Spell Blind

CHAPTER 4

I let Kona out in front of 620, which is what cops call police headquarters, because it’s located at 620 West Washington Street. I parked, and waited outside while she went up into HQ to get the list of arrested protesters. At some point I would get up the nerve to go back inside the building, but I wasn’t there yet. Simply seeing the place was like running into an old girlfriend who I hadn’t quite gotten over. I stood outside on the sidewalk trying to act like I belonged there, and avoiding eye contact with anyone going in or coming out.

As soon as I saw Kona emerge from the building, I started walking west on Washington, knowing that she’d catch up with me, knowing as well that she’d understand.

When she caught up with me, she handed me the list of names, but said nothing.

“Five pages?” I asked folding back the sheets. Names, phone numbers, addresses. This would be helpful, but I had no idea so many people had been arrested.

“It was a big protest,” Kona said. “Deegan’s daughter wasn’t the only one who was ticked off about that bomber, or whatever it was.”

“I guess not.” There had to be two hundred names here. “So are you going to tell me who I’m looking for or make me figure it out myself?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

The OME was only about a block from 620, on Jefferson. I started to read through the list as we walked, but none of the names jumped out at me, and before I knew it we were at the Medical Examiner’s building, being buzzed into the facility by security.

Kona had on her ID from 620 and the guard waved us past his desk toward the autopsy lab, and the coolers where bodies were kept.

The M.E. was a guy named Pete Forsythe, who had been running forensics in Phoenix since before I joined the force. He was a crusty old goat, and not at all the kind of person who would have tolerated the presence of a PI in his facility. Fortunately, he liked to delegate work to his staff, and was rarely in the labs or cold storage this time of day.

“Have they done the autopsy yet?” I asked as we navigated the corridors, our footsteps echoing.

“I asked them not to,” Kona said. “I thought you’d want to see her as we found her. They only brought her in last night and Pete was willing to wait until this afternoon.”

I nodded.

We found a young woman in the anthrodental lab who was comparing dental records on a computer screen to a set of X-rays. I’d never seen her before, but Kona knew her.

“Hey, Caroline.”

The woman looked over at us and smiled. “Hi, Kona.” She was pretty. Red hair, freckles, blue eyes, a little on the heavy side, great smile. I noticed a big diamond on her left hand. “What can I do ya for?”

“This is my friend Jay Fearsson.”

“Hi, Jay,” the woman said. “Caroline Packer.”

“Nice to meet you, Caroline.”

“You new in Homicide? I haven’t seen you here before.”

“Jay’s an investigator,” Kona said before I could answer. “He’s helping me out with something. I was wondering if we could take a look at the Deegan kid.”

Caroline’s smile vanished, along with most of the color in her cheeks. “Yeah, sure,” she said. But she didn’t move for a few seconds. She seemed to be gathering herself. “She’s in CS,” she said. “I can. . I can show you.”

“We know where it is,” Kona told her, her tone gentle. “Just tell us which shelf.”

“Fourteen. And you have to sign. The clipboard’s outside the door.”

Kona nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

“What he did to her. . It’s. .” She broke off, swallowing and shaking her head. “I didn’t used to think about this kind of stuff, but I don’t like to be out after dark anymore.”

“I understand,” Kona said.

She turned and left the lab, and I followed her. The receiving cooler, where they kept bodies that had not yet been examined, was beside the autopsy room. We paused outside the door so that Kona could sign the access sheet, and then we stepped inside. It was a cold, stark, depressing place. Stainless steel walls and doors, hard fluorescent lighting, and a series of steel shelves on every wall for the bodies. Most of the shelves were empty, as usual, but there were white body bags on a few of them, including the middle shelf under the number fourteen.

A jar of mentholated Vaseline sat on a gurney near the door. Before opening the body bag we rubbed a small amount under our noses to guard against the smell. Then Kona unzipped the bag and spread it open.

My first thought was that the police had gotten the ID wrong. Sure she was a mess-there were burned out craters in her face where her eyes should have been. But this girl bore almost no resemblance to the Claudia Deegan I’d seen on the news and in countless newspaper photos. That girl had been blonde, athletic, tan: the all-American kid. This girl’s hair was black, though peering more closely I could see that the roots were blonde. Her face was gaunt and she wore dark lipstick that gave her mouth a severe look.

“You’re sure this is the Deegan kid?” I asked Kona, staring down at the girl.

