Hellbent (17 page)

“Footage? Like, she made it onto TV?”

“Briefly, in a crowd shot or two. More important, she was hovering over the exotics table, and paying an inordinate amount of attention while I was lying to Joseph Harvey. She’s practically
looming
behind him. Very sinister stuff. I’ll email it to you sometime. Anyway, we got her on film, and I noticed her while I was going over the Portland footage. I have access to all the extra shit—the shit we don’t bother to show, or the shit that gets cut. So I watched it. Obsessively.”

“I bet.” He was fully capable of being as obsessive as me, if he felt like it. And there was nothing like a few hundred million dollars to make him truly dedicated to a cause.

“And it wasn’t long before we singled this broad out. She even
looks
crazy, my God. And the cameras caught her talking to Bill, the ousted volunteer grip—badgering Harvey’s contact info out of him, I can only assume. Anyway, I have a friend at the FBI,” he said, which meant he was bribing someone at the FBI. “I got him to run the footage through some facial recognition software, and boom. We got a hit.”

“What are the odds?” I asked flippantly.

“Pretty good, when you used to work for the government but
had a big nervous breakdown that led to your involuntary incarceration in a mental hospital. That kind of shit goes down, and people will draw up
all kinds
of paperwork on your ass.”

“Oh, wow. So you’re not just hyperbolizing?”

“Is that even a word?”

“It is if I say so.”

He went on. “Then I wasn’t hyperbolizing, no. She’s a full-blown paranoid schizophrenic who was once a brilliant astrophysicist working at NASA’s installation in Florida.”

“That’s … Actually, that’s kind of sad.”

“It’s very sad, if you give a shit about crazy scientists, which I don’t. I give a shit about my penis bones, which are in that woman’s hands even as we speak.”

I didn’t giggle, even though I wanted to. “All right, fine. You’ve got a name and a psychiatric report. I don’t guess you’re going to make this easy for me, and give me a location?”

His response startled me. “How fast can you get to California?”

I hedged my bets. “Depends on where in California. It’s a big state.”

“Okay, I need you in a state park.”

“Kindly be more precise,” I urged.

“The San Juan Bautista State Park.”

“What makes you think she’s there?”

He said, “Credit card activity. She arrived last night, and has been eating gas station food or Carl’s Jr. ever since. And if that doesn’t speak to her depravity, I just don’t know what
does.
”

“Jesus, you’re a snob.”

“What of it? Listen, this park is about a hundred miles from San Francisco. You can fly into SF and hit the road. But do it fast. I don’t know how long she plans to stay, and I don’t know where she’s going next.”

“But you can track her via credit cards? That’s very helpful and convenient, I must admit.” It was exactly the kind of thing I might’ve thought of, if I’d had any idea how to go about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a friend at the FBI.

“Yes, I can keep an eye on her that way. But I need you to pin this bitch down fast, Ray. She’s up to something.” The ensuing silence was suspicious.

“Horace?” I pushed. “What do you mean, she’s up to something? How do you know that?”

“It’s … let’s say
hypothetically
possible … that she’s trying to
use
the bones.”

“Wait. What? Using them for magic, or for purposes inconsistent with their labeling? Because if she’s having
too
much fun with them, I’m not sure you want them back.”

“Stop making light of this!” he said, suddenly all sharpness and reproach. I’m not accustomed to seriousness from him, so it startled me. I was about to ask him what the big deal was when he continued. “I read about the fire that destroyed Harvey’s house—”

“After I told you about it. Nice detective work.”

“But what you
didn’t
tell me, I looked up. It was all over the local news—and it even made it to the conspiracy nuts on the Internet.”

“Lots of things make it to the conspiracy nuts.”

He said, “Yes, and
some
of those things are true. Come on—a freak storm, coming out of nowhere; lightning striking twice just to make sure the house went up in smoke …?”

“Could’ve been a coincidence,” I said. But even I didn’t believe me.

“It wasn’t a coincidence. It was
her
, covering her tracks. She’s using the bones to
bend.
”

“Bend? Are you trying to draw more penis jokes out of me?
Because if you give me a few minutes, I’ll think of some. You just wait.”

