Shifting Problems

by Jason Paul Rice

  Most succubi were vampiric in nature and only came out at night to feed on the nightmares of men and use those bad dreams to comfort, and eventually seduce the men.

  The Red Cavern was pulling out all the stops for this G20 Massacre, but I still hadn’t figured out how it would ultimately be to their benefit. The Jersey Devil stuffed me into a green Honda Accord, paid the driver in cash and came back to my window.

  “The 29th. Don’t let me down on this one.”

  “Hey just one last thing. I promised Suzette’s mom that I would have her home by ten. So, try not to make me look back on that one.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose in disgust. “You’re either going to get me that book and I will never see you again, or you’re going to die. Either way, I’m not going to have to listen to your stupid mouth ever again.”

  He wanted to be serious. Okay. The driver shifted the car into drive. I said, “The cops know that Glenn is a succubus. In fact, they are all over you.”

  The car slowly pulled away until the Jersey Devil released a mighty scream. “Stop that car.”

  The driver slammed on the brakes, exactly as I had wanted.

  The Jersey Devil sauntered up to the window. “What did you just say?”

  “You thought you could run around Pittsburgh, committing all these murders and the boys and girls in blue weren’t going to figure it out. Tsk, tsk, tsk. You went all in on the first hand of the night. I’d be pretty scared if I were you.”

  His scary eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. Why did you wait all this time to tell me that?”

  “You seemed to be having so much fun degrading me and showing me that you had kidnapped my friends. The timing didn’t seem quite right. And the cops know a lot more than me.”

  “The police don’t deal in the world that you and I do. They couldn’t figure anything out without help from specialists.” He stared right into my eyes and I slammed the doors to my soul shut and locked the door.

  “They are getting a lot sharper now. They even have established a department for the Occult. I can’t tell you exactly what they know. I wish. I’d love to scare the hell out of you. Your little stunt caused them to take something they had entirely dismissed in the past as a serious security threat to the city.”

  I saw nervousness on the Jersey Devil’s disgusting face. “You’re lying. A big bluff job is all this is.”

  “Sorry, I’m a good boy. I don’t do bluff jobs. You can ask Suzette if you don’t believe me.”

  He let out a gruff sigh. “Ohhhh. He’s got jokes, everyone. I wish I could kill you right now. However, none of this new information changes our deal. Your police friends come close to me or any of my associates, your friends will die.” He pointed toward the limousine as if I hadn’t known who he was referring to. The Jersey Devil tapped the top of the car and the driver took off.

  Another backfire. I hoped that I had put a little scare into the Devil with my lies. On to Ruth Westerhouse. I texted her saying that I would be by in a bit. I guessed she was excited by the smiley face emoji she sent in return.

  I sat back in the passenger seat and tried to take stock of the situation. The Jersey Devil was using Glenn to seduce and recruit possible clients for the sex club. I also had a healthy hunch that the “Barber” had been sharing her clients’ cut hair with the demi-devil. He could then use it to exert further control over said person.

  What was the end game? The demons weren’t going to take control of national governments, were they? My brain twisted around, trying to put all the clues together. Some of the matters were coming together, but they only raised more questions along the way. I had to perform an impossible task. I planned to try to get the Gods to help me figure this out since Alayna had turned her back on me.

  I basically had to take control of the wheel to convince the driver to drop me off at Ruth Westerhouse’s place. He fought me the entire time, but I wasn’t walking, taking a bicycle, or calling for another ride at this point. I desperately needed a car, but my meager auto savings fund had been depleted in the last few days.

  Paying for dinner. Multiple car rides. And, of course, a steady supply of Jameson. It all added up and I was almost out of booze as we pulled onto Ruth’s street.

  15

  I walked up to the door and Ruth opened it before I had a chance to knock. She was wearing flannel pajamas and no makeup, which was a stark change. Her hair was wet and I caught a fruity whiff of mango as she ran her fingers through the tangled mess.

