The Devil's Eye

by J. R. Rain

  “I’m not a prostitute, honey. That man’s all yours, but you’ll have to wait a little while for him.”

  Rick hurries over and helps me wrestle her into the handcuffs. “Nice reversal.”

  “Thanks. Nothing I’m not used to. Ever since high school… my fluffy hair was always the first target whenever I got into a scrap back then too.” I make eye contact with him. “And if you quip about how can I still remember that long ago, I will give you an itch that won’t go away for a month.”

  He laughs. “Probably not the best choice of threat while sitting on top of a prostitute.”

  The man’s got a point.

  “Damn. I guess I owe the squad donuts,” I mutter before sighing.

  “Well, you were right too. Looks like the guy used the shower.” He tosses the towel to one of the cops, who wraps it around the man’s midsection. “Maybe wear your hair a little shorter if it’s such a danger?”

  I gasp at him. “No way. My hair’s like a…” I wave my hands, searching for the right words, “like a sentient entity or something. She despises hair clips, and I know I’d face punishment for cutting her too short.”

  Rick stares at me like he can’t tell if I’m serious or joking.

  Meanwhile, the taller cop says, “This dude’s somewhere between nuts, drunk, and high.”

  “Probably all three,” I say, then to Rick add, “Well, you got your easy case, bub.”

  “Yeah.” He pulls the woman (who’s gone back to docile) to her feet. He indicates her bra, which is on the rug between the table and bed, with a stare.

  After putting on my blue gloves, I pick it up and check it over for hidden needles or drug paraphernalia. Once sure it’s just an ordinary (albeit filthy) strapless bra, I put it on the handcuffed woman. Fortunately, she showed up for ‘work’ in a tube dress, so she can step into it while handcuffed and I can pull it up for her, easy-peasy.

  “I’m going to leave her in your car,” says Rick to the cops. “Your guys’ call. Prostitution, drug possession, or drop her off at a clinic. She’s not part of our case.”

  “Sure thing,” says one.

  “You got it,” replies the other.

  Drifter, now still, continues muttering about how the aliens plan to take his brain out of his head through his ear. I’m pretty sure this guy’s probably going to wind up in a secure mental facility rather than prison, but that’s the best place for him. As long as he’s not out on the street murdering innocent people.

  “Bet he wanted to get caught,” says Rick. “We interrupted his going-to-jail party.”

  I grab onto the guy’s left arm while Rick takes his right. I say, “Or he’s plain old nuts and couldn’t form the requisite mindset to conceal his crime. Green Saab and the victim’s khaki pants are obviously an alien overlord in disguise.”

  Rick shrugs. “Not my call. I’ll let the lawyers worry about if this guy deserves a cell with padding or not. And Maddy?”

  I glance over at him. “What?”

  “Blackberry jelly donuts are my favorite.” He winks.

  Chapter Three

  Hell of a Friday

  The drifter’s mood swung far in the other direction by the time we brought him to a quiet room at the station for a chat. As violent as he’d been at the Motel 6, once we planted him in a chair, he seemed ready to nod off at any moment.

  Within five minutes of us starting the interrogation, he claimed never to have met Mr. Lewis as well as said the man gave him a credit card willingly. Also, that we needed to call him Agent Westford. From there, it got more surreal. Evidently, all clandestine aliens spying on humans drive Saabs, so he had to protect the Earth. His words.

  Rick’s face turns red at that. I know he’s itching to say something about this guy driving the stolen Saab next, so did that make him an alien now? But my partner holds back. If ‘Agent Westford’ truly is nuts, a conundrum like that might do bad things to his mind―like convince him the aliens burrowed into his head―and turn him suicidal.

  After spinning our wheels for a little while, we both get the feeling the guy isn’t acting, especially when he blurts, “I got one last night before it could steal my brain.”

  “Got one?” asks Rick.

  Drifter nods. “Yeah. Bastard pretended to have car trouble. I could tell by the way he looked at me… he liked my brain and wanted it.”

  “What did you do then?” I ask.

  “Whacked him straight back to Xyton,” says Drifter.