“Yeah, we’re sure. Why?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”

Kona had brought me there to tell her if there was any magical residue on the body, and it was all over Claudia’s face, neck and chest. Magic was similar to any other forensic evidence. Just as a gunshot at close range left powder burns on a victim, or strangulation caused bruising, magic left its mark as well. And just as fingerprints were unique, so was the color left by a weremyste’s conjuring. Only another weremyste could see it, but to those of us with magic in our veins it was as obvious as a bloodstain or an open wound. Often, magical residue reminded me of fluorescent paint that had spilled wherever a runecrafter’s spells had touched. It glowed and shimmered, the colors as vivid as summer wildflowers. At least at first.

The glow on Claudia’s body had grown faint, and with the overhead lighting so harsh it was difficult to see. As I’d told Kona earlier, the more powerful the weremyste, the faster any remnant of his magic would fade. This probably seems backwards, but if you think of magic as having a half-life, like uranium, it starts to make more sense. Carbon 14 is a weak radiant with a slow half-life-well over five thousand years. Strontium 90, on the other hand, is powerfully radioactive and has a half-life of less than thirty years. In the same way, the stronger a spell, the faster its residue decays. At least, that’s how I think of it. Then again, I’m not exactly a nuclear physicist.

Of course, there was a flip side to the fast decay thing: the more powerful the sorcerer, the more brilliant the color of his magic would be to begin with. I had seen the Blind Angel Killer’s magic before; I would have recognized that shade of crimson anywhere. Still, even knowing how powerful he was, I couldn’t help but be surprised-and scared-at how dim it had grown in a mere two days. I might not have noticed it as much working the case month to month, but in the time since I’d last seen one of his victims, the Blind Angel Killer had made himself stronger. Much stronger.

“Is it our guy?” Kona asked, watching me.

I nodded. “I think he’s getting more powerful.”

“Well, that’s just what I want to hear.”

“The color is nearly gone. Even at the eyes, where it should be most intense.” I faced Kona. “I think whatever he gets from these kids is building him up. There’s more to this than random killing.”

“You’ve told me that before. But do you know what he’s getting?”

“No.” I turned back to Claudia’s corpse. “If I knew that maybe we could find him.” I stood for a moment, staring at the girl’s ravaged face. “Let me try something,” I said.

Three elements again: my magic, the red magic glowing on Claudia, and the purpose of the killer’s spell. This last I didn’t know, of course; I was hoping the spell would fill in that bit of information with some physical manifestation of the killer’s magic. I had tried this before a couple of years ago, but I was a more accomplished runecrafter now, and I thought maybe I’d get a different result.

I didn’t. I might have been better with magic now than I was when I worked for the PPD, but I wasn’t yet a match for the Blind Angel Killer.

“Did anything happen?” Kona asked, looking back and forth between Claudia’s corpse and me.

“No. We’re going to have to find him the old-fashioned way.”

“Not we, partner,” Kona said in the same gentle tone she’d used with the girl in the lab. “That’s not your job. I appreciate you coming down here with me, but we’ll do the rest.”

I said nothing, and I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze. She was right, of course, but it wasn’t like I needed to be reminded that I was no longer on the job. And Kona should have known that.

“I’m sorry, Justis. It’s just-”

“I know,” I said, my voice echoing sharply in the cold room. I turned away from the body and started for the door.

“Justis-”

“I should talk to that girl. Caroline. I should ask her about the whole drug thing. That’s what the Deegans are worried about.”

I left the room before Kona could stop me and went back to the anthrodental lab. Caroline glanced over as I walked in and gave a weak smile, but she was still pale.

I sat on an empty stool near her. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

She pulled her lab coat tighter around her shoulders. “I don’t know much. I’m not working on. . Until Doctor Forsythe does his initial autopsy, there’s not much for the rest of us to do.”

“I understand that. But I need some information; or I will when you start the lab work.”

“I’m not sure-”

“It’s nothing that the M.E. won’t eventually give the press. I just need to know what kind of drugs she’d been taking, and anything you can tell me about their potency.”

Caroline frowned. “Aren’t you with the force? Kona said you’re an investigator. Can’t you get this from her?”

I forced a smile. “I’m asking you for it.” I pulled out my wallet and gave her one of my business cards. “If you can, call me at that number. .”

She was looking more frightened by the moment. “Um. .”

“It’s all right. I’ve known Pete Forsyth since you were in high school. He won’t mind. And you can call me from your home, if you think that would be better.”

“Stop it, Justis.”

Kona didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.

Caroline glanced past me, the relief on her face making me ashamed of myself. I turned, feeling my color rise.

