To Kill a Sorcerer (4 page)

She’s sitting in a chair . . . a man, standing in front of her, slashing . . . searing pain across the chest, deep laughter, strong arms moving in front of her, a shiny blade that brings unbelievable agony with it . . . looking down, seeing the blade ripping her insides, spilling them into her lap . . . her small hands push at the arms, trying to make them stop . . . her mind regresses to that of a terrified child as she realizes she is going to die . . . now her hands fall into her lap, too, and she notices her stomach and intestines are warm and soft . . . she remains conscious for long moments, her body in spasms as the man continues to work on her . . .

The loneliness of violent death filled me with dreadful desolation, and I groaned, bubbles rising from my mouth to burst on the surface.

A familiar tug on her chest signaled her death, and her spirit rose from her body. This separation always calmed me. The woman’s wails persisted. The buoyant feeling of the soul state had only begun when a constricting force began to crush her heart. My jaw clenched as the pressure encompassed my body. Her killer was trying to capture her spirit with a spell. A sinew ripped, a tie broke: the enchantment failed to imprison her astral body. He had damaged her though, and she would remain earthbound forever.

Slowly, like murky water draining from a clogged sink, the images faded. My thoughts were once again my own, though the woman’s wretched keening continued to resonate in the background.

The watery sliver of moon advanced closer to the line of trees on my right. We had been submerged for about twenty minutes. My lungs ached from not being able to take a breath. I wondered whether or not this presence intended to let me go tonight.

Activity around the edge of the pool caught my eye. Wavering images looked down.

If this situation had a bright side, I couldn’t see it.

A man jumped into the water. After he stepped on my crotch, he dunked himself, got hold of my jacket’s lapels, and hauled me up.

As soon as we broke the surface, I gasped air into my tortured lungs. It had been decades since I had held my breath for that long. The constricting feeling was not just painful—the hot-chested sensation reminded me of my childhood.

The woman’s spirit released me, shrieking bitterly. Clearheaded again, I leaned away from the man. He let go. A babble of voices traveled around the pool, then someone emitted a high, thin scream. A woman in a blue dress held her hand over her chest, eyes wide.

“What is it?” asked the man standing next to her.

“A woman. She . . . went through me.”

I mopped at my face with my hand and looked at the man who had jumped in to save me. We stood next to each other in water up to our chests.

“Thanks.”

“Sure. You okay?”

“I’m fine. I just slipped.”

“When? I’ve been standing by those doors for at least ten minutes. I just came out to get a better look at the moon when I saw you on the bottom.”

“You must have missed me. It was only a minute ago.” I placed my palms flat on the deck and pushed myself out of the water, feeling thirty pounds heavier than usual in my waterlogged clothes. Hands reached for me, but I stood and spread my arms apart.

“Thank you, I’m fine.” Water streamed from my Anthony Sinclair tuxedo. “Please, give me some room.” Flashes and clicks. A stunning woman with dark red hair blew me a kiss as she snapped my picture.

“That’s the guy,” said a familiar voice. The Samoan bartender lumbered through the French doors, pointing at me. Hamilton followed him. “He’s got to be shitfaced.”

Hamilton stopped, looked around at the crowd. His gaze ended on me in my soaking suit.

“Swimming?” he asked.

“It’s warm tonight,” I said, unknotting my tie. “The water cooled me off.”

“Mister, you shouldn’t even be standing,” the bartender said.

“I’m fine.”

“I saw you down a couple of bottles of hard stuff.”

“You
thought
you saw me drink them.”

He squinted, taking in my straight posture, focused gaze, and clear speech. He looked confused. “How could you not drink them?”

“I told you, it’s a trick. I don’t intend to give away my secret.”

“Dude,” said my rescuer, “you were down there for ten minutes.”

“You’re confused.” I squashed past Hamilton and headed into the house. Crossing a study full of people to a hallway, leaving a spotted trail in case anyone wanted to follow, I turned toward the front.

Footsteps caught up with me.

“You wanted to cool off?” Hamilton asked.

