Buried Truth

by Frank Hurt

“You’re gifted,” Anna said. “That much is obvious. Sure, I don’t think it’s any surprise that you’re better than the average bear.”

  Ember chewed her lip for a moment. She said, “I…may be a Supreme Inquisitor.”

  Anna whistled. “Cool. What’s a Supreme Inquisitor? I’m guessing it’s not something out of a Monty Python skit.”

  “No. I don’t know, exactly.” Ember scratched at her neck, flaking dried ectoplasm off with her fingernails. “I’m still learning. But it seems there’s only ever one in the world at any time. And they used to be…I don’t know…revered, I guess. Elevated. But somewhere along the way, they disappeared. And then everyone forgot they’d ever existed.”

  “What, like mass amnesia?”

  “Something like that,” Ember said. “I’ve never been able to tell anyone about this before. Not even my own parents or sister, you understand.”

  “I’m honored that you’d trust this with me,” Anna said. “But why couldn’t you tell your parents?”

  “Because in the past, anyone who showed potential at being an Inquisitor disappeared.”

  Oncoming headlights illuminated Anna’s face for a few seconds before it passed. She was silent for some time before she said, “what, like killed? People were killing baby Inquisitors?”

  “Or kidnapping them,” Ember said. “I just know that throughout history, mages like me held a lot of power and prestige in Druwish society. Then they disappeared. As Mother Nature tries to bring them back, they get plucked and tossed away before they have a chance to blossom.”

  “A giant conspiracy,” Anna said. “Do you think this has anything to do with that…Deference Spell, that you told us about? That you and Rik went around lifting from those two NonDruws down in Mott?”

  “And Duncan. And Jackie,” Ember said. “Yes, it could be. That’s all Elton Higginbotham’s doing, those Deference Spells. There are others who he has under that spell. And I’ve recently come across a century-old photo that would suggest Elton has figured out some sort of way to be immortal.”

  “Immortal? Like, as in…he can’t die?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. This is all speculation on my part, keep in mind. I think William Roth is somehow involved, too.”

  “The Viceroy?” Anna exhaled. “Hell’s bells, is the whole government corrupt or what?”

  “Possibly.” Ember said.

  “You’re serious.”

  Ember nodded. “I don’t know how many people are involved. This is why I have to be so careful. Why we have to be so careful. If they figure out that we are onto them—”

  “Then it’s lights out for us,” Anna said.

  “Not just for us,” Ember said. “For our family. For our friends. Anyone who we associate with. Anyone who might know.”

  Anna’s mouth opened wordlessly.

  “Exactly,” the mage said. “These people have been lying to those they supposedly serve. They’ve harmed others to control the puppet show. They’re psychopaths. And when a psychopath feels threatened, they will stop at nothing to keep their power.”

  Anna’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. Her voice was tense when she asked, “what do we do?”

  “They’ve corrupted oaths, hid our history from us. They’ve taken power and denied access to the Ley Lines. They’ve tied knots around the Druwish people and their destinies.” Ember balled her hands into fists. “I’m going to find all of those knots and unravel them.”

  “Correction,” Anna said. “We’re going to.”

  Ember’s crusty face creased into a smile. “You’re right. I’m not doing this alone. Not anymore.”

  “When we get to Rik’s, I’ll give Uncle Boni a call.” Anna clicked her tongue against her mouth’s palate as a plan formed in her mind. “We’ll dig up those three spies and get them over to the lab overnight. Sometime after midnight, we’ll light that place up.”

  “Can I at least take a shower before we do this?”

  “You can, and you will.” Anna said. “You’ll get yourself back to Minot tonight. Go out for supper somewhere. Be seen at the embassy. Whatever you need to do to have yourself placed away from the lab when it goes up in flames.”

  “Wow. You kind of sound like you’ve thought of this sort of thing before tonight,” Ember said. “Should I be concerned?”

  Anna flashed a grin at her passenger. “I read a lot of crime fiction.”

  Alarik wasn’t home when they arrived at his place. It was late evening, but it was not unusual for him to be out on a job site, putting in long hours to finish a job. He left his house unlocked, as was customary for so many residents of the rural state.

