Summoning Trouble, page 10
“It might provide insight into whether the dragon incident and the students getting Haniel to think about Xerxes’ possession potion are related.”
“Or it might be a cult who will brainwash you and use you and your magic to do bad things.”
“A cult?” Jerome asked, a smile in his voice.
“Yes.” I nodded. “What do you want for dinner?”
“Cassanova’s,” Jerome immediately replied.
“Didn’t I pay for Cassanova’s earlier today, or was that yesterday?”
“You did, but I only got a couple of slices.”
“Okay, I’ll make you a deal, we’ll do Cassanova’s for dinner tomorrow night and tonight we will actually go out to a restaurant and sit down and have a meal like semi-normal people who do not chase dragons or feed pizza to demons.”
“Sure, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking Thai. I heard a rumor they had hired a seer. Might be interesting to see what we get with our meal.” I smiled at him.
“I could go for some prophetic Thai food,” Jerome said, standing up and stretching. As he stretched, I surreptitiously watched the hem of his jeans to see if they went back down over his ankles. If someone had told me five years ago I would constantly be checking the length of a teenager’s jeans when he stood up, I would have said they were crazy. I have since learned that teens do not grow slowly, it happens in fits and leaps. One day his jeans will be long enough, and the next they won’t. The same is true for shoes, shirts, shorts, and jackets. I swear he grows like bamboo; so fast you could actually see and hear it.
We went for Thai food, and I was a little disappointed to not get a prophesy cookie or something when the check was brought to us. I said something to Jerome about the rumor not being true. Jerome picked up his plate and began to scrape the remnants of his demon chicken into the take-home box, and I noticed writing on the back of his plate. I pointed it out. Then I picked up my plate and dumped my leftover Phat See Eiu into the box and Jerome told me I had writing on the back of my plate, too. We began to examine them.
Jerome’s said, Even an accidental betrayal leaves a wound. Mine said, An old nemesis is returning. We exchanged looks.
“I don’t know if these are helpful or not,” Jerome finally said.
“I’m pretty sure mine isn’t. I’m not a comic book superhero, I don’t have a nemesis.” I frowned. “I’m also unclear on how someone accidentally commits betrayal.”
“Yeah.” Jerome shrugged, and we both put our plates down. “I have way more questions now than I did before we came in, which is impressive, because I had a lot of questions before we got here.”
“I concur,” I said, as I put down my debit card. Miss Wu, one of the owners, came over to our table.
“Did you find your fortune?” she asked, smiling.
“We did,” I said, trying not to frown at her. “It was interesting.”
“Yes, well, after you told me about the Chinese restaurant in Chicago that handed out custom-made fortune cookies, I started hunting for a seer for our restaurant because that is a great idea. It took five years, but I finally found one, and she’s very good. Did she see your future spouses?” Miss Wu asked.
“I don’t think so, unless my future spouse is also my nemesis,” I said, while thinking that might not be impossible. I had terrible taste and luck with men.
“Oh, well normally she’s very attuned to people’s love lives, she’s a cherub,” Miss Wu said.
“Ah, well, my love life is a disaster and Jerome is sixteen. She may have just not gotten anything for either of us at this point,” I said. Miss Wu picked up my plate and flipped it over, dripping a bit of sauce on the table. After examining mine, she flipped over Jerome’s. Then she frowned at them both and sat them dirty side down on the table and told us to wait there. I was thinking the plates were going to make a huge mess, but it wasn’t my restaurant. Miss Wu was probably about my age, maybe a little older, and returned a few minutes later with a cute young woman who was probably in her very early twenties.
“Tameka, this is Soleil and her son, Jerome. They battle the demonic and evil trying to keep the city safe. Your fortunes for them, can you clarify at all?” Miss Wu introduced Jerome and I to the girl, who looked very embarrassed. She was so red in the face; I was afraid she was going to have a stroke.
“If you can’t, it’s not a big deal, we’re used to getting cryptic fortunes,” I told her.
“Yeah, I spent years getting fortunes about a small sun long before meeting Soleil, whose name means sun,” Jerome told her, and the girl blushed even harder. I wanted to tell her to not stroke out on us, but I didn’t think that would ease her embarrassment.
