by A.M. Burns
Perfect Love
A.M. Burns
Published by Mystichawker Press
Copyright 2011: A.M. Burns
Edited by Laura Culley
For More Information on A.M. Burns visit https://www.amburns.com
Perfect Love
1
Human nature never ceases to amaze me. Take the case I’m working on now. The police report called it a simple suicide, but the woman's husband is sure it’s foul play. I wish he’d gotten around to calling me sooner, but between the police and the funeral arrangements, he’d been rather busy since he discovered the body. Of course if he’d seen fit to call me before they interred the lovely missus, then I wouldn’t be standing out here in the thick fog currently rolling off the river and into the cemetery. I could’ve questioned the victim before she lay beneath six feet of dirt and sod. Most people just don’t understand what all that earth can do to communication with the dearly departed.
“Well, Ethan, here's the grave,” Tiffany Hedges, my office manager and good right hand, said. She set my working bag down on the top of the newly-planted headstone.
Dusty Davenport, my werewolf partner, drew a deep sniff of the ground around the grave. “She hasn't decayed too much.”
“That will make this so much easier.” I tried not to snap at him. They both knew that I hated calling people up from beyond the grave. It’s one of the problems with being a psychic detective listed on the Internet. That’d been Tiffany's idea. She said it helped keep us modern. I don’t have a problem with modern, but it seemed that we got more than our share of fruit loops from the Internet ad than we did from the Yellow Pages listing. That also meant we spent more time hanging out in graveyards and old rundown haunted houses than we used to. I’d love to know why people associate psychics with talking to the dead. Yeah some do. Okay most of us can, but others are better at it than I am and I don't mind admitting that. But I guess if it pays the bills it's better than those people who want to have me show up to read tarot cards and tell them where their dead uncle hid the family jewels.
Dusty laughed, trying to lighten my mood.”Well I know how you hate the ones that come out all smelly and shit.” Unfortunately even Dusty wasn’t helping my mood tonight.
I resisted the urge to glare at him. “So let's get this laid out, cast and put back in the ground.”
“Why don't you sit and meditate for a couple of minutes while Dusty and I get the circle laid out,” Tiffany suggested with an almost motherly tone. It’s the tone she uses every time she tries to get past the gruff barriers I keep throwing up to keep the world out. Most of the time that tone worked. I almost hung my head and said, yes Mother. But then she’d probably hit me with my working bag. When I say that Tiffany is my good right hand, I should probably say she’s the better part of me, if there is a better part of me. I firmly believe that behind every great person there is someone like Tiffany who cleans up after them, keeps them in line and makes sure that they wash behind their ears. In this case, Dusty makes sure I wash behind my ears, but Tiffany takes care of just about everything else. My business and my life would be a real mess without Tiffany around to keep it all organized.
As suggested, I walked a little bit away from the grave and sat down under a willow tree along the bank of the creek that led to the river and ran along the back side of the cemetery. I thought about what I’d been told of Magee Reyes, from her husband Reynaldo. He’d said he didn't want to tell me too much since he was afraid it might influence what I picked up from her spirit. Like most people he thought that I’d be communing with her spirit, not actually calling her back from the dead for a short time. He told me he’d found her when he came home from work, dead in the study of their home. I checked the police report and there were no signs of any kind of struggle or break in at the house. The woman had overdosed on some pain pills that were in the medicine cabinet along with a large amount of alcohol. They also found some kind of chemical that the lab couldn’t identify, but since there was no outward sign of foul play, the coroner ruled the death a suicide. To humor Mr. Reyes, I agreed to take the case with the little information he’d provided under the condition that he’d meet with me in the morning to answer any other questions I had.
After running that through my head, I took a series of deep breaths and began to release the irritability that was building in me. The soft damp earth and the heavy fog closed in around me, cutting me off from everything else. I let everything else wash away in the soothing energies of the creek as it babbled behind the willow tree. No matter how often I did it, I was always amazed at how the relaxing energies of grounding and centering with a tree and moving water could so drastically change my mood and my energies. I felt like an entirely different man as I rose and walked back to the grave of Magee Reyes where Tiffany and Dusty finished setting up the circle to call the woman back to the land of the living.
I moved cautiously to avoid smudging the circle of salt that enclosed the area around the grave. Tiffany set out the final candle at the north point of the circle. Dusty placed the bowl of salt on the small altar across the top of the headstone. The fog was now so heavy that we could just barely make out the southern edge of the circle from the headstone.
“Looks like we’re ready,” Dusty said. He handed me the spellbook I’d use to call the spirit forth.
In times like these, I wished I were a natural medium and could pull this off without the use of circles and spells. Hell, I’d settle for being a necromancer. I possess several psychic talents, but not the ones that help with raising the dead without a big elaborate ceremony, thus the candles, altar and other associated shit.
I walked over to the headstone and waited while Tiffany cast the circle. Her Latin was flawless as usual. But then, she’d practiced high magic for several years before she came to work for me. She’s a natural talent, so good that she could make as a corporate mage if she wanted, but for some reason, other than our past, she liked hanging out with me. She also plays the stock market and had made more than a little spare cash that way. So money’s not really that important to her.
