Dance For The Devil

by S. Kodejs

  Jake remained sitting while the others shuffled out. He kept his face bland and impassive.

  “Well?” Gil asked, when they were alone. “What do you think?”

  “Could be anyone, from a janitor to a secretary, or even one of the executives. Hell, it could even be a courier. This place is totally unsecured, people come and go at all hours.”

  “Anything you care to tell me, Jake?”

  Comprehension dawned. “Jesus, Gil, you can’t expect it’s me?”

  “Why not? You’re the new man on the totem pole, and I know you have contacts at Vids-4-Kids.”

  “But what would I gain from leaking it? I’d be cutting my own throat.”

  “Revenge, perhaps? You were mighty pissed-off when I made those changes. No one can exactly call you a team player.”

  Jake rubbed his eyes. “This is nuts, Gil, I haven’t had enough time to do this. For them to have beaten us to distribution, it would’ve been leaked weeks ago, probably longer.”

  “That doesn’t let you off the hook, maybe you’ve been playing me for a fool, pretending you couldn’t fix the problem with level six, stringing me along to buy more time while you lined your dirty pockets.”

  “If you believe that, there’s nothing left to say. I’ll clear out my desk immediately.”

  “Not planning to defend yourself?”

  “What’s the point? You just accused, judged and hung me. If you wanted to act rationally, you’d realize that finding the true culprit wouldn’t be terribly difficult.”

  “How?”

  “Keep your eyes peeled for anyone who quits in the near future, and watch for a change in lifestyle. Whoever sold to Vids-4-Kids probably got paid well, and I’ll bet it’s burning a hole in his pocket. Watch for anyone driving a new car or going on an expensive vacation. That sort of thing. If you really want to be thorough, monitor everyone’s bank accounts. That should give you a few clues.”

  Gil was watching him carefully. “Why, Jake, I do believe that’s illegal.”

  “I’m sure it is, but I suspect that won’t stop you.” He scribbled on a slip of paper. “Here’s my account number, but it’s pretty sad right now – buying the house cleaned me out.”

  “All the more reason to earn some fast cash, hmmm?” Gil shoved the paper aside. “Do you think I’m completely stupid? You’d hardly tell me the right account.”

  “Gil, this is insane.”

  “Okay, if you’re on the level, help me get back on track. I know you’ve been working on some ideas by yourself, and now’s the time to share them. Pluto’s Playground is dead, but if we hustle, we might be able to get something else ready.”

  “I do have some thoughts I’ve been tossing around.”

  “Fine, talk to Harris immediately, and get a replacement game on my desk by the end of the day... Oh, for Christ’s sake, now what’s wrong?”

  “I can’t do that right away. I need to get home.”

  Gil’s head snapped back. “You’re pushing it, Montclaire.”

  Jake held his temper in check. Blowing up at Gil would only exacerbate the situation, and despite his glib offer to clear out his desk, he really couldn’t afford to lose his job. “I told you about Amy, about spending the night at the Emergency Ward.”

  “Nothing serious?”

  “No, thank God.”

  “Then let Carmen handle it. It’s what you pay her for.”

  “No.” Jake glanced at his watch. “I have to do this first, but it won’t take long. Ten minutes to get home, ten back... I’ll be less than an hour, and that’ll give me the rest of the day to tackle the game problem. Don’t give me that expression, Gil, this is non-negotiable.”

  “At least, stop by and give the team your ideas first so they can get started. You must have some plans laying about, some hardcopy?”

  Jake nodded curtly, then left the room before he could say anything else.

  Gil sat still for a full minute, thinking. Then he picked up the phone, punching in a prearranged number combination. “He’s on his way. Time’s up.” He listened for a moment, then nodded. He allowed himself a tiny smile of satisfaction. All the years of waiting, all the years of planning was about to pay off. Jake Montclaire was in for the ride of his life, a one-way ticket to Hell.

