Smoke on the Water (16 page)

“I was until I walked into this.” She waved at the gaggle of patients and staff still milling around in the hall. “You truly have no idea how Mary got out?”

“You think if I knew I wouldn't have gotten out too?”

“I thought you were happy here.”

“No one's happy here.” Although now that Dr. Frasier had arrived, I was less
unhappy
.

“You wanna tell me why Zoe has a bug up her butt about you?”

“No.”

Peggy took my hands. “I saw the way he looked at you.”

“He who?”

“Dr. Frasier. You want to tell me anything?”

“Nothing to tell.” That had actually happened in reality and not in a vision.

“Willow, I'm on your side. I'm your advocate. If he's done anything—even said anything—he shouldn't have—”

“No. Of course not!”

“You understand what's inappropriate?”

“Better than most.”

“For a doctor, a nurse, a guard to take advantage of a patient is criminal.”

“There has been no advantage taken.”

There never would be. There couldn't be.

Perhaps I'd seen what I had about Dr. Frasier and me so I could stop it from happening. He was a good man. A fantastic doctor. And if he hung around me, he was going to wind up in a lot of trouble.

Who didn't?

*   *   *

The return trip to the mental health facility was uneventful. After dropping the name Roland, Mary had dropped off to sleep.

Sebastian dialed his boss. As it was the middle of the night, he got her voice mail, which was what he'd been hoping for, and left a message. She had an emergency number, but he didn't consider the situation an emergency anymore.

Delusion? Rationalization? Cowardice? Yes. And he was okay with that.

He notified the facility of his arrival time and Tom I met them at the intake bay, then rolled Mary off in a wheelchair to solitary.

Sebastian returned to his office and did some research. The name Roland got him diddly. Too broad.

He typed “snarling wolf” into the search engine. Same thing. He got gazillions of hits, but they were all pictures of snarling wolves.

“Snarling wolf ring” didn't work too well either. He found a lot of jewelry on Etsy.

“Snarling wolf symbol” brought up several groups who'd used one; the most infamous were the Nazis. Certainly that group was still around—more's the pity—however, if they were behind these murders the FBI would have been all over that already. It wasn't like the Nazis kept a low profile. Ever.

There were several motorcycle clubs. Having watched
Sons of Anarchy
, Sebastian figured the FBI knew about them too.

He hit the jackpot when he combined Roland and snarling wolf symbol. Someone had recently updated the Wikipedia information. He had to wonder who.

“Venatores Mali,”
he read. “Hunters of evil.”

And for these bozos evil meant witches. As the patient who'd led him to this information thought she was one, Sebastian was both intrigued and a little freaked out.

On the one hand, Roland was a real person as he'd suspected—namely Roland McHugh, leader of the bozos. On the other hand, just because Mary's voice was named Roland, didn't mean it actually
was
Roland—this Roland. Sebastian was pretty sure it wasn't. The guy had been dead for centuries.

Mary had probably read about Roland at some point. Started applying his name to every bad man who spoke to her—be they real or imagined. She was obsessed with witches, paranoid too. Why wouldn't she think the voice in her head belonged to a dead witch hunter?

Although she'd started out listening to the advice of this voice, when she should have been smacking herself and telling it to shut up. Unless the latter was behind her brain banging. In his experience, those head voices were pretty persuasive.

“Dr. Frasier?”

Peggy Dalberg stood in his doorway. Sebastian was damn glad to see her.

“You're back! Great. Come in.” He indicated the visitor's chair and she took it, though she seemed uncomfortable.

“You found Mary.”

Not a question, so he didn't answer. Sebastian had questions of his own.

“Have you ever heard of Roland McHugh?”

Her forehead creased, and she shook her head.

“He was the leader of a witch-hunting society in seventeenth-century Scotland.”

“Little random,” she said.

“Not really. You're a witch. Mary thinks she's a witch.” Apparently someone thought Willow was one too.

