I went back into the motel room and asked Annalise if she had a second scrap of wood with a magic-finder spell on it. She took it from her satchel and handed it to me without a word.
I held it up to the light by the window. It flared, all of the designs freezing in place and turning silver. Then it returned to its normal shade of black, with the designs slowly turning.
I touched the wood to the tattoos on the back of my hand. Annalise’s magic made it glow with silver light, but after it acclimated to my touch, it returned to its normal slow churning. No powerful magic was close to us right now.
I picked up my ghost knife, rinsed it clean in the bathroom sink, and slipped it into my pocket.
I left Annalise in my room. I didn’t have a way out the back, but I bet I could go through the manager’s office to a back door, then an alley, then I could try to come up behind the Escalade again. This time I’d get close enough to check it for magic. If Charles Hammer was watching us, I suspected he’d make the scrap of wood pop like a string of firecrackers again.
I walked slowly toward the office, wondering what I could offer Annalise to get her to release me from my promise. If I took out Charles Hammer by myself, or found a permanent cure for her hands, or pieced together the whole story of what was happening in Hammer Bay, maybe she would let me go home, or promote me to tin man or something.
That pointless line of thought was interrupted by a white cargo van that rumbled into the parking lot. It was a Dodge, and it looked remarkably like Annalise’s, except that it was newer and had a pair of battered ladders lashed to the top. The back door opened.
Floyd’s fireplug friend crouched there. He pointed a snub-nosed.38 revolver at me. “Hey, there, jackrabbit,” he said. “This one is loaded.”
Two more guys crouched in the back of the van. My mind registered that they were there, but I couldn’t look away from that damn gun.
“Your gun is drunk?” I said. My voice sounded much more calm than I felt.
“Get in. Someone wants to meet you.”
I climbed into the van. They slammed the doors and my brain kicked in. They were all wearing construction boots. I looked directly at the fireplug. “Georgie,” I said, “if Henstrick wanted to talk to me, she should have called. I would have liked a visit.”
“Know my name, do you?” Georgie said. He smiled. “But you don’t know everything.”
The van bounced out of the parking lot. I glanced at the two other guys. Both held mean-looking hunting knives. If I knew everything, I wouldn’t be in the back of this van.
“Get his wallet,” Georgie said.
One of the other two, a trim ex-Marine type with dark bags under his eyes, placed the edge of his knife against the side of my neck. The third man sat well back out of everyone’s way. The ex-Marine yanked my wallet out of my pocket.
“Raymond Milman Lilly,” he read. “And here’s Floyd’s thirty bucks.” He took the money out of my wallet and stuffed it into his breast pocket.
“Floyd is my bud,” Georgie said. “I didn’t like the way you left him.”
“Really? Then why did you turn and walk away when I was beating his ass?”
Georgie didn’t take my bait. “Conditions were unfavorable at the time. I like them better now.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
The ex-Marine pulled the wood scrap out from my jacket pocket. We all looked at it. The design turned as slowly as ever. There was nothing magical about these fellows.
They stared, entranced. I tensed to spring at Georgie, but he sensed it, raised the gun, and leveled it at my face. “Be still,” he said quietly.
“Whoa,” the third man said, still entranced by the wood scrap. “That’s cool.”
The ex-Marine rubbed his finger along the design and yanked it back. “Tingles,” he said. “How does it do that?”
“Trade secret,” I told him. “We’re trying to convince Hammer Bay Toys to manufacture and market them under their banner.”
The ex-Marine shrugged and set it down next to me, apparently forgetting that I was being held at gunpoint. He pressed the blade more tightly against my neck as he jammed his hand into my jacket pockets.
“How we doing back there?” the driver called.
“We’re fine,” Georgie answered. “How far are we?”
“Halfway,” the driver said. He turned sharply to the right. The ex-Marine lost his balance and his blade bit into my neck.
“Watch what you’re doing,” I snapped at him. He pulled the knife away slightly. I felt a thin trickle of blood on my collar, but I knew it wasn’t serious.
“Sorry,” the ex-Marine said. He pulled out my ghost knife and held it up. Everyone looked at it. It was just a sheet of notepaper covered with mailing tape and laminated. I could sense the power there, but none of them appeared to.
“What’s this?” Georgie asked.
I held up my hand. “It’s just a piece of paper,” I said. “Toss it here.”
I
