David Coe - Spell Blind

I wasn’t mentioned again in the story, but my name was hyperlinked. Clicking on it, I was directed to another page that had some basic information about me-my service record, my office address and phone number, and a poor reproduction of the picture from the phone book. Considering the way my conversation with Billie had ended, I’d gotten off easy. But I had a feeling I’d be appearing in future articles at “Castle’s Village.”

I was tired and thought about turning in early. But my mind was churning. For the past few months, I’d managed to put the Blind Angel case out of my head. But with all that had happened today, it was front and center again, and I knew that sleep wouldn’t come easily.

Instead, I put on a pair of jeans that wasn’t torn and stained with blood, grabbed my bomber jacket, and left the house.

When I lost my badge, I also lost access to many of the sources a cop uses for information. But there was a whole other network in the city that had nothing to do with the PPD and everything to do with magic. Parts of that network were in neighborhoods that even I didn’t like to visit at night; others were only available after dark. One of these was a place called, appropriately enough, New Moon.

The Moon was a small dive in Gilbert, not too far from my home in Chandler. It was open most nights, except when the moon was full, and it catered to weremystes and people who liked to pretend that they had magical abilities, or who just enjoyed hanging out with those of us who really did. Not much happened there. It wasn’t like weremystes got together to plot a magical takeover of the world, or something like that. But at times there was something to be said for being able to talk about magic and the phasings with people who understood from their own experience, and who didn’t shy away from me like I was already nuts. We tolerated the wannabes and groupies because they listened and they didn’t judge us, and because they tended to buy rounds for everyone as a way of compensating for their lack of actual magical ability.

The bar was also where I went when I needed information about what was happening in the streets: new weremystes in town, rivalries among sorcerers, unexplained magical attacks, that sort of thing. My visits to the New Moon hadn’t turned up anything about the Blind Angel Killer back when I was on the force, and I didn’t expect this visit to be any different. But it was a place to start.

There were only about ten cars in the gravel parking lot and about the same number of people inside. A few of them tore their gazes from their gin and tonics and beers as I walked in, but they showed little interest in me and were soon focused once more on their glasses and bottles. I didn’t recognize any of the customers. It had been a while since I’d been there.

I stepped to the bar and sat. The Diamondbacks were on TV, getting clobbered by the Giants.

“Jay Fearsson, as I live and breathe.”

I smiled, as much at the New York accent as at the greeting. Sophie Schaller was about as unlikely a candidate to be tending bar in a place that catered to weremystes as a person could imagine. She was a Jewish grandmother from Brooklyn, who had moved out to Phoenix for the warm air and sunshine. She had to be in her late sixties; maybe even older. Most weremystes her age were already crazy, or they were dead. But she’d once confided in me that her phasings were milder than most, and I believed her. Her mind still seemed as sharp as the day I met her.

“Hi, Sophe,” I said, leaning over the bar to give her a kiss on the cheek. “How are you?”

She shrugged. “Eh, not bad.” She had white hair, warm brown eyes, and a smile that could melt glaciers. Like all weremystes, she had that slightly blurred appearance, though the effect was pretty weak on Sophie, probably because she wasn’t a powerful sorcerer. I imagined that the Blind Angel Killer would have looked like little more than a smudge.

Sophie’s face was lined and she wore too much makeup, but I could tell that she’d been a great beauty as a young woman.

“What’ll you have, dear?” she asked me.

“Beer. The darkest you’ve got on tap.”

She grinned, her eyes twinkling in the dim light. “We just got something new in. I think you’ll like it.” She had to use a step stool to get a mug down, and then she walked to the tap and started to fill it. “You here on business or out for a drink?”

“Business.”

Sophie nodded, but didn’t say anything more until she’d filled the mug and put it in front of me. “Whaddya wanna know?”

“You heard about the Deegan kid?” I asked in a low voice.

“Oy.” She grunted the word, as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “’Course I have. Who hasn’t?” She narrowed her eyes. “You still think those kids are bein’ killed with magic?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Sophie shook her head. “People around here didn’t like it when you were saying that a couple of years ago. They won’t like it any more now.”

“I know.” I stared back at her, waiting for her to tell me something, knowing that she’d give in eventually. Sophie had always liked me, and whatever the rest of the magical community thought of my efforts to find the weremyste responsible for the Blind Angel murders, she wanted this guy caught.

At last she sighed and began to wipe up the bar with a white towel. “Luis is in back,” she said, her attention on her cleaning. “He’s playing cards, but he’ll talk to you. I think.”

“Thanks, Sophe.” I tasted the beer. “That’s good.”

She grinned. I dug into my wallet and threw a ten spot on the bar before walking to the back room. It was filled with cigarette and cigar smoke, which barely masked the smell of stale beer. Five men sat around a table playing poker with those old chips that always reminded me of Necco Wafers. Luis Paredes sat at the far end of the table behind a wall of chips, chewing on a stogie and staring hard at his cards. He was a short, barrel-chested Latino, with a scruffy beard and mustache, and dark eyes that were hard and flat, like a shark’s. I saw that heat-wave effect with him, too, and with the other guys at the table. It was strongest by far with Luis.

The other poker players were all Latino, and they turned to stare at me as I stood in the doorway. I can’t say that they made me feel welcome.

“Fearsson,” Luis said. “You want to sit?”

“I want to talk.”

Luis said to his friends, “ El gringo no tiene el cajones jugar con nosotros. ” The gringo doesn’t have the balls to play with us.

They all laughed. I kept my mouth shut.

Luis met my gaze again, his smile fading. I’d busted him years ago for possession of pot, and he’d managed to get probation and community service. Later, after I’d opened my business, I helped him track down an employee who had stolen from the bar. So he had as many reasons to like me as not. And he knew that I wasn’t someone who would have shown up here without good reason. At last he muttered, “ Maldita sea, ” and put his cards on the table, face down. “ Nos dan cinco minutos. ” Damn it. Give us five minutes.

The other men eyed me again, with even less warmth than before. Then they put down their cards, stood, their chairs scraping on the wood floor, and filed out of the room.

Luis indicated the chair nearest his own with an open hand. “ Mi amigo ,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

I sat and sipped my beer. “You’ve heard about Claudia Deegan?”

Luis’ expression hardened, if that was possible. “ No tengo nada hacer con eso. ” That’s not my problem.

“I know that, Luis. But I think she was killed by magic, like all the other Blind Angel victims. So that makes it a problem for all of us.”