His Father's eyes

CHAPTER 13

I first went to see Billie, stopping along the way to pick up an order of fajitas. She was better today, though it sounded as though she’d had a rough night.

The last of the anesthetics from her surgery had worn off during the evening, leaving her in a good deal of pain. The doctors were still trying to figure out the right dosages, but already she said that she was more comfortable. And seeing that I had brought her food improved her mood significantly.

She didn’t look happy when I told her that I couldn’t stay long, and she asked the nurses to leave us for a while. They obliged, closing the curtains and glass door as they left.

“Where did you get that bruise?” she asked, once we were alone.

“Lost a fight.”

I expected some expression of concern, but it seemed her thoughts were taking her in another direction.

“I don’t know if I imagined this or if it really happened.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “Did you tell me that the explosion at Solana’s was caused by magic?”

I nodded.

“And that’s why you weren’t hurt.”

“Right.”

“Damn. And so you’re leaving now because . . . ?”

“Because I’m trying to find out who did it. I have a couple of leads. Nothing solid, and there’s a lot I can’t explain right now. But I’m working on it.”

She took hold of my collar with her good hand, pulled me closer, and kissed me on the lips. “Well, be careful. If they can blow up a restaurant and keep you from getting hurt, they must be pretty good at this magic stuff.”

Smart woman.

“I was thinking the same thing last night. I’ll try not to do anything too stupid.”

“Good.” She kissed me again, then smiled. “Thank you for my fajitas.”

“Enjoy. I’ll be back later.”

I took I-10 west through the Phoenix suburbs out to Buckeye, a middle-class town that had seen unbelievable growth in the past decade and a half as the city and its satellite towns continued to sprawl across the desert. It wasn’t the most scenic town in Arizona, and most of the land around it was pretty flat, some might even say desolate. The notable exception was Skyline Regional Park to the north of the city, which was a nice place to hike.

Amaya’s friend, Gary Hacker, lived about as far from the park as a resident of Buckeye could manage, in a rundown single-wide on the southern fringe of the town. The land near his home made my father’s place seem lush by comparison. The wind had kicked up, blowing clouds of pale dust across the gravel road. Sun-bleached “no trespassing” signs were mounted on posts lining the drive, and the yard around the single-wide was littered with old tires, plumbing fixtures, empty jugs of motor oil and antifreeze, scraps of wood, and just about every other form of trash I could imagine. A beat up Dodge pick-up sat next to the single-wide.

I pulled in behind the truck and climbed out of the car, squinting against the glare and the dust. An air conditioner mounted on one end of the single-wide rattled like an old train and dripped water on the dusty ground. Yellow jackets swarmed over the moistened dirt.

I pulled off my sunglasses and glanced around, thinking-hoping-that maybe I was in the wrong place. Before I had time to do more, the door of the mobile home banged open, revealing a tall, rangy man who held what looked like a worn Savage 110 bolt rifle at shoulder level.

“I think you’d better get back in your car, mister.”

It was like I’d fallen into a bad Western.

I put up my hands, playing my role. “I’m not looking for any trouble. Are you Gary Hacker?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name’s Jay Fearsson. Jacinto Amaya suggested I come and talk to you.”

He’d been squinting into the sights of his rifle, prepared, I was sure, to blow my head off. But upon hearing Amaya’s name, he straightened, his eyes narrowing. “Amaya sent you?”

“Yeah. Would you mind lowering that rifle?”

“Remains to be seen. Why would he send you out here?”

“I’m a weremyste,” I said, assuming that explained everything.

“I can see that. Why’d he send you?”

I regarded the man, shading my eyes with one raised hand. Apparently Hacker could see the blur on my features, which was odd, because I saw none at all on his. Amaya had said he was a myste, too.

Or had he? He’s a were, Jacinto told me. Not a myste, or a weremyste, but a were. I knew weres lived in the Phoenix area, as they did throughout the country, but weremystes usually had little use for them. Were magic was very specific. Just as weremystes went through the phasings, weres changed form on the full moon, and on the nights before and after. But that was all. Weres couldn’t cast spells; they weren’t runecrafters, as Namid would have put it.

