The Witch and Warlock MEGAPACK ®: 25 Tales of Magic-Users

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The phone was ringing as I entered the back hall. My first instinct was to ignore it, but what if Rowan was calling? Balancing Cari on the kitchen counter, I answered.

  “When are you going to listen to us, Mitti? What if the same thing should happen to your daughter that happened to Susie and Nancy? Move away, Mitti—if you love your daughter, move away…

  There was a stealthy click, then the dial tone, then a recording saying, “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again… and still I stood there, mesmerized, my right arm clutching Cari, until the phone began hurling insults at me. I might have remained there longer but for a scratching at the back door. A small white rectangle had been shoved underneath. I picked it up and turned it over. My cry of horror awakened Cari, who began to wail. It was a snapshot of Rowan—someone had bloodied her with a felt tip pen. I ran to the window just in time to see Jonah Good lumbering into the woods.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Rearing up from the borderline between lawn and woods was a venerable oak which at some time in its history had taken a bolt of lightning that had split a portion of the trunk vertically, like a greenstick fracture. Yet it had continued to live, though its foliage was now so sparse its top stood out stark and bald against the other trees. Still, leaves sprouted each spring from lower branches and no one had the heart to suggest that this veteran, which must have presided over Indian councils, be cut down. Now, in the final week before the general rehearsal, a sudden thaw had set in and strong southwest winds twisted the arthritic giant unmercifully until his complaints were loud and agonized and I wondered if euthanasia might not be the kindest course.

  And while he grumbled, thousands of freshets were bursting from the hillsides, emptying into temporary lakes in the hollows until they overflowed and sent hundreds of miniature cataracts down the slopes, which in turn became torrents boiling into the rapidly rising river. The sandbars were completely submerged and Mother Carrier’s old house, as expected, succumbed. Before the end of the week the river was spilling over into other portions of the city. Ward’s lumberyard was inundated and in spite of extensive sandbagging many basements were flooded, including the one at the Community church. Nevertheless, most people were pleased with the warming trend. They seemed little concerned that their town was being washed away.

  But I remained chill and taut. I should report that last call and that snapshot to Jim Willard, but could I trust him not to relay my complaint to the sheriff? At the bottom of the photo had been the words, “Tell the police and you’re all dead!”

  I was losing control—life was moving around me with prismatic distortion. Whom could I trust? Even Dr. Brun and Dana seemed alien to me. Rowan had become even more distanced—we groped through the week like shadow-boxers. With the general rehearsal almost upon us, how could I think? How could I plan a course of action? Afterward, I rationalized, perhaps my mind would clear and I could tackle my problem.

  I saw Greg only briefly at a pageant committee meeting at the church the night before the rehearsal. All during the evening, I felt his eyes on me, but when I faced him he turned away. Iris snuggled next to him, and since I arrived late I didn’t know if they had come together or separately. After the meeting she took him by the arm and drew him toward me.

  “You look as if you’d survived the Wisconsin winter,” she said. “As for me, I prefer Jamaica. Don’t you, Greg?”

  His answer told me nothing. “My mother loved Jamaica,” he replied. “Excuse me, ladies, I have some rewriting to do.”

  She followed me as I went out to my car. “Nothing like giving us the deep freeze,” she remarked, clearly annoyed.

  “What? Oh yes, Greg,” I made a pretense of indifference. “Any flooding at your place?” Wishful thinking.

  She smiled. “No, the house is too high. The basement is filled so I can’t swim, but it’s fascinating to watch Peacehaven being shredded, bit by bit. I saw Mother Carrier’s roof go downriver.” She opened the door of her Porsche, parked behind my car. “How about coming over for a drink?”

  A drink with her was the last thing I needed. “No, thank you, Iris. I must get home.”

