Residual Magic

by J J Andrews

  Smith shined his halogen light at the grates as he and Ali walked the shore. On the far side, longshoremen worked around the clock, their lamps illuminating the waters only so far before the blackness swallowed the light and the Bez was utter liquid darkness.

  Ali’s gut churned whenever she walked the Bez. It was her least favorite beat. “Well, we’ve made it a good hundred yards in, and so far, no hookers, addicts, thieves, or vagrants. Just the odor. The foulness seeps into my uniform. If I hang it in my locker with my others, they will all smell like rotting sewage, mildew, and despair.”

  “I hate ironing, so I drop mine in the bag in the locker room. Takes a couple of days to get them back, but so worth the trouble. I get anxious when I’m down to one clean uniform.” Smith systematically moved his flashlight from grate to grate while Ali illuminated their path.

  “That would be a great side-hustle. Open a wash/dry/iron shop.”

  “Do you have time for a side job? I didn’t think we were allowed.”

  Ali chuckled. “No time. But if I did make time, I’d go into a highly lucrative industry. Funereal. School supplies. Have you ever seen the prices for Flair pens? Outrageous profit. Another is a non-sexual punishment brothel. Call me madam while I put your card in the reader.”

  “I think we’re better off staying on the force…oh, officer…look.” Smith waved his light along the embankment. “That is very clearly a body.”

  Ali cursed as she pressed her radio button. “540, requesting backup along the Bez, approximately a hundred yards from the parking lot, on the church side. We have what appears to be a DB.”

  “540, confirmed. Backup dispatched.”

  “I’ll climb down,” Smith said. “Will you hold the light for me?”

  Ali nodded and snapped photos.

  Smith coughed and gagged as he drew nearer the body. “It’s not a sleeping drunk. This is very definitely a very dead man. His eyes are bright red and looks like he has some torso injuries.”

  “All right. Climb up. We’ll wait for the bus and investigators.”

  “Ali,” Smith said as he scaled the embankment. “It’s quite like the body we found in the tunnel.”

  “Just as dead, that’s for sure.”

  It took but minutes for an ambulance and the investigation unit to arrive. Ali reported to the watch commander as the team collected evidence. Paper pieces. Fucking paper pieces.

  “Nothing else, officer?”

  “Not a damned thing. Smith and I were walking the shore and came upon the body—our second in a very short time, I might add. Touched nothing, except to climb down the embankment.”

  “Finish up here and get your report in.”

  As Ali and Smith made their way to the interceptor parked at the church, Ali heard one of the crime scene investigators call out, “Seven.” She knew what that meant. The first body discovered had eight pieces of paper strewn about it. The next, nine. This one…seven. The bodies were found out of order. This is a countdown. But to what? Who was going to be number one?

  * * * *

  Eight o’clock in the morning, she slogged home. She wanted nothing more than to fall face first into bed. She opened the door to coffee and bagels.

  “Delivery? You didn’t go out, did you?”

  He shook his head. “Uber’d it. Gods bless Abdi, Old Town’s only Uber driver.”

  “Thanks. But, Tom, I want to sleep.”

  “Okay. I’ll crawl in next to you. We can talk about what I heard on the scanner…”

  “Yeah. Another one.”

  “Smothered?”

  Ali nodded. “Without a doubt. I’ve been present at all three finds.” Ali popped her bagel into the toaster.

  “Small force. Small town. More crime than any one town should have, but hey…that’s why they call it Krazy.” Tom depressed the sip area on Ali’s to-go cup. “Drink.”

  Ali kicked aside a pillow that had dropped onto the floor. “One in an empty building. One in the tunnel. One along the Bez. It’s almost as if the killer is targeting areas where we patrol. Ali picked up Tom’s tattered paperback from the kitchen counter. “I thought you were getting rid of this.”

  “I started re-reading it.”

  She thumbed through the book, fanning the pages. “It seems a bit more dog-eared. More than when you brought it home. I don’t know why this book keeps turning up in your life. It burned and good riddance.”

