by Ari Marmell
“‘Cultural ties, not just blood. Easier to acquire. Must investigate.’” Her brow furrowed. “Cultural ties?”
I nodded, thinking. “Sympathy and symbolism.” Then, when her frown only deepened, “Connections between caster and subject, like putting someone’s hair in a voodoo doll. Depending on how many people or families she’s planning to hex, she couldn’t possibly gather pieces of all of ’em, but something with a strong enough symbolic link to them, or their community, could work.”
“Doesn’t… doesn’t that imply that she’s planning to hurt a lot of people?”
“Yeah, it does. Read.”
There were a few more lists of possible ingredients—again, with nothing specific enough for me to make any useful guesses—and then, “‘Mortal sin? Consult scriptures or Father Leo.’” Again she looked up at me. “Father Leo’s the senior priest at Donna Orsola’s church. What could be a mortal sin?”
I had no answer, but I was getting even more nervous. What sin could be so bad that even loony old Orsola would worry about?
Bianca kept reading, and I knew.
“‘Of course! Exodus 11:5. Our Lord approves!!!’ Exodus…?” Her hand flew to her mouth, and even Adalina, cowering on her sofa, gasped. “Oh, Madonna!”
And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts.
It’d been a long time since I cursed in Gaelic. I gotta say, I hadn’t lost the knack.
“Is…” Adalina rose from her sofa and approached with a peculiar, swaying gait. “Is Nonna really going to do that?” Her face hadn’t changed so much that I couldn’t read the horror writ large across it. “Curse the firstborn of all the families she hates?”
“I wish,” I muttered. Then, at their twin expressions of shocked outrage, “You don’t get it! A spell this nasty, this powerful? ‘Cultural ties?’ Mortal sins? She ain’t aiming at a couple families! She’s targeting a whole fucking ancestry!”
I could see it in their faces, they still didn’t understand. Well, who could blame ’em? Of course they didn’t understand; they weren’t insane.
“Using her granddaughter as a nexus,” I said more softly, “Donna Orsola is going to murder every firstborn child of Italian blood.”
The pad fell from Bianca’s fingers with a loud thwap. Adalina staggered and fell back into the sofa. “All of them?” she breathed in an almost inaudible whisper. “Everywhere?”
“No, not everywhere,” I said, working it out in my head. “Nobody’s that powerful.” Well, not in this day and age. “But at the very least throughout Chicago. Maybe a little farther.”
Bianca was crossing herself repeatedly. I’m not sure she even knew she was doing it. “Why? Dear God, why would she do that?”
All I could do was shrug. “Maybe she doesn’t know how to aim it any more precisely. Maybe she blames the whole culture for what happened to her loved ones. Maybe she just doesn’t give a damn who she hurts anymore, so long as the ‘right’ people are included! It don’t matter why! It’s gonna happen!”
“Oh, Jesus… What do we do?”
Okay, Mick, think! “She needs someplace private,” I began, shoving the books away and over the far end of the table. I couldn’t concentrate with ’em right in front of me, not now. “She can’t afford any big interruptions.”
“Fino has some properties,” Bianca said. “Some warehouses and shops. They—”
“Nah. Too much chance of him tumbling to what she’s doing. Plus, it’s missing the connections.”
“Connections? Like Celia’s…” She choked something down. “Celia’s blood?”
“Kinda. Symbolism, like I said. She needs somewhere connected to the Italian community or culture. Or to death and ruin. Or preferably both. Fuck!” I shook my head and wished I drank stronger stuff than milk. “There’s still so many possibilities! Half the local graveyards would work. Hell, she could be holed up in the offices of the damn Italo-American National Union for all I know!”
I took a few deep breaths, less to calm myself down—I can do that without the funny little physiological tricks you people need—than to make it clear I was calming myself down. “Tell me about last night,” I said.
“What?” Bianca asked.
