Witch Boots on the Ground

by Constance Barker

  “Be careful,” I muttered under my breath. I didn’t mind it coming from Vana, but it did feel unnecessary. Both her and Winnie fretted over me too much. I was more than capable enough to get through this. I had more training than any of them did.

  It was difficult to locate the way in. The fairy mafia were a lot of things, and careful was one of them. Their headquarters were in the mines. They weren’t always the mafia. Long ago they were in charge of the amethyst mines. Not normal realm amethyst but Nikatomian amethyst. It had special properties that gave whoever held them boundless energy and they were incredibly profitable. The crystals were outlawed, but that didn’t stop them from selling what they could on the black market.

  They sold so much that the mines dried up almost completely. The fairies lost everything. But fairies are resourceful beings and it didn’t take them long to rebuild their empire. This time it was even more criminal than the last. They made their money by exploiting the less fortunate, hustling and various other criminal enterprises. They were a blight on Nikatomia.

  A lot of their debtors are used to mine whatever is left of the amethyst. But it’s an endless battle. They can never find enough amethyst to repay their debts because there is too little to find. But what little they do find is enough for the mafia to sell on the black market and make a pretty penny off of it.

  “Jerks,” I growled.

  After flying around Mount Riverheim three times I was able to make out my entrance. I was to go through an abandoned entrance to one of the old mine shafts. They had never closed it off because their magic shielded it from anyone who dared get close enough. The police had discovered a few different ways into their headquarters through various undercover operations over the years. Everyone knew that the fairies were still in the mountain but that was like saying you knew there was a needle in a haystack.

  My way in was easy once I saw through the magic. They hadn’t even bothered physically closing up the entrance. The arrogance.

  I chose to land and walk a bit once inside. An old cave in made the space claustrophobic even for me. It was awkward for me to walk, but it would have been nearly impossible for me to spread my wingspan fully. According to Henry, I needed to walk straight for about ten minutes, then take a left, a right, another right and I’d be close to their main offices. Ten minutes was a bit vague, considering the fact that a ten minute walk for a full grown man and me with my twig legs might cover different distances.

  Despite my worries about the directions, it wasn’t hard to find the first left. It was the only left along the corridor that I could see. As soon as I turned down it, I started to hear the voices of the fairies echoing through the halls.

  “Who are you talking about?” A soft voice asked. The one thing that the normal realm had right about fairies was that they looked delicate. They were small, with rosy cheeks and slightly pointed ears. They tended towards the pastel for clothing. I thought that it made them creepier. It was like children in horror films, their apparent innocence made my skin – or rather my feathers – crawl.

  “Eh, Horace,” Another voice replied. I heard papers ruffle and then a reply. “Horace Bugglebee.”

  “How much did he owe?” The first voice asked. I started to fly again getting as close as possible to their office. Stopping in one of the rafters I hung from my talon’s upside down so I was still hidden but I could see them now. There were four of them that I could see. One sat at a large desk (large for them anyway), clearly the boss. The others were standing around the room. The one who had spoken was a nervous looking man holding a bunch of papers. He accidentally dropped them making the head honcho look furious for a moment.

  “How MUCH!?” She screamed at the nervous fairy. He collected his papers and pushed his glasses up his nose.

  “He owed quite a bit,” The fairy replied. “Over one hundred thousand.” There was a moment of intense silence. The boss-fairy fumed in a rage. The other two in the room looked just as frightened as the nervous one now.

  “That’s a lot to lose,” The boss said through gritted teeth. “And he has no family?”

  “A girlfriend, but a flighty one at best, no real family.” One of the others responded. The nervous one was shaking, the other two weren’t far off.

  “So there is no one else we can hold accountable? For over a hundred thousand?” The boss was on the edge of screaming. That much was obvious. This wasn’t the information we wanted to get from them. It was becoming clearer and clearer that they had nothing to do with Horace’s murder. If they killed him, they would never get their money. That’s why they had never killed any of their debtors before. It didn’t make sense. “Do we have any idea who took him out?”

