Magic Shifts Read online

  “Copper?” I asked Julie.

  She nodded.

  “What does it mean?” Curran asked.

  “I think there was a burst of magic up there.” I pointed to the area above the car. “It’s probably the teleportation footprint. The group of ghouls from the Oswalds’ neighborhood came here and were teleported to wherever the rest of the ghouls have gathered. And this glasslike ring is the physical evidence of it.” At least it was something. “Teleportation usually requires an anchor, some substance from the place you are teleporting to. Hugh carried water. This glass thing is probably an anchor. I definitely want a sample of it.”

  Maybe if we got this analyzed, we could figure out what it was and where it came from. And then we would go there and ask the ghouls to give us Eduardo back. Pretty please with sugar on top.

  “If it occurred as they teleported, who covered it?” Curran asked.

  “Maybe they covered it before they teleported,” Julie said.

  I jumped down from the Tahoe, pulled a ziplock bag from my pocket, and unsheathed Sarrat. “You might want to give me some space.”

  They backed away.

  I quickly sliced with Sarrat. The thin crust of glass broke into sections. I waited to see if it would sprout needles or deliver some other lovely surprise. It lay in the dirt, looking inert. I used the gauze to pick up a piece, about four inches wide and three inches long, and slid the translucent chunk into the ziplock evidence bag.

  Julie squinted at us and wrinkled her nose. “You smell horrible. Did you guys crawl through a Dumpster?”

  What would my life be without teenage sass?

  “Long story,” Curran told her. “Can you see anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Lots of ghouls and the copper explosion. That’s it.”

  “We’re done here, then,” he said.

  Eduardo had been missing for well over forty-eight hours. Every minute made finding him less likely, and I had no idea where to look next.

  • • •

  WE SENT DEREK and Julie back to the house, instructing them to swing by the Oswalds’ place to pick up George’s car, and drove to Eduardo’s house. The idea of Julie driving still gave me nightmares, but I had driven at her age, so I had no room to talk.

  We drove with the windows down despite the cold wind. We were both too fragrant otherwise. I considered a brief detour to Cutting Edge for a quick shower, but it would be easier to just go and get the home search over with.

  Eduardo lived in a nice place in Sandy Springs, a sturdy two-story brick home built post-Shift sitting on a half-acre lot. The walls of the first story looked reinforced, their windows narrow and shielded by steel bars. The second-story windows ran larger, but the steel bars on them were just as well made. No fence. Any shapeshifter gone loup or a loose vampire would scale the tallest fence in the blink of an eye, and razor wire didn’t give them much pause either. In post-Shift Atlanta fences didn’t keep monsters out. They kept people in for convenient snacking.

  Curran unlocked the steel security door and then the solid inner door with the keys George left for us. Hardwood floors. Clean house, airy despite the narrow windows. Neat. Curran inhaled. “I’m getting Eduardo and George, nobody else. I’m going to walk around outside.”

  I went into the kitchen. Granite countertops, clean and polished. Nice oak cabinets. Happy kitchen towels with bright red apples sewn on them. A big solid table, no frills, and only two chairs. This place must’ve cost a small fortune to rent. No signs of struggle. No blood. I kept walking. Family room. Bookshelves stood against the left wall, mostly empty. A couple of comfortable shapeshifter-sized couches, each lined with a knitted afghan, offered a soft place to sit. A stack of books lay on the coffee table, the top one half-closed because someone had stuck a pencil into it, probably to hold their place. A teacup, a little bit of tea still in the bottom, waited by the books for its owner. This wasn’t some pristine house. This was Eduardo’s home, a place where he hoped George would live with him, and I felt odd moving through this space, as if I were invading their privacy without their permission. I could picture George and Eduardo sitting here on the couch, each with their own cup of tea, reading together under the knitted blankets on the oversized couch.

  No pictures on the walls. George was right. Eduardo probably didn’t keep in contact with his family. In fact, the house was barely furnished. They probably hadn’t had a chance to get all the furniture or couldn’t afford it.

