The Voodoo Killings

by Kristi Charish

  “Because Celtic knots were used on the windowsill to anchor the barrier. Look at the edges.” The symbol exhibited dashes and loops characteristic of Celtic runes.

  Lee shook her head. “This is most definitely not a Celtic rune, nor a remnant of Marjorie’s bindings.”

  “Lee—”

  But she’d turned and disappeared into her office. She came back with an old, heavy leather-bound tome as long as my arm and thick with hand-bound pages that looked as though it belonged in a museum or on the shelf of a rare-book shop. She laid it on the bar and flipped through until she found the spread she wanted. Then she turned the book to face me.

  “These are Celtic runes. Look at the way they finish on the sides and are joined together in a larger picture. These,” she said, pointing to the images I had transcribed, “do not look like they were joined to any other runes. They are individual characters.” She glanced up at me, dark eyes intent. “Unless you were sloppy in transcribing them?”

  I glared back. “No, Lee, that’s exactly what they looked like.”

  “That is what I thought,” she said, and flipped to the next page. “I believe they belong to this set, which are ancient Arabic.”

  These pages were covered in cursive symbols with smoother, more flourished outlines. Nowhere on the page were the symbols linked together; they were always written as individual characters.

  “I didn’t know there were Arabic incantations for binding Otherside,” I said. Though it made sense. Almost every culture on the planet had figured out how to work Otherside, even before the turn of the century, when the barrier thinned….

  “The use of Arabic symbols faded in the Middle East during the Dark Ages.

  “It was one of the few regions that succeeded in purging itself of practitioners. A few books survived the purge, but they’re rare. My brother acquired the only copy we knew of that existed in Shanghai. Lou was one of the few people who studied Arabic bindings. They are quite dangerous. Are you familiar with the legends of the Jinn?”

  I nodded. “One Thousand and One Nights, right?”

  Lee pursed her lips, and the web of scars stood out. “Not exactly. Ancient Arabic inscriptions were used to bind spirits, not to a corpse, but to an element: air, water, fire, earth. An undead entity that is both corporeal and non-corporeal at the same time.”

  Corporeal and non-corporeal. “All the strengths, and none of the weaknesses,” I said. “Surprised it hasn’t been picked back up.”

  Lee made a face. “Jinn were powerful, but to make one was to induce a form of undead slavery. The spirits involved could not be willing, otherwise it would not work.”

  I didn’t want to imagine raising an unwilling zombie.

  “Lou said that the early Arabic inscriptions were adapted to act as a leash on the Jinns’ power and ability to wreak vengeance. The leashes were often tied to items such as jewellery or lamps, so they would not unwind if the practitioner was mortally wounded.”

  “Max sure as hell never showed me anything like this,” I said.

  “He may not know about them. As I said, very few accounts of the ancient Arabic bindings exist. It is possible he’s never encountered one.”

  “So Marjorie was some vengeful Jinn living in Seattle and running a coffee shop?”

  Lee clicked her tongue, irritated. “Marjorie was a zombie, like me. These days the Jinn only exist as legends and bedtime stories. The complete bindings and techniques were lost over a thousand years ago. Even these here are only remnants transcribed and lost, then transcribed again. They will not ever be able to raise a Jinn.” She pointed to my drawings again. “These were not part of her bindings.”

  “Then what the hell were they doing at the coffee shop?”

  “That is a very good question, and one I’d like answered.”

  A chill ran down my spine. Just because it takes years to teach yourself how to work Otherside doesn’t mean you gain magical wisdom by it. People do stupid things with Otherside all the time. Case in point: six months ago a murderer had raised a victim to throw off the time of death, and rushed it….The zombie strangled two people as a result, including the murderer himself.

  “Did Lou ever run into a practitioner who tried to raise a Jinn?”

  Sometimes when the light hits Lee’s face a certain way, the scars take on an eerie life of their own, like ripples on water. This was one of those moments. “Yes,” she said carefully, then rushed to add, “but the victims in those cases were all living and killed in a very specific fashion. Since Marjorie was a zombie, we can’t assume…”

  “Bullshit we can’t.”

