by Gary Jonas
As we rode up the escalator, she held out her arms.
Three quarters of the way up, she doubled over and pulled her arms to her body as if she’d been punched in the gut.
“Oh!” she said.
“Ghost punchers?” I asked.
Sabrina didn’t wait for a prompt to punch my shoulder again. It hurt, and I knew I’d be sporting yet another bruise.
“She was here,” Lakesha said. “She didn’t want to do it.”
“Is she still here?” Sabrina asked.
“No.”
“Are you all right?” Sabrina laid her hand on Lakesha’s shoulder.
“I’m fine, sweetie. The emotion was overwhelming for a moment there, but I’m good.”
“There’s a pizza by the slice place over there,” I said, pointing. “Let’s eat before we play Scooby Doo and find out that Mr. Jenkins was trying to sell the mall to a Russian oligarch and would have gotten away with it if not for us meddling wizards and witches.”
We stepped off the escalator and Lakesha went to the railing to look over. She turned in a slow circle. Then she pointed to the lower level. “Back down,” she said, and walked around to the down escalator.
“So, no pizza?” I said.
“We’ll eat later, Brett,” Sabrina said.
“You’re hungry, too, right?”
She nodded.
“You’re not buying into this whole charade, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is this another test?”
“Huh?”
“Are you guys testing me? Seeing if I’ll sniff out the bullshit, because I’m calling you on it right now.”
“She’s sincere,” Sabrina said. “It’s not a test. Or if it is, I’m not in on it.”
“Right.”
We rode to the lower level again, and I worried we might just walk around going up and down the escalators, but Lakesha made a beeline down a hallway toward the restrooms and mall offices.
She stopped at a door marked Security.
“Let’s see if he’s in here.” She tried to open the door, but it was locked.
“We can open it with magic,” Sabrina said.
“Or we can do it the easy way.” I reached past them and knocked on the door.
A large man in uniform opened the door. When I say large, I mean he stood six foot four and could have played linebacker for the Texans.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Lakesha looked him up and down. She nodded. “I’m Donna J. Cavendish from the corporate office. These are my associates, Dean and Loretta. We’re here about the unfortunate accident last night.”
“Corporate was here this morning.”
“And we’re here to follow up.”
“Nobody told me about that.”
“What is your name, young man?” she asked, digging in her purse for a pen and a memo pad. She looked at him and waited.
“Henry.”
She jotted his name in her pad. “Last name?”
“Benford.”
“How long have you worked here, Mr. Benford?”
“Three months.”
“If you want to make it to four months, you’ll step back and start cooperating.”
She oozed authority, and the chump fell right into line like a whipped dog.
“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at Sabrina and me. My long hair, T-shirt, and shorts didn’t scream corporate man. Sabrina’s yoga pants and a blue blouse didn’t either, but he wasn’t about to call us on it while Lakesha held the reins.
The office featured a desk and a bank of monitors. We could watch shoppers wander through the mall from eyes in the ceilings.
He might have been watching as we went up the escalator. I wondered what he thought of Lakesha’s act when she doubled up. Maybe that he’d better not visit the food court that day.
“I need to see the accident report, and the security footage, and I need those right now, Mr. Benford.”
“Maybe I should call to get authorization.”
“I’m authorizing it right here, right now. Don’t make me write you up. Three written warnings and you’re history.” She stared at him. “You already have two verbals and two written, isn’t that right?”
“What? How could you—?”
“She was underage, Mr. Benford.” She glared up at him.
“She said she was eighteen. Look, I need this job.”
Okay, maybe she was psychic.
“Cooperate and you can keep it. Who was on duty last night?”
“Weston Hughes.”
“Show me the footage.”
He blinked a few times, but gave in and moved behind the counter. We all crowded around the large monitor on the desktop. He punched some keys on the computer.
The image was black and white and from a distance. The bird’s eye view showed a security guard move around a gaggle of teenage girls to catch up to an overweight man in a short sleeve button up shirt with a striped tie. The man wore thick glasses, and the security guard, Mr. Hughes, looked at him straight on even though he was several steps below.
Hughes rolled up his sleeves, and leaned forward. Hughes was a young man—early twenties—and looked like he spent his off hours working out. He had chiseled cheekbones, and short, dark hair. The man in the tie jerked backward as if punched. The escalator carried him to the second level and he staggered backward at the top, then turned and tried to catch himself, but tumbled over and fell out of sight of the camera.
“Back it up.”
He hit a few keys and the image danced backward so the tie man flipped over the railing and moved toward the escalator to go down. He jerked forward.
“Freeze it.”
He paused the image.
Lakesha leaned toward the screen. “Can this zoom in?”
“No.”
She tapped the screen pointing to a visible tattoo on Hughes’ forearm. It was a triangle, but the image was too small to make out a circle inside it.
“Does Mr. Hughes work tonight?” she asked.
“He’s due in at five.”
“Pull up the accident report.”
