Chapter 21
Barry Love's office was near Ninth Avenue and Forty-Eighth Street, in a dilapidated brick building whose lobby smelled strongly of cat piss. Morris found that the structure reminded him of the Kingsbury Building in Boston, and he hoped there wouldn't be any fires to contend with this time.
As the self-service elevator clanked and groaned its way to the fifth floor, he quietly said to Libby Chastain, "Think she knows we're here?"
Libby didn't have to ask who she was. She bit her lip for a moment before answering. "Hard to say, since I don't know what precise magical mechanism she's been using to keep track of us. It's some sort of scrying, obviously, but there are lots of different ways to do that. I've been putting out some cloaking spells since New Orleans, but the only way to know for sure if they're working is if nobody tries to burn us up or hack us to pieces."
"Or seduce us," he said, thinking of San Francisco.
"That, too."
"So, you like girls, huh?"
"Leave it alone, Quincey."
Barry Love was expecting them, and within a couple of minutes they were in his office and settling themselves into worn and faded client chairs that looked like they'd been bought cheap from a bankrupt funeral parlor. The chairs fit in well with the battered old desk where the detective sat down, and with the unpainted wooden shelves that jutted from the wall behind him.
Love had been on the phone when they'd arrived, and politely asked their indulgence for a minute while he finished with his caller. As the detective muttered into the receiver, Morris found his gaze drawn to the shelves and their unusual contents.
Books were crammed together on the top shelf, and Morris found that he recognized several of them. There were two Bibles (the Latin Vulgate and King James Version), Stone's Practical Demon-Hunting, an expensively bound copy of the Bhagavad-Gita, Newman's The Vampire in Victorian England, Wellman's biography of John the Balladeer, a couple of volumes by Hegel and one by Sartre, Black's Approaching the Millennium, and the third edition of Investigating the Occult: Principles and Techniques by Scully and Reyes.
The other shelves contained an odd assortment of bric-a-brac, including a statuette of what Morris believed to be the goddess Shiva, an economy-size bottle of Vivarin, an ornate silver crucifix that looked like it properly belonged in a cathedral, an African witch doctor's mask, a small stuffed toy bear with a dirty face, a bronze Star of David, a shrunken head that looked genuine, two autopsy knives, a large can of Maxwell House coffee, and several objects that Morris couldn't identify at all.
Barry Love was listening intently to the voice on the phone, and had begun to write notes on a yellow legal pad that rested on the worn desk blotter. The private investigator appeared to be in his late thirties, so the touches of gray in his hair were probably premature. Morris thought they might have been brought on by the same experiences that had put all those lines in the man's face. It was a thin face, with prominent cheekbones beneath a two-or-three-day growth of beard. A broad forehead stood sentinel above red-rimmed blue eyes that looked like they hadn't known a good night's sleep since the Reagan administration.
Love was wearing a wrinkled blue dress shirt with a button-down collar and short sleeves. His pale, wiry arms bore several tattoos, which Morris recognized as sigils against demons. Barry Love, it seemed, was a man who took his work seriously.
Love completed his call and hung up. "Sorry about that," he said to Morris and Libby, "but I thought that guy might have a line on something—somebody—I'm interested in finding, and he doesn't get in touch very often. I can't call him, since he moves around a lot and doesn't trust cell phones. Now then," he said, leaning back in his chair, "you said when you called yesterday that you were interested in some information."
"Information that you could have provided over the phone, if you have it at all," Morris said. Jet lag and the strain of the last few days had made him irritable.
Love shook his head solemnly. "I never discuss important things over the telephone with strangers. A voice on the phone—hell, you could have been anyone, even one of Them."
"Them?" Libby Chastain said politely.
"From the other side." Love's voice was matter-of-fact.
"You've had some experience of the 'other side?'" Libby asked.
Love nodded slowly. "More than I ever wanted. Like a guy I once knew used to say, I seem to have a knack for the weird shit. I've been finding it, or maybe it's been finding me, for a long time now."
