Tarnished and Torn

by Juliet Blackwell

  For my part, I was currently doing a little light reading, too, but in my case the topic was demonology. I was disconcerted to learn that not only were there more demons than I had ever imagined, but there were all manner of fire demons, each more terrifying than the one before.

  Some of the lesser demons, I read, could be harnessed and their powers put to the benefit of those seeking knowledge and pursuing the arts. Artists, for example, were often said to be inspired by muses, which were demons by another name. The trick was to keep these lesser demons under control, because when they took over trouble ensued.

  Dealing with a demon was always dangerous, however. Exorcising a demon bound his powers and stopped him from using his portal to plague humans, but he would never go away entirely. Demons were as ancient as the Earth—some said much older—and they weren’t about to be defeated by a mere human witch, no matter how talented she might be at brewing.

  A lot of people were bound to demons by choice. Greed, ambition, and a lust for power were the usual reasons, and a combination of all three was not uncommon. Such fools typically made a pact with a demon, thinking they would be able to keep the upper hand. It almost always turned out badly.

  Elemental demons were particularly interesting, and were defined as “spirits embodying one of the elements of antiquity.” The earth elemental was a gnome, water was a nymph, air was a sylph, and fire elemental was represented by a salamander.

  A fire elemental’s minions, I read, were known to have a sweet tooth and, like the salamander, to shun the light.

  A fondness for sweets—like jelly beans?

  I had just opened a chapter on amulets of control and exorcism—with an emphasis on magical rings—when Oscar leaped up as though he’d found the Holy Grail.

  “Mistress! I have it!”

  “Have what?”

  “The answer!”

  I closed my book, glad to take a break from my grim studies. “What was the question?”

  “The solution to your search!”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “We hire Miss Marple!”

  “Miss Marple?”

  He held up Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d.

  “She doesn’t miss a trick, this lady. No offense, mistress, but she could give you a serious run for your money, and she’s just a cowan.”

  “Hate to break it to you, little guy,” I grumbled as I got up to put on the kettle for more tea. “But Miss Marple is fictional.”

  “Come again?” Oscar said, suddenly standing right behind me.

  “She’s not real, Oscar. She’s a fictional character.” The expression on his face was blank, as though what I was saying did not register. “She was invented by the book’s author, Agatha Christie. That’s what writers do.”

  “They lie? Agatha Christie lied?”

  “Well, it’s not a lie, exactly. It’s pretend. Make-believe.”

  He looked skeptical. “What about this French guy, then? Hercules somethin’-or-other? He was on the Orient Express train and figured out a real humdinger of a mystery. Boy, that was a tough one. We can hire him!”

  “Hercule Poirot? He’s like Miss Marple; he’s a made-up person. It’s all pretend.” I shredded dried peppermint leaves and crushed cloves and a few rose hips harvested from my garden, mixed them together, and put them into a metal tea bob.

  “You’re saying these are all a bunch of . . . falsehoods?” His jaw dropped. “Why would Agatha Christie do something like that?”

  “Because they’re stories, meant to entertain. Just like movies.”

  He gave me a skeptical side eye. “That can’t be true, mistress.”

  “And why is that?” I asked, amused at his refusal to accept the existence of narrative fiction.

  “Because the Maltese Falcon is real. I saw it myself, downtown at John’s Grill on Ellis Street.”

  “When were you at John’s Grill?”

  His muzzle clamped shut. In theory, a witch’s familiar doesn’t have its own, individual existence; it’s more an extension of its mistress’s. My familiar is different. Oscar had lived for centuries before I was ever born. At some point he had become indebted to Aidan, who gave him to me. Or perhaps Oscar still worked for Aidan. In any event, Oscar’s loyalty was not exclusively to me. From time to time he would disappear for a day, driving me insane with worry.

  For all I knew he regularly met with a bunch of other magical creatures at John’s Grill, where they groused about their current mistresses and masters over a two-martini lunch. As was so often the case with my familiar, I decided to let it go.

