To Kill a Sorcerer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2016

  A Kindle Scout selection

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  For Lauren and Kristi

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Monday, December 20, 3:45 p.m.

  Sherri set down her calculus book and rose from the couch, heading for the foyer to see who had rung the doorbell. She looked through the small window, her hand resting on the knob. A tall black man stood on the porch, wearing a suit and tie and holding a big sample case. Oh, no, not a salesman, she thought. He had a nice face, so she would give him a couple of seconds, then politely tell him she didn’t want what he had for sale. She had to get back to studying for tomorrow’s test.

  She pulled the door open, a smile on her face. “Yes?”

  He smiled back at her. “I am here to prepare you for the afterlife,” he said. He raised his hand and sprayed something in her face.

  Startled, she leaned back, inhaled the mist, and lost control of her body.

  The man lunged into the foyer and grabbed her by the front of her tank top. A ripping sound followed, but the fabric held, and the man eased her to the tile floor. He turned and shut the door with his elbow. While he looked through the small window, he pulled a pair of clear examination gloves out of his jacket pocket and put them on. Exhaling explosively, he twisted the lock on the knob, turned, and knelt next to her, pressing his fingers against her neck.

  He looked into her eyes. “Good,” he said. “Very good.”

  He picked her up gently and carried her back to the living room, setting her on the sofa on her side, her back against the cushions. He carefully turned her head so she could see everything he did.

  Stunned by the speed of events, Sherri watched the man with fascination. As her situation became clearer, fascination gave way to fear, fear to terror. Lying helpless, she could only watch this stranger do to her whatever he liked.

  Retrieving his case, he set it on the carpet in front of the coffee table, unclasped the top, and began unpacking. First was a large, clear bundle that made a heavy crinkling sound as he set it on the floor behind him. Next came an ornate chalice covered with hieroglyphs, followed by a small plate upon which he placed an incense cone. Pulling a matchbook from the case, he struck a match against the side, and lit the little pyramid, holding the flame against it until a spiral of smoke rose steadily. The air smelled of phosphorus, then the strong perfume of incense.

  After returning the matchbook to his case, he tossed the burned match in, too. Then he reached inside and pulled out a shining item.

  Now he stared at her, a smile curving his lips, and held up his hand so she could see what lay on his palm. The knife had a long, curved blade and a hilt covered with strange symbols.

  Her crystal-blue eyes nearly bulging from their sockets, Sherri silently screamed for her mommy and daddy to come home. She felt tears rolling across her cheeks, her senses so exquisite she could hear the drops land on the soft fabric of the couch. Her terrified mind gibbered and moaned, knowing she would not take tomorrow’s math test after all, feeling more lost and alone than she ever had.

  The intruder dropped the knife and looked up. Delving into his case once more, he took out a length of white rope with a noose on one end and stood. Reaching up, he unhooked one of the potted plants hanging from the exposed beam, set it on the coffee table, then looped the rope through the empty hook, allowing the pre-tied opening to hang about two meters from the carpet. He pulled, lifting himself off the ground. When he alighted, he gave a nod.

  After securing the rope, he wrestled Sherri off the couch, holding her upside down. She felt her ankles snared by the rope, followed by sharp, cutting pain when the man released her and her ankles took her full weight. She swayed forward and back until he steadied her. He used the blade to cut away her top and bra.

  He set the chalice, incense, and knife on the carpet beneath her hanging arms. He picked up the crinkling package and began unfolding it. Clear plastic overalls took shape. The man stepped into them and zipped them up to his neck. Crackling like a wood bonfire, he knelt in front of her.

  Pulling a clear plastic shaker from the case, he popped off the top. As he tipped it over the chalice, his hand shook, spilling some of the contents on the carpet. Once he had emptied it, he capped it and tossed it back into the bag.

  “Now we begin the mystical ceremony whereby I take your soul and make it my slave.” He leaned down so he could look into her eyes. Tears streamed off her forehead, mixed with mucus from her nose. “The path to true salvation is a painful road spread out over a person’s lifetime. But for a chosen few, this journey is compressed into moments. That is the road you must travel now, Sherri. Do you think you can feel the pain? Believe me when I tell you that you’ve never experienced pain like what I’m going to cause you now.”

  Through the sharp cries echoing in her head, Sherri understood the purpose of the plastic suit. It was to protect him from her blood. Her cries turned to shrieks, pleading with God to send her parents home, knowing he wouldn’t, knowing what her parents would see when they finally came through the front door.

  “Let’s begin.”

