To Kill a Sorcerer Page 3

  That one I felt.

  “It’s not possible,” my Samoan friend said.

  “My dear fellow,” I told him, “it is merely sleight of hand. Or in this case, sleight of throat.” I patted him on the shoulder, beaming. “The solution is alimentary, Dr. Watson.” I brayed at my sally, loudly enough to draw some attention from the other side of the bar.

  “I knew it,” he said. “You’re hammered.”

  “An interesting way of phrasing it. New to me, I must admit.” I puffed on my cigarette, thinking my speech a bit slow.

  “Can I get you some food, mister?”

  “No, thank you. I’m going to have a look round the place, see if Harry’s hiding inside.”

  “Whatever, man.”

  Walking while inebriated always offered a fascinating experience, especially when one must do it under observation. I sauntered across the deck to the house, feeling as if everyone was watching me and wondering if they could tell I was snockered. Suppressing an urge to laugh, I felt envious that mortals could remain in this unsteady, euphoric state for hours.

  The living room had grown dark. The music thumped, and bodies swayed around the giant Christmas tree. The holiday gala had shifted into late party mode.

  I turned down an unlit hallway, ambling along, my head buzzing pleasantly, when a door opened at the end. I froze. Three young women spilled out, adjusting their clothes, chattering gaily, and gripping blinking devices.

  I did not waste time determining if Sofia stood among them. Still shrouded in darkness, I quickly turned to my right, twisted the knob, slipped inside, eased the door shut. The breathless babble and electronic beeps approached and swept past.

  A rattling breath behind me. I whirled. The room was too dim for me to see the person in bed, but the timbre of the snore convinced me a woman made the sound. The party music had enough bass to vibrate the entire room. Some people could sleep through anything.

  I crossed to a set of French doors, stepped outside, and emerged onto another patio, alone. A kidney-shaped pool shone with underwater illumination. The water sparkled blue, twinkling in the lights. As I gazed into the shimmering depths, it startled me to see a blurry shape moving there. The shadow turned at the far end and came toward me.

  Before I could step back, the ghostly figure of a woman burst from the water. Clad in a transparent green gown, she loomed over me, arms reaching. Her eyes were black pools of madness, and her mouth formed a crooked grin.

  “Oh, hell no,” I said.

  Parting her lips in a pantomimed scream, revealing blackness tinged with raw red, she rose slightly, then pounced. I instinctively raised my arm to ward her off, but she slid through it. Her lunatic eyes filled my vision. I shivered as she possessed my body.

  Charges of electricity sparked my insides. My arms jerked as if in seizure. I took an awkward step to the side, not of my own accord. The pool glittered at my feet. She was trying to force me into the water. Fighting, I made to step away, but electric current coursed through me again. I moved in the wrong direction. Now I teetered on the lip. Another surge of otherworldly power and my body leaped into the pool.

  After splashdown, I rotated onto my back. My limbs made no effort to prevent me from sinking despite mental orders to keep my body afloat.

  I was the car, but the green ghost was driving.

  I willed my body to thrash to the surface. Nothing happened. Like a doll a child had dropped, I descended slowly. Water pressure squeezed my eardrums. The coarse surface of the pool’s bottom scraped the back of my head as I settled to a stop. My legs and arms stirred gently. I tried moving again, but the spirit of the woman remained in control, keeping me motionless.

  Trapped inside my unresponsive flesh, I felt like the lone survivor in a torpedoed submarine.

  Five

  Tuesday, December 21, 10:01 p.m.

  I held my breath and prayed no one would come out of the house and find me down here. This astral presence would eventually release me, and I did not want to have to answer questions about the encounter. The Sofia picture had been bad enough. Now here I lay, waiting for someone to notice a six-foot-tall man in evening clothes lying at the bottom of a lit swimming pool.

  Drowning was not possible. There were other ways to kill me—if only briefly—but holding me underwater was not one of them.

