A Cast-Off Coven Page 2

  “I thought you were a psychic.”

  “I’m no psychic; I’m . . . sensitive to things sometimes; that’s all.” I’m careful not to bandy about the title “witch.” A lot of people were open to the idea of em-paths, or people sensitive to the otherworldly. However, mucking around with special powers in order to alter reality on purpose—as in witchcraft—was another thing entirely.

  “You don’t have to be sensitive to hear this ghost,” Maya commented.

  “Most spirits aren’t malevolent,” I pointed out. “Has anyone been hurt?”

  Ginny shook her head.

  “Any property damage?”

  “Only if you count when Sean Hitchins fell back on his butt into the vat of leftover clay.”

  “I missed that one,” said Maya.

  “It was classic.” Ginny grinned. “We still have the imprint of his backside in the sculpture studio. You should totally check it out.”

  “You know,” I interrupted, “my mama always used to say, Don’t trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. All old buildings harbor a ghost or two. Couldn’t y’all just ignore the noises?”

  Maya and Ginny both gawked at me as if I had suggested they vote a straight Republican ticket. In San Francisco, Maya had informed me last week in no uncertain terms, artists did not vote for the conservative party.

  “Have you ever tried finding the essence trapped in a hunk of stone with a ghost breathing down your neck at three in the morning?” Ginny demanded.

  “Can’t say that I have,” I conceded.

  “Anyway, I think I know who the ghost is . . . or was,” Ginny said, pulling a tiny sketchbook from her back pocket. She handed me the pad, opened to a bold pencil sketch of a handsome young man with a heavy brow and dark, searching eyes. His hair was cut short, and he wore an honest-to-goddess high school letterman’s jacket circa 1959—I had just acquired one very similar to it for the store.

  A chill ran over me. If Ginny was seeing actual full-body apparitions, there could be more to this haunting than I thought.

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “What? Oh, nah, I was just looking into the history of the place. You know, like what tragedies occurred that might explain the noises. And I read about this guy’s suicide in the old school newspaper—they had his photo and everything, and it seemed to fall into place.”

  Maya took the sketchbook from me and studied the picture. “What was his name?”

  “John Daniels,” Ginny said. “Supposedly he was, like, totally in love with this student painter. They were gonna get married and everything. But it was the early sixties, bohemia and all that. She walked away, or fell in love with someone else, or something, and he wound up throwing himself down the steps of the bell tower.”

  Maya and I glanced at each other before turning back to the sketch. His eyes seemed mournful.

  “Can you imagine loving that strongly?” Ginny sighed. “It’s so romantic.”

  “It’s so melodramatic, you mean,” muttered Maya. At my amused look she added, “What? He couldn’t just find another girlfriend? Committing suicide is more stupid than romantic, if you ask me.”

  Ginny’s gaze shifted to look over my shoulder.

  “Uh-oh.”

  I swung around, half expecting to see John Daniels’s lovelorn ghost.

  Ginny snorted. “Here comes the Big Cheese.”

  Two men were walking down the hallway in our direction, heads bent as they talked in hushed tones. One wore a plush leather jacket and had a full head of snow-white hair. He looked to be in his early sixties, tanned and good-looking in a tennis-playing, gold-chain-wearing, no-comb-over-for-me kind of way. The other man was tall, lanky, and as pale as a proverbial ghost. He wore an ill-fitting brown corduroy sports jacket over outdated jeans and a baggy T-shirt.

  They strode by our trio without a sideways glance and entered the café.

  “Let me just take his order before we go. Be right back.” Ginny slipped through the café doors after the men.

  Maya and I followed, taking seats at an empty table near the entrance. It was almost midnight, but the cavernous café was abuzz with black-clad, body-pierced, and paint-spattered students. Some hunched over slim laptops and thick sketchbooks, while others downed yet one more caffeine boost before closing time while arguing over relevance and technique. A thin young man with a sparse goatee strummed on a guitar in the corner, crooning a vaguely Dylanesque tune. Plates and silverware clanged and clattered as the café staff finished washing up and putting away the last of the night’s dishes.

