His Father's Eyes

by DAVID B. COE

  “I’m with Billie at her place.”

  “Nice. Tell her ‘hi’ for me.”

  “I will.”

  “Listen, I just called to let you know that we’ve cleared the Sweetwater Park case. We won’t be needing your help on that anymore.”

  “Good for you, Kona. Glad to hear it.”

  Message received. I’d told her a whopper, and she had come back at me with the same. She knew I was in trouble.

  “Thanks. I guess I’ll talk to you next week.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I snapped the phone shut. Patty took it out of my hand and tossed it onto my couch. “That was well done. You see how easy this is when you follow directions?”

  I stared back at her, hoping that she would see rage and impotence in my glower.

  “We need to hurry. In case that conversation wasn’t as innocent as it sounded.” Patty glanced toward the windows that faced out onto the street. “Close those blinds.”

  She didn’t say it as a magical command, so I remained as I was. Patty glanced Witcombe’s way. “Now!”

  “I thought you meant him.”

  As Witcombe lowered the blinds, Patty said to me, “Usually we do this with weremystes who have already been turned to our cause. We don’t have that kind of time with you. Not anymore. So we’ll have to try a different way. Take off your jacket and your shirt, and then retrieve my knife from your jacket pocket.”

  I had forgotten I was carrying it. I shrugged off my bomber and pulled off my shoulder holster and T-shirt. Then I took the blade out of the jacket pocket and held it out to her.

  She didn’t take it from me. “Grip the knife, but don’t use it against anyone. Not yet.”

  Half-dressed, I felt cold and vulnerable. I didn’t like where this was going. I tightened my hold on the knife hilt and waited.

  In my mind, though, I said, Namid, I need help.

  “Regina are you ready to cast the spell?”

  Witcombe nodded.

  Ohanko. Namid didn’t materialize in the house, but I heard him speak in my mind. I am here, but you know I cannot help you.

  Can you tell me how to break her hold on me?

  “I want you to listen closely to me, Jay,” she said, her words echoing loudly in my head. “We need blood for this casting as well. But you can’t cut too deeply. The spell takes time, and we can’t have you passing out before we’re ready. I want you to draw the blade . . .”

  She controls you? Somehow I heard the runemyste’s voice over hers, though he didn’t seem to be speaking any louder than usual.

  Yes. The two of them cast a blood spell. The body of their source is in my car. I can’t fight them. I can’t even cast.

  “. . . The symbols should look like this.” She had drawn a circle; I didn’t remember her having a pen and paper. Now, within the circle, she drew a stylized P with the loop pointy rather than rounded, like the corner of a triangle. Beside it, she drew a second symbol: a vertical line with a slash through it. And then a third: a plain vertical line.

  If you cannot cast, I do not know how to help you.

  I’m going to die here, Namid. You have to do something.

  You must find a way to craft, Ohanko. They control your entire being, but the magic is attacking your mind. If you can shield it, you can win your freedom.

  But I told you—

  “. . . And when I say so, you will summon him.”

  The world seemed to fall away beneath me. If I’d had control over my limbs, my knees would have buckled.

  There was only one being I could summon: Namid. And he was right here with me, so close he could have whispered in my ear. In my desperation to break free of their spell, I had endangered the runemyste.

  Leave me, Namid. And when I summon you again, don’t respond. Stay away from me.

  I do not—

  They’ll use blood. The summoning will be powerful. You might not be able to resist it on your own. Get others to help you. Whatever you do, don’t come when I call you!

  Ohanko, you are—

  Listen to me, ghost! They plan to use me to kill you. Just the way they killed your friend in Northern Virginia. Now, go!

  “What are you doing, Jay?”

  Patty had stepped closer to me, so that her face was inches from mine. An instant later, pain exploded in my chest, as if the same bomb that destroyed Solana’s had gone off inside me. I let out a small huff of air, but couldn’t clutch at my heart or fold in on myself as I wanted to. I could do no more than stand there, the pain making me grind my teeth.

