A Witch, a Fairy, and an Esper

by Ross Homer

  I messed with her and finally she sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched, knowing I was watching. I took a deep breath and looked out the window instead of at her amazing body.

  “Yes, tiny woman, I am deigning to run with you mere mortals today. I’ll ride tomorrow.”

  She stood now. “Then Nissa and I are going to run your ass off, oh tall, wannabe Goddess.”

  “Try it. We’ll see who’s looking for an ass when we’re done. Now…get moving. Coffee’s ready and the day is perfect.”

  Still grumbling, Elsa went into the bathroom while I put on my running gear. Nissa was already in the kitchen, smiling and ready to go.

  We were soaked within ten feet of my front door but that just added impetus to get after it. Running generated heat and in no time the three of us were sweating.

  Nissa grinned as she jogged beside me. “Did I tell you how much fun video conferencing is on the phone?”

  I laughed at her as I splashed through a puddle. “You didn’t need to. We may as well have been in the bedroom with you.”

  She smacked me on my wet ass as she went by me, upping the pace. Damn that stung! Of course, I took off after her. Bitch was going to get hers! I heard Elsa laughing behind me. She called out, “You bitches just go for it. I’ll be the one on top of things when we get home while you two are dragging ass!”

  It wasn’t long before the three of us were together again laughing and enjoying the rain. A witch, a fairy, and an Esper. Sounded like a book title.

  When we hit the park we ran through as our turnaround point, I heard Elsa inhale sharply. out of the corner of my eye, saw her go down hard! Stopping, I thought she’d tripped, until I saw the blood gushing from her thigh.

  I immediately recognized that she’d been shot. Quickly looking around for the gunman, I grabbed her under the arms and dragged her into a copse of trees.

  Nissa had stopped and looked back, confused at what I was doing.

  I screamed, “Nissa! Elsa’s been shot! Call 911. Gaia! I think it’s her femoral artery. Please hurry.” I ripped off my sports bra and made a tourniquet around Elsa’s upper thigh above the wound and started tightening it. Yes, I was topless, but I didn’t care at the moment. Then I used some healing magic to slow the blood down. As soon as the blood slowed enough, I’d conjure a top for me.

  Except it didn’t go that way. Oh, Goddess it didn’t go that way.

  <<<<<>>>>>

  He smiled as he decided to take the time to shoot the wicked woman again. He was still safely hidden. Carefully, he lined up the next shot. The idea was to hit the target and not the other woman.

  Squeezing the trigger, he felt the soft recoil against his shoulder and grinned when he saw her body jerk from the second bullet. Perfect.

  He quietly finished his coffee as he took the gun apart. His little hiding place was about as perfect as they come and now all he had to do was simply walk away. Actually, he mentally patted himself on the back for hitting his target twice, especially since she was lying on the ground for the second shot. Too bad he couldn’t brag about how he had to thread the shot between those damn trees. He wasn’t sure if either shot would kill her but that second round into her rib cage probably would.

  <<<<<>>>>>

  Another jogger ran over to me and knelt on the ground beside Elsa. I was so busy trying to staunch the wound in her thigh that I hadn’t seen the second bullet hit her. I felt a jerk but didn’t think about it.

  The woman said, “Take care of that wound. I’m a nurse and will see what I can do here.”

  I looked around in alarm. “What? What? What wound? She’s only been shot here!”

  “No, lady. She’s been shot here, too. In the side. Sweet Mary. This isn’t good. Where the hell’s the EMTs? What the fuck just happened? Have you called 911 yet? She’s bad!”

  The woman was as rattled as I was. “No! My friend has. She’s over there behind some trees. Please Goddess, don’t let my baby die!”

  Before I could utter another word, the street and park were suddenly swarming with cops and EMTs. A female EMT took over with Elsa’s leg. She nodded at the jogger and said to me, “Ma’am, we have this. You did exactly the right thing.” She looked into my eyes for a second. “You’re not Fae but you’re something. Both of us are, though. You used magic here. I’m very glad you didn’t heal her. Too many eyes, if you know what I mean. And, ahh, you might want to cover up.”

