Low Midnight

Chapter 19

AT THE apartment, Amelia referenced the books she had on hand, a small library she’d accumulated since they left prison and her own book of shadows that she was reconstructing from memory and recording in a hardcover-sized sketchbook. The handwriting varied between Cormac’s crooked, unpracticed scrawl and a precise nineteenth-century cursive that he’d have expected to see on an old manuscript. They were both writing this book. It would confuse the hell out of anyone who tried to read it later.

It felt like homework to Cormac—he’d barely finished high school, mostly because Ben hauled him through their senior year by force of will. But Amelia was very excited by the whole thing.

Most of this I’ve seen before in one form or another, she announced in summary. He seems to come from a Teutonic magical tradition, though he’s cribbed quite a lot from the English—John Dee, Francis Bacon—as well. Some from the Malleus Maleficarum, and not the useful bits, alas. He’s had teachers but doesn’t name them, which makes a true tradition hard to identify. The second half of the thing is the most interesting. Do you know what I think? He flipped through pages, reviewing some sections, looking at the book as a whole rather than in parts. I think he may have copied much of this from the elder Kuzniak. I wonder if that’s what put him on the path of learning about magic in the first place—finding his ancestor’s magical history and wanting to know more.

“So this is the jackpot—this ought to tell us how the first Kuzniak killed Crane.”

I’m not sure, she murmured with a distracted air.

Cormac’s eyes needed a break, even if Amelia didn’t. He got a beer from the fridge and sat back to think.

I don’t need to think, I need to read.

“Well, I need to think.”

She kept talking, thinking out loud. If she’d had a body, she’d be pacing back and forth in front of him, her long skirt brushing the floor, her hands gesturing absently. He could almost see it. If they went to his imaginary meadow, he would.

There are several items I’ve not encountered before. The alchemical spell meant to draw gold out of the earth—the stories were right about that, the first Kuzniak did seem to be pursuing some kind of magical gold mining, though I can’t say we’ve seen any evidence that such a method would actually work. It’s the old alchemist riddle, turning lead into gold. Such a nice idea, but can you imagine? It would hardly be worth it because if you could transform base metal into gold, even with a great deal of difficulty, you’d risk debasing the value of gold to such an extent the process wouldn’t be worthwhile after all—you’d transform lead into gold and in so doing make gold just as valueless as lead.

“You’re rambling,” Cormac stated.

Ah yes. Anyhow, I’d be curious to review his findings and perhaps experiment, see if such a thing could be accomplished.

Now that would be interesting. They wouldn’t have to produce enough to debase gold. Just enough to keep from having to find another job, right?

I’ve just had a thought—what if this is really the magic Judi and Frida are looking for, and they’re not interested at all in how Kuzniak killed Crane?

And the two old ladies weren’t about to try to go after Kuzniak and Layne and that pack of thugs. But Cormac shows up on their doorstep, and suddenly they have a way in. “And they’d trust that we would just hand something like that over?”

Perhaps not. Oh, and look at this—he mentions another curious item—an amulet with protective properties. Something he must have inherited from his great-grandfather, along with scraps of other magical knowledge. It’s noteworthy because he says he isn’t sure how it works. Obviously I can’t tell anything about it because it isn’t here. He must have stored it somewhere else. We should have examined him more thoroughly—

“Rifled through the pockets of a dead man, you mean?”

That’s putting it rather crudely.

“It’s all odds and ends. I thought we were trying to solve a hundred-year-old murder.”

Well, now we’re also trying to mine for gold—

His phone rang from inside the pocket of his jacket where he’d left it. Setting the beer aside, hauling himself to where he’d hung the jacket over a chair, he retrieved the phone, checked caller ID—Anderson Layne. He supposed that was only a matter of time.

You probably shouldn’t answer—

He clicked the answer button. “Yeah?”

“You must think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?” The guy was trying hard to sound casual, amused, but the edge to his voice revealed anger. Maybe even fear. So Mollie told Layne. Cormac couldn’t get too upset at her—she didn’t owe him anything. Or maybe Layne just figured it out.

“Kuzniak’s protection spells didn’t outlast him, did they?” he replied conversationally.

“I’m starting to think you’re the one who killed Kuzniak, if you wanted his book that bad.”

That didn’t make any sense. “You want to know who killed him, look at your own gang. You’re the ones messing with all this magic without knowing what the hell you’re doing. What did Kuzniak tell you, that he knew how to suck gold out of those rocks? You think just because vampires are real, something like that’ll work?”

The pause lasted long enough Cormac wondered what kind of nerve he hit with that one. What was it statistics said, most murders were committed by someone the victim knew? Crimes of passion? Maybe Kuzniak had been killed by his own magic backfiring.…

Intriguing, Amelia observed. But not so simple. Why would such a thing happen? How?

Layne was feigning calm. “Why don’t we talk about this, Bennett? Come back down, we’ll have a civilized conversation.”

“Not likely.”

“Then I’ll meet you somewhere. Pick a spot. Anywhere.”

“Not interested.”

“Bennett, just a minute now, don’t think you can just walk away—”

He hung up and tossed the phone on the nightstand.

Amelia waited a long time before asking, Should we be worried?

Oh, probably, he thought. Not that he was going to lose sleep over it. “Let’s find out if Kuzniak really knew how to dig for gold.”

FIRST, THEY needed to find a spot that was likely to have gold. Fortunately, a number of gold mines, both defunct and still operating, were within reasonable distance. Cormac picked a spot near Cripple Creek, which had been an active gold mining area for over a century, and wasn’t in such a remote mountain location that he’d have trouble getting there in the middle of winter.

