“And that’s not what you found?”
He smiled now, turned to face me, leaning a hip on the desk. “No. Forty-two-year-old husband and father of six. Lived with the mom, the kids, in an abandoned house uptown. His crime? Green thumb.”
“That was his power?”
Liam nodded, spread his hands. “Fourteen-foot-high corn. Watermelons big as a microwave.”
I grinned, equally impressed and jealous. “Damn. I have a plot at the Florissant garden, but my thumb is barely green. So what happened?”
“Unfortunately, he’d attracted attention. Containment was aware of him, so he couldn’t stay in New Orleans without being in Devil’s Isle. I helped him pack up, drove him and the family into the bayous.” Liam paused. “He wasn’t the only one.”
“That’s technically treason.”
“It was treason,” he agreed, looking at me. “But sometimes it’s worth it.”
For a moment, we stood beside each other in silence, shoulder to shoulder, with death staring back at us. And for the second time that night, something shifted. Something between us—like we’d crossed that barrier from strangers to friends of some type. The link forged, and the moment passed, and the air seemed to clear again.
“Anyway, that was before I started hunting. Once I did that, I met other Paranormals, other Sensitives. They weren’t wraiths—or anything close to it—so I figured there must have been a reason for that. They told me magic could be regulated, controlled.”
It was information Containment could have gotten, had they bothered to try. That was the most frustrating part.
Liam sighed. “You ever wonder why we didn’t leave? Start over outside the Zone?”
“Because memories are the most powerful chains,” I said.
He looked surprised by my answer. “That’s right on the mark.”
“Between stocking batteries and dusting antiques, I have a lot of time to think.” I nodded toward his display. “So you think something’s up with the wraiths. If they’re changing, why?”
It took him a moment, but he turned his attention back to the wall. “Well, maybe different people are becoming wraiths. Or they’re becoming wraiths differently.”
I frowned. “Is that possible? I mean—it’s just a biological process, right? It’s the effect of too much magic breaking down the mind, the body.”
Liam shook his head, rolled his shoulders and neck to relieve tension. “I don’t know. Every theory is really just a guess about what’s happening. I just don’t have enough information. It doesn’t help that Containment won’t pursue it—because that would require the feds to acknowledge it’s possible to regulate magic.”
He looked at the wall for another moment. “Well, standing around here isn’t going to do anything. Let’s get down to business.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“I’ve got someone else for you to meet. The first step on your road to successful magical maintenance.”
Well, I did like steps, at least.
? ? ?
Liam grabbed a paper bag from his kitchen, then locked up the apartment and headed downstairs again. I followed him outside, and to the building next door—the one with the long balcony.
“The person we’re going to see lives next door?”
“She does.”
“It’s late,” I said, the sky still dark, although morning would be dawning soon enough.
“She doesn’t sleep much.”
I followed him up the sidewalk and to the black front door with a large brass knocker in the shape of a fox’s head. He opened the door, held it open for me to follow him.
The first floor, several large rooms with oak floors and wallpapered walls, was empty of furniture. The walls were marked by dark shadows of smoke and ash, the floor smeared with it. Long streaks and smudges, as if battle had taken place there.
I left Liam in the foyer, walked into the front room. It was a large parlor, had probably once held fancy sofas for visitors, uncomfortable armchairs.
A whimper sounded somewhere deeper in the house.
My first instinct was to crouch. I had no idea why—what would crouching do if an unfriendly Para was pounding down the hallway?
I heard the click of nails on wood, and a big yellow dog—a Lab, probably—trotted onto the threshold, froze there, and stared at me.
It had been months since I’d seen a dog. There wasn’t much food to go around in the Zone, so having a pet to feed wasn’t easy. I liked dogs, but I was smart enough to be careful around them. Slowly, I crouched, offered a hand for sniffing, and waited for him to come to me.
He padded carefully forward, one step at a time, until he reached me. He sniffed my hand with a rough, wet nose, then nuzzled his head against my palm. And just like that, we were friends.
“Hey, boy. Are you an ear man or a neck man?” I scratched his neck beneath his faded collar, grinned when his rear foot began to slap rhythmically at the floor. “And we have a winner.”