  I’d forgotten I was kneeling there with my boobs hanging out. Not even thinking about it I conjured up a dark blue sweatshirt.

  “Oh,” the EMT said, unsurprised. “You’re a witch? Cool. I’m a Pixie, actually. Now…let us take her to St. Anne’s.”

  I didn’t know how in hell I had become so calm all of a sudden about all this. “Please take good care of her. I love her with all my heart and soul.” I looked over at Nissa who was coming towards us.

  The EMT put a bloody hand on my arm and replied, “Count on it. It would kill me if my partner died.”

  In a moment, another EMT came over and helped put Elsa on a stretcher. She smiled weakly at me and whispered, “I love you Jo.”

  “I love you too, Elsa. Please don’t worry about a thing. This Pixie here will take care of you.”

  But her eyes were already closed, and I felt my heart stop.

  I wasn’t sure how I made it over to Nissa with the tears clouding my vision.

  Nissa hugged me hard. “How is she?”

  Before I could answer, I saw the shock paddles come out and I collapsed to my knees. Oh no! I could do some things as a witch but save a life? Nissa held me from running back over to Elsa.

  They shocked her twice before her heart was beating on its own again. In my fog, I heard the ambulance leaving.

  This was horrible! There were no words. I was so frightened.

  And then it became far, far worse.

  Lieutenant Bob Albertson was standing there, smirking down at me. Had Nissa not been kneeling on the ground beside me with her arm around my shoulders just then, I would have murdered my dear ex-husband.

  He had a notepad in his hand when he asked coldly, “Tell me what happened to your dyke girlfriend, Jocelyn.”

  Not a single word of commiseration.

  Nissa and I stood, and I snapped at him, “Fuck you, Bob. I have to go to the hospital. That’s my partner in the ambulance.”

  “No, Jo, you’re not going anywhere until you and this other woman answer questions.” He looked Nissa up and down as if she were nothing more than a rancid side of beef.

  He was inferring that this other woman was sleeping with me, too. Nissa picked up on it and corrected him in a few terse words.

  “Lieutenant,” she snapped, “I am married to one of your men. You know that so drop that insinuation. At the moment, I’m staying with Jo and her partner, Elsa St. Germaine. So, buddy, you better just fucking reel it in before Captain Faroe and I have a discussion about your truly shitty attitude.”

  He wouldn’t let it go. “Where’s your badge, then?”

  Surprising him as well as me, she pulled it out of her butt bag and shoved it in his face. “You have no doubt seen me around the office.”

  “Yeah, I thought that was you.” He looked her up and down as her jogging outfit clung to her curves.

  “Lieutenant, what did I just say about reeling it in? Now…didn’t you have some questions for Ms. Palmer?”

  I saw that right fist of his clench and hoped he’d take a swing at her. But the tension was way too high, and this could get completely out of control if he did.

  I said as quietly as I could, “Bob. Ask your damn questions. But I’ll answer the couple right off that you’re dying to know. The very first one is this: I’m repeating what you already know so maybe you’ll finally get it through your thick skull. I’m sleeping with a woman, one that I dearly love. Get over it. Ms. St. Germaine and I are a couple whether you like it or not. We’re engaged to get married later this spring. Happy? Secondly, I don’t know what
happened or who shot her. We were jogging when she went down. I didn’t know she’d been shot in the side too, because I was busy trying to stop her from bleeding to death from the bullet wound in the leg.”

  He seemed far too calm with my comments and that should have given me a clue.

  “Did she have any enemies? You people seem to make a lot of them.”

  I was getting over my shock about Elsa. Just to piss him off, I answered waspishly, “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Give it a rest. We people? Maybe you forgot that I’m bi? So is Elsa, as if that makes any difference. It just so happens that the person I gave my heart to is a woman…not a Bible pounding asshole.” I glared daggers at him. Luckily, I guess, I barely managed not to make them real daggers.

  It’s funny how Nissa seems to always be there to corral me in when I start to lose it around people like Bob. She took my hand and squeezed it, stopping anymore crap from me.

