Oberon? Santana mouthed to me. Immediately, I understood the connection. Ever since Oberon Marx had taken over Tatyana’s body and tried to kill us all in the name of Katherine, it had been clear he’d been under the same spell. Katherine would have had to kill all of Oberon Marx’s family to make it happen. Maybe he was the test run, before she tried it out on my dad.
“Might I suggest we leave this room and take our conversation to the Flying Dutchman?” Salinger said, unexpectedly. “We are supposed to make guests feel welcome, and there is much I should like to speak with you both about. I have been remiss, I suppose. You will forgive me—your arrival was unprecedented.”
“The Flying Dutchman?” I asked.
“The New York Coven’s bar.”
Santana nodded effusively. “Yes, that sounds perfect!”
“I can see to your copies first,” he said stiffly.
“Great.” I forced a smile onto my face as we followed him out of the archives.
We sat around a table in the far corner of the bar, which reminded me of an old-timey smoking room, with dark mahogany furniture and dark green wallpaper printed with black fleur-de-lis. A few other patrons sat around, sipping tankards of ale and glasses of wine, with a few grizzled gentlemen partaking in crystal tumblers of amber whiskey. The ice cubes clinked as they lifted the drinks to their lips and set them down again.
Salinger was four drinks in. He’d tried to refuse and stick to water, clearly wanting to grill us on what we knew and what we thought about all of this, but Santana had been plying him with whiskey sours and tequila chasers since the moment he sat down, evidently hoping he’d loosen up a bit. She’d claimed it was part of her Mexican culture, guilting him into accepting the drinks or risking insulting her. Being a preceptor of International Cultures, he clearly knew not to cross a fierce Latina, especially not one who wanted to ply him with booze.
However, the plan had worked a little too well, and now we were struggling to shut him up.
“You know, I always thought Hester and Hiram were a handsome couple, and both were good friends of mine for a while, but we had ourselves a falling out.” Salinger pulled me out of my thoughts. He twisted his features into a comical face as he downed a chaser that Santana had pushed into his hand. “Always the way, when a bro finds himself a… girlfriend. Suddenly, they don’t have time for you anymore, and it’s ‘Hester this’ and ‘Hester that.’ And then things start to get ugly, as they always do, and Hester’s running through the hallways in tears. That was Hiram’s problem: he toyed with too many women’s hearts—Katherine’s included. Me being a doting friend, I went to Hiram to try and talk some sense into him, but he thought he was this rock star amongst men. He thought he could keep doing what he was doing, have all the cake and eat it too. Saving none for the rest of us, I might add.”
I stared at him, not wanting to believe that my dad was this arrogant lothario. It didn’t match up with the Hiram I’d seen in my dreams. Plus, part of me was desperate to believe that he and my mother had been head over heels in love, and that he’d only had eyes for her. The same part that had waited at the front door of the orphanage, convinced that my parents were coming back for me.
Isn’t that every kid’s dream, to have the perfect parents?
His eyes were starry. “Mind you, Hester was no better. She was an obnoxious overachiever, if you ask me. She didn’t mind stepping on a toe or two, if it meant advancing through the coven. Oh, I had my feet squashed many a time by her, just to gain a brownie point or two,” he went on, slurring slightly. “You hear about these twins who can’t do anything without each other—they finish each other’s sentences and are totally inseparable? Well, Katherine and Hester weren’t like that.”
“They weren’t?” I asked, coaxing him.
“My word, no. You see, Katherine had been eyed for a position on the board of this coven. She was far more gifted that Hester, though not as vocal about it. As soon as Hester heard about it, she scooted her way around Katherine’s back and snatched it for herself. You should have seen the argument! I thought they were going to blow the roof off this place. There were sparks, literal sparks, flying everywhere. I nearly lost an eyebrow trying to get away from it. You know, I asked them both out, and they both rejected me for Hiram. Can you believe that? And then you ask why I hated him so much! Murders aside… well, not murders, I suppose, if he had that curse on him. Poor bastard. What a way to go. She was always a jealous one, that Katherine. But what a peach!”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you saying Hester goaded Katherine into doing what she did? Killing her like that?”
