, I said.
The presence of my father did not dim, but he did something to lower the intensity of his emotions. There was some sort of curtain between us, a curtain that dampened his feelings.
, he said stiffly. And here’s the weird part-I knew he meant it. Really meant it. The primary emotion that filtered through the curtain now was embarrassment. He didn’t like sharing his emotions with me-never had when he was alive, still didn’t now that he was dead.
I wasn’t overjoyed about it either.
“Allie?” Violet asked.
“Hounding,” I said, brushing right over my little melt-down by striding over to the circle of ash. “For Detective Stotts.” The sooner I got this job nailed down, the sooner I could get out to Maeve’s and get rid of my dad.
I just needed to keep my cool.
“This,” I said, “is what’s left of a Conversion spell. No trailing line, no signature, nothing but this circle.”
Violet knelt next to the circle. “Is this what you saw before on the farm?” she asked.
I assumed she was talking to me. “I don’t remember what I saw before, but I’m pretty sure this matches what Nola described to me. It is very familiar. I know I’ve seen something like it before.”
“Huh.” She pulled a small vial and something that looked like a tongue depressor out of her purse. She scooped up some of the material and tapped it into the vial. She dropped that in her purse, then walked around the circle and knelt again.
“There are no other lines in the center?” she asked.
I looked down. There clearly weren’t. But she wasn’t asking me.
“No,” Stotts said.
His gaze was unfocused, his feet spread as if he were holding up a weight. His right hand was held palm forward, in an old-fashioned “stop” motion. And though he held still, I knew, because I could smell it, that he had cast a variation of Sight.
Right. I forgot that even though he called people like me in to Hound cases, it didn’t mean he couldn’t use magic to see things himself. Hounds could just see it, taste it, smell it, and track it better than any other magic user.
“Nothing on any of the standard spectrums,” he said.
Correction. He used magic very well. My opinion of him went up a notch.
He put his hand down, releasing the spell, and shook his wrist out. “It looks like a circle of ash. I wouldn’t think it had anything to do with magic if I hadn’t seen it fall when Allie broke the Conversion spell.”
Kevin, who had walked across the gazebo to stand with his hands harmlessly in his pockets while he stared out at where Davy stood, suddenly stiffened. His puppy dog gaze slid over to me. That was it. No other reaction. But I knew he didn’t believe Stotts.
As well he shouldn’t. It wasn’t a Conversion spell I had broken. I sucked at anything along the lines of spells traditionally meant for medical use, and breaking a spell took just as much skill as casting a spell.
“Do you have any idea who is involved in this?” Violet asked.
Stotts shook his head. “Nothing here. No one. Just the spell, reported by some dog walkers whose dogs wouldn’t get anywhere near the gazebo, and who reported getting sick the closer they came to look at it.”
Even I could tell that didn’t sound like a Conversion spell. Violet pushed on her knees to stand, and Kevin was suddenly beside her, catching her hand and helping her up. “Thank you,” she said with a smile.
He made it look like business as usual, but my dad, behind my eyes, focused on the two of them and would not look away.
, I pushed at him.
But he did not stop it. With a force of will a dead man should not have, he stared at Violet’s smile, at the softening of Kevin’s expression, then followed Kevin’s hand to where it lingered just a second too long, too gently, too damn much in love, on Violet’s hand.
My father’s hatred burned chemical hot in my brain and everything went white for a second.
Violet, strangely enough, did not seem to notice Kevin’s barely concealed attentiveness. She was all business, a scientist with her thoughts on the problem at hand, not the people around her.
“I do think it is the full discharge of magic one of the disks could carry,” she said.
“Which leaves us with several more still out there.” Stotts said.
“Several?” I asked, leaning against my dad, like he was a door in a hard wind that refused to close. I wasn’t gaining much ground against him. I-or rather Dad-could not look away from Kevin, could not see anything but the man who had touched Violet. My Violet. My wife.
Holy shit. I pushed harder.
“We are unsure how many disks were stolen,” Violet said. “There was a fire in the lab that destroyed evidence from the breakin. But we think at least one was used to cast that spell at Nola’s.”
I frowned.
“The circle you don’t remember seeing. A circle like this was left behind at Nola’s farm. This”-she pointed at the ring on the floor-“is similar to what we saw in lab tests. I’ll double-check of course, but I’m comfortable saying this is the discharge of one of the disks. And as far as we know, no one but Daniel-” She visibly swallowed, then nodded to herself, accepting her own verbal slip. “No one but me knows how to recharge the disks.”
“So they’re worthless?” I asked. “Once they’re used, no one knows how to reuse them?”
“An unloaded gun is still a gun,” Stotts said.
“Someone could crack the code,” Violet agreed. “Get lucky and correctly interpret the combination of glyphs and tech. .” She took a couple steps along the edge of the circle. “Are you sure it was a Conversion spell?”
“Yes,” I lied.
Dad pushed harder, the pressure of his will like a dull-edged blade sinking into the back of my eyes. He wanted to say something-he wanted to make me say something more to her. I clamped my back teeth down and pressed my lips together.
“Interesting,” Violet said. I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not. “Is there anything else you need from me, Detective?”
“The test results, when you have them.”
“I’ll get that to you this afternoon.”
“Thank you,” he said.
Kevin walked forward to stand beside Violet, just slightly too close. No, he stood much, much too close. He reached out to take her hand again.
My father’s anger built to an unbearable pain. My vision flashed white again.
“I need to talk to you, Violet,” I blurted out. A flash of heat poured over my face and chest. I didn’t know if that was me or my dad talking.
Kevin frowned, his eyes suddenly narrow. Those weren’t puppy dog eyes. Those were the eyes of a bodyguard, a killer. And a well-trained member of the Authority who knew something was terribly wrong with me.
Smart man.
At his look, my father in me stilled. Not because he was afraid. No. All I felt from him was burning hatred and betrayal.
I concentrated and pushed on him mentally. Pushed him farther back in my mind.
, my father’s voice rang in my mind. Not loud, like he was yelling. Very softly, in almost a lullaby tone.
Which meant he wasn’t just mad; he was crazy, killing mad.
I rubbed my fingertips over my eyes and forehead, forcing my eyes to close so I couldn’t see Kevin, so my father couldn’t see Kevin or Violet.
“Allie?” Violet asked, concern in her voice.
“Sorry.” It came out a little shaky, but it was all me. “I’m a little tired.” I took a short breath and mentally
