by A.M. Burns
5
Trail Dusters was one of those cute little western-themed places that’s really popular downtown, or in this case, just off of downtown. The area was widely known for its nightspots and the tourist traffic was almost as heavy as the local because it was located on the edge of the tourist-versus-local traffic zone. The locals visited the place for the great milkshakes and because while it wasn’t one of the mega-corporation coffee houses, it still had a wide enough selection to make everyone happy. The interior looked more like something that would have been in Fort Worth, or Cowtown as the locals called it, with its cow-pattern tablecloths and longhorn chandeliers. My higher-class friends called the place Texas Tacky but they still came down for a milkshake or cappuccino when the urge hit.
We found parking relatively close without having to pay in one of the big lots that served the Deep Ellum district. It was late enough that the street parking meters were down for the night and the street lights were just starting to come on as we got out of the car.
“So illusions?” Dusty asked, as we closed the car doors.
“Yeah, I want to be able to question these folks later without them realizing it was us at this meeting,” I replied, thinking out loud as we walked down the street. “We can’t just show up and start questioning people at this thing. It would look strange.”
“So which one are we going to use this time?” Dusty was always eager to use disguises and illusions. Sometimes I wondered if he didn’t like dressing up a bit too much.
“I was thinking the Goth couple,” I said. The Goth couple was one we used from time to time when we went into some of the darker clubs and environments around town where our usual casual appearance would stand out.
“Gay, straight or otherwise?”
“I was thinking we'd do Raven and Lobo today.” We stopped in the shadow of an alley and I glanced around to make sure no one was watching.
“We're clear,” Dusty said. He tapped the end of his nose indicating that he didn't smell anyone close enough to observe the magic.
In all honesty, the illusions I used were more mental projections than magical creations, but since I wove one on Dusty as well, the process of magic helped to make sure the illusion stayed on him. Energy hummed around me. I made a couple of symbols with my fingers, muttered the Latin words and then I extended the energy out to Dusty. From a magical perspective, it was a bit like casting a movie on a blank white wall. I could still see Dusty as he really was, but the illusion covered him in a radiant glow. To anyone other than me, he appeared as the image I cast. Gone were the cute little freckles that dusted his cheeks and the bridge of his nose replaced by a coating of illusionary white makeup, which made him look slightly ghoulish. His sparkling blue-green eyes hid behind bloodshot dark-brown shadows. His healthy muscular frame looked shrunken in and his flannel shirt and jeans morphed into a black t-shirt, black pants and a black trench coat way too warm for the sultry Dallas night. I knew from previous comments from Dusty and Tiffany as we developed these disguises, that my own appearance was more disturbing than Dusty's.
“If I look as awful as you do, we should be ready.” Dusty smiled, showing teeth that had changed to the point if I hadn’t known it was a disguise, I wouldn’t have kissed him for fear that one of the cracked worn teeth would chip off at the slightest touch. I took his hand in mine and we continued toward the bar.
“Let's get this over with. I know these are disguises but they’re still disturbing. I’ve always hated them, but they work well.”
Dusty laughed. “What, you don't like looking like something the cat would leave outside?”
“Yeah, the things we do for a buck nowadays.” I chuckled and kissed his pale, pock-marked cheek. We never worried about public displays when under illusions. One, it was easy to drop an illusion if someone decided to take offense, two, there’s no problem with the wrong people seeing us do anything out of the ordinary since the identities we assumed did not really exist, and three, if we somehow did irreparable harm to an identity, it could easily be discarded and a new one created.
A guitarist played softly in one corner of the bar. The number of patrons was surprisingly low for a Friday night, but it was early yet. We’d only been in a few times on Friday before, so we might not have been the best judges of a full house. Off to one side, a group of people had pushed several tables together and clustered around them. For the most part, it looked like a gathering of middle-aged housewives with a couple of younger folks thrown in for good measure. In my limited experiences with Wiccans, that tended to be the norm. At the moment, there were twenty or so people huddled there.
“Not exactly what you would expect from a group where one of them might have murdered two people,” Dusty said as we walked up to the counter to order drinks.
“We'll see,” I replied evenly. “Do you know what you want?”
“That depends,” he said, his newly-bloodshot eyes betraying none of the teasing in his voice. “Are you going to treat me to a nice night out after this where we can get something filling to eat, or is this it for the night?”
“I'm all for a bite to eat after this. Somewhere nice….hmmmm…we'll have to see.” I joked. We'd probably end up at either Coyote's Place or Roadies. Since we’d just been to Coyote's Place, I’d vote for Roadies out in the West End. If it were late enough, they wouldn’t be too busy, and while they didn’t serve their steaks as rare as Dusty liked, their rolls and cinnamon butter were to die for.
“Okay then, how `bout a nice double chocolate chunk rocky road malt.”
