Alexandra Sokoloff - Book of Shadows

Landauer glanced back toward the observation window of the interview room. “So what are you going to do with Dragon Man, drop him off at a shelter?”

Garrett sighed. “Psych intake. I’ll see if anyone has a bed open—” Of course the chances of an empty bed in any mental facility when winter was approaching were next to nothing. Then into Garrett’s mind, unbidden, came a picture of the sign on the front of Tanith’s shop: Psychic Healing. And he fell silent, midsentence. Land looked at him questioningly. Garrett shrugged. “But you know how it goes. He’ll be back on the street tomorrow. I’ll take him back to his cart I guess—”

Landauer’s hand suddenly closed around his arm. “None of my business, bro, but from where I stand you are looking in grave danger of fucking up your fast-track gravy train.”

Garrett looked at him, startled. But he didn’t have to ask what his partner meant.

Landauer released his hold on Garrett, shook his head. “Ain’t no way I see Miz Carolyn putting up with a witch on the side. I would think long and hard about my next move, ’f I were you.”

The men locked eyes. Garrett found his whole body tensing, his fists clenching. He took a breath, releasing the stance. “Appreciate you coming out,” he said neutrally.

Landauer gave him a cynical smile. “Your funeral, my friend.”

The big guy huddled in the far back of Garrett’s Explorer as Garrett drove back toward Chinatown, and even with all the windows down and cold wind gusting through the car, he was regretting his decision. Dragon Man was quiet enough, busy with the stash of candy Garrett had given him, but he was just as ripe. Garrett was considering running him through a car wash.

He tried to breathe shallowly and brooded.

He had been keeping deliberately busy since the night Tanith had performed the ritual, blocking the thought of her standing in the circle as that alien voice croaked out insane things. He dreamed it, though, sometimes, and the dreams were never good.

And yet, she’d been right. Again . There had been a watcher in the park, and he’d found him just as she—or whatever that voice had been—had directed him. A watcher who responded to the photo of a missing girl, a watcher who ranted about dragons and demons and dispersion and “the Current.”

He glanced in his rearview mirror at his passenger and said softly, “Choronzon.”

In the backseat, the Dragon Man stiffened, freezing midbite of candy, and raised his liquid eyes to the rearview mirror to meet Garrett’s gaze. Then he dropped the candy bar and curled up in the seat into a tight ball, with his arms crossed over his head.

Garrett reached for his cell phone and slowed the Explorer, steering with one hand as he punched in a number. He was surprised when Tanith picked up immediately. “Book of Shadows.”

“You’re awake,” he said into the phone, startled.

“Night person,” she said. Neither of them identified themselves, and Garrett felt a teasing and unwanted heat at the intimacy of that.

“You were right about the watcher,” he said, aware that his voice was tight.

“You found him,” she said, not a question, and Garrett noticed she’d said, “Him.”

“Yeah. There’s a problem, though,” he said, and when she was silent, he spoke.

The wind had picked up, tumbling leaves in flurries across the moonlit paths of the park, as Garrett pulled the Explorer over to the curb in front of the construction site. Before the Explorer was even stopped, the Dragon Man was fumbling for the door handle and jumping out of the car, his bare feet hitting the sidewalk, running. He was astonishingly fast for the size of him.

Garrett tossed a placard on the dash that stated OFFICIAL BPD BUSINESS and followed.

By the time Garrett had squeezed through the loose plastic fencing, the big man was already halfway across the pale expanse of concrete floor. Garrett followed as he disappeared through the opaque plastic sheeting.

Garrett stepped through the plastic wall himself, just in time to see the Dragon Man throw himself at his shopping cart. He clutched the metal side of the cart, checking over the rows of white bags like a worried mother hen.

“Is there anything in there of Amber’s?” Garrett asked aloud. The big man stiffened and made a growling sound in his throat.

“Okay,” Garrett said, lifting his hands. “I’m just going to sit right here, all right?” He cautiously took a seat on the floor beside one of the cement columns and leaned his back against it.

The Dragon Man continued his inventory, and then, apparently satisfied, he sighed and removed a stained dark blue bedroll and a folded blue tarp from the cart. He spread the tarp beside the cart and then unrolled the bedroll on top of it, giving Garrett furtive searching looks as he did so.

“I’m going to sleep, too,” Garrett assured him. He leaned his head back against the column and shut his eyes, breathing slowly and deeply. He could feel the big man’s silent, watching tension across the space, but as Garrett continued his own long, deep breaths, he heard the beginning of deep, rumbling snores.

Adrenaline crash, Garrett thought. He was having one himself; his muscles were relaxing into a near stupor. Dealing with the mentally ill always unsettled him, the specter of the mind turning on itself.

He remained still, propped up against his column, for another minute or two and then as the snoring continued, he opened his eyes and looked toward the shopping cart.

Go through it? Wait? He debated with himself.

Then he eased himself to his feet and moved one quiet step at a time toward the cart. He could see dozens of precisely packed white carrier bags, double layers of plastic, each neatly knotted at the top.

He was just reaching to remove one when he heard the rustle of plastic behind him and froze…

Then spun, in one move reaching under his sweatshirt and drawing his Glock—

Tanith stood in the slit of the plastic.

He felt a different kind of rush, seeing her. Slowly, he lowered the gun. “Jesus Christ, I told you to call me when you got here.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She sounded amused and it burned him. “You shouldn’t be walking around here by yourself.”

“I’m fine.” Her face was pale, almost translucent, and there were dark circles of fatigue under her eyes. She moved through the plastic and set down the bag she was holding, a large carpetbag made of an expensive-looking patterned fabric. She was in another enticingly fitted calf-length skirt of a deep violet color, and a white blouse with a plunging neckline. Garrett felt his heart start beating faster, which irritated him. Focus, he told himself.

“I appreciate you coming,” he said, his voice brittle. She didn’t answer him; she was already looking past him at the large sleeping lump in the bedroll. Garrett hadn’t told Tanith much on the phone; just vaguely that the witness had “mental problems,” but seemed to be familiar with the missing girl.

Tanith stepped past Garrett ( that intoxicating scent ) and looked down at the large, dirty man squeezed into the bedroll, snoring in a deep rumble.

“Schizophrenic,” she murmured, and Garrett was startled, although of course he’d made the same assumption himself.

“I think so,” he answered softly, though there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger of waking the man. “Autism, too, maybe, some developmental thing.”

She looked down at the sleeping man for a long time, and Garrett had no idea what was going through her mind, but she seemed to be studying something about him. She did not seem bothered by the smell, or even to notice it. She knelt on the concrete and put both her hands at the sides of the man’s face, as if cradling his head—except without touching him; her hands were about an inch away from actual contact. She remained in that position for at least a full minute, without moving or speaking, her eyes lowered and her face intent.