RUNES

ACCORDING TO THE SIGN on Botnick’s shop, it opened at eleven and closed at seven. It was now almost one. Jeremy peered through the darkened window as I looked for a Gone for Lunch or Back in Five Minutes notice. Nothing.

“It doesn’t look as if he opened this morning,” Jeremy said. “The mail is still under the slot.”

He glanced at the adjoining stores. An adults-only video shop and a tattoo parlor. Putting his fingers on the back of my arm, he steered me toward the latter.

It was empty except for a woman sitting sideways on an old armchair, her back against one arm, her legs sprawled over the other. She had a sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other as she sketched something on a pad. Late twenties with spiked black hair, she wore torn jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

Her gaze flitted over me and came to rest on Jeremy.

“Sorry to disturb you,” he said. “We’re here about the shop next door. Atrum Arcana appears to be closed, and I was hoping you might know whether that’s temporary or it’s shut down for the day.” He gave a wry smile. “I’m sure you don’t keep an eye on your neighbor’s comings and goings, but we’ve traveled some distance, so I thought I’d ask.”

“Atrum Arcana?”

She looked at Jeremy with renewed interest, her eyes glittering behind her cat’s-eye glasses. If she noticed me, she gave no sign of it. It seemed that the further I got from thirty, the more invisible I became to twenty-somethings—the men I was with became fair game.

“I don’t know what’s up with Eric today,” she said. “I haven’t seen him. But maybe I could help. I know some people who sell pretty much the same stuff. What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Wiccan amulets. For a niece. I heard his store carries a large selection.”

“Oh.”

As her interest cooled, Jeremy walked to a display of mystical symbols. “These are very nice. Not for her just yet, though I’m sure she’ll be asking for one in a few years. Are you a practitioner?”

“Nah. I just draw what the customers want. Occult stuff is hot.”

“This is your work, then?”

She nodded.

He traced his fingertips over an ankh. “Beautiful. Maybe when she’s older. Thank you very much for your time.”

She stood as he turned to go. “Here’s my card. And about Eric? No idea where the guy is, which is weird. He never opens late, never closes early. Takes his business seriously. I was a little worried when he didn’t open, so I tried his home number. Left a message. Nothing.”

“Something probably came up,” Jeremy said. “We’re in town for a couple of days. We’ll call tomorrow, before we come out.”

“And if he doesn’t answer, give me a ring. Maybe I’ll know something.”

As she retrieved a business card, he eyed a smaller display of symbols. Simple ones in black and white. Even as she handed him the card, he pulled his gaze away from the display only for a moment, with a distracted “thank you.”

Another lingering look at the symbols, then he put his fingers on my arm and headed for the door. He made it halfway, stopped and slowly turned.

“I noticed you have a number of runes there,” he said, nodding at the display.

The young woman beamed. “Yep. A specialty of mine. I love them. Elegant, you know?”

Jeremy nodded, still hesitating, as if contemplating something. After a second, he walked back toward the woman.

“There are a few I’ve seen, and never been able to place.”

“What do they look like?”

He nodded at her sketch pad and murmured, “May I?”

She passed it over. He sketched two symbols. I watched with a vague sense that I’d seen them before, but couldn’t remember where.

“You’re an artist,” the woman said, her appraising smile returning. “I can tell.”

A small nod from Jeremy, not quite admitting it. He finished his sketches. The young woman studied them, then shook her head.

“They look kind of like a couple of the Elder Futhak ones, and a bit like Hungarian but not quite either.” She picked up the paper, lifting it into a better light. “Very nice, though. Can I keep them?”

I expected Jeremy to say, “Yes, of course”—his usual good manners—but he hesitated, as if he’d like to refuse but wasn’t sure how. After a moment he nodded.

“So, what’s your medium?” she asked.

His gaze was distant, mind elsewhere. A blink as he reluctantly returned. “Oil, mainly.”

“Cool. Mine’s ink, as you might have guessed.”

She chatted for another few minutes, Jeremy murmuring appropriate responses and complimenting her work. He gave no sign of his preoccupation or his impatience. Only someone who knew him would pick up the subtle hints, that cool veneer to his words, that emptiness in his eyes. I laid my fingers on his arm.

He nodded. “We should be going.”

“Here,” she said, plucking the business card from his hand. She wrote two numbers on the back, then smiled at him. “My home and cell. In case you ever want to discuss runes or art.”

Art, my ass. But I followed Jeremy’s cue, smiling and thanking her for her time.

As we stepped onto the sidewalk, I said, “Those are two of the runes on the babies’ blankets. The ones Elena said you had quilted for them.”

