Night Moves

by Gail Z. Martin

  I nodded. “Yeah. I get it. And I’ll keep my eyes open. Thanks, Padre.” I headed home, ready to crash on the couch with my dog. The superhero movies I’d wanted to watch suddenly seemed too much like real life. Fortunately, Demon likes cooking shows, too.

  3

  The next morning, I stopped at Hamilton Hardware in downtown Conneaut Lake. I needed some specialty ammunition and gossip of the witchy variety.

  “Good morning, Mark. You came in the wrong door if you’re looking for coffee.” Blair Hamilton gave me a cheery greeting from behind the counter of the store she’d inherited from her folks. The hardware store had been in the Hamilton family for generations, and when Blair came back from active duty in the Army, the family legacy fell to her and her wife, Chiara.

  “I’m always looking for coffee,” I replied, returning her grin. “But I also need some gear and ammo.”

  Blair nodded. “Give me a minute, and I’ll be right with you.”

  Blair and Chiara know about my monster hunting. Sometimes, Blair even goes out on a hunt to back me up. She keeps a secret back room at the hardware store full of the kind of equipment needed for hunting supernatural creatures—lots of iron, silver, and unusual weapons. There are some things you just can’t get online.

  I ambled around the store while Blair finished up with a customer. The big chain home improvement stores have their place, but I was glad the competition hadn’t put Hamilton Hardware out of business. Blair and her staff really knew their stuff, and they cared about their customers’ projects. Plus, once Blair started stocking supplies for supernatural hunters as well as the usual deer hunters, people came from quite a distance to get the equipment they felt comfortable staking their lives on.

  “All right, Mark. What can I do for you?” Blair asked when she caught up to me in the fishing aisle. She stood just a few inches shorter than my six-foot-two height, with an athletic build that was all muscle.

  “I’ve been busy—need more ammo,” I replied, pulling my list out of my pocket and handing it to her. Blair can read my chicken scratch, which also counts for points in my book.

  She let out a low whistle. “I’ll say. Hmm. I’ve got some of this in stock, and the rest I have to special order. How fast do you need it?”

  “Right now, I’m just replacing what I’ve used. That could change with the next phone call.”

  Blair nodded. “Gotcha. All right—why don’t you go see Chiara about some coffee and muffins, and I’ll pull what I have. Give me about half an hour, and I’ll pack up what’s in stock and give you an ETA on when to expect the stuff I’ve got to order. Good enough?”

  “Yep. Take your time. I need to talk to Chiara about a few things, and I want time to linger over those muffins.”

  “Oh yeah,” Blair agreed with a laugh. “You’ve got to respect the muffins. Those are way too fine to be gobbled.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so.”

  “She knows, Mark. She knows!”

  The doorway between Hamilton Hardware and Crystal Dreams was a relatively new addition. It created an easy walkway to the bookstore/New Age shop/café run by Chiara Moretti Hamilton. Upstairs, Chiara had a web development business, and in her spare time, she did hunter research for me and a couple of others. Her family ran the best Italian restaurant and bakery in these parts, so the scrumptious offerings in the display case were enough to make a strong man weak.

  I had no willpower when it came to good sfogliatelli.

  “Whoa, Chick!” Chiara greeted me, an intentional mispronunciation of my name, which, for the record, is “voy-chick.”

  “Hey, yourself. Gimme one of your awesome lattes, and while I want to say ‘one of everything,’ I’ll settle for a muffin and one of those lobster-tail things.”

  “Coming right up!” Chiara is petite, with long dark hair, big brown eyes, and a light olive complexion. She has plenty of admirers, but she and Blair have been an item since high school. “You look like you had a rough night.”

  “Yeah, busy taking out the trash,” I replied. No one was behind me in line, but there were other people close enough that I couldn’t speak freely. “When you get a break, I need to talk to you,” I added, dropping my voice. Chiara indicated that she heard with a nod while she finished pulling my latte. Louie gives me shit about liking “fancy” coffee, but I’m not going to take the opinions seriously of a man who will drink Natty Light.

