A Cast-Off Coven (12 page)

“She lives with you?”

He nodded. “I know what you’re thinking.”

I doubted that.

“How does Ginny deal with living with a stepfather only two years older than she is?”

Okay, he
did
know what I was thinking.

“Rent around here is killer, and when Marlene and I got together . . . well, the last thing I wanted to do was displace Ginny. The relationship between Marley and me is unusual, I know.” He pushed away from the wall and walked slowly toward me. “We’re both artistic, so maybe it’s easier for us to think outside the box. All I know is that when true love comes along, it’s awfully hard to say no, no matter what package it comes in.”

“I suppose that’s true.” I had spent much of my life being unfairly judged by others, and now I found it a struggle not to judge others with the same vehemence. It was a lesson I needed to learn over and over, it seemed. “But why would Ginny be so upset about Jerry Becker? I didn’t get the sense she was fond of him.”

“I would imagine it was the drama of the scene, more than the identity of the victim himself.”

We both fell silent for a moment, eyes on the chalk outline.

“Did you hear about the suicide here back in the early sixties?” Todd asked. “Some poor schmuck was so in love that he threw himself down these same stairs.”

“I’ve heard the tale.”

“Sad what love will make people do.”

“You’re not suggesting Becker threw
himself
down the stairs, are you?” I asked. That Becker’s death might be a suicide had never occurred to me.

Apparently Todd shared my opinion. He shook his head. “I can’t imagine someone like Jerry Becker feeling
any
emotion that strongly, least of all love. He struck me as more
destructive
than self-destructive.”

We fell silent again, looking at the bleak scene.

“Hey, did you find the clothes upstairs?” Todd asked.

“I did, thanks.”

“Need help carrying them out to your car?”

I had considered not taking the clothes at all, given what-all had gone on tonight in that closet. But my curiosity was almost as strong as my magical abilities; I wanted to take the garments into a more controlled situation and see whether they could tell me anything further. Besides, I had the perfect cleansing spell to cast out whatever evil might lurk within.

“If you don’t mind, that would be great,” I answered.

“Luc offered as well, but with all three of us, we could make short work of it. Thank you.”

“The closet’s directly up the tower stairs here,” Todd said, gazing up toward the curve in the steps . . . beyond which lay a mystery. “But to tell the truth, I usually take the stairs on the other end of the building. Call me superstitious.”

“I’m right there with you,” I said.

I needed some face-time with the supernatural entity, but not with a civilian at my side. I would come back and explore the bell tower stairwell armed with more knowledge about what I was dealing with, some spells at the ready, and maybe even some ghost-busting equipment.

Todd and I walked the maze to the other side of the building and climbed the more utilitarian, less-haunted stairs.

“About Marley’s reaction earlier . . . She’s not trying to be obstructionist,” Todd said as we started climbing. “It’s just that she’s so wrapped up in this school, it’s as if something happened to one of her children. First the talk of ghosts, and now Becker’s death . . . It’s been a really tough week.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “Todd, do you know anything about Walker Landau and Andromeda Becker?”

“Anything . . . like what?”

“I don’t know. Did she take a lot of classes with him, anything like that?”

Todd hesitated so long, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally, as we mounted the last flight of stairs, he spoke.

“He’s a little—what’s the word? ‘Obsessed’ is a little strong. It’s not like he’s a stalker or anything, but his studio is full of paintings of her. She poses for him, but my overall impression is that she doesn’t return his interest.”

“Any idea what Jerry Becker thought of it?”

“Yeah, that part was weird. He actually seemed in favor of the two of them getting together, was even sort of pressuring Andromeda to spend time with Walker. Or at least it seemed like it, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t like to spend much time around Becker.”

“I hear he was a bit overbearing.”

“That, and I didn’t like the way he treated his daughter.”

“Andromeda? How did he treat her?”

We walked down the hallway toward Luc’s open office door.

“Same way he treated everyone, but . . . she was his daughter, after all. Shouldn’t you treat your own daughter like a princess?”

