Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 (17 page)

Jemmy's hand squeezed my shoulder
again before she settled back into the chair she'd been sitting in
when I arrived. I turned to face her because I couldn't keep
looking at my mom. "I don't know who attacked her, Zoë. She called
me earlier today and asked me if I'd been in the basement recently
at the shop. I told her I hadn't, though I'd seen Rhonda's car in
the parking lot a month ago. Not sure if she'd been in the
basement, though."

"Why did Mom ask about the basement?"
I knew from experience Mom sometimes kept magical items down there,
as well as mementos that were precious to her. She kept her mojo
supplies there as well. "She didn't ask for anything
specifically?"

"She said she was going to come to the
house tonight and take a look down there. You know the house's been
locked up for the past month?"

"I thought it was open on certain
days? She had a new helper?"

"It's usually open on Wednesdays and
Fridays, but she closed it down for December. We were supposed to
reopen in January." Jemmy waved her hand in the air as if to
dismiss that conversation. "But she asked me to go in and check the
house wards before she got there."

"Did you?"

"I was gonna. But my grandson called
and needed someone to pick him up at the gym because his mama was
stuck at work. I jumped in my car and forgot about it. Of course,
when I got to the gym, he'd already caught a ride with someone.
When I got back, I saw Nona's car in the driveway and went back to
my kitchen."

I glanced back at Mom…or at the bed
that had swallowed my mom. Why was she worried about the shop? Why
now? And what was important about the wards?

"I saw lights on in the shop, so I
called her to see if she'd eaten or wanted me to bring over a nice
dinner. But she didn't answer her phone. I knew she was there. So I
waited about ten minutes and she didn't call back. That's when I
was afraid something had happened. But I was thinking maybe she'd
slipped on those stairs going down into the basement."

"Was she down in the
basement?"

"Yeah, she was. Kicked to the side
against the wall behind the stairs. The only way I knew she was
back there was because of the blood across the floor in the kitchen
that led down there. I panicked, threw up about nine different
wards, and chased something out of there."

Wait
… I held up a hand. "You chased
something
out of there?"

"Yeah. Made a noise when I cast my
momma's own Get Back spell—that's an old magic that I don't use
much. Never saw who it was, but I heard them yell upstairs, heard
them run out, and the door slammed."

Someone corporeal had been in that
house.

"I saw what they'd done to her, so I
sent out the call and then dialed 911. He beat her, Zoë. Like a
dog. I don't know what with but it was enough to mess her face up.
Broke her nose and slit her throat."

I swallowed. "Was there anything
missing?"

"Just her necklace. Nothing else was
gone from what I could tell. Cops chased me out of
there."

Her necklace. Aw, damn it.
Damn, damn,
damn
.
Whatever it was had been in there looking for the stones like Geist
said. It'd beaten my mom up and taken the Creation
Eidolon.

"So once I got here, I called Joe
because he's one of our best at healing, though what she needs is
Darren." She put her hand on my arm. "You haven't found him yet,
have you?"

The thought of Dags jerked at my
chest. I shook my head and put my hand on hers. "No. We're not sure
where he and Rhonda are."

"Son of a bitch," Joe said from the
door, and was followed closely by a woman in scrubs. I immediately
phased into Wraith and went incorporeal, although Jemmy could sense
me, and I was pretty sure Joe could as well. He might even be able
to see me. I never knew about him.

"Sir, you're not family. You can't be
in here—"

He reached into his pocket and pulled
out his badge. "This gives me permission. I'm the lead detective on
this case. Tell me exactly what happened to her."

The nurse, though flustered, gave him
close to the same account Jemmy had given me, only from her point
of view, Nona was brought in barely alive. She'd lost a lot of
blood, and the wound had cut deep enough to slice into her
esophagus and nick her spinal column, but hadn't completely severed
her neck.

Bastard.

Any lingering anger faded away as I
listened and watched my mom.

Truth be as it was, I'd do anything to
save her life. Even if she rammed a knife into my heart.

Joe dismissed the nurse and shut the
door. Then he turned and waved at the camera. I wasn't sure what
he'd done at first, until I heard them fussing at the front
counter. Sounded like the cameras were off. "Jemmy, can you keep
them busy?"

"I sure can do" She stood and ambled
out of the room, but closed the door behind her.

"Zoë, I know you're there, and it
would help me a great deal if you'd give me a little
juice."

I became visible and approached him.
"Give you juice?"

"Yep. Like this." He put a Hulk Crush
grip on my shoulder with his left hand and then put his right hand
on my mother's chest. I felt a weird tingling where his fingers
gripped me, and soon that tingling became a more insistent numbness
when I watched his right hand glow the same way Dags's did when he
healed someone.

Wait a second—Joe was trying to heal
my mom? Since when could he do that? I remembered Jemmy saying he
was the best healer they had, but I don't think I'd ever seen him
put it to practical use.

A circle of spinning light moved out
from Joe's right hand, and then was joined by another circle made
up of symbols. Then another like the first, and the pattern started
to rotate just above Mom's chest.

I didn't dare speak when I saw Joe's
eyes close and his jaw clench. He concentrated with everything he
had on this, and I didn't want to…

Whoo…dizzy. I staggered a few steps,
and his grip tightened. I couldn't feel my arm, and the numbness
spread down my leg. I contemplated a serious collapse when he let
go, but stayed on my feet. I did reach out to grab hold of the
bed's metal railing.

"What the…" I muttered as I stared at
my hand. It blurred, and then it darkened before the room lit up
again. "Who's toying with the lights?"

"Those are your lights," Joe said. He
still had his hand on Mom's chest. "I am sorry, Zoë. I think I took
too much, and it's not going to make a big difference."