  I used my Bogart voice, unknowingly, “So, what did you want to talk to me about? You said you had some information that might help.”

  She closed one eye, indicating I should ditch the deep voice. “Yes. I also wanted to know if you had been able to find anything out about Darren. It’s tearing me up inside.”

  I focused on the red marks around her neck. They were fresh and I got the sinking feeling they were caused by fingers and thumbs. “We haven’t been able to find out too much.”

  She cut right to the chase and I could smell Jameson on her breath. “You didn’t come back and take that box, did you?” She tried to drop it in casually as she played with her hair.

  “Ma’am. You pointed a gun in my face and threatened to shoot me. I took that threat seriously and went straight home that night. Why do you ask?”

  She invited me in. Ruth led me down a hallway into her dining room with a long rectangular table, wooden chairs and a presentation storage cabinet filled with fine china. “Well, it’s gone now and I just want to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. So, you haven’t found out anything else? I mean, about the case. Sit down.” She sat down across the table.

  I got a strange sensation of lingering magic. It wasn’t in the house right now, but it had been. Despite the possible concussion and rattled brain, I quickly uncovered Ruth’s game. She didn’t have any information for me. She was trying to glean information out of me. She was being used by the Red Cavern somehow.

  I tried to change the line of questioning. “How well do you know the McNights?”

  She looked away. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “I’d murder a glass of Jameson, if you had any.” I knew she had an empty bottle, at least.

  Her eyes shifted, possibly questioning how I knew she had Jameson, and then she smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared from the dining room and I heard cabinets opening and closing. I scanned the room for any pertinent details. Nothing jumped out but I realized she had avoided the question about the McNights after openly talking about them the other night.

  She came back and handed me a rocks glass, nearly full of my favorite booze. She sipped her drink and I asked her again before she had a chance to sit back down, “So, the McNights?”

  She slid into the chair and took another sip of her drink. “Darren introduced us.”

  I pounded my fist on the table almost spilling my drink. “All right let’s cut the shit right now. You’re telling me that the two most powerful families in the city of Pittsburgh didn’t mingle with each other. And you only met them as an adult. It doesn’t add up.”

  She took a big gulp of Jameson and lowered her head. “Our families didn’t get along. And you have to understand that there are many members of each family. But for the most part, we were raised to hate the McNights.”

  “Is that why you don’t get along with your family now?”

  “Where did you hear that?” She took a drink. I leaned across the table and held the bottom of her glass to make her keep drinking. She was close to spilling the beans. She choked and spit some of the amber liquid on the table, but then took another gulp. Ruth used the cotton place mat to wipe up the liquid.

  “I’m a detective. It’s my job to find out things and keep the identity of my sources a secret or I wouldn’t have any sources. And honestly, this isn’t a very big secret.”

  She finished her drink as I looked at my glass, still half full. She said, “I know. I g
uess I’ve always known. Darren became friends with the McNights and we ended up going on a double date with Harold and Raquel and had a great time. We became fast and furious friends and when my parents found out I was hanging out with the McNights, they went ballistic. Excuse me.”

  She grabbed her glass, got up from the table and left the room. I took a drink and hoped she would keep talking. She re-entered the room with a full rocks glass, spilling over the sides, and sat back down.

  She burped. “Excuse me. What were we talking about?”

  “Your friendship with the McNights and how it caused strain with your family.”

  “Right.” She spilled some of the drink on her finger and licked it off. “After my parents basically disowned me was when the McNights took us to their club.”

  I tried to be direct. “Sex club?”

  She nodded and lowered her head. “Yes. It was really fun at first. Pittsburgh can be so boring. Then it took, sort of, a dark turn. I can’t tell you anything else. They’ll kill me”

  I wanted to promise her that she would be safe. That I would never let anything happen to her. I knew she was being used by a powerful demon and wanted to help me more than anything. But, I’d be lying if I told her I could keep her safe. Hell, I could barely keep myself safe.