  Her eyes great orbs of terror, Sherri watched the man pick up the dagger and the cup. He straightened, pressed the chalice between her bare breasts, and raised the knife.

  One

  Tuesday, December 21, 8:38 p.m.

  Languishing in traffic on the 101 freeway near Laurel Canyon Boulevard, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel and wondered if I would ever crack the six-mile-per-hour mark again.

  Three hours earlier, I had heard the following news story:

  “Police still have no suspects in yesterday’s brutal slaying of a seventeen-year-old girl in Sherman Oaks. The bizarre killing has sent a shockwave of fear through the community, prompting many residents to keep firearms close at hand. Van Nuys Chief of Detectives Sonja Reyes asks that anyone with information relating to this crime call the LAPD hotline or this stat
ion.”

  Chief Reyes had taken my private call.

  “No, Montero,” she said. “I can’t let you in on this one.”

  She knew better than that. Still, she tried to stall. “I’ve put Hamilton and Gonzales on it.”

  “Good. It will be a pleasure to work with them again.”

  “They won’t like it.”

  I waited. Silence can be an effective communication technique.

  “Okay, if you want in, I can’t stop it,” she said. “But this is as high-profile as it gets. Don’t make us look bad in front of the press or any of the social media networks.”

  “If I make a mistake, Chief, I’ll take myself out of the mix. You have my word.”

  Silence.

  “So . . . do you know where Hamilton and Gonzales are now?” I asked.

  “The coroner’s, last I heard. They’ll be at the mayor’s Christmas party in about three hours, from nine to ten thirty.”

  “The mayor’s party? At the Houdini mansion?”

  “That’s right. He wants to be seen with the two lead investigators on such a sensational case. I assume you received an invitation?”

  She knew I had. She also knew I rarely attended publicity events. And I was particularly keen to miss this one.

  “If you want to talk to my detectives, do it then. I’m sure you’ll have a good time.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I don’t want you directly involved in the investigation until tomorrow morning. Leave my men alone after you talk to them tonight. I’ll have the case file e-mailed to you and Preston immediately.”

  “One Adam twelve,” I responded.

  She disconnected. Efficient management was one of Reyes’s strong suits.

  And that was my reason for being jammed in gridlock on a Tuesday night, headed for the second most haunted building in the Los Angeles area.

  Two

  Tuesday, December 21, 9:12 p.m.

  In 1699, Chinese Emperor K’ang-hsi commanded my attendance at his forty-fifth birthday celebration. After becoming inebriated on cherry wine, he had pressed me to marry his youngest daughter. A double widower, I had politely refused, though talking my way out of the imperial request had required all the diplomatic delicacy I possessed.

  No amount of savoir faire would work with Detectives Hamilton and Gonzales tonight.

  I pulled up in front of the valet stand. The kid in the black pants and white shirt who opened my door probably did not shave yet.

  “Sorry,” I told him, “but I want someone older.”

  “I can park it,” he said, eyeballing the Maserati’s glowing interior.

  I stepped past him, buttoning my jacket, two hundred-dollar bills in my hand. I held them out to the young lady standing behind the podium.

  “I’d like you to park it . . . uh, personally.”

  Methuselah never stated he saw doubles of the people he knew during his 969-year life—probably because there weren’t many human beings around in his time. In my seven-plus centuries, I have seen doppelgangers who were such exact duplicates of people I had known, I wondered if they truly were reincarnations.

  But never once did any of them look upon me with recognition, though I stared at each of them meaningfully. I even approached one woman. We spent a wonderful evening together, but I determined without doubt she was not a reborn version of the same girl I had known four centuries earlier.

  The woman in front of me presented a perfect example. Brown hair and green eyes, with a tall, hourglass figure, she looked like the living replica of Marguerite, my younger sister, gone now these six hundred years.

  Memories cascaded. Smells, laughter, the faces of my childhood family—sleeping on a straw-covered floor with Margie, our baby brother James wedged between us.

  The lovely valet looked me over slowly with a small smile. “No.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “That’s not nearly enough,” she said, gesturing at the bills in my hand.

  Dazed, I pulled out another three hundreds.

  She shook her head and ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip. She wore her hair piled atop her head and black-framed glasses sat on her delicately shaped nose. White teeth shone behind glossy, dark-pink lipstick. She looked like a librarian who preferred the erotic version of Sleeping Beauty to D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

  “You,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I want you. Not money. Tonight. I’m off at one.”

  “You want . . .”

  “Don’t look so surprised. You’re hot.”

  Nonplussed to have a vixen version of my little sister giving me the once-over, I concentrated.

  “How about a thousand?”

