by Melanie Rawn
“That’s just the point. He’s no amateur. I don’t like what he’s up to. Alec and I would like you to go to the store and give us your opinion.”
She regarded them for a time in silence. Then: “What you mean is that you’re considering a Working, and want my cooperation—which means my blood.” Her voice changed, and Evan blinked in surprise at the manifestation of an icily controlled anger he had never seen from her before.
Her honorary uncles were unimpressed. Alec said, “Your opinion is what we’re after. Then, if necessary, we’ll consult the Magistrate.”
“The what?” Lachlan couldn’t help it.
“There are rules and formalities in what we do,” Nick told him. “Difficulties are taken to a Magistrate for investigation. If the Circle agrees, and the subject is unwilling to modify his or her behavior —” He finished with an eloquent shrug.
Lachlan was further intrigued, but even more certain he wasn’t going to get any concrete answers. Still, he had to try. “Holly said they used to send you two out to deal with people like that.”
Alec consulted his wristwatch in a purposely ostentatious gesture. “Another long story, and one we have no time for tonight.” Rising, he leaned over to kiss Holly again. “Think about it, would you?”
“Yes, just think about it,” Nick seconded as he beckoned the waiter for their coats. “We’re at the Plaza tonight, but we’ll be going home tomorrow. Call us at the farmhouse, okay?”
Holly said nothing.
The men shook hands with Evan, skipping the usual Nice to meet you, let’s have dinner again sometime pleasantries, and started for the door. Halfway there, Nick turned, came back, and placed a small, square box wrapped in silver paper on the table by Holly’s wineglass.
“Think about it,” he repeated. “Happy birthday, sweet.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Evan asked when Orlov was gone.
“Later.”
Catching her eye, he said bluntly, “I’ve never seen you rude before.”
“I don’t like it when that life intrudes on real life.”
“From what I understand, ‘that life’ is anything but unreal.”
“You are real life for me. Can you see that, Evan? The other thing—that’s just something accidental, something I was born with. You, and my books —” She gestured helplessly. “It’s the difference between what I was born and who I am.”
“Like I was born Irish and can’t do anything about it, but my career is my own choice?”
She nodded. “It has to do with other people’s definitions of who you are, as opposed to how you define yourself.”
He considered that for a moment. “But aren’t Alec and Nick just asking you to be what you are?”
The waiter interrupted politely to inform them that the bill had already been paid. Lachlan made a mental note to come up with really good seats for that promised Knicks game, and escorted Holly outside into the February cold. They walked for a bit at her suggestion, which let him know she wanted to tell him something private and couldn’t wait until they got back to her place.
Without preamble, she said, “When I was little I knew there was something special about me. We took it for granted, yet we didn’t — you know? Like being good at sports or music. It was just something that was there for Aunt Lulah and me and some of our kin. Something we could do that was out of the ordinary. But at some point I started feeling that it wasn’t just not ordinary, but downright not normal. And I spent a lot of energy wanting to be normal, have a life like everyone else’s. Home, husband, family—”
He tucked her gloved hand into the crook of his elbow. “One person’s genius is another person’s freak. But it’s like that with everyone who can do something not ordinary, Holly. Whose definition of your talents are you willing to accept?”
She gave a little shrug and leaned into his shoulder, hunching a little in her coat. “I wanted being special to come from something I could do, not just something I happened to be.”
“I got news for you, lady love. You could never be ‘ordinary’—and it’s got nothing to do with the magic.”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, TELLING HERSELF she was at a sticky point in Jerusalem Found and didn’t feel like working—it was raining in New York, and not conducive to writing about sunny Medieval Palestine (that was her excuse, anyway)—Holly went to The Recommended Sentence as requested. And was, more than anything else, annoyed by what she found.
Before, the shop had been a discriminating haven of first editions, autographed copies, and an impressive collection of framed letters from famed authors thanking Nicholas Orlov for his friendship and support. He’d taken the letters with him when he retired, of course, and a new coat of paint had obliterated the dark unfaded rectangles where the souvenirs had been. That alone was enough to irritate her—the letters had always felt like the welcoming smiles of friends. What made it worse was that the new owner had chosen to smear the walls with a deep grayed maroon rather like the color of dusty, half-dried blood.
