Trace of Magic: 1 (The Diamond City Magic Novels)

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  There were other traces there too. Some of them as old as the house. Some of the people were dead. I noticed that there was a pretty teal ribbon that had come in fairly recently and only once. Whoever it was hadn’t gone any farther than the living room. It looked like the visitor had come in, stayed a little while, then left.

  I walked over to the bright trace and squatted down. Traces aren’t actually left on the surface of things. There’s another dimension, I guess you’d call it. Usually I just open up enough to see into it, but I was curious about this ribbon. After taking a quick look over my shoulder to see if Price was watching, I reached my hand into the trace dimension. It closed over my hand like cool water. Energies rubbed against me. I was never sure if they were spirits or something else. I’m not sure I wanted to know.

  I took hold of the teal trace. Crackling energy zapped my hand. It felt a little bit like holding on to an electrical cord. After that initial flare, it settled into a buzzing sensation. I closed my eyes, concentrating on what I felt.

  The trace belonged to a woman. She was most definitely alive, though I’d known that before I ever touched her trace. Just at the moment she was angry and a little scared.

  “Did you find something?”

  I jumped as Price stepped up behind me. I pulled my hand back out of the trace, hoping he hadn’t noticed. I didn’t really know what other people saw when I crossed dimensions. I didn’t know if my hand disappeared or glowed or did something equally bizarre. Maybe it just looked normal.

  I straightened up. “He’s been gone for eight days,” I said. “A woman visited him the same day he disappeared. It was the only time she was here.”

  Price studied me a moment. I knew what he was thinking. I shouldn’t be able to read trace that old. I shouldn’t be able to pinpoint time like that, not if I was the hack I claimed to be. Something shifted in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything about it.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “Did you find anything?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing that connects him to Josh or Shana Darlington, or the Tyet, for that matter,” he added quietly.

  “Do you think the woman’s trace I found could have been Shana Darlington’s?”

  He shook his head. “It’s possible.”

  “If it is, then she’s alive.”

  “Good. If we can find her and Nader, she can answer some questions. Let’s follow them.” He headed for the window.

  I hadn’t had a chance to touch Nader’s trace. I probably should have tried, even with Price looking on. He started climbing out the window, then pulled back in when I gave a little squawk.

  “What?”

  “He’s dead,” I whispered, watching all the bright orange and brown trace fade to gray. “Just like that.”

  Price scowled. “What about the woman? Is she still alive?”

  I opened to the trace. “Yeah. She is.”

  He wiped a hand over his mouth. “Let’s go find out if she’s our missing woman.”

  “Or if it would be more help, we could follow Nader’s trace and see where he went last.” I opened my mouth and let the words out before I could let self-preservation stop me.

  He froze, then twisted around. “What did you say?”

  “Do you want to see where Nader went last?” My tongue felt like wood.

  “That’s not possible. The trace disappears when someone dies.”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” I said.

  “You can follow dead trace,” he said slowly, as if he was having a hard time understanding.

  I shrugged.

  “All right. Tell me where to go.”

  I climbed back on board. The cold cut through my wet jeans. I ignored it. “Left, back the way we came.”

  Price pulled back out onto the unplowed street. I directed him, telling him which way to go. I didn’t pay attention to where we were. Even though I can follow trace from people who’ve been dead a long time, I was afraid I’d lose Nader’s.

  We crossed up through Midtown, then to Uptown. Here were glitzy, high-end apartment towers with solid gold toilets next to sprawling estates with dozens of pools and a matching bathroom for every bedroom, eccentric wonderlands that were totally off the grid, and every kind of luxury place in between. It was like Dubai and Paris had had a love child.

  The roads here had been cleared, at least enough for one car to drive down them. I directed Price down a wide avenue that ended in a circle at the rimrock wall. I pointed left, down a branch street. Another left, a right, and another right brought us to the back side of a small high-rise maybe four or five stories tall. An underground garage was guarded by sliding iron gates and a security guard in a shack. He eyed us when we stopped, then reached for the microphone on his shoulder and started talking to someone.

  “I don’t think we’re welcome here,” I said, leaning up against Price’s ear.

  “I think you’re right,” I thought I heard him say, and then he revved the engine and rounded the corner, leaving a rooster tail of snow in our wake.

  He wove between buildings and then shot up a plowed street before careening through an unplowed alley.

  “Where are we going now?” I shouted.

  “To get lost,” he shouted back, and he drove onto a wide tractor track and then found a place where a lot of snowmobiles had looped and run. He settled into a trail and followed it, then shot off across a pristine snowfield in a park and caught another trail. After about fifteen minutes, he pulled back out onto the plowed road and exited into a treed park. He parked under a big spruce with broad limbs that hung down to the ground.

  As he did, snow fell onto both of us. I yelped as it went down my neck. Price switched off the key and pocketed it before sliding off.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand.

