Six blocks later, we were sitting at a red light when Daria said, “Ray, when this light turns green, don’t move. Just sit here in the lane until it turns red again.” She was looking out the back window. “We’re being tailed. They’re either professionals or they’ve had training. It’s a two-car team—at least two, I should say. There may be a third in front of us or waiting to switch out.”
“Are you sure?” Annalise asked.
“The cars are generic but the plates are not. I spotted both in the parking lot, and now they’re switching positions. If we sit through the green—”
The light changed. “I get it,” I said, letting horns blare while I sat through the green. “We’re about to find out if these guys are cops.”
Cars nearly collided as they squeezed into the passing lane to get around me, and they gave me exactly the abuse I deserved as they passed us.
When the light turned red again, Daria said, “Switch with me.”
“Do it,” Annalise added before I could even react. I snapped open the seat belt and swapped places. Daria had her seat adjusted, the mirrors correct, and the seat belt in place before the light turned green again.
“No sirens,” she said as she drove into traffic. “Right? No handcuffs.”
Annalise turned to me. “We should flip one of these cars and—”
“They still might be cops, boss.” I didn’t have any love for cops, but fucking around with them could bring the kind of attention that would make our mission that much harder.
She scowled. “Let’s go slow for a mile or so, then fill up the tank.”
A few minutes later, we were driving along the waterfront, heading north. As requested, Daria kept our speed low, as though we were uncertain where we were going and wanted to take in the sights. “I can lose them, even in this van, but it won’t be pretty.”
Annalise unclicked her seat belt and moved into the back. “I don’t want to lose them.”
With a row of cars stacked up behind us, Daria kept puttering along until she turned into a gas station without signaling. The van had no windows except on the doors, so I heard but could not see other vehicles accelerating by us as soon as the lane was clear. The van lurched to a stop and Annalise called my name. We climbed out the back.
January in California. The sun was sinking toward a cloud bank in the western sky, and that particular sort of light reminded me of my life before Annalise, before Chino even, when I was an ordinary criminal who chased girls, money, and the respect of other losers. Nostalgia had never been my thing, but I could almost feel the tug of it, reminding me of a time when my life had been a trash fire, absolutely, but at least that trash fire had been simple.
A low-end Lexus pulled into a spot beside the station, which was a mom-and-pop convenience shop of the kind that I’d thought had been driven out of business. The Lexus passenger—a burly gym rat in a suit that had been cut for a fat guy—went into the shop while the driver turned around and, without even pretending to be sneaky, snapped photos of us and the ocean behind us.
Annalise glanced at me, a grim smile on her face, then she turned and marched toward the Lexus.
Lexus Driver got out of the car to snap a couple more pictures as we approached. Then he slid his phone into his jacket pocket. “I just wanted to capture the sunlight,” he said. He was a slightly smaller version of the Lexus Passenger, maybe because he fit better behind the wheel. He swept his right hand back and laid his hand on a holstered gun at his hip. “I don’t want trouble.”
Annalise did not falter in her approach.
“I wouldn’t pull that piece,” I said.
“Where’s Serrac?” Annalise demanded.
“I don’t know who that is.”
Annalise stopped a few feet away from him. Conversational distance. “You don’t look at the name at the bottom of your paycheck?”
Now the man looked honestly confused. “Are you asking me if I’m paid with paper checks?”
“Who do you work for?” I interrupted, hoping to get something useful from the guy before Annalise did her thing.
Passenger stepped out of the shop, and a little old woman in a green apron followed him. Both were holding up their phones.
There was something about these guys. I would almost have said they were dressed like cops—detectives, maybe—but something about them looked off. It was like they were wearing detective costumes. Except the woman in the apron.
“Who do you work for?” I asked again.
Driver smiled. “I don’t have to tell you that. I don’t have to tell you creeps anything. You sick bastards. You pedophiles.”
I took Annalise’s arm. “He’s trying to goad you into doing something for the video. Don’t fall for it.”
“Ray, you keep forgetting we’re on the—”
“Boss. Trust me.”
