Black Magic Bayou (20 page)

“Hey, look, lady, I didn’t point any fingers at those guys, okay? I didn’t even know they were werewolves.”

“Sure.” I adjusted the candles one more time.

“And I didn’t say nothing to the papers, like Perry asked me.”

“Carlos,” Wilder said kindly. “Shhhhh.”

“Huh?”

“I promise you, just be quiet and you’ll be fine.”

The kid fell silent, but I could still feel the weight of his gaze on me, even when I wasn’t looking at him.

A small part of me wondered if I might be able to manipulate the spell enough to remove all memory of last night from Carlos’s mind, to make sure he
never
talked.

The thought alone made me afraid of myself.

No, he could keep his memories. I’d have to learn that sometimes it was okay to trust people, and maybe this guy was one of them. He’d come here, after all, obviously interested in helping. I’d give him a chance to prove he wasn’t against us.

Perry eyed the salt lines and made sure he didn’t mess them up as he went to the back of the van. He jerked his chin at Wilder and said, “Little help?”

Together they got a body bag out of the tail end of the van and settled it next to the dumpster where it had originally lain. I undid the zipper, expecting the unpleasant smell of decaying flesh to waft out, but I only got the faint smell of chemical cleaner and a very subtle rot that wouldn’t be noticeable to the human nose.

The elephant brain would smell worse than Liam’s body.

“Try not to do anything to it,” Perry said.

“I don’t even need to touch it,” I assured him. “Carlos, do you remember where you were standing when it happened?”

He nodded and moved over to a rear entrance door to the bar. “I was coming out when I heard all the noise, and I got here just before the guy went down.”

Not ideal. I’d have preferred someone who had been around for the whole thing, but if that person existed, I probably wouldn’t need to do this spell at all.

“Stand right where you were, okay?”

He planted himself firmly on the spot, thankfully still within the salt lines, and watched with open curiosity. He didn’t seem terrified of me anymore, which was nice. Fear might lead him to shut down, and I needed him to be open and receptive.

“What is all that?” He pointed to the pot and the jar next to me.

“I’m going to be doing a spell.”

“Like, magic? Like you’re a witch or something?”

I gave him a thin smile. “Or something.”

“Where should we stand?” Perry asked. He was looking at Carlos and the goods I’d compiled—his expression going slightly wan when he saw the brain jar—and I could tell without asking he was already regretting this.

“If you guys don’t mind staying where you are, I think that would give you the best view.” I decided it might be best to walk them through what was about to happen, so no one freaked out and made a run for it in the middle of my incantation. “I’m going to light the stuff in the pot on fire, and when it’s hot enough, I’m going to add the other things beside it. I’m warning you right now, it won’t smell very nice. It’s important no one says anything when I’m casting the spell. The last thing I’m going to add to the pot is the amber, and when I do that, the spell will be complete. If I’ve done it all correctly, we’ll see exactly what Carlos saw that night and hopefully be able to see who really killed this guy.” I indicated the body. “Any questions now, before we start? You won’t get to ask them later.”

Carlos raised his hand like we were in a classroom. “Will it hurt?”

“You? No.” I wasn’t going to enjoy it very much, but no need to invite anyone to back out because of my discomfort.

He pointed at the jar. “Is that a brain?”

“Yes.”

“It’s huge.”

“It belonged to an elephant. Best thing for complex memory spells.”

“Because elephants never forget?” He was staring at the jar, but again his curiosity seemed to be in control, rather than fear or uncertainty.

“Yeah, kind of. I mean, that’s not exactly true, but the size and complexity of their brains make it an especially potent fuel for this kind of thing.”

Nodding slowly, he adjusted his footing and crossed his arms, indicating he was ready to begin.

“You guys?” I asked Wilder and Perry.

“Will we be able to interact with the memory?” Perry asked.

“Not much. You can ask Carlos questions to see if it fires anything new, but you won’t be able to touch or speak to any part of the projection. It’s just coming from his mind, it’s not real. What we’re going to see is only as good as what he remembers. Mind you, he may have seen something that didn’t register as important in his interviews that we’ll understand as being very important. Make sense?”

