His Father's Eyes

by DAVID B. COE

  Before I could respond, a waitress came by to take our orders—my usual with a Coke, Billie’s fajitas and margarita.

  “So?” she asked when the waitress had gone. “Do you have some time today?”

  I exhaled, and her face fell.

  “You don’t, do you?”

  “I can knock off a little early, but with all I have going on right now, I can’t afford to do more than that.”

  “Tell me.”

  I couldn’t confide in her as much as I would have liked. I didn’t think she would be any happier about me working for Amaya than Kona would have been. “Well,” I said, “to be honest, I have some questions for you. Off the record.”

  “Questions for me?” She grinned, appearing genuinely pleased. “I get to help you with an investigation?”

  “I hope so. What do you know about Regina Witcombe?”

  She blinked. “Witcombe? I know quite a bit about her. I thought everyone did.”

  “Did you know she was on the plane yesterday? In first class, no doubt.”

  Billie frowned and shook her head. “She has her own jet, Fearsson. A Gulfstream; and she has a stable of pilots, one of whom is always on call. I think you’ve got your information wrong.”

  “She’s listed on the passenger manifest.”

  “Maybe it’s a different Regina Witcombe.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You asked me for information about her; I’m telling you what I know. She has a private jet. She might even have more than one.”

  Add one more oddity to an already odd investigation.

  “On the other hand,” Billie went on after a brief pause, the creases in her forehead deepening, “I did read somewhere that she was in Washington today.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I think she was appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, to testify against the banking bill.”

  “Maybe her plane wasn’t working,” I said. As soon as I spoke the words, they echoed back at me. Could another magically induced mechanical problem have put her on Flight 595?

  “Why did Kona ask you to join her at the airport?” Billie asked in a whisper, her hands resting on the table as she leaned toward me.

  I stared back at her.

  “That’s what I thought. Was the dead guy a weremyste?”

  “No,” I said, my voice low. “He was killed with a spell. Kona’s learned to recognize the signs of murder by magic.”

  “And today?”

  My hesitation didn’t last long. “Another murder with magical connections. Tell me more about Regina Witcombe.”

  She shrugged, her cheeks going pale at the mention of the second killing. “She’s president and CEO of a major financial corporation, she has more money than God, she’s smart and combative and ruthless. She also opposes just about every important piece of consumer protection legislation relating to the banking industry that comes before Congress or the state legislature. I’m torn, because it’s kind of nice to see a woman leading a huge multinational finance company: breaking the glass ceiling and all of that. But I really hate everything she stands for.”

  “Have you ever heard any whispers about her being odd around the full moon?”

  Her mouth fell open. “You think she’s a weremyste?” she asked, leaning in over the table.

  “I have a source who says she is.”

  “Holy crap!”

  I saw a gleam in her eyes that I knew all too well. “We’re still off the record, remember?”

  “Damn it! How can you tell me something like that off the record? That’s not fair.”

  A quip leaped to mind, something that would make her laugh—I loved the way she laughed. I opened my mouth to speak.

  A tingle of magic crawled over my skin, locking the words in my throat, making the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end. I saw no color, but I felt it building. Again I was reminded of the way desert air turned electric in the instant before lightning struck.

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “Fearsson?”

  And in that moment, the world exploded.

  The blast came from out on the street—or at least it seemed to, was meant to seem like it did. Somehow I knew that, understood what the sorcerer intended. Light flashed, blinding, the color of the midday sun. I didn’t have time to shield my eyes before the concussion hit, so loud it swallowed every other sound, so powerful it flung both of us against the restaurant’s back wall, along with our table and chairs. Debris rained down on us: glass from the streetside window, other tables and chairs, other people, plaster from the walls, menus, salt and pepper shakers, bottles of hot sauce.

  People screamed in the distance. No. They were screaming in the restaurant, and out on the street in front. But my ears were shot.

  “Billie?” I called, unable to see for the dust and smoke.