We emerged into the living room. The music played slow, the lights lower than ever, and couples danced cheek-to-cheek, oblivious of our passage.

Hamilton stayed on my tail.

“Don’t you know how to swim?”

“Yes.” I left the house and started down the steps. “Sorry to pull you away from your D.A. cutie,” I said over my shoulder.

“Don’t cry for me, Argentina, I got her phone number. If you can swim, why did that guy have to pull you out of the pool?”

“He didn’t have to. I was fooling around.”

“Lying on the bottom of a swimming pool in a tuxedo.”

“I like the way the moon looks through the water,” I told him.

“Are you crazy? For ten minutes?”

“It was not ten minutes.” It was twenty. “It was a minute or so.”

“That’s not what he said, and he sounded pretty damn sure.”

“It’s my word against his. He wasn’t there when I—jumped in.”

We had reached the bottom. Chen looked over and reached for her cell phone.

“No,” I told her.

She held it toward me. The bulb flashed twice.

I handed my sodden ticket and two hundred-dollar bills to the beautiful valet, my heart doing a flip as I stared into my sister’s face. She jogged off.

Hamilton stood next to me. “What happened up there? Really.”

“You give me nothing, but expect me to sing it for you? Nothing happened up there. Typical of witnesses in a supposedly haunted building—they imagined things that didn’t actually happen.”

“You are full of shit.” The Maserati cruised up, and Laura hopped out, holding the door. “And you can’t drive,” Hamilton said.

“I can drive.”

“A man just pulled you out of a pool. You drank two bottles of whiskey thirty minutes ago. You are not fine.”

“Actually, it was a bottle of single-malt scotch and a bottle of Don Julio tequila. But I didn’t really drink them. It was a trick. Houdini would have loved it.”

He crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’ll drive you home,” Laura said with a wicked smile. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Thank you, dear, but it’s past my bedtime.”

Tuesday, December 21, 11:23 p.m.

I had just merged onto Pacific Coast Highway when a white Chevy Tahoe cut me off and forced me to swerve partially into the lane on my left. My clothes squashed, and water rolled down my ribs, irking me, so I accelerated, slashed in front of the oversize vehicle, and took my foot off the gas. When I slowed to sixty, the Tahoe flashed its brights. The Maserati is a low-slung car, and the SUV’s high-intensity bulbs lit up my cab brilliantly.

I powered my window down, stuck my hand out, and gave the driver one of the classic hand gestures passed down through time. Of Italian origin, it hailed from a little town near Rome. Spring, 1487. Developed and employed effectively by the town butcher, who had a promiscuous young bride. I had not been in town when Marcotti had jabbed his finger at the man who’d slept with his wife (the gesture indicated that the recipient’s sexual organ was as small as a finger). The ensuing fight had had the townspeople talking for years. Although “the finger” had been flashed for the first time, Bartus had understood the meaning quite clearly—the primary reason the gesture has endured for centuries.

Both men had suffered serious injuries.

With that thought, I moved out of the way, and the Tahoe sped by. As it passed, the young woman driving gave me the finger. Americans have always cherished their First Amendment rights.

Fifteen minutes later, I turned away from the glittering Pacific Ocean onto Latigo Canyon and motored up the road to my home. Inside the garage, I pressed my right palm against a square glass plate next to the door leading to the house. The panel glowed red, then green, the door popped open, and the house lights came on.

My place sat on four acres in the Malibu hills, a quiet location with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. The living room was sparsely furnished, with only a couch, a coffee table, and two club chairs at either end. A large brick fireplace with a dark wood mantel dominated the back wall. The sofa and chairs faced the big glass patio doors.

The night before, I had purchased a noble fir and trimmed the tree with strings of colored lights and golden ornaments, topping it with a blonde, winged angel holding a candle. Two holly plants in gold plastic pots sat on either side of the picture windows. Fresh mistletoe hung from the beam above my head.

For over two hours, I had stood motionless in front of the glowing tree, the sparkling colors and clean outdoor scent triggering random images of Christmases past.

