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I got back to the motel well after dark. The small parking lot looked like a police station’s motor pool. Marked and unmarked SUVs, cruisers, and K-9 units filled all the available spaces. Emblems from every neighboring county, city, and even a few state troopers marked their doors.
Had they come on my account?
All neatly parked, lights off, nobody had set up a perimeter. SWAT hadn’t taken up positions outside my room. No, they were here for an overnight stay.
The glow of lamps through ill-fitted curtains confirmed the theory. The Sheriff must’ve called in serious reinforcements for his murder investigation. They’d be here until morning when they could descend on Fenwick Hall and toss the place for evidence.
I needed to dip and soon.
So many cops should’ve been more comforting. I’d been one after all. But Baltimore wasn’t around the corner, and I’d already been tagged as the town’s prime suspect. Aside from the Sheriff displaying what looked like a personal connection to Hank during the entry last night and his VFW membership, I didn’t know anything about the vic. Could be this dried-up town had lost the pillar of their community. The whole county, maybe, if the search team’s size was any indication.
Yeah, the urge to keep driving was strong. This was how lynchings started. Only they didn’t call them that anymore. They called it a justified shooting. Standing your ground.
But I’d made a promise. Less to the spirit and more to his son. Give up on that, might as well give up on my own boy.
I parked in a quiet corner tucked behind a pickup with a camper shell. I waited a beat, keeping watch for anybody out and about at this late hour. Best I could hope, they’d all gone to bed to prep for an early morning. But I knew cops, and my luck, better. Sure, a few would’ve slunk off to their bunks. Others would be up reviewing case files, starting the steady drip of caffeine to keep them alert for the next two or three days.
I slipped out of my shoulder holster and bundled it around the Emperor Scorpion. “Sweet Jesus,” I muttered as I placed it inside the glove box. Without the familiar weight against my ribs, I felt naked, out of uniform. Former cop or not, I didn’t have a concealed permit here in South Carolina. They’d be looking for any excuse to jam me up. Any.
Atofo’s knife went in the glovebox as well. At the very least, I’d have my medicine bag and a few tricks. Worst I’d suffer for getting caught with that on my person would be awkward questions.
I’d made it all the way to my room door when I heard a car door open then close, echoing on the still air. I pretended not to hear and swiped my key card. The door gave a chirp. I paused, grasping the handle. Whoever this was had been waiting, not so much as idling the engine.
“Well, well. You didn’t skip.” I recognized the Sheriff’s voice. None of the previous vulnerability and grief accompanied the words, only a hardened resolve I recognized. Here was a cop who’d solved his case.
I watched him squeeze between two parked cars toward the walkway. Big in a sloppy way, his midsection strained both north and south of the belt.
His puffy cheeks made his squinted eyes appear even more judgmental. He wore wire-frame glasses, rectangular and oddly stylish. A brushstroke of a mustache, gray streaked with the color of old tobacco stains, parked on his lip.
“Have we met?” I asked.
“We’re about to get acquainted,” he replied.
No root loaded, my knife in the car, I had few options for magic which was fine. The initiation at Fortune’s place had left my chest a wheezing mess. I needed to conserve strength for days to come, possibly weeks.
“Happy to help, Officer...” I checked his badge. That hint of personal concern at the murder? Now I knew why. I tried to stay cool. “...Hallewell. Want to come in?” I cracked open the room and motioned inside.
“That’s Sheriff Hallewell,” he said, tapping the badge with a pudgy finger. Brother? Cousin? Son? I cursed my luck again. “My deputy already informed you we’d like to speak to you down at the station.”
I played dumb. “Sorry, I thought we’d come to an understanding.”
He trundled closer. “I’m not going to fall for any slick talk, and I won’t take no for an answer.” He eyed the row of rooms, some buzzing with television broadcasts or late night planning sessions. “If we need to make a big ‘ol scene, I’m fine with that. You?”
Deal with one cop or fifty. I knew all too well how those scenarios went down. Unlikely any of them would doubt his word. Cops needed to know they had each other’s backs. It’s why in a shots fired situation they all unload. It’s why when I’d turned a gun on my own, I’d committed the most grievous of sins. Being on the inside of that brotherhood would be damn helpful right now.
“I used to be a cop. If you and your colleagues need any support here, I’m happy to help.”
