The Hoodoo Detective (9 page)

“I don't know,” she said. Changing methods like this was unusual. “Necromancers use skulls and bones in their rituals to strengthen their connection with the dead.”

“Why would you want one?”

“A connection? Traditionally, necromancy was used for divination, supposing the dead knew more than the living. But in its darker forms, the dead, or death, is used to power a magical spell. To give it force.” She was babbling. The murder had unnerved her.

Her fault.

The phone in her pocket buzzed. She grabbed it, turning to read the text, glad for the excuse to look away. Donovan had arrived. Some of the tension in her shoulders released.

“Problem?” Dirk asked.

“No.” She turned to Dirk and the detective. “Was this man at the restaurant yesterday when the hoodoo hit man was killed?” If he was, they could stop this. Find the other wealthy New Orleans locals who'd been there, set up protection...

“No,” Short said. “I checked on the way over. It was a good idea though.”

“What restaurant?” the Chief asked. Long explained in a low voice.

“And the tarot cards?” Short asked. “What do they mean?”

“In this case, I suspect they represent the planets, sun and moon. When used in Magic, tarot cards can be used to create a miniature altar of sorts. Each card has a correspondence with a planet or sign in the zodiac. In this case, the killer used only cards from the Major Arcana, and these all represent planets.”

“I don't get it,” Dirk said.

Dark magic coiled around her, crept up her spine, curled around her throat. It seemed to come from everywhere, the floor, the walls, the table, the guillotine. Dark magic had been done here, tar seeping into the foundations of the house, tentacles dragging at her.

The dog howled.

Her barrier wasn’t protecting her. Riga’s chest tightened, throat thickening. A barrier was simple magic. She shouldn't have to work to keep it in place.

She swallowed her rising gorge. “I don't understand why he did it either. I'm just telling you what they mean. The cards selected all represent planets. For example, the Tower card represents Mars, which corresponds to the qualities of aggression, action, initiative. Astrological magic like this dates back to the Renaissance. Beyond, actually. Magicians have been looking to the heavens for guidance and inspiration since the dawn of recorded history.” Babbling. But she needed to show value if they were going to keep her in the loop. The objects in the hall were the sort of things a dark magician might keep. “Have you found evidence that this man was involved in the occult?”

“No magic wands yet,” the chief said.

“What about daggers? Daggers, or athames, can be used for the same purpose.”

He sighed. “This guy collected all sorts of weird crap. I guess that's what happens when you don't have to work for a living.”

“Mind if I look around the rest of the house?” she asked.

“As long as you don't touch anything and don't go alone.” He jerked his chin toward Long, who nodded.

She darted a glance at the body beside the guillotine, shuddered, and hurried from the room. The relief was immediate, a pressure dropping from her shoulders. But the cursed objects in the hallway pulled, an underlying nausea.

“What are we looking for?” Long asked.

“Evidence that this victim was a magical practitioner.”

Dirk clomped behind them. “Why do you think he would be?”

“The objects in the curio cabinet, the guillotine – they're not occult, but—”

“But the guy was bent.” Dirk's eyes narrowed, and she imagined him thinking up a new one-liner for the occasion. “You lie down with the devil, you wake up in hell,” he muttered, as if trying it out.

Riga stumbled into a TV room. The couches were white, curving. A zebra-print carpet covered the hardwood floor. She caught a flash of the carpet rolled back, a chalk circle and pentagram on the floor. People holding candles, wearing hooded, black robes.

Kneeling, Riga flipped the carpet back.

The floor was clean.

Dirk laughed. “No magic wand there, either.”

And she didn't feel dark magic, just that miasma from the cursed objects in the house. If her vision had been correct, she should have felt traces of the ceremony.

A long howl pierced the air, thumping, a crash. A giant dog charged into the room, snarling, a line of fur on its back raised. Its hair was short and red. Its lips pulled back, revealing long, white canines.

Dirk leapt backward. “Nice doggy.”

The detective drew his gun.

“DOWN,” Riga said.

The dog dropped to the carpet, whimpering.

Slowly, Long lowered his gun. “Are you a dog whisperer too?”

