Page 52 of Fortress
To Tobias’s relief, Roger picked up, though he sounded groggy and irritated. “Something tells me you ain’t got good news.”
Tobias filled him in on the Louisiana case and finished with the school, the attack, the escape. “We think it’s a witch.”
“Yeah? That how Jake lost his voice?” Roger was trying to joke, but Tobias felt his stomach drop, couldn’t quite get out a response.
“Funny,” Jake snapped. “No, I can talk just fine. It’s my eyes that got whammied.”
“Ahh.” Roger took that in. “So—you stuck watching some witch’s personal horror slideshow, or is everything gone black?”
“The second one.”
“Shit,” Roger said.
“Yeah.” Jake slumped back, his fingers tapping a restless pattern on his knee.
“I already tried the standard anti-witchcraft remedies.” Tobias listed them off for Roger. “And I collected the remains of the hex bag—I think I’ve identified about sixty percent of the ingredients.” Picking up his list, he read them aloud.
“That’s good work. How you holding up, Tobias?”
“Fine,” Tobias said, and felt himself flush. He knew that not long ago he would have been basically helpless now, unable to do what had to be done to catch the witch, but he’d improved. He wished Roger could trust him to be reliable. “I’m fine, it didn’t get me at all.”
Roger sighed. “Can’t drive over to your area of Louisiana in less than a couple days, not at my age. You boys want me to book a flight?”
Tobias glanced over to Jake, but Jake continued to stare just sideways of anything, eyes blank. Tobias looked away fast, heartbeat racing again from the unpleasant shock that they couldn’t read each other’s faces and decide their next step without words. “Um,” Tobias said, and swallowed. If Jake felt strongly one way or another, he wasn’t jumping in. Whether to ask for an experienced hunter’s help in curing Jake, or to trust himself to do it alone, was up to Tobias.
He took a deep breath. “Give me forty-eight hours. If I haven’t found the witch and gotten Jake’s sight back by then, then yes, please, we’d appreciate the help.”
“I’ll pack a bag just in case.”
“We almost caught the witch tonight,” Tobias continued. “With a few more interviews, I think we can identify the common factors and ID the witch.”
“Yeah, but you gotta plan on taking this witch one-on-one, Tobias. I’m guessing Jake’s not gonna be much help when he’s playing blind man’s bluff. And this’ll get much worse for you if they hit you with the same curse—or something worse, hell. In my experience, witches’ bags of tricks don’t stop with blindness.”
“I know. It would be better not to risk a second attack.” Tobias focused hard on the phone, not looking at Jake, even though Jake couldn’t see him. “How foolproof would a headshot be to undo the curse?”
Jake’s fidgeting stopped, his head turning toward Tobias.
It seemed that even Roger had caught the quiet. “Well,” he said slowly, “it depends on the curse. But, Tobias, that’s—I dunno if you—it’s a hell of a thing, blowing someone away. I wouldn’t do it except as a last resort.”
“It would be different if I’d suggested killing a person,” Tobias said, his voice measured. “Witches forfeit the right to be considered human.”
“But theylookhuman, and that’s what counts with your noggin. Look, let me do some research on these ingredients, see what I can find. You be careful, don’t tip the witch off, and don’t let Jake wander into the street. He won’t look pretty run over by a clown car or something.”
“Bite me,” Jake said, just as Tobias said, “I won’t.”
Blindness sucked hairy ass like nothing Jake had experienced before.
He’d been in some tight corners before, but excepting those times when he’d been shot, concussed, or unconscious, he’dthrow himself back into any of those corners if he could just fuckingsee. When tied up, he could count on a way to work the ropes loose, pick the cuffs, or find a sharp object and free himself. No matter the plot, the plan, or the restraint, there was always a weak spot, and Jake took it as a personal challenge to find and exploit that spot.
Now, there was no blindfold to rip away. He could wait, but there wasnothinghe could do to give him even a moment’s glimpse of what was going on around him.
And yeah, Jake hated being reduced to a bigbaby, weak and helpless, someone Toby had to worry about. Toby was beside him, talking to him, doing things, being his ruthlessly productive self, but Jake still heard the undercurrent of anxiety in his voice, no matter how Toby tried to hide it. Like Toby didn’t haveenoughto deal with on a daily basis.
Jake was trying to keep his cool, trying to show Toby that though the situation sucked, Jake wasn’t going to fuck them up more than they were already, even though the disability made him restless and angry and ready to gut anything that made a funny noise. Already the idea of Toby alone, facing off against some wild-eyed witch with nothing to lose, made his skin crawl.
Even getting ready for bed was way more difficult than it should have been. Toby was right beside him, handing him pajamas and taking away the shirt and pants he shucked. In the bathroom, Toby placed his toothbrush in one hand and the toothpaste in his other, but Jake had no way to gauge when he had enough or too much toothpaste on the bristles, or when the fluoride shit was spilling out over his fingers until he felt it there and shook it off before he thought of who would have to clean it up. Toby was right there watching him fumble and fuck up with slimy tooth cleaner against the calluses of his hands.
“I . . . I could—”
