A Cast-Off Coven Read online

  “Oh . . . I see.” She glanced up at the young man standing beside her. He was lanky and blond, good-looking in a sort of surfer-dude-meets-boy-band way. He appeared to be in his early twenties, around Ginny’s age. Did Marlene have a son?

  “Well, since the incident . . . That is, I don’t think . . .” Marlene trailed off.

  “I won’t disturb the crime scene,” I said.

  “Still . . .” She trailed off once more, her light eyes again searching out the young man. Marlene was not nearly the lithe pixie her daughter, Ginny, was, but she had a delicate manner that suggested she might faint at the sight of blood. She wore her golden brown hair in a romantic upsweep, with artful curls framing her fine-boned face. An asymmetrical, rainbow-patchwork jacket and lots of chunky handmade jewelry made her look artistic and businesslike at the same time, but tonight she seemed pale and pinched.

  Having one’s school associated with the suspicious death of its most generous benefactor must be a potent double whammy for someone in her position.

  “It can’t hurt if she gathers the clothes, Marley,” the young man told her, his voice soft but sure.

  “We haven’t met,” I said, and held out my hand. “I’m Lily Ivory.”

  “Todd Jacobs. Nice to meet you.” He shook my hand. His blue-eyed gaze met mine, and I could see he had a certain charm about him, to be sure, but his vibrations were careful, standoffish, as though he were assessing me just as I was him. I also detected a surprising sense of control, rare for one so young.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, where is my head?” Still seated, Marlene reached up and took Todd’s hand, leaned in to him, and beamed. “This is my husband, Todd.”

  Husband?

  “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is, to have someone by your side when going through an ordeal like this,” Marlene said. “Do you know, one of our very own faculty members has been accused of this hideous crime.”

  “That Luc fellow?” I asked.

  “No, of course not. Why would Luc be involved? I was thinking of poor Walker—Walker Landau. Do you happen to know him?”

  “I don’t really know anybody . . .” I began.

  “Poor Walker—”

  “Walker wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Todd interrupted. “This whole thing is ridiculous. Fact is, everyone wanted that man dead.”

  “Wanted Walker dead?”

  “No, Jerry Becker,” Todd said.

  Marlene’s face had gone pale and drawn, and she averted her eyes. She looked suddenly older. I felt waves of sadness and . . . was it embarrassment? I caught the scent of something akin to must, dank and closed off: shame.

  “Well,” she said with a nervous laugh, fluttering her hands over her chest, “be that as it may, it’s in the hands of the police now.”

  “Walker’s in police custody?” I asked.

  “No, they haven’t arrested anyone as far as I know. Anyway, perhaps it is a good thing you’re back. After all, the police aren’t going to help us with the school’s being . . . haunted,” Marlene said, her gaze holding mine. “I hadn’t wanted to say before, but it’s getting worse. And now everyone’s so ratcheted up, their nerves are shot, it’s as if there’s something in the air. There have been skirmishes amongst the students, and even the faculty. Professional jealousies are running amok. And now, well, this . . . tragedy . . . certainly hasn’t helped things. I even had someone in here messing with my ephemera!”

  “Breathe, Marley,” Todd said in a quiet voice. Marlene smiled up at him and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

  “Messing with your ephemera?” I asked. Was that a euphemism?

  “Marley’s a collage artist,” Todd explained, yanking his chin toward a drafting table set up in the corner. Every surface was covered with tiny bits of clipped magazine pages, letters, advertisements, and patterned papers. “She seems to think someone was going through her things yesterday.”

  “No one thinks I could possibly notice, but I know these things,” said Marlene. “It may look like a mess, but it’s my mess.”

  “Why would anyone want your ephemera, Marlene?” Todd asked.

  “Some student with an overdue project, no doubt.” She turned back to me. “Anyway, if you can figure out what’s going on with the noises, without getting involved in the police investigation, I suppose that would be all right.”

  “I’ll do my best. So, it’s all right to collect the clothing?”

  Marlene glanced up again at Todd, who nodded. She flashed me a brilliant smile. “Of course.”

