by Cat Adams
It was a trap. Someone, a powerful mage, judging by what happened next, had been waiting for Patel to do just what he’d done. The instant he created that opening to the ethereal, he was attacked. First, the circle flared, the power locking my client inside. A sulfurous fireball the size of my head appeared in midair, flying at Patel’s head at the speed of a major-league fastball. He dived sideways and it missed, but the heat was intense enough to singe the back of his shirt, and the smell of burning hair and cotton filled the air.
Whoever was going after him didn’t give him time to recover. The fireball was followed by a lightning bolt intense enough to blind. The detonation of thunder when it struck, a mere inch from Patel’s rolling body, was loud enough to shake leaves off the nearby trees. Every hair on my body stood on end.
If I were a mage, crossing into that circle would have made my power react—badly enough that it would have likely incapacitated me. But I’m no mage.
When I was fifteen, a pair of boys got into a fight in the gymnasium over Cindy Malden, the head cheerleader. Not a big deal normally—but the boys were both talented mages, and things escalated from a fistfight to a full-out magical duel with the jump circle on the basketball court serving as an improvised, but fully working, casting circle. Ryan Thompson and Alan Brady went at it with everything they had, fire bolts, lightning, you name it. It was fascinating, brutal, bloody, and terrifying. Ryan hit Alan with a lightning bolt that had him down on the ground. He had drawn up more power, intent on finishing him off, actually killing him, when Ms. Lindell, the PE teacher, came tearing into the room, realized what was happening, and caught Bobby in a flying tackle that knocked him out of the circle, diffused the power, and saved the day. Bobby wound up with a broken collarbone, and one of Ms. Lindell’s wrists was shattered. Alan was covered with bruises and minor burns.
Breaking the barrier had worked for Ms. Lindell; it should work for me. And really, there wasn’t any choice—not if I wanted Rahim Patel to survive. He was flat overmatched.
As I sprinted over the edge of the circle, the power stole my breath and gave me instant first-degree burns. I wondered if Ms. Lindell had been as scared at that moment as I was now. My crossing the barrier should have broken it, and I prayed that it had. Because if it hadn’t, I was as trapped as my client.
5
Things looked very different from inside the circle. For one thing, I could see a rip in the fabric of reality that let me see Rahim’s attackers. There were three of them. At a guess, based on relative size, it was two men and a woman, but it was hard to tell. They’d taken pains to conceal their appearance. Not just with illusion, but with the low-tech solution of wearing baggy clothing and hoodies. The hoods were drawn up over their heads, so that only their faces needed magical concealment. The largest figure, on the left, made a flinging motion with his right hand. A flash of searing white light flew toward the tear—directly at me.
I couldn’t turn my head quite quickly enough for it not to affect my vision. Not that it mattered. I didn’t need to see what he was throwing to know it would be deadly. Pulling on my inner bat gave me the ability to move with blurring speed, away from the blow. Using my sense of smell, I moved across the circle to where Rahim lay.
Grabbing blindly at him, I got hold of a leg that was stiff as a board. Apparently one of the baddies had hit him with a full-body bind that he hadn’t been able to shake. My vision was still blurry and I was blinking back tears as I dragged Rahim—by the ankle—to the edge of the circle, moving as fast as I could. It might have taken one or two seconds, but that was still enough time for them to send magical blows whizzing around me. One of the three was canny enough to aim ahead of me, and I barely managed to dodge the fireball he threw. It passed so close that I felt my skin blistering beneath my slacks and smelled a nauseating combination of burnt flesh and melting polyester. The fireball flowed like lava down the invisible magical barrier in front of me.
When it hit the metal of the circle, the fire grounded out, and I used that brief instant when the flames vanished to drag Rahim across the barrier, which parted around me like a curtain made of heat. The instant the last of his body crossed that barrier, his part of the spell collapsed, closing off the portal and effectively slamming the door in the enemies’ faces.
“Strip off your pants,” Dawna snapped at me. “You don’t want them to stick to your burns.