She surprised me by doing exactly that. We walked back to the van, which Daria was still gassing up, and stood beside her until she finished. She wasn’t on any kind of path, and neither was our license plate.
The woman in the apron scowled at us until Daria replaced the gas nozzle and tapped her credit card to pay. By then, Lexus Passenger had returned to his seat, and the two of them pulled out of the lot with shitty smirks.
Silicon Valley kept throwing incredibly punchable people in my path.
Whatever Lexus Passenger told the Green Apron Woman, it must have been hot. She waited until we’d climbed into our van before she lowered her phone and returned to work.
“That was fun.” Daria said as she swerved into traffic. “By the way, I should probably mention that those two assholes in that car? That was the third car I mentioned. One of the first two just fell into place behind us.”
“These assholes.” Annalise said.
“What do you want to do about them, boss?”
“What the fuck do you think I keep you around for? I’d lead them into the mountains, flip their car with them in it, then interrogate them. I still think that’s a good plan.”
“If they were by themselves, maybe.” I crouched between the front seats and peered through the windshield. I saw traffic and buildings and signs, but none of it gave me any good ideas. “Daria, can you lose these assholes?”
“If they’ve planted a tracker in the wheel well or under the back bumper, no, I can’t. If they haven’t, I can.”
Maybe I expected her to stomp on the gas and rocket through the streets, sideswiping bad guys into telephone poles and racing across railroad tracks a half-second before the train roared through. Maybe I expected something from a movie. She didn’t do what I expected.
What she did instead was start driving like an absolute asshole. She swerved across lanes and turned without signaling. She bulled through a left turn after the yellow had turned red with a blare of her horn. She made three different U-turns in the middle of the block.
And because we were in Annalise’s van, there was nothing smooth or quick about any of it. She made a three-point turn each time, stopping traffic and inspiring a whole chorus of horns.
And when she wasn’t shouting apologies out the window, she laughed. “Oh, my god, I fucking love this. Look out for cops.”
She did a hard right that dumped me on the floor of the van, then drove a little too quickly in a straight line.
“I’m pretty sure I lost them, although it’s impossible to be sure.”
“Not good enough,” Annalise snapped.
“Look, there’s a lot you don’t know.” Daria sounded annoyed, as though the boss had ruined her fun. “It’s not just electronic trackers, okay? If they had time to install an IR flasher, they’d be able to follow me from very far away. Like, several blocks. And if Serrac really wanted to spend money on us, he could have something in the air above us. So, let’s just be clear about who I am and what I can do, right? I can absolutely lose a tail. I can’t spot shit flying above us. I can’t sense electronic signals and I can’t see infrared light. So, maybe you should cool off with the not good enough shit.”
For a few seconds, we could only hear the engine and tires doing their work, then Daria added, “Please don’t kill me for saying that.”
How will we know? was the question I was about to ask, but I already knew the answer. I just didn’t want to think about it. “We need to steal a new ride.”
Daria glanced at me in the rearview. “Or, you know, rent one. Buy one off Craigslist, maybe.”
“Our rooms were rented with a different card than the van, so they shouldn’t be blown.” Annalise’s high voice was quiet, but I could still hear her clearly over the sound of the van. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re not going back to those rooms. We’ll have to get new ones. Maybe the society can arrange something. Shit. It’s been a while since I had to act like a spy in a foreign country. It doesn’t suit me.”
“I’m heading to Stanford,” Daria said. “We’ll be able to ditch the van in a big hospital parking lot somewhere, and we’ll pick up something new.”
“Boss, I want to go back to our rooms.” Annalise didn’t argue. She just turned in her seat, giving me her full attention. “We get a new vehicle. We park a few blocks from our motel. We scout the streets around it to grab a few of their guys and get some answers. If we don’t find them, all the better. Besides, I hate being dressed like Raymond Rose. I want my duffel with my own clothes in it.”
Instead of saying Good plan or whatever, Annalise just nodded and took out her phone. We listened while she arranged for a new vehicle.