  For a brief, suspended moment, blind terror engulfed me at my helplessness. My greatest nightmare is to be captured by an enemy who tortured and killed me, then observed me come back to life while still under restraint. If my captors realized I could not die and existed at their mercy, how many horrifying deaths might they invent for me while they held me as their prisoner?

  It took me a moment to relax, after reminding myself I had no enemies at this party. At least, none who wanted me dead.

  My initial shock at this etheric invasion slowly wore off. I had seen spirits many times, but never had one invaded my body. Cautiously, I allowed the woman’s psyche to seep into mine, that I might know why she was trying to commit murder. A rising screech began. I immediately threw up filters to keep the woman’s emotions from overwhelming me, but her feelings raged, fiercely intense, smashing through my mental barriers. Like wildfire cresting a dry hill, burgeoning terror broke over my mind, bringing a bizarre mosaic of dark images.

  She’s sitting in a chair . . . a man, standing in front of her, slashing . . . searing pain across the chest, deep laughter, strong arms moving in front of her, a shiny blade that brings unbelievable agony with it . . . looking down, seeing the blade ripping her insides, spilling them into her lap . . . her small hands push at the arms, trying to make them stop . . . her mind regresses to that of a terrified child as she realizes she is going to die . . . now her hands fall into her lap, too, and she notices her stomach and intestines are warm and soft . . . she remains conscious for long moments, her body in spasms as the man continues to work on her . . .

  The loneliness of violent death filled me with dreadful desolation, and I groaned, bubbles rising from my mouth to burst on the surface.

  A familiar tug on her chest signaled her death, and her spirit rose from her body. This separation always calmed me. The woman’s wails persisted. The buoyant feeling of the soul state had only begun when a constricting force began to crush her heart. My jaw clenched as the pressure encompassed my body. Her killer was trying to capture her spirit with a spell. A sinew ripped, a tie broke: the enchantment failed to imprison her astral body. He had damaged her though, and she would remain earthbound forever.

  Slowly, like murky water draining from a clogged sink, the images faded. My thoughts were once again my own, though the woman’s wretched keening continued to resonate in the background.

  The watery sliver of moon advanced closer to the line of trees on my right. We had been submerged for about twenty minutes. My lungs ached from not being able to take a breath. I wondered whether or not this presence intended to let me go tonight.

  Activity around the edge of the pool caught my eye. Wavering images looked down.

  If this situation had a bright side, I couldn’t see it.

  A man jumped into the water. After he stepped on my crotch, he dunked himself, got hold of my jacket’s lapels, and hauled me up.

  As soon as we broke the surface, I gasped air into my tortured lungs. It had been decades since I had held my breath for that long. The constricting feeling was not just painful—the hot-chested sensation reminded me of my childhood.

  The woman’s spirit released me, shrieking bitterly. Clearheaded again, I leaned away from the man. He let go. A babble of voices traveled around the pool, then someone emitted a high, thin scream. A woman in a blue dress held her hand over her chest, eyes wide.

  “What is it?” asked the man standing next to her.

  “A woman. She . . . went through me.”

  I mopped at my face with my hand and looked at the man who had jumped in to save me. We stood next to each other in water up to our chests.

  “Thank
s.”

  “Sure. You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just slipped.”

  “When? I’ve been standing by those doors for at least ten minutes. I just came out to get a better look at the moon when I saw you on the bottom.”

  “You must have missed me. It was only a minute ago.” I placed my palms flat on the deck and pushed myself out of the water, feeling thirty pounds heavier than usual in my waterlogged clothes. Hands reached for me, but I stood and spread my arms apart.

  “Thank you, I’m fine.” Water streamed from my Anthony Sinclair tuxedo. “Please, give me some room.” Flashes and clicks. A stunning woman with dark red hair blew me a kiss as she snapped my picture.

  “That’s the guy,” said a familiar voice. The Samoan bartender lumbered through the French doors, pointing at me. Hamilton followed him. “He’s got to be shitfaced.”

  Hamilton stopped, looked around at the crowd. His gaze ended on me in my soaking suit.