  The bookstore portion of Crystal Dreams had several browsers. In the back, a busy community room hosted weekly Cards Against Humanity games for area teens and a bunko group that was really a local coven. I needed to talk to a witch I could trust, and Chiara was the perfect person to make introductions.

  “Now, what can I do to help?” Chiara asked once she had handed off her counter responsibilities to someone else.

  “I need an introduction to a good witch.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “This oughta be interesting.”

  “The last critter I relocated had something on him that made me think he’d been hexed. It seems like a lot of work for what they got out of it, but the important point is, someone who’s willing to hocus a cryptid might work up to bigger and badder things.”

  Chiara nodded. “Okay. I can see that. And you came to me because…”

  “You have an in with the bunko group,” I replied. “And I thought maybe there’d be someone you knew could give me their professional opinion.”

  She chuckled at my wording, but then she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts. “Here. Linda Horton. I’ll text you her number, and I’ll give her a call, so she knows to expect to hear from you. Linda’s relatively open about things, considering.”

  Considering we were in Northwestern Pennsylvania, where covens were something most people thought only happened on TV. We might not be the buckle on the Bible Belt, but we were certainly the top collar button for the shirt tucked into it. Kinda funny, considering the sorts of creatures and bad magic I spent my time chasing down. I guess denial helps people sleep at night.

  “Thank you.” My gratitude encompassed the coffee, muffin, and connection. “Are you and Blair coming over this weekend for movie night?”

  Chiara grinned. “Planning on it. So don’t watch all the good stuff without us!”

  For us, movie night meant pizza, beer, chips, some binge-worthy flicks, and a bag full of Chiara’s awesome pastries. Sometimes Father Leo dropped by, which was fine with everyone. Demon liked having company. I was just glad to have friends, and in truth, a little amazed. There’d been a long dry spell for a while.

  Chiara placed a call to Linda the witch and got the all-clear for me to stop by. Linda agreed to meet me at one of the chain restaurants out on Rt. 322, and I knew that at this time of day, we’d have the place almost to ourselves.

  The place she’d named had been a low-end steak house before it had been refurbished into a buffet that catered to people who wanted good food and plenty of it. Signs prominently advertised “Senior Discount” and “Early Bird Specials” right next to the big “All you care to eat” banner. Fortunately, the food was exceptionally good, including the coffee.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect from Linda. I don’t deal with witches too often. Usually, I have my hands full with monsters. Sometimes, I end up dealing with the aftereffects of curses, hexes, or spells. Those were my least favorite jobs because they tended to be messy and unpredictable. Monsters usually followed patterns. Magic was a wild card.

  “Linda?” I asked, approaching a booth where a woman in her early sixties sat by herself. Her dark hair had hints of silver in it, a short, chin-length cut that framed her face. She wore a blue t-shirt and jeans and looked—completely normal.

  “You must be Mark.” Linda smiled. “Chiara speaks very well of you. Please, join me.”

  I slid into the booth across from her with my coffee. “Thank you for meeting me. I’m not sure what Chiara told you—”

  “She said you were a hunter.” Linda’s gaze fixed
mine, and while her smile remained, I glimpsed a core of steel inside. “And she promised me safe passage.”

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t mean you any harm,” I said, dropping my voice although we were nearly alone in the restaurant. “But I do need your help. I think someone has been using magic to control supernatural creatures, force them to cause mayhem, damage property. I’m afraid if we don’t put a stop to it, someone will get hurt.”

  “And you believe this, why?”

  “I found part of a hex bag snarled in the hair of a creature I had to capture and relocate. A sheepsquatch. They don’t usually go on suburban rampages. So I have to figure that he was sent to cause problems for someone.”

  I watched Linda as I spoke and saw that she was paying close attention. I couldn’t read more from her than that, but it was a start.

