Free Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers by Scott Nicholson, Robert J. Crane, Daniel Arenson, S.M. Reine, J. R. Rain Page A

tires.
    “Hope you’re not too fond of the suspension,” I called to the front. I got one sunglassed glare over Eduardo’s shoulder.
    Neither of them seemed interested in anything I had to say. Joey was talking into a cell phone too quietly for me to hear, and Eduardo was keeping up with his shitty driving.
    It was guys like him that made my morning commute a joy.
    “What are you doing talking back?” Stonecrow asked in a low whisper. “You want to make this worse?”
    Worse? My face looked like ground fucking beef, I was under arrest by my own employer, and the necrocognitive I’d hoped would exonerate me was about to get tossed into a detention center far beyond my reach. And she thought a little snark was going to make it worse ?
    “You don’t get to talk. You got me into this.” My pissed-off face was much better than these punks could muster, but Stonecrow didn’t seem fazed.
    “You got yourself into…whatever this is.” She was looking pale.
    “Either way, we’re both being taken to an OPA field office for questioning.” I glared at her. “Have you been interrogated before? I’ve been on the other side of it, so I can give some pointers.”
    “I can handle myself.”
    “Sure, whatever.” I rolled my shoulders to keep them from getting tense and raised my voice again. “We getting to the office soon? I’ve got to piss like a racehorse.”
    No one answered me.
    Fuck all this bullshit. I wasn’t letting Suzy’s mix-up land me in prison.
    We were going to get out of this.
    “Don’t suppose you got any of that dust left over?” I asked Stonecrow quietly. I didn’t think boils were going to do much to slow down Eduardo and Joey, hardened kopides that they were, but enchanted dust could be useful for other reasons. I could try to change it, use its power.
    “They patted me down, asshole. They took all the supplies I had.” She pulled a face. “And copped a feel while they were at it.”
    They hadn’t fondled me, but they’d taken all of my notebooks, too. And the gun that had been bouncing uselessly against my hip. And the Stonecrow file. I’d thought I had nothing when I had to flee my apartment, but now I really had nothing. At least Stonecrow would still have her hideous teal RV if she escaped.
    Stonecrow gave me a scrutinizing look. “If you’re not with them, then why did you assault me during my job last night?”
    “You mean the creepy death ritual.”
    “That’s my job ,” she said.
    “First of all, I wasn’t assaulting you. I was taking you into custody. Big difference. Second of all, I’ve been looking for you to ask for help. I wanted you to use the creepy death ritual to talk to someone.”
    Stonecrow sniffed at me. “You’ve been near death recently.”
    Yeah, because that was hard to guess.
    “I was just in a cemetery. Remember?”
    “No, not that.” Her eyes trailed over me, intense and focused. Under different circumstances, it would have been a nice look to get. “Who was killed?”
    “That’s what I was going to have you help me with before…” I jerked my chin at the dashboard of the car, indicating Eduardo and Joey.
    That was when I realized that we weren’t in the city anymore.
    The freeway had turned into a highway outside the city at some point, and there wasn’t any stop-and-go traffic left. The buildings had thinned out, and sandy hills decorated with brush surrounded the road.
    “What’s wrong now?” Stonecrow asked.
    “We’re not going to the office.” I looked out the back window like that would change what I was seeing. It didn’t. Los Angeles was a quickly vanishing memory behind us. The closest field office to the RV park was in the complete opposite direction. We were headed into the deep desert instead.
    “You got anything in your bag of tricks?” I muttered as the SUV pulled off onto a dirt road away from traffic entirely. Not that dropping my voice meant anything at that point. We didn’t have much time. “Something