by Linda Wisdom
“I knew I did the right thing to send them to you, Asmeth,” Lili said, accepting more wine and a slice of griffin breast, along with some seasoned greens. “For all I knew, someone could try to steal Kevin away from her, or he would end up in a mundane institution where no one would understand how to help him. I want to show you something.” She dug through her bag and pulled out the drawings Kevin made. She fanned them out and moved aside some of the serving dishes so she could set them down.
Asmeth looked distressed as he leaned over the table to better study the pictures. He shuddered as he carefully examined each one, barely touching the paper with his fingertips.
Jared moved in closer, looking from one to the other until he picked one up. He settled back on his cushion and held the drawing up.
“Dark demon,” he pronounced. “Pure predator. They like their meat young and soft.”
Lili grimaced. “And they impregnate them?”
“They will when they feel the need for young,” he replied. “This probably isn’t a picture of the kid’s sire. Just another one he saw. Looks like he can see past their glamours now.” He dropped the paper back on the table. A flick of his fingers turned the picture to ash. Another twitch, and they were all reduced to powder. “Not a good idea to keep them around. Even these pictures can allow the subject to backtrack.”
Asmeth steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “I have heard gossip that there has been an increase in demon activity in the past few years. That they wish to encroach in our territories.”
“That kind of info I can’t help you with,” Jared said, looking at Lili with a regretful expression. “I haven’t had a letter from home in years.”
“The boy and his mother will be protected,” Asmeth vowed.
“You can do it?” Lili asked.
“Of course I can.” He laughed as if there was never any doubt. “I have many contacts, dear Lilianna, just as I know you do with your friend in the Hellion Guard.”
Jared swiveled around to stare at her. “You have friends in the Hellions? Wow, Doc, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you? I may have been out of the mainstream for a while, but I have heard of the Hellions and what they can do.”
“It always pays to stay on the right side of the law,” she quipped.
“Or at least allow them to think you are,” Asmeth joked.
“And here I thought you only bothered with outfitting us with proper robes,” Jared teased the wizard.
“That is a very large concern with me.” He waved his hand, a ruby ring glinting vividly in the candlelight. “Some magick folk have no idea what they should wear for formal functions.”
“How long have you two known each other?” Jared asked, looking from Lili to Asmeth.
“I first met Lilianna in the spring of 1573,” the wizard replied. “At the time, she worked for a vile apothecary in Athens. I was there to purchase some fine lamb’s wool from a merchant I’d known for many years. Eccentric fellow, but he always provided a wonderful repast.” He patted his belly. “I was taken ill, and Lili arrived with the apothecary. The latter was drunk and could do nothing, while she silently mixed a potion that fixed me right up.” His lip curled. “Naturally the apothecary took the credit for my return to good health and slapped Lili for insolence.”
Jared felt his neck bones crack as he swiftly turned in Lili’s direction. “I gather he’s been dead too many years to exact vengeance,” he growled.
She didn’t look up as she nibbled her food.
“Lili was too softhearted when he mistreated her,” Asmeth also growled. “I was not.”
“Asmeth doesn’t believe any female should be abused.” She reached over and touched his hand. “Diokles wasn’t the best employer in the world, but he gave me a chance to do what I loved. And he especially enjoyed utilizing my skills in stirring up healing potions and growing herbs when he couldn’t. But he didn’t appreciate being shown up or having his customers start asking me for my help, since women weren’t considered all that useful in the medicinal arts. And it wasn’t safe for witches to advertise their skills,” she said. “Diokles’s son took over the apothecary shop, and I was out of work, since his son’s wife didn’t appreciate my working so closely with her husband, even if he looked like the back end of a goat.” She wrinkled her nose.
“What happened to Diokles?” Jared inquired, curious to know everything he could about her.
“Never spoken of again.” Asmeth shot him a telling look that meant that if Jared knew what was good for him, he wouldn’t press the issue.
“Enough said.” Jared busied himself with a few pickled frog legs. And here he thought the wizard was a mild sort. He was quickly learning different.
Asmeth refilled their goblets with more wine and collapsed on his cushion. His expression toward the demon was that of a kindly father. “You should not be in that place.” He glanced at Jared’s shoulder where he must have known the brand identifying him as deranged had been placed. “You should allow me to speak to Sinsia regarding this travesty of justice. Surely you have suffered enough.”
Jared felt an icy spear slide its way through his body. This was information he hadn’t expected to hear. “You know my mother?”
“Naturally, my boy. With all of my travels on every plane you can imagine I would, of course, know everyone,” he said without any trace of arrogance. “I am very popular.”
Jared laughed harshly under his breath.
“But that is not why I befriended you,” the wizard went on. “You are not as dark as you would like to believe you are.” He looked from Jared to Lili with a beaming smile.
Jared glanced at Lili and noticed the way she stared at him as if she wanted to dissect him. Not the way Dr. Mortimer might desire to, but as if she wanted to know the deep dark truth about him. But even he didn’t know what that was. There were so many blanks in his memory that he felt lucky he could still remember his name.
Name.
