A Cast-Off Coven

by Juliet Blackwell

  “I need to get a few things from home before I can do a proper reading,” Sailor said as we paused in front of the building.

  “You mean you’ll come to the school?”

  “I don’t appear to have much choice in the matter.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  “Anyway, I have to stop by my place.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Sailor pressed his lips together. His hands rested lightly on his hips, and he looked around as though searching for escape.

  “Whatever,” he finally said under his breath.

  “Do you have a car here?” I asked.

  “Motorcycle.”

  I laughed.

  “What’s funny about that?”

  “I was just wondering if you could hit any more clichés. The attitude, the boots, the bike . . .”

  He looked at me, frowning in perplexity. “If I didn’t have the bike, why would I need the boots?”

  Now I laughed at the sincere bewilderment on his somber face. I was still chuckling when I turned to see Max Carmichael, of all people, striding toward the front doors of the Fairmont. He stopped in his tracks when he saw me.

  “Max,” I said.

  “Lily,” he replied, surprised.

  Sailor swore under his breath. Max’s gaze shifted to him. A black cloud passed over his face, and he strode toward Sailor.

  “It wasn’t me,” Sailor said, putting his hands up in supplication and backing away.

  Without pausing, Max stormed over and punched him, clipping his jaw with a wicked left hook.

  Chapter 17

  “Max!” I said, grabbing his arm. Sailor staggered into the wall of the hotel, then steadied himself. “What’s gotten into you?”

  The doorman whistled loudly and jogged up to us.

  “Hey, what’s going on here? Take this somewheres else—hear me?”

  “What are you doing with this guy?” Max demanded of me as he pulled his arm away from my grip. His voice was harsh.

  “He’s helping me with something,” I said.

  He glared at Sailor, who leaned back against the wall, his hand rubbing his jaw and his tongue feeling around on the inside. Then Max stalked off.

  “It’s okay,” I told the hovering doorman. “We’re leaving.”

  Grumbling loudly about Certain Kinds of People, the uniformed man went back to assume his position at the main entrance.

  “Wait, Max!” I called out.

  He didn’t slow his pace, so I ran to catch up with him.

  “Max, what in the world was all that about?”

  Max looked down at me, his eyes full of torment and sorrow. “Don’t trust that guy, Lily. Take my word for it.”

  “He’s just doing me a favor,” I said. “It’s nothing—”

  “I’ll talk to you about this later. I—I can’t talk about it right now.”

  “All right.”

  He briefly cupped my face in his hand, gave me a sad little smile, and walked away.

  I returned to Sailor, who was still leaning back against the building. I held a hand up to touch his face. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he muttered, pushing my hand away. “He didn’t give it his all.”

  “You didn’t punch back. I’m impressed.”

  “Yeah, well, if it had been my wife, I would’ve taken his head off. He had cause.”

  We started walking toward my car.

  “What about Max’s wife?”

  “I thought you knew him.”

  “I do.”

  “But you don’t know about his wife?”

  I shook my head.

  He shrugged. “You should probably let him tell it.” “You slept with his wife?”

  Sailor stopped in his tracks and gaped at me, appalled.

  “Now how is it that you go right to the down and dirty, not stopping to think that I might have a few scruples? Good Lord, woman.”

  I tried not to smile at his outraged sense of morality.

  “Sorry. My bad.”

  “You’d better believe it is,” he grumbled. “Fact is, I used to be in the business. Used my so-called abilities to make money. I had a business partner. Max’s wife came to us, looking for help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “She couldn’t get pregnant.”

  “Why would she go to psychics?”

  “She’d tried every legitimate route, I guess. She was in pretty bad shape, to tell you the truth—seeing a shrink, on meds. I guess she was stable enough but really desperate for a kid. I counseled her to adopt. Unfortunately, my partner took her on as a client, saw her for quite a while, and eventually told her she should go off her meds.”

  I let out a little sigh of distress. “Oh, no.”

  “You can say that again. She was clinically depressed, you know, not just fooling around. Like I said, this psychic bullshit is dangerous.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “Believe it.”

  “Poor Max.”

  We reached my car.

  “There’s my bike,” he said as he gestured toward a Kawasaki 750 just down the block. “Follow me.”

  I pulled up my Mustang behind Sailor’s motorcycle, thinking about Max’s poor wife—and about poor Max. No wonder he was so tormented.

  Sailor led the way across Nob Hill to Clay Street, then straight down the hill to nearby Chinatown. We crossed Stockton, where even at this hour folks flocked across the street, delaying traffic. We drove down Waverly Place, and took another right onto Sacramento. Sailor parked his bike and gestured to a spot for me on the crowded street.

  “The alley’s pedestrian-only,” Sailor explained as we walked down the alley, past a dim sum parlor called Hang Ah Teahouse on the left, and a children’s play-ground surrounded by a chain- link fence on the right. There were lots of vibrations here; big, boisterous families, plenty of history.

  “If you enter from the Clay Street side, the street’s called Hang Ah Alley. Enter from Sacramento Street and it’s Pagoda Alley, which is the Western name for it. Hang Ah means ‘fragrant’ in Chinese.”

