There was, close to the spot where I’d parked on that day.
When we were stopped beside the curb she glanced at me. “Now what? Do we just go up to the place and knock?”
“I’m going to make us invisible,” I told her, “and I’m going to keep us that way till we’re inside. You’ll have to stay close to me in order for us to see each other, though.”
She nodded.
“Dworkin did it for me once,” she said, “when I was a child. Spied on a lot of people then.” She chuckled. “I’d forgotten.”
I put the finishing touches to the elaborate spell and laid it upon us, the world growing dimmer beyond the windshield as I did. It was as if I regarded our surroundings through gray sunglasses as we slipped out the passenger side of the car. We walked slowly up to the corner and turned right.
“Is this a hard spell to learn?” she asked me. “It seems a very handy one to know.”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said. “Its biggest drawback is that you can’t just do it at a moment’s notice if you don’t have it hanging ready-and I didn’t. So, starting from scratch, it takes about twenty minutes to build.”
We turned up the walk to the big old house.
“Which floor?” she asked me.
“Top.”
We climbed to the front door and found it locked. No doubt they were more particular about such matters these days.
“Break it?” Flora whispered.
“Too noisy,” I answered.
I placed my left hand upon the doorknob and gave Frakir a silent command. She unwound two turnings of her coil from about my wrist, coming into view as she moved across the lock plate and slithered into the keyhole. There followed a tightening, a stiffening and several rigid movements.
A soft click meant the bolt was drawn, and I turned the knob and pulled gently. The door opened. Frakir returned to bracelet-hood and invisibility.
We entered, closing the door quietly behind us. We were not present in the wavery mirror. I led Flora up the stairs.
There were soft voices from one of the rooms on the second floor. That was all. No wind. No excited dogs. And the voices grew still before we reached the third floor.
I saw that the entire door to Julia’s apartment had been replaced. It was slightly darker than the other and it sported a bright new lock. I tapped upon it gently and we waited. There was no response, but I knocked again after perhaps half a minute and we waited again.
No one came. So I tried it. It was locked, but Frakir repeated her trick and I hesitated. My hand shook as I recalled my last visit. I knew her mutilated corpse was no longer lying there. I knew no killer beast was waiting to attack me. Yet the memory held me for several seconds.
“What’s the matter?” Flora whispered.
“Nothing,” I said, and I pushed the door open.
The place had been partly furnished, as I recalled. The part that had come with it remained-the sofa and end tables, several chairs, a larger table-but all Julia’s own stuff was gone. There was a new rug on the floor, and the floor itself had been buffed recently. It did not appear that the place had been re-let, as there were no personal items of any sort about.
We entered and I closed the door, dropping the spell that had cloaked us as I began my circuit through the rooms. The place brightened perceptibly as our magic veils faded.
“I don’t think you’re going to find anything,” Flora said. “I can smell wax and disinfectant and paint…”
I nodded.
“The more mundane possibilities seem to be excluded,” I said. “But there is something else I want to try.”
I calmed my mind and called up the Logrus-seeing. If there were any remaining traces of a magical working, I hoped I could spot them in this fashion. I wandered slowly then, through the living room, regarding everything from every possible angle. Flora moved off, conducting her own investigation, which consisted mainly in looking under everything. The room flickered slightly for me as I scanned at those wavelengths where such a manifestation was most likely to be apparent-at least, that was the best way to describe the process in this shadow.