  I was happy to wait, savoring the collegiate ambience. I hadn’t had the chance to go to college; in fact, I never officially graduated from high school. While other kids were memorizing French vocabulary and sweating over trigonometry, I’d been training to brew love potions and cast binding spells and interpret auras. I learned the uses and abuses of mugwort and wolfsbane and dragon’s blood resin. I discovered that all sorts of “mythical” creatures were, in fact, as real as we humans. Most important, I came to understand how to call upon my spirit helper and my ancestors to focus my intentions in order to alter reality. My powers of concentration were great indeed.

  I had learned all of this at the feet of a master: my adoptive grandmother, Graciela. I was lucky to have her. The small west Texas town I grew up in didn’t much cotton to witches. Like many “gifted” people, I found my talents were more a burden than a boon. They had gotten me tossed out of my home, my high school, and then my hometown . . . all before I was old enough to vote.

  What would it be like to hang out at midnight with like-minded folk who wanted to argue over the classics—or, in the case of the admittedly scruffy group of three at the next table, the relative merits of painters Jasper Johns and Gustav Klimt? I wondered if these kids had any inkling how fortunate they were.

  I roused myself from my thoughts and followed Maya’s gaze to the men standing at the counter, ordering lattes from Ginny.

  “So, who’s the Big Cheese?” I queried.

  “Jerry Becker, one of the school’s major benefactors. He’s donating a cool million or so to help renovate the studio building. As daughter of the provost, Ginny’s under strict instructions to be nice to him, which also means fending him off. Becker fancies himself a real ladies’ man. He’s been hitting on anyone and everyone even remotely young and female.”

  “I can’t imagine he gets far with this crowd.”

  “You’d be surprised—he’s very charming when he wants to be.” Maya would have made a first- rate gossip in a small town, or a top-notch spy during the war. She had a knack for information gathering and on-the-spot, spot-on character assessments. “He arrived last week on his own private jet, flown by his own private pilot. But don’t take my word for it. He’ll work it into any conversation sooner or later. That and the fact that he’s on a first-name basis with the staff at the Fairmont.”

  The Fairmont was a gorgeous, historic hotel perched atop fancy Nob Hill. It offered the kind of luxury accommodations that might cost upward of a thousand dollars a night, and it did so with a straight face.

  “Must be nice,” I said. “Where’d the money come from?”

  “He founded a string of beauty schools throughout the South.”

  “Wait—this wouldn’t be Jerry Becker as in Jerry’s College de Beauté?” I pronounced it as I had heard it growing up in Texas: Collage duh Bootay.

  “That would be he.”

  “Wow. We had one of those in my hometown. A lot of the girls in my high school went there. We ended up having more hairdressers than heads of hair to dress. How’s he connected to the School of Fine Arts, of all places?”

  “He’s from San Francisco originally, I believe. Plus, his daughter’s a student here. You met her this afternoon. Andromeda.”

  “With the pink hair?”

  “The very one.”

  “Who’s the other guy?” I asked, indicating the tall, gaunt fellow with him.

  “That’s Walker L
andau. He’s on the painting faculty.”

  “Any good?”

  “Talented, but . . .” Maya trailed off with a shrug.

  “Let me guess: an underappreciated genius who thinks a lot more of himself and his art than the rest of the world does?”

  “Bingo. I’m surprised to see him with Jerry Becker. Landau’s moody, to be kind. Probably manic-depressive, like a lot of artists. The Beckers move in high circles, with the beautiful people. Lots of parties, plenty of wardrobe changes. Seems an odd pairing.”

  As the men took their coffee drinks to a table by the window, another fellow strode into the café. A slight hush seemed to fall over the crowd.

  Tall, dark, and handsome, he had a dashing air that made me think of an old-fashioned movie star. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t put my finger on who. Probably Errol Flynn.

  “Hey, Prof!” Ginny beamed from behind the sales counter. She glanced up at the clock hanging over the tea caddy. It was shaped like an artist’s palette, with splotches of color in lieu of numbers, and paintbrushes in place of hands. “You made it right under the wire. We close at midnight. The usual?”