“I might be able to clarify, but I will have to touch each of you,” Tameka said. I stuck out my hand to shake hers, and she stared at it a moment.
“You’re an empath as well as a seer, aren’t you?” I asked her. She nodded. “Okay, I’ll warn you, we’re investigating something that could be bad and I’m a little apprehensive about it, but otherwise, I’m okay. My son is a mimic who spent time around my sister, and my sister is of course an angel like myself. I’m going to tell him to turn up the happiness feelings for both of us, and then it won’t be as bad.”
Jerome turned up the happiness to Helia levels. Everyone in the restaurant could feel it; smiles began to appear on the faces of the diners as well as the staff, who had been looking gravely serious throughout our meal. Of course, the dragon had only been a few blocks from here, and we all came in for dinner after dealing with it, so seeing us again might have been traumatic for the staff. After another tense moment, Tameka took my hand. Her eyes fluttered closed, and her thumb began to twitch. Then she dropped my hand.
“The person behind what you’re investigating is someone you’ve dealt with before. You don’t like them, and I don’t think they like you,” Tameka told me. “But I’m having trouble getting more information because there’s something dark that will need to help you, and it’s blocking my vision.” Something dark that could obscure the vision of a seer was obvious. I nodded. I was going to have to stop putting off my trip to see Leviathan.
She then turned to Jerome and took his hand. “You have a girlfriend, and you really like her, maybe even love her. Unfortunately, she has already done something that is going to hurt you deeply. But much like Soleil, there is something dark preventing me from seeing the entire picture.” Tameka let go of Jerome’s hand.
“Can you tell if the betrayal is something to do with what we are investigating?” I asked her.
“I don’t think it is, but as I said, it has something to do with a large, dark, looming shadow, which I saw in both of your futures, so it might,” Tameka said, with a shrug.
“I’m so sorry, Soleil, normally her fortunes are very clear,” Miss Wu said, and I waved her apology away, telling her it was perfectly fine, nothing she could do about being blocked by a demon. This made both Tameka and Miss Wu give small gasps, as I had expected it would, but I also knew demons could block visions of the future, and they usually showed up as large dark shadows of life. Jerome added to the gasp factor of my statement by reminding Miss Wu the bulk of my job was dealing with demons, and I occasionally brought my work home with me. I didn’t admonish him for this, but I did give him a sideways glance. Jerome then turned up the happiness factor several more notches, probably to soothe Miss Wu and Tameka, and then we left. I let Jerome drive us home, because I was wracking my brain to try to figure out who I’d dealt with in the past that didn’t like me and vice versa, that might be behind the robberies. I was determinedly not thinking about Tara and Tameka’s prediction about Tara.
If she was somehow involved, Walter and Megan would have kittens. Walter was a US Marshal who worked on a Fugitive Recovery Team. He’d been a US Marshal since 1800 and something. I forget the exact year he started. He’d been married to Megan by then, and she had decided to share her immortality with him. He was the longest-serving US Marshal in the country—we’d gone to a dinner celebrating his 150th anniversary with the Marshals. I didn’t remember much from the night because Duke Hemmingway, Walter’s supervisor and my ex, had been there with his new girlfriend, a shifter, and she had quite obviously been pregnant. Being mad at Duke was irrational. We’d gone our separate ways because we were both married to our jobs and our lives in different cities. Also, I’d adopted Jerome, and while Duke liked Jerome, Duke was mortal and he wasn’t sure he could handle being the parent of an insanely powerful wizard, which I understood. Most of the time I thought I was doing a terrible job at it myself. It would be worse for a mortal. Rational or not, even Jerome turning up the happy feelings hadn’t helped, and the night had been a blur.
That had also been the night I realized Jerome could turn his mimicry powers on and off. The kid spent nearly as much time with Helia as with Remiel, but Jerome didn’t radiate happiness the way he read thoughts. I’d asked him about it once we’d left and he’d admitted that he could turn it off, but he didn’t most of the time, because it was interesting to know what people were really thinking. Making people happy was less interesting. I didn’t give much of a rebuttal to that, because secretly I agreed with him. I also didn’t mention it to anyone else, because sometimes knowing people’s thoughts came in handy.
