4 The Infernal Detective

by Kirsten Weiss

  Brigitte dropped to the floor with a thud. “On ze other hand, your aunts are not mad. Eccentric. Annoying. Heartless. Rude…”

  Riga adjusted a lamp on top of the table. “My cloaking spell failed.”

  “Also they have no sense of style. Dot’s baggy clothes…” The gargoyle was silent for a long moment. “It failed? We both know that your magic has lately been… How do you say? Fifty-fifty, at best.”

  “It’s basic magic. A foundation spell.” Tears of frustration pricked the back of Riga’s eyes, and she blinked them away. She still couldn’t count on her magic.

  “Perhaps your aunts are right. Perhaps necromancy—”

  “Perhaps?” Riga laughed hollowly. “You’ve known about the necromancy all along, haven’t you?”

  Brigitte sat motionless.

  “You did know,” Riga said.

  The gargoyle looked away. “I did not know. I… suspected. There is a difference.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “How could I, when I was not sure myself?”

  “But you gave me hints, didn’t you? You’ve made it clear that you’ve always worked for necromancers.”

  “And so you believe?”

  “No!” Riga slammed her fist on the table and the lamp tottered, crashed to the floor. “I am not a necromancer! I won’t be one. I won’t bring those disgusting… things into the world. I won’t sacrifice furry animals to do magic. It’s a choice!”

  “Aunt Riga?” Pen stood inside the room. She rubbed her bare arms, shivered in her tank top and sweatpants. “What’s wrong?”

  Brigitte sniffed. “Your aunt lost a battle on ze astral plane, and now she is throwing ze temper tantrum like a five-year-old child.”

  “That is not why I’m throwing a temper tantrum,” Riga snarled. “I’m angry because I’m tired of being told I have to be a necromancer.”

  Pen took a cautious step closer. “But is it really so bad?”

  “Augh!” Riga turned and fell face down onto the bed. She grabbed a pillow and pulled it atop her head, clenching it tight about her ears. But it didn’t block out Brigitte’s voice.

  “Your aunt is not as special as she thinks. Ze odds are that if she follows ze necromantic path she will go mad, raise ze dead, and send them on a rampage through ze odd village or two in a misbegotten quest for world domination.”

  “By burning a village?”

  “That is ze problem with mad necromancers. They lose sight of ze big picture. It always starts with a village, and then… It ends tragically.”

  Riga lifted the edge of the pillow up. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “And you are being self-pitying and dull.” Brigitte poked Riga’s thigh with a cold, hard talon.

  Riga sat up. “The Aunts have been here less than a week. There’s been a murder in my bedroom. Donovan is running around inside a dead photographer. And a black lodge is on my ass. Necromancers are like black holes for trouble, and the people around them – you, Donovan – get caught in the cross-fire.”

  Brigitte cocked her head, thoughtful. “That is true.”

  “And you wonder why I don’t want to be one.”

  “But if you’re a necromancer whether you want to or not—” Pen began.

  “I’m only a necromancer if I practice necromancy. Forget it, Pen.” Riga glanced at the clock beside her bed: four AM. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  Pen sat down on the bed beside her. “I wasn’t really sleeping. So what happened with this astral battle?”

  Riga told her about following the cord, the old man, the ghoul.

  Pen cocked an eyebrow. “You were taken down by an old man?”

  “No, by the ghoul he was controlling.” Riga clutched the pillow to her. “And he wasn’t alone. When I arrived, I heard him talking to someone – at least one other person.”

  “But why attack Terry and the others?” Pen asked. “You said you got a name. Do you know him? What does he have against you?”

  “I have no idea who he is,” Riga said. “Brigitte, could my aunts have been right about a black lodge being at work? So many of my guests have those attachments – it would take more than one person to manage them all.”

  The gargoyle returned to her perch on the footboard, and shrugged, her stone feathers rippling. “It is logical. But that does not answer why they are bothering you.”

  “Unless it’s not me they’re after,” Riga said.

  “So we are back to your wicked aunts as the intended targets?” Brigitte said. “Certainly, they deserve it.”

