by Faith Hunter
He sounded tired, and in that moment I saw the strain in the tight wrinkles around his eyes. He’d probably been up for hours, and maybe had been just kicking off for the night when he’d gotten the call to come to us. Made sense he wasn’t thrilled to be here.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Bad night?”
Some of the tension left his body. “Yeah, bad enough. We had a teen girl missing over in Clarksville. Found her in a cardboard box behind a bar. Not a pretty sight. I’ve got a daughter her age.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know Rosen all that well on a personal level; he wore a wedding ring, but I knew nothing about his home life, if he had much of one at all. Some cops didn’t. On impulse, I held up a finger. “Wait here, okay? Be right back.” I dashed into the house and opened up a cardboard box sitting on the sofa in the living room. In it were small bottles with the printed label HOLLY’S BALM. It was magic, but benign and shelf-stable. Not my creation. Andy’s. And it was selling like hotcakes.
I grabbed a bottle from the carton and went back outside to Rosen. “Stress relief,” I said, holding it out to him. “No charge, and I promise, it won’t damn your immortal soul or anything. But it works.”
He looked at it with a frown, but opened the cap and sniffed. I watched the change come over him: pure, simple peace, flowing like air over his body. He let out a breath, capped the bottle, and said, “Well, holy shit. That’s good stuff.”
“It’s effective for up to six months once opened,” I said. “I figured someone in your position probably needs it more than most.”
He thanked me with another nod, more pleasant this time, and said his good-byes. They weren’t effusive, but I didn’t expect them to be. The patrol officers left soon after, and Andy and I wrestled the heavy, soot-encrusted cross out of the ground and dragged it around back. Our neighbor’s German shepherd took exception, but I wasn’t impressed. He hadn’t bothered to bark when the cross went up. “Rosen could be right about the fence and the dog,” Andy said. “Might be a reasonable step. Otherwise, I’m sleeping on the front porch with a shotgun. A little buckshot in their asses might move ’em on.”
“We’ll get a fence,” I said, and stripped off my blackened work gloves, which I dropped on top of the cross. “But you know what I want most?”
“What?” He opened the back door and pulled me inside the house and into his arms.
“I want you in my bed,” I said. “Not out on the porch.”
“You going to change into what you were wearing before?”
“After I wash off the smoke smell.”
“Join you in two shakes,” he said.
I looked back when I reached the top of the stairs, and saw that he had locked the door and was standing at the window staring out at the yard.
Detective Rosen had taken the dagger and the photo with him, as evidence. I didn’t know what Andy was looking at now. Maybe nothing.
“Andy?” I asked.
He dropped the curtain, turned, and said, “On my way.”
Whatever was bothering him, he seemed to have let it go. By the time he was in the shower with me, damp and soapy, neither one of us was wondering about the future very much.
It was a mistake. Obviously.
—
I went to work the next morning just as I normally did, albeit still smelling a little like smoke (you can never get that stuff off) and feeling gritty and raw on only about three hours of solid sleep during the entire night. Also feeling pleasantly buzzed by the very intense attention Andy had paid to my every need. So on balance, it evened out, at least until I finished my drive to work.
I turned the last corner, going on autopilot (as you do) and thinking about what I had waiting on my desk. I was an accountant—nothing too exciting or even too challenging, but it paid the bills and kept me in medical insurance, which even potions witches need. You can’t brew it all. I’ve tried.
I hit the brakes, because on the sidewalk in front of my building was a crowd. Okay, it wasn’t a mob, but it was at least thirty people, chanting and carrying homemade signs.
Signs that read GOD HATES WITCHES and FIRE THE WITCH.
I knew, with a sinking feeling, exactly who they were talking about.
My coworkers were having to run the gauntlet to get into the building, and were being handed neon-bright flyers (some were crumpled up on the ground, which made me happy). I was certain every flyer had my name, my picture, and some white-hot speculation on just how horrible and evil I was.
I realized that if I just sat in the car, they’d see me anyway, so I made the turn into the parking lot and pulled into a space at the back. Deep breaths.
I was preparing to face the lions, but then the phone rang. Saved by the bell, I thought. I was hoping it was Andy, but it wasn’t, and I wasn’t saved, either.
It was my boss, Heather. Heather said, “Hey, um, Holly? I think—maybe you should take some time off. Don’t come into the office, okay?”
“Really?” I felt shaky and cold, but I tried to sound clueless. “Why?”
“We have a little—situation here. HR and Public Relations are handling it, but everyone agrees that having you come in right now would really escalate things.” She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “I’m so sorry—you know I hate this, but there are . . . people out here. Saying bad things. And everybody’s very upset.”
“They don’t think it’s my fault, do they? Because I didn’t do anything!”
“I know that, and honestly, Holly, you’re great, but . . . let us try to sort this out. Just take a few days off. I’ll cover it. You’ll be paid for your time. Just . . . go home and relax, okay? I’ll call.”
She hung up without waiting for my answer. I didn’t suppose her directive was really optional anyway.
I put on my sunglasses, since I’d be driving into the sun, and circled the lot to get out. I considered running over a couple of protesters, but that would only prove their witches are evil point, so I didn’t. I gunned my engine, though. A little.
