As upscale art and antique auction houses went, Linzer’s of Charleston was often mentioned in the same rarefied circles as Sotheby’s and Christy’s. Fine art, old silver, and furniture from makers like Chippendale or Hepplewhite graced the full-color pages of the catalog it sent out several times a year to entice well-heeled bidders.
“We aren’t welcome here.” Teag adjusted his tie for the third time in ten minutes and glanced around the room. Many of the notable items that would be featured in the afternoon auction were on display—under heavy guard—so that potential buyers could get an up-close view.
“That’s not exactly true,” I replied, although I had also felt the frosty glare of the auction house’s owner when we walked in. “Art Linzer never told us not to attend. Hell, he’d love it if we bought something. He just didn’t want me to ‘preview’ any of his items.”
“God forbid he should lose a sale and protect someone from a cursed heirloom,” Teag muttered. He glanced at me. “Speaking of which—you picking up any vibes?”
Through trial and error, and some spectacularly embarrassing incidents, I’ve learned how to shutter my psychometry so that I don’t pick up resonance unless it’s especially strong. Fortunately, most things—even very old items—don’t have the powerful memories or traces of magic that make my gift perk up and take notice.
Right now, the elite crowd milling around the preview room caught my attention more than the items for sale. I smiled and nodded or greeted many of the same people who were at the ill-fated Kettinger House event last week or that I recognized from other galas for the Archive or Lowcountry Museum. Some were regular customers at Trifles and Folly, using us to divest themselves of antiques or heirlooms that lacked the providence or price point to attract the attention of the Linzer auction. Teag and I weren’t in the same financial strata as this crowd personally, but we served that clientele. And Sorren—well, immortality is good for acquiring wealth. Unfortunately, never appearing to age might be a dead giveaway that he was undead, so he left the socializing to us.
“I’m not getting much beyond the usual low hum old stuff usually gives off,” I murmured. “A few images and whispers, a bit of an old song or two, but nothing strong or dangerous.”
“This isn’t everything,” Teag replied, leaning toward me so he could speak almost directly into my ear. “There are a couple of very expensive pieces they didn’t put on display. Not after what happened to that obsidian bowl.”
I could only imagine how much Art Linzer hated having his organization’s name appear in anything less than glowing terms, but the report of the theft of a polished obsidian bowl that had belonged to a notable Charleston family did make the news. I guessed the police released the information to put pressure on the thief, making it harder to unload a hot item to buyers who could not claim to be unaware. The theft also explained the presence of enough armed guards to protect the president, whom I was pretty sure wasn’t likely to show up for the sale.
I hadn’t counted on doing any magic here, beyond my psychometry, but I’d learned to be prepared. My athame—made from the handle of my grandmother’s wooden spoon, a cherished keepsake—was in my purse, along with an old ratty dog collar that called my spirit protector, the ghost of my late golden retriever, Bo. I wore an agate necklace for its protective properties and had loose salt in my pockets, just in case. I knew Teag had several weapons—magical and mundane—hidden beneath his blazer as well. Just in case, I accessorize with an antique walking stick that had belonged to Sorren’s maker, Alard. Like my athame, the walking stick enabled me to focus my magic for defense.
The crowd politely moved around the display room, studying the objects coming up for bid, and I took note of the overlap in guests between this event and the last one. Neither Mona Ridenhaus—the lady in the red suit with the pancaked Porsche—nor the other drivers of the totaled cars were among those sipping wine and checking off items on their bidding lists. Then again, they probably needed their spare cash to repair or replace their cars. Some of the familiar faces were such fixtures at the city’s dinners and fundraisers that I wondered if it was the way the upper crust avoided ever having to eat at home. The Hitchcock blonde who first spotted the Captain’s ghost was there, on the arm of a good-looking man whose body language suggested “friend” instead of “partner.”
