Chapter Six
Mark Healy answers after only two rings.
“Hello?” His voice is scratchy, hoarse.
“Hi, Mark. My name is Samantha Moon. I’m working with Dr. Fenwick on the fossil theft at Craig Park. Do you have a few minutes to meet with me?”
He coughs on cue into the receiver. “Ah, no, I’m sorry. I’m pretty sick, been in bed all morning.”
“Funny thing about me is that I never get sick. Like, ever.”
A pause. Just long enough for me to hear him shift the phone from one ear to the next.
“Okay, weird,” he finally says. “Sure, you can come by, if you want. But you’ve been warned.”
“Duly noted.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be great company.”
“Just looking for facts, and maybe some answers.”
I get his address and hang up, already plugging it into the GPS. He’s in Brea, California. Not far, maybe twenty minutes from the park.
Back in the Momvan, I plop my coffee in the cupholder, and fire up the engine.
The drive is smooth, suburban, with Imperial Highway only mildly busy as I make my way northwest. Brea’s a well-off pocket in Orange County, all trimmed hedges, wide streets, and pretty houses with double garages and worthless chimneys.
No one uses fireplaces in North Orange County.
Mark’s home is a two-story charmer with fresh paint, a tidy lawn, and a driveway occupied by a dark blue Toyota sedan.
The moment I pull up next to it, something prickles at the back of my neck.
I’ve developed mild psychic abilities over the years.
I just sense when something’s off, and I’m nearly never wrong.
Something is off here, for sure. My actual magic is limited to two party tricks: small fireballs, which I can summon when needed, and an illusion spell that gives me the appearance of wearing a dress.
I used the latter to great effect on Talos’s home world, years ago.
Only I knew I was running around naked in a fourth dimensional world.
Good times.
But this knowing is more about energy. And it’s off. There’s an undercurrent, a pulse, like the house itself is hiding a secret. Or a dark master.
Ugh, that’s it. I’m sensing black magic. Evil magic.
I gather my wits and step out of the Momvan, not really sure what I’m walking into. Coffee in hand, I head for the front door. I couldn’t look more innocent, and if I do say so myself, any more cute. As a button, in fact. Who wouldn’t want to spill their guts to me?
No one, I say.
I notice the security cameras on the way to the front door, two of them, watching me.
Back in the day, security cameras freaked me out.
No surer way to catch a bloodsucker than when said sucker of blood doesn’t show up on CCTV feeds.
But I show up on cameras these days, and in mirrors, too.
Yay. Now I can actually see my face when doing my hair and makeup.
Mark opens the door before I can knock.
He’s tall, lean, with sandy hair pulled back in a short man-bun.
He sports pale skin, sharp eyes with a hint of amber.
Uh oh. I know those eyes. I see them every time I look into my honey bunches of oats eyes, but I don’t get a ‘wolf vibe’ from this guy.
He isn’t particularly big or hairy, though the man-bun might qualify.
He’s wearing a loose sweatshirt and snug jeans.
If anything, he looks tired, though I can tell immediately he’s not sick; hell, he’s not even mortal.
“Ms. Moon,” he says smoothly, stepping aside. “Come in.”
I nod, brushing past him, eyes flicking over the tidy front room. Hardwood floors, tasteful decor, shelves lined with books.
“Sorry to impose,” I say, keeping my tone light, “but I figured it was better to meet in person. Mind if I take a look around while we chat?”
He shrugs. “Knock yourself out.”
I wander slowly through the living room, running my fingertips lightly over the back of chairs, along the edge of a bookshelf. My mind reaches out instinctively, but as expected... nothing.
Telepathy bounces right off him. The house is covered with even more security cameras, sophisticated ones, too.
Not your basic Simplisafe setups or the many TikTok shop spy cameras.
These are hardwired into the house and professional grade.
Two in the living room alone, blinking at me from between shelves. Weird spot, but whatever.
He’s immortal, or close enough. Shifters (if that’s what he in fact is) live long lives, but are not truly immortal.
Semi-immortal, I’ve heard it said. Either way, his mind is shielded/protected.
Would be hella nice to dip in there and get a handle on what’s going on here.
Sadly, I’m going to have to investigate my ass off here.
All the casual touching triggers my newest ability: psychometry, a gift that’s come on later and is likely a by-product of all the energy siphoning I’ve been partaking of lately.
“So,” I say casually, “you called in sick on a pretty momentous day.”
