by Tricia Owens
I was shocked and yeah, I was hurt. My friends were my only family. They meant the world to me and if I didn't mean the world to them…who would care if I disappeared one day like Uncle James had? The way things were looking in my life recently, me winding up dead or a dragon were becoming likely scenarios. Like everyone else, I wanted to matter to someone. I wanted someone to miss me.
I stalked forward and grabbed the half-full bottle of cheap champagne and chugged back three healthy swallows. I smeared the back of my hand across my mouth. "That's messed up, guys."
Better to play it off. Better to act as though Anne Moody was tough and nothing could hurt her. Even though it was beginning to feel like way too many things actually could.
"We've been drinking," Christian said gently. "A lot. I know it's no excuse, but it's the truth."
"If it makes you feel any better," Melanie said with puppy dog eyes, "your fake twin was the absolute pits at Cards Against Humanity. She came up with the worst combinations, Anne. They weren't even funny!"
"And she kept scratching her head," Celestina complained. "Like a dog with fleas."
"No, Anne does that, too," Melanie said.
"Oh." Celestina hid behind her glass and muttered, "It's not annoying when you do it."
"This is wrong on so many levels," I sighed.
Still, their comments and the alcohol helped calm me down a little. Admittedly I was worked up over my encounter with the Oddsmakers and what Vale had revealed to me on the drive home. I doubt many people could remain totally cool after learning their parents had been murdered in the prime of their lives.
I flopped onto a huge ottoman and lay sprawled like a spider on its back. "I honestly got picked up by the Oddsmakers."
Christian and Celestina sat forward, completely sober now.
"Oh, my god, Anne," Melanie gasped and clasped both hands together in front of her mouth like she was praying for me. "Did they…did they hurt you?"
My eyes stung a little, not because any of the bruises I'd sustained caused me any pain but because of the stress of it all. PTSD, I assumed, though I felt guilty for feeling it over something so insignificant. I'd always associated the condition with soldiers returning from war.
"Vale says he and I are lucky to be alive," I said, trying to keep my tone light. Hey, no big, I was just sucked on by a vampire. Happens every Tuesday. Though I couldn't help a little dig: "If anyone here cares about that, I mean. You got on so well with my clone and all."
"Aw, Anne!" Melanie slid off the loveseat and crawled to my side. She clumsily pet my hair. "I totally knew it wasn't you. I knew it deep down in my heart, I swear!"
I caught her hand and held it. She looked like she was ready to cry. Granted, it was mostly the alcohol talking, but I appreciated the emotion nonetheless. I felt better for her showing some emotion over me. Geez, I'd never realized I was this needy.
"Were you summoned because of the dragon we saw tonight?" Christian asked. He set aside the anaconda, maybe in order to convince me he was taking all of this seriously. "Did the Oddsmakers believe it was your doing?"
That was something I should have brought up, as a matter of fact, but I'd forgotten all about that dragon in the midst of all the weirdness I'd encountered.
I shook my head in answer to his question. "They kidnapped me because they want me to do something for them, though they didn't bother to tell me what."
Christian's expression grew intent. "So you saw the Oddsmakers."
"I saw things," I told him with a pointed look. "I may as well have been blindfolded the entire time. I couldn't identify any of them in a line-up."
"They could have hurt you," Melanie whispered fearfully, "and I never would have known. I thought you were with us the entire time."
"It's okay, monkey," I told her.
"Generally, no one is called before the Oddsmakers and survives to tell the tale." Celestina looked me over, suddenly suspicious. "How do we know this is really you?"
"Would you be able to tell the difference?" I asked archly.
"Good point," she mumbled, abashed, and sucked furiously on her e-cig.
I sat up and looked around at my similarly guilty-looking friends. Now that I had them feeling bad, I realized it wasn't what I truly wanted.
"Guys, it's fine. Obviously the Oddsmakers are pros at making believable doppelgangers. I'm not mad that you were fooled. You were meant to be. It's for the best, actually. If you had noticed I was missing you might have tried to find me and who knows what would have happened. This was the best situation possible."
