The Artist's Alchemy Page 4

  “A man just died,” I said. “He was killed. Pushed off of the roof, just minutes ago. I’m trying to figure out why.”

  He looked confused, so I went on. “His ghost is here with me, and there’s his body on the ground.” I pointed to the prone body in the grass, and Justin gasped.

  I focused on Robert’s ghost again. He was harder to see, now that Justin was in the vicinity. It takes focus to see the non-physical, and with my boyfriend near, my attention was split.

  Robert’s ghostly form was faded, but nonetheless, I could see that he was backing up.

  “Wait, Robert,” I said. “I have a few more questions for you.”

  He continued to retreat.

  “Do you have any thoughts about who killed you?” I asked him. “Is there anyone you’ve been fighting with lately? Maybe someone who wished you harm?”

  “It was probably her,” he said bitterly. “And mark my words, I’m going to get revenge.”

  “No, hang on,” I said. “You don’t know for sure it was Asti. Just slow down and take a deep breath.” I wasn’t sure if ghosts could actually breathe, but hoped he could get my point. “Don’t jump to conclusions; you said that being around Asti always made you act irrationally. Maybe you’re letting your old feelings cloud your judgement.”

  “She killed me,” Robert said. “She can’t stand me, and I can’t stand her.”

  Unicorn poop, I thought. It seemed that rather than heal the relationship between Asti and Robert, their time at the center together was actually going to make it worse—unless I could intervene.

  Robert went on in a cold, calculating tone that whispered through the raindrops and slithered into my mind. “And now I’m going to make her pay. She’ll wish she never—”

  “Just hold on a minute,” I said. “Please don’t do anything crazy.”

  He continued to back up. He was fading fast. I knew I had to make my point quickly, before I lost him. “You said someone pushed you,” I said. “But you didn’t see who it was. What if I can figure it out?”

  “If you prove to me that it wasn’t Asti, then I won’t exact my revenge,” Robert said. “But if you fail to prove that, I’m going to go after Asti with all that I have. I’ll figure out a way to get revenge on her, you can be sure of that. You have until noon on Sunday. The itinerary said there’s some sort of final concert. Asti will be there. And so will I—to kill her, just as she killed me.” With these last words, he turned and disappeared into the night.

  I looked over to Justin. “He just ran away,” I said. A shiver ran through me.

  Justin stepped in closer and hugged me to his chest. “You’re soaking wet,” he said. “Let’s get you inside so you can dry off. It’s freezing out here.”

  It was freezing, and the rain continued to come down in torrents—which made me wonder: What was Justin doing out in the woods? Maybe if it was a nice summer evening, I’d understand his desire to leave the lobby and head for the forest. But on a night like tonight...? I just didn’t get it.

  I pulled away from him slightly. Going inside and drying off sounded nice, but I couldn’t. There was something I needed to see first.

  “Not yet,” I told him. “First, I have to go up to the roof.”

  Chapter Five

  “I’ll go with you,” Justin offered. “Whoever killed this guy... could still be up there.” He sounded nervous, and I didn’t blame him. I was feeling nervous, too.

  I shielded my eyes from the drops and looked up to the rooftop, three stories above us. I noticed Skili’s pale form, perched on the edge, and realized that she must have flown outside at some point to watch over me. That eased some of the fear that was running through my veins. One of the best things about being a witch, in my opinion, is the unspoken bond between witch and familiar. Skili and I didn’t communicate telepathically that often. Neither of us were chatty. But when I needed her, she was always there, and I loved that.

  I focused my mind and sent her a telepathic message. “How does it look up there?”

  “All clear!” she sent in return.

  I looked to Justin. “Skili says there’s no one up there. I’ll be okay. I need you to wait here. Penny and the ladies should be out soon. Let them know I’ll be right back.”

  “Babe, be careful,” Justin said warily. I felt his eyes on me as I walked over to a narrow fire escape ladder and started to climb.

  When I reached the top, Skili flew over to me. “Come—over here.”

