Love Spell (5 page)

“Sister Lovita,” and she smiled at the young woman, who beamed in return, “has asked that we help our new brother here by removing a curse from him. She thinks it will be a sign of good faith, further inducing him to desire our company and share his presence with us. I understand that some of you,” and she shot a sidelong glance toward the thin witch, “believe that we should only help those who have been properly initiated. But I think that we should help all mankind, regardless of whether they’ve chosen to subscribe to the mysteries.” The smaller lady frowned deeply, and looked away.

Clint retreated further into the couch when the large woman walked toward him, and stopped mere inches away, forcing him to look up at her.

“I’m Sister Marge, though you can call me Marge. I don’t need all the formal titles.” Her smile was as sickly sweet as a pound of lightly-melted sugar topped with maple syrup.

Marge continued. “I’m the founder of this, the original chapter of Moon Grove Coven. I’ve lived in the San Francisco area since before you were born. I love the smell of the sea, and long, moonlit walks on the beach.”

Clint felt his jaw slacken slightly. Had she actually dropped a pick up line on him?

The remainder of the group—Lovita, Sancho and his wife, Crowfire, and the lady in gray (who called herself Shirl) followed Marge’s lead in introducing themselves. With the introductions out of the way, Marge took command again, and asked Sancho if he’d be so good as to bring a chair out. Sancho nodded, and headed into another room.

“Clint, please stand up,” Marge asked sweetly.

Clint hesitated, then stood.

“Thank you. In a moment,” she said, as she bent to collect the chalice and dagger, “we’ll cleanse you of this curse you bear. We of Moon Grove Coven take the right hand path, and shudder to think that someone has abused their gifts to burden someone’s life. Now, when Sancho returns with the chair, you will sit in it, and we will begin.”

Clint glanced at the dagger. “Uh… you’re not planning on drawing blood, are you?”

Marge’s smile matched that of a mother trying to convince her kids that getting shots “wouldn’t hurt at all.”

He held up a hand, and began to back away. “I’m a little low on blood at the moment. If you’re looking for genetic material, maybe I could give you some hair, or sneeze on your hand or something.”

Marge laughed. “Genetic material? No, dear boy. We don’t need your genetic material. Simply a bit of your essence to help focus the counterspell.” She laughed a tittering laugh, and, as if on cue, a small, black cat walked into the room. Clint felt his blood temperature dip, and seriously wondered what he had gotten into. Shirl was muttering something to herself, and Clint very much hoped she wasn’t doing some kind of crazy voodoo thing to him, just to spite Marge. Several moments passed, but Clint didn’t turn into any kind of revolting creature, and decided he was being paranoid. He turned for the couch anyway.

“No, please stay,” Marge said, reaching for him. Clint dodged the grasp smoothly. Marge squinted for a moment, then returned to her normal ultra-smile face. “Sancho may move slowly, but he’ll be back, and we’ll get you all fixed up and curse-free in three minutes or less.” She clapped her hands once, that smothering smile still glued on under her bulbous nose. Sure enough, Sancho returned moments later, carrying a rickety stool that looked too small to bear the weight of anything heavier than an average nine-year-old child. Clint eyed the thing warily, but Marge’s urging smile and tight eyes finally convinced him to sit.

The chair teetered under his weight, and he shifted his balance to compensate. He had a gut feeling Marge wasn’t about to let him up. “Okay,” he asked, “can we do this curse removal thing, please?”

Marge placed herself squarely in front of him. “First, we
will
need some of your blood.”

That sent chills up Clint’s spine, and he raised a warding hand. Marge laughed that crazy laugh again. “There, there, brother. It’s not as though we’re going to slit your throat. Oh, you’re
too
funny!”

Big Marge snapped her fingers, and Lovita hopped up beside her and rummaged around in a handbag. Meanwhile, Shirl trudged forward, muttering dejectedly, and took up the chalice and the dagger. Clint made to stand, but stopped when Lovita pulled a small contraption from the bag. It looked like a half-flattened plastic egg, with a small hole in one end, and a slider mechanism along one of the flat sides.

“You see,” Marge said, gesturing at the plastic implement, as if that answered everything.

It didn’t.

