Spell Blind

CHAPTER 14

Shooting at him had been stupid-useless as well as dangerous. On the other hand, it had made the sorcerer run, and might well have saved my life, at least for the moment. The rest was all nuisance. Someone was going to call the police, and I’d have to explain why I’d discharged my weapon, and what role I’d played in Shari’s death. Given the chance I would have called 911 for her, of course, but I would have done so anonymously. No chance of that now.

But those were matters for later. In that instant I was interested only in the blond-haired, bald man who had killed her.

He’s much, much more than you think he is. .

What had she meant by that?

I knew he was a more powerful weremyste than I was. He might have been the strongest sorcerer I’d ever encountered. And I guessed he was strong physically, too. He appeared to be at least half a foot taller than me. He had the build of an athlete, and I couldn’t help remembering how far into South Mountain Park he’d carried Claudia. I also couldn’t deny that he was pulling away from me as we ran, much the way Antoine had the other day.

But I had a feeling that Shari had meant more than all of that.

It occurred to me that given the ease with which he’d tested my defenses those three times, chasing after him might not have been the best idea.

Even as I formed the thought, he stopped and turned to face me. I slowed, then halted, too, holding my weapon loosely at my side. I had a feeling that shooting at him again would be pointless, that he would be able to save himself with magic. The same magic he could use to attack me.

Defend yourself!

It was as if Namid was right beside me, shouting warnings. I sheathed myself in a shielding spell, the same protective cocoon I’d used against against Namid’s magical fire. At the same time, I raised my pistol again.

The sorcerer laughed.

The touch of his magic was about as light as one of those lead aprons the dentist gives you for x-rays. It draped over my mind, pressing down on me. I couldn’t move my arms or my legs. I stood on the sidewalk, my weapon still aimed at the man, and I couldn’t even bring myself to pull the trigger.

“You should have left it alone,” he said. He didn’t shout or call back to me. He spoke the words, and I heard them as I would if he had been standing beside me, whispering in my ear. He had an accent of some sort, but at that moment I couldn’t place it. “You should have stayed away.”

My shooting hand started to turn. I fought to keep the Glock trained on him, but I might as well have tried to make the sun move west to east. I had no control over my own body. In a tiny corner of my mind I wondered what spell he was using on me; it was beyond any magic I knew. Panicking, I tried everything I could think of to throw him off. I recited wardings in my mind. I threw assailing spells at him. I even attempted my father’s transporting spell. Nothing worked. The weapon was turned toward me now. I opened my mouth and stuck the muzzle in, tasting the tang of metal and the bitter residue of gunpowder. I wanted to gag, but I couldn’t even do that much.

I felt my trigger finger twitch, and I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my face.

I heard Namid’s voice again. Defend yourself!

Yes. I refused to die here, killed by my own pistol. I had thrown every spell I knew at the guy, but maybe that was my mistake.

Three elements: the sidewalk, his feet, and a great big crack in the cement. I knew I couldn’t hurt him, but I didn’t need to. I only needed to knock him off balance for a second.

And I did. I opened my eyes in time to see him stumble, then right himself.

His magic wavered for an instant, long enough that I managed to pull the weapon from my mouth, nearly retching. I pointed the Glock at him again, though my hand was unsteady and my legs felt like they were about to give way.

“Hey! What the hell are you doin’?”

The voice came from the house to the right of me. I glanced that way, but wasn’t willing to take my eyes off the sorcerer for long. I saw anger flash across the killer’s face, and then I saw him laugh again.

He ran, vanishing around a corner. I couldn’t tell if he’d gone past the point where I could see him, or had used a spell to make himself disappear. To be honest, I didn’t care. I sank to my knees, my chest heaving.

“Hey, mister? You all right?”

I looked over at the man who’d saved my life. He was wearing old cutoff-jean shorts and a sleeveless undershirt. His hair was black, but he had a grizzled beard.

“You shouldn’t play with your gun like that,” he said, frowning at me. “Scared me half to death.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice ragged. “Sorry.”

“Who was that guy, anyway?” he asked, standing on tiptoes and craning to peer down the street after the sorcerer. “The one you were talking to.”

“I don’t know.” I forced myself back to my feet, though my legs still felt rubbery. “You need to call 911,” I told him. “Something’s happened to Ms. Bettancourt.”

