Jim dropped my glasses into the moss.
• • •
THE problem with being a shapeshifter is that you can never keep your clothes on, which is why I always carried a spare outfit in my car. So when we pulled up in front of Eyang Ida’s son’s house and Jim carried the fragile old lady to the front door, I was able to knock with my modesty intact.
The door swung open and Wayan, Eyang Ida’s son, saw his mother. He grabbed her from Jim and ran inside. The family swarmed us and pulled us into the house. The air washed over us, bringing with it aromas from the kitchen: tumeric, garlic, onion, ginger, lemongrass, cinnamon, and the roast duck. Bebek Betutu was cooking somewhere nearby.
Everyone was talking at once. What happened, why, does she need to go to the hospital? I answered as fast as I could. She was attacked by black magic; she will be okay; no, the hospital isn’t needed, just bed rest and lots of love from her family; no, thank you, I wasn’t hungry . . . After the first twenty minutes, the storm of questions and excitement died down and Iluh got through to us.
“Thank you for saving my grandmother!”
The relief on her face was so obvious, I hated to shatter it. “It’s not over yet.”
Iluh’s face fell. “What do you mean?”
“I need to talk to you,” I told her.
A couple of minutes later Jim, Iluh, her mother Komang, and I sat in the wicker chairs on the back porch, away from the family’s buzz. Iluh and Komang looked alike: both pretty, graceful, and tall. Komang held a degree in chemical engineering. My mother and she had come to Atlanta as part of the same corporate expansion just after the Shift.
I faced Komang and spoke in English for Jim’s benefit. “This is Jim. He is . . .”
Oh gods what should I call him . . . If I introduced him as my boyfriend, it would get back to my mother.
“We work together,” Jim said.
Nice save.
“And we’re dating.”
Damn it!
Komang raised her eyebrows. “Congratulations!”
Argh! I almost slapped my face with my hand.
“Won’t it cause an issue at your workplace?” Iluh asked.
“It won’t.” Jim gave them a smile. “I’m the boss.”
I glared at him. What the hell are you so happy about? He grinned at me and patted my hand with his.
I turned to the two women. “Your mother was attacked by jenglots.”
Komang blinked at me. “A jenglot? How bizarre. She was always afraid of them. She saw one when she was a child. It wasn’t real, just something a taxidermist made out of some horsehair and a dead monkey, but it terrified her. She had nightmares about it for years.”
There was no such thing as coincidence when it came to magic. “Usually when a jenglot tribe appears, it begins with a Queen. She enchants a person and begins to feed. When the magic essence of the person is exhausted, he or she becomes a jenglot. The jenglot magic begins to poison the area. One by one the tribe grows. A typical tribe is about five to eight members. More than twenty, and the tribe becomes a swarm. We saw at least fifty jenglots around your mother.”
“Fifty?” Komang opened her eyes wide.
“Yes,” Jim said.
“A swarm of this size would have to steal a person every week,” I said. “There is no way fifty people vanished in Eyang Ida’s neighborhood and nobody noticed. Not only that, but because jenglot magic is so toxic, it poisons the area around their nest. It is difficult to purge. The purification in Eyang Ida’s house took very little effort.”
“What are you trying to say?” Iluh asked.
“Someone summoned the jenglot swarm. I think someone deliberately targeted your grandmother.”
The two women looked at each other.
“But why?” Komang asked.
“Eyang Ida has no enemies,” Iluh said.
“No personal grudges?” I asked. “No irate neighbors? Nobody jealous or mad at her? Any frenemies?”
Komang glanced at Iluh. “Frenemy?”
“A fake person who pretends to be nice but secretly hates you,” Iluh said. “I don’t think so.”
Komang shook her head. “No, she would’ve told me.”
“It doesn’t have to be someone with a grudge.” Jim leaned back in his chair. “Most homicides are committed for three reasons: sex, revenge, or profit.”
“We can rule out sex,” Komang said. “My mother was happily married for over fifty years. My father died two years ago and she isn’t looking for romance.”
