Hard Spell (2 page)

  Scranton's got about seventy-five thousand people, which puts it about midway between New York City and Hicksville. But there's an awful lot of supes here, relative to the population. Nobody understood why that was, until 1966. That was when a couple of profs from the local university figured out that a whole bunch of ley lines intersect in the Wyoming Valley. Several of them come together right here in Scranton.

  It's not known for sure where ley lines came from – there's four or five major theories, and every one makes my head hurt. But all the experts agree they exist.

  They're a powerful source of magical energy, ley lines. The more lines intersecting, the stronger the energy. Passon and Warner, the professors, proved that there are four points in and around Scranton where at least ten different ley lines come together. That's kind of a big deal, in magical terms. Or so they say.

  I hope those two profs got tenure, or whatever they call it. They helped answer a lot of questions.

  The intersecting ley lines are like a magnet for supes, which explains why we've got so many. They were drawn here over the years, even if they didn't realize why. Weres, vamps, ghouls, witches, trolls, you name it. We've got 'em all in Scranton.

  Lucky us.

The Occult and Supernatural Crimes Investigation Unit, which everybody calls the "Supe Squad," is located in the basement of police HQ. There's no windows down there, but none of us mind. You never know what might get out through a window when you're not looking. Or what might get in.

  I pull the night shift, which is the busiest time for our kind of work. I've racked up enough seniority to get whatever shift I want, but I work the graveyard (yeah, I know) because I like the action.

  The boss is Lieutenant McGuire. They say his wife was grabbed by a gang of werewolves years ago, and that McGuire tracked them down, all by himself. When he left the house where they'd been hiding, there wasn't a creature alive inside, including McGuire's wife, who was found with a silver bullet in her brain.

  McGuire always claimed it was a stray shot that killed her. But there are stories about that – rumors, really. Stories that one of the weres had already bitten her, that she was infected with lycanthropy. Some of the stories say that she begged him to do it.

  It might be true. McGuire's an okay guy and a good boss, but he's got a darkness about him that has nothing to do with the fact that he doesn't see much sunlight.

  Despite whatever may have happened in the past, McGuire's no vigilante. He plays by the rules.

  But may Almighty God help any supe who breaks them.

  It's not against the law to be a supernatural creature, or to engage in most kinds of occult rituals and practices. But there are laws concerning all that stuff. The bottom line for supes is the same one that applies to humans: you can't hurt anybody.

  Unless they give consent, and you'd be surprised how many do. But there are rules about that, too.

I never understood why somebody would open a liquor store. Sure, it's a business, just like anything else; buy stuff and sell it for a profit. And I'm not one of those church ladies who think nobody should sell booze. Somebody's going to, as long as the stuff is legal. And Prohibition proved just tupid it was to make it
illegal
.

  My problem's not moral, it's practical. A liquor store is a small, cash-intensive business. It doesn't have many employees, and it has to stay open late because most people do their drinking in the evening. Can you say
big fat target?

  There's a reason why you never hear jokes about somebody knocking over a hardware store.

  In Pennsylvania, the sale of hard booze and wine is handled by the LCB, the Liquor Control Board. All these places with the bottles in the window and "Wine & Spirits" over the door are really state-run liquor stores. The only difference is where the profits go – it doesn't make the places any less tempting to some lowlife with a drug habit and a gun.

  Even if the lowlife in question isn't human.

My partner and I had been out trying to turn up witnesses to a bad case of fairy-bashing when we got the radio call directing us to the State Store on Mulberry. Even if I didn't know where the place was, it wouldn't have been hard to spot once we got within a couple of blocks. The multiple sets of flashing red lights guided us in, just like beacons at the entrance to Hell.

  As we got closer, Big Paul said from the seat next to me, "Jeez, they really called out the cavalry. Must be four, five units here."

  Paul di Napoli had been my partner for just over four years. Despite being too fond of his wife's pasta, he still moved around pretty good when he needed to, and he passed the department's physical fitness test every year. The last time had been close, but Big Paul still managed to make the grade. The fact that his cousin Angie is head of the Officer Fitness Board probably didn't hurt, either.

