Secondhand Spirits (16 page)

The man was hanging from a beam, a black string around his neck.

A child's gruesome imagination or something more sinister?

I reached out and picked up a discarded, wild-haired Barbie. I concentrated. The sensations from the doll were strong, but almost unrecognizable. What
was
it? Unsettling to be sure, but they reminded me of the danged shadows in my crystal ball, like a dream you're trying to remember the next morning . . . tantalizingly close yet still out of reach. One thing was sure: It had been a long while since this doll was last held.

“Lily? Are you all right?”

I dropped the wretched doll, wiping my hand on the thigh of my jeans. It itched. “Yeah, sure, I'm fine. See anything?”

“Nothing.”

I swung my flashlight beam around the stuffy attic room. In the opposite corner was another trapdoor in the floor. I walked over to it, hoisted it open, and focused my flashlight beam down the hatch. It looked as though the steps led to a closet.

“Let me go first,” said Max.

I was already starting down. “Why?”

“It could be dangerous.”

I smiled and continued down the steep ladder. “Somehow I think I'm more prepared than you are for what we might find.”

Max followed immediately behind me.

We landed in a cramped closet that smelled of moth-balls and cedar. Obviously Frances hadn't packed up all the old clothes she had access to. The door was ajar and led into another bedroom. This one was much larger than Frances's chamber, and appeared to be the old master. The busy printed wallpaper and duvet cover were in old-fashioned tones of pinky beige, brown, creamy yellow. Cobwebs adorned the corners, and a layer of thick dust lay undisturbed on the furniture, as though the room had been closed off for some time. But dark powder also marred a few of the surfaces: the residue of fingerprint dust.

And on the broad-planked wood floor: a chalk outline of a body, spread-eagled within a pentagram.

Talk about your haunted houses.

Max pulled out a small digital camera and began taking pictures.

I knelt. The pentagram had been drawn in salt and what looked like blood. It had been kicked and smeared, no doubt by the feet of countless police officers and coroners. My hand shook as I reached out to the remnants of the circle. I could feel nothing more specific than anger, and pain, and diffused magic.

A hand touched my back, making me jump. I turned to see Max right above me, a finger to his lips, motioning toward the closet. I followed his eyes to see that he had pulled the clothes on the rod to the side, revealing a small door at the rear of the wardrobe.

A dim light shone under the door.

Max and I looked at each other for a long moment. He held his hand out to me and helped me up, and we both moved as quietly as possible to the closet. Max brought his gun back out and held it at the ready. Standing on either side of the door, we waited for a moment, listening. Nothing.

I reached out carefully; then as quickly as I could I twisted the knob and pushed the door in, then leaped back. Nothing happened. After a moment in which we could hear only our own ragged breathing, Max held his gun with both hands in front of him, police officer-style, and jumped in the doorway.

It was a shallow subcloset cut out under the eaves, with a sloping ceiling that descended quickly.

Empty.

Except for an elaborate altar.

The surface had been covered in a fringed black cloth, with dozens of candles, all lit. There had been an animal sacrifice—a chicken, by the looks of it. Feathers and blood adorned the altar and had dribbled onto the floor. By the stench, it appeared to be at least a day or two old. A stitched doll sat at the back. There were a few blackened bones, cut-up fruit, carved gourds, candy, seashells, plastic beads, and an open bottle of expensive Puerto Rican rum. Sparkly foil paper, a fan, symbols on paper, herbs, and powders were scattered about. Amongst other notes, there were a few downloaded prints of articles about me in Texas—the accusations, the lack of a trial.

One large lit candle was cradled in something clawlike. The tallow yellow wax had dripped so much that it was hard to tell, but it took the form of a human hand.

Max came over, frowning down at the altar, gun at his side.

“Put that gun away, Max. The only thing you're going to hit is one of us.”

“I'd feel a lot better about this whole thing if—”

Suddenly the door behind us slammed shut, blowing out the candles. Both our flashlights flickered out at the same time, plunging us into inky darkness.

