Chapter 12 #3
His gaze was a delicious weight I could feel through every part of my being, but it was one I dared not acknowledge. “That sounds like the voice of experience speaking. I take it you’ve found yourself in such a situation?”
“When you tell me your secrets, I’ll tell you mine.”
“I hold no secrets. What you see is what you get.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that broke loose. “Says the man who is so closed down his life energy cannot be read.”
His hesitation was brief but there. “When demons hunt, it is better if they think you nothing more than one of the undead.”
“That makes it sound like demons hunting you is a regular occurrence.”
“No, but when you grow up with a father who is a dark witch, you learn concealment rather quickly.”
I’d just bet. “Is that why those demons never attacked us in the mall?”
“With my length covering yours, they could not read your output.”
“I suspect there was more to it than that.”
“Not a lot more.”
“In other words, ask no questions, be told no lies.”
“We are very new acquaintances. You cannot expect anyone in such a situation to be an open book.”
“And yet,” I drawled, “you expect me to be a very open book, at least physically.”
He laughed. “All men confronted by a beautiful woman hope she is open and receptive. It is the nature of any predator looking to mate.”
And now that predator was after me. It was a somewhat delicious thought.
We clattered down the rest of the stairs and quickly left the hospital, walking down to where the car was parked.
Once I’d adjusted the seat and pulled on the belt, I started the engine.
Its deep-throated burble momentarily had delight overrunning worry.
There was nothing quite like the sound of a big gas engine....
“Wouldn’t want to swap cars, would you?” I said as René clipped in his seat belt. “I have a very nice BMW I can offer you.”
It’s lime green came Atticus’s comment. And disgusting.
He was sitting on the console between the seats, his form somewhat hazy, suggesting he wasn’t fully in either the real world or the spectral. I resisted the urge to push him off, knowing that when he was between like that, it wouldn’t affect him.
René glanced at me, his amusement evident. “I would have thought a racy red more your type.”
I put the car into reverse and carefully backed out. “A racy red would clash with my scarlet hair. We can’t have that.”
He snorted softly but didn’t reply as I switched over to drive and put my foot down.
The tires made a satisfying squeal before I backed off a little and slipped smoothly into the traffic.
I gave René the address, and once he’d punched it into the GPS, followed its directions across town to Hamilton.
It was basically an upmarket residential area close to the Brisbane River, meaning the Merc didn’t really look out of place.
I turned into the street and slowed as we approached forty-eight but didn’t stop.
It was a large single-story house with a long front garden and lots of trees; deep shadows haunted the latter, and while most would have assumed they were simply a result of the drizzly rain, threads of magic wove through the greenery; the spell had been designed to protect the house from the curious and to warn those inside if anyone entered the yard.
“That’s going to make things a bit more difficult,” René commented. “Though it does at least suggest we’re in the right spot. I can’t see why a resident would have reason to weave such an intricate net.”
I glanced at him. “Intricate?”
He nodded. “There are a number of snares hidden within the overall spell, designed to trigger if anyone tries to disengage the concealment and warning spells.”
“That definitely deletes the option, then. I’ll drive around to the street behind it. Maybe we can use their neighbor’s yard to get in.”
“They likely have a similar setup around the back,” he commented. “They’d be fools not to, and we are not dealing with fools.”
No, Atticus commented, but when spells have been hastily set, the possibility of wildlife intrusions is rarely considered.
René glanced down at him. “What makes you think they’re hastily set?”
You may be a container for your father’s vast knowledge and skills, but I am far older than even he was.
Container? That’s an odd way of putting it, I commented to Atticus alone.
He is an odd man.
Sounds like you’re figuring him out. Care to share when you do?
Perhaps.
Please?
Perhaps. He added René back to the conversation and added, In this case, though the alarms rise from the ground, the snares have been set at about four feet, so if you keep low you should be fine.
I shall prance through the alarm magic like the regal soul I am, which should be enough to draw at least one of them out to chase me away.
“Sounds like a good plan,” I said.
I never offer bad plans, came the reply.
I snorted softly, a sound echoed by René. “I suspect you have driven many a witch up the wall during your long years of tenure as a familiar.”
