A Cast-Off Coven (30 page)

“Doing what?”

“In case you didn’t recognize him, that was the mayor of San Francisco you just tossed out on his ear.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“We’re coming up with an evil scheme to transform all elected officials into my puppets. Come on, Lily, what do you take me for?”

I ignored that question. “Why are you so shy about going on campus and just taking care of this yourself?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Which you won’t share with me, no doubt.”

Aidan grinned again. “It’s almost as though we have telepathy, you and I. We understand each other so well.”

Before I knew it, I had been escorted out of the office and found myself on the other side of Aidan’s closed, and locked, door.

I lugged the big leather research books down the stairs, past the glowering young woman in the ticket booth, and out to my car. Jostled by the tourists flocking to Fisherman’s Wharf, I found a rare pay phone outside a restaurant and called Carlos Romero.

“How is Walker Landau?” I asked.

“He seems okay—physically, at least. Psychologically might be another matter,” Romero said. “Listen, I want to talk to you in person. Someplace we won’t be overheard. Meet me at a club called El Valenciano, near Valencia and Twenty-fourth Street in the Mission.”

I agreed.

It took me nearly half an hour to cross town and find parking in the bustling Mission District. Carlos Romero was waiting for me at the bar, but as soon as he saw me enter, he led the way across the dance floor, where a salsa band was playing a cumbia. The floor was jammed with couples dancing with abandon, some so young they didn’t look legally eligible for drinks while others were white haired and wrinkled. A “wedding crowd” I’d heard it called.

“One thing you can say about Latinos,” the inspector shouted as we made our way to a dark, slightly quieter corner on the far side. He held up four fingers to the overly made-up waitress on the other side of the strobe-lit dance floor. “We like to dance.”

“Isn’t that a generalization?” I asked.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true. Never did understand these clubs where women are standing alone, not dancing. Come to this place or Rockapulco or El Rio, and you’ll be dancing before you order your first drink.”

As if on cue, a man came up to the table, met Carlos’s eyes, and asked me to dance. I supposed he was asking permission for my company. Carlos sent him away with a barely noticeable shake of his head.

It was hard to hear over the live band. We leaned toward each other across the small café table, like conspiratorial smugglers.

“Landau’s not seriously hurt,” Romero told me. “More shook up than anything. We’ve got him in the psych ward at S.F. General.”

“Just to clarify—this was no suicide attempt.”

“Then what was it?”

“I think Landau was temporarily possessed.”

The inspector sat back and gave me a skeptical look.

“I’m afraid our little haunting is getting out of hand. The students are already at one another’s throats. It’s only a matter of time till more serious problems develop and someone gets hurt.” I took a drink of water. “You need to close the school.”

“What do you think is going on?”

“There’s a demon entering through a third- floor closet.”

“A demon.”

“Demons typically sow chaos and discontent, and it ratchets up from there.”

“I would assume, based on the careful study of horror movies, that a demon would disembowel, that sort of thing.”

“It might well be building up to that. He’s just playing with us right now.”

Carlos folded his arms over his chest and fixed me with that unconvinced mien. “I was kidding.”

“This is no joke.”

The band ended the cumbia and started in on a merengue
.
The beat was catchy, and dancers flooded the floor. I looked over the crowd, taking comfort in their high spirits. It was a welcome reminder of life, and of joy.

“Right now he’s just playing around,” I continued. “Trying to see how far he can push people before they crack. Demons love to see humans display their basest emotions—jealousy, greed, fear. But I don’t know where it will go from here. I fear for the students’ safety.”

The waitress came over with four shots of tequila, cut limes, and a salt shaker. I watched as Carlos licked the back of his hand, applied salt, downed his shot, and bit into a lime wedge. I did my best to mimic him, but sipped the tequila rather than shooting the whole thing. I’m a lightweight. Besides, I needed all my wits about me.

“I feel like I’m going from zero to sixty here,” Carlos said after he was fortified. “I admit to you—and to myself—that I’ve actually heard haunted house noises. And now we’re going straight to the concept of a homicidal demon?”