It turned out to be a loaner—but not a free loaner—from a local named Rick. He was late forties and I’d have thought he was built like a linebacker if he’d shown any sign of muscle in his arms or shoulders. What he had instead was a massive beer gut which would have put him at or above three bills.
He was a nice-enough guy, anyway, and his Toyota Sienna was a more comfortable way to travel, since Daria got behind the wheel once again and no way would Annalise sit in the back. At least I had a seat of my own.
Annalise’s van went into his driveway, and I leaned a rusted bicycle against the back fender to hide the license plate without making it look like I was trying to hide it.
In the Sienna, we parked in a cafe about three hundred yards from our rooms, and while Daria and Annalise enjoyed a late afternoon tea, I made the long walk to circuit the motel.
And found no one. In my younger days, I’d gotten pretty good at spotting cops sitting in sedans, but in this long, careful stroll, I didn’t even see anything suspicious except my one reflection in a storefront window.
For good measure, I did a second stroll outside our motel. No one had set up any cameras that I could see, and no one gave me the willies. I didn’t bother to look for drones above us. I didn’t really believe anyone would go to the trouble. Then I looked up anyway and saw nothing.
So much for grabbing a few of their guys.
After a quick call, Daria and Annalise drove over and parked in the lot. I walked in, stopping at the office to ask if there were any messages. The society didn’t like to communicate that way, but it was worth checking anyway.
The woman behind the counter startled me, just a little bit. Where the previous two workers had been a chubby old man and a youngish woman who looked enough like him to be his daughter, this woman was something else entirely. She was almost six feet tall, a Black woman with expensive hair and a muscular professionalism about her. She was on the phone as I entered, glanced at me, then held up one finger to ask me to wait. When she finished her call, she gave me an envelope with my room number on it. It was sealed.
I noticed that she had scars on her knuckles.
“Did you see who dropped this off?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not, sir. It was before my shift. I came on at four.”
I thanked her and returned to my room.
Annalise was there but Daria was not. I looked around the place.
Something was wrong.
“Boss, there’s a new person working in the office.”
“So?”
“She doesn’t fit.”
The lamp beside my bed was lit. I’d loosened the bulb before I went to sleep last night, but maybe Annalise had tightened it to light up this dingy place. Or maybe the maid did it.
Had that cheap analog clock been hanging on the back wall this morning? I remember having to check my phone for the time, but maybe I just didn’t notice it.
Still, it was strange. There was already a clock in the room, the digital alarm between the two beds. That looked strange, too. It was the same model, I was sure of it, but there were no scuffs or dings in the plastic. The numbers looked different too.
Had they replaced it?
Annalise sighed. “Nothing about this job fits. Everything has been off the rails since that mess in Oregon. We’ve been playing catch-up for months, and for all the running we do, we’re not making much progress.”
Instead of answering, I stalked across the room and took the clock off the wall. There was a couple of extra wires on the back running from the batteries to the case. When I looked at the front again, I saw the tiny lens of a camera.
I pulled out the batteries and the wires, too. If I’d been a cop, I might have handed it off to someone who could check the make and model, find out who bought it, all that TV shit cops do.
But I was absolutely not a fucking cop. I smashed the plastic frame against the corner of the end table, then yanked out the wires. The lens came with it. I held it up to Annalise.
Before I could say anything, Daria burst in. “This place is under new management since we left for breakfast. Serrac’s people have bugged our rooms.”
I’d fucked up. I’d reacted as though they were going to watch us on a cop’s budget, with a cop’s rules. I wasn’t thinking big enough.
“Fuck this.”
I took the minivan keys from Daria then looked down at my blue bag. It was full of my clothes, my stupid mystery novel, my toothbrush and soap, plus whatever Serrac put in there to track or record us. I’d lived out of it for months and had grown to like it, sort of, but now I just wanted to squirt lighter fluid into it and toss in a match.
