I gave him a look. He grinned in return.
“Obviously you need to be careful. But if this is a true doppelgänger, it’s here for a reason.”
“You said it might be here for me. You don’t think it just wants to kill me?”
“No. After all, if that was what it wanted, why didn’t it kill you already? Why go after Tristan in the guise of your boyfriend?”
“Fiancé,” I corrected him automatically. “Or . . . what if it isn’t a real doppelgänger? What are the other possibilities?”
“Endless. You could be hallucinating after eating LSD-laden baked goods.”
“Very funny. Patience was with me; she saw him, too.”
“Not to mention a shop owner in Chinatown.”
“And witnesses at the hotel the night Tristan was killed. Speaking of which, would you be willing to go back there with me, see what we can see?”
“So, is it Oscar or Sailor who will come back to work for me?”
I blew out a breath, but didn’t respond.
“Anyway, you have a day to figure it out. I have another obligation tonight. When you figure out which one will come back to work for me, we can go to the hotel tomorrow. Ask Patience if she’ll go with us.”
“Why Patience?”
“We need a necromancer.”
“Hervé’s a better necromancer. Though she did see something when she was in the lobby . . .”
“Bring them both, then. The more the merrier.”
• • •
Hervé’s voodoo supply shop closed at eight. I just barely made it to Valencia Street in time. Caterina gave me a cool smile when I entered, then ducked into the back and sent Hervé out to speak with me.
“I think we need to go back to the hotel,” I said. “But this time with backup.”
“Who is our ‘backup’?”
“Aidan, Patience, you, and me.”
“So two witches, a Gypsy psychic, and a voodoo priest walk into a hotel . . . ,” began Hervé with a low chuckle, shaking his head. “Sounds like the beginning of a joke.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure if I’ll like the punch line.”
“Lily, I’ll go with you if you need me, but I believe I did all I could last night. If Patience is half the psychic she’s cracked up to be, she’ll be able to make contact with any latent spirits.”
Caterina reappeared through the beaded curtain that separated the shop floor from their private quarters. She was carrying a canvas shopping bag, which held two smaller brown paper bags. She set it on the counter in front of me.
“One of your friends forgot this when they were checking out earlier,” she said without preamble.
“Oh, um, thank you,” I said.
She shrugged and went back through the curtains.
Hervé leaned toward me and whispered: “Not your biggest fan.”
“Yeah, I get that. Sorry. I hope my coming here doesn’t make things difficult for you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Who left the bag, do you know?” I asked as I peeked within the first paper bag. There was a little figure in a coffin, and a hexing candle. They weren’t from Hervé’s shop but from the botanica—a sort of Mexican herb and magical-supply store—across the street. The second bag held various dried herbs.
“Wind Spirit, I believe she’s calling herself.”
“Wind Spirit?”
“She used to go by Amy.”
“Yes, I know she did. I didn’t realize you knew her.”
“I don’t know her well. She comes into the shop from time to time.”
“I don’t know why that surprises me. . . . A lot of people come to you for supplies, right?”
“True.”
“What does she buy from you?”
“Last time it was a cookbook, if I recall.” He took a copy off a nearby shelf and handed it to me.
“I didn’t know you sold cookbooks.”
He grinned. “Very special cookbooks. Look up voodoo bread pudding and love sauce.”
“What’s love sauce?” I asked as I flipped through the pages. “Or . . . do I want to know?”
“Basically it’s a slightly sweet bread with sauce. Orris root gives the bread a subtle violet aroma. The sauce is made from brown sugar, butter, and rum.”
“Nothing not to love about that.”
“Indeed.”
“But when you say it’s a voodoo recipe . . . ? Does that mean it’s harmful, or special in some way?”
“You tell people it’s a love potion, and they’ll bake anything.”
I smiled, but his words made me think of Renee with her cupcakes.
“Besides, you know as well as I do that if one is able to focus one’s intent through true belief, one might just infuse that bread pudding with actual feelings of love.”
I flipped through the book. “There are a few negative recipes in here as well.”
“Sometimes love goes wrong,” Hervé said with a grin.
“Are they actually poisonous?”
He shook his head. “No, of course not. Just contain a few nasty ingredients . . . but I have the sense you’re used to things like that. Anyone who brews knows that things can get a bit pungent, from time to time. A secret ingredient, secret revenge.”
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” I said, glad in that moment that Caterina didn’t have her husband’s powers.
He smiled. “We all have our ways, Lily.”
Chapter 22
That night I felt lonely. No Oscar snoring above the fridge, no sound of boots on the stairs telling me Sailor was on his way up. I was also anxious and frustrated. Again, I sat for a while with my Book of Shadows, but it didn’t speak to me. I was finding it hard to concentrate. My mind ping-ponged from thoughts of Sailor to the grandmas on the bus, to what Renee had put in the meat pasties, to what Aidan had told me about his past, to my role in vanquishing the current threat, to Calypso.
Had her love for Aidan made Calypso vulnerable, the way Aidan told me my love for Sailor diminished me? Or had it made their coalition stronger, and if so, why did she back out and leave everything to Aidan?
I could feel my energies scattering, like Selena’s typically did. I wasn’t sure whether it was due to Renee’s spell, or Sailor being in jail, or the urgency of needing to find the killer. . . . What I did know was that
