The Druid Witch

by J. D. Cavan

  “You’re gonna pay for that one,” Blackeye growled. He took hold of a detonator that was attached to the sleeve of his coat. I flinched and stepped backward, but he didn’t press the button.

  Liam stepped closer to him. “Go ahead, blow us up!”

  I prayed Liam knew what he was doing—and that he had some experience with goblins, because I certainly didn’t.

  “One step closer and it’s all over!” The thing snarled threateningly, grasping the device.

  Liam walked right up to him and placed the barrel of his gun to his head. Blackeye grunted. He held the detonator, his finger on the button. But he never pressed it. It was clear the goblin was bluffing.

  Liam spoke calmly as he pressed the gun against Blackeye’s forehead. “I have a series of suggestions for you to follow, or it will be your puke-green blood all over the place. Number one, take your hand off the detonator and take the explosives out of your coat. Number two, release the spell you put on the people in the bank. Number three, put your hood back over your messed-up face so you don’t scare the entire NYPD to death when I drag you out of here.”

  Blackeye grimaced and his nostrils flared. But then he released the device and dropped the explosives to the floor. He pulled the hood up over his head and covered his face.

  As we walked him to the door, Liam’s gun against the back of his head, the people in the bank started to wake up, looking confused and startled. NYPD and explosive experts rushed past us into the bank.

  We took the goblin down the bank’s stairs towards an armored police vehicle. Jake accompanied us along with a half-dozen police.

  Liam handcuffed Blackeye as he spoke. “Is that the van with the money in it?” The goblin nodded. It was a white van parked across the street.

  Liam moved Blackeye by the cuffs, walking him toward the armored police vehicle. Jake and a bunch of other cops headed toward the van to retrieve the money.

  Just as Liam put Blackeye in the back of the police vehicle, it hit me. Something wasn’t right. It was all too easy. There must be some kind of trick.

  I searched the scene. The white van...This was a trap! I turned just as Jake placed his hand on the driver’s side door of the goblin’s van.

  “Stop!” I shouted at the top of my lungs as I raced toward them. But Jake couldn’t hear me. He opened the door.

  “Get away from the van!” I called.

  Jake turned. Finally I got his attention, as did the other cops. They stepped backward, but it was too late. The van ignited.

  The blast sent me off my feet as the van blew apart. Heat and flames engulfed the street. Stunned, I sat up on my butt and watched the van burn. Black smoke choked me and stung my eyes. It smelled toxic, like burning rubber and plastic. Hundreds of pieces of paper began raining down. It was the money from the bank. It must have been in the back of the van. I staggered to my feet and ran toward Jake and the others.

  As I got closer, I could see that somehow Jake had escaped unhurt. The other cops weren’t so lucky. An ambulance and medics that had been on standby for any tragedy at the bank raced to their aid.

  Liam rushed over to me. “Are you okay?” He held my arms.

  I nodded. My ears were ringing from the blast. “I’ll stay here, at the scene,” I said shakily. “You go downtown with Blackeye.”

  I heard the rotten scum cackling gleefully from the police vehicle. A rage overcame me. I charged at the van before Liam and a bunch of other cops held me back. “Get that thing outta here!” I shouted. Then Liam jumped into the van with the NYPD officers and they took off.

  The scene was surreal. Tons of money blew all over the streets as the white van continued to burn. Black smoke billowed into the air. I heard the sirens of the FDNY. Fire trucks were moments from arrival. I helped one of the cops up from the ground and walked him to the ambulance. An EMT began to wrap the burns he had on his hands. I felt terrible for him—and terrible that I hadn’t prevented the whole tragedy in the first place.

  Even though the NYPD and the people of the city appreciated the Society of Justice, I knew there were deeper currents of concern. Since the curse had been lifted from Manhattan, the supernatural beings were free now. Free to be themselves, for better or worse. The supernatural criminal underworld had also regained power, and all of these sudden changes caused obvious tensions between the people of the city and the supernatural beings. This crime, and the chaos caused by Blackeye, would only make that tension worse.