Hollywood portrayals notwithstanding, weres weren’t monsters; they didn’t go around biting people, infecting them with a taint that made the innocent into creatures like themselves. But they did have dual natures; they shared their bodies with a totem beast that took control during the nights of the phasing. A werewolf transformed into a wolf, a werelion turned into a mountain lion-or perhaps an African lion in that part of the world. And in their animal forms, they behaved as would any other creature of that species. If Hacker was a were, he would be able to see my magic, but since he possessed none himself, he didn’t appear to me to be anything more or less than a normal person.

“I don’t know why he sent me,” I said after some time. “Maybe you can tell me that. But he did suggest that I come out here; you can call him to confirm that if you want. I have a cell . . .”

“I don’t need your phone. This place might not look like much, but I do have a landline, and an iPhone.”

I grinned. “My mistake.”

He frowned, but after another moment or two, he lowered his weapon. “All right, come on in.” He shuffled back into the single-wide, leaving the door ajar.

The small stairway leading to his door was nothing more than piled cinder blocks, and I expected that the interior would be as trashed as the yard. Inside though, Hacker’s place was far nicer than I ever would have guessed. The carpeting was spotless, and the front room was furnished with a plush couch, a couple of upholstered chairs, and a low wooden coffee table.

Hacker stepped into the kitchen, which was about as big as a coat closet, but tidy.

“You want anythin’?” he asked, his tone conveying that he had little to offer.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

He nodded, came back out into the living room, and sat in one of the chairs, gazing up at me with an expectant air that reminded me oddly of Namid. He had a long, crooked nose and small, dark eyes. His hair was light brown, shading to gray, and his three-day beard was more white than anything else. Deep lines were etched in the skin around his eyes and mouth. Forced to guess, I would have said that he was in his late forties or early fifties, but I wouldn’t have wanted to bet money on it.

“Why are you here? Why would Jacinto send you to me?”

“How well do you know Amaya?” I asked, stalling, unsure of where to begin.

He shrugged. “Well enough, I suppose. I know about the drug stuff, if that’s what you’re askin’. And I also know that he’s a crafter.”

I glanced around the mobile home again.

“You gonna sit down?” he asked. “It’s a little weird, you standin’ and me sittin’.”

I ignored that for the moment. “I’m trying to figure out how someone like Jacinto Amaya would have ended up being friends . . .”

“With someone like me?”

“I’m sorry. That didn’t come out-”

“It’s all right. It’s a good question really. Sit down, would ya?”

I took a seat on the couch, opposite his chair.

“I met him about three years ago,” Hacker said. “I was livin’ in the streets in Phoenix.” He stared at his hands, which were thick, powerful, but incongruously short-fingered. “I was a meth addict at the time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ain’t nobody’s fault but my own.” He sat a bit straighter, still not meeting my gaze. “Anyway, I was in the streets, and I heard that Jacinto was openin’ one of his new drug treatment places nearby. I went over to see the ceremony, and to ask him a question, and the police tried to shoo me away, like I didn’t belong, ya know? But I belonged more than anybody.

“Jacinto saw them tryin’ to get rid of me and came over to say that I could stick around. And I called to him, asked my question.”

“Which was?”

Hacker’s cheeks reddened. “Seems sorta stupid now, but at the time it didn’t. I wanted to know if his treatment centers were just for Mexicans, or if a white guy could get in, too.

“While we were talkin’ I said somethin’ about him bein’ a myste. I guess that wasn’t so smart, though I didn’t know it then. I was in bad shape and I’m not all that smart to begin with. But he didn’t get too mad, like he shoulda. He wanted to know how I knew, and I told him I’m a were.” He shrugged again. “He told me to stick around, and after the ceremony we talked for a while. He got me into the center; paid for everythin’. He had lots of questions, too. Wanted to know what kind of animal I was.” Hacker paused, his eyes narrowing. “You’re wonderin’ yourself, aren’t ya?”

“A little bit.”

“I’m coyote.” He said this with pride, pronouncing it KI-yoat. “Wily, quick, strong. I like bein’ coyote.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But I’m still not sure why Amaya would have sent me here.”

