Trace of Magic (4 page)

He gripped my elbow and turned me up the sidewalk away from the precinct. We’d covered a couple of blocks before I began to wonder if he had any plans to stop. My hair was wet and his head had a mound of white capping it.

“Are we walking there?” I asked in annoyance as I skidded on a patch of ice.

He looked down, almost like he’d forgotten me. “No.”

He glanced over his shoulder. The heavy snow swirled in the air and hid most of the street. Price pulled me suddenly into a doorway between Riker’s clothing store and Roadkill Bikes. Before I could protest, he pushed me behind him.

“Company,” he warned.

Lovely. Somebody was following us, and Price didn’t expect them to be friendly. Nice of him to shield me. ’Course, I wouldn’t have needed it if he hadn’t blackmailed me into working for him. I shoved the thought aside. Shit happens and all that, but trouble was here and now. I opened myself to the trace.

Strings of light flickered out over the pavement and sidewalks. They melded into thick cables—too many strands to differentiate between them. I focused on the brightest threads, the ones belonging to people here now. On a busy street like this, most tracers couldn’t pick out a live person’s trace from one left behind an hour before. I could.

A half-dozen people strode up the sidewalk behind us. Price’s bulk prevented me from seeing them. He seemed to think one or all were threats. He wasn’t the nervous type, so in the name of preparation, I pulled my Ruger out of my coat pocket.

“Try not to shoot me in the ass with that, would you?” Price said, glancing back at me.

“Don’t get in my way and I won’t. Maybe.”

The corner of his mouth curved up. It was almost a smile. I wondered if it hurt.

“I’m beginning to regret paying you up front.”

Then his attention was back on the sidewalk. I edged to the left, trying to get a view. He grabbed me and shoved me back behind him. I was getting really tired of him manhandling me. Then again, if he wanted to take the heat so I could walk away free, who was I to argue?

Three pedestrians passed by, never pausing. That left three more. From what I could tell, they were walking slowly, spread out across the sidewalk. The one in the middle was flanked by two others trailing a couple of steps behind. Not good. That seemed too organized for casual strollers.

I waited, wondering what Price would do. Not a lot of people would be willing to take him on. Whoever was after him was risking a lot. Price was a known asset for one of the biggest Tyet organizations. Going after him would earn some serious retaliation. The trio was totally insane, if you asked me.

The three followers slowed and started to bunch together. Damn. No way they could see us, so that meant they had to have a tracer with them. I touched one of my nulls in my pocket. It was short-term and weak. If I’d known there was a chance we were going to trap ourselves in a doorway with three goons hunting us down, I’d have nulled us out.

Suddenly I had an idea. I turned and checked the door. It was locked, but with an old-fashioned key lock. I smiled and shoved my gun back into my outer coat pocket. I slipped my lockpicks from the coat’s breast pocket and went to work. It took me less than ten seconds. It was a crappy lock.

I twisted the knob and slipped inside, pulling Price after me. His eyes widened, but he followed. I turned the deadbolt, and then pulled two nulls out of my pocket. They were cat-eye marbles, the kind that come in quarterbags at the toy store. I put one in his hand and invoked it, then did the same to mine. If we were lucky, we could escape the building before the goons caught sight of us.

“Come on,” Price said.

He dashed up the narrow stairs as someone rattled the door behind us. Gunshots sounded. Wood splintered in the door and stairs. I stumbled, bashing my shin as I missed the step.

Price grabbed my hand and hauled me up after him. “Do you want to get dead?”

He didn’t let me go as he pulled me down the hall. I was still wrestling with my panic and clung to him like a child. He tested the knobs of each door. None gave. He finally stopped at the end. “Pick it,” he hissed as someone crashed against the door downstairs. He stepped past me and drew his gun. He carried a .44 Desert Eagle. A hand cannon. I could have made a joke about a man overcompensating, but decided it wasn’t the time. Occasionally, I have moments of reason.

