“Chicken or dove?” I interrupted.
“Um, dove. But then we couldn’t go through with killing it because Ashley’s in PETA.” she babbled. Hillary and Ashley? Seriously? Worst witch names ever.
“And we were gonna just set it free, and then something happened...”
We rounded a corner, entering a spacious dining/living area with no furniture. I eyed the polished hardwood floors first and decided I didn’t need to bother with surgical booties. At the far end, glass double doors opened onto a three-seasons porch where I could see candles and books spread on the floor. As we came closer, I spotted a panicked little gray dove hopping frantically about in the doorway, and it took me a second to figure out what the big deal was. “Is its head on backward?” That was a new one, even for me.
“Yeah, um, I’m not sure what happened. We think maybe the pages got stuck in the spell book? And we did some kind of healing spell instead, only it didn’t heal?” Sarah-Ann said. “So, like, if you go near it, the dove’s head will go back, right?” She looked like she was about to cry. God.
“No,” I said grimly. I strode across the room, my boot heels striking the polished wooden floors like a timpani drum, dropped my bag, and bent down to pick up the terrified little thing. It cuddled into my chest for a moment, looking at my face with its backward-facing eyes. I took a deep breath and snapped its neck with my other hand. Ick. But at least its head was now facing the correct direction. When I looked up, Sarah-Ann and the clones were staring at me like I’d just stabbed a preschooler.
“But,” Sarah-Ann said in the reasonable, patronizing voice of a woman who’s used to getting the window booth, “we called for you. Kirsten said to call when something went wrong, and we did.”
I crouched in front of my duffel and retrieved a ziplock baggie the size of a shoebox, talking as I worked. “Ongoing spells undo themselves around me, and you couldn’t perform any kind of magic within about ten feet of me. But the dove wasn’t really under a spell anymore, it was physically changed.” With the little body secured in the ziplock and the ziplock stowed in my bag, I turned back to the women, handing each of them one of Kirsten’s cards. “Sarah-Ann, I know you have this number, but here it is again, just in case. Kirsten will be expecting each of you to call her tomorrow morning to discuss what happened tonight. If she asks her questions and is satisfied with your answers, that’ll be the end of the matter. Do not make her track you down.”
They each nodded at me, frightened, and I took another deep breath, trying to stay professional. “Now, will there be anything else? Do you guys need help clearing up your spell materials?” They shook their heads in unison, still looking stunned, and I gave them a nod in return. “Then I’ll see myself out. Have a good evening.” I turned on my heel and marched out to the van, putting the little dead bird in the freezer compartment in the back. In the morning, I’d take it to Artie, my furnace guy. If it had been a human body, I’d have gone right away, but a dead dove wasn’t worth sneaking onto his property at 3:00 a.m.
Back in the van, I leaned my head against the steering wheel for a second. It irritated me that they had expected me to fix the dove, or maybe it just irritated me that I couldn’t. I’m a null, which means I can cancel out magic within a radius, but I have limits, too. As I sat up and turned the ignition, my cell phone rang again, and I checked the caller ID. Dashiell. Great. A vampire was just what my night needed. I flipped it open. “Bernard.”
“Scarlett,” Dashiell began, drawing out the a as usual. “There is a situation in La Brea Park. I will meet you at the entrance in fifteen minutes.”
“Uh, okay. I’m in Calabasas now, on a Kirsten case, but I’ll be there as fast—” I realized that I was talking to myself and shut the phone, glancing at the clock. Shit. Even with no traffic on the freeway, there was no way I could get to the entrance of La Brea Park in fifteen minutes; it was impossible. And Dashiell was coming himself, in person? He might be the most powerful creature in Los Angeles, but like most vampires, Dashiell stays the hell away from me if at all possible, not wanting to age even a few minutes.
It had to be really bad.
I briefly considered speeding, but only in that way you think about something you know you’ll never do. That’s one of the rules: don’t get pulled over. My van is checked weekly to make sure all the lights are working and the gas and oil tanks are filled, and it undergoes a full inspection and detailing twice a year. If the cops pulled me over right now, all they would find was a dead dove, but even that would be bad. I had no idea whether they’d be able to figure out that I’d broken its neck backward, but even something small like that could get the rumor snowball rolling, or at best, tarnish my reputation with the supernatural community. In my business, there’s no such thing as an overreaction.
I drove south on the 405 highway as fast as I dared, three miles over the speed limit, but I was still another fifteen minutes late to meet Dashiell. La Brea Park closes at sunset, so the actual entrance driving to get into the park was chained and locked. As I pulled up to the gate, he materialized out of the shadows, a fortyish-looking vampire in impeccable black pants and a deep-green cashmere T-shirt. His dark-brown hair was a little mussed, and his blandly handsome face looked dangerously angry. I was definitely in trouble.
I parked the van at the curb and rolled my window down, turning the engine off. Dash took a few steps toward me, but stayed well out of my ten-foot radius.