Waking the Witch (Otherworld 11)

"That you're the queen bee."

She smiled. "Every hive needs one."

I DID JOIN them for lunch, though I just got a coffee. But no one was about to say anything in front of Megan. When I asked about Claire and Cody, I noticed a girl with blue-streaked hair shifting in her seat, like she had something to add. She didn't speak, though. I needed to get her when the boss wasn't around.

The girls had barely ordered when my cell rang. Jesse. I excused myself to take it, and thanked them for their time, leaving a five to cover my coffee--and win brownie points with Lorraine.

I rubbed my neck as I headed outside to call Jesse back. The headache again. Definitely time for a different helmet ... something I'm sure the hardware store didn't stock. I made a mental note to grab aspirin later.

Jesse had run a background check on Megan. She was twenty-six, older than I thought. Her story checked out--MBA from Columbia, worked on Wall Street for awhile, then bailed.

"Burnout," Jesse said. "She doesn't strike me as the type to run off to a commune, but I guess you can never tell."

"Oh, you can usually tell. I don't think Megan burned out. She just realized she could make more working in a startup company where she was in charge. That's what the commune is to her. A business. Those girls aren't working for much more than room and board, I'm sure of it. And they're pulling their own weight there, too--cooking and cleaning."

"So cynical, so young."

"You think I'm wrong?"

"No, I'm just kicking myself for not seeing the con first. I'm supposed to be the expert on the workings of the criminal mind. I'll make up for it now and dig into the financials."

"Please. Everyone here really likes the sexy angles--the philandering husband and the weird cult leader--but it may come down to money."

"It usually does. I'll get on that, then."

WITH THE GIRLS eating lunch in town and Alastair away, it was the perfect time to take a closer look at the commune. I parked my bike in a wooded area nearby, then headed in the back way. Once I was sure that the drive was empty and the lights all off, I approached the front gate, to get a better look at the symbol. It was there--and had been repainted.

I licked my finger and smudged a line. Yep, blood. Likely chicken blood, if someone was practicing Santeria.

I eyed the house wistfully. As rustic as it appeared, I was sure it had a burglar alarm. Disarming it wouldn't leave me much time for searching before Megan came back. And I figured I had just as good a chance of finding evidence of rituals out here.

I went through the outbuildings. Met some chickens, a couple of cows, even a pig. No horses, though, which seemed a complete waste of barn space. I did manage to make friends with a barn cat. Or it made friends with me.

I'm not a pet person--even with horses, I've never seriously considered owning one--but you have to give cats kudos for attitude. If you stop to pet them, they can't be bothered with you. Ignore them, and they rise to the challenge. By the time I was done searching the outbuildings, the cat had brought me a gift--a still-twitching rat. I was impressed. I rewarded it with an ear scratch, and it took off, mission accomplished.

That was the only reward I got, though. A half hour of searching, and all I had to show for it was shit on my boots.

There was one other outbuilding behind the barns. It was locked, which seemed promising, until I opened it and found tools and a lawn tractor. I checked out the yard next. Vegetable garden, herb garden, even a couple of beehives behind the toolshed. So very Little House on the Prairie. Why anyone would choose to live like this was beyond me.

I was checking out the hives when I noticed the boarded-up window above them. That made me realize I hadn't seen a boarded-up window from the inside ... and that the toolshed looked a lot bigger from out here.

I went back in. Sure enough, there was a false wall. And behind it? A sacrificial altar. Not for human sacrifice--Santerians don't practice that. I've been well schooled in basic respect for religions, courtesy of Paige. Not that she always practices what she preaches--I recall a certain incident with naked Wiccans in our backyard--but she handled it more respectfully than I would have, and she would point out it'd been a small sect, not indicative of the religion as a whole.

Santeria is a Caribbean religion melding African, Catholic, and Native American traditions. Its rituals include the sacrifice of animals. There was evidence of that here--a small ornate axe and bloodstains on the floor. There were also coins, oils, flowers, herbs, colored cloth, stones, beads, even a set of dominos, for rituals of a less bloody sort.

A lamp burned on a table. It was a clay pot of oil with stuff floating in it and a wick on top. I could make out ashes and metal in the oil. Beside it lay a dead scorpion coated in oil.

I took pictures, sent them to Adam, then called.

"Now that you actually need my help, I can't get rid of you," he said when he answered.

"I just sent you--"

"Photos. I'm looking at them now. With the scorpion, we seem to have another home-protection ritual, this one specifically to keep away enemies. The oil has to burn for a few days, and most of it's still there. You were up at the house yesterday, weren't you?"

"So this ritual is to protect them from me? Cool. Doesn't work, though."

"I can't imagine anything that would. So we definitely have someone practicing Santeria. Presumably someone high on the group's food chain. One of the girls isn't going to construct a hidden room in the toolshed."