  The man nodded, leaned one elbow on the brushed-zinc counter, and watched while Ginny busted some smooth barista moves. She preened, arched her back, played with her hair, and chatted—flirting big-time. The man smiled, and I heard his deep voice murmuring something; I couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was alluring.

  “And that is the newest sensation on campus,” Maya said.

  “He’s very attractive.”

  “Smokin’ hot,” Maya agreed. There was a dreamy note in her voice, which was unusual for a woman who insisted romance was nothing more than a late- night fabrication of lonely women and hormonal men. “He joined the faculty this fall. In contrast to our friend Walker, this guy has done very well, represented by prestigious galleries in New York and L.A., as well as here in Union Square. Name’s Luc, with a ‘c.’ ”

  “L-u-c? Is he French?”

  “I don’t think so. No accent, and according to rumor, he’s got family around here. But he has an undeniable Continental flair; used to live in Europe.”

  Jerry Becker noticed the new arrival as well, and stood. Luc brought his espresso over to the table, one hand up in supplication. Luc’s tone was the same as it had been with Ginny—deep, resonant, seductive.

  Becker’s was not. His voice grew louder and shriller until the words were bouncing off the café walls.

  “And if you do, I’ll kill you—do you understand me?”

  The buzzing of the students, the strumming of the guitar, even the clatter of the dishes came to a sudden halt. We all held our collective breath.

  Luc chuckled. I strained to hear him.

  “I admire your passion, Jerry. But there’s no need to go to the mats over this thing. Why don’t we meet tomorrow and talk—in private?”

  “This can’t wait till tomorrow.” Becker glanced down at a gaudy, expensive-looking gold watch that shackled his tanned wrist. “I’ll meet you in your office in fifteen minutes.”

  Luc inclined his head, still smiling. “If you insist. See you then.”

  He nodded good-bye to Walker Landau before turning away.

  As Luc passed my table, his dark eyes met mine, and our gazes locked. His vibrations were vivid, almost dazzling, but ultimately guarded. After a brief moment his lips formed a crooked, subtle smile, and he nodded his head, just barely.

  “Evening,” he said quietly.

  “Hi,” I said, cringing at the breathless tone of my voice.

  He walked by, leaving a subtle, sweet citrus scent in his wake. I turned to watch him go.

  “Nice view, huh?” Maya asked.

  “What? Oh, yeah.” I felt myself blush. As soon as the door closed behind him, the buzzing of the crowd came back twice as loud as before. “What do you suppose all that was about?”

  Maya shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on around here lately—everybody’s at each other’s throats. But this thing with Becker and Luc . . . ?” She shook her head. “All I know is that Becker wanted Luc to set Andromeda up with a show at Luc’s gallery off Union Square—a prestigious place—but Luc told him in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t do it.”

  “That hardly seems reason to issue a death threat.”

  “Becker’s used to getting what he wants,” Maya said, and stood so quickly her chair almost toppled over. “Let’s go. I want to get this ghost thing over with. Kevin’s waiting upstairs.”

  Maya caught Ginny’s eye and gestured toward the door with her head. Ginny tossed her apron in a laundry basket and punched out, leaving the dishwashers to close up.

  “Shall we?” Ginny said, and led the way into the main building.

  There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked. “I know it’s late, but the café was jammed.”

  “The former nuns’ cells here on the first floor were converted into offices for administrators,” Maya explained. “They’re strictly nine- to-fivers. Most of the students are night owls, as you noticed, and will be working in their studios most of the night. But only the sculpture studios are in the main building. The rest of the student ateliers are housed in the new wing.”

  My ears were alert for untoward sounds, but the place was as quiet as the proverbial tomb. We reached the broad, tiled staircase that swept up to the second floor. On the landing waited a tall, open- faced young man wearing a security guard’s uniform and a badge that read KEVIN MARINO.

