by Sam Witt
“When somebody gets popped in a drive-by, you go looking for guns and gangbangers. Always start with the most logical source of the problem.”
Joe bit the inside of his cheek and wished for a cigarette. He felt a twinge of pain in the back of his skull. The Long Man was testing him, probing at his defenses while he was distracted by the sheriff. He needed to wrap this up before another headache took him down. “It wasn’t witches.”
The sheriff backed up a step and slipped her sunglasses away from her eyes. “Have you got anything to change my mind?”
Joe wasn’t in the mood for any more verbal sparring. He’d come down here to try and help out, and now the sheriff was threatening his wife and the rest of her coven. She was looking for a way to blame someone, a way to make it look like she was solving a problem. And while Stevie was rotting away in a jail cell, whatever was really behind the murders would keep right on killing.
“Look in the girl’s throat.” Joe knew he was sticking his neck out a long way by giving the sheriff that morsel of information, but he’d rather have her pointing her finger at him than trying to drag all the witches in for questioning. He thought he could keep this under control and keep the sheriff at arm’s length while he worked this out. But if the law went after Stevie, things were going to get very ugly for everyone involved. The Bog Witch didn’t respond well when someone rattled her cage.
The sheriff eyed Joe then slipped her sunglasses back into place. She didn’t say a word, just turned on her heel and marched back to the body. Joe decided that was a good time to get the hell out of there because he really did not know how the sheriff was going to react when she found that chunk of quartz buried in that girl’s neck.
He drove past the crime scene on his way home, and the sheriff watched him go. She held the twin of the quartz in his satchel, cradling it in her palms.
8
Joe eased the pickup over to the side of the road, bringing it to a stop just past the point where Al had emerged from the forest. He watched his son jog up to the truck and pull the passenger side door open. “I don’t pick up hitchhikers,” Joe said.
Al threw himself up into the truck’s cab and slammed the door. “You’re hilarious. Thanks for the ride. Tired of walking.”
Joe raised an eyebrow then put the truck back into gear and pulled back onto the road. Al was a shape-shifter, capable of transforming into a bestial form more suited for getting around Pitchfork County than any vehicle. Joe wondered why the boy was tromping around like a hobo when he could’ve been running wherever he needed to go in record time. He also knew he was just going to have to keep wondering because Al was a man now, and it wasn’t any of Joe’s business what he was doing. If his son would rather walk around as a human instead of run around using his supernatural gifts, Joe wasn’t going to complain.
Al watched the scenery roll by for a few minutes then turned to his father. “Heard there’s been some killing.”
For as long as he’d been the Night Marshal, Joe hadn’t hidden his job from his children. He’d used them, especially during his drinking days, and had pulled them into some scary scrapes. But this was new. He wasn’t used to his son coming to him and offering help. It felt like crossing a line, shifting the balance of their relationship in a way that made Joe uncomfortable. “A couple.”
Al raised one eyebrow. “A couple so far, you mean?”
Joe didn’t answer. He kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. Al was right, of course. There were going to be more murders. Because Joe no longer had the authority to investigate the crimes the way he should have. Because the balance of power in Pitchfork was completely out of whack, and he didn’t see any way to put it right. The last of his influence in the county was dribbling between his fingers, at a time when he needed it most. There were going to be more murders; it was just a question of how many.
Al leaned back in his seat and rolled down his window. He let his fingers dangle outside the truck, surfing on the breeze of the truck’s passage. “I came to help. I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll do whatever I can. You just let me know.”
Joe sneaked a glance at Al, who now had his eyes closed. When he hadn’t been looking, his son had grown up. No wonder I feel old, Joe thought. “Two so far. One yesterday, one this morning. And you’re right. There will be more.”
“Any leads?”
“I wish. All I’ve got is a couple of corpses strung up by a giant spider, and a chunk of rock I dug out of the dead guy’s throat.”
