Mojo Queen (6 page)

He just looked at me. Without a word or gesture from him I could read the answer to my question. He shivered and rested his head on his knees. I hated to keep pushing him, but I had to know more. “Seth, what happened to Blake? How did the ritual end?”

He rubbed his face before answering. “The storm did it. I mean, everybody panicked when she killed Titus. Even Blake freaked. Well, for him, anyway. I broke the circle and things went pretty weird. I felt sick. I could tell Gabe and Levi did too. We hadn’t really been paying attention to the storm during all this but when I broke the circle we could hear it. The church was struck by lightning.”

“Damn,” I said under my breath.

“Delia passed out. Gabe and Levi and I tried to help Titus, but he was already dead. When I looked for him, Blake was gone. I tied Delia up and we talked about what we had to do. Things were pretty ugly at that point.”

“What’d you do with Titus?” Daniel asked.

“We buried him in the church graveyard. Levi wanted to go to the cops but I knew we couldn’t. I knew we couldn’t just let Delia be allowed to run loose and I figured if cops got involved, she might tell them exactly what she tried to tell you. Just to get herself out of trouble.”

Daniel looked at me and I explained, “She tried to convince me they raped her.”

“I tried calling Blake but he won’t answer his phone. Before we came here we went to his place one more time, but he wasn’t there.”

Daniel took my notebook, turned it to the back and handed it to Seth. “Write down that address and number.”

Seth complied.

“Did you go into his place or just knock on the door?”

“I just knocked but I tried talking to him, too. I told him what I was going to do. If he was there, he didn’t let on.” He returned the notebook. “Look, I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but I really want to go check on Gabe. Can I do that?”

I looked at Daniel. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. Daniel’s going to take you to the hospital and I think I’ll go check out Blake’s apartment.”

Daniel laughed like he didn’t think that was funny at all. “Oh, hell no. You’re not going to risk running into those two alone.”

I stood, taking my notebook and picking up my messenger bag. “All I’m gonna do is take a look around. If somebody’s home I’ll call you and wait.”

Daniel stood too, which was much more impressive, considering his height advantage. “You may have a concussion, Roxie. You don’t need to be running around after demons and sorcerers all by yourself.”

I pulled him to the side and whispered. “She killed one of those boys and tried to kill another. Have you stopped to consider why?”

He shrugged. “Demons are evil. What other explanation do you need?”

“I think it’s got something to do with the ritual. Look, this guy Blake is probably long gone from that apartment but I need to see if he left anything behind. He probably didn’t but I need to check, just to be sure, but I’m not sure those kids need to be left alone.”

“You want me to babysit?” His lip curled.

“For the time being,” I said, “that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

He craned his head for a look at Seth. The kid sat on the floor, arms still wrapped around his legs, head resting against the couch. Right now he didn’t look like he could defend himself from a troop of Girl Scouts, much less a homicidal demon.

Daniel said, “I don’t like the smell of this one, Roxie. It stinks.”

“Like hellfire and brimstone,” I agreed.

Blake the Dark Sorcerer lived on the far side of town, so I had several minutes’ drive to spend thinking things through. This didn’t really have much to do with religion, despite Blake choosing kids with Biblical names who all attended a Christian university. From what I knew of modern ceremonial magicians--admittedly not much--traditional religion wasn’t on the guy’s radar. My instincts said turning these four nice Christians into hedonists practicing black magic was more a joke than anything else. I wanted to know more about the ritual, and about the demon summoned. Did Blake need help? Was that the reason for getting these guys involved?

And I really,
really
wanted to know more about Blake being able to light a circle of candles with nothing but magic.

I pulled into a gas station to look at my directions again and sighed, glancing at the bars all over the little store. I needed a cup of coffee in the worst way but this joint didn’t look like it would have anything drinkable. Not that I needed to be carrying a cup of coffee when I showed up at Blake’s door. I checked the street signs, got myself oriented, and pulled back out into the road.

