David Coe - Spell Blind

“So much for the social niceties.”

“You’re lucky you got as much as you did. I’m having a bad day, partner. It’s not even nine o’clock and my day’s shot to hell.”

I sat up, running a hand through my tangled hair. “Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“It’s nothing you don’t already know. Gann is being arraigned right now, and I’ve got no way of proving to Hibbard or Arroyo or anyone else that he’s innocent.”

Right. “I’ll see what else I can find,” I said, forcing myself awake. “I didn’t get much from Q or Luis, but there’s another place I can go today.”

“We don’t have much time.”

I chuckled humorlessly. “Don’t I know it.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that our friend has taken a particular interest in me. I don’t know why; I guess he knows I’m after him. But he’s taken the measure of my warding three times now and-”

“You’ve lost me, partner. It’s that mumbo-jumbo stuff again.”

“Sorry. He’s been testing me in a way, and he’s done it three times, which in magical circles basically means that he owns me. The next time, if he wants to hurt me, or kill me, or turn me into a toad, he can pretty much have his way.”

“And you’re guessing it won’t be the toad thing.”

I grinned, despite the tightness in my gut. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Well then, watch yourself,” she said.

“I will.”

I hung up, showered, and was soon on my way back to Mesa. There was a small park near Falcon Field where I knew other weremystes would be gathered today in anticipation of the full moon. The drive was as slow as one would expect on a weekday morning, and by the time I was parking the Z-ster I could see the crowd gathered among the small tents and plywood stalls.

Passersby would have thought it nothing more than another small farmers’ market, of which there was no shortage in the Phoenix area. This market, though, was far from typical. We referred to it as the Moon Market, because it only turned up for a few days right before the phasing. Rather then selling produce and jams and homemade salsas, the sellers at the Moon Market sold herbs and oils, crystals and talismans, elixirs, incense, and bundled blends of flowers and native plants that resembled the sage sticks burned by the Pueblo people. Many of the items were similar to those Q sold at his place, only in far greater numbers and varieties, and often at much better prices. Some peddled their own spells, which they taught to other weremystes for a fee. Some sold knives or candles that they claimed to have charmed.

As usual, there were as many wannabes circulating among the tents as there were actual weremystes. Sometimes tourists stumbled across the market as well. They took pictures of the various displays and bought the occasional geode or quartz spear. But it was always easy to spot the weremystes in the crowd, even if direct sunlight obscured the wavering effect from their magic. They weren’t there for the fun of it, and they weren’t shopping for pretty trinkets. They moved around the market with quiet urgency, seeking something-anything-that might take the edge off the coming phasing.

I’d tried a few of the herbs early on: sachets of stargrass and alyssum that I was told to leave near all the windows and doors of my house; blends of anise, bay, pennyroyal, and rosemary that I was supposed to put in pots of boiling water. Once I even bought a wand made of mulberry. As far as I could tell, none of them had done anything to ease the pull of the moon.

But other weremystes swore by remedies like these, and who was I to argue? I knew cops who used one kind of aspirin, but not others. Different people have different headaches; same with phasings.

I wandered through the market, searching for people I knew, people who might be able to tell me something about the Blind Angel killings. A few vendors and shoppers appeared to recognize me, but most of them refused to make eye contact. They probably thought I was still a cop.

The first person I saw who both knew me and appeared willing to speak with me was an old Navajo named Barry Crowseye, who sold crystals at the market, and jewelry in a small shop in Tolleson. He waved me over when he spotted me and stood to shake my hand, reaching across a long table that was covered with baskets of polished stone-petrified wood, tiger’s-eye, citrine, jasper, bloodstone, malachite, and a dozen other stones I couldn’t identify.

I’d known Barry for years and he hadn’t changed at all. As far as I could tell, his hair had always been silver, and he had always worn it in a long ponytail. He was a big man, with a chiseled face that could have come straight off of a coin. If I’d been making a western and needed to cast the part of Indian chief, I’d have tracked him down simply because he looked the part. His skin was the color of cherry wood, and his eyes were almost black. He was wearing jeans, a pale blue Los Lobos t-shirt, and a brown leather vest. And as always, the shimmer of magic around him was so strong that his face, neck, and shoulders were blurred.

“Good to see you, Jay,” he said, smiling at me, a gold tooth glinting. “Been a while.”

“You too, Barry. Things going well?”

He shrugged, then lowered himself back onto a folding canvas chair. “I suppose. You interested in buying?” he asked, pushing a few stones around on his table until satisfied with his display. In addition to the polished rocks, he also had agate geodes, pendants of various sizes and colors, and amethyst, quartz, and fluorite crystals. Like the herbs and oils I’d seen elsewhere, his selection of stones was weighted to those said to offer magical protection and psychic strength.

“No, thanks,” I told him.

He gave a sage nod. “Information, then.”

I laughed. “Guess I’m getting predictable.”

He shrugged again. “I haven’t seen you around here in more than a year. And even back when you were a regular, you were never as interested in protection as you were in information.”

“You’d make a good PI.”

He chuckled, but quickly grew serious again. “People here don’t want to talk about the murders. They didn’t when you were a cop, and they don’t now. Can’t say as I blame them.”

“How’d you know I’d be asking about that?”

Barry regarded me in a way that made me feel like the biggest idiot on the planet.

“Yeah, all right,” I said, my voice dropping. “If you knew anything, would you tell me?”

“Yes,” he said.

I believed him.

“Who else should I talk to?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” I said. I started to leave, but then stopped. Barry knew as much about magic as anyone I’d met, aside from Namid. And unlike the runemyste, Barry was willing to give me a straight answer now and then. “What do you know about dark magic?” I asked, turning to face him again.

“Not a lot. Some. I did a little when I was younger. And my brother played around with some nasty stuff once upon a time. Why?”

I asked him the same question I’d asked Luis Paredes a few nights before. “Can you think of any reason why a weremyste would kill on the night of the first quarter moon?”

His eyebrows went up. “First quarter moon is a powerful night. Any spell would be stronger then.”

“So I’ve heard. But what spell would require a murder?”

“Lots of them do,” he said, his voice and expression grim. “Why do you think they call it dark magic? Sacrifice is just another word for murder, and there’s not that much difference between killing a goat and killing a person. Except that human blood amplifies the magic more.”

“Could he be using the kids he’s killing to make himself stronger?”