The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,64
you came to see me?”
“Sure. Let’s do that.”
Mercedes sat in one armchair. Nora took the other. Gmork sat at her feet, on her feet.
“I’m trying very hard not to demand you tell me how you know where I live,” Nora said. “I’m not sure how much longer I can stop myself.”
“Zillow,” Mercedes said.
“What?”
She pulled her bag into her lap, covering the bare inches of her stomach, and crossed her legs at the ankle.
“Zillow. It’s a real estate website.”
“Yeah, I know what it is. You used it to find me?”
“When you came for your reading with me, you said you were waiting to hear about a house you wanted to buy. It was in the Garden District, a red house, and you’d put in a lowball offer. A week later, I checked the website. A red house in the Garden District was now under contract for twenty-thousand less than the original asking price. Didn’t take sacred geometry to put two and two together.”
“You told me I’d get the house. Were you checking to see if you were right?”
“I knew I was right.”
“Then why—”
“My turn,” Mercedes said, and Nora sat up, alert. It wasn’t often another woman cut her off. Or anyone, really.
“Okay, go on,” Nora said.
“Lord Chaz said you were looking for a missing girl. I don’t think that’s true, is it?”
A fair question, but not so easy to answer.
“It isn’t. But I can’t tell you the whole story.”
“Please tell me what you can.”
“A man was found dead recently. He’d shot himself.”
“Accident? Or suicide?”
“Suicide. And I don’t know this man from Adam, but for some reason, I was the last person he tried calling before pulling the trigger. The man was found with my business card in his pocket, so we know it wasn’t just a wrong number—for some reason, he was trying to reach me. Unfortunately, that’s no longer my number. It was an old card from when I worked in New York. He never reached me. For days, I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to think who I might have given one of my cards to while I was down here. Earlier this evening someone mentioned witches. I finally remembered…you. I gave you a card.”
“Only me?”
“Only you. As far as I can remember. Is it possible you gave my card to someone?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? I know I told you what I did for a living.”
“Writer. Dominatrix. I wouldn’t forget that even if I’d wanted to.”
“Did a friend of yours, a client, a stranger…did anybody mention they were trying to find a dominatrix?”
“No.”
“Could one of your coworkers at the shop…did they maybe take it?”
“No.”
“Did you throw it in the trash?”
“No.”
“Recycling?”
“No.”
“Come on,” Nora said, exasperated. “It must have ended up in the trash at some point, right? If you know anything at all, please tell me. It’s driving me crazy knowing a man reached out to me, wanted me for something, and when he couldn’t reach me, he killed himself. You’d want to know why, right?”
“I suppose I would,” she said. “But in this, I’m afraid I can’t help you. You see…”
Mercedes paused and opened her bag and took out a large book—black, leather-bound, with two skulls embossed on the cover. Mercedes set it in her lap and opened it carefully. Carefully because the book was full of odds and ends—scraps of paper, recipe cards, photographs, pressed flowers and leaves. The pages themselves were thick, soft cotton, covered in black, red, blue, and green ink. Some of the pages bore elaborate drawings of triangles within circles, circles within squares, animals, trees, moons, and stars.
Other pages bore only writing, nearly as ornate as calligraphy. Back, back, back, Mercedes turned in the book, and Nora saw some dates written on top of the pages. Journal entries. Back she went through this year, then last year, before reaching the November she’d been in New Orleans house-hunting. Two years and ten months ago.
Mercedes stopped at last and took from the book a small slightly-crinkled envelope. An ordinary envelope. She slipped her fingers under the flap and from inside pulled out a red rectangle, no bigger than the palm of her hand.
She held it out toward Nora, who took it with the slightest quiver in her stomach.
“This is my business card,” Nora breathed. “You kept it.”
“I did.”
“But…why?”
“I used it,” she said. “To cast a spell of protection.”
“Protection? I don’t need protection.” S?ren, Nico, Kingsley, Gmork…the last thing she needed was more people trying to protect her.
“You misunderstand me, Mistress Nora. I wasn’t trying