Waking the Witch

by Kelley Armstrong

  If Alastair noticed me, he gave no sign, just saying "all right," and leading the girl--Amy--away.

  Megan turned to me and wordlessly pointed at the door. I left. She trailed until I was outside the gate, then stood on the lawn, watching.

  As I was passing the gate, something caught my eye. A smear of dark blood on the wooden post.

  I bent to fuss with my pant leg in order to get a better look. Someone had drawn what looked like a talisman. In blood. Sure it might have been red paint, but my money was on blood. When I glanced back, Megan was still watching. I waved. As she turned away, I surreptitiously snapped a picture of the red mark with my phone. Then I got on my bike and rode back to town.

  NEXT STOP: THAT building where the trucker said his buddy had seen a satanic ritual. I doubted there'd be anything left after eight months, but it was worth a look.

  As I walked, I was checking out Main Street, mentally constructing a map of Columbus. Maybe I was just in a more hopeful mood than I'd been earlier, but the town seemed brighter now.

  I still saw the For Rent signs on the shops, but I also noticed optimistic Opening Soon! signs on a couple. A banner over Main Street announced the annual strawberry social. Another in front of the library congratulated "Steve and Dawn" on their wedding. A shop-keeper helped an elderly woman load groceries into her car. I saw the pregnant teenage girl again, too, this time coming out of the diner, smiling, hand-in-hand with a boy carrying a steel lunchbox, and realized she hadn't been waiting to leave, just waiting for someone to come home.

  Columbus might be a dying town, but not everyone was willing to give up the fight so easily. I admired that, and I was still looking around when a silver SUV pulled up in front of the post office. Cody Radu. He ignored the No Stopping signs. Hell, he didn't even bother pulling to the curb. Just stopped, slammed her into park, and hopped out.

  I swung my gaze away. I'd get around to Cody eventually. Until then, I'd take no interest in the guy. Make him wonder why I was taking no interest. Make him sweat.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see him checking me out. It wasn't the furtive interest of Michael Kennedy or even the lascivious ogle of the knuckle-dragger in the pickup. This was a cold, hard once-over, like I was an item on a menu, his to order if he decided I looked tasty. I kept walking.

  I found the store--an empty furniture shop, sign announcing all inventory at 20 percent off, then 50 percent, then in final, desperate handwritten red strokes, 75 percent off, final sale.

  I went around back, presuming that was where the trucker entered, and found a huge double door for the furniture place, a sign with foot-high letters announcing Deliveries.

  The delivery door was dented so badly I was surprised it still closed. Kicked in by someone looking for a private place to conduct rituals? That might explain the shiny big padlock on it now.

  An unlock spell cleared the way. Inside, I cast a sensing spell that came back clean. There were two doors off the loading dock. One led to an empty room with enough electrical outlets and phone jacks to tell me it had once held desks. The other was a bathroom. At the end, the hall opened into the display gallery.

  The place had been stripped bare and kept reasonably clean, the owner still apparently optimistic about its resale value. A thin layer of dust said that optimism was waning, but the unit was still tidy enough to be shown. Too tidy to be an ideal place for anyone to practice the dark arts.

  As I walked into the gallery, though, I could see a circle of black on the floor. I knelt and ran my finger over the ring. Wax. A black candle had sat here, dripping, for hours. I looked at the front and frowned. Big display windows. Not even boarded up. Who would conduct a ritual when anyone walking past could see the candle burning?

  Near the candle wax, I noticed red smears on the linoleum. I bent and touched them. Long dried and faint, as if someone had mopped them up. I licked my finger and smudged some. Definitely red. Too red to be blood?

  I took a picture and compared it with the one from the commune gate. The resolution was crap, though. I needed to see both on a laptop screen and zoom in.

  The trucker's buddy said he'd seen a dead cat, too. You couldn't have a black mass without a dead cat. Or so said common wisdom. The truth was that cats--or sacrifice of any kind--had nothing to do with a real satanic black mass.

  I searched the room, but found no sign of cats. I did, however, find a pile of rags in the corner. Black rags.

