by Hal Schrieve
“You killed him? You killed Archie Pagan?” Z asked.
“It’s why I was trying to bring him back. And why I wanted to help you with the potion, kind of. I mean, I like you and want you to be safe, but also, I wanted to know if I could bring him back.”
Elaine shrugged. “I hate that kind of guy. He’s better off gone.”
Aysel was scowling. “I mean, sure. But Tommy, this whole thing is why werewolves are under attack right now, you realize that, right?”
“I know,” Tommy said. “I didn’t really think about it, or care, I guess, at the time. I didn’t really know any werewolves personally. The only one I knew of was Mr. Holmes.”
Aysel was clearly verging on rage and ready to explode, but this threw her for a loop. “Mr. Holmes,” she repeated in a kind of haze.
“He was another of Archie’s patients,” Tommy said. “I saw him sometimes. He’s totally nonmagical now, but he was still doing shock sessions three times a month until this year. Anyway, he sucks, so I didn’t think about the fact that there are a lot of other werewolves around who would get blamed.”
Aysel pointed to Elaine. “Elaine’s friend is dead because of what you did. I should clobber you for him.”
Tommy looked at Aysel. “Then do it,” he said. Something unnerving and steely flashed in his eyes that Z had never seen there before. Aysel saw it too, and flinched. Z felt Aysel’s magic and Tommy’s at the same time inside them like two opposing floods.
Elaine raised her hands. “Whoa,” she said. “It’s not his fault. It’s the fucking pigs that shot Chad. If it was a just country, Archie wouldn’t have been doing shady electroshock and wouldn’t have gotten himself into more trouble than he could handle, and the cops wouldn’t hunt people down for nothing. In a just country there wouldn’t be cops. Chill out, Aysel.”
Aysel looked abashed.
“I do feel sorry about it,” Tommy said. “I feel awful about it.” He took a breath. “But it’s over now, and I’m the one who has to live with it, not you. And I care about Z, and about you, and whoever your friends are, and I want to be your friend. And the cops are after all of us now.”
“True,” Elaine said.
Tommy sat down next to Elaine. “It’s just like, hiding from now on I guess. Because if they found out, then I’m not even seeing daylight. It really is like Charley Salt and everyone said. They just put you in a silver box for observation. I’d have to leave the country to escape that.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “God, it’s late. I just want to go to bed.”
Z looked at Aysel and Elaine. “I’m not sure it’s safe here,” Z said. “Mrs. Dunnigan had to leave. She—uh, she turned out to be a selkie.”
“What?” Tommy asked.
“Long story,” Z said.
“And the werewolf house got raided. Z might have been seen by the cops there,” Aysel added. “And they’re the only registered zombie around. The cops know where Z lives. Or they can look it up.”
Z looked at Aysel. “Oh, right. Shit. Where should we go?” Elaine pulled her hair back from her face and tucked it into her hooded sweatshirt. “I think we probably all have to leave town,” she said. “The faster the better.” She looked over to Aysel. “Except you, I think. Nobody saw you. I think you’re safe.”
“What?” Aysel asked. “No, I’ll go too.”
“No you won’t,” Elaine said firmly. “Maybe someday, maybe soon, but not now. You need to stick with your mom and not get found with us.”
“I’m not sure if the police have found Archie Pagan’s back room in his office yet, where he kept his records,” Tommy said. He paused. “I mean, if they had found the records, they would have moved before now. I’d be arrested already, and so would all the other patients.”
Elaine chewed on the inside of her cheek, looking at Tommy seriously. “I bet they’ve looked at the office already, though, if they’ve found evidence of him treating werewolves before. Maybe they have everything already and are just waiting to act. Maybe the werewolf house raid tonight was just the start.”
“There’s a hidden back room they haven’t found yet,” Tommy said. “Where he died. The room with the chair, and all the records on his werewolf patients. I know the police haven’t found that yet, because that’s where Archie Pagan died. If they find that, they’ll realize a patient killed him in his office, and they’ll know it wasn’t Morris, or any of the wolves that were out in the forest that night. I think they could probably figure out it wasn’t a wolf. There’s been nothing about that in the news. I don’t think they’d keep it secret if they knew.”
“You’re saying that if they find that back room, they’ll also have all the information on anyone who ever went to him. All the werewolves. And they don’t have that information yet.” Elaine moved toward Tommy and took him by the shoulders. “Are you like, at least ninety percent sure about this?”
“I mean, I think the information they have is from whatever was in the front room. If they saw the back room and his real schedule, they’d realize that I was the last patient Mr. Pagan saw before he died. But they only came to my house after they learned about the stolen necromancy books.”
“You’re saying you think the information on all the werewolves he treated is still there in the office? Just sitting there?”
“I think. Anyway, the cops don’t have it yet.”
“‘Yet’ being the key word here,” Elaine said. She breathed out through her teeth. “Oof. I was all ready to go jump on a bus and go.”
“We still can,” Z said. “We should. They won’t find the records tonight if they haven’t looked yet.”
“Are you chill with it if they find them after we’re gone, and round up every werewolf and ex-werewolf in town?” Elaine asked. She looked at Z.
