Grave Phantoms
Page 21

“That’s it! That’s the symbol that was on the ring,” Astrid said, pointing to the gold disk on the idol’s belly.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She stared at the bright blue statue, biting her bottom lip. Doubt crept in. “I think. It was dark in the club, and everything happened so fast in the restroom . . . Do you know what the symbol means, Velma? Is it bad?”
The conjure woman gestured for Astrid to move out of the way so that she could switch on a lamp. The three of them hunched over the desk as Velma examined the gold disk under the light. “Sorry. This is no symbol I’ve ever seen,” she finally admitted and turned the idol around to study the back. “What’s this?”
“I think that says ‘NANCE,’ but it’s hard to read,” Bo said. “I wasn’t sure if it was some kind of magical word or part of a larger spell. Maybe the other idols Astrid saw in her vision had other words on them, too.”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” Astrid confessed.
“Strange,” Velma murmured. “The figure’s overall design looks primitive. Ancient. Asian or South American, perhaps. But these are clearly English letters. It seems like a mishmash of styles. I don’t know what to make of it.”
Astrid groaned. “So you don’t know what kind of magic it would be used for? What about the ritual I described? Have you heard of anything like that?”
Velma absently stroked her collarbone with her thumb. “I can’t say that I have, but I don’t think you’re wrong about the iron boots and the burlap sacks. It sounds like those people were drowned as some kind of sacrificial offering.”
“But why?” Astrid asked.
“That, I don’t know. And I don’t understand why they’d be missing for a year at sea, either.” Velma put her hand on Astrid’s forehead and held it there, as if testing for fever. When she withdrew it, she tilted Astrid’s chin up and studied her face. “However, I think I know where the magical charge in that idol went.”
“Where?” Astrid said.
“Inside you. Don’t be alarmed, dear, but you have two auras.”
Astrid tucked her chin and peered down at herself. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Everything living gives off an emanation,” Velma explained, putting her hand on Astrid’s shoulder to calm her down. “An aura is someone’s personal energy. And your aura has always been red, as long as I’ve known you. Now you’ve got a second layer . . . almost like it’s a shadow. Something that doesn’t belong.”
Bo didn’t like the sound of that.
Neither did Astrid, apparently. She shook herself like a dog, as if she could rid herself of it. “Am I cursed like Winter?”
“Winter was hexed with magical poison,” Velma said. “You aren’t hexed. This sounds accidental to me. And it doesn’t look bad or evil. It just looks different, is all.”
“Can you get rid of it?” Bo asked. “One of the unhexing baths you gave Winter?”
The conjurer’s brow furrowed. “Like I said, Astrid’s not hexed. I can give her some herbs to drink for purification, and I can pray over her. But unless we know what kind of ritual they did on that boat—and, more specifically, what this symbol on the idol means—I can’t offer counter magic. And maybe she doesn’t need it. Like anything else, magic fades over time. Maybe this will, too. Might be a bigger risk to stick your nose into these people’s business. If you stumbled upon whatever it was they were doing, you might want to stumble your way on out of it. Cut your losses. Return the idol to the survivors and wash your hands of it.”
Bo threw a hand up in the air. “And what? Just go about our merry way and hope that Astrid hasn’t taken on permanent spiritual damage?”
“Don’t get snitty with me, Bo Yeung,” Velma warned.
“You’re telling me there’s a group of people in town practicing some sort of big, dark ritual and despite all the mediums, clairvoyants, and oddball spiritual healers you book at this club, no one’s heard a thing about it?”
She settled a hand on her hip. “I’ll see if any of my contacts around town have heard rumors about these idols. But you play with fire, you’re liable to get burned. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Bo snorted. “If I listened to all your warnings, I’d never leave the damn house.”
“Ungrateful miscreant.”
“Mean old witch.”
“Old?” Velma huffed.
He squinted at her. “Not too old to appreciate an extra case of ten-year-old single-malt Scotch, on the house?”
Velma smiled slowly. “That’s more like it.”
“Now, about those herbs you mentioned . . .” Astrid said.
Velma smoothed a hand over Astrid’s back. “Come on upstairs and I’ll mix you something up.”
Snappy footfalls made them all swing around. Stopping near a shelf of liquor was Sylvia, escorted by the club’s master of ceremonies, Hezekiah.
“There you are, Ah-Sing,” she said sweetly, using a familiar form of Bo’s given name—an intimacy that wouldn’t be lost on Astrid. “I was beginning to think you had abandoned me in the middle of our date. Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Bo squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Long enough for his “date” to take matters into her own hands.