David Coe: Spell Blind

I heard the fire engines arrive a few minutes after I carried the last unconscious girl to safety. Moments later a trio of firefighters came running around the corner to the back of the building. Seeing the kids and me, they stopped.

“Good God,” one of them muttered.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to need a few ambulances.”

“Spark den?” another guy asked, as the first radioed for help.

I nodded.

“And who are you?”

I pulled out my investigator’s license. “Jay Fearsson,” I said, holding it up for them to see. “I’m a PI.” I pointed at Jessie. “Her parents hired me.”

Jessie’s eyes widened just a little, and her eyebrows went up, but she said nothing.

“You hurt?” the first guy asked.

“No.”

“How’d the fire start?”

“There was another guy here-their supplier, I’m guessing. He started it when I showed up, and got away while I was carrying them out.”

I didn’t say more than that. Most people know that magic exists, but that doesn’t make them comfortable with it, or with the people who cast spells. Filling in the details would have raised questions that I didn’t feel like answering just then.

I heard more sirens in the distance, and figured at least a few of them were Phoenix Police. I’d be there a while answering questions. I walked to where Jessie sat and squatted down in front of her. It took a moment for her gaze to slide up to mine, and another for her eyes to gain focus.

“Jessie Tyler, right?”

She nodded. I thought I’d have to explain again who I was, but she was more cogent than I expected. “My parents really hire you?” she asked.

“Yeah. Does that surprise you?”

Jessie shrugged, stared past me.

“Who’s your supplier, Jessie? Who was keeping you here?”

She didn’t answer.

A couple of uniformed cops turned the corner. I saw them stop, take in the condition of the kids, and then speak to the firefighters, one of whom pointed my way.

The cops’ questions were pretty standard. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and they knew it. The fact that I had once been on the job helped too. They took Jessie and the others into custody, which I should have expected. Almost all of them would spend more time at the hospital than in jail, but still Jessie’s parents weren’t going to be pleased. Then again, they had hired me to find her, not to be her lawyer, so in the end they would have little choice but to pay me.

Once I was done giving my statement, the cops said I was free to go. I walked to the open door I had used to enter the garage, and examined it. The first spell that myste had thrown at me had rattled the door; there should have been some residue of magic on the door frame. All spells leave behind traces of power in the form of glowing luminance that clings to those things the magic has touched. And the magic of every myste manifests itself in a unique color. Thing is, only another myste can see it. I was hoping that Jessie’s supplier had left behind the equivalent of a magical calling card.

But the Phoenix sun was bearing down on us at this point, bleaching colors, making it hard to see anything other than the sun’s reflection on the dull steel. I thought I saw the faintest suggestion of beige or tan, like the color of dried grass, but I couldn’t be certain.

“What’re you looking for?” one of the cops asked from behind me.

I glanced back, then eyed the doorway again. The cop walked to where I stood.

“The guy who started the fire did other weird stuff, too,” I said. “I think he used some kind of mojo on me. The first time he did it, I was right here by the door.”

The cop stared at me for a moment, no doubt to see if I was joking. When I didn’t smile or even glance his way, he began to study the door frame too. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Do you?”

“No,” I said. “Not a thing.”

I walked away, heading back to my car. As I turned the corner, I saw that the cop was still scrutinizing the doorway. His partner, though, was watching me.

I drove out to Pinnacle Peak, battling traffic the entire way. It was midday-nowhere near what used to pass for rush hour. But these days in Phoenix, rush hour started at dawn and lasted until way past dusk. I had called ahead to let the Tylers know that I had good news about their daughter, but I didn’t want to explain the particulars over the phone. Especially because those particulars were not going to make them happy, and I wanted to get paid. It’s a lot easier to ignore a bill than it is a guy standing in front of you.

By the time I got there, the police had called to say that Jessie was in custody. As I expected, Michael Tyler didn’t take the news well, even if for now being in custody merely meant that Phoenix cops were keeping an eye on her while she was treated at Saint Luke’s Hospital.

“How could you let this happen?” he demanded of me as he yanked open the front door. “I hired you to find her, not to get her arrested.”

“I did find her, sir. She was in a spark den-”

“Oh, God,” Missus Tyler said, voice trembling, a hand raised to her mouth. She sank into a chair in the front foyer.

“She was in a spark den,” I started again, staring hard at Mister Tyler, “along with about twenty other kids. When I arrived, the guy who was supplying their drugs and taking their money lit the place on fire. I got your daughter out, and everyone else, too. But the fire department showed up, and so did the police. There was really nothing I could do.”

“I want to see her,” Sissy Tyler said. She stood again. “Right now, Michael.”

Mister Tyler glanced at his wife and nodded. Facing me once more, he started to speak, stopped himself, then started again. “I suppose I ought to be thanking you. It sounds like you saved her life.”

“I did,” I said. “And you’re welcome.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars a day, comes to. .” I did the math in my head. “Thirty-five hundred, plus expenses. Let’s call it an even four thousand, minus the five hundred you paid me when I started.”

He nodded, cut me a check on the spot, and led me back to my car.

Holding out his hand, Tyler said, “I really am grateful, Mister Fearsson. Both of us are.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, gripping his hand. “I’m glad I was able to find her.”

I climbed into the Z-ster and started the slow drive back to Chandler, where I have both my house and my business. Along the way I stopped to deposit my check, relieved to know that I wouldn’t have to rely on overdraft protection to keep my rent check from bouncing.

As soon as I reached the office I tossed the newspaper and mail onto my desk, scrubbed my hands and arms up to my biceps, and washed down a couple of aspirin. Then I fired up the espresso machine.

My office isn’t much to speak of. It’s a single room on the top floor of one of those new sidewalk shopping developments that have grown up everywhere in recent years. It’s well lit, with a bank of windows overlooking the street. It was originally intended for a local lawyer, who insisted on oak floors. He took a job with a big firm in downtown Phoenix a couple of months after the place was built and I happened to luck into it. I have a desk, a computer and printer, a pair of file cabinets, a small john off the main room, a couple of chairs for clients, one of those mini refrigerators, and my coffee maker, some Italian brand, which I remember costing more than all the other furniture in the place. I like coffee. Sumatran mostly, the stronger the better.

The computer doesn’t see a whole lot of action. Mostly I use it for billing and writing up reports for the insurance companies. I’m not much for technology. Where most PIs these days rely on computers and cell phones and fax machines, I tend to do things the old-fashioned way, face to face, notepad in hand. It’s not that I’m afraid of the fancier stuff or anything like that. I carry a cell phone, and use it when I have to. But I’ll choose a handshake and a personal conversation over cell phones and social media any day of the week. I’m a purist at heart.