guys? A safari?

“Lisa, I like him. Really. And I can’t take any more time. I mean, with Angus gone –”

And battling the forces of darkness and all.

“It would only be dinner. Bill suggested it himself.”

“But I already like him,” I pleaded. “I like them all.”

She blinked her lashes as though she felt the tears welling – though I didn’t see a cloud

in the sky. “No one can be to me what your father was, Adrien. Stephen was…well, he was

the great love of my life. That kind of love happens once. But Bill is a good man. What we

have together is special.”

“Lisa….”

“He’s certainly not going to replaceyou . You’ll always be –”

“Okay! Where am I supposed to meet him for dinner?”

The sun appeared in all its dimpled glory. She said nostalgically, “You look so like your

father sometimes, Adrien. He used to get that same expression.”

“And yet, funnily enough,” I said, “’twere not the apoplexy what done him in.”

* * * * *

I spent a jolly evening surfing the ’Net and was once again taken aback to discover how

many Web sites were devoted to Satanism, witchcraft, Wicca – you name it. There were

sites for chaos magic, Voodoo, vampires, guided meditation, and candle magick. What is the

deal with candles? There were occult personals, online spell purchases (through PayPal, no

less), and even organizations for gay pagans, gay witches, and gay Wiccans.

Several links led me to Yahoo Groups. Again I found groups based on region (Boston-

Occult), school of thought (angelsoccultforum), age (teenwitches), gender (goddessonly).

There were groups dedicated to the black arts, to sex magic, to alchemy, to hermeticism.

There were groups for specific covens and for solitary witches. But there was no entity

anywhere called Blade Sable.

Holy moly, what kind of menacing cult couldn’t afford its own Web site?

On impulse, I joined a “community” called Dark Realm, with 983 members. The brief

web intro indicated that this was a group for those who wished to peruse the dark side of the

moon – and maybe exchange spells, lore, and phone numbers.

I filled out a quickie questionnaire, naturally lying about almost everything, and

twenty minutes later, Frank Hardy, age twenty-one, interest sex magick (Yahoo ID

blackster21), had been officially welcomed into the Dark Realm.

The Blackster didn’t waste any time on social niceties. Right away he posted, asking

whether any of the dark denizens had ever heard of a group called Blade Sable.

No response. I hit refresh a couple of times, but zilch.

Well, it was getting late on a Friday night. Time for all bad little witches to be out

raising Cain. I turned off the computer.

* * * * *

The employment agency wasn’t open on weekends, had I the heart to ring them. I

rushed through the morning and early afternoon, taking advantage of a lull around three

o’clock to microwave a bowl of Top Ramen soup and scan the weekend edition of the Times.

The front page news froze me, spoon dangling foot-long noodles about an inch from

my mouth. Bestselling author Gabriel Savant was missing. I speed-read the article. Savant

had not been seen since Friday morning, when he had left his hotel without mentioning to

anyone where he was going. When he had not returned in time for a book club luncheon,

his assistant Robert Friedlander had begun calling around. Whatever that meant.

When Savant had still not turned up for the evening’s scheduled book signing,

Friedlander had filed a missing person’s report. Apparently when the person missing was a

celebrity, the usual waiting period was waived.

I re-read the article. Unless I was mistaken, it sounded very much as though Savant had

walked out of my bookshop and disappeared into thin air.

Chapter Eight

“I was wondering…” a voice inquired diffidently into the ether. “Are you hiring?”

I jerked my head out of the paper. A small, brown-haired woman stood on the other

side of the counter. She was young, and she looked clean – that was my main impression.

She looked quiet. Beyond that, she was about as nondescript as a woman could be and still

remain visible to the human eye.

I was afraid to move, afraid to speak too loudly in case I scared her off. I asked

carefully, “When could you start?”

Possibly that came across as too needy. Her brown eyes widened.

“Don’t you want me to fill out an application?”

“Absolutely. When can you start?”

I smiled, but apparently it was not a reassuring effort. She said warily, “Tomorrow, I

guess.”

“Full-time? Part-time?”

“Whatever I can get, I guess.”

Did she guess about everything? Were there no certainties in her young life?

“What’s your name?”

“Velvet. Velvet White.”

See, this is why people should have to be licensed to have kids. Imagine going through

years of homeroom as White, Velvet.

“Hang on, Velvet,” I told her. “I’ll find an application.”

I hustled to find the forms in the storeroom archives before Velvet had time to make an

escape. Still doubtful, she filled the application out at one of the library tables in the back,

while I went into the office to let LAPD know that I might have been the last person to see

Gabriel Savant before he vanished.

* * * * *

Velvet showed up on time Sunday morning. We spent the day going over basics. She

seemed to be an intelligent life form – at least she followed directions, and that seemed as

good a place as any to start.

When she showed for work on Monday, I began to think I had a live one. She was

quiet, even quieter than Angus, and she seemed to watch me when she thought I wasn’t

noticing. I figured she’d relax as soon as she realized that her first impression was wrong, that

I was actually quite the model of mental stability – barring recent lapses.

I hadn’t heard from Jake since Thursday night. Monday night was one of our usual get-

togethers, but I had agreed to meet Lisa’s councilman for dinner. I left word on Jake’s cell

phone, but still hadn’t heard from him when time came to close shop.

So when the downstairs phone rang, I doubled back to pick it up, though I was already

running late.