In the Air Tonight

by Lori Handeland

  “I’d think that in New Orleans there’d be tons of ‘weird shit,’ especially in homicide.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  There was Sullivan’s loup-garou incident, of course, but Bobby hadn’t been involved and most thought that Sullivan had had a breakdown. It made more sense than a werewolf running loose in the Crescent City.

  “Homicide is pretty cut-and-dried. It’s almost always the husband, sometimes the wife. On occasion, a sibling. People kill the ones they love. They don’t off the passersby.”

  “I still can’t believe you haven’t run into a witch or two. Maybe a voodoo priestess?”

  “Despite the press, voodoo is a fairly peaceful religion.”

  “So is Wicca. I’m pretty sure that’s one of their tenets…”

  She pointed at the painted sign in the window, which read: HARM NONE.

  “Probably why I haven’t met any.”

  Homicide began and ended with harm.

  “Just because she lived over a Wiccan shop doesn’t mean she was a witch either,” he said.

  “Sooner or later, Bobby, one and one is going to have to equal two.” Raye opened the door.

  Inside a young man stood behind the counter. His nametag read TODD. He was dressed in jeans, Nikes, a red T-shirt sporting that big-headed badger. Bobby had lost track of how many of those he’d seen in the few yards they had traveled to arrive here. The guy’s strawberry-blond hair was short, his lightly freckled face clean-shaven. He was the least likely Wiccan shop worker Bobby could have imagined.

  “Blessed be,” Todd said.

  Bobby flashed his badge. If he was lucky, the clerk wouldn’t look closely enough to read NOPD. He didn’t.

  “Do you have a key for the apartment upstairs?” Bobby asked.

  “Annie’s place?”

  “Is there more than one apartment?”

  “Got me there.” Todd opened the register, removed a key, held it out. “You know who’s gonna be taking over?”

  “Taking over what?”

  “The shop. Man, I sure hope it doesn’t get sold. I like this job.”

  “Anne owned the shop?” Raye asked. She was quicker on the uptake than he was.

  “Of course.”

  “Why ‘of course’?” Bobby wondered.

  “She was a high priestess.”

  Bobby glanced at Raye. She shrugged.

  “The leader of the local coven,” Todd continued.

  “It’s like a witch club,” Raye said.

  “That’s right, dude.”

  Bobby had never gotten used to women being referred to as dude. From Raye’s bemused expression she hadn’t either.

  “I thought Ms. McKenna was a hospice worker.”

  “She is.” The young man’s bright, eager expression fell. “Was.” He shook his head. “Why would anyone hurt her? She was a saint.”

  “Can a witch be a saint?” Bobby asked.

  “Joan of Arc,” Raye murmured.

  “Good one.” Todd nodded approvingly. “Annie’s gift was to relieve suffering. She helped ease people from this world.”

  That smelled like euthanasia. Which was still a crime as far as Bobby knew. “How?”

  “Once people are in hospice, there’s not much to do but manage their pain, which usually means boatloads of narcotics. Some don’t want to spend the time they have left drugged out of their mind. Annie used herbals and massage instead of pills.”

  “Herbals.” Bobby knew what that meant.

  Todd rolled his eyes—part disgust, part amusement. “Dying people, dude.”

  He had a point.

  “Annie was gifted,” the kid continued.

  “I’m not following.”

  “She was an air witch.”

  He still wasn’t.

  Todd grabbed a piece of paper, drew a five-pointed star. “Four elements.” He tapped the eraser side of his pencil on each of the four nonascendant triangles. “Fire, air, water, earth.” He moved the eraser to the single ascendant point. “Spirit. Point up, shows spirit is more important than earthly concerns.”

  “What about point down?” Bobby asked. He’d seen that too.

  The kid made a face. “The earthly over the spirit. Satanism. Crazies.”

  “Because witches are so sane,” Bobby muttered, ignoring Raye’s annoyed glance.

  “Those who follow this path…”—Todd tapped the center of the pentagram—“are some of the sanest people I’ve ever known.”

