Trace of Magic (16 page)

She tossed a couple of menus down on the table and slid into the booth beside me, pulling me into a tight hug.

“Are you okay? I’ve been trying to call you. Taylor is a hot mess. Called me hollering about a text you sent telling the family to clear out of town. I thought she was going pop out a hedgehog the way she was going on.” She flicked an accusing glance across the table at Price, then looked back at me. “What’s going on?”

“Riley needs some food,” he said before I could answer. “We’re in a hurry, so make it sooner rather than later. And some dry clothes. She won’t let me take her home. She’s got some here, right?”

“I don’t take orders from you,” she said with a sniff and raised painted black brows at me. “Riley?”

“I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “But Price is right.” She and I both smirked at that. “We need food, I need clothes, and we have to get going quick.” I looked at him. “When and where are we meeting this friend of yours?”

“I called her. She’ll meet us in an hour.”

Patti glared at him and then me, then stood up. “I’ll put your order in.” She
clip-clopped
away.

“She didn’t ask what we wanted.”

“She doesn’t really care,” I said. “You’ll get what you get and you’ll be happy. Or else. But go ahead and argue with her. Free entertainment.”

A minute later, Patti returned with a pot of coffee and three mugs. She set them down on the table, making it clear she’d be joining us. “Ben will have your food up in a couple minutes. Let’s go upstairs and get you some clothes, Riley. You can stay here,” she told Price, sloshing coffee into his cup.

Price started to get up. “I’m coming with you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I want to find Josh, remember? Besides, even if I was going to run, you have me tabbed.”

He closed his hand around mine again. His eyes glittered. “First of all, you and I both know you can snap that tab any moment. Second, have you ever stopped to think that maybe I’m worried something might happen to you?”

I made a face. “I doubt Patti is going to stab me with one of her shoes.”

He scowled. “You’ve come to the attention of some bad people. Hell, the FBI isn’t even a good guy in this. You have to watch your back constantly. You don’t know when or where someone will come for you. Even here.”

Which meant if they were upstairs, Patti was in danger. I yanked free and hustled after her, taking the stairs three at a time. She was just opening the door to her apartment. I grabbed the door and went inside first. I’m not sure what I intended to do. She was far more prepared to stop an attacker than I was. I suppose I figured if a bomb was going to go off, I’d take the blast. I should have just dragged her back downstairs. I try not to be stupid, but sometimes I’m just overcome with the urge.

“What the hell is going on?” Patti demanded, coming inside and shutting the door.

A booted foot stopped it from closing. Price pushed inside. Patti whirled on him.

“Get out. You are not welcome in my home. I may have to let you waltz into the diner and manhandle my best girl, but I don’t have to let you in here. So take it outside or I swear I will drop you like a sack of potatoes.”

She was serious. Patti’s a tiny little thing, but she’s got two surprises for anyone who thinks she’s helpless. First, she’s a black belt in about four or five different kinds of martial arts. Second, she’s a binder. She didn’t have a lot of power, but if you were smart, you could make a lot out of a little. Patti’s brilliant.

Price shut the door and leaned on it. “I’m not going anywhere without Riley.”

“I think you are, even if I have to drag you out unconscious.”

It’s amazing how fast and light she can move in those shoes. She went at him in a blur. She kicked him in the thighs and ribs, jabbing him in the chest, every move fast as lightning. He raised his arms to protect himself, but didn’t return the attack. He grunted as she struck. I had to snicker. No one ever expected Patti to have that kind of impact. I’ve let her hit me a couple of times. Even with her pulling punches, it hurt like hell. I don’t recommend it for anyone.

She stood back. “How do you like me now, asshole?” Her eyes gleamed with feral light.

Price tried to move. He was stuck like a mosquito in amber. Like I said, Patti’s not that great a binder, but if she can touch you, she can put you in a world of hurt. She’d hit him in a half-dozen or more spots, each one pinning him in place. They weren’t strong ties. They’d wear off in five minutes, but by then she’d have no trouble turning him into pulp. When she said she was going to drag him out unconscious, she wasn’t joking.

Time to rescue him.

“Enough, Patti. Believe it or not, he’s on my side. At least for now.”

That last earned me a cutting look from him.

“For what?” Patti demanded. “Just what the hell is going on?”

“Josh has been kidnapped by the Tyet.” As if it were all one entity. Maybe like a thousand-headed hydra. “Detective Price is helping me to get him back.”

