Hexed (19 page)

She needed to draw the security guard away from the open window to give David a way to escape without detection. Instead of running left back toward the way they entered, Lucifer pivoted right. She slowed down when she noticed the labored steps of the security guard trying to chase after her. She could have easily outrun him, but she didn't want to get too far ahead of him. Lucifer wanted to stay in his sights. The more he was focused on her, the less likely he'd see David.

When she heard the guard's plodding steps round the corner, she picked up her pace. “Stop!” the man yelled, but she kept going. Lucifer ran past several glass cases housing a dozen pieces of ancient pottery and into a small room at the end of the hallway. A center wall bisected the room, allowing more display space for paintings, but there were no exits. The only way in or out was the way she just came in, and the guard was getting closer.

She slid into the corner of the room, hoping the shadows would hide her long enough. The guard stopped in the room's entrance. He flashed his light around in erratic arcs. “I know you're in here. There's no way out. Cops are on their way so just make it easy on yourself and come out. If I come in here and find you, I'm not going easy on you. So get out here, now!”

Lucifer carefully reached into her trick bag and pulled out the final crystal almond. She whispered the small activation incantation then huddled tight into a ball in the corner.

Though she had her head down, completely hidden under her hood, she knew the guard's light was on her.

“Stand up,” he said. “Slowly and let me see your hands.”

There was the recognizable snap of a buttoned leather strap. Mace. Lucifer began to shake. Though she was fully recovered from her attack a few days earlier, she was in no hurry to experience the horror of being maced again.

“Hiding your face isn't going to help. Okay, you asked for it—”

Lucifer looked up into the blinding beam of his flashlight. The guard gasped when he saw her, dropping his mace can and nearly dropping his flashlight as well. The crystal had formed into a horrific mask of jagged fangs that covered Lucifer's face. Before the guard could recover, she whispered another word, and crystal wings sprouted where the ears should have been. The mask flew from her face and straight toward the guard, its terrible jaws wide and snapping.

The guard fell over backward, struggling to get his billy club free. Lucifer jumped over him as the mask nibbled at his ineffectual attempts to fight it off. The only damage it could really inflict were a few paper cuts, but no one in the mundane world would know that. As far as the guard was concerned, a winged shark-face demon was trying to eat his face off.

Lucifer was at the window when she heard the guard smash the crystal mask into a thousand pieces. The crystals were only one-use since they lasted no more than an hour before dissolving into pretty sand, but she was hoping the guard would have struggled with it a bit longer.

She was through the window and running toward the labyrinth when she saw flashing red and blue lights reflected off the side of the gallery. The cops were there. She didn't bother to use the Labyrinth as cover. She raced straight toward the tree at the back of the grounds.

David was there, crouched behind the trunk of the tree and watching with eyes so wide Lucifer feared they were going to fall out of his head. “Climb,” she said. They were up in the tree when two cops came barreling toward the labyrinth. David dropped to the sidewalk, but before Lucifer could follow, a cop's flashlight trained on her.

“Freeze!”

There was a short pop of gunfire. The turning leaves above Lucifer's head rustled as the bullet screamed past. She fell from the tree more gracefully than she was expecting.

“The cops are shooting at us!”

“I know, David. That's what they do,” she growled as she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into a run.

The two ran down the sidewalk. David started to cut left when Lucifer shouted, “No! This way!”

“But the car's this way!”

“Not yet. C'mon!”

David ran after her. Lucifer heard the sirens of a police car one block over. When she looked back, she saw one of the cops still on foot and gaining ground. The police car was moving ahead to block their path. Lucifer knew that more cops would be on their way. She might be able to hide in the shadows or get to the rooftops and wait them out. But not with David with her. They had to get to safety. Now. But she knew this might be a possibility. And every good thief knows to come prepared.

Lucifer pushed David into the alley behind the row of restaurants. The air was filled with the smells of their kitchens preparing for breakfast. A single lamppost filled the alley with harsh light and deep shadows. Lucifer pulled David to a stop.

“Take off your jacket. Hurry.”

“But—”

“No questions!”

David yanked off his jacket like it was on fire. Lucifer took it and tossed it along with the painting tube behind a nearby Dumpster. She grabbed a handful of items from her trick bag and handed them to David: a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a hairnet. “Put that on and light two cigarettes.”

As David did what he was told, Lucifer pulled off her hoodie and turned it inside out. The inside was a bright, incandescent red, and when she wore it reversed, it looked like a cardigan. She quickly rolled her jean cuffs to give the vague appearance that she was wearing capri pants. Lucifer could hear the cop's thundering steps on the sidewalk getting closer.

Lucifer hid her trick bag with the other items behind the Dumpster then fluffed her hair as much as possible. She took one of the lit cigarettes from David and said, “Relax, lean back against the wall, and look that way.” She pointed to the far end of the alley in the opposite direction the cop was coming from. “Don't turn to look at the cop until he comes into view. We need him to think we saw someone run that way.”

David nodded, his black hair mashed against his skull by the hairnet.

The two were staring at the far end of the alley when the cop ran up. Lucifer and David turned to see the cop, gun drawn. The cop froze for a second, quickly scanning Lucifer and David. Lucifer just raised her hand and pointed to the far end of the alley.

“Suspect heading east down the alley behind Culver,” he barked into his radio. Without another word the cop started running again. After a moment, he disappeared in the dark. The cops were looking for a man in dark jeans and a black hoodie, not a bus boy taking a smoke break with his garishly dressed girlfriend.

Lucifer retrieved their things from behind the Dumpster. “Let's get back to the car before they realize they're looking in the wrong place.”

Sunlight was creeping over the horizon by the time they were safely far enough away from the crime scene. David hadn't said a word since the alley. “Are you all right?” Lucifer asked.

