I sagged forward, and bile washed up the back of my throat. Nausea overwhelmed me, and for a small eternity, I counted my breaths, praying for the sickness to pass, or that I would develop some other means of breathing that didn’t require me to smell or taste my surroundings. I had a concussion. I’d bet my broomstick on it.
“That is fucked up, man.”
“That shit ain’t right.”
“Please, stop swearing,” I managed. With Herculean effort, I wrenched my eyelids open, giving the colorful, blurry blobs the most disapproving expression I could manage. “What would your mothers say?”
Surprised quiet met my question. In the ensuing pause, my vision came into focus. The smell of teenage boy had not lied. I was surrounded by at least eight of them. Colorful blobs resolved themselves into boys ranging from thirteen to sixteen, all of them dressed in clothes that made my landlord’s attire look chic.
I could forgive the dirt on their clothes and the dubious state of their hair—teenagers will be teenagers, and all that. But the nostril-burning combination of body odor and cologne was positively weaponized. No male under the age of thirty should apply his own cologne.
“What did you say to us?” a boy demanded.
I did my best to focus on him despite my teary vision. I squinted, trying to make out their expressions. Confusion, anger, and fear. The speaker was a young man, fourteen years old, tops. He wore a shirt depicting a cartoon character making a rude gesture, and his hair stood up in Cookie Monster-blue spikes.
“My dear boy,” I said, my words slurred. “Cologne is not an acceptable alternative to regular bathing. If your colorful hair stands up in those spikes with no need for product, then it’s time for a shower.”
Pink stained the boy’s cheeks, an intriguing contrast to the blue hair. I would have felt bad for singling him out, but between trying to decide which was the lesser evil—breathing through my nose or my mouth—and trying not to pass out, I had no energy for social niceties. And my head hurt. Bad.
I gave them time to figure out who would speak next while I assessed my situation. I was inside a warehouse—abandoned, if the state of deterioration was any indication. Graffiti tattooed the concrete walls, and high windows let in enough light to illuminate the far end, the scattering of boarded-up or painted-over window panes creating a patchwork effect. Barrels and crates in varying states of decay clustered against the walls here and there. I noticed with some regret that the chair I was tied to sat at the end of the warehouse opposite the entrance. I’d have to run the length of the rather large structure to escape.
“You’re no vet.”
I blinked, not sure if I’d missed some of the conversation. The voice was familiar…
Greg.
Pain trickled over my brain, blurring my vision as the teen in question stepped in front of the group. I concentrated on the blue hat and surrounding tufts of black hair. Yep, definitely Greg. I blinked, trying to force my eyes to work properly. His features cleared, revealing a face twisted with anger. The more my vision cleared, the more detail I could make out. For the first time, I noticed the bulge at his side under his shirt that looked too much like a weapon for my comfort.
“You’re working for the cops, aren’t you?” he said. “That’s why you’re following me. You’re using me to find Anthony for the cops.”
The crowd of boys erupted into furious whispers, some of them straightening to their full height, stepping forward as if they intended to continue this conversation with their fists. Several brandished weapons, chains and a few broken pieces of two-by-four. Greg seemed to be the only one armed with a real weapon, thank the gods.
“The police didn’t hire me. I’m a private investigator. I’m trying to find out what happened to Oliver Dale.” The mob shuffled forward, growled threats rolling out like thunder preceding a storm, but I spoke again, louder. “I know Anthony didn’t kill him.”
“Bullshit,” Greg spat. “Then why are you looking for him? Lying to me and my mom?”
I turned to meet Greg’s eyes and whimpered when my skull threatened to fall off my shoulders. My stomach heaved, and I pressed my lips together until the threat of vomiting passed. I did my best to ignore the smell of the surrounding teenagers as I took a deep breath.
“I want to prove his innocence,” I said. “But I can’t do it without him.” The pain throbbed harder with every passing second. I closed my eyes, but that made the nausea almost overwhelming, so I forced them open again. When I flexed my facial muscles, I recognized the tacky sensation of dried blood. Fear settled at the base of my spine. I’d hit my head hard enough to bleed. “How long was I unconscious?”
