David Coe - Spell Blind

I got back in the car and started for home. Three blocks from Antoine’s house, I turned due west, deciding in that moment to check on Orestes. Call it a hunch. Brother Q had sent me to Antoine Mirdoux, and Mirdoux was dead.

Two blocks from Q’s place, I floored the gas. Already I could see the red glow lighting the sky. There was some orange mingled with it, though not much. Orestes was still alive.

I had my Glock in the pocket of my bomber, and as I jumped out of the car and ran toward Q’s door, I pulled it out again.

“Orestes?” I called.

From the outside, the place looked like it had been bombed. His door, like Antoine’s, had been ripped off the hinges and shattered. Windows were broken, and some of the building’s siding was blackened, as was a good portion of the roof.

The inside of Orestes’ store had been trashed. Broken vials of oils and herbs covered the floor, and the place smelled like two armies of conjurers had done battle with nothing but incense and brews. The remnants of Brother Q’s wardings still bordered the cracked windows and the door frame, but they flickered and hung there, weak, dim, limp, like the tatters of old orange curtains in a long-abandoned house. Red magic gleamed everywhere. A trail of it led toward the back of the store. I followed.

The small room behind the cash register was in shambles as well-more broken jars and dark stains on the old wooden floors from spilled oils and ointments, their smell mingled with the heavy stink of smoke. A narrow stairway, lit by red and orange conjuring, led to the second floor. I began to climb, holding my weapon with both hands, the stairs creaking beneath me.

As I neared the top of the stairway, I peered over the edge of the floor into Orestes’ small apartment. And as soon as I did, I felt the pulse of power. It was hot and moving fast and aimed directly at my head. I ducked. It flew over me and slammed into the wall of the stairway, raining burning pieces of wood and charred plaster down on me. I smelled burning hair, and brushed a flaming fragment off my head. Only then, thinking about it, did I realize that the magic I’d seen hurtling toward me had been orange.

“Orestes, you idiot! It’s me, Jay Fearsson!”

“Show yourself then!” Orestes called. “Let Brother Q see!”

He was talking in third person; he couldn’t have been hurt too badly.

“No way! You’ll try to blow my head off again!”

Q didn’t answer, and I started to wonder if he was gearing up for another assailing spell. I pulled my wallet free and flipped it open to my PI license.

“I’m going to hold up my ID, Orestes. Don’t blow my hand off, okay?”

Still no answer. I took a deep breath and lifted my hand.

After several seconds I heard, “Brother J? That really you?”

“It’s me. You all right?”

“Brother Q in a bad way, boy. Nearly got himself blown up today.”

I think it was an attempt at verse, but I couldn’t be sure. “I’m coming up, all right?”

“Yeah. All right.”

The apartment was even more of a mess than the store had been. Shards of glasses and old plates covered the floor, crunching like snow under my feet as I crossed to the bed. Q’s pine and cinder block bookshelves had toppled, littering much of the room with old books and crystals. His mattress had been burned black, and was still smoking.

Q sat on the floor on the far side of what remained of his bed frame, his back against the wall. Blood from several deep gashes covered his face, and he had a nasty burn on his left cheek and temple. One of his legs was fractured; a bloodied, jagged end of the bone protruded through his pants leg. From the way he was holding his right arm, I guessed that it was broken, too.

“You don’t look so good, Q.”

There was a large pool of blood around his leg, and a good deal more soaked into his jeans. I knelt down in front of him and studied his eyes. They were glazed over, but it was too dark to see if his pupils were dilated. He might well have been in shock, or at least on his way.

“Where’s your phone?”

“Q ain’t seen it,” he said. His voice sounded strong enough.

“Is there even one up here?” I asked, surveying the damage.

“Most of the time.”

I found it under a pile of books. For the second time that night I dialed 911. When the operator came on, I told her to send an ambulance to Orestes’ address.

“It might be a good idea to send the fire department, too,” I added, before hanging up.

Returning to Q, I examined his leg with more care. Because of the compound fracture, I couldn’t apply any pressure to stop the bleeding, at least not without causing him a lot of pain. I tore a strip a cloth from the bed sheets and tied a tourniquet a couple of inches above the break. I didn’t tie it too tight-I didn’t want him to lose the leg any more than I wanted him bleeding to death.

“Why did he attack you, Q?” I asked as I worked.

“It was that badass,” he said. “Remember the one Q told you about?”

“Yeah, I remember. I recognized the color of his magic. But why’d he do it? What’d you do to piss him off?”

“Q still doesn’t know. Q hasn’t even met the man.”

I paused in what I was doing. “You’re telling me that you don’t know this guy at all?”

“Brother Q told you that last time.”

“You ever hear the name Cahors?” I asked him.

“Ca-what?”

“Cahors. It’s French.”

He shook his head. “Never heard it before.”

“Then why would he attack you? Why would the guy come in here, and bust up your place, and leave you half-dead if he doesn’t even know you?”

“Q has no idea. He was just mindin’ his own business and that man came and blowed down Q’s door like the big bad wolf, y’know?”

“Did you get a look at him?”

“Brother Q saw his eyes,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “There’s evil in that man.”

“What color were his eyes?” I knew the answer. At this point I was trying to keep him talking.

“They were light. Blue. Gray maybe. They was almost white. Strange, scary, you know?”

“What else? Is he white?”

“Did you ever see a brother with eyes like that?”

I heard a siren approaching, but it kept going past. I wondered if it was a cruiser on its way to check out Antoine’s place.

“Tell me more. I need to find this guy.”

“He’s tall, lanky, you know?”

“Hair?”

“Nope.”

I laughed. “He was bald again, huh?”

“What do you mean, ‘again’?”

“I’ve seen him twice: once with hair and once without.”

“Well, he’s shaved now. To Q that doesn’t always look right on a white man, but it worked for this guy. Made him look mean.”

“All right. Thanks. That should help.”

“Stay clear of this guy, Brother J. Let someone else bring him down. He’s bad to the core.”

“I know he is. He’s had a busy night. He’s already been to Antoine’s place. Kid wasn’t as lucky as you were.”

Orestes had closed his eyes, but he opened them now. “’Toine’s dead?”

I nodded.

“Damn. Boy that young should never get mixed up with a dude like this. ’Toine wasn’t ready for big time.”

“He almost killed me, too. He attacked me at Robo’s.”

Orestes appraised me with a critical eye. “You don’t look so bad.”

“I should be dead. My runemyste saved me.”

His eyebrows went up. “You’ve got a runemyste? Q didn’t know that.” He gave a slow nod; I’d impressed him. “There’s more to Brother J than meets the eye.”

“That’s between you and me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “All right.”

I glanced at my watch. Where the hell was that ambulance? I untied the tourniquet, allowing some blood to flow into Q’s leg. Then I tied it again. I thought about trying a seeing spell, but I didn’t figure it would work any better here than it had at ’Toine’s.