  “The closet’s on the third floor, on your right at the end of the hall,” said Todd. “Marlene and Ginny had to break the handle to get it open. There’s a hole in the door, so you can’t miss it. Want me to go with you?”

  “No, thanks, I’m good,” I said. “But I do appreciate the offer.”

  The stairs leading from the main building’s first floor to the second were broad and formal, but the steps to the third story were steep and encased in a narrow, enclosed stairwell. Oscar and I climbed slowly. I hadn’t taken the students’ concerns seriously enough the last time I was here at the school, assuming they were overreacting. I had been almost flippant about it, and I should have known better. Jerry Becker’s death, not to mention the sounds I had heard on the bell tower stairs, had sobered me.

  As had the sense that there was an evil spirit involved. I hadn’t said as much to Oscar because I wanted his untainted version of what might be present. Plus, I was hoping maybe I’d gotten it wrong. But unaccustomed fighting, jealousy, and petty theft were potential signs of demonic activity. The wretched creatures really did love to stir things up.

  We took our time mounting the stairs, searching for the sensations encased within the rough stucco walls, the smooth stone steps, the slick wooden banister. Thousands of souls had passed through these hallways for more than a century, leaving faint traces of themselves each time. I felt hints of misery amongst the whispers of everyday human experience, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  Oscar and I paused at the top of the stairs, which opened onto the third- floor hallway. The long corridor, flanked by a series of simple wooden doors and a few small windows, was much narrower than the floor below. I wondered which unlucky nuns had been banished up here under the eaves.

  The empty hallway stretched out before us. Strong shafts of afternoon light slanted in through the window-panes, dust motes floating lazily in the brilliant orange beams. Evening would soon be upon us. I crouched and, concentrating, put my hands, palms down, on the floor. I listened and looked, but I also smelled.

  Mildew and the sickeningly sweet aroma of death. Unhappy death.

  “Whose offices are these?”

  I jumped at the sound of Oscar’s loud whisper.

  “I think they’re just storage closets, by the looks of it,” I said in a low voice.

  “Nuns used to live up here?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Guess you gotta be dedicated if yer gonna give up everything and live in a dreary place like this, huh?”

  I didn’t answer, as I was straining to hear, to feel. “Mistress?”

  “Hush, Oscar. I’m trying to feel for something.”

  “Sorry.”

  He was silent for maybe ten seconds.

  “I knew a nun once, in Heidelberg. She was a hoot and a half when she started drinking that sacramental wine. She told me a great joke: ‘This nun walks into a ratskeller—’ ”

  “Sssh.”

  I began moving gingerly down the hall, senses alert. The last door on the right had a hole where the handle used to be, big enough for a hand to pass through. To one side was a heavy mahogany bureau that appeared to have been moved from its place in front of the door, judging by a dark rectangle on the wooden floor where it had stood, and by scrapes along the floorboards.

  What drew my attention, though, was the door at the very end of the hall. It was slightly larger than the others, and there was something about it. . . . As I stared, th
e door started to shimmer, fading in and out, as if beckoning. I wondered where it led—to the bell tower stairwell?

  Halfway down the hall, Oscar suddenly grabbed the back of my sweater and pulled.

  “Don’t go farther, mistress!”

  “You feel something? What is it?”

  “Dunno exactly. . . . It’s not safe.”

  Oscar is something of a drama queen, and despite his fearsome looks, he’s a big chicken. I pried his fingers off my sweater, made sure my amulet was attached, and cradled my medicine bag in my hand.

  “It’s okay, Oscar. I’ve got this under control.”

  “What’s the plan, mistress?”

  “You stay here while I check it out.”

  “That’s the plan?”

  “I didn’t say it was complicated. Now hush.”

  I took a step down the hall but stopped dead in my tracks at the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the stairs behind us. Oscar and I turned toward the noise, goggle-eyed and speechless as in a cartoon.

  Something was approaching.