  Anna fetched her cell phone from the white Ford Taurus and waited in her brother’s kitchen while Ember commandeered the bathroom.

  Ember emerged a half hour later, her wet hair bundled in a towel piled upon her head. Her damp skin was shiny and flush from luxuriating beneath the cascade of scalding water. She wore oversized clothes borrowed from Alarik’s dresser. She had a moment of déjà vu which she started to share with her friend.

  Anna was frowning. “I can’t get hold of Uncle Boni. Nobody’s answering at the farm. There’s a house full of people staying there, and nobody will pick up.”

  The mage reflected her friend’s expression. “Maybe something is wrong with your phone? Let me plug mine in and you can use it.” Ember found a micro USB charger plugged in next to the coffee pot. The silver tip snapped into the Motorola with a soft click.

  “No, it’s not that. I tried Rik’s landline, too. No answer,” Anna said, still frowning. “Tonight’s that slumber party for Maxim and Marta. Their little friend Elise is having them over. Maybe Stephanie decided to go with to chaperone.”

  “That makes sense, yeah” Ember waited for the Motorola Barrage to power up. When it did, it notified her of a voicemail message. She punched in her PIN and leaned her ear against the receiver.

  Jackie’s voice crackled from the speaker. “Wright, this is Roberts. Dang it, you need to pick up. We’ve got an all-hands-on-deck situation here. Something bad’s going down, and Heywood needs everyone on site, ASAP. Everyone from Security’s coming too. Call me back.”

  “Something’s wrong.” Ember said to Anna. She tapped the speed-dial for Jackie’s cell phone. When the line connected, she heard the squelch of handheld radios and a flurry of voices talking over one another.

  “Roberts,” Jackie said. She was breathing heavily, like she had been running.

  “This is Ember. I just got your message. What’s going on?”

  “Where the heck have you been? We’ve got a situation here. Some changelings have gone off the rails of the crazy train. They’ve taken a family hostage and it looks like they’re planning to kill ‘em all.”

  Blood drained from Ember’s face. “Where is this? I’ll be right there.”

  “I don’t know that there’s anything you can do,” Jackie said. “We’ve got them surrounded but they’ve got guns pointed at the family. I’ve never seen anything like it. But yeah, get down here if you can. We’re going to need all the help we can get to clean up if they go through with their threats. I’ll get you the address.”

  A flashlight clicked to life on the other end of the phone line. Jackie said, “okay, we’re at a farm about fifty minutes southwest of Minot. It’s the family’s home. A Ronald and Muriel Schmitt residence.”

  28

  Deal Me In

  They said nothing to each other during the short drive from Alarik’s house to the Schmitt family farm. Talking about it would make it real. For now, during these precious few minutes of not knowing, they could at least hold on to hope that their worst fears were false. That it was all just a misunderstanding. That it was just somebody’s idea of a twisted, cruel practical joke.

  Hope faded as they turned off the county road and into the Schmitt’s long driveway. The Ranger’s headlights met those of a large SUV. The vehicle was parked squarely in the center of the driveway, forming an impr
omptu roadblock. Its fog lamps were on, its headlights blinding on high-beam.

  Ember squinted through the windshield, trying to see a way around. A figure approached. She unrolled her window to see a flashlight aimed at her.

  “I’m sorry, but this road is closed,” a youthful male voice said. “Oh, Senior Investigator Wright, it’s you. They told me to watch for you. I can’t let anyone else pass though.”

  “Samuel from Security, is it?” Ember peered at the changeling security officer as the flashlight’s beam passed from her to the passenger. “It’s alright, this is Anna Schmitt. This is her home.”

  “The sister,” Samuel said. “I was to watch for you, too. I’m sorry you’re coming home to this.”

  Ember asked, “What can you tell us?”

  “A group of changelings went nuts. They’ve taken her family hostage.” He gestured with his flashlight self-consciously. “We’re trying to keep the situation contained. That’s all I know right now.”

  Ember dipped her chin at the handheld radio clipped to the man’s belt. “Right. Let them know we’re here.” She guided her pickup around the barricading SUV and continued ahead.

  “This can’t be real,” Anna said. “This can’t be happening.”