  She led me to a part of the roof that lined up with the place Robert’s body lay on the ground below. Before I even saw what Skili was leading me to, I said, “He must have been pushed from over here. He’s right below us now.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Look at this.”

  She landed on the rooftop. The surface of the roof was flat, and made of some rough black material that looked like sandpaper. About ten feet away, I could see the dome of skylights that covered the lobby. We were on the section between the skylights and the edge of the roof.

  I looked to the surface of the roof at Skili’s feet, and I detected some strange markings.

  They were drawn in a silver substance of some sort. Together, they formed a sort of picture. It looked to me like a snake, curled in a circle, about to eat its own tail. Inside the snake, I saw various symbols, including what looked like a sun, a moon, and a lightning bolt. At the very center, there was something that looked like a circle with diagonal and horizontal lines drawn through it.

  With each passing second of rain, the silver became fainter. I knew that in a short while, maybe even minutes, the marking would disappear altogether.

  I was glad that I’d not put off my investigation. I pulled out my phone and shielded it with my body by hunching over the silver drawing. I snapped a few photos, and then slipped my phone back into my pocket.

  “What is this?” I transmitted to Skili.

  “Looks like spellwork,” she said in her usual clipped tone.

  I studied the symbols.

  Skili pointed with her wing toward where the snake’s tail would have been. Only instead of the tip of a tail, the lines that represented the edges of the snake were still open.

  “The image is not finished,” she said. “He didn’t complete his spell.”

  “You think Robert did this?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or his killer. Hard to know.”

  “It is,” I said. “When I talked to Robert’s ghost, he said he was working magic up here. Casting a spell. Maybe this is his work.”

  The silver markings were almost completely erased by the falling rain by now. I stood and took in my surroundings. Besides the dome of skylights, I also saw a structure that protruded from the rest of the roof. It was about six feet tall, and despite the rain pouring down all around us, I could make out the outline of a door. It looked open. There was a dark shadow around one side of the outline, which I guessed might be the stairwell beyond.

  I pointed. “Looks like that might be the stairs that lead inside,” I said to Skili. “Maybe the killer left through there?”

  “Could be,” she said.

  “They weren’t on the ladder when Penny and I reached Robert’s body,” I said. “Climbing down three stories during a rainstorm would take some time, and we ran out right when we saw Robert fall. I think we would have intercepted the killer. I think they left this way.”

  I headed for the door. “Maybe they left tracks,” I said. “It’s wet out here, and dry in there.”

  We had to circumnavigate the skylights to get to the door. It was indeed open. I hesitated for a minute, trying to sense whether someone might be inside, ready to pounce on Skili and me. My witchy intuition told me that no one was. I reminded myself to trust my intuition, pulled the door open the rest of the way, and stepped inside. It was pitch black, and I fumbled around for a light switch on the wall, but didn’t feel one.

  “Use magic, child,” Skili advised.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. Skili often remind
ed me to use my new abilities. My reflexive reactions were still entirely human. “Luminous,” I whispered.

  Immediately, a ball of light appeared a few inches from my palm. I concentrated on the light, and it grew brighter. Soon the stairwell around us was well-lit. I scanned the platform at the top of the stairs, where we now stood. It was made of pale concrete, and I noticed a few dark, watery smears. “There!” I said, pointing to a dark smear. “Could that be a footprint?”

  “Hard to say,” Skili said.

  I squatted down and looked closer. It really was hard to say. The wet footprints—if that’s what they were—were in the process of drying. The marks left were just formless blobs.

  “No use even taking a picture,” I said as I stood. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything from that.”

  “It proves someone was here,” Skili said as she started flying down the narrow stairwell. “Recently.”

  “True,” I said. “I followed Skili down one flight of stairs to a landing. There was an exit, and I opened it and peered out to the second-floor hallway. It was empty.

  “Let’s split up,” I suggested to Skili. “You fly around the second floor and look for someone that’s wet, hiding out in one of the rooms. I’ll keep going to the first floor.”

