David Coe - Spell Blind

I wouldn’t want to single out the worst of Maryvale’s beats-they are all bad-but I was headed to the 813, which was about as ugly as it got. Rundown houses broiling in the sun, storefronts that looked like they hadn’t seen business in years until you realized that they were still open, streets strewn with shattered beer bottles, kids’ playgrounds turned into havens for junkies and hangouts for gangs. I’d been down here plenty of times while I was still on the job, but I rarely drove these streets by choice.

I was hoping that Orestes Quinley would be able to tell me enough about the Blind Angel Killer to make the trip worth my while.

In the last few years, after his many brushes with the law, Brother Q had made some effort to join legitimate society. He’d opened a place on Thomas Street called Brother Q’s Shop of the Occult. Not exactly a name that rolled off the tongue, but I’m not convinced that he expected the business to appeal to a large clientele. He sold stuff that any small-time sorcerer might need: used books on magic, Wicca, and shamanism; many of the same powders, herbs, and oils he’d once been accused of stealing; and various stones, jewelry, and other items that might be used for conjuring. His was the only shop in Phoenix where a person could find Tuberose and Styrax oils. His prices were outrageous, and in all my visits to his place, I had never seen another person shopping there. But Orestes didn’t seem to mind. He had his store, he lived in the apartment above it, and he was content to sit outside in his old wooden rocking chair, smoking contraband clove cigarettes and watching the world go by.

That’s what he was doing when I pulled up to his place in the Z-ster. Even in the brilliance of the Arizona sun, Orestes’ storefront glimmered faintly with the light of his magic. This was not the flat yellow gleaming of his early conjurings. It was more a golden orange, the color of the sun as it sits balanced on the desert horizon. Orestes had grown more powerful and more skilled since our first encounter. And if I could see the magic on his place now, it must have glowed like a bonfire at night. He had enough wardings in place to hold off a horde of weremystes. I had a feeling he was worried about one in particular.

Apart from developing a bit of a gut, Orestes hadn’t changed much over the years. He claimed to have been born in Haiti, and he spoke with a heavy West Indian accent. He wore his hair in thick braids, and he often had on a pair of wire-rimmed sunglasses, the lenses of which were far too small to serve any practical purpose. Today he was dressed in old khaki shorts, a pair of beat-up sandals, and a Coca Cola shirt that had been tie-dyed so many years ago that the colors had all faded to various shades of gray.

“Justis Fearsson,” he said, as I got out of the car. “Come a-callin’ over Brother Q’s way. To what does Q owe the pleasure on this fine, sunny day?”

Two things to know about Orestes. First, he was one of these people who referred to himself in the third person. Drove me up a wall. Second, on occasion, for no apparent reason, he liked to speak in verse. I used to find this annoying, too. In recent years I’d decided that it was funny, in a really weird sort of way. Still, despite his quirks, Q wasn’t a flake and I didn’t think he had started losing his mind yet, although Kona would have argued the point. He was smart enough to have survived on these streets for years, and in all the time I had been coming to him for information he had almost never steered me wrong. But he’d developed this persona, and while it might once have been a put-on, at this point I wasn’t sure he could have set aside the rhymes and the way he spoke even if he’d wanted to.

“Hi there, Orestes,” I said. I walked to where he was sitting and patted his shoulder. “You staying out of trouble?”

“Always, Brother. Always.”

I smiled. “Right.”

He pulled a folding chair out from behind his own and handed it to me. I unfolded it and sat.

“You here to buy or to talk?”

“Talk.”

“Good,” he said. “Then Brother Q don’t have to get up. Heat like this make a brother wilt. Seems they had no AC when this place was built.”

“The rhymes need a little work.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. You try it sometime. Ain’t as easy as it sounds.”

“You know why I’m here?”

“Brother Q can guess. There’s only one thing people in this town are talkin’ about these days. Brother Q ain’t never seen weremystes so scared. But why would the Deegan girl bring you to Brother Q? You know that Q wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with a killin’.”

“True, but I also know that you keep your ear to the street. If there was something going on that you didn’t like-maybe a sorcerer gathering more power than anyone ought to have-you’d tell me about it. Wouldn’t you?”

“Brother Q keeps an eye out,” he admitted, avoiding my gaze. “Purely out of curiosity.”

“Sure,” I said. “I understand. You remember me coming around to ask you about the Blind Angel case when I was still a cop?”

“Of course. Brother Q remembers everythin’.”

“Then you also remember what you told me.”

“Q told you the truth,” he said pointedly, facing me at last. “Q told you that he didn’t know anythin’ about the killin’s, which was true.”

“At the time, you mean.”

“Right. At the-” He clamped his mouth shut.

“What do you know now, Q?”

He stared out at the street, his eyes tracking a low-riding roadster with a group of Latino kids in it. He still had his lips pressed thin, and I could tell that he was angry; angry with me for tricking him, and angry with himself for letting me. Luis was right, though: Q knew something.

“Thirty-one kids now,” I said, my voice low. “Those are the ones we know about. And you can be sure that Claudia Deegan won’t be the last. If you know something you’ve got to tell me.”

“Brother Q knows nothin’ for certain,” he muttered.

“But you have an idea of who’s doing this, don’t you?”

He peered at me over the top of his sunglasses. “Who are you askin’ for, Brother J? Yourself or the cops?”

“Does it matter?”

“What matters and what doesn’t depends on where you stand. Brother Q might feel different with some green in his hand.”

I had to laugh. “That was pretty good.” I reached for my wallet and pulled out two twenties. It was more than I usually gave to any informant, including Orestes. But after three years, we were getting close. I felt it in my blood, in my bones. And I was still shaken by what I’d seen in my scrying stone on the trail. The money was the least of my worries. I held the bills up, but I didn’t hand them to him. Not yet.

“You’re hungry today, aren’t you, Brother J?”

“I need a name.”

“Brother Q doesn’t have a name to give.”

I lowered my hand. “Then what do you have?”

“What do you know about this sorcerer you’re after?”

“Not a lot. I know the color of his magic. I know that he’s taken an interest in me and my case. I know that he carried Claudia Deegan out into South Mountain Park and killed her there.”

“How you know that?”

“I scried it,” I told him. “A seeing spell.”

“Good for you!” he said, sounding like he meant it. “A seein’ spell. That’s high magic.” He glanced up at the sky. “But you’re right: you don’t know much.”

The last thing I needed was Q telling me how much I did and didn’t know. I examined his shop again, noting the orange light that danced along the roof line and around the windows and doors. “What are you so afraid of?”

He twisted around in his chair. “What do you mean? Brother Q ain’t afraid of nothin’.”