half-lich 02 - void weaver (5 page)

“He’s been locked away since the night the legionnaires picked him up. I doubt he’s had a chance to do more than read the books he was given. His lockup doesn’t even have a TV, and he isn’t allowed a cell phone or even the paper. Can’t use magic either; the place is warded to keep mages docile.”

“Docile?”

“
Unable to use magic
. Kinda like the wards around this place. I felt it as soon as I walked in here. I’m about as magic as a ham sandwich right now.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Not really. Not for me, anyway. It doesn’t feel right to not have my magic. Feels like I’m naked.”

Alice caught herself thinking, purely aesthetically, that it wouldn’t be entirely tragic if he
were
naked.

“Look,” he said, and his voice snapped her back into the moment. “I won’t sugar coat it. Things don’t look great right now. Isaac got word to me on a wing and a prayer—literally—and I don’t know how long he’s going to be stuck with the magistrate, which means I don’t know how long you need to be in here and under my protection.”

“Your protection? The answer is simple,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “Zero minutes.”

“I don’t want to be
that guy
, but I don’t think you have much of a choice.”

“I have a choice, and I choose to be the captain of my own destiny. If Isaac hasn’t been investigating what happened after the night of the attack, then I have to.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you
can’t
leave,” Cameron said. “If Isaac asked me to come over and make sure you’re safe, you must be in some kind of trouble. Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re not a mage, and seeing as I don’t know what you are, I can’t just let you walk out of here.”

Alice regarded him cautiously, trying to read his bodily cues and determine his angle. Everybody had an angle, and Cameron was no exception. She could get what she wanted from him, but she would have to give something in return. The only question was, did she lie to him about the trouble Isaac hadn’t been able to fill him in on, or did she risk bringing him into the fold? If she wanted to leave—and knowing what she knew now leaving was exactly what she needed to do—then she needed to win him over… or call on her police training and subdue him.

She sighed. “If I tell you what’s going on, will you let me leave?”

“If you tell me, I’ll
think
about letting you leave.”

“I honestly think there’s little you could do to stop me if I wanted to leave right now. Once I’ve made my mind up about something I’m like a train on a track, and I used to be a cop. I could take you down.”

Cameron smiled, more at himself than at Alice, musing as if he had just remembered a funny joke. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve already figured out that much about you. The way you talk and hold yourself, you’re used to having the last word. I also think you’re not the kind of girl who likes to stay put even on the best of days.”

“Oh, no, there you’ve got me totally wrong. Give me a good book or a TV show to watch, and my sofa becomes my favorite place in the world. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s no TV here, no Wi-Fi, and my cell connection is non-existent. At least
before
I thought this whole business was being looked into, but it’s been a week since everything happened and both Isaac and I have been locked up and in the dark. The trail is going cold.”

Cameron folded his arms in front of his chest. His leather jacket squeaked. “Alright,” he said, “Now I’m intrigued. What trail is growing cold?”

“If I tell you, I’m leaving. That’s the deal.”

He nodded. “Go ahead.”

Alice told him. At least, she told him as much as she could in the minute or so she wanted to spend discussing the events of the last couple of weeks, omitting the parts where she ate souls and had, herself, been trapped in the Reflection once before. Cameron didn’t need to know all of the details; only that Helena
had been
possessed by an old and powerful entity that was now on the loose somewhere.

Cameron considered all that Alice had said, carefully regarding her in the dimness of the kitchen; an artist trying to understand someone else’s painting. He was quiet for almost an entire minute before he finally said, “There’s something I don’t understand.”

“What’s that?” Alice asked.

“You said you had been hired by someone to find this girl, to find Emily.”

“Right.”

“Are you a private eye or something?”

“You don’t know?”

Cameron shrugged. “Not really. Should I?”

“I’m a bounty hunter; people pay me to take nasty things down. I’m damn good at it, too.”

“But it wasn’t Isaac who hired you.”

