His Father's eyes

CHAPTER 20

The weremyste community in Phoenix was small compared with the general population of the metropolitan area. There might have been a thousand active mystes in all, and we tended to know each other. Not always, of course. I hadn’t been aware that Regina Witcombe and Jacinto Amaya were mystes, nor had I known about Patty. But people as famous as Witcombe and Amaya were bound to be exceptions, and I assumed that those who dabbled in dark magic would have kept to the shadows as well. The rest of us, though, had at least a passing familiarity with our fellow runecrafters, be it because we hung out at the same bars, or because we saw each other every month at the Moon Market, a floating marketplace where mystes could buy herbs and oils, crystals and talismans, and just about any other goods purported to lessen the effect of the phasing.

I was hoping that the werecreature community worked the same way.

I drove us into Buckeye and down to Gary Hacker’s single-wide. We parked by Hacker’s truck and got out. Rolon already had his SIG Sauer in hand. I pulled out the Glock. The structure and yard looked exactly as they had the day before, and the air conditioner was still rattling. But something about the place gave me pause. Or paws. Yesterday, Hacker had appeared at the door almost as soon as I pulled up to his home. Today it was too quiet; thinking this made me feel once more like an actor in a bad movie.

Rolon and I exchanged glances. I pointed at myself and then at the door to the single-wide. He nodded and followed me, gripping his pistol with both hands.

I knocked once on the door and called, “Hacker?”

No answer. I tried the knob. The door was locked. I pounded again.

“Wha’ the hell?” I heard from inside. He sounded fine. Hung over, but fine.

I glanced at Rolon again. He had lowered his weapon.

“It’s Jay Fearsson. Open up.”

“Go away. I’m not riskin’ bein’ turned again.”

“I have Rolon with me, Gary, and he’s perfectly willing to tear the door off your house if he has to. Now open up. We won’t stay long.”

I heard uneven footsteps, and then the click of a door lock. The door swung open, revealing Hacker, unshaven, puffy-eyed, and a not-so-healthy shade of green.

He pointed a shaking finger at Rolon. “You did this to me. You and that goddamned trank. I’m still sore where the dart hit me, and I feel like I’ve been on a six-day bender.”

“Let us in, Gary.”

He glared at me. “Why the hell should I? The two of you ruined my yesterday; today’s goin’ to be no better.”

“Rolon’s with me. And that means Jacinto wants you to help us.”

His expression curdled, but he backed out of the doorway and waved us in.

I entered. Rolon followed me, closing the door behind him. Hacker had dropped himself onto his couch; he looked like he was about to be sick.

“So, what? More questions about the people who spelled me?”

I shook my head. “No. There’s another were I need to find and I thought maybe you’d know him. He’s a big guy, tall and wide. Dark curly hair, bushy beard and moustache.” I closed my eyes, trying to recall the image of him I’d seen in my scrying at Sweetwater Park. “I think he may have a tattoo on his left shoulder. A hawk, or maybe an eagle.” Opening my eyes again, I said, “Do you know of anyone like that?”

“A were, you say?”

“That’s right.”

“The tattoo is an angel, I think. But yeah, I know him. His name’s Bear. Least that’s what he calls himself.”

I wanted to say that I’d been calling him that, too, but I kept it to myself, asking instead, “He have a last name?”

“Martell. I think his real name’s Carl, but don’t hold me to that.”

“All right. Do you know where he lives?”

“Not too far from here. Avondale, I’m pretty sure.”

“Thank you, Gary. That’s helpful.”

I reached for the door, ready to leave.

“That’s it? That’s all you wanted to know?”

“It’s all I’m willing to risk asking. Someone’s watching one of us-you or me. We learned that the hard way yesterday. And besides, I think I know what the guy who spelled you looks like.”

“You do?” Gary asked, his eyes widening.

“Yeah. Take care.”

Rolon and I left the mobile home and got back into the Lexus.

“You still have that tranquilizer gun?” I asked, as I backed up and got us turned around.

“Sí, it’s in the trunk. Jacinto told me to bring it. Why? You expecting more doggie trouble?”

“No, I’m pretty sure this next guy shifts into a bear.”

