Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) Read Free Page B

fortune cookies.” Max’s English was excellent, but it was not his native language. He had a slight, elegant foreign accent, reflecting his origins in Central Europe centuries ago. “Lily asked Ted to stay upstairs and mind the store, but he followed us down to the cellar, full of questions, accusations, and recriminations. I do not think he can forgive his mother or sister for any of this.”
    “Go figure,” I said.
    Lily had inflicted bad luck, illness, and injuries on Ted’s associates, but she had not planned to kill anyone. Susan was the one who had raised the stakes by adding murder to the mix. And Lily, who had taught her dark secrets to her talented daughter, soon realized that she couldn’t control her. But the two women didn’t fall out until Susan decided to kill John Chen.
    Lily had not prevented the other murders—nor the attempt on Lopez’s life only yesterday—but she had drawn the line at letting Susan kill a fine young man who was a longtime family friend. Lily had destroyed the cursed cookie Susan was preparing for John, which was why Susan—by now reckless in her homicidal obsession—had resorted to the more mundane method of simply trying to shoot him. She got the gun from a local thug named Danny Teng, who had been loosely connected with
ABC.
    I shuddered when I thought of Danny, who’d been hanging around the film set lately, bullying Ted, eyeing me with lip-smacking lust, and making lewd comments. There was at least one benefit to production shutting down and costing me my job: I’d never have to see that dangerous creep again.
    Max continued, “But although Susan had run mad, her intelligence did not desert her. She suspected Lily might have an attack of conscience and try to destroy the workshop.”
    “So she booby-trapped it?” Lucky guessed.
    “Precisely.” Max removed his singed hat and examined it with regret. “A mystical booby trap. Susan didn’t have the necessary time or skill to conjure wards that could withstand an assault from her mother, who possesses power similar to her own. Instead, she tried to make the consequences of destroying the workshop too dangerous to risk.”
    He dropped his ruined hat into the ankle-deep slush at our feet and gazed up at the burning building. “It was quickly apparent to me there would be a cost for obliterating her dark ritual space. But I underestimated how destructive Susan could be. Even knowing about the murders, I still didn’t anticipate that she was prepared to destroy her home and her late father’s legacy—the shop has been in the Yee family for many years.” Max shook his head. “So I proceeded. And by the time I realized the full extent of the danger, it was too late. The whole building burst into flames. As you see.”
    “You and Lily and Ted were lucky to get out alive,” I said, feeling my chest constrict as I realized how close Max had come to death. He often said that fire was the weakest element of his power. His ability to shield himself and the Yees from that conflagration long enough for them to escape with their lives had probably been precarious.
    Thinking of fire made me think of Lopez again. He’d been present during Susan’s mad murder attempt today. I recalled the way that unexplained flames had suddenly poured from the mouth of John’s lion costume (he was one of the athletic dancers who roamed the streets during the festival), blazing at Susan the moment after she turned her gun on
me . . .
I felt sure Lopez had done that, though he didn’t know it.
    “We were very lucky indeed,” Max said, glancing to where Ted and Lily stood. “I shall not be taking any of life’s pleasures for granted for some time to come, I assure you.”
    I watched the flames rise from the building and recalled other incendiary incidents involving Lopez, before today’s fire-spewing lion costume had probably saved my life by distracting Susan.
    When Lopez was trapped in an underground tunnel with a serial killer who