His head snapped up, and he stared at Asmeth.
The sly wizard didn’t just speak in my birth tongue. He addressed me by my true name.
Asmeth met his gaze with a bland one.
“I know everyone,” came to mind. And the garrulous wizard knew his mother. As best he remembered, she wasn’t all that kind to any nondemon.
It seemed Asmeth was a great deal more than he first appeared.
***
“Now as to the hospital,” Asmeth began after the main meal was cleared away and a variety of pastries had been set out.
Lili scented chocolate mixed with almonds and unerringly zeroed in on the treat.
“Witches and chocolate.” Asmeth chuckled, pushing the porcelain platter closer to her before he poured thick rich coffee into tiny cups and handed them out.
“The hospital,” she reminded him. “What have you heard, and what do you know to be true?”
He shook his head. “So much gossip in the air about the place. More than there has been in decades.” His expression turned somber. “Especially since Hieronymus Mortimer took over the hospital.”
“He has excellent credentials and is well respected in the medical community,” Lili said. “I admit in a way he gives me the creeps, but even if he has some very old-fashioned ideas, I can’t say he’s given me any idea he’s a threat.”
“Yes, but have you truly looked at him?” The wizard asked. “There is something not quite right about him.” He frowned in thought.
“Does he visit Inderman very much?” she asked.
He nodded. “He was in my shop looking for ceremonial robes. He asked that they be embroidered with healing sigils. While his day wear resembles the inside of a musty armoire,” he wrinkled his nose, “he does have excellent taste in robes.”
Lili chuckled at the same description she’d placed on the doctor.
“Do you feel he is any kind of threat?” she asked.
Asmeth considered her question and shook his head. “I see no deception in him. But something b
others him. Perhaps it is the type of work he does.” He glanced briefly at Jared. “From what little Hieronymus said, he spends much of his time with the troubled patients. Yet it doesn’t seem they are truly healed.” He looked troubled at that thought. “I do not like you to be down there, Lili.”
“I need to be.” She took a deep breath and finally confessed her reason for returning to San Francisco and especially to Crying Souls.
Asmeth was outraged at her plan and loudly said so.
Jared frowned in thought. “Did this Sera have dark blond hair and very pale blue eyes? Spoke with a Southern drawl?”
“Yes.” She touched his arm. “You saw Sera? When?”
He closed his eyes, trying to focus on her question instead of the feel of her fingers against his sleeve. He only wished they were bare skin to bare skin. He finally opened them and shook his head. “You forget. I don’t exactly have a clock or calendar in my cell. But she was below, taking care of Pepta, when Dr. Mortimer was away from the hospital. She stopped at my door and said something nice to me.” He shifted uneasily. “I wasn’t exactly in the mood for kind words from anyone that day.”
Lili felt her frustration level rise up. “I feel as if the answer is just beyond my fingertips. That Director of Nursing Garrish or Dr. Mortimer knows something about her disappearance.”
Asmeth wrinkled his brow. “There was that healing center in Prague that absorbed the recalcitrant employees,” he brought up. “I believe most of them were used as the foundation for a new wing.”
“Dr. Mortimer is…” Jared suddenly felt as if someone had tied his tongue up in knots.
“Is what?” Lili couldn’t miss his look of distress.
He stared down at his hands knotted in his lap and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. He shut his eyes tightly then opened them. “It’s like there’s a barrier inside my head.” He paused then shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Lili and Asmeth shared a telling look. The wizard mouthed mind wall, and she nodded.
“Dr. Mortimer will be in next week to pick up his new robes,” Asmeth said. “I doubt he will be forthcoming with any information, but I will ask him to have some tea with me, and we’ll chat.”
Lili reached out and covered his hand with hers. “Thank you, my friend,” she murmured, feeling her load had become a bit lighter.
Then she looked at Jared and saw confusion and darkness chasing across his face.
Perhaps it wasn’t so light after all.
Chapter 8
“I always feel as if I’ve been stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey after I’ve had one of Asmeth’s meals,” Lili confessed with a laugh after she and Jared left the wizard’s private quarters. They walked through the still-crowded lane. She pulled her shawl more closely around her to combat the chilly damp air. She looked up and smiled at Jared as he lightly grasped her arm to pull her closer to him to avoid being run over by one of the messenger ferrets, who raced along at the speed of light. “Going to his house for dinner is like attending a feast of old.” She looked up, admiring the balls of faery light that drifted around, giving off a soft glow in various shades of pink, blue, green, and lilac. No need of electricity in Inderman when magick could do a much better job. She noticed his expression of yearning as he glanced around while they walked toward the parking lot. “Do you think you have time to just wander around here?” she asked, gifting him with a smile.
“I guess so.”
“Good, because I’m really not in the mood to return home to a pissed-off cat.” She took his arm and made a 180-degree turn so they could head to the heart of the community. “How much of Inderman have you seen?”
“Not much,” Jared confessed. “I usually stay in the shadows and the outskirts.”
“Ah, then you haven’t seen the true area.” She looped her other arm through his and squeezed him tightly. “Let me be your guide.”