  “Kincaid, those murders occurred over one hundred years ago, and the perpetrator was killed in the great fire.”

  “What if his ghost passed those methods on? You know as well as I do how much ghosts gossip. Who’s to say a chain of ghosts haven’t traded field notes to a practitioner? Or what if he left a notebook?” Practitioners were always looking for old notebooks that might contain a new set of bindings or symbols.

  “Kincaid.”

  I was trying Lee’s patience now, but this was stupid. Any information she had was relevant. “Did it make the paper? Did a practitioner like me ever question the local ghosts? What about the victims—did anyone try contacting them?”

  “Kincaid!” Half the bar looked up at the sound of Lee’s voice. “Please stop. I’ve already told you more than I should.”

  “You seriously can’t expect me to leave it at that—Hey!” I said, as Lee retreated into her office. “You can’t walk away in the middle of a discussion, Lee! I don’t care if you are dead….”

  She reappeared carrying a white envelope sealed with red and gold wax. “Kincaid, I am grateful to you for looking into Marjorie’s shop, but I don’t wish you to be involved any further.” She handed me the envelope.

  I stared at it. “You’re dismissing me?”

  Lee didn’t say anything.

  “Un-fucking-believable.”

  On the one hand, I got it: this was zombie business. Lee and the other zombies would want to deal with a zombie killer themselves, and if I was involved, they’d risk drawing attention from the surface. Even so…

  I shook my head. One minute Lee was begging me to take a look at Marjorie’s murder, the next she was warning me off. I wondered if I should even bother mentioning Aaron. If Lee was cutting me out now, there wasn’t a hope in hell she’d work with Aaron. Stupid. Aaron would have access to details she wouldn’t.

  “Lee, you should know Aaron’s looking into this too. He wants to pool resources.”

  Lee’s face was unreadable as she regarded me. “I would need to carefully weigh the benefits and disadvantages of his proposal.”

  I snorted. “In other words, no.”

  Lee glared at me. I’d overstepped one of our invisible rules of etiquette.

  “Look, the only disadvantage I can see to joining forces with Aaron is having to argue with him over who gets to deal with the bad guy—or girl.”

  Lee’s face darkened and the scars on her face once again rippled under the lamplight. “Then you are very short-sighted. There are always unforeseen complications when the Otherside is involved, Kincaid. You would be wise to remember that.”

  I checked the time on my phone: 3:00. I still wanted to swing by Catamaran’s before the seance. When I glanced up, Lee was frowning at me.

  “Are you well?” she asked.

  “You tell me. Are cold sweats and trembling normal side effects of pulling a globe?”

  “Please explain.”

  “Some new symptoms I’m experiencing when I tap the barrier. It’s worse when I pull a globe.”

  “How much Otherside have you been using over the last few weeks, Kincaid?”

  I shrugged. “The same as always.”

  “Any differences in your activities? Even small?”

  I thought it over. “The last twenty-four hours I know I’ve tapped the barrier too many times—” Lee interrupted me with a
derisive noise and I glared at her. “I’ve been pulling a globe here and there to get more seances in, for sure, but I haven’t done a zombie raising in three months, not even a four-line—”

  Lee stopped me. “Whether or not you’ve been raising zombies is not the point. The issue is how often you are contacting the Otherside. The Otherside is where the dead live, and it is as much a part of the dead as anything can be. Do you think there is no consequence to touching it?”

  “Max does it all the time.” I racked my brain. Besides this fiasco with Cameron in the last twenty-four hours, had I been using more Otherside lately? I’d had the odd Otherside hangover, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

  “Max is a medium, and the consequences are different for someone like him. You are simply…” Lee bit her lower lip, searching for the right word. “Stubborn,” she settled on.

  “Thanks.”

  She shrugged. “Kincaid, I strongly suggest you take a break from seances, just for a while. A few weeks. A month at most.”

