by Kezzy Sparks
They climb the few steps to the elevated patio. A few guests are seated having late lunches of wings and fries. Some have beer glasses in front of them, but Casey can’t pick a face that he can definitively say he saw last night. They might have to go right inside.
When they walk in, the bar welcomes them with smells of beer, potato chips, nachos, and tortillas, but he doesn’t feel hungry. The aroma of fast eats actually makes him sick to his stomach, and he wants to puke.
“Hi there, man.” Mitch, the bartender, stands behind the counter, summing up some figures with his calculator. “Back so early.”
“Not to drink.” Casey attempts a smile that he knows won’t look right. “Bit too early for that sort of thing,” he adds clumsily.
Mitch regards Mel, whom he can’t seem to place between a friend, a workmate, or a girlfriend. She has no engagement band on her finger, a thing Mitch seems to take careful note of. “So, whom have we got here?” he finally asks.
“A buddy of mine,” Casey says. “We’re looking for something.”
A concerned look comes over Mitch’s face. “You guys lost something?”
Casey guesses Mitch has images of bank cards and driver’s licenses, perhaps even some hard cash. How lost can a man ever be.
“Yes,” he answers to what Mitch asked, but soon realizes that reply doesn’t help the confused barman.
Mitch’s face turns from concern to actual sympathy. “If my guys found something, I will let you know.”
“Actually, I have a few questions for you.” Mel jumps in on his behalf. “We’d like to refresh a memory.”
The bartender’s face is now lost to mystification. He glares at her.
“I know Casey was here last night,” she continues, “but did you guys chance to see who he was with around the time he left?”
Even Casey himself can see how weird this is all sounding to Mitch. “Was he robbed?” Mitch remains puzzled.
“Not really,” Mel says. “I just want to know—so to aid his memory.”
Mitch is silently freaking out why it isn’t Casey asking the questions. It just is so weird.
“He stayed here till late.” The bartender manages to say. “There were lots of people.”
“Did he speak to someone you particularly noticed? A man, a woman?” Mel asks.
Just then, a waitress bursts out from the restrooms and traverses the hallway. Casey remembers her from last night. Her name is Minnie, at least according to the badge she always wears.
“You danced, man,” she says. “That was awesome.”
“Excuse me.” Mel pays her a gaze. “Did you say he danced?”
The waitress glances at Casey and then at Mel. She now seems worried she might be letting out a secret she mustn’t.
“Don’t be afraid, I’m no girlfriend of his,” Mel says.
Minnie still glances about awkwardly.
“How did I dance?” Casey forces again a smile he suspects is funny looking. “Was it with someone? I was too stoned.”
“With that girl,” says Minnie.
“A girl, Jeez, what did she wear?”
“Red, all red, save for the hat,” she says.
More memories start to hazily trickle in. The hat Minnie speaks of was a fancy black one. That young woman was definitely the most beautiful in the house.
Yes, she must be the link to this whole thing…
Eight
After failing to make any headway, we leave the bar and drive back to Dick. The most difficult part is coming, when I must give Casey my honest thoughts on how the case might proceed. Remember he asked me if calling off his wedding would be the smarter thing to do, and I said no, not to rush. Now I have seen what I have seen and must lay out my opinions.
His case is tough, and the timeline to the wedding too short. The entity or person or whoever did that job on him is not someone to play with.
“Hang tight,” I say to him as he reaches for the Vic’s door. “I have your back on this.”
Solving the problem will take time, but one thing he mustn’t be too afraid of is a repeat attack. The pixie ward I left in his bedroom should be fine.
“I’ll do my best for you,” I say, “but honestly it’s hard to promise anything solid at this stage.”
“Good, I understand.” He opens the door and leaves.
My heart bleeds. This man needs help as soon as possible.
***
His problem falls squarely within our mandate of investigating magical infractions, and we have quite an organization to deal with issues of that kind.
At the first level is what we call the GWAP, or Guild of Wizarding Artists and Practitioners—of which I am a member. This body not only guides the work of witch hunters and spell lifters, but has wide reach and will also preside over the activities of all wizards, magicians, ghostbusters, psychics, spiritualists, exorcists, healers, necromancers, and séance artists. It ensures protocol is followed and that all are working for the common good.
Above it is the PIEB or Paranormal Investigations and Enforcement Bureau. This is the big establishment that regulates everything, and although it acts secretively, it has quite some teeth. It organizes and administers the Witch Court system and enables us to punish wrongdoers who use black magic to cause chaos in society.
Perhaps at this point it may be worthwhile to point out that everyday law in America forbids naming someone an evil witch and prosecuting them. It's a ruling that makes our work as hunters and huntresses downright unlawful, and this situation has been the same since the days of colonial Salem—when witch courts were first officially banned. As a result, our work can be exceedingly difficult, but we have developed some sleek ways to sidestep the prohibitions. The bureau that backs us is smart and powerful, too, and always invents ways to make sure bad witches do get punished as warranted, regardless of who says what.
