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  Vulture Moon

  Alexes Razevich

  Razor Street Publishing

  Copyright © 2018 Alexes Razevich

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidently and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage, retrieval, or transmission system without permission in writing from the author. Requests for permission should be sent to [email protected].

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter One

  Nothing pisses off death more than a rousing round of great sex.

  I thought about that bit of wisdom lying in Diego’s arms, both of us wrung out and basking in the transcendent glow of what our bodies can bring to the other.

  I thought about it because there had been way too much death around us lately. It was to be expected, given the work we did. That didn’t mean I couldn’t hate it.

  I supposed many private investigators found themselves in the vicinity of too much death, but as an empath and a psychic—even though I was only a consultant, not a PI—I found it overwhelming. You try being bombarded by the emotions the victim and the killer felt as if they were your own. You’d hate it too. The anger, madness, and, weirdly, glee that ran through killers in the act of murder was a whole lot more than I wanted to feel and know about.

  Diego, who I called Dee, shifted a little, murmured something into my hair, and planted a small kiss on the top of my head.

  I rolled free of his arms. Lovers all develop unspoken communications. That little murmur and kiss meant he wanted to get up.

  “Pee for me too while you’re in there,” I said.

  Dee waved one hand, dismissing my silliness.

  I watched as he padded toward the bathroom and shut the door. I’d lost count of how many times I’d watched his lovely, naked self move across a room, but I hadn’t lost my appreciation for it. He had an athlete’s body and grace. His dark hair was getting longish and shaggy again. He said he hadn’t had time to get to the barber, but I knew he was letting it grow because I liked it a little wild. Dee came across as this very in control guy. When we’d first met I’d wished he had a feral side. Now that I knew him better, I knew that for all his self-control, he had an untamed soul.

  What he said about me was I was remarkably competent and unpredictable for someone who came across as naive and slightly bewildered. Little did he know how often I actually was a bit dazed and confused by the magical world.

  “You’re out of soap, Oona,” Dee called from behind the bathroom door.

  “What’s the problem, Wizard?” I called back. “Conjure up whatever you need.”

  He opened the door and stuck his head out the doorway. “Waste my magic on carnival tricks?”

  “It’s hardly a carnival trick if you need something.”

  He laughed, muttered under his breath, and then held out his palm to show me the bar of soap. It was a type we both liked.

  “Good choice,” I said.

  Okay, maybe I was more comfortable around magic than I’d thought.

  Dee disappeared back into the bathroom. I heard the shower water turn on. The thing about conjuring up something was that it didn’t last long. Tomorrow, I’d still need to hit the store.

  Since the conjured soap wouldn’t last, I figured I’d better jump in the shower with him before it disappeared. I was halfway there when it occurred to me that he’d said, “You’re out of soap,” not “We’re out.” Dee and I had been together almost a year, but it wasn’t we. Not for him.

  That was probably my fault. I wouldn’t move in to his place and didn’t want him full-time here in mine. I knew he understood intellectually, but he couldn’t really grasp what it was like for me to be psychically and empathically assaulted almost constantly by people’s thoughts and emotions. Even when I wasn’t actively listening to someone’s mind, the undercurrent washed around me, a steady swirl of wants, needs, desires, angers, elations, jealousies, thrills. It was exhausting. My only salvation was to retreat into my house and hole up alone until I felt ready to face the world again.

  “Not a problem,” he’d said more than once. “We’ll keep both houses. You can retreat whenever you want.”

  Much as I adored him, I couldn’t say yes to our living together.

  And he didn’t say we. He used to, but not anymore.

  The shower was still running when his phone rang. I picked it up and read the caller ID: J P.

  Juliana Peet was half owner of Danyon and Peet, the private investigation firm Dee worked for and to which I’d consulted so often they’d finally offered me a hefty salary to go full time. I’d declined, and then blithely informed them that my consulting fee was going up. Sometimes I surprised myself.

  I pressed the on button, moved the phone to my ear, and said, “Hey, Juliana.”

  “Oona,” she said coolly. Dee and I answered each other’s phones often enough these days that you’d think she wouldn’t have that disapproving note in her voice. “Is Diego available?”

  “He’s in the shower,” I said just to niggle her. Juliana was at least twenty-five years older than Dee and felt motherly toward him. No girl was ever going to be good enough for her beautiful, shining Diego.

  “Write this address down,” she said. “Twenty-five-oh-one Beachhead. It’s in Redondo. Meet us there.”

  Her tone made my heartbeat quicken. “What’s happened?”

  “Come sharp, Oona,” she said. “We need your psychic impressions on this one.”

  “What happened?” I said again. Sometimes, Juliana could be crisp to the point of missing the point. Little things—like telling me why we’d been called onto a case.

  She cleared her throat. “The client’s daughter, twenty-seven years old, in perfect health, dropped dead on the street. The client has a friend in the coroner’s office. The official COD is heart failure. The truth, evidently, is there was absolutely nothing medically wrong with her, and she should have lived another fifty years.”