"What might Quincey and I do, or say, to convince you that we're not from the 'other side'?" Libby asked.
"You don't need to do anything," Love told her. "I already know you're not."
Libby tilted her head a little. "And how do you know that?"
"I can tell, that's all." Love shifted his gaze to Morris for a moment, then looked back at Libby. "Just like I can tell the two of you have had some dealings with the weird shit yourselves. But what I can't tell is what you want from me."
"We're here because a couple of fellas in New Orleans thought you might be able to help us." Morris said.
"New Orleans." Love smiled a little. "That would be Carleton and what's-his-name, Randall."
"It would, indeed."
"Help you with what?"
"The weird shit," Morris said, and grinned at him. "What else?"
Morris and Libby took turns telling Barry Love about the black witch they were looking for, and why. It took quite a while. Their narrative was twice interrupted by the ringing phone, but each time Love brusquely told the caller, "I'll get back to you later," and hung up.
When their tale was done, Barry Love sat back in his chair. "This lady you're looking for sounds extremely dangerous," he said.
"She is," Libby told him. "That's why we need to find her quickly, before she manages to destroy the LaRues."
"Or us," Morris said.
"Or us," Libby agreed. "We've done all right so far, but the aggressor always has the advantage—that's true in war, football, and magic, too. If this game of cat-and-mouse keeps up, sooner or later we're going to get careless or she's going to get lucky. So we need to move fast."
Love's thin fingers pinched the bridge of his nose for a long moment. Then he said, "I don't know her, not personally. There have been rumors for a long time about a powerful black witch who's descended from a long line of them, a line that extends all the way back to Salem. I've never heard her called by name, but I might be able to get a line on her for you."
Barry Love was rubbing one of the mystical tattoos on his left arm absently. He may have derived comfort from it, or perhaps it just itched.
"I'm familiar with most of the people in the city who deal in black magic," he went on. "The real stuff, I mean, not tourist crap. Some of them owe me favors, and the others would probably be only too happy to have me owing them one. Let me make some calls and see what I can find out."
"How soon do you think you might have something for us?" Morris asked.
Love glanced at his watch then thought for a moment. "Come back around ten tonight. With any luck, I should have some news by then."
"We haven't discussed your fee yet," Libby said.
Barry Love looked at her with his bloodshot eyes and grinned crookedly. "If I do manage to turn up this lady for you, I guess that would mean you'd owe me a pretty big favor, both of you. That true?"
"It certainly is," Libby said, and Morris nodded agreement.
"Okay then," Love said. "That'll be enough."
* * * *
Since Libby lived in New York, she invited Morris to have dinner at her condo while they waited for Barry Love to work his contacts in the occult community.
"You've been here before, so you know where everything is, Quincey," she said, while walking around turning lights on. "Make yourself at home, while I see who's been demanding my attention the last couple of weeks."
Morris made himself a weak Scotch and water before flopping onto the couch in Libby's spacious living room. She h
ad several magazines strewn across her coffee table. Among these, Morris was glad to see, was the latest issue of Cemetery Dance, which he tended to view as a news magazine. Libby picked up the pile of mail that had accumulated in her absence and sat down next to her telephone answering machine. She pressed "Play" and gave half her attention to the recorded messages while sorting through her mail, much of which ended up in a nearby wastebasket.
The fourth message, however, quickly engaged her interest.
"Elizabeth, this is Garth van Dreenan. You may remember me from that nasty business in Mozambique we dealt with several years ago. I am in New York temporarily, and I wish to ask your help on a matter of considerable importance. I would be most grateful if you would call me as soon as you can, at one of the following numbers." There followed a series of phone numbers. The first one Van Dreenan's voice identified as his cell phone, the second as his room at the Holiday Inn, and the third as the FBI's New York City field office. The answering machine then produced a mechanical voice announcing that the call had been received at 2:18pm the previous day.
