by Julie Kenner
He opened the book to the flagged page. Bold letters in a jazzy font pronounced:
Lifting the Fog—A Spell for Clarification.
“This is the spell you did?” he demanded.
Marcy nodded, looking embarrassed but stubborn. “I did it exactly like it says.”
Tomas began reading. He was no expert, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make some educated guesses. Who knew? Maybe if his abuela really was a bruja—instead of just being spooky and eccentric—magic was in his blood, too. Maybe he had a knack for understanding this kind of thing.
One page later, he had to discard that theory. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Marcy, who’d sunk onto a corner of his sofa to pet her evil white cat, seemed relieved to have a reason to look at him directly instead of sneaking embarrassed peeks. “What’s there not to understand? Light the candles, say the rhyme, burn the paper. Then you wait for a sign.”
Her eyes seemed especially large and vulnerable when she added, “Maybe whatever’s in the closet is my sign.”
He turned a page and saw a heading for a new spell—Magic to Foster Optimism. After that came Drawing Love into Your Life and so on. He turned back to the one-page Spell for Clarification. “This is all of it?”
Marcy stretched upward a bit, to peek at the book. Her cat, seeming annoyed, leaped soundlessly from her lap and slipped under the sofa in protest. “Yes.”
“This is the spell you did.”
Now her gaze turned wary, as if his stupidity worried her. “Uh-huh.”
“How could this summon anything? It has you ask for protection, then to see more clearly, and that’s about it. It’s got to say for the good of all at least three times!”
“Uh-huh.”
“This isn’t magic. This is like an episode of Oprah!”
Marcy cocked her head, increasingly suspicious. “And you’d know the difference?”
It occurred to Tomas that, as suspicious as he’d been a few minutes ago, she might be twice that suspicious if she learned his particular background. “My mother watches Oprah,” he hedged.
“And the magic part?”
Tomas swore, which made her lean back into the sofa cushions. Marcy Bridges was scared of him already, right? It might be better for everybody if he kept it that way. “Never mind about the magic part. You stay here—feel free to get some clothes out of the bureau. Stay out of trouble. I’ll be back when I’m finished.”
“Finished what? Where are you going?” Maybe she wasn’t as timid as he’d thought, at that.
Grabbing his leather jacket off the hook by the door, Tomas said, “I’m going to do whatever it takes to fix this.”
Marcy frowned at the closed door where Tomas had vanished. Well, wasn’t he confident?
Then she frowned at herself. Wasn’t his confidence a good thing?
Didn’t she want someone to solve this? Just as she’d wanted someone—something—to tell her where she was going in her life. Life was easier when you got your information and protection and validation from outside sources.
So why did she feel so dissatisfied?
No matter—she did. There must be something she should do, especially if she was at fault in the first place because of her spell.
Tomas doesn’t think your spell did this. That, more than anything else, brought her the first true relief she’d felt since finding Snowball.
But Tomas might not know everything. Right?
And if he did…Marcy had to wonder where he’d learned it.
Tomas had ducked his head into his helmet, straddled his Harley and ridden almost a mile before the spires down the block showed him where he’d instinctively headed.
The realization surprised him so much that he swerved into the closest parking lot and throttled down, lowering his booted feet to the pavement. Okay, so he was flying blind, here. It was one thing to let Marcy think he knew what he was doing with this portal-to-Hell business. It was another to actually know.
But this?
His abuela had been the magic user, not him. And she wasn’t particularly good at listening anymore. So he’d automatically headed in the only direction where, instinctively, he’d thought he might find help.
Our Lady of Serenity. The nearest Catholic church.
Tomas swore. He’d been raised Catholic; gone through first communion and even confirmation. But after he left his parents’ home, he also left behind the habit of regularly going to mass, much less confession. He’d thought he left behind the whole complex belief system, too…. Well, most of it.
And here he sat, running to a priest at the first sign of trouble.
Except this wasn’t your average trouble. This wasn’t a parking ticket, or a night in jail, or even getting a girl pregnant—and he would take that last one pretty damn seriously. This was some kind of otherworldly portal with fire and brimstone! This was a deep, disembodied voice that could only be demonic.
If this didn’t merit holy intervention, then he didn’t know what did.
Still…church? No.
Throttling up, he turned a tight circle and headed in the opposite direction, into the older suburbs, until he reached his grandparents’ house. It had once been a perfectly good house, sometime after World War II. Nowadays it had an air of age and shabbiness that no amount of his repairs or fresh paint could completely stave off.
But the place was paid for. Unlike a certain apartment building he could name.
His grandfather, shoulders stooped and dark eyes bright, was standing inside the front door waiting by the time Tomas made it up the walk. “It’s not Monday yet. We’re not ready for Monday.”
Monday, November 1, would be the Día de los Muertes. The family really would be visiting the cemetery with traditional food and candles. He hadn’t lied about that.
“I know, Poppi.” Tomas bent to kiss the old man on his leathery cheek. “It’s Saturday. I just need to talk to Nani about something.”
Poppi raised his eyebrows. “What’s that?”
