She sighed, regretting it immediately as she took in air through her nose. “No, that strong odor—the one like a mixture of rancid cheese and spoiled meat, with a hint of diesel fumes. You can’t smell that?” She swallowed again, feeling green around the edges.
He shook his head. “It just smells like alley to me; maybe a little worse than usual, what with all the bodies.” The coppery stink of fresh blood mixed with the other stenches that often accompanied the newly dead; bodily fluids spilled here and there to combine with the stains and debris already on the ground.
Interesting. Apparently Witches could smell that distinctive Ghoul stink, but Humans couldn’t. Probably a protective coloration, so the Ghoul wouldn’t stand out when mingling with their food.
Donata gestured toward the mouth of the alley and the Chief shrugged in silent agreement. She continued to explain as they picked their way around garbage on the way out.
“I guess you can’t smell it, but take my word for it, a Witch can tell when a Ghoul has been someplace recently. That alley reeked. There must have been at least a dozen of them there; maybe more.” Bafflement crinkled her forehead as she thought. “You don’t usually find Ghouls together, though. Maybe two of them in the same place, no more. I think they might have territories they claim, but I’m not sure. Either way, I’ve never come across a place where it was obvious so many had gathered together.”
“But you’re sure they caused this—they weren’t just in the right place at the right time for a convenient snack?” he asked. The Chief liked to dot his i’s and cross all his t’s.
Donata considered it, but finally shook her head. She took a deep breath gratefully as they reached the curb, happy to be back in the reasonably fresh air again.
“Not that many of them, not all in the same place at the same time.” She bit her lip uncertainly. “I’ll call the area liaison and tell her about it, of course, but honestly, I don’t know what she can do. Pass it up the chain of command and let the Council handle it, I guess.”
“Well, that’s that, then,” the Chief said, his mouth pulled down at the corners with dissatisfaction. He didn’t like crimes where he couldn’t put the perpetrator behind bars. “Let me know if they ever catch the bastards.” He thought about it for a minute. “On the other hand, don’t.”
He sighed, suddenly looking his age, and peered at the watch on one hairy wrist. “It’s after two, Santori. Why don’t you call it a day? Nothing more you can do here anyway.”
He walked her to the black BMW motorcycle she’d ridden over on, and gave her a funny look.
“Can I ask you something, Santori?” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. Now what? “Sure, Chief. Another question about Ghouls? Because, I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know that much more about them.”
He shook his head. “No, actually, it’s about you.” He used his chin to indicate the bike parked next to them, and then her leather jacket. “You’re a pretty tough woman. I looked up your records when you helped me out with my granddaughter Lacey last year. You work out at the precinct weight room regularly and you have better scores on the shooting range than most of the guys I’ve got on the street.”
He hesitated for a minute, then asked his question. “So how come you didn’t go for a regular beat cop position and work your way up through the ranks? You could be in line for my job eventually if you had.”
Donata choked on a laugh, not certain how she felt about either the query or the fact that the Chief had been checking up on her. But she supposed she owed him an answer, since he’d gone out on a limb and given her the opportunity to move beyond the usual parameters of a job she’d eventually found stifling.
She swung one leg over the bike as she tried to figure out the right way to phrase her reply, and tilted her head to look up at him once she’d settled into the seat.
“Chief,” she responded, “how many Witches do you suppose we have at the precinct? Witch-cops, I mean, not just support staff.”
He scratched his chin, nails making a skritching sound on his middle-of-the-day stubble. “I don’t know; I never really gave it much thought. Twenty, maybe?”
Donata snorted. “Four.”
“Excuse me?”
“Four,” she repeated. “Including me. There’s the district psychic who works in the Missing Persons section on the second floor, a guy in forensics who specializes in matching evidence to the criminals who left it, one beat cop, and me—the Witness Retrieval Specialist who just got out of the basement. That’s it.” She gave him a cool look. “And the beat cop is a young guy; just joined the force a year or two ago. He probably wouldn’t have done it ten years ago.”
The Chief considered her words, his head tilted to the side. Finally, a slow smile crept over his face.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, not sure whether to be pissed off or concerned.
The Chief handed her the helmet dangling from one handlebar of her bike.
“Just laughing at the irony of it all,” he said. “I’ve been waiting years for someone to come along that could help me deal with the weird things I knew were going on just outside of my sphere of influence. And you’ve been training for years to be the cop you always wanted to be, waiting for someone to notice and give you the chance.”
Donata made a face at him. “And that’s funny because?”
He gave her a rare broad smile, suddenly looking very different from the grim, tired man she worked with every day.
“Because I’ve been looking for you so long, and it turns out you were under my nose all the time. It just never occurred to me to look in the basement.” He winked at her, then looked thoughtful.
Uh-oh. What did that look mean? “Chief?”
He tapped one stubby finger against his front teeth. “Hmph,” he grunted. “Just wondering what else is right under my nose.” He gazed into the distance, his mind already elsewhere. “Four, you say. Hmph.”