  Bobby was getting too much information out of this guy to argue and risk his clamming up so he swallowed further comments. “Anything else?” he asked.

  Todd stared at him for a few seconds as if gauging how much he should say, then shrugged and went on. “The continuous line used to draw the star symbolizes the interconnection between the divine and the earthly.” Flipping the pencil point down, he drew a ring connecting the points of the star. “All is unified. Life is a circle—birth, death, rebirth.”

  Bobby nearly said blah, blah, blah, but managed to stop himself. From the glance Raye shot his way, his expression had said it for him. At least Todd didn’t notice.

  “Witches are elemental,” Todd continued. “An earth witch is good with herbs, a water witch with healing and cleansing.”

  “But Anne was an air witch?” Raye asked.

  “Right. If her talent had been medicine or healing, she would have been a nurse. Hospice isn’t about that. An air witch alleviates pain, and air rules the crossover.”

  “Lost me,” Bobby said.

  “The gates of death. An air witch is a necromancer. They can communicate with the dead.”

  Raye started so violently, Bobby took her hand. It was freakishly cold for the warmth of the autumn day. He glanced at her. She wasn’t looking at him but at the kid.

  “Communicate how?” she whispered.

  “Hear them mostly. Clairaudience. But really powerful air witches can bring the dead across.”

  “I refuse to believe in zombies,” Bobby said.

  “We’re talking ghosts, dude.”

  “Of course we are,” Raye said.

  “Annie not only helped the dead cross over, she helped the living communicate with those they’ve lost.”

  “Séances?” Bobby’s lip curled.

  “Sometimes.”

  “And I suppose she charged a hefty fee for them.”

  “That wouldn’t be ethical. Besides, how can you charge the dead?”

  “That wasn’t…” Bobby began, but Raye set a hand on his arm. “Shh.”

  “Annie was training me,” Todd continued. “Now what am I going to do?”

  “You seem to be doing just fine here,” Bobby said.

  “She wasn’t training me in the store; she was training me to be a witch.”

  “Isn’t that a warlock?”

  “It’s the twenty-first century. No one uses that word anymore.”

  “Except on Bewitched,” Raye said, and Todd snickered. “I thought witches were born not made.”

  Bobby cast her a quick glance. How much research had she done before he arrived last night?

  “To be an elemental, like Annie,” Todd said, “you have to inherit the craft. If you don’t you can still learn the way, assist the others, but real magic is beyond us.”

  “Real magic,” Bobby repeated, managing, barely, not to sneer. “Isn’t that a simile?”

  “I think you mean oxymoron,” Raye said.

  “Moron is right.”

  “What is your problem?” Todd asked.

  “He’s a cop,” Raye said. “They don’t believe anything.”

  “Or anyone,” Bobby agreed. Especially about this. It was all such BS. But as Raye had pointed out, it didn’t matter if he believed it, what mattered was if the killers believed and acted on it.

  “Did you know Anne’s aunt?” Raye asked.

  “Mrs. Noita?” Todd nodded. “Earth witch.”

  Bobby groaned.

  Todd’s eyes narrowed. “Does s
he have a great garden?”

  “Didn’t notice,” Bobby said. He’d been a little busy with her dying on him, then there’d been the running for his life.

  “I think so,” Raye said slowly. “I remember my father saying something once about buying her tomatoes instead of going to the store.”

  “Lots of trees with stuff hanging in them,” Todd continued. “Symbols drawn on the leaves.” As Todd wasn’t asking, Bobby didn’t answer. “For protection.”

  “Didn’t help.”

  Todd straightened. “What happened?”

  Raye’s breath caught, and she cast Bobby a horrified, helpless glance. The kid didn’t know. Now Bobby would have to tell him. He hated informing next of kin. Not that Todd was next, but he still had to be told.

  “Her too?” Todd asked, their discomfort and silence telling the tale without them having to. “Damn.”

  “Sorry,” Bobby said.

