| |
“I warned you, Soleil possesses Stygian magic, as does Jerome,” Magda said, and Penelope tried to stifle a giggle.
“More evidence the grimoire isn’t hers, because she doesn’t need a potion to summon a demon or cause possession,” Penelope said.
“Hell, she doesn’t really need a spell to do it, either. If she just thinks too hard about it, demons are forced into our plane. It’s been a problem while teaching her to use her magic as of late. As I told you last night, if Soleil were summoning demons, everyone would know,” Magda told him with a frigid, disapproving tone.
“And I told you, she would not use conventional methods if she was trying to hide it.” Miguel snapped back.
“Yeah right, that would require her to put effort into discovering unconventional methods for summoning demons,” Magda replied in the same tone. “Everyone in the investigations department worked with her when they were dealing with the demon boxes two years ago, and when they were dealing with the genetically engineered cambion last year, and they all said the same thing. Soleil isn’t involved.”
“Involved in what?” I asked, realizing there must be more going on than a break-in at my office and Penelope’s coven being taken hostage. No one answered me, and Miguel intensified his glare. “That stony silence would work better if Jerome hadn’t been spending time with my uncle. You may not want to tell me, but you told Jerome just now when you thought about it and tried to make your face passive or neutral and he’ll tell me later,” I said. Jerome gave a single head nod.
“Shit,” Miguel muttered, and we began walking again. Someone had been kind enough to turn off the possession detectors and they’d stopped screeching, as had the audio instructions telling us we were supposed to be evacuating the building and how to do so in an orderly manner. He tried to separate me and Jerome and place each of us in interview rooms, but Magda reminded him Jerome might not look like it, but he was only sixteen and if I wasn’t with him, one of his grandparents would need to be called, and Miguel didn’t want to deal with my mom or Raphael while he interviewed Jerome. Miguel then tried to kick Magda and Penelope out of the interview, and both stayed put and flat out refused to leave. Penelope, like Magda, worked for the AESPCA, albeit neither of them in investigations. Annoyed, Miguel said he guessed he should consider himself lucky Camilla wasn’t also here causing a scene. I volunteered to call her again and get her to join us if he wanted, and he said something about preferring to herd cats.
He questioned me for about two hours, most of it about the time I had caused a temporary possession of my sister’s ex-husband, who was currently sitting in prison. I’d put a time limit on that possession of 24 hours. After the time was up, the possession ended without the need of an exorcist. Actually, they’d tried exorcism before the time limit ended and couldn’t force the demon out. However, this specific line of questioning bothered me—what exactly was Miguel Smith getting at?
“Look, as fun as this trip down memory lane is, what’s the point? I served my time, paid my fine, and did community service,” I interrupted.
“During that robbery with the statue imbued with magic the insurance company has you investigating, the homeowners were home and were temporarily possessed,” Jerome replied. “But like what you did, there was a time limit on the possession, and they couldn’t exorcise the homeowners before it wore off.”
“Oh, holy hell!” I squeaked. “That’s...” I blinked rapidly a few times.
“We’ve been through all the records we have on demonic possession and there is only one instance of demonic possession having a time limit,” Miguel said.
“Then there was the weird break-in at our office,” I said. “No wonder you suspect me, contrary to what everyone is telling you about me,” I said, and Miguel had a moment of something strange happening to his face. “However, if I had attempted a mass possession, it would have succeeded,” I added. “Mass possession would be super easy for me.”
“Soleil, shut up,” Magda said smoothly.
“Okay, let me reword it. It would not have been an attempt at a mass possession, it would have succeeded, and yes, it would have been easy. But I would have needed to eat an entire buffet afterwards,” I said. Magic was energy and to make energy in living things required an intake of calories. The bigger the magic, the more calories needed by the magic user.
“Also, while Soleil has a working relationship with demons, even most of the hell princes, she’s not a huge fan of possession. Possession causes the possessed physical, mental, and emotional injury. Soleil can’t watch Disney movies without bawling and she felt guilty for causing her ex-brother-in-law to be possessed after he cut off his daughter’s wings, which is incredibly painful. There’s no way she could cause a mass possession and live with herself afterward,” Jerome said.
