Smoke on the Water Read online

  He set his hand on her shoulder. “Just rest, okay?”

  She tangled their fingers together. She wasn’t as icy as she’d been a few moments ago, thank God.

  “You need to be careful,” she said.

  “If I have to I can sedate Mary.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Mary.”

  A shadow flickered in the doorway. Zoe stared at their still-joined hands with an odd expression. Sebastian yanked his away.

  “I had a call about Mary,” he said. “I’m going to check it out. Willow can lie down in here until she feels better.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She seemed pale. The remaining streaks of blood on her chin and lips only made it worse.

  “You want some ice cream?”

  Her eyes widened. “Really? Ice cream? I’m not five.”

  “Sugar and fat would help.”

  “Help what?” Zoe asked.

  “Yeah, help what?” Willow echoed.

  “Shock?”

  “Are you asking if I’m in shock or if it helps shock?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed. Zoe didn’t.

  “Why would she be in shock?”

  Willow cast the nurse a narrow glance. “I’m not.”

  Sebastian was uneasy about leaving. “You’re sure you’re—”

  “Go.” Willow made a shooing motion. “Find Mary.”

  He shooed.

  An hour later—forty miles on county highways took longer to travel over than miles on just about anything else—he rolled into Carlton’s Cave in the facility’s minivan.

  Small-town police departments were usually located on a side street. Less cost for the real estate than the main drag and room to expand if necessary, which it usually was. As he drove toward the first cross avenue, a sign halfway down on his right drew his attention.

  MISSY’S CAFÉ.

  He slowed as he approached. Framed in the window sat a woman with long dark hair and a blond man. They were in earnest conversation, leaning toward each other, gesticulating.

  Then a figure shot forward, pounding the glass with fists and shouting. He couldn’t hear what. As the figure was undoubtedly Mary, he could imagine.

  He threw the vehicle into park, leaping out just as a CCPD cruiser pulled up and the officer behind the wheel did the same. He reached Mary an instant before Sebastian did, shoving her against the window and cuffing her.

  Mary continued to shriek about the bitch-whore. Sebastian tuned her out.

  He expected the “bitch-whore” and her companion to come outside and see what was going on. He’d ask if either one of them knew Mary, though considering Mary, that wasn’t a prerequisite for her flipping out. When no one joined them, Sebastian glanced inside.

  The woman and the man were gone.

  “Would you return to your vehicle, sir?” The police officer’s question brought Sebastian back to the issue at hand.

  “I’m Dr. Frasier. I called earlier about Mary.” He indicated the struggling woman in cuffs.

  “Great.” The man stepped back, and Mary tried to run off. He pushed her against the wall again. “I don’t think she wants to go with you.”

  Sebastian bit back the no kidding that rose to his lips. “Can you put her in the van?”

  “I can try.” The guy looked doubtful. Mary was giving him a lot of trouble.

  “Hold on.” Sebastian went to the vehicle, which would have been in traffic, if there was traffic. The only car that passed in either direction was a bright yellow Jaguar with tinted windows, which caught his attention not only because of its glaring uselessness in northern Wisconsin but because of the ostentatious color. Although, if the thing went bumper deep in a snowbank, which was a given sometime soon, it wouldn’t be hard to spot.

  Sebastian retrieved the sedation he’d brought along and returned to the officer and his charge.

  Mary tried to bite both of them when he used it, but it worked fast. The fellow was able to lead her to the van, strap her in, remove the cuffs. Sebastian thanked him and drove away.

  Mary had calmed, but she was still conscious. Sebastian wasn’t sure how long either one would last.

  “How’d you get out, Mary?”

  “Same’s last time.”

  “And how was that?”

  “Transportation.”

  Star Trek again. He wasn’t surprised.

  “He will burn them all.”

  As Mary had been screaming about a “bitch-whore” Sebastian was curious. “Who’s he?”

  “Brand, then burn. It’s what he does.”

