“No, it’s nothing like that. I came here on my own. I want to talk to him.”
“And you think that’s a good idea.”
I grinned. “I think it’s something I need to do.”
She pursed her lips for a moment. “Well, I’ll assume you know what you’re doing.”
“Right, because that always works out so well.”
She didn’t laugh, but she opened the door and held it for me.
In truth, I wasn’t any more convinced than she that coming to see Hibbard made sense. But now that I knew what had happened to my mother, I wanted him to know as well.
I went to his office, second-guessing myself with every step I took. By the time I knocked on his door, my pulse was racing. He called for me to come in, and I opened the door.
Seeing me, his face reddened. “What the hell do you want?”
“I’d like to talk to you if I may.”
“About what?” he demanded, sounding as though there was no answer I could give that would satisfy him.
“About my father.”
He hadn’t been expecting that. “What about him?”
I pointed at the chair opposite his desk. “May I?”
He hesitated, nodded. “Close the door.”
I told him all of it. Everything. I started by admitting that both of us were weremystes who didn’t take blockers. I tried to explain what that meant, but he stopped me.
“I know more about magic than you think,” he said. “I’ve been a cop in this town for a long time. Go on.”
From there, I told him about this most recent case, about all that had been done to my dad by the dark sorcerers. And I concluded by repeating almost word for word what Dad had told me about my mother’s death.
For a long time after I finished, Hibbard said nothing. He had shifted his chair so that he could look out his window without turning his back on me, and he had his fingers steepled, his index fingers resting lightly against his lips.
“Why did you tell me that?” he asked, his voice subdued.
“I thought you should know.”
“Did he send you?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t know I’m here. But once upon a time, you were his best friend. And I know you cared about my mom, too.”
“How is he? The last I heard he was . . .”
“He’s in and out,” I said. “He has a few good days, but mostly he’s what you’d expect of a burned-out old weremyste.”
He nodded.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. At last I stood and said, “Well, that was all I came to tell you. Thank you for seeing me.”
I stepped to the door.
“Are you angling to come back to the force?”
I bristled at the question, though his tone had been mild and not at all accusatory.
“No, sir. I miss the job, but I’m doing all right on my own. And I don’t expect that anyone in a position of power would take me back.”
“Probably not, no.” He swiveled so that he was facing me. “Shaw tells me that your input on the Howell murder, and also on the killing in Sweetwater Park, was invaluable.”
“I was happy to help.”
I expected a snide response, but he just nodded again. “Thanks for telling me this,” he said. “I . . . I’m glad the rumors weren’t true.”
I waited, wondering if he would say more, or if that was as close as he could come to admitting that he had been wrong about my old man. When he didn’t say anything else, I let myself out of his office, left 620, and drove back to Chandler.
Namid kept his distance for about a week. When he finally materialized again in my living room, it was late at night. Dad was still staying with me, but he had already gone to sleep.
“Ohanko,” the runemyste said. “It has been too long since you trained.” He lowered himself to the floor and eyed me with that same annoyingly expectant expression, like a puppy waiting to be walked.
“Not so fast, ghost.” I ignored his rumble of protest. “What have you done with Saorla?”
“We have done nothing with her. She remains free to do as she pleases, except that she cannot trouble you or your father, and she is watched at all times. If she attempts to kill more of our kind, we will stop her.”
“There’ll be others you know.” I heard an echo of Amaya’s words in my own, but I pressed on. “She can’t be the only necromancer who wants all of you destroyed.”
“Assuredly she is not. But we know nothing of others, and so for now we can do little about them. We will watch Saorla, and perhaps we will learn of others from her.”
It wasn’t the most reassuring of strategies, but it wasn’t the worst I’d heard, either.
“Now,” he said, “sit and clear yourself.”
I sat across from him and closed my eyes, summoning the calming image of my Golden Eagle. When I felt that I was cleared, I opened my eyes once more.
He nodded once. “Defend yourself.”
I got my dad settled back into his trailer a few days later and the following morning brought Billie back to her home in Tempe. We spent a quiet day together making her house a bit more comfortable and convenient for someone with an arm in a cast. And I stayed with her for a few nights-purely to make sure that she was okay. Right.
The following Tuesday, she and I went out to Wofford for my usual visit with my dad. Even through the phasing – not the nights, of course, but the days-he had been unusually lucid. Maybe it was the relief of no longer having to endure the torment meted out by the necromancers. Whatever the reason, I had started to take the clarity of our conversations for granted.
When we arrived on this day, though, he was hunched in his chair, mumbling to himself, his T-shirt stained. He wore no socks, and he smelled like he hadn’t showered in a few days. Despite Namid’s assurances, my first thought was that Saorla had recommenced her attacks on him.
But he wasn’t flinching, and his color was good.
“How are you feeling, Dad?” I asked, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead.
“Hot wind blowing,” he said. “It’s that brown haze on the city. Makes the wind hot, hurts my eyes and my throat. Used to be you could count on the birds to keep it cool, to bring rain and such. Not anymore. Birds are as helpless as we are. More. That wind bothers them-keeps them from flying straight.”
On and on he went. A classic Leander Fearsson rant. There was no point to it, no beginning or end. Just the random thoughts of a crazy old runecrafter. It was perfectly normal for him, but still it broke my heart. Billie sat beside me and we both listened. Occasionally we tried to engage him, though it did little good. But she held my hand, and she got me through it. By the time we left he was dressed in a clean T-shirt and was balancing a plate of fresh-cooked steak and roasted potatoes in his lap. I felt that we’d done everything we could. Until next week.
“Come on, Fearsson,” Billie said, pulling me gently toward the car. “We’ll get some dinner and watch a movie. He’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, I know.” And I did. He was safe, at least for now. But there was no way to change who and what he had become over the years. Or what I would become eventually.
I turned away from him and kissed her. “Thanks for coming out with me.”
“Of course. I’m your wife, remember? That’s what we wives do.”
I had to laugh. But gazing at her in the dying light, I felt my breath catch. I’d come so close to losing her.
Her brow creased. “Fearsson?”
“I’m glad you’re all right,” I said, my chest tightening. I lifted her good hand to my lips.
“Yeah, well about that.”
Uh-oh. I had been waiting for this. She was better off without me. Certainly she’d be safer. Had she finally figured this out as well?
“I think,” she went on, “that it’s time you started teaching me to defend myself.”
I blinked. “Defend yourself? You mean from magic?”
“I was thinking of bombs, guns, knives, stuff like that. But protection from bat-shit crazy magical women would be a good idea, too.” We both grinned. “Your life doesn’t ever seem to slow down,” she said. “And, much to my surprise, I kind of like that. But it would be good to be able to rely on myself a bit more.”