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Over near Tamarack Lake.” I named a few streets where Pat had told me the creature did the most damage. “There may have been other places, too. That’s just where someone called the cops.” I leaned forward. “I’m worried that whoever did this will go beyond property damage next time. And I’m angry that someone used magic to force a creature to do harm. If the cop who got the call hadn’t known about the kinds of things I hunt, they’d have gone out there with rifles and shot the critter—and it wasn’t his fault.”

  That’s my biggest gripe about magic—that it takes away someone’s ability to make their own decisions. Curses, hexes, love spells, you name it—it’s all about control. I’ve got no beef with using magic to do the dishes or heal someone or blow things up. But when one person gets an unfair advantage to control someone against their will, I get testy.

  Linda studied me in silence, and I wondered if she was using good ol’ fashioned intuition or some kind of mojo to size me up. “And you think someone from our coven might have been behind it?”

  I raised both hands in appeasement. “Didn’t say that. I’m just looking for answers. Someone used magic to make that creature cause problems. Would anyone have a reason to target that area? Maybe a squabble between members? Or have you had outsiders causing problems?”

  Linda stayed quiet long enough, I wasn’t sure she was going to answer. “What will you do, if you find out who’s responsible?”

  “Turn them over to the proper authorities.” See, this is why I like dealing with monsters. Most of the time, shooting, burning, stabbing, or exploding works just fine, and choosing what to do isn’t complicated. Whatever works. When human-ish beings are involved, it gets messy. Vampires, shifters, werewolves, witches—they’re as dangerous as the monsters, but dealing with them isn’t as easy. Cops find a headless body, they consider it murder, and it’s awkward trying to explain the vampire part.

  “And who would those authorities be, Mr. Wojcik? The Church? Our coven? The government?” Linda’s brown eyes glinted with challenge.

  “That depends on who they are and what they’ve done,” I replied. “Here’s where I was hoping you’d know if this is some internal feud between members, where your leader could put the kibosh on it. That would be nice and clean.”

  “And if not?” She raised an eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “Then, as I said before, it depends. If it’s a coven member and your folks won’t or can’t put a stop to it, my folks will have to step in.”

  “Do you plan to hang or burn the witches, Mr. Wojcik?” Her voice taunted me, but her eyes were ice cold.

  “Neither. I imagine you’re familiar with counter magic to suppress power—even strip away abilities in extreme cases?” Those measures weren’t something I could do, but Father Leo had mentioned that the Occulatum had plenty of people with special talents who could do just that.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  I’d started to take a dislike to Linda. “I’d rather not,” I replied, keeping my voice level. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. I was really hoping I’d tell you what happened and you’d know it was a couple of your members being pissy and you’d take care of it before it got out of hand.”

  That seemed to smooth her ruffled feathers. I guess I couldn’t blame Linda for being defensive. After all, monster hunters and the Catholic Church don’t have a great track record for working nicely with covens. I couldn’t tell whether she was aware of the sheepsquatch problem or had an idea about who the culprit might be, or whether this was all news to her.

  “I’ll make some inquiries,” she said stiffly, although her cheeks were flushed with anger. “If it’s an internal matter, we’ll handle it. Don’t expect a report back.”

  “And if it’s not?” I’d come to the meeting prepared to make nice, but if she was going to play hardball, so could I.

  “Then, as you put it, it depends.”

  I leaned forward. “You need to understand that I’ll be looking into this until I know it’s resolved. So if it’s an internal problem and you put an end to it, just say so. I’m not trying to bust up your coven. I don’t even need names. But if you tell me it’s handled, it had better be handled.”

  “As I said, I’ll look into it,” Linda replied. She slid to the end of the booth. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment.”

