by R. D. Hunter
I shook my head, this time fighting back a grin of my own. The man had style, I had to give him that, and I certainly wouldn’t want him for an enemy.
It was crazy. I’d come into this meeting convinced that Harold Mason had been the one to summon and send the Smiling Man at me last night, most likely to divert attention away from the murder of Nichole Barret. But something in his words rang true, and now I didn’t picture him for any of it. Even when he wouldn’t expound on whatever spiritual crises he was going through, he was open about it. A murderer, especially a Fringe murderer, wouldn’t have been nearly as open.
But it appeared Hawkins had been keeping secrets from us, which was worth another chat at any rate.
With the interview wrapping up, the pretty secretary from out front came in, holding a tray with several cups of steaming coffee, along with cream, sugar and buttery croissants. It smelled heavenly and I briefly thought of extending my questioning, just for the opportunity to sample some of it. From the way Bill was watching the tray, I could tell his mind was of the same.
Before I could thank Mason for his time, my stomach did a little flip-flop as the energy in the room turned sour. I’d never experienced anything like it. One second, everything was fine, then it felt like we were sitting in a nest of vipers, each one ready to strike with huge, curved fangs.
“Look out!” I yelled, jumping to my feet. Mason didn’t hesitate. Moving far quicker than I’d have given him credit for, he vaulted over the arm of his char, landing in a defensive crouch, ready to leap away at the first inclination of danger. It was just in time.
A split-second after he moved, the pretty secretary tripped over her own feet, sending the scalding hot coffee tray right down here Mason had been sitting a moment earlier. If he’d still been there, he would have been covered head-to-toe in boiling liquid. At the very least, it would have meant second degree burns on his arms, chest and legs, and it would have hurt like hell to boot. Thanks to my warning and his quick reflexes, though, he wasn’t even damp.
The secretary stared at the spill in horror, likely seeing her auspicious career ending before her very eyes. An instant later, the gorilla bodyguard was there, surveying the damage and glowering at me like it was somehow my fault. Then he crossed over to his boss, who had stood up by this point and looking at me in shock.
“How’d you do that?” he asked, his veneer of professionalism stripped away to show the man underneath. I shrugged.
“I…saw that she was about to trip and warned you,” I said unconvincingly. “That’s all.” It sounded like bullshit, even to my ears, and even Bill seemed unnerved by it all.
Mason looked at me for a long moment, while the poor secretary apologized over and over again as she began cleaning up the spill. At last, he inclined his head in thanks, and we made our exit.
I was shaken. Whatever had happened in that room, it hadn’t been natural, and I had a sudden insight into what Mason’s ‘crises of faith’ might be. But it didn’t concern me. I had enough irons in the fire already.
“So, that was weird,” Bill said on the elevator ride down.
“You never seen spilled coffee before?” I asked, maybe a little more defensively than need be.
“I meant the interview. I can see why Mason would want to keep it private, if he was hiring a spiritual adviser. It makes him seem vulnerable, which is something powerful business guys like him tend to avoid. But hiring a piece of shit like Hawkins is a mistake in anyone’s book. And Harold Mason isn’t the type to go around making those kinds of mistakes.” I shrugged, trying not to think about the wave of negative energy that had washed over the room shortly before the accident. Could it be influencing Mason in his decision making? I’d have to ask Gramps about that.
“Well, whatever the reason, Hawkins lied to us. He never submitted a report to Mason, which means that the only person who knew Nichole Barret was a wi…err, Wiccan, was him.” Bill glanced over at me with a raised eyebrow.
“You looking at that for a motive?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone was murdered for their religious practices.” But it’d damn well be the last in my city, if I had anything to say about it, I added silently.
Hawkins’ office building looked the same as we’d seen it yesterday, except for a bright, new sign in the front declaring “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. PROPERTY OF MASON INDUSTRIES.” I couldn’t help but smile a little. The man worked fast.
