14
With two large dogs and a massive cat, Madeline Fort's small apartment felt very cramped. Like most dogs, they gave Dusty a wide berth trying to stay as far away from him as possible. When they did have to come near him, they cowered extremely submissively. One of them had even wet the carpet in fear when we walked into the room before she had the chance to hide in another room. The cat didn't seem to mind. Regular animals only reacted to wers of similar type to themselves, so if we had brought Paul Ramirez along, she might have reacted like the dogs to Dusty, but as it was, she was friendly.
“Well I think it’s great that Reynaldo hired you guys to look into Magee's death. I mean she is, ah was, such a great person and she had so much to live for. I refuse to believe that she’d take her own life.” Madeline babbled. She stroked the head of the large golden retriever that shook beside her with his head on her knee.
“That seems to be how everyone feels. So is there anyone you can think of that would or could have done Magee harm?” I flipped open my handy notebook, even though I knew that Dusty could recite almost every word back to me if necessary. For some reason, people just seemed to think I should be taking notes. So I did.
“Well, I really can't think of anyone other than Barry, but I really don't think he’d harm anyone. But, you know he was bi-polar, so I guess anything’s possible if he wasn't taking his medication. I heard about one guy who missed a dose of medication one time and then went off and killed his whole family. It’s really scary that there are so many people that you just never know if they might not just go off and start killing people. It really makes you want to stay inside and never go out again. I mean, really, I just don't understand why people can't just all get along and just have perfect love and perfect trust for everyone. Well I mean that is what the Goddess intends for us isn't it? She created this world in perfect love and perfect trust and we should all live that way. That's what Magee wanted. We knew that if we just went out and talked to everyone that pretty soon they’d all start to see the world the way that we did, in perfect love and perfect trust.” A glassiness drifted over her eyes as she rambled on and on.
“So how many people has Magee been talking with lately about her perfect love and perfect trust ideas?” The words almost gagged me. I was so tired of hearing them.
“Well, just about everyone she could. I mean that was her real calling in life, to get the Goddess's message out there to promote perfect love and perfect trust. She made sure that at least once a month she spoke at length about it and how wrong the left-handed path is during get together. During the moon circles every month, she vowed to the Goddess that her word would be conveyed to the world. We all promised to do that since it’s the right thing to do. Magee loved everyone and wanted to share that love as much as she could.”
I recalled her little outburst at Trail Dusters the night before when she screamed at Xan that Magee could barely stand him. And if this is the woman who practiced such perfect love and perfect trust, why had she been so worried that she might’ve cast a spell that had gotten Barry Crabtree killed?
“So you can't think of anyone who might have wanted to kill Magee?” Other than someone who wanted to shove her perfection down her throat, I thought to myself.
She looked stunned for a moment. “Goddess no! Everyone in the group loved her…” she began another long diatribe about the meaning of perfect love and how everyone in the get-together group followed it to the letter, well other than those that didn’t stay around. When she finally stopped for a breath, I decided to change subjects on her.
“What can you tell us about Barry Crabtree? Weren't you two an item for a while?”
The hand stroking her dog’s head picked up speed to a near frantic pace. “Well, Barry was a real dear, totally devoted to perfect love. He was like a brother to me for the longest time. It was such a shame that I just wasn’t attracted to him. I don't see how anyone could be. I think that Alexia was just using him since he liked to take her out to nice places to eat and buy her nice things that she’d never been able to have while she lived with her mother. He always did things like that. He offered to take me places, too, and I loved him. But I loved him like a brother and he wanted something more. He just wasn’t my type. I like real men if you know what I mean. Men more like the two of you.” She smiled slyly and my stomach lurched almost as bad as when she was going on about perfect love. I guess she wasn’t opposed to using her feminine wiles to get converts.
“What do you think made Alexia kill Barry?” I wanted to get her back on track.
The cell phone vibrated in my pocket.
