reflections of myself looking pissed. “Understood?”
which had once housed Cafe Noir. The pink stucco walls were painted with ivy and thorns
classes offered for the winter session: Magickal Tools taught by Rhiannon. Dreams and
Ariel.
hanging around, I couldn’t tell. Neatly labeled shelves were packed with books, gems,
stickers.
She had a kind, freshly-scrubbed face – nothing like the babes on Charmed.
Herbal tea is one thing, but did I look like the kind of guy in the market for a
She stared for a long time, frowning. Then she said, “This is an inverted pentagram. It
overcompensate, it was me.
and female. We honor Mother Earth and hold all of nature sacred. This…” She looked at the
“It’s annoying, anyway.”
She hesitated. “Ariel,” she said softly, gazing past me.
a real supernatural entity. There was motion behind me. Another Wiccan appeared, this one,
the dried lemongrass and sassafras.
I certainly didn’t want any low-ranked demons loitering about the place. “So…what
“Not good,” Ariel said to the other one. “Cassandra?”
ours.”
Noir.
“An’ it harm none, do what ye will,” said Ariel.
yet. Maybe he had no intention of talking to them. Or maybe I had miscalculated, and
shaking her head sadly as though she could already foresee my unfortunate end. But what
Times.
The badly decomposed body of a young white male was
discovered in a shallow grave beneath a tree carved with symbols
believed to have occult significance. Similar symbols were found
discovery of a woman’s similarly mutilated body in the
“I heard what happened,” Paul Chan said as I finished setting up the chairs for Tuesday
“Just when you think you’ve seen it all.”
group: According to the FBI, if satanic sacrifices and cult murders were as prevalent as some
Chan was a middle-aged, deceptively avuncular-looking Asian-American. I never quite
relationship, but he carefully steered clear of acknowledging that it was anything but a casual
“A task force?”
were after me, or because he was aware that I was on Jake’s shit list.
remotely occult-oriented.
writing (read: willing to “compromise their art”), and of the four, three showed what I
unexpected and slight literary success – although ironically it was my “cred” as a published
crime.
Ted Finch, were reading from their magnum dopus Murder, He Mimed.
effectively drowned out Jean’s reading. I turned the pages when the others did, my thoughts
I knew, Wanda lived at home with her parents, so maybe there was a lead there.
with turning a relatively minor character, Avery Oxford, into the protagonist. I had a lot of
was based on me. True, he was a Hollywood gossip columnist, but he was thirty-three, five-
O’Reilly – and he kept showing up in my clothes. In the scene I’d just read, he was wearing
pretty much what I’d worn to last week’s meeting.
chapter seven. Or even sooner.”
pillow pal was Grania Joyce, another of our partners in crime, it made for an interesting
“I don’t think he’s a strong enough character.”
“If you don’t mind the testosterone overload,” Grania sneered. Grania was tall and
rangy, with an unruly mane of sorrel hair: your basic warrior princess model.