“No, certainly not! They might have had their differences, but Hester didn’t deserve to suffer and die like that at all. None of Katherine’s victims did. I’m just saying there was no love between the two of them. They were always sniping and bickering, wandering around these halls with a black cloud above them. We’d always whisper if they were coming and get out of their way.” He cackled and knocked back another half-glass of whiskey sour. Any more and he’d be on the floor. “How strange… I brought you here to question you, and here I am, telling you all of this. How absolutely hilarious!”
I sat in silence, letting the information sink in. Yes, it was coming from a man who was very tipsy, but people always tended to speak the blunt truth when they were drunk. Plus, I could sense honesty coming from him. A swirl of mixed emotions churned in my stomach. It was hard to feel proud of my parents, after hearing all of that, but like Salinger had said, nobody was perfect. They’d had fears and flaws and worries of their own. Somehow, despite the bad image Salinger conveyed, it made them seem more real to me. It made them seem like people I could have understood, instead of a perfect fiction in my head. I love you regardless…
“It says here that the Shiptons are all dead, too. Did Katherine do that?” Santana asked, brandishing the family tree from the folders we’d made. He’d copied them for us before we’d come here.
Salinger nodded. “Killed them in the midst of a violent rampage. Can’t imagine it had much to do with that spell, though. She probably just did it for the”—he hiccupped violently—“and giggles.”
“You’re probably right,” I muttered bitterly.
“You know, I’m so glad we decided to do this. I rarely have the chance to let my hair down,” he said, chuckling. “I’m not normally allowed in here. I’ve got a rap sheet for all the silly stuff I got up to when I was a youth.”
“You understand that reparations will have to be made in the near future, to clear Hiram’s name of any wrongdoing?” I hoped he wasn’t too incapacitated to understand.
Salinger wore a puzzled look. “You’re quite right, Miss Merlin. Reparations will have to be made. Although, before such a thing can proceed, we’ll need absolute proof that what you’ve discovered is true. The coroner seems to think that rune is just a tattoo—we all did. You’ll need to convince the New York Mage Council, and then the Supreme Court of the United Covens of America. I don’t envy you!”
He was right, although the news wasn’t particularly heartening. “But if we could somehow get a confession from someone who was around when it happened…” I said, not even sure where I was going with that thought.
“A confession would be good, though you’d have to get it from Katherine herself, or one of her little minions. And good luck trying that! Until then, dear old Hiram will have to wallow a while longer in the quagmire of his apparent guilt. A confession may be a long time coming. Poor bastard. He doesn’t deserve the bad reputation if he was under a spell. Hell, I’ve done some ridiculous things in the name of love, and nobody put a curse on me.” He giggled into his drink.
“Since we’ve got zero leads in that direction, looks like we’ve still got a lot of work to do before we can clear Hiram’s name,” I muttered, fixing my gaze on Santana.
“Yeah, a hell of a lot of work,” Santana said. “Seems pretty unfair, if you ask me.”
“Life is unfair, my dear,” Salinger replied. “Believe me, I’d be the first to champion Hiram’s innocence, and I’ll offer this new information to the board. However, I know what the old shrews are like. They won’t accept it unless they’ve got the goods to back it up. They’d be crucified if they suddenly overturned their verdict. I mean, they killed the guy, for goodness’ sake—they executed him, even though he maintained his innocence throughout the trial. Think about how that’ll make them look. My word, they’ll be eager to cover it up instead of going about singing his innocence.”
Fear gripped my chest in a vise. Unless we could find considerable evidence to back up what we’d found, nobody would lift a finger to announce Hiram’s innocence—or lack of culpability, at the very least. It would make them all look really bad.
“Well then, if you’re all done here, why don’t I get us some more drinks?” He grinned like an idiot. I would’ve felt bad for putting him in this state if he hadn’t been such a stuck-up asshat when we first arrived. Plus, this was all Santana’s doing.
“That’d be great, but there’s one other thing,” I said.
He arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Do tell.”
“I was wondering if you could grant us access to Hiram and Hester’s Grimoire.”
Salinger sighed. “Ah, I’d forgotten about that. Despite it all, those two lovebirds were made for each other. He drove her crazy, and she was way out of his league, but they adored each other like you wouldn’t believe. I think she was the only woman who ever stopped his eye from roving, even if he floundered from time to time. Impulses and whatnot. I don’t believe in that sort of thing, myself. I’m a loyal sort of chap. When I’m with a gal, I’m with a gal. Like superglue! No separating us. Still, I know not everyone can believe in love the way I do.”