No Humans Involved (18 page)

"I could. Thank you. It'll help me clear my mind so I can see fresh angles. It's perfect timing too. I know you prefer to work without an audience breathing down your neck."

"Strange for a stage performer, huh?"

"No, not really." He folded the bag and put it into his pocket. "Let's get out there then, before they find work for you."

Better Late Than Never

SO WE "WORKED" TOGETHER at the back of the garden, me kneeling on my ritual cloth, Jeremy seated off to the side out of my field of vision. If anything, I was more relaxed than when I been alone, maybe because I knew he'd detect—and warn me of—any intruders before I was "caught." Or maybe it was just comforting having him nearby, the steady scratch of his pencil underscoring the children's whispers. Even they seemed more patient with me, their encouraging caresses never turning to jabs and slaps. For all that, though, I made no progress.

Finally, I stopped, stretched and walked over to Jeremy.

"What are you draw—" I caught sight of the page. "Hey, that's me."

I bit my cheek to keep from grinning. I'd never known Jeremy to sketch anyone outside the Pack. While it might have meant that he didn't like flowers, and I was the only living alternative, I knew it meant something. With Jeremy, that's what art was about—a medium to explore an idea… or a person.

"It's recognizable, then? Always a good sign." He closed the book. "Are you done?"

"I think so. Can I see?" I hesitated with my fingers outstretched toward his book, then curled them back. "Or maybe I shouldn't ask. Your art and all. Private, I guess."

"No more private than your rituals and you share those with me." He handed me the pad. "Just a series of sketches. I'm thinking of doing a painting."

"Of me?"

His smile grew, touching his eyes. "If that's all right. I'm working on one of the twins right now. For them, when they're older. It's taking awhile. I originally meant it to be just Kate and Logan, but decided to add Clay and Elena. A bigger project, but I thought the children might prefer that when they grow up."

"More meaningful, with their parents in it."

"I thought so."

I opened the book and flipped through the sketches. There were quite a few, all raw, some no more than an outline, maybe with a feature or two. Preparation for a painting—Jeremy preferred to work from sketches and memory rather than from live models. An interpretation rather than a photograph, he said.

His interpretations were often surprising. Like the older portraits of Clay and Elena in his studio. Clay—brash, difficult, violent—depicted as a young man with an almost boyish innocence. Elena—the more sociable, more easygoing of the pair—painted with a dangerous edge, the beast within revealed.

On first glance, you'd say Jeremy got them wrong, misinterpreted. But I'd seen that feral side of Elena, protecting her loved ones, and I'd caught glimpses of Clayton's gentler side, playing with his children or talking to his wife. Not their dominant personalities, but an aspect of the whole—a side you had to dig to find.

So it was with no surprise that when I first looked at the sketches Jeremy had done of me, I thought
No, that's not right
. Not the way I saw myself. Not even the way I saw myself reflected in others. In those sketches, I looked… quiet. Intent, almost introspective. My gaze was focused on something to the side, my expression serious, solemn even, rapt in concentration.

Yet the more I stared at them, the more I thought
Yes, I recognize that
. Like seeing a photo of myself shot at an odd angle.

"Oooh, nice," said a voice at my shoulder. "I like the one in the corner there."

I wheeled to see a woman a few years younger than me, with straight black hair almost to her waist. Six feet tall with the remote, slightly exotic look of a fashion model. That illusion of aloofness vanished the moment she glanced up from the page, her eyes dancing in predatory amusement, like a cat always on the lookout for something worth pouncing on.

"Eve!" I spun to Jeremy. "It's Eve."

I knew I looked ridiculous, gesturing at empty air, but he only smiled and said, "Hello, Eve. Glad you could join us."

"Glad to be here." She looked at me. "Am I interrupting? If you guys were just getting to the naked portrait stage, I can come back."

"Ha-ha. We were just finishing some stuff. I was contacting—" I looked around. "They're gone. Or being quiet."

"Probably trying to figure out what I am."

"Jaime?" Jeremy said, rising. "I'll go inside and get you a cold drink. If anyone's looking for you, I'll stall them."

"Thanks."