  I reached down and grabbed an edge. It wasn't rags, but a huge sheet of black fabric. Other pieces lay beneath it, some black, some white, one red. The piece in my hand seemed like some kind of cape.

  Something dropped from the fabric as it unraveled and landed with a dull thump. I glanced down and saw a hand. A human hand, pale in the dim light, the severed stump nestled in the fabric.

  A creak sounded behind me. I wheeled as a shadow slunk from the hall. My fingers flew up in a knockback spell before I could think. A gasp as the figure flew back. Shoes scuffled, a door banged, and a man said, "In here!"

  I backed up to the wall and cast a cover spell just as two men burst through the door. One was Cody Radu. The other was the younger officer.

  The cop looked around. Cody passed him, circling the room. I shifted my gaze to the pile of cloth in the corner. When I'd dropped the cape, it had settled over the hand. Two curved fingers still peeked out.

  Cody walked right past me, then planted himself in front of the pile.

  "There's no one here, Mr. Radu," the cop said.

  "Bill saw a girl sneak in the back," Cody said. "He flagged me down as I was leaving the post office ... not five minutes after that private-eye chick walked by. And someone opened the lock on the door."

  "Okay, but there's no one here now. I don't know what you expect me to do, sir."

  "I expect you to earn what I pay you. I expect you to protect my interests, and as the owner of this building, this is one of my interests."

  "Okay but ..." The young officer turned, surveying the room. "There's nothing here to steal."

  "It's my property. That's all that matters. I want a new lock on the door and drive-bys every two hours. If you see that lock broken again, you call me."

  "Yes, sir."

  They left. I cast my sensing spell. The building was empty.

  So Cody Radu was paying off one of the local cops. That was definitely something to keep in mind, but right now, I was more interested in that severed hand.

  I crouched and gingerly peeled back the cape covering the hand. The hand was fresh, no sign of decay. The skin shone unnaturally. Preserved?

  I was betting preserved. In wax it looked like. Which meant I knew what this was--the Hand of Glory. Years ago, one had been planted at our house ... right after a black mass had been staged, complete with dead cats. That had been the work of a half-demon hired by my father, who'd been trying to get custody of me by spooking Paige with the threat of exposure.

  I touched the severed hand. Cold, as I expected. Oddly smooth, too, even for wax. I lifted it, wrapped in cloth. From the severed end protruded a bone. A bone that looked ... silver.

  I squinted in the dim light. Not a bone, but a metal rod. And the severing cut? Perfectly even.

  I was holding a mannequin's hand.

  I grabbed the black cloth and shook it out. Definitely a cape. Under it was more clothing. A shapeless white shirt. A red velvet bustier. And, at the bottom of the pile, more mannequin parts--the other hand and the head. The "stumps" of both had been painted red.

  "Props," I muttered. "They're props."

  Someone had staged a fake black mass here, complete with fake body parts, probably designed to scare the crap out of someone. Maybe someone supernatural.

  I took photos of the props, then put them back the way I'd found them, gave the room one last look, then got out of there.

  I WAS HALFWAY to my bike when my phone rang. "People Are Strange." My ring tone for anyone I don't know.

  "Savannah Levine," I said.

>   "Hello, it's Michael Kennedy. We met earlier?"

  "Detective Kennedy. How's it going? Solve the case yet?"

  A small noise that could have been a laugh. "No. I just ... I wanted to apologize for being a jerk at Bruyn's office."

  "Okay."

  Silence. I let it tick to ten seconds, then said, "If you're expecting me to say you weren't a jerk, this will be a very short call. I could point out that you'd already achieved jerk status before the chief's office, but that would be rude. Apology accepted."

  This time I was sure he laughed. "Well, at least you're honest."

  "I am nothing if not honest, Detective Kennedy. Now, if you'll excuse--"

  "Do you have plans for dinner?"

  Now it was my turn to hesitate. "It was the hot-guy comment, wasn't it?"

  A chuckle. "Could be."

  Liar, liar. I knew what drove this sudden interest.

  "Sure," I said. "Pick me up at the Rose Haven Motel at seven. There doesn't seem to be anything decent in this town, so we'll have to go elsewhere. I like Italian and American."