“No. I went to
him
for help.”

“… because you’re not a mage.”

“Exactly.”

“Then…
what are you
?”

Alice cocked her eyebrow again. “You’re asking too many questions. I held up my end of the bargain, now you have to keep yours and let me leave this place.”

Cameron took a deep breath through his nose but kept his lips pressed together, trying to decide whether to accept her terms or not. When his mind was made up, he nodded. “A deal is a deal,” he said, “Even though we didn’t shake on it, I could hold you to that.”

“Verbal contracts are binding too. You’re a mage; you should know that.”

“I’m not
that
kind of mage.”

“Okay, well, it doesn’t matter what kind of mage you are—we have a deal.” Alice went to walk around Cameron but he stretched his hand across the open kitchen arch just as she was about to pass him, barring her way. “We had a
deal
,” she warned.

“We do, and I’m keeping it, on one condition.”

“No conditions.”

“You’re going to want to accept this one.”

“Am I?” she asked, placing a hand on her hip and flicking her long hair over her shoulder.

“I didn’t see any vehicles parked out front, and you’re about fifteen miles outside of Ashwood central. Unless you’re planning to walk along I95 until tomorrow morning, you should probably let me come with you.”

“You want to come with me?”

“Why not? If this whole thing is as dangerous as you say, you may need a hand—a hand I’m willing to offer.”

“Because you promised Isaac?”

The corner of Cameron’s lips turned up into a smile. “That too, but mainly because it sounds dangerous… and I like danger.”

Alice rolled her eyes and started to march upstairs. She didn’t have time to argue with him, didn’t have time to call him on his bravado bullshit—whether real or put on. If he wanted to come with her, fine. She wasn’t about to stop him no matter how much she disliked the idea of a tag-along. He was right, after all, about the trek back to the city. Until he mentioned her lack of a ride, she hadn’t thought about how she might get to Ashwood, and she wasn’t looking forward to taking a cab considering her last experience in one.

This thought led to memories of the museum. A pang of hurt settled into her heart when she remembered how Trapper had smashed into a wall and broken into a hundred pieces.
Poor thing
, she thought. It hadn’t just been her weapon of choice against the dangerous denizens of the world, it had become a part of her; it was her livelihood, and it was also kind of a friend. How could she collect bounties on nasty supernatural entities without her camera side-kick? What powers did she have beyond her ability to sense auras? Could she even do
that
now that Trapper had been destroyed?

The more she thought about it, the more having a little help didn’t sound like an altogether bad idea, at least until she could figure herself out. And if it came to blows between her and Nyx, then Nyx would get the beating of her life.

Cameron had cleared out of the house by the time Alice returned downstairs tucked inside her own cropped leather jacket. She approached the door, stared at the threshold, and then with a deep breath held in her lungs, stepped outside into the cold night air. The icy breeze hit her at once and enveloped her in a refreshing, chilling embrace that smelled of grass and trees and a faraway ocean. The wind grabbed her hair and pulled it away from her face, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling.

Then she heard the roar.

Alice didn’t jump, she wasn’t skittish, but the sound had been sudden and unexpected; a lion’s growl that transitioned into a loud, authoritative purr.
Of course he has a bike
, she thought, and she marched toward the glow of the headlight. The bike was a well maintained Harley Davidson. Black and chrome, with the Harley logo pressed into the body and a decorative lion’s mouth clasping the headlight between its teeth. He tossed a half-face helmet her way, and she caught it in mid-air.

“Nice ride,” she said, “I haven’t been on a bike in a long time.”

A proud smirk spread across his face. “Where are we headed?”

Alice slipped onto the back of the bike and felt the rumbling between her legs. The vibrations coursed through her and for a moment she felt powerful again; a welcome illusion considering her actual circumstances. But she allowed the feeling to invigorate her, to excite her, and to drive away the niggling fear that in leaving her protective enclosure she may have just revealed herself to Nyx’s watchful eye. She wrapped her arms around Cameron’s firm midsection and interlocked her fingers.

