As Deborah Carter drew her last breath, the air conditioner kicked off. The intruder heard Hannah in the next bedroom, rising from her bed. The young woman’s bare feet slapped the floor as she came into the hallway.
The storm had blown soggy leaves into the channel of the sliding glass door, but it slid easily in its enameled aluminum frame. The intruder stepped out into the private patio, closing the door behind him.
From the shadows at the edge of the wall, the intruder watched Hannah flip on the light in the room he’d just left. The intruder was safe now. If Hannah glanced toward the patio, all she would see was her own reflection in the carefully polished glass.
But the intruder could see her and got great satisfaction to watch her bend over the older woman, to see Hannah shake her mother by the shoulders and hear her scream out her mother’s name.
Chapter One
The box twitched. Stop that,” I said to the small leather-covered ring box on my desk. It settled down. I frowned. Items submitted for consideration at Pentacle Pawn are required to be deactivated entirely, or at least under secure restraint.
I cocked a reproving eyebrow at the elderly man sitting on the edge of the vintage Eames chair across from my desk. Charlie Portiere had the good grace to blush.“It was my late sister’s,” he mumbled, focused on his Gucci loafers. “I’ve only recently inherited it, and it doesn’t totally honor the transition in ownership yet. I need to travel on business for a few weeks, and I obviously can’t take it with me. I was hoping you might be able to store it.”
I opened the box and peeked inside. I shook my head. “Out of the question. It would be like letting a pit bull loose in our vault. I’m sorry, Mr. Portiere, but we’re not able to help you at this time.”
Charlie looked as if he was about to cry. “I never wanted the thing anyway. Minerva never properly trained it; her neighbors called the police about the racket many times. She was very lucky not to have been discovered with it.”
“My point, exactly.” He shrugged.
“Then I’m not quite sure what to do next.”
I saw an opportunity for both of us. “Did I understand you to say that you don’t intend to keep it long-term?”
Charlie looked chagrined. “I just want that thing out of my life.”
“Then perhaps we might be able to accommodate you after all.” I took a crisp new dollar bill from the stack in my desk drawer and offered it to him. “I’m sure you understand that only the rightful owner can control it. If you’ll accept this as payment in full and transfer title to me, I’m sure I can sort that...” — I gestured at the ring box — “... out in short order. I may have a client who would be interested. I’ll sell it for you, and we can split the profits.”
I watched all the tension go out of his tiny body as he gratefully took the dollar bill. “You would do that for me?” he said softly.
“Certainly. It’s what we do.”
♦
You will find Pentacle Pawn tucked in among the galleries, bistros, faux-Western bars and trendy shops of the 5th Avenue arts district of Scottsdale, Arizona. Scottsdale is a desert resort city, and the luxury shopping here is on a par with Las Vegas or Palm Springs. The rich and famous come to Pentacle Pawn to hock their high-end jewelry, artwork and designer duds for a little ready cash.
Pentacle Pawn is actually two completely separate businesses. The luxuries found in our upscale street-front store are enchanting, but the items that pass through our alley door at night are truly magical.
I’m Marguerite Flournoy; everybody calls me Maggie. I’m the witch in residence and owner of Pentacle Pawn, but to ordinary people, I’m just your average thirty-something businesswoman. I’ve been told that there is something compelling about my eyes, but I think that’s only because the irises are so dark brown that they appear nearly black. My hair color is a matter of opinion. Most people say it’s raven with copper highlights, and others say I’m a strawberry blonde. It’s a trick of the light, sort of like that old social media meme about the dress that was blue and black — or white and gold. It’s in the eye of the beholder. However you see it, you probably wouldn’t pick me out of the crowd, unless it was for my better-than-average fashion sense.
