Witchy Woman (13 page)

“Uh-huh.”

Interesting. It was almost as if Morganna thought of herself as a separate entity once she’d rechristened herself Morganna. “What am I looking for, anyway?”

“A spell for removing a curse. Or anything that sounds like it might work.”

The first few pages contained sketches of various plants and flowers, and their purported medicinal qualities. “How old is this book, anyway?” Apparently it hadn’t belonged to Morganna originally.

“That particular book is over a hundred years old, I imagine. But the information, particularly at the front, is much older. It was copied from my great-grandmother’s grimoire, which, in turn, was copied from another ancestor’s. That’s why the writing is so hard to read and the wording is so peculiar.”

Peculiar, to say the least. It was almost like trying to read Anglo-Saxon.

He worked his way deeper into the book. There were recipes for various brews designed to relieve stomach pain or soothe a sore tooth, to induce childbirth, to heal cuts. All pretty benevolent sounding to Nate. But gradually, as he turned the pages, the “recipes” turned more fanciful. This one kept a husband faithful, that one brought in a bountiful harvest or caused a cow to give more milk. The instructions became more complex, too, involving more than simply brewing tea. There were timetables to be met, phases of the moon to take into account.

Suddenly he remembered Morganna’s parting words—something about the full moon.

“Tess, do you happen to know what phase of the moon we’re in?” he asked.

“It’s a waxing moon. Be full tomorrow night, I think. Why?”

“I think that might become important.”

He continued reading, fascinated. He wondered if Tess would let him reproduce a few pages. They would make great graphics for his article.

His article. It was shaping up into one terrific story. Now, if he could just convince Tess that letting him write it wouldn’t hurt her. He could change her name and some other pertinent details so that even her closest friends wouldn’t recognize her. But he realized that now wasn’t the time to talk with Tess about his story. She wouldn’t want to deal with it now. She had other tilings on her mind—namely, taking the steps that she imagined would save her friend’s life.

He glanced over at her. As they neared town the traffic had turned heavy, and she was concentrating mightily on her driving.

Nate turned another page of the grimoire and felt a sudden chill shimmy up his spine. “ ‘A Spell to Counteract Black Magick,’ ” he read aloud. “Could that be it?”

At that precise moment, as they pushed through an intersection on a yellow light, a dump truck shot toward them from the cross street. Tess slammed on the brakes and did a squealing one-eighty. Her quick reflexes prevented the truck from broadsiding them on Nate’s side and possibly turning him into roadkill. But
the truck still managed to clip the back bumper and send them into a light pole. Tess’s hood popped open and the horn went off.

She looked over at him with wide eyes. “Yes, that’s the spell.”

No one was seriously injured, Tess reminded herself as the cops drove away and she and Nate climbed back into her car, which was drivable if a little banged up. It could have been so much worse. But she was still trembling as she put the car in gear.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Nate asked her, his voice full of concern. “I’ll drive if you want.”

“No, I’m okay.” Tess heard the catch in her voice and swallowed ruthlessly to get rid of it.

“All right,” Nate said. “You’re thinking the curse had something to do with this. Am I correct?”

“Of course you’re correct. And it did. The moment you turned to the correct page in the book, something awful happened to us.”

“Awful would have been if you hadn’t had a dozen witnesses who saw that the accident wasn’t your fault. Awful would have been if you were driving without
insurance and had to go to jail. This was bad, but it wasn’t awful. It’s something that happens to dozens of Bostonians every week. Get some perspective.”

Tess rubbed her right temple, trying to dispel the tension residing there. “I hope you’re right.” Traffic was lighter, now that they’d spent the majority of rush hour filling out police reports. Because Nate’s house was closer, Tess drove there.

Nate had refrained from opening the book again. She wondered if that was because of her worries, or his own reticence to tempt fate. His logical side might be keeping up a strong facade, but deep down he couldn’t help but be worried about the curse. Coincidences and bad luck took one only so far.

She had a difficult time finding a parking space, but she finally managed to wedge her little car into a tiny spot in front of a Chinese take-out restaurant. The smells emanating from the restaurant were heavenly, and her stomach rumbled.