  I noticed a strong aroma of perfume; this was the scent I had noticed on Sailor earlier this evening. I met Sailor’s gaze.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “There used to be a German perfume maker down here, back in the day. A few of us can still smell it.”

  I noticed alternating English and Chinese text on the ground, telling about the history of the alley.

  “What a great place!” I exclaimed.

  Sailor seemed amused at my reaction. “I like it here. People mind their own business,” he said pointedly.

  Right past an informal mah-jongg parlor, we entered a nondescript door and started up a dim stairwell. Coming down the stairs was a short Chinese man. He started yelling at Sailor as he passed.

  “Yeah, yeah, tomorrow,” Sailor said.

  The man continued down past us, shaking his head.

  “Rent’s due,” Sailor explained. “Maybe a little past due.”

  “You understand Mandarin?”

  “It’s Cantonese. And I understand thoughts, remember? The language is just the verbal expression. I can pretty much understand all languages, but I can’t speak them.”

  “So you understand but remain misunderstood?”

  “Something like that.”

  “That seems like a metaphor for something,” I said as I trailed him up the stairs. “Your life, maybe?”

  “You know your problem?”

  “I have an idea you’re going to tell me.”

  “You think too damned much.”

  At the second landing, Sailor pulled out his key and started to open the door. I stopped short. Something chilled me to the core.

  Our eyes met.

  “A homicide over a bad gambling debt, sometime in the 1920s,” said Sailor with a shrug. “Mah-jongg. It’s harmless, just repeating itself.”

  “And you live with it?”

  “I’m not afraid
. I know what it is.”

  “Yes, but . . .” I trailed off. No wonder he was in such a bad mood all the time. That sort of despair would have to seep into you eventually, wouldn’t it? Unless, of course, it reflected emotions he already had and gave him a strange kind of comfort, a feeling of kinship.

  “Besides, the rent’s cheap. And it encourages people to keep their distance,” Sailor explained. “They all know what happened here, so they think I’m nuts.”

  “Not that I’m telling you what to do, but did you ever think maybe you are nuts?”

  “Only every damned day.”

  The studio apartment featured a sad- looking couch covered with a bedspread, a neatly made bed—the only tidy thing in the place—and stacks of cardboard boxes full of files and papers. Tall stacks of books had dirty coffee cups atop them. An iMac computer sat on a scarred wooden coffee table. The apartment looked ugly, but it smelled surprisingly good, like spices and jasmine tea, with whiffs of ghostly perfume emanating from the alley.

  As Sailor packed a few items into a leather knapsack, I decided to indulge my curiosity.

  “Sailor, were you born with your psychic abilities?”

  He snorted. “Nope.”

  “Then how did you become psychic?”

  “Ask your BFF Aidan.”

  “BFF?”

  “ ‘Best friend forever.’ You don’t know basic texting?”

  “I don’t even know basic algebra,” I grumbled.

  “Algebra’s tough. I was better at geometry.”

  “I suck at that, too. So how does your psychic ability work, exactly?” I asked. “I mean, if you can’t read minds . . .”

  “I can read plenty of minds. I choose not to.”

  “But not mine.”

  “Not yours. What, you think you’re a regular person?”

  “Can you pick the winning lotto numbers?”

  He gave me a pained look. “I can’t predict the future—I might have a premonition from time to time, but I’ll bet you have that as well. I’m more a medium—souls that have passed on seem to be able to communicate with me, or more precisely, through me.”

  “And you with them.”

  “Yeah, no. It’s more like they talk to me than the other way around. They seek me out. It’s not what you’d call my idea of fun.”

  I picked up a few nearby books, looked at their spines, and read the titles. “The Afterlife and Other Questions, The Enigma of the Psyche, Psychics: Charlatans or Seers?”

  Sailor watched me looking through his things, extracted a bottle of tequila from a crowded cupboard, and took a swig. He gestured with the bottle toward me.

  I shook my head. “No, thanks. Does that help with your psychic reading?”

  “It helps get me through the day. Not to mention the night.”

  Our eyes met. A long moment passed.

  “What happened to you, Sailor?”

  He paused, continuing to look at me so long, I thought he might actually be about to confide in me. But then that sardonic look came over his features, once again.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you ask way too many personal questions?”

  “Not really. I don’t usually ask personal questions at all.”

  “But I inspire nosiness?”

  “A bit, yes. You’re something of a puzzle, as if you didn’t know.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I guess we’re a matched set, then.”

  He walked slowly toward me, his eyes never dropping from mine. I felt my heart speed up, my mouth open to speak, but no words came out. Sailor didn’t stop until he stood right in front of me; too close. He reached out and placed his hand around my neck, as though throttling me, but he held me very gently.

  “You and I are not a matched anything. Get that straight.”

  He let go, reached around me, and grabbed another small duffel bag off a nail in the wall. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  Obviously, Marlene had not implemented my suggestion. The school had not been closed. As we walked along the hallways, dozens of students lingered between classes, and several small groups bickered. I noticed blue paint had been smeared upon several of the old stucco walls.

  Sailor and I had maintained a mutual silence since we left his apartment. But as we walked down the main hallway, he stopped in his tracks.

