Life in Shadows (7 page)

Onyx
wondered whom his observation was supposed to benefit. “You don’t have to kill
them,” she said.

“You
sure about that?”

“Woah,
yeah,” agreed Molly. “Hector, they tried to mug us, sure. There’s a long way
between that and murder.”

“Same
question: You sure about that?” Hector asked. “You don’t know how far they
would’ve taken things for that book. Or to keep Mista Saxon there happy.”

Onyx
looked from the tense scene to Molly. The driver didn’t seem to know what to do
about it, either. She limped a little closer, then stopped as she noticed
something on the ground. “Don’t do it, Hector.” She bent over to retrieve the
broken bits of wood. Molly walked with her, ready to lend a hand if she needed
it. Though she appreciated the unspoken offer, Onyx managed on her own. “If we
wind up regretting it, that’s our problem. We’ll take the risk.”

Hypatia
shook off the cobwebs in time to see Onyx drop two broken bits of wand in front
of Archimedes. Then the younger woman leaned in closer, holding her own wand up
for the two to see.

“Yes,
I made it myself, and yes, it was done on a lathe. I took wood shop in my senior
year just so I could make this. Assholes.” With that, she kept walking and
didn’t look back.

Molly,
on the other hand, looked over her shoulder with a grin. “Y’know, Hector, if
this wasn’t out of the goodness of your heart, you could’ve told us we owe
you.”

Police
sirens drifted in along the breeze. Hector shook his head. “I’ll add it into
the cost if you ever need my help again. Nice meeting you.” He glanced at the
cowed driver standing nearby. “Might want to get these assholes outta here
before you have to talk to some cops, man,” he warned before he walked off in
the other direction.

Eventually,
Onyx put one hand on Molly’s shoulder for support. However their enemies had
trailed them, it wasn’t a trick available to ordinary police. They knew their
magic would let them escape notice as the patrol units sped by. They didn’t
worry about Hector or the others evading detection, either. It wasn’t their
problem. The walk back to the car provided more than enough of a final
challenge for the night.

They
found Onyx’s used Chevy undisturbed where they’d left it. Onyx surrendered the
keys to Molly and settled into the front passenger’s seat. Molly entrusted her
with Elizabeth’s book before walking around to the other side.

The
car’s engine reassured Onyx almost as much as the presence of the driver.
“You’re pretty bad ass, y’know,” she said.

“Pot,
kettle,” Molly replied with a grin. “And never doubt Steve or the mighty trash
pandas.”

“No.
Never again.”

Street
lights flashed by. They found little traffic at this hour. The ride home
started out quietly.

“So
what’s in the book?” asked Molly.

“You
don’t want to wait to open it yourself? She left it to you.”

“Nah,
I told you. She knew leaving it to me meant leaving it to us. It’s fine. Open
it up. There’s a letter or something anyway, right?”

Onyx
unfastened the clasp with care. She’d forgotten Kate’s mention of a note, but
found it tucked into the book immediately behind the cover. The first line on
the folded sheet of paper left no doubt about its audience.

“
’Dearest
Molly and Onyx,’
” she read aloud.

“
’You
have surely asked yourselves if this book is a true “Book of Shadows,” as I do
not follow your Practice nor share your faith. You will find as you read
through these pages that it is the genuine article. These are spells, rituals,
and entries transcribed from my personal journals over the years that I would
share with no one else. In truth, I share it now only because I am gone. Even
that has not been an easy decision. I hope this expresses the trust and
affection I feel for you.

“
’My
dear friends, I wish I could have left you virtually everything. I disbursed my
estate for fear that any individual or sole group who received it all would
become a target of greedy and ambitious rivals. I chose to do so publicly to
prevent anyone from going off in search of some hidden treasure hoard.
Inevitably, someone will still try to uncover the “real truth” of my will. They
will be disappointed to learn that everything is as it was listed. That is why
I did not disguise this gift as something it is not.