“Orsola was preparing for this. She knew I had Celia a while before she told Fino, or moved to come get the kid herself. It—”
“Why did she tell Fino?” she interrupted. “I mean, if she was going to collect Celia herself…”
“She…?” It took me a second to get my thoughts back in order. “I figure she needed her boy to soften me up. She wouldn’t have caught me nearly so easy if I wasn’t already worn out.”
Of course, Goswythe had done the job for her long before Fino got there, but no way she coulda expected that.
“Point was,” I continued, refusing to keep getting sidetracked, “her delay hadda be because she was getting ready. So what’d she do? Fino didn’t remember much; you have to.”
“She… she went to church for a few hours—”
“Yeah, I already know that. What else?”
“But I don’t know what else!” Bianca looked about ready to scream, or throw something at me, or cry; probably all three. “I saw her come in, but she went straight to her room. She was still in there when I went to sleep!”
“Damn it! Did she… I dunno, did she take anything with her when she left? Bring anything back? Anything?”
“No, I don’t think—”
“Yes,” Adalina interrupted softly.
Well, she had our complete attention!
“When she went into her room,” the girl said, “I saw her taking a metal flask out of her coat pocket. I thought it was weird, since she doesn’t drink.”
“Oh, that.” Bianca waved a hand. “Donna Orsola’s been bringing small amounts of holy water home from church on occasion for months. She uses it as an ingredient in the wards she puts up around the house.”
I was already on my knees in the doorway, digging my hand under the carpet. Oh, but this was gonna hurt…
Orsola had allowed the magic in her protections to lapse, but the chalk and other powders she used to create them remained. I poked a few fingers into the stuff, and clamped my jaw tight around a scream of pain. Several types of chalk, charcoal, lots of salt, crushed leaves and powdered herbs, iron filings (hence the pain)—but…
“No holy water,” I gasped as I wobbled back to my feet, staring at the reddened, inflamed skin on my left hand. “Even this long after it’d evaporated, I’d feel it.” I hadn’t thought I remembered sensing anything of that sort, back when I’d first suffered under those magics.
“Then what was she using it for?” Bianca wondered aloud.
“Oh, she’s been gathering it for this,” I said. “I’m just not sure why. Maybe—”
“Christenings!”
Of course. I could have kissed her. What stronger link, what better “in,” to a whole population of Catholic children than the waters—symbolically, if not literally—used to baptize ’em?
Bianca obviously recognized from my expression that she’d hit on something. “Does that mean Orsola’s at the church?” she asked.
“No, not her own church,” I said. “Again, too much chance of being found out. And I don’t think she’d want to ‘sully’ it with these magics…”
But that was okay. Because if she was using the christening and other religious trappings as her connection to the whole community, then a church of some sort would make sense: it’d just compound the symbolic linkages, make ’em even more potent.
And if that was the case, I knew the perfect place. I knew exactly where Orsola Maldera woulda gone.
We talked about it, bounced it back and forth, looked for any holes in my reasoning and couldn’t find any. Well, other than…
“But you can’t be certain,” Bianca pressed, not for
the first time.
“No, I can’t. But it’s perfect for her, offers everything she needs and then some. So I’m pretty sure.”
Also, like I’ve told you before, aes sidhe—okay, and some other Fae, too—have kind of a knack for these things. It’s much the same as when I ask for this weird dingus or that as my fee for a case: I dunno why I feel the urge to ask for ’em, I just do. Sometimes it winds up being meaningless, but a lotta the time, they prove damn useful later on. It’s just instinct, or inspired speculation, or… or something. But it means that I had a better chance of guessing this right than anyone else.
I didn’t feel it was worth taking the time to explain all that, though. And I still woulda happily traded for a map with a big X scribbled on it.
“All right,” Bianca agreed, rising from her seat. “Give me a moment, and we’ll head out.”
“Uh…” I’d expected it, yeah, but I wasn’t thrilled with it. “Mrs. Ottati, maybe it’d be better if you stayed—”
“You’ll have to kill me.”
Okay, yeah, that’d gone over well.
