Precinct 13 by Tate Hallaway Read Free Book Online Page B

“She was just talking while dead.”
    “What did she say, exactly?” Jones asked; he sought my eyes again and seemed to be searching for something. “Think very carefully.”
    “I’m not likely to forget the details of this morning. It was kind of out of the ordinary.”
    “Was it?” Jones insisted, like I was intentionally leaving something out.
    “Yes,” I continued to insist, but it was getting much harder.
    “I think maybe you’ve seen this sort of thing before,” Stone said quietly from where she stood to my right. “You shouted at me about something from your past, remember?”
    With Jack to my left, Stone on my right, and Jones far too close in front of me, I was starting to feel surrounded.
    “My past is off-limits,” I snapped at her. My fists scrunched so hard that my fingernails cut into my palm.
    “Not if it has to do with magic,” Jones said. “Then you’d better tell us all about it.”
    No way.
    “I can’t,” I struggled to say, my throat tightening. “I’m not supposed to talk about any of that.”
    “Not supposed to?” Jack looked at the two cops and then to me. “Who told you that you couldn’t talk about magic?”
    I glared at him. Was he serious? I practically shouted, “Everyone! In case you haven’t noticed, spells and necromancer and glowing eyes are not part of normal conversation.”
    “They are around here,” Jack assured me with a patient smile.
    Stone nodded encouragingly. “You can tell us. We’ll understand. Magic is our job.”
    Even Jones seemed to have a sympathetic look in his eye. “Please. This is important.”
    That broke me.
    For the second time that day, I told the truth, and, for the first time in a long, long time, I told all of it.

FIVE
    The two cops and Jack patiently listened to the whole story. Jack settled into his perch on the nearby desk, and Officer Jones pulled in another chair and resumed taking notes. At some point, Stone fetched me a cup of slightly burnt, industrial coffee and a cookie. The cookie was surprisingly delicious. However, it was the first thing I’d eaten since throwing up, so I probably would have thought cardboard tasted good.
    “He mentioned me specifically?” Jones asked.
    Around a mouthful of cookie, I said, “Yes. I mean, unless there’s another Spenser Jones in town?”
    Jones shook his head.
    “It’s not all that surprising, is it, Spense?” Jack asked. “You are the head magic copper, after all.”
    “You’re bound to be targeted,” Stone agreed.
    “I’d like to hear exactly what he said,” Jones insisted. “Do you still have the tape recorder? The pictures?”
    “Oh,” I said. Standing up, I emptied my pockets onto the desk. Jones and Stone huddled together flipping through the pictures on my phone. Jack immediately reached for the toe tag.
    “You’ve got good instincts,” he said with a bright smile, as he held up the tag. “This might be the big break we’ve been looking for.”
    “The toe tag?”
    But he didn’t answer me, as he was calling over another uniformed cop. If life were a TV show, the cop who approached us would have been typecast as “rookie.” His ginger hair was cut in a style last popular in 1952. He even had freckles across the bridge of his nose. “This is Boyd, he’s our psychometrist.”
    I felt like I’d heard that name before.
    “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said, with a nod.
    Jack explained, “Psychometry is the ability to read impressions from objects. Since this fell off the necromancer after he awoke, we might be able to get a sense of where he was going or his plans.”
    Boyd took the tag. I expected him to say something profound the instant he touched it, but instead he said, “I’ve got a bunch of stuff in front of this, but I should have results for you by morning meeting.”
    “Brilliant,” said Jack. He raised a hand to slap Boyd on the back, but stopped short. “Uh, thanks.” As Boyd moved back to a desk filled with an odd assortment of