by Gary Jonas
Teddy sat at the bar and sipped a mug of beer. He nodded to me as I approached. I caught the bartender’s attention, pointed at Teddy’s beer, and held up two fingers. The bartender delivered our drinks and I tossed some cash on the counter.
Teddy and I didn’t speak because the music was too loud to carry on a conversation. Instead, we turned around on our bar stools and scanned the crowd, looking for a couple of women without any dudes. Teddy wasn’t particular, so if I spotted a pair of lovely ladies, I’d have first pick.
After a few more songs, the band took a break.
“How about those two?” I asked, pointing at a blonde and a brunette.
“I’d rather talk about Sabrina.”
“She’s hooking up with Michael.”
Teddy frowned. “You don’t think he’ll get tired of her?”
“Ask him.”
“I mean, he’s like you. He never settles on one chick. Sabrina deserves someone who’ll appreciate her.”
“You’ve got it bad for her, eh?”
“She’s smart, talented, and kind. What’s not to like?”
“She’s bossy, thinks she knows it all, and she eats kale.”
“Kale? What does that have to do with anything.”
“It’s a garnish. She cooks it up and eats it. That’s nasty.”
“It’s healthy. She takes care of herself.”
“Dude, you could just ask her out.”
“She’ll turn me down. She’ll be nice about it, but she won’t go out with someone like me.”
“A second ago you were all hopeful Michael would step aside, and now you’re convinced she’d shoot you down in flames?”
“Not in flames. But what do I have to offer a girl like her?”
“You could write poetry about her, give her your undying devotion, kiss the ground that she walks on, lay down in a puddle so she can trample you without getting her shoes wet.”
“What’s your secret with women?”
“The secret is confidence, Teddy. You’re a good guy. You’ve got a job, which puts you ahead of most of the clowns in here. You play guitar. You actually give a shit what chicks think.”
“Confidence. That’s what you use?”
I grinned. “I’m more of an asshole, but fortunately for me, drunk women can’t tell the difference. How about those redheads in the corner? They might be sisters.”
“They’re with those two cowboys.”
“All right. Here’s the plan. You distract the cowboys, and I’ll take the sisters back to my place.”
He stared at me. “Your cousin doesn’t even know I exist.”
“Sure she does.”
“Has she said anything about me?”
“No, but you’re in the band, so she does know you exist.”
He sighed. “I’m not into any of these women. Sabrina is magical.”
“In more ways than you know.”
He looked a question at me, but the band took the stage again, so I didn’t have to answer. Teddy might be my bandmate, but only Michael knew my family’s secret. That’s because Michael had a secret of his own.
I ordered another beer and stopped checking out the crowd because I realized I wasn’t going to get laid tonight.
My phone buzzed at midnight with a text message.
I pulled it from my pocket. The text was from Lakesha, and it read, Regina a no show. Come to the store at ten am.
I texted her back with, I’m not in my body until noon.
Ten am or I tell your father you’re not cooperating.
Shit. Bitch, I sent.
Witch, she corrected.
CHAPTER FIVE
When I woke up at noon, I had a bunch of angry texts on my phone. I ignored them.
I got to the bookstore at a quarter past one.
Lakesha sat in a rocking chair outside the shop with Isis in her lap. She stroked the cat, and Isis purred.
“You’re late,” she said.
“Get over it.”
“You’re the one who’s going to pay for it.”
“How so?”
“Every day you’re late, your father docks your allowance by a hundred bucks and gives it to me, so I’m thinking we might have to start meeting at six in the morning.”
“I’m here on a Sunday. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Are you religious?”
“No.”
“Then it’s just another day to you, so zip those lips and let’s go back to Regina’s place.”
She rose and the cat jumped to the ground. She let Isis back into the shop, grabbed her purse off the counter, then came back outside where she closed and locked the door.
We headed back to the ghost house.
“No sign of Regina last night?”
“None.”
“So why are we going back there?”
“To get a lead on the folks who took her, of course.”
“You talked to the neighbors already.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“We already talked to Demetrius, and checked the house, so what else can we do?”
“Magic.”
“So you’re going to pull a rabbit out of your ass and follow it down the bunny trail to the ghost prison in the sky?”
“Have you been smoking that ganja again?”
“Not today.”
“Could have fooled me.”
We reached the house, and Demetrius waved to us from the porch. “Hi, Auntie Lakesha! Hi, Brat!”
Lakesha grinned.
“You taught him that,” I said.
“So what if I did?” She climbed the steps to the house. “How are you feeling today, Demetrius?”
“Scared and alone. Will Auntie Regina ever come home?”
The way he said it made my heart hurt. I’d spent a lot of time scared and alone as a kid, but Demetrius was dead and still felt that way.