“Hey guys, here for the witches’ group?” asked the perky blonde woman behind the counter.
“Yeah, but we'd like to get a couple of drinks first.” I replied, flashing her my disguised smile that wasn’t as charming as my usual grin.
“Cool. What would you like?”
After giving her our order, we walked over to meet the Wiccans. A couple more people had wandered in. Two of the men, one of which I’d mistakenly tagged for a middle-aged woman from the back, slid another table to the group while a couple of women added chairs to make more room.
“Oh hi,” said one of the women with flaming red hair excitedly. “Are are you two looking for the witches’ get together?”
“Yeah, we are.” I replied keeping my voice low and monotone. It’s too much trouble to extend the illusion to voices, so we adjust that on our own.
“Well new faces are always welcome,” she said, nearly bubbling with enthusiasm. “I'm Brianna, but you can call me Bree. That is my husband Byron.” She gestured to the tall skinny gray-haired man who had just finished positioning the table. “Byron, this is…” She gestured for us to fill in the blank.
“I'm Raven and this is my husband, Lobo,” I replied, stretching a hand out to Byron.
“Please to meet you both,” Byron said warmly, shaking my hand then Dusty’s. “Always great to see new faces.”
“Well go ahead and grab a seat,” suggested Bree. “You guys aren't the only new folks tonight so we'll start in a couple of minutes with going around and introducing everyone.”
A heavily acne-scarred young man sat opposite us. Although I judged his age as somewhere around twenty, his pale red mullet-cut hair was already receding and he felt oddly slimy. Wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt that was at least three sizes too large, he looked like someone who was desperately trying to fit in.
“Hey guys,” he said. “You’re new here. I’m Xan.”
“Yeah we're new,” I replied without offering my hand. If I could avoid it, I didn’t want to risk getting any kind of psychic impression from this one. “I'm Raven and this is my husband, Lobo.”
“Oh wow, you're together,” said Xan, staring at Dusty, uh Lobo, with a goofy look on his face that threatened to launch into a babbling fit. “That must be so cool. I've been looking for someone to practice with. My last boyfriend was a fundy and way too clingy for me so we never practiced together. He was a real flake too. He never understood me. I’m so ready for an LTR.”<
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If he were that goofy around the Lobo illusion, I’d hate to see him with Dusty’s hot self. It's a good thing I’m not the jealous type.
“Ah Xan, if we could get stated please,” Bree called for order from the middle of the table.
“Sorry Bree,” he apologized, his eyes still focused only on Lobo's pale face. I turned my attention down the table.
“Well it looks like most everyone who said they were coming made it, so let's go ahead and get things going,” said Bree. “We have several new folks here tonight, so let’s go around the table. Everybody introduce yourself and tell us a little about you. I'll start. I'm Bree. I guess Maddie, Byron and I are coordinating all this tonight. I’ve been practicing for nearly thirty years and am a High Priestess of the Alexandrian tradition.”
Byron continued with his introduction and since there were almost twenty five people around the table, the intros droned on for a while. I wasn’t surprised when Xan launched off on another babble, going on about how he’d studied under this teacher and that and how long he’d practiced along with several other mundane details. Another thing that amazed me about Wiccan youth is how they become experts almost immediately. In reality, when they say they’ve studied under someone, what they really mean is they either talked to someone at a shop or gathering of some kind, or worse, they simply read a book by that person. I held to my previous impression of the young man that he desperately wanted to fit in somehow. But did he want to fit in so badly that he was willing to kill for it?
Madeline Fort, the object of the late Barry Crabtree's affection prior to Alexia Rosenbloom, was nothing like I expected. She was fairly average in every way except for her well-endowed bosom. Even her faded blue jeans and basic black t-shirt with a fairy on it looked utterly unremarkable. I’ve never understood what some straight men see in plain, almost dumpy women, but I’ve never understood why some straight women put up with beer-bellied, balding, lazy bums they end up with, either.
To add to the unremarkable picture, Madeline spoke softly as she introduced herself, almost as if she intended to fade into the background. She claimed to have practiced for the past four years and followed the Fairy Light path. I could just imagine the look of horror on Tiffany's face when I shared that information. She ended her introduction quickly, like she didn’t like to draw attention to herself, but I knew better than to discount her. All too often, the power behind the throne was someone no one would notice. Would she and her little Fairy Lite, I mean Light, be capable of murder? In my experience, too many of these Fairy people were staunch believers in the perfect love, perfect trust they tried to force down people's throats. I wondered how they would handle knowing that most of the true fae folk are far from loving and light.
The door to the bar opened and a large man walked in just as the last introduction finished. On second look, he wasn’t as large as he appeared, still he was on the tall side with shoulders that were just shy of broad. He wasn’t in great shape, but he wasn’t overly soft, either, and he carried himself with an air of superiority and power. His thick brown hair was slicked back with a bit too much product, and as he approached the table, it smelled like he had bathed in cologne.
