“Wow,” is all Houston can manage before having to turn away to hide his laughing.
“It sounds like you still care about Max,” I say.
“I do. Even if he is an ass. But I don’t want to just go back to L.A. I’ve got my own life now.”
“Max, would you be willing to stop trying to summon Toranala and maybe just…talk to her? I think it might do the two of you some good to just have a long talk about your feelings. Maybe spend some time getting to know each other outside of the master/servant dynamic and just talk to each other as people.”
“If…if she’ll talk to me. She didn’t return any of my texts.”
“If he called you would you talk to him?” I ask Toranala.
“If he wants to Skype me later...I just got a new webcam.”
“Ask her if she still has that pink and black nightie I bought her.”
“How about you ask her that later?”
“Okay, yeah. I got an audition in a couple of hours, but I’ll call her like six your time.”
“He said he has an audition but he’ll call you around six.”
“Okay. Yeah. That will be good.” She says. “Good luck with the audition!” she shouts toward my phone.
After Toranala leaves the shop, Houston leans on the front counter and says, “You used to do that for a living? All…day?”
“That was actually one of my simpler couples counseling. But yeah.”
“You subjected yourself to that voluntarily?”
“So says the guy I found straddled over the succubus.”
“Hey, there is a difference between helping someone who comes to you and going out looking for trouble. It’s not like I’m stalking the streets of Gotham saving random succubi from overbearing masters. You actually advertised for married couples to come subject you to that.”
“Just go clean up the anchor before Anastasia gets here,” I say.
“I wanted to show it to Eric when he got in. I thought…” I fold my arms in front of me. Houston’s shoulders droop. “Fine. I got pictures anyway.”
“Of course you do.” I walk over to the door and flip the Closed sign over to Open. “And I don’t want to see those photos on WitchNet!” I yell.
Interview with the Vampire
October 24th
Lee wraps his fingers in my hair and gently pulls my head back. I let him pull me back down on the bed. “I should be there,” he says. “I can protect you.”
Samhain is only a few days away, which means either the trap we’ve set for Vivika will snap shut or it will blow up in our faces. For months, we thought that Vivika had been the victim of a murder plot perpetuated by the Lord Advocate of the Eight of the Nine. The truth turned out to be something far worse. In the late 18th century, a powerful Haemomancer named Chana Magus discovered the first official case of a psychic vampire, a vampire that fed off of psychic energy instead of blood. She captured and tortured several of the creatures in order to develope magic that would allow her to drain life from other living things so that she could extend her own. After her secret was discovered and the ritual made Forbidden, Chana Magus “fell off the grid” as they say. But in reality, she had simply been using even more dangerous magic to jump from body to body. The woman the modern world knew as Grande Madame Vivika Marchan was simply the latest incarnation of Chana Magus.
Houston and I have been working with the Lord Advocate to turn Vivika’s plot against her. Everything needs to be very precise for this plan to work. A single thing out of place could allow her to escape justice again.
“I know you want to help,” I say to Lee as I roll over onto my side. “But we need to be extremely careful and you actually being at the cairn would just complicate things. Besides, most of your abilities won’t work on her anyway. And frankly I’m not sure what being so close to the cairn on Samhain would do to you.”
“Don’t worry about me, Mistress,” he says with a smirk. “I live to serve.”
I kiss him. “You’re ridiculous. But I love you, anyway.”
I find the wherewithal to get myself out of bed and get dressed. “So when do your parents come back from their vacation?”
“Next week,” he replies. He sits up and stretches. “You know, my mother has gone out of her way to assure me that she ‘respects my privacy,’” he makes little quote marks with his fingers.
“Your mother also made it a point to tell me I should feel free to ‘keep you company’ while they were gone.”
Lee chuckles. “My parents like you. We’re not teenagers. They wouldn’t mind you spending the night.”
“I know. But I have to get up early in the morning.”
“No you don’t. You have a Houston and an Eric that can open the shop.”
“The last time I left Houston to open the shop, I found a succubus in my storeroom.”
“But that all worked out.”
“I don’t have a change of clothes.”
“Start packing an overnight bag.”
“You are becoming quite the pushy salesman.”
“Just trying to close the deal.” He gets out of bed and walks over to me. He wraps his arms around my waist and leans into me. “I love you. You mean everything to me. I want to make you happy. And I know your mother doesn’t exactly approve.”
“Don’t worry about my mother.”
“I’m a demon. Pretty sure I should maintain a healthy level of fear when it comes to your mother.”
“You’re my servitor. She won’t do anything to you.”
“As you say, Mistress,” he kisses me. “I just wish there was something I could do to put her mind at ease so she would get off your case.”
“Don’t worry about my mother. Besides, once all this with Vivika is done, she won’t be around as much. She accepted some Overseer position with an archdemon.”
“Isn’t that a conflict of interests for a warlock?”
“Oh, no. She won’t be helping him access the material world or anything. She’ll be like the secret police. Going after rogue demons trying to overthrow her boss. It will keep her busy. And she can set her own schedule.”