  I glowered at her.

  Lee continued to study me. “Besides the sweats, has anything else out of the ordinary occurred?”

  “Like?”

  “Visions? Bad dreams? You tell me.”

  I flashed to the ghost I kept seeing….But no, that had to be my overactive imagination. I shook my head. “No.”

  I wasn’t convinced she believed me, but she let it go.

  I got up. “I’ll let Aaron know you’re not interested in playing.” He wouldn’t be happy, but I wasn’t going to push. For all I knew, it might end up better for everyone if the zombies handled it on their own.

  I was at the door when Lee called out, “Kincaid?”

  I turned to face her.

  “The sweats, the shakes and the headaches? That is something I’ve seen before, and it is not a good sign. Please consider my recommendation to take a break.”

  I nodded. “I will. And let me know if you change your mind about Aaron,” I said, and left. Get the seance done, get rent, deliver Cameron to Max and then get some damn sleep. Then I could take a break.

  —

  I glided into Catamaran’s parking lot. Three guys loitering out front and smoking—early twenties—stared at me and my bike as I rode in, and upgraded to outright gawking once the helmet came off. I ignored them.

  Catamaran’s wasn’t as crowded as last night, but it was still busy. A few people I recognized as regulars. One I was even friendly enough with to exchange nods.

  The TVs were all broadcasting different sports, but the majority of people were crowded around the largest screen above the pool tables—the only area where the widescreen fit. The baseball game between the Oakland A’s and Toronto Blue Jays was on. I had to dodge a few of the guys stepping back as one of the A’s hit a home run. I wasn’t sure if they were yelling for or against the A’s. Always hard to tell with the non–home team games. I looked around for Randall and spotted him pouring beer and getting an order of fries ready. He waved me over.

  “How’s that kid doing?” Randall asked, passing me a full glass of water. “Drink the damn water before you tell me. You look like you closed my bar last night. What’s wrong with you?”

  I complied. When I set the glass back down, I said, “He’s not exactly what I’d call a kid.”

  Randall snorted. “Anyone your age or younger is a kid in my books. How’s he doing?”

  “I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse.”

  Randall’s brow furrowed, so I rushed to add, “He’ll be okay. He’s stable and no danger to anyone—I’m making sure of that.” Courtesy of deadbolts and Nate. “It’s good you called me when you did, though. I don’t think he would have lasted much longer. Probably saved me from having the cops show up on my doorstep.”

  Randall refilled my glass before he delivered the fries and beer to a waiting table. I drank it all down. Maybe I was overdoing the caffeine….

  “That’s not the whole truth, though, is it?” Randall said when he came back.

  It was my turn to frown. “Why do you say that?”

  “I used to run bets for Filipino bookies, remember? I know when someone is trying to hide something.” Randall used to drive me home after babysitting, and once he’d let slip that this was how he’d spent his teen years in the Philippines—in total rebellion against the family practitioning business.

  I shrugged. “I’m still not sure how the hell he got where he is, and not knowing bugs me.”

  “A problem a lot of people have.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Learning to accept things you can’t change or know is part of growing up.”

  In my books, that just meant you hadn’t tried hard enough. “How are the kids?”

  Randall glanced down at the bar. “Lisa’s still at her mom’s in California. She hates it. Keeps threatening to come up here.”

  Randall loved his kids and hated his ex, but that’s how it goes. I was amazed he hadn’t sent Lisa plane fare yet. Unlike my parents, Randall went out of his way to help his kids. My folks, and my mother especially, had always been more of the “What could you do to make other people like you more?” flavour of parents. I’d never understood the pressure girls were under to be pleasant all the time, as if it was a trait boys were exempt from. According to my mother, I wasn’t a pleasant little girl.

  “Sixteen-year-olds,” he added. “If she were with me, she’d be begging to go to her mom’s. Michael’s still in the Philippines, visiting his grandmother.”