“I’m sorry, Inspector, but I don’t have a lot of time to sugarcoat it.”

“I have the sense you’re not into sugarcoating, time or no.”

“I need to ask you a couple of questions about Becker’s death. Would it be possible for me to see the evidence, the body?”

“I thought of that. But frankly, I don’t know how I would explain you. If anyone finds out a secondhand-clothes dealer is looking at evidence, I’m a laughing-stock. But I do have this.”

He extracted an iPhone from his pocket.

He pushed some buttons before handing it to me. Photos showed the body at the bottom of the stairs, and afterward, on the table at the morgue. I remembered the red marks I had noted on his neck when I first saw him. The medallion that Andromeda mentioned was still around his neck—and there were marks as though the symbol had been burned into the skin. It was hard to make out, but it looked a lot like the sigil Sailor and I had found in the hotel room.

“What were the papers scattered about the body?” I asked.

“Mostly standard business documents. The only thing notable was a blackmail note.”

“A blackmail note? About what?”

He handed a copy to me, which I read aloud.
“I know about John Daniels. You know what I want in return for silence.”
It was written in the classic kidnap- note way, with letters torn from a magazine.

“It was done carefully,” Carlos said. “We haven’t come up with any detailed forensic information on it yet. But trying to get lab work done around here takes forever—this isn’t like cop shows on television, I’m afraid.”

“Any ideas about who wrote it?”

“Like I said, Becker had a lot of enemies. But as you probably know, it’s usually the blackmailer who is killed in these cases, not the blackmailee.”

“And you understand the reference to John Daniels?”

“Supposed suicide, decades ago, when Becker was a young man—a delivery truck driver who often hung around the School of Fine Arts. So I guess we’re assuming now that Becker was involved in John Daniels’s early demise.” Carlos paused and took another taste of tequila. “I asked you once; I’ll ask again: Do you think this ghost killed Becker?”

“No. I think it was a human.” The band switched to a ranchero-style ballad, and the crowd went wild. I smiled, watching a tiny old man with a pencil-thin mustache lead a woman twice his size around the dance floor. “I have an odd question for you: What would happen if a person committed such a crime while possessed by a demon?”

He gave a humorless laugh and shook his head. “I have no idea. This is all new to me.” Then his dark gaze drilled into me. “Are you saying you have a suspect you think was possessed?”

“No, of course not. Just thinking about how demons act, is all.” I was glad the room was dim so he wouldn’t take note of my blush. I wasn’t a great liar. “So, about closing the school . . .”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Carlos.

“What will you tell your cop buddies?”

“I’ll figure something out.” Carlos rubbed his eyes. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but he struck me as pale. A fine sheen of perspiration gleamed on his forehead. “Just promise me you’ll get to the bottom of this, as soon as humanly possible—or should I say ‘witchly’ possible?”

“Do you feel okay, Carlos?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well.” He shrugged.

“There’s a lot of that going around.” Fishing around, I found a carved talisman in the bottom of my backpack. I wrote out the words of a protective chant on a small pad of paper.

“Wear this tonight, and walk the perimeter of your room saying these words.”

Carlos looked at me askance, doubt shining in his dark eyes.

“Trust me,” I said. “It will help.” It occurred to me that I should track down Max and do the same thing, or offer to set up a protection spell at his place. Yeah, right. That ought to go over big.

“Just figure out what’s going on so we can finish it,” said Carlos, “and then I’ll be able to get some rest already.”

I raised my shot glass of tequila to him.

“I’ll drink to that.”

 

I dragged myself back home to Aunt Cora’s Closet, wondering who might have summoned the demon. I knew Aidan had said it didn’t matter, but I disagreed. Knowing how the creature got here, I thought, might help me decide how to get rid of it—once I figured out who “it” was, of course.

Time to do my homework, and I didn’t mean algebra. If the past few weeks were any indication, a thorough knowledge of demonology would be much more useful to me—and to the city of San Francisco—than arithmetic.

