“Yeah,” I said. “I thought that, too.”
I’d come to the realization late that the brown-robed sorcerers had been waiting for us. I hadn’t yet figured out how the kidnapper could have known though. I didn’t believe the fairies had said anything—unless there was a traitor among them. I could believe Chas might have told someone innocently, not realizing who he was talking to, but I was pretty sure he would have told me if anyone had shown up at the house or he’d gone out and run into someone. I’d had my phone with me, so he couldn’t have answered a call and unwittingly spilled the news.
The only answer I could come up with was divination. If someone was divining my future moves that wiped out any chance I had for surprise. As to who that might be? The Gate was pretty damn good at it.
“Could your rats look for them?” I said. “And while they’re at it, look for any kind of table that might look useful for a sacrifice. Probably outdoors.”
Maurice hunched his shoulders. “I sent the word for my family to look for the wizards as soon as this one,” he sent Jack a dismissive look, “told me you still hadn’t found Diego and the others. An altar, though. That’s what you’re looking for. Not a table, an altar.” He nodded to himself. “I should have already thought of that. Must be getting old.” He shook his body nose to tail. “Yes. I’ll have them keep an eye out for an altar.”
“You know,” I said, thinking more about it. “The altar probably will be indoors if they’re in the South Bay. There aren’t a lot of outdoor places with enough privacy for what they’re planning.”
“A church?” Maurice asked.
“Maybe,” I said, and hoped not.
“Could be in a home,” Jack said.
“Could be anywhere,” I said, my heart sinking. “We need a wizard with a good dowsing spell.”
Maurice and I both looked at Jack.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and said, “You realize what you’re asking of me? It’s one thing to be here chatting about general news. It’s another for me to be actively involved and using magic to help you. I could lose my job.”
I flicked into his thoughts for a moment, risking his ire, but I needed to know how serious he thought the threat to his job was.
Very serious. In that brief moment I saw something else as well—being a policeman was more than a job to him, it was a calling. It was the way he defined himself.
I stood and took a step away from him, backing off physically as well as emotionally. It was Jack’s decision to make. I wasn’t going to pressure him. If he wouldn’t do it, I’d figure another way to find Dee and the others.
Except time was passing quickly. The faint full moon already rode visible in the dusky sky. We had only hours left. I didn’t know how many hours but guessed that whoever was planning the sacrifice would wait at least until full dark. There was no guarantee though.
Jack let out a loud breath. “Fine.”
“Thank you.” My voice was a whisper.
Jack acknowledged my words with a nod. “We’re assuming they’re all together, right? I need something from one of them, something for the spell to fasten on.”
Presumably Dee had The Gate’s ring and neck charm with him. But I had something of Dee’s—a note written in his hand and one small smear of his blood.
Dee didn’t write a lot of love notes, if I could even call it that. It was just a scrawled, Off to earn my keep and an almighty dollar or two. See you tonight. He’d signed it with an XO. Hugs and kisses. It was about as mushy as he ever got.
He told me later he’d cut himself shaving and the piece of tissue he’d used to stop the bleeding had dropped onto the note, leaving a smear, He’d been in a rush and hadn’t rewritten the note on a fresh paper; he hoped I didn’t mind. I’m ridiculously sentimental. I’d put the note in my purse to carry around with me.
I handed the paper to Jack. He scanned the message and raised his eyebrows at me. I shrugged.
Jack gathered himself together—I felt power surging in him—and brought the paper close to his mouth as if speaking directly to it. He mumbled words I couldn’t make out, then touched the note to the spot above my nose between my eyebrows.
My eyes widened as power and knowledge rushed through me. I could follow a signature, but the small smear of Dee’s blood tugged and pulled at me as if I were on a leash. Following a signature was a choice; finding the blood’s owner was a need.
Jack handed me the note.
“Seek, Oona,” he said softly. “Where is Diego? Find him.”
“Car,” I said, clutching the note with one hand and fishing in my purse for my keys with the other.
I turned left onto Pacific Coast Highway and headed through Hermosa and into Redondo Beach. Traffic was heavy, and we hit more than a few red lights. I banged my palm impatiently against the steering wheel and wished hard for Dee’s traffic clearing spell, but it wasn’t one I’d learned. Finally, we made it through the densely crowded streets and began climbing the hill toward Palos Verdes.
I hunted for Dee’s signature. If I found it, I’d have more trust that I was taking us to him. I shook my head, trying to clear away my panicky thoughts and let the calm core of me search. I couldn’t catch even a whiff of his signature. Either I was completely off course or whoever had Dee had veiled him so completely that, even with the strong connection between us, Dee was hidden from me.
I could think of only two wizards powerful enough to do that—Dee himself and The Gate. But then I didn’t know every wizard in the South Bay. Just because Dee had never mentioned another wizard equal to The Gate in power didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
The further we went into Palos Verdes, the less dense the houses were. This was as country as the South Bay got, homes on large lots, some with horses corralled in the yards, signs for bridle paths. We passed casually dressed men and women walking large dogs or jogging on the wooded trails above the road. I loved being up on the hill in what passed for country around here. Any other time I would have slowed and enjoyed the scenery. Now I pressed my foot down harder on the gas pedal.
