Barbed Wire Heart

by Alexes Razevich

  Broadhurst half fell off the couch, put out an arm to stop himself from hitting the floor, and pulled to his feet. He moved around the room with herky-jerky motions. I’d heard that zombies move that way, but Broadhurst didn’t strike me as a zombie, more a marionette with a deranged puppet master pulling the string.

  “Show me, John,” I said. “Show me what you want me to know.”

  I saw the struggle in him, his free will battling the necromancer’s control.

  “Show me,” I said again. “Focus hard. You can do it.”

  Broadhurst was still working his jaw, trying to talk, but he was changing, too. Morphing into the same red heart with the crack down the middle he’d shown me before. Only this time, the crack widened, splitting down the middle, the sides falling away.

  The two halves fell to the floor. Petra stood in the middle between them. She wore a long, lose-fitting blue dress. Her hands were tucked into pockets at the side seams. She didn’t acknowledge Broadhurst or me. I wasn’t sure if she saw us, or knew we were there, or did and was ignoring us.

  Petra pulled her hands out of the pockets and stepped forward. For a moment she looked at the two half-hearts on the floor, her head tilted as if in thought. She nodded to herself, then bent and lifted each half up on their broken points so that the jagged sides touched. The halves shouldn’t have stood, but they balanced perfectly. She pulled a long strand of barbed wire from her left pocket and began wrapping it around the broken heart. Trying to mend it, I thought. There seemed to be no end to the wire in her pocket. She wrapped more and more around the halves, lashing them together as if to make them one again. All she did was make the heart prickly and impenetrable.

  Cold rain on my left hand startled me. I glanced up at the ceiling in Broadhurst’s condo, thinking maybe water was dripping down. The ceiling was painted chalk white and was as dry as old bones.

  Then my whole hand was wet.

  “What the hell,” I said, and found myself in my own parlor. Dee had plunged my hand into a bowl of cold water. I blinked, trying to orient myself back into the real world.

  “Crap,” I said. “It turns out talking to the dead just makes things more confusing.”

  19

  Dee handed me a towel for my wet hand.

  “And what do the dead tell you?” he said.

  I patted my hand dry as I tried to clear my foggy mind. My hand carried the scent of the ocean. I guessed Dee had conjured a bowl of seawater to bring me back and give me strength.

  “I’m not sure. I was back in John Broadhurst’s condo. He was trying to tell me something, but he couldn’t get the words out, as if his vocal cords were strangled somehow. Finally, he managed to say that the wizard made him do it.

  “Do what?”

  I hiked up one shoulder. “Hurt Mich? Hang around on this plane after death? Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Dee seemed to think about it a moment, but finding no answer, let the question go.

  “Did he say who the wizard was?”

  I set the towel in my lap. “That would have made things a lot easier, but no.”

  “Did you see anything else?”

  “Another big red heart—or maybe the same heart as before. This time it cracked open and fell into two halves. Petra was there, inside the heart at first, but then she stepped away and tried to mend it with barbed wire.”

  “Ouch,” Dee said.

  I tilted my head in agreement. “Superglue would have been a better choice.”

  He arched an eyebrow in that way he had when he thought my joke wasn’t funny.

  “What does the vision mean to you?” He took the towel and handed me my beer. The beer was still cold. Evidently, I hadn’t been gone very long, but long enough for Dee to worry and want to bring me back.

  I stood and paced around the parlor, trying to get hold of whatever the vision meant. Usually when I see or feel things, I have a pretty clear idea of what’s going on. But this vision, like other visions since I’d gotten caught up in these three cases—I hadn’t a clue what it meant.

  “The obvious?” I said. “Petra’s heart was broken when her aunt disappeared. She blames Broadhurst somehow, even though he was dead before the aunt disappeared. She wants to put things to rights.”

  But even as I said it, the words didn’t ring true.

  My pulse was beating hard against my temples. My head felt like a vice was slowly tightening around it.

  I stopped pacing and turned to Dee. “Those people your friend Jack said were candidates for being the wizard behind this, are any of them necromancers?”

