He looked around nervously. “I’m looking for Hotlove692?”
“Stud Muffin!” Gran crowed. “Let me get my shoes on.”
As she tied on her orthopedic New Balances, Nick flashed his badge and interrogated her guest. “Mister…Stud Muffin, is it? Is that your legal name? On your I.D.?” Nick held out his hand. When the guy went to shake it, Nick frowned at him and said: “Driver’s license, please.”
The old guy searched through his pockets, pulling out candies, Kleenex and loose change, until he found his money clip and handed Nick his license.
Nick held it up and squinted at it. “Thank you…Walter. When you bring my grandmother back, you’ll have your license returned to you. But she’s got to be in the same condition she left in. No dents, dings, bumps, bruises or scratches. Consider it my rental policy.”
“But what if I get stopped by the police?” the man asked.
Nick pocketed the license. “Tell them Sergeant Andrakis from the North Hollywood station is holding your license temporarily.”
Gran pushed past Nick to meet her suitor. “Don’t wait up!” she told us. “You look even sexier than your photo,” we heard her say as they walked away.
As Nick closed the door behind the couple, I could feel my mouth hanging open. “North Hollywood Sergeant? Since when?”
“Last week.” Nick looked at me and winked. “So you’d better behave, missy. I’ll be watching you.”
I rolled my eyes. Just because Nick and I had dated back in the stone age, when we were too young and hormonal to know any better, he seemed to think that gave him a say in my life from that moment forward.
AS GUS and I waited outside the store, Nick pulled up in his police cruiser, and a second car pulled up behind him.
When he got out, I felt my heart skip a beat. Nick was always cute, but now he was totally buff and grown-up handsome. He didn’t look like a kid anymore. He looked like a full-grown, Greek man, and when he turned and smiled at me, with his dimples on full display, I could feel my heart flutter.
“Hey, Mara, good to see you.” Nick said, hugging me. “How many buns you got in that oven? A baker’s dozen?”
“Bite me,” I said, shoving him away. So much for the heart flutter. It was distinctly feeling more like heartburn.
He laughed and turned to Gus, giving him a curt nod. “Devil boy.”
“Good to see you too, jackass,” Gus said. “You’re just jealous that I got all the magick.”
“Hey, I got everything I needed,” Nick said.
And he had. The only ability Nick had inherited was finding things, but that worked perfectly with his job. He found objects, criminals, missing persons.
“So, someone finally knocked you up,” Nick grinned at me, then he eyeballed Gus. “I know who the father isn’t, I’m sure.”
Gus rolled his eyes. A woman got out of the second car, with a camera hanging on her neck.
“Who’s she?” I asked.
“Julie? She’s my crime scene photographer. Just in case.”
The way she was looking at Nick though, made me think that wasn’t all she was. Or if it was, it wouldn’t be for long.
Julie handed Nick a box of latex gloves, and he passed them out. “Glove up and walk us through.”
Gus touched the front gate, between the store and the cottage. “This was hanging open when we got here. I closed it, but the latch is pretty flimsy and the padlock is broken.”
Julie snapped a few photos.
“So, as usual, you’ve already got your fingerprints all over everything, making my job harder,” Nick said.
Gus flipped him the bird. Nick laughed.
“We have a lot to show you,” I said.
“What do you want to see first? Cottage or store?” Gus asked.
“Your choice.”
“Let’s start with the store. We may lose Mara when we get to the cottage.”
I ESCORTED everyone through the store. Nick looked around at all the witchy artifacts, (skulls—including Aunt Tillie’s—cauldrons, priapic wands, athames, naked statues), along with the cobwebs and thick layer of dust on the shelves, with a judgmental look on his face. Which got worse when took him through the stinkified ritual room.
“What the fuck?” Nick yelped. Apparently, Nick was more used to the witchiness, than he was the cobwebs, rotting food and dust bunnies.
