To Kill a Sorcerer (20 page)

I drove past Sympathetic Charms, pulled around to the back, and parked. When I walked around to the street side of the building, the sign on the door read “Closed.” She had turned it to “Open” when Hamilton and I left forty minutes ago.

I looked over the short blinds into the store. It was still dark inside, but the candlelight was enough for me to see that no one was within sight of the door. I tested the knob. It turned easily.

Pushing gently, I slid my hand up and grabbed the bell so it would not tinkle its greeting, then slipped inside.

The muggy atmosphere seemed hotter than before. A door to a back room stood open behind the counter. A light shone from there, a weak, yellow glow. That door had been closed when Hamilton and I had been here.

A muffled grunt, a soft scrape.

Moving quickly down the central aisle, past monkeys’ paws and spell books, I moved opposite the cash register. Leaning over, I tried to look past the door, but a wall blocked the view. Slipping under the counter, I stepped quietly forward.

Another scraping sound, followed by a small, hoarse cry, all of it so faint, I could barely be sure I’d heard anything. I pulled the Walther, thumbed the safety off, and silently pushed the door the rest of the way open. It was a storeroom with boxes and other office supplies, and a large table at the back.

My eyes had barely registered the obscenity in front of me before I was raising the gun and pointing it at the man’s head. He was turned sideways to me, but I could see him clearly.

“LAPD, stop right there. Step away from that woman, put down the knife, and turn toward me.”

Madame Leoni’s skinny legs hung over the edge of the table. They were covered with blood, and her intestines had spilled onto the floor. Her shoulders were propped crookedly against the wall as if she had been tossed there like a discarded doll. Her face was a frozen, dead rictus of terror.

The man standing over her, holding a spattered knife, was Kanga.

Although the sketch was accurate, it did not capture the power of the man. His eyes had the imperious confidence of one who had achieved great deeds.

“If you step out of my way,” he said, “I will not take your life as I did this poor unfortunate.”

“Why kill her?” I had my gun leveled on his throat. He had stepped away from the body and was facing me, but he had not dropped the knife.

“She betrayed me to you,” he replied.

“How do you know that?” Had he been in this back room the whole time? Or had he listened somehow?

“Mr. Montero, you are not even a real policeman, so why place yourself at risk?” He regarded me with a look of curiosity. “Please move out of the way.”

So Reed had been correct. Kanga had been watching the nightly news and knew the names of the primary detectives assigned to his case. I felt outmaneuvered, as if I were playing an opponent who knew more about the game than I did.

That would not help him now.

I would dispose of him right here, and no one would be the wiser. With the sketch in their possession, it would be easy for the police to identify Kanga. There would be the mystery of his murder and a presumed third party, but nothing that would lead back to me. And the public would know the Voodoo Killer was no longer a threat.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I told him, sighting down the barrel. “In fact, you will not be leaving this room under your own power.”

As I fired, he raised his hand, palm out, in a jerky, defensive gesture. There was a clinking sound. We both looked down. The bullet had landed at his feet.

His face went from incredulity to triumph in a moment. He began to move toward me.

He waved his hand dismissively at the exact moment I fired for his right eye. A hole opened in the wall behind him. I pulled the trigger again, but he made a gripping motion and threw his arm outward. My Walther swung as if someone had grabbed the barrel and pulled on it. The shot hit the wall above Madame Leoni’s head.

He had pushed my gun aside from across the room.

I squeezed the grip hard and aimed again. This time he made a downward motion with his hand. The gun jerked in my grasp and pointed at the ground as I fired. The bullet struck the stone floor and ricocheted into a stack of boxes.

Then Kanga was on top of me. I threw a left, but he ducked it and jammed his knife into my stomach. White-hot pain. He twisted the dagger, sending ripples of agony through me. A savage grin creased his face as he ripped the knife free and prepared for another thrust.

His next jab I blocked with my gun hand. He sliced it. The flare of fiery pain almost made me drop the weapon. I punched him just below his right eye. He took a step back. I followed with the butt of my Walther, about to crack him on the side of the head, when he made a pushing motion that hurled me backward. I collided with a short filing cabinet, banging my knees painfully as I went down.