  Chapter Two

  Dee and I took his navy-blue Audi S5 to the meeting. Here’s a thing about living in an old house—my garage barely fit one car. When you live at the beach like I do, parking is a premium. Dee had parked at a meter on Hermosa Avenue, so it was just as well we had somewhere to go since paying for the meter all day got expensive. I just wished we were on the road for a more cheerful reason than someone’s child dropping dead on the street for no apparent cause.

  We made our way down Hermosa Avenue, past the clothing stores, restaurants, and shops that lined both sides of the street. The shops of Hermosa gave way to the big overhead sign for King Harbor Marina, where pleasure boats bobbed g
ently in their slips, to the condos lining the Redondo Beach Esplanade. We turned left and crossed Pacific Coast Highway, beach-front condos giving way to cottages from the last century, newer homes, and apartment buildings.

  “That’s it there,” I said when I spotted the right address. “The blue two-story.”

  Dee glided the car into an empty spot in front of the house and turned off the engine. Tyron’s maroon Ford Explorer sat in the driveway. Tyron Danyon was the other owner of Danyon and Peet. A big, hail-fellow-well-met sort of guy in his fifties who favored khaki shorts, dark T-shirts, and brightly colored running shoes, he was my favorite between the two agency owners.

  Dee and I walked up a brick walkway, with patchy brown grass on either side, to the house’s front door and knocked.

  A woman in her mid-fifties pulled open the door. Her eyes were red rimmed and her nose pink around the nostrils. Her sorrow blasted across me like a hard rain, and I took a step back. Dee put his left hand gently on my back for support while holding his right out to the woman.

  “Diego Adair and Oona Goodlight,” he said, his voice low, soothing. “We work for Danyon and Peet.”

  The woman sniffed, stared a moment at Dee’s hand, seemed to realize it was being held out for a reason and shook it.

  “Matilda Keller,” she said. “Tilda. Thank you for coming. Please, come in.”

  We followed Tilda down a cool, dark hallway to a large living room. Soft September sun beamed through big windows on two walls. She gestured toward a loveseat covered in a smooth, blue fabric. Dee and I sat. Tyron and Juliana were already seated on a long, red floral-pattern couch. The sorrow in the house was so overwhelming I felt tears gathering in my own eyes. I swiped at them as discreetly as I could and focused on Tyron’s deep, rolling voice.

  “If you wouldn’t mind telling it again for Diego and Oona,” he said. “If it’s too much, we can fill them in later.”

  “No,” Tilda said, sniffing again. “I can tell it.” She looked at us, drew in a breath and let the air out slowly. “There’s really not all that much to tell. My daughter, Brittany, had gone to a friend’s house. She was walking back to her car when, according to Cath, her friend, she clutched suddenly at her chest and fell over. Cath is a nurse. She rushed over and checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one. She called 911, then started CPR. An ambulance came, and the paramedics from the fire department. Cath knew Brittany was dead, but you have to wait for an official word.” Tears were leaking down Tilda’s face again. She choked back a sob. “My little girl.”

  We sat in silence while she pulled herself together.

  “Brit was as healthy as they come,” she said finally. “Even the coroner said there was no reason he could find for her to die suddenly like that.” She sniffed again and then glanced around the room. Her voice dropped low. “Brit was into some strange things.”

  “Not drugs,” Tyron said softly to us.

  Tilda shook her head. She rubbed the side of her mouth and said in a low, embarrassed voice, “Witchcraft.”

  Dee threw a glance at me. I nodded to let him know I’d picked up faint traces of magic in the house.

  “Where did your daughter live?” he asked. “Would it be possible for us to visit there?”

  “Brit rents a small house on Avenue A,” Tilda said. “I have a key.”

  She got up and disappeared for a few moments, returning with a key and a slip of paper she handed to Dee.

  She cleared her throat. “I want you to know, I don’t believe in witchcraft or magic or any of that stuff. Brittany did though. Believed it heart and soul.”

  I spoke up. “Do you think her interest had something to do with her death.”

  The woman’s features grew hard. “I do. I think those people—those so-called witches she liked to be around—poisoned my daughter with something the coroner didn’t detect. I want you to prove it.”

  “This is our mandate,” Tyron said, rephrasing things slightly. “Investigate Brittany’s companions and determine if they might have had anything to do with her death. If they did, try to find enough proof to turn over to the police.”

  Dee and I both nodded and stood. Tyron and Juliana stood as well. Tilda walked the four of us to the door.

  In the driveway, standing next to Tyron’s SUV, Juliana said, “What do you think?”

  Neither Juliana nor Tyron let themselves consciously believe Dee was a wizard but both, for some reason, were willing to believe in my psychic abilities. It set up a rather weird dynamic, which Dee found endlessly amusing.

