Mystic Jive: Hand of Fate - Book Four Read online

  “I’ll take that.” She snatched the bag from me and muscled her way through the crowd.

  Jeeze Laweeze, lady. No need to be so huffy about it. I don’t think I could have stopped her, even if I tried. Every kid in the gym was on their feet now, eager to scarf up the last of the free donuts.

  Long after Liddy Fewkes left the building, the voice in my head kept screaming.

  CHAPTER 3

  SATURDAY MORNING, I begged off practice with Master Foo to spend time with Blix and the new Speak and Read tablet Rhys had given me. Rhys and Henri were both crazy about their Qhua Bei workouts. However, my lessons with Master Foo, the martial arts instructor usually, usually left me feeling inadequate.

  I sat at the kitchen table; the colorful plastic tablet and my cell phone positioned in front of me. Blix perched on my left wrist, his ears perked, his expression intense. He kept looking from me to the tablet and back again.

  I showed him how to turn it on, and when the screen came up, there was a picture of an apple. It had a big pink capital “A” next to it, and the word, “apple” spelled out underneath. I tapped the picture, and a simulated voice said, “A is for Apple. Say apple.”

  Blix looked up at me and gave a muted squeak.

  “This will teach you how to talk, Blix.” I pointed to my phone. “It’s just like my cell phone, but this one is for you.”

  I showed him how to use the different buttons for different lessons—for both the alphabet and counting. The program gave him two chances to say the word correctly before moving onto the next letter.

  He tapped the tablet tentatively with a long claw. Blix’s back feet were padded claws like a cat’s. His front feet were shaped a bit like monkey hands, tipped with long sharp talons—a combination both dexterous and deadly.

  In less than five minutes, he was already up to P is for Pony. Smart little djemon. He didn’t any help to figure it out. I told him he was a good boy and he actually chirruped a little, but his eyes never left the tablet. When I left, Blix was still tap-tap-tapping away on the key pad. I admit, seeing him take to it so fast made me feel pretty good. He’d be speaking in no time. Rhys and Henri would be so impressed.

  Time for breakfast.

  Killer Dave’s had been closed for months, so I walked down to Honey Bee’s for coffee and a chocolate croissant. Nate Junior was working the counter by himself this morning. I stepped up and placed my order.

  “Sorry, Miss Blackman, we’re all out of chocolate croissants this morning.”

  Just my luck. I perused the display shelves. Now that I‘d fallen off the sugar wagon, I needed chocolate with my coffee. Cinnamon rolls and maple bars just weren’t going to cut it.

  Honey swooshed out from the back with a fresh tray of her special muffins topped with a dollop of cream-cheese icing. They’re more like a cupcake for grownups. Still warm from the oven, they smelled like banana-walnut heaven.

  “Morning, Mattie,” Honey said. “You’re too late for the croissants. How about a dozen chocolate donuts? I know Henri likes those too.”

  After the Career Daze incident, I’d decided to go cold turkey on the chocolate donuts. “A muffin will be fine.”

  “That’s it?” She gave me a little pout. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to cut back. And a coffee. For here.” I pointed to the empty table nearest the kitchen.

  I paid Nate and took my coffee and muffin over to the table. Honey took the other seat with a muffin for herself.

  “You don’t mind if I join you, do you? These are my absolute favorites. I only make them once a week. Otherwise I’d be big as a house.”

  “I don’t believe it for a minute,” I grinned and poked my finger in the swirl of icing on the top of my muffin. Nummy. “You could be a model.”

  “Well, aren’t you sweet?” She bit into the crunchy muffin top, getting a smear of icing on her upper lip, which she wiped away discreetly with her napkin.

  I followed suit and immediately understood why the muffins were her favorites. The cake was tender and moist and at the same time crunchy with walnut chunks. Ooh, and that icing—maybe chocolate was a little overrated.

  “You were a hit with the kids on Career Day,” I said.

  She laughed. “Any kid with a donut in his hand is a happy kid. I could have stood up there and recited the Gettysburg Address and they would’ve been happy to hear it.”

