Ritual Magic

ATF was currently all-over smug because of a recent raid on a militia group that had netted them all kinds of illegal weapons, which made them harder than usual to get along with. But mostly the two agencies managed to cohabit reasonably well . . . except when it came to parking. They fought over the limited parking spaces like a pair of starving cats with a single mouse.
    Lily had a tiny office of her own, but it was downstairs in what was mostly ATF territory, so she preferred to commandeer the conference room in spite of certain drawbacks, like having the men’s restroom on the other side of one thin wall. She heard every flush. But the women’s restroom was close, too, which was handy, and so was the break room. And there was enough room to set up a murder board here.
    Through the closed door, Lily heard a phone ringing. She also heard Fielding’s iPod, which was playing “Hotel California” for the sixteen-thousandth time. In a minute it would change to “Dani California,” then Chuck Berry’s “California,” then “California Dreamin’.” Fielding—a recent transplant from Massachusetts—had the office closest to the conference room, and he really liked songs about California. His playlist, however, was sadly limited. Lily didn’t understand why no one had accidentally spilled coffee on the man’s iPod.
    Eleven more people had been admitted to hospitals with some level of amnesia. Two of those already admitted had slid into coma. Two more were on life support. The database of their victims’ lives had finally provided a connection. Fourteen—including Lily’s mother—had gone to the same high school. One of them had been close friends with Julia for two of her high school years, though according to Aunt Mequi the friendship had soured the summer before their senior year. Something to do with a boy. Two agents were at that high school now, poring over records.
    The murder board for the ritual killing hung on the north wall of the conference room. They still didn’t know whose face starred in the crime scene photos, it being tricky to get an ID without a body. They did have the man’s fillings—two gold, two composite—and the scarf he’d been gagged with, but the scarf was a cheap import available by the thousands, and even the best forensic dentist couldn’t learn much from four fillings.
    That fit right in with the trend on this case. All they had were negatives. Their John Doe hadn’t been reported missing. He didn’t have a police record in California or those states participating in the NGI program, and Homeland Security was pretty sure he hadn’t been a terrorist. Either he hadn’t had much of an online presence, or what showed of his face above the gag wasn’t enough for facial recognition software to ID him using Google and Facebook. Although they’d turned up enough near misses that way to keep a couple of agents busy crossing those people off the list.
    “Playing
Skylanders
with Toby,” Rule repeated. “I had to drag her away to eat breakfast.”
    “That’s good, I guess. Surprising, but good.” Lily’s mother wasn’t a complete tech illiterate, but she didn’t much like it. Or didn’t approve of it, anyway. God knew she considered texting some kind of major social sin. “At least she isn’t, ah, quite so dependent on you.” Following him around in a moony, preadolescent way, that is.
    “Mmm. She seems to have caught on to the game pretty quickly. The two of them are currently arguing about tactics.”
    “That’s . . . good?” Lily thought about it. “It is good. It means that Toby really does see her as another kid. He badgers adults. He doesn’t argue with them.”
    “True. Which is why I let him stay after he snuck in to see her—which, as he pointed out, I hadn’t explicitly forbidden. She informed me that he was no more upsetting than any other dumb boy, and she liked playing
Skylanders
.”
    In a weird, twelve-year-old way, that sounded just like her mother. “How’s Grandmother?”
    “Still asleep. She must have been awake at some point, though, because Li Qin had a message for me from her. Grandmother wishes us to know that Sam has decided we need information about the artifact. It’s a sidhe artifact, so he sent an agent to speak with a sidhe historian.”
    Startled, Lily put down her coffee. “He did? What agent? Where exactly did he send this agent, and how?”
    “That’s the total message, I’m afraid. Li Qin tells me I