A Cast-Off Coven Read online

  A man stood in the doorway.

  “Max. Are you all right?” He didn’t look all right. He looked terrible, as though he hadn’t slept in days.

  Max reached out to take the heavy books from my arms. “Where do you want ’em?”

  “Anywhere’s fine. On the counter. Come upstairs and I’ll make us some tea.” I noted his haggard, haunted expression. “Or better yet, a stiff drink.”

  He trailed me through the store and up the rear staircase to my apartment. In the tiny foyer he paused, taking in the mirror set up to repel evil spirits, the sachets tied with black ribbons, and the bundles of rosemary hanging over the door.

  I poured us both a glass of wine, then set a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the floor for Oscar.

  Max remained mute. I swallowed hard, wondering whether he was trying to think of the best way to break up with me. We’d had only one real date, true, but he struck me as the kind of man who wouldn’t just stop calling. He seemed like the type to let a witch know where she stood.

  “How is Luc?” I asked, finally, breaking the silence.

  “He seemed okay. Sort of vague. I didn’t smell anything on him, but I’m really afraid he’s drinking again.”

  “I don’t think so, Max. Where is he now?”

  “At our dad’s house, in Mill Valley.”

  “You need to keep him from going back to the school. It’s going to be shut down for a while, anyway.”

  “Why? As a crime scene?”

  “As a potential crime scene. In the future.”

  “You’re reading the future now?”

  “Max, listen. Luc’s fears were not unfounded. He can’t be allowed to go to the school building. I’m asking you to be your brother’s keeper, just for a few days.”

  There was a pause; then Max gave a curt nod.

  “I’m sorry about what happened earlier at the hotel,” Max said.

  “There’s no need to apologize.”

  “That man, that ‘Sailor’ person, took me by surprise. Seeing him there, with you . . .” He shook his head. “I lost it. I completely overreacted.”

  “I understand. He told me a little about what happened between the two of you.”

  Max sipped his wine and wandered through the sitting room, then out onto the terrace. I followed. It was a dark night with little moonlight, and the air was fragrant with the scents of my lush herbs and flowering bushes. He leaned back against the balustrade.

  “My wife’s name was Deborah.”

  “I know. I read about her, a little bit.”

  “You looked me up?” Max asked.

  “Like you haven’t looked me up.”

  “Actually, I haven’t.”

  “Oh. What happened to not being able to turn off the journalist inside you?”

  “I guess I was trying not to be that person with you. I was trying to trust you.”

  “I’m sorry.” Now I really felt guilty. “Please, go on with what you were saying.”

  “Deborah wanted children—she came from a huge family—and I’ve always loved kids. We tried to get pregnant for a long time, then moved on to fertility treatments. After a while I wanted to stop trying, wanted to adopt a child instead. The need to become pregnant was becoming an obsession. It . . . seemed to take over our lives, somehow.” He took another sip of wine and looked up at the stars.

  “Deborah was very gentle. Very soft. Kind. A wonderful woman, but . . . not the strongest person in the world. I talked her into seeing a psychiatrist, a friend of my sister’s. The meds helped some, but it was still tough, living with a depressed person. She was like a shadow of the woman I once knew. I was traveling a lot at that time, working freelance but scrambling to find a more permanent situation since Deborah didn’t want to leave the Bay Area. She finally found her way to a so-called psychic. I didn’t realize how close they had become, how this so-called seer had wormed his way into her confidence . . . while I had dropped out.”

  He cleared his throat and balanced his wineglass on the balustrade.

  “Apparently, he told her to quit taking the meds. The truth is, I wasn’t around enough to know. I was on assignment in Europe when it happened. I called every day, but it wasn’t uncommon for Deborah to ignore the phone. By the third day of silence, I called Carlos and asked him to check on her. She had overdosed on pills. Killed herself.”

  “Oh, Max.” I cast a comforting spell, but it repelled right off him. He couldn’t receive it.