I blinked, a little startled by the fact that she and the others were waiting for us. When had they arrived?
“Shit,” Dawna swore. “She’s in shock. Kevin—”
I shook my head, trying to clear my mind. Now that she’d said it, I felt the burns on my leg. I dropped Rahim’s leg and tried to work the buckle on my belt with fingers that simply refused to function. Looking down, I saw why; they were a swollen mess of blisters—although when and how they’d been burned, I had no clue. Kevin acted without hesitation. Batting my useless hands gently aside, he deftly unfastened my belt. An instant later he had the button and zipper undone, and my pants were pooled on the ground at my feet. I stood in my underwear as Dawna knelt in front of me and broke a healing spell onto the ground at my feet.
Cool, soothing magic rolled upward, easing the agony of the second-degree burns that covered the lower half of my right leg and washed over my hands. The blisters receded, leaving my hands red and sore, but usable.
Tim, meanwhile, was using first-aid spells on Rahim, who was beginning to stir, his breathing ragged with pain.
The relief was enough to make my knees buckle. Kevin caught me and half-carried me to the fountain and sat me on the ledge. “Put your hands in the water. It will help.”
I did and it felt wonderful. I sat there, basking in the cool, soothing feeling of water on my overheated skin, my mind drifting aimlessly. If this was shock, it really wasn’t so bad.
“Celia. Celia!” Dawna’s sharp voice brought me back to the present. I blinked a few times, bringing her face into focus. She looked worried, but more than that, she looked angry. Her face was flushed, her jaw was clenched, and the knuckles gripping the handle of the first-aid kit were white with tension. “Kevin, get her inside. Put her in one of the spare rooms and him in another. Chris is on his way.”
She turned to Tim and snarled, “Make sure that circle is shut down, cleansed, and sealed off. I don’t want them sending us any nasty surprises.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
I woke up in one of the spare bedrooms. There wasn’t a clock handy, but judging by the angle of the moonlight streaming through the window, it was probably around two in the morning. On the nightstand next to the bed was a tray of food: a little plastic tub of applesauce, a jar of turkey baby food, a nutrition shake, and a thermal mug. I sat up in bed and grabbed the mug first. When I twisted the top open, the smell of tomato soup hit my nose and my stomach growled in response.
As I was taking a big swig, I heard voices in the hall outside my door.
“They should both be all right now.”
“Good. Thank you. Have the Company send us a bill.” Dawna’s voice was brisk, businesslike.
Chris answered with a sigh and a soft, “No. This one’s on me. But this is the last time. You need to hire a medic of your own.”
“You’re right,” she said, and I heard him take a sharp, surprised breath. “Do you know of anyone?”
“No. But you should go with a veteran—a combat medic. They’ll have seen the kind of trauma she comes back with and will know what to do about it.”
“I’ll ask my cousin. Maybe she’ll know of somebody. About what should I offer as salary?”
“You?”
It was her turn to sigh. “Yes, Chris. Me. I’m a partner. I get to make hiring decisions, and I’m making this one. We absolutely need a healer on staff. I can’t keep relying on you. I know that. So, what do you recommend?”
There was a long pause. When he spoke again, it was with great care. “I’ll make a couple of calls and get back to you. B
ut Dawna,” his voice faltered just a little, “you can always rely on me. Always.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. I heard his footsteps moving away. After several long moments, during which I finished every bit of food on my tray, she opened the door. I pretended not to notice that her eyes were red from crying.
“I figured you’d be up by now,” she said.
“You figured right.” I managed a smile.
“Did you hear that?”
“’Fraid so. You want to talk about it?”
“Just the business part.”
I could understand that. Right now, Dawna was as reluctant to talk about Chris as I was to talk about Bruno, and probably for the same reasons. I knew she and Chris loved each other desperately. But their relationship had some fundamental problems that they’d have to iron out if it was ever going to work.