Bill and I took the stairs. The shaky elevator from our last visit was still fresh in our minds and we didn’t want to tempt fate any more than was necessary. There was no sign on the Hawkins’ door declaring him out of the office, so Bill knocked politely while I stood off to the side.
There was no warning. None. Just an explosion of force and sound that threw me back down the hall and showered me with bits of wood, metal and glass. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. My whole body was an alien mass of pain that I had no control over. What the hell had happened? Where was Bill?
Gradually, I became aware of a presence standing over me. It took all of my will to focus my eyes, and when I did, I beheld the startling visage of Darren Hawkins glaring down at me. Except, it wasn’t him as I remembered him yesterday.
His once brown eyes had turned a sickly yellow and his hair was splayed out in all directions. He wore no shirt, which allowed me to see his bare arms and torso and the many charged and glowing crystals he had embedded in his skin. There were dozens of them, each humming at a different frequency that only my magical senses could pick up. At least those still worked.
I struggled for my gun, but my arm moved slowly and erratically, not understanding the mixed signals sent to it from my addled brain. Hawkins watched me for a few moments, then bent down so close I could smell the stale coffee on his breath. The sound of doors opening up and down the obliterated hallway reached my ears and I heard the clamor of alarmed voices.
Oh, good. Witnesses. Hawkins must not have been keen on performing for a crowd, because he looked up for a moment, then glared back down at my limp form.
“You’re a lucky bitch, you know that,” he said between gritted teeth. “I was looking forward to finishing you off, but I guess that’ll have to wait. I’m about to rain down hellfire on every freak in this burg tonight. Then, I’ll be the only magical game in town. Stay out of my way and, if you’re lucky, I might forget about you. Cross me again, and you can join your friend I left in her tub. This is the only warning you’ll get.”
He stepped over me, not even changing his stride as I tried in vain to grab his leg and detain him. Then he was gone, and a few seconds later, so was I.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I’ve woken up in a hospital twice in my life. The first time was when my parents died. The second, I was in the fifth grade on an overnight school trip and my appendix decided to burst. If I’d been at home, Gramps could likely have taken care of it himself. But Mrs. Punkle, my teacher, was a practical woman who didn’t believe in magic, so to the hospital and into surgery I went. Both times, when I’d come to, Gramps had been there by my bedside. This was the third.
“How are you feeling, My Dear?” he asked, wiping my forehead with a cool, damp cloth. It smelled faintly of lavender, and I had a feeling it was soaked in more than regular water.
I thought about it. Everything hurt, but it was a distant ache, like I’d worked out too much without stretching and this was my bodies payback. I made a motion to sit up, and slivers of pain sliced their way up and down every muscle and tendon I had.
“Shit!” I gasped, abandoning my efforts to move, then glanced over at my grandpa. “Sorry.” He didn’t approve of vulgarity, but he only smiled kindly and continued wiping away the fresh beads of perspiration on my forehead.
“Under the circumstances, you’re forgiven. I should have counseled you against trying to move.” He lifted a cup of water to my lips and I drank several sips, knowing better than to chug the whole thing like I wanted.
“How bad is it
?” I asked after a moment. My head felt fuzzy, but whether that was from injury or the medication flowing into me through a tube in my arm, I wasn’t sure.
“You have minor fractures in your left arm, leg, and foot. You also have two broken ribs, but nothing that needed to be reset. You have a minor concussion and several lacerations all over your body that required the removal of debris and a total of sixteen stitches. You were lucky.” I wanted to snort with laughter, but it hurt too damn much.
A new thought broke its way through my foggy consciousness and I almost tried to sit upright again, but stopped myself at the last instant.
“Bill,” I whispered hoarsely. “What about Bill? He was closer to the blast than I was. Is he ok?” My grandpa looked at me gravely and I prepared myself for the worst.
