Midnight Curse

Then I caught the hint of gold glinting at her neck, a chain that disappeared under the sheet. Without speaking, I went over and tugged it out. Katia lifted one hand to fend me off, but was too weak to do more than bump her fingers against my wrist.

At the end of the necklace swung a small gold medallion, the size of a silver dollar. I let go and took a step back, triumphant. Then I reached into my own shirt and pulled out the little medallion on a chain. When I drew it out, Katia’s eyes widened. I held it up to the pendant dangling near her face. “I found this in Molly’s backpack,” I said. “You’re wearing the same necklace around your neck.”

Chapter 35

Katia’s brow furrowed, and she reached out a trembling hand for Molly’s necklace, glancing suspiciously at us, like the whole thing was a plot so we could smack her wrist. When neither of us made a move, she took it from me and slowly raised it to her face. “That is not possible,” she said after examining it for a moment. “I do not know what this is, but there is no way this Molly is one of Oskar’s—” Her eyes widened.

“So that’s his name,” Jesse said casually. “Good to know. Why couldn’t Molly be one of Oskar’s girls?”

Katia just glared at us some more. It was a pretty good glare, and if she were capable of standing or even sitting up by herself, I might have been a little scared of her. “Come on,” Jesse urged. “If you really care about this guy, how could it hurt to prove that he didn’t pimp out our friend?”

“Oskar was turned at around age thirty-five,” she said stiffly. “This was in the late 1930s. I have seen an old passport; I know this to be true.” She held up Molly’s necklace. “Your girl was already free by then. I doubt they even knew each other.” She gave us a look of great triumph and tossed the medallion at me. Well, she tried to toss it at me. She was so weak that it went about as far as her own chest.

“Then how come you have the same necklace?” Jesse asked.

She twitched her shoulders in a shrug-like manner. “They are similar, yes. But not the same. Mine was never a coin.” She hesitated for just a second, then picked up her own necklace. “It is spelled so it cannot be removed, but you are a disruptor, yes?” She looked at me.

I nodded. I hadn’t felt a tiny spell short out when we’d first met Katia, but it was the middle of a gunfight. “No active magic around me,” I said.

“Then here, look.” She tried to lift it over her head, but I had to help her get it free. When I got it untangled from her hair and sat back she had the oddest look on her face, a combination of fear, vulnerability, and jubilation. I handed it to Jesse, who held up both necklaces, comparing them. Sure enough, Katia’s pendant was smooth on both sides, except for a single inscribed date: February 8th, 1997.

“Why does he make you wear these?” Jesse asked. “Just to identify you as his?”

She bristled a little, but answered him. “All the medallions are poured from the same vein of gold. Oskar has a gold coin from it, too. There is a trades witch who can use the connection to find all of us.”

So it was a tracking device that the wearer couldn’t remove themselves. Smart. I would have shorted out the removal spell, but not the tracker. That kind of like-for-like spell wouldn’t require active magic, so being near a null would only negate it until the necklace moved out of my radius.

“Wait,” Jesse said. “If that’s true, why hasn’t Oskar already come for you here?”

Oh. Shit.

But Katia just twitched her shoulders in a tired parody of a shrug. “Most likely, he could not find a trades witch here who could help him. We do not have witch connections in Los Angeles yet, and he keeps his coin on him at all times. When he awoke at sunset and I had not yet returned, he would have needed to fly someone here to find me.”

“Or,” I said, “he decided to go after Molly instead of trying to rescue you. He abandoned you, Katia.”

She gave me an impatient look. “He is not my husband, my boyfriend. To him, I am a useful tool. He will recover me when he is able.”

Jesse and I locked eyes. “Talk to you in the hall for a second?” I asked. He nodded, and I stuffed Katia’s necklace into the pocket of my top. As long as it was close to me, no witch would be able to use it to find us.

There was nothing in the room that Katia could use as a weapon, but I didn’t want to take any chances. “Shadow,” I said, and the bargest’s eyes snapped to me. “Watch and defend.” Her massive hindquarters rose as she padded over to Katia, sitting down with about a foot between her front paws and the witch’s cot. Shadow bared her teeth, and Katia instinctively shrunk back on the cot, just a tiny bit. Her eyes were wide. “If I were you,” I advised, “I wouldn’t move.”

We left the cell and went into the kitchen, just a few feet away. I didn’t think there was anything Katia could do magically to a bargest, but I expanded my radius, just in case.

Jesse closed the door to the kitchen, and we said at more or less the same time, “We need to move her.”

“Jinx,” I said smugly. “I prefer my Coke diet.”

Jesse opened the fridge, right behind me, and handed me a can before pulling out another for himself. We both needed the caffeine.

“So we move her,” Jesse said, “but where? There aren’t a whole lot of places where we can hold someone against their will.”

True. I considered that for a moment. “Unless it’s not against her will.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Do you have a plan for getting her to defect to Team Scarlett?”

“No,” I admitted. “I was really just thinking out loud. But I’m super glad that name is catching on.” He held up his can in a toast.

“Anyway,” I went on, “she said herself that they’re not involved romantically. If she doesn’t love him, we’ve got to be able to offer her a better deal than she’s getting from Count Oskar.”

“Unless she’s just evil,” he pointed out. “Maybe she’s really into kidnapping and pimping strangers. Lex aside, aren’t all boundary witches supposed to be evil?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean like how all Mexicans are lazy and all Asians are bad drivers?”

“Hmm. Good point.”

“I suppose it’s possible that she’s full dark side, but then why wouldn’t Oskar have told her his reasons for going after Molly?”

“She could be lying about that,” he reminded me.

“True . . . but I don’t know. I guess Katia just seems more pragmatic. Like working for Oskar is the only survival option she thinks she has. So how about we give her a better one?”

“Hmm.” He took a sip of the soda, and said, “What if we offered her a lot of money? Dashiell has plenty, and it doesn’t look like Katia’s exactly rolling in it. Those clothes maybe came from Target, and she looks like she cut her hair herself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Snob McDouchery. If this were a human with human problems, maybe money would fix them. But there’s a reason why Katia has stayed as long as she has, and it’s obviously not the great pay. He’s offered her something she can’t find anywhere else. Unless . . .” I trailed off, thinking.

Jesse checked his watch. “If you’ve got an idea, now’s the time,” he said. “Every minute we stay here is another minute that Oskar could be getting closer.”

“Okay.” I went to the fridge and got out a bottle of water, which we keep on hand for guests. I grabbed a beef stick and my own drink, too. Then, hands full, I headed for the kitchen door. “Come on,” I said over my shoulder. “Follow my lead, okay?”

We went back into the little cell, where neither Katia nor Shadow seemed to have moved. “Shadow, relax,” I said, and tossed her the beef stick. The bargest snatched it out of the air greedily, her tail wagging. Jesse and Katia both jumped at the sound of her teeth snapping together, which never failed to amuse me. “Good girl.”

I held up the Arrowhead water in front of Katia’s face so she could see that the seal was unbroken. Then I twisted off the cap and handed it to her, backing away to give her space. She shot me a confused look. “I didn’t poison it,” I promised her. “And I figure you must be thirsty.”