The Dead Pools

by Michael Hesse

  I sighed and shook my head. The Sheriff should have tried a different tactic. Mac does the intimidating; it doesn’t work the other way around.

  “Justice is it?” he snarled. “All I see is two of my men shackled to a table against their will.”

  “Look at this,” the Sheriff snapped, thrusting the picture of our cell in front of Mac’s face. “They killed a government witness, hexed him worse than I’ve ever seen.”

  Mac snatched the picture from the Sheriff’s hand and glanced at it for a moment before tossing it to the floor. “I don’t know what type of game you’re playing here, but those kindergarten scribbles aren’t spells. If my men tried to pass off that garbage to me, I’d smack ‘em back to last week. And if your witness was truly hexed then you don’t have any jurisdiction here. That’s Company business.”

  He’d been outmaneuvered, but the Sheriff wasn’t ready to let us go. He was still smarting over the beating we’d given his men. “They’re still charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.”

  “Stevens, give me the report,” Mac snapped.

  Stevens moved back from the door he’d been watching and handed several sheets of paper to Mac before returning to his station at the door. Mac checked them over before placing it on the table. “Those are signed witness statements from the patrons at Leo’s Carnival. We interviewed them earlier this morning. They all agree that your men attacked first and that my boys never resisted arrest. Now you can either release them immediately or I will request that the Army withdraw all funding and advise its soldiers to avoid the Atlanta metropolitan area.”

  It was a bluff. It had to be. I wasn’t surprised that Mac got the witness statements. It’s difficult to lie to the wrath of God, but he didn’t have the pull he implied he had. But the Sheriff wouldn’t know that.

  He picked up the witness statements and read them over quickly. I was certain they contrasted sharply with the garbage he’d filed. I could almost see the gears working in his head. He wanted us bad for this. He wanted us here, in his jail and under his thumb. What was it with this guy? This couldn’t all be over a spilled beer. There was something else slinking below the surface. There had to be.

  The Sheriff carefully read through the witness statements before setting the pile on the table before him. After a few seconds of thought, he inched the statements further from him. “I’ll have the charges dropped,” he said slowly, “but your men will remain in custody. There’s a man from Washington coming to pick up the dead perp. He’ll want to speak to these two.”

  “If he’s come that far, he can drive out to the base for his interview.”

  “I don’t know about all that.”

  “Yes, you do,” Mac said stepping forward, “unless you want to explain the finger paints in my men’s cell—

  Mac left his threat hanging, but there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. “Now release my men immediately and show us where your prisoner was hexed.”

  The Sheriff stopped his steady retreat and grinned. “No can do, Sergeant. The OSS sealed that cell. No one in or out without their express authorization. If you have a problem with that you can take it up with them.”

  Mac took a deep breath, ready to argue jurisdiction when a loud speaker crackled to life overhead.

  Sheriff Ratcliff. We have a situation in the Isolation Ward requiring your immediate attention.

  The Sheriff bolted from his chair. “It’s been fun Sergeant, but duty calls,” he said gathering together his papers and files. “Now if you’ll excuse me—

  Mac moved to block his way. “Release them first.”

  There was a long pause while the Sheriff dithered before pulling a tangled mass of keys from his belt. Fumbling through the keys he found the one he wanted and bent over to release the locks. “I’d better not catch you boys in my town again,” he said, before scurrying out of the room.

  Ramirez stood rubbing his wrists. “You’re not pressing the issue? We have jurisdiction.”

  Mac glanced over toward the mirror and then back at us and grinned. His fingers flashed: //Nunez//.

  Chapter 6

  Atlanta, Sunday 04:30

  Fulton County Jail

  I’ve no doubt that processing would have taken several hours without Mac and Stevens accompanying us. We were in and out and back in our uniforms within twenty minutes. It’s amazing how quickly people can work with the threat of two Army sorcerers on the other side of the glass.

  “That was a waste,” Ramirez said as we stepped out into the cool morning air. I couldn’t agree more, but I kept my mouth shut while I watched Mac and Stevens. Neither of them appeared upset about our failed infiltration. They joked casually while we waited for a guard to open the final gate to the visitor’s parking lot. We were missing something.