  “Good plan,” she said as she zipped past me and out into the empty hallway. I descended the next flight of stairs and popped out on the first floor, in the spa area.

  I had an eerie feeling as I walked down the dimly lit hall. The recessed lighting, heather gray walls with inlaid stonework, and soft music of the spa area is meant to produce a relaxing atmosphere, but because of the state I was in, it just felt creepy. I peeked my head into each of the locker rooms (yes, even the men’s, which was empty), including the steam rooms in each. Then I moved down to a row of massage studios. They were all empty—no soaking wet killers cowering under the tables. I moved on to the private mud bath rooms, and then the communal mud bath room. All were empty.

  When I emerged out into the lobby, I felt very spooked. I reached out to Skili with my mind, and at the same time I surveyed the scene before me.

  “Find anyone?” I asked Skili. I wasn’t hopeful that she had. I figured she’d transmit a message to me right away if she came across a potential killer.

  “No,” she said. “The second floor is empty.”

  “Everyone must be here in the lobby,” I said, as my eyes wandered over the guests. The storm raged on outside, but the sparkling candles that lit up the space, along with Asti’s bright paintings, created a surreal feeling of warmth.

  It was jarring to step into a space in which no one knew about the nightmare that had just occurred outside—except for perhaps one of the lobby’s inhabitants. One of them could have just rejoined the crowd after tossing Robert to his death. In fact, the crowd would make the perfect cover. Even better than hiding out in an empty room. If the killer was present, how would I identify him or her?

  I should look for anyone with wet hair, I thought.

  My eyes scanned over a little knot of beings. One was a fairy with a short blonde bob that looked bone dry. Another was a guy that looked like perhaps a shifter, given the fact that he had a taut athletic build that reminded me of so many shifters I knew. His brown hair looked dry, and so did his beard.

  Next to him was a vampire man in a top hat. What about him? I thought. He could have taken off his hat when he went outside, and then put it back on when he returned. Or, he could be wearing it to cover up his damp locks. And the guy next to him was completely bald.

  I sighed with frustration. I was getting nowhere.

  My intuition gave me a little prompt: Just keep looking.

  I quickly counted the guests and discovered that there were twenty-three present. I noted that my two employees, Margie and Geoff, were not in the mix. I searched the crowd for Asti. I spotted her in a deep discussion with a gray-bearded guy who wore a tall, cone-shaped wizard hat, complete with little yellow stars on it. He had streaks of dried clay on his pants. I could tell he was a sculptor. He was looking at Asti with adoration, and she was speaking between sips of her red wine.

  She looked dry—I didn’t spot a drop of rain on her—and relaxed and happy. Not at all what I’d expect a woman who just killed someone to look like.

  Then again, what do I know? I thought. She could have worn a freaking poncho, or worked some magic to dry herself off. I’d read that Asti could do some powerful sorcery when she put her mind to it.

  Actually, almost everyone here could work magic to dry themselves off, I thought with frustration. As long as they have a little bit of magical know-how.

  I caught sight of Gordon Groover. He was in his usual flashy leather attire. His outfit and his bleach blond hair both looked perfectly dry.

  He was talking to a beautiful young woman. She was pale with bright red lips and ebony hair. She laughed at something he said, and I noted that she had two glistening white fangs. A vampire woman. I watched to see how Gordon would react. Seeing as he was new to magic, I figured he might show some signs of fear or curiosity. But he just laughed along with the woman.

  Well, he’s from LA, I thought. I’m sure he’s seen some pretty strange things. Besides, Justin did tell him that this would be a paranormal gathering, and he’s here, so he must be open to magic.

  Since my own initiation into witchcraft, I’d learned that some humans were actually more open to magic than I’d ever expected. It seemed that The Groover was one of those. How are the four other non-magical beings in the group doing? I wondered. My sisters and I had decided to open the weekend up to a few non-magical beings from the Earth Realm. I’d planned on giving them a little extra attention to make sure that their initiation into magical living wasn’t too abrupt. I’d even thought about what I might say to them at the meet and greet. But now it was happening, and I was stuck focusing on Robert’s death. I suddenly felt extremely overwhelmed.