***
My schedule remains tight. I have other assignments to work on, but for now I will concentrate on this case of Casey's. And in that vein, the next most logical step would be to drive to our guild’s resource center on Grand Island so I can deposit that magic trace I picked up with my sniffer.
How that helps is that the center acts like a lab, storing magical signatures just like a regular crime lab stores criminals’ DNA sequences, fingerprints and other biometrics. Once I deposit a suspect’s magic signature into the bank, they can let me know if such a trace has been recorded before, and then I can learn more about who harmed Casey.
From here on Dick, there are two main ways to get to the island. One is to take the I-90 and then later exit onto the I-290 and the other is to use the Kensington Expressway. I decide on the latter, but before I cruise onto the Kensington, I stop to pick up a half-dozen box of assorted doughnuts from Tim Hortons. The elder who works at the center is a particular fan of muffins, doughnuts, coffee, and croissants, and I have to get him some.
I get back on the road. Even though Casey is no longer with me, I can’t shake him off my mind. I still see his jeans-and-shirt draped figure on that passenger seat and smell the alcohol on his breath. This client lives in my neck of the woods and has been hit hard by someone acting so deliberately and so callously. I want to burn that culprit alive.
Kensington later ushers me onto Scajaquada, and from there I ramp onto the I-190. Before long, I’m seeing the fine waters of the Niagara River. I cross the bridge, with the Grandyle Village homes to my left, and then exit so I can get to Staley Rd.
The resource center building is a large old farm home constructed on land measuring perhaps five acres large. The biggest difference between the house and the others lined alongside it is that it has a fence and a gated driveway, whereas the others don’t.
Outside the center, there are no painted signs to say what goes on here, though we guild insiders know. The gate is closed when I pull up, but in a second, it starts to swing automatically. The parking lot is almost empty, and it seems I am the only one here. Which means there might not be a
heck of waiting to do—and that's a good thing because I have other appointments afterward. The only car inside is an ancient Chevy that I know belongs to the man I bought those doughnuts for: the authority who is ever present at this place, Elder Sweeney.
Just as I come out of the Vic, the front door is opened. Out comes Rayleigh Sweeney.
“Can you believe it? ” he says, greeting me. “I knew you would come in today.”
“How so, Elder?”
“I have a sixth sense, believe me.”
His voice is as raspy as his handshake. “What have you brought us today?”
“Couple of doughnuts,” I say and hand him the box.
"Thank you, Miss Melania.” He has a habit of pronouncing my name not with the more correct e at the end, but rather an a, as though I was Melania Trump. It’s a thing I used to chafe at but have now resigned into simply calling it affectionate.
He allows me in and closes the door. The deposition room is large and must have been used as the sitting room by the farmer who first built this home. It has no couches, but tables and chairs made from colonial pine. The chairs are padded with discolored black vinyl cushions.
Lining one wall of the big space is a series of tall pine bookshelves with some hefty tomes in them.
“What is the trouble?” he asks.
“A man has been seriously harmed. He's no man no more.”
“What a disaster. Any details?”
I sure would like to keep Casey's troubles as confidential as possible, but resource persons have the privilege to know. Rayleigh is never the one to go publishing things anyway.
“Enormous grief: vanished male members.”
Sweeney’s old eyes go wide out of their bags. He doesn't utter any remark but picks up a hardback notebook and starts to write.
“Whereabouts?”
“Cheektowaga. Dick Road.”
“How did it happen, any idea?” His hand is shaky and slow; it’s probably time he got an apprentice.
“Victim isn’t aware of anything much. Only says he last was with a young woman who wore red, and that was it.”
The few folds on Rayleigh’s face deepen. “Red is a complete telltale color.”
I agree with his observation, and it’s something I previously noted. And now that Elder Sweeney has confirmed it, I decide but without telling him, that from now on, I will call Casey’s attacker Lady in Red.
Briefly, I consider the alias. There is a need to be cautious—because the sex of a magic attacker cannot be judged based on what eyewitnesses saw. Evil mages and warlocks are proficient at magically disguising themselves, so the suspect could actually be anyone: an old or young woman or man. It takes only a very able witch hunter to see through those masquerades. Therefore it wouldn’t surprise me if we ended up nailing a man, but for now I will still go on with Lady.
Rayleigh puts his notebook onto one of the giant shelves, which bears a lot of similar journals, many of them old and worn.
“Now for the traces?” he gestures.
I hand him my sniffer wand, and he disappears for a long while. I am not very sure about how this depositing process is done because I have never been taken into the backrooms. Both the guild and Sweeney are secretive of the process, and will not shed any light on how they compare traces and bring back a match.
When he comes back, he says. “It’s recorded, but I found no quick match.”
“Thanks to you, sir,” I say.
If Rayleigh continues searching and still never comes up with a tally, it won’t mean that the perpetrator I am dealing with has never committed any other magical crime before. Only that the signature has never been banked. Some evil magicians know how to conceal their scents using suppressor spells. An investigator might never be able to pick anything up.
“Your trace was very powerful, though. Very good, Miss, you know how to detect black magic.” Elder Sweeney hands me back my sniffer.
I say goodbye after he has assured me he will try to do more comparisons.
