Spellcasters (70 page)

“I’m sure I would. No human sacrifices.”

“A goat, then. I’ll take a goat.”

Jaime looked around. “Would you settle for a gator?”

“No live sacrifices,” Lucas said. “Of any kind. In return for clear and comprehensible answers to our questions, I will offer you a half-pint of blood.”

“Yours?”

“Of course.”

Esus pursed his lips. “A full pint.”

“Half before and half after.”

“Agreed.”

Esus dictated instructions for setting up the sacrificial circle. Then I helped Lucas draw the blood. Not for the squeamish. I’d put in plenty of volunteer hours at blood donor clinics, but our methods that night were, shall we say, a tad more primitive, involving a penknife and a bra. As a tourniquet, there’s no better suited item of clothing, nor one that is less likely to be missed. And if it got bloodstained, well, I never turn down an opportunity to freshen my lingerie wardrobe.

Once the blood was drawn, I untied the makeshift tourniquet and repositioned it over the wound. Lucas held his arm up to slow the flow, then turned to Esus.

“Sufficient?” Lucas said.

“Red silk,” Esus said. “Bonny. Dare I assume there are matching panties?” His gaze slid down me, grin turning to a leer, which, considering he was in the shriveled corpse of an old woman, was less than flattering. “Maybe I asked for the wrong sacrifice.”

“Sorry, no virgins here,” I said.

“Ne’er been that keen on virgins myself. And I’ll take red silk over white lace any day. Tell you what, dump sorcerer-laddie here, and you and I—”

Lucas cleared his throat. “What can you tell us about the killer?”

“Afraid of a wee competition, senor?”

Lucas raked a pointed look over Esus’s current corporeal form. “No, not really.”

“Och, I’ll find a better body, of course.” Esus turned to me. “Blond or brunette?”

“I kinda like what I’ve got,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Oh, I can do that, too. Dinnae see the attraction, but—”

“We had a deal,” Lucas said. “Now, we found records of Cabal children on Everett’s computer and a program that selected potential victims. What we want to know is—”

“Who bought the data,” Esus said. He closed his eyes and intoned a low hum, dragging the note out for a few seconds. “That which you seek can be found in a land inhabited by neither the dead nor the ever-living. Like you, yet nae like you. A hunter, a stalker, an animal heart in a—”

Lucas cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should define clear and comprehensible.”

“Perhaps we should define dull and boring.” When Lucas only stared at him, Esus sighed. “Have it your way. He’s earthbound. Human. Now that’s information that Everett himself couldnae give you because he ne’er saw the man. I caught a glimpse of him at the courthouse, when he killed that bairn. Damned Cabal shamans put up a barrier to keep me outside, so I couldnae help Everett. I was trying to find a kink in the armor when the dobber grabbed the bairn. Didnae get a good look at him, thocht.”

“Why not?” Jaime said. “I thought you were all-seeing.”

“All-knowing, nae all-seeing,” he snapped. “I’m a god, nae Santa Claus.”

“But if you’re all-knowing—” she began.

I elbowed her to silence. I doubted gods, even minor Celtic deities, appreciated having their shortcomings pointed out.

“What
can
you tell us about him?” I asked. “From the glimpse you got?”

“Male, corporeal human form, light hair, average size, and fast as Thor’s thunderbolt. Stabbed that poor bairn so fast he didnae have time to scream. Your man has killing experience, and lots of it. In the auld days, priests made a dozen sacrifices to me every spring, and none of them was as good at it as this fellow.”

“Back to the files, then. How did that come about?”

“The way most jobs come about. Networking. After the Nasts fired Everett—oh, and do you know why they fired him? Because some sorcerer’s laddie wanted the job for his co-op. Obviously, Everett wasnae happy. He was looking for a wee bit of revenge, maybe shooting his gob off too much. This guy found out, called and asked Everett if he wanted to make some cash hacking into Cabal employee files. Everett figured the guy was looking to recruit Cabal employees. Happens all the time.”

I nodded. “Then he asked for employee files for the Cortez, Nast, and St. Cloud Cabals.”

“Nae, he wanted all four. The Cortez and Nast ones Everett could get easily enough, having worked for them. He knew a fellow in the St. Cloud
computer department, so he could buy those files. But he had nae idea how to get the Boyd file. This guy didnae care. He said the other three would be good enough; he’d take care of the Boyds later.”

