Fell.
His descending shriek bounced off the canyon of surrounding apartment buildings.
I stared and stared and stared down at his splayed form in the alley below. Stared until black spots bubbled across my vision, like burning nitrate film. I closed my eyes. Blinked the spots away. Risked another look down. I had to wipe the rain from my eyes.
Eddie still lay there motionless, spread-eagled. His body would have looked cartoonish if not for the rapidly expanding red outline.
Across the way, in another apartment building, a boy of about nine was staring out the window at me.
I stared back.
He gave me a thumbs-up.
I fell back against the wall of Eddie’s apartment and took a couple of breaths that did not fill my lungs. I felt light-headed. Sick. Unable to think past the horror of what had happened.
Happened so quickly. So…permanently.
Because there was no spell to undo this.
My phone rang, unnervingly loud in the empty apartment, and I snapped back to awareness of my own danger. I remembered that I could be traced through my cell signal, and turned my phone off. Too late. And it probably wouldn’t have helped anyway. The bane of technology.
Somewhere outside the open window, a woman began to scream.
Chapter Seven
I stepped out of the steamy shower, starting at the sight of John standing naked in our newly remodeled bathroom.
John murmured, “Damn. I need to work on my timing,” and took me in his arms. I clung to him, and his arms tightened. “Mm.” His voice was a deep, friendly growl. “Warm, wet husband.” He buried his face in my neck, inhaled. “I love that soap on you.” I could hear his smile. It made my eyes sting.
Until that moment, the moment John wrapped his arms around me, I’d actually been… Well, not okay. Not by a long stretch. But I’d managed to hold it together.
I had to hold it together. There was no other option.
I didn’t know if I was legally responsible for Eddie Darksoul’s death, but I felt responsible. If I hadn’t shown up there, asking questions that clearly terrified him… And what did I have to show for that fatal interview? A slew of bewildering half-answers that only left me with more questions.
But my feelings were irrelevant. Even my safety was irrelevant compared to the safety of the Abracadantès.
John nudged my face, found my mouth. I kissed him, kissed him again, again. He kissed me back, but then…
“Hey,” he said softly. “What’s all this?” Knowing me well enough to not mistake panic for passion.
Worse, for all I knew, somewhere in the bowels of SFPD a sketch artist was working on a composite of me right at this very moment. I had tried to do a forgetting spell on the building to remove my fingerprints in the elevator and on the windowsill. I had attempted a forgetting spell on the street to remove my image from the inevitable security cameras, but the problem was the apartment building was close to the intersection of Polk Street. There were apartments everywhere. There was a park across the street. There were restaurants and boutiques. There were cars and pedestrians. There was the kid in the window across the way. It had been broad daylight.
No wonder John noticed I was clutching him as if for dear life.
I raised my head, tried to laugh. “I just really, really missed you today.”
“I missed you too.” He frowned a little. “Did something happen?”
My voice wobbled as I said, “You ever have one of those days?”
“Sure. Fewer now that you’re here.”
I closed my eyes, leaned into him.
He said, “Cos, did you want to skip tonight? It’s all right to say you need some downtime.”
Yes. Please. Because what I have to tell you will not be easy. Maybe change how you feel about me. Please let me have this time with you.
I shook my head, raised my face to his, kissed him briskly. “And let the home team down? No way.”
He looked uncertain—which didn’t happen often—and as I pulled away, he caught my hand and kissed it.
I walked out of the bathroom. A few seconds later the shower taps blasted on again.
Sometimes you can tell a lot by the costumes people choose for Halloween parties.
For example, John wore full Highland regalia for the mayor’s party: kilt, Prince Charlie jacket and vest, cream-colored hose—jewel-topped sgian dubh included—fur-covered sporran—whisky-filled silver flask included—and black leather ghillie brogues. From his black satin bow tie to his navy-blue garter flashes, he was the living embodiment of his own cultural fantasies.
But sometimes the choice of costume comes down to what was left on the costume store shelf. Which is how I ended up dressed as Sherlock Holmes.
When I joined John at the bar downstairs, his eyebrows shot up.
“Elementary, my dear Macduff. I waited too long to order my costume. And if you say I told you so, you can fix your own breakfast tomorrow.”
“I always fix breakfast on Sunday,” John pointed out.
“True.”
“The hat—deerstalker?—is cute. You definitely have the head for hats.”
I sidled onto the barstool. “Nice to know I have a head for something.”
He grinned, handed me a glass of wine. “¡Arriba.”
“Abajo.”
“Al centro.”
“Adentro.” I drained the glass.
John whistled. “Thirsty?”
“Dutch courage.”
He was amused. “You’re not nervous about tonight? You were born with a cocktail glass in your hand.”
“True. It made for a difficult birth.”
He snorted.
I said, “No. I’m not worried about tonight.” That was the truth. News of the death—even the possible homicide—of someone like Eddie Darquez would not have infiltrated the upper echelons of City Hall. Not yet.
John considered me for a second or two, and I knew he had questions. I braced myself. Instead, he glanced at his watch. “Did you want another?”
I set my empty glass on the bar counter. “Nope. Lead on, Macduff.”
“Isn’t it ‘Lead on, Macbeth’?” John was setting the security system as I bade Pyewacket good night at the front door.
“No. The play is called Macbeth, but Macduff is the real hero. In fact, you could say he’s the detective.”
Pyewacket’s meow was jeering. I glared at him.
We were in the car, and Ella Fitzgerald was singing “That Old Black Magic,” when John said abruptly, “You can’t tell Andi this, but Trace is going to ask her to marry him.”
Startled out of my bleak thoughts, I stared at his profile. “He is?”
John nodded. After a moment, he asked, “Do you think she’ll accept?”
“I think she loves him.”
“But?”
“It’s complicated. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“Andi doesn’t believe in marriage between witches and mortals. She doesn’t think it’s right to spend your life with someone you have to lie to about the things that matter most.”
“She’d have to tell him the truth.” John’s voice was flat. He didn’t say it, but I couldn’t help fearing the unspoken message was Or I will.