Kanga loomed over me, kicked the gun out of my hand, then shoved his bloody dagger into my side all the way to the hilt, using his weight to jam me against the wooden cabinet. He grabbed my bicep, pulling on me for better stabbing leverage. The pain shocked, molten agony as the long knife tore through my body.

He leaned toward me, the smell of his hot sweat mixed with sweet cologne, wafting into my nostrils. “You will enjoy the afterlife, Mr. Montero.” He jerked the knife up, ripping me, grunting with the effort. I moaned in agony and tried to shake him off, but he was too close and had me pinned. “You are fortunate I do not have time to send you to the damned place where Madame Leoni dwells.” He shoved me hard as he pulled the knife out and danced away.

I stood shakily, grabbed my gun off the floor, and turned to fire.

Kanga had disappeared. I heard the tinkle of the front door chime.

Spasms racked my body. My head spun from the burning echoes of Kanga’s death thrusts. I remained motionless for a few moments, my repair system roaring in my ears, then I hurried out of the back room and sprinted down the center aisle.

I could not run outside covered in blood and scour the street, gun drawn, without attracting a great deal of attention. I looked through the window. Kanga was nowhere in sight. There was no one else, either, but that did not matter. Although the gunshots had been in the storage room far from the entrance, they had been loud, and I had to assume someone had reported them.

Moving back through the store briskly, I glanced up at the dozens of candles in their holders, wondering how long it had taken Madame Leoni each day to light them.

Ducking under the counter, I stepped once again into the back room.

My body still sent out small pulses, like painful pinches or pinpricks, as I stood in front of Madame Leoni’s body. Kanga had worked on her for a while. That meant he must have taken her shortly after Hamilton and I left.

She sat sprawled out, her arms thrown to the sides, her shoulder blades and head pressed against the wall, her legs dangling over the edge of the table. Kanga had gutted her, cutting right through the bodice of her dress. He had struck multiple blows, perhaps even scooping with the large blade.

The spirit of the woman in green who had tried to drown me at the Houdini Mansion had been killed the same way. Her murder may have been one of Kanga’s early attempts to capture a soul—an attempt that failed.

I lifted Madame Leoni’s right forearm, careful not to press too hard, and examined it closely. Small, round burns covered her skin. One of her thin cigars burned in an ashtray next to her. Judging by the number of injuries, Kanga had pressed the smoldering tip to her flesh many times.

He had scratched symbols into the tabletop on either side of her. The seals of the dead, twisted pentagrams designed to send the sacrificial victim to a place of nothingness, awaiting the priest’s commands.

Suddenly sickened at the way her life had ended, I stepped away. Her desperate desire to be a shaman had been sweet, and she had been a harmless fixture in the community.

And Kanga had murdered her because Hamilton and I had located her and made her talk. I would not forget that.

Kanga had gouged my suit jacket along the side, and my shirt was sodden with blood. My pants had splatter on them, but it was hard to see against the dark blue fabric.

I buttoned the jacket and flipped up the collar, using the lapels to cover the front of my shirt. Hopefully, no one would get a close look at me before I climbed into my car.

Sirens sounded in the distance. I gazed at the splashes of my blood on the floor, knowing I would never be able to clean them up. Samples would be collected by the SID team, the first evidence I had ever left at a crime scene. There was also a footprint in one of them. I would need to destroy my shoes as soon as I got home.

The sirens were closer. It was time to leave. I took one last look at Madame Leoni’s tortured face.

Then I bolted from the store.

I contrived to slip into the Maserati without anyone getting a good look at me. I headed for Sherman Way, the blood on my clothes seeping into the leather of the driver’s seat.

My mind remained jumbled. I thought back to the moment when I decided to kill Kanga, and wondered if I had hesitated. No. I had contemplated the moment even before it had happened. When the opportunity had landed in my lap and I had him in my sights, I had fired. And it had not mattered.

