Chapter Thirteen

 

“Cos?” A soft, worried whisper infiltrated my dreams.

“Mmm?”

“Cos, there’s someone outside.”

You wouldn’t think, after seeing myself on the nightly news, that I’d sleep a wink, but it had been an exhausting weekend—and Monday hadn’t proved any more relaxing. The minute my head hit my pillow, I was out.

“Hmm?” I mumbled.

“Cos, wake up,” Jinx insisted. “I think she’s trying to get in.”

I don’t care who or what you are, there is something about the words I think she’s trying to get in that will send your heart rocketing from zero to sixty in less than two seconds. No turbocharge required.

I sat up straight before I’d even unstuck my eyes. “What?”

Jinx’s shadowy form stood beside my bed. She gulped. “There’s a woman in the driveway. She keeps coming up to our door and then wandering away. She’s been out there for, like, fifteen minutes.”

Heart hammering, I jumped out of bed, tripped over my boots—which was better than John tripping over them—stumbled to the window seat, and peered down.

At first, I saw nothing but asphalt and the swaying shadows cast by the tall cedars growing where the end of our cul-de-sac parking area gave way to sheer hillside.

“Are you su—”

I broke off as I saw her drift back into view. A ghostlike figure stepped back from the townhouse, raised her hands, and began to chant. Her voice was too low for us to make out the words two stories up, but safe to say, she was not blessing the house and all within.

Red sparks bounced along the woman’s fingertips. She reached toward the house. Her fingertips went blue, and she staggered back.

“What’s she doing?” Jinx peered over my shoulder. “What does she want?”

“She’s trying to get past the protective wards.” After Friday’s break-in, I had renewed and strengthened all the spells and wards guarding the house.

“Can she do it?”

“I…don’t think so.” I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, because the fact that she had shown up here at all should have been impossible.

I could feel Jinx’s gaze. “You know her?”

I nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

The light was poor, but the shawl, the long white braid, the stooped, frail figure were all a giveaway. It didn’t make sense, though. Maman had sent Ambrose a whole chest of potions and tinctures, any one of which should have knocked GramMa down for the count.

Yet here she was, knock-knock-knocking at my door.

In uneasy silence, we watched GramMa creep up to the loggia entrance once more and then a few seconds later stumble back again.

Jinx said softly, worriedly, “We can’t just leave her out there. What if John comes home and she attacks him?”

She had a point. Not so much about John. John had been as immune to Phelon’s spell as he had been to Ciara’s as he had been to mine. It seemed my beloved consort really was immune to magic. But regardless of John, we had a problem. Presumably GramMa would wear herself out eventually, but then what? I wasn’t sure she could find her way home, and what if she ran into someone who was not immune to magic—which would be most people—and attacked them?

I would have to contact Ambrose, who was probably scouring the city for her even now. I had been so sure we had found a solution to his problem, but if anything, it seemed we had made matters worse.

This is the problem with magic. It’s not an exact science.

I opened my mouth to try to reassure Jinx that everything was under control, when a tall, thin figure in black came running down the steep driveway. White tennis shoes flashed in the darkness, but otherwise the figure was indistinct. It was traveling so fast, it nearly tripped twice, but caught its balance and reached the bottom safely. The figure went straight to the old woman.

“Oh my God,” Jinx said as the motion detector lights in front of the townhouse illuminated the newcomer’s face. “Is that Ambrose?”

I nodded.

“You mean, that’s Ambrose’s grandma?”

“Yes.”

Jinx shuddered. “Poor Ambrose.”

Maybe that sounded heartless, but there was something very wrong with the old lady, and it was more apparent now than it had been seeing her in her usual setting. In some ways, she reminded me of a zombie, yet she was still human. Her emotions were unfocused but still burning bright. Was she suffering from dementia, or was the cause of her decline inorganic? Was she under a spell? Had the strain of trying to balance her gifts with ingrained religious superstition driven her to some kind of breakdown?

