Smoke on the Water Read online

  “Of?”

  “Willow. Mary too.”

  “So I hear. Has either of them tried to kill anyone lately?”

  “What’s lately?”

  “In here?”

  “Hard to say. Mary gets agitated. She’s gone after a few orderlies, a nurse. But as she has no weapons beyond tooth and nail, was she trying to kill them or wasn’t she?”

  “Did she say?”

  “When she gets like that she says a lot, not much of it coherent.”

  “And Willow?”

  Zoe gave him a look again, one he still couldn’t read. “She’s always coherent. She just doesn’t say much.”

  “Has she attacked anyone?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t be such an optimist.”

  Someone called for her, and Zoe lifted a hand, stepped in that direction, paused and glanced back. “I’ve been here a long time, Dr. Frasier.”

  As she appeared too young to have been anywhere but grade school for a long time, Sebastian smiled noncommittally and said nothing.

  “Patients like Mary and Willow, the ones with serious delusions and homicidal tendencies, don’t get better. They just get dead.”

  Sebastian’s smile faded.

  “If they manage to get dead before they make someone else that way … it’s probably for the best.” She trotted in the direction of whoever was calling her name.

  Sebastian stared after her, uncertain if her attitude was anything he should worry about. It was the most honest opinion he’d ever heard, and how could that be bad? Zoe hadn’t said she was going to take matters into her own hands. That would be a problem. Still, he should take a gander at her personnel file, just for kicks and giggles.

  Sebastian went to his office, leaving his door open so he could hear any undue commotion. He’d sat at his desk and reached for his keyboard before he remembered there was no electricity and he would be unable to access any personnel files until there was. He made a note about that, then reached for the physical files. Thank heaven for old-school Dr. Eversleigh, who still liked to treat patients while perusing a hard copy of their information. Sebastian turned on the flashlight feature of his phone and got to work.

  Mary McAllister—born March 12, 1962.

  She looked older than she was. Lifers usually did.

  He didn’t see much in Mary’s file that he hadn’t suspected. Schizophrenia diagnosed in late twenties. The usual medications, which she often stopped taking when she felt “better.” Then she wasn’t better anymore.

  Alcoholism. Recreational drugs to the point that they were no longer very recreational. Harder drugs—narcotics, heroin, coke.

  There was mention of her trying to ride a broom off the roof, which resulted in a compound fracture. Sebastian wondered if she’d started to believe she was a witch before or after that incident.

  “Probably before.” The falling and the breaking should really have convinced her otherwise, but it hadn’t. Maybe Peggy was right and actually learning about Wicca could help. At this point, probably couldn’t hurt.

  He read on. The file was pretty thick.

  Theft to support her habit. Dealing for the same. Nothing out of the ordinary or surprising until he got to the reason she was in here.

  The voice of Roland—he paged back through the file. None of the voices had ever been named before. Didn’t mean she hadn’t decided to name one of them then. Didn’t really matter if this voice was new or old. What mattered was that it had told her to kill her fifteen-year-old son, and she’d listened.

  Owen McAllister was now twenty-eight. A marine, in the K-9 Corps. Multiple tours in Afghanistan, which might explain why his mother had tried to kill him and not managed it. Certainly he’d been fifteen at the time, but anyone who spent that long in the Marines had probably started out pretty tough in the first place. Considering the kid’s entire life … he’d had to be.

  According to the file, the last time Owen had visited, Mary hadn’t remembered him. That had been over a year ago. He hadn’t been back since. Sebastian hoped he was all right, though there was no notation in the file of anything different.

  He should probably call the man. Sebastian made another note.

  He drew out the next file, opened it, grew quickly bored. The patient was a few days from release. Not much for Sebastian to do but have a final meeting and sign the papers. He set the file aside and gave in to his desire to search for the one he really wanted.

  Willow Black—birth date unknown.

  How could that be? Sebastian read on and found out.

  Abandoned at birth. Foster home after foster home after group home, to the street and back again. Failure to bond. Confusion. Delusion. Lies. Alcohol. Drugs. Runaway. Around Willow, bad things seemed to happen. That she sometimes knew about them before they did only made her seem guiltier of causing them in the first place. Then came the night she’d used a knife.

  According to Willow, the man she’d stabbed had planned to do horrible things to her with a knife of his own. That there’d been no weapon on him had been brought up several times at the trial, along with the lack of a ring sporting the face of a snarling wolf, which Willow insisted he meant to brand her with before he burned her body. None of this helped her defense. It only made her sound insane.

  He spun his chair toward the window, staring at the heavy gray sky. Raindrops still pattered from the tree leaves, the wind flinging them against the glass in clumps.

  He found it interesting that as a child she’d had an irrational fear of water, had said on several occasions that she saw the future in it. Then, Mary had said the same.

  According to Dr. Eversleigh, Willow had been doing well since coming to this facility. In their discussions of water and visions, she’d admitted that what she’d believed could not be true. For Mary to know about those visions contradicted this. If Willow had just met the woman as she claimed, why would she tell Mary these things, especially if she no longer believed them? Of course, Willow wouldn’t be the first patient to tell her doctor what he wanted to hear.

