To Kill a Sorcerer (22 page)

“Then he attacked me with his knife. Got the damned thing into my stomach and stabbed me hard. I was about to strike him on the side of the head with the butt of my gun when he made a motion at me and I flew across the room.”

“What?”

“Yes. I hit the ground, he stabbed me again, this time in the side, and before I could get up and grab my gun, he was gone.”

Aliena released my hand and stood. She crossed her arms over her chest and paced across the carpet, the high-heeled cowboy boots accentuating the wicked sway of her hips.

“Was she hanging upside down?”

“No.” I reached for a cigarette, drew back my hand. “And I do not think Madame Leoni was a virgin, either.”

“So he didn’t kill her as part of his ritual.”

“No.”

“Why then?”

“He told me it was because she betrayed him.”

“And you say he knew who you were.” She faced me, hands on hips.

“Yes, but that’s not a surprise. It’s as Reed hypothesized. Kanga watches the news.”

“So he knows Hamilton, too.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“How badly did he stab you? Was it a mortal wound?”

“Yes.”

“And now he has seen you on TV looking unhurt.”

“I know.”

“Sebastian, I don’t like this.”

I stood and took her in my arms. “What does it matter? Now he knows he cannot harm me.”

“Do you really think it’s that simple?”

“Of course,” I said, not sure at all. In fact, I was wondering what he would do once he knew that stabbing me did not work.

“Well, I do not. We must tell Marcus about your encounter with Kanga.”

“Yes, of course. Can you have him meet us here?”

“Not right away. He will be at 49, so we should meet him there.”

I did not like that, but I knew better than to say anything.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“Mr. Preston and my people are searching for him at this moment, and so are the authorities.”

“Good. When we find him, we will kill him before he becomes stronger.”

“Yes.”

“I will be off, then,” she said, hugging me.

“So early?” The fights at 49 always started at midnight.

“I need to eat.”

“You could eat right here,” I said, thinking it would be nice to have her on top of me while she drank, the memory of last night’s episode on the beach bringing a bolt of sensation.

“You’re sweet,” she said, “but I like to hunt.” She moved onto the patio, brushing her hand over one of the holly bushes on the way.

I was unhappy that she would be in another man’s arms tonight, even if it was only to quell her unholy appetite.

“Do you ever hunt anything other than men?” I said as she began to lift into the air.

“Oh, yes. I like women, too, always have.” Then she disappeared.

I wondered why I had asked. Now I knew she liked men and women. I tried to stop it, but my mind formed a picture of a beautiful girl in Aliena’s arms.

That did not make me feel any better.

Inside, I touched the button that closed the doors, turned off the lights, got a couple of logs burning in the fireplace, and lay down on the floor. Clearing my mind, I closed my eyes, crossed my arms over my chest, and began taking deep breaths. It was only moments before the familiar tug on my chest signaled my
ka
was rising out of my body. After confirming my silver cord was in place, I sailed through the roof of the house.

The man I needed to contact inhabited a restaurant that Hamilton and I frequented. It was unlikely Gene would have any useful information about the girls, but even negative results filled in parts of the puzzle.

I pictured the front door of Scarpelli’s clearly in my mind. The world blurred as I shot through the ether. When everything came back into focus, the doors of the restaurant stood in front of me. Vehicles streamed by on Ventura Boulevard. The chirp of a car’s tires echoed from the direction of Scarpelli’s parking lot.

A party of four was coming out at the same time I walked through the doors. I slammed into a middle-aged man with Chianti breath and long sideburns, inhabiting him unintentionally.

“ . . . get home and turn the game on. I hate these damn family dinners. She’d better wear those garters tonight like she promised, or I’m not coming next time.” His mind filled with a picture of his wife in dishabille.

I lifted up and out of him and stayed near the ceiling so I would not accidentally enter another. One member of the group was a young teenage boy. He was surrounded by a diffuse white light that was barely there but perfectly detectable. The Virginal Aura.

After they had gone, I floated through the inner swinging doors and settled to the ground next to the hostess station.