  “Maybe I have yet to reveal my true self to my god.”

  “Look in the mirror.”

  “Any divinity is long gone, Ali.”

  “We are our own makers, Tom. God lives inside us.” She paused. “I guess in our cases, gods did live inside us. Crazy days, my friend. Those were crazy days.” Ali pulled off her street shoes. “I actually did a little reading about the Norse gods after all that.” Should I tell him about Loki? Does any of this tie in to the murders?

  Tom chuckled. “So did I. And I lived it. I was a dark blue prison to a flame-haired angry, libido-driven god, who must have behaved very badly with Cora’s household patrons. Oh, they were mad.” He popped the top on a ginger ale. “He could have picked any brothel—but he had to pick hers.”

  “Is that why you are with her—or were with her? His attraction?”

  “I don’t know. She’s dangerous territory. There’s something about her that both frightens and titillates me. But that’s over. I can’t see her. I’d rather be celibate. My sergeant’s stripes mean a lot to me.”

  “You will never be celibate, Tommy. If it’s not Corazon, it’s going to be that CNA or any one of your hospital girlfriends. I think even the postulates at St. Anthony’s would give up Jesus for a chance to be with you.”

  “Yeah…I don’t want to talk about this. It makes my stomach upset.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I love you, you know, Ali. You’re my best friend.”

  “I know.” Ali set her bagel aside. “I’m beat, Tommy. Give me a few hours and we’ll go over stuff. I miss your eye on crime scenes.”

  He nodded. “I need to tell you something.”

  She turned. “Yes?”

  “I may know something about the Burkes. The suffocations.”

  “I’m not going to get a nap, am I?” There’s something I should tell you too.

  “Come sit.” Tom patted the sofa. “Cora has put a whammy on me again. Bad dreams. Very, very real dreams. Hallucinations. Tangible things I seem to pull out of them. Like footprints made of sand and oil.”

  “What are you saying, Tom?”

  “The dreams—whether they be sleepwalking or simply quite real—they make me out to be the strangler. The Burke. The one doing the smothering.”

  Really? “Anything you say to me I’m going to have to report since this is a felony investigation. Even the weird shit has to go in.”

  “Yeah. I wish it could be off the record, but I don’t think it can. I’m fairly certain I’m under a curse again, part of which are dreams. Dreams of the strangulations. Dreams that I’m involved.”

  “You’ve mentioned this. What else?”

  “I kill you, Ali.”

  “You’d never do that.”

  “What if she makes me?”

  “Corazon?”

  “No. Melinoë. Or one of the Furies.”

  “The dark altar was destroyed.”

  Tom stood and faced her. “No. Some of it survived. I’ve a lot of time to think about this. There’s thing box at her place. I peeked when she was in out of the room. Do we need the ashes? What Cora has is not cremains.”

  “Here’s what I know, Tommy. It is Melinoë. It is the Furies. It is Corazon, and she is wicked pissed at you. She will have you in a straitjacket by the time this is over, unless I can enlist help.” Ali paused. “From beyond the grave.”

  “What?”

  “Look, Loki is here. Maybe he never left. He says I need to find Mary Estey to end the madness. Like she has a cure or something and end the murders. Her son was number eight. The
tunnel was number nine. The body tonight is number seven. This is some kind of macabre game of body-body-who-has-the-body and we are the game pieces.”

  “You’re supposed to be number one.” Tom stretched, then winced. “The incision still hurts.”

  “I don’t think how he got here is of issue. Mary could have had an affair or even a marriage in this century and had a child. I don’t even think why he had her cremains is an issue. Next of kin.” She laughed. “Fuck, Tom. I don’t even think Loki showing up is an issue. He’s more of a directional sign. And it’s all pointing at Mary.”

  “I do not know any resurrection spells. But Cora has Mary’s metatarsal and some fragments from the dark altar.” Tom rubbed his fingertips together until a flame burst forth.

  “Residual magic,” Ali said.

