Part 4 (1/2)

Murphy doesn't look like a cop, much less a monster cop. She's five nothing. She's got blond hair, blue eyes, and a cute nose. She's also got about a zillion gunnery awards and a shelfful of open-tournament martial arts trophies, and I once saw her kill a giant plant monster with a chain saw. She wore jeans, a white tee, sneakers, a baseball cap, and her hair was pulled back into a tail. She wore her gun in a shoulder rig, her badge around her neck, and she had a backpack slung over one shoulder.

She came through the door and stopped in her tracks. She surveyed the room for a minute and then said, ”What did this?”

I nodded at the twisted futon frame. ”Something strong.”

”I wish I were a big-time private investigator like you. Then I could figure these things out for myself.”

”You bring it?” I asked.

She tossed me the backpack. ”The rest is in the car. What's it for?”

I opened the pack, took out a bleached-white human skull, and put it down on the kitchen counter. ”Bob, wake up.”

Orange lights appeared in the skull's shadowed eye sockets, and then slowly grew brighter. The skull's jaws twitched and then opened into a pantomime of a wide yawn. A voice issued out, the sound odd, like when you talk while on a racquetball court. ”What's up, boss?”

”Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Murphy swore. She took a step back and almost fell over the remains of the entertainment center.

Bob the Skull's eyelights brightened. ”Hey, the cute blonde! Did you do her, Harry?” The skull spun in place on the counter and surveyed the damage. ”Wow. You did did! Way to go, stud!”

My face felt hot. ”No, Bob,” I growled.

”Oh,” the skull said, crestfallen.

Murphy closed her mouth, blinking at the skull. ”Uh. Harry?”

”This is Bob the Skull,” I told her.

”It's a skull,” she said. ”That talks.”

”Bob is actually the spirit inside. The skull is just the container it's in.”

She looked blankly at me and then said, ”It's a skull skull. That talks talks.”

”Hey!” Bob protested. ”I am not an it! I am definitely a he!”

”Bob is my lab a.s.sistant,” I explained.

Murphy looked back at Bob and shook her head. ”Just when I start thinking this magic stuff couldn't get weirder.”

”Bob,” I said, ”take a look around. Tell me what did this.”

The skull spun obediently and promptly said, ”Something strong.”

Murphy gave me an oblique look.

”Oh, bite me,” I told her. ”Bob, I need to know if you can sense any residual magic.”

”Ungawa, bwana,” Bob said. He did another turnaround, this one slower, and the orange eyelights narrowed.

”Residual magic?” Murphy asked.

”Anytime you use magic, it can leave a kind of mark on the area around you. Mostly it's so faint that sunrise wipes it away every morning. I can't always sense it.”

”But be be can?” Murphy asked. can?” Murphy asked.

”But he can can!” Bob agreed. ”Though not with all this chatter. I'm working over here.”

I shook my head and picked up the phone again.

”Yes,” said Billy. He sounded harried, and there was an enormous amount of background noise.

”I'm at your apartment,” I said. ”I came here looking for Georgia.”

”What?” he said.

”Your apartment,” I said louder.

”Oh, Harry,” Billy said. ”Sorry-this phone is giving me fits. Eve just talked to Georgia. She's here at the resort.”

I frowned. ”What? Is she all right?”

”Why wouldn't she be?” Billy said. Someone started shrieking in the background. ”c.r.a.p, this battery's dying. Problem solved; come on up. I brought your tux.”

”Billy, wait.”

He hung up.

I called him back and got nothing but voice mail.

”Aha!” Bob said. ”Someone used that wolf spell the naked chick taught to Billy and the Werewolves, back over there by the bedroom,” he reported. ”And there were faeries here.”

I frowned. ”Faeries. You sure?”

”One hundred percent, boss. They tried to cover their tracks, but the threshold must have taken the zing out of their illusion.”

I nodded and exhaled. ”Dammit.” Then I strode into the bathroom and hunkered down, pawing through the rubble.

”What are you doing?” Murphy asked.

”Looking for Georgia,” I said. I found a plastic brush full of long strands the color of Georgia's hair and took several of them in hand.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my tracking spell, refining it over the years. I stepped out into the hall and drew a circle on the floor around me with a piece of chalk. Then I took Georgia's hairs and pressed them against my forehead, summoning up my focus and will. I shaped the magic I wanted to create, focused on the hairs, and released my will as I murmured, ”Interessari, interressarium.”

Magic surged out of me, into the hairs and back. I broke the circle with my foot, and the spell flowed into action, creating a faint sense of pressure against the back of my head. I turned, and the sensation flowed over my skull in response, over my ear, then over my cheekbone, and finally came to rest directly between my eyes.

”She's this way,” I said. ”Uh-oh.”

”Uh-oh?”

”I'm facing south,” I said.