Hexes and Hemlines (28 page)

Carefully, I approached. Peeking in, I saw what I thought at first was yet another wax figure. But it was a man. Hunched over and twitching. When he turned, I saw that one side of his face had a shiny, melted-plastic look.

Severe burn marks. I had seen scars like that one other time: when I tracked down my father.

The man swung away from me, still hunched over, grunted, stood, and when he turned toward me again, he was back to his beautiful self.

“Aidan?”
I whispered.

“Lily.” He ran a hand over his face and blew out a breath. “You caught me unawares this evening. Looks like I’ll have to talk to my familiar. She’s supposed to warn me about this sort of thing.”

Words failed me.

He stood tall and gorgeous and fixed me with those sparkling blue eyes. A long moment passed before he spoke again, and when he did, his normally playful voice was low and sober.

“Surely you don’t think you’re the only one with a past?”

“Is . . . is it painful? I might be able to help.”

He tapped his chest over his heart and gave me a rueful smile. “It only hurts in here. What brings you here, Lily? I trust it’s something important to interrupt my privacy.”

We witches could heal ourselves better than average humans, but we scar just the same. It must take a great deal of work for Aidan simply to maintain the illusion of beauty. No wonder he needed so many minions to do his bidding.

“I . . . needed to talk to you.”

“By all means,” he said, closing the door of the cloister and moving back toward the center of his office. “What can I help you with?”

Just like normal. Just as though I hadn’t just walked in on a wreck of a man, learned his secret: His beauty was a glamour, a trick.

“But . . . what happened to you?”

“It’s not worth talking about.”

“It must be difficult to maintain the façade that you do.”

He shrugged. “I can’t leave here easily.”

“You come see me at the store from time to time.”

“Perhaps now you’ll understand that I pay you quite the compliment by doing so,” he said and gave me his typical flirtatious smile. “So, I have to say I’m a bit surprised to see you here tonight. I had the distinct impression you weren’t talking to me.”

“I thought it was the other way around. You were furious with me last time I was here.”

We were slowly circling one another, as though readying ourselves for hand-to-hand combat. Then his eyes dropped to my chest. He reached one hand out and slowly, deliberately peeled a paper-thin piece of bark off of the skin just under my collarbone.

His expression shifted once again, from flirtatious to . . . something else.

“Where have you been?” His voice was quiet.

“In the park.”

“At this hour?”

I nodded. He studied me.

“I take it you weren’t having fun, rolling around on the forest floor?”

I shook my head. “Show yourself to me. Your real self.”

“This
is
my real self.”

“It’s not, though, it’s a glamour. It’s only as much as you’re willing to show.”

“We all maintain façades, Lily. You of all people should know that.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. I want to see you as you really are.”

And then something new: self-doubt. Just a flicker, a quick glimpse. He moved away from me, taking a seat in his leather chair behind the desk.

“What did you see tonight?” Aidan demanded, back to business.

“Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing. Do you know of a coven that meets in a stone clearing in the Presidio woods?”

He froze. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, controlled. “I told you before to stay out of this. You have no idea what you’re getting into. Listen, Lily, here’s the harsh truth: Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who killed Malachi Zazi. He was marked for death long ago.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.”

“That’s a tall order right about now.”

“Trust me on this, at least.
Dammit
, Lily, I don’t know how much longer I can continue to protect you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The devil folks, voodoo, witches—we agreed to leave one another alone. It was a pact we signed to. A blood oath.”

“An oath to leave one another alone?”

“Yes, essentially. But it’s also a code of conduct; certain things are not allowed.”

“Such as?”

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

“Part of the agreement was that no magical practitioner would join scientists, for example, in pursuit of unnatural ends.”

“Would that be a scientist such as Mike Perkins, for example?”

He nodded. “He has no power himself, but if he allies himself with someone, and they go after eternal youth . . .”

“That sounds bad.”

“You have no idea. The only way to produce something like that, on a massive scale, is to leach youth from elsewhere. It could be disastrous.”

I had to ask about something that had been eating at me for days.

“What about you? I saw a photo of you taken more than thirty years ago. It doesn’t seem as though you’ve aged since then.”

“It’s different. It’s a glamour, it’s not real. Look, the only thing we have going for us right now is that the dark practitioners are terrible about forming alliances. When we formed the pact, back in the chaos of that era—it was a time of great opportunity and great risk, like any thinning of the veil.” I thought of the solstice, of Samhain, or Halloween. “A lot of good people were hurt, on all sides. Needlessly. A lot of work went into forming the pact. If it falls apart now, there’s no telling what will happen.”

“And what was the agreement, exactly?”

“It was complicated, as only these things can be. You know how bureaucracies are. But the gist was that we’d stay out of each other’s way. Now you’ve forced my hand.”

“How so?”

“You think you escaped tonight through natural means?”

“But Atticus—”

“Atticus had help. He could never have taken on a coven under normal circumstances—you know that. I’ve had the forest creatures on standby for days, assuming you might just get yourself in trouble.”

I thought back on the flash of light, and thought about the wood sprites and the brownies, the forest folk I thought wouldn’t help me. Traditionally they were allied with witches. Of course. Aidan’s minions. Even the tree—had I been able to invoke the Daphne spell in my moment of panic, or had it been Aidan’s magic that I had piggybacked on? I remembered that surge of confidence I felt, right before the spell began to work.

“So the coven in the woods—who were they? Devil folk?”

“I’m not entirely sure. They certainly aren’t any coven under my jurisdiction.”

“Do they even have that kind of power?”

Pause.

“Not really, not the elder Zazi, certainly. But he has some powerful associates.”

“The woman? Doura?” His eyes slewed away from mine, telling me what I needed to know. “What is she, some kind of renegade witch?”