Al perked up and opened his eyes. “You gotta rock? Something your bad guy might’ve touched?”
Joe could see a subtle change sweep over Al. His nostrils widened, and the tips of his ears grew more pointed. “Yeah, I got a rock. I don’t think you should mess around with it, though. No telling what might happen.”
“I’m pretty tough, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Al grinned, and Joe could see the points of his fangs sprouting through his gums. “Let me see what you got. Maybe I can pick up a scent.”
Joe nodded toward the floorboard. “It’s in the satchel. Don’t blame me if it blows your fingers off or burns your nose.”
Al fished the satchel out from underneath the passenger seat and dropped it in his lap. He flipped it open and rooted around inside it with his long fingers. “The thing you got wrapped up in old rags?”
“That’s it.”
Al wrinkled his brow and flexed his fingers. Black claws emerged from his fingertips, sliding from the flesh with a slick, wet sound. He took his hand out of the bag, and the quartz dangled between the ends of his claws. He held it up to his nose then took a deep breath. He huffed air in and out a few times then shook his head. “Whoever made this knew what they were doing. It’s clean as a whistle. I can’t even smell the blood I can see on it.”
Joe grumbled to himself. “Great. So I’ve got some kind of giant supernatural ninja spider to deal with?”
Al ignored his father’s grumbling as he turned the crystal from one side to the other. “This symbol? Any idea what it means?”
Joe didn’t know what the symbol meant, but he did know it gave him the creeps. “I think it means, ‘This is my dead guy. Signed, the giant spider.’”
“That’s hilarious.” Al wrapped up the stone and put it back in the satchel. “It looks kind of Native American. Maybe even older. We should take it to somebody and have them look at it.”
“Yeah, Shaggy, you’re right. Let me grab Velma and the Mystery Mobile, and we’ll take it down to the professor’s hut.”
“You’re mixing your old shows. Who’s looked at it other than you?”
“Your mother, you know, the most powerful witch in Pitchfork County? And Zeke, that old guy who knows a thing or two about hoodoo.”
Al rolled his eyes again and stuffed the stone back into the satchel. “Meaning you’ve exhausted your old white people sources?”
Joe wasn’t terribly fond of Al’s newfound appreciation for sarcasm. “You turned into quite the smartass while you were gone.”
Al grinned. “I guess that’s what happens when you shack up with a witch.”
Joe stifled a groan. It had been Stevie’s idea to send Al out to check on some of the coven’s witches while they were recovering from their wounds from their last battle. It looked like that idea might’ve gone too well. “So you been hanging out with Mildred?”
Al’s nose wrinkled at the thought of spending time with the old crone. “Try one a little closer to my age. Rae.”
Joe nodded. That made more sense. Rae was only a few years older than Al. Joe didn’t know much about her, but the way Al was acting she must’ve been quite the firecracker. “So, what? You think we should take it to your witch?”
“No. I was thinking someone with a little more local flavor.” Al stretched and leaned back in his seat. “We should go see Trevor Woodhawk.”
“Nancy and Liz’s nephew?” The last time Joe had seen that kid, he’d been hiding in the back of their bar, smoking
weed and trying to pretend he was invisible. “He doesn’t strike me as a font of knowledge.”
“Don’t be so quick to judge.” Al dangled his clawed fingers outside the truck. “He knows his shit. He’s got all kinds of books and stuff.”
“Books and stuff?” Joe glanced at his son then turned his eyes back to the road. He didn’t know whether to be proud or sad. Al seemed to take supernatural murder and mayhem in stride. He didn’t see any issue with dragging one of his friends into the investigation. Not so long ago, Joe didn’t care about whom he dragged into his fights, either. But he’d learned a few things since then, like the fact that those who brushed up against the supernatural didn’t always come out of the experience unscathed. The crimes the Night Marshal had run across had left a trail of damaged bystanders and investigators that haunted his dreams. “You sure this guy is up to it?”