I went to work with my picks, trusting I wasn’t going to get shot in the back. If there was one thing I could trust about Price, his aim was good and he wasn’t afraid to kill. And the faster I opened the door, the faster we’d be hidden. I was hoping we’d have time to figure out an escape that didn’t involve bullets and bodies.

The lock gave, and I opened the door. There were no lights on. I gave a quick, low whistle, but Price was already shoving in after me. The man had to have eyes in his ass.

He locked the knob and the dead bolt behind us. The curtains were closed, and there was precious little light. I jammed my knee into the corner of something hard and sharp as I went across the room to open the drape. I clamped my teeth to keep from swearing.

“What now?” I whispered. Now that I had a moment to take everything in, my hands shook with adrenaline and fear.

Price toured the apartment before coming to look out the window. We were on the corner of the building above the bike shop. Outside, a fire ladder was bolted just below the window. There was no landing. Price slid open the window and motioned for me to climb out, then went back to the front door. I assumed he was watching for our pursuers out the peephole.

I hoisted myself up on the sill and slid out feet first. The steel was frigid and slippery, and I had to twist myself around onto my stomach. At last I was facing inward again with one foot securely on a rung. I started down. About halfway to the ground, the ladder ended. I looked over my shoulder and groaned. It was another fifteen feet to the pavement.

I squatted on the ladder and gripped the bottom rung tightly, then let my feet go. My weight hit my arms with a jolt. I dangled a moment, then dropped.

I flexed my knees to absorb the shock, and then scooted up against the building as Price followed me down. I opened my mouth to ask who was after us, but I didn’t want to waste time and give them a chance to find us. So I kept silent and motioned him on. That startled Price. He gave me an appraising look, then grabbed my hand and pulled me through the thickening curtain of snow. I gritted my teeth and fought the urge to twist myself away. I was a tracer, for crap’s sake. I wasn’t going to
lose
him. And given that the fucker had tabbed me, he wasn’t in any danger of losing me, either.

We hadn’t gone far up the alley when my phone buzzed against my thigh. I pulled it out and checked the display. It was a text from my sister, Taylor. I opened it, then stopped dead, yanking out of Price’s grasp. All it said was:
911
.

In our entire lives, no matter what was going on, she’d never sent an emergency message. She had told me more than once that she wanted it to count, so that if I got one, I’d know it was real, and not just a hangnail or a stubbed toe.

I held my hand out flat as Price started to say something. He must have read the violent fear in my face because he shut up and waited as I hit the speed dial for Taylor. She picked up almost before it rang.

“Oh God! Oh God! You have to come now, Riley!” She was screaming and crying, and I was pretty sure Price could hear her.

“What’s wrong? Where are you?” I asked, forgetting we were trying to make a quiet escape. My heart pounded. What was happening? Was someone breaking in? Trying to attack her?

She gasped and choked on sobs, then she caught herself enough to answer. “I’m at Josh’s. Oh God, Riley. There’s so much blood!”

Chapter 4

I COULDN’T GET any more out of Taylor, except that Josh was missing and there was a lot of blood. I told her to sit tight and I’d be there as soon as I could. I hung up and looked at Price. “Our deal’s off for now. My sister’s in trouble. I’m going to help her.”

I didn’t wait for an answer, more than halfway expecting him to try to cuff me. To my shock, he simply fell in beside me as I headed for the nearest hotel and a taxi stand. I wasn’t going to waste time on the subway. I was grabbing a cab, though in this weather, that might take longer.

“My car’s not far,” he said. “I’ll drive you. It’ll be faster.” At my doubtful look, his brows winged down and his mouth twisted. “I’m not going to stop you. She’s your sister. I may be able to help. I
am
a cop, and a pretty good one.”

I was surprised and oddly grateful. I nodded and he started off. We’d only gone a few feet when the apartment we’d just fled exploded. Glass and bricks flew through the air like shrapnel.

