The Isis Collar (13 page)

There was no point in arguing with her. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood. The snow had all melted away, leaving behind rich green sprouts and flowers only a little the worse for wear. I had a bag full of new goodies in the backseat, including lots of protection charms and the pretty garnet cross for Gran. I even bought a shiny new agate pinkie ring that promised aura protection. I’d already broken one
Clear Mind
charm and felt my thinking sharpen. I felt ready for anything—for at least the next twelve to twenty-four hours, or so promised the packaging.

Dawna was wearing several new bracelets with delicately braided runes in pretty patterns, plus her jacket, specially adapted by Isaac to hold several wooden stakes and a few holy-water squirt guns. I convinced her to splurge on the One Shot brand because they’re reliable in a crisis. There’s no beating that, even though they’re twice the cost of most of the alternatives.

I guess I hadn’t realized how much she was still struggling with the fact that she’d been attacked by a vampire. Lilith had been an ancient bat, so powerful she qualified as a full-fledged demon. She wanted me and had used Dawna to get information.

I was amazed she was still sane.

It’s significant and worrying that she’s never talked to me directly about any of this. Her therapist talks to my therapist who talks to me. It’s hard to get much information that way because it’s constantly filtered under the guise of “the best interests of the patient.” But I knew that Lilith had made Dawna a human servant and when the vampire died, she’d felt it to her very core. Maybe it was finally time to break the ice about that night.

“Gorgeous jacket. Isaac does good work.” The cherry red blazer was one Dawna’d had for a year or so, a designer original we’d picked up at an outlet store for a song. It still looked the same to the casual eye. But my eye wasn’t casual. “Just at a glance, I’d say he gave you some room under the arms for extra stakes or knives and flared the back so you could draw the guns. Anything else?”

She smiled and flipped up the collar to reveal a rosary attached to the fabric with Velcro. Cute. “Added backup in case there are two.”

I nodded and watched the traffic while I tried to figure out how to ask my next question. “Have there been occasions lately that would call for added backup?”

There was silence in the seat next to me for so long that I finally looked over at her when I could spare a glance. Her lips were tight together and her eyes stared at nothing while tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Dawna?”

I could smell her pain, could hear it in her voice. “Last week I decided I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich for supper from that new little restaurant down the street. They use three different cheeses and you can pick your bread. You know the one?”

I did, so I nodded.

“It was dark by the time I left because I got caught up in a magazine article. I didn’t think much about it. I’ve been doing better about being alone at night. I was almost back to my car when I heard a voice whisper from a doorway. It said,
You should have died with her.
It took a minute to sink in, y’know? But then I heard it again, from way up high when there was nothing high around to perch on. It scared me, Celia. It felt like I was being stalked. It … made me remember … and—” She couldn’t go on. I couldn’t pull over on the freeway to give her a hug. So I reached across the car and put a comforting hand on the back of her neck.

I took a deep breath and let it out slow. Stalking and scary. I knew all about both. “Will the blazer make you feel safe?”

She nodded. “It does already.”

“So Isaac taught you how to use the stakes?” It was a loaded question and maybe it was evident in my voice. Because Isaac doesn’t do classes.

She shrugged and sounded confused. “They’re stakes. What’s to learn?”

I winced internally but only let her see my nod. “Do me a favor. Hit my arm. Really punch it.”

She frowned but obeyed. I barely felt the tap. I put on the blinker to turn into the office parking lot. “Again. Really put your shoulder into it.”

Dawna shrugged and punched again. She hit me with what I think she believed was force, because she wound up grimacing and shaking her hand like it hurt. “Damn, girlfriend. Your bicep is like a
rock.
There isn’t enough room in here to budge it.”

I parked the car and turned in my seat so I could watch her face. “And that’s just plain muscle. Not bone. Now imagine trying to push those two-inch-wide stakes under your arm through to the other side of my arm with a single blow, with the same amount of working space. Trust me. You would barely have made it through the skin.”