Max threw himself against the door, twisting the knob . . . to no avail.

“God
damn
it!” Max yelled, banging on the solid door in frustration.

We were locked in the pitch-black room. I heard Max clicking his flashlight, and I did the same. Neither functioned.

Holding my right hand out in front of me, I envisioned power flowing through me, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, and out of my right hand.

“What is dark be filled with light; remove these spirits from my sight.”

Even amongst witches, I'm a freak. Most sorcerers' hands create a blue-white light, but mine is orangey red. I let the light from my hand fill the room and instantly, like a darkroom during photo development, everything was bathed in a soft red light.

I looked back down to study the altar. This was no witchcraft as I knew it. My guess was voodoo. Like witchcraft, there was the good and the bad, the evil and the benevolent in the practice of magic connected to the voodoo religion. But unlike with witchcraft, I wasn't sure I could tell the difference.

“Could I borrow your camera?” I whispered, my gaze still fixed on the scene before me. When Max didn't respond, I looked back at him.

He stood frowning, staring at my hand. I guess he wasn't used to seeing light emanating without benefit of exterior power sources.

“
Max
. The camera.”

Still frowning, he handed it to me. Keeping my right hand up for light, I used my left to snap pictures of the altar and its contents. The flash created a strange strobe-light effect in the confined space.

While my attention was diverted, several of the altar candles flickered back to life, and things started to jump upon the altar. Then papers began to fly around the room.

Intent on what I was doing, I ignored them. Bad mistake.

“Lily!” Max yelled as a ritual knife flew through the air toward me.

Max jumped in front of it.

It turned its blade at the last moment and plunged into his side.

“Max!”

The candles flickered out again, and the light from my hand stopped as I crouched to help him. I reached up to the altar and grabbed the hand-shaped candleholder. Suddenly all the candles lit up again and the locked closet door swung open.

Max lay sprawled on the floor, barely conscious. Blowing out the flame, I shoved the candleholder into my backpack, grabbed Max under his arms, and pulled him as hard as I could. I grunted and slid but at long last managed to drag him through the closet and into the main bedroom.

I looked at the gash in his side. It shouldn't have knocked him out, but all bets are off when injuries are sustained due to magic. I had a silk sack in my backpack, which I folded up and set beside him. Taking a deep breath, I yanked the knife out of his side, stanching the flow of blood with the folded sack as a compress on his wound, securing it with his belt. Thank goodness Max still had my medicine bundle in his jacket pocket—the knife had sliced through his shirt, but the blade had glanced off the magical bundle. A small slit in the bag showed that it had caught the full brunt of the attack.

“
Max!
Max, look at me.” His gray eyes finally opened and met mine, dull and unfocused. I took him by his shoulders and stared at him, unblinking.

“Listen to me, Max. You need to get up and walk. Ignore the pain in your side. I need you to be a real macho man right now. Use all your energy to stay upright and walk. Let me lead you, Max. You can trust me. Do you believe me?
You can trust me
.”

I pulled him up by the arm, and he struggled into an upright position, hunching over slightly to hold his side. I pulled his arm around my neck and helped him to stand up. Finally I led him as quickly as I could down the main staircase, across the front room, down the hall to the kitchen, and out the back door. He stumbled occasionally, and I could feel his head loll from one side to the other. He was in bad shape.

We staggered down the back steps and through the dark garden. My heart pounded, my breathing was ragged, and I was sweating up a storm. Just as we reached the sidewalk he stumbled and fell to the ground. My heart sank. Could I get him to his feet again?

Black-clad legs suddenly appeared in front of me.

I looked up. Tomás.

“What the hell . . . ?” he said.

“Thank goodness!” I gasped. “I need your help. Will you run and get my car—it's the red Mustang outside your house—and bring it back here?”

“What's going on?”

“I have to get him home. But Tomás, watch out for the surveillance camera across the street.”