Kona crossed to where I sat, wearing an expression that would have wrung an apology from a gangbanger.

“We’re leaving,” she told me. Turning, she said, “Sorry to have bothered you, Caroline. Tell Pete we’re done here. He can go ahead with the autopsy.”

Caroline nodded, seeming unsure of what had happened. Her gaze flicked from me to Kona.

I should have said something to her, but I was too embarrassed. I followed Kona out of the lab, through the hallways back to the main entrance. Once we were out on the street again, Kona turned to me, her hands on her hips.

“What the hell were you thinking, trying to play that poor girl like that?”

I didn’t meet her gaze. “Wriker asked me to find out-”

“Don’t give me that shit. He didn’t tell you to go and bully some kid into getting herself fired.”

I wasn’t sure that Wriker or the Deegans would give a crap about Caroline Packer. But I knew that I didn’t want to be measuring myself against their morals.

“I pissed you off,” Kona said. “And you didn’t want to have to get that information from me. So you went after her.”

“Yes.”

Kona stared down at her feet, her lips pursed. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. You don’t need me telling you what your job is, especially when you’re still working this case and not getting any credit for it. The fact is, Latrelle wanted you here, but strictly on ‘a consulting basis.’ His words. I’m not even sure what he meant, and to be honest, I don’t know how we’re going to make this work. But I shouldn’t have said it that way.”

I shrugged, still not looking at her.

“Pressure’s high on this one, partner,” she said. “This guy’s had our number for three years now, and that’s bad enough. But you add in the Deegans, and suddenly everyone’s on edge, you know?”

I could imagine.

“The damn FBI’s back in town, acting as though they never bailed on us in the first place, asking why we haven’t made more progress while they were gone.” Kona paused, exhaled. “Anyway,” she went on, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” And it was. I’d never been able to stay mad at Kona for long, or her at me. Our friendship-our partnership-had always been too strong. I raised my chin toward the door we’d come through. “You’ll apologize for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “And I’ll get that information to you as quickly as I can. I promise.”

I nodded. “I know you will.”

She glanced back toward the door. “Anything more you can tell me about what you saw in there?”

“Not really.” We started walking back toward 620. “It’s the same shade of red, but it’s fading faster than it used to. Otherwise it’s exactly like the other times. Mostly on her head and chest. No particular pattern, though it’s strongest around the eyes.”

“Nothing different at all?” Kona asked.

I shook my head, knowing where she was headed. “I don’t think he had any idea that this was Claudia Deegan. She was just another kid to him.”

“Yeah, well, that might have been true the other night. Not anymore. Things are about to get very hot for everyone involved in this case, including our friend with the red magic.”

We fell silent, and after a few moments I pulled out the list of protest arrests Kona had given me.

“Check on page three,” Kona said. “A bit past the middle.”

I read several names before I saw it. I stopped dead in my tracks and gaped at her. She stopped, too.

“Robby Sommer?” I said.

“Interesting, don’t you think? You’re trying to find the source of Claudia Deegan’s drugs, and look who gets his ass arrested at that protest Claudia put together.”

Robby Sommer was a small-time drug dealer who I’d busted several years back. He catered to high-end, low-volume buyers; rich college students for the most part. Kids like Claudia Deegan, although he wasn’t above selling to anyone he could find.

“You think he was connected to any of the other kids?” I asked.

“It’s possible,” Kona said. “A few of them were at the university; most of them were using.”

“But this is the first time we’ve-” I smiled self-consciously. “That you’ve had any kind of link between Robby and a victim.”

“Yeah. This is the first.”

We started walking again, and I stared at Robby’s name on that list. His address hadn’t changed since I arrested him. “I guess you should go see him.”

“Why don’t you?” Kona said. “Kevin and I have more than enough to keep us busy, and this is the type of thing you’d be doing for Wriker anyway.”

“All right.”

I expected her to remind me that since I wasn’t a cop anymore, I couldn’t push Robby too far, but she didn’t.

“I’ll let you know what I find out,” I said.

She nodded. “I’ll do the same.”

“Thank you, Kona.”

We’d reached Washington again.

“No problem, partner. Talk to you soon.”

She continued back toward 620; I turned toward the City Hall parking lot, my chest aching. I’d never begrudge Kona her badge, but at that moment I wanted mine back more than I wanted anything.