Melanie gave me a dubious look. "You're not lying?"
"Swear to God. But if you do want to make it up to me, you can help me locate something extremely important. Something my parents and my uncle were looking for."
"What is it?" Celestina asked with interest. She snapped her fingers and yelled toward the kitchen. "Lev! Stop eating and come in here!" She belatedly added, "As a man!"
"All I know is that I'm looking for an artifact for raising the dead. I don't know if that means it's a component of a ritual or if the thing itself has the power of necromancy or what. Also, Vale told me my parents were killed because they were looking for this thing, too."
"Killed," Christian echoed, his handsome face settling into sober lines. "He told me your mother was a strong sorceress, but he didn't tell me her death hadn't come naturally."
"Oh, Anne." Melanie was puppy dog eyes again. "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, Melly. I'm just ticked off that whoever did it has so far gotten away with it. That's going to change. The key is finding this artifact."
"You know nothing else about it?" Celestina asked. "What it might look like, where it's from?"
"Nada. But I'm pretty sure my Uncle James was looking for it, too, when he went missing, so he may have left something behind that could help me follow in his footsteps."
"And by doing so, you'd come to the attention of whoever killed your parents," Christian pointed out. That prompted my friends to look at each other with varying degrees of concern.
"Yeah. This is potentially dangerous," I told them. It was probably the first thing I should have told them. "I don't want any of you getting involved beyond the research part. This is my thing, and I'll face the risk. In fact, I may temporarily ban you guys from coming to Moonlight while I'm doing this."
Christian chuckled like he'd just listened to a four year-old's announcement that she would become an astronaut. "After what you did to help Vale and my mom, there's no way I'm sitting back and letting you do this alone, Anne. I've got your back on this no matter what it takes."
"Really, Anne, that's dumb and you're dumb if you think we'd let you deal with this alone." Melanie smacked me on the leg. "You're my BFF! I'm never gonna give you—"
"No Rick rolling!" I covered my ears while Melanie rolled on the floor, giggling.
"Next time, only light beer and wine coolers for the monkey," Celestina said gravely, but the corners of her lips twitched as she watched Melanie on the floor. Being five feet tall and a monkey shifter meant Melanie was the cheapest drunk ever.
"I think we should switch to water now, or in my case, some coffee," I said. "I won't be able to sleep now that I know all of this." And I would need to be hyper vigilant from now on, because the target on my parents' and Uncle James' back would now be painted on mine.
I looked to the front window of Celestina's shop and tried to see past the glowing Christmas lights to the night shaded street outside. It wasn't exactly easy because a three foot tall palmist's hand symbol was painted in the center of the window. From what I could see, though, the street was quiet. No big surprise this early in the morning, but Vegas was Vegas. People ended up awake and stumbling around the city at all hours.
"I think it's safe to say that none of us are leaving you to do this on your own," Celestina said, glaring at me slightly like I should know better. "Maybe my contribution can be a séance."
I blinked. "For what?"
"Ooh! Ooh! A séance, Anne! We should do that!"
"Why would we want to summon a ghost?" I asked Melanie, who acted as though she had never heard a better idea in her life. "You remember what happened the last time we were around for one of those, don't you? We watched that occult group summoning a Norwegian serial killer. Creepy and spooky hadn't been the half of it."
"But what if I'm able to summon your parents?" Celestina said softly.
Christian and Melanie fell silent, but I wasn't bothered by the suggestion. My parents had died when I was four. My own memories of them were mostly made up, and the faces that appeared in my mind when I thought of them were those that had been captured in photographs. I missed having a mother and father. I was sad to have lacked that experience. But they were strangers to me. Strangers I still loved and wanted to avenge, but strangers nonetheless. Summoning them in a séance made perfect sense to me.
And maybe, just maybe, I could learn a little more about them.
"Can we do it tonight?" I asked Celestina hopefully.
She brightened. "No problem. For the best chance at success, though, I need something that has a connection to them. Something personal. Significant; not like a photo or something."
