"They have been known to make contact," he said evenly. "I was merely wondering if Balaam has, with you or with your mother."
"No."
He nodded. "Then I will see you in Miami. I trust you'll be there, after you speak to this necromancer? To facilitate my audience with Lucifer's daughter?"
"We'll get there eventually."
"Sooner rather than later, I'd suggest. If you are involved in this matter, it is the safest place for you."
He left, and we did too--before housekeeping stopped by and tried to charge us extra to get rid of the stench.
I called Schmidt again. Still no answer. A quick check on his area code told me it was from a residence in Riverside, California. I researched him, hoping to ping a cell or business number. No luck.
"Do you have a home address?" Adam asked as he drove.
"Yep."
"Then I guess we're keeping the car for another day. And you get to avoid going to Miami for a little longer."
Riverside was just close enough that it wasn't worth the bother of flying. And just far enough that we were exhausted by the time we arrived.
We got to Schmidt's place after eleven, and I couldn't help being reminded of yesterday's late-night visit to Walter Alston. Would we find another dead body here? As we sat in the car, looking at the darkened house, SUV in the drive, it was beginning to look like a definite possibility.
We had every reason to believe Schmidt would welcome our visit, so there was no need for subterfuge. Too bad, because it would have been a hell of a lot easier here than it'd been at Alston's.
I didn't see any signs of external security. No cameras. No dog. Not even a fence around the garden-filled yard.
From my research, I knew the Schmidts didn't have children, which explained the small house. He was an economics instructor at the local community college. His wife was a high school teacher. The SUV was his. An identical model was registered to her, too, and was presumably in the garage. Both Schmidts were in their forties, but only married five years. They volunteered together at a youth group. They vacationed at their time-share in Maui every winter. They took pottery classes at the community center. A very normal, very boring middle-aged couple.
Given the kind of supernaturals Leah hung out with, I'd decided that Schmidt's dull suburban life had to be an excellent front for his darker enterprises. Except that when I searched our files, I found no mention of him. We had Schmidt necromancers in the council records, but as complainants, not troublemakers.
Adam rang the bell. As we waited, he examined the front porch for any signs of a camera feed. None. He rang again. When no one answered, he peered through the side window.
"Got a security system," he said. "But it's only arming the doors, as far as I can tell."
We went in through a rear window and no sirens blasted. Adam checked the security panel by the front door. Taped to the inside was a scrap of paper with the word: Mom.
"He used his mother's birthday for the code," I said. "Or she did. Very secure."
"He's a necromancer." Adam walked into the living room and lifted a pot filled with dried herbs. "He needs a different kind of security."
Vervain, for warding off unwanted spirits.
We did a sweep of the main floor, then went upstairs. The banister was still broken where Leah had pushed Mrs. Schmidt through. The same trick she'd used on Michael, only there hadn't been a banister to slow his fall and it'd been more than a ten-foot drop. I stared at that broken railing, thinking about Michael, until Adam nudged me along.
Next stop: the bedroom. The bed was made. No sign of Schmidt. No faint odor of decomp anywhere either.
As Adam searched for a basement, I poked around the living room. Needlepoint on one end table. A half-constructed model ship on the other. The pillows and throws all looked handmade. Same for the artwork. None of it was particularly good. A couple of artistic dabblers.
I found a photo. The Schmidts were just what I expected. Middle-aged, plain, slightly dumpy. They looked happy, though. I glanced around the living room and could picture them there, doing their arts-and-crafts hobbies together.
"Just storage in the basement," Adam said when he came back. "And not a lot of that. All of the boxes have been there a while. They're covered in dust. No strange smells."
Mrs. Schmidt's SUV was in the garage, along with a bicycle built for two. A childless couple, who'd met late in life, content in each other's company.
We checked the key rack. Two sets were there. No sign of a wallet for Schmidt, although he may have kept it elsewhere.
"It's a coin toss," I said finally. "He might have been murdered and dissolved in lime. Or he might have taken a taxi to the hospital because it was cheaper than paying for parking while he stays at his wife's bedside."
