Chapter Seven

I hate hospitals. I hate the antiseptic smell, the artificial light. I hate those crisp, professional smiles that tell you they’ve seen a million like you come and go, and your little, life-threatening illness isn’t nearly as important as you imagine.

It took a while to locate Jake’s room up on one of the skyscraper floors. I prowled around the sterile halls until I found the right room — the room with the uniformed cop in the doorway.

The cop looked like a younger version of Jake. Probably one of his brothers, most likely the one fresh out of the Academy. He wasn’t watching me, he was staring into the room, grinning, and as I walked by, I was able to snatch a snapshot glimpse of Jake. He sat bolstered by pillows in bed, his face bruised, his head bandaged. He was laughing. The room seemed full of people. There was an older man in a navy cardigan standing with his arm around a woman with a young face and gray hair. A young woman with red hair sat beside the raised bed holding Jake’s hand. She was sort of laughing and sort of crying.

The cop who looked like a younger version of Jake glanced my way. The uncomfortably familiar hazel eyes met mine. I kept walking.

I walked all the way down the hall, stopped by the drinking fountain. It felt like the longest walk of my life. I bent over the fountain and drank ice-cold metallic water. I pressed the button again, splashed my face. My hand was shaking.

Satisfied? I asked myself. Feel better now?

* * * * *

The body dug up in the park turned out to be a missing teenager named Tony Zellig. He had been nineteen, a freshman at UCLA. He had disappeared a year ago, in October. Classmates described him as quiet and a bit of a loner who worked hard and took his studies seriously. There was a photo of Zellig, a nice ordinary-looking kid. Not the kind of kid who gets himself carved into pieces during occult rituals.

I spent a couple of hours working on the computer, seeing what I could come up with on Blade Sable. I found plenty of info on blades and sable, but nothing on any organization called Blade Sable.

I’d have to dig deeper. I noted the titles of a number of occult “classics” that kept popping up on various recommended reading lists. I decided to skip those not written in the past century. At the top of my TBR list was Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible. LaVey was the founder and high priest of the Church of Satan. He was credited with creating the official religion of Satanism. A guy named Peter H. Gilmore had been appointed High Priest following LaVey’s death, but he wasn’t much for the written word. The reigning expert in the field seemed to be an Oliver Garibaldi.

Unlike the flamboyant Anton LaVey or the other occult showmen, Garibaldi kept a low profile. I tried surfing for biographical information, but no joy. I figured he had to be in his sixties, given the copyright info on his bibliography.

So I looked for what I could find on Guy Snowden — and was surprised when all kinds of info sprang up. He had a Web site, for chrissake. I had to admit he photographed well. I studied a moody and dramatic photo of him and then read the bio. He had been born in Seattle. Wasn’t that a well-known haven for Satanists? He had traveled extensively, spending several years in Great Britain.

So the English accent was fake. I suppose it said something about his character, but I wasn’t sure what. A love of theatrics?

He was a Rhodes Scholar, accumulating a nice batch of impressive-sounding academic accolades. He had published a slew of articles with titles like “The Feminist Witch,” “The Politics of Twentieth-century Witchcraft,” and “Witch Hunt: An American Tradition.” And he had written two weighty-looking tomes: Modern Magick and The Craft in Conflict.

Both were out of print. Instead, I ordered a copy of the Cop’s Guide to Occult Investigations, telling myself I could always give it to Jake for Christmas. (I mean, how much fishing tackle does any guy truly need — especially a guy who never takes vacations?)

Back to prowling the Internet, I found mention of Snowden in a couple of gossipy student blogs. For what it was worth, a male student, “Spelwerx,” felt he was an arrogant ass. “Devil-Dog” had been taking him every semester apparently since time began and could be listed under the Fan column. Over several months of blogs, “Destiny’s Child” weighed the pros and cons of “bearing his precious seed” (I couldn’t help flashing on a Rosemary’s Baby moment) and frequently speculated on his age (I bet he was in his forties, myself).

All very readable, if not germane. I finally powered down the computer, went through the shop, turning off the Christmas lights twinkling gently in the gloom.

Upstairs, I caught the last minutes of Pirates of the Caribbean on TV, which cheered me a little. There’s nothing like rolling seas, buried treasure, and handsome pirates as an antidote to whatever ails ye. In my expert opinion — a fortune in video rentals should carry weight — Pirates was the finest swashbuckler of the last two decades.

I read in bed for a while, treating myself to award-winning Anthony Bidulka’s amusing Tapas on the Ramblas, but found my thoughts wandering to Gabriel Savant and his missing disk. I wondered again about his relationship with Bob Friedlander. There was something there, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a romantic partnership. Not that you can always tell. I’ve had gay friends who felt I acted too straight, and straight friends who’ve told me they knew I was gay the minute they met me.