“There was rotting meat on the altar,” I said, pulling the top of my shirt over my nose, to block out the smell.
“Jesus,” Nick ran a gloved finger across the altar, and looked at it, in disgust. “Get a Swiffer and some lemon Pledge. And a trash bag. How are people supposed to shop in this place, much less do ritual? Haven’t you two ever heard of cleaning up?”
“Give me a break, we just got here,” Gus said, but he took the bag with the meat out of the trash can and tied it off.
WHEN WE WENT OUTSIDE, Julie took photos of all the broken glass and rotting food, and then Gus went through with a trash bag, cleaning up.
Nick sat down next to me on one of the sofas, while Julie finished taking pictures. “So, you don’t know if Mama Lua is a lousy housekeeper, or if some kids broke in and decided to party back here, after she left?” Nick asked.
“Right,” I said.
“Could be either,” Gus said, bending over to sweep broken glass into a dust pan.
“Have you tried getting hold of Mama Lua?” Nick asked.
“We called, we texted, but there’s been no response,” Gus said, tossing the broken glass into a trash bin.
“Did you text photos? Or just your typical, ‘love you, call me, mean it’ word-text?” Nick asked.
“Photos are a really good idea,” I said.
Gus shrugged. He took a picture of the back area and texted it to Mama Lua, along with the picture I took of the bloody kitchen wall.
Still no response.
“Okay, well, at minimum, it looks like you need a better lock on the gate. I have a padlock in my gym bag that you can borrow.”
“Oh, this isn’t everything,” I said. “There’s more.”
WE LED Nick and Julie to Mama Lua’s cottage. When Gus opened the back door, Nick stopped us from going in. He gave us all little paper booties to put over our shoes, and Julie went crazy snapping photos.
“So, you do think this is a crime scene?” I asked, as Gus, (after minimal grumbling), bent down to put the booties on my Crocs—they were the only shoes I could still fit into, mainly because I could just slip them on, and they had been oversized to begin with. I couldn’t even see my feet at this point, so things like shoelaces and paper booties were beyond my reach.
“I don’t know yet,” Nick said, examining the door. “The door lock seems intact. But I know my little brother. If there’s a way for him to obliterate evidence, he’ll find it. Better safe than sorry.”
The smell in the kitchen was still making me gag. While they walked in, I backed up as far as I could, until I was standing on the grass outside. The last thing my stomach was going to be able to handle was going back into that kitchen, with the blood and rotting garbage.
“Just because you’re a witch, there’s no excuse to live like this,” Nick said, looking with distaste at the mess. “This place reeks.”
“What do you think of those sigils on the wall? Is it blood or paint?” Gus asked.
Nick took out a vial, scraped some of the red stuff into the tube, and capped it. “I’ll let you know. How crazy is this Mama Lua woman?”
“Like a fox,” I said from the doorway. “I never thought of her as crazy before. Scary, definitely. Off-her-rocker hoarder? Not so much.”
Gus nodded. “I’ve never been in her house before, but the store and ritual space always seemed…well, maybe a bit cluttered, definitely dusty, but nothing like this.”
“You two have been gone for awhile. A lot can change in a person’s life,” Nick said. “It’s easy to get overwhelmed and then shut down. Let’s walk through the rest.”
They w
ent off to explore the cottage, while Julie followed them, snapping more photos. Fifteen minutes later, I could hear Gus and Nick heading back.
“How can you not tell?” Gus asked, as they re-entered the kitchen.
“It could go either way. There’s no evidence of any locks or windows being broken into.”
“Maybe she was vandalized by someone with a key,” Gus said.
“Or she could be a hoarder who’s desperately in need of therapy. Witches,” Nick said, rolling his eyes. “They collect everything. Everything has a use, everything has meaning. Roadkill, random bones, dust, whatever. It’s disgusting.”
“Hey!” Gus said. “Don’t forget, we come from a family of witches.”
“I rest my case.”
