by P. N. Elrod
The ultimate aromatherapy.
“Wow,” I said dreamily.
“See?” Andy said. I opened my eyes—I hadn’t even realized that I’d closed them—and saw him standing in front of me, arms folded, smiling. “I promised it’d get better, didn’t I?”
“Wow.” It was all I could really manage. The only thing I could compare this feeling to was that of waking up safe in his arms in the hush of the early morning after a fantastic night of sex and sleep. “That is—wow.” I was a pretty fair potion maker, but this—this was a master class, and it was beyond amazing.
Andy helped me stand up, then he put his arms around me and kissed me, and for a man wearing a girly apron he kissed with a lot of authority and great skill. It took awhile before I was able to get my head together enough to murmur, “What is that stuff?”
“I damn sure hope you don’t mean what I just did with my lips because I thought I gave it a real good effort, and it was pretty clear—”
“The potion, Andy.”
“Little something I developed back in the day. I made it mostly for you,” he said, meeting my eyes and holding them. “Just wanted you to not feel so damn bad every day you come dragging home from that office place. It’s not right that you work so hard like that.”
“I know, I know, you can earn money, I’m sure it’s against your Old West code to have your girl out working for living. But I—we—need the paycheck. The resurrection business isn’t what it used to be. The last job I had barely covered a month’s mortgage after I paid for supplies.”
“Don’t you mock my code, ma’am, it was the way I was brought up. It rubs me raw not to take care of a good woman the way I should.” He hesitated, then said, “I’ve got something for you.”
“Something more than this? Because this is amazing.” I inhaled that intoxicating aroma again. It was the human equivalent of catnip, that smell.
“I’ve been taking on some side jobs,” he said, and dug something out of his pocket. “Here.”
It was a roll of cash. A huge roll. I blinked, weighed it, and focused on the numbers that showed at the front.
That was a hundred-dollar bill. “Andy…” I took the rubber band off and fanned the cash out. It was all hundreds. At a quick estimate, I was holding at least five thousand dollars. “Oh my God. How—?”
“Told you. Side jobs.” He smiled and kissed my nose again. “Make you feel any better?”
“My God. That’s just—” I blew out a breath, searching for some word to describe how I felt, and failing miserably. “Amazing. Thank you.”
His dark eyes were intent on me, a little wary, but mostly pleased. “So I did all right?”
“You didn’t have to do this.” I put my hand gently against his face, and he kissed my palm without breaking eye contact. “We don’t know how much energy you can expend without hurting yourself. Doing anything magical without me … that’s dangerous, Andy.”
He shrugged. “Spent most of my life on the edge, sweetness. Ain’t like dangerous is new territory to me.”
That frightened me. I loved Andy, and I knew he loved me, but the little voice in my head kept insisting that I not get too comfy. All of this between us, it was so tenuous, so fragile, so essentially wrong according to the laws of magic. Everyone who was resurrected was eventually drawn back into the dark; he’d lasted so much longer than the others, but … I knew it would happen. And I dreaded it.
I’d have to let him go someday. I knew it.
“Hey,” Andy said, and tapped me on the nose again. “Stop woolgathering. What’s eating at you? I thought the money would make it better.”
“It does.” I took in another calming breath of potion and smiled at him. “You said the potion was mostly for me, and believe me, I appreciate it … who’s it for after me?”
He shrugged. “Folks,” he said. “I figure since they’re bound and determined to make me into some kind of hero, I might as well make a nickel from it. It’s a nice potion, real safe, too. Do some good, maybe. It wouldn’t hurt me none to make some more to help out with the accounts, either.”
More of his wounded pride, I realized. And the fact that just maybe, he was feeling a wee bit useless in this modern world of ours, where his skills weren’t so much in demand—although they almost certainly would be as soon as word got out about this singularly spectacular potion. Which led me to ask, “What’s it called?”
He grinned. “Holly’s Balm.”