While I drove to Avondale, Rolon used his smartphone to track down an address for Carl Martell. Bear lived in a working-class neighborhood on the west side of the town. His house was small, and similar places stood shoulder to shoulder with his. Kids played in one yard; an older couple sat on a narrow porch in front of the other, eyeing us with understandable mistrust. Rolon managed to retrieve the trank gun and slip it under his jacket without drawing too much attention to himself, but still I thought the old woman was going to run inside and call the police.

Lacking a better plan, we walked to Martell’s door and knocked. “I’ll do the talking,” I said, my voice low.

“You’re the boss, amigo.”

After a few seconds, the door swung open and Martell stood before us in a black Nickelback T-shirt and baggy cargo shorts. “Yeah, what do you-” He stared at us, his mouth hanging open, one mammoth hand clenched. I knew he could see the magic on us; I was counting on that getting us in the door.

“What do you guys want with me now?” he asked, his gaze flitting back and forth between us.

“Just to talk, Carl.”

He squinted, chewed his lip. “Do I know you?”

“No. But I know a bit about you, and we need a word.”

“What about?”

“Inside,” I said.

He crossed his arms over his massive chest. “What about?”

Rolon reached into his jacket, probably for his pistol, but I held out a hand, stopping him.

“About Jeff.”

“Who the f-?” His face went white. “Shit,” he whispered.

“Let us in.”

He nodded and pushed open the screen. Rolon and I stepped into the house. Bear closed the door and faced us. Big as he was, he appeared terrified; I swear I thought he was going to cry.

His place stank of cigarette smoke and was sparsely furnished: There were a couple of chairs and a coffee table, but otherwise the living room reminded me more of a playroom. He had a nice stereo system and a good-sized flat-screen TV set on the wall between his speakers. Closer to the front door was a rack of compact discs that must have been five feet high. Martell was a music fan.

“You guys must know that it wasn’t my idea to kill Jeff. I mean, I swore to Palmer that I’d do it, but I didn’t know . . . I thought it was going to be different-after I mean.”

I stopped surveying the room and focused on Bear. “You knew that Palmer was going to kill him.”

“Well, yeah, sure. I mean, that’s how blood spells work, right? You know that as well as-”

He clammed up, his eyes narrowing as the realization hit him. He even took a step toward me, but as soon as he did, Rolon drew his pistol. Bear halted.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Not who you thought we were,” I said. “But I guess that’s pretty clear by now, isn’t it?” I gestured toward the nearest chair. “Sit down.”

“Not until you tell me who the fuck you are, as if I don’t know already. Cops, right?”

There were laws against lying about such a thing, and on this day in particular I wasn’t in the mood to run afoul of the police. Any more than I already had. “I’m a private detective,” I said. “Jay Fearsson. I’m helping the police with an investigation.”

“And him?” Bear asked, eyeing Rolon.

“A concerned citizen,” Amaya’s man told him. “Now, sit.”

He glanced again at Rolon’s .45 and sat.

“How did you get hooked up with Palmer?” I asked.

Bear stared back at me and said nothing.

“I can make you talk, cabronzote,” Rolon said. He held up his weapon. “I don’t even have to use this.”

“It won’t come to that,” I said. “Bear wants to help us, because he realizes now that he’s in over his head.” He remained silent, but he wasn’t glaring at me anymore. In fact, he refused to look at me at all. I pressed on. “You thought they were going to make you more powerful, didn’t you? You thought you’d have control over when you shifted. You probably even imagined that tonight would be easier for you because of the spell Palmer cast. And Jeff, he was collateral damage. An old homeless guy, living alone? No one was going to miss him, and it’s not like his life was that great, right?”

Still nothing.

“C’mon, Jay,” Rolon said. “Let me soften him up a little. Just enough to get him talking. We’re wasting time here.”

I didn’t know if Rolon was serious, or if he was playing a role, trying to get Bear to answer my questions. Either way, though, he was helping. Martell might have had a few pounds on the guy, but he seemed to understand that he was no match for him in a fight. He’d gone pale.

“Yeah, all right,” I said.

