by Evelyn Snow
Professor Ashmore turned toward the entry with a smile of welcome on his face.
Uncle Delano appeared and looked at me, his gaze flicking from my head to my tied toes. “Has he given you anything?”
“You mean besides a killer headache?”
“He means this.” The professor gestured at the wooden rack. In the fading daylight, the liquids sparkled like exotic wine. “They’re left over from Echo’s last few sessions, but no worries. It’s only been a few days. They’re still fresh. I haven’t dosed the girl yet, Del. I was waiting for you.”
Del? I surged against the ropes. All I got for it was a wave of pain and new burns on my skin.
My uncle took a few steps. In his right hand he held the tire iron. “Artemis, you don’t want to do this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve come too far to stop now. The only reason you were invited was so you could write the story of my achievement and get the facts correct.” He paused to give me a once-over before looking back to my uncle. “I suppose you have some sort of sentimental attachment to the girl, but don’t worry. I’ll help you get over it.” Turning his back, the professor made the mistake of looking down long enough reach for the rack of liquids on the desk.
Uncle Delano lunged, swinging the tire iron in a mighty arc. The blow hit the professor on his upper back. He fell, face forward onto the swivel chair, cracking his head on the edge of the desk as he went down.
My uncle bolted across the room to me, dropping the tire iron long enough to tug on the silver rope. Where it touched his hands, steam rose along with the sickening smell of charred flesh. Fighting the pain of the scorching rope, I helped him, loosening the bindings enough that I could scramble out of the chair. My uncle’s palms were black.
“There might be some salve in the bathroom—” I began.
But he was already bent over the professor, one hand on the man’s neck. He straightened. “He’s alive.”
Like I cared. “Your hands, we should wrap them.”
My uncle offered a grim smile. “I’ve had worse. We need to get you out of here first.” Bending, he reached for the tire iron.
I beat him to it. The vibrations running through the metal were so strong, I wondered why it hadn’t been jumping and thumping on the carpeting. Duncan must have taken a dive into the safety of cold iron when Ashmore appeared.
“Did you find this on the beach?” I asked.
“Evie, please—”
Professor Ashmore groaned.
“Were you tracking me?”
“Let’s get out of here,” my uncle insisted, “before he wakes up.”
“Were you tracking me?”
“Sort of. Not really.”
“Yes or no! Which is it?”
“I was trying to find you. It’s been too long since I tried to connect with another jinx. Apparently, I’m not any good at it these days. Now, if you don’t move, I’m going to carry you out of here.”
Running to the desk, I sidestepped Ashmore’s body and picked up the rack of liquids. “We should take this with us.”
“No!” My uncle took a step, one hand raised. “Put that down. Carefully.”
“It needs to be analyzed.”
“Evie, please, put it down.” My uncle took another step.
“He was expecting you. You called him Artemis,” I said slowly. “How does he know you well enough to call you Del?”
“You have a lot of questions. That’s understandable—”
The professor’s foot twitched, and he groaned again.
My uncle’s voice turned hard. “Unless you want to hang around and find out what he has in store for you, we should leave. Now.”
Chapter 30
Uncle Delano drove me to the overlook where I’d parked the Ford this afternoon. It’d taken some convincing, but he’d agreed when I explained I refused to leave dark magic sitting there, waiting to bring disaster into more lives. Plus, I had an idea about Echo’s true identity. Whether my hunch proved right or wrong, there was no way I would allow anything else to happen to her.
I’d checked my phone. No word from Mo; no way to know if she’d even sent a message to Sullivan, but then, that had always been a long shot.
Ashmore had been stirring when we left. I’d wanted to lasso him in mage rope, call the police, and leave him for pickup. Uncle Delano pointed out Ashmore had done nothing that would stand up in a Greater World court without evidence. My status as an MBI agent was shaky at best.
If I pressed charges on the kidnapping, it would be the word of a college drop-out witch against that of the Director of Research at an esteemed clinic. Morrigan Shade could come up with a who’s who list of celebrities to stand as character witnesses for the genius alchemist. By the time Mo was done with me, I’d look like a liar and a crazy stalker.
What mattered now was to make sure the contents of the vintage Ford didn’t wind up in Ashmore’s hands. Everything else could be sorted later, including whether I still had a career with the MBI.
“When were you going to tell me, you were friends with a magical psychopath?” I asked while my uncle drove. “If it was so essential in your opinion for me to avoid magic, what did you think you were doing?”
“About that…”
“Artemis. Are you kidding me? How do you even know him?”
“Your aunt met him first.” He lifted a hand from the wheel to wave it in a gesture of frustration. “All that stuff he had in there—I had no idea what it was, but I could sense it was magic … and evil.”
“No more spin. No excuses. I’m done with secrets. Del.”
A vein pulsed at his temple. I didn’t care.
“Evie, now is not the time.”
“Now is the perfect time.” I pointed to the digital clock on the dash. “You have five minutes to explain.”
“I’ve only tried to keep you—”
“Safe?” I glanced out the window at the dark forest speeding past. “That’s what you keep saying. How’s that working out?”
