Welcome to Witchlandia
Page 27
I nodded. “Yeah. I wondered about that, too. Martin said he couldn’t detect him either. But like you said, Martin never knew Misty was there before. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to detect David. Maybe both of them were flitting around.” I shook my head. “But I don’t think either of them survived.”
“Why not?”
“David created all four of them and cast them out without ever knowing what he was doing. When he was falling, he was able to release Gerald and the rest and hold onto Misty. That’s what Gerald told me, anyway. At that point, he knew who he was and what he was capable of. I think he held on to Misty until the very end. Martin says that would be the end of her. Martin says as far as he knows the ‘intelligence’, as he calls it, disintegrates along with the death of the host. David was lot of things and stubborn was one of them. So if she survived, I believe he did, too. And if he survived, I don’t think much of Misty’s chances.”
“How would Martin know?”
“He’s been through it before. The first was with Niels Bohr’s mother in 1930. Then, with Herbert Bosch in 1970. Now he’s with Eli.” I sipped my soda. “That’s why he’s never stuck with a host until the end.”
“Martin was wrong before.”
“I know.”
We didn’t say anything for a bit.
“I was worried about you when I heard about all that business in Boston.”
I looked at him. Peter Loquess looked old—brown hair now gray. Lips thin and pale. Wrinkles around his eyes. I thought for a moment and realized he had passed sixty—I never thought about him getting old. I never thought about him losing his strength. I never thought about him worrying about me.
I put my hand out on his hand. “I’m okay, Dad.”
The moment stretched, and then we pulled our hands back at the same time, noticed it. Both of us chuckled.
“Martin wanted to clone David,” I said.
“No! What did Eli say?”
“Eli asked me to have David cremated. Just to make sure.”
Dad laughed. Then stopped. “I’m sorry.”
I smiled at him. “Don’t be. It’s funny. I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of my life is funny.”
Dad thought about that but didn’t seem to come to any conclusion he liked. “What was all that stuff I saw in the news? ‘David Sabado implicated in serial killings. Officer Katelin Loquess questioned.’ It doesn’t fit the story you just told me.”
I ticked off what happened on my fingers. “Natick Labs didn’t want any of the research they’d been doing or anything at all about paranormal ‘sprits’ to get out. So they didn’t want anything about Misty published. BPD didn’t want anything to get out either—after all, one of their own had been possessed and committed murder. That left David.”
“That’s where the ‘person of interest’ came from?”
“Can’t prosecute the dead. They can’t in all fairness attribute the murders to him either, since there could be no case. Consequently, they just said he was a POI and that the murders were over. They let the reporters make up the rest.”
“You didn’t correct them.”
I watched him levelly. “No. I did not.”
“How come? David is going to be remembered as another Jack the Ripper.”
“Yeah.” I held my hands around my soda. “I thought about that. But David has no family left. Those close to him—me, Joey, Dooley, Roger—know the truth. I thought about what David would want. Would he want Dooley have to face an investigation for a murder committed by his hands but not by him? Would he want Joey go to jail as an accessory after the fact in that murder or Roger be disbarred before he even has a chance to practice? Would he want me to be looked on as the penultimate repository of a killer spirit?” I shook my head. “No. I don’t think he would. He saved me. I think he would have saved all of them, Misty included, if he could have.”
“There could be thousands of these things out there.”
“I think there probably are. Most of them are just little bits of shed impulses and ideas floating around that latch onto us. A few are like Martin, Gerald and the others. Martin had never even conceived of something like Misty. He thinks that for every Misty there must be a David. They can’t find the Mistys so they look for the Davids.”
“Have they found any?”
I shook my head. “Not so far. They tested David for years. They knew his signature on the preliminary and secondary tests to the decimal point. But so far they haven’t found a match.”
Dad nodded. “You know why I asked you to come home, don’t you?”
“Sure. We can go with asked.” I smiled at him. “You think I’m crazy living in that house.”
“It’s the house of your dead ex-lover. It’s the house of your dead ex-lover who was possessed by the evil spirit that possessed you and killed three people including both your lovers. The public only knows you moved into the house of your dead ex who happens to be the Person of Interest in a string of serial murders. You can pick your story.” Dad pointed at me. “People are going to think you’re strange.”
I laughed. “I know it looks that way. David left it to me. Along with a fair amount of money. But you know? I like the house and now I’m going to need it.”
“I don’t understand.”
I pointed to my belly.
Dad looked confused for a moment. “Oh, my god.”
“Possessed women forget to use birth control,” I said. I patted my stomach. “Nine weeks and counting.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say: Congratulations.”
“You’re keeping the baby?”
“Why not?”
“Martin wanted to clone David. You’re going to have David’s baby.” Dad spread his hands, unwilling to complete the thoughts.