“She’s
bending
, Ray. Bending natural forces to her nefarious whims.”

“With the bones?”

“I
told
you they were intended for ceremonial magic. Weren’t you listening?”

I dropped myself into a seat by the wall. It was mostly decorative, and therefore not very comfortable, but I felt the need to sit down. “I was listening, but I didn’t know how serious you were. For that matter, I had no idea you actually knew a damn thing about ceremonial magic. Because before, you acted like you didn’t.” And really, the thought stopped just short of horrifying me.

“I don’t practice it, but I know something about it—otherwise I wouldn’t have pegged the bones, and don’t you dare turn that into another dick joke.”

The more I thought about it, the less it would’ve surprised me to find out that he was lying, and that he had a basement shrine with wands, powders, formulas, and the occasional pentagram. Horace is all about money and power, and ceremonial magic is all about power, if not money.

I didn’t call him out on it. Instead I said, “Fine, I won’t turn that one into a joke, even though you totally set me up with that straight line. But I was under the impression that magic is an inefficient, troublesome, and mostly pointless way to be greedy. From everything I ever heard, it seems like it’d take your entire life just to learn how to levitate an egg, much less do anything really important.”

“You’re not altogether wrong, but that’s why the bones are such a big, expensive deal. In a basic sense, they’re amplifiers—they take little magic and make it into big magic. All the bang for a
fraction of the effort. Practitioners euphemistically refer to it as ‘bending.’ Because you can’t break the laws of nature …”

I finished the sentiment for him. “You can only bend them.”

“Atta girl. I think she blew through one of the bones making that storm, or whatever you want to call it. Lightning struck twice because she was still getting the hang of it, not because the bones aren’t powerful enough to give her the necessary mojo. We need to get those things back, Raylene.”

“Because she’s going to destroy the world? Oh my God, Horace. Please tell me we’re not dealing with a supervillain here, because that kind of thing is so far outside my field of expertise that I’m getting a headache just thinking about it!”

He snorted. “No, Ray-baby. No one’s trying to save the world. I’m trying to save those bones! The more of them she burns up playing magic games, the fewer of them I have to sell … once you steal them back for me.”

Ah. That was more in character. “Right. Silly me, thinking there was an ounce of humanitarian spirit lurking anywhere within that black little heart of yours.”

“Silly indeed. Now get out to that park as soon as you can, and
get me those fucking cock rocks.
”

I
don’t know if Horace knew where I was when he’d called, or if he just assumed I’d picked up teleporting as a special skill somewhere in my travels. Maybe he honestly thought this Elizabeth Creed would hang around these particular stomping grounds for a few days yet—though that was an assumption fraught with peril. I didn’t know what she wanted, but I didn’t really think this poor woman was out to destroy the world. You have to be crazier than just schizophrenic to have an interest in that kind of thing. Usually you have to be a religious nut, too.

I hoped she wasn’t a religious nut.

And I hoped this park was close enough for me to get this out of the way tonight, because I’d just made plans to bolt for Atlanta, hadn’t I? And when all was said and done, Ian was the greater priority. Or that’s
what I told myself, as I tried to keep the needling thought of
hundreds of millions of dollars
out of my head.

I could use the money.
We
could use the money. It could make us more secure. It could keep us safe. Or as safe as any of us could reasonably expect to be.

With roundabout thinking like this, I convinced myself that the quest for Creed and the penis bones was a case that would benefit Ian as much as it’d benefit me. Call it trickle-down economics, if you must. But money in my bank account is good for all of us—blind, beautiful, beloved companions included.

Back in the hotel room, Adrian was lying on his bed and wrestling with the remote, which also worked by arcane ritual magic, or so it appeared. He could only get the channel to turn over when he aimed it from just the right angle, to just the right spot.

“Problems?” I asked, letting the door drag slowly shut behind me.

“I think it needs new batteries.” He smacked it against the nightstand. “Oh hey,
MythBusters
,” he declared upon getting the channel to move another notch. “I can lie around and watch this.”

“Clearly.”

“So what was that about?”

“My case,” I told him. “The one that doesn’t involve Ian or your sister.”