“You know many weres?”

I shook my head. “Very few.” I hesitated, unsure of how much Amaya would want me to say. “He and I were talking about dark magic, and the weremystes who use it.”

Hacker’s eyes went flinty. “Yeah, that would be it.” He rubbed the stubble on his jaw, his mouth open wide enough that I could see his blackened, broken teeth, a product of his meth habit, no doubt. “You and Jacinto workin’ together?”

“I’m working for him,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. Amaya hired me to look into a few things.”

I thought he’d ask for details, but he didn’t. He nodded once, still rubbing his jaw.

“Well,” he said, “I owe everythin’ to him. This place, my job, my god-damned life. So if he wants me to talk, I’ll talk.” He sat forward. “But you can’t tell a soul about me. You understand?”

“You have my word, Mister Hacker.”

He nodded again, stood, and began to pace. “How much do you know about weres?”

“I know that you go through phasings, like weremystes do, but that during yours you take the form of your animal. So I suppose you turn into a coyote three nights out of the month.”

“That’s right. And that’s all. At least that’s suppose to be all. But when I was still an addict, I needed money all the time. And I met a guy.” He continued to pace, scratching the back of his head so hard he reminded me of a dog with fleas. I winced at the thought, realizing this might not be so far from the truth.

“He was a myste, like you,” Hacker went on. “I saw that right away. He said he could help me, and that far from havin’ to pay him he’d go ahead and pay me on top of what he could do for me. How could I say no?

“He wanted to do a spell. He said he was experimentin’ with some new magic. If it worked it would make things better for me; and if it didn’t I’d be no worse off than I was already.”

“Better for you how?”

“He didn’t say at first. But eventually it comes out that he wants to . . . ‘to free me from the moon.’ Those were his words.”

“So that you wouldn’t change at all?”

Hacker shook his head. “That was what I thought, too. And I told him I didn’t want that.” He lifted a shoulder. “I know some weres would leap at the chance. No more phasin’s? Some folks would love that. But like I said, I enjoy bein’ coyote. I don’t mind the change so much. I mean, sure, it hurts. But I can live with the pain.”

Something stirred in the back of my mind, grasses rustling in a light wind. A memory, though I couldn’t place it.

“Anyway, this guy says that I’ve got it all wrong. He doesn’t want to make the phasin’s stop. He wants to make it so that I can change anytime I want.”

“What did you say?”

“I said sure. I thought it would be great to have that kind of freedom. To control when I changed? And get paid to boot? Why the hell would I say no?”

“So you let him cast the spell.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice dropping. “I let him. They used blood. A lot of it. Killed some poor kid. I was too out of it to really understand at the time. But now . . .” He shook his head. “They killed some kid. I still think about that.”

“They?”

“A man and a woman. The woman was nobody I’d met before or seen since. She didn’t do much. But obviously he wanted her there.”

“And the spell worked.”

He laughed, short and bitter. “It worked just the way they wanted it to. I don’t need to wait for the moons to become coyote. And I can change into him anytime I want. Changin’ back is . . . well, that’s more complicated. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes it takes a day or more. But all of that is beside the point. Always was, as it happens.

“They can change me. They can make me into coyote night or day. It doesn’t matter what the moon’s doin’. And what’s worse, while I’m coyote they can control me, make me do stuff. I don’t remember much of what happens when I’m turned. The memories are mostly images, you know? Like stream of consciousness, but blurred and almost too fast to keep track of. But there are times when I see people with me, and I know they’re mystes, dark ones. And sometimes I can piece stuff together. They’ve had me attack people. They’ve sent me into places where they would never send a person.”

He lifted his T-shirt and pointed at a crater-like scar on his side, beneath his left arm.

“You see that?”

I nodded.

“I was shot by a guard at some air force installation down near Tucson. I don’t even know which one, or what I was doin’ there. But they had me runnin’ along the fence line and some guard took a shot at me. I coulda been killed.”