Circle securely in place and ready, I lit the candles on the altar and opened the spellbook. As often as I’ve done this particular ritual in the past, you’d think I could perform it by heart, but I’m always worried that I might get one word wrong and the whole thing would go south. In more than a few spells, all it takes is one wrong word and you end up with the exact opposite results from what you’re after. One of my earliest instructors in the magical arts drilled it into my head, “When in doubt read the book.” It’s not worth the risk of a faulty word and a messed up spell, particularly when dealing with the dead.
The atmosphere of the circle changed as I reached the midpoint of the spell, and by the time the final word rolled off my tongue, the air was completely free of fog. I saw all the candles. The fog from the river now stood like a wall outlining the perimeter of the circle.
The earth stirred a couple of feet from the headstone as the wraith of Magee Reyes pushed her way out of the ground. The trip up through six feet of dirt can wreck havoc with the flesh that still clung to the bones of a wraith. Most people either summon a zombie or a ghost. The spell I used for wraiths features a sunrise time limit, so I don’t have to worry about anything going so wrong that I’ve got a zombie running amok for days on end. Magee stood before us, dirt clinging to her long blonde hair, her well-manicured nails split and muddied. Scrapes from the small stones marred her pock-marked face, but her ice-blue eyes were remarkably clear and focused as she stared at us.
“Magee Reyes?” It’s always a good idea to begin by making any form of dead identify themselves. Next to me I heard Tiffany's pencil moving across her notebook. Tiffany always took notes, about everything, and she’s old schoo
l. She always used a pencil and notebook. She said it’s too easy for stray magic or psi energies to disrupt most technologies and she didn’t want to lose anything important. I could count on her to have the whole session entered into the computer and waiting before I got to work in the morning.
“Yes. Who are you and why have you disturbed my rest?” she asked in a demanding tone that was more than a little condescending.
I blinked in surprise. She knew she was dead. That wasn’t unheard of, but it was very unusual, particularly in cases where the person had committed suicide by pain killers. Most people who die that way just think they are waking up from a long nap.
“I’m E. S. Peters, Mrs. Reyes,” I said. “So you realize you’re dead?”
“Of course I know I’m dead,” she snapped. “I’ve been enjoying haunting that no good husband of mine.” She turned and looked around her, as if trying to get her bearings on the location where we’d called her.
“So Magee, why did you take all the pain killers?” If she wasn’t going to be polite about my questions, I might as well cut right to the chase and find out what was going on with her.
“I didn't take any pain killers!” She glared at me as she wiped the dirt off her face with a chubby hand. “I took one of my nerve pills. All the people in my house were making me nervous so I needed a pill.”
“People in your house? Your husband said he found you when he came home from work. The police report confirms that. There’s nothing about people in your house.” This was the type of information I needed.
“That's because Reynaldo didn’t know they were coming over,” she replied with a self-satisfied tone. “He doesn't like them much and hates it when I have everyone over at the house, so I’ve started not telling him when everyone’s coming over and I make sure everything’s cleaned up before he gets home.” Magee ran a hand through her tangled blonde locks, dislodging a shower of dust and dirt. She started to look more concerned than bitchy.
Spirits, like people, tend to calm down a bit when you force them to stop and analyze a situation. The calmer she was, the more information I’d get out of her. I was beginning to agree with her husband, that this might not be a simple suicide.
“So Magee, why were people in your house the night you died?”
She’d turned away from us and wandered over to the edge of the circle, staring at the yellow candle that sat in the quarter of the East. “You cast a really nice circle considering you are using such basic tools.” She said almost to herself as her fingers played with the candle’s flickering flame.
“What do you know about casting a circle?” I struggled to keep the concern out of my voice as Dusty's large freckled hand closed on my arm in an effort to offer support. He knew as well as I did how dangerous it was to call up dead people that had anything to do with magic. They were very adept at finding any flaw in your circle casting and could use that flaw to escape back into the mortal world.
Magee turned back toward me. From across the circle, I watched dark mischief dancing across her pale features. “I'm a witch, or was,” she giggled. “Surely Reynaldo told you that. And that’s who was at the house that night, all my witch friends. It was an open community meditation. We’re all getting together to send out perfect love and perfect trust to the world around us. It’s part of why I was here, to send out perfect love to the world.” Her face looked almost enraptured as she spoke the word perfect.
“Wiccans,” Tiffany all but hissed under her breath. Her training in high magic set her almost exactly opposite from most Wiccans who believed only in the good in life. Some could not even understand any other kind of thought. A lot of them were almost as black and white as Christians and couldn’t see that the whole world was made of shades of grey. But it also made them easy prey for others posing as things they were not.
“Well Mr. Reyes didn't want to tell me too much until after I spoke to you,” I explained. “Would any of your witch friends want to do you harm?” I knew the answer as soon as the words left my mouth and I mentally kicked myself for asking.