He nodded.

“Like the symbols in Clay’s room. On his comforter and his walls. Elena said you found Clayton’s comforter years ago and painted the walls with the same symbols, to match. She said you had the babies’ blankets done that way as a joke. Only you didn’t find that comforter, did you? You had it made. Like the blankets. And they aren’t a joke.”

He looked over sharply, brows arched.

“Where do they come from?” I asked. “The symbols.”

A pause, then he tapped the side of his head. “As for how they got in there?” An odd look crossed his face, frustration with a chaser of something sad. “No idea. I just…”

He shrugged and kept walking, as if he wanted to leave it at that. Then, when we were almost at the car, he said, “It’s a…compulsion, I suppose. With Clay’s room when he was younger. With the babies now. Even Elena has some in her bedroom.” A twist of a smile. “Hidden, of course. If she found them, she’d think I was mad.”

She wouldn’t think that. But she’d ask questions, probing and worrying, exactly what he didn’t want.

“Do you think they’re connected to the other things?” I asked. “Your visions? Your…sensing?”

“I’ve thought about that, but I don’t see how. Maybe they’re just…” he shrugged, “images I saw once that made an impression subconsciously.”

“Do you want to go somewhere, maybe get a coffee, talk about it?”

He blinked, as if startled by the very suggestion. Maybe even taken aback. Then he shook his head. “We have to meet Hope.”

That was all he said. No “maybe later,” not even an “I don’t want to talk about it.” All day I’d been fighting a mounting frustration, pretending I wasn’t just a bit disappointed with the way things were going. Last night had been…special. Clichéd, yes, and an odd choice of words to describe a night spent hiding from an S & M cult and running through rat-infested tunnels, but I really felt that shared experience meant something.

I’d been saying that a lot lately. Meant something. Coming to L.A. meant something. Touching me all the time meant something.

Talking to me about his duties as Alpha and the dangers of a relationship meant something. Drawing my picture meant something. But I was beginning to wonder whether I was just seeing what I wanted to see.

WE MET Hope. She’d done some research on missing children. The results were not encouraging.

In a city the size of Los Angeles, kids go missing. Most are not the sort whose pictures ever appear on milk cartons and transport trucks. As Jeremy said, these would be the children the group had targeted.

Next, we mulled over Eve’s proposal. Was there a way to uncover the bodies without “satanic cult” being splashed across the six o’clock news? Hope would think about it. Jeremy probably could have asked Elena the same thing. But had he called Elena, she or Clay—if not both—would have been on the next plane out. As far as they knew, we were conducting exactly the sort of investigation Eve had groused about—reading books, researching news articles and canvassing safe supernatural contacts.

AT 4 P.M. we found ourselves at Botnick’s shop again, preparing for another break-and-enter. Hope had asked to come along, on the chance she’d pick up some chaos vibes and help us unearth any occult evidence we’d missed.

She stood guard at the parking lot entrance and I watched from within the lot, in case anyone stepped outside while Jeremy reopened the window behind the trash bin.

“Done,” he said as he walked up beside me.

“More of a challenge for you this time, I hope?”

His brows shot up. “Challenge? Heavens, no. Why would I want that? I’m a responsible Alpha, and as such, I hope all such dangerous endeavors are as straightforward and risk-free as possible.”

I smiled, put my hands against his chest and lifted onto my tiptoes. He lowered his head, getting close enough for me to reach.

“Speaking of challenges,” I muttered.

“Speaking of risks,” he murmured back.

I met his gaze. “I’m willing to take them. Whether you are is, I suspect, another matter.”

He hesitated, and I knew I’d guessed right.

“It’s not—” he began.

“Okay, it looks like—” Hope’s voice, across the lot. “Uh, sorry. I thought I heard voices.”

“You did,” I said, stepping away from Jeremy. “We should get inside while it’s clear.”

GETTING INSIDE wasn’t the only thing made more difficult by daylight. Although the windows were smoked glass, anyone peering in could see us. But the alternative was to wait five hours.

Hope had contacted Karl earlier and hinted that his skills might be needed, but she’d pretended the occult case was her work assignment, not mentioning Jeremy or me. Jeremy seemed reluctant to get Karl involved. I could chalk this up to Jeremy enjoying the “challenges” of doing it himself, but knowing his feelings about Karl, I suspected there was more to it.

“I’ll start in the office,” Jeremy whispered as he adjusted his gloves.

“Can—?” Hope began, then pulled a face and reached for her cell phone. “Sorry. I’m supposed to be investigating crop circles. Thankfully, I can write a crop circle story in my sleep.” A glance at the phone. “Oh, it’s Rona Grant. Should I—?” She glanced at us.

