His Father's Eyes - eARC

by DAVID B. COE

  “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.

  CHAPTER 21

  Rolon was unsteady on his feet, and his face rema
ined gray. I had no idea what kind of magic Hain had thrown at him, but I had a feeling he was lucky to be alive. I helped him into the Lexus, hurried around to the driver’s side, and got us out of there as fast as I could without drawing the notice of traffic cops. Once on the freeway, I headed back to Amaya’s place.

  Along the way, I pulled out my phone and dialed Kona’s number.

  She answered on the first ring.

  “You’re hot, partner,” she said. “Don’t go home, don’t go to your office.”

  “I won’t. Thanks. You have a pencil?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  I gave her Bear’s name and address.

  “Avondale is outside my jurisdiction,” she said.

  “I think that falls under the heading of ‘not my problem.’”

  “I suppose it does,” she said. “Who is he?”

  “One of the Sweetwater Park killers. The other, the brains behind the killing, is a dark sorcerer named Palmer Hain. Dark hair, trim dark beard, dark eyes. He’s about six feet tall, one-eighty, and he drives a late-model silver sedan of unknown make. Be careful with him. He’s dangerous as hell, even for me.”

  “Thanks, Justis. I’m . . . I’m sorry about all this. I know you didn’t kill that girl.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for. Hopefully I can clean up this mess before long.”

  “That would be good. Where are you now?”

  I hesitated. “Maui,” I said. “Wish you were here.”

  “Sorry, shouldn’t have asked. Habit, you know? I swear that’s all it was.”

  “I believe you. Gotta go.”

  “Right. Stay safe.”

  “I’m trying.”

  I closed the phone and glanced at Rolon, who was already watching me.

  “You’re in some serious trouble, aren’t you?”

  I wasn’t crazy about the idea of sharing my problems with one of Jacinto Amaya’s attack dogs, but right about now he was the best friend I had. And moments ago he’d saved my life.

  “I’m wanted for a murder I didn’t commit, and for the life of me I don’t know how I can prove I didn’t do it. So, yeah, I guess you could say I’m in some trouble.”