Returning, I drive back along Staley to get to the I-190. This side of the highway allows a better view of the Niagara River. The waters are crystalline, and there are several boats sailing by. Beyond is a marina, and more boats are anchored on small piers.
The good life is going on in this part of the city, as much as anywhere else, but my client suffers. How cruel can things be.
Nine
My next big appointment is to go to my sister’s school in West Seneca, but before that, I will make a quick trip back to the office to check my messages. The voicemail for my office phone, in case one wonders, is not accessible by my cell. I specifically let that be, so I wouldn’t be too lazy to go to work. I try as much as possible to be present, right there behind my desk, should some clients just want to walk in without an appointment.
The other reason I should go there, too, is that I didn’t drop in a few pellets of food for Mr. Gillz. That’s because I became so occupied with Casey's case. The fish, however, can go for days without nutrition, because he is a little supernatural, but I make sure not to push things too far.
I exit the highway onto Church Street, then make it to William. Mr. Gillz is happy to see me in one piece. I throw in a couple of the pellets that I make myself at home, and then because there is so little else to be concerned with in here—no messages came—I head back to the car.
My focus now becomes the school, and today it’s for two main reasons. One is that my sister Sara is having problems, and I must attend to them, and two, I will be able to check my wards that I laid at the school because they were having a ghost crisis.
`Apparently, in addition to witch hunting and curse breaking, I am also a ghostbuster of sorts. And because of it, I get called to many places to ferret out errant phantoms and other supernatural trouble-makers.
Sara is actually just my stepsister, but I have been living with her for almost half a year. She ran away from her mother, my stepmom, and controversially, I took custody of her.
Let me go, then, and hear what the problems she is having are, and I hope it’s not anything magical.
The Western Senior Academy is located on Seneca Rd, just a mile or so from our home. It’s built mostly of brown brick, but some portions are of decorative stucco or cinder block. The name Western Senior is emblazoned on the glass front.
After parking, I head straight for the door and press the intercom switch. Even though I have my magic door opener, I can’t use it here because not only would that be inappropriate, it’s also against guild rules. The properties and buildings of entities that don’t practice magic aren’t to be accessed using such openers, unless it’s a dire emergency, like someone is trapped and dying inside or something.
The door gets unlocked, and I enter. The school is big and well-attended; the hallways show plenty evidence of boot scratching. The office and library lights are on, but the front desk staff is gone.
I always get an eerie feeling each time I come into this place after it has officially closed. Our work as paranormal investigators certainly gets us into all kinds of situations.
How I came to know this school had a ghost problem was one evening when I got a call from the principal, Mr. Roberts, after a female teacher named Miss Meg McCartney had been attacked twice in a hallway by a shadowy apparition. The first time the teacher reported this, Mr. Roberts did not believe it, but after the second incident, he decided on action.
He told me the West Seneca police had investigated but failed to turn anything up. So he wanted something else tried.
“I hear you have some experience dealing with the invisible dark” is how he recruited me.
“A little,” I said, trying to avoid self-praise, a thing I see as the biggest sin in our industry.
I didn’t take any time to attend to it. I put up the needed protections and then after that, waited to hear if a similar incident occurred again but nothing has been reported since. Many ghosts are deterred by magical defenses and will stay away, but it�
��s wise never to be too confident, so I always keep an ear on it.
Generally, though, and in spite of what I did here, schools aren’t that easy to protect against paranormal attacks. They are so vulnerable to forces of darkness, just like they are to common terrorism and gun slaughter. Children, with their young innocent souls, can be a magnet for entities bent on causing harm.
“Afternoon, Mel.” Mr. Roberts welcomes me into his office. He is in a yellow shirt and green tie. “Sorry to have bothered you.” He must be in his mid forties but still has a full head of shaggy hair, with only the tiniest hint of a sprouting gray.
“Always a pleasure to hear from you,” I say.
Mr. Roberts glances at his watch. “Mr. Janz will be down shortly, please take a seat.” Bret Janz is Sara’s homeroom teacher.
I could accept the seat, but a different idea pops into my head. Why not use the time to go check the defenses I put up?
“That’s okay, let Mr. Janz take as much time as he needs,” I say. “Please let me just rush to the restroom.”
It’s only an hour after classrooms were shut, but the hallways are already asleep. The only thing ruffling the air is a hum from upstairs, possibly someone playing a kind of media device.
I dash toward the lockers, a series fixed to a wall next to the big gym room. Mr. Roberts, unknown to anyone else except for Miss McCartney, allocated me one for the purpose of ward deployment. The protection I chose for this place is a gorgon cup and a half-round mirror.
How this system works is that the cup contains about an ounce of charmed water, and should a demon or evil ghost come to the school, it will see this water as an infinitely-deep pool into which it could drown. In addition, the cup is emblazoned with monstrous eyes that will tell all evil intruders that there is someone bigger out there looking at you. The fiends keep away because of that.
The half-round mirror is a soul reflector. Any paranormal entity bent on doing evil that looks at the mirror will see for itself how ugly it has become, and this affords it a chance to walk away from its bad ways.
