Something Wicked (3 page)

I back away from the killer, throw the answering machine, grab at the phone that trails after it.

Victor Fisher breaks my hand with a hammer.

Behind me, Aunt Maria said something about “…very hard on her.”

Mr. Page said something about “…part of the job.”

I continued to watch my memories.
I swing the lamp.

He pins me against the wall.

I begin my curse. The door flies open. He hits me in the face, turns, flees. But…

He takes something with him.

I remembered.

“Victor Fisher took Diana’s chalice,” I repeated. “YaYa’s chalice.”

YaYa had been my mom’s mother. While Dad’s mother, Nonna Trillo, considered herself a
strega,
YaYa Pappas hadn’t even had a word for what she was, so we all just said “witch.”

None of us even knew how old YaYa’s chalice was. We knew she’d brought it to the States as a war bride, in the 40s. We knew she’d given it to my mother. And we knew it was wicked old.

And now it was gone.

“That bastard took the Hekate Chalice,” I repeated. “Damn him to—”

But I’d already done that part, hadn’t I?

“I’ll be going now.” Mr. Page was backing toward the door. Aunt Maria must have signed his release form for her crazy niece. “My colleagues and I are truly sorry for your loss, ladies. I hope that in some small way…”

Aunt Maria thanked him for us, and I returned to the kitchen to dig through the bins one last time.

But I knew it wouldn’t be there. I
felt
it.

I wondered…since when had I begun
feeling
things, and seeing memories, and dreaming about dead people?

Since I’d cast my first curse.

I definitely had to talk to Nonna about that. She would be angry; me casting a curse was about as stupid as a toddler trying the high wire. But she was also my best chance for advice about the spell’s negative consequences toward me and the real Ben Fisher.

It sure didn’t feel like it had fizzled. Every time I thought of the curse, I felt a surge of strength, of dark anger. I still wanted Victor Fisher to suffer everything I’d wished for him, all that and more.

I just didn’t want to be responsible for any innocents being hurt in the crossfire.

Talking to Nonna could come later, though. Same as my job could. Same as my life could. I still had to bury Diana, as soon as the medical examiner released her body. That took precedence over everything else, curses and missing goblets included.

Didn’t it?

Against Aunt Maria’s protests, I insisted on spending the night there. I’m sure she wasn’t the only person who might find that disturbing. But this was my home, had been all my life. Our parents had owned it outright before they died. Over the last five years, Diana and I had restored parts of it back to its 1911 condition, which got us some federal tax credits, a conservation grant and some quality sister time in the bargain.
I wanted to go home,
desperately. Even if I never could, because Diana wouldn’t be here, at least I could have the rooms, the location. I wouldn’t let Victor Fisher take that, too.

Most important, though, was the question of whether I should be afraid. Lonely, sure. Freaked out? Depressed as hell? Check and check, no matter where I slept. But afraid?

Victor Fisher was in jail, may he rot there. And if Diana became a ghost, she of all people would be a friendly ghost.

To me, anyway.

Besides, I desperately needed some alone time. There are some kinds of crying you just can’t do without freaking out the people who love you, you know?

For the first few hours after Aunt Maria’s goodbye hug, I fought it. I went through most of the belongings Mr. Page had left. I went through a week’s worth of mail, which Mrs. Hillcrest had kindly been collecting for us. For me, I mean. Most of it was sympathy cards, some from as far as distant relatives in Greece. I had a little, private buffet from food that neighbors brought by after Page’s crew left. But I knew what was coming. I’d done the grieving thing ten years ago. I was already a member of the club.

It started innocently. I was annoyed by the barking dogs from down the block again. I was putting away a disposable tray of pasta casserole—one-handed, because of my cast—when it bent under the weight and spilled spaghetti and tuna onto the floor.

And like that, I snapped.
Damned casserole!

With a howl, I threw the whole thing onto the floor and stomped on it, barefoot, as hard and as thoroughly as I could. By the time I’d finished stomping, I was crying for real, crying so hard I couldn’t see.

I threw things. I broke things. I fell to my knees with a wail, and sank to the floor, and pounded it with my good hand, and yelled the filthiest words I knew, along with a misery-slurred question of, “Why? Why? Why?”

I’d learned to live without my YaYa. Then without my parents. Now my sister was gone, too?
Why?

She was being talked about in tabloids and on stupid radio shows. I’d had to unplug my phone, after all the calls from reporters.
Why?

