I open the outer and inner covers. The top honey super slides out a bit like a filing cabinet. I’m very careful not to disturb the queen excluder underneath. I slide out a movable frame and break off a square of honeycomb before returning all the parts to their place. But I don’t close it up. Surrounded by a cloud of humming bees that would probably send a normal person screaming into the night, I take the honeycomb to the prep table and set it down and look at the rough square of crystallized honey and the pool of raw honey beneath in.
About the only thing I know about talismans is that they are objects of power that a witch puts a little bit of herself or himself into. But I’m not sure how to do that.
My bees are on that. One of them—perhaps the same bee from the other night—lands in my hair and crawls down the strands until she reaches my ear. She hums into it. I tilt my head. I don’t hear “words” in the traditional sense. More like moving pictures in my head. It’s a little like looking into a View-Master toy—different slides coming and going.
“Okay,” I say and look down at the honeycomb and the picture of Connor beside it. I pick up the honeycomb and place it squarely over the photo, honey and all, and then raise both hands so they are hovering over the picture. I close my eyes and visualize the young man in trouble, what horrors he must be feeling to be in such a dark place. I wonder what he’s seen and experienced in Afghanistan. I don’t know, of course, but I can imagine.
With that image center stage in my head, I reach over the bench to the magnetic strip where we keep the knives. I choose a small, very sharp one, and I set the tip of the blade against the underside of my wrist. The blade flashes under the fluorescents, making this all feel very real. What if I cut a tendon? I won’t be able to work. So, I turn my hand and cut the back of it, instead—quickly, before I stop to think about what I’m doing.
Blood wells up from the tiny cut—very dark. Almost black. I turn my hand and let a few drops fall to the honeycomb and picture. Meanwhile, I try to “push” my will into the ceremony. I suppose I should say something—words are powerful in the craft—but I’m not learned and I don’t know what’s appropriate. So I just recite, “In the name of my father’s house, as I will it, so shall it be.”
The blood burns into the picture of the smiling soldier, slowly rendering it to black ash. I make the sign of my father’s house over everything—the long line with the two prongs at the end.
Suddenly the whole mess bursts into crackling flames—huge, blue, butane-like flames!
I jump back, startled by the whole affair. Holy shit! I did not expect that!
The flames don’t last, though, and when they finally burn down to nothing, I see fine white dust covering the workbench. The ritual has consumed everything—my blood, the picture, even the honeycomb.
I’m nervous about touching it, but, eventually, curiosity gets to me and I tap a finger against the ash, which falls away, revealing something underneath. It’s cool to the touch, so I dig it out.
A part of the honeycomb remains, but only a small part, maybe three or four inches in circumference. It’s now in a jagged circular shape that fits in the palm of my hand like a dark gold ring. Although it has a honeycomb pattern, it’s as hard as stone. Really, it looks like some kind of fancy new jewelry trend.
I hold it up to the light, which passes through it and makes it sparkle. “Huh,” I say.
18
“A CHOCOLATE fairy village,” Sebastian mumbles. He’s sitting on the workbench, plowing Thai food from the little white carryout package into his mouth with chopsticks. I can barely make out what he’s saying as he talks with his mouth full. “Chocolate toadstools and chocolate flowers and a chocolate squirrel with a saddle for the chocolate fairies to ride.”
I’m sitting on the stool next to the humming refrigerator. It’s after hours and I’m plowing food into my pie hole, as well—only with a fork because I’ve never been any good with chopsticks.
“Why?” I say after gulping down some cheap red wine. “Why a fairy village?”
He shrugs and plows more Thai pad noodles in. “It’s past Easter so can’t bloody well do bunnies and lambs. Think the kiddies would like an authentic fairy village?”
“I think it’s interesting, but I’m not sure if Americans would really get it, you know? The parents might think the mushrooms are some drug-related thing.”
He sighs as he sticks his chopsticks into the box as if they’re hatpins and he’s trying desperately to kill a bug. He pushes the box away. “Americans are so daft.”
I smile at that.
Sebastian glances over. “Presently company excluded.”
“I take no offense, and I agree wholeheartedly.” I dig around my box for more noodles. They are being sadly elusive. “You ever think of going back?”
“Back…where?”
“Wherever you come from.”
He shakes his head and grabs up the carryout box. “I’d consider it if I knew where the bloody hell that was.”
An uncomfortable silence descends over us. Finally, I set the food aside. My appetite is gone. “I’m sorry. I’m failing you.”
“You are doing no such thing,” Sebastian insists. He indicates the shop by clicking the chopsticks. “But maybe we need a new marketing strategy. I’m not giving up.”
I don’t tell him about Matilda, Connor’s mother, whom I talked to about a week ago. I’d phoned her the same day I finished the talisman. I swear she was at the door in five minutes, her sweet, tired face looking even more ravaged than when I last saw her. When I showed her the talisman—I put it on a long black cord so she could hang it over Connor’s bed or so Connor could wear it like a necklace—she actually broke down in sobs and hugged me so tightly I thought it was possible she’d dislocated one of my ribs.