Worse, his reaction to stopping my initial bullet was one of astonishment. It was clearly the first time he had accomplished anything so significant. My attempt to execute him had not only failed, it had unintentionally given him confidence in his newly acquired magical powers by testing him in a way he may have been reluctant to try on his own.

And after that, he had handled me as easily as he had slaughtered Madame Leoni.

Confidence did not seem to be a problem for Kanga.

He had known who I was. By inference, he knew Hamilton, and probably Gonzales. It was impossible to guess how much he had discovered about us, but after this first meeting with him, I decided to assume he was aware of everything available in the public domain, including addresses, phone numbers, and whether or not we shopped online. That gave him an advantage until we learned more about him.

Not that I worried he might use the information. Based on the powers he had already displayed, he would not need a computer to find us. If he decided to attack, he would bring to bear his newly -acquired magical skills.

Could a full-fledged sorcerer like a Thief of Souls kill an immortal? The special title told the tale. My immortality represented a physical concept. In the spiritual sense, we are all eternal beings. Since this conjurer attacked the inner, luminous body, I had no greater defense than a mortal. In fact, the idea that my body might continue, a soulless, breathing husk devoid of the sentience necessary to animate it, chilled me to the marrow.

Vampires have souls, too.

There was no doubt in my mind. If Kanga completed this dangerous mystical sequence, he would acquire powers so miraculous, he could destroy any creature on the planet.

I had just arrived home and was stripping off my sticky clothes in the garage when my cell buzzed. I picked my jacket off the floor and pulled out the phone.

“Montero.”

“Where are you?” It was Hamilton.

“At home. Why?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “We got a call about thirty minutes ago reporting gunshots at Madame Leoni’s place. Our guys found her in the back room. She’s been sliced open, Sebastian. It’s really bad.”

“Dead?”

“Very,” he replied. “You should probably get over here.”

Thursday, December 23, 4:41 p.m.

“What I can’t figure,” Gonzales said, “is how the gunshots come into this. The vic was tortured with a cigar and killed with a knife.” As usual, he hulked over the scene, like an adult supervising children.

I was standing in that fateful storage room again with Hamilton, Gonzales, and three forensics specialists from the Scientific Investigation Division. The ME’s people were waiting in the store for the crime lab techs to finish processing the scene.

“Maybe Madame Leoni did the shooting,” I said. It was a useless attempt. Hamilton and Gonzales were much too clever not to figure out that there had been a third person in this room at the time of the murder.

“Then where’s the gun?” Gonzales asked.

Hamilton was down on his haunches inspecting one of the splatters of my blood. He glanced at Madame Leoni. “She’s too far away for this to be hers. And there’s blood in the store, too. Maybe Montero’s right, maybe Madame Leoni did shoot this guy.”

“Before he sliced her up?” Gonzales’s voice was incredulous. “Because he sure as shit didn’t do it after. Look at her. You’re telling me this guy spent that much time on her with a slug or two in him?”

“Then whose blood is this?” I asked.

“Let’s just say the gun wasn’t Madame Leoni’s,” Gonzales said. “Based on the way the killer cut her up, it doesn’t seem likely the gun was his, either.”

“You’re saying there was another person?” Hamilton asked.

“Say this other guy walks in and interrupts the killer. The vic is already dead, but our mystery man starts shooting, maybe hits the killer, causing these other pools of blood, but somehow the killer gets away.”

“So, some guy walks in off the street, packing heat, at the exact moment Madame Leoni is murdered, and this unknown guy opens up on the killer?” Hamilton asked.

“I know how it sounds,” Gonzales said, “but it explains the bullets and the separate blood groupings. It also explains the blood in the store. It’s all over the place.”

“It’s also possible the gun
was
Madame Leoni’s,” I said.

“Snap out of it, Montero,” Gonzales said, giving me a strange look. “And the killer took it with him? Why would he do that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Gonzales continued watching me, no doubt wondering why I suddenly seemed unable to read a crime scene properly. I pretended to inspect the ricochet mark on the floor.

Hamilton turned to one of the SID team members and asked, “Can you test the vic for GSR?”