A Magical Match

by Juliet Blackwell

  The elevator was the old-fashioned kind; riders had to pull the grate closed manually, and the shaft was open to the center of the building, with the stairs wrapping around it. As we mounted the stairs, I noticed that even the interior walls of the elevator shaft were covered with the paintings.

  “You’ve got to give the artist props for diligence,” I said to Hervé.

  “I never knew you were a student of art history.”

  “I’m not. But I spent some time in Florence, and used to hang out at the Uffizi. The art on the wall is great, of course, but it was the ceilings that really captured my interest. In English they’re referred to as ‘grotesques,’ which sounds like something bad or ugly. But I think they’re charming. Bizarre, but charming.”

  One of the painted grotesques seemed to move, swimming before my eyes.

  “Did you see that?” I asked Hervé.

  “See what?”

  “One of the paintings just seemed to move.”

  “It’s the energy of this place. There’s a spirit here, no doubt about it,” said Hervé.

  But it wasn’t necessarily Tristan Dupree’s spirit. In a hotel of this age, a resident ghost was practically a foregone conclusion.

  “Also, violent death stirs things up,” Hervé added as we reached the second-floor landing and headed to the right.

  These weren’t the long, straight hallways of modern hotels, but were narrow and twisty, snaking through the old building. As we approached room 217, more of the painted figures started to stir, their movements sinewy, lugubrious, sensual. The box under my arm thumped.

  Spirits are attracted to me and often try to make contact, but I can’t understand what they’re saying. I could feel their energy, like an army of ants marching up and down my spine or puffs of cold breath on the back of my neck. But I’m a witch, not an empath, and I can’t communicate with them. It’s very frustrating and tends to make all parties concerned a little testy.

  Once again, I felt a wave of gratitude for my friend’s presence. Not just as a necromancer, but as moral support. I’m not new to murder scenes, unfortunately, but confronting the loss of human life never gets easy.

  “There it is,” Hervé said, nodding at the bright yellow crime scene tape crisscrossing a door just ahead. I wondered if the hotel’s management had removed the guests from the rooms along the hall; it wouldn’t be great for business to remind them this was an active crime scene. A homicide scene.

  “Ready?” I asked Hervé.

  He nodded.

  I ripped the crime scene tape, used the key to turn the knob, and stepped into room 217.

  The room was a shambles. Ceramic lamps had been smashed, nightstands overturned, and the sheets and blankets wadded up as though slept in. Blood was spattered on the white walls and drying in dark pools on the cream-colored carpet. Evidence tags and dark fingerprint dust revealed the forensics team had come and gone.

  Nausea seized me. The room shimmered with anger and evil.

  “Damn,” said Hervé, right behind me.

  The box thumped again.

  “What do you have in there, anyway?” Hervé asked as I carefully set the box on a chest of drawers.

  “It’s a little hard to explain. But it’s possible that whatever is in here once belonged to Tristan Dupree.”

  “But you don’t know what it is? Or even if it’s in there?”

  “I don’t know much of anything, I’m sorry to say. That’s why I’m hoping his ghost might be able to clarify a few things.”

  “And you brought the box to entice him? Clever girl.”

  “Not really. I brought the box in because I don’t want someone to steal it from my car.”

  “Shall we give it a go? Again—I can’t guarantee anything,” Hervé said. “This sort of thing would be better suited to your fiancé.”

  “He’s unavailable at the moment.”

  Hervé gave me an inquisitive look but didn’t ask anything further.

  “I appreciate your trying, Hervé,” I said. “What can I do to help?”

  “You could draw a circle.”

  I started to bring supplies out of my backpack: my mason jar full of brew, my Apache tears and tiger’s-eye stones, one clear quartz crystal, one small amethyst. One small purple pouch full of cemetery dirt, and five lavender tea lights.

  Hervé sat on the floor in a corner clear of debris, evidence tags, or any signs of struggle. I started to chant as I poured a very slender stream of brew in a circle around him, invoking my guiding spirit to open the portals, to allow the spirits to cross through the veil but only into the protection of the circle.

  Just as before, my magic felt . . . rusty. I had cast this spell a thousand times, knew every word, every movement by heart. Why was the energy resisting me? Could I have done something to offend my guiding spirit, the Ashen Witch?

  I tried to focus. To call for grace through humility.

  “Angels, guardians, spirits, receive my eternal gratitude for the guidance you provide. I bid you allow the spirits to pass through the veil, to speak through this man, this conduit. Speak to him through his third eye, and I will listen with a sharper ear, and I will see with a sharper eye. Speak to us, we beseech you. With this brew, with this fire, with our presence, so mote it be.”

  I went back over the circle, widdershins, in salt.

  Then, continuing to repeat my charm, I placed the stones at the four directions, north, south, east, west. Then I lit the candles and placed them at the five points of the pentacle: spirit, head, heart, earth, fire.

  While I chanted, Hervé arranged himself, sitting cross-legged, breathing deeply and relaxing into meditation. His broad hands rested, palms up, on his knees to receive the energies.

  His head fell back almost immediately upon my completion of the pentacle within the circle, and his eyes rolled up. Just like that, Hervé was no longer present. He was a conduit.

