The Wiccan Diaries (7 page)

“Such manuscripts are dangerous. I do not feel comfortable
even flipping through it.

“Here is the material point. My uncle knew Kinsey and
Maximilian Rookmaaker––

“But he died last week. I was named executor. It was my job
to go through his stuff. Among his few possessions was
this
.

“I did not know him to be a hoarder. Anything he kept would
have been important to him. Things that he did keep were mostly in scrapbooks.
So I noticed this right away.

“I saw the design on the cover. I was immediately disturbed
by it and picked it up. When I opened it, I found the inscription. I will leave
it to you to decipher what it means. I do not know.

“There was also a note from my uncle. The note I keep out of
sentimental reasons, it being his last correspondence
in this world
. But it scared the ever-loving bleep out of me.”

I read his transcription of it. It had lost none of its
potency.

“Such things are beyond my understanding,” he continued.
“But a little digging told me the gist. I pass it on to you, now. Although I
cannot help thinking I have burdened you, only to be rid of it myself. I hope
this package finds you
well
. If you
can think of anything, or would like to discuss this further, correspondence
directed to my uncle’s shop, will find me.
Ciao
,
for now. See that you do not cut yourself playing with old daggers. Somebody
told me that once. I hope you can tell me what it means, because
I
certainly don’t understand it.

“Ballard.”

I put it away. My journal entry from three months ago read
like a gunshot.

‘I don’t think the
Rookmaakers died natural deaths. The bodies that were recovered were quickly
cremated. If I am to believe Mistress Genevieve....

‘She has never given
me cause not to. But these morbid feelings. She wants me to see a shrink. I
don’t think somebody rattling around in my head will find anything
I
can’t. Some wounds cut too deep to be
cured. I don’t tell her about my journal. I don’t tell her how it makes me
vent, or that it can be therapeutic. Or that I suspect things, I am not willing
to share. I don’t tell her jack shit.

‘Implicit is the fear
that I may go too far, and vent on someone who can’t handle my angst. I will
keep my mouth shut, for now.’

* * *

As I stood to go, I heard a rumble. It made the pigeons
disperse. A sound, like engines, was coming down a corridor.

It grew in intensity, and then I saw them break through,
into the morning sunlight.

A long unbroken line of men and women on motorcycles. I
could tell the motorcycles were the fast type because of how the riders sat on
them. They went past, one after the other, with their helmets shining in the
sun.

The bikes all said DUCATI on them.

Some had just one rider. Others were guys who had their
girlfriends riding on the backs. The engines roared like fierce cats. I felt a
silly smile on my face when I got on my own little motor scooter. When I turned
the key, it started like it was apologizing for something. I patted it and got
ready to meet Ballard. I drove down first one vicolo, then another, searching
for his uncle’s motorcycle shop.

I think I loved it. Trastevere was a different place than
the other areas I had seen so far. It looked
lived in
. The sides of the buildings, all squished into one
another, were weathered and sun-beaten. Lines crisscrossed overhead full of
laundry airing out in the morning sun. I could see the tops of Romanesque bell
towers; they beat the hours. All the shutters were thrown open. It had a
bohemian heart.

As I drove, I was ‘transported back in time.’ Good old
guidebook. I couldn’t help smiling. Grandmothers with shopping bags on their
arms knocked here or there. Broken down cars that nevertheless still worked,
waited on their owners. Through it all I navigated my shiny orange Vespa.

I could hear the rumbling. I was surprised, when I turned
the corner, to see them hanging outside a makeshift storefront. I caught a
glimpse of them with their helmets off. They were all extraordinarily tall, the
riders.

The women were ‘Italian beautiful,’ with dark hair longer
than mine, and a certain cut to the way they held themselves. One threw her
head back and laughed confidently at a joke; she had a bright red motorcycle
helmet beneath her arm, and she was dangling a pair of leather riding gloves in
the other. She had on black leather pants and a jacket, trimmed out with strips
of red that accentuated her helmet and set off her hair.

They were parked in front of Ballard’s shop. My nervousness
jumped to a whole new level.