  Dee’s mouth drew into a tight line for a moment before he spoke. “Necromancy is dark magic. If it’s one of the people Jack mentioned, that wizard isn’t letting on that they’ve crossed to the black arts. They wouldn’t, of course. The Magic Police would be on them in a hot second if they knew. Black magic isn’t tolerated.”

  I closed the curtains in the bay window to block out the late-day sunlight, then sat back down on the sofa with Dee and rubbed my temples with my palms.

  He pulled me over, so my head rested just below his shoulder.

  “Don’t think about it now,” he said, and turned me so he could massage the back of my neck. I felt the magic he was pushing into me with his fingertips—wellness, wholeness, confidence, strength. His hands moved to massage the bottom of my skull and then up over my scalp, his fingers working through the strands of my hair. The vice around my skull loosened and the pounding in my temples died down.

  I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes the deep shadows of night had crept across the room and Dee had gone.

  I made my way into the kitchen and put on the electric kettle for tea. Lemon ginger, I thought. Soothing. Healing.

  My drawing pad and pencils were still pushed to the back of the table. I sat down, turned to a fresh piece of paper, pulled the pencils to me, closed my eyes, and picked one.

  And dropped it back on the table as the knowledge hit me. I knew where Aunt Mich was—the Beach House hotel, just down the Strand from here, across from Good Stuff. She hadn’t been abducted at all. She’d hidden herself away. The rooms at The Beach House ran around $300 a night. Mich wasn’t stinting on herself either.

  The kettle clicked off when the water reached a boil. I took a mug down from the cupboard and brewed the tea. I put a dollop of honey in the mug and stirred.

  I supposed I should let Petra know what I’d divined, but something held me back. Some niggling worry at the back of my mind that I couldn’t put words to. Maybe it was nothing. In any event, I wanted to be absolutely sure I was right before getting Petra’s hopes up.

  It wasn’t a long walk to the Beach House. I slightly knew someone who worked there. If he was on duty, maybe he would tell me if Mich was a guest. If not, I’d worked with Danyon and Peet long enough to know how to ferret out that sort of information.

  I pulled on shoes and a sweatshirt, took down the wards, and stepped carefully out onto my porch—putting the wards back in place before I’d locked the front door.

  At the sound of a woman’s voice calling my name, I looked over my shoulder. Petra and a tall, well-built man were coming up in front of my house. Both were dressed casually and wore running shoes. Petra carried a purse, so probably they were heading to or from one of the many restaurants and bars over on Pier Plaza. Odd that they’d be this far down the Strand though. Most people wouldn’t park all the way over by Fourth Street if they were headed for the Plaza.

  “Oona,” she said again. “What a surprise. Is this where you live?”

  I finished locking the door before turning all the way toward her. I didn’t answer her question, just gave her a ‘surprised to see you here’ look.

  “Any news?” she asked striding right up on my porch as if she were a friend or a guest. The man came with her. It put my hackles up. The coincidence was too long.

  My home was my sanctuary and I rarely told people where I lived. Tyron and Juliana knew wher
e I lived because I’d listed it on the paperwork I’d filled out when I first consulted for them, but I’d be ticked if either of them showed up without an invitation. It rankled me that Petra felt she could step onto my porch as if she’d been asked in. More than rankled.

  “No,” I said. “Sorry. I’m still trying though. I’ll call you if I learn anything.”

  Petra had kept coming as I spoke, until she stood only inches in front of me. I felt her desperation to find Mich like a tight hand around my heart.

  She leaned close and said, “I very much need to use the toilet. Would you mind?”

  I did mind, but I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘no,’ either. One thing all women understand is the need to use the bathroom.

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly and turned to unlock the door. “Come in.”

  Petra smiled, and she and her companion came inside. A sheen of magic I hadn’t felt before now bombarded my senses. The scent of rosemary was in the air. And I knew.

  And Petra knew I knew. Maybe she saw it in my face, the sudden widening of my eyes as the truth dawned on me. Maybe her magic read it in me. Whatever the trigger, Petra’s smile stretched into a grin.