Nobody would be surprised to learn that a drug dealer like Robby Sommer was a screw-up. What always amazed me about the kid, though, was how lucky he’d been. In the years since I’d arrested him, he had been hauled in at least three or four more times. But he’d only been convicted once, and then on a reduced count. Something always seemed to go wrong with Robby’s arrests-evidence was misplaced, procedures got fouled up. One time an assistant district attorney was found to have manufactured evidence in a number of cases-it was a huge scandal at the time-and while the evidence against Robby was completely legit, all of the perps in all of the assistant D.A.’s cases were released as a matter of course. This was the luckiest kid on the face of the earth.

I turned that thought over in my head as I drove to his place, amazed that this had never occurred to me before: What if Robby wasn’t merely lucky? What if the punk had access to magic? What if he had been hiding it from us all these years? Most of the time I could identify a weremyste on sight. They usually appeared to shimmer and waver, as if there were heat waves in front of them. A powerful runecrafter might look like little more than a blur. I’d never noticed anything like this with Robby, but maybe he wasn’t strong enough for me to notice, or at least hadn’t been the last time our paths crossed. I thought of that faint hint of beige glow on the door of the building where I had found Jessie Tyler. Could that have been Robby? Had luck saved him yet again?

Maybe. But with Claudia Deegan dead, with drugs found in her backpack and in her blood, and with some connection established between her and Sommer, it was possible that Robby’s winning streak was about to end.

Robby might have been thinking the same thing. As soon as I knocked on the door of his house, a small place on Hermosa, near the interchange of Highway 101 and U.S. 60, I heard a screen door fly open in the back. I leaped off the front stoop and sprinted around the house in time to see someone disappear over a cinderblock wall.

I went after him, knowing that I could clear the wall easily. But as I was about to throw myself over it, I felt magic. I stopped myself the only way I could: essentially by running into the wall. I didn’t go over it, which was good because flames had erupted from its top-just like the flames I’d seen earlier that day at the spark den. I gathered that fire was Robby’s attack magic of choice, which wasn’t so surprising. Fire spells were about the most rudimentary assailing magic a myste could use.

Three elements: the cinderblocks, Robby’s flames, and a magical blanket to snuff them out. The air around me hummed with the power of my own spell, and an instant later the flames on the wall died down. I climbed over, feeling the heat of the blaze still radiating from the stone. Once on the ground again, I ran on, following the retreating sound of Robby’s footsteps.

It was my turn for an attack spell. I didn’t try anything fancy; I wanted to slow him down, not kill him. My hand, his back, and a good hard shove.

I heard him stumble, then curse. Emerging from between two houses, I saw him scrambling to his feet half a block down the street. And yes, this time I did notice a faint blur around his face and neck. The son of a bitch was a runecrafter, albeit a weak one. He glanced back, took off again. I chased him across a couple of small yards, and followed him into another narrow alley between two ramshackle houses. This wasn’t exactly textbook police procedure, but Robby had never been a violent kid. Just a slimeball, and not a particularly smart one at that. He broke out into a second open street and I ran after him; by now I was only a few steps behind. He dodged a kid on a bicycle; I tried to do the same, spun, and fell, tearing my jeans and most of the skin on my right knee.

I was on my feet again in a second or two, but I was limping now, and I was pissed off. I might have lost him, but he turned down a second alley that proved to be a dead end. Did I mention that Robby wasn’t so smart?

I hobbled into the alley, glancing down at my bloodied leg and swearing loudly. Robby backed away from me until he bumped into the scalloped steel door of an old garage. He pulled something from his pocket and fumbled with it.

“Stay away from me!” he said, waving his hand at me. It took me a moment to realize that he was holding a small knife.

I stopped and considered drawing my Glock, which was still in my shoulder holster. I’m licensed to own it and Arizona law allows private citizens to carry a concealed weapon. And though I hadn’t been on the job in some time, I still felt more comfortable with a weapon at the ready. In this case though, I figured I’d learn more from Robby if I got him calmed down.

“Put the knife away, Robby. You don’t want to get hurt.”

“I said stay away!”

I started walking toward him again. “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”

In a way I hoped he would try to cut me. My leg was aching and I was itching for an excuse to kick the crap out of him.

“I’m smarter than you think. I know that you guys want to nail me for dealing, especially now that Claudia’s dead.” His eyes were darting from side to side, searching for any way out of the alley. He might well have been desperate enough to attack me.

“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not trying to pin anything on anyone.”

“Bullshit, cop!”

“I’m no cop.” He started to argue, but I raised a finger to silence him. “I was when I busted you, but I was kicked off the force a while back.”

“Yeah, right. What for?”

I wasn’t about to tell him that. “I beat a perp to death.”