  He stood ramrod straight, shoulders back and chin lifted; the rough, tough security guard prepared to protect the womenfolk. I wasn’t sure how he intended to do this, since as far as I could tell, the only threatening item in his possession was his rusty tin badge. I supposed tetanus could be a concern . . . eventually . . . if he stuck a miscreant with the badge’s pin, but that wouldn’t get him very far with a noncorporeal ghostly apparition.

  “Hey,” Kevin greeted us with a lift of his chin. He focused on me. “You the ghostbuster?”

  “I’m Lily Ivory. Nice to meet you.” We shook hands.

  “Kevin.” He paused. “Where’s your, uh, ghost-huntin’ stuff?”

  “She left it in Honduras,” Ginny said.

  “Oh. Too bad. Well, all’s quiet so far. There was a heckuva lot goin’ on last night, though. Think it might be one o’ them poultry heists.”

  “Poultry heist? Someone’s stealing chickens?” I asked.

  Maya nudged me. “He means poltergeists.”

  “Aah.” No wonder I couldn’t talk to the dead, I reflected. At times I could scarcely understand the living. “My mistake.”

  We started meandering down the second- floor hallway, which was laid out in a way similar to the first—a series of wooden doors leading off a broad, straight hallway—except that these roomier spaces were used as classrooms. I was enjoying the midnight outing—although I’m no artist, I am something of a night owl—but I had to admit that our foursome was one sorry excuse for a ghost-hunting team. Two anxious students; one security guard whose chief virtue, in my mind, was that he was not carrying a loaded weapon; and one bona fide witch who could not communicate with the dead, much less with the undead, if her life depended on it.

  “Where’d you want to start?” asked Kevin.

  “Why don’t we start with the noisiest area,” I suggested.

  “Hmm. Lots o’ those. Lots o’ those indeed.”

  “Which one’s the worst?”

  “Well, now, that’s hard to say. Darned hard to say.”

  Why would he drag this out? Was he lonely, or afraid?

  I forced myself to smile. “Pick one.”

  “The bell tower?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Do you think . . .” Maya interrupted. “Do you think maybe we could start with the studios?”

  I reminded myself that most humans—normal humans—aren’t as sanguine as I about the supernatural. All structures have
some ghosts, the whispery remnants of the souls who have passed through. Most consist of little more than residual feelings and fleeting emotions, not the apparitions of lore. And most aren’t a problem. They tend to keep a low profile, noticed only by those who, like me, are . . . different. A ghost’s main impact on the human world is to lend its vibrations to a place, which might make that place warm and welcoming, or cold and off-putting.

  As someone who has lived a mostly solitary life, I revel in these vibrations, which make me feel connected to the past, to those who have gone before. The same feeling drew me to old clothes, which also carry a fragment of the energy of those who have worn them, but most people go through life unaware of the overlay of the past, which is just as well. On the rare occasions when they make the connection, it can be profoundly disturbing.

  “Has there been activity in the studios?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Then let’s not waste our time. Straight to the bell tower, I say. Let’s get to the bottom of this. But listen, you really don’t have to come along if you don’t want to.” I looked in turn at three apprehensive faces. “Any of you. I can do my best to slay the critter, then meet you all back in the café.”

  “I’m coming with you.” Maya wasn’t the kind to back down.

  “Me, too,” said Ginny.

  “Yeah, we got your back,” said Kevin.

  I nodded. “Okay, great. Just remember, ghosts aren’t typically malevolent. Usually they’re merely a remnant of a past life, of someone who used to be just as human as the next person. Don’t be afraid. Now, let’s go see if we can stir up anything in the bell tower.”

  I may not tote around electronic equipment, but I never leave my house unprepared. My ever-present medicine bag was tied to the braided belt at my waist, and in my backpack were newly consecrated talismans for my companions. I knelt and extracted three from my backpack.

  “Just in case,” I said, handing them out.

  Maya and Ginny accepted them gladly, but Kevin looked doubtful until Maya took the medallion and hung it around his neck. By the way he looked at her, I suspected he was the sort of “pal” who wanted to be more. They might make a cute couple. She was serious and delicate in stature; he was tall and lanky, and easygoing. But I doubted he was smart enough for my wise-beyond-her-years assistant.