“I thought you didn’t have a case.”

“Remember that penis bone thing I told you about? It might be back on. Hey, what time is it?” I asked.

“Going on one in the morning. Why? You got a hot date?”

“Hardy har
har
. No. And I don’t have a lot of time, either—not if I want to scratch this off the list tonight.” I dragged out my laptop and plugged it in, since the battery was getting low. “You ever hear of a place called the San Juan Bautista State Park?”

“No,” he admitted. “Why? You thinking about taking a tourist detour?”

“Yeah. Horace said it’s about a hundred miles from here.”

“And you’ll find your rod nuggets there?”

“I don’t know. But he gave me a lead on the woman who stole them. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic who used to work for NASA. Horace basically caught her on tape. And he’s been watching her credit cards—don’t ask me how; I don’t know the details. Give me a minute to boot up, and I’ll look it up. All knowledge is contained within the Internet, after all.”

Within two more minutes I had the park’s website on the screen and Adrian sitting on the bed beside me, as if we were naughty teenagers sharing a monitor full of porn. I clicked around a little and discovered that the park was a pretty place like most old missions, but I didn’t quite see the significance.

What did Elizabeth Creed want there?

Adrian asked it, just as I was thinking it. “What does this woman want from this place?” It surprised me, how his question had come right on the heels of my wondering. It was an obvious question, one any intelligent person might have spontaneously generated; but again I thought of the sips he’d taken, and I worried that maybe great minds don’t necessarily think alike … that maybe sometimes they’re artificially linked by a bloody cocktail.

I swallowed and answered as if there was nothing weird about it—since there might not be, for all I knew. “Horace didn’t say.”

“He might not know.”

“He
must
not. Otherwise, he would’ve told me. Anyway, this is the place, and she’s been hanging around it.” I glanced over at the big digital numbers on the hotel clock, confirmed what I already knew, and said, “If we want to head over there tonight, we’ll need a hotel waiting for us.”

“Us? Will I get a cut of this gig if I keep you company?”

“Maybe if you make yourself useful,” I retorted, but it brought up a good point. “I’m not in the habit of doing these ‘retrieval’ gigs with a partner, so if you want to head out in the morning without me, there’d be no hard feelings. But since I’m already here, it’d be a little dumb for
me
to drive back to Seattle without checking it out.”

“Sure, I hear what you’re saying.” He shrugged. “But it’s not like I’m doing anything important at home until Friday night. I already put in for the time off in order to come down here with you.”

“And if you can talk me out of a cut, so much the better, eh?”

“Right.”

“But dude, not twenty minutes ago we were having a … discussion about me trying to keep you out of harm’s way. It’d be awfully damn inconsistent of me to say, ‘Hop in my car, baby—let’s hit the road.’ ”

“Naw, not inconsistent. Logical!” he insisted, reaching for his suitcase. “There’s a world of difference between keeping me out of a vampire den and keeping me away from one lone crazy lady with a box of mystical peen.”

“Okay, I can see that. But she’s not just one lone crazy lady with a box of mystical peen. She’s one lone crazy lady who successfully murdered a man and blew up his house with a box of powerful relics. And when I frame it that way, now that I think about it … no, I’m
not
super-comfortable with the idea of you joining me.”

“You’re not my mother,” he groused as he began to pack. “And I’m not Domino. Think of it this way: I’m far less likely to get into trouble because the crazy-lady gig isn’t personal to me. You can grant me that much, can’t you? Even when we went after
Bruner—which was
completely
fucking personal—I didn’t do anything to endanger either one of us. You’re not the only badass on the block, you know.”

He had me there.

Adrian and I had worked together just fine on a personal mission the previous year—I mean, we’d hunted down a guy and killed him together, so I knew I could trust him to pull his own weight. But this was different. This was my real job, and I’d never invited anyone to ride shotgun before.

I had a feeling it didn’t matter. And although I could easily leave him behind … I didn’t want to. Maybe he was right, and it’d be okay. After all, this woman didn’t know anyone knew about what she’d done, much less that anyone was after her. We’d catch her off guard, steal the box of goodies, and be back home before forty-eight hours were out.