I lugged the huge tomes Aidan had lent me through the front door of the shop. Oscar ran to greet me, in his piggy guise. Shifting the books in my arms, I turned to lock up as it sank in that Oscar would be in his natural form, unless—

A man stood in the doorway.

“
Max
. Are you all right?” He didn’t look all right. He looked terrible, as though he hadn’t slept in days.

Max reached out to take the heavy books from my arms. “Where do you want ’em?”

“Anywhere’s fine. On the counter. Come upstairs and I’ll make us some tea.” I noted his haggard, haunted expression. “Or better yet, a stiff drink.”

He trailed me through the store and up the rear staircase to my apartment. In the tiny foyer he paused, taking in the mirror set up to repel evil spirits, the sachets tied with black ribbons, and the bundles of rosemary hanging over the door.

I poured us both a glass of wine, then set a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the floor for Oscar.

Max remained mute. I swallowed hard, wondering whether he was trying to think of the best way to break up with me. We’d had only one real date, true, but he struck me as the kind of man who wouldn’t just stop calling. He seemed like the type to let a witch know where she stood.

“How is Luc?” I asked, finally, breaking the silence.

“He seemed okay. Sort of vague. I didn’t smell anything on him, but I’m really afraid he’s drinking again.”

“I don’t think so, Max. Where is he now?”

“At our dad’s house, in Mill Valley.”

“You need to keep him from going back to the school. It’s going to be shut down for a while, anyway.”

“Why? As a crime scene?”

“As a potential crime scene. In the future.”

“You’re reading the future now?”

“Max, listen. Luc’s fears were not unfounded. He can’t be allowed to go to the school building. I’m asking you to be your brother’s keeper, just for a few days.”

There was a pause; then Max gave a curt nod.

“I’m sorry about what happened earlier at the hotel,” Max said.

“There’s no need to apologize.”

“That man, that ‘Sailor’ person, took me by surprise. Seeing him there, with you . . .” He shook his head. “I lost it. I completely overreacted.”

“I understand. He told me a little about what happened between the two of you.”

Max sipped his wine and wandered through the sitting room, then out onto the terrace. I followed. It was a dark night with little moonlight, and the air was fragrant with the scents of my lush herbs and flowering bushes. He leaned back against the balustrade.

“My wife’s name was Deborah.”

“I know. I read about her, a little bit.”

“You looked me up?” Max asked.

“Like you haven’t looked
me
up.”

“Actually, I haven’t.”

“Oh. What happened to not being able to turn off the journalist inside you?”

“I guess I was trying not to be that person with you. I was trying to trust you.”

“I’m sorry.” Now I
really
felt guilty. “Please, go on with what you were saying.”

“Deborah wanted children—she came from a huge family—and I’ve always loved kids. We tried to get pregnant for a long time, then moved on to fertility treatments. After a while I wanted to stop trying, wanted to adopt a child instead. The need to become pregnant was becoming an obsession. It . . . seemed to take over our lives, somehow.” He took another sip of wine and looked up at the stars.

“Deborah was very gentle. Very soft. Kind. A wonderful woman, but . . . not the strongest person in the world. I talked her into seeing a psychiatrist, a friend of my sister’s. The meds helped some, but it was still tough, living with a depressed person. She was like a shadow of the woman I once knew. I was traveling a lot at that time, working freelance but scrambling to find a more permanent situation since Deborah didn’t want to leave the Bay Area. She finally found her way to a so-called psychic. I didn’t realize how close they had become, how this so-called
seer
had wormed his way into her confidence . . . while I had dropped out.”

He cleared his throat and balanced his wineglass on the balustrade.

“Apparently, he told her to quit taking the meds. The truth is, I wasn’t around enough to know. I was on assignment in Europe when it happened. I called every day, but it wasn’t uncommon for Deborah to ignore the phone. By the third day of silence, I called Carlos and asked him to check on her. She had overdosed on pills. Killed herself.”