I took a seat and barely settled in, when a young man wearing blue jeans, sneakers and a red cashmere sweater walked into the room.
“Tony?” he said, pushing his black-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose.
I stood. “Yes?”
He tossed his ponytail over his shoulder and stroked his chin patch, a scruffy little thing like the kind jazz musicians wear, only his looked like it sprouted from a starter kit. I didn’t figure him any older than Spinelli, yet his confidence suggested he was much older. He walked up to me with purpose and offered his hand. “I’m Doctor McMillan.”
“Of course, Doctor. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Please, call me Michael.”
“Really?”
“Sure, if I can call you Tony.”
“You can call me whatever you like, just so long as you tell my boss I’m fit to go back to work.”
He laughed at that, a practiced laugh just like Rebecca’s practiced smile. “We’ll see how it goes,” he said, adding almost as an afterthought, “Tony.” He stepped back and presented a path forward with the sweep of his hand. “What do you say we go into my office and make ourselves comfortable?”
Doctor Michael McMillan’s office, like his reception area, seemed perfectly conducive for setting a patient’s nerves at ease. The lighting was subdued, the colors neutral and the ambiance subtle.
He kept a tropical fish tank along one wall, opposite a cherry bookcase filled with knickknacks and literary first editions. Another wall sported a large picture window overlooking a shaded atrium, overgrown with lush green plant life.
His desk, a reconditioned baby grand piano top, took up the corner closest to an old grandfather clock that seemed oddly disproportionate to its surroundings. Across from that sat the traditional leather couch and chair.
“Please,” he said, gesturing toward the latter two items. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I crossed the room and took a seat in the chair, something I knew Lilith would do, and so I figured why not? Doctor McMillan seemed unfazed and took a seat on the sofa.
“So, Tony,” he began. “Let me start by saying that nothing you say here, now or at any time in the future, will ever leave this room. Your right to confidentiality is of paramount concern to me.”
“No matter how bizarre?”
“No matter how bizarre,” he answered, but then qualified that by holding his index finger up and adding, “Of course, if you were to tell me something that implicated your direct involvement in a case where somebody is physically harmed, or is in danger of being harmed, then I would be obliged to report that to the authorities.”
“Of course. I’d expect nothing less of you.”
“Fine then. Now let’s see.” He produced a notepad from between the chair and sofa and flipped through the first few pages. “Your captain tells me you recently experience a head trauma and that you had amnesia. Is that correct?”
I settled into the folds of the plush leather chair and crossed my arms to my chest. “That’s right, but I’m fine now.”
“Of course, you are.”
Funny, how that sounded so damn condescending to me. I let it go, though, and ignored the pretentious hook in his brow. All I had to do was play along for an hour and get my back to work card. One hour. I could go that long without killing him.
“Tell me,” he said, “how long did you suffer from amnesia?”
“Well, I’d hardly call it suffering.”
“Indulge me.”
“About five years…I mean weeks.”
“Interesting.” I watched him jot something down on his notepad and hoped it wasn’t bad. “Do you recall anything about your experiences during your episode of amnesia?”
“Should I?”
“You tell me.”
“Sure,” I said, figuring what could it hurt? “I remember everything, waking up in the woods, finding that mission where they fed me, gave me new clothes.”
“Do you remember anything before that?”
“Yeah, I remember working on a case where we were investigating the theft of a crate of dynamite.”
“Is that what caused your concussion?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
More jotting of notes. It was beginning to wear thin already.
“How about before that?” he asked.
“Before the explosion?”
“Yes. Do you remember what you did the morning before the explosion?”
My brain took over then, filling me with flashbacks from the morning Leona Diaz was kidnapped. I remembered the old cowboy taxi driver, Dallas, who reported it, Lilith’s EMF meter, the cyclone that transported us to the Eighth Sphere. I remembered all of it, enough so that it made me shudder. I tried balling it all up and shoving it back down so that the doctor would never see them. When I felt I had arrested all the real memories, I looked at McMillan and replied, “Sure, I remember. It was a perfectly uneventful morning.”
“Was it?”
More fucking jotting. I hated the man. I knew then why he employed so many tricks of tranquility. It was so nobody would choke the shit out of him.
“Yes,” I said, reiterating, “perfectly uneventful.”
He tapped his pen on his notepad, subconsciously keeping time with the ticking of the grandfather clock across the room. I began thinking it was all a ploy to drive me crazy.
“Tony,” he said, do you have any trouble with your memory now?”
“No.”
“No long-term memory loss.”
“None.”
“How about short-term?”
“None, Doctor. I’m completely cured.”
“Tell me about my reception room.”
“What, out there?” I hiked my thumb up over my shoulder.
“Yes. You were out there for a couple of minutes. Tell me what you remember seeing.”
“All right.” I palmed the armrests of the chair and propped myself up. “Let’s see. The most remarkable thing out there is your receptionist, Rebecca Johnston.”
“Oh, you know her?”
“No, I saw her nameplate on her desk.”
He nodded approvingly. “Continue.”
