The Voodoo Killings

by Kristi Charish

“Sushi?” He nodded at the tray of sea urchins.

  I was acutely aware that Edward had tensed. I had a sinking feeling Edward had figured out I didn’t buy the sea urchins for sushi. Practitioning wasn’t illegal, but it was definitely considered a fringe activity. Also, most people thought that practitioners would make a ghost or poltergeist haunt them if they looked at us the wrong way. Shows what most people know. Getting a ghost, let alone a poltergeist, to do anything useful is like herding cats.

  “Best sea urchins in town,” I said.

  The man’s smile widened, and he headed on his way.

  Edward narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Edward, I’m not about to ruin your business.”

  He stared at me skeptically as he took the two twenties I passed him and worked on getting change out of his apron.

  “You sell the best sea urchins in Seattle. I need you to stay in business.”

  He handed me my change and the bag of urchins. “That I’ll believe.” He waved me away and moved on to another customer.

  I headed back down the three flights of steps to where I’d left my bike. I hopped on, headed up to First Street and took a right towards old Seattle. The sun disappeared behind a cloud and I tucked my hair under my hood.

  At night, old Seattle had the charm of an Old West frontier town complete with the antique lights, narrow cobbled streets and old storefronts. In daylight, however, it was a different matter. I love Pioneer Square, but I’d be lying if I said it fit. It was as if old Seattle was a wrong piece that had been forced into the puzzle slot that was Seattle.

  When I reached Marjorie’s, I took a lap around the square, stopping at a new artisan coffee shop to splurge on a second—no, make that third—coffee. The takeout cup helped me fit in with everyone else out for a Saturday morning. I took slow sips and pretended to window-shop as I cased Marjorie’s storefront from a distance across the square. Eventually I settled on an empty bench.

  The red awnings and glass windows set in uneven stone—which had to be the original building material or a very good restoration—gave Marjorie’s an authentic feel that was missing from so many of the other buildings. Now that I knew Marjorie herself had been an old zombie, it made a different kind of sense.

  She’d seemed like a pretty, middle-aged woman of Nordic descent, with blond hair and a no-nonsense manner. Ten years I’d been going there for coffee, and it’d never once occurred to me to tap the barrier and check. Murphy’s Law: every time you think you know something, the universe will prove you wrong.

  I watched the place for fifteen minutes while I sipped my coffee. The constant trickle of Marjorie’s regular clientele and Saturday morning shoppers stopped at the door to check inside, presumably hoping to catch sight of Marjorie, who’d lived upstairs. A few even knocked.

  This many people wouldn’t have missed the morning news, so the police hadn’t yet reported Marjorie’s death. And Aaron had to be involved in that delay. Maybe I should have thrown something at him out my window last night.

  I dropped my cup in a bin, grabbed my sea urchins and headed across the park. I walked straight up to the window the way I’d seen her other customers do and peered inside. Everything looked to be in order except for a toppled canister of coffee on the wood counter and a puddle of water on the floor near the sink. Maybe she’d had the water running when she was killed and it overflowed onto the floor before one of the cops shut it off.

  If there had been a struggle, all signs had been swept away and any blood cleaned up.

  I tapped the barrier and pulled a globe. I’d crammed enough caffeine into my brain that the Otherside didn’t sting nearly as much as it could have. Once the globe was stable, I opened my eyes and tried to look through the window. Just like last night, I hit a wall. I took a step back and checked the sill, locating the symbols holding the Otherside barrier in place.

  I watched three girls pass behind me in the reflection on the window, students if the backpacks were any indication. I waited until the nearby ring of a door chime told me they’d disappeared inside the adjacent shop before wrapping my hand in the sleeve of my leather jacket to pull out the first sea urchin and place it on the sill.