  Pen fluffed a pillow and propped it behind her back, leaning against the headboard. “So what are we going to do about it?” She colored. “You going to do about it, I mean.”

  “I don’t know.” Last year, Riga would have taken the address and hunted the magician down, followed the trail to the others in the lodge. Now, her magic was weak. Tonight’s escapade was further proof. Proof she didn’t want to recognize. She swallowed. “I’m out of my depth. Brigitte, you’ve got more experience than I. What do you think?”

  “You need help.”

  “My aunts?”

  “No! You cannot trust them. Besides, they admit this black lodge has already beaten them once. What happened to poor Monsieur Mosse is unforgivable. Not to mention what they did to me. You need help from a higher authority.”

  “You mean…” Pen pointed to the ceiling. “God?” she whispered.

  “Pray if you wish, but I was referring to ze police.”

  Pen wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think they’re going to be much help with a magical attack.”

  But Riga leaned forward, interested. “The astral police, you mean? I’ve heard of them, but thought they were a myth. You’ve encountered them?”

  “They are real, though they operate only upon ze inner planes.” Brigitte shifted.

  “But how do you know they’re real?” Pen asked.

  The gargoyle looked away. “I called upon them once, long ago. And they answered.”

  Pen crossed her arms. “How?”

  “No more questions!” Brigitte flapped her wings. “You are too inquisitive for a young magician. How can you listen if you are always talking? In my day, children had humility. Now it is all self-esteem and aren’t you a precious darling? Enough!”

  “How can I learn, if I don’t ask questions when I don’t understand?”

  “You do not understand because you do not listen!”

  Riga got off the bed and sat in front of the fire. The bickering faded to background noise and she stared into the flames. She’d tried contacting people through the astral plane before, but she’d had a path to follow or an image of the person or location.

  She rolled her head, loosening her neck and shoulders. All right. She could do this. Riga cleared her mind and turned the problem over, drawing a bubble chart in her mind.

  The problem was she was under magical attack – bubble number one – and likely by more than one person, possibly by a black lodge. She drew an imaginary line and new circle, and put the black lodge inside it. Her aunts claimed the lodge had sent their spell awry (bubble three), shoving Donovan’s soul into Cam’s corpse (four). And there were dark attachments to more than one of her guests. Her own magic was weakened, distorted, blocked. She needed help. With an imaginary fat red marker, she added three explanation points to the word.

  She blew her schematic into the inner planes, thinking about what she knew of the astral police, asking for their help.

  A store window, brightly lit. Blue and red neon.

  Beer.

  Riga opened her eyes, and stood.

  Brigitte and Pen had fallen silent, watching.

  “Did they answer?” Brigitte asked.

  Riga nodded.

  Pen edged off the bed. “And?”

  “Cheese puffs. I’m starving. You want something from the mini-mart?”

  Pen’s shoulders slumped. “We’re doomed.”

  Chapter 14

 
The headlights of Riga’s Lincoln swept the darkened parking lot, and she slowed to a halt in front of a minimart. In the spot next to her, a white-bearded man in a Santa suit sat astride a Harley, its motor rumbling. Blue and red neon from the minimart’s windows glinted dully off his black, World War II era helmet, off its two horns, bent back as if windblown. Demon Santa, hell on wheels.

  She stepped out of the car, and checked her watch. A depressing six o’clock in the morning. Snow fell, a soft curtain. A cloud of motorcycle exhaust blew over her and she rubbed her eyes, gritty from lack of sleep.

  Riga pulled her pea coat tight, shifted her leather satchel upon her shoulder. Sparks of pain rippled along her side and she winced. She’d been shoved around so much lately, beneath her clothes she looked like an abuse victim. At least her wedding gown was long sleeved.

  She slammed the door of her Lincoln and Demon Santa glanced up, then resumed polishing his glasses.

  Wary of a slip and fall, she minced toward the store. Its glass doors slid open and her skin shivered a welcome at the blast of warm air that engulfed her. The linoleum floor was slick with muddy boot prints, and she walked carefully to a rack of chips. Jalapeno nachos, ranch flavored, restaurant-style, cheese, spicy cheese, extra spicy cheese… Plus half a dozen variations on the common cheese puff. America, land of choices. God bless it.