  That’s when I saw my witch sisters and Justin enter through the front lobby doors. They were all soaking wet, and they seemed to be in disagreement about something.

  I wove my way through little knots of wine-sipping guests, and made my way over to them.

  “It’s our duty to warn the guests immediately,” Cora said.

  “I agree,” Azure said. “They have a right to know that danger is lurking.”

  “But if we make a big announcement, the whole investigation will be thrown off,” Penny protested. “Better to keep it on the down low and try to work undercover. What do you think, Annie?”

  It was clear to me that Justin had informed my witchy sisters about my little encounter with Robert’s ghost. They knew that Robert had been pushed.

  Annie looked in my direction. “There’s Marley. It’s her center. I think we’d better get her take on the matter,” Annie said.

  “Babe!” Justin exclaimed. Relief smoothed his furrowed brow. “I was so worried about you!”

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “What did you see up on the roof?” Penny asked. She rushed on without waiting for my answer. “Cora looked up where Robert was living on his registration form. He had an apartment in the Fire Realm.”

  “We called the Fire Realm authorities,” Azure said. “And I magically transported the body up to the portal gate. The authorities took it from there. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “We took tons of pictures of the crime scene first,” Penny promised.

  “Thanks,” I said. I was glad to know that Robert’s body was no longer out in the yard. “I saw some strange marks up on the roof. It looked like a spell in progress—not completed.”

  Penny lifted a brow. “A spell, hm? Interrupted in the middle? Maybe that’s our motive.”

  Cora chimed in. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean maybe someone pushed Robert so that he didn’t finish the spell,” Penny said.

  “Babe, you’re shivering. You never shiver,” Justin said to me. He approached and put an arm around my shoulder
s. “Let’s get you into some warmer clothes.”

  I shook my head. “Not yet,” I said. “There’s so much to deal with here.” The overwhelmed feeling returned, and I frowned.

  “Oh, come on now, ladies!” Azure said. She freed her twig-like wand from her sleeve and waved it, first at me, and then at the rest of our little group. “Start to think like witches! It’s not that hard.”

  Warm air washed over me, and in a flash, I was completely dry and warm.

  “Sheesh,” I said. “That was fast.”

  “Basic magic,” Azure said with a shrug. “Most magical beings learn that right around the time that they learn to take a bath or shower without their parent’s help.”

  “Unicorn poop,” I muttered. “That means it’s useless to look around for someone with wet hair.”

  “Definitely useless,” Azure agreed.

  “So what’s next?” Penny said. “We’ve got to crack this case!”

  “And warn people,” Cora added.

  I nodded. “I know, I know,” I said. I bit my lip.

  Justin rubbed my upper arm. “It’s all good, Mar, just breathe. You’ve got great intuition. What does your gut tell you to do next?”

  I tuned into my body. The energy swirling through me was quite chaotic, but at my core, I felt a very subtle nudge. I concentrated on the nudging sensation and realized what it was prompting me to do.

  “We do have to tell the guests what happened,” I said.

  “See?” Cora said triumphantly. “I told you guys!”

  “But—” I held up a finger, “not just yet. First, I think I’d better talk to Asti. She used to date Robert, so she deserves to know before everyone else. Plus, there’s a chance that she’s actually the killer—that’s what Robert seems to think. I want to see her reaction when I tell her the news.”

  “You go, girl!” Penny said, holding up her hand in my direction. I gave her a high five as she said, “You’re a detective, Mar! You’ve got this, girlfriend! Go interrogate Asti!”

  I grinned and nodded. “Thanks,” I said. “I think I will. Could you guys just kind of fan out and listen in on some conversations? Maybe mix with the guests a bit if it feels right. Try to pick up on any strange behavior.”