A uniformed cop, red-faced and puffing, ran into the room, gun drawn. “He got away from me. He...” He stared at the dog. “Is that the same dog?”

Riga stood. “Come.”

The animal rose. Legs shaking, head and tail low, he walked to her, pressed the top of his head against her hip.

She ruffled his fur. “The victim's dog?”

“Yeah,” the uniform huffed. “We think so. He was locked in the kitchen.”

“A witness to your master's murder, and now your house is full of strangers. I'd say that's a good reason to be upset.” She stroked its neck, and the dog's trembling subsided.

“I'll take him.” The cop looped his beefy fingers through the dog's collar and led him out the door.

“Well, that was exciting,” Dirk said. “What next?”

She moved to a glass-fronted cabinet and stretched her hand to it.

“No touching,” Long said.

Riga grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck. She knew better.

The detective snapped on a pair of gloves. “Allow me.” Opening the cabinets, he revealed rows of paperbacks. Mary Shelley. Conan Doyle. Laurence Durrell.

“No
Necromancy for Dummies
?” Dirk braced his hands on his knees and bent, watching the detective.

“Looks like ordinary stuff.” Long ran gloved hands along the book's spines, tilted one forward, looked behind it, put it back. He picked up a rusted, two-pronged implement. “What's this for?”

Her head spun. Despair and fear and pain washed through her. She had to get out. Her magical barricade wasn't holding. It should have been simple, but she couldn't focus.

Dirk peered at the instrument. “I think I saw something like that in the London Dungeon. It was used for torture.”

She tried to tell them to put it away, but the words clotted her throat. She trembled.

Out, out, out.

And then the sense of sliding doors, reality shifting beneath her. A lurch, a pull. Her knees buckled, hit cold brick. She gasped, stared at her hands spread wide, at the narrow bands of moss between the bricks. A warm breeze tickled the back of her neck. Water splashed nearby.

She looked up. She was on all fours in a walled garden. Lights from a gray-painted house lit the garden, dim in the twilight. A long shadow slanted from a fountain at the convergence of four brick paths.

Hannah's grandfather sat on its ledge, mouth open, staring, a sandwich in his hand. “Well,” he said. “That was unexpected.”

She lurched to standing, glancing around. She'd been in the air-conditioned house, and then... Beads of sweat broke upon her brow. Had she blacked out? “Wh— what are you doing here?”

“Working. This may come as a surprise, but being a caretaker in a cemetery doesn't exactly set a body up for retirement. What are you doing here?”

“I think... escaping.”

“It's not a bad place for that.” He reached for something small and flat beside him, tossed it to her.

She caught it with two hands, fumbling in the darkened garden. It was a rusted skeleton key, clotted with dirt. She brushed it off.

“Found it while I was digging in the garden,” he said.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

He rose slowly, his joints cracking. “Next time, use a key, girl!” He shambled past her. “Bustin' in like you own the place. Gate's that a-way.” He pointed toward a wrought iron gate.

Blue and red lights flashed through it. The murder victim's house loomed next door. Techno music thumped from Bourbon Street, several blocks away.

Riga pocketed the key. Dazed, she walked to the gate and paused, one hand on the latch. She checked her watch. Riga wasn't sure what time she'd first gone inside the crime scene and didn't know how much time had elapsed since she'd “left.” The sun dipped low on the horizon, its beams scalding the mansard rooftops. So it couldn't have been long – a few moments, at most.

She scrubbed her hands across her face. Lost time? A fairy abduction? Had she passed out? Lost her mind and somehow wandered out here? But she was alone, and if she'd left through the front door, Ash would surely have followed.

The only entrances to the garden were the gate and the patio doors from the neighboring house. No entrance from the Tuscan-colored house next door, where a man lay, decapitated by his own guillotine.

She stepped outside, letting the garden gate squeal shut behind her.

Slowly, she walked back to the murder house. Ash, arms folded across his broad chest, stood beside Sam and Wolfe on the walk outside. The
Mean Streets
team was nowhere in sight.

The closer Riga got to the house, the more she felt she was pushing through molasses, sticky, heavy, sweet. “Hi, guys.” Her voice cracked.

Sam jerked, spun. “Riga! Where's Dirk? What happened in there?”

