Known Devil (30 page)

“Guess Doc Watson was right, after all,” I said, and we just stood there for a minute, grinning at each other like a couple of idiots.

Karl’s grin slowly faded, then he said, “That’s the last thing I remember – holding the cross.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “You kind of flaked out on us after that.”

I told him what had happened, and explained how he’d ended up in a body bag inside my trunk for the last five hours or so.

“And you drove here just before sunset,” he said.

“Yep.”

“You must’ve been pretty confident that I was OK.”

“Of course I was,” I said. “Never doubted it for a minute.” He looked at me for a second or two, not speaking, then gave me half a smile. Vampires are good at detecting lies, but the one I’d just told didn’t seem to bother him very much.

Karl made a head gesture toward his apartment building. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “You can bring me up to speed while I clean up a little and get into some fresh clothes.”

“Good idea,” I said. As we headed up the sidewalk toward his building’s front door, I pulled out my phone. “But I’ve got a couple of calls I need to make first.”

 

What with one thing and another, we were over an hour late reporting for our shift. But McGuire didn’t seem inclined to dock us for the time.

“Good to see you, Detective,” he said to Karl as we walked in. “I was pleased to learn that I won’t have to dig my dress uniform out of the closet again just yet. It was a little tight, the last police funeral I attended, and I haven’t lost any weight since then.”

Fucking McGuire – sentimental, as always.

“Sorry I flaked out on you, boss,” Karl said as we sat down. “But at least we got something good out of Slattery. It wasn’t a wasted effort.”

McGuire twitched one side of his mouth. “Depends on what you mean by ‘good’. It was interesting – I’ll say that much. The only problem we’ve got now is what the hell to do about it.”

“I don’t guess it would do Slattery’s campaign much good if word got out about his thoughts on helter-skelter,” I said.

“I dunno,” Karl said. “There’s folks in this town who’d think that was a reason to vote for the son of a bitch.”

“But there’s plenty who wouldn’t,” I said. “Supes, especially.”

“I think you can assume that Slattery’s already lost the supe vote, Stan,” Karl told me. “He wrote us off a long time ago.”

“Anyway, there’s no video of him saying it,” McGuire said. “Nothing for the media to run with.”

“There’s about thirty cops who heard him say it,” I said. “Including the three of us.”

“Doesn’t matter much,” McGuire said. “Slattery would say we’d all been ordered to lie by the mayor, who wants to keep his job come election day. And there’s something else.”

We both looked at him.

“Maybe Slattery admits he said all that stuff about helter-skelter, OK? But then he says there was a vampire in the room who used Influence to
make
him say it – further proof that vampires have no place on the police force.”

“Influence doesn’t work that way,” Karl said.

“You and I know that,” McGuire said. “But do you think the average human living in Scranton knows it – or even gives a shit? People believe what they want to believe.”

People believe what they want to believe
. McGuire wasn’t saying anything that I didn’t already know, but there was something…
Shit
.

“You’re right, boss,” I said. “We haven’t got any ironclad proof that Slattery said it. But, shit, who needs proof when you’ve got innuendo?”

McGuire shook his head. “I’m not following.”

“It’s simple,” I said. “We just follow the advice of Lyndon Baines Johnson, a guy who knew a few things about politics.”

Karl looked at me and said, “If you’re waiting for somebody to feed you the next line, I’ll do it – what’d Johnson say?”

“
When all else fails, call your opponent a pig fucker – and let him deny it
.”

After a few seconds, McGuire said, “I think the light is beginning to dawn.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say stuff like that, boss,” Karl said with a slight smile. “Especially after yesterday.” Then he looked at me and said, “I still don’t get it.”

“Print media may be on its way out,” I said, “but it isn’t dead yet. Plenty of people still read the
Times-Tribune
every day. It’s online, too – so even the geeks see it.”

“Yeah, they do,” McGuire said. “And if somebody were to leak the story to the
T-T
–”

“On deep background, of course,” I said.

“Of course. I bet they’d run with it,” McGuire said, “especially if they had the names of a few cops who were there, so they could confirm the story.”