"We'll hit the hospital in the morning. For now, let's try to find a cell phone number."
I found a cellular bill in the "to be paid" pile. I called Schmidt's. His voice mail picked up and warned me that his access would be spotty--presumably because he'd be at the hospital a lot--and urged me to e-mail him instead. I'd already done that, so I left a message. I tried his wife's number, but it forwarded to his.
Adam logged onto the computer. It didn't even have a password. While he checked e-mail, contacts, and the calendar, I did the same with the physical versions, looking for a name I recognized or a suspicious notation. Nothing.
We went through the house again, searching for hiding spots. Not a damned thing. Either Schmidt was a master criminal or he was as clean as he seemed. I was starting to suspect the latter. It still didn't explain his connection with Leah. Then Adam said, "Schmidt is from Wisconsin. Moved here ten years ago, after he met his wife."
"Right." I thought for a moment. "Wisconsin? Isn't that--?"
"Where Leah was a deputy sheriff? Yep."
fourteen
Adam found the connection with a simple search on the Internet. Twelve years ago, Schmidt had been arrested for DUI in an accident that had injured three people. According to the local paper, it had been his third charge.
Two years later, Schmidt had moved to California. I found no evidence of jail time or even a license suspension.
"Did you see any booze in the house?" I said.
"Nope."
"Recovered alcoholic, then. Wanna bet who was the arresting officer at the accident scene?"
Somehow, Leah must have known he was a necromancer and she'd cut him a deal. She also must have known a loophole he could use to get off on the charge. Then he'd owe her a future debt. It would have seemed like a good deal at the time. But he'd have been better off bargaining with a demon.
I talked to Sean that night. We'd been playing phone tag all day. I told him about SLAM. He hadn't heard anything about it, which only meant the Nasts considered it too minor to bother him with while he was abroad. He promised to look into it when he returned in a few days.
Again, I woke up first. I could make a comment about Adam getting older and needing his sleep--and I'm sure I would, as soon as he woke up--but he'd been hard at work on his laptop when I drifted off.
I went down to the lobby of the Marriott we'd checked into the night before. I'd seen a Starbucks kiosk, and mentioned that whoever woke first could grab coffees. Adam hadn't argued. It was a hotel lobby. Not exactly a dangerous place.
I got in line behind a couple bickering about their plans for the day. One wanted to visit an old friend; the other wanted to sightsee. They were making my head ache. I was two seconds from tapping on a shoulder and telling them they should each do whatever the hell they wanted--the bonds of marriage do stretch that far--when I felt something poke at the base of my spine. Something cold and sharp.
The woman behind me leaned forward and rose on her tiptoes. "Step out of line now."
When I hesitated, the blade bit in deep enough to make me wince. I got out of line.
"We're going for a walk," the woman said. "I'm backing away, but if I see your lips moving in a spell,
I'll kill you."
I gave a pointed look around. "And nobody's going to notice?"
"My mission is to kill you. If I die doing it, my death will be a worthy one, ridding the world of another witch."
I glanced at her. Middle-aged. Mousy brown hair. Behind her glasses, her eyes glowed with the fervor of obsession.
"Aunt Rachel, I presume?"
"Outside, witch."
"Right. Outside. Where you can kill me and leave my body in a gutter. Does anyone actually leave bodies in gutters anymore? Even alleys are hard to find."
"Outside."
She started heading toward a parking garage door, but people were coming through into the lobby. She prodded me up a flight of stairs to the meeting room level, then out an exit there to the parking garage.
"Can we discuss this?" I said as she steered me toward the stairwell. "I got the impression from your sister that you wouldn't be unhappy to see Veronica dead. I could do that for you. One free assassin, at your service."
"We can handle her without your magic, witch."
"Okay, I won't use magic. I'll be discreet. Speaking of which, you've gone a little off the playbook here, haven't you? A young woman gutted in a stairwell is hardly going to be mistaken for a natural death."
"That's why you're going up the stairs. To the top floor. Where you will leap to your death."