  Oscar leapt into my arms, transformed into his pig guise, and squealed. I stumbled back against the wall and tried to ready myself for a repeat of last night’s haunting.

  I began to murmur a protective chant.

  It was upon us.

  Chapter 6

  “Is someone there?”

  I stopped chanting.

  It was the handsome professor from the café last night—Luc something or other. Wearing worn jeans and a dusty black T-shirt, he had a sheaf of papers in his hands. He seemed a little surprised to see me, and a lot surprised to see Oscar.

  “Hello again,” he said with that amazing voice. As he neared us in the hall, a slow smile spread across his sensuous mouth.

  “Hi. Again.” I breathed, trying to still my heart. Oscar kicked his cloven feet, and I set him down.

  “Great pig,” Luc said, and crouched down. Oscar snuffled his open hand and wagged his curly tail. “What’s his name?”

  “He’s, um . . . Oscar.”

  “Hey there, Oscar.” Luc stood and smiled at me. “I saw you recently—where was it?”

  “In the café.”

  “Ah, yes, that was it. I’m Luc, by the way.”

  “Lily. Lily Ivory. Pleased to meet you.”

  He held out his hand, then realized it was wet from

  Oscar’s greeting. With a rueful smile Luc wiped his palm on the thigh of his worn jeans.

  “The pleasure’s all mine.”

  “What brings you up here?” I asked.

  “My office.” He gestured to one of the doors.

  “They exiled the new kid on the block all the way up here?”

  Luc smiled. “Probably would have, but I asked for it. If it’s easy for folks to drop by, then they will, and I never get any work done.”

  I returned his smile, and our eyes lingered for a moment until it occurred to me that I was on the deserted third floor, alone—except for a pig—with a possible murder suspect. I had mentioned Luc’s name when I told the police about the argument he had with Jerry Becker in the café. Surely if the authorities had anything on him, he wouldn’t be walking around free—would he?

  Oscar was winding around our legs, eager for attention. What would he do if I were in real danger? Was he doglike in that way, willing to throw himself into the fray to save his mistress?

  More likely he would hightail it to the nearest exit.

  I didn’t pick up any threatening vibrations from being near Luc, though; that much was certain. Just sumptuous, sensuous ones; they felt round and voluptuous, almost tactile, wrapping around my arms and legs. I breathed in his pleasant, fresh citrus scent. Still, I wished I had been able to touch him, to shake his hand. Nothing takes the place of skin-to-skin contact when it comes to reading someone’s vibrations, especially when they’re guarded.

  “What are you doing up here?” Luc leaned down to pet Oscar again, almost absentmindedly. “Most of the other spaces are used for storage.”

  “I was promised the contents of the closet at the end of the hall.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “There must be something good in there. I hear people going in and out all the time.”

  “That must be a different room. This one’s been locked up until recently.”

  “I don’t think so. The one at the end, on the right? I hear it creaking open and slamming shut all hours of the day and night. I’ve been wondering what was in there, but when I tried it, the door didn’t open. Served me right; I have no business in there.”

  “Supposedly there’s a bunch of old clothes.”

  His eyes swept over me. “And you need old clothes because . . . ? Maybe a smock so you don’t get dirty?”

  “No, nothing like that.” I smiled, absurdly pleased that he thought I might be making art. It made me feel as though I fit in, just your average everyday art student . . . who just happened to be a witch. “I sell vintage attire, and I’m hoping there’s some great stuff here.”

  “Why would vintage clothes be kept in the closet of an art school?”

  “Good question.”

  In the short time I’ve been in this business, I’ve happened upon fabulous finds in attics, basements, closets, storage units, trunks of cars, moldy cardboard boxes, office storerooms, and on one memorable occasion from an abandoned yacht. So I hadn’t given much thought as to why there might be clothes in a cubby tucked under the eaves in an art school, no matter that it was from an era when the building served as a convent. Now that Luc had mentioned it, it did seem odd. Why would nuns have beautiful gowns? Had the women brought the clothes with them when they came to the convent but given them to the church when they took their vows and donned the order’s habit? If so, why were the clothes still here? I knew nothing about this sort of thing, much less the building’s history. For all I knew, the nuns had supported the convent by putting on theater productions of bawdy French farces. It would behoove me to spend some time in the massive San Francisco Public Library.