I was never good with introductions, and time apart, even
from close friends, caused a nervous reunion. Part of me wanted to just keep on
driving by. But I rode up on my motor scooter and parked. The sign outside
advertised AUTOFFICINA. Some kind of mechanic shop. Above it in hand painted
letters was TRASTEVERE MOTOR CLUB––WE FIX IT. In Italian, of
course. I felt foolish pulling up. When I put down my kickstand, they all
looked at me.

There had to have been ten of the most attractive young men
I had ever seen standing there. Becca would have died. They were all athletic
and muscular and all exceedingly tall. Six-foot-nine, at least. They looked
like the scantily-clad models I had seen on billboards advertising the latest
designer fashions.

The woman, who seemed to be my age or a little older, was
conspicuous foremost by her beauty, but also because she was the only one with
a full head of hair. The others had shaved theirs off. They were playing with
the throttles on their expensive-looking motorcycles or else passing the time.
They looked like they were waiting for someone. When I got off my bike, the
girl looked at me. She continued her conversation uninterrupted but gave me a
friendly smile. It was enough. I took my helmet off and walked up to her,
unsure of what happened next.

“Hi.”

Her smile got even wider. “It’s
buon giorno
. You got to know where you’re
at
,” she said. The way she said it––it was like she had
been all over the place.

“I’m afraid I don’t speak Italian,” I said, hoping she would
understand. She looked over at my bike. I waited nervously for her to pronounce
judgment.

Instead, she said, “I like your wheels.”

“I like your wheels
too
,”
I said, wishing someone would put me out of my misery. She just smiled some
more. It looked like she sympathized.

“I have three brothers. If I don’t ride motorcycles with
them, their feelings will get hurt. It’s not like we can braid each other’s
hair.” She nodded at their deficiency in the hair department. “Can I help you
with something? You’re not
lost
, are
you?”

“Ballard.”
I clung
to that word. “Do you know who that is?”

She changed a little bit; there was more cunning in her
eyes. “Who did you say you are?”

“I didn’t.”

Her eyes became unfocused and she said something to the
others that caused them to go quiet. “I’m not here to start any trouble. I
swear
,” I said.

We stood like that for a while. “I see,” she said.

“Do you know where I can find him?” I finally asked.

The smile returned. “Of course. He is my
little
brother,” she said. My mouth
formed the word O. “Ballard!
Ballard!”
she shouted. She unzipped one of her pockets and took out a pack of gum, offering
me a piece. “Suit yourself,” she said. She chewed it, still thinking.
“Ballard!”

I heard a machine shut off, inside. Next second, a teenager
with oily jeans and a torn T-shirt appeared, carrying a rag in his hand, and
said, “What, Lia?” He had brown eyes, curly black hair, and a pair of goggles
on top of his head. He looked at each of us, waiting for somebody to talk.

“Buon giorno,”
I
said, feeling like a fool. “I got your letter.” His smile widened.

Chapter 6 – Lennox

I pulled into the underground parking garage thankful for
the respite from the July sun, which had been beating upon the hood of Occam’s
Charger. It was the start of the shift change at Police HQ. I had driven
because in his wisdom Occam had installed bulletproof tinted glass that kept
the sun’s rays at bay. He said it was just because he wanted to look cool, but
I knew he did it for me. He had made his ride vamp accessible, in case I ever
needed to use it. I crossed my fingers, hoping his trip was going well. Occam
never left home unless it was an absolute emergency and even then he
procrastinated until the final moment; all in the name of research, as he so
often told me. His house was awash in books and half-forgotten parchments, the
kinds with cracked leather bindings that were handwritten and illuminated.

Some were so old the pages were spilling out. They were worn
and smelled faintly of mildew. His
arcana
.
I was forbidden to touch them. If one were so much as out of place....

I sighed.

For the last eight hours I had been hard-pressed to get her
out of my mind. I thought of nothing except what I was going to say to her, the
next time we met. It interfered with my ability to concentrate on anything
else.

I tried looking into necromancy, but Occam’s stores of
knowledge on the subject were exhaustive. I was in no fit state to bury my head
in books. My preference was always to enlist the help of others, when at all
possible, rather than to rely on textbook explanations for
things––to press the flesh, so to speak.