  When I was focused on a magical spell or incantation, I often went into a trancelike state, but watching Sailor or Hervé at work reminded me that I didn’t know what a true trance was. They seemed to actually leave their body, somehow, allowing the spirits or words from afar to channel through them. It was equal parts spooky and fascinating.

  I sat silently, watching Hervé. His features suddenly shifted, his eyes flew open, and he stared at me.

  “Lily Ivory.” Hervé’s voice sounded strangely hollow, and he spoke with Tristan’s odd inflection.

  “Tristan?” I tried to quell the queasy feeling of a spirit speaking through a friend’s body. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”

  “Your boyfriend.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No. He entered the room and began to strike.”

  “Do you have any other enemies, near or far?”

  Silence.

  “Come on, Tristan. Surely you have other enemies.”

  If Tristan had enemies, he wasn’t going to admit it. The silence continued.

  “What did you want from me?”

  “Fire. Time. Teher . . . tears. The tears of the daughter.”

  “What does that mean? I think perhaps what you want is in this box.” I held it up. “What is it you’re looking for, exactly?”

  “Bēag.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Bēag, bēag!”

  He started spouting something that sounded a lot like Oscar’s rendition of the prelude to The Canterbury Tales—in other words, some form of English I couldn’t understand. Or maybe it was another language entirely.

  “I can’t understand you,” I said.

  “Bēag! Silber!”

  “Silber?” I repeated. “As in silver? Is the bēag made of silver?”

  “Silber!”


  Happily, although spirits can speak through a medium, they very rarely “take over” the medium’s physical body. I was pretty sure that if Tristan could have, he would have gone for my throat. Or, at the very least, for the box.

  “What about Renee Baker? Is she involved in this?”

  “Kaka.”

  Were we talking baby talk now?

  He mumbled under his breath, as though searching for a word. “Kuchen?”

  “Kuchen—that’s German for cookie or cake?” I ventured.

  “Cupcakes!” he exclaimed.

  Well, at least I understood that last part. So, Tristan was definitely involved with Renee and he associated her with cupcakes, as we all did. After all, she was the cupcake lady.

  “The seers saw. The prophecy.”

  “What is the prophecy? Tell me.”

  “San Francisco. The child will come.”

  I blew out a frustrated breath, more confused than ever. Luckily, I’d been mired in confusion before. In fact, I was beginning to think that this was my process when trying to figure out supernatural mysteries.

  Hervé twitched and moaned softly. He was coming out of his trance. The question-and-answer period was over.

  Chapter 8

  Hervé looked vacant and confused, which was typical for someone coming out of a deep fugue state.

  While I gave him some space to recover, I studied the paintings on the door panels and in a border framing the ceiling. It wasn’t hard to imagine a brokenhearted hotelier painting yet another door, a wall, a column, one after another. The variations of grotesques were endless, the outlandish combinations of beasts and mythology restricted only by one’s imagination. Had the artist been desperate to forget, I wondered, or desperate to remember?

  “Did I say anything?” Hervé asked after a moment.

  “You said plenty. I’m just not sure what any of it means.”

  “You never know with these things. Often the meaning is revealed over time.”

  “I just hope that time comes sooner rather than later,” I said.

  Hervé stood and brushed off his clothes while I gathered my stones and tea lights. I used a small whisk broom to sweep up the salts, hoping that whatever residue remained behind wouldn’t interfere with an ongoing police investigation. Shawn said the forensics unit had already come and gone, but still. I probably should have run this one past Carlos.

  I repacked the supplies in my backpack and picked up the shoe box; then Hervé and I made our way down the circular stairs. Shawn was fast asleep on the couch in the front parlor, so I left the room key on the desk and we let ourselves out.

  The night was chilly, with a thick blanket of fog blowing in off the bay; I shivered, pulling my cardigan tight. When would I learn to take a coat whenever I was out at night in San Francisco, no matter how warm the day?

  A group of five people about Shawn’s age laughed and feigned screaming as they ran across the street. Traffic was light compared with daytime, but nonetheless there were a good number of cars cruising the street. It always surprised me that San Francisco had so many people out at night, despite the fact that most restaurants closed by nine thirty. San Francisco was not New York City.

  Hervé escorted me to my car and lingered while I stashed my supplies in the trunk. I let out a sigh, feeling decidedly defeated.

  “You know this is how it works, Lily. The spirits aren’t known for their clear signs. You need more pieces of the puzzle before things start to fall into place.”

  “I know. It’s just that . . . Well, Sailor’s in jail.”

  “Sailor? What for?”

  “He’s the main suspect for this murder.”

  “This murder? The one in room two seventeen?”

  I nodded, glumly.

  Hervé paused for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “I don’t know Sailor well, Lily, but I know this: I felt the sensations in that room. Sailor is not capable of that degree of violence or unbridled ambition. Whatever was in that room with Tristan wasn’t some normal guy caught up in the moment.”

  I almost laughed. Talk about a good news/bad news scenario. The good news: My fiancé wasn’t a murderer. The bad news: The murderer was an ambitious psychopath and I had to track him down. Oh, goody.

