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A dozen cars were parked in the strip club lot, and six more were lined up in front of the bar. Hardly a massive showing, but enough warm bodies moving around might make this whole ordeal a bit trickier.
That said, it also meant the bar was open, and that was great news because I was going to need a full bottle of Jack Daniels to myself when this was all wrapped up.
Hopefully, if everything went according to plan, I’d leave here tonight knowing Emmett and Mason would be free to go, and the real killer would be one phone call away from arrest.
That was if I didn’t manage to screw everything up and wipe some poor schmuck’s memory in the meantime.
I pulled out the bulk-sized bag of salt Ez had thrown into my shopping bag and set about creating a circle around the crime scene. I wasn’t planning on summoning anything, but performing magic left me exposed, and if I was going to make myself and those around me open to psychic impressions, it was also my job to make sure no one used that open mental door to let themselves in.
I used to think being wary of demon possession was a joke.
I didn’t think that anymore.
The line wasn’t a perfect circle thanks to the constraints of the narrow alley, but it would serve my purposes for the evening. Four people could comfortably stand within the demarcations, with room enough for the body as well.
We’d stopped at a Walmart so I could buy a steel pot, not wanting to pay another three hundred bucks for a cauldron and also not having any desire to ruin one of my own pots with elephant brain.
Funny how working magic could take you from the doorway of one near-hell to another.
Who was I kidding? I loved Walmart.
Where else could I buy a pot for spellcraft, a barbeque lighter, and seven bags of M&M’s at the same time?
The M&M’s were candy corn flavored, and I was popping them into my mouth three at a time while I rifled through the big bag from Ezekiel’s. I probably wanted to finish off what was in my hand before I started sorting through the owl eyes. Mixing those two things up would be revolting.
And adding little globs of sugar to the pot wouldn’t help the spell out any, either.
Sugar was for love spells. And making people nicer.
Neither was necessary here.
With the salt line in place it was easy for me to start working on the actual spell. I added the dried herbs first, layering them on the bottom of the pot so they overlapped, mixing them together into a sweet-scented concoction. Next came the owl eyes, dropped in one at a time at even spaces throughout the herbs. One white and one yellow taper candle lay next to the pot, and the wax, amber, and elephant brain were lined up next to those.
The waiting ingredients couldn’t be added to the pot until I spoke the incantation, and I couldn’t do that until we had a body and our witness. I revisited the words of the spell in my mind but didn’t dare test them out loud.
Had Memere said all will be revealed or I will reveal all? Ez’s warning about using one wrong word was nagging at me. I had no clue who this witness was, but I didn’t want to fuck up their brain.
At nine o’clock on the dot, as I was about to start pacing, Perry pulled up in a U-Haul van and backed it up into the alley. The space was just wide enough for him to open the driver-side door to get out, but whoever was in the cab with him couldn’t get the passenger door open wide enough and had to climb out over the driver’s seat.
The witness Perry had brought was a young Latino man with long dark hair and a small, well-trimmed beard. The facial hair gave him the illusion of being older, but as far as I could guess I don’t think the kid was over twenty-two. Maybe a super-young twenty-five at best.
“Hey.” The guy waved, then must have thought the gesture didn’t match the events, because he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and stared at his feet.
With the van in place, we
were effectively blocked from all activity on the street, meaning we had the illusion of privacy at last. I could have hugged Perry for thinking of it. Wilder’s motorcycle wouldn’t have done the job nearly as well.
“Carlos, meet Eugenia McQueen. She’s a werewolf princess.”
This got the kid’s attention. His eyes lifted to me, and his expression was pure, naked panic.
“Hey, look, lady, I didn’t point any fingers at those guys, okay? I didn’t even know they were werewolves.”
“Sure.” I adjusted the candles one more time.
“And I didn’t say nothing to the papers, like Perry asked me.”
“Carlos,” Wilder said kindly. “Shhhhh.”