  “The worst part is knowing she was there, on the floor, with no one there to comfort her.” His deep voice wavered. “I might as well have killed her myself.”

  “No, Max. That’s not true.”

  He turned away, hands on his hips.

  “Look at me, Max. It was a tragedy, but it wasn’t your fault. You’re only human. You did try.”

  “Did I? Not enough, obviously. I failed her.”

  He tilted his head back, taking a deep breath in through his nose, then released it in a rush. “I walked around in a daze afterward. For years. Then, that first day I saw you at the shop . . . it was as if I were waking up from a coma.” He shook his head and turned back to me. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know whether it’s pheromones, or fate, or your damned magic, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  I moved into his arms. We held each other for a long moment. Finally he drew back, studied my face, pushed the hair out of my eyes.

  And then came a kiss. His lips were warm, soft but hard, seeking. The kiss deepened, becoming more demanding, almost urgent.

  Without pausing to think, or to talk myself out of it, I took Max’s hand and led him into the bedroom.

  Where neither of us was bothered by nightmares at all.

  Chapter 20

  I awoke at four in the morning. It wasn’t mares that disturbed my sleep, but faint music. Tinny notes from a music box, playing that now-familiar ditty. “There’s a place in France . . .”

  And a pig snuffling at my side of the bed.

  I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Max. He slept flat on his back, splayed, with one beefy arm crooked over his head. He looked rumpled and sexy and gorgeous . . . and the memories of the past few hours brought a blush to my cheeks. Unfamiliar muscles made themselves known as I pulled on my robe. I felt deliciously relaxed, with a deep sense of well- being despite the events of the past few days.

  Oscar and I scooted out of the bedroom, and I closed the door behind me.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “You stirred something up,” said Oscar, transformed back into his goblin form. He crossed his arms over his chest, tapped a toe, and gave me a schoolmarm look.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A witch like you, doing you-know-what half the night? That sure as heck stirs things up.” His glare made me feel like a sixteen-year-old caught sneaking in the window after curfew with straw in her hair. “It’s no surprise, what with your . . . carrying on and what-all.”

  Sex magic. Had I really let myself go that much? Did I release something?

  “It wasn’t like that,” I insisted.

  “Then it’s quite the coincidence,” Oscar said, cynicism dripping from every word.

  The music droned on from downstairs. “Dee dee dee dee dee . . .” And I thought I heard something banging around now, as well.

  I grabbed my medicine bag, tied it around my waist, and hung a talisman around my neck. Chanting a protection spell under my breath, I cautiously descended the stairs.

  Everything was as it should be in the back room, but through the opening in the curtains I could see movement out in the dim shop.

  I approached the curtains, slowly pulling them back. Oscar stayed under the table.

  Dancing. The clothes I had liberated from the closet were dancing about my store; Victorian frills swaying and swooping, keeping time to the music emanating from the old box on the counter.

  “Stop!” I yelled. I repeated the command in Latin, then Spanish, and
even Nahuatl.

  Nothing.

  I tried closing the music box, but opened or closed, it continued playing its tinny tune.

  What had I been thinking about when . . . when Max and I were together under the sheets? Joy. And freedom. And connectedness.

  As strange as it seemed, the clothes were happy for me.

  I leaned back against the counter, let out a long sigh, and shook my head.

  Oscar mimicked me, taking up a similar posture at my side, shaking his big head, and tsking.

  Other people had sex and all they had to worry about were questions of morality, unintended pregnancy, and STDs. I had to contend with accidentally setting off supernatural forces, inspiring the equivalent of a ghostly dance hall.

  Life’s just not fair.

  “What’s this?” Bronwyn asked the next day, holding the thick demonology grimoire in her hands.

  “It’s a . . . uh . . .”

  “Demonology?” Bronwyn said, reading the spine. “As in, an encyclopedia of demons?”

  I nodded.

  “You believe in such things?”

  “You don’t?”