  “Sometimes authors use real settings,” I tried to explain. “But that doesn’t mean the stories are real, much less the people described in them.”

  “That Anna Karenina was a real person. And what about Abraham Lincoln! He was in that book about zombies you wouldn’t get for me.”

  “Yes, sometimes authors use real people in books, too.”

  “And then lie about them?” Oscar shook his head and tapped his taloned foot. “What a bunch of lowlifes.”

  When the kettle whistled I poured the steaming water into the old chipped teapot and enjoyed the fragrance wafting up. I pondered how to explain the difference between fiction and a lie, then wondered whether it was even worth a try. But before I could decide, Oscar continued.

  “I still don’t buy it. I mean, a lot of this stuff is way too crazy not to be real.”

  “You’ve got me there.”

  “Tell you what: I’m gonna see if I can get in touch with Sam Spade. He’s a local boy, from right here in San Francisco. If I track him down, will you hire him?”

  “Yes, Oscar,” I said with a little laugh while I carried the teapot to the living room. “I guarantee you, if you find Sam Spade, I will gladly let him track down killers and demons and whatnot. I will pay any fee he asks.”

  I saw a gleam enter Oscar’s bottle glass green eyes. Since my familiar has no need of money, I have never understood his greedy streak.

  “Any fee?”

  “Any reasonable fee. If you find Sam Spade, I’ll cover the expenses.”

  “And what about my finder’s fee?

  “You’re going to charge me, your mistress, a finder’s fee?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted money,” Oscar said self-righteously.

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Mashed taters and homemade mac and cheese and Tater Tots for dinner?”

  Oscar was perpetually hungry and resolutely fought my attempts to get him to eat much of anything other than fat, sugar, and carbs. Vegetables rarely entered that scaly muzzle. What really surprised me was that a creature as fearsome-looking as a gobgoyle wasn’t all that interested in red meat. Whenever I asked Oscar about his taste in food he would claim it was a goblin thing that I couldn’t possibly understand, and for all I knew, he was telling the truth. It’s not as though I had much experience cooking for goblins. In any case, I let that one go, too.

  I smiled. “Mashed potatoes and homemade mac and cheese and Tater Tots. It’s a deal.”

  “Pinkie swear?” He held out a scaly greenish gray oversized pinkie.

  I hooked my own around it and squeezed. “Pinkie swear.”

  • • •

  The next morning I opened my shop as usual and went down to the café. Conrad informed me that the men in the truck weren’t there today, though it would have been pretty obvious to me if I’d cared to look. Their big, gas-guzzling, mint green outfit stuck out in San Francisco like Gene in his suit.

  Coffee and assorted bagels purchased, I strolled back to Aunt Cora’s Closet, enjoying the early-morning sunshine and wondering about another player in the drama surrounding Griselda’s death: Johannes. Lloyd, the proprietor of the Morning House inn, seemed to think Johannes was her son. Did he know that, or had he just assumed? The
strapping young man’s interactions with Griselda hadn’t emitted a filial vibe to me, but what did I know about parent-child interactions? I was the original poster child for screwed up families.

  An image popped into my mind: Johannes running out of the Cow Palace, his white T-shirt wet and sticking to his skin, covered in ketchup. But what if it wasn’t ketchup?

  My thoughts were interrupted as I handed Conrad his breakfast. “Eat hearty,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied and saluted, then added, “Duuuude.”

  Bronwyn arrived just after I finished my coffee, so I turned the store over to her and walked to the Morning House. With any luck, I thought, Johannes will be there and willing to speak to me, and perhaps reveal something that will make all that has happened make sense.

  Unless . . . perhaps he had returned from the Gem Faire, found his room had been ransacked, and, assuming he had some inkling about who Griselda was and what she might have been hiding, caught the first Lufthansa flight back to Germany. Or the police had already picked him up for questioning. If so, what were the chances Carlos would inform me? Not good, I imagined.