Diana had been good, and kind, and loving. A florist, she always sent flowers to the families of the patients I lost, and there were a lot—hospice nurse, remember? Diana had been about life and springtime, color and magic, and now some bastard had come into our house,
our home,
and smashed her head in with a hammer!
Why?!

We hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Had we?

Finally, finally, I lay on the floor—half on chemically cleaned hardwood and half on remaining carpet—and…I was done. Oh, not for good.

I had a murder trial to get through. I had no more sister. This wasn’t done for good.

But I’d moved a little closer to something improved. Maybe not peace. Maybe just a little necessary…stillness.

With my mind clearer than it had been in days, I thought the question again, this time without the drama.

Why?

I inhaled a wet, ugly gulp of a sniff and sat up, frowning. That was the one thing that still didn’t make sense. Why would a stranger choose this house, this sister? Could it really be random?

My wet gaze lifted to the now-closed armoire. And I thought of the one item missing from the house.

The Hekate Chalice.

What the hell?
It was a ceramic
cup,
for pity’s sake!

But it was also gone.

I squinted toward the clock—too late to call my grandmother, since Nonna was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. Too late to call cousin Ray and have the cops question Victor Fisher about the cup. I’d have to wait until morning and torture myself with the question instead.

Why?

I’d just stood up when I heard the thump, vaguely familiar from my childhood.

Someone had just jumped onto our bungalow’s roof.

Y
ou know those movies? The ones where the stupid heroine goes to check out the noise in the basement or attic instead of calling the cops and
leaving?
Normally I’d be throwing popcorn at the screen with the rest of you.

This time was different, and here’s why.

For one thing, my give-a-damn level was about the lowest it’s ever been. My parents were long gone. My sister was newly dead. While I wasn’t exactly suicidal, I wasn’t anywhere near Safety First mode either.

For another, my rage levels were about as high as my give-a-damn level was low.

If someone was screwing with me and my house tonight, then only one of us was walking away. I didn’t much care which one, as long as someone got hurt in the process.

Preferably the intruder.

Wiping my feet on old carpet, I glanced around the room for weapons. I wasn’t any better at it than I’d been a week before.

So I opened the armoire.

And there sat the newly cleaned athame.

An athame is a knife, but it isn’t used to cut anything physical—no chickens, no babies. It’s used to direct energy in rituals. See, magic works by affecting things on the energy level in order to change them on the physical level. This idea is so basic that even after refusing the training that Diana got from our mother and grandmothers, I knew that much.

Point being? The athame, marginally sharper than a nail file, didn’t make the most practical weapon. Not if I used it right.

But I took it anyway.

Since I had only one good hand, I tucked the black-handled knife into my back jeans pocket. One careful thrust cut the blade through the denim, making a kind of sheath.

Here’s hoping I remembered not to sit down.

I headed, still barefoot, to the open area off the kitchen. On one side of the niche was the door to the attic stairs. Opposite was the door to the basement stairs.

I listened at the attic door.

Nothing. Or a city version of nothing, anyway. A plane flew by overhead. A siren warbled in the distance. Dogs continued to howl—who owned those damned dogs, anyway? Wind shook the skeletal branches of the sycamore tree next door. But the intruder stayed silent.

I reached for the crystal doorknob, then hesitated. What if it was another killer?

What if it was the
same
killer, somehow escaped or freed on bail, come to take out the only witness?

The idea should have scared me more than it did. Instead, it gave me a grim satisfaction.

Welcome to the world of the dark side.

What should have scared me more? The fact that the knob then, slowly,
turned in my hand.

Quickly, I ducked behind the opposite door, the one that led down to the basement. I barely pulled it closed, with just a crack to see through, before the door from the attic opened.

Someone stepped into the areaway between the two doors. I only caught a glimpse of a man’s hefty shoulder, a glance of reddish hair.

In my kitchen.

Mine and Diana’s.

That’s all it took. I threw my whole body against the basement door. I slammed it open and into the intruder with all my strength.

Hardwood smacked into him with a satisfying jolt—and grunt—before bouncing listlessly back at me. When I kicked it open again, into him again, the intruder began to swear.

He also yanked open the attic door and ran up the stairs, three at a time.

I went after him.

He had a head start, and his stride was longer than mine. Even when I tried to lengthen my stride, the athame poked me in the back of the thigh. But I knew the attic better than he did. The intruder tripped over our Christmas bins and knocked over Mom’s old dress dummy before he even reached the windows that led out onto the dormer roof.

This was a big guy, shoulders like a linebacker, waist like an armchair quarterback. But damn, he moved fast.

