Trail of Dead

by Olson, Melissa F.

  “Oh,” I said. “That.”

  “But I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on Scarlett,” Jesse objected. “In case Olivia’s witch pal tries something during the day.”

  “Right.” Kirsten frowned. “I’m sorry, I forgot for a moment. Okay, both of you get your things. I’m going to make a couple of calls, and I’ll meet you out front.”

  She picked up her coffee and glided back toward the front door before Jesse and I could do more than gape at each other.

  Jesse filled Max’s food and water bowls while I jerked a brush through my damp hair and rolled it into a bun. We grabbed our jackets and headed outside, where Kirsten was off the phone and waiting for us. “We’ll drop Scarlett off somewhere safe,” she announced.

  “Can’t I just go to Hair of the Dog?” I asked with perhaps a little bit of whining in my voice. I was still angry with Eli, but at least he was a knowable factor, unlike whatever hidey-hole Kirsten was going to stick me in. I could hang out with Caroline or something.

  She shook her head. “I did try Eli first. There was a big fight at Will’s bar last night, among the wolves. No one was killed, but I gather there’s quite a bit of blood to clean up. Besides, Hair of the Dog is too obviously a place where you might be found.”

  Don’t worry, we’re going someplace very safe.” I saw Jesse open his mouth, and she held up a hand to silence him. “Somewhere Dashiell-approved,” she added, with a twinkle in her eye. I was very suspicious of that twinkle, but she was giving off a definite don’t-ask-questions vibe, so I decided to let it play out. One hidey-hole was pretty much as good as the next, right?

  After a moment’s discussion, Kirsten persuaded Jesse to drive us in his car so they could use the flashing light on their way down to San Diego. She told him to go toward the 101, and I slumped back in the low car, trying to balance my coffee and missing the White Whale, which was still parked in the garage next to Molly’s house. I had gotten used to riding upright, and Jesse’s stupid sedan felt like a tilted bed.

  Except for Kirsten’s directions, we fell into an uneasy silence as Jesse and I waited for the witch to pull her thoughts together and finish her explanation. Personally, I was feeling kind of weird about leaving Jesse and Kirsten alone together to go on their separate adventure. Even if she was being nicer to him, it just felt odd, like having your college friends and high school friends hang out together without you. Okay, I’d only attended a couple of weeks of college, but you get the idea.

  At the same time, though, I understood Kirsten’s stance on keeping me away from the magical objects. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that she probably wasn’t supposed to tell me about magical objects at all. Would they have to move the items stored at Beth Israel, now that Jesse and I knew about them? I shrugged to myself. Not my problem.

  “There is an amulet, on a necklace,” Kirsten began suddenly, and Jesse and I both gave a little start. I turned halfway in my seat, my shoulders against the window so I could look at her. She was tilting her head, frowning to herself. “Wait, let me back up. Rabbi Samuel, the man who was killed last night, was the last protector of the Book of Mirrors. It is now missing.”

  “Wait, wait, I know what that is,” I said. “Olivia told me about that. It’s a blank book that works like witches’ scratch paper, right? Don’t all witches have them for notes and stuff?”

  “Yes. But this one was special. It belonged to Lilith.”

  That meant nothing to me, but Jesse suddenly looked hard into the rearview mirror. He said something in Spanish that sounded a lot like “Save us, God.”

  “Who?” I asked, bewildered.

  “Lilith. You’ve probably heard the name at some point.”

  “Adam’s first wife,” Jesse said grimly. “The succubus.”

  I was turned far enough in the seat to see Kirsten roll her eyes, a very un-Kirsten-like thing to do. “Neither of those things are true. However, at various points in history most of the bad things in the world were blamed upon Lilith, so she’s become something of a mythic figure,” she said. “Some people in the Old World even speculated for a while that she was a vampire. Actually, though, Lilith was a witch—possibly the first witch, and almost definitely the most powerful in history.”

  Jesse’s shoulders backed down from his ears a little bit. Kirsten opened her enormous purse and pulled out a book with a green cover, some kind of encyclopedia. “I brought this to show you.” She flipped it open, turning pages as she talked. “Lilith was known for her kamias, amulets. They are the magical shortcuts I was talking about. She was very famous for this one: the Transruah.”

