“What kind of range does this thing have?” Morris asked.
“That’s where things get kind of complicated,” Peters said. “With a steel ball, or some of the special aerodynamic ammunition they make for this, you’ve got a MER of at least two hundred yards – which is twice what you can expect from any other air rifle, even the good ones.”
“But we’ll be shooting some kind of fruit stone, not steel balls,” Libby said.
“I know. That’s why it’s complicated. Any kind of fruit stone has lighter weight than the standard ammo, and greatly reduced mass. That means less muzzle velocity, which translates into a shorter range.”
“Hmmm.” Libby frowned. “How much shorter?”
“Less than half,” Peters said. “Let me show you.”
He picked up the rifle. “We’ll start with standard ammunition,” he said.
There was a plastic toolbox on the bench. Peters opened it and removed a box full of ball bearings, each about the size of a pea, and began to load the rifle.
“How many rounds does it hold?” Morris asked him.
“Three. Then you have to recharge.”
“Three?” Libby said. “That’s all?”
“Keep in mind that the air in this thing is under incredible pressure – that’s why it shoots so far. If you wanted to hold more pressure safely, you’d need a gun that weighs fifty pounds, or more. And nobody makes one like that.”
“So, if we have to use this thing for real,” Morris said, “we’d better get the job done with three shots, or not at all. Can’t see an afreet agreeing to a time-out while we get the scuba tank and recharge the gun.”
“Doesn’t seem likely, does it?” Peters said. “Okay, we’re in the ‘large-bore rifle’ section, which means it’s just over a hundred yards down range.”
There was a length of heavy-gauge wire running the length of the shooting alley. Using a detachable clip, Peters attached a man-size silhouette target to it and pressed a button. A pulley attached to the wire rapidly sent the target down range, to stop at the end.
“Normally, I’d be telling you to put on ear protection now,” Peters said. “But you won’t need it with this baby.”
He worked a lever at the side of the rifle, raised the gun to his shoulder, took careful aim, and fired. The sound of the shot was no louder than a cap pistol.
“Let’s take a look.” Peters put the rifle down and pressed another button, bringing the target back to him. There was a hole the size of a dime in the “9” ring, just outside the bullseye. “Not bad, for firing without a rest,” he said.
He pulled from the box a plastic baggie containing several small, round objects. Unlike the ball bearings, they were white and lacked the glitter of metal. “Cherry pits,” Peters said. “I tried filing down some of the bigger pits, like peach and avocado, to fit the gun, but they didn’t give any better ballistic results.”
“But cherries aren’t in season now,” Libby said.
“I know. I had some shipped in from Australia.”
“Must’ve cost you a small fortune,” Morris said.
“It did. And since cherry pits aren’t of uniform size, I had to go through quite a few to find some that would fit the gun. Fortunately, Ashley likes cherries.”
Ashley smiled, and with a perfect Humphrey Bogart imitation said, “We was all cherry once, kid.”
Peters opened the bolt and inserted the cherry pit. He sent the target downrange again, brought the gun to his shoulder, and fired.
When he brought the target back, there was still only one hole in it. “Clean miss,” he said. “Just as I expected.”
“You’ve tried this before,” Libby said.
“Been working on it on and off for about a month,” Peters said. “It gave me something to do.”
“Besides fucking me, you mean?” Ashley tried for a hurt expression that none of them believed for a second.
“Even my legendary capabilities are limited, sweetie, even if yours aren’t,” Peters told her. To Morris and Libby he said, “I’ve only got one shot left without recharging, so I won’t waste it. Watch what happens when I bring the range in to about seventy-five yards.”
He sent the target out again, stopping it before the end of its tether. He reloaded the rifle with another cherry pit, aimed, and fired.
This time, the target had a second hole in it – through the “6” ring.”
