by Jenn Bennett
I perched on the edge of a stained La-Z-Boy recliner. Bob stood next to me, cracking his knuckles nervously. “Don’t remember you,” I said, “but I serve a lot of people.”
Hajo shrugged. “Too crowded for my tastes. So, Bob tells me you need to find something in La Sirena.”
“Yes,” I said reluctantly. Please don’t let this be a mistake. “What do you need for tracking?”
“Bare minimum? The name of the dead person, a photo, some facts about them. But to save time, I need to get on the same path they were on before they died.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I could drive around all day randomly trying to pick up on a thread, or I can cut corners and line myself up to a marker that will lead me to the thread. There are a few ways to do this. If you know the exact place they died, that’s best. I can track a body from place of death really fast.”
I shook my head. “No clue where the actual death occurred.”
“Okay, then what about the last person to see them alive?”
That would be Bishop, I supposed; however, if we knew where Bishop was, we wouldn’t be tracking down dead bodies. “No again. What else?”
“Last place they were seen sometimes works, but it’s tough. Depends on what the person did before they died. Grandpa Joe might’ve been last spotted at the local diner, but he could’ve tooled around town before driving off a cliff.”
“You’re a cheery person to be around,” I grumbled.
“I’m Captain fucking Kangaroo. You try wielding this knack and see how cheery it makes you.”
He had a point, but not my sympathy. I wasn’t all that thrilled with the lot I’d been dealt, either, so I just ignored his bad attitude and tried to focus on why I was there.
Maybe he could track one of the original abducted kids from the place they were last seen. But it had been so long, and I didn’t want to tell him exactly how long, because I didn’t want him guessing who we were tracking.
He scratched his chin. “There’s always objects. You have anything the deceased might’ve touched right before they died?”
I wondered if Lon could get in touch with his police buddies and find out if they still had anything in evidence. We could contact the parents of some of the original missing kids, but most of them were scattered, and several were dead themselves—it had been thirty years, after all, and they were all in their seventies.
Then I thought of one thing we did have: Bishop’s key, the one on the broken silver chain that Dare gave us. “What about an object from the last person to see them?” I asked. Right away, I could tell by his reaction that it was a long shot, so I ponied up and added, “It probably belonged to the killer.”
“Oh? Yeah, that should give me a strong lead.” Hajo stroked the raised velour striping on the couch with his thumb. “What kind of object is it?”
“A key. A small one. On a necklace.”
Hajo’s brows lifted. “The killer wore it, then? Like jewelry?”
“Maybe,” I said.
His head quickly bobbed up and down. “That’s good. Very good. If it’s been worn on the body, it’s a good tracker. I like working from jewelry.” He considered this for a moment, staring off into the distance, then he focused on me again. “La Sirena is a smaller town. Much easier to track bodies there than in the city. Yeah, I can probably do it.”
“Great,” I said, with trepidation. Because finding a bunch of dead bodies wasn’t exactly my idea of good time. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, I asked him about his success rate.
“Pretty high,” he answered in a noncommittal tone.
“‘Pretty’?” I repeated.
“I don’t keep a fucking pie chart on my jobs,” he said sourly. “If you know another dowser, feel free to hire him instead.”
Point taken. “How long will this whole tracking thing take?”
He shrugged. “A couple of hours to all afternoon. Maybe longer. Depends on how fast I can catch the thread.”
That gave me hope. I relaxed a little. My eyes wandered to the TV. Metropolis, 1927. The scene where the robot is seated in front of a pentagram.
“One of my favorite movies,” Hajo said.
“How do you watch something with no sound?” Bob asked, piping up for the first time since he’d introduced us.
“It’s got a score,” Hajo said. “Are you deaf?”
“I meant talking,” Bob said, wiping sweat off his brow.
“I’ve seen it several times,” I admitted, then nodded at the screen. “The restored version is so much better. Easier to see all the details in those elaborate sets.” Funny thing was, Jupe and I had talked about it a couple of weeks ago. I was so proud to be familiar with a movie that he hadn’t seen and memorized already. So I bought him the DVD, one of the birthday presents I was planning to give him next week.