What I was trying to tell her finally sank in and the fear returned in a wash that paled her skin. “But I thought—”

I touched her arm. “Everybody does. It’s okay. Really. People buy the stakes but have no idea what to do with them. You might get lucky and wound a bat and make it run just from the smell of the wood, but if you really want to protect yourself, you have to learn how to actually use them.” It was obvious this was really important to her. It might have been a suggestion from her therapist that she get some protection to ease her mind. “If you want to learn how, I’d be happy to teach you.”

Her face brightened. “Would you? Really? That would be … well,
amazing
!”

She meant it, which sort of surprised me. It could mean that she really didn’t have a grasp of what I was offering. Still, she was my best friend. I’d do everything in my power to make sure she felt confident to handle bats. If she was right and some vampire had targeted her because they thought she’d betrayed Lilith … well, that was a whole new ball game. “Come by my house tonight around eight and bring whatever you want to learn more about, including those charm disks. You need to see what they do in controlled circumstances.”

“Tonight? Couldn’t we do it now?”

It made me laugh as I was unbuckling my seat belt. “Well,
you
need to get back to the office and
I
need to get over to the college. I need to talk to Dr. Sloan about the entity at the FBI office. I’d hoped to sound like I’d at least read his book, but I’ll just have to own up to not having done my ‘homework.’” I gave a rueful grin. “But oh
hell,
it’s Friday afternoon.”

“No classes?”

“No classes.
And
I don’t have my car. Crap.”

Dawna looked at the building and it was obvious she didn’t want to go back inside. She was probably noticing that there were more cars than usual in the lot. Someone had even parked in my reserved spot, so I’d had to take the last free space. I’ve never understood that tendency of people to ignore signs and bright yellow letters against black pavement. But they do, and then look surprised when you confront them. “Is it two o’clock?” Her voice sounded annoyed, bordering on bitter.

I glanced at my watch. “Quarter ’til.”

Her nose wrinkled. “It’s the French settlement conference. Big, angry family who are fighting over Mommy’s million-dollar estate. That’ll be a pleasant meeting, I’m sure. It sure won’t be quiet. I didn’t sign on to this job to be a combination nanny and bouncer.”

I didn’t bite on that bait, because in my mind, that’s pretty much what a receptionist is. And I know Dawna knows that. She’s said it herself more than once. “You’re just cranky because you’ve been up too long.”

“You’re probably right.” She climbed out of the car. I made a motion to toss back her keys, but she stopped me with a gesture. “I’ve got a date tonight anyway. I’d have canceled for the lessons, but I’d rather not. You’re going to need it to get home. I can pick it up later.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. No problema.” She pasted a smile on her face and started across the lot. I was right behind her for the first couple of steps, but then my cell rang. When she paused, as if to wait, I waved her on. It sounded like they really needed her in there.

I pressed the button, answering, “Graves.”

“Take the job!” I couldn’t put a name to the panicked voice on the other end of the line, but it sounded familiar. It wasn’t someone I spoke to regularly, but I’d spoken to him before, and recently.

“You have to take the job,”he pleaded. “You
have
to. Her psychic told her that she had to get you out of the way if this was going to work. She won’t kill you if you just leave.”

“Who is this? What job?” I asked, but I had a pretty good idea about the last part.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Sanchez is dead. Marjorie’s in the hospital. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, too.” He was sobbing, now. “Please. Just take the job.” He hung up before I could say anything else.

I was cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature outdoors.
Sanchez is dead
.
Marjorie is in the hospital.
The only Sanchez I’d run into lately was the principal at Abe Lincoln, and Marjorie was the name of the secretary I’d given the business card with my cell number to. The caller could have been Jamisyn. Or maybe the vice principal … what was his name anyway? But I was betting on Jamisyn. We’d talked, and he actually had seemed to like me.

I stepped up on the porch intending to hurry up to my office and do a little computer search. The only job I’ve refused lately was MagnaChem. But what would a grade-school security guard have to do with a drug manufacturer?