“Man, I hope she cheated on me,” Jerome said, as he turned off the highway to head to our house in the new town of Angelville.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I may blow a gasket either way,” I told him. “I’m not okay with any scenario in which your girlfriend hurts you.”
“So, we’re going to see Leviathan tonight,” Jerome said, after a few moments of silence. I nodded in the darkened car. I’d put it off because Jerome and I were both way too comfortable around demons and hell princes. I felt we required some distance, but if Leviathan could assist us in some way, then we needed to see him. I couldn’t summon Leviathan to my house for the conversation because he was growing in power, and we suspected it was because of me. One more reason to avoid palling around with hell princes, although if Leviathan usurped Beelzebub as the second most powerful being in the Stygian, that would not be a bad thing. Beelzebub wanted to subjugate the living to the whims of Demonation, and Leviathan did not. I briefly wondered if the nemesis Tameka had seen was Beelzebub or Belial. That would explain the dark lurking shadow in her vision, and Belial specifically might qualify as a nemesis. Belial had even more grandiose plans for Demonation; he wanted to merge the two planes and allow demons to roam freely among the living. I found that prospect even more terrifying than Beelzebub’s.
Jerome pulled into our driveway past the silver Camry parked in it, and then pulled into the garage as Penelope got out of the car. She walked into the garage, and I shut the door behind her. She looked pale and her hands were shaking. Then her eyes rolled up into their sockets and she collapsed. Jerome caught her with magic and gently lay her down on the floor. I was already digging out my cell phone to call an ambulance, even though I was clueless as to what was wrong.
“Sol, she’s bleeding, go check her car,” Jerome said, and I dashed past him and hit the garage door opener as I dialed 911. I was out the door as soon as it had lifted enough for me to duck under it. I was telling the 911 operator she was bleeding, but I didn’t know why or where from and that my son, who was proficient with magic, was with her. There was blood all over the backrest of the driver’s side of the car, enough to worry even me, and I relayed this information to the operator. I put the operator on speakerphone as I went back into the garage, and she started giving first aid instructions. Jerome was a few steps ahead of her, he already had Penelope rolled onto her side and his shirt was off and pressed to what I assumed was the wound.
“I think it’s a gunshot wound,” Jerome told the operator. “I have some magic powers and I magically poked at it and felt something solid in the wound. I believe it perforated her liver.” There was some back and forth between Jerome and the operator and I learned there was emergency medical magic, and that Jerome was a natural with it, as he was with all magic. By the time the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, Jerome had the bleeding stopped, knew what blood type Penelope was, and had gauged how much blood she’d lost. As a result, the paramedics were hooking her up to fluids and blood before they loaded her into the ambulance. I sat on the floor of the garage in shock. Who would shoot Penelope? And why? I texted Magda the Red and Remiel and Miguel Smith and then realized I needed to call Janet. I sent the group text message first. Jerome was sitting on the floor, the drying puddle of blood between us, and I feared he might be in shock.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“Sol, I grew up in the projects of Chicago, that is not the first time I’ve seen someone with a gunshot wound or provided emergency magical medical assistance,” Jerome said.
“Sure, but were any of those gunshot victims friends of yours?” I asked.
“Not really,” the kid said, and he sounded old and tired.
“That makes a difference,” I told him. “I’ve dealt with hundreds of possessions, the only ones that bother me are the ones where I personally know the possessed. It’s okay if you are not okay.”
“Why would someone shoot Penelope?” Jerome asked.
“I have no idea. I’m gonna call Janet. Do you want to listen in?” I asked, holding up my phone.
“Yes, please. That way I can correct you when you get the magic information wrong.” He tried to smile. I tried to smile back and burst into tears instead. “It’s okay to not be okay,” Jerome told me.
“Thanks,” I sniffed. “Okay, let’s do this.” I dialed Janet’s number. It was only about 5 p.m. in Oregon, so I expected her to answer. It rang and rang and rang, and then voicemail picked up. I tried to sound put-together as I left her a voicemail telling her to call me immediately, but my voice was quavering at times as I tried not to cry. Magda arrived in my garage as I disconnected from voicemail.