Is that not the goal of any good familiar? he replied with a mental shrug. Given I have never been one to follow the rules, I cannot say for sure.
I smiled, though I suspected he was being more truthful than sarcastic. I drove around to the next street, where we discovered a costly-looking two-story apartment building that partially shared the rear fence line with our target house.
I found parking a few houses further down, and we climbed out. The drizzle had deepened and now shrouded the entire area in a shimmering cloud of wet silver. Thankfully, it wasn’t particularly cold, but I was grateful for the coat René tossed me after he opened the car’s trunk.
“You got any holy water in that bag of yours?” he asked.
“No, because I generally deal with bad men rather than demons.” I pulled on the coat. It swam on me, but that was better than getting soaked. “I don’t even have a blessed silver knife on me.”
He tsked. “A silver knife, blessed or not, is an excellent deterrent.”
“Only if you know how to use the damn thing,” I replied dryly. “I personally prefer not to carry a weapon that can easily be used against me.”
“Well, in this case, given what we might well be dealing with, I ask you to humor me and take a couple of small throwing knives. I’ve placed a spell on them that disrupts any magic cast at the holder, and that might come in handy.”
It certainly would, although it didn’t actually counter my fears of such a weapon being turned against me. I raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you have an arsenal in the back of your car?”
“I prefer to call it a small but worthy selection of protections.”
I stopped beside him and looked into the trunk. A lockable false bottom had been built into the base of it. Lifting the lid had revealed a plethora of vials, knives, charms, and even a gun or two. “Why would a businessman feel the need to carry such an arsenal with him?”
“Because one never knows when one will come across a rogue demon or dark witch.”
I glanced at him, my eyebrows raised. “I would have thought you capable enough magically to take care of both.”
“Oh, I am, but that does not preclude the usefulness of conventional weapons.” He reached in and picked up a couple of sheathed knives that had some sort of metal clip attached to the back of them.
“These would be a good size for you. They’re short enough that you won’t damage yourself unsheathing them, and they clip directly onto your belt. ”
I accepted them dubiously. “I’m not convinced I can draw one of these faster than I can throw a repelling spell.”
“Perhaps not, but it’s never a bad idea to have additional protections when going up against a more powerful enemy. But speaking of protections”—he reached back into the trunk and plucked what looked to be a leather-and-wire-bound bracelet from the small hook holding it in place—“wear this.”
“Do you give all your women handmade silver bracelets?” I asked, amused, though I knew the minute I slipped it over my hand and the magic within it came to life that it was a powerful warding charm.
“Only the ones I don’t want dead.”
Which does suggest, Atticus commented, that there are some women in your life that you do want dead.
René laughed. “Maybe not dead but certainly well away from me. The clingers can be bad when you’re wealthy and considered a catch.”
“‘Clingers’ is not what I’d call a nice term.”
“It’s better than some of the others I could have used.” He took out a half dozen small vials of holy water, handed me four, then slammed the lid. “Shall we go?”
I tucked the bottles into my handbag, then clipped on the knives and wrapped a quick leash spell around the hilts.
I might not be able to throw with any degree of proficiency, but at least by leashing them, I could control the direction of their flights and even recall them.
I locked the car then shoved the keys into my pocket and followed him down the street.
The apartment block’s side entrance was gated and locked, but a quick spell soon fixed that.
We walked up the steps and followed the path down to the rear of the property.
No one paid us any heed, and there didn’t appear to be any security cameras anywhere, which, while it was odd for any building in an area this wealthy, might have been accounted for by the obvious building work happening within the nearest two apartments.
The wooden back fence was newish looking, with the pickets on this side rather than the posts and rails, which would make it more difficult to clamber over—at least for me. I’d never been very good at hauling my butt over things.
Atticus leapt easily onto the top of the fence, balancing lightly as he studied the property’s rear yard. The spell doesn’t quite reach the rear fence, so you have room to clamber over before you have to crawl.
“And the house?” René asked. “Any sign of movement or additional security?”
There are cameras, but they are pointed at either the right side pathway or the pool area.