"Are you sure? Because this building doesn't look that tall. I'd hate--"
I wheeled and chopped down on her knife-hand. She slashed and the blade cut my palm. Blood sprayed. I kicked. She went down, knife still gripped tight. I kicked again, this time at her arm. She rolled and the blade sliced the back of my jeans. I stumbled.
She leapt to her feet and ran at me. I landed another kick, this one to her stomach. She fell, and I tried kicking the knife out of her hand, but the tip caught in my pant-leg, and I lost my balance. I went down, face-first, palms slamming into the pavement, my back exposed, brain screaming that I'd made a fatal mistake.
But she didn't leap on me. Didn't stab me in the back. I twisted. Adam stood between us. The woman rushed him. His fist hit her jaw. She stumbled. A fast jab to the stomach, then another to the jaw finished her. After she landed, he grabbed her by the hair, lifted her head, and smacked it down on the pavement. She collapsed, unconscious. He plucked the knife from her hand and waved it at me.
"Ignore the knife," he said. "If you're fighting back, it'll take a miracle for her to manage a fatal stab. Get her down, then take the weapon. You're lucky the GPS on your phone works. It's your fighting skills you need to work on. Notice I didn't use my powers against her?"
"You're a guy. You have the natural advantage of upper-body strength. And she's tougher than she looks." I glanced down at the woman. Twice my age. Six inches shorter. Thirty pounds heavier--none of it muscle. I looked back at Adam. "She's a trained assassin. It's all about the reflexes."
"Uh-huh. Well, wake up the trained assassin so I can practice my trained interrogation--Shit!" He dropped beside her. Bloody foam trickled out of the side of her mouth. "I didn't hit her that hard."
As his fingers went to the side of her neck, she started convulsing. Adam wrenched her mouth open to hold her tongue down. She began to gag, spewing more bloody foam. As it spattered my shoes, I backed up, then noticed a piece of plastic on my sneaker. I bent. It was part of a capsule, some powder still caked inside.
"It won't help." I showed Adam the capsule.
The woman continued to convulse, eyes rolling, limbs flailing. Adam hovered there, as if he wanted to do something, at least ease her suffering. Then she collapsed again, this time for good.
We checked her pockets for ID. There was none, just a key card for a room in the hotel. It was still in the folder with the room number on it.
"We'll leave her here," I said. "We can't risk moving--"
Adam pointed to the blood on the pavement.
"Right," I said. "That's why we can't risk moving her. They'll find the blood--" I stopped as I realized it was my blood.
"Stand guard," Adam said. "I've got to get her gone before someone drives up here."
Adam found an old sedan that looked like it'd been there a while. He picked the trunk lock and we put her inside. I had to take her clothing, too; I'd bled on it during our fight.
Then I took cover between two cars while he went to get supplies--water to wash away the blood on the asphalt, and clean clothes so I could cover my injuries. The slash on my leg was barely a scratch--my jeans had borne the brunt of that--but my hand was bleeding. He bound it.
We searched the woman's hotel room next. We found a vial of poison capsules and a bill made out to Amanda Tucker--an alias or a relative, maybe. Other than that, the room was clean.
"How the hell did she find me?" I said as we returned to our room to pack. "I can see them tracking me around Columbus, even to Seattle. Picking up my trail again after I visited Roni's aunt makes sense. But how did they track me here?"
"You do have the blocker on your cell, right?" He meant the one Paige created to block our locations from any GPS trackers other than our own.
"Of course I do."
"And you don't turn it off?"
"Yes, I turn it off. Paige said we could, whenever it interferes with an app we need--"
I cursed and yanked my phone out of my pocket. As I checked it, Adam looked over my shoulder before I could hide the screen.
"An online Mafia game?"
I cursed, then took a deep breath and turned to face him. "Yes. I'm an idiot, okay? I obviously haven't been playing since I was in the hospital but . . ."
"But you forgot to turn the blocker back on."
"I'm deleting the game. Right now." I did it as we spoke. "And I'm sorry. That was a boneheaded move. It won't happen again. Please don't tell Paige."