  But Johannes was the only lead I could think of. His last known residence was the Morning House inn, and it was just a few blocks away. It couldn’t hurt to try, right?

  As I walked up to the front gate I noticed the hoops of rowan still adorned the fence. Lloyd had said he thought they were pretty, so presumably that was why he left them up. Unless he had lied to me, a total stranger, and was actually trying to ward off witches. One way to find out.

  The garden was lush and inviting yet overgrown in a zest-for-life kind of way. It beckoned. I climbed the broad wooden steps.

  The sign on the door said COME ON INN!

  I hesitated, then knocked on the tall, narrow double doors. While I waited, I studied the frosted glass pattern of the rising sun and tried to ignore the trepidation I felt when waiting to be admitted to a private home. As a child I had been rejected and shunned so often that I reflexively adopted a defensive stance. I’d been trying to fight it, but changing was harder than I’d anticipated.

  I knocked again, thought I heard someone call out “Just a minute!” and relaxed. As I waited, I began to ponder what Maya had said last night, that I needed to be less cynical. I was slow to trust—it’s true—and it was often hard for me to relax and enjoy the moment. When you’re surrounded by people who hate and revile you for being the way you were born, cynicism isn’t just smart, it’s necessary for survival.

  And speaking of reviled witches, maybe what I really needed to do was talk with my father. I couldn’t believe he had caused Griselda’s death, but I’d wager my cauldron he had played some role. If he was in town while something unscrupulous was afoot, more than likely he was part of it. I should call Carlos and ask him if there had been any progress on the case, and whether there was any way I could come down to the jail and speak with Declan Ivory.

  Lloyd opened the door, interrupting my thoughts. “Come in, come in! I got a late start this morning; sorry I kept you waiting. You’re welcome to walk on in anytime.”

  “Thank you. You remember me?”

  “Of course. Lily, wasn’t it? With the vintage-clothing store and the miniature potbellied pig. I’ve been meaning to drop by.”

  “That would be lovely. Anything specific you had in mind?”

  “No, no. Just to say hello to a neighbor. And to meet your pig. I must confess I’m curious.”

  “He’s a friendly fellow. I’m sure he’d love to meet you.” That was an understatement. In his own mind, Oscar was a celebrity. He received his supplicants with a kind of strutting porcine dignity that had only been enhanced when, a few months ago, his picture had run in the newspaper. Somehow he’d managed to acquire several copies of the Chronicle, and had hung up three pictures of himself: one in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one behind the store counter. I was still trying to figure out how he’d managed to get the photos professionally matted and framed.

  “Lloyd,” I said. “Might I ask you a few more questions? I assume the police have spoken with you about Griselda?”

  Flames of red entered his cheeks at the mention of the police.

  Two guests came down the carpeted stairs at that moment, cameras around their necks. I was impressed when he spoke to them briefly in Japanese before handing them brochures on Coit Tower, Ghirardelli Square, and Fisherman’s Wharf; calling them a cab; and inviting them to wait outside on the porch swing until it pulled up. He had barely set the receiver down when it rang again, and he took a reservation for later in the month.

  “You seem busy,” I commented unnecessarily.

  “Hardly ever a vacancy,” he said, and I sensed the pride in his answer. “We’re really catching on, and I love it. Must have been born to be an innkeeper. I just get a kick out of making people happy. And in a city like San Francisco, that’s easy. There’s so much to see and do.”

  So I was learning. My first few months here had been spent in a kind of fog as I got my business off the ground. Before I could relax and really take notice of my surroundings, I had become embroiled in supernatural murder investigations. Only recently had I found the time to get out and about, and had been delighted to find the city as charming and interesting as did the thousands of tourists who flocked here every year.

  My eyes alit on a bowl full of Mardi Gras beads, which reminded me of the Gem Faire and the reason for my visit.

