Their leaders went to the vampires and the wolves and begged for help, but both groups turned away, the vampires from apathy and the wolves from fear of meeting the same fate. Wolves are pack animals, and look after their pack before anything else. So the witches did the only thing they could: they looked to strengthen their magic. They didn’t know about evolution and magical lines back then, but during their research, the witches managed to stumble upon a group of plants that magic had bonded itself to, just like the human conduits. They were known as nightshades: belladonna, mandragora, Lycium barbarum (which also became known as wolfberry), tomatillo, cape gooseberry flower, capsicum, and solanum. The entire subspecies was rife with magic. The latter four plants could be used in hundreds of charms and potions, many of which helped the witches to deter the human persecutors. But the former three plants were unique; they interacted with the remaining magical beings in mystifying ways. Belladonna was poisonous to vampires—it took unbelievable amounts to actually kill them, but even a sprinkle of the plant would work as a paralytic. Proximity to wolfberry caused the shifters to lose control, painfully unable to stop from changing, again and again, which was very dangerous to anyone nearby. And mandragora, also called mandrake, was the key ingredient in a spell that could grant a very powerful witch the ability to communicate between living and dead. Which is how I ended up disposing of that naked guy’s body in Culver City, all those years ago.
This discovery was your classic Pandora’s box scenario. A small group of witches, furious that the vampires and the wolves had abandoned them during their darkest time, began to use wolfberry and belladonna against them—sometimes without much provocation. The balance of power shifted once again, and while the witches’ discovery didn’t cause a full-out war, it did spawn thousands of skirmishes, minor battles breaking out between the three major factions. Eventually, the use of those herbs was “outlawed” in the Old World, but it was done the way that marijuana has been outlawed in the US—basically, don’t get caught. The witches are always arguing about this among themselves; some of them think it should be open season, and others think the ban should be more strictly enforced.
But while they may not be able to pull together a majority vote, in Los Angeles Kirsten has organized the witches into sort of an informal union. I know it sounds crazy, but if actors and directors can have unions in this town, why not witches? As I understand it, the real benefit to joining the union is access: to chat rooms, newsletters, support groups, spell sessions—and me.
The witches’ dues pay Kirsten a small salary, and she uses the rest to organize the network and pay me. There are plenty of “non-union” witches in LA, too, ones who either haven’t heard about the group or don’t want to be a part of it. Kirsten has to deal with their messes, too, because a public witch problem is every witch’s problem.
By night, Kirsten Harms-Dickerson is the most powerful known witch in Los Angeles, but by day, she’s a chirpy, polite-but-firm receptionist at one of the bigger talent agencies. Well, technically, she’s a receptionist, but really, she’s more of a gatekeeper, keeping the crazies out and the beautiful people in. She was out for a run when I called, but she picked up the phone anyway. Kirsten always answers. I explained the problem—without mentioning my impending execution—and she said she could easily go into work a few hours late.
Breathless and panting, she said, “Does this have anything to do with that La Brea Park...thing?” That was surprising. Someone was keeping Kirsten in the loop, for once.
“Actually, yeah.”
“No problem. I already told Dashiell I would help however I could. Give me half an hour, and come on over.”
Eli volunteered his truck, but we took my van, because you never know when you’re gonna get called to a crime scene, and because it has GPS. Kirsten’s neighborhood is beautiful, if you go for that charming fifties suburbia thing. The lawns are manicured, children run from house to house with a secure sense of joint ownership, and cute medium-sized dogs bark playfully from behind honest-to-goodness white picket fences. We drove with the windows down, and I could hear a sharp metallic crack coming from the community ballpark on the next street. It’s all very Kirsten, who makes Elizabeth Montgomery look like an evil hag.
When Eli and I arrived, I didn’t have to do ding-dong-ditch. (There’s a Wizard of Oz joke in there somewhere.) I only inhibit Kirsten when she’s actively opened her connection to magic, so if she’s not using it, being near me won’t bother her. Although, for whatever reason, I can still feel an inactive witch in my radius, like a soft white noise that’s always buzzing.
Kirsten opened the door still in her spotless Nike running clothes, her white-blonde hair pulled into a bun. “Hello, Scarlett. It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Glendon. I believe we met at one of the Trials two years ago, but of course, it’s been so long.”
She held out her hand, and Eli took it, glancing uncertainly at me. I smiled sweetly. Oh, this was going to be fun.
“Please come in, of course.” She led us through a Pottery Barn living room and into her spacious kitchen, which was probably the only place in the house that gave away Kirsten’s secret identity. Pots of every size and metal hung from a rack on the ceiling, more pots than any TV chef could dream of, and there was an enormous open pantry, a dozen feet high, that was devoted to herbs, preserved in identical spotless Tupperware jars with printed labels. I was tempted to look for the Big Three, but if Kirsten did have any, she wouldn’t put them right out in the open.
She did have not one, but two different stone mortar-and-pestle sets on the large granite counter, and there was a small bookshelf above the sink that was crammed with books that had no titles. “Paul, my husband, is playing golf this morning, which leaves the house open for us. May I see the object, please?”
