Chapter 4
He could feel the thrill rushing through him, just like Jerry had said. The excitement. The knowledge that he was—they were—doing God’s work.
He was jittery, tapping his fingers against the plastic of the headlight, his foot bouncing on the pavement as he waited, watching. Looking for the sign that God would send.
Preacher Dale told them that God would make clear the way. That God would shine a light for them. To show them what to do. Where to go.
So he waited for the sign.
It came sooner than he expected.
Pain, searing, crushing. His legs didn’t work. Why didn’t his legs work?!
God. Please. Not like this.
I looked up at Detective Dan Maza, his dark eyes shadowed.
He’d brought me a piece of yellow plastic from the headlight.
It had broken when it struck the victim.
I swallowed, and that’s when I realized my nose was stuffy and there were tears running down my cheeks.
“This struck him,” I rasped out. “Broke his spine, I think.” I swallowed again, bile pushing against the back of my throat from revulsion, not overexertion.
“You don’t have to do this, Rayn,” Ward said, putting a hand over mine.
“I’m okay,” I told him. “I just… He died. I—I wasn’t.” I swallowed again. “I wasn’t quite ready for that.”
I drew in a deep breath, trying to steady myself.
“Before that,” I said softly. “The driver was waiting for a sign from God. But the important part—he thought about a Preacher Dale.” I met Maza’s brown gaze. “Just like the driver of that other one.”
His jaw set. “Are you telling me this is a different driver?” he asked.
I bit my lip, nodding.
“You’re sure?” He held up his hands when Ward drew in a breath. “I’m not questioning your skill, mind you. But I need you to confirm that you’re certain, or I need you to tell me how sure you are. Percentage-wise.”
“I’m sure,” I told him. “A hundred percent. Well. Ninety-nine. Thoughts are like fingerprints or faces. They’re distinct from person to person.
” I shrugged. “There have been a few studies on twins and siblings that suggest their thought patters are similar and could be confused. Or if you have someone with pluralism or Dissociative Identity Disorder or another condition that causes significant personality shifts, it could be confusing to read their thoughts as being from the same person, but for the most part, it’s pretty clear.
” I’d done some research into this for my Arc-Humans and the Mind class, which asked us to pick one ability and do an extended research project on how it worked.
I’d taken advantage of this to study my own abilities.
“Huh,” came Maza’s response. “The more you know.” He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his short hair. “But you’re telling me there’s more than one asshole out there thinking about some Preacher Dale who is picking off Nids with their car?”
I nodded.
“Fuck.”
I nodded again. “He also thought about someone named Jerry, in a way that…” I trailed off, thinking. “Maybe Jerry was the first driver? He thought about how Jerry was right about the thrill.”
Maza ran his hand over his face. “Ugh.” I agreed with him.
“Do you want me to call Hart?” Ward asked him.
Maza sighed again. “No, I owe the grumpy bastard a beer, anyway.” He nodded to me.
“Thanks, Rayn. It might even make my life easier—if we’re looking at an organized group targeting Nids, I can probably foist this off on Hart and the feds, instead of having to deal with it with no budget and even less enthusiasm from the brass.
” He flashed me a weak smile. “I can’t say I’m going to complain, given how overworked I already am.
” He gave me a nod. “Seriously, thanks.”
I nodded back. “Of course.”
“Good luck, Dan,” Ward put in. “And let Hart know we’re here if he needs us.”
Maza smirked. “Oh, he’s aware.” He glanced between Ward and I. “And I have the feeling you’ll be hearing from him. Both of you, most likely.” He nodded again, a farewell. “Have a good one, gents.”
Ward sucked in a long breath after Maza left, and I waited, knowing this was his way of gearing himself up to say something.
“This one isn’t going to be open-and-shut,” he said, his voice serious.
He was probably right, but I didn’t really have the experience to say so, so I just waited.
“It’s going to get ugly, too, given the… views of the drivers of these cars.”
I nodded, then wondered if this was the sort of thing Violette would be interested in working on, once she became a lawyer. If she’d be interested in working on it now.
“Ward?”
“Yeah, Rayn?”
“My sister—she wants to become an Arc-Arcanid advocate. Go to law school.” I swallowed. “If I end up having to work on this case—”
“Does she want to take over your front desk duties?” he finished for me, a half-smile curving his lips.
“I mean, I don’t know if she would or not, but it might let her see what we do. What that kind of work would look like. In a way that…”
“Would let you spend time with her?”
