click of a successful cast. It wasn’t easy. To me, intuition always seems like some flaky New Age thing. My brain seeks the logic in patterns; it looks for clear, decisive results. As I move into harder spells, though, I’ve been forcing myself to develop that inner sense. Otherwise, with the sensing spell, if I didn’t detect a presence, I wouldn’t know whether it was because no one was there or because the spell had failed.

I recast. The click followed, almost as a subconscious sigh of relief. Now came the tough part. With a spell like this, I couldn’t just cast it and leave it on, like the light-ball. I needed to sustain it, and that took concentration. I held myself still and focused on the spell, measuring its strength. It wavered, almost disappeared, then took hold. I resisted the urge to open my eyes. The spell would still work, but I’d rely too much on what I was seeing instead of feeling. I turned slowly, and sensed two presences. Troy and Lucas. I pinpointed their location, then peeked to double-check. There they were, exactly where I’d sensed them.

“Got it,” I said, my voice echoing through the silence.

“Good,” Lucas called back as they headed my way.

“So how does this work?” Troy asked.

“If I walk slowly, I should be able to detect anyone within a twenty-foot radius.”

“Great.”

I inhaled. “Okay, here goes.”

I had two choices. Be led around with my eyes closed, like some wack-job spiritualist, or open my eyes and keep my gaze on the ground. Naturally, I went for option two. Anything to avoid looking like an idiot.

Lucas and Troy followed. After a few yards, I felt the spell waver. I told my nerves there was no need to panic, no pressure here. They called me a liar, but agreed to fake it for a while. I relaxed and the spell surged to full strength.

Weak presences tickled at the edges of awareness. When I focused on them, they stayed amorphous. Small mammals, probably rats. An image flashed through my mind: a novel a friend and I had “borrowed” from her older brother when we’d been kids. Something about rats going crazy and eating people. There was this one scene with … I forced the image back, my gaze skittering across the ground looking for rat turds.