The Voodoo Killings (17 page)

A snapshot of a redhead caught my attention, a selfie posted of her and Cameron dated Wednesday night. That had to be the girlfriend he’d mentioned. The tag said her name was Sybil.

There was no mention of family anywhere. In this day and age, that was unusual. A lot of people wanted to hide some part of their family; most people have some uncle, brother, sister, parent, in-law they’d like to forget. But in the digital universe, the people you wanted to distance yourself from the most were the ones who made it next to impossible. I’d had to change my last name to distance myself from mine….Or maybe Cameron had no family—always a possibility.

Cameron had come up behind me and was peering over my shoulder at his page. “Would you be offended if I told you I found this a bit creepy?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You want to drive? Be my guest.” I slid out of the chair so he could sit. “I need you to search for any posts you might have made in the last few days, especially during the nights you can’t remember. In fact, look through the posts you made over the past month. My guess is your zombie condition took at least that long to plan.”

“That could take a while. I post a few times a day.”

I nodded. That’s what I was counting on. The more he’d posted, the easier it’d be to pinpoint the gaps in his memory and fill them in. I handed him a pad of paper and pen from my desk pile. “Once you finish with this week, go back through September and August. Make a note of every entry you can’t remember posting.”

He nodded.

“Remember you told me there were three people you saw this week? I want you to contact all of them: your art dealer, your girlfriend and your drug dealer. Contact them all the way you normally would—e-mail, FB, phone—just do it and ask to meet.”

“You think one of them was involved?”

I shrugged. “Probably not, but maybe they can fill in some more blank spots.”

Cameron stared at the screen. “Samuel, my art dealer, won’t be a problem. But the other two?” He glanced up at me. “I’ll do my best.”

I headed into the bedroom to grab clean clothes then ducked into the shower, locking the door behind me. No more zombie interruptions.

I hung a towel over the mirror and stripped off my sweat-soaked clothes. While I waited for the water to heat up, my hands began to shake. That was new too. It took me five minutes under the hot water to warm myself up. After I’d stepped out of the shower and dried off, I held out my hands. There was still a slight tremble.

Come on, Kincaid, snap out of it. The problem isn’t Otherside—it’s that you need a serious vacation.

I got dressed, then checked the time on my cellphone. I had to hit the underground city and touch base with Lee. Hell, she might even pay me what she owed me for looking into Marjorie’s. And then to Catamaran’s, if I had time: Randall would appreciate an update. I wrote a note for Nate on the mirror:
Heading out—need to see Lee and stop in at Catamaran’s. Can you check in on Cameron every hour till 7?

It took less than a minute for Nate to respond.
SURE, K—EVERYTHING OKAY?

That was almost laughable.
As well as can be expected. Will fill you in tonight. Brains are in the metal cooler—still has plenty of dry ice so will leave on counter
. Otherwise Nate would have to waste energy opening the fridge—not something I wanted if there was an emergency.
If something goes wrong before 7, message or Skype me
.

AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING OBVIOUS, WHAT HAPENS IF THERES AN EMERGENCY AFTER 7?

Good question.
We hope to hell there isn’t one? I’ll lock the doors and windows and leave Cameron with instructions to call me
. I’d also leave him with Aaron’s number, and explicit instructions to use it only in an extreme emergency, but Nate didn’t need to know that right now.

YOUR THE BOSS—SEE YOU AT THE LIBARY AT 7
.

I grabbed my jacket off the rack in the hall and headed into the kitchen. “Any luck?” I asked Cameron.

He nodded. “Sybil will be at Club 9 tomorrow night.”

Club 9. An upscale club in which I’d stick out like a sore thumb. “Something less ritzy, maybe?”

Cameron shook his head. “You said not to make it obvious. She’s planning on going anyways, so I put us on the list. It’s the best I could do. She’s leaving town Monday for a shoot.”

I nodded and slid the cooler out of the fridge and dropped it on the kitchen counter. “The other two?”

“No answer yet. That’s not unusual, though—it’s the weekend.”

“Any pets, or people who might notice you’re not home?”

