The apartment was on the fifth floor of a postmodernist block formed of glass and steel, complete with a walkway tube that looked like a hamster habitat zigzagging its way up the front of the tower. As we walked in the main entrance, I wondered how they kept people from skateboarding or biking down what was essentially a seven story ramp. If this building had been in the Warehouse District where I lived, they would have outlawed the tube as a public health hazard. But dignity and money went hand in hand, so maybe it was never a problem here.
"Mohammed Murphy," Bowers said as we crossed the immaculate lobby to the elevators. "Goes by Mo on all his documentation. Arrested last week for smuggling some sort of endangered bird. He took a swing at the officers with a boat oar and then tried to run, so he's been sitting in jail all this time."
His voice was almost hypnotic, warm and confident, and it made me like him a little better. It also made me wonder if it was enhanced by a spell, and I missed part of what he was saying as I searched for any sign of magic. Nothing. He just really had a great voice. When I tuned back in, Bowers had finished explaining that the police had obtained a warrant to search for anything relevant to Mo's smuggling business or other illegal enterprises — which covered a whole lot of ground when I thought about it.
At some point, the police had noticed spelled amulets on the animals. That put serving the warrant squarely in FBME territory, but there had been some mix-up about transferring the paperwork. Both sides were pointing fingers at each other, but the upshot was that Bowers was on his own with an evidence technician because everyone else was in Seattle setting up a task force and the warrant was only valid until midnight.
Honestly, I didn't need to know anything about Mo, but it was better than standing in silence as the elevator whisked us upward. The fifth floor landing had a door to the hamster tube, and I decided going that route on the way down would be my reward for dealing with all this.
Mo lived at the end of the hall farthest from the exterior walkway, which gave him a clear view of the river. There were only a few residences per floor, each about four thousand square feet. My apartment would fit in the hallway with room to spare. And I had a roommate. "Smuggling must pay pretty well," I said as Bowers took a set of keys out of an evidence bag.
"Hm? Oh, the building. He inherited the apartment from his parents." While I'd been goggling at the wealth on display, Bowers hadn't even noticed. Which meant he was used to such things. That fit with the suit and the shoes, but though FBME agents were paid more than evidence technicians, they didn't make this much. No, he had money from somewhere else.
While I contemplated that, Bowers knocked on the door. "FBME," he called. "We have a warrant to search the premises."
Vampires could sense humans within a 20-foot radius — it had something to do with their sensitivity to energy — but this apartment was large enough that someone could be inside without Bowers knowing. He knocked again, then picked through the keys on the keyring.
As he slid the key into the deadbolt, I suddenly remembered there were things I was supposed to do before it was safe to open the door. "Wait!"
Bowers froze.
Smoothing out the cheat sheet I'd shoved in my pocket, I skimmed the procedure. There probably wasn't much point looking for runes in front of the door. For one thing, they would be under the carpet, and there was no way to look without cutting out a section. For another, Bowers was already standing there; if there had been a spell triggered by proximity, it would have gone off by now.
"Why do I get the feeling you've never done this before?" Even with disbelief threaded through, his voice was still beautiful.
"Give me a sec," I said, skimming over the rest.
"I just need you to go inside and disable the anti-vampire ward. It should take you thirty seconds, tops."
"And the longer you distract me, the longer it will take." I shoved the paper back in my pocket. "Okay, we should be good to open the door." Maybe this apartment wouldn't have an anti-vampire ward at all, and I could just leave him here and go back to work.
He unlocked the door without another word and pushed it open with the knob. His hand stopped short at the boundary, so the door slowly eased open. Bowers pushed his palm against the air, gaining a quarter inch before he yanked his hand back and shook it, as if it stung. He moved to the side and waited.
"Thirty seconds?" I asked.
"They say it's always right next to the door."
The vampire knew more about my job here than I did. I poked the air with one finger, ready to snatch it back if I felt anything, but my hand went through without resistance. It really was too much to hope that the door was warded against everyone and we could just leave.
The rest of the procedures I had on my cheat sheet boiled down to "find the spell and disable it." That was something I could do. Understanding spells took years of study and creating spells took innate talent, but breaking spells could be done by any idiot with water, salt, flames, or a bit of force.
Pulling out the shaker of salt I'd liberated from the break room, I crossed over the threshold. Mo's apartment had a wall of windows on two sides, so I didn't need to flip on the lights when I entered. Everything looked vaguely familiar, which was odd. I definitely would have remembered if I'd been in this building before. The living room had a leather couch that would have fit fifteen people, but there were no signs anyone had ever used it. The air smelled stale — nobody had been inside while Mo had been in prison. At least he didn't have a cat who'd been waiting all this time for someone to feed it.
Right next to the door, Bowers had said. I searched, but I didn't see anything anchoring a spell. If it was on the wall under a layer of paint, we might be here all day. A small table near the door held a carved wooden bowl, the kind interior decorators put in their catalogs for holding keys and mail, as if it wouldn't immediately fill up with everything else that had no specific place.
"He bought the full set of furnishings from the furniture store," I muttered as I looked around again. That was why it looked so familiar. I passed this exact layout on the corner of Thirty-second and Brown every day on my way to work. The only thing original was a mosaic set into the wall depicting Katie Tucker's last ride. This one was expertly done, but the artist had changed the river from blue to red, making it look as if the boats floated on a tide of blood. It was an odd image to embed in this beige and white apartment.