  Magic still danced along my skin. My untouched skin. I realized that I wasn’t in pain. Nothing hurt. No broken bones, no cuts or scrapes or burns. I was fine.

  “Billie?” I said again, heart hammering.

  And a voice in my head whispered, “A warning. Do not push too hard.”

  “Who the hell?”

  I didn’t pursue the thought further. Because that was when I saw Billie. A table lay on top of her chest. Blood poured from a cut across her brow. The brow that wrinkled when she was confused, or worried about me, or angry.

  “Billie.” I crawled to her, checked her pulse, her breathing. She was alive. A dry sob escaped me. I pushed the table off of her and almost gagged at the sight of her arm. I’d seen compound fractures before, but not on someone I loved.

  A warning.

  Screw you, whoever the hell you are.

  My ears still rang with the force of whatever had hit the restaurant, but I could make out the voices of others crying for help, of moans and sobs. There were people injured throughout what was left of the building. I should have been trying to reach them, giving what aid I could. I was an ex-cop. I knew how to help people, how to keep them calm in the midst of a crisis. I stayed where I was, refusing to leave Billie’s side.

  I checked her for other wounds, but saw none. That meant nothing. She could have been bleeding internally. Her breathing seemed okay, maybe somewhat labored. She might have had a collapsed lung.

  This is your fault.

  The voice was my own this time, inside my head, berating me—I didn’t even know what for. I had no idea what I had done. But it was me and my magic. That was why Billie lay there, covered with blood and plaster dust and shards of glass.

  She stirred, winced. “Fearsson?”

  As far as I could tell, my name came out as little more than a breath of air. But seeing it on her lips, knowing that she was conscious, struck me as nothing short of miraculous. For the second time in as many days, relief brought tears to my eyes. First my dad, now Billie. That was important in some way. I’d need to figure out how. Later.

  “Wha’ happened?” I thought I heard her say.

  “Hold still. There’ll be ambulances here soon.”

  I knew some healing spells, but not for injuries as severe as hers, and not for wounds I couldn’t see. She said something I couldn’t hear. I made her repeat it.

  “My arm hurts. And my head.” Her eyes remained closed, but at least she was making sense.

  “I know. Don’t try to move.”

  I watched her lips, saw her say, “Felt like a bomb.”

  “It did.”

  “Are you all right?” She opened her eyes, but then squeezed them shut again. A moment later, she rolled over onto her side and vomited. Concussion.

  “My head.”

  “I know. You need to stay awake, all right? Keep talking to me.” I listened for sirens, but heard none, not that my hearing was worth a damn yet. I was thinking in slow motion. I pulled out my phone and dialed nine-one-one.

  When the dispatcher came on, her voice paper thin to my ringing ears, I told her where we were, and that there had been an exp
losion.

  “We have responders on our way to you already, sir. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m not, but my friend is. A head wound and a compound fracture. And there are others injured as well. Lots.”

  “Ambulances are on their way.”

  “Good, thank you.”

  “I’m going to keep you on the line until they arrive.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Fearsson?”

  “I’m right here, Billie.”

  “What happened?” I saw her ask again.

  “I’m not sure.” A version of the truth. I said nothing about magic, telling myself that I didn’t want to worry her. But I was scared—scared that I had gotten her hurt, scared that I couldn’t protect her if whoever had attacked us decided he or she wanted to do more than make threats.

  I heard the words again—A warning. Do not push too hard—and realized for the first time that they had been spoken in a woman’s voice. Low, gravelly; it might have been sexy, if not for the words and circumstances. She’d had an accent as well: not quite British. Irish maybe, or Scottish? Who the hell?

  “Was it a bomb?” She was repeating herself, sounding disoriented. That was the head wound, and also the fact that she was probably going into shock. Her skin was clammy, her breathing shallow.

  “I don’t know. It might have been. Have you been near a bombing before?” I was babbling, keeping her talking.

