by R. D. Hunter
It took a couple of minutes for me to work up the nerve to open my circle. I did so by tracing my athame in a counter clockwise motion while giving thanks to whichever spirits had answered my call. When it was done, I waited for the crushing weight to settle itself back on my shoulders, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was just a sense of wary watchfulness. The air was still thicker than was comfortable, making breathing difficult, but it was tolerable. Apparently, nearly suffocating me while grinding my soul under a mountain of pain and despair had been Nichole Barret’s way of getting my attention. Now that she knew she had it, she was content to wait and see what I would do.
Well, I wasn’t going to catch her killer here on my knees. I got to my feet, replacing the athame in it’s sheath, then swayed for a second as the room blurred unexpectedly. Casting a circle wasn’t considered heavy-lifting in the magical effort department, but doing it on the fly without any foci or charged crystals while being under psychic attack had taken a quite a bit out of me. Besides, if you wanted to know the truth of it, I was out of practice. I hadn’t casted an honest-to-goodness spell in months and had felt myself slowly separating from my witchcraft for several years before then. My Gramps, a big practitioner of the arts, wasn’t happy about that.
I steadied myself and left the room, intending to go back downstairs and check in with Charley’s team. I stopped. Something had changed.
The little hallway was the same as it had been; a little narrower than three feet, open door to a guest bathroom on the left, with large windows at either end to let in sunlight. But there was something…I couldn’t put my finger on it. I sighed in frustration.
Why was nothing ever easy? I could ignore it. Go back downstairs, follow up on whatever leads forensics and Bill had turned up, but that would be breaking my promise. I’d told Nichole Barret I would do everything in my power to find her killer. And if I was missing something here, in this little hall, I had to do something about it.
Damn it all! I hadn’t casted a real spell in almost two months, now twice in one day. This was going to give me such a headache.
I took a deep breath and raised my power again. It was more difficult this time. The glowing pool of energy was a little weaker and rose to the surface reluctantly, but it came. Once I had it, I said my spell.
“Sight unseen
Eyes half open
Let me see
By these words spoken.”
Another head rush as the power rushed out of me, and I leaned against the wall for several seconds for support. Holy hell, I was out of shape. That shouldn’t have been that hard. Maybe I should consider some light, witchcraft calisthenics.
When I was sure my knees weren’t going to buckle under me, I straightened up and opened my eyes. The world came into crisp, clear focus. It was like I had been looking through a foggy lens all my life that was suddenly torn away.
I could see individual particles of dust swirling in the air, dancing on unfelt currents of air. I could count the brush strokes used to paint the walls and even tell where the painter had to do touch ups. Sunlight from outside streamed in through the far window, and I saw the way the light twisted and broke the glass to play along the floor. But, most important of all, I saw the little door, right across from the bathroom, standing unnoticed by all who’d passed it…including me.
Holy cow! A whole room of the house, overlooked by professional, trained personnel, and one witch who was summarily embarrassed and impressed at the same time. That was one hell of a cloak. Apparently, the psychic hoodoo that had about driven me insane served not only as an attention-getter, but a distraction as well. Smart. But now that I’d convinced Nichole Barret I was one of the good guys, I’d been allowed to see it, or at least become aware of it’s existence.
I made sure no one was in the stairwell before opening the door. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to hide this room and the last thing I wanted was to be disturbed. I turned the knob and opened it with a gentle push, and a lot of puzzle pieces that had been swirling about in my head fell into place.
CHAPTER THREE
When solving a crime, an investigator needs to look for three things; opportunity, means and motive. I had the first two in the bag. Nichole lived alone, so that provided plenty of opportunity. The means were gruesomely evident and would likely give me nightmares for some time to come. But the motive, the ‘why’ of it all, had been eluding me…until I opened that door.
Nichole Barret was a witch. A powerful witch, at that. The entire room was dedicated to the study and practice of the magical arts, and was as professional a setup as I’d ever seen.
I’d had my suspicions when I first walked in the door. No pictures of friends or family anywhere in the house. Only a few portraits and some blurry selfies she took on vacation. In the magical community, pictures can be used for a lot of spells, not all of them friendly. That’s why a serious practitioner won’t keep any around.
This also explained how she was able to affect me so much. Without access to their physical bodies, ghosts have to glean energy around them in order to interact with the physical world. Thanks to the rituals and spell casting she did in life, Nichole had a virtual gold mine of the stuff to work with.
And finally, it explained the condition of the body. Burning, beheading and salting had all been used at some point in history to kill or hold a witch at bay. The murderer must have known she was a practitioner and wanted to be sure she wouldn’t rise up as some undead abomination to take her revenge. I bet if he’d had time, he’d have drowned and hung her, just to be certain. That told me he knew some, but not everything, about our kind.
This was why most people in the magical community stayed on the fringes of society, from which we took our name. It was safer. The wrong person discovers you can cast spells, feed off psychic energies or shift forms, and next thing you know there’s an angry mob coming at you with plenty in the way of torches and pitchforks.