Hajo smiled, his eyes gentler. Almost merry. “You have good taste.”
Common ground with a junkie. Good taste, indeed.
His smile withered as he addressed Bob. “Cady and I need to discuss payment arrangements. Would you please join Cristina in the kitchen?”
As Bob stuttered a vague response, Hajo called out for Cristina, who promptly appeared and herded Bob through the dining room, closing a heavy curtain over the doorway.
I glanced at Hajo. An uneasy chill slid down my spine.
“I don’t have money on me,” I warned, suddenly acutely aware of his expensive drug habit and all the news reports featuring desperate sømna addicts who’d passed tribulation and were stealing or killing for money.
Hajo chuckled. “I don’t want your cash, calm down.”
“What do you normally charge?”
He didn’t reply right away, his attention momentarily distracted by the movie. “I make all kinds of alternative arrangements,” he answered at length. “My other jobs provide me the cash I need.”
My pulse spiked. “And what other jobs would those be?” I asked.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “For dowsing, I prefer the barter system.”
“Free drinks at Tambuku for a month?” I offered.
He shook his head very, very slowly. His eyes trailed over me again, languid and dangerous. “Maybe you and I can negotiate a mutually beneficial . . . intimate arrangement,” he suggested in a low voice.
“No thanks. I’m taken.”
He glanced at my hand. “Doesn’t look that way to me.”
“Sorry, try again,” I said as my phone chimed. I tugged it out of my pocket and glanced at the message on the screen. It was from Lon, asking for an update, as if he sensed something wrong all the way from the coast. “Like I said, taken.” I held up my phone and wiggled it as proof.
Hajo made some indecipherable noise as he observed me for several seconds while I stuck my phone in my jeans pocket. “Bob says you were a great piece of ass.”
I nearly choked. “What?”
His eyebrows lifted in challenge.
“You’ve got to be joking.” Not if he was the last lazy-eyed demon on earth. And after I got Bob out of this dump of an apartment, he was going to get a swift kick in the balls for lying. As Jupe would say, gross.
Hajo let out a single “Ha!” and slouched into the couch. “That makes much more sense now. I couldn’t understand why you’d—”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Got it.” After a few seconds of silence he cleared his throat. “Regardless, we were discussing an arrangement.” He stretched out his leg and slipped one very big boot between my feet.
I pushed it back with the toe of my shoe. “Your girlfriend is in the next room, or have you forgotten?”
“We have an open relationship.”
“Oh?” I stood up from the recliner. “Then I’ll just go make sure it’s okay with her, shall I?”
Hajo jumped off the sofa and grabbed my wrist. “All right, all right,” he growled. He tugged me closer until I was standing in front of him, his body inches from mine
. “You did say you wanted to keep this dowsing job under the table.” His hushed voice was graveled with darkness. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want it to get around town that the girl with the silver halo is slumming east of Eden.” His head dipped low as he fingered a lock of white-blond hair from behind my ear, sending a flurry of unwanted chills down my neck.
“I don’t think anyone pays much attention to what I do.”
“Everyone pays attention,” Hajo replied. “You’re a local fairy tale. People brag about being bound in your bar like it’s some sort of masochistic merit badge.” His finger left my hair and trailed across my jaw. “You know, even though I can track death trails of strangers, once I’ve met someone in person, I never forget live energy. Like a fingerprint. No two alike. And I’m finding your energy to be especially unique, because your halo looks demon, but you are . . . a little different.” His head dipped lower. I couldn’t move. I felt his lips skimming the outer shell of my ear as his voice dropped to a whisper. “So different, in fact, that I’m betting I could track you halfway across the state.”