“What can we do?” Z asked. “I don’t want bad stuff to happen to werewolves either, but what are we going to do now? We have to leave. You said so just two minutes ago.”
Elaine turned away from Z toward Tommy. “Do you know exactly where Archie kept his records?” Elaine asked. “Could you get us in there?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said.
“We’ll break in, then.” Elaine said. “We’ll burn all the stuff. Then we’ll skip town.”
“All of us?” Aysel asked. Z knew she was thinking about her mom, and how Elaine had told her she wasn’t going to leave town with the rest of them.
“You can go home if you want.”
Aysel and Z exchanged glances.
“What about staying safe?” Aysel asked. “Like you were talking about, at the meeting before the cops came.”
Elaine looked at Aysel. “Well,” she said, “everyone’s in danger now. You’re probably okay to come with us as long as we split right after we set the fire.”
Aysel bit her lip, but she nodded.
Z picked at their fingernail. “It seems like a bad idea to try to do this right now, doesn’t it?”
Elaine nodded. “It’s as dumb as anything I’ve ever done. But we’re gonna try.”
“We have to do it,” Tommy said. “I agree. It’s over near the industrial park, in an office building next to the dentist. It isn’t far.” He looked at Aysel, at Z searchingly, as if to figure out if they thought Elaine was nuts. “If we walk it’s maybe half an hour.”
Elaine grimaced. “We have to do it. It’s the difference between innocent people getting arrested or not.” She looked over at Tommy. “As long as the shit we want to burn is still in it.”
Aysel looked at Elaine with a mixture of concern and devotion. Z saw it and felt a mix of jealousy and fear.
It was near two thirty in the morning when they reached the street sign near the industrial park and Tommy had them all turn left. They broke in through a bathroom window. Elaine threw a rock which made a surprisingly solid crash for being so small. The glass splintered and broke, falling inward into the building.
“Jesus,” Tommy said.
Elaine lifted herself through the window, her thin
legs kicking against the outer wall. Aysel followed her, and Tommy and Z scrambled after. Z caught Tommy looking nervously over his shoulder.
The building was almost entirely silent. Aysel turned on the light so they could see what they were doing. The gray linoleum that had been laid at an obscure point in the past was mottled and broken in places, showing a strange brown underbelly of floor. As soon as Elaine was inside, she had taken off, and the noise of her footsteps could be heard climbing the flight of stairs visible from the bathroom door. The dust drifted in dim patterns down the hall as Aysel, Tommy, and Z followed slowly. Upstairs, there was the noise of Elaine rattling the handles of different doors.
“Will anyone else be in the building at all?” Aysel asked Tommy. They could all hear Elaine knocking on different doors.
“I don’t think so,” Tommy said. “Only one other office is occupied in this part of the building. It’s a dentist office. The dentist was never here when I came to afternoon appointments. I don’t think dentists are here this early, either.” Tommy’s voice sounded very high and reedy and a little like he was going to cry. Z thought how hard it must be to be in the place where he had come so many times.
“Well, that’s good. Elaine would probably have made someone call the cops by now with the way she’s thumping around.”
“Elaine,” Tommy called, “do you even know which is his office?”
Elaine’s footsteps came thumping down the stairs again. “What?” she called back loudly.
Tommy led the others to the right office door. The group rocked on their heels in front of it.
“So what are we uh, looking for?” Z asked. “Like, I know incriminating documents, but how do we tell which those are?”
“We’re just going to set fire to all of it,” Elaine said. She leaned forward and tried the handle. Z thought it would be locked but it wasn’t, and it swung open with a groan. Inside there was a little waiting room with a potted fern dying by a small window and a pile of magazines in a little wicker basket. At the other end of this room was another door with a placard saying Pagan on it. They all crossed to it. This one was locked and did not open when Tommy turned the handle.
“It’s locked,” Tommy said.
Elaine tapped the doorknob with her knuckles and hummed something. The door opened when she tried the handle again.
Z was not sure what they had been expecting, but whatever it was, the office was disappointing. The walls were a pale mint color that made the room seem somehow smaller than it was. It was mostly bare inside. There were only two chairs and a small bookshelf with some files on it. The plush olive-green carpeting covered the floor in a sort of mossy squalor.
“Not very much to look through, is there?” Aysel asked.
“Have they had it cleared out?” Elaine asked Tommy. “Was it always like this?”
“It’s emptier. But there’s the back room still,” Tommy said. “Behind the bookshelf.” He paused. “I don’t know if we can open it,” he said suddenly. “There’s a spell, and I don’t know it.”
Elaine scrutinized Tommy. “Don’t worry,” she said. She slowly walked the length of the office, running a hand along the blank walls. She turned back toward the door. Z was surprised at how easily she had given up. Then Elaine suddenly turned and ran at the bookshelf headlong. For a second, Z was sure she had lost her mind, or her temper, or both.