I fought down the surge of anger I felt welling up. Fighting ignorance with rage was never a good idea and often did more harm than good. I needed to keep a cool head and see if there was anything here that would tell me who else knew Nichole Barret’s secret. Professional and detached, that was me.
The sacred room was like many others I’d seen over the years. Polished hardwood floors gleamed up at me. Shelves lined the walls, each holding a wide assortment of books, candles and herbs. The single window had been painted black to ensure total privacy. One whole half of the room was taken up by the altar, a low wooden table covered by a ceremonial cloth, on which rested a pewter bowl, incense and other tools used to practice magic. The air smelled sweet and slightly spicy, which was a welcome change from the rest of the house.
Under normal conditions, entering another witch’s sacred space without permission was considered tantamount to a slap across the face. But these weren’t normal conditions and instinct told me there was something in here worth finding. I wanted to do it quickly before someone from downstairs came up and saw this.
I hadn’t taken more than three steps in when Bill’s voice called my name from right outside the door. Shit. In my haste to complete my look around, I’d neglected to fully shut it. Apparently, the cloaking spell only engaged when the door was firmly latched. So much for this place remaining undiscovered.
“In here,” I called. My partner poked his head in a second later, looking for all the world like Aladdin discovering the Cave of Wonders.
“Whoa!” he said in a hushed tone. “What is this place?”
“Nichole Barret was a Wiccan. This is where she practiced her religion.” I actually had no idea if Nichole was Wiccan or not. There were plenty of witches in the world who didn’t practice the Wiccan religion and vice versa. But it just seemed easier to explain it this way to someone who’s entire education in magic had been in the form of the old Bewitched television show.
“You mean she worshiped devils and demons and such?” I grimaced. See what I mean?
&nbs
p; “No, she believed the universe was made of a malleable energy she could manipulate and channel through ritual, prayer and meditation. Devils and demons have nothing to do with it.”
“Oh.” He screwed up his face as he let this bit of information sink in. “Wait a second. How come nobody saw this room before?” I shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant.
“Typical case of tunnel vision. Dead body in the bathroom, that’s where all the attention is going to be focused. Besides, the lighting is bad out in that hall. I thought this was just a broom closet until I looked inside.”
I didn’t like lying to my partner. But explaining how I casted a spell to see through the hidden enchantment after I encountered the ghost of our victim was out of the question.
Bill considered my explanation for a few agonizing seconds before giving a brief nod. I let out an inward sigh of relief.
“I guess,” he said. “You want me to call in Charley and his team to go over the place?” I shook my head quickly.
“No need. They should be about done packing up. Let’s just look around on our own. If we see any sign the killer was in here, we’ll haul their butts in and you can chew them out for not noticing this room to begin with.”
“Fair enough.”
The air around me fairly hummed with latent magical energy, probably from years of spell casting and ritual magic. The last thing I wanted was a team of forensic specialists in here poking around, dusting for prints and generally prying into every nook and cranny. That would be beyond disrespectful.
While I had a special dispensation to be in here, (as did Bill, to a lesser extent) I could still feel the echoes of Nichole’s awareness at the back of my senses. She hadn’t left. And with this much latent energy to draw from, who knows what she’d do if she felt insulted in some way.
Bill and I began searching the room. As was our custom, he started at the far end of the room, closest to the altar, and began working his way around. I went to the other end and worked my way towards him.
Nichole had a wide array of witchcraft paraphernalia. A large selection of oils, herbs and spices were arranged neatly on several of the shelves. The others contained books and tomes, some so old that they had to have been first printings and worth a small fortune.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. A signed confession from the killer would have been nice, but I didn’t think that was in the card. I’d learned to trust my inner voice a long time ago, and right now it was screaming at me that I was missing something…something important. I stopped at the simple, ornate altar and studied it for several moments.
This was where most of the magic had happened. This is where she made offerings, burned incense and channeled the energies of creation to affect the world around her. So why did it look wrong?
It took me a few seconds to realize exactly what was missing. When it hit me, I felt my stomach do a little flip and a cold shiver of stark fear laced its way up my spine. Her Book of Shadows was missing.
Each witch kept a journal. Some called it a grimoire. Others called it a Book of Ways. Whatever the name, it was a personalized book filled with the witch’s spells, rituals, incantations and results. It also contained ingredients for potions, friendly spirits to call on and many or all of her magical secrets. Its usual place was in the middle of the altar, or close thereabouts. But there was nothing here. Only an empty, yawning spot where it should have been met my gaze.
This was bad, but it wasn’t what caused my breathing to pick up and my heart to start hammering. After all, most people could follow the instructions in a Book of Shadows to the letter and wouldn’t conjure enough magic to do a card trick. That’s because they haven’t spent years honing the connection between the spiritual and the physical. They just didn’t have the juice.
What bothered me, though, was that out of all the items I’d seen in Nichole Barret’s sacred room, I hadn’t found a single crystal. Crystals were like magical batteries. They could be charged a number of different ways to hold and store energy for later use in spells. But, if it had been another practitioner that killed Nichole Barret, they wouldn’t have bothered with the decapitation, salt and fire. They would have known that dead is dead, even for a witch. And a lay-man would have had no use for the crystals. They could have been positively humming with power, but without the training, there was no way for them to access it. So why take them?
