A Life for a Life

Jess made her way to the front of the house, where she found John tangled up with the metal railings of a staircase. He was hanging off the edge of the stairs with the metal twisted around him. He was bound so tightly that even his mouth was kept closed by the metal handrail wrapped around his head. Jess walked over and gave a gentle tug, already knowing that nothing short of magic would release him without causing grievous harm.

There wasn’t any specific spell in Jess’s arsenal for a situation like this, but she happened to know a witch who was good with objects. She called for Charlie.

“If you’re feeling okay enough now, is there anything you can do about this?” Jess asked when Charlie walked into the front parlor. Her forehead creased as she looked at John, who had tears streaming down his face from the pain. Charlie pinched the bridge of her nose, no doubt still fighting a headache, but she reached up to John and placed both hands on the metal around his face.

Very slowly, the metal unwound, loosening enough for Charlie to pull it off. John gasped as she moved her hands to the intricate metalwork around his body. It eventually released him, and Jess was there to help catch him as he fell. She lowered him to the ground, propped against the wall where he looked inclined to stay for a while.

“Thanks. Booby trap, grabbed me when I came in after hearing the gunshot,” John wheezed. His hand was on his side. Probably a few broken ribs.

“My uncle?” John asked.

“Detained. He’ll live,” Jess said shortly. Charlie raised her eyebrows.

“Uncle?”

Jess gave a tired nod. “Let’s get back to Kelly. I’ll fill you in.” Jess opened the front door to show the officers and paramedics in, letting them know that everything was under control. She led the paramedics to the dining room where Charlie was speaking softly to a still slightly-out-of-it Kelly. As they were taking her vitals and looking Kelly over, Jess wandered down the hallway, bracing herself for what she might find.

The first door she opened led to a bathroom and the second to an office. The third time was the charm. Inside was a bedroom, containing a typical wood dresser, soft white carpet, and two doors likely leading to a closet and bathroom. Jess’s attention, however, was drawn to the bed straight ahead on the far wall. It was a large king-sized with a dark blue comforter, neatly tucked around a pale, thin woman. She looked like she could be sleeping.

Jess approached the bed and stared down at the woman. Her straight blond hair was limp and oily but brushed and carefully arranged around her head. She had the gaunt appearance of someone who was sick for a long time. Jess gently pulled the comforter off her body and found the charm she was expecting. It looked like a purple rock hanging on a chain around her neck. Jess guessed that the techs back in the lab would determine it was some kind of preservation spell to keep the body from decaying.

Jess gave a soft sigh and left to find a crime scene technician to come process the body. So much death because of one poor woman who would never have wanted any of this. It was a depressing thought.

As she made her way back to the dining room, Jess saw that the paramedics had loaded Kelly onto a gurney. She followed Charlie and them out the front door toward a waiting ambulance.

“I’ll come to the hospital as soon as I can,” Charlie promised, giving Kelly’s hand a gentle squeeze before letting go so they could take her. It was pouring buckets of rain so they hurried off the porch and into the ambulance. Charlie watched it drive away, then went to sit beside Jess on a bench by the front door. Crime scene techs and officers milled about while Jess and Charlie told each other everything that happened.

Charlie’s experience was pretty much what Jess had suspected. She and Kelly went to the crime scene to look around when Anders showed up. He rightly claimed that the building was his property so he was there to take stock of any possible damage. It was inside the store that Anders claimed to have found something and when Charlie came in to investigate by herself, he surprised her from behind with an illegal knock-out spell. Then he went outside and managed to sneak up on Kelly as well, hitting her upside the head hard enough to render her unconscious. Charlie woke up tied to a chair in the uncle’s house, unable to access her magic.

“After that I was trying to keep him talking to buy you enough time to hopefully find us,” Charlie told her. “He was very chatty. He told me how he found the spellbook at a used bookstore run by a Norm who didn’t know what he had. There was a spell for bringing back the dead and Anders used his ability for creating magical objects to design a special dagger based on the specifications in the book.” She looked Jess straight in the eyes.

“He admitted to killing five other people almost six months ago just to create the knife.”

“Our missing homeless people.”

“That is my guess. He buried their bodies somewhere on this property so we’ll need to find them. The ones we did know about were the ones he tried the actual spell on, but it never worked for more than a few seconds. I may have made a comment about how perhaps it was because his wife didn’t want to come back to him this way. He didn’t like that. That’s when he gagged me,” Charlie said, acting nonchalant.

Jess smirked. “Good for you. So why didn’t he bury all the bodies?”

“Maybe the stress and the black magic was causing him to unravel?” Charlie shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe we can ask him someday, when he’s recovered.”

Jess winced. Everyone had decided to leave Anders as he was for now until they could get him to a specially designed prison hospital where his magic could be controlled. After he was evaluated, it would be determined if he was sane enough to stand trial or not.

Jess knew she would have to confess to her captain what she had done and he would minimize the details in his own report to only: “she used magical force to subdue the suspect.” It was something they had done before, when she felt she owed it to her boss to let him know what she could do. She was vague on the specifics—Teddy didn’t know she could actually see souls—but he had seen the effects of her magic and understood it was another tool that might be as necessary as her gun in certain situations.

She didn’t mind having to tell Teddy, it was her way of owning up to something that she couldn’t tell anyone else. Despite everything Anders had done, it wasn’t in Jess’s nature to cause pain and the guilt was eating at her. Anders wouldn’t have any physical ill effects, but