"What a sweetie," Eve said as he left. "And visiting you from all the way from New York. No family in tow. Sitting in the garden sketching you while you fondle corpse bits. Positively domestic. So does this mean you guys are—"

"No," I cut in, then smiled. "I can't believe you're here. Kristof was certain it was a no-go."

She perched on the edge of a retaining wall. "Well, it wasn't easy getting out of there, let me tell you. First there were the chains, trying me to my rock. And that big vulture that keeps picking at my flesh. Then the fires of hell, and that three-headed demon dog guarding the exit…" She reached out to smack my arm, though her fingers passed through. "You're looking at me like I'm serious. How evil do you think I am? Sheesh."

"Speaking of evil, I met one of your old friends the other day. I just popped by to talk to her and ended up knocked unconscious, thrown in her car and driven to a body-dump site."

"What?"

I left out the part about Savannah coming to my rescue and taking on Molly. Good call because, as soon as I mentioned that Molly had been in contact with Savannah, Eve's face twisted with a cold fury that chilled my blood no matter how many times I saw it.

"That two-faced smarmy bitch. You tell Savannah she is
not
to—"

Eve stopped and turned away, her lips curling in a snarl scarier than any of Jeremy's. She stood with her back to me. I waited. After a moment, she relaxed and turned around, smiling again.

"Okay, let's take that back a step. Ahem. Would you please convey a message to Savannah that Molly Crane is not to be trusted? As a contact, I only used her for what she could do for me because it that's exactly how she treats everyone else. With Savannah, she only wants—"

"To see whether Savannah can be useful. She already figured that out."

"She did? That's my girl." She planted herself on the retaining wall. "Back to business then."

"First, about you being here. It's… okay? With everyone?"

"I didn't go AWOL if that's what you mean. The Fates investigated Kristof's story and, well, they're a little freaked."

"Freaked?"

"Yeah. Kind of discomfiting in a higher power. I mean, they're deities, right? They should just calmly survey the problem and say 'Yes, we're aware of that.' But if they
were
aware of it, that would be even scarier. No excuse for letting it continue."

"So they had no idea this had happened?"

"Zip. It's an isolated incident. So seeing that they have a problem involving dark magic, they realized there was only one—" she faded, then came back, "—for the job."

"You were bleeped."

"Damn. I hate it when that happens. What did I say?" She frowned, searching for the word the higher powers had censored— some topic she wasn't allowed to discuss with mortals. "Let me rephrase: they realized there was only one
ghost
for the job. That being me. So I've been reassigned. Now bring me up to date."

I did, then said, "Am I on the right track?"

"Yes, the Fates confirm that we have trapped child ghosts. They confirm that the bastards responsible for it have, as Aratron said, done what should be impossible—performed magic without hereditary spellcasting genes. And that's what has them freaked. Who found a loophole? How big is it? What else can they do? How many of them are there?"

"In other words, they're no further along than I am."

She gave me a look as if to say: what did you expect? "Finding them and finding out exactly what's going on is our job now."

"That's what I've been doing."

"I know. But, well, you're moving a little slowly." She raised her hands against my protest. "You're going about it the right way—the safe way. But unless you want to spend months reading reference books and canvassing contacts, I'd suggest it's time to jump-start this baby."

"Jump-start it how?"

"Those kids are here, right? In this garden. And they don't follow you any farther than the house. Why?"

"Well, I guess being fragmented or whatever means they're weakened, restricted in their movements—"

Eve's head shot around, her gaze following something. Then her face lit up, not with her usual cat-with-the-canary grin, but with a gentle smile.

"Hey, there," she said as she leaned down to a child's level. "Coming out of hiding?"

"You can see them?"

She shook her head. "Just glimpses." She looked away sharply from the ghosts, before her gaze chilled. "Dark magic or not, you don't do shit like this. It's just understood. No ritual requires children, so on one uses them."

"Maybe they don't know that," I said slowly, the thought still forming as I spoke it.

"Hmmm?"

"They're humans doing magic, right? They don't know they don't need children. Maybe they assume they do. Maybe whatever faith or magic system they're building on uses children. That's what we always hear about in tabloids and movies. Child sacrifice."

"Could be…" she mused, gazing out as if still looking for the spirits. "Use it and it works, so you keep using it." She swung her gaze back to me and stood. "Forget why. We'll get to that later, after we stop them."