Neither of us said anything else as we watched Ambrose speak to his grandmother, watched the old woman seem to crumple in on herself, watched him lead her away.

As they started up the driveway, Ambrose glanced back at the townhouse and, though I doubted he could see us in the upstairs window, his expression was anguished.

“Oh, Cos,” Jinx murmured. “What are you going to do?”

I shook my head.

 

 

Proof of how exhausted John really was, he slept through the alarm the next morning.

He was still sleeping when I got out of the shower.

I hated to wake him, but John did not approve of tardiness, especially in himself, so I leaned down to kiss him awake—and realized he was having a nightmare.

I drew back, watching his fingers twitch, his lips compress instinctively against any sound, his eyes moving back and forth beneath his flickering eyelashes. His sleeping face was pale and expressionless, but beneath that mask there was a terrible struggle going on.

It was painful to watch. Especially painful because I knew he wouldn’t want me to see even this much of what he was suffering.

It wasn’t the first time either.

Once or twice a month, John had these nightmares. The first couple of times, I had asked him what he dreamed. He always said he didn’t remember. That he didn’t ever recall his dreams. I knew that was a lie, but I also knew—believed—that I couldn’t force him to confide in me.

After all, hadn’t I just done the same thing to him the night before?

I hoped that as time passed, as we knew each other better, trusted each other more, he would talk to me. But we weren’t there yet. However much I wished it.

“John?” I said gently.

His face quivered as though confronting some terrible pain, then smoothed out into blankness. His eyelashes stirred. He opened his eyes, blinked at me, frowning—and then I saw recognition flood back in.

His smile was crooked. “Time’s it?”

I bent down and kissed him, pressing my mouth to his, and he smiled beneath this onslaught, rested his hand against the back of my head, holding me in place, kissing me back.

When I raised my head, he said, “Good morning to you too.”

“What time did you get home?”

“Three-something.” John brushed his knuckles against my jaw, glanced at the clock on the bedstand, and his expression changed to one of horror. He was out of bed in one Superman-like bound.

“Holy hell. It’s seven thirty? I’ve got breakfast with the mayor at eight.”

I swallowed my sigh. “Will I see you for dinner?”

“Not sure. I’ll call you.” He disappeared into the bathroom.

* * * * *

Ambrose was about half an hour late, but since I’d been fearing he wouldn’t make it in at all, I was glad to see him.

“Cosmo, can I talk to you?” he asked.

Blanche gave me an uh-oh look.

“Of course.”

We went into my office. I told Ambrose to have a seat, but he shook his head, closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and said, “I have to tell you something.”

“It’s okay. I know. Which potion did you give her?”

He sagged with relief and dropped into the plum velvet Neo-Chippendale wing chair. He put his face in his hands and whispered, “The silvery-blue one. Moon Drops, I think.”

“That’s mostly Valerian and dragonweed. Nothing that should have troubled her.” In fact, that combination usually made for deep and dreamless sleep.

“At first it seemed like it was going to work. She went to sleep, and everything seemed fine. But then after midnight she woke up and started screaming. I tried to quiet her, and she…vanished.”

His eyes were enormous and frightened. “Cosmo, if she had managed to get in… I’m not sure what she would have done. She thinks you’re a demon king.”

I nearly spilled my coffee. “That’s… I don’t get that a lot.”

“She says you’re— She thinks you’re trying to take my soul.”

A demon king determined to possess Ambrose’s soul. No wonder she was afraid of me. No wonder she was afraid of my influence on Ambrose. No wonder she was determined to hunt me down. Did she realize she was using Craft to do it?

I drummed my fingers on the desk, considering this unpleasant development. “It’s one of the most benign potions I can think of. I’m not sure why it would have that effect on her.”

He said tentatively, “I was hoping maybe you could ask the Duchess.”

