Trail of Dead (13 page)

“What did she like? I mean, what did she do for fun?”

It took me a long moment to answer. “She didn’t care about most of the things people do for fun—drinking, television, hobbies. She liked going out to fancy dinners, I guess, and shopping. But mostly she just liked playing with her favorite toy.”

“You,” he said softly.

I didn’t answer, and after a moment he said, “What? What’s bothering you?”

“That couple in the Jeep,” I said. “The ones she killed for me.”

“Scarlett, that wasn’t your fault.”

“That’s not what I mean…it’s just, killing them really doesn’t fit Olivia’s style. She does everything on purpose, for a reason. Killing those two witches theoretically makes sense, to hide what she and her partner were going to do,” I said. “But I don’t see the point of killing the Reeds.”

“Can’t they serve a purpose as a scare tactic?”

“That’s just it,” I said, getting frustrated. I couldn’t explain why, but something about the Reeds’ deaths felt
wrong
. “The thing about Olivia is that she doesn’t do threats or scare tactics. She’s already scary because she just
does
these things. Killing the Reeds, it’s like a taunt, but that’s all. It’s an empty gesture.”

“You think maybe they have a different significance? Like they knew Olivia somehow, or knew what she was planning?”

“No, not exactly,” I said. “I just…have a bad feeling about this. I think we were supposed to make the connection between Olivia and the witch murders. Then we were supposed to have a big meeting tonight to worry about her. I think she’s pulling our attention in one direction, on purpose.”

“That’s starting to sound kind of paranoid, Scarlett,” he said, not unkindly. “And even if you’re right, there’s not much we can do about it tonight. We should get some sleep.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said absently. But I couldn’t turn off my brain. This thing we were all apparently doing, where I was the bait or the trap or whatever, that was an awful feeling—after all, how was being a tool for Dashiell any different from being a toy for Olivia?

I rolled onto my stomach, cuddling into the quilt. Olivia had always treated me like I was this vaguely human-shaped piece of clay, and she got to be the master sculptor who made me into whatever she wanted. I was her confidante, her apprentice, her foster daughter, her servant. I’ve always thought
brainwashing
is a stupid
word—this isn’t the Cold War—but it was something along those lines.

And I was the perfect plaything for Olivia. She made me start running every day, and fussed over my clothes and my grammar and my food until I could hardly pick between soup or salad without consulting her. It took me years to wake up. It was like one of those Lifetime movies where the wife finds a lipstick stain on the collar and suddenly these pieces fall into place—the late nights at “work,” the mysterious phone calls, the sudden disappearances. Then the wife always feels colossally stupid. That was me, only instead of a cheating husband I had a bat-shit crazy homicidal mentor who’d wormed her way into being my only connection to life.

Luckily, when I finally did realize all that, she was dying. Or she was supposed to have been dying. My employers seemed to have dismissed the problem of how Olivia, a null, had managed to get herself infected with vampirism, but it bothered me. No vampire should have been able to get near her without becoming a human again. I was used to not understanding things in the Old World, but I was also used to having someone to ask for the answers I needed.

I thought back to when I’d permanently turned Ariadne. The effort had caused my radius to weaken, leaving me vulnerable to magical attack for a few days. Was it possible that Olivia could do the same thing? No, she’d been way too weak at the end to channel that kind of energy.

Or had she? I’d found out about Olivia murdering my parents about ten days before she’d died, and I hadn’t visited her again. I had no idea what her final days had been like.

Suddenly, despite the heavy quilt, I was freezing. I rubbed my hands together under the blanket, but it didn’t help. I peeked over the side of the couch again, but Jesse appeared to have drifted off. Max looked up at me with hopeful eyes, slapping his tail against
the blankets. Moving as quietly as possible, I lowered myself onto the floor between Max and the couch, with the dog between Jesse and me. He licked my hand happily, and with the dog’s warmth against my side, I finally fell asleep.

I woke up just before seven, for no particular reason other than a stiff neck. As I started to stretch, I realized that my back was up against Jesse’s chest, his arm around me. I kept my eyes closed and held my breath for just a heartbeat, feeling what it was like to wake up with his Armani-and-oranges scent around me and his breath on my hair.

