Doyle Times Police Blotter, Saturday, May 25th
Illegal Fireworks: A Doyle resident who claimed he was firing at invading spaceships was fined for shooting illegal fireworks on Friday, May 24th, at 8:20 PM.
I jogged down the station’s concrete steps. A chill swept through the late morning, and I paused. My skin prickled. The air thickened, clutching at my throat, squeezing. My knees buckled.
Another spell, when I was alone and carrying the damned book. My gaze swept the parking lot, my breath heavy, as if I’d just finished a run. But I didn’t see any threats. No moving cars. No Wyrrd Systerrs.
I mentally rooted myself into the earth and struggled against the spell. But it was like fighting a python, slipping round and round me, too fast and too strong for me to escape.
As above, so below. Hermia’s alchemical quotation came to me unbidden, and the nails-on-a-chalkboard sensation vanished. The heat beat up at me from the pavement and down from the sun, sticky, stifling.
Uneasy, I hitched up my purse, weighted by the book. That glacial, heavy energy had felt a lot like the spell I’d sensed when all this had begun. I scanned the windowed sheriff’s station, the tops of the pines. But everything seemed normal.
I hurried toward my F-150 and thought dark thoughts. Not about the Black Lodge. About my own bad behavior.
She’d been right to call me on it, but it wasn’t like I used my magic to manipulate people, like the Wyrrd Systerrs had. Sure, Karin might have complained my happy and peaceful spells on Ground were manipulative. But the spells were more psychic reminders — nudges — toward the good.
I stumbled. Nudges. That was how the Wyrrd Systerrs had described their spells.
Was I my own personal Black Lodge? I stopped, my key in the pickup’s lock.
Calling the tattooed man had been manipulative, but what had it hurt?
I pressed one hand to my face. The fact was, I didn’t know what impact that spell might have on him. And I probably never would. I swallowed, my stomach roiling. My ignorance didn’t make me innocent.
I climbed into my broiling pickup and turned the key. Hurriedly, I rolled down the window and blasted the A/C at the same time to push out the hot air.
I laid my head against the headrest. What I’d been doing had been manipulative. Even not telling my sisters about my dream had been a backhanded sort of controlling. I couldn’t shroud the truth in euphemisms and denial.
And I’d mentally accused that B&B owner of being a control freak. Pot. Kettle. Black.
I rolled up the window, not liking the picture the sheriff had inadvertently snapped of me.
My sisters were as connected to the problems in Doyle as I. And they had a right to make their own choices. I’d taken that away from them, like Ben Daley’s choices — his life — had been taken from him. A lump hardened my throat.
Why had someone killed Ben Daley? How did that fit into the Black Lodge’s spell?
Okay, forget the spell. A human committed the crime, and there was a human motivation. Orlando hadn’t liked the way John had treated Gertrude. If Orlando was in love with Gertrude, he might have killed her husband. But then why kill Gertrude? And why Ben Daley?
Okay, forget the why. Could he have killed Deputy Daley?
I pulled up Orlando’s teaching schedule on my phone. He had back-to-back classes from eight this morning until noon. I called the studio, and a receptionist answered.
“Hi,” I said, “I’m such a ditz, I missed my classes with Orlando this morning.”
“If you have a punch card, you can always come back for another. You won’t be charged for the missed class.”
“I know, but... This is silly, but was he teaching this morning, or was there a substitute?”
She chuckled. “You didn’t miss him. He’s at a yoga conference in San Francisco today.”
“Really?”
“You can still catch the end of his live stream.” She gave me the web address.
“Thank you.” I hung up and typed in the address for the live stream. There was Orlando, contorting into yoga postures on a dimly lit stage. I checked the schedule. His class had started an hour and a half ago. It took two hours to drive to San Francisco. There was no way he could have killed Daley and gotten to San Francisco in time for the conference.
I pulled from the parking lot and drove to the highway. My truck’s speed increased. I turned off the air conditioning and drove with the windows down. The air was hot, but it was moving. Something had shifted inside me too and slipped away.
I drove into Doyle and slowed on Main Street. It was ghost-town empty. No tourists strolled down the sidewalks. No locals drove down the road.
I parked in the alley behind Ground. Worried, I pulled out my cell phone and called Karin.
“Jayce,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“I have the book.”
“You...? How?”
“The sheriff gave it to me for safekeeping.”
“Does she know we plan to destroy it?” Karin asked.
“Do we?” We hadn’t exactly decided on that last night.
She exhaled gustily. “I guess we don’t know yet.”
I walked through the rear door and into Ground’s kitchen. “Here’s the thing,” I said in a low voice. “The Wyrrd Systerrs’ spell is still active, isn’t it?”
“I checked this morning. Do you know how hard it was without visualizing?” She paused. “Of course you do. And yes. Their magical ties are there. I don’t quite understand them, but I think I’m getting close.”
