“The image flickered in my scrying stone, like a candle guttering in the wind, before becoming more fixed, more substantial. I hadn’t been sure the spell would work, but there he was — “he” being Mark Darby, an employee at Custom Electronics, in Mesa, who had been stealing computers, phones, stereo equipment, and pretty much anything else you could think of. He was by the loading dock at the rear of the store, shoving boxes into the back of a beat-up old Subaru wagon.
“Gotchya,” I whispered, still peering down at the stone.
Darby’s bosses had known for some time that someone on their staff was robbing them, but they didn’t know who; only that he or she had been clever enough to avoid detection for the better part of four months.
Until now.
Not that the magical vision I’d summoned to the stone was proof, at least not the kind that I could use in any court of law.
“No, your honor, I don’t have any surveillance tape. But I cast a seeing spell and saw him in this shiny piece of agate . . .”
Right.
But now that I knew for certain who the thief was, I had no intention of letting him get away.
I got out of the Z-ster, my silver 1977 280Z, which was parked along a side street near the store, closed the door with the care of a burglar, and began to limp toward the loading dock.
If someone had told me a year ago that getting shot could be a good thing, I would have said that person was nuts. And I know nuts. I’m a weremyste, which means that for three nights out of every month — the night of the full moon, and the nights immediately before and after — I lose control of my mind and my magic. It also means that eventually, the cumulative wear-and-tear of those monthly phasings will leave me permanently insane. As they have my Dad.
But this is about the risks of my profession, as opposed to the dangers of my runecrafting. I’m a private investigator, owner and president of Justis Fearsson Investigations. And not so long ago I was shot — twice, as it happens — by a powerful sorcerer named Etienne de Cahors, who was known here in Phoenix as the Blind Angel Killer. He didn’t survive our encounter, mostly because I had help from Kona Shaw, my old partner on the Phoenix police force.
Bringing down the bastard responsible for the Blind Angel murders, a killing spree that had terrorized the Phoenix area for the better part of three years, was enough to make me a hero. Ending up with a couple of bullets in me was icing on the cake and it got me in the headlines. Business, which was slow before then, had been booming ever since. Except that for the first several weeks I had one arm in a sling and my leg bandaged from hip to knee, and so I couldn’t do much more than sit on the couch in my home and answer the phone. People were lining up to hire me, and I was every bit as eager to get to work. But for more than a month I had no choice but to decline more jobs than I had worked in the previous year.
I still miss being a cop — losing my badge about killed me — but if I can’t be on the force, working as a PI is the next best thing. Despite the reward money I’d collected for killing Cahors, I didn’t want to sit on my butt catching up on the latest in daytime drama; I wanted to do my job. So about ten days ago, when I was cleared by the doctors and my physical therapist to start working again, I took the first offer that came my way. The doctors and PT told me to take it easy, and I really have tried to be good. But it’s not like there are volume settings for investigative work. You’re on or you’re off. Despite my limp, and the lingering twinge in my arm, I was on again, and I was glad…”
About David B. Coe
Author Bio:
David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson is the award-winning author of eighteen fantasy novels. Under the name D.B. Jackson, he writes the Thieftaker Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy from Tor Books that includes Thieftaker, Thieves’ Quarry, A Plunder of Souls, and, the newest volume, Dead Man’s Reach, which was released on July 21. Under his own name, he writes The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, a contemporary urban fantasy from Baen Books. The first volume, Spell Blind, debuted in January 2015. The newest book in the series, His Father’s Eyes, came out yesterday, August 4. He lives on the Cumberland Plateau with his wife and two daughters. They’re all smarter and prettier than he is, but they keep him around because he makes a mean vegetarian fajita. When he’s not writing he likes to hike, play guitar, and stalk the perfect image with his camera.
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Welcome to my second release party of this summer! Today I am happy to be with you to talk about my newest book, which came out yesterday. It’s called His Father’s Eyes, and it’s the second volume in The Case Files Justis Fearsson, a contemporary urban fantasy that I write for Baen Books under my own name, David B. Coe. (Last month I was here to promote Dead Man’s Reach, the fourth book in the Thieftaker Chronicles, which I write as D.B. Jackson.) Many thanks to Rachel and the Bitten By Books crew for hosting me again. The Justis Fearsson series began with Spell Blind, which came out in January. Jay Fearsson, my private detective hero, is a weremyste, a sorcerer who on the night of the full moon, and the nights immediately before and after, goes temporarily insane, even as his magic grows stronger. In other words, during these moon phasings, at the very moment when he most needs to control his magic, he is least capable of doing so. The phasings are slowly driving him permanently insane, just as they did his father. Think Jekyll and Hyde meets the Wolfman meets Sam Spade, and you’ve about got it.
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