David slowly turned to her with a look of such amused shock, she almost laughed. “I don't know. That was the most exciting thing I've ever done. And you . . . just, wow. With the magic and the window and then jumping over the railing! It was like watching an action movie.”

“So you had fun.” Lucifer knew she shouldn't be encouraging him, but she liked entertaining him.

“Fun? Yeah, until the cops started shooting at us. With guns. And bullets.”

“Technically, it was one gun with one bullet.”

“Sorry, I can't be as cavalier about it as you. I've never been shot at before.”

“And you still haven't been. The shot was at me. Not you.”

“True. Are you okay?” he asked.

“I'm fine.”
It's
not
the
first
time
someone
tried
to
shoot
me.
She patted David on the arm and said, “You did well, David. You didn't get arrested.”

“That will look great on a college application. ‘Never arrested.'” They both chuckled. “Now that we've got the painting, what happens next?”

Lucifer watched the blood-red streak of sunrise creep over the horizon. “Next comes the hard part.”

CHAPTER 18

“Are you sure you can do this?” Lucifer asked.

“Of course,” David said. “Why wouldn't I?”

Lucifer fingered the rubber strip that protected the passenger window inside the car door as she looked out into the darkness. Clouds blanketed the sky, but the nearly full moon glowed behind them, turning them silver against the black.

“I don't know. Aren't you supposed to be in school or something?”

“It's ten-thirty at night.”

“You know what I mean,” Lucifer said, knowing he could see her scowl.

“My parents are in Costa Rica until next week and my school doesn't care. I'm a senior and I'm so far ahead on credits I only have to go two days a week. All my teachers will think I'm out scouting colleges or something. And basketball conditioning doesn't start for a couple of weeks yet so none of my coaches will wonder either. It's fine.”

Lucifer nodded. Ever since their close call at the gallery, Lucifer didn't want David around. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy his company. She did, more than anything. It was that what they were doing could get him in serious trouble. It was bad enough that David could have been arrested after the cemetery, not to mention that he would be facing serious jail time if they had been caught at the art gallery. But what they were doing now could get him killed. Or worse.

Much worse.

But the allure of magic was intoxicating. Lucifer knew that all too well. She also knew that when things went south, they went by bullet train. David didn't. And the close call at the gallery didn't seem to convince him of the danger either. He spent most of the ride home peppering her with questions. What were those crystals? How did you know the trick in the alley would work? Was that magic too? Why steal
that
painting? And on and on and on. They were all perfectly natural questions, questions she would have asked herself in his position. But it was the enthusiasm with which he asked them that made her nervous. Curiosity didn't just kill cats.

Lucifer tried to dissuade him from coming, but he was insistent. After the heist, Lucifer was simply too tired to argue with him, so she just told him to pick her up later that afternoon after they both had a chance to get some real rest.

They had been driving for almost four hours, stopping only once for food and a bathroom break. They followed the coast toward Cape Vale or, at least, what used to be Cape Vale before the great hurricane of '36 wiped the small coastal town from the face of the earth. Now it was a quiet resort where the wealthy could park their seafaring playthings for the winter.

They pulled off of Highway 95 and headed east toward the ocean. Even with the windows up, Lucifer could smell the salt in the air. David's headlights illuminated the lonely road. The darkness of the night seemed to swallow the entire world except for the tiny sliver of asphalt directly in front of them. Even the silvery moon couldn't break through the blanket of clouds enough to offer any respite from the swallowing darkness.

After another twenty minutes, orange light broke through the black veil of night. Oldport Marina was just ahead.

Lucifer had David drive past the marina first to get a better idea of what was there. Google Street View had given her a pretty good idea of the marina's layout, but she still preferred to see things firsthand before making a plan of action.

The marina was thick with boats. Most were sailboats, though there were a few trawlers and yachts scattered among the masts that stretched across the calm water like a dense forest of pale, naked trees. Many of the smaller crafts were covered with protective tarps, while a handful of smaller dinghies and rowboats were stacked in dry dock on the various piers, all recently stored away for the season. It didn't take long for Lucifer to spot exactly what she needed.

David parked in a small lot where his car wouldn't be conspicuous. Lucifer grabbed her trick bag and the tube with the painting. She said, “You should wait here.”

“No way.”

“David—”

“Lucifer, I've already committed a felony with you. What's one more?”

She sighed. “This is going to be different. If things go wrong here, you won't get arrested. You'll die.”

“I know how to swim.”

“You'd be lucky if it was drowning that killed you.”

David gave her a playful smirk and said, “What else would it be? Sharks?”

“A witch.” Lucifer watched his smile evaporate.

“Is it the witch that took Gina?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “It's Minnie Hester, the Witch of Cape Vale.”

“Okay, but how dangerous could a witch named Minnie be?” His smile returned, irritating the hell out of her.

“Dangerous enough to kill both of us with a thought if we aren't careful. This isn't the gallery, David. We're not trying to avoid cops and cameras and security guards. I'm going to talk to a witch. Do you get that?”

David's smile was replaced by a stern resolve. “Then I'm definitely coming with you. If witches are as dangerous as you say they are, then you'll need protection.”

Lucifer rolled her eyes and said, “How very Cro-Magnon of you. I can protect myself, David. But that's the problem. I don't know if I can protect you. Witches are bad, bad business. Their magic is beyond deadly.”

“But you have magic.”

“No, I don't. I can
do
magic, but I don't have it. Think of magic like flying. If I want to fly, I need an airplane. And I know enough to pilot a small Cessna. Witches can fly without a plane because they
have
magic. It's a part of them, like immense and agile wings. And their magic is powerful. I mean, they murdered their own children to get it. Imagine what they've been given in exchange for that kind of sacrifice.”