  “The daughter certainly believed she was a witch,” I said. “Or at least her mother believes that Brittany believed it. We’ll know more once we’ve been in the daughter’s house.”

  “Okay,” Tyron said. “Take this photo of Brittany, in case you need it later. Call in after you’re done at her place.”

  It was a short drive to Avenue A. We found the daughter’s house and let ourselves in. My shoulders hunched up of their own accord the moment I stepped inside.

  “Some weird shit here,” I said. “Dark energy.”

  Dee was looking around, taking in the place, as was I. The house was small, with an open living room, small dining room, and narrow kitchen layout. Brittany’s furniture looked newish and serviceable. Her style seemed to run to the Bohemian—lots of ethnic-looking pillows on a patterned sofa, lamps with beaded lampshades on Moroccan-style end tables, a seated Buddha in one corner, and several good luck elephants, their trunks raised, on the fireplace mantel. Dee bent over and picked up a business card from the aged steamer trunk that served as her coffee table. His face darkened, and I felt his mind become troubled. He handed me the card.

  ‘Merlin Tattoo’ it read, with an address on Hermosa Avenue. The name was only partially a joke.

  “The Gate?” I said, naming Diego’s old mentor. The Gate had mixed the ink that Gil, the tattoo artist, had used to place the sigils Dee and I wore—an eagle and sunrays for me; the numeral 1 embraced by a crescent moon for him. The inks had been imbued with magical properties, converting negative energy and emotions thrown our way into power and strength for us. Those sigils had saved our lives when we’d gone into the Brume—a parallel world to ours where demon-beasts ruled.

  “It doesn’t mean he or Gil knew Brittany, or even that she’d ever been there,” he said. “A business card can be handed around easily enough.”

  Dee was protective of his old mentor, one of the few people I’d ever seen him show true, deep respect for. Dee and Gil had apprenticed under The Gate at the same time, and he thought of Gil as a brother. It was understandable that he didn’t want either of them close to someone who’d dropped dead for no reason, especially if someone in the magic community had anything to do with it. I hiked a shoulder in a shrug and didn’t tell him I felt there was a connection, though I didn’t know what. Most likely Gil had inked her at some point.

  “I’m going to check out the bedroom,” I said.

  The force of Brittany’s emotions left behind in the room hit me the moment I opened the door. My chest tightened, and my throat closed up. Brittany had done a lot of crying there.

  Traces of magic floated in the air like little wisps of fog. Not strong magic. She hadn’t been an adept. And that was as much a source of her sorrow as the—what? The man who hadn’t loved her.

  Everything about this woman had hurt—her heart, her mind, her soul. There was no way I was going to step further into that room. I shut the door and turned away.

  “Ugly in there?” Dee said, seeing my face as I came back into the living room.

  “Sad.” I sighed. “I’ve seen enough. I’d really like to get out of here.”

  “Sure,” he said. “We should drop by the shop and see if The Gate or Gil knew Brittany. Are you up for that or do you need some time to recuperate first?”

  I thought about it. “Let’s go see them. Maybe The Gate will take pity on me this time.”

  The Gate had an empathic niece who’d used magic to bu
ild a shell around herself to filter out the constant assault of other people’s emotions. I’d asked him more than once to teach me how to do it or at least let me talk to her, but he always refused.

  Dee gave me an I-wouldn’t-get-my-hopes-up look.

  I shrugged. It was kind of late for that.

  Merlin Tattoo was a small, brightly lit shop in the middle of a block on Hermosa Avenue. Inside, it looked the same as it had the day I’d first come here—green faux-leather and chrome chairs pushed up against the street-side wall, a coffee table in front of them with binders filled with tattoo art. Sheets of paper with drawings of available tattoos were Scotch-taped on the walls.

  Gil was frowning over something in a book on the counter he stood behind. A shock of his sand-colored hair fell over his forehead. He closed the book and looked up. His frown deepened for a moment and animosity floated in the air, but then his shockingly green eyes focused on us and he grinned.

  “Hey, you two. What’s up?” His grin faded as he took in our expressions. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

  Dee held out the photo of Brittany that Tyron had given us. “Do you know her? Did you maybe lay some ink on her?”

  Gil took the photo and examined it. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember everyone who comes through here. Why? What happened to her?”

  Not did something happen, but what happened, because Dee wouldn’t be asking if something hadn’t happened, something bad.

  “She’s dead,” he said. “It might have been natural but might have been something else. She was a member of a local coven.”

  Gil looked at the photo again but shook his head. “Do you have a photo of her tats? I might remember those.”

  “No,” Dee said, “but good point. I’ll see if I can get one.”

  “You wanna ask him?” Gil said, casting his glance toward The Gate’s office.

  Something niggled in the back of my mind, a sense of something being off, but I couldn’t get hold of it.

  Maybe it was just nerves. The Gate sort of scared me. I’m psychic; I know things about people, but The Gate seemed to know my soul in a way that left me feeling way more exposed than I liked.