He smiled, then scanned the street. "Is Hope coming?"
"Bigfoot took her away." I explained. "But she'll phone if she finishes in the next hour or so."
I let him guide me down the sidewalk. "Did you get inside already?"
He nodded. "Botnick seems the type who relies more on steel doors and bars than alarms. Probably wise in a neighborhood like this."
"But not so smart if your breakin artist has superhuman strength."
"Hmm. Still not easy, but I found a way."
He steered me into a gravel parking lot boxed in by buildings, each wall peppered with more No Parking signs than there were spots to park. It looked barely big enough to fit a couple of cars and a delivery truck--a small one.
The full moon shone from a multitude of rut puddles. A bright yellow orb with not so much as a wisp of cloud over it. I looked at Jeremy, but knew the full moon meant little to him. Real werewolves need to change form more than once a month, and they do so on demand, not with the phases of the moon. He'd said once that they often did take advantage of full moons for hunts, but only because it was easier to see.
I caught a movement in the shadows. Jeremy's head swung toward it, hand gripping my arm tighter, pulling me back as if shielding me. A cat slunk between trash bins. Seeing us, it froze. Its orange fur puffed up as it spit and hissed, a feline fireball, bright against the gloom. Jeremy made a noise deep in his throat. The cat tore off, its paws scrabbling against the gravel, a fiery streak racing for cover.
I twisted to say something, but Jeremy was scanning the lot, eyes narrowed, making sure that the cat was the only intruder. His hand still gripped my arm and he kept me so close I could feel the thump of his heart against my shoulder. His face was taut and wary, mouth a thin line, the pulse in his neck throbbing. When I shifted, he loosened his grip and rubbed my arm, as if reflexively reassuring me, his gaze and mind still busy checking for danger.
One last scan, then his hand slid to squeeze mine as he passed me a crooked smile, as if he didn't like being caught doing something that came naturally to a werewolf, but might look odd to me.
He led me to the farthest door. It was solid metal, and I could see no sign that it had been pried open, yet the plastic Deliveries plaque over the bell confirmed it was Atrum Arcana, Botnick's store.
"How did you get--"
He was already gliding alongside the building and came to a stop at a wooden box with a hinged lid. A garbage bin, judging by the stink and the oozing puddles beneath. He bent, getting a grip on the box, and heaved it away from the wall. Behind it was a window with a rack of bars propped beside it.
"I don't suppose those were already conveniently removed," I whispered.
He shook his head.
"Impressive."
A graceful shrug. "They weren't affixed very well. More for show, I'd wager. He probably thinks hiding the window is security enough. Not much of a challenge."
"You sound disappointed."
A soft laugh. He motioned me closer to the open window. As he handed me a flashlight, I noticed he was wearing gloves.
"Only brought one pair, I'm afraid," he whispered. "Not very well prepared."
"You bought gloves and a flashlight. I showed up in a skirt and heels. Who's not prepared?"
"Breaking and entering was hardly on our minds when I picked you up at the house."
"Maybe so, but next time, I'm packing a bag."
He helped me through. With the moonlight blocked by the trash bin, the room was pitch black. Even the flashlight only illuminated a basketball-size circle. I cast it around as he crawled in behind me.
It looked like a storage closet. In front of me, a shelf held mail-order supplies--stacks of folded boxes and bags of packing material. To my left, there was a narrow shelf tower with floor cleaner, bleach, rags, drain opener, rat poison and cat food. On first seeing the cat food, the optimist in me wanted to say, "See, the guy may run a hard-core sex cult, but he still feeds the neighborhood strays." Seeing the food next to the rat poison, though, I had to suspect it was more a lure than a handout. You can't run a decent black-magic cult without sacrificing a cat now and then.
Jeremy was leaning out the window, pulling the trash bin back into place. As I turned, I saw that the storage closet also doubled as the shop bathroom. No sign of a sink. Very sanitary.
There was a stack of reading material by the toilet. Magazines. The top one showed a woman bound and gagged, her eyes rolling in helpless terror. Judging by the size of her breasts, though, she wasn't completely helpless--swing one of those at the right angle and you could knock a guy out.