  “What are you doing, Jay?” she demanded again, biting off each word, and at the same time imbuing them with magic, so that I heard them with reverb.

  “Warning Namid,” I said, the words torn from my throat.

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  The air shivered with another spell, and I heard bones break. Agony. It felt like she had smashed my left hand with a brick. My stomach heaved, though I managed somehow not to throw up.

  “It shouldn’t matter, really. The blood compels him, so long as the spell is cast correctly. But to make it interesting, if your warnings keep him away, you’ll pay a price. If, after the spell is cast, he’s not here in ten seconds, I’ll shatter your knee. Ten seconds after that, I’ll break the other one. You don’t have to be standing for any of this to work. When I’m done with your knees, I’ll move on to your elbow, your femur, your tibia. And so on. Now, cut your wrist.”

  I turned over my mangled hand, so that I exposed the underside of my wrist. And using the knife I held in my other hand, I angled the blade so that I would hit only artery and carved through my skin with the precision of a surgeon. The pain brought tears to my eyes and drew another chuffing of breath. But all I could do was watch as blood coursed from the gash, running over the blade and down my hand, and dripping onto the pale carpet.

  “That’s enough,” Patty said. “Not too deep, remember?” She took the blade from me. “Now, the pattern.”

  I dabbed a finger in the blood and drew a circle that encompassed my chest and belly. Gathering more blood, I made the stylized P, the line with the slash through it, and the second vertical line. Somehow, I drew them so that they would appear to Patty as they were meant to, though from my perspective they were upside down.

  “I couldn’t have done better myself.” To Witcombe she said, “It’s time!”

  They chanted something in a language I didn’t know. Once through, and then again.

  “Get ready to summon him, Jay.”

  They began to speak the words a third time. Their incantation must have been intended to strengthen my summons, and to extend their control to Namid as well. I couldn’t allow them to finish.

  I’d never cast a blood spell before, but I knew in theory how it should work, and I had no time to second guess myself. I hoped the blood would allow me to overcome the control spell they’d used against me.

  Patty, Witcombe, me, the spell they’d cast to control me, my mind, a shield, and the blood coursing from my wrist. Seven elements. I couldn’t risk repeating it seven times. I gathered the elements in my thoughts and released the magic at the same time they completed their chanting. The hum of this spell reminded me of the crackling static electricity of rustling blankets on a winter’s night. It slid along my skin, making the hair on my arms stand at attention.

  “Now, Jay! Call for the myste!”

  Patty shouted the words, and I heard them clearly, like the ringing of a church bell. But they were flat. There was no echo.

  She must have heard this, too, because she whirled around, eyes wide. By then I’d drawn back my fist. My punch caught her square on the jaw, and she reeled, falling back into Witcombe. The second woman righted her, and I could tell that Patty was gearing up for a spell.

  I cast first: a reflection spell. Her attack stirred the air an instant later, but it rebounded off of my warding. She went down in a heap, a welt appearing high on her temple.

  Witcombe eyed
me, rage and fear mingled on her face. Tires screeched out front.

  “That’ll be Kona Shaw,” I said. “And she’ll be armed.”

  “The police detective,” Witcombe said. “Good luck explaining Heather to her.”

  Quick footsteps on the walkway, a fist pounding on the door. And then the door burst open. Kona had her weapon drawn, but she didn’t get a shot off.

  Witcombe and Patty vanished with a pulse of magic. A transporting spell. Seconds later, the Mercedes growled to life and sped away. Kona spun, ran back outside, but again, she didn’t have time to fire off a shot.

  I sank to the floor, overwhelmed by the pain in my hand, my wrist, my chest. The blood that had stained the carpet and glistened on my chest was gone, wiped away by the spell I’d cast, but fresh blood ran from the gash on my wrist and down the length of my fingers, dripping onto the carpet once more. I gripped my wrist with my good hand, my index finger pressing on the artery just above the cut, the other fingers digging into the wound itself. It hurt like hell, but at least it would slow the bleeding.

