by J. R. Rain
Linda shoots me a look.
“So you don’t hate Catholics?” asks Detective Kee.
It’s not a random question. I’m being questioned. In that case, I need to be a little more clear. “Not at all. I have my gods; they have theirs. It’s not my place to criticize anyone for what happens between them and their spiritual patron. By the way, I’m pretty sure Emmett’s people are Christians, not Catholics. Or at least pretending to be.”
Kee scratches his head. “Yet this guy is convinced one of your associates is responsible.”
My thoughts of course go straight to Tamika and her spell. Kee glances at me, perhaps noticing a faint tick in my eyes.
“For a lightning strike?” asks Rick. “You should kick that case over to narco, because those people are clearly on drugs.”
I chuckle, as does Detective Kee.
“Hey, you know how it is. I don’t pick the cases, I just work them.” Kee gives me the side eye like he thinks I’m hiding something. He’s picked up something, like any good cop.
“C’mon.” I nod to the side and walk across the room to a small conference room. Figure if I have to unbox the ‘weird stuff,’ it’s probably better to do it in private.
Kee and Rick follow.
“There’s more?” Kee asks. His expression goes concerned. He’s probably worried about some actual arson-type stuff and my knowing about it and everyone winding up eyeball-deep in a giant vat of internal affairs poo.
I ease the door closed and face him. “Yeah, but it’s probably not anything you’re going to want to put down in your reports.”
“Oh, boy.” Rick chuckles. “She’s going there.”
Kee glances at him for a moment. “What exactly am I walking into here?”
“I noticed you catch me flinch, so I wanted to be up front with you about why I cringed.”
“All right.” Kee nods.
“Pastor Waters has been stirring up trouble with one of my associates, Tamika Bowen,” I say. “A member of his flock spotted her at work wearing a pentacle amulet and decided to have a major freakout. Ever since Waters became aware that we have a practicing coven in the area, he’s been losing his mind about us.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen some of those rants,” says Kee. “He’s been on the news a couple times. Made the paper, too.”
“Doesn’t make much sense if you ask me.” Rick folds his arms. “The guy’s almost like a caricature of one of those fire-and-brimstone types from down South. Not like anything you’d expect to find around here. Most of the pastors I know are good men. Damn good men.”
“And women,” I chime in. “Damn good women.”
Rick grins. “Of course.”
“So there is bad blood?” Kee pulls out a notepad.
“Resentment mostly. Tamika’s pretty steamed at him, too, but if she did anything physical against him, I’m unaware of it.”
“Do you think she’s capable of it?” asks Kee.
I ponder that, and, well, Tamika can get pretty bull-headed when she feels that someone has threatened her or one of her friends. “Based on what I know of her? I think it might be possible; however, it would take a degree of direct provocation that hasn’t materialized yet.”
“And what of the others in your troupe?”
“Coven,” I say, grinning. “We don’t put on shows around Western Washington.”
“Right, coven. My bad.”
I give his question some thought. “Well, my fiancé”―wow, that felt weird to say―“doesn’t think Waters is worth the time to mutter two profanities, so he wouldn’t bother wasting the effort. Elise is afraid of her own shadow. I can’t see her leaving the manor house grounds. Abigail’s got better things to do as well. Colleen isn’t the type to initiate something like that, but if Tamika pressured her, she might go along to help… but she’d probably break down halfway through and run off. But, do I think my coven did anything physical against Waters, his people, or his church? No.”
Kee jots for a few seconds before stopping and looking up at me. “That doesn’t sound at all weird. So what made you feel like you were being deceptive?”
“Two weeks ago, my coven conducted an Esbat ritual to welcome the new moon. During that ceremony, we all invoked various spells, protection magic for the most part. I’m certain that Tamika worked a karmic blowback on Waters, and I’m reasonably confident that it’s the cause of the lightning strike. All the negative energy he had been sending out toward us lashed back at him.”
Kee stares at me like I gave the soliloquy from Macbeth in Swahili.
“Then that means the good reverend had been planning to do something more harmful than simply running his mouth, right?” asks Rick, both eyebrows up.
“Right. And wow, you have been listening.” I pat him on the shoulder twice. “It would. His spouting off about how evil we are wouldn’t have triggered anything since it’s not harmful to us. The lightning strike, if indeed it did happen as a result of our ward, would have been a reaction to his imminent desire to do something equally harmful to us.”
Kee continues gawking at me.
“Of course,” I say with a shrug, “there’s every possibility that the lightning happened at random because of the weather.”
My hair flops over my face. I puff at it, exposing my right eye.
“Riiiight.” Detective Kee stares at his notepad, probably debating if he wants an appointment with the department psychologist. Or recommend me for one. Again, it’s why I generally keep my mouth shut about such matters. “So you’re saying magic did it?”
“Yep.”
He taps the pencil on the pad a few times.
“Or, it really could have been just merely random weather,” I add. “Tamika has been threatened and harassed by members of that church for weeks. Waters has publicly railed about us as evil. The lightning strike happened during a live television newscast. No incendiary device went off in that steeple. While I believe our magic directly contributed to that event, which explains my twinge when you asked about it, in order for you to believe that my friends had a connection to it, you’d also have to believe both that magic is a real force that works, and in the concept of positive-negative energy redirection.”