  Michael was eighteen now. Good, polite kid, or had been when he was ten. “I didn’t know you still had family there.” Hell, I hadn’t known Randall still had a mom. “Getting to know her better?”

  “Something like that,” Randall countered.

  Something in his voice, maybe just missing his kids, made me drop the subject.

  Randall finished loading the last dirty glass into the dishwasher. “Out with it, Kincaid.”

  I held my hands up in mock defence.

  He leaned across the counter. “Somehow I don’t think this is entirely a social call.”

  I chewed my lip, figuring out how to phrase it. I hate broaching touchy subjects about as much as I hate it when four-line zombies try to have deep philosophical discussions with me. Four-line zombies aren’t known for their conversational skills, but that doesn’t mean they don’t try. And it was a delicate subject, at least for Randall. Catamaran’s wasn’t a criminal destination, but it was a sports bar that sold cheep beer, so it attracted a certain clientele….

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but has anyone been bragging about, I don’t know, knocking a zombie off?”

  From the look on Randall’s face, the question had gone over about as well as the police showing up to do a random capacity and ID check. “Even if they were, Kincaid, you know I wouldn’t say anything about it. Word gets out.”

  “Randall, I swear it won’t go further than Aaron, promise.” I couldn’t believe I was vouching for Aaron.

  “It’s true?” he asked.

  “Is what true?” Had Randall already heard through the grapevine about Marjorie?

  He gave me a level stare. “Rumour has it the new captain told one of his detectives he could keep his job or his weekend-witch girlfriend. Not both.”

  I tried my damnedest not to let my face or voice betray me. “When did you hear that?”

  “About the time Aaron stopped coming in with you.”

  I thought daggers at Aaron while I held on to my composure as Randall watched me closely.

  “Aaron never struck me as the type to go with something like that,” he said, “so I didn’t give the rumour much credence. From the look on your face, though, I’d say there’s at least some truth in there. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “Aaron’s…got things to sort out.”

  Randall shook his head. “If you were my kid, I’d have shown him the business end of my baseball bat by now.” From Randall, that wasn’t an exaggeration. Fi
lipino fathers took slights to their daughters seriously. A year back, when Lisa had been helping him out behind the bar, a patron had hit on her. He’d been shown the not-so-nice way out. Good thing he hadn’t been a regular.

  Randall headed back out to the floor to clear a now-emptied table. When he returned, I said, “Not that I’m petty or anything”—Randall snorted at that—“but I think the captain demoted him anyways.” I offered up a small smirk.

  “Ditched the girl and still got screwed? Can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. So why are you still helping him out?”

  This time I was able to look Randall straight in the eye. “I’m not. I’m helping out a dead woman who used to smile, remember my name and make me coffee every Saturday.”

  Randall held my stare for a minute then looked down at the bar. “So this goes no further than us?”

  I nodded. Aaron would want to know where I’d got the information, but as far as I was concerned, he could screw himself. He’d get what I decided to give him.

  “Last weekend, a university-aged crowd comes in. They seemed young, so I ID’d them. Figured they were new intake at Washington State. Turns out they were from out of town. Kept going on about how they’d never seen a zombie before and were talking about getting themselves one.”

  “I get phone calls asking me for that at least once a week,” I told him.

  “Yeah, but one of them started going on about how he knew how to stop one. With Otherside.”

  “Interesting. Know where I could find them?”

  He shook his head. “I remember that two of them were from California, the third was from New York. I can give you a shout if I see them again, but other than that…”

  I nodded. Likely guys trying to impress each other. Still, it was a lead.

  “Thanks, Randall. Say hi to Lisa and Mike for me.”

  “Sure thing,” he said, and again I thought I saw real sadness in his eyes. Damn, he must miss his kids. I’ll bet Mike had never been that far away before. Lucky kids, to have a father like him.

  “I’ll keep my ears open for any talk of zombies,” he added. “You just remember that the kind of folks who go looking for trouble with zombies won’t think twice about hurting some practitioner who gets in the way.”