by James Swain
Milly stared out the window. Of late, it seemed like so much of her time was spent here, gazing at the lush oasis of the park across the street. The habits of an old woman, she supposed. In the glass’s reflection, Holly slipped her arm around her aunt’s waist.
“Are you mad at me?” her niece asked.
“Never,” Milly replied.
“Disappointed?”
“Ask me after the shock wears off.”
Holly let out a little laugh, then her face grew serious. “Do you believe that things happen for a reason? Or is life just a random series of events that we have no control over?”
“Everything on this earth happens for a reason,” Milly said. “It is the nature of the order of the universe, whose mysteries we are forever trying to fathom.”
“I agree. Everything does happen for a reason. There is a reason why the Order of Astrum sent someone to kill us, and why Madame Marie and her husband have died. There’s also a reason why Peter is discovering the true extent of his psychic powers at precisely the same time. And there’s a reason why Peter told me he loved me. These things are connected.”
“But how? What is the link?”
“If I knew that, I’d be the smartest person in the world.” Holly gave her aunt a squeeze. “What I do know is, we must let the good things happen, and make sure the bad things don’t happen. You told me that when I discovered I was a witch, and I’ve always believed it.”
“And you think your being in love with Peter is a good thing,” Milly said.
“How could it not be?”
Her niece had never been in love. If she had, she would have known how destructive a force it could be. Milly would have given anything to be so young and naïve again.
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Milly said.
22
Peter told Liza everything.
He took her to Sojourn on East 79th Street, whose interior was filled with warm oak and red tones, and sat at a corner table where they split a carafe of the house Chablis. In a subdued voice, he explained how as a boy he’d gotten a surprise visit by Hecate, spirit of magic, who’d come to his family’s apartment in response to a séance being held by his parents, but ended up in his bedroom instead. Hecate had been talking to him ever since, along with a variety of other spirits and ghosts. Their waiter delivered a plate of roasted figs and prosciutto to the table.
“You’re going to have to bear with me for a minute here,” Liza said when the waiter was gone. “What exactly was a ghost doing in your bedroom?”
“I think her GPS was broken.”
“Come on, be serious. I’m having a hard time grasping this.”
“She mistook my bedroom for my father’s study, which was down the hall,” he explained. “She hovered over my bed, and woke me up, and we ended up having a conversation.”
“You weren’t afraid?”
“I’d been seeing ghosts since I was little. Late at night they’d come into my bedroom, and make a nuisance of themselves. There’s nothing scary about them.”
“I’m finding this hard to believe.”
“It’s true. You have to understand the spirit world, and the beings that inhabit it.”
“Since I don’t, why don’t you explain it to me?”
He paused to gather his thoughts. It was hard to explain a place that Liza had never seen, let alone imagined, and he chose his words carefully. “There are two worlds. The physical world which we inhabit, and the spirit world which spirits, ghosts, and castaway angels inhabit. At one time, the inhabitants of the spirit world were human, and as a result, are just as flawed as humans are. They make mistakes and get lost, and sometimes do really stupid things. In that regard, they’re no different than we are.”
“What’s a castaway angel?”
“A demon.”
“Oh. Do you ever speak with them?”
“No. They’re dangerous, and in league with the Devil.”
“So you’re telling me there really is a Devil.”
“Of course. He’s responsible for just about every bad thing in the world.”
Liza was having a difficult time believing him. She ate a fig while staring into his eyes. “Okay, so how did your parents summon this ghost to their apartment? E-mail?”
“They used symbols, which they placed around my father’s study before the séance began. Specific symbols call specific spirits. The symbol for Hecate is three moons. One is waxing, one is full, and the third is waning.”
“Do all psychics talk with the spirits?”
“No. Most just glimpse into the future, and try to interpret what they see.”
“But you do talk to them. What makes you different?”
“My charming personality.”
“Seriously, Peter.”
“I wish I knew. My mother was a channeler; so maybe I inherited it from her.”
“What’s a channeler?”
“It’s a medium whose body is actually inhabited by a spirit during a séance. The channeler is under the spirit’s influence while inhabited. The spirit will often send the channeler back and forth in time to witness things.”
“You’ve done this?”
“Many times.”
“Tell me what’s it like.”
“It’s not as much fun as it sounds. The only thing I can compare it to is an out-of-control roller-coaster ride. I’m exhausted when the séance is over.”
“What do the spirits try to tell you?”
“The spirits care deeply about the physical world, and want to save it from the Devil, who’s intent on destroying it. Usually, the spirits reveal disasters that haven’t happened yet, in the hopes of stopping them from occurring.”
Liza speared another fig and offered him a bite. “Can you actually change the future?”
“Yes. That’s the psychic’s greatest power. It’s what makes it worthwhile. No thanks.”
“Do you channel when we’re at home?”
Peter picked up his glass of wine and took a healthy sip. He’d not been looking forward to this part of their conversation. Liza wasn’t going to like his answer. “No. Never at home.”