  Raye reached over and patted the boy’s hand. Todd didn’t seem to notice.

  “How?”

  “Murdered.”

  “The same guy?” His eyebrows drew together. “No. Some cop killed him.”

  Bobby must have made a movement because Todd’s gaze widened. “You?”

  Bobby shrugged.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “What about ‘harm none’?”

  “He started it,” Todd said.

  Bobby would have had a hard time accepting thanks for killing someone, even if that someone had been a murderer about to kill again, but thankfully Todd moved on without waiting for any acceptance or acknowledgment on Bobby’s part.

  “Did Annie go to New Bergin because her aunt died?”

  “Mrs. Noita died yesterday,” Bobby said. “You have no idea why Ms. McKenna went to New Bergin?”

  Todd shook his head. “She called me in to work, said her aunt needed her and she’d be gone a few days.”

  “Did she visit a lot?”

  “She’d go see her around the sabbats—before or after. Annie had duties here on the actual days. Just like Mrs. Noita had duties there. She was the high priestess in that area.”

  “How many witches are there in New Bergin?” Raye asked.

  “Hard to say. Mrs. Noita’s coven was made up of the people from all the little towns between here and Eau Claire. There’s a fairly large coven in Eau Claire.”

  “There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear in this lifetime,” Raye muttered.

  Bobby rubbed his forehead. He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that the two victims had not only been witches, but the leaders of groups of a whole lot more. It might explain how Mrs. Noita had survived as long as she had, considering the nature of her injury. Then again, maybe not, since the explanation was magic.

  “What’s a sabbat?” he asked. He’d heard the word, but he wasn’t sure what it meant, and apparently he needed to know.

  “You should take Wiccan 101, dude.”

  “Just catch me up,” Bobby ordered, then added, “Please.”

  “There are eight sabbats—celebrations, feast days, gatherings. They’re seasonal and solar. There are four major sabbats.” Todd held up a finger. “Imboic.” He added an additional finger for each one. “Beltane, Lughnasadh, Samhain. Four minor.” He continued on the other hand with four more fingers. “Yule, Ostara, Midsummer Eve, Mabon.”

  “And what happens during these celebrations?”

  “Not what most people think.”

  Bobby lifted an eyebrow. “What do they think?”

  “Naked dancing. Orgies. Human sacrifice. At the least we must kill a chicken, maybe a lamb.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Harm none,” Todd said. “We sing, dance, eat, chant. It’s like church in the forest. You should come.”

  “In the forest?” Bobby fought a shudder. He liked his church in a nice cathedral, with lots of candles and Latin. Although, remove the cathedral, and the dancing, add a ton of trees and the two were probably very similar. Too bad he had a thing about trees.

  “What happens if the high priestess dies?” Raye asked.

  Sadness flickered over Todd’s face before he answered. “There’s a ceremony in the place they felt most at peace. Probably the clearing where we hold our sabbats. In days gone by, the body was wrapped in a shroud and consigned to the earth. No casket. The sooner we return to the mother the better.”

  “Is that even legal?” Bobby asked.

  In most cemeteries, a grave liner, or vault, was required to keep the ground from settling and creating a very unappealing pockmarked appearance. Cemeteries preferred to look like the front lawn of heaven’s golf club.

  And wouldn’t bodies buried in the soil without protection contaminate not only the ground but the groundwater? There was a reason folks died young back in the day, and that might be one of them.

  “Cremation is common now,” Todd said. “We’ll spread Annie’s ashes in the clearing instead, though—” Todd frowned. “Usually the high priestess presides.”

  “Who’ll take over?” Bobby asked. Power and prestige were always on the hit parade of motives.

  “We’ll elect someone. Usually it’s the person with the most experience. But not always.”

  “Person?” Raye repeated. “Not woman?”

  “Most leaders are women. Wicca is a very feminine religion. The goddess, right? But some covens elect high priests. Many of the larger ones have both a high priest and a high priestess.”

  “Who do you think will take Anne’s place in your coven?” Bobby needed to have a talk with whoever that was.