“Revenge is probably not a factor either,” I said. “Your mother was universally loved and respected.”
“That leaves us with profit,” Jim said.
“She had a life insurance policy,” Iluh said.
Komang drew herself back. “Are you suggesting . . .”
Uh-oh. “It’s not connected to the life insurance,” I said quickly. “You need a body for the life insurance, and if everything had gone as planned, Eyang Ida would’ve become a jenglot. She would be declared missing and the family would have to wait years before she would be officially listed as deceased.”
“What other things of value did she have?” Jim asked.
“Well, there is the house,” Komang said. “You’ve seen it. It’s not something I would expect anyone to kill her over. People don’t murder each other for thirty-year-old three bedroom, two baths. Her car is safe and runs well, but it’s not expensive.”
“Any artifacts?” I asked. “Cultural items? Sometimes people don’t realize they own things that hold valuable magic.”
Komang sighed. “She collects My Little Pony toys.”
Iluh nodded. “You should’ve gone to the bedroom. She has shelves of those. She thinks they are pretty. She sculpts them out of modeling clay and paints them.”
That’s something I would’ve never guessed.
Iluh bit her lip.
Jim focused on her. “You thought of something.”
She exhaled. “It’s probably nothing. Eyang Ida owns part of the building where her salon is located. A few months ago a law firm contacted her asking if she would sell it.”
“I remember that,” Komang said. “We’ve looked over the proposal. She owned that place for years, so she turned them down.”
Jim turned alert, like a shark sensing a drop of blood in the water. “Did they say on whose behalf?”
“No.” Komang frowned. “I think the client remained anonymous.”
“Do you remember which law firm?” I asked.
“Abbot and something,” Komang said.
“Abbot, Sadlowski, and Shirley!” Iluh said, her face lighting up. “I remember because if you put all the capitals together you get—”
I giggled. Iluh giggled back.
Komang gave Iluh a disappointed mother look.
“They should’ve rearranged their names,” Iluh said.
“It’s a place to start,” Jim said.
• • •
I drove through the quiet streets to Eyang Ida’s salon. It was the best place to start. We could go after the law firm, but no lawyer worth his or her salt would divulge the name of their client if the client wished to remain anonymous. Right now, with the attempt on Eyang Ida’s life having failed, was the best time to snoop around and see if anyone was unsettled by it.
Jim sat in the seat next to me. It was the strangest thing. His face was relaxed, his pose lazy. Jim had only two modes: menacing and waiting to menace. He usually worked so hard on being scary, he intimidated people while he was asleep.
I slowed down, just to keep him languid a little longer. The way he sat now, draped over the seat, made me think of him lying on a blanket on the grass under the peach trees. Just lying there, quietly napping, with the sun on his face. I could lie next to him, read a book, and bring us some iced
tea when we got thirsty . . . In another universe.
“What was the plan, telling Komang that we’re dating?” I demanded.
“Just keeping the record straight,” Jim said.
“You just told my mother’s BFF that I have a boyfriend. I’m going to get a call from her.”
“You can handle one phone call,” he said.
“And then the phone calls from my uncle and my aunt, and my cousin and my other cousin, and my once-removed cousin’s second daughter, and my roommate from college whom I haven’t seen in four years . . .”
Jim smiled.
“It’s not funny.”
“If you called them all together and made one big announcement, it would save you some trouble,” he said.
Ha. Ha. Oh so funny. “Is that why you’re inviting me to the barbeque? So you can knock it out?”
“They already know,” he said.
Great. Magic alone knew what he told them about me.
We pulled up in front of a long rectangular building. Built with sturdy red brick, it faired the magic well—the walls seemed mostly intact and the roof was in good repair. Five businesses occupied the building. First, Ida’s Hair Place, closed and dark, the door intact; then Vasil’s European Deli; followed by Family Chiropractic and Wellness Center; F&R Courier Service; and Eleventh Planet, a comic book store.