I’d asked Jake once if, in his admittedly warped opinion, there was anything particularly gay in my appearance or demeanor.

He’d replied, “You’re…too graceful.”

Too graceful? What did that mean?

“Physically, intellectually, or spiritually?”

“All of the above,” he’d said wryly.

I’d considered this. “It’s probably the tai chi,” I’d answered seriously. He’d laughed.

“It’s probably the ballet lessons.”

Jake had never recovered from learning that Lisa enrolled me in ballet from age seven to nine. It made sense; Lisa had been a ballerina with the Royal Ballet before she met my father.

But Jake was always trying to find an explanation for my homosexuality: my father’s death when I was a small child, being raised without a strong male role model, being raised by Lisa — hell, knowing Lisa. The one theory he never wanted to consider was that I might have been born with a genetic predisposition.

I usually didn’t bother debating him, because I knew he was smart enough to realize that none of the above explained him.

* * * * *

The phone rang about ten-thirty. I almost didn’t pick it up, then on the third ring, fumbled it off the hook.

It sounded like a TV was playing in the background, then Jake’s voice was in my ear, quiet and intimate as though he were lying next to me. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

It took me a second to get control of my voice. Then I said, “Me? I’m not the one who got nailed jaywalking. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. I should be out of here tomorrow. Just bumps and bruises. Next time I’ll look both ways.”

Me too, I thought. Inexplicably there was something about the size of a baseball lodged in my throat, making it impossible to speak.

Into my silence, he said awkwardly, “I hope Chan didn’t — I told him to try not to scare the shit out of you.”

“He was…uh…very diplomatic.” Again I couldn’t seem to think of what to say to him.

It was Jake’s turn to fall silent. Then he said with a curious gentleness, “Are you okay, Adrien? You don’t sound okay.”

My heart started thudding in a kind of fight or flight reaction. “I’m fine,” I said tersely. “Still half asleep maybe.”

He didn’t answer for a moment. I heard the TV blasting away in the background. “Right. Well, I’ll let you go. They’re trying to close the switchboard down anyway. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sure,” I said and hung up.

* * * * *

Once again nobody showed from the temp agency. I tried not to take it personally. The agency offered to send back Lester Naess, who had apparently been kind enough to give me a thumbs-up.

Ungrateful bastard that I was, I declined.

What would I do if Angus didn’t return? I hated to think. Even without the holiday rush and the longer hours, I couldn’t handle it all myself. Besides, my editor at Lunatic Fringe Publishing was tactfully hinting that I had a manuscript due in a couple of weeks. Why had I been so hasty in sending Angus away?

Not that Angus was the perfect employee, but I was used to him, he was used to me. Better the devil you know, as the saying goes. Today especially, I felt I needed the company as much as the help.

A regular client brought in a bag of paperbacks, and I found a couple of Gabe Savant’s early efforts. Back when he wrote pulp fiction, he had gone by the nom de plume of G.O. Savage. I glanced through a dog-eared copy of So Lovely, So Dead. Pretty much what you would expect. I recalled Bob Friedlander talking about how Savant’s career had gone nowhere while he was writing deathless prose for the entertainment and edification of literary critics, but this was your standard-issue formula fiction. Maybe Friedlander had never read Savant’s early stuff.

Not that it mattered. I re-priced the books to reflect Savant’s current popularity and shelved them.

There were no new developments in the Eaton Canyon murder, but that didn’t keep the local newspaper from rehashing and speculating on past events. There was an earnest interview with a prominent psychiatrist who explained why the young are often attracted to magic and the occult, for those readers so lacking in imagination they couldn’t see the obvious for themselves.

“The idea of being able to empower yourself through magic is appealing to the insecure adolescent,” quoth the shrink.

Appealing to all kinds of people, I thought.

There was an interview with a local religious figure. His angle was that interest and examination of the occult lured the young away from Jesus and the path of righteousness.

“These organizations make a point of accepting behavior considered sinful in the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, homosexuality is condoned by Wicca.”

I wondered what the other examples were. It seemed likely to me that the people who condemned Wicca and the study of the occult for religious reasons might be as likely to condemn the study and practice of Islam or Buddhism or Catholicism or Mormonism on the same basis.

I gathered from Guy that the same bias existed in occult circles: Wicca versus Traditional Witchcraft, for example. Which started me thinking. If this coven of ex-students was upset with Angus for practicing the Black Arts, then why had they turned around and decorated my entrance with the most instantly recognizable symbol of Satanic worship? What kind of a warning was that?

Maybe it wasn’t a warning. Maybe it was a welcome home sign in anticipation of Angus’s return.

Maybe it was a welcome home sign in anticipation of someone else’s return. Someone or something?

