Under a Spell

Chapter Fourteen

I could still hear his breath when I woke up. It was fast and hot, and had just the slightest scent of . . . Alpo.

“ChaCha?”

She jumped up happily on her Popsicle-stick legs and pranced over my shoulder, nuzzling the spot between my neck and chest and giving me an enormous, salutary lick from chin to eyebrows.

“Thank you, baby,” I grumbled, scratching my pooch behind the ears. “Did I imagine you were a big, strong man last night? Did I dream that you were Uncle Will?”

“Uncle Will, huh?”

He was in my doorway in a towel slung so low around his waist it should have been a sin, with a bare chest and a decadent smile. I was face forward on the carpet, feeling the draft from my nightshirt shoved up around my waist when I fell out of bed. I scrambled over, yanking my Giants nightshirt down toward my ankles.

“Why did you shower here? You live right across the hall.”

Will tousled his damp hair. “But my shampoo doesn’t smell like mangoes.”

I rolled my eyes as he gestured to my hands holding fistfuls of black and orange fabric. “You know I’ve seen all that before, right?”

I blushed right up to my eyebrows.

“You may have, but that was a long time ago.”

Will grinned, and the heat kept up. He tapped an index finger against the side of his head. “Good thing I’ve got a hell of a memory, huh?”

I yanked my comforter from my bed and rolled myself up in it, standing. “Shouldn’t we get to work? We still have a case to solve, don’t we?”

Will raised his eyebrows. “We were all just sitting around waiting for the queen to grace us with her consciousness.”

He walked in and I walked out, even though everything from my nipples downward screamed at me to stay in my room and to suddenly get very interested in collecting errant towels.

The Indiana Jones–looking spread on the dining table brought back a vague recollection of the night before.

“Hey,” I said to Vlad, who was stretched out on the couch watching something on mute.

Vlad blinked up at me, and I could see the enormous dent—and the angry-looking bruise surrounding it—on the side of his head.

“How did that happen? And how is it still like that?”

Vlad’s upper lip curled and he sunk into the couch a small bit farther. “Kale hit me with an otter.”

“Ooh,” I muttered. “Oscar. But how’s it still all—” I did my best intimation of an obnoxious, blood spurting bruise.

Vlad touched two fingers to the wound and winced. “I had just eaten—a lot.” He patted his belly. “I’m still pretty full. Once the blood wears down it’ll go away. Damn that woman. I can’t go out looking like this.”

“Why? All the other vamps on the playground going to make fun of you?”

I thought I heard a low growl from the direction of the couch.

“I don’t remember everything,” I said, curling myself into my robe. “But I do remember the way you went to her after the crash.”

He avoided my gaze, grabbing the remote instead and turning the volume up high.

“So, make any sense of the thing?”

I spun as Will stepped out of my room, jeans on now, T-shirt thrown over one shoulder, towel thrown over the other.

“Of what thing?” I wanted to know

Vlad poked his head over the couch. “Before the pummeling. Lorraine and Kale and that star map thing.” He jutted his chin toward the table.

I leaned over the map and frowned, pushing my finger over charred masses of what had once been star patterns. “It wasn’t like this last night, was it?”

“No,” Will said, closing the distance between us. “Lorraine was doing some spell—well before the group walloping. After, the sodding thing caught fire. She wrote these notes down before I had to save the day with the fire extinguisher and wrestle the otter from the bird.”

“Wait—you were walloped. I was fine. Did I put out the fire?”

Vlad snorted and put the TV on mute again. “No, you were pretty much useless, mate. I put out the fire and saved what was left of Lorraine’s writings. Then we all went to the hospital, this one pitched to the floor.” His eyes cut to me. “Lorraine went into surgery, the doctor said Kale was fine, and she beat me with an otter once we came back home.”

“So just another quiet night at home,” Will said, kicking his feet onto the coffee table and lacing his fingers behind his head.

I took the notes from the table and read out loud. “‘Spell chanted on the seventh calendar day when the zodiac and the stars’—we knew all this. Cathy was found seven days after her abduction. We’re working on the same timeline with Alyssa.” I pushed the burnt star map aside and brushed my hand over the blond tabletop, now marred with black blossoms of charred wood. “We ruined a perfectly good table to figure out information we already knew?”

“Seemed like the information was pretty powerful to you. How’s that goose egg?”

Will rubbed a hand through my hair and I winced when his fingers went over a sore spot. “Ow! What was that?”

“I told you, love. You passed out.”

