Spirit Animals

by E. E. Richardson

  Phil was clearly following her line of thought. “You think they might have crossed the border into Oxford’s jurisdiction?”

  “It’s possible,” she said. “Oxford was still in a complete muddle at the time, with the whole goat demon business and the change in personnel—if the cult struck much further south than their usual hunting grounds and changed up their MO for disposing of the bodies, then the RCU might not have linked the deaths to the Valentine Vampire case. They might not even have reached our attention at all.” If the bodies had been burned or allowed to decay undisturbed long enough to hide the signs of ritual cuts, they’d most likely have been pursued as normal homicides.

  “I can have a poke about,” Phil said. “See if there are any unsolved murders or missing persons from the time that fit the victim profile.”

  “Please,” Pierce said with a sigh. “At this stage, we still need all the help we can get.”

  AT LEAST DEEPAN was back at work again the next day, although she was still dubious about allowing him to do more than man the computers. “I’m fine, guv,” he insisted. “Totally recovered.”

  “Yeah, well, you can sit there and be fine at a desk for a while,” Pierce said. “What’s the latest from our scene in Leeds?”

  Frustratingly little, as it transpired. The young man from the coffin was still unidentified as yet: Leeds were looking into university students who’d failed to attend lectures, but that was a tough group to narrow, and it probably wouldn’t tell them anything when they did have a name. The house where he’d been found had been rented out as student accommodation on a slightly dodgy cash basis from a landlord who’d apparently seen nothing, making that another dead end.

  Forensics had found a few prints, but none of them had come up with matches so far, and Pierce had a feeling they wouldn’t: the people behind ritual killings like this were rarely the sort of repeat offenders who were in and out of the system. These murders weren’t acts of vengeance or aggression or even cold-blooded attacks on enemies—they were just the means to an end, the dispassionate slaughter of human beings to provide fuel for a magical ritual.

  And the killers were getting away with it, far too well for her liking. Until they had an actual suspect to compare those prints to, it was looking less and less likely that the house in Leeds would yield anything useful.

  Pierce let Dawson keep the job of overseeing the investigation, and turned her attention instead to the lead Phil had given her on the spirit charms case. She called up Adrian Shore, who turned out to have a nasal voice and a rather jittery telephone manner, or else he was just rather nervous about speaking to the police. He was definitely eager to protest his innocence, though she hadn’t called it into question.

  “Well, obviously, um, I didn’t recognise the gentleman—that is, I wouldn’t normally deal with anyone offering such flimsy provenance for articles of a potentially, um, restricted nature, and if they knew my reputation for honest dealings I’m sure they would never have approached me...”

  Pierce cut through the stream of nervous self-justification. “We appreciate that, Mr Shore. You’re not under any suspicion—these people know their operation has come to the attention of the police, and they’re undoubtedly keen to offload the merchandise any way they can.” God bless criminal greed, the force behind many an idiot decision to hold onto incriminating evidence rather than lose money by destroying it. “The fact they’re desperate enough to start approaching honest dealers like yourself is actually good news for us, because it means that with your assistance we can catch them red-handed.”

  Shore didn’t seem enormously thrilled at the opportunity. “Oh, er, well... obviously I support the police completely in, er, in bringing an end to these barbaric magical practices, but I’m not really sure how much assistance I can actually be...” He trailed off with the vagueness of a man hoping someone else would politely supply his excuses for him.

  Unfortunately for him, Pierce was quite happy to bulldoze through social niceties. “You really wouldn’t have to do very much at all, sir,” she pressed. “There’ll be plenty of police on hand to deal with everything—all we need is for you to let them know you might be interested in buying and get them to bring the merchandise to your shop so we can arrest them and seize it.”

  Odds were Miller and co. would be hoping to sell off their whole stock of charms in one go, and bring the entire gang along to escort them. It would be a chance to arrest the ringleaders and get their goods off the street all in one tidy scoop.

