The phone on the desk rang.
Everyone seemed startled except for Able. He answered it. “Yes, Charles?” He listened. “I will.” He pressed the button on the handset and turned the phone to us.
“Can you hear me?”
It was Charles Hammer, talking over the speakerphone.
“Yes,” I said. Annalise looked impatient, but I wanted to hear him out.
“Let me explain myself,” the voice said, “and I hope we can avoid any unpleasantness. I really, really would like to avoid violence, if that’s possible. More than anything.”
I watched the guards. Hammer could have been delaying us until the state police arrived, or even more guards, but I doubted it. He had ten armed men in the room with us, and two more, if Able was to be believed, by the exit. “I’m listening.”
“Able,” the voice said. “Do you trust me? Some of what we’re going to say will sound bad, and these people may make accusations against me that I don’t deserve. I want you to understand-“
“There’s no need for that, Charles,” Able said. “I trust you.”
“Great.” Charles took a deep breath as though he was about to cliff dive for the first time. “First I want to explain-“
“Want want want,” I snapped. “Don’t tell me what you want. What about the kids you killed?”
“I never killed any kids! The missing children are still alive, and I can get them back. I’ve been searching for a way to get them back.”
“Looking through your book, huh? The one Eli Warren sold to your great-grandfather?”
“How did you-It doesn’t matter. Yes, I’m looking for a way to get them back. It’s the number-one priority for me. The children are the next generation of Hammer Bay.”
I laughed at him. “You’re not running for office, are you?”
“Sneer if you want,” the voice said, “but everything I’ve done is to help the people of this town. I’ve worked hard to bring jobs and dignity back to Hammer Bay.”
“And you had help,” Annalise said.
“Yes.” There was a pause. “I did have help. A consultant, of a sort. A fortune-teller.”
“The same one your father had, and your grandfather.”
“My great-grandfather, too. ‘Use it sparingly,’ my father told me, but there were so many things I didn’t know. And the people…”
He kept talking. He sounded very much like the weary activist, so burdened with the tasks ahead of him and so impressed with his own motives and ideals.
But something had struck me.
What if he was not just looking into the future? What if the magic he was using was actually controlling the future?
It made sense if he was using magic that let him step outside of time in some way. Annalise’s burned hands kept coming back, no matter what she did to treat them. The Dubois brothers could heal anything, even brutal, mangling death. Maybe they were simply backing up in time, to a point before they were injured. Maybe that’s why the new sigil on Sugar Dubois couldn’t heal his injuries the way his brothers had been healed. It could not restore him to a time before it was in place.
As for the Hammer family, I had assumed that the seizures they suffered during hard times, and the smart moves they had made to turn things around, had come from visions of the future. But what if they were more than visions? What if he was
How else to explain a successful line of toys about Marie Antoinette, for God’s sake?
I tried to picture the power of a spell that could control whole populations of people. I couldn’t. How could he be so strong that he forced people to love his products? How could he force people to forget the people they loved most?
Then it dawned on me. He wasn’t doing it. His “consultant” was.
Goose bumps ran down my back. Annalise was right. This was completely out of my league.
I looked at Annalise. She was scowling at me. “Have you been paying attention to this crap?” Charlie Three was talking about siting a plastics factory.
“His great-grandfather summoned a predator out of the Empty Spaces, right?” I said. “And this dick has been communing with it somehow, using it to draw in customers for his fucking
“That’s what I figure, too,” she said. “And I’ll bet it was this predator that controlled those women in his office”-she held up her hands-“burning them all to protect him.
I turned to Able Katz. “Do you remember what happened after our meeting at your office?”
“What meeting?” he said, sounding irritated. “I’ve never seen either of you before in my life.” Charles was droning on, but I was focused on Able. It was true. Just as I’d suspected, he couldn’t remember meeting us any more than Doug and Meg Benton could remember their dead kids. The predator was controlling people.
“Why hasn’t the predator run amuck? Why hasn’t it tried to kill everyone on the planet?”
“It’s probably bound somehow. Eli must have helped them summon and bind it.”
