Crime Spells

Suit’s smile slipped just a little, but he couldn’t break the Influence. “Follow me.”

He butlered me along a walkway that obscured the occupants behind the screens, then down a plush, red-carpeted hallway. At the end of the hallway was a modern glass and lead door that both contained and blocked magic. Behind that was probably Trager’s suite.

My heart started beating too fast. I didn’t want to go behind those doors, didn’t want to see what kind of man Trager really was.

Suit walked up to the door, and my stomach tightened in fear. Please, no. Don’t open that door. He walked past the door and down the darker hallway to the left. Plain wood doors were spaced out evenly on either side of us.

Now would be a good time to try Hounding. I wasn’t kidding when I said I went to Harvard. I knew how to recite mantras silently. I knew how to draw magic into my sense of sight and smell by casting the spell with one hand and adjusting my bra strap with the other. It was similar to how stage magicians keep the audience’s eyes where they want them to be, except, you know, this might be a lot more dangerous because there might be people with guns pointed at my head.

I pulled magic into my senses. The stink of Blood magic went from overwhelming, to so thick I gagged. Sweet cherry mixed with too many other odors: turpentine, animal sweat, rot, sex. I inhaled carefully as we strolled down the hall. It was damn near impossible to untangle the smells and signatures of the hundreds of spells that lingered in the air. I couldn’t smell anything that might be even remotely close to Rheesha’s scents.

Maybe Pike was wrong. Or crazy. That thought had crossed my mind. Maybe he was grieving for his granddaughter and grasping at straws. Or maybe he’d been part of a plan to get rid of me-take out the newest Hound on the block. Suit could be in on it. Maybe Suit wasn’t really under my Influence. Maybe I was about to lose hold on my concentration, my spells, and really fuck this up.

Fingers of panic rose up my throat.

I thought calm thoughts, took a deep breath, and tried not to choke. If I panicked, this whole charade was going to crash around me.

Then I smelled it, the hint of Rheesha’s perfume and the musty smell of snake. Not a sure thing, but something to hope for.

Suit stopped at a door and sca

“Thank you,” I said. “Now, walk to the nearest empty room and go to sleep.”

He stood there, and my heart beat harder. “Be a good boy. Go to sleep.”

Suit walked woodenly down the hall to the right.

I stepped into the room and turned on the light.

Small, with just enough space for a king-sized bed and two chairs. There was also a table on top of which were tubes and rubber hoses, knives, and other things I didn’t have time to get pissed off about.

Rheesha Miller sat with her back against the headboard. Her legs were drawn up close to her body and her wrists were tied to the headboard, just high enough that her hands were blue. Her bare arms looked as though someone had inked a red tattoo from wrist to shoulder, but the smell of her blood and sex was heavy in the room. That wasn’t a tattoo-she’d been cut. Since she was naked, I knew they hadn’t had time to carve up the rest of her yet. It took her a full minute to look over at me. Brown-black eyes like her sister’s but wide, bloodshot, and doped up.

Note to self: After I learn to use a gun, come back here and kick some ass.

Screw the call-the-cops plan. I was getting this girl out of here now.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “Stay quiet.” I put Influence behind it, but I don’t think I had to. By the time I found a knife from the table and had cut her free of the rubber shackles, she had passed out.

Which presented another problem. How was I going to nonchalantly stroll out of this place with a naked girl over my shoulder?

Sweet hells.

I looked around the room for clothing, found nothing.

Think, Allie. You went to Harvard. You’re supposed to be smart. I couldn’t Influence everyone in the building-I was already fatigued and headachy from pushing Suit around. I didn’t have time or the equipment to set something on fire, couldn’t afford a stupid cell phone.

What was it one of my roommates had once told me? It was easy to steal something big if you just looked as if you had already bought it.

And since I didn’t know where the exits were, didn’t even know the floor plan, that’s exactly what I was going to do. Walk out of this place with a naked girl on my shoulder.

First, I repeated a mantra. My voice was shaking-hells, all of me was shaking. I pulled magic up into my hands and then into a glyph of Obscuring. That spell was most often used by people who wanted to cover up dry patches in their lawns or fruit sellers hiding bruises. It didn’t work well on large-scale things like people, but it was the only thing I could think of at the moment.

I arranged Rheesha’s arms and legs and lifted her across my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. She probably weighed ninety pounds.

I took a deep, calming breath, opened the door, and strode down the hall.

I have never taken a longer, more nerve wracking walk in my life. Calm, stay calm.

The door to my left, one door away from the glass and lead monstrosity, opened.

Don’t look, don’t look. But I looked.

His eyes were soft brown with flecks of gold, and they widened in surprise when he saw me. He was dark ski

He stepped closer, and I noticed he wore a clean white shirt and black slacks-a waiter’s uniform-and he smelled of pine cologne. He touched my wrist gently.

“This way.” He tugged me back through the door he’d just come through and down a windowless passage that was maybe a delivery entrance. I noted belatedly that he was muttering a mantra, throwing around hiding, warding, and other high-level spells that I wouldn’t expect a waiter to know, spells that left the taste of mint in my mouth.

We exited on a side street. He let the door close behind him.

“Who is she?” He pulled off his shirt and handed it to me.

“Rheesha Miller.” Smooth, Beckstrom. Way to keep a secret.

The man shook his head. “I didn’t know. Do you have a way to get her to the hospital?”

Before I could ask him why he was helping or even who the hell he was, the sound of a Ford truck started up. Apparently Pike had no trouble Hounding me. “Do I know you?”

“No. But you’re Beckstrom’s daughter, right?”

I nodded.

“Welcome home.” He glanced over as Pike’s truck turned the corner. Then he ducked back inside, as if maybe he didn’t want Pike to see him.

Crazyville. But damn, anything that got me out of that hell hole was okay with me.

Pike got out of the truck and left the engine ru

“She’s alive.”

Pike helped me get her inside the truck, and I draped the white shirt over her. Neither of us said anything on the way to the emergency room. Rheesha slept. Pike didn’t look over at me, his gaze locked grimly on the street ahead. Only the bobble-headed dog nodded like everything was going to be okay. I, for one, hoped the dog was right.

I spent the next month dealing with the police, the courts, and a constant migraine. I got one look at Trager during a hearing, and he got one look at me. He was a frightening man, and he has since taken up residence in my nightmares. From what the police told me about him, I had just made myself a very dangerous enemy.

Pike didn’t call, didn’t thank me in any way. He really was a bastard. He owed me a hell of a favor, and I was not going to let him forget it.

But right now, there was someone else I wanted to talk to: Mama.