Chapter 20
“Thomas, hold up,” James said in the parking lot, as I made it to my car. Out in the open sunlight, his bald head had a shine to it. He had muscles, and a long tattoo of a two snakelike dragons running down his arms. Their bodies, one red and the other blue, intertwined like DNA and traveled his arm until they disappeared underneath his black gloves. James’s bald head, muscles, tattoos, and amazing action figure grimace would make him the perfect professional wrestler. All he’d need is a pair of tights.
I foresaw two versions of what happened inside, in the two seconds after I left. One involved James walking out on Lance. This was unlikely, considering what I knew about Lance, so I figured it was the other. I ignored James as I got into the Mercedes, tossing my staff into the passenger seat.
As I turned the key, James shattered the passenger window with his meaty elbow and opened the locked door from the inside, and got in.
Cameron is going to kill me, I thought.
Something told me that Lance Ruben shouldn’t be the one to find Kelly. The obvious reason being that he’d probably torture and kill her if he so much as suspected her to be guilty. Or worse, he’d force her and James through couples's therapy before hiring her. That’s the last thing this world needed – a husband-and-wife pair of mage assassins loyal to Lance Ruben. No, if this were to end well, I’d have to team up with James to find her.
“You know anything about my wife?” James said, his polite voice a front for his anger.
“What’s it to you?”
“Hell, Thomas, I love her enough to walk out on Lance. Do me a favor and spill.”
“Sorry,” I put the car into reverse and jerked it back out of its parking space. My whole life I’d driven junkers, so the quick burst of acceleration nearly had me back into another car. “Lies will get you nowhere.”
“Yeah, fine. I’m here on Lance’s orders. Doesn’t change shit. I want to know where my wife is.”
“So do I.” I sped off, not really caring that I was pissing off the next best thing to Hercules.
“I love her, and I know what you’re about to say. I know she was cheating on me.”
My nerves were shaking me again, but I was able to look confident enough. “Look, James. You want the truth? The truth is that your wife is the only person I’ve come across that has a motive against Emmitt. Let me break it down for you. Kelly was sleeping around. Daniel found out and told Emmitt. Emmitt tried to use the ghost to kill her, but since Gregory Scythe goes after guys, it killed her boyfriend instead. She was pissed, so she killed Emmitt and ran. You want proof?”
The black gloves on his fist tightened, making a stretchy clacking sound. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Katherine. Daniel. Others. The information is good.”
“No,” he hissed, along with an unintelligible combination of insults in a short breath. “Nah, that’s impossible. Kelly don’t know shit about magic. I didn’t let her.”
“You know, James, the more you lock your stuff away from her, the more she’d try to get into it,” I said in annoyed, childlike tones.
“Nah, you’re wrong. She knew I was a mage, but didn’t know shit herself. I’d have known if she got into my stuff.”
“Kept close tabs on her, did you? You keep a focus on her? Wedding ring, maybe?”
He kept his mouth shut and shook his head. I could feel the anger in him ready to erupt.
“It might not be the case,” I said. “Help me find her. Help me prove otherwise.”
Snarling angrily, he reached for the door handle. I wasn’t sure if his hands were too big to fit into the handle, or if he’d forgotten to unlock it. This car locked all by itself when it started driving, and he couldn’t get it open.
“Maybe it was her. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, your wife is in this as deep as I am. Let’s work together on this. Do you think Lance will let Kelly live if he finds her?”
Suddenly, everything was spinning as he backhanded me with his ten-pound ham of a fist. There was a black and firefly colored haze that encased my vision, and an accompanying rattling sound. Swimming through the daze, I wondered if it were my imagination, or if my jaw seemed a bit looser than usual. When I came to, the car door was open.
“Wait!” I said, calling out the half-open window. “James, stop! Help me on this!”
The hulk hesitated, his shoulder mounting in anger.
I actually thought he might reconsider. I was about to step outside, until a moment later when he pounded one fist into his open palm. The glass on the driver’s side window sprayed inwards against my cheek. He did it again, breaking both of the back windows with a single blow. And another that blasted the windshield, spreading a spidery set of cracks across the front of the car without actually breaking out the glass. Overcome entirely with rage, stomped his bull legs off to the parking lot, got into his own car, and sped out onto the road.