Strange Magic

by Justin Gustainis

  “Coyotes,” Sturbridge said suddenly.

  Morris looked at him. “What was that?”

  “The official word we put out was that the fella had been eaten by coyotes. After first dying of natural causes, that is.”

  “But you don’t think that’s what really happened.” It was a statement, not a question. Nobody ever sent for Quincey Morris to deal with a pack of coyotes. It would be like bringing in an exorcist to rid your house of a termite infestation. That was the kind of mistake that Sturbridge would be unlikely to make. He and Morris had worked together before.

  “No, the poor bastard died of trauma, not any kind of disease. And it wasn’t any damn coyotes that killed him, neither,” Sturbridge said, and gave vent to a long sigh. “Cal Burns—he’s the Coroner—says the bite radius is all wrong, for one thing.”

  “This was no boating accident,” Morris muttered under his breath.

  “Say again?”

  “Forget it. Did the coroner have any thoughts as to what did make these bite marks? Mountain lion, maybe?”

  “No, he checked some reference book and said the wound pattern was all wrong for one of them. Said the guy’s neck wasn’t broke, for one thing. That’s the way mountain lions kill their prey, apparently.”

  “So, what’s your coroner’s considered opinion as to the cause of death?”

  “On the record, he hasn’t got a clue,” Sturbridge said.

  Morris let several seconds pass in silence, then finally asked, “And off the record?”

  There was another pause before Sturbridge said, “Cal told me the bites looked... humanoid.”

  Morris scrolled through at a few more of the unofficial crime scene photos before saying, “Humanoid—not human?”

  Sturbridge shrugged. “That was the word the man used.”

  “I assume you asked him why.”

  “’Course I did. He said the jaw was what he called ‘distended’—a little wider and longer than you find in people. Also, the teeth were sharper than normal for humans. He said they were about halfway between teeth and fangs.”

  “I see,” Morris said.

  “Oh, and one more thing. The doc says that there were two distinct bite impressions on the body, possibly even three. That means there was at least two of these fuckers, whoever—whatever—they are.”

  Morris nodded slowly. “Seems a reasonable conclusion.”

  “Reasonable?” Sturbridge made a sound that might have been laughter. “There’s nothing reasonable about any of this, Quincey. That’s why I called you in—and God help me if the taxpayers find out what I’m spending their money on. But there’s a ‘Miscellaneous’ category on the annual budget report, and I don’t usually get too many questions about it. You’re going in there—as a ‘consultant.’ So, come on, Mister Consultant, you’re supposed to be the expert in the weird shit. What the fuck am I dealing with here?”

  Morris returned Sturbridge’s tablet. “I want to take a look at that campsite before we go, and once we get back to your office, I’d like to see the autopsy report,” he said. “But from what I’ve seen so far, Dan, I’d say you’ve got yourself a ghoul problem.”

  Chapter Two

  THAD HOLLOWAY LEANED forward and placed an eight-by-ten photograph on Libby Chastain’s coffee table. He did it very gently, as if afraid of damaging the table or the picture—or maybe what the picture represented.

  “A police detective asked us,” his wife said, “whether it was possible that Kayla could have just run away.” Ellen Holloway had the drawn, twitchy look you see in an alcoholic badly in need of a drink—or a worried woman who hadn’t slept for three days.

  Libby studied what was clearly a high school graduation portrait for a few moments, and then looked up. “What did you say to him?”

  “We told him he was full of shit,” Thad Holloway said. “There was no reason for Kayla to leave home. None. She got along fine with us—for a teenager, I mean.”

  “I also pointed out to him that Kayla is an intelligent young woman,” Ellen Holloway said. “Intelligent enough, if she were leaving home, to bring some clothes, money, and her allergy medication. Not to mention her toothbrush. None of that was missing.”

  Libby nodded. “Does she have a bank account?”

  “A checking account at Chase,” Thad Holloway said. “She never had more than three hundred bucks in it, and the current balance in her checkbook is two hundred and forty-seven dollars, and change.”

