by Jenn Bennett
He muttered to himself and leaned back against the love seat.
At least I knew that my parents weren’t in their robes at the time, which only solidified my belief that they didn’t summon the demon. Along with many other people their age, they were strictly old-school magicians who always donned robes before any rituals. The kind of impromptu magick that I often performed was frowned upon by the order. If my parents knew that I bound demons inside my bar, I’d get a long lecture about the difference between public and sacred spaces and the importance of the Code of Silence among magicians. Hell, if I wasn’t the stupid “Moonchild,” I’d probably get booted out just like the Tamlins.
“Okay,” I said, “So, one man was fleeing the house while the Duvals stayed, but you also saw the demon, right? What did it look like?”
“It was really dark,” Mrs. Tamlin started. Oh, for the love of Pete, I thought. Maybe coming out here was a colossal waste of my time after all. “And the demon was beginning to de-materialize, like I said, but it was white as snow and tall. Big, spiraling horns. Red eyes.”
“More pink than red,” Mr. Tamlin corrected. “Had a weird tongue too.”
“But there was one thing we remembered years later.”
“I thought you said the hoodoo priestess uncrossed you and that your memories came back ‘sharp as a tack.’ ”
Mr. Tamlin gave me a sheepish look. “Well, almost all of them. A few things didn’t come back for years … one being the demon’s talons. I’d never seen anything like them in my life.”
“Frank’s right,” his wife agreed. “The beast had four arms—two long ones below, and a short set of arms above those. The short ones on top had a single talon on the right arm, but the left arm was missing its mate.”
“Really? That’s interesting.” That sure wasn’t part of the caliph’s description.
“Isn’t it? There was a hole in its stumpy hand where a talon once was. It had been extracted like a tooth. But that’s not all—the remaining talon on the other arm was about the size of a banana, made of crystal,” Mrs. Tamlin.
“Crystal?” I replied incredulously.
“That’s right, crystal. Or maybe glass. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“No, I haven’t,” I admitted.
“I think it might have been made of diamond,” Mr. Tamlin amended. “Either way, it was clear and shined like glass in the candlelight before the demon disappeared.”
Then a sudden realization hit me; my heart rate instantly doubled.
One of the unusual aspects of the Black Lodge slayings was the murder weapon: a glass knife. Along with two other pieces of testimonial evidence, the glass knife was the foundation of the police case and led to the warrant being issued for my parents’ arrest. Along with my parents’ fingerprints— which were planted by Luxe—was another unidentified print. Maybe that print belonged to the real killer, maybe even the Tamlins’ robed mystery man?
“Are you saying that the glass knife mentioned in the case file was really a glass talon?”
“Yes,” they confirmed in unison.
Okay, this was crazy, if it was true, but there were still too many strange things that didn’t fit. “If your Code of Silence prevented you from going to the police about the Portland murder, then why did you break it for the talk show?” I asked.
Mr. Tamlin snorted in disgust. “After the Duvals were accused, we were shocked. We’d managed to clear most of the confusion spell by this point, you see, enough to know they weren’t guilty. Like we said earlier, we talked to the Luxe leader and told him what we’d remembered. He advised us to keep quiet and promised to look into it. Then he was attacked and our temple went into lockdown. No classes, no services, and we weren’t allowed communication with any of the upper officers. Then the media went crazy.”
“Since our own leader wasn’t talking to us,” Mrs. Tamlin explained, “we tried to contact the E∴E∴ on our own, to help clear their names, but we could never get past their Bodymaster. She thought we were some sort of spies for Luxe. Then the Duvals died in that accident. Our son suggested we tell our story on the talk show, but that didn’t work out very well either, as you know.”
“We tried,” Mr. Tamlin said with a sigh, “but no one wanted to hear the truth. The Black Lodge slayings were committed by a demon. And I’d swear on the sacred name of Hecate herself that the person who summoned it was the robed man who ran out the door of Magus Dempsey’s house that day.”
Hecate herself, huh? I still wasn’t completely convinced that their memories were a hundred percent correct. But it was clear that, wacko or not, they certainly believed what they were saying. And if this mysterious robed man who fled the scene really was the person who summoned the albino demon, how was I going to find out who the hell he was?
Then we had the enigmatic glass talon. Let’s just say the Tamlins were telling the truth, and this really was the murder weapon. And maybe my parents had been crossed by the same confusion spell and never remembered the third murder. They were still present during the fourth attempt and saw the albino demon there; surely they noticed something as strange as talons made of glass. So why hadn’t the caliph mentioned it in his description?
12
I returned from San Francisco to find my driveway occupied by a large, backed-in truck. I parked the rental behind it, my rear bumper nearly sticking out into the street. A dense row of cedar trees created a natural screen along the front of my yard, ending at the driveway, so prying eyes couldn’t see the front of my house. Most times, that was exactly what I wanted; it gave me privacy, and privacy was the only reason I owned a home instead of rented an apartment. That day, however, it was a nuisance.
I pushed up my sleeve to activate a sigil that rendered me nearly invisible. Not literally. It just encouraged people to disregard my presence by tricking their senses. Like the other sigils on my arm, this magick is temporary. It also requires a lot more Heka than some of others; keeping it charged was physically draining, so I’d have to make it quick.
