Hexes and Hemlines (32 page)

They were exorcising me.

Their fear and rage swirled about me, invaded my soul. My fright turned to sheer, blind rage. Aluminum chairs started to cast about. The keys flew off the small keyboard they used in lieu of a proper organ. The preacher’s Bible was wrenched from his hands.

The snakes turned on my tormentors.

By the time the screaming and near riot ended, there were twelve snakebite victims. I tried to do what I could, but several in the congregation covered my mouth to keep me from chanting. I still recalled the acrid taste of the dirty rag shoved in my mouth, a faint scent of axle grease.

In the end, two men and one woman perished that day. Old Mrs. Lockmiller, my third-grade teacher—the only teacher who had ever been kind to me—died from a cottonmouth. A man who ran the gas station when his farm went bust succumbed to the venom of a rattler. Another, a man who had been terrible to me, vicious even, died an excruciating death from a water moccasin.

Though I had not enchanted the snakes, nor wished death upon any of my attackers, they were out for blood, for vengeance. In the chaos I escaped the church and ran to hide in the woods, not wanting to endanger my grandmother.

Still, the townspeople marched on Graciela’s house that night. I surrendered myself to police custody to keep myself—and Graciela—safe from the mob. One by one the witnesses dropped away as I sat for weeks in that filthy, sweaty jail cell. Then the county prosecutor fell ill, victim of some strange, unexplained malady. I knew it was Graciela’s doing, though she denied it. In any case, the official charges were dropped, but the town’s populace wasn’t going to let it go at that.

Graciela packed my bags and sent me away in the middle of the night in her rusty old Ford truck, with a change of clothes, her old mortar and pestle, my crystal ball, and four hundred dollars, along with the directions to the home of a good friend of hers, a powerful
curandera
in Chiapas, Mexico.

Instead, I went in search of my father. Graciela had forbidden me to go to him. She was right, as usual.

“Mistress,”
I heard Oscar growl, waking me from my reverie, “it’s ready.”

The brew was giving off the distinct aroma that signaled it was ready for the next step in the process. The most important step.

Earlier today Renna had sent Eric over with a box, wrapped and bound eight times. In it was the poppet, in which Malachi’s lock of hair and piece of bloody mirror had been enveloped in black wax. It was an evil-looking doll, featureless, crude.

I mumbled my spell as I wrapped the figure in red thread, for the life force, and black thread, for the death shroud. I bathed him in Tabasco sauce, letting the capsicum of the peppers begin its magic. The murderer was in the hot seat, so to speak.

I dropped the poppet into the cauldron. There was a great bubbling up, and a burst of steam that filled the space just below the ceiling as though it were a cloud.

But it didn’t connect. I could tell. My helping spirit did not come to me. I looked at Oscar, who stared back at me. It was just like what happened in Aidan’s place. Had I lost something? Or was this the effect of the curse Renna told me about, the dirt in the walnut shell?

I thought I might know where the shell was. And I realized, also, that the brew would most likely work if I could place it where Malachi Zazi lost his life, to mingle with the energy of the victim. What there was of it. Was this why the place had been cleansed, so no one could piggyback on the energy?

My conscience nagged me. I had promised Carlos Romero I would call him if I needed to get into Malachi Zazi’s apartment again. I called and got his infernal voice mail. I told him where I was headed, confessing ahead of time to breaking into an active crime scene. Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.

I decanted the still-hot brew into a special, widemouthed, heat-tolerant mason jar. Oscar helped me to pack up my white cloth, the
athame
, the Sorcerer’s Violet, and the blessed rope in a hemp bag. I brought my satchel already full of a variety of oils and herbs, the Hand of Glory, and a small can of sterno to heat the brew.

And as an afterthought, I stuck the Serpentarius stone into my large pocket. Just in case.

