Blood Trade

CHAPTER 21 Close Your Mouth, Girl. Mosquitoes Will Fly In.

I brought the knife down, cutting the circle. The shock slammed me back as if a huge hand had swatted me, and I landed with a whoof on the sidewalk. Bobby moaned, dropping the stake and holding out his hands. I rose slowly and got to my feet as Eli knelt, his eyes still watching the streets, alert to any danger, and spread gel on the new wounds and more gel on the old ones, which looked much worse now. I inspected my knife. The blade showed no damage.

Eli popped two new packets and placed them over the burns. “Good work,” he said to Bobby as he wound cling-wrap bandages around the injured hands to hold the packs in place. “That took guts, man.”

Bobby’s back straightened and an unfamiliar look of pride covered his face. I didn’t think I’d ever seen that expression on him before. He shrugged diffidently. “Thanks. I just did what I had to.”

Eli gave that tiny smile and said, “That’s what all heroes say.”

“Hero? For real?”

“For real. I have a feeling that a medal is in order. I’ll check with headquarters.”

“Wow. Cool!”

I watched Eli in quiet surprise, his expression hidden by the night shadows. I had no idea he had that sort of kindness in him. “Bobby,” Eli said, “can you wait in the SUV while Jane and I check out the house?”

“No.” Bobby shook his head hard. “I’ll go with you. I want to help save Misha.”

“You don’t have body armor, so I can’t let you go in with us, man. I need you for a different job. Jane and I need you to sit in the SUV with a cell phone and call the sheriff if things go bad. We won’t have time if fighting starts. I’ll set the phone to a one touch and put it on speaker.”

“I’ll have your backs? That’s what they say on TV.”

“Exactly. And, hey. We couldn’t do it without you.”

Bobby grinned, and I had to look away or get all teary eyed. Eli helped him to his feet and got my old friend settled in the SUV. I used the time to text the Kid to get our team down to Under the Hill to help rescue the witches. I also put away the amulets, careful to not let them touch one another. I still didn’t know what they would do, but I wasn’t going to chance anything.

When he got back to me, Eli said, “Not many people would have been able to sit there and get burned in order to do their job. He’s a good man.”

“So are you, Eli.” My cell vibrated and I checked the screen. “Our team is on the way. ETA fifteen. Let’s go reconnoiter. And then let’s go rescue some witches.”

“And kick some vamp butt. And then I’m thinking pizza tonight.”

My mouth fell open. “You? You are going to eat pizza?”

“With sausage and pepperoni, double cheese, mushrooms, and heavy on the onions. I can taste it now. With a pitcher of beer. Close your mouth, girl. Mosquitoes will fly in.”

•   •   •

The house Bobby had picked out was freshly painted, white with purple gingerbread trim, one of many that had been recently restored. It had a new cement block-foundation, making it sit high off the ground, a four-room square house on a tiny lot with a picket fence. And not a hint of magics about the place. Until I stood back and viewed the house with Beast vision. Then the blackish-purplish, bloody-broken magics stormed up from the house in a writhing, heated swarm, like frilled snakes or flaming worms, magic so strong it was nearly sentient, yet broken like a battlefield still full of the dead.

“Holy crap on a cracker,” I whispered.

And Eli laughed. “That swear, I like.”

We took a circuitous route to the house, and the closer I got, the stronger the witch stink got. This was the smell I’d found on the wind several times over the past few days, but couldn’t place. And it was no wonder. The spell covering and warding the house was strong magic, highly contained. It was based on a hedge-of- thorns spell, but a hundred times stronger; part of its makeup was a keep-away spell and another part was a containment spell to hide the magics. To get a more complete view, we circumnavigated the house, but made a point to stay far back, as the magics were hard and strong and burned when we got too close. The ward was a sphere buried below the surface of the ground that rose to cover the entire lot and nudge up against the taller buildings to either side. The structures on either side were each three stories tall, though the one on the left had a raised false front to look like a fourth story. Both were empty, with flat roofs and arched windows, and looked as if they were in original condition, unrestored.

The house they dwarfed was in far better condition, but the only way in was a small opening at the top where the magics met. I had only one idea how we might get inside. And it wasn’t something I wanted to do.

•   •   •

It was closer to half an hour by the time the two cars arrived, Rick and his team in one, Bruiser driving solo. Soul hopped out of the car before it came to a complete halt, her gauzy clothes swirling around her like waves of water. She stood in the middle of the street, her eyes wide. Brute leaped to her side, snarling at her.

Rick parked and got out of the vehicle more slowly. He was dressed in jeans and a button-front shirt and a windbreaker with the word PSYLED on front and back. And he wore a Kevlar vest under his shirt. Even money it was one of the new ones just hitting the market—Kevlar to stop bullets, a layer of some new plastic to slow even the sharpest knife blade, and a spell woven in to protect the wearer from attack spells. His earpieces were in his ears, music pouring out of them to hold the need to shift at bay.

His eyes were glowing softly, his cat peering out at the world, and he looked tightly wound but in control. I’d sat through his first full moon with him, before he had the music spell, and it hadn’t been pretty. Rick didn’t acknowledge me at all but walked up close to the house, holding a device, a small black box. A psy-meter, or psychometer, that measured the strength and quality of magics. He walked back and forth in front of the house, holding the meter over his head.

Bruiser stood at his car, studying the entire block, while Eli stood off to one side, his subgun at the ready, his mission look on his face, his body angled so he could see the house, the street, and the SUV with Bobby in it.

“I walked these streets,” Soul said, frustration in her voice, “looking for magic. This was not here.”

“It’s got a powerful ward,” I said. “Only when the moon came up did it become visible.”

Rick swore softly and put his device away. “Too much ambient magic to get a reading. All I could get was a redline.”

Soul nodded, blinking as if her eyes had dried out from staring so long. “Yes. It would show a redline. The ambient magics here are . . .” She shook her head, unable to find a word to express it. She settled on “astounding. We can’t get inside, not from here. It would take the magical equivalent of a nuclear bomb to get through that.”

I sighed, hating what I was about to say. “I can get in.”

They all turned to me, and an acute discomfort sank its claws into me. Beast snarled. No. Will not let you.

You don’t have a choice. Not if you want a chance to save the kit’s mother, I thought back. “I can shift into a bird and fly over it, and dive through the hole at the top and land inside.” I thought Soul’s eyes were gonna pop out of her head, and I tilted my head in a wry shrug. “Only problem is that the magics I’ll be flying through might actually kill me. Or might force me to shift back while I’m in bird form, and I’ll lose too much mass and die. Either way—”

“Mass transference is difficult?” Soul asked.

“Yeah. Dangerous at every step along the way.” Which was all I was going to tell them about me, and way more than I wanted to tell them at all. If not for Misha maybe being trapped inside, I’d have never said anything.

Bruiser, looking like a million dollars, rounded the car he’d driven and said, “I can see the shadows of the spell, but not how high it rises. Is it higher than the buildings to either side?”