Perry nodded and pulled a notebook from his pocket.

I was actually stunned by how open he was to this whole idea. Three years ago I’d have been laughed out of a police station or locked up in a psych ward for proposing something like this, and now here we were, standing around a vital piece of police evidence, with a material witness on hand, and the cop was letting me lead the show.

Guess I better not fuck it up.

“All right, now everyone stay quiet.”

I used the barbeque lighter to ignite the two tapered candles, then holding them with their wicks touching, I lowered them into the pot and laid them facing each other among the herbs and flowers. A vaguely pleasant, aromatic smoke unfurled from the pot, billowing up over my head. A small
pop
told me the flame had already heated enough to break the dried eyes. I dropped the beeswax in next, blinking through the white smoke until I saw it melt, pooling with the yellow and white wax from the candles.

This pot would be a total write-off when this was over.

“Oh, goddess, whose breath is life,

my offering to you is warm on this night.

Oh, goddess, with powers divine,

come for my present, if thy will would be mine.

Oh, Mnemosyne, whose sight never dims,

Join us this night and bless us with your whims.”

I unscrewed the top of the jar and was assaulted by a powerful whiff of formaldehyde. The chemical itself, in too great a quantity, might mess up the balance in the pot. I swallowed hard and held my breath, then reached my hand into the jar.

The brain was slimy and had a spongelike consistency when I dug my fingers into it and pulled it from its suspended-liquid home. It was so slippery I almost dropped it, and had to bite back a curse before it jumped out and spoiled the whole spell.

I used both hands and eased the twenty-pound brain into the smoking pot. Normally something wet and that size would snuff out a small flame, but the fire rose to meet it, perhaps fueled by the formaldehyde, and ignited so quickly I had to scoot back a few inches. Now things were cooking—literally—and the alley stank of burning brain meat.

The amber was last, and this was the part where I needed to be really careful.

“Here is the dreamer, coming to wake,

We would that his dreams were ours to take,

If goddess is willing to answer our call,

This fractured dream will reveal all.”

I tossed the amber into the pot and leapt back a moment before the fire exploded upward in an enormous amethyst plume, filling the whole alley with bright purple light. Ashes rained down over us, falling like huge snowflakes, and we all held our breath.

Had I done it?

I glanced over at Carlos, terrified I might have gotten the last couplet wrong and really messed him up in the process. He was standing stock-still, staring straight ahead, as if he was no longer seeing us at all.

Since I’d been the one standing in his shoes the last time I’d been present for this spell, I had no idea if this was a good sign or not.

Then the body lying at my feet stood up.

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the thing coming from the corpse was actually a projection. As soon as he walked through me, my mind was set at ease that it was not some zombie version of the victim returning from the dead with a hunger for flesh.

Okay, so zombies weren’t real, but I
had
seen the dead rise once, and it wasn’t pretty. It was incredibly frightening, and I had no desire to live through it again.

As I pivoted, I could see that the area within my salt barrier was filled with spectral bodies, at least a half-dozen people crowded together. In the middle of it someone was throwing punches.

“Are you seeing this?” Perry said, his voice full of astonishment.

“Yeah,” Wilder replied.

“As long as I’m not crazy.”

“The more time you spend around her, the more normal this shit becomes.”

Perry glanced at Wilder. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.”

Wilder grinned, his expression all for me. “I think it’s pretty great. I’m never bored.”

I responded with a small wink, then moved towards the edge of the salt line so I was close to Carlos, wanting to see the scene from his angle. Carlos was frozen, staring into space while the rest of us watched his memories unfold like a 3D movie. I hoped he’d be able to answer us if we had any questions, since I’d sort of promised Perry that would work.

Now I was able to see that the fight was between Mason and another guy—not the victim as I’d expected—and Emmett pushed his way through the onlookers in an attempt to break things up.

