Black Magic Woman (Morris and Chastain Investigations)

by Justin Gustainis

  “Well, they couldn’t prove it, after all that time,” she said. “But it stands to reason. I mean, something caused all that hysteria.”

  “It wasn’t real witches, then,” Libby said, her face as expressionless as her voice.

  “No, not hardly,” Sidney Prendergast said with a slight smile. “Sorry if that disappoints you.”

  “I think we’ll both be less disappointed if you can identify the person we’re interested in.”

  “You realize this usually goes the other way, don’t you?” Sidney Prendergast said.

  “How do you mean?” Morris asked.

  “Mostly, my clients want me to start with the present—that is, with them—and work backwards. Sometimes they just want a nice copy of the family tree to bring to a reunion. Other times, they’re trying to claim a piece of some trust fund that’s being distributed to ‘all the living relatives of the late Mary Jones,’ or somebody. And, pretty often, clients want me to establish that they’re descended from some prominent, even royal, family. I can’t tell you how much business Dad got when Princess Di was alive.”

  “No trust funds for us, I’m afraid,” Libby said with a shrug.

  “And I already know that I’m a bastard offspring of the British royal family, so we don’t have to waste any time on that,” Morris added with a slight smile.

  Sidney Prendergast shook her head in mock disapproval. “Well, let’s see what we have to work with, here.” She turned the legal pad to a fresh page. “What’s the name of the person executed in Salem?”

  “Carter,” Libby said. “Sarah Carter.”

  “And the alleged crime?”

  “Witchcraft.”

  IN A HOUSE miles away, in a room that no one except Christine Abernathy ever entered, a ritual was about to take place. Although some of the objects being employed were modern, the ritual itself was very, very old.

  Amidst the swirling smoke of four sticks of incense, she picked up a two-foot length of insulated wire, the kind used in many electrical systems. She held the wire six inches above the low flame of a squat, black candle. “Fiagra,” she chanted. “Fiagra, fiagra, fiagra.” Although the wire had not come in direct contact with the candle, it began to smolder, then burst into flame. Dropping the still-burning wire onto the cold stone floor, Christine turned to another object—a smoke detector, the kind used in many homes and commercial buildings. She passed her hands four times over the device, each time repeating one word. “Dormire,” she chanted. “Dormire, dormire, dormire.”

  On the floor, the length of electrical cord continued to burn, the smell of its insulation adding a harsh chemical overtone to the smell of the incense.

  On the nearby table, the smoke detector, its battery intact, was silent as the dead.

  “I CAN LOOK up Sarah Carter’s exact date of death, if I need to. A lot of the records of the witch trials still survive.” Sidney Prendergast wrote for several moments, then looked up. “Now then, Sarah’s descendents?”

  “One daughter,” Morris replied. “Name of Rebecca. If there’s a middle name, we don’t know it.”

  “Okay, that probably doesn’t matter. People didn’t always have middle names in those days, anyway.” She wrote some more. “Rebecca’s date of birth?”

  “Don’t know that, either,” he said. “We believe she was about seven years old when her mother died, so...”

  Sidney Prendergast looked up again. “About seven, you say.” Disdain for the imprecision was clear in her voice. “All right, what happened to the little girl after her mother’s death?”

  “She was taken in by relatives from Boston,” Libby said.

  “Their names?”

  Libby shook her head. “No idea.”

  Sidney Prendergast blinked a couple of times. “Well, were they family on the mother’s side, or the father’s?”

  “Same answer, I’m afraid,” Libby said.

  “Did they formally adopt Rebecca, or just let her live with them?”

  Quincey Morris and Libby Chastain were silent.

  Sidney Prendergast tapped her pencil on the desk a few times. “Well, then, what other information do you have about the family line?”

  After another brief silence, Morris answered, “Nothing else, I’m afraid.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Those are all the facts we have available to us,” Morris said. “We were hoping that you’d be able to fill in the rest. That’s why we want to hire you.”

