Nifty would keep following up on our other leads, like the guy who had been with the missus, before he died, and our yet unidentified memory-glass maker.
“All right,” I said, pushing my paperwork toward them, so they could see better. “This is what I think you need to do. Instead of directing the current at the surfaces of what’s there? I want you to go into what’s not there.”
“What?” Sharon was our logical thinker, and I had a feeling the b-ass-ackward way this spell had to work was going to confuse her. Pietr got it, though. The spell was probably going to be almost intuitive for him, since we were looking for something that wasn’t there anymore.
There wasn’t any time to do a test run, not with The Roblin lurking around waiting for the chance to screw things up for its own entertainment. Also, odds were that the client had realized by now that we had figured out that there was something hinky about his missing objects, maybe even realized that Venec had worked for his dead wife and knew dirt on his past. Rich people very much did not like people investigating outside the lines, and they liked even less when we had dirt on them to fuel the investigation. Even when they were, nominally, our client.
Unlike Danny, who would do whatever it took to satisfy the client’s needs, we worked for the evidence, not the individual. They knew that when they hired us, but most of them didn’t really understand what that meant. Once Wells figured it out, he would kick us off the case, shut down our access to protect whatever he was hiding, whatever had drawn the housebreakers to him.
We would still investigate – once you set the pups on something, we decided when the case was closed – but it would be harder to run tests, or get anything resembling a straight answer.
Venec tapped on the table, getting everyone’s attention. “Pietr, Sharon, are you confident that you can handle this?”
My pack mates nodded, because what else could they say? They had a good hold of the original identification spell I’d riffed on, and this wasn’t really all that different, but nothing remained the same once it was implemented; your own personal current adapted to it, so everyone ended up with a slightly different result – ideally within a set range, but not always.
“Yeah. We got it,” Sharon said.
“So, go,” Venec told them, waving a hand in dismissal.
Pietr held up my notebook, asking permission, and I nodded. I’m not sure that I would have let anyone else take my notebook – we put down all our working thoughts there, almost like a traditional grimoire, now that I thought of it – but this was Pietr. I’d had sex with the guy – more, I’d slept with him. I trusted him at my back – or inside my notebook.
I felt a twitch of unease; what happened if the spell backfired? What if...
No. Not me. That prickly, poking swirl was back, a little harder than before, and it was difficult to ignore it. Acting on impulse, I leaned toward Ben – not physically, not even with current, exactly, but with an awareness that was something else, as though seeking reassurance or comfort.
The swirl caught at that movement, swarmed it, and I swore I could feel a hundred tiny little teeth latch on, like being nibbled on by itty-bitty alligators. It took effort not to flinch, not to let it know we’d felt it, were luring it further in.
I saw the edge of Ben’s mouth turn up, barely a movement, but a definite smirk.
Our imp had taken the bait. Now, to wait and see what the little bastard did with it.
“Nick, give me your notes, too,” Sharon said. “If we’re going to be doing this negative space thing, maybe I can tell if anything’s changed since the first visit.”
“You want me to come?” he asked, even as he removed a section of pages and handed them to her. “If nothing else, to watch your backs?”
“Thanks, but I think we’ll be okay.”
Although nobody had said anything, it was inevitable that we were all a little leery of that house, now. The hellhound had been dealt with, one presumed, and the client wasn’t going to be idiot enough to hire another – we hoped – but who knew what else a scared Null with a penchant for magical security devices would get up to?
“Where is he getting this stuff, anyway?” I