Margarite left, telling the nurse that she needed to hurry back to “our father’s” side. It took Alicia some time to gather the necessary documents, and she insisted on changing the bandage on my wrist before letting me go. My hand was still tender, despite Namid’s healing magic, and I winced several times as she worked on me, prompting a lengthy scolding during which she told me in no uncertain terms that I was making a terrible mistake.
I was out of there by seven-thirty. I guessed that Kona and Kevin had done their best to get stuck in traffic; Kona wouldn’t have sent Margarite to warn me if she then intended to rush over.
I had someone at the visitor’s desk call a cab for me, and went outside to wait for it. As soon as I cleared the building and set foot on the pavement, it hit me: the moon. It’s pull on my mind was magnetic; I could no more resist it than I could fight the passage of time. Somehow I had lost track of the days, but it came rushing back to me now. As the start of the phasing approached, the moon’s effect on my thoughts and mood grew ever stronger. But the difference in magnitude between the tug of the moon approaching full and its power as the phasing began was the difference between a sip of beer and a couple of shots of tequila. The phasing would begin tonight at sundown, and already I could feel it bending my mind, leaving me muddied and grasping for clarity. Other weremystes-Q, Luis, and Amaya, and also Patty, Witcombe, and Dimples-would be experiencing much the same thing. Like the laws of nature, the laws of magic brooked no exceptions. But I doubted that the weremancers would rest today in anticipation of this evening’s moonrise. If anything, they’d be working even harder in advance of it.
Considering once more that laws-of-magic thing, I wondered if there were blood spells that somehow allowed them to escape the worst of the phasings. I wasn’t proud of myself for thinking along those lines, but I had to admit that if blood magic was that powerful, I’d be tempted to give it a try.
Before I could wander too much further down that path, my cab showed up. I climbed in and told the driver to take me up to Banner Desert Medical Center. It was incredibly stupid of me, but I wanted to check in on Billie.
She had been moved to a private room, which made tracking her down a bit difficult. Soon enough, though, I found her. She was asleep when I walked in, and for a few moments I stood and stared at her, rage and guilt and relief warring within me. Her color was better, though she still had enough bandages on her head and arm to qualify for mummy-hood. She was going to be fine. I was sure of that. But I also knew I could claim no credit for her survival. Not only had I failed to protect her, it was because of me that she was here in the first place, wrapped in miles of gauze and wired to those damn machines.
Even private rooms in hospitals had curtains, so that nurses and doctors could examine patients in private when they had guests. I pulled the curtain out part way and sat on the far side of it so that Billie couldn’t see me. And then I spoke her name.
I had to call to her a couple of times before she woke, but at last I heard her say, “Fearsson?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“On the far side of the curtain.”
“Well get over here, clown. Let me see you.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Are you hurt? Did something happen to you?”
“No, I’m fine. I mean, yeah, something happened to me. I’ll explain it all when I can. But right now you need to know that the police are trying to find me.”
“Why?”
I sighed. “They think I killed someone.”
Silence. After about ten seconds, which in the middle of a conversation is a lot longer than it sounds, she said, “Did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then-”
“Kona is going to come here with Kevin, her partner, and they’re going to question you. They have to. Kona knows I didn’t do it, but she’s conducting an investigation, and she answers to people who don’t like me as much as she does. The point is, I want you to be able to say with a straight face that you haven’t seen me. If they ask you whether we’ve spoken, that’s what you say: You haven’t seen me, and we haven’t even spoken by phone. You understand?”
“I guess. But then why did you come here? Why go to all this trouble?”
“I needed to see you. I wanted to make sure you were doing all right.”
“Okay, I think I must be getting too caught up in your twisted world, because, ridiculous as this all is, that strikes me as being incredibly sweet and romantic.”
I grinned. “Good. How are you feeling?”
“I’m better. The fajitas you brought helped. You didn’t happen to bring more, did you?”
“No. I was . . . I couldn’t get to a restaurant.”
I could almost hear her frowning. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
No. “I’m working on it.”
“Does this have anything to do with-?”
“Don’t say any more, Billie. Please.”
“But no one else is here.”
“They don’t have to be here to be listening. Get what I mean?”
“Yes,” she said. She sounded scared, and more than anything I wanted to shove aside the curtain and take her hand.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. After they search for me at the other hospital and at home, this is the next place they’ll come.”
“You were in the hospital?”
Oops. “Just overnight. I had a . . . a cut on my wrist.”
“That must have been some cut.”
“It was. I’ll come back as soon as I can. I promise. In the meantime, I need you to turn away so that I can pull this curtain back and leave.”
A pause. Then, “All right.”
I pushed the curtain away and stood. Glancing at her, I saw that Billie was watching me.
“Billie!”
“I lied,” she said. “And I’ll lie to Kona if I have to. But I wanted to see you.” Her gaze fell to the heavy bandaging on my wrist. “That doesn’t look so good. Did you try to kill yourself?”
“Someone needed blood for a spell, and they took mine without my permission.”
“And was this the same person who committed the murder Kona wants to blame on you?”
“She doesn’t want to . . .” I cringed, squeezed my eyes shut for a second. I didn’t have time to explain it all. “Yes. Same person.”
Billie stared at my arm for another second before again finding my eyes with hers. “Your job sucks, Fearsson.”
I laughed. “It certainly does this week.” I stepped to the bed and kissed her on the bridge of the nose. “I have to go,” I whispered.
“Okay.”
I kissed her again, and slipped out of her room. I took the stairs to the ground floor, avoiding the elevators, grabbed another cab out front, and had the driver drop me off a block from my home.
I walked the rest of the way, and seeing no sign of Kona’s Mustang or PPD squad cars out front, I let myself inside. I changed clothes as quickly as I could, retrieved my cell phone and bomber jacket from where I’d left them the night before-I’d lost my Glock to Regina Witcombe’s security guys, and I didn’t think they’d give it back, even if I asked nicely-and went back outside, intending to jump in the Z-ster. At which point I remembered that the car would have been impounded by the police. After all, there’d been a dead body in the back.
After considering the problem for all of two seconds, I walked away from the house, pulled out my cell phone, and dialed what was becoming a familiar number.
“Amaya.”
“Good morning,” I said. “It’s Jay Fearsson.”
“So it says on my phone. When I gave you this number, I didn’t think you’d add me to your circle of phone friends.”
“I need a car.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was kidnapped last night by Regina Witcombe and a friend of hers. They controlled me with one blood spell and tried to use my blood for a second crafting that would have killed my runemyste. And in the process they framed me for murder. The police have my car, and I can’t do anything until I have a replacement.”