The memory of the bruised handprints on Erin’s throat came to mind. “You tell me.”
She clenched her jaw. Reached into the bag and sprinkled herbs across the floor. Thank God that was some kind of plant matter and nothing animal in origin. “Erin Karwell,” Isobel said, one hand on the herbs, the other hand stretched over a tacky puddle of dried blood. She cleared her throat. When she spoke, she only had a trace of that dramatic, fake Indian accent. “I summon—I summon the spirits to…” She looked at me and trailed off.
“Well?” I demanded.
She put both hands on the tub and squeezed her eyes shut. “Erin Karwell,” she whispered.
Isobel was silent for several long seconds. It was nothing like the cemetery. She wasn’t even pretending to put on a show. She just…sat there. Doing nothing.
And after a minute, her eyes popped open again. “I don’t have the right supplies.” It sounded like she had to fight with herself to make the words come out, like she was confessing to something awful.
“What do you need?” There was a hard edge to my voice. Harder than I meant. “Do you need candles and salt? Do you need raccoon bones? Do you need to take off your shirt?”
“Cèsar…”
“Well?”
“I need a body.”
“You’ve got her blood, you’ve got the herbs,” I said. “Talk to the damn victim, Isobel!”
It exploded out of her. “I can’t!”
The force of her frustration punched through me. I stepped back, gripping the doorframe.
So there was the truth. Isobel Stonecrow wasn’t really a necrocog. She was a liar, a scammer. Exactly what the OPA had thought she was.
“The drums,” I said. “The bones. The blood. Fake.”
“Yes, all of that was fake,” Isobel said, scattering the herbs across the bathroom floor as she stood. “And the herbs don’t do anything, either, I was just—I always try to put on a show. But—”
I’d heard enough. I shoved away from the door.
“I can still help you, Cèsar! I just don’t—”
“Forget about it,” I said. The anger burned out of me, dwindling down into a hard iron core of defeat.
Isobel couldn’t raise Erin. She couldn’t give me the truth. I couldn’t get vengeance—couldn’t clear my name, get my job back, get my life back.
I didn’t bother with the window. I ripped open the front door of the apartment, tore down the yellow police tape, and stalked away from the home I might never see again.
Isobel followed me to the top of the stairs and gazed at me with wounded eyes.
“Let me help you,” she said. “We can still figure something out.”
What the hell could a scammer do for me? For Erin? I froze on the landing and glared at her. “If you’re smart, you’ll get out of town, Stonecrow. And you won’t come back.”
Maybe that was what I should have done in the first place.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The house I was standing in front of was by far the nicest I’d been to since this whole thing started, so long as you liked suburban sprawl—which I did. It was quiet on this street. The kind of place where everyone was in bed by nine and trouble didn’t roam the sidewalks looking for things to tag with spray-paint. Trees were swaying with the breeze, a dog barked in the distance.
The guy who met me at the front door of the house on the corner looked like he belonged. Sweat suit, nice sneakers, crew-cut hair. His tattoos were hidden by sleeves. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to make your way here.”
I sighed. “I didn’t want to bring this to your door, but I just…I’m out of options, man.”
Domingo pushed open the security screen and held his arms open. I stepped into his embrace, squeezed him tight. I’m not so much of a man that I can’t hug my brother hard when I’m having a shitty week. Domingo hugged back just as fiercely.
“You look like shit on a stick. Do I want to know why?”
“I fought off two assassins in the desert. Kicked their asses. Pulled out all the ninja moves.” I mimicked a few karate chops, and Domingo laughed.
“Sure you did. Couch in the den is yours as long as you want it.”
I didn’t want Domingo’s couch at all. It was stiff and old, and Domingo’s wife wouldn’t be happy to see me on it.
What I really wanted was his ritual space.
Domingo and I had gotten into a lot of bad shit together as teenagers, but we’d gotten into a lot of good things, too. Like magic. Abuelita had been the one to identify that we had the old magic in the first place, taught us how to tap into it, but we’d worked together to find the limits of our abilities. Domingo still had an altar in his basement—everything a guy needed to whip up a batch of strength and energy potions.