by Ross Homer
She and Roy Bob had a quiet dinner. He worked more while she vaguely watched some stupid cop mystery on TV. When they went to bed, she saw him glance at the safe but made no move towards it. This time, he was far more attentive when they made love. She thought that maybe he was making up for earlier in the day. She didn’t care. It felt damn nice, but she’d be gone on Saturday no matter what.
Saturday morning as she dressed, she heard the doorbell ring.
Roy Bob answered, and she saw him receive a small package. He looked at it and then scowled up the stairs at her before he retreated to his office.
A few minutes later, she heard him yell, “Gaelle! Get your ass down here!”
As she went down the stairs, she speculated on whether or not he’d take another swing at her. That tone of voice made her wonder if she shouldn’t have stuck her thumb out last night, after he went to sleep.
Then Gaelle entered his office and her world stopped dead. She saw it all in one sweep of her eyes. A very red-faced Roy Bob stared in horror at his thirty-two-inch computer monitor.
She stood transfixed as she watched something unspeakable tear apart seven people over the course of ten minutes. Someone had recorded what she saw were two things as they moved up the driveway, tearing first one man apart and then another. She saw the first man unload an automatic at them to no avail. On the porch, the creatures ripped another man in half. One dragged his bottom half off the wide porch and into the woods.
The video followed every bit of it.
Then the creatures went into the house and…Gaelle grabbed a trashcan and vomited when she watched what it did to a woman on the stairs. As the woman open her mouth to scream, some appendage from the creature reached in and…she couldn’t watch anymore of that scene.
On the second floor, another woman was killed. By now the horror of it was numbing her mind as she watched the woman being ripped apart and the pieces of her body strewn about. Or was being eaten.
In an office at the end of the hall, a man fired six shots before he, too, met the same fate as the others. The creatures seemed to really enjoy what they did to him.
Then they disappeared!
But the camera continued back down the hall, focused on what was left of the woman there again, then continued through a door and up more stairs. There was another woman. Younger than the first two. Gaelle had been in a fight or two during her life and knew how she looked when they were over.
It looked like this girl had been in a brawl with her on the losing end. And then the creatures materialized behind her. What happened after was more of the same.
And then it was over.
She was already stunned to near shock. Roy Bob added to the horror when he said, “No one was shot. I thought they would have been killed with guns, not some fake creatures. I know how movies are made and that shit is fake as hell. Yeah, a couple of guys in rubber masks using sharp machetes. That’d do it.”
What he said didn’t quite mask the fear she saw in his eyes. Then he held up a piece of paper. “This is a fucking blackmail letter! I don’t know what to say about that, or how they did it,” he pointed at the screen, “but I will not be blackmailed. Whoever sent this to me can kiss my ass. I have forty-eight hours to pay up or that will happen to me and everyone here. Bullshit.”
Gaelle knew what she was seeing wasn’t fake. It was in her heritage to know things like that and she felt herself blanch.
It was time to get the hell out of Boise. Right fucking now! “Okay, Roy Bob. If you say so.”
“I fucking say so! This guy ain’t getting nothing from me now. Not a single fucking penny! I’ll find him and put him down, too. Nobody threatens Roy Bob Miller. Nobody!”
She turned and ran quickly back upstairs. Taking out her cellphone, she went into the bathroom and dialed a number. “Poppi,” she whispered, “I need leave here right now. How soon can you get the jet ready?”
“What’s up? Girlfriend, you sound scared to death.”
“That’s because I am. I think Roy Bob is messing with the wrong people right now and I don’t want to be here when the shit hits the fan. And Poppi, it will.”
“I believe you. Wow. That bad?
“Worse than you can possibly imagine.”
“Give me thirty minutes and then meet at the airport?”
“I’ll be there. See you.”
Gaelle grabbed the duffle bag and ran downstairs. Roy Bob’s office door was closed so leaving wasn’t going to be a problem. She could hear him screaming at someone as she passed by.