I didn’t ask for payment. Frankly, I had no idea if it would even work. We need money, but it felt too shady to take it from a grieving, distressed mother for what might turn out to be junk jewelry. Even I’m not that evil. I told her she could pay me what she felt the talisman was worth—assuming it worked, of course.
I didn’t hear anything from Matilda for several days. Naturally, I assumed it hadn’t worked. I started feeling pretty shitty about that. I’d given Matilda false hope. But then she showed up in the shop earlier today with a tearful smile and a check that left me standing there in stunned silence, looking at all the zeroes, thinking I was imagining this.
“Connor went out today,” she told me. “He’s going to see his therapist again.”
She hugged me and started crying all over my hair.
“Maybe you should keep this,” I told Matilda after hearing her news. I tried to hand the check back because it was frightening me so much. “You don’t know if there are any permanent changes or side effects, or…”
“And maybe you should keep that, my talented witch,” Matilda insisted, pulling back. “My husband is a senator. It’s not like I can’t afford it, angel.” And she touched my face.
That stunned me, too. All I could do was stand there, gaping at Matilda until she pressed the check back into my hands. “I am going to send all my friends to you.” She leaned in to kiss my forehead. “God bless you, Vivian.”
I didn’t tell Sebastian about the incident. After all, there’s no guarantee this is our Hail Mary. I don’t know if Matilda will follow through on her promise to send others and I’ll have customers crawling out of the woodwork, needing magical charms. I mean, the whole situation was a little bit iffy to being with.
But as I sit here, I think maybe I should tell him. Who knows, maybe Sebastian can even guide me. He knows so much about so many things. He’s like this magical oracle of knowledge, and that’s something I could use very much.
I’m about to open my mouth and confess everything when we both stiffen at the sound of someone knocking harshly on the back door. We both have memories of the cops visiting us.
Sebastian, who is closer, scoots down the workbench and puts his hand on the d
oorknob. He peeks out the glass panes. “It’s your policeman friend.” His eyebrows bounce up and down Groucho Marx-style.
At least he isn’t judging me—good ol’ Sebastian. But I look at the door indecisively.
“You want I get rid of him?”
I shake my head. “I’ve got this.” I climb down off the stool.
Mac is waiting for me in the shadows near the door, his car parked discreetly behind the Laundromat. All the confusion I’ve felt over the past few days alleviates a little at the sight of him. My heart thuds faster. I wish he didn’t do that to me.
“Hey,” he says softly. He indicates a folder he’s holding under one arm. “I decided to take you up on your offer to help with the investigation. There’s been another murder like the one in your alley here.” He turns to glance at the spot. “We don’t have anything that even resembles a lead. Maybe you can look over these files, see if you can suss out a connection? No pressure, of course. You must be very busy…”
His deep, husky voice trails away while he stares at me.
Honestly, I don’t feel like making small talk. That’s not what he’s here for, anyway.
Within seconds, the file is on the ground and he has me back against the brick wall of the building and his hands are cupped around my face and he’s lunging deep inside of my body, each little motion making the bricks rake over my back thrillingly. I arch my back, urging him on and on. And he goes faster and faster, but he never breaks eye contact with me.
With a cry of release, he kisses me, calls me Mistress, and we hang against the wall for long moments, hearts ticking and blood thundering in our ears while we slowly come down from the erotic high of having done this in an alley like a pair of cats in heat.
He finally kisses the side of my face, and I breathe in his cologne. He lets me down gently, and then does the most amazingly erotic thing and gets down on his knees to lick all along my lower belly and between my legs, grooming me like he really is a cat. Afterward, he straightens up and smoothes my skirt and we kiss one last time, briefly, before he wordlessly returns to his cruiser.
I look down at the file on the ground at my feet. It’s laying open, with scattered, bloody photographs of faceless men who have died in agony. I’ve vowed to stay away from this thing. I’m afraid all of this ties into the ancient woman who haunts my dreams, and I don’t ever want to see her again. But it looks like fate has other plans for me.
19
THE NEXT day is slow. No surprise there. We get a couple of customers in the late morning, but only one buys anything. Then the shop is like a wasteland.
Around eleven, I tell Sebastian I’m knocking off for lunch. I always take it at that time, and after I get back at noon, Sebastian takes his hour. That way, the shop stays open all day. We have similar schedules for the weekend. He takes Saturday and I take Sunday—a trick I learned watching Nick and Morgana trading shifts in their own shop in Blackwater.
He waves me off. “Take all the time you need, witchy.”
Since I get up super early to get the hard candy set—usually around 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning—I often use my lunch hour to take a quick nap upstairs or, if I’m too wired to sleep, I do the books or catch up on my favorite Netflix show. Today, I decide to take a walk.
Over the last few months, I’ve sussed out some of the best walking tours in the city. About seven blocks to the south is a small, wooded park for joggers and dog-walkers. It’s not big, but it’s also not that popular, which gives it a nice, secluded feel. There’s a children’s play area on one side and a well-fenced dog park on the other, where you can let your dog off the leash to play with other dogs. Sometimes, I see professional dog trainers putting their clients through their paces.
I never go to the children’s area. The kids are fine, but the banal soccer moms sitting on nearby benches always give me suspicious looks as if I might abduct their child.