The call of Dee’s blood led me off the main road onto a series of smaller avenues winding deep into tree-lined streets and large, expensive houses. This wasn’t my usual stomping ground. I patted the side pocket of my purse to reassure myself my phone was there. Once it was full dark, I’d probably need turn-by-turn directions to get home.
For reasons I’d never understood, along with a scarcity of sidewalks there were no street lamps on the hill. Maybe the ultra-wealthy who lived here thought they were immune from crime. If I were a burglar, this would definitely be my preferred hunting ground. Nothing like unlit streets at night for facilitating clean getaways.
Dark streets were also great for someone wanting to perform a magical ritual under the blaze of the full moon without a lot of ambient light getting in the way.
My heart thudded in my chest. My palms felt suddenly as slick as if they’d been oiled. I gripped the steering wheel tighter.
All this time Jack hadn’t said a word. I glanced over at him and saw he had his eyes closed and was mouthing words without any sound. I reached out with my senses and felt his conflicting emotions, his sincere worry about his job, his greater worry for Diego’s safety, his curiosity about who was behind the plague-deaths and the deaths at the warehouse, his determination to bring whoever it was to justice.
“We want the same things,” I said to him.
“I know that, Oona.” His voice was flat, his focus elsewhere.
We circled by a large, spreading ranch-style house set back from the road at the end of a cul-de-sac. A huge magnolia tree in the front yard loomed dark and solid in the dying light. My shoulders hunched up close by my suddenly ringing ears. The skin on my palms itched and the back of my neck prickled. A small pain started behind my temples. Dee’s blood called to me: Here. Now.
“That’s the place,” I said.
Jack turned his head to look at the house.
/> “I’ll go down a ways and park,” I said.
Chapter Twenty
I went down almost to the end of the short block, turned off the engine and started to open my door.
“The house will be warded,” Jack said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Of course it would. Which meant there was no way I could get inside. I ward my own house. Whatever sorcerers had snatched the men would certainly ward this place.
It dawned on me that the warehouse had purposely been left without wards and unprotected. That first Dee and me, then me alone, and then me with the fairies were meant to have easy access. That the men we sought were never going to be there when we were. That someone was indeed leading me around on a string for his own amusement.
That really pissed me off.
“There may be alarm wards further down the street as well,” Jack said.
I swallowed. “So we can’t approach the house at all?”
He pressed his lips together before speaking. “I can’t. Not safely. The alarm wards would most likely be set to detect a certain degree of magic ability. I’d set any alarm wards blaring.”
I had no idea what level of magical ability Jack had, but assumed one didn’t get to be high in the MPs without being having a fair bit of power and being damn good with a spell.
“But I can approach the house,” I said, glad for once that while my psychic abilities were strong and I had total faith in them, my magic was still paltry. I reached for the door again.
He stayed me with a hand on my arm. “Bad idea. With your cowboy attitude and single-minded focus of finding Diego you’re likely to do more harm than good. We don’t know who or what is in that house. We’ve worked on the assumption that only humans engineered the abductions and only humans hold them now. The truth is we don’t know who or what is behind this. We don’t know who or what might be in that house. We do know that they possess a high magic.”
“The fairies said that whoever killed the acolytes was definitely human and using human magic.”
Jack shrugged. “And you believed them?”
“The fire didn’t affect the fairies because they’re immune to human magic. They could have been lying about that, but what would be the point?”
“If fairies took the men—” he said.
“No. I’d have felt any duplicity on their side.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Human duplicity. But fairy? How could you know?”
He had a point. “So what do we do?”
“I call for backup and you let the police handle this, the way you and Diego should have done to begin with.”
“The magic police?”
He scowled at me. “Of course the magic police.”
I thought of his partner, Matthew, rattling off some angry Spanish at Dee—had that pinche pendejo been directed toward the dark sorcerer they’d been talking about or toward Diego? Jack’s boss, McGowan, had dismissed my worries about Dee, The Gate, and Gil out of hand. If Jack called, the MPs would show up and someone would go to the house, but I wasn’t convinced they’d ask the right questions or make a thorough search.
I sat back as Jack pulled out his phone to make the call. As soon as his eyes were cast down, focused on the instrument, I threw my door open and jumped out.
“Damn it,” he yelled.
I ran toward the back of the cul-de-sac. When I didn’t hear Jack’s footfalls behind me, I glanced over my shoulder and saw him still sitting in the car, talking furiously on the phone. I wasn’t going to get much time before the MPs showed up, but I slowed my steps to a casual walk anyway. No point in drawing attention from anyone in the house.
If there were alarm wards, as Jack had said, I reasoned they’d have to be set for a fairly high level of magic before they’d go off. Otherwise every dog walker, jogger, and nanny with kids in tow who possessed a modicum of natural magic would set the alarms blaring. I was ridiculous grateful my own level of magic was so low.
There would be wards on the house. That was fine. I wasn’t planning on knocking on the door or trying to break in an unguarded window. All I needed to do was find out if Dee and the others were there. If I could sneak up to a window, maybe I could find the answer. If I could pick up Dee’s thoughts, I wouldn’t even need to get to a window.
