“Let’s keep it that way,” Stotts said. “Just to be clear, you’ll let the police do our job and you’ll stay out of it. If you want a fight, do me a favor to take it outside my jurisdiction so I don’t have to explain to Allie or Nola why I threw you in jail. Better yet, go on vacation, get a girlfriend.”
“I’ll get right on that,” I said.
Stotts headed to the ox with a pair of handcuffs. Yes, my spell had held. Because I’m that good.
I didn’t think he really worried about telling his wife, Nola, or her best friend, Allie, that he’d thrown me in jail. It wouldn’t surprise them, anyway. More likely he just didn’t want to deal with the paperwork.
I sympathized.
I turned and made for the street.
“Shame?” Stotts said. “The spell?”
I waved my hand over my shoulder and broke the spell. It pattered to the ground and hissed out like wet coals.
Eleanor floated along at my right, keeping her distance. Smart ghost. Not that there was anything more horrible I could do to her. I hoped.
Terric fell into step on my left.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell I just got in the middle of?” I asked.
“A murder. They think. Ten-year-old. Forest Park.”
“I thought you said we didn’t deal with murderers.”
“We don’t,” he said. “Unless they use magic to do it.”
Fuck. That sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. People weren’t supposed to be able to use magic to kill.
I dug in my coat pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit up. The ache to consume was satisfied for the moment, thanks to Terric, but I was still twitchy.
“Let’s just get to the damn meeting,” I said.
“You don’t care about any of this, do you?”
“Been saying that for months, mate.”
“Shame.” He grabbed my arm.
I stopped, turned, and looked at him.
“Someone is murdering people with magic,” he said.
“I heard you. Let go of my arm.”
“And you don’t care.”
“I don’t
“Because a little girl is dead.”
I nodded and sucked on my cigarette, doing what I could to hide how that really made me feel—angry and sick. And, yeah, helpless. The world was a fucked-up place. There was jack all I could do about it.
“And?” I asked with no tone.
“Jesus.” He exhaled. “What happened to you, Shame?”
“Not everyone wants to be a hero.”
“How about being a decent human being?”
“This is as decent as I get.”
He stared at me a little longer. I had nothing left to say. He let go of my coat. Let go of me. Stormed off to the car.
Didn’t blame him.
I threw the cig on the ground. It was ashes already. Consumed.
I tipped my head and sunglasses down so I could get a good look at the redheaded chick with the sniper rifle on the roof of the building across the street. She had a hell of a view of the alley from up there, an unobstructed shot, and had been following me since yesterday morning, or maybe the day before that.
I hadn’t told Terric about her yet. Thought for sure she’d have taken the shot at him or me when she had the chance, but she hadn’t. So, rule out our imminent death by sniper rifle.
That was good, right?
She was also packing up, so that meant the cops weren’t her target either, and neither was the ox, Hamilton. Huh.
“Haul it, Flynn,” Terric yelled. “We’re late.”
“Like normal?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Yep. He was angry. How human of him.
“Maybe you should take a vacation,” I said as I neared the car.
“Oh, every day’s a vacation when I’m around you, Flynn.”
“Right. I know. But I’m serious. You could take your boyfriend. Is it still Mike? No. Greg? Wait. That was last year’s model. You’ve traded him in for someone shiny and new, haven’t you?”
I ducked into the car and Eleanor passed through the closed door to sit in the backseat.
“Shut up, Shame,” he said.
And just because we were sometimes friends, and that redheaded sniper not killing us had oddly put me in a better mood, I did.
Chapter 3
If you ask me, there are about a thousand better places to have a meeting in Portland than the old woolen mill over in St. Johns. For instance, any place that sells beer.
Obviously, no one asked me.
Terric parked a couple blocks away and started walking without so much as a single word. He hadn’t said anything on the drive over either. Not that I cared. My headache was pounding spikes into my brain. Sure, he’d used magic to make things grow so I could kill and consume so my hunger for death wasn’t back yet. But it wouldn’t be gone long.
I got out of the car and lit a cigarette, smoking as I made my way to the front entrance. Terric stormed inside the building before I’d even made it halfway down the street. I took a look around to see if Assassin Chick was up on the roofs or down the dark alleys.
Nope.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little disappointed.
Ah well. It was, if not fun, at least distracting while it lasted.
Of course a meeting roomful of magic users might be its own little good time.
I threw my cigarette to the ground, then walked into the building. The main meeting room was up a couple flights, and I so wasn’t walking those. I took the elevator at the end of the hall, stepped in, pushed the button, and stuffed my hands in my coat pockets while I waited.
The only other person in the elevator with me was Eleanor. She stood near the buttons and bent a little, her hair flowing down around her face in that sort of underwater slo-mo she had going for her.
She pushed a button, but it didn’t respond to her, so she quickly pushed all the other buttons.
“Worst. Poltergeist. Ever,” I muttered.
She made a face at me.
The door opened and that kind of silence that makes you want to chew gum filled the hall. Mute spell, I’d guess. Couldn’t have a secret meeting of secret magic users and make a ruckus.
As soon as I reached the meeting room at the end of the hall, the Mute spell swallowed me up and let in the roll of voices. Sounded like we had a crowd today. Of course, last I knew it had been a while since the Overseer of the Authority had been here in our little, but dangerously quirky, town.
I paused in the doorway and tipped my sunglasses down.
Crowd was right. Fifty people at the least. Lots of familiar faces.
Bring on the good times.