“She’s about twenty-four, has dark brown hair with auburn highlights, wears contacts that make her naturally brown eyes appear blue and, in my opinion, wears her makeup a little too heavy for a day job.”
“That’s good.”
“I noticed she has a practiced smile, probably something she’s perfected to hide her braces, although they are those new invisible line braces and one can hardly see them anyway.”
“Agreed.”
“Commercial grade carpeting covers the floor of your reception room. It has repeating floral patterns that look like banana leaves. The chairs are cushioned, thinly, their pattern more paisley than floral, but they work with the carpeting. You have eight chairs, four with armrests, four without, as well as a bamboo style glass-top coffee table.”
“Impressive,” said Doc McMillan.
“Oh, and let’s not forget the televisions. I’m sure you went out of your way to see that they instill a sense of tranquility in your patients while they wait. Let’s see, you have a lovely tropical beach scene on one, a forest scene at mid-day on another, a wonderful morning lake scene and lastly, a moonlit waterfall.”
“Indeed,” remarked the doctor. “I imagine your powers of observations serve you well in your profession.”
I shrugged dismissively at the compliment.
“Well,” he said, closing his notepad and slipping it back between the couch and chair. “I don’t see where you’ve suffered any harmful effects from your recent misfortunes, Detective. If anything, perhaps it did something to energize your abilities of recall.”
“Does that mean you’ll recommend my reinstatement to active duty?”
Doctor McMillan stood, and then I stood. He offered his hand. “Yes, I’ll make that recommendation; however, I do wish to see you again soon. I be
lieve you have some deep underlying issues that still trouble you somewhat.”
“Why do you say that?”
“For one, you seem to think you had amnesia for five years.”
“That was a slip. I corrected myself.”
“You also gave a little shudder while recalling the morning of the explosion. Something about that morning affects you profoundly.”
“It’s cold in here,” I said. “I felt a draft.”
“What about your blackout?”
“What blackout?”
“You froze up on me for almost fifteen minutes.”
“I did not.”
He nodded toward a video camera mounted up in the corner of the room. “I could show you.”
“When did I do that?”
“While you were thinking about that perfectly uneventful morning.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Is coming back for another session a prerequisite for your recommendation?”
He shook his head. “Officially, no. As a favor to Captain Zevic, and because I believe getting back to work is exactly what you need right now, I’m going to clear you. Unofficially, I can see that you need to talk about something. I would like to see you back here.”
“All right,” I said. “In that case, I’ll think about it. Thank you.”
Chapter 5
I left Doc McMillan’s office feeling antsy about something, though I didn’t know what. It was only while waiting at the bus stop, standing in a crowd that I figured it out. I hated being among people, strangers, folks that had no idea what dangers hailed from all around them.
I also figured out that I was missing Jerome. In five years, we had not been apart for more than a few minutes at a time. I wondered where he was, what he was doing. Did Lilith have him leashed-up in the back yard like a dog? Had she fed him?
The man standing next to me bumped my arm as he adjusted the satchel on his shoulder. Reflexes had me this close to snapping his neck. Thank God, I had the wherewithal to abort before following through with it. He turned to me and smiled his apology. He couldn’t see through my dark sunglasses, but my eyes were still red with intent. I tamed my sneer and returned the smile.
When he looked away, I eased back from the crowd, flattening myself against a chain-link fence lining the sidewalk. Bodies quickly filled the void. A minute later, the three-fifteen rolled up to the curb. The squeal from its airbrakes reminded me again of malodytes, and the sound they make just before they attack.
The doors opened. The oblivious herd funneled onto the bus. With the last one seated, the driver looked out at me, standing at the curb looking in.
“Well?” he said. “Coming aboard?”
I nodded, attempted the first step but then backed away again. Something about getting on that bus just scared the hell out of me. It’s funny, I know. Every day, for five years, I battled weird, grotesque creatures capable of ending my life in the most horrific ways imaginable. Yet, now that I was back in civilization, in a world where dangerous creatures lived in zoos, the talons of fear gripped me with such force I could hardly breathe.
“Hey, Mister.” The bus driver’s good-natured attitude had clearly evaporated. “You getting on or what?”
I regarded him with the same unflinching attention I’d pay one of those animals at the zoo. With his patience obviously expired, he closed the doors, hit the gas and rolled away from the curb.
On my walk home, I stopped at the park. It was quiet there. Save for a mother and child feeding ducks near a pond, not another soul stirred.
I brushed aside a few pinecones and made a seat on the ground under a tree. Resting my head against the trunk, I closed my eyes and imagined myself back in the dark hollows of the Eighth Sphere. It occurred to me then what a marvelous place it was, what awesome things I had taken for granted.
I thought of the rivers that flowed uphill, and of marshmallow clouds that dripped like honey from a pitch black sky; how raindrops pooled in viscous lakes and glowed phosphorus to the touch. I remembered the fruit of the brobble; how it not only got me drunk, but also allowed me a glimpse into the future. How many times had I thwarted an attack from a treklapod or malodyte with insight I’d not otherwise have had?