“And her family is rich, there’s no reason for her to cause possession to commit a burglary,” Penelope added.
“I think you need to ask her where she was during all three,” Magda said.
“Three?” I raised an eyebrow at Miguel.
“Yes, there have been three robberies where possession was used to control the homeowners,” Miguel said.
“All of them magical artifacts?” I asked. Miguel let out a long, slow, loud sigh. “Huh, Magda Red let out a similar sigh the first time she suspected me of a crime and interviewed me over it.”
“Yes, it was a sigh that meant she could probably be useful to the investigation even though I wasn’t positive she wasn’t still involved.” Magda smiled at me.
“I have that unfortunate effect on people,” I admitted. “I promise that isn’t my grimoire and I’ve never seen it before today. I’ll swear to it with truth spells or whatever. I can help with your investigation. I can probably summon the demons that have been used and allow you to question them about who has been summoning them to do the time-limit possessions. They might even have information on the how.” As I finished, Miguel sighed again, just as loud and just as long.
“Fuck, I can’t even consider that,” Miguel said.
“Sure, you can,” I said. “I can be an asset, no one knows more about demonic possession than I do. If the demon Glees is correct, someone is trying to do a mass summoning.”
“Demons lie,” Miguel said.
“Yes, they do, a lot,” I said.
“But they can’t lie to Soleil, it is one of her Stygian powers,” Jerome said.
“Fuck!” I said as a thought passed through my mind. “So, if they are using possession to rob magical artifacts from homeowners, the mass summoning is probably an attempt to distract from something similar. Isn’t there a museum exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum on Cursed Objects right now?” I asked.
“Yes,” Magda said.
“And the grimoire had a potion for a mass summoning that they wanted Melody to make,” Penelope said.
“Where the fuck did they get a potion for a mass summoning?” I exclaimed. The question was mostly rhetorical.
“This grimoire,” Jerome said, nodding at the book still wrapped in the evidence bag with magical shielding.
“How did it end up in that grimoire though? That’s the real question. I would never summon a demon using a potion. Not once have I even considered it. I know summoning potions exist because I’ve exorcized a few possessions caused by them, but wow.” I mostly muttered the last sentence and let the wow trail off. Fan-fucking-tabulous, I thought to myself, and put my head on the table.
“If you let Jerome examine the grimoire, he might be able to tell you something about the magic in it,” Magda said.
“What?!” Miguel exclaimed, looking at her.
“There’s no magical resource on the planet like that kid,” Magda said. “He can sense magic that even our magical empaths can’t. And he’s a mimic, so if there are spells on it, he can mimic them as well as track their source.”
“Wait, wait, I may not be able to track their source,” Jerome protested. “The most I can be sure of, is that I can mimic the spells and be able to give a general idea what kind of magic it is. However, if it’s like the break-in at our office, the magic was predominantly from potions, and while I can tell you which sort of supernatural made the potions, it may not be much help.”
“I can’t believe I am doing this,” Miguel said as he slid the bag over to Jerome. “I can’t leave you alone with the book or anything, though. I can ask everyone to leave the room if having them here will interfere.”
“No,” Jerome said, shaking his head. “It won’t.” He took the bag and opened it. Then I heard his breath catch and watched as he stopped breathing. I’d seen him do this before, his own magic interfered more with the investigative side than other people’s. I wasn’t sure why holding his breath made the magic work better, I just knew he said it did. Carefully, he slid the book out of the bag and left it closed in front of him on the table. He put his hand on it, and suddenly the room was alive with colors. Miguel Smith and the deputy were the only ones that had never seen this particular trick before, and I heard both of them gasp in wonder. The ribbons of moving magic were color coded for each person. Jerome opened the cover of the book and magic he’d colored a charcoal grey seeped into the air.