 

Oscar was angry with me, once again, for refusing to let him come up to Malachi’s apartment. But this time, my refusal had more to do with his safety than any worries about polite company. I wasn’t sure what I would find up there, and I had a premonition it wouldn’t go all that smoothly. A witch’s familiar is usually her best ally in such circumstances, but the truth was that other than his helpful energy while brewing, Oscar wasn’t very good at being a familiar. He was about as helpful in most things as the black cat. Speaking of which, what was I going to do with the poor feline?

The doorman was not at his post, so I brought out my Hand of Glory and unlocked the front doors. I let myself in and rode the clanky elevator up to the penthouse, on the thirteenth floor. Crime scene tape hung limply on either side of the door. Once again the Hand of Glory worked its magic, opened the lock, and lit the way.

I crept in carefully, but the place seemed empty.

I made my way through the kitchen, to the back door that led upstairs. To the little roof garden that Malachi Zazi had made for himself at the foot of Serpentarius. God of eternal life, eternal youth. I dropped my bags and extracted the items necessary for the spell.

After opening the jar of brew, I set it on a wire grill over the little sterno can on the tile surrounding the little raised planter.

I started to dig into the soft dirt. After several minutes I unearthed a walnut shell. This was the hex; I could feel its sinister hum. I split it open, spit on the contents, and applied a drop each of rosemary, orange, and cinnamon oils. I murmured an incantation to reflect the hex back on the sender, though I could feel that my enemy was strong, and protected. Finally, I mumbled a quick cleansing spell, let the soil spill back into the garden patch, and dug it in with the rest of the earth.

The jar of brew started to boil, the steam ascending to a point about six feet over my head, where it stayed in a cloudlike puff. I started to chant, invoking the spirits of the witches that had gone before me, my ancestors, and my spirit guide. With a flash of light, I finally saw the amorphous, barely-there face in the steam. My guardian spirit. I could feel that the spell had taken. It was done.

“What do you think you’re doing?” said a woman’s high-pitched voice. It was Doura.

I fell back on my butt. “Just casting a quick spell,” I said. My eyes went past her to see Tracy. Behind her, looking befuddled, as though under a spell, was Claudia.

I took a deep breath, trying to keep my calm. If my anger cast about without control, I could end up making the situation worse. At this point I wasn’t entirely sure what I was dealing with, but I knew one thing: Doura was trouble, with a capital T.

Her blue sunken eyes moved past me to the planter box. She smiled. “Found the walnut?”

I nodded.

“Told you we should have kept watch,” Tracy muttered.

“This is between us, Doura. Why is Claudia here? What have you done to her?”

“She’s okay—we saw her at your shop the first time we were there, remember? She mentioned she lived in Malachi’s building. I figured she might be useful to have along. You go after me, she gets hurt. Like your buddy Bronwyn.”

I felt rage surge through me, but I clamped down on it with everything I had. I breathed deeply, trying to remember—and channel—the feeling of Aidan’s power wrapping around me in the cloister, helping me to focus on seeing the unseeable. This was no time for my powers to cast about, uncontrolled. I needed to figure things out, come up with a solid approach. Keeping Doura talking seemed like the best plan for the moment; I imagined she’d love to brag about her own abilities.

“What would Prince High think of all this?” I asked her.

“The High Prince of Hell? He’s a putz. He works for us, not the other way around.”

“Oh?”

“He used to bring in good money with those books of his. But lately he’s back to playing the Wurlitzer. He’s still useful as a cover, but not for much else.”

“How could the Church of the Devil act as your cover?”

“They all thought he was nuts, that we were just the background. No one pays us any attention—once they figured out he was just for show, they didn’t worry too much about him. Besides, it keeps your darling Aidan out of our hair. If he wants to respect the pact he has to leave us alone, go through the Prince for everything.”

“So you still act according to the pact?”

“Oh, sure, we did. But you’re the one who broke the pact,
sister
.” She chuckled, low and sexy. “Hands off each other, remember? Then you went and got messed up in this whole Malachi Zazi deal.”

“I wasn’t the one who killed him.”

“Of course not. Heaven knows who did the actual deed, but it was useful in any case. We were just as glad he was dead, frankly, weren’t we, Tracy? He was starting to drive Nichol nuts, wouldn’t leave her alone. I guess he really fell for her.”

