“Nice,” she congratulated herself. “Next up, organic materials cleaning as originally planned.”
She turned to her leathers, shaking her head as a stray thought popped into her mind.
A thought she really should have had sooner. She sat staring at the back wall, jaw agape.
It was weird. These spells worked. It was real magic, not merely a gimmick. The people who put this book together must have been aware of that, which made it seem strange that they’d put it on the Internet for the general public to—
A thunderclap went off in her brain.
“Holy fucking shit.” She ran to her tablet, nearly crashing into the wall by her bed as she snatched it up and opened the ebook reader.
The publisher was listed as Thaumaturgy Publishing, LLC.
“Okay,” she remarked. “That makes a certain amount of sense, though it doesn’t tell me much.”
The book had no credited authors to speak of either, just two pairs of initials: JL and MLB. That was all.
Brow furrowing in determination, Kera looked up HideMyAss, her favorite VPN, and used it to conduct an anonymous search on the mysterious and redundantly-named Thaumaturgy Publishing.
As far as the Internet was concerned, the company did not exist. The sole evidence that any such limited-liability corporation did exist was the book and the places where it was listed for sale. They had formed for the sole purpose of releasing their grimoire, then faded back into the mists of time.
Kera let her head drop into her hands.
“I don’t get it,” she mumbled. “Why would a publishing company not want to be found? And if they don’t want the usual degree of attention, what does that say about me being found by them? Or by God-knows-who?”
Clamping down on the rising tide of dread and anxiety, Kera looked at her widely dispersed possessions, particularly the stuff associated with her strange new hobby. Someone had published this grimoire—someone who didn’t want to be found. Someone who knew the spells worked.
She wasn’t sure if they wanted to find her, but she needed to consider that, as well as the possibility that they weren’t friendly.
First up: plausible deniability.
“I need a lockbox,” she concluded. “Or at least a regular box. I know I have one of those.”
She spent the next hour cleaning, reorganizing, and gathering every last one of her numerous notes and accouterments, then piling them into a large plastic tub with a sealable lid. It wasn’t much but far better than nothing, and she might be able to magically guard it against prying eyes.
She was just deciding whether to go out and find a metal lockbox when there was a knock on the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
What the heck?” Kera muttered. She tiptoed over to the door, where she could see the top of a short man’s silver-haired head, which looked familiar. She undid the lock and pulled on the knob to open the door.
“Mr. Kim,” said Kera. “I wasn’t expecting you. Is…everything okay?”
The old man’s face was tight and drawn with concern, and there was a deep sadness in his red-rimmed eyes. The entire vibe surrounding him was negative. Asking if he needed help felt like the natural thing to do.
“I...” Kim began, “I do not know yet if you can, but I would like to ask anyway.”
Furrowing her brow, Kera opened the door farther and motioned for him to come in. He nodded his thanks and shuffled over the threshold but remained standing near the edge of her living area. He didn’t seem to know how to start speaking.
“What’s the matter?” Kera prompted gently.
The elderly grocer winced at a sudden inner pain, and he had to breathe in and out twice before he could finally speak.
“My wife, Mrs. Kim, is very sick. The doctors cannot do anything for her until four months from now.”
Kera nodded. “What does she have?” Her hopes sank as soon as the words left her mouth; if it was something that required her to wait a third of a year for treatment, it couldn’t be anything good.
Kim’s frown deepened. “Cancer.”
Oh, no, the girl thought, trying not to let her fear and anguish show on her face. She wanted the old man to know she cared, but breaking down in tears, as much as she suddenly wanted to, would not help. She could feel the exhaustion of the past day and night dragging at her.
Kim went on, “I have no idea if your reiki treatment might help, but I must ask.”
She wasn’t surprised. “It is worth a try.”
“It helped my hands.” He looked down at them, and his face spasmed again. “I just don’t know if it would be any good for...something like that.”
The warning from the book flashed in Kera’s mind. DO NOT TRY TO CURE CANCER! The authors had been extremely clear.
But she had already made her decision. She had made it the moment she’d asked what was wrong with Mrs. Kim. She remembered the day she had come in to find Mr. Kim so worried. Probably, that had been the day of the tests, and he had been trying to put the matter out of his mind since then.
Little did either of them know that she had been studying the very thing that could help.
Kera cleared her throat. “How long does she have?”
“Probably?” Mr. Kim sighed. “Less than four months. Not much longer than that. I think they’re delaying. They said it’s advanced, and that the treatment centers are backed up, and the specialists are booked—” He broke off, swallowing, and finished softly, “The earliest they can promise us is July.”
It was currently the beginning of March.
Kera closed her eyes for a second before she responded. “Mr. Kim, to be honest, I don’t know if I can do anything, but the one thing I will say for sure is that I will try. I will do everything I can to help your wife.”
The elderly businessman gave a slow, deep nod, but he did not speak. Oddly enough, he seemed to have gotten his emotions under better control than when he’d first come to speak to her. Though still concerned and melancholy, there was stoic acceptance in his demeanor.
Kera moved over and patted him on the shoulder. “Okay? Let’s go.”