Rolon took a step in Bear’s direction. That was all it took.

“No, wait,” Bear said, holding up his hands.

“Hold on.”

Amaya’s man glanced my way; I could tell he was disappointed.

I recited a spell in my head. The three of us, the room we were in, and a thick blanket. The idea was to mute the sound of our voices so that anyone listening in-namely Saorla-wouldn’t be able to hear us. I repeated the elements three times and released the magic.

“What was that?” Rolon asked.

“A muffling spell,” I said. “The last time I had a conversation like this, it reached the wrong ears. This time it won’t.”

Bear frowned.

“How did you meet Palmer?” I asked.

He chewed his lip for a few seconds, his gaze settling again and again on Rolon and his SIG Sauer. “He found me,” he said. “I’m not entirely sure how. But he knew I was a were, and he said he wanted to help me.”

“How long ago was this?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. Just a few months, though. Not long.”

“And what’s his first name?”

Bear’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“Palmer’s first name: What is it?”

“That is his first name,” Bear said, frowning at me like I was the dumbest guy on the planet. “Palmer Hain.”

“All right. My mistake. Go on.”

“Well, it’s like you said. He made it sound like a great idea. I’d be able to control when I shifted, maybe skip a phasing or two if I wanted. That sounds pretty good. I was ready to go for it right away. But then he starts putting me off, you know? One week to the next I don’t know when we’re going to do the spell. I’m eager, but he’s suddenly hard to reach. First he’s my best friend, and then he’s nowhere, right?”

“But that changed this week,” I said, prompting him.

“Yeah. Last week, actually. He calls me and says he’s sorry, that he’s been really busy helping out other weres. But he’s ready for me now, and I’m to meet him somewhere in Paradise Valley.”

“Sweetwater Park?”

He nodded. “I met him there, and we just talked. He told me about the spell and what was involved. He told me then that we’d . . . well, that we’d have to kill a guy to do it. At first I was, like, ‘Whoa! No way, dude!’ But he promised me the guy wouldn’t feel anything, that he’d spell him first. And he said it would be nobody, right? A homeless guy who didn’t have a family or friends or anything to live for.” He twisted his mouth and blinked a couple of times, trying not to cry. “I suppose that sounds really lame. Truth is, I wanted to do the spell. I don’t like being a were, at least not most of the time. I was happy to go along with it.”

“So what happened after the spell?”

“After?” he repeated, sounding surprised that I didn’t want him to describe the murder itself. I didn’t bother telling him that I’d seen it in my scrying stone. “Palmer turned me, and then turned me back.” He grimaced. “Then he did it again, and a third time.” One of his hands strayed to his chest and rubbed at his heart, perhaps remembering the way it felt when that arc of golden magic hammered into him. “You’re both weremystes; I can see the magic on you. So you wouldn’t know what it feels like being a were. It hurts like hell. And having someone force a shift on you a few times-that’ll mess you up pretty good.

“He turned me, and after the third time he told me that I’d be hearing from him. He’d have things for me to do, he said. Stuff to repay the favor he’d done for me.”

“I’m guessing that at this point it doesn’t feel like much of a favor.”

He shook his head.

“I’ll be honest with you, Bear, I don’t give a crap about you. You’re not exactly a victim in all of this, but you’re sure as hell not the brains of the operation either. I want Hain. If you help me get him, I’ll put in a word for you with my friends at the PPD.”

“I don’t know, dude,” he said. “I don’t know you at all. And Palmer’s no one to screw around with.”

“Neither am I,” Rolon said.

It was a nice try, but Martell hardly spared him a glance. As menacing as Rolon might have sounded, I knew that Bear was talking about a different level of threat. Amaya’s man might kick the crap out of him, but Hain was an accomplished dark sorcerer. I’d take an ass-whipping over blood magic any day.

Unfortunately, Bear didn’t get a chance to choose for himself.

“I could not hear what you were saying,” came a voice from behind me. Saorla.

I whirled.

“And so I thought I would join your conversation, perhaps lend a bit of wisdom.”