“I would if I could. She’s…in Paris.” Both of my parents abhor cell phones, and Maman does not even possess one. I had tried phoning her Paris apartment the night before and again that morning, but to no avail. Not even the servants seemed to be home. I was trying not to make too much of it. After all, given the time difference between San Francisco and Paris, it was possible my mother had not yet appeared before the council. Heck, given the amount of luggage she carried, she might still be trying to get through customs.

“Oh no,” Ambrose said.

I echoed his sentiment, but said, “I guess it’s possible your grandmother had some kind of allergic reaction?”

It seemed unlikely, with her symptoms, but I really didn’t have a lot of ideas. My strength has never lain in tinctures, tonics, potions, or philters. Those are the Duchess’s specialty.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Ambrose continued to gaze at me with dark, anxious eyes.

“Is the neighbor lady watching her now?”

He nodded.

“Maybe tonight try the Star Crystals in a cup of soothing tea. Dandelion is a good one.”

“She doesn’t like tea.”

“Okay, well, try it in a cup of vegetable broth. Just whatever you do, don’t use it in dairy or meat broth.”

“Right. Okay. Your mom—I mean, the Duchess—wrote out lots of instructions.”

“Yes, Maman is ever one for instructions.” I thought some more. “I could talk to my friend Andi. She’s good with cordials and concoctions. She might have some ideas.”

Ambrose brightened. “The cupcake girl. Yeah. She was nice.”

“She’s very nice. Does your grandmother like cupcakes?”

“She does, yeah.”

“Okay. Something to consider.” I smiled encouragingly. “Try not to worry. Something’s going to work.”

Ambrose nodded doubtfully.

I knew the feeling.

* * * * *

“Consider this: the witch stereotype was created as an attempt to eradicate unorthodox practices and beliefs from Christian society. The consolidation of Christian doctrine required the creation of an enemy, and this enemy was modeled along the lines of other deviant groups, thereby justifying the persecution of so-called witches.”

All around me, people were nodding and busily scribbling notes in binders—or surreptitiously checking their phones for messages.

Solomon Shimon was an Associate Professor at San Francisco State. He taught three graduate studies courses for the Classics Department: Neopaganism and Wicca, Feminism and Witchcraft, and the ever-popular Europe’s Inner Demons. He also conducted a lecture series titled Hell Cop: Law Enforcement and the Occult.

Shimon’s online faculty bio was free of any real details beyond his email, phone, office number, and office hours. It did offer the first clear photograph of him I’d been able to find: a color pic of a man a couple of years older than myself, with black hair, black eyes, and the most magnificent handlebar mustache I’ve seen outside a Victorian melodrama.

I didn’t recognize him from his photo—although I had been half expecting to—but as I sat scrunched in the corner of the back row of his 11:00 Europe’s Inner Demons seminar, I couldn’t help feeling that we had met before.

And I couldn’t help suspecting—given his automatic and instinctive glances in my general direction—that Shimon felt the same. But then again, that might simply be his awareness of another witch in the room.

It would make a change because, as far as I could tell, we were the only Craft present, despite the fact that every seat in the house was taken—mostly by comely young women dressed in black. Which was kind of par for the course. Literally.

“The creation of the witch myth developed slowly, during a climate of wide persecution of marginal groups within Christendom.”

“Are you saying witches aren’t real?” a young woman in the front row asked.

My scalp prickled as Shimon brushed that aside. “That’s a whole different subject. No, our focus here today is the practical application of demonizing those peoples and cultures a society deems undesirable.”

When Shimon spoke the word undesirable, he had the faintest suggestion of a lisp, and once again I felt that flicker of recognition.

Who was this guy?

A witch posing as Wiccan was odd enough. A witch working with the police was even odder. And, although I knew firsthand that it did happen, a witch working with the Society for Prevention of Magic in the Mortal Realm seemed the oddest and most troubling of all.

But all three of those things were true of Solomon Shimon.