She goggled. “You have got to be kidding me. Did you fall off a turnip truck today and get brain damaged? You know as well as I do that he’s an enforcer for the god-damned Tyet! He’s not going to help you; he’s leading you to the slaughter.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “But right now, he’s all the help I’ve got and I can’t do it by myself.”

She started to say something, and I held up my hand to cut her off. “You’re not getting involved in this. If I get myself killed, that’s my fault. I’d never get over it if anything happened to you.”

“That’s the dumbest crock of horseshit I’ve ever heard in my life,” she retorted. “I am already involved. I’m your friend. That pretty much puts me right in the middle of it as far as I’m concerned.”

God, I love her.

“I’m not arguing about it,” she said. “I’m in and that’s that. Now let’s get you the clothes you came for.”

She ignored Price and went into the spare bedroom where I slept about as often as not.

“Uh, Patti? You want to let him go?” I asked, following her.

“He can wait.”

I looked back at him with a little shrug. “Sorry. You pissed her off.”

In the bedroom, I pulled clothes out of the battered dresser in the corner and changed, all the while explaining what had happened since I’d left the diner with Price. I kept the details to a minimum to speed things up, but I couldn’t leave out everything. Patti’s my best friend, after all.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! You did what? You slept with
Price
?”

I flushed and nodded. “Yeah.”

Her eyes rounded, and she let out a low whistle. “He’s the enemy, but he is definitely very
hot
. Was he good?”

“What do you think?” I buttoned my jeans and pulled on a fresh bra, followed by a tank and a long-sleeved shirt. I sat on the bed and pulled on a double layer of socks.

“I think you are playing with fire.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I mean, working with him to find Josh—I get it. But screwing him. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head? Maybe getting shot short-circuited your brain.” She shifted mood fast as a hummingbird. “You got
shot
, Riley. This is way past serious. You’re going up against the Tyet with a Tyet enforcer. It’s crazy.”

“Got any better suggestions?”

I slid off the bed and reached under it for the plastic box I kept there. Inside was a bunch of what appeared to be mostly junk. All of them were nulls of one kind or another. A lot of them were marbles. Glass holds magic well. So do rocks. I like polished rocks best, for the smooth feel of them in my hands, but really any old rock will do. Metal does well, too. Textiles like cloth, yarn, and leather have to be renewed every time they get wet, so I tend to avoid them. Paper and wood don’t hold magic at all. I like using objects that people overlook as too silly to be valuable. I have Lego nulls in the tub, along with bottle caps, matchcars, and some plastic jewelry I’d experimented with. Plastic holds magic for a while, but you can’t reinforce it to make it stronger the way you can metal, glass, and stone. It’s kind of a one-hit wonder in that respect.

I picked out what I wanted: four blood nulls, a dozen trace nulls, and one stupidly powerful magic null. That one would suck the magic out of anyone and everything in a fifty-foot radius. I thought so, anyhow. I hadn’t really had a chance to try it out. I’d experimented with weaker versions, but trying out one this strong would have put the Tyet on my tail faster than I could blink.

I put the lid back on the tub and shoved it back under the bed, just as Price thundered into the room.

“Oh, look, King Kong got loose,” Patti said. “Be still my beating heart.”

Price ignored her. “Are you ready?” he demanded, looking at me.

I shoved nulls into my pockets and tucked the solid silver quarter that was the magic null into the shallow watch pocket inside the right front pocket of my jeans. I didn’t usually use money for nulls, but if I was captured, chances were that no one would think to take it away from me.

Downstairs our food was waiting for us. Ben had known exactly what I wanted. Deep fried jalapenos covered a thick hamburger with pepper jack cheese, chipotle sauce, and a side of beer-battered onion rings. Price got the same thing. Patti had a BLT with fries.

I ate like I hadn’t eaten in weeks. It felt like it. Before I knew it, my plate was empty and I was stealing fries from Patti.

“What is your plan to get Josh back?” she asked.

Price leaned back and sipped his coffee, his eyes sleepy looking. I wasn’t fooled. He was on edge and angry with me, though I wasn’t all that certain why.

“I take it Riley’s filled you in?”

She nodded. “Mostly.”

“I’m hoping Shana Darlington knows who is involved. We’ll question her and see if she knows who’s holding Josh.”

“What if she doesn’t know?”

“Then we’ll start knocking on doors,” I said. I traced an invisible shape on the table. “Why do you think Josh left me those baggies?” I asked Price. “Those people are probably paranoid. They’ll have nulls around their houses and workplaces, in their cars—the trace would be nothing more than intermittent bits of confetti. I wouldn’t be able to trace any one of them if I wanted to. There must have been another reason.”

