A Furnace Sealed Page 6

  Shaking his head, Medawe pressed the end button on the phone.

  “Another satisfied customer?”

  Medawe snorted. “Yeah, somethin’ like that. What’cha need, Gold?”

  “I need to talk to Ahondjon. He really in church?”

  “Hell, no. Only time his ass goes into a church is to deliver their holy water.”

  I blinked. “Wait, churches buy holy water from him?”

  “They do if they want the shit that works.”

  “Well, I hope his holy water smells better than his talisman to stop a unicorn.”

  Medawe frowned. “What, it didn’t work?”

  I smiled. “It worked fine.” Then I remembered how Siri described it. “When I activated it, it smelled like a moose fucking a dead octopus.”

  “Yeah, well, you want shit that works, it’s gonna stink.”

  I thought about reminding Medawe about what Velez had said, then decided it wasn’t worth it. Besides, Medawe was just the hired help—Ahondjon was the one who put the talismans together, so if I was gonna get them to not stink up the place, I’d need to talk to him.

  “Still,” I finally said, “I’ve had some complaints. The first being from my hooter.” I pointed to my oversized schnozz.

  Medawe chuckled. “Look, I’ll pass it on, but you know my uncle.”

  “I do indeed.” I also noticed that Medawe hadn’t actually answered my question about when Ahondjon would be back, which led me to think he either didn’t know or couldn’t tell me.

  Whatever, I had a binding spell to stop. “Hey, I wanna double check, what would the components be if you wanted to cast a binding spell on a loa?”

  That got me another snort from Medawe. “A thing’a lipstick so you can kiss your ass goodbye. Who’d be stupid enough to do that?”

  “Woman over in Seton Falls Park, apparently.”

  Shaking his head, Medawe said, “Well, there’s lotsa binding spells, but if you want to bind a loa, you’re gonna need an Obsidian candle, thick rope, a red ribbon, and sandalwood.”

  I winced. Except for the candle, that was stuff you could get over the counter anyplace. Hell, you could probably get all that at Target. “Does it have to be an Obsidian candle, or can any black candle do it?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “If you want the binding to work or not.”

  Ask a stupid question … “Yeah, okay, thanks, Medawe. And tell your uncle—”

  “Moose fuckin’ a dead octopus, you got it.”

  I grinned. “Thanks.”

  I hopped back upstairs and went out through the newsstand, sliding past a stooped-over Latina woman who was buying one of every possible kind of lottery ticket, and walked out into the briskness. It was as chilly today as it had been Friday night in the dog run, and as I stepped out onto the Jerome Avenue sidewalk, a cold wind sliced through the air, and through the painkillers that were doing a mediocre job of keeping my ribs from throbbing.

  At least now I knew for sure what components I needed to look for. It wouldn’t be enough to just stop Madame Vérité, I needed to catch her in possession of the spell components. The Obsidian candle was the key, since those could only be used in magickal rituals—combine them with the ribbon, rope, and sandalwood, and I’d have a case for Miriam to sanction her.

  If not, she’d just try again on the summer solstice …

  My car was blocked in by someone who had double-parked. I sighed. It was Sunday, the parking meters on Jerome weren’t active today, why did people have to double-park? I saw three spots just down past 193rd, and they just had to double-park by me?

  I sighed again and got into the Corolla, hoping the driver would rematerialize soon. It was already 11:30 and I had to get over to Seton Falls Park before Mrs. Truth did her mojo.

  To distract myself from the tedium, I grabbed my smartphone and called Katie.

  After five rings, I got voicemail: “Hi, it’s Katie! Do the thing after the beep!”

  “Hey, Katie, it’s Bram. Congrats on braving the mighty sushi—I saw the video. I also want to apologize for subjecting you to the dead body that prompted it, even though it did lead to sushi, which is, in my experience, yummy.” Shaking my head, I tried to rein in the babble. “Anyhow, wanted to talk to you about that coffee. Call me back when you get a chance.”

