Shifting Shadows
Page 40At the same time, a male, probably young, was saying in a rapid, rabid flow of sound, “I feel it . . . Doncha feel it? I feel it in him. This is the one. He’ll do for Kouros.” Then there was a soft click as the call ended.
The last fifty times he’d heard the recording, he couldn’t make out the last word. But with the information the witch had given him, he understood it just fine this time.
Tom looked at Choo’s witch, but he couldn’t tell what she thought. Somewhere she’d learned to discipline her emotions, so he could smell only the strong ones—like the flash of desire she’d felt as he sniffed the back of her neck. Even in this situation, it had been enough to raise a thread of interest. Maybe after they got his brother back, they could do something about that interest. In the meantime . . .
“How much of the last did you hear, Wendy?” he asked.
“Don’t call me Wendy,” she snapped. “It’s Moira. No one called me Wendy except my mom, and she’s been dead a long time.”
“Fine,” he snapped back before he could control himself. He was tired and worried, but he could do better than that. He tightened his control and softened his voice. “Did you hear the guy? The one who said that he felt it in him—meaning my brother, I think. And that he would do for Kouros?”
“No. Or at least not well enough to catch his words. But I know the woman’s voice. You’re right: it was Samhain.” Though he couldn’t feel anything from her, her knuckles were white on the coffee cup.
“You need a Finder, and I can’t do that anymore. Wait—” She held up a hand before he could say anything. “I’m not saying I won’t help you, just that it could be a lot simpler. Kouros moves all the time. Did you trace the call? It sounded like a pay phone to me.”
“They don’t know that he’s a cop, or that his brother is a werewolf.”
“He doesn’t carry ID with him while he’s undercover. I don’t see how anyone would know I was his brother. Unless he told them, and he wouldn’t.”
“Good,” she said. “They won’t expect you. That’ll help.”
“So do you know a Finder I can go to?”
She shook her head. “Not one who will help you against Samhain. Anyone, anyone who makes a move against them is punished in some rather spectacular ways.” He saw her consider sharing one or two of them with him and discard it. She didn’t want him scared off. Not that he could be, not with Jon’s life at stake. But it was interesting that she hadn’t tried.
“If you take me to where they stole him, maybe I can find something they left behind, something to use to find them.”
Tom frowned at her. She didn’t know his brother, he hadn’t mentioned money, and he was getting the feeling that she couldn’t care less if he called in the authorities. “So if Samhain is so all-powerful, how come you, a white witch, are willing to buck them?”
She pulled off her glasses, and he saw that he’d been wrong. He’d been pretty sure she was blind—the other reason women wore wraparound sunglasses at night. And she was. But that wasn’t why she wore the sunglasses.
Her left eye was Swamp Thing–green without pupil or white. Her right eye was gone, and it looked as though it had been removed by someone who wasn’t too good with a knife. It was horrible—and he’d seen some horrible things.
“Sacrifice is good for power,” she said again. “But it works best if you can manage to make the sacrifice your own.”
Jesus. She’d done it to herself.
She might not be able to see him, but she read his reaction just fine. She smiled tightly. “There were some extenuating circumstances,” she continued. “You aren’t going to see witches cutting off their fingers to power their spells—it doesn’t work that way. But this worked for me.” She tapped the scar tissue around her right eye. “Kouros did the other one first. That’s why I’m willing to take them on. I’ve done it before and survived—and I still owe them a few.” She replaced her sunglasses, and he watched her relax as they settled into place.
• • •
Tom Franklin hadn’t brought a car, and for obvious reasons, she didn’t drive. He said the phone was only a couple of miles from her apartment, and neither wanted to wait around for a cab. So they walked. She felt his start of surprise when she tucked her arm in his, but he didn’t object. At least he didn’t jump away from her and say “ick,” like the last person who’d seen what she’d done to herself.
He said, with sober humor, “I imagine watching you trip over a few curbs would be a good way to get you to help Jon. Why don’t you get a guide dog?”
“Small apartments aren’t a good place for big dogs,” she told him. “It’s not fair to the dog.”
They walked a few blocks in silence, the rain drizzling unhappily down the back of her neck and soaking the bottoms of the jeans she’d put on before they started out. Seattle was living up to its reputation. He guided her as if he’d done it before, unobtrusively but clearly, as if they were waltzing instead of walking down the street. She relaxed and walked faster.
“Wendy.” He broke the companionable silence with the voice of One Who Suddenly Comprehends. “It’s worse than I thought. I was stuck on Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Little Witch. But Wendy Moira . . . I bet it’s Wendy Moira Angela, isn’t it?”
She gave him a mock scowl. “I don’t have a kiss for you, and I can’t fly—not even with fairy dust. And I hate Peter Pan, the play, and all the movies.”