A warning blared in my brain. Conditioned to run and hide from anything or anyone that could sell me out down the line, I had to remind myself that my murderous parents were long gone. Even if the feds found me, I had nothing they wanted anymore. Then again, they didn’t know that. What would I say if I got arrested? My psychotic parents were using an Æthyric demon to siphon energy from people they killed. The demon demanded their lives as payment and I gave them up.
Right.
I did my best to calm down, but something near hysteria rose up in me like a geyser. My pulse pounded in my temples. The sigils on my arm called out, begging to be charged. Worse, the Moonchild ability, stagnant and unused for weeks, flared up somewhere deep in my mind. It was like a chiming doorbell, but I didn’t know who—or what—was on the other side of the door, asking to be let inside. And it terrified me, almost worse than Hajo’s threats.
What the hell had I gotten myself into by coming here?
My phone chimed in my pocket again.
“Appears that your boyfriend is worried,” Hajo murmured, pulling back. “I don’t blame him. I would be worried too if you were mine and alone with someone like me.”
“He doesn’t worry.” I came to my senses and pushed away the flicker of Moonchild power. Then, without any more hesitation, I grabbed the portable caduceus from inside my jacket and shoved the blunt end into Hajo’s windpipe.
He retreated in surprise, but I followed. My head was clear. He was demon; I was magician. I held the power—not him. He seemed to be thinking the same thing as he tucked his chin and peered down at the caduceus, raising his hands in surrender.
“Hold on, now,” he said, “I thought you needed symbols to bind us.”
“Not to blow a hole in your larynx.” A bluff. At most I could shock him enough to scare him, but he didn’t know that.
He lowered his hand to rest beneath the caduceus and gently pushed it away from his throat. I let him.
“Maybe my proposal was too much, too soon,” he said. “After all, you barely know me.” The corners of his mouth curled into a slow smile. “I’m a patient man. Like I said before, rock-solid willpower.”
In answer, I pointed the caduceus lower.
He laughed nervously and cupped himself with one hand. “How about another proposition?”
“I’m listening.”
“Bob says you make a strong vassal potion.”
What? My momentary bravado wilted.
I scrambled to remember how Bob would know that. I brewed lots of medicinals, and used them freely in the bar when I needed to maintain peace, but I only used the vassal when milder medicinals failed and binding wasn’t a practical option. Just a drop. Once dosed, the person who swallowed it would be putty in my hands, agreeable to sitting still and turning things down a notch. Agreeable to whatever I asked. It was a powerful tool. In the wrong hands . . .
Then I vaguely remembered mentioning the vassal medicinal around Bob several months ago. It was late and I was pissed off and tired, and making threats under my breath about a table of smart-aleck Earthbounds. Bob had asked me what I was talking about, and I dismissed it. He never asked again.
So, innocent little Bob wasn’t so innocent. Dear God, was everyone really only out for themselves? Could I trust no one?
“I’m going to assume from your silence that Bob wasn’t lying,” Hajo said. “I’ll take an ounce of the vassal as payment for this job. But I want it in hand tomorrow before we start.”
“I’d rather pay cash.”
He shook his head. “I won’t take it. Vassal or no deal. How bad do you want to find this body?”
That was a good question. And I hadn’t told him it was multiple bodies, rather than just one.
I felt woozy. That much vassal would be worth thousands in esoteric circles. It wasn’t an easy medicinal to make. One of the herbal components was rare, and the spell to transform the brew was tricky and required finely tuned skills. Making magical medicinals was one of the few talents that I was able to learn successfully on my own, and I was good at it, but it still wasn’t easy.
My phone chimed again. Lon was probably having a panic attack at this point, wondering why I wasn’t answering. I thought of the glass talon he’d bought to save me in the incident last month, and the $15,000 he’d shelled out for it. Fifteen thousand dollars that now sat in Jupe’s new savings account. But even if I could somehow negotiate a cash price for Hajo’s services, I couldn’t afford them, and I couldn’t ask Lon to pay up again. He’d helped me when I needed it, and now it was time for me to return the favor. It killed me; went against everything I knew, deep within, was right. But I obviously wasn’t about to consider Hajo’s original barter, and I didn’t have much more to offer.