  “Our coven focuses on the holidays, the good stuff. People often make the mistake of thinking that Wiccans are about devil worship, that sort of thing, and I always correct them. We’re pagans, but we’re all about the good.” She lifted troubled eyes to mine. “I always assumed such negative creatures as demons were just the invention of the official church hierarchy, not reality.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Bronwyn had an inordinate faith in my abilities; a faith much stronger than mine. She also seemed to think I had some sort of handle on what such evil was all about. But truth to tell, even during my training with Graciela, I was always better with practice—spells and brews—than with theory. I had left town before we got through much of the important history of the craft, hence my formal training left something to be desired.

  So I really didn’t know why evil existed, or where it came from; I knew only that, indeed, it did exist.

  “The last time we went up against something evil like this . . . it scared me, Lily. It scared all of us.”

  “I know that, and I don’t know how to thank you. I couldn’t have done it without all of you. But this isn’t the same sort of situation. La Llorona was a malevolent spirit; this is a classic demon.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out. I think it’s mostly about motivation. La Llorona was a mother who committed a terrible crime and is condemned to feel the anguish over and over, as well as to inflict it on others. A regular demon, a real demon, is a creature as old as the earth, and I’m not sure what demons are after, beyond spreading misery and fooling around with people’s minds. To tell you the truth, I don’t know much about them myself. Hence the demonology.”

  Just then, Max came into the shop from the back. He looked sleepy, despite the strong coffee I had made for us earlier in the apartment. Still, the haggard, haunted look had lessened. Though he and I had been up a good part of the night, he had gotten some rest, sleeping in until almost ten.

  “Morning, Max,” Bronwyn said, cool as a cucumber. But she looked over at me, lifted her eyebrows, and winked.

  “Good morning,” he answered.

  Oscar snorted loudly and ran to his pillow.

  I blushed and closed the demonology. I didn’t want to remind Max, right at this moment, that he was now officially sleeping with a demon-hunting witch.

  “I’m late for work,” Max said. “Are you free for lunch?”

  “Actually, I have plans. With Hervé LaMansec. Remember him?”

  He gave me a rueful smile. “My girlfriend is having lunch with a vodou priest. Never thought I’d see the day. I’ll call you later, then?”

  “I’d like that,” I replied with a smile.

  He kissed me good-bye. The feel of his lips made me want more—much more. I watched him let himself out the door.

  “What’s the expression?” Bronwyn asked. “Hate to see you go, but love to watch you as you leave?”

  “Very funny,” I said. But I surely did enjoy watching that man stride down the street.

  “Soooo . . . did you have a nice evening?” asked Bronwyn, Ms. Innocent.

  “Very, thank you.” Except for incidents of possession and what-all. But the later part of the night was just perfect.

  The bell over the door tinkled as Maya walked into the shop. Bronwyn grinned at her.

  “What?” Maya asked.

  “Ms. Lily here got lucky.”

  “Bronwyn!” I gasped.

  “Max or Aidan?” Maya asked with an interested smile as she hung up her jacket. “Or someone new?”

  “Max,” Bronwyn replied.

  “Bronwyn, we don’t need to hire the Goodyear blimp to announce it, do we?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Get used to it, girlfriend. We’re happy for you. Max is a good guy.”

  “Lily,” Maya said, “have you heard from Ginny Mueller lately, by any chance?”

  I shook my head. “No, I haven’t seen her since the art opening.”

  “Me neither. She’s not answering her phone, and she stood me up this morning. We were supposed to have coffee,” Maya said. “I’ll try calling Marlene, just to be sure everything’s okay.”

  “You sound worried.”

  “She just seemed sort of out of it at the art show. And then she slipped out without even saying good-bye.” Maya noticed the demonology books splayed on the counter. “What’s all this?”

  “Lily’s trying to figure out what demon’s been menacing the School of Fine Arts,” Bronwyn replied.

  “Really? It’s in here?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “There are tens of thousands of them. I know what his sigil, or sign looks like, but I can’t draw it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s . . . dangerous for someone like me. I could accidentally conjure it before I’m ready.”

