CHAPTER FIVE
DAVID
David stood on the steps of the courthouse, lighting up a self-congratulatory cigarette. A supernatural knack for persuasion was a handy asset to have as a prosecutor. And as a result, David rarely lost cases, but he liked competing with himself anyway. He had wrapped closing statements in under three minutes, a personal record, and walked away with an easy conviction. Now he had an hour or so to kill before he had to start getting ready for another séance with a client. He narrowly avoided double-booking himself on some days, but it was better than sitting around idle with nothing to do but listen to himself think. David had been born and bred to achieve, and nothing made him happier than working. Even if work didn’t come quite as easily these days as it had in the recent past.
David hadn’t been able to shake off the cold, sick feeling that had overtaken him when his mind was intruded upon. It rose up in his throat whenever he channeled, and he was starting to get tension headaches when he communicated with the dead for more than a half hour or so. Group séances, which had once been a buffet of praise and parlor tricks, now sapped him to his core.
It had been nearly a week already, and he had never heard back from Moira about the natal chart, which was probably just as well. He still wasn’t convinced celestial alignments were of any use outside of cheap pick-up lines, and owing Moira Delacroix favor was not a position anyone should put themselves in lightly. The witch may be sweet as peach cobbler, but she kept meticulous records. She had a reputation in Boston for mending marriages, forging friendships, and whipping up spells that would make anyone’s in-laws fawn on them, but she also knew her way around a hex, and was imbued with such a strong sense of cosmic justice that David could see why people were wary to cross her. She remained, to David, something of a mystery. She was effortlessly kind and gracious, but there was a streak of electricity undercutting her energy that David recognized intuitively: power calling to power. He highly suspected that she was capable of much more than the services she advertised, and there was already plenty on her magical menu.
He also didn’t like the way she had been able to read his emotions with one fleeting touch. He preferred his feelings under lock and key, not flayed open for the world to see.
His phone rang just as he was turning to go fetch the Audi from the garage and drive to his next appointment.
Rhys. Thank God.
David pulled the phone to his ear. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to call.”
“I called you when I was good and ready,” Moira said. “But if you’re gonna be cross with me, I’ll hang right up and keep this natal chart to myself.”
“Ms Delacroix,” David said, sounding more taken aback than he would have liked. “Why are you calling me from Rhys’s phone?”
“You mightn’t have picked up a call from a strange number.”
This, he had to admit, was fair. Still, his skin felt itchy and tight at the forced conversation with his ex’s wife. He only started things like that on his own terms. He had done his best to give Moira a wide berth ever since she had started dating Rhys, not really wanting to know her more deeply than was politely necessary. They tended to avoid each other at Society functions, and he had only had a private conversation with her once, on her wedding day, when he had awkwardly excused himself from the party. Weddings, with their open bars and obligatory glasses of champagne, were hard for anyone trying to stay sober, and doubly hard for anyone having to watch their college sweetheart marry someone else.
“Where’s Rhys?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light.
“Out and about somewhere, I don’t know. Probably picking up wine for dinner; he can’t abide reds in warm weather, and we’re out of white.”
She was taking deep, slow breaths every few sentences, speaking in a falling lilt on the exhale. There was the gentle rustle of cloth in the background.
“What are you doing over there?”
“Sun salutations.”
The thought of Moira flicking him onto speakerphone while she went through her morning strength-training routine was enough to short-circuit something in his brain. Was she taking this seriously at all?
“Do you think you could… not?”
“Yoga helps me think.”
“Then think; I only have a few minutes.”
“Funny how all those live-in tutors don’t seem to have taught you any manners.”
If David was an unstoppable force, Moira was an immoveable object. There was something infuriating about her self-possession, her unshakeable poise. David typically liked people who carried themselves with a sense of authority, and under other circumstances, he might have liked Moira Delacroix immensely. She was smart, she was powerful, and she had a poison wit, all qualities David appreciated. But he hated having to ask for help from anyone, least of all his ex’s new wife, so in the here and now, he simmered with irritation.
“If you get to do yoga while we’re on the phone, I don’t have to be sweet about it. This is a business call, isn’t it?”
“That it is. So, let’s get to business, shall we?” There was a little grunt and sigh on the other end as Moira changed positions, maybe pushing herself into a plank. By the sounds of it, she was holding that plank without losing her breath. Moira was composed entirely of soft, rounded lines, but David was getting the impression that she could probably keep pace with him in the gym during cardio day. “First of all, you’re a double Leo with a Virgo moon. Appearances are everything to you, but so is meticulous attention to detail and material security. You’re only comfortable when you’re at the center of attention, performing.”
