A Witch, a Fairy, and an Esper

by Ross Homer

  I didn’t see his left arm in the immediate vicinity. He’d also been eviscerated from his throat to his belt. Goon Two had been split wide open and most of his internal organs were gone. I looked around. Gone, not tossed around like some animals will do. There was also a gaping hole in his pants where penis and testicles were supposed to be.

  Most of his left leg was gone. His right leg was barely connected to his body. Only some skin and stretched muscle held it there.

  It was too much!

  Standing abruptly, I felt the blood drain from my face as I ran into the yard and lost everything I’d had to eat or drink for about the last three years or so, I think. I’d never puked that hard in my life. I felt Bob’s hand on my shoulder as he handed me a bottle of water.

  “Here.”

  I took it from him, twisted off the cap, rinsed my mouth and spit before drinking about a third of it.

  “Jo, it doesn’t get any better. I’ll tell you that most of us lost it, too. Especially inside.”

  I looked at him and asked, “Any ideas what caused that yet? That wasn’t done by an ax or chainsaw.”

  “No. If you’re ready, come on then.”

  We walked slowly up the drive towards a wide veranda. That’s where I saw parts of Goon One. There is no other term for it. Parts.

  I thought I recognized the shirt and jacket he’d worn. What was left of them.

  I tried hard not to look at the shredded mess that was until recently, a human being. He, like Goon Two, had been ripped apart. Not cut up…ripped. I forced myself to keep my water down as I looked for his head and the rest of him. It and his other body parts were nowhere I could see.

  On the wide front porch was the driver. It was Claude Paulson or had been. His face was frozen in terror. A cigarette had been shoved into his left eye.

  His wife wasn’t going to have to fight for the children now.

  The lower half of his body was gone. I saw a bloody trail going across the porch and leading off to the left toward some trees. His intestines left a bloody string in that direction, too. His left arm lay across the doorway. His right? It was nowhere around him or the front of the house.

  I took a breath and moved on, following Bob. The front door was shattered and mostly hung open on the twisted top hinge. As I stepped through, I saw claw marks on it. Big, deep, wide claw marks. Like a grizzly bear might make. Somehow, I didn’t think a grizzly did this.

  A young woman lay on the stairs leading to the second floor. I had to put my hands over my breasts as I looked at what was left of her. There was a gaping hole where her chest had been.

  At first glance, I thought there were several bite marks there. No! I forced myself to look closer. My God! It was a single bite. It ran from just below her collar bones down to the bottom of her rib cage from right to left. Her breasts and ribs were gone as well as her right kidney, most of her liver, lung, and heart. Apparently in one bite.

  One.

  Bite.

  Like Goon Two, she’d also been eviscerated, ripped open from below the bite to her pubic bone. Her right leg had been ripped out of her hip socket. It was nowhere I could see right then.

  Oh…shit! What the hell was loose in our city?

  “Jo, Sato is upstairs with who we think was his wife. We think this woman was a maid or something.”

  I looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I’ve seen more than enough. Take me home. I…I need to do some research.”

  A medical examiner I didn’t know was coming down the stairs, pulling off bloody gloves. She said, “Lieutenant, before you ask, I’ll tell you right now that the best any of us can make from this is going to be a SWAG.”

  She didn’t bother to tell me what that meant. I knew though. Scientific, Wild-Assed, Guess. This was not good because I had no idea, either.

  Bob replied, “I figured as much. This is Jocelyn Palmer. She has some knowledge about this kind of thing, I hope.”

  I looked at them and then turned and went out to the car. I was now seeing what Bob was thinking when I tried to show him magic back when I was seventeen. This was as incomprehensible to my mind as him seeing what I could do was to his. I wanted to shut it out. To not see it. To forget that I had ever seen it. And I hadn’t seen Sato or his wife.

  A few minutes later he came out and got in the driver’s side. “Jo? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Jesus H. Christ what a mess!” I took another drink of water.

  Bob’s reply? “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Jocelyn. How many times have I told you not to do that?” I don’t think he really gave a shit about how I felt.