It was Wednesday around lunchtime—1:06 pm, to be exact. Pauline was unavailable since she and Lia had other engagements, but she’d given Sven and Johnny the keys and necessary information to let themselves into their rented office.
They arrived in Sven’s car this time but had a nice official slip of paper to display on the dashboard to validate their parking.
“After all,” Sven snickered, “we wouldn’t want to have any problems with the law.”
“Right.” Johnny unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out, firmly shutting the passenger’s side door behind him. “Getting busted for a fuckin’ parking violation when we’re this deep into the real shit would be way too embarrassing to live down.”
Sven shrugged as he stepped out and locked the vehicle. “Couldn’t be any worse than what happened to Al Capone.”
“Eh?” Johnny looked over, then his brain caught up with him. “Right, tax stuff. Imagine getting busted by accountants.”
“Not just tax evasion,” Sven protested. “Guy was one of the greatest criminals in American history. All the legendary shit he did and the feds nailed him for tax evasion. There ought to be a law against that.”
Johnny chuckled as they made their way to the elevator. Unlike when they were on the job in bars, they were both dressed in nice, moderately expensive suits and jackets that had been freshly pressed last night, and both wore mirrored glasses and carried briefcases. Nothing distinguished them from any other business drones going about their daily affairs in downtown LA.
At least, nothing visible to the average person. Sven had a Ruger LCR snub-nosed revolver, chambered with .327 Federal Magnum, carefully tucked into a small holster at the back of his pants and hidden by his coat.
Johnny had thought about getting another gun for concealed carry since his old Beretta 92, great pistol though it was, was too big to properly conceal during open daylight acti
vities. At night, he could get away with stashing it in a shoulder holster under his jacket. But he was saving up to get his car’s seats reupholstered.
And ammunition was more expensive than ever lately.
Their conversation turned to casual law-abiding shit as they walked across the street and into the massive building. The warming of the weather, how the Dodgers were looking so far in MLB Spring Training, and the latest news on the stock market.
Once safely inside their office, they locked the door behind them and relaxed in the reasonably-comfortable chairs, opening their briefcases to go over the material they’d gathered.
“Okay, so,” Johnny began as he passed a list of bars and hotspots across the table, “the Palmary, Verduro’s, the Angels’ Den—that one’s the strip club—the Alphonse A. Bar and Grille, Park’s...”
Sven nodded his way through the litany of them, running his finger down the list. “Hey, what happened to that one fucking place…uh, the Azul?”
Johnny scowled. “They turned out to be morons. We’re better off without them.”
“Oh?” Sven raised an eyebrow. This was the Johnny he’d known in college: whip-smart, with an unmatched sense for people. His recent preoccupation with the Mermaid had been troubling to Sven, but the fact that Johnny had cut off the Azul made him think the man was getting back to normal.
Hopefully, Johnny would stop being so suspicious of Pauline. Sven really didn’t want Johnny to be right on that front. Disentangling from this mess would be a bitch and a half.
Johnny was still focused on the Azul. He laughed as he leaned back, chair squeaking. “The guys running the place were a little too…enthusiastic about the arrangement, shall we say.”
“Oh, no.” Sven groaned.
“Yeah. They decided that they were gonna ‘help’ us, so they promised me that they’d have drugs available soon from their end. Next thing you know, boom. Arrested. Businessmen of the Year right there.”
Though the room was reasonably well-soundproofed, they both stopped talking as footsteps passed by outside and waited until silence returned before resuming their discussion.
Sven shook his head. “Who the hell thinks, ‘Oh, drugs! That should be easy to get into’?”
“Too many people watched Breaking Bad,” Johnny said. “So many fucking trust-fund babies in business school, acting like they were Walter-fuckin’-White. They aren’t, and neither is some random guy who owns a bar.”
Sven nodded. As Johnny spoke, the two of them had been laying out markers on a map and would be sending a carefully itemized list to Lia for distribution later that night. Given that they were weeks ahead of schedule, everything was going great.
“We got more places than she expected,” Sven said. “Pauline didn’t say it, but Lia told me.”
“We’ll get more,” Johnny promised.
Sven looked up, every sense on high alert. “Where are you thinking?”
“You know where.” Johnny leaned on one elbow and moved a marker into position over the Mermaid.
The fact that they’d resisted would, under normal circumstances, make him less than enthusiastic about going back. He liked it when his job was nice and easy.
But in the case of that particular establishment, he had his own non-professional reasons for looking forward to seeing the place again. And the blonde who worked there.
And if necessary, her precious little motorcycle.
Sven sighed and tried to come up with the words that would dissuade Johnny from this course of action, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to. People like them didn’t just give up on things. Whoever that little white girl was, and whoever owned that bar, they’d made the mistake of not just turning Johnny down but insulting him.
You never did that in a situation like this.
Sven knew that if it wasn’t Johnny who went to teach them a lesson, it would be someone else. He looked over. “Just don’t let the police get wind of it, huh? They’ve been around more since we touched off our little war.”
“I won’t.” Johnny smiled. “Just me and them. Little chat. We’re all gonna be real friendly. I’ll hit ‘em Friday morning.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Today was a workday, but having gotten such an early start, Kera wasn’t worried about being late. There was plenty of time. Besides, trying to help the wife of one of the nicest men she’d ever met was more important than being one hundred percent certain she’d be her usual five to ten minutes early for clock-in.