  “Wait,” he said, eyes wide, “No, is it . . . It couldn’t be! It’s—it’s . . .”

  “Sailor? What is it?” I asked, my heart pounding.

  “It’s a Snapple machine.”

  I hit him in the arm. “That’s not funny.”

  He laughed and rubbed his bicep, feigning hurt from my punch.

  “I shouldn’t have to remind you that this is serious business,” I said, sounding prim to my own ears.

  “Why haven’t you shut the school down if it’s so serious?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  We arrived at the bottom of the bell tower stairs. The minute we entered the antechamber, footsteps rang out on the stairs and the moaning began.

  “Holy hell,” Sailor muttered. “You sure you want to stir things up here?”

  “They’re already stirred up,” I said grimly. “I have to do something to regain control.”

  We started climbing the bell tower stairs, me leading the way. I peeked back at Sailor, but he was concentrating, his attention fixed on the walls and the ground. The noises swirled around us, building to a crescendo when we reached the top and opened the door to the third floor. The closet was directly to our left.

  I swung the door open. Sailor paused a long time on the threshold.

  “You removed something from here?”

  “Clothes,” I said, “and a few other items. A music box.”

  “I trust you did a cleansing? Beyond your average wash cycle, I mean.”

  I nodded.

  He took a deep breath and walked in.

  Sailor set up an incense censer and candles, then asked me to draw a circle of protection for us. We both sat cross-legged on the floor within the circle, facing each other. He held out his hands, palms up.

  “Lay your hands on mine.”

  He blew out a deep breath and shook out his shoulders, as though shaking off a chill.

  “I hate this stuff,” he grumbled. “It feels so cheesy.”

  “There’s nothing cheesy about a genuine séance.”

  He grunted and closed his eyes. He took a series of deep breaths. I could see his lips moving slightly as though he were chanting to himself. After a few minutes his head fell back so his face was toward the ceiling.

  The closet was so small that the incense soon filled the air with a haze that reeked of a moldy bonfire. This was no pleasant, patchouli-oil incense. It was stinky, almost noxious.

  I heard Sailor breathing harshly, murmuring something unintelligible but urgent, in different-sounding voices, as though several people were having a low, mumbled conversation. He remained seated, his hands touching mine, but his head whipped back and forth, and I could see his eyes rolling under his eyelids.

  I felt him using me as a power source. The energy coursed through my palms into his, making my hands burn and itch. As I watched, the quality of the haze changed. At first almost imperceptible, the smoke began to morph into faces. Horrible faces. They cried and moaned and whimpered, fading in and out. I smelled a strong floral perfume, then heard giggling, sobbing, humming all around us.

  The piles of ashes started to fly, swooping around the room, joining with the smoke and mist.

  Suddenly the tinny notes of the music box rang out, playing “There’s a place in France . . .” but the music box was still at my shop.

  And then a voice sounded. It was coming from Sailor but was not his.

  “I am John Daniels. Why haven’t you heard me? You must help me. There is an evil one. There is . . .”

  The voice trailed off. Sailor’s head dropped down again.

  The next voice was effeminate, giggling.
“Our lord, our master.” Then came another giggle, another distinct voice, also high-pitched. “Notre Père, nous aimons . . .”

  And then everything stopped; all sound came to an end.

  Sailor’s head hung limply on his chest, his eyes closed.

  Power marched up and down my spine. Evil. Wrong.

  A ghastly sound assailed my ears, at first like the rushing of wind through reeds . . . but then it sounded as though thousands were wailing, crying out in agony and despair. It was the beating of wings, horrible wings.

  I looked up to see a winged big cat—a jaguar, or maybe a leopard. Each beat of its wings cast that horrific, screaming noise through the room.

  The demon. No. I wasn’t ready for him. We weren’t ready; we hadn’t contained him.

  But he quickly dissolved in the ether, just like the other images. I sagged with relief. He wasn’t manifesting; it was just an image of him—a potent image. But when a powerful witch thought about a demon, it could be almost as effective as summoning him on purpose. . . .

  I let out a great burst of energy to break our connection. Sailor and I repelled from one another. Sailor flew back and landed prone; I was thrown up against the chest of drawers, banging my head.

  All sound ceased.

  I jumped up to check on Sailor, but he was already sitting up and dusting off his jacket.

  “I hate this crap. Look at this mess.”

  “I . . . are you all right?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “I . . .” I looked around the room, still full of incense smoke, but not images. The ashes were back in their five neat piles.

  “What did you see?” Sailor asked.

  “Too much.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  We took the other, safer set of stairs down to the first floor and hurried out the front doors. Only when we were safely outside the building did Sailor talk to me.

  “The ghost from the bell tower isn’t your problem. He’s just a lovelorn schmuck. Actually, though, he was murdered—he didn’t kill himself.”

  “Did he say by whom?”

  “Couldn’t say. Quite literally couldn’t. We were interrupted. But he’s harmless, scared to death as a matter of fact.”

  “A scared ghost?”

  “A lot of them are terrified. It’s very confusing to be caught in between. But this one was happy enough here at the school until a new guy came on the scene.”