“What does Nichol have to do with any of this?”

“She’s in training. She’s surprisingly gifted, and malleable. Quite the little actress. And she has marvelous connections.”

I thought of Atticus “saving” Nichol from the ceremony in the woods. Had she been there of her own free will? Was it an indoctrination ritual?

“But the Prince flipped out when Malachi died. Who knew he even
liked
his son that much? He started running around town imitating his son, of all things. People started asking questions, snooping around, not least of all, you.”

“But why would you even care about Malachi’s death?”

“There’s the ironic thing: Malachi actually had some talents. Must have gotten them from his mother’s side of the family, is all I’m saying. So I thought I might as well tap into some of his energy, since I was already having such fun with his dinner companions.”

“What about them?”

“The Serpentarius Society, and ‘bad luck’?
Please
. They were the perfect power source for our research over at Perkins Laboratories. Leaching just a bit of vitality each time. Turns out they were a bunch of superstitious folks after all. They never figured it out—felt like garbage, got jittery, and created their own messes.”

I looked over at the mannequin-like Claudia. She swayed slightly on her feet, but seemed unharmed. Tracy kept one hand on her upper arm.

“Anyway,” Doura continued. “Malachi’s death turned out to be useful because it’s a legitimate reason to dissolve the pact. That way Aidan can’t come down on me for working with Perkins, and it’s not even my fault. So we cleansed the place, snatched the poor guy’s body so we could pretend to bring it back to life. I’m telling you, the Prince doesn’t have much sense of what does and doesn’t work. But now for the fun part: Since we’ve come this far, we might as well righteously avenge the dissolution of the pact.”

She smiled and came to stand very close to me. I had to force myself not to back away. She picked up a lock of my hair, as though feeling it for softness.

“You’ll do nicely.”

“For what, exactly?”

“Eternal life, youth. We’re not quite there yet, but Perkins’s scientists are getting closer all the time. Only problem is that apparently, the only way to attain eternal youth is to drain the energy from others. And the only way to do that is through the Craft.”

I felt Tracy come up behind me. I thought of how much she reminded me of an elf the first time we met. If only she
were
an elf, maybe I’d have a shot. I haven’t known all that many witches in my life, but there was always a part of me that hoped there might be more of a natural sisterhood. Apparently, I was wrong.

With Tracy behind me and Doura in front, I could feel their energies connecting, challenging and weakening my own.

“So what’s next?” I asked, making a play for more time.

Our intense face-off was interrupted as a man burst through the door from the stairs, out onto the roof.
Atticus
. I couldn’t believe he arrived to save me a second time.

But then he cried out. He yanked his tie off his neck and frantically reached into his clothing, all the while making a high-pitched squealing noise, as though there were a hornet down his shirt.

“What is your
problem
?” Doura asked, aggravated. “Whatever you’re on, you should consider rehab. Seriously. Is Nichol with you?”

“There’s something in me!” he yelled.“Something . . . ! Aaaaaah!”

Tracy laughed.

While their attention was distracted, I fled.

Unfortunately, there was nowhere to run. Everyone stood in between me and the door, temptingly ajar, that led to the stairs. And there was Claudia to consider—I couldn’t leave her here on the roof with these two. But I had to put some distance between me and Doura in order to concentrate, to find my center. Otherwise, I would be useless to anyone.

I ran toward the corner, where one grand spire rose high above the roofline. The moldings acted like thin makeshift steps. Hugging the main part of the spire, I edged out on one of the lips, a shallow stone overhang.

Doura just arched one tweezed eyebrow and curled her lip. “Just where do you think
you’re
going?”

“Not sure yet,” I said. “I’m sort of thinking on my feet.”

“Tracy,”
Doura barked, gesturing with a quick nod of the head.

Time slowed again, and I felt that strange, nightmarish sensation of moving through water, or worse, molasses. When Doura and Tracy spoke and moved, it was almost normal speed, but Atticus’s laments became drawn-out, eerie, slow-motion cries.