“Why offer to buy just one business?” I thought out loud. “That would make no sense.”
“Exactly,” Jim said.
“There is nothing super great about this location. The street has some traffic but it’s not really busy.”
“And the parking lot is more than half empty,” Jim added.
That was true. Two cars waited by the comic book shop, a horse tied to the chiropractor’s pole shifted from foot to foot, a large truck sat by Vasil’s Deli, and a bunch of bicycles rested in the bike racks by the courier service. I concentrated. I felt nothing mystical or magical about this location. It was thoroughly . . . average.
“Whoever this person is would have to either make the offer for all of the businesses—” Jim started.
“Or be one of the business owners in the building looking to expand,” I finished. “I feel an urge to shop.”
“As an attentive boyfriend and your caring alpha, I fully support you in it.”
Every time he said he was my boyfriend, I had to fight the need to go, “Wheeeee! He said he was my boyfriend!”
We got out of the car and walked toward Eyang Ida’s salon. Walking next to him always made me notice how large he was. He loomed above me, almost a foot taller than I was. He was walking next to me, wasn’t he? How did that even happen?
“Jim, why are you here?” I asked.
“Do you want me to be somewhere else?” he asked.
“No!” Poor half-blind Dali, sounding so desperate. “I meant that you have the Pack to run and here you are with me. You’re almost never with me.” Okay, now I’d gone from desperate to pathetic.
“I know,” he said. “But you are Pack. This is Pack business. The rest of the Pack will hold on for one weekend. They know where to find me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
We were almost to the door.
Jim stopped. I looked at his face. His eyes were warm and I stopped with my foot up in the air. His eyes were never warm. Merciless, guarded, hard, yes, but not warm. Not like this.
“I want to know what you do,” he said quietly. “I want to hang out with you and spend time with you. I like us being together.”
I almost melted right there. And then guilt mugged me. I’ve been avoiding the Keep. I could’ve gone and spent time with him. He was busy and probably miserable and I’ve been selfish and worrying about who would think what. That wasn’t me.
I reached over, ducked under his arm, rubbed my head against him, and smiled. He squeezed me to him, the tips of his fingers lightly sliding over my skin. Oh my gods, he did the cat thing. It made me want to pull his clothes off just so I could touch more of him.
We stopped by the door and sniffed in unison.
Hmm, let’s see, Eyang Ida, car fumes, a half dozen scents of soaps and shampoos, five different people scents, all about a day old—must’ve been her customers . . . Nothing fresh except Iluh’s scent deposited a few hours ago. She must’ve came to the salon to check on Eyang Ida.
“You think she could’ve done it?” Jim asked.
“Iluh?” I turned it over in my head. “No. I think she loves her grandmother. But also Iluh doesn’t have strong ties to the community. Jenglots don’t exactly slither around in the street. They are unique to Indonesia. She might have known of them but not where to get them or who could summon them.”
“Do you know who could summon them?” he asked.
“And that right there is the thing.” I frowned at him. “Most people from Bali do a little bit of magic. Every time you make an offering, you do magic. It’s not uncommon for people to occasionally sacrifice things. But jenglots are tied to black magic. A typical witch doctor might make a jenglot like a voodoo doll, and then feed it magic and blood and hope it would come to life and do his bidding. Or they might buy an aborted fetus, embalm it, and make a tuyul out of it.”
Jim blinked.
“It’s a thing,” I told him. “But anyway, I would know. I am the chosen of Barong. I’m the White Tiger, a force for good, and I guard the balance. When a black magician does something like create a jenglot or unleash a tuyul, it creates an imbalance and I correct it. It would be the same if I tried to use my power for something unnatural, like stave off a normal illness in my relative. I could save them for a time, but a chosen of Rangda, the Demon Queen, would appear and undo what I had done. The balance must be maintained. Right now there is no champion of Rangda in the community. He went to live with his daughter in Orlando, because he is elderly and she is worried about his health. And if there was a new one, he or she would come and talk to me. It would be my business to know about them and their business to know about me.”