I caught a glimpse of auburn hair and turned, expecting to see the mystery man, but when I looked, he wasn’t anywhere in sight. A few other people drew my gaze. One very thin, hawk-faced older man had stood staring at the same antique French clock since we arrived, with such a look of longing that I wanted to suggest he and the clock just get a room. A man and a woman whose wardrobe and attitude screamed “power couple” spoke in whispers to each other in front of a Nineteenth-century landscape painting that didn’t hold any appeal to me at all but looked likely to go home with them when the bidding was done.
Another woman looked like a professional buyer, perhaps for an interior designer. She jotted down notes as she moved around the room, zeroing in on particular objects. Unlike the power couple or the red suit woman at the gala, the buyer’s dress and jacket were expensive but low-key, suggesting secure enough status to no longer need to impress anyone.
The chime of a bell called us all to the main room, where the bidding was about to start. Teag and I took places in the back row so we could watch the crowd, and I clasped my hands in my lap, so I didn’t scratch my nose and accidentally signal the auctioneer to register a bid. Teag looked equally nervous, and I knew we both wished we could change into the more comfortable clothing we usually wore at the shop.
Despite the high ticket items, the bidding was furious, and it was easy to get caught up in the drama as competitors one-upped each other, driving the prices higher and higher. I found myself rooting for total strangers, picking a “winner” in each round, like betting on a horse race. When “my” bidder won, I found myself grinning like I shared in the victory, and when my favorite lost, the stab of disappointment felt personal.
“That’s three times now,” Teag murmured.
I jolted out of my vicarious bidding war and frowned. “Three?”
He nodded toward the Buyer woman, whose scowl suggested deep frustration. “She’s been outbid on every single item, always at the last minute.”
I shrugged. “There’s always a winner and usually multiple losers. Lots of people get shut down.”
Teag shook his head. “It feels…wrong. There’s enough money at stake here, do you think someone’s resorted to heading off the competition?”
We had certainly seen people cursed for much less expensive reasons. “Could be. Or maybe she’s just not good at bidding.”
Teag gave me a guilty grin. “I snapped a picture of her and put it on Facebook—the facial recognition tag gave me her name. That’s Maria Nevin, the interior designer and decorator. Does all the custom shopping for her very wealthy clients. She’s such a regular at this auction I’m surprised she doesn’t have her own parking space out front.”
I started paying attention and quickly realized Teag was right. In every bid Nevin made, she and her rival would be neck-and-neck until the final seconds, when someone else put in such a large increase that she had to let it go. Maybe there was something to his hex idea.
“Hey, he’s here.” Teag followed my gaze and saw the guy with the beard from the gala. “Can you see if you can get his name too?”
Teag reached for his phone and maneuvered to be able to get a stealthy photo, but when we looked back again, the man was gone.
I lost my patience with the auction, wishing I could easily slip out to track the man from the gala but staying where I was to avoid making a scene. Nevin’s bidding had grown more determined—nearly desperate—and I wondered if she had a major commission riding on her success in bringing back pieces a client coveted. Getting shut out might damage her business, and it certainly wouldn’t do good things for her reputation. The idea of a hex seemed more and more likely.
I glanced at the time and then at the audition book that listed the items in order of their appearance. We only had a couple more pieces to go, and I was antsy.
Then they brought out the next object, and I felt my stomach drop. The oil painting of a staggering beautiful young man was completely at odds with the cold, dark malice I felt rolling off of it. The sense of evil hit me like a physical blow, and I couldn’t believe that even the mundanes in the audience were oblivious. I glanced around. Clearly, some of the crowd had enough latent sensitivity or strong intuition to recoil. Beside me, Teag tensed as if ready to fight.
We had seen paintings like that before, portraits of fallen angels and Nephilim that served as a portal for the unholy creatures to step out of the portrait and into the real world.
“Silver frame,” Teag murmured. “Think it’s warded to keep him contained.”
“That only lasts until the new owner decides to have it reframed,” I replied. “We’ve got to either buy it or stop the sale.”
“The next item is our surprise unveiling,” Art Linzer announced. His tone tried for excited and jovial, but I picked up an undercurrent of uneasiness, even in the master showman. “The artist is unknown, and the work is unsigned, but paintings by this master have turned up now and again in galleries, even here in Charleston.”