“Half an hour,” Greg answered.
He stuck out his chin in defiance, but something about his voice told me he knew that wasn’t a good thing. His attention flicked to my wound, then back at my face. His eyes showed more white than before. That did not bode well for my health, but it gave me hope that maybe he wasn’t ready to watch me die.
I snared his gaze, held it. “I’m hurt. Untie me and let me bandage my wound.”
A cacophony of protests met that suggestion.
“Fuck that.”
“You think we’re stupid?”
“Shoulda thought of that before you stuck your nose where it ain’t wanted.”
I ignored them and kept holding Greg’s stare. Despite the sneers from his friends, Greg didn’t seem happy with my condition. There was no sympathy in his expression, but he wasn’t happy about my injury, either. “Convince me you know Anthony’s innocent and maybe I’ll untie you.”
There were a few grunts of satisfaction behind him, a couple of smug smiles telling me no one believed I thought Anthony was innocent.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have an answer. Telling Greg I wasn’t ready to blame Anthony when a werewolf had been found with the victim’s blood on his face wasn’t an option. Telling him one of the rangers knew the truth but wasn’t talking was an even worse option. I fought the urge to close my eyes, knowing it would only make me feel worse. Not for the first time, I wondered about the ocean of magic inside me. The ocean I was only beginning to learn how to harness and control. Mother Hazel had said only that the patron who’d given me my magic had left me with a burden as much as a gift. What happened to that magic if I died?
I didn’t intend to find out.
Greg’s jaw tightened. “You fucking lied.”
His hand dropped to his side. My mind flashed to the picture in his house, the picture of Greg with his mom and Anthony, all of them armed. Dread curled at the base of my spine, and I steeled myself and reached for my magic.
“Pax,” I whispered.
I threw the spell at Greg’s waist, and golden bands of energy wrapped around the weapon, locking it into place at the teenager’s side. Greg frowned, and confusion pinched the skin between his eyes as he tugged on it to no avail. He stopped pulling and his gaze slid back to me.
I met his eyes and shook my head. “Uh, uh, uh,” I said softly.
His angry defiance slipped, revealing his uncertainty. “What are you?” he whispered.
“That wouldn’t be a .40 in your waistband, would it, Greg?” I asked. I locked on to that doubt in his eyes, that tiny flicker of fear. My disguise was gone, so they’d all seen me change, seen Beth the veterinarian melt away to reveal Shade the private investigator. Perhaps it was time to stop being the private investigator, and start playing the scary witch. I lowered my voice, letting the pain arcing through my body lend it a rasping quality. “You will not draw that weapon, Greg.”
His eyes widened. The crowd had gone dead quiet, and they all looked from Greg to me. This was good. I had Greg. I knew I had him. If the others were willing to follow, then maybe, just maybe, I could get out of here before I bled to death.
The crowd shifted, and another boy stepped forward. My hopes sank as he stood beside Greg.
“You’ll keep accusing people until you find someone you can pin it on, is that
it?” he snapped. “The ex-con or the young felons, right?”
The words “young felons” smacked of a teenager’s exaggeration, an effort to sound tougher than he was. It was on the tip of my tongue to respond with condescension, to fix him with a witchy look I’d used to cow actual felons in the past.
I never saw him draw the gun. One minute I was locking gazes with him, and suddenly there was a very large, very real weapon pointed at my face. A hiss behind my neck sent a second shock down my spine.
Peasblossom. I’d forgotten about her. She was hiding behind my neck, and she’d obviously seen the boy point the gun at me. Tiny hands gripped the collar of my coat, her feet digging into my muscles as my tiny familiar prepared to fling herself at the gunman.
“Don’t,” I barked.
The boy sneered, assuming I was talking to him. “You seriously gonna act like you’re in charge here?”