"Ah." That might be a problem. I didn't have anything of my parents except… I snapped my fingers. "I have the perfect thing." I turned to my other friends. "I'll be right back."
It was nearly four a.m. now, but in Vegas the skies were deceptive. They would never be fully dark this close to the city, not like where Vale and I had been dumped out in the desert. Rainbow colors from the casinos lit the sky as I jogged the short distance to the metal fence surrounding the property of my shop, Moonlight Pawn.
I didn't bother lowering the defensive wards since it was only me. I quickly let myself inside the dark shop. It smelled weird inside, though I wouldn't say it was a bad smell. Just a mix of grandma's attic and occult gift shop. I ran past shelves holding haunted jewelry boxes and cursed toys which sat beside mundane items like guitars and piggy banks shaped like Elvis' head. Bead curtains separated the selling floor from the studio in back where I lived.
This was my home, though it wasn't very impressive. A full-sized bed, a TV on a stand, a wardrobe, bathroom, and a small kitchenette. Definitely not worthy of being called a "crib." It was fine, though, for my needs since I didn't really own anything besides clothes. When friends came to visit we socialized in the shop.
The bathroom, however, was a disaster, not because it was moldy or the tiles were cracked; it was cursed. Sometimes it appeared as though the ceiling dripped with blood and the walls looked like Freddy Kreuger and Jason had gone on a rampage together. Also, a usually horrifying image of a spirit tended to stare back at me from the mirror above the sink.
I hesitated, and then flipped on the light.
Vale was right about the vampire bite. I pulled back my dark hair and verified that no marks were visible on my neck where it had bit me, thank goodness. I stared fixedly at the smooth skin and managed to mostly ignore the reflection of a young, freckled man who stood beside me and was soundlessly yelling. His head was on fire, the skin of his forehead blackening and peeling off in flakes. I flipped off the light, and the image vanished along with the illumination. I still shivered, though. Even as accustomed as I was to the effects of the curse, I wasn't emotionally immune to them.
Back in the shop, I went directly to the register.
"The dead are coming for you, Anne Moody..."
"Fear the dead!"
"Death to Anne Moody!"
"Death! Death!"
"Well, screw you right back," I muttered to the glass counter where I kept smaller items like jewelry. The cursed Victorian cameos lay in their own velvet tray. All were carved from coral and adorned broaches, pendants, and rings. Their pretty Victorian faces were screwed up into bitchy sneers and scowls that made them a tough sell disregarding the fact that they were cursed.
One day, I vowed, I would sell the lot of them and I'd never have to listen to their insults and predictions ever again. They were by far the most annoying curse on the shop, even if my friends thought they were funny. Sure, they didn't have to listen to the things screech every day like I had to.
And they didn't have to wonder if the cameos were telling the future.
The cameos had predicted that I would meet Vale and fall hard for him. What if they were right again now? Was I really about to face something so dangerous it could kill me? Or were they referring to the artifact, which allegedly possessed the power to raise the dead? I needed to ask Celestina what she thought of the cameos.
On that note…I grabbed the panda pin that my mother had given me. It was my only physical tie to her. Hopefully it would give Celestina the psychic boost she needed to make a connection.
I locked up and jogged outside. On the cracked sidewalk just outside Moonlight's yard, I paused.
What had happened out in the desert tonight could have meant nothing, just an innocent expression of magick by someone who'd had a few too many beers and lost their sense of discretion. But I didn't buy it. I found it difficult to believe in magickal coincidences. Someone had known I'd be out on the playa tonight and they'd used a dragon form on purpose, either in warning or to get me in trouble.
The trouble I'd deal with. The Oddsmakers were scary, but I wasn't about to let anyone, even a bunch of old magickal beings, intimidate me. But if the magick show had been a warning…
I searched the streets, paying closer attention to the darker pockets of shadows between the houses. The neighborhood was zoned for both commercial and residential use, which meant most of the buildings around me were house conversions. Typically some type of business was conducted in the front while the back served as living quarters for the owner, as was the case with Moonlight Pawn.
