“So what next?” I asked as I examined the layout of the pins. I saw no pattern. The locations where the victims lived, where they found out about the study, where they died, and where their bodies eventually stopped moving were scattered all over the city.
“My partner is looking closer into the thefts the corpses have been committing to see if we can find out more about what the necromancer is after or what he might target next. The bank robberies, well, he’s collecting money for something. Possibly a one-way ticket to a private island, but Derrick thinks he might be buying magical items as well as stealing them. He’s identified the cup the shades described as an item sold on the black market a little over a week ago. It’s a poisoner’s goblet. Any liquid drunk from it becomes instantly deadly. Isn’t that charming? In contrast, the tablet stolen from the museum is believed to be an ancient charm meant to prolong life. I’m not seeing the rhyme or reason in his actions, but Derrick will keep digging.”
“And me?”
“You said you brought the tracking charm?” Briar asked, and once I nodded she continued, saying, “I made one. Having his body means we have as much material as one could possibly hope to use as a focus, but it only ever leads me to the corpse.” She nodded to a small silver locket sitting in a petri dish on the table.
Her spell was definitely fancier than mine. I pulled out the cheap microsuede bag that held the tracking charm Rianna had made for me when this case first began. Cupping it in my fist, I felt the magic immediately make an insistent pull toward where Remy’s body was a floor below us in the morgue. I waited, searching for the second trail I’d picked up two days ago.
Nothing.
I shook my head, and Briar sighed, her leather-clad shoulders slumping.
“Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe it was some sort of misspell, but just in case it wasn’t, where did you first pick up the trail?”
I pointed to the northeastern quadrant of the city on the map. “I drove to the very edge of town, and it was pulling farther, out into the wilds.”
Briar pursed her lips, studying her map. After a moment, she turned, striding toward the door.
“Come on, Craft,” she said as she reached the threshold and I hadn’t followed her. She didn’t pause to wait for me.
I had to jog to catch up. “Where are we going?”
“There are no other leads, so we’re going to check out the wilds.”
That stopped me in my tracks, which caused me to fall behind again.
“You’re kidding,” I called at her back as I tried to catch up again. “For all anyone knows, if you don’t use one of the passages in or out of the folded space holding Nekros, the wilds might go on forever. We can’t hope to find anything out there.”
“It’s the closest thing we have to a clue right now. Unless you want to sit around hoping another walking corpse drops dead at your feet. Again.”
No. I definitely didn’t want more people to die just so we could learn more about our bad guy. But the wilds? As magic grew in the world, legends woke in the still-wild places in the world. They weren’t the kind of places you decided to take a nice picnic lunch to relax. She was right, though; the charm having pointed that direction was one of the few unexplored leads we had left. And maybe the faint trail I’d found when I was out there was too weak to feel from the center of town. Maybe when we got closer the tracking charm would kick in again.
Into the wilds we go.
Chapter 13
We ran into our next problem before we even left the parking lot.
Logistics.
“This is not going to work,” Briar said, staring at my mostly plastic convertible. “Does it even have a trunk?”
I rolled my eyes and hit the button to open the admittedly small trunk of my car. I’d pulled the little blue convertible beside Briar’s rented Hummer, and it looked sleek, sporty, and really, really tiny beside the humongous SUV. The backseat was almost nonexistent, and the trunk space was limited, but it was the nicest car I’d ever owned, and I loved it. Also, the whole part about it being designed for fae with very little metal so driving around in it didn’t make me sick was a big draw. But regardless of how much I loved my little car, it didn’t carry around its own folded space, nor was the trunk bigger on the inside, so there was no way it was going to fit the two huge military-grade metal footlockers Briar hauled around.
“How much of that do you actually need?”
“All of it? None of it?” She shrugged. “Without knowing what we might find, it’s hard to say. I like to be prepared.”
I didn’t comment on the fact she was basically a one-woman army with just what she carried on her person. I had no idea what could be in the crates that she didn’t already have on her, but then the last time I saw her fight, she incinerated a graveyard full of ghouls without breaking a sweat. She was accustomed to wading into situations most normal people would run screaming from. I’d managed to toast one ghoul on that trip, only because Briar had given me several vials of a highly flammable potion, but I’d still ended up nearly eviscerated. Being prepared had likely kept her, and the people around her, alive more than once.
“I don’t suppose you have a gun safe hidden in that minuscule trunk somewhere, at least?”
“I don’t own a gun,” I said, lifting my empty hands as if to prove the point.
Briar said a few choice words under her breath, then leaned into the back of the SUV and lifted a panel, pulling out yet another, albeit smaller, warded metal box and a flat black duffel bag. She rummaged through the larger crates, pulling out items.
A sawed-off shotgun went into the duffel bag. A tiny glass vial with a healing potion so potent I’d have believed it if she said it was made of unicorn tears went into the warded metal box. Priorities.
Weapons, potions, spelled disks and darts, all were gathered and loaded into the bag or box. Several times she’d pick up a small case, evaluate the contents, and then put it back, deciding it wasn’t important to carry on our reconnaissance trip. Watching her pack potions that would melt flesh or instantly cause desiccation made my stomach twist into several pinched knots. What did she think we’d find out there? I was feeling less than enthused about this trip. Once the duffel and box were filled to the point of bursting, Briar sealed the two footlockers and backed out of the SUV’s trunk, the duffel slung over one shoulder and the metal box tucked under her arm.
“This will have to do,” she said, moving both to my car.
“I think you forgot the kitchen sink.” It was a feeble joke, more an attempt to cover my nerves than anything else. Thankfully, she didn’t bother answering.
After slamming the trunk harder than my little car deserved, she moved around the left, as if she were headed to the driver’s-side door. I all but dashed to the door, sliding behind the wheel before she had time to protest. It was my car. I was driving.