A Cast-Off Coven Read online

  None of this changed the salient point, however: If there was a demon at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts, it had to be bound and expelled before all hell broke loose, whether or not it was directly involved in Becker’s death. And I was guessing I was the best woman—the only woman—for the job.

  I had felt the spirits myself; I didn’t need Oscar to tell me that something was there, though he did confirm what I already knew. What I really needed, though, was someone who could communicate with spirits. Oscar was right.

  Time to go talk to a Sailor in a bar.

  The corner of Broadway and Columbus is a vibrant, somewhat sleazy area featuring a spicy variety of sex shops and girlie shows. In between are plenty of restaurants and cafés, mostly Italian, as well as a few intriguing features such as the Beat Museum, highlighting the neighborhood’s role in the beatnik movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Hustler Club and the Lusty Lady were doing a brisk business, even on a Sunday. I found a parking space a couple of blocks from my destination, and after a cursory complaint about being left alone in the van with eerie dresses, Oscar curled up to take a nap.

  Romolo Place is a quiet side street off busy Broadway. The grade of this mostly residential street is so steep that there are shallow steps carved into the sidewalk. In the way of neighborhood clubs trying to maintain their insider chic, there was no actual sign for the bar. I followed a deep blue light outside the door and the sound of a pulsing bass.

  I paused in the doorway to get my bearings—bright blue vinyl couches, sleek chrome, neon. The music was thump-thump-thumping some monotonous tune I didn’t recognize. The crowd was not the typical North Beach mélange of tourists, aging hippies, and beatnik wannabes; this group was young and artsy, and chicly dressed. At the moment I felt like a construction worker in my dusty jeans-and-sweater ensemble, but I would have felt like a 1950s hausfrau wearing one of my typical old- fashioned, wide-skirted dresses amongst all these toned, tanned young bodies clad only in skimpy handkerchief halters and brief polyester shifts—scraps of cloth that wouldn’t have qualified even as proper petticoats in days of yore. I fit in okay in scruffier bars and Moose Lodges, but at Cerulean I stood out like a sore thumb.

  Just an ordinary day in my less-than-ordinary life.

  I stood on tiptoe to see over and around the packed crowd, searching for Sailor. The only thing I knew about him was that he was a man, which ruled out less than half the people in the place. I elbowed my way across the room and slid into an open spot at the bar.

  “Help ya?” the bartender asked with a lift of his chin. His spiky brown hair was frosted white at the tips, and blue eyeliner complemented his eyes.

  “I’m looking for Sailor,” I said, leaning across the bar and yelling to be heard over the throbbing alternative rock music from the jukebox.

  The bartender’s pale eyes swept over me, lingering on the cleavage I had unintentionally displayed as I leaned toward him.

  “Broadway.”

  “Excuse me?” Was Sailor living the dream in the Big Apple?

  “The sailors hang out at the girlie shows on Broadway. But if you’re looking for a quickie, I’ll give you a go.”

  It took a moment for his words to sink in. “Um, thanks. I mean, no. Thank you. I guess.”

  The bartender shrugged, and the tall, thin woman standing next to me with a Celtic cross tattooed on her exposed shoulder offered to assist me if I was looking to play for the other team.

  Flustered, I shook my head and stepped away from the bar, my cheeks burning.

  As I surveyed the room, my eyes met the dark gaze of a man sitting at a booth on the other side of the room. He was slouched low, his back up against the wall, one arm resting along the top of the booth and one long black-jeans-clad leg stretched out on the seat. He wore big black leather motorcycle boots and an uninviting scowl.

  After a brief moment, he averted his eyes and shook his head in a gesture of exasperation. You didn’t have to be supernaturally sensitive to pick up on the fact that the man was not looking for company. Aidan had told me I would be looking for a psychic reluctant to use his rare talents. . . . Had I found my guy?

  I made my way over to him and stood beside the table.

  “Excuse me . . . Mr. Sailor?”