His eyes widened.

“Put the knife away, Robby. I just want to talk. I’m a PI now. A private investigator,” I added, seeing his puzzled expression. “I’m doing a little work for the Deegans, trying to figure out what happened to their daughter.”

Fear and uncertainty chased each other across his features.

“The cops are after me, though, right?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you. They know you didn’t kill her. But they also know that you deal, and that Claudia had drugs with her when she died. Lots of the Blind Angel victims did,” I added, eyeing him as I spoke the words.

Robby seemed to sag. The hand holding the knife fell to his side. “Shit,” he muttered, eyes on the ground. I’m not sure that he heard my last remark. “I didn’t do anything.”

“No? What about Jessie Tyler?”

His gaze snapped back to mine. “That was you today.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Throw another spell at me and I’ll break your neck.”

“The Deegans, the Tylers. I guess business has been good.”

“Did you know Claudia well?”

He glanced around again, still searching for some way out. At the same time, he let out a short breathless laugh. “Yeah, I knew Claud. She and I were a thing once.”

“That right?”

Robby raised his chin, eyeing me. “You don’t believe me.”

I wasn’t certain that I did. It’s not like I thought girls would find Robby unattractive. He had a friendly face, shaggy dark hair, big brown eyes-the kind of down-and-out good looks that some girls like. But Claudia Deegan had been a beauty, and with her name and money she could have had any guy she wanted.

“Sure I do.”

“No, you don’t. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t either. I know who Claud was, before she became the woman I knew. If she’d been right with her family, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day. I understand that, you know? I think she saw me as a way of getting at her old man. But I didn’t mind.” He stared past me; his expression had softened. “I. . I liked her. A lot.”

Maybe I did believe him. “What was she on?”

He met my gaze again, narrowing his eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, he gave a little shake of his head. “Everything. You name it, she was into it. Spark, X, crystal, coke. It’s not like she was short on money, you know?”

“Did she buy her stuff from you?”

“Is that what the Deegans told you? Them and that boyfriend of hers?”

“What boyfriend?”

“I don’t remember his first name. Last name is Ruiz. He’s some rich Mexican kid. But they all had it in for me. Blamed me for all of Claud’s problems, which is bullshit. I mean, sure, we did some stuff, you know? But it’s not like she’d never used before she started hanging out with me. It’s not like she was a damn saint or something.”

“Did you have any contact with the Deegans?” I asked. “Conversations, letters, emails?”

“Not her old man. He’s not around that much, and anyway, his people probably wouldn’t let him anywhere near someone like me.”

I was sure Robby had that right.

“But Claud’s brother came around once right after we broke up. Told me stay away from her. Threatened to have me thrown in jail if I ever went near her again.”

“So did you stay away from her after that?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Couldn’t. I went to that freakin’ protest because I thought she’d like me more if I was into one of her causes, you know?” He laughed, sounding bitter. “That worked out great. She barely noticed me, and I wound up getting busted along with the rest of them.”

“Did she buy her drugs from you?”

He chewed his lip, seeming to weigh whether it was safe to tell me the truth. “Yeah,” he said at length. “I sold her Spark, coke, X. I don’t deal meth anymore, so if she had any on her, it wasn’t from me. But the rest probably was.”

“What about the others?”

“What others?” Robby asked, growing wary.

“The other Blind Angel murder victims. Did you sell to any of them?”

“I thought you were working for the Deegans.”

“I am. I’m trying to figure out why Claudia is dead. And if I can learn something about the other murders, too, all the better.”

His gaze slid away. “Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about that.”

He was shutting down on me, so I turned the conversation back to Claudia, hoping that he’d open up again.

“Do you find it odd that this guy would go for Claudia? I mean, she’s probably the most famous girl in Arizona, right?”

“He probably didn’t recognize her,” Robby said. “I mean, have you seen Claudia recently?”

“I saw her a little while ago,” I said. “I’ve just come from the Medical Examiner’s building.”

He gaped at me, his face going white. “No shit?”

“I swear it.”

Robby swallowed. “Well. . well, then, you know. She changed. A lot. She lost weight-got really thin, you know? Unhealthy. And she dyed her hair black, used lots of eyeliner-went Goth. Actually it was a pretty cool look for her. It was like she was trying to be someone else, leave the blonde princess behind. That’s what she called herself sometimes, when she was feeling especially anti-family, you know? Anyway, that was the weird thing about Claud. On the one hand she acted like none of the rules applied to her, you know? She thought she could get away with stuff because of who she was. And you just know that she got that from her old man, from being a Deegan. But at the same time, she was always trying to be someone else.” He shook his head again. “Poor Claud.”