  It had been a couple of months since the Society of Justice had defeated the Orobas demons. It had been hell on us, and the city. We had gotten a much-needed reprieve. New York City had been quiet. But that was over now.

  Chapter 2

  I DROVE JAKE back to the precinct and went inside with him.

  “Never a dull moment when Stone’s around,” Detective Silvio Ortega said. He held a mug of coffee and leaned on one of the precinct’s decks. FBI Special Agent Tasso stood by his side.

  “I can’t say I’m glad to see you, “ I replied. Silvio was always there at the worst moments. He liked to rub salt in any wound of mine he could find. Of course I felt crappy about the injured cops, so this was an easy one for him.

  “You alright, Jake? I heard you got blown up.” Silvio slurped down some coffee.

  “A couple scrapes is all. The other cops got some burns, but nothin’ real serious.”

  “That’s good news for you, Stone,” Special Agent Tasso said. She stepped out of a nearby office and leaned on the doorframe. Tasso was another one that liked to stick my nose in it.

  “It could have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for Detective Stone and Detective O’Brady,” Jake said in my defense. “That dirtbag had enough explosives to take out the bank and all the buildings around it.”

  “Either way, that thing will be charged with a terrorist act,” Tasso replied.

  “Shouldn’t the FBI be spreading itself thin all over the country?” I asked Tasso. Agent Tasso seemed to be forever stationed in New York City, where she insisted on remaining a constant pain in my butt.

  “I find it fascinating that all of these crimes seem to happen around you, Detective Stone,” Tasso said smugly.

  “Is that your best FBI investigative work? That crimes seem to ‘happen around’ Detective Stone?” I said, mocking her.

  “I don’t trust you—” Tasso snapped.

  “That’s enough!” Jake interjected. “Cops almost got killed today because of that monster.” It got quiet after that. Jake was right, bickering wouldn’t help what had happened. “Where are they takin’ the goblin anyway?”

  “They took Blackeye to the new downtown containment unit.” I had the NYPD build separate holding cells specially designed for supernatural criminals. Dean and Brad worked out the design for the cells with consultation from Liam and Nick.

  “And guess who’s running this special containment unit? I just found out today.” Tasso crossed her arms and smirked at me.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Oh please, don’t be coy,” Tasso replied. “You know who.”

  I honestly didn’t know. “I’m not playing games with you, Tasso.”

  “Dr. James Blake from the Center for Disease Control has been assigned to the unit.”

  “Blake? He’s infectious diseases, not crime and containment.” James Blake was a scientist and doctor for the CDC, not a cop.

  Tasso frowned. I could tell she didn’t believe me. She was convinced something was going on between Blake and me—and clearly jealous about it.

  “When you start buildin’ super cells with ionization, electrical pulse charges or whatever the hell you’re doing, I imagine the feds might what to know,” Silvio remarked.

  “That’s not exactly how the cells work.” I wasn’t about to explain to Silvio how the cells operated to naturalize any attempts at dematerialization or other forms of magic. They barely understood the supernaturals to begin with, let alone how to contain them.

  “I can’t believe they let
you build those cells at all,” Jake said.

  “You can thank our new police commissioner for that. He’s supposedly very sympathetic to— “ Tasso chose her words carefully. “The special people of Manhattan.”

  “Yep, he wants the freaks treated just like every other citizen in this city,” Silvio said.

  When my stepmother, Terry Douglas, had easily won the election for mayor of New York City, she appointed a man named Tom Gallagher to the police commissioner’s job. I hadn’t met him yet, but apparently he was very open to the idea of supernatural beings living peacefully alongside normal citizens in Manhattan. I knew that bothered Tasso and Silvio to no end. They were highly skeptical of the supernaturals at the least, and probably downright biased against them at the worst.

  “They’re not freaks, Silvio,” I said defensively. Not that Silvio had a clue that I was one of them—that I was a freak also, to use Silvio’s derogatory term. It was taking some getting used to, but I was a supernatural. The druid witch kind.