He’d squeezed out the window and onto the roof by the time I’d safely vaulted the now-prone dress dummy.

I grabbed the top sill with my good hand and swung out after him, barefoot, into the bitter Chicago night. I was in time to see him navigating the skirt roof toward the chasm between my house and Mrs. Hillcrest’s. He picked up speed, regardless of possible ice patches, and hurled himself into space.

“Fall,” I whispered into the wind, but he landed solidly, feet, then knees, then hands against her shingles.

No wonder I’d heard him on mine.

He looked over his shoulder while I bent past the dormers onto the skirt roof, and I saw his face in the glow of the streetlight from across the road.

He was a complete stranger.

A complete stranger with a camera slung around his neck.
The hell!
He was a reporter.

Instead of circling the horizontal skirt out front—too visible from the street, I guess, or not steep enough to have dropped ice—the reporter began to climb the slope of Mrs. Hillcrest’s gable roof. I took a deep breath and ran across my skirt roof. My bare feet held to the cold, rough shingles for my last few, deliberately stretching strides. One, two—

Three!

Like riding a bicycle. But fifteen feet in the air. And without a bike.

I flew over the snow-drifted alley, landed, and was scrambling up Mrs. Hillcrest’s roof with my next steps. I swung over the peak just in time to see my intruder gaining speed on the downslope. He vaulted across the next alley.

“Fall,” I said again, through my chattering teeth.

But he made it. Barely. One of his feet skidded off Mr. Lane’s roof, despite its dark shingles being snow-free. The intruder had to drop to his hip to keep from losing the other foot, too, and he probably scraped the hell out of his hands.

“Damn!” he grunted, loud enough to hear over the wind.

I was already gaining speed in my race down Mrs. Hillcrest’s house.

The intruder crawled up Mr. Lane’s roof now, on his hands and knees, as I launched myself over the gap between the houses. I scraped a big toe on impact. My feet already felt burnt from the friction of the shingles and frozen from the temperature. As I crouched into my wobbly landing, stretching my good arm out farther to compensate for the weight of the cast on the other, the damned athame poked at my calf again.

The athame, I thought, scrambling upward as the reporter hauled himself more laboriously over the roof’s ridge. I reached the peak moments after him. But instead of vaulting it, I dropped to my knees, supported myself with the elbow of my cast hand, and slid the athame free of my back pocket.

The intruder gained speed, his legs barely able to keep up with his hurtling form. Just as he reached the gap between Mr. Lane’s house and the Milanos’, I pointed the athame at him.

“Fall,” I commanded, loudly and clearly.

A small cloud of erratic squeaking, fluttering birds darted by. He tried to wave them away…and dropped like an anvil.

An anvil with a dirty mouth. But he shut up when a door slammed out front.

Mr. Lane appeared in the drift-covered front yard, his flashlight sending a zigzag search across his roof.

I rolled backward along the slope, once, twice. Shingles scraped my free hand and my feet, but I managed to roll out of his line of sight, into the shadow of the dormer windows.

My hand curled tightly around the athame as I remembered my mother’s standard warnings.
Never use magic to control another person’s actions. What you send forth comes back to you three times as powerful. Harm none.

Not only had I directed the reporter to fall, I was glad of it. I hoped it
was
my doing.

Sorry, Mom.

“Who’s out here?” demanded Mr. Lane, sounding more belligerent than concerned. “What kinda nonsense are you kids up to? I’ll call the cops!”

Yes,
I thought, easing over the roof’s ridgepole, still hidden in the shadow of his oak tree.
Good idea, Mr. Lane. Call the cops.

But I didn’t point the athame in his direction; no need to go power crazy. Instead, I peered over the edge of the roof, where I’d last seen the reporter.

He was hiding, crouched in a high drift where shadows had caught the snow behind a big plastic shed.

I watched Mr. Lane and his aggressive flashlight follow the alley path closer to the shed.

Closer…

I pointed the athame toward the scene below me, just in case. Maybe the reporter fell on his own, not because I suddenly had magical powers or anything, but…

It was either this, shout a warning or jump on top of the guy. Those last two choices could work against Mr. Lane’s bad heart. But I wasn’t letting the old man get attacked.

Luckily, I didn’t have to make that choice. That same erratic cloud of zigzagging birds shot around the house, and Mr. Lane backed up. “Damned bats,” he muttered, turning around and heading toward his front yard.

Bats?
Ugh!

A moment or two later, his door slammed shut.