We reached Luc’s office. He and Todd shook hands.

“Looks like you and I are on moving duty tonight,” Todd said.

“We live to serve,” Luc said solemnly.

Together the two men wrestled the big black trunk down two flights of stairs and out to my van at the loading dock, while I followed with Hefty bags I’d filled with clothes from the chest of drawers. Oscar stuck close to me on the stairs, nearly treading on my heels, his snout banging into the backs of my calves every time I slowed down. After one more trip up and back down the stairs with wooden boxes full of miscellaneous frilly underthings, we were good to go.

I gave each of the men one of the new business cards I had made up for Aunt Cora’s Closet, thanked them, and invited them to come by the store anytime. Oscar jumped into the cab, eager to leave this haunted academy. I joined him with a similar sense of relief.

Todd banged the side of the van and gave us a little wave as we drove off.

As soon as we rounded the corner, Oscar reverted to his natural form—a goblin with an overactive voice box. He started jumping back and forth over the seats, recounting our adventure in the closet.

“What in the
heck
happened back there? I totally thought we were goners when the light flashed and the noise and the cold . . .”

“Could you tell what it was?”

“Scary as
heck
is what it was.”

“But was it a ghost, or a demon, or some sort of angry spirit?”

Big, glass green eyes stared at me. “Yup.”

“Which one?”

“All of ’em.”

“
All
of them?”

He nodded vigorously, his talisman thudding against the tough scales on his chest.

“Any specifics—male, female, anything?”

“Most demons do both, mistress. They’re androwhatchamacallit.”

“Androgynous?”

I braked for the light on Columbus Avenue and let Oscar’s words sink in. I had been hoping I was wrong.

“So you’re sure there was a demon,” I said.

He looked over at me with an incredulous look on his face. “D—”

“
Stop
right there.” I held out a finger to him. “Do
not
say, ‘Duh’ and roll your eyes at me, young man. I am
not
in the mood.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“And don’t sigh and be petulant, either.”

“Yes, mistress,” he said with a petulant sigh. Oscar turned to look out the window, then breathed heavily on the glass, idly drawing a pentagram on the fogged surface.

“So tell me again, just to be sure: demon?”

“Demon.”

“Do you know who? Do you know its name?”

“No, mistress.”

“Any distinguishing characteristics?”

“No, mistress.”

I signaled to make a U-turn toward Fisherman’s Wharf. “I need to talk to Aidan.”

“Can’t. Out of town.”

“And you know this how?” If Aidan had a phone number, I was not privy to it, but somehow Oscar always knew about Aidan’s comings and goings. A suspicious witch might think a certain gnomish critter wasn’t being entirely forthcoming.

“Um . . .” Oscar continued. “That Sailor guy ought to be able to help.”

“Sailor guy?”

“Didn’t Aidan give you Sailor’s name and tell you to speak to him about the school?”

“Oh. Right. Some faceless guy in a bar is my best hope. Great.”

“The bar’s right around the corner,” Oscar pointed out.

We pulled up to another stoplight and I studied my wide-eyed familiar. I felt a lot of unexpected—for me—affection for the porcine guy, but we had only been together a short time, and I was still figuring out how much to trust him and his take on the supernatural. Besides, though he called me “mistress,” he had a connection to Aidan Rhodes, powerful male witch. I just had no idea why Aidan would want Oscar to spy on me, much less whether Aidan was working for good or for evil . . . or simply for the highest bidder.

Oscar shivered. I could feel his vibrations: excited but fearful. I pulled him over to my side and gave him a quick squeeze. The little goblin was undeniably helpful to have nearby when I was brewing potions—he seemed to facilitate my powers sliding through the otherworldly portals, helping me to focus my intentions—but I made a mental note to leave him at home, where he would be safe and safely out of my way, whenever I might be going toe to toe with anything frightening in the future.

That included anything scary of the human variety.