  The living room ended. Another room, a rectangular, relatively narrow space, lay across the hallway. Probably a formal dining room at one point, now it had been turned into an office, with a lone square window, large enough for a person to squeeze through, but too small for anything larger. A desk stood against one wall, supporting a phone and a yellow book. Weapons hung on the walls, mostly tactical blades. Most shapeshifters used their claws. A few, especially those trained specifically for combat, armed themselves with knives. Eduardo didn’t grow claws. His arsenal consisted of various short swords. Two massive weapons hung on the wall: a big steel maul with a wooden handle and an equally heavy axe. If I tried to fight with either, it would require two hands and take me ages to swing them. Eduardo could probably swing them about as easily as I swung my sword.

  I paused by a pair of Iberian steel falcatas, twenty inches overall, with fourteen-inch blades, single-edged, slightly curved, and convex near the point but concave near the hilt. The swords that surprised the Romans in the Second Punic war.

  I had a pair of falcatas from the same smithy—they bore the same small mark on the hilt. These were hand forged from 5160 high-carbon steel and marquenched in a molten salt bath to minimize flaws, distortions, and cracking. There was a great deal of difference between a sword and a swordlike object. I had seen very pretty blades made from stainless steel that looked great until someone actually tried to use them and they snapped in half from stress. Battle-ready swords required fatigue-resistant spring steel like 5160. Pre-Shift, people used it for truck springs. It contained chrome and silicon and was expensive, but 5160 took a hell of a lot of punishment before it broke. Eduardo had good taste.

  I moved on to the desk. The corkboard held scraps of paper. Most looked like merc notes, the numbers of clients with small notations by them. 1728 Maple Drive, winged snake in a tree. 345 Calwood, feral dog. Call Guild about Walters, 5 days late on payment. I plucked the corkboard off the wall. I would go through it tonight. Unlike the fictional detectives who solved crimes in a burst of brilliance, I’ve slogged my way through investigations and I’ve learned that being thorough pays off.

  A stack of open mail lay on the corner of the desk, pinned in place by a large smooth rock. I moved it aside and flipped through the stack of mail. Bills. All current, no past-due balances. A bank statement. Eduardo had a total of six thousand dollars in savings and two thousand in checking. A page was pinned to the bank statement, detailing a list of expenses, utilities, insurance, and so on, each with a notation by it written in a bold, wide hand. The amounts on some notations were multiplied by two. He was doing the budget for him and George. Underneath in big letters Eduardo had written, Need more money, and underlined it twice.

  I checked the desk drawer. Paper, pens, sticky notes, a stack of gig tickets . . . I leafed through it. The most recent one was from a week ago. He must’ve filed them weekly. Some days had three gigs, sometimes six, seven hours apart. He was working himself into the ground. He would take a job, finish it, return to the Guild, and sleep there until another gig came up, and he did it day after day. George couldn’t have known. She would’ve made him stop.

  I moved the gig stubs aside. A small wooden box . . . I picked it up and flicked the latch. A ring rested on the cushion of velvet. A big round sapphire set in a framework of triangular petals, resembling a lotus flower studded with tiny diamonds. The metal of the ring was solid black. Fourteen-karat gold plated with black rhod
ium. It would’ve been expensive before the Shift; now, with technology suffering, the price was crazy. Shapeshifters didn’t like the feel of precious metals. Silver was poison and gold was only slightly better. Rhodium insulated them against gold. Raphael had given a black rhodium ring to Andrea for her birthday, starting a craze. The Pack wouldn’t shut up about it for days.

  I was looking at more than seven thousand dollars in this tiny box. George was way too practical to ever expect a black rhodium ring. If I asked her, she would tell me stainless steel was just fine. But he’d bought it for her anyway. He wanted her to have the best there was, and if she ever found out how much he worked to get it, she would probably kill him.

