A Vision in Velvet: A Witchcraft Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

  I was pretty sure no one would have filed a claim for this particular missing pet, but just in case I was wrong, I thanked Maya for thinking of it as I called for the dog to follow me. It trotted right past me, toenails clicking on the wood floor, through the drapes that hung over the access to the back room.

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked over his big black shoulder, as though asking permission. I nodded and he ran up the stairs.

  By the time I reached the second-floor landing, there was a man sitting on the top step outside my locked apartment door. Sleek black hair and sooty eyes, olive skin, very buff. Unsmiling. Wary.

  “I take it Aidan sent you?” I said.

  He nodded. I had met this man—and this dog—a couple of months after I first arrived in San Francisco, when I was investigating the disappearance of a child involving a terrible demon called La Llorona. The adult sister of a long-ago missing girl, Katherine, had a strange assistant and a big black dog. I had never seen the man and the dog in the same room, and there was something extraordinarily intelligent about the dog and unusually loyal about the man. I hadn’t been sure, but I’d suspected that the rather taciturn assistant might be a familiar when in his canine form.

  I remembered he wasn’t much of a talker.

  “Thank you, but I’m not in need of a familiar,” I began, my stomach clenching, as usual, at the thought of Oscar. “I already have one.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He spoke with an accent I couldn’t quite place—I was betting Eastern Europe.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Just following orders, ma’am.”

  “Please, call me Lily.” His “ma’ams” made me feel like we were in the army. “And it really is very nice of you to come here, but this is my place, and I don’t much cotton to Aidan ordering me around.”

  Still with the staring.

  I sighed. Clearly this wasn’t going to be easy. Like so many things with supernatural folks, there was protocol involved, a series of unspoken rules and methods that I almost always managed to bungle.

  From downstairs, I could hear Maya come into the back room. Might as well deal with this in the privacy of my apartment.

  I stepped around the man, unlocked my door, and went inside. He followed.

  “Your name’s Boye?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m Lily.”

  “I remember.”

  “How is Katherine?”

  “She is much improved. You were a great help to her, ma’am. I am very grateful.”

  I wished I could take more credit for having helped, but the fact is I sort of muddled my way through figuring out what had happened with La Llorona and the missing children. But if I had been instrumental in relieving Katherine’s mind, so much the better. And I remembered I had been able to tell her an important fact about her mother, so at least some good had come from it.

  As I crossed into the kitchen, another thing dawned on me. Katherine wasn’t a witch, which was one reason I’d doubted my assessment of the dog/assistant familiar when I met them. Unless . . . “How did you come to be with Katherine? Did Aidan send you to her?”

  Another slight inclination of his sleek dark head.

  Huh. Just when I was about to throttle Aidan, I found out something like this. He wasn’t such a monster, at least not all the time. He had done what he could to protect Katherine from La Llorona. Just as he had given me Oscar, to help and protect me in this surprisingly murderous City by the Bay.

  “Could I get you a drink?” I asked. “Or something to eat?”

  He didn’t answer, but I noticed his gaze wandered to the loaf of fresh-baked bread I had made the other night when I wasn’t able to sleep.

  “I was thinking I’d make some toast with jam—homemade preserves, homemade bread,” I said. “Maybe some peanut butter. It would be rude to refuse.”

  I headed into the kitchen and Boye trailed me obediently. I sliced a couple thick slabs of bread and put them into the toaster, then brought butter, preserves, and peanut butter out of a refrigerator stuffed with supplies for spells: Louisiana swamp water, fresh gizzards, fresh herbs and resins. Back in the pre-Oscar days, my fridge had been surprisingly free of edibles, given over instead to casting ingredients. But ever since that little porker had come into my life, I kept it chock-full of food as well.

  Sadness wafted over me again. It really was funny: After struggling against having a familiar at all, and certainly wary of the attachment to Aidan that Oscar’s presence implied, I would never have guessed I would yearn for him so. But that was the way with life: You rarely knew what you were missing until it stumbled into your realm . . . and then back out again.

  Boye waited, shifting silently from one foot to another, until I told him to take a seat at the kitchen table. I brought down two floral-painted china plates that I had picked up at a garage sale and set them on the counter. When the toast popped up, I buttered the thick slices, put one on his plate and the other on mine, and joined him at the table. He placed a huge gob of peanut butter and apricot preserves on his toast and downed the whole thing in about two bites.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit. I have appalling table manners, I know.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “You’re fine. Don’t worry about it. Would you like another piece?”

  “Truth? I’d love one. I’ll put it in, though, ma’am. You relax.”

  “Nonsense. You’re my guest.” He continued to rise. “Sit.”

  He sat.

  “So . . . how does it work?” I asked as I sliced another two hunks off the loaf and put them in the toaster. “Are you a human who shifts to a dog, or the other way around . . . or not actually human at all?”

  He stared at me a long moment, blinking.

  “Didn’t Aidan tell you I’m a witch? It’s not like you have to keep any of this sort of thing secret around me.”

  “I’m both.”

  “But your natural form . . . ?”

  “As you see.”

  “Man, then.”

