I See You (Oracle 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “Why?” Beau asked.

  “She’s worried that those two young werewolves dying is connected to this all somehow,” I murmured.

  “What? How?”

  “It’s just … instinct,” Kandy said. “Timing. And Ada. Werewolves don’t overdose, but Ada was high as hell tonight. If it turns out that this crimson bliss is what killed the Gulf Coast’s fledglings, it’s better to get out ahead of it. Better for Beau.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “What if calling in the pack is what makes everything explode? And results in Ettie’s death?”

  “What if not calling in the pack results in Ettie’s death?” Kandy asked.

  Beau scrubbed his head so fiercely I was worried he’d hurt himself.

  “I can keep my mouth shut a bit longer,” Kandy said. “But your family is about to get caught up in a world of shit.”

  “If they’re involved,” Beau growled. “If they’re not just victims.”

  My heart pinched at Beau’s continued defense of absolutely horrific people. I looked down at my salad to cover my reaction.

  Kandy shrugged her shoulders and stuffed an entire hot apple pie in her mouth. “He’s a sorcerer, not a chemist,” she said as she chewed.

  It took me a moment to realize she had returned to the subject of getting rid of Blackwell. “He’s a collector,” I said.

  Kandy jabbed her finger at me. “You. You got us into this.”

  “Hey,” Beau said.

  “She can fight her own battles,” Kandy snarled.

  “Yeah, she can. But you won’t like it,” I snarled back before Beau could step in to defend me further.

  Kandy snapped her teeth together, eyeing me. Then she started to laugh.

  And laugh. And laugh.

  A few nearby patrons found the werewolf’s laugh creepy enough that they got up and changed tables. Two groups of twenty-something diners actually left.

  Kandy stopped laughing as abruptly as she’d started. She locked her gaze to mine, deadly serious. “I like you, Rochelle. And Beau ain’t half bad either. But I loathe the sorcerer.”

  “I made a choice.”

  “That you did.”

  “It wasn’t like I could call the far seer. And you know Audrey would still be going through proper channels to get you two back. Channels we’ve agreed aren’t a great choice right now. Did you want me to call the dowser?”

  “God, no. She’d hate the heat. It would melt all her chocolate. Plus, she travels with a small army these days. No. It would be over by now if you’d called Jade, but there’d be a body count.”

  “The dowser wouldn’t kill humans,” Beau said.

  “I wasn’t talking about the dowser.” Kandy grabbed the last of the fries, then picked up the trash-filled trays. “You can eat that to go, right?”

  I grabbed my salad and apple pie protectively. I was hungry and tired. We’d been up since before dawn and were about to see another sunrise in a few hours. If I couldn’t sleep, I sure as hell was going to finish the only greens I’d eaten all day. Plus, I had a thing for apples. That would keep me going.

  ∞

  Blackwell took over driving for the next leg of our trip, and we returned to the bank in silence. It seemed funny that with so much to talk about, there wasn’t a single conversation the four of us wanted to share.

  Blackwell would want to talk about the vision and dissect the sketchbook, which I’d safely tucked back in my satchel. But neither Beau nor Kandy would want to talk about the future I’d seen as it continued to unfold.

  Beau would want to talk about … all the things his family had accused him of doing. They weren’t terribly subtle with their insults. The fact that they would hold something so desperate against Beau was agonizing. Painful enough that I was trying to not think about it … other than the fact that he’d gotten over it. He’d made it through. But he wasn’t going to discuss his past in front of the sorcerer or an enforcer of the West Coast North American Pack.

  Kandy wouldn’t want to talk at all. The werewolf was so angry that I could feel the energy rolling off her, even with a generously sized middle seat between us. She kept lifting the clothing she’d found at Ada’s to her face and inhaling, alternating between a yellowed wifebeater and a pink head scarf.

  Beau reached back alongside the front passenger seat, reaching down to wrap his fingers around my ankle. I leaned forward, pretending to root through my satchel, but instead curling my right hand around his wrist. He squeezed me and I reciprocated. Some of the tension he carried in his muscles eased slightly.

