“You do only what I tell ya’ ta’ do, when I tell ya’ ta’ do it,” Ben directed the command to me. “Stay behind me at all times, and if I tell ya’ to stay put, then don’t even fuckin’ breathe. Got it?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I got it.”
With another quick glance at Agent Mandalay, he thumbed the microphone switch once again and whispered, “All right, we’re goin’ in.”
I had all but forgotten the earlier itching of the flak vest. Now, as we stealthily advanced across the street and up the steps to the porch of the old brick house, the unpleasant chafing had returned with a vengeance. I was certain that a large part of my discomfort was psychological, directly related to the fact that I was unable to scratch.
I fought to relax and push the sensation from my mind, but the tenseness of the situation had opened the valve on my adrenal gland to full. Energy was crackling riotously through my body like a downed power line in a storm and I noticed much to my chagrin that my hands were shaking.
Ben flattened himself against the wall to the left of the door and silently motioned with his empty hand. His signals made it clear that I was to remain with him while Deckert and Agent Mandalay were to take a similar position on the right. Following his instruction, I pressed myself into the brick, attempting to disappear into its face. Looking out over the front yard we had just crossed, I could see various figures that had advanced behind us, cutting off any avenue of escape for the occupant of the house. I was greatly impressed by the precision with which the entire operation was being executed.
After a few more wordless signals, Ben reached over and slowly depressed the latch on the screen door until it released with an audible metallic click. The noise was something that wouldn’t even be noticed on a normal day, but to us, it sounded as loud as a gunshot. He waited for an eternity, then just a few moments more. No lights came on. No sound issued from the house. The silence was broken only by the raspy cadence of our own shallow breathing. I couldn’t speak for the other three, but my heart was racing at a madman’s pace, threatening to burst from my chest and be contained only by the Kevlar body armor.
Ben began pulling the screen door open at a laboriously slow speed. All the while, his eyes remained locked with those of another cop who had crept up the stairs and was now crouched on the top step. I could only see the man’s eyes as his face was obscured by the tight fabric of a full-face mask. Still, I recognized him as Bill, the young detective that had given me so much grief at the Major Case Squad briefing. He glanced over at me briefly as a flicker of recognition ran through his eyes then gave me a slight nod. From the manner in which the fabric covering the lower half of his face momentarily stretched, I almost believed he smiled.
The screen door was halfway open now, and Ben kept a steady pressure on it, easing it wider by the second. The aluminum frame pivoted almost soundlessly on the evenly spaced hinges, making only a slight whispering sound of mild friction. It was when the door reached three-fourths its open arc that my heart stopped.
Maybe the frame was bent slightly, maybe there was rust deep in the hinges, or maybe any of a countless number of other reasons. Whatever the exact maybe was, the point was moot. The door emitted a sudden small groan of protest, followed instantly by a piercing creak that echoed across the empty street. In the split second following the end of the harsh metallic wail, the porch light snapped on.
Time slowed for me. I don’t know if it was a supernatural effect or just a psychological aberration due to the newness and intensity of the situation. Whatever it was, it made the next few moments appear to me in what I can only describe as Hollywood slow motion. Ben was nodding vigorously as he yanked the door fully open, sending another series of loud groans resounding through the night. As I turned, I saw Bill come up from his crouch like a sprinter at the sound of a starting pistol. Two long strides later, his shoulder met the wooden door, followed by his full weight in motion, causing the frame to buckle and splinters to fly in several directions.
The Hollywood slow motion continued with a decelerated soundtrack meeting my ears. The frenzied crash of the shattering doorframe was drawn out into a banshee wail resembling fingernails on a chalkboard mixed with marble-sized hail hitting a tin roof. Bill’s voice joined the raucous clamor with a commanding, stretched out “Pollleeeeeccccce!”
Detective Deckert and Special Agent Mandalay had turned their heads to shield themselves from the storm of fracturing splinters and were now slowly turning back as they stepped out from the brick wall. Fluidly, they aimed their bodies at the newly created opening, pistols held at the ready, and rushed forward, echoing Bill’s cry.
A deep, rushing chord filled my ears, and at its finish, I plunged into chaotic real time. By now, several other cops had rushed up the stairs and were filing quickly in through the now fully open door, their flashlights sketching comet trails in the darkness. Ben was screaming “go, Go, GO!” as he waved them onward, still holding the traitorous screen door wide open.
“You stay here!” he shouted at me as the last of them passed us, and he whipped around the aluminum frame, rushing headlong into the pandemonium.
A few short moments later, the clamor began to subside, and I started hearing muffled shouts of “Clear!” from several different voices. The interior lights snapped to life one by one, casting a dim incandescent glow. Soon afterwards, Ben returned to the front porch wearing a crestfallen face. He looked at me sadly and motioned with his head for me to come inside as he holstered his sidearm and snapped the quick-release shut.
“The son-of-a-bitch isn’t here,” he pronounced dully. “He’s gone.”
“What about the little girl?” I pressed.
“He must have her with him.”
“But the porch light,” I protested. “It came on when the door creaked.”
“Coincidence. It was on a timer.” He reached up and angrily wiped the sweat from his forehead. “They were all on a fucking timer.”
CHAPTER 23
A queer, pulsing static encompassed me as I stepped across the threshold of the front door. I could feel the individual hairs on my body as they hastily rose to attention, generating a painful prickling sensation throughout. For the third time in the last half hour, the insistent itching returned, appearing and disappearing in mobile patches across my chest. Since the immediate physical danger was well out of the way, I reached around and ripped apart the Velcro tabs on the flak vest with an audible swoosh. I didn’t remove it but loosening allowed breathing room for my sweat-drenched skin and more importantly, enough space to slip my hand in for a quick, blissful scratch.
“Don’t touch anything yet,” Ben told me as we advanced farther into the sparsely decorated living room. “Evidence Unit’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Yeah. No problem.” I nodded assent and continued to glance about the room.
My hair follicles were still stinging with strained discomfort, making my skin seem to crawl, while an arc of intense energy played up and down my spine. It felt pretty much as though I was holding on to a frayed extension cord while standing in a puddle of water. Slowly, my scalp began to tighten and my temples to throb. I had one hell of a headache coming on.
None of these sensations were new to me. I had felt them a handful of times in the past, though not often, thankfully. They were warnings-the physical manifestations of a “supernatural burglar alarm.” Roger, like any Witch, or practitioner of ritual magick, had shielded his boundaries. He had cast protective energy about his home as a way of marking territory to let others who were aware know that they shouldn’t intrude. In the physical world, I had simply stepped across the threshold. However, being an uninvited guest, in the realm of the ethereal, I had done the equivalent of breaking a trip wire on a hypersensitive home security system.
Two things immediately occurred. First, the walls of protective energy enveloped me with urgent warnings in an attempt to make me leave. Second, wherever Roger Henderson was hiding, he was made aware of my intrusion. Of course, as I said, these warnings were for others who are aware, so being the only Witch in the room, I was forced to endure the increasingly painful attempts at expulsion in tortured solitude.
The one feeling that wasn’t a direct descendant of the ethereal burglar alarm was the searing arc of energy playing xylophone on my vertebrae. Red hot, intense, and angry, it was the blatant otherworldly signature of the home’s occupant. The unmasked, undisguised essence of Roger Henderson’s immortal soul. Vile, putrid, and swelling with evil. I had to engage my own defenses in order to keep from becoming violently ill. It was obvious, at least to me, that though he wasn’t here now, he had been here very recently. We couldn’t have missed him by more