  He ran his eyes over the length of my body, tossed back the remains of the amber liquid in his shot glass, and then looked around at the other bar patrons. When he spoke, he did not meet my eyes. World-weariness dripped from every word.

  “Let me guess. Rhodes sent you.”

  I nodded.

  He blew out an exasperated breath.

  “Just Sailor,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s not ‘Mister’ anything. Just Sailor.”

  “Oh. Hello, Sailor.” I smiled. “Sounds like a pickup line: Hello there, Sailor. Lookin’ for a date?”

  “Gee, never heard that one before.”

  “Sorry. I’m Lily, by the way. Lily Ivory.”

  “Nothing personal, but I really don’t care.”

  “Mind if I join you?” I persisted. “Buy you a drink?”

  Sailor’s eyes were dark, heavy lidded, and brooding—nothing at all like any of the psychics I’d ever known. I wondered if Aidan was playing a practical joke on me. Could this guy be for real? What was his story?

  Sailor picked up his empty glass and shook it. “Scotch. Neat. The good stuff, none of that blended crap.”

  I made my way back to the bar and flagged down the bartender.

  “Found your man?” he asked.

  “Two scotches, neat. The good stuff.” I tossed a twenty on the bar, but the bartender demanded another five. That had better be darned good stuff, I thought. On the way back to Sailor’s booth I spilled about six dollars’ worth when I tripped over a man in a zippered pantsuit lying on the floor. It seemed best not to ask why he was there.

  I placed Sailor’s drink in front of him and slid into the booth across from him.

  “To your health. And it had better be good; it cost a fortune.”

  “Only the best.” He ignored my raised glass and took a deep drink.

  I took a sip. And coughed. Tears filled my eyes. Wow. Single malt.

  Sailor’s gloomy gaze strafed the room, as if he was searching for a more-interesting companion—or an escape route. Apparently finding none, he glowered at me.

  “Well? What do you want?” he demanded.

  “An entity of some sort has taken up residence at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts. I was hoping you could help me figure out what I’m dealing with.”

  He gave a mirthless chuckle. “Why should I?”

  “Aidan said you could help. He gave me your name.”

  “I’ll just bet he did.” He threw back his head and tossed down the rest of his scotch. My glass was still nearly full.

  He slid out of the booth and nodded toward the exit. I left my expensive drink on the table and hustled after him, following in his wake as he stormed through the crowd. After an awkward dance with a man built like a rugby player, I stumbled out to the street.

  The night was cool; the air damp and foggy. Down at the end of Romolo Place shone the garish lights of Broadway. For a moment, I thought my quarry had vamoosed, but then I spotted him leaning against the building a few yards uphill.

  Sailor removed a small pouch and a packet of rolling papers from his jacket pocket, placed tobacco into a paper square without dropping a single shred, and deftly rolled a cigarette with his long, graceful fingers. He neatly licked the edge of the rolling paper, sealed it, pulled a box of wooden matches from his front pants pocket, lit the cigarette, sucked tobacco smoke deep into his lungs, and blew out curlicues of smoke from his nostrils.

  Performance over, Sailor looked at me and shrugged.

  “I know, I know. No one smokes tobacco in California.” He looked down at the cigarette in his hand. “Lucky for me I’m psychic, so I know for a fact I’m not going to die from lung cancer.”

  “Real
ly?”

  He gave me a cutting look. “Please. I’m just a stubborn ass with a nicotine addiction and a death wish, like everybody else. Listen . . . Lily, was it? . . . That drink only bought you ten minutes of my time, so if I were you, I’d start talking.”

  “I thought you’d have guessed already. You know, since you’re a psychic and what-all. I thought you might read my mind.”

  “Couldn’t even if I wanted to, which I don’t.” He blew out a smoke ring. “Do you have any idea how tedious most people’s thoughts are? It’s enough to make a man lose faith in humankind.”

  I was willing to bet that Sailor’s faith had been challenged by something other than mere tedium. What had happened to him to cause such darkness to hover around him like this? And why would such a misanthrope hang out in a crowded bar?