“No one's hunting us.” When he remained silent, she sat up straight. “Are they?”

Quickly he told her what he knew. She appeared suitably concerned.

“Have you ever heard of the
Venatores Mali
?” he asked.

Peggy shook her head again.

“Isn't that something you should know?”

“No one's hunted witches for centuries.”

“That we know of.”

“You think the
Venatores Mali
are back?” she asked.

“If not, someone's doing a damn good imitation.”

“Why?”

“I've never gotten very good explanations for crazy.”

“You think someone's after Mary?”

“No one's been asking questions about Mary.”

“Willow then. Because of the visions?”

Yesterday he would have pointed out that Willow didn't actually have visions. Today, he just shrugged.

“What should we do?”

“The FBI is involved.” He should probably call them, though most of what he knew was Mary-variety gibberish. “I'm not sure what we can do beyond our jobs. If Mary and Willow are here, they should be safe.”

“Except Mary's getting out somehow, which means there's a way in.”

“Unless she's actually transporting.”

“Don't start,” Peggy said.

“We'll have to keep a closer eye on both of them.”

“About that,” Peggy began, then went silent.

“What about it?”

“People have noticed.”

“Kind of hard not to.”

“Sir?”

“When Mary's gone, people notice.”

“I meant people have noticed you and Willow.”

“Me and Willow?” he echoed.

“Doctor,” she said in the same tone of voice his mother had always said
Sebastian
whenever he'd disappointed her. “You need to assign her to another psychiatrist.”

Sebastian didn't argue. She was right.

*   *   *

Mary remained in solitary for several days, but as her explanation for escape continued to be that she transported, and she obviously believed it, she was released.

If I'd thought we were being watched before, it was nothing compared to what happened after she disappeared the second time. I couldn't turn around without bumping into staff.

I wouldn't have minded bumping into Dr. Frasier. But he not only assigned me to another psychiatrist—an elderly woman who'd probably known Freud and liked him—but he avoided me with a deftness I might have appreciated if it hadn't hurt so badly.

My new psychiatrist liked to ask me about sex. As I hadn't had any, ever—at least in reality—they were short conversations. I wasn't surprised when she didn't believe me.

Most girls of my background used sex for currency—food, shelter, drugs. There'd been times I'd been close to using it myself. But I'd found other ways—stealing, cheating, lying, hiding were all better than sex with a stranger, in my opinion.

If I hadn't had those visions of Sebastian, the knowledge of what sex with love would be like, I wouldn't have understood what I was selling so short. But I did have those visions; I did know. And they'd given me strength in so many ways.

Unable to psychoanalyze what had never happened, my psychiatrist moved from questions about sex to inquiries about my parents. Those conversations were even shorter.

Dr. Frasier's boss, the head of all the facilities in the state, made a surprise visit. Both she and several of her assistants trolled the halls, poking into empty rooms and storage closets, pushing up ceiling tile and peering down bathroom drains—as if Mary could turn to smoke and get out that way—but they didn't find a physical path of escape any more than anyone else had.

Dr. Tronsted spent a lot of time talking to Justice. I suppose he knew the place better than anyone, but the few times I'd seen them together they'd stopped talking as soon as they'd seen me, and made a beeline away from each other as if they were guilty of something other than chatter. Maybe they had a thing goin' on. Or maybe she had convinced Justice to spy. He seemed to be everywhere I looked lately.

Tronsted interviewed me twice. I suppose a lot of people in this facility changed their stories as often as the wind changed direction, but not me. I told her the same thing both times that I'd told Dr. Frasier whenever he'd asked. Mary thought she'd transported outside the walls, and I hadn't seen anything to contradict that.

She interviewed Mary too. Their meeting was short—no crashes, no shouting—then the doctor left, and as far as I knew she hadn't been back. Although the facility was huge. I might be wrong.