The voices inside the office became audible before I’d taken a dozen steps from the car, and the short hairs on the back of my neck began to rise. Because Dawna was right. This wasn’t going to be a quiet meeting. One of the voices was newly familiar to me. I’d heard it a week earlier, when it was trying to convince me to set off a bomb.

“I really feel it will be best if you listen to me.” I felt that voice course through my veins, felt my body react to it the way it had in the school basement. My hand automatically went for my Colt and I pulled it back with effort. There were too many people in the office; I didn’t want to add a gun into the mix. Instead, I pulled a couple of very particular charms out of my jacket and palmed them as I walked in the building.

Dawna didn’t seem to notice me. She was more concerned with the obvious issues, more talking to herself than me. “I’d better get on the phone to the cops. I’d bet good money there’s going to be trouble.”

Yeah. Me, too.

“Mom told me I’d get enough to have a house with a pool! I have bursitis, Jill!” A heavyset man with a scraggly beard was screaming into the face of a woman with blonde hair. “So just back off!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Remmy. What are you smoking? She said you
needed
a pool, not that she’d buy you one. I was there … remember?”

Dawna broke in with a bright smile. “Excuse me, everyone?” They all turned to her cheery but professional voice. “We’re about ready to get started. Ron is just finishing up a call, but the conference room is available if everyone’s here. Is anyone missing?”

They all looked around them and shrugged. “No, that’s all of us.” It made me frown, because I could swear I’d heard her voice.

Of course, Ron wasn’t the only other tenant in the building. While Dawna was moving the people into the big conference room, I sprinted up to the third floor. Well, tried to sprint. My bum calf just about gave out halfway and I had to lean hard on the railing the rest of the way.

Damn it. I really hoped Creede …
John
or one of the doctors figured out something soon. It was getting worse, I could tell. And just the thought of that panicked voice on the line:
Sanchez is dead. Marjorie’s in the hospital.
I shuddered. Rizzoli had said the adults were falling like flies.

I hadn’t … yet. I just wanted to keep it that way.

I went across the hall to my own office, just to see if anyone had made it through the magical wards I keep around it for protection. Nothing. I put my palm on the biometric plate and pressed *57, which would tell me who the last person to access it was. After two flashes, it read:
Profile 1.
That was me.

Dawna was back at her desk when I came down the stairs. I was confused and put the charms back in my pocket while she cocked her head and stared at me. “You look odd. Everything okay?”

I started to say I was fine, but the truth was, I wasn’t. I tried to speak casually. “Hey, when we got out of the car, weren’t there two women talking in here?”

She was looking at her computer screen and didn’t hear me at first. She mumbled an, “Uh-huh. Why?”

I didn’t answer, just stared at her with raised brows until she finally looked at me, a quizzical look on her face. “Yeah, actually there
were.
So—”

I nodded, feeling suddenly pissed at myself. “So where’d the second one go? Was there anyone in Ron’s office?”

She shook her head. “Oh, hey! What about the security log? Didn’t Dottie tell us there was a log we could look at to see who’s come and gone in the building?”

Yes, there was, and I remembered her telling us. “Call her. Ask her how to find it. Once you have it, print me out a copy. I’m going to go to the college and ask around about witches who can disable magical shields without anyone noticing. Because I would swear our shield was in place and no way should a person with evil intent have been able to get through.”

She nodded and reached for the phone. I paid special attention to the shield around the office when I left. It felt absolutely normal, but unless the witch flew out a window either she slipped out past us during the screaming match or … she was still there. I began to make a careful check of the possible entrances, including the back door, off the kitchen. It was locked and can only be locked from the inside. Then I went around to the front, looking for any footprints in the soft dirt underneath the windows. We keep the dirt loose just for that reason. With attorneys, bail bondsmen, and bodyguards in the building, we nearly always have enemies.

Then I remembered something that might explain the mystery. Bruno had once cast an illusion spell on himself so strong that six people in a room had believed him to be a potted rubber tree. Another powerful mage in the room had ratted him out.