So much had clicked into place for me while Hacker talked. That memory-it was from the seeing spell I’d cast in Sweetwater Park. This is what Dimples and Bear had been doing with the blood from the homeless man. Dimples’s spell made it possible for Bear, who must have been a were, to change anytime Dimples wanted him to. The roar of pain I had heard before their victim lost consciousness was Bear turning. For all I knew, he really was part bear.

Weres like Hacker and Bear had been made into servants of the dark sorcerers who changed them; wereslaves, in a manner of speaking. Being a were still carried a stigma, in some ways even more so than being a weremyste. At least we kept our human form. Our phasings were misunderstood, as was the more permanent psychological damage they caused. But some people valued the spells we could cast, and few ever questioned our humanity.

Weres, however, had been portrayed in movies and on television as monsters, and from all that I had heard-I’d never seen it for myself-their transformation to and from animal form could be terrifying for the uninitiated. Others in Hacker’s position had no recourse. Hacker could talk to Amaya, though clearly Jacinto had not been able to do much for him. But others like him would be reluctant to admit to anyone what they were, much less that they had been stripped of their freedom in this way. And having no magic of their own, they couldn’t fight back, not against a sorcerer.

But their plight also begged a question that chilled me to my core: If this could be done to weres, could it also be done to weremystes? Could a myste who was powerful enough cast a similar spell on me, so that he or she could induce in me at will the insanity and enhanced power of the phasings? Sure, I had access to spells, too. I could defend myself. To a point. But what if the myste in question was more skilled than I was, more powerful? Could I be used as a magical slave as well? Could my dad? Could a myste, or a cabal of them, create an entire army of ensorcelled magical warriors, beyond reason, wielding spells too powerful for those not in the midst of a magically induced phasing to withstand?

The attack on Solana’s had convinced me that Amaya’s talk of a magical war had some basis in fact. But until now, I hadn’t understood fully how dangerous such a conflict might be.

Hacker had pulled his shirt back down and was watching me, wary, perhaps wondering if he had told me too much.

“You promised you wouldn’t tell no one about me.”

“I remember,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about that. The man who did this to you, have you seen him since?”

He didn’t answer right away. “Yeah. Like I said before, I don’t remember everythin’ from when I’m turned. But I remember him. Not every time, but enough that I know he’s still out there, still controllin’ me.”

I wanted to ask him for a description of the man, though I was pretty sure he’d tell me the myste had dark eyes, a trim beard, and a thatch of straight dark hair. Dimples.

But I didn’t get the chance to ask.

Hacker’s eyes went wide. “Aw, shit!”

“What is it?” I asked.

Even as the words crossed my lips, I felt it. Magic, as gentle as an exhaled breath, but unmistakable.

“Get out!” Hacker said. “Now!”

I had no intention of leaving. Instead I tried a warding, something big enough to protect both of us. The touch of the spell had reminded me of a soft breeze, and so I envisioned a glass dome dropping over the single-wide. The dome, the spell, the mobile home.

The flow of power didn’t slacken in the least. Either my spell didn’t work, or the other runecrafter was too powerful for me to oppose. Guess which one I was betting on.

I cast again: less ambitious this time. A sheath of power around the two of us. Nothing.

Hacker bellowed, his face contorted. He dropped to the floor, landing on all fours. An instant later, he reared back on his knees and tore off his T-shirt. Another roar of agony was ripped from his throat, and he collapsed back down onto his elbows.

The skin on his back rippled. He was hairy to begin with and as I watched, the hair thickened, lightened in color. He cried out, more wail than roar this time. I heard bone snap. His fists clenched and his limbs bent at odd angles. My stomach gave a queasy lurch.

In a distant corner of my mind I thought that for all the nonsense that comes out of Hollywood, this-the turning of a were-they had about right. The mangling of the body, the rapid sprouting of hair, brightening of the eyes, and above all, the agony the transformation induced.

It took less than a minute for Hacker to shift into his coyote; I had no doubt it had seemed far longer to him. He was a good deal bigger than most coyotes I’d seen in the wild. It seemed to me that he resembled a dire wolf more than he did a coyote. But that could have been a function of proximity and closed space.