  Riga tucked a bag of jalapeno puffs beneath her arm, and wandered to the refrigerated drinks, studied the clerk’s reflection in the glass case. Black hair streaked with gray, powdered with dandruff. A paunch. Dark skin. He scratched his chest, snagging a loose bit of yarn on his mustard-colored sweater vest. Unaware, he placed his elbow on the counter, somehow managing to catch the fast-unraveling yarn on a button of his checked short-sleeve shirt. She frowned, trying to guess his ethnicity, torn between Indian or Pakistani. He turned and straightened the liquor bottles lining the wall behind him. Set in an alcove of bottles, sparkling green and amber and blue, hung a framed print of the elephant-headed god, Ganesh. Indian then.

  So the astral police had sent her to a cliché of a mini-mart owner.

  Stupid vision. At least she’d got cheese puffs out of it. She opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a diet soda. Froze.

  What if Demon Santa had been her connection? She started for the door, then remembered the chips and drink, and laid them on the counter.

  The motorcycle roared, a low rumble. Its headlight strobed the store, and it was gone.

  Riga grimaced. She’d hesitated. Lost.

  “That will be two ninety-nine.”

  “What?” She turned back to the counter, its display of lottery tickets and cigarettes.

  “For the chips and drink,” the man said. His name tag read: Mr. Gupta, Owner. “Two dollars and ninety-nine cents.”

  “Oh.” She dug into her pocket, pulled out some wadded bills.

  Mr. Gupta laughed. “Women! You carry a big purse big enough to fit a baby inside, yet keep your money in your pocket.” He jabbed one thick finger at her satchel, quick, stabbing. “What is in there?”

  Tarot deck, notebook, rubber gloves, plastic baggies, chocolate bar, tactical flashlight… She flashed a guilty smile. “Just girl stuff.”

  He clucked his tongue. “Ah, yes. The ladies must always look pretty, no?” The store owner turned to the register, his fingers dancing to a melody of electronic beeps.

  Riga blew out her breath. She’d gone to a freaking minimart for astral aid. A minimart.

  Gupta slid a penny across the counter, his eyes sharpening. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No. Thanks.” She stuffed the chips and soda in her leather satchel, and started to leave. Hand on the door, she paused, turned. “I don’t suppose you could help me out with a black lodge that’s been giving me trouble?”

  Gupta tilted his head, lips pursing. “Black…?”

  “Lodge,” she finished for him.

  He stared at her. Silence stretched between them.

  Great.

  Riga sketched a wave. “Okay, bye.” She pushed the door open.

  “Wait.” Leading with his stomach, Gupta wove behind the counter and around a soda refrigerator to stand before her, arms akimbo. “What do you know about black lodges?”

  She tightened her grip on her bag, and the chips crackled inside. “What do you know?”

  “I asked you first.”

  Alright, she’d play. “They’re occult organizations that practice dark magic.”

  “And what’s your interest in them?”

  “One’s taken an interest in me. And I don’t like it.”

  “Why?” He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers.

  “Why don’t I like it?”

  “Why you?”

  “Good question,” she said.

  “Hm.” He looked her up and down, nodded. “Follow me.”

  He led her to the back of the store, and passed through a beaded curtain. Riga pushed the beads aside, looked down the twin barrels of a shotgun.

  “Shit!” Riga’s bag slipped from her shoulders. She put her hands up and stumbled backward. The teenage girl holding the gun followed.

  “Don’t move!” The girl tossed her head, swinging her black hair behind her. Her dark eyes narrowed. She was curvier than Riga, and shorter, a disadvantage outweighed by the shotgun. “And be quiet!”

  “I’m not moving,” Riga babbled, hands at shoulder height. “It’s okay, there’s been some mistake. I’m not here for any trouble. No one needs to get hurt.”