  “You’re saying no to me?”

  For a moment, I could not speak. Of course I’m saying no, Margie—you’re my little sister! “You’re gorgeous,” I managed, “but I have a sweetheart.”

  Gliding up close, bringing with her the clean scent of peach shampoo, she fiddled with my bow tie. “You didn’t get this quite right,” she said, undoing a perfect knot. “What’s your name?”

  “Sebastian.”

  “Laura. You’re not wearing a ring, Sebastian.”

  While she twisted my neckwear, I studied her face. High cheekbones, graceful lashes, Margie’s nose and chin. Although I had seen doubles of friends and acquaintances, I had never seen a replica of anyone from my families. The losses of the centuries washed through me. How I missed them! I longed to take this lovely woman in my arms, kiss her cheek, and welcome my sister back to life.

  But her name was Laura, and Marguerite lived only in my memories, sepia-tinted by the lens of time.

  “A man like you could have more than one girl,” Laura said. Deftly, she tugged the tie into shape and looked up. “You could have as many—what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “It’s an odd coincidence, but you look like my baby sister.”

  “Oh.” She hesitated. “The way you say it—she’s dead?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Please don’t be. It was a long time ago.”

  “I’m not your sister, Sebastian. You know that. We could have fun.”

  “I really couldn’t.”

  She pouted, pink lips puckered, an expression that had surely driven other men to their knees. “No one’s ever turned me down before.”

  “I’ve no doubt of that.”

  “Your girlfriend must be very special.”

  “She is.”

  “I am so not liking that,” Laura said.

  Her hand slid down the sleeve of my jacket and took the bills I held, her fingers warm along my skin. She gave me a ticket.

  “I’ll park your car,” she whispered in my ear.

  I strolled across the hard-packed dirt to the low wall fronting the property, pulling a pack of Dunhills and a lighter out of my jacket pocket. Looking up at the mansion silhouetted against the night sky, I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, careful of my embers in the hot wind.

  The house wasn’t really the Houdini Mansion, at least not in the sense that Harry Houdini had ever lived in or owned it. Houdini died in 1926, and the original estate on this property burned down in 1959. This house was recently built on the same land.

  The great magician did not own the mansion that went up in flames, either. Although he knew the owner of the original estate, and his wife lived in the guesthouse across the street after his death, there is no proof Houdini ever spent a single night in the original main building.

  Welcome to Hollywood, where investors fashion titanium connections from the thinnest of gossamer strands.

  In spite of so tenuous a correlation to the famous illusionist, the house served as a focal point for the most notable spirits of Laurel Canyon’s residents. Interestingly enough, Bess Houdini, in an effort to contact her dead husband, held séances on top of the
only building in the city more haunted than this one. There is a story she succeeded once.

  I loitered next to a meter-high sand-filled vase with flowers painted on it. Two couples in formal clothes stood to my right, waiting to have their invitations examined by a uniformed police officer. When they started up the steps, I buried my cigarette in the sand and strolled over.

  “Evening, Officer Chen,” I said. “Gonzales and Hamilton here yet?”

  “Evening, sir. Just arrived.” Her navy uniform shirt stood open at the collar, and she had a Colt automatic nestled in her heavy leather holster. She glanced at my invitation. “Wait until you see Gonzales’s tuxedo.”

  “Powder blue?”

  “That actually wouldn’t be bad.”

  “Hm. What about Hamilton? Did he look happy to be here?”

  “As happy as ever, sir.”

  “Seen any ghosts?”

  “No ghosts. But I did see a birthday girl and her friends.”

  Chen’s dark eyes sparkled. Tonight’s party also celebrated the twenty-first birthday of the mayor’s daughter Sofia. I had a terrible premonition.

  “Has everybody seen it?”

  “You mean the Popwire picture from a local club of a guy who looks a little like you kissing a girl who looks a lot like the mayor’s daughter? I heard a few people at the station mention it.”

  Chief Reyes had also known then. “We hadn’t even been introduced,” I protested.

  “Your animal magnetism probably overwhelmed her.” She handed my invitation back.

  “It doesn’t seem to be overwhelming you, Officer.”

  “I’m in better control of my actions.” She smiled.

  “I see.”

  “The boys were talking about you before they went up,” she said, tilting her head toward the estate.

  I slid the invitation into my pocket. “And?”

  “They wish you weren’t in on this one.”

  Three

  Tuesday, December 21, 9:18 p.m.

  The estate sat in the wooded foothills of Laurel Canyon, an area favored by rock stars and drug cults when Hollywood still made movies in black and white. The drug cults stayed.