“Already thought of that.” He showed me the screen. He’d written a new post saying he was taking it easy this weekend and would see people at Club 9 Sunday. “The doorman at my condo might notice that I haven’t been home, but that isn’t exactly outside my realm of normal behaviour.”

I wasn’t sure if I should be thrilled or depressed at that revelation about his life. “We’ll go through the list when I get back and see if we can figure out where your memory tailspun.”

I motioned for Cameron to give me his arm. The skin and nails were still holding up. Next I checked his eyes. Lighter, but the irises
were still a living shade of green. In theory he’d be good for another day without brains, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance. I opened the cooler and pulled out one of the packets.

“Look, I’m heading out again. I should be back by midnight, but in case something happens, we’re going over ground rules. Write this down.”

Cameron nodded and reached for a fresh piece of paper.

I tapped the cooler. “Eat a pack now, and another at seven or eight tonight. If I get delayed, I’ll send Nate back to you. Worst-case scenario and neither of us shows up by tomorrow morning, eat a third pack and call Lee Ling.” I took the sheet of paper and wrote down Lee’s number. “She’ll know what to do. If she can’t get a hold of me, she’ll make arrangements for you to get to the underground city.” I paused before making my last point, then said, “If you don’t hear anything from me by late Sunday afternoon, call this man.” I pulled Aaron’s crumpled card out of my drawer and gave it to Cameron.

Cameron picked up the card. “Detective Baal? A cop?”

“Trust me, if you find yourself in a position where you need to call Detective Baal, the fact he’s a cop will be the least of your worries.

“Don’t let anyone in and don’t go outside, and you should be fine. Draw some pictures, watch some TV—try to relax. And remember to eat more brains tonight.”

“You told me that already.”

“It bears repeating.”

Cameron pinned the sheet of instructions and Aaron’s card to my bulletin board.

I gave him a last once-over before grabbing my bike and ducking out of the apartment.

One thing Max had said at coffee stuck in my head as I pulled the Hawk out of the lift.

Tread carefully, Kincaid
.

CHAPTER 11

FLOTSAM

Midday on a Saturday, Pioneer Square was crowded and the alleys bright in the midday light. Good thing there was more than one entrance to the underground city. I took the Alaskan viaduct along the piers until I reached a spot on the shoreline where one of Seattle’s rain sewers emptied through a wide pipe. I eased down one of the old boat ramps and drove right inside. Two hundred yards in, I reached my goal: a circular metal door to a tunnel that had once been used to control runoff. Now it was fitted with a wheel handle covered in etched symbols, much like the entrance off Pioneer Square.

I tapped the barrier, only pulling enough Otherside to see the symbols. After I lined up the arrow and turned it through the right combination, the hinge clicked open and damp, stale air filtered out. I ditched my bike just inside the door behind a stack of old barrels. Ten minutes later, I earned stares from the afternoon crowd as I walked into Damaged Goods. It’s rare for me to show up in the middle of the day.

Lee arched an eyebrow at me as I took a seat at the bar. “You are back sooner than anticipated,” she said, and held up an empty glass.

I shook my head. “Not with this Otherside hangover. And I thought you were paying me to be fast.”

“I do not recall that being one of my conditions.”

“Okay, so it’s one of mine. Besides, I found something.” I took paper and a pencil crayon out of my jacket pocket and began to sketch Marjorie’s café, indicating where the Otherside fragments had landed. On a second sheet I drew the three partial symbols I’d been able to make out, the remnants of Marjorie’s bindings. I numbered each of the partials and indicated on the coffee shop map where I’d seen them, then slid the two sheets across the bar. With the tip of a lacquered white fingernail covered in red blossoms, she drew them closer. A frown touched her face.

“What are these, Kincaid?”

“As far as I can tell, all that’s left of Marjorie’s bindings. They look Celtic to me. I had to break wards protecting her window.”

Lee’s frown deepened. “If I had known about the barrier, I would have told you, Kincaid.” She pointed to the largest, most complete rune, then tapped it. Her manicure matched the decor. So did her dress, for that matter. “Why do you assume this is a Celtic rune?” she asked.

“Because Celtic knots were used on the windowsill to anchor the barrier. Look at the edges.” The symbol exhibited dashes and loops characteristic of Celtic runes.