  I looked over at him in wonder. How in hell did I end up with him in the first place? Sixteen-year-old overactive hormones is how.

  When I first saw him, I had just turned sixteen and was on the swim team. While I wasn’t as tall or as curvy as I am now, I still looked damn hot in my skin-tight black and yellow lycra racing suit. Hell, looking in a mirror I even turned me on. He was two years older…a senior and played water polo. He was big and beautiful, and I wanted him.

  At sixteen and a half I got him. I should have known when he was done, I’d made the wrong decision.

  We’d been at a swim team party and that night I gave up my virginity to him. I hadn't learned about his dark side yet. He laughed when I told him I was a witch…the first time. At eighteen I tried to ignore his fanatical religious beliefs because I was in love with him. More likely, I was still in love with my vision of him and I stupidly thought I could fix him. Was I ever wrong about that. We got married shortly after I graduated. Young and dumb. That was me.

  A few months later, he tried to beat the witch out of me and that was the last time I tried to convince him. In the process, he also killed our unborn baby.

  He cried crocodile tears as he begged and pleaded for another chance. How sorry he was for hitting me. That he had lost his mind for a few moments and he’d never do it again. Like a stupid cow, one of his favorite names for me, I believed him. Until he did it again when I was twenty. That time he almost killed me and eliminated any possibility of my ever presenting him or anyone else with children. I guess the lucky part of that was that it was summer between my freshman and sophomore year at U-Dub…University of Washington. I didn’t miss any school.

  Again, he begged and pleaded because I was going to put his sorry ass in jail. Mooooo. I let it go again because he was now a rookie cop. But for me to keep quiet about what he’d done, he had to take anger management courses for a year. When I got out of the hospital, I’d finally grown a spine and divorced him anyway. He’s now married to a woman who really is bovine in both looks and attitude. They have three calves, I mean kids, now.

  I can also see the lust in his eyes he still has for me when he has to be around me. Too bad, dude. You had it, you lost it. I hope to hell you never put your wife through what you put me through.

  And now, all these years later, he’s telling me he finally believes me? What I am? Right. What does he really want? I looked down at myself. I knew exactly what he wanted. I almost magicked my panties off and handed them to him just to be mean, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

  Backing way down, he said, “Jo, take a breath. Sorry. That rattled the heck out of me. What do you think did it?” He pointed towards the house as if I had forgotten what I had just seen there.

  “I don’t know. Seriously. I’d have thought maybe a big grizzly bear but both of us know that wasn’t it. I have to make some inquiries before I can give you any more help. Now, take me home. I still have my work to do, too.” I glanced over at him and just to be a bitch, I said, “I’ll bill your office for my time when this is done.”

  He grumbled something under his breath, but I caught ‘whore’ in the mix and ignored it.

  Silence descended as he drove me back to my house. He even walked me to my door and son of a bitch if he didn’t try to kiss me goodbye! As if we’d been on a stupid date or something. Gods, what gall.


  I pushed him away, gently. “You know better than that, Bob. I’m not your wife nor am I your girlfriend. Go to your office.” I turned to go in but his hand gripping my shoulder tightly stopped me.

  He almost snarled, “You were my wife, you know. The Bible says you still are.” Then he gave me his trademark shit eating grin and added, “Why don’t you let me in and let’s see if I can fire up your flame. You used to be pretty good in bed.”

  I stared incredulously at him, as if he’d suddenly grown two heads. I couldn’t believe he’d forgotten how dismal our sex life had been back then. Well, my part of it, anyway. Like a fool, I kept hoping it would improve. I tried to teach him some of the things I’d read or seen on the Internet to no avail. He was a straight, boring, vanilla missionary type and almost always left me unsatisfied. Not long after we got married, he caught me taking care of my need one night after he’d finished and rolled over. He got extremely angry and screamed at me some verse or other about submitting to him willingly and how sinful masturbation was; that I was there for his pleasure, not mine. I should have heeded the warning because of the things that came after. This was not long before he found out that I also liked girls. That was a night to remember, too. He actually locked me in the hall closet of our little apartment! Then he stood outside the door and read from his book until I wanted to puke.