  "Gotta be a supe inside," I said. "All this firepower already here, they wouldn't need us, otherwise." I parked the car as close as I could to the scene, and began rummaging through the gear we keep in a locked box between the front seats. Without looking up I asked, "You see SWAT anyplace?"

  The Sacred Weapons and Tactics unit was usually called in to deal with any violent (or potentially violent) confrontations with members of the supe community. They're trained in negotiation. They also know what to do if negotiation fails, and they do it real well.

  "Nah," Paul said, "but I ain't surprised. Didn't you hear about the hostage situation goin' down on the South Side?"

  "Uh-uh." I stowed several small objects in the pockets of my sport coat.

  "Couple of guys from Patrol was talkin' about it just before we left the House tonight. I guess some wizard wannabe had a fight with his old lady, and things got out of hand."

  "Doesn't sound like SWAT's kind of problem." I put a vial containing fresh crushed garlic in my shirt pocket. I could either repel a vampire or season some kielbasa, depending on how things worked out.

  "I hear the dude's barricaded inside his apartment – and somehow he got his hands on a charged wand."

  "Shit. They'll be out there a while, then."

  "Most likely. Looks like it's up to us, bro. Whatever
it
is."

  "Yeah, well, 'twas ever fucking thus." I closed the lid on the case, but didn't lock it. I might have to get it open again, in a hurry.

  I put my ID folder in my breast pocket, so that the badge would hang over the front. "Let's go join the party."

We ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and headed toward the nearest prowl car. A uniform named Flaherty noticed us first, and came over, a frown on his thin face. "Jeez, what took you guys so long?"

  "We stopped to get our hair done," I told him. "Who's the ROS?"

  He gave me a look, then pointed with his chin. "Matthews. Over there."

  I was glad that the Ranking Officer on Scene was Matthews. He was smart and steady and didn't have anything to prove.

  Matthews was on his radio as we came up on him. He saw us, and I heard him say, "Never mind – they're here," and sign off.

  We all shook hands, then I asked him, "So, how bad is it?"

  "Couple tried to take down the liquor store. A squad car arrived before they could get out, and they decided not to give it up. They've got hostages."

  "Goblins?" I heard Big Paul mutter. "What the fuck?"

  Goblins are nasty little bastards, but they usually give people a wide berth. You find them near garbage dumps and junkyards, mostly. They don't tend to come into densely populated human areas.

  "Near as I can figure," Matthews said, "they braced the clerk with those homemade knives they use, and told him to empty the register. The clerk might've thought it was a joke. Anyway, I guess he told them to fuck off, and so they cut him. I dunno know how bad."

  "I bet he gave up the money after that," I said. "So, why are the gobs still in there?"

  "Customer in the back of the store, some woman looking over the expensive wine they've got back there. When she saw what was going down, she called 666 on her cell. That's how we know what happened. There was a black-and-white a couple of blocks over. They got here pretty quick."

  "And the gobs refused to come out with their claws up," Paul said.

  "You got it," Matthews said. "They'd found the woman by then, so she and the clerk are both hostages."

  "What I don't get is why goblins are doing shit like this," I said. "It's not their style."

  "I dunno." Matthews shrugged. "The first uniforms on the scene say the gobs were acting real twitchy, even for them. Hysterical, even."

  Big Paul and I looked at each other. "Meth," I said, and he nodded.

  Surprise and anger chased each other across Matthews' face. "Did you say
meth?
Are you fuckin' serious?"

  "Do I look like I'm kidding around?" I said. "There's been rumors the last couple of months that some of the local goblins have figured how to cook meth. Story goes, some big drugstore dumped a bunch of expired OTC drugs, including a whole shitload of cold medicine."

  "We checked it out," Paul said. "Since it's not prescription meds, the drugstores don't gotta keep track of it. The ones that are part of a chain, they send the expired stuff back to some central warehouse, and those guys dispose of it like any other trash – at a dump or landfill."