“’
You
have by now heard my plea for peace in Seattle, read to yourselves and others.
I am not so naïve as to think that plea will be heeded. This book is the
greatest single share of my power and knowledge. I hope it prepares you well.
Seattle’s Practitioners and others who live in the shadows are still keeping
largely to themselves. We still know peace. I don’t believe it will last.
Sooner or later, the knives will come out.’
”

“Yeah,”
sighed Molly. “Now she tells us.”

“Please
don’t make me shoot you,” breathed Kevin. “Please don’t make me shoot you.
Please oh please, motherfucker, don’t do it…don’t…”

Standing
behind the driver’s side door of their patrol car, Tyrone Johnson couldn’t hear
the mutterings of his partner on the other side of the vehicle.  Both men
already had their Glocks drawn. “Turn off the car and keep your hands visible!”
ordered Tyrone over the patrol car’s loudspeaker.

They
had the Bronco boxed in. It sat in an alleyway, blocked by a freight truck parked
up against a loading dock. Tyrone had pulled the patrol car up in the middle of
the alleyway, leaving the Bronco with nowhere to go. The guys at the dock moved
for cover as soon as they saw the guns.

Dark
grey clouds released a constant drizzle. Rush hour had just started. All of
downtown Seattle’s streets behind and beyond the scene were already thickening
with people leaving their offices. Sirens wailed in the distance, but it was
anyone’s guess if that was back-up or just some other call.

Both
uniformed officers waited. Water slid through Kevin’s inch-tall spikes of dirty
blonde hair, across his thin, toned forearms and down the light blue fabric of
his uniform shirt. He waited and hoped.

The
Bronco’s engine didn’t turn off. Instead, the reverse lights blinked on.

“Shit,”
the partners grunted under the squeal of the Bronco’s tires. Both men flung
themselves to the alleyway’s walls as the pickup rushed backward into their
patrol car. Kevin flattened up against the nearby bricks just in time to avoid
impact. The Bronco didn’t hit quite straight on, but rather at an offset of
bumper-to-bumper that sent the patrol car skidding back and to its right to
slam up against one wall. Pressed against the alleyway wall, Kevin felt the
bricks shudder with the impact. The violent gambit gave the Bronco enough space
it needed to escape the alleyway.

Along
with the crash came gunshots. The Bronco’s driver was busy at the wheel, but
the passenger next to him had nothing better to do than try to kill cops. He
reached out through his open window with his handgun, firing wildly at Kevin
while screaming something. The officer ducked, but his life was saved mostly by
the shooter’s abundant excitement, lack of training and a bad angle.

Kevin
didn’t suffer from such habits of ego. Friends might argue that he was
similarly free from the afflictions of common sense. He rushed around his
wrecked vehicle, chasing the retreating Bronco as it hurriedly backed out to
the street. As soon as he had a clear shot, Kevin put two bullets through the
windshield on the passenger side. His Glock punched holes through the glass
that were immediately surrounded by blood stains.

The
vehicle kept moving. So did Kevin. The conflict spilled out into the street
when the Bronco turned out of the alleyway and rammed its already damaged rear
end into an oncoming car.

Kevin
ran up to the Bronco, stopping himself against its hood with his free hand
while he fired off two more shots. Even at such close range, there was plenty
that could cause a man to miss.

He
didn’t.

The
Bronco sat still, its rear bumper now stuck up against another car and its
driver slumped over to one side in a bloody mess. The engine idled. Cars around
the vehicle ground to a halt while pedestrians looked on in shock.

“Kevin!”
Tyrone shouted, hurrying out of the alleyway. His leap from the side of the
patrol car had taken him off of his feet. It made him only a few heartbeats
slower. Blood trickled down from a gash on his head. “Kevin, you alright?”

Kevin
tried the passenger side door. It was locked, but the window was down. He
reached inside to get the door open, then hopped in over the bloody, expired
occupants to throw the Bronco into park. He lingered just long enough to pull
the keys out of the ignition.

Neither
occupant would ever move again.

Kevin
slipped out to find his partner waiting for him. At the Bronco’s rear, a
stunned and frightened couple came out of their Honda Civic to look at its
smashed front end. The sirens drew closer.

“Hey,
man,” Tyrone repeated calmly, “you alright?”