  Mac’s plan, if that’s what it was, had failed spectacularly. Ramirez and I infiltrated the isolation ward, but we’d failed our main objective. We hadn’t even seen the target before he was killed. Mac’s apparent nonchalance must be the quiet before the storm, I reasoned. When he popped the cap on his carefully bottled anger, we’d wish we were still in lockup.

  I was waiting for it as we stepped through the final gate, but Mac and Stevens headed straight for the Humvee. I glanced over to Ramirez who shrugged his shoulders at my unasked question. Something was definitely up, but neither of us had a clue.

  It wasn’t until we reached the sand-colored Humvee that Mac displayed any anxiety. It was a tiny thing, normally inconsequential, but for Mac it spoke volumes. He checked his watch and rechecked it again thirty seconds later. “Where is he?” he muttered under his breath.

  “Perhaps we should have pushed it,” Stevens said, “and demanded to see the cell.”

  Mac shook his head. “No,” he replied after another glance at his watch, “we don’t want to appear too interested. Let the Sheriff think we were cowed by the OSS seal. That sort of mistake might come in handy later. Have a smoke or something so we don’t arouse suspicion and give him another five minutes.”

  I was beginning to understand. Like any good strategist, Mac set more than one plan in motion. Although he hoped that Ramirez and I would wind up in isolation, there was no guarantee. The cops might not know I was Wiccan or might not have segregated us. The important thing was for us to get arrested and as long as Ramirez was strutting, arrest was a foregone conclusion.

  I smiled at my revelation. “He didn’t play me,” I said to Ramirez. “Mac played you.”

  Ramirez scowled. Stevens nodded and Mac looked at his watch. It was all the confirmation I needed.

  Mac needed an excuse to get into the jail and we provided it. History showed that a wad of cash in Ramirez’s pocket was a beeline to trouble. Stateside, overseas, it didn’t matter. The only real question was how long would it take. Three and a half hours was probably a record. We should have an office pool.

  Stevens finished his cigarette and crushed it under his heel before slipping the butt into a jacket pocket. He’d cut it up and sprinkle the bits somewhere or burn it once we were back on base. I thought it a bit of overkill, but when you know how easily something like that can be used for a trace, it makes you a little paranoid.

  “He’s late,” Stevens said.

  Mac grunted before gesturing to us to climb in the hummer. We settled in slowly, while Mac made a show of checking the tires. Walking slowly around the Humvee he bent over each before kicking it and proceeding to the next, but his eyes never left the jail. One of his men was somewhere inside and it wasn’t in him to just drive away.

  Stevens leaned out the window. “Sarge, we’ve got to go. We’ll stop at the next station and fill ‘er up. Nunez will know—

  Mac swung up into the passenger seat, cutting Stevens off. “Drive slowly toward the front gate, but make a wrong turn. Make it look like you’re hunting for the exit. End up near the northeast corner of the building.”

  “You see something?”

  “He’s on the roof,” Mac confir
med.

  I glanced up at the building while Stevens made a show of getting lost in the parking lot, but I couldn’t see anything. It was too dark and Nunez’s ability to blend into the environment was legendary in the Company. Whatever Mac had seen, he’d been allowed to see it.

  We wound down one row and up another and somehow, we ended up at the northeast corner. Mac got out and stood up on the side rail making a show of trying to see over the cars in the lot. If anyone was watching, Mac was providing a show.

  I turned away in time to see a blob of shadow drop a couple of feet to the ground. Nunez reached up and yanked on a thin rope that fell obligingly at his feet. He coiled it around him as he jogged to the hummer. I slid over and Nunez slipped into the back shutting the door just as Mac stepped back in.

  “You’re late,” he snapped as Stevens pressed the gas.

  “Security was tight,” Nunez said. “There were guards spread out all over the floor.”

