Crime Spells

Wylde. A little ding in the back of my brain. That name…

As soon as I saw the two women together, I knew: sisters. And maybe she felt my gaze because she did the same thing her sister had. Her eyes touched on my face-and lingered there.

A tiny jolt of… recognition.

In my pocket, a strange heat. Puzzled over that a second and then remembered: that charm. What…? I trailed my hand over the metal. It was warm, the gems almost pulsing, as if keeping time with a hidden heart.

What?

Gerber was saying, “The EEG findings are clear.”

I wrenched my attention back to Gerber. “Clear?”

“Yes, you can’t fake an EE-”

“Hey.” Garcia bawled. Then louder: “Hey! You!” Gerber looked over his shoulder. The usual bustle quieted as people paused.

The student pushed to her feet. “Mr. Dickert, if you wouldn’t mind…”

“Fuck you say.” Dickert was out of the bay now, maybe twenty feet into the ER. The student started forward, but her sister smoothly interposed herself between the two.

“Mr. Dickert,” she said. “I’m Dr. Wylde. Can we speak for a few moments?”

Dickert’s eyes jerked to her face, and then they got buggy. An expression that was equal parts horror and rage contorted his features. “No.” He took a step back, swaying, and pointed with a finger that shook badly enough to be visible from where I was. “You, you stay away from me.”

Wylde advanced slowly. “I’m sure we…”

“Gook.” Saliva foamed on Dickert’s lips. “You’re a fucking gook.” Then he seemed to see the Asian family for the first time. “Fuck you staring at?”

“Hey.” I stepped around Gerber. I saw the curtain to Bay 8, Hopkins ’ bay, move as the uniform poked her head out to see what was going on.

“Please, Detective.” (How did she know?) Dr. Wylde held up a hand but didn’t turn around. “I can handle…”

That’s as far as she got, but I saw it coming. “Doc!”

A fraction of a second too late.

With a ferocious bellow, Dickert launched himself at Wylde. He was on her in a second, his fist crashing into her jaw.

Her sister screamed. “Sarah!”

Wylde tottered, but he’d wrapped her up, an arm clamped round her throat in a stranglehold. “This is a fucking trap! You’re all gooks! You think you can fool me? You’re not smart enough, Charlie. You can’t fool me!”

“Sarah!” The student started for her sister. “Sarah!”

Pandemonium now: a nurse jabbering into a phone, two security guards muscling their way through, the uniform drawing her service weapon.

“Holster your weapon!” I shouted. The last thing we needed was gunfire. “Now!”

“Gook cunt!” Dickert had a hand clamped around both Wylde’s wrists. Whirling her around, screaming, spit flying-and then his voice changed, went guttural: “Be gone until I com…”

Without warning, his head jerked, a whiplash snap, and then he was staggering back one step, two. Blood spurted from his nose, and he dropped.

In my pocket, the charm heated. And that’s when I saw it, or maybe it was a trick of the light. But in the space between the two-between Dickert and Wylde-the air danced. It quivered, rippling like the surface of an ocean breaking apart.

What sprouted from Wylde’s body was white then black. Cohering in a roiling ball of vapor, it verged on the brink of solidity. Of reality.

And then in my head: Not yet time.

I didn’t stop, didn’t think what that meant.

“Dr. Wylde!” Closing the distance, I grabbed her by the arm and yanked, hard. A queer electric thrill, like a charge jumping from a Van de Graaff, cracked, but I hung on. “Wylde!”

Either I’d broken her concentration, or she-it-was done.

Or I was nuts because nobody said anything like Hey, you see that? Or Jesus, she’s a witch!

And ten to one, they weren’t hearing voices, either.

The air pruned. Whatever that thing had been-it vanished.

On the floor, Dickert drew in a wheezy, rattling breath. His nose was streaming blood.

Wylde turned. And then, for the briefest of moments, Sarah Wylde was not… all there.

Superimposed upon her body, like the ephemeral penumbra of a darkened sun, was the smeary translucent avatar of the girl from the DVD. The girl’s imago drew in upon itself, folding into Wylde’s body until she was gone.

And then it was just Sarah Wylde, her brilliant green eyes firing to emeralds.

“I’m not a gook,” she said, reasonably. I saw where Dickert had split her lip. Blood dyed her teeth orange. Her eyes rolled. “Devaputra-mara.”

I caught her before she hit the floor.

Later, when I remembered, I drew the charm from my pocket. But it was just a pretty piece with weird symbols and gemstones, and cold.

IV

“… What you’d expect after extensive blood loss,” Kay was saying. “Official cause of death is cerebral anoxia secondary to exsanguination.”

“No surprises there.” I stood beneath the ER’s breezeway off Washington Circle. Freezing my ass off, but you can’t use a cell in a hospital. Messes up the machinery. The sun had staggered up to lighten the clouds to pewter, and the traffic was picking up. “Anything else?”

“Just interesting: MacAndrews served in Vietnam. Army, Third Brigade. He even had this funky tattoo on his bicep. Rollins could run down his service record if you want.”

“And that’s interesting… how?” But then I answered my own question. “The DVD.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Hunh. The disk was being looked at by the computer guy to see if he could clean things up. “Kay, you at your computer? Can you Google…” I spelled the name. “Check for family.”

She was silent a moment. Then: “Don’t tell me Preston Wylde’s involved.”

“I don’t know yet. What’d you get?”

“Hang on.” Sound of typing. “Lot of hits, but… here we go. Just says that he’s got two daughters. No wife mentioned. No names.”

That tallied. Guys like Preston Wylde might not want too much personal information out there. “Try Sarah. Same last name.”

More typing. “Hunh. Well, this is interesting. She comes up as faculty at the medical school. Her specialty is transcultural psychiatry. She’s been all over, most recently a couple of years in Thailand and Cambodia researching cacodemonomania…”

I thought of that Asian family. That Ψ. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know. I’m a pathologist. Hang on… hunh.”

“You keep doing that.”

“Well, that’s because it’s hunh. Cacodemonomania is the delusion of being possessed by a demon.”

This time I was quiet. My mind jumped to something that most cops would find well-nigh certifiable. Maybe if I’d been more open to possibilities, though, Adam might still be alive.

See, I’d investigated an angel.

It was complicated.

And I know what I heard out of Dickert’s mouth. And what Sarah Wylde said… “Anything else?”

“Well, there’s a pretty funky paper entitled ‘Green is for Goblin: Exorcism in Buddhist Magic.’ ”

I closed my eyes-and saw Wylde’s own glittering, emerald eyes.

Kay: “Is there something you’re looking for in particular?”

Yeah. Try Googling Wylde and witch and Satan. “I don’t know. That’s okay. Thanks, Kay.” I disco

“In the office, finishing paper. I hate paper. What’s up?”

I filled him in, then said, “Run Dickert through the system, see if you get anything.”

“And he’s co

“Well, he’s an asshole.”

“The world’s full of them.”

“So I’m betting there’s something.”

“And it co

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“So observant. You must be a detective.”

“So will you run him?”