“It’s just that—”
“No. That’s my husband out there, Mr. Oberon, and my dau—one of my daughters.” Adalina managed a misshapen smile, though I kinda got the impression it was entirely for her mother’s sake. “I am not staying behind.
“Besides, I have the keys. Or were you planning to steal my car?”
I shuddered, but she had a point. It’s not like I could afford the time it’d take to catch the L. And I sure as hell wouldn’t get there in one piece if I tried to drive it!
“All right. Let’s get a move on. We—”
The both of us turned together as Adalina also rose from the sofa. “I—”
Bianca didn’t let her get even as far as I had. “No. Absolutely not!”
“But I can help! I—”
“No! You’re not going. It’s too dangerous.”
“But, Mother—!”
“No!” Not sure whether it was the volume or the raw emotion, but my ears were starting to ache. Adalina squeaked something completely unintelligible and fled upstairs. Bianca and I both knew the slamming door was coming next, and we still both jumped.
“Ragazzi! Madre di Dio…” Muttering the whole way, Bianca followed up the steps, with rather more dignity and rather less noise. I overheard a door creaking, some rattling around in a cabinet, and a few metallic clicks. Then the faint tapping of knuckles on wood.
“Adalina? Adalina, I’m going. I… I love you. I’ll see you soon, piccola mia.”
If she got any reply at all, it was quiet enough that even I couldn’t hear it. And somehow, I didn’t think it’d go over too well if I asked.
I also wasn’t about to insult her by asking if she knew how to handle the heat she was packing when she came downstairs. What I did ask was, “Are you sure you’re ready to use those? It don’t come easy to everyone.”
Without blinking, she worked the slide on the Colt, checking the action, then flicked on the safety and stuck it in her pocket. “If I need to,” she said.
I believed her.
She led me outside and across the street, to a rich burgundy four-door LaSalle with whitewalls so pristine they’d have been blinding in the daylight. My nails dug into the seat as Bianca stepped on the starter. The engine rumbled to life, and the all-too-familiar queasiness turned into an angry badger, burrowing through my guts. I pressed my head against the cool window and struggled to ride it out. And y’know, maybe because I was so preoccupied with what was coming up, it didn’t seem quite as awful as usual.
(Or maybe it was because, in comparison to my actually having tried to drive the black-and-white, it wasn’t as bad.)
We cruised along the streets of Chicago in silence—well, without speaking, since the rumble of the motor, the chorus of squealing breaks and honking horns, and the occasional rattle as we passed under elevated tracks weren’t exactly quiet—and it was only after long minutes that I picked up on something. Just as my worry about what was ahead mighta distracted me a little from the pain of the flivver around me, that pain had neatly distracted me from something else.
A very faint scent, wafting up from the back, shrouded not only in the various stenches of the car and the roads and the city itself, but in a weak, amateurish cocoon of willpower. Under any other circumstances, it never woulda snowed me even this long.
“How the fuck,” I demanded, startling Bianca so bad the car swerved, “did you get back there?”
Adalina made a noise that sounded something like “Eeerp!” Bianca went white to the roots of her hair—if she’d actually gone grey right in front of me, I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised—and slammed on the brakes hard enough to give me my second windshield shave of the day. Those cars that were still out and about this late roared and screeched around us, honking and cursing and yelling at us to get outta the road. If she’d done that on an even slightly busier street, we’d have been someone else’s hood ornament.
I couldn’t pick out a whole lotta words from the torrent of syllables that were bursting from Bianca’s trap—hell, it took me a few just to be sure if it was English or Italian—but I got enough to tell that she was more’n a little upset with Adalina.
Gosh, chalk another one up for the great detective.
Adalina couldn’t possibly get a word in edgewise, but she didn’t need to. Obviously she’d shimmied out the window soon as she slammed the door to her room and hid in the back of Mommy’s car; no other way it coulda gone down, ’cause she sure as hell didn’t sneak past me out the front. I’d pretty much have to be dead to be that distracted.