  I had the druid bloodline in me and I’d stopped denying it. And if that wasn’t enough, I also had to accept the frightening truth that I had an ancestor named Akantha in there as well. I couldn’t say that much about my connection to Akantha at this point. I hadn’t noticed any changes inside me, but that didn’t mean I was out of the woods. Akantha, the evil witch that lurked in my ancestral past, could seize some kind of hold over me at any moment.

  Two cops entered the precinct and snapped me out of my distracted state. They walked into the station’s booking room with a very tiny person in their custody. He waddled as he moved between the police and wore a long dirty overcoat with a baseball cap pulled down over his face. The cops reported directly to me.

  “Detective Stone, we found this character at the bank, prowling around the crime scene. When we approached him, he ran. That seemed pretty suspicious, so we caught him and brought him in for questioning.” One of the cops lifted the lid of the ball cap.

  It was another goblin, but this one was even scrawnier than the ones in the bank. He smelled rotten and looked as if he’d been living on the streets.

  “Oh God, open the windows.” Tasso held her nose. One of the cops complied.

  “I know nothing,’” the little fella said. He spoke in baby talk, but he was no child.

  “Shut up,” I snapped. I’d learned from Liam that with goblins a tough approach was the only approach. “Officers, will you excuse us, please.”

  “Sure thing, Detective Stone,” one of them replied as they both walked out.

  I went back to the mess in front of me. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  The goblin looked around as if he wasn’t sure I was talking to him. His hat sat sideways on his head and it appeared as though he had a grimy headscarf underneath it.

  “They call me Rumble,” he replied.

  “Okay—Rumble. Why were you at the bank?”

  Rumble just raised his little arms up and shook his head.

  “Mr. Rumble, would you like some coffee? We’ve been so rude,” Tasso said, switching into the role of the good cop.

  “Coffee and sugar too, lots and lots!” He started to drool as Tasso poured him a cup of coffee with a ton of sugar in it. He held the tiny Styrofoam cup in both of his hands and slurped it down, spilling coffee out of the sides of his mouth.

  We all watched Rumble drain the coffee while giving each other sidelong glances.

  “More please,” he asked, holding the cup out.

  I took the cup from him and held it. “I’m going to ask you again. What do you know about the bank robbery? The goblin Blackeye almost killed a bunch of NYPD, and we don’t like that very much.”

  Rumble just stared at me with a pouty look. My patience was running thin.

  “Tell me what you know about Blackeye or I’m going to throw you in a cell with him.”

  “You can’t do dat!” he cried. “I didn’t do nothing.”

  “I’ll make something up,” I said. Tasso grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me aside.

  “That’s not how we do things here,” she said in a hushed tone.

  I yanked my arm back. “I don’t care.”

  I stood over Rumble and crossed my arms. “You’ve got five seconds.”

  Rumble looked distressed, bobbing back and forth and murmuring to himself. But he didn’t say a word.

  “Detective, take him downtown and put him away,” I told Silvio.

  “My pleasure. Let’s go scum,” Silvio barked. I knew I could count on Silvio to play the other toughie.

  “Wait, wait! Okay. Oh… Blackeye’ll kill me if this comes out!” Rumble held his head in his hands and spilled his gusts. “Blackeye has a gang. They got lots of firepower, guns, and explosives.”

  “What do they want?” I asked.

  “What everyone does,” Rumble said as if I was naive. “Control of the city. And they love to do it by making chaos. They been pullin’ crimes all over the place, taking money you don’t even know about. You got the head guy though, Mr. Blackeye. But his army’s gonna try to get him outta dare so you better guard him…”

  I immediately wondered why Blackeye would risk getting caught. Maybe his strategy was to create chaos, cause more conflict between the NYPD and the supernaturals. Maybe he was sure his gang would free him, as Rumble was suggesting. I’d check with Liam, get his thinking on it. I also needed to warn Dr. James Blake of a possible breakout attempt as soon as I could. The whole thing made me nervous.

  “Alright, Rumble, you can go. But you have to carry an untraceable phone.” I had Silvio fetch one of the burner phones the NYPD used for informants. “When I need you, I’ll call on this.”

  “I can’t take dat! I’ll be fried toast if they find it.”