  The mage considered reassuring her friend. She wanted to grasp her hand, to tell her there was nothing to worry about. That it would all be fine—that everyone was fine. She said nothing.

  As they drove the length of the driveway, she noticed a shape moving in the moonlight on the roof of the shed which Anna kept as her woodworking shop. The figure was positioning a long-barreled rifle toward the farm house. On the other side of the driveway, another person was climbing the gambrel roof of the old barn, similarly equipped. She had no doubt there would be snipers positioned in the shelterbelt’s trees on the backside of the house as well.

  There were no flashing lights, no sirens. No calls to local law enforcement. This was a Druwish situation, requiring a more subtle response lest unwanted attention found its way into the farmstead. If any NonDruw did happen upon the scene, Ember knew the Investigators would be ready to perform the necessary Memory Washes. No matter how messy a situation might get, the primary directive for Druws was the same: keep their world of magic hidden from outsiders.

  Soft yellow light leaked from a ribbed steel building. The Quonset’s half-cylinder shape was bordered by a row of hastily-parked vehicles, many of which Ember recognized as belonging to the Investigators and security officers of the Druwish embassy in Minot. Earlier that summer, the Schmitts hosted a fun-filled neighborhood Independence Day gathering within the building. It otherwise housed farm implements and the tools to work on them. Tonight, however, the structure served as a grim command post.

  The walk-in door was propped open. Ember and Anna entered a room’s worth of nervous energy. A work bench had its surface cleared and was pulled away from the curved wall. Several men and two women gathered around the bench, gazing at a hand-drawn map of the farm.

  Debra Morgan balanced a handheld radio before her chin. She was relaying instructions from her supervisor to the team in the field. Rodger pointed at a spot on the map and said, “have Unit Three verify they’ve got the basement egress covered in their L.O.S. When our eyes on the barn have a bead on the living room, I want a fresh head count.”

  Alarik and Arnold noticed their sister and friend. They immediately embraced them without a word. The two men had aged by a decade since the family brunch on Sunday. They were grimy from the day’s work, smelling of burnt flux and acetylene. Their eyes were bloodshot, their shoulders rolled forward with stooped spines. Their bodies secreted weariness.

  “This isn’t happening,” Anna sniffled. “Max? Marta? Tell me they’re not in there.”

  Arnold shook his head. “They’re at their friend’s house.”

  “Stephanie, too?”

  Arnold’s red eyes welled. He canted his head once and cast his gaze aside.

  As Anna consoled one brother, Ember grasped the other one’s forearm. “Your parents?”

  “They’ve got ‘em in there with Stephanie,” Alarik said. “Uncle Boni, too.”

  “Who is doing this?” Anna asked.

  “There’s nine of them,” Duncan said, his gruff smoker’s voice surprisingly gentle. “The Mandaree Incident scouts. We’re told they’ve been living here for some months.”

  “They have, yes,” Alarik said. “Our folks have been taking care of them.”

  Duncan scratched his cleft chin with the eraser end of a yellow mechanical pencil. “Do you have any idea why they would do this? What their motivation might be.”

  The three siblings shook their heads.

  “Oh. We’re…we’re going to send Arnold in,” said a squat, bearded man with messy, dark grey hair. He wore a blue windbreaker jacket which was unzipped just enough to show a smattering of orange crumbs on the shirt beneath. Similar crumbs hid within the man’s unkempt beard.

  Duncan clenched his jaw, but it was Rodger Wilke who responded first, saying, “with respect, Deputy Director, it doesn’t make a lick of sense to send in Arnie.”

  Geoff blinked his absinthe-green eyes rapidly. “But…but that’s what they keep ask…asking for. What they keep…demanding. They want Arnie. We give them Arnie as a…as a gesture of goodwill. Yep, goodwill.”

  “They’re armed, and they have hostages,” Duncan growled. He glanced at the scarlet-maned mage standing off to one side. “Roberts, you got up to the porch before they screamed at you to back off. They’ve got guns, all of them?”

  Jackie shuddered. “From what I could see, yep. They had the hostages sitting on the floor of the living room. Guns aimed at their dang heads. The bald one seemed to be in charge. He did all the talking, anyway.”

  “Roy,” Ember said. “That would be Roy. Roy Turner.”