Blake lived in what appeared to be an old house someone had renovated years ago to turn it into a duplex. Like everything else on this street, it looked run-down, ragged, in bad need of more renovating. No cars were parked in either drive. The adjoining unit looked as if no one lived in it so I parked there, making my way to the door with a flashlight in one hand and a taser in the other, messenger bag draped across my torso. No lights, no sound, no evidence of anyone home. I walked around to the side of the house, the beam of the flashlight showing me nothing but a yard full of dead grass and a central air unit. The back of the house looked just as empty.

I felt pretty confident nobody was home but I knocked anyway then knocked louder, just to be sure. No response. I tested the doorknob, giving it a gentle shake. Locked. A car drove by, sheet metal rattling from a cheap stereo. If I was going to break and enter I should probably use the back door.

Before I started my own business I had spent more than two years working for a private investigation agency. Usually divorce cases, sometimes a missing persons case, nothing at all like being a PI on television--mostly boring, with a side of shady. But it was steady work, it made me some invaluable contacts, got me my license and taught me some skills. Like, for instance, how to use lock picks. I couldn’t do it fast--something else movies and TV lie about--but I could, with enough time, patience and luck, pick just about any lock I needed to. With the flashlight and the taser between my knees, I knelt on the ground at the back door and fiddled with the lock until it sprung open.

I stayed there for a moment, the door barely ajar, listening. No noise came from inside the house so I put the lock picks back in the messenger bag, picked up the flashlight and the taser and slowly pushed the door all the way open to reveal the kitchen. Small, functional, tidy. A faint whiff of something I couldn’t identify. I crossed the threshold, feeling the push of a magical warding spell trying to keep me out. As I barreled through it, the painful charge of static electricity popped over a dozen or more places on my body. Not entirely unexpected. The guy was a sorcerer, after all. This was just a lot more intense than anything similar I’d ever experienced.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen, trying to shake off a serious case of the creepies, swinging the beam of the flashlight around to check things out. Standard appliances, a bare breakfast nook. Nothing on the outside of the fridge. I opened it to see what was inside: a plastic bowl half full of apples, nearly empty quart of milk, and a jar of jelly. I went through the cabinets next, finding peanut butter, a loaf of bread, coffee. The dark sorcerer wasn’t much of a cook. Surely there had to be an evil spice rack around here somewhere.

I went to the doorway leading to the rest of the apartment and took my glasses off, hanging them on the front of my shirt. I slowed my breathing, reaching out through my feet and hands and head to ground myself. A long look around the entire place with my auric vision, opening my senses, showed me residue of magic, strong wards around every door and window, but no spirits of any kind. In fact, the entire place was pretty unremarkable on the surface. The furniture looked like it probably came with the apartment. The television was unplugged and turned haphazardly toward the wall. The bedroom closet was full of black clothes but nothing flashy or Hot Topic-y. Mystery novels and National Geographics had been neatly stacked in the living room. A computer in one corner I figured to be password-protected and probably pointless for me to try to mess with. The only thing vaguely resembling a clue that a magically inclined person lived here, other than the wards, of course, was the handful of physics textbooks in a corner in the bedroom. I flipped through them, looking for any notes in the margins, underlinings, turned down pages. Nothing, though the books did appear wellused.

With nowhere else to look, I sat on the edge of the bed. Except for the wards, the place was normal, like just another lonely bachelor lived here. My brain buzzed with frustration. He had to have a place, some sort of sanctuary where he kept his grimoires, his supplies, where he felt safe practicing magic. But where and how did I find it?

I could track down information about the house, find out who owned it to see if they would give me the tenant’s full name. Then search for other properties, and anything else, linked to that name. How long would that take me? It might get quicker results just keeping an eye out for signs of chaos and mayhem authored by Delia the demon playmate.