  “To find somebody alive today, with nothing but that—” she slapped her palm lightly on the legal pad, “to go on?”

  Morris nodded sheepishly.

  “Hell, what makes you so sure the family line didn’t die out, somewhere along the way? That happens all the time, especially with families this old. How do you know there even is a living descendant?”

  “We know,” Morris said. “I’m not at liberty to tell you how, but we know.”

  “Aw, Jesus...” Sidney Prendergast tossed the pencil onto the desk and leaned back in her chair. “Well, fortunately for you guys, my old man raised me to be ethical. So, instead of spending six months pretending to work on this piece of shit and then sending you a bill for ten to twelve grand, I’ll tell you right now: it can’t be done. Not with the limited—”

  “Excuse me,” Libby Chastain said suddenly. Turning to look at her, Morris saw Libby’s eyes dart around the room, then rest on the door through which they had entered. “Sorry to interrupt,” Libby continued, and there was something in her voice that made Morris suddenly, completely alert, “but I was just wondering—do either of you smell smoke?”

  CHAPTER 13

  “WAIT HERE,” MORRIS said. He opened the door to the stairway and stepped out onto the landing. A few moments later he was back. “Stairway’s already filled with smoke,” he said tightly. “We’ll never make it down—we’d either fry or suffocate.”

  People from the other offices were in the hallway now, calling to each other and dashing around. Tendrils of smoke eddied around them like angry ghosts.

  Libby turned to Sidney Prendergast. “Is there another set of stairs on this floor?”

  “No, but who cares?” she said frantically. “Let’s just take the fucking elevator!”

  “Bad idea,” Libby told her. “The floor selector buttons work on a heat sensor. The elevator’ll head right for the fire.”

  “Jesus, what’ll we do?” Sidney Prendergast’s voice was approaching hysteria.

  Libby put a calming hand on the young woman’s arm, then said to Morris, “Fire department ought to be here soon. Think we can hold out that long?”

  Morris shook his head dubiously. “Fire’s only one or two floors below us. Anyway, you hear any fire alarm, any smoke detectors going off, anything?”

  Libby listened for a moment. “No, I don’t,” she said, and looked at Morris. “It’s almost as if somebody wanted us trapped up here, isn’t it?”

  “Sarah Carter’s descendant plays for keeps,” Morris said grimly. “Look, can you do anything to put out the fire?”

  Libby shook her head. “Not the way it’s spread now. It would need gear I don’t have with me, and a lot of preparation time.”

  “What are you two yammering about?” Sidney said angrily. “We’ve got to get out!”

  Libby placed her hand on the back of the young woman’s neck and muttered a few words that Morris couldn’t hear. After a few seconds, some of the panic faded from Sidney Prendergast’s face.

  “She does have a point, Quincey,” Libby said.

  Morris nodded, his eyes narrowed. “Well, we can’t stay here, and we can’t go down. All that leaves is up.”

  He turned to Sidney Prendergast. “How many floors between us and the roof?”

  Sidney thought briefly. “Three. Three floors after this one.”

  “There’s a roof access door, right?”

  “I—I don’t really know, I never...”

  Morris turned to Libby. “There’s got to be a way to reach the
roof, so they can repair leaks and so on. If the door’s locked, think you could get it open?”

  “Most likely,” Libby said. “But say we do manage to get to the roof. What does that buy us?”

  “Time.”

  EYES STREAMING, THE three of them stumbled out onto the Kingsbury Building’s flat roof. They were all coughing and wheezing, even though they had used articles of clothing to cover their mouths and noses while climbing the stairs.

  The fresh air eased their breathing within a couple of minutes. Sidney Prendergast collapsed face down on the roof’s rough surface and lay there, breathing heavily.

  Quincey Morris put his suit jacket back on and went over to the roof’s edge, which was bordered by a four-foot-high retaining wall. He was peering over it when Libby Chastain joined him a moment later.

  “Looking for a fire escape?” she asked.

