Bedlam Boyz(27)

No, I don't want this, she thought fuzzily, trying to focus on Ramon's face, which was too blurry for her to see. I don't want you to care about me, I want to hate you, I just want to get away, run a thousand miles from here.

Somebody, please, get me out of here!



Elizabet blinked, trying to keep her eyes open. She'd been at the police station for too many hours, waiting to hear the lab reports from what they'd found at her house. Too many hours without sleep, ever since she'd come home and found the pool of wet blood on her living room floor. . . .

Searching with the police, they'd found some physical evidence, but there was no way to know anything until the lab reports returned. Searching magically, she had found nothing. Kayla had vanished into the city without a trace.

Something brushed against her thoughts, a distant sense of magic. Then she heard the echo of a young girl's voice, a cry of desperation and pain: "Somebody, please, get me out of here!"

Kayla!

She closed her eyes, hoping that no one else in the police station would notice her odd behavior, and cast her mind out in widening circles, searching.

There! She found it almost immediately, the residue of major magic, somewhere in the San Fernando Valley; traces of magic fading away even as she reached out to track it, disappearing into the eddying, drifting thoughts of one million Valley residents. Damn!

"Elizabet?"

She opened to her eyes, startled out of her near-trance. Nichelle Cable was standing by her desk, a folder tucked under her arm. "Are you okay?"

Elizabet nodded. "Just . . . just very tired. Do you have anything new?"

Nichelle shook her head. "Fibers and prints came up negative, except for that print on the broken dolphin which is, unfortunately, a match to your left thumb. I'm sorry, Elizabet."

"Anything new on a connection between the double homicide and this kidnaping?" Elizabet asked.

"William Kennison III is a nutcase. Long history of mental instability. He was fired from his job earlier that day, apparently went home and loaded his assault rifle, then went hunting for his boss. Couldn't find the boss, so he went after those people in the convenience store. He doesn't have any connection to the kidnaping that we can find; he's just a dead end." The homicide detective smiled grimly. "At least we got a full confession out of him this morning, so even if your missing kid never turns up, we have this guy nailed down tight."

"But he has no connection to Kayla's kidnaping." Elizabet clenched her fists in her lap.

"Maybe your kid will turn up on her own," Nichelle said. "I mean, we don't have much evidence that this was a kidnaping, except for the fact that there was blood on your living room floor. Maybe the blood was from an accident of some kind, and she called her friends to help her out. Maybe she just went off with friends. If she ends up back on the street, we'll find her again eventually."

I know that Kayla was taken against her will, Nichelle, but if I tell you how I know that, you'll think I'm insane. Elizabet unclenched her fists and said, "Thank you for your help on this, Nichelle. I appreciate it."

"I'm sorry it turned out this way," Nichelle said. "I'll let you know if anything else turns up. Here's the lab folder, by the way. If any of this gives you ideas, let me know. The rest of us are drawing a blank right now."

Elizabet opened the folder and leafed through the printed pages. The blood was Type A Positive, which matched Kayla's medical records. No sign of the weapon that had caused the wounds; the perpetrators must have taken it with them. Some mud on the floor corresponded to a partial footprint in the flowerbed beside Elizabet's front door. Not enough to make any identification, though, or even a guess as to shoe size. Some hairs that were identified as Elizabet's.

In short, nothing.

She left the folder on Nichelle's desk and slowly walked out to her car. There was nothing in that folder that the police could use to track down the kidnapers. If anyone was going to find Kayla, it would be by luck or magic.

I'll keep trying, Elizabet thought. Every time she uses magic, it leaves a trace that I can follow. I'll keep searching until I find her.

She's out there somewhere . . . I know she is. . . .

An awful thought occurred to her then, chilling her blood: I can sense her, know what she's doing, that she's out there somewhere . . .

What if someone else is tracking her?





Chapter Six


"Are you certain of it?" Nataniel asked.

The dark-haired young woman, dressed in a black mini-skirt and silk blouse, who looked to be maybe twenty years old but was closer to two hundred, nodded seriously. "As certain as I can be. There's a new magic in Los Angeles. I felt it two days ago, and again, yesterday afternoon. It's young, strong, and glows like the lights on the Strip."