  “The last check she wrote was to AT&T, for her cell phone bill. Fifty-six dollars, which is about average,” Ellen Holloway said.

  “I assume you’ve checked the record of her recent calls,” Libby said.

  “The cops did,” Thad Holloway said. “Just the usual calls to her friends, that’s all.”

  “Do her friends include a boyfriend?”

  “Not at the moment,” Ellen Holloway said. “She parted ways with the last one about... two months ago.”

  “All right,” Libby said. “And you reported her missing …?”

  “Four days ago,” Thad Holloway told her. “She never came home from school that day—she goes to Queens College—and if she was going to spend the night with a friend, she would have called us. And brought a change of clothes with her, too.”

  “Did the police issue a, what do they call it, an Amber Alert?”

  “They told us they couldn’t,” Ellen Holloway said. “She doesn’t fit the criteria under the law. The missing child has to be under eighteen, and Kayla turned nineteen last February.”

  “And there was no evidence that she’d been abducted,” Thad Holloway said. “No witnesses, no ransom demands—not a damn thing. So now they’ve started with this ‘runaway’ bullshit.”

  “We even hired a private detective,” Ellen Holloway said. “He spent a week—”

  “At fifty-five bucks an hour,” Thad Holloway said sourly.

  Ellen Holloway shot her husband a sideways glance before continuing. “He talked to her friends, checked with some of the places where runaways go for help... Nothing.”

  Libby sat back and looked at the Holloways, seated side-by-side on her couch. “I guess that brings us to the main issue,” she said. “What do you wish of me?”

  “We heard that you were a, uh...” Thad Holloway seemed to have trouble finishing the sentence.

  “The word you want is ‘witch,’ Libby said gently. “Nothing to be sensitive about—I put it on my business cards.”

  “Okay, sure,” he said. “But you sure don’t look like, I mean, you know...”

  “A crone in a conical hat, riding on a flying broomstick?” Libby’s smile was a little tired, as if she had dealt with this a hundred times before. “No, we don’t do that anymore, Mister Holloway—assuming we ever did, which is doubtful. It’s a pity, in some ways. Storing a broom in this town would be a lot cheaper than paying for off-street parking.”

  “We’ve been told that you can use magic to locate things,” Ellen Holloway said. “And people.”

  “Yes,” Libby said, nodding slowly. “I have had some success doing that sort of thing. White magic can be very effective in what’s called remote location.”

  Thad Holloway shook his head. “White, black, what’s the difference?”

  “There are many differences, Mister Holloway,” Libby said. Her voice was a little sharper than before. She had been a practicing witch for a number of years, but she was still capable of being irritated by the casual ignorance many civilians had about her work.

  “Explaining them all,” she went on, “would involve more time than you’re probably willing to spend. But there are three key distinctions that I am willing to share with you.”

  She ticked them off on her fingers as she spoke. “One, the source of my magic’s power is Light, not Darkness. Two, unlike the black variety, white magic cannot be used to harm anyone—at least, not directly. And third, because I do not practice black magic, there is at least a fair-to-middling chance that I will not s
pend eternity screaming in the fires of Hell.”

  Thad Holloway seemed chastened, a little. “So, no deals with the devil, huh?”

  “None at all,” Libby said, then decided to try lightening the mood a little. “But I did have a dyslexic cousin once, who tried to sell her soul to Santa.”

  It took them a moment to figure out that she was joking. There was no laughter, but Libby saw the corners of Ellen Holloway’s mouth twitch in a ghost of a smile. Thad Holloway, however, just looked at her.

  Not really an occasion for levity, is it?” she thought. Slick Move, Libby. Next, you can make jokes about his daughter’s face showing up on a milk carton—that ought to be a real knee-slapper.

  After a moment, Ellen Holloway asked, “So how do you do this locating trick?”