  I almost lose my straight face. “What is… Xyton?”

  Drifter reacts as casually as if I’d asked what day it is. “Oh, that’s their home planet.”

  Well, that certainly raises the question of his competence to process a Miranda warning… and a half-decent defense attorney stands a reasonable chance of tossing everything we manage to get out of him. So… back to holding he goes until we can get a department shrink to check him out.

  ***

  It’s late for a Friday, a little past six, yet the whole unit’s still at their desks when Rick and I return to the squad room.

  I flop in my chair and start hammering away at the reports. If anyone had caught up to me in my late teens and told me that when I hit thirty-five, I’d be spending more Friday evenings than not sitting behind a desk in a police station typing up incident reports of all the weird crap I dealt with, I’d have laughed. At seventeen, I’d convinced myself I’d be the lead vocalist for a symphonic metal band within a year or two of finishing high school, and spend my twenties bouncing all over the planet. Earth, that is. Not Xyton.

  Well, that didn’t happen.

  Go figure; symphonic metal isn’t quite as big here as I thought. I still sing sometimes, but it’s wound up being a hobby. The ultimate irony there, of course, is that my boyfriend is a music producer who has a fondness for heavy metal. Most days, he works with people who get to live my now-dead dreams. Granted, his clients aren’t exactly rolling in money, but they are (more or less) making a living doing what they love.

  That’s got to be it. I didn’t love it enough… or I’d still be doing it, even if I had to live off ramen packets. It’s silly, but I wound up becoming a cop because I got super into watching Law & Order. For a little while, I debated going to law school, but meh. I don’t have the right personality to be a lawyer. With some people, I’m far too nice to be effective at cross-examination. Others, I’d wind up sitting in contempt after leaping onto the witness stand and throttling them. That thing about redheads being hot-tempered? Yeah, there’s a little truth to it. I’d like to say I’ve got a higher-than-normal limit before I snap, but I still can snap. Big time. Smug grins get under my skin, and people who abuse animals, and big corporations who shit on the environment… and… damn police reports that don’t type themselves.

  We got prints back from the Fed. Our Agent Westford is really Larry Benton. His prints were in the system from four years of service with the Army. Saw action in Afghanistan, and he’s had a rough time of it since he got back. A long list of run-ins with the law for years, going all the way down the coast to Sacramento. Poor guy. For his sake, I hope he winds up in a secure mental facility and not prison.

  Voices circle my head like buzzards waiting for their meal to gasp its last breath. My irritation at paperwork causes the voices of my fellow detectives to needle at my brain. They’re all working on their respective cases. Rick, being my partner, sits at the desk facing mine. We’ve worked together for about two years now. I’ve even been to his house a couple times, met his wife, Erin, did the barbecue thing. They’ve got a couple rugrats, both boys. I think the oldest is four. I can see Rick being the dad that the neighborhood kids always keep quiet around so they don’t get in trouble. He’s a bit on the strict side but he doesn’t cross into ‘dick’ territory. I don’t see him throwing his sons under the bus if they grow into being troublemakers. Someone else’s kid? I picture him scaring the crap out of them by making them believe they’re being arrested.

  Hopeful
ly, his boys will turn out good and won’t need to worry about getting into trouble. I nod to myself. A protection charm or two won’t hurt to shield them from dark energy. Few people know just how many helpful spells I cast. In fact, they probably don’t want to know.

  Linda Gonzalez gets into this mode whenever she’s pissed off where her voice scrapes the inside of my skull. She’s at the next desk to my right behind a short cube wall, but she’s so damn loud, reaming out someone who won’t give her some call records, I can’t concentrate. It probably doesn’t help that most times when I hear her voice, she’s making a snide remark about devil worship or something to me. I mean, there’s no actual animosity between us… at least none on my part. She just thinks I’m going to hell. The woman’s a year older than me, but we made detective at the same time. So far, she’s kept her opinions limited to wisecracks and snide remarks, and hasn’t seriously tried to ‘save me.’

