David Coe - Spell Blind

“The desert is uncompromising. It’s so severe and it forces everything that lives there to be the same way. It says ‘die or adapt.’ There’s no middle ground, no getting by. And yet, it’s also incredibly beautiful. Some of the beauty is harsh, austere, you know? And some of it is as delicate as a spider web.” I glanced over at her, only to find that she was watching me, her expression unreadable. I faced forward again and shrugged. “Anyway, that probably doesn’t really explain it very well.”

“Sure it does. You’ve spent a lot of time at this place we’re going to? Sonoran Monument?”

“Some. I’ve spent more time in the Superstition Wilderness, but that’s a longer drive.”

“Is that where you took the last woman you wanted to impress?”

I laughed. “Is that what you think this is about?”

“Isn’t it?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember the last time I took a woman anywhere.” I smiled. “At least not one who I wanted to impress.”

“Why is that?” she asked.

Because I’m a weremyste who doesn’t take blockers. Because my father’s nuts and someday I will be, too. Because my life is wrapped up in so many secrets that I can hardly tell anymore where the mask ends and where the real me begins. “It’s complicated,” was all I said, staring at the road once more.

“You’re strange. One minute you’re as open as a kid, and then bang, it seems like you shut some door somewhere inside you and I find myself staring at a wall.”

“It’s not intentional.”

“Isn’t it?”

See? This was the problem with getting involved with smart people. Or maybe it was the problem with getting involved at all.

“We’re still off the record, right?”

“Yup.”

“All right,” I said, eyes fixed on the double yellow. “Then what do you want to know?”

She didn’t answer for several seconds, and I started to hope that she’d let me off the hook. No such luck.

“What’s the real reason you stopped being a cop?”

Smart. That was the $64,000 question, wasn’t it? That was the one that led to every other secret in my life.

I glanced at her. “After this it’s my turn, right? I get to ask questions, too?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“All right,” I said. Deep breath. “I left the force because I was going to be fired. The department’s Professional Standards Bureau had determined that I was incapable of fulfilling my duties as a police officer.”

“Why?”

“Because I was having psychological problems. Breakdowns, sort of.”

Silence. I chanced a quick glance at her, expecting that she would be gaping at me with fear and pity. But she was just sitting there, chewing her bottom lip, watching the scenery slide by.

“Are you still?” she asked, her voice very low.

There was an easy answer to this, a cheap out. And I took it, because at this stage of our relationship explaining the phasings and my choice to endure them seemed unthinkable. “Problems like that never fully vanish,” I told her. “You learn to control them, to live with them.”

Billie nodded. “Are you on medication?”

“No. The drugs I could take have. . side effects.” They’d make my magical abilities go away. “And I’m not willing to deal with them.”

“So these problems can be dealt with through therapy?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that one. Were my training sessions with Namid a form of therapy? Were my visits with my dad? In the end I decided that they were. I wasn’t seeing a therapist, but Namid was better equipped to help me through the phasings than any psychiatrist on the planet. Again, it was a cheap way out, but I didn’t want her thinking that I was doing nothing to take care of myself. “Yes,” I said. “I have someone who helps me through the rough patches.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For telling me the truth.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, knowing that I had cheated and gotten away with it. I felt unclean. “Do you want me to take you back? I’d understand if you did.”

“No.” She shifted in her seat, turning so that she was facing me. “Your turn.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why were you so eager to leave home? Connecticut, right?”

She blew out a breath through pursed lips and ran a hand through her curls. “Wow, Fearsson.”

I smiled in sympathy. “Now you know how it feels.”

“I guess. Why was I so eager to leave Connecticut?” She shook her head and regarded me with something akin to admiration. “How did you even know that I was eager?”

“From the way you talked about home the other day.”

“I hardly said anything.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I noticed that.”

“I think you must have been a pretty good cop.” She ran a hand through her hair once more. She seemed to do that a lot. “I suppose the short answer to your question is that I wanted to get away from my dad.”

I waited, knowing there was more.

“He drank,” she went on. “A lot. And most times when he was drunk, he’d end up beating my mother.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Billie shrugged. “Mom eventually got up the nerve to kick him out. I think it broke her heart. She really loved him, and when he wasn’t drinking, he was a decent guy. But by the end, we only saw him when he was smashed. He’d go on a bender and show up at our door, and Mom would let him in. She’d try to take care of him, get him sobered up. But it always ended the same way, with Mom crying and sporting another bruise, and Dad leaving again. I got to the point where I didn’t want to be anywhere near either one of them.”

“Your dad still drinking?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He died about ten years ago. Liver gave out on him. If you ask me it was a mercy killing.”

I had no idea what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Guess we’re both damaged goods, huh?” she said.

“Do you know anyone who isn’t?”

“That’s awfully cynical.”

“It’s realistic,” I said. “There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t have something lurking in their past or in their family that they’d rather ignore or erase. Life is about coping with all the crap that comes with being human. Some of us cope better than others. That’s all.”

She shook her head. “Maybe you’re right. But that seems like an awfully dark view of life.”

“I guess it is,” I said, feeling that I’d failed some test. We had turned off of the main road onto the rural two-lane that would take us into the monument. “Listen,” I said, “should I keep on driving, or turn around now?”

“God, what is it with you? Have you decided you don’t like me or something?”

“No!” I said, taken aback. “Not at all. I just-”

“Have I done anything to make you think that I don’t like you?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. “We were arguing,” I said weakly.

She did that half-smile, half-frown thing again. I was starting to like it. “We were not! We were talking, expressing opinions, disagreeing with one another. You mean to tell me you never disagreed with your partner when you were a cop?”

“No, we disagreed all the time. But that was different.”

“Why? Because he was a man?”

“Actually, she wasn’t.”

That brought her up short. “Oh. Right. Kona Shaw.”

I had to laugh. After a moment, she did, too.

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” she said.

“Very much.”

“I deserved it. But still, I can’t spend time with someone who’s not willing to disagree with me. I’ll get bored. And you don’t seem like the kind of person who’d bore me.”