by DAVID B. COE
Still, by the time I came round again I sensed that hours had passed. I wouldn’t be getting out to my father’s place tonight, nor would I see Billie. Kona was sitting beside my bed in recovery, and, to my surprise, Namid was there as well, standing as still as ice at her shoulder.
“Hey stranger,” Kona said, sitting forward. “How are you feeling?”
“Hung over.”
Namid said nothing.
“He been here the whole time?”
She glanced up at him, scowling. It seemed the novelty of having him around had worn off. “Yep. He won’t leave. And he doesn’t say much. To be perfectly honest, it’s been a little awkward.”
“Welcome to my world. What time is it?”
“A little after eleven.”
I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning. “Damn.”
A nurse come in, checked my vitals, asked how I was feeling, and told Kona in no uncertain terms that she would have to leave in another five minutes.
Once the nurse was gone, I said, “Namid, I need you to check on my father. I had intended to go out there again tonight, but clearly that’s not happening.”
“You fear for him.”
“Very much.”
“I will go to him now.”
An instant later, he winked out of sight.
Kona exhaled and shook her head. “He is a piece of work, Justis. How do you put up with him? I mean, he’s amazing to look at, and he obviously cares about you a lot. But . . . Wow.”
“I know. Tell me about Heather.”
Her expression grew more guarded. “Are you sure you’re up to this right now?”
“No. But I need to hear it anyway.”
She pulled out her notepad. “Heather Royce, twenty-four. Graduated two years ago from ASU with a degree in Finance. Her parents live in Yuma. As far as we can tell, she’s been working for Regina Witcombe for about a year.”
“Has anyone from the department talked to Witcombe yet?”
“No. Kevin and I will tomorrow.”
“She knows your name, Kona, and she knows that we were partners. You should send Kevin with someone else.”
She frowned. “What do you think she’s going to do to me?”
“I don’t know. I—”
The nurse threw the curtain open and glared at Kona. “You have to go now.”
“She’ll go in a minute.”
“Mister Fearsson, you’ve been—”
“She’ll go in a minute!”
The woman looked from one of us to the other and then withdrew, closing the curtain once more and muttering to herself.
“It’s dangerous for you to go there,” I said, once I was sure the nurse was out of earshot. I kept my voice to a whisper.
“What if I can get her to come to 620?”
“That might be all right. She’d have a lawyer with her, so she probably wouldn’t try anything. And in that case it’s possible that your involvement with the investigation will make her think twice about some of the lies she’s going to have to tell.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. The girl died at Witcombe’s house, right?”
“Yes, but all the blood vanished when Witcombe and Patty cast their spell.”
“Right. Tell me more about Patty.”
I gave her all the background: the ties between the Hesslans and the Fearssons, everything I’d learned about Patty from my online search, and the details of our conversation at the realty office. At one point, the nurse came in again, glowered at us both, and left without saying a word.
As I finished, Namid returned.
“He seems well, Ohanko. He sits outside, asleep in his chair. But I do not believe he is in pain, and I sensed no necromancers or weremancers near him.”
“All right. Thank you.”
He answered with a solemn nod. Then he folded his arms over his broad chest and went still. Apparently, he had no intention of leaving.
After a brief silence, Kona said, “So this Hesslan-Fine woman killed the girl and used her blood for a spell. And Witcombe let it happen. Is that right?”
“Yes. Witcombe called the girl out onto the patio, but I don’t think she knew that Patty intended to kill her. She was pretty upset when it happened.”
“All right, that could help.” She closed her notepad. “I have more questions for you, but I think your nurse’s head is about to explode. I’ll be back in the morning.”
“Does Hibbard know about all of this?” I asked before she could leave.
Kona cringed, nodded. “Kind of hard to keep it from him. To be honest, though, he doesn’t seem as giddy as you might think. As much as he’d like to throw you in jail for the rest of your life, I don’t think he believes you’d kill a girl like that.”
“I suppose I should be flattered.”
“I suppose. Get some sleep.”
She let herself out through the curtain, and a moment later my nurse came back to check all my numbers again. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “It’s late, but I can get you something.”
I wasn’t, but I also knew that I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I had lost a lot of blood. “Yes, thank you. And I’m sorry about before. It’s been quite a day, and I needed to tell Detective Shaw as much about it as I could.”
She smiled, which was probably more than I deserved. “It’s okay. I’ll get you some dinner.”
As soon as she was gone, Namid stepped closer to my bed. “Tell me about the crafting these women did.”
And so I began yet another soliloquy. I started by describing the spell Patty and Witcombe used against me at Witcombe’s house, but I skimmed over those details. “The more important spell was the one they didn’t cast,” I said. “The one they intended to use against you. They used blood again, and they had me mark myself with what I think were runes.”
His waters grew turbid. “What kind of runes?”
I described each one in the order in which Patty had me draw them: the odd P, the line with the slash through it, and the simple vertical.
“That is the order they were in?”
“Yes. Left to right. Do you know what they mean?”
