keep my voice gentle.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. My name’s Beth Sherwood, and I think my parents hired you to examine my sister’s aura last night. Is that right?”
Her voice was kind of quavery, like she was on the verge of tears. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have answered a question like that, figuring it would be some kind of violation of client confidentiality. But too many aspects of this case had given me the willies, and I couldn’t in good conscience put the girl off.
“Yeah, that’s right. I was supposed to examine Melanie’s aura last night, but she was gone by the time I got there. Has she come home?”
“No,” Beth said. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I think my mom is hiring a private investigator to look for her.”
There was an awkward silence on the other end of the line. I got a feeling Beth wasn’t used to reaching out for help.
“Is there something I can do for you?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound impatient. I’ve never been the nurturing sort, and I have a tendency to be abrasive, even when I don’t mean to be.
Beth took a deep breath, then let it out with a whoosh. “I think Melanie’s in danger,” she said, her voice even softer now. “My mom is convinced she’s possessed, and she … doesn’t like demons much.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Is your mom a member of God’s Wrath?”
She seemed taken aback by my question, but she rallied quickly. “There’s no law against that.”
I smiled, glad she couldn’t see me. The kid might not like her mother’s fanatical leanings, but she was quick to leap to her defense. “Of course there isn’t,” I replied. “But you said Melanie might be in danger.”
Beth hesitated for a long time, then decided to level with me. “Mom hired you as kind of a concession to my dad. He’s God’s Wrath, too, but he’s not as into it as my mom is. I think if she finds Melanie, she’s going to get one of her cronies to do the exam, and I…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t trust the guy.”
I thought about this for a moment, rolling the implications around in my head. “So what you’re telling me is you think this guy is going to declare her possessed whether she is or not?” There was no answer from the other end of the line, but I took that silence as a yes. “And you think they’re going to burn her?”
Beth let out a choked sob, and I felt like a heel. My bedside manner could use some serious work. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been so … blunt.”
She sniffled. “No, it’s okay. I’m worried about what will happen if they find Melanie.”
“Do you think she’s possessed?” I asked. If Melanie really
“She’s not possessed!” Beth said sharply, then sighed. “Mom would just rather blame a demon for everything than admit Melanie’s got … a problem.”
“You mean a drug problem?” I prodded gently.
“Yeah. She started going out with this guy last year.” I could hear the distaste in Beth’s voice. “I don’t know where she met him. He’s too old to be in school. Anyway, that’s when she started to change.”
I remembered Scott Sherwood mentioning that Melanie had been acting strange for about a year. I also remembered how Patsy had shot him down when he mentioned it. My guess was she hadn’t appreciated the reminder that her daughter’s “possession” had coincided with her new relationship with a human man.
“The madder Mom got about stuff, the more Melanie changed. She was doing it just to make Mom mad, but Mom saw everything she did as proof that she was possessed. But it’s not a demon that’s making her act like that! It’s her sleazebag boyfriend!”
I sat back in my chair and wondered what I was supposed to do with this information. Technically, it was none of my business.
Yeah, and that was going to make me feel much better when Melanie Sherwood’s “purification” by fire made the evening news. I wasn’t sure what I could do to help. But at least I could try.
“Do you have any idea who Melanie might have gone to for help?”
“The only one I can think of is Rick the Prick.” She coughed. “Um, I mean her boyfriend.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Shall I look him up in the phone book under ‘the Prick,’ or do you have a last name for him?”
Beth gave a little snort of laughter, quickly cut off. “You have to swear on your life you won’t tell my parents. I told them I didn’t know his name, because I don’t want them to find Mel.”
“I swear on my life I won’t tell them,” I promised.
Beth took a deep breath—for courage, I supposed. “He says his last name is Bull, but that could be, you know,
“It’s a start, at least,” I said. “I have a friend who’s a PI. We’ll see if we can locate Melanie.” Before Patsy and friends did.
“And can you help her? If you find her, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” I told her with complete honesty. “But I promise I’ll do everything I can.”
Barbara Paget was the kind of woman I usually disliked on sight. Petite, blond, curvy, and stunningly pretty, she looked like an adult version of the cliché vapid cheerleader from every teen flick I’d ever seen. I’d started calling her Barbie when we’d first met, and I’d been unable to break myself of the habit even now that I saw through the pretty packaging to the sharp, driven woman beneath. (Not that I’d tried very hard.)
She was a private investigator, and she’d been drafted to be a member of Lugh’s royal council when her investigations had led her to uncover forbidden knowledge. She’d turned out to be quite the valuable asset—and a decent human being, to boot. I was counting on her good nature to convince her to help me find Melanie Sherwood.
Barbie did not disappoint. After I told her about my meetings with the Sherwoods and Beth’s phone call, she volunteered to do a little digging—I didn’t even have to ask. Within twenty-four hours, she had unearthed an address for Richard Bull, aka Rick the Prick, and had put together a dossier that proved Beth was an excellent judge of character. I read through that dossier when Barbie brought it over to my apartment early Friday evening.
Richard Bull had been arrested five times since he’d turned eighteen—which was six years ago. The charges were all drug-related, but apparently nothing that would keep him off the streets for any extended period of time. The mug shots showed a scrawny, hollow-cheeked thug with greasy hair, bad skin, and soulless eyes. I couldn’t imagine what Melanie saw in him.
“Do you think Melanie is staying with him?” I asked Barbie doubtfully as I looked at the address. Bull’s apartment was in one of the city’s less attractive neighborhoods. “I have the feeling a white goth girl would stick out like a sore thumb around there.”
Barbie nodded. “I’m sure she would if she showed her face, which she’s probably not doing if she thinks her family’s going to burn her if they find her.”
I grimaced. Too true. “Of course,
Barbie shrugged. “I’ve gone into worse neighborhoods and lived to tell about it. And our friend the Boy Scout is our best shot at locating Melanie.”
I had to concede the point, which explains how Barbie and I found ourselves standing in the dingy hallway of a seriously nasty apartment building, knocking on Rick the Prick’s door while the floor beneath our feet rattled from the rap music blasting from the next-door apartment. The hall had the vomit-and-piss stink of a subway station, and I wondered how a girl brought up on the Main Line could stand the place.
Repeated knocking was getting us no results, and the longer we loitered in the hallway, the more apt we were to draw unwanted attention. We’d been stared at and propositioned a number of times as we’d made our way into the building and up the stairs, but so far that was it. I wanted to keep it that way.
I reached out and gave the doorknob a good rattle, testing the strength of the lock. It felt pretty flimsy—I could probably bust it even without having to let Lugh take over my body and use his superior demon strength, something I would allow him to do only under the most dire circumstances. I was never going to get used to the utter lack of control that went with having a demon driving my body, or the sickness I often experienced when he once more receded into the background.
Barbie must have seen the direction of my thoughts. She put a restraining hand on my arm, then reached into