“Shari?” the man said, concern in his voice, his brow knitting.

“Yes.”

“Did he do it? That guy?”

“Call 911. Please.”

He stared at me a moment longer. Then he hurried back inside.

I walked-staggered really-back to Shari’s house, sat down on her front steps and placed my Glock on the top step next to me. If the sorcerer had come back, I’m not sure I would have had the strength even to lift the pistol, but having it near at hand made me feel better.

A squad car arrived a few minutes later, stopping first in front of the neighbor’s house and then pulling up to Shari’s place. I didn’t move.

Two uniformed guys got out of the car, one Latino, one white, both of them young and burly. The Latino cop spotted my Glock first and reached for his weapon.

“Hands up!” he said, leveling his weapon at me.

I raised my hands and stared back at him as he and his partner-now with his pistol out, too-hurried up the path. The Latino cop kicked the Glock beyond my reach.

“He’s all right!” the neighbor called, running up the street toward the house. “He didn’t do anything! It was the other guy.”

“Who are you?” the Latino cop asked, his weapon still aimed at me. The badge he wore identified him as Roberto Torres.

“My name’s Jay Fearsson,” I said, my voice even. “I’m a PI. I used to be on the force.”

“The Glock’s yours?”

I nodded. “I fired it once at the man who killed Shari Bettancourt. I hit that street sign over there.” I pointed with my chin, keeping my hands as they were.

“You hit a street sign?” the other cop asked.

I wasn’t about to explain that the guy I’d been aiming at used a deflection spell to steer my bullet away. I nodded, and tried to ignore their shared grins and raised eyebrows. But while they both had me pegged as a lousy shot, they also seemed convinced that I wasn’t a threat. Both men holstered their pistols.

Torres stepped past me to the doorway.

The white cop-Allen Marra, according to his badge-said, “I’ll need to see your license, Mister. .”

“Fearsson.” I pulled out my wallet and handed it to him.

I heard his partner rattling the door.

“This is chained,” he said. “How’d he kill her?”

“I don’t know. You need to call Kona Shaw in Homicide. She knows me, and she knows what I’m working on.”

“Do you know the guy’s name?” Torres asked, ignoring what I’d said.

“I heard her call him ‘Cower,’ or something like that.”

“And why are you here? Did you have a relationship with the victim?”

“No.” I said. “I met her this morning at a. . a farmer’s market. I talked to her for a while there, and then followed her back here to ask her a few more questions. While I was talking to her, the other guy showed up.”

“And he killed her.”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you saw?” Torres asked, speaking past me to Shari’s neighbor.

“I didn’t see any of that,” the man said. “I saw this guy and the other one. This guy was chasing him, and then he stopped. They both did. And then this guy puts his gun in his mouth, and then pulls it out again, and that’s when I yelled at them. The other guy ran away.” He hesitated. Then, “Is Shari really dead?”

Marra still held my wallet, and now he frowned at the man. “Fearsson put his weapon in the other guy’s mouth?”

“No. He put it in his own mouth.”

Marra grimaced. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“It’s hard to explain,” I said, sighing the words.

Torres descended the steps and planted himself right in front of me. “Give it a try,” he said.

“The other guy made me do it. I couldn’t help myself.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Please, call Kona Shaw. She’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“First you explain this.”

“The guy’s a myste. A sorcerer. He used some kind of mojo on me.”

Torres raised an eyebrow, drawing a roll of the eyes from his partner. I figured I was about thirty seconds away from an all-expenses-paid trip to the psych ward.

“Please call Kona,” I said. “You have a dead woman in there. I’ve told you that I didn’t kill her, and that’s been corroborated by another witness. The rest I’ll explain to the homicide detectives.”

“We can run you in anyway,” Torres said.

“Yeah, you can. But you’d be wasting your time.” I took a breath. “I’m working on behalf of the Deegan family, and so my investigation is connected to the Blind Angel killings. I worked the case when I was still on the job, and now I’m working it again. Kona was my partner. The guy I was after-the guy who killed this woman-I’m pretty sure he’s the Blind Angel Killer.”

“The Blind Angel Killer is already in custody.”

“Gann’s not your man,” I said.

“Holy shit,” the neighbor said in a hushed voice. “That was the Blind Angel Killer?”