She appeared in the same form she had taken in my dream the previous night. She still wore the green dress, though without the shawl, and her hair was down. But eyeing her more closely, I realized that this form wasn’t entirely the same. Her appearance was similar to what it had been, but there were subtle differences. The gray streaks had vanished from her hair. The skin around her eyes and mouth was smoother. She looked younger; her dress fit her more closely, accentuating her figure. She was here to charm, perhaps even to seduce.

“We didn’t want you listening,” I said. “That’s why I cast the muffling spell. You really should learn to take a hint.”

“And you should learn to show some respect.”

“Where’d she come from?” Bear asked, trying to keep up with events. “Who are you?”

She sauntered past me into the middle of the room. Rolon caught my eye and raised an eyebrow. At the same time, he made a small gesture with the hand holding his pistol. I shook my head.

Saorla paused in front of Bear. Even sitting, he appeared huge compared to her; to the untrained eye it might have seemed that he could crush her with one hand. And yet, he seemed to dwindle beside her, becoming little more than an overgrown boy.

“You are a were,” she said. “A bear, I believe. Is that right?”

“Yeah, how did you-?”

She held a slender finger to her lips. “Do not speak more than is necessary. Among the minds in this room, yours is the least worthy. You have nothing to say that I wish to hear.”

He blinked, frowned. But he held his tongue.

She focused her attention to Rolon. “You should put away your firearm. It will not help you fight me. More likely than not, you will hurt yourself or one of these others.”

He glanced my way again. I nodded, and he slipped the weapon back into his shoulder holster.

Facing me, Saorla smiled in a way that promised either death or a night to remember. At that moment I couldn’t decide which. “I did not think we would meet again so soon, although I did hope.”

“You’re turning weres into slaves,” I said.

“I am?” she said, her lovely face a study in innocence. “I have done no such thing.”

“My pardon. The weremancers who work for you are turning them.”

“Weremancers.” Her smile thinned. “That sounds like a term Namid’skemu would use. I suppose to him I am a necromancer.”

“Yes, you are.”

“He can call me such if he wishes; I cannot stop him. Yet. If the name crosses your lips, you will die in agony.”

“What would you prefer I call you?”

“I am a runemyste, just as he is.”

I shook my head. “No, you’re not. The runemystes were chosen by the Runeclave. You made yourself immortal using magic you should never have attempted.”

“Brave words, Justis Fearsson. But you should know better than to challenge me when Namid’skemu is not here to protect you.”

“What are you doing with the weres?”

“You said we are making slaves. We are not. We are making soldiers.”

That brought me up short. And it made all kinds of sense.

“Soldiers?” Bear said.

Saorla ignored him, still watching me. “Think about it. With weres, weremystes, and runemystes like myself, we have an imposing army. It is like a chess set. Those of us with power can accomplish much, but we need our pawns. And the weres will serve quite well in that capacity.”

Her pale eyes flicked in Martell’s direction for no more than an instant. But in that scintilla of time, magic filled the room; the air practically shimmered with it.

Bear let out a roar and tipped out of his chair onto his hands and knees. I cursed, having seen this the day before in Gary Hacker’s single-wide. Bear screamed again.

“Jay, what’s going on?” Rolon’s voice had gone up half an octave, and for the first time since we’d met, he appeared truly frightened. He had pulled out his weapon again, and had it aimed at Bear.

“No! Not the pistol. The trank.”

Bones snapped, Bear’s body contorted, and another ear-splitting howl of pain made the walls shake.

Rolon seemed finally to grasp what was happening. He holstered the SIG Sauer and pulled out the tranquilizer gun.

“No,” Saorla said. She didn’t raise her voice, but I heard her anyway.

Rolon cried out. The trank fell from his hand, its grip glowing red. As I watched, the barrel flattened, as if some giant beast had stomped on it.

“If you want to stop the were from turning,” Saorla said, “you will have to kill it.” She shrugged. “As I said, he is a soldier.”

Martell bellowed once more. His hair was becoming fur; already he had grown larger. His T-shirt hung in tatters from his body.

“Why would you waste one of your army?”

“It is not a waste. As it is, you are wanted for murder. And here you stand with a servant of the criminal Amaya. If you kill the bear, he will shift back into the man, and the police will pursue you with that much more rigor.”

