David Coe - Spell Blind

“We runemystes are not supposed to meddle so in the affairs of humans. We are not even supposed to have that ability. I sensed though that I could this time. I do not know what it means. I do know that when I saved your life, I went against the laws of my kind. Already the others know of this, and have called for a conclave to speak of what I have done.”

“Will you be punished?”

“Possibly.”

I wondered how one punished a runemyste. Could they take away his powers? Could they hurt him? I almost asked, but Namid was always tight-lipped about these things. He’d already told me more than I would have expected.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said.

“You must be careful. I will not be able to intervene again. If this runecrafter makes another attempt on your life, you will face him alone.”

“I haven’t sensed him since the club. Did you do something to him?”

“It is enough that I showed myself. My kind are feared by the dark ones. He knows now that you and I are linked, and he will be more careful the next time he assails you. But assail you he will. You are more of a threat to him now. Our bond will give him pause, it may even make him fear you. But ultimately it will make him ever more determined to kill you.”

A joke leaped to mind, but I kept it to myself. Most of the time Namid thought my humor inappropriate, and tonight I was inclined to agree with him.

“I’ll tread like the fox,” I said, trying to smile.

Namid nodded. Then he vanished.

I wanted nothing more than to go home, take a hot shower, and curl up in my bed for a day or two. Even as I began the drive into Mountain View, I considered blowing off my appointment with Antoine. It wasn’t as though he and I had hit it off the day we spoke. Let him handle his own damn problems. That’s what I told myself anyway.

As if in response, I heard again his voice on the phone. He’d been terrified. The guy hated me; he wouldn’t have made the call if he hadn’t been desperate. Besides, I probably wouldn’t get any sleep anyway. I had a feeling that it would be a long time before I could close my eyes without reliving those terrifying moments on the floor of Robo’s.

Driving through this part of Phoenix by day was depressing. It didn’t take a genius to see that hope had abandoned these neighborhoods years ago, leaving a residue of despair and bitterness that seemed to coat the homes and shops, even the streets themselves, like dust from a desert wind storm. But at night, this area, like Maryvale and Estrella Mountain and parts of Cactus Park, became something else entirely. Hopelessness gave way to fear; misery turned to rage. Violence, as Mick Jagger once put it, was just a shot away. Even cops didn’t like to venture here after dark. Kona and I had investigated more murders in south central Phoenix than I cared to count, but I’d never gotten used to it.

Now I was alone, and I didn’t like it at all. I started going over my phone conversation with Antoine in my mind, searching for any indication that this might be a trap. Maybe Billie was right and I was getting paranoid. The first time I met the kid, though, I thought he might be working with the red sorcerer. And here I was, maybe an hour after Red had come within a hair’s breadth of killing me, going to meet Antoine at his home. Either I was too stupid for words, or. . well, that was the only option coming to mind.

I decided that I would park a short distance from the house, like I had last time, and approach on foot. I didn’t want Antoine trying to kill me again, and the Z-ster didn’t exactly blend in on these streets.

As soon as I turned the corner onto Antoine’s street I knew that I wouldn’t have to creep up on the place after all. I parked in front of the kid’s house and sat there, staring at the ruin, my stomach knotting like wet rope.

I knew without getting out of the car that Antoine was dead. All of his wardings were gone. I assumed they had been torn to shreds by the pulsing crimson magic that now covered the house. But there wasn’t even a trace of them left. Had he been alive there would have been something. It was one of the fundamental principles of magic: spells died with the sorcerer who crafted them.

That red glow seemed to be a message in and of itself, a marquee of sorts, announcing to all who had the power to see it that there was a new act in town. It clung to the windows. It shone from the twisted hinges and shattered remains of Antoine’s new front door. And it glimmered from within the house as well, flickering like some weird red television screen. Yet, for all the magic I could see, I sensed nothing at all. The red sorcerer had been here-there was no doubt about that-but he wasn’t around now, unless he had managed to mask himself somehow.

To be safe, I pulled my weapon from under the driver’s seat, where I’d hidden it before leaving home, got out of the car, and approached the house. I glanced around, but saw no one. My weapon held ready, I walked up the cracked cement path to the door.

The inside of the house looked no better than the outside. What little furniture had been there was in shambles. The television had been knocked to the floor, the tube smashed and gleaming red with the sorcerer’s power. A table lay in pieces near the kitchen, and two chairs had been overturned.

I found Antoine in the bedroom, and upon seeing him had to fight to keep from being sick. His chest had been blackened; I assumed the red sorcerer had killed him with the same burning magic he had used to cauterize my heart. There wasn’t much left of his face, either. It was hard to tell in the dim light where his blood ended and the gleaming remains of the sorcerer’s magic began.

The bedroom was in far better shape than the living room had been. Forced to guess, I would have said that Red had charged into the house intent on killing Antoine; he cornered the kid in the back of the house, at which point he had no reason to do any more damage. He wanted Antoine, and once the kid was dead, he left.

I made a quick search of the house, hoping to find anything that might link Antoine to Claudia’s death or to the other Blind Angel murders. But Antoine’s home was modest; there were few places to hide anything, and fewer still that remained in one piece. I knew enough about crime scenes to stay clear of Antoine’s body.

I had the scrying stone with me-I had decided before leaving home to pick up Billie that I’d be wise to carry it with me at all times, like a real sorcerer. I tried a seeing spell now, hoping that ’Toine might be able to show me the red sorcerer. At first I used a shirt from the kid’s bedroom to link the magic to him. It worked initially. He was watching TV and rolling a joint. But then there was a noise outside the house that seemed to catch ’Toine’s attention. He stood, and at that point the images stopped. I went back to ’Toine’s body and, feeling like a ghoul, dabbed a bit of his blood on the underside of the stone. Blood should have given me a stronger vision than clothing. But when I tried the spell a second time the same thing happened. Either ’Toine had blacked out, or the red sorcerer had found some way to block my seeing spells. I was betting on the latter.

After I’d convinced myself that there was nothing to be found in the house, I grabbed a paper napkin from the kitchen. Then I went to the phone, took the receiver off the cradle, taking care to keep the napkin between my hand and the plastic, and punched in 911, again using the napkin to avoid leaving any fingerprints.

I heard the emergency operator come on the line, her voice thin as smoke as she asked if anyone was there. I left without responding. They’d dispatch someone to the house soon enough, and I wanted to put some distance between myself and the crime scene before the police arrived. Hibbard was eager for any excuse to mess with me, and a fresh corpse would have been like manna from heaven for him.