  “There’s a preparatory ritual”—with most civilians, Libby had found that ritual sounded better than spell—“that I perform. Then I start working with a series of maps, and a magically-charged pendulum. The maps start out fairly large-scale, and become more narrowly specific in response to the results I’m getting.”

  Ellen Holloway nodded slowly. “How precise are the results? When you’re done, I mean?”

  “I’m afraid that varies,” Libby said. “Magic isn’t an exact science—if it’s a science at all. For one thing, it depends on how densely populated the target area is. If she’s in a farm house, for instance, and I’ve got a good map or aerial photo to work from, I may be able to pinpoint the exact building. But if we’re talking about an urban area, it’s hard to isolate one life reading among so many others. In the past, I’ve been able to get as close as a city block. But not always.”

  “Not always?” Thad Holloway said. “You mean, sometimes it doesn’t work?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Libby told him. “For one thing...” She hesitated. “...the process only works if the person I’m seeking is... still alive. I’m sorry to have to raise that possibility.”

  “We’ve considered it ourselves,” Thad Holloway said. “Believe me. But if Kayla is still alive, you’ll be able to find her? Within a city block, or whatever?”

  “I’ve had good success with this technique, Mister Holloway. But it’s not infallible. I wish I could promise success—but I’d be lying to you if I did.”

  “Well, there’s that much in your favor, anyway,” he said. Then he frowned. “But you expect to be paid five hundred dollars, win or lose.”

  Libby had dealt with this issue many times, although she’d found that repetition didn’t make it any more enjoyable.

  “You’re paying me for my time, effort, and expertise,” she said patiently. “Just as you would any other professional.”

  She thought Thad Holloway might have given a quiet snort of disbelief at her use of ‘professional,’ but decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed.

  “I assume you’ve come to see me,” she went on, “because someone you trust told you that I’m good at what I do. They were right—I am. But I’m not infallible. I require payment in advance—in return for which you will receive my absolutely best efforts.” She looked at Ellen Holloway, then back at her husband.

  “If those terms aren’t acceptable to you...” Libby spread her hands, which she thought was more tactful than saying, Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

  The Holloways turned to look at each other. Whatever nonverbal conversation went on between them lasted perhaps twenty seconds before Ellen Holloway said to Libby, “When can you start?”

  “Almost immediately. I’ll need you to provide me with an object that your daughter has handled regularly—something that she had an emotional connection to. Once you’ve done that—and paid my fee—I can begin the preparations.”

  Ellen Holloway reached into her voluminous purse and produced a silk scarf done in a muted paisley pattern of black and purple. “This one was Kayla’s favorite,” she said, placing the scarf on Libby’s coffee table. “She’s probably worn it a hundred times.”

  “That should do very well,” Libby said. “I’ll be sure to return it to you, once I’m done.” And if the poor kid’s dead, you’ll probably want it as a memento.

  “Can we... watch while you perform this—what did you call it?” Ellen Holloway said. “Remote location?”

  Libby shook her head gently. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Even if you kept absolutely silent throughout the process, your presence would almost certainly be a distraction.”

  She had performed the remote location spell with others watching in the past, but not by choice—and never in front of people with the kind of emotional stake in the outcome that the Holloways would bring to the procedure. Even if they could have kept absolutely still and silent—which Libby suspected was beyond them—their presence would affect Libby’s concentration. And that could make the difference between success and failure.

  Thad Holloway’s face bore the expression of someone who had just bit into a lemon. But then he reached slowly for his hip pocket and produced a wallet. “You okay with hundred-dollar bills?”

  Chapter Three

  STURBRIDGE LOOKED AT Quincey Morris for three, maybe four seconds without speaking. Finally, his voice without inflection, he said, “Ghouls.”

  “What were you expecting?” Morris said? “Flesh-hungry space aliens, like those things Sigourney Weaver was always killing in the movies? Would that have been any easier to believe?”

  Sturbridge dropped his eyes. “I dunno. Maybe. I guess I was thinking it might be something like... zombies.”