“You haven’t made it easy.”
“Is this you turning over a new leaf, Uncle Delano? Because that’s not what it sounds like to me. It sounds like you’re always finding someone else to blame.”
He passed the brown sign for the overlook and turned right onto the access road. “I’ve been doing the best I could. Without my brother—”
“Oh, look! Another name for the blame list.”
He scowled, the blue light reflecting from the dash turning his skin ashy in the gathering darkness. I wanted him to stop the car and get out so I could beat the truth out of him. Okay, not. I loved my uncle. I was so angry right now it was hard to think clearly and that was a problem.
Maddox still had Holden under wraps. Somewhere in the city, Zen was waking up. His deadline had arrived, the bridge was still closed, and I was out of options. I didn’t have time for a heart-to-heart. What I needed were answers—not everything—but enough to clear my head.
“If you were trying to keep me safe,” I asked, “why did you set me up by having Maddox arrest Holden and then not bother to track my location? Who does that?”
“That’s what you think happened?”
“Unless you start talking, how am I supposed to know? I’m beginning to understand why Aunt Phoebe’s imagination runs away with her.”
He pulled the Subaru up next to the Ford and put it in park, leaving the engine running. “We’ll talk when we get home. I’m not trying to blame Phoebe, but she has some explaining to do. She introduced me to her friend, Artemis. She thought he was a teacher out at the college.”
“You’re not putting this on Aunt Phoebe.”
“But—”
“I’m not coming straight home. There’s something I have to do first. Right now, I need to hear your side of the story, not hers. Make it the short version.”
“I can see how you might assume you were set up. If it hurt when I was trying to find you, I’m sorry. My skills are … rusty.” He hesitated, as if
the words didn’t want to come. “I wasn’t working with Maddox, but I suspected he had something on Holden.”
“Today? Or did you know before?”
“I was supposed to meet with Maddox today, but I was late. Then I saw that crazy car downtown. Hard to miss. When I saw Holden talking to him, I was sure something was up. No way would Shane Blackwood’s son hang out with a guy from ODiN, you know? It was confirmation.”
“Holden might have gone back to dealing in contraband. Not big magic. Objects and small caches.” I felt like a traitor, saying it out loud. “I’m afraid he’s working with Maddox to avoid prosecution.”
“Holden?” My uncle shook his head. “Nope. Holden’s clean. My money’s on Shane.”
“Why?”
“He lost his trucking job a few months ago. Company went out of business or was bought by another outfit and they let him go.” My uncle shrugged. “Had to make ends meet one way or another. He went back to what he knows best.”
“How do you know that’s what happened?”
“I heard Shane’s name on the scanner. Cops never arrested him. They keep track of shifters, though, especially since the murders.”
I thought about all the junk piled up in the Blackwood’s barn. “Even if Holden’s dad is back working the dark markets, it’s small-time stuff. Maddox said he was after traffickers. ODiN lost a huge haul in Wichita when three officers died. Why would he bother with a shifter trading in flea-market magic?”
“Leverage.”
“Over Holden?”
Uncle Delano nodded. “When I interviewed him for the series last winter, Maddox told me—off the record—that he didn’t trust the MBI. He claimed he knew first-hand how they had their own agenda and didn’t care about human lives. He wanted information about their operations. I don’t know how, but I think he knew you and Holden made regular trips across the bridge. The only reason he gave me an exclusive was to see if he could get to you.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “I wasn’t going to let that happen. Do you understand?”
“Did Holden tell you he was working with Maddox?”
“He didn’t have to. Shane came to me not long ago. Told me he was worried about Holden since the police like shifters for the murder of those girls. After that, I called Maddox and said I might have some information for him. I didn’t, but I’d promised Shane I’d do what I could for Holden.”
“The killer was Ashmore.”
My uncle paled. “You’re sure?”
“The three young women, the fire, and the two who died at the Mulberry house. It’s all Ashmore.”
“Oh, my God.” Uncle Delano rested his forehead on the wheel. When he lifted it again, pain glinted in his eyes. “I was so focused on Maddox, when Ashmore called and said he wanted to give me a story about his work at the clinic, I didn’t make the connection. Then I started pinging you, trying to locate you. I followed where you’d been, I didn’t know what to think.”
“Don’t blame Aunt Phoebe. Ashmore talks a good game. He thinks he’s untouchable.”
Even now, Ashmore might remain untouchable on the other side. His research work on spectral disorder was legitimate. When it was discovered the bridge had been used to broadcast dark magic into the Greater World, which was inevitable, Ballard would take the fall. If three young women on this side had died as a result of his work to “cure” a terrible disease, it was possible the deaths might be viewed as tragic, but necessary. Acceptable losses. I couldn’t let that happen.
I got out of the car and walked around to the Ford. My uncle rolled down his window. I asked, “Where does Maddox have Holden?”
“At the ODiN office downtown.”
“On Jefferson?”
Uncle Delano nodded. “What are you going to do?”
“I need to take care of what’s inside this car. For that, I need Holden’s help. Tell Aunt Phoebe I don’t think I’ll be back until late.”