Jeremy stepped up beside me. His gaze followed the flashlight beam.
I whispered, "Something tells me the Disciples get more inspiration from those than from Asmodai."
He shook his head and looked away, distaste on every feature.
I reached for the door handle, then stopped and waved Jeremy forward. He opened it, then took off one glove and passed it to me. When I started to refuse, he pushed it into my hand.
"You can't search if you can't touch anything."
I pulled the glove on. "Is there anything else? Security cameras maybe?"
He shook his head. That made sense. A place like this, the clientele wouldn't want to be caught on camera.
We stepped inside.
HARD CORE
THE DOOR OPENED BEHIND A SALES COUNTER. My gaze went to the gray safe under it.
"Even you can't break that open," I whispered.
"I shouldn't need to. Imagine you're Botnick--"
"Rather not."
He smiled. "For the sake of argument only. If this store is robbed, where's the first place a serious thief will go, after the cash register?"
I pointed to the safe.
"So, while you may keep files, checks and valuable merchandise in there, it's not the place for anything not easily replaced, including items you can't report to an insurance company."
"Like a spellbook, a ritual journal or a list of contacts. Is that the kind of thing we're looking for?"
He nodded. "Documents, primarily. Books, journals, correspondence, contact lists, anything related to magic or his cult. I'm going to search his office. Could you take the shop floor?"
"Will do."
THE MAIN area displayed a mix of occult and S & M paraphernalia, everything from magic fetishes to toys for fetishists. Pretty mild stuff on both counts. A wall display of handcuffs, from metal to rubber to candy. A bookshelf of titles--Occult Mysteries Revealed and Rituals for Beginners--the type of texts you'd find in a regular bookstore. A rack of whips that looked more like props than torture devices. Candles, amulets, chalices, even a display of organic herbal teas made by a local Wiccan.
Keeping my flashlight down, so the light couldn't be seen through the smoked front window, I flipped through a few items. Under the displays, I found cupboards, but they were all unlocked and held only extra stock of items already out.
To the far left was a closed door marked Employees Only. Not a bathroom, which I'd already found. Not the office--Jeremy was in there. I walked over and tried the handle. Locked.
"Jeremy?" I whispered. "Got a locked door."
He stepped from the office, walked over and bent to check the lock.
"Looks like a good, sharp twist--" I began.
He held up a key ring.
"--or the key," I finished as he tried one.
"Makes our entry less obvious. I found them under the register. The office was locked, as well, so I think there should be one for--" The lock clicked. "There."
He opened the door. Pitch black. He peered around the corner, eyes narrowing as he strained to see, his night vision probably as good as my flashlight. I tapped his arm.
"I've got it," I said.
A small smile. "Sorry. Just curious."
He backed out and returned to the office.
I stepped through the doorway into a space no bigger than a closet and bare, with curtains on either side. I
picked the one on my right and pulled it back. Inside was a larger storage area, maybe as big as the one we'd first entered. It was lined with shelves filled with boxes and jars.
I lifted the light to one large jar and jumped back. Inside, a fetus floated in preservative. I scanned the bottles. Mostly body parts. Organs, it looked like. I shone the flashlight into a box. It was filled with bags, each containing a dried piece of something...or someone.
All the bags and jars were labeled, but only with reference numbers. The code was probably in the office. I'd get Jeremy to look, but first I rifled through the bags, trying to ignore a pair of floating eyeballs that stared down at me.
Dried bits I can handle--been doing it all my life. It was hard to tell how many of these were human. Many were just indistinguishable, shriveled gray pieces. Some were clearly not human: a bat wing, a furry tail, a pointed ear. I pushed aside a bag of teeth--sharp, probably rodent. Underneath was something definitely human: a thumb. I lifted it. Even dried and shriveled, it was obviously adult.
I peered into the box. Under where the thumb had lain there was a tube of dried skin. Too big to be a finger. I lifted the bag into the light, took a better look and--yep, human. Male human. Definitely not something you'd find in my bag of body bits.