  As I pulled away from the curb, I could see in my rearview mirror that she was still standing next to her car. I hadn’t proceeded very far when I noticed a light in the police headquarters at the city hall, directly across the street from the newspaper office. On impulse I swerved my car into the parking lot. I desperately needed someone to talk to—I couldn’t wait any longer. If Gareth could trust Jim…

  He motioned me to a seat while he completed a call, then leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, his long legs sticking through the kneehole of his desk. As I began to talk his old swivel chair creaked forward and he leaned across the desk, concern deepening in his forehead. I felt thankful for this kind-hearted man, who listened quietly, giving me his full attention. Suddenly I knew I was doing the right thing and I began to pour out my story. I hadn’t gotten very far when he stopped me.

  “I’m sorry, Mitti. Working hours are over. Would you mind giving me a lift home?”

  “Sorry to have been so abrupt,” he apologized in my car. “Walls have ears.”

  “You think your office might be bugged?”

  “I found a tap on my phone last week and another in the register behind my desk in October. Don’t take me home yet,” he said as we neared his house. “I want to hear the rest of your story.”

  I headed my car in the direction of the bluff road and took up my narrative again—the attack in the cave, the phone calls, Damon’s grandiose plans, and the horrid snapshot. I tried to cover everything, yet all the time I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was leaving out something—something important, but what was it?

  As I talked, I began to be aware of car lights behind us, making every turn we did. We were following a narrow, winding road in and around the bluffs, their rugged Indian faces showing eerily in the beam of our headlights. Those other lights were still following us around the curves, appearing and disappearing with the undulations of the road. Some farmer returning home after a visit to Buckley’s, I told myself, but now Jim’s hand was groping under the dashboard, then under the front seat. Swearing softly, he brought out a tiny rectangular object that had been fastened by a magnet to the metal under the seat and tossed it out the window.

  My hands trembled on the wheel. “Was that what I think it was?”

  “Yes, and I’m a damn fool for not checking. That was an FM monitoring unit. By tuning into a vacant FM wavelength, whoever’s following us in the vehicle back there heard everything we said. Someone got to your car while you were in my office. Did anyone see you go in?”

  “I suppose Iris did.”

  “That figures,” he said grimly.

  “But that’s not a Porsche behind us.”

  “She would have had time to alert someone else. There’s a crossroad hidden behind a curve about a quarter of a mile down. Take it to the left and douse your lights. Maybe we’ll be lucky.”

  Whoever was following hesitated, then continued on. By this time Jim was out of the car and around to my side. “Move over,” he ordered. “I’ll drive.”

  We doubled back, then drove off onto byroads unknown to me, crossing our own path several times until we’d apparently lost our tail.

  “Why would anyone want to bug us?” I asked.

  “Because you and I constitute threats to certain individuals’ plans here in town. It’s only lately that I’ve been aware of it and have been able to piece some of it together. It started after Iris came. They made no move while your aunt was still alive because they were confident she’d leave her property to Charity and they could do what they wanted with it. Damon and Charity are being used, but they don’t know it. A number of Peacehaven’s most prominent citizens are involved. Tyler Bishop is nominally at t
he head, although from information I’ve received, Iris is the liaison with the outside interests through an ex-lover. She knows what she’s doing, but I’m convinced that in their greed, Tyler and his associates have never inquired too closely into the background of this ‘syndicate.’ Anyone who blocks them must be eliminated one way or another and that includes you, Mitti—and Dana.”

  “You mean this”—my stomach felt queasy—“this ‘syndicate’ has underworld connections?”

  “Not just connections. It is underworld.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  “Let’s backtrack a little. Remember the night you hid Quentin in that old tunnel between your houses?” I gasped audibly. “I’m probably the only one in town who knows about that tunnel. I wired it for electricity when Dad still had the hardware store.”

  “And you didn’t betray us when those dogs were sniffing around the drain!” I exclaimed warmly.

  “Quentin’s working for an investigative committee appointed by the governor. According to information they have, some underworld figures are planning to establish a resort and condominium development here as a cover for a variety of illegal activities, including drugs and the dog fighting racket.”

  “I’m confused. I saw Quentin going to Iris’ house one day. I know she was expecting him because—” I described my visit to the Faulkner home.