“I’m
okay,” Kevin nodded.

“You
can put your weapon away,” Tyrone said.

Kevin
blinked, glanced around, and nodded. He holstered his pistol as he stepped back
from the vehicle. Third Street was already a mess of honking horns and shocked
witnesses. Tyrone paused to clap his hand on Kevin’s shoulder, looking his
partner in the eyes to make sure he was still there with the rest of the world.
A moment later, Tyrone turned to take control of the immediate scene.

Kevin
looked up to the cloudy early summer sky. The drizzle quickly picked up into
full rain. Not for the first time, his light blue Seattle Police uniform—itself
barely two years old—was covered in blood.

He
turned thirty-two that day.

*   *   *

“You’re
uncle’s hot, Molly.”

“Oh,
Jesus,” Molly grumbled, pulling the car off 105
^th
onto the darkening
side street. “How much of this am I gonna hear out of you?” She looked good
tonight, her fire-engine red hair cut short and spiked just the way she liked
it. Her torn-up VNV Nation shirt was almost a work of art, and it was finally
warm enough to go without jackets or long-sleeve shirts.

“Probably
a lot,” confessed Onyx, “because your uncle’s fucking hot.” She sat in the side
passenger’s seat of Molly’s beat-up old car with her hands folded in her lap
and her dark curls dangling down in front of her face. As usual, she went for
darker yet more girlish clothes of black silk and lace. She made for a very
pretty Goth.

The
pretty redhead’s eyes narrowed. “Never any parking around this place anytime
after eight,” she muttered. “Feels like it’s still late afternoon, too. Sun
stays up later than a—”

“I’ll
bet he fucks like an
animal
,” Onyx mused. “All fierce and powerful and
possessive, y’know?”

Molly
stopped the car in the middle of the narrow residential street. Her head turned
to stare at her girlfriend with daggers in her eyes. Onyx said, sheepishly,
“I’m just sayin’ I bet it runs in the family.”

“I’d
better never hear a firsthand account,” replied Molly. “Things I don’t want to
know about my blood relatives. Ew. And let’s not bring up the rest of my
family, okay? Kevin’s the only one who didn’t bat an eye over me being pagan or
being into girls. Seriously, any one of my relatives who didn’t freak when I
came out about being one flipped over me being the other. Kevin’s the only one
who supported me.”

“I
could keep my mouth shut,” Onyx teased.

“You
do not get to fuck my uncle!”

Onyx
sighed. “Fine… not even a little bit?”

“No!
Jesus!” Molly got the car rolling again, soon finding a spot to park. “Look, if
we want a guy to play with, let’s find one together and go in on it together,
okay? And that means no relatives!”

Onyx
stared at her lover as Molly turned off the car. “Wait, really?”

Molly
looked up at her and shrugged. “Do you want to?”

“I
don’t… I don’t know. I mean I never really thought about it.”

“You
thought about my uncle enough, you sick-minded tramp,” Molly smirked.

“Well,
yeah, but I didn’t really—I mean he’s got eleven years on me, right? I mean…
wait, are you serious?”

Molly
sighed, slipped a hand up around Onyx’s neck and brought her in for a soft,
reassuring kiss. “We can talk about it later. You’ve never gone all the way
with a guy and I know you’re still curious. I’m open to pretty much anything
that doesn’t ever involve letting you go. Or my uncle. Ew.”

Onyx
was floored. “Wow.”

“Later
though, okay? We’ve got a birthday therapy thing,” Molly said, nodding toward
the bar.

“Yeah,”
Onyx agreed sweetly. She shouldered her purse and exited the car along with
Molly, taking her lover’s hand as they walked up the residential street to the
bar at the corner. She gave it an affectionate, meaningful squeeze as they
walked in silence.

Molly
smiled and enjoyed the moment.

“Seriously,
I bet he’s just like a sleek jungle cat—”

“Oh,
God.”

“—and
all you can do is just
lay
there under him and
take
it and
love
it.”

“You
are not allowed to fuck my thirty-two-year-old uncle.”

“I’m
not gonna! I’m just saying somebody should.”