  She handed the book up to me, and I carefully pulled it through the space between me and Jesse. On the left-hand page I could see the small, penciled illustration: a voluptuous woman in a plain white shift, gazing into the distance. One hand had drifted up to touch her necklace, a simple stone on a leather cord. Jesse glanced down at it too.

  “It just looks like a rock,” I said bluntly.

  Kirsten frowned at me. “It’s Jerusalem stone. Lilith is part of Jewish history.” She shrugged. “Technically you could infuse any object with magic, but Lilith probably wanted a connection with her heritage.”

  “What does it do?” I said. “I’m guessing it doesn’t make perfect bread.”

  “No. Transruah literally means ‘spirit transfer.’ Lilith would kill someone with a spell, and that person’s spirit, the essence of their life, would become trapped in the amulet, letting Lilith absorb it. Like”—her hands gestured helplessly in the air for a moment—“like in Ghostbusters, they have that machine to trap and store the ghosts. Only this was the souls of living people, and Lilith was the storage container that held all the spirits.”

  Jesse and I exchanged a dumbfounded look. Although her day job was in the entertainment industry, that had to be the first movie reference I’d ever heard from Kirsten, and it happened to be from my favorite movie. This day just kept getting weirder.

  “What could she do with them?” I asked. “The spirits?”

  “Well, Lilith was able to live for centuries, which is probably where that vampire rumor came from. If her victim was another witch, she could also absorb their strengths for a time.” She shrugged helplessly. “And that’s only what we know about. It’s hard to say which of Lilith’s exploits were because of the Transruah, and which were her own natural power.”

  “Where is the thing, the amulet?” Jesse said, quite sensibly.

  “In the thirteenth century the Knights Templar finally killed Lilith and destroyed her Book of Shadows, her spellbook. Witches have always believed that they destroyed the Transruah as well.”

  “And now you think they didn’t?”

  She held up two fingers. “To use the Transruah, you need two things: the amulet itself and the spell to use it. Lilith’s spell. The knights were smart enough to destroy her spellbook, but the spell was also written in the Book of Mirrors. It’s the only complete spell in the book. Witches like me have been protecting the book, moving it around to keep it safe. If someone went to all the trouble to kill Rabbi Samuel and steal the book…”

  “Could someone have just made a new amulet?” I said. It didn’t look all that special in the drawing.

  “No,” Kirsten said, with sudden vehemence. “I am absolutely certain on this point. Over the centuries, there have been a few attempts, and it’s just not possible. An entire coven of witches as powerful as I am couldn’t have re-created the Transruah. It’s unique.”

  “So you think Olivia and her partner got the real amulet somehow, and needed the spell to use it,” Jesse said. He looked thoughtful. “That’s kind of a leap, though, isn’t it? Couldn’t the person who took the Book of Mirrors just be a collector or something?”

  “I suppose,” Kirsten conceded. “But without the amulet, it’s just a curiosity, a small piece of history. And more importantly was how Rabbi Samuel died. He was…” She paled considerably, her fingers scrabbling at her neck.
/>   “Drained of blood,” I finished, keeping my voice as gentle as I could.

  She nodded. “Yes. Sorry. I don’t mean to be squeamish, but I considered Rabbi Samuel a friend. I worked very closely with him a few years ago to set up the repository—the collection of historical items.”

  “You’re right, though,” Jesse said, nodding his head. “A vampire kill at a location that stores witch history…it’s too big of a coincidence.”

  I was staring out the window without really seeing anything, trying to process all that. The one thing I knew about magic, with absolute certainty, was that you never wanted to mess with the line between the living and the dead. And it sounded like that was this Lilith woman’s friggin’ specialty. “So wait,” I said, closing the history book and handing it back through the seats. “One more time. Say I’m the evil witch who’s working with Olivia, and I get my hands on the book and the amulet. What exactly can I do?”

  “I could speculate, but we really have no idea,” Kirsten said, busying herself with putting the book away so she didn’t have to meet my eyes.