  She said to him, “No. Elsa didn’t have any enemies. None. She and Jo have been partners in their business and love for the last six years. Neither has had any reason to look elsewhere. But I’ll tell you, lieutenant, it wasn’t a random shooting. Elsa was targeted.”

  Nissa, as I’ve said, is a big woman. She rose to every single centimeter of it as if daring him to push harder. That wet silver hair seemed to glow in the weak lights, encircling her head like a halo. Maybe that made him pull in his horns. It fooled him because Nissa was anything but a saint.

  He asked a couple more inane questions while openly staring at my wet sweatshirt. I know what he was seeing and hoping he could get his hands on but that wasn’t happening today any more than it was the other morning.

  I said, “If you’re done, I need to go put on some dry clothes then go to St. Anne’s.”

  “Yeah, take off. Don’t leave town. I may have more questions for you.”

  “Sure thing, Bob. Nissa, let’s get out of here.”

  She nodded. “Let me see if I can get us a ride. There’s Wilda James over beside her patrol car. She’ll give us a ride.”

  Without another word, we left Bob and went over to the cop Nissa knew. We were at home in a few minutes, showered, and in dry clothes in a few more.

  Nissa drove because I was anything but capable. Sitting at a light, fretting, a thought hit me square in the chest. It was hard enough to make me gasp. Nissa turned abruptly and looked at me.

  “Nissa, did you notice that Bob was there awfully damn fast? Did you see him drive up? Anything other than suddenly appear?”

  She continued staring at me. “No, I didn’t. I was busy helping you and watching the EMTs. But…you’re right.”

  She said exactly what I was thinking. “This is too scary for words. Did he shoot Elsa? To take her out of your life. Missing you once I could buy, but not twice. She was the target alright. Proving it is going to be damn near impossible. Say what you can about him, he’s still a pretty good cop. He’d be able to cover all the bases for something like this.”

  On the rest of the drive to the hospital, we kicked around various ideas and scenarios. The one thing we agreed on was the ninety-nine-point nine percent probability that Bob Albertson shot Elsa St. Germaine. Motive? Most likely to get at me for some reason.

  As we rushed into the emergency room, something else occurred to me. I stopped in the middle of the floor and took Nissa’s arm.

  “Nissa! We must get one of the bullets that hit Elsa. You’re the real cop here. Tell them it for ballistics. Okay?”

  She eyed me oddly. “What do you have in mind?”

  “The shooter almost without a doubt recently touched the bullets. There’s almost no way he could have loaded the gun without that. If I can hold it, I might be able to get a feeling as to who he is and where he is. Just like I normally do.” I thought about it a second longer. “But, and I hate to say ‘but’, it may not work at all.”

  “Good thinking, Jo. That would have never occurred to me.”

  “It almost didn’t occur to me, either.”

  We checked in and the information about our relationship didn’t even raise an eyebrow to the desk clerk. Maybe there was hope for our country after all.

  She said, “Ms. St. Germaine is still in surgery and it may be another hour or longer. Take a seat. The surgeon will see you as soon as she can. Here, take this pager if you’re not in our waiting area.”

  Nissa introduced herself and then said, “We must have one or both of the bullets that hit Ms. St. Germaine. Can you get word to the surgeon?”

  “Yes. I’ll take care of it now. Why don’t you go in the waiting area.”

  It was going to be a long wait.

  Chapter 10

  Roy Bob was having an intense dream about Gaelle. Poppi was asleep beside him and he knew that. As he came about half awake, he knew it was because he missed her worse that he thought he would.

  He found it funny because his hand was wrapped around one of Poppi’s large breasts. Smiling at the odd situation, he squeezed it gently before he rolled out of bed.

  Something had disturbed him, and it wasn’t what he was feeling just then. That’s why he was waking up at…three AM, he read on his bedside clock. Ridiculous. He had the house and property alarms set but there was something happening.

  Carefully, he stood and opened his bedside drawer. He wasn’t going to fool around at this time of the night with his chromed Colt .45 Peacemaker. No…he grabbed the fully loaded double stack Glock 19. He had fifteen rounds of kick ass in the gun and he was ready.