  “At least they listened. Next time I’ll bring swag.”

  “Liddy Fewkes didn’t brink swag.”

  Something in Honey’s expression caught me. I took a sip of coffee. “No. The kids sure liked her, though,” I said.

  A moment stretched between us. Honey pushed her muffin away, half-eaten. “Well.”

  I got the feeling that she had a lot more to say. “How well do you know her?”

  She took a deep breath and shrugged, not looking at me. “I’m too busy to get out much. She’s really got a knack for those puppets, though. I never liked puppets when I was a kid. I always thought they were creepy.” She shivered. “But Arby is mad for them. I can’t keep him away from those Saturday shows of hers.”

  I stared at her. It felt as if she was saying something I was supposed to understand. I thought about the puppet in the bag. Had she seen something? Had she heard the puppet speak to me? Impossible.

  I knew Honey, but not well enough to figure out what she was saying. “Do you know something?”

  She shook her head, as if I’d missed the point and she didn’t want to explain it. “Nothing relevant. Say, Lou tells me you’re working together.”

  Safer territory. “Yeah, he’s teaching me investigative techniques. Gave me a book and everything.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Being a meter maid has got to be a sucky job. You can do better.”

  “Hey, don’t say that! It’s a perfectly respectable way to make a living.”

  She gave me an amused look. “I see. So, they’re paying you now?”

  “Well, okay, yeah. The city budget has been a little dicey lately. But I’ll be working full-time again come spring. I hope.”

  She shook her head. “Look girl, anybody else would have taken the hint and quit months ago. Lou is a good man—a cunning man, and the best partner my husband ever had. You can learn a lot from him.” She put her hand on my arm. “You two make a good match.”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “Lou and I are friends and colleagues, but that’s all. I’ve already got a boyfriend.”

  “Ah. You and Rhys then.” She nodded knowingly.

  I blushed. I didn’t know if she knew Rhys was and immortal djenie or not. “I mean, Lou’s great, but I’m not looking for a husband.”

  “He’s been a wonderful to me and the kids. You can trust him, Mattie.”

  “That’s high praise, coming from you.” Honey was good people. I liked her even better for telling me what she thought of Lou.

  A bit of tension I didn’t realize I’d been holding onto suddenly eased. Lou was a great guy, but it was good to hear it from someone who had every reason to hate him. I’d all but forgotten that Nate Briscoe had died taking a bullet meant for Lou.

  CHAPTER 4

  “EVERYBODY LIES, MATTIE. It doesn’t mean they’re cheating.”

  It was a midnight. Lou and I were on a stakeout, sitting in his beat-up Subaru station wagon, watching the driveway of a split-level ranch from our parking spot in front of a house three doors away. The client was out of town visiting her parents with the kiddies, and we were there to make sure there was no hubby hanky-panky going on. Lou preferred to do stakeouts in my black Honda, because at night, his white Subaru was too visible, but my not so Trusty Rusty was in the shop again.

  We’d been sitting here for hours. It looked like hubby was pretty much down for the count. Lou was paying me, so I couldn’t really complain. He’d been quizzing me on the book he’d given me, called Private Investigation Made Easy. I hadn’t actually read it yet.

  “Come on, this is
an easy one. Give me three signs of partner infidelity.” His gaze never left the house we were watching.

  I licked Cheeto dust off my fingers. I was back on the no sugar wagon, having traded my chocolate donut addiction for the fine line of snack products marketed by Frito-Lay.

  “Okay. Phone hang-ups. “

  “What else?”

  I held up the bag. “Cheeto?”

  Lou and I go way back. Back to when I first got hired by the City. Parking control was always sort of looked down upon by Picston PD, but Nate and Lou always waved hello whenever they passed me on duty. Lou took it pretty hard when Nate was killed. He stayed on the job for a few more years, but you could tell his heart wasn’t in it. When they offered him early retirement, he took it and opened his own private investigation business.

  “Come on.”