That was such a delicious notion that for a moment I actually forgot what I had to talk to him about … but it came back, insidious and dark, and not even the beautiful gift he’d made for me could hold it back.
I took his hand, and said, “Sit down a minute.”
He did, never taking his gaze from mine, and said, “I should have asked you what Prieto called you out for. I’m guessing it ain’t even half as good as bad.”
“Awful,” I agreed. “Last year, there were a series of murders of young women, and it was … gruesome, Andy. Really nasty. I was asked to bring one back, but she—there was too much trauma.”
He didn’t say anything, but I saw the muscles tighten in his jaw. He knew what I meant. Bringing someone back meant breathing your own essence into them, mingling with them, becoming—at least for a time—part of them. The trauma hadn’t been only hers, of course. I’d been heavily medicated, after. That kind of crime took a special toll on a witch.
“I’m guessing that’s not the end of it,” he said, “bad as that is.”
“The crime scene I was called out to tonight … it was the same one.”
“Same killer?”
“Same victim,” I said. “Killed all over again. Resurrected. She was resurrected, Andy. Just so he could do it again to her.”
I’d never seen that look before, not on Andy–not on anyone, really. I didn’t even know what it meant, except that it shook him all the way to the bones.
He dropped my hand as if it had caught fire, then he stood up and paced away—just a few steps, but enough to put a world of distance between us. “Somebody brought her back,” he said. “One of us. Even if the witch didn’t know what would happen up front, it was damn clear once it got started.”
“Someone got paid to participate,” I agreed. “To hold that soul there while he did it. Why else would a witch let that happen?”
“Unless the witch is the killer.”
That was disturbing. Really disturbing. I didn’t honestly want to think that far … bad enough someone would have taken money and stood by while something like that was done, but I just didn’t want to believe in that next step. “It gets worse,” I said. “Somebody had to make the avatar.”
Andy slowly turned around. He leaned his back against the wall, folded his arms over his chest, and said, “So we’ll be on the hunt,” he said. “Ain’t no crime, is it? Killing a dead girl.”
“No, it’s not a crime, technically. Prieto can’t do much. So it’ll be up to us to make this right.”
“Let me make some calls,” he said.
“Andy. I want this one destroyed,” I said softly. “No prisoners.”
He didn’t look at me, and there was a tension in his body that wasn’t usual for him. “We find this resurrection witch, we burn him right down to the ground and piss on his ashes. I don’t hold with this. I don’t hold with it at all.” And from the unforgiving look on his face, I knew he meant every word. “And then we find this killing son of a bitch and do him hard.”
I noticed, although I wasn’t sure why, that he hadn’t mentioned the witch who created the shell.
Not at all.
* * *
I slipped into the kitchen chair across from Andy as he studied a black notebook—his own contacts, written in some strange shorthand he’d used over a hundred years ago. He’d donned a pair of reading glasses that he’d found lying around. They were hot pink, with little fake diamonds sparkling in the corners. It woke a wan spark of amusement in me. As with the apron, it took a r
eal man to wear those and not look uncomfortable.
“You’re calling your people?” I asked. He stretched, and one of the pearl snap buttons on his shirt popped loose, revealing a well-defined but scarred chest.
“Yeah, I thought I’d best. I made some these last few months that probably ain’t in your formal books.” I could believe that; Andy seemed to slide into the underbelly of our witch-world with alarming ease. He’d probably made friends with shady characters who’d never even think of talking to me—or that I’d dare call up, either. “You want to make your own calls down here?”
“Best if we don’t distract each other,” I said. “I’m going to use a falsehood potion. You want some?”
“Day I can’t tell if one of these bottom-feeders is lying to me is the day you ought to put me back in the ground,” he said. “No thanks.”
He sounded all business. There was a dark, angry edge to him that made me feel … oddly excluded.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll stay out of your way. Give me five minutes for the potion.”
