To Kill a Sorcerer (23 page)

“Yes, she’s in the files, under life insurance. Two children, with children.”

Something thumped hard against the glass of the patio doors. I glanced over, expecting to see a seagull or maybe a possum. There was nothing there.

“I’ll put Pitbull on it,” Preston said.

“Good. Don’t let me down on this. If anything happens to them . . .”

“I know. I’m fired.”

“Carry on, Mr. Preston.”

Putting the cigarette in my mouth, I stood and walked to the sliding doors and scanned the deck. Nothing.

There was another hard slam against the patio doors. And now the double panes were
wrinkling
in two places. The quivering, distorted sections of glass were shaped like rippled dinner plates. Then the surface was smooth again.

I stared at the glass stupidly, not yet comprehending what I had seen. A queer scream filled the room, loud enough to make me jump. By the time I realized what had happened, they were on me.

Two invisible spirits had invaded my home.

The first one crashed into my upper torso, knocking the wind out of me and pushing me backward. My legs jammed against the rounded arm of one of the club chairs. The cigarette fell from my fingers as the thing latched on to my chest and began squeezing my lungs.

The second demon punched my left thigh, fastened on, and began crushing muscle and bone.

My hands rose in an attempt to fight the first creature off, but there was nothing I could do. The demons had no physical form with which to grapple.

They surged against me. I slid off the arm of the chair, stumbled, and almost fell. I punched myself in the chest. No effect, and no lessening of the pressure. Brushing the Christmas tree and setting ornaments jangling, I careened toward the fireplace.

In the kitchen were gris-gris charms that might get these things off me. After I had taken two steps in that direction, my attackers lifted me off my feet, carried me across the room, and slammed me into the glass doors, dislocating my left shoulder. The pain burst white-hot, but it was a tickle compared to the crushing might of my uninvited visitors.

I scrabbled helplessly at my chest. My eyes bulged. Inhaling was no longer possible. That wouldn’t normally matter. Holding my breath for hours, while uncomfortable, could not kill me. Something else was happening.

These things were strangling my soul.

The kitchen. The simple amulets there were meant to repel minor haunts, but I had nothing meant to handle entities as powerful as these two.

I had taken five steps when they lifted me off my feet and slammed me once more into the patio doors with tooth-rattling force, jarring my separated shoulder. The blossom of pain was huge—as if someone had rammed a large sword into my back. With no air, I endured it silently.

The demon crushing my lungs still held me in a viselike grip. I began to gray out.

As consciousness dimmed to twilight, the things became visible. They were milky-colored and amorphous, with flat heads and fat, squat bodies. Seeing their pulsing masses twisting and writhing below my skin revolted me. They resembled giant, flat leeches.

If these were the murdered girls, Kanga had indeed stripped them of their humanity.

My left leg went numb. I collapsed onto one of the holly bushes and tumbled over it, bringing it down on top of me as I crashed to the floor. The bush scraped my chin, the sharp scent of it filling my nostrils.

A shiver coursed me. My heart strained. Immortal blood roared in my head.

A deep vibration filled the room, an inaudible scream. It sounded like a wail from a malevolent dimension repulsive to our own. Consciousness was slipping away when the grip on my chest loosened.

The rough holly bristles scraped against my skin as my chest heaved, drawing in cool air. There came another long, hideous vibration. Both spirits released me.

I struggled to my knees, my hand still on my chest. With a bang, the glass of the sliding door rattled. The strange distortions appeared and then were gone. Then all was quiet but for my ragged breathing.

I stayed on my knees, head bowed, pulling sweet air into my lungs. My separated shoulder ached. Clasping my left arm across my ribs, I fell hard on my side, jamming the shoulder back into place. My roar of pain filled the room to the corners of its vaulted ceiling.

Cursing in seventeen languages, I lurched to my feet and carried the holly bush to its place against the wall. My arms and legs were still trembling, but my mind was clearing quickly.