Kuzniak wasn’t polite enough to provide a finished, fully working spell in his book. Magicians rarely did—they wrote in code, like Amy Scanlon did; they left bits out so the book would be useless without them, leaving others to piece the clues together. And maybe blow themselves up in the process. This meant Amelia had to reconstruct his research, adding her own knowledge to come up with something that seemed reasonable. As reasonable as any of this was. The elements of the spell she constructed didn’t surprise Cormac—the major elements of most European-derived magic tended to be the same; the details changed depending on what you were trying to do. They’d done this enough over the last couple of years, it was familiar. He could even work some of these spells himself, without her help. He’d rather not, though. Magic still felt like cheating.

She wanted to work the spell at midnight, of course. Gathering the right materials took a few days. He would never get used to walking into the fancy cooking stores for the various hard-to-get herbs she needed. Made him feel like a buffalo in a church. Finding unscented candles was another challenge he never thought he’d have to face. Colors were fine, colors could be useful as elements in various spells. But since meeting Amelia, he’d spent way too much time standing in front of walls of candles labeled with names like “Cranberry Spice” and “Warm Honey.” Christian bookstores and other religious supply shops became their go-to spots to find simple, unadorned, non-scented votive candles. Another deep irony, he observed. If only those kind, wide-eyed women at the cash registers knew what those candles were being used for.

Following Amelia’s instructions on what to pack, he loaded up the Jeep and headed out at dusk.

The nocturnal lifestyle he’d been leading lately felt familiar, even comforting. This was what he’d done for years: stay in for most of the day and earn his living at night. Driving south, watching the sun set over the mountains—he’d done this all before. Times like this, he felt like he was in the right place, that he fit. He was calm.

He hiked for a time, double-checked the GPS and cross-referenced with some historical maps he’d researched. In this creek valley, a dozen claims had been staked and four of them had turned into working gold mines. One of those had produced right up into the 1970s. They hadn’t been abandoned because they were paid out. Rather, the effort to get what ore remained—and transport it, process it, refine it, and so on—was no longer cost effective. There ought to be gold here still, and if it could be gotten with magic, they’d get it.

Here. This is a good spot. Amelia stopped him in a flattened clearing, south-facing and clear of snow. The moonlight was faint, and he used a flashlight to see by. He set down her pack of gear and waited for her instructions.

She had what she called a cauldron. It was really a small cast-iron pot, a highly portable fire pit maybe eight inches across. His dad might have used something like this to cook supper Dutch-oven style over a fire. It was a convenient way to create light and heat for rituals. Charcoal briquettes lined the bottom of it for fuel. He set this up, lit the charcoal, got it burning. She set up another little dish with a few ingredients and supplies, including a gold band he’d picked up at a pawn shop.

Like seeks like, she explained. You must start with some gold in order to call gold to you.

It made a weird kind of sense. The rest of the spell she’d found in Kuzniak’s notebook she wasn’t so sure about.

All right. To begin, we must strip. Divest yourself of your clothing, please.

Times like this he wished she was standing in front of him so he could glare at her. “You know it’s the middle of winter. It’s fucking cold out here.”

I assure you, there’s a very good reason for it. A ritual like this must begin with a cleansing, to shed any negative energies and ill feeling.

“Yeah? You want to talk about ill feeling, do you?”

It isn’t so terribly cold, is it?

It was. His balls were very certain it was. “You haven’t been cold in a hundred years, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You’re not scared, are you?

“No. But I’m as pure as I’m ever going to get, with or without my clothes.”

Please, Cormac. Only for a few minutes …

“I suppose I can tell myself you like seeing me naked.”

She had nothing to say to that, which made him smirk. If she’d had a body, he’d bet she’d be blushing. He shrugged off his jacket, peeled off his shirt. Boots, jeans, boxers. And yes, it was cold. He didn’t mind so much in his clothes, but he sure felt it now in the sensitive bits. He was going to get her for this.…

“I hope you’re feeling this,” he muttered.

It is … rather unpleasant.

“Let’s get this over with.”

He gathered that in other circumstances this might involve a full-on bath, but since there were no enchanted springs nearby, they were left using a washcloth and bottle of water. Damp cloth on the skin, freezing air—not a good combination, and she wouldn’t let him hurry.

Finally, she deemed them pure enough in body and intentions to proceed, and he quickly slipped back into his clothes, leaving the jacket aside for now.

The spell she’d concocted was based on sympathies, she explained. Certain herbs had a connection to the earth, certain stones or crystals aligned certain energies, all of which would call to the gold in the earth. She thought the spell was supposed to turn it liquid, and it would bubble to the surface, where it would collect in pools they could simply gather up. It would be impressive, if it worked.

Guided by her instructions, he drew a circle in powdered chalk. Drew the appropriate symbols at the cardinal points, all familiar actions. Placed the gold ring at the center of the circle. The fire in the iron pot was burning low but steadily. A sequence of dried herbs tossed on the coals produced a heady incense. Here in the dark, in a halo of orange light, Amelia murmuring in the back of his head, pungent smoke surrounding him, he did feel as if he slipped out of the world and into a sideways one, where anything could happen. The earth under him might crack open, spirits might fly down from heaven.

Shaking his head, he woke himself from whatever trance was weaving through him.

There, she murmured, which meant … was it done?

They waited.

The coals burned down; the chill returned to their circle of warmth. Nothing else happened, no cracks breaking in the soil, no veins of ore rising to the surface, no liquid threads pooling. They were both patient. Cormac sat still until he started shivering and had to go put on his jacket.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect, Amelia said, sounding perplexed. I should try again, make adjustments. Hope for the best.

This was going to be a long night.