Under the whisper of wind and the shadows of pines, I surrendered to the call of sleep. There, my dreams gave life to secrets stowed deep in the recesses of my mind. I returned to the cliff ledge behind the diamond wall where Lilith told me she loved me. There, the wind played softly in her hair and the light from the emerging discussant twinkled in her eyes. The great valley cathedral lay before us, a past forgotten lay behind. The thought of freezing that moment for eternity seemed selfish, I know, yet I prayed the mystic realm of the Eighth Sphere would make it so. It did not.
“You!” said a voice that shook me from my dream. I opened my eyes to a uniformed cop tapping his baton on the tip of my shoe. “You there.”
I squinted up at the form silhouetted by the sunny backdrop. “Yes?”
“You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“There’s no sleeping in the park, you know.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.” I lifted the sunglasses over my forehead. “I was resting my eyes for a bit and—”
“Oh! It’s you, Detective Marcella. I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you. Listen, I heard you were back. That’s great news.”
“Thank you, officer...”
“Brown, sir. Doug Brown.” He extended his hand and helped me to my feet. “I was at your memorial a couple of weeks ago. It was really something. Must have been a hundred cops there.”
“Is that so?”
“They came from all around, Malden, Medford, Revere, Saugus, Salem. Even had a carload come down from Ipswich. You’re a real popular guy, Detective. I hope I get a turnout like that when I go…. Oh, jeez. That must have sounded cold, eh?”
“Not at all,” I said, slapping him on the back as I started on my journey again. “When you go, I’m sure the entire state will come to your funeral to celebrate.”
“Celebrate?”
I turned back to him. “Your life, I mean, celebrate your life.”
“Oh, of course. Thanks. Welcome back.”
I arrived home around five o’clock to find it filled with visitors—strange visitors—like refugees from a Hare Krishna camp. I remembered that Lilith told me she’d be conducting interviews all afternoon for the new guardians, keepers of the elements. What she didn’t tell me was that there’d be a troupe of witch misfits practicing second-rate witchcraft in my living room and turning the place upside down.
In one corner, I saw a young woman, nineteen maybe, spinning a globe of pink smoke on the end of a pencil, while her boyfriend (so I guessed) inhaled the vapor through a straw.
Across from them sat another woman, older, reading tarot cards for a blind man. The odd thing about that was she appeared sightless, as well.
Closer to the hallway, Ursula sat at a card table, employing a set of crystal cubes as a sort of litmus test for persons proficient in trans-molecular kinesis. I watched her infuse a gold ring into the center of one cube and cause it to migrate through the others with nothing more than thought energy to facilitate it. Several at the table tried to duplicate the feat, yet none could do it in the time I stood there watching.
“Tony!” Lilith spotted me at the door and hurried over. She grabbed my hand and promptly ushered me into the kitchen, perhaps thinking that if she whisked me away quickly enough I wouldn’t see the circus acts going on around me.
“You hungry?” she asked. “I bet you’re hungry. Look, there’s pizza in the fridge. Help yourself. If you want something else, I can—”
“Lilith, what’s going on here? I thought you were only going to interview a few people.”
“I was, but we experienced a larger turnout than expected.”
I craned my neck, peered over her shoulder and counted eighteen bodies. “You have enough people here to start a
baseball game.”
“Please, you should have been here earlier. We had forty-six witches here at one time.”
“Forty-six? How did so many people hear about this? What did you do, advertize on national television?”
“No. I simply put the word out through the W.U.N.”
“What’s that?”
“Witch’s Underground Network. Don’t tell me you never heard of it.”
“I never heard of it because you just made it up.”
“You really must get out more, Tony.”
“Wait, are you telling me that all those people out there are real witches?”
“That’s right, all except one.” She turned and pointed out an elderly woman sitting in my easy chair, her feet up, granny glasses resting on the tip of her nose, her arthritic fingers crocheting what appeared to be a flowered hand cozy.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“That’s Ella May.”
“If she’s not a witch, then why is she here?”
Lilith gave me a look as though I had just asked her if water was wet. “Tony, she’s not done with her cozy yet.”
“I see.” I shook my head dismissively. “So, have you found any qualified candidates to assume the guardianship roles?”
“Nah, none yet.” She folded her arms below her breasts and nodded in recollection. “We did identify one hopeful, though. The trouble is she’s a bit young.”
“How young?”
“Seven.”
“Seven? You interviewed a seven-year-old child for a guardianship position over a prime essential?”
To that, she laughed, even snorted a little. “Tony, of course not. We interviewed the mother on her behalf.”
“Oh, that’s better.”
“Yeah, we would have approved the girl’s candidacy if the little snot hadn’t told us she’d work the TV circuit and try to commercialize it to her advantage.”
“The little girl said that?”
“No, the mother did.”
“Nice.”
“I know, right?”
I cupped her elbows and ushered her further back into the kitchen and away from prying ears. In a hushed voice, I said, “Tell me about this morning. Did you go out looking for the portal?”
BURY THE WITCH: Book 10 (Detective Marcella Witch's Series) Page 5