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I fought to keep my eyes off the screen the entire way to the police station. The view out the window didn’t offer any more comfort. Every flaking sign, every ramshackle storefront was evidence of a community which refused to change. Wadmalaw Island, like many other so-called islands along the intracoastal waterways, had become stranded. Lost. Disconnected from modernity. Too remote for the remains of wayward city boys to be found.
My only way out might be another kind of river crossing.
I had no idea what I was dealing with here. As far as I knew, not even Federal agencies had this sort of tech to deal with magic. Or did they? I’d delved deep into the secret society of practitioners and found only small remnants, victims of technological progress. But here I was, being transported in an antimagic containment system obviously custom built by an industry.
I stole a glance at the HUD logo once more: MiRA. I’d never heard of them, as police or otherwise. How had this been kept secret? Could there be another layer, deeper than I’d gone before? And why would they be fielding their equipment here?
Forget big conspiracies or even my current assignment, I needed to focus on getting out of this situation. Every minute in this magical vacuum, I could feel my life ticking away. The already strained enchantments which kept my cancer at bay depleted even faster. Best chance might be my go-to calamus root. We roll up at the station, I tell the Sheriff to walk away, and I disappear into the night.
I’d snuck a piece under my lip by the time we arrived. A single modern brick building with an attached garage labeled “emergency services,” the office probably provided the entire island with police, ambulance, and fire. Another cruiser was parked near the glass front doors. The black Escalade I’d seen cruising by Fortune’s house took up the handicap spot.
Why had a TV preacher shown up here? Midnight revival? Fortune had called them the monsters. Hank Hallewell had run them off for trespassing after they’d asked about his house. Nothing but bad news.
Sheriff Hallewell parked and squeezed out from behind the wheel. When he popped open my door, he made no move for any charms or spells of his own. He stood, relaxed, a thumb hooked on his belt and the other draped over the door frame.
“After you,” he said with a flourish.
I climbed out and looked him dead in the eye. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, the juices of the root soothing my raw throat. “But you should take some time off. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Hallewell blinked behind those trendy frames and for a split second, I thought I had him. Bewitchment fired, I’d be on my way. The snarl which followed caught me completely by surprise.
He threw his full bulk against the open door, slamming it hard and pinning me against the car. My already labored breathing skipped like a broken record. Close in, he slammed his meaty fist into my solar plexus. I gasped and the root shot out between choking breaths.
“I done told you,” he growled, putting his full weight against me, “none of that slick talk.”
Deputy Gardner burst through the glass doors of the station. He’d drawn a taser and his cuffs before he reached the car. “Turn around!” he shouted. “Hands on the roof!”
He might’ve been out of shape, but the Sheriff weighed a solid three hundred pounds. Even not dying, I’d have had trouble getting the leverage to fight back pinched between the door and the car. Gardner’s arrival only made the situation worse. Whether he recognized I’d bewitched him or not, he was pissed. Disrespected, he’d come ready to reclaim his lost swagger.
I glared at the Sheriff and sucked wind through my teeth, relaxing enough to show I’d stopped fighting. He backed off slowly, only satisfied when I doubled over coughing as soon as my chest had the room to expand. Ignoring my fit, Gardener slammed me into position across the trunk.
“Told you I’d get him here quiet like,” Hallewell told Gardener. He pressed his jowls to my ear. “I’ll let him do the dirty work. You just relax and enjoy.”
“I’m not armed,” I gasped. “No sharps.”
Deputy Gardener cuffed me and started the kind of rough pat down I’d have given a smartass perp who’d shown me up. My medicine bag and wallet went on the roof. With a rough jerk, he spun me back around before slamming the car door closed.
“No sharps?” He added the fork to the pile, and it skittered along the roof.
“Seriously?” I wheezed.
“We don’t know what you’re capable of.” Sheriff Hallewell tilted his head and eyed the silverware. “Could’ve been Hank’s. My brother was known to collect such things.”
There, his brother. The connection was clear now, but I couldn't square it with his attitude. He’d been disturbed at the murder scene but didn’t seem overcome with grief, more shocked by the gruesome way his brother had died. Even now, I didn’t sense that kind of vengeance you might expect. He seemed calm, calculating.
Gardener’s hands found the straps of my breastplate. “You better not be carrying.”
“I told you, no guns.”
The Deputy hammered his way down the length of my tender ribs, every touch causing a stab of pain. Not finding a holster, he made his way inward. “What the hell? Sheriff, take a look at this.” Sheriff Hallewell wandered over as Gardener tore at the buttons on my shirt.
“Easy,” I winced. “Just a bit of bling.”
“A bit?”
Gardner’s confusion seemed genuine. He didn’t understand what the piece of spiritual armor might mean. He moved aside to let the Sheriff see.
The golden plate glimmered in the parking lot lights. Hallewell’s inspection came closer to an appraisal. He was in the know, I could tell. He tapped a pudgy finger against it.
“Thinks he’s some kind of rapper,” said the Sheriff, playing on his partner’s ignorance while giving me a cunning smirk. He reached up and grabbed my jaw. “Check his teeth, we might need to seize some of them too.”