  He nodded. “Residual magic. We just need to figure out how to use it.”

  “Do we need to be in physical possession of Mary’s relics? How do you know she has them?”

  Tom held his stomach and coughed. He didn’t like divulging to the woman he loved information regarding the woman he slept with from time to time. I’m such an idiot. “The fragment of the altar and Mary’s foot bone are in her lingerie drawer.”

  “Why were you in her lingerie drawer?”

  “We ran out of the condoms I brought. She had some in her lingerie drawer.”

  Ali rested her hands on her hips. “How many times did you and she…? I mean…how many condoms did you go through? In one afternoon? When you said you were at the dentist?”

  Tom replied sheepishly. “Three times.”

  “Wow.”

  “Hey…you were with Ford and told me you…”

  “I’m not judging. I’m just trying to figure out how you did it three times in an hour and got back to work on time.”

  “Not a lot of foreplay. Could we please get back to how to raise Mary from the dead or contact her in some way? What about a Ouiji board? Can you get in there? Get the bone back?”

  “I could get in there. It’s getting out that might be the problem. If she gets her hooks into me—or handcuffs me again.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind, Ali. Cora’s bag of tricks is a bitch sometimes.”

  “Well…can I help you shower? Get shaved? I’ll go get some clean clothes from your apartment and you can use my truck since it’s automatic…”

  “You really want me to go there? She’s like alcohol being poured down the throat of a man long sober.”

  “I don’t want to visit you at Northern State Mental Hospital, Tommy. And if your dreams are in any way prophetic, I don’t want to die by your hand. I’d go out in a blaze of glory, defending complete strangers at a convenience store first.”

  “We are cops. Charging headfirst into an active shooter to protect complete strangers from harm without body armor protection is our thing.”

  “Do you need help?”

  Tom got up and walked to the door. “No. I got this.”

  He paused and turned before exiting. “You are the only person in the world I would ever do this for. Cora is an addictive substance and I am clean and sober. But you make me a better man; a better cop—and if we get this shit handled—we'll be in a better place. Right now, Old Town is getting bad again. Really bad.”

  Chapter Eleven

  For those about to die, we salute you. I am either going to get laid or killed. Either way, I’m fucked. Oh, hi, Cora. Can I casually handcuff you to the bed, then steal the contents of your panty drawer? He could do this. He could face down a man on PCP using his face as a battering ram against car windows. I can do this. At the stoplight he toyed with his keys. “Jesus Christ. I have a key to her penthouse. I can get in and out, unseen.”

  He checked the time. She’s at work. Hog-tying or spanking some naughty little judicial employee or elected official. He parked two blocks away. He knew exactly where her security cameras were, as he had avoided them numerous times. He had the security code (P A I N) and a key. Chances are good that anyone who sees me will think I’m there for a nooner. I got this.

  Too easy. He slipped in and up the private elevator and into her flat, avoiding the cameras by keeping to the blind spots. Her penthouse was surveillance free. No cat or yippy little dog. Just the incredible aroma of her perfume and memories of a few years’ worth of cathartic sex. He opened her lingerie drawer and removed the black-wrapped momento mories. He took a moment to run his fingertips over the soft rose-colored matching bra and panty set next to them, careful not to muss the uber-correct placement. She’ll notice the relics missing at some point. She’ll know I took them. We will need to work fast.

  In and out in less than five minutes. That’s a first. He stopped in the living room. A few books were laying out. Not something Cora did. Everything in its place all the freaking time was how she lived. He laughed. “You’ve got to be shitting me.” He read the title of a paperback she’d left open, the spine creased. Again—something she did not do. “How to Raise the Dead. A How-to on using punishment to achieve an erection for work and play, by Corazon Ophelia McPherson.” He nearly bust a gut but held the laugher back. The infamous words of Admiral Ackbar rang loudly in his mind. It’s a trap.

  She wants me to take the book.

