Damien’s hands lingered as he lowered her, but she didn’t brush the importunate touches away. Feeling a little dizzied, she focused on getting her bearings.
Trouble, she had learned, accompanied poverty like fleas on a dog. It wasn’t that most of the people here were bad people. But it was a neighborhood full of despair, and despair created plenty of desperation and resentment. Fertile ground for gangs who could see no way out by remaining law-abiding. The Police Athletic League was strengthening its involvement here, trying mostly to attract youngsters to safer outlets for their time. Another organization had recently joined in to provide tutoring and other aftercare in the same building. Still, it would take years to fully win young minds and start the “upward and outward” movement that was the ultimate goal. Caro donated a lot of her free time to the effort.
But, she had to admit, this neighborhood seemed a lot safer by daylight than it did right now. Instinctively, she felt for her holster, then dropped her hand.
All of a sudden, she realized Damien was staring at her. “What?”
At least half the streetlights were broken, and the remaining few offered little light, but even so she could see the intensity of his look. A shiver, whether of apprehension or anticipation she could not tell, ran through her.
“Nothing,” he said abruptly. Turning on his heel, he headed across the street to a shop.
“It’s late,” she remarked. “We probably wasted this trip.”
“Some shops do most of their business during the midnight hours. Others never really close. Given the type of business this shop does, I suspect they answer their bell at any hour.”
She couldn’t ask why he suspected that as she was too busy racing across the street after him. Boy, could that vampire move. But she supposed she’d get her answer if the door opened.
He had to press the button twice, but finally there was some noise from within the tiny shop. Then a curtain twitched aside, behind a barred window, and an eye peeked out. For long moments it seemed they would be ignored, so Caro lifted her jacket, showing her badge. Fortunately, most people would open their doors to a cop rather than risk having it busted down.
The eye disappeared, and then she could hear dead bolts turning. Finally the door opened a crack, although it was still guarded by three chain locks.
“What do you want?” a wizened man demanded.
“Help,” said Damien.
“I don’t squeal.” The door started to close.
Damien’s voice changed, assuming that timbre that made Caro shiver. “Open the door. We mean you no harm. The information we want is in your books.”
The air seemed to change. Without further protest, the old man opened his door and let them in. As he made way for them and locked up behind them, he looked mildly confused.
But whatever control Damien’s voice had had over the man wore off quickly. “Better spend some money,” he grumped. “This place isn’t a library.”
The owner was not only wizened but thin and stooped, as well. He looked as old as Methuselah and hobbled his way behind a tiny counter that held an ancient cash register. There he perched on a stool Caro could barely see.
Dusty, dingy and right now the place was poorly lit, as well. At the moment it would be impossible for her to find a book or anything else by sight.
But Damien seemed to have no such problems. He wandered along a shelf of old books, running a finger along them as he surveyed titles. “Do you know anything about elementals?”
To Caro it seemed the man behind the counter stiffened. “I don’t dabble in what I sell,” he said irritably. “Fools mess with what they don’t understand.”
“I agree with you,” Damien said pleasantly. “But I need to learn about elementals, and you must know if you have any books or monographs dealing with them.” He turned from the shelf and faced the man. “Even if you don’t dabble, you surely must hear a great deal from those who do.”
For some reason, Caro felt compelled to take a step backward. It was as if some invisible force tugged at her, but it was not the power that had been following her. After that one step back, however, she forced herself to stand still. What was going on here?
“I hear all kinds of things from idiots,” the shopkeeper said. “Look around you. I don’t even go for the incense and crystals some hang everywhere. I sell the books. That’s it.”
Damien nodded. “So you’ve heard nothing about a bokor?”
At that the man stiffened. “No. Have you?”
“It’s been mentioned. And since a bokor may be troubling a friend of mine, I’m naturally looking for information.”
“Of course,” the man said. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t hold truck with most of this stuff, but it makes a living. Everyone wants some crazy knowledge these days, as if getting a little religion wouldn’t be enough.”
“It’s alternative religion,” Damien remarked.
“Apparently. But if you believe this crap, why would you want to get involved?” He shook his head. “I get lots of people, but most of them probably couldn’t manage to perform a ritual well enough to raise any kind of Cain.”
“Most likely not. But what if someone could?”
The shopkeeper leaned forward and arched his back as if stretching a painful muscle. “If someone could,” he said, “then I guess we’re in deep shit.”
“Any idea who it might be?”
A shake of the head. “I keep as far away from people who claim to be adept as I can. There are other stores like this, and some of them are run by people who buy their own sales pitch.”
“Meaning?”
“They believe, or say they believe in this New Agey stuff. Maybe some of them actually practice Santeria or hoodoo. I keep clear, and I don’t want to know.”
Caro spoke. “I’ve answered complaints about Santeria in this neighborhood.”
“I don’t doubt it. But what can you do about it? It’s not illegal to sacrifice a chicken anymore, although you’d think folks around here couldn’t afford the chickens.”
“They eat them afterward as part of the ritual.”
“So I hear. Which makes it no different than a creepy kind of slaughterhouse. I can live with it. I’m no vegetarian.”
“So you have practitioners in the neighborhood.”
The shopkeeper sighed. “Yeah. From what I’ve heard, nothing bad comes out of it. It’s a religion, and everybody says it’s about doing good. God knows, folks around here need something to keep their spirits up.”
Caro couldn’t argue with that. She also couldn’t escape the feeling that this man wasn’t going to tell them a thing. She could understand that. Living in this neighborhood was difficult enough without being under suspicion.
Then Damien spoke. “Do you ever get bored enough to read your own books?”
The man cocked an eye at him. “I don’t believe this shit, but I’m also not stupid enough to read about it. On the off chance there’s something to it, why do I want it in my head? What if just reading those things could make something happen?”
Superstitious, Caro thought. Another thing she could well understand, although even a few days ago, she would have denied it.
“Then we come back to my original question,” Damien said. “Do you have any good references on elementals?”
Grunting, the man slid off his stool and came around to the tumbled and dusty stacks. “Like I said, this isn’t a library.”
“I’ll pay. Just get me your best ones.”
“You’re looking in the wrong place,” the guy muttered. “I do have some organization.” He disappeared around the corner of the floor-to-ceiling shelf and came back a few minutes later with two thin, tattered volumes. “Not a popular subject,” he remarked. “Twenty dollars each.”