“I felt another spell this morning – something new – and Ben Daley’s been killed.” I frowned, staring at the stripey blue curtains between the kitchen and the café. I couldn’t hear anything inside the coffee shop. Where had everyone gone?
“Killed?” she asked. “How?”
I explained, and she cursed. “This is awful,” she said. “How does he fit into the spell? Because he has to fit into it, I just wish…”
“What?”
“This spell is like a giant Gordian knot,” she said. “I’m having trouble untangling any of it blind. Whatever spell they’ve cast seems to be affecting practically all of Doyle.”
“Well, they are trying to influence events surrounding that book.”
“And now you have it.” And they’re coming for you. She didn’t have to say it. We were both thinking it.
I clutched the phone. “I’ve learned a few things from the sheriff.” I rested one hip against the sink and eyed the blue-and-white curtains. “I think the three of us should meet up.”
“Tonight’s that charity event. I was planning on coming to Doyle early anyway to talk to you two.”
“The sheriff’s thinks the Black Lodge might try something tonight or tomorrow. The circus leaves town Monday. They have to act soon.”
“All right. I’ll call Lenore and let her know I’m on my way.”
Something seemed to settle inside me, like earth shifting into place. Karin was right. We were stronger together. “Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”
Pocketing my phone, I hurried into the supply closet and knelt beside the small safe, anchored to the floor. I put the book inside, double checked the safe was locked, and grabbed an apron off a hook. I brushed through the curtains into Ground.
The coffeeshop was packed, but the only sound was the whir of the espresso machine.
Darla and a barista padded behind the bar. A third barista moved through the tables, refilling coffees.
The customers’ deadly quiet was unnerving.
Another quiver of energy vibrated through the café. I glanced around. The scent of burnt wood and plastic twined around me. I stiffened. Fire.
Gripping the apron in one hand, I raced upstairs to my apartment.
Picatrix sat in the window, her tail lashing. The black cat growled.
Breath quickening, I trotted through my apartment checking for smoke, fire, sparking electrical cords.
I found nothing.
My apartment and Ground were safe. Unless something was on fire outside? Dislodging the cat, I opened the window and leaned out.
Traffic had thickened on Main Street. But I didn’t see any plumes of smoke rising above the old-west buildings.
Another of the ringmaster’s illusion spells then. The jerk. I returned downstairs. Hastily, I tied on the apron. “Darla, how’s it going?” I kept my voice low, unwilling to break the strange silence.
“It’s okay.” Darla bit her lip and motioned to the crowd. “I mean, everything’s under control.”
I scanned the tables. Several people were listening to computer headsets. I grabbed a coffeepot and walked to a grizzled, older man.
“Hi, Jake,” I said. “What are you listening to?”
Heads swiveled in our direction.
He pulled off his headset and swallowed. “The podcast, like everyone else.”
“What podcast?” I asked.
“The newspaper’s. Tom Tarrant.”
“Any good news?” I asked.
The room’s attention bent toward us. I shifted my weight.
“Unplug your headphones,” Mrs. Sorenson hissed from a nearby table. “Let everyone hear.”
Nervously, he looked around the coffeeshop.
“Hear what?” I asked, uneasy.
He unplugged his headphones from his laptop. Tom Tarrant’s voice carried across the café. “—aliens kidnapping Doyle citizens. Sheriff McCourt denies Doyle is the subject of more alien visitations. However, FBI Agent Rohana Manaj, the FBI’s specialist in alien abductions, is once again staying at Doyle’s one and only UFO-themed B&B, Wits’ End. I spoke with Agent Manaj last night, and she refused to comment.”
A broad hand slammed down the lid of Jake’s laptop, silencing Tom’s voice.
Greg Alfred, at a neighboring table, glared, his hand still on Jake’s computer. “Enough. We all know what’s going on here. We’ve always known, we just haven’t wanted to believe it.” The wine shop owner stood, his eyes feverish beneath thick eyebrows. “You know.” He pointed at a plump woman at a corner table. “You know, Mabel Meriweather. Your son was in that pub that disappeared. What does he have to say?”
“N- nothing,” she stammered and pressed a hand to her ample chest. “He doesn’t remember anything.”
“That’s what they all say,” Greg said. “But do we believe it?”
A woman leapt to standing. Her chair teetered and clattered to the floor. “I’m leaving town. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll all go too.”
She raced from Ground. A half-dozen people gathered their things and followed her. The remaining customers muttered, a low vibration that set my teeth on edge.
Another woman plucked at Mrs. Meriweather’s sagging sleeve. “Your son must know something. He was gone for months.”
“Why would her son know anything?” I asked, exasperated.
“Because it’s all connected,” Greg said. “Don’t you see. Everything’s connected. We’re all connected in this.”
The Wyrrd Systerrs’ blasted spell. My jaw clenched. I still had no idea how to break their spell or where it was headed.
But I had a feeling it was someplace bad.