Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

bows, meaning the bow’s draw weight probably ranged to two hundred pounds. He could put a bolt into me from seventy-five yards away and he wanted me to know that.
    Whoom. Whoom.
    An arbalest was a decent weapon, but slow on reload.
    The man eyed me. “You want something?” The cigarette remained stuck to his lower lip, moving as he spoke.
    â€œI’m an agent of the Order investigating the disappearance of witches belonging to the Sisters of the Crow coven. I was told the head witch lived in the Honeycomb.”
    â€œAnd who is that?” He pointed to Julie behind me.
    â€œDaughter of a witch in Esmeralda’s coven. Her mom’s missing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
    â€œNo. You got an ID on you?”
    I reached for the leather wallet I carried on a cord around my neck and took out my Order ID. He motioned me closer. I approached and passed it to him. He turned it over. The small rectangle of silver in the lower right corner of the card gleamed, catching a stray ray of the sun.
    â€œIs that real silver?” he asked. The cigarette drew an elaborate pattern in the air.
    â€œYes.” Silver took enchantment better than most metals.
    The man gave me a quick glance and rubbed at the silver through the clear plastic coating. “How much is it worth?”
    Here we go. “You’re asking the wrong question.”
    â€œOh yeah?”
    â€œYou should be asking if your life is worth a square inch of enchanted silver.”
    He gave the card another cursory glance. “You talk big.”
    I snapped my hand at his face. He shied back and I handed his cigarette back to him. “These things can kill you.”
    He stuck the cigarette back into his mouth and returned my ID. “Name’s Custer.”
    â€œKate Daniels.”
    The canvas shielding the truck shifted, revealing a lean Latino woman next to a black cheiroballista. Built like a giant crossbow, the cheiroballista was small but accurate and delivered with amazing power. It could put a bolt through a vehicle door at close range. The Latino woman gave me a hard stare. She had the kind of eyes one gets after life hammered out all softness.
    I held her gaze. Two can play the staring game. “I’ll pay for the information.”
    â€œHundred.”
    I passed two fifties to Custer. Bye-bye, phone bill.
    â€œTrailer twenty-three,” she said. “The yellow one. Head left, then turn right when the path forks.”
    â€œIf I have to take anything, I’ll write a receipt.”
    â€œThat’s between you and her. We don’t want any shit from the Order.”
    I held another twenty out. “Know anything about Esmeralda?”
    The woman nodded. “She was power hungry. Liked to scare people. I heard she tried to enter one of the older covens, but she played the game too much and tried to take over, so they kicked her out. She’s been threatening to ‘show them all’ ever since. Last I heard she made her own coven. Don’t know how she managed that—she wasn’t well liked.”
    She took the twenty and pulled the canvas closed.
    Custer tossed me a ball of telephone wire.
    â€œUse it. Stuff changes around here. We get geeks down from the University of Georgia trying to study the ‘phenomenon.’ They go in and never come out.” His eyes lit up with a wry spark. “Sometimes we hear them calling out in the walls. Looking for a way back from the Outside .”
    â€œEver try to find them?”
    â€œYou’re asking the wrong question,” Custer’s face split into a happy grin. The cigarette performed a pirouette. “The question you should be asking is what they look like when we do.”
    Oh boy. I tossed the wire back at him. “No thanks. I could hear that damned whooming even in death. What’s making the noise?”
    Custer reached over to the tank on his left and knocked on the glass. A dark shadow flickered in the tenebrous water. Something struck the far wall with a thud, and a huge head, as wide as a dinner plate, brushed against the glass. Mottled black and slimy like a toad’s spine, it rubbed its blunt nose on the algae. Tiny black eyes stared dull and unseeing past me.
    The head split in half revealing an enormous white mouth. The folds on the side of the head trembled, and a low sound rolled through the Honeycomb. Whoom! The creature scraped its broad nose against the glass