There are no dog trainers in the park today, but I still find it fun to find a bench and watch the young men playing Frisbee with their pooches. I see Butterscotch is here today—a hyperactive, golden-coated Cockapoo who loves to jump on me when I arrive. But when I take my place and call to her, she suddenly looks alarmed, tucks her tail between her legs, and trots away to find her owner.
I try not to let her rejection bother me, but, of course, it does. Children and animals have been avoiding me more often of late. One woman brought her baby with her into the store and when I went to talk to her, the baby started screaming so loudly, she had to leave posthaste. Another time, I noticed a cat prowling around the alley. I put some dry cat food out, hoping it would hang around and maybe catch some of the mice I knew were infesting the walls of the shop, but it never came back. I tell myself the two incidents are not related, but I know they are.
Avoid children and animals. Don’t get a pet. It will only run away. And don’t even dream about raising a child. Nick’s words of wisdom from long ago.
I smile at Butterscotch’s owner, but there are tears in my eyes as I turn them down upon the manila folder I’ve brought with me. It contains the file Mac gave me. Shuffling the papers out and into my lap, I start paging through them. Lots of messy, macabre pictures and rap sheets, some of their information so redacted it’s hard to follow. I’m not sure how Mac expects me to find a connection between the dead men if I only have some of their information. Oh, that’s right. I’m supposed to be “psychic. “
In the end, I mostly just look at all the terrible pictures. I had this idea that they wouldn’t bother me—big, bad devil-witch that I am. But, honestly, they make me feel a little bit nauseated. They’re all bad men—rapists, murderers, pimps—but their butchery is so extreme, I wonder how it’s possible to have that much hate in you. I also wonder how she did it.
I know it was her. The woman in the iron coffin. Somehow, she made this happen. But how? And why?
After shuffling through the pictures a while longer, I start seeing some patterns. Not big stuff—not stuff that a cop would even probably notice. Just little things. Like the dead men were all flayed in dirty alleys. They’re out of the light. Some parts of the bodies looked stomped on. All of them are staged.
She’s making some kind of statement, the Aztec goddess. Sending a message.
Most of the dead men are wearing bandannas around their neck. I notice that almost immediately. They’re different colors, but they’re all knotted the same way, always to the left—almost like a twisted Windsor knot.
I take a close-up picture of one of the knots with my phone and send the pic to Sebastian with a text that reads: How well do you know the gangs in this city?
He texts back: Why are you sending me a picture of a handkerchief?
It’s a bandanna. It’s for a case I’m helping Mac with. Do you know what it means?
The guy has no taste in fashion and needs a makeover?
The knot. Does it mean anything?
It takes Sebastian a while to answer my text. I wonder if he’s had to consult with someone else. What he texts back surprises me.
Not a gang. Cartel. Toltecs.
My eyebrows bounce up at that. I’m no detective, but I think this is what they call a lead.
I’m about to google the cartel when Sebastian texts back, Break’s over! Shop’s getting busy!
Looks like my research will have to wait.
Right then, a kid Rollerblades past my bench, startling me. I almost drop the file. I snap the folder shut before the poor kid can catch a glimpse at the horrors inside, but when I turn my head to check to see if the girl is all right, I see her looking at me and not the folder in my lap. Her nostrils are flared and there’s a look of startled fear in her eyes as she quickly skates away from me.
20
“THIS IS Macy and Malcolm,” the woman says, turning her phone sideways and handing it to me so I can look at the picture of her husband and their twenty-year-old daughter. They are standing together at Macy’s graduation, Macy in full regalia, with a tall, rather gaun
t gentleman in a nice suit standing beside her, his arm around her waist. They are both smiling for the picture, and Macy is throwing the peace sign.
I sigh.
Two hours earlier, the shop was really jumping, but it’s not what you think. There were people swarming around, with Sebastian frantically and happily ringing up purchases, but they kept looking at me—making me uncomfortable. Eventually, after I disappeared into the prep room, I heard them whispering my name. Sebastian stepped into the prep room as well, a confused look on his face, and said our customers were asking for me in particular.
“I know,” I said, standing at the sink, a hand over my face while I rubbed at my tired eyes.
“What’s going on, witchy?”
I dropped my hand. “It’s complicated.”
“‘Complicated’ as in something that I’m going to like, or ‘complicated’ as in something that’s going to ruin us?”
“I don’t think it’s going to ruin us.” At least, I hope not.
I waited for him to push for more, but he sensed I wasn’t ready to spill.
“Right, then.” Turning on his heels, he started to leave.
I stopped him, a hand on his wrist. I noticed his skin was unusually cold. Not like a corpse, but more like that end-of-your-nose chill you get when you stay outside in winter weather for too while. It was warm out, so that threw me a little. “I will tell you. Soon.”
He nodded as he left.
None of the people in the shop sought me out personally. I think they were more on a fact-finding mission to see if what Matilda was saying about me was true. They weren’t obvious about their interest. Then, while we were ringing up the last customer, one woman stepped forward and asked to speak to me in private.
To the Devil a Daughter (A Vivian Summers Investigation Book 1) Page 9