I didn’t pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I also didn’t doubt that the guy loved her. Robby wasn’t the brightest bulb on Broadway, but he’d given some thought to what made Claudia Deegan tick. It almost made me feel bad for him. Still, he hadn’t answered my question, and I couldn’t leave him alone until he did.

“What about the others, Robby? Did they buy from you, too?”

His gaze wandered away again. “I told you, I’ve got nothing to say about that.”

“Well, I’ll take that as a ‘yes’, and I’ll be sure to mention it to my buddies at the PPD.”

“You think I remember everyone who’s ever bought from me? You’re crazy! And I don’t know the names of all the people this guy’s killed.”

“You’d remember if you sold to someone and heard a day or two later that she’d turned up dead. In fact, I think you do remember. And I think it’s happened more than once.”

“You’re wrong.” He kept his eyes down as he said it, and I could tell that he was hiding something, and that he was terrified. For a second I thought he might start crying.

“You’re lying.”

“Prove it.”

“I don’t have to,” I said, taking a step toward him. “Like I said, I’m not a cop anymore.”

He raised the knife again. “Stay away!”

“Which ones, Robby? Which victims bought from you before they died?”

“None of them did! And you can’t prove different! Neither can your cop friends!”

I didn’t believe him for a minute. But he was right; I couldn’t prove anything, at least not yet.

“Fine,” I said, relaxing a bit, checking my knee again. What a mess.

He regarded me, wary again. “Fine what?”

“I believe you didn’t sell drugs to any of the other Blind Angel victims. You can go.”

“That’s it? I can go? Just like that?”

“What’d you expect? I told you I’m not a cop anymore. If I could throw you in the pen for a while let you stew on all of this, I would. For Claudia and for Jessie. But I’m just a PI. Even if you are lying to me, I can’t do anything about it.”

The smirk that curved his lips was way too smug for my taste. He let his blade hand fall to his side again. “Yeah, that’s right. You can’t do shit.”

“Stay out of trouble. Watch your back. I might be done with you, but the cops aren’t.”

“Right,” he said. “Whatever.”

I frowned down at my leg once more, making like I was done with him. He started to saunter past me and as he did, I straightened and threw a punch, catching him full in the side of the face, right below his eye. He bounced off the wall of the house next to us and went down hard.

“God, dude!” he whined, sprawled on the ground, both hands on his face. “What the hell was that for?”

“My leg, those fire spells, pulling that knife on me, lying about the drugs. Take your pick.” I started to walk away, shaking my hand and rubbing the knuckles-they never show it in the movies, but it hurts to hit someone like that. A lot.

“You are messed up, dude!” he called after me. “No wonder they booted you off the freakin’ force.”

I turned to face him, walking backwards out of the alley. My hands were shaking. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why I’d hit him; I hadn’t intended to. The best I can say in my own defense is that weremystes start to do strange things-stupid things-around the time of the full moon.

I suppose that could have been why Robby was throwing magic around like he was determined to set the city on fire. No myste was immune from the phasing. But I wasn’t going to let him think I had any sympathy for him. “If I find out you’ve been lying to me, this’ll seem like a picnic.” I glared at him for a moment more, then left the alley.

“Hey, Fearsson!” I heard Robby call. “Fuck you!”

A few people stared as I walked by, but I ignored them. My hand and leg were throbbing and I didn’t have much to show for my effort. I knew a bit more about Claudia, and I knew for certain that her drugs had come from Robby. I’d been hoping, though, that I would be able to connect Robby to the East Side Parks Killer. I should have known better. After all this time, leads in this case wouldn’t come so easily.

As I approached the Z-ster, I was racking my brain, trying to think of other ways to tie Robby to past victims.

I was in the middle of the street when I felt it. Instinct. Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. I spun around, pulling my weapon free as I did. Nothing. Sure, there were a few people milling around in their yards, looking at me as if I were crazy. But I had been certain that someone was about to take a shot at me, and there was no one.

I took a breath, started to holster my Glock. But the feeling wouldn’t go away. There might not be a gunman, but someone was watching me, and it sure as hell wasn’t my guardian angel. I held on to my weapon until I was in the Z-ster with the engine running. Even then, I eased the car away from the curb, scanning the yards and houses as I drove. Only when I was out of Robby’s neighborhood did I begin to relax. Still, I took special care to see that I wasn’t followed as I headed back to my office.