Evil Dark

by Justin Gustainis

  "Better not," I said. "We don't want to spook him while he's got Heather in his fist, do we? He might forget what he's holding and squeeze real hard."

  "Yeah, you're right. Shit."

  The paramedics showed up a few minutes later and wasted no time loading the three casualties onto the gurneys they'd wheeled in. If the ogre made a move on the ambulance crew, I'd have to shoot him and hope for the best. But he just watched them as they got the three limp forms ready for departure.

  Without turning my head, I asked them, "Those guys still alive?"

  "Yeah, for the time being," one of them said. "Looks like one's got a fractured skull. The other two don't seem too bad, though."

  Then they wheeled the gurneys out of the bar. I hoped that a doctor or nurse with some magical ability was working at the ER tonight. Hospitals try to keep a medical magician on hand 24/7, but people with that particular skill set are hard to find – even in Scranton, which has an awful lot of supes for its size.

  "Whadaya think, Stan?" Karl asked me. "Time to call SWAT?"

  The Sacred Weapons and Tactics unit is trained to deal with supe hostage situations. It was tempting to let them take over, but I wasn't looking forward to sarcastic comments from their team leader, Dooley. He's something of a prick.

  "Not yet," I told Karl. "Let me see what I can do, first."

  It wasn't just my pride involved in the decision – there was a tactical consideration, too. Since ogre was backed into a corner, there was no way to take him by surprise. And once he saw the SWAT guys, in their distinctive black uniforms, the big guy might panic. And panic could be pretty hard on Heather the waitress.

  I made eye contact with the ogre and spoke to him for the first time. "Hey, how ya doin?" I said. "I'm Stan, this here's Karl." I paused to give him a chance to process the information. Ogres aren't real quick, even when they haven't put away half a bottle of tequila. After a few seconds, I went on. "What's your name, pal?"

  Another couple of seconds went by. "Igor," he rumbled.

  I didn't let any of the humor I felt appear on my face — you learn quick, on the street, not to show what you're feeling. But Igor, jeez. Ogre parents aren't usually known for having a sense of humor – or maybe they just didn't see the irony.

  "Igor, listen," I said slowly. "Why don't you let the girl go? She doesn't look like she's having a real good time, you know?"

  Igor looked at Heather. Then he lifted her up, like she was a Barbie doll – a shrieking, terrified Barbie doll – until her hair was a couple inches from his nose and sniffed a couple of times before putting her back down, his big hand still around her waist. "She smells good," he said to me, as if that explained everything. Maybe to an ogre, it did.

  Some supes have senses of smell that will put a bloodhound to shame, but not ogres. Otherwise he'd have been able to smell the fear on her, too. To the right kind of nose it was probably a stronger scent than whatever perfume she was wearing. Maybe then he'd have let her go.

  "We can't all just stand here until tomorrow, Igor," I said in a reasonable tone. "We're all gonna get pretty hungry, for one thing."

  I hoped the suggestion would encourage Igor to ask for food. We'd get it for him, too. That's standard procedure in hostage situations. I'd order him the biggest pizza in town, including every topping known to man – along with a liberal dose of horse tranquilizer. That's standard procedure, too. Once Igor was in dreamland, maybe we could get a block and tackle set up in here to lift him out of the room.

  But instead of asking for something to eat, Igor said, "You gonna take me to jail?"

  No sense lying to him about that. Even ogres aren't that dumb. "Yeah, for a while," I said. "Until you make bail, anyway."

  Igor shook his immense head. "No! No jail. I hate jail." I guess he'd been inside before. "People there are mean."

  The idea of anybody, guard or prisoner, being mean to something Igor's size was hard to imagine, but maybe he meant they taunted him through the bars of his cell. There's guys who get off on that, taunting the powerful when they're helpless. They forget that the helplessness is usually temporary, and even ogres have memories.

  There's all kinds of cells in the supe wing of the county jail. Some of them have bars with bits of silver imbedded; others have got doors made of cold iron. They've got some ogre-proof cells, too. Those rooms have some kind of magical spell on them that prevents–

  Magic. Ogres are afraid of magic. There's some kinds of magic that it's smart to be afraid of, but ogres are notoriously skittish about any kind of spells, and those who can use them. Meaning witches.

  I brought out my phone, opened it, and acted like I was looking in the directory. "I guess you're leaving us no choice, Igor," I said. "We'll have to call in Rachel Proctor."

  The immense eyebrows came together as Igor tried to parse what I'd just said. After a couple of seconds he asked, "Who's that?"

  "She's the police department's consulting witch." That much was true, but nothing else I was about to say would be. "She doesn't care for guys who frighten girls like Heather," I said. "The last time I called her out to a scene like this, we had a werewolf who'd gone a little nuts and taken some hostages. Rachel turned the poor guy into a toad."

  Igor looked at me for a couple of seconds. "She can do that, this Rachel?"

  "Saw her do it with my own two eyes," I said. "And here's the funny thing – once we got the guy to jail and she was supposed to turn him back – it didn't work."

  The ogre's eyes opened wide. "You shittin' me?"