  After I ended the message with Katie and spent the better part of a minute wondering how stupid I sounded on that message, someone ran out of the Chinese food place with a big shopping bag in his hand. He headed for the car that had blocked me in, gave me a little apologetic wave, and drove off.

  For the third time, I sighed, wishing I could just afford a car service. Miriam had been making noises about getting me an account with one. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about parking. That was always the biggest problem; parking somewhere free or being able to pay for it. Today was Sunday, so that wasn’t an issue, and at least now they were all Muni Meters that took plastic, so I didn’t have to stock up on quarters or find a side street to park on.

  I had twenty minutes to make a fifteen-minute drive. I went up Jerome, past the end of the 4 train—only occasionally stuck behind a slow-moving or stopped bus that I couldn’t get around because of the elevated train—to 233rd Street, then turned right. There was an accident on the road that was starting to back things up, so I turned down a side street and went down 236th.

  Which would’ve been fine, except the one-way street was blocked by a garbage truck that was stopping every ten feet.

  By the time I got past the garbage truck, the accident had cleared. I’d have been better off staying on 233rd. I turned back onto that road, zoomed over to Seton Falls Park—possibly running a red light or two—and then finally pulling up to a spot right by the High Rock Playground entrance. Since the falls were near that entrance, that was handy.

  Less handy was that it was already a couple minutes past noon. I ran over to the fence to look down at the falls.

  Calling it “falls” was giving it a helluva lot of credit. Basically, it was a downhill creek, and if it hadn’t rained recently, there wasn’t even that much by way of water. It ran between two stone walls, and there was a rock that acted as a bridge. Not that you needed it, the “falls” were wide enough to step across, but the bridge was there anyhow. There were trees and rock formations all around it.

  A woman sat on that rock mini-bridge cross-legged, a black candle in front of her. That just had to be Madame Vérité. I couldn’t see anything else, because there were half a dozen people surrounding her. I wasn’t even sure that was a real Obsidian candle. I kinda hoped it wasn’t, because then nothing would work, and she’d be exposed as a fraud, and I wouldn’t have to do anything.

  I went in at the playground entrance, only to be met by two dark-skinned people. “You are Mr. Gold?” the man asked. He sounded like the voice on the phone.

  “And you must be Mr. Alty. Sorry I’m late, but the traffic on 233rd was horrible.”

  “She is starting the ritual!”

  “Good,” I said, trying to put a good spin on it. “Means I can catch her in the act.” I just hoped I could stop her before she bound a loa. Last thing we needed were some pissed-off Vodou gods floating around.

  I ran down the pathway that led to the falls. The people standing around Mrs. Truth were transfixed by what she was doing. Now that I was close enough to see and smell, I knew from the spicy undertone of the flame that that was definitely an Obsidian candle, and I could also smell the sandalwood.

  Madame Vérité was chanting something in Latin, which surprised me—I figured a Vodou ritual would be in an African language, not a European one. Or if it was a European one, I’d have figured French, not Latin. But whatever.

  As I got close, I heard the phrase ultimam ligabis repeated three or four times. My Latin wasn’t so much rusty as oxidized—hell, aside from the Torah portion I read at my bar mitzvah, my Hebrew wasn’t much better—but I knew how this particular bindi
ng spell went from when I was learning stuff with Miriam when I was a kid. That phrase meant “final binding,” and it was a refrain that ended the spell.

  Panicking I ran toward the rock and said, “All right, that’s enough, this has to stop!”

  A few people turned to look at me with confusion—a funny-looking Jew barreling into their ritual was not on the agenda—but most ignored me.

  The candle flickered as she picked up the rope. The red ribbon was tied in the middle, and she held the part with the ribbon over the candle.

  The flame burned the ribbon, and in that moment, I knew we were screwed.

  Bracing myself as the cold spring breeze mutated into a big wind, I wondered if I had any weapons in the car that would do any good against a god.

  Just as I realized the answer was, “Hell, no,” the wind got worse and cumulous clouds appeared overhead. Gasps and cries of amazement came from the crowd.

  And then the clouds went away and the candle flickered and went out.

  Madame Vérité opened her eyes, and she looked very confused. So did everyone else.