“Anything we left in this room while we were out gets left behind,” I said. “Doesn’t matter how precious it is. We can collect it later, if we have—”
A tiny movement caught my attention. It was down on the carpet near Annalise’s bed, and my first thought was rat, then rat escaped from a crude oil spill, because whatever was moving down there was dark and shiny like volcanic glass.
I didn’t know what it was, but my body was already reacting. My ghost knife was in my hand, and I was reaching for Annalise to pull her out of the way.
But she was already moving, and there, at the carpet by her feet, was some kind of dark corkscrew shape spiraling out of the floor, moving toward the back of Annalise’s leg. And the tip of that corkscrew was as long, sharp, and slender as a needle.
Annalise spit out a curse and pulled back her foot to punt it, but I was already throwing my ghost knife. It sliced downward through the spiral, cutting it in six different places before I called it back. The needle evaporated in a spray of black steam and dark sparks.
A spell. Not a predator. Someone was throwing spells at us.
I didn’t have to worry too much about my boss, but Daria had no protection at all. I moved toward her, checking the room for more creepy magic near the floor, then near the ceiling. I spotted three more dark, moving glimmers.
“Let’s go,” Annalise barked. I seized Daria’s arm and pulled her behind me so I could go through the door first, just in case the asshole attacking us was trying to flush us into the open for the real attack.
No one hit me with a magical version of a sniper shot, and no one hit me with the nonmagical kind, either. We piled into the van. As I revved the engine, the woman with the scarred knuckles stepped out of the office, her fancy iPhone pressed to her ear. One glance at her expression and her body language, and I knew she wasn’t behind the attack but was involved with it somehow. A lookout was the most obvious explanation. I dropped our room keys at her feet as I drove by and told her we were checking out.
I had no idea where we should go, so I started driving in a random direction, hoping to find a huge parking lot where we could catch our breath.
Our rooms had been bugged, and when we discovered them, a spell caster had come for us. A spell caster who was still alive and who could come at us again.
“All we’re doing is running,” Annalise said. “We need to get our feet under us. We’re used to being anonymous, but we may have to operate in the open. Or nearly in the open.”
From the back seat, Daria cleared her throat. “Or the society could send in someone else. A peer who hasn’t been blown. Isn’t there someone you can trust?”
Callin’s name popped to mind, but I couldn’t have said why. Maybe he was just the peer I knew second best. I kept my mouth shut.
Annalise glared at her. “Did you call the society while you were in your room?”
“No,” Daria snapped.
“You didn’t call in to tell them we’re chasing spell books?”
“Boss,” I interrupted, “someone just tried to kill us.”
“Do I look like I’m fucking worried?” She turned her attention back to Daria. “Did you contact the society in any way to let them know the original spell books are in play?”
“No,” Daria said again. “I didn’t. You told me not to, and no one has asked me to file reports behind your back. The way I figure it, you’re a peer, and if I get my hands on the Book of Whatever, I can give it to you and my job will be done. Although I’ll still have to file an accurate report when this mission is over.”
“When the mission is over, I’ll tell you what you can report.” Daria didn’t say anything to that, but I could read her resentment and hostility. “Remember what the other investigators told you, about me not murdering you in your sleep? Well, that’s bullshit. Fuck with me in any way, and I’ll kill you on the spot, awake or asleep. Hear me?”
“Yes.” Daria’s phone started to play a vaguely familiar jazz song. She made the usual greeting noises when she answered it. A minute later, she was cursing. “Pull over.”
I did. She held the phone up and let it play.
It started with surveillance footage of Annalise in Serrac’s place, then footage of me in the same place, creeping up to his back door. Then it cut to video of the two of us in the motel room we just left, with Annalise saying Everything has been off the rails since that mess in Oregon.
After that, it showed a TV news report about Haley Oliver, a nine-year-old girl who went missing in Hillsboro.
I’d never even heard of Hillsboro before that moment—there had to be more than one around the country—but I would have bet my last dollar that this particular one was in Oregon.
Then it showed the three of us looking around just before we climbed into the Sienna. The license plate was clearly visible. The words Did they take her? scrolling across the bottom of the image.
“Fuck,” I blurted out.