She’d rather deal with this today than take the chance of the cancer doing irreversible damage. She knew the spellbook had cautions against this for good reasons, but she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try to help.
Mr. Kim had taken the family car to Kera’s warehouse apartment, and he offered to give her a ride. She accepted since it was still only late morning. She had hours until she needed to get ready, so taking Zee in preparation for going straight to the Mermaid seemed pointless.
“Kera,” the grocer began as they pulled out onto the street, “I appreciate this. Maybe it’s too big a job for you or for anybody, but it is all we can do now. My wife thought you were a nice girl when she met you. She’ll be happy to see you, but she’s tired and in pain, so please understand that.”
Kera nodded, clasping her hands in her lap to keep them from trembling. Is this the stupidest thing I’ve ever done? Out loud, she said, “I understand. Fortunately, performing reiki doesn’t require much from the subject. All the work will be on my end, so, um, in theory, she can sleep through the whole thing.” She swallowed. “Probably.”
It was a short drive, but Kera didn’t bother trying to make conversation. She needed to think. There had to be some way to examine Mrs. Kim using magically-augmented perception to determine how bad the cancer was. To figure out if it had gone malignant and was spreading.
Removing the disease was clearly out of the question, but if she could channel the minimum necessary to stop or slow the spread of the tumor or to empower Mrs. Kim’s body to fight back more effectively on its own...
There was a chance. There had to be a chance.
The car pulled into a small, semi-hidden lot behind the Kim family’s store. As they stepped out of the vehicle, Kera assumed that the old man would lead her in via a rear entrance, but he went around to the front and entered the shopping floor as if he were a customer.
Sam was behind the cash register, and he waved at them.
“Keep watch here,” Mr. Kim told his son. “We hope this will not take too long. It’s to help your mother. Remember that before you think about complaining.”
The boy nodded; his face was somber, making him look more mature than his years would suggest. Kera wondered if he knew how bad the cancer diagnosis was and guessed he didn’t.
Seeing him, she felt even more obligated to do the right thing.
Kera followed Kim the elder behind the counter, then they walked down a short, rather dim corridor to a staircase sequestered around a corner. The old man ascended first with steady, deliberate steps, and Kera modulated her pace to match his.
Once on the second-floor landing, Kera realized the Kims had managed to hide their home within the store building. She’d suspected as much, but it was difficult to tell from outside.
The place was nice, cozy, clean, and decorated in a tasteful style that blended American and Korean influences.
Mr. Kim turned to her and pointed at a little mat. “For your shoes,” he explained.
Kera pulled her boots off and placed them on the mat while he did the same. When they were finished, he led her around another corner to a small living room furnished in warm colors, with a profusion of potted plants arranged in the corners or on shelves. A medium-sized flatscreen television rested against the far wall, currently dark and silent.
On a couch at the side of the room lay Mrs. Kim. Kera sucked in a breath at the sight of her. She looked noticeably unhealthy and looked far worse than the last time the girl had seen
her about two months ago when the cancer was either latent or at least far less advanced. Before things had gone wrong enough to seek a diagnosis.
Mr. Kim padded to his wife’s side. The woman looked much like he did: wiry, compact, round-faced, and with hair that was mostly gray. Kera was pretty sure the lady’s hair had been half-black previously. It was hard to tell if she was asleep or simply resting in a half-conscious state of pain and exhaustion.
“Ye-Jin,” the old man began, “Kera is here to see you. Say hello.”
Mrs. Kim roused, her housedress rustling as she turned her head to look at Kera with dim, sleepy eyes. Her face was drawn with pain. “Hello, Kera,” she said. Her accent was heavier than her husband’s. “I hope you are good. Please forgive my appearance. I am not…well.”
Mr. Kim took her left hand between both of his, then spoke to his wife softly in Korean. Kera was unfamiliar with the language, but she caught the word “reiki” and watched as the man flexed his hands as if to demonstrate something. Presumably, he was explaining the girl’s success with his arthritis and their faint hope that her skills might be able to do something for the poor woman.
From the way she grimaced, it was obvious she didn’t have much faith, but after another moment of cajoling, Mrs. Kim lay back and relaxed again while her husband beckoned Kera over.
“The cancer,” he said, “is in her colon. She has much pain every day lately. She agreed to let you look her over and do what you can. Please be careful, and let me know if you need anything at all.”
The girl tried to smile. “Okay. I’ll do what I can. Stick around for a few minutes if you could. Again, I can’t promise that this will work, but if it does, it’s going to take a lot out of me, so I might need someone to help me up and get me a cappuccino, or something like that.”
“Of course,” Kim replied. “Anything you need or want.”
While Mr. Kim waited and watched, statue-like in his calm patience, Kera examined the woman on the couch, running her hands gently over her abdomen and extending her mind out in the way she had when casting previous enchantments. Under her breath, she spoke the incantation of the first verse of the spell, describing the problem to the forces being invoked.
How to be a Badass Witch Page 18