  “No.”

  I heard sirens at last. “The ambulances are here,” I told her.

  “Okay.”

  I repeated this into the phone to the dispatcher. She wished me good luck and ended the call.

  Several ambulances pulled up to Solana’s with a squeal of brakes and the dying wail of sirens. Moments later, EMTs entered the wrecked building and fanned out with a crackle of walkie-talkies. My hearing was improving. It took several minutes more before one of the responders finally reached Billie and me. He was no more than a kid—probably a student at ASU. I couldn’t have cared less.

  “Who do we have here?” he asked me, kneeling beside her.

  “Her name’s Billie. She has a compound fracture of the right ulna, and I’m pretty sure she has a concussion as well.”

  “All right. What about you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He paused, eyed me from head to toe. “Damn. You were lucky.”

  “I guess.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, attention on Billie once more. “We’ll take care of her.” He called over one of his fellow EMTs and didn’t say another word to me.

  I backed away, giving the two of them room to work, listening as they talked to Billie, asking her questions about her medical history and who they should put down as her next of kin.

  At that, she opened her eyes and pointed at me.

  I couldn’t help but smile, even as my throat constricted to the point where I could barely breathe. I gave them my name, cell number, and home number.

  Over the next several minutes, working with quiet efficiency, they immobilized her arm and strapped her onto a stretcher with her head and neck braced, in case she had a spinal injury.

  “Fearsson?” she called as they raised the stretcher and began to wheel her out.

  “I’m here,” I said. I asked the EMT, “Where are you taking her?”

  “Banner Desert.”

  I nodded. “I’ll see you soon, Billie. All right? Do whatever the doctors tell you to.”

  “Fearsson? You’ll come see me?” She looked pale, small, afraid.

  “Of course I will.”

  She held tight to my hand even as they started again to lead her away.

  “I promise,” I said. “You’ll see me before you know it.”

  She let go of me, our fingers brushing as they wheeled her beyond my grasp. She’d be in surgery for a while and would probably sleep for some time after that. I had a few hours before I needed to be at Banner Desert Medical Center. And until then, I had work to do.

  The previous night, I’d told Jacinto Amaya that I wanted no part of his magical war. Well, I was in it now, up to my eyeballs. And whoever had done this to Billie was going to be sorry they had come at me with nothing more than a warning and a magical bomb.

  CHAPTER 11

  I picked my way through the rest of the clutter and stumbled out onto the sidewalk, fragments of glass crunching beneath my feet. There were more injured here, men and women, and even a small child. They lay on the bloodstained cement, as they would after a true bombing. Collateral damage: a cold phrase meaning people who had gotten between me and the weremyste who had issued that threat.

  I turned so I could see the front of the restaurant and drew a sharp breath through my teeth. Magic clung to the shattered brick and splintered wood, glistening in the sunlight: as green as spring grass, as clear as dew, save for the faint oil-like sheen I had first noticed at the airport.

  “Sir, can you tell me what happened here?”

  I wheeled at the sound of the voice. A reporter, young, blonde, pretty, held a microphone inches from my face. A cameraman stood at her shoulder, lens trained on me like a weapon, white light shining in my eyes.

  “Were you inside the restaurant when the bomb went off?”

  “I don’t know what happened,” I said, blinking in the glare.

  “You’re covered with dust and bits of wood and glass. Were you inside?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that blood on your shirt?”

  I dropped my gaze. There was blood on my T-shirt and some on my jeans as well. “It’s not mine. It’s my . . . it came from a friend.”

  “Is she all right?”

  I shook my head.

  The reporter’s eyes had narrowed. “I know you. You’re that private detective, aren’t you? Jay Fearsson?”

  “I have to go,” I said.

  I pushed past her and the cameraman. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy to get away.

  “Were you here investigating another crime? Another killing?”

  A crowd had gathered, and I couldn’t plow my way free.

  “Do you think the bomb was directed at you?”