It’s almost 11 PM by the time I leave Lee’s place. I decide to stop at a Wawa to get a cup of decaf. As I come out of the store, there is a man who looks to be in his mid-thirties leaning against a cobalt blue Ford Focus parked next to my car. He’s wearing a beige leather long coat over a plain black t-shirt and denim jeans. He’s also wearing sunglasses at this time of night. “Dr. Werlock? You are a difficult woman to get alone.”
“Nothing ominous about that,” I say and activate Third Eye. No heat signature. No spirit aura. “Shouldn’t you be bothering someone at Lansfield?”
“Sorry. Let’s start over. Lord Palatine Christopher Ross,” he offers a slight bow. “Believe it or not, it wasn’t my intention to startle you. Your kind is just always hard to read. I meant to call the shop, but didn’t know how many of your employees were mundane or not and didn’t want to risk it. And I didn’t want to deal with your apprentice. I make it a point to avoid psions like sunlight.”
“Have you been following me?”
“Not in a stalker kind of way, if that is your worry. This was more a matter of opportunity. I saw you driving down Browning and figured I’d follow and see if you stopped. I got lucky.”
“I’m a demonologist, not a necromancer, Lord Palatine.”
“I’m not looking for either. I’m looking for a psychologist.”
“A psychologist? I was a marriage and family counselor.”
“I know. I know.” He removes his sunglasses to reveal a pair of attractive hazel eyes. I immediately activate Iron Wall. Besides blocking mind reading, it also protects against vampire domination abilities.
“What is this all about? I don’t need Blood Court drama right now. I’ve lived in the Delaware Valley my entire life and never once had any interaction with your people. Now all of the sudden the Palatine is following me to Wawa?”
“I need a professiona
l to review some files and give me a professional opinion. I need a professional who already knows about the supernatural and thus can be trusted to review sensitive information that would otherwise constitute a breach. And I need that person to be someone…beyond the game.”
“I can’t diagnose someone from a file.”
“I’m not looking for a full diagnosis. Just a professional opinion. I need to narrow down my field of focus on something and need an outside, unbiased opinion. You’ll be compensated well.”
“And if I refuse?”
He shrugs. “What do you expect me to say? If I was a Ban I might prattle on with a bunch of empty threats. Make some veiled reference to your family to try to intimidate you. But I haven’t survived all of these centuries by antagonizing people who can set me on fire with a flick of the wrist. If you refuse my offer, I move on to Plan C.”
“Plan C?”
“Plan A already failed.”
“Lord Palatine—”
“Chris. My title doesn’t mean anything beyond the Blood Court.”
“Chris, this has been a very trying year for me. I have a lot of personal issues I am still dealing with and the last thing I need is Blood Court drama.”
“I’m not asking you to get involved. That is one of the reasons I came to you, in fact. You don’t have any ties to any of my kind. That means you can look at things with an open mind and no undue influence. The very last thing I want is to get a warlock with your reputation knee-deep in vampire business. That doesn’t end well for anyone.”
“My reputation? I’ve just returned to the craft after a very long hiatus. How much of a reputation can I possibly have with vampires?”
Chris fights back a smirk. “Let’s just say that I’ve had occasion over the years to work with a few of your Justicars on matters of both witch and vampire interest.”
“I’m going to kill Steve.”
“I didn’t say who.” He holds his hands up apologetically.
“You didn’t have to. What did he tell you?”
“Just shop talk. We have similar duties after all. Just don’t set my hair on fire. I won’t recover as quickly as he did.”
“I did not set his hair on fire! It was only singed.”
“I wasn’t there. I’ll take your word for it.”
“I don’t even know why he still tells people that story. We were seventeen years old and he was trying to peep into the girls’ locker room.”
“Sounds like he’s lucky he only got burned…um…singed hair.”
I collapse against my car and look up at the night sky. “I can’t promise anything,” I finally say. “I…I have to deal with a bunch of stuff before Samhain that is consuming all my concentration. What kind of timeline are you looking for?”
“It can wait a couple of weeks. You need time to get other things off your plate first, I can work with that. As long as I know you are on board to help I can manage things accordingly.”
“What exactly are we talking about here?”
“I don’t want to get into too many details in a parking lot. Just want you to review about a dozen files and help me get a feel for the general character of the individuals involved. I’ll pay whatever your normal hourly rate is for consultations.”
“Have your people call the shop around the 10th. If you get Houston or Eric, you can talk freely to both of them. If you get Anastasia, just tell her you were calling about a special order and give her your name. We can work out the details from there.”
“Thank you, Dr. Werlock. I promise it is just reviewing files for your professional opinion. You won’t get dragged into anything else.”
“You say that now.” I get into my car. “But that isn’t how my life works.”
Last Rites
October 25th
“He didn’t even tell you what the files were?” asks Houston.
“He didn’t volunteer and I didn’t ask,” I reply as I unpack the latest delivery and start organizing the special orders. “Hand me the box of harpy talons. I need to pull three for this order.”
