The music hadn’t stopped, but there were quite a few people standing around, staring at me.
“Hurry up, Namid,” I whispered.
“What?” Billie said.
The runemyste rumbled like surging flood waters. “You must rest.”
“Not here, though.”
“What are you saying, Fearsson?”
After a few moments more, the flow of soothing waters over my heart ceased. As soon as it did, I felt the pain return, or at least a shadow of it. I could only assume that my chest would be sore for a while.
I sat up, which made my head spin. But I met and held Billie’s gaze. “I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not. What was that? What happened?”
“I’ll try to explain it to you,” I told her. “But not here.”
I thought she’d argue, but after gazing at me for a few seconds, she nodded once. She still looked pale and scared, but I could tell that she hadn’t gone to pieces. She was too strong for that. She stood, helped me to my feet. It hurt to move at all, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near here when the ambulance arrived.
Billie started toward the back door again, and I followed, my steps stiff, like those of an old man.
One of the college kids stared at me. “Dude, you okay?”
I laid a hand on his shoulder as I walked past him. “Yeah, thanks.”
The air in the alley behind Robo’s felt cool, and I leaned against the cinder block wall for a moment, taking deep breaths.
“What happened to you, Fearsson?” Billie demanded again.
I straightened and started walking. “Not here,” I said.
She didn’t move. “Yes, here.”
I walked back to her. “I’ll try to explain this to you. I swear it. But we’re still not safe. I want to get as far-”
“Wait a minute,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Are you trying to tell me that what happened to you in there was. . was done to you?”
“I guess that sounds pretty strange, doesn’t it?”
Billie nodded, her mouth a dark gash on her ashen face. “Paranoid, even.”
I sighed. “I’m not nuts.” Not yet, at least.
“I didn’t say you were,” she said. I could tell she was trying to keep her tone gentle. “I’m trying to understand.”
I didn’t want to have this conversation now. I was spent and sore, and even if I had been ready to tell Billie everything, I wasn’t certain that she was ready to hear it. I’d only had to explain all of this once before, to Kona, years ago. And that had been right after we solved the warehouse robbery cases and collared Orestes. She would have been willing to believe pretty much anything at that point.
Other than Kona, I’d never had to tell anyone about all of it-Namid, the craft, the phasings. My father already understood, and my mother would have as well, having lived with my father. There were a few street sorcerers, like Orestes, who knew, but again, they hadn’t needed an explanation. Billie wouldn’t understand much of this at first. She might not even believe me; some people didn’t believe magic was real.
By the same token, she deserved some explanation for what she’d seen in the club. And before long I wanted to tell her everything.
“Fearsson?”
But not tonight.
“Can we walk while I try to explain?”
She hesitated, then nodded. We started down the alley. I tried to sense the sorcerer, but he wasn’t around. Maybe Namid had driven him off before doing whatever he’d done to ease my pain.
“Do you believe in the occult?”
“The occult? You mean witchcraft? Voodoo? Stuff like that?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“I’ve heard people talk about it. I guess you could say that I’m a skeptic.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
She stopped walking. “You’re telling me that was voodoo?” she said, gesturing over her shoulder at the club. “Come on, Fearsson. You can do better than that.”
I stopped as well, and turned to face her. I didn’t have the energy for this. “Not voodoo precisely,” I said. “But that’s kind of what we’re talking about.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She was frowning now. I thought she even seemed a little bit afraid of me.
“I could lie to you. I could tell you that my father had a heart attack when he was in his thirties, and now it’s my turn. But I don’t want to do that.”
She started walking again. When she reached me, I fell in step beside her.
“Voodoo,” she muttered again.
“It’s not voodoo,” I said. “Stop saying it like that. Voodoo is a religion. Some of its practitioners dabble in the craft, but for the most part voodoo is a word that people use to describe things they don’t fully understand.”
“The craft?” she said. “Wasn’t that a movie?”
I shrugged. “It might have been.”
“You said when we got to the club that your work tonight could be dangerous, and that you thought you’d been followed before. Did you know something like this would happen?”
I almost said, Yes, but I hoped I could ward myself. But I stopped myself in time. “I was afraid it might,” I told her. “I didn’t know how bad it would be.”
She eyed me. “How bad was it?”
I stared at the street in front of me. “It was pretty bad.”
“You’re closing down on me again, Fearsson. How bad was it?”
I took a breath and looked at her. “I’m not entirely sure why I’m still alive.”
For a long time she didn’t say anything. Finally, she nodded, and faced forward again. “That’s how it seemed.”
I could tell she still didn’t know what to make of all this, or whether she should even believe me. But she hadn’t dumped me yet, so I figured I was doing all right.
“I bet dates with Joel aren’t this exciting,” I said, chancing a joke.
She wasn’t in the mood for that yet.
“Why would someone who. . who does. .?”
“Magic?” I offered.
“All right. Why would they be after you?”
I didn’t answer; I could see that she was working it out herself.
“Unless magic had something to do with what happened to Claudia, and with the murders of all those kids.” Her eyes went so wide it might have been funny under different circumstances. “Did it?”
“I think it’s possible.”
She shook her head. I could see her racing to catch up with each new implication. “But you understood what was happening. You anticipated it. So this isn’t new for you. Somehow you’re used to this.”
“There’s more magic in the world than you might think. More than most people know.”
“Do you know how crazy that sounds?”
“Why?” I asked. “You know that there are sorcerers in the world. Is it really that much of a surprise that some of them are here in Phoenix? Just because most of us don’t see magic in our everyday lives, that doesn’t mean that it’s not out there.”
“Don’t get all philosophical on me. That’s a different conversation.”
“I’m not sure it is. Ask yourself why you’re having so much trouble believing all of this. Is it because you think I’m lying to you?”
“No.”
“Is it because you think I’m crazy?”
“I’m still working that one out.”
I laughed. She didn’t.
“I’m not crazy,” I said again. How many times did a person have to say that before it stopped being true? “I know crazy. My dad is. . I believe the clinical explanation is that he has psychotic episodes.”
“You told me that you’ve had psychological problems before. And now you’re saying that you have a history of mental illness in your family?”
I could tell I was starting to lose her.
“His problems were a lot like mine,” I said. “And the delusions he has started much later in life.”
“He has delusions?”
Good move, Fearsson. “Sometimes. But that’s not what happened to me tonight. He’s never imagined pain like that. I promise you.”
She seemed to consider this, though I could tell she wasn’t convinced. Not by a long shot. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s assume for a moment that this was magic, that someone put some kind of hex on you.”