“Does mom know you talk that way? You keep that level of disrespect up, Mom and Gran are going to kick your ass.”
“I didn’t say all witches have this problem. Just…enough of them to piss me off.”
Julie wandered back into the kitchen, taking more photos. The baby shifted, as the cat shadow ran past me again and vanished over by the refrigerator.
“Did you see that?” I asked Gus. “That cat fetch just ran past me again.”
“Where?” Gus asked, looking around.
“It ran into that thin space next to the refrigerator,” I said.
Nick walked over to the fridge. “The smell’s stronger over here.” He opened the refrigerator door and looked inside. “Expired milk, moldy cheese, moldy lunch meat.”
“She was expecting us here sooner,” Gus explained. “Maybe that’s why the food’s gone bad.”
“Not that much sooner,” I muttered. “It’s not like we can teleport here.”
“Someone’s unplugged the fridge, without emptying it,” Nick said, taking melted ice cream out of the freezer. “Help me slide it out. Let’s see what’s back there.”
Gus nodded, and the two of them slid out the refrigerator.
Gus yelped. “Great Mother of Dragons.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “What did I tell you?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’re not going to want to know, Mara,” Nick said. “It’s pretty disturbing.”
“She’s a big girl, she can handle it.” Gus grabbed something in his gloved hands, and then held it out for me to see. It had black and white fur, was completely flat and utterly stiff. “It’s a flattened cat. An actual, flattened cat.”
Julie snapped a photo. I felt alternating waves of hot and cold run through my body, and the ground seemed very, very far away. And then, very, very close.
CHAPTER 6
The next thing I knew, I was in Nick’s arms, and he was carrying me to the sofas behind the store, with Gus following close behind.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You passed out,” Gus said. “Nick ran and actually managed to catch you—good thing, too, you don’t want to land on any of those piles of poop in the yard.”
“Gus, we can’t stay here. We just can’t.”
“Hold up,” Nick said. “You and Gus are supposed to stay here?”
“I told you that on the phone, idiot. We’re running the store for her, while she’s in New Orleans, taking care of family stuff. Where else are we gonna stay?” Gus snapped.
“What do you think happened to the cat?” I asked.
“Could have been an accident,” Nick said. “Maybe the guys delivering the refrigerator didn’t see the cat.”
“It could have been on purpose,” Gus said. “The cat could be a house ward. Like the way they used to wall up women inside church walls. I wonder what we’d find if we tore down the walls…?”
“That’s not why they used to wall up women, you moron,” Nick said.
“No, they walled them up because they were annoying, like a certain brother I could mention.”
“Shut it,” I said, glaring at them. “They probably volunteered to be walled up so they would never have to deal with you men again.” I was so nauseous, I could feel my face turning green.
“I think it actually had more to do with religious devotion,” Nick said.
“The cat may have even been here from before Mama Lua moved in,” Gus said. “Especially if the refrigerator was already here.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. Refrigerators and stoves were usually provided by tenants in Los Angeles.
“I’ll text her and ask.” Which he did. But there was still no response.
“Where’s Julie?” I asked.
“She was done here. She went back to the station, to catalogue the pictures.”
“What did you do with the cat?” I asked.
Gus and Nick looked at each other.
“We took care of it, don’t you worry your pretty head none,” Nick said.
Gus looked at me, then at Nick. “Obviously, we can’t stay here, with it being like this. Are we allowed to clean it up? Or would that be tampering with a crime scene?”
Nick looked at me, then at Gus. “Until we hear from the owner, it’s hard to tell. Julie’s taken pictures of everything, I’ll have someone come by and dust for prints, just in case. Let us finish what we need to do and tomorrow, you can start cleaning up. If you need to remove anything that’s not broken, store it in her garage. Let her make the decision to trash it. Unless it’s perishable or a health hazard. Then, it has to go.”
“But what are we supposed to do tonight?!” I wailed. I could feel my eyes tear up. I knew this trip was going to be a bad idea.