He knew his stuff, and he was an interesting speaker. Ninety minutes flew by, and before I knew it, class had been dismissed and the students were filing out into the busy, noisy hallway. I waited at the back of the room—and Shimon waited by his lectern.

When the last student had disappeared out the door, Shimon turned his head, blinked, and the door slammed shut.

I came unhurriedly down the steps to face him.

“Professor Shimon?”

His brows formed a straight black strikethrough line across his forehead. His handsome mustache seemed to bristle with indignation.

He said—and now that we were face-to-face, his lisp was much, much worse, “I prefer thudents to asthk permithison before they audit my theminarth.”

I knew him. I did know him. Who was he?

I said slowly, “Something tells me, if I had asked permission, class would have been canceled today.”

He reared back, then recovered, sticking his face in mine and snarling, “Who in the Nine Gatesth of Hell do you think you are?”

My jaw fell open. The years fell away. It was second grade, Andi’s heart was broken, and by the Goddess I intended to avenge her. Which I did by giving the object of her affections a green polka-dot complexion. It had taken Magistra Alizon nearly a week to reverse the spell, which had made Maman very proud—and earned me a month of after-school detention.

I won’t even mention what happened when we got to the third grade and he pushed Andi into the swimming pool. Yes, witches and water have a complicated relationship. For one thing, it’s the most difficult of elements to control.

“Gideon Terwilliker?”

You don’t have to be related to Rumpelstiltskin to know names hold power. There’s a reason every government in the world wants its citizens named and numbered, be it with tattoo, social security number, or microchip. Names and bloodlines are especially important in the Craft, so I was not surprised when Solomon—er, Gideon—leapt back in alarm, raised his hands, and began to recite a forgetting spell.

I raised my hands to fend him off and was surprised at the push of strength and energy that met my resistance.

Granted, we had all learned a few things since grade school.

As we had received the same exact early training, I went straight to ancient magic and Latin.

Autumni mensis ex illustration

Aestatis in Cantico Icon

In pythonissam potestatem de mea mendacium rune

Et noli esse stultus, qui canit tumidum super tune

 

His spell snapped, Gideon stumbled backward, fell against the chalkboard, and glared at me. “How dare you? You have no right!”

“You thought you’d use a forgetting spell on me?”

He stuck his chin out in defiance. “You seem to think you can usth them on everyone and everything elsth!”

Ouch.

I lowered my hands, said, “For goodness’ sake. I only want to ask you a couple of questions. I didn’t come here to make trouble.”

He gave a HA! kind of laugh that went perfectly with his mustache. “What if I don’t want to talk to you?”

“I already know you don’t want to talk to me. It’s why you ducked out of that Halloween party Saturday night. What I want to know is why?”

Something flickered in his eyes, some emotion I couldn’t quite read.

“Do you know Sukie Stevens killed herself?”

He replied tonelessly, “I know.”

I understood then that the emotion in his eyes was for Sukie. That meant at least part of my theory was wrong. Gideon was not the blackmailer.

“Gideon, I need help. If you’re not working with SPMMR—”

He laughed.

“What does that mean? You are working with them?”

“SPMMR doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to Sukie.”

“What did happen to her? Why did she kill herself?”

“None of your business. Who do you think you are? Running around pretending to be Sherlock Holmes?” His tone was scathing. “This isn’t a game!”

“I don’t think it’s a game. And the Sherlock Holmes—” I let that go because there are things that just get worse if you try to explain them. Instead, I tried another line of attack.

“I could see that night that she was in love with you.”

The pain in his eyes caught me by surprise, but he said sardonically, “They’re all in love with me.”

“Yes. I saw that too. You’re their High Priest.”

His eyes narrowed. “Wrong. I’m their Lord.”

I found that a little shocking but did not allow myself to be distracted. “Certainly they’re in love with you. But Sukie was different. She brought you the others, she got you the consulting job with SFPD, she…she gave you money and gifts.” That last was a guess, but it was logical, and his instinctive flinch seemed to confirm it.