I got a whole mile before the enormity of it hit me. The feeling of having your skin peeled back and your insides prodded. The violation and betrayal of trust. It wasn’t logical, but somehow the feeling of being outed at work was horrifying. My private life had just been laid bare to people I had to deal with every day.
I pulled over to the side of the road and cried miserably for about ten minutes. Then I sucked it up, bought myself an ice cream sundae from a Mickey D’s in the same block, ate it in the car, and drove back home.
There were protesters in front of my house, too. Equal numbers to those at my office. Some had strollers and small kids with them, because screaming hateful insults is a family affair. They blocked my driveway when I tried to turn in, and one stupid woman actually put her toddler down on the concrete in front of my car’s bumper. She clearly hadn’t thought that one through. If I was as evil as she claimed, why wouldn’t I just keep going?
I hit the brakes.
Andy wasn’t home; I didn’t even need to check to know that, because if he had been, he’d have been outside with the shotgun, threatening to stand his ground. And that would only have made the situation that much more volatile.
I put the car in reverse and sped away, leaving a gaggle of protesters milling in the street behind me. If my neighbors hated me before . . .
After some thought, I drove to the police headquarters, where Ed Rosen had his office. If there was one place anti-witch protesters weren’t likely to gather, it was there. And sure enough, the coast was clear when I paid for my parking and went to sign in at the visitors desk. Once I had the right ID pinned to my jacket, I rode the elevator up with half a dozen others, savoring the relative quiet. Nobody gave me odd looks. It was like I was just . . . normal.
I had the feeling that was a sensation I would come to miss very soon.
Rose
n was in his office and on his phone, frowning intently as he scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. When he glanced up and saw me through the clear glass wall, he frowned even harder. He got off the call fast, hung up, and yanked his door open to bark, “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t go to work,” I said. “Can’t go home. I’m being picketed. The only thing that’s missing is a bonfire and a stake.”
“Give it a day,” he said. “You were right about the woman. Her name is Portia Garrity, and she’s dead. Beaten in her tarot shop with—get this—her own crystal ball. Throat slit before she was dead. You want to explain to me what her superpower was?”
“She was a seer,” I said. “She saw the future.” He gave me a look of cartoon disbelief. I sighed. “Not her own future. Other people’s futures. She wouldn’t have seen this coming, in other words. Don’t look at me like that—I don’t make the rules, or I’d be able to turn you into a toad for looking at me like that.”
He shook his head, but didn’t pursue the point. “Apparently she wasn’t looking far enough ahead to put in a decent security camera system, either, so we have nothing showing who came in or out of the place during the day. Her last appointment on the calendar was at noon. After that, we’ve got no record of ins and outs until we broke into the shop after your little yard-related incident and found her dead on the floor. ME says she died sometime between two and four in the afternoon, most likely.”
“What about the knife?”
“Definitely administered the death stroke on the throat. As far as we can tell, the knife wasn’t hers, either. Looked old, probably some sort of antique bowie knife.”
Poor Portia. I tried not to think about her last moments, her confusion and horror, but it was all too real to me. As real as those people at my house screaming at my car. I’d been hated before, but as an individual. Those people out there hadn’t known me or cared to know me. To them I was a symbol and that was enough.
Had Portia been a symbol, too, to be beaten and slashed to death just for having the bad luck to exist? Or was it something else? Something worse?
It was also frustrating and frightening as hell to think that somewhere in that faceless, shouting crowd could lurk someone capable of doing this—to Portia, and maybe to me and Andy, too.
My skin tightened, but I knew I had to do it. I said, “I want to bring Portia back.”
Rosen must have suspected that was coming, because he wasn’t surprised. His eyes narrowed, and he was shaking his head before I’d even gotten the last of it out. “No,” he snapped. “Not happening. New department regs. No resurrections conducted with city participation or support. No payments to resurrection witches, either.”
“When did that happen?”
“After Prieto’s murder,” he said. “Guess you didn’t get the memo.”
As much as I resented it, I couldn’t blame them. Detective Prieto’s death had hit everyone hard, especially his fellow cops. “Fine,” I said. “All I need is a tissue sample from her body. You can do that much for me, Detective. I’m about to solve your murder for you, and you don’t have to tell anybody it ever happened or pay me a dime.”
I was afraid, really afraid, that he was going to blow me off completely. It was a risk, because he’d have to put himself and his job on the line for me to get that sample.
Prieto would have done this without hesitation. He’d have fussed about it and pretended to hate it, but he’d have considered solving Portia’s death way more important than his own career. That was part of why he’d been killed.
Rosen was very definitely not Prieto, and I read the very clear debate in his face before he finally, grudgingly nodded. “You’ll have the tissue sample tonight by courier to your house,” he said. “I don’t want to see your face again. Get the hell out and stay out. If you get a lead, you call me, but don’t come to this department again.”
As I walked away with what I’d wanted, the triumph was mostly wiped out by the steady, dispassionate looks of the other detectives in the office. Whether sitting at their desks, walking around, or getting coffee, they all looked at me with identically empty expressions and cold eyes.