"Have I ever ratted you out? Considering you were in the hospital recuperating from a near-fatal poisoning, I don't blame you for relaxing with a game. And considering all hell broke loose after we left, I don't blame you for forgetting to reactivate the blocker. But disconnecting a security feature when you're in danger--"
"--is stupid."
"Not stupid. Reckless, and you know that. But we don't need to worry about it anymore. In a few hours, we'll be in Miami."
"Miami?"
"Yes, Miami," he said. "We're done here."
"But we need to find Schmidt. We were going to the hospital--"
"Someone else can find him and bring him to Miami. I just rescued you from an assassin, Savannah. If I hadn't been here--"
"But you were here." I turned to him. "I know I need your help, and I'm not taking that for granted. I will go to Miami. I just need--"
"To follow up on more leads, so Paige and Lucas won't find out that your spells are gone."
"I'm not avoiding Miami to avoid them. That's ridiculous."
"No, it's not. You're terrified of telling Paige and Lucas or anyone else. I know why, too, but I'm going to drop that because that's a fight that'll only distract me from this one. You need to be in Miami, Savannah. We both do. As much as I'd rather stay in the field, they need my research assistance. So I'm going."
"And if I don't?"
A flash fire of anger behind his eyes answered me. I'd pushed him too far. He was right. Not about Paige and Lucas--I don't know where that came from--but about the fact that I had almost been killed.
"Can we just stop by the hospital?" I said. "See if Schmidt is there? Then I'll go to Miami with you. I promise."
Dealing with Adam is a lot like dealing with fire itself. I can push and steer him in my direction, but only up to a point. Pass that point, and he'll flare up and lash out. Step back and show respect, and he simmers down.
Problems only arise if I don't heed that warning flash. I've done it a few times. Got burnt. Wised up.
Before we left the hotel, I said, "I guess Roni was right about being on their hit list. I need to call and warn her."
"Okay."
I fished her car
d out of my laptop bag. "That's all I'm doing. Calling and warning. I got the impression she wanted my help--protection I suppose--but she's not getting it."
"Correct. Now, don't just say it. Believe it."
I pulled a face. "Yeah, yeah."
He was right. I'd spent years insisting Paige and Lucas's altruism hadn't rubbed off on me. But I suppose it's like growing up in a cat shelter. You can tell yourself that you never want to see, hear, or smell another cat, but when you stumble over an abandoned kitten, you can't help feeling the urge to help, and feeling guilty if you don't.
That call wasn't easy to make. Roni's panicked cries of "but what am I going to do?" were like a kitten yowling in a tree. I knew she could get herself down again, but it was hard to ignore, all the same. I told her that her aunt Rachel was dead--suicide when she failed to kill me--and that would probably be the end of things. If they came after anyone now, it would be me, for revenge. She wasn't convinced, and eventually I just had to say, "Gotta run. Take care," and hang up.
I called Schmidt again, before we headed out to the hospital. This time, someone answered.
"Gary Schmidt?" I said. "It's Savannah Levine."
"Whaaa?" He sounded like I'd woken him up.
"It's Savannah Levine. You called me?"
"I didn't call no Suzanna. This is my phone." He mumbled something I didn't catch, then hung up.
I looked at Adam. "Either you don't need basic English to teach college or that wasn't Gary Schmidt."
"Wrong number?"
I checked my outgoing call list. "No, but I'll try again."
The phone rang through to voice mail.
I shook my head. "Either the service screwed up the first time or someone else has Schmidt's cell, which isn't good."
"What did he say?"
"That it was his phone. Which could mean it's his phone now. I'll keep trying."
We arrived at the hospital at the start of visiting hours. After a few wrong turns, we found Mrs. Schmidt. She wasn't going to be answering any of our questions, though. She was still in a coma.
"Are you relatives?" chirped a voice. A young nurse with short, blond hair had popped into the room.
"No," I said.
"Oh." Disappointment dragged the cheer from her voice. "Friends then?"
"Yes."