Gideon didn’t deny any of it, just stood there glaring at me.

“But that made her vulnerable,” I said, and I was still guessing, but I felt more and more confident as his eyes got brighter and his breaths grew rougher. “She was a target because of you.”

He made a pained sound and turned away.

“What did they do? Send photos?” It wasn’t much of a guess since that’s what they had done with Jinx. If a picture is worth a thousand words, it’s certainly worth a thousand dollars.

“Photos of us in the sacred circle.” His voice was low, husky. “I told her it didn’t matter. It wasn’t important. But she was terrified of what her children would think. Terrified for his career. We were so happy. What did any of that matter?”

He was asking the wrong person.

“Do you know who sent the photos?”

He turned to face me. “Go away. Get out. I’ve told you all I’m going to.”

“If you don’t want the police looking more closely at you, I suggest you help me—” That was a big misstep.

He shot back, “Suppose the police take a closer look at you, Cosmo? Do you think there’s a witch in the city who didn’t recognize the police description of you on KPIX last night?”

“Are you crazy? That wasn’t me!” I must say, it was pretty convincing, but Gideon’s mouth curled in disbelief. The trouble is, lying is something we in the Craft learn practically as soon as we can speak. It’s our first line of defense. We lie for our safety. We lie for our survival.

He said calmly, “Yes, it was. And we all know it.”

I said with equal calm, “Look, I meant what I said. I mean you no harm. All I care about is keeping the Craft out of this.”

“Good luck with that!”

That silenced me, though not for long.

“I can’t believe you would align yourself with SPMMR. They’re against everything we are.”

“What do you know about what and who we are?” he demanded. “You’re not one of us. You’re royalty. You’re the elite. You have all the power. You make all the rules. And you expect the rest of us to fall in line whether we agree or not.”

Never mind the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects the French Revolution either.

I opened my mouth, but Solomon—Gideon—was on a roll. “It’s the same all over the world and in every tradition. Every single one. The few rule the many. The few will do anything to hold on to their wealth and power. Well, guess what? The many are not going to take it for much longer.”

“I’m not sure how eradicating magic helps the proletariat witch.”

He smiled. “See? Always mocking what you don’t understand. We’ll see if you’re still laughing when the Abracadantès no longer exists.”

“I’m not laughing. I’m not mocking. I don’t understand you. Why would you want that? Why would you wish for the destruction of your own tradition?”

“What has the tradition ever done for me?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t try. “How does starting a war between witches and mortals help anybody? If your plan works, a lot of innocent people—witches and mortals—are going to die. You teach history. You know what happens next.”

Gideon curled his lip. “What are you talking about?”

“This war that you’re trying to ignite between the Craft and mortals.”

“That I’m trying to ignite? Are you crazy? Why would I join a bunch of disgruntled aristos engaging in a power struggle?”

“A bunch of…” I stopped cold. To say all became clear would be an overstatement. But a few things did become instantly, painfully clear, starting with my mother being summoned to appear before the high council of Société du Sortilège.

In fact, Maman had basically told me what was going on.

Well, no, being Maman, she had not told me a damned thing. But she had intimated.

“I know exactly what this is. That bitch Thérèse de Darrieux. She has made her move at last. I foresaw this last summer when you told me she had finagled her way onto le Conseil.”

I had called it a coup d’état, but I had not truly believed it could be that. Gideon, however, had just confirmed Maman’s suspicions.

It turned out Ralph, too, had been correct. The blackmail ring was a false-flag operation. But the real goal was not to begin a war between mortals and witches.

Mortals like Sukie Stevens were just the cost of doing business.

The real goal, the ultimate goal, was a war between witches. Not all witches—most witches would give this little flare-up a wide berth—just the witches of the Abracadantès.

This plot hit close to home because it was at home. It was about family.

And I now had a very good idea who was behind it all.