“Then where?”
“I channel during a weekly séance with six other psychics. We meet on Friday nights at an apartment on the West Side where one of them lives.”
A hurt look spread across his girlfriend’s face. “Hold on a minute. You told me you were getting together with some magic buddies at a restaurant, and trading tricks. That isn’t true?”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s no restaurant where magicians meet?”
“There is. I just don’t go there.”
“So you’ve been lying to me all this time.”
He put down his wineglass and nodded. Her eyes had not left his face.
“That’s so wrong,” she said.
“Everyone in the group is sworn to secrecy. It’s part of being a psychic.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Her voice was trembling. Peter had to do something, and he pulled up a photo of the Friday night group on his cell phone, and showed her. It had been taken in Milly’s living room before one of the séances. Liza studied the group and zeroed in on Holly. “Who’s she?”
“Holly Adams. I’ve known her since she was an infant. She’s a witch.”
“Oh really. And I suppose there are vampires in your little group too?”
“Vampires don’t exist anymore. There were a few in Arizona, but they got wiped out.”
“Seriously?”
“Everything I’m telling you is true. Please believe me.”
She pointed at Holly. “Should I be afraid?”
Nothing like getting everything on the table, Peter thought. He loved Holly, and he loved Liza, but he loved Liza differently, and he didn’t see that ever changing.
“No,” he said.
She handed him back the cell phone. “Here’s something I don’t understand. Why did you become a magici
an if you already had these amazing powers? I mean, why do fake magic when you can do real magic? What’s the point?”
“It was an accident. After my parents died, I lived with Milly Adams. One day, Milly got a call from a teacher at my school. My teacher wanted to know how I could be calling out answers to questions before she asked them. Milly panicked, and told my teacher it was a trick, and that I was a budding magician. My teacher thought that was great, and asked if I’d do a show for the class. Milly was stuck, so she called Max Romeo, a magician from our group, and asked him to teach me. I became Max’s student, and fell in love with magic. I guess you could say it became my cover.”
“That’s sort of ironic.”
“I know.”
They ate the rest of the figs and the prosciutto in silence. When the plate was clean, Liza leaned forward, and dropped her voice. “Now, it’s my turn.”
“You have something you want to tell me?”
“Yes, and it isn’t good. I read something on the FBI’s Web site that you should know. Your parents were part of group of psychic children in a small English town in the 1940s that helped beat the Nazis, and win the war.”
“Really? That’s incredible.”
“Here’s the bad part. They called themselves the Order of Astrum.”
Peter felt the blood drain from his head. He stammered as he spoke. “That’s not possible. The Order of Astrum practices dark magic, and are cold-blooded murderers.”
“They weren’t always that way,” Liza explained. “In the late 1980s they started hiring themselves out, and your parents fled to New York because of it. The Order tracked them down, and did away with them. The Order has been doing bad things ever since.”
He took a deep breath. His parents were good people. This couldn’t be true.
“Are you sure this came from the FBI?” he asked.
“Positive.”
“Maybe you read it wrong.”
Liza reached across the table, and rested her hand atop his. “It was all there. Your parents were original members of the Order of Astrum. I didn’t read it wrong.”
He felt himself growing angry. What he knew about his parents’ past, he’d learned from Milly and Max. Had they known all of this, but never told him?
“Damn them,” he muttered.
“Peter, what’s wrong?”
“They’ve been holding back on me all this time.”
“Your friends?”
“Yes, my friends.”
He slapped the table with the palm of his hand. Heads turned throughout the restaurant. He suddenly was being bombarded with thoughts, and knew what every person in the restaurant was thinking. He’d never experienced anything like it before. It was unnerving, and he threw down money and stood up.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“Please sit down, and tell me what’s wrong.”
He shook his head. The room was changing, the red tones and warm wood turning the color of bright red blood. The angry beast buried deep inside of him was taking over.
“I’ll meet you outside,” he said.
He stood beneath an awning and waited for her to come out. Cars and yellow cabs raced past on the rain-soaked street. He didn’t really know who his parents were, which meant that he didn’t really know who he was. It was like becoming an orphan all over again. Moments later, Liza came through the front door, and saw that he was weeping.
“Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry,” she said, and hugged him until the aching pain went away.
23
Langston Turnbull was a retired shopkeeper from Wales who’d had the misfortune of being the same height and build as Wolfe. Wolfe had spotted Turnbull on the beach in sunny Spain while on vacation, and later drowned him so he could steal the Welshman’s passport. The passport contained the only photo Wolfe had of the dead man. Physically, they shared much in common. Facially, not as much. Turnbull had sandy hair, a round face with flared nostrils, and wrinkles. Wolfe looked nothing like him.
That was about to change.
Wolfe waited until dusk before leaving his hotel. The police knew what he looked like, and would eventually track him down. By turning himself into Turnbull, he could check into another hotel under his new identity, and stay out of the law’s grasp.
