“Also, violent death stirs things up,” Hervé added as we reached the second-floor landing and headed to the right.
These weren’t the long, straight hallways of modern hotels, but were narrow and twisty, snaking through the old building. As we approached room 217, more of the painted figures started to stir, their movements sinewy, lugubrious, sensual. The box under my arm thumped.
Spirits are attracted to me and often try to make contact, but I can’t understand what they’re saying. I could feel their energy, like an army of ants marching up and down my spine or puffs of cold breath on the back of my neck. But I’m a witch, not an empath, and I can’t communicate with them. It’s very frustrating and tends to make all parties concerned a little testy.
Once again, I felt a wave of gratitude for my friend’s presence. Not just as a necromancer, but as moral support. I’m not new to murder scenes, unfortunately, but confronting the loss of human life never gets easy.
“There it is,” Hervé said, nodding at the bright yellow crime scene tape crisscrossing a door just ahead. I wondered if the hotel’s management had removed the guests from the rooms along the hall; it wouldn’t be great for business to remind them this was an active crime scene. A homicide scene.
“Ready?” I asked Hervé.
He nodded.
I ripped the crime scene tape, used the key to turn the knob, and stepped into room 217.
The room was a shambles. Ceramic lamps had been smashed, nightstands overturned, and the sheets and blankets wadded up as though slept in. Blood was spattered on the white walls and drying in dark pools on the cream-colored carpet. Evidence tags and dark fingerprint dust revealed the forensics team had come and gone.
Nausea seized me. The room shimmered with anger and evil.
“Damn,” said Hervé, right behind me.
The box thumped again.
“What do you have in there, anyway?” Hervé asked as I carefully set the box on a chest of drawers.
“It’s a little hard to explain. But it’s possible that whatever is in here once belonged to Tristan Dupree.”
“But you don’t know what it is? Or even if it’s in there?”
“I don’t know much of anything, I’m sorry to say. That’s why I’m hoping his ghost might be able to clarify a few things.”
“And you brought the box to entice him? Clever girl.”
“Not really. I brought the box in because I don’t want someone to steal it from my car.”
“Shall we give it a go? Again—I can’t guarantee anything,” Hervé said. “This sort of thing would be better suited to your fiancé.”
“He’s unavailable at the moment.”
Hervé gave me an inquisitive look but didn’t ask anything further.
“I appreciate your trying, Hervé,” I said. “What can I do to help?”
“You could draw a circle.”
I started to bring supplies out of my backpack: my mason jar full of brew, my Apache tears and tiger’s-eye stones, one clear quartz crystal, one small amethyst. One small purple pouch full of cemetery dirt, and five lavender tea lights.
Hervé sat on the floor in a corner clear of debris, evidence tags, or any signs of struggle. I started to chant as I poured a very slender stream of brew in a circle around him, invoking my guiding spirit to open the portals, to allow the spirits to cross through the veil but only into the protection of the circle.
Just as before, my magic felt . . . rusty. I had cast this spell a thousand times, knew every word, every movement by heart. Why was the energy resisting me? Could I have done something to offend my guiding spirit, the Ashen Witch?
I tried to focus. To call for grace through humility.
“Angels, guardians, spirits, receive my eternal gratitude for the guidance you provide. I bid you allow the spirits to pass through the veil, to speak through this man, this conduit. Speak to him through his third eye, and I will listen with a sharper ear, and I will see with a sharper eye. Speak to us, we beseech you. With this brew, with this fire, with our presence, so mote it be.”
I went back over the circle, widdershins, in salt.
Then, continuing to repeat my charm, I placed the stones at the four directions, north, south, east, west. Then I lit the candles and placed them at the five points of the pentacle: spirit, head, heart, earth, fire.
While I chanted, Hervé arranged himself, sitting cross-legged, breathing deeply and relaxing into meditation. His broad hands rested, palms up, on his knees to receive the energies.
His head fell back almost immediately upon my completion of the pentacle within the circle, and his eyes rolled up. Just like that, Hervé was no longer present. He was a conduit.
When I was focused on a magical spell or incantation, I often went into a trancelike state, but watching Sailor or Hervé at work reminded me that I didn’t know what a true trance was. They seemed to actually leave their body, somehow, allowing the spirits or words from afar to channel through them. It was equal parts spooky and fascinating.
I sat silently, watching Hervé. His features suddenly shifted, his eyes flew open, and he stared at me.
“Lily Ivory.” Hervé’s voice sounded strangely hollow, and he spoke with Tristan’s odd inflection.
“Tristan?” I tried to quell the queasy feeling of a spirit speaking through a friend’s body. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”
“Your boyfriend.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. He entered the room and began to strike.”
“Do you have any other enemies, near or far?”
Silence.
“Come on, Tristan. Surely you have other enemies.”
If Tristan had enemies, he wasn’t going to admit it. The silence continued.
“What did you want from me?”
“Fire. Time. Teher . . . tears. The tears of the daughter.”
“What does that mean? I think perhaps what you want is in this box.” I held it up. “What is it you’re looking for, exactly?”
“Bēag.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Bēag, bēag!”
He started spouting something that sounded a lot like Oscar’s rendition of the prelude to The Canterbury Tales—in other words, some form of English I couldn’t understand. Or maybe it was another language entirely.
“I can’t understand you,” I said.
“Bēag! Silber!”
“Silber?” I repeated. “As in silver? Is the bēag made of silver?”
“Silber!”
Happily, although spirits can speak through a medium, they very rarely “take over” the medium’s physical body. I was pretty sure that if Tristan could have, he would have gone for my throat. Or, at the very least, for the box.
“What about Renee Baker? Is she involved in this?”
“Kaka.”
Were we talking baby talk now?
He mumbled under his breath, as though searching for a word. “Kuchen?”
“Kuchen—that’s German for cookie or cake?” I ventured.
“Cupcakes!” he exclaimed.
Well, at least I understood that last part. So, Tristan was definitely involved with Renee and he associated her with cupcakes, as we all did. After all, she was the cupcake lady.
“The seers saw. The prophecy.”
“What is the prophecy? Tell me.”
“San Francisco. The child will come.”
I blew out a frustrated breath, more confused than ever. Luckily, I’d been mired in confusion before. In fact, I was beginning to think that this was my process when trying to figure out supernatural mysteries.
Hervé twitched and moaned softly. He was coming out of his trance. The question-and-answer period was over.
Chapter 8
Hervé looked vacant and confused, which was typical for someone coming out of a deep fugue state.
While I gave him some space to recover, I studied the paintings on the door panels and in a border framing the ceiling. It wasn’t hard to imagine a brokenhearted hotelier painting yet another door, a wall, a column, one after another. The variations of grotesques were endless, the outlandish combinations of beasts and mythology restricted only by one’s imagination. Had the artist been desperate to forget, I wondered, or desperate to remember?
“Did I say anything?” Hervé asked after a moment.