“I suddenly want to take up yoga,” says Rick.
“Ass.” I thump him on the arm.
“Yeah… that’s not going in the report.” Kee flips his notepad shut and smiles. “You know, I’m inclined to believe you, but I’m not taking ‘magic’ to court… or even mentioning it to my captain.” He sighs. “Any chance you could back your people off him a bit? The guy’s got a serious screw loose.”
I fix my hair back out of my face. “I can ask my friends not to throw any more energy his way, but the invocation we raised only reflects; it doesn’t initiate. If he leaves us alone, nothing happens.”
“Yeah, I got that part.” He taps his head; meaning, he’s got it up there, not in the report. “Still, you might want to lay super low. The read I got on this guy is he’s angling for something bigger.”
“What kind of ‘something bigger’ are you talking about here?” asks Rick, leaning closer.
Kee spots a water cooler at the side of the room, and heads for it. “When I was working up the framework of this case, I decided to check Waters out, you know, be thorough and everything.” He grabs a cup and shoves it under the spigot. “So, turns out this preacher’s got a record. Back in the eighties, he did a bit on a fraud charge. His prison intake paperwork lists ‘atheist’ as his religion.”
I shrug. “It’s not unheard of for people to ‘find God’ in jail.”
“Kinda weird for a pastor to have a criminal record, though,” says Rick. “I’m sure he doesn’t go bragging about that to ‘the faithful.’”
“Perhaps he did find God behind bars.” Detective Crow hammers the whole cup of water back in one gulp like an oversized whiskey double. “But you should still be careful.”
Rick’s posture shifts defensive, but I put a hand on
his arm. I don’t think Kee’s warning me to watch myself… I think he’s warning me the good pastor might be up to something not so good.
“Right. Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out.”
Kee crumples the paper cup and tosses it into the can by the water cooler. “The forensics guys didn’t find anything suspicious at the site. You should’ve heard all the lame jokes about ‘act of God’ starting a fire at a church.”
“I bet.” Rick grins.
“How bad was it?” I ask. “No one got hurt, I hope.”
“Nah, just a couple thousand dollars of damage. I think he’s got his knickers in a twist over nearly loading up his pants on live TV.”
My turn to chuckle. “That blast did look pretty loud.”
“I’m guessing this case will close in a couple days and I’ll no longer be watching Waters.” Kee shoves his notebook in his back pocket. “Got a real weird vibe from that dude.”
“His spirits are at odds,” I say, surprising myself. Where did that come from?
Both men blink and stare at me.
“Say again?” asks Rick.
“Just a wild theory.” I fold my arms, thinking of a dark shadow racing off into the woods.
Chapter Five
Thorns
Monday Evening – July 10, 2017
As Mondays go, it could’ve been far worse. At least no one died.
Well, people probably did die, but no one my unit had to investigate. Of course, getting to work a normal shift came with a price―hours of tedium. Rick and I threw time at our stalled list, then wound up spending the rest of our day helping out on the clown case by poring over case records, files, and mental health dossiers on a portion of the suspect pool. Ed’s so desperate at the moment that the pool feels like ‘living people between the ages of nine and ninety-nine within driving distance of Olympia.’
So, yeah, police work isn’t all guts and glory. Some days―most days―I’m basically a cube dweller. If only magic worked like it does in the movies. I’d love to be able to wave a magic wand at a mountain of paperwork and have it all fill itself out.
While that particular sort of magic only exists in the imagination, now that I’m home, I do have access to another sort of magic that can erase the frustration of staring at a computer monitor all day long. And I’m not talking about my long, after-work soak with a lavender-and-hyssop bath bomb while my man cooked dinner. No, this particular magic involves a much more direct participation on the part of said man. Okay, maybe not exactly magic, but close enough.
All of which is to say, we called it an early night and headed to bed, but not for sleep.
Still on the emotional high of the proposal, we spend quite a while entwined and kissing while our hands roam. Caius throws off heat like an ember; every inch of his skin burns with the same intensity radiating from his eyes. He eventually guides me to recline on my back and lies beside me, his tongue circling my closest nipple while his fingers roam elsewhere.
I clench two fistfuls of bedding, gasping, moaning as his touch brings me near to the brink. All the frustrations and tension of the day disappears. His fingers make me writhe with ecstasy. My moans intensify, louder, deeper. Caius feeds off my reaction, grinning with a wicked gleam in his eye. He stretches up and kisses my neck while sliding into position.
“Are you ready?” The warm breath of his whisper brushes over my ear.
“Yes!” I shout.
We become one.
I let off a wail of pleasure and wrap my arms around him. Face to face, we undulate, our spirits and bodies entwined.
My cell phone rings from the nightstand. Oh, damn… official ringtone.
Caius slows, but doesn’t stop. “That’s you-know-who.”
Too many fireworks are going off inside my head to speak. I gasp a “yeah,” and bite his shoulder. “Almost there.”
“But―”
“Keep going.”
We ride together into a volcanic explosion of bliss.