“Find anything?” Bill’s voice broke through my reverie, causing me to jump a little.
“Nope,” I said a little too quickly. “Nothing here. Might as well lock up and go.” It was true enough, but it still tasted false on my tongue.
Bill looked at me for several uncomfortable moments. I could almost see the wheels in his head turning, although my second sight spell had already expired. He was no idiot. He knew something was up. But he also trusted me enough to let it go if I didn’t feel it worth mentioning.
“Ok. Coroner’s waiting outside. Let’s pack it in and head back to HQ.”
I nodded and followed him out, pausing just long enough to whisper under my breath,
“Peace be unto you, Sister,
Until our spirits meet once more
Where the shadows hold no sway.”
It was a simple prayer, more an act of politeness than anything else. But behind me, I felt a flush of satisfaction and knew Nichole had been listening. It didn’t make leaving her any easier.
Now, I was no rookie, having been with the Atlanta P.D. for five years before my promotion to detective and subsequent transfer. But I was the new girl here, which meant I could expect the shit cases with the crazy witnesses or the dirty locations, and to be stuck with the bar tab whenever we went out for drinks. I knew that. I was prepared for it. Hell, I even welcomed it, because it would deepen the sense of camaraderie between us when I was finally accepted.
But the things I’d endured since coming here had gone beyond simple practical jokes. In the past six months, all the tires on my duty car and my personal little Honda Civic had been let out…four times. I’d also had my locker stuffed with pornographic magazines and my computer screen wrapped up in four rolls of duct tape.
Don’t get me wrong. Most of the guys in the S.C.C. were good eggs. I’d even worked with several of them in the past. I had a suspicion that it was only two or three of them devoted to making my life hell, and they were spearheaded by none other than my own Lt. Rick Calloway.
Sure, I could have gone above his head, reported him and his cohorts to the head of the department, Captain Barker, who had a reputation for being fair and looking after his people. But that wasn’t the way I did things. When I had a problem, I handled it my way. I didn’t run to the nearest authority figures and bawl my eyes out, waiting for a big, strong man to ride in on his trusty steed and save me. Screw that. They’d get theirs.
Of course, that was before I came in and saw what had once been my desk, covered in danishes, donuts and pots of coffee. My files, computer and chair were nowhere to be seen. I stopped and stared, trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing even as a bubbling wellspring of seething anger rose up in my chest.
As it did, an unexpected wave of dizziness washed over me and I had to blink several times to clear my vision. My spell casting had taken more out of me than I thought. I doubted I had enough magical energy left in me to pull a quarter out from behind a kid’s ear. Damn it, I was running on empty and now had to deal with this. Behind me, I heard Bill mutter a curse and another voice bit back a snort of laughter.
“Hope ya don’t mind, Sweetheart,” it said. “We needed somewhere closer to store the eats. We moved your stuff to the back desk. Only dropped your computer three or four times.” I turned to see the sneering visage of Detective Rodney Gunter. Obviously, he had been waiting close by just to see my reaction.
Gunter was an overweight man in his late forties, sporting a heavy case of male-pattern-baldness and a bad attitude to match. He constantly had some sort of food stain on his pants and, more often than
not, had some type of junk food in one hand. Currently, he was munching on one of the danishes taken from the table, raspberry sauce showing at the corners of his full mouth.
“You did what?” I said, my voice low and dangerous.
Let’s be clear, here. I’m not a physically imposing figure. I’m 5’6, 120 lbs. after a big meal. Gunter had almost a foot in height on me and three times my weight. But I spent the first four years of my law enforcement career working the roughest parts of Atlanta as a beat cop, and the past three years regularly attending a local Krav Maga studio. Krav Maga is an Israeli military-based fighting system that focuses on hitting the vulnerable points of the human body for maximum efficiency. I was no Bruce Lee, but I could hold my own against most opponents.
Gunter, wouldn’t have stood a chance. Most of his enormous weight was on his back leg, one hand was holding his precious danish, and the other was jammed casually in his pocket. I counted at least three ways off the top of my head I could put him down and make it hurt so much he didn’t get back up under his own power. Somewhere, in the back of his cholesterol-filled brain, he must have known this, because his eyes widened for a second and he took half a step back.
“Whoa! Take it easy, Sweetheart,” he said, holding up both hands in a sign of surrender. “The Lieutenant told us to do it. You’re stuff’s safe and sound.” I looked to where his fat finger was pointing and saw my belongings, haphazardly strewn about a scarred and pitted desk in the back corner of the bullpen.
The Lieutenant! This was his payback for me mouthing off at the crime scene in front of forensics. Probably having a good laugh to himself at my expense right now. I wasn’t about to let this slide.
I turned around without a word and began marching towards his office, hellbent on telling him exactly where he could go and what he could do with himself when he got there. My rubbery legs threatened to buckle once or twice, but I gritted my teeth and continued on, unabated. Before I got more than halfway there, though, Bill cut in front of me, moving faster than you’d think a man of his size was capable.