Lee shook her head. “This is most definitely not a Celtic rune, nor a remnant of Marjorie’s bindings.”

“Lee—”

But she’d turned and disappeared into her office. She came back with an old, heavy leather-bound tome as long as my arm and thick with hand-bound pages that looked as though it belonged in a museum or on the shelf of a rare-book shop. She laid it on the bar and flipped through until she found the spread she wanted. Then she turned the book to face me.

“These are Celtic runes. Look at the way they finish on the sides and are joined together in a larger picture.
These
,” she said, pointing to the images I had transcribed, “do not look like they were joined to
any other runes. They are individual characters.” She glanced up at me, dark eyes intent. “Unless you were sloppy in transcribing them?”

I glared back. “No, Lee, that’s exactly what they looked like.”

“That is what I thought,” she said, and flipped to the next page. “I believe they belong to this set, which are ancient Arabic.”

These pages were covered in cursive symbols with smoother, more flourished outlines. Nowhere on the page were the symbols linked together; they were always written as individual characters.

“I didn’t know there were Arabic incantations for binding Otherside,” I said. Though it made sense. Almost every culture on the planet had figured out how to work Otherside, even before the turn of the century, when the barrier thinned….

“The use of Arabic symbols faded in the Middle East during the Dark Ages.

“It was one of the few regions that succeeded in purging itself of practitioners. A few books survived the purge, but they’re rare. My brother acquired the only copy we knew of that existed in Shanghai. Lou was one of the few people who studied Arabic bindings. They are quite dangerous. Are you familiar with the legends of the Jinn?”

I nodded. “
One Thousand and One Nights
, right?”

Lee pursed her lips, and the web of scars stood out. “Not exactly. Ancient Arabic inscriptions were used to bind spirits, not to a corpse, but to an element: air, water, fire, earth. An undead entity that is both corporeal and non-corporeal at the same time.”

Corporeal and non-corporeal. “All the strengths, and none of the weaknesses,” I said. “Surprised it hasn’t been picked back up.”

Lee made a face. “Jinn were powerful, but to make one was to induce a form of undead slavery. The spirits involved could not be willing, otherwise it would not work.”

I didn’t want to imagine raising an unwilling zombie.

“Lou said that the early Arabic inscriptions were adapted to act as a leash on the Jinns’ power and ability to wreak vengeance. The leashes were often tied to items such as jewellery or lamps, so they would not unwind if the practitioner was mortally wounded.”

“Max sure as hell never showed me anything like this,” I said.

“He may not know about them. As I said, very few accounts of the ancient Arabic bindings exist. It is possible he’s never encountered one.”

“So Marjorie was some vengeful Jinn living in Seattle and running a coffee shop?”

Lee clicked her tongue, irritated. “Marjorie was a zombie, like me. These days the Jinn only exist as legends and bedtime stories. The complete bindings and techniques were lost over a thousand years ago. Even these here are only remnants transcribed and lost, then transcribed again. They will not ever be able to raise a Jinn.” She pointed to my drawings again. “These were not part of her bindings.”

“Then what the hell were they doing at the coffee shop?”

“That is a very good question, and one I’d like answered.”

A chill ran down my spine. Just because it takes years to teach yourself how to work Otherside doesn’t mean you gain magical wisdom by it. People do stupid things with Otherside all the time. Case in point: six months ago a murderer had raised a victim to throw off the time of death, and rushed it….The zombie strangled two people as a result, including the murderer himself.

“Did Lou ever run into a practitioner who tried to raise a Jinn?”

Sometimes when the light hits Lee’s face a certain way, the scars take on an eerie life of their own, like ripples on water. This was one of those moments. “Yes,” she said carefully, then rushed to add, “but the victims in those cases were all living and killed in a very specific fashion. Since Marjorie was a zombie, we can’t assume…”

“Bullshit we can’t.”

“Kincaid, those murders occurred over one hundred years ago, and the perpetrator was killed in the great fire.”

“What if his ghost passed those methods on? You know as well as I do how much ghosts gossip. Who’s to say a chain of ghosts haven’t traded field notes to a practitioner? Or what if he left a notebook?” Practitioners were always looking for old notebooks that might contain a new set of bindings or symbols.