  More staring. I had the distinct impression I wasn’t going to get much more out of him. Either he was a different creature entirely from Oscar, who had his given form but morphed into a potbellied pig; or perhaps he was so old and had been living his double life for so long he truly had forgotten. Or maybe he just wasn’t willing to tell me. I was used to that last, at least. Oscar treated me as though I was on a need-to-know basis, and in his estimation I generally did not need to know.

  So maybe playing one’s cards close to one’s chest was just a familiar thing.

  “So Aidan told you to watch over me?” I asked as I slid the plate with buttered toast on the table in front of him.

  He nodded, added more peanut butter and preserves, and dug into the fragrant slabs.

  “I appreciate that,” I said, “and you’re welcome to stay here for a bit if you have to make it look good for Aidan, but I’ll be getting my old familiar back soon, and he’s the jealous type, so it will have to be temporary.”

  Boye stared at me again, crumbs decorating his otherwise handsome mouth and a dab of apricot preserves glistening on his chin. “Aidan says I’m your familiar.”

  “I already have a familiar.”

  His dark eyes shifted as he looked around the apartment.

  “He’s not here exactly at this very moment,” I said. “But he’s my familiar and I don’t need another.”

  “Are you saying you’re sending me back?” Boye said this with the same trepidation I remembered from Oscar back when he first arrived and I told him I didn’t want him.

  “I’ll fix it with Aidan. Don’t worry. I told him I didn’t need a new familiar. I just wanted help finding my old one. He ignored me, of course, because that’s what he does. A glass of milk?”

  He nodded.

  “Do y
ou know Oscar?” I asked as I retrieved the milk from the refrigerator. It was raw milk I kept on hand for spells, but it was fresh.

  He shook his head.

  “Could you help me find him?”

  “If Aidan sent me to you, your other familiar must be lost. For good.”

  I slammed the glass of milk down on the table in front of him so hard a dollop of white liquid jumped out and splashed on the table. Boye reared back.

  “Sorry,” I said as I handed him a dish towel. “But don’t say that. Oscar is not lost for good. I will get him back if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You really don’t have to call me ma’am.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Could I ask you something? Do you know anything about . . . ? Well, would Aidan keep something on Oscar, maybe you, too, to keep you beholden to him?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “Well, I mean, why do you do what Aidan tells you to do?”

  “He’s the boss.”

  “Why? I mean, what makes him the boss?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  I supposed Boye followed the pack leader, loyal and doglike. Aidan was the alpha, end of story. I decided to try another tack.

  “Do you know where Aidan lives?”

  “His office is at the Ferry Building. You can find him there most days, unless he’s unable to see clients.”

  “Yes, I realize that. But I was wondering where he actually lives.”

  “Ma’am?”

  I clamped down on my impatience. “Do you know where he might keep something? It would be all right to tell me,” I said, feeling like a heel. But I couldn’t think of any other way. “Does he have a warehouse space, something like that?”

  Boye just stared at me. He might be obedient, but he was no fool. And Aidan was his master.

  I went into the bedroom to use the phone to call the hospital again and check on Conrad. By the time I came back out, Boye was asleep on the couch.

  He was still in man form. I studied him for a moment, thinking how it was funny that such a well-built, handsome man could hold absolutely no attraction for me. I wasn’t sure whether it was because I was so enamored of Sailor, or whether it was because Boye was not a regular human man, or what, but it was intriguing. Asleep like this, dark eyelashes against his olive skin, muscled arms crossed over his chest . . . he was adorable. Very much like a dog.

  Back downstairs in Aunt Cora’s Closet, I found my employees closing up for the night. Maya was adding up receipts, and Bronwyn was carefully storing her herbs in their jars and sealed bags for freshness.

  “The shelter hasn’t had anyone call in, but I left them the information and our number in case anyone comes looking,” said Maya.

  “Oh good, thanks.” I looked over Maya’s tally of the day’s receipts; the numbers were abysmal. Missing Pig Central had not been good for sales. The store was jammed with people all day, but with a few exceptions, they weren’t buying clothes.

  Done attending to her herbal stand, Bronwyn started straightening the racks. “Where’s the puppy?” she asked.

  Maya snorted. “Some puppy. That dog has a few pounds on me, I think.”

  “I fed him a snack,” I said. “And he lay down for a nap. I think I’ll let him rest.”

  “My mother always said if he stays the night, he’s yours,” said Maya. “You might just have found yourself a dog. Hope he likes pigs.”

  “You’re not allergic to dogs?” asked Bronwyn.

  “A little, maybe,” I said. “Not like cats.”

  “Poor little sweetie,” said Bronwyn with a sigh. “I wonder how long he’s wandered out in the streets, lost and confused, not knowing where his people are. Doesn’t it just break your heart?”

  “He looked well fed and healthy,” pointed out Maya. “He probably hasn’t been lost all that long. And if he was so well taken care of, he probably has a loving family out looking for him. I guess I should make up some flyers tomorrow.”

  “Well, we know the drill by now,” said Bronwyn. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? We’re looking for a pig, but we find a dog. Perhaps someone out there has our pig, and we can just make the switch.”