Crap. It was time to leave.

I should have known it wouldn’t be so easy.

The front door opened, and a man stepped inside. Tall, lean, a trim beard and dark eyes beneath a shock of black hair. Dimples, whom Bear had called Palmer Hain. I couldn’t make out the details of his face because they were blurred by his magic. He was at least as powerful as I was. In a battle of spells, Rolon wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

Maybe Rolon saw this as well. For a third time, he produced his weapon. Hain’s expression betrayed no hint of fear. He made a small, sharp gesture with his right hand, and Rolon went down in a heap, his eyes rolling back in his head, the pistol slipping from his fingers. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

Nor did I have time to find out. I warded myself: Hain, me, and a sheath of power. I didn’t bother warding myself against Saorla; her power was beyond me. If she wanted to kill me herself, there was precious little I could do about it.

Hain’s gaze snapped to my face as I cast. He threw a spell at me. I couldn’t tell what it was. The impact jarred me, made me take a step back. But my warding held, and a second later he swayed as his attack rebounded on him.

By this time, Bear’s transformation was nearly complete. The good news was he had taken the form of a black bear, as opposed to a grizzly. The bad news was that he might have been the biggest black bear I’d ever seen. His bellow had become a full ursine roar. I backed away, thought about reaching for my Glock, but reconsidered. I didn’t want to kill the guy, for his sake and mine.

“I had thought to spare you, Justis Fearsson. I saved your life more than once because I thought you could help us kill Namid’skemu. But that opportunity has passed.”

The bear lumbered toward me, Hain behind him and to the side. If one of them didn’t kill me, the other would.

Weres, when they shifted, took on the attributes of their totem creatures, and black bears, as a rule, tended to be timid. They weren’t natural killers. I cast again: a solid piece of wood, the bear’s nose, and a good hard thwack. Bear howled and reared at the impact of my spell, but he broke off his advance.

I wasn’t done. Hain, unlike the bear, was every bit a killer. I’d seen the look in his eyes the night he murdered the homeless man. And I was certain that he had warded himself against any direct magical assault.

I threw another spell at Bear, this one more aggressive. I heard bone snap and a deafening shriek of agony, watched as the animal toppled over, narrowly missing Hain. And as the weremancer danced out of the way of the werebear, I cast my third spell. My magic, Hain, and a hole in the floor beneath him.

He fell, though he was able to throw himself to the side and avoid being swallowed by the hole I’d conjured. Bear continued to flail and howl, and Hain had to roll away from the creature.

Hain, Bear’s CD rack, and a firm shove. The rack crashed down on the weremancer with a cascade of jewel cases and discs. He groaned and tried to push the rack off of him. But by then I was in motion. I closed the distance between us in two quick strides and kicked him in the head. Hain went still.

Bear’s cries had become loud whines, and his writhing had slowed. Still, I held out some hope that he would crush Hain and finish him off.

“Impressive,” Saorla said from behind me.

I spun, bracing myself at the first touch of charged air on my face. But still I could do nothing to keep her spell from hammering into me. I flew across Bear’s living room, slammed into a wall, and slid to the floor, dazed and sore. It was like I’d been backhanded by King Kong.

She walked to where I lay and stood over me, her mouth set in a thin, hard line.

“I am not certain what I ought to do with you. You are more than you seem, and we have invested much in preparing you for Namid’skemu’s death. We learned your defenses, studied your wardings, saved your life when we had to. That took time, effort. I am loath to waste it.”

“When did you do all of that?” I asked, trying to clear my head and buy myself a little time.

“We have been doing it for quite a while now. This is why we studied your father.”

That got my attention. “You’ve been hurting my father so that you could learn about me?”

“Of course. Why else would we bother with an old man who has lost his mind? You use different warding spells, but your magic and his are similar, as is the case with all children of weremystes.”

I nodded slowly, and sat up. I had noticed in the past that the blurring effect I saw with every other myste I met was absent in my dad, and I had even wondered if this was because our magic, for lack of a better analogy, operated on the same frequency. Here was proof.