  The barrier around Marjorie’s window worked on the same principle as zombie bindings and set mirrors, with symbols that brought Otherside to an object in this world. Instead of animating a body or providing an access route, though, this barrier repelled Otherside. Setting mirrors and dead bodies is not what I’d call a piece of cake, but both already have an affinity for the Otherside. But binding a living person, even a plant, or the wood of Marjorie’s windowsill to create a ward? This barrier would have been almost impossible to break when it had been set. I was lucky that it had suffered a few decades of wear and tear.

  I placed the first sea urchin over the first corner anchoring symbol, making certain I’d lined it up. I took a knife out of my purse and held it over the urchin. “Sorry, Marjorie,” I said, before cutting it down the middle. As Otherside collected around the urchin, I funnelled it into my globe. A bit of nausea, but nothing I couldn’t handle. When it passed, I threw the sea urchin’s life force into the symbol in one big, overloading shot. The symbol wavered, once, twice, then disappeared. I lined up the second sea urchin at the next corner, checked the reflection in the window to make sure the coast was clear, then cut a second time, bracing for the shot of Otherside. As soon as my knife broke the second sea urchin’s shell, I funnelled its Otherside at the barrier, which wavered then snapped up like a blind before collapsing into nothingness.

  I scraped the sea urchin bits into a plastic bag and cleared my head. Here went nothing. I loosened the hold on my globe and sent the first pulse through the window. This time I met with no resistance. The inside of the coffee shop was soon bathed in grey.

  Given that a zombie had been killed here, and the bindings and Otherside holding her together had to go somewhere, I expected to see solid traces.

  I didn’t expect to see this.

  It was as if someone had taken a brush and drunkenly splattered paint all over the room. I caught a flicker on a chair near the window—a larger piece of Otherside, what looked like half a rune symbol….

  “Shit.” The thick antique glass reflected my shaking voice back at me. Marjorie’s zombie bindings hadn’t just been broken, they’d been obliterated, as if a bomb had gone off. Like what slicing my sea urchins did to the windowsill wards, only multiplied by a hundred. I cringed just thinking how much that would have hurt.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment. I didn’t really want to take a closer look, but if I didn’t, I’d have wasted two perfectly good sea urchins. I refocused my globe and forced myself to look back through the window, acutely aware of my breath misting the glass.

  The coffee bar and shelf behind it had taken the brunt of Otherside shrapnel; fragmented gold threads covered the bar and the aluminum canisters of coffee, including the one that had spilled over. If I had to guess, I’d bet Marjorie had been standing behind the counter when it happened. Whoever had done this to Marjorie hadn’t just wanted to kill a zombie, they’d wanted to punish it. But I’d never heard of an Otherside explosion. Was there even such a thing?

  I ran through other possible scenarios in my head, but none of them fit. I kept coming back to the idea that someone or something had attacked Marjorie with Otherside while she was behind the counter, resulting in no physical damage to her place but turning her bindings into shrapnel.

  Without the body, there was no way to figure it out. I committed three of the most complete runes I could see to memory, including the partial on the back of the chair closest to the window, then dropped my globe. As I did, I caught a flicker in the shop window. I could have sworn I’d seen the trace of a ghost-grey face—the same face I’d seen in the set mirror and outside my apartment last night. But this wasn’t a set mirror, and I’d already dropped my globe…

  I stood there for a long moment to see if I’d glimpse it again. Surely
I was imagining things. Ghosts can’t pop into unset windows. It was a figment of my imagination fuelled by too much Otherside, not enough sleep and lots of caffeine.

  But why the hell couldn’t I shake the feeling that someone was watching me?

  I got on my bike and sped home. I was at my apartment’s back entrance when I realized my phone was ringing.

  Aaron. I checked the time: 11:50. I took a deep breath and did my best to clear my head, then answered. “Aaron.”

  “You were supposed to call me back before noon.”

  “It’s 11:50.”

  “My watch says noon.”

  “Mine says 11:50, and it’s set by a satellite, so I win.”

  “Look, Kincaid, can we talk?”