  The radio squawked in Debra’s hand. Roseanne’s voice emerged. “Nelson and Page in position. No movement to rear of house. We’re good to go.”

  The radio crackled again. This time, it was Dennis’s voice. “Unit one, in position on the barn. I confirm movement in the living room. Nobody’s been shot yet.”

  Anna covered her face in her hands, her head shaking. Arnold hugged his sister for a moment before standing back, his arms folded. He said, “I can go. If that’s what they want, I can go.”

  “No,” Rodger and Duncan said as one.

  “But if I give them me, maybe they’ll let her go,” Arnold said. He was unable to say Stephanie’s name at that moment.

  Geoff shrugged. “There you have it. Arnie, you’ll…you’ll be fine. I guarantee it.”

  Alarik snapped, “you can’t guarantee his safety. How can you even say that?”

  “Oh. I’ll…I can go with him. Yep. They won’t hurt either of us.” Geoff said, almost convincingly.

  Ember watched as the dark shadow of the Deference Spell fought against the Deputy Viceroy’s aura within. The darkness enveloped all of Geoff’s figure, swelling and billowing as it reacted to the Malvern’s true personality.

  It’s time. I know what I need to do.

  As the group argued, Ember visualized a dance. She wasn’t the most graceful person, and this wasn’t the most elegant of dances. It mattered little, since nobody could see her dancing, anyway. In her mind’s eye, she raised her hands, bringing them together and forward to reach for the cloaked shadow surrounding Geoff Shadbolt.

  The tar paper tent that comprised the Deference Spell was sturdier than the others she had removed. This one was made of a tighter weave with fewer flaws, fewer loose bits that she might pluck at. She found one, though, and she gently tugged at that weave until it came loose. The thread unraveled, entirely invisible but to her.

  She reversed the dance of the counter-spell and allowed herself to breathe at last. The arguing stopped. Heads turned to watch the mage with wet, blonde hair gasp as if she was surfacing from a deep pool.

  Ember looked past them all to see the remnants of a Deference Spell evap
orate into a black mist around Geoff. She stepped forward, gripped the Deputy Viceroy’s shoulder, and led him to the exit. She called over her shoulder, “we need to talk for a moment. Be right back.”

  She guided the perplexed man from the brightly-illuminated Quonset into the night. The oversized clothes she wore inhibited her gait; Alarik’s boots made her shuffle and the jeans she borrowed had to be rolled up at the ankles. Next to her pickup, she stopped, shrugging within the baggy hoodie as she verified nobody else was nearby.

  Geoff trembled. The darkness couldn’t hide his anxiety. “I…I wasn’t…that wasn’t me. I didn’t—”

  “Take a deep breath. Relax.” Ember kept a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll explain this to you later, but for now I need you to get it together for me. There are innocent lives at stake, yeah?”

  Geoff provided a reluctant nod. He began to stammer but silenced himself when footsteps approached.

  “Care to deal me in?” Duncan asked.

  Geoff licked his lips and spoke haltingly. “I was just…we were just—”

  “It’s alright, Geoff,” Ember said. “What was done to you was done to Duncan, too. He understands what you’re going through. He’s free now, and so are you.”

  “He…he, too?” Geoff’s blinking eyes dared a glance at the other man. “This was done to you, too?”

  “It was,” Duncan said. He fixed his gaze at Ember’s moonlit silhouette. “I guess you made a decision.”

  “Right. I know it wasn’t what I was told, but given the situation we’re in—”

  Duncan held up a hand. “You made the right call. We can debrief when this is done.”

  Geoff’s voice was tremulous. “They…they’ve made such a mess of things. They used…used me.”

  “They?” Ember asked. “You mean Elton? He’s the one who did this to you and Duncan.”

  Duncan said, “I take it Higginbotham laid his spell on the people in the house, too.”

  Geoff offered a weary nod. “He did. To the Mandaree Incident scouts. The nine of them in…in there. Arnie Schmitt was supposed to be among them. They’ve been…forced to end their lives. But they were told to kill Arnie first, then themselves. And anyone who gets in their way. I’m the one who got them together, got them into his trap.” A sob slipped out of his throat.