“Still not pinpoint accuracy,” Peters said, “but not bad. Seventy-five yards is your limit if you’re shooting at something the size of this target. Aim at something bigger, and you can add to the range a little – maybe up to eighty-five yards. But the gun isn’t your only option.”
He picked up the strange-looking object that had been sitting on the bench next to the rifle. It had a plastic pistol grip attached to a four-pronged stainless steel frame. Two of the prongs were joined by a leather strap, and a piece of rubber tubing (the kind doctors use to tie off your arm before they stick needles in you) with a small pouch in the middle was attached to the other two prongs. It looked like the bastard child of a ray gun and an Erector set.
Peters picked it up. “This here is a hunting slingshot.”
Libby stared at the contraption. “People use this thing to hunt? Hunt what?”
“Birds and small game, mostly – rabbits, woodchucks, stuff like that. I talked to a guy at the sporting goods store a couple of weeks ago who said he’d once brought down a deer with one. Of course, he also claimed he’d nailed Madonna – so take it for what it’s worth.”
“I’ve nailed Madonna,” Ashley said.
They all turned and looked at her. “Really?” Morris said.
Ashley shrugged, and produced a smile of pure lasciviousness. “Actually, no – but she’s on my ‘To Do’ list.”
“That’s my girl,” Peters said.
He reached back into the box and brought out a ball bearing the size of a marble. “This is the standard ammunition – proper shape, a lot of mass, and very hard.”
He picked up the slingshot. Slipping his left hand between the lower pair of prongs, he wrapped his fingers around the plastic grip.
“I see what that does now,” Morris said. “It’s a brace for your wrist.”
“Exactly,” Peters said. “The people who use them take this stuff very seriously.”
He pressed the button to send the target forward, but stopped it about halfway down the alley. “Fifty yards,” he said. “That’s about the maximum effective range for this kind of ammo.”
He picked up a ball bearing, placed it in the pouch, and pointed his left hand toward the target. He then pulled the pouch toward him, stretching the elastic tubing that gave the slingshot its power. When the elastic was at its limit, he let go. There was a thin “snap,” and an instant later, the target jerked as something big passed through it.
When Peters reeled the target in, a hole the size of a nickel was through the “8” ring. “I’m not real good with it yet,” he said, “but I haven’t put in a lot of practice.”
He produced another plastic baggie, this one full of small brown spheres. “Avocado pits,” he said. “A lot of these are perfect spheres, and those that aren’t, sometimes you can improve them with a file.”
He sent the target back out. “Same distance,” he said. “Fifty yards.”
Peters placed an avocado pit in the slingshot’s pouch and said, “These are lighter than the ball bearings, so I’m going to raise my point of aim a bit.”
He extended his arm again and let fly. The target, when returned, had a new hole that barely touched the edge of the outside ring.
“The pits are lighter than the balls by quite a bit,” he said. “So they don’t fly as true. So, if you’re planning to hit something about the size of an elephant, you’d be okay at fifty yards – maybe a little more.”
He placed the slingshot on the bench. “And that, folks,” he said, “is how you can kill an afreet. Maybe.”
Libby looked at him. “May
be?”
“Maybe, if the legends are true,” he said. “Maybe, if the weather’s not humid – that’ll slow the passage of any object through the air and decrease your range. Maybe, if there’s little or no wind. Wind can fuck even a rifle marksman up.” He glanced toward the weapons resting on the bench. “I shudder to think what a good breeze will do to these things.”
“Thanks for all your efforts, Mal,” Libby said. “You’ve been a great help. Still, the limitations of our fruit pit slingers make me glad we’ve got a Plan B.”
“What’s that?” Peters asked.
“A fragment of the Seal of Solomon,” Libby said.
“You got one?” Ashley seemed genuinely happy for them. “That’s great! Where’d you find it?”
“We haven’t quite got it yet,” Morris said. “But we’re expecting to have it soon.”
Both Ashley and Peters look a little confused.
“It belongs to the Knights Templar,” Libby said.
