“Get in,” Annalise said.
I unbuckled and slid out of the driver’s seat to let Catherine sit there. I gave her the keys. While she started the engine, I sat on the deck. The van was cold and my clothes were still wet.
“Ray, you’ve been to the cabin before?” Catherine asked. I gave her directions, and in a few moments we were on our way.
Annalise said: “Zahn isn’t the only dangerous one here. Issler is trouble, too.”
“Who’s Issler?” I asked.
“Zahn’s tattooed bodyguard. He’s good. Three years ago, he took a hand off a full peer.”
“A peer?” Catherine said. “Wow.”
No one spoke again for a while. I thought about how close I’d come to killing him on the steps outside the Wilbur house. Things might have been simpler if I had succeeded. Or maybe not. At least I was going to get another chance.
I looked out the back window and saw a boy standing in the open doorway of a house. He was looking up and down the street, and I was pretty sure I knew what he was searching for. I hoped someone would call Sherisse about him soon.
“Is there a plan, boss?”
“Yes,” Annalise said. “Catherine is going to drop us off at the entrance to the property, then drive into town to look for the predator.”
Catherine stared at her. “Is that really what you want me to do?”
Annalise grunted. “When I brought Ray in, I had hours to put spells on him and prepare him to face a full sorcerer. With you, I have five minutes. You’re not ready. You’re still as soft as Jell-O.”
Annalise looked back at me. “Here’s our part of the plan. We sneak up on the cabin and kill Zahn and his people.”
“I’m not sure I can remember all the steps,” I said. “You know what would be useful? An Apache helicopter.”
“Some peers use military equipment overseas. It draws too much attention in the U.S.”
We were at the turnoff. Catherine slowed to a stop, and Annalise and I piled out.
“My cell is off,” Annalise said. “If you find the predator, leave me a message. Use the one in the glove compartment.”
Catherine opened the glove compartment, took a slender cellphone out, and dropped it into her pocket. “Can I try to kill it?” she asked.
“Sure, after you’ve left the message. Try not to get killed unless you can make it count.”
I stepped back into the doorway and set the sawed-off shotgun on the passenger seat for her. Just in case. I closed the door and she drove off.
“What if Zahn already has the sapphire dog? What if both of them are up there?”
“What do you think?”
“Kill them both. I get it. But what if I have to choose?”
She stopped and stared at me. “Nervous, Ray? Asking questions you already know the answer to isn’t going to make this easier. Now shut up. I don’t know if Zahn has extra-sensitive hearing or not.”
We started up the muddy drive. Of course I knew the answer to my own question: the sorcerer summoned predators, so he was top of the hit list. At least, that’s how I saw it.
I was surprised that no one had strung police tape across the drive. I’d heard Steve call the state cops, although I was a little fuzzy on what he’d said. Still, considering what had happened, the National Guard should have been marching through.
Instead, there was only us.
I didn’t care about Yin or his people. They were assholes. I did care about that housekeeper. She’d been murdered right in front of my eyes, and there was no one but me to make that right.
But this was a problem. I was the one who needed to believe the person I was going after was a murderer or worse. I was the one who needed more than “knows magic” as a reason to kill someone.
That wasn’t the job I had come here to do. I wasn’t here to kill a murderer; I was here to kill a sorcerer. Knowing he had killed, too, made this one job easier for me. But the next time—
“Your mind is clear, right?” Annalise asked.
“Absolutely.” I forced myself to imagine the cabin and the land around it. I still wasn’t sure Merpati was being straight with us about Zahn staying there. Somehow, I didn’t think he was bedding down in the ski aisle.
I walked along the center of the path where the ground was relatively dry. All I could hear was the sound of my breathing, the wind rustling the trees, and our squelching footsteps. We were almost at the top of the drive when fat, wet snowflakes began to fall.
The BMWs and the Maybach were still in place. I kept low while I headed toward Yin’s cars, leaving Annalise to slip into the underbrush.
The snowflakes melted on contact with the cabin windows, distorting the view inside, but I wasn’t interested in the cabin. The second car had a strip of gray cloth hanging out of the trunk. I was certain it hadn’t been there when I’d passed through last night.
The key for this car was probably on one of the dead gunmen. Assuming they were still inside, there was no