He cocked the gun. I wasn’t an expert on firearms, but there was something so Hollywood about the gesture, like I’d fallen into an old western. Against all reason, it broke the tension in my shoulders, and I would have laughed if I wasn’t about to have a heart attack.
“Chris, put it down.”
Anthony Catello’s voice rolled over the crowd, booming in the empty interior of the large building. The acoustics of the dilapidated structure acted like a bullhorn, and the effect was instantaneous. The boys straightened their spines, like soldiers whose superior officer had just entered the scene, and immediately fell to the sides, forming a path down the center of their group with me at the end.
Chris didn’t move. He remained in front of me, gun unwavering.
I couldn’t look away from the weapon, not while it was still aimed between my eyes. My peripheral vision offered me a hint of Anthony’s bulging biceps, revealed by yet another black tank top underneath an open grey hoodie as he marched down the part in the crowd. His footsteps were even, determined, but not angry.
“You were going to surrender that,” Anthony said, indicating Chris’s gun. “What happened?”
Chris lowered the gun and looked away, but didn’t give up his spot in front of me. He didn’t stand as straight as the other boys, his shoulders bowing as if only barely resisting the urge to flee back into the group.
Anthony kept staring at him as if they were the only two in the room. “I thought I explained to you that you don’t need a gun. All that piece of metal will get you is a short life and a guarantee you won’t be remembered as anything more than a thug. Is that what you want? You want them to drag your sisters down to the morgue to identify your body? That’s what that is, Chris. That’s all it is. A ticket to nowhere.”
Chris didn’t answer. I breathed easier now that the gun was held down at his side and not aimed at me, but the danger was still there. I glanced at Anthony, but the big man didn’t look at me. He had eyes only for Chris.
Anthony held out his hand. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to take the gun. Just stood there with his hand out. Waiting. A lifetime later, Chris lowered the weapon into Anthony’s waiting hand, his gaze locked on the warehouse floor.
Without a word, Anthony turned to Greg. “That better not be your mom’s piece sticking out of your pants.”
At some point during the stare-down with Chris, Greg had gotten over his uncertainty. When he looked at me this time, there was only anger in his brown eyes, the human brain’s knack for explaining the unexplainable removing all thoughts of magic and the fear that went with it. He gritted his teeth and glared at me without looking at Anthony.
“They don’t care you’re innocent. She doesn’t care. They’re gonna lock you up no matter what. And she lied. She said she was from the vet, but she’s just another cop. She said she believes you’re innocent, but she lied.”
Anthony extended his hand, mirroring the silent demand he’d leveled at Chris. Greg stiffened, but didn’t offer the weapon.
Anthony’s jaw tightened. “Don’t you dare make the same mistakes I did. You’re better than that. Your dad raised you to be better than that.”
Greg’s eyes glittered and his throat worked as he swallowed hard. “My dad’s dead.”
“And you’re in a hurry to join him, is that it?” Anthony put a hand on Greg’s shoulder. “Your mom needs you. She already buried one man she loved. You will not make her do it again.”
I knew resignation when I saw it. I released my spell and called the magic back. This time when Anthony held out his hand, Greg gave him the gun. The muscle-bound murder suspect removed the bullets from both guns before tucking them into his waistband. He put the bullets in the pocket of his sweatshirt, then went to work on the ropes tying me to the chair. The teenagers watched every movement, looking unhappy, but not malicious.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
Anthony touched my temple as he examined my head. That simple pressure made me hiss, and a fresh wave of nausea rolled over me.
“You’re gonna need a doctor,” he said quietly.
I fumbled at my pouch, batting at the zipper to make my fingers work. Reality tilted at an odd angle, and I stilled, waiting for the ground to right itself. “I am a doctor.”
Anthony eyed me, hovering close as if waiting for me to fall over. “Sure you are.”
Out of spite, I lurched out of the chair, away from Anthony. He grunted in surprise, moving too slowly to keep me from falling to my knees. Hard cement threatened to crush my kneecaps, and I hissed again. The threat of tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them back as I forced the zipper open on my pouch. My mouth felt dry and colored blobs danced in my vision. I needed a healing potion. Now.