A long shot. It would be too much to ask to be put on their search team and be able to wander the estate out in the open, searching for the boy and the sword. I could’ve gotten a yes through bewitchment, but refreshing the enchantment daily would never work. And I couldn’t affect them all once morning came. There’d be too many questions.
“A cop? You don't say.” He wasn’t seriously considering my offer and didn’t sound surprised. “Let’s you and me take a ride for old time’s sake then. Keep all this quiet and informal.”
Sheriff Hallewell was tricky to read. His actions didn’t follow any textbook or training I’d ever seen. He’d likely been elected to his job and had little to no experience outside a town with a three digit population. Maybe making a scene and getting some of these state boys involved wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
He picked up on my hesitation. “Assuming everything pans out with your story, we’ll get you signed up for a detail with this here case. Extra hands couldn’t hurt.”
The answer had all the sincerity of a cop offering a suspect a soda from the vending machine outside the interrogation room; he was just trying to soften me up. I ran my tongue along my inner cheek. Might take a quick bewitchment, but once we were at the station, I could handle one fat cop alone if it came to it.
“Sure enough,” I said. “I’ll meet you at your office.”
He gave a patronizing smile. “Let me give you a ride. I insist.”
I didn’t argue. Letting him believe he was in control would help if I needed to make a move. We crossed the parking lot to his car; the same one I’d seen out front of Hallewell’s the night of the murder. Two steps ahead, he opened the back passenger door.
“The chauffeur treatment,” I said, keeping it light.
He didn’t reply, just slouched over the door with his shit-eating grin.
Baltimore streets would’ve already chewed this guy up. Cowboy nonsense and overconfidence ended too many careers and lives. He felt perfectly safe transporting me like a prisoner but not bothering with a search. Fine, I’d feel perfectly comfortable letting him drive while I fished through my medicine bag for the proper response.
Once the door shut, the hair on the back of my neck prickled. I was sealed up inside a dense, fish tank quiet. Deafening numbness. He strolled around the front of the car, whistling mutely.
The Dodge Charger couldn’t have been more than a year old. The window separating the rear cage from the front had the haziness of a material not quite glass or polycarbonate. Special transparent materials designed to stop high caliber rounds had that look. Bulletproof plates likely lined the seatbacks.
But I’d already seen Deputy Batman’s utility belt. I knew they had all this fancy gear. That wasn’t what caused the sick feeling in my gut.
Sheriff Hallewell slipped noiselessly behind the wheel even as the shocks strained. He flicked on his headlights and tapped his steering wheel. Digital instruments sprang to life on the dash, and I felt the engine idle, but couldn’t hear the rumble.
I’d never heard of a completely soundproof containment cage. Nice. Vinyl seats were easy enough to hose down, but when putting up with prisoners throwing whatever through the cage barrier, whether it be shade or shit, it made you question your career choice. But I sensed another silence. One more integral to my current profession.
I’d been cut off from magic.
Out of the darkness, a logo crawled across the windshield. One letter at a time revealed itself until ‘MiRA’ burned there, emblazoned in infernal orange. A mobile data terminal out of Star Trek crawled across the front glass.
License plates visible through the glass lit up, bright and clear as day. VIN and registration data scrolled in a center box. To the right, in front of where the passenger might sit, a video screen tagged with the name “Deputy Gardener” played.
As the Sheriff pulled away from the motel, I watched the video. It was Gardner’s body camera footage from yesterday. The date and even my name, Eustace Grant, stamped the bottom of the screen. The center box began to fill in with an image of my driver’s license and personal data. I shifted uneasily as the Sheriff stole satisfied glances in the mirrors.
Podunk PD was no joke.
When my conversation with Gardner ended, the video feed switched to a bird’s eye view. Nighttime. High above a circular driveway where the black Charger’s lights strobed.
I watched a shadowy figure slip out the front door of Fenwick Hall. The view zoomed tighter. I tried to play it cool but found myself inching forward in the seat. From wherever the video had been taken, it was crystal clear, even in the darkness. I saw a box try to frame the shadows which swam around my face. The center box with my driver’s license photo blinked.
85% match.
The Sheriff’s small eyes smiled in the rearview. “Damn near like magic, huh?” he said, his voice transmitted through a hidden speaker.
I forced a smile and nodded. When I tried to sink back into the seat and meditate, I found the deeper silence I’d touched when I first sat down. My connection to the spirit world gone, my chest tightened. I worried the air had gone too.
Guess who’d been the overconfident one?