  “None of ours, there’s some newcomer out there,” one of the thugs spoke. “At least as far as we know it wasn’t one of ours. Gemia was sent to rough him up a bit, and she’s been known to get carried away.”

  “I suggest you find out who did it and if it was one of ours,” the boss hissed, implication thick in her voice.

  “I don’t think it was. This newcomer is less of a who, it’s more of a what,” the nervous one stuttered. “The police think that it was a werewolf, but our sources say it was no such thing. It was something new.”

  “What then?” The boss asked. She was met with silence, which I took as my cue to leave. There wasn’t going to be any more useful information.

  I flew back away from them and walked out the rest of the way. I was glad that they hadn’t heard me. I’d gotten into some sticky situations in the past. Coming up against a fairy, I would probably not have made it out.

  This was big news, a lot of information to digest. At least I had time to think it through while flying back to the station. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. If they were right and their information was good, then whatever killed Horace wasn’t a werewolf at all. But if it wasn’t a werewolf, what was it?

  Chapter Six

  WHILE ALAN WAS SPYING on the fairies, Winnie and I stayed behind. They were bringing Barry in and a couple other werewolves who were in the area at the time of the attack. It wasn’t a move that I approved of. As much as I hated to admit it, at least they had solid reasoning to bring him in. With the other werewolves in the area, it was just placating the masses.

  “I can’t let you question Barry,” Henry said with a sigh. “It’s a conflict of interest.”

  “We understand,” I said before Winnie could argue. She moved forward as though she were posturing to start arguing with Henry. “Can I ask that we speak with him after you finish interviewing him?”

  “And can we listen in on the interview?” Winnie jumped in.

  “I can agree to all of those terms,” Henry said, he held out his hand to shake on it. Another reminder that he wasn’t from Nikatomia originally.

  “Where are you from?” I asked after shaking his hand.

  “Idaho, in the normal realm,” He said gruffly. For many beings in Nikatomia, it was nearly impossible to tell what species or creature anyone might be. Most looked humanoid, even if they looked like monsters in the normal realm. There weren’t many creatures who would say they were from the normal realm though. That was reserved mostly for spirits. I, myself, was an anomaly. “Born and raised, and died,” he chuckled.

  “Were you a cop there too?” I asked, curious.

  “I was,” he nodded, but didn’t offer more information. I wasn’t going to pry anymore. It was personal, a spirit’s previous life. “I’ll get you all set up in the observation room, will that be okay with you?”

  “That’ll be just fine.” Winnie was still ready to argue with him about not being there to interrogate Barry. Though I doubted she would even be remotely able to question him. Not legitimately anyways. She’d end up becoming over protective and just spend the entire time defending him. It would ruin any chance he might have to prove himself innocent. I’d dare say that Winnie would make him look guilty accidentally.

  He led us to the observation room, on the other
side of the interrogation room. Barry was sitting in a small metal chair, at a stark metal table. He was a large man, but he looked small sitting there. My heart broke for him and how scared he appeared to be. We hadn’t seen him in a few days, he hadn’t been at the coffee shop. His disheveled appearance made me wonder what he had been up to in that time.

  “Hi Barry, I’m Detective Henry. I’m here to ask you a few questions,” Henry said kindly, sitting on the edge of the metal table. At least he wasn’t intimidating him or shouting at him. Some cops used that tactic, but it never worked in my opinion. If you did end up getting a confession, there was no telling if it was true or not. They might have just said it out of fear.

  “Hi Detective, can you tell me why I’m here?” Barry asked in a shaky voice. As he spoke, Winnie moved to the glass. She placed her hand on it.

  “He looks so scared.” Winnie looked back at me.

  “He’ll be fine...he only has to answer honestly. We all know he didn’t do it,” I reminded her. I was nervous too though. Cases had been built against a person on less incriminating evidence than they had on Barry.