“Hungry?” Nate asked. “I’ll buy dinner. We haven’t eaten since breakfast, and this place has great food. Good vegetarian stuff.”

She was touched that he remembered her dietary preferences. “I’m starved. And I can’t concentrate on an empty stomach. By all means, let’s get some dinner.”

Nate ordered a vegetable deluxe dinner for her, and cashew shrimp for himself. The food appeared, packed in paper cartons with chopsticks and plenty of soy sauce, just the way she liked it. Nate paid, and she carried their dinner the four blocks to his apartment,
inhaling the delectable scents. She tried not to look at Nate, carrying the Book of Shadows.

About half a block from the front entrance to his building, Nate stopped abruptly and threw one arm out in front of Tess, bumping her in the chin.

“What?”

“It’s that guy again.”

Instinctively, Tess ducked into a doorway. Her heart started that insistent pounding that had been so much a part of her life these past few days. “Did he see us?” She whispered, though the swarthy man was a half block away.

“I don’t think so.” Nate’s voice sounded edgy. “What the hell does he want?”

Tess peered cautiously around the brick doorway. The man in question was loitering outside Nate’s building, smoking a cigarette, acting as if he had nothing more urgent on his mind than enjoying the spring weather. But it was the same man, all right.

“I told you what he wants,” Tess said impatiently. “He wants the Cat.”

“Come on,” Nate said, dragging her back the way they’d come. “We’ll enter the building from the back. Then I’m going downstairs and have a chat with our mystery man.”

They ducked into an alley, following a similar path to the one they’d taken the night before, though they went around the fence this time instead of over it.

“I don’t think you should confront him,” Tess said. “He’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, well, so am I, when someone threatens what’s mine.”

Tess was surprised at the deadly vehemence she detected in Nate’s voice. She’d never heard him quite so … forceful before. She’d been thinking of him as easygoing, good-natured, quick to laugh. Now she realized she might have underestimated him. There was a hard edge to Nate Wagner, buried beneath the easy laugh and the twinkling brown eyes.

And what, precisely, did he consider “mine”? The only thing the swarthy man had threatened was Tess herself.

Something inside her trembled.

Nate put an arm around her shoulders as they made their way up the alley toward the back door of his building. Rather than shrink from his touch, she immersed herself in the sense of strength she derived from it. He radiated protection. It had been far too long since anyone had felt protective toward her.

Tess breathed a little easier when they reached the relative safety of Nate’s apartment. She focused on the food, clearing the coffee table and rooting around in his kitchen for a couple of plates.

“Do you want silverware, or just the chopsticks?”

He didn’t answer her. She found him standing at the window, staring down into the street.

“Silverware or chopsticks?” she repeated.

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Nate said, never hearing her question.

“No! Nate, really, I don’t think you should—”

“I know how to handle this,” he said, shrugging
back into his jacket. “Stay here, lock the door behind me. I’ll be back in five minutes with some answers.”

Tess resisted the urge to fall on him, grab onto some body part, and try to keep him from going. She knew she wouldn’t succeed. “Don’t blame me if your food’s cold when you get back,” she said instead, pretending she didn’t care.

Nate waited until the man’s back was turned before he sauntered out the front door. He wanted the element of surprise on his side. The man turned casually back, then started. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. He took an extra-long drag on his cigarette and threw it aside.

Nate strolled closer—within kicking distance. Unarmed, his only advantage should this confrontation get ugly was physical proximity. Martial arts weren’t all that useful from twenty feet away.

But the man didn’t reach for a weapon. He stood his ground, smiling nervously. “ ’Evening.”

“What do you want?” Nate asked without preamble.

“That’s what I like, a man who gets right to the point. My name is Tristan Solca.”

Nate took Solca’s outstretched hand with no small amount of trepidation. “Nate Wagner.”

“I apologize for alarming you and the woman last night. It was not my intention. I didn’t realize how it would appear, a strange man coming out of the darkness—”

“You knew exactly how it would appear, or do you always go around making friends with a knife? You might have frightened Tess, but you don’t scare me. What do you want?”