  Sailor smoked and watched the passersby while I gave him a brief rundown of the spooky events at the School of Fine Arts and Jerry Becker’s death. For the first time, a glimmer of interest sparked in his eyes.

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re dealing with your average everyday ghost,” he said. “Ghosts are human dead who haven’t crossed over for some reason. They might make noises or slam the occasional door, but they’re unlikely to manifest with overt physical pranks or violence. Not unless they were practicing magicks before they died. You’ll be a loud one, I’ll bet.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When you pass on. You’re the kind who’ll stick around and will have plenty to say to those left behind, as well as the power to say it.”

  “That’s a disturbing thought.”

  “Living takes courage. So does dying.”

  “Anyway, I thought you said you couldn’t read my mind.”

  “That’s how I know what you are.” He took a drag on his cigarette and shrugged. “Your thoughts are blocked, and power’s radiating off you like waves of cheap perfume. I could sense it before you even stepped foot in the bar tonight.”

  I lowered my head and surreptitiously sniffed my shoulder.

  Sailor snorted. “It’s a metaphor, peaches. I don’t mean real perfume. Your essence. Take my word for it—you can’t wash it off.”

  A pair of good- looking young women dressed in skimpy negligee-like dresses brushed past us on the way into the bar.

  “Heya, Sailor,” cooed one, her lip gloss shining in the lamplight.

  “Angelina, Britney.” Sailor nodded. “Lookin’ good tonight.”

  Lookin’ cold tonight, I thought.

  They giggled and jiggled.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” Angelina or maybe Britney asked.

  “Only if you promise to buy me a drink.”

  “It’s a deal,” she said with a look that promised much more than alcohol.

  Sailor and I watched as the two bounced into the bar. He met my eyes, lifted his eyebrows, and one corner of his mouth kicked up in a semblance of a smile.

  “What can I say? It’s the boots.”

  “I think it’s that sardonic your-mama’s-gonna-hate-me aura you wear like a crown.”

  He flashed a genuine smile. “Makes me irresistible to women.”

  “To some women, maybe.”

  “Not to you, I take it?”

  “My mother never cared who I was with. Besides, she had terrible taste in men herself. I’m not drawn to the dark side. I get plenty of darkness all on my own, thanks very much. Getting back to ghosts . . .”

  He shrugged. “Hauntings can also be the result of energy imprinting on the physical surroundings, like a movie or a record playing over and over on a constant loop, with no awareness of what’s going on around it. Highly charged situations—your violent murders, your mutilations, that sort of thing—leave an energy trace. Do you know the history of the building?”

  “A little. Not enough.”

  “Bump that up to the top of your agenda. Find out if there was a murder, act of violence, or some extreme human emotion.”

  “Supposedly there was a suicide.”

  “That might do it, though suicides can go either way. If the suicide comes at the end of an otherwise well-adjusted life, probably not. If it was a way to strike out at the world or someone in particular, then it might very well be a good basis for a haunting in which the scene plays itself out over and over again for an eternity. Sort of like giving the cosmos the finger.”

  “Sounds dreary.”

  “Hey, ghosts are just dead people, and people aren’t always famous for their maturity or smarts.”

  “Could a ghostly loop like what you’re describing interact with the living? Use them as stand- ins to replay the scene of death, something like that?”

  Sailor shook his head and exhaled cigarette smoke. It wrapped around him in a swirl, lifting up toward the yellow glow of the streetlamp.

  “Nah. They don’t even know you’re there.”

  “Could it be a poltergeist?”

  “Poltergeists are obnoxious and noisy and partial to breaking things—sort of like a bratty child. But like a child, their powers are limited, and because they’re bratty, as opposed to malevolent, it’s exceedingly rare for a poltergeist to harm someone. The worst that usually happens is people get so scared, they end up hurting themselves. Besides, a lot of so-called poltergeist activity is actually out-of-control PK.”

  “PK?”