Libby Chastain finished scribbling the numbers on the back of an envelope, then turned the answering machine off. She noticed that Morris was looking at her.
"I didn't mean to eavesdrop," he said. "But it was hard not to."
"No, that's all right," she said. "Garth is with the South African Police, their Occult Crimes Unit."
"Thought I recognized the accent. I've heard of the Occult Crimes Unit, too."
"Garth's a good guy," she said. "He brought me in to help out with a case he was working a while back, and we eventually ended up in Mozambique." She made a face, as if tasting something bitter. "It turned pretty messy."
"Do I want to know any more about that?"
"No," she said after a brief pause. "You probably don't."
"Fair enough."
She tapped her pencil on the envelope she was holding. "Garth picked a bad time to need help from me. But maybe it's something that I can take care of quickly. Failing that, let's hope it can wait."
She picked up her phone and started with the first number.
* * * *
"So you see," Van Dreenan said, "in order to locate Cecelia Mbwato, I will need some magic of my own."
Libby nodded slowly. "You realize that the kind of locater you're talking about won't work over great distances. Probably not more than a few miles."
"I understand that," Van Dreenan said. "I plan to put myself in her general vicinity. Of course, for me to do that, she must kill again. That is the only way to know where she is, or, at least, has recently been. Rather a macabre dilemma, I recognize."
"I think I know how you feel," Quincey Morris said. "Friend of mine has a son with cystic fibrosis. The boy's only hope was a lung transplant, from a donor the right age and general size. My friend hoped and prayed for that transplant, even knowing that if it was going to happen, somebody else's child had to die. It bothered him some."
"Life can be cruel," Van Dreenan said.
"It can, for sure," Morris said. "But I'll say to you what I said to him. You're not taking anybody's life. That's outside your control. All you're doing is trying to use the means available, to save somebody else's life."
"You said she's killed four?" Libby asked.
"Four, yes," Van Dreenan said.
"Then there'll be one more," Libby said. "You know why as well as I do, Garth."
"Indeed," Van Dreenan said glumly.
"Powerful number, five," Morris said. "Especially in black magic."
"As much in the African variety as in the European," Van Dreenan said. "Cecelia Mbwato must have something very nasty in mind. And if she does commit one more murder, that will probably be my last chance to… apprehend her, and I want to be ready." He looked at Libby. "That is why I am here, Elizabeth."
Libby picked up the small plastic bag that was resting on her coffee table and held it up to the light. "You're sure this hair is Ms. Mbwato's?"
"As sure as I can be," Van Dreenan told her. "It was taken during a police raid on her home last year. She lived alone and had, of course, long since departed, but she left some items behind—including a hairbrush that had her fingerprints, and only hers, all over it."
Libby shook the bag slightly, watching the curled black hairs bounce around. "I'm surprised the FBI doesn't want this," she said. "For DNA analysis, or whatever."
"They do want it," Van Dreenan said. "But the police back home were able to get a rather substantial sample from that brush, and I persuaded one of my colleagues to rush some to me, in two separate bags. The FBI lab has what it needs to work its magic."
Libby stood up, still holding the plastic evidence bag. "Well, let me see if I can work some of my own. This may take a little while." She looked at Morris, "Quincey, do you mind keeping Garth company while I try to assemble this thing?"
"My pleasure," Morris said. "I figure the two of us ol' boys have quite a few interests in common. Failing that, I guess we can always watch soft porn on your Pay-Per-View cable."
Libby left the room, smiling and shaking her head. When she was gone, Van Dreenan looked at Morris. "I understand soft porn," he said, "but what is this Pay-Per-View cable?"
* * * *
Ninety minutes later, Van Dreenan was gone and Libby and Morris sat down to dinner. Libby was a vegetarian, so dinner consisted of a casserole made of rigatoni, three kinds of cheese, and portabella mushrooms. Although Morris was descended from a long line of Texas beef-eaters, his wide travels had given him an appreciation for a variety of cuisines. He thought the casserole delicious, and said so.