  She knew I’d steal the relics. Shit, maybe I’d better make sure what’s in this bundle is what I think it is. He pocketed the book. She knows I’m going to take this too. She knows everything. Every fucking thing. He carefully set the black fabric-wrapped items on the table and unwrapped them. It was exactly as he had seen it in the moments he’d snooped before another go-round in the sack. A metatarsal and a piece of the altar. “This can’t be good.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Ali could be a master of non-reaction with the patience of Job and handle the boredom of a stakeout like a boss. But cultivating a woo-y new skill…she was chomping at the bit. Where else to learn magic than on the Internet? I can’t very well ask Cora for help, and I have no idea how to summon Loki, nor do I trust him or any manifestation of his. Who does that leave? The squirrel? The dragon? Whichever gods and spirits have not gone into hiding after Hell Night? She paused before typing into the search bar. How do I resurrect an old witch using her bones? Sounds like the plot of supernatural television series. The first link was promising.

  It read—Magic is all about intention. What is your intention? Cast your focus in that direction and dig deep into that part of you that believes in the everlasting nature of life. What then can you not achieve? Offer a gift to the soul you wish to retrieve. Be sure to ground first.

  “What the fuck does it mean to ground?”

  She typed that exact question in to the search bar.

  She read the first result aloud. “When you shield, you wrap yourself in spiritual energy. When you ground, you expel that which you did not use. Before shielding, center yourself in prayer. After the Working.” She paused. “Huh…capital W. After the Working, set both feet firmly upon the earth, barefoot if possible, and mentally send all the excess energy in your body, heart, soul, and mind back into the Land.” Another capital. There must be meanings to certain words in magic that mean more than others. I kind of always believe all words have power. So, I have an opening and closing act, but what about the meat of the production? She kept reading, gleaning knowledge of how to raise the dead. Until Tommy came home with an actual dead thing.

  “I did it. I’m sure I was seen or recorded or otherwise memorialized—even if it was by my sweat—but I got it.” He held his breath and unwrapped the relics and laid them out on her kitchen table.

  “Well, there ya go. The leavings of one of the most horrific and erotic nights of my life.” She wanted to say something about the way Tom looked. Dark circles. A sickly pallor. Pale lips. She kept her cool—and her thoughts to herself. It’s the curse. It’s killing him. He’s dying. The murders—each one is killing him a little further.

  A chirp on her personal cell phone sent her reeling. She read the
text with breath held. Tom’s phone chirped a moment later.

  They looked at each other, and said in unison, “There’s another body.”

  Another body had been found. Six. It was number six in a backward countdown from nine. “We need to get on with this before it takes us both out.” Ali closed her eyes and cast as much concentration as she could into the void between life and death. She wrinkled her nose as she raised the foot bone. “Mary Estey. I summon you. I summon you to appear before me and render assistance unto me. Corazon has once again cursed Tom. Loki says you have the key to how I might end it once and for all. I know what you want, and I’m willing to give it to you.” God, that sounds nuts. Unspecified gift. She knew what carrot to put before the spirit. The thing Mary had come back for after being hanged. The thing she had lived so long to achieve and died before concluding. Died again.

  The response came quicker than she assumed it would. There was no strike of lightning, no flicker of lights. No crack of thunder or mist or foreboding fog. There was simply—Mary. As she was in life, sitting on the sofa. Mary reached out. Ali felt the cold breath of death surrounding her. “Oh, my dear. I’ve never been far. I’m still tripping in between the raindrops, between heaven and hell. You didn’t need to try hard to contact me. You just needed to ask.”

  Ali had never wielded magic. She’d learned all she needed on Hell Night and the single read-through on a miscellaneous webpage. She had one shot. She could tell Tom wasn’t going to make it. Every murder took a toll on him as if it were actually him committing the heinous acts. “Help me end the curse. Call off Melinoë’s nightmares. End the drama. Reveal the true killer. End the suffocations.”

  Mary chuckled. And Tom listed to one side, sound asleep. “I don’t need him hearing this It will complicate things.”