Dragon Bound(23)

He growled, “I need a tracking spell put on a woman.”

The witch inclined her head. She said, “Certainly, my lord. Of course, no doubt you already know that the more information I can be given on a target, the better I can craft a tracking spell for it.”

“Her name is Pia Giovanni,” Dragos said. He handed her the stack of photos from the 7-Eleven security footage. “This is what she looks like.”

The witch went still, her eyes on the top photo. Her expression was a perfect blank, but something, some minuscule change in her posture or breathing, roused the predator in him. A smooth, fluid shift of his body brought him closer to her. He could sense her body heat and the pulse at her neck and wrists, which beat more rapid at his proximity. He scanned her with truthsense as he asked, “Do you know this woman?”

The witch’s dark gaze lifted to his. She said, “I have seen her in the Magic District. I didn’t know her name.”

Her face remained that perfect blank, revealing nothing. It was not, he thought, the blithe calm of innocence but one of educated discipline. Still, she did speak the truth. The predator in him eased back. He nodded at the photos. “Is her name and a photo enough for you?”

The witch said, “I could cast a spell with these things. But it would be more durable, and it would last longer, if you had something of hers that I could use as an anchor. A good tracking spell is more complicated than a finding. It must shift and move as the object changes direction.”

Unsurprised, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a Ziploc bag that held a battered receipt. “It just so happens I do have something we can use.”





FOUR



Shaken by such a rude awakening, Pia rolled off the bed and lurched into the bathroom to take a shower. She hadn’t carried any toiletries in her backpack beyond hand lotion and Chap-Stick so she had to make do with the motel’s paper-wrapped sliver of plain soap. It took forever to work some through her long hair and lather a washcloth, but at least the water was hot and plentiful. The skin at the side of her neck felt tender as she scrubbed herself.

She paused and rubbed at the tender area. What was that?

After a quick final rinse, she wrapped her tangled hair in a towel, grabbed another towel to dry off and then wiped the fogged sink mirror to peer at her neck.

Bite. It was a bite mark. She fingered the area at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. The skin wasn’t broken but there was an impression of teeth, and a suck-bruise was already forming.

She whispered, “The bastard gave me a hickey?” In a dream?

Goose bumps rose on her skin. She rubbed her arms and avoided looking at her white face with the dark-circled eyes.

Somehow that horrible dream had been real. His magic had found her. He knew what she looked like. She told him her name.

Get out now.

Good thing she had three other names, with picture IDs that said so, because she had to hit delete on the one she’d lived with her whole life. Pia Alessandra Giovanni had to go. She felt another pang, another loss. Her mother had given her that name from long-held fondness for the time she had spent in medieval Florence. How much more did Pia have to lose? Apparently everything.

It was too much for her tired mind. She yanked a brush through her hair, miserable at how it had snarled without conditioner, and then she dressed in her dirty clothes.

When she started the Honda, the dashboard clock said 6:30 A.M. She had slept just under two hours.

She went through another drive-through and bought juice, more coffee and apple slices, although she could only choke down a few bites. She drove south as the sky grew pastel and brightened into full day. The temperature warmed the farther she went until she rolled down the windows and opened the Honda’s moon roof.

If she’d been making the trip for any other reason, she would have enjoyed herself. The sky was cloudless. The scenery in South Carolina was different from what she was used to. The foliage was a couple weeks farther along in bloom than in New York, and the land felt strange to her senses. She began to pass properties vivid with greenery and profuse with camellias, roses, azaleas, and magnolia trees blanketed in pink blossoms. Silvery Spanish moss draped along the branches of old oak trees like fashion stoles adorning beautiful women. Charleston and the surrounding area had a grace and beauty that was quite different from the brisk urban setting she had just left.

She had given an ironic chuckle when Quentin had handed her directions to a beach house in a place called Folly Beach. Folly. Ha. It was about twenty minutes south of Charleston. Most of the houses, he told her, were vacation rentals. He had owned his for over thirty years and kept it furnished and stocked with linens and kitchenware.