“Maybe he had another way for you to use them,” Price said softly. “It’s time to put your cards on the table. What can you do?”

“Maybe it’s none of your business,” Patti said, slapping her hand on the table. She didn’t know what I could do, really. She never asked and I never said.

He didn’t look away from me. “I can’t help her if I don’t know all the facts.”

“The fact is that you’re a Tyet man and that’s all that matters,” she declared.

My tongue clung to the roof of my mouth. An idea had occurred to me. I’d toyed with it before, but I’d never actually tried to create that kind of null. But now—

Old ideas spun through my brain. Ideas I’d considered and dismissed as too dangerous to try. But I’d always wondered . . . Could it be done? Could I target a null at someone in particular? Tie a fragment of their trace to it so it would only go after that person and no one else? I could use the stuff in the baggies to locate the trace. The fact that it was confetti wouldn’t matter for that. Everybody thought tracer magic was mostly passive, but what if it didn’t have to be?

“Riley?” Price prompted, interrupting my train of thought.

I blinked, coming back to the moment. “What?”

“You haven’t answered me. What can you do with those baggies?”

His eyes were dark blue velvet, and they promised he wouldn’t betray me. I wanted it, that feeling of having someone watching my back, someone to lean on when I was tired and cold and shot. Patti would do it for me, but it wasn’t the same. This wasn’t her kind of life. But Price—he was scary, and when scary is on your side, it’s awfully comforting. Not to mention he was sexy as hell.

I averted my face. Maybe if mine was the only life on the line I could risk it. Still, he needed an answer. It was the truth, even if it wasn’t the whole truth, or even the best truth.

“I can maybe kill them,” I whispered.

Chapter 15

“YOU CAN WHAT?”

It was nice to know I could surprise him. Patti didn’t seem particularly shocked, though I’m pretty sure she wondered if I
would
kill anyone. Big difference between
can
and
will
.

“I might be able to kill them,” I repeated.

“How?”

Most of my brain was still spinning with piecing together the how, but I was becoming more and more certain I could do it. If my theory proved correct. A big
if
.

“With a null,” I told him.

He swore under his breath, something about strangling and infuriating women. He took control of himself and breathed out slowly. “Nulls don’t kill.”

“The blood null I made came awfully close. If I could target it to an enemy—”

“Holy hell.” He wiped his hands over his face. He dropped them to the table and leveled that piercing cop look at me. “What makes you so special?”

Hurt drilled unexpectedly through my chest. I knew he was referring to my tracer abilities, not to me as the woman he slept with last night, but knowing it didn’t make any difference. The truth was I wasn’t particularly special: I wasn’t beautiful; I wasn’t a genius; I wasn’t super sexy; I wasn’t particularly brave or talented or anything else. I was damned average, except for being a strong tracer, which wasn’t a recipe for making a guy fall in love with me.

I rocked back in my seat. What the hell? Why would I want him to fall in love with me? But I did. The realization was like a punch in the gut. Oh hell. I wanted to bang my head on the table. I was falling for him. I’d already fallen for him. How could I let myself be that stupid?

“Nothing makes me special,” I said, putting my arms around myself and hunching in my seat. I felt like I was sixteen years old again and my boyfriend was explaining how he needed to start seeing other girls. It was ridiculous. I barely knew Price. How could I have fallen for him? “You’ve been around me long enough to know that by now.”

“Wow, do you go around kicking kittens, too?” Patti said, scooting over to put her arms around me.

I felt the tears starting to come and pressed my head into her shoulder so that Price wouldn’t see. Totally humiliating.

“What are you talking—I didn’t mean I didn’t think she’s not—” He sounded vaguely panicked.

Crying women had that sort of effect on men. I smiled into Patti’s shoulder, fighting to get myself under control. Maybe I was getting my period. That had to be it. Hormones were at work here. Get me some chocolate and some Midol. I’ll be fine.

“Riley—” Price began just as the door jingled at the arrival of new customers.

I felt Price go taut as the temperature in the room dropped.

“I’m going to take care of this,” Price said, sliding out of his seat. “Riley go out the back. Use a null. Now.” He laid the key to the snowmobile on the table. “If I don’t meet you out front, then get out of here.”

He didn’t look at us. His attention was fixed on whoever had come in. I pushed away from Patti and twisted to look over the back of the seat. Two men stood there. The black one had a scar across his nose and one of his front teeth gleamed gold. The white one was shorter and looked like he was as wide as he was tall. Neither looked friendly.