"But it's another avenue to look into. For finding them. If we know what faith and magical systems use child—"

She waved me off. "More research. You've got to cut through that, Jaime. Take action. We start by going back to why those spirits are stuck here. Presumably the ghosts are weakened and can't travel far. Far from what?"

"Their bodies, of course—" I stopped and looked out over the gardens. The endless raised beds. A breeze rippled past and I shivered. "They were buried here."

"I'd say that's a fair guess." She walked along the path, her hand, passing through the roses as she peered around. "Perfect place. You wouldn't even have to dig down into the earth. Just get through lightly packed soil."

My gaze went to the house. "So you think the people who live here—?"

"Don't count on it. I've buried a few corpses in my time and I wouldn't put one in my own garden. But if I had a neighbor down the road with a yard full of raised beds? Or if I was an employee there? Or on a crew doing their gardening or pool cleaning? Plenty of people could see and get access to these gardens. You can go that route, checking possibilities, but it's just more research. You need to—"

"Take action. I heard. But how—"

"Say one of these poor kids' corpses… appears."

"We find a body, you mean? Dig one up and get clues that way?" I shook my head. "There's a house full of people a hundred feet away. People with cameras."

She smiled. "Which makes it perfect."

"Perfect? How would we ever hide—?"

"You don't. That's the point. You're thinking like a supernatural, Jaime. Hide the evidence. Cover the crime."

She crouched and reached out, as if coaxing one of the children, a smile playing on her lips. Only after a moment of this did she look back up at me.

"This time, there's no cover-up. These are humans. You can't just canvass supernaturals in Los Angeles looking for them. You have millions of suspects, not a few hundred. You need to draw them out."

I wasn't sure I agreed. In fact, I was pretty sure I didn't, but rather than argue the concept I honed in on the specifics. "How would I ever find a body? It coudl take weeks, even with Jeremy and me both out here every night digging."

"You don't need to dig, Jaime. They'll come to you."

"They'll—" My throat went dry. "You can't mean— Raise their bodies? My God, Eve, I can't believe you'd suggest that. You're a mother."

"Yes, I'm a mother, Jaime, which is exactly why I'd do this instead of pissing around with research. You think I don't know what I'm asking? I do, but if it means stopping these bastards, then I'd let you do it to Savannah herself." She walked past me, silent. "I know it won't be a very pleasant thing to do, Jaime. Not for you or them."

"If it would solve this, I'd do it. But we've got a lead with this Botnick guy and I think we should play that through first."

With her back still to me, she said, "Your call. I can't dig up the corpses myself. If you really want to do more book reading, look into African folk magic."

"Did the Fates suggest that?"

"No, I did. Couple of years before I died, I had some sorcerer kid offer me body parts. From a child. He'd hooked up with these… witch doctors. Fucked-up stuff."

"This kid… Where could I find him?"

"Over on my side somewhere. Not my doing. I tore a strip out of him and scared him off that shit, but he only got into something worse, with worse people than me. Guy was looking for a shortcut to power. Typical kid—didn't want to work for it. Point is, I did some digging into this folk magic after he told me about it. There are some branches that use children, either selling parts of their corpses or stealing their so-called life energy. You mentioned fragmented or weakened child spirits…"

"And something like that might explain it."

"So you go ahead and do your research. It'll give me time to track down Kris, tell him I'm back for a while. If you need me, just shout, but…" A sly smile. "If I'm slow responding, give me a few minutes."

"Gotcha."

JEREMY DROVE me to the seance site.

"All right," Becky said as she ushered us into the backyard. "Our subject for today is Mickey Cohen."

"Is this his house?" I said, surveying the small stuccoed home.

"Um, I can't say," she said. "Liability issues. Being a mobster and all, we have to be very respectful of the current residents."

"A mobster?" Angelique's eyes went wide as she shivered. "Like the Mafia? I don't think my daddy would want me talking to someone like that. Maybe I shouldn't do this one…"

"Cohen… Cohen," Grady mused. "The chap who founded Las Vegas, wasn't it?"

He glanced at Claudia, who gave a "don't ask me" shrug.