I looked at the rows of boxes and jars. Time to get Jeremy. As I backed up, my heel caught on something and I looked down. It was an odd place for an area rug. My heel had tugged it aside to reveal wood set into the concrete. I bent and peeled back the rug. Dust flew up. As I coughed, I thought of the dried bits and hoped this was dust.
Under the rug lay a trap door. Hinged. A recessed handle. No obvious lock. I grabbed the handle and gave an experimental tug. Nothing. I pulled hard. The door swung open. A ladder stretched into darkness. Even with the flashlight, all I could see was a narrow chute.
Definitely time to get Jeremy.
I closed the trap door.
As I pushed back the curtain, I remembered the room across the way. I should peek in there, so I could tell him I'd checked out everything. I opened the other curtain and...stared. A metal helmet stared back. Dull black metal with tiny nose holes, the eyes and mouth solid. There was a hinge on one side and a lock on the other. I thought of it closing over my head and instinctively gasped for air.
I pulled my gaze from the helmet and looked around. It was another storeroom, with shelves and hooks, stocked not with body parts but bondage gear. The room stunk with the ripe scent of leather and sweat and something acrid, vaguely familiar. Urine.
As I pulled back, my gaze went to a whip--one that bore no resemblance to the toys out front. Braided leather, with the braids undone at the end, each strand finished with a metal weight. The strands were stained dark. Blood.
I consider myself sexually experienced. Very sexually experienced, and for me, sex has always been about entertainment. But looking over those shelves, I felt like a convent girl.
"I think we can safely assume that we won't find any answers in there," Jeremy murmured at my shoulder.
I jumped, covered it with a small laugh. "Scary stuff, huh? Most of it, I can only guess what it's used for. And some of it, I don't even want to guess. That helmet alone is enough to give me nightmares." I let the curtain fall. "I was just coming to get you. I found a few things in there." I pointed at the other curtain.
"Good. I was hoping you were having more luck than me."
He pulled back the other curtain and surveyed the shelves, frowning.
"Parts, dried and pickled," I said. "And for me, way less disturbing than what's in that other room. This stuff--the dried bits at least--are right up my alley. I've identified some of them. Most seem to be animal." I lifted the bat wing. "A few hidden at the bottom are obviously human." I lifted a few more: the ear, the toe, the teeth and the "tube."
Jeremy frowned at the tube. "What is--? Ah, I see."
"Male."
"It would appear so."
"And almost certainly adult, despite the shrinkage." I waved at the jars. "I'm not so good with the pickled and the less whole pieces. You're better at anatomy, so I was hoping you could identify them."
He scanned the shelf. "Most are organs, primarily animal, though it's not always easy to tell."
I lifted my gaze to the floating fetus. "And that?"
"Pig."
"Whew."
He moved a couple of jars aside with his gloved hand, to get a look at the ones behind them.
"Before you get too involved in identification, there's something else I should show you."
I pointed the flashlight at the trap door.
"Now, that's promising." He opened it and peered down.
"See anything?"
"Not without going down." He turned around and started doing just that.
"Are you sure we should?"
He paused. "You're right. You'd better wait here."
That wasn't what I meant, but he'd already vanished into the darkness.
I knelt and leaned into the hole.
"Jeremy?" I passed down the flashlight.
"No," he said. "You keep--"
"Take it. All I'm doing is sitting here."
He came up a couple of stairs and took the flashlight, then disappeared, and the room went dark. Very dark. I lifted my hand and couldn't see it.
I tried not to think of those suspended eyeballs staring down at me.
A random thought flashed through my brain. Was there any chance I could reanimate those...bits? By accident? I tried not to think of it but, of course, thought of it all the more, images of B-grade horror movies flashing past, those bits and pieces taking on life--
Silly, of course. It's tough enough for a necromancer to bring a full body back to life. Not the sort of thing I could do accidentally--thank God. And if a zombie loses a body part--which they tend to do, with the rotting and all--the parts don't stay alive, creeping along of their own volition. But how much of a corpse had to be left in order to be raised? Would a head be enough? Were there any heads in those jars?