  “Speculate.”

  She winced. “Well…in theory, you could live forever. Or bring someone back from the dead.”

  I leaned back, thonking the back of my head lightly against the window. “Those are some pretty big no-no’s, Kirsten.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  We were driving through a residential neighborhood now. It was 8:00 a.m. in Los Angeles, and while the homeowners were on their way to their jobs, the city’s real workforce was beginning to emerge in the world: gardeners, garbage collectors, nannies pushing $3,000 strollers. Sometimes they reminded me of a story my mom had read when I was little, about some elves and a shoemaker. The real magic that kept the nicer parts of the city beautiful and luxurious happened because of these people.

  Then I suddenly recognized where we were. “Uh, Kirsten,” I said, dread pooling in my stomach, “where exactly are we going?”

  “The safest place I know of, and somewhere where Olivia wouldn’t think to look for you,” Kirsten said with a thin smile.

  “But this is Pasadena. We’re in Pasadena.” Maybe the coffee hadn’t sunk in, but it took me a moment to put that together. “Are you kidding me?” I asked incredulously. “You’re taking me to Dashiell’s?”

  “I don’t like this, I don’t like this, I really hate this,” I chanted as we pulled into the long driveway. I’d never seen the mansion in the daylight, but I wasn’t surprised that it still looked gorgeous, all the paint perfect and the windows spotless. Beatrice would pay attention to that sort of thing, even if she couldn’t actually enjoy the house in the sunshine. “Dashiell’s going to be pissed. Can’t I just go to a hotel or something?”

  “No, Scarlett,” Kirsten said severely. “We know that the witch working with Olivia is very good. She can’t perform a tracking spell on you personally, but if she’s clever enough she might find a way to track you somehow, anyway. If she chooses to come at you during the day, she would have to kill you like a human would.” She gestured at the house as Jesse pulled to a stop. “This is the safest place for that.”

  We all unbuckled our seat belts, but Kirsten said, “Scarlett, why don’t you let me go in first and do the talking? These guys will be less jumpy if there’s only one of us.”

  I wondered if Kirsten was planning to use magic somehow to convince them to be nice to me, but I was more than happy to put off going in there. “Fine with me.”

  As she rounded the house toward the front door, Jesse said, “These guys?”

  “Dashiell’s daytime crew,” I explained. “I’ve never met them, but Beatrice told me they’re very tough. Ex-military types of guys. They’re mostly here in case of daytime attacks.”

  “Okay,” Jesse said, frowning. “Is that what she meant by ‘kill you like a human would’?”

  I nodded. “She means that the witch would have to shoot me or stab me or whatever. And Dashiell’s daytime guys are about the only ones in the LA Old World who use guns.”

  “Ah.” At the mention of guns, I saw Jesse’s hand stray down to his own hip.

  “Be cool, dude,” I advised. “We’re basically here asking for help.”

  He caught himself and relaxed. “Right, sorry.”

  A few minutes went by, and Kirsten came briefly back into view, waving me inside. “Do you want me to walk in with you?” Jesse asked.

  I was tempted for a second, but I shook my head. The whole thing made me nervous, but I didn’t really have anything to be afraid of. Hopefully. “No, Kirsten’s in a big hurry. I’ll be okay.”

  I leaned into my door to open it, and Jesse caught my free hand. I stilled. “If it’s a bad situation, get out of there,” he said quietly. “And just call me.” He squeezed my hand and let go.

  Kirsten was waiting for me at the front door, along with a gigantic, handsome black guy wearing a gun holster over a black polo shirt. I put out my “feelers” for a second, but he was definitely human. He towered over Kirsten, who was only a few inches over five feet tall. “It’s all arranged,” she said. “This is Mr. Hayne. He and I…well, we go back.” She glanced furtively up at Hayne, who just smiled at me with distant politeness.