  Kona came back inside. “Well, they’re— Justis!” She hurried to my side and knelt next to me. “Shit! We have to bind that wrist.”

  “Gently,” I said, breathless and weary. “My hand is broken in about twenty places.”

  “All right. Bandages?”

  “Survival kit’s in the bathroom, bottom drawer on the left.”

  “Bottom, left. Got it.”

  “And, Kona . . .”

  She had gotten to her feet again to retrieve the bandages, but she heard the urgency in my voice and stopped.

  “There’s a dead girl in my car. She was murdered by one of the women who did this to me. They used her blood for a spell, like with the other killings. But that’s the knife that killed her.” I nodded toward the weapon, which lay on the floor a few feet from me. “And my prints are all over it.”

  She regarded the knife, faced me again, and heaved a sigh. “Yeah, all right,” she said. “Nothing’s ever easy with you, is it?”

  CHAPTER 18

  Kona came back moments later with rolls of gauze and elastic wraps to hold the gauze in place. She knelt and reached for my bloodied wrist. At the first touch of her fingers against my hand, I recoiled, wincing and sucking air through my teeth.

  “Oh, right. You have a broken bone?”

  “I’d be surprised if there’s still an unbroken bone in that hand.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  She was. She worked on me in silence, her motions deft, economical, gentle. One roll of gauze she kept wound, and set just over the upper part of the wound, securing it there with a wrapping of gauze from a second roll and then an elastic bandage.

  Once she was convinced I wouldn’t bleed to death, she made a series of phone calls on her cell: nine-one-one for an ambulance, the Medical Examiner’s office for Heather, Kevin to help her work the evidence and my interview. I remained where I was, spent, light-headed from blood loss, in pain, and afraid that I would wind up spending the rest of my life in jail for a murder I didn’t commit. I no longer needed to apply pressure to my wrist, but both my hands were still covered with drying blood, as were my jeans and the carpet beneath me. I wanted a shower and then a nap of about two days. I didn’t think either was in my immediate future.

  When she was finished on the phone, Kona walked to the back of my house again and brought a pile of towels, some dry, some damp, to where I sat.

  “Are those my good ones?” I asked.

  “I’ll buy you more. But we should clean you up a little bit.”

  “I’ll take care of this. You check the girl.”

  Her gaze met mine for the span of a heartbeat before sliding away. “Her being in your car isn’t good, Justis. I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “And you don’t have to tell me that. I’m just saying that from a evidentiary standpoint, this is going to be tough.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “Not yet. But yeah, you’ll probably need a lawyer.”

  Kona went out to the car. I stared at the towels she’d left for me. At last, I picked up one of the damp ones and began to dab at the dried blood on my broken hand.

  “Ohanko.”

  Namid appeared before me, his waters roughened, so that he seemed to have scales.

  “I almost got you killed,” I said.

  “But you did not. You saved me, and at some cost to yourself.”

  “You’ve done the same for me.”

  “Is that why you protected me, because you felt beholden based upon past events?”

  I couldn’t keep from laughing. “No, Namid. That’s not why.”

  “Then why did you—?”

  “Can we talk about this later? I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I’m in some pain here, and I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  He got to his knees, much as Kona had done moments before, and yet nothing like that at all. Kona was as lithe and graceful as anyone I knew. But Namid’s movements were liquid and perfect. He didn’t kneel so much as he flowed to the floor. And then he did something he had never done before. He reached out his hands of formed water and took hold of my mangled hand.

  I winced again, in anticipation of pain. There was none. His touch was gentle and cool, like the slow wash of a spring stream.

  “I can heal this,” he said. “It is allowed.”

  “But I thought—”

  “It is allowed,” he said again, his bright gaze meeting mine.

  “Because you say so?”

  He smiled. “Yes, because I say so.”