I remembered a larger, similar painting from an exhibit at the Archive that set several Nephilim loose on the city and almost brought about a real, literal Judgment Day with all the pissed-off heavenly host trimmings. That had been a bitch and a half to shut down, and it had taken all that Teag, Sorren, and I had to do it—plus the help of a bunch of friends with some considerable combined magic mojo.
We were not going to do that again.
“I’ll bid on it,” I hissed. “Figure out how to cause a distraction.” Teag slipped out of the row as Linzer droned on for another few minutes about the painting’s qualities. Then he opened the bidding, naming a steep minimum price.
Maria Nevin’s hand went up immediately. I raised mine to counter, but Linzer glared at me. “I’m sorry, Ms. Kincaide, but sales are only open for registered bidders,” he chided.
I called out a figure several thousand dollars higher than Nevin’s bid, knowing Sorren would cover it. Linzer blanched. Much as he liked his rules and disliked Trifles and Folly, money was money.
Before he could speak, Nevin’s upped the bid, and I saw in the set of her chin that after a day full of losing out, she was determined to win this one—come hell or high water.
I couldn’t speak to the “high water,” but the hell part was a definite possibility if the fallen angel with the sinfully sexy smirk got loose from his painted prison.
Crossing my fingers, I called out a higher number. Nevin looked daggers at me, and Linzer’s expression suggested sudden stomach problems. Nevin topped my bid, and I went higher, trying not to let my voice shake. Sorren would understand. But I was still out on a limb and going farther with every minute.
Nevin jumped to her feet, waving her numbered plastic paddle like a badge of legitimacy, and instead of edging up a little at a time, she jumped the number up by half and gave me a defiant glare, daring me to best her.
I opened my mouth—and just then, the lights went out, plunging the windowless room into complete darkness. Gasps and curses filled the silence. The emergency lights did not kick on.
A few seconds later, the burglar alarm did.
Teag suddenly appeared in the doorway, framed by the only light. “This way!” he shouted, motioning urgently. I hung back in the shadows, watching as the others filed to the door, keeping an eye out for Art Linzer. I circled back around toward the dais where the cursed painting still sat on its easel. As the last few people moved toward the door, I shook the dog collar, calling to my ghostly protector.
“Fetch!” I murmured, pretending to throw a ball, and Bo went bounding in the direction of the doorway, causing the stragglers to cry out in alarm as a ninety-pound glowing translucent dog came galloping toward them. He was friendly to a fault, but they didn’t know that as he bore down on them, with massive paws and a wide-open, toothy grin. They screamed, and while their attention was on Bo and scrambling out the door, I focused my magic, concentrated on my target, and sent a stream of blue fire from the walking stick that hit the Nephilim painting square on.
Flames wreathed the painting, but hell was always the natural habitat of the portrait’s subject. I blocked out the alarms and the shouting from outside the room and kept my eyes on the fallen angel. He turned to face me, recognizing a threat. His gaze met mine, and his come-hither smile turned to a serial killer smirk. The Nephilim saw me, although the panicked patrons didn’t since I still hid in the shadows. And I knew that if he and I ever met again, there would be hell to pay.
Playing his part to the hilt, Teag pushed Linzer and the other stragglers aside. “Cassidy!” he shouted, panic thick in his voice. “Oh God, where is she?”
That was my cue to rush back to the row where we’d been sitting and collapse on the floor before someone turned the lights back on.
Smoke filled the room, and fire alarms blared. The painting burned fast, though its silver frame remained intact, suggesting magical reinforcement. Faking it to the max, I leaned heavily on Teag, who wrapped an arm around my waist to support me as I staggered out, coughing and blinking as if I had been overcome.
“There’s a fire in there,” I croaked, “The painting just went up—whoosh—and then the smoke—” I coughed and gagged, trying to balance believable with overdone, and it must have been enough for the paramedics because one of them untangled me from Teag’s grip and put an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose.