  **

  The design team was delighted to review his ideas. Jake opened his briefcase and tossed a disc onto the table. “Three prospects,” he instructed, briefly outlining. At the last moment, he kept back a second, more important disc, containing data of his best work. I’ll show it to them later, he justified, when I can fully detail it.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jake was pulling into his own driveway. The house appeared peaceful, which should have calmed him, but instead made Jake feel queasy. Must be the coffee, the thought. I’ve got to get some food into my stomach.

  It was still early; the children would be soundly asleep, recuperating from their horrendous night. It had been close to five when they arrived home and Jake was operating on no sleep. How nice it would be to climb back into his own bed, he thought wearily.

  The first clue something was amiss was the front door left ajar.

  The second was a wildly keening Carmen, flapping around the house like the proverbial chicken. Skeeter staggered down the stairs, rubbing his eyes. “What’s all the fuss about?”

  Jake’s heart skipped a beat. “Good question, Skeet.”

  Carmen was rattling something off, a combination of English and Spanish that made little sense. Jake led her to the sofa and instructed her to take deep breaths.

  “It’s Amy!” She wheezed in great gulps. “Amy’s missing.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  Carmen shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I went to check on her, to open the curtains, and she was gone. I searched the whole house, even the basement. She’s gone.”

  “Calm down, Carmen.” Jake’s heart was making up for that skipped beat and now palpitated double-time. “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.” But even as he spoke he feared it wasn’t true. His stomach knotted, a sickness rising from his gut, awash in acidic bile, burning a path upwards via his esophagus. The kind of feeling a parent gets instinctively when something is wrong with his child.

  Carmen’s accent thickened. “I was in the kitchen, making eggs and bacon, so when the children woke they could eat right away. I had the music turned up, you know the station I like? I was dancing a little, I like to listen to the music loud when I cook.”

  Jake nodded impatiently, he knew this. It was a standard joke in the Montclaire household. The louder the music, the better the food.

  “I go to check on her, she’s gone. I look everywhere. The front door is wide open.”

  Jake ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time. Amy’s room was empty, the bedcovers strewn about, indicating... what? A haste to leave? A struggle?

  Time seemed to unravel at half-frame, like a dream where his legs were encased in cement. When he thinks back on these minutes, none of it will seem real. He’s playing a role, and he already knows the outcome.

  Like a puppet, he goes thought the necessary motion – an inventory of Amy’s closet confirms she hasn’t bothered to dress. The shoes are the main tipoff: some muddy joggers, three pairs of Doc Martens, and one pair of snow boots. All footwear present and accounted for.

  Her purse is lying on the girlish desk she insisted on bringing from Toronto, even though it’s more suitable for a six-year-old than a teenager. Jake emptied the purse on the bed, scattering the contents. Her cellular phone, turned off. Her wallet, containing fifteen bucks and some spare change. His credit card. How long had she had that? A hairbrush, a half pack of gum, some tampons... a bit of makeup... a condom? Jesus!

  His bad feeling reaches epic proportions. Very bad. Skeeter entered the room, looking only marginally awake. “Did you hear anything?” Jake asked, his voice too harsh.

  Skeeter shook his head, looking confused, and Jake squelched the urge to rattle answers from th
e boy.

  He phones the police instead. They’ll send an officer over, and the dispatcher tells him not to worry, probably a teenage-thing. She asks Jake a few questions about his relationship with his daughter, and Jake answers, aware of how damning he sounds. Yes, they have been fighting a lot. Yes, she has skipped school recently. Yes, she did come home late from her curfew. Yes, she is grounded. Yes...Yes...Yes... He answers sharply, knowing he sounds like the worst parent in history.

  The officer arrives shortly and is sympathetic. He asks for a recent picture of Amy, which he tucks into his report book, glancing only briefly. He tells Jake not to worry. Why is everyone telling me not to worry? They’ll keep an eye out for her but nothing formal will be done until twenty-four hours. “Chances are she’s with friends, hanging out at some mall. Call her friends. Does she have a boyfriend? Check with him first.”