“What about your place?” Gus asked Nick.
Nick laughed. “I live in a studio. There’s barely enough room for me. Call mom. She’ll let you stay with her.”
“How do you not know that Mom and Gran are in England while the house gets tented?” Gus asked.
“Aw, crap. That must be why she’s been wanting to talk to me,” Nick said.
“You live in the same city. Don’t you ever visit them?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “I’m a cop, remember? I’m busy. Don’t you have friends you can stay with?”
“Yeah, and she’s standing right there,” Gus said, pointing at me. “Too bad our cottage is two thousand miles away.”
“You used to live here. You must have some local friends.”
Tears started spilling over. I tried to stop crying, but it was like my face was leaking. I kept wiping them away, hoping they wouldn’t notice.
“Gus has a tendency to make more enemies than friends. I’m not sure why,” I said, sniffling.
“My inner brilliance blinds them, so they have to run in shame and hide in the darkness with the rest of the rats,” Gus said.
Nick rolled his eyes. “And you wonder why no one wants you around?”
I sniffled again. “Maybe we can stay behind the store. There’s sofas and a kitchen.”
“And a bathroom,” Gus said. “I can run to the 99-cent store and get a couple of blankets.”
“Gus, do you know how to extend the store wards to cover the back area? I don’t know why it’s not warded better back there.”
“Public rituals are back there,” Gus said. “The wards have to be lighter or everyone would get a migraine. I’m sure the store wards were extra heavy because no one was here to watch the place. But sure, I can tighten them up in the back.”
“Are you two kidding me right now? You’re actually going to let Mara stay somewhere that’s been vandalized, may still have shards of broken glass laying around and isn’t secure? What kind of man are you?”
“Keep your shoes nearby, you don’t want to step on glass on your way to the bathroom,” Gus said to me.
Nick sighed. “Fuck it. You two can stay with me. Just don’t make me regret it.”
BEFORE WE LEFT Mama Lua’s, Nick had a buddy of his come over and dust the place for prints. Gus and I had to be fingerprinted as well, so our prints could be ruled out.
We ordered pizza and ate in the outdoor kitchen behind the store, while Nick’s team finished up their job in t
he cottage.
“You can clean this mess, as soon as my team is gone. We’re going to keep all the evidence on file. When she returns, if she wants to file a police report, we’ll already have done our due diligence. If it turns out that this is the way she lives, we’ll scrap the file, you can deal with the tantrum she’s going to throw over her trash having been tossed.”
Gus nodded and I shuddered. If Mama Lua was going to throw a tantrum, I didn’t want to be here for it. Who knew what entities she could call up when provoked.
FINALLY, Nick’s crime scene investigation team was done with their work. Gus and I grabbed our suitcases from the rental and locked up. Since Nick’s block was permit parking only, we were going in his car.
Much to her annoyance, we decided to leave Aunt Tillie in the store.
“Do you have any idea how boring this is?” she screeched at me.
“What are you talking about? You’re dead. Go visit the Otherworld. Go haunt Gus while he sleeps. He’ll enjoy that.”
“Forget it,” she sulked. “Just wait until you want a favor from me. Then you’ll regret leaving me here.”
AS THE THREE of us were walking out, I noticed a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk, eyeballing the broken lock on the gate between the store and Mama Lua’s cottage. We quickly changed it out for Nick’s padlock.
“Sorry, dude.” Gus said, giving the homeless guy a ten dollar bill. “No more free motel.”
“Whatever.” The guy shrugged and took the money. “Thanks, man.”
“There’s a homeless shelter on Lankershim,” Nick told him. “I can give you a lift.”
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, Officer,” the homeless guy said, as he got up and ambled away.
NICK WASN’T KIDDING when he said his place was small. It had one large main room with a small kitchen in the back, and what amounted to an elongated walk-in closet to one side, that you had to walk through to get to the bathroom. And that was it.
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