But, as it happened, not against everything.
I had forgotten about Hacker. It seemed as though everyone had after Patty called for him. He remained in coyote form, his yellow eyes gleaming with moonlight, his fur tinged with red in the rich light of the setting sun. Now, with a snarl that came from deep in his chest, he leaped at Hain, who was still on his knees, and who, long ago, had spelled Hacker, robbing him of his freedom, making him little more than a slave to the moon and to magic.
Hain was in a moon-induced haze and couldn’t react fast enough. The coyote went for his throat, teeth snapping, paws planted on the weremancer’s chest. Hain fell back with the animal on top of him and let out a gurgling cry as the beast tore at him. Blood soaked his shirt and the ground beneath him. His eyes rolled back in his head.
Saorla made another sharp motion with her hand, and the coyote flew from him, yelping as it hit the ground a few feet away and rolled.
But I wasn’t watching Hacker or Hain.
I saw Patty’s lips moving. She was about to cast using Hain’s blood. God knew what she would do or at whom she would aim her magic. My father, Kona and Kevin, Jacinto and the others, me-any one of us could have been her target.
And so I did the one thing I could think of. Three elements: Patty, a cylinder of magic around her, and all that blood. I cast without hesitation, without thought, without consciously putting the elements into words. I pictured what I had in mind and let the spell fly.
Magic surged through the ground and practically made the air shimmer. I couldn’t have said which of us cast first. It felt as though the spells released simultaneously. The blood vanished and flames shot from her hands. Only to be blocked by the barrier I’d conjured. The fire rebounded, an assault spell fueled by blood; whatever wardings she had placed upon herself before coming here could never withstand such powerful magic. She screamed, flailing and writhing, trapped by my spell and under siege from her own.
Flames swallowed her like some ravenous beast. Her clothes and skin and hair blackened until at last she fell over, still twisting, her movements growing weaker by the moment.
Kona, Kevin, and my dad stared at her, wincing but unable to avert their eyes. Regina Witcombe had covered her mouth with trembling hands. Tears coursed down her face. Even Jacinto and his men flinched at what they saw. Alone among us, Saorla and the runemystes seemed unaffected. Namid and his companions watched Saorla, but the necromancer had her hard glare fixed on me.
“You have cost me a servant I value,” she said. She cast a quick glance at Hain’s body before meeting my gaze again. “Two servants. You will pay a price for that.”
I ignored her. Pointing at Witcombe, I said to Namid, “What about her? She and Patty killed a runemyste, and she was an accessory to Heather Royce’s murder.”
“She is mine!” Saorla said. “I will not lose another.”
I shook my head. “That’s not for you to say.”
“She cannot be held by a jail, Ohanko. You know this.”
“She killed one of your kind! You’d let her go?”
“I am helpless to do otherwise.”
Saorla’s mouth curved into a great big shit-eating grin. I would have loved to say or do something to wipe it from her winsome face, but my thoughts were fragmenting again. It was all I could do to follow the rest of the conversation.
“What about my damn murder investigations?” Kona asked.
“I believe they are solved,” Namid said. “The man who committed the murder in the park is dead, as is the woman who killed Heather Royce. Do I have all of that right?”
Kona frowned, but after a moment she nodded. “Yeah, I suppose.”
Namid turned to Saorla. “We have a bargain then, you and I. You will take the Witcombe woman and go. And you will leave the Fearsson men alone.”
“And the people we love,” I said, thinking of Billie and of Kona.
Namid weighed this and then nodded. “And those they love.”
Saorla shook her head. “Unacceptable.”
“It is, for the most part, the bargain you proposed.”
“I demanded all three of my servants!”
Namid’s shrug was so casual that even in something of a daze, I had to keep from laughing. “Two of them are now dead, through no fault of mine.” He pointed my way. “Nor of his.”
“His spell killed her!”
“Ohanko’s spell kept her from harming others. She was killed by her own crafting.”
“I still do not-”
“You will agree to this,” Namid said, his voice like ice grinding against stone, “or I will step outside of the law and wipe you from this earth right now.”
I hoped that Saorla would refuse and force the runemyste to act. But I think she sensed that she’d pushed him as far she could. “Very well,” she said. Her eyes found mine. “Beware, Justis Fearsson. I am not finished with you.”
“Did I not make the conditions of this bargain clear?” Namid demanded.
“Of course you did, Namid’skemu. I am merely telling young Fearsson what he knows already to be true.” She looked at me sidelong once more. You still owe me a boon, she whispered in my mind. Out loud she said, “We shall meet again.”
Her disappearance was sudden enough to startle me. It took me a moment to realize that Witcombe was gone, too. The bodies of Hain and Patty Hesslan-Fine remained, as did Hacker, the werecat, and the others-dead and alive-Saorla had brought with her. I was vaguely aware of movement off to the side. Men were leading others to a pair of SUVs. That should have meant something to me, but my attention was drawn back to the watery figure before me. He was speaking to the woman-to Kona.
“They need a place to sleep,” he said.
“I know. Justis can go back home now. I’ll take him there myself. I’ll take both of them.”
“It is well. You have my thanks.”
After that I lost track of the conversation and just about everything else. I remember gazing at the moon from the desert, and later through a car window. I think Kona said stuff to me, and I suppose I tried to answer, but I remember nothing of what we talked about. I do remember, though, that my father rode with us, and that he slept.
I awoke the next morning feeling hungover, my thoughts clearer than they had been, but far from crystal. The door to my second bedroom was closed, which it never is. I was about to open it when I remembered that my dad was here with me, that his trailer had been knocked over, and that Patty Hesslan-Fine was dead. I left the door shut and dragged myself into the kitchen to fix some coffee.
I wanted to go see Billie-now that I had remembered my dad, I was recalling lots of other stuff as well-but I didn’t want my father waking up alone in a strange house. He’d been in my place before, but it had been a while, and his memory wasn’t always so good, particularly in the middle of the phasing.
While I was waiting for him to wake up, Kona called and asked to come by. She and Kevin showed up at my door a short time later, badges in hand.
“I take it this isn’t a social visit,” I said, eyeing them both.
“’Fraid not,” Kona said. “We need a statement from you about Heather’s murder, about your friend Martell, and about what happened last night to Hesslan-Fine and Palmer Hain.”
“All right.” I stood aside and waved them into the house.
Kona went right in, but Kevin faltered, his eyes lowered. “I think I owe you an apology.”
“No, you really don’t. You’re new to this magic thing, and this week you got thrown into the deep end without water wings or anything.” I grinned, and so did he. “You’ve handled it well,” I said, “and I appreciate it.”
The three of us talked for the better part of an hour. Kona and Kevin had a lot of questions, and I answered them as best I could, trying to reduce magical occurrences to explanations that wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows among those who read their report. Eventually I heard my father stir in the back room and call out, “Justis?”