“Are you both okay?” she asked, immediately rushing in to check on us.
“Yes, she was in the driveway when we pulled in after going to dinner at Thai Palace. She got out of her car, she was a little pale and her hands were shaking and then she collapsed, and Jerome noticed she was bleeding,” I gushed out.
“She’d been shot,” Jerome told Magda and his eyes glistened with unshed tears. I turned away from him; if I looked at him too long, I would fall apart completely.
“Do you know what hospital they took her to?” Magda asked.
“Yes, I tried calling Janet, but all I got was voicemail and I don’t really know Penelope’s coven members,” I said. This was in spite of the fact that Jerome occasionally helped Penelope’s coven out with big magic projects. I was a terrible parent and friend sometimes.
“First, let’s go to the hospital and then we can worry about who to call. Which one?” Magda asked, holding out a hand to me. I took it and got off the floor. I did the same to Jerome and pulled him to his feet. His hands and his jeans had blood on them. His shirt was black, so the blood didn’t show. “Jerome, go get changed and wash up a little,” Magda told him. Jerome went into the house. While he was gone Remiel showed up.
“Are you and Jerome, okay? Did you see who did it?” Remiel asked. I explained about Penelope being in the driveway when we got home and how we didn’t know anything was wrong until she collapsed. Remiel nodded and went to her car. He searched through it and got her purse and her cell phone. Magda took both into AESPCA custody, not that I thought either of them would be worth much to the AESPCA, but she might have classified AESPCA information on the phone, since they employed her.
It took about ten minutes for Jerome to join us in the garage. He had needed a shower because blood had soaked through his clothes; he looked down at his feet as he told me he threw his shoes away. No doubt he was embarrassed at what he would deem a waste of clothing, but I would gladly buy replacements, because I felt even if the blood came out, it would be traumatic to wear them.
Then Magda opened a portal and we all traveled to the hospital, arriving in the parking lot at nearly the same moment Penelope’s ambulance arrived. I felt fifteen minutes or so to get a gunshot victim to the hospital was incredibly slow and wondered why ambulances weren’t equipped with portal travel equipment that would just magic them to the hospital in real emergencies.
The four of us rushed inside behind the paramedics who had Penelope strapped to a gurney. She was still unconscious, but her vitals looked stable. I hoped that I was reading the equipment correctly, because that would be a good thing. Magda was speaking with one of the paramedics as we fast-walked the corridors of the hospital. I tried calling Janet again and again got voicemail. What the fuck? Janet had moved to a witch commune in Oregon with a guy she’d known less than two weeks. We hadn’t talked much since she left, because she rarely answered or returned my calls. Penelope had mentioned having a similar problem, but this was important.
“Jerome, is there a way for you to contact Janet using magic?” I asked him. “Penelope mentioned Janet wasn’t really returning her calls either, and I can’t get her to answer her phone now.” Jerome’s face scrunched up in thought.
“Maybe,” he said after a few minutes.
“If he can’t, I’ll get someone to go see her in person,” Magda said.
“Thank you,” I told her. We were ushered by a nurse into the waiting room. It was packed. Jerome tried using magic to contact Janet but told me the commune had protections that were keeping him out. Magda said she wasn’t surprised and made a few phone calls. As she was finishing up her second call, Miguel Smith arrived at the hospital. After he spoke with the nurse at the ER reception desk, she showed us to a small, private waiting room. All four of us were directed inside, Jerome and I gave him a detailed sequence of events, and then Jerome played it for him as a memory projection. When we finished, Miguel began asking questions we couldn’t answer, like whether we knew what Penelope was planning on doing today and did she have any enemies as far as the four of us knew, etc. The four of us were in agreement that we couldn’t imagine anyone would want to hurt Penelope, she was generally a nice person. Finally, Magda explained the problems we were having getting in touch with Penelope’s sister Janet, who used to work with me at Angel Investigations, and that she had sent a messenger via portal to the commune where Janet was now living with her husband.
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