Chapter 5
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I tell Tiffany, a crime scene photographer who often works along with me. We’ve gone out together, talk outside work, but she really knows nothing about me. “Thanks for calling.”
“I had to check for myself once Nick told us what happened. You can’t catch a break.”
I laugh and it’s so forced Gemma looks at me with raised eyebrows. “Right. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay. It’s crazy what happened.”
“Yeah…crazy.” I haven’t looked at the paper, checked my phone, or turned on the news.
I’m not sure how this has been explained to the general public.
Those who were there, who saw the golem firsthand, will know.
Though most people crave explanations and will believe a lie if it’s rational…
even when they know it’s not the truth. “Is the station buzzing because of it?”
“Oh yeah. Everyone is looking for the guys.”
“Guys?” I swallow hard.
“Yeah, the three guys in the masks.”
“Right,” I say, feeling like I need to pretend to know what she’s talking about. I pull my phone away from my ear and open the internet on it, logging onto a local news channel’s website.
“I’ll let you go and rest. Be careful out there, Ace. If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone has it out for you.”
Someone does have it out for me.
“I’ll be fine. Take care,” I say, and end the call.
“Everything okay?” Gemma asks, leaning forward. I’m pretty sure she heard every word that was said, but being nosey, she has to ask.
“I think so.” I see the article about last night right away. “Well, wow.”
“What?”
“The attack last night is being blamed on three men in masks. It says they most likely were taking some new drug that I’ve never even heard of.”
“People are buying that shit?”
“What else are they going to believe? That monsters really exist?”
“How can they not believe it?”
I shake my head. “You’d be surprised at how many abnormal things people will try to pass off as normal. And I’m not even talking about paranormal. Suspicious activity, strange behavior…everyone wants to justify it as something they can process and handle over the truth.”
“People are weird.”
“They are.”
“It’s hard for you, isn’t it?” Gemma asks. “Having to lie about work.”
I set my phone down and nod. Having a friend I can spill my guts to is still a little strange to me. I want to trust her. I want to tell her everything and have no secrets between us. But there’s still a little voice in the back of my head that screams I shouldn’t trust her.
That I shouldn’t trust anyone.
I’ve spent my whole life believing that trusting people is a good way to get screwed over. I suppose expecting myself to just get over that in a few short months isn’t exactly realistic, now is it?
“Yeah, it is. I feel bad lying to the people who are risking their lives for this city, and I know my lies are far-fetched at best. I don’t like lying, but I don’t want to get caught either.”
“I never thought about it before, obviously.” She raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t think about a lot of this stuff before. The idea of having real magic and fighting demons sounded so exciting. But in reality…it’s messy. And scary. Very scary.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “It’s a lot messier than I expected too.”
“Wanna go out for breakfast?” Gemma asks.
“Yeah, that sounds good. Leave in twenty minutes?”
“Give me at least half an hour to look presentable.”
“We need code words.” Gemma pours syrup on her pancakes.
“For what?”
“For the things we can’t talk about.”
“That’s generally why you’d use a code word.” I laugh.
“Exactly. So instead of saying magic,” she whispers, looking around the cafe, “we should say makeup.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Okay. Well, then…when we get back, I need to consult my book and learn some new makeup techniques.”
“Not the book. The internet. Oh—YouTube!”
“Right. YouTube.” I pick up a piece of bacon. “I need to be ready.”
“For the fashion show.”
“Yeah, since we don’t know exactly when the show will happen, or if any other professional makeup artists will be there, uh, competing against me.”
Gemma’s brows pinch together and I know she’s getting worried. “I have a bad feeling about this, Ace. I don’t like it at all. It’s just all so…so creepy.”
“That’s why I want to get it over with. Find out who’s been watching me practice my, uh, makeup skills and find out what they want from me.”
“Luckily you have some good male models on your team.”
I smile at the thought of the guys. “Yeah. I do.” Shaking my head, I take a bite of bacon, not wanting to think about anything else at the moment. I need to compartmentalize better and stop being so panicked about this.
I’ll figure it out.
I always do.
After breakfast, we go to an electronics store and I end up spending double what I expected on camera equipment.
The guy at the store had fun selling me everything I need to turn my house into Fort Knox, with enough spotlights and motion sensors to make it impossible for anyone to set foot on the property without me knowing.
I lock the expensive equipment in the trunk of the car, and Gemma and I go to Lyra’s magic shop to load up on supplies. Between the two of us, the house is always well stocked—magically speaking—but it never hurts to prevent our stash from running low.
And besides, I want to ask Lyra about the weird symbol.
She’s not a fraud like I thought she was when we first met.
I do believe her to have some magical powers, like Gemma, but nowhere near the power I do.
Still, she sees a lot and knows the city’s New Age population better than anyone.
So even if she doesn’t know what the symbol means, she might have seen it on someone else.
“Hello, ladies,” Lyra says in her usual sing-song voice. She’s almost always smiling, and seems to genuinely be a happy person.
“Hey, Lyra,” Gemma replies with a smile.
“I just got a new shipment of crystals in,” she tells us, sweeping her hand in the direction of the display. “With a few rare ones that I think will go fast.”
Gemma jumps all over it and goes to look. I pull a piece of paper from my purse and go to the counter, quickly drawing the symbol from the wax seal.
“This is probably a long shot,” I start. “But have you seen this before?”
Lyra takes the paper and tips her head as she looks at it. “Yes.”
“Really?” I blurt, not expecting that at all.
“It was years ago,” Lyra goes on, closing her eyes as she thinks. “And the only reason I remember is because the man had terrible energy around him.”
“What man?”
“One moment,” Lyra says, and disappears into the back. Gemma, holding some sort of shiny black stone, comes over to wait with me.