“Something like that. She certainly doesn’t answer to me, and since she signed the pact along with Zazi, I was just as happy to avoid her altogether. She declared herself his underling, so she’s supposed to abide by his agreement. But clearly, things have changed. I now think she pretended to be allied with him in order to evade oversight from me.”

“So where does that leave you, then?”

“I don’t know. It’s none of your affair, in any case.”

“I think it is. Isn’t that why you agreed to train me? To have one more powerful witch in your army?”

“I’m training you for many reasons, few of which you are capable of understanding.”

“Try me.”

“I did. You failed.”

“What are you talking about?”

He ran his hands through his hair in a rare impatient gesture.

“The pact was disturbed by the death of Prince High’s son. It was not prophesied thus. And your involvement . . .” His voice trailed off as he shrugged.

“Prince High didn’t seem all that concerned by his son’s death, I have to say.”

“I doubt he was sharing all his inner thoughts with you. He’s been going crazy. Running around wrapped up in scarves and wearing a hat, like his son used to do.”

“That was him? Why would he do such a thing?”

“I think he’s trying to keep the idea of his son alive somehow . . . who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if this has driven him out of his senses. He will never have a chance to make things up to his son—regret is a powerful emotion. In any case, now I have to figure out who killed Malachi. They won’t rest until I do.”

“I thought you wanted me to stay out of it.”

“That was before they went after you. Have you felt your powers diminished?”

“Actually, I have.”

He nodded, grim. “Since you disobeyed me in the first place, we now need a way to find the perpetrator, and fast. Perhaps now that you understand better my ‘limitations,’ you’ll see why I can’t just run around the city with you and track this person down.”

“Is this why you have Sailor trailing me? As protection? But he has no magic.”

“He can communicate with me if he has to. If the chips were down, I could be there. It would help if you’d actually let him accompany you, rather than slipping away like you do. Poor guy’s having a heart attack trying to track you down. Besides, you could have used him in the woods.”

Aidan’s familiar jumped onto the desk, glared at me, and then purred so loudly I could hear it from where I was sitting.

“
There
you are, little traitor,” Aidan murmured to the cat. He took her in his arms and stroked her long white fur. Then he looked back up at me. “For some reason Noctemus thought you should know my little secret. As she’s usually right about such things, I’ll have to trust her. And I hope I can trust you to keep my confidence.”

“Of course. Just so I’ve covered all my bases, I have to ask you: Did you place Goofer Balls in Malachi Zazi’s apartment?”

He gave me a disbelieving look. “You really think I operate that way?”

“And I don’t suppose you know anything about a rattlesnake there?”

“Sounds like his apartment’s something of a hotbed. All the more reason for you to stay away. The only thing I know is that Malachi Zazi chose that place because of a magnetic field of some kind. There’s an arrangement of metal and stones on the roof that tends to cleanse the place of vibrations. But that has nothing to do with hexes or snakes. It has to do with trying to keep his father, and his father’s cronies, away from him.”

I thought about the roof. I remembered the metal rods, but there were no stones set up. There was that little planter, and the statue of Serpentarius, but no Stonehenge-like rock formations, however miniature.

Aidan got up and came around near me, hitching one hip up on the desk and clasping his hands.

“About what transpired between us a few days ago, in the cloister. You know as well as I do that there’s something there, when our powers mingle.”

“Yes.” There was no point in denying it.

“You should know this sort of thing doesn’t come up often for me.”

“I would imagine you could seduce anyone you wanted, anytime you wanted.”

“It doesn’t come up. Believe me.”

I looked into his eyes, those beautiful periwinkle eyes that sparkled, horrific burns or no. This part, at least, was no glamour. It was him, Aidan, the man.

“I want to ask you on a proper date.”

“A
date
?”

“To the Art Deco Ball. I want to go with you. As your official date.”

“I thought it was hard for you to be out in public, to leave here.”

He smiled his aw-shucks grin and ducked his head. “I believe it’ll be worth it. Please?”

It was the “please” that did it. I still didn’t entirely trust Aidan, and I wasn’t quite sure what he was capable of, or whether he had ulterior motives for asking me. But he was being so . . . decent, it was impossible to say no.

I nodded. “All right. You’ll have to come by Aunt Cora’s Closet and let us dress you up.”

He grinned. “I can’t wait.”

“First things first, though,” I said. “About Malachi’s murderer . . . I might just have an idea. I think I know how I can identify him.”

“How?”

“By playing to my strengths. I’ll brew.”

I made a phone call to Hervé to see if my idea was even possible. He confirmed that it was, but also told me what I knew: I wouldn’t be able to pull it off by myself.

“Have you ever heard of a
chov’hani,
a kind of Gypsy witch?” I asked.

“Of course. That would be perfect for this sort of thing. The Rom are noted for their snake magic. Do you know one?”

“Not yet, but I’m planning to get to know one. Thanks for all your help on this. Oh, and have fun with your parents.”

“We’re watching reruns of
M*A*S*H
. Many, many reruns. I might not make it.”

I laughed.

“I swear, next time I’m closing the store so Caterina and the kids can come with me.”

“If you let me know in advance, I’d be happy to babysit the store for you. In the meantime, hang in there, big man.”

Most evenings Sailor hung out at a club called Cerulean, off a side street in San Francisco’s vibrant North Beach neighborhood. He wasn’t there when I arrived, so I ordered a dirty martini, extra olives, and took a seat at a booth. I figured if he didn’t arrive by the time I was done with my drink, I would track him down at his apartment. But for now the throbbing bass of the jukebox and vivacious hum of the crowd was strangely comforting. Or maybe it was just the effects of the gin.

After what had taken place in the woods, and then with Aidan, I might just need another martini after this one.