Though I had never doubted the innocence of my wolves, it was interesting to see how events had actually played out. We couldn’t
hear
the memory, but it was obvious the human male was screaming something at Mason. The unknown man shook Mason by the front of his shirt, his face contorted into a mask of absolute hatred.

Mason attempted to wrench free of the man’s grip. His hands were by his sides, and he rolled his shoulder towards his attacker, not to hurt him but merely to break his hold.

Mason wasn’t trying to fight, he was trying to run away.

As Emmett muscled his way in, I could tell how hard he was struggling to keep from shoving the human man. His hands were held up in a gesture of surrender, as if he was telling the man,
You’ve won, we’re done here
. The guy would
not
let go of Mason.

I looked at Perry to make sure he was paying attention. He was scribbling wildly in his notebook, but he lifted his eyes every few seconds, taking in the whole scene.

Emmett was calm, showing no signs of the rage I would expect considering someone was screaming in his face. He was saying something to the angry bro, and though I couldn’t hear anything, it looked as if he was saying,
Just let us leave
.

A glow of pride blossomed inside me, because this was exactly how I would have hoped they would act. They’d told me in as many words the fight hadn’t been their fault, but I’d only let my faith in them go so far. I’d imagined them getting riled up and arguing with the other men. I’d even been willing to think they might have fought back.

I’d never believed they were guilty of murder, but seeing the scene play out like this, I was absolutely staggered by their pacifism.

I wasn’t sure how, but once they were out, I was going to reward them somehow.

The bro punched Emmett square in the face.

Wilder, Perry, and I all collectively held our breath as if this were happening now, and not in the past.

Blood sprayed from Emmett’s nose, coating the front of his shirt, which went a long way to explaining why he’d been so bloody when I first arrived at the crime scene. His healing powers would have made sure he was fine by that point, but the blood wasn’t going to go anywhere.

And if the worst of it was on his shirt, that would also explain why I hadn’t smelled a lot of werewolf blood in the alley. Emmett was wearing most of it.

I watched as Emmett’s once-peaceful expression pinched and twisted. Rage turned his cheeks red, and he lifted his hand to his nose, pulling his fingers back to inspect the bloody mess he found there.

Get out of here
, he said, each word so clearly defined it was easy to see what he was saying.

The bro who had hit him looked like someone waking from a dream. He was wide-eyed and holding his fist in one hand—probably nursing some severely broken bones—as he gaped at what he’d done.

He had let go of Mason when he threw the punch, and now it was Mason’s turn to hold Emmett back. Neither of them had that feral, blind-rage look to them, but Emmett’s hands were balled into fists, and I could tell it was taking every ounce of self-restraint he had not to smash this idiot in the face.

I couldn’t blame him. I’m not entirely sure I would have been able to hold back. McQueen women are not wildly known for being able to maintain their calm.

This was where Liam came in.

He hustled up to the bro, tugging him backwards and away from my wolves, saying something I couldn’t quite read.

I inched forward, hoping I might better be able to tell what Liam was saying to the bro if only I could see his lips.

Liam looked worried but not angry, and though he was too close to his friend for me to see what he was saying, I got the distinct impression he was trying to defuse the situation. Liam patted the angry bro’s chest, pulling him the opposite direction of Emmett and Mason.

Then the bro, getting a second wind on his rage, shouted something at the wolves. Spit flew from his mouth, and his face contorted in an ugly, animal way. He was holding up his now-injured hand and swearing a blue streak at Emmett.

I’m pretty sure he was blaming Emmett’s face for breaking his hand.

I saw him use words like
fucking freak
and
abomination
.

What did it was when he said, Too bad wolves don’t eat their young.

Why this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I don’t know, but it must have pushed a button for Mason, because it was him and not Emmett who attacked the screaming asshole.

Attacked
was the wrong word. Like I’d told Perry that morning, if one of the werewolves had actually assaulted someone in a rage, that person wouldn’t be in one piece anymore. But Mason shouldered his way past Emmett and shoved the bro.