by J. S. Malcom
I’m tempted to say, “Well, we have a section just for witches, but I could show you the boring stuff.” I don’t, mostly because my mother is watching me closely. Just to mess with her, I float her fork up from the table while Jim isn’t looking. My mother snatches it from the air behind her new boyfriend, but not before Autumn notices. She lets out another involuntary snort, raising her hand to cover her mouth.
“Whenever you’d like,” I tell Jim. “Any particular areas of interest?”
I expect him to say past life regression or energy healing. Not that there’s anything wrong with either. It’s just why most non-witches show up at Grimoire.
“Hauntings fascinate me,” Jim says. “As do accounts of encounters with supernatural beings.”
Wait. Did our mother brief him before we got here? I start sliding a salt shaker slowly across her end of the table in a serpentine path. Mom narrows her eyes and I stop. Okay, fine. Autumn and I can psychologically torture the truth out of her when we get her alone.
~~~
An hour later, the group of us are still chatting as we head out to the parking lot. Eventually, Mom and Jim pair off, making their way toward his car as Ian drops back to answer a call. Autumn and I watch as Jim holds the car door open for our mother. She smiles and waves before getting in. My cheeks tingle with an unexpected happiness for her. In that moment, I realize that, yes, I miss my father. I only just learned of his death recently and have been trying to process that loss. My mother, on the other hand, lost her husband long ago. She was alone for most of the fifteen years that I was gone. Like my sister, she’s more than paid her dues when it comes to grieving.
“So?” Autumn says, nudging me lightly. “Glad you gave Jim a chance?”
I turn to see her smiling, watching as my mother and her new boyfriend drive off.
“Still not sure he and Mom will be able to get past the cheesecake thing,” I say. “Did you see him dig into that stuff?”
Autumn laughs. “So did you, by the way.”
Which is true. “Come on. Who could resist Godiva chocolate cheesecake?”
“Mom, apparently.”
“That’s messed up. Shit, I’d break up with someone over that cheesecake.”
Autumn laughs again, her eyes going to where Ian remains on the phone. He’s nodding and looking our way now.
“I mean, sure,” he says. “We could swing by. Do you mind if there’s three of us?” He listens for a moment and says, “Right, Autumn’s sister.” He glances at me as he says it. “Similar abilities, yes.” Another pause and then he nods. “Yeah, sure. We’ll head your way.”
Ian slips his phone into his pocket and catches up to us. “That was Steve.”
Evidently, that’s all he has to say since Autumn raises her eyebrows. “What’s going on?”
Ian shrugs. “He didn’t go into specifics. He just said something about an apartment he wants us to see.”
Autumn turns to me and says, “Steve is Ian’s ex-partner.”
Actually, I recognized the name. I’ve heard them talk about Steve before. He and Ian used to be detectives together, back when Ian was still on the police force. A onetime skeptic when it came to paranormal matters, apparently Steve has started to change his tune lately. He’s also taken to consulting with Ian and Autumn when encountering something unusual. And, if I understand things correctly, Steve has a pretty good track record for guessing when that particular something has supernatural origins.
CHAPTER 12
We take Ian’s car to the address where Steve told us to meet him. It’s out off of Libbie Avenue, in the southern fringe of Richmond where the city starts to give way to the suburbs. It’s not an area I’ve frequented often, but I’ve always liked the look of the shopping center we pass through on the way. Those few blocks of clothing boutiques, galleries, shops and cafés give the neighborhood a small town feel. Actually, it’s also not far from where Bethany teaches at the University of Richmond. That school, and the Country Club of Virginia, are just down the street. Not that I’ve ever had occasion to visit either, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t fit in. Let's just say I'm not much of a private school or country club sort of girl.
Soon, we pull up in front of a three-story brick apartment complex. The building isn’t anything fancy, but it looks nice enough. Well, other than the police tape ringing the perimeter, a number of blown out windows, and scorch marks visible above the front entrance.
“Okay, the place caught on fire,” Ian says, pulling to the curb. “I wonder why Steve didn’t mention it.”
“Probably didn’t want to ruin the dramatic impact,” Autumn says. “You know Steve.”
