You could see where they’d attract him, given his background.But they most certainly did not believe in dealing with witches.
She nodded. “Yeah, him. I guess he didn’t think he’d stain hissoul if he set a demon against the devil. Sow dissension among the legions ofHell, you’re doing God’s work — that sort of logic. Anyway, I probably was theonly witch any of them knew. Not like we sit next to them in the pews on Sundayor anything. And they don’t mind burning a few heretics along the way. Kill ’emall, God will know His own.”
“What were they planning to do with it.”
She looked at me like I was dumb, dumb, dumb. “Start acrusade, of course. Drive Satan and all His works out of this great land. Thoseworks being Catholics, Jews, witches, homosexuals, you know the list.”
“Your brother, or the people behind him?”
That drew a sad, tired smile. “Yeah, he had to be a pawn. He’dnever have the contacts to find out the things he told me. I wouldn’t have beenafraid of my brother. Never was. But the people pulling his strings have realpower and real money.”
Crusade.
So much blood behind that one word.
No, this wasn’t just a threat to wizards and witches. Evenbeing a Christian didn’t matter when God led the battalions. You had to be theright kind of Christian. I could see where a few dead men could start tolook like a better choice. Dead guilty men. Hand this thing of holycharisma to the anointed leader . . .
I shivered. I took a deep breath. Let it leak out. This couldsend her the wrong way, but it was part of my so-called plan to weaken herwill, maybe pull a win out of this. “You killed an innocent woman and child.” Ididn’t mention Cash at that point. I may be dumb, but I try to avoid actingflat-out stupid.
Her face turned bitter, and I could see the gleam of tears inher eyes. “If that black bitch had parked the way you taught her . . .”
“She did. Then the woman parked next to her on purpose,thought she was safer there. Some people trust cops to protect them.”
Tears leaked down her cheeks. Cynical as hell, I know, I’m notproud of it, but I needed to aim Sandy down a particular path and set hermood-index on “depression” if my half-plan would have any chance of working. “Youkilled a baby.”
She nodded. Not like that political cliché, I really could feel her pain. It made me feellike a louse.
Next step, throw in a sharp turn now that I had heroff-balance. “How did you fake the signatures?”
She told me. After all, we were partners again, just like oldtimes, bending the law here and there if we felt that the ends justified themeans. I might need to know the trick, too.
Like the history of a lot of magic, she’d discovered it byaccident, sort of like one of those chem-lab oopsies where you spilled a brewon your sneakers and discovered after a week or so that it made themstain-resistant. The trick involves doing three different things at once, andthey’re things you’d never normally fit together. Plus it requires a combinedset of skills that few wizards study. Anyway, she’d started one “working” andsomething interrupted her, mundane, and then something else . . .
Or maybe I’m lying again, covering my ass.
I had to try something, even though I knew it wouldn’t work. “Willyou testify that Maggie is innocent? You know she didn’t steal that gold. Youdid.”
Her face turned hard. “Maggie Driscoll is a thief. She stoleyou from me. She deserves to rot in prison.”
Insane jealousy, literal this time, it helped to remind methat I sat across from a psychotic. But like I said, I had to try. Yeah,getting Maggie out would have meant that Iwent down. I couldn’t have hidden my illegal magic with the hawk. I was willingto pay that price to clear Maggie’s name. I was even willing to risk exposingforged signatures to the world, with all the collateral damage that implied.Some ways, I can be just as ruthless as Sandy ever was. I’d do damn nearanything if Maggie could breathe free air again.
But I needed a clear confession from Sandy to do that,complete with details and where she stashed the loot. No matter how I poked atthe thing, that was the only way that worked. Anything less, and all three ofus lived out our lives behind bars.
Time to change the subject again. I focused on the relic. “Youdidn’t give it to your brother’s group after you got it.”
She gave me a pained look. “You think I’m crazy?”
Well, yeah. Not that I was in a position to cast stones.
“Almost a month now, I’d think they’d be getting pushy.”
Sandy shrugged. “Sometimes ignorance can be useful. Thoseguys, and they’re all guys,patriarchs straight down the line, everything they need to know is in theBible. Doesn’t tell you a damned thing about magic. Just that it’s forbiddenfruit, thou shalt not eat of it.
“So I gave them a line of BS about how the thing is dangerous,how Christ’s touch gave it a form of life and senses, miracles again. How itfelt the man who carried it die, knows murder was done, needs cleansing ritualsand time to forgive the blood, the whole nine yards. Plus, the FBI is watchingme, and we should wait until they get bored. And the Holy Book says patience isa virtue. Sell no wine before its time.”
We sat and pondered our coffee for a few minutes, silent. Idon’t know what ran through her head, but I had my own problems — endsjustifying means, the tangled web we weave, you name it. Plus the baggage ofthis woman I’d known for maybe thirty years, slept with, a murderer with sevencorpses in her wake.
I couldn’t