  He pulled me along. We kept under the line of trees until we reached the edge of the park. It was easy footing, since the snow couldn’t get under the thick mat of branches. He guided me out onto the roadway. There wasn’t any traffic, and when we heard anybody coming, we ducked behind snowcapped bushes and cars.

  It took almost an hour to get back to the high-rise. At least I thought I’d found where he’d been last. I didn’t see a trail leaving, but he could have gone out the front. I mentioned it to Price. He nodded, and we made a broad circuit around to see if we would cross his trail. Nothing.

  “So he died there. No more trace,” I said as we hunched behind a car and watched the house. We didn’t try going up the alley. The security guard was still there. A loud motor sounded and a black snowmobile cruised up the road from the opposite direction and vanished behind the building. A few minutes later it emerged. The woman driving was dressed in the same gray uniform as the security guard in back.

  She zoomed off, and just as quick, another snowmobile arrived, this time from the other direction. Just like the other, it went behind the high-rise apartment building and then drove off in the opposite direction. They were patrolling.

  “What now?” I asked. My teeth were starting to chatter. I couldn’t feel my legs. “Got any idea who lives there?”

  He shook his head. “None.” He took his phone out of his pocket and brought up the police website. He typed in a code and a password, and then input the address. When it came up, he made a growling sound.

  “What?”

  He tipped the screen so I could see.

  The building was owned by the Diamond City Development Corporation. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. The list of people owning apartments in the building included Shana Darlington, Price’s missing woman.

  “Did you know that?”

  “If I had, I would’ve been here already. This makes no sense. I couldn’t have overlooked it in my background check.”

  “Unless some
one wanted you to miss it.”

  “Yeah,” Price said, fury cutting grooves around his nose and lips.

  Price was too good to have missed something like this. Someone had set him up to fail. Realization hit me. Price had figured that out already. That’s why he’d come to me in the first place. Someone on the force or in Touray’s organization was rotten. He’d come to me because I worked for neither.

  “Why is she listed now and not before?” I asked the obvious. Had someone wanted to lure Price here?

  “I don’t know. All right, so Nader came to see Darlington and now he’s dead. How long was he here?”

  Price had gone into cop mode again. All robot and business.

  “We went by too fast. I couldn’t tell.”

  He looked at me as if trying to decide if he could believe me. Goes both ways. You don’t tell me everything either. I didn’t say it. Why bother? We both knew it. Though in this case, I’d gotten distracted by the guard, so I wasn’t lying.

  “Let’s backtrack and see what you can find out further up the trail.”

  “Fine.”

  By the time we got back to the snowmobile, I could barely walk, I was so cold. The temperatures were in the upper teens, but my legs were soaked through and the snow that had fallen down my neck earlier had melted, adding to my misery. No point in complaining. It’s not like we had time to curl up in front of a warm fire.

  I forced my leg over the seat and plopped down. I pressed up against Price, hoping his warmth would permeate through to me.

  He pulled out from under the trees and took a circuitous route to pick up Nader’s trace.

  “Riley? What do you see?”

  I rubbed away the moisture that had crusted my eyes. I found Nader’s trace pretty quickly. Now that I’d followed Nader’s trace, it was easy to sort from the trace lattice crisscrossing the avenue. Price slowed. I uncurled my fingers and sank them into the spirit dimension like I was trailing them in water. I summoned Nader’s ribbon into my hand.

  I thought I’d been cold before. Ice crept up into the marrow of my bones, followed by a deep hurt, sort of like an ice-cream headache, except all over my body. I couldn’t feel myself. I couldn’t tell if my other hand was still holding on to Price’s coat; I couldn’t feel the press of the seat or the pegs under my feet.

  “Can you tell anything?” Price asked over his shoulder.

  I dropped the trace. “He was here five days. He got here last Tuesday.” My tongue and lips were stiff, and I slurred the words. I wanted to ask what we were going to do next. It was too much effort.

  Price gunned the motor, and I did my best to hold on, closing my eyes and imagining sleep.

  Chapter 14

  “RILEY! WAKE UP!”

  Something shook me. “Leave me alone.” Well, that’s what I wanted to say, but mostly it came out like a sick cat sound.

  “Riley!”

  The voice was sharp and demanding. Price. Detective-Asshole Clay Price. What did he want from me now? Couldn’t he see how tired I was?

  “Dammit, Riley. Move!”

  A tight band wrapped my waist and lifted me to my feet. My knees buckled, and the band tightened.

  “You need to get your blood moving, Riley. Try to walk. We’re going to warm you up. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were so cold?”

  Price sounded pissed. I mumbled something. I think I said I was trying.

  “What? What did you say? Come on, talk to me, Riley. Wake up, baby. Come on, sweetheart. You don’t want to sleep. Not now.”

  What did he know? I wanted nothing more than to sleep.

  Pricks of pain needled up my shins and around my toes. I lurched, trying to get away from them.

  “There you go. That’s a good girl.”

  What was I? A dog?

  He kept pulling me along, and it slowly occurred to me that the band around my waist was his arm and he had pulled my right arm over his shoulder. He was marching me up and down a small room.