As Peggy continued our Wicca lessons, Mary must have convinced the big boss all was well. Or Dr. Frasier had convinced her that the more Wicca Mary learned the saner she became, which seemed to be the truth. Most likely, no one had mentioned Wicca at all.

One afternoon, over three weeks after Mary had disappeared the last time, we were in the cafeteria where our lessons habitually took place between lunch and dinner, when Mary brought up blood magic. I thought Peggy might have a stroke.

“Where did you hear that?” she demanded.

Mary lifted Peggy's
Book of Shadows,
which, since it never left Mary's possession anymore might need to be renamed. “Where do you think?”

“Blood magic is the most powerful kind of magic there is,” Peggy explained. “Using blood in a spell makes that spell not only personal but permanent. It shouldn't be used unless there's no other choice.”

“If it's that powerful, why not?” Mary asked.

“Blood magic is the bridge between white magic and black. That connection can draw a witch from the light to the dark. It's dangerous.”

“A bridge works both ways,” I said. “Wouldn't it draw the dark to the light too?”

“It rarely does. Once power like that is used, it seduces. In white magic, the blood is given. In black it is taken. You see the difference?”

“Sacrifice versus—” I tried to think of the opposite of sacrifice and couldn't.

“Theft,” Peggy supplied. “Torture, slavery, bondage.”

“Got it,” Mary said. “Taking bad. Giving good.”

“The results of a blood spell cannot be undone,” Peggy continued, ignoring her.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Those spells use the elements in some way. What is burned cannot be unburned. What sinks into the earth, can't be drawn out. What is tossed into the wind is irretrievable. Blood becomes one with the water.”

As if it were happening again, right before my eyes, I saw the fleck of dried blood from my bitten tongue dispersing into the cup of water, disappearing, becoming one with it, right before I had my last vision. That hadn't been a spell, but it had been something. I'd seen what I wanted to, what I needed to, rather than random flashes that made no sense.

“Let's try one.” Mary opened the book.

“No.” Peggy closed the book. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“I'll
give
you my blood. All good.”

Peggy lifted her gaze to Deux—our guard for the day—who lounged just inside the doorway, gaze fixed on us as if we were pork chops dancing in front of a wolf. I kept expecting him to lick his lips.

“You might
want
to give me your blood,” Peggy said just above a whisper. “But if I start taking it, that'll not only be the end of our lessons, but the end of my job. You think no one's going to notice me cutting your arm?”

“I'll cut my own arm,” Mary said.

“Not,” Peggy and I blurted at the same time.

Mary scowled and hugged the book to her chest, but she quit arguing.

“I wanted to do a spell of healing today,” Peggy said.

Deux made a derisive sound and turned away. But he didn't
go
away. Lately, none of them did.

“Where is it?” Mary began to shuffle through the pages.

“I haven't tried it yet. If it works, we write it down.”

Mary snapped the book closed. “Okay.”

Peggy withdrew three blue candles and a knife from her bag. She picked up one of the candles and began to carve a word into the wax.

“Whoa!” Deux plucked the sharp instrument from her hand. “Are you high?”

“Not at the moment,” Peggy said, and held out her hand. “Give it back.”

“Nope.” He tucked the knife into his pocket and strolled back where he'd been.

“Now what?” The gaze Mary turned on the guard worried me.

“Now I do this.” Peggy used her fingernail to write Mary's name in all three candles.

“I'm not hurt,” Mary protested.

Peggy just lit the candles, held out her hands and waited until we took them before she began the chant. “Healing light, shining bright, let this sickness flee in fright.”

“Not sick either,” Mary muttered.

Peggy kept chanting. “With harm to none, including me, as I will so mote it be. Now together.”

We repeated the chant three times.

“Close your eyes and imagine Mary well.”

“Not. Sick.”

Mary's patience was waning. Couldn't say I blamed her. A lot of Wicca involved meditation. Mary wasn't the type.

“What about sleeping?” Mary asked.

Peggy opened one eye. “Now?”