“Would be safer. Than it might be otherwise,” I countered.
Ward let out a half-hum that was his thinking noise. Mason did it, too. I wondered which one of them had picked it up from the other.
“It would be, in comparison to her going out on her own,” Ward replied, the words slow as he thought about it. “But that kind of work just… isn’t safe.”
I nodded. “I know.” I knew that better than most people. “But she’d be here, where there are people who would look out for her, and could learn about her magic. And—”
“And you’d know where she was,” he said, and he sounded amused.
“I mean, yes, I would,” I replied, a little confused. “But I was thinking that I would know that she was actually making a difference, instead of doing something that only made things worse.”
Ward grimaced. “And that,” he replied.
I knew he was thinking—as I was—about a news story that Mason and Beck had been discussing that morning about a law suit that the Arcanid-Arc-human Rights League was pursuing against multiple states that were enacting legislation against Arcanids.
Virginia’s laws weren’t all that bad, considering—we had a shifter registry and a ban on vampires and ghouls working in medical contexts, but our Assembly had just narrowly down-voted a bill that would have banned predatory Arcanids from working with children in any context.
Similar laws had recently passed in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Utah, Idaho, and Indiana, and the AARL was suing all five states, plus Florida, which had passed a ban on all Arcanids from working with children under fourteen.
The problem wasn’t the AARL, who were going through legal channels, but the Arc-Arcanid Equality Initiative, a more home-grown, but still national, organization that encouraged protests, rallies, marches, and flyering, all of which were fine, although they tended to get more push-back than the AARL from organizations like the Magic Free Movement and Humans First. The Richmond branch of the AAEI, however, had some more radical members whose advocacy included graffiti, throwing bricks through the windows of anti-Arcanid businesses—the kind who put “No Nids Allowed” signs in their windows—and the incident that had gotten them in the news this morning.
Specifically, sending a feces-bomb to the governor’s office with a note that read “Anti-Arcane Legislation is Bullshit!”
While I agreed with the sentiment, the idea that Violette might end up working with a group that might get her arrested or killed because she was sending people feces-bombs made me nervous.
She was passionate enough about Arc-Arcanid rights that I could see her being willing to push a lot of limits, and I really didn’t want her to get arrested or hurt.
“Ask her,” Ward said. “If you’re willing to share the hours because Hart and Raj are going to drag you off to poke things, I’m happy to pay her to cover your shifts here, and I’m sure Mason will talk her ear off about the history of Arc-Arcanid rights.”
I smiled. “I—” I almost said I ‘appreciated’ it, but Violette’s snarky thoughts about our mother made me change my mind. “—will let her know,” I said, instead. “And thank you. It means a lot.”
Ward smiled back. “It’ll be good to grow the team,” he replied cheerfully. “Now that you’re taking on actual case-work.”
“Ohmigod, yes, obviously!” Violette more or less shrieked into my ear over the phone when I called her on my walk to get coffee and donuts at Ward’s request because he was exhausted and needed more than black coffee—apparently having two small children in the house on top of Jackson was costing the whole household a lot of sleep—and, besides, he had the feeling we were both going to need the sugar once Hart got a hold of Maza’s hit-and-run case.
“Yes, I want to work at your super-awesome Arc-Arcanid-owned badass business that works with the FB-fucking-I! Oh my God, you are the best brother ever!”
I’d laughed at that, since obviously I wasn’t, but I was pleased that she was excited about it.
And that Ward seemed to think that adding Violette to the company was a good idea.
I’d been feeling a little guilty about the fact that when Hart or Maza needed me to work a case, I got pulled away from the front desk, which was technically still my job, even though—as Ward reminded me when I’d mentioned it to him—the police or the FBI were paying for me to work for them, so it wasn’t costing the company anything more than they’d have been paying me if I hadn’t taken on cases.
I gave her Ward’s contact information—his direct email, not the generic company one—and told her to work out a schedule with him, and also to please not offend my boss.
She’d laughed. “C’mon, Rayn. He rescued you from the hell-hole. He can’t be that stuffy.”
I didn’t tell her that Ward wasn’t stuffy at all. She’d figure that out for herself pretty quick.
I walked back to work, carrying the coffee and donuts and walking quickly to make sure the coffee didn’t get too cold by the time I got back—while also trying to make sure I didn’t spill any or drop the precious box of donuts.