The big guy’s shoulders sank with relief, and I hated him. I hated him for breaking into my house. I hated him for feeding this morbid need people had to be entertained by my sister’s murder. I hated that people like him were alive, and she was dead.

“You’re lucky,” I said grimly, pillowing my chin on my cast hand. “Mr. Lane used to work as a prison guard.”

The reporter spun and stared up at me, mouth open.

“That, and I didn’t break my damned neck,” he said, his voice surprisingly deep. Deep and…familiar. “And you aren’t armed.”

I didn’t bother to show him the athame. Instead I wondered, how did I know that voice? And why else did I hate it?

“You’re Kate Trillo, right?” he demanded, extra proof of his profession. I’d avoided the press. Only people who paid close attention would recognize me as the witness—though it probably helped that he could connect me to my house. He blew on his hands, then said, “Ms. Trillo, are you willing to help the country learn the truth about your sister’s death? I’ll pay you five hundred dollars.”

Recognition clicked. “You’re that radio guy, Al…?”

“Al Barker,” he agreed, clearly proud that I’d heard of him. “The
Superrational Show.
Okay, a thousand dollars.”

“Go to hell.” I sat up so that I could pound on the roof. I was too damned cold, numb cold, to linger. Especially if there were bats. “I’m having Mr. Lane call the cops.”

“You can do that,” Barker agreed. “But then you wouldn’t hear my theory as to why one of the Fishers killed your sister.”

One
of the Fishers?
Was there still any question of who had murdered Diana?

Now I hated him even more, for hooking me.

He sensed his advantage. “Talk to me,” he urged. “Off the record, if you must. There are some things you need to know about all this. You’re being played by the system.”

The system hadn’t killed Diana. Victor Fisher had. “You have no reason to help me.”

“Sure I do. That’s what my show’s about—the truth. Fighting the good fight.”

I made a rude noise.

“Okay then. I’m hoping that once you trust me more, you might give me some kind of scoop. I don’t even need to attribute it to you. I could say, ‘an anonymous source close to the family.’”

He must have read my expression even in the shadows, because he added, “Or not.”

I sat there shivering and wondered again,
one
of the Fishers?

“Come on, Ms. Trillo. Don’t you owe it to your sister to learn the truth? What have you got to lose?”

He was right on that account, but I still hated him. Deeply. “Stop playing me.”

“You choose the time,” tempted Al Barker. “You choose the place.” It sounded like a dare, all the same. I hated dares. But…

“Midnight,” I decided, to a background of distant, howling dogs. That would give me time to clean up. Besides…

Midnight was the witching hour.

“I was under the impression,” I said by way of greeting, “that you and Ben Fisher were friends.”

I’d actually agreed to meet with Al—off the record—at a 24-hour diner a few miles from my neighborhood. It didn’t offer great decor, mostly framed travel posters of Italian sights with fake grapevines draped across their tops. But Joe, the guy who ran the diner, was an old friend of the family.

I felt safe in his diner. Even without my athame. Carrying a knife with a six-inch blade on the streets of Chicago is frowned upon.

“We
are
friends,” said Al in that deep, radio-announcer voice of his. He slid into the booth, opposite me. “Which is why I need to clear his name.”

“Ben’s name
is
clear.” Except for the fact that he shared his last name with his psycho-killer twin brother, anyway.

“Not even close.” Al signaled Joe’s one night-shift waitress for some coffee, then continued. “Think about it. Vic’s an up-and-coming political consultant. He’s well-spoken, well-liked, and well-off. Ben, on the other hand, is a professional student. He’s a genius, don’t get me wrong, but people would rather believe an advanced degree, which he never completed. He’s a loner. He’s also what people call a ‘conspiracy nut.’ Which brother do you think John Q. Public will most suspect?”

I wasn’t real sympathetic to the bias of John Q. Public. “But Ben has an alibi.”

It felt weird, referring to a complete stranger by his first name. But it would have felt even weirder to use his full name.

I’d already used that one three times too often, the night I cursed him. Them.
Us.

“True,” Al conceded, about the alibi. “But so does Victor.”

I stared, a sick feeling knotting my stomach. “He does?”

“Yeah, his girlfriend. She swears they spent the night together, that she didn’t say anything before because she was angry with him. She says once she realized how serious this was, with Vic being held without bail, she had to come forward.” He smiled. “Any comment?”

Vomiting on the table between us would have been an excellent comment, but I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction. I picked up a spoon from the trio of cutlery before me and turned it in my fingers. It’s harder to fidget with one hand. Less natural. “No,” I said firmly, finally. “No comment. What about the fingerprints.”