“I swear to God, Fearsson,” Torres said, wagging his finger in my face. “If you’re bullshitting me, I’m going to make your life a living hell.”

“I’m not. Call Kona.”

Torres considered me, the muscles in his jaw bunching. After a moment he nodded to Marra, who hurried to the squad car.

“Holy shit,” I heard the neighbor whisper again.

It took Kona and Kevin, her partner, some time to get there, and then they spent several minutes speaking in low voices with Torres and Marra. The forensics team had arrived in the interim and after cutting through Shari’s chain lock, had entered the house. I moved off the stairs to a shady corner of her yard. Kona and Kevin joined me there now, both of them grim-faced.

Kevin was younger than Kona and me, and had only been in Homicide for three or four years. He’d shaved his head since the last time I saw him; it looked good on him. He was a handsome African-American man, with dark eyes, a lean build, and an easy smile. I’d tried to be as nice to him as I could since meeting him about a year ago, but both of us remained wary of each other. I think he felt that I was critiquing him all the time, measuring his performance as a cop against my own. I wasn’t. I just found it hard to think of Kona working with anyone other than me.

“You all right?” Kona asked me.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure this was our guy?”

My eyes flicked toward Kevin. He didn’t know I was a weremyste.

“Pretty sure,” I said.

“There isn’t a mark on the woman,” Kevin said. “No sign that anyone broke in. Is it possible she died of. . of something natural?”

“I don’t think so,” I told him.

“Kevin,” Kona said, “why don’t you go see what they’re doing in there. Make sure they’re not messing with my crime scene. I’ll be in soon.”

Kevin eyed us both. It wasn’t the first time one of us had contrived to speak in private with the other while he was around. “Yeah, all right,” he said, his voice flat. “Catch you later, Jay.”

“See you, Kevin.”

Kona and I watched him walk away.

“You’re going to have to tell him eventually,” I said.

“I keep hoping you two will become friends so that you can tell him yourself.” Her eyes raked over me. “You look like hell.”

“I thought I was dead. This guy’s stronger than any weremyste I’ve ever seen. He made me. .” I broke off shaking my head.

“So it is our guy.”

I managed a smile, but it was fleeting. “It better be. If there are two sorcerers walking around with this kind of power, we’re in trouble.”

“And the pistol in the mouth thing?”

I shook my head again. “Don’t ask.” Taking a long breath, I said, “He killed her, Kona. I saw him do it, although I can’t tell you how it happened. She said his name-Cower, I think it was. She knew he was there. She felt him. And then she was dead.”

“She was a weremyste, too?”

I nodded. “I saw her at the Moon Market this morning. She had on a necklace that was glowing with his magic. That’s how I knew to follow her.” I followed a passing car with my gaze, my mouth twitching. “I guess I got her killed.”

“We’re going to need a statement,” she said. “You know that.”

“You’ll have to take it. This guy’s magic is unlike anything we’ve gone up against before. No one else will believe me.”

“Who says I do?” She smiled to soften it.

“You’re going to get a description from the neighbor,” I told her, as we started to walk back toward the house. “It’ll be nothing at all like what I told you yesterday.”

“He was disguised?”

“I think he’s a chameleon. He can look like anything and anyone he wants.”

“I’m starting not to like this guy, Justis.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

Between waiting for Kona to finish her work at the Bettancourt house, and going back to 620 to give her my statement, most of my afternoon was gone. The only thing that could have made my day worse would have been running into Cole Hibbard before I managed to get out of the building.

So, of course, that was exactly what happened.

When old Cole found out I’d been at the scene of a murder, he practically wet himself. When Kona told him that I’d only been a witness, he started trying to find ways to charge me with the killing anyway. I left as soon as I could, and was seething the whole way home, not only for myself, but also for my father.

Hibbard and my dad had been close. In fact, for a while Hibbard and his wife had been my parents’ closest friends. I still remembered them coming over to the house and staying up late playing Spades, smoking cigarettes, and drinking daiquiris. I was supposed to be sleeping, of course, but I’d spy on them from the stairway, mostly because I thought Hibbard’s wife, whose name I’ve forgotten, was the prettiest woman I’d ever seen.

Eventually the phasings started taking their toll on my father, and though Hibbard was his friend, I gather that Dad wasn’t able to confide in him about the magic and Namid and all the rest. Or maybe that’s an excuse that both he and I have used too often. I did confide in Kona, and in the end it changed nothing.

