Chapter Seventeen

The good news was that Stone’s magical trace was still connected to Charles Davis. The shoelace still glowed, and when he glanced at the map, it still pointed him in a direction, indicating that the link was still active.

The bad news was that the man was apparently moving around a lot. Stone felt like he was playing a bizarre game of hide and seek, where every time it seemed as if Davis had finally settled somewhere and Stone got close, he’d skip tantalizingly away again. If Stone didn’t know better, he would have sworn Davis was trying to avoid him. That was absurd, of course: there was no way in the world that the man could have any idea Stone was tracking him magically. The only thing that might even be possible was that he’d phoned home and his roommate had told him that someone had called looking for him, but since Stone hadn’t identified himself and he was sure his American accent was good enough to pass muster in casual company, he couldn’t see how Davis could have made any kind of useful connection. Even in the unlikely event that the roommate had traced his phone number and discovered his identity, that still didn’t give him anything to go on: Stone didn’t exactly advertise the fact that he was a genuine mage capable of tracking people based on psychic emanations from their basketball shoes.

So, putting aside that line of conjecture, the only other likely explanation was simply that Davis was out by himself or with friends, perhaps club-hopping or just driving around. Stone knew he’d catch up with him eventually, but he hoped it was soon. It was mentally taxing work to keep the connection open, navigate in Davis’s current direction (which kept changing), and keep at least part of his mind on his driving. He’d been doing it for a little over three hours now, and he’d already had two scares. The first was when he thought he’d lost Davis after having to make a quick stop for gas an hour into the chase. Fortunately, he’d gotten close enough that after a couple of stressful moments he’d picked up the trail again.

The second was even more nerve-wracking: he’d been so busy trying not to lose the track that he hadn’t noticed that he’d ventured back into East Palo Alto and had picked up an escort: three leather-jacketed figures on motorcycles, all of them sporting the red and black DMW logo. He’d diverted quickly back on to the freeway and managed to lose them in traffic long enough to use a quick spell to disguise the Jaguar. They’d gone past, their heads tracking back and forth as they tried to spot him, but the close call left him rattled. He had no interest in tangling with gangers tonight, not as tired as he was.

At this point he was regretting his whole decision to do this, but too stubborn to stop. He had gone to all the trouble of obtaining Davis’s shoe and performing the ritual to track him; he was going to find the man, even if it took him the rest of the night. It had become a matter of professional pride. He had no idea what he was going to say to him when he found him (“Hello, I’m a mage. I’ve been tracking you for three hours using bits of your stolen shoe—seriously, invest in some Odor Eaters—and I want to know what you know about the disappearance of Verity Thayer, a girl I might or might not have a connection with,” hardly seemed the right approach) but he was nonetheless fixated on the idea that he was going to find him.

He glanced at the shoelace. The glow, when he shifted once again to magical sight, wasn’t as bright as it had been before. The magic was starting to fade. He’d have maybe another hour or two before it faded completely, but if he didn’t find Davis soon it would get progressively harder to track him if he continued to move. It was now after midnight: even if Davis were out drinking at a bar, the bars closed at two a.m. Surely he’d head home after that, if not earlier, especially since Stone knew from the boy at New Horizons that he had a shift tomorrow.

Davis was on the move again. The glowing indicator shifted, pointing to the north. It looked like he was off the freeway, heading east into Redwood City. Stone got over to the slow lane and began looking for an exit, taking occasional sideways checks at the map to make sure he was heading in the right direction. A few miles later he took the highway 84 exit, the same one he was convinced that Davis had taken.

The glow was steady, brighter. He was getting close again.

It took him another twenty minutes to triangulate, driving around while watching the map, the road, and checking to make sure that no one was following him. The last thing he needed was the DMW to show up now, or some cop to get suspicious about his meanderings. When at last he turned onto Broadway Street and began cruising down a road dominated by warehouses and light industrial firms, the glow on the shoelace was so bright that it was illuminating part of the map. He slowed the car, creeping forward.

The glow vanished.

Stone stared at it, pulling over and idling at the curb in front of a warehouse’s dark bulk. “No, no, no!” he protested, picking up the map and the lace and shaking them as if trying to infuse them with power. He’d been so close! How had Davis—

A chill gripped him as the answer came to him.

There were only two ways a tracking like this could stop so abruptly: one was if the subject was under magical protection.

The other was if he was dead.

“Bugger…” Stone whispered. He looked around to make sure nobody was watching him, then put the car back in gear and moved slowly forward, watching almost exclusively with magical sight now. If Davis had been killed this close to him, the energy from his death would still be detectable, but he wouldn’t have long to find it. He’d have to hurry, if he was going to—

Magic flared, bright and strong, up ahead of him. Not death residue—it was too potent for that. Whatever was going on up there, black magic was definitely involved. If he could get to it soon enough, he might be able to help.

Without thinking, without considering the consequences of what he was about to do or how stiff and fatigued he still felt from the drive and the day’s expenditures, he gunned the engine, and the car surged forward.