“Why is that?”
“Because Courtney’s mother has more money than any of the other Eldritch Club members, and I think she’s best buddies with the headmistress.” Trey’s expression hardened. “Gloria Haynes hardly ever visits the school, but Ayaz said he’d often heard Ms. West speaking with her on the phone, and he said there were pictures of the two of them together in her chamber.”
Thanks for reminding me that Ayaz used to do the nasty with the Deadmistress.I fought the urge to gag.
Don’t think about it. Focus on why you’re here –to find out what Deborah Pratt knows.
Deborah lived at the end of a small row of wooden houses backing onto the forest. Colorful dog statues lined the path to her door, and a green glass suncatcher tinkled in the breeze as we rang the doorbell. It certainly didn’t look like the home of a pathologist, let alone one who was involved in dark magic.
I rang the doorbell. From deep inside the house, the theme song from a Disney movie played. A short woman in her mid-forties with a round face and rosy cheeks opened the door. “Are you selling cookies for the dog charity?” she asked. “I’ll take two boxes. I just want to help all the poor puppies.”
“Are you Dr. Deborah Pratt?” I asked.
“I am, love. Who’s asking?”
“I’m Hazel Waite. You were speaking with my friend Zehra Damir. I think…” the words caught on my tongue. “I think something terrible has happened to her. And we need your help.”
Chapter Eleven
Deborah’s home was exactly as I expected it to look from the outside, filled with hand-stitched quilts and colorful rugs and even more dog statues. She led us into a living room with a sliding glass door overlooking a small balcony and the forest beyond. Two elderly poodles luxuriated on a giant bed by the window. Outside, a Jack Russell puppy pawed at the door, his eyes wide and as he followed Trey’s and my movements across the room.
“That’s Roger. I won’t let him inside,” she said, indicating the Jack Russell. “He’s quite excitable, and I want us to be able to speak without interruption. Please, take a seat. I’ll make us some tea.”
Trey and I sank into the sofa while Deborah bustled into a kitchen at the rear of the house. I tugged stuffing from a tear in the leather while Trey cast a disapproving eye around the dog portraits and porcelain plates hanging from the walls.
“Are we sure this is the right woman?” Trey flicked his eyes to the kitchen, where Deborah hummed while crockery clattered. “She seems a few galaxies short of a cosmic god—”
“Arf!” One of the poodles loped over and placed his head on Trey’s knee, wide brown eyes staring up at him, imploring him. This interested me – dogs have an excellent sense of smell, and can even be trained to locate dead bodies. So why didn’t these dogs act as if Trey was dead?
Hope flickered in my chest, before dying again. I had all the evidence I needed that Trey was a smokin’ hot walking corpse.Just because a dog likes him doesn’t mean he’s alive like I am.
Trey recoiled, his body stiffening. “The dog is touching me.”
I laughed at the rich boy who’d never had any kind of affection in his entire life. “I think he wants you to scratch his ears.”
Reluctantly, as if he was afraid of being electrocuted, Trey reached out a hand and placed it on the dog’s head. The dog shuddered in pleasure from human touch, its tongue panting in ecstasy. Trey’s mouth wavered. He stroked his fingers through the dog’s curly fur. “He’s so soft.”
“I think he likes you,” I smiled. Trey scratched the dog behind its ear. The dog placed a second paw on Trey’s leg, lolling its head to the side. Trey’s shoulders relaxed, the tension fleeing him as he shared this moment with his new friend. All his life, any love he’d been shown had been conditional. He didn’t know what it meant not to have a price.
“Leopold is very picky about people,” Deborah said from the doorway. She set a tray of tea and homemade cookies on the table. “You must be very special for him to take a liking to you.”
“I doubt that,” Trey said, but he didn’t stop stroking Leopold’s fur.
Deborah handed me a cup of tea. I plucked a shortbread from the plate and bit into it. “Zehra has gone missing. I was supposed to meet her in a cave to share some information with her that she was going to pass on to you. There was a cave-in, and I think she was trapped or… or something else.”
“Straight to the point, I see.” The woman chuckled as she sipped her tea. “I like that. Zehra was the same – she said she’d been waiting for ten years to figure out what happened to her brother, and she wasn’t going to waste another minute.”
“When was the last time you heard from her?” I couldn’t help the flicker of hope that danced in my chest.
“She sought me out about six months ago, and we’ve had regular conversations via phone and text, which stopped about five weeks ago. I’ve tried calling her, but her phone goes straight to voicemail.”
I squeezed Trey’s knee. I didn’t want to think about what this meant.She’s not dead until I see her body, and knowing the god, maybe not even then. I won’t give up on her.“Why did she think you could help us?”
“She’d discovered I’d worked with Hermia West at Arkham General Hospital, and that I had an interest in certain types of magic.”
“That’s kind of a weird combination.” I couldn’t figure this woman out. Between the dog obsession and the library of medical textbooks lining the wall behind her, I couldn’t see any room in her life for ancient gods and spellbooks bound in human skin.
Deborah shrugged. “Not really. Magic has always been discussed in my household. My parents were both occult scholars. Just because I don’t have a bubbling cauldron over the stove or crystals around my neck doesn’t mean I don’t know my way around ancient sigils.”