Teag hovered, playing the worried colleague. I didn’t miss the fact that he positioned himself to watch the door to the auction suite, just in case the Nephilim survived the fire.
For the second time in as many weeks, Teag and I ended up giving our statements to the police at a high society soiree gone horribly wrong. At this rate, our social calendar was going to be nonexistent. The only saving grace was that many of the other guests had also been at both unlucky events, so the odds of being blackballed for our mere presence was slim.
After the paramedics cleared me, I watched the cops take statements from everyone else. The auburn-haired stranger and the Hitchcock blonde had vanished. Maria Nevin, however, looked ready to take someone apart with her perfectly manicured nails. Yet beneath her rage, I caught a glimpse of fear and desperation and decided there was more here than met the eye.
Teag and I stopped for coffee at the Honeysuckle Café on our way back to the shop, where our assistant, Maggie, had been in charge while we were gone. Maggie has a wardrobe from Woodstock and a head for business, and the retired schoolteacher is tough as nails despite her earth mother exterior. She looked up worriedly as we entered, smelling trouble—or probably, smoke.
“What happened to you?” she fussed, and I realized Teag and I both had streaks of ash on our faces and clothing, and we probably reeked from the fire.
“Do you remember those fallen angel paintings?” I asked, my voice a husky rasp despite the hot tea with honey.
Maggie’s expression hardened to a no-nonsense glare. “Dear God, don’t tell me they’re back!”
“Not anymore,” Teag replied. “A new painting came up for auction, and we took care of it.”
Maggie gave a curt nod. “Good. We don’t need more of that nonsense.” She frowned as we moved to take up our usual places behind the counter.
“I’ve got the front,” she said, making a scooting gesture for us to go into the back. “It’s been slow all day. Nothing I can’t handle. I’m betting you have things you need to do. So go do them.” She grinned. “I’ll holler if I need you.”
“You’re the best, Maggie,” I said gratefully as I went into the small kitchen that served as our break room. Teag followed and joined me as we sat down at the worn Formica-topped table. As soon as he finished his drink, Teag went to the office and brought back his laptop.
“I want to look into our unlucky bidder and dig a little deeper on Mona with the smashed car,” he said. Once Teag dives in, no records are safe, firewalls and security be damned. I’m just glad he’s on our side.
“Let’s look a little more closely at the fan that was stolen and the painting,” I suggested, wondering how long it would take to get the tang of smoke out of my nostrils and throat. “I just wish we could get a fix on that stranger with the beard. It can’t be a coincidence that he’s been at both incidents—and vanished before anyone could talk to him.
While Teag dug around the dark corners of the internet, I texted Sorren with an update, assuring him we were both safe but filling him in on the incident. His prompt reply surprised me, and I stared at my phone for a moment until Teag looked up.
“What?”
“Sorren decided to stop by Boston on his way here,” I reported. I knew he had a new team of associates and a new store in that city after last year’s attack, but it would be hard to replace a location that had been open even longer than Trifles and Folly’s nearly 350 years.
“He’s probably worried that there will turn out to be a connection,” Teag said, going back to his hacking. “You know he takes what happened personally, and he’d known that team for a long time. He’s still grieving.”
I did not envy Sorren his immortality. I remembered the pain of burying my grandparents and the friends I’d lost along the way. The thought of caring and then losing people whose mortal lifespans would seem so brief terrified me, yet Sorren continued to make himself vulnerable. He told me once that enduring the pain was worse than losing what remained of his humanity if he no longer risked caring. I’d seen the way he protected Teag and me—and our other mortal allies. Living forever wasn’t for the faint of heart.
“Got something,” Teag said after a few minutes of silence. “The fan originally came from Massachusetts. It’s old enough to have a long provenance, but it was originally owned by people who lived in Haven Harbor—descendants of accused witches who fled the Salem trials back in the 1600s.”
I let out a low whistle. “Seriously? So were the owners themselves witches?”
