Witch Hunt(20)

I poked one of the boils on my chin. It broke and made an audible splat against the porcelain sink. Underneath, the skin looked raw and red.
Pops’s wise advice about popping zits echoed out of distant teenage memory.
You should pop every zit that you want to turn into a permanent scar, he’d said. And he had punctuated that with, Dumbass.
He hadn’t intended that advice for magicked boils, but it probably applied.
Yeah, maybe I’ll just leave them alone. For now.
On the bright side, Stonecrow had given me a great disguise. A disguise that made it feel like my entire face was peeling apart, with pus dripping down my neck. But I couldn’t manage to feel grateful for it. I swore right then and there that I was going to see that woman behind bars—even if it meant turning myself over to the OPA, too.
I headed out of the bathroom, keeping my head down and trying to look like any other homeless bum making his way for the computer desks. I parked my ass in the first empty desk chair I came across. The old woman next to me didn’t even look up when I sat down. But Gramps across the table cringed at the sight of me, grabbed his jacket, and left.
“Hey, ugly fuckers are people, too,” I muttered at his back. The corner of my mouth cracked.
I pulled Stonecrow’s case file out of my coat, opened a map site on the computer, and started correlating the coordinates of her previous sightings to the website. The locations of the last families she had scammed—the ones I’d read about earlier that night—got little flags first, smack dab on the big population centers in the state. If I’d been at work, that would have been enough for the computers to do a quick sweep and figure out the connection. But I wasn’t at work. I’d have to do all the thinking for myself.
As I added the rest of the sightings aggregated from the OPA’s network of security cameras, a pattern started to appear. I absently scratched my chin while I looked at them and felt something warm ooze down my jaw. Okay, no scratching, either.
I focused on the Stonecrow sightings. And when I pulled out her raccoon bone bracelet for another look at the car key I’d grabbed, I realized it wasn’t a car key at all.
It was a key for an RV.
The old lady at the neighboring computer lumbered out of her chair and vanished. She left all of her crap on the desk, including an empty water bottle and a cell phone. It was scattered everywhere. Encroaching on my space. I didn’t care if she was going to look for another book or going to take a piss. No one was respectful of public space anymore.
I picked up the phone and dialed Suzy.
“Why the fuck are you calling me?” she said when I identified myself. “Tell me you’re out of town, Hawke.”
“Nice to talk to you, too. Listen, I need you to pull files for me.”
“What? Are you working right now?”
She tore me a new one for a minute, and except for a quick look around to make sure Grandma Space Hogger wasn’t on her way back, I kicked back and let Suzy’s vitriol wash over me. It was soothing, in its own way. Familiar. The dulcet background sounds I was used to at the office.
“Feel better?” I asked when she wound down.
“Hmph. That’s what you get for taking off without leaving a note, asshole.” I heard the clatter of computer keys on the other end of the line. “Okay, what files am I pulling?”
“Any RVs that have checked in at more than five of these California RV parks in the last three months.” I listed the locations off. Suzy typed furiously.
“Huh,” she said. “One RV comes up. Registration for…Belle Stonecrow. You’re still after the necromancer?”
“Actually, I think she’s necrocognitive, like Peter was before he—you know. She’s not raising zombies, that’s for sure.”
“Stonecrow is my case, Hawke.”#p#分页标题#e#
“I’m helping you find her. You can think of it as me paying you back for use of your couch last night.”
“Whatever.” Suzy couldn’t conceal how excited she sounded. It was a breakthrough. A good breakthrough. This was the shit that fueled us.
Isobel Stonecrow was living out of RV parks. It was so simple, and considering how much crap witches needed to lug around, practical as hell. Better than sleeping in the back of a car, too.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll find her.”
I was about to hang up when Suzy said, “You wouldn’t leave if I told you to again, would you?”
“Not a chance.”



I was in good shape. Not like the guys in the union    , but I kept up with my cardio. So I managed to reach the first two RV parks by noon with the help of a couple of city buses. No Stonecrow. I took a break around noon, stopping in a burger joint to escape the rain and splurge on dollar cheeseburgers. Bargain menus had saved my bacon between paychecks before.