“Fair enough,” I said, and meant it. “You’re both right. We need a medic. And while it’ll be a stretch, it shouldn’t break the budget. I trust you. Do what you need to do.”
She gave a brisk nod, then, smoothing her skirt, sat down on the edge of the bed next to me. “I spoke with Dottie and Emma. They both say you need to take this case, but I don’t like it. I didn’t like it before what happened in the circle. I like it even less now. Djinn are bad business … and I don’t trust our client as far as I can spit.”
“Why not?” Dawna has excellent instincts. If she was twigging onto something weird about the client, I wanted to know what it was.
“He reminds me of my uncle Hoang.”
“Hoang?” I riffled through my many memories of Dawna’s extended family but couldn’t place the name.
“You haven’t met him.”
The tone of her voice told me that I probably wouldn’t, either, which kind of surprised me. Dawna’s family is very large and very close. They may drive her crazy occasionally—well, actually, more often than not—but I’d never heard of anyone she disliked before. And she obviously didn’t like Hoang. Not even a little. In fact, her tone was almost as bad as mine gets when I have to talk about my mother.
“Hoang is one of those people who hide how ruthless they are by being charming and pleasant,” she said. “And while Mr. Patel is far too stressed to be charming at the moment, he’s almost exactly like my uncle.”
I gave that the consideration it deserved. Finally, I said, “You may be right.”
“But you’re not going to walk away from this, are you?” She didn’t bother to hide her unhappiness.
“I don’t trust Rahim,” I admitted. “But I do trust Dottie and Emma. They’ve never steered me wrong before.”
“Fine,” she conceded. “But do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Be careful. I’m no John Creede.”
It was her not-so-oblique way of reminding me to be extra cautious.
John Creede was a friend of ours, and one of my former boyfriends. He’d taken over the reins of the company he’d run with his best friend after the other man was killed.
“You’d do fine if it came to that.” And she would.
“Yeah, well, let’s not find out.”
6
Rahim needed to rest and recover, and he was as safe in one of our spare rooms as he could be pretty much anywhere on the planet. Meanwhile, I went to join my team in the main office. Everyone but Dottie was there, and they’d all been busy, researching the djinn and trying to track down the human angle. Yeah, the client didn’t want us to. None of us cared. He could fire us if he wanted, but I didn’t want to take the case blind. It was just too dangerous. Rahim would probably be annoyed. I could live with that. More to the point, he could live with that.
Tim, Bubba, Kevin, and Dawna had spread out papers over most of our conference table, which seats twelve. The video screen was on, and Gordon Waters, Warren Landingham’s graduate assistant, was on video chat, his face hovering above the table.
Gordon was a small man with a big talent and even bigger brain. His bright blue eyes peered out at the world from beneath a shock of reddish-gold hair, and his abundance of freckles contributed to the impression that he was a kid, despite the fact that he was older than I was. Despite the hour, he was dressed in a blue-and-white-striped dress shirt, untucked over faded jeans. He peered through rimless glasses as he scanned an old leather text that was spread out on the table before him in a very familiar office.
Warren Landingham, Kevin’s father, was one of the top experts on the paranormal and a senior professor at University of California Bayview. Nicknamed El Jefe, he’d been my mentor back in college, and my friend ever since—well, aside from a little blip when he had betrayed me to save his daughter. We were mostly past that, although sadly, things still weren’t completely comfortable. But I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have on my team for research into all things supernatural.
“Where are we?” I took a seat about halfway down the table, facing the video screen. I had to crane my neck a little to see Gordon, which was a bit uncomfortable, but I didn’t complain. If everybody could come in at night to help out—including Gordon and El Jefe, who didn’t even work for me—I wasn’t about to grumble about a sore neck.
Dawna spoke up first. “El … Dr. Landingham and Mr. Waters have been giving us general information regarding ifrits and the djinn. I’ve been scouring the Internet to see if there are any news reports of break-ins like the one we’re dealing with. I started with Indiana, since our client works at the University of Notre Dame. I checked the campus records too. So far, no luck.”