“You would talk?” Jim asked.
I nodded. “We would both be guardians of balance. Do you remember that Russian, the one who is the priest of the God of All Evil?”
“Roman?” Jim asked. “Yes. Nice guy.”
I spread my arms. “It’s like that. I could have a nice, civil meal with the chosen of Rangda. Not that we would like each other and some of them do go nuts and become aggressive in her name, but it’s about balance. Summoning fifty jenglots, that’s not balance. That’s some crazy shit, that’s what that is.”
We stopped by the deli. It looked dark. The paper sign read: CLOSED. I tried the handle. Locked. Hmm. If Vasil was being eaten by jenglots, too, there was something seriously bad going on.
We moved on to the Family Chiropractic and Wellness Center.
“Are you going to menace them?” I asked. “Because if you are, they won’t talk to me, so you can just wait outside.”
Jim gave me a flat look and held the door open for me. I walked into a quiet reception area. The walls were painted a soothing mint green and large metal flowers decorated the wall. The air smeller faintly of rose geranium and lavender. Someone must’ve been warming some oils. A man in his thirties smiled at me from behind the counter. “May I help you?”
“Hi.” Jim approached the counter, his hand out. I looked at his face and my jaw dropped. Jim, the “punch through solid wall to get to the bad guy” Alpha, was gone. He looked . . . friendly. Concerned but friendly. Like he lived in a suburb and invited neighbors over for cookouts friendly.
Jim was shaking the man’s hand. “My name is Jim Shrapshire. This is my colleague, Dali. Her relative owns a salon two doors down from you.”
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Cole Waller. We noticed Ms. Indrayani wasn’t here today. Is she alright?”
I picked my jaw off the flo
or and made my mouth move. “She isn’t feeling good this morning.”
Concern touched his face. It seemed genuine. “Sorry to hear that. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
To tell him or not to tell him? If I didn’t tell them, and this was connected to the property, they could be in danger.
“I’m afraid it is. Someone used magic to target her.”
“Seriously?” The man turned back and yelled, “Amanda!”
A blond woman emerged from the depths of the office. “Yes?”
“This is my wife, Amanda. She’s the chiropractor.” The man came out from behind the counter and stood next to his wife. “Someone tried to hurt that nice lady who owns the salon.”
Amanda blinked. “Ms. Indrayani? Oh my God, what happened? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine for now,” Jim said, his face concerned. “We believe someone targeted her because they want this property. Have you received any buyout offers?”
Cole frowned. “Yes. Yes, we have.”
He walked back behind the desk, opened a filing cabinet, riffled through the files hanging on the metal racks, and produced a piece of paper. I glanced at it. Abbot, Sadlowski, and Shirley letterhead, letter, enclosed offer to purchase. Dated two months ago.
“Did you agree to sell?” Jim asked.
“We thought about it,” Cole said. “The price was generous.”
“But this place is our own. It’s about five minutes from our house. We have an established client list,” Amanda said. “And our son’s school is only ten minutes from here. The bus drops him off two hundred feet down the street. It’s so nice. He walks here, gets a snack, does his homework and then we go home together. If we moved, he would have to be dropped off near our home and with the phones not working during magic, we wouldn’t even know if he made it or not. My older brother died on his way from school. He was run over . . .”
“We said no,” Cole finished for her and hugged her gently.
“Do you have any idea who the buyer is?” Jim asked.
Cole shook his head. “Got to be someone in the building. I’ve talked to some people, but nobody admitted it. The thing is, they’re offering two hundred and fifty grand. If it’s one of the owners and the other four got the same offer that makes it a cool million for the building. I can’t imagine any of us pulling together that kind of money. There is Vasil, who runs the deli. He works six days a week and half day on Sunday. Then there is the courier place next door. Never see more than three couriers there. The guy who runs it, Steve Graham, is some sort of fitness nut. Runs marathons and complains about how in the future magic is going to make everyone fat. Makes his couriers ride bicycles.”