  Considering what he’d learned about the murder of the Gilletts, that was disturbing. How could she know? According to Hardy, the branding part of the program had been withheld from the media.

  Might Mary have been involved in the couple’s deaths? No. She’d been in the facility at the time, and she hadn’t yet “transported” out. But maybe someone inside had committed the murders or told Mary who had. Or maybe Willow had shared her vision with Mary as well.

  “Who brands and burns, Mary?”

  “Roland.”

  Roland was the name of the voice that told Mary to do bad things. As Roland had been talking to Mary for over a decade, Sebastian had to consider that Mary’s answers tonight were more Mary-variety gibberish.

  Unless Roland was real.

  Chapter 11

  “I know what you’re up to.”

  I’d been watching Dr. Frasier make his way down the hall toward the exit. He stopped and spoke with one of the other doctors, then a guard.

  I met Zoe’s gaze. “Wish I did.”

  “You think if you fuck him he’ll let you out?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I won’t excuse you.” She grabbed my upper arm and hauled me out of the office. “He deserves better. He deserves—”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Peggy was back. I was ecstatic, and not because of Zoe. It might land me in solitary, but I knew how to handle her.

  “Mary’s gone again.” Zoe continued to hold on to me.

  Peggy’s gaze flicked to mine, then down to Zoe’s too-tight grip. “What does that have to do with Willow?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s something.”

  “I’ll take over from here, Zoe.”

  Zoe’s fingers tightened. I refused to wince. It was what she wanted. Since Peggy was waiting, Zoe released me, but she’d be back. I’d be ready.

  Peggy kept her eyes on the nurse as she joined the others. “Is she behaving badly, Willow?”

  “No.” I knew better than to point fingers. If Zoe were reprimanded, I’d bear the brunt of her fury. The only way to deal with bullies was to be a bigger bully. Been there, done that. Was pretty good at it.

  “Hmm.”

  Peggy didn’t believe me. Imagine that?

  “How did Mary get out?”

  “Wow, déjà vu,” I said.

  “Don’t be a smartass. Was it the spell?”

  “Really?”

  “Willow, did you do the transportation spell?”

  “No.” I lifted my arm. “Hand to God.” We hadn’t gotten that far.

  “I wonder if I should call her son?”

  “The one she tried to kill?”

  “He’s the only one she has.”

  “What’s he going to do?”

  “True.” Peggy let out a breath. “He’s in Afghanistan anyway.”

  “By choice?”

  “Marine.”

  Good. I’d been a little worried about Mary’s son. But if he was a marine, he might just be able to take her.

  “How was your visit with your granddaughter?” I asked.

  “Great.”

  “Bet you’re thrilled to be back.”

  “I was until I walked into this.” She waved at the gaggle of patients and staff still milling around in the hall. “You truly have no idea how Mary got out?”

  “You think if I knew I wouldn’t have gotten out too?�
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  “I thought you were happy here.”

  “No one’s happy here.” Although now that Dr. Frasier had arrived, I was less unhappy.

  “You wanna tell me why Zoe has a bug up her butt about you?”

  “No.”

  Peggy took my hands. “I saw the way he looked at you.”

  “He who?”

  “Dr. Frasier. You want to tell me anything?”

  “Nothing to tell.” That had actually happened in reality and not in a vision.

  “Willow, I’m on your side. I’m your advocate. If he’s done anything—even said anything—he shouldn’t have—”

  “No. Of course not!”

  “You understand what’s inappropriate?”

  “Better than most.”

  “For a doctor, a nurse, a guard to take advantage of a patient is criminal.”

  “There has been no advantage taken.”

  There never would be. There couldn’t be.

  Perhaps I’d seen what I had about Dr. Frasier and me so I could stop it from happening. He was a good man. A fantastic doctor. And if he hung around me, he was going to wind up in a lot of trouble.

  Who didn’t?