  “Anyway,” I said, ready to change the subject, “did you get your invitation to the handfasting?”

  “It’s on my calendar. Selena dropped by my shop today—she’s so excited to be in the wedding. She said something about trying on bridesmaid dresses with you tomorrow.”

  Dangitall. I had totally forgotten. Another lapse in memory. This wasn’t like me. “Yes, of course. I’m looking forward to seeing her.”

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “You’re confident you’ll be able to spring Sailor in time for the nuptials? I’d hate for her to be disappointed.”

  “We’d all be just a tad disappointed. And anyway, I don’t have any other choice. Sailor didn’t do this, Hervé. I just have to find out who did, and figure out how to prove Sailor’s innocence.”

  “Exonerate Sailor and find the real killer. How hard could that be, right?” Hervé chuckled, his voice sonorous.

  “That about sums it up.”

  A siren wailed in the distance, and several people emerged from the theater next door. Show must be over.

  “If I can help, you know where to find me. But, Lily, you mentioned your grandmother’s coven is on their way into town. Couldn’t they be of assistance with this sort of thing?”

  “They’re taking a rather circuitous route. Besides, they’re all in their seventies and eighties, so I’m not sure how helpful they’ll be with the actual running-after-a-murderer part. Also . . . my mother is on that bus.”

  He nodded sagely. “Mother issues. They’re the worst.”

  I smiled. “My familiar said that very thing this morning.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Your pig talks?”

  “I . . . might have interpreted that. You know how it is.” Watch it, Lily. Only Sailor, Aidan, and Selena knew about Oscar’s true form, and it was best that way. Since I had started feeling at home, making friends, creating family, I had been letting my guard down.

  Or was it more than that? I had been losing track of conversations, talking to myself, letting things slip.

  I sneezed.

  “Coming down with something?” Hervé asked.

  I shook my head.

  “My wife swears by zinc and echinacea, but personally, I think industrial-strength DayQuil’s the only thing that works.”

  “Thanks. But I’m not getting a cold. I don’t get colds.”

  He chuckled. “Of course not. But if you do, DayQuil’s the ticket.”

  * * *

  • • •

  By the time I got home, I was exhausted, worried, and no closer to figuring out what was going on, much less how to exonerate Sailor. Walking into the kitchen, I was relieved to see Oscar snuggled in a nest of blankets in his cubby above the refrigerator, snoring away. At least I didn’t have to worry about his being out and about.

  I yearned for bed, but was so worried about Sailor that I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. So I rose to my tiptoes to reach a high shelf, and grasped a thick old tome covered in faded red leather: my ancient Book of Shadows.

  I had inherited the witchcraft manual from Graciela, who had inherited it from her own grandmother. It was chock-full of spells and incantations, wise words, articles clipped from newspapers—including a few from the Jarod Weekly Clarion that accused me of creating havoc at that snake-handling fiasco. I flipped through the yellowed pages, running my fingers along paper made soft from frequent handling, not seeking anything in particular. But every once in a while my Book of Shadows would offer me subtle advice; a familiar spell might be changed ever so slightly, or I would notice a new addition that was use
ful for my particular situation.

  This time my eyes fell on a passage I’d read before, dealing with human-demon alliances:

  A daemonic allegiance is oft betrayed by an outward manifestation of youth and vigour. The maturation of the individual is slowed by the hand of vile iniquity belonging to the servant of the Devil. The soul of the wretch, enmeshed by vanity and greed, is in such manner seduced by the blandishments of an abiding beauty. Alas! doth the sufferer fall victim to the foul trickery of the daemon, the better to employ the truckling knave.

  Huh.

  Other than that, the old red leather tome remained mute, except for a quote I hadn’t noticed before: Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

  At the moment, anything that mentioned the world being over sounded a tad ominous, what with prophecies being bandied about, and all. Still, it was a good sentiment to keep in mind, I supposed.

  I flipped through to some clippings from my time in Germany. None of them mentioned Dupree specifically, but they reminded me of that time in my life. Of my father, and a terrible fire that consumed an old manor house.

  In the bedroom the suitcase was still splayed open on my bed, so I rummaged through the manila envelope of clippings. I found only one mention of Tristan, in which he was described as “Tristan Dupree, aged 45. Resident of Füssen, Bavaria.”

  Tristan had looked much younger than midforties when I knew him in Germany, I thought. I would have guessed he was in his thirties. In fact, when he stood at my door yesterday, he still looked as if he were in his thirties. But if the newspaper article was correct, Tristan would have been sixty today. Also, I remembered that Dupree seemed to know who Carlos was this morning, even though he hadn’t been introduced. Not aging and knowing things he shouldn’t . . .

  Had Dupree made a deal with a demon?

  Finally, I bathed and dressed in all black, then sat cross-legged on the floor in front of my coffee table. I grounded myself, stroked my medicine bag, and prepared to scry, or see beyond the here and now, to concentrate while allowing my mind to wander.

  My crystal ball was beautiful, and easily my most expensive possession. The base was hand-wrought gold, encrusted with jewels. A grateful client had given it to Graciela, and she in turn had gifted me with it when I was forced to leave Texas.