Soul Guard (Elemental Book 5) (11 page)

He blanched. “No! Of course not! Julia never did
anything to upset anyone!”

“What did you two argue about on the night of her
accident? What did she accuse you of?” I asked.

“How did you know about that? Who are you?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“Get out of here! You’re not a cop, so get out of my
office!”

I started to let my magic take control, but I pulled
back at the last second. I refused to become like John. I had always been able
to handle cases without resorting to magic. “If I need to get one, you won’t be
able to keep it quiet. Right now, I’m only interested in finding out what
happened to Julia.”

It was as much common sense as it was instincts to
keep Julia’s whereabouts to myself. First of all, even if he didn’t know why
her records were tampered with, he should have been notified when she woke up.
Second, he wasn’t wearing his ring, suggesting they had problems in the
marriage. If I put that together with his obviously under-qualified secretary,
it suggested Mr. Emerson might have had something to do with his wife’s
accident.

“I don’t have to talk to you.”

“No, you don’t right now. I didn’t expect you to.
You’re a legal consultant; I’m sure you have clients to call. I’ll give you
some time to get your story together and I’ll be back with some motivation.”

“Are you threatening me?!”

“Of course. You lawyers are the best at placing the
blame using the law; we’re best at finding the perpetrator using methods that
the cops can’t. I laugh at legal tape.” I was lying, of course.

Personally, I stayed above the law unless it
conflicted with the paranormal world. I’ve killed two people and as illegal as
that was, they were both murderers that humans wouldn’t have been able to
contain. Either way, I knew some private investigators who loved to break the
rules and this lawyer had something to hide.

“What did you two argue about right before her car
accident?”

“She wanted me to come home. She said she was afraid
that someone was in the house with her. The police looked into it, though;
there were no broken locks or windows.”

“Did you work late often?”

“At that time, yes. I started working late about a
month or so before her accident.”

“Did she find that suspicious?”

“No, she knew why I was working late. We were married
for about a year when she found out that I was sleeping with my secretary,
Amanda. She bashed up Amanda’s car and stalked her until Amanda quit. Julia
hired herself as my new secretary. So I started sleeping with the barista down
the block. When she hired a P.I. and found out about that, too, she decided we
should have an open marriage, but only as long as it was both of us together.
She said she would kill me and the woman I was with if I tried to sleep with
someone without her.”

Okay, that was a new one. “So why did you start
working late?”

“Julia didn’t like the one-night-stands, so she got
us a girlfriend. I had to take on extra cases to keep her
and
Elena
happy.”

Another one I wasn’t expecting. “How did Elena feel
about it?”

“Elena was an engineer who got fired for
inappropriate behavior. She tried being a self-employed ‘knitter and sewist,’
but she didn’t make much, so I had to support her and my wife. She was happy
with it until Julia’s accident. Then she came to work for me as my assistant.
She’s taking the month off to have a baby.”

“A baby?”

“It isn’t mine. I wasn’t the only one she was seeing.
Apparently, she has a thing for married men.”

“Were any of your one-night-stands angry with you or
Julia?”

“Some were upset, but I never promised them anything
more.”

“Was the blue Cadillac that Julia was driving hers?”

“No. She had a flat tire, so I left my car with her
and Elena was supposed to drive me home. Elena refused because she had a nail
appointment, but I think she really just wanted me to work late every night.”

“What does the official report say happened?”

“The other driver said she ran a red light. She was never
able to say otherwise.”

“What do you think happened?”

“My wife was an excellent driver. I don’t know why
she was out in that rain, but I’m sure she didn’t run a red light. She was the
type of person to stop at yellow lights.”

“Alright. Give me Elena’s name and number. I’ll see
if she might know anyone who might know something more.”

“What else is there to know? She was in a car
accident.”

“That’s probably all it was, but I need to talk to
her anyway.”

He looked like he was going to argue, but then he finally
relented and wrote her name, number, and address on a sticky note. “Keep my
name out of it. It took me two years to get over it.”

“I’m only trying to get to the bottom of what
happened.”

*          *          *

I got back to the office fifteen minutes later and found
Scott drawing with marker all over the tile floor. I winced.

“They’re dry-erase markers and he knows he has to
clean it up when he’s done,” Henry said.

“I’m not concerned about that. What if he makes
something he loves? Wouldn’t it upset him when it gets ruined?”’

“I was worried about that, but he said he wanted to
draw on something bigger than paper.”

“Well, keep a can of spray paint in your car in case
he’s ever at Luana and Matheus’s house, so you can teach him about graffiti.
I’m sure there’s an arts center around here somewhere. You should give him a
chance to try out other things, like musical instruments and stuff.”

He grimaced. “My parents would…” he stopped himself.

I opened a mental link so that we could talk in our
minds. “
What
?”

“
They always said arts and music and such was for
girls and a complete waste of my real skills. I will never do that to Kitten.
If there is anything in the world he wants to try, unless it’s harmful to
himself, I want him to tell me
.”

“
That’s good. Let him know he can trust you to be
supportive. Just also know that he’s going to probably do some self-destructive
shit as well
.”

“
Why would he do that
?”

“
Because he’s a boy. You were a boy once
.”

“
With parents who were professional thieves
.”
His face paled and I felt his horror. “
What if he wants to steal stuff
?
If
I give him everything he wants, he’ll become spoiled, but if I don’t, he might
steal it instead
.”

“
The only thing you can do is teach him that
stealing is wrong and it will get him in serious trouble. As attached to you as
he is, I don’t think it’ll be a problem
.”

“
That’s now. He is not going to be so loving
forever
.”

“
He might surprise you
.” I closed the mental
connection and spoke out loud. “So, where is Julia?”