  The sapphire caught the light from the window, the fire within sparkling, as if a drop of pure seawater had somehow crystallized, retaining all of the color and depth of the ocean inside it. The future of two people sitting here on a velvet pillow. George’s words came back to me. He could be dead in a ditch somewhere . . . Worry gnawed at me. I packed it away, into the deep place inside me, and snapped the box closed. Eduardo didn’t need my emotions. He needed my help.

  I reached for the wastebasket. Sometimes the things people threw away said more than the things they chose to keep. A hilt protruded about an inch from the papers inside the basket. The pommel had the unmistakable pale softness of bone. Hmm. Odd.

  I pulled the weapon out. A slightly curved dagger in a sheath, about twenty-five and a half inches long overall. The sheath was wood wrapped in black leather. Silver leaf covered the tip of the sheath and about two inches at the top, twisting into a complex ornate pattern with plaited silver wire, gilt filigree, and niello. I counted the braided strands: one, two, five total. The handle had been painstakingly carved to give the bone just enough texture so if the grip became bloodied, it wouldn’t slip from your hand. A bright blue-green turquoise stone the size of my thumbnail decorated the grip and an even larger bright-red carnelian graced the pommel, like a drop of opaque blood. Wow.

  I wrapped my fingers around the grip. The bone was warm, soft, and slightly rough. Like shaking hands.

  The blade came free of the scabbard with a soft whisper. The seventeen-inch double-edged blade shimmered, a ray of sun caught and bound into steel. Silver script, delicate and elegant, ran the length of the grooved blade. I didn’t speak Arabic, but I’ve learned to recognize some verses. It was often used by Muslims against evil spirits. Hasbiya Allahu la ilaha illa huwa àlayhi tawakkaltu wahuwa rabbu al-àrshi al-àzhim. Allah suffices me; there is no god but He; in Him I place my sole trust; He is the Lord of the mighty Throne.

  A kindjal dagger. Not one of Russian make. The profile was too curved. This was a kindjal with an Arabic spin on it. I balanced the dagger on my finger. Perfect. Full tang, sharp but not brittle-edged, and the kind of weight distribution that let the dagger sink into the body almost on its own. This wasn’t a weapon. It was a masterpiece. The kind of blade you treasure and pass on to your children.

  So the falcatas were on the wall, but the kindjal got thrown into the wastebasket. Why? If Eduardo didn’t like it, why not sell it? He needed the money.

  The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose. My shoulders tensed. Someone was watching me.

  I looked up slowly. Outside the window, the sun was beginning to set. Someone stood in the shadow of a tree about fifty yards away, half hidden by a low branch. I could barely make out a dark silhouette by the darker trunk.

  Three seconds to the door, five seconds to cover the distance. Too long. If the watcher wasn’t completely human, he’d be gone before I’d get out the door.

  I leaned forward, focusing on the watcher. My body tensed.

  The shadow was still there, by the trunk. Definitely human.

  Come out, come out, whoever you are.

  The human shape moved.

  That’s it. Come forward. Come out to play.

  The branch slid out of the way.

  I reached for my sword.

  Curran stepped into the open.

  Damn it.

  I grabbed a canvas sack from a shelf, slid the dagger, the corkboard, and the bills into it, and marched outside. He was still standing by the tree.

  “Quit scaring me.”

  “Eduardo was being watched.” He nodded at the trunk of the tree. A barely perceptible scrape marked the bark about three feet up. I grabbed a thick bottom branch, put my foot against the scrape, and pushed up into the tree, into the spot where the thick trunk split into twin branches. If I crouched, I could still see the window and the desk by it. If the light was on, I could see inside the office.

  “It’s a layered scent,” Curran said. “Human. Male. He came here several times. Last time a couple of days ago.”

  “A stalker?” I jumped out of the tree.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Did he do anything while here?”

  Curran shook his head. “No. He didn’t jerk off, didn’t spit, and didn’t sweat. Occasionally he was in the tree.” Curran crouched by the dry leaves and mulch at the roots. “Most people move around while they wait. They shift foot to foot.” He pointed at the mulch with his hand.

