“It’s holy.”
“Sandy, you killed a mother and her child. Why did theydeserve to die? She just parked in the wrong space. A mother and child, Sandy.You could have killed me. You nearly killed Nef Cash.”
I never should have mentioned Cash.
She snarled, something with “nigger” in it. She dropped therelic and went for her gun. That second’s delay saved my ass. I didn’t try todraw my SIG. I twitched the nerves on her forearm, spoiling her grip, thefastest move I knew. The pistol clattered on the table and down to the floor,heavy and hard and loud enough I almost heard a gunshot in it.
She had a backup. We always carried backup. Reflex, trained,she went for her second gun rather than trying for the one on the floor. Icouldn’t pull that nerve trick twice, not with her expecting it. It’s a basicfact of magic, just like with martial arts — any attack, there’s a counter forit.
I slipped into her head.
I’m not saying I could read her mind. Wizards can’t do that. Icouldn’t control her body, either, except for causing twitches when I caughther off guard. What I did, there’s this trick with synchronizing pulse and blood-pressureand causing a stroke. And it’s dangerous, that synchronizing part. Raising herblood pressure raised mine. If she caught me at it, fought back with the samemove, was stronger than me magically or just healthier, I’d die or live acripple.
Slow-time, like freeze-frame pictures in my head, I saw herhand dip behind her back for the waist holster and come back holding hersnub-nosed Colt. I took a big chance, jumped the pressure, and she twitched andthe Colt stopped, pointed at the floor. Her eyes squeezed against the pain inher head, pain I felt myself, not empathy this time but real pounding spikes ofstretched arteries and veins inside my own skull.
“You killed a baby.” I gasped it out, the worst thing she’ddone in her own eyes.
I felt something relax, something swell, something break witha pop strong in my ears, and white light lashed my eyes and then turned black.I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
My head hurt. I felt the pulse stabbing in it, my pulse, notSandy’s. I tried to draw a breath. Bit by bit, muscle by muscle, I found my ownbody and made it work. My eyelids felt like lead. I made the right one work —the left refused. I focused, one-eyed, on Sandy draped across her own chair, onher empty gun-hand dangling toward the Colt lying on the floor. Her left eyestared back at me, dilated. Her right eyelid hung slack, closed, the right sideof her mouth drooping like my left, as if I was looking in a mirror. No, I don’tknow how that happened.
She was breathing.
I’m not proud of the next fifteen minutes or so. What I’d doneup to then — that was self-defense. The next parts weren’t. I regained my wholebody, such as it was, and everything seemed to work. The things I’d felt, thedamage, they seemed to all be feedback from what I did to Sandy. I’ve never hada CAT-scan or MRI or whatever else the medical mavens would use, to check forbrain damage. I don’t want to know.
But I hoisted myself back onto my crutches, learning how tomove again as if I was doing physical therapy after suffering a stroke. I pokedaround her apartment, searching, gathering things. I found a cheap cell phone,a throw-away I didn’t know she had. The sort of thing a woman on the run wouldpick up at the local WalMart.
I didn’t use it. I didn’t use mine, either.
She kept breathing. She made noises now and then. She twitchedand moved her weight enough to fall out of her chair and sprawl across thefloor. I didn’t call 911.
I could feel the blood flowing out of that ruptured vessel inher brain, flooding, swelling, pressing on things. Her breathing changed,became irregular. I picked up that damned phone twice and put it down again,remembering what she’d done, the things she’d known, the kind of person she’dbecome. And also feeling a twinge of mercy — I knew Sandy. She’d rather diethan live on trapped inside a body and mind that didn’t work. I had her LivingWill to prove it, witnessed and all, damned fool had listed me as primarydecision-maker and made sure I knew what decision to make.
I’d left my signature all over her, the magic working. I didn’tthink that would be a problem. I was just trying to help her, using magicalfirst-aid when she collapsed. Like I mentioned before, there are plenty of legal uses for magic in this world. It’sjust that my job buries me in illegal ones all the time. Since this is a copstory, that’s really all I’m showing.
I found a gym bag in her closet and stashed the relic in it,her bird books and those ritzy binoculars and scope, her guns and a couple of otheritems I didn’t want running loose on the street including some prescriptionmedicines I never knew she took. I left the rest for the jackals, even herhide-out cash and jewelry — I’m sure they stripped the place to bare wallswithin a day or two. I carried the bag into the kitchen and found both her eyesshowing that slack half-lidded emptiness. She’d gone into Cheyne-Stokesbreathing by that point.
Then I picked up her phone a third time and called 911. Istared down at her and thought about what I’d done, what she’d done, and why.
That mesh-magic, blending my head with hers, that’s not aweapon. It’s too chancy. More often, wizards use it as a test of strength, aduel. Two may walk this path through darkness, but only one may return.
I’d beaten her by weakening her will to live. Using herremorse as a weapon, that woman and child she’d killed by accident.
I’d killed her by using her decency against her.
XXIV
As it turned out, I hadn’t needed to