He smiled. “Bunch of kids took that thing out of commission yesterday.”

“Oh, good,” I said, cringing at the breathless tone of my voice. “Hurry with the car?” I held out my car keys.

With a quick nod he grabbed the keys and ran.

I heard a hoarse laugh and looked down to see Max struggling to get his elbow underneath him to sit up.

“He's gonna take off with that antique car of yours.”

“No, he won't. Relax. He'll be here in a jiffy.”

“I tell you what, Lily. You have far too much faith in your fellow man.”

Just then, the Mustang screeched around the corner.

“A lot you know, Mr. Cynical.”

Tomás helped me finagle Max into the passenger seat.

“What happened to him?” Tomás asked.

“It's . . . a little hard to explain.”

“I told you that place is no good.”

I thanked him for his help, then sped through the streets of San Francisco like a NASCAR driver to my shop, where I repeated my earlier performance and convinced Max to half walk up to my apartment. He was really flagging by the time we hit the stairs, and I wasn't faring much better. I'm strong, but Max had a good fifty pounds and six inches on me. I called for Oscar, who got behind him, put one outsize gnome hand on each cheek, and pushed until our motley trio finally careened through the door at the top of the stairs.

“Fill the cauldron about halfway with springwater and put it on to boil.”

“I'm not meant to actually
assist
in spells, just—”

“Yes, mistress.”

Grumbling about my mixing him up with Igor the lab assistant, Oscar did as I asked as I laid Max down on the living room rug. I knelt over him.

“Max, pay attention.” I held his face between my hands. He looked so vulnerable. I felt a surge of helplessness that I hadn't experienced since Graciela was accidentally laid low by one of my spells gone wrong, when I was just sixteen. “Listen to me, Max. You'll go to sleep now. You can trust me. Go to sleep, and do not awaken until you are told to. Do you understand me?”

His eyes seemed to come into sudden focus. He lifted one hand and touched my cheek. He mumbled something, but I had to lean closer to hear.

“What?”

“You're . . . okay? Not hurt?”

“I'm fine. Hush now, and go to sleep.”

He closed his eyes. I brushed the hair from his forehead under the guise of checking for fever, studying his features for a moment: five-o'clock shadow, the hard planes of his face, long black lashes, kissable mouth . . .

Then I sprang into action. His wound was serious—not only physically, but there was no telling what kinds of supernatural power might be attached. I would need a three-pronged approach: a brew, a poultice, and a circle with incantations.

I rushed outside to gather herbs, chanting the whole time. The water was boiling by the time I was finished, so I added herbs, essential oils, and goat's milk. Finally I snipped a lock of Max's hair and clipped his nails, then added these to the concoction. I chanted over it, stirring it until it stirred itself. Then I left it to boil.

I mixed a poultice of herbs, mustard, and essential oils.

I stitched Max up with black silk thread boiled in the brew.

I cleaned his wound with witch hazel and applied the poultice. By then the brew was ready. I forced him to drink a cupful.

Then I began to cast a circle, drawing down the moon and calling on my helpmates.

I knelt within the circle, rocking and chanting. By the time I finished, my little Bavarian cuckoo clock was chiming two in the morning. Oscar had long since curled up in his bed atop the refrigerator. Max was sleeping peacefully; his pulse was strong and steady.

As we said back in Texas, I felt like I'd been rode hard and put up wet. I could barely keep my eyes open. With a sigh of relief, I curled up next to Max, and slept within the safety of the circle.

 

I awoke with the sensation that I was being watched. This time it wasn't by a hungry goblin, but a shirtless man with one strong arm wrapped around me.

“What the hell happened?” Max frowned down at me.

“I told you not to wake until I told you to.”

“What?”

“Never mind. How do you feel?”

“In dire need of coffee.”

“I mean your . . . your side. Let me look at it.”

Pushing on his chest until he lay back on the floor, I lifted the bandage from his wound. I noted with relief that it had already started healing.