David Coe: Spell Blind

Robby might have been thinking the same thing. As soon as I knocked on the door of his house, a small place on Hermosa, near the interchange of Highway 101 and U.S. 60, I heard a screen door fly open in the back. I leaped off the front stoop and sprinted around the house in time to see someone disappear over a cinderblock wall.

I went after him, knowing that I could clear the wall easily. But as I was about to throw myself over it, I felt magic. I stopped myself the only way I could: essentially by running into the wall. I didn’t go over it, which was good because flames had erupted from its top-just like the flames I’d seen earlier that day at the spark den. I gathered that fire was Robby’s attack magic of choice, which wasn’t so surprising. Fire spells were about the most rudimentary assailing magic a myste could use.

Three elements: the cinderblocks, Robby’s flames, and a magical blanket to snuff them out. The air around me hummed with the power of my own spell, and an instant later the flames on the wall died down. I climbed over, feeling the heat of the blaze still radiating from the stone. Once on the ground again, I ran on, following the retreating sound of Robby’s footsteps.

It was my turn for an attack spell. I didn’t try anything fancy; I wanted to slow him down, not kill him. My hand, his back, and a good hard shove.

I heard him stumble, then curse. Emerging from between two houses, I saw him scrambling to his feet half a block down the street. And yes, this time I did notice a faint blur around his face and neck. The son of a bitch was a runecrafter, albeit a weak one. He glanced back, took off again. I chased him across a couple of small yards, and followed him into another narrow alley between two ramshackle houses. This wasn’t exactly textbook police procedure, but Robby had never been a violent kid. Just a slimeball, and not a particularly smart one at that. He broke out into a second open street and I ran after him; by now I was only a few steps behind. He dodged a kid on a bicycle; I tried to do the same, spun, and fell, tearing my jeans and most of the skin on my right knee.

I was on my feet again in a second or two, but I was limping now, and I was pissed off. I might have lost him, but he turned down a second alley that proved to be a dead end. Did I mention that Robby wasn’t so smart?

I hobbled into the alley, glancing down at my bloodied leg and swearing loudly. Robby backed away from me until he bumped into the scalloped steel door of an old garage. He pulled something from his pocket and fumbled with it.

“Stay away from me!” he said, waving his hand at me. It took me a moment to realize that he was holding a small knife.

I stopped and considered drawing my Glock, which was still in my shoulder holster. I’m licensed to own it and Arizona law allows private citizens to carry a concealed weapon. And though I hadn’t been on the job in some time, I still felt more comfortable with a weapon at the ready. In this case though, I figured I’d learn more from Robby if I got him calmed down.

“Put the knife away, Robby. You don’t want to get hurt.”

“I said stay away!”

I started walking toward him again. “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”

In a way I hoped he would try to cut me. My leg was aching and I was itching for an excuse to kick the crap out of him.

“I’m smarter than you think. I know that you guys want to nail me for dealing, especially now that Claudia’s dead.” His eyes were darting from side to side, searching for any way out of the alley. He might well have been desperate enough to attack me.

“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not trying to pin anything on anyone.”

“Bullshit, cop! ”

“I’m no cop.” He started to argue, but I raised a finger to silence him. “I was when I busted you, but I was kicked off the force a while back.”

“Yeah, right. What for?”

I wasn’t about to tell him that. “I beat a perp to death.”

His eyes widened.

“Put the knife away, Robby. I just want to talk. I’m a PI now. A private investigator,” I added, seeing his puzzled expression. “I’m doing a little work for the Deegans, trying to figure out what happened to their daughter.”

Fear and uncertainty chased each other across his features.

“The cops are after me, though, right?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you. They know you didn’t kill her. But they also know that you deal, and that Claudia had drugs with her when she died. Lots of the Blind Angel victims did,” I added, eyeing him as I spoke the words.

Robby seemed to sag. The hand holding the knife fell to his side. “Shit,” he muttered, eyes on the ground. I’m not sure that he heard my last remark. “I didn’t do anything.”

“No? What about Jessie Tyler?”

His gaze snapped back to mine. “That was you today.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Throw another spell at me and I’ll break your neck.”

“The Deegans, the Tylers. I guess business has been good.”

“Did you know Claudia well?”

He glanced around again, still searching for some way out. At the same time, he let out a short breathless laugh. “Yeah, I knew Claud. She and I were a thing once.”

“That right?”

Robby raised his chin, eyeing me. “You don’t believe me.”

I wasn’t certain that I did. It’s not like I thought girls would find Robby unattractive. He had a friendly face, shaggy dark hair, big brown eyes-the kind of down-and-out good looks that some girls like. But Claudia Deegan had been a beauty, and with her name and money she could have had any guy she wanted.

“Sure I do.”

“No, you don’t. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t either. I know who Claud was, before she became the woman I knew. If she’d been right with her family, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day. I understand that, you know? I think she saw me as a way of getting at her old man. But I didn’t mind.” He stared past me; his expression had softened. “I. . I liked her. A lot.”

Maybe I did believe him. “What was she on?”

He met my gaze again, narrowing his eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, he gave a little shake of his head. “Everything. You name it, she was into it. Spark, X, crystal, coke. It’s not like she was short on money, you know?”

“Did she buy her stuff from you?”

“Is that what the Deegans told you? Them and that boyfriend of hers?”

“What boyfriend?”

“I don’t remember his first name. Last name is Ruiz. He’s some rich Mexican kid. But they all had it in for me. Blamed me for all of Claud’s problems, which is bullshit. I mean, sure, we did some stuff, you know? But it’s not like she’d never used before she started hanging out with me. It’s not like she was a damn saint or something.”

“Did you have any contact with the Deegans?” I asked. “Conversations, letters, emails?”

“Not her old man. He’s not around that much, and anyway, his people probably wouldn’t let him anywhere near someone like me.”

I was sure Robby had that right.

“But Claud’s brother came around once right after we broke up. Told me stay away from her. Threatened to have me thrown in jail if I ever went near her again.”

“So did you stay away from her after that?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Couldn’t. I went to that freakin’ protest because I thought she’d like me more if I was into one of her causes, you know?” He laughed, sounding bitter. “That worked out great. She barely noticed me, and I wound up getting busted along with the rest of them.”

“Did she buy her drugs from you?”

He chewed his lip, seeming to weigh whether it was safe to tell me the truth. “Yeah,” he said at length. “I sold her Spark, coke, X. I don’t deal meth anymore, so if she had any on her, it wasn’t from me. But the rest probably was.”