I rubbed my forehead, fingering the bandage at my hairline, tired. My body was sore from getting thrown against a wall. I needed to check on Seth and his friends, sleep about twelve hours and drink at least that many gallons of coffee. I stood, stretched, and pulled my glasses from where they were hooked to the front of my shirt. When I was about to put them on I saw it, a disturbance in the air around a spot in the floor against a threadbare area rug, heavier than the other wards. Shining the flashlight on it, I found nothing. Flipping the rug over revealed a square trapdoor cut into the worn hardwood, warded like Fort Knox. “Can I get a
boo yah
?” I said with a smile.

I used the lock picks to pry the square up. A wooden ladder led down into an inky darkness, smeared with the trace aura of past magic. The flashlight showed me a concrete floor, tables and shelves against the walls. It would sting like hell going through that ward, not to mention leave me incredibly vulnerable if he came home while I was down there. But, if I waited and came back with Daniel to guard the outside--not my home so I couldn’t invite him in--I might lose any chance of finding any valuable information down there. If Blake hadn’t already cleared everything out.

I shook my head. The decision had been made as soon as I found the trapdoor. Why err on the side of caution when you can rush headlong into danger? I climbed down, one hand on the ladder while the other held the flashlight as I shoved my way through the ward with teeth gritted.

The ladder stopped more than a foot from the ground and my boots
thunked
on the concrete as I landed. I looked the room over for anything that might become active before I put my glasses back on. The flashlight picked out a large worktable with a pot, a Bunsen burner, half a dozen or so jars and several candles. No lighter or matches in sight. I shrugged then lit the candles one by one, sending little shoots of energy out with the focus of my concentration. The last two candles I visualized lighting simultaneously and I was pleasantly surprised when they did.

Against the wall at the back of the table were four drawers from a chest used as containers. They were full of all sorts of different items, some from nature, some not. Taking a quick inventory, it looked like each drawer and its items represented the magical elements.

In the middle of the floor were two smaller versions of the circle I’d seen at the church, including rings of candles and small metal cups to mark the quarters. I walked around them, not wanting to cross into them. Both gave off an unpleasant heavy feel of magical energy.

This guy had at least as many books as I did, maybe more. They were arranged on shelves in what appeared to be the Dewey decimal system--categories in alphabetical order, and within that alphabetical by author--meticulous, and very clean despite being down here in this funky basement. Art, astronomy, astrology, history and mythology, science and math, every religion represented, plenty of general reference, a big section covering unexplained phenomena and esoteric subjects that included several I wished I owned. Hell, I wanted the whole library. The sight of this many books made me feel some serious lust.

Quite a few titles were out of print, some old enough to qualify as antique. I saw a lot I’d probably never be able to afford, unless someone reissued cheap paperback copies. I lost track of how many I pulled from the shelves and leafed through. At some point I pulled a notebook out of my bag and started making notes from some of the ones I’d never come across before. I could have spent some very happy days, weeks, months even, reading and studying all these marvelous books. Though it told me a few important things about Blake, it didn’t give me what I really needed. Reluctantly, I replaced a book on ancient Egyptian magic on the shelf and went back to searching the room again.

What I really needed was his grimoires. I looked over the shelves again, the work table and its four drawers. Sweeping the flashlight under the table, I found a large black trunk with a heavy lock. This looked promising. I went at it with the lock picks and, after a while, thought it might not be a bad idea to start carrying around a bolt cutter in the trunk of my car. After what felt like half an hour, hands shaking with exhaustion, the lock opened and I found what I was looking for--neat stacks of fat spiral notebooks, all black, all with dates written on the covers in silver. I flipped through a few to make sure they were what I needed. There must have been fifteen, twenty of them, too many for me to cram into my messenger bag. I looked around for something else in which to carry them, not wanting to have to make more than one trip. There were no bags of any kind.

“Hell with it,” I said as I put a few of the recent notebooks, including what looked to be the current one, in my bag. I would make a few trips up and down the ladder then I could probably take all of them to my car. I stood, suddenly curious how long I’d been down here. I fished around in my bag for my cellphone. I was still looking for it when someone called my name from the top of the ladder. Swinging around, I aimed the light above, one hand still grasping for the cellphone.