  “No, for fire trucks. Or cop cars. Or anything to show that the city even knows about this blaze.”

  “And...?”

  “Not a fucking thing. And no sirens heading this way, either.”

  Libby looked for herself, then nodded bleakly. “She’s thorough, whoever she is. Powerful, too.”

  “Powerful enough to keep the whole city from noticing this blaze indefinitely?”

  “No, not indefinitely, but there’s no way to predict just how long—”

  “Hey!”

  They both turned toward Sidney Prendergast, who had risen to her knees, palms flat against the roof. Panic was back in her voice as she said, “This thing’s getting hot!”

  Libby kicked off one sandal, placed a bare foot on the roof surface. “She’s right. It’s spreading faster than I would have thought.”

  “Old, dry wood,” Morris said absently. “Stuff burns like kindling.” He was looking at the adjoining building, which was the same height as the Kingsbury. It had an open, flat roof, just like theirs.

  It was at least thirty feet away.

  Libby followed his gaze and understood immediately. “Too far to jump,” she said pensively. “Even with a running start, the retaining wall would kill your momentum.”

  “Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing.” He was scanning the roof now, looking for rope, lumber, anything that would span the gap between the two buildings. There was nothing.

  The first wisps of smoke were visible now, making their way through cracks in the roof surface. Morris gazed at the next building the way a drowning man looks at a distant shore. “Fire’s a hard way to die,” he said quietly. He looked again over the roof’s edge at the concrete and macadam that lay twelve stories below. “Well, at least it’s not the only way out.” He flashed on photos he had seen of people jumping from the World Trade Center on 9/11, electing to fall to their deaths rather than burn. Well, there are worse ways to go then defenestration. Plenty of them.

  He turned to Libby, who was staring intently at the next building, lower lip caught between her teeth. “What?” he asked tensely.

  She began to go through the pockets of the light jacket she was wearing. “Gravity’s a law,” she said. “But laws were made to be broken.”

  Morris inhaled sharply. “You mean you can use magic to fly?”

  Libby pulled small bottles and packets from her pockets. “I’m saying we all can. Maybe.” She looked across at the other building again. “The three of us make for a lot to lift, and no time to do a proper casting. But—maybe.”

  Libby dropped her jacket on the roof surface, knelt on it, and began her preparations. A few feet away, Sidney Prendergast had rolled up into a ball, and was sobbing. Smoke was coming through the roof more insistently now, and Morris thought he could hear the crackle of flames from beneath them.

  “Listen,” Morris said to Libby, “if it was just you who was going to fly, would you be confident you could do it?”

  “Reasonably confident, yes.” Libby was using a mixture of powders to make a small circle.

  “Then do it,” he said harshly. “Better one of us makes it for sure, than all three of us end up splattered on the sidewalk. Take the sure thing, Libby.”

  Libby Chastain continued with the arcane pattern she was constructing within the circle. “Don’t you go all Horatius-at-the-bridge on me now. Fuck that, and fuck you, Quincey Morris. Either we all make it together, or none of us makes it.” She looked up at him, and her eyes were wild. “Now shut up and let me work!”

  Four and a half minutes later, the three of them stood in a row atop the retaining wall. Libby had put the hysterical Sidney Prendergast into a light trance, and the young woman would do as she was told. She stood between Libby and Quincey Morris, the three of them holding hands like actors about to take curtain call. Behind them, the first flames were visible between the shingles.

  “The spell went well, considering,” Libby said. “And we don’t really have far to go. I think we’ll be all right.”

  “That’s great,” Morris said tightly. He was trying very hard not to look down.

  “It’s important that we keep our hands clasped,” Libby said. “The spell is geared toward us as a unit, not three individuals. Understand, Sidney? Hold on to both of us, and don’t let go.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Sidney Prendergast said listlessly.

  “I’m going to say a word of power three times. At the third time, we step off. We have to do it together, all right?”

  “All right,” Morris replied. His throat was so tight that he could barely squeeze the words out.