“What are you going to tell her?” Gemma whispers.
“It’s for work,” I whisper back. Lyra knows I’m a detective and that I handle the more obscure cases Philly sees. She’s hinted that she knows I’m a witch too, and that she can sense the powers inside me.
Which is one of the biggest reasons I know she’s not a fraud.
I’ll admit I came in here with a chip on my shoulder. For years, every case that seemed supernatural was the exact opposite. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to have powers.
Hah. Look at me now.
“I believe this is the card.” Lyra comes out of the back room holding a business card. “I try to expel any and all negative energy, but my tarot spread that night told me to get this card out of the trash and hold onto it as a reminder.”
“Reminder?” Gemma questions.
“Never to give this man anything.”
“Hang on.” I hold up my hand. “Start from the beginning, please.”
Lyra sets the business card on the counter and flicks her eyes to Gemma, making sure it’s okay for her to speak freely. Yep, she thinks I’m questioning her about a murder investigation or something. Perfect.
I give her an encouraging nod and uncap my pen again, ready to jot down any notes if I have to.
“It was several years ago,” Lyra starts.
“And it was close to closing. I was here alone like usual, and a broom fell in the back.” She stops, giving us a telling look.
Brooms falling are a bad omen, not one I’m sure I believe in yet.
“I went to see what knocked it over, and when I came back, a man in a blue suit was standing at the counter.”
She pulls her arms in close to her body, still unnerved from the memory. “He was very attractive in that conventional way rich white men in suits are, but right away I could tell something was just off.”
“Off?” I ask.
“The air seemed colder. The energy was just…wrong. Chaotic.” Lyra looks past us, remembering the guy standing in her store. “He told me he procures occult items and had a list. He asked me to contact him if I became aware of any of the items. He offered to pay a lot just for the information.”
I pick up the card. It’s just a name and a phone number in black ink, printed on white cardstock paper. There’s no symbol.
“Do you still have the list?” I ask.
“No. I thought I kept it, but it must have gotten lost in the shuffle over the years. I do keep a folder with bad vendor cards in it to remember not to order from them in the future, and I slipped his card in it just in case that name showed up again.”
“The symbol,” I start. “You said you’ve seen it before.”
She nods. “The man had a pin on his suit. It was small and a little tarnished. It looked old.”
“Do you remember any of the things on the list?” I ask, trying hard not to show how anxious I am right now.
Lyra closes her eyes in a long blink. “A chalice from a supposed Satanic ritual, a set of runes I think, and books from Alister Crowley’s personal collection. It wasn’t anything I would carry here. Those things would be found at auctions and would go for a lot of money.”
I let out a breath. I don’t own anything of the sort, but that was years ago. Collectors of anything are always on the lookout for new items.
“Did he say anything else?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. Along with having negative energy around him, he was rather rude.”
I set the card down and take a picture of the info. “Thanks so much, Lyra.”
“Of course.” She smiles and nods and takes the card back, slipping it into a drawer under the counter.
“Are you moving?” Gemma asks, looking inside the drawer. The girl is so damn nosey.
Lyra gives us a guilty look. “I’ve been considering it for a while now. My sister lives in Florida and has been trying to get me to move south with her. She has three wonderful children who I just adore. I hoped to retire soon too.”
“I’ll miss you and the store.” Gemma pouts.
“I know!” Lyra reaches over the counter and takes her hands.
“It’s been my reason for staying open these last few years.
But it’s becoming a lot. With more and more people accepting Wicca and witchcraft nowadays, business is great.
Which sounds like a strange reason to want to retire, but it’s hard to keep up. ”
“You have to do what makes you happy,” I say, knowing I suck at this kind of motivational talk. “And winters in Florida sound a hell of a lot better than winters here.”
Lyra laughs. “That’s part of my motivation.”
We buy a few things, chat with Lyra for another few minutes, and leave when a group of teenage girls comes in.
We still have to go to the grocery store, and the lack of sleep and early morning are starting to catch up with me.
I need to get a good power nap in before sunset.
Something tells me I’m going to be up all night.
Once we’re home, Gemma and I work together to put the groceries away.
Then we take a stab at the cameras. They’re way more expensive than the ones I tried before, but this old house requires the big guns since I can’t just mount a camera anywhere and connect it to my Wi-Fi.
I’ll have a few wires exposed for the time being, but I’m not worried about that right now.
I’m usually able to figure things out. I’m smart, and being on my own for years taught me to be self-sufficient.
But I’m not a tech genius.
Giving up on getting things to sync—for the time being, that is—I go around the outside of the house and figure out the best place to install everything.
I have a few pieces of equipment that will need to be plugged in, but most is wireless.
I’m dragging a ladder out of the rickety shed in the backyard when a car pulls down the driveway.
It’s Jared, a teenage boy who lives down the street and had his first real run-in with magic not that long ago when he was kidnapped by a vengeful spirit.
The guys and I saved him, and we haven’t had much of a chance to talk since that night.
Jared was fine—thanks to us—and made a complete recovery.
Physically, that is.
Mentally, well, I’m not so sure. The kid was eager to learn anything he could about the paranormal before. I assume he’s going to be even more gung-ho about it…unless he’s too freaked out.
“Hey,” I say, holding my hand up to my face to shield the sun from my eyes. Jared gets out of the car and comes down the driveway to help me with the ladder. I don’t need help, but I let him take it anyway. “How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“Really?”
He rests the ladder on the gravel driveway and meets my eyes. “Yeah. Ready for the next adventure.”
“Sure you are.”
“Fine,” he huffs. “I was hoping we could talk.”
I offer a small smile. “Of course we can.”