“I am familiar with each on its own. The first is wynn, which is often a fortuitous symbol. It can mean ‘joy’ or ‘welcome,’ or can imply a granting of wishes. I believe, though, that in this case ‘welcome’ is the intended meaning. It is meant to serve as a lure, a means of entrapment. And I know this because it is followed by nyd, which is a rune of constraint, of need, and is, which is a rune of impedance and control.”
“So the runes don’t spell out a word?” I said, my voice low.
“Not as you think of words, no. It is common for modern mystes and those who pretend to be crafters to treat runic patterns as one might an alphabet. But runes are more. Each is imbued with meaning and power, and they can be used in different ways by different runecrafters. This particular use of runes, in a triad, is one with which I am familiar. They are placed in this way so that each will fulfill a certain role in the casting. In this case, the first rune invites.” As Namid said this, he made the shape of the first rune in the air with his finger, leaving a trace of silvery blue light before him. “The second establishes purpose.” He drew the second rune as he had the first, so that both now hovered between us. “And the third binds.” He drew the single vertical beside the other two. When this one was complete, the three letters changed color, darkening from silver to smoke grey and then to black, before vanishing completely.
“So they would have trapped you?” I asked.
“If you had summoned me as they instructed, and the casting was completed with those runes drawn in blood, then yes, I would have been imprisoned in whatever vessel they chose for me.”
My stomach did a slow, unnerving somersault. “Vessel,” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I have said, Ohanko. The two women sought to imprison me, and would have needed a vessel to do so.”
“Crap.” I breathed the word. �
��I know how they killed your fellow runemyste in Northern Virginia. I know how they were going to kill you.”
Namid didn’t appear surprised; no doubt he had reasoned it out for himself. He knew a lot more about this stuff than I did. But he said, “Tell me.”
“I was to be the vessel. The runes were drawn on me. I’m guessing that you would have been trapped inside me. And when they killed me, they would have taken both our lives.”
“I fear that you are right, although I do not believe that they would have killed us. That final act they would have left to the necromancer who is instructing them in the ways of dark magic.”
Something in the way he said this . . . “Why do I get the feeling that you know who this necromancer is?”
“I know nothing for certain,” he said, an admission of a sort. “But yes, I have an idea of who this might be. Germanic runes and those of Old English are similar; these three are identical in the two traditions. But I believe this casting belongs to a Celt. A woman.”
“A female druid?”
“A priestess. What some today would call a witch, though the term is crude at best.”
“Tell me about her.”
“I shall, but not this night. You have need of sleep, and I must speak with my kind. I will tell you more tomorrow.”
I felt my cheeks color, and I took a sip of water from the carafe my nurse had left for me, hoping to mask my discomfort. I had assumed that Namid would stay here while I slept. I was in danger still; we both knew it. And I couldn’t defend myself and rest at the same time.
The runemyste, though, knew me pretty well. “I can communicate with other runemystes and remain by your side. You have nothing to fear from the dark ones tonight.”
“Thank you,” I said, embarrassed but also relieved. As soon as I lay back against my pillows and closed my eyes, I felt sleep tug at my mind. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was. “At least tell me her name,” I said, my voice already sounding thick with slumber.
“What did you say?”
I forced my eyes open. “The priestess. What was her name?”
He said the name twice, and still he had to spell it out for me before I caught it. Saorla of Brewood, she was called. He pronounced her name as SARE-la.
“Now sleep,” the myste rumbled, reminding me of a tumbling river. “We will speak of her at greater length in the morning.”
As it happened, I didn’t have to wait that long to learn more about her. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few moments when I found myself in a dream that felt nothing like those I usually have. At first I thought it must be the painkillers, and the after effects of the anesthesia. But even allowing for all the crap in my bloodstream, this vision felt different.
It was utterly bizarre, and yet it struck me as more real, more visceral than any dream I’d ever had.
I was alone on an open grassy plain. It is a moor, a voice in my head corrected. A woman’s voice. The woman’s voice: low, gravelly, accented with what I now knew to be an Irish lilt. It was the voice I’d heard in Solana’s after the explosion. I turned a quick circle, searching for her, but I saw no one. The grasses bowed and danced in a swirling wind, and far in the distance to the west, the setting sun reflected off a broad expanse of open water. Nearer, in the opposite direction, low hills cast rounded shadows across the moor.
“Where are you?” I called, my voice swallowed by the rush of wind and the vast landscape.
A fire burned in a small ring of stone a few paces from where I stood. I hadn’t noticed it until that moment. Or perhaps it hadn’t been there. A cooking spit stood over the ring with what might have been a skinned rabbit roasting in the flames.
“Perhaps you are hungry. Supper will be ready shortly.”
“This is a dream. I can’t eat in a dream.”
“You can in this one. You can drink as well. Would you like wine?”
Two ceramic goblets rested on the ground beside the fire, a bottle made of translucent glass between them. I was sure they hadn’t been there a moment before.