  Probably I did, too. I only caught the tail end of it, but that was a binding spell she was saying, and based on what Medawe told me, she had the right ingredients, and it was noon on the equinox.

  But no loa was bound. And neither was anything else; the spell just kinda fizzled.

  She stared right at me. “What have you done, outsider?” she asked in an exaggerated Haitian accent that half the time sounded more like a fake Scottish accent. “Why have you ruined my ritual?” She said “oot-sider” and emphasized the third syllable of “ritual.”

  I hadn’t done a damn thing, of course, but she didn’t need to know that. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a small booklet. To the untrained eye, it probably looked like a set of temporary tattoos bound into a small vinyl case. But each of these stickers had a restriction sigil on it that would prevent anyone it was applied to from using any magick or magickal item. Only a wardein or a member of the Curia could remove the restriction.

  To my annoyance, I only had one left. Luckily, I only needed one.

  As I removed the final sticker from the booklet, I said, “My name is Bram Gold. I’m a Courser, and what you’re doing here isn’t approved by the Wardein of the Bronx. I’m afraid I’m going to have to confiscate the spell components and report this to Wardein Zerelli. You’ll be hearing from her real soon now.”

  “You’re not taking my t’ings!”

  I shrugged. “You’re welcome to try and stop me.” I didn’t really do menacing very well, but I’ve found that matter-of-fact-sounding threats were way more effective than ones that tried to sound mean and nasty.

  And I really hoped that was true today, because my bruised ribs did not want a fight.

  Luckily, these were all just ordinary folks who didn’t want any trouble. True, they were greedy pishers who wanted a god to do their bidding, but not enough to engage in fisticuffs over it. So they didn’t do a thing as I walked right up to the mini-bridge and slapped the sticker on Mrs. Truth’s arm.

  The sigil disappeared instantly as if it was never there.

  “What was that?” she yelled as she shrunk away from me and batted at her arm where I’d placed the restriction.

  “Just a little something to keep you away from magick until the Wardein can talk to you.”

  “You got no right to do this!” She bent over to pick up her Obsidian candle. “These are mine, and you can’t—”

  Suddenly, she stumbled backward. “What the hell—?” I noticed that she lost the fake Haitian accent for those three words. Getting her faux speech pattern back under control, she asked, “Why can I not touch my t’ings?”

  “Like I said, the restriction I just put on you keeps you away from magick.” I bent over and picked up the Obsidian candle, the sandalwood, and the rope (the ribbon was ashes) and cradled them in my arms. “Expect to hear from the Wardein.”

  Turning my back on Madame Vérité and ignoring the nasty looks I was getting from her followers, I walked away from the falls and up the hill to the playground and the exit.

  The Altys were waiting for me. Trevor had a big smile on his face. “Thank you, Mr. Gold!”

  His wife, though, wasn’t smiling. “What is to stop her from doing this again in six months?”

  I was about to say the restriction would, but that only lasted for about a week. “The Wardein. I’m going to be bringing this stuff to her, and she’ll sanction Madame Vérité.”

  Ms. Alty looked dubious. “And what good will that do?”

  Shuffling the items I had cradled in my left arm, I grabbed the candle with my right. “See this? It’s an Obsidian candle. It’s why the spell had any shot of working. Only place you can get one of these is at an officially licensed magick shop, and the microsecond she’s sanctioned, no shop’ll sell her squat. Can’t do the ritual without it.”

  “What if she has more of them in her closet?”

  I shook my head. “These things have a half-life—after a day or two, they disintegrate. That’s the thing about magick. More powerful it is, the more unstable it is.”

  Trevor looked at his wife and said, “Stop pestering the man, Marguerite! He did his job and stopped that horrible woman.”

  “I suppose.” She reached out a hand and said, “Thank you, Mr. Gold.”

  I shuffled the items in my arms again and returned the handshake, then also shook Trevor’s hand. “You’re both welcome. I’ll email you the invoice.”

  With that, I went to the car, put the stuff in the trunk, got into the driver’s seat, and immediately called Miriam.