  The officer leaves, and Jake picks up the phone. He’s not sure what her friends’ numbers are, so he phones the school and explains the situation to the school secretary. Her voice sounds funny, concerned, and she asks him to wait. Almost immediately, the principal comes on.

  “I was just trying to contact you,” the principal says, and for the life of him, Jake can’t remember the man’s name.

  “I have some unsettling news. Last night, one of Amy’s friends was murdered, but I’m not certain of the details yet. A girl named Elise Keeler. Amy’s friend Alex Kreschenski is also absent, no answer at his house.”

  “And... Jason Vandercamp?” Jake asked, his head reeling.

  “The Vandercamp boy is here. I’m going to send for him and ask him some questions. What about Amy?”

  “Amy’s missing,” Jake said, his voice cracking.

  An uncomfortable pause. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.” There it is again. Empty words that were beginning to take on their own sinister connotation. “Those four are as thick as thieves, pardon the expression. My guess is that Amy is with Alex. I’ll talk to Jason and I’ll keep you apprised. If you hear anything, please let me know.”

  Jake hung up the phone, feeling frustrated. Feeling frightened. Feeling impotent.

  He can’t just sit here.

  He has to do something.

  The situation calls for desperate measures.

  He remembers he’s supposed to return to the office, but no longer cares. He doesn’t even bother to phone in. Let Gil sort out his own goddamned mess, Jake has more important things to do.

  He picked up the phone and called directory assistance, feeling foolish but not knowing where else to turn. The operator put him through. “Blessed Be Bookstore?” Jake asked hesitatingly. “May I please speak to Cari Valentine?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jake’s skin had taken on the hue of old Naugahyde, his expression taut with torment. His headache had grown proportionately with the events of the day, until in desperation he downed a half-dozen aspirin without benefit of water. The gritty remains lingered bitterly in his mouth, somehow a fitting epitaph. But the medicine worked its magic, and while the pain was still there, it became distant and bearable, a foggy haze as surreal as his living nightmare.

  Cari Valentine sat across from him, dwarfed in an overstuffed chair, regarding him openly. His aura was one of despair. She wasn’t sure how to begin and was relieved when he made that choice for her.

  Jake spread his hands before him, studying his fingernails. When he finally spoke, his voice was raspy with emotion. “I’m desperate, you understand. Part of me feels if I listened to you, heeded your warning, my daughter wouldn’t be missing.”’

  “And the other part?”

  Jake glanced around, gathering his thoughts as he observed Cari’s living room. It was a feminine room but not overpoweringly so... a room a man could feel at ease in. Womanly touches appeared in the floral pattern of the tapestries, the fringed cushions, the vases of flowers – yet the dimensions were of masculine proportions. Chairs large enough for a man to settle comfortably. Footstools obviously meant to be used, not just decoration. Dainty yet rugged, like a garden room. Jake sighed and loosened his tie. “The other part of me thinks I’m a complete idiot for being here.”

  Cari’s mouth quirked. “At least you’re honest.”

  “At this point, I think honesty is the only thing I have left.”

  “I want to ask questions, but it’s your turn first. Go ahead, ask me something, anything you wish.”

  “How long have you been a witch?”

  “Direct, I like that, it shows character. I’ve been a witch forever, although I didn’t realize until high school. I knew I was different but I didn’t know how. Then, one day, some kids were fooling around, dabbling in the occult. Nothing serious, Ouija Board, summoning Kurt Cobain’s ghost, that sort of thing, but somewhere in the foolishness, something twigged, and when I started doing research I knew the concept was right for me. Witchcraft filled my missing void, made me feel complete. I’ve been a practising neo-pagan witch ever since.”

  “But what exactly does that mean?”

  “Do you know anything about Wicca?”

  “Not much.”

  “Wicca is an ancient religion, dating back thousands of years. But it’s more than religion, it’s a philosophy, a way of life. Wicca is nonviolent, harmonious, in sync with the Earth and our own body rhythm. Wicca embraces the power from within.”

  “Do you believe in magic?”