“I know,” insisted Tomas, ducking into the living room where—as expected—his white-haired abuela sat in her rocking chair in front of a Spanish soap opera. “But I wasn’t sure where else to go.”
Lie. He could’ve gone to Our Lady of Serenity, or any number of Catholic churches between here and there.
“Hola, Nani,” he greeted, kissing her and kneeling beside her chair as he had his whole life. “How are you doing today?”
Nani didn’t even look at him. She just smiled and rocked—just as she had for the last three years.
Poppi, coming in behind him, asked, “What’s so important you need to bother your abuela?”
Tomas ignored that—his grandmother hardly looked bothered. “Nani, it’s Tomas. Mano’s oldest boy. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need to ask you something.”
She smiled and rocked.
Tomas took her frail brown hand, its wedding ring wrapped in tape to stay on. “Nani, were you really a bruja? Did you really do magic?”
Poppi swore in Spanish and sank into his worn recliner. At least he was finally interested.
“I need to know because one of the tenants in my building has got a problem, Nani. A magic problem. I think it’s a diablero.”
For a moment he thought she hadn’t heard any of it at all. Then, still rocking and smiling, Nani lifted her right hand to her forehead. Then her heart. Then her left shoulder.
She was making the sign of the cross.
“Sí,” said Tomas. “A diablero. And I need to know what to do.”
Nani finished her benediction against evil and dropped her hand to her lap again, still rocking. Still smiling.
“She just told you what to do,” said Poppi softly.
Tomas looked at him, confused.
“Pray,” said his grandfather.
“But there has to be something else. This isn’t—I don’t think this is a religious kind of magic.”
“Tomasito.” Poppi shook h
is head, not even thrown by the idea of diableros and magic. “She was a bruja. Her power came from the Virgin Mary. That is the only kind of magic she could have given you, even before.”
And from what Tomas could remember of his grandmother’s magic, that was true. There had been charms, yes, and advice about when to light candles or when to turn around three times with your eyes closed. But it always went along with praying and saying the rosary.
He let his head fall forward in something that felt half like defeat and half like hope.
Our Lady of Serenity, it was.
Okay, so this was weird.
Marcy paused in the midst of digging through Tomas Martinez’s drawers for a reality check. She had some kind of magic portal in her closet, and she thought going through a man’s clothing was weird? Comparatively speaking, this was Disney World.
“Might as well check out Fantasyland,” she murmured through the doorway toward Snowball, who’d come out from under the sofa only after Tomas left. The cat now sat on a small stack of newspaper, licking her flank as if to clean off the man’s touch.
Some kind of heavy, spicy scent hung in the air of his bedroom, the scent she’d been savoring off his shirt. Aftershave, cologne, soap—or just him? The heavy brown drapes were closed, throwing the whole room into shadow, but when she’d switched on the overhead light, she saw the room was dominated by a large, unmade bed.
So here was where he slept.
Alone?
It was none of her business, of course. But when Marcy thought of her twin bed upstairs, and all her quiet nights alone, the contrast seemed to beg making. Tomas Martinez radiated sexuality—maybe that was the undercurrent of scent in here—and facing his bed only emphasized that. Especially facing his bed, wearing just an oversize T-shirt.
His oversize T-shirt.
She turned back to the chest of drawers. “Clothes.”
His clothes were almost as fascinating as his bed—loosely folded shirts, fleece pants…and briefs. Pulling on his cotton underwear, which was a little baggier than hers and had a flap in front, felt unnervingly intimate. But the soft drawstring shorts, cinched tight at her waist, helped her achieve some measure of independence. If she had to, she could now leave the apartment without risking arrest for indecent exposure if a wind blew up.
This was October, after all. And the Windy City.
Thus armed with clothing, she went back into his living room. Snowball silently followed her. He had heavy oak furniture; even the table in the corner with a computer on it was thick and manly. The cushions were dark brown, also somehow masculine. She felt as if she were standing in the middle of a lion’s den.
But it still had to be safer than her own apartment.
Her apartment. She really should be doing something herself, not counting only on him. But what? He seemed so competent, so capable. What could she do that wouldn’t just get in his way?
Without even thinking about it, she began to pick up clutter. The place wasn’t a terrible mess—not bad enough to make her uncomfortable touching things. But the man could use a small wastebasket in the living room. She threw three empty beer bottles into the kitchen trash, stacked papers and magazines on the thick oak coffee table, and fluffed his sofa pillows. Then she went back to the kitchen, drawn by the dirty dishes in the sink, and began to run hot water. She’d added soap and was sponging out a bowl, when she realized what she was doing.
Not just cleaning—which, while unasked, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, since he was helping her with her mess.
She was avoiding the real question.
She should be doing something herself. But what?
Her dishwashing took on a jerky, nervous edge. Briefly, she considered going back up to her apartment alone. But that just seemed stupid, especially if Tomas was coming back with a better solution. She didn’t want to be one of those stupid women in a horror movie, going down into a dark basement to check out a noise when a killer was on the loose. She considered going to the library to do some research, but really…how likely was a standard public library to have anything that dealt with this situation?
Besides, she’d left her purse upstairs.