“He’s in surgery,” he said softly. “Has been for several hours. We’re not sure of the exact severity of his injuries, but there was major internal trauma, as well multiple compound fractures. I met his wife in the waiting room. Lovely woman. Asked about you and wanted to be notified when you woke up.”
That was Pam, Bill’s wife and mother of their two kids. She was wonderful; caring, compassionate, and a terrific cook. She always made Bill pack extra when he brought his lunch, just so he had enough to share with me. I’d been over at their house several times since joining the S.C.C. and she was a genuine jewel of a person. She didn’t deserve this.
I tried to swallow down the ball of grief that threatened to burst forth, succeeded only a little bit, and gritted my teeth as a choked sob escaped my lips. Gramps didn’t say anything. He just wiped away the tears as they came with that lavender scented cloth.
After a few minutes, I’d composed myself enough to ask what happened. He looked at me curiously.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said. “What do you remember?”
I closed my eyes and thought back. Even that hurt. Haltingly, I started recalling what happened at Hawkins’ office. When I got the part about seeing him with the crystals implanted in his body, I opened my eyes to see Gramps, his face pale and dread in his eyes.
“What? What does this mean?” I asked.
“It means your suspect, this Hawkins character, has gained access to powers he was never meant to have,” Gramps said. “He has neither the discipline nor the knowledge needed to control the crystals in his body, and they are slowly tearing him apart. My guess is that they have already begun on his sanity.”
“But why? We use crystals all the time. They don’t do that to us.”
“Because we use them correctly. We utilize the energy of a crystal, but at the same time they utilize our energy as well. Think about it, when you do a spell involving a crystal as a power source, how do you feel after wards?” I thought about it for a second before answering.
“Fine, maybe a little drained, but nothing too drastic. I’m not half as weak as if I’d tried the spell without the crystal.”
“Exactly. That’s because crystals are living things, and so require a certain amount of life energy, to grow and sustain themselves. They can’t produce it themselves, so they absorb it from a practitioner, in exchange for donating the power stored inside for the witch’s working.” My eyes grew wide in alarm.
“And with Hawkins having multiple crystals directly on his skin…”
“They are soaking up his life energy like a sponge and allowing him access to their own stores,” Gramps finished gravely. “When those stores are exhausted, they will also draw from his life force to replenish it.”
“And it won’t stop until he’s just a dried-out husk or removes the crystals himself.” Gramps nodded.
“But until then, he will have more power than any other currently living witch on the planet. And while the Book of Shadows he stole from that poor girl, Nichole Barret, may have assisted him in learning how to manipulate that power, he won’t have the fine touch and skill needed to produce any major complicated workings, such as reality manipulation or time reversal.”
“But he has more than enough to make things go BOOM,” I mused. The words Hawkins spoke before leaving my broken body came floating back and my eyes grew wide with terror.
“Gramps, you have to get me out of here,” I pleaded.
“My Dear…” he began, but I cut him off.
“Now! You have to get me out of here now. Hawking isn’t finished. He’s hellbent on taking out the magic users in Atlanta. Thinks it’ll give him a corner on the magical market. Wait. He said he was going to do it tonight. What’s tonight? Tonight’s something, isn’t it?”
“Imbolc. Tonight, is the festival of Imbolc,” my grandpa said with dread in his voice.
Shit. The Festival of Imbolc was a celebration of life returning to the world after a winter of darkness and slumber. Hawkins must have read about it in Nichole’s Book of Shadows. There’d be celebrations all over the world, mostly in secret, as witches came together to cast spells and rituals to promote the coming spring.
In Atlanta, the Coven of the Gilded Moon always put on the biggest feast and party, usually attended by at least a couple hundred of the Fringe. That was where Hawkins was going to strike.
“You have to get me out of here, Gramps,” I implored again. “Please. I have to stop him.” I could see the conflict raging inside my usually stoic grandpa, and I hated it. I hated that I had to put him in a position of helping his granddaughter to possibly further injury, or risk the lives of countless of the Fringe. But there was no help for it.