  I studied her eyes, the dull gray flecks of her irises screamed a song of sadness and her bloodshot corneas spoke of sleepless nights. I’d lost a lover too, and understood the pain she must be going through.

  Emily. I’ll never forget her.

  I said, “I’m not going to ask you anymore who they are, because I know. I know they have threatened you. I know that they told you to have me over so that you could find out what I know.”

  She sat up straight, frightened. “Wait, are you one of them? Did they send you to kill me?” She picked up her glass and threw the Jameson at me. The golden liquid hit my face and dripped onto my ruined shirt. She jumped up from the table.

  Strange defense. She would have been better off throwing the heavy glass at me. I threw my hands up. “I’m only here to help you. But I can’t help you unless you tell me what you know. What changed with the sex club?” I licked the Jameson off my lips and wiped my face off with my sleeves.

  Ruth went to the kitchen and got me a towel. She sat back down, embarrassed. “Sorry, I’m a little on edge. It was mostly the McNights. They became obsessed with magic. How was I to know what kind of magic it was? Darren became infatuated with it like I told you already and I just followed his lead. Years flew by and it seemed like I had only blinked my eyes, and the next thing I knew, the club had taken a dark turn.”

  She reached out for my glass of Jameson, which I happily handed to her. She drank the remainder and set it on the table. The woman could drink. She continued, her words starting to slur, “People wanted to leave the club, but the McNights wouldn’t let them. They kept saying that it would mess up the grand plan.”

  “The grand plan. What was that?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t privy to those types of conversations and I didn’t want to be. Darren did. He tried to talk to me about it, but I wouldn’t listen. I wasn’t into black magic and using the power of demons.” Her body shook like she had the chills.

  “So did you catch bits and pieces of the conversations?”

  “Here and there. Like I said, I tried to tune him out. They are convinced you have that box, by the way. They’re going to kill you if you don’t give it back to me,” she warned.

  “I’m pretty sure they will, if I had the box, but alas, I do not. Who choked you?”

  Her leathery, freckled face turned a dark shade of red. “What? What these?” She pointed to the marks on her neck. “That’s nothing. I was trying to massage my neck and I got a little rough.” She took a drink out of the empty glass and looked up at the ceiling.

  She was a terrible liar. I asked, “Harold did it, right?”

  A horrified look came over her face, “What?”

  “Let’s stop the lying now.”

  She let out a mighty sigh and leaned back in the chair. “After Darren did what he did, Harold went ballistic. I can’t even count how many times he’s threatened to kill me. Apparently, Darren screwed up his mission.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “Screwed up. How did he screw up?”

  She looked at the empty glass again and I could tell she was debating on getting another. “He was supposed to commit his murders the next day. It would make twenty shifter murders on the same day to send out the warning for the G20 conference. Darren did it a day early.”

  “Have you seen Darren since the murders?”

  “No. Harold keeps saying that if he finds him, he’s going to kill him too. Then, he got physical with me because he thought I lost the box.” She rubbed her neck.

  “Why do you fear Harold?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I’ve never met the guy and I’m new to Pittsburgh. Humor me.”

  She waited for a few moments trying to gather her thoughts. “He’s a powerful warlock, for one. At least, that’s what he calls himself. I never saw it myself, but the stories Darren told me were scary. That he could make a cat explode, just by looking at it. Creepy, dark stuff. And Darren was afraid of him. Darren was the strongest man I’d ever met, not physically, but mentally. He wouldn’t admit it to me, but I could tell he was scared of Harold and that scared me even more.”

  “I need to know more about the magic stories. Specifically, about Harold.”

  A pounding knock on the front door caused Ruth and me to sit up straight. Fear quickly conquered the contours of her face as her eyes widened and her mouth opened. She jumped up and pointed toward the back of the house. “You gotta go out the back. Oh my God, I hope it’s not them again.”