From out in the hallway, Bowers called, "Problem?"
"No." If Mo didn't mind living in a generic showroom, who was I to say he was doing it wrong? Trix and I ate breakfast on a table we'd scavenged from the street and refurbished with tubes of glitter acrylic paint her ex-boyfriend had left behind.
The carved bowl didn't have anything in or under it, and neither did the table. So much for Bowers's certainty that the ward would be right inside the door. Moving past the mega-couch, I checked the glass-topped coffee table. Yep, it even had the pyramid of wooden balls from the furniture store. There were a few rings from glasses someone hadn't put a coaster under, but no sign of the spell anchor.
I chose the kitchen next because it had a line of sight to the front door. Something beeped as I walked past the refrigerator and I stopped. Five seconds later, it beeped again. "Uh, I may have a problem here."
"What?"
The beeps sped up, in the way they did when a home security system was about to call the cops. Or a bomb was about to go off in a thriller movie while the hero tries to decide which wire to cut. But this wasn't a standard security system, and I didn't think it would just sound an alarm.
Screw it. I hadn't signed up for this. I sprinted for the door.
Just before I reached the hallway, I hit an invisible barrier so strong that I rebounded, landing flat on my back on the floor. Blinking at the ceiling in confusion, I tried to figure out how I'd ended up there.
"Perkins! Get up!" Bowers was agitated. "You need to disable that thing."
The beeps became a solid wall of noise. Then there was silence.
I raised my head. Nothing happened. Bowers was still standing in the hallway, looking like he would rush in and beat the alarm to death if he could just get past the anti-vampire ward. And between us, I could see another ward, one that hadn't been there before.
I couldn't get out until I took that one down.
"This doesn't normally happen, does it?"
He ignored my question. "Get up and find that thing right now."
As I climbed to my feet, I examined the new spell. Since it had been triggered in one location and affected only this door, it was easier to trace. "Kitchen cabinet," I said aloud as I followed the line of magic back to the kitchen. It was probably where they had set the anti-vampire ward, too. By having the second one show up, they'd actually made the place less secure.
A loud screech from the bedroom interrupted my thoughts. That had been something big and bird-like. "What was that?"
The answer to my question trotted into the living room and screeched again. It was almost as tall as me and had wings. At first, I thought it was some sort of deformed pelican. Then it opened its tapered jaw, and I saw a row of short, sharp teeth.
That was a pterodactyl, my brain informed me in disbelief, even as I was running away. I rounded the couch, but it hopped over. With a speed that I could never match, it darted forward and grabbed my leg in its jaws and clamped down. Its teeth went through my khakis, through my skin, and down to the bone. I screamed.
As much as I'd like to say my response was logical and carefully determined, the truth was that my instincts kicked in and I performed the same "Get it off me!" maneuver I would have done if a wasp had come near me. It wouldn't have done anything at all if the bracers hadn't slipped down over my hands and hit the pterodactyl. Its flesh shriveled where the bracer made contact, black oily smoke rising between us.
The pterodactyl released my leg and jumped back, circling the couch warily. I could make out the imprint of the bracer on one cheek. My heart pounded in my ears as I scrambled to keep furniture between us.
Bowers yelled, "Destroy the ward and let me in to help!" But even though I knew knocking out the ward was the only way to survive, I was too frightened to turn away from this dinosaur.
(Though pterodactyls were technically not dinosaurs, as one of my grad school friends was fond of telling people, since they lacked the hole in their hip bones and the crest on their upper arm bone. Even as I was fighting for my life, my brain was stuck on pedantic distinctions. Also, Amar was going to be so upset he wasn't here right now when I told him about it later.)
I limped as I rotated to keep the pterodactyl in front of me. Now that it wasn't chewing on my leg, I could see that it was magically animated. Probably that should have been obvious, since pterodactyls had been extinct for tens of millions of years. All the magic tied back to something in the kitchen cabinet, except now there was a no-longer-extinct not-dinosaur blocking my access.
But I had a weapon that I knew worked. The pterodactyl was wary of the bracers now, which gave me a chance to limp sideways around the couch, keeping the glass wall close to my back. The creature feinted. I almost fell down when I jumped to avoid it.
"Keep it away from your throat," Bowers said, the first useful thing he'd offered since… well, since I'd met him. He was right. Contact with the bracers would make it let go if it grabbed my leg again, but if it grabbed my throat, I'd be dead before I could react.
Another step closer to the kitchen. It cocked its head, as if thinking about my motives. Then it screeched, a sound which paralyzed me long enough for it to rush forward, jaws agape, aiming for my face. I caught a whiff of smoke and rotting flesh.
Though I tried to knock it aside, my reactions were too slow and my hand ended up in its mouth — which worked even better than I'd planned. The back of its throat bubbled where it touched the bracer. It tried to back away, but its teeth caught on my shirt and I went with it.
By that time, I'd realized this was the best position to be in, and I clamped its head to me with my other forearm. Flesh sizzled, I screamed, the pterodactyl roared, and then all at once, its head popped and I was showered with gobbets of putrid flesh.
I stood, shaking, as noxious fluid mixed with my blood and dripped onto the floor. When had I signed up for this?