  “About?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Aaron, there is nothing to talk about. You said you needed a break, I said fine. Nowhere in ‘I need a break’ is it specified I have to wait for you.”

  “If I had known you were going to take it this badly—”

  “We would still be together, you’d be miserable and making me miserable in the process.”

  Aaron didn’t have anything to say to that.

  I said, “Look, we both knew it wasn’t working—it’s better this way.”

  “Kincaid, I needed space, but it had nothing to do with us. I thought we were clear on that. You never once told me taking a break meant it was over. It’s not fair to do that to me.”

  Yeah, well, life’s not fair, Aaron. “Maybe that’s one of our bigger problems, Aaron. I shouldn’t have had to say it.”

  “You’re blaming me for what happened at the station.”

  “You and me and the station are two completely separate issues.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I didn’t respond. Aaron could keep thinking whatever the hell he wanted.

  “Kincaid, we’re not done talking about this, but at the moment I need your help with something.”

  I was not helping Aaron. “No.”

  “There’s no one left on staff who knows a damn thing about the paranormal, and I’m at my wits’ end.”

  I sighed. “I left textbooks in your office. Consult those.”

  “As you’ve pointed out more times than I care to count, I can’t see Otherside worth shit. I’m useless at a crime scene.”

  “So tell your boss you need a consultant and hire one.”

  “You know as well as I do I can’t do that. No more paranormal consultants on the books. End of story. Kincaid, I can pay you myself.”

  I knew how much Aaron made—he really needed my help. I was going to regret this. “So what is the case? Short version.”

  “I think you know exactly which case I’m talking about, since you were hanging around the scene last night. I’m going to hazard a guess that the great Lee Ling sent you.” Aaron had never met Lee Ling or seen the underground city; very few people had. But he knew who the players were.

  “I didn’t think anyone was investigating,” I countered.

  “I am,” he said.

  “They’re letting you?” I said, and by they I meant the recently appointed captain, Marks—the new PD boss who’d helped usher in the new paranormal laws and made a point of having my contract let go before he set foot in Seattle. I’d never met the man, but by all accounts he was as bigoted and unpleasant about the preternatural as I’d pictured.

  “I made a persuasive argument.”

  I snorted. Would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that.

  Since Lee was already paying me to look into Marjorie’s death, I wouldn’t be working for Aaron for free. And he and Sarah were good investigators. In the long run, as much as I hated to admit it, we’d be better off pooling our resources. “Aaron, hypothetically, if Lee had asked me to look into this, I’d have to report in to her first, because she’s the one paying me. And I’d need the okay from her to share with you.”

  “How soon can you let me know?”

  If I hurried, I could make the underground city before the seance on campus. “I’ll let you know tomorrow. But if it is a go, that means you need to pony up everything you’ve got on the case so far. And there’s one other big condition: you’ve got to get me in to see Marjorie’s body.”

  “Deal.”

  That was good enough for me. Aaron would keep his end of the bargain. “Fine, I’ve got to go. I’ve got Nate up at the university tonight.”

  “Roger’s on patrol up there, I think. I’ll give him a heads-up so he can run interference with any of the new hires.”

  That made me pause. “Since when have seances become illegal?”

  “They’re not, but to Marks seances and zombies are one and the same….” There was a pause as Aaron decided whether to say more. “He considers seances grounds for a search.”

  I laughed, but Aaron didn’t join in. “You’re serious?”

  “You think you’re having a bad time? It hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park over here. If he makes us search another magic shop looking for zombies…” He trailed off. “He’s not going to give up on finding the city.”

  “The underground city doesn’t exist,” I said, more coldly than I meant. “Not the one he thinks.”

  “Kincaid, I’m not asking, just so you’re aware.” Aaron sounded fed up, and for once it wasn’t with me. I knew he cared about me, but his break from our relationship had an uncanny correlation with the new captain being hired. “Let me know as soon as you can, about whether you can help with Marjorie. And Kincaid? We’re not done with the other issue yet.”

  I hung up.

