Dee had repeated his spell twice already. Even with the extra magic I’d given him, the car kept racing toward us. We had seconds left, I estimated, before we’d be hit. I knew a spell for dissipating illusions. It wouldn’t work if the car was conjured and solid, but—
I made the hand motions and shouted out the spell.
The car broke into an uncountable number of tiny blackbirds which flew up toward the night sky. The birds exploded into hundreds of tiny stars and were carried off on a sudden wind.
Dee stared at me, his breath coming fast and hard. I was breathing pretty hard myself. I reached over and took his hand. We stood there a long moment, our hands holding tight and hard to the other.
“So, what now?” I said quietly.
Chapter Nine
Dee pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Jack’s number. I’d once been magically whisked off the beach and into a police station by the magic police, so wasn’t all that surprised when Jack and another man simply materialized near us. I recognized the other man as the one who’d sat against the wall with Jack when Dee and I had spoken in front of the council. I didn’t know his name and I didn’t like the scowl on his face.
“Thanks for coming,” Dee said to Jack. He turned his gaze to the second man. “You, too, Matthew.”
Matthew was shorter than Dee or Jack, maybe five foot nine, with dark, military-short hair. I guessed him to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties. Both men wore the all-white uniforms of the magic police, so I assumed they’d been on duty when Dee had called.
Dee turned and looked at the body, or what could be seen of the body behind the trashcan from where we stood. He’d told Jack on the phone how we’d come to find the dead man, but either Jack hadn’t passed the information on or Matthew simply wanted to hear it for himself.
“What were the two of you doing here this late at night?” Matthew asked as he and Jack moved toward the container.
Diego walked with them. “The Gate and Gil Adair are both missing. Gil’s girlfriend called me, saying he’d called her and he was here. We came to get him.”
Gil Adair. The last name wasn’t that uncommon, but it wasn’t all that common either. The two men looked nothing alike—but still. I tucked my questions away for later.
“Was he here?” Matthew said.
The three men positioned themselves and began pushing the industrial trash container away from the body. The big metal container creaked as they pushed at it. I turned my head away.
Curiosity got the better of me and I turned to look. The man was young, early thirties, I’d guess. His blond hair was matted with dried blood. The faint scent of charred meat floated around him.
“Any of you know him?” Jack said.
Dee, Matthew, and I shook our heads.
“Not in the community, then,” Jack said. “Something for the ordins to handle.”
He stepped away and made a call—to the normal police, I assumed.
“You didn’t answer before,” Matthew said. “Was Gil here when you pulled in, or any time after, up until the time you called in the body?”
“No,” Dee said. “If he had been here, he was gone by the time we arrived. We were checking the place out when we found—” He glanced toward the blond man.
“You’re sure you don’t know him?” Matthew said.
Dee shook his head. “But I’m pretty sure I know who killed him. I recognize the style.”
“Thomas Halvorsen,” Matthew said, as if the two men shared a secret knowledge—which I supposed they did. “He favors fire as his weapon of choice.”
Dee nodded. “Under the dead man’s shirt, you’ll probably find that his skin is charred.”
“No doubt,” Matthew said, and then rattled off a string of Spanish that had only two words I recognized: pinche pendejo. Fucking asshole. You couldn’t live in Southern California and not know that expression.
Dee shrugged. He answered with a shorter burst of Spanish, a language I hadn’t known he spoke. Another question for later.
Jack returned to where we were standing and said, “The ordin police are on their way. You two can go home.” He gave Dee a studied stare. “You should have called me when you first knew the men were missing. I had to hear about it through the rumor mill.”
“Yeah, well,” Dee said, and shrugged.
“Go home,” Jack said again. “And stay out of this.”
The air shimmered a moment and the two policemen were gone.
∞∞∞
I waited until we were almost back to Dee’s house before saying, “Can I ask you something?”
He gave me some side eye. “Could I stop you?”
“Gil Adair?” I emphasized the last name.
Dee blew out a breath. “Same father. Different mothers.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he was your brother?” I said.
“Half-brother.”
“But you grew up together.”
Dee waved a hand helplessly. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. It didn’t seem worth mentioning, I guess. Gil and I aren’t that close.”
Evidently Dee and I weren’t either. He’d let me into his life only so far. I guessed we were pretty even on that score.
“I grew up in a commune,” he reminded me. “Five families who had lots of half-siblings between them.”
No wonder he was so upset by The Gate and Gil vanishing—his mentor, like a second father to him, and his half-brother had been abducted. This Thomas Halvorsen, the dark sorcerer who’d evidently killed the blond man, likely had something to do with the abductions. A man who liked to kill with fire. In the same situation, I didn’t know if I could hold it together as well as Dee was.
Despite my family history and my mother having shifters and the occasional wizard or witch as patients, my parents had worked hard to make my childhood as much as possible like that of the regular kids I went to school with. Dee’s childhood must have been very different from mine.
“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” I said.
He shrugged. “My mother’s from Veracruz. My two full-sisters and I speak Spanish fluently. Gil doesn’t speak a word.”