  16

  I slipped out the back door with a heavy heart. I wanted to stay and possibly help Ruth, but I ultimately thought my presence might do more harm than good. I walked through the communal woods in the back of Ruth’s house and came out in someone else’s back yard. I stumbled out onto the street, found the house’s address and called for an Uber.

  The adrenaline from the night’s action wore off and the half-glass of Jameson kicked in when my friend in the tiny smart car showed up. I hopped in and made small talk with the nice older lady on the way to my house. She dropped me off and my second wind kicked in.

  I pounded on Reginald’s door. “Reg. Get out here. We need to talk, my friend.”

  The door jerked open and his son, Ronald, appeared with an angry scowl, adjusting his square frames, focusing on me. “What the fuck are you doing making all this commotion? My dad’s asleep, man.”

  “I just wanted to talk to my friend.”

  “First off, it’s a little weird that you two are friends. How old are you anyway? But if he wakes up, you know who’s got to deal with him. Me. Not you. Me. You know who’s gotta take him to the bathroom. Me. Not you. Me.”

  “I was just trying to talk…”

  He slammed the door in my face.

  “I was just trying to talk to the only person I can really talk about magic with.” I pounded on the door a few more times, hoping to wake Reginald up.

  I’d helped Reg go to the bathroom many times, and it wasn’t that big a deal. I went inside my apartment, poured myself another glass of whiskey, and hunkered down on my loveseat.

  The McNights had suddenly emerged as a serious player in this game. It almost seemed like the demons were using them to recruit for the sex club and cause these people to crave dark magic. It still didn’t explain how the Jersey Devil had control over all the other shifters and why they didn’t have to conform to the conventional rules.

  I hadn’t encountered the downward spiral effect that Alayna had warned me about concerning magic. I totally understood it though. Once a person got even the smallest taste of magic, they wanted more. It’s addictive, and I can tell you that from personal experience. You needed to practice patience with magic and
let it come to you.

  However, the demons had discovered a way to give humans a bit of magic, back away, and let them beg for more. The Red Cavern would turn them basically into drug addicts, begging for the next fix. In turn, the demons would force the humans to carry out their will for the promise of more magic.

  I still couldn’t put all the pieces together. How did the sex club and “Barber” Glenn tie into everything? And how did all this tie into the G20? On top of it all, I had to try to sneak into the Deep Burrow without Alayna. I had never gone there without her and didn’t even know if the portal would work for me.

  My face and neck were sticky from the Jameson splash Ruth had so graciously given me, so I decided to jump in the shower. Drunk showers were the best. My mind drifted to my meeting with the Gods. I had to ask the deities, but I already knew they wouldn’t give me the Sacred Pages, which meant at least two innocent people, including a God were going to die.

  I didn’t consider myself innocent anymore. I was in too deep. If I got dealt with, it would be my own damn fault, not anyone else’s.

  A great idea crossed my mind as I heard the front door opening despite the water from the shower. Considering the door was off the hinges, the abrasive scraping of wood on wood was hard to miss. I assumed Reginald had woken up and wanted to talk. Despite the craziness of everything and the probable concussion, the shower coupled with some Jameson had me feeling good.

  I worked some shampoo into my hair and got a little in my eyes. The danger of a drunken shower. I screamed to Reg, “I’ll be right down, buddy.”

  A squeaky male voice said, “Don’t worry, we’ll come to you.” I heard the shower curtain being ripped open and felt the cool breeze from the open window.

  I tried to get the shampoo out of my eyes, but my blurry vision could only see a massive nebulous figure. I didn’t see the blunt object until it cracked me on the right side of my forehead, next to the hoofprint. Everything faded to black.

  I woke up, bloody and dizzy on my bathroom floor with the shower still running. I had at least crawled out of the shower after the assault. I touched the newest cut on my forehead. It stung so I ripped my finger away. My head felt like it was in between a set of vise grips, and the cruel master kept tightening them just a little bit at certain intervals to increase the pressure.