Houston hands me the box and then starts counting out jackalope antlers to fill orders. “So, this guy like Blade or something, hunting other vampires?”
“Oh ye gods. A Palatine is similar to a Justicar. They police other vampires and uphold the laws of the Blood Court. He’s not some rogue vampire hunter.”
“I asked Gregor about the London Blood Court,” says Eric as he measures out powdered obsidian and places it in vials. “He said Palatine Warden is an arse and the whole lot of them troll around London like they are the bloody Queen.”
Last night, I had a surprise encounter with Palatine Christopher Ross of the Philadelphia Blood Court. He wants to hire me to review some files and offer my “professional opinion” as a psychologist. I confess I was not in the mood to deal with him at the time, but I realized that I need to look into getting a new roof put on the house after the last storm revealed a few leaks. And he made it clear he’ll pay whatever hourly rate I charge him, so this might be a blessing.
“Well, Palatine Ross seemed like a decent enough sort,” I reply. “And you are using ounces and not grams, right?”
“Ah, Bloody Hell!” Eric empties the vials he already completed, resets the electronic scale to ounces, and starts over. “When is America going to get on the metric system with the rest of us?”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I say.
“So you think he wants you to be like a vampire criminal profiler?” asks Houston.
“I have no idea. Maybe. Steve thinks he wants psych evals on prospective new childer. After what went down a few years back with that weird cult, the Court may feel they need more feet on the ground to identify those sort of things before they happen.”
“Wait, secret vampire cult? When did this happen? That was never in the news.”
“If it had made it into the news, Houston, that would have meant the Palatine failed at his job. Like I said, he’s the equivalent of a Justicar. His ultimate job is to keep vampires out of the news.”
“What was the cult, though?” asks Eric.
“I don’t really know all the details. Some quasi-religious cult, Order of the Blood Horizon or something like that. They believed vampires are part of ‘God’s Plan’ for humanity and they wanted to reveal the existence of vampires to bring about Armageddon.”
“Do you think crazy religious people even realize they are a cliché?” asks Houston. “There should come a point when you stop and think ‘you know, this idea of mine sounds like a cheap B-grade horror plot.’”
“It’s a bit scary to think something like that happened and nobody in the witch community realized it,” says Eric. “If that had gone pear-shaped, witches would have been caught in the fire just as quick as vampires.”
“Face it, the supernatural world is just like the U.S.,” says Houston. “You’ve got the CIA, FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, and fifty separate state agencies, all chasing their own tails and pissing around to mark their territory. But nobody actually shares information so nobody actually knows anything.”
“Somebody has been reading Facebook political memes again,” I say.
I tell the boys to finish up sorting the special orders and then work on inventory checks and stocking shelves. I go to the door and open the shop for the day. There are already three ladies waiting outside for the shop to open. None of them are regulars. One makes a beeline for the cosmetic display Anastasia had set up to promote Halloween-themed black, orange, and red cosmetics. She snatches up three tubes of lipstick and, taking a second look at the “buy three, get one free” sign, picks up an eyeshadow.
The second woman heads for the back of the shop where we set up a display of commercialized tarot cards, Ouija boards, and Spirit Writing DIY kits. These items are really popular with mundanes for Halloween parties, and people are willing to pay a premium just so they can say they bought one at a “real” magic shop.
The third woman walks over to the a
romatherapy display, then to the homeopathic remedies section, and finally wanders down the bookshelves.
Cosmetic woman places her purchase on the counter along with a printout coupon for a free “potion bottle” with purchase of $25 or more. Another one of Anastasia’s ideas. We have a Facebook fan page now. Apparently we have almost a thousand followers. Not sure how I let Anastasia talk me into it, but she manages it (which Houston checks periodically throughout the day to make sure she doesn’t post something too ridiculous). She had posted the coupon on the Facebook group.
The potion bottles are the little tiny glass ones with a cork lid that crafters use to make necklaces. We get them for a dollar a dozen. Anastasia printed off these cute little “apothecary” labels she made with some clip art and our laser printer and put them on the bottles, then strung them with different color ribbons. We keep them on the counter in a wicker basket and let the customers pick the one they want. Cosmetic woman contemplates the choice for far longer than a reasonable person should before settling on a bottle with an orange ribbon.
Now might be a good time to confess that the cosmetics are the same brand you can pick up at most dollar stores this time of year. Mom thinks Anastasia’s cosmetic display was a stroke of marketing genius. She was particularly fond of the “Genuine Halloween Colors” verbiage on the display sign. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?
I feel like every time I sell a cheap tube of black lipstick for $8.99, a kitten somewhere dies.
But hey, she got a free potion bottle!
The second woman comes up to the counter with a book on ghosts and one of the Ouija boards. “Do these things really work?” she asks in almost a whisper.
“If the spirits are listening,” I reply with my stock non-answer.
“So using one of these on Halloween increases the odds, right? I mean, because that is when ghosts are most active, right?”
I nod in faux agreement and say, “there are those that say that.”
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