  *

  The return trip to the mental health facility was uneventful. After dropping the name Roland, Mary had dropped off to sleep.

  Sebastian dialed his boss. As it was the middle of the night, he got her voice mail, which was what he’d been hoping for, and left a message. She had an emergency number, but he didn’t consider the situation an emergency anymore.

  Delusion? Rationalization? Cowardice? Yes. And he was okay with that.

  He notified the facility of his arrival time and Tom I met them at the intake bay, then rolled Mary off in a wheelchair to solitary.

  Sebastian returned to his office and did some research. The name Roland got him diddly. Too broad.

  He typed “snarling wolf” into the search engine. Same thing. He got gazillions of hits, but they were all pictures of snarling wolves.

  “Snarling wolf ring” didn’t work too well either. He found a lot of jewelry on Etsy.

  “Snarling wolf symbol” brought up several groups who’d used one; the most infamous were the Nazis. Certainly that group was still around—more’s the pity—however, if they were behind these murders the FBI would have been all over that already. It wasn’t like the Nazis kept a low profile. Ever.

  There were several motorcycle clubs. Having watched Sons of Anarchy, Sebastian figured the FBI knew about them too.

  He hit the jackpot when he combined Roland and snarling wolf symbol. Someone had recently updated the Wikipedia information. He had to wonder who.

  “Venatores Mali,” he read. “Hunters of evil.”

  And for these bozos evil meant witches. As the patient who’d led him to this information thought she was one, Sebastian was both intrigued and a little freaked out.

  On the one hand, Roland was a real person as he’d suspected—namely Roland McHugh, leader of the bozos. On the other hand, just because Mary’s voice was named Roland, didn’t mean it actually was Roland—this Roland. Sebastian was pretty sure it wasn’t. The guy had been dead for centuries.

  Mary had probably read about Roland at some point. Started applying his name to every bad man who spoke to her—be they real or imagined. She was obsessed with witches, paranoid too. Why wouldn’t she think the voice in her head belonged to a dead witch hunter?

  Although she’d started out listening to the advice of this voice, when she should have been smacking herself and telling it to shut up. Unless the latter was behind her brain banging. In his experience, those head voices were pretty persuasive.

  “Dr. Frasier?”

  Peggy Dalberg stood in his doorway. Sebastian was damn glad to see her.

  “You’re back! Great. Come in.” He indicated the visitor’s chair and she took it, though she seemed uncomfortable.

  “You found Mary.”

  Not a question, so he didn’t answer. Sebastian had questions of his own.

  “Have you ever heard of Roland McHugh?”

  Her forehead creased, and she shook her head.

  “He was the leader of a witchhunting society in seventeenth-century Scotland.”

  “Little random,” she said.

  “Not really. You’re a witch. Mary thinks she’s a witch.” Apparently someone thought Willow was one too.

  “No one’s hunting us.” When he remained silent, she sat up straight. “Are they?”

  Quickly he told her what he knew. She appeared suitably concerned.

  “Have you ever heard of the Venatores Mali?” he asked.

  Peggy shook her head again.

  “Isn’t that something you should know?”

  “No one’s hunted witches for centuries.”

  “That we know of.”

  “You think the Venatores Mali are back?” she asked.

  “If not, someone’s doing a damn good imitation.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve never gotten very good explanations for crazy.”

  “You think someone’s after Mary?”

  “No one’s been asking questions about Mary.”

  “Willow then. Because of the visions?”

  Yesterday he would have pointed out that Willow didn’t actually have visions. Today, he just shrugged.

  “What should we do?”

  “The FBI is involved.” He should probably call them, though most of what he knew was Mary-variety gibberish. “I’m not sure what we can do beyond our jobs. If Mary and Willow are here, they should be safe.”

  “Except Mary’s getting out somehow, which means there’s a way in.”

  “Unless she’s actually transporting.”

  “Don’t start,” Peggy said.