Magee Reyes gasped as her hand flew over her mouth in true southern belle shock. “Great Goddess no! Every one of them knows the Law of Three and would never harm a fly for fear that the karma would come back to get them. I can't imagine any of them even thinking about harming me. I was their leader. None of them would have even met, had it not been for me.”
“So you were the High Priestess of the group?”
“Well, not this group,” she answered, sounding smug. “This was the community group, but I’m the High Priestess of a small coven. I’m the group leader of the community group. It wouldn’t exist without me.”
“Then I’m sure the whole community has a lot thank you for.” I tried not to sound snide, since that might influence any information we might be able to get out of her. Smug people can be very irritating at the best of times.
“Well of course they do,” she replied. “I might be new to the path, but I’ve been a wonderful leader and have made great strides to bring the community together. I mean, it amazes me how fractured the whole thing is, here in the Dallas area. So many of these covens don't even speak to one another and live in fear of the Christians coming in and causing problems. It’s things like this that show me that there is a real need for perfect love in the world.” She paused for second, apparently to gather her thoughts when a look of horror passed over her features. “You don't suppose that the Christians did something to me do you? Oh my Goddess, I bet they did. They all believe that they’re saved and their God will forgive anything they do, particularly if they do something to someone who doesn’t believe in their god.” She began to look frantic. “I bet one of the new people’s a Christian and decided to do me in to keep the Wiccan community disorganized.”
I realized this wraith wasn’t going to be of any more use to me tonight as her self-assured arrogance vanished, replaced by an almost pure panic. The change was so fast if you blinked you’d miss it. It made me wonder if in life she might not have had some kind of personality disorder. Then I remembered that she’d mentioned nerve pills. She looked too young to have nerve issues, so it might’ve been something to stabilize her mental state. I’d have to ask her husband when we spoke.
She rushed toward the headstone.
Before I could move, I heard Tiffany cast a shielding. Magee hit the shield wall. She looked almost cartoonish as the ectoplasm that made up her wraith form flattened against the clear energies of the shield. Her form congealed on the ground and she lay there sobbing. “Please, Mr. Peters, you have to find the Christian that killed me so I can rest in peace.”
“I'll do what I can, Magee.”
“I doubt we’re going to be able to get anything more out of her tonight.” Dusty said softly over the sobbing.
“I agree,” said Tiffany, shooting a disdainful look at the wraith of the witch. I nodded and turned to the next page in the spellbook to send her back to rest. The spell was shorter than the one to call her out, and within moments after the last word left my lips, the earth beneath her shifted slightly and the grave reclaimed the witch’s sobbing form.
“Well at least we got something out of her,” Tiffany said. She closed her notebook and began taking down the circle. I blew out the candles on the altar.
“You know, just once I would like to do one of these things and have the wraith come out and say, ‘I know who did it' as opposed to 'oh it couldn't have been any of my friends. They all love me.’” I could only think of one time when I called someone up and they’d been able to tell me without a doubt who killed them. And that time it’d been a bitter old woman who’d been stabbed by some gang banger who wanted her purse and hadn’t been afraid to face her to do it. Too often it happens from behind, while the person is asleep, or the person’s just in denial about what happened and can't accept the fact they’re dead.
The circle came down and the fog rolled in again. I could have sworn it was thicker. I glanced at my watch, hopi
ng that it hadn’t lost any time in the circle. Magic tended to do strange things to watches, cell phones and technology, in general. If it was right we were just shy of one in the morning. Still an early night for us, but since I needed to get more information from Mr. Reyes before I could begin an actual investigation and I didn't have any other cases going on right now, it was a good time to call it a night and head back to the office.
Tiffany placed the candles in the working bag and I laid the folded altar cloth on top, then glanced around the area. Off to the west, near the creek, I thought I saw a light bobbing along. “Is there someone over there?” I asked softly nodding in the direction I could see the faint light, almost too faint to be a flashlight, but brighter than a firefly.
Dusty turned and sniffed in that direction. “Can't smell anything. I see the light, but can't hear anything, either. But then, fog can play havoc with smell and sound.”
He started to go after it, but I caught his hand. It was hard and warm.
“Don't worry about it, probably just some random apparition drawn in by the magic.”
“You're probably right.” He smiled at me, a soft, but feral smile. “Besides if we go chasing after something in this fog who knows when we’ll get home.” The gleam in his green eyes made promises I knew he’d fulfill once we were alone.
Tiffany laughed, breaking the mood for the moment. “Come on you two. I don't know about you guys but the magic’s given me an appetite and that Waffle House down the street looks mighty good about now.”
Dusty looked astonished. “Girl, you must be hungry for a Waffle House to look good. How about Uncle Bob’s place?” Dusty countered. His uncle, also a werewolf, ran the all-night steakhouse that mostly catered to truckers and creatures of the night when it opened. It had quickly become one of the places that the bar crowd flocked to at closing time. It was the only place in town that still served steak rare, but you had to be part of the special crowd and known to the owner to get that. If the health department ever found out, he’d be closed down. They served some of the best buffalo steaks in the state.
“Coyote’s place sounds great,” I said. We headed off for a meal before bed.