Douglas jumped out of the car to inspect the damage. He looked at the crumpled metal, then at Annalise, then all around.
“What…” he started. He couldn’t finish the question. He ran his hand over the ruined fender, reassuring himself that it was really bent metal. He looked at Annalise again. “What hit my car?”
“I’m not done with you,” Annalise said. She stepped toward him.
The wife leaned toward his window. “Douglas, get back in the car,” she said. She leaned into the backseat to check the baby. Still sleeping.
Douglas let the keys in his hand jangle and backed toward the driver’s door. My own hands were shaking. I felt hysteria building in me. That little boy had called him Daddy, and now he was going to drive away as though he’d just stopped for a piss? They’d shrugged that kid off as if he was roadkill. I had never even met the kid before two minutes ago, and what I’d seen made me want to weep and puke my guts out at the same time.
I didn’t do either. Instead, I got angry.
“You’re just going to drive away?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Douglas…”
“What about your kid?” I stalked after them, determined to see some sign of grief from them. I needed my anger. Without it, I thought I might shake myself apart. “He called you Mommy and Daddy! Don’t you care what happened to him?”
Douglas would have to turn his back on me to climb into his car. He wasn’t going to risk that. “Sir,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He called you Daddy! And he just… your own son!”
My anger was growing too large for me, but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to see a reaction from them. These people were going to show some grief if I had to wring it out of them with my bare hands.
The man rounded on me. “My son didn’t call me anything! He’s only three months old!” he shouted.
“Ray,” Annalise said.
I ignored her. I just stared at Douglas, stunned and horrified. “You don’t care at all, do you?” There was no more anger in my voice, no accusation, only amazement. I was building toward something terrible, and I had no idea how to stop myself.
If I had Annalise’s strength, I would have stripped the flesh from his bones. If I had her arsenal of spells, I would have burned him alive.
“Ray.”
I turned toward Annalise. Her thin, girlish voice sounded pinched. Even she had been rattled by the boy’s death. “Settle down,” she said. “They can’t remember. Something took their memory away.”
It took a couple of seconds for that to sink in. The wave. The wave I’d felt after the boy fell apart must have hit them, too. It must have erased their memories.
Why hadn’t it erased mine?
Douglas was leaning back, one arm reaching toward his wife. There was a smack of metal slapping into a soft hand, and he came at me.
I was distracted and off-balance; if he’d been faster, he would have killed me. But he wasn’t fast-he was an overweight office drone. A victim. I instinctively raised my arm to protect my head, and he slammed a tire iron onto my tattooed forearm.
I felt no pain and barely even any pressure. Annalise was not the only one with tattoos. Like hers, mine were magic. Hers covered her entire body, but mine covered just a couple of spots, including the outside of my forearms and hands.
Douglas thought he’d scored a winning blow. He smirked and waited for me to cringe and clutch my arm. Instead, I snatched the tire iron away from him and racked him up against the car.
Annalise stepped up to him. “Wallet,” she said.
He barely glanced at her. Annalise was a far greater danger to him than I was, but all of his attention was on the big, tattooed man, not the tiny woman. She had to repeat herself.
His wife called out. “Douglas! For God’s sake, give her your wallet!”
He produced the wallet and Annalise took it. “‘Douglas Benton,’” she read. “‘144 Acorn Road, Hammer Bay, Washington.’”
“We don’t live there anymore.” Douglas sounded a little frantic. “We’re leaving town.”
I shook him. “Why?”
His mouth opened and closed several times. He couldn’t think of an answer.
“He’s forgotten that, too,” Annalise said. She pulled a card from his wallet. It was white with a magnetic strip across the back. “Hammer Bay Toys,” she read. “This where you work?”
“Yes,” Douglas said.
“But you’re not going back.”
“No. Not planning to.”
“You didn’t return your security card?”
“I-I forgot.” Sweat beaded on his lip. He glanced at each of us, trying to think of a phrase that would placate us and let him drive away. He thought we were crazy, and the way I felt at that moment, he wasn’t far wrong.