He patted her shoulder again absently and walked back in the direction of the crime scene. Donata smiled, making a bet with herself that Finley down in Missing Persons was going to find himself having an interesting and unexpected conversation tomorrow. Despite the dead body and the stinking alley, suddenly the day was looking up. This was a big part of why she was so happy to finally be out of the basement and on the Chief’s radar. If she didn’t screw it up, she could open a lot of doors for others like her. Of course, given her history, that was a big if.
She started the bike and headed toward her great-aunt’s house, pondering her own unanticipated tête-à-tête with the Chief. Things were changing and shifting all the time now, and she wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
But she was leaning toward good.
Chapter Ten
Donata grimaced as her great-aunt put an old pocket watch down on the battered wooden worktable and stood there expectantly, arms crossed over her skinny chest.
“Psychometry again, Aunt Tatiana?” Donata said with a plaintive wail. “We’ve tried that three times this week and I didn’t get anything from the objects at all. I don’t understand why you keep insisting I can do this.”
Tatiana shook her white head and waggled a crooked finger at her niece. “Now what have I told you about your negative attitude? Psychometry would be awfully handy in that job of yours, wouldn’t it?” She perched her narrow butt on a stool across the table from Donata, and Luigi the parrot flew over to sit on her shoulder.
Great, Donata thought. Now they’re both staring at me.
“Yes, of course it would,” she answered, “but I’ve never been any good at this kind of magic, and you know it.”
Tatiana sighed. “Donata, what are the four basic tenets of magical work?” Suddenly she sounded just like the former Witch School teacher she was, although back in the days when she’d taught, Witches had still been in the broom closet and classes were taught in cov
en members’ living rooms instead of actual schools.
Donata had a flashback to her childhood days, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a dozen or so other Witch children in the evenings, thrilled to be learning arcane knowledge and secret lore. Hers had been the last generation to be schooled in secret. Modern Witch children went to special classes given by their elders in regular buildings, but for Donata, learning about magic would always be associated with the excitement of the illicit.
Tatiana rapped her knuckles on the table to get Donata’s attention, and repeated, “The four tenets?”
Donata jumped guiltily. “Um, To Will, To Know, To Do, and To Keep Silent.”
Her aunt nodded as though she had said something profound, instead of reciting the basics that every Witch child knew by the time he or she was six.
“And what is the definition of the first one?” her aunt asked in her teacher’s voice, sending Donata so strongly back to her youth that she could practically smell the chalk dust.
“Er . . . To Will means having a firm resolve, and clear idea of what you wish to accomplish, and the belief that what you are doing is going to work.” Donata had no idea where they were going with this, but at least she knew she’d gotten the answer right.
“Exactly,” her aunt said.
Donata bit her lip. She was clearly missing something.
“I’m sorry, Auntie, I don’t mean to be obtuse, but what the heck are you talking about?”
Tatiana cackled, making Luigi flap his wings. Dust motes danced in the rays of sunlight coming in through the streaky workshop windows, angled downward by the window’s high placement in the old stone walls.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “Maybe I’m the one being obtuse. Sometimes I forget I’m not teaching a child anymore, and I can come right out and tell you what the answer is, instead of making you figure it out yourself.”
The older woman shifted on her stool. “You don’t have any problems with resolve, or with knowing what you want to accomplish. Your problem, I’m afraid, is in the belief component. You don’t believe you can do certain kinds of magic, and therefore, you can’t.”
She gave Donata a look composed of equal parts sadness and guilt. “And I’m afraid that is at least partially my fault.”
Donata’s head jerked in surprise. “Your fault, Aunt Tatiana? How?”
The older woman patted Donata’s calloused hand with her own softer, wrinkled one.
“You came into your ability to talk to the dead when you were very young,” she said. “I think you weren’t much more than three or four the first time we knew for sure that your imaginary friends weren’t so imaginary.”
Donata nodded and smiled. “I remember getting scolded for talking to a spirit at Uncle Frederico’s funeral. At the time, I thought everyone could hear the dead when they spoke.”
Her aunt nodded back. “Your parents were so pleased that you’d manifested such a strong skill so early on, they had unreasonable expectations for the rest of your development as a Witch. They put too much pressure on you, and you had more and more trouble mastering the basics.”
Donata made a face. “Yes, I remember getting scolded for that too, unfortunately.”
It had seemed as though her parents were never happy with her, no matter what she did. Come to think of it, they still weren’t. The only difference was, now she didn’t much care.
The old woman’s gaze dropped to the table, and the wrinkles on her face seemed to droop. “I finally told them that they needed to stop being so hard on you and accept that you weren’t going to excel in every area of magical work. But they took the concept too far, and told you it was all right not to be able to do the basics. And so you never really mastered many of the elementary forms of magic—but I’ve always thought it less a matter of lack of skill than it was a lack of belief.”
Donata raised one skeptical eyebrow. “You really think it is as simple as that?” Somehow, it didn’t seem likely.