“I only have half an ounce,” I said.
“Can you brew up more by tomorrow?”
I shook my head.
“No deal,” he said.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. “What about half an ounce, and I’ll bind an Earthbound for you.”
His eyes widened in surprise. He studied my face, thinking. “I’ll take the half ounce and three bindings. Night or day, I call and you come. You keep your mouth shut and don’t ask questions.”
I hesitated. Hajo’s quiet threat of being able to track me down added to the pressure.
“Two,” I said. “And no weird shit—I’m not binding someone for you to molest, rape, torture, or kill.”
He laughed brightly, with far more casual happiness than I was feeling at that moment. It was the laughter of someone who’d just won and knew it. “I’m not a monster, Cady. Just an entrepreneur. I’ll gladly agree to your terms. Deal?”
His hand extended. I lowered my caduceus, but I didn’t shake. “You’d better track down what I need, or the deal is off.”
“I’ll find the dead body for you. And in the meantime,” he added, “we’ll get to spend some quality time getting to know each other.”
My phone rang. “Meet me at the Singing Bean in the Village tomorrow at two.”
“No can do,” he said. “I’ve got another job. Day after tomorrow is the earliest I can do it.”
I started to argue, but he cut me off.
“I really can’t,” he said firmly. “Day after tomorrow. Same time and place. And just to put you at ease, I’ll even bring Bob along,” he suggested, zipping his racing jacket back up to his throat. “Besides, I’ll need a test subject for your vassal potion, just to verify the quality.”
Fine by me. The rat fink deserved it for selling me out.
“I’m so sorry,” Bob called out behind me as he ran to catch up outside Hajo’s building. “You’ve got to believe me.”
Lights from a city bus danced across the sidewalk as it passed. I turned the corner and headed in the direction of my parked car. A man had already yelled at us from a second-story apartment window to shut up. Last thing I needed was for someone to call the co
ps, so I increased my stride.
I was furious. At Bob, at Hajo, and at myself for caving in to Hajo’s bartering. For feeling terrified that he could track me one day. My parents were dead, but I was still the same scared girl I was when they were alive, hiding in shadows. You’d think, at the very least, that their deaths would release me from the lie I’d been living on their behalf for the past seven years. That I could relax and be normal. That an idle threat from a junkie wouldn’t rattle me.
But it did. Because I was still living under an alias. Still on some FBI list or another.
Still afraid.
“Please listen.” Bob’s hand gripped my shoulder. I pushed it off and spun to face him.
He launched into a rapid explanation. “Hajo asked about the vassal when I called him earlier to set up the meeting. He’d heard stories about you. I tried to tell him that I didn’t know anything, but he hung up on me. So I called him back. I told him that I remembered you mentioning it, but I didn’t know what it was. I still don’t.” He wiped his hand on the front of his blue Hawaiian shirt and looked at me with pleading eyes. “I swear, Cady. You’ve got to believe me. Please!”
“But you told him you’ve slept with me?” I said, my voice a higher pitch than I intended.
“What?” His hand stilled in the middle of running it over his slicked-back hair. His mouth opened. He was genuinely taken aback. “Did he say that? I never said that. Never! He’s lying, and—”
“All right, all right,” I grumbled, waving him away. I don’t know why I even cared. It wasn’t important.
“I wouldn’t talk trash about you—I mean, we’re friends . . . aren’t we?”
“I thought so,” I snapped. But when he flinched in response and his face fell, guilt wormed its way into my chest. “We are,” I amended after a pause. “Friends, that is. So don’t sell me out to someone like Hajo again.”
“Never. Give me a lie detector test. I’ll do anything.”
I stopped in front of his car, suddenly bone-weary.
Bob pulled his car keys out then paused in front of me. My gaze rose from the hula-girl print of his shirt until I met his eyes. They were tight with grief or regret. Maybe both. “I’m so sorry, Cady.”