  “I haven’t been involved long enough to guess.”

  Bobby handed one of his cards to the kid. “Let me know about the funeral arrangements.”

  “You wanna come?”

  He didn’t want to, but it was standard procedure in a murder case. Sometimes the murderer showed up at the funeral of his victims. Anne’s wouldn’t. But as there was more than one killer, there was probably someone pulling the strings. Maybe that person would show. Stranger things had happened.

  What he really needed to do was attend the maniac’s funeral. However, the way things were going, he doubted he’d be able to make a quick trip to Ohio. He should get in touch with local law enforcement, ask someone to take photos. Although the FBI was probably all over that already, or they’d better be.

  “Why would anyone want to kill such great ladies?” Todd wondered. “They were healers, helpers. Everyone loved them.”

  “Not everyone.” Raye’s eyes widened as if she hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud. “Mrs. Noita was kind of cranky. Some of the kids called her a witch.”

  “She was a witch. You think kids killed her?”

  “No.” Bobby cast Raye a quelling glance. The information about the Venatores Mali was not information he wanted to get out.

  “How’d Mrs. Noita die?”

  Bobby hesitated, but as the generalities had already been reported in the Sunday paper, he went on. “Throat cut.”

  “Bloody.”

  “Very.”

  “Was there anything odd about her death?”

  “I like to think, or at least hope, that every murder is odd,” Bobby said. But the kid was right. “It was pointed out that she should have died more quickly than she did.”

  Todd nodded. “Blood magic is the most powerful kind of magic there is.”

  “What’s blood magic?” Raye asked.

  “Using blood in a spell makes that spell not only personal but permanent. Blood magic binds through life and death and eternity. It isn’t used unless there’s no other choice.”

  Though Bobby didn’t believe a word of this, he still got a shiver. From the way Raye hugged herself she had too.

  “The results of a blood spell are stronger. They can’t be undone.”

  “Why not?” Raye’s voice was just above a whisper.

  “A fire witch would burn the blood, an earth witch would drop it onto the dirt, a water witch would disperse
it into the water, and an air witch would release it to the wind. You can’t unburn something. Once liquid sinks into the earth, it can’t be drawn out. Blood becomes one with the water and once the wind blows past it’s irretrievable.”

  “You think Mrs. Noita used blood magic?”

  “To delay death from a wound like that, she would have had to use something. Did you find a magical instrument near the body? Maybe an athame?”

  “Which is?”

  “Double-edged knife.” Todd moved to the glass case, opened the back, reached in. “Like this.”

  The weapon appeared normal enough—for a weapon. Silver blade, honed on both sides. It was the two sides that drew Bobby’s interest.

  “Are there any athames that are squiggly?”

  Todd’s lips twitched. “That is not a word I’d have thought would come from your mouth, dude.”

  “Me either.” And it wouldn’t have if he hadn’t heard it from Johnson. “Are there?”

  “Not so much anymore. But I have seen one.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  Bobby peered through the glass top of the case. He didn’t see any squiggly knives.

  “Dude,” he said, and Raye coughed.

  “I didn’t say it was here.” Todd indicated the display with the tip of the knife he still held then lifted it toward the ceiling. “Annie had it at her place.”

  “Why?” Bobby asked.

  “To cut herbs, draw a sacred circle.” Todd shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Ms. McKenna used an athame in her spells?”

  Todd shook his head as he returned the knife to the case. “Fire witches use athames. Annie was an air witch. She would use a wand.” He moved to another case, where a selection of amazingly different and intricate wands was displayed. They had carved wooden handles, onyx, amethyst, crystal. In the corner of the case equally elaborate cups had been grouped.

  Todd tapped the glass above them. “Chalices for a water witch.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, Mrs. Noita wouldn’t have used an athame. She was an earth witch. Her instrument was the pentacle.” He pointed at the wall where several necklaces were displayed, each with an amulet bearing the five-pointed star. “Used to call spirits.”