The ranch house was set back from the road, behind a neatly mowed lawn with flowers crowding the front window. A child’s tricycle lay on the grass next to the cracked concrete path to the door.
I rang the doorbell, and a moment later woman answered—mid-30s, short black hair, in jeans and a Chicago White Sox T-shirt. She peered at me through the dusty screen. “Yeah?”
“Niki Matos?”
She nodded cautiously, one hand ready to slam the door in my face. “What is it?”
“My name’s Tom Jurgen. I’m a private detective from Chicago.” I held out the thick envelope I’d brought with me. “I’m supposed to deliver this to you.”
Niki blinked, confused. “What’s going on?”
“It’s not a subpoena or a lawsuit,” I said quickly. “It’s from your father.”
Her frown grew dark and angry. “Bull shit. My father’s dead.” She stepped back to close the door.
Huh? “Wait!” I held up a hand. “I spoke to a man two days ago who said he was Luke Valdez. He asked me to locate you and deliver this to you. He said he hasn’t seen you in three years, didn’t know where you live now. If he was lying to me—”
“He died six months ago. In Chicago. Drugs, that’s what I heard. I haven’t seen him in, yeah, three years, I guess. But I’ve got the obituary.”
I thought back to the phone call. It’s not unusual for clients to hire me without ever meeting in person, but I’ve been hired by imposters before. “I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “If you don’t want it, that’s fine. Sorry to bother you.” I turned.
“Wait.” She looked me over, probably deciding whether she could overpower me if necessary. I must looked harmless enough, because she pushed at the screen door. “Come on in.”
The living room carpet was thin and faded. Toys and games were piled in corners, and an empty can of soda sat on a table in front of the TV. “The kids are at school,” Niki said, leading me across the room toward the kitchen. “My youngest is taking a nap, so keep quiet.”
In the kitchen we sat across from each other at a wobbly, and I handed her the envelope as. She reached over the counter for a big knife to slit the envelope, and maybe to stab me if she turned out to be wrong about my threat potential.
Niki’s eyes grew wide as a wad of cash fell out onto the table. Twenty-dollar bills, wrapped in rubber bands. She picked it up, held it sideways to judge its thickness, then dropped it into her lap. She looked up at me, as if expecting me to claim it. I shrugged.
Next came two folded pages of notebook paper, and a photo. Niki picked up the picture, stared for a moment, then gasped and threw it on the table.
A middle-aged man. Gray hair, a flat nose, one eyelid drooping lower than another. His head was tilted, and he held the sport section of the Chicago Tribune in one hand. I picked the photo up to look close, and saw the score of Sunday’s Chicago Cubs game.
Proof of life. Or very, very good AI drawing.
She picked up the letter, her hand shaking. I watched as she read the first page, then skin the second one, then read the first page again. She shook her head. “It’s him. Really him.”
I said nothing as she grabbed a napkin to wipe her eyes. After a minute she looked up at me and set the cash on the table between us.
“He says to give you some of the money so you’ll drive me to Chicago and back.” We were in Matteson, a suburb to the south.
“To meet him?”
“To bring him something.” She stood up. “Can you do that? How much do you want?”
I shrugged. “I’ve already been paid.” Matos had included my fee in cash with the package he’d sent me containing Niki’s envelope. “It’s more than enough to cover that.”
She nodded her mind elsewhere. “I have to call a friend to take care of the baby. My other kids will be okay. Do you want a cup of coffee or something?”
“Coffee’s great if you have it. Otherwise, a glass of water would be fine.”
She brought me a bottle of water while talking on her phone. I sipped it as she made arrangements with her friend and then went into her bedroom to change.
Her children came home just as the baby in the other room woke up—a middle school-aged boy who ignored me and a teenaged girl who looked at me suspiciously without saying anything. Niki came out carrying the baby in one arm. “I have to go to Chicago with this guy,” she told them. “I’ll be back tonight. Essie is coming over to take care of David.” She patted the baby. “Just let me change him one last time,” she told me.