I’m not even sure how, but I wind up on top of him when we flop afterward, both of us covered in sweat and panting for breath.
We get ten seconds of silence before the phone starts ringing again.
“You ignored a work call,” says Caius, smiling and brushing at my hair.
“Not ignoring, just delaying.” I stretch out an arm reaching for the phone. “If they’re calling me at this hour, my client’s already dead. They won’t mind a few minutes.”
“Mmm.” Caius tucks up behind me as I roll off him and sit on the edge of the bed, his hands on my hips.
I flick my thumb at the screen to answer. “Wimsey.”
“Hey, Wims,” says Captain Greer. “Need you to head over to the Woodland Apartments off Capital Mall Drive. Patrol’s got a crime scene with your name on it.”
My hair droops down over my face, mirroring my general sense of ‘ugh.’ Not only is work pulling me away from Caius, but someone lost their life. “Okay. You call Santiago yet, or should I?”
A smile sounds clear in my captain’s voice. “I’ll do it. Take a minute and tell that man of yours I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Wow, she’s good… or am I still breathing hard? “All right. Be there as soon as I can.”
She reads off the full address, which I jot down, and hangs up. As soon as I lower the phone from my ear, Caius wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on my left shoulder.
“You need to go out?”
“Yeah.” I toss the phone on the nightstand before staring down at my feet. “Sorry.”
He sways gently side to side, rocking me. “Don’t apologize. This is all part of you.”
“I hate having to run out the door right after…” I scowl at the rug for a second or two before throwing my head back and yelling, “Dammit! I want my cuddle time!”
He squeezes me, chuckling.
“We can cuddle whenever you want, babe. The citizens need you right now.”
“I know. I know. That still doesn’t make me feel less guilty.” I stand and fast-walk to the bathroom for a quick shower.
Caius follows me into the bathroom, but not the shower. “I know this will happen. It’s the life you’ve chosen, and I’m completely fine with it. Every rose has its thorns and all that.”
One foot in the shower, I pause, staring at him. My heart wells up with love and dread in equal parts. He’s leaning on the doorjamb, arms crossed, still as naked as I am. My own personal young-and-virile Count Dracula… or some random Moldavian noble with a castle far up in the mountains. Not that his family is from anywhere near that region, he’s just got smoldering dark looks that kick my imagination into gear.
At least, being a cop isn’t going to kill my as-yet-to-happen marriage.
I won’t let it, and I know he won’t either.
Chapter Six
Bad Blood
Monday Night – July 10, 2017
Maybe I drive a little faster than I ought to since I’m sure Rick’s already there making me look lazy and unmotivated.
At least the flashing red dome light on my dashboard does wonders chasing traffic out of my way. It surprises me when his black Ford Explorer pulls out of a side street ahead of me and I wind up behind him for the last half-mile or so.
I swing a left onto Forestglove Place and hook a right turn a little ways later into the apartment complex. Red and blue lights from a small army of patrol cars glow from the center parking lot. I loop around one building and pull up behind Rick. We get out at the same time.
“Hope you two at least got a chance to finish,” says Rick.
“How did you…?”
He grins. “I didn’t. I do now, though.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Did Greer give you any more details than the address?”
“Nah.” He shakes his head.
We duck the crime scene tape and approach a patrol sergeant, Stedman according to his nametag.
“What are we looking at here, Sergeant?” asks Rick.
“Detecti
ves.” Stedman shakes our hands one after the next. “Another tenant noticed a broken bedroom window, got curious and peeked inside. He observed the crime scene, so he called it in. One deceased white male.” He waves us to follow, and approaches an open apartment door where another patrol officer is standing watch.
We step into the living room of a sparsely decorated apartment. My attention goes straight to a shirtless, pale man with a few extra pounds, sitting in a thin metal chair on the far side of a glass-top coffee table. His arms appear to be tied behind the seat. His head lolls back, mouth agape.
The apartment is fairly plain, not much decoration except for a major amount of blood thrown around the walls. Trickles of it run down the screen of a modest television playing the theatrical version of Dune. That movie’s so long we can almost use it to establish time of death.
“Deceased is Benjamin Gibson, twenty-eight. The neighbor who called 911 talked to him occasionally. Didn’t have much useful information, other than the dead guy managing a Burger King.”
Rick and I pull on our blue gloves.
“Window in the back bedroom’s the point of entry,” says Sergeant Stedman. “My guys didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary when they cleared the place.”
“Thanks,” I say, my voice a little robotic due to my focus on the dead man in front of me.
White plastic zip ties secure his wrists together behind him. More of the same ties hold his legs to the chair at the ankle and knee. Though covered in blood, his chest doesn’t display any visible injuries. With my mini Maglite out, I walk a careful circle around him. There’s nowhere to step this close to the body without being on blood-soaked carpet. When I get around to his right side, I wince a little at an incision on his neck. A faint trickle of blood still oozes down onto his chest.
I press a fingertip to his bicep and thigh, then gingerly try to lift his head upright. There’s no stiffness whatsoever in his neck, so I’m sure he’s been dead less than two hours. Rigor’s first noticeable in the eyelids, neck, and jaw… and there’s no sign of it here, not yet.