  The needling pain soon turned into saw blades chewing into my muscles. I started to shake. My teeth clacked so hard I thought they were going to crack. Somewhere in there I realized I’d lost my pants again. You’d think that pants would be harder to lose. I still had a shirt on, but no underwear or socks. I was wrapped in a blanket, and the beige shag carpet felt like sandpaper on my feet.

  “Where are we?” I sounded like I’d eaten razor blades with a bottle of rotgut for a chaser.

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “Right. Like the Tyet doesn’t have tracers on us right now.”

  “I took care of that. I used a null.”

  “Where did you get that? Oh, right, your desk drawer magic stash. I don’t think I can stand up anymore.” I was shivering hard enough to give me whiplash.

  “Let’s get you into bed.”

  He eased me down onto the sheets and pulled the covers up over me. I thought maybe he’d climb in with me to help warm me up, but instead he disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the sound of water running.

  “I’m going to put you into a warm bath,” he said.

  I want to tell you that I was too freaking cold to even think about the last time Price and I were in the bathroom with hot water, but no, I wasn’t that cold. I’d probably have to be dead to not make that connection.

  “I can’t get in the bath now,” I said, pushing the covers back. “I’ll be fine. We need to find Josh.”

  Price ignored me, dragging me into the bathroom. Price helped me pull off my shirt and bra, and then held me while I stepped into the water.

  Fire wrapped my foot, and I jerked it out. “How hot is it?”

  “Tepid,” he said, his mouth twisting down.

  Because he wasn’t going to let me off the hook, I planted my foot in the tub and then the other, then lowered myself down. The sensation of saw blades was back, as were the needles. They pulsed back and forth. I swallowed a moan. I didn’t need an “I told you so” from Price.

  I leaned back and let the water rise over me, holding my breath until the feeling that my skin was being peeled away grew more bearable. After about ten minutes of that, I realized the shivering was easing up and I was actually feeling cold. I sat up and turned the spigot to hotter. Price had seated himself on the toilet and was watching me. He was pissed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were wet? Do you get off on flirting with death?”

  “We didn’t have time for me to be a baby, and besides, it wasn’t the wet that made me so cold. At least, I would have been fine if I hadn’t touched Nader’s trace.”

  He went still. “Touched?”

  I blew out a breath. He knew most everything about me already, what was one more? “Touch it. When I do, I can learn a lot about the person who left the trace. I’ve never touched dead trace before. It kind of sucked all the heat out of me.”

  Before he could respond, his phone rang. He lifted it to his ear. “What?”

  Pause.

  “No, sir. Family emergency.” His gaze fell on me and then he looked away. He didn’t seem that excited to have a naked woman at his mercy. “A few days. What?” His expression flattened and his teeth bared. “Yes, sir. I did.” Another pause. “A case I’ve been looking into. Thought I might have a new lead. Didn’t go anywhere.” Pause. “Yes, sir. I will.”

  He hung up and his hand clenched around his phone. For a second I thought he was going to throw it.

  “Who was that?”

  “My captain.”

  “And?” I prodded when he just stared blankly at the towel rack on the opposite wall. “What did he want?”

  He flinched like he’d forgotten about me. “He was curious, since I’d taken a few days off for a family emergency, why I was accessing the police database.” He thrust himself t
o his feet and slammed his fist against the wall. “Son of a bitch!”

  I sloshed to my feet. “Breaking your hand isn’t going to do anybody any good,” I said.

  He glared at me, then walked out. I grabbed a towel and dried off. I wriggled into my bra and shirt and wrapped a dry towel around my waist before joining him.

  Aside from the bed, the wood-paneled room contained two nightstands, a dresser and a mirror, an overstuffed brown and yellow striped chair, and some pictures on the wall of ducks on ponds. A popcorn ceiling and a white louvered double closet on the wall completed the décor. My pants and underwear hung over a wooden chair by a wall heater.

  Price paced by the window. I sat down on the bed and pulled the covers over me, watching him. I got that he was pissed that his captain was having him monitored, but I didn’t get why. Everybody knew he worked for Touray, just like most of the other guys on the force worked for a Tyet faction. I’d have thought they all expected to be watched.

  My stomach rumbled. I like to eat—and with regularity. I’m not one of those twiggy girls who eats a half a grapefruit and a yogurt for breakfast and then is full for the rest of the day. I like food and plenty of it.

  “This place got anything to eat?”

  He went to the dresser where he’d left his bag and pulled out one of the protein bars. He tossed it to me. “Here.”

  Beggars can’t be choosers. It actually wasn’t all that bad. It had chocolate and fruit and nuts, along with whatever healthy crap that accidentally fell into it. Didn’t do much for my taste buds, but I felt better. The remnants of my shakiness evaporated with the addition of calories.

  I tossed the wrapper on the nightstand. “What time is it?”

  “Somewhere around two o’clock. The next storm starts moving in tomorrow.”

  “What next?”

  “We need to get inside those apartments and talk to Shana Darlington.”