A light flickered in the hole. Jeremy coming back? The light bobbed away again. I stuck my head down as far as I could without toppling in headfirst, but the ladder stretched down a chute at least four feet long. I twisted around and put my foot on the first rung. Just a quick peek.
My toes slid off the rung and I had to catch the edge of the hatch to keep from falling.
Yet another reason why heels were a really bad idea. Maybe if I took them off...No, I'd probably miss the rungs in the dark and still fall down the ladder.
Someone laughed. I went still. A muffled male voice. Ghosts? A rattle, then the creak of an opening door, keys jangling against the steel.
"Think we're the first ones here."
"Looks like it." A woman. "Oh, here comes Eric."
Okay, not ghosts. Worse. I leaned into the hatch to call for Jeremy, then froze, picturing the open door just a few feet away. Feeling my way out, I went through the curtain, then slid behind the half-open door.
"Where's that light switch?" the woman asked.
"Beside the front door."
"Ah."
I eased the storeroom door shut with a quiet click.
"Let there be light. Hey, Eric..."
As the voices continued, I hurried back to the trap door, hands out again, feeling my way in the pitch blackness. As the curtain tickled my fingertips, I paused. Should I lock the door first? I hadn't felt a locking mechanism when I'd closed it. Did you need the key to relock it? Or, worse, did it engage automatically, and I'd just locked us in?
No time to check. I pushed past the curtain, then pulled up short as I envisioned myself falling through the hatch. I crouched and felt my way forward. A flicker of light from below answered my question. Before it disappeared, I found and gripped the opening, then I ducked my head into the hole.
"Jeremy?" I whispered.
My voice echoed in the chute. No answer came from below.
More laughter and more voices from the shop. Why
were people coming here after midnight?
Uh, probably because the shop's owner is the head of a sex cult. They wouldn't hold their meetings Saturday afternoons at the library.
"Jeremy?"
My whisper bounced around again in the chute, swallowed by bad acoustics.
A voice sounded just outside the door--the door to the storeroom containing the magic and bondage gear needed for a proper sex cult meeting.
I found the ladder. Took two steps down. Paused. Maybe they'd go for drinks or something first. Loosen up the inhibitions. Always worked for me.
Keys rattled, then slid into the storage room keyhole. I grabbed the hatch lid with one hand and the rug with the other, and closed the door as I pulled the rug over it. It wouldn't be perfect, but it should pass a casual glance.
I hurried down the ladder, my toes somehow managing to keep their traction until I reached the bottom.
The roving light swung my way. I raised my finger to my lips and hurried forward, my heels clicking on the concrete. I stopped to yank them off. When I lifted my head, Jeremy was beside me.
"People," I whispered, pointing up.
A soft curse. He looked up, as if straining to hear, then shook his head. The floor must have been too thick.
"Hmmm, what have we here?" a voice whispered in the dark.
I jumped, but Jeremy seemed unperturbed. I took the flashlight from him and shone it around. A heavyset, middle-aged man with a receding chin walked through a stack of boxes, his gaze fixed on me.
"A redhead. Very nice."
"Who are you?" I whispered.
The man stopped, squinting, as if trying to figure out who I was talking to. Jeremy looked down at me and frowned.
"Ghost," I whispered.
"Gho--" the man began, then curled his lip. "Necromancer. Tried to trick me with that flashlight, hiding your glow. If you're here to report me--"
"Report you for what?"
He dropped his gaze. "Nothing."
"Ask him if there's another way out," Jeremy said.
"Way out?" the ghost said, hearing him. "Now, why would you want to leave?" He bared his teeth in a nasty smile. "I think you're really going to enjoy yourself."
I cast the light around. We stood in the middle of a large basementlike room with concrete floor and walls. To my left, some occult symbols had been painted on the floor...right beside a row of hooks embedded in the concrete. There were more hooks on the walls.
I turned to Jeremy. "I think we'd better find our own way out. Fast."