“I’ll be in the car,” I told her. The kids were barely hiding their hostility now. Who was I? A cop? Mom’s new boyfriend? Whatever, they didn’t want me around, and I was happy to oblige.
Out in the car I texted my wife Rachel about the plan. She texted back: Is she hot? Know you’re a newlywed?
Marital status hasn’t come up, I texted back. I’ll be sure to mention it. We’d dated and lived together for years before getting married a few months back. It was nice to know Rachel can still be territorial.
A woman in slacks and a windbreaker came down the walk, peered into my car, then walked up to the house and rang the doorbell. Niki let her inside, and they talked for a moment. The woman—Essie—shook her head several times, as if annoyed, but finally Niki came out and headed toward my car with a leather jacket over one arm, a small travel bag slung over one shoulder, and a black wooden box the size of a shoebox in her hands. She put the bag in the backseat, climbed into the car, and kept and the box in her lap. “Let’s go.”
“Everything okay?”
She nodded, impatient. “It’s all fine. Go.”
I started the car and began heading back to the highway.
We found the house just past sunset, at the end of a dead-end street in Hazel Crest, a suburb south and west of the city. The house was half hidden from the street by two trees with brown, brittle leaves and a thick hedge in need of major trimming. Shutters covered the windows; the paint on the siding was peeling. The steps to the front porch sagged as we walked up to the door.
Niki looked at me. She’d been silent on the 45-minute drive, the box in her lap, gazing out the window without really looking at anything we passed. Now she sighed and knocked on the door. She had her leather jacket on, the box under one arm. We waited.
The door opened slowly. The man looking out was thin and bony, in a dusty gray jacket buttoned to the throat. He had no hair. His skull was white as an egg, and his eyes looked clear glass. “Yes?”
“Tom Jurgen,” I said. “Niki Matos. You should be expecting us.”
He looked me up and down, ran his eyes over Niki more carefully, and held the door wide. “Come inside, please.”
She stepped carefully over the threshold.
We followed him into a living room that looked like it hadn’t been dusted since the 1960s. No TV, bookcases choked with cobwebs, and a red and black rug circling the tables and sofa and chairs. He turned on a flickering lamp in the corner. “Please wait here,” he said softly, “while I let the Lady know you’re here.”
The furniture looked like it would collapse under our weight. Niki put the box down on a table, next to a deck of cards and a candle that burned in a long bronze holder. She looked at me. “What is this place?”
I was looking at the pattern in the peeling wallpaper. Angels and devils, facing off against each other. “No idea.”
She scowled. “Feels like I’m in a horror movie.”
“Yeah.” I’ve been in a few horror-movie situations in my life, and this definitely fit the formula.
The hairless man returned. “The Lady Estrella Corday.” He stepped aside.
The woman who walked forward had a thin, severe face, gray hair pulled back behind her tall neck, and she wore a long black skirt with a crisp white blouse. “Hello, Niki. Mr. Jurgen. I’m Estrella Corday. You have something for me?” She looked at the box, her eyes sharp and eager.
Niki stood in front of the box on the table. “What about my father?”
“Of course. Alexander?”
The bald man reappeared. “Yes, my lady?”
“Take Ms. Matos to her father.” Estrella smiled.
“Yes, my lady.”
Niki looked at the box. “Bring it,” she told me. “I want to see my father first.”
I picked up the box. Estrella kept her eyes on me as we followed Alexander out of the room, but she stayed behind.
He led us up two flights of stairs, paused to check for Estrella Corday’s approval, then opened a door. “In here.”
Inside the small room with a sloping wooden ceiling, a small lamp cast weak light and shadows across the bare walls. A man lay in a metal frame bed with a sagging mattress and a dirty gray blanket. He was barefoot, in a white T-shirt and sweatpants, unshaven. But I recognized him from the photo, by the one eyelid that drooped lower than the other.
Luke Valdez. Niki’s father.
She stumbled toward the bed. “Dad?”
Valdez sat up, leaning forward and squinting. “N-Niki?”
She crouched beside the bed and took his hand. “What happened? I thought you—I thought . . .” She looked away from him, at the floor, crying softly.