Most of my neighbors' houses were dark, the exception being Tomes, the occult bookshop where Vale's exorcism had been held. Also, the art gallery. The latter caught my interest. While I suspected the gallery wasn't ordinary and in fact dealt in magickal art of some sort—a visitor having literally lost their hand there one day being a big clue to that—I couldn't recall seeing the lights on behind its frosted windows after 10:00 p.m.
Interesting, but ultimately non-threatening. Annoyed by my paranoia, I hustled back to Celestina's shop.
I let myself in the front door and discovered my friends had been busy. They'd dragged Celestina's reading table, the circular one where she performed her palmistry and placed her tarot card layouts, into the center of the room and arranged the loveseats and ottomans around it so everyone had a place to sit. Three black wax candles in tall glasses screen printed with images of the Vodou Lwa were aglow in the center of the table. Beside them was a symbol drawn with what looked like talc. The air was streaked with gray and was pungent with the scent of smoking herbs. Celestina must have smudged the room to clear the energy.
"I always figured we'd end up around a Ouija board before we attempted a séance," I said to the room as I closed the door behind me.
Lev immediately jumped in front of me, clad only in a pair of gym shorts.
"No mention Ouija board," he said in a low voice and with an urgent shake of his shaggy, black-haired head. "Celestina no like. She thinks very fake."
I found his Serbian accent cute, but Lev was a tricky one. While he reminded me of Wolverine from the X-men in that he was kind of wild-looking even in his human form, he also had that great body. His wolf got a lot of exercise, apparently, and anyone with eyes couldn't help appreciating it.
But if Celestina ever caught you checking out her boyfriend when he wasn't in his wolf form…well, let's just say a wise woman wouldn't cross a Vodou priestess. Not that Celestina actually was a priestess. She was second generation American who'd become a surfing champion in Huntington Beach. But when your grandmother used to be a well-known mambo in Haiti and later in Santo Domingo, you commanded respect.
I did the zipping motion with my fingers and lips. "Nev
er again," I promised Lev.
He grinned, revealing slightly overlarge canines, and patted me on the arm. "We will learn good things," he told me enthusiastically. "Not to worry, Anne. Celestina is very skilled. You will see."
He was sweet and I wanted to hug him, but I also didn't want to see my effigy hanging from the ceiling tomorrow, pierced with needles. I'd already experienced being a living Voodoo doll during Vale's exorcism.
I walked to Celestina and handed her my panda pin. "This was my mom's. She gave it to me when I was three or four."
She held it in her hand for a moment, eyes closed. "Yes. This will do, Anne. What was her name?"
"Iris."
"Fine."
She'd pulled her dark, braided hair back beneath a multi-colored scarf, which told me she was in business mode. I belatedly noticed the pop music was gone. I took a seat on one of the ottomans beside Melanie.
"How is this supposed to work?" I asked.
Celestina placed the pin face up in the middle of the talcum powder symbol, beside the candles. "All magickal beings have a Name," she said, though she didn't look at me. Her dark gaze was fixed to my right, on a point somewhere above and beyond the candles. "I'm going to request the Lwa to call upon that Name and bring your mother's spirit here."
I was familiar with the concept of Names. Vale had once refused to give his, citing the power it gave someone to curse him or worse. A Name wasn't what was printed on your driver's license. It was like a magickal fingerprint unique to each person. I didn't know what mine was, and though I'd never admitted it, I worried I didn't have one. I was only half of a Chinese dragon. My dad had been a non-magickal human. Maybe being a mutt made me ineligible for the cool stuff.
"How do we know what my mom's Name was?" I asked.
"We don't." Celestine shook out her shoulders and visibly relaxed. She rolled her neck to loosen it. On the table in front of her sat a steak knife and a shallow dish containing powdered herbs. "But a sorceress leaves traces of herself even after she passes into another existence. All magickal beings do. We cling. Not to our bodies, but to our Names." She picked up the knife. "If we're fortunate, the Lwa will be able to pull that Name from your pin."