Eli glanced at me and, at my nod, handed over the insulated lunch bag where he’d stashed the cuffs. Given his “allergy,” I’d offered to carry them, but he’d insisted on doing it himself. Probably thought I’d ditch him and go see Kirsten alone.
Probably right.
Kirsten peeked inside and bit her lip thoughtfully. “I see what you mean, Scarlett. I’ve certainly never seen anything like this, although you know we don’t have much contact with the wolves.” She smiled diplomatically at Eli, who looked as if he’d just taken a bite of a completely new and spicy food. I probably should have told him more about Kirsten, but come on, this was entertaining.
“Can you trace them?” I asked her. “Do you have a spell that will work?”
“I think so.” Her eyes drifted to the books above the sink. “It won’t go to the last owner, unfortunately, because Eli has had them for too long. But I can get you to their maker. It should take no more than a half hour, I believe, and of course, I’ll have to ask you to step outside. Will your friend be staying in here or joining you outside?”
Her eyes looked directly into mine, and I understood the weight behind the question. This was the moment when I had to decide whether or not there was a chance that Kirsten was involved in this mess somehow. If she were on the bad guys’ team, she couldn’t hit either of us with a spell, not while Eli was close to me, but she could do any number of other things—lie about the cuffs’ origins, pull out a gun and shoot us, call some co–bad guys to come kill us. If I said Eli would come with me, it was leaving us vulnerable. But if I left Eli with Kirsten, it was like saying that I didn’t trust her, that I thought she was involved. Kirsten would not take that lightly, and she would not forget it.
I hate Old World politics, but I depend on them for my livelihood, so either way, the wrong choice could be terrible. I thought about the crime, about the violence and the use of a null, and I made my decision. “He’ll come outside with me, thank you. We’ll just wait on the porch.”
She nodded as if nothing had happened and started to set out her spell things, which were still mystifying to me. In an effort to curb my ignorance, Kirsten once spent a whole afternoon talking to me about contagion mag
ic and sympathetic magics and hermeticism, and we both finally had to conclude that I have absolutely no aptitude for understanding even the most basic witchcraft. Which makes sense, I guess, since nulls couldn’t perform a spell if the Fantasia sorcerer himself jumped out of the TV and begged.
Eli and I declined her offer of soft drinks and trooped out to the porch. The only place to sit was the blue porch swing, so there was an awkward moment while I faked like I wanted to stand up, leaning against the side of the house. Eli rolled his eyes and sprawled out on the swing. “She’s not what I expected,” he said finally. “She’s so...”
“Wholesome?”
“Yeah, I guess. I was picturing like a hippie with dreadlocks, or maybe a goth girl with Wiccan tattoos or something.”
“I did, too, the first time I met her,” I admitted. “She’s probably the most powerful witch in the city, but she looks like, I don’t know, the exasperated wife on a sitcom.” I bit my lip.
Eli looked closely at my face. “Witches scare you a little, huh?”
I shrugged. “Kind of. I guess....Vampires I get, and werewolves. It’s transformative magic, it’s like a spell that changes you down to your cells, and it’s permanent. Okay. But witches, they’re human, with all the responsibilities of human society, but they have these powers at the same time. When a witch performs a spell in your presence, you’re basically trusting that they’re not willing your ears to fall off or your lungs to implode. It’s a leap of faith, for most people, to even know a witch. It’s not that I’m worried about my safety...But if I were human, I would be.”
“What exactly is she doing in there?”
“A variation of a tracking spell. Sort of an origin spell, I guess.”
He waved his hand impatiently. “No, I mean what exactly does that entail?”
“Uh, the only thing I really understand about it is that a witch doesn’t actually create the magic. She pulls it out of the air, out of the energy in the world. The different ingredients in a specific order—the actual spells—they help direct or guide the magic to do what she wants it to.”
“So when you’re close to witches, it’s pretty much the same thing as when you’re close to us, right? They become human within your range?”
I nodded.
“But there used to be other things, too, right? Elves and fairies and crap like that? What happens when you get close to them?” I looked at him for a beat, and he shrugged defensively. “Shut up. I know things.”
I was swaying on my feet, still exhausted, so I finally gave in and perched next to him on the swing. He moved over to make room, and I tried to relax. “I’ve heard about them, from Olivia.” Her name tasted bad in my mouth. “As far as I know, those things were spirits of magic, the Original beings, and they all died out when conduits—your ancestors—evolved.”
I looked over at him, and was surprised at the look on his face. It was...sad and far away, and I could guess what he was thinking about. “Eli...How did you change?”
This was a very personal question, like asking how someone lost their virginity, only bigger, and I regretted it right away. But Eli answered me.