There was a Duane Reade drugstore on every block in New York. Entering the branch on Eighth Avenue near his hotel, Wolfe glanced at his reflection in the window. His face was swollen and bruised, and would only draw further attention to himself.
He grabbed a shopping basket and started his search. The aisles were jammed with merchandise. How anyone could find what they were looking for was beyond him.
He heard the tiniest of noises. Someone had crept up behind him. Based upon the sound their feet had made, the person stood about five-two, and weighed a hundred pounds.
He spun around. “Yes?”
A diminutive Hispanic woman in a blue store uniform stood behind him. The last time someone had snuck up on him like that, he’d punctured their windpipe.
“I’m Carmella, the store supervisor,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Your store’s layout is confusing.”
“Tell me what you want, and I’ll help you find it.”
Carmella guided him up and down the aisles. It was like having his own personal shopper, and he grabbed a tube of hair dye, a pair of barber shears, nail polish, a tub of makeup, hair spray, and a pair of cheap reading glasses.
“All done?” she asked.
Wolfe had to think. He’d turned himself into Turnbull before, and there was always one item he forgot to purchase before he made the transformation.
“I need a piece of plastic tubing,” he remembered. “A half inch wide, and a few inches long. My wife asked me to pick some up.”
“Do you know what she needs it for?”
“Love, we’ve been married twenty years. You learn not to ask questions.”
“Smart man. Let’s ask our pharmacist.”
Carmella talked a bearded man in a white lab coat into selling Wolfe a piece of plastic tubing. Wolfe paid for the items at the checkout with Carmella ringing him up. Behind the checkout was a cork board covered in flyers. One flyer had Wolfe’s face plastered on it with the word WANTED. If Carmella saw the flyer, he was done.
He nervously glanced around the store. The other employees were out of earshot. He sized Carmella up. She looked frail, and would be easy prey.
“Forget something?” she asked.
“Do you have the time? My watch has stopped running.”
She consulted her watch. Wolfe lifted his arm, prepared to chop her windpipe with the side of his hand. It was a trick he’d learned in the army. Without her windpipe, she couldn’t cry for help, and would die without anyone being the wiser.
Motion caught his eye. Outside the store, a pair of uniformed policemen walked past, swinging their night sticks in unison. He covered his mouth as if coughing, and watched them pass.
“It’s a few minutes past six,” she said.
He backed away from the counter, and moved toward the exit. He wanted to tell her to buy a lottery ticket. It wasn’t very often that one of his victims got away.
“Have a nice day,” she called after him.
* * *
Bathrooms in hotels were ludicrously small, and hardly big enough for a grown man to stand in. Hugging the sink in his room, Wolfe unscrewed the bottle of clear nail polish, and began to coat his face with the tiny brush. Facial recognition technology was used by most law enforcement agencies to catch fugitives, and was considered infallible. Wolfe knew otherwise. The software used in these programs recognized twenty-five different points on a person’s face. If four of those points were changed, the program could be fooled into thinking the person was someone else.
Soon the bottle of nail polish was empty. He dried his face with a hair dryer, then crinkled his cheeks, and made dozens of wrinkles appear. He looked ten years older already.
The next step
was his hair. The hair dye he’d bought was called Just For Men, and he generously brushed the product into his scalp. Before his eyes, his hair turned from black to sandy blond. He didn’t look good as a blond, but neither had Turnbull.
Then came his face. Turnbull’s face was decidedly smaller than his. Wolfe solved that problem by brushing his hair onto his forehead, and carefully molding it into place with hair spray. It made his face look smaller than it really was.
His nose also needed work. Turnbull had flared nostrils. This was where the plastic tubing came into play. Cutting off two small pieces, he slit them open and stretched them out, then shoved them into his nostrils, causing both to expand.
The last item of business was the Order’s tattoo on his neck. Wolfe sported multiple tattoos, and they’d all faded over time. Not the Order’s. It was still as vibrant as the day he’d joined, something he’d never quite understood. He covered it with pancake makeup, and made it disappear.
He was done. Picking up Turnbull’s passport, he held it to the mirror, and compared his face to the dead shopkeeper. It wasn’t a perfect match, but no one ever looked like their passport photo, and he knew it would pass muster.
Something didn’t feel right. He stared long and hard at the photo before realizing what it was. Turnbull had worn a dark suit and necktie in the photo, and looked dignified. He needed a new outfit, and the transformation would be complete.
* * *
Eighth Avenue was a potpourri of discount stores run by Middle Easterners. He picked a store called The Gent that sold men’s clothes. Shaking off the raindrops, he went inside.
Behind the counter sat a man wearing a purple Nehru jacket straight out of the psychedelic sixties. Wolfe had a theory about people who dressed in period costume: They were not happy with their lives, and wished to be living another one. An old Beatles song blared out of a boom box on the counter.
“My name is Fami. Welcome to my store,” the proprietor said.
