My usual way would be to touch someone and pick his or her mind. If that didn’t work, I’d beat it out of them. Which was probably Bram’s MO, too.
“One more thing,” Bram said. “Witches, sorcerers, wizards—anything magic—sometimes they don’t die just right.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“What if you stick the sosye and he doesn’t die?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “what if?”
“It’s a witch,” Bram said. “Burn it.”
I did what he’d said. Paper. Square. Mait dead written in the middle. I used my silver knife to slice it into teenie-tiny pieces as I said the words out loud: “I want to be successful in all my undertakings.”
When I lifted the knife after the last slice, a rain-scented wind swirled in and scattered the pieces everywhere like confetti. For an instant the blade glowed red, but the flare died so fast I couldn’t be sure it had actually happened.
Three AM. I needed to move. For all I knew, Mait might already be on his way to the cemetery.
I hid the charmed knife in my un-cool fanny pack. I should really replace that with . . . what? A Coach weapon carrier? A Louis Vuitton dagger sheath. Yeah, that would be so me.
I walked down Bourbon toward St. Louis Number One. If I was lucky I’d see Mait in one of the strip clubs; then I could follow him somewhere dark and isolated where I would do what needed to be done.
Of course that scenario was much, much too easy. So easy that I was only half searching for him as I strolled past each open doorway. When I actually saw him I’d taken several steps down the sidewalk before I realized it.
He was getting a lap dance, all right, and preoccupied enough not to notice me when I ducked in for a closer look then ducked quickly back out. I moved across the street, ordered a virgin margarita in a to-go cup, then pretended to peer in the shop windows while I waited. I’d only taken one sip when my phone rang.
I glanced at the caller ID. Luther. My heart did a tiny panic dance as I flipped it open. “Hey, kid—”
“Come quick, Liz.” His voice was choked, either with tears or because someone was choking him. I didn’t like either choice.
“What’s wrong?”
“Faith,” he began, then gasped, either with pain or a sob.
“Luther!” The fear his last word had brought nearly made it impossible for me to speak at all. “Is—is someone there with you?”
“Yes.” My hand clenched on the phone, and the plastic crackled. I forced myself to loosen my hold. “Summer,” he finished. “Summer’s here.”
“No one else? No one . . . bad?”
“Not anymore.”
Oh, God. I didn’t realize until someone cursed at me that I’d dropped the margarita all over the sidewalk.
“Where’s Faith?” I shouted, ignoring the stares I got, even on Bourbon Street.
“They took her.”
CHAPTER 33
“Jimmy,” I managed.
“He went after her.”
Ah, hell. The dream. I guess it had been a vision.
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see—”
“Dammit!” I’d confined my demon beneath the moon, so Ruthie had come back to me, leaving Luther alone. It hadn’t even occurred to me to let the kid know. I was as much to blame for this as anyone.
I inched into a small space between the bar and a T-shirt shop where I could still watch the front door of the strip club, but I was out of the way. “What the hell happened, Luther?”
The phone thumped and crackled. “Don’t yell at him!”
Summer.
“I wasn’t yelling.” Although now that I had her on the line, I might. “What happened?” I repeated.
“Not a clue.”
“You’re a fairy!”
Now I did shout and earned a few nasty looks and one snarl from a passerby. That had sounded pretty bad.
“You live in an enchanted castle,” I continued more quietly.
“Cottage,” she corrected.
“What-fucking-ever. No one was supposed to be able to get in.”
“Surprise,” she said. “They did.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“You know, the more you threaten that, the less it scares me?”
“Not a threat this time, Tinker Bell. A promise.”
“Spare me your wannabe John Wayne dialogue. We need to find the baby and Jimmy.”
“You think?”
“Fuck you,” she said, but there was no heat in her words. She was scared. I could smell it from here, and she hadn’t even seen what I had.
“Tell me exactly what went on,” I ordered. I figured she’d give me more ‘tude, but she didn’t. Which only proved just how scared she was.
“Jimmy got a call. He left. I went to check on Faith; she was gone.”
“Jimmy could have taken her.”
“And not told us? Why?”
Why did Sanducci do anything?
“No sign of a breakin?” I asked. “No hint of a spell?”
“Nothing,” Summer answered.
“Strange.”
“I expect a little more than ‘strange’ from the damned leader of the light.”
“Damned is right,” I muttered, as an idea began to form.
“I’ll do anything to get him—I mean them—back,” Summer said.