  Mostly, he takes clients from Shore Haven’s supernatural community. They trust him because he’s one of them. I don’t know exactly what he is, but he doesn’t have a lifeline. He’s not the kind of guy who stands out in a crowd, either. He spent his whole career working with cops and none of them ever realized how good Lou is with secrets. Running his own PI business is perfect for him. And lucky for me, too.

  “Um, unusual credit card charges.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Like flower shop charges when she doesn’t get the flowers. Or sexy lingerie. Or if he starts hiding the bills.”

  “Or she,” Lou prompted. “Although in my experience, women tend to be more careful about their credit card purchases.”

  I popped another Cheeto in my mouth. “Why all the cheating spouse cases?”

  He shrugged. “It pays the bills. Far less chance of finding dead bodies than in missing persons cases.”

  I shuddered, remembering Wiley Willy’s desiccated corpse.

  The house lights in the split ranch we were watching went out. “Here we go.” Lou said. “If the wife’s hunch is correct, whatever is going to happen should happen soon.”

  “How often is the wife right?”

  “Once one partner starts keeping secrets, the other one senses it pretty quick and wants to know why.”

  I nodded, not taking my eyes off the house. Thank goodness Rhys and I had no more secrets from each other. Except that one thing about Luçien Bold. A guilty blush warmed my cheeks.

  Down the street, the garage door opened, and the cheating hubby rolled down the driveway in the family Volvo station wagon with the headlights turned off.

  “Well, well.” I crumpled up the empty bag of Cheetos. I pulled a dollar bill out of the pocket of my jeans and passed it over to Lou. “You called it.”

  “Right on schedule,” Lou said. “Let that be a lesson for you. Never doubt a woman who suspects her husband is up to something.”

  “Cynic,” I said.

  He waited until the car reached the stop sign at the end of the street and hubby turned on the headlights, before turning the key on the ignition. Lou always insisted on driving whenever we worked together. He said my driving made him nervous.

  “Now pay attention, Mattie. Tailing a car at this time of night can be tricky. The most important aspect of moving vehicle surveillance is keeping enough cover between you and the car you’re tailing.”

  “Well, duh. Hurry up, you’re gonna lose him—you drive like an old lady.”

  “Better we lose him than he spots us. A guy who spots a tail is unpredictable, and far more prone to violence. If not to us, than to others.”

  I had my foot to the floor of the passenger side of the car, but Lou kept our speed to an agonizingly slow twenty-five miles an hour.

  We followed the Volvo through Penfield, nearly all the way to Webster. Lou stayed so far behind, I could have sworn we’d lost him more than once. We were out on Plank Road, amid the apple orchards south of Knutt’s Apple Farm. Way out in the boonies where there were no streetlights. Up ahead, the Volvo made a sudden right and drove up an empty dirt track.

  Lou turned off the headlights and edged the Subaru over to the shoulder, nosing his way under the heavy branches of a spreading blue spruce. “This is it.” He reached into the back seat and grabbed our jackets. “We’re going to have to hoof it from here.”

  “This is a tractor road. What’s he doing out here?” I kept my voice low.

  Lou didn’t answer.

  This part of Webster is aggressively rural--hardly the place for a romantic tryst. Neither a porch light nor curtained window cut the darkness. With nothing but the sliver of a moon and stars to light our way, we stumbled up the deeply grooved dirt track. Lou had to be as curious as I was.

  The Volvo was parked at the end of a long line of cars. The trail curved to the left, and led to the hulking silhouette of an old abandoned barn. As one, we stopped, our ears strained for the answer to the mystery. Where were they?

  Waist-high dried weeds surrounded the structure. Dimly, I could see a path cut through the vegetation on one side of the barn, leading around to the back. I pointed to it and Lou led the way.

  Something in the setup warned us both to be quiet; not an easy thing to do when walking through dry thistles. Lou moved surely, silent as a stalking cat. I tried to step where he stepped. My heart pounded as we rounded the barn, but there was nothing to see.

  He froze, his head cocked to listen. From up ahead, a low murmur of voices sounded through the trees. The exact direction of the voices was difficult to determine. We moved toward the orchard, leaving the crunch and grasp of thistles behind us.

