Sympathy for the Devil (5 page)

"I know."

"But the pundits have a point, damn them."

Sargatanas shrugged. "Damnation? That might be arranged."

She touched his face softly. "I know, my sweet, I know. But later, after The Plan succeeds."

"You still think that it will?"

"I only know that it must. Therefore, it will."

"I like your attitude. It is rare among humankind."

"Yes. Yes, I expect it is."

Sargatanas walked over to the window of Stark's condo and looked out onto M Street. "You're the political expert. So, tell me - why is the campaign not catching fire? No pun intended, of course."

"The main reason is that the field of candidates is a lot bigger than anyone expected."

"And why is that?" His voice was didactic, professorial.

"Because the recession came on so suddenly, and hit so hard, a lot of Republicans have concluded that the Democrats are vulnerable this time out. So, as a result, there are six other serious candidates besides you, not counting the usual fringe fascists. Many of your competitors have bigger reputations and better connections - and, consequently, larger war chests."

"The so-called 'Un-Magnificent Seven.'"

She nodded. "Another pundit's not-so-clever pun. The six others, and you." She grinned then. "This is not to say that you're not pretty magnificent yourself."

He inclined his head in a slight bow. "But that does not solve our problem, and it
must
be solved. Otherwise there will be displeasure, from a source whose displeasure is something to be greatly feared."

"Yes, I understand that," she said and began to pace a slow circuit of the living room. After a few minutes she said, musingly, "We have to find a way to make you stand out from the herd."

He nodded. "Yes, all right, you are the expert in such matters. But there is another approach to the problem which we should also consider seriously."

She stopped pacing and looked at him. "And what is that?" she asked, not at all certain that she wanted to hear the answer.

"The Seven, whether magnificent or not, are far too many." A small smile appeared on what had once been Howard Stark's face. "There is an expression used, I believe, by professional hunters in your world. I think they call it
thinning the herd
."

It was Friday night in New York City - the town where, as Huey Lewis has famously claimed, you can find half a million things to do, even at 2:45 a.m. - and Libby Chastain was bored.

It had been a busy week in the white magic business. Libby had been so preoccupied attending to the urgent needs of several clients, she had neglected to make plans for her downtime. But all the spells had been cast, all the evil curses dispelled, all the pesky spirits banished. And now the weekend was here, and Libby found herself with nothing to do, and nobody to do it with.
Crap
.

There was a new exhibit at MOMA that she wanted to see. Libby didn't mind going to museums alone; but MOMA had closed at 5:00, which meant that her dose of high culture would have to wait until tomorrow.
Double crap
.

She called a couple of her friends, well aware that such short notice meant slight odds of success, and was not really surprised when all she got were a series of voice mails.
Well, at least somebody's going out tonight. Have fun, kids.

Then, after a brief hesitation, she tried Quincey Morris in Austin. She hadn't seen him since that nasty business in Idaho a few months back. Quincey had saved her life then, at no small risk to his own, but talking about it had seemed awkward to both of them, so they stopped.
So, okay - nothing says we have to bring up that stuff
.

The sound of a phone ringing buzzed in Libby's ear. At the fifth ring, there was a click.

"Howdy. You have reached Quincey Morris Investigations. If you've got this number, then you know what I do. If you want me to do it for you, then wait for the beep and leave a detailed message. I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Y'all take care, now."

A few seconds later, a brief tone sounded. Libby tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. It wasn't Quincey's fault that he wasn't around when she was feeling needy.

"Hey, Tex, it's me. Nothing urgent - I just called to see how you were doing. Give me a call sometime, when you have a chance. And stay the hell out of Idaho. Bye."

As she closed her phone, Libby wondered if that last thing she'd said had been a tad untactful. Quincey'd had a brush with Hell in Idaho, and still carried a burn scar on his neck to prove it. She knew it still bothered him - and not just physically. Truth be told, it bothered Libby as well, but she never spoke about it to him.

Until now - and in an answering machine message, to boot. Way to go, Libby.

She shook her head, put the phone down, and walked over to one of her condo's large windows. She stared down at the traffic without really seeing it.

There were a couple of nice bars within a few blocks from here - quiet, respectable places where she could nurse a drink and probably get picked up, if she wished.

No, bad idea.
Libby had gone that route a few times over the years, with men and women both, and each encounter had left her feeling empty and depressed.

Being somebody's fucktoy for an evening isn't an uplifting experience - even when it's mutual.

Anyway, if it was simply a matter of being horny, Libby had a Hitachi Magic Wand (the world's best vibrator, whose name gave her no end of amusement) and a good imagination. But she was saving that for bedtime. Nothing like three or four good, hard, guilt-free orgasms to help a girl sleep soundly.

Walking slowly through the living room, hands in the deep pockets of her bathrobe, Libby glanced at her plasma-screen TV. She had the best cable package available in the city, but she had done some surfing a little while ago, and found herself agreeing with the country song lyric that went 'a hundred fifty channels, and not a damn thing on.'

As she padded through the kitchen, her glance fell on the refrigerator. There was a full bottle of Grey Goose in the freezer, she remembered. Some ice-cold vodka might taste pretty good about now.

Too good, most likely. There was some alcoholism in Libby's family, and although she lived a mostly temperate life - to practice magic effectively, you have to - she was still wary of developing bad habits. Even witches weren't immune to the weaknesses of mankind. Drinking when you were alone and bored was the first step down a path that Libby had no wish to travel. She kept moving.

Well, there was always the Internet, thank Goddess. Libby went into the bedroom, sat at her desk, and logged on.

Like most Internet users, Libby knew where to find free porn on the Web, but most of that stuff bored her now. When you've seen one porn site (well, okay, a couple of hundred) you'd pretty much seen it all.