  I straightened in my seat, offering Kandy a rectangle of spearmint gum. Beau kept hold of my ankle.

  Kandy curled her lip derisively at my offering. “Tracking,” she said, but with less heat than I’d expected given her mood.

  I nodded and popped the gum in my mouth, leaning forward to offer the package to Beau and Blackwell.

  “No. Thank you, oracle,” Blackwell said.

  Beau took a moment to pass his thumb across my butterfly tattoo. I gathered he needed to keep his senses clear as well, though werewolves were better at tracking by scent than tigers.

  Blackwell found his way back to the bank without assistance from any of us or the GPS, proving that the sorcerer had a way better sense of direction than I did. Though honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember anything about this part of Mississippi. Nothing against the state. It would just be a way nicer place without Beau’s family in it.

  But I had known that going in, hadn’t I? And I had pushed us to this point, in that self-righteous, quiet way I had of pushing. Because I was still hoping that magic was … something. That there was some reason behind it. Not necessarily fate, or destiny, or any of the shit that I couldn’t really quantify. Just … right and wrong, good and evil. If I had this power, then I wanted to do good. Yeah, me. The moron who was friendly with the sorcerer everyone else said was evil incarnate.

  We circled the bank, parking at the rear on the side street. The houses surrounding us were mostly dark now. It was that late. Though I could see the reflections of a few TVs through half-opened curtains farther down the road.

  I’d expected the doors of the bank to be crisscrossed with crime-scene tape, but they weren’t. If you didn’t count the drug dealers kidnapping and imprisoning Beau and Kandy, it seemed that we were the only criminal activity that had taken place in the bank that evening. The marshal would have executed his arrests on the outstanding warrants. I found myself wondering if that included searching the place for drugs.

  “Stay here,” Kandy said to both me and Blackwell as she climbed out of the car. “I don’t need you muddying the trail. Beau and I will go for a walk.”

  “That should go over well with the neighbors,” Blackwell said, obligingly settling back in his seat. “A hulking stranger walking his wolf in the middle of the night. What could be more normal?”

  Beau snickered as he exited the car. Kandy slammed her door shut. Blackwell rolled down his window as the werewolf stepped over to the sidewalk. “The bank isn’t empty.”

  Kandy whirled back. “What am I, an idiot? I can see!”

  Blackwell nodded, not bothering to roll his window back up. Though there wasn’t any breeze, I preferred the warmth of the evening over the car’s air conditioning. Up ahead, a dim light glowed through one of the rear windows of the bank. Someone was in the break room, or maybe one of the bathrooms. I tried to remember the interior layout correctly.

  “They won’t go inside, right?” I asked.

  “She’ll just try to pick up Cy’s or Ettie’s scent around the exterior,” Blackwell said. “They want me gone, then?”

  I had been thinking about distracting myself from the urge to follow Beau and Kandy by pulling out my sketchbook, so the sorcerer’s quick change of subject took me a moment to process.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m grateful for your help.”

  “When you refine the sketches, do you add to
them?”

  “No. I mean, I just heighten them. Sharpen them, you know? And then I decide which ones to take to a larger scale. For the shop.”

  “So everything that you remember is in those rough drafts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Ettie knows the location of the lab where crimson bliss is being produced. As does Cy, of course.”

  “How did you deduce that? I saw the diffusers …” I pulled my sketchbook out of my satchel.

  “You’ve already figured it out, Rochelle.” Blackwell’s tone was uncomfortably kind as if he was babying me somehow. “Beau won’t appreciate being kept in the dark. He isn’t that … type.”

  “I’m not lying to him.”

  “But you’re not fully seeing either.”

  “It’s been a shitty day, sorcerer,” I snapped.

  Blackwell waved his hand, acquiescing.

  That just pissed me off further. “You weren’t just looking at the sketches while we were eating,” I said.

  “No.”

  “So just tell me what you know.”