Price shoved me down behind a dumpster, sheltering me with his body. My ears rang and my body reverberated with the shockwave. Snow soaked through my jeans. Price braced himself over me, his chest and thighs wedging me tight to the dumpster.

When everything had settled, he pulled me up again. “You all right?”

I glanced down at myself. I curled my fingers into fists to hide the fact they were shaking. “Fine. What the hell happened?”

“A lesson. It doesn’t pay to come after me.”

I glared at him, and part of me couldn’t help but feel a stab of disappointment. For a second I’d forgotten he was a Tyet man and a killer. A stupid mistake. I couldn’t let my guard down ever. “You did that? What the hell is wrong with you? Did you even think about who else could get hurt? Or were you only worried about your own skin and your revenge? Your enemies get killed and so do all the Nancy Jane Squires and their families in the whole building?” The words tumbled out in a torrent, partly emotional reaction to the blast and partly fury that he could be so brutally cold-blooded.

“Relax,” he said. “I shaped the charge to blow out the window wall and make a mess of the place. I’d be surprised if the men chasing us got more than a few scratches. Nobody else was in the line of fire.”

The relief I felt had less to do with the safety of the apartment dwellers and more to do with the fact that he wasn’t the monster I’d momentarily imagined him to be. I closed my eyes and bent over, catching myself on my knees.
Don’t go there
, I warned myself.
Don’t let yourself think he’s anything but dangerous
. Maybe he didn’t kill anyone this time, but he had before and he would again.

“Are you okay?” He put a hand on my back.

I shook it off and straightened. “I’m fine. Perfect even. It’s almost like nobody tried to shoot at me or blow me up.” I resisted the urge to shove him away. “We should go.”

Price gave me a frowning look, then turned and led the way to the Luna Hotel. It was a small, ritzy place standing only about twenty stories tall. It was one of the first buildings in Diamond City and had been completely renovated a few years back. A night’s stay in a regular room cost five grand. The suites were quadruple that. But it had tight security, luxuries to give even a well-heeled mogul a hard-on, and it was discreet. If you stayed there, no one got into your business. It was owned by Barry Ostrander, a pretty high member of the Thaler coalition—allied with Price’s boss Touray—and working his way to the top, if rumor was correct.

Price led me up past the valet stand. I felt the two nulls I’d activated for Price and me snuff out as the hotel binding ring killed them. It didn’t permit any unauthorized active magic to cross it. My other nulls were fine. Unless they were activated, Ostrander’s suckers couldn’t touch them. Beefy guards in navy blue trimmed in gold stood at careful attention around the doors. There were more than a dozen of them, and they were all armed, and not just with guns. Three of them moved to intercept us as we turned up the sidewalk.

I kept my head down and hunched my shoulders. It wasn’t that hard to look inconspicuous in the snow. It was coming down so heavy now that they probably couldn’t make out much detail anyway. I doubt any of them could have picked me out of a lineup if they tried. Not that they’d need to, but it pays to be careful. You never know when someone is going to decide you’re interesting enough to check out. As a rule, I do my best to fade into the wallpaper in every situation.

“Can I help you?” one of them asked Price in a tone that said “you don’t belong here, get the fuck out.”

One of them got a look at Price’s face. “I got this, Wings,” he told the other man and waited for his two companions to retreat.

The burly guard motioned for us to follow him up under the awning. He fished a set of keys out of his pocket and passed them to a valet, who ran off to fetch the car. He gave me a searching look and then turned his attention to Price. “You need anything else?”

“Might be some characters looking around for me. They shouldn’t head this way, but if they do, I wasn’t here.”

“You got it. That it?”

“For now. Thanks, Ed.”

“Anytime.” I could feel him looking at me again and then he turned and returned to his post. A couple of minutes later, Price’s black Camaro emerged from the parking garage beneath the hotel.