Her flat tone reveals how she feels about Steve. From what I’ve gathered, Autumn doesn’t hate the guy, but she doesn’t exactly love him either. Apparently, Steve perceives her to be something of a freak who, just somehow, always tends to be loosely associated with whatever bit of seemingly supernatural weirdness he’s managed to uncover. So far, there never seems to be a direct connection. Naturally, being a detective, this aspect bugs him.
As Autumn puts it, “His antennae keep poking up and getting slapped back down again.” In other words, Steve just doesn’t know what the deal is. Add to that, there was also the time when Autumn found herself unmoored from her body by one of the Vamanec P’yrin. When that happened, she hitched a ride within Steve’s body so she could find Ian again. During that short period of time, Autumn was able to feel what Steve felt and hear what he thought, which was when Autumn learned that Steve thought of her as “that freaky chick.” All in all, it wasn’t one of her favorite experiences.
“Speaking of Steve, there he is now,” Ian says, as a gray Chevy Impala parks in front of us. “Let’s find out what the deal is.”
We get out to meet Ian’s ex-partner on the sidewalk. Steve is somewhere in his fifties, thin, with thinning sandy blonde hair. He’s wearing a threadbare brown suit not quite rumpled enough to give the impression that he slept in it, but not far off. He has at least two days’ worth of stubble and dark circles beneath his eyes that look to have been there for years. He shakes Ian’s hand. He hesitates, but then shakes Autumn’s too, as his eyes flit back and forth between me and my sister. I can almost feel what he’s thinking, as he takes in Autumn and the girl who appears to be her twin. Oh, my God, there’s two of them.
I don’t wait for the tentative offer. I stick out my hand and smile brightly, overdoing it on purpose just to mess with him. “Hi, I’m Cassie. Nice to meet you!”
Steve actually looks a little afraid of me, although he does manage to shake my hand. “Nice to meet you too,” he mumbles.
Yeah, the guy loves us, I can tell.
“So, what do we have?” Ian says. “Gas explosion?”
I was thinking the same thing, based on the blown out windows especially. Not that I’m any sort of expert, but it just looks like something that happened suddenly.
Steve tears his eyes away from me and Autumn, almost reluctantly, like he’s afraid to turn his back on us. “I wish,” he tells Ian. He nods toward the building. “Let’s go have a look.”
Autumn smirks at me and raises an eyebrow. I get what she’s trying to tell me. Yes, Steve is being a little cryptic. This is a man who seems to relish a bit of drama.
Although, as we go inside, I have to admit the impact is pretty dramatic. The hallway is scorched black, as are the walls of the stairwell. Although, not uniformly scorched. At the top, and at the bottom, the walls remain white, the paint unblistered. As if nothing touched those areas. Same goes for the carpet beneath our feet, which appears unscathed. Rather than the place looking like it became engulfed in flame, it looks more like something hot passed through it. Something very hot, burning the walls as it passed.
Again, the feeling I get is that it was moving fast, although I don’t know where that feeling comes from. Just a gut instinct, or some sort of veil witch forensic sense. But it’s not that feeling that makes the greatest impression. Not by a
long shot. Because the supernatural vibe in this place is off the chain. In fact, the edginess suddenly prickling its way through my body feels quite a bit like what I experienced the other night in that park. Demon energy, definitely.
As we climb the stairs, I glance over at Autumn. She subtly nods, keeping her eyes on mine to confirm what I suspected. She feels the supernatural vibe too. In fact, I can see the effects on her. Autumn’s cheeks are flushed, her brow sheened with perspiration. I can almost feel her magical defense mechanisms kicking into action.
We reach the landing, and the hall on the second floor looks the same. Scorched all the way down. We follow behind Steve past apartment doors that were left open, as if people ran out quickly. Inside the apartments, I see more burnt walls along with windows that must have exploded from the heat. Again, as if something incredibly hot passed through those rooms. Something that generated enough heat to explode glass, obviously, while not igniting the walls. Freaking weird.
We reach the end of the hall, double back again and stop when we get to the staircase. Steve regards us as a group. “Strange, isn’t it? A building that appears to have been on fire, but wasn’t.”