  “I know what you know, that this drug lord … Byron, Beau called him … is interested in Cy, so he’s interested in the drug. Crimson bliss, you called it. And the crystalline drug Beau found at his mother’s is indeed red. So Cy must be involved somehow. Otherwise, why would he be avoiding his former employer?”

  “Plus according to one of her clients, Ettie is selling crimson bliss. So that’s a double connection back to Beau’s family.”

  “And … the drug has been deadly to a few Adepts. Though, apparently there haven’t been any nonmagical deaths. Not yet.”

  My heart sank. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I know a great many things, Rochelle Hawthorne,” he said. “And if I don’t, I find out.”

  “How many deaths?”

  “Five so far. Two werewolves and three spellcasters, as far as I could ascertain.”

  “Don’t tell Beau,” I blurted without thinking. “Not yet, please.”

  Blackwell lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror. I could barely see his deeply shadowed face, and I doubted he could see much of mine.

  “Why do you think we’re here, oracle?” Blackwell’s whispered question chilled me despite the warmth of the night air.

  “Not to save Ettie,” I whispered back, finally voicing the secret I’d been trying to hide from myself since sketching the last vision. “At least that’s not why I’m seeing what I’m seeing. But it doesn’t mean I can’t still … try.”

  “I agree.”

  “You think the visions are about the crimson drug? Because it can kill Adepts?”

  “We won’t know until it’s all over. But yes, I would assume that you’ve been given these visions in regard to the drugs, not Beau’s sister. You say she’s not magical?”

  I shivered again, wrapping my arms around myself as I ignored Blackwell’s question. “Given by whom? Where do you think the visions come from?”

  The sorcerer returned his gaze to the street. He was silent for so long that I assumed he wasn’t going to continue the conversation. I was trying to figure out how to question him further when he finally spoke.

  “That’s not for me to answer. Only you will come to know that, Rochelle Hawthorne.”

  “Do you believe in God, then? That your magic comes from some divine providence?”

  “No. I believe in genetics.”

  “So I’m genetically predisposed to see glimpses of the future? My brain is simply capable of operating on that level?”

  “Yes. I believe that you … that we … have evolved.”

  “But magic goes deeper than that. It’s older than that. Older than the far seer, even …” My voice trailed off. Sharing too much of anything with the sorcerer was a bad idea. We weren’t friends.

  Blackwell snorted.

  I let the subject drop. This was the path we were on. I could try to make the right choices as we went, but I wasn’t the only one making decisions now.

  ∞

  Henry Calhoun slid into the front passenger seat of the car before I even knew he was anywhere nearby. Blackwell didn’t so much as flinch.

  “The wolf isn’t picking up anything significant,” Henry said.

  “I see she’s circled three times.” Blackwell’s reply was coolly polite, as if maybe Henry had worn out his welcome.

  I’d flicked on the overhead light to work on the sketches, undoubtedly calling attention to the fact we were parked on the side of a residential street for no legitimate reason. But Blackwell hadn’t said anything, so I hadn’t turned it off.

  Unfortunately, no matter how I shaded or smudged the charcoals, I didn’t glean any new information as to a location. Obviously, the goal was to find Ettie elsewhere before the moment of her death. But as the night dragged on, I was starting to feel as if the realization of the vision was exceedingly imminent.

  Henry cranked around in his seat to look at me. “I figured you out, Rochelle Saintpaul.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “You’re a seer.”

  Blackwell snorted. “She is not some dime-store psychic replete with tarot cards and crystal ball.”

  “No?” Henry asked, his tone playful. “Then you aren’t going to tell me when I’m going to die?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I mumbled, stuffing my sketchbook away and rubbing at the charcoal still coating my fingers.

  “While your help was appreciated, marshal,” Blackwell said, “I wonder why you’re here now. I would think you would be well on your way.”

  “Well, you know how I like to hang out with you, buddy,” Henry replied. “But yeah, it’s more than that. It’s this Byron Redmond and what he’s looking for.”