The valet held the door open for Price and then came around and opened mine. I stamped my feet and shook off whatever snow I could before sliding into the buttery soft leather seat. I ignored my seat belt and so did Price. Cop habit, that one. You never knew if you might have to jump out and chase someone. Plus, it made it hard to draw a gun. I just liked having a quick escape ready.

Price tossed a bill at the valet and pulled out to the street. “Where are we going?”

“Midtown,” I said. “North side.”

He made a left and navigated his way carefully through the already-drifting snow, staying off the main drag, where traffic was knotting up. We took the Prockney Tunnel up to the Midtown shelf. It took a good half hour to get through the traffic to the other side. I was getting twitchy as hell.

“Who is Josh?”

Price’s question made me jump. I pushed my hair back over my ear. For a second I debated telling him a lie, just on principle. But he was about to find out anyhow. “He’s my sister’s ex-fiancé. They broke it off about six months ago.”

“Ex-fiancé?” He sounded like he was interviewing a witness. Maybe he was. I kept myself from squirming like a first-time nude figure model in a classroom of artists.

“Yeah. My sister is still in love with him.”

“Why did they break up?”

I shrugged. “Josh got cold feet or something. He wanted to see other people.” I snorted. “I’m not sure he actually ever did. Taylor was a wreck. She lost about twenty pounds and looked like she’d just been raised from the dead.”

“But they stayed in touch?”

“Josh kept calling and talking to her. He didn’t want to marry her, but he didn’t want to let her go either.” I shook my head. I’d thought my sister should lose his number and cut him off completely, but despite her anguish, she was too much in love to do that. “I know he was worried about how she was taking the breakup. Maybe he was afraid she’d do something stupid. Or maybe he’s just a selfish bastard.”

The trouble was, I liked him. I always had. Up until the point he broke my sister’s heart, I thought he was about perfect.

“Was he mixed up in anything illegal? Maybe drugs?”

Yep, Price was doing his cop thing. For Taylor’s sake, I chose not to mind. But accepting his help meant he was going to get a lot more access to my family and to
me
, to things I didn’t want him to know. I was going to have to be extra careful.

Before I could answer, the phone rang. It was Taylor.

“Where are you?” she wailed. My sister was not a wailer. She did not lose control. Usually she had ice water running through her veins.

“Just coming out of Prockney Tunnel,” I said in a soothing voice. “The snow has slowed everything down. I should be there in ten minutes.” It would be closer to twenty, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Ten?” she said, and she started crying in great gulping sobs. “Can’t you come faster?”

“Taylor,” I said sharply. “Go somewhere away from the blood. Make yourself some tea.” I didn’t think she’d drink it, but it would give her something to do. I considered telling her to leave the apartment and go down to the building lobby, but I doubted she’d go.

“Tea?” she repeated stupidly. “I don’t want tea. How can I make tea when Josh is probably—” She started crying again, and she sounded like she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

I was shocked when Price pulled the phone from my hand. “Hello?” he said before I could grab it back. I could hear the startled silence from Taylor. “This is Detective Clay Price. I need you to take a deep breath and hold it for the count of six. Ready? One-two-three-four-five-six,” he counted off slowly. He sounded like he was talking to a child. “Good. Now again. One-two-three-four-five-six. That’s very good. Once more.”

He did that about ten times. I tapped his knee and pointed where I wanted him to turn. He was keeping her busy, and that’s what Taylor needed—something else to concentrate on. When she had stopped her hysterical crying, he tried to focus her in another direction.

“Now, Miss Hollis, I want you to get up and go in the kitchen. Find the tea.” She didn’t object because he didn’t have to ask again. I don’t know if she was hypnotized by his voice or what, but she simply obeyed.

“Have you found it? Get the kettle and fill it.” A minute later he said, “Now get out the teapot and sugar. Put at least five spoonfuls in.”

I winced. Taylor hated sweet tea. She apparently told him so.