Any signs of civility vanished from Solca’s face. “I want the Crimson Cat. It is mine, legally mine. Morganna gave it to me. It resided in my home for years, until I was burglarized. I finally traced it to Anne-Louise’s shop, only to discover that this Judy Cosgrove had purchased it mere minutes before I got there.”

Nate’s stomach swooped. Tess had been right. Solca
was
after the Cat.

“What do I have to do with this?” Nate asked, feigning confusion. “Why aren’t you talking to Judy?”

“Miss Cosgrove is in a hospital room, fighting for her life. Anyway, she no longer has possession of the Cat. You do. And I’m willing to buy it from you. I’ll pay five hundred dollars.”

Now Nate was baffled. How did this man know he and Tess had the statue? The thing had been wrapped in a bag when he’d carried it out of Judy’s apartment. He couldn’t help but voice the question. “How do you know—”

“I felt it,” Solca said. “This is something you, with your white Anglo-Saxon Protestant upbringing, will never understand, but I have a spiritual connection to the statue. I need it. It completes me.”

This was too weird. What if all that stuff Tess had spouted about Gypsies wielding the Cat’s power for evil purposes … no. It was ridiculous even to consider.
Still, he had to ask, “Are you by any chance descended from Gypsies?”

Solca’s face hardened. “I am from Romania. What has that to do with anything?”

“You’re the one who brought up the differences between us.”

“Enough of this,” Solca said, spitting. “Are you going to sell me the statue or not?”

“I can’t,” Nate replied. There was nothing he would like better than to rid himself of the thing. He could turn the considerable profit over to Judy, for whom it might come in handy. Hospital stays weren’t cheap, even for those with good insurance.

But Tess would be livid, not to mention frightened to pieces, if he sold the statue to someone she believed would use it for evil purposes. She was intent on casting this ridiculous spell.

Maybe a compromise would work. “We’ll be done with the statue in a few days. After that, I might persuade Tess to part with it.”

Solca narrowed his gaze. “What are you planning to do with it during this ‘few days’?”

“Nothing I can talk about.” And still sound sane.

“The spell! Damn, I should have known the witch’s little daughter would try to succeed where her mother had failed. Fools! Don’t you know that’s what drove Morganna insane? The Cat’s powers aren’t to be taken lightly. Moonbeam will only succeed in hurting herself.”

Nate refused to be drawn into this group delusion. He was willing to admit that Tess had abilities—maybe
everyone had them. But the Crimson Cat was just a statue, made of stone. It didn’t have powers.

“Believe what you will,” he said. “The Cat is not for sale at this time.” He folded his arms and stood implacably before Solca. “If you don’t stop hanging around in front of my building, I’ll call the police. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.” Solca reached inside his tweed jacket and Nate stiffened, ready for anything. But all he withdrew was a business card. “Call me if you change your mind. If you’re still able to dial a phone when the Cat is done with you.”

Tess had watched the exchange from the window. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary about it. Two men standing on the sidewalk, talking. It was over in less than three minutes.

She rushed to the door and unlocked it when she heard Nate’s footsteps on the landing. She swung the door wide. “What happened?”

He stood there with key in hand. “Tess, the reason I had you lock the door is so no one could get in. How did you know it was me out here?”

“I knew,” she said with certainty.

Nate sighed, lowered the key, and walked in. “His name is Tristan Solca. He’s Romanian, which means he could have Gypsy blood. He wants the Cat. He claims your mother gave it to him, and it was subsequently stolen.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That it wasn’t for sale. Not even for five hundred dollars.” He shook his head, appearing mystified. “I must be crazy.”

Tess drooped with relief. “You did the right tiling.”

“Would you be interested in selling it after we remove the curse?” he asked in a conversational tone, as if removing a curse were as easy as taking out a grass stain from a favorite pair of jeans.

“Let’s just take this one step at a time,” Tess said. “And the next step is food. It’s getting cold.”

They fell on the Chinese food. Tess was hungrier than she could ever remember being. She inhaled her vegetables and rice, fried wonton, and spring roll, savoring every flavor. Like a doomed prisoner enjoying a final meal, she couldn’t help thinking. They ate without talking much, other than an occasional “Pass the soy sauce.”