“Those guys?” Peters said. “I didn’t even know they still existed.”
“They’re real careful about security,” Morris said. “Maybe obsessively so.”
“Can’t really blame them,” Ashley said, “considering what the King of France did to them the last time they were out in the open. So, they’ve got a piece of Solly’s Seal, and they’re going to let you have it? Pretty generous of them.”
“It’s for services rendered,” Libby said. “I can’t say more than that.”
“How come?” Peters asked her.
“One, because I promised,” she said. “And two, because they threatened to kill us if we blabbed.”
“They always were a nasty bunch,” Ashley said. “But then I never had much use for priests of any kind.”
“I’m not surprised,” Morris said. “But we’ve got good reason to take these guys seriously. We have to wait a while, but I’m confident we’ll have a piece of the Seal soon.”
“What’re you going to do in the meantime?” Peters asked.
“Practice with our new toys,” Libby said. “And maybe have a chat with the FBI.”
Thirty-One
LIBBY CHASTAIN WAS in her kitchen making a sandwich when, in the living room, her phone began to play the theme from the old TV show, Bewitched. She got to the phone quickly, checked the caller ID, then answered.
“Hey, Colleen.”
“Hey, Libby. Sorry I couldn’t answer when you called – Fenton and I were out on the shooting range.”
“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” Libby murmured.
“Excuse me?”
“Just talking to myself,” Libby said. “Sorry.”
“So what’s up?”
“I was wondering if the Bureau has gotten a line yet on those terrorists – the ones who supposedly brought an afreet into the country.”
“We haven’t heard a thing from Anti-Terrorism,” Colleen said. “I was kind of hoping you and Quincey might have turned up something.”
“We’ve learned a few things about how to fight an afreet, but we haven’t picked up a clue as to who might have one. Well, maybe one tiny clue.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Quincey recently talked to a guy who knows a lot about this stuff. Although afreets don’t need to eat, apparently, they do have a preferred snack. Care to guess what it is?”
“I assume we’re not talking about chips or pretzels here,” Colleen said.
“Uh-uh. Lions’ hearts.”
“That’s not the brand name of some weird food, is it? You’re talking about real lions?”
“I most certainly am.”
“Well, that’s something you don’t pick up at Costco – unless they’ve added to their product line since I was last in one.”
“No, I’m pretty sure you’d have to do your shopping at a zoo,” Libby said.
“What do you know that I don’t, Libby?”
“Well, I know that if you Google something like ‘attacks on lions,’ you’ll find that a couple of zoos have been broken into over the last few months. In both cases, only one animal was harmed – a male lion, who was killed and butchered on the spot. The only organ found missing, in each instance, was its heart.”
Colleen was silent for a few moments, then said, “It can’t be easy, getting close enough to a lion to do all that – even a captive lion.”
“No, it can’t. And it’s probably harder to do it without leaving any useful trace, or being seen by patrolling security guards, or showing up on video surveillance cameras – cameras which suddenly went dead for no reason anybody can figure out.”
“You’re thinking magic,” Colleen said. It wasn’t a question.
“I certainly am, Sister mine. I most definitely am.”
There was another silence on the line. “What we’re talking about here wouldn’t invite Bureau involvement, Libby. Animal cruelty, much though I despise it, comes under the local area’s jurisdiction. And so does breaking and entering. Neither of those is a federal crime.”
“How about crossing state lines to avoid prosecution for the aforementioned crimes?”
“You mean –”
“One of the zoos that got hit is in Michigan. The other one’s in Indiana.”
“Well, now...” Libby could almost hear Colleen thinking. “I don’t know if I can talk Sue into assigning this to Dale and me. Chasing serial killers is one thing. Serial lion killers – that’s something else.”
“Maybe if you explained to her that it’s connected to more of the ‘weird shit.’”