Stumped, draining the now-empty sink, she turned in a slow circle…and noticed his computer. It was running with a soft hum, a geometric screensaver playing across the monitor.
No. That was his computer, his private property. What if she got into it and found that he was into cybersex or had downloaded all kinds of pornography? She shouldn’t be touching his things.
But she had to do something.
She looked at Snowball again, where the cat sat silent vigil. “I’m wearing his underwear,” she pointed out.
Snowball didn’t disagree.
With a deep breath for courage, Marcy sat down at Tomas’s computer and moved the mouse. A standard opening screen came up, and she was relieved to see that he used the same Internet connection as she did. She could log on to do some research under her own name, and his secrets could stay secret.
That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
“One thing at a time,” she said to Snowball, and logged on to the Internet.
The local library might have limited resources about magic and portals to Hell, but really, you could find anything on the Internet.
By the time Tomas got back and Marcy heard his key in the lock, she’d forgotten to worry about having appropriated his computer. She barely managed to look up.
Then she saw him, standing in the open doorway as if he didn’t even mean to come in, and she managed looking up just fine. It felt good to have someone to share all this with. “Wait until you hear some of the stuff I’ve turned up online. It’s pretty chaotic, and I can’t vouch for the legitimacy of most of it, but—”
“I’m going upstairs,” Tomas said in that dark, vaguely accented voice of his. “Stay here.”
And he shut the door.
Marcy blinked after him. Why wouldn’t she stay there? And why was he going upstairs? Why was it safe for him but not her?
Then again, she’d just found a site called Sacrifices and Sorcery, posted by someone claiming to be a “wizard.” There was plenty she could do in the safety of Tomas’s den.
She stayed there.
Marcy’s apartment looked completely normal. Almost stereotypically normal—no touch of ethnicity, not even Celtic or Norse or whatever; no touch of any kind of social rebellion. It was so neat and normal, it could be a model apartment which Tomas could probably use to rent other apartments to other Middle Americans.
This made it something of an anticlimax for Father Gregory.
The middle-aged priest looked into Marcy’s very normal walk-in closet with solemnity. “You wouldn’t be playing some kind of Halloween prank on me, would you, Tony?”
“Tomas,” Tomas corrected. Our Lady of Serenity was not his parents’ church, only the closest. He and Father Gregory had only just met. “And no, Father. This is no prank. I swear to you…”
Funny, how even after years, he took an oath to a priest so seriously that he had to swallow first.
“Earlier this morning there was flame in there,” Tomas said. “And things flew out of it, leaving stains on the wall. And I heard a voice.”
Father Gregory looked concerned. “Was the voice telling you to do something, Tomas?”
“No, it was talking about Marcy. Ms. Bridges.”
“The woman who rents this apartment.”
“Yes.”
“Does she know that you come in here when she’s gone?”
Tomas rolled his eyes heavenward, as if that would help him deal with Heaven’s spokesman. But he couldn’t really blame the priest. He’d been just as doubtful when he’d first answered Marcy’s call, and he believed in magic.
Of a sort.
Father Gregory had already told Tomas that he was no exorcist, and that he questioned whether exorcism was anything more than old-world superstition. But he was the only priest available on short notice.
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br /> “Yes, she knows I am here. She was here earlier as well. She heard the voice, too.”
Father Gregory considered that. “Would you be willing to attend some counseling sessions, Tomas?”
Frustrated, Tomas stepped closer to the closet and, tentatively, reached a hand out. Nothing. Wary, he reached for a pair of heels sitting on the chest of drawers. Nothing kept him from taking them.
He turned back to the priest. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Father. Could you at least—would you please bless the closet? Just in case?”
Father Gregory nodded. “I see no reason not to. If you would make room…”
Tomas stepped out of the closet so that Father Gregory could stand just inside the doorway. The priest straightened his shoulders, raised his chin and made the sign of the cross in the air. “In the name of the Father, the Son—”
No! The protest in Tomas’s head did not sound worried. It didn’t sound like anything, technically. But it echoed with fury all the same. “Um…Father?”
“—and the Holy Spirit. May this…closet…be sanctified by God’s grace. May this place be illuminated by the grace of God.”
There was a strange popping sound. Tomas reached for the priest. “Father!”
“May this place—” Father Gregory stumbled to silence as Tomas forcibly yanked him backward. “Really!”
Tomas looked quickly around them. A salamander sat on one of Marcy’s bedposts. Something black fluttered across the ceiling. And from the seemingly normal closet, he could now scent a hint of brimstone. “Do you see anything unusual, Father? Like, about the bed? Anything at all?”
The priest glanced right past the salamander and the bat, finishing with a quick, “Amen.” Then he said, “About that counseling, Tomas.”
Something from the closet chuckled darkly, and from the priest’s expression he hadn’t heard it. That, Tomas realized, put Father Gregory in even more danger than he and Marcy had faced.
“Let’s talk about it in the hall,” he said quickly.
Marcy stared at the computer screen in disbelief. What the so-called wizard had written about curses on the Sacrifices and Sorcery Web site rang horribly, twistedly true. But it couldn’t be…could it?