The white ranch house with gray slate roof tiles meandered across the entire curve of the cul-de-sac. I saw now what I hadn’t noticed when we’d driven by: the house backed onto what looked like acres of open land—a preserve of some sort. The short street itself, which would have had twelve or more houses on it down in the flatlands, had only two other homes on each side of the road. It was a perfect spot for stashing abducted wizards. The gazebo I spotted in the backyard looked like a good place for performing a hidden ritual.
I stopped maybe fifty feet from the house and felt for Dee’s signature. It rang out to me and for a moment my feet seemed ready to run to the front door and my arms to batter that door down without any input from my brain. I made myself stand perfectly still and reached out for his thoughts. They were muddied and muddled. That worried me. I knew Dee’s mind, what it felt like, how his thought patterns worked. What I felt now wasn’t normal. Dee was drugged or bespelled—I was sure of that. Which meant he’d be useless in any sort of rescue attempt, just deadwood.
I reached out for The Gate. His thoughts were just as muddied and muddled, and tinged with a deep sadness.
The only person left to check on was Gil. It made sense that the three of them were together but I searched for his mind as well, just to be sure.
A frisson of nerves shot through me. Gil’s mind was as clear as running water. No drugs or spells clouded it. I tried to slip in to read his thoughts, but some barrier kept me from hearing anything. All I got was anger so strong that the sigil tattooed on my left arm tingled and warmed. The Gate had bespelled the ink so that negative emotions sent my way would be transformed into positive energy for me. This anger wasn’t focused on me specifically, but I was collateral to whoever or whatever it was focused on, so that the sigil fired up.
It had to be anger at Dee. It was his sign on my upper arm that protected me. Dee who I was so intertwined with that anger at him felt almost like anger at me. Dee who I’d run into a burning building to save.
I rolled my shoulders and refocused, sending my senses deep into Gil’s thoughts. A jolt like a punch made me physically step back. The sigil grew warmer. Positive energy flowed through me. Whoever was in charge in the house knew I was here, or at least that I was poking around. I turned and walked back to the car before someone decided to come out and take a look.
Jack was scowling when I opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat.
“They’re here,” I said, ignoring his look. “All three of them. Diego and The Gate feel drugged or bespelled. Their minds are vague and hazy. Gil is here too.” I reached into my memory and felt that barrier again, puzzling over what caused it. “Gil, I think, is under some sort of control. Someone or something is running him. His thoughts are clear but dark.” I glanced back toward the house. “There’s a lot of anger in that place. A lot of jealousy.”
Jack continued to scowl but, I realized, not at me or my running off to the house.
“What is it?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re not coming,” he said. “No back up. We’re a small force and some trouble in El Segundo has every available officer occupied.”
I rubbed a sudden itch in my nose. “Do you believe that?”
“Of course.”
I didn’t believe he believed the excuse.
“McGowan,” I said, sure I was right. “And Hugo Bernard. They don’t want to send any help for The Gate. They’d just as soon he came to some unpleasant end.”
“McGowan and Bernard are close friends,” Jack said in a most non-committal voice, staring through the windshield toward the house.
Something prickled all down my spine. I wriggled, trying to rub the prickle away. My shoulde
rs started to itch, and then my arms. I scratched, wondering if Hugo Bernard had power enough to control Gil? He certainly hated The Gate enough to be behind this, no matter that McGowan had scoffed at the idea.
My scalp itched. I used both hands to scratch. Then my arms started to itch again.
“Someone is letting you know he knows you’re here,” Jack said. His voice was distracted. He’d only glanced at me before turning his gaze back to the house.
I didn’t know where to scratch first. When I scratched my arms, my scalp demanded attention again. I switched to my scalp and my back began to prickle and itch.
“What are you talking about?” I scratched at my skin.
“The itching is being imposed on you,” he said, looking at me again. His forehead creased a bit. “Someone has an odd sense of humor.”
I rubbed again at my itchy nose. “Can you make it stop? Veil me or something?”
“You have to do it yourself. MPs aren’t allowed to veil civilians except to save them from immediate harm. Itching doesn’t qualify.” He peered at me. “Diego didn’t teach you how to veil yourself? That’s unconscionable.”
“You teach me,” I said, my fingernails raking over my itchy thighs. “I’m a fast study.”
Jack thought it over. Probably he, like Dee, wasn’t authorized to teach magic. Probably I was asking him to do yet another thing that could get him in trouble or cost him his job.
“Argh,” I groaned and ripped off my shoe to scratch the bottom of my foot.
Jack’s face screwed up almost as if he could feel my torment.
“Repeat after me,” he said and chanted a few words.
I repeated them as best I could while madly scratching at my feet. He chanted a few more words and I repeated those. It seemed like a very long spell though it probably wasn’t. With the last word uttered, the itching stopped. I sighed with relief.
“You have a natural knack for magic,” Jack said.
I smiled. It was the first nice thing he’d said to me for a while, and I appreciated it. “Thanks.”
Vulture Moon Page 14