  CHAPTER 10

  SMOKE AND MIRRORS

  I jiggled the key in my apartment door’s warped lock for the third time. Why the hell wouldn’t it give? Maybe I should have let Aaron replace the lock, though having a door that was impossible to open didn’t seem like the security problem he made it out to be.

  At last it popped open.

  “Cameron?” I called.

  No answer.

  I dropped the bag of sea urchins on the kitchen counter and listened. Nothing.

  Moving as quietly as I could in boots, I slid a knife out of the block. I palmed it along the sleeve of my jacket and tried one last time. “Cameron?”

  No answer. Stable my ass, I thought. And where the hell was Nate?

  I thought about pulling a globe, but if the nausea knocked me out before I found Cameron’s hiding spot, he might get the jump on me. The knife was a better bet for now. I turned my cellphone off so the chime wouldn’t alert him.

  My bedroom was closest, so I headed there first. I checked under the bed and in the closet. In order to immobilize Cameron, I’d have to be fast; eyes were best, but severing the tendons on his hands would be easier—he’d come at me with his hands first.

  The bathroom was next. I made sure not to open the door any wider than I had to since it had a tendency to creak. I slid through. No one. I threw back the shower curtain to be sure.

  All right, last place left was the spare bedroom. The door was closed, and I eased it open, sliding through, knife first.

  Cameron was there all right…sitting at the desk. With my headphones on and a pack of pencil crayons and sketch paper I kept for tracing symbols, engrossed in whatever he was drawing.

  “Cameron,” I yelled, and tapped him on the shoulder, hard.

  He dropped his pencil and sat up straight, pulling the headphones off.

  “Kincaid,” he said. “When did you get back?”

  “Just now.” I glanced around the room. “Where’s Nate? He’s supposed to be watching you.”

  Cameron glanced down at his sheet, which he’d hidden from my view, and shook his head. “I saw him ten, twenty minutes ago maybe?”

  “Well, which is it—ten or twenty?”

  “I’m not sure. I was busy.” He nodded at the sheet. “He said he’d be back soon.”

  Figured. I crossed my arms and leaned against the door frame.

  “How did it go?” Came
ron asked. I didn’t miss the hopeful look on his face.

  “Well, that depends.”

  “On?”

  “On whether you ‘forgot’ you were manic depressive with a serious substance abuse problem or just decided to omit that small detail during our conversation this morning.”

  The great thing about being able to read people is I usually know they’re lying before they even open their mouth. “It’s not what it looks like—” Cameron said.

  “Oh, for god’s sake. How is that not important? That’s how you know Max.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I am bipolar—or manic depressive, if you like. The doctors keep changing what they call it. The substance abuse is nowhere near what it used to be. I regulate it with my work.”

  I snorted. No one regulates their own substance abuse.

  Cameron frowned at me. “I’ve felt more together in the last three hours than I can remember in years. I’m not about to go on a bender—I don’t do those anymore.” There was no self-loathing in his voice, just acceptance.

  But it did raise a question: what happened when you animated someone with a mental illness? The mind is a delicate thing, and the way a zombie is bound to its body—well, not everyone handles animation well. And that was without the added complication of bipolar highs and lows. For all I knew, his disorder was affecting his memory. What if the blank spots were related to episodes he’d had when he was still alive? I could have screamed at Cameron.

  “You want to know why I didn’t say anything?” Cameron said. “Look at your reaction. One detail changes the way you see me entirely.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Now who’s lying?” He turned his attention back to his drawing. “Besides, the only crazy thoughts I’ve had is thinking I’m a zombie and seeing ghosts, and apparently that’s true.”

  “Okay, I get it. I probably wouldn’t wear it on my sleeve either,” I said. “So I have good news and bad news: yes, Max is responsible for raising you, but you’re going to be stuck with me for three more days.” Then I gave him an edited version of my conversation with Max.

  “So basically, I’m to sit around for the next three days and hope at the end of it he can fix me?”