“I know a guy at the
Times-Tribune
,” I said. “He’s always pestering me for stories.”

“Then maybe you oughta give him one,” McGuire said.

“Yeah, I think I will.”

“I love the idea,” Karl said, “But we’re not gonna sink Slattery’s campaign with something like this.”

“No,” I said. “But maybe we can cause it to spring a leak or two.”

“Then what?” Karl asked.

“Then we’ll see,” I told him.

 

Karl and I went downstairs to pay Rachel a visit – the first time either of us had seen her since early in the morning, when Karl was still defying the laws of nature by being awake after sunrise.

The custodians had been waxing the floors at this level, and the smell of polish was strong as we walked toward the open door of Rachel’s office. We found her seated behind her desk, face buried in a big, old-looking book. Although an awful lot of written material has been turned into easy-to-read electrons these days, Rachel once explained to me that most of the old magical texts still only exist in paper form. When I’d asked why, she’d said, “Not enough of a market. The people with the skills don’t have the interest, and the people with the interest don’t usually have the skills. Besides,” she’d said with a light laugh, “there’s such a thing as tradition. Not to mention safety.”

“Safety?”

“Sure. I’d hate to be in the middle of a tricky conjuration and have the battery of my Kindle pick that precise moment to fail.”

Rachel looked up as we came in. I got a quick smile, but when she turned to look at Karl, the smile faded and her expression became unreadable.

As we approached, Karl said, “Hey, Rachel.”

Rachel nodded slowly. “Karl.” She pushed her desk chair back and stood up.

The witch and the vampire looked at each other for three or four seconds, before Rachel broke the silence. “I hardly know what to say, Karl. I’m certainly relieved to see you, although Stan called me as soon as he knew that you were back among the living. Well, not the living, but…”

“I know,” Karl said.

Rachel brushed a couple of stray hairs out of her face. “I just… I’m sorry that my skills let you down, Karl. If it’s any consolation, I spent most of today in gut-twisting uncertainty, until I heard you were OK.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better that you had a miserable day, Rachel,” Karl said gently. “Why would I want that? I’m not mad. You did the best you could with a brand-new spell – and, hey, the darn thing worked, didn’t it?”

“It worked, but less than perfectly,” she said.

Karl shrugged. “Perfection’s a pretty high standard. If everybody used that one, most of us would come up short. The spell did what it was supposed to – kept me going long enough to work a little Influence on Mister Slattery.”

“Yes, Stan said you had been successful, but didn’t go into detail. Maybe that part’s none of my business?”

“You’ve been with us through most of this mess,” I said to her. “No reason to keep you in the dark about the rest.”

I told her what Slattery had said, and briefly mentioned some of the possible implications we’d discussed with McGuire. When I was done she shook her head slowly. “Patton Wilson. I should’ve known.”

“We all should’ve,” I said. “But you know what they say about hindsight.”

“Yeah, looking out your ass is always 20/20,” she said. “Now that you know he’s the guiding hand behind all the recent hurly-burly, what are you going to do about it?”

“We’re still working on that,” Karl said.

“Rachel, I agree with Karl that we oughta be grateful the spell worked as well as it did,” I said. “But have you figured out why it
didn’t
last the whole day, like it was supposed to?”

“This is an area where actual data is scarce,” she said. “But I have a theory.”

“Theorize away,” I said.

“It comes down, in a word, to stress,” she said. “The spell was already putting considerable strain on Karl, since it had him going against his vampire nature by remaining conscious after sunrise. And then, on top of that, he’s confronted by that oaf with the crucifix.”

She turned to Karl with a grin. “Congratulations on the way you dealt with that, by the way. Strong work.” She stood up and stuck out her hand.

Karl’s grin was a mirror of her own as they shook. “Thanks – but nobody was more surprised than I was. I should call Doc Watson, let him know his therapy passed the acid test.”