  Sebastian let out a short huff of amusement. Why was he trying to find sense in the nonsensical? Because even though his patients were often delusional, those delusions made sense within the world of the delusion. And this … it just didn’t.

  “Dr. Frasier?”

  He glanced up to find Peggy Dalberg in the doorway. “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “The electricity should be back up in an hour or so,” he continued.

  “You psychic?”

  Considering the file he’d just been reading, he gaped. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s pretty hard to predict when the electricity will go back on otherwise.”

  “Oh. Right.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. His mind was still full of Willow. He wondered how he was going to make that stop. “Justice went to buy a new generator. The other one got hit by lightning.”

  “That’s weird.” She glanced behind her with a frown.

  “Apparently.” Though the way she was acting, she thought it was a lot weirder than he did. “Peggy? You okay?”

  She turned back. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Question with a question usually means you don’t want to answer.”

  She smiled at him as if he were an adorable, yet precocious child, but she didn’t answer his question, only asked yet another of her own. “Do I have your permission to teach Mary and Willow about Wicca?”

  “What’s the rush?”

  She shifted her shoulders. “I kind of told Mary that I would. If you say no, she’s probably gonna need to be sedated.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know better.” Or at least she should.

  “I do. And I’m sorry. Seemed like a good idea at the time.” She spread her hands. “It still does. I think the peace of it all would help her. At the least, learning that witches can’t fly couldn’t hurt. I just shouldn’t have pro
mised before I asked you.”

  “Your jumping the gun is relatively minor in the scheme of things.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Go ahead and teach them. But—”

  “I know. If one of them suddenly starts to fly or turns into a chicken, my ass is grass.”

  He’d been going to say if either one of them became more agitated, she’d have to stop but—

  “Whatever works.”

  Chapter 5

  “This is a spell of transportation.” Peggy pulled items out of a paper sack and set them on the floor in preparation for our first lesson.

  We were gathered in my room almost a week later. The upheaval caused by the storm had caused a lot of problems. Peggy had been swamped, which had pushed our lesson back a day and then another and so on.

  “Where are we going?” Mary asked.

  The mental health facility was at last back to normal, or as normal as a place like this got. The electricity had been restored about five minutes after the new generator had been installed, which always seemed to be the way of things like that.

  Dr. Frasier was still getting acclimated. I hadn’t been called into his office again. But I was scheduled for a therapy session in the morning. By now he’d read my file. We’d have plenty to discuss.

  I was also certain the whiff of sexual tension that I’d caught the last time I was with him would be gone. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, I didn’t want to be the cliché patient who had the hots for her therapist any more than I wanted him to be the creepy therapist with the hots for his patient. On the other hand, we were meant to be together. I’d known this since the first time I’d seen him in a vision fifteen years ago. Yes, I’d been twelve, but I was a very old twelve, and the visions had been G-rated. At first.

  “We aren’t going anywhere.” Peggy removed a red candle and set it between us on the floor. “Transportation is another word for joy.”

  “Why would we conjure joy?” Mary asked.

  Peggy cast her a quick glance at the word conjure, but she didn’t correct her.

  “Why wouldn’t we?” A bell jangled as Peggy removed it from the bag as well.

  “That’s not magic,” Mary scoffed.

  “Sure it is. Joy is some of the best magic I know.” Peggy withdrew a stuffed toy dog, which looked like a boxer, and set it next to the other items.

  “What’s that for?” Mary pointed at the dog.

  “It represents an item that makes me happy. My dog. He’s very joyful.”

  “Unless you’re going to teach us how to turn a toy into a real live boy, or bring the actual dog here from somewhere else, I’m not interested,” Mary said.

  There were times Mary was more lucid than anyone gave her credit for.

  Peggy glanced at me. “How about you?”

  “Joy sounds good to me.”

  Mary rolled her eyes. “This is bullshit.”

  Peggy ignored her. She’d been around Mary longer than I had. She probably knew best.

  Our caseworker lit the candle, picked up the bell, rang it once, and said, “I open myself to joy.”

  She handed the bell to me, with an encouraging nod. “Now you.”

  I rang the bell, repeated her words, and handed it to Mary, who hesitated, fingers tightening on the bell as if she meant to fling it against the wall. I gave a tiny headshake and she jingled it, then parroted Peggy’s words. We repeated the chant and the actions three times each.

  Peggy clapped and said, “I open myself to joy and I am happy.” She set the bell next to the candle, blew it out and beamed at us.

  “Lame,” Mary said.

  Peggy’s smile faltered. “Don’t you feel happier?”

  “I feel tricked.” Mary glanced at me. “How about you?”

  “I feel okay.”

  Peggy bit her lip. “We should probably try it again with items that bring joy to the two of you.”

  “Screw this,” Mary said. “We need a spell that’s going to help us.”

  “Joy helps,” Peggy said. “More than anything.”

  “Not against knives.”

  Peggy stiffened. “What knives?”

  I took Mary’s hand, which had started to lift toward her hair, I’m sure with the intention of yanking some out. “There aren’t any knives.”