My manager Bronwyn takes the day shift. Bronwyn and I have known each other since kindergarten in New Orleans, and she was my best friend all through junior high and high school. We lost track after that. She married early and badly; I went on to college and grad school and married sweet John. When Bronwyn’s mother heard that I had moved to the Phoenix area, she put us back in touch. Bronwyn was recently divorced and looking for her next adventure. I was happy to provide it.
Bronwyn has no magical powers, but she is one of the kindest women on the planet and certainly the most discrete. She makes sure that our retail operation is a class act that will lure Scottsdale’s international clientele. You won’t find any dusty old CD players or cheap guitars on our shelves. The chrome-and-glass display cases in the main showroom are filled with diamond and gemstone jewelry from the best designers from the past and present, rare baseball cards, heirloom furniture, ridiculously expensive handbags and shoes, and prewar Navajo squash blossom necklaces.
I usually work the night shift, ten to six. Bronwyn locks up the street-front shop by 9 p.m., and my operation opens an hour later. Our evening clientele enters through a door on the alley side of the building. The alley shop is by appointment only and unavailable to the general public, but we offer a full range of services to the magical community. We do short and long-term pawn and custom storage, of course, and we also sometimes broker transactions to help customers and magical objects find each other.
Certain customers, referred by our sister operations in Paris or New Orleans, travel great distances to avail themselves of our services. Some patrons arrive by Uber. Jerry is always their driver; I’ve made sure of it. His profile on the app has a little special something — not a hack, really, but more like a snippet of a spell that makes sure he gets the call whenever someone summons a ride to the alley address.
The alley shop door appears to be solid oak. That’s a bit of a deception: it’s actually three layers. The middle one is a half-inch thick sheet of solid silver. The door is bound in wrought iron, and the oak is overlaid on both sides by a beautiful pierced iron carving of the Tree of Life, its roots entwining a pentacle. There is no visible lock. The door is secured with a little incantation that scans the visitor’s aura, rather like a thumbprint reader.
Step through the door, and you’re in a stylish showroom, brightly lit by Deco table lamps. The colors are subtle, but the textures are rich. We know that our Scottsdale patrons are used to the best of everything and expect to find it in the businesses they patronize.
Our clients are sometimes surprised to discover that the alley shop continues the same upscale design sensibility as the public side. They’re used to patronizing our sister establishments in New Orleans and Paris. Those shops have been established for centuries, and their decor honors the long magical traditions of their cities. The shop in Paris on the left bank has a funky, artsy vibe. Alice B. Toklas was a customer.
My family trained me in the New Orleans shop. New Orleans is a potpourri of magical experiences, but my mother and my aunt leave the voodoo for the tourists. I grew up enfolded by antique French furniture and classic European spells. I thought I was done with all that when I got my degree, and I loved teaching physics to undergraduates and developing my research at Tulane. I had no intention of opening a branch of Pentacle Pawn myself — I was all about the science. Best laid plans, and all that.
When I did finally surrender to my witchy side, I was determined to do it my own way. The Arizona shop is different: upscale and trendy, like the resort city that surrounds it. Even sages need a day by the pool once in a while. We try to remember that many of our clients are on vacation or have retired here, and they’re looking for relaxed luxury. Items are displayed on museum-quality furniture, mostly handmade tables and
cabinets from various eras. Interspersed are comfy sofas and armchairs where clients can examine the merchandise in comfort. The overall effect is of the grand lobby of a resort hotel.
I have to admit: the alley shop has a certain vibe. I established Pentacle Pawn in this location partly because the building sits on a vortex at the intersection of several pre-Columbian ley lines. The north-south one runs right through Sedona and on up to the Grand Canyon. Another one goes right through the middle of the meteor crater off Highway 40. Because of these lines, Arizona has a long tradition of hosting prophets, mystics, witches, seers, and crackpots. The magical community is literally drawn here by the forces of the universe.
My desk at the far end of the display floor is a rare curved Bauhaus original. It came from the collection of the designer who did both the main store and the alley shop. She has her studio just down the street and has done some of the best houses in town. Many of our clients are her clients, as well. Most of the furniture here, including my desk, is on consignment from her and everything is for sale. Pentacle Pawn is a business, not a hobby.