  “Carnaval,” said Lloyd. He pronounced it the Brazilian way, car-nah-VAL.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The beads, they’re from the Carnaval parade. If you’ve never been, you should make a point to go next spring. Brazilians, costumes, and music. So much fun.”

  “I’ll be sure to go. People came to the shop looking for costumes—I sold a lot of boas that week.”

  “I’ll bet. But, anyway . . .” He cocked his head and fixed me with a curious look. “You’re here . . . why? I get the sense you’re not looking for a room, much less to chat about Carnaval.”

  “No,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I was wondering, did anything happen in the aftermath of the police visit? You heard about Griselda?”

  “Oh!” He clapped his hand over his mouth. “I really could not believe that. Hey, you didn’t know anything about any of that when you came here, did you? I had to tell the authorities you came by, and that we looked in the room.”

  “It’s no problem. I’ve spoken to them as well.”

  “Shocking, I must say. They went through her room, even fingerprinted the furniture. You know how hard that stuff is to clean up? Took me hours to put the room right.”

  “I can imagine.” I clucked sympathetically. “What about her son, Johannes? Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

  “Well, for one thing, he’s not her son.”

  “He’s not?”

  He looked at me curiously. “I thought you said you were family friends. How come you didn’t know that already?”

  “I’m as flummoxed as you, Lloyd,” I said truthfully.

  He shook his head but seemed more perplexed than upset. “They led me to believe they were mother and son. But apparently it was nothing of the sort. Still, she looked decades older than him. Could have been his mother easily.”

  “Indeed. Any idea where he is now? I’d like to talk with him.”

  “Said he was moving to the youth hostel over on Ellis. I already told the police.”

  The phone started ringing again.

  “Would you happen to have the address?”

  “I wrote it down somewhere. . . . Listen, why don’t you take a seat, let me attend to this call, and then I’ll find where I wrote down the forwarding information for him?”

  I wandered through a set of double doors off the foyer into the library, a pleasant, sunny room lined with shelves f
illed with handsome, leather-bound volumes. In one corner a ladder had been set upon a drop cloth, and someone had been painting a traditional border with stylized ginkgo leaves and lizards. It must be a huge job to bring a place like this back to life, but it was clearly a labor of love.

  At first glance I suspected the books had been chosen as part of the room’s design scheme. But as I skimmed the titles I realized the library housed an extensive collection focused on spirituality. There were also the collected writings of Sir Thomas More as well as Thomas Aquinas, and scholarly histories of the persecution of Jews throughout the ages. There was even a New Agey section on the healing properties of crystals. I took a peek at one.

  I snapped the book shut with a little poof of dust when Lloyd walked into the room.

  “Fascinating collection, isn’t it?” he said, nodding at the walls of books. “Found them boxed up in the attic when I inherited the place. Love books; couldn’t bear to throw ’em out, though I must say they make me a bit uneasy. Somebody in the past was big into spirituality and philosophy. Not surprising, though, since it used to be that spiritualism was as legitimate as any other type of scientific inquiry. I’m guessing dear old Grandpapa was the collector. On the other hand, he had quite an assortment of books about Egypt and the pyramids and the Solomon Islands. So perhaps he just had eclectic interests.”

  I smiled. “I love libraries. And you’re right: You almost feel like you know someone, in a way, when you look at what’s on their bookshelves. Right? What a precious thing to have handed to you through the generations—along with the house, of course.”

  “I’m a lucky guy.” Lloyd nodded. “Inherited the whole place, intact with everything from furniture to kitchen paraphernalia. Hey, I’m cleaning some things out of the attic. Do you deal with kitchen stuff at your store? I’d love to unload it somewhere fitting.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have room,” I said. “I’m sticking to clothes, unless I manage to open an annex somewhere.”

  “Not easy to run your own business, is it? I’m doing all the decorative painting myself, and it’s taking me forever. Here’s the address for the youth hostel. It’s not in a very good neighborhood, I’m sorry to say, so if you go be careful. Still not sure why I seem to know more about these folks than you, given they’re old family friends.”