And it smelled strange in here. Nicky’s shop had smelled of old leather and old paper and good coffee; now there was something heavy and musky in the air that made her nose sting.
The new owner was indeed a beanpole. Long-limbed, lanky, pale of skin and eye, she had to admit he would be attractive if one appreciated the type. His thick, straight hair was reddish brown, swept back from a high forehead to cascade over his shirt collar. He moved with the curious grace of a too-large bird: the long arms and legs awkward in stillness, but revealing an elegance in motion and hinting at an unexpected strength. All in all, an odd character.
Busy with a customer at the front desk, he barely glanced up as Holly entered the shop. After a few moments of observing him, she wandered the oncefamiliar shelves, taking in the embellishments of his decorating scheme. There was a suite of twenty-six small woodcuts depicting a Devil’s Alphabet: A for Asmodeus, B for Baphomet, and so on. Just the thing for teaching a Satanist’s child the ABCs. One huge frame, alarmingly curlicued and gilded, surrounded a displayed tarot deck, each card’s illustration skewed to the demonic. Holly wondered who would want to read a future told by cards featuring Lovers who had stabbed each other in the back.
In the middle of the store, where Nicky had kept cozy chairs and handy tables, there now resided a stone basin on a stone plinth that looked for all the world like a Druidic pedestal sink. Holly wasn’t surprised to see scorch-marks inside the basin, and wondered what the fire marshal would make of this. She walked toward the coffee bar, sparing a glance for the assortment of cookies in the glass case. Skulls, pentagrams, and phalluses, all iced in Day-Glo colors.
Turning her attention to the books, Holly picked a row at random, and was unable to credit that there could be so many volumes written on demons, let alone on specific categories of them. At least three vertical feet of books about incubi, a similar number on succubi, and twice that about the hierarchies of Hell. A quick flip through one of the latter volumes told her that someone — or something — named Kobal was Entertainment Liaison, Paymon was Master of Infernal Ceremonies, and Nysrogh was Palace Chief of Staff. Sternly forbidding herself to speculate on their duties, she rubbed absently at her nose, replaced that book, and pulled out another. This one revealed an unexpectedly feminist slant, being an encyclopedia of goddesses, demonesses, evil spirits, and princesses of Hell.
Resisting the impulse to shake her head in amazement, she turned a corner to peruse another aisle. Vampires, Devils, Ancients, Goth, Voudon, Santeria, Temple of Satan, History, Languages (including Runes and Magical Alphabets), Modern Religions, Witches —
She winced, and decided she didn’t want to know.
All at once it occurred to her that this must have been how Evan felt when initially investigating the Craft. Not that he didn’t want to know, exactly, but that he worried about what he might find. Well, if he wouldn’t give in to intellectual cowardice, neither would she. Reaching the fiction shelves, she pulled out a book tit
led Witchtales Retold and opened it to the table of contents.
Someday My Prince of Darkness Will Come; Bring Me the Heads of the Seven Dwarfs; Hansel and Gretel — Gluttons for Punishment; Cruella’s, Coup d’Evil; Why Is My Sister under that House, and Where Are Her Ruby Slippers?
Suddenly it all seemed very silly and harmless. This was nothing more than a playground for dilettantes, amateurs, dabblers, and nitwitches. Holly regretted the demise of Nicky’s wonderful bookshop, but no doubt some other dealer had purchased his stock and it resided in a mystery-lover’s sanctuary waiting for buyers.
Convinced now that her adoptive uncles were simply pissed off by the changes, she started back for the front desk, taking with her the volume of reworked children’s stories to read on her trip to Europe next month. As she waited for the owner to finish with another customer, who was having trouble deciding which earrings to buy (inverted pentacles in silver, copper, or what purported to be bone of goat), she opened the book again to smile over a few more story titles.
“You find our religion amusing?”
