Hexes and Hemlines (6 page)

Using my
athame,
a special ritual knife, I cut a tiny slit on the palm of my hand, held it palm down, and let a drop of my blood fall upon the wax. I waited. Nothing.

“That’s the strangest thing,” I said. I glanced at Oscar, huddled against a cherry cabinet, ready for the apparition. He seemed as stunned as I. “Usually when I add my blood, my guiding spirit comes and finalizes things. This time I . . . I’m not even sure the spell worked.”

Aidan met my eyes, his too-blue gaze perceptive and full of unsaid things.

“Let’s try it at your place.”

“
My
place?” I was hesitant to invite Aidan into my apartment. I wasn’t sure why, though it was my habit not to invite anyone into my inner sanctum. In my quest to become more open to friendship I had been trying to change that tendency, so recently I’d invited Bronwyn and Maya over a few times. And obviously Oscar was familiar with it. But the only man who had visited was an overnight guest: Max Carmichael. Best not to think about
him
right now.

“Your spirit needs to feel your call directly,” Aidan said. “I imagine my energy is mucking up the communications network.”

“That makes it sound like some sort of satellite system.” As I spoke I realized I had exactly no idea of how this all worked. For all I knew there
was
some sort of strange, supernatural, primordial satellite orbiting about the earth.

“Have you heard from Matt?” Aidan asked out of the blue, making me wonder if he was reading my mind.

“You know perfectly well his name is Max. Max Carmichael.”

“Max. Right. That’s what I meant,” Aidan said with a smile. “How is dear Max?”

“He’s still back east. He should be home soon.”

“In time for the Art Deco Ball?”

“Maybe.”

“My offer still stands. I’m available to escort you. I was planning on coming by your shop soon to put together a costume.”

“I can’t imagine why you want to go.”

He just grinned. “I wouldn’t miss it. You have no idea how good I look in the clothes from the era.”

“Oh, I’ll wager I do.” Aidan would manage to look good in the powder blue polyester leisure suit that came into the shop last week. Maya, Bronwyn, and I voted it the Ugliest Item Ever to Cross Our Threshold.

I started working the wax again, thinking perhaps I’d missed a stage. As I rolled, I began thinking about the vision of Malachi, the hourglass, and how he’d wrapped snakes around his neck. The hourglass could be a symbol of time running out, of course, but the snakes? Was it simply a reference to his interest in Serpentarius?

Graciela never liked snakes, so I didn’t know that much about their magical potential. But many belief systems revered serpents for their ability to slide between the upper and lower worlds, in constant contact with the earth and the underground. They are primal symbols of fear, knowledge, sexuality. And perhaps most important, they periodically shed their tired skins and appear reborn, fresh and new.

Personally, I had no problem with the creatures. In fact, snakes had once saved my life.

I looked down at the table. Without meaning to, I had rolled several conjure balls into slender wax snakes. They had taken on a life of their own: A dozen red snakes full of herbs and small charms slithered around the marble slab, snapping at one another, blind and confused.

It was a rookie blunder.

One must never allow one’s mind to wander while spell casting, m’hija
. How often had Graciela told me that?

I mumbled a quick antidote and gathered the small serpents together in my hands, concentrating and chanting until I felt them calming. When they turned back to wax, I blended them together again in one sphere as big as a baseball, forcing myself to ponder the inadvertent conjure, then to undo it.

I looked up to find Aidan staring at me. His familiar was perched on the bookshelf, staring as well. Oscar, and even the black cat, observed me warily from the corner.

“Sorry,” I said. “My mind wandered.”

“And you accidentally created serpents?” Aidan said in a low, unusually serious voice.

“You don’t like snakes?”

“It’s not that.” He cut himself off, as though he wanted to say more but thought better of it at the last minute.

“Anyway, they’re taken care of. But speaking of snakes . . . have you ever heard of the Serpentarian Society?”

Aidan dropped the beaker of melted wax, its red juice running like blood onto the table, soaking into the cloth.

“The Serpentarian Society . . . as in Malachi Zazi?” He grabbed my wrist, intent. “Was that the dead man you saw? How do you know Zazi?”