“What about Maddox?”
“He’s hungry to make an arrest,” I suggested. “How about giving him a murderer?”
My uncle shook his head. “He’ll demand proof. He won’t take my word for it.”
The tire iron lay where I’d left it on the back seat of the Subaru. “You have an eye witness. He’s looking for redemption. Why not help him find it?”
* * *
It took longer than I’d hoped to convince Dylan Maddox I was trying to hand him the killer responsible for at least six counts of murder, including three in Wichita. He’d insisted on talking to the witness first, which meant hauling Duncan out of the tire iron one more time. Like that wasn’t weird in the middle of a beige box of a government office building on a Thursday evening. Fortunately, the rest of the staff had gone home for the night.
I worried the wizard might try to make another run for it. In the end, the combination of the promise of redemption plus the threat of Uncle Delano’s rusty powers as a jinx kept him in line.
Holden and I were finally able to get on the road. I’d outlined for him what I planned. He’d offered what I expected—the warning I was out of my mind. On some issues, we were never going to agree, and magic was at the top of the list.
I’d shrugged. “If you’re scared, you can stay here.”
“I don’t know if I’m afraid you’ll succeed or if you’ll fail.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
We were three miles south of Montemar on the coast road when pain lanced across the back of my neck again. This time I knew it wasn’t my uncle. I’d made him swear to never try that trick on me again.
The experience had taught me something, though. Now I knew the pain resulted from the brute force use of magic. Whoever was trying to locate me couldn’t be bothered to be subtle or gentle. The knowledge narrowed the candidates.
Turning around in the seat, I peered through the back window. Distant headlights wavered in the darkness. “What are the odds that’s the Mercedes?”
“Not taking that bet,” Holden said.
“Can we make it to the bridge before he catches us?”
Holden glanced at the odometer. “We can’t outrun him, and he knows it, so he’s pacing us. There’s only one place we could be heading on this highway. The bridge is still closed. That doesn’t give us a lot of options.”
“How far are we from a turnout?”
After a moment, he said, “There’s one on the other side of the slough.”
“When we get there, pull over.”
He gave me a long look. “Okay. What do you have in mind?”
I grinned. “A vampire’s worst nightmare.”
We rode the next mile in silence, despite the fact my heart was racing. If my idea didn’t work, it would all be over in the next five minutes.
When we reached the turnout, Holden stopped just inside the paved area.
“Leave the engine running and help me get the chains off.”
Even though we worked fast, the process felt like it was taking forever instead of minutes. The throbbing in the back of my neck increased as Zen closed on our location.
When we had the driver’s side and front clear, I let Holden finish the rest, while I cast a quick containment spell in case the removal of the chains affected the magic stored inside. After Holden gathered the chains in the trunk, we jumped inside the car.
We didn’t have to wait long.
The demon, Sarrath, arrived on a rush of wind that seemed to come out of nowhere. He coalesced out of the night and hovered in the air over the hood of the Ford. His face was wide at the cheekbones, narrowing to a chin so pointed it could serve as a blade, with eyes dark as pools of midnight lit by distant red fires. He wore rags that once might have been proper clothing. They flapped like streamers in the noxious wind around the demon.
He raised one clawed hand and blasted the car with a jolt of dark power. It bounced away. My hasty containment spell wouldn’t hold under another blast from the demon.
I jumped out of the car, taking a c
ouple of steps away from the vehicle to be on the safe side. Not that a convo with a demon counted as safe in any world.
Holding my breath, I called power without releasing it. I wanted to make sure I could throw a bubble of shielding over myself and Holden if necessary.
Sarrath turned toward me, drawn by the power I’d called. He licked his lips.
Yes. I had his attention, and that was a start.
“We’d like to return the car,” I began, “but there’s a competing claim.” By this time, Holden had come up behind me and rested his palm on my shoulder.
The demon darted closer, blasting my nose with the reek of sulfur and sweet rot. “Wolves have no claim. Liars. Shifty lying liars. Tasty, though. Sarrath take the car, eat you later. Demon drive-through.” His harsh laugh grated on my nerves.
“The claim is real. I can prove it. Do you want to see?” Demons were insatiably curious. It was why they were found all over the Greater World. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist a question.
“See? See? Show me!”
When Holden and I were on the other side of the car, I pointed to where Zen had placed his bloody palm.
“A blood claim!” Sarrath screamed in rage. “Where is he? Where is the miscreant who would steal what is mine?”
Zen couldn’t have timed it any better. As the demon’s screams rose and echoed over the pounding of the nearby surf, the sleek Mercedes glided into the turnout and pulled to a stop behind us. The car door opened. Zen’s dark head emerged.
I pointed. “The vampire has claimed your car.”
Sarrath roared and charged.
Holden and I were a mile down the road before we stopped laughing.
Chapter 31
Ten minutes later we reached the bridge. Because the crossing to the Nightingale Lands remained closed, the bridge wouldn’t appear on any map, but it was visible to a human eye. If Holden pressed on the accelerator, we could drive to the other side and find ourselves on Neverwood Island. We weren’t going to do that.