“Sorry I'm late,” he said with the same arrogance he walked with. “Traffic’s just awful.”
“No problem Lenny, we understand,” said Bree as the man took the only vacant chair on the end of the table opposite us. “We’re just finishing up with intros.”
“Well I'm Lenny,” he said, not looking at anyone in particular. “I've been with the group for about three months now. I’ve been practicing magic for fifteen years and following a pagan path for about ten years. I am both an accomplished high magician and a Gardenarian High Priest.” He oozed enough arrogance to be a Gardenarian HP, but as far as a High Magician, I’d have to ask Tiffany. She kept pretty close tabs on the HM community, even if they were a bunch of loners. They’re more territorial than a pack of werewolves. He might even be listed with the Council if he had come up the right way and really was what he said he was.
“Thanks for joining us, Lenny,” said Bree. “And welcome to all the new folks.” She paused and took a long breath. “As most of you who are not new know, last week we lost our dearest sister in the craft, Magee. It is to Magee that we owe a debt of thanks for starting this get together and giving us all the opportunity to meet others like ourselves and make new and wonderful friends. Magee will be missed. We’ll hold a special open circle next weekend to give her an official passage into the next world. Byron and I have discussed it and it will be held at in the grove. If you don’t know where that is, we’ll post directions up on the webpage. I offered Reynaldo, Magee's husband, to give Magee a proper Wiccan service, but he wanted to do a traditional Christian service with just family and very close friends.”
“It was a very lovely service,” Maddie spoke up.
“I'm sure it was dear,” The lady sitting next to Maddie replied darkly.
“Well be that as it may, our service for Maggie will be next Saturday at seven at the grove. Circle will begin promptly at seven thirty, so don't be late.” She looked pointedly at the late comer, Lenny. “The circle will also be for Barry Crabtree.”
Several people around the table drew in sharp breaths of amazement. “What happened to Barry?” a woman, whose name I could not remember, whispered.
“We don't have details yet,” said Byron, finishing for Bree. “It just happened today sometime. His mother called one of his mundane friends who thought to call me. Something about his girlfriend attacking him with a baseball bat.”
“Alexia would never do that,” said one of the other ladies. I think her name was Wyntermist, or some other breath mint flavor.
“Well like I said, we don’t have all the details,” continued Byron before anyone else could speak up. “We’ll try to find out more after the meeting and send out an email with the facts as we get them. I realize this has been a very hard couple of weeks for the group, but we know with the perfect love that we all feel for each other we can get through anything.”
I didn’t need to look at Dusty to know he was rolling his eyes as his hand tightened on my thigh at the utterance of those words. It was obvious that someone at this table didn’t hold perfect love for the two people who were dead. If they were honest, there were probably more than one.
Suddenly sobbing broke out. I glance down the table and saw Maddie put her head in her hands. She muttered something, but I couldn’t make out what it was through her sobs. I touched Dusty's hand, so that skin-to-skin touch would connect our mental link without disrupting the illusion.
“What’s she saying?”
“Something about she never meant anything bad to happen,” he paused. I felt him listening closer. “Apparently she cast some kind of spell so that he’d go away and now he has. She thinks her spell caused this.”
“Oh good grief,” I grumbled mentally. “She’s about as much magic in her whole body as I do in my little finger.” The perky waitress delivered our shakes.
“Here ‘ya go sweeties,” she said. She set the tall glasses and metal cups in front of us. “If you need anything else, let me know.”
“Thanks,” Dusty mumbled for us while I focused on the drama at the other end of the table.
Bree walked around the table to comfort Maddie, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. So did Xan. Something told me that Maddie and Xan weren’t that close but he just liked to be in the center of any drama. He spread his hands out above them, like some priest performing a faith healing.
“Okay everyone, help me focus comforting energy to Maddie,” Xan said in a sing-song voice. He sounded like some kiddy program teacher leading the kids in a nursery rhyme.
Several of the women reached out their hands and bowed their heads as if the effort to send comfort took all their concentration. To my magical senses, the effect was like a clogged faucet trying to dribble water. The urge to get up and leave was strong.
“Si
t. Stay. Behave.” Dusty's mental voice and hand tightened.
Just as I resigned myself to the drama, Maddie lifted her head and turned on Xan. “Oh fucking please Xan, just go sit down.”
He pulled back in fright. “What?!?”
“I said go sit down,” Maddie repeated, her voice holding an edge of impending hysterics. “You’re not doing a damn thing for me. All you want is to be the center of this. Well, you nelly little fag, this isn’t about you. In fact, it’s never about you. You just get in the middle of everything and try to get everyone to believe you.” Maddie surged out of her chair, tears still streaming down her face. “This is about Magee and Barry tonight. You’re not a part of this! Barry hated you and Magee could barely stand you! She was just too nice to tell you to your face to get lost! God I hate this!” She snatched up her purse and ran from the bar.