Al scratched his chin and gave his father a little shrug. “It’s not like we’re asking him to strap on a six-shooter and follow us to the OK Corral. I just thought he could take a look at the stupid rock and maybe tell us something about it.”
Joe didn’t want to admit it, but it did seem harmless enough. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that getting anyone else tangled up in this was just going to end up causing them all a bunch of problems. “And you’re sure we can trust him?”
That gave Al pause. Joe could see the muscle in his son’s cheek twitch as he clenched his jaw. “He’s solid. Unless what you’re really saying is you don’t want another kid mucking around in your case?”
There it was. The very thing Joe wanted very much to avoid. He and his son had gone toe-to-toe with more than their fair share of occult horrors. Hell, it hadn’t been so long ago that he’d watched his boy damn near rip the head off a monster that almost killed them both. But in his heart, he couldn’t help but see Al as a young boy rather than a young man. He tried to hide it, but Al was more sensitive than most and knew exactly how his father thought of him.
“If you say he’s solid, then he’s solid.” Joe didn’t necessarily believe that, but mending fences with his boy was more important than being right. “Just point me where I need to go, and we’ll see what he has to say.”
Al grunted and didn’t say anything for most of a mile. He broke the silence by pointing to a left-hand turn, and directing, “That way.”
Joe followed Al’s navigation and did his best to keep his foreboding in check. He wanted to believe that this was the right choice, if only because it would make Al happy to be right. But he also knew the bringing another person into a case like this put them in danger. Even if the kid offered them the best intel in the world, he could be a liability if whoever was behind the murders decided to start taking vengeance.
“That’s it,” Al said. He nodded toward the little two-story cracker box on the side of the street.
Joe realized this was the first time that he’d been to the Woodhawks’ house, even though he’d been to the sisters’ bar far too often for far too many years.
He wondered how pissed they were going to be when he brought this problem under their roof.
9
Joe banged on the door. He waited for a few moments, and when there was no answer, he banged again. When that didn’t elicit a response from inside, he shot a glance at Al. “You sure this guy’s home?”
Al leaned past his father, curled his long fingers into a fist, and hammered on the door for ten seconds straight. “Yeah, he’s home. This guy never goes anywhere. Probably just has his headphones on, playing Call of Duty or some stupid shit.”
They waited, soaking in the midday sun. A few more minutes passed, and Joe was about ready to give up. “I don’t have all day to stand around waiting for this kid.”
Al smiled. “Give it another minute. He probably heard us, but now he’s gotta finish his game, then he’ll probably spend a couple minutes hiding his weed, and then he’s going to open the door. Which should be just about—”
The door swung open, revealing a short, skinny kid a couple of years older than Al. Joe could see the resemblance to his aunts, but he could also see some significant differences. For one, the kids eyes were red as stoplights, and he didn’t smell like beer and cheap whiskey; he stank like skunk weed.
Joe wasn’t impressed, but he certainly made an impression on the kid. The young man’s eyes widened, and he backpedaled, panic etched into his features. “You got a warrant?”
Al stepped in before things got out of hand. He pushed between Joe and Trevor, forcing his way into the house and getting a grip on his friend. “Easy, man,” Al steered Trevor away from the door and motioned for his father to come inside. “It’s just me and my old man, and he’s not a cop. Despite how he looks.”
Joe followed his son into the house and closed the door. Joe followed the boys through a small living room, a kitchen, and into a narrow stairwell at the back of the place. The scent of marijuana grew stronger as they descended, mingling with the funk peculiar to teenagers, unwashed clothes, and old pizza. Joe was more than a little surprised that the Woodhawk sisters let their nephew live like some sort of filthy hippie.
The three of them ended up in a basement apartment that looked exactly as Joe imagined it would from the smell. Trevor threw himself down on the edge of a ratty bed, elbows on his knees. “Just, uh, throw that shit on the floor, I guess,” he directed, waving in the general direction of an old easy chair covered in dirty clothes.
