Trancehack Read online

  “I’m not having this conversation with you. You agreed to take me to someone who could help with this investigation. If you’re not going to work with me, I’ll be needing that money back.”

  That had the desired effect. Calla folded the papers with care and turned on her heel. “This way. Asshole.”

  “That’s Detective Asshole to you.” He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or charmed. That was becoming a pattern with Calla Vesper.

  There was indeed a window with a sign in it, a very small cardboard sign with the word Books lettered in pencil, so faded it was barely legible. The window belonged to a nondescript building that might have held offices or businesses decades ago but was now someone’s home.

  Calla opened the door. Stepping inside might as well have meant stepping back in time.

  The floor was covered with rugs, some layered on top of each other. The walls, what was visible of them, were painted a deep blue. The main room was so large that the dark color didn’t make it seem smaller. Most of the wall space was taken up with shelves weighed down with books. Like in Calla’s apartment, they were physical books—hardbacks and paperbacks of various sizes and conditions. A quick glance revealed the shelves were marked with letters and numbers in what appeared to be a cataloguing system. A few other people were in the room. One stood in front of a shelf examining the books, another sat at a table with a book and a cup of coffee, another sat reading in a tattered wing chair on the other side of the room. The air smelled of some sort of spicy incense and a stereo played softly, some kind of old jazz that sounded vaguely familiar warbling out of it. Nate probably had it in his grandfather’s collection.

  There were a handful of doors around the room. Nate followed Calla to one on the far left side. She knocked. Someone on the other side called out for them to enter. The room they passed into was smaller but still held plenty of books. In the center a sofa and two chairs were arranged around a table. An older man was seated in one of the chairs, a book in his lap. Possibly in his sixties, he had mostly gray hair with a touch of black hanging on and a sharp angled face with blue eyes that looked like they didn’t miss much. His right leg ended just above the knee. Dressed in black slacks with the right side pinned up and a mended oatmeal sweater, he looked like somebody’s favorite uncle. To Nate’s shock Calla greeted the old man with a kiss on the cheek.

  “Gerald, it’s good to see you.”

  “Calla! Always nice to see one of my favorite people.” He pointed at the sheaf of papers in her hand. “That Zinnia’s latest?”

  “Oh yeah.” She grinned. “I’m gonna read it just as soon as I get a chance.”

  “I tried to trade her a little free editing for a sneak peek at the last chapters, but she wouldn’t go for it. Guess I’ll have to wait like everyone else.” He shook his head. “That girl has got to learn to spell. And for Pete’s sake, is it that hard to use commas correctly? Your generation must have had terrible teachers at the orphanage.”

  “Nah, we just didn’t pay attention.” She glanced at Nate. “Hey, Gerald, I brought someone who’d like to ask you some questions if that’s okay.”

  “Yes, I see that.” Gerald looked Nate up and down, one eye slightly squinting. “A Normal, and a cop to boot. You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “No sir,” Nate said. “I appealed to her better nature for help with a difficult case.” He offered his hand. “Detective Nathan Perez.”

  Gerald ignored it. To Calla he said, “Since when are you a paid informant for cops?”

  “It’s just a onetime thing. I could use the money, and besides—” she jerked her head at Nate, “—he seems harmless enough.”

  Grimacing, Gerald stared at her. “Is this something you really want me to do?”

  They maintained eye contact for a long moment. Nate could imagine the unspoken conversation going on between them and wished they would speak aloud. Well, he wished she would anyway. It was pretty clear the old man was asking Calla with a look, why do you want me to do this? It was equally clear she would not give an answer. For the second time he found himself wondering what she was hiding.

  He’d caught her in a lie back in her apartment. When she’d said that living on urban reservations away from nature did indeed make magic weaker, she hadn’t been telling the complete truth. Her answer had been too quick, and she hadn’t made eye contact. Something had just felt off about it, ringing the bell of his cop instincts loud and clear. Nate knew next to nothing about magic and couldn’t even begin to guess what she was lying about, so he’d let it pass. He’d filed it away, though, for future exploration.