  “Of course. Everyone does, to varying degrees. Some explain magic as coincidence, or timing. How often have you thought about someone you haven’t seen in years and out the blue, you bump into him a few days later? Or that person phones you, and you say ‘Gee, that’s weird, I was just thinking about you’. Then there’s the power of positive thinking – identifying your needs, vocalizing them, visualizing them, setting a definite course for achievement and allowing them to materialize.”

  “How can that be construed as magic?”

  “Magic is the power of consciousness. Witches, or Wiccans as I preferred to be called, have fine-tuned this process. Some people are more intuitive than others, and I believe this ability is another step in the evolutionary ladder.”

  “Are you suggesting you’re more evolved than me?”

  She laughed. “I would never suggest such a thing. However, it’s something I’ve practised for years, something I’ve gotten rather good at.”

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s just so... unconventional.”

  “So was the notion the Earth was round, or that man could walk on the moon. Many popular perceptions change over the course of time. Perhaps witchcraft will one day be a mainstream religion, as acceptable as Christianity.” She smiled at his dubious expression and shrugged. “Or maybe it won’t. People have been struggling with the concept of witchcraft for eons. What they don’t understand frightens them, so they seek to eradicate it. Do you know how many innocent people were executed over the years, simply for being accused of witchcraft? Whether they actually were witches was beside the point. The Inquisition years were a tipping point – you didn’t have to be a witch to be tortured and burned at the stake, the accusation was enough to seal your fate. If you had a funny birthmark, then bingo, you were a witch. If you caught a bad fever and became delirious, your incoherent words might be mistaken for speaking in tongues and that was the end of you. If your neighbor didn’t like you, a whisper in the right ear, an allegation of misconduct, and you were toast. Literally.”

  “Burned at the stake,” he repeated, thinking, this is all very interesting, but I need to find my daughter.

  “This does have a point,” she said, as if reading his mind. “It serves to prove that witchcraft has been unfairly maligned and is truly honorable.”

  “Sorry, go on.”

  “Okay, I’ll try to get to the point. No one was immune from accusations: men, women, children, babies. The worst place was Germany. Over a hundred-thousand people were executed in Germany alone, just for being different. In the sixteenth century,
witches were persecuted because of their religious beliefs, four centuries later the same thing happened with Jews. Very similar situation: mass hysteria, mass execution. Makes you wonder which target group is next.”

  “But what about... the myths?”

  She smiled slightly, teasingly. “Let’s see if I can dispel a few of those. I don’t have a broom, pointy black hat, nor warts on my nose. I don’t cook children in my oven, no matter how tasty they look. I don’t do anything evil or against the law. In fact, I’m probably the only person in Victoria who actually pays her parking tickets. I practise alone, although occasionally I join a large coven for ceremonies. A witch’s convention, you might call it. Mostly we share stories and recipes, give each other emotional support, do some socializing. Usually these meetings are lots of fun. Any questions?”

  “If you don’t have a broom, how do you sweep your kitchen floor?”

  “Swiffer.”

  “Ah.” He pointed at Daisy, who was surreptitiously nosing about his lap, looking for a handout. “What about your familiar? I thought witches were supposed to have cats for familiars?”

  “If you’re suggesting I turned Daisy into a dog, forget it. My powers don’t run that way, and I don’t know any witches whose do, although I must admit, a few of my blind dates have managed to turn themselves into toads before my very eyes.” She grimaced. “One horrible fellow changed from a mild-mannered accountant into a slimy octopus, with all eight arms going for my breasts. But I digress.”

  He was actually smiling. A little. “Anyway,” she continued, “Daisy is an ordinary dog with no special powers, although don’t tell her that. It would hurt her feelings. As for cats, they make me sneeze.”

  “How did you know my name?”

  “I’m not sure, I just did. Maybe from my dream, but I don’t think so. Sometimes I have to work very hard for information, sometimes things just come to me. Sometimes they don’t come at all, no matter how hard I concentrate.”

  “Tell me more. Something else, something to convince me.”