“Well, I don't know, it doesn't make for very good planning on her part. I mean he was really good to her. If I’d known how good, and if he’d been more of a man, I’d have been more inclined to date him. But you know how that is. She’s a sweet girl, like I said, a bit of a gold digger, but sweet nonetheless. And like Barry, she was really into prefect love and perfect trust. I think she’d have made a wonderful high priestess for the Fairy Light path, but since she killed Barry, the fairies won't accept her now as a high priestess unless she undergoes many years of cleansing rituals and asking their forgiveness. Then they might forgive her and let her into the priestesshood.” Her thought patterns were scary.
The cell phone vibrated again.
I pulled it out of my pocket, glad for the diversion. It was Tiffany. The only reason she would call twice in a row was if there was something major going down. “Give me a sec here,” I said as I flipped the phone open. “What's up?”
“Just got a frantic phone call from Carmine. Another gate just opened and it is only blocks from you. She wants you to check it out right now.” Tiffany sounded agitated, which was very unlike her.
Then the floor shook.
15
“Tiff, tell Carmine I'm on it, but I might need a bit of back up here.” I clicked the speaker phone on and dropped the phone back into my pocket. Tiffany would keep the line open and relay what was going on to whoever was on the way. I checked the time. Sundown happened about five minutes ago.
The whole building shuddered.
“Dusty, Get outside!” Whatever made the apartment building shake was probably heading right toward us and I hoped to lessen life and property loss. If whatever it was had to go through the building to get us, the chances of loss increased.
“What about the dogs?” asked Maddie, with a stunned look, still sitting on her couch.
“You and the dogs stay in the house. You'll be safer here.” I barely paused on my way to the door.
“No way,” she said, sounding determined. “If this has something to do with what killed Magee, I'm going with you. You might need my help!” I didn’t have the time to explain to her that her help would be equivalent to trying to put out a house fire with a water gun.
The building shook again as Dusty yanked open the door.
“Ah, shit.” Dusty muttered as he paused just briefly at the door. “Try and hold it. I'll be right back with the kit from the car.” In a flash of werewolf speed he was gone.
Stomping across the well-manicured common area of the apartment was the largest troll I’d ever seen. Whoever was calling things had grown tired of subtlety. “Tiffany, tell Carmine we have a troll on the property. We’ll need a cleanup crew for this when we’re done.”
The troll was at least nine feet tall and still growing. Things called into this dimension have a tendency to come through smaller than their true size so they can fit into the circle that summoned them. Once they’re released from the circle, they grow to their full size. Trolls tend to run between eight to ten feet tall and weigh in about a thousand pounds, but this one was going to go way beyond that.
“What in the hell?” muttered Mad behind me.
“That is a troll. You know one of the fairies.” Hello Fairy Lite, meet Fairy Hard. “Now do you really want to stay out here in the line of fire?”
“A real fairy? But he's so big.” If she ran forward to embrace the thi
ng and try and tell it all about perfect love and perfect trust, I was going to stand still and let it eat her.
A roar sounded from above us and a spotted furry shape launched itself from the roof of the apartment building onto the head of the troll. The weight of the werejaguar wasn’t enough to snap the troll's neck, but it did stagger the thing backwards. Chunks of dark grey flesh flew as the jaguar savaged the troll's head. The troll dropped the large mace it carried in its huge hand and tried to grab the rapidly-moving wer. The wer screamed a long, bone-chilling scream as the troll grabbed its large bushy tail and pulled.
“Paul, cold iron, not claws!” Dusty yelled as he ran back around the corner with a couple of large crowbars and a rifle in hand.
He tossed me the rifle. “It’s loaded for fae.”
Then he did a half shift to enhance his strength and rushed forward to help save Paul Ramirez from the troll’s attack.
I lifted the rifle to my shoulder. Cold iron bullets would be more effective than any magical leven bolts I could hurl against the thing. I just hoped I could hit it without hitting either Dusty or Paul. The good thing was, as long as I didn't hit anything vital like heart or head, cold iron wouldn’t cause permanent damage to a wer.
The wounds Paul caused closed almost instantly, but the blows from the crowbars left long dark smoking gashes. Paul shifted to his half form to catch the crowbar Dusty threw. The move took both of them to the ground, clear of the troll's head. The troll searched for his mace as the two wers circled it swinging their crowbars, which gave me the opening to get a bead on the thing's head.