Scarpelli’s was the place to go if you wanted to smell great food before you ate it. Fresh pasta, seafood, and the mouth-watering aromas of garlic and burned butter reminded me I hadn’t eaten dinner.

The dining room had square tables down the center and red leather upholstered booths along the walls. White linen draped the tables. The floor was dark wood, and on the walls were black-and-white prints from Hollywood movies featuring Italian landscapes.

In a booth to my right was a man—a dead man—sitting next to a living woman.

“Hello, Sebastian.”

“Gene.”

I walked to the booth and slid onto the bench opposite.

Gene Winslow was in his early thirties—and always would be. With a heavy mop of blond hair and broad shoulders, he was every inch the California surfer boy. He had been a character actor and stuntman in the sixties and seventies. Driving a sports car in a big-budget action film in the summer of ’78, he had hit a patch of oil someone had forgotten to clean up. His car had spun out of control, crashing into a low brick wall hard enough to shove the high-performance engine into his lap. He had been killed instantly, leaving behind a wife and two daughters.

Elizabeth, his widow, sat next to him, wearing a yellow dress. She had clear blue eyes and thick hair dyed brown. She looked to be in her sixties. Even with her mouth closed, her prominent buckteeth protruded.

Gene had worked steadily during his short lifetime and had made good money, but his accidental death policy had not paid enough to ensure his family a comfortable existence. After I had met him twenty-five years ago, I augmented Elizabeth’s savings considerably by having an insurance company I own present her with a policy check, ostensibly for additional coverage Gene had taken out just before his death. She and the children no longer had any financial worries.

He had taken her to Scarpelli’s on their first date and when he proposed marriage. Whenever they had dined here, they shared a tiramisu for dessert. She still ordered it and ate only half.

We all looked different from my point of view. As a dead spirit, Gene was grayer than I was, but it was only noticeable if we stood close. Elizabeth was the only one who looked to be part of the physical environment. She was lit the same as the restaurant, whereas Gene and I appeared to glow from within.

“Elizabeth looks well tonight. How is she?”

“She’s waiting for Molly and the children,” he said. He sounded depressed as usual. He was bitter over the way his life had ended. That was why he stayed here, in this between world, eyeing the living jealously, hating that he could not be a part of his children’s lives.

Elizabeth flipped through the wine list, humming, her wedding ring flashing. I lit a cigarette and sent a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.

Gene looked at the third button on my shirt and said, “I can’t tell you anything.”

“I haven’t asked a question yet.”

“I appreciate you taking care of her,” he said, his voice low.

The non sequitur gave me pause. “What is it you can tell me nothing about?”

“Aren’t you here . . . it’s about those girls, isn’t it?”

I watched him through the haze of my cigarette smoke.

“I don’t know anything about that,” he said.

“The hell you don’t. What’s got you in such a state?”

He held out his hand as if pleading, then pulled it back. A fierce hardness came over his face. “He’ll kill her. I don’t care how much you’ve helped her, you can’t protect her from him.”

“Who?”

“The Voodoo Killer.”

I tossed my cigarette and with a great effort remained on my side of the table. Deliberately clasping my hands in front of me, I said, “You’ve seen this man in the ether?”

He stared at me. A single tear slid down his left cheek and dropped onto the collar of his shirt. “Please,” he said.

“Gene, you know I would never do anything to harm you and that I will guard your family with every resource at my command.”

“You can’t protect them,” he said, placing his hand over Elizabeth’s knee. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”

For the first time, I felt a feather of hesitation. I needed more than a feather to stop.

I did not wish to cause Gene distress, however. He stared at Elizabeth’s cheek, his lip trembling. I thought about it. “I have already met Kanga,” I said slowly. “I know what he looks like. What can you know that could help me?”

“Nothing.”

“He found the girls by looking for them here on the astral plane, didn’t he? He homed in on their Virginal Auras.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Gene. Look at me.”

“No.”

“Does he have the girls? Sherri and Jessica. Can you tell me that?”