He looked down, a wild heat visible in his eyes that quickly transferred to her blood. “I’m in your hands.”
Her eyes danced with laughter. “Even if a demon does it better?”
***
It didn’t take long for Jared to realize that even with all the visits he’d made to the magick neighborhood, he’d only seen a bare fraction of what was here.
Lili explained she had made a few visits back when she lived elsewhere, but that little changed here. Businesses remained in family hands over the centuries, and the only new ones that popped up were usually restaurants or taverns.
None of it mattered to him, only the woman walking beside him with her magick so unfettered, she glowed with it. The warm light she exuded revealed her talent was in healing, so it came as no surprise that some strollers stopped her to ask for advice. Each time she was pleasant and answered their questions along with the suggestion they visit the hospital if their ailments continued.
“Just like with mundanes, who corner doctors at a party, preternaturals think we’ll happily dispense medical advice,” she said with a soft chuckle.
“And why you tell them to visit the hospital.”
Lili nodded. “There’s a clinic set up there for non-emergencies. So many don’t want to part with their coin, even if they need more than what I can suggest. And I won’t give out a spell or charm anyway.” She pulled him to a stop in front of a brightly lit shop that carried witch balls in translucent glass of all colors, intricately carved boxes, candle holders, and tarot cards and bags. They could see a witch, wearing elegant velvet robes of amethyst, standing behind a waist-high counter. She looked up and smiled at them. Lili smiled back but moved on.
“Lili!”
Jared stiffened just as his companion did, but she quickly masked her emotion with a bright grin as she turned around.
“Rea, Adam.” She exchanged hugs with the two and quickly made introductions.
Jared noticed she didn’t bother to mention he was a patient at the asylum. In fact, she didn’t say a word where she’d met him. He also didn’t miss the empath’s and witch’s inquisitive looks his way. Or that Rea shot her friend a look that probably said, we will talk about this later. Not to mention Adam was giving him an all-too-intense look, as if he could see right through to his bones.
“We just left Asmeth’s,” Lili explained. “What are you two up to?”
“We needed to do some shopping for new moon supplies. We took longer than expected and thought we’d stop at Edwig’s for a drink. Why don’t you join us?” Rea invited, looking from one to the other.
Jared was surprised when Lili looked up at him in silent question. Normally, he would have said a flat no. There was always the fear his time would shorten and he’d be pulled back to the hospital. There was no way he wanted to do that with an audience. But the need to feel normal was strong within him. The witch standing beside him gave him that illusion, and the idea of sitting down, having a drink, and talking with others would strengthen the fantasy.
Obviously she sensed his answer and said, “Perhaps just one. We’re still pretty filled from Asmeth’s dinner.”
“Good.” Rea led the way to an ancient-looking hostelry that seemed to have been plucked out of the Dark Ages.
Jared felt a strong prickling sensation along his nerve endings as they entered the building. The interior was acrid with the stench of tobacco and other things. It was obviously a popular spot, filled with witches, wizards, a few gnomes, and some goblins. He even spied a table filled with brownies, drinking something that was wiggling suspiciously in the large jug.
Ghosts floated around the room, pausing here and there to enjoy whatever the table occupants were drinking. Another group of spirits was clustered in a corner playing darts. Considering that many of them had wild aim, he was surprised there weren’t more accidents.
Adam led the way to a table in the rear.
“So Jared, are you new to San Francisco?” he asked after they gave their drink orders.
“Not really,” he replied, hoping he wouldn’t be expected
to explain anything. He was an excellent liar. All demons were. But that didn’t mean he liked doing it.
“Where did you live before? Jobs aren’t always easy to find, even among we supes. What do you do?” the male witch inquired.
“Adam.” Lili’s voice held a warning. “I don’t need a brother looking out for me.”
“It’s okay,” Jared assured her. “I work at the hospital, helping Lili with some of her patients.”
“And you’re a demon,” Rea said softly with no hint of censure.
“It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.” He relaxed a bit when he realized they weren’t going to hold it against him.
“There’s not a lot of demons in Inderman,” Adam said. “Not that they aren’t welcome,” he added hastily.
“Too bad they’re not willing to give it a try. It’s a nice place.” He leaned back a bit when the nymph waitress left their drinks. “Although like others of my kind, I don’t tend to play well with others. Maybe that’s why I come here.” He grinned.
“Or for the company,” the male witch said, watching him with knowing eyes.
Jared decided he liked the straight-talking Adam. He could tell the witch always let a person know where he stood with him. Who knew—in another life, he could have even been a friend. At least he didn’t hold Jared’s birth against him, as many witches did. He also didn’t feel as if he had to choose his words carefully. He sat back and let their chatter wash over him.
Adam glanced briefly at Lili and Rea who chattered away then leaned toward Jared.
“If you hurt her, I will tear you apart,” he said in a voice meant only for Jared’s ears. “With the power of the sea, I will turn you into chum and dump you out there for the sharks and flesh-eating selkies.” While a smile drifted on his lips, his eyes were dark with his intent. There was no doubt he would do that and quite possibly more.