when the spells decay into ash. A good Hound could tell you where the spell came from to within a few yards of the caster. An excellent Hound studied signature variables and could tell you exactly who cast the spell by the “handwriting.” I knew there were excellent Hounds who worked for the police, including Pike.
Stotts just shook his head. “We want another opinion.”
“Does this have something to do with Lon Trager?”
He glanced over at me. “So you do keep up with some news.”
“Not really. I ran into Trager on the bus this morning.”
“Is that so?” Stotts looked calm, even his breathing was still normal, but the rest of his body language screamed at me. He was worried.
“He told me he and I could live and let live if I did him a favor. He wants me to bring Martin Pike to him by tomorrow midnight.”
“And you didn’t report it?”
“That’s what I’m doing now.”
He took a breath, let it out. “Do you know why he asked you to find Pike?”
“He hates Pike. Hates me too. Mentioned he’d be willing to kill me. Since he also mentioned that he has men everywhere, I figure he has the resources to find Pike. Pike and I don’t see each other much. So if I had to guess, I’d say Trager really wants both of us in the same room at the same time for some reason.
“You don’t look surprised,” I added. “Did you already know about this?”
“Lon Trager is a person of interest. We keep an eye on him.”
“That wasn’t exactly a yes,” I said.
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t. Have you talked to Pike?”
I nodded. “Today. Told him about Trager. He’s willing to cooperate with the police.”
“Interesting,” he said like it really was. “I don’t suppose you might know where we could find him.”
“Pike? He’s helping a friend on the east side of town do some house repair. I don’t know her name, but her son’s name is Anthony Bell.”
Stotts nodded and took a sip of coffee.
“Does the job tonight have something to do with Lon Trager?” I asked again.
“I’m not going to say anything more about it,” he said. “I don’t want to influence your opinion.”
Yeah, that’s usually the way the police played it.
“So,” I said. “I’ve heard people die when they Hound for you. They say you’re cursed.”
Stotts drove for several blocks in silence. He didn’t even reach over to take another drink of his coffee. It started raining, big, intermittent drops. He flicked the windshield wipers on low.
“The cases I deal with always involve magic being used to harm others,” he said. “There are risks when anyone Hounds for me. But I think my… reputation has been exaggerated.”
“Sixteen Hounds in six years?”
“People who Hound tend to live short lives. I think it’s from using magic so much and from not buying Proxies for relief from the pain. Most people who Hound use the money for drugs instead. So if you run the facts, you see I only hire experienced Hounds, which puts one mark against them-they’ve been using magic and probably drugs for a long time. And if you run the numbers you see a national average of twice that many Hounds who work for the police dying in that same amount of time.”
“Sounds like you’ve done a lot of thinking about this.”
“It’s clear the odds are against most Hounds who work for me before they begin to work for me.”
“So there is no curse?”
He picked up his coffee without looking at me. “I didn’t say that.” He turned a corner onto the bridge, and the rosary on his mirror swung in silent counterpoint.
Chapter Twelve
The wind whipped up off of the river and blustered hard enough to rock Stotts’ car and throw rain that sounded like rocks against the windows. It was going to be miserable out there.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance the girls were last seen indoors?” I asked.
“One of them,” Stotts said. “They all disappeared from the same general area-about a four-block radius. There are two places that are still hot. One’s on the street; the other is in a parking garage.”
“Well, at least one’s out of the rain.” I drank my coffee, letting the warmth and caffeine bolster my confidence and clear my mind. I could do this. I could go stand out in the rain with a cursed magic cop, Hound an old hit and not lose control of magic, and keep a lookout for Trager’s thugs. Oh, and Davy.
I’m sure it was all going to go just fine. I mean, nothing weird had happened to me all day, right?
“We’ll go to the parking garage first. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a break in the rain before you Hound the hit on the street.”
The neighborhood shifted from office buildings and fast food joints to tumbling down apartments and warehouses, mostly concrete fitted with the older, heavier iron pipes with almost no glass showing. Crouched beneath a blackened sky in the driving rain, the neighborhood gave off a dark, wary vibe. Here and there a few houses huddled amongst the industrial-looking buildings, less than half the windows lit with yellow light. Even in the rain, people moved on the street, or sat smoking beneath edges of roofs, or leaned under eves. A lot of those people seemed very interested in our car as we cruised by.
“You come out here a lot?” I asked. I didn’t think the northeast had more magic crime than anywhere else in Portland, but I might be wrong.
“Sometimes. I have family here.”
“Family, as in mob connections, or family, as in crazy uncles who drink too much?”
“There’s a difference?” He smiled. “I’m kidding you. I got Latino roots, not Italian.”
I noted that he didn’t really answer my question. “How long have you been a police officer?”
“About ten years now. Specialized in magic crimes and been part of MERC for eight. This is it.” He turned the car into a parking garage that looked like it had been built in the seventies. He did something to the tollbooth with a card, and the bar lifted and let us in.
Lights hung in cages bolted to the concrete beamed ceilings. Every other light had been busted out, creating pools of darkness and not nearly enough light. I was feeling pretty good right now about being in the company of a police officer who knew the neighborhood and carried a gun.
Magic shifted inside of me, stirring, pushing to be released. That headache that had been nothing but a tightness now shot pain along my temples and jaw. Apparently the aspirin had worn off. Great. I rubbed at my temples and wished I’d taken more painkillers before leaving my apartment.
“Here,” Paul said. “She was last seen right here.” He parked the car, the headlights shining on the elevator door.
“She was in the elevator?”
Paul took a drink of his coffee and put it back in the holder. “She was.”
Oh, holy hells. I hated small places. Hated elevators. I think that came through my body language, or maybe the oh-so-subtle look of terror on my face clued him into my phobia.
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
“No.” My voice was a little too high and that annoyed me to no end. “It’s fine. Fine.”
It would be fine, I told myself. I’d go out, get in that tiny closet of death, Hound the spell in that tiny closet of death, and then I’d get out of that tiny closet of death before anything could happen to me-like maybe death. And, hey, there was a chance I wouldn’t have to go into the elevator. Maybe the spell had been cast on the outside.
After I did this, I was going to lobby for a new law: no spell casting in small places. Ever.
“Let’s do this,” I said, trying to pep talk myself into it.
I took off my gloves because I could learn things by touching the spell, and my gloves would make that impossible.
I opened the door and stepped out into the cold air. The temperature must be near freezing. I could smell