After a while, Hibbard turned on him. I suppose he had cause. My mother turned on him, too, in her own way. Hell, so did I. To Hibbard, it must have seemed that his friend had lost it, had burned out right before his eyes. When my mother and her lover died, Hibbard was one of those who believed my father had killed them both. And when my father went all the way over the edge, leaving me without a family or a home, Hibbard and his wife were among the few couples who refused to help me out. I guess that’s understandable, too. The Hibbards had lost their two closest friends in a tragic, ugly sequence of events. The last thing they would have wanted was a living reminder of both Dara and Leander Fearsson haunting their home.

But try telling that to a fifteen-year-old kid who’d lost his parents. That’s when I started hating Cole Hibbard. One of the reasons I so wanted to be a cop, and not just a cop, but a homicide detective, was to show Hibbard and all the others who had turned their backs on my father and me that we deserved better. I had a lot to prove, and I’m sure that I came into the force with an attitude to match. It’s not surprising that Hibbard had it in for me from the start; I had it in for him, too.

In the end, the only thing he had done to me that I couldn’t forgive was to refuse to accept that maybe I could be a decent cop and wouldn’t necessarily become my father.

Of course, I understood all this in my calmer moments, when I could reflect on all that happened back then. At other times, though, I couldn’t get past the fact that Hibbard was such a jerk.

By the time I reached my office, I’d worked myself into quite a state. I’d watched a woman die, nearly been killed myself, and had been shown, in no uncertain terms, that whatever magic I wielded was nothing next to the power of the Blind Angel Killer.

The Republic was still running stories about Claudia’s death above the fold. It had a picture of Gann on the front page, too, beneath a caption that read, “Is This the Blind Angel Murderer?” I wondered if Torres and Marra believed what I’d told them about Shari’s killer being the one who’d killed Claudia Deegan. Maybe that was the one good thing that would come out of this day.

I dropped the paper in the trash and rubbed my eyes. After a moment I stood again and started to pace.

Where was Namid when I needed him? I was eager to train, to work some magic and get the day out of my system. The runemyste would have told me that this wasn’t a proper use of magic, that the purpose of clearing prior to conjuring was to keep emotions and frustrations from intruding on the spells. Whatever. I wanted to break something. Failing that, I wanted to use my magic against someone, even if it was Namid and I couldn’t hope to do any real damage. In fact, better that it be him, for that reason.

“Namid!” I called.

After a few moments, he materialized, as smooth and clear as a mountain lake in early morning.

“I am not your servant, Ohanko. I am not to be summoned like one.”

“I know that,” I said. “But I need to train, and I. . I thought maybe we could work on some more wardings.” I winced at what I heard in my voice. I sounded like some willful spoiled kid ordering around a playmate. “If you’d be willing to help me, I mean,” I added, knowing it was too little too late.

He considered me, his face placid. Then he shook his head. “No. You are clouded.”

“I can clear myself.”

“No,” he said again. “I do not think so. Not now. I sense much anger in you. Restlessness. This is not a good time for you to conjure.”

It only helped a little that I’d known he would say something like this. “Yeah, all right,” I said. “I’m sorry I called for you.”

He inclined his head and began to vanish.

“Tell me about my father,” I said, on impulse.

Namid grew more substantial again. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.”

“You know much about him already.”

“Maybe. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know him at all.”

“You are much like him. The good and the bad.”

“Will I end up like him?”

“That has yet to be scried.”

“But I’m headed in that direction. Isn’t that right?”

The runemyste seemed to weigh this. Then he sat down on the floor right where he’d been standing. I sat as well.

“Magic exacts a price. You know this. And still you have chosen to conjure rather than block your power with Abri.”

“Right. Like Dad did. And now he’s nuts.”

“He made his choice. He lives with the consequences of that.”

“You make it sound so. . simple,” I said, anger creeping into my voice. “This is my sanity we’re talking about, Namid. It’s my life. I don’t want to wind up like my dad.”

The runemyste gazed back at me, still glasslike. “Then take the Abri. Block your magic, and you will be free of the moon’s pull. You will not have to worry about going. . nuts.” The word sounded strange coming from him.

“You know I can’t do that.”

He widened his eyes. “You cannot? Why is this?”