I shook Will off me and began cleaning the debris from the table. “So we know—again—that Alyssa’s kidnapper and Cathy’s”—I cleared my throat, still somehow unwilling to say the word—“assailant were—or are—using the girls as sacrifices to call on Satan. Both Cathy and Miranda have books of safety spells. Great.” I sat down in a dining room chair. “We are absolutely nowhere.”

“Why is someone trying to sacrifice girls to gain favor with the devil?” Vlad chuckled. “That’s lame.”

I felt myself pale. “I don’t know why I’m asking, but why is that lame?”

Vlad rolled his eyes as if I’d just asked his opinion on Justin Bieber. “Because first of all, no one uses human sacrifice anymore. And everyone knows that blood isn’t used for summoning, it’s used for opening.”

“Uh, opening?” Will asked.

“Blood, fluids, whatever—used for opening portals. Bodies are offered in reverence or thanks.”

“So our dude is thanking your pops for something?”

I pinched my upper lip. “We’re not entirely sure that Satan is my father.”

“Right,” Will said, picking up a magazine. “It could still be a dictionary salesman from Skokie.”

“Anyway, Lorraine specifically said the carving was an incantation. It was a calling.”

“So he used the girl as a bit of lovely stationary and as a thank-you gift? Is that what we’re thinking?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Blood opens a portal. The incantation was a calling of something.”

Will looked from Vlad to me. “Opening the door to hell, kind of like a Pied Piper thing drawing the devil out? That makes sense, right?”

Vlad barked out one of those “as if” laughs.

“Hey, stop with your brooding and moping, and help us, would you?” Will yelled, giving him a thump with the rolled-up magazine.

Another eye roll by Vlad. Wouldn’t kids ever come up with something new?

“Try opening up a portal and then drawing something to it. That’s what your perp is doing,” Vlad said, glaring at us as though it were dead obvious.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

He sniffed. “No one asked me.”

I groaned. “Vlad! Okay, okay, tell me this. If our guy is opening a portal and calling something to it, why is he doing it again?”

“He could be calling something that is only out for a limited time.”

“Like the holiday china you get from Burger King?” Will asked.

Vlad scrunched up his nose. “Kind of like that. Or, it’s not working.”

“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t it work if he’s got the incantation and the girl?”

Vlad launched himself off the couch and into the kitchen, knocking over a series of long-expired condiments before finding himself a blood bag. He pierced it, took a swig and glanced up at it. “Because he just hasn’t found the right girl.”

Will and I exchanged a look as heat walked up my spine, vertebra by vertebra. “This is going to keep going unless we stop it.”

I flopped down onto the couch, feeling incredibly defeated. “We can’t ask Lorraine who or what this witch is trying to summon. She said some of the incantation was wrong on the original—” I swallowed, my throat dry. I didn’t want to say “body,” but that was the image that sparked in my mind’s eye. “It was wrong in the original case.” I paused, considering. “Hey, Vlad, what do you know about a store called Simply Charming?”

Vlad closed his laptop and shot me a narrowed glare. “I know that you can’t get me near that place with a ten-foot pole.”

“Why’s that?” Will wanted to know.

“Because that’s the kind of place where Kale shops and I do not need another wallop to the head anytime soon.”

“Bitches be crazy, right, cuz?” Will said in a spot-on American accent as he gave Vlad a fist bump.

“It’s like I’m in the Twilight Zone,” I muttered.

Simply Charming didn’t stand out on the retail block where it sat, but once we were inside, it was a world unto itself. Will pressed a hand over his nose and leaned down toward me. “Why do all these places smell like crappy incense?”

“Blessed be!” A doughy woman with bottle-red hair came floating toward us in a sea of gypsy style silks. I knew she was one of the knock-off witches that drove Lorraine crazy and I gave a short smile, knowing that Lorraine would innocently turn her into a barnacle if UDA law would allow. “I’m Meadow. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes, actually, uh, Meadow,” I said, taking the lead. “We’re investigating a case with the SFPD. One of our victims had a book of protection spells in her possession that we believe is from this store.”

The woman clasped her hands in front of her chest and nodded, her cornflower-blue eyes wide but only semi-focused. “We do have a book of protection spells that we keep in stock.”

“Our victim was a fifteen-year-old girl.”

“Oh, no.” Meadow’s hands went to her throat. “That’s awful.”

“Do you get a lot of teen girls in your store?” Will asked.

Meadow pumped her head. “Yes. Mostly for love spells, sometimes protection spells.”

“Do you think you could recognize some of your teen customers?”

Meadow blinked. “I’m sure I can try.”