That was not to say I could not piece things together for
myself.

I had cultivated very few close
relationships––too often that meant revealing one’s self to
someone, and letting them in on the secret existence of our kind. See rule
number one. It was absolutely forbidden.

The only justifiable excuse in revealing yourself to a
non-vampire was if it meant the difference between the life and death of a
vampire. Humans dying was another matter.
Let
them.

The second rule was not to interfere in the affairs of
humans.

There was only one other Law of Vampires.

I flashed my lights at a member of the Questura who was
headed across the half-empty parking garage to a set of lifts that would take
him upstairs. He looked over.

I saw recognition dawn upon his face. He raised his hand and
came over.

It was a singular experience to see a human and know
they knew
who I was. That was a death
sentence, generally––for the human,
and
the vampire, unless the vampire could explain what was going
on.

Lieutenant Moretti had ten years working Homicide. Before
that he had been a beat cop. He got a call one night and responded to a
disturbance.

It turned out two ‘vampers’ had set upon a night watchman at
this or that museum. Moretti was the first on the scene. He managed to save the
night watchman, but drew the ire of the vampires. I happened to be there.

He drew his pistol and stopped one vampire dead in its
tracks––
he thought
. I did
not manage to get to him in time.

When he rolled over, with part of his face hanging from his
chin, he fired. The bullet tore through the second vamper who had been about to
run me through. Time was critical and I couldn’t bother to be discreet. Both of
our lives were on the line. I ran the second vampire through.

Moretti witnessed firsthand the destruction of
two
immortals, that night. It cost him
his innocence, in a way. Ordinarily, I was supposed to come up with a cover
story. Only, I could not explain away what happened to the vampires he had
helped to kill. “They disappeared into thin air!” he said. Since then, we had
cooperated on a few other cases.

However, I had never before come to him with explicitly
otherworldly problems. That would be flaunting the fact that we had gotten
around rule number one. Big no-no.

“Lennox. I was wondering when you would show up,” he said.

I saw the jagged scar that cut across his chin, memento of
the night we had met. It looked like something had mauled him. “Have time for
an old friend?” I asked.

He held out his arms. “But, of course. I know why you are
here.” He looked around a second to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “‘When
a form of superstition is prevalent everywhere, and in all ages,’” he said, “‘it
must rest upon a foundation of
fact
.’
Am I right or am I right?”

“Sabine Baring-Gould,” I said, recognizing the quote. “Will
you help me?”

“What d’you need?” he said.

* * *

He gave me everything: logbooks, crime scene photographs,
reports of responding officers... news clippings... I was amazed at his
thoroughness. Included was a series of autopsy reports from The Office of the
Medical Examiner. This would detail
exact
cause of death
, plus list any pertinent facts about the condition of the
bodies. There was also a criminal profile that had been done, of who to look
out for. I looked at Moretti. “Thanks, man.”

“Just make sure you don’t let those fall into anyone else’s
hands.” He looked around again. “Especially that reporter.”

I could only imagine he meant Miss Skarborough. “You don’t
have to worry about me,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.
Congratulations on making lieutenant.”

He nodded. “Take care.”

* * *

As I was leaving, I caught the scent of her blood. Halsey
Rookmaaker was exiting the front of the Questura, a look of disappointment on
her face. I waited for her to come this way. Instead, she got onto an orange
moped, and put her helmet on. Intrigued, I waited for her to pass and began to
follow her.

Occam’s Charger was too big to follow behind her for very
long. She got into a pack of other tourists on mopeds and I lost her. She was
heading towards Trastevere. That was somewhere I avoided when possible.

But her blood smell. It dredged up memories of her from the
night before. I could taste her in my mouth––without
having
tasted her.

The old V8 idled thirstily. I could smell the rot of the
corpse I had in the back. I was not looking forward to dealing with it. Occam
had kept it for a reason. I didn’t think I could stomach it much longer, so I
headed across the Sisto bridge and back to Campo de’ Fiori. The refracting
light off the Tiber made my eyes ache and burn, even behind the tinted glass.