“How come you always answer my questions with questions?” I asked, wrenching my hand away. Looking out the window, I noted that a thick layer of fog was rolling in off the bay. “It’s aggravatin’ to say the least.”

“Just tell me your association with Malachi Zazi.”

“I don’t exactly know him . . .”

Just then Noctemus chased the black cat from under the worktable.

Aidan scooped the feline up and cradled it to his chest.

“This is Malachi’s cat.” The statement sounded like an accusation. Suddenly the black cat yowled and jumped from his arms, scratching in its haste to be down. A streak of crimson appeared on the back of Aidan’s hand.

I moved to help him, but he waved me off.

Noctemus leapt onto Aidan’s shoulder and tried to stare me down. Like I would be intimidated by a feline. Still, I did shift my eyes away. That cat put me on edge.

“Well?” Aidan said. “Tell me about Zazi.”

“He passed away.”

“As in moved on to the next dimension?”

I nodded.

“When was this?”

“Sometime last night, or more specifically, in the very early morning hours of today. I think. That’s what the police said.”

“And you know this how, exactly?”

“Inspector Carlos Romero—remember him? He worked on the other cases? He wanted me to see if I could feel anything at the scene.”

“Why would he want you to do that?”

“The victim’s body was surrounded with bad luck symbols of all kinds. It was . . . odd.”

Again with the staring. Feline and masculine eyes were on me, assessing me, trying to read me. I kept my guard up, but they were a powerful double whammy. Normally a witch’s familiar might step in and help her hold her own against an antagonistic white cat, but Oscar was conspicuous by his absence. He used to work for Aidan—and for all I knew, he still did. Though Oscar liked me, I feared his loyalties might be divided.

“Are you telling me,” Aidan finally spoke, his voice even more hushed, “that officials with the SFPD are asking witches to weigh in on murder scenes now?”

“I don’t think it’s become a matter of departmental policy, if that’s what you mean. But in this case, yes, the inspector was asking my opinion.”

I started packing up my supplies, carefully placing the lavender, rosemary, and rue back in their tiny labeled jars, and the loose chunks of wax in a resealable Baggie. Then, trying my best to ignore Aidan and Noctemus, I carefully pulled on my coat, buttoning it and turning up the faux fur collar against the afternoon chill blowing in off the waters of the bay.

“And I’d appreciate you either telling me why you’re having conniption fits or dropping the whole subject. This bullying act isn’t going very far with me.”

I’m a witch, dag nab it,
I thought
.
I don’t cave that easily, powerful spook or no.

Apparently my anger was casting about, uncontrolled. The wax ball disintegrated, once again becoming a pile of small serpents.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I grumbled, gathering them all up and trapping the writhing creatures in the Baggie with the rest of the wax.

I stared malevolently at Aidan’s malevolently staring familiar.

“And I
don’t. Like. Cats
.”

As if on cue, I sneezed again. The cat jumped from his shoulder and Aidan dropped whatever supernatural intimidation scheme he was trying to lay on me.

Instead, he shifted to his regular old patronizing ways.

“Stay away from Malachi Zazi, Lily. Walk away.”

“Gee, seems like I’ve heard that before.”

“Just do it.”

“Tell me why.”

“I’m not in the habit of having to explain myself,” Aidan said, his voice rising.

“Nor am I,” I snapped.

Aidan bristled.
“Do as I say in this
.
”

I ignored him.

“Let’s go, Oscar. Bring the cat.” I flung the door open and stormed out of Aidan’s office.

In the corridor, a dozen museum visitors stood frozen in midstep.

The walls, floors, ceiling prickled and popped with hostile energy. Power whooshed along my skin, raising the hair on my arms. I felt the sensation of an army of ants running up and down my spine.

“Move
,
”
I said to Oscar and the black cat as I hustled my brood past the Chamber of Horrors exhibit.

As we passed by, the Texas Chainsaw killer and Lizzie Borden started breathing. Shifting. Reaching out toward us.

“Mistress . . . ,”
Oscar whispered, rearing back.

