A Haunting in the SWATS (The Savannah Swan Files Book 1)

by Balogun Ojetade

“You haven’t broken the Law.” Savannah pushed Rashad backward. “Not where I can see.”

  “You’re a good woman, Savannah. I’m your husband; they’re your children.” Rashad brushed Savannah’s forehead with a quick kiss. “We won’t break the Law. You won’t ever have to put us down like you did those men tonight.”

  Savannah shoved herself up from the chair with her good arm. Rashad gave a quick jump back out of reach. She smiled at him, but her eyes were cold and flat. “Even you don’t believe it, Rashad. You know what my mother always said? ‘All magic turns; all witches burn’.”

  She left him there with her joint and his tears – afraid to stay with him; afraid to comfort him; afraid to be the wife he deserved.

  Savannah shuffled to the bathroom. She shed her clothes at the bathroom door, peeling them away from the sticky wounds on her back.

  She turned a knob in the shower then held her head under the cold water. Her scalp throbbed, and the water ran red from her injuries and molly-head blood. She stood shivering in the cold water, but she could not shake the feeling that there was something wrong, something lurking at the edges of her thoughts.

  Rashad shut off the water. “Come on.”

  Savannah stared at him with bleary eyes for a moment, then stumbled out of the shower. She walked, naked, out of the bathroom into her bedroom, flopping down on top of the covers and letting the chill night air lick the water from her skin. The room swam around her; her eyes were too heavy to hold open.

  She awoke deep in the night, yanked out of her slumber by a series of sharp bites along the side of her neck. She stared into the darkness. Rashad’s face floated out of the shadows. He was bent over her, a curved needle in one hand, his other hand holding Savannah’s head flat against her pillow.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “It’s only stitches.”

  Savannah drifted on the pain – the tender torture that was the only way her husband dared to touch her for more than a moment. While he healed her battered flesh, Rashad could fight the Night Howler’s curse with his own gifts, trading one kind of pain for another. Without Rashad’s skills, she would heal, but it would take days longer. Savannah let him work and let herself fall back to sleep.

  She dreamed of raccoons; of mole rats – biting; tearing; burrowing.

  The sun had only begun to rise when the black phone on the nightstand rang.

  “Hello?” Savannah croaked. Years of conditioning made her respond without thought – the black phone rings, the Root Woman answers.

  “You should get yourself down to Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, my sister.” The voice on the other end of the line was smooth and mellow, but it commanded respect; demanded obedience.

  “It’s awful early for this shit.” Savannah said.

  “Get down to Cascade Springs, Savannah.”

  “What now?” Savannah was out of bed, careful not to pull the stitches Rashad had sewn into her during the night.

  “They left you another one.” There was a soft chuckle on the end of the phone – a sound that echoed with a hint of insanity.

  “Another what?” Savannah did not want to know the answer to her question. She wanted to crawl back under the covers and spend a few weeks healing.

  “Another girl, Savannah. Another screwed-up, broken girl.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  On the drive to Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, Savannah searched her memories for every scrap of information she knew about the burbling source of Cascade Springs and its waterfall. ATLiens regarded its waters as sacred, and hundreds of people had been baptized in the spring’s wide, shallow basin. It was a calm, peaceful place, where hikers came to relax and the local witches, mambo, babalawo and bokor gathered under the moonlight to fill vials of its pure water for use in their work. It was one of the most peaceful places Savannah had ever visited, and she was pissed that someone had tainted it.

  Savannah’s heart lurched at the sight of the police squad cars down near the edge of the springs. She reached for her hat out of instinct, then remembered she lost it the day before. “I’ve got to get a hat.” Savannah grabbed her revolver from beneath her seat, then holstered it. She called out to the officers gathered around the spring. “Good morning!”

  They watched her walk down from where she parked, talking to one another out of the sides of their mouths, eyes narrowed to slits. Phil was among them. Savannah did not have time to adjust their attitudes just then, but she made a promise to straighten them out later. At the moment, she was more concerned about the metal spike jutting up out of the spring.

  “What’s this?” She asked Phil.

  “No idea.” The detective did not bother to stifle his yawn or look at Savannah. “Let me know what you think after you’ve had a look. I’ll be in my car.”

  Savannah watched Phil and his officers saunter away then slither inside their vehicles.

  Savannah turned her attention to the spring. Thick clouds of blood swirled within its depths, spilling out from around the wrought iron spike as if the spring itself was mortally wounded. The rising blood formed thick streams on the surface that ran out of the spring and into the creek, splashing red onto its banks and the larger rocks jutting up from its bed.

  Savannah reached out over the bloody water then grabbed the spike. The piece of iron was cold and rough, scabbed with rust. Savannah pulled, but the spike did not so much as wiggle in her hand. It was stuck fast; she was not going to get it loose alone. She walked over to Phil’s squad car and rapped the rolled-up window with her knuckles.

  The Chief Detective removed his sunglasses then placed them on the dash with exaggerated care. He adjusted his hat then pressed the button to lower the window. He yawned then turned to face Savannah. “W’sup, Root Woman?”

