things.
Unlike the disks, these amulets could be used for only one thing-sensing the heartbeat of another person who wore the amulet. They were all carefully carved from a stone that had been found hundreds of years ago in China, I think. It was the stone itself that had been shaped by magic, infused in such a way to make it sensitive to itself and to the living things in contact with it.
Dad’s disks were pure technology that could hold magic, raw, uncast magic, for any amount of time, be used, and then, with the right spell, be reloaded again.
The disks Dad invented would make magic portable. They would allow magic to be called upon out at sea, or in unnetworked lands, and act as a battery for people like doctors and rescue crews who needed to access magic quickly, sometimes in out-of-the-way places, to save people’s lives.
Plus, there was absolutely no price to pay once the magic was in the disks.
That meant I could pay the price of casting the spell to charge the disk-probably something little, like a runny nose, or itchy scalp. But Zay could then use that magic to burn down a house-something that would usually carry a high magical cost.
It was an amazing advance for magic and technology.
And scary as hell.
Zay held out a leather cuff for each of us, and then gave us each an amulet. I snapped the amulet into the circle carved in the leather cuff and it fit into place with a heavy thunk I felt at the back of my teeth. The faintest scent of moss filled my nose. I strapped the cuff to the inside of my right wrist, snug against my pulse.
Everyone else did the same, but I felt only two other heartbeats. Terric and I both looked at each other. We’d never hunted together before, so I, at least, needed to touch him once to attune the cuff so I could feel his heartbeat too.
I stepped over to him. “Mind?” I held my palm out toward his chest.
“Help yourself,” he said.
Charmer. I pressed my palm against his chest and concentrated on the rhythm of his heart. Strong, a little fast. I also caught the faintest hint of his emotions. Anger. Sorrow. I looked into his eyes, and he gave me the convincing, friendly smile. But behind that were a lot of emotions. Emotions I knew were for Shame.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded. At the edge of my peripheral vision, Shame stood smoking, his back toward us. If I focused on him, I would feel his emotions too.
One look at his body language told me how he felt.
Terric placed his fingertips lightly in a small circle just below my collarbone, and above my heart. One of the bullet scars I carried was right there, and even though he couldn’t feel it through my thick coat, it still made me a little uncomfortable to have him touch me there.
He smiled, a real smile this time, something that looked a little like an apology, and drew his fingertips away. He’d probably gotten a sense of my discomfort.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Just twitchy about my scars.”
“I know the feeling,” he murmured.
Right, that was more of the issue stuff we weren’t going to get into right now. “Shame,” I said, “give me your keys.”
“What? No.” He turned. “Wait-let me rephrase that. Hell no. I’m driving.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Terric said. “You were unconscious less than ten minutes ago.”
“And you were a dick. One of us got better.”
Terric the nice killer smiled. “A man with a concussion should not drive.”
“And you think a woman who’s having fainting spells should?”
“Wow. Could you two give it a rest?” I asked. “I’m driving.”
Shame looked over at Zayvion like calling the ref in for a replay. “Are you seriously going to let her drive?” Shame asked.
“No.”
Shame flipped his hands out in a told-you-so gesture. “Terric’s going to drive,” Zay said. “Give him your keys.”
At Shame’s look, Zay added, “We don’t have time. Just get in the damn car-your car-and let Terric drive.”
If his words didn’t clue Shame in, Zay’s heartbeat, pounding strong, impatient, would.
Terric held his hand out to Shame.
You would have thought Shame was removing his own spine for the look on his face, but he finally dropped the keys in Terric’s hand.
The keys hit his palm, and Terric glanced down. I caught a glimpse of a man’s ring, gold and silver and glyphed, on Shame’s key chain. Terric’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He looked up at Shame.
Okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was more between them. Shame said he wasn’t gay, but that ring could mean something else. A brotherhood-of-magic or class-ring sort of thing.
Shame just gave him a steady stare. The kind of look that started bar fights.
“Okay,” Terric said softly, as if he was trying to regain his breath. He closed his hand over the keys. “Where are we going?”
They all looked at me.
“Seriously? How were you people going to track him down if I wasn’t here?”
“Through a process of elimination,” Zay said.
“Why doesn’t anyone in the Authority Hound?” I asked.
“Huh,” Terric said. “She’s right. Why is that?”
Shame just exhaled smoke.
Zay shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s probably a part of the history.”
“No,” Terric said. “There used to be Hounds. A couple of them. Remember? Theo and Kaida? Back when Mikhail was the head of the Authority. What happened to them?”
“I wasn’t involved,” Zay said, “Wasn’t old enough, or around then. Neither were you. Do you think you can Hound Greyson, Allie? If not him, Chase?”
“Chase ran down that road. I know that. But if she got in a car, and wasn’t casting magic, I won’t be able to find her.”
“Do you swamp-walk?” Terric asked.
Color me impressed. I didn’t think anyone in the Authority kept up on those kinds of things. Swamp-walking was pretty woo-woo, even for people who threw magic around on a daily basis.
“I can. Do any of you have something that belonged to her? Or that she’s recently touched?”
“How about a car?” Shame suggested.
Yes, I was full of smart tonight. “Yeah, I think that would work.”
I crossed the parking lot to Shame’s car and felt the gossamer caress of Zay’s Illusion sliding away from me. The night felt colder outside that spell, outside his touch.
I opened Shame’s car door again, but instead of casting spells for my senses, I simply knelt down and placed my fingers on the seat of the car. I could still smell too many scents, and still smell Shame’s blood and sweet cherries over them all. I wondered if they’d gotten into a magic fight before she knocked him out.
I pulled on the magic inside me and drew a glyph for finding, then concentrated on it, letting the magic pour through my fingertips and wash over the seat of the car. It picked up on the high emotions Chase had left behind, picked up on her energy-not on a particular spell like Hounding.
That was another problem with swamp-walking. The emotions any person left behind on any object were transitory at best. If the person was in a high-enough state of emotion, a good swamp walker could sense at least something of which way that person had gone before the emotions faded away.
Chase had very high emotions. The magic Ouija’ed my fingers east, and I got the faintest impression of green. Lots and lots of green. Like Forest Park.
“East,” I said. “Maybe Forest Park. Would she go there?”
Zay, who had been pacing behind me, started off toward his car. “We’ll find out.”