  Jim chuckled. “He told me about that. He’d made a date to interrogate her—about the dogs and about Mark’s death. But she met him as though he’d made an assignation—either to try to compromise him or she thought he really was on the make. She probably sicced Irv on to Quentin when Nancy was killed.”

  I was struck by the irony. “So Quentin is our law and order man, while the pillars of Peacehaven are on the side of the bad guys! Come to think of it, Quentin once mentioned something about dogfights to me—”

  “He’s death on dogfighters—thinks his dog was stolen by one, probably to be used as bait for the fighting dogs. They also use cats and kittens, you know—dangle them in mesh bags in front of the dogs, then snatch them away while still alive and let the dogs finish them off the next day.”

  “Jupiter!” I gasped, gripping the dashboard.

  “What?”

  “Darcy’s cat. We found his body in the cave. And she’s lost other cats since.” Without betraying Dana’s and Dr. Brun’s errand, I told him about our excursion.

  “They must have had a trial run,” he conjectured. “Quentin thought they would. I’ll bet Irv Good went in there to destroy evidence and you surprised him, so he attacked you. Why didn’t we think of your cave? It’s a perfect place for a dogfight operation, because even if Irv mutes his dogs, the others wouldn’t be muted, and a cave would contain the noise so that—”

  “Irv!” My head was reeling. “You mean he’s…

  “He’s a trainer. His dogs are professional fighters.”

  “He said he uses them for police work.”

  “That’s his story. He cuts his dogs’ vocal cords so they won’t draw attention. Besides, mute fighting dogs present a terrifying spectacle. Good dogs sell for several grand apiece. Quentin and I couldn’t locate his training quarters. We figured they must be on his own farm, but there’s absolutely nothing there.”

  “I still can’t get over Quentin’s being a government investigator,” I said. “That would surprise a lot of people.”

  “I think it surprised him, but at least he may have the satisfaction of bagging a sheriff.” He grinned, slowing as we passed a “winding road” warning.

  “How about Jonah?” I blurted out my question before I even had it well formulated in my mind.

  “Jonah?” He looked puzzled. “Oh, you mean the dogs? Well, in most things, Jonah’s his father’s robot—obeys him blindly and mindlessly, but he’s afraid of dogs—all dogs.”

  “Yes, I know,” I remembered how terrified the boy had been of the big white dog. “I didn’t mean that. What I meant was—why was Irv Good so anxious to blame Nancy’s murder on Quentin? Do you suppose he was trying to protect his own son?”

  “That’d be a better motive than what I suspect was his true one. No, as a matter of fact, my wife and I played pinochle with the Goods that night, and Jonah sat and watched us all evening.”

  Well, rule that one out, I thought—then, as though a flashbulb had popped in my brain, it came to me—what I’d been trying to remember!

  “The cave wouldn’t be suitable for boarding dogs as it is now, would it?” Privately I knew Dr. Brun would have seen anything like that going on.

  “No, there’s no road leading to it,” Jim agreed. “Which still leaves the question—where does he keep them?”

  “Ruby Hobbs told Dana and me last summer that Irv’s been renting her barn.”

  Jim slapped his knee. “That’s it, Mitti! It all fits together! I wouldn’t be surprised if Irv leased it before Ruby’s brother died. A few days before that, Old Man Hobbs had an argument with Lester Jacobs down at the feed store. Lester was slightly plastered that day—as usual—and he began to josh old Hobbs about what a firetrap of a barn he had. Hobbs got mad and told him that the barn was more valuable than anyone knew. I think that’s how the rumor about Hobbs burying money in the barn got around. Saay,” he drawled, “we’re less than a mile from there now—I’d like to check something. Are you game?”

  I wasn’t sure my car was as we bounced, lights out, over the choppy, axle-grinding tractor path leading to the barnyard. “Safer than taking the main drive,” he explained, easing through one last chuckhole before stopping behind a windbreak of spruces. We sprinted across to the barn on the side away from the house. An owl hooted an alert, but the groans of the old windmill helped cover our approach.