He blinked, squeezing her hand as if unsure she was real. “I was—I just woke up here. I was with Devin and Freddy, and they were mad about—about—something.” He bit his lip for a moment, as if the memory embarrassed him. “Then everything was dark. And then I was—here.”
“Do you remember me?” Niki aske, her voice trembling.
He smiled, although it seemed forced. “Of course, Niki. Of course. You’re—” He leaned further and put his arms around her shoulders. “I’m so glad—so glad to see you again. I was afraid you were mad at me. I was so afraid I’d never see you again. How are the children?”
She was crying openly now, and I couldn’t hear what she said, but I decided she was safe and they deserved some privacy. I stepped out of the room, leaving the door open a half inch in case she needed me.
Alexander was still standing there, his arms crossed.
“How long have you worked for the Lady?” I ask questions instinctively, thanks to years as a reporter and now a P.I.
“Years,” he replied. “And years before that.”
“What else do you do for her?”
His eyebrows rose. “Everything she asks.”
He wasn’t going to give up much. “Did you help her bring Valdez back to life?”
He blinked once, then stiffened his shoulders. “You’ll have to discuss that with Miss Estrella.”
“Is she a witch? I’ve met witches, so it doesn’t surprise me.”
His mouth tightened. “Again, you’ll have to speak with her. My role here is very—formal.”
I smiled. “I understand.”
Then the door opened with a hard, angry thud on the wall. Niki’s face was flushed, streaks of tears on her cheeks. But her eyes brimmed with fury. “Take me back down to that bitch.”
Alexander nodded calmly. He led us back down to the ground floor, then to another big room filled with books and cabinets where Estrella sat in a red leather armchair, a bottle of wine on the table next to her. Candles and a gas lamp lit the room. I didn’t see any sign of electricity.
“Who is that up there?” Niki stood in front of the chair, arms crossed, her body shaking with anger. “That’s not my father! He looks like my father, but he’s not—not my father. What did you do?”
Estrella sighed. “Let me see what you’ve brought me. Then I’ll explain.”
Niki scowled, then whirled on me. “Give it to her.”
I set the box down on a small table in front of Estrella. She leaned forward, unhooked a small metal latch, and lifted the top. I edged forward to take a look.
Inside lay a spoon.
Silver, slightly tarnished, in a tangle of red velvet cloth. A spoon.
Estrella smiled. “Almost,” she whispered. “Almost.”
“Almost what?” Niki looked ready to snatch the box back. “What’s going on?”
She sat back, smiling. “Let me ask you something, Niki—where did that box and the spoon in it come from?”
“My grandma,” Niki said instantly. “Dad’s mother. Grandma V.”
“Emilia Collins Valdez.” Estrella nodded. “She is—was known to me. To many of us. In our little community.”
“What community is that?” I asked, as Niki gaped at her.
“You might call us witches, or—”
“My grandmother? You knew her? She was a witch?” Niki took a step backward, away from the table. And the spoon. “You’re crazy.”
“Sit.” She gestured toward a damask sofa. Niki looked at me, heaved a sigh of annoyance, and sat. I perched on the other end.
“Emilia was a collector.” Estrella took a sipe of wine. “Not a witch, not at all. But she liked to collect objects with—energy. Energy from the earth, or the sun, or the moon—energy comes from everywhere.”
Niki groaned. “Spare me the new age crap, please. I’m not listening to you all night.”
Estrella frowned. “Some energy comes from dark places. It can be hard to know where it comes from, you just feel it. This spoon—” She pointed—“comes from a setting crafted by a wizard in the 19thcentury, forged from metal that was once a sword that had tasted blood. A lot of blood. That gives each piece power, to the person who knows how to use it. By itself, that spoon has enough psychic energy to, oh, I don’t know, lift a car or kill an elephant. All three together?” She smiled again. “You can’t imagine.”
I fidgeted, nervous. “Where are the other two? The knife and the fork?”
Estrella closed the box and pulled it into her lap. “I have the knife. The fork? That’s why you’re here. Both of you.”