Wolfe whirled, pressed the video camera to his eye. A red light flashed on the machine.

“I was wrong,” she said. “I can't handle it. I need to go back to the hotel.”

“You don't look so good.” Angus's moon face crinkled. “I can take you back to the hotel if you want.”

“Whoa,” Sam said. “First we need a debrief.”

“I'll tell you everything,” she said. “Later. Please.”

“I guess we can do that.” Sam's lips pursed. “What's—”

A howl broke the still air. The dog burst from the front door and flew at Riga, knocking her to the ground.

Something cracked, shattered.

“Sniper!” Ash bellowed, grabbing Riga by the collar of her blouse. He pitched her onto her back behind a low hedge. “Everyone down.” He kicked over a concrete bench. It leaned against the box hedge, forming a shield. Ash flattened himself on top of her.

She couldn't draw breath. His weight crushed the air from her lungs. She gripped his shoulders. The dog lay beside them both, its brown eyes looking worried.

Ash raised himself slightly off her, and Riga sucked in a gulp of air.

“If I tell you not to move, will you stay here?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She gasped. “What—”

“Stay here.” Ash moved, swift, silent, a wraith.

She rolled to her side, trying to track his movements, but he disappeared from her line of sight. Her pulse sped, her breath coming in short gasps. A sniper?

The dog nudged her shoulder. She looped her arm over him.

“Riga?” Sam called.

“I'm fine.” Her voice trembled. “You?”

“We're okay. Wolfe, go to her.”

“No,” she said. “Don't move.” Turning her head, she stared at the roots of the box hedge digging into the soft earth.

Wolfe stuck his head around the corner of the shrubbery. He lurched toward her in an awkward three-point crawl, one hand still bracing the camera on his shoulder and eye. “What's going on?”

Ash extended his hand to Riga, pulling her upright. A sliver of moon crested the two-story home across the street. The flashing blue and red lights from the police cars painted the street.

“He got away,” Ash said.

Cops strode about, full of purpose.

Long approached them. “See anything?”

She rested her hand on the dog, panting beside her. “No, but Wolfe was filming. He may have some footage.”

“What were you doing outside?” he asked.

“Just getting some air, talking to the crew.”

Another cop knelt beside the doorframe and flicked open a pocket knife.

Detective Short trotted from the house, and the cop by the door pointed with the tip of his knife. Craning his neck, Short bent, running his thumb over the scarred doorway.

Fists clenched, Dirk plowed out the front door and paused. His cameraman scuttled forward.

“It's bad in there.” Dirk shook his head. “The vic was an occultist. You lay down with the devil...” He trailed off, noticed the activity around him, the cop interviewing Riga. His eyes narrowed.

“Which one is Wolfe?” the cop asked her.

She pointed, and the cop moved off.

Dirk strode down the steps to her. “What the hell's going on? One minute you’re in the house, I turn around and you're gone.”

“I'm sorry. I—”

“Bull. You'll do anything for attention. First you worm your way onto my show. Then you sneak out of the house just in time for someone to take a shot at you. Don't think we can't see how convenient that is.”

Riga's voice dropped to sub-zero. “Convenient?”

“You find the hoodoo guy's body. You get into the investigation, and now someone fires a shot when you just happen to wander outside?”

“What exactly are you accusing me of?”

The activity around them stilled. Eyes turned toward them.

Dirk stepped close enough for her to feel the heat from his body. “You're showboating, and you're playing games with a crime scene. It's illegal, lady.”

“You're delusional.”

“Just remember. You lay down with the devil, you wake up in hell.” He turned on his heel and stomped into the house.

“I knew he'd get that line in somewhere,” she muttered.

Long pulled her aside, and his questioning grew pointed. Her crew members loitered on the sidewalk, out of earshot, shifting impatiently, ignored by the police. It was full dark by the time the cops, suspicious and angry, said they could go.

Riga and the
Encounters
crew strolled down the street, Wolfe walking backwards to capture her image.

Ash placed his hand on the small of her back, pressing her to hurry, but it only made her want to slow. Clenching her jaw, she told herself not to be petty.

The dog pressed against her hip, as if loath to lose contact. She'd taken the animal from the scene, and no one had argued.