“I’l owe you one,” I said, and suddenly, sitting in the middle of a fast-food restaurant with John al the way across town, I felt the potential for imbalance grow between us. Damn. It’s going to take time to get used to that.
“Yeah, wel , I’m inclined to tel you to let the police handle this, but with the attacks targeting you, and with Hol y caught up in the middle of it, I know you won’t. Have you tried contacting Dr. Aaron Corrie?”
The name sounded familiar, but it took me a moment to remember why. “He was one of the founding members of the Organization for Magical y Inclined Humans, wasn’t he?”
I’d had to write a paper on him in academy. As wel as being one of the founders of OMIH, he was from a family that had been practicing magic generations before the Awakening and reputedly had one of the largest col ections of ancient grimoires in the world.
“Yeah, but did you know he was local?” John asked. “He consults for the police on occasion, and he likes puzzles, so he might help you for a modest fee. I’l give you the address.”
Now I real y did owe him, though I didn’t say as much—I seriously disliked the feeling of debt racking up around me.
I jotted the address John gave me on a napkin and shoved it in my purse.
“So, back to the message you left me,” John said. “What makes you think you’l be able to raise a shade now when you couldn’t before?”
“I’l bring another grave witch. I’m not promising it wil work, but between the two of us, we might be able to pul a shade out of one of the feet. Can you get us access?”
The line was silent for a long moment, and I could imagine John tugging his mustache as he considered the imagine John tugging his mustache as he considered the obstacles ahead. “Wel , technical y you were already hired to consult on the case, so I guess there wouldn’t be much need to file additional paperwork.” In other words, if I performed another ritual, the higher-ups, and presumably the FIBs, wouldn’t know about it. “But I couldn’t pay you for your time.”
Yeah, definitely off the books. “Don’t worry about that, John. The department is already paying me for my time in the floodplain. Think of this as tying up loose ends.”
Besides, at this point, I was being paid to investigate by Malik—at least in a roundabout way—and it would have been sleazy to bil two different clients for one ritual.
The sound of papers fluttering on the other end of the line filtered over the phone and John said, “While we haven’t gotten any magical results yet, the DNA profile on the first three feet we found came in. Nothing. Not a single match.
I’m stil waiting on results for the second batch. I’m grasping at straws in this case.” There was a muffled sound of something hitting the mic on the phone, and I knew John had rubbed his hand over his face, his knuckles scraping the mouthpiece.
“Okay,” he said at last. “What could it hurt? Besides the FIB’s egos if NCPD finds the kil er first. Maybe your ritual wil be the case-breaker. How does tomorrow evening, about six thirty, sound? Those FIB suits never stay around here that late.”
I agreed to the time and wrapped up the cal . Then I looked at Falin, who’d been listening avidly to my side of the conversation.
“Come on,” I said, shouldering my purse. “We have to see a witch about a rune.”
“This is the one?” Falin asked as he stared up at the large brick wal topped with ornate fleur-de-lis.
Fleur-de-lis fashioned out of cast iron.
Fleur-de-lis fashioned out of cast iron.
I glanced at the address I’d written on the napkin and checked it against the large numbers in the brick. They matched. I nodded and shoved the napkin back in my purse.
While most witches lived in the Glen, the suburbs surrounding the Magic Quarter, Aaron Corrie lived in the Quarter. And not only in it, but in the very center of it. His house overlooked one side of Magic Square, the park in the middle of the Quarter. The streets this far inside the Quarter were narrow, cobbled, and reserved for pedestrian and horse-drawn carriages only, so I’d parked several blocks away and we’d walked. Now we stood on the sidewalk staring at the old house.
Okay, so in a city only about fifty years old, we didn’t real y have old houses, but in Nekros, Corrie’s house was what passed as historic. Not that we could see much of it.
The tal brick wal blocked most of the house from view. The only opening in the brick was a narrow walkway barely wide enough for two people to walk through side by side—I’d hate to see what Corrie would do if he ever decided to replace his furniture.
A tal cast-iron gate blocked the walkway. More fleur-delis had been worked into the gate’s intricate design, as wel as several runes. From more than a yard away, I already could feel the buzz of Corrie’s wards—and the nausea from being near such a high concentration of iron.
“I don’t feel very welcome,” I said, staring at the gate.
While cast iron had been popular pre–Magical Awakening, post–it was considered rude. And a sign of bigotry.