See, here’s the thing. Every magic user has to draw glyphs, or symbols, that in turn magic fills and acts upon. And just like handwriting, every magic user has a unique signature. The way I cast Light doesn’t look exactly the same way Terric casts Light.
Hounds, like Davy, are trained in knowing every magic user’s signature. They spend a lot of time keeping up on such things, and there were databases where each magic user had to register his or her signature.
But I didn’t need a database to know who had killed Joshua.
“Eli Collins,” I said.
Davy’s heart kicked up into fight-or-flight mode, the kind of sweat-terror you fall into when realizing the nightmare didn’t go away when you turned on the lights.
“Davy,” Terric said in a tone that pushed Davy’s heartbeat down a notch. “Do you agree?”
Davy nodded. “That’s his work. I’d swear on it.”
The door opened.
We all turned, Davy with his hand on his hip—was he carrying a gun now?—Terric with his left hand casting a spell, and me with my right hand already through a spell, only the cracking red static across my rings holding the magic from filling it.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Dessa said as she sauntered in without batting an eye at any of the near deaths we were aiming her way.
“Shame,” she said, “want to introduce me to your friends here?”
“No.”
She stopped about halfway across the room. “Look, I’m unarmed. Well, I have these guns.” She reached inside her jacket and Davy pulled a gun.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I’m going to put them on the counter here, so you don’t have to worry about it,” she said.
“Let her,” Terric said.
“Fine,” Davy said. “Slowly.”
She reached into her jacket, pulled her guns, slowly, one by one, and placed them on the counter.
“Step away from it.” Davy sounded like he’d done this more than once. Over the past three years of Hounding for the police, I assumed he had.
She stepped away and even kept her hands out to the side. “So, were they killed by magic?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Why the hell are you here?”
“You know why.” She took a couple steps closer. “Also, we forgot to set our lunch date.”
Terric lowered his hand, then, to me, “Shame.”
I sighed and let go of the spell. I shook my hand and a loud crack of electricity lashed out to the floor in a red arc, the pull on magic interrupted like a fuse shorting out.
Dessa’s eyes went a little wide and she paused before coming any closer. I noted Davy did not put away his gun.
“Her name is Dessa,” I said. “She never told me who she works for. If I had to guess?” I gave her the up-down, gauging her with sober eyes. “I’d say government.”
“Very good,” she said. “Dessa Leeds,” she said to Terric. “And I know you’re Terric Conley, and you’re Davy Silvers. What I don’t know is who the dead person is.”
“Why should you?” Terric asked.
“She shouldn’t,” I said.
“I’ll make it worth your while, Mr. Conley,” she said.
“Ha! Barking up the wrong tree, sister,” I said.
“How?” he asked.
“I have information,” she said, “about the movement against Soul Complements.”
Terric weighed her comment and, as I expected he would, decided the information and possible safety of others was worth the risk. “I won’t give you his name,” Terric said.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I just want to see his injuries.”
Terric nodded.
I sighed again. So not the way I would have let this go down. I missed being in charge.
Terric was on the far side of the drawer, I stood near the head of it, and Davy was on the other side, closest to Dessa.
She walked over, and paused nearest me.
I folded my arms over my chest and watched her while she studied Joshua’s wounds. Okay, I’m not a sentimental guy—not really. But I’ve always seen pain as a very personal kind of thing. Tell someone you’re hurting, and you’ve just told them how you are vulnerable.
So I did not like letting Dessa, no matter how nice she was, stare at my friend’s dead body. Stare at the wounds that had proved his final weakness.
I expected her to keep her feelings to herself, but the expression on her face was clear and honest: sorrow.
“These marks,” she said. “They’re from a blade—a knife—aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Terric said. I didn’t know if he was watching me or watching her, because I refused to take my eyes off her.
She shook her head, as if she didn’t want to deal with what was right in front of her. “And magic. They’re spells, aren’t they? The only one I recognize is Binding there.” She pointed to a Celtic-knot-looking design carved between the Death and Pain symbols.
“They’re spells,” Terric said.
“And they killed him?” She finally looked up. Not at me, at Terric.
Terric’s body language shifted. He was measuring her just the same as I had. And he’d come to the same conclusion. She knew something about this. Something that was causing her sadness.
“My brother was found like this,” she said. “Dead. With spells carved into his chest. Just like these.”
“You never said that,” I said.
“I was going to show you, remember?”
“Who’s your brother?” Davy asked.
“He was a Closer,” I said.
Davy nodded. We’d had so many threats against Closers over the years, the death rate was in a much higher percentage than other magic users.
“His name was Thomas Leeds,” she said. “He worked in Seattle.”
Terric frowned, searching his memory. “I think I met Tommy once, briefly. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Then he pulled the sheet up to Joshua’s chin and slid his body back into that endless cold.
“What can you tell us about your brother’s killer?” he asked.
“Not a lot,” she said. “He used to be a part of the Authority. That’s all I know, other than he may be in this area.”
Since they’d found Joshua’s body in a parking garage downtown, yeah, I’d say Eli was in the area.
“And about the government looking for Soul Complements?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you what I know if you help me find who did this.” She pointed toward the drawer.
“I am not in a position to guarantee you anything along those lines,” he said.
Funny, that’s pretty much exactly what I’d told her. I tilted a told-you-so look her way.
“Well, I’m going to be looking for the killer. Which means I’ll probably be getting in your way. I might even take my story to the police, or to the media. Blow the whole secret about magic being used to kill people right out of the water. I’m sure the citizens of Portland would be thrilled to find out all their fears about magic, and the mysterious Authority, are true.”
“Blackmail, darling?” I said. “Really? How will that help your hunt? I don’t think having cops and reporters crawling over every move is going to give you time to find anything except a good lawyer.”
“Either I’m in on finding the man who killed my brother and your friend there, or I’m going to make sure that we’re all out.” An ultimatum. Gutsy move.
I opened my mouth to tell her she was out of luck.
“Then you’re in,” Terric said.
I kept my surprise to myself. “Wonderful,” I muttered.
“Good,” she said, looking surprised at his decision too. “Good. Where do we start?”
“We’ll need to see if there are records on your brother we can pull,” Terric said. “Did you drive here?”
“Yes.”
“You can follow us downtown to the office.” He locked the drawer, then started toward the door, pausing only to take her guns and shove them in his pockets.