While the potion brewed, I pondered my approach. It was a delicate business; witches were licensed by the state, but we were also secretive and protective of each other because in many places, there had been trouble: cross burnings on lawns, arson, beatings. We weren’t a friendly, close-connected bunch. I’d have to work hard to get to those who might have information to share.
Andy was silent, flipping through his book. I kissed his cheek as I filled up my teacup with the potion, and he nodded in distraction. I walked toward the stairs.
“Holly Anne,” he said. I glanced back. “I’m sorry. This got to me pretty hard.”
“Me too,” I said. “No apology necessary. I’ll see you in a bit.”
I sat at my desk and sipped potion for about ten minutes; it wasn’t unpleasant, sort of like a milky version of chamomile tea. The magic would give me an unmistakable signal if someone lied to me … and I had every expectation that someone would.
I made thirty calls in an hour and got two vague falsehoods out of it; they were probably nothing, but I made notes by the names anyway. My circle of contacts included resurrection and potion witches, but the witches who made the avatars … the bodies that we poured life back into … they were a different story altogether. Very hard to find. There were three listed contacts in the state for those with that particular skill set, available only through the witches’ network; I spoke with all of them and hit a brick wall. Two hung up on me without speaking.
“I’m so sorry,” said the last one—no name, but a brisk female voice that sounded grandmotherly, with a hint of Eastern Europe in her accent. “Client requests are confidential. You understand how this must be.”
“It’s possible that avatar are being used for … criminal reasons,” I said. “You don’t want that kind of attention, trust me.”
“No, we definitely do not. But the fact remains, if one of our technicians created the body you’re speaking of, what was made of it later has nothing to do with us. We do not restore life. We only create flesh.”
“I know,” I said. “But I also know that sometimes the bodies you create go for … other purposes.”
“What other purposes?” She sounded scornful, but already, the lie-detector potion was tingling its warning message over my skin. “I do not know of these.”
“Oh, come on. It’s common knowledge in the trade that some of the less scrupulous witches create bodies for use by, uh, men with unusual appetites. Or for medical use. Right?”
“Rumors. Nothing more.”
“Well, this goes far beyond that,” I said. “This is a body being used to house a restored spirit. One who was murdered. One who was murdered again, made to feel the same horror and torture again. And this time, she would have known it was coming. Can you even imagine that?”
She was silent for a long, long moment. “That is a great sin. A great betrayal.”
“Yes. Yes, it is. I need your help, ma’am. I need to find out who hired this body to be made. He’s probably asking for others, too. They’ll face the same fate unless we can stop him.”
She hesitated, then said, “There are other kinds of justice. Older kinds.”
“Yes, ma’am. And we’re going to do that, but I need a lead. Something. Anything.”
She fell silent. I listened to her breathe, and waited, biting my tongue because I wanted to sell her harder but knowing that it was the wrong move. She’d do it, or she wouldn’t. I couldn’t force it.
“I will think on this,” she said. “Perhaps you will receive a call back, but it won’t be from me.” She hung up with a soft click, and I stared at the phone for a moment. I didn’t have any contact information for her, not even a place to start; the number she was using went through a privacy exchange, and that would take a lot more firepower to crack than I could bring to bear.
With nothing left to do, I carried my empty teacup downstairs and rinsed it out in the sink. Andy had left a half-full cup of coffee there on the counter, and most of a sandwich, but there was no sign of him. Even his notebook was gone. I called his name, but got no reply.
And then I saw the note on the table. Gone to check a lead, it said, in his careful, flowing script, the kind nobody really teaches kids anymore. Keep the doors locked tonight. Be back in the morning.
I would have expected him to actually tell me this since I was upstairs, but then again, I’d had the door shut, and he’d have known that getting distracted when using a lie-detecting potion is bad. Well, at least he’d left me a note.
I felt abandoned, nevertheless. I’d wanted to talk to him about all this, really talk … and I needed to be held, too. It bothered me how much I missed him; I’d always been self-sufficient before I’d met him.