After it became clear she wasn’t running low on words anytime soon—hell, she didn’t appear to be running outta breath—I said, “Uh, Bianca…”
The glass behind me threatened to shatter under her look, but I persevered. Barely. “We can’t just sit here. Even leaving aside the traffic hazard, we’re wasting—”
“Fine. Get out!” I was pretty sure that order wasn’t directed at me. “The L’s not that far—”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Adalina shrieked.
“You’re going home!”
“No, I—”
“Uh,” I said again. “Actually, she’s not going anywhere.” Then, before the heavily armed dame could seriously contemplate murdering me, “Bianca, it’s late, but the streets ain’t that empty. You think Adalina could go half a block without someone seeing her?”
Bianca scowled, biting the inside of her cheek. Adalina, at the reminder of her new face, stared at the back of the seat.
“I’ll drive her home, then!” But I could see in her peepers that she knew it was a dumb thing to say. The round trip would cost us an extra half hour or more, whereas we were less than five minutes from our destination.
Her face twisted in angry, frightened indecision until she scarcely looked any more human than the girl in the back. I started inching my hand toward the L&G, ready to make her start driving again if I had to, and damn the consequences, but thankfully it didn’t come to that. Sounding more’n more like her husband with every profanity, she threw the flivver into gear and stomped the accelerator.
“If you stick so much as a finger outside of this car,” she warned Adalina, “I swear to Jesus and Mary that I will lock you up until I’ve grown too senile to worry about you. You understand me, Adalina?”
In a voice grown small—but suddenly calm, far too calm—Adalina said, “I understand, Mama.”
I twisted in my seat to peer at the girl, wondering what had changed, but I didn’t have time to ponder on it. I wish I had.
But Bianca accelerated through the traffic signal at Grand Avenue, took another couple of quick corners, and we were there.
Pulling up in front of an abandoned lot, surrounded by chain-link fencing. Abandoned… but not forgotten.
Because this had been the original site of Santa Maria Addolorata.
If you ain’t up on your Chicago history�
� Santa Maria Addolorata is one of the city’s largest Italian congregations, and has been for decades. It’s also one of the oldest.
It’s also standing a couple blocks over, right now, ’cause an enormous fire pretty much gutted and blackened the original building like a Cajun catfish. It’d happened just a hair over a year ago, and the property hadn’t yet been redeveloped.
Which wasn’t to say it wasn’t proving useful to someone.
The lot had absolutely everything Orsola coulda asked for. The chain-link fence, and the handful of brick walls that made up the ruin, provided all the privacy she could ask for, even this close to Grand Avenue. The church’d played host to thousands of baptisms, had been the center of belief for a whole chunk of Chicago’s Italian community—and people still prayed and sang and had their children christened in the place’s namesake. That wasn’t just a spiritual and symbolic link, it was a whole friggin’ chain.
And the fact that the place had burned down, that the lot was covered in the charcoal and ash of holy icons and a house of worship—well, even though nobody’d died, you couldn’t find a more powerful symbol of mourning and loss if you built it yourself.
It was perfect, absolutely tailor-made, for Orsola’s needs. Or so I’d figured; and whether I’d reasoned it out right, or I’d been guided by those instincts I don’t quite understand myself, or whether I’d just got real damn lucky, I’ve never been able to determine.
All that matters is, I was right.
Bianca’s LaSalle fishtailed a little in the crosswinds as we pulled to the curb near three other flivvers, all of which were way too nice to be parked here at this late hour. I shot from the car, then staggered back, and I didn’t need to taste the energies in the air to know that even for the Windy City, these gusts weren’t natural. My hair and my coat (well, Fino’s coat) were whipping around straight behind me, and I had to squint against the blowing dust and grit. I didn’t know if this was something Orsola’d cooked up deliberately, or just a side-effect of the curse she was working through Celia, but either way it was aggravating.
Good for her, though, since the howling of the winds would cover any incidental sounds that might otherwise draw attention.