  “Thank you so much for inviting us in.”

  Bitch. She’d manipulated her way across my threshold.

  Well,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa next to her companion, “no point in pretense anymore, is there?”

  I stood only a step inside the parlor, staying close to the hallway. “Mich isn’t your aunt, is she?” I said.

  She laughed. “Hardly. If we were related, well, that would just be sick.”

  Such delicate sensibilities, I thought, for the person responsible for the carnage on John Broadhurst and Sudie. The magic coming off Petra was cold and dark. The man with her was giving me the willies, too. The scent of rosemary grew stronger.

  “Who is Mich, really?” I said. “What is she to you?”

  Petra gave an exaggerated shrug. “Who is Mich? A selfish bitch, that’s who. What’s the term that’s so popular today? Narcissist? That’s Mich. Doesn’t give a damn about anyone or anything that doesn’t shine a light on her lovely face.”

  I saw Mich then in all her Golden Goddess beauty, her long hair flying as she whirled in the arms of John Broadhurst at an outdoor dance. Mich and John, lips locked together, clutching at each other even as they rushed to tear off the others clothing. And in a corner, a small frog silently watching. A frog with Petra’s face.

  They say that when an attack is particularly vicious, it’s personal. Was Petra in love with John?

  That didn’t feel right.

  “Did you kill John Broadhurst?” I asked straight out.

  Petra laughed again. “No. Not me.”

  I thought of the thing that looked like a man but wasn’t that I’d had a vision of when I’d gone to Broadhurst’s condo with Dee, Juliana, and Tyron. And of the beast that looked like a man with an elk’s head and antlers that had come after Dee and me. Things were starting to click into place, and I didn’t like it one bit. Petra’s gentleman friend shifted his weight on the sofa as I turned my gaze toward him.

  “Your agent, then,” I said giving him a hard look.

  I turned to look again at Petra.

  She graced me with a Mona Lisa smile that I had the urge to smack right off her face.

  Petra’s smile drooped. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes filled up with water.

  “Have you ever loved someone so much it hurt?” she said. “Loved so much you would walk barefoot across broken glass to bring them a sip of cool water? Loved so deeply that you would slit your own wrist if they asked you to?”

  Her eyes pleaded with me to say yes, but that wasn’t love—that was obsession. Dark, dangerous, destructive obsession. It made my skin crawl to think about it.

  “Who do you love like that, Petra?”

  Do love, not did. There was no past tense for this sort of insanity. Even if the object of her desire died, the mania would go on. Even if she’d killed John Broadhurst. Even if she’d killed Sudie. None of it would matter. She would continue loving—the murders transforming in her mind into selfless acts of devotion.

  “Mich,” she whispered. Slow tears crawled down her cheeks. “You have to find her for me.”

  Oddly, I felt a sort of compassion for the unhappy woman sitting on my sofa. No one chooses to obsess like that. No one points to that brand of crazy and says, Give me that one, please. Madness like that shows up unbidden and consumes its host—a demon in its own right. It didn’t feel sexual, this fixation. Instead, this was fan-girldom taken to its most extreme.

  “Tell me about Mich,” I said, stalling while I tried to figure out how to get these two out of my house. “Where does she like to go? Does she have a favorite vacation spot or a place she’s said she’s always wanted to live? Does she have family close by? Which of her friends would take her in?”

  Petra sniffed and wiped her eyes. I could see she was thinking about my questions. I didn’t rush her. I wanted some quiet time to try to center myself and think about my next moves.

  Mich did need to be found—and warned—though the fact that she’d gone into hiding indicated she knew someone was after her. She probably knew it was Petra. If I were Mich, I’d get as far away from Petra as I could. A whole lot further away than The Beach House hotel. Another state would be good. Maybe another country.

  My stomach cramped as the knowledge hit me.

  Mich wasn’t afraid of Petra. She enjoyed Petra’s obsession with her. Reveled in it. She was hiding from Mich, but it was a game to her.

  I felt the sudden need for a cold shower to get the grime of these people’s emotions off me.