Price walked down the aisle to meet them. He’d pulled his gun and carried it behind his thigh. Patti grabbed my wrist and scrambled out of the booth, pulling me after her. I snatched up the key as she dragged me toward the back.

“I can’t leave him,” I said, trying to turn back and digging for my own gun in my coat pocket.

She tightened her grip and pulled harder. “Do you remember how I’m supposed to tell you when you’re about to do something stupid? This is one of those times. He’s a cop and a Tyet enforcer. He’s going to eat those two for lunch. You’ll only get in his way.”

“But what if they are too much for him to handle?” I’d reluctantly begun to follow after her.

“Well, you could always bleed all over them. Let them beat the crap out of you until they get tired.”

“You aren’t making me feel any better about letting Price take them on alone.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d start thinking you like that guy more than you let on,” she said, grabbing a jacket off the hook by the back door. “But then, that would be terminally crazy. Since I know you don’t have a death wish and you aren’t insane, I must be wrong.”

I didn’t answer, concentrating on zipping my coat up.

“Riley?” Patti said. “You aren’t saying—? Oh, hell, you
do
like him,” she said. “I don’t suppose I can slap you out of it?”

I shrugged and gave a cracked smile. “Please try. It can’t go anywhere, even if he were interested. Which he’s not.”

“Which only goes to show he’s a moron,” she said, taking off her heels and stomping into a pair of knee-high snowboots.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Coming with you. Now shut up and do the nulls.” She pulled her hood up and yanked open the door. “Do the nulls now.”

I wasn’t going to win the argument, so I didn’t try. I grabbed two of the marbles and activated them, handing one to her. These would last a day at least. I’d give one to Price, too. I didn’t want us to be tracked from here on out.

Ben had cleared a walkway to the dumpster and plowed out the small parking lot, pushing a mountain of snow into the alley. He made a little extra money plowing in the winter and kept a snowblade on the front of his one-ton pickup. Since the alley was blocked, we had to go the other way around to the end of the block and back to the main street. It wasn’t far, but we had to walk out into the road. The snow was at least five feet deep against the building. Someone—Ben or the city—had plowed a strip down the middle of the road to allow for traffic.

Patti and I trotted out into the roadway. A shot rang out. I sprinted around the building with Patti hard on my heels. Price was standing outside the diner, wiping blood off his chin with the back of his hand. Someone had hit him and left behind a cut.

I skidded to a stop in front of him. “What happened? Who were they? I heard a gun go off.” The words tumbled from me as I looked him over for a bullet wound. I won’t say I was frantic, but my blood pressure was so high that I thought I might stroke out.

He grimaced at the blood on his hand and wiped it on his pants. “They wanted me to know they didn’t like that bomb I set the other night for their buddies,” he said. “I let them know I didn’t care to be followed and shot at. They won’t be back.” He looked up the street toward the precinct house. “We should go. Someone probably called it in. I don’t want to be stuck here explaining myself. Got the key?” He held out his hand.

I dropped the snowmobile key into it without a word. I felt like I’d been hit by a Taser. Fear and relief bounced around inside me, leaving traces of hurt in their wake. That endless moment between hearing the shot and not knowing whether he’d been killed or not had shown me just how much in love with him I was. Completely and hopelessly. The fact that we were little more than strangers and he worked for the Tyet didn’t seem to make much difference to my heart.

“Wait,” Patti said, pulling me into a hug. “Be careful. Call me if you need me. You don’t have to do this alone. I mean it. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

“I know. Thanks.”

Price was already revving up the snowmobile. I climbed on behind him and he took off almost before I had my butt on the seat. I waved at Patti, then activated a null for him and dropped it into his pocket.

It took almost a half hour to get back to Uptown. Price took us back to the tree in the park. There was more traffic out now as people hustled to do whatever they had to do before the next storm moved in. Already the sky was dark pewter. It wouldn’t be long before snow flew again.

I swung off and waited for Price. He seemed lost in thought, staring down at the snowmobile.

“I’d like to check Josh’s trace before we go in. I need to get into the compartment under the seat.”

On the drive up from Downtown, I’d made a decision to keep our relationship impersonal. No more sex and kissing; no more flirting at all. Just business. I couldn’t risk him finding out that I was in love with him. Bad enough that it was true. Having him find out would kill me. He’d be all sympathetic and pitying, or worse, desperate to escape before I made a scene. No, thanks. I’d like to keep my humiliation to myself.