“More like fire passed through the building,” Ian says.
Steve nods. “You’re getting warmer,” he says, that smile tugging at the corner of his lips again. He keeps his eyes on those of his old friend.
“When did this happen?” Ian says.
“Ah, your instincts remain sharp,” Steve says. “What do you think?”
Ian takes a moment to consider. “At least two days ago.”
“Good guess,” Steve says. “What made you say that?”
Ian looks up at the ceiling. “Presumably, the sprinkler system activated correctly, otherwise the place would have gone up. But the carpet is dry and it barely smells like smoke in here. So, a sufficient amount of time must have passed.”
“Again, you’re doing great,” Steve says. “The fire department probably wouldn’t have called us in if it weren’t for certain… anomalies. Well, and more, but we’ll get to that.”
“I don’t remember seeing anything about this on the news,” Ian says.
I was just thinking the same thing. How could we not have heard about this?
Steve nods. “We’ve asked our friends in the media to try keeping the noise minimal on this one. Arsons live for publicity. We’ve learned in the past that, if deprived of it, they tend to start poking around. Weird as it sounds, quite often they show up at the scene itself. I’d like to think that our news buddies cooperated, but I suspect the real reason they didn’t make a bigger deal of it was that nobody died. It’s just not a sexy news story if everyone lives.”
“But you’re saying it was arson,” Ian says.
“Not exactly,” Steve says. “I’d rather you reached your own conclusions. Shall we continue?”
“Onward,” Ian says.
Watching them, I get the feeling that I’m catching a slice of Ian’s past. According to Autumn, Ian was a good cop. The problem being, he was a better psychic. He left the force when he could no longer ignore what he felt sure was his true calling. Locating missing persons by using his psychic abilities just made more sense to him.
We climb the stairs again to find another scorched hall. We stop on the landing, where Steve tells us, “The fire department believes this is where the” — he uses air quotes—“fire started. When the sprinklers and alarms went off, those living downstairs vacated. Makes sense. Except for the fact that the fire seemed to have left the building. Or, at least, it seemed to have passed through the building. But that was just one anomaly they couldn’t quite wrap their brains around.”
He turns and starts walking again. We pass more scorched walls and doors, some of them thrown open like downstairs, suggesting that people ran out in a hurry. Except, at the very end of the hall one door remains pristine, its white paint unblemished.
“Let me guess,” I say. “That’s the apartment.”
Steve slowly turns his head as we keep walking. He locks his eyes onto mine. “How did you know?”
“Ian told us you said we came to see a particular apartment.” I point at the one unscathed door. “And, of course, that door has to be one of the anomalies.”
Steve shifts his attention to Ian. He doesn’t say anything as their eyes meet.
“Like I said,” Ian says. “Autumn and Cassie have similar abilities.”
Steve offers no comment as we proceed down the hall. We reach the door, and he fishes a key from his pocket. “Ready?” he says.
“Ready,” Ian confirms.
Steve swings the door open and we enter what appears to be a perfectly normal apartment. Other than the fact that the supernatural vibe escalates even more, causing me to feel a little dizzy. At the same time, I’m sure that whatever passed through here is long gone. Autumn and I are both reacting to lingering energy. Although, if that alone is enough to make us both react this way, then it must have been something serious.
“So, yeah,” Steve says. “Have a look. Let me know if you see anything unusual.”
We step further inside and he shuts the door. I look around again, thinking I must have missed something, but the place appears undisturbed. There’s a sofa and loveseat, and a tasteful area rug spread across the dark hardwood floor. A small TV sits upon a simple cabinet. Across the room, there’s a desk holding a Mac laptop. There’s also bookcases. Lots of them, holding volumes of all sizes. Even from a distance, I can tell that whoever lives here—or lived here—was more of an academic reader. I squint to see if I can make out titles on the spines of the books, and most of them appear to be science-related.
From across the room, Autumn lets out a sudden gasp. She stands beside an end table which holds a collection of framed photos. My heart also kicks into overdrive. I’m too far away to see the photos clearly, but I don’t have to. Even from where I stand, I can tell they’re family photos. A mother with her son and daughter, each of them with golden red hair. I stifle a gasp of my own, because I have no doubt whose faces I’ll see when I step closer.
