by Jaleta Clegg
Shondeen will take the back. We're going to catch the killers."
Roxy gave Shondeen a long look. "You sure you're with the FBI? That outfit doesn't look like their usual suits. And I don't recall them allowing wild hair dye jobs in the dress code. I almost joined them once. They offered but I liked living in Goose Creek too much. I know what FBI agents look like."
"I smell peppermint," Beavis said. "And cinnamon."
Shondeen wrapped her hand around her wand, then shook her head. "I don't have the power to hold the glamour over them. I'm draining it just keeping this building in one piece."
"Hey, Beavis," Tess called. "You remember those devil worshippers we arrested last Halloween?"
"Satanists slaughtered half a dozen goats," Roxy said. She ground her cigarette out under the ball of her foot. "Stupid bunch. Stank up the jail for a month."
"They was just teenagers out looking for a prank," Beavis said. His cousin had been the ringleader.
"They summoned a real demon," Tess said. "It manifested as those two killers out there. Shondeen here is from the FBI's anti-cultist unit. She knows how to deal with demons, which is why they sent her. So just listen up and do as she says. Okay? She explained all this before, don't you remember?"
"Oh, yeah." Beavis sucked in his gut, then hitched up his belt with both hands. It was obvious he had no idea what Tess was talking about, but he pretended anyway.
Roxy was more difficult. She squinted at Shondeen, suspicion plain on her face. Her lipsticked mouth opened.
The barn rattled under a heavy blow. Wind screamed around the roof, stripping shingles and hurling them away.
"No time, Roxy! Just get ready to pounce with those cuffs." Tess held a match ready to strike. The other matchbooks were in a pile in front of her, matches splayed and ready to light. "Now, Shondeen!"
The elf nodded. She spoke a sentence in her own language. Blue light flared along the length of the wand. The wind died abruptly. Silence fell. They waited.
And waited. Beavis scratched an itch on his nose. Roxy shifted her feet. Tess resisted the urge to stretch out a cramp in her leg. Shondeen stood like a statue. Blue sparkles drifted from the wand she held down by one leg.
The door creaked. A hairy white head with a bloody red cap perched on top poked through the crack. Tess froze, holding her breath. The redcap's head disappeared. Low whispering came from outside the door.
The hat reappeared, bouncing across the ground into the barn. Something had been shoved inside. It rolled to a stop. Green smoke writhed free. It slithered near the ground, acting like a dog as it sniffed for the people hiding in the barn.
Shondeen charged forward. She shouted what sounded like a battle cry as she stomped over the green tendrils. Blue light and green smoke snapped and crackled as they stormed around the elf. Her black skin shone like ebony under disco lights.
The redcaps screamed in rage as they stormed inside the barn. Magic exploded in multicolored clouds that sparked and shot lightning bolts in random directions. Smoke, real smoke, rose from a pile of hay in the corner.
Beavis dropped to the ground, rump in the air, arms wrapped over his head.
Roxy shrieked as a lightning bolt parted her helmet of hair. "That does it. Noboby touches my 'do!" She leapt onto one of the redcaps, body slamming his two-foot body to the ground. All but his hands disappeared under her ample curves. The blood-stained fingers scrabbled through the dirt. Roxy slapped a cuff around one wrist. The redcap screamed. They rolled across the ground in a tangle of flailing limbs and smoking hair.
"Cast the spell," Shondeen shouted. She held the second redcap high. He dangled by his beard, arms and legs windmilling as he fought her hold.
Clouds of smoke billowed higher, rainbow colored magic and normal gray. Tess lost sight of the others. She coughed on the thickening smoke. Her fingers shook as she yanked the match across the lighting strip. The match flared, then died, the flame sucked away by the wind before it could catch.
Screams and shouts and muffled explosions came from the roiling cloud inside the barn. Beavis moaned and clutched his hat tighter to his head. He shuffled farther into the corner. He shifted directions fast enough when flames licked across his boots from the straw piled in the corner. He crawled quickly across the ground on elbows and knees, headed for the door and Tess.
Tess flicked another match across the lighter strip. Another failure to light. Cheap paper matches. She fumbled another one loose.
"Now, Tess! Or we are all lost!" Shondeen's shout sounded as if it came from far away down a long tunnel. Echoes shifted and bounced strangely around the barn.