“Show yourself,” I said, turning once more. “Let me see you.”
And she did, appearing as suddenly as had the food and drink. She stood with her back to the hills, the dying sunlight illuminating her face.
She wore a simple green dress of coarse cotton, and a gray shawl hung about her shoulders, anchored against the wind by a slender but powerful hand. I couldn’t have guessed her age. Her brown hair was streaked with silver, and it danced around her face, whipped to a frenzy by the gale. Her eyes, a clear, pale blue, seemed both ancient and youthful. There was wisdom there, and wit, and a hard, uncompromising intelligence. Her face was oval and very pretty—“winsome,” I thought, though I didn’t know why. I don’t think I had ever used the word before. But that’s what she was, despite the tiny lines around her mouth, at the corners of her eyes, on her brow.
I wanted to ask her name, though I thought I knew it, and I would have liked to know why she had brought me here.
But before I could speak she said, “You have your father’s eyes.”
Her words shocked me silent; judging from her inscrutable smile, I guessed that she had known they would.
“Yes, I have seen him. I have looked into his eyes as I am looking into yours. I have sounded the depths of his moon sickness, explored his passions, his loves, his fears, the most precious memories he holds, and also the most daunting. I know him more intimately than you ever will.”
“You’ve tortured him,” I managed to say.
“I have tested him.”
“Well, you’d better stay the hell away from him from now on.”
“I have also saved your life, spared you when I did not spare others. You should show me some courtesy.” This last she said in a tone that made my breath catch in my throat. I wondered if Namid could protect me here, wherever “here” was.
But even wondering this, I didn’t back down. I’d always been kind of stupid that way. “You also hurt my friend.”
“The woman.”
“Yeah, her. Do that again, and if I have to I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands.”
“You have fire in you, which I can admire. But you lack discipline; you are ruled by your emotions. I could crush you where you stand, and would be justified in doing so. No one speaks to me as you have.” She considered me for another moment before appearing to come to a decision. “But I think I will not. You are angry, hurt, frightened. I will even admit that you have cause—that I have given you cause. And so, you have nothing to fear from me on this night. Not because Namid’skemu protects you, but because I choose to keep you safe.”
I felt like I should thank her, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words. Instead, I said, “You’re Saorla.”
“I am. And you are Justis Fearsson.”
“That’s right.”
She walked toward me and past me to the cooking fire, her hips swaying provocatively. “Come and sup with me, Justis Fearsson.”
I hesitated, catching the briefest scent of something sickly as she passed. But before I could name it, it was gone, swept away by another gust of wind. A memory stirred, deep in the recesses of my slumbering mind. The stench of decay clings to them still . . .
“The meat is not poisoned. But it is real and will offer sustenance. You have been wounded and must heal. Food will help.”
I followed her to the fire, but remained standing, even as she sat.
She picked up one of the goblets and held it out to me. I took it from her, taking care not to allow my fingers to so much as brush hers. Another smile curved her lips.
“You are cautious. That is probably wise.”
She sipped from the other goblet. I glanced down into mine.
“The wine is not poisoned either,” she said, sounding impatient. “Caution is one thing. Such mistrust is rude.”
I drank. It was honeyed and strong. With the first sip, I felt a small rush of dizziness.
“Food will h
elp.”
“Why are you being so kind to me?” I asked. “You had intended to kill me tonight.”
“Yes. And I will want you well the next time I try. Your death will serve me better if you are hale and strong.”
CHAPTER 19
I laughed at her candor, even as a chill ran through my body.
She produced a knife from within the folds of her dress and began to cut pieces of meat from the rabbit. “You think I jest?” she asked as she worked.
“I know you don’t.”
“And yet you laugh.”
She held out a strip of meat to me. I took it and bit into it without pause. It was succulent and smokey and delicious. Suddenly I was ravenous. I downed the rest of what she had given me in two bites and took another piece the moment she offered it.
“I laughed,” I said, chewing on yet another mouthful, “because it’s not often that someone is so up front about their intention to kill.”
“Do you fear death?” she asked, tipping her head to the side and regarding me through her lashes. She really was quite beautiful.
I thought there might be a right answer to this, but I didn’t know what it was. “Yes,” I said. “I don’t want to die. But I worked as a cop for a long time, and I’ve learned to manage that fear.”
“So, you prefer to live.” She stood and took a step toward me. Again, a hint of decay soured the air around us.
I fell back a step. “All things being equal, I’d prefer to live.”
“I can arrange that,” she said.
“At what cost?”
“To you? Nothing at all.”
There was no such thing as a free lunch—my dad had taught me that years ago. “What about to Namid?”
“He uses you, as the runemystes all use their weremystes. You are little more than slaves to them, doing their bidding and in return receiving ‘training’ so that you can continue to serve their cause. Surely you see this.”
“I’ve known Namid a long time. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“You don’t know him at all.”
The wind died down, and once more that elusive odor reached me. “At least I know what he really looks like,” I said. It was a hunch, but I’d long since learned to trust my instincts.