Page 48 of The Sister's Curse

“Maybe. But I do not fuck with that.”

I slid Rod a fifty-dollar bill with my card. His eyes lit up, and he snatched up the bill and card.

“There’s more where that came from if you remember otherstuff.” I was skeptical about what he’d told me, but I felt uneasy enough to keep lines of communication with Rod open.

Owen returned with the time cards, which looked legit. I thanked him and paid for the drink. By then, Rod had retreated to the men’s room and was offering no further commentary on the magical powers of the staff.

The door banged open, and I squinted at the sudden light. A familiar figure darkened the doorway in a rumpled dress shirt, a loosened tie, and a bad attitude: Jeff Sumner.

Sumner stomped over to the bar.

“Where the hell is Vivian Carson?” he demanded. His cheeks were red, and he looked drunk. He slammed something down on the bar, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was. It was a skeleton of a snake, curled in a perfect circle, with its tail tied into its mouth with baling wire. “I found this on my car.”

The bartender’s fingers surreptitiously slipped under the bar, toward the shotgun, but he replied evenly. “No idea.”

“She’s supposed to work here,” Sumner growled. “I need to talk to her.”

I slid off my stool and approached the other side of the bar. “Mr.Sumner, I have to ask you what you’re wanting with Vivian Carson.”

Sumner wheeled on me, eyes narrowing. “None of your fucking business.”

The bartender remained with one hand on his hidden shotgun. “I think you should leave.”

Sumner turned back to him. “You can’t kick me out.”

“I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. You can leave of your own accord, or the lady and I can make you.” The bartender nodded at me.

Sumner swept his arm across the bar, sending glasses sliding across it and shattering on the floor.

“All right, that’s enough.” I reached for his arm. He shrugged my arm away and stomped to the door.

I glanced at the bartender, then at the glass on the floor. “You want to press charges for destruction of property?” I was hoping to hell that he’d say yes, but Owen shook his head. “Not worth the headache.”

I reached the parking lot in enough time to see Sumner’s SUV peeling out of the dusty lot in a cloud of irritation.

By now, the sun was beginning to lower on the horizon. There was still a good five hours of daylight left. Somehow, standing in the sunshine in a crumbling parking lot with crabgrass growing out of cracks in the sizzling asphalt felt safe. Like everything was normal and fine with the world as long as the sun was shining. After dark, though…

Fuck. I didn’t really want to expand my personal cosmology to include curses if I could help it. Since there was nothing illegal about cursing someone…I wasn’t sure what the hell I was supposed to do about this.

Maybe Viv’s hexes and the misfortune of the Kings of Warsaw Creek were just coincidence.

But I’d seen enough strange shit that I couldn’t rule it out.

My attention was snagged by a flyer stapled to a telephone pole. I approached it, my eyebrows crawling up into my hairline. Tucked between a lost dog poster and an ad for a mattress sale was a neon pink flyer reading, in Gothic script letters:

“There shall not be found among you any…that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.” (Deuteronomy 18:10–11)

Our community is under assault by the occult. Find God and be placed under his loving umbrella of protection.

I frowned at the word “witch.” I noticed that there was church information at the bottom: Greenwood Kingdom Church’s.

My phone rang, and I picked it up, wincing at theBEEPthat greeted me before Detwiler’s voice: “El-Tee, this is D6. Dispatch received an anonymous call about a girl screaming at Greenwood Kingdom Church. I’m en route, but I thought this might relate to your case.”

“Yes. Yes, it might.”

—

I headed out to Greenwood Kingdom Church. Despite it being a weekday, the massive parking lot contained maybe a dozen late-model cars, and Sims’s vintage black Mercedes. A billboard out front encouraged congregants toGive your souls to God and prosper.