  “Get a couple of your pigs… umm… officers to help me pull the spike out of the spring.”

  “We’re here to keep an eye on the scene, not to take orders from you.” Phil pushed the button. The window rolled up in Savannah’s face.

  Savannah stared at Phil through the glass with tightly clenched jaws. There were rules – the Root Woman and the Chief Detective in the SWATS worked together to keep the peace. Savannah did not like the attitude she was getting from Phil the past couple of days.

  She tapped the glass again.

  Phil sighed then rolled the window down once more. “What?”

  Savannah speared her right hand through the open window, then closed her fingers under Phil’s jaw. Her fingertips dug into the folds around Phil’s neck. Savannah stepped away from the car, dragging the Chief Detective through the window. Phil’s belt caught on the edges of the window. Savannah pulled harder. The detective’s pants fell around his ankles as he spilled out onto the grass in a heap.

  Phil staggered to his feet, yanking at his pants with one hand and fumbling for his pistol with the other. “You crazy bitch, you are not—”

  The edge of Savannah’s hand slammed into the detective’s Adam’s apple.

  Phil stumbled backward, gasping for air. He finally drew a breath, then looked up at Savannah. The muzzle of her revolver was pointed at Phil’s forehead.

  “You’re going to kill me in front of my unit?”

  “Look at ‘em, Phil,” Savannah replied. “Have any of them moved to help you? They know, as well as you do, that the mayor has given me more power than you, or any other cop in this city. Why? Because I keep Atlanta safe from the shit nobody else can… and, on top of that, I don’t abuse my people.

  “No, you just abuse good cops.”

  “Not my people… and there aren’t any good cops as far as Black people are concerned.”

  “I’m sick—”

  “Choose your words very carefully, Phil.”

  Phil’s jaw clenched. “There’s nothing in my job description that makes me your goddamned slave, Savannah.”

  Savannah pointed the revolver at the ground. “You’re right, Phil. Will you and your crack troop of pigs pretty please haul that spike out of the sprin
g so I can figure out what in the hell happened down here?”

  “All you had to do was ask nicely.” Phil thumbed the radio transmitter on his lapel then muttered something into it. Savannah heard one of the cruisers growl to life. A moment later, it crawled down toward the spring. The cruiser stopped next to a big old oak with thick branches that spread out over the water.

  Savannah and Phil stood at the water’s edge, silence thick between them. Savannah tried not to watch Phil, but her eyes kept swiveling over to the detective. Something had changed, and Savannah could not shake the feeling it was important that she figure out just what that was. But other than Phil being more of a jerk than usual, Savannah could not put a finger on what was different. She turned her attention back to the spike – a problem she could deal with.

  Two of the cops tossed a thick cable up over one of the oak’s branches then fastened it around the spike. The other end of the cable ran back to the patrol car’s winch.

  “Go slowly,” Savannah said.

  The cop manning the winch looked at her like he had just been told to choke on his own feces. He pulled the winch’s lever. “I know how to do my job, thanks.”

  The cable snapped taut, then the spike quivered in the water. The winch whined; the cable hummed. Tension mounted. The old oak groaned under the strain, its thick bark creaking and cracking as the cable dug into the branch.

  Inch by inch, the spike rose from the water. The water around it darkened with gushing blood. By the time the iron had risen a foot, the spring was the color of syrah wine.

  The spike sprang into the air on a geyser of bloody water. The winch yanked the cable in faster, reeling it up so quickly the spike bounced across the ground between the spring and the trunk of the big oak. It skipped and skidded along the ground, leaving blood splatters in its wake.

  The cop shut off the winch. The spike dangled six feet off the ground, a tangled mass of gory flesh hanging from its tip. The smell of fetid meat permeated the air.

  “What the hell is that?” The winch operator gagged. His partner bent at the waist, pouring his guts out all over his patent leather shoes.

  Savannah took a deep breath then crept toward the spike, steeling herself against what she knew she would find. She walked around it, taking it in, trying to make sense of it…

  The tangled mass was alive.

  “Hey there, Root Woman.” The voice was thick and syrupy, dripping with hatred. “Get a good look.”

  Savannah tried not to let the conjured girl get to her, but what she saw was more than enough to drive a normal woman insane. The girl’s face was the color of mahogany; beautiful, with hair-fine tattoos that formed an interlocking pattern of symbols Savannah recognized from the last mess of a girl she had found. Her eyes were pitch black and twinkled in the sunlight.

  “Don’t be sad, Root Woman. Not yet.” The girl winked at Savannah. She was knotted up like a worm on a fishing hook, the spike piercing her shoulder then emerging from just below her ribs on the opposite side. It plunged back into her left hip and erupted from the right side of her back. Her broken legs were impaled through the thighs, and her arms were folded in three places and skewered on top of her legs. Long strips of skin were missing, revealing spirals of raw flesh that leaked blood.

  “Why?” Savannah asked.

  “You’ll see,” the girl whispered, craning her head toward Savannah as far as she could reach. “Very soon.”

  Savannah left the conjured girl then sauntered back up to the Chief Detective.