  Her partner, Mike Washington, started off as a patrolman out in the sticks… I believe in Elma, a small town west of here. Versions of the story vary depending on who tells it, but he helped track down a serial killer who’d been active ten years ago. The Harbor Man claimed eleven before he got caught by bad luck. In this case, the bad luck took the form of Mike’s sharp eye for detail and excellent memory. Turned out a guy who lived in Elma always drove into Olympia around the time of a killing, while generally not leaving town at any other time. Guess it is a small town if Mike remembered everyone’s car.

  Depending on the version of the story being told, Mike either followed the guy to Olympia and caught him before he could kill his twelfth victim, or he called over to the Olympia PD and suggested there might be a link, or he kicked in the guy’s door in Elma and led the raid. Either way, whatever he did got the attention of the brass. He transferred to the city and made detective young, like twenty-seven. I don’t envy him the balancing act between me and Linda, though. He gets quiet whenever the comments start flying about my beliefs. Guess he doesn’t want either one of us getting upset with him. And, by the way, we make him go to the police charity event at the kids’ hospital dressed as Thor. He looks the part, except for lacking muscles and his hair being too short, but it is the right shade of blond.

  Ed Parrish, our senior detective, occupies the desk facing Andrew, our ‘new meat.’ He’s rubbing the bridge of his nose and groaning like his current case is making him consider early retirement. Not that he’s old or anything. The man’s only forty, but he’s got the salt-and-pepper hair thing going on. I like Ed. I partnered with him for my first year to learn the ropes. He’s a good trainer, and he’s got a wonderful sense of humor. He quips about the witchcraft stuff too, but never in a mean way. In fact, he’s even fired off a few one-liners at Linda in my defense. How to get on a witch’s good side? Have her back.

  Our newest addition, Andrew Quarrel, turned twenty-nine last month. I can still taste that banana-fudge cake Ed brought in. I never really considered myself a fan of banana, but I’ve been dropping hints about that cake for when I hit thirty-six. Anyway, Andrew looks younger than he is. The poor kid probably gets carded every time he tries to buy beer. He’s also a fastidious neat freak and so clean-cut most people think he’s like a Mormon or something… but he drinks coffee. He never mentions anything about beliefs, and also stays out of the teasing whenever it rears up. Linda’s been on him to dress as Doctor Strange for the kids’ charity.

  Andrew is so by the book it hurts. I mean, all rookies tend to have a bit of that, but with him, it’s a way of life. Unlike Rick, if Andrew ever has a kid who breaks the law, I’d expect he’d drag them to jail himself.

  At the moment, he’s muttering into the phone with someone at the FBI. Their case is so strange and frustrating, I’m glad it didn’t land in my lap. Someone left a bomb in a box at a place that’s like a temp agency for clowns who go to parties, events, and whatnot. It went off when opened, killing the manager, a forty-nine-year-old father of four. From what I’ve heard of it, the attack sounded random. Those cases are the worst, with no motive other than spontaneous chaos. I wonder if Captain Greer thought sticking the new guy with exploding clowns would be a good way to get his feet wet. Like, make his first investigation a worst-case scenario so everything after that feels easy.

  I lean back in my chair, glancing sideways at Ed rubbing his forehead and Andrew doodling on a notepad. The vacant stare at the ceiling tells me Andrew’s on hold. Without wanting to, I start humming the FBI’s hold music. I think they took it from the CIA after it got banned as an instrument of torture. Those two look like they could use a hand. Maybe I’ll send a little magic their way before Ed has a stress meltdown.

  “I wish all cases could be as easy as this one,” I mutter loud enough for Rick to hear.

  Rick chuckles. “No shit. That’d be the life, right?”

  “Hey, Wimsey,” says Mike from a few desks down. “I heard you got into a turf spat this afternoon. Some girl didn’t like you muscling in on her territory?”

  My scalp aches from the memory of that woman yanking me around by the hair. I cradle my frizz protectively.

  “That girl was way out of her league.” Rick pantomimes some wrestling move.

  Linda covers the phone and leans around her wall. “Maddy doesn’t charge. She uses all that sex power for her black magic.”

