Hexed (11 page)

The boy gave Lucifer a quick glance before nodding at David with a knowing smile. “What's up, bro?”

David shrugged. “Doing some research for Ackerman's class. My paper is due in a couple of weeks and I haven't even started yet.”

When the girl finally pulled her gaze away from David to look at Lucifer, her goofy smile instantly vanished. Lucifer didn't realize she was still clutching David's hand until the girl looked down at them. Lucifer quickly let go. “So, David,” the girl said, looking back up at Lucifer. “How's Gina?”

“Good, for the most part. But she's home with the flu.”

The boy put his arm around the girl's shoulders. “Hope she feels better.” Then he shot a quick glance at Lucifer before saying, “Good luck with your paper.”

“If you need a study partner, just let me know,” the girl said through the blinding perfection of her smile. The boy scowled at her as he ushered her away. As they ducked around the far bookshelf, Lucifer heard the girl say, “What? I've got Ackerman third period.”

David leaned back against the bookshelf and sighed. “Ah, the curse of being attractive. But I'm sure you already know what that's like.”

Sadly, Lucifer knew all too well what it was like to be cursed. But attractive? She became acutely aware of how red and irritated her face was and pulled her hood up over her head. “Keep a lookout for me, okay?”

Lucifer reached into her trick bag and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. After snapping them on her hands, she pulled out a thin bundle of waxed brown parchment paper tied closed with a brittle piece of twine. She set the parchment on the floor and carefully untied the twine, revealing the object inside. It was a shiny black feather roughly twelve inches in length with a red quill that grew deeper in color the farther along it came to the end.

“What's that?” David asked.

“Supernatural garbage.”

“Ha ha. But seriously.”

Lucifer looked up and said, “You're not doing a very good job of being a lookout.”

“Don't worry. It's just us back here.” He squatted down next to her. “Why the gloves? Afraid some crazy magic might hex you?”

David blanched from Lucifer's scowl. Her entire life had been turned upside down because she
had
been hexed by crazy magic, and it was certainly nothing to scoff at. “David, you know that curse you have? The curse of being pretty? You're about to have it lifted.”

He raised his hands up in submission. “Easy, now. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just this all seems a bit . . . silly to me.”

“Then I'm really sorry, David.”

“Why would you be sorry?”

“Because it's all about to become very un-silly to you.” Lucifer held the feather out at arm's length, giving David a good view of it. “This is a feather from a Strix. And, thankfully, there haven't been any around in well over a thousand years. But to keep it from disintegrating I have to take precautions. Like wearing rubber gloves.” Of course, that was only partly true. The real reason Lucifer wore gloves was because Strix were foul, disgusting birds, and the idea of touching one of its feathers grossed her out. But David didn't need to know that.

“So what do you do with it?” he asked.

“This.”

Lucifer let go of the feather and watched it slowly drift toward the floor. Just before it touched the ground, it raised up in the air as if caught on a current of air and hovered between them.

David reached out and moved his hand through the empty space above the feather. “How are you doing that? There aren't any strings!”

Lucifer gently pulled a wide-eyed David against the bookshelves as the feather danced in tiny circles as it floated past. “The Strix were owls known for their love of eating human flesh. Their feathers are magically drawn to dead things, particularly dead . . . human . . . things. I stole this one from some grave robbers who were using it to pillage undiscovered burial sites. Stupid
chacais
.”

“You think there's a dead body here?” The look of wonder on David's face was replaced by one of disgust.

“No, the book was bound in human skin. You don't find books like that in public libraries. But Isis insists this is where she found it. If she really did, the feather should show me exactly which shelf it came from.”

The Strix feather bobbed in the air for a moment before turning the point of its quill toward a shadowy corner of a nearby bookshelf and darting through the air. It hit the edge of the shelf with a soft
TINK!
and quivered like an arrow in a bull's-eye.

