Pierce looked absorbed as he stood before the books with that knife balanced across his hands and his brown shoes edging the spotlight. He had pulled his shirttails from his trousers, and a faint stubble was starting to show. It was the first time I’d ever seen him disheveled. “You look comfortable,” I said, and he sighed.

“No one slicks up anymore,” he breathed. “Why should I?”

It didn’t sound like him at all, and rising, I went to the window, shifting the blinds to see that some of the cars had their lights on. “Trent dresses up,” I said, letting the blind’s slat click shut and turning. “Did you sleep at all?”

Still facing the books, Pierce rubbed his bristly chin. “Are you going to call Al?”

I nodded. I had a couple of hours before the sun would set in San Francisco. Time enough to call Al and try to convince him to make good on our deal. But what I really was, was hungry. “How come you look so rested?” I asked as I came alongside him, and the green glow about his hands went out. “You couldn’t have had much sleep.”

“Perhaps because I made a die of it for so many years I don’t need as much.”

Eying him, I carefully took the knife off his hands. The tarnished metal was warm, feeling almost like putty, but the sensation quickly faded until it was just cold silver. “This is nasty,” I said as I tried to piece together the words engraved around the handle. “What does it say?” Pierce hesitated, and my eyes narrowed. “Don’t expect me to believe you can’t read it.”

With an odd expression, the man shifted uncomfortably as I caught him thinking about lying to me. “It’s a delicate matter,” he finally said, and I put one hand on my hip, the other carelessly holding the knife askew. “I won’t say the words,” he said, gaze following the knife as I shifted it about. “I’m not skeerylike, but it’s arcane, black magic. I’m not of a mind to … know for sure what it does. The charm is long spent.”

I squinted at him, weighing his words against his body language. I mean, he knew I knew he worked black magic. Did he think I couldn’t take it? Whatever it was? “What were you doing with it, then,” I asked, waving the knife around just to irritate him, “if the spell is gone?”