Teag shrugged. “Don’t know. It’s changed hands a lot—it’s been a long time. The fan belonged to a merchant’s wife, and it got passed down from mother to daughter to the wife of Captain Kettinger, who was a many-times great-granddaughter,” Teag said, leaning back in his chair.
“Okay,” I said slowly, thinking about the ramifications. “That picture of the fan definitely showed magical inscriptions on the bone ribs, and old magic is strong magic.”
“So you’re thinking whoever stole the fan knew what he or she was taking.”
I nodded. “Absolutely. It’s too much of a coincidence. If the thief wanted something valuable, there were other pieces in those boxes worth a lot more.” I shook my head. “Someone took the fan deliberately. Now the question is—was it for the magic or the connection to Salem?”
“What about the painting? It didn’t get stolen.”
“Could you find anything out about it? Does it have a Salem connection?”
Teag’s fingers moved so fast on the keyboard they nearly blurred. He shook his head. “Nope. Came from a private collection in Cleveland. No Massachusetts provenance at all.” He frowned. “Hold up. What’s this?”
I couldn’t help leaning forward, although the back of the computer case hid the screen from me. “That piece that was stolen from Linzer’s before it could go up for auction,” Teag said, scanning his screen. “The obsidian bowl. They still have no idea how it vanished—all the doors were locked, and none of the alarms went off. But—hold onto your hula hoop—this is the important part, the bowl came to a Charleston family from the estate of a woman in Virginia, whose ancestors on her mother’s side, came from Salem, via Haven Harbor.”
“Shit. That’s the connection. And we still don’t have a clue as to why.”
Teag cracked his knuckles and crossed his arms over his chest. “So at the first event, we get a freak storm, and some cars get knocked around. At the second one, the painting shows up, but it might not have anything to do with the fan and the bowl.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it. Nothing else weird happened.”
“How about Mona and Maria?” I asked. “Any luck turning up something on them? Maybe that will show us the connection.”
“Checking,” he said, and his head dropped as he focused all his attention on the screen. I got up and poured myself a cup of coffee and washed down a couple of ibuprofen to get rid of the headache I hadn’t been able to shake since the fire.
“Nothing. Nada. Bupkis,” Teag finally said, pushing away from the table in frustration.
“You can’t find anything?”
He shrugged. “No, I found plenty. But no connection. Mona is a successful real estate agent, who is beloved by her clients and not so much by her colleagues and competitors, who say she’s abrasive and overly aggressive.”
“That squares with the impression I got, and I didn’t even tour a house with her.”
“Maria Nevin is an interior designer. Divorced, well-regarded in her industry, even gives some talks at conferences. They don’t live in the same neighborhood, didn’t graduate from the same schools. The only thing they’ve got in common is that both are from old Charleston families, but then again, so are most folks who live or do business south of Broad Street.”
Broad Street in Charleston had long been the demarcation line between the blue bloods and everyone else. Pat Conroy even wrote a novel about the area. Plenty of people lived there who had no connection to magic, witchcraft, or Salem. We had hit a wall.
“How about our bearded stranger,” I asked.
Teag looked up. “You know, if you weren’t dating Kell, I’d think you had a thing for this guy with how often you’ve mentioned him.”
I gave him a withering look, which he totally deserved. “Not interested in that way. You’ve gotta admit, it’s suspicious that he was at both events, and we’ve never seen him before.”
Teag chewed on his lip as he thought. “Maybe. He could be someone’s guest or plus-one. Or a gate-crasher who knows how to pull it off.”
“I’m not buying it,” I said, tilting my chair back on its rear legs. “If he were a guest or companion, he wouldn’t have booked it out of there like the cops would find his mug shot. And I could believe a gate-crasher once, but twice so close together?” I shook my head. “Doesn’t seem likely.”
“I’m going over the security camera footage from the auction house,” Teag said, stopping every few minutes to type something. “Okay, that’s just wrong.”
“What?”
Teag looked up. “I found him. Only every time he comes in range of the cameras, his face blurs. You’d almost think it was magic.”