  “Hello, Bram.”

  “Hey, Miriam, I’ve got good news and bad news. Well, okay, it’s not really good news, just news: you gotta sanction somebody.” I gave the quickie version of what just happened with Madame Vérité, promising to email her the full details.

  I heard her fingers clacking on a keyboard. “I’ll get that sanction out now, in case she beelines for a shop. Although, with the restriction on her, she won’t be able to touch anything in a shop, but still, best to let the managers know. I’m just glad you stopped her before she cast the spell.”

  “Well, see, that’s the bad news, I didn’t.”

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “No, no,” I said quickly, “it’s okay, the spell didn’t work.”

  “So she sucks at spellcasting, how’s that bad news?”

  I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see that over the phone. “She doesn’t suck at it. Based on what I saw and heard when I got there past the last minute, she nailed the spell just fine, and she had an Obsidian candle, rope, a ribbon that she burned, and sandalwood.”

  “Which spell did she use, Hembadoon’s?”

  “No, actually, it sounded like Silverio’s, believe it or not.”

  Miriam sounded as surprised as I felt when I heard Mrs. Truth rocking the Latin. “Yowza. And it didn’t work?”

  “Yeah, and we’re starting to get a pattern here. We got the unicorn tapestry, we got that crane down at the Met, Hugues mentioned a djinn that got loose yesterday, and now we got this. That’s three binding spells coming unraveled and one not working at all. It’s freaking me out a little bit.”

  “I’m a lot more freaked out by your rogue vampire. But I’ll see if anyone else is reporting binding spells gone bad.”

  “Thanks, Miriam.”

  “Thank you for not calling me ‘Mimi’ once.” I could hear her grinning over the phone.

  “Hey, least I could do after almost fucking up the werewolves. When can I bring by the spell components?”

  “Bring ’em by tonight before your debauchery.”

  I chuckled. Sunday nights, a bunch of Coursers all gathered at a bar in Woodlawn. I didn’t make it every week, but I figured Hugues was gonna be there toasting his daughter’s graduation tonight, and I didn’t want to miss that. “Sounds like a plan. Later.”

  After ending the call, I start
ed the car, threw it into gear, made a U-turn on 233rd, and wove my way around double-parked cars in the right lane and cars waiting to make a turn from the left lane on that major thoroughfare before hitting the Major Deegan Expressway and taking it to my place in Riverdale.

  On the way, the phone rang, but I couldn’t really pay attention to it until I stopped.

  Once I pulled into the driveway in front of the garage, I put it in park and grabbed the phone. (I didn’t park the car in the garage, as that was valuable storage space.) There was a missed call and a voicemail, both from Katie.

  I played the voicemail. “Hey Bram! I am so glad you called. I was kind of chickening out, so I’m really glad you took the step, because I kinda got nervous. Sorry, sometimes the brain weasels take over, you know? Anyhow, I’m actually on my way to that coffee shop right now, so if you’re free, you could join me. Or not, I totally understand if you’re not free. Call or text and let me know! Thanks!”

  Smiling, I quickly composed a text: “Just finished a job. Meet you there in ten.”

  I opened the garage, which revealed several stacks of plastic totes in the back, a dozen plastic shelving units on the right-hand side and in the middle, and a big pile of empty boxes on the left-hand side. I put the Obsidian candle, rope, and sandalwood in one of the empty boxes piled on the side, then put the box on a shelf.

  As I did so, the phone beeped with a text from Katie: “Great! See you there!” Plus a smiley face and a heart and a coffee cup.

  I closed the garage door and headed over to Riverdale Avenue, which was one of the main drags with commercial stuff on it, ranging from restaurants to drugstores to doctors’ offices to banks. A new café had opened up on the corner of Riverdale and 236th Street, and I walked inside to see Katie already sitting with both a latte and a tablet in front of her.

  She looked up at me as I entered, smiled brightly, and rose. “Hi, Bram! Thanks so much for coming!”

  “Thanks for inviting me,” I said, smiling right back. “Nice to get together when it isn’t business.”