The doors opened, and I leaned forward, my hands on the steering wheel. A man in a gray suit came out and trotted to the parking lot. I sat back while he revved his engine and pulled out into traffic. I didn’t know what exactly Mom was doing at church, but I didn’t think there were services at this time in the morning. Something to do with the wedding, I guessed. Or else something to do with me.
“Are you all right?” Ex asked.
He looked good. He’d put a glamour on himself. It was one of the cantrips Eric had taught him, back when they’d worked together. Back before any of us had known what Eric was. As a result, his own wounds and bruises were invisible, as if they’d healed overnight. He looked like a perfect version of himself unless I really focused on him, and then all the damage became clear. Not a bad metaphor for the rest of him either.
“I’m . . . I don’t know. I’m fine. You guys keep asking that. Do I look like I’m about to start sprouting tentacles or something?”
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“And I’m usually loud?”
His smile was sly, and it made him look better.
“You’re not usually quiet.”
The church door opened, and this time it was my mother walking out. She wore a simple blue dress that looked too slight for the weather, a thin coat, and a wool scarf that fluttered behind her like it had someplace else it wanted to be. I scooped up my phone and called Chogyi Jake.
“I see her,” he said instead of hello. “Going back to the car.”
“All right,” I said. “Any sign of the bad guys?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay. I’ll follow her. You follow me.”
I had essentially no experience tailing someone. It was the kind of skill set I’d heard about on TV and movies, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. We had two cars, so I had a vague idea that I should stay behind Mom for a while, then turn off and let Chogyi Jake take my place, then switch off again a few blocks later. Either it was a good plan, or my mother had other things on her mind. Even though I was in a lumbering black apartment of a car, she didn’t seem to notice me, or it, or much of anything. She went to the dry cleaner’s and the bank. I drove with one eye on her, and one on the rearview. I expected to see a buzzing fleet of rider-infested wizards bearing down on me and howling for blood at any minute. That it kept not happening only made it seem more likely that it would.
When she turned into the parking lot of the Save-A-Lot, I got on the phone to Chogyi Jake.
“Okay, this is it,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“I have to get her before she gets the groceries. I don’t know if she’ll talk to me, but if she’s got something in the car that might spoil, I can promise she won’t. I could be offering her a million dollars, and she’d blow me off until she got the frozen dinners home.”
“If you say so,” Chogyi Jake said. “I’ll set up on the corner. If I call—”
“I’ll get out of there fast,” I said, and dropped the connection. The SUV jogged a little as I made the turn into the lot a couple degrees too wide.
“Will you be able to?” Ex said as he slid a fresh magazine into his pistol. I was impressed again how much hunting demons felt like committing crime.
“Able to do what?”
“Get out of there fast. She’s your mother. It’s kind of a primal relationship.”
“I’m the thing putting her in danger. If I leave, that makes her safer. Right?”
“That’s my assumption,” Ex said as I pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the store. My mother was just getting out of her car maybe thirty feet away. “Just wanted to make sure we were thinking the same thing.”
I popped open the driver’s door and slid down to the pavement. Ex slid across behind me, closed the door, and drove away. Chogyi Jake’s rental—a white Sebring—was in position at the edge of the lot. I had to fight the urge to wave at him.
I stood on the curb, my hands pushed deep in my pockets. I didn’t have a gun, mostly because experience had proven that I was considerably behind Zatoichi when it came to hitting my targets. And besides that, when the fights actually started, it wasn’t me running the body. A green truck cruised between us. The guy at the wheel looked like he was about twelve. When Mom saw me, she broke stride a little, the hesitation nothing more than an extra half step. So she hadn’t seen me following her. The wind bit at my cheeks and lips, and my heart was beating fast. I held myself still, looking out from behind the massive sunglasses. Her expression went from fear to anger to sorrow so quickly, it was hard to parse. She walked up to me, stopping maybe five feet away. Her body was turned, and it took me a second to realize why. She was protecting her purse like I was going to steal it. Like one kind of threat was all threats.
“I can’t talk to you,” she said.
“Meaning Dad won’t let you,” I said. It wasn’t what I’d meant to say. I could already feel this starting to fishtail out from under me. I took a breath and tried again. “It’s been a really hard few years. There are some things I need to know that only you can tell me.”
“I can’t,” she said, lifting her chin. Her gaze was set about five degrees off to my right, as if looking at me straight on would be dangerous. “I understand you don’t respect our family or our God, so I wouldn’t expect you to understand why I would choose to honor your father’s wishes, but—”
“Yeah, I really don’t.”
“But. Your father is a good man.”
“Is he?”
That seemed to strike home. Two bright spots of color appeared on her cheeks, red underneath the paleness of her makeup.
“You have no idea what sacrifices he has made for this family,” she said. “You have no idea the troubles that the Lord has put on his shoulders.”
I shrugged.
“Maybe someone could tell me,” I said. “Know anybody who’d be up for that?”
“I will not speak to you,” my mother said. Her scowl could have shamed stones. She set her shoulders and turned away, marching toward the grocery store.
“Please,” my body said without me. It was always strange when it did that. Before I knew I had a rider, I figured it was just my subconscious taking action without bothering to alert my frontal lobes. I figured everyone worked like this. How could I have known otherwise?
My mother stopped like I’d yanked on her leash. I stood still, and the rider in me didn’t do anything else. My mother turned back slowly, as if unwilling to but without the power to stop herself. She came back slowly. There were tears in her eyes, which was a first since I’d come back to town. And something else. Looking at her, it was like seeing a kid on Christmas day coming downstairs to find a pony standing by the tree. It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t delight. It was what came before that. Wonder, maybe. Disbelief.
“What did you say?” she asked, and her voice sounded like someone shouting from a long way off. “What did you say to me?”
“Please,” the Black Sun said with my mouth. It reached out and took my mother’s hand. She stepped close, her eyes locked on mine now, staring into me like she was looking for something. Like she’d lost something important and thought she might find it written on the back of my skull.
“You?” she whispered. “It is you? Are you there?”
When I answered, it was really me.
“I don’t know. Help me find out.”
Her hand dropped back to her side. A thickset black man pushed a cart out from the doors behind her, nodded to us as he passed, and pressed out into the parking lot with a metallic crash. He might as well not have been there. My mother’s attention was locked on nothing, her lips moving in a conversation I had no part in. My nose had started running, and the cold hurt my earlobes. I ignored the discomfort. My heart was beating faster. I felt the gap between us growing thin. I could feel myself almost reaching her. Almost.