CHAPTER TWELVE
We made a stop at an herb shop then grabbed dinner at a fast food joint as the sun sank to the horizon. Dinner and magical supplies were paid for by Joey, who turned out to have a fat wallet. I left the credit cards and his fake FBI identification in the glove box. The cash was ours.
I didn’t risk going inside the McDonald’s to order. We used the drive-through and ate behind the security of tinted windows in the parking lot. Stonecrow looked extremely disinterested in my burgers, but she seemed okay with her chicken wrap, and she guzzled her soda in about five seconds flat.
“So what’s your story?” I asked when I was halfway through my meal, gesturing at her. “What does the OPA want you for?”
“They don’t tell you that in your files?”
“Your file says that you’ve had three families complain that you’re a scam artist. But every story’s got two sides, right?”
“Three complaints.” She snorted. “The dead don’t lie, Cèsar. That’s why people complain. They don’t like what the dead have to say to them. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Stonecrow wiped her fingers with one of the paper napkins. She looked around for a place to throw it out and caught sight of her dirty face in the mirror. We were both all dusty from the brawl in the desert. She used other napkins to wipe off her face.
“Necrocognition is a rare talent.”
“Is it?” Stonecrow asked. I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not.
“Where’d you learn to do it? Are you part of some kind of…I dunno, a tribe or something?” I asked. Her getup at Shady Groves had looked like the fifties Hollywood idea of a Native American wisewoman, but I had a hard time believing that that anyone who wore feathered headdresses and animal skins to a cemetery could be legit.
Yet she sat up straighter, tossed her hair. Her whole demeanor shifted. It was like she pulled on a disguise as I watched. “Yes, my tribe taught me. I am a native princess. I was trained by the best shamans in all of the nations,” she said, voice resonant with that accent she’d had before. “I was going to stay on our reservation, but the spirits called me to the world beyond. It is my destiny to speak the truths of the dead even when people aren’t prepared to hear it.”
“That so?”
“You saw how those union men behaved when they arrested me—what they were prepared to do to silence the voices of the dead.” She sounded both imperious and annoyed. I guess my incredulity was showing.
“I have a hard time believing the union would try to kill you if you can do what you claim. You’re too valuable. Hell, I bet the OPA would love to hire you.”
“You can deny it all you want, but it’s obvious that those men didn’t intend for you and I to come back from the desert.”
That much, I couldn’t deny. I just didn’t know why.
She tossed her trash in the backseat and grabbed the plastic bag from between her feet. I’d let her do all the buying in the herb shop and kept my aching face inside the SUV, so I had no idea what she’d gotten.
“So how does your necrocognition work? Is it an evocation thing?”
She glanced at me before opening a baggie and pouring something green and grainy into her empty soda cup. “What? What’s evocation?”
For the first time since we’d started chatting, I believed the disbelief in her voice. It was more genuine than her bullshit “princess of the tribes” speech. “So you’re not summoning demons in order to talk to the dead. Doing blood rituals and shit. Human sacrifice.”
“I do use blood,” she said. I grimaced, and she hastily added, “I get it from the butcher. Pig, cow, chicken.”
The thought of slaughtering animals for a spell didn’t bother me—I’d knocked off a few mice and rats in my time training with the OPA—but witches that were willing to kill for power often didn’t stop at animals. I watched Stonecrow warily as she mixed ingredients. After she’d tossed a few things into her cup, she replaced the plastic lid and shook it.
“I was impressed with your spell in the SUV,” she said, softer than before. “That was great.”
Great? Well, if that was the word she wanted to use for it, I wasn’t going to stop her. “What can I say? Panic is inspirational. I don’t even do ritual circles most of the time. I’m more of a potions and poultices kind of guy. My coworker, Suzy, she’s all about the circles of power and energy manipulation. Bet she could have cooked up something even better.” I laughed. “Bet she could have cursed both of them without even getting out of the car.”