CHAPTER 13
“I get the feeling you know them,” Steve says, in a tone indicating that he’s not terribly surprised.
Autumn nods, still staring at the photos. She speaks softly. “Whose apartment is this?”
She already knows, of course, as do I. This close to the University of Richmond, with those bookcases full of science texts. And now those photos. There isn’t really any doubt. Still, she waits for Steve’s confirmation.
“This apartment belongs to one Bethany Aimes,” Steve says. “No one has seen her since the… event. Well, at least, not on the premises.”
Autumn turns away from the photos to face Steve. “Has anyone contacted her family?”
Steve shakes his head. “The fire department doesn’t contact people,” he says. “We do. And we just got involved.”
I gesture to indicate our surroundings. “What happened here?”
Steve glances back and forth between the two of us. “Well, I was hoping maybe you could tell me.”
Autumn holds up her hand to gain our attention. She looks past Steve, nodding toward where Ian stands by the window. He has his eyes closed as he breathes deeply and steadily, his head bowed as if he’s deep in thought. I’ve never seen Ian get one of his flashes before, but I’m sure that’s what’s happening. Whatever he’s experiencing must have come on fast and strong, quite possibly taking even Ian by surprise. Apparently, Steve is respectful enough of his friend’s gift to do as Autumn directed. The three of us remain silent as we wait.
Finally, Ian draws in a last deep breath before opening his eyes again. As if he’s not going to tell us, Steve asks, “What happened? Did you get something?”
Ian nods. “I did, yeah. But I don’t think it’s going to be all that helpful. At least, not in the way you were hoping.”
Steve shrugs impatiently. “What does that mean?”
“What it means is that I s
aw someone. A man. A young man, thin with very light hair. Gray, almost white.”
Steve runs his hand through his own hair, or at least what’s left of it. “I thought you said he was young.”
Again, Ian nods patiently. “He was young, definitely. Mid-twenties at the most. Maybe he dyes his hair. I don’t know.”
Steve says, “What about a name. Anything?”
Ian shakes his head. “Not really, no. It begins with an ‘s.’ That much I got. Simon maybe. Sam. Seth. I’m not sure. But it’s what I felt that matters, and it wasn’t good.”
Steve frowns, as if frustrated when he’d gotten so close to what felt like a solid lead. Although, so far he’s kept us in the dark on just what the hell happened here.
Autumn steps closer to Ian, gently touching his arm. “What did you feel?”
Ian turns to her. “Anger,” he says. “Confusion. But also hunger. Some sort of growing strength. It’s hard to explain. It was all mixed together, but it was powerful as hell. Something dark was here, that’s for sure. I also saw… a shadow. Like a shadowy figure. It moved through here somehow. I’m not sure what that means, but it felt like it sucked all the light out of this place.”
“What about the guy?” Steve says, obviously not interested in these less tangible impressions. “Did he start the fire?”
Ian returns his attention to Steve. “No, he didn’t. At least not directly.” Seeing Steve about to press for more, he adds, “Sorry. I’m not sure what that means either.”
“Okay, I understand,” Steve says. “Well, I mean, I really don’t. But I get that you can only download so much at a time, or whatever it is you call it when you check out that way.”
Ian lifts his eyebrows at Steve’s attempted description of psychic impressions.
“Hang on,” I say. “You said outside that it wasn’t a gas fire. Then you said something about it being maybe arson. Are we done with the big mystery yet? What kind of fire was it?”
Steve frowns, not exactly pleased with my tone. “A strange one,” he says. “But that’s how fires work, right? They’re strange, sometimes resulting in freak occurrences. Like one of the places I saw lit up by an arsonist. The guy started the fire by igniting the back porch. Two people died in that fire. Inside, the place was completely charred. Windows melted, walls like blistering black scales, the whole deal. We’re talking completely incinerated. Shit, the smell alone was enough to kill you. But on what’s left of the kitchen counter, there’s this ceramic butter dish. You know, the kind with its own lid.”