Sue Whitlavitch, the Section Chief of Behavioral Science, was well aware that not all the evil in the world is caused by natural forces. And she knew that Colleen O’Donnell, being a white witch, was uniquely qualified to deal with the kind of crime that had a supernatural origin.
“It’s sure worth a try.”
“And if you turn up anything interesting...”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Colleen said. “Well, second – right after Sue.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
Thirty-Two
MORE THAN A month passed before Libby got the call she had been waiting for.
“Miss Chastain, this is Thomas Reinhart.”
It took Libby a second to make the connection, since the Father-General had not used his title. It was another second before she figured out that this was yet another security precaution on Reinhart’s part.
“Oh, yes, hi, uh, Mister Reinhart. I’ve been hoping to hear from you.”
“And now you have. I wonder if you could pay us a visit sometime soon? We still owe you payment for that excellent work you did for us last month.”
“Yes, of course. I take it everything worked out all right?”
“If it had not, I would not be calling.”
“Were you able to –”
“I would rather discuss that with you in person, Miss Chastain.” Reinhart had a way of making Libby feel like a third-grader who had been sent to the principal’s office.
“Of course, I understand. Have you been in touch with... my associate?” She didn’t know if saying Quincey’s name would violate Reinhart’s notion of security.
“No, I have not. You performed the service, so it is you I have called. You’re welcome to bring Mister Morris with you, of course, should you wish to.”
Not a security problem after all, apparently.
“All right, fine. Is there any special time –”
“I will see you whenever you choose to arrive, Miss Chastain. Just give your name – and Mister Morris’s, if he’s with you – to the people at the front gate.”
“Okay, sure. Terrific. I’ll see you in a couple of days, then.”
“Goodbye, Miss Chastain.”
Thirty-Three
AND SO IT was that two days later Libby Chastain and Quincey Morris found themselves driving a rented car down Ohio’s Route 25 in the middle of the afternoon.
As they drew close to the turnoff, Morris said,
“I didn’t want to make the waiting worse for you over the last month, so I kept my mouth shut, but it occurred to me more than once to wonder if the good Father-General hadn’t just decided to blow us off. I mean, what were we gonna do – take him to court?”
Morris lowered his voice a little. “Your honor, the plaintiffs in this case allege that the defendant, head of an organization that nobody acknowledges even exists, did enter into a legally-binding agreement with my clients to transfer to them ownership of a portion of the Great Seal of Solomon, so that they could employ it to prevent unnamed terrorists from using an ancient djinn to commit an unspecified terrible act against this great nation of ours.”
“I thought about that a few times, too,” Libby said. “But more often I found myself wondering if the raid hadn’t gone so badly that Father-General Reinhart and his team were either all wiped out or taken prisoner. And then whoever was left in charge of the Knights would say he’d never head of us or our deal.”
“You think the commanding general would take part in an operation like that himself?”
“You’ve met the man, Quincey. Can you imagine him doing anything else?”
“You may have a point there.”
They were quiet for a few minutes, then Morris said, “Once we’ve got that piece of the Seal of Solomon, do you know what to do with it? Assuming we ever run into the afreet, that is. Do you just wave it at him, like a cross with a vampire, and yell, ‘Begone’?”
“It’s not quite that simple, I’m afraid,” she said. “There’s an invocation of sorts – a prayer, really – that I found in a very old book. It seems to apply, so I’ve memorized it. Easy to do – it’s not very long, even if it is in ancient Chaldean.”
“And this invocation is going to let you take control of the afreet, if you back it up with the Seal of Solomon?”
“No – what it does is to set the afreet free from bondage,” Libby said. “In other words, it would take control of the thing away from our hypothetical terrorists.”
Morris frowned. “So you set the thing free from the evil wizard, or whatever he is, without gaining control of it yourself. Is that an improvement, really? What if the thing decides to barbecue everybody in a ten-mile radius because he’s pissed off?”
Morris and Chastain Investigations: Play With Fire & Midnight at the Oasis Page 33