He tapped the keys and clicked the mouse a few times, then the screen was filled by a report. Lakesha quickly read it. “Thank you, Mr. Benford. I’ll make sure the higher-ups know you’re doing a good job. How late are you here?”
“Six.”
“Very well. We’ll be back to talk to Mr. Hughes at five.”
“He already talked to corporate security and the police.”
Lakesha gave the power reigns a sharp tug. “And he’ll talk to me as well.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As we left the office, Lakesha took a plastic bottle of hairspray out of her big bag. She sprayed a circle on the door with a symbol of some sort inside it. The circle was only visible from an angle, and when it dried, it would be invisible.
She repeated the circle and symbol a few times on walls, and support posts as we worked our way over to the food court.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sabrina sighed. “She’s setting warning sigils, of course.”
“Bingo,” Lakesha said.
We grabbed some pizza at the food court, and watched people shopping. The mall had a number of stores with their metal security grates down and For Lease signs in the windows.
Lakesha straightened in her seat, eyes wide. “They’re coming,” she said.
“Who?”
“One of my sigils was just triggered. Behind me, coming around the corner.”
A man in a security uniform came around the corner beside an attractive, thick woman in a smart business suit. The guard was definitely Weston Hughes, and based on the triangle tattoos on the woman’s arms, she was the big woman who’d helped abduct Regina.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing right now. Don’t attract attention.”
“You’re going to confront him anyway
in a few hours.”
“Not in public.”
“Your call,” I said.
When I looked back at the woman with Hughes, I was transfixed. She was a damn fine looking woman. She laughed at something Hughes said, and her smile reached her eyes. My first thought was that if I could ever make her laugh, I’d have done something worthy of note.
They walked past, and her perfume smelled like flowers after making love in a soft rain. A warm feeling washed over me. I wanted to go to her and win her heart. Without even speaking a word to her or hearing her voice, I got the impression that she was the woman I’d been searching for my entire life.
I started to push myself out of my chair.
Sabrina touched my arm. “What’s wrong with you?”
I snapped out of it. “Huh?”
“Oh, shit,” Lakesha said, staring over my shoulder.
I turned in time to see Hughes turn toward us. He strode up to our table.
“Who are you?” he asked, narrowing his gaze at Lakesha.
The woman walked over with him.
I stood and reached for her. “Hey there, beautiful,” I said.
“Bugger off, asshole. She’s mine.” Hughes shoved me, and I tripped over my chair, falling to the floor. A few people turned to watch, but no one moved closer.
Lakesha pushed her chair back and rose. “I know who you are, Weston Hughes.”
“I feel like I should know you,” Weston said.
I got to my feet, and tried to move toward the woman. “I’m Brett,” I said. “I’m in a band.”
“Good for you,” the woman said.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
Weston grabbed my shirt and pulled me close to him. “I told you to back off, asshole.”
“Technically, you told me to bugger off,” I said. I looked over his shoulder at the woman. She grinned and batted her eyes at me. “What’s your name, gorgeous?”
Weston cocked his arm back and clenched a fist, ready to punch me, but Sabrina made a quick motion with her hands and Weston’s pants dropped to his ankles.
“What the hell?”
He wore boxer briefs with the Batman symbol on the crotch. Guess what’s hiding in the bat cave?
“Dude. Batman?”
He let go of me so he could pull up his pants.
“You children can argue all you like,” the woman of my dreams said. “But I have to get to work.”
She walked away. Her ass was almost as big as Lakesha’s and I liked the way her black skirt hugged her curves. I sure wished I had a swing like that in my backyard. I started singing “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot under my breath because I liked big butts, too.
“Brett, where are you going?” Sabrina asked.
I snapped out of it to some degree. I realized I’d moved around Weston to follow the woman. I watched her go into a store called Jacob’s Jewelry. Weston fastened his pants. He looked toward the woman, then back at Lakesha, confused. Should he stay and confront her, or should he go after his girlfriend?
“What’s her name, man?” I asked.
“Fuck you.”
“That’s not a very good name.”
A couple of Weston’s security guard buddies ambled our direction. I suspected this wouldn’t go our way.
“Is there a problem here?” one of the guards asked.
“No, guys,” Weston said, waving them off. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“You need us, we got your back.”
“Thanks.”
The guards walked to the railing overlooking the floor below, then stopped and turned, keeping an eye on us. Or more to the point, making sure we saw them. They weren’t going anywhere.
Weston gazed at Lakesha. “You seem awfully familiar.”
Lakesha and Sabrina could handle Weston. I moved off toward the jewelry store. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t win the big girl’s love. She was like an earth mother, and something about her had speared my heart and soul.
“Brett?” Sabrina said.
Weston strode after me, grabbed my shoulder, and spun me around to face him.
“Careful,” I said, putting my hands up. “I bruise easily.” Moving my right arm hurt like hell.
“I’ll break your face if you go near my girl.”