  If Shore played ball. She couldn’t compel a member of the public to assist an operation with anything more than persuasive arguments and a bit of emotional blackmail, and emphasizing the fact that these weren’t just dodgy dealers but dangerous men who ought to be locked up seemed likely to be more counterproductive than anything.

  Shore was already squirming as it was. “Well, I, um, I’m afraid I was really rather emphatic in rejecting their offer before”—Pierce found that hard to believe, considering how wishy-washy he was being in dealing with hers—“so I’m not sure that they would believe such a fast turnaround...”

  As the shopkeeper ummed and erred, Pierce was more than half expecting him to wriggle free with belated claims he had no way to reestablish contact, but either he was made of sterner stuff than she’d given him credit for, or the prospect of lying to the police unnerved him even more than assisting them with a sting operation. “Well, er, I suppose I could attempt to set up a meeting...” he eventually said weakly.

  Pierce pounced before he could back out again, and then it was all over bar the practical arrangements

  THE OPERATION TO arrest Miller’s gang was a much smaller-scale affair than the previous day’s raid; they’d have a pair of Firearms Support officers standing by to assist the uniforms, but armed only with Tasers this time—with luck, the gang had already burned through the most dangerous of the spirit charms they had to hand and even that level of force wouldn’t be necessary. Pierce was hoping a simple show they were surrounded would be enough to make them come in quietly.

  They certainly seemed to have realised they were in a tight spot, setting up a meeting with Shore within a matter of hours; she had to scramble to get the op organised and her team in position before Miller’s gang arrived to scope the place out themselves.

  The shop, dubbed A. A. SHORE—OCCULT BOOKS AND CURIOSITIES, occupied a yellow-brick Victorian building, the ground floor fully converted but the upper still retaining some rather nice arched windows. Of slightly more use to the police was the larger archway leading through to the yard behind, these days a private car park closed off by a metal gate. They tucked the garishly marked Armed Response Vehicle and its occupants behind it out of sight, where Gemma Freeman and half of the arrest team would also lie in wait. Pierce and the rest of them would be upstairs. All Shore had to do was meet with Miller’s men for long enough to confirm they had the goods, and then excuse himself upstairs to let the police take over.

  A simple plan, which limited the number of things that could go wrong, if not how quickly and easily they could do so. Miller might be paranoid enough to have had eyes on the street hours early and spotted the police moving in, or Pierce might have overestimated the gang’s urgency and they’d only send a lackey with one sample charm. Or—and this was currently her biggest worry—Shore might panic and throw the whole plan off.

  In person, he didn’t quite match the image that she’d formed over the phone. Pierce would have pictured small and twitchy, possibly with a bowtie: in fact, he was quite a big man with broad shoulders and a mane of greying curls, and a firm if slightly clammy handshake, which might have been just nerves. She’d also been wrong about the bowtie, though he did have a gold waistcoat.

  “Just go about your business as normal,” she advised him, as he joined them upstairs for the fourth or fifth time and peered nervously out of the windows. “They may send someone in to check the shop is clear before they approach you, so you don’t want to arouse sus
picion by disappearing up here all the time.”

  Shore nodded, swallowing convulsively. “Yes, of course, you’re right, um, I’ll just...” He looked around the box-filled stockroom blankly for a moment, hands twitching spasmodically as if seeking something useful to grasp, before shaking himself and heading back downstairs.

  The sergeant corralling the team of uniforms that she’d been loaned, a solidly-built bloke called Smithy with a face that looked like it had been through some rugby matches, appeared distinctly dubious. “You can practically hear that bloke’s knicker elastic twanging,” he said. “We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t blow the whole thing before we even get down the stairs.”

  Pierce wasn’t much happier, but as officer in charge she probably shouldn’t outwardly agree it might go tits up. “We’re not asking him to recite the works of Shakespeare,” she reminded them. “All he’s got to do is answer the door and ask them to show him the goods. They’re probably expecting him to be nervous.” An obvious first-time buyer of illegal goods from hardened criminals had legitimate call to be jittery.