  Ugh. I’d say something to her about not using dark spells along with my thoughts on karmic return, but I’d have better luck draining the Puget Sound with a coffee cup than getting Linda to understand. “You’re confusing us with Thelema. Sex magic was Alastair Crowley’s thing, not ours.” I’m not going to split the hair that Gerald Gardner was a naturist, and the whole naked ritual thing does happen in some covens… just not ours. Mostly, it’s not sexual. It’s about revealing truth. Of course, some dabbler new-age types take it in a sexual direction, but that’s not the spirit of it. I could probably be talked into doing a ritual sky-clad, as we call it, but I imagine it would get awkward with Caius and five women, one of whom is his mother.

  While my mind wanders off about a smaller ritual involving only Caius and me, some fire, trees, and a distinct lack of clothes, I get the dumbfounded stare of a woman who wasn’t expecting a serious rebuttal. She half-rolls her eyes and goes back to listening to crappy music. I think that makes up about twenty percent of a detective’s work these days―sitting on hold.

  “We had a hell of a Friday, eh?” Rick grins. “Getting a case and basically closing it in the same day happens maybe once a year. Enjoy it.”

  I finish typing out a line in the report before looking over my desk at him. “Oh, I’m loving every minute of it.”

  He laughs. “You sound so thrilled. Hey, it’s almost 6:30. Get outta here. Have fun camping.”

  My hair floofs about as I shake my head. For once, I’m in no particular hurry to get home on a Friday night. Caius is in LA until late Saturday afternoon, so tonight’s going to involve a lot of quality time with the TV. “That’s next month, and it can’t come fast enough.”

  “Now that’s something I never expected to hear a woman complain about,” says Rick.

  Andrew looks over at us, mortified.

  I grin. “I’m sure you never will.”

  “Oof,” says Mike.

  Rick leans his head back and laughs. Ed snickers into his hand. Poor Andrew looks about ready to explode. Interesting, he’s not reacted that way to bawdy commentary before… and I’ve been catching him staring at me on and off.

  Ugh.

  My hair flops down over my face, shutting out the world.

  Great. That’s the last thing I need. Detective Andrew Quarrel’s probably got a crush on me.

  Chapter Four

  Bad Energy

  After a wonderfully relaxing (boring) night at home alone, I enjoy sleeping in. What sense is there in having a queen-size bed all to myself if I don’t abuse it a little? It’s not quite eight in the morning by the time my body demands motion. The last time I slept in so late… I can�
��t even remember, so I might as well continue the indulgence with a soak and shampoo.

  While I’m semi-floating in the tub, it occurs to me that I haven’t been genuinely alone for a long time. Growing up, I had my parents and younger sister, Kate (who by the way loathes it when people call her Katie). In college, I had roommates. When I started as a patrol officer, I got an apartment, but Preema (one of my dorm roomies) moved in with me to split rent. Best I can remember, I had about two years after she moved out before I met Caius, and another year until I decided to move in with him.

  So, that’d be nine years ago.

  I kinda miss it and don’t at the same time. Inherently, I’m a social animal, and what my mother would call a ‘nurturer.’ As a kid, I always looked after Kate. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t sponge it up when my parents did the same for me, or when Caius goes into cuddle mode. But there’s still a nice sense of freedom at having a place all to myself. Today, I’ve got nothing to do… and all day to do it.

  Hmm. I do need to prepare some sage for tomorrow. We’re going to the Craven house―where Caius’ mother, Abigail, lives―to do an Esbat to welcome in the full moon. That shouldn’t take long (preparing the sage, I mean). May as well enjoy the bath a little more. Caius won’t be home until after six tonight. Ooh, I’ll whip up some beef soup.

  The phone rings.

  I lean my head back against the tile wall and sigh at the pattern of white and black squares. With a groan, I drag myself out of the tub, hastily wrap a towel around my armpits, and do a poor impression of a first-time skater down the hardwood-floored hall to the kitchen. Clinging to the doorjamb while my feet slide out from under me in puddles of soapy water, I grab my cell off the little table, but I’m too late. The screen tells me I missed a call from Isabelle, my best friend since the age of four. Her parents still live next door to mine.