The rifle cracked loudly and the troll jerked at the sound. My shot missed, and instead of going through the thing’s eye, the bullet caught him in the shoulder. It howled in pain and tried to shove Paul and Dusty out of the way so it could get to me.
“What are you doing?!?” Madeline screamed at me and snatched at the barrel of the rifle. It was hot enough she had to let go quickly. “Don't kill it! It's a fairy!”
“It's a fucking troll lady,” I yelled back at her over the troll’s howling. “If we don't kill it, it will kill us. You can't negotiate with trolls. They are not sweet little pollen sniffers that want nothing more than to fly from flower to flower spreading peace and love and getting their little fairy rocks off.” I sighted the rifle again at its head.
The second shot missed as the troll rocked forward after Dusty's crowbar caught it in the groin. Brick and mortar rained down on the sidewalk across the way as the bullet lodged into the wall. We were beginning to attract an audience, and in the distance, I could hear sirens. I hoped the cleanup crew would be fast, or there’d be a whole lot more to clean up.
Paul hamstrung the troll with the sharp end of his crowbar and the troll crashed to its knees. At that moment, I vowed I’d get a couple of cold iron swords to carry in the trunk of the car. As the troll threw its head back in another howl of pain, I finally got a shot off that made contact with its head, just as Madeline slammed into me from behind. I fell forward to the ground and dropped the rifle. My knees hit first and the wave of pain that shot up my legs and into my lower back was so sharp it almost brought tears to my eyes. I caught myself before I sprawled across the sidewalk then resisted the urge to turn around and slap her. I grabbed the rifle where it’d fallen and stood back up. A quick glance at the troll showed that the final shot had finished it. Paul and Dusty stared at me as they shifted back to full human form.
I turned and glared at the woman who had shoved me. She stood defiantly with her golden retriever on a short leash. The dog growled at me, but kept glancing at Dusty as he walked toward me.
“What the hell was that for?” I demanded not bothering to keep the anger out of my voice.
“I didn't want you to kill the troll!” She hollered back at me. “It was the first fairy I have seen in the flesh and YOU killed it!”
“And lady if you’re lucky it’ll be the last fairy you see in the flesh,” I hollered back. “Fairies aren’t the nice sweet little things you think they are. Most of them are deceitful, spiteful, murdering beasts that are best left Underhill where they belong. Now someone called up that troll to kill you. I’m betting that someone is one of your little perfect-love-perfect-trust people from the get-together group. Any new ideas now about who might be willing to use magical creatures to kill the competition for control of your little group?” I could see the light of the issue beginning to dawn on her face, pushing away the doubt and dismay.
“I don't know who’d do something like this,” she all but whispered as Dusty put his arm across my shoulders. “I never knew that magic actually worked.” She dropped to her knees and hugged the dog to her. “I thought it was just something fun to do.”
“Sorry to bust your bubble, but magic’s real and it can be very dangerous.” I turned away from her and looked at Dusty. “You Okay?”
“Nothing a good soaking in the hot tub won't fix,” he said, smiling. He gave me a kiss on the lips.
I pulled the phone out of my pocket. “Tiffany, you still there?”
“Still here, the cleanup crew should be there in less than three minutes. Unfortunately the cops get there first.” I could hear her talking to someone else in the background.
“Paul can handle the police until the clean up guys get here,” I explained. “Hope they are bringing the big truck for this thing.” I almost laughed. If my knees and back weren't hurting so much I might have.
The first police car pulled into the apartment complex’s parking lot and the inhabitants of the nearby buildings tried to get a better look at the troll while Paul was trying to keep them away. The advantage to the police was they could help with crowd control while we waited for the cleanup crew to get there and do their job. The drawback was the longer we dallied there the colder the trail would be once we tracked the troll back to the circle that called it from Underhill.
“Madeline, please take the dog and go back into the house. Someone’ll be there in a few minutes to talk with you some more.” What I didn't bother telling her was that after her talk with the Council cleaner, she wouldn’t remember her encounter with the first real fairy she’d ever seen, and if she was lucky, would ever see in her life.
She bowed her head and slowly walked back into the house. At the door she turned back to me. “Sorry I pushed you down.” Then her door closed. The sturdy wooden door blocked the sound of the dog’s continued barking.