  "A woman who knows what she wants."

  "Always. See you at seven."

  ten

  I was getting on my bike when "People Are Strange" played again.

  It was Jesse.

  "Looking for an update?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I hate to bug you, so if I am, just tell me to go to hell."

  "You're not." I gave him the rundown.

  "The detective could be a problem. Is he giving you a rough time?"

  "He asked me to dinner."

  "Seriously? Did you zap him with an energy bolt?"

  "Oh, he's not really asking me out. He wants to pick my brain and steal my leads. So I accepted. Should be fun."

  "You've obviously got it under control. About those lab and coroner's reports, any chance I can take a look?"

  "I'll fax them over."

  I ended the call with Jesse only to find that I'd gotten a message in the meantime. If only I'd been this popular in high school, I might have shown up more often. Speaking of school, the message was from a retired history teacher, Mr. Mulligan. Lorraine at the diner had told him about me, and he was wondering if I'd gotten all the local information I'd needed. If not, he'd be happy to provide more background. He'd taught Paula, Ginny, Brandi, even coached Kayla with her homeschooling.

  My first impulse was to call back and say "thanks but no thanks." I had plenty of leads to follow up on and no time to waste sitting in some old guy's parlor, sipping instant coffee and listening to a lecture on town history. If the guy had been a friend of Ginny's and Brandi's, sure. But their teacher? Something told me that compared to those two, my attendance record would be exemplary.

  And yet ... Maybe I was a little more anxious about my first case than I was admitting. Maybe I couldn't help thinking, What if this is the guy with information that'll solve the case, and I blew him off? Or maybe it was just those damned voices in my head, Paige and Lucas telling me never to ignore a potential source. I called back and asked if I could stop by in the next hour.

  NEXT, I HAD files to fax to Jesse. Easier said than done. While I didn't expect a small-town motel to have a business center, I thought they'd at least have a fax machine in the office. They didn't. Nor did the town have a copy center.

  I remembered the library and arrived there to find it had closed at four and wouldn't reopen for two days. Someone was kind enough to suggest the real estate office--apparently they ran an unofficial copy shop on the side. But it had closed at four, too. In fact, except for the diner, the whole town seemed to have shut down.

  When I called Jesse, he said that was fine--he'd pop by tomorrow on his way home from Portland. Next stop, Mr. Mulligan, retired teacher.

  THE ADDRESS MR. Mulligan gave led to a place outside town. The sign on the mailbox read J&C Hogs. I checked the address, but it seemed right, so I started up the lane to a sprawling ranch with a massive detached garage. The garage door was open. Through it I could see three gleaming black motorcycles. Harley-Davidsons. Hogs.

  I swung off my bike as a man walked out. His grease-stained shortsleeved shirt showed off an impressive set of muscles for a guy who had to be in his midsixties.

  "Ms. Levine," he said, wiping a hand before extending it. "Chuck Mulligan."

  I shook his hand. His gaze had already slid over to my bike, and our fingers hadn't fully disconnected before he was walking toward it.

  "You didn't really call me out here to wax nostalgic on past students, did you," I said. "You heard what I was riding."

  He smiled, face creasing. "Guilty."

  "Only you realize I can't stay and chat," I said. "Not with a Harley man."

  "Those are clients' bikes. Mine's a BMW."

  "Even worse."

  He laughed and crouched beside my bike, checking it out.

  "So you must be the C in J&C Hogs. Who's the J?"

  "Janice. My wife. She just put me on the sign so I'd feel special. It's her business." He paused. "Was her business, I should say. Still not used to that. She passed away last year. I took over after I retired."

  He pushed to his feet. "Let's get inside. I'm sure you'll be more comfortable there."

  "Actually, I'd be more comfortable there." I pointed to the garage. "If that's okay."

  "Certainly."

  We spent the next half-hour looking at bikes and talking about them. His wife's business had been customizing Harleys--making them faster and fancier.

  I'd have been tempted to move on to business a lot faster if I didn't see how much he was enjoying the opportunity to talk about his wife and her work. I understood that, so I let it keep going until he steered things on track by saying, "Have you met Paula Thompson yet?"