  “Doesn’t look disturbed,” I said.

  He nodded. “The scent is old but dense. He came here often and stayed for some time in one spot without fidgeting. This is a guy who knows how to not be seen. He wasn’t indecisive. He wasn’t worried about being caught. He just stood and watched. When he was done, he walked to the end of the street. The trail ends there. Likely he had gotten into a car.”

  Disciplined and patient. Good for him, bad for us.

  “Would Eduardo know he was being watched?”

  “Hard to say.” Curran frowned. “If he were a cat or a wolf, he would’ve patrolled his territory, so he would notice the scent immediately. Eduardo is a bison. Hell if I know.”

  “Is it possible he could’ve missed the scent?”

  “This time of year, the wind usually blows southeast. I didn’t smell him until I was right up on the tree. Eduardo wouldn’t have any reason to come out here, unless he was mowing the yard, which he probably won’t do for another couple of months. So yes, it is possible he missed it. But bison have good hearing and an acute sense of smell. So he may have known about it.”

  “If he had known about it, wouldn’t he have ruffled the mulch or something to put his territorial stamp on it?”

  “I don’t know. I have no idea what bison do besides charging intruders.”

  “Could we ask somebody?”

  Curran stared at me helplessly. “The Pack has one werebison and he’s missing.”

  Ugh. Every clue we found led to a dead end. “You’re no help.”

  “Why am I the expert all of a sudden?”

  “Of the two of us, you have more stalking experience.”

  He leaned back. “Really?”

  “Yes. When you let yourself into my apartment before we were dating, did you fidget while you watched me?”

  “Will you let it go?” he growled.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t fidget. I checked on you to make sure you hadn’t gotten yourself killed. I wanted to know that you weren’t dying slowly of your wounds, because you have no sense and half of the time you couldn’t afford a medmage. I didn’t stand there and watch you. I came in, made sure you were okay, and left. It wasn’t creepy.”

  “It was a little creepy.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Worked how?”

  “You’re still alive.”

  “Yes, of course, take all the credit.”

  We looked at the mulch some more. We were both irritated. Eduardo had been missing for far too long.

  “No ghouls?” I asked.

  “No ghouls. I walked the entire perimeter of the property. You find out anything?”

  “He was mak
ing a budget for him and George. He needed money.”

  Curran stared at the tree, frustration clear on his face.

  “Also this.” I showed him the dagger.

  “Nice,” Curran said.

  “I found it in the trash can in his office. It was made for a man.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because this cost a very solid chunk of money. If someone was willing to spend that much on a gift for a woman, it would have gold on it somewhere. In Islam the wearing of gold and silk for men is haram, forbidden. Muslim men are supposed to be determined, steadfast, and resolute, dedicated to their faith and the protection of their family. Gold and silk are signs of luxury, which are fine for women but frowned upon for men.” I stroked the silver on the scabbard. “This is a dagger made for a male. It has a protective supplication on it, and it’s decorated with feruz, turquoise, which helps obtain divine help and victory in battle, and aqiq, carnelian, which protects against evil and misfortune.”

  I realized he was staring at me.

  “What?”

  “How do you even remember all this?”

  “It’s my job to remember.” Blades were the tools of my trade. If it cut a human body, and it cut it well, I knew something about it.

  He took the blade from me and smelled it. “It’s been soaked in something that kills the scent and then polished with clove oil. Smells like one of your swords.”

  “This is not Eduardo’s usual fare,” I said. “He tends to wider blades or heavy weapons. This is a precision self-defense dagger. Ghouls originate in Arabia. Wolf griffins are geographically close. Was Eduardo a Muslim, by any chance?”

  “No. We would’ve seen him pray while on the ship, and he and I talked before and he mentioned he wasn’t religious. Maybe he beat up his stalker and took the dagger away. But then why not sell it? Why throw it away?”

  “I have no idea. I can take the dagger to a smith tomorrow.”