My servitor hadn’t returned to me yet, so I hoped to God Riley Cooper hadn’t already found me. Just in case, I prepared myself by retrieving a small ceremonial dagger from my purse. It wasn’t all that sharp, but it was better than nothing.
I peeked inside the cab of the unknown vehicle. Nothing. Then I stood on my tiptoes and surveyed the bed of the truck. The tailgate was down. There were several enormous bags of pebbles and some other red landscaping material. I certainly hadn’t scheduled any kind of professional yard work; my idea of lawn maintenance was paying the twelve-year-old kid down the street twenty bucks once a month to mow.
A loud thump came from the backyard. Maintaining the invisibility spell, I strode past my side door until I rounded the corner of my house. Bent over a wheelbarrow was someone in a pair of dirty jeans. I sidestepped the wheelbarrow in a slow circle, then jumped when the person stood up and turned around.
“Dammit, Lon,” I said as I dropped my ward.
Upon seeing me, he let out a low yelp and nearly fell over backward.
“Jesus fucking Christ, you scared the shit out of me!”
“Excuse me for being wary about a stranger in my yard,” I snapped.
“I’m not a stranger, and how the hell did you sneak up on me like that? You appeared out of thin air.”
“It’s a spell.”
“That’s one hell of a spell,” he remarked.
I nonchalantly motioned toward my white tattoo like it wasn’t a big deal, but I was pretty damn proud of the spell. Like my imp portal, it was something unique I created after I got out on my own. The basic sigil was Armenian in origin, and I had to tweak it and experiment before I finally hit on the right results.
“Why haven’t you answered my calls?” I asked.
He wiped his hands on his T-shirt. The man was covered with red clay. It was on his shirt, the front of his jeans, and both hands. “You called? When? I got your message about going up to San Francisco. How’d t
hat go?”
“Not that. I called you again several times over the last couple of hours on the ride back.” I stepped forward to wipe a small streak of clay off his chin that was staining one side of his mustache. He flinched; guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like people touching me. “Hold still,” I reprimanded. My motherly attention didn’t help the streak, it only transferred some of the clay to my fingers. “What the hell are you doing with all this? Wait, this isn’t normal clay—it’s red ochre.”
“I must have had the ringer turned off, and yes, it’s red ochre. Slightly hydrated hematite powder, if you want to get technical. Don’t breathe it in. It’ll irritate your lungs.”
“Holy shit! I’ve never seen it in this kind of quantity. There must be a small fortune here!”
He shrugged. “I get it from a local mineral supplier who mines it in Russia.”
“Lon?”
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’? What the hell are you doing with all of this?”
His face relaxed as a grin spread across it. “I’m putting up a moat around your castle.”
I arched a brow and waited for the rest.
“A ward,” he clarified. “The same one I put up around my house last spring. The one motor-mouth spilled the beans about yesterday.”
“Ah, that one.” I tapped the flat of my blade against my thigh. “Jupe is at home, I take it?”
“Yep.” He turned away to continue dumping the damp hematite powder into the wheelbarrow.
“And?”
“And what? You want me to cite the source I got the ward from?”
“Maybe for starters. Then you can tell me how you managed to charge it.”
He finished emptying the hematite and folded up the empty plastic bag before stuffing it inside a trash can. Correction, my trash can. He’d taken it hostage. “Don’t just put that in there like that,” I complained. “The city won’t take it away unless it’s inside a garbage bag. Anything loose in there, they leave behind.”
“Well, then, can you please put that knife down and bring me a garbage bag?”
“Fine.” I pocketed the dagger and hiked through the yard.
“While you’re at it,” he called out behind me, “you might want to change into something grubby. This shit is messy as hell.”
“I never volunteered to help.”
“Then I guess I’m going to have to charge you.”
“I didn’t request your landscaping services—I’m not paying for something I didn’t order.”
“Bring an old spoon too,” he added as I rounded the corner to unlock my door.
After changing clothes, I returned to find Lon using a dolly to tote a large white plastic bucket toward his wheelbarrow. When he lowered the dolly, with some effort, the contents of the bucket made a sloshing sound. I opened up one of the black garbage bags I’d brought with me and fished out the loose bags from the trash can.
“So, how did you charge this ward the first time you did it, and how long have you been practicing magick … and what else can you do?”
“You look cute with your hair up,” he said in response. “Jupe’s right—Bride of Frankenstein.”
I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or giving me a compliment. Either way, I resisted the urge to straighten my ponytail, which sat high on my head. “You’re a strange man,” I muttered as I squatted down to pick up one of the shovels he’d brought. “How far away does your empathic ability work?”
“Why? You plannin’ to whack me on the head with that shovel?”
“Don’t give me any ideas.”
“Only a couple of feet away. Maybe five feet max, if the emotion is clear and strong. It’s much easier for me to read a person if I’m touching them.”
“Note to self, always maintain a five-foot distance,” I said with a smile.
“Only if you have something to hide.”
“I don’t.”