I started to answer, then stopped myself and chuckled. “All right,” I said. “I get it. I’ve made my choice. That’s what you’re telling me. So I should stop complaining, right?”

“You have made your choice for today, Ohanko. As you did yesterday. You can change your mind whenever you wish. The Abri will always be there, waiting for you.”

“I’m not sure I could give up being a sorcerer.”

“That is your decision to make.”

“I almost died today,” I told him. “I was face to face with this weremyste we’re after. He killed a woman with some kind of spell, and then used his magic to make me put my weapon in my mouth. He would have made me pull the trigger.”

The runemyste’s appearance clouded, his waters becoming turbulent. “He made you do this,” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “Just what I said. He made me. He didn’t say anything that I could hear, but suddenly I had no control over my body. I wanted to run. I wanted to shoot him. But I couldn’t do anything at all. None of my wardings worked against him.”

Namid was scowling. “He controlled you.”

“Yes.”

“How is it you are still alive?”

I grinned. “I defended myself, like you told me to. I couldn’t attack him, so I cracked the sidewalk beneath his feet. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, but it broke his hold on me.”

The runemyste nodded. “That is good. You will be a runecrafter yet.” He eyed me again. “What else can you tell me about this man?”

“He can change his appearance. He’s bald and clean-shaven, and then he has long hair and a beard. His eyes are pale though. Almost white. And I have a feeling that they don’t change at all.” I thought for a moment. “He speaks with an accent. I’m not sure what kind. European, I think. Maybe French? And I heard the woman call him Cower.”

“Cower,” Namid said, with an intensity I’d never heard from him before. “Could it have been Cahors? A French name?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Do you know him?”

“There is much I need to learn,” he said. “I must go.” He began to fade.

“Namid, wait!”

He solidified once more, though I sensed his reluctance. “Do you still think I can protect myself from this guy?”

“I think you have no choice.”

I exhaled. “Right.”

“I must go now.”

“Of course,” I said. “Thank you.”

He frowned. “For what?”

“Being honest with me.”

“You expected less?”

I smiled at that. “Not really, no.” I stood. “I’m sorry I called for you that way. I won’t do it again.”

“Be well, Ohanko.” He faded from view.

I stared for a moment at where he’d been and then considered the pile of papers and unopened envelopes on my desk; most of them were unpaid bills. They could wait. As Namid might have said, I had a big date tonight, and I had enough time to get home, eat a little dinner, and change before I had to start back toward Tempe to pick up Billie. I started toward the door, but before I reached it the phone rang.

I strode back to the desk and picked up the receiver. “Fearsson.”

Silence.

“Hello?” I said.

“Yeah, this is um. . this is ’Toine Mirdoux.”

He kind of mumbled it, and at first I had no idea what he’d said.

“Who?”

“Antoine? Remember, dog? You blew up the door to my house?”

“Right,” I said. “How’s it going, Antoine? You calling for that chat you were going on about?”

“What?” he said. Then he allowed himself a half-hearted laugh. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I wanna chat.”

Something was bothering him. I found myself wondering if whatever business he’d had with the red sorcerer had gone sour. There was a good deal of noise in the background and I had the feeling he was calling from a cell or maybe even a pay phone, if you could still find one in this city. Wherever he was, he definitely wasn’t home.

“Great,” I said. “Let’s chat.”

“Not on the phone, man. I need. . I need some help. I’m in some trouble here.”

“What kind of trouble, Antoine?”

“Not on the phone.”

I checked my watch again. I didn’t have time enough to get to the Mountain View precinct and back, and still make it to Tempe by eight, not if my talk with the kid was going to take any time at all.

“I can’t now, Antoine. How about later tonight?”

“How much later?”

God, he sounded scared, like a little boy left alone in a dark house.

“Tonight. Eleven, at your place.”

“My place?”

“You still have it warded, right?”

There was a long silence, and after a while I started wondering if the connection had gone bad.

“Antoine?”

“Yeah, man. All right. My place. Eleven.”

“Keep your head down until then, all right?”

“No shit, man.”

The line went dead. I returned the phone to its cradle and shook my head. Mountain View’s 733 at eleven p.m. Not even close to the way I had hoped to end my evening. But it seemed that now I had two dates. One with Billie, and the other with ’Toine Mirdoux.