No Humans Involved

it, it's peripheral to a case I'm investigating. When a Cabal passes a sentence of execution they may perform ritual sacrifice as the method of execution. Purely a matter of economics.'

Paige nodded. 'If they're already killing someone, might as well use it.'

'But in all cases, the soul passes over,' Lucas said. 'It's even written into the Cabal legal code that if an executed victim is used for ritual sacrifice, an independent necromancer must be on hand to confirm that the soul has safely passed over.'

'That's the Cabal version of the Geneva convention. They can only torture you until you're dead.'

'Huh.' I sipped my coffee, thinking. 'What about Druidic sacrifice?'

'Rare these days,' Paige said. 'Even rarer than dark magic sacrifice. Remember Esus? He didn't even try to ask for a human sacrifice. We gave him his pint of blood and he was happy. But even if a Druid was performing human sacrifice, it doesn't explain damaged souls. It's the act that matters. A show of respect for the Druidic deity.'

I drank more coffee. Hoped the caffeine would help my brain work faster.

'What you have are damaged souls,' Lucas said. 'Somehow they've been fragmented or drained, and there's no magic we know of that works that way. That doesn't mean such a thing cannot exist- simply that it defies the basic principles of sacrifice. We'll look into it further after we get through tomorrow.'

'That's fine. In the meantime maybe you can steer in the right direction and I can run with it. Paige has the council records, right? I can search those, see whether I find anything similar.'

'You could, but they're, uh, on a disk, which is… somewhere in this mess. I decided they'd be more secure here than at home. I'll find it for you after tomorrow, though.'

'Oh. Well… is there someone I can speak to, then? A contact in dark magic?'

Lucas shook his head. 'One needs to be careful with this sort of thing. Expressing excessive interest in dark magic can be extremely dangerous. You should leave this to us.'

Even when I showed up on their doorstep, I couldn't get anywhere. Just give us the details, Jaime, and let us do the work. I argued for a while, but it was clear they weren't giving me anything that could get me into any trouble.

SAVANNAH CALLED me a cab, then stepped outside to wait with me. 'So, you need to talk to someone about dark magic.'

'Eavesdropping?'

'Beats working. I might be able to help.'

'Oh? What would you-' I stopped. 'Your mom, of course.'

'Nah, Mom didn't teach me that sort of stuff. Nothing darker than a chaos spell-and even then, only to protect myself. She kept that part of her life separate.'

'I should have guessed that.'

'Doesn't mean she was ashamed of it. It's just not the kind of stuff she'd talk about around her kid. But I know someone who will talk about it.' She took out a BlackBerry. 'A dark witch my mom knew. She tracked me down last year, saying she wanted to talk, share some stories about Mom.'

'That was nice of her.'

Savannah gave me a look. 'You think I bought that shit? She just wanted to make contact with Eve Levine's daughter before her competition did. That's one thing my mom did teach me. Someone like that always wants something.'

'So you didn't meet with her.'

She smiled. 'Never said that. The corollary lesson from Mom? People like this might want something from me, but I can use that- turn it around and get something from them.' She glanced over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. 'We've been in e-mail contact, and met a couple of times. She's useful. Paige and Lucas can't get information from someone like this. But me? I just pull some 'confused teenager' bullshit and she's putty in my hands. She'd tell me anything in hopes of winning Eve Levine's daughter as an ally. An idiot, but a useful idiot.'

The look in her eyes chilled me.

'So, yeah, I've used her,' Savannah continued. 'Just to get stuff for Paige and Lucas. Without them knowing, of course. If they found out I was even talking to someone like this, they'd shit bricks… then use them to wall me up in my room for life.'

'In that case, I'd better not wave your name around to get access to this woman.'

Savannah hesitated. 'You're right. But you can use Mom's. Tell Molly you'll grant her an exclusive audience with Eve Levine and she'll give you anything you want.'

I shook my head. 'Not without asking your mom first, and she's out of contact right now.'

'Huh.' Savannah fingered her BlackBerry, toying with it as she thought. Then she smiled. 'Molly's boyfriend died last winter. Half-demon. They'd lived together for years and when I saw her this sum-mer, she was still really broken up. Let's say you offer to put her in touch with him…'

I hesitated.

'You can offer to try. She'll still have some of his belongings and can even take you to his grave, so that gives you, what, about a ninety percent chance of success?'

'Eighty… maybe.'

'Good enough. Don't promise, but say if you can't, you'll arrange a backup session with some other dearly departed.' She flipped her BlackBerry around, tapping on an address. 'She's just across the border in Vancouver.'

VANCOUVER, WASHINGTON, was a cab ride from Portland. I checked my watch. Jeremy would be here in about two hours. As much as I wanted to meet him at the airport, I wanted to impress him even more, which I could do if I'd found and scoped out Molly Crane's house before he arrived to help interview her.

I called Elena and asked whether Jeremy had her cell phone with him-the only one in the family.

'I tried giving it to him, but he wouldn't take it. You know how he is. God forbid I should drive home without an emergency line. I told him to buy a prepaid phone. He had no idea what I was talking about, but of course he wouldn't admit it. You'll have to help him. Might have to show him how to use it too.'

I laughed, remembering the first time I'd met Jeremy. When Paige introduced us, I'd been hoping, really hoping, for that 'Oh, my God, the Jaime Vegas?' reaction… and had gotten only a polite hello, prompting Savannah to inform him that I was on TV sometimes-which hadn't changed his expression one whit. Elena had teased Jeremy about his lack of technological savvy, kidding that he didn't know what a TV was. And, perhaps for the first time in my life, I'd realized I was glad. I could make my own impression.

When I told Elena that I'd hoped to get a message to him about meeting elsewhere, she said, 'If you don't mind me relaying that message, I can give it to him. He'll find a pay phone as soon as he arrives, to check on the kids.'

Of course he would. Perfect. I found a coffee shop near Molly's address as a meeting place, then called Elena back.

NOW, TO prepare for the interview. As hard as the other council members worked to keep the celebrity necro away from anything that might break her manicured nails-or leave her death on their conscience-I'd been taking notes, and I understood enough about interviewing a hostile witness to know one does not blindly walk up to a potential dark-magic contact and say, 'Hi, my name's Jaime and I'd like to ask you a few questions about ritual sacrifice.' Before it even reached the point of introductions, I should determine the best method of approach, map out escape routes. Be prepared.

Molly Crane lived at 52 Hawthorne Lane. Coming into the area by cab, I'd had a feeling this was going to be the second time today I was surprised by where I ended up.

I was savvy enough know that even if Molly was a dark witch, I was unlikely to find myself in a dingy alley outside an unmarked black-market spell shop. Such a shop might exist, but only in the back rooms of an otherwise normal business. Yet, except for the plaza where I'd found the coffee house, the neighborhood was residential, with row after row of matching houses, all with minivans and basketball hoops, the lawns pristine, kids' toys on the drives. I had the driver drop me off at the coffee shop, then I walked down three streets: Hemlock, Cedar and