After a few moments’ contemplation, he nodded sadly.
“Wait here. I’ll return shortly.” He grabbed his bag, slung it across his shoulder, and left.
I lay there, unable to move without excruciating pain, so I started filling in the gaps of the case in my head. Mason had hire Hawkins to do exactly what he said, find someone private who might be able to provide some spiritual insight into whatever was going on with him. Hawkins, in all his brilliance, had decided that meant he wanted to find someone who did real magic, so that was what he looked for. Most places he hit a dead end, except with Nichole Barret.
To his shock, he’d not only found someone who did magic, but he might be able to do it himself, with the right tools and equipment. So, he kills Nichole Barret, taking unnecessary measures to make sure she didn’t rise from the grave, (hey, the man had just discovered witches exist. He wasn’t taking any chances at this point) stole her Book of Shadows to use as an instruction manual, as well as all the crystals he could find.
Now he’s got the juice, he’s got the know-how, but he’s also got a problem; that’s me. Thanks to an observant neighbor and Bill’s info, we show up at his door in record time asking about Nichole Barret. He’s spooked, so he turned us on to Harold Mason to buy us some time.
That night, using instructions found in Nichole’s Book of Shadows, he throws a line into the spirit realm and hooks the Smiling Man. Looking back, it was probably just a low-level entity that fed on fear and caused bad dreams. He knew that wouldn’t be enough, so he supercharged it with some of his crystal juice and, voila; instant, supernatural killing machine.
He sends it after me because he doesn’t like me and because he knows that nothing would drain the department’s attention and drain their resources faster than a detective found dead in her own home. It’d give him some much-needed breathing room. But I throw a monkey wrench in that plan by surviving, so now he knows it’s only a matter of time before I talk to Mason and start connecting dots. So, he takes a shortcut and begins fusing those crystals to his body, giving him the boost in power he wants with no discernible side effects; at least, not until they turn him into a dried-out husk from over using him, but he doesn’t know about that part. To him, he’s hit the magical jackpot, and he’s ready to cash in.
It fit. The only question now was, what was he going to do with all this power before it killed him? My gut told me he was going to make a move on the Gilded Moon tonight. The Festival of Imbolc was a target-rich environment for s
omeone looking to attack the Fringe. He either wanted more power, some recognition, or was just murder-happy by this point. The ‘why’ of the upcoming massacre didn’t really matter.
Minutes passed and I began to doze. The high-octane pain meds being pumped into me were seductive in their lullaby, and I came around to see Captain Barker standing over me. He looked grim.
“Sir…” I began, but he held up a hand to stop me.
“Don’t talk,” he said. “The only way I could get the nurse to let me in was if I promised not to upset you. She’s tougher than Calloway ever was.” I licked my dry lips before managing a weak smile.
“She must be a real bitch.” We both chuckled, even though it sent fresh shards of pain. My heart grew cold. “Bill?” I said with dread in my voice. The Captain shook his head.
“No word yet. He was messed up pretty bad. Both his left leg and left arm were severely injured. There was talk about amputation. Several pieces of shrapnel hit him, nicking a couple of arteries in the process, but they missed his heart and lungs by some miracle. Whatever explosive Hawkins used, it was concussive in nature rather than incendiary, which a blessing in itself. It kept the two of you from being roasted alive and the building didn’t burn to the ground around you.”
Explosive. That was a good an explanation as anything. It certainly held more water than ‘magical detonation from a crystal-infused lunatic’.
I shut my eyes tight in a vain attempt to keep the tears from leaking out of them. Bill, my partner and friend, was fighting for his life because I’d failed him. I should have sensed a magical attack of that nature coming from a mile away. But I’d been so hellbent on cracking my first case and solving my first murder, that I’d totally forgotten the killer had made off with a magical armament that could blow a hole in the world. Stupid.