Now, I thought of me as part of us. Was that a good thing? I really wasn’t sure, but the idea of voluntarily walking away from Andy and just being me, solitary, again … that wasn’t what I wanted, either.
I just wanted us to talk, and evidently I wasn’t going to get what I wanted tonight.
Tonight. Oh God, I’d forgotten to tell him about Prieto, and what we’d agreed about the stakeout on the next dump site. I checked my cell phone, which I’d left in my purse in the other room, and found two calls from the policeman, and one voice mail. The recording cussed me out and told me to call if I still intended to do this thing, dammit.
Andy had told me to stay in and lock the doors, but he’d gone off following a lead. There was no reason I couldn’t do the same. Besides, I’d have company—police company at that. It was like having my own personal bodyguard.
I dialed Prieto. He answered on the second ring, tired and surly as usual. “Sorry,” I said. “I was following up on potential leads.”
“Anything?”
“Not really. I have to wait for someone to get back to me.”
“Still want to do the stakeout tonight?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s just me. Andy won’t be available.”
“Neither am I,” Prieto grunted. “Got other cases I gotta work. Greg said he’d take a shift with you overnight, he’s off tomorrow.”
“Greg…?”
“Crime scene geek, you met him. Greg Kincaid. You want him to swing by and pick you up?”
“Yes, I guess so. Anything I should bring?”
“You want anything to eat or drink, bring it. I don’t trust anything those CSI freaks bring out of their lab fridges; you don’t know what’s been sitting next to it. You got my number if anything happens.”
“Thanks,” I said, then hesitated before saying, “Do you think we’ll get him?”
“Doubt it,” he said. I’d never heard Prieto sound quite that dour. “I can’t throw any real resources at this. If he gets got, it’ll be your witches, probably.”
That was depressing because I wasn’t feeling a lot of love from the witch community for this, and Andy … well, Andy would do his best, and his best was incredible, but it was just the two of us, so far.
Maybe the stakeout would be lucky.
I hung up with Prieto and changed into comfy clothes, packed snacks and water, and was ready and waiting at the door when a dark blue late-model sedan pulled up at the curb. The passenger window rolled down, and the driver leaned across the seat to look out at me.
“Miss Caldwell?” he asked. I remembered him now, from the crime scene. He wasn’t especially, well, anything … a pleasant, rounded face, and a nice smile. He was probably in his late twenties. “Sure hope you brought snacks.”
“Greg, right?” I opened the door and got in, putting the bag on the floor between my feet as I strapped myself in. “Do you like potato chips?”
“Who doesn’t? Bonus points if you brought dip.”
“Ranch,” I said, and returned his smile. “And just what are you bringing to the table?”
“A fearless sense of adventure,” Greg said, “also, beef jerky. Aren’t we waiting for your boyfriend? Prieto said something about him tagging along.”
“He can’t make it. Guess you’re stuck with me.”
He flashed me another of those warm, comfortable smiles. “Not a problem, trust me.” It wasn’t quite flirting … there was a little something more than just being sociable, but not enough that I’d feel hit on. Masterfully done. He reached over and punched some buttons in the dash, and the GPS lit up. “You know, even if he does do this again tonight—which personally I kind of doubt—he doesn’t have to keep the same order of dump sites. I wouldn’t, if it were me. So don’t get your hopes up that we’re going to heroically save somebody tonight.”
“I’m not,” I said. “He doesn’t kill them where he dumps them, anyway. By the time we see him—if we do—the victim will already be past saving.”
Greg nodded as he drove down my residential street. He took a right at the main intersection. “Of course, you could say they’re sort of past saving anyway,” he said. “I mean, from what Prieto said … these are his previous victims, right? He’s sort of reliving his greatest hits. Technically, it’s not even murder. I guess you could argue improper disposal of a body, but…”