“Sounds like you’ve done a lot of thinking about this.”
“It’s clear the odds are against most Hounds who work for me before they begin to work for me.”
“So there is no curse?”
He picked up his coffee without looking at me. “I didn’t say that.” He turned a corner onto the bridge, and the rosary on his mirror swung in silent counterpoint.
Chapter Twelve
The wind whipped up off of the river and blustered hard enough to rock Stotts’ car and throw rain that sounded like rocks against the windows. It was going to be miserable out there.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance the girls were last seen indoors?” I asked.
“One of them,” Stotts said. “They all disappeared from the same general area-about a four-block radius. There are two places that are still hot. One’s on the street; the other is in a parking garage.”
“Well, at least one’s out of the rain.” I drank my coffee, letting the warmth and caffeine bolster my confidence and clear my mind. I could do this. I could go stand out in the rain with a cursed magic cop, Hound an old hit and not lose control of magic, and keep a lookout for Trager’s thugs. Oh, and Davy.
I’m sure it was all going to go just fine. I mean, nothing weird had happened to me all day, right?
“We’ll go to the parking garage first. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a break in the rain before you Hound the hit on the street.”
The neighborhood shifted from office buildings and fast food joints to tumbling down apartments and warehouses, mostly concrete fitted with the older, heavier iron pipes with almost no glass showing. Crouched beneath a blackened sky in the driving rain, the neighborhood gave off a dark, wary vibe. Here and there a few houses huddled amongst the industrial-looking buildings, less than half the windows lit with yellow light. Even in the rain, people moved on the street, or sat smoking beneath edges of roofs, or leaned under eves. A lot of those people seemed very interested in our car as we cruised by.
“You come out here a lot?” I asked. I didn’t think the northeast had more magic crime than anywhere else in Portland, but I might be wrong.
“Sometimes. I have family here.”
“Family, as in mob connections, or family, as in crazy uncles who drink too much?”
“There’s a difference?” He smiled. “I’m kidding you. I got Latino roots, not Italian.”
I noted that he didn’t really answer my question. “How long have you been a police officer?”
“About ten years now. Specialized in magic crimes and been part of MERC for eight. This is it.” He turned the car into a parking garage that looked like it had been built in the seventies. He did something to the tollbooth with a card, and the bar lifted and let us in.
Lights hung in cages bolted to the concrete beamed ceilings. Every other light had been busted out, creating pools of darkness and not nearly enough light. I was feeling pretty good right now about being in the company of a police officer who knew the neighborhood and carried a gun.
Magic shifted inside of me, stirring, pushing to be released. That headache that had been nothing but a tightness now shot pain along my temples and jaw. Apparently the aspirin had worn off. Great. I rubbed at my temples and wished I’d taken more painkillers before leaving my apartment.
“Here,” Paul said. “She was last seen right here.” He parked the car, the headlights shining on the elevator door.
“She was in the elevator?”
Paul took a drink of his coffee and put it back in the holder. “She was.”
Oh, holy hells. I hated small places. Hated elevators. I think that came through my body language, or maybe the oh-so-subtle look of terror on my face clued him into my phobia.
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
“No.” My voice was a little too high and that annoyed me to no end. “It’s fine. Fine.”
It would be fine, I told myself. I’d go out, get in that tiny closet of death, Hound the spell in that tiny closet of death, and then I’d get out of that tiny closet of death before anything could happen to me-like maybe death. And, hey, there was a chance I wouldn’t have to go into the elevator. Maybe the spell had been cast on the outside.
After I did this, I was going to lobby for a new law: no spell casting in small places. Ever.
“Let’s do this,” I said, trying to pep talk myself into it.
I took off my gloves because I could learn things by touching the spell, and my gloves would make that impossible.
I opened the door and stepped out into the cold air. The temperature must be near freezing. I could smell the ice in the wind. I took a deep breath and let the cold take the edge off my headache.
Paul shut the door but did not lock it. He left his coffee in the car and unzipped his coat to allow easy access to his gun.
I was beginning to like this man.
“Witnesses say they saw her there.” He pointed to the elevator. “The story breaks up as to whether or not they saw anyone on the elevator when she got in it. No one’s seen her since.”
“How long ago was that?”
I walked over to the elevator with him. It looked like every other parking garage tiny metal coffin of death. An orange number three was painted on it, big enough it would split in half when the door opened. The wall next to it was tagged. Gang symbol, not magic glyph.
“Three days. Do you mind if I record this?” he asked. He had a small tape recorder in his hand.
“That’s fine,” I said.
I heard the recorder click. He said something in it, and then he sort of faded from my awareness. I could feel the lingering weight of the old spell in the air. I whispered a mantra, set a Disbursement. This time I was going for general muscle aches and fever to Proxy my use. I hoped that wouldn’t kick in until I got rid of this headache.
I drew a glyph for Sight, Taste, and Smell and pulled it toward me. I very carefully drew upon a small amount of the magic coursing through me and poured it into the glyphs.
My senses heightened.
The parking garage shifted. Lines of burnt magic, faint and far between, threaded through the air. People rarely cast spells in parking garages. Maybe a Locator so they could find their car or a Shield to keep them dry once they stepped out into the rain, but other than that, a concrete parking garage was just a concrete parking garage. There weren’t even any lead and glass lines to channel magic through here.
Which was why I was so surprised to see the heavy gold knot of burnt magic webbing the door of the elevator. Someone had cast a hell of a spell here.
Paul said it was three days old, yet it still pulsed with the slow throb of magic in rhythm to the city’s heartbeat. That was strange. Unless someone was paying the price to maintain it-to come back and pour more magic into it-it should have burned out by now.
I walked over, not caring that Stotts was taping me, not caring that the spell was centered around an elevator, not caring that a low pastel fog was gathering at the edges of the garage and slowly, slowly lifting.
The spell wasn’t complicated. It was clearly an Illusion glyph, cast to hide actions from another person. Under a strong Illusion spell, a herd of hippos could roll down Main Street and no one would notice.
If I were going to smuggle something or kidnap someone, this is the kind of spell I would use.
I leaned in toward the elevator door and took a deep breath, my mouth open so I could get the smell and taste of the spell on the back of my palate and sinuses at the same time.
It stank of burnt wood and something sweet I couldn’t quite nail. I drew my fingers gently along the thickest line of magic. A snapping tingle resonated up the marks on my arm.