  “We’ll have to keep a closer eye on both of them.”

  “About that,” Peggy began, then went silent.

  “What about it?”

  “People have noticed.”

  “Kind of hard not to.”

  “Sir?”

  “When Mary’s gone, people notice.”

  “I meant people have noticed you and Willow.”

  “Me and Willow?” he echoed.

  “Doctor,” she said in the same tone of voice his mother had always said Sebastian whenever he’d disappointed her. “You need to assign her to another psychiatrist.”

  Sebastian didn’t argue. She was right.

  *

  Mary remained in solitary for several days, but as her explanation for escape continued to be that she transported, and she obviously believed it, she was released.

  If I’d thought we were being watched before, it was nothing compared to what happened after she disappeared the second time. I couldn’t turn around without bumping into staff.

  I wouldn’t have minded bumping into Dr. Frasier. But he not only assigned me to another psychiatrist—an elderly woman who’d probably known Freud and liked him—but he avoided me with a deftness I might have appreciated if it hadn’t hurt so badly.

  My new psychiatrist liked to ask me about sex. As I hadn’t had any, ever—at least in reality—they were short conversations. I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t believe me.

  Most girls of my background used sex for currency—food, shelter, drugs. There’d been times I’d been close to using it myself. But I’d found other ways—stealing, cheating, lying, hiding were all better than sex with a stranger, in my opinion.

  If I hadn’t had those visions of Sebastian, the knowledge of what sex with love would be like, I wouldn’t have understood what I was selling so short. But I did have those visions; I did know. And they’d given me strength in so many ways.

  Unable to psychoanalyze what had never happened, my psychiatrist moved from questions about sex to inquiries about my parents. Those conversations were even shorter.

  Dr. Frasier’s boss, the head of all the facilities in the state, made a surprise visit. Both she and several of her assistants trolled the
halls, poking into empty rooms and storage closets, pushing up ceiling tile and peering down bathroom drains—as if Mary could turn to smoke and get out that way—but they didn’t find a physical path of escape any more than anyone else had.

  Dr. Tronsted spent a lot of time talking to Justice. I suppose he knew the place better than anyone, but the few times I’d seen them together they’d stopped talking as soon as they’d seen me, and made a beeline away from each other as if they were guilty of something other than chatter. Maybe they had a thing goin’ on. Or maybe she had convinced Justice to spy. He seemed to be everywhere I looked lately.

  Tronsted interviewed me twice. I suppose a lot of people in this facility changed their stories as often as the wind changed direction, but not me. I told her the same thing both times that I’d told Dr. Frasier whenever he’d asked. Mary thought she’d transported outside the walls, and I hadn’t seen anything to contradict that.

  She interviewed Mary too. Their meeting was short—no crashes, no shouting—then the doctor left, and as far as I knew she hadn’t been back. Although the facility was huge. I might be wrong.

  As Peggy continued our Wicca lessons, Mary must have convinced the big boss all was well. Or Dr. Frasier had convinced her that the more Wicca Mary learned the saner she became, which seemed to be the truth. Most likely, no one had mentioned Wicca at all.

  One afternoon, over three weeks after Mary had disappeared the last time, we were in the cafeteria where our lessons habitually took place between lunch and dinner, when Mary brought up blood magic. I thought Peggy might have a stroke.

  “Where did you hear that?” she demanded.

  Mary lifted Peggy’s Book of Shadows, which, since it never left Mary’s possession anymore might need to be renamed. “Where do you think?”

  “Blood magic is the most powerful kind of magic there is,” Peggy explained. “Using blood in a spell makes that spell not only personal but permanent. It shouldn’t be used unless there’s no other choice.”

  “If it’s that powerful, why not?” Mary asked.

  “Blood magic is the bridge between white magic and black. That connection can draw a witch from the light to the dark. It’s dangerous.”

  “A bridge works both ways,” I said. “Wouldn’t it draw the dark to the light too?”