Lakesha held up her hand to reveal some gray powder in her palm. She blew the powder into my face and said something that sounded like gibberish.
I blinked a few times.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Go sit down, Brett. Sabrina, can you handle the other guards?”
“On it.” Sabrina intercepted Weston’s buddies, who’d already started back across the court.
“I’m going to kick your ass,” Weston started to roll up his sleeve.
Lakesha was faster. She drew a circle in the air and ran her hand through it.
Weston stepped back and looked dazed. His arms dropped to his sides.
Lakesha held the invisible circle between her hands, pushing it together in the air. “Finish rolling up his sleeve, Brett.”
“I thought I was supposed to go sit down,” I said.
“Brett,” she said and it sounded like a warning.
“Don’t let him hit me.”
“I’ve got him for now.”
I looked over at the other security guards. Sabrina had them back at the railing, distracted. She leaned against the railing, smiling at them, and from the way they smiled, they probably thought they could get lucky.
I rolled up Weston’s right sleeve. Solomonic Triangle tattoo.
“Regina?” Lakesha said.
The black circle inside the triangle swirled and a woman’s tortured face rose out of the tattoo. She was a black woman in her early thirties. Regina. She mouthed some words, but there was no sound.
Weston broke free of the spell. He shook his head, and glared at Lakesha. “Witch!” he said.
She reached up and grabbed his ear. She yanked him down, and he cried out in pain.
The guards heard the cry. It broke them out of whatever spell Sabrina had them under. “Hey!” one of them shouted.
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” Lakesha said, then let go of him.
“You’re hereby banned from the mall,” one guard said.
Lakesha laughed and stepped close to the approaching guards, waving her hands. She whispered, “You can’t hold it any longer.”
The guards’ eyes went wide as they wet their pants.
“Oh no!” one said.
“Oops!” said the other.
“Wet clean up in the food court,” I said.
“Might want to go get changed,” Lakesha said and patted them on the shoulders.
“Where did Weston go?” Sabrina asked.
I turned, and realized he was gone. Not my problem, but I’d use him as an excuse to get where I really wanted to be.
“He probably went to the jewelry store,” I said. “I’ll check.” I started off toward the jewelry store at a fast trot.
“Wait,” Lakesha said. “We’ll go with you.”
“Why?”
“Because the woman is a witch, and she cast a spell on you.”
“What makes you think that?”
Lakesha rolled her eyes. “You can barely get outta bed, and now you’re practically sprinting through a mall.”
“Just trying to be helpful.”
“There’s a first.”
The jewelry store looked like your typical mall variety with a number of clear glass cases showing off a variety of necklaces, rings and earrings. An old man in a gray three-piece suit and a red power tie stood behind a counter displaying diamond rings. He looked to be in good physical condition, but his hair was silver and he wore a neatly trimmed beard and mustache.
“My name is Gene. How may I help you?” he asked.
“There was a hot chick here a minute ago,” I said. “I think she works here.”
“No, I’m the only one here,” Gene said. “Haven
’t had a customer in fifteen minutes, either.”
I pointed to an open cabinet. It displayed a row of black headless mannequin necks with various necklaces: diamonds, rubies, sapphires. One of them was naked. “Is that supposed to be open?”
“Oh dear,” Gene said, putting his fingers to his lips. “We’ve been robbed!” He moved his hands out in an exaggerated gesture of surprise, palms toward me as if I was pointing a gun at him.
“They only took one item.”
“The Eye of the Tiger,” Gene said, lowering his hands as he approached the case.
And the old Survivor song got stuck in my head. Maybe the band could add it to our playlist.
“What’s the Eye of the Tiger?” Sabrina asked.
“It’s a black onyx necklace,” Gene said. “I am so fired.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
We didn’t hang around to see what happened with the robbery. While Gene called the police, we exited the mall. Lakesha led the way.
“They had to go out this way,” she said, pointing to an exit leading to a parking garage.
“How do you know?”
“Because they didn’t set off any of my wards the other way.”
“For all we know, Scotty beamed them up to the Enterprise,” I said.
“James Doohan is dead,” Lakesha said, “and Star Trek was a TV show.”
“Star Trek was a movie. Who’s James Doohan?”
“Scotty.”
“That’s Simon Pegg,” I said.
“I trust you’re kidding,” she said as we finally reached the exit.
I grinned. “A little. I didn’t know you were a Trekkie.”
“I grew up watching Star Trek. You have no idea what that show meant to me. It was the first time I saw someone who looked like me doing an important job on television. Nichelle Nichols is one of my personal heroes, and Uhura is my favorite fictional character.” Lakesha looked up and down the row of parked cars in front of us. No one was around. “Maybe we should split up and check the parking garage.”
“You can’t check it with magic?”
“I’m tapped out. It took a surprising amount of energy to hold Weston.”
“What about Sabrina?”
Sabrina shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of spell I can use.”
“A location spell would be nice,” I said. “Bite yourself and find them. Or can you only do housework?”