“That’s okay. It’s for me,” he told her. Good call. Taylor would do things for other people she wouldn’t do for herself. “Your sister is pretty wet from the snow,” he said with a glance at me. “Maybe you could round up a couple of towels. You know, I bet she could use some coffee. Maybe you could brew a cup when you’re done with that tea.”

He kept her talking until we were on Josh’s street. He lived in a condo up near the top of one of those steel and glass buildings that look like they ought to be in outer space. I pointed and he parked, still talking to Taylor. I have to admit, he impressed me. He wasn’t dead inside like I’d always assumed he was. Or if so, he faked human kindness well.

The doorman for the building was nowhere to be seen, nor was there anyone in the lobby. My skin prickled warning. I led the way up the stairs. I don’t like elevators, and if I can avoid them, I do. The door to Josh’s apartment was ajar. Josh had enough money to pay for good wards, and he had. He kept them charged, too, so either he’d let his attackers in, or they’d had a null or an unbinding charm. A strong one to eat the magic of those wards. I heard Price calling out a warning to let Taylor know we’d arrived as I pushed inside.

The place was in shambles, and those are the kind words. The furniture was turned over, the cushions ripped apart, and a bunch of holes knocked into the sheetrock. The bookshelves lay topsy-turvy, and the wall of glass overlooking the city was covered with spiderweb cracks. That was all I had time to notice before Taylor slammed into me. She clutched me around the neck in a death grip. I hugged her back.

Price slipped past us and prowled through the rubble of the room, going down the hallway to investigate the bedrooms and the den. He returned, his face that inscrutable mask except for a furrowed line between his brows, like his brain was in overdrive.

I stroked Taylor’s back. “Easy,” I whispered. “I’m here. We’re going to find Josh. But I need you to get it together so we can figure out what happened, okay?”

My sister nodded against my ear. She gathered herself and stepped away. I kept hold of her hand.

Taylor is about my height, with the same narrow face as mine. Her cheekbones and chin are rounder, and her eyes are blue. Mine are green. Her hair is a rich dark auburn streaked with dyed sunshine. I’ve always envied her her hair. Mine is the color of burnished copper. It gets a little more red in the winter, and in the summer it turns brassy blond. I also get freckles, though I tan better than she does. Her skin is porcelain. She also has long, polished nails and dresses in the height of fashion. I cut my nails short and wear whatever happens to still be reasonably clean. I don’t think I’ve ever ironed anything in my life. Taylor shudders in horror at wrinkles.

But now she looked anything but neat and put together. Her mascara had smeared over her cheeks, and her eyes were swollen. Her nose was red, and her face was blotchy.

“Hey,” I said. “Go wash your face, okay?” It would make her feel better and give me a chance to look around.

She gave me a stricken look and nodded. As she went up the hall, I joined Price.

“There was definitely a struggle,” he said. “It’s certain they were looking for something and I don’t think they found it.

I agreed. Why take Josh if they had?

“Come here,” he said and led me down the hall to Josh’s den.

The room was even more of a mess than the rest of the condo. His desk and bookshelves had all been cut apart with a saw. The only thing still upright was an armless chair. Blood smeared the seat and ran down the legs to pool on the floor beneath it. I stared. It was a lot of blood. This hadn’t just been a beating.

“They cut him pretty good,” Price confirmed, looking over everything clinically. “They must have had a tinker to seal the wounds so he wouldn’t bleed out and die before they got what they were looking for. Presupposing it’s his blood.” He looked at me. “Did he have another girlfriend?”

“I don’t know,” I said, my lips wooden. My stomach churned as I thought of Taylor. What if she’d been here? Would they have cut her? Killed her? My hand clenched.

“What can you see?” he asked me.

I gave him a confused look and then opened myself to the trace. I could have kicked myself. I should have begun scanning the minute I walked into the condo. Being personally involved was totally throwing me off my game. I couldn’t afford it. I had to focus. For Josh, for Taylor, and for me.