  “Swimming?” he asked.

  “It’s warm tonight,” I said, unknotting my tie. “The water cooled me off.”

  “Mister, you shouldn’t even be standing,” the bartender said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I saw you down a couple of bottles of hard stuff.”

  “You thought you saw me drink them.”

  He squinted, taking in my straight posture, focused gaze, and clear speech. He looked confused. “How could you not drink them?”

  “I told you, it’s a trick. I don’t intend to give away my secret.”

  “Dude,” said my rescuer, “you were down there for ten minutes.”

  “You’re confused.” I squashed past Hamilton and headed into the house. Crossing a study full of people to a hallway, leaving a spotted trail in case anyone wanted to follow, I turned toward the front.

  Footsteps caught up with me.

  “You wanted to cool off?” Hamilton asked.

  We emerged into the living room. The music played slow, the lights lower than ever, and couples danced cheek-to-cheek, oblivious of our passage.

  Hamilton stayed on my tail.

  “Don’t you know how to swim?”

  “Yes.” I left the house and started down the steps. “Sorry to pull you away from your D.A. cutie,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Don’t cry for me, Argentina, I got her phone number. If you can swim, why did that guy have to pull you out of the pool?”

  “He didn’t have to. I was fooling around.”

  “Lying on the bottom of a swimming pool in a tuxedo.”

  “I like the way the moon looks through the water,” I told him.

  “Are you crazy? For ten minutes?”

  “It was not ten minutes.” It was twenty. “It was a minute or so.”

  “That’s not what he said, and he sounded pretty damn sure.”

  “It’s my word against his. He wasn’t there when I—jumped in.”

  We had reached the bottom. Chen looked over and reached for her cell phone.

  “No,” I told her.

  She held it toward me. The bulb flashed twice.

  I handed my sodden ticket and two hundred-dollar bills to the beautiful valet, my heart doing a flip as I stared into my sister’s face. She jogged off.

  Hamilton stood next to me. “What happened up there? Really.”

  “You give me nothing, but expect me to sing it for you? Nothing happened up there. Typical of witnesses in a supposedly haunted building—they imagined things that didn’t actually happen.”

  “You are full of shit.” The Maserati cruised up, and Laura hopped out, holding the door. “And you can’t drive,” Hamilton said.

  “I can drive.”

  “A man just pulled you out of a pool. You drank two bottles of whiskey thirty minutes ago. You are not fine.”

  “Actually, it was a bottle of single-malt scotch and a bottle of Don Julio tequila. But I didn’t really drink them. It was a trick. Houdini would have loved it.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I’ll drive you home,” Laura said with a wicked smile. “It would be my pleasure.”

  “Thank you, dear, but it’s past my bedtime.”

  Six

  Tuesday, December 21, 11:23 p.m.

  I had just merged onto Pacific Coast Highway when a white Chevy Tahoe cut me off and forced me to swerve partially into the lane on my left. My clothes squashed, and water rolled down my ribs, irking me, so I accelerated, slashed in front of the oversize vehicle, and took my foot off the gas. When I slowed to sixty, the Tahoe flashed its brights. The Maserati is a low-slung car, and the SUV’s high-intensity bulbs lit up my cab brilliantly.

  I powered my window down, stuck my hand out, and gave the driver one of the classic hand gestures passed down through time. Of Italian origin, it hailed from a little town near Rome. Spring, 1487. Developed and employed effectively by the town butcher, who had a promiscuous young bride. I had not been in town when Marcotti had jabbed his finger at the man who’d slept with his wife (the gesture indicated that the recipient’s sexual organ was as small as a finger). The ensuing fight had had the townspeople talking for years. Although “the finger” had been flashed for the first time, Bartus had understood the meaning quite clearly—the primary reason the gesture has endured for centuries.

  Both men had suffered serious injuries.

  With that thought, I moved out of the way, and the Tahoe sped by. As it passed, the young woman driving gave me the finger. Americans have always cherished their First Amendment rights.