  “Psychokinetic energy. A result of unsettled human minds, not something supernatural.”

  “You’re saying that if the art students got themselves all worked up about what was going on in the school, then . . .”

  “Their belief alone could be sufficient to create the manifestation. Sort of like a form of mass hysteria brought to life. If they truly believe they will hear noises, they start to manifest those noises.”

  “But that still wouldn’t explain Becker’s death.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “What about an evil spirit?”

  “Possible. A spirit is a human who died and crossed over but retains the ability to move between the planes of existence, from this plane to the next and back again. A spirit can be vengeful or helpful, like a guardian angel. Unlike ghosts, spirits can touch us. Sometimes they’re harmful, but sometimes they’re downright friendly.”

  “Friendly?”

  “Sure. What? You’ve never felt you were being hugged or comforted by something from the Great Beyond?”

  I shook my head. Our eyes held for a moment, and I felt an unexpected shock of kindred understanding. That surprised me. I wasn’t kidding when I told Sailor I had more than enough darkness on my own. But looking at him now, I wondered: Do I walk around with a black cloud over me, too?

  “You said spirits were of human origin,” I clarified.

  “What about nonhuman types?”

  “Demons can take corporeal form and are more than capable of reaching out to humans with the intent to harm.” He gazed at me steadily, his eyes black in the dim light. “But I don’t need to tell you this, do I?”

  Before I could answer, two young men stumbled out of the bar and swayed down the street. Sailor and I watched until they were out of earshot.

  “So you think there’s a demon at the school?” I asked.

  “No, I think there are a bunch of kids with overactive imaginations. A demon can’t just show up, you know. It has to be summoned to this world. It’s not that hard to do, and it occasionally happens by accident, but it’s a pretty big deal. Did you feel a sense of yearning, desire?”

  I nodded.

  “Not a good sign. Anyway, if you’ve got a homicidal demon on your hands, you’ll know for sure soon enough. He wouldn’t stop at one death.” He puffed on his cigarette and shook his head. “But you know that old medical school saying about diagnosing illness—‘If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras’? Same thing here. If a man is murdered, think human perpetrator, not demon.”

  “I’ve been snooping a bit, but the demon is sending out a lot more signals that any human suspect.”

  “Ha.
They usually do. A murder in the building would stir up the demon, that much is true. Or the demon itself might have helped to inspire jealousy or passion amongst the students; it might have spurred on the murder. What’s it to you, anyway?”

  “Aidan asked me to look into it.”

  “What’re you into him for?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you owe him?”

  “A lot. My life, maybe.”

  He let out a loud bark of mirthless laughter. “Well, best of luck to you in that case.”

  “I take it you don’t trust him.”

  “Aidan Rhodes, godfather of the West Coast spooks? Not exactly, no. And if you’re smart, you’ll keep away from him as well.”

  “I’m afraid it’s a little late for that. So will you come with me to the school?”

  “Nope.”

  “But Aidan—”

  “If Aidan Rhodes wants something from me, he can put on his big-boy pants and come talk to me, man to man. Sending a little witch like yourself won’t cut it.”

  “I’m not here for him, Sailor. I need your help to communicate with whatever’s at the school.”

  “You’ll have to find help elsewhere, then. I’m not in the charity business.”

  “I’m not asking you to work for free. How much do you want?”

  “I’m not in business business, either. Not anymore.”

  “But why?”

  He pushed himself away from the wall, agitated. “Because I don’t goddamned well feel like it—that’s why. Do you have any idea what it’s like to open yourself up to that sort of thing? The agony of souls in torment, unable to move on? The horror of demons, all the way down in your marrow?” Sailor threw his stub to the pavement and squashed it with one heavy boot. He seemed abashed at his outburst and spoke in a quieter voice. “I can do without it, thank you very much.”

  He headed toward the bar entrance.

  “Sailor—” I called out to him.

  He halted with one hand on the door. “Yeah?”

  “It was . . . nice to meet you.”