Joe followed his direction, wrinkling his nose at the state of the place. He’d lived rough, especially during his drinking days, but the boy’s slovenliness rubbed him the wrong way. The kid should’ve been getting his act together, learning how to be a man, not lurking down here in this adolescent cave. Joe took a seat on the edge of the chair, not wanting its overstuffed cushions to swallow him.
Al flopped down in an enormous beanbag chair, unfazed by squalor surrounding them. Joe wondered just how much of his boy’s time was spent in a house and how much of it was spent sleeping under the stars with his pack.
“Show him what you got,” Al said. “Otherwise, we’re going to be stuck down here all day with him staring at you like that.”
Joe reached into his satchel, and Trevor flinched. With a shake of his head, Joe fished the quartz cone out of his bag. He unwrapped it partway then turned it to hand the wrapped end to Trevor. “Don’t touch the stone itself,” he cautioned. “I dug it out of a dead man’s throat. There’s no telling what kind of mojo it’s got.”
To his credit, Trevor did as he was told. He held the cone like it was some sort of priceless antiquity. He was also very careful not to let his bare skin touch any of the milky stone. “Interesting,” he said.
Without waiting for Joe’s approval, Trevor carried it over to his television. He knelt down and held the stone in front of the screen then stared at it as if trying to see through it. He reached out and cranked up the brightness on the television, turning the frozen video game into a monochromatic lantern. “There’s something in here.”
Joe squinted, but the stone was too far away for him to see what the kid was trying to show him. “Neat. We’re not cracking it open to get at the secret prize if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
Trevor grunted, obviously displeased that he wasn’t going to get a look at whatever was hidden inside the stone then went back to examining its etched surface. “Looks Native American, but I can’t place the tribe.”
Joe gave an exasperated sigh then held out his hand. “All right, that’s enough. Hand it over; we’ll go see if we can find someone who has some fucking idea what this thing is.”
Trevor raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to find anyone who knows more about this kind of thing than me. At least not unless you feel like driving to St. Louis.”
Al sat up in the beanbag chair and rested his hand on Joe’s knee. “Let him do his thing; it’ll be annoying, but he’ll figure it out.”
Joe tapped his boot heel against the basement floor, impatient
and frustrated. He didn’t know what was going on in Pitchfork, but if the time they were wasting watching this stoner kid dig around in his oversized bookshelf didn’t pay off, Joe was going to kick Al’s ass.
Trevor glanced at Joe then bit back whatever words he’d been considering. Joe could tell his tapping was getting to the kid, but he didn’t care. He needed to get whatever information he could then go after whoever was hanging people from the trees.
The kid gathered up a handful of books, seeming to pluck them from his bookshelves at random, then flopped back down on his bed. He rested the stone on a mound of bed sheets and rifled through the books he’d gathered. “No, not this one.” He tossed one book to the side then opened another and thumbed through the pages so fast, it didn’t seem possible he was actually able to see anything in the book.
After twenty minutes of this, Joe regretted his decision to quit drinking and smoking. As the last of Joe’s patience evaporated, the kid snapped his fingers and bolted from his bed. “We’ve been looking at this wrong,” Trevor said, excitement causing his voice to tremble. “I don’t think this is a cone at all.”
He flipped open a thick leather-bound volume then riffled the pages until he found what he was looking for. He upended the book and held it out to Joe, displaying a full-page color plate.
Joe stared at the illustration, wrinkling his brow. “Why are you showing me this Egyptian road sign?”
Trevor blew out a frustrated sigh then jabbed a finger at the illustration. “This is called a stele. It’s a kind of, I don’t know, a marker that lets people know information. They used to stick all sorts of things on these: laws, religious sayings. They were even used to let people know when they were on a holy site.”
“That’s real exciting, but in case you hadn’t noticed, what you’re showing me is a big flat tile, and what I showed you is more of a pointed cylinder,” Joe said.