  Now, as I looked into his hopeful eyes, I realized that I had far more bad memories of him than good.

  I’ve since had far better sex from both men and women and I am in love with a woman. Bob? It would be a very cold day in hell before I’d ever let him back into my life or bed again.

  I heaped plenty of ice to my voice when I replied, “I see you managed to forget that Elsa is my loving partner.” I scorched him with a look. “You sure manage to tout that old book when it benefits your sorry ass. No, Bob. Now leave before you force me to make you leave.”

  He got a strange, crazed look in his eyes and I saw him clench his right fist. I knew right then that his wife had been on the receiving end of more than one beating. On the other hand, I learned a lesson the summer I was twenty. Never let him close to me again. A moment later he was picking himself up out of my yard.

  “You’ll pay for that, bitch!” he yelled at me, fury turning his handsome face ugly.

  Elsa came to the door and opened it as I said loudly, “No, Bob, you won’t do anything to me. Don’t you dare go home and take it out on your wife, either. I will fix your sorry ass if you do and trust me, I can find out. Now…I will call you when, and if, I find something helpful to your investigation. Go home to your wife and children tonight. Be nice to them.” I stepped inside and set my wards as quickly as I could. I’d seen his dark side. The last time was twelve years ago when he put me in the hospital that second time. My so-called dark side was much worse than his and I rarely brought it out. If I did, he wouldn’t like the results.

  I leaned against Elsa in the hallway and stared unseeing into my living room. Fuck. My perfect morning was turning into another perfectly shitty day. The morning was shot, and I definitely needed that stiff drink. I haven’t had a drink in the morning since my partying days but today I needed one.

  In the kitchen, Elsa watched silently as I poured a half glass of good tequila and took a big sip of it. The warmth as it flowed down my throat helped sooth raw nerves; the ones he ruffled and what I’d seen at Sato’s house.

  I took my drink back into my living room and sat in my grandmother’s chair. I didn’t like where my thoughts were going about what I’d seen.

  I am a witch. I can do stuff with magic. No, none of us can control the weather, even locally. There were times when I wished I could.

  I can’t raise the dead although I can certainly make people that way and have. I can move things bigger than me. Like Bob a few minutes ago. No, what was bothering me was something else entirely.

  Elsa waited patiently as she sat across the room. She knew I’d talk about it and after another swallow, I did. I told her about Sato’s house and what I saw inside.

  I finished the drink and set the glass down on the small table beside me. “I have heard stories from childhood about ‘things’ from nightmares that inhabit the world in general and the Northwest in particular. Hell, they’ve even made television shows about them. I have also heard stories about fairytale people living here, too. Stories, right? Fairies, brownies, pixies and the like. Kinda like us witches? But we are real. The old ‘cut me and I bleed,’ thing. I do and have, been cut and I damn sure bleed. You know that. I can heal myself though, if it’s not too bad. I’ve done that a couple’a times, too. I helped myself heal the second time Bob put me in the hospital, but I couldn’t save my ability to get pregnant. It was just too late when I came out of my induced coma.”

  I stared in the distance before I continued. “Sometimes people I look for don’t appreciate being found. You’ve seen the nifty scar on my left hip?” She nodded. “That one came from a seventeen-year-old girl who didn’t want to be found. She had a box knife that I didn’t see. Bitch. She’s in jail now, at twenty-four. A year ago, she got life without parole for murder, at no great surprise. Caught her boyfriend sleeping around. She killed him and some poor girl who had no idea what she’d gotten herself into.”

  Leaning back, I conjured more tequila and took a sip and tried to relax. “Well, why not?” I asked Elsa. “I’m a witch that can’t exist so why can’t there be other creatures like me?” I chuckled at the thought as she slowly nodded.