I held up Cathy Ledwith’s photo and the color immediately drained from Meadow’s cheeks. “That’s Cathy Ledwith.”

“You know her? Was she a regular here?”

Meadow shook her head, her long hair bubbling around her. “Oh, no. I’d never met her, but we did prayer circles after she went missing. Such a tragedy.”

“So you don’t remember her ever coming into this store and purchasing that book?” I pointed to the spell book on Meadow’s shelf.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“What about this girl?” Will held up a photo of Alyssa.

“I don’t recognize her. I’m sorry.”

Will opened the manila file folder he was holding and went to slide Alyssa’s photo in. Meadow grabbed his hand, stopping him. “I know her, though. That’s Fallon Monroe. She comes in here from time to time.”

Heat zinged up my neck. “You know Fallon?”

“I do. Nice girl. Came in with her father the last time. Or maybe it was her grandfather.” Meadow looked up as though the answer were floating in the ether. “I think she called him her buddy.” She smiled. “Very sweet.”

I shifted my weight and steadied myself. “What did Fallon buy?”

Meadow pointed to the book of protection spells. “That book. Some candles. A charm. And her grandfather bought something, too. I know he came in before—without his granddaughter—and talked to Bronwyn. She owns the store.”

Will and I exchanged a glance. I was sure he was feeling the same intense zing of adrenaline as I was. “Can we talk to Bronwyn?”

“Not for another six days. She’s meditating at Green Gulch.”

I chewed the inside of my lip. “Can you do us a favor? If Fallon or her grandfather come in, could you please give us a call?”

Will produced a business card and handed it to Meadow. She took it in both hands and examined it. “Didn’t you say you were with the police? This says you’re a fireman.”

“Uh, she’s the police. I’m the fireman. And this case is quite arsonistic, if you will. Very dangerous. Very secret. Can’t divulge too much. Probably said too much already. You’ve been a big help.”

Will and I backed out of the store with Meadow’s huge eyes following us.

“Arsonistic, Will?” I said as we slid into my car.

“Credit me one for thinking on my feet. We got what we were looking for, didn’t we?”

I looked back at the shop as we drove away. “Kind of. Fallon comes to the magic shop with a grandfather.”

“Maybe that’s the legacy we’re looking for?”

“But why would she buy the book of protection spells? I mean, if she’s partnering with, say, her grandfather—”

“That’s one horrible family tree now, isn’t it?”

“Why would she feel the need for protection?”

Will swung his head. “Don’t know. Also, is the geezer really her grandfather or just a crazy old bloke she hooked up with? Some birds kind of like that May-December thing you know.”

“Will, ew.”

“Oh, and it’s much less disgusting for you to think the girl is kidnapping her friends and delivering them to gramps for a little carving party?”

“The whole thing is just so messed up.”

“Okay, so what now? We go back to Fallon’s house, bust down her door, and demand she produce her grandfather? And by the way, why didn’t we ask the garden bird about Miranda? She had one of those spell books, as well.”

“Meadow. And we didn’t need to ask about Miranda because we know that she purchased the spell book and we know she purchased it there.”

Will sunk back in his seat. “Right. You told me she said it was a lapse in judgment as she was going for a love spell book.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Did you notice where Chaparral kept the love spell books?”

“Meadow. And no, I just assumed they were right next to the other books.”

“They weren’t. The lovey books were all the way in the back. Big pink heart over the rack. Awful thing, really.”

“So? What are you saying?”

Will shrugged. “Just saying that it seems a little odd that your girl could miss a giant pink heart.”

I pulled the car to a stop at a red light and turned to face Will. “There is no indication—zero—that Miranda has anything to do with this. She has no connection to the girls other than knowing them through school.”

“And Fallon’s big connection is that she was friends with the girls and you think she’s a giant bitch. Seems a little weak to build a murder case on, love.”

“Are you defending her?”

“No, I’m standing up for parliamentary procedure. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.”

“We don’t have parliament,” I growled. “And there’s plenty more to indict Fallon. She works in the office and has access to all the girls’ personal information and class schedules. She’s a bully. Bullies are sadists. And she came in to the store multiple times with her grandfather.”

“She went out on an outing with her grandpa.”

“That’s a pretty creepily specific outing, Will. I—well, I went to magic shops with my Gram all the time, but my grandma—”

“I know, I know, love,” Will said, holding his palm toward me. “Your grandmother played mah-jongg with a pixie.”

I pressed the gas pedal down. “We’ll investigate both girls just to cover all our bases, but I’m pretty sure Fallon’s our perp. Or, one-half of our perp team. I just don’t get a good feeling about her.”