In 1828, I offended a macumba priestess in Rio de Janeiro. A true conjurer, she sent spirits to haunt me. They were bothersome, petty poltergeists, able to knock over objects like picture frames or blow my cigarette smoke back into my face or make noise all day and night. They effectively turned my daily existence into a litany of small jerks and stops. I endured it for three months. Then I returned to the priestess and gave her what she wanted. That, however, is another story.

Tonight’s invaders were nothing like those miserable little haunts—they were more formidable than any spirits I had ever encountered. Such revenants inspired mythological dread.
Grimoires
referred to them as “Shadow Warriors.” Other ancient texts called them the “Dim Ones.” Of the conjurers I have known in my lifetime, none has ever possessed the skill to summon a Shadow Warrior.

Based on Reed’s description of a Thief of Souls, commanding such fearsome spirits would be well within the scope of such a man.

I had wondered what Kanga would do when he discovered he had not killed me at Madame Leoni’s. My two etheric visitors were obviously the answer.

And I had no idea how I had survived the encounter.

Thursday, December 23, 8:42 p.m.

I needed to vacate my house until I could secure it against future attacks. That meant two urgent phone calls.

“Hamilton.”

“Steve, it’s Sebastian. Where are you?”

“At the office.”

Good. I did not think Kanga would send spirits after him in the middle of a police station.

“Listen,” he said, “how about dinner? You can pick me up in two hours.”

“Sure, that sounds fine. I might be a little longer, but wait for me, okay? Don’t leave the building.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I have to make a stop first, and I’m not sure how long it will take. I will explain everything when I get there.” I wasn’t really going to do that, but it sounded good.

“Sure, no prob. Where the hell am I going to go anyway? But try to make it close to two hours, okay? I’m starving.”

Cops.

The second call went to a very special friend.

I pulled to the curb outside Geoffrey Bey’s house in Channel Islands and parked on the wide dead-end street. Malibu lights gleamed along the short concrete path to his porch. I raised my hand to the bell when the door opened.

Bey was a dark-skinned, balding Jew who had grown up in Egypt before being accepted to Columbia University in New York, where he earned a graduate degree in finance. Working as an investment broker for Smith Barney, he made enough money in twelve years to semi-retire.

We met at a shareholders’ meeting of a company I owned shortly after he moved to Southern California. I knew him by reputation and, after inviting him into the hotel bar for a drink, asked him the secret of his investing success.

“My secret? I would lie in bed at night and visualize the rolling display at the stock exchange as a way of helping me fall asleep. Like counting sheep. And every now and then, when I was in that twilight area between wakefulness and sleep, I would see numbers for specific stocks or securities. At first I didn’t think anything of it. It was a couple of weeks later that I noticed the prices I had seen in my mind were now reality. That gave me a bit of a shock, but the next time my internal stock ticker showed me a price, I risked fifty thousand selling that company short.”

The investments he made based on these premonitions outperformed his regular portfolios by 33 percent, an astonishing disparity. I asked him what he thought it meant.

“I already knew certain natural forces worked through me,” he said. “That’s when I took a professional interest in my hobby.”

His “hobby” was shamanism. Unlike Madame Leoni, Bey represented the genuine article, able to tap the quantum forces of the universe and focus them for his purposes.

“Sebastian,” he said, grabbing me in a bear hug and dragging me inside. He was an inch taller than I and had the build of a dedicated weight lifter.

“So,” he said, closing and locking the door, “what’s your emergency?” He studied me in the brightly lit foyer. “You do look rather unsettled, my friend.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” I touched my hand to my chest, a movement Bey watched with interest. “I’m not at all comfortable right now.”

“Come.” He led me through his living room, down a long hallway, and into his study. This had always been his room, even when his wife was alive and his children still lived at home. Bey had filled it with the miscellany of a lifetime, including figurines, small and large paintings, an assortment of garishly colored dolls on a large antique table, globes, odd-looking metal instruments, and many other artifacts. One wall was lined with bookcases. Stuffed in between the volumes were charts, maps, magazines, newspapers, and other bits of parchment.

Geoffrey Bey had been my friend for twenty-one years and was one of three mortals who knew the truth of my existence.

“To drink?”

“Single malt scotch, please.”