  Too legitimate for her liking. Sweating in the stuffy air of the stockroom, she mentally crossed her fingers that ‘tits up,’ should it occur, wouldn’t put Adrian Shore in the way of any of that harm she’d assured him he wouldn’t be in.

  That was the trouble with the interminable wait before a bust went down—nothing to do but go over the plan and air all those second thoughts.

  Until time abruptly ran out.

  Gemma’s voice, amid a crackle of static on the radio: “White van approaching now, guv. I think it’s them.”

  “All right.” The tension tightened in her stomach. “Stay out of sight until I give the word.” She released the radio and nodded to Smithy, resisting the strong but stupid urge to move to the window to look out for herself. An unexpected shadow at the window when Shore was supposed to be alone could definitely scare Miller off.

  Smithy gestured to his team to take up their positions at the top of the stairs. Today Pierce would be bringing up the rear; she’d only get in the way of the strapping young constables, unless Miller’s crew pulled out some extra magic beyond the charms they’d already been briefed about. Her main role outside of advisory was just going to be making sure the shopkeeper stayed out of the firing line if things turned nasty after all.

  “Right,” Smithy said to his team, “get your tutus on, girls, because it looks like it’s showtime. From now on it’s silent running—keep your lips zipped, don’t knock stuff down, and try not to fart. And yes, I do mean you, Kev.” Grins all round, but they settled into obedient silence, listening, waiting.

  For an eternity, nothing happened. Then, finally, the jangle of the bell above the shop door, almost making her jump. Pierce tried to make sense of the footsteps: two men, maybe three? Good. Hopefully the whole of the gang was here.

  She didn’t think Shore was quite so happy to have them show up in force; she winced at the thin, reedy quality of his voice as she strained to hear the group talking downstairs. “Er, hello, um, are you here about the, er, sale items we discussed on the phone?”

  He didn’t just sound jumpy; worse, he sounded forced, talking overly loudly like an actor trying to project his voice to the back rows of the theatre. But he only had to hold it together through a few more words of the script... She gritted her teeth. Take the bait, take the bait... All they needed was confirmation that Miller’s crew had the goods on them.

  “Got the money?” a lower, rougher voice demanded bluntly. Was it the man with the greyhound charm from outside the warehouse? She couldn’t be sure without getting a look at him.

  “Er, yes, of course. In cash, as—as you requested, very, um, understandable. But I need... that is, I must ask to, um, see the merchandise before... You have it with you? I must insist, um...”

  In his nervous babble he was over-egging it. Fuck. Even without having eyes downstairs, Pierce was sure she sensed a shift in the mood of the room below, and judging by Sergeant Smithy’s sudden tension he could feel it too. Things were teetering on the edge of going bad, but all they needed was one word of confirmation...

  Instead, there was a thick, dangerous silence as Shore’s voice trailed off, and then a sharply unhappy curse from the man who’d asked about the money. “This stupid fucker’s wearing a wire or something,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “No! I, um, I...” Shore spluttered, but Pierce didn’t wait to hear if he could somehow talk them round again. Smithy was already on his way down the stairs, jerking an arm at his team to follow, and Pierce grabbed for her radio as she hurried after them.

  “Romeo Charlie Bravo team, move in, move in!”

  For better or worse, it was showtime.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “SHIT, THERE’S POLICE in here!” somebody shouted downstairs, and Pierce heard them scramble for the door as she thundered down the shop stairs on the tail of four younger, fitter officers.

  “Police!” Sergeant Smithy shouted at the head of the pack. “Everybody stay where you are. You! Put that down on the ground and back away from it.” There was the splintering crash and attendant clatter of some heavy piece of furniture being shoved over in the shop, and somebody swore.

  Pierce was caught in a logjam at the foot of the stairs when a hoarse voice shouted, “Anima!” She cursed and grasped at her radio again as a brief flare of silver-white light cast its glow through the doorway.

