Death by Séance

by Jo-Ann Carson

  “I don’t know how much you know about vampire politics.”

  “Pretend I know nothing, so I don’t miss any details.” I readied my pen to write. All I knew was that the fanged ones bickered a hell of a lot, but who wouldn’t argue with their neighbors when they live together for centuries?

  “The local area is loosely controlled by my coven. Which is …”

  “A group of vampires.”

  “Yes. Our golden circle.” He looked at me for confirmation, and when I didn’t give him any, he continued, “That is my group of vampires, plus our black swans and kira number twenty. We are a small group, which act much like an extended family.”

  “Cozy.”

  He laughed. “I see why Joy likes you.”

  Great. I always wanted to be liked. My phone buzzed again. Three times. I’d wait until it was five.

  “Kumar was a Black Swan, that’s a breather who has close relations with vampires. As he aged, I’m sure he would have chosen to become one of us, but he was happy hanging out with us for the present, helping us with chores that needed to be done during the daytime. I had openly offered to sire him when he was ready for the good life.”

  “What you are saying is that he mattered to you.”

  “Yes. Very much.”

  The glint in his eyes made me think perhaps they had been lovers, but, again, this creature’s sex life was none of my damned business. “And you don’t trust the police.”

  “I like Zane the Mounty, but you have to understand that our lives as vampires exist beyond human laws. Vampires and police are a bad match. The two simply don’t mix.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t want the authorities to know about our war.”

  “War?” My phone buzzed.

  “That’s the fourth time. Perhaps you should check your phone.”

  “I will as soon as you tell me about the war.”

  “Another coven is moving in. Densification is a bitch.”

  “You migrate?”

  “Yes, and our numbers continue to grow, so groups move around trying to find new places to …”

  “Be dead.”

  He laughed. “I do like you.”

  “So this new group wants a piece of the action in Sunset Cove.”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me be absolutely clear. They want fresh hunting grounds? Fresh blood?”

  He smirked. “As you know, we do not feed on unwilling locals, but this group will. They have a new leader, a man who likes to call himself a king, like in the old days. His name is Maximo and you do not want him in the cove.”

  My phone buzzed. Eye of Newt, that was the fifth time. I picked my phone up. The text read: “Come. Home. Now!”

  I looked at Elif. “Tell me quickly what this has to do with Kumar’s murder.”

  “I believe Maximo killed Kumar to get at me. Without proof I cannot avenge his murder. I want you to find the proof.”

  “You want me to take on a vampire? I knew you were dead. I didn’t know you were insane.”

  “I will pay you double your regular fee and …” He paused for a dramatic vampire affect, a moment of cringe, you might say. “If you succeed you will have the loyalty of my coven for the rest of your life and your children’s lives.”

  “I’m no match for any vampire, let alone a nasty one.”

  “You smell like alpine flowers in the morning sunlight.” He took a bundle of cash out of his pocket and put it on the table. Holy guacamole, it was a lot of cash. At least a thousand.

  I lifted a brow.

  “I can smell who you truly are, Abby Jenkins. You cannot hide behind your blond hair. Magic, deeper than you realize, runs in your blood. You and you alone can take on Maximo.”

  I tilted my head. He could smell magic in my blood? Ew. I’m sure he thought his statement a compliment. But ew. Just ew. Did Jonathan need to go to Emergency again?

  “You have what breathers call a moral compass. That’s what Joy tells me. I trust you to get the job done.”

  “Did you not hear me. I cannot take on a vampire.” I said it slowly as if he were my seven-year-old son and wasn’t listening. Maybe Janey had a fever. She was prone to them.

  “Having a Viking warrior ghost at your side, you will get things done. I cannot think of a better team to take on Maximo. The old vampire king won’t know what’s happening to him.”

  “Elif, you aren’t thinking this through. I don’t have to tell you how fast and smart your kind are and how slow we mere mortals, dead or alive, are.”

  “I am not asking you to kill him. Leave the ultimate justice to me.” His smile turned devilish. “All I want is proof. I will act on it. I will see that the Vampire court brings him to his final death for his villainy. We have our own moral code and sense of justice.”

  “I’ve got to run. Mom stuff. I’ll give your job some thought and let you know.”

  “Vampire allegiance for the rest of your life and more money than you can imagine. That is what I’m offering you.”

  I opened the office door and called back over my shoulder. “Please, let yourself out.” Why I thought I needed to be polite to a creature of the night, who could suck me dry in five minutes, I do not know. Knee-jerk, heavy on the jerk, reaction.

  “Dearest Abby, I look forward to hearing from you.”

  Chapter 9

  The Goth Goddess

  “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light.”

  Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, screenplay

  I caught up with the family in the Emergency room. Jonathon had sprained his wrist when he tried a trick on the front steps. I stayed with him, while Jill took the girls home. We played games on my phone until a doctor could look at him.

  The next morning, after I got the kids off to school, I headed back to the teahouse. While Janey petted the resident black cat, Lilith, I chatted with Joy at the reception desk at the front of the house.

  Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass panes, flooding the entranceway with a kaleidoscope of colors. The sound of rattling pans emanated from the kitchen in the back, and the smell of freshly baked cranberry and white-chocolate scones hung in the air, diminishing the ever-present, ghastly eau de ghost. Two early patrons chatted in the reception room behind her desk. This was as normal as the sentient house ever got.

  Joy, however, looked off, which was odd even for Joy. Her black makeup, usually expertly applied, looked more impressionistic today, as if she had thrown it on as an afterthought. Her French-maid’s outfit had wrinkles, and her beautiful ebony hair fell loose to her shoulders instead of being tied up in a 1930s bun.

  “That bad?” I said.

  Her lips curled up at one end.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  She groaned. “I didn’t expect my séance to kill anyone.”

  I tried to think of a quip, because that’s the way we talked to one another, but none came to mind. It’s hard to make jokes about death. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s really bad karma.” She stared at her chipped black nails. “I killed the guy.”

  “You didn’t kill him. Someone else did. Have you figured out what happened?”

  “No. I don’t understand it.”

  “Can I ask you some questions about it.”

  Her stormy gray eyes hardened. “Are you working my séance as a case?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Who’s your client?”

  There was no eluding her suspicious nature. “I can’t say.”

  Her shoulders relaxed. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter. The sooner we figure out what happened the better. For the living at least.”

  “Can’t Azalea just tell us?” I asked. It seemed to me she could do everything supernatural or knew someone who could.

  “No, her powers don’t work like that. She phoned to say she would be late this morning. Apparently all the ruckus messed up her balance and gave her a
blinding migraine.”

  “Okay, so tell me what you remember from the beginning. Maybe if we go over the details together, we can figure something out.”

  “Okay.” But she didn’t sound enthusiastic.

  “When did Margaret ask you for a séance?”

  “Last Monday I went to Margaret’s for coffee in the morning. The regulars were starting to dribble into the cafe, but she had time to chat because it wasn’t too busy. She propositioned me.”

  “How exactly?”

  “She said, ‘I know you want to start your own séance business and I’d like to hire you to put on one for me.’ I told her she wasn’t dead and she laughed. But her eyes teared up, so I knew she was dead serious.

  “‘Nelson,’ she said, ‘an old lover from my past, is trying to tell me something in my dreams. He was the love of my life, and he never was good with words. I would do anything for him, dead or alive. I know you understand things like that.’”

  “And you agreed.”

  “I more than agreed. It was my chance to show my abilities and help a friend out.”

  “And that’s when you blackmailed me and the others to come to your meeting with the dead.”

  “I talked to Elif that night and he offered to come. He said he would make Kumar attend as well.”

  “You and Elif are as tight as ever?”

  A more-than-satisfied smile crossed her face. “He’s awesome,” she said.

  I talked fast to avoid details about awesome vampire sex. “What about Ophelia Maserati? Why was she there?” I doubted the singer with the pouty lips had an interest in the occult.

  “I’m not sure. She called me and asked if she could come. She said she had never been to one.”

  “You blackmailed her.”

  Her head moved from side to side and she looked down at her nails again. “A little.”

  “And Ming Chan? Did you blackmail her as well?”

  “No, she is—was—Kumar’s girlfriend.”

  “Or one of.” There was no way a player like Kumar would have only one.

  “Nope. She was it. The real thing, according to Elif. Kumar had it bad. The love thing. Apparently, Ming is enchanting in many ways.” Joy made a lopsided smile. “Men.”

  “So, she was there because Kumar was there.”

  “Yeah. Ain’t love grand.”

  Something felt off about that. Ming seemed so at home in the séance circle, as if she had been in one before, as if … I couldn’t grasp the end of that thought, but my witchy senses told me there was more to the woman’s story.

  “What do you know about Nelson?”

  “All I know is that Margaret called him ‘her perfect man.’”

  “Hmm. That could mean a lot of things, but, coming from her, I’m guessing loyal and committed.”

  “So, why would he be haunting her dreams?”

  “She figured he’s trying to warn her about something, or someone.”

  “Did he know Kumar?”

  “I can’t see how. Nelson died twenty years ago and Kumar was only thirty. But ...”

  “But?”

  “I wonder about Nelson. I know everyone else around the table. I can’t imagine any of them being a murderer, so I wonder about Nelson.”

  “I’ll see what Eric can find out. Your séance drew an interesting crowd.”

  “Hah. That’s exactly what our favorite cop said.”

  “Has Zane figured anything out?”

  “Nope.” She looked me up and down. “He thinks you know something, and you’re not sharing.”

  I shook my head. My witchy-sense, which likes to keep things private, kicked in. I opened my mouth, intending to tell her about the locket, and then I closed it. I trusted Joy, so my locked-jaw surprised me, but then a lot of things about being a witch surprise me. “Yeah, he told me I might remember more as time goes on. If I figure out what it is I know, but don’t know, I’ll share.” I checked out the dust accumulating on the chandelier. I’m a lousy liar at the best of times and I didn’t want Joy to catch me at it.