"I have a bottle of Chablis that would go with this very nicely," Libby said, "but maybe that's not such a good idea, under the circumstances."
"I know what you mean," Morris said. "Getting mellow on that wine could make us slow, and it seems I recollect an old saying that makes a clear distinction between the quick and the dead."
"Maybe I should make coffee."
"Good idea."
They ate in silence for a while until Libby said, "What are we going to do if Barry Love can't come up with some kind of lead for us?"
Morris chewed another mouthful of casserole and swallowed before shaking his head. "Damned if I know, Libby," he said softly. "Damned if I know."
Chapter 22
It was a few minutes before ten o'clock when they returned to the lobby of the old office building.
Libby was reaching for the button to summon the elevator when Morris gently grabbed her arm and said, "Let's take the stairs."
As they started up the chipped and creaking steps, Libby asked tensely, "Something?"
"Maybe."
"What?"
Morris shook his head. "Wait."
When they reached the second landing, Morris said, very quietly, "Do you smell that?"
Libby took a long sniff and made a face. "That's not cat pee. Unless the cats around here have started drinking sulfur water." Her voice was as hushed as Morris's had been. "I don't recognize it. Do you?"
"Could be I do. Come on."
As they climbed, the smell grew stronger. Pausing at the fourth floor landing, Morris asked, "Got your gear with you?" He was looking upward, toward the fifth floor, where Barry Love had his office.
"Of course," Libby said. She was already slipping the catch on her large handbag.
"Anything in there that'll stop a demon?"
Libby's eyes widened. "A demon? Why do you think—?"
That was when the door to the fifth floor landing burst open to reveal something out of a nightmare.
It had the body of an orangutan and the head of a hyena— except for the jaws, which would have looked at home on one of the larger species of crocodile. It crouched on the landing looking down at them, and from its mouth came the sound that a Doberman makes just before it goes for your throat.
Libby Chastain's disciplined mind quelled the panic that was trying to rise within her. She kept her eyes on the demon whil
e quickly sorting by touch through the objects in her bag. After a few seconds that seemed much longer, her fingers closed around the vial she had been seeking. She nudged the stopper off with her thumb.
"Whatever you do, don't run," Morris said tightly. "It expects that—that's why it's waiting. Damned thing will jump on your back, then reach around and tear your throat out from behind."
Morris took from his pocket a small bottle that bore the label of a health food store. The contents rattled as he twisted off the cap.
Libby risked a quick glance in his direction. "What's that?"
"Sea salt. They don't like it. Something to do with Solomon's bottle, when it was cast into the sea with a demon imprisoned inside. Have you got something ready?"
"Yes. It's—"
"Never mind, save it—we'll probably need it. This one's mine."
"This one?"
"They travel in packs. This ol' boy's probably not alone."
The prospect of more of these creatures made Libby swallow hard. "So, how do we play this?"
"Like Sam Houston at San Jacinto—we charge. Come on!"
And with that he was pounding up the stairs. Libby pulled the vial from her purse and followed, offering a quick prayer to the Goddess as she ran.
When Morris was two steps below the snarling demon, he flung a handful of the sea salt up toward the hideous face. "Be thou bound, Hellspawn, as with Solomon's seal!" he shouted. The demon threw its paws up to its face and staggered back, making a sound very much like a whimper. Morris immediately took the last two steps and closed in, wrapping one strong hand around the creature's massive snout, which rendered the killer teeth briefly useless. With his other hand he grabbed a handful of loose skin and fur along the demon's back.
Then, in one smooth motion, he pivoted and threw the squirming monstrosity over the railing. Its enraged screams echoed through the stairwell until they were abruptly cut off by a wet sound of impact, five floors below.
"Is it dead?" Libby asked.
Morris shrugged. "Maybe. Out of action, anyway." He shook the bottle of sea salt, as if checking how much was left.
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