The shelf was filled with books on subjects that Lucifer doubted anyone had ever bothered reading. Economics, statistics, and a few on governmental tax codes during specific presidential administrations. She could feel herself getting drowsy just reading the titles.

However, the space above the feather was empty.

“I guess Isis was telling the truth,” Lucifer said. “It was here. But what was it doing in a section about economics?”

“That was bad . . .
ass
!”

Lucifer looked back at David. “Really? You think?”

“Hell yes!” He walked over and examined the feather stuck in the wood of the shelf. “Magic is real!”

Lucifer gently pulled out the feather and wrapped it back up in its packaging. “Let's keep that to ourselves, okay? It's bad enough Olivia's telling everyone about our little exorcism party. I don't need you adding fuel to that fire.”

“Don't worry. I can keep a secret.” David ran his hand through his hair. “But I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around this.”

“Yeah, floating feathers can take a little getting used to.” She softened her sarcasm with a grin.

“So, were you born a witch or did you have to study to become one?”

“What is it with people thinking I'm a witch? I'm not a witch.”

“You can do magic. How does that not make you a witch?”

“I can hammer a nail into a board, too. Doesn't make me a carpenter. And I can't
do
magic. Only use it. If you had dropped the Strix feather, it would have done the same thing. And it wouldn't make you a witch any more than it would me.”

Lucifer took several of the books off the shelf to see if there were any magical markings etched into the wood, but other than some rather crude scratchings of various body parts, there was nothing. “The book was definitely here, but it's not in the library's system. And if it were, why was it shelved here? This just isn't making sense.” She turned to David, only to find him staring at her like a mangled knot he was trying to untie. “What?” she asked.

“Who are you? Really?”

“Oh David, we don't have time to get into that.”

He took a small step forward, gently pressing her back against the bookshelf. Lucifer strained her neck to look up at him as he stared down at her, his brow knit in confusion. “You're a teenage thief, you can perform exorcisms, make feathers fly like arrows, even shrug off being attacked by a man with a can of mace. I've never met anyone like you. You're . . . you're fascinating.”

“Fascinating, like rainbows are fascinating? Or like . . . bug guts are fascinating?”

“Rainbows. Definitely rainbows.”

Lucifer didn't know what to do. She spent her life moving through the shadows, trying to remain unseen. She had no idea how to deal with this kind of scrutiny. And the way his blue eyes looked almost black in the low light made her palms slick with sweat.

“David . . . there's something happening in my pants.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her vibrating cell phone. “Yeah?”

As soon as she heard Buck's voice on the other end, the spell David had over her disappeared. She easily moved past David, focused on what Buck was telling her. “Do you have an address?” Lucifer asked.

“
Why?
There's
nothing
you
can
do
,” Buck said.

“Do you remember what I told you at Olivia's? I said it was very difficult. I didn't say it was impossible.”

Buck was silent for a moment before saying, “
God,
Lucifer.
I'll
do
anything
to
get
Gina
back,
but
.
 
.
 
.
but
this?
”

“Don't worry. You're not doing anything. I am. Now give me the address.”

Lucifer reached into her trick bag and pulled out a pen. She pressed her phone to her ear with her shoulder and grabbed David's hand. As Buck gave her the address, she scribbled it on David's broad palm. “Got it. I'll let you know what I find out.”

“
Lucifer,
be
careful.
This
is
getting
.
 
.
 
.
darker
than
I
expected.
”

“It always does.”

Lucifer put her phone back in her pocket and leaned back against the shelf with a heavy sigh. David stared at the address scrawled across his palm, then said, “That was Officer Pierce, wasn't it? Is this the address of the guy who attacked you?”

“No. Helen Peltier. The woman whose name was written on the book.”

“Then why are you sulking? Let's go talk to her!”

“That's the address to Crestview Cemetery, David. Ms. Peltier's dead.”

David's excitement evaporated. He fell back against the bookshelf next to Lucifer and stared off into the shadows. “What do we do now?”

