"So that's who Jacob called."
"At eleven twenty-seven P.M. The call itself is indistinct, owing to both the rain and poor cellular reception. He appears to say he's being followed, after leaving a movie and becoming separated from his friends. The next part is unclear. He says something about telling his father he's sorry. The operator tells him to stay calm. Then the call ends."
"Shit," Troy said.
"Not necessarily," Lucas said. "The cellular signal may have been disrupted. Or he may simply have decided he was making too big a deal out of the matter, become embarrassed, and hung up."
"Would Griffin let him go to a late movie with his friends?" I asked Troy.
"On a school night? Never. Griff's real strict about stuff like that."
"Well, then, that's probably it. Jacob realized he'd be in trouble for sneaking out and hung up. He'll probably crash at a friend's place, and call his dad once he works up the nerve."
Troy nodded, but didn't look any more convinced than I felt.
"Jesus," Troy said as he pulled into the area where Dennis had advised us to park.
He'd squeezed the SUV between two buildings and come out in a tiny parking lot only a few feet wider than the alley itself. Every building in sight was rife with boarded-up windows, the boards themselves rife with bullet holes. Any security lights had long since been shot out. The rain swallowed the glow of the new moon overhead. As Troy swung into a parking spot, the headlights illuminated a brick wall covered in graffiti. My gaze swept across the symbols and names.
"Uh, are those…?"
"Gang markings," Troy said. "Welcome to Miami."
"Is this the right place?" I said, squinting into the darkness. "Jacob said he was at a show, but this doesn't look…"
"There's a theater a few blocks over," Troy said. "A gazillion-screen multiplex plopped down in the middle of hell. Just the place you want to drop off the kiddies for a Saturday matinee." He shut off the engine, then dowsed the lights. "Shit. We're going to need flashlights."
"How's this?" I cast a spell and a baseball-size blob of light appeared in my hand.
I opened the car door and lobbed the light out. It stopped a few yards away and hung there, illuminating the lot.
"Cool. I've never seen that."
"Witch magic," Lucas said. He cast the spell himself, conjuring a weaker ball of light, and leaving it in his palm. "It has a more practical orientation than ours. I'm not as accomplished at this spell as Paige yet, so I'll keep my light at hand, so to speak. If I throw it out… well, it rarely cooperates."
"Splats on the sidewalk like an egg," I said, tossing him a quick grin. "Okay, then, we have the flashlights covered. Troy, I'm assuming you can handle umbrella duty. So we're all set."
We walked to the edge of the parking lot. The skeletal remains of a building rose from a vacant slab of land at least the size of a city block. Scrubby trees, half-demolished walls, piles of broken concrete, ripped-open trash bags, discarded tires, and broken furniture cluttered the landscape. I bent to lift a sodden sheet of cardboard draped over a large lump. Troy kicked a syringe out of the way and grabbed my hand.
"Not a good idea," he said. "Better use a stick."
I peered across the field, in one glance picking out a score of places where Jacob could lie low and wait for help.
"Should we try calling him?" I asked.
Troy shook his head. "Might attract the wrong kind of attention. Jacob knows me, but he's a smart kid. If he's hiding out here, he's not going to answer us until he sees my face."
Though none of us said it, there was another reason for not just calling his name and moving on. He could be injured, unable to answer. Or worse.
"The rain is easing and Paige's ball casts sufficient light for us all to search," Lucas said. "I suggest we split up, each taking a ten foot swatch, and make a thorough sweep." He stopped. "Unless… Paige? Your sensing spell would be perfect for this."
"A spell?" Troy said. "Great."
"Uh, right. The only problem…" I glanced at Troy. "It's a fourth-level spell. Technically, I'm still third-level, so I'm not…" God, this stung. "I'm not very good-"
"She's still refining her accuracy," Lucas said. That sounded so much better than what I was going to say. "Could you give it a try?"
I nodded. Lucas motioned for Troy to follow him and start searching, giving me privacy. I closed my eyes, concentrated, and cast.
The moment the words left my mouth, I knew the spell had failed. Most witches wait for results, but my mother had taught me to use my gut instinct, to feel the subtle click of a successful cast. It wasn't easy. To me, intuition always seems like some flaky New Age thing. My brain seeks the logic in patterns; it looks for clear, decisive results. As I move into harder spells, though, I've been forcing myself to develop that inner sense. Otherwise, with the sensing spell, if I didn't detect a presence, I wouldn't know whether it was because no one was there or because the spell had failed.
I recast. The click followed, almost as a subconscious sigh of relief. Now came the tough part. With a spell like this, I couldn't just cast it and leave it on, like the light-ball. I needed to sustain it, and that took concentration. I held myself still and focused on the spell, measuring its strength. It wavered, almost disappeared, then took hold. I resisted the urge to open my eyes. The spell would still work, but I'd rely too much on what I was seeing instead of feeling. I turned slowly, and sensed two presences. Troy and Lucas. I pinpointed their location, then peeked to double-check. There they were, exactly where I'd sensed them.
"Got it," I said, my voice echoing through the silence.
"Good," Lucas called back as they headed my way.
"So how does this work?" Troy asked.
"If I walk slowly, I should be able to detect anyone within a twenty-foot radius."
"Great."
I inhaled. "Okay, here goes."
I had two choices. Be led around with my eyes closed, like some wack-job spiritualist, or open my eyes and keep my gaze on the ground. Naturally, I went for option two. Anything to avoid looking like an idiot.
Lucas and Troy followed. After a few yards, I felt the spell waver. I told my nerves there was no need to panic, no pressure here. They called me a liar, but agreed to fake it for a while. I relaxed and the spell surged to full strength.
Weak presences tickled at the edges of awareness. When I focused on them, they stayed amorphous. Small mammals, probably rats. An image flashed through my mind: a novel a friend and I had "borrowed" from her older brother when we'd been kids. Something about rats going crazy and eating people. There was this one scene with… I forced the image back, my gaze skittering across the ground looking for rat turds.
The spell fluttered, but I kept walking. We finished one twenty-foot strip and started up the next. I weaved through a minefield of beer cans and around the black scar of a campfire pit. Then I picked up a presence twice as strong as the others.
"Got something," I said.
I hurried toward the source, climbed over a three-foot wall remnant, and startled a huge gray tabby. The cat hissed and tore off across the field, taking the presence I'd sensed with it. The spell snapped.
"Was that it?" Troy said.
"I can't-" I shot a glare at Lucas. I knew he didn't deserve it, but couldn't help myself. I stamped off to the end of the swath, grabbed a stick, and poked at a pile of rags.
"Paige?" Lucas said, coming up behind me.
"Don't. I know I'm overreacting, but I hate-"
"You didn't fail. The spell was working. You found the cat."
"If I can't tell the difference between a cat and a sixteen-year-old boy, then, no, it's not working. Forget it, okay? I should be looking for Jacob, not field-testing spells."
Lucas moved up behind me, so close I could feel the heat from his body. He dropped his voice to a murmur. "So you uncover a cat or two along the way. Who cares? Troy doesn't know how the spell's supposed to work. We have a lot of ground to cover."