grin a little bit. She looked like she was naked under her butt-flap. Did I want to know where she had been storing that dirt? Probably not.
“Stand down or I’ll shoot,” I said.
I made it two steps down the hill before she flung the powder into my eyes.
It was like having a beehive tossed in my face. I crashed to my knees with a roar, clawing ineffectually at my eyes. Fuck , that burned. Fire swept up my jaw, cheeks, forehead. Blisters bubbled under my hands. They popped. Gushed down into my collar.
There was no surge of magic and not a single sound, but by the time my running eyes cleared, Isobel Stonecrow was gone.
CHAPTER TEN
I STAGGERED INTO THE public library as soon as the librarian unlocked the door. She stepped back, giving me a wide berth and a shocked look.
“Oh my,” she said, crossing herself as she scurried inside. I might not have been popular with the ladies, but I wasn’t “turn pale and run away” ugly. That was a bad sign. Real bad.
Slamming into the lobby bathroom, I flipped on the light switch. Considering how old and musty the building had looked from outside, the place sure got painfully bright, like jabbing huge fucking knives into my eye sockets. And, unfortunately, it let me see what Stonecrow had done to my face.
My square features were covered in boils. The left side was bad, but the right side was worse. My eyelids were swollen, lip sagging with the weight of pustules.
Fuck . This was not one of my better weeks.
I splashed water on myself to get off the last of that nasty gray powder and tried to decide what, if anything, I could do about it. It was more uncomfortable than painful now. Little Tylenol and it probably wouldn’t ache.
I poked one of the boils on my chin. It broke and made an audible splat against the porcelain sink. Underneath, the skin looked raw and red.
Pops’s wise advice about popping zits echoed out of distant teenage memory.
You should pop every zit that you want to turn into a permanent scar, he’d said. And he had punctuated that with, Dumbass .
He hadn’t intended that advice for magicked boils, but it probably applied.
Yeah, maybe I’ll just leave them alone. For now .
On the bright side, Stonecrow had given me a great disguise. A disguise that made it feel like my entire face was peeling apart, with pus dripping down my neck. But I couldn’t manage to feel grateful for it. I swore right then and there that I was going to see that woman behind bars—even if it meant turning myself over to the OPA, too.
I headed out of the bathroom, keeping my head down and trying to look like any other homeless bum making his way for the computer desks. I parked my ass in the first empty desk chair I came across. The old woman next to me didn’t even look up when I sat down. But Gramps across the table cringed at the sight of me, grabbed his jacket, and left.
“Hey, ugly fuckers are people, too,” I muttered at his back. The corner of my mouth cracked.
I pulled Stonecrow’s case file out of my coat, opened a map site on the computer, and started correlating the coordinates of her previous sightings to the website. The locations of the last families she had scammed—the ones I’d read about earlier that night—got little flags first, smack dab on the big population centers in the state. If I’d been at work, that would have been enough for the computers to do a quick sweep and figure out the connection. But I wasn’t at work. I’d have to do all the thinking for myself.
As I added the rest of the sightings aggregated from the OPA’s network of security cameras, a pattern started to appear. I absently scratched my chin while I looked at them and felt something warm ooze down my jaw. Okay, no scratching, either.
I focused on the Stonecrow sightings. And when I pulled out her raccoon bone bracelet for another look at the car key I’d grabbed, I realized it wasn’t a car key at all.
It was a key for an RV.
The old lady at the neighboring
“Stand down or I’ll shoot,” I said.
I made it two steps down the hill before she flung the powder into my eyes.
It was like having a beehive tossed in my face. I crashed to my knees with a roar, clawing ineffectually at my eyes. Fuck , that burned. Fire swept up my jaw, cheeks, forehead. Blisters bubbled under my hands. They popped. Gushed down into my collar.
There was no surge of magic and not a single sound, but by the time my running eyes cleared, Isobel Stonecrow was gone.
CHAPTER TEN
I STAGGERED INTO THE public library as soon as the librarian unlocked the door. She stepped back, giving me a wide berth and a shocked look.
“Oh my,” she said, crossing herself as she scurried inside. I might not have been popular with the ladies, but I wasn’t “turn pale and run away” ugly. That was a bad sign. Real bad.
Slamming into the lobby bathroom, I flipped on the light switch. Considering how old and musty the building had looked from outside, the place sure got painfully bright, like jabbing huge fucking knives into my eye sockets. And, unfortunately, it let me see what Stonecrow had done to my face.
My square features were covered in boils. The left side was bad, but the right side was worse. My eyelids were swollen, lip sagging with the weight of pustules.
Fuck . This was not one of my better weeks.
I splashed water on myself to get off the last of that nasty gray powder and tried to decide what, if anything, I could do about it. It was more uncomfortable than painful now. Little Tylenol and it probably wouldn’t ache.
I poked one of the boils on my chin. It broke and made an audible splat against the porcelain sink. Underneath, the skin looked raw and red.
Pops’s wise advice about popping zits echoed out of distant teenage memory.
You should pop every zit that you want to turn into a permanent scar, he’d said. And he had punctuated that with, Dumbass .
He hadn’t intended that advice for magicked boils, but it probably applied.
Yeah, maybe I’ll just leave them alone. For now .
On the bright side, Stonecrow had given me a great disguise. A disguise that made it feel like my entire face was peeling apart, with pus dripping down my neck. But I couldn’t manage to feel grateful for it. I swore right then and there that I was going to see that woman behind bars—even if it meant turning myself over to the OPA, too.
I headed out of the bathroom, keeping my head down and trying to look like any other homeless bum making his way for the computer desks. I parked my ass in the first empty desk chair I came across. The old woman next to me didn’t even look up when I sat down. But Gramps across the table cringed at the sight of me, grabbed his jacket, and left.
“Hey, ugly fuckers are people, too,” I muttered at his back. The corner of my mouth cracked.
I pulled Stonecrow’s case file out of my coat, opened a map site on the computer, and started correlating the coordinates of her previous sightings to the website. The locations of the last families she had scammed—the ones I’d read about earlier that night—got little flags first, smack dab on the big population centers in the state. If I’d been at work, that would have been enough for the computers to do a quick sweep and figure out the connection. But I wasn’t at work. I’d have to do all the thinking for myself.
As I added the rest of the sightings aggregated from the OPA’s network of security cameras, a pattern started to appear. I absently scratched my chin while I looked at them and felt something warm ooze down my jaw. Okay, no scratching, either.
I focused on the Stonecrow sightings. And when I pulled out her raccoon bone bracelet for another look at the car key I’d grabbed, I realized it wasn’t a car key at all.
It was a key for an RV.
The old lady at the neighboring
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