  The magic I’d felt around Petra was intensifying as she worked up answers for my questions. I saw it like a black aura around her, tiny, dirty gray sparks shooting off inside.

  There was magic in her companion, too. A very different magic from what Petra carried with her.

  A word I wasn’t familiar with rang in my head—marid—and then a harsh laughter.

  Marid. Marid. I’d heard that word, but dammit, I was a psychic not a wizard with years of training and a wide knowledge of things magical. I scrambled around in my memory trying to dredge up the meaning just as Petra started talking.

  “Mich likes the sun,” she said.

  At first it seemed like a non sequitur; my mind had been so many other places since I’d asked her to tell me about Mich, places she might be, and people she might stay with because I needed Petra to believe I had no idea where Mich might be.

  “And the ocean, but she likes the mountains, too,” Petra said. “We went out to Joshua Tree once and Mich loved it, so I guess the desert as well.”

  I smiled slightly and nodded to keep her talking.

  Marid, came the voice in my head again. Fear me.

  My stomach flipped and tightened. I remembered what a marid was—an evil member of the djinn family. The word marid meant rebellious, but they weren’t so much rebellious as just plain mean. Marid, like all djinn, were basically fire but they could take human or animal shape.

  I swallowed hard and made myself as calm as possible.

  Did you kill them? I psychically asked the marid.

  “I don’t know any of her friends,” Petra said. “Mich kept me away from her personal life.” She sobbed once, deeply. “That really hurt. Why wouldn’t she want her friends to know me?”

  Weepy and emotional was no good. I had to snap Petra out of it, so I could focus on the marid.

  “Your friendship is probably so special to her, Petra, that she didn’t want to share you,” I said.

  She looked up, her eyes wide. “Really. You think so?”

  I gave a little nod. “It makes sense.”

  Petra nodded as well, looking a bit like a bobble head doll on its last few bobbles.

  Did you kill them? I asked the marid again. John Broadhurst and Sudie Wakanabe?

  Perhaps, the marid replied.


  I took that for a yes. Why?

  My lady wizard wanted it, so I obliged.

  Had Petra really wanted those two dead or was that just the marid’s excuse?

  My lady wizard loves the Mich and wanted all rivals gone, the marid said. Foolish to love one who does not love you back, but my obligation is to aid her in her quest.

  “Yes,” Petra said, nodding to herself. “I am special to Mich. Not just some hanger-on mooning over her beauty. I am her true friend.”

  Would you like to know why they died? the marid asked. The real reason.

  All these voices, bits of psychic information, and overwhelming vibe of magic coming at me had given me a splitting headache. Of course I wanted to hear the reason. I massaged my temples as discretely as possible while Petra kept on talking about Mich and I told the marid, Yes. I’d like to know the real reason they died.

  The marid remained silent a long moment. Finally, he said, I can fix that head hurt for you.

  No. Thanks anyway. I wasn’t going to get in the marid’s debt for even the tiniest favor.

  The marid glanced at Petra. She likely wouldn’t let me help anyway.

  That got my attention. The hairs on my neck were on end again and I had that slithering feeling in my stomach that I get when some big block of psychic information was about to come through.

  You’re in her service, I said to the marid.

  For my sins, the marid answered.

  Petra was no lovelorn patsy—well, at least not only a lovelorn patsy—but a strong wizard in her own right. Stronger than Dee. Stronger than Dee and me together.

  But her name had meant nothing to him, and I was pretty sure he knew all the wizards in the area.

  Is Petra your master’s real name?

  No, the marid said.

  I skipped asking more about that now. There was an urgent question on my mind. Tell me the real reason Broadhurst and Sudie were murdered.

  Petra slammed her hand on the sofa cushion. “Oh, shut up, you lousy djinn!” she said crossly. She turned to me. “I’ll tell you why they had to die. For love.”

  My heart thumped, I reached out my senses and focused my inner eyes, worried that Petra was not only a wizard but psychic as well and was picking up my thoughts. She wasn’t though. She could only hear the marid’s part of our conversations. Her tie was to him alone.