  Oscar nudged my hand, bringing me back to the present. What to do, what to do. . . . I could play it safe and leave, do my research, and come back knowing more about what I was dealing with. Or I could give in to my curiosity, assume I was a strong-enough witch to deal with whatever I might find, and look in the closet.

  I wasn’t one to play it safe. And after all, as they say back in Texas, this weren’t my first rodeo.

  “Wait here a minute,” I told Luc and Oscar. I caressed my medicine bundle, took a deep breath, and proceeded down the hall. The door at the very end still shimmered, but I ignored it. One investigation at a time.

  Gingerly, I pushed on the door with the broken handle. It gave a creaky protest as it swung open. The room was under the eaves, more a cubby than a closet, and though I’m only of average height, I had to duck to avoid knocking my head on the ceiling’s steep angles.

  The good news was that the space was warm, dry, and dark, the only source of light a small screen vent to the outside.

  The bad news was it reeked of age and dust, the musty smell of a room long closed off, a stench the clothes would absorb.

  The really bad news was that it also reeked of something acrid, malevolent; something profoundly wrong.

  There was an evil here, that much was clear, and not only by the conspicuous absence of my piggy familiar, whose clicking hooves could be heard retreating down to the far end of the hallway. Very old scrapes in the wooden floor showed symbols and a triangle within a pentagram within a circle, along with scattered powder and stems that might once have been herbs. Five little piles of what looked like ashes sat at regular intervals on the dusty floor. Several candle stubs littered the floor as well. Someone had been working the craft here, long ago. It looked like a binding spell.

  I stood still and concentrated, but it was very hard to read, hovering as it did just out of mental reach. . . . It was like trying to remember the details of a vivid dream the morning after. I steeled myself
against a strong yearning, a seductive need. The sensations were unfocused and vague, but undeniably present.

  The room was dim, illuminated only by the lamps in the hall and the scant late-afternoon light that managed to work its way through the vent. I looked around for a light switch before noticing there was no overhead lamp. Two candelabra, their misshapen stearin candles half burned, rested on a bureau near the door. Had this room been shut off before the building was wired for electricity?

  The small space was packed with remnants of a long-ago era: a huge black steamer trunk; old leather-bound books written in French; wooden boxes of all shapes; a massive chest of drawers against one wall; an ornate, almost thronelike wooden chair; a freestanding full-length mirror, its silver backing flaking and corroded in spots.

  And in that mirror . . . a face?

  The ghostly visage was gone so fast that one might convince one’s rational mind that it was a trick of the light. But this wisp of a spirit was accompanied by an undeniable tingle of energy and a blast of icy air. It was trying to make contact. Whether that was helpful or threatening, I had no way of knowing.

  Right about now I was wishing I had some of that RadioShack equipment, not to mention a psychic ghostbuster at my side—a burly, muscle-bound psychic ghostbuster. I’m not frightened of spirits per se, but there was something wrong in this room.

  Crouching down, I kept my eyes on the mirror while reaching into my satchel and extracting a megawatt flashlight.

  “Were you a Girl Scout, by any chance?”

  Luc’s voice startled me. I had forgotten about him. My witchcraft training had taught me first and foremost to focus my intent to the exclusion of all else, a skill I had mastered early on. This otherwise admirable power of concentration got me into trouble at times like these.

  “Not hardly,” I said as I stood and gently shoved him out of the room. “Stay in the hall, please.”

  Luc smiled but looked curious. “Want to keep the treasure to yourself? I won’t steal it.”

  “Just stay outside until I say so.”

  Turning back to the room, I knelt before a large black trunk covered in tooled leather, bearing still-colorful stamps from France and Hungary. I slowly undid the brass latches that held it closed, took a deep breath, and inched it open, praying it didn’t contain a skeleton or something equally macabre.