  Phil watched Savannah come up the hill and did not even take one step to meet her.

  “Tell me our friends are still locked up.”

  “Of course. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.”

  “The girl say anything?”

  “Why would she talk to me?” Phil squared his shoulders and his hand brushed the handle of his pistol. “Nope, she hasn’t said a word.”

  Savannah pointed down the hill. “Lock that one up. Don’t take her off the spike.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You’ll see.” Savannah did not know where this girl had come from, but nothing seemed simple anymore. She thought it would be so easy – kill the bad people and the problem goes away. She was wrong. Someone else was out there, doing some bad shit. “I’m going to come in to the station and have a little chat with our friends.”

  “If it gets them out of my cells faster, fine with me.” Phil started walking down the hill. Savannah followed along behind him. The Chief Detective strode like a man in charge of things, strutting like he was running the whole show. It made Savannah uneasy. What did Phil know that had him up on his high horse?

  Savannah watched the detective go down and join his officers. Unlike the other cops, Phil did not seem moved at all by the sight of the girl. He took it in like he was looking over the day’s catch at the docks. Within seconds, he had his officers working. Someone came up with a cutting torch, burning the iron spike into two pieces. Five minutes later, the conjured girl was on the ground, four feet of iron hooked through her flesh.

  “Get ready, Savannah,” the girl shouted. “We’ll be seeing you real soon!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Savannah sped down the driveway to her house. She could not shake the feeling that she was being watched, that something vile was peering over her shoulder, lurking just out of sight. She killed the engine ten feet from the front porch, drew her revolver, then jogged up to the door.

  Drum sounds, thunderous and off-beat, exploded out of the house – it was Carter, pounding away on his battered djembe.

  “Rashad,” Savannah shouted from the foyer. “Time to go.”

  Carter froze, his hands floating above the drum’s soiled goatskin head. He got up off the couch then laid the djembe down where he had been sitting. “What now?”

  Rashad drifted into the living room on bare feet. Smudges of rich, black earth dotted his cheeks, and his fingernails were tipped with dirty half-moons.

  “I’m in the middle of replanting the—” he started.

  “No time. Pack a bag for you and Lashey.” Savannah turned to her son. “Get some clothes and your toothbrush, Carter. You’re going with them.”

  “Hold up!” Rashad held a dirty palm out to his wife. “We’re not going anywhere. This is our home.”

  “It’s not safe here,” Savannah said, trying to conceal her rising panic. There was a storm coming – Hurricane Katrina on steroids – and she had to get her family out of its way. “They’re coming for me, Rashad. I need you three gone; need you to get the kids somewhere safe.”

  Rashad shook his head. “Where would we go? You want us to leave the SWATS and hole up in a motel somewhere?”

  “I want you to leave Atlanta. Don’t tell me where. Just drive until you don’t recognize anything, then find a room and dig in for a few days.”

  “And wait by the phone to hear if you’re alive or dead?” Rashad took a step toward Savannah, his hand half raised to touch her cheek. He stopped then clasped his hands behind his back. “That’s not the life I signed up for when I asked you to marry me.”

  “They’ll kill you, Rashad! They’ll kill all of y’all!” Savannah struggled with the mess she saw that morning. “I need you safe, so I can fight this.”

  “Let us help you.” Rashad took another step in Savannah’s direction. The air between them simmered with the heat of tangled emotion. “None of us are defenseless.”

  Carter cracked his knuckles then stretched to his full height. “He’s right.”

  “They almost killed both of us last night.”

  “But they didn’t.” Carter furrowed his brow and clenched his fists. The skin over his knuckles shimmered, stretched, grew hardened and thick, then returned to normal in the blink of an eye. “We took them down.”

  “You think that’s what I want for you three?” Savannah came into the living room, Rashad trailing behind, then flopped down in her recliner, exhausted. She felt like
she had not slept for days and knew there was not any rest coming until this mess was sorted out. “To do my job? To live like I do?”

  She felt Rashad’s hands clench on the back of her chair. “Please don’t shut us out,” he said.

  Savannah leaned forward, away from her husband’s touch, then buried her face in her hands. She could feel the cuts and swollen bruises under her fingers. She remembered Carter’s injuries, and tried not to think about Rashad or Lashey cut up, bleeding, eyes swollen shut, stitches marching in ragged lines over their flesh.

  “I have to.” After what happened to Carter and what almost happened to Lashey, she could not put anyone else in the line of fire. “I never should have brought you all into this.”

  Rashad’s fingers grazed her scalp, his healer’s touch gentle against the mole rat bites that covered her head. “Is that what you think happened? That you lured us into danger with our eyes closed? I knew what a mess this would be when I married you. Carter knew the danger when he went up there with you yesterday. Lashey knows more than all of us – she can see the other side; she knows what’s out there.”

  “That’s over.” Savannah hauled herself out of the chair, massaging her lower back until her spine cracked and rattled. “You’re out… all of you. This one’s on me.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Carter said. He locked eyes with his mother. “It ain’t fair for you to ask us to sit by while you’re in danger. I don’t want to run. I can fight.”