"Joe…" I licked my lips and thought of
a tall cold glass of water. "What…since when have you been a
healer?"

"Since I had to be when Rhonda took
control of Dags," He removed his hand and looked at the monitor.
"She's stabilized for now, and the damage to her neck's now little
more than a half-healed scar." Joe turned and looked at me. Circles
hung beneath his eyes. I expected him to pass out. "Do we have any
idea who attacked Nona and why?"

I told him what Jemmy had told me. He
ran his fingers through his hair. "Whatever it is, it's solid
enough to do this to Nona and ransack the house. Which means it has
the ability to be corporeal or it's in a human host. But what are
they looking for?"

I was going to tell him what Geist
said, but I didn't want to do it here. "I'll tell you, but first,
can you put up one of those protection things? For my mom, so
nothing can get to her and Jemmy? Then can we go see the
shop?"

Chapter Seventeen

"Tell me again what it was he said?"
Joe drove his small truck as fast as he could down Ponce de Leon.
Mom's house was off of Euclid, a turn from Moreland Avenue. With
the rate of speed Joe abused on the secondary roads, I'd already
braced myself to shift into Wraith and grab him by the collar in
case he crashed into something.

Which…brought to mind a question I'd
been tossing around. If I grab hold of someone and go Wraith and
incorporeal, do they do it, too? Back when Allard Bonville had
taken Dags through the Abysmal Plane, I'd grabbed hold of Dags to
go with him and try to protect him. Well, actually, I'd tried to
pull him back, but at the time I didn't know how, and Bonville had
been pretty good at magic.

"He said the Seraphim wanted the
Eidolons. But he called them the magic stones."

"Yeah, that was one of the names I'd
read on them, too. Back when I was trying to intercept their
shipment."

"You mean back when Charlie Holmes was
killed?"

Joe glanced at me and nodded. "Yeah.
To be honest…that's how I know Tamera Moultrie. She was one of my
informants."

My jaw hit my thighs. Ouch. "Wait…back
up. You once took information from that skeezy harlot who called my
mother on the carpet and accused her of doing unnatural
things?"

"Your mother
has
done unnatural
things."

"That's not my point." I waved at the
air. I had to regroup to find my point. "You paid Tamera for
information on occult things?"

"No. Not on occult things
specifically. Tamera was an investigative reporter at the time, and
she and I worked back and forth on a few cases last year, while
Daniel was having his problems with Heather."

Heather. Daniel's crazy ex-wife.
Dead…ex-wife. Oh God, I hoped like hell her body didn't show up in
some fashion. That would just be bad. "So, she found out about the
shipment of those stones?"

"Yep. Her relationship with
Francisco Rodriguez was more of a…hateful one. I didn't know the
background and didn't want to. But she had followed him through his
career and watched him, so when the shipment of coffee was
scheduled to come in that night, she'd intercepted some weird calls
between Francisco and the shipper. The term
magic stones
came up, so she called
me."

"What happened?"

He turned left on Moreland and did not
slow down. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, Charlie got shot. Something
went wrong."

I'd known Detective Halloran long
enough to gauge when he was upset by watching his expression. So
when he pursed his lips, bingo. "Someone—though she didn't know
who—slipped her something. It killed her."

My jaw dropped again. "Are you saying
Daniel and I rescued a zombie?"

"No, she's…" He shrugged. "I don't
know what she is. She's different now because of me." This time he
looked at me. "And because of Dags."

Dags? I twisted against the seatbelt
to face him. "What do you mean, because of Dags? What does he have
to do with Tamera Moultrie?"

"Can we talk about this
later?"

"No."

"Please, Zoë. I'm more
worried about why a creature as powerful as the Seraphim has to
have some magic stones to use the
Grimoire
." He didn't let me answer
him, and honestly…I wondered it myself. "I mean, I know Maureen's a
Familiar and that has a bit of power to it. But even as a
protective power over Dags, how can she possibly stand up to
something as über as
the
Seraphim? I mean…you think she could stand up to
TC as the Phantasm?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Maureen would have to be some kind
of…ultimate planar herself. And she's not. She was a human. She was
Dags' girlfriend at one time."

Ooh. Forgot that part. Maybe that's
why she was so protective?

His frustration was evident
in his tone, and I understood it. We were once again back in a
situation with a lot of questions and no answers. Dags and Rhonda
were missing, we were pretty sure now that the Seraphim had them,
but for some reason it couldn't get to the
Grimoire
inside of Dags'
soul.

Also, my rapist was back—why? To
rattle me? In my opinion, if your purpose was rattling someone,
then you were doing it because they frightened you. The rapist had
my father's mark on him, meaning he was controlled by Adiran
Martinique. After having been locked into the Abysmal Plane Throne
by him, I could believe anything devious about my
father.

Believing my mother had sicced that
guy on me and Barry those years ago…that was harder. And why? To
crack the spell she'd set on me when I was a 'tweener?

See? Questions, 1,000,000,000.
Answers, 0.

Two black-and-whites sat outside the
house. The GBI's CSU truck sat to the right. Joe could go in, but
me? Joe told me to stay cloaked—his term for incorporeal—and move
close to him. I was going to argue, until I saw Mastiff.

I didn't feel much like hovering like
I had at the park. I had another idea.

"What?" Joe frowned at me as he put
his hand on the driver's door. He'd grabbed his gun and put his
badge around his neck. Mastiff was already hoofing it to the truck.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Just…don't get mad. And even though I
know you can hear me in your head…I think this is a better choice."
Before he could protest or ask what I was going to do, I dove
inside of him.