“Everyone just relax a bit, I'll be right back,” Bree said, as she followed Maddie.
“I can't believe she just said that to me,” Xan muttered. He walked back toward us with his head down, started to sit, then shook his head. “Sorry guys, I have to go meditate on this for a while. This has totally screwed up my energies.” He shoved his chair back and stomped out the door, too.
Before the door shut, a short woman with a blonde crew cut squeezed through it, bounced directly over to Lenny and threw herself in his lap.
“So what did I miss?”
“Hey Katie,” Byron said as he stood to try and regain some control over the meeting.
Lenny leaned into her and whispered something in her ear that neither Dusty nor I could hear. She looked shocked and shook her head with an odd grin on her too-pale lips.
“Folks, it appears that it’s more difficult than we thought it was to have a meeting tonight,” said Byron. “What do you all say we just go ahead and break up for the night? We can have our regular Friday night meeting next week and then the services next Saturday. Make sure we have everyone's email address or phone number so that if there’re changes we can let you know. You new folks are welcome at the service and please come back another Friday night. We aren’t always this dramatic. We really are a fun bunch of folks to hang around with. After this is all over, we’re going to start a series of meetings on the different pantheons, so feel free to get bring information on your favorite deity and share.”
A definite down mood enveloped everyone as they headed for the door, pausing to hug each other on their way out. Lenny and Katie walked over to where Byron stood talking with one of the women in a loud tie-dyed dress. With everyone on our end of the table gone, I nodded my head toward their little group and Dusty and I walked over to join them.
“It is so sad what happened to poor Barry,” said the woman in the bright dress. “I just cannot believe that Alexia could be capable of something like that. She loved the guy and what a horrible thing to have to go through.”
“I’m sure we'll find out more in the next couple of days,” replied Byron. “It makes you realize that sometimes, even when you think you know someone, they’re hiding something.”
“I just wonder if it’s all connected?” Lenny asked the question that was on my mind.
“What do you mean?” The woman looked worried.
“I’ve never been big on coincidence, but I just find it weird that first Magee takes an overdose of sleeping pills with alcohol when we all know what a huge nondrinker she was,” said Lenny. “And we all know that Alexia’s just a rebound for Barry after Maddie made his life miserable for how many months? And now Alexia cracks and cracks him up a lot.” He chuckled lightly at his pun. “These things always happen in threes. That means one more of these things should happen to either someone in the group or someone we know.”
“What's weird is that Barry and Bree were supposed to take over the group if anything happened to Magee,” Bryon added thoughtfully.
“You don't think anything will happen to Bree?” said tie-dyed dress worriedly.
“Trust me, I’ll do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Byron said with a determined snarl.
“Well if we can do anything to help, you just let us know,” said Lenny, taking Katie by the hand and heading toward the door. “We'll see if Bree and Maddie are still around to say goodbye.”
While Dusty carried the remains of our milkshakes over to the waiting tub by the door, I made our departure from Byron.
“Well, it seems like you've got a good group here.”
“You caught us on a bad night,” he replied, the smile not sitting right amid the worry on his face. “We really are a great group under normal circumstances, but lately it’s been anything but normal. Hope you’ll come back and give us another try. Like I said earlier, after we get the services out of the way, we'll be back on track with the study we have every week.”
“I'm sure you'll see us again.” I said, hoping that the files for everyone here were part of what Tiffany was retrieving from Magee's computer.
“Well cool, you're welcome whenever you can stop by,” he said.
I left Byron and joined Dusty at the door. The night air was a welcome change from the intensity inside of the bar. We hadn’t learned a lot. We knew that there was a lot of tension in the group and we knew that Barry was next in line to take over if something happened to Magee.
“Looks like someone might be in the middle of a coup.” Dusty echoed my thoughts as we walked toward the car.
“Yeah but who?” I wondered aloud. “I really doubt that Mad Fort has the magical ability to cast a spell that’d backfire and kill someone. And, if she went after Barry, then why do Magee as well? Byron and Bree seem too sweet to have done anyone in just to take over a group. And then you have the question of what’s so important about this group that someone would want to take them over?”
“Xan could’ve done it,” suggested Dusty as we approached the car “or…” he cut off, stopped on the sidewalk and put an arm out to stop me.”There is a werewolf sitting on the hood of the car,” he whispered, “and the wind’s blowing our scent right to him.”
The shadow jumped off the car’s hood and stepped toward us. “Hey dudes you don't need to whisper. I can hear ‘ya just fine.”
The werewolf in question was your classic, tall, dark and handsome man with a thick southern accent. Toby Butler was the beta of local pack. He wasn’t someone you ever expect to find sitting on your car on a Friday evening on Elm Street, outside of a milkshake bar.