“Huh,” Jerome said as he flipped the pages, sending more dark colored magic shimmering into the air. “It has a similar spell to the one I cast on Soleil’s grimoire that records her thoughts. But this one is potion based and the potion was made by an angel with a dash of glamour from a member of the fey.” He closed the book and put it back in the bag.
“Angel magic like Soleil’s?” Miguel asked.
“No, it’s different, very different. It’s not like any angel magic I’ve run across before. It might be that the person is part angel and part fairy, maybe.” Jerome said. “It’s weird. If it had been Soleil’s magic, it would have shown up the same color as Soleil’s, but it’s different.”
“You said the spell was similar to what you had cast on Soleil’s grimoire, what did you mean?” Penelope asked.
“It records Soleil’s thoughts,” Jerome said. “But it’s a potion and it’s recording way more of her thoughts than my spell. The spell I cast specifically records her thoughts about writing things in her grimoire, meaning if she thinks ‘I should write this down’ it starts writing things down, but this is recording all her thoughts.” Miguel frowned and took the bag with the book back from in front of Jerome and opened the book again. He slowly flipped the pages, examining them. About halfway through the book, words were appearing on the page. Words about the investigation.
“Oh shit,” I breathed, and the words appeared on the page. “Still not mine,” I added after a moment. The words appeared on the page.
“This is a memory recording potion and it’s among the list of restricted use potions,” Penelope said. “You aren’t walking into a store and buying this.”
“But it’s not forbidden,” I said.
“No, it’s not forbidden, you can get one made special, but you have to sign a bunch of waivers before you can buy it. That information is logged by the AESPCA, and the creation of this potion is restricted to being made by the AESPCA. Meaning if a store wants to sell it, they have to get it from us. We put a special clause in it, and if it’s consumed by someone other than the purchaser, the magic dies and it doesn’t work.”
“Meaning we have a black-market potion maker who is also selling them,” Magda said. I blinked at them for a full minute. On the page in front of Miguel, the words “What the fuck is a black-market potions maker?” appeared on the paper.
“That’s creepy. Jerome, can you stop it?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Jerome said with a grimace. A string of swear words appeared on the page.
“Yeah, that needs to stop,” I said. I had definitely thought the words on the paper. “So, I did think about mass summoning potions as well as regular summoning potions last night,” I said. “But not until after Magda left my house around 2 a.m.”
“And we were interrupted around 4 a.m.,” Penelope said.
“Why did your meeting last so long?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“We were trying to perfect a protection spell,” Penelope said, and blushed. “We were about to give up and I was going to call Jerome today to help us,” she admitted sheepishly. “I would have had to get permission first, but I could have gotten it.” Penelope’s coven was among the most powerful in the country and sometimes Jerome assisted them, beefing up their magic even more.
“That’s a bit cagey,” I said slowly.
“We are putting new spells around this building,” Penelope said.
“Oh,” I nodded slowly. “Gotcha.”
Miguel turned his attention to Penelope. I wasn’t entirely sure what Penelope did for the AESPCA. I didn’t even know her job title, let alone job description.
“You were going to use Jerome even after the break-in?” Miguel asked.
“Yes. You may think Soleil and possibly Jerome are involved in something nefarious, but you’re alone in that opinion. As head of Magical Protection of the AESPCA, I trust Jerome implicitly, Soleil too. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make them invisible to the possession detectors, but it’s been slow going.” Words appeared on the page in front of Miguel, and Jerome helpfully projected the words onto the wall for everyone to read. It said, ‘huh, I always wondered what she did.’
“Thanks kid, now I feel like a moron, can you please set your mind to breaking the connection and not to projecting my thoughts for everyone to read?” The phrase ’Fucking really!!’ appeared under the first line on the wall. I glared at him, and he smiled back.
“I also oversee the creation of dangerous potions for resale.” Penelope smiled at me. “You really do swear a great deal in your head.”
“Jerome!” I said sternly as another string of swear words appeared on the wall. Jerome smiled and the words disappeared. A moment later, I felt something change. It was internal, which was weird as fuck, but my thought didn’t appear on the page in front of Miguel Smith.