Then, of course, my phone rang. The tinny speaker chirped its rendition of “Black Magic Woman.” I extricated myself as fast as I could manage without elbowing Jesse in the ribs and crawled forward to grab the phone. He stirred a little, but his eyes stayed closed. As I sat up, I spotted Max’s tail thumping happily where the dog lay sprawled across the couch. “Traitor,” I whispered to the dog, and then reached for the phone.

“Hey, Kirsten,” I said quietly.

“Scarlett?” Her voice was strained and tight, even more so than at the meeting.

“What happened?” I asked immediately.

“She made her move,” Kirsten said, a tremor in her voice. “Where are you?”

I felt an automatic twinge of embarrassment, but reminded myself that I had nothing to be ashamed of. Jesse and I were under Dashiell’s orders to stick together. “Cruz’s parents’ house.”

“Give me the address. We need to talk
now
.”

“Hang on.” I poked Jesse with a foot until his eyes opened. He stared at me blearily, and I held out the phone. “Tell Kirsten how to get here. I’m gonna jump in the shower.”

I showered quickly and brushed my teeth, pulling clean jeans and a long-sleeved green T-shirt out of my overnight bag. Thank you, Molly. I needed my comfort clothes.

Jesse must have used an upstairs shower, because his hair was as wet as mine when I came back into the kitchen. I noticed a startling lack of kinetic energy in the room and figured the dog must be outside. “Coffee?” he asked.

“You bet.”

We heard the barking at 7:20, and Jesse went to let Kirsten and an ecstatic Max inside. She wore a denim jacket over brown cords and a peasant-style shirt, and her hair was neat, but there was something off about her. She looked sort of wild-eyed and desperate, like she’d been the night before when she was yelling at Dashiell, but she seemed more relaxed too. Maybe she was just relieved that the other shoe had dropped.

I was impatient to hear what Olivia had finally done, but Jesse’s good manners acted up and he had to offer her a cup of coffee first. “Only if you’ve got a to-go mug,” she said distractedly. “You and I need to hit the road.”

“Wait, you and Jesse?” I said with my eyebrows raised. “Not me?”

“No, I’m afraid you can’t come,” Kirsten replied. She stopped and took a breath, like her brain had just caught up with the fact that she was having this conversation. “Let me sit for just a second.”

Jesse found a travel mug in the cupboard and filled it for her. Kirsten thanked him and wrapped her fingers around the mug. “When you’re ready,” he said quietly.

I was less patient. “Uh, Kirsten?” I waved a hand. “Share with the class?”

“There was a murder last night at Beth Israel, in San Diego. Well, a storage facility near the temple. An elderly rabbi was killed, and something was stolen.”

“Okay…”

She looked directly at Jesse, holding his eyes. “Scarlett says that you are a good investigator, and Dashiell seems to trust you to find Olivia. I’d like you to come with me to San Diego and ask some questions.”

“Sure,” Jesse said mildly. “But it would help if I knew what I was asking about.”

“Right.” Her gaze shifted to include me again. “How much do you know about alchemy?” she asked.

Jesse and I exchanged a look. “Common metals into gold?” I offered. My dad had been a history teacher, and spent many a family dinner telling stories and theories to my brother and me. As a result I knew a ton of useless facts and historical anecdotes, without having much actual comprehensive knowledge of any one period in history. On the bright side, I was occasionally excellent at Trivial Pursuit.

“Certainly, yes, the ancient alchemists worked on things like that. They were scientists. But in witchcraft the term refers to the creation of magical artifacts. Every once in a while a witch is powerful enough to channel magic
into
an object and have it stay there.”

“Why?” Jesse asked. “What’s the point?”

“Think of it like a…shortcut. If you want homemade bread, you can go out and buy all the ingredients of the quality you want, then mix and bake the bread. Its quality will depend partly on your ingredients, and partly on your talent. Spells are a lot like cooking that way: you follow certain rituals, contribute the talent you have, and theoretically get what you want.” She moved the mug toward her face, then paused with her hands in midair. “Cream?”

Jesse got her some out of the fridge. She nodded a thanks and continued, “With a magical artifact, the goal is to acquire accessible power that is earmarked for one purpose. So instead of following all those steps, you just have what you want ready.”