  “Charms are live!” she barked into the radio. “Get the Taser team in here!” The second prong of their trap wasn’t in position yet, and this could get ugly fast.

  “Upstairs!” Smithy ordered, and a panicked looking Adrian Shore was manhandled into Pierce’s space. She squeezed back against the wall to shove him up the staircase past her.

  “Just stay upstairs. We’ve got this under control.” Blatant lies, but the truth wouldn’t do much to calm him, and Miller’s gang were surely focused on escape rather than vengeance for the setup—provided he stayed well out of the way.

  “My stock...” Shore said rather plaintively over his shoulder as another, more glassy crash sounded amid the scuffling beyond.

  “It’ll be covered—go!” She’d do her best to see that someone paid the poor sod’s damages after she’d put him in this situation, but that couldn’t be her main concern right now.

  As she broke through into the main room of the shop, she saw that Smithy and two others of his team were all wrestling with one man, and not successfully: Pierce recognised the burly bloke she’d clashed with at the warehouse as he hurled one of the constables aside to crash painfully against a rack of coat hooks. She was betting he was the one who’d set off the spirit charm.

  “You all right, Jordan?” Smithy called after the swearing PC. Even as the young man nodded, gasping, the suspect seized his chance to make a break for it, elbowing Smithy in the stomach. The sergeant doubled over with a groan, but just about managed to keep his grip, and Pierce decided that scene was semi-under-control. She looked round for the other gang members.

  The fourth PC from her team was facing off against a new face to her, short, dark and skinny. Looked like the constable had him in hand, one cuff already snapped around his wrist and a restraining grip on his free arm to make sure he couldn’t reach the medallion round his neck. Good. She cast about for Miller.

  He was backing away into the rear of the shop with his arms wrapped around a wooden box about the size of a briefcase. No second exit that way, but Pierce still moved after him, wary of a bid to destroy the evidence. “Put the box down on the ground and step away!” she ordered him—but that was when the burly man successfully broke free from Smithy and made his bid for escape. Pierce lunged after him, but he was too far away and too fast, already almost at the door—

  Just as it slammed inwards, the bell tinkling incongruously as the two Firearms Officers burst in with Tasers at the ready. The man skidded to a halt, probably more from sheer surprise than in response to their be
llowed “Police! Freeze!”

  Miller showed no such hesitation, taking advantage of the distraction to snatch up a heavy stone-carving from a nearby display and hurl it out through the shop’s end window.

  The builders clearly hadn’t splashed out on laminated glass: the window shattered in a spectacular spider’s web around the hole as the stone figurine punched through it. Miller shoved his way through after it, widening the hole with a few blows from the box in his hands and then holding it up over his head to shield himself from the rain of glass shards.

  He was halfway out onto the street by the time Pierce caught up to him; she grabbed for his trailing leg, but he kicked out at her and she flinched away from the falling glass. As she tried to follow him out, he swung at her with the wooden box and she had to duck away again.

  “We need people out on the street!” Pierce yelled back to her team, but they were struggling to contain the other two gang members in the cluttered space, everybody too closely entangled to risk using the Tasers, and she wasn’t sure if her words registered above the general chaos.

  She climbed through the broken window after Miller, elbows knocking more glass free as she wrapped her arms over her head. She stumbled, misjudging ground level, slapped reflexively at the window to try to keep her balance and almost fell right through.

  Miller swung the box at her two-handed before she’d recovered, smacking her own arm back into her face. There was a sharp crack as pain blossomed through her nose, and she was sure he’d broken it until the latch of the wooden box in his hands bounced open, spilling the medallions out across the street.

  “Shit!” Rather than abandon the goods and just run, he dropped to the ground to grab for them. Pierce drew her hand away from her bloody nose to grab her cuffs.

  “Leave it!” she barked at him, stepping on one of the charms to cover it. “You’ve got nowhere to go, so—”