“I think the spell was a form of Conversion.”
“Huh,” he said, thinking that over. I didn’t blame him. Conversion was a spell most often used in medical procedures. It was a central part of the Siphon glyphs, which were vital to draining away magic-induced pain and wounds. But out here, in a gazebo, the idea of using Conversion didn’t make a lot of sense.
“Could you tell what the spell was cast for? Or who it was for?”
I shook my head. “But over there in the bushes might be another good place to look for clues. I think I smelled a Hound, Tomi Nowlan, in the area. Did you have her look at this site before me?”
“No.”
Well, crap. Sorry, Tomi. But Stotts was a police officer. The law. And if some kind of mutated man was still out on the street, eating larger and larger animals, I figured it was good to let the law know about it before anyone, including Tomi, got hurt, if she was indeed mixed up in this.
He walked off, and returned in a short time. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look nearly half as sick as I felt.
“What do you know about that?” he asked.
“There was another animal, smaller, a dog, torn apart like that in an alley near my house.”
“It was reported last night. Were you the one who reported it?”
“No. But I saw it. I was going out on a date. And the car was parked close to the alley. I thought I heard something, so I went back there. Zayvion was with me. He reported it.”
I didn’t know how much of this kind of magic he knew about, or how much of this the Authority wanted to keep under wraps. Since I didn’t know what I could or could not say, I stuck with the truth. It was easier that way.
“I think there was magic involved. It smelled exactly like that mess over there.”
“Do you know if the disks are involved in that?” he asked. “Was there a ring of ash left behind?”
I thought about it. “Not that I could see. It was dark. And foggy.”
He strolled to the edge of the gazebo railing next to me and my bench and leaned his forearms against the wooden edge, staring out at the rain.
“Looks to me like some sort of Drain or Siphon was worked on it. Sucking all the life out before mangling the body.” His eyes narrowed at the corners. “Maybe someone screwing around with blood magic who thinks they’re a goddamn vampire.”
“So you’ve seen this sort of thing before?”
He nodded. “Do you think this might have anything to do with Mr. Silvers out there?”
It surprised me he knew Davy, but of course he did. Davy was one of Pike’s Hounds. Or had been one of Pike’s Hounds. And Pike kept Stotts informed on who was working in the city.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know why he’s here?” Stotts asked.
“He has some sort of idea that I need someone to follow me around and look after me.”
Stotts chuckled. “Why do you suppose that is?”
“Ha-ha.” I tucked my chin down into my coat collar. The temperature had dropped with the rain, and holding still was making me cold. I wished I’d brought some coffee.
“So do you like having a bodyguard?” Stotts asked like it didn’t matter what I answered, which meant, of course, it did.
“No.”
He glanced over at me. “Huh.”
“Why would I want someone to watch every move I make? I got a lifetime of that being the infamous Daniel Beckstrom’s daughter.”
“Not your thing?”
“Not even close to my thing.”
“Do you need me to tell Silvers to back off?”
I opened my mouth, shut it fast. I had not expected that. Stotts pulling the cop card on my behalf. For some reason it always felt like Stotts and I weren’t quite on the same side. But with just that one statement I realized he’d be willing to step in and help me, just because it was the right thing, the lawful thing, to do.
“No,” I finally said. “I’ll talk to him. He’s a good kid doing what he thinks is right.”
“Stalking?”
“It’s not like that. Pike decided too many Hounds were being hurt Hounding without a safety net. He set up a buddy system. One person Hounds, and another Hound volunteers to stay back and keeps an eye on things. Calls the police if something goes wrong, but otherwise doesn’t get involved.”
“When did you tell him you were taking this job?”
“I didn’t. He has a lot of free time on his hands and is too curious for his own good.”
Stotts turned and leaned his back against the railing, his arms crossed over his chest. If Davy could hear us, and he might be able to-Hounds were known for having acute hearing-with Stotts’ back turned, it would make it harder to hear, and impossible to read lips.
“I don’t like outside eyes on my cases.”
“I’ll talk to him about it,” I said again. I stood and started pacing, trying to warm up. When was Violet going to get here?
“Good.” Stotts watched me pace from one side of the gazebo to the other. Neither of us looked over at the circle of ashes, as if we wanted to avoid it as long as possible.
“I’d like to continue working with you,” he said. “Just you. I’d like this to be a more permanent partnership.”
I stopped halfway to the railing, and looked back at him. “What?”
“I’d like to formalize this. You working with me. For me. Make it something more along the lines of what I had with Martin Pike.”
“Are you offering me a job?”
“Yes. A trial period, anyway. On call. Contracted to Hound exclusively for the MERC. Monthly stipend. Proxy service. Interested?”
“Let me think about it,” I said. “Is there anyone else in the running for the job?”
“Not until I hear from you, there isn’t.”
I searched his face for a hint of why he had picked me, out of all the Hounds in the city. I’d only worked for him once. Some of the other Hounds had worked for him more than once. Even Sid had, I think.
“Okay, I give up,” I finally said. “Why me?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stared off toward the circle of ash and shifted against the railing, so he was standing more than leaning, his arms still crossed over his chest.
“You aren’t like the other Hounds, Allie. You see and track spells on a level most Hounds don’t even try for. Plus, most Hounds who have more than three years of experience have already burned out on drugs and alcohol. They don’t, or maybe can’t, Hound as precisely as you can.”
“Pike was good,” I said. “Better than me.”
“No,” Stotts said quietly. “No.” He pushed off the railing and stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat. He stopped right in front of me, and then just as quietly asked, “What are those marks on your hands and arms?”
I blinked a couple times. I didn’t know what to tell him. Would he buy it if I said they were just tattoos I’d gotten on a wild drunken weekend?
“They have something to do with magic, don’t they?” he continued. “With channeling it? Using it? Sensing it?”
I could not remember if I’d ever talked to him about the marks. Would it matter if he knew that I carried magic inside me, that I had always carried a small magic in me and after Cody Miller had pulled magic through me, that small flame had ignited into a roaring, barely controlled wildfire of magic in my bones, in my blood, in my soul?
No one else could do that. No one I knew about anyway. Holding magic in your body was a short road to death.
“It is from magic,” I said. My heart was beating too fast. I felt like he’d just caught me, found out the secret I’d been trying to hide. Not that I could really hide metallic whorls of color that spread over my face and arm.