“Everett gets the three files, and then …”

“Then he wants Everett to extract the information on employees’ bairns. And that’s when he knew the guy was nae recruiting.”

“No kidding,” Jaime muttered.

“Look, I’m nae defending Everett. He fucked up. But he’s nae saint and he’s nae hero. He got greedy and he got scared and between the two, he convinced himself that there could be some innocent reason why a bodie would want a list of runaway Cabal bairns. When those bairns started dying, we both knew he was in trouble. If the Cabals didnae get him, the killer would, tidying up his loose ends. When I saw you were heading in Everett’s direction, I told him to go quietly, because I knew your reputations, and figured you would hunt down the truth.”

“Sorry,” I murmured.

“Och, couldnae be helped. Once the Cabals had a suspect, they were nae letting anything as inconvenient as the truth get in their way. I should have foreseen that.”

“How did he get the list to this guy?” I asked.

“Very cloak-and-dagger. The dobber isnae stupid. He communicated by phone, gave nae way to contact him, told Everett where to leave the printouts. When Everett dropped off the lists, there was cash waiting for him.”

“So there were two lists,” I said. “One of Cabal runaways—the easy marks. Then one of personal bodyguards’ kids, to prove that if he could get that close to the bodyguards, he could get that close to the CEOs themselves. From there he jumped straight to the families—”

“Nae, there was a third list. Everett did it separately. After the guy found out there were only two names on the second list, he wanted the bairns of the CEOs’ personal staff.”

“Then Matthew Tucker
was
a victim,” I said. “But, still, to jump from a secretary’s son to a CEO’s grandson seems a megaleap.”

“It’s likely his original intention was to remain with the third list,” Lucas said. “However, the convergence of Cabal families for the trial provided him with the perfect opportunity to escalate faster.”

“And now that he’s hit the top, that’s where he’ll bide,” Esus said. “Going back to killing the kids of mere employees now would be admitting he bit off more than he can chew. Here on in, it’s a CEO family or nothing. You’d better watch your back, senor.”

“I doubt he’ll jump to an adult while he still has a decent pool of teenage victims to choose from. He’s striking at young people for a reason, and not just because they’re easier targets.”

“He wants it to hurt,” Esus said. “Your man is hurting because of something the Cabals did, and he wants to hurt them back.”

Lucas prodded Esus with more specific questions about the dates and times of phone calls, et cetera, then we gave him his final half-pint, and bade him farewell.

I
f Esus hadn’t insisted on Lucas’s blood, I’d have gladly given the second half-pint, for reasons both personal and practical. On the practical side, we had no food or drink to boost Lucas’s blood sugar after his “donation,” and he had to navigate the boat back to the dock. Though I couldn’t drive a boat, I could drive a car, and insisted on doing so from the dock to the edge of Miami, where Jaime removed her blindfold and took over. We managed to stay awake until about two seconds after we collapsed into bed at a little past four.

Since it was so late when we’d returned to the hotel, Jaime slept on our hotel room sofa. When I awoke late the next morning, I found a note from Lucas. He hoped to find some tangible evidence connecting Weber to the killer, either in his phone records or personal effects, the latter of which had been shipped by the crateload to Miami for pretrial searching.

Beside the note, Lucas had left a glass of water, two painkillers, and the ingredients for a fresh poultice for my stomach. Though I hated to admit it, I needed that … otherwise, I don’t think I’d have been able to climb out of bed that morning. As it was, I still had to lie in bed for twenty minutes, waiting for the pills and the tertiary healing spell to take effect. Once I could move, I showered, dressed, then slipped into the sitting area of our suite, expecting Jaime to still be asleep. Instead, she was reading a magazine on the sofa.

“Good, you’re up,” she said. “Let’s go grab something to eat.”

“Fuel up before you head back on the road? Good idea.”

“Uh, right.” She grabbed her brush, leaned over, and began sweeping it through the underside of her hair. “You like Cuban?”

“Not sure I’ve ever had it.”

“You can’t leave Miami without trying some. I saw this funky little place near the clinic.”

“The clinic?”

“You know, where Dana is.”