He chuckles softly, his man bun bobbing in rhythm. “Yeah, I suppose. But what can you do?”
“You’re not really sick, are you, Mark?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Why would you say that, Miss Moon?”
I smile. On the bookshelf next to me, something catches my eye: a book with a thick, cracked leather binding, darkened with age and runes hand-drawn along said spine.
I brush my fingers over it; the texture is unmistakable: dry, ancient, human.
Yes, human. I’m sure of it. I’ve seen such books in the Occult Reading Room.
Like this one, they have a yellowish hue.
But I can feel the energy of death around the binding. Someone had been flayed alive.
This is, of course, a book of the darkest of magic.
Blackest of magic.
“Ah, I see you found the books my grandfather left me.”
“Your grandfather was a high wizard?”
“You mean, did he work for the Church of Satan? If so, no. But he was a practitioner in his own right.”
High wizards were, of course, the official title of Satanic wizards, of which there were no more than 10 at any one time on the planet.
These are mortal spellcasters with a penchant for getting results.
Not true magicians, no real magic. No, just an ability to cast spells with the best of them, so good that they caught the eye of the Church of Satan.
Clients came to them to cast spells of wealth, revenge, and power.
Pay enough, and a high wizard will cast the spell for you.
From what I hear, there is about a 90% chance of the spell working.
That was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to clients.
I raise my eyebrows anyway. Few mortals would own such a book. By all rights, it should be in the Occult Reading room and watched over by Max. The book was a menace. Even I could feel that. The grandfather didn’t just dabble in the occult but committed his life to it.
“Are you a practitioner, too?” I ask casually.
“Yes and no. Been around it my whole life. I’ve seen some things, as it were. But do I know what the hell I’m doing? No.”
“Do you want to?” I ask.
“Have unlimited power to conjure anything from demons, to the devil himself? To destroy your enemies? Hell, to change world events? No, that sounds terrible.”
His demeanor is off. Classic obfuscation.
“How long have you been dabbling?” I ask.
“Oh, I would call it more than dabbling,” he says. “One does not make deals with wizards and demons for laughs.”
“What sort of deals?” I ask.
“I thought you were here about the fossil theft.”
“I am,” I say. “I just happen to know a thing or two about magic. This book here is not normal or common. Hell, it might even be illegal. That’s human skin.”
His eyes narrow, and crap, I’m pretty sure they just blinked sideways, like a crocodile’s eyes. Or any number of lizards. “Say, who are you anyway? You don’t have an aura.”
I continue on without comment, circling through the front living room as though simply getting the lay of the place.
The space is modest, lived-in, but there’s a faint sense of things having been recently reset: surfaces wiped down, furniture nudged back into place.
Near the couch sits a laundry basket, conspicuously full of freshly washed and neatly folded clothes.
What catches my attention isn’t the care taken, but what peeks out from the stack: the unmistakable edges of torn fabric.
A sweatshirt split along the seams, sweatpants ripped clean through the thigh, the damage too extensive to be ordinary wear and tear, and certainly not fashionably torn.
The cloth looks clean now, softened by detergent and heat, but the damage remains: jagged, stretched, as if the body that once filled them had suddenly needed far more room than the garments were designed to allow.
“Did you steal the bones, Mark?”
“No.”
“What do you know of the theft?”
He looks down at his hands. “They haven’t filled me in much.”
“Where were you on the night of the theft?” I ask casually as I turn back toward the laundry basket. My inner alarm has begun to blip, but not overwhelmingly so. No immediate danger, but something is lurking in the shadows, even if it’s the shadows of Mark’s own mind.
Mark’s smile thins. “That was, what, three days ago?”
“Yes.”
“I was here all week, alone in my house. That much I know.”
I take a slow sip of my coffee, my eyes lingering on the laundry. “Rough night?”
“Maybe.” His gaze sharpens. “You never answered my question.”
“We all have questions,” I reply, unhurried. “Sometimes we don’t get the answers we seek.”
I let the silence stretch, watching the way his shoulders hold too much tension, then turn toward the front door. Something about Mark Healy doesn’t quite add up. Or maybe it adds up a little too neatly.
I thank him politely and step out onto the porch, the door clicking shut behind me. The crisp Brea air fills my lungs, cool and clean.
But inside, within the bright white walls and charming interior, something dark and serpentine is coiled tight.
I can’t read his mind. I certainly can’t compel him to talk. But I’ve learned to trust my instincts.
And right now, they’re whispering: watch this one.