  Nunez dropped to the floor as we approached the gate and slithered under our feet. I slid back to my spot by the window before we pulled up to the guard shack. We sat idling while a guard carrying a clipboard stepped out and recorded our license plate. He then walked around the hummer with a flashlight, peering through each of the windows before waving us on our way.

  “That was a little perfunctory,” I said.

  Mac nodded from the passenger seat. “I think the Sheriff wants you two as far from here as possible. So, what doesn’t he want you to see?”

  Nunez crawled up from the floorboard, elbowing Ramirez in the side. “I didn’t need your boots on my face, asshole.”

  Ramirez chuckled, “just trying to help.”

  “Children, please,” Mac said. “Settle down before I come back there and give you something to cry about. Specialist Nunez: your report.”

  “To avoid the guards, I came in through the air ducts,” Nunez said. “It was pretty straightforward, but slow going to minimize noise.”

  “You were able to locate the target cell?”

  “Yes, Sergeant, that was easy enough, just followed my nose.” Black magick doesn’t really smell; mundane scientists have run hundreds of tests, analyzing particulates in the air down to a few microns. There’s nothing around a dark event that’s different than the air anywhere else, but ask a Gifted and you’ll get a different answer. It stinks of mold and rot and corruption. Maybe our brains just process the information and relate it to odor, I couldn’t tell you differently, but anytime I’m near strong black magick I gag on the stench.

  “Once I located the objective, I dropped through the vent into the cell.” Nunez shuddered, “In my five years with the Company I’ve never seen anything like it, Sarge. The body was torn up bad, like he’d been flayed alive. There were bits of skin and bone sticking to the walls and blood everywhere. It was splashed on the walls, dripping from the ceiling; I’ve never seen anything like it.

  “Anything else,” Mac asked.

  “Yeah, there were stubs from three black candles on a makeshift altar and Hellion script, like the crap we saw in Japan written on the walls,” Nunez said turning to me. “It was crazy stuff, squirming like it was alive, shifting and fading from view, made me sick to look at it.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, Sergeant. I brought you a present.” Nunez pulled a plastic baggie from his pocket and tossed it over the seat. “Thought maybe the witch might get a read on it, give us an idea of where to go.”

  Mac grunted flicking on one of the cabin lights to see. Ramirez and I leaned forward as Mac held the baggie up to the light. Inside there were a few black hairs and a gold medallion smeared with blood. It looked like a Saint’s medal, but I’d never seen a Saint like it before. The spooky bitch from the hallway peered out from the gold lozenge; a female grim reaper, complete with a scythe. La Santisima Muerte was stamped above her grinning skull.

  “Most Holy Death,” Ramirez muttered and crossed himself, “Put it away.”

  “You know what this is?” Mac peered over the back of the seat, thrusting the medallion under Ramirez’s nose.

  “Get it away from me,” he snapped.

  “Relax, Ramirez,” Mac chuckled, placing the baggie on the seat next to him. “I’m just curious about what it means.”

  My spirit mark started going crazy, coiling and surging as if it were trying to slither out from under my skin. “Sergeant,” I said, “Ramirez is right, that thing’s still active.”

  “It can’t be,” Mac replied. “Its owner is dead.”

  “Maybe it’s the blood or maybe it doesn’t need a living focus, but don’t tell me you can’t feel it. The temperature is dropping by the second.”

  Before Mac could respond, Stevens slapped the dashboard. “God damned piece of crap,” he swore, “the engine’s overheating!”

  That should have been the clue. If we’d been prepared, we might have recognized the connection between the sudden chilling and the engine warning light, but that’s the problem with magick. It’s sometimes so subtle that it slips right past you. Moments later I felt the buzz, but by then it was too late.

  The strike washed over me like a dark wave, punching the front of the Humvee and sending up a cloud of sparks. Warning lights flashed and black smoke poured from the air vents. Shuddering, the truck bucked once and then jerked hard to the left, swerving across the blessedly empty lanes. Stevens swore, punching the brakes, but at seventy miles an hour it only made things worse.

  The truck tipped sickeningly onto two tires. For a moment I thought it might right itself, but then it was spinning in the air, tumbling us about like socks in a dryer. We hit and rolled, bouncing twice across the pavement before sliding into the median in a wake of shattered glass.