Tatiana sniffed in indignation and sat up straighter. “I have plenty of reasons to think so, young lady. Why don’t you just give me the benefit of the doubt this one time?” She scowled at her great-niece and waved one blue-veined hand at the pocket watch. “Go on, try it again, but this time do your best to let go of the belief that you can’t do it.”
Dubious, but willing to do anything to please her favorite relative, Donata picked up the watch and held it firmly between her palms. She closed her eyes, and . . . nothing.
“I’m still not getting any sense of the person who owned this,” she said, disappointed. She hated to let Tatiana down.
“Hmm. Maybe you’re trying too hard,” her aunt said. “Start with something small instead. Is there any kind of a smell associated with the watch?”
Donata concentrated. There was something; an elusive tickle at the back of her mind. “Pipe smoke!” she said, surprising herself with the information. “I can smell pipe smoke.”
“Good,” her aunt encouraged. “Now, try listening for any sounds connected to the watch.”
Her eyes still closed, Donata listened—not with her ears so much as with some inner sense of hearing. First she heard the ticking of the watch, then the sounds of water splashing and the clink of dishes as they tapped against each other. Finally, there was a low buzz of conversation, a woman’s soft laugh, and a man’s deeper rumble.
“I can hear a man talking to a woman as she washes the dishes,” Donata said with glee. “He’s teasing her about chipping a plate, I think. I can feel the affection he has for her, and how happy he is to be sitting in the kitchen watching her.”
She opened her eyes and gazed in wonder across the table. “I did it! I can’t believe it!” Her aunt grinned at her and she grinned back. “Of course, I still don’t know who he is, exactly, but at least I got something.”
“The rest will come with practice, dear,” Tatiana said, only a little smug. “Now that you know you can do it, things should progress much more quickly.”
Donata sobered. “Well, that’s good. I’m going to need all the skills I can get. Things have been pretty strange at work lately.”
Her aunt got up to make them some tea, using the same pot she used to mix potions in. Donata always thought it was a miracle neither of them had ever grown bat wings or turned into toads. But it was good tea, so she drank it anyway. After all, Tatiana always washed the pot out first. Her mother would have had a cow.
“Problems with the dead?” Tatiana asked over her shoulder as she plopped Luigi back onto his perch. “Not giving you a hard time, are they?”
Donata laughed. “Actually, the dead are the least of my worries. Or at least, the spirits I normally work with aren’t the concern.” She sighed. “I know I asked to get out of the basement, but things sure are less complicated down there. Trying to sort out crimes that have Paranormal involvement is hard. I feel like I’m constantly being caught between the world of law enforcement and the Paranormal world.”
Tatiana carried over a tray with two mugs and a small dish of sugar and set it down in the middle of the table. Neither of them took sugar in their tea, but Tatiana always put it out to be polite. Besides, you never knew when an elemental sprite with a sweet tooth would show up.
“Well, dear,” her aunt said, “if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And then where would you be?”
Donata almost snorted tea out her nose. “Yeah, well I suppose there’s that. But it’s odd that I was on the force for years and never heard about anything as obvious as the cases I’ve been running into.” She furrowed her brows, inhaling the rich smell of chamomile and mint. “I’ve actually been wondering if there are suddenly more Paranormals breaking the rules for some reason.”
Tatiana took a thoughtful sip of tea. “I suppose that’s possible, but isn’t it more likely that you’re simply noticing it now that you’re paying attention? You kn
ow, like when a woman starts thinking about wanting children, and suddenly she sees pregnant women everywhere she looks.”
Donata choked, spewing hot liquid down the front of her shirt, and her aunt gave her a strange look.
“Goodness, what did I say?” Tatiana asked.
Donata could feel the blood rushing to her face as she blushed. “It’s nothing, Auntie. Some tea just went down the wrong way.”
“Well, I can see that,” Tatiana said acerbically, “but why?”
Donata mopped at her damp shirt with a cloth, not noticing until the last minute that the rag was already covered with dubious stains. Crap. She felt odd talking to her elderly aunt about this subject—but there wasn’t really anyone else she could discuss it with, either.
“It’s just these dreams I’ve been having lately,” she said, putting the rag down and glancing shyly across at her aunt. “They started out just, um, really vivid. And lately I’ve been dreaming about babies and being pregnant. It’s kind of bizarre, since I’ve never really had much desire to have kids. But now I’ve been having these dreams full of strange longing, and when I wake up in the morning I’m exhausted and off balance. They’re driving me a little nuts, to be honest.”
Her aunt gave her a pensive look. “Well, you are at the age when most Witches start thinking about settling down and having children. And weren’t there a couple of men you were interested in a few months ago?”
Donata blushed again, something she rarely did because of her dark Italian coloring. “It isn’t just the dreams about babies, Aunt Tatiana. It seems like every couple of nights I have another weird dream. Some of them are very . . . powerful.”
“Sex fantasies, eh?” her aunt said. “Lucky girl.”
The girl in question rolled her eyes. “Right. Lucky. Except they’re starting to freak me out. I guess it’s just stress, but I wish they’d stop so I could get a more restful night’s sleep.”
Veiled Menace Page 6