The Lexus was in the drive and she took it. Before she was fully recovered from what she’d seen in the last hour, she was in the jet and on the way to Seattle. There, she planned on going to Asia somewhere and disappear for good. She could live pretty damn nice in Thailand on what she had in the bank plus whatever she’d managed to fill her duffle bag with. From the weight of it, she thought it had to be pretty considerable.
There was only one hitch in her plan. Poppi. Her best friend, or so she thought.
During the flight, Gaelle told Poppi what her plan was and why. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Boise when the guy that Roy Bob was stiffing caught up with him. Poppi nodded and didn’t comment. Gaelle should have paid attention to her lack of reaction.
They landed at SeaTac and Poppi brought the plane around to a private hangar. When they got out, they walked to the end of the wing and Poppi said, “Gaelle, you know I love you like a sister. You’re a very good friend, too. Why, I even let you fly the jet. But I’m afraid my allegiance goes to the man who pays me an excellent income.” She produced an automatic. “Are you sure you want to leave?”
Gaelle’s eyes went wide at the sight of the gun but she was determined. “Yes. I’d suggest you do the same. Poppi, you didn’t see what I saw! Seriously, you don’t want to be there when they come to collect what Roy Bob owes. Please, bag all this and come with me.”
It was Poppi now, who should have listened.
“Then I’m sorry, Gaelle. Goodbye.”
She didn’t see the flash or feel the bullet that took her in the middle of her breastbone.
<<<<<>>>>>
We were standing in Captain Faroe’s office, door closed, trying to ignore that Chan guy staring at us. It was like he’d never seen pretty females before and there were several in the office. Nissa laughed. “The man’s a terrible sexist. I’ve met his wife and she’s not only wonderful, but as shapely as we are. All the women here ignore him as much as we can. Other than stare, he’s a good cop and harmless.”
I answered, “I should hope so.”
Captain Faroe came in and we were all introduced. Now that she was not wearing surgical scrubs, I saw that she was a pretty woman, a little taller than average, slim, and her thick, shoulder-length hair was the color of rich, dark chocolate pudding. I wanted to run my fingers through it.
She sat at her desk and simply looked at us. “Wow,” she said. “What an amazing lot. A fairy, a witch and…a something.” She looked straight at Elsa.
Elsa smiled and stated, “I’m an empath.”
Elsa looked over at me and I nodded. “Tell her the rest.”
“Okay. Captain, I’m an Esper.”
The look on Sorcha Faroe’s face was priceless. She leaned back in her chair, clapped her hands together like a child, and exclaimed, “By the Goddess! I never thought I’d meet one of you. Don’t all of you live down in the Southwest somewhere?”
I think Elsa was more embarrassed than anything else. She replied, “Most of us do. But I got tired of brown and wanted some green and water. I came here. I got it all here, including this amazing woman I’m in love with.”
Her eyes dared Captain Faroe to say anything. She didn’t, of course. “Welcome then. First, I’m Sorcha in here with the door closed. Now…I’ve heard of you, Jocelyn, of course. It’s hard to be in police work here and not. And, of course, your husband or rather, ex-husband, I know, too. I guess you heard that I had to step on him kind o
f hard about getting involved with the Sato murders.”
I nodded. “He can be like that. It’s one of the many reasons he’s an ex.”
“Had he not pulled in his horns when he did, he was on his way to becoming an ex-cop, too. I honestly believe that Nissa and you two can handle the case.”
Sorcha stopped talking because her phone buzzed. She listened a moment then said, “Where? Shit. Okay. The feds don’t want it? Bastards. Dump it on us, of course. Wait just a damn minute! That’s in Tacoma!”
As she listened again, her pretty face turned grim at what she was hearing.
“Yeah, well, whatever. We’ll be there when we get there. She’s in St. Anne’s? Okay.” She looked at her phone as she hung up.
She said to Nissa, “There’s something very strange going on, as if the Sato mess isn’t strange enough and that’s already pissing me off. Anything out of the norm and we get the call almost anywhere statewide and I really don’t have the staffing for it. It gets old. In this case, there’s been a shooting at SeaTac in the private jet section. In a hangar. A pilot said that the woman she shot was trying to hijack her jet. The injured woman is at the Tacoma St. Anne’s right now with a bullet in her chest and she’s not doing well. Why us? Because while a woman being shot is not all that uncommon, what this woman is, is.”