“Keep walking,”
I commanded. Aidan had done this to me once before—but then he had been teasing. This was different. This was angry. The sensation of wax characters coming to life—and coming toward us—was sinister, even for a witch.

I stroked my medicine bag, kept my head down, mumbled a protective incantation, and hurried toward the stairs, holding tight to the banister lest a blast of energy from Aidan send me headfirst down the steps. I kept Oscar and the cat on the other side of me, shielding them from Aidan’s direct gaze . . . for what that was worth.

I was only too aware that if Aidan really wanted to stop me, he could do so. There was a reason the entire West Coast contingent of witches both respected and feared Aidan Rhodes. With his easy manner and flirtatious ways, it was too easy to forget.

As I was only too aware, I was more a stay-at-homeand-brew kind of witch. This mano a mano kind of fighting magic had never been my strong suit.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs I glanced up to see Aidan looking down over the ledge, Noctemus perched on his shoulder, the air around him still crackling and glittering with power.

He let me go.

But he was pissed. It gave a witch pause.

I took a deep cleansing breath as I stepped across the threshold of Aunt Cora’s Closet. The shop carried the fresh aroma of clean laundry, and yesterday I had created new herbal sachets that would lend their welcoming aroma to the air for weeks. The racks were crowded with everything from Depression-era cotton slips to 1970s polyester leisure suits, from Victorian silk petticoats to early ’80s padded-shoulder jackets. In addition, there were shelves and cases full of shoes, hats, gloves, purses, silk stockings, and jewelry. I even had one “costume” corner that was expanding rapidly, full of things like boas, tuxedoes, uniforms, and cowboy accoutrements. In a city like San Francisco, the costume pieces were particularly appreciated.

My store was located on the corner of Haight and Ashbury, right in the heart of the neighborhood made famous during the Summer of Love, 1968. The original flower children now sported thin gray ponytails, carried AARP cards in their wallets, and gulped down glucosamine for joint health. Still, their legacy lived on through plentiful head shops, an overabundance of street kids looking for the meaning of life, and most important, a kind of generalized bohemian style still prevalent among the neighborhood merchants and residents alike.

In fact, there were so many bizarre iconoclasts and odd misfits roaming these crowded streets that, most of the time, a witch with a stubborn Texas accent could feel downright normal. I loved the openness of this community, the live-and-let-live attitude that was slowly but surely helping me to admit who—and
what
—I was. After growing up amid censure and loathing in my hometown, and then searching the globe for a safe place to land, it still amazed me that I now had acquaintances who actually seemed
pleased
to have a witch for a friend.

The shop had closed just a half an hour before, so it still carried a happy leftover hum from customers and my friends who ran the place when I was gone.

Still, I was surprised to find Aunt Cora’s Closet empty. Bronwyn and I had made plans to have dinner and then to tackle a high pile of laundry. Now that Aunt Cora’s Closet was open on Mondays due to high customer demand, it was harder than ever to deal with the bane of the vintage clothing dealer: Silks and satins, much less crinolines and wools, can’t simply be popped into our jumbo-sized washer and dryer.

Once my initial relief at being home waned, I felt a tingle. . . . Something was off.

For all her flighty ways, Bronwyn always kept her word. And she was never late.

I glanced over at the answering machine. The little red light was flashing, indicating new voice mail.

“I’m so sorry, Lily, but I won’t be in today, and perhaps tomorrow,”
Bronwyn said on the recording. Her voice sounded stuffy, as though she’d been crying
. “Maya agreed to cover for me. I . . . I’ll explain it all to you in person when I can. For now . . . peace, and Blessed Be.”

I dialed her home number; no answer.

I watched the black cat meander around the shop floor while I pondered. Outside of my grandmother Graciela, Bronwyn was my first true friend. As such, I was unclear on the myriad unwritten rules of such a relationship.

It sounded like she wanted to be left alone. Should I honor that?

Oscar was already snoring on the monogrammed purple silk pillow Bronwyn had bought him. It was situated right beside her little herbal stand, which was decorated with floral garlands and cheerful Wiccan-inspired sayings. Bronwyn was one of the most giving, loyal, dependable people I had ever had the privilege to know. I was lucky to have her in my life.