The vault in the basement is full of magical objects kept here for long-term storage, rather in the way that proper Republican women back in the day kept their mink coats in cold storage until they were required for some gala evening. I mean, you just don’t want some of this stuff lying around the house.
We require that all magical objects be contained before they are brought onto the premises. Sometimes, not so much. It’s my job to keep the lid on.
On the rare occasion when things do get out of hand, we are prepared to handle it quickly and quietly. The Scottsdale cops are cool. This city earns its living by catering to privileged people who sometimes like to party hard. Local police are used to tactfully and discreetly handling millionaire ballplayers and entitled trust fund babies. They’re not fazed by the occasional bump in the night.
You might be surprised how many of those privileged people are... talented. Or perhaps you wouldn’t be. Fame and fortune require certain skills that overlap traditional magic. We are here to help.
♦
While I talked with Charlie, my intern Lissa was helping an elderly woman at the counter. Lissa was shaking her head, but the woman kept insistently pushing a cardboard shoe box toward her. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I heard Lissa say, “but we can’t take shapeshifters or live animals, even if they are enchanted. Company policy.”
Good girl.
I always take extra time training new clerks. The first thing they learn to do is to fill out a pawn declaration and contract for each item we handle. The alley shop, for all intents and purposes, does not exist on paper. Even so, everything is on the up and up. We keep good records, pay our taxes, and file our required pawn declarations to the police department through Bronwyn’s system. We list items exactly as they appear to be, so if any of our transactions are ever questioned, Bronwyn can respond. For example, a recent acquisition was accurately described as a 16th-century Safavid carpet. We just didn’t mention that it can fly.
My clerks must also learn the safety requirements that absolutely must be followed with every transaction — no exceptions. Many of the items pawned with us are here for years, sometimes decades, stored in the wire cages and locked bins in the vault downstairs. It wouldn’t do to put an enchanted item or a shapeshifter in one of the bins and have it change form unexpectedly in that confined space. There have been a few ugly incidents in the past.
I’m careful to follow the rules myself; they’re there for everybody’s protection. Charlie’s little leather-covered ring box could turn into a big problem if I didn’t deal with it immediately. I mumbled a calming incantation — for me, not the contents of the ring box — before I carefully opened it. Inside, a baboon tooth lay quietly on the satin padding. Nasty little thing, I thought.
There’s always the possibility that a magical object, incorrectly or negligently handled by its previous owner, will have some residual magic still floating around it. The baboon’s canine tooth lay quietly on the black velvet. There was no vibration or aura, which was really good. At least the pin hadn’t been pulled — yet. Now that Minerva was dead, the tooth would have to be wiped clean, metaphysically speaking.
Over the years I’ve come to understand that magical objects come in two flavors: the finders and the binders. The finders are exactly that: if you have a piece of elephant bone, the right spell will take you to one. Finders even deliver. I’m not talking about a spirit animal — I’m talking about a five-ton tusker standing in your driveway. This is pretty straightforward stuff and can be useful depending upon the object you have in your hand. Being able to summon a horse when your car breaks down on a rural road is a pretty handy talent. If that’s a chunk of python vertebrae on your key chain, it’s a different conversation entirely.
The binders are a little more complicated. They carry the characteristics of the person, animal or plant from which the object originated.
That doesn’t mean that you can use it to appropriate Cleopatra’s gorgeous raven hair for yourself. It means that the object retains something of the aura of that individual, and that energy can be concentrated and redirected by the current owner. I use binders mostly as a focusing tool, in the same way that true mystics and dime-store psychics use crystal balls or tea leaves.