  Now he found himself wondering the same thing as Gerald: Exactly why was she helping him? Doing it just for the money didn’t make sense. Did she hope to protect or possibly expose someone in the nightshade business? His instincts didn’t like that theory, but he didn’t have another one yet.

  Calla answered, “Yeah, it is. He’s just got some history questions. It’s cool.”

  Gerald looked dubious but relented. “All right, sit. What do you need, Detective?”

  Nate took one end of the sofa while Calla seated herself on the other, drawing her feet up under her. He withdrew his tablet and called up the correct document, then handed it to Gerald. “I was hoping you could help me identify these ingredients and what they would be used for.”

  Gerald took the tablet with reluctance. Nate said, “Would it be better if I came back with a paper copy? If you’re not comfortable with—”

  The old man cut him off. “Just because we generally can’t afford the tech doesn’t mean we’re wholly unfamiliar with it. Isn’t that right, Calla?” He examined the screen.

  A faint pink stained Calla’s cheeks, but she said nothing. Another thing to file away. At some point Nate wanted to ask her more questions, but he wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea. The kind of questions he wanted to ask he might not be able to justify under the aegis of the investigation. A murder case was not the proper place to delve into his curiosity about magic.

  Gerald said, “Thorn apple, mandrake, aconite, hemlock, henbane, deadly nightshade. Yes, these are all plants associated with witchcraft in antiquity. Still are.”

  “Do they have anything to do with the creation of the substance now known as nightshade? Whether in its religious context or otherwise?”

  Gerald returned the tablet and glanced at Calla. “How much do you really want to know?”

  “Whatever you can tell me.”

  “I can give you a straight yes or no, but that’s not really going to explain anything. You’ll need context.”

  “Then give me context.” Nate made a point of making himself comfortable. He needed information, facts, but he also needed that context.

  Gerald nodded. “It goes back hundreds of years, the fourteen, fifteen hundreds at least. Early witches used substances that came to be known as flying ointments in their rites. Some of those herbs and plants, some other things.” He pointed at the tablet balanced on Nate’s knee. “They’d make it into a paste and rub it on their bodies. The chemical compound would soak into the skin and they’d experience hallucinations. Or perhaps it was a gateway to astral travel. Depends on what you believe.”

  “What’s astral travel?”

  “People who don’t understand metaphor and mythology are always dreadfully literal. They’d hear tales of women having these extraordinary experiences and never think it might all be happening within their subconscious. It had to be literal and therefore it had to be the work of the Devil. During the First Inquisition the Church killed people who participated in these sorts of rites. Or even just people who were accused. Innocence or guilt had no bearing on an accused person’s fate.”

  Nate didn’t ask why it was called the First Inquisition. He’d never heard the chaos after the Magic Revelation of 2010 called the Second Inquisition, but h
e knew just enough of the history of that time period to understand why someone Magic Born might label it that. He tried to form questions that steered clear of politics. “So astral travel is a type of hallucination?”

  “Some believe that. Not all witches have a knack for it, so there are plenty who don’t believe it’s real. Especially nowadays when so much of the mysticism of our ways has been left in the dust. No, astral travel, to put it as plainly as possible, is your consciousness leaving your body. Your spirit, if you will, leaves your body and travels to other locations, other levels of existence. You’re in control of the journey, or should be if you’ve had the proper training, but it’s dangerous and not to be embarked upon lightly.”

  Nate thought back to his earlier conversation with Calla. Directing his question at her, he said, “Is this related to what you were telling me about shamans?”

  She opened her mouth but Gerald jumped in first. “Oh yes, shamans are a wonderful example of this sort of thing. They would use ritual techniques and entheogens to create a mystical experience. Perhaps it would be all in their subconscious. Perhaps it would be true astral travel. I’m of the opinion it doesn’t really matter which it is. What matters is what the person takes away from the experience.”