And that reminded me: The first time I met Andromeda in the shop, I sensed she was frightened of someone—a human someone. Could it have been her father? Or Walker? I found Walker Landau’s paintings of her disturbing at best, but then again he himself suggested I speak to Andromeda to support his claims about Jerry Becker. Would he have done that if he were menacing her?

None of this changed the salient point, however: If there was a demon at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts, it had to be bound and expelled before all hell broke loose, whether or not it was directly involved in Becker’s death. And I was guessing I was the best woman—the
only
woman—for the job.

I had felt the spirits myself; I didn’t need Oscar to tell me that something was there, though he did confirm what I already knew. What I really needed, though, was someone who could
communicate
with spirits. Oscar was right.

Time to go talk to a Sailor in a bar.

The corner of Broadway and Columbus is a vibrant, somewhat sleazy area featuring a spicy variety of sex shops and girlie shows. In between are plenty of restaurants and cafés, mostly Italian, as well as a few intriguing features such as the Beat Museum, highlighting the neighborhood’s role in the beatnik movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Hustler Club and the Lusty Lady were doing a brisk business, even on a Sunday. I found a parking space a couple of blocks from my destination, and after a cursory complaint about being left alone in the van with eerie dresses, Oscar curled up to take a nap.

Romolo Place is a quiet side street off busy Broadway. The grade of this mostly residential street is so steep that there are shallow steps carved into the sidewalk. In the way of neighborhood clubs trying to maintain their insider chic, there was no actual sign for the bar. I followed a deep blue light outside the door and the sound of a pulsing bass.

I paused in the doorway to get my bearings—bright blue vinyl couches, sleek chrome, neon. The music was thump-thump-thumping some monotonous tune I didn’t recognize. The crowd was not the typical North Beach mélange of tourists, aging hippies, and beatnik wannabes; this group was young and artsy, and chicly dressed. At the moment I felt like a construction worker in my dusty jeans-and-sweater ensemble, but I would have felt like a 1950s hausfrau wearing one of my typical old- fashioned, wide-skirted dresses amongst all these toned, tanned young bodies clad only in skimpy handkerchief halters and brief polyester shifts—scraps of cloth that wouldn’t have qualified even as proper petticoats in days of yore. I fit in okay in scruffier bars and Moose Lodges, but at Cerulean I stood out like a sore thumb.

Just an ordinary day in my less-than-ordinary life.

I stood on tiptoe to see over and around the packed crowd, searching for Sailor. The only thing I knew about him was that he was a man, which ruled out less than half the people in the place. I elbowed my way across the room and slid into an open spot at the bar.

“Help ya?” the bartender asked with a lift of his chin. His spiky brown hair was frosted white at the tips, and blue eyeliner complemented his eyes.

“I’m looking for Sailor,” I said, leaning across the bar and yelling to be heard over the throbbing alternative rock music from the jukebox.

The bartender’s pale eyes swept over me, lingering on the cleavage I had unintentionally displayed as I leaned toward him.

“Broadway.”

“Excuse me?” Was Sailor living the dream in the Big Apple?

“The sailors hang out at the girlie shows on Broadway. But if you’re looking for a quickie, I’ll give you a go.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in. “Um, thanks. I mean,
no
. Thank you. I guess.”

The bartender shrugged, and the tall, thin woman standing next to me with a Celtic cross tattooed on her exposed shoulder offered to assist me if I was
looking to play for the other team
.

Flustered, I shook my head and stepped away from the bar, my cheeks burning.

As I surveyed the room, my eyes met the dark gaze of a man sitting at a booth on the other side of the room. He was slouched low, his back up against the wall, one arm resting along the top of the booth and one long black-jeans-clad leg stretched out on the seat. He wore big black leather motorcycle boots and an uninviting scowl.

After a brief moment, he averted his eyes and shook his head in a gesture of exasperation. You didn’t have to be supernaturally sensitive to pick up on the fact that the man was
not
looking for company. Aidan had told me I would be looking for a psychic reluctant to use his rare talents. . . . Had I found my guy?