“Obviously you’ve no familiarity with diabetes,” she said with a slight frown. “This is a lancet to prick your finger. At best, we’ll get two drops from you that way. It will sting for a few moments, but it’s ever so much cleaner and quicker than the old method with the athame across the palm. Ugh,” she said, shivering. “That always was such a bother.”

Lovita removed a small, plastic cylinder from the bag, unwrapped it, and loaded it into the hole in the lancet device. She readied the thing, and handed it to Clint.

“There you go, Brother Clint,” Lovita said. “It’s all set. Hold it against a finger, and press the release. You’ll barely feel it, and we only need a drop.” The young woman gestured at Shirl, who grumbled further, but brought the chalice over, and held it close to Clint’s hands.

Clint paused. “You’re absolutely sure you have to bleed me?”

Marge laughed again. Clint was beginning to think the sound might be worse than drawing his own blood. Lovita smiled, and nodded. “As I said, blood contains your essence. Any illness or curses will taint it. We use the blood to channel the counter curse aimed specifically at the owner of the blood.”

Sancho nodded. “It’s like a laser, man. Focus gives it power.”

Clint cast a pleading look at Sancho. The older man shrugged.

“Brother Clint’s face is so white I can see the blue in his veins,” Crowfire remarked in hushed awe.

Clint looked back at Lovita. “You’re sure this is going to work? That this… um… trick is going to cure me? I can lead a normal life again?”

Lovita’s smile grew immense. “Absolutely. Or my name isn’t Lovita Daffodil Senerchan.”

The remark was hardly comforting, but Shirl’s muttering seemed to be growing dangerous, so Clint pressed the lancet to his left pinky (he never used it anyway), and triggered the thing. Lovita was right—the sting passed in a split second. In fact, it took another full second after withdrawing the lancet before a small globule of blood appeared on his finger. He tapped his pinky against the rim of the chalice, and peered into the cup to be sure he’d gotten the blood in properly. Satisfied, he sat back and waited.

“Wonderful,” Marge practically squealed. “Now, we shall invoke the union of the Goddess—the chalice is her womb—and her Consort—signified by the athame, the dagger—and implore them to remove this dreadful curse from our friend.”

Marge accepted the chalice and dagger from Shirl, and then began to chant. The monotone rhythm was picked up quickly by Lovita, and then, finally, echoed by the reluctant and gravelly voice of Shirl. Marge raised the dagger high above her head, and then lovingly inserted it into the chalice.

“Oh, great Mother of us all,” she said. “We bring before you a brother in need. Please, we beg of thee, lift from him this thing that troubles him so.” She continued to chant, and then, before Clint knew it, Marge’s right hand was on his head.

He tried to leap to his feet, but the old woman was either remarkably strong or remarkably heavy. Almost instantly, Lovita’s hand was also on his head, followed promptly by Shirl’s.

The chanting seized up. In the eerie silence, Clint closed his eyes tightly and prayed for the best. After several tortured seconds the pressure lifted from his head, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He opened his eyes and found Marge’s face way too close for comfort. It was clear she wasn’t a huge fan of breath mints.

“Brother Clint,” she said, in a breathy tone, “the ritual is complete. You are now a cleansed man.”

He exhaled more relief, grateful he hadn’t fallen into a hornet’s nest of deranged, probably possessed women.

“I like clean men,” Marge whispered, moving closer, and running a plump hand down his cheek. Her other hand began working at the buttons on her blouse.

Please
, please,
no!
was all he could think.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Lovita’s expression was that of someone who hadn’t eaten in a month and had just walked into a free buffet. Without warning, a pair of skinny arms wrapped warmly around his torso from behind.

“Ignore these wenches, brother,” Shirl rasped in his ear. “Let
me
be your chalice.”

Clint shivered, and fought his way to his feet. “A little help here, Sancho?” he begged.

The mustachioed man gave him a half shrug and a lopsided grin. “Go for Lovita, my bro. She’s younger, prettier, and still single, if you like that kind of thing.”

And then the melee began.

FIVE

When the horn blared behind her, Lindsay jumped, smacking her head against the roof of her car. Cursing her distractedness, she flinched, and rubbed at the tender spot as she eased her car forward across the Turk Street intersection while scanning for a parking spot in front of the squat, turquoise-tiled building resting on Fillmore. She smiled wide as a car pulled out in time to leave her the perfect opening. Lindsay quickly pulled up against the curb, and waited in her car until traffic passed. When a clearing presented itself, she stepped out, and made her way into the building labeled “Northern District Police Station.”