“Like a bread maker,” I said, grinning. I earned a weary smile.

“Yes, exactly. Only you don’t even have to add ingredients anymore. Just push a button and get bread. That’s what alchemy can do.” She looked impatiently at her watch. “Detective Cruz, we should get moving.”

But Jesse made no move to stand. “Why keep that a secret?” he asked. “What’s the big deal?”

Kirsten took a long sip of coffee, like she was delaying. Her eyes jumped between Jesse and me. “Because of nulls,” she said finally, and I straightened up in surprise.

“Me? What did I do?”

“Not just you, all nulls. Witches have worked to keep such artifacts away from you, because their power is only borrowed.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t get it,” Jesse said.

Kirsten nodded like she was expecting that and got up. “Watch.”

She looked around for a moment and then stepped across the kitchen and out of my radius. Picking up a small saltshaker, she held it against her mouth and whispered something. Holding her hand flat again, the little saltshaker began to rock back and forth on its edges, like it was trying to walk. “Holy crap!” Jesse said, then bit his lip. I elbowed him. “Sorry,” he added. Ignoring us, Kirsten took a few steps toward me, the little shaker still rocking. I felt it when she entered my radius; even felt the tiny zing of the active spell shorting out, like a fly crashing into a bug zapper. The saltshaker stilled in Kirsten’s hand. Meeting my eyes, Kirsten took a few steps backward, out of my radius. The saltshaker remained still.

“When I come close to Scarlett, my abilities vanish, but when I walk away again they return to me, because the power to manipulate magic
comes
from me. That’s what being a witch means. The saltshaker has no power of its own, so when I walk away again it’s still dead.” She shrugged. “This is just a tiny little spell, but real artifacts take years to build, sometimes using the power of an entire coven. And a null can take that away in
one second
.”

“You’re saying that I can undo magical objects,” I stated. “Permanently.”

“Yes. It’s happened before. The emerald table in Ireland, Stonehenge.”

“Stonehenge?” Jesse said incredulously. “Nulls neutralized Stonehenge?”

“Yes. It was too big to move or hide, and it was really only a matter of time before a null showed up. It might even have been accidental.”

I realized then that she’d been politely answering Jesse’s questions this whole time. And at the meeting the night before, she had ceased shooting her death-ray glare his way too. Maybe that was just because she was more pissed at Dashiell, but was it my imagination, or was she softening toward Jesse? “That’s why you don’t tell nulls about magical objects?” I asked, trying to keep that line of thought off my face.

“Yes. There are only a handful of artifacts left in the world that have dangerous power. Some witches believe we should expose all of them to nulls, for the safety of the world. Others believe those objects are part of our history and should be preserved.” She shrugged. “Both sides have a point.”

“Now explain the part where this connects to the witch murders,” Jesse prompted.

“In the car,” Kirsten promised him.

“Why can’t I come?” I asked, trying really hard not to sound like a whiny kid sister.

“Because,” Kirsten said gravely, “there was more than one magical object hidden at Beth Israel. I can’t let you get anywhere near the temple without compromising thousands of years of magical history.”

“Oh,” I said. “That.”

“But I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on Scarlett,” Jesse objected. “In case Olivia’s witch pal tries something during the day.”

“Right.” Kirsten frowned. “I’m sorry, I forgot for a moment. Okay, both of you get your things. I’m going to make a couple of calls, and I’ll meet you out front.”

She picked up her coffee and glided back toward the front door before Jesse and I could do more than gape at each other.

Jesse filled Max’s food and water bowls while I jerked a brush through my damp hair and rolled it into a bun. We grabbed our jackets and headed outside, where Kirsten was off the phone and waiting for us. “We’ll drop Scarlett off somewhere safe,” she announced.

“Can’t I just go to Hair of the Dog?” I asked with perhaps a little bit of whining in my voice. I was still angry with Eli, but at least he was a knowable factor, unlike whatever hidey-hole Kirsten was going to stick me in. I could hang out with Caroline or something.

She shook her head. “I did try Eli first. There was a big fight at Will’s bar last night, among the wolves. No one was killed, but I gather there’s quite a bit of blood to clean up. Besides, Hair of the Dog is too obviously a place where you might be found.”