  I watched her leave and stayed where I was. The server refilled my coffee, and I sipped it, deep in thought. I wasn’t sure how to read Linda. She had a chip on her shoulder, no doubt. But did that mean she wouldn’t help? Or was she afraid that someone in her group had run amok and might put all of them at risk? I didn’t care about a cover-up if she stopped the perp. After all, half of what Father Leo and I do was covering our tracks—and for guys like Smith and Jones, it’s more like one hundred percent.

  Still, I didn’t like the idea of just sitting around and hoping Linda’s coven would handle it if the problem didn’t lie with one of their members. I couldn’t help remembering the warning Smith and Jones gave us, about “outside actors,” and as trivial as Sheepy seemed in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t be the first time an outsider with an agenda decided to stir up trouble.

  Just as I reached the bottom of my latest refill, my phone rang. I recognized Chiara’s ringtone right away. “Mark, I’m sorry to catch you during work hours—”

  “I took this morning off. What’s up?”

  “Can you come back to the store? There’s someone here who needs to talk to you.”

  I promised her I’d be right over and left as soon as I’d paid my tab. It didn’t take long before I was parking next to the hardware store and heading into Crystal Dreams. Had to admit, I felt a little like I’d been unfaithful somehow, ordering coffee somewhere else. The cup I’d had at the buffet had been good, but nothing was as good. Was there coffee magic? If so, Chiara had it in spades.

  “She’s in the back, Mr. Wojcik,” the server behind the pastry case said when I walked in. I walked through the bookstore and stopped at the door to the community room, giving a light rap.

  “Chiara? It’s Mark.”

  The door opened, and I found Chiara sitting next to a frightened young woman in her early twenties. The blond woman’s face was streaked with tears and blotchy from crying. Chiara passed her a tissue.

  “Phoebe, this is Mark. He can help you.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “I don’t think anyone can help us.”

  I pulled a chair out so I could sit facing her without the table between us and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees to be more on eye level. “Hi, Phoebe. I’ll do my best to help. What’s wrong?”

  Phoebe sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. “There’s a monster hunting us.”

  “Us?” I asked as gently as I could. Chiara silently motioned toward the door, asking if I wanted her to leave. I shook my head, thinking Phoebe needed the moral support.

  “The Scooby gang.”

  I raised an eyebrow and glanced at Chiara, who smiled sadly. “You mean your Cards Against Humanity and gaming group, don’t you, Phoebe?”

  Phoebe hesitated, then
nodded. “Yeah. That’s what we call ourselves. Not the whole group, just the five of us who started the gaming get-together. We do Cards here, and we play role-playing games at Carl’s apartment on Sunday afternoons.”

  “And when you say monster…”

  Phoebe glared at me like she was daring me to mock her. “We’re being stalked by a woman in white.”

  That was pretty specific. “How do you—”

  “I know the lore. Except, it’s not like on TV.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t just show up to the guys. We’ve all seen her, more than once. At first, we thought someone was pranking us. But Jon…knows about these things. He said she’s real.” Phoebe’s voice quavered. “And seeing a woman in white is a harbinger of death.”

  I sat back, running her story through my mind. It felt like there were pieces missing.

  “Back up,” I said. “Can you tell me what happened—from the beginning?”

  Phoebe blew her nose and swallowed, trying to get her emotions under control. “Carl saw her first. He said he had a strange feeling when he was alone in his apartment, and he went to the window and saw her standing at the edge of his yard. A woman with dark hair, in a loose white gown, staring at him.”

  “Did she do anything?”

  “Not that night. He thought maybe he’d imagined it, or that it was somebody who wandered out of the woods on a bad trip, you know? But then two nights later, she came back again, only she was closer this time, halfway across the yard.”

  “When was this?” I tried to stay calm and professional, but whatever was going on sounded big, and it might just be connected to my witch problem.

  “It started a week ago,” Phoebe replied. “At first, we didn’t know the others had seen her, too. But then we started talking. Carl, Jon, me, Kayla, and Scott. She’s gotten closer each time, and it’s not always at our houses, but it’s when we’re alone.” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “I’m scared.”