Read Online At the Behest of the Dead by Timothy W. Long - Free Book Online Page A

me.
    “I’m an idiot. Sorry.”
    “I don’t know if you’re an idiot but you do dress … strangely.”
    “Tools of the trade.” I rattled my bandolier.
    “I meant the leather. Were you in a motorcycle gang in the seventies?”
    “You’d be surprised what I did in the seventies.”
    “Right. Me too. I was a gleam in my mother’s eye. She probably wore flowers in her hair and danced in meadows. Were your parents hippies?”
    “More like gypsies. They had some stranger rituals.”
    She laughed as if I were joking. I didn’t know who my parents had been. For all I knew they had been gypsies. She also had the wrong century in mind.
    I sipped the coffee and burned the hell out of my lips , but I didn’t take my eyes off her.
    “The lid does have a little warning on top that the beverage you are about to enjoy is hot.”
    “Maybe I can’t read so well. Can I sue? My lip is going to swell up like a plum.”
    She chuckled and spun around to pick up a small clear plastic cup. She dumped a couple of pieces of ice into it and handed it to me. I stared at it for a second then took a piece and nursed my swollen lip.
    “Not anymore. You have acknowledged the burn was your own fault by applying ice instead of calling a lawyer. Now, if you had called a lawyer right away and made a complaint maybe they could have helped. But I’m now a witness to the fact that you freely took aid and even smiled when I mentioned the warning on the lid.”
    “You are good, ” I conceded.
    “I should be. I’ve put enough money into my legal career to buy a house.”
    She took a cup from “just woke up and forgot to shave” and read the side. The same hieroglyphics meant something to her because she squirted some kind of liquid into the cup and then hit it with espresso.
    “Maybe we can work together to bring down the man?” I suggested.
    “I work for the man. Not a good career decision. So what are all those vials really for?”
    “I’m a warlock.”
    “The sofa repair man was a better line of work.”
    “You don’t believe me?”
    She laughed. “I had a friend once that was into the occult. She dated a guy who claimed to be a warlock, but I think he was playing her. The only trick he could do was get her out of her panties, which were notoriously frigid.”
    I sputtered as I took a sip of coffee.
    “Warlocks have a few more talents, I can assure you.”
    “Right. Well. I should get back to work now.”
    “Nice chatting with you, Ashley.”
    “Ash. I go by Ash.” She flashed me a smile then grabbed the next cup and ignored me. After a few seconds , I decided that I didn’t look very smooth after all and walked out of the coffee shop.
    There was something about Ashley – Ash -- that I couldn’t get out of my head. Was it her confidence? Her easy laugh at my bad jokes? I should have gone back and continued to make an ass out of myself, but I had a job to do.

    Chapter Four
     
    W ith picture in hand I was convinced I was at the spot of one of the murders. My tools came out and I repeated the spell again. This time I was in luck, but the form was nearly depleted, and when its corporeal energy was exhausted there would be nothing to latch onto.
    “How goes it?” the voice of Detective Andrews interrupted my concentration. I was hunched over, studying a form, which was barely a wisp. To anyone else it would have looked like the barest hint of smoke. More like a light mist rising off the ground on a warm morning. At least I got something more concrete this time. A few of the first locations gave me nothing.
    I followed the direction it leaned toward and marked a spot on the envelope. I was drawing the location of each body on a crude map while a suspicion formed.
    “You following me?”
    “Yes,” she said. “So how is the investigation?”
    “I’m getting a little bit, a hint. I hope the next one tells me more. I started with the oldest murder , and by the time I get to the newest one I should be able to triangulate