I considered what he’d said. “Your upbringing was complicated, wasn’t it?”
He smiled grimly. “You could say that.”
“Are you close to your other siblings?”
“My sisters and I were always close. Gil and I had our, um, differences growing up, but we’ve made peace as adults. We’re friendly now, I’d say, but we don’t hang out a lot together or anything.”
But he knew Gil’s girlfriend. Close enough for that but not close enough to know Gil had moved in with her. Complicated.
He leaned over and turned on the radio. Death metal blasted from the speakers. It seemed appropriate.
∞∞∞
The early morning light was thin and watery when the insistent ring of my phone woke me.
Dee was awake too, I saw, and giving me that ‘who’s calling at this hour?’ look.
I glanced at the screen. “Chas.”
He looked heavenward, sighed, and rolled over.
I thumbed the phone on and said hello.
“Thank God, you answered,” Chas said. “It’s that damn crazy Tawny. She’s been telling lies about me all over town. And now her fucking biker brother is in front of my house with half a dozen of his friends. You have to help me.”
A vague pain emerged behind my eyes. Too little sleep and Chas freaking out would probably give anyone a headache.
“I can call the police for you,” I said, “but you could have done that yourself. What is it you want me to do?”
Chas drew in a breath so noisy it was audible through the phone. “Sorry to ask, but could Diego come do more of that magic. Scare these bastards off.” His voice went up half an octave. “Shit. They’ve got baseball bats.”
I put the phone face down on the sheet and quickly sketched the situation to Dee, keeping my voice as calm as I could.
> His face clouded but he nodded.
I picked the phone up again and spoke into it. “We’re on our way.”
My thoughts rocketed back and forth on the drive over. My cousin was about to get the shit beat out of him or worse by a bunch of bikers. If Diego did what Chas asked and used magic to scare the bikers away, he could be in trouble with the council who’d already warned him about using magic outside of the community.
Maybe I should do it. I had some spells that could make the bikers see things that weren’t there. As a mere ‘wizard-in-training’ I was more likely to get away with claiming ignorance and concern for my cousin. I said as much to Dee.
He shook his head firmly. “Not a good idea. You might be able to claim ignorance, but I’m with you and what’s my excuse? Not to mention that the council isn’t happy I’ve taught you any magic. No need to go showing it off to a bunch of ordins.”
I thought for a moment. “How about this? You cast an illusion of people the bikers wouldn’t want to be seen by. Real Estate agents or a FedEx driver, dog walkers maybe—someone non-confrontational but who might call the cops. That should scare off the bikers without making the magic obvious.”
He raised an eyebrow, considering. “Maybe.”
He thought a moment more, then flicked his fingers in a particular way and muttered a few words. My jeans and T-shirt metamorphosed into a forest green woman’s suit. My red high-tops became black, low-heeled dress shoes. Dee’s jeans and T-shirt were suddenly a dark gray wool suit I’d seen on him before. He’d put on a glamour, so he looked much older. I assumed he’d done the same to me.
I released the small breath I’d been holding, afraid his magic wouldn’t work again. At least that worry seemed behind us. Now, if we could get Chas behind us, too, we could get back to what was important—finding The Gate and Gil and discovering who was behind the murders and the stuck ghosts.
“I think we have a house to sell,” Dee said as we came near to Chas’s house. “You’ll be on your cell already when we step out of the car. I’ll give the bikers a shout, in case they don’t notice our arrival.”
When we pulled up in front of Chas’s house, my heart sank.
The front door gaped wide open
.
Chapter Ten
I’d pulled the car door open and jumped out before Dee turned off the engine. I heard him curse behind me and the car door slam on his side. The slap of his running feet followed behind me as I burst through the open doorway and into Chas’s living room.
My cousin sat on the floor, his arms wrapped around his shins, head on his knees, rocking back and forth and moaning. His knuckles were raw and bleeding. I squatted down next to him.
“Are you okay?”
Stupid question, but what else was there to say in a situation like this?
“Motherfucker bikers.” Chas raised his head and looked at me. Dee must have undone the glamour because Chas recognized both of us immediately. His bottom lip was split. Blood trickled down his chin. His face was already beginning to bruise at his left cheek.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Dee standing next to us. Yep. No glamour.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” he said.
I looked up “Not yet. Give me a moment.”
I gently moved Chas’s arms away from his shins, got him to sit up straight and felt his ribs. Nothing seemed broken. There could be fractures and he’d need X-rays, but there wasn’t a need I could see to go to a hospital yet.
“We’re going to take you to my mother,” I told Chas. “Can you walk?”
He nodded and struggled to get up. I pulled to my feet and got behind him to lift him. He was nearly deadweight, but I got him standing. Dee stepped over for Chas to lean on while I pulled out my phone and called my mother.
“Hey, Mom. Are you home?”
I could practically see her blink twice in that way that she had, her mind running through a list of possibilities—none of them good—about why my voice was a mix of worry and no-nonsense.
“Yes,” she said, concern clear in her voice.