She went to a few news sites and scanned the day's headlines. The world, it seemed, was still going to Hell in a handbasket. Only the rate of travel seemed to vary.

Then she watched movie trailers for a while. Libby liked the little 'coming attractions' featurettes, even for movies she would never be inclined to see. She admired the artistry involved in taking two hours of Hollywood crap and, in just two minutes, making it look like something that might actually be worth spending eight bucks on.

After viewing all the new trailers that interested her, Libby decided to see if anything was happening in her profession - anything that had made its way into the public press, at least. So she Googled 'witchcraft.'

Lots of Halloween stories, of course, even though Samhain had come and gone. Some Harry Potter stuff, as usual. A parents' group in Lexington, Kentucky, was demanding that local school libraries ban the book series, on the grounds that it encouraged their children to practice the dark arts.

Libby snorted. She knew of a coven of black witches operating near Lexington whose activities made the Harry Potter books look like innocent fairy tales. She and Quincey Morris had clashed with them a few years ago, after the coven had kidnapped a local girl with the intent of inducting her into their circle by force.

Libby and Quincey had rescued the girl before too much harm had been done to her. She had recovered fully. The same could not be said for some of her captors. The survivors, Libby had heard, did not abandon their art - but had become much more discreet in its practice.

Hallmark was coming out with a line of Wiccan greeting cards.
And about time, too.
She made a mental note to send a blessing in the general direction of the Hallmark Company headquarters, and to maybe buy a few of the cards to send to her sister witches, who might get a kick out of them.

A blogger at a New Age web site had a piece called 'How Witchcraft Really Works.' By the third paragraph, she was smiling a little. By the seventh, she was giggling, and before she finished the essay - which had it all so wrong, wrong, wrong - Libby Chastain was laughing out loud. She bookmarked the page to read again the next time she was feeling down, and noticed that her mood had improved considerably. Maybe the folks at
Reader's Digest
had been right, and laughter really
was
the best medicine.

Then she came upon an article from the
Providence Journal
that prompted no laughter from her. None at all.

PROFESSOR FOUND DEAD;

OCCULT CONNECTION SUSPECTED

East Kingston, RI. Nov. 4. State Police are labeling as 'suspicious' the death of a URI professor whose body was found in the basement of his rural Narragansett County home yesterday.

The body of Dr. Hassan el-Ghaffar, 47, was discovered by a Sheriff's deputy who was sent to the home after University Police reported that the professor, who taught Anthropology, had failed to show up for his scheduled classes.

A Bureau of Criminal Investigation official, who spoke off the record because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly, said that el-Ghaffar's body was found in a large basement room containing an altar, atop which were numerous objects often used by Satanists. On the floor near the corpse was a drawn pentagram, a symbol often associated with occultists and those practicing witchcraft.

The official said that el-Ghaffar's death was almost certainly a homicide, although the Coroner's Office has not yet released its report on the case. Identification of the body, which apparently had been in the basement for several days, was made by dental records, the official said, since the corpse had 'become disfigured due to infestation by local wildlife.'

After finishing the article, Libby continued to stare at the screen. There was probably nothing supernatural involved in this Rhode Island business, anyway. People who became interested in black magic were often none too stable to begin with. Few of them were interested in undertaking the years of study necessary to become proficient in the dark arts, fortunately.

Although sometimes they can learn just enough to get themselves killed.

Nobody had hired Libby to worry about it, and there was probably nothing to be concerned about, anyway - except to local law enforcement. Some budding psychopaths got buzzed on meth, and tried to conjure up something evil. When it didn't work, they turned on one of their own.

But the one who had been turned on had been a professor, a Ph.D. This el-Ghaffar was apparently a man who had already devoted years of study to learning - what?

When Libby finally went to bed, her sleep was troubled, three good orgasms notwithstanding. She kept wondering whether that pentagram had actually contained something from the Other Side - and if so, what had become of it?

Chapter 3

Dr. Reiss' assessment turned out to be right on the money; Ron Brooks never did develop cancer - but, a month later, his prostate killed him, anyway.

The medication was slowly doing its job of shrinking Brooks' enlarged prostate gland, but the pills had one annoying side effect: stimulation of the kidneys, leading to increased urine production. As a result, Brooks' sleep was usually disrupted several times by the demands of his uncomfortably full bladder.

On the December night that he died, Brooks had gone to bed early. The Iowa Caucuses, which marked the start of the long and grueling presidential primary season, were about a month away. From that point on, sleep would be a luxury. Brooks arose at 1:43, awakened by the need to take a leak. This would be his first trip to the bathroom since retiring for the evening a little before 10:00. It would also be his last.

As he slipped out of the warm queen-size bed, Brooks was careful not to disturb his wife, Evelyn, who was snoring gently a few inches away. He trudged along the twenty feet or so of carpeted hallway that led to the upstairs bathroom. He had always hated bedroom slippers, so as he stepped into the darkened bathroom, it was his bare feet that first told him that something was wrong.

Water. Cold water. Christ, a
lot
of cold water, all over the floor, it feels like. What the hell's happened?

Then Ron Brooks did what almost anyone would have done in similar circumstances. Still standing in the inch or so of water on the floor, he reached out for the bathroom light switch, found it, and flicked it on.

"I got laid off last June," Len Kowal said, his rough voice low and sad. "Mold-All Plastics. Machinist. Twenty-two years, I was there."

Quincey Morris didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded.

"What Len means is, we got no health insurance," Helen Kowal said. "They kept up his benefits for six weeks after they let him go, but after that..."

"So that's why you haven't been able to get medical treatment for Susie," Morris said.

"We been to the hospital with her twice. To the ER. They asked a lot of questions, then they did some tests that we had to put on our MasterCard." She shrugged her thin shoulders. "We're still paying, a little each month."