“Onyx,
you do realize that he’s a complete goofball, right?”

The
younger partner shrugged as Molly reached for the big brass Chinese dragon
handles on the heavy wooden door. “That could be sexy,” she countered. Then she
heard the music, and what technically passed for singing.

“I
said you’ll pay for this mischief,

“Oh,
in this world, or the next.

“Oh,
then he fixed me with a freezing glance,

“And
the hellfires raged in his eyes…”

Onyx
looked on at the full-grown adult on the karaoke stage throwing goat horns as
he wailed into the mic without the least concern for dignity. He even wore a
fake ‘80s hair metal wig. “I’m gonna quote you on that later,” Molly warned.

“He
said, ‘you wanna know the truth son?

“‘Lord,
I’ll tell you the truth!

“‘Your
soul’s gonna burn in a lake of fiii-eyaaaaahh!’”

“Um.”
Onyx struggled for words as Kevin straddled the mic stand. “He’s more or less
in tune.” Then she winced. “Mostly.”

*   *   *

“You
missed my first number,” Kevin said, hugging Molly tightly as he joined her and
Onyx at the bar.

“I
did? What was it?”

“
Wanted
Dead or Alive
.”

“I’m
amazed anyone else is still here,” Molly chuckled.

“Hi,
Onyx,” he grinned, releasing his niece.

“Happy
birthday, Kevin,” smiled Onyx. Her porcelain skin rarely betrayed any shyness
or embarrassment, but now she blushed uncontrollably. The two hesitated as if
unsure of whether a hug was appropriate or not, and after a nudge behind the
back from Molly, he went for it anyway. Onyx’s eyes went wide over his shoulder
as his arms briefly came around her.

“Can
I buy either of you a drink? Uh. You can drink, right?” he asked Onyx.

“About
two months now,” she confirmed. “But it’s your birthday. We were coming to buy
you a couple.”

“Sounded
like you might need it, Officer Murray,” added Molly.

“You
already heard?”

“Yeah.
First a little news blurb, then I started digging. Wound up putting two and two
together,” Molly explained. They took up seats at the bar. Molly noted that
Onyx put Kevin in the middle rather than leaving it to Molly, but gave it no
more than an amused, accusing eyebrow.

“Right,
so, the Kung Pao here is pretty good,” Kevin said in a deliberate shift of
topic. He held the menu out to his niece and another to her girlfriend. “The
fried rice is a total waste, though. Crab Rangoon’s okay.”

“Kevin.
Tell us.”

Kevin
frowned, dropping the menu. “Tyrone and I spotted a Bronco that matched the
description from a home invasion robbery last night. Five guys killed an old
lady and put her grandson in the hospital.”

“I
read about that.”

“Yeah.
So we followed the Bronco into an alley and lit ‘em up. With the lights, I
mean. We got out of our car. Tyrone told ‘em to shut the car off. They tried to
run us over and shoot us instead. Smashed our car, almost killed us. I shot ‘em
both in the face. Had to run out into traffic to get the driver before he ran
someone over.”

“Tyrone’s
okay, though, right?” Molly asked.

“Oh,
he’s fine. He’s mad that he fell when they tried to roll over us. Probably
would’ve been a lot more shots fired if that alleyway hadn’t been so slippery.
I’m lucky I didn’t crack my skull myself.”

“Is
he going to join us later?”

“Nah.
His girlfriend’s kid is playing the Dentist in ‘
Little Shop
’ tonight.
This isn’t my first birthday or my first shooting, but how many opening nights
do you get in high school?”

“That’s
a great role,” Onyx smiled.

“It
is.”

Molly
took time to order up three Irish car bombs. “Three shootings in two years on
the force,” she said finally.

“Shockingly,
I heard that more than a few times this afternoon.”

“What’re
they saying?”

Kevin
shrugged. “There was a security camera in the alley. All the physical evidence
is there. If this isn’t a justified shooting, then there ain’t no such animal.
But I’m still a cop who’s been in three shootings in his first two years, on a
force where lots of the other violent incidents aren’t as clean-cut as mine.
Justified or not, it adds up, y’know?