Something told me that Rosen’s injunction barring me from this place might not be about his own moral objections to what I did; it might actually be for my own safety.
And that was genuinely disturbing.
—
I didn’t relish going home, but by the time I got there, the protests had diminished to only a handful of people wandering around with signs. They were keeping very strictly to the sidewalk, and not blocking my drive, so I opened the garage with the remote and parked as quickly as possible, then shut them out. I spotted my across-the-street neighbor standing on his porch, hands on hips, watching the scene with pinched-face annoyance.
There would be interesting dinner conversations all down the block tonight.
Andy met me at the door leading into the house and swept me with a comprehensive, full-body look. Not a sexy one. “You all right?” he asked, in that Texas drawl that let me know he’d been worrying. I nodded. “Guess you saw our new friends.”
“Saw them at the office first,” I said. “My boss said not to come in anymore. Andy, I think they’re going to fire me.” It was ridiculous to get teary-eyed over the loss of a midlevel office job, but it had been mine for a long time. My desk. My routines. And even if they hadn’t been friends per se, my coworkers. “Dammit. This is shit.”
He took me in his arms for a moment, and that felt better. A lot better. The tears were a brief little shower that passed in the warm glow of his body heat against mine.
“Thanks for not shooting the folks outside,” I said, and pulled back to study him. “You didn’t shoot anybody, right?”
“Nope,” he said. “Might’ve cleaned my shotgun a bit on the front porch, but the way I understand the laws around here, I wasn’t breaking any. Just cleaning my sporting equipment.”
Even in Texas, that might have been pushing it, but it had cleared off the less committed fanatics, and I kissed him on the lips for it. Hard. “No shooting,” I said. “Promise me.”
“Can’t promise, but I’ll try my best,” he said. “If you weren’t at work, where did you go?”
I sighed, kicked off my office shoes—no need for heels anymore, sadly—and flopped onto the sofa. Andy moved my legs, sat, and put my feet in his lap. Another thing I loved about him: freely given foot rubs. I might have moaned. “I went to see Ed Rosen,” I said. Then, “Ow. Yes, right there. Oh.”
“What did Austin’s Finest have to say?”
“They found Portia, all right. Just like in the picture. No leads so far.”
“You asked after resurrection?”
“Of course. The city’s not doing it anymore. New rules.”
“Well, it ain’t our rule.”
“Rosen’s going to send over a tissue sample,” I said. “Then we can get to work and make sure we know—”
I was cut off by the sound of our front doorbell ringing. Before I could even swing my legs away, Andy had slipped out from under and was at the front door, retrieving the shotgun that leaned right next to it. He pumped it, an unmistakable sound that would have carried right through the door, and said, “Who is it?”
“My name is Pete Lyons, sir, and I need to speak with you. Am I talking to Mr. Toland? Mr. Andrew Toland?”
Andy looked back at me as I came up behind him. “You know any Pete Lyons, Holly?” I shook my head. He raised his voice. “Ain’t a good time for callers. Maybe you can come by some other time.”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” the man said. He had a deep, soothing baritone voice, an actor’s modulation and control. “I’m your city councilman, and I really need to speak with you, son. Please open the door.”
Andy’s eyebrows raised, and he mouthed, Son? at me in a scandalized sort of way that nearly
reduced me to a giggle, but I managed merely to nod. He unlocked the door and opened it, pointing the shotgun one-handed and with pinpoint precision at the man who stood there.
He just about blocked the entire entrance. Lyons was not so much fat as solid. Tall—he towered over Andy by a good six or seven inches. He was built like a linebacker, all shoulders and hard bulk, but it was swathed in an expensive blue suit. He must have had his shirts custom-made, considering that neck size. Only in Texas would that suit have been paired with a bolo tie, complete with a big chunk of turquoise to wrangle the braided-leather cords. When he smiled, he revealed perfect veneer-white teeth in a tanned face that, despite its round cheeks, looked dignified and strong.
“I’d shake hands,” Lyons said, apparently completely unruffled at having double barrels pointed his way, “but yours seem busy. May I come in, Mr. Toland? Miss Caldwell?”
I put my hand on Andy’s shoulder, and he lowered the shotgun but didn’t take his stare off the man. “Come in, Mr. Lyons,” I said, and struggled to put myself in Southern Hospitality mode. I wasn’t feeling it. And I didn’t have my shoes on. “May I get you any iced tea?”
“I’d love some,” he said, and took a step inside.
That was when I noticed the boots.
They definitely did not match the suit. I supposed everybody was allowed an eccentricity, and these definitely were one. Some cowboy boots can play at dress-up, but these were a workingman’s boots, battered and scarred from years of hard use. They were brown, paled by the sun and water and wear.
They gave me the oddest feeling as they walked into my house like snakes slithering over the threshold. Andy, though, didn’t react, and I decided it was just my own nerves getting to me.
I caught sight of the die-hard protesters outside, lined up silently, waving their signs. One of them saw me looking, and pointed to the sign he was holding. It read THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE, with the Exodus citation below it.
Then he pointed at me, made a finger gun, and pulled the trigger.