  “Then why—”

  “Mary had a dream.”

  Lie. I’d had the dream.

  “It upset her.”

  Truth. My dream had upset us both.

  “Aren’t there spells of protection?” I asked.

  Probably wouldn’t help but it couldn’t hurt.

  “Sure.” Peggy was eager. “We can do one next time.”

  “We need it now,” Mary muttered, her gaze on my window.

  I saw nothing out there, but even if there were something it wouldn’t be getting in here. I still didn’t like her expression.

  “You’re safe,” Peggy said. “I did a spell of protection around this place the first day I started working here.”

  Mary’s gaze flicked back. “You did?”

  “Of course.”

  I was beginning to worry about Peggy. Did she think her spell actually worked?

  “Why’d you chant in English?” Mary asked.

  Peggy appeared confused. “What other language would I chant in?”

  “Latin.”

  “We chant in the language we speak. And no one speaks Latin anymore.”

  “Did they ever?” I wondered.

  Peggy shrugged.

  “Show us a spell that’s worth something,” Mary ordered.

  “Worth?” Peggy echoed. “Like money, fame, fortune?”

  “Do you know any?”

  “I can’t cast a spell for personal gain.”

  “Why not?” Mary demanded.

  “Spells created for selfish reasons are considered black magic. A true Wiccan does not dabble in the dark side.”

  “Who does?”

  “I won’t speak of them.” Peggy’s gaze touched on the shadowy corners as if someone might materialize there.

  “If you speak of them will they come?”

  Peggy just shook her head.

  “Roland?” Mary said. “Roland!”

  “Shh.” I tightened my fingers around hers. Shouting usually brought someone along to see what the shouting was about. That never ended well. At least for Mary.

  “Why would you want to bring the voice that told you to hurt your son into existence?” Peggy asked.

  The voice that had told Mary to hurt her son and the voice of Roland were the same one. As Roland was a murderous voice, I should have added that up before now.

  “He’s more than a voice,” Mary whispered. “Or he will be soon. He’s almost here.”

  “We should probably move on,” I said. Talking about voices … Rarely a good idea. And Peggy should know it.

  “Using a spell for selfish or trivial reasons can cause the Foster Effect,” Peggy continued. “That’s dangerous. Spells can multiply out of control.”

  “And then what?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Natural disasters.”

  I blinked, remembering the storm that had come out of nowhere, the lightning that had hit closer than ever before. Had someone been performing black magic?

  I couldn’t believe I was thinking that, almost believing it. Except my caseworker was thinking and almost believing it too.

  Peggy glanced at her watch. “I have to go.”

  She withdrew a final item from her bag of tricks—a Book of Shadows—and handed it to me. One glimpse of the cover and I understood it was the Book of Shadows that I’d seen in my vision.

  I dropped the thing, and it hit the floor with a muffled thunk. Mary snatched it up as Peggy returned the candle, bell, and toy dog to the now empty bag.

  “Be careful with that,” Peggy said. “It’s my only copy.”

  Which made me wonder why she was giving it to us. Though from the way Mary was handling the book
—as if it were gold—she wasn’t going to be ripping it to shreds or dropping it in the bathtub, which were the only two ways she might have to destroy it in here as fire and sharp implements were frowned upon.

  “I’ll keep it safe.” Mary held it against her chest with both arms.

  “Next lesson I’ll teach you a protection spell.” Peggy headed for the door.

  “If spells cast for selfish reasons cause problems, then wouldn’t a spell to protect ourselves do the same?” I asked.

  Peggy paused. “A protection spell protects anyone and anything in the charmed circle. Which makes it about others as well as oneself. You see?”

  Not really but I nodded anyway and Peggy departed.

  “Thought she’d never leave.” Mary opened the book.

  “You’re the one who wanted to learn the spells.” I leaned in so I could see what she was looking at.

  “I didn’t think they’d be namby-pamby find-the-joy shit.”

  I found her brutal honesty both refreshing and far too funny.

  “What did you think they’d be, considering Wicca harms none?”

  “I figured she was lying. She wouldn’t have been able to get permission to teach us if she told the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “Ha!” Mary pointed at the book.

  I leaned in even closer to read what was there. “That’s the same spell we just did.”

  “Not exactly.” Mary tapped a chewed-on fingernail beneath the final line on the page.

  “Works best beneath the full moon,” I read. “So?”

  “No wonder it didn’t work! It’s daylight.”

  “It says ‘best,’ not ‘only when.’”

  “She just didn’t want us transporting under her watch. Can you imagine the trouble she’d get in?”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

  She punched me in the arm. “Focus.”

  I rubbed what would no doubt be a bruise. Sometimes I forgot that Mary was called “Crazy Mary” for a reason. She seemed so lucid. Until she didn’t.

  “Peggy showed us how to do the spell,” Mary said. “But she gave us the book, which tells us when to do it so that magic actually happens.”

  Mary’s eyes appeared a little wild, so I decided not to argue. Especially since I was still rubbing the “ouch” from the last time I had.