  "Nope, it's God's truth," I said. "Karl was there, too – he saw it."

  On cue, Karl nodded several times. "Very sad," he said. "Guy had a family, too."

  "Things didn't end up too bad," I said, lying the truth right out of town. "At least they found a home for him – in the Nay Aug Park Zoo. You go to the zoo much, Igor? You've probably seen him there. Excuse me."

  For obvious reasons, I had Rachel Proctor on speed-dial. I pressed the tiny icon next to her name and brought the phone to my ear. After a couple of seconds, I said into it, "Rachel? Hi, it's Stan Markowski. How you doing?"

  I paused to listen for a moment, then said, "Listen, Rachel, I've got a problem that might be right up your alley – or in your cauldron, as the case may be. See, there's this ogre–"

  That's as far as I got before Igor the ogre bellowed, "Wait, wait! I give up! No witches – I surround!"

  I was pretty sure he meant "surrender," although Igor was big enough to surround you all by himself, if he wanted to. Fortunately, I was right. He let Heather go, then put his hands up.

  I said into the phone, "Never mind, Rachel. The problem seems to be solved," and heard Rachel's voice say "…be back until next Monday. So wait for the beep, then leave a message."

  Fifteen minutes later, Igor was in the back of a police department prisoner van, his wrists bound by chains of cold iron, on his way to County. Heather the waitress was sitting in the back of an open ambulance, a blanket around her, drinking coffee from a thermos. I asked one of the uniforms to take her statement, once she was feeling more composed.

  As Karl and I left the scene, a couple of uniforms were cordoning off the area with the yellow tape that reads Police Line. Do Not Cross.

  Leary stomped over, not looking any happier for Igor's arrest and departure. "What are they doing?" he yelled, pointing at the two cops.

  "Securing a crime scene until Forensics gets in there and does their work," I said. "If nothing else, they'll need to take a lot of photos. You might want to take some yourself, for the insurance people."

  "But what about my fuckin' bar?"

  I took a look through the open door of the tavern and the wreckage it contained.

  "Don't sweat it, Leary," I said. "I don't think you were gonna do much more business tonight, anyway."

  As we walked back to the car, Karl said, "Well, that ended with nobody gettin' hurt – apart from those dummies who tried to fight Igor."

  "Yeah," I said. "
Maybe our luck is changing."

  After all these years on the job, I should know better than to tempt fate that way.

  Doc Watson had left a message that he'd see us at 4am, and it was twelve after the hour when Karl and I arrived at his reception room. The woman behind the desk looked to be in her mid-fifties. A lot of vamps have night jobs, but I was pretty sure this one was human, more or less.

  "He's expecting us," I told her.

  The look she gave me would've done credit to Sister Yolanda, who'd made my life hell in eighth grade. Despite all the weres, zombies, and vamps I've had to deal with since then, Sister Yolanda was the one I still had nightmares about.

  "The doctor was expecting you at 4 o'clock," she said. I wondered if she had a big wooden ruler somewhere in her desk.

  I was in no mood for this shit, and I guess Karl wasn't either. He put his hands on her desk and leaned forward. The smile he gave her displayed his fangs nicely. "I'll make you a deal," he said pleasantly. "You'll tell the doc that we're here, and I'll try to forget that I haven't fed tonight and I'm real thirsty. Sound like a plan?"

  I heard the castors protest as she quickly pushed her chair back, her eyes huge.

  "Y-yes, of course. I didn't mean to – excuse me, please."

  Then she was heading for the oak door behind her at a pace that was not quite a run. She knocked twice and didn't wait for a reply from inside before entering Doc Watson's inner sanctum.

  "Where were you when I was in eighth grade?" I murmured to Karl. He looked at me, but before I could explain, the receptionist was back.

  To me she said, "Doctor Watson will see you now." She didn't look at Karl at all.

  Terence K Watson was a thin guy who wore his thick black hair brushed straight back. Combine that with the goatee and his fondness for black clothing and you've got a look that Rachel Proctor once described to me as Faustian. What she meant was the doc would have looked good as Mephistopheles in a staging of Marlowe's play. Faust himself was no fashion plate, by most accounts.

  Rachel is one of the smartest people I know, but she's wrong on that one. I've seen the real Mephistopheles, and he looks like nothing human – unless he wants to. Besides, Doc Watson isn't into stealing souls. He's in the business of saving them, or trying to.

  The doc and I go way back, and he's met Karl before, so no introductions were called for. But as we sat down, he looked at Karl and said, "I heard you'd been turned a while back, Karl, and now I see that the stories are true. If you don't mind my asking, how are you doing? It's quite an adjustment you've had to make."

  Karl thought for a few seconds before answering. Maybe he was deciding how much to say. "It's an adjustment, like you said, Doc. But it's not too bad most days – most nights, I mean. And when it is, I just remind myself that being undead beats the alternative."

  "Does it? You're sure?"

  "Yeah, pretty sure."

  Doc nodded. "Good."

  "You must treat a few vampires yourself, Doc," I said. "Since you've started offering night appointments, and all."