I changed into worn jeans and a faded black silk camp shirt. The kitchen lights brightened as I strode in and plucked a bottle of tequila from a cupboard filled with bottles of liquor.

When I twisted off the top, the bouquet rising to my nostrils reminded me of the green woman. Flashes of the possession crossed my mind. The woman’s horrid memories of the dagger slashing at her relentlessly caused me to shiver violently for a moment.

As a result of the possession, several strangers had witnessed my rescue from a pool, had taken pictures, and a man with whom I had to work—a detective—had heard peculiar reports about me. Hamilton would have more questions the next time I saw him. Hopefully, it was all a storm in a teacup, but the night had been a series of disasters after I had thumbed my nose at Lucifer.

I lifted the bottle of tequila to my lips and poured half of it down my throat. As the heat spread through me, I closed my eyes and sighed as the black visions faded like the last vestiges of an ancient sorrow.

My impression was that this woman had lived ten or fifteen years ago. What had happened to the man? Had he passed on this ability to force demons to do his bidding?

Seated on the couch, I set the bottle on the table, lit a cigarette, and blew fat smoke rings at the ceiling. Passing my finger over the biometric strip on the side of my laptop, I created a new Word document titled “Hamilton III Notes.” I recorded my conversations with Chen, Gonzales, and Hamilton, saved the file, and dragged it to the folder titled “Hamilton III” that contained the police photos and reports of the Barlow murder.

I picked up the bottle and leaned back.

Hamilton said one reason he tolerated me was because I gave a great deal of money to charity. He did not know the half of it. Over the centuries, my personal worth had grown to over $8 trillion. Only $60 billion was tied to my current identity.

However, even my great personal wealth could not change the world on a macro level. Neither could my longevity. Like any other person alive, I could only make a difference on a micro level. So I focused on activities where my ability to survive mortal wounds could save lives. During the two World Wars, I died for my countries dozens of times as an infantryman, an aerial ace, and a tank gunner. And since I spoke over a hundred languages, I also proved very effective as a behind-the-lines assassin.

I never rose too high in rank, so manipulating my death—with no body recovered—was more easily accomplished.

It may sound nice to be able to survive injuries that would kill anyone else, but it’s not all birthday cake. Feeling flames engulf your lower body as you plummet in a burning plane is as painful for me as it would be for any mortal. Knowing you will recover completely is not much comfort when your skin is bubbling and your nostrils are filled with the cloying smell of your cooking flesh.

I endured such deaths because I believed there must be some purpose to my bizarre existence. If I cannot die, perhaps it is my duty to give my life as many times as possible in order to save the lives of others.

With computerization, changing identities had become arduous and tricky, making it no longer possible to work for any government agency without compromising my immortal secret. Private wealth and influence could get me onto police homicide cases, however, allowing me to hunt the most dangerous murderers.

Any person who killed a child merited my individual attention. When I found the man responsible for Sherri Barlow’s death, I did not intend to bring Hamilton with me.

I lit another cigarette, lifted the tequila bottle to my lips. A long drink pushed all of the Houdini Mansion events and murder details out of my mind.

“Lights.” The room went dark, and the twinkling Christmas tree reflected in the windows.

Aliena flew in from Iraq tonight. My pulse rose slightly, and not only because I was in love with her and had not seen her in a month. She would make me take her to 49, the most exclusive club in Los Angeles.

It was not a restaurant. That was a good thing, because if it were, I would have been on the menu.

Tuesday, December 21, 11:50 p.m.

When she answered the phone, her voice vibrated breathless and girlish, a sound that always enchanted me.

“Hi, Sebastian.”

“Welcome back.”

“Thank you. Did you miss me?”

Always a tease. “You know I did.”

“Will you meet me at 49?”

“Yes.” I decided to voice an objection, knowing it to be useless. “I’m still not real comfortable in that crowd.”

“With me as a sponsor, you have nothing to worry about. No one would dare touch you without my permission.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. My relationship with Aliena afforded me a strong measure of protection, but there was no true safety in a place like 49, not for anyone human.

“All right, but for one fight only, agreed?”

“Oh, you are such a bore. What is so urgent?”