You’d probably get more done if you shook things up, Callie responded.
Only if I knew who to shake. Since I didn’t, I would just create a lot of noise, get labeled a disturber of the peace, and push people into steering clear. I’d learned that much last night at the restaurant.
I missed Red. Whenever I needed information back home, he was the first person I shook down. Even if he didn’t have clear facts, the rumors he collected usually pointed me in a viable direction. I was sure there was someone like that around these parts—a magical weak link, if you will—I just had no idea how to find them. It was starting to get aggravating.
Still, this guy was a good lead. I really hoped he was guilty. Not only because it would mean my work here was (mostly) done, but because it would mitigate the cat-with-the-burned-butt situation. Things like that were hard to explain to innocent people just trying to live their lives.
He had a small office downstairs. I skimmed my finger along the spines of the books in his bookcase, hunting for anything of note. Two books seemed interesting, so I took those down. “Ah ha!” I pulled a volume from the top shelf. “A book about possessions. Guilty.”
“Many people have—”
I jumped and spun, the book leaving my hand a moment later. It flew through the air, only missing Darius’s head because he ducked out of the way, and slammed against the wall behind him. It fell to the ground.
“Don’t sneak up on people!” I said a little too loudly, holding out my hand for the book.
With a grin, he bent to retrieve it. “As I was saying, many people have books on possessions. I, myself, have one. As, I’m sure, do you.”
“This guy was suspect when he spoke in a public place about the screams of dying people. These are just nails in his coffin.”
“Won’t you be embarrassed if you are wrong?”
“Not embarrassed so much as let down that I couldn’t have all the stuff I want to steal.” I stacked up the books and set them on the coffee table in the living room.
“Aren’t you going to look through his computer?” Darius asked as I hunted through the living room.
“Not yet. We can take that with us. I want to seek out stuff hidden in the folds of this house.” I snatched a piece of discarded chalk off the mantelpiece and held it up. “Heavily used. Smooth, too. They’re doing the summoning somewhere inside. The smudges of dirt suggest it’s somewhere that isn’t cleaned too often. That could be a house, but judging by the cleanliness of his house, I’d bet not.”
“That could be for his own use.”
“It is for his own use, since our guy is doing this for himself as much as his crew. But let’s look at the facts. He’s experienced, knows how to work some pretty powerful spells, is organized, and lives in a place where the Mages’ Guild has a heavy influence. Now we learn he is writing things in chalk. Many people do this, sure. I’ve seen more than a few amateurs in the graveyard. But not many people do it inside.” I paused, connecting the dots.
“What?” Darius asked.
“Scuffs like this could come from a garage.” I shook my head. “I didn’t see anything in this one, but I was in a hurry. Maybe…” I cut across the house and let myself into the garage, followed by Darius.
“We’ve found the manufacturer of the casings,” Darius said, looking into one of the stacked boxes. “He bought in bulk. Or someone else did and he is storing them.”
“Ha! Guilty!”
“They could just be—”
“No way. That’s super guilt, right there. He’s a criminal, which means I don’t have to feel bad about ransacking his house. I am definitely taking all his crap, yo. Happy days to me.”
“Your moral compass is ambiguous.”
“Like you can talk.” I scoffed and looked at the ground, trying to find any outlines in the cleared-away space. In the dark, contrast was low, even for my vision. Still scanning, I flicked on the light and backtracked, trying to find a hint of an outline.
“Nothing,” I said with my hands on my hips. “He’s not practicing here.”
“Hmmm,” Darius said, as if I’d said something of great interest. “He—they—may have been practicing in New Orleans, did you think of that?” He moved toward the shelves on the side. “Maybe they wanted a space away from the guild’s influence until they knew what they were doing. Or maybe the guild approves, and it sent them to another city with high magical traffic in case they couldn’t contain the demon. NOLA has the best bounty hunter in the nation. If a demon got loose, there would be no better place for it to happen.”
“I do love flattery, but I am far from the best in the nation. Still, you do have some valid points.”
“That statement was not bent toward flattery. You are known for your prowess.”
“Uh-huh.” I could name five bounty hunters across the world who were legends in the business, and none of them were named Reagan. “Anyway, back to it. I want to have the place catalogued before he gets home.”
“You don’t have enough evidence to convict him yet,” Darius said, pulling a knife out of a box.
“I’m not looking for evidence; I’m looking for additions to my magic collection. And Callie’s. The evidence I’ll beat out of him. That part is easy.”
Darius held up the knife. “The blade has blood on it.”
“There you go. You spoke too soon.”
“It is a hunting knife. It could be animal blood.”
“I haven’t found any hunting rifles, or even a crossbow. He’s some hunter if he’s bagging deer without any way to shoot them.”
“There are other things to hunt.”
“I assume those other things just die on cue? Because otherwise, he’d need a weapon for whatever he was killing.” I shifted from side to side, impatient with his slow, methodical approach to evidence collection. “I’ll see you in there. You take too long.”
“The treasure is in the details.”
I pushed through the door and rounded the corner while brainstorming the other spots people tended to hide things. I should search a closet downstairs. Maybe look harder in the living room.
A shape caught my eye next to the front door. The open front door.
Shock ran through me, and I staggered to a stop, facing a man who had keys dangling uselessly from his fingers. He stared at me as I stared at him, both of us surprised someone else was in the house. That lasted a blink of an eye. Then we were action.
I dove to the side as the keys shot toward me. He hadn’t thrown them. They had zipped from his hand.
What the hell magic was that?
I ripped out my sword again, having put it away after the episode with the cat, and ducked behind the couch. A swell of power engulfed the room, popping my ears and churning the air.
That was way too much power for the man who had created those spells upstairs.
I may have made a grievous error in coming here.
Chapter Nineteen
“My, my. That was quick,” the man said. His voice was too raspy for a human, and power swirled around his words. “She has found me.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I dug through my pouch, feeling the vibrations of the few casings I had, since I stupidly hadn’t pocketed any from upstairs yet, until my fingers glanced off a spell that would work. I yanked it out and pinched, then popped up and threw it.
A sheet of air slammed into me. It threw me back, ass over end, until I knocked against the wall. The fire inside me, which usually swelled in times like these, diminished. Instead, that block of cold I’d felt while levitating grew, pulsing up through my body. A new power bled into my bloodstream, one that spread tingles across my scalp and down to the base of my spine.
A high-pitched scream sounded as the figure by the door wriggled in pain. Sparkling pink foam was burning the skin on his arms. I surged forward, sword out, ready for his counter-spell or another weird air attack.
It came when I’d cut the distance between us in half.
A block of magic sailed through the air. I cut through it with my sword. It sparked before sizzling away. Another came right after, the same intensity, but half as powerful as the ability this man had displayed with the solid air. He was using casings now.
Before I could surge forward again, the furniture bumped forward, moved into my path by unseen hands.
“Do you have the demon in you?” I asked, out of breath and not sure why. The cold thing in my stomach pounded. I knew how to work my fire. I didn’t know how to work this new feeling. It wasn’t responding the way my power usually did.
“I do not.” The man grinned and tilted his head in an inhuman way, studying me. His laugh sounded like skeletons dancing on graves. “But I do have the power of the underworld coursing through me. It feels marvelous.”
“It does now, sure. Wait until it starts to erode you. That won’t feel as great.”
His renewed laughter froze my blood. “Ah, but I will be allowed to go free if I deliver the goods to my master. You are Reagan Somerset, are you not? Here from New Orleans?”
“Who’s your master?”
“Are you the girl he seeks? The heir?”