“You sure about that?” he asked with a suggestive smile that sent an unexpected ripple through my chest. Christ, could he sense that?
“So sure,” I answered, forcing away the unwanted feeling. “How does this ward work?”
He studied me for a moment longer, the corners of his mouth twitching once, then dropped his eyes. “It emits a strong suggestive vibration. Anything that comes within a couple of feet of it with the intent to do you harm will be dissuaded. Most will just give up and leave.”
“And if they don’t?”
“If they cross the barrier completely, first you’ll see that the ward’s been breached. A network of blue lines will appear. Then a high-frequency sound will drop them to their knees. It’s like a dog whistle—you won’t hear it, but they will. If they persist, the sound will incapacitate them.”
“Hmm, sounds good. Now tell me how you charged a ward this big.”
He bent down over the white bucket and made repetitive digs around the lid with a small metal object to slowly pry the lid off. “I hooked myself up to a small electrical generator.”
“What? You shocked yourself with a generator? Are you joking?”
“Nope.”
“That’s … insane. You could have been killed, you know?”
“Yep.”
“You can’t pull electricity on your own?”
“Not well enough to kindle the amount of Heka I needed to charge the ward sufficiently.”
“I’m speechless.”
“I didn’t bring a generator this time. After seeing how well you pulled from my car last night, I was kinda counting on you being able to kindle enough Heka by yourself.”
He finally got the lid of the bucket open far enough to leverage it off. I took a few steps closer, I peeked inside, smelling it before I saw it—pig’s blood. It had already started coagulating.
I puffed up my cheeks and held my nose while backing away. “Good God almighty.”
“You’ve never worked with pig’s blood?” Lon said.
“Not that much of it. I buy it by the pint!”
“It’s not so bad when you get used to—” He turned his head to the side and winced. His eyes began watering. “Fuck, I forgot how bad this reeks in big batches.”
“Is it rotten?”
“No. I got it straight from the slaughterhouse this morning.”
“Are we going to need all of it?”
“Maybe. If you’ve got any circles you need to make with the leftovers, feel free.” He coughed once, then backed up another step toward me.
I eyed it with greater interest. “Now that you mention it, I could use a couple of new imp portals. I burned up my last one at Mrs. Marsh’s house the other night.”
“Come on. Let’s finish this first before it gets too dark.” He held his hand out, requesting the shovel, then dipped a large metal can inside the bucket and began scooping blood into the wheelbarrow with the hematite powder.
“What do you want me to do?”
“See that jar over there?” He nudged his elbow at the grass behind me. “Be careful when you’re opening it. Sprinkle two or three spoonfuls into the wheelbarrow. Don’t get it on your skin or let it blow in your face. There are gloves and a surgical mask inside my truck if you want them.”
I cautiously picked up the large mason jar. The contents were black. “What’s this?”
“Ashes.”
“What kind of ashes?”
“Don’t ask.”
“You didn’t kill someone, did you?”
“Not so far, no.”
I donned the gloves and mask and followed his instructions as he mixed up the nefarious concoction with the tip of the shovel. It churned together into a thick, dark paste.
“Tell me what you found out in San Francisco,” he asked while he worked.
I related the story of my visit to the Tamlins in great detail until he started shooting me impatient scowls; after that, I sped up my narration. I followed behind him while he began shoveling the dark red paste around the base of my hou
se, making a foot-wide border.
“Do you have to put it right up next to my house?” I complained.
“I’m going to cover it up with pebbles. Would you rather have an unexplainable ring of pebbles a few feet away from your house, or right next to it?”
I sighed. “Go ahead.”
It seemed unfair to let him do all the labor, so I picked up the second shovel and offered to help. He instructed me to scoop up the nasty paste and sling it on the ground a few feet ahead of him; he followed and packed it down. As we worked, I continued my story until I got to the part about the glass talon.
He dug the shovel into the ground, leaned on it, and furrowed his brow. “No shit?”
“I know.” I pulled the surgical mask down to hang around my neck. “If they’re right and not crazy, then the bad news is that the albino demons you already found—”
“Probably aren’t the right ones.”
“That’s if the Tamlins aren’t insane,” I reminded him.
“I wonder if there’s any way to find a photo of the glass knife anywhere, to see if it looks like it could’ve been a talon.”
“I’ve never seen a photo, but I was thinking about Devil’s Friends on the way back from San Francisco.”
He bent his head to wipe his chin against his shoulder. “Huh?”
“Some cheap exploitation paperback written about the Black Lodge slayings. I only thumbed through it, but I remember a drawing of the glass knife. The writer said it was based on a police officer’s description. The handle was round and the blade slightly curved. I remember thinking that it looked more like … never mind.”
Lon cocked a brow.
“Anyway,” I quickly said, “what I mean is that the Tamlins could be right about the talon. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to start looking for Æthyric demons with glass claws.”
“I found four more albinos today. None with glass body parts of any kind.” Something close to a smirk briefly crossed his mouth, then faded. “I don’t know. Maybe you should hold off on summoning anything right now and let me refine my search for a day or two. If I can identify some with glass talons, you could start with those. What do you think?”