  That was interesting. Hayne was probably in his late forties, but still had bulging muscles and a trim waistline. He reminded me of a British actor with an unusual name, who’d turned up in a lot of action movies recently. As he held out his hand for me to shake, I saw scarring on the inside of his wrist. Puncture wounds, a lot of them. Was Hayne a willing donor, or had he been punished for something? I forced my eyes back to his face as I shook his hand. My hands aren’t particularly small, but they disappeared into his.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Bernard,” Hayne said with a little smile. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

  “Mr. Hayne will explain things to you,” Kirsten said hurriedly, taking a few steps back. She reached out to squeeze my arm and promised to call me on the way back to LA. And suddenly I was alone with a large, armed stranger at Dashiell’s mansion.

  Fantastic.

  Chapter 13

  As soon as Kirsten got back in the car, Jesse felt a veil of awkwardness suddenly descend over them. He put the flasher on the roof of his vehicle, praying that Dashiell could get him out of trouble if he was noticed by unfamiliar highway patrolmen, and hit the freeway toward San Diego.

  “You like Scarlett, don’t you?” Kirsten said finally. “I saw the way you were looking at her.”

  “What? No.” He glanced over at the passenger seat and saw Kirsten lifting one side of her mouth skeptically. The gesture reminded him of Scarlett, and, sheepish, he smiled. “I mean, I consider Scarlett a friend, but I’m with someone else.”

  “Ah.”

  “You seem to get along with her too,” he offered politely.

  “I do,” she said after a pause. They were being careful with each other, he realized, each weighing every response before they spoke. But that was a lot better than the hostility of the day before. “She’s young, but she doesn’t play games. She’s not interested in politics, or power. It’s refreshing.”

  “Compared to the rest of the Old World?” he said.

  She smiled a Mona Lisa smile, not giving him the point. “Compared to the rest of Los Angeles.”

  Fifteen miles later, Jesse asked, “Do you really think this thing in San Diego is Olivia?”

  After a pause, Kirsten said, “When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell my sisters and me the story of Lilith and the Transruah. It was a scary story about a bad witch, meant to frighten us and provide a moral lesson. But I always felt…connected to Lilith. To that story.” She shrugged. “From the moment I heard about Rabbi Samuel, I just knew this was something I was a part of.”

  “You saw the future?”

  She held up a hand. “No, that’s never been my gift. It’s more like…when I got the call about Samuel early this morning, I just understood that the situation wa
s my responsibility.”

  There was that word again, Jesse thought. “You guys take that pretty seriously, don’t you?” Jesse asked. “You feel responsible for the people you lead.”

  “Yes, I suppose we do. Magic is very, very old, and there are certain attitudes…well. As long as there have been human leaders there has been a connection between power and responsibility.”

  “So it wasn’t just Spiderman, then?”

  She smiled, acknowledging the reference. “No.”

  They stopped for gas and a drive-through breakfast a few miles past Carlsbad. Jesse had pegged Kirsten as one of those organic vegan kind of people, but she took a lusty drink of her Diet Coke before he’d gotten his own straw unwrapped. Kirsten saw his glance and admitted, “I know it’s terrible for you, but I can’t help it. It’s so good.” He laughed, feeling for the first time like she was a regular person. She looked down at the cup holders, which both held various paraphernalia from Jesse’s work. “Where should I—”

  “Oh, let me just clear this crap.” Steering with one hand, he reached over to take her drink just as she reached toward him, and Jesse managed to knock the drink into her stomach. The lid popped off and soda splashed across her corduroy pants and white shirt. Jesse pulled the car over and threw it in park. “Shit! I’m so sorry! Should we stop at a bathroom, or…”

  “It’s all right,” Kirsten said calmly. “Just a moment.”

  She glanced around, and then whispered something under her breath, touching the stain with her index finger. Jesse’s jaw dropped open as the brown liquid seemed to adhere itself to the tip of her finger. Kirsten raised her hand, drawing a fat stream of soda into the air, and moved the cup under it. She lowered her finger until the brown stream sank back into the cup. As she settled it carefully into the cup holder, Jesse saw her clothes were clean. She brushed a couple of ice cubes onto the floor and smiled at him, a little shyly.

  “That was…that was so cool,” Jesse whispered, suddenly feeling outclassed. It was the first actual witchcraft he’d seen, aside from the little dancing saltshaker.