  “Levate!” Libby said loudly.

  Morris clenched his sphincter tight, afraid he was going to piss himself.

  “Levate!”

  Morris wondered whether his grip was breaking any of the small bones in Sidney Prendergast’s left hand.

  Libby Chastain, white witch extraordinaire, took a deep breath and called, for the last time, “LEVATE!”

  Then the three of them stepped out into nothing.

  ON BOYLSTON STREET, their taxi had to pull over to make way for fire trucks heading in the other direction.

  “Day late and a goddamn dollar short,” Quincey Morris muttered.

  “Not quite a whole day,” Libby Chastain said from beside him. “It just seemed that way.”

  Sidney Prendergast used a handkerchief to wipe soot from her face. “I don’t know how to thank you guys for what you did back there. I guess I really lost my shit before I passed out.”

  “You were frightened,” Libby said. “A perfectly understandable reaction, under the circumstances.”

  “I still can’t remember exactly how we got away,” Sidney said. “It’s all... hazy, like a bad dream.”

  Libby rested her hand on the back of Sidney’s head. “You’re just in shock, it happens that way sometimes. I wouldn’t be surprised if you forget everything that happened after the fire broke out. You’ll feel better if you just forget it all.”

  “All I can remember is you saying some word, over and over. Levate? Was that it?”

  “It’s just something I say under stress. It’s like a mantra, helps me stay calm.”

  “You know, to do genealogy, I had to learn Latin. Isn’t that what your mantra is? Latin for ‘Let us rise?’”

  “That’s right,” Libby said. She began to rub the back of Sidney’s head, very gently. “But you’ll probably forget that, too. Don’t worry, it’s all right.”

  “And flying,” Sidney said suddenly. “It felt like we were flying, all three of us.”

  “People can’t fly, Sidney,” Libby told her. “You know that.” Her hand continued rubbing. “It was just a dream you had. Best you just put it out of your mind.”

  “Well, can I at least buy you both dinner tonight, after we all get cleaned up?”

  “We’d love to, Sidney, but Quincey and I have to catch a plane.”

  “Oh? Where to?”

  “San Francisco,” Quincey Morris said.

  THEY HAD PUT Van Dreenan up in a Holiday Inn, which was all right with him. His room was clean and reasonably
quiet, and he would have felt uncomfortable in one of those American palaces he’d seen advertised in slick magazines.

  Van Dreenan tried to live an orderly life in private, perhaps in compensation for the disorder and chaos that his work plunged him into so frequently. He had been alone since the disintegration of his marriage, and, like many single men of middle age, sought what comfort he could find in structure and regularity.

  His routine was the same, no matter where he was, or what he was doing.

  After undressing down to his underwear, he went into the bathroom, urinated, washed his hands, brushed his teeth, and drank some water.

  Then, sitting on the bed, he said his prayers, silently. He did not pray for himself, but rather for the souls of others.

  Finally, Van Dreenan did what he had made himself do every night since the worst day of his life. From an oversized envelope, he removed several newspaper clippings that had been folded and refolded so often they threatened to come apart at the creases. Van Dreenan supposed he would have to mend them with tape when that happened. The thought of simply ceasing this nightly practice had never occurred to him.

  He read the clippings again, even though he had their contents inscribed on his soul by now.

  The first was headed “LOCAL GIRL GONE MISSING,” and began, “Pretoria police are conducting inquiries into the apparent disappearance of a local girl from a playground near her home. Katerina Van Dreenan, age 9, was last seen by her friends...”

  The second clipping bore the heading, “SEARCH INTENSIFIES FOR LOCAL GIRL.” “Authorities have stepped up their efforts to determine the whereabouts of the daughter of a South African Police Force officer. Katerina Van Dreenan, age 9, has been missing since Tuesday, when she apparently disappeared from a playground near her home. According to police spokesman Pieter Jowett, the case is not yet being treated as a kidnapping, since no demand for ransom has been made. However, he stressed that every effort was being undertaken...”