She took her purse out of the bottom drawer of her desk and said to me, “I assume Nissa told you of my other role?”
I nodded. “Yes. You’re the president of the Northwest Fae?”
“That’s me. As such, when strange things happen to one of us or around us, I’m notified. We have people in all the hospitals and clinics all over the Northwest in case of something exactly like this. The woman in the hospital in Tacoma is someone we rarely have here in the area.”
Nissa said, “Well? Don’t keep us waiting.”
She dropped her cellphone in her purse. “The woman is a dark Fae. That doesn’t mean she’s evil or anything else. It’s just her lineage. Mostly it’s the things they can do that tend to be, well, dark. However, most of them are just people, like us, good and bad. I haven’t encountered one of them in quite some time. Believe it or not, Nissa, Taft wasn’t a dark Fae which is kind of surprising considering what he did and was doing or trying to do. He was just an ogre working for some other Fae bunch who want to run things whether we like it or not. Just who they are is still unresolved.”
She picked up her bag and then said, “Look; why don’t you three come with me. If at all possible, I’d like to talk to her and find out who shot her. And…what brought her to my part of the country.”
I looked at Elsa and Nissa and asked them, “Shall we?” They nodded. “Sorcha, until this week, I’d never heard of the Fae other than in movies and books. Now you’ve tossed a dark Fae at me. What else? Or is that a question I oughtn’t ask?”
She laughed at my discomfort. “Well, you’ve about covered it right here in this room. Fae, witches, and Espers. That’s hitting the trifecta pretty good I should think.”
Within minutes we were in her car, full lights and sirens, and blasting down I-5 toward Tacoma. It was kind of cool to be in a code one police car, but the mission wasn’t.
We finally reached the hospital and found our injured woman just coming out of surgery. We were going to have to wait at least an hour before we could talk to her.
Hospital coffee is terrible.
That wasn’t going to be the only terrible thing that afternoon.
Chapter 8
We sat and sipped terrible coffee in the garden part of the cafeteria and talked about Fae. I received an excellent education about them over the hour we waited. It was a fascinating conversation with a fascinating woman. Sorcha Faroe, named for the islands her family came from, was a Selkie who occasionally donned her seal pelt and returned to the Pacific for a few days. She had no set times. She went when she had the time and the mood struck. What made it more interesting to me was that her son and daughter joined her.
To anyone who saw them, there were just three seals cavorting and having a good time. The father of her children was human and stood guard to protect them from idiots who shoot at seals for the hell of it. More than one Selkie had been killed that way.
A nurse came up to us and said, “I am Mrs. Beltrami. If you will follow me, you can see her now but for no more than two minutes. She’s still foggy and may not make much sense.”
We followed her to ICU and thanked her for bringing us here. I didn’t like the feeling I was getting. It was too quiet, and it appeared that there was no one around other than the four of us and the nurse.
I asked her, “Where is everybody?”
Mrs. Beltrami answered, “Attending a cardiac arrest.” She nodded farther down the hall. “Wait here for a moment. I need to check on your patient.” She went to a curtained partition and entered. A split second after she stepped through the privacy curtain, a piercing scream came from there.
We ran in and damn near joined the nurse in screaming. I crashed into Sorcha who stood rooted to the spot, staring at the bed.
Blood. The sheet, the bed, the wall, and the patient were red with it…soaked in it. It dripped onto the floor into a gathering puddle under the bed.
Worse, it was still pumping out of her body from around her neck. Her eyes were wide, questioning, as we went to the bed trying to avoid the growing puddle of her blood on the floor.
The woman was dying. Of that there was no doubt. At the bed, I could see what had happened to her. Her throat had been cut. I saw blood still pulsing from the wound. How was that possible?
Sorcha and Nissa immediately switched to cop mode. “Jo, you, Elsa, and Mrs. Beltrami need to wait out at the nurses’ station. This is now a crime scene.” As we left, Nissa was reaching for her cellphone.