“Hey there, little man,” I said as I hopped onto the porch.
“Will you read me a comic book later?”
“I don’t have any comic books.”
“Oh,” he said and stared at the ground.
“I’ll try to get over to the comic shop tomorrow,” I said.
He brightened. “Really?”
I nodded. “Really.”
We entered the house, and Lakesha set her purse on the window sill so she could open it and dig around inside. She pulled out what looked like two cardboard coasters.
“You bring us some drinks?” I asked.
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “What are you talking about, boy?”
Boy was better than brat, I guess.
“What’s with the coasters?”
“They’re not coasters,” she said with a grin. “I was up all night preparing these. Stand back and watch a master at work.”
She held one cardboard circle in each hand. There were symbols in the center and strange writing all around the edges. She waved them around, moving in a semicircle around the front entrance.
“They entered and exited through the door, so if I can rewind the impressions, maybe we can get a look at them.”
“You can do that?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“The emotional state of the people and spirits involved, whether or not magic was employed, whether I got the spell right, how many people moved through the space, and other factors too esoteric to explain to you.”
“You lost me at spirits.”
“I’m not surprised.”
As she moved around, aiming the coasters at the door, I caught flashes of images, but it looked like blurred lights. She concentrated, and kept moving in an arc from one side of the door to the other.
More flashes of light.
Blurs.
“Gotta go further back,” she whispered and shook her head.
Flash.
Blur.
Flash.
Darkness, light flash as the door opened, only the door was still closed. An image of
the door opening. Lights. A man in a sleeveless T-shirt with a heavyset woman, but their faces were impossible to make out because they were blurred out by what had to be a magic spell to hide their identities. Another man entered with them wearing a nice suite, and he was older because he had age spots on his hands. The two younger people had tattoos on their forearms.
“Chunky chick, old guy in a suit, dude in a wife beater,” I said. “Too bad you don’t see many of those types around.”
“Hush, child.”
She moved the coasters up and down, back and forth, trying to get the faces to focus. The image of a screaming black woman popped up, then blurred out and disappeared. There was no sound.
“Was that Regina?”
Demetrius nodded.
The guy in the wife beater stepped forward and raised his hands. His forearms were tattooed as well, but instead of triangles, his ink featured pentagrams, but they shifted to a snake eating its tail, then to a triangle with a circle inside it, but I couldn’t make out the symbols in the corners and the circle turned black and swirled before disappearing.
She tried moving through the image to get a view of the man’s face, but his features were blurred.
“Got a focus knob for the faces?” I asked.
“They muddied their appearances with magic.”
“Can you go back to their arms?”
Lakesha lowered her hands and the images stopped.
“Why?”
“They all have tats,” I said. I held up my right arm to show my tattoos. “Good thing nobody else has tattoos these days.”
“Funny.”
“Seriously, though, go back in and check their tattoos. We can’t see their faces, so the tats might be a way to ID them.”
“Good idea.”
“And you thought I wasted all my time getting stoned and watching Law and Order.”
She brought the coasters up again, waved them around, until she brought up the intruders. This time, she swept in to focus on their tattoos. Wife beater dude and the chubby chick both had the same triangle tats with the circle inside. The older guy had long sleeves, so we couldn’t tell about him.
“Yahtzee!” I said.
“Good call.” She leaned forward bracing her hands on her knees, bending the coasters a bit. She looked like a runner after a marathon.
Lakesha opened the door, stepped out onto the porch then sat down on the steps. She shook her head.
“You all right?” I asked, following her outside.
She waved me off. “Give me a minute.” She took a few deep breaths. “Purse,” she said.
I went inside to get her purse and brought it out to her. Damn thing weighed a ton. I set it on the porch beside her. “You carrying anvils in this thing?” I asked.
She opened the purse, dropped the coasters inside then pulled out a bottle of water. She twisted off the cap and drank the whole bottle in less time than it takes to tell you about it.
“Thirsty much?” I asked.
“Tough spell,” she said. “Takes a lot out of me. Useful, though.”
“Right. One dude shops at Men’s Warehouse, one shops at Walmart and has tattoos. The chick is a bit on the thick side. That really narrows things down.”
“The tattoos narrow things all the way down to one artist.”
“So I was right,” I said.
“Maybe. Did you note the symbols and how they shifted on the attacker?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Pentagram first. Symbol of protection.”
“I know that.”
“Ouroboros was next. You know what that means?”
“I don’t even think I can say it.”
“Renewal.”
“I can say that.”
“Then the Solomonic Triangles all the intruders shared.”
“The supersonic triangle? What’s that?”
“Solomonic. The triangle is the protected area around the magic circle, and the circle started off blank, then with the attacker, it went black, and briefly had Regina’s face inside it.”