Me? I fought the urge to run for the door. Abandoning my client wouldn’t look good on my Yelp reviews.
Niki was still angry, but she was listening now. “What are you talking about?”
“Your father.” Her eyes darted upward. “I was able to raise his body. His brain holds everything he knows, but as you say, it’s not him. Not all of him.”
“So? What are you saying?” Her voice shook.
“With the complete set—with the fork—I will be able to restore him, body and soul.” She leaned forward eagerly. “Bring me the fork. Then I can make him whole.”
Oh hell. I looked at Niki. She was staring at Estrella, trying to decide whether she could believe her—or if she even wanted to believe her.
“Wait a minute.” My throat was dry. Could I ask for a glass of water? “Why do you need us to find the fork? Why can’t you find it yourself?”
“I can’t leave this house.” Estrella glanced at the walls around us. “I’ve been trapped here for 30 years. It’s . . . a long story.”
“Can’t you send—” Niki looked around. “What’s his name? Alexander?”
She laughed. “Alexander is an excellent, loyal servant. He is not a private detective, like Tom.” She smiled at me, as if we were old friends. It made me nervous. “There’s a reason I hired you to contact Niki. You’re very well known in certain areas. To the right people.”
Or the wrong people. “And once you have the fork, along with the other two, and you fix Niki’s father—what then?”
Estrella looked at me, a smile curving her lips. “That’s not for telling right now.”
Great. I looked at Niki. Now she was gazing at me, hope rising in her eyes. Damn it.
I shook my head. “No.”
“What?” Niki exploded. “It’s my father! My father! You have to—"
“Hold on.” I held up a hand and looked at Estrella. “Look, with all due respect, I don’t know anything about you. Or about what this collection of silverware can do once it’s put together. You’re already powerful enough to raise the dead, and that’s some pretty serious magic. Dangerous magic. What happens when you get more? How do I know you won’t blow up the world?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Why would I want to destroy the world? I live here, you know.”
“You know what I mean. You said you know me, so you must know I’m not a fan of black magic, or zombies, or demons in any shape.”
“I’m not a demon.” Estrella cocked her head. “And you’re on friendly terms with the vampires.”
“Some vampires. I’ve killed a lot of them too.”
Niki stared at me. “Uh—vampires?”
“Yeah.” I nodded defensively. “For some reason I run into this sort of thing, the supernatural, a lot. But that doesn’t mean I go looking for it.”
She glared at me for a moment, then swallowed and looked away. “I can see that, I guess. It’s just—”
Estrella stood up suddenly, her face dark with anger. Then all the light on the room vanished to blackness.
I was standing in nothing, in absolute silence, not even the echo of Niki’s cut-off voice. How long? A minute, two—or a lifetime.
Then light returned. Not from the candles or the lamp, but a bright, overwhelming burst of whiteness like a sheet of lightning, complete with a thundering boom that smacked at my ears. Estrella was standing in front of her chair, and the light gradually faded until we were back to candles and lamp again.
“I don’t need the fork to do things that would terrify you, Tom Jurgen.” Her lips were tight, almost motionless as she spoke. “I can rain fear and devastation across this city anytime I want, with or without any charms or talismans. You can either help me, and help Niki get her father back, or leave.” Then she smiled. “I will pay you, of course. But you have to make up your mind now.”
Even Niki looked doubtful. I noticed Alexander in the doorway, checking to make sure his Lady was all right.
I wanted to leave. Estrella was right—she obviously had powers beyond my experience, but that didn’t mean her intentions for the complete set of silverware were peaceful or pleasant. I probably couldn’t stop her from doing whatever she wanted, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be part of it.
But Niki had started crying again. She wasn’t looking at me, or Estrella, or anyone. Just the carpet, sniffling and wiping her eyes and sniffling some more, until I pulled out my handkerchief and handed it to her.
“All right,” I said. “My wife will kill me anyway, so I’ll do what I can.”
Estrella sat down and picked up her wine glass. “Thank you, Tom.”
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