“Something I really don't want to.” Lucifer looked up at David, trying to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach.

“We're going to need a couple of shovels.”

CHAPTER 11

The gibbous moon fell behind a thick column of black clouds. Faint shadows of gravestones swelled and grew until they bled into the surrounding darkness. The only thing Lucifer could clearly see was the silhouette of a twisted, leafless tree rising from the center of the tiny graveyard, back-lit by the fake sunrise of distant city lights reflecting off the clouds above.

Crestview was an old cemetery lost on the side of a forgotten road that wound its way through the countryside west of the city. Each gravestone sat at an imperfect angle, leaning in exhaustion after decades of neglect. From what Lucifer could see, it had been quite a long time since anyone had been buried here.

She cringed when she heard the car trunk slam shut and the shovels clink as David tossed them over his shoulder. “Stealth, David. All the kids are trying it these days.”

David sauntered over to her, the crunch of gravel beneath his feet screaming in the still darkness. “Sorry. But c'mon. There's no one here. The nearest house is at least a mile away, and we haven't seen a single car since we got off the highway. Who's going to hear us?”

Lucifer could hear the highway traffic in the distance, softly thrumming like an approaching swarm of insects. She took one of the shovels from David and said, “I don't like advertising what I'm doing, even if there is no one around to see. And it's always a good idea to keep quiet when sneaking around cemeteries at night. Besides, we're about to do something very offensive. Let's not be obnoxious about it, okay?”

David squared his shoulders and nodded. “You're right. I apologize. It's just that this reminds me of sneaking out to tee-pee people's houses.”

“Tee-pee? What's that?”

“Toilet paper. You throw rolls of toilet paper over the house, into the trees, that kind of thing. It's a pain to clean up.”

Lucifer studied his face for a moment. “That is simply the stupidest thing I've—”

“Ever heard. Yeah, I know,” David said rather bashfully. “Definitely seems even more so now. Please don't judge me.”

“Why in the world would you ever . . . you know, never mind. Just try and keep it down to a mild roar. This way.” She wanted to be annoyed with him, but she was too busy being annoyed with herself for letting him come along. This wasn't something civilians should be doing and she knew it, even if it was his girlfriend that was missing. But here he was, following along like a tall, handsome puppy eager to play. And as much as she didn't want to, she had to admit that she liked that. Which annoyed her most of all.

When Lucifer stopped to examine a gravestone at the edge of the cemetery, David said, “What was the woman's name again?”

“Helen Peltier.”

“Do you want me to start looking at the other end of the cemetery and then we meet in the middle?”

Lucifer moved to the next grave, feeling the cold stone with her fingertips. “No. Cemeteries like this have a basic design to them. The oldest graves tend to be in the center while the newest are out at the edges.”

“When did Helen die?”

“1957. And it's Ms. Peltier.”

“Okay. Does it really matter if I call her Helen?” David asked.

“It does to me.” Lucifer stood and pointed toward a cluster of several towering stones farther into the cemetery. “I'd say she's several rows in that direction. C'mon.”

Lucifer led the way through the rows of graves. The grass was tall and brittle, but the earth beneath was soft and spongy. Dew-covered spiderwebs hung between a few of the gravestones, the tiny drops of moisture occasionally glinting in the fading moonlight. “Lucifer,” David said. “How many times have you done this?”

She stopped to examine a short stone carved into a Celtic cross, but the name and dates were too weathered to read. “Too many. It's pretty common for people to be buried with artifacts. It's actually the safest place for them. But every once in a while, someone will go looking for them and I have to beat them to the punch.”

When they reached the cluster of large gravestones, Lucifer felt the ground grow firm and the grass more pliable. Lucifer handed her shovel to David and set to examining the nearest of the stones. There were five of them, nearly identical. Each was a rectangular slab of black granite that tapered into a pyramid at the top with smooth and unbroken lines. And while the other markers in the cemetery littered the ground like long-forgotten toys, these five stood perfectly upright.