He twisted his head to look at me. It was a measuring look. “You aren’t doing this alone,” he said.

I must have looked as confused as I felt.

“Patti said you didn’t have to do this alone. But you’re not.”

Oh. That. I sighed. “As far as she’s concerned, you’re the enemy. She’s never going to believe you won’t stab me in the back at some point.”

“What do you believe?”

I shrugged. “What does it matter? It’s not like I have a choice either way.”

“It matters to me.”

He swung his leg over the seat so he was facing me. He fixed his gaze on me. Its intensity sent tingles all the way down to my toes. No. No more of him and me. I stepped back, crossing my arms so that I wouldn’t accidentally grab him and try to kiss him.

“Now who’s wasting time?” I asked.

He gritted his teeth. “Just answer the question.”

“Fine. Sure. I trust you,” I lied. “Can we go now?”

He stared at me another long moment. His eyes went flat and his mouth twisted down as he stood up. “By all means.”

I flipped the compartment open and touched the burlap sack, opening to the trace at the same time. I closed my eyes and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “He’s alive.” But for how much longer?

I dropped the seat back down and clicked it into place. I was starting to get nervous and wishing I hadn’t eaten. The hamburger would taste a lot worse coming up than going down. I shoved my hands into my pockets, clenching them into fists where Price couldn’t see. “Where to now?”

“This way.” He took off along the same track we’d followed before, but when we got to the corner of the park, instead of crossing the street as we had the first time, he turned in the opposite direction. I trailed a little behind to keep from having to talk to him. My head was a mess. Part of me was tangled up in my feelings for Price, and the other was considering how to target nulls to individuals to kill them. Just thinking about killing made me want to crawl into a hole and pull the dirt in on top of me.

Most people thought trace magic was defensive. Mostly it was for finding people and nulling out harmful magic. My father had always told me I couldn’t afford to rely on my defenses. Sooner or later, someone would figure out what I was and come looking for me. If I wasn’t ready to fight back, I’d be a goner. I knew he was talking about my mom. His eyes would get this faraway look, and he’d look bitter and sad.

Some of my earliest memories are of me sitting in his lap as he explained that I had to master my magic and learn to use it to protect myself and the people I loved. After he vanished, I tried all kinds of things. I was like a kid playing with a stack of matches. I got burned more than once. One time I ended up in the hospital with a concussion after my stepmom had to club me over the head when I got magic-locked and I couldn’t get myself free.

I’d learned to attempt things I shouldn’t be able to do—like make blood nulls. Since tracers are considered the weakest of the five big abilities, if I could figure out how to make weapons, I’d have the advantage of surprise.

Lost in thought, I wasn’t paying much attention to where we were going. All of a sudden Price twisted around and scooped me up, lifting me over a berm of snow. I squawked and grabbed him. He set me on my feet and started off again, grabbing my hand as he did. He laced his fingers through mine, pulling me close.

I couldn’t help but revel in his touch.

He went around a corner and up a covered walkway to an imposing brick house. With the snow frosting the roof and the cedar trees, the place looked like something off a calendar. Price tapped lightly on the door, and it instantly swung open.

“Hurry up. We don’t need to be seen.” A reedy woman waved us inside.

We obeyed, and I managed to untangle my hand from Price’s for about a half a second before he enveloped it again, holding firmly.

“Cass, meet Riley. Riley, Cass,” he said.

Cass looked borderline anorexic. Her bones jutted under her skin. Her blond hair was fastened in a ponytail on top of her head, and her skin was pale and washed out. She wore a blue long-sleeved shirt with a W. C. Fields quote that said, “
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. Ain’t no use being a damned fool about it
.”

She looked me over, her gaze fastening on my hand in Price’s. She lifted her gaze to him, but didn’t ask questions. She motioned us to follow her.

“In here.”

She led us to a plush living room with white suede furniture, polished wood tables, marble lampstands, and art that probably should have been in a museum. It reeked of money.

She sank down into the middle of one of the couches, folding her legs to sit cross-legged. “Let’s get on with his. I want to get home before the storm,” she said, cracking her knuckles and rolling her head around on her neck to loosen it.

“You don’t live here?” I asked.

She snorted and looked at Price. “Where did you find her? Under a rock?” Then to me, “I wouldn’t go dreamwalking with you from my own place. I don’t want to be tracked. We’ll have to null out of here when we go. You brought nulls, didn’t you?” she asked Price.