I thought about the card the Dragonwyck ladies had given me. Was it worth calling the mysterious number? According to Guy, my troubles were over. Well, my problems on the spiritual plane.

There was still the problem of finding good help in the material world.

* * * * *

“Did you talk to Jake about the house?” Lisa asked, when she guilted me into meeting her for lunch later that afternoon at Café Santorini.

“Not really.” Not at all, as a matter of fact. Certain things could be taken for granted in this world.

“The pool would be awfully good for you, darling. You always loved swimming. The doctors —”

“I know!” I said sharply. She looked hurt. I softened my tone, “Lisa, I don’t think it’s practical. It’s too far from the shop, to start with.” I glanced over my shoulder. I had that funny feeling you get when you’re being watched. No one seemed to be paying us any attention. I turned back to Lisa. Her eyes were burning Siamese cat blue, which occurred whenever the bookstore came up as a stumbling block to one of her plans.

“At least think about it,” she urged.

Shoving more pita-wrapped grilled chicken and hummus into my mouth to prevent myself from saying what was on my mind, I stared down from the brick rooftop balcony.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her bowed head as she drew invisible circles in the linen tablecloth with one perfect fingernail lacquered in the palest possible pink.

Uh-oh, I thought, watching her. What now?

“Adrien,” she mused aloud, “it’s important that you and Bill get to know each other. It’s important to me that you like each other. I want us to be a real family.”

I gulped the lump of pita and chicken. “Okay.”

“I was thinking that perhaps if you two were to spend time together — alone —”

Oh, God. What was she thinking? A baseball game? Or worse: a fishing trip for the guys? A safari?

“Lisa, I like him. Really. And I can’t take any more time. I mean, with Angus gone —” And battling the forces of darkness and all.

“It would only be dinner. Bill suggested it himself.”

“But I already like him,” I pleaded. “I like them all.”

She blinked her lashes as though she felt the tears welling — though I didn’t see a cloud in the sky. “No one can be to me what your father was, Adrien. Stephen was…well, he was the great love of my life. That kind of love happens once. But Bill is a good man. What we have together is special.”

“Lisa….”

“He’s certainly not going to replace you. You’ll always be —”

“Okay! Where am I supposed to meet him for dinner?”

The sun appeared in all its dimpled glory. She said nostalgically, “You look so like your father sometimes, Adrien. He used to get that same expression.”

“And yet, funnily enough,” I said, “’twere not the apoplexy what done him in.”

* * * * *

I spent a jolly evening surfing the ’Net and was once again taken aback to discover how many Web sites were devoted to Satanism, witchcraft, Wicca — you name it. There were sites for chaos magic, Voodoo, vampires, guided meditation, and candle magick. What is the deal with candles? There were occult personals, online spell purchases (through PayPal, no less), and even organizations for gay pagans, gay witches, and gay Wiccans.

Several links led me to Yahoo Groups. Again I found groups based on region (Boston-Occult), school of thought (angelsoccultforum), age (teenwitches), gender (goddessonly). There were groups dedicated to the black arts, to sex magic, to alchemy, to hermeticism. There were groups for specific covens and for solitary witches. But there was no entity anywhere called Blade Sable.

Holy moly, what kind of menacing cult couldn’t afford its own Web site?

On impulse, I joined a “community” called Dark Realm, with 983 members. The brief web intro indicated that this was a group for those who wished to peruse the dark side of the moon — and maybe exchange spells, lore, and phone numbers.

I filled out a quickie questionnaire, naturally lying about almost everything, and twenty minutes later, Frank Hardy, age twenty-one, interest sex magick (Yahoo ID blackster21), had been officially welcomed into the Dark Realm.

The Blackster didn’t waste any time on social niceties. Right away he posted, asking whether any of the dark denizens had ever heard of a group called Blade Sable.

No response. I hit refresh a couple of times, but zilch.

Well, it was getting late on a Friday night. Time for all bad little witches to be out raising Cain. I turned off the computer.

* * * * *

The employment agency wasn’t open on weekends, had I the heart to ring them. I rushed through the morning and early afternoon, taking advantage of a lull around three o’clock to microwave a bowl of Top Ramen soup and scan the weekend edition of the Times.

The front page news froze me, spoon dangling foot-long noodles about an inch from my mouth. Bestselling author Gabriel Savant was missing. I speed-read the article. Savant had not been seen since Friday morning, when he had left his hotel without mentioning to anyone where he was going. When he had not returned in time for a book club luncheon, his assistant Robert Friedlander had begun calling around. Whatever that meant.

When Savant had still not turned up for the evening’s scheduled book signing, Friedlander had filed a missing person’s report. Apparently when the person missing was a celebrity, the usual waiting period was waived.

I re-read the article. Unless I was mistaken, it sounded very much as though Savant had walked out of my bookshop and disappeared into thin air.