“I didn’t see her face.”
“I did.”
“And your point is?”
“The Solomonic Triangle is used to summon entities and hold them. Regina is trapped inside the circle.”
“Which means?”
“Depends on how powerful the man’s magic is, but to pull a ghost inside would take some serious power. Was he enhanced by the people with him, or was it all his energy?”
“Find the guy with the tattoo and you can ask him.”
“Only one artist can do the shifting magical tattoos. Solomon King.”
“The triangle guy?”
She shook her head. “Certainly named after him. Didn’t you read the Bible?”
“Parts of it.”
“Solomon was one of the sons of David. He built the First Temple.”
“Solomon’s Temple,” I said. “I’ve heard of it.”
“In any case, he was a king of Israel, and he had wealth and power and was a prophet—”
“Time out. I didn’t sign up for Sunday school, and I don’t need a history lesson. Guy’s named after the Bible dude. That’s good enough for me.”
“A man who doesn’t know history is condemned to repeat it,” she said.
“What about the artist?” I asked.
“He has a shop called King Solomon’s Tattoos over on Seawall.”
“I’ve heard of it. Let me guess, you want me to go talk to Solomon Kane.”
“King.”
“King, Kane, same difference.”
Lakesha shook her head.
“Solomon is a cool name, though.”
“You should have him do a magic tattoo for you,” Lakesha said.
“I wouldn’t mind getting another tat.”
“Did you notice that I said magic?”
“Yes.”
“Wanted to be sure. It was more than six words.”
“Ha ha.”
“It will be expensive.”
“Then we’ll need my father’s approval.”
She took her phone out of her purse.
“You’re going to call him now?” I asked.
“Of course.” She scrolled through her contacts.
“I’ll wait inside. I don’t want to talk to him.”
She pushed herself to her feet as she pressed his name. “I’ve got this.”
I stepped back. I didn’t want her to hand the phone to me.
“Hello, Mr. Masters, it’s Lakesha in Galveston. That’s right. Oh, he’s a pain in my ass, but we’re currently helping a family with a magical problem. Yes, he’s actively working on it. I know. I will. Listen, the reason I called is because we need some information from a tattoo artist, and… Hang on. Let me put you on speaker.”
Before I could stop her, she tapped her phone.
“Is this some ploy to get me to pay for a tattoo?” my father asked. “I don’t approve of such things.”
“It will involve magic.”
“Son, are you there?” he asked.
I sighed. “Yes.”
“What’s this about a tattoo?”
“It’s Lakesha’s idea,” I said.
“That’s right,” Lakesha said. “Are you familiar with Solomon King?”
“Raven King’s son?”
“I believe so.”
“He’s designed special sigils for the Ordo Templi Orientis.”
“That’s right,” Lakesha said. “He did a rotating tattoo that shifts between at least three symbols.”
“That’s high magic.”
“Indeed.”
“Brett? You still there?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“You still have the Etteilla deck?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Is it still tuned to you?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Go to Solomon King’s shop, take the cards with you, and call me when you’re at your consultation meeting with him.”
�
�You’re open to paying for a tattoo?”
“If he can do what I want him to, yes. I’ll call him in the morning and set an appointment for you at one in the afternoon.”
“What if he’s booked up?”
My father laughed. “He’ll know who I am, so he’ll fit you in.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
Typical.
“That was easier than I expected,” Lakesha said. “He even set the appointment at one so you’d actually have a chance of dragging your ass in on time.”
“That just means my father has ulterior motives,” I said. “As usual.”
CHAPTER SIX
Sabrina was levitating Mangani, my self-cleaning, carnivorous carpet, when I got home. A broom swept the floor on its own like something out of the movie Fantasia. Sabrina wore her typical black yoga pants with a red sports bra and moved her arms like a conductor guiding the broom. She’d changed her hair. It was still longer on one side than the other, but now the top half was jet black and the bottom half was crimson.
“Rude” by Magic! played from a speaker on the TV stand.
“Wouldn’t ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ by Steppenwolf be a better choice?” I asked as I closed the door.
Sabrina spun around and adjusted her glasses. “Oh! I didn’t expect you to come home this early.”
“And I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow,” I said.
She turned off the music and let Mangani settle back on the floor. “I was doing some cleaning,” she said.
“I can see that. You know it would be easier to just sweep normally, right?”
“What?”
“You’re using magic for something simple.”
“Why be a wizard if you don’t use magic?”
“Why bleed to make a broom move?”
“You just don’t understand.”
“You’re right.”
“Magic is its own reward.”
“How often do you bite the inside of your cheek?”
She rolled her eyes, and her glasses magnified the effect to a degree that I wondered if that’s why she wore them.
She changed the subject. “We need to begin your lessons tomorrow.”