  Fifteen minutes later, I turned away from the glittering Pacific Ocean onto Latigo Canyon and motored up the road to my home. Inside the garage, I pressed my right palm against a square glass plate next to the door leading to the house. The panel glowed red, then green, the door popped open, and the house lights came on.

  My place sat on four acres in the Malibu hills, a quiet location with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. The living room was sparsely furnished, with only a couch, a coffee table, and two club chairs at either end. A large brick fireplace with a dark wood mantel dominated the back wall. The sofa and chairs faced the big glass patio doors.

  The night before, I had purchased a noble fir and trimmed the tree with strings of colored lights and golden ornaments, topping it with a blonde, winged angel holding a candle. Two holly plants in gold plastic pots sat on either side of the picture windows. Fresh mistletoe hung from the beam above my head.

  For over two hours, I had stood motionless in front of the glowing tree, the sparkling colors and clean outdoor scent triggering random images of Christmases past.

  I changed into worn jeans and a faded black silk camp shirt. The kitchen lights brightened as I strode in and plucked a bottle of tequila from a cupboard filled with bottles of liquor.

  When I twisted off the top, the bouquet rising to my nostrils reminded me of the green woman. Flashes of the possession crossed my mind. The woman’s horrid memories of the dagger slashing at her relentlessly caused me to shiver violently for a moment.

  As a result of the possession, several strangers had witnessed my rescue from a pool, had taken pictures, and a man with whom I had to work—a detective—had heard peculiar reports about me. Hamilton would have more questions the next time I saw him. Hopefully, it was all a storm in a teacup, but the night had been a series of disasters after I had thumbed my nose at Lucifer.

  I lifted the bottle of tequila to my lips and poured half of it down my throat. As the heat spread through me, I closed my eyes and sighed as the black visions faded like the last vestiges of an ancient sorrow.

  My impression was that this woman had lived ten or fifteen years ago. What had happened to the man? Had he passed on this ability to force demons to do his bidding?

  Seated on the couch, I set the bottle on the table, lit a cigarette, and blew fat smoke rings at the ceiling. Passing my finger over the biometric strip on the side of my laptop, I created a new Word document titled “Hami
lton III Notes.” I recorded my conversations with Chen, Gonzales, and Hamilton, saved the file, and dragged it to the folder titled “Hamilton III” that contained the police photos and reports of the Barlow murder.

  I picked up the bottle and leaned back.

  Hamilton said one reason he tolerated me was because I gave a great deal of money to charity. He did not know the half of it. Over the centuries, my personal worth had grown to over $8 trillion. Only $60 billion was tied to my current identity.

  However, even my great personal wealth could not change the world on a macro level. Neither could my longevity. Like any other person alive, I could only make a difference on a micro level. So I focused on activities where my ability to survive mortal wounds could save lives. During the two World Wars, I died for my countries dozens of times as an infantryman, an aerial ace, and a tank gunner. And since I spoke over a hundred languages, I also proved very effective as a behind-the-lines assassin.

  I never rose too high in rank, so manipulating my death—with no body recovered—was more easily accomplished.

  It may sound nice to be able to survive injuries that would kill anyone else, but it’s not all birthday cake. Feeling flames engulf your lower body as you plummet in a burning plane is as painful for me as it would be for any mortal. Knowing you will recover completely is not much comfort when your skin is bubbling and your nostrils are filled with the cloying smell of your cooking flesh.

  I endured such deaths because I believed there must be some purpose to my bizarre existence. If I cannot die, perhaps it is my duty to give my life as many times as possible in order to save the lives of others.

  With computerization, changing identities had become arduous and tricky, making it no longer possible to work for any government agency without compromising my immortal secret. Private wealth and influence could get me onto police homicide cases, however, allowing me to hunt the most dangerous murderers.

  Any person who killed a child merited my individual attention. When I found the man responsible for Sherri Barlow’s death, I did not intend to bring Hamilton with me.