  “You’ve been watching too much TV,” Morris told him. “There’s no such thing as zombies—not the way you mean, anyhow.”

  “You just lost me there,” Sturbridge said.

  “I mean, there are such things as zombies,” Morris told him. “Within the religion known as voudoun, which Americans have corrupted into ‘voodoo,’ there are some practitioners of great power.”

  “You mean, like, witch doctors?”

  “Something like that, except in voudoun they’re called houngans. The male ones are, anyway. Female practitioners are known as a mambo. And a few of those people, if they know the right ritual to use, have the power to raise the dead, and bend them to the houngan’s will. That’s real—I know, I’ve seen it.”

  A few years earlier, Morris and Libby Chastain had run afoul of Queen Esther, the most powerful mambo in New Orleans—a town where many take the practice of voudoun very seriously. She had sent four machete-wielding zombies after them. Morris had been prepared to deal with that particular problem—which didn’t mean that he was free from nightmares about it, even now.

  “I guess asking you about that would come under the heading of ‘TMI,’ huh?” Sturbridge asked.

  “Yeah, I think it would,’ Morris said. “But here’s something that isn’t—the kind of zombies you’re thinking of, the ones from the movies, that’s just bullshit.”

  “No brain-eating, huh?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice, no. George Romero’s the guy who started that, back in the Seventies, he just made it all up. Zombies aren’t caused by a virus or nuclear radiation, and they’re sure not interested in eating anybody’s brains—unless their master orders them to, and I’ve never heard of that happening. Romero was just creating his own variation of vampire mythology.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “In those movies, the zombies need brains to continue their existence, right?” Morris said. “And whenever they chomp down on some poor bastard’s skull, they make another zombie.” He shrugged. “Substitute blood for brains, and you’ve got Varney the Vampire, whose story predated Romero by about a hundred years.”

  “But vampires—they’re not just pop culture bullshit.”

  “No, they’re not, podner. As you and I have reason to know.”

  “And ghouls—they’re real, too.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Yeah, okay, but aren’t they just supposed to eat corpses? I saw some dumb movie on Netflix last ye
ar, and it had a bunch of ghouls in it. They were digging up bodies from graveyards and eatin’ ’em, not killing live people.”

  “You’re right, Dan,” Morris said. “Generally, ghouls subsist on the flesh of the dead. That’s why they’re often found around cemeteries. But if their normal food supply isn’t available... well, it’s kind of like a poster I once saw.”

  “What are you talking about? What poster?”

  “When I was in college, one of the guys in my dorm had one on his wall—bought it at a head shop, or someplace. It’s a cartoon drawing of two vultures, sitting side by side on a tree branch, and one of them turns to the other and says something like, ‘Patience, my ass! I’m gonna kill something.’”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve seen that one, now that you mention it.”

  “Well, that’s the way it is with ghouls. If there isn’t any dead human flesh available, they’ll just go and make some.”

  “Killer ghouls,” Sturbridge said. “Shit. Well, what are we gonna do about it?

  “What we are going to do is wait a few days, while I drive back to Austin and get some things I’ll need—stuff that I’d have trouble getting on a plane, even in checked luggage.”

  “Okay—then what?”

  “Then I thought, you and me, we’d go camping.”

  Chapter Four

  WHEN HER PHONE began playing its all-purpose ringtone of Sympathy for the Devil, the demon known as Ashley didn’t bother checking the caller ID. She knew who was on the line.

  Bringing the phone to her ear she said, “Hello, darling. Horny again already?”

  “After last night, are you kidding me?” Libby Chastain said. “I probably won’t be horny again for a year—or two or three days, whichever comes first.”

  “I’ll be amazed if you can hold out for three,” she said, “but in the meantime, we could go to a museum and pick up a little culture.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Of course,” Ashley said. “I read in New York Magazine that the Museum of Sex is having an exhibit called ‘History of the Dildo.’ Some of their specimens go back to ancient Rome—although I happen to know Assyrian women were using them at least a thousand years earlier.”