Being wise to magic, could be he wanted to see if I had lost all of the root. As a black man in the Land of the Free, submitting to the frisk was my reminder that freedom had never been intended for me. That much, I understood.
But Hallewell didn't handle me like a prisoner; he prepared to check my teeth like livestock, like a slave at the auction house. Whatever resemblance I hadn’t seen between Hank and his ancestor came across perfectly clear with this clown. My cooperation ended. I whipped my head to the side and tore free.
Sharp pain fired through my cheek as I bit down and the warm flow of blood began. The right spell and I could break these chains. Remind Johnny Rebel here who lost that war.
But the mojo never came. An intense burning sensation encircled my wrists. The harder I tried to tap into the spirit realm, the tighter the cuffs felt, pinching and crushing. Sheriff Hallewell met my disbelief with a vicious grin. I clenched my jaw in defiance.
Still smiling, he walked toward the building. “Don’t worry none about reading no rights. We’re gonna sort this little mystery out tonight.”
Gardener stared after his boss. Through my stunned haze, I could tell he wanted to argue the point. Not young enough to have a rookie vibe and not old enough to be jaded, I got the sense the job mattered to him. And that this wasn’t the first time he’d gone down this road with the Sheriff.
He seized the chain on the cuffs with less force than he’d used during the search. He marched me toward the entry where the Sheriff waited, holding the door open. I’d recovered enough to stare him down, letting him know he hadn’t gotten to me. Not yet.
“Don’t blame me,” the Sheriff grinned. “I’m just the humble servant.”
I caught one last glimpse of the Escalade parked by the door as they shoved me inside. Promised Land Ministries.
Sheriff hadn’t been lazy or incompetent, I’d already figured that much out. And he hadn’t already solved the case by simply convicting the first stranger, the lone black man, he’d seen. This was about more than an open and shut case or even a vigilante lynching. No, he had a different kind of confidence. He had the confidence of unwavering, unshakable faith.
And zealots? They rarely operated without divine guidance.
For centuries, old world power had hidden in plain sight under the vestments of lost saints and priestly exorcisms. Any remnants from those days were guaranteed to be packing some serious heat. My quest to find deeper, more potent magic had paid off in the worst way possible.
The tightness in my chest had compressed into an identifiable knot. I thought of Izaak. The two years which had gone by already without me. He’d be starting school soon. He needed a father to keep him away from the kids who’d already been bewitched by their own code of death and sacrifice. For him, I swallowed my fear and a mouthful of blood.
The station was made up of a central bullpen, several adjoining offices, and a caged-off section for processing prisoners. Walls a spotless white, I could still smell the paint. Unscarred by traffic, the office carpet matched the neatly ordered cubicles. Like the rest of their gear, everything was shiny and new and overkill for a backwater PD.
Hallewell disappeared into an interior office. Several shadows moved about through the frosted glass. Gardener dragged me into processing before I could get a solid headcount. As we entered the cage, a wave of nausea struck.
I felt vulnerable. Exposed. I’d been fingertips away from death only last night. The fear was not for my own life but for the one I might never live, the happy one which kept me wandering this world in search of a cure. My shirt torn open, Deputy Gardener peeled the golden breastplate away and dropped it on the counter.
“Eustace isn’t a good rapper name.” He tossed my wallet onto the golden disk. “Got any aliases we need to be aware of?”
“No.”
Too much had hit me at all once. Cancer returning, the shock of being cut off from magic, the idea that I’d finally picked up a promising trail only to find it guarded by racist assholes — how I’d get out of this, I wasn’t sure.
“Are these drugs?” he asked, reaching for my medicine bag.
“Herbal remedies. But not that kind of herb.”
Gardener loosened the drawstring and pulled a penlight from one of his many buttoned and velcroed pouches. Reckless, he started poking around inside the bag. I didn’t have any bewitchments or hexes protecting the contents; frisks and harassment happened often enough I didn’t want to be responsible for blasting hapless security guards and police officers.
“Suspicious powders,” Gardner said into the bag. “Plant matter. Possibly unprocessed narcotics.”
“I wouldn’t waste the lab time.”
Deputy Gardener guided me to the counter. There he switched the cuffs to the front and pressed my finger against a touchscreen. My fingerprint registered in digital ink. He appeared unimpressed when I took over the transfer and left behind a perfect set.
“Cop you say?”
“Run them through your system. I’m not lying.”
“Sheriff’s already done that,” he said. “This is just a formality.”
The response didn’t share Sheriff Hallewell’s smugness. The unspoken argument with his superior about protocol tinged his words. He sat me on a bench before returning to inventorying my belongings. Textbook, he described each item, out loud, so I could verify.
A shaman’s tools gained an imprint of his spirit. The same happened with anybody’s prized possessions. This was why in days past people were buried with their worldly goods. Why it was always assumed those items would be accessible in the afterlife or whatever worlds their spirit tread.
With those foci, those last few links to my magic bagged, tagged, and placed in a lockbox, the lid snapped shut like the top of a steel coffin. Buried. Without me.