  “Did you find him?” I asked.

  “No. Nor have I heard a single truth about Ettie or Cy Harris, either. Byron’s boys are very mute on the subject, as in not one word. They didn’t even ask for a lawyer. The four with outstanding warrants are being shipped out in the morning. And the others are just waiting out the twenty-four-hour hold. Not a word.” Henry eyed Blackwell, then looked back at me. “I only caught the name because Beau asked after him in the bank.”

  “But the name alone is intriguing enough to bring you back here,” Blackwell said blandly.

  “Well, no. Rochelle is intriguing enough to bring me back. I wondered what it costs to commission one of those tattoos.”

  Blackwell clenched his jaw. Henry was looking at me, but his smile still widened at the sorcerer’s reaction.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I repeated. Though I wasn’t sure what I was really denying, because I did sell some of my tattoo sketches in my online Etsy shop.

  Henry’s gaze dropped to my arms, then to my fingers, which I was still rubbing together. “Maybe not yet,” he said. “What do you think, Blackwell? Do you think she would have to ink the designs?”

  “I think that Rochelle Saintpaul is none of your business, Henry Calhoun.”

  “But Byron Redmond and his multiple outstanding warrants are. We maybe have twenty-four hours to stay ahead of the feds on this. If Beau ties Byron to Cy, then I can get a trace on Cy’s cellphone. All legal-like. It’s a gray area of jurisdiction, you understand, so we’d have to move quickly to contain the situation.”

  “Beau would have to testify?” I asked, already knowing that I wouldn’t want him to do any such thing.

  “It’s not going to get to that,” Blackwell said. “Adepts don’t go to human court.”

  “Byron isn’t an Adept.”

  “But Cy is,” Henry said. “Yes?”

  “Of some sort.”

  “Either way, it’ll be over in twenty-four hours,” Henry said.

  “And if we don’t want your help?” Blackwell’s voice was still coolly professional, but the question was edged with a warning.

  “You don’t have any choice, sorcerer,” the marshal said smugly. “You’re in my territory now … unless you want to call in the C
onvocation or the pack?”

  “Those are my choices as you see them, Calhoun? Witches, the pack, or you?”

  “Yep. Plus, you need me to keep your asses out of jail.” Henry opened the car door and stepped out. Then he poked his head back in. “I booked us rooms at the Motor Inn.”

  “But —” I started to say.

  Blackwell shook his head at me.

  I stopped talking.

  Henry eyed us both, then nodded and slammed the door shut.

  “You didn’t want me to mention the Brave?” I asked. “I don’t think we can park where we left it overnight.” Technically, it was actually the next day now, so it was possible we’d already gotten a ticket.

  “I assumed you might wish to maintain some anonymity,” Blackwell said. “And I took care of the Brave while you were deep into sketching the vision. It’ll be all right parked by the university for now.”

  Kandy opened the side door behind Blackwell and flung herself into the seat beside me. “Can’t pick up anything of Ettie past the parking lot,” she growled. “Not even the car she must have gotten into. Too many people coming and going around here today. Her scent isn’t distinctive enough. And not a whiff of the asshole either.”

  Her hair was an odd, mottled mixture of green dye and light ashy brown. I opened my mouth to comment on it.

  “Shut it,” Kandy said preemptively. She reached up and flicked off the overhead light.

  Beau and the marshal were standing next to the streetlight about a half block down. Beau’s head and shoulders were hunched forward, his hands in his pockets as he listened to whatever Henry was saying to him.

  “We’re not getting rid of the marshal either,” Kandy said.

  “Obviously,” Blackwell said.

  “This is pack business, sorcerer. Family business. You aren’t wanted.”

  “Yet I’m not going anywhere, wolf,” Blackwell snapped. But then he added, almost kindly, “This is too big for you now. Too many factors. The pack will decide it’s messy, then attempt to contain it. I imagine, though he loathes them, that Beau would prefer his family survive, if possible.”

  “What are you saying?” I interrupted. “The pack would just kill everyone?”