Henry leaned against my desk and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, that’s encouraging.”

“It took us a little longer to get here and she was
gone by the time we arrived. I tried to call.”

I cursed, because I’d forgotten to get a phone. “Even
if you were late, I doubt she would have left. She didn’t have anywhere to go
or any money. Did you notice any sign of a struggle?”

“No. I didn’t smell anything odd, there wasn’t any
broken glass, and the door lock hadn’t been tampered with. It was unlocked when
I arrived.”

“But why would she leave?”

“Did you tell her you thought someone was after her?”

“Sort of, right before I left her here alone. I’m not
sure it wasn’t just an accident, though. The only odd thing about it was the
missing records. She and her husband had a non-standard relationship, but I
don’t know if he had anything to do with her accident or not.”

Rocky’s presence filled my mind painfully. There was
nothing gentle about the gargoyle. While Vincent’s familiar might have been a
grumpy little bastard, he was an acquired taste. After all the times he helped
me in his unique, irritable way, I found him a little endearing. Rocky really
didn’t have a personality. I never heard speech, he only contacted me for
business, and I never saw him for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

The image of a man standing outside on the sidewalk
appeared in my mind. There was nothing strange about him by appearance and no
clear reason for him to have been singled out. Then black shadows formed into
another man behind him. With no warning to the unsuspecting victim, the shadow
walker made a motion with his hands and created a red fire that engulfed the
human. People screamed, but it was all over in an instant.

My vision changed to two little girls and a man on
top of a building. The girls were both crying and facing each other while the
man stood calmly to the side. One of the girls yelled in an Asian language I
couldn’t understand, then the other responded calmly. The man put his hand on
the calmer girl’s shoulder and leaned down to whisper in her ear. She raised
her hand and an invisible force of energy pulsed from her hand. The second girl
was propelled off the roof.

“
Stop
!” It did. My vision froze in place as if
I had hit the pause button. “
Save the girls
.” Knowing he would do
everything he could to save them because I told him to, I focused on my symbol.
Urgency actually worked in my favor this time and the next instant, I was in
the shadow pass. I focused on the man who had walked down the street. Even
without his name or anything, I knew I had to find him.”

The darkness vanished and left me standing right in
front of the stranger I was trying to save just as the shadow walker appeared
out of the darkness.

The reason the shadow walkers were only attacking
with fire was most likely because magic was different here than on Dothra.
Fortunately, Langril taught me how to fight a shadow walker here. I struck with
blinding red lightning before the Dothra wizard even realized I was there.

Unfortunately
, the shadow walker was able to
create a mass of energy that cushioned the blow, and although he went down, I
knew it wouldn’t be for long. The stranger who the shadow walker was after took
off running, along with everyone else.

Creating such a violent attack took a small toll on
me as well, so I wasn’t able to finish the shadow walker off before he got back
to his feet. It did, however, give him the motivation he needed to push his
magic to the next level. When crackling energy formed in his hands, I grabbed
the nearest object— a metal trashcan— to use as a shield.

Right before he could attack, a second shadow walker
appeared between us and struck my opponent. I gaped as the first shadow walker
vanished in thick shadows. The second Dothra wizard then turned to me and
struck with a wave of energy. It wasn’t like any of the other attacks; it
didn’t hurt. Instead, it just threw me backwards a little ways. The trashcan
did nothing to help, especially since it was empty. By the time I got back to
my feet, the second shadow walker was gone.

“What the hell was that about?”

*          *          *

Since I didn’t have my car or even a clue where I
was, I had to use the shadow pass to return to my apartment. Without turning on
the light, I started to sit down on the couch only to jump away at the last
second. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Vincent’s familiar was lying on the couch, but I
realized suddenly that something was different. He looked worse than usual; his
fur was grayer and more matted, and he had lost a fair amount of weight. The
cat didn’t even lift his head.

“Ghost?” I nudged him, but he still didn’t respond.
“What’s wrong?” I was really starting to get worried. The cat looked up at me
and then disappeared. He didn’t leave a note, an object, or anything else to
help me determine why he came in the first place.
Maybe he just wanted to
nap for a while
. He was around my age, which was ridiculous in cat years.

When I tried using my power to connect to my uncle’s
mind, it was closed as usual. Despite the fact that no one was able to protect
their minds from John, I never tried breaking the magic Vincent and Hunt
regularly used to protect theirs. I reached for my phone to call one of the
very few paranormals I knew who carried a phone, only to curse when I
remembered that it was
still
dead. Frustrated, I went out to buy a new
cell phone.

*          *          *

By the time I made it home with my new phone, Henry
was working on dinner. Cats may be carnivorous, but Scott loved pasta. “What
happened?” Henry asked.

“I’m not quite sure.” I explained the two visions,
how the two shadow walkers faced off, and how the second one didn’t go for the
kill shot on me when he had the chance.

“It could have been that he wasn’t after you, and
maybe he only had enough strength to attack once.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you check with Rocky to make sure that he saved
the girls?”

“Rocky is a girl, Daddy,” Scott said, shoving
spaghetti into his mouth with his fingers.

“Rocky is a gargoyle, Kitten,” I said. “I really
doubt he has a gender.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “No, Rocky is a girl.
I know the difference. Girls love me.”

“Okay, you’ve spent way too much time with Darwin,”
Henry said. The funny thing was that Scott had a point. If a woman had a drop
of motherly instinct in her, Scott brought it out.

“I’m going to head back to the office and work on
Julia’s case.” The words were barely out of my mouth when we heard a loud crash
outside. We ran to the window to see two cars out in the middle of the school
playground across the street. “That is the last place I expected to see a car
crash,” I said.