“Crystal?” I replied incredulously.

“That’s right, crystal. Or maybe glass. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted.

“I think it might have been made of diamond,” Mr. Tamlin amended. “Either way, it was clear and shined like glass in the candlelight before the demon disappeared.”

Then a sudden realization hit me; my heart rate instantly doubled.

One of the unusual aspects of the Black Lodge slayings was the murder weapon: a glass knife. Along with two other pieces of testimonial evidence, the glass knife was the foundation of the police case and led to the warrant being issued for my parents’ arrest. Along with my parents’ fingerprints— which were planted by Luxe—was another unidentified print. Maybe that print belonged to the real killer, maybe even the Tamlins’ robed mystery man?

“Are you saying that the glass knife mentioned in the case file was really a glass talon?”

“Yes,” they confirmed in unison.

Okay, this was crazy, if it was true, but there were still too many strange things that didn’t fit. “If your Code of Silence prevented you from going to the police about the Portland murder, then why did you break it for the talk show?” I asked.

Mr. Tamlin snorted in disgust. “After the Duvals were accused, we were shocked. We’d managed to clear most of the confusion spell by this point, you see, enough to know they weren’t guilty. Like we said earlier, we talked to the Luxe leader and told him what we’d remembered. He advised us to keep quiet and promised to look into it. Then he was attacked and our temple went into lockdown. No classes, no services, and we weren’t allowed communication with any of the upper officers. Then the media went crazy.”

“Since our own leader wasn’t talking to us,” Mrs. Tamlin explained, “we tried to contact the E∴E∴ on our own, to help clear their names, but we could never get past their Bodymaster. She thought we were some sort of spies for Luxe. Then the Duvals died in that accident. Our son suggested we tell our story on the talk show, but that didn’t work out very well either, as you know.”

“We tried,” Mr. Tamlin said with a sigh, “but no one wanted to hear the truth. The Black Lodge slayings were committed by a demon. And I’d swear on the sacred name of Hecate herself that the person who summoned it was the robed man who ran out the door of Magus Dempsey’s house that day.”

Hecate herself, huh? I still wasn’t completely convinced that their memories were a hundred percent correct. But it was clear that, wacko or not, they certainly believed what they were saying. And if this mysterious robed man who fled the scene really was the person who summoned the albino demon, how was I going to find out who the hell he was?

Then we had the enigmatic glass talon. Let’s just say the Tamlins were telling the truth, and this really was the murder weapon. And maybe my parents had been crossed by the same confusion spell and never remembered the third murder. They were still present during the fourth attempt and saw the albino demon there; surely they noticed something as strange as talons made of glass. So why hadn’t the caliph mentioned it in his description?

12

I returned from San Francisco to find my driveway occupied by a large, backed-in truck. I parked the rental behind it, my rear bumper nearly sticking out into the street. A dense row of cedar trees created a natural screen along the front of my yard, ending at the driveway, so prying eyes couldn’t see the front of my house. Most times, that was exactly what I wanted; it gave me privacy, and privacy was the only reason I owned a home instead of rented an apartment. That day, however, it was a nuisance.

I pushed up my sleeve to activate a sigil that rendered me nearly invisible. Not literally. It just encouraged people to disregard my presence by tricking their senses. Like the other sigils on my arm, this magick is temporary. It also requires a lot more Heka than some of others; keeping it charged was physically draining, so I’d have to make it quick.

My servitor hadn’t returned to me yet, so I hoped to God Riley Cooper hadn’t already found me. Just in case, I prepared myself by retrieving a small ceremonial dagger from my purse. It wasn’t all that sharp, but it was better than nothing.

I peeked inside the cab of the unknown vehicle. Nothing. Then I stood on my tiptoes and surveyed the bed of the truck. The tailgate was down. There were several enormous bags of pebbles and some other red landscaping material. I certainly hadn’t scheduled any kind of professional yard work; my idea of lawn maintenance was paying the twelve-year-old kid down the street twenty bucks once a month to mow.

A loud thump came from the backyard. Maintaining the invisibility spell, I strode past my side door until I rounded the corner of my house. Bent over a wheelbarrow was someone in a pair of dirty jeans. I sidestepped the wheelbarrow in a slow circle, then jumped when the person stood up and turned around.

“Dammit, Lon,” I said as I dropped my ward.

Upon seeing me, he let out a low yelp and nearly fell over backward.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you scared the shit out of me!”

“Excuse me for being wary about a stranger in my yard,” I snapped.

“I’m not a stranger, and how the hell did you sneak up on me like that? You appeared out of thin air.”

“It’s a spell.”

“That’s one hell of a spell,” he remarked.

I nonchalantly motioned toward my white tattoo like it wasn’t a big deal, but I was pretty damn proud of the spell. Like my imp portal, it was something unique I created after I got out on my own. The basic sigil was Armenian in origin, and I had to tweak it and experiment before I finally hit on the right results.