He had a deep musical voice and a hint of a Boston accent—probably one more reason Nicky had liked him to begin with, for Alec had the same remnants of pahk-the-cah-in-Hahvahd-Yahd.
“No more so than my own,” Holly replied easily. “Interesting shop you’ve got here. Used to be mysteries, right?”
“It did. You knew the store then?”
“I was in once or twice,” she lied. “Why’d you keep the name, if you don’t mind my asking? ‘The Recommended Sentence’ was a fair-to-middling pun for a mystery bookstore, but it doesn’t quite fit this merchandise, does it?”
The earrings girl (who had chosen the goat-bone set) looked up from rummaging in her capacious handbag. “Oh, but it’s perfectly appropriate. The Master’s judgments on life and death —”
“Serenity.” The owner shrugged and smiled a little, taking the sting out of his mild warning. “See you next week?”
“Absolutely, Noel.” With a toss of maroon-streaked hair and a swirl of black wool, she was gone.
“Some people get a little … enthusiastic,” Noel said ruefully.
“Evangelicals — if that’s the appropriate term,” Holly couldn’t help but reply, and saw the man’s pale blue eyes glint with humor. She paid for the book with a credit card, after adding a greeting card from the rack near the counter — a lovely photo of Stonehenge by moonlight, blank inside—and while her purchases were being processed inspected a tall glass display case of candles. Fairly disgusting, some of them; she wondered that he didn’t have an Adults Only area sectioned off, then decided his relations with the authorities weren’t her problem. After accepting the bag Noel handed her, she smiled and wished him a good afternoon.
Back at home, she used the Stonehenge card to write Nicky and Alec a note saying thank you for the cloisonné brooch, she missed the old shop but the new owner and his merchandise seemed pretty harmless, and stop worrying like a couple of old maiden uncles. She appended an invitation to dinner and/or the next ritual sacrifice on Salisbury Plain, whichever they preferred, signed the card, sealed and stamped the envelope, and put it in the correspondence pile.
And then she sneezed. Even a brisk walk through the Village before taking a taxi home hadn’t blown the store’s scent from her clothing, and her nose had finally had enough. Rummaging around the office for tissues (none—she used toilet paper from the bathroom instead), she sneezed again. And cursed. She hadn’t had allergies like this since first moving to L.A. for grad school, and back then it had been the smog, not a flower or plant.
No, that was wrong. After leaving Denise’s apartment that night last autumn she’d sniffled until the next morning. “Musk and patchouli?” she heard Ian say in memory. On a red Baphomet candle just like the ones she’d seen in the store.
Was Denise getting her supplies there? Ridiculous to suspect that she was. There must be half a hundred occult shops in the five boroughs where one could procure candles and essential oils and implements. Yet when she considered the slant of Noel’s store, which seemed to be just Denise’s style …
Damn. She would have to report it to the Magistrate, as anything that might concern Denise must be reported to the Magistrate.
HOLLY LIFTED HER HAIR FROM her nape so Evan could fasten her mother’s pearl necklace. “It may be my imagination, but it seems as if all you people in law enforcement know each other.”
“Turn a little, I can’t see — yeah,” he said, snapping the clasp before leaving a kiss behind her ear. “Same as all you Witches know each other, I guess. Different religions—” He grinned at her in the mirror. “—but the same craft union.”
“Then there must be the same kind of hierarchy as well.”
“Turf,” he corrected with a shrug. “With a lot of overlap. NYPD Narcotics and the DEA are always in each other’s faces, for instance. The FBI wants a piece of everything. And of course there’s Homeland Security, the new kids on the block.”
“But the Marshals are the oldest service in the country.” She turned and straightened his tie. “You guys have the coolest badges, too,” she added with a wink. “So if you all engage in pissing contests, why are we going to a retirement party for a Secret Service suit?”
“Because Frank Sbarra worked liaison for twenty years with the police and the Marshals on VIP protection, for one thing. And for another, he’s a good friend of Pete Wasserman’s, which means he also hangs with my dad every so often.”
“You didn’t tell me I’d be meeting your father tonight,” she said, frowning.
“You won’t. He’s up in Boston with the aunts.” Eyeing her, he went on, “Usually women want to meet the folks.”