  “Okay. Leaving your body? I don’t get that.” Nate’s curiosity was letting the conversation veer from the narrow framework he’d set out to investigate, but he didn’t care. This was more than he’d ever learned about magic and he wanted to know more.

  Calla spoke. “Normally your body and spirit are one. With training you can learn to separate the two. Your body can be sitting in one place while your spirit is off wandering around somewhere.”

  That was a little much for Nate to take. “What’s an entheogen? I’m not familiar with that word.”

  “It’s a fancy word for psychedelic drugs,” Calla said. “Like the old flying ointments.”

  “Why were they called that?”

  Gerald said, “Let me show you.” He beckoned at one of the shelves, his eyes hooded. A book dislodged itself and floated across the room at a sedate pace, bringing itself to rest in his hand. Nate wondered if he would ever get used to casual displays of magic.

  The old man flipped through the book, then held it over the table for Nate to see. The page was filled with a stunning color image of a nude woman seated on a broom, a glory of long red hair streaming behind her. The sky surrounding her was full of clouds and a full moon with a bat partially obscuring it. The rich color and the woman’s beauty made for a hypnotic combination.

  “The Witches Sabbath,” said Gerald. “Painted by Luis Ricardo Falero in 1880. It was believed that witches covered their bodies with an ointment made of many of the ingredients on your list and would fly through the night on broomsticks.”

  Calla yawned. “I always thought the broomsticks were some kind of sex metaphor.”

  A chuckle slipped out of Nate before he thought to stop it. He tapped the page. “She is beautiful.” He met the old man’s gaze. With regret he realized he’d spent too much time on things extraneous to the case. “How does all this tie into nightshade?”

  Gerald closed the book and set it aside. “After the Magic Laws were passed and our people were rounded up, there was a great deal of depression, humiliation, hatred of the people that did this to us, even self-loathing. There were students of history who thought we might be able to reclaim some of our sense of identity by exploring certain things. Entheogens had always been controversial in a larger society that frowned greatly on drug use and mysticism. Believe it or not, we were part of that larger society at one time.” The old man sighed and looked away for a moment.

  Nate waited, not wanting to push. He also didn’t want to examine too closely the inexplicable sense of shame he was feeling. All this had happened before he was born. He’d done nothing to these people. So why feel that shame?

  Gerald continued. “Living in these urban areas, it’s not like we could get back to nature, so to speak. But perhaps we could reach into the mystic. Old recipes were experimented with until finally the first version of nightshade was created. That’s the version still used in a spiritual context. Its use in rituals is called dancing with the Goddess.”

  “And the version that’s sold as a street drug? I traced the other chemicals on that list and came up with something called MDMA, street name ecstasy. Is that mixed with the ritual version to create the street version?”

  “It really wouldn’t be healthy for me to answer that, now would it?” A sly grin creased the old man’s face. “But if you want to entertain that theory, by all means do so.”

  “And magic? Magic is involved in creating the stuff, right? The department white paper on it says none of the drugs that have been confiscated have been able to be analyzed in a lab. The stuff breaks down until there’s nothing left but sugar.”

  “I would guess the exact recipe is a closely guarded secret. But then all I really know about is the ritual version.”

  “How do I find out about the street version?” He suspected he already knew the answer.

  “Calla will have to take you to Sinsuality for that.” Gerald looked as if the thought greatly amused him.

  “The club, right?” Nate looked to Calla for confirmation. She nodded, looking none too happy. Nate put the tablet back in his jacket pocket and rose. “Okay then, let’s go.”

  “The place doesn’t open until nighttime,” Calla said. “I’ll take you there, but I’m not talking to any dealers for you.”

  “Can you introduce me to anyone who might be of help?”

  “She knows the owner, Vadim Bazarov,” Gerald volunteered, earning himself a nasty glare. “I’m sure he’d be willing to talk if you offer him enough money.”