“I was a paramedic, in New York,” he said matter-of-factly. “I grew up in Manhattan, my mom and dad were there, and I...I was at the Twin Towers when they fell. I was working to free this woman. She was maybe forty, and she was trapped under a concrete post. She couldn’t get an angle to get out, so I was trying to clear some debris. I knew that I wasn’t strong enough, and my radio was dead, but I couldn’t just walk away. Then the floor above us came down.” His fingers tightened on the porch swing, and as I watched, his face just shut down. He was remembering. “A steel rod pierced me in my torso, and I was dying, right there next to this lady. The collapse had moved the concrete post, though, and she’d actually wriggled out, even with all the crap on top of us. I couldn’t believe her strength.”
I understood. “She was a werewolf.”
“Yes. She felt bad for me, I guess. She bit me, on the shoulder, and pulled out the steel rod, and she left me. I never saw her again.” He sat up suddenly in his chair, shrugging. “That’s about it.”
But it wasn’t. It takes about two days to turn into a werewolf—two days of agony. “How long were you trapped, Eli?”
He looked away. “Four days.”
“Your parents?”
He shook his head. “Gone.”
I struggled for something to say and came up with “You don’t look old enough to have been a paramedic that long ago.” He looked maybe twenty-eight.
He gave me a little smile. “I was twenty-three then. But you know we age slower than humans.”
“Yeah. Are you...” I began, then stopped. This was none of my business.
“Am I what?” he asked. “Am I sorry she bit me?”
I nodded. “I mean, I know you don’t like being a werewolf.” Werewolves age more slowly than humans—average lifetime is something like one hundred fifty years. He would be stuck this way for a long time.
He looked tired. “I don’t. But I’m not sorry to be alive, even if it’s like this. Even if it hurts.”
We were quiet for a while after that.
By the time Kirsten popped open the front door, I had nodded off on Eli’s shoulder, and a little line of drool was making its way down my chin.
“Come on in, guys,” Kirsten sang, cheerful. “I’ve got an address for you.” She turned back into the house, leaving the door open behind her.
I stood up unsteadily, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and blushing like crazy. Eli stretched his arms behind his head, smirking at me. “You’re so cute when you sleep. All innocent-like.”
“Shut up.”
He held up his hand, waving it at me, and I rolled my eyes and reached down to pull him up. He stood up inside my personal space, on purpose, to make me blush even more. God help me, it worked. I met his eyes, only four inches from my own, and he didn’t back down one bit. He looked at me, a long, searching look, until I lost my nerve and darted toward the front door.
No witch’s supply cabinet is complete without herbs, a cauldron, and...a Thomas guide. Back in her kitchen, Kirsten pulled out the book of Los Angeles street maps and opened it to a section in Van Nuys. “Okay, so the locator spell took me back to where these handcuffs were made—cast? Would we say they were cast?”
Eli and I looked up and shrugged. Not so much with the grammar.
“Okay, well, anyway, they were made here”—she pointed to a tiny pen mark—“in this little block. I copied out the address.” She passed over a perfectly formatted Post-it note.
“One more thing,” I began, “Olivia mentioned...Well, is it possible that the vampires in La Brea Park were under a spell? Is there a spell that has the same result as being around a null?”
I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I hoped she would say yes. If this were all due to some psychotic witch...But Kirsten shook her head, smiling in a patient way that I interpreted as No hard feelings about accusing my witches of murder.
“We can’t take away magic, Scarlett. We can move it around, funnel it into doing things, but we can’t actually take it away.”
Couldn’t argue with that.
Chapter 20
Jesse was torn. Should he keep his nose down and dig into the grunt work that the scene reconstruction guys had given him, or go pursue leads that he knew were valid and important? Jerry Lexington, the detective in charge of recreating the scene, had given him a stack of files relating to La Brea Park: all previous complaints or crimes committed in the area, the history of the park, the history of the land before it became a park, the biography of the guy who had donated the land, and so on. The stack was three inches of printouts and photos, and Jesse was frustrated and bored just looking at it. Chewing on his lip, he flipped to the middle of the folder on top, smudging the papers around on his desk.
An hour later, Jesse knew he was in trouble the moment he heard his name. Of course, it didn’t h
elp that when Miranda called for him, he was half-asleep, his head propped up on his hand. Not a great way to prove that he was working hard.
He took a big chug of the Mountain Dew on his desk, then stood up and trudged toward Miranda’s office, wondering how bad this was going to be.
“Sit down, Jesse,” she said briskly, waving toward the chair across from her desk.
Miranda’s iron-gray hair was a little disheveled, and tiredness and stress had seeped into her face. Jesse sat carefully on the edge of the chair, noting the folded-up LA Times on her desk. The headline screamed, Park Massacre Baffles LAPD. He winced.
“We need to have a conversation about your work performance,” Miranda said sternly. “You know that this investigation is critical, and the pressure from the media is building every day.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He did his best to look contrite, but couldn’t help feeling a little crushed. He was actually working his ass off on this case, coming up with leads nobody else would dream of, and to everyone on the force, he looked like a slacker. Jesse considered himself a good team player, not at all a glory hound, but come on. If he got demoted over this case, he wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
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