  “I said—”

  Riga turned sideways, grabbed the barrel with her right hand, pushed it away. The shotgun thundered and jerked beneath her, grew hot in her grasp. A glass case exploded. Riga reached under the shotgun with her left hand, grabbed its stock and yanked down. The barrel circled up and over, clawing a gash down the girl’s forehead, her nose.

  She shrieked in pain, and let go.

  Riga took a quick step back, flipping the shotgun over and pointing it at the girl and Gupta, who’d emerged from the bead-curtained room.

  The teenager clapped a hand to her face. Blood dripped onto her tunic, blue embroidered with metallic pink. “You skank!”

  Shaking, Riga racked the gun, positioned the butt snugly in the crease between her shoulder and arm. It felt comforting there, her finger light against the trigger. “You shot at me! What do you expect to happen when you point a loaded gun at someone?”

  Mr. Gupta moved unhurriedly, putting his arms around the girl’s shoulders. Her eyes blazed with hate. “Please don’t hurt us,” he said. “My daughter is young, and rash, and was trying to protect me.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” Riga’s shout echoed off the store’s sleek metal and glass and linoleum. “And she shot at me.”

  “She shot my refrigerated section,” he said mournfully. “You, however, are unharmed.”

  “So are you,” Riga said.

  They stared at each other, the only sounds Riga’s breathing and a steady drip drip drip from the smashed refrigerator. Dark liquid pooled across the linoleum. The girl edged away from the mess and Riga noticed her heeled sandals, satiny blue with pink rhinestones. Her toenails were pink, too. It was snowing out and the girl was in cutesy sandals. Who the hell were these people?

  “Miss Hayworth,” Gupta said, “what do you really want to know about black lodges?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Stop pointing that gun at us, and I’ll explain.”

  She gripped the shotgun more tightly. “No. I say ‘black lodge,’ you bring out a gun. Explain.”

  “We both have reason to fear the black lodge, Miss Hayworth, and my daughter didn’t know if you were friend or foe. You come from a family of necromancers, after all.”

  “I am not a necromancer, dammit!”

  “You did raise those demons last month,” he said reasonably. “And then there was the incident with that death fae.”

  “How the hell do you know about that? And ho
w do you know about my family?” In fact, why did everybody seem to know about Riga’s family but Riga?

  “Because we’re hunters.” He released his daughter, and his arms fell loose to his side, palms out.

  The woman looked at her father in horror. “Dad! Don’t!”

  “Afreen, if she’s here to kill us,” he said, “then she already knows.”

  His daughter wiped the blood from her face with the back of her hand. It left a trail, smeary and dark, across her cheek. “You can’t trust her.”

  “I didn’t come here to kill you.” Riga ejected the cartridge, broke the shotgun open. “I came for help.”

  “But how did you know to come here?” Mr. Gupta asked.

  “I called the astral… police.” Riga felt her cheeks warm. It sounded ridiculous. “Or whatever they’re called,” she said shortly. “And then I had a vision of your store.”

  “In that case, Miss Hayworth, we should talk.” Mr. Gupta held his hand out.

  “Dad!” Afreen’s thick brows lowered, a dark slash.

  Riga studied the shotgun. Wooden stock. Gleaming barrel. “Remington 870. Nice.” She handed him the gun.

  Afreen spun on her heel and stalked into the back room, the beaded curtain rattling in her wake.

  “There aren’t any more guns back there, are there?” Riga watched the swinging curtain, wary.

  “You have nothing to fear, Miss Hayworth.” His voice hardened. “Not if you are what you claim.”

  “I haven’t claimed much of anything.”

  He cocked his head toward the back room. “Come.”

  She followed him, cautious as she parted the curtains. Afreen stood in a corner, stacking cardboard boxes stamped “paper towels.” Riga picked up her dropped purse and walked inside. Glaring, the girl snatched a push broom braced against a wall, and stomped past Riga, through the beads. They rattled angrily in her wake.

  Gupta unfolded a metal chair and placed it noisily in front a utilitarian metal desk. He walked behind the desk, and sat in a swivel chair plumped with red velvet cushions. The chair creaked beneath his bulk.

  “Sit.” He motioned toward the chair opposite.

  Riga sat.

  “Tell me,” he said.