“Fearsson,” I said.
“Hey, partner. Where have you been?” Kona’s voice sounded thin and tinny on the tiny speakers, but I’d never been so happy to hear her.
“Busy day,” I said. “I’ve been all over.”
“Did you get out to Paradise Valley?”
Patty and Witcombe shared a look.
“Yes, I did. Thanks again. Tell Hibbard thanks, too.”
Kona’s pause was a split second longer than it ought to have been. I wasn’t sure that Patty would notice, but I certainly did. Kona knew something was wrong. “I’ll tell him,” she said. “He’s gone for the day, but I’ll tell him. Where are you now?”
“Lie to her.” Patty mouthed the words, lending only enough breath to make them chime in my mind.
But I felt the compulsion; I was incapable of telling Kona I was at home. Once more, though, haste had made Patty careless.
“I’m with Billie at her place.”
“Nice. Tell her ‘hi’ for me.”
“I will.”
“Listen, I just called to let you know that we’ve cleared the Sweetwater Park case. We won’t be needing your help on that anymore.”
“Good for you, Kona. Glad to hear it.”
Message received. I’d told her a whopper, and she had come back at me with the same. She knew I was in trouble.
“Thanks. I guess I’ll talk to you next week.”
“Sounds good.”
I snapped the phone shut. Patty took it out of my hand and tossed it onto my couch. “That was well done. You see how easy this is when you follow directions?”
I stared back at her, hoping that she would see rage and impotence in my glower.
“We need to hurry. In case that conversation wasn’t as innocent as it sounded.” Patty glanced toward the windows that faced out onto the street. “Close those blinds.”
She didn’t say it as a magical command, so I remained as I was. Patty glanced Witcombe’s way. “Now!”
“I thought you meant him.”
As Witcombe lowered the blinds, Patty said to me, “Usually we do this with weremystes who have already been turned to our cause. We don’t have that kind of time with you. Not anymore. So we’ll have to try a different way. Take off your jacket and your shirt, and then retrieve my knife from your jacket pocket.”
I had forgotten I was carrying it. I shrugged off my bomber and pulled off my shoulder holster and T-shirt. Then I took the blade out of the jacket pocket and held it out to her.
She didn’t take it from me. “Grip the knife, but don’t use it against anyone. Not yet.”
Half-dressed, I felt cold and vulnerable. I didn’t like where this was going. I tightened my hold on the knife hilt and waited.
In my mind, though, I said, Namid, I need help.
“Regina are you ready to cast the spell?”
Witcombe nodded.
Ohanko. Namid didn’t materialize in the house, but I heard him speak in my mind. I am here, but you know I cannot help you.
Can you tell me how to break her hold on me?
“I want you to listen closely to me, Jay,” she said, her words echoing loudly in my head. “We need blood for this casting as well. But you can’t cut too deeply. The spell takes time, and we can’t have you passing out before we’re ready. I want you to draw the blade . . .”
She controls you? Somehow I heard the runemyste’s voice over hers, though he didn’t seem to be speaking any louder than usual.
Yes. The two of them cast a blood spell. The body of their source is in my car. I can’t fight them. I can’t even cast.
“. . . The symbols should look like this.” She had drawn a circle; I didn’t remember her having a pen and paper. Now, within the circle, she drew a stylized P with the loop pointy rather than rounded, like the corner of a triangle. Beside it, she drew a second symboclass="underline" a vertical line with a slash through it. And then a third: a plain vertical line.
If you cannot cast, I do not know how to help you.
I’m going to die here, Namid. You have to do something.
You must find a way to craft, Ohanko. They control your entire being, but the magic is attacking your mind. If you can shield it, you can win your freedom.
But I told you-
“. . . And when I say so, you will summon him.”
The world seemed to fall away beneath me. If I’d had control over my limbs, my knees would have buckled.
There was only one being I could summon: Namid. And he was right here with me, so close he could have whispered in my ear. In my desperation to break free of their spell, I had endangered the runemyste.
Leave me, Namid. And when I summon you again, don’t respond. Stay away from me.
I do not-
They’ll use blood. The summoning will be powerful. You might not be able to resist it on your own. Get others to help you. Whatever you do, don’t come when I call you!
Ohanko, you are-
Listen to me, ghost! They plan to use me to kill you. Just the way they killed your friend in Northern Virginia. Now, go!
“What are you doing, Jay?”
Patty had stepped closer to me, so that her face was inches from mine. An instant later, pain exploded in my chest, as if the same bomb that destroyed Solana’s had gone off inside me. I let out a small huff of air, but couldn’t clutch at my heart or fold in on myself as I wanted to. I could do no more than stand there, the pain making me grind my teeth.
“What are you doing, Jay?” she demanded again, biting off each word, and at the same time imbuing them with magic, so that I heard them with reverb.
“Warning Namid,” I said, the words torn from my throat.
“You shouldn’t have.”
The air shivered with another spell, and I heard bones break. Agony. It felt like she had smashed my left hand with a brick. My stomach heaved, though I managed somehow not to throw up.
“It shouldn’t matter, really. The blood compels him, so long as the spell is cast correctly. But to make it interesting, if your warnings keep him away, you’ll pay a price. If, after the spell is cast, he’s not here in ten seconds, I’ll shatter your knee. Ten seconds after that, I’ll break the other one. You don’t have to be standing for any of this to work. When I’m done with your knees, I’ll move on to your elbow, your femur, your tibia. And so on. Now, cut your wrist.”
I turned over my mangled hand, so that I exposed the underside of my wrist. And using the knife I held in my other hand, I angled the blade so that I would hit only artery and carved through my skin with the precision of a surgeon. The pain brought tears to my eyes and drew another chuffing of breath. But all I could do was watch as blood coursed from the gash, running over the blade and down my hand, and dripping onto the pale carpet.
“That’s enough,” Patty said. “Not too deep, remember?” She took the blade from me. “Now, the pattern.”
I dabbed a finger in the blood and drew a circle that encompassed my chest and belly. Gathering more blood, I made the stylized P, the line with the slash through it, and the second vertical line. Somehow, I drew them so that they would appear to Patty as they were meant to, though from my perspective they were upside down.
“I couldn’t have done better myself.” To Witcombe she said, “It’s time!”
They chanted something in a language I didn’t know. Once through, and then again.
“Get ready to summon him, Jay.”
They began to speak the words a third time. Their incantation must have been intended to strengthen my summons, and to extend their control to Namid as well. I couldn’t allow them to finish.
I’d never cast a blood spell before, but I knew in theory how it should work, and I had no time to second guess myself. I hoped the blood would allow me to overcome the control spell they’d used against me.