David bristled, and he considered lobbing another barb her way, but he swallowed it down. Nice. He had promised to be nice.
“There have been a lot of chaotic transits in your chart lately, playing havoc with your emotional well-being and gut instincts,” Moira went on. “You’re likely to catastrophize any little thing. So that tells me it’s possible you’re reading too much into things, jumping at demons where there aren’t any.”
“This is a false alarm?”
“I didn’t say that. I said your instincts are a bit raw right now. You’re smack in the middle of your Saturn return, as I suspected. The planet of duty is transiting back to where it was when you were born, causing tension in your sense of self and purpose. If there are life lessons you’ve refused to learn up until this point, they’re gonna come back to bite you.”
David pressed his mouth into a thin line.
“So, the cosmos is conspiring against me. Is that all?”
“About all you can understand.”
David smiled tightly. “Well, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Oh, mutual. I’ll send Rhys over with the full write-up to the next Society meeting; I just wanted to deliver the spark notes myself. Don’t keep him too late this week; we have a movie date.”
“Have a nice day, Ms Delacroix.”
David let the line go dead and sucked down the rest of his cigarette. He tamped down the disappointment in his chest about there being no easy answer to his predicament written in the stars, or about Rhys not being the one on the other end of the phone. They had shared everything, once, bouncing supernatural theories and spiritual experiences off each other until they reached some climax of enlightenment. It had worked exceptionally well until it had all burned to the ground.
David retrieved another cigarette from the carton and scrolled through his contacts until he found Leda’s number. It was nearly one in the afternoon. If he was lucky, he would catch her just as she was waking up.
The phone rang four times before anyone picked up.
“Hey,” he said. “Welcome to the land of the living.”
“Welcome to the land of calling people back,” Leda quipped in her voice like smoked velvet. David heard fabric rustling in the background, and the low murmur of a man’s voice. One of Leda’s boyfriends, probably. “I was starting to think you’d disowned me.”
“Oh, I’ll get around to it eventually. How’s life? Still leading astray the souls of America’s youth?”
Leda chuckled, followed by the metallic flick of a cigarette lighter. “Last night was college night, and it was a raging success, so I guess so.”
“How are things at the club?”
“Good, good. Allston’s a happening neighborhood to be in. Nowhere is New York, but I’m willing to forgive Boston.”
Leda was the owner of a nightclub on the other side of town, an expansion of her already lucrative success with a sister club in Greenwich village. She had been splitting her time between Boston and New York for almost four months now, and David had still only gotten around to having dinner with her once. Family wasn’t his strong suit, and both Aristarkhov children had an independent streak a mile wide. Still, it was rare that his sister stopped touring long enough to be found in the country, much less in his very own city, and he knew he should make more of an effort.
“That’s good,” he said awkwardly. He never knew how these things were supposed to go.
“How are things with you?” Leda asked, switching on to speakerphone.
“Oh, you know,” David said, sucking down his cigarette. He tapped his foot, debating whether to tell Leda anything about what had been happening to him. Childhood instincts to confess everything to his older sister swelled up, but he tamped them down. “Fine. Work’s busy, but fine.”
“What about your other job?”
“The séance business is booming. There are always grieving widows and rich party kids looking for a taste of the supernatural. How’s the cult leader business?”
“I’ve told you before,” Leda said, with a wicked laugh, “it’s more of an ecstatic sect. And it’s going great; I had five people over for a ritual last Friday night and a couple of them stuck around to make me breakfast in the morning.”
David made a generalized listening sound, since he could never tell when Leda was being serious, being salacious, or just messing with him. He settled on messing with him for this round, then sighed.
“Well, I just wanted to touch base. You know. It’s been a while.”
“It has. Come by the club some weekend; we’ll do a VIP room, the whole nine yards.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m working this weekend.”
“You work too much, David. I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” David said quietly, almost afraid of being overheard by anyone who worked in the courthouse. He kept his feelings for his sister close to his chest and he wasn’t good at talking about them, but he did care.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” Leda said breezily. “You sound busy. But don’t be a stranger, alright?”
David nodded. It was easier to be in person with Leda; the phone calls always felt forced. “Great. I’ll take you out for lunch sometime soon. I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to it. Later.”
The call disconnected, and David was left alone on the steps of the courthouse.