  We finished up, and I ushered my friends out with hugs. The bell rang out with its sweet tinkle. I double locked the door, cast a protection spell, and switched the sign to CLOSED.

  Back in my apartment, I stood over the dozing man on my couch.

  “Here’s what I don’t get,” I said aloud. “If familiars have the ability to transform into people, how come Oscar chose to be a miniature potbellied pig?”

  “Ma’am?” said a sleepy Boye.

  “Nothing. Sorry.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”

  I went in the bedroom, stripped, and got in the shower.

  “Why is there a man asleep on your couch?” Sailor demanded when I came out ten minutes later, wrapped only in a towel.

  Chapter 19

  “I wouldn’t say he’s a man . . .” I replied.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, sometimes he’s a dog.”

  A careful look entered Sailor’s dark eyes. “You mean, in the sense that all men are dogs sometimes?”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “Sorry—I should back up. Boye is a, um, well . . . Aidan sent him.”

  “I’ll just bet he did. What, is he supposed to replace me?”

  “No, he’s supposed to replace Oscar. He’s a familiar. He’s a dog, much of the time.”

  Ah.” Realization had dawned in Sailor’s dark eyes. “That explains why I picked up on dreams of Milk-Bones. He’s pretty good-looking. For a dog.”

  “You’re missing the point. Apparently, Aidan doesn’t th-think we’ll get Oscar b-back.” I ended with a hiccup.

  Sailor wrapped me in a hug.

  “Aidan doesn’t know everything, despite what he thinks. We’ll figure this thing out, one way or another. You and I are good together, power-wise, and unless I miss my guess, Oscar will move heaven and earth to get back to you. With the three of us working together, we’ll sort this out.”

  “Did you see Lance? Was his arm hurt?”

  Sailor shook his head. “He didn’t show for work today. I checked out his apartment, but he wasn’t there, either. I did, however, find quite a library of books on the witchcraft trials in Europe and the Americas. Massachusetts, especially. And there was this.”

  He handed me a drawing of a box with symbols on it. The one Carlos had found under the tree, the one Will had shown me, drawn by a minister in Dathorne.

  “Mean anything to you?”

  “It was the box that the Ashen Witch put Deliverance Corydon’s ashes into.”

  “Let’s back up a minute. Ashen Witch and Deliverance Corydon?”

  I realized I hadn’t kept Sailor informed of everything I knew. I gave him the rundown, as best I could figure out.

  “It sounds to me like you need to take another trip in that magic cape. The problem is, with Oscar missing . . .”

  I nodded. “That’s the problem. I don’t know how to control it. With Oscar by my side, I felt I could handle it. But without him . . . I’m not sure what will happen when I put the cloak on. What if I can’t control it, or . . . can’t get back?”

  Sailor nodded, and our eyes met for a long moment.

  “Okay, let’s try a different tack,” he said. “Renna tells me she knew Sebastian well. It’s very possible he was killed just for being a jerk.”

  “I could easily believe that, except for the fact that someone deliberately brought him to the tree, or he brought them there—in any case, he died there. This was no random fit of rage. Also, there’s something creepy going on with the tree, as you know. And
then the attack on me at the Academy of Sciences last night . . .”

  “Is there . . . I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Boye, “but is there anything to eat?”

  In this, at least, he reminded me of Oscar. I fixed him a sandwich and offered Sailor one as well.

  He shook his head. “No, thanks. I’d rather go talk to Herve Le Mansec.”

  “Herve? My Herve?”

  Sailor gave me a crooked smile. “How many Herves do you know? Renna says Sebastian came to her looking for a cure for a love curse on behalf of a mysterious client he wouldn’t name—Bart Woolsey, no doubt. She refused to deal with him, but she told him he should try Herve.”

  “Okay, that’s a great idea. I’m supposed to pick up some supplies from him, anyway. Let’s go.”

  Having inhaled his sandwich, Boye stood to go with us.

  “Boye, you stay here.”

  “I’d like to remain by your side, ma’am.”

  “Sailor will be with me.”

  “Even so.”

  “No. I’m sorry. You’ll have to stay.”

  He continued to stare at me.

  “Sit. And stay.”

  He sat on the couch and stayed.

  Sailor was looking down at me, amusement in his face. I refused to meet his eyes.

  As I drove across town, we talked it through.

  “Bart asked me to try to cure him of the curse,” I said. “But Herve’s probably a better bet. If he hasn’t met with him already, I should probably send him to talk with him.”

  “Why are you worrying about some old man’s supposed curse? He paying you?”

  “He’s a sad old man. Besides, I can’t help but think this might have something to do with the fix we’re in—according to what I can figure out, Bart’s ancestor was cursed by the witch he had sentenced to death. And that cape brings me back to that exact death scene. And anyway . . . Can you imagine having to go through life believing you have no possibility of finding true love?”

  I was looking ahead, tending to my driving, but I could feel Sailor’s gaze on me. “Yes. I can imagine that. Okay, I’m in. Let’s fix this. What do we do?”

  Amused at his sudden “get this done” attitude, I gave him a smile. “It’s not like there’s a step-by-step process laid out in a handbook somewhere. At least, I don’t think there is.”