I should have made my voice a little lighter, for her sake. I supposed Moms couldn’t help going to the worst possible scenario when their kid’s voice sounded like mine had. At least my mother couldn’t help it. Which was odd, because I was pretty trouble-free as a child. Even boring, you might say. My dangerous adventures didn’t start until I met Dee, and I certainly didn’t tell my mother about them.
“We’re coming over,” I said. “Cousin Chas is a little banged up.”
Her sigh of relief that it wasn’t me in trouble was audible. Lucky for her, she had no idea of the sorts of things I’d been up to lately.
“I’ll be here.”
Her voice had gone from worry to professional in a heartbeat. I loved that about my mom. Nothing threw her off her game.
Dee’s phone rang just as I was closing my call. He listened and nodded.
“It’s Jack,” he said. “I need to meet him.”
“Okay,” I said. “Chas probably shouldn’t be driving. We’ll Lyft over to my mom’s from here. I’ll call you later. Or you call me.”
I watched the door close behind him then asked Chas, “What happened? Honestly, I expected to find you beat to an absolute pulp by the bikers. I’m glad to be wrong.”
Chas touched his tender lip and grimaced. I gave him a sympathetic smile. Everyone needed a little sympathy when they were hurting—even if I did think Chas had mostly brought his grief on himself.
“What happened,” he said, “was that crazy bitch Tawny showing up minutes after the bikers did, yelling her head off for her brother not to hurt me.” He touched his bruised cheek. “A little late for that. But she did get them to stop using me as a soccer ball.” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand that woman.”
I nodded my agreement and more sympathy, pulled out my phone and scheduled a Lyft.
The driver must have been close because he pulled up out front in under five minutes. I helped Chas into the back seat of the white Honda Civic and slid in next to my cousin. The driver verified the address we were going to and pulled away from the curb. He seemed not surprised at Chas’s state. I supposed that rideshare and taxi drivers likely saw it all and nothing could surprise them.
∞∞∞
Like my house at the beach, Charles Goodlight had designed the house where my parents lived. He’d fashioned it after a mansion he’d seen in Spain while on R&R during World War One. The two-story house had white stucco walls, red roof tiles, and lots of arches in the Spanish style and was set back from the street on a large lot. Tall, thin cypress trees lined a red brick walkway to the front door.
Unlike my three-bedroom cottage, The Big House, as it was always called in the family, had six large bedrooms upstairs and two smaller downstairs, presumably for live-in help. It always struck me as sad that Charles and Audrey had planned on a big family but only had the two children: Cassie and James. In the generations since, there’d never been a family living here large enough to make use of all the space.
Dad had turned one of the unused upstairs bedrooms into a home office for his construction business. Mom had torn down the wall between the two small downstairs bedrooms and used it as a clinic for occasional members of the magical community who didn’t feel comfortable walking into a hospital for repairs.
Mom met us at the front door. I bent over to give her a hug. I was tallish, but Mom was seriously short, five foot one—maybe after a visit to the chiropractor. She had nearly black hair she wore short and favored slacks and button up shirts as daywear.
She clucked her tongue at Chas while she and I helped him limp into the clinic area. We got him seated and she immediately set to work cleaning his wounds and checking for damage. I took a chair in a corner.
In the same way that I liked watching Dee mix a potion, I liked watching my mother at work, the deft way her hands moved with no hesitations, knowing everything that needed to be done. I liked the way the room
filled up with what I called her “good vibrations” when she turned on her healer skills. I always thought I could smell, as well as feel, those healer vibes. They smelled like lemongrass.
Chas had been tense when he walked into the room, but he’d relaxed some now. My guess was he’d expected Mom’s ministrations to hurt a lot more than they did. I knew personally, from everything from scraped knees to sprained arms from falling out of the big peach tree out back, that when Mom treated you, it almost never hurt.
Mom bandaged a laceration on Chas’ right arm and said, “Now, tell me how this happened.”
Chas blanched and looked at me for help. I shrugged. It was his story and he’d have to tell it, even if having a crazy ex with a biker brother was probably more than a little embarrassing for him to admit to his aunt.
When Chas finished the telling, Mom once again tsked her tongue against the roof of her mouth but held back whatever more she was thinking.
“Well,” she said instead, “you were lucky. You’ll most likely be fine, but we need to X-ray those ribs. Nothing feels broken, but I want to check for fractures before I send you back out into the world.”
She opened the door to a narrow closet, extended the jointed arm of the small X-ray machine and positioned the round business end of the thing at Chas’s ribs. A lead-lined gown and a thyroid protector were tucked on a shelf in the closet. When she pulled those out, I didn’t need to be told to leave the room.
A few minutes later, Mom and Chas came out of the office. She helped him up the stairs and I supposed settled him in one of the guest rooms—they had plenty. Then she joined me in the living room.
My mother tended to like antiques, old sofas restuffed with new horsehair—where did she even find horsehair nowadays?—and recovered in new fabric, a 1920s chaise that had belonged to Audrey and Charles, end tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl—that sort of thing. It wasn’t my taste, but it was home.
“He’s going to be okay?” I said.
She nodded. “He’ll be fine. No sign of breaks or fractures.”
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