He ate the cookie as he walked through the house. He paused in the hall by the front door to flip through Therese’s mail—bills, cards, clothing catalogs and a solicitation from a political group called the Humanist Party. Therese liked stinky colored leaves and dried flowers that she kept in a bowl on the hall table. She had a small computer station in one corner of the living room, and a large flat-screen TV in another corner. He turned on the laptop and left it to power up as he continued his search.
Therese also liked a lot of pillows, and she had a lot of dolls. She really had a lot of dolls. Dolls on shelves, dolls in glass cabinets. Dolls with curly blonde hair and frilly dresses, cloth dolls, plastic dolls, baby dolls, porcelain dolls, dolls both new and old. He lost interest in counting them after he reached a hundred. In her bedroom, she had twenty pillows on her bed of varying shapes, sizes, colors and patterns, and over thirty dolls were arranged in front of them. Some of the dolls sparked with magic.
Khalil was inclined to think this was strange. He was almost bored, and he really wanted to go back to Grace and watch the kids splash in a small pool, but he was also curious. Down the short hall, he found a bathroom (there were dolls in the bathroom too, which he found totally incomprehensible), and a half-closed door that led to a darkened room that held most of the Power in the house. Carefully he eased the door open further and looked inside.
There were so very many dolls. By this point he was beyond surprise. There was a workbench with a tall stool and a lamp, and parts of dolls on the bench, along with clay, jars of powders and liquids, bowls and measuring implements, a pestle and mortar, dried herbs, and candles and a smudge bowl with something half burned in it.
Ah. No wonder Therese had a thing for dolls. She worked sympathetic magic, and she made poppets. Khalil stepped closer to the workbench, studying everything without touching it. While he was no expert on human magics, it appeared Therese was accomplished at her craft. Someone could do a great deal of damage with poppet magic, and also a great deal of good. Several human cultures had magic systems that used poppets, from early Egypt, to West African fetishes and New Orleans voodoo.
Had Therese collected anything of Grace’s or the children’s to use in poppets, when she had snooped through their things? Just the possibility made Khalil want to raze her house to the ground so completely that not a single cornerstone was left standing.
Tires crunched on gravel outside. He blew to the window nearest the driveway in time to see Therese climb out of her car. She collected her purse and a few grocery bags from the trunk. As she headed for the front of the house, he flowed into the kitchen, materialized to lean against the counter and waited for her. He helped himself to another cookie as she unlocked the front door. He chewed and listened to her heels click on the floor.
Then she rounded the corner, caught sight of him, dropped everything and screamed.
He took a last bite of cookie and said, “Hello, Therese.”
She whirled to run. He stood in her way. She screamed again and spun to lunge for the back door, only suddenly he stood there too, blocking it. He watched her coldly, his arms crossed. A nice man probably would have felt bad at causing her panic. But Khalil remembered her digging through Grace’s things, and he wasn’t a nice man at all.
Therese flushed a deep red then turned pasty white. Her hands shook, and her eyes darted around. “H-how did you get in? All the entrances were spelled!”
Someone ought to tell her about the dryer vent, but it wouldn’t be Khalil. He said, “I should have followed up with you before this, but I’ve been busy. You might not know it to look at me, but I do have a day job.”
“You’re going to be sorry you broke in,” Therese spat.
“Am I?” He regarded her, almost with interest. “Probably not before you’re sorry you dug through Grace’s things. What were you looking for?”
“Nothing!”
“The thing about panic,” said Khalil, “is that it lessens one’s ability to lie, especially to someone who has an exceedingly well developed truthsense.”
“My gods, I was just looking for a pen and a piece of paper!”
In the next moment, he held her pinned by the throat against the wall. He hissed, “You would not be lying unless the answer mattered.”
“I was only looking for information!” she sobbed. “That’s all, I swear it!”
“What information?” Max and Chloe—his babies—had been playing innocently the whole time.
“I was looking to see if Isalynn LeFevre had contacted Grace!”
He was so angry, and it would be so easy to close his hand tighter and crush her windpipe. He barely held himself in check. “Why?”
“I don’t know why.” Something must have shown on his face or maybe his fingers started to tighten, because she screamed, “I don’t know why! Gods damn you freaksome bastard, someone asked me to check!”
“Who?”
“Brandon Miller!”
Brandon, from Grace’s work day yesterday. There was the connection to follow, and it wasn’t even difficult. His hand relaxed. “How convenient,” Khalil said. “He was next on my list.”