I shook my head. “It’s my baby and I’m keeping it. I’ll deal with the consequences of that.” I leaned my elbows on the table and ran my fingers over the Formica. “I was broken. So was David. It messed up what we had. I destroyed whatever I had with Sean on my own. But I don’t feel broken any more. I feel like David gave me a gift and I can’t turn it down.” I looked out the window. “Besides, I think it would break Dooley’s heart. He wants to be the godfather.”
“Boy or girl?”
I shrugged. “I’m going to be surprised.”
“Ah.” He fiddled with his coffee. “Can you still do police work?”
I shrugged again. “I’m still flying. I’m still doing surveillance. I’m not doing pursuit work, but Sniezek has flown with me a few times. He’s not bad once you get past the asshole part. I should be able to keep that up until spring. At some point I’ll go on maternity leave. I’m not sure I’ll come back to the department after that full time—or at all, for that matter. Sniezek was right about me in one way: police work will never be the number one priority for me like it is for him. Eli said Natick Labs would love to work with me, and they have terrific child care benefits.” I smiled. “He said he made them up on the spot.”
“You’d work with them after all this?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. “As you said, I don’t know Misty’s not out there. And this is David’s child, and David created four personalities before he was six. Who knows what our child could do?” I paused. “There’s something else. It’s an awful big coincidence that Misty had sex with David once and became pregnant. It’s not like it couldn’t happen—I wasn’t using birth control after Sean left and my body works just fine. But still—” I leaned forward on the table. “What if she planned to get pregnant?”
Dad leaned back and blanched. “To… what? Create a new nest, a new host to live in?”
“Yeah. Whatever I’m carrying, Eli’s group has techniques and equipment to look for such things. It’s a deal with the devil, but the devil has something I want.” I shook my head. “But I’m trying to be optimistic. I’m going to keep thinking of it as David’s baby unless I find out otherwise.”
Dad didn’t s
ay anything for a moment. “You did cremate him?”
“Absolutely.” I laughed again. “Oh, you should have been at the funeral. It was a circus. There were all these fans of David that showed up and all of these people who were protesting that he shouldn’t be buried in a proper church graveyard. Tim Rabbitt’s sister Bonnie showed up—”
“Bonnie Rabbitt?”
“Makes you a little ill, doesn’t it?”
Dad nodded. “Oh, yes.”
“And there were these grifters trying to figure out how to get Rabbitt’s church money. They figured me or Bonnie still had some of it—sorry fellas. BPD’s financial forensics group finally found it and gave it all back. But some of them needed convincing. Dooley helped.”
“Have you picked out a name?”
“Not a one. Believe me, if he or she takes after either one of us I’ll find out pretty quickly what to call her.”
Dad looked out the window for a moment. “You make it sound like a happy ending.”
“Five people dead, two of them people I loved? Hardly.” I sipped my soda. A root beer. How was I going to get through the next year without coffee? “Dad, David saved me. For all the crap he put me through, for all the crap I put him through, for all the amazing shit that crazy stalking ghost-bitch did to both of us, he didn’t let me down. He came after me and he gave his life for me. I can’t ignore something like that. I won’t let myself be miserable. It’s not allowed.”
Dad fiddled with his coffee. “Pretty cold comfort.”
I gave him a completely feral grin. “Welcome to Witchlandia.”
Acknowledgements
No work by any author is accomplished alone. There are thousands of hands that help to stir that soup. Far too many for this page. Still, there are a few that deserve special consideration.
First and foremost are my wife and son, Wendy and Ben. Nothing would have happened but for them. This book's for you.
Second is the Cambridge SF Workshop who made sure I stayed on an even course. All deviations are my own, of course. The workshop gave me the stars to steer by even if I wasn't always smart enough to follow them. Thanks to Heather Albano, Brett Cox, Alex Jablokow, James Cambias, Jim Kelly, Ken Schneyer and Sarah Smith. Madeleine Robins belongs here, too, for starting me down the tracks.
Third is Vonda N. McIntyre. If it wasn't for her, this metaphorical book would not be in your not-so-metaphorical hands. Thanks be to Vonda.
Copyright & Credits
Welcome to Witchlandia
Steven Popkes
Book View Café 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61138-606-6
Copyright © 2016 Steven Popkes
Cover illustration © 2016 by Wendy Zimmerman
Production Team:
Cover Design: vikncharlie
Copy Editor: Shannon Page
Proofreader: Shannon Page
Formatter: Steven Popkes
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Digital edition: 20160510002
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About the Author
Steven Popkes lives in Massachusetts on two acres of land where he and his wife garden, grow bananas and breed turtles. His day job consists of writing support software for space and ballistic systems. He insists he is not a rocket scientist. He is a rocket engineer.
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