  The front door behind me swung open and Azalea walked in. I blinked twice. The usually prim sixty-year-old medium, and keeper of the inter-dimensional portal, looked as if she had walked through a hurricane. Her silver hair floated around her head. Her glasses sat perched at an unusual angle on her slender nose. She had a dazed look in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I said as she walked up to us.

  “The darkness is gathering. It surrounds us. It’s pushing in, and I can’t keep it out.”

  Chapter 10

  Mama Mia

  “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

  Darkness closing in? Not comforting words at the best of times and coming from Azalea they made me wince.

  “What do you mean?” said Joy in her flat voice.

  Azalea exhaled noisily. As she walked past us to the kitchen, “You of all people should know what I mean.”

  Joy shrugged. “Don’t worry, it’s a family thing.”

  “But I’ve never seen her so upset.”

  “Murder does that.”

  “Does she blame you?”

  “Blame isn’t the right word. She believes everything happens for a reason. Yada … yada … yada. She doesn’t directly blame me, but she’s not happy with me either. After the police finally left us alone, she told me I let the darkness in, said I wasn’t ready to be a medium …”

  “Oh, Joy!” All she had talked about for the last month was how much she wanted to be the new town medium, and Azalea’s support meant the world to her.

  “She said I may never be ready to become a true medium.”

  “Ouch.” What the hell’s a true medium?

  “Yeah.” She scratched at a hangnail. “It wouldn’t hurt so much if it wasn’t true. I can contact the dead, all right, but they don’t always want to talk to me. When Azalea opens her channel, they rush to talk to her.”

  “Oh.” I scrunched up my face. “You know, Joy, I’d rather be you than Azalea. We have enough dead guys jabbering around here.”

  A couple ladies came in the front door. Joy needed to talk to them about their reservations and I needed to get to work. I touched her lightly on her arm and she smiled.

  As I climbed up the stairs to my attic office to make notes, Sparky spoke in my head. “You know you don’t have to investigate this murder.”

  I looked at Jane, who followed me with her bag of toys. She didn’t appear to be aware of anything my familiar said, which was good for all of us, but made my talking to the lynx in her presence hard. I grunted.

  “Mommy, are you okay?”

  Now there was a big question. “Just a little tired, sweet pea. How would you like a hot chocolate with marshmallows?” Was there any other way to drink chocolate? I kept a stash in my desk drawer.

  She ran past me and squealed with delight when the office door opened for her. Someday she would wonder about that, but not today.

  As Jane drank her chocolate, leaving a significant amount on her cheeks, I worked on my suspect board. I put a check-mark beside Joy’s name, to indicate that I had officially interviewed her once. I created a new column and titled it “Notes.”

  Under it I wrote, “Nelson,” because the missing spirit irked me. In the notes column beside Ophelia I wrote, “asked to be there.” I needed to know more about the singer who never sings.

  As I studied my board I heard Joy’s voice coming from my open doorway. “I tried to stop her.” A scary woman walked into my office and stood in front of me.

  “I may look old, but I don’t need to be supervised when I climb stairs.” She had a strong enough voice to command an army.

  A new client? I looked closer. She had to be new to town. I would remember a face like hers. It matched her voice, strong features outlined by mahogany-brown hair that fell to her shoulders in cascading waves
. An eerie glow in her emerald-green eyes warned me she was far from normal, while my witchy senses sent a fight-or-flight alarm to my brain.

  Sparky raised her back and her fur stood on edge.

  “What do you want from me?” I said.

  “I want to see the witch who’s beguiling my son.”

  “Your son?” Beguiling? I don’t think I’ve ever done that to anyone’s son. Who the hell uses a word like beguiling.

  “Dante.”

  Joy scooped Jane up in her arms. “Come on, sweety, we need to look for cookies. Azalea hid some yesterday.”

  “Cookies?” Jane waved at me as she left, a sugar grin on her face spread from ear to ear.

  Left alone with this mother of a man-witch, my Don Juan slash guru, I considered my options, but before I came up with a coherent thought she spoke.

  “Tell me your intentions?”

  “Excuse me?”

  The creepy way her emerald-green eyes blazed made my skin crawl. Dante had told me many times how powerful he and his lineage were, but I got bored listening to his life story. It sounded like a lot of hot air. He had mentioned something about royalty, ancient times and great powers. I’m a normal woman, or at least I try to be, so I really didn’t engage in the whole drama of his bloodline. I had thought he was too full of himself. But now that bloodline drama faced me with a vengeance. I pulled a stray hair away from my face.

  “You do speak English?” Her snark frazzled my nerves.

  “Are we talking magic or Dante?”

  “Listen, you little upstart, I couldn’t care less how magical your blood is. All I care about is my son, Dante.”

  “No worries there. I’m not interested.” Upstart? Really? Who uses words like that?

  The glow in her eyes diminished, but she continued to breathe noisily like a horse pawing the dirt or a witch about to hex someone. “Is he not good enough for you?”