  It was easier going here. Most of the apple trees had lost their leaves to the first frost of the season. The litter beneath our feet had softened to mulch from recent rains. I pulled the collar of my jacket up to ward off the night chill. We climbed steadily, until we crested the hill behind the orchard. Below us, the land gave way to an old cemetery, hidden in a shallow vale.

  Lou and I stood like statues, our bodies straining for the slightest sound. He held his hand out for silence. Even in the dark, I could tell the cemetery had been long neglected. Headstones lay tumbled askew and broken, partially hidden in the overgrown grass. The sound of voices was clearer here. It was coming from behind a memorial vault as big as a truck.

  Using the structure as cover, we eased our way down the wet, grassy slope to the vault for a better look.

  At the bottom of the vale, a dozen or so dark-robed, hooded figures, stood in a circle around a gnarled old tree, holding hands as they chanted in a language I didn’t understand. Latin, maybe. We were too far away to hear the words, but light from several small lanterns illuminated the scene with a soft glow. In the center of the circle, next to the tree, a lone figure seemed to be doing some sort of conducting—waving a long twig in one hand, and a small knife in the other.

  Pagans. I rolled my eyes. What a letdown. Unless they were naked under those robes, which I seriously doubted, given how frikking cold it was out here, the hubby we’d followed wasn’t a cheater, he was a witch. Monroe County had more than its share of them. Wiccans. Druids. Tree huggers. Wifey wife had nothing to worry about.

  Lou tapped me on the shoulder and jerked his head back toward the way we’d come, his expression troubled. He had me doing double time to keep up on the way back. Once we reached the barn, I hissed at him to slow down.

  “Don’t tell me you’re scared of a few pagans.”

  “No, not pagans. They’re a cult.” We’d reached the dirt track, and it was easier going. “At one time, the Penfield witches was the oldest organized coven in North America. There are no witches in that coven anymore.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “In the last decade, the group has been taken over by a couple of sorcerers, dedicated to practicing the black arts. As a group, they’re aggressive, arrogant, and coercive. The cult has managed to place their people in influential positions in local government. The Sheriff has his hands tied—forced to turn a blind eye to their shenanigans.” He wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve. “I’ve been searching
for their meeting place for years, and never found it. We weren’t supposed to see that.”

  “What were they doing?”

  “It’s called layering.” He shook his head and picked up the pace again. “Building up a reservoir of power. It’s like filling up a gas tank. I haven’t seen anything like that in a very long time.”

  I’d lived in Monroe County all my life and never heard of the Penfield witches. “I don’t get it. If they want to hang out in an abandoned cemetery all night, what’s the big deal?”

  “These aren’t the pagan witches you think they are—although they used to be. They’re occultists—dedicated to the study of ancient rituals for the purposes of gaining power.”

  “You’re not making sense, Lou.”

  “This layering is serious business. They’re doing it for a reason. The only reason I can think of is to summon a demon. Maybe even a deity. Very dark stuff.”

  “Come on, Lou. You don’t need a summoning circle to get a demon—even I know that.”

  “I’m not talking about djinn, Mattie. I’m talking about deities. Devils. Drudes. Goblins. Incubi and Succubi. Creatures of the Abyss.” He stopped so suddenly I ran right into him. He grabbed me by my shoulders and glared at me—so close, I could feel the heat of his anger. “They’re messing with things they cannot possibly control. I know black magic when I see it. It’s like you and djemons, Mattie. That’s my legacy. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

  “Okay, okay. I got it.” Sheesh.

  “Let’s get out of here before they see us.” He moved quickly—I had to run to keep up.

  We’d reached the line of cars. Lou pulled out his cell phone and snapped photos of the license plates on the vehicles we’d passed on the way in.

  “What are you going to tell the wife? Do you think she’s a witch too?”

  He stiffened. “Damn. If the wife is one of them, maybe this was a set-up. I can’t tell her anything. I’ll give her a refund; tell her I didn’t find anything.”

  “Don’t go paranoid, on me, Lou. We just spent seven hours on stakeout, and you want to throw it away? What the hell?”