The animal shook itself loose of Hacker’s jeans and then rounded on me, ears flattened, lips drawn back in a fierce snarl. His human teeth might have been a wreck, but the coyote’s were just fine, thank you very much: white as bone, and sharp enough to make me back away. He padded closer, stalking me, yellow eyes locked on mine.

I reached for my Glock, but then thought better of it. I didn’t want to hurt Hacker any more than I had to. I had a feeling that his runecrafting masters would have been happy to see me kill him; it didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t shifted until my questions began to touch on those who controlled him. So if they wanted him dead, I’d do what I could to keep him alive.

But that didn’t include allowing him to snack on me.

He growled, deep in his chest, his hackles standing on end. And then he leaped at me, teeth snapping. I lashed out, trying to bat him aside with my forearm. In theory it should have worked, but theory doesn’t amount to much while fighting a wild dog in a single-wide.

His jaws clamped down on my arm, vise-strong. If I hadn’t been wearing my bomber, he would have ripped through my flesh. As it was, his canines punctured the leather and stabbed into my skin.

I gritted my teeth against the pain. But while he had hold of my arm, I threw a punch, hitting him hard on the snout.

The coyote let go of me, backed away, snarling again, teeth still bared.

Before he could charge me a second time, I began to recite a spell in my mind. The coyote, me, and a stone wall between us. Simple, and effective. I hoped.

I watched the animal, waiting for the right moment, not wanting to cast too soon and thus tip off its masters, who, I assumed, were watching our fight somehow.

The coyote launched himself at me. And I released the spell.

He went for my neck. But before he reached me, he collided with something solid and completely invisible. The coyote dropped to the floor at my feet, dazed.

Before he could attack again, I tried to think of some other spell I could cast, one that would keep him from attacking again without hurting him. I considered using a transporting spell, a casting that would put him elsewhere, out of harm’s way and far from me. Most transporting spells were complicated craftings, requiring many elements and some forethought. I wasn’t sure I had time for either. More to the point, I didn’t know where to send the creature. I couldn’t send him very far; I didn’t know how. And if I put him somewhere else in the mobile home-say, in another room that happened to have a window-he could escape and hurt himself or others. I wanted him incapacitated, and perfectly safe.

The coyote growled again and got to its feet. I took another step back, and met a wall.

I thought once more of the spell I’d cast when training with Namid, of the imaginary hammer I’d used to shatter his binding. Again I was thinking too literally, not allowing my crafting to do all that it was capable of doing. Three elements: the coyote, the floor of the living room, and leather straps holding the animal down. I recited the elements in my head three times as quickly as I could, and let go of the spell just as the coyote sprang for me.

Magic charged the air in the room, and Hacker in his coyote form gave a fearsome yowl: rage, confusion, terror. But the were didn’t leap at me; he didn’t seem to be able to move at all.

I eased away from him, my heart racing, my hands shaking. The coyote snarled and bared his teeth, his feral gaze following my every move. But he remained where he was. I backed away and made a quick search of the single-wide. It didn’t take me long to find exactly what I was looking for: The bathroom had a small vent high on the back wall, but no window.

I returned to the living room, walking slowly. The were eyed me and growled, but my casting held. He didn’t move. I removed my bomber, and, still moving with the stealth of a hunter, I approached the creature. His growls grew more urgent, and he scrabbled at the carpeting with his back claws, trying to break free of the bonds I’d conjured, tearing the fabric. Reaching him, I threw my jacket over the coyote’s head and upper body. He yowled. I didn’t give him time to do more.

Gathering the jacket tightly around him, I lifted him. His back paws scraped my chest and arms, peeling away my skin. I hissed through my teeth, but held tight and strode back to the bathroom. There I managed to pull away my jacket and toss the coyote into the plastic, faux-tile bathtub, all in one less-than-smooth motion. The coyote clawed at the tub, desperate to gain purchase. I jumped back into the corridor and yanked the door shut as the animal made a dash for freedom. He crashed into the door and then threw himself at it again and again, shaking the entire single-wide. I held fast to the doorknob, unsure of whether the coyote could find a way to pull it open, unwilling to risk letting go, and without a clue as to what I should do next.