Kelley Armstrong - Waking the Witch

I went around back, presuming that was where the trucker entered, and found a huge double door for the furniture place, a sign with foot-high letters announcing Deliveries.

The delivery door was dented so badly I was surprised it still closed. Kicked in by someone looking for a private place to conduct rituals? That might explain the shiny big padlock on it now.

An unlock spell cleared the way. Inside, I cast a sensing spell that came back clean. There were two doors off the loading dock. One led to an empty room with enough electrical outlets and phone jacks to tell me it had once held desks. The other was a bathroom. At the end, the hall opened into the display gallery.

The place had been stripped bare and kept reasonably clean, the owner still apparently optimistic about its resale value. A thin layer of dust said that optimism was waning, but the unit was still tidy enough to be shown. Too tidy to be an ideal place for anyone to practice the dark arts.

As I walked into the gallery, though, I could see a circle of black on the floor. I knelt and ran my finger over the ring. Wax. A black candle had sat here, dripping, for hours. I looked at the front and frowned. Big display windows. Not even boarded up. Who would conduct a ritual when anyone walking past could see the candle burning?

Near the candle wax, I noticed red smears on the linoleum. I bent and touched them. Long dried and faint, as if someone had mopped them up. I licked my finger and smudged some. Definitely red. Too red to be blood?

I took a picture and compared it with the one from the commune gate. The resolution was crap, though. I needed to see both on a laptop screen and zoom in.

The trucker’s buddy said he’d seen a dead cat, too. You couldn’t have a black mass without a dead cat. Or so said common wisdom. The truth was that cats—or sacrifice of any kind—had nothing to do with a real satanic black mass.

I searched the room, but found no sign of cats. I did, however, find a pile of rags in the corner. Black rags.

I reached down and grabbed an edge. It wasn’t rags, but a huge sheet of black fabric. Other pieces lay beneath it, some black, some white, one red. The piece in my hand seemed like some kind of cape.

Something dropped from the fabric as it unraveled and landed with a dull thump. I glanced down and saw a hand. A human hand, pale in the dim light, the severed stump nestled in the fabric.

A creak sounded behind me. I wheeled as a shadow slunk from the hall. My fingers flew up in a knockback spell before I could think. A gasp as the figure flew back. Shoes scuffled, a door banged, and a man said, “In here!”

I backed up to the wall and cast a cover spell just as two men burst through the door. One was Cody Radu. The other was the younger officer.

The cop looked around. Cody passed him, circling the room. I shifted my gaze to the pile of cloth in the corner. When I’d dropped the cape, it had settled over the hand. Two curved fingers still peeked out.

Cody walked right past me, then planted himself in front of the pile.

“There’s no one here, Mr. Radu,” the cop said.

“Bill saw a girl sneak in the back,” Cody said. “He flagged me down as I was leaving the post office ... not five minutes after that private-eye chick walked by. And someone opened the lock on the door.”

“Okay, but there’s no one here now. I don’t know what you expect me to do, sir.”

“I expect you to earn what I pay you. I expect you to protect my interests, and as the owner of this building, this is one of my interests.”

“Okay but ...” The young officer turned, surveying the room. “There’s nothing here to steal.”

“It’s my property. That’s all that matters. I want a new lock on the door and drive-bys every two hours. If you see that lock broken again, you call me.”

“Yes, sir.”

They left. I cast my sensing spell. The building was empty.

So Cody Radu was paying off one of the local cops. That was definitely something to keep in mind, but right now, I was more interested in that severed hand.

I crouched and gingerly peeled back the cape covering the hand. The hand was fresh, no sign of decay. The skin shone unnaturally. Preserved?

I was betting preserved. In wax it looked like. Which meant I knew what this was—the Hand of Glory. Years ago, one had been planted at our house ... right after a black mass had been staged, complete with dead cats. That had been the work of a half-demon hired by my father, who’d been trying to get custody of me by spooking Paige with the threat of exposure.

I touched the severed hand. Cold, as I expected. Oddly smooth, too, even for wax. I lifted it, wrapped in cloth. From the severed end protruded a bone. A bone that looked ... silver.

I squinted in the dim light. Not a bone, but a metal rod. And the severing cut? Perfectly even.

I was holding a mannequin’s hand.

I grabbed the black cloth and shook it out. Definitely a cape. Under it was more clothing. A shapeless white shirt. A red velvet bustier. And, at the bottom of the pile, more mannequin parts—the other hand and the head. The “stumps” of both had been painted red.

“Props,” I muttered. “They’re props.”

Someone had staged a fake black mass here, complete with fake body parts, probably designed to scare the crap out of someone. Maybe someone supernatural.

I took photos of the props, then put them back the way I’d found them, gave the room one last look, then got out of there.

I WAS HALFWAY to my bike when my phone rang. “People Are Strange.” My ring tone for anyone I don’t know.

“Savannah Levine,” I said.

“Hello, it’s Michael Kennedy. We met earlier?”

“Detective Kennedy. How’s it going? Solve the case yet?”

A small noise that could have been a laugh. “No. I just ... I wanted to apologize for being a jerk at Bruyn’s office.”

“Okay.”

Silence. I let it tick to ten seconds, then said, “If you’re expecting me to say you weren’t a jerk, this will be a very short call. I could point out that you’d already achieved jerk status before the chief’s office, but that would be rude. Apology accepted.”

This time I was sure he laughed. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

“I am nothing if not honest, Detective Kennedy. Now, if you’ll excuse—”

“Do you have plans for dinner?”

Now it was my turn to hesitate. “It was the hot-guy comment, wasn’t it?”

A chuckle. “Could be.”

Liar, liar. I knew what drove this sudden interest.

“Sure,” I said. “Pick me up at the Rose Haven Motel at seven. There doesn’t seem to be anything decent in this town, so we’ll have to go elsewhere. I like Italian and American.”

“A woman who knows what she wants.”

“Always. See you at seven.”

Iwas getting on my bike when “People Are Strange” played again.

It was Jesse.

“Looking for an update?” I asked.

“Yeah, I hate to bug you, so if I am, just tell me to go to hell.”

“You’re not.” I gave him the rundown.

“The detective could be a problem. Is he giving you a rough time?”

“He asked me to dinner.”

“Seriously? Did you zap him with an energy bolt?”

“Oh, he’s not really asking me out. He wants to pick my brain and steal my leads. So I accepted. Should be fun.”

“You’ve obviously got it under control. About those lab and coroner’s reports, any chance I can take a look?”

“I’ll fax them over.”

I ended the call with Jesse only to find that I’d gotten a message in the meantime. If only I’d been this popular in high school, I might have shown up more often. Speaking of school, the message was from a retired history teacher, Mr. Mulligan. Lorraine at the diner had told him about me, and he was wondering if I’d gotten all the local information I’d needed. If not, he’d be happy to provide more background. He’d taught Paula, Ginny, Brandi, even coached Kayla with her homeschooling.