“Take me to the Victoria district,” she said to the back of Cameron’s head. “I need to get some stuff.”

CHAPTER 4

The Dead Alphabet

Isaac rarely had trouble concentrating, but his eyes were like tires on an icy road—prone to losing their grip on the page every couple of minutes. He wanted desperately to keep his mind clear and focused, sharp and ready to think fast at a moment’s notice, but his thoughts kept circling back to the courtroom, to the camera, and to Alice. He checked his watch. She should be with Cameron by now, and would likely be on her way out of the safe house.

Good.

The safe house probably wasn’t so safe anymore now that Isaac had involved another mage. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Alice wandering around Ashwood without protection, but she was the only person who could uncover the secrets Isaac was unable to uncover. But Cameron was a good guy, a capable mage, and a good friend. He was someone Isaac could trust, which made him a rare commodity indeed, and yet precautions needed to be taken to further decrease the chance of Alice running into trouble.

Sending her out of the safe house was one of them.

Isaac wished he could be there with her, helping to find Nyx, but he couldn’t leave the apartment. He wasn’t, however,
entirely
powerless. It hadn’t been easy. Getting a message to Cameron had required him to summon a special kind of earthly, dark magic; magic so mundane it could slip through even the powerful wards surrounding the apartment. Because as powerful as they were, they weren’t terribly sophisticated—and he had succeeded.

Isaac had cut his palm with a knife multiple times and had stood waiting at the kitchen window calling for the crows in his mind. On the third night, one crow came, but then there were more of them, and when there were enough crows gathered in the same place, their intelligence boomed. They say crows never forgot the faces of people who wronged them. That wasn’t entirely true. Crows never forget faces, period; and they remember a person’s name, too.

At least, they did in Ashwood.

A crow’s call snapped him out of his thoughts, and Isaac realized he had dozed off with the book on his lap. He blinked the sleep away and checked his watch again. The librarian was late, but then they hadn’t made a formal appointment. Isaac stood, placed the book on the table, and stretched. The crow called again and he turned to face the window it was perched upon. The window was closed but there were three of them watching him, waiting for more blood; more of
his
blood.

Finally, there was a knock at the door, and Isaac crossed the living room in a hurry to open it. The door opened into the kind of corridor one would expect to see behind a simple brown apartment door and not the ornate marble hallway he had earlier been ushered through. Standing there was a man in his mid-forties. He was wearing a brown jacket, he had a closed umbrella by his side—which was leaving drip-drop trails all along the hall—and had a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles which, along with his preppy haircut and buttoned up shirt, made him look exactly like the professor he was.

“We don’t have time,” he said, and he pushed his way into the apartment.

Isaac checked the corridor behind the librarian and closed the door. “Hello to you too, Jim. Where is your escort?”

The librarian set his umbrella down in the kitchen sink, so the water wouldn’t pool on the floor, and wandered back into the living room rubbing his hands. “I have no escort,” he said. “I came alone.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I had to talk to you before… before I have to talk to them.”

Isaac found his brows furrowing with concern. James Allen, who Isaac knew as Jim, wasn’t exactly a mousy fellow, nor was he easy to scare. As librarian, he was entrusted with the analysis, categorization, and storage of just about any magical artifact surrendered to the magistrate. This included cursed items, possessed items, and worse. This wasn’t to say that Jim looked scared but he did seem… jumpy.

“Where did you find it?” he asked.

“Find what?”

“The camera. Where did you find it?”

Isaac considered Jim before surveying the room. It was probably bugged, of that Isaac had little doubt. Even if Jim was a friend and fellow lover of old things, he wasn’t about to give the magistrate anything they could use against him in this case. But then, Jim’s unsanctioned visit could very well be enough.

“I didn’t,” Isaac said, “Logan brought it in and presented it to the praetors. He thought I had something to do with it.”