We went back to the nurses’ station. Mrs. Beltrami immediately went around it and called hospital security and the hospital administrator. A few minutes later, Tacoma police arrived and took over the scene.
The hospital administrator stood with us, wringing his hands and saying over and over, “This sort of thing never happens in my hospital!” I wanted to deck him to get him to shut up. Finally, one of the other nurses came over and took him away.
A man came up to us and flashed a badge. He snapped rudely, “I’m Lieutenant Brown, Tacoma Police.” That was all he said before he started asking questions. Sorcha stopped him in his tracks.
Unperturbed by his rudeness, she badged him right back and said, “I’m Captain Faroe from Seattle Serious Crimes. The victim is one of my wits. Now…I’ll work with you or we’ll just take this over. Your choice. I’ll tell you I’d rather work with you on this than against you.”
The lieutenant looked her over coolly but decided that she was right. “Okay, Captain. We’ll do this your way. Now…who is she and what is she a witness to?”
Nissa answered for her. “Yes. Her name was Gaelle Pelletier and was a witness to the mass shooting in Seattle a couple of days ago. The one that took out Jura Sato and his family?” She gave him a hard look and added, “You probably read about it.” Without waiting for him to answer, she continued, “I’m Detective Inspector Nissa Stanley from Scotland Yard. Yes, I am working on an international case and the woman is or was, part of it.”
She was in take no prisoners mode and I had to force myself not to laugh. The only way she knew the dead woman’s name was the same way I did: she read it on the chart hanging at the end of the bed.
He replied, “Yeah, I heard about it. And now your witness is dead too. How convenient.” He raised his left eyebrow. I could see how he dearly wanted to arrest us for just about anything. I’d have said he was a misogynistic bastard but the way his eyes devoured Elsa and me argued against it. He was just a plain old unadorned sexist asshole.
Sorcha snapped, “Easy lieutenant. We’ve been in the cafeteria since we got here.”
He didn’t ask the idiotic question of did anyone see us. He did say, “The ME will be here in a m
inute. After he’s done, you will come downtown and give us statements. Then we’ll see from there.”
Lt. Brown turned and entered the cubicle with the dead woman and left us alone. It wasn’t but a minute later that the ME came in and stopped at the station with us. “Hey, Sorcha. Long time no see.”
“True that!” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
Dr. Adam Sheets had longish blonde hair held back by a dark orange elastic hair tie. He also towered over all of us. His smile went all the way up to his light brown eyes and crinkled his crow’s feet. He was happy to see Sorcha.
With a glance at the cubicle, he said, “Lt. Brown, eh? I’m so sorry.”
“Adam, you aren’t the only one. What a prick.”
“He’s been that way since he got passed over for captain…again. His attitude is why he got passed over, but he refuses to learn from it.” He shrugged and then looked at us. “Who’re your friends?”
She introduced us and nodded at our unasked question. He was Fae of some variety. From what I could tell before he bustled off, he was a good guy, too.
Twenty minutes later he came out and his white protective coveralls were bloody. He was shaking his head. “Come down to the morgue in a couple of hours and I’ll have something for you. I will tell you that whoever did that to her used some kind of blade that is almost unbelievably sharp.”
I responded, “From what I could see, I’d have to agree. That slit through her throat was pretty smooth.” Here was yet another incredibly sharp blade. The Satos and now this woman. I was pretty good with identifying different blades, but I’d never encountered one like this.
“No, you’re wrong. She was beheaded.” Adam Sheets dropped that bomb on us then wandered back into the scene shaking his head. We stared at his back in wonder. Beheaded? He had to be wrong.
The next couple of hours passed exactly like I figured it would. Being questioned like common criminals…are there any uncommon criminals?...by a cop who either wanted to put us in jail or screw us. Hell, for all I knew, probably both. A lot of guys will stare at me but not many are blatantly as sexual as he was. Even Detective Chan in Sorcha’s office wasn’t as bad. It gave me the creeps. I knew about cops trading sex with perps to avoid charges, but this was a murder case and I’d as soon eat glass than let him even touch me.