Hysterics threatened to steal what little rational thought I had left. I stared at the floor as I rooted around for the healing potion, and my attention landed on a thick two-by-four near my chair. One end was smeared with blood. My blood. The bent head of a rusted nail stuck out from the bloody end, not enough to puncture my skull, but enough that I was sure it had been responsible for most of the blood. My stomach heaved at the thought of the infection that could be spreading through my system as I knelt here fumbling around in an enchanted pouch.
Anthony took me at my word and didn’t offer help a second time. Instead, he turned to address the crowd. “I talked the talk without walking the walk. I keep telling you that you have to teach people how to treat you, but I haven’t shown you how to do that.”
A murmur of protest ran through the gathered crowd, but Anthony held up a hand, and they fell silent.
“The cops think I killed Oliver Dale,” Anthony said, speaking as much to the boys around him as to me. “I’m a suspect because I act like the type of man who would kill someone who pissed him off. Instead of answering their questions, showing them some respect, I made it a point to be—”
“An ass,” Peasblossom offered.
Anthony’s eyebrows shot up, and his attention fell to where I still knelt on the floor. There was no point in pretending I hadn’t spoken, since I wasn’t about to reveal Peasblossom, so I ignored him and continued my search for the potion.
“Yeah,” Anthony said.
My fingers closed over the small bottle, and I jerked it free. My hands shook violently now, but I managed to uncork it and gulp down the contents. Magic blossomed inside me, flowing out along my nerve endings in a blue wave. The nausea receded, the pain in my knees faded away, and when I turned my head slowly from side to side, it did not threaten to fall off.
As the pain receded, my thoughts cleared. I felt along my scalp to check for lingering injuries.
Gypsy chose that moment to dart forward, leaping at me as if I were an old friend she hadn’t seen in years. I gasped as she covered me in wet dog kisses, abandoning my inspection of my wounds to save myself from drowning.
“Yes, yes, it’s good to see you too.” I laughed and fought not to topple backward. Blood and bone, she was a strong dog.
Gypsy’s show of affection changed the mood of the room dramatically. Several of the teenagers smiled, o
ne or two of them laughed, and even Chris seemed to relax. Gypsy’s approval carried a lot of weight here.
“There will always be people who judge you before you open your mouth, people who will write you off as trash no matter how much you try to show them otherwise.” Anthony pointed at each of the kids in turn. “But if you do nothing to challenge that first impression, if you don’t show them the respect you want them to show you, then it won’t just be the assholes of the world who write you off—it’ll be the good guys too. You won’t get the chance to find the rare person who will judge you on merit alone.”
Gypsy was giving me the expectant look dogs reserved for people who had given them treats in the past, so I dug in my pouch for another biscuit. Her ears fell with each ball of twisty ties I pulled out, each button, each Band-Aid. By the time I’d rattled around a third glue stick, her ears lay flat against her head. With a snort of exasperation, she leaned forward and shoved most of her head into my pouch.
Two seconds later, she emerged triumphant with a dog biscuit between her teeth. She held it out for a moment, making sure I saw that she’d succeeded where I’d failed, then ended the biscuit with one happy crunch.
Snickers rippled around the room.
“To be fair, the bag is bigger on the inside,” I muttered.
“I should have answered your questions from the get go,” Anthony said, offering me a hand up. I accepted, and he pulled me to my feet. “I heard you say you don’t think I did this. You’re right. I hope you still think that when I’m done.”
Unease rolled through my stomach as I remembered Liam’s list of things they’d found in Anthony’s apartment. “I’m listening.”
“I never left the park that night. When that—” He pressed his lips together, making a visible effort not to use the first word that had come to his mind. “When the ranger sent me home, I drove around and went in another way. I wasn’t gonna leave my dog behind.” He met my eyes and held them. “But I didn’t kill Dale.”
I believed him. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. “They found a box of guns at your apartment. And a handful of carburetors and other car parts.”
Monster Page 20