“Go ahead,” Jeremy said. “Perhaps she has something.”

She didn’t. Hope kept the phone a half-inch from her ear, volume jacked, so even without werewolf hearing, I could listen in.

Seemed May had asked Rona to follow up on whether any of those contact names had panned out. Hope strung her a story with the ease of a professional huckster, insinuating that we were indeed making use of those contacts, when we’d dismissed the lot of them yesterday. She probed around the subject of Botnick—nothing overt, just leading questions that might have gotten Rona talking about the cult leader, but obviously the woman had no interest in steering us down that seedy path. So Hope promised to keep her in the loop and hung up.

“As I was going to say, can you spare Jaime to show me those dissected bits?” Hope asked. “Not that I have a prurient interest in seeing dried-up body parts, but you were wondering whether they were taken from someone who was already dead…or someone they helped get that way.”

“And you’ll be able to tell. Jaime? Would you rather take the office?”

“Dried bits don’t bother me.”

WE CREPT to the storage room. Just inside the door, Hope stumbled. I went to catch her, but she brushed me off, regaining her balance herself. She turned, hands out, fumbling, as if dazed. Her face was white, her eyes wide and unseeing.

Having a vision. I knew better than to interfere—it’s like shaking a sleepwalker awake. Instead, I stayed there, ready to grab her if she fell.

Her hands found the curtain and she grabbed it, as if for support. For a moment, she clung to it, head dropped forward, eyes closed, breaths coming deep and fast. Then her head whipped back and she gasped, eyes flying open.

“What’s in here?” she asked hoarsely.

Before I could answer, she threw open the curtain. A sharp intake of breath as she stared at the bondage gear. Then a shaky laugh. “Well, that explains it.”

A pause, then she glanced at me. “I have to—I can’t do this here. Too strong. Can you get the…stuff and bring it out to me?”

I nodded.

A COUPLE of minutes later, I slipped into the cleaning closet and found Hope there, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “It was just—”

“Too much.”

A wry smile. “Yeah. Asking me to get a sense of those—” she waved at the bags in my hand, “—while I was in that room, would be like asking a bloodhound to pick out a month-old trail in an airport terminal. Way too much else going on.”

“Are you okay?”

Nodding, she took a bag from my hand. She stared at it, but I could tell she was still watching the movie playing in her mind. A sharp shake of her head.

“Maybe you should get some air,” I said. “I know whatever you saw couldn’t have been very pleasant.”

“I’m okay. It’s not…They don’t disturb me.” She lifted the bag. “Nothing here. Let’s try another.”

She went through three of the half-dozen bags, then stopped on the fourth, eyes closing, eyelids flickering, like someone in the throes of a vivid dream. Her breathing accelerated. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Then her eyes flew open and she handed the bag back to me.

“Car accident.”

The next two gave her nothing.

“One accidental death, five chaos-free deaths. My sensors aren’t perfect, but if all those folks were murdered for their body parts, I should have picked up something from at least one. All I got was a car accident—single-vehicle collision. Not pretty, but normal enough.”

“So they’re likely morgue or cemetery pickings. Like necromancers use.”

“You guys use…?”

I nodded. “Only we don’t get the nice protective wrapping. Physical contact is a must.”

“Ah.”

“We get used to it. Like you and your visions—a nasty part of life.”

She glanced at the bags. “So could this guy have been selling to necromancers?”

“Only without knowing it. More likely, he was just selling to humans wanting the stuff for medicine or magic. We use our own black markets, but even those are iffy. If I want quality goods, I have to go to the source.”

“You mean…”

“Grave digging. Fortunately, it’s not something I have to do very often.”

Hope found one more violent death in the next batch—electrocution—but again it seemed accidental.

“So this cult draws the line at murder?” she said. “That surprises me. You’d think if you’re going to kidnap and torture your victims, you’d kill them, if only to cover your tracks.”

“Kidnap and torture?” I shook my head. “It may seem hard to believe, but they don’t need unwilling victims. That bondage stuff is for the cult members. Consenting adults.”

“Maybe that’s what you saw. What I saw was definitely nonconsensual. And it was recent. I’ve been working on distinguishing past and current images and I have no doubt about that one.”

“What did you see?”

“Not much. I was watching it from the victim’s point of view, and his or her head was covered. Not just a blindfold or leather mask either. This thing was heavy.”

“Like a metal helmet?”

She nodded. “But it was solid—or almost solid. The person inside could barely breathe.”

I hurried back to the storage room and checked the shelf. The helmet was missing.