It had also been the job of the Authority to keep people, and especially detectives like Stotts, from discovering how deadly magic could be back then. The Authority did that by taking away people’s memories.
Weird stuff used to happen a lot around Detective Stotts. There had been no explanation for it because we made sure there wouldn’t be.
Now everyone had their memories back. Including him. It was a problem.
“About time you got here,” I said. I shoved Terric’s hand off me and stepped to one side to make sure I was out of his reach. I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets to keep from touching him again.
Terric took a step back, blinking hard like he wasn’t quite seeing the real world yet. Not a lot of human in that angelic face of his. Not a lot of my friend.
Had I let it go on too long?
I bent, scooped up the Void stone buried in the plant ashes, and dropped the stone into his hand. He shuddered at the contact of the magic-canceling stone.
“Shamus,” Stotts said. “I haven’t seen you out of a bar for the last month.”
“You’ve been keeping an eye on me? You’re a sweetheart. This”—I pointed at the ox—“is something Terric seemed worried about.”
Stotts glanced at the man. His eyebrows went up a bit. That Bind spell I’d cast was standard back in the day, but much rarer to see now.
“Did you do this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He wasn’t using his inside voice.”
Stotts slid me a scowl.
I so didn’t care.
“Terric?” he asked.
Terric didn’t say anything.
His eyes were closed, hands curled around the stone, pressing it against his chest as if hoping it would fill a hole inside him. His lips were moving so slightly I couldn’t tell what he might be whispering.
He swallowed hard, then opened his eyes.
A lot of light coming out of those blues. Cold, silver light.
“Terric?” Stotts said in his put-the-gun-down voice.
“We got a lead,” Terric said like he was reading someone else’s lines from a note card. “This man, Hamilton, Stan Hamilton, has information on the girl who showed up dead out in Forest Park yesterday.”
By the end of the sentence, he sounded more like Terric. Looked more like him too. Blue eyes blue, white glow gone. Life magic was pushed back somewhere inside him where most people wouldn’t look.
He crossed his arms and made a point of not looking at me. I wasn’t most people.
“I called as soon as I saw him,” he said. “Then Shame got involved. Started a fight.”
“Started? You mean ended a fight,” I corrected. “Like usual.”
“You should know better,” Stotts said.
“Excuse me?”
“There are procedures for using magic on other citizens, Mr. Flynn. Rules that every person in this city must follow now, whether they are Authority or non-Authority.”
“Hello? Choir here you’re singing to.”
“I’m assuming Terric told you to stay out of this matter with Hamilton?”
“Yes, but—”
“Procedure. You will make some effort to follow it from now on.”
I bit down on a smile. My bad habit of arguing with police officers had never once worked in my favor. “We called you, didn’t we?”
“Terric called me.”
“And?”
“This town doesn’t need a vigilante,” he said.
“Vigilante? You got me wrong, mate. I’m too lazy for that kind of thing. Spent a month in a bar, remember?”
“I’ve seen the things you’ve done in the past.”
“Yeah, well, that was the past.”
Right about then another police car pulled up.
“Let’s keep it that way,” Stotts said. “Just to be clear, you’ll let the police do our job and you’ll stay out of it. If you want a fight, do me a favor to take it outside my jurisdiction so I don’t have to explain to Allie or Nola why I threw you in jail. Better yet, go on vacation, get a girlfriend.”
“I’ll get right on that,” I said.
Stotts headed to the ox with a pair of handcuffs. Yes, my spell had held. Because I’m that good.
I didn’t think he really worried about telling his wife, Nola, or her best friend, Allie, that he’d thrown me in jail. It wouldn’t surprise them, anyway. More likely he just didn’t want to deal with the paperwork.
I sympathized.
I turned and made for the street.
“Shame?” Stotts said. “The spell?”
I waved my hand over my shoulder and broke the spell. It pattered to the ground and hissed out like wet coals.
Eleanor floated along at my right, keeping her distance. Smart ghost. Not that there was anything more horrible I could do to her. I hoped.
Terric fell into step on my left.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell I just got in the middle of?” I asked.
“A murder. They think. Ten-year-old. Forest Park.”
“I thought you said we didn’t deal with murderers.”
“We don’t,” he said. “Unless they use magic to do it.”
Fuck. That sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. People weren’t supposed to be able to use magic to kill.
I dug in my coat pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit up. The ache to consume was satisfied for the moment, thanks to Terric, but I was still twitchy.
“Let’s just get to the damn meeting,” I said.
“You don’t care about any of this, do you?”
“Been saying that for months, mate.”
“Shame.” He grabbed my arm.
I stopped, turned, and looked at him.
“Someone is murdering people with magic,” he said.
“I heard you. Let go of my arm.”
“And you don’t care.”
“I don’t anything.” I shoved his shoulder. He took half a step back but didn’t let go of my sleeve. “I haven’t been involved in this shit for a year,” I snapped. “Why should I change that now?”
“Because a little girl is dead.”
I nodded and sucked on my cigarette, doing what I could to hide how that really made me feel—angry and sick. And, yeah, helpless. The world was a fucked-up place. There was jack all I could do about it.
“And?” I asked with no tone.
“Jesus.” He exhaled. “What happened to you, Shame?”
“Not everyone wants to be a hero.”
“How about being a decent human being?”
“This is as decent as I get.”
He stared at me a little longer. I had nothing left to say. He let go of my coat. Let go of me. Stormed off to the car.
Didn’t blame him.
I threw the cig on the ground. It was ashes already. Consumed.
I tipped my head and sunglasses down so I could get a good look at the redheaded chick with the sniper rifle on the roof of the building across the street. She had a hell of a view of the alley from up there, an unobstructed shot, and had been following me since yesterday morning, or maybe the day before that.
I hadn’t told Terric about her yet. Thought for sure she’d have taken the shot at him or me when she had the chance, but she hadn’t. So, rule out our imminent death by sniper rifle.
That was good, right?
She was also packing up, so that meant the cops weren’t her target either, and neither was the ox, Hamilton. Huh.
“Haul it, Flynn,” Terric yelled. “We’re late.”
“Like normal?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Yep. He was angry. How human of him.
“Maybe you should take a vacation,” I said as I neared the car.
“Oh, every day’s a vacation when I’m around you, Flynn.”
“Right. I know. But I’m serious. You could take your boyfriend. Is it still Mike? No. Greg? Wait. That was last year’s model. You’ve traded him in for someone shiny and new, haven’t you?”