  "No, just Kayla. Cool kid."

  His gray eyes sparkled. "Cool. Yes, that's a good word to describe Kayla. One of those little characters who don't quite fit in, but you know, when they grow up, they'll do better in life than all the popular kids. Paula brings her up once a week to go over her lessons, make sure she's on track. I offer to help more, but Paula won't even take the supervision work for nothing--insists on cleaning my house while I'm working with Kayla."

  "You taught her, too, didn't you? Paula Thompson?"

  He nodded and led me to a couple of chairs in a makeshift office space. "She started high school the same year I started teaching. I taught her, then Genevieve, and now Kayla. Three generations of Thompson girls. And three more different girls you couldn't hope to find."

  "Tell me about Ginny and Brandi."

  He settled in his chair and took a moment, as if trying to decide how to start. "When I first started teaching, I was convinced every student could be helped. It's a spark of idealism that fades fast. Some can, and you learn to concentrate on them. The others ... The others you can't help because they just aren't interested."

  Sounded familiar. I'd never had much use for school myself.

  "I had Ginny and Brandi in my class," he said, "when they came to class, which wasn't often. They spent most of the day in the woods behind the school, smoking with their boyfriends. Then Ginny got pregnant with Kayla."

  "Did that help?"

  He rubbed his chin and I could tell he wanted to say yes, but after a moment, gave a slow shake of his head. "Ginny was thrilled about Kayla, but only because it meant she could quit school. Otherwise, she was perfectly happy to dump the baby on Paula and go off getting drunk and high with Brandi."

  "No father in the picture I take it?"

  "Daddy was some loser Ginny hooked up with on a weekend in Portland. I'd be surprised if she even got a name. Paula has Kayla now, thank God. Should have had her from the start but ..." He shrugged. "Paula had Ginny when she was a kid herself and it turned her life around, so she kept hoping having Kayla would do the same for Ginny. Paula would baby-sit Kayla, make sure she was fed, had clothing, play dates, all that, but she insisted Ginny step up and be a mother, get a job, get an apartment ..."

 
"Did she?"

  "The job? On and off, mostly off. She had a place, though, over one of the shops on Main Street. Kayla wasn't neglected--Paula made sure of that. But like I said, those Thompson girls were very different. Having Ginny might have been a life-changing experience for Paula, but her life didn't need as much changing as Ginny's. Even if Paula wasn't much of a student, she still showed up in class and did the work. Hung out with a rough crowd, but she was the best of the bunch. Polite and respectful even when she came to class stoned."

  "And Ginny's dad? Was he part of that rough crowd?"

  "I don't think so. Paula had a string of boyfriends in ninth and tenth grade. Then she seemed to stop dating. Next thing you know, she's pregnant."

  "Meaning she was dating. Just not anyone she could be seen with in public. There were rumors, though, I bet."

  "Plenty. Most of them involving married men, not surprisingly. A couple of names floated around. I don't like spreading rumors, so I won't give them to you, but I will say that neither of them killed Ginny. One left for the East Coast years back, and the other's dead."

  We talked about Ginny for a few more minutes, but he couldn't add any dimension to the picture I'd drawn of her. It was even worse when we got talking about Brandi.

  "I barely remember the girl," Mulligan said. "I felt bad about that, but when I went to the funeral, I remembered why. There wasn't much to Brandi Degas. Nothing memorable. She was Ginny Thompson's shadow. I don't mean in regards to their friendship--Brandi was clearly the leader there. But Ginny was the one you noticed. The prettier one. The louder one."

  "They'd been friends a long time, I heard."

  "Since they were babies. Both had single moms and I think Paula and Carol went to the same support group."

  "Were they friends? Paula and Carol?"

  "Close acquaintances more like. Carol was an alcoholic even back then, and Paula didn't take with that. She helped out, though, looking after Brandi when she could."

  "Is Carol Degas still in town?"

  "She is. And you can try talking to her, but don't expect much. A lifetime of boozing has taken its toll. When Brandi died, Carol couldn't even sober up for the funeral. She's doing better, but her memory's shot."