  He moved quietly as he slipped on his jeans and slippers. Didn’t need a shirt for this. Then putting on his glasses, he went to the door of his bedroom. When he opened it, something…something was standing there with a wide grin on its face.

  The thing said, “Good morning Roy Bob. We have things to discuss. Please come with me to your vault. That should be sufficient for our needs.”

  Roy Bob brought up the gun but something he couldn’t see snatched it easily out of his hand.

  The thing said, “No, you don’t need that. Besides, those damn bullets sting.”

  He found his voice. “But I paid Aato! What the hell? Does he want more?”

  “I am Aato and no, I do not want more money. Come along.”

  A shriek of pure terror from the bedroom almost made him pee in his jeans. A moment later, Poppi was carried past him. There was something over her mouth, but her eyes were wide with fright.

  Having no choice, Roy Bob followed Aato into the vault. He didn’t bother to wonder how this thing knew about the vault. It was irrelevant now. What he wondered about was whether or not he was going to survive the rest of the night. Being who he was, he didn’t give Poppi another thought.

  The surprises continued. Carl was standing in the vault along with the girl from the truck stop. Both were naked. It kind of pissed Roy Bob off because he didn’t know Carl was screwing her. He nodded but didn’t say anything to either of them. He had kind of guessed that under that starched uniform of hers was a pretty nice body. It was better than he’d expected. But, would any of them survive so he could give her a shot too?

  As he stood there, his other two pilots were brought in too. Both women were much like Poppi; they were pretty and had excellent bodies. He liked the women around him to be easy on the eyes and pretty much succeeded.

  The cook was an exception, though. She was a large woman with an attractive face. He let the fact that she was larger than the others slip because she could cook anything he desired.

  She stood there too, in a flimsy nightgown.

  Three of his men were there as well.

  His heart sank. This was much like Sato and he felt that it was going to end up the same way.

  “What do you want with us,” he asked Aato.

  The vault door slammed shut and he heard the locking wheel turn. No one was leaving here tonight.

  Aato responded with, “You are to be an important lesson in what happens when you anger Aato. Yes, I have the money you owed me. Yes, I have a
lso cleaned every penny in this house. And finally, yes, you will die. All of you. You, Roy Bob, last. All of it will be recorded.”

  Carl tried to grab one of the many guns in the vault. Not to shoot Aato or either of his minions but to kill himself. His hand and half his forearm fell to the floor. Then one of the minions cauterized the wound as Carl screamed in pain.

  The girl with him collapsed onto the floor. One of the men ran for the vault door and he collapsed in two pieces, split neatly in half, top to bottom. Blood and internal organs plopped sickeningly to the floor.

  For the next few minutes bedlam reigned as women screamed and men yelled. When silence returned, what Roy Bob witnessed was shocking.

  Other than Carl’s forearm and the man split in half, there were no other injuries or deaths and everyone still lived.

  Slowly now, one by one, each of the men died painfully, horribly. Each one was ripped to shreds as the others watched and waited their turns. They became docile like cattle in a slaughter chute.

  Then it was Roy Bob and the women. And the cook. Aato wanted her for himself.

  Then it was the cook, Poppi, and Roy Bob.

  When Roy Bob died in the kind of pain that was unimaginable, the horror of what was done to Poppi and the others was the last thing on his mind.

  It was dawn when Aato stood on the front porch of the ranch house. He was satisfied. He had another eleven million dollars and was well fed. It would be quite some time before he or his two minions needed to dine again. The cook was especially delightful to him. Too many women these days were nothing but skin and bones.

  He said to his minions, “It is time to leave here. Let us return to Oregon.”

  Slowly, edited bits and pieces of that night showed up on the dark web. People who borrowed vast sums of money from less than legitimate businesses learned to rethink stiffing their benefactors.

  <<<<<>>>>>

  I hadn’t realized how weak my knees were until I almost fell over when I stood to meet Elsa’s surgeon. She looked grim but she didn’t have bad news.