“I do. I’d just like a little warning beforehand, that’s all.”
“When do I get to meet Aunt Lulah?”
“One of these days.”
He considered this evasion for a while as they gathered up coats and keys. Then: “Oh. The commitment thing.”
“What?”
“Getting introduced to the relatives. It’s kind of definite.”
“So is my intense need to knock you into the middle of next week.”
“Why don’t you just turn me into a toad?”
“If only I could. Keep laughing, Lachlan, I have several very gifted friends who’d just love to try out new spells on you.”
In the elevator, she tossed him her car keys. He was deeply in lust with her black BMW, and she knew it, and taunted him with it whenever they drove instead of taking a taxi. “Here—I like you better as a chauffeur than as a toad.”
Settling into leather luxury, he fired up the engine and sighed his contentment.
“Daayaamn,” she drawled, “but y’all look cute behind the wheel of this here car!”
“I know,” he shot back. “But you’ll have to adjust the mirrors back before you drive it again. And the seat and steering wheel.”
“When we stop, I’ll show you the buttons that control the memory. Different drivers,” she explained. “I’m One—this is my car!—and you can be Two.”
“Aw, gee—first I get a drawer, then some hangers in the closet, and now I get programmed into your car? I guess you must kinda like me, huh?”
“I know, I’m too good to you,” she said breezily. “So tell me about Frank.” He smiled as he drove out of the garage onto the street, calling up a mental image of the beefy Italian and his tiny Brazilian wife. “He and Maria are married thirty-two years, with four daughters, five grandkids—so far—and a big house in the Jersey burbs. They met when her father was doing business in Washington, and she never went back to Rio. Frank wore an earplug on the Presidential detail until somebody cycled feedback by accident and damned near fried his eardrum. That’s when he started being a social director.”
She laughed softly. “So that’s what they call it when you have to make sure nobody tries to assassinate a VIP?”
“That’s what Frank calls it. You’ll like him. He sm
okes cigars even stinkier than mine.”
Two hours later, replete with martinis and canapes, Lachlan and Frank Sbarra were doing just that—out on the back porch, by Maria’s command, so the cigars didn’t malodorize the whole house. Inside the living room, friends and colleagues and daughters and husbands and grandkids milled about, drinking and laughing. It was the kind of gathering Lachlan wished his family could have. Just once. Just to see what it felt like.
“Where’ve you been keeping this girl, Evan?”
“Away from you, Franco,” he retorted fondly. “I know you. One pat on the ass and she’d be head over heels—and seeing as how Maria’s had you on a choke chain for over thirty years, you’d only break Holly’s heart.”
“Madonn’, but it’s such a nice ass,” Sbarra chuckled. “I can look, though, can’t I?”
“All you like,” Evan replied breezily. “So what’re you gonna do with yourself now that you’re an old retired fogy?”
“Start a security business, what else? It’s all I know how to do, and I’m pretty good at it.” Flicking ash from his cigar, he gazed out at the backyard, all hung with fairy lights from the fences and apple trees. Though it was thirty-five degrees outside, there were a few couples strolling Maria’s tidy flower beds and herb garden. The best salsa Lachlan had ever tasted started life in this yard every spring. “You ever get tired of playing Wyatt Earp, you come join me, Evan.”
Adopting a cowboy slouch and an exaggerated Texas twang, Lachlan said, “Nah, gotta stick around and catch all them gol-durned cattle rustlers, clean up Dodge City.” It was an old joke, part of the pissing contest among officers of differing agencies. He was about to tease in his turn when he caught sight of a pair of new arrivals taking off their coats. “What the hell is he doing here?”
Sbarra squinted. “Get enough of Judge Bradshaw at the office, do you? Didn’t Pete ever tell you about the time he and I worked security for an up-andcoming D.A. who had half the Klan gunning for him?”
“Some of ’em still are,” Lachlan muttered. “How come Bradshaw’s so popular, Franco? I get bulletins every other week about the Klan, the Aryans, the Mafia—the Chianti kind and the vodka kind —”