  I couldn’t help myself: I rounded at that, glared at her, then tried again to get away.

  “Mister Fearsson, do you have anything to say to whoever is responsible for what happened today?”

  I should have kept going. I should have ignored the question and bulled through the mass of people. But I was thinking about Billie, and about all the other people who had been hurt because some weremyste wanted to send me a message.

  I whirled, glared right into the camera. “Yeah. Watch your ass, because I’m coming for you.”

  This time when I tried to leave, people stepped out of my way. Maybe they had heard me; maybe they saw the rage on my face and decided they’d be better off letting me leave. I stalked off, knowing that I had screwed up and that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do now to take the words back. I could imagine the way it would look on television. Kona would be pissed at me, and Hibbard’s head would explode. But at least the woman who had whispered in my mind would know what I thought of her warning.

  I avoided the other reporters who were converging on the place, and slipped away from the crowded block before too many more police arrived and made any quick exit impossible.

  When I first reached Mesa, I’d been annoyed that all the good parking spots were gone, but now that worked to my advantage. The Z-ster was far enough from the restaurant that I had no trouble putting some distance between myself and the scene on the street.

  I needed more information about dark magic and its practitioners here in Phoenix. The night before I’d as much as told Amaya that Etienne de Cahors was the only dark sorcerer of consequence the city had seen in years. Less than twenty-four hours later, I could almost laugh at how naïve I had been. Almost. The ringing in my ears, and the fine white dust coating my clothes and skin kept me from seeing the humor. That, and Billie’s blood.

 
As a cop, I’d had a network of informants on whom I relied for information when other sources dried up. Some of them were lost to me now that I was no longer on the job. But I was still plugged into the magical community. At times in the past I had taken my questions to Luis Paredes, but given his ties to Amaya, I knew I couldn’t trust him now. Instead, I drove into Phoenix’s Maryvale precinct.

  Maryvale’s neighborhoods included some of the roughest beats in all of Phoenix. It was a relatively small precinct, but it accounted for a disproportionate share of the city’s violent crime. It was home to gangs, small-time drug dealers, prostitutes, and one Orestes Quinley.

  Orestes, who went by the name Brother Q, owned a small shop that specialized in what the non-magical world would call “the occult.” In fact, he had named his place Brother Q’s Shop of the Occult, which might have been the worst name for a business I’d ever heard. He sold herbs, oils, crystals, talismans, books on witchcraft and magic, and a host of other goods that a weremyste might need. He was a myste himself, and while he might not have been as skilled as I was, I sensed that he had more power than he cared to admit. I’d busted him long ago, when Kona and I still worked in Narcotics. He did a little time, though probably not as much as he should have, and soon was back on the streets. Any time Kona and I encountered something we couldn’t explain during an investigation, I went to Orestes, at first because Kona and I figured he must have been working with whoever we were after. With time, though, he became a trusted informant, and even now, a year and a half removed from my resignation from the force, I still turned to him when I encountered a name I didn’t know or a residue of magic I didn’t recognize.

  I could have used any number of words to describe Q: quirky, eccentric, weird; Kona called him certifiable. But I liked him, and more than that, I trusted him. Despite the fact that I was the one cop who had busted him and made the charges stick—or maybe because of it—Q and I were good friends.

  But yeah, he was pretty weird.

  I pulled up to his place in the 813 beat, which was as rough a neighborhood as you could find in Maryvale, and found him sitting out front on a folding chair. Orestes claimed to have been born in Haiti. He spoke with a West Indian accent and wore his hair in long dreadlocks. He had on a pair of baggy, torn denim shorts, a tie-dyed Bob Marley T-shirt, beat-up sandals, and a pair of sunglasses with tiny round lenses that couldn’t have done a damn bit of good against the desert sun. He was slouched in the chair, accentuating his paunch, and his chest rose and fell slowly. It took me a minute to realize that he was sleeping.