  “The fracture then. Kona’s called for an ambulance; they’ll be expecting to see the laceration. But if you could repair the bones, I’d be grateful.”

  “Of course.”

  That sense of dipping my hand in cool water intensified and tipped over into agony as the temperature dropped. I squeezed my eyes shut, my hand throbbing with each beat of my heart. The pain of his touch went on for a long time, the anguish radiating from the center of my hand out along my fingers. But even as it spread, it was followed by warmth that expanded in the same way, like concentric rings in a still lake. Soon, the pain began to subside.

  “Is that better?” the runemyste asked, still grasping my hand.

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  The door opened and Kona came back in. “Well, it’s pretty clear that she was dead when you put her in the car. There’s no blood in your hatch.”

  She couldn’t see Namid—only those with runecrafting blood in their veins could—and she came close to kneeling right on top of him.

  “You should show yourself,” I said to the myste. “It’s only fair.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  And at the same time, Namid said, “She knows of me?”

  “Yes, she has for a long time.”

  “Justis, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’m talking to Namid.”

  “He’s here?”

  Before I could answer, his waters rippled, small waves spreading from the middle of his body. Kona let out a yelp and scrabbled back from him on all fours.

  “Holy shit!”

  “He’s here.”

  She stared at him, her mouth hanging open, her eyes like saucers. I’d seen Kona shocked speechless more often in the last few days than in the eight years that came before.

  “He is so cool looking!” she said, whispering the words.

  “Thank you.” His voice was like a cascade.

  She smiled. “Sounds cool, too.”

  “I have healed the bones in Ohanko’s hand.”

  “Ohanko?” she repeated to me.

  “Long story. I’ll explain later.”

  “Since you have called for medical assistance, he insisted that I not heal his wrist. I have repaired the damage to his blood vessel despite his wishes. We do not want him to die.”

  She shook her head. “No, we don’t.”<
br />
  “You are as dear to him as any person in his life. And I am grateful to you for all that you have done for him over the years. You are a fine friend.”

  Kona blinked. Another smile crept over her face. “He’s pretty dear to me, too.”

  Namid replied with a nod, apparently satisfied with their exchange. To me, he said, “Tell me what happened with the women.”

  I began to tell them both the entire story, from my arrival at Regina Witcombe’s home to Kona’s appearance at my door. The ambulance arrived before I had gotten far, and the EMTs bustled in, their radios crackling. They knelt on either side of me, and one of them examined Kona’s bandage, complimenting her on how good it looked. They couldn’t see Namid, which Kona found amusing.

  Once they examined the wound more closely, though, they grew quiet. Eventually, one of them asked if all the blood on my clothes and the floor had come from my wrist. I hesitated. I knew they were asking because, as far as they could tell, the cut shouldn’t have bled so much. Thanks to Namid, my artery was undamaged. But given that I was about to be implicated in Heather’s killing, an unexplained excess of blood might ensure a murder conviction.

  I chanced a peek at the runemyste, who seemed to understand. He gave me a wink—something else he had never done before—and suddenly blood was gushing from my wrist once more.

  “Geez!” the other EMT said. “It must have started to clot or something, and then . . . Geez!”

  The other guy grabbed for the gauze and bandage. “Put this back on, quick!”

  They stanched the bleeding, rewrapped my arm and got me on a stretcher. I would have preferred to avoid a hospital stay, but that was no longer a possibility. The EMTs told Kona that they would be taking me to Chandler Regional Medical Center.

  “I’ll see you there,” Kona said as they wheeled me outside and to the ambulance.

  “Lock up my house, all right?”

  She frowned. “I was going to have a garage sale.”

  I laughed and waved as they closed the ambulance doors.

  The next several hours were a blur. An arterial laceration required surgery and, usually, general anesthesia. I had to argue with the ER surgeon and anesthesiologist for several minutes before I convinced them to numb my arm and give me a mild general to blunt the pain.