  “Thanks, Gerald,” Calla said. She ushered Nate out, barely giving him time to thank the old man. Nate followed her to a corner table in the back of the main room holding a blown glass vase with no flowers. “Tip jar,” she said. “Leave a little money.”

  Nate complied. “What time do I pick you up?”

  Calla pursed her lips. “Nightfall. There’s no point to that place in the daytime. And don’t wear a suit—it makes you stand out. Wear club clothes or whatever you have that passes for club clothes.”

  Her annoyance was a target he couldn’t resist. “Are you telling me to wear something sexy?”

  It caught her off guard, but she recovered quickly. “Something tight that shows off your ass.”

  Winking, he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter Six

  Calla reached for the scissors to cut the end of the thread. She’d spent part of the afternoon cutting the neckline of a crew shirt into a deep V, then lining it with beads a shade of pink close to the fuchsia highlights in her hair. She held the shirt up for inspection and was pleased with the effect. After a shower and a bite to eat, she dressed. Black, form-fitting pants that rarely came out of the closet anymore and the altered shirt would do for a night at the club.

  The pink beads worked well on the black shirt. They drew attention to the display of skin, which was good, and her less than generous curves, which wasn’t. Hell with it. The clothes fit close, something that would help disguise her lack of curves, or at least that’s what someone had told her once. Although why the hell she cared, she didn’t know. She wasn’t going to the club for fun and she certainly had no desire to impress the cop. She struggled with her hair for almost half an hour in an effort to please herself. Finally giving up, she bent over, shook it out, and flipped her head back to check the mirror. Tousled was sexy, right?

  She slipped her wand, ID and cash into various pockets and dropped onto the couch to wait.

  She hadn’t been to Sinsuality in months. She hadn’t been a regular in longer than that. Not since Dev had left her to be a Normal’s plaything. He’d wanted them to ke
ep seeing each other, but it hadn’t worked. He hadn’t loved Calla enough to give up the money and gifts from his rich Normal lover, and Calla’d had too much self-respect to share. Being single wasn’t so bad. She got to do what she wanted, when she wanted, and never had to explain herself to anyone. The nights could be lonely with no one to talk to or crawl into bed with, but being lonely was preferable to being someone’s second choice.

  The breakup also served as a handy excuse for being generally unsociable. People assumed she was upset about losing Dev, and she let them think that. It was partly true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The first time she’d hacked into government servers had been a dumb, misguided attempt to find dirt on Dev’s sugar mama. Calla, not knowing what she was doing, had stumbled across a barely secure pathway to the DMS server. From there it had only taken another two hours and the encouragement of a bottle of cheap wine for her to find Magic Born birth records.

  Normals throwing away their children, Normals using them as toys. It had gotten all tangled up in her head, mixed with hurt and rage. Unconsciously she’d raised too much energy to control in such a poor state of mind, and wound up blowing servers, frying fiber optics and even knocking out electricity for blocks. She might have laughed over that if she hadn’t been so shocked at what she’d discovered. She kept it to herself, even from the very small number of people who might have been willing to keep it a secret.

  Did the senator and his wife ever wonder about the daughter they’d lost to the Magic Laws? The laws he had voted to renew and strengthen more than once? He didn’t just quietly vote for them, either. Beckwith was a well-known proponent of the laws and had spoken out against the Magic Born numerous times. The Magic Born were dangerous, couldn’t be trusted, didn’t deserve to have their citizenship reinstated. Calla’s stomach clenched, threatening to send her dinner on a return trip. How they must have hated their daughter. How grateful they must have been to have a Normal son five years later.

  She glanced out the window, hoping for dark. Still too much sunshine to expect Nate. Sitting here dwelling on things she couldn’t control wasn’t going to make the time pass any quicker or the night any easier. She went to the back of the apartment and opened the small carved wooden box where she kept the jewelry she made for herself. First she tried digging through the mess, then she dumped it out on her bed. It took some time to untangle all the bracelets, earrings and necklaces, then separate them into matching sets.