“Elaine, what are you—”
There was a substantial thud as Elaine collided with the side of the shelf. The files that were still on it went flying. Surprisingly, though, the rickety shelf didn’t fall over. Instead, one side of it shifted away from the wall, while the other remained anchored to the wall, almost as if it were—
“A door,” Elaine declared triumphantly, raising herself from the floor where she had rolled after her assault on the furniture. “A secret goddamn door hiding a goddamn magic room.” She stood and tried to pry the bookshelf farther from the wall. It was clear now that there was indeed an opening behind it. It was also clear that the shelf was very much more solid than it looked. Elaine was bracing her full weight against it and it was only inching very slowly outward.
“It seems like a pretty difficult door to open,” Aysel said.
“Only to intruders. Whoever used it regularly probably had a password. But I’m not about to sit out here just because I don’t know what it was,” Elaine said. She muttered something that sounded like a series of expletives mixed with foreign words under her breath and a series of sparks shot along the length of the side of the bookshelf. It began to swing open more easily.
“You’re like the goddess of burglars,” Z said without thinking. “How many breaking-and-entering spells do you even know?”
“Enough,” Elaine said, and pushed the door clear of the opening in the wall with a final volley of sparks. “My other magic is shit, but this stuff works.”
“Holy shit,” Aysel said as it became apparent what was inside the large room beyond the hidden door. She moved forward, and Z followed slowly.
There was no light inside and it was dim, but even with the narrow strip of yellow that came through the concealed door, it was clear that some kind of disaster had taken place. The space inside was in total disarray. Elaine went in first, and in a moment had found a light switch. All of them walked in. The first thing one’s eyes were drawn to was the mahogany desk which had been broken in two in the center and which lay in separate halves on either side of the door. The contents of the desk drawers had been spilled all across the room—page upon page of torn and shredded yellow files spilled over every surface. There had at one time been several whole pieces of furniture in the office, but Z could not be sure what these had been, as the things lay in smithereens and splinters. In the corner of the room there was something which looked like a couch, but one couldn’t be entirely sure. After a visitor took all this in their eyes would probably register the dark smears of black that stained the ceiling. Z knew these were blood. They looked over at Tommy. His face was very pale. His expression was unreadable. He caught Z’s eye and swallowed audibly.
They examined the room for a while, moving about amid all the heaped trash. The room gave off a definite smell, like a crypt or a hospital. It was clear that the air hadn’t circulated for some time. Z bent over and looked at the papers on the floor. Some of them were lease agreements, like the ones on the outside shelf. Others were pages that had been torn from books, shredded or crumpled as if between powerful claws. They looked over and saw Aysel holding the empty binding of a book called Never the Moon’s Child: Finding a New Life and Ridding Yourself of the Past. She read the back of the jacket, made a grimace, and dropped it. Z looked back to the papers they were holding. They looked legal and vague, and Z wasn’t sure what the pages were part of. Some of them looked like patient agreement forms.
“Burn everything,” Elaine said, and picked up a piece of paper. A spark jumped from her hand to the page, and it caught fire, disappearing into cold ashes and then falling to the ground like dust. Aysel watched her, and then muttered the fire incantation while lifting a fat manila folder that had wedged itself under the desk. It caught fire much more dramatically.
Tommy was crouching under the window, sorting through a pile of yellow manila folders so shredded they resembled the curls of shredded paper used for shipping glass.
“My question is,” Elaine said, “where’s the chair? There should be an electroshock chair in here. Did you already like, rip it out of the ground?”
“Uh,” Tommy said. “That’s it, under the papers.”
“What, this thing over here?” Elaine asked. She moved over to the lump in the middle of the room, covered in trash. “Z, help me clear it off.”
Z and Elaine pulled the papers off the top of the thing, scattering them onto the floor. Z did not recognize it, though parts of it looked a little like an electronic keyboard their father used to own. It was turned on its side, and the bottom, which had been connected to the floor, had been ripped up a
t some point. It was made of metal and had a lot of buttons. Elaine made a few more efforts to clear off the rubbish on top of it, and its shape became clearer. There was a part like a chair or a couch. There was also a lot of wire, and straps which hung all along the sides of the thing, loosely. There was a bit on top that looked like the silver dome at hairdressing salons that women put over their heads when they were getting their hair colored, though it had more jutting electrical-looking pieces and appeared as if it was meant to fit a lot tighter around the head. The whole effect was extremely menacing.
“So that’s what an electroshock chair looks like,” Z said. As they said it, they saw Aysel clenching her jaw and looking very uncomfortable.
Elaine settled back against the broken desk and crossed her arms. “Too elaborate, really, since this guy was trying to be discreet,” she said, slapping the button panel of the thing. “He should’ve gotten something smaller or less menacing. I think they even make little kits now that you can pack away in a cupboard, no need for all of these buckles and horrible metal thingies. Although maybe he felt like since he was only one person he needed to secure his patients a little more intensely. Who knows?” It was clear that the presence of the machine made her nervous, too.
“How does it work?” Z asked. “I’ve never understood that.”
“It administers electric shocks to whatever poor shit has to sit in that chair. It induces small seizures. People use something kind of like it to treat normal-people mental problems. Stuff like psychosis and chronic depression. It reorganizes your brain, kind of. Even before they started using it for that, though, they figured out how to use it to block magic in things they don’t think should have magic. Like, for instance, me.” She turned over to Z. “I got zapped in one of these.”