“I’d like to talk with you about that sometime,” Rachel said. “The therapeutic process, I mean.” She turned back to me. “Facing that cross, especially in the assertive manner he did, must have put more strain on Karl than even his resilient vampire system could handle. So the spell was broken, and Karl instantly reverted to his natural – or, rather, supernatural – state.”

“I returned to life and found out that we still had the same problems as before,” Karl said. “The vampire gang war, the Patriot Party trying to take over, a bunch of Slide-addicted supes knocking over grocery stores…”

“That reminds me, Rachel,” I said. “You were looking into ways that magic might help with the Slide problem. Any luck yet?”

Rachel ran her hand over a face that looked like it would have benefited from a good night’s sleep. Of course, I was pretty sure you could’ve said the same about mine. The only one of us who’d had any rest lately was Karl, and his was involuntary.

“On that front, I can report good news and bad news,” she said. “Mostly bad.”

“I could use some good news right now, even a little,” I said. “So let’s start with that.”

“OK. Well, since Slide is a drug that affects only supernaturals, it is particularly susceptible to manipulation by magic. I’ve been able to develop a spell which neutralizes its effects. From what you’ve told me, there’s a hallucinogenic phase, followed by a wave of euphoria, right?

“That’s what the addicts say.”

“Well, I’ve been able to render the small samples you gave me into something that should cause nothing but a mild headache, which is nobody’s idea of fun.”

“Rachel, that’s fantastic!” I said

She made a face. “No, it’s not.”

Karl and I looked at each other, then he said to Rachel, “Sounds like there’s something here we don’t know about.”

“On the contrary,” Rachel said. “I’ve told you all there is to know about my experiments with the stuff. What you’re not getting is that my results have
no practical value
.”

I thought for a few moments, then told her, “I think I see where you’re going with this.”

“Well, I’m not too bright,” Karl said, “so I wish somebody would fucking explain it to
me
.”

“What I can do in my workroom doesn’t affect what’s going on out in the street, Karl,” Rachel said. “I can hardly expect the… dealers, pushers, whatever they’re called, to drop by so that I can render their product useless before they go out and sell it. From their perspective, it would be a pretty bad business decision, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh,” Karl said, followed a moment later by “Shit!”

“OK, it was worth a try,” I said. “Thanks for giving it a shot, Rachel. Guess we’ll have to deal with the Slide problem the old-fashioned way – by busting the dealers and trying to squeeze them into giving up their suppliers.”

“Except we can’t bust the fucking dealers,” Karl said, “cause the shit they’re selling isn’t even illegal – yet.”

“Well, yeah, there’s that,” I said.

“I sympathize with your plight, guys,” Rachel said, “and I only wish…” Rachel stopped speaking, and I saw that she had a faraway look in her eyes, like somebody who’s trying to think of three things at once. She dropped back into her chair, as if her knees had suddenly given way.

“Rachel? Are you alright?” I asked.

She didn’t reply for a few seconds. “Me? I’m fine – apart from being a total fucking idiot, that is. Leave that out, and I’m doing just great.”

I looked at Karl, and it was clear that he didn’t know what was going on, either.

“
Sympathize
,” Rachel said. “I told you that I
sympathize
with your plight.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, just to be saying something.

“Sympathetic magic!” She slammed her small fists down on the desk’s polished surface. “
That’s
the fucking answer. Dear Goddess, I ought to have myself committed to an institution for the terminally stupid!”

“Rachel,” Karl said, it’d be good if you’d stop beating yourself up long enough to tell us
what the fuck you’re talking about
.”

“Alright, sure,” Rachel said. The distracted look on her face was gone, replaced with something that looked to me like triumph.

“You guys know what sympathetic magic is, right?” she asked.

“More or less,” I said. “You cast on a spell on some object that represents another object, or maybe a person. Kind of like voodoo dolls – stick a pin in the doll, and the person it represents feels a stabbing pain.”

“That’s essentially it,” Rachel said. “I don’t mess around with vodoun – a lot of it comes under the heading of black magic. But I know that for the spell to work, the doll must not only resemble the intended victim, but also has to contain something that was physically part of him – or her.”