Durkavic didn’t because maybe he wasn’t the one in charge right then.
“Right,” the barista said.
“Did he touch either of you?” Nick asked. “Or linger?”
“Only to give me change, which was even weirder because he always paid with his phone.” The cashier shook her head. “Like, really weird experience overall.”
Nick swallowed, realizing this was the tricky part. He had no badge to make it official. He had no right to detain a random citizen on a hunch.
“Can we talk somewhere in private?” He kept his tone flat and calm. It was the voice he used with people who weren’t suspectsyet, but didn’t they want to come with him to defend themselves?
Nervously, the cashier looked at the barista before nodding. “Okay.”
She gestured for them to follow her back into a store room. When the door swung closed behind them, Nick was about to suggest that they do the translucency spell first to make sure, but he didn’t have to.
The cashier’s eyes flared dark green. “Youdaretry to kill me? You killed my sister and brother. Iknowyou, god killer. Iknow?—”
Nick touched the four circles he’d already written in his notebook and dragged them loose, the magic framed perfectly between his fingers. He pressed them to her chest, and she gasped.
Nick could feel the magic necessary; he could feel how much it took to power the circles. For a moment, his vision swam. Now he understood why both Corey and Paul advised powering the spells in advance and only doing it in the field if absolutely necessary. Corey had claimed they spent two or three days prepping, and Nick realized how overconfident he’d been.
“You dare—” The green flickered in her eyes. “You wouldkill her. I will show you?—”
Nick could see green seeping from the cashier’s pores as the magic tried to escape, the circles visible in their desperation. But it was custom spellwork, so it needed time to rewrite itself for Parker and Nick.
She thrashed. “You’d kill her. You’dkill her.”
Nick wasn’t listening, his attention focused on the fast beat of the cashier’s heart that he could see in her neck. She reached out, ready for him, the green circle flying at him, but Parker had already prepared both of them for this.
The circle shredded itself, the threads of Nick’s suit convinced they were silver knives only against spellwork and working better than Nick thought possible. The circle exploded harmlessly in the air, tatters of it melting away.
When the next circle flew to Parker’s shirt, it had the same effect.
“That’s right,” Parker coaxed. “She’s dying, but we aren’t.Weare alive and healthy and ready to be your newest meal, ready to be the batteries that don’t need a wall recharge every now and then. Come on.”
Four more circles flew at them, each getting progressively smaller. The green light disappeared from the cashier’s eyes. She blinked.
“What…” Then she covered her face with her hand, her pink fingernails pressing into her leaking eyes as she began sobbing. “Oh my god, whatwasthat?”
Parker stepped forward and jerked his head significantly at Nick. Quickly, Nick pressed the circle to her that would reveal her bones. As Parker comforted her and she slowly dragged control out of an unknown place of calm, Nick checked her bones.
The circles were gone. All of them.
It had worked.
He took a step back, the weight on his chest gone for the first time in hours. A hot and frustrated emotion pricked at his eyes. If only he’d thought of thisearlier, if only he’d beenfasterand smarter.
“Nick?” Parker asked. His frown made Nick look around, unsure of how much time had passed. The cashier was crying, hugging the confused barista, who’d come in at some point.
Nick shook his head. He thought of the cold way Parker had asked which extremity they’d let the parasite blow up on Gile’s body. If he’d only been better, all of that could have been avoided.
“No,” Parker said sharply at whatever he’d seen in Nick’s face. “You did the absolute best you could, right? The absolute best you could with the information we had. That’s all anyone could ask of you.”
“You saved my life,” the cashier said, turning around, her eyes wide. “Oh my god, you saved mylife.”
Nick shook his head, but she swallowed roughly. “I was going to die. I knew it—that thing knew it.”
She began crying again, but Nick had to know. “Did you see a spiral? Or any hint of what the creature was?”