“He was right, then,” I said. “He kept telling me that he didn’t matter, but that I did. You were testing him to get at me.”

“Aye, we were. But now Namid is warned against us. He will not be so quick to answer your summons, and he will be ever more cautious. Your value to us is largely gone. I ought to kill you and be done. But you intrigue me, and you have proven yourself unusually resourceful.” She glanced back at Hain, who hadn’t moved since I kicked him. “He is one of my best, and you defeated him. I did not expect that.”

Bear, still in animal form, continued to watch us, even as he licked gently at his broken leg.

“Well, you might as well kill me,” I said to the necromancer. “Because I won’t be joining your army. I’m no chess piece.”

She faced me again, solemn and beautiful. “I can compel you,” she said. “Not all the time, but during the phasings. And I might even be able to force you into a phasing, as we force the weres to turn.”

I felt myself blanch. The phasings were bad enough three nights out of each month. But to be subject to them at someone else’s whim might have been enough to convince me that I ought to take blockers, the drugs some weremystes used to suppress the phasings. I had refused in the past to take them because the relief they offered from what Namid called the moontimes came at a cost, namely my access to magic. I was willing to endure the phasings as the price of being a runecrafter. But I would give up spellmaking forever before I allowed Saorla to use me as another of her magical slaves.

“This frightens you. I can see it in your eyes.”

“I’ll take blockers,” I said. “I’ll take my own life if I have to. You will not own me in that way.”

“You choose death, then.”

“I choose to fight.”

I cast the spell as quickly as I had ever crafted any conjuring. Namid had long wanted me to cast without hesitation, to make my magic as immediate as thought. That’s what I tried to do now.

Yes, she was a creature of magic, much as Namid was. But she had taken corporeal form here in this house, and I was banking on this being her one potential weakness. I didn’t go for a direct assault; she’d be expecting that. And there were no more shelves to bring down on her; I’d used that up on Hain.

But there was plenty of stuff lying around the room. I opted for something small and hard that wouldn’t draw her attention. The elements flashed through my mind. Saorla, the stone ashtray on Bear’s coffee table, and the distance between them. I didn’t wait for the magic to build. I didn’t even pause to visualize the spell in action. It was the runecrafting equivalent of grabbing the ashtray and hurling it blindly. Except far more accurate.

The ashtray spun like a Frisbee and rammed into her face, an inch below her left eye. She let out an enraged screech, even as she fell to the floor. She was on her feet again before I could cast a second spell, blood pouring from an uneven gash across her cheekbone. Pain exploded in my head-a thousand hot metal spikes piercing my skull. I clutched at my temples, screaming, unable to stop myself.

“You will pay for that, Justis Fearsson,” I heard her say, so close she might as well have been breathing the words into my ear. “You will die in anguish, slowly, so that you have plenty of time-”

Gunshots blared, three of them in quick succession, and blood began to spread across the front of Saorla’s dress. I glanced to my right. Rolon lay on his side, his pistol held before him, his face wan. I grabbed my Glock from my pocket and opened fire as well, squeezing off six shots. Every one found its mark. Her chest and her gut were glazed with blood. Her body convulsed with the impact of each bullet, but she didn’t go down. I knew we couldn’t kill her; and the next time I saw her she would be totally healed, not to mention totally pissed. But all I cared about right now was surviving this encounter.

Rolon shot her four more times, twice in the chest, once in the neck, and once in the forehead. Wailing, she changed to her ghoulish form. The bloody wounds remained. She took a step in our direction, and I shot her again, staggering her. She bared her teeth and then vanished entirely.

As soon as she was gone, Bear roared and began to change back into a human. Hain, I saw, was gone as well. I guessed that Saorla had taken him with her.

“Nice shooting,” I said to Rolon.

He nodded. “You, too.”

“Are you well enough to get the hell out of here?”

“Damn right.”

I stood and helped him up, and we lurched to the door.

Bear was halfway through his change: He remained very hairy, and his face still had a certain ursine look to it, but his eyes were more human than bear. With his leg still broken, he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but I couldn’t worry about that right now.

I glanced around at the mess we’d made of his living room. “Too bad about your house,” I said, and left with Rolon behind me.