The baboon tooth was a finder. There was nothing subtle about it. Charlie’s sister Minerva was a cranky old broad, and she’d upset enough people over the years that she always employed a bodyguard. A few years before she died, she had given up on human protection — truth be told, Minerva was so ornery that she couldn’t even keep muscle men on the payroll for very long — and so she decided to rely entirely on magic.
I remembered how proud Minerva was the first time she summoned the baboon in my presence. She’d finally found another creature as vicious as she was. Charlie was right: he was in way over his head.
I closed the lid of the box and pulled a Faraday bag from my desk drawer. The metallic bag blocks electromagnetic signals from reaching the object inside. Ordinary people use them to protect their electronic devices from being wiped or hacked. Anyone familiar with Faraday bags would find this one to be very unusual. It was made from the usual plastics, aluminum, and polyester, but it had a layer of fine calf leather on the outside that made it look prettier, and also carried an enclosing spell. It was also twice as thick as the usual Faraday bag because it was actually two bags, one within the other. The inner bag had been turned inside out. It wasn’t meant to keep the vibes out — it was designed to keep them in.
I carefully put the ring box inside the Faraday bag, pushing it all the way to the bottom. I placed the bag on top of the pawn declaration that Charlie had signed, giving me ownership of the tooth. I peeked inside the bag to be sure that the ring box had not opened — I really didn’t want to put my hand down on that tooth — and slid my right hand inside the bag. I rested my fingers on top of the box. I placed my other hand on Charlie’s signature on the pawn declaration.
I recited the usual incantation, requiring the tooth to acknowledge my ownership. At first, there was nothing: no twitch, no shimmy. Sometimes, they take a little more convincing. There’s a second incantation I like to use for stubborn applications. It’s a little longer and a bit of a tongue twister but usually gets results. I recited it quickly, wary for any sensation in my fingers that would indicate the box was starting to open on its own. Getting bit by that thing would be no fun.
For a moment, I thought the second incantation had failed, too. But then, I felt the ring box twitch, just a bit, and then lay still.
I quickly removed my hand from the box before the tooth could have second thoughts. When I picked up the Faraday bag, it felt lighter. Whatever crazy spell Minerva had tried to put on the tooth, it was gone. All that remained was one ordinary, but still very nasty, baboon fang. I folded the bag’s flap and secured it.
Lissa was still busy at the counter, so I decided to pop down to the vault
myself. Having Mr. Portiere’s badly behaved baboon tooth, even in its Faraday bag, on my desk made me uneasy.
The success of my business relies on good security — both the physical and the magical kind. As a physicist, I have a pretty good grasp of the physical properties of magical objects. After all, Pentacle Pawn specializes in organic magical goods. This leaves out crystal balls, bewitched swords and that pot-metal button that your grandfather swore he took from the body of a dead leprechaun. The objects we handle — and we try not to handle them too much — are made from materials that once were part of a living thing. They are powerful, and so are the people who use them. I take precautions.
The basement of Pentacle Pawn is actually two separate rooms with no connecting door. The front basement is reached by a stairway behind the counter of the street-front store. A steel door at the bottom of that staircase secures the retail shop’s storage area outside of office hours.
The alley shop’s half of the basement — we call it the vault — is totally inaccessible by normal means. It has no door or other openings from either outside or inside the building. It is reached by entering my office and sitting in the Eames chair across from my desk. If you know the key incantation, you will suddenly be sitting in an identical chair in the room below. You need to know both the key and the incantation to access the vault. Otherwise, I hope you brought a book because you’re not going anywhere. And, of course, there’s the added layer of security provided by the front door. If it doesn’t know you, then having the key and incantation will do you no good at all.
The wording of the vault key, usually a sentence from literature in whatever language I fancy that week, is changed each week. Lissa and I know it, of course, and I text it to my Chatelaines, a small group of trusted women who hold this and a few other secrets for me just in case I get taken out by a drunk driver on the way home from the casino some night. It never hurts to have a backup.
Pentacle Pawn Boxed Set Page 8