Hunter's Trail

Chapter 29

Will had put up Dr. Noring in a mid sized chain hotel just off PCH, not far from Molly’s house. I wondered why she wasn’t staying in one of Will’s guest rooms—I thought he had at least two—but decided not to ask. I fully intended to get to the bottom of their weird frenemy thing, but it could wait until the nova was caught and the Luparii scout’s ass had been kicked back to France. Meanwhile, Noring had agreed to meet us in the coffee shop at her hotel in twenty minutes, which was about the amount of time it took to get there.

The coffee shop was the most blandly generic room I’d ever been in. Simple wooden tables surrounded by four cookie-cutter wooden chairs with maroon pleather stretched over half an inch of padding. Plain, industrial carpeting. No signs or decorations of any kind. There was a haggard-looking African American barista with short, tight dreadlocks and suspiciously red eyes behind the counter. He gave us a bleary nod when we walked in and went back to leaning his head on his arms. At least someone had had a fun New Year’s Eve.

Jesse ordered us some coffee and we got settled at one of the tables. It had been varnished to a high gloss, and I suddenly longed to gouge out a chunk of the wood, just to add some character. Jesse gave me a suspicious glance like he knew exactly what I was thinking, and I just smiled sweetly.

Noring bustled in a moment later, wearing loose, comfortable-looking jersey pants and a red T-shirt with lace detailing around the collar. Her long black hair with its artful streaks of silver spilled down over her shoulders and chest. She looked irritable, which might have meant that she’d still been sleeping when I called. Then again, every time I’d seen her she’d looked irritable.

“Morning, Doctor N. Love your hair,” I said cheerfully.

Noring ignored the remark and sat down primly in the only chair at the table that wasn’t occupied by Jesse, me, or my leg. The barista slumped toward our table to deposit our coffees in front of Jesse and me, and Noring swiftly scooped my mug toward her own chest, claiming it for her own. Jesse raised his eyebrows at me but I decided to let the theft slide, mostly because I found her a teensy bit scary. “Dr. Stephanie Noring, this is Detective Jesse Cruz,” I said formally. “Jesse, this is Dr. Noring.”

Jesse held out his hand, but Noring ignored it. She eyed me up and down as she took a long sip of the coffee formerly known as mine. Then she snapped, “How is it that you look worse than before? What have they tangled you up in now?”

“Oh . . . the Luparii are in town,” I said offhandedly. And Noring choked on her coffee, which was shamefully satisfying. Apparently invoking the Luparii was the equivalent of announcing a Beatles reunion tour—with all the original Beatles.

She coughed for a few moments, and Jesse shot me a glare that said, You did that on purpose. I shrugged at him. You have to take fun where you can get it, even if your idea of fun is getting middle-aged women to gag on hot drinks.

Eyes watering, Noring finally sputtered, “That’s impossible; this is America.” Fear was threaded into her voice, as if she were asking me to make it not true. Suddenly, I wasn’t having fun.

“They’re here,” Jesse said quietly. “And we need to know what you know about them.”

Noring looked from his face to mine and back. Then she abruptly stood, pushing her chair back with her knees. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “We do not talk about them.” She looked around furtively, like talking about the Luparii might make them manifest in front of her.

I was too lazy to haul myself back to the counter for a replacement coffee, so I reached over and grabbed Jesse’s, taking a sip. He gave me a look. “We’re sharing now,” I informed him. Looking back at Noring, I asked, “Is it like a Beetlejuice-Freddy Krueger thing? You think if we talk about them they’ll appear?”

“No. We believe talking about them will give them more power,” Noring corrected stiffly. Tension had pervaded her entire body. “Names, stories, legends—these things have a degree of magic attached to them, especially when told with feeling and memory.”

“I didn’t know you were superstitious,” I said mildly. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about how magic works, since it doesn’t work at all near me. I’ve picked up a little bit of knowledge from working at witch-related crime scenes, and one thing I know is that witches don’t create magic—it already exists in the world, all around and part of us. Witches simply channel it into doing things. And at least some part of the reason that witches can access magic is because they believe that they can, which is why there are people with the innate ability to manipulate magic who live their whole lives without even knowing it. If Noring believed that talking about the Luparii would give them more power, and her belief was tied to her magic in any way . . . it was theoretically possible.

“There’s just one problem with that,” I said out loud. I set down my coffee and pointed my thumbs at myself. “Null.”

Noring’s eyes widened. “I keep forgetting,” she said slowly. I felt the subtle buzz of her magic flare up suddenly as she sort of . . . flexed it.

Jesse looked between us. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

I answered him without looking away from the other woman. “I’m not sure she’s even aware of it, but Dr. Noring is trying some kind of spell right now.” The magic fizzled out against my radius. “See?” I asked her.

She nodded. “But that was a direct use of magic, you know . . . against you,” she admitted, her cheeks coloring slightly. “A conversation about the wolf-killers would just be putting magic out in the universe.”