A redcap exploded from the magic cloud. He was all teeth and scraggly white hair as he launched himself free. Beavis shrieked like a little girl as the handcuffs dangling from one of the evil creature's wrists smacked him in the head. His hands tangled on the redcaps gnarled feet. The redcap's chin smacked the grin hard enough that Tess heard its teeth crack. Beavis continued to shriek while he thrashed the redcap back and forth on the ground. The hate-filled beady eyes under the redcap crossed under the punishment. Roxy stormed out of the cloud, like a raging Valkyrie with her hair in wild tangles standing out from her head and her eyes full of fury. She slammed one foot onto the redcap, pinning it to the ground.
"Cuff him, Beavis!" Roxy's voice snapped.
Beavis stopped in mid-shriek. He yanked the redcap's arms behind its back and finished fastening the cuffs. "You're under arrest." He jerked the little creature to its feet.
A larger explosion knocked him back down. The redcap rolled across the ground and bumped to a stop right in front of Tess. Teeth snapped, broken and bleeding, but that didn't seem to affect the redcap.
"Light him up, Tess," Roxy said as she strode over to kick the redcap into submission again.
Tess bent her head over the matchbooks. Light flared from the match in her hand. A tiny flame flickered over the head. The smell of sulfur teased like a faint whiff of perfume. The redcap on the ground whimpered.
The wind blew out the match before Tess could light the pile of matchbooks.
Shondeen flew out of the cloud of blue smoke. The elf sprawled on the ground, groaning as she hit.
Tess's hands shook as she tried to light another match. Another miss. And another.
Shondeen crawled on shaky hands and knees back into the smoke.
"Gimme that," Beavis ordered. He took the matchbook from Tess. He flicked the match with a practiced swipe. Flames danced and caught.
Roxy ground her high heel into the redcap's back as she leaned close, cigarette poised to light. She stuck it between her lips and sucked in a deep breath. The smell of tobacco burning mixed with the stench of burning hay, magic, and singed hair.
Tess gathered the matchbooks as a desperate scream tore free of the magical cloud. Roxy lit another cigarette, letting it dangle from her mouth as she folded the first cigarette into a matchbook. She tossed it into the cloud.
"Keep lighting, Roxy," Tess said as she caught what the dispatcher was trying to do. "Beavis give me another matchbook."
Tess took another lit cigarette and another matchbook, folding them together before tossing them into the cloud. Beavis took the next one from her before she could throw it. He set it in front of the captured redcap. The matches flared into flame. The redcap's eyes crossed then closed as the smoke of burning matches wreathed his face.
"Hold your breath, Shondeen!" Tess threw more of the matchbooks into the magical cloud. Thumps and shouts echoed out of the boiling mass. They waited.
The cloud caught fire with a loud whoosh. It flared and died in a flash. The air stunk of burnt matches. Sulfur and red phosphorus, Tess thought in satisfaction. The last wisp of magical smoke blew clear. The barn was lit only by the sullen flickering of the burning straw in the corner.
The second redcap was sprawled on the ground on its back, arms and legs wide, beard jutting towards the roof. It let out a juicy snore. Beavis rose from the ground with a loud grunt. He stomped over the ground,
cuffs dangling from his hand.
Shondeen groaned as she stood. She coughed, cleared her throat, then sucked on her inhaler. "Much better." Her voice was hoarse and scratchy. "Help me drag them outside."
Roxy picked up the redcap at her feet. Beavis hauled the other one up, tucking it under one arm. The four of them emerged from the barn into the morning light. The squad car still burned. Tess's car, parked farther away on the dirt track that led to the farmhouse, looked untouched, except for the four very flat tires.
Shondeen sniffed, coughed, then waved her stick. A flicker of blue sparks fizzed feebly. Shondeen smacked it against her palm. She twisted her face into a grimace. "It's completely discharged. You're going to have to open the portal." Her green eyes fixed on Tess.
"Me?" Tess shook her head.
The redcap in Roxy's hold twitched. She shook it into submission.
"You've got the power," Shondeen said. "I'll give you the words to say. You just have to believe you can do it."
"We should lock these two up, pronto," Beavis said. "They must have escaped from the circus or something."
"Your jails won't hold them long," Shondeen said to Tess. "They need to go back where they came from. You've got power to spare. Trust your Irish grandmother."
Tess touched her red hair. She had the gift. She had to believe that or she'd be responsible for letting two redcaps loose in her world. Two innocent store clerks had already lost their lives. No one else had to die because of this.