  There was a wild section of yard out back that could house storybook elves, for instance. Fat lot I knew at the time. My parents kept it that way deliberately and oddly enough, before they moved south, made me swear I’d never change anything back there. I haven’t although the mosquitos love it.

  I picked up the folder and looked at Reiko Sato’s photos again. She was a woman of intense beauty after the ugliness I’d just seen. And something about them stirred me deeply. Or maybe it was her? Hell, I didn’t know. I was wired and the tequila was relaxing me faster than I expected.

  I sipped and continued to relax. I felt my eyelids get heavy and fought sleeping. I had things to do but the tequila was kicking my ass. I’d skipped breakfast and was paying for it now. Reiko and the rest of this shit would have to wait until later today.

  Sleep abruptly won and I was dead to the world. Elsa covered me with my grandmother’s quilt and let me be. At some point, I awoke from one of the most intensely erotic dreams I’d ever had. Whoa! There was another person in it…a woman, I think. Reiko? I didn’t know but holy shit what she did to me. Was Reiko invading my dreams? Could she? Whatever. The dream was hot, and I most assuredly enjoyed what had happened to me in it.

  Smiling, I snuggled back into the quilt and hoped to recapture it as I fell deep asleep again.

  I awoke again later feeling wonderful. I don’t think the dream continued but I sure as hell felt great. Elsa left me a note saying she’d be at the office if I needed her.

  Since today was a much-needed rest day from my training, I walked to work because my car was still there. Still feeling the effects of that dream, I dressed in a short dark blue skirt, white blouse and my black leather jacket.

  The weather was cooperating, and on the way, I stopped at my favorite Evangelina’s Bistro for coffee and flirted with the barista. I don’t think I’m old enough to be qualified as a cougar but then he is a handsome young man. In his early twenties, he has longish, dark curly hair and is tall and solidly built. He was a history major at U-Dub and fun to be around. He flirted right back, too. I like handsome guys, too. Sue me. I said I was bi. I’m pretty sure that with the way I felt that afternoon all he’d have had to do was crook a finger and I’d been back in the storeroom with him, panties off and skirt up around my hips in a flash. I wondered how Elsa would react if I’d done something like that? About the same way I would, I imagined. Badly, probably.

  It didn’t happen, of course, and I finally made it to the office. Elsa h
ad brought in some pastries and met me at my desk. “Jo! What the hell? Did you do something naughty before you came in? No! You nailed that boy at Evangelina’s, didn’t you? You positively glow with sexual satisfaction.” She was teasing but there was that look in her eyes that said she hoped I hadn’t.

  I replied, “Prying, Elsa? At your age?” Both of us laughed for a minute as we sipped coffee and munched on the Danishes. She was thirty, just a couple of years younger than me. She had been married and divorced and had no children, either.

  Still laughing, she answered, “No, I’m not prying. Well, actually yes!” Now she teased, “Is he any good? But damn you sure look happy.”

  “I am happy as hell and no; I didn’t nail him but all he’d have had to do was ask.” I sighed and batted my eyes at her. “Baby, you are the only person in my life that I love and that’s not gonna change anytime soon. What happened was that I had the most incredible dream when I was sleeping.” I looked into her soft blue eyes. “Yeah, I came, too, and I’ll tell you, I can’t remember the last time a dream did that to me. Maybe it was the release my body needed after seeing that scene at the Sato house. I don’t know but it helped.”

  She stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “You had a hot, sexy orgasmic dream after going to Sato’s house? You’re weird, Jo.”

  “Yeah, I know. Oh lord, Elsa. I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.”

  She got up and hugged me tightly. “Was it really as bad as the news said it was?”

  “Oh, Elsa. It was much, much worse. Trust me.” I hugged her back and she returned to her chair beside my desk. With a sigh, I sipped my coffee and pushed my Danish aside. “There’s no way I could explain it any better earlier.”

  She smiled gently at me, the way she does when she knows I’m rattled and need to lean on her. “So…an orgasmic dream, eh? I thought only boys did that. I don’t think I’ve ever done it.”