  The door to the cow barn was boarded up, but as Jim leaned against it to listen, one of the boards slipped out of place and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught it and forced in a loose nail. Jim caught my arm. There it was! Sniffing, then a scratching on the other side. But now my ears picked up another sound—the hum of an engine coming along the main farm drive. We reached the shelter of the spruces just as the lights of a truck turned a bend and flooded the barnyard. Irv Good got out, carrying something squirming in a bag, and went up the ramp to the granary floor. Jim pulled me down on the half-frozen ground.

  “I don’t think he saw us,” he whispered.

  As I lay there, my heart pounding against the ground, the sheriff opened the padlock and pushed aside the big door. A dog sprang for him. He cursed it and kicked it to one side as he entered. We could hear his boots echoing on the steps from the loft to the floor below. An unearthly screech sounded faintly through the thick fieldstone walls, then silence. After a long while he returned, still carrying the now limp sack; climbed into the truck; and drove away.

  “He must have one dog on guard duty and the rest in cages,” Jim remarked as we picked our way back over the tractor lane.

  “What was that terrible sound?” I asked, shivering.

  “Probably a cat, but it doesn’t make sense. He wasn’t in there long enough to be training his dogs. If my theory is right, I imagine old Irv was pretty shaken when he found the children’s bodies. I think the poor kids wandered in there—there’re all kinds of stories about buried money and stuff—and were attacked by the guard dog. Irv found them, but since he couldn’t afford to have them connected with his operation, he carved those symbols on them, then moved the bodies.”

  I was too shocked to get a word in before Jim smashed his fist on the steering wheel. “No wonder Quentin’s the fall guy! I’ll bet all our meetings have been bugged. I’ll drive over to Madison tonight to see him. We’re going to have to act fast. Quentin can get a detachment of state police and a warrant to search the barn tomorrow night during rehearsal. Will Irv be there?”

  “Yes, he plays Sheriff G
eorge Corwin, who confiscated the witches’ property and left their children to beg in the streets. Typecasting,” I added with a shaky laugh. It was easy to picture Irv Good turning orphans into the street…and then I was seeing him standing over a dying white dog, while a black one struggled at the end of a rope. “Attacked my dog without warning,” he was saying, “my dog wot was trained in the London bear pits…

  Jim switched on the lights when we reached the county road, bringing me back to the present. I leaned against the seat, thinking about tomorrow. The Peace-haven council had declared a holiday as a kick-off to engender enthusiasm and publicity. The rehearsal was to be held in the oversized council chamber at city hall that doubled as an auditorium.

  Alison would be there. She was in another remission and was determined to continue in the part of Rebecca Nurse. Her improvement was little short of a miracle. But in contrast to this new burst of energy on Alison’s part, Dana seemed to be losing her old vitality. I remembered Dana kneeling before her altar, holding out the poppet of Alison, with the ugly mark spreading above her left breast…

  “Wake up, Mitti,” Jim said, turning off the ignition. “You looked so relaxed just now I hated to disturb you, but I’d better head home pretty quick. My wife will be wondering what happened to me, and I have to get to Madison before morning.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” I told him. “I could have dropped you off at your house.”

  “Not a chance. I always escort ladies to their door,” he said gallantly. “With my long legs, I’ll be home in less than five minutes.” An apprehensive note came into his voice. “Strange thing, I just saw Irv’s truck on the way down from your house. He must have beaten us here; wonder what he wanted.”

  The answer lay on my doorstep in a bloodied sack—a mangled heap of gray fur that had once been Phantom. So that was what had screamed in the barn! Irv must have thought he’d gotten my cat, but Loki had been locked in the house. Whoever’d spied on Jim and me must have relayed the information to Irv and this was his way of telling me to clear out. As I swayed dizzily against the wall of the house there was a loud crack. Aged fibers had given away, and with a woodsy shriek, the ancient oak came crashing down like a movie clapstick, setting the cameras in motion for action for which there would be no retakes.