Stepping into the front office brought a flood of memories—the faces, the smells, the hum of the station. She’d spent plenty of time here over the years, especially during her brief time as a paralegal. It was almost home.

The desk clerk glanced up, and jerked his head toward the rear offices. “I’ll page him real quick, let him know you’re coming. He’s not meeting with anyone right now.”

“Thanks, Dave,” she said, winking. The clerk waved it off, and reached for his phone. Lindsay walked past him and then turned left to skirt around the main office area. Her path took her past the desk of Lieutenant Hillman, where she dropped a daisy (the woman’s favorite), and traded hugs. Sergeant Gray was next; he got a hug too. Everyone else along her route received at least a wave and a smile. Well, everyone except a certain inspector she preferred remain nameless. Call her a “hack,” would he? She imagined he thought he was “doing his job,” as he knew it, but that was no reason to insult a girl every time he saw her. She simply steered clear of him and made a bee-line to a room with a placard that read “Chief T. Gregory.”

She knocked, and then let herself in. The office looked like a police museum, and the main exhibit was a grandfatherly man behind a massive oak desk. The man she knew as Uncle Tom rose to greet her. He swallowed her in a bear hug, and then pulled out a chair to seat her. She accepted with thanks, and sat, hands crossed in her lap.

The old police chief lowered himself into a beefy rolling chair, groaning slightly. “The knees aren’t what they used to be,” he muttered. Lindsay leaned forward, reaching toward him.

“Don’t worry about it, Lindsay,” he said as he got situated. A few moments of grunting and a great deal of creaking from the chair later, he looked up with a wan smile and a glimmer in his eye. “So, how’s my favorite niece doing?”

Lindsay’s grin went from ear to ear. “Absolutely peachy!”

“And your mom and dad?”

She half-smiled at that. “Same as always. Dad’s still trying to force me into some law firm. Mom keeps telling me I’m too skinny and that I work too much.”

Uncle Tom nodded. “That’s what parents do, Lindsay. They look after their kids, even after those kids skedaddle from their house. Kim’s just trying to take care of you, Lindsay. So’s your dad. I know Doug, and he’s got it together. He’s using his influence to make opportunities for his daughter.”

“Mom only takes care of her image, and Dad kicks open the metaphorical door, and then shoves his daughter through it.”

Uncle Tom’s “bad cop” face appeared in an instant. “When you’ve raised children to maturity, missy, then come back and we can talk about your parents’ faults. Until then, don’t forget that you’ve never been in Kim and Doug’s shoes. You may be all grown up, but you’re still their child.”

Lindsay seized the initiative. “I’m sorry. I should be nicer to Mom and Dad. But how’s my Uncle Tom?”

He grunted. “Physical therapy isn’t doing my knees half the good the doctors said it would, but I guess needing therapy is better than the alternative. I know you love a little excitement, but please promise me you’ll be smarter than your uncle and never try falling out of a moving car, okay?”

She nodded solemnly, remembering his brush with death.

“And speaking of parents and excitement,” he said, “how’s that love life of yours going? Any wedding bells ready to ring?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Uncle Tom, please.”

The sly grin she got in return told her exactly what she didn’t want to hear.

“No. Period.” She knew he’d ignore her.

“C’mon, Lindsay,” he prompted, “Jones is a good guy. Never married; no kids; hard worker. He’s recently been made a lieutenant, and is a credit to the force. And he’s the one we send to all the elementary schools whenever we do presentations. They ask for him. Kiddos adore him.”

“I already said no.”

“Just dinner.”

She put on her best, pained look. “Uncle Tom, can we
please
not talk about my love life?”

“You mean the lack of a love life?”

He deserved a glare for that. “It’s intentional,” she said flatly.

Uncle Tom huffed. “Never understood how a smart, pretty girl like you could think it was alright to take yourself off the market like that. Men need the kind of tempering a good woman gives them.”

This was getting old fast. “Well,
dear Uncle
, what brings me here has nothing to do with you wanting to make a commodity of me.”