  “Can you tell us what you were doing last night?” Henry asked. This was the part that mattered most. I crossed my fingers. Hopefully, Barry had a good alibi that could be backed up by proof. If not, there wasn’t much we could do aside from finding who actually killed Horace. I didn’t want to have to rely on that.

  “I’ve been away for a few days, out of town,” he said evasively.

  “Away where?” Henry straightened up a little bit. I could tell from his body language that he noticed Barry was avoiding the question.

  “Why am I here?” Barry asked in return. It was a fair question, but he wasn’t making himself look innocent.

  “There was a murder last night, and we just want to clear you.” Henry was tactful.

  “You think I killed someone?” Barry’s eyes went wide. He looked around the room as though he were searching for cameras. Like someone was going to pop out at any moment telling him this was all a prank.

  “There’s a lot of evidence suggesting that you might have had something to do with the attack, but if you can tell me where you were and we can verify it, then you’ll be good to go,” Henry explained.

  “What evidence? You didn’t arrest me. I came here because you asked me to,” Barry said defensively. He knew more about the law than I expected.

  “The victim was Horace Bugglebee, your boss.” Henry was getting frustrated with Barry. I was too. “He’s been behind on your checks, hasn’t he?” Henry stood now and was pacing. He gave us a meaningful look through the glass. The way Barry was acting was incriminating at best.

  “Mr. Bugglebee is dead?” Barry looked shocked, that was good. But you’d be surprised by how easy it is to pretend.

  “Why won’t he just tell Henry where he was?” Winnie turned to me. I shrugged and shook my head.

  “Maybe he’s just processing and is confused. They should have told him why they were bringing him in,” I said. I didn’t say that it might be because he was hiding something. Which he clearly was.

  “Yes, he’s dead. He was attacked by a werewolf.” Barry’s eyes shot up.

  “That’s your evidence?” He asked, offended. “Just because I’m a werewolf, and knew Mr. Bugglebee you automatically assume that I killed him?” I warned Henry that he needed more to go on. It wasn’t enough. Luckily, he had been able to talk the officers out of rounding up every werewolf in the area, for now at least.

  “There’s also the matter of motive,” Henry said gravely. His whole demeanor had changed. In a few minutes he had gone from treating Barry like an old friend to treating him like a suspect. Separating myself from what I knew about Barry, I couldn’t blame Henry for this change. I’d do the same thing.

  “They have motive?” Winnie asked. She walked back from the two-way mirror and sat down. “Did you know that?”

  “No, but they’ve been working all night. I mean, what employee hasn’t wanted to kill their boss at some point?” I chuckled weakly, attempting to make Winnie feel better.

  “I’ve never wanted to kill you,” Winnie said in a small voice.

  “Motive?” Barry looked incredulous. I could tell he was only a few questions away from asking for representation.

  “Would you describe Mr. Bugglebee as a good boss?” Henry asked. Barry didn’t answer. “I’m going to guess no, because we’ve heard from some people that you aren’t very impressed with his management. You work hard, get paid next to nothing and on top of that Mr. Bugglebee was three weeks late with your pay, or at least that’s what his records show.”

  “No, he wasn’t great to work with,” Barry agreed. “But why would I kill him? If I did that then I’d never get paid.”

  “Maybe you confronted him, it’s close to a full moon, you couldn’t control your anger and then you snapped,” Henry shrugged nonchalant. In Nikatomia, werewolves could turn whenever they chose to, but they were still somewhat at the whim of the full moon. They would get ornery around that time and their temper might accidentally shift. “So, can you tell me where you’ve been?”

  “He thinks he did it,” Winnie was staring at Barry through the mirror. She looked as horror struck as Barry. Despite how bad I felt for Barry and how sure of his innocence I was, Henry impressed me. So far, every step he took he second guessed. Unsure of himself to the point where I wondered what his experience was. Seeing him in the interrogation room, he was a natural.