  Chapter 7

  Sunday 05:30

  Somewhere along I-85

  Magick requires time and preparation. You need still thoughts and hyper-focus to manifest your will. None of that is possible while tumbling through the air. Physics and engineering saved us. The combat hardened frame of the Humvee shielded us from the majority of the impact. A grove of Dogwoods planted across in the median arrested our plummet towards the oncoming lanes. In truth, we were lucky.

  I don’t know if I blacked out or for how long. The next thing I remember after the screech and tumble, I was dangling from my seatbelt. Bless you, safety engineers. I was battered and raw; my body screaming from the sledgehammer blows, but nothing was broken. My hand came away bloody when I checked if my head was still attached.

  Faint moonlight filtering through the shattered window above my head illuminated the smoke-filled cabin. Once my ears stopped ringing, I could hear groaning, but I couldn’t see how badly anyone else was hurt. The smoke hung like a blanket, covering everything inside. I’d have to free myself before I could help the others.

  Feeling down around my middle I scrabbled with the clasp, but it was jammed. I tugged at it again, but it wouldn’t budge. I’d have to find another way. I reached up through the shattered window, but I couldn’t pull myself out while the belt restrained me. So much for plan B, I thought.

  “Nunez. Ramirez. Can you hear me?”

  Nunez reached up slapping my hip. “I’m okay,” he said. “Ramirez cushioned the blow, but he’s unconscious. I can feel bone coming through his arm, but the blood’s just oozing.”

  “My belt’s jammed. If I cut it off, I’m going to fall on you,” I replied. “I can pull myself out the window, but you’ll need to cut the belt so I don’t fall. Can you do that?”

  “Give me a minute,” he said. Moments later he reached up and ran his fingers down my side until he’d located the belt. “Pull yourself up so I can get some slack.”

  I reached through the hole where the window had been, but there was little to grab. The best I could do was wedge my shoulders through the missing window and hold myself there. When I felt Nunez’s knife slip between my side and the belt, I pulled with all my strength. Nunez carefully turned the blade into the belt and tugged. Ev
en with me pulling I nearly impaled myself when the belt gave, but I managed to haul myself through the narrow opening.

  Once outside I realized that things were worse than I’d first surmised. Roiling dark clouds surrounded the Humvee like billowing patches of night. I couldn’t see the road though it couldn’t be more than a dozen feet from where I stood. Whatever had started with the strike wasn’t finished.

  I reached back down through the window. “Nunez, we’ve got to move,” I called, “something’s coming.”

  “Grab ahold of Ramirez,” he shouted and shoved his body under my grasping hands. I reached down and hooked my arms under his shoulders and tugged for all I was worth. Lifting a body is harder than it looks. It’s not just the dead weight; the body sags and flops around, shifting the center of gravity, requiring twice the energy it should. I nearly dropped him as I straightened my legs, but Nunez got under him somehow and between us I was able to pull Ramirez through the window.

  I laid him across the mangled side of the truck and jumped to the ground, then turned and pulled him down on top of me. It wasn’t graceful, but my body cushioned the blow before he hit the ground. Pulling myself out from under him I dragged him about ten feet across the ground and left him on his side. If he started to vomit, at least he wouldn’t choke to death. Once he was safe, I turned back and spotted Nunez struggling with Mac.

  I raced back to the truck and grabbed Mac shoulders, steadying him as Nunez yanked the rest of him free. Mac was heavier than Ramirez, but I had the advantage of Nunez’s help. Nunez pushed him onto my shoulders in a fireman’s lift. I staggered to where I’d left Ramriez and eased Mac as carefully as I could to the ground. He groaned when I dropped him the last few feet, but at least he was alive.

  “Start a circle,” Nunez yelled before diving back into the Humvee for Stevens. I took a step forward before turning back. If Nunez was calling for a circle, he was expecting another blow. A properly designed circle is one of the strongest defenses against a spiritual attack, but it takes time. Even a basic circle is effective if you feed it enough energy though.