Jaime continued to brush her hair from the bottom, which effectively covered her face and any untoward gleam in her eye. She started to work on a nonexistent tangle. I waited. I gave her ten seconds. She only took four.

“Oh, and since we’ll be in the neighborhood, we can stop in and see how Dana’s doing. Maybe try contacting her again.”

Jaime tossed her hair back and brushed the top, allowing her to slant a glance my way, and gauge my reaction. I’d wondered what had driven her back to us. Somehow I doubted she’d really heard the news about Weber and thought “Oh, I should rush back to Miami and help out.” Last night she’d mentioned wanting to contact Dana, and now I realized this was probably the real reason she’d returned, that she felt guilty over having misled Dana and wanted to talk to her again. This couldn’t help the case, but if it would help put Dana’s—and Jaime’s—soul at peace, well, there was little I could do here until Lucas came back. So I placed my eleven o’clock phone call to Elena, then left with Jaime.

“She’s not there,” Jaime said, tossing down her amulet beside Dana’s still form. “Goddamn orientation training.”

“Orientation?” I said.

“That’s what I call it. Other necros have fancier terms. Gotta make it sound all mystical, you know.” Jaime rubbed the back of her neck. “After a spirit crosses over, you have a day or two, sometimes three, to contact them, then the ghost Welcome Wagon snatches them up and shows them the ropes. During that period, the spirit is on hiatus. Some kind of psychic door slams and you can scream your lungs out, but they can’t hear you.”

“I’ve heard of that,” I said. “Then, afterward, you can contact them, but it’s harder than it would be in the first couple of days.”

“Because they’ve learned how to ‘just say no’ to pesky necros. After that, we’re as welcome as encyclopedia salesmen. You have to pester them until they listen just to get rid of you. Unless
they
want something, and then they’ll drive
us
nuts until we listen.” Jaime raked her hands through her hair. “This makes no sense. If she’s in training, then why—” She twisted her hair into a ponytail. “You wouldn’t have a clip, would you?”

“Always,” I said, digging in my purse. “With this hair, it pays to be prepared. A drizzle of rain or shot of humidity and it’s ponytail time.”

“So the curl’s natural?”

“God, yes. I wouldn’t pay for this.”

She laughed and fixed the clip in her hair. “See, now,
I
would. That’s the irony, isn’t it? Girls with curly hair want straight and girls with straight hair want curly. No one’s ever happy.” She glanced in her compact. “Decent enough. Ready for lunch?”

I returned my chair to its place across the room. “What were you saying earlier? About something not making sense?”

“Hmm? Oh, don’t mind me. I never make sense. Don’t forget, you wanted to check in with the nurse before we leave.”

According to the nurse, Randy MacArthur was expected in two days. That made me feel better. Dana might not be coming back, but it would help her to know that her father had been there for her. We hadn’t told anyone that Dana was gone. If keeping quiet meant she’d be on the respirator long enough for her father to see her “alive” one last time, then she deserved that much.

As we walked from the clinic, I noticed a balding man across the road on a bench, reading the newspaper. As we headed down the road, he watched us over his paper. Nothing unusual about that—I’m sure Jaime got more than her share of lingering looks. When we’d gone half a block, though, I happened to glance over my shoulder and saw the man strolling on the other side of the road, keeping pace with us thirty feet or so behind. When we turned the corner, he did the same. I mentioned it to Jaime.

She glanced back at the guy. “Yeah, I get that sometimes, usually from guys who look like that. They recognize me, hang around a bit, work up the courage to say something. There was a time, I’d have killed for the attention. Now, some days, it’s just—” She shrugged off the sentence.

“More than you bargained for.”

She nodded. “That’s the bitch of celebrity. You spend years chasing it, dreaming of it, starving for it. Then it happens and the next thing you know, you hear yourself whining about the lack of privacy and you think, ‘You ungrateful bitch. You got what you wanted, and you’re still not happy.’ That’s where the therapists come in. Either that or you self-medicate your way into Betty Ford.”

“I can imagine.”

Her gaze flicked toward me and she nodded. We walked in silence for a minute, then she checked over her shoulder.

“Let’s, uh, skip the Cuban place, if you don’t mind,” she said. “We’ll drive someplace else, lose the admirer.”

“Sure. Does this happen a lot?”

“Is three or four times a week a lot?”

“Are you serious?”