  “He’s got to approach it from an unbiased angle. We know Barry didn’t do it, but there’s a lot of compelling evidence against him. Even if it is circumstantial.” Winnie looked at me with disgust. “I’m sorry. I’m worried about him too, but he’ll be okay. We’ll find who really did it.” Winnie relaxed a little.

  “If he would just say where he was, he’d be clear!” Winnie threw her hands up exasperated.

  “I know, but it would only really count if it can be verified. Barry might know that, and he might have been somewhere alone.” It would still look better if he would just say where he'd been, verifiable or not.

  “I want a lawyer,” Barry said icily.

  Chapter Seven

  EVERYTHING GOT A LITTLE sticky after that. Barry called a lawyer. He technically hadn’t been arrested yet and his lawyer advised him to get out of there as fast as possible. It wouldn’t be long until they formally charged him. Henry hadn’t told us all the other evidence they had that implicated Barry.

  “What was that?” I asked him as soon as Barry cleared out.

  “Questioning a suspect,” he answered coolly. “I went in there giving him the benefit of the doubt. He only incriminated himself.” He pleaded more friendly this time.

  “I can’t deny that,” I sighed.

  “What do you mean?” Winnie asked, horrified. “Barry is innocent.”

  “That might be true, but he’s our best suspect right now and he only made himself more suspicious. If he could provide us with some kind of alibi, then he’d be clear.” Henry was just as frustrated as we were. “Listen, I don’t think your friend killed his boss, but I think him not telling us the truth is only going to make it harder to find who really did.”

  “What if he was alone? He might have an alibi but knows that without someone to corroborate it, it’s useless.” Winnie echoed what I said to her earlier.

  “That might be true, but he doesn’t look good not telling us anything,” Henry sighed.

  “You should have told him what he was coming in for.” I thought that it was possible the entire thing was just because Barry was surprised and processing what he had been told. “It’s also not suspicious or an admission of guilt for him to get a lawyer. He just knows his rights and knows that no matter how innocent you are, the evidence can make you look guilty.”

  “You’re right,” Henry agreed. “It’s not suspicious, but it’s frustrating. He gave us nothing to go on.”

  “Well, you did treat him like a suspect, and not like a
person you thought was innocent,” Winnie accused.

  “Henry did a good job in there. He has to treat Barry like a suspect...we can go at this as though he’s innocent though. But they until there’s evidence suggesting the opposite then there’s nothing else the police can do.” Henry looked proud after my compliment, but Winnie still looked mad at the both of us.

  “I’m going to go get a coffee,” Winnie said through gritted teeth. Considering the fact that she didn’t really like coffee all that much and her tone, she just needed some time away from us.

  “I didn’t mean to upset her,” Henry said honestly. I patted his shoulder so that he would know I understood. A situation like this wasn’t easy. “We need to look into Horace more. He’s shady at best and had friends in all the wrong places. There have got to be more people out there who’ve got motive. And better motive than Barry.”

  “Alan should be back soon with information from the mafia’s headquarters. Hopefully he heard something useful.” Alan had a knack for ending up in places at the perfect time to get just the right information. It was like a superpower. I knew he was on his way back; I could feel it in my bones.

  “That’ll be good,” Henry nodded.

  “Aside from the mafia, what else was Horace involved in?” I asked. There hadn’t really been much time to go over everything. Things were moving quickly, which was both good and bad.

  “He was deeply indebted to the mafia, but we’ve been looking deeper. He also owed money to the bank, and banks can be worse than the mafia,” he chuckled darkly. “We’ve looked at his personal life, he’s got no immediate family, but it looks like he had not one but two girlfriends.”

  “Oh,” I said with a grimace. “Did they know about each other?”

  “It would seem they did not...we’ve notified them both about his passing. I want to get them down here. One of them could have found out about the other and killed Horace in response,” Henry suggested. It was a good theory, but I wanted to wait until we got the chance to hear from Alan. The mafia still felt like the best theory.