  He looked at me and his expression grew, if possible, more serious. "The confidentiality of my relationship with patients is absolute, Stan. It has to be – even to the point of declining to answer that question."

  "I didn't mean anything by it, Doc. Just making conversation."

  He let his long face relax in a sort of smile. "I know, Stan. But it's not the kind of small talk that I can join in."

  "We're here to ask you about somebody who isn't one of your patients," Karl said. "At least, I hope he's not."

  "Even if he is, Karl, you'll never know it." He spread his hands for a second and sat back. "Ask away. I'll tell you what I can."

  Karl and I took turns telling him about the witch burnings. When we were finished, Doc was silent for several seconds.

  "I suppose telling you that the person responsible for these crimes seems to hate witches would be an exercise in the obvious," he said.

  "Yeah, kind of," I told him.

  "Of course, that assumes the victims are chosen randomly, within the witch community," Doc said. "There's always the possibility that his grudge was against these two women in particular."

  "We've got people working that angle," Karl said. "They're looking for a common factor – clients, boyfriends, relatives, all that."

  "If they find something, it'll make my life a lot easier," I said. "But since God seems to be part of an ongoing conspiracy to make my life difficult, let's assume for now that it's a serial killer who's obsessed with witches."

  "All right, then." Doc was sitting in an expensive-looking leather swivel chair. He tilted it back as far as it would go and closed his eyes. He sat like that without speaking for fifteen seconds or so. "He's choosing witches because they symbolize something for him – something that he wants to kill, or wishes he had, but can't. It's possible that an actual witch did him dirty sometime in the past, of course. However, when the victims are female, we tend to believe that they are serving as stand-ins for a woman in the killer's past, often the mother, or a mother-figure." Doc opened his eyes and shrugged. "Trite, but true."

  "So, you figure the guy's mother was a witch?" Karl asked.

  "Maybe," Doc said, "but it's rarely that simple. By the way, I've been using 'he' because it's easier, but I don't mean to prejudice your investigation by implying that the killer is necessarily male. However, the odds favor it, since the vast majority of serial killers who have been identified were male." Doc thought for a moment. "That doesn't apply to supernaturals, of course."

  "How come?" Karl asked.

  "Because the distinctions aren't as clear. For instance, do you consider a vampire who kills people a serial killer, or just hungry?"

  "I know what I'd consider him," I said.

  "No doubt," Doc said. "But then, you've got some issues of your own with vampires, don't–" He stopped himself, then looked at Karl. "Sorry," he said. "I meant no offense."

  "None taken, Doc," Karl said. "When you're right, you're right – Stan does have issues with vampires. Although he hasn't put garlic in my locker for a couple of months now."

  Doc stared at Karl for a couple of seconds, as if he wasn't sure whether he was being kidded. Karl was telling the truth – I do have problems with vamps, but maybe not as many as I used to.

  Doc turned to me. "There's one other possibility that might apply to your killer's motivation," he said. "It could be political."

  It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. "You mean human supremacists," I said.

  Doc nodded slowly. "Exactly. I know we have some locally. Every once in a while, the Times-Tribune publishes one of their hate letters. And I think I remember reading something about a demonstration once."

  Karl looked at me. "Pettigrew's bunch," he said.

  "Could be a conversation with the HSR is in order," I told him.

  Doc Watson tilted his head a little. "HSR?"

  "The Homo Sapiens Resistance," I said. "That's the name of the national organization – although from the members I've met, calling themselves Homo sapiens may be a bit of a stretch. Cro-Magnons, maybe."

  "Was there any kind of signature left at the crime scenes?" Doc asked me. "Anything that might make a statement about who was responsible, or why?"

  "Nothing," I said. "And we went over those crime scenes pretty damn thoroughly. So did Forensics."

  "And I haven't seen any statements released to the media, either," Doc said.

  "What's your point, Doc?" Karl asked.

  "Terrorism – and that's what we're talking about here – is only effective if the people doing it let the world know why they did it. Lenin said, 'The purpose of terror is to terrify', and it's hard to terrify people if they don't know who you are."

  "Could be that the local haters haven't read Lenin – or much of anything else," I said. "We'll have a word with them, anyway. Shake their tree a little, and see if anything falls off."

  "Besides," Karl said, "it's fun.
"

  We'd learned what we came for, and it was time for us to go. As I stood up, I said to Doc, "I guess you've come into some money recently."

  He looked at me with narrowed eyes. "It's true – my dad died a couple of months ago and left me a good-sized share of his estate. How did you know, Stan?"

  One of the guys at the station house had told me about Doc's good fortune, but I decided to play Sherlock Holmes.

  "That painting on your wall over there is new, and it looks like an original oil, not a copy," I said. "I haven't seen that sports coat on you before, but it's made of pricey fabric and looks tailored. Instead of getting your hair cut, like usual, you've had it styled. I can only see the edge of the watch under the sleeve, but it looks like an Omega, and the cheapest one they make goes for about fifteen hundred bucks." I gave him a casual-looking shrug. "You're too smart to live beyond your means, so I figured you'd had a windfall of some kind."