He cracked the seal on a bottle of Glenlivet and handed it to me. He poured a double shot of cognac for himself into a small crystal glass.

“
L’chaim
,” I said.

“
L’chaim
.” He tossed his drink back. I drained my bottle.

He opened a cherrywood humidor and passed a cigar to me. I held it to my lips as Bey struck a wooden match. “There is a shadow on you tonight, Sebastian. Did something happen?”

He waited while I rolled the cigar around in the flame until the end was uniformly lit and drawing pleasantly. I leaned back and puffed.

“I was attacked by spirits in my living room less than an hour ago.”

He hesitated with the match in the air. “Spirits?”

“Powerful ones.”

He got his cigar going, poured himself another double shot of cognac, and filled a large tumbler of the liquid for me. We moved to a pair of wingback leather chairs that faced each other.

“How did it happen?”

I told him the story, from the first bump against the window to the pane-rattling exit of the two phantoms. He sat with his long legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles, no socks, puffing and watching me with slitted eyes.

“They lifted you off your feet?”

“And carried me halfway across the room. I hit the glass doors hard enough to dislocate my left shoulder.” I touched my chest again, though it did not hurt any longer. “The one that was gripping my lungs . . . I thought the damn thing was going to kill me.” I took a long drink of the cognac.

“You really felt it was not just killing your body?”

“That’s right. It was crushing my soul.”

“I’ll be a son of a pharaoh,” he marveled. “You’re sure about that? That it wasn’t a subjective reaction as a result of losing consciousness?”

I blew a doughnut-shaped ring of smoke. “I suppose my feelings could be skewed by the supernatural reality of the encounter. And it’s possible they would have let me go when I stopped breathing and my heart stopped beating. Perhaps I would have been fine after they left.”

“But . . .”

“But it did not feel like that.”

“I see. How did you get them off?”

“I don’t know. After I fell, I heard vibrations that sounded like screams, and then the little devils let me go and went out the way they came in.”

We sat quietly for a while, thinking and smoking. My shock over the etheric assault was fading now that I was here with Bey. Driving on the 101 Freeway, I had been terrified the spirits would attack me while I was maneuvering through heavy traffic. I knew if I could make it to Bey’s place, he would help me prepare for their next attack.

“You say you landed on a potted bush when you fell.” He watched me thoughtfully.

“Yes. One of my holly plants.”

“Ah, I see. Let me guess: these plants are near your patio doors.”

“That’s right. One on either side of them.”

“That is why these miseries had trouble entering the first time, and why you only heard a small boom. It is also why they could not hold on to you.”

“Because of my holly bush? Are you certain?”

“Oh, yes.” He puffed his cigar. “Holly is an ancient plant used for centuries as a way of protecting sacred holidays.”

“Like Christmas.”

“One of the reasons it’s often referred to as Christmas holly. I assume you purchased your plants for the holidays?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s a good thing you celebrate the birth of Christ, or you would probably be dead now. Pulling that holly plant on top of you right where the demon was situated on your body was like giving the thing a terrible heat burn.”

“They gave up because of that?”

“These are stupid creatures that do not understand the pain they deliver. They do what they are told. And though powerful, they have no tolerance for pain themselves. Harm them in any way, and they will vacate the area.” He stood. “Come over here. Let’s get you fixed up. I have some things you’re going to need to take with you.”

I followed him to the large antique table. He picked up some of the garishly colored dolls.

“Juju guardians. Constructed of Spanish moss and pine needles. I think seven will be sufficient for your house and car.” He set them down. Each doll was twisted and knotty with a dark, bulbous head and grotesquely rendered limbs. They were covered with gaudy colors—intermingled purple, red, and green. There was something about the hues that was hideous.

“The colors are sickening.”

“The more ghastly the appearance, the more effective the juju.”

“Then these should be exceptionally potent.”

He selected a square vial from a rack of a dozen such containers. This one contained a purple-rose liquid. He sprinkled some of the liquid on the first doll, then rubbed it in with his thumb, chanting an ancient prayer in Latin, his eyes closed. I thought of Madame Leoni and her Hamilton doll.