  "We called the company HQs of a couple of the big drugstore chains that have stores in town," I said. "They told us they'd be happy to discuss their waste disposal practices with me – right after I showed them a court order."

  "Which we can't get, because the corporate HQs are outside our jurisdiction," Paul growled.

  "Goblins on meth." Matthews shook his head. "Just what we fuckin' need."

  "Maybe we oughta put this bitch session on hold 'til later," Paul said. "There's hostages, remember?"

  "Yeah, you're right," I told him. I looked over at the liquor store, the flashing red lights bouncing off its windows like something at one of those rave clubs. "Guess we're gonna need CIs." I gestured with my head toward where we'd left the car. "You wanna...?"

  "Sure." Big Paul lumbered off inthe direction we'd come from. Then he stopped, and turned back.

  "Vests, too?" he asked.

  I shrugged. Goblins weren't shooters, everybody knew that. "I don't want one," I told him. "But if you're feeling wussy, be my guest."

  Paul grinned at me. "Yeah, and fuck you, too." Then he pivoted and went back to the car.

  Matthews looked at me. "CIs? What the hell d'you need a confidential informant for? We
know
where the little green bastards are."

  "Yeah, we do. That's why he's getting some special cartridges out of our vehicle. They're tipped with cold iron. Different kind of CI."

• • • •

Nobody knows why cold iron works against the creatures of
faerie
– goblins, trolls, dwarves, and all the rest. Might just as well ask why silver kills a werewolf, or why vamps can't stand sunlight. Some philosopher has probably spent years trying to figure it all out. But as Paul and I approached that liquor store, I was just glad that my Beretta held a fresh clip of 9mm CI slugs.

  The weapon was holstered, for now. No point in spooking already jazzed-up goblins. My last combat pistol test showed that I could bring it up to firing position in 1.3 seconds and hit what I was aiming at 92 percent of the time. I figured that would be good enough.

  There wasn't much danger of getting shot, anyway. Goblins don't use guns, and if this pair was breaking with tradition, they'd have busted some caps by now. Goblins aren't famous for their patience, even without meth.

  The whole front of the liquor store was glass. As we approached, I thought I saw a flash of green from just above the check-out counter. They knew we were here, all right.

  I pushed the heavy door open slowly, Paul right behind me. A long gray counter ran along the wall to the left, and we walked slowly toward it, our footsteps loud in the stillness. I stopped about twenty feet away. Big Paul would take up position about fifteen feet back and a little to my right, as always. If I went down, he'd be in a good position to nail the bastard responsible.

  "I'm Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski," I said, as calmly as if I was meeting someone at work. "This is Detective Paul di Napoli." Keep everything cool, that was the idea. The fact that my pulse was pounding in my ears like a crazed conga drummer didn't matter. "Whaddaya say we try to work this out? There's no need for anybody to get hurt."

  The clerk had already been hurt, I knew that. But I decided not to mess up my pitch with inconvenient facts.

  Goblin voices always remind me of fingernails being scraped across a blackboard. The one coming from behind the counter was no exception. "
What you want?"
it screeched.

  "I want to talk."

 
 "No talk – want car. Get car or we cut humans."

  Most goblins don't speak English real well, and the only phrase of Goblin that I know translates as "Your mother mates with trolls under every bridge in town."

  "Don't cut humans," I said. "Talk instead. Talk better."

  
"Talk no good. Want car, go away far. No prison."

  "Why come here? Why rob?" Talking to gobs always made me sound like some nitwit in an old Tarzan movie. Can't be helped, though. Simple words and syntax are all they understand – in human language, or their own. Goblins aren't real bright.

  
"Money. Lots of money at liquor place."

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye as something shifted in the parking lot outside. I hoped the uniforms out there weren't getting t."

  A full breach almost always results in casualties. Sometimes those include people caught in the middle.

  "Why money?" I asked. "Goblin not need money."

  Living near dumps, goblins usually forage for what they need. Sometimes they barter with other goblin tribes for stuff they can't find on their own.