“They probably didn’t call the authorities.”
“Probably not,” she agreed. “But I figured I’d better check. Chris says that the Company wasn’t called in at any point, so they don’t have anything to give us.” She nodded to Tim, who took the floor.
“I contacted Mr. Levy to see if he could give me a list of mages with enough power to manage astral projection. It’s a very short list.”
Kevin entered the conversation. “I’m working on finding out where each of them was at the approximate time of the break-in. I haven’t gotten very far.”
I tapped my fingers on the tabletop. Astral projection was a good guess. Rahim’s recording showed absolutely no evidence that a corporeal being had busted into that vault. That was the smart way to do it. No physical being, no physical evidence.
Astral projection is not common, and it certainly isn’t easy, but it’s possible. Astral projection with physical exertion is even more difficult to do, but it’s not unheard of. If that was how it had been done, the perpetrator would have been completely exhausted for two or three days—unable to even stand or walk. That would rule out each of the three mages who’d set the trap for Rahim. They had not only been up and about, they’d had power to burn.
So, either there was a fourth to their little party or the break-in had been done another way.
A ghost could have done it. In fact, that was one hell of a lot more likely than astral projection. But talk about your bad karma. Since ghosts are already dead, how much chance do they have of working off the bad already marking their souls? It wasn’t like they had a big shot at redemption.
Of course, if they knew they were already bound for hell …
That thought led to another, even less pleasant notion.
“Abby, are you here?” I called.
Abby is the ghost of Abigail Andrews, aka Elena Santiago. Alive, she was the adoptive mother and biological aunt of Michelle Garza, known as Michelle Andrews. Abby had gotten murdered trying to protect her daughter from a ritual bloodline curse and had hired me from beyond the grave to save the young woman. I’d managed … sort of. Connor Finn hadn’t killed her, but to keep the curse from working, I’d had to have her bitten by a werewolf—Kevin Landingham. Now he gets to mentor her in his not-so-copious free time.
Have I mentioned my life is weird?
Anyway, Abby is my “spirit Guardian” of the moment. I’d hoped her ghost would pass on to her etern
al reward when I ended the feud and her daughter’s life was saved. Nope. She was still here.
Apparently her raison d’être was to see every last Finn in hell, and there were two who weren’t yet. At the suggestion of an ancient deity, I’d spared Jack Finn, Connor’s son. And while Connor was undeniably dead, he wasn’t gone. The elder Finn was every bit as powerful a ghost as Abby, and he hated me with an unholy passion. Even in death he was a dangerous villain. Maybe more dangerous than when he’d been alive. Because, really, what more could I do to him?
The temperature in my immediate area plummeted until I could see my breath misting the air. A snowflake pattern of frost began to form on the tabletop. The overhead light flashed once, part of a very old code I’d developed with my dead sister. But what one ghost knows, they all do. So Abby knew that one flash was yes, two no.
“Are Finn and his buddies involved in this?”
One flash.
Oh, fuck a duck. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Well, that explained why I was involved. I’d thwarted them once—they’d be bound to hold a grudge.
“Are you sure?” I was grasping at straws. Ghosts know things we don’t and they can’t lie. It’s not that they’re super moral or anything. They’re sort of beyond all of that. They just don’t have the capacity.
Abby didn’t bother with the light this time. Instead, she wrote her answer in frost on the surface of the table. “YES.”
Hell.
Dawna’s response was … colorful. Mostly blue. Everybody else stopped what they were doing and looked at me with varying degrees of alarm. Kevin was the most calm. But even he reached down to give Paulie a reassuring pat.
I was now officially terrified. Yeah, I was scared of the ifrit, but that was kind of an abstract fear. My terror of Connor Finn was deeply personal.
Even before Abby had hired me, a psychic had warned Finn that I was a danger to his plans. So he’d taken preemptive action. He’d had his men kidnap me, put me in a full-body bind, and leave me on the beach in my underwear in broad daylight.