  Rumble put his hands up, but I held the phone out to him. “Hide it somewhere and check it regularly.”

  Rumble’s eyes shifted back and forth. “What do I get?”

  “To live,” Silvio said. He stood over him intimidatingly.

  I stepped in. “You get our protection—”

  “And coffee and donuts.” Rumble eyed a box of Dunkin Donuts that sat next to the coffeemaker.

  “As much as you want,” I replied.

  Silvio and Jake took Rumble out of the station room and back onto the streets. He carried the box of donuts, cramming them down his throat as he shuffled out. I was left with Tasso.

  Tasso shook her head at me.

  “What?” she got me to ask.

  “When the Society of Justice gained some power, so did all this supernatural crap—demons and goblins—”

  “It’s not crap. The curse was lifted and the Society of Justice has responded.” I hated explaining anything to Tasso. It bugged me to death.

  “I don’t buy it. You’re some kind of hero? You know what I think? I think you set this up all for your own power trip. That’s what I think. So when everyone is hailing you as the king of cops, I’ll be tracking you, waiting for you to slip up. Capeesh?” She glared at me.

  I shut my eyes tightly and shook my head. I was about to say some very choice words when Silvio came back into the room. He had a strange look on his face and his phone in his hand.

  “We got a dead body. Looks funky, like homicide or suicide. Wealthy guy named Thomas Miller found in his penthouse apartment.”

  Tasso put her FBI jacket on. “I guess I’ll have to catch you later Stone—”

  “She’s comin’ with us,” Silvio said.

  “Huh?” Tasso replied.

  “As I said, it’s a weird crime and the dude was loaded, and well-known. So it went to the top cop, Commissioner Gallagher. And he wants Stone.”

  I could see it written all over Tasso’s face. She hated me. I just raised my eyebrows and gave her a smile before we left for the crime scene.

  Chapter 3

  AS SOON AS I walked into Thomas Miller’s penthouse apartment, I felt it. I had an uncanny sense of déjà vu.

  Around every corner I turned, I knew
what I’d see next, including the floor-to-ceiling windows and the grand balcony. It was as if I’d peered out at that view before. Thomas Miller was no one to me, and I’d never stepped foot in his place, but it felt like I had. It was an eerie sense I couldn’t shake.

  As I got closer to Miller’s bedroom and his body, the odd feeling only got stronger. I began to sense other things, too—something dark and malevolent.

  “What’s your theory? I got mine,” Silvio said as he stood over the body. He crammed a piece of nicotine gum in his mouth. He had gone through a pack of it on the way over. Silvio was on years of failed attempts to quit smoking.

  “The way he’s lying he was obviously trying to get out of the room. Looks like a homicide to me.” Tasso searched the bedroom as she spoke.

  “Nah, guy’s depressed for years over his dead wife so he decides to off himself with his own tie. Puts it around his neck, tightens it up, and starts to choke himself. Then he chickens out, and in a panic tries to get out of the room. But it’s too late, no air. So he falls down and there he is. Dead as a doornail. Case closed.”

  My thoughts were so foggy I was barely listening to Silvio. I became short of breath and then I felt a feeling of pure power and control. It shifted to terrible feelings. I became sick to my stomach. I leaned against the bedpost, my head swirling.

  Tasso responded to Silvio. “I doubt it. Most people hang themselves. Your theory assumes that he was depressed for a while, so he would have had a better plan, like a rope, a hook and closet.”

  “The tie around the neck does seem a bit spontaneous, you’re right about that. What dah ya think, Stone?” Silvio asked.

  I saw Silvio’s mouth moving but when I went to respond, I couldn’t. I whipped my head back and forth to wake myself up. I sputtered out some incoherent words.

  “Are you okay?” Tasso asked.

  I shut my eyes and rubbed them. I had to pull myself together. “It’s a murder, no doubt. I agree with Tasso.”

  “There’s a first time for everythin’!” Silvio replied.

  “Check to see if anything’s been lifted,” I said. “See if there’s a safe in the house or a place where he might keep a password, maybe to his bank accounts. The tie is a clue.”