  Bronwyn and Maya exchanged a look.

  “I know, it sounds bad.”

  Bronwyn started flipping through the pages, reading various descriptions to us. The demons listed were a fascinating mélange of wickedness and surprisingly entertaining attributes. The monks had written meticulous details about their propensity for the lustier side of life, especially.

  “Here’s a good one: Beleth, also spelled Bilet, Bileth, and Byleth, is a mighty and terrible king of hell, who has eighty-five legions of demons under his command. He rides a pale horse, and all kind of music is heard before him. Didn’t you mention hearing music, Lily?”

  “I did, but there was no pale horse. The fellow I’m looking for looks like a Griffin, with wings of an eagle and the head of a big cat, a leopard maybe.”

  “This is interesting, though,” Bronwyn said. “According to this, Ham, Noah’s son, was the first in invoking him after the flood, and wrote a book on mathematics with his help. I thought demons were fierce, and to be feared?”

  “They are—it’s kind of hard to explain. Some people feel their powers can be harnessed, and they can help you by lending you their powers,” I said as I folded and rehung the dresses that had been scattered about the shop last night. I had gathered them this morning when they finally stopped their dancing with the arrival of the dawn. “I remember one fellow, for example, named Dantalion, who is supposed to be Lord of Arts and Letters, and used to be invoked by students. I guess demons can be of service, but you have to be darned sure you know how to control them before you call on them.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Bronwyn. “It says that when Bethel appears, he tries to frighten the conjurer. The conjurer should hold a hazel wand in his hand and draw a triangle by striking toward the south, east, and upward, then commanding Beleth into it by means of special conjurations. Otherwise . . .”

  “Okay, I think that’s enough for now, Bronwyn,” I said, noticing the uncomfortable look on Maya’s face.

  “Oh, just one more. This is a
good one; looks like a Griffin, too. His name is Sitri, also known as Set, Bitru, or Sytry.”

  “What’s with the aliases?” Maya asked. “It’s as if they were undercover.”

  “They cross a lot of cultures,” I said. “I guess a lot of different folks have categorized them.”

  Bronwyn read aloud. “The twelfth spirit, called Sitri, alias Bitru, is a great prince, appearing at first with the face of a leopard, and having wings as a Griffin; but afterward at the command of the Exorcist, he putteth on a human shape; he is very beautiful, he inflameth a man with a woman’s love, and also stirreth up women to love men. Being commanded, he willingly detaineth secrets of women, laughing at them and mocking them, and causeth them to shew themselves luxuriously naked if he be desired, etcetera. He governeth sixty legions of spirits; and his seal to be worn is this . . .”

  “He maketh women naked?” I asked as I tossed a petticoat onto the to-be-washed pile.

  “That’s what it says.”

  “Okay . . . Does it say anything about faces melting? Because that was the part that really worried me. Give me naked women over melting faces any day of the danged week.”

  “You saw melting what?” Maya looked slightly gray.

  “It was just an illusion,” I clarified. “A disgusting illusion.”

  “Have you seen this anywhere?” Bronwyn asked, holding the book open for me.

  I looked up to see a beautiful, hand-tipped illustration of a figure with the face of a leopard and wings of a Griffin. And below it was his sigil: a big U bisected by a line with four circles, and topped by three Gothic-looking crosses. That was the sigil Jerry Becker had drawn on the mirror in his hotel room.

  “That’s him,” I said, not exactly comforted by the knowledge. But at least I now had an identity. I was dealing with Sitri, a great prince, who commanded sixty legions.

  “He mocks women?” Maya asked.

  “Mocking I can handle,” I said. “I grew up being mocked. Mocking never killed anybody.”

  “So what does this mean, exactly, Lily?” Bronwyn asked.

  I crossed over to stand beside her and read the entire entry. Besides listing his attributes, the author gave very explicit instructions for binding the demon, as well as describing possible mayhem if the demon was not exorcised properly. I felt butterflies dance in my stomach.