He gave a harsh, rattling sigh. “Yes. He has them. But they’re not human souls anymore, not after what he did to them.” He tilted his head toward the ceiling and closed his eyes. “He drove them insane with pain when he killed them and captured their souls at that moment. They’re animals now, and more powerful than any spirits I have ever seen. He could use them to kill Elizabeth.” He opened his eyes and looked at me. “I won’t do anything that places my family at risk.”

“You don’t think I could protect them?”

“Against demon spirits? No.” He turned away and watched as Elizabeth sipped her water.

“Do you know who the next girl is?”

His head swiveled so fast I thought he’d snap a vertebra. Then I remembered he was dead.

“What do you take me for?” he said. “A coward? If I knew that, I would tell you. I would never let him . . .” He trailed off, his face becoming devoid of expression, as if some circuit had burned out in his brain.

He was telling the truth. Then what could he know that would cause Kanga to threaten him?

“Do you know where he is?”

The question jolted him. He shook his head. “I can’t tell you.” He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“If he kills another, and I could stop it . . .”

“You can’t.”

“You know this man is still in the middle of his quest. He will kill again. You must help me.”

“No.”

“Gene.”

“I can’t.”

“Tell me where this man is.”

He looked at me with a face that had as much expression as a head of cabbage—with blond hair. “Sebastian,” he said, “I wouldn’t tell you that in a thousand years.” He shifted his gaze to the table, his face stony and stubborn, scared.

I sat back, nonplussed, listening to the clink of silverware on plates and the soft murmur of people speaking over their meals, remembering that Kanga had killed Madame Leoni for betraying him. I could not continue to press Gene and did not wish to upset him further or place his loved ones in danger.

He glanced toward the entrance. “Molly and the girls are here,” he said, a tired, pleading note in his voice.

I slid off the leather bench and stood out of the way as the hostess brought Gene’s daughter and three granddaughters to the table. Two of the girls climbed onto the bench on his side and squirmed through him to flop against their grandmother. Elizabeth hugged them, and they kissed her on both cheeks.

He looked up at me for a moment, his expression a mixture of misery and resentment. I knew he was jealous of my longevity—I reminded him of just how brief his existence in the physical world had been. He wondered why I should live for centuries when he could not.

I wondered, too.

Gene sat with his hands clasped in his lap, surrounded by his family, his face wretched.

Lifting out of Scarpelli’s, I flashed through the ether, stopping above my house.

A continuous tone in my ear. Flashing lights. Sizzle of electricity.

The water was hot enough. I placed the knife under the stream and carefully scrubbed the blood from the haft. The bottom of the metal sink ran with dark water. The stain swirled down the drain. This time—

A loud pop. Pressure inside my head.

I blinked.

It took me a moment to realize what had happened. For some reason, my
ti bon ange
had inhabited another person. A man washing a bloody dagger in a sink.

Kanga?

Following the silver cord, I descended through the roof, gliding down until my spirit once again inhabited my body.

Thursday, December 23, 7:41 p.m.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, remaining motionless, feeling the carpet on the back of my head, and listening to the wood crackling in the fireplace. The clean green scent of the noble fir filled the air.

So Kanga had made no mistakes in his first two rituals and currently held the girls’ souls. And he had traveled in the ether, as Reed and I had hypothesized, which was probably how he knew the girls were virgins. Gene knew where he was, so Kanga threatened the dead actor’s soul, promising to bring unspeakable horrors to Gene’s wife and children if he gave me any information. That Kanga had once again anticipated me and blocked my investigation reinforced the ominous feeling of playing a chess match where my opponent was one move ahead of me.

I lit a cigarette and folded my arms around my knees, blowing smoke toward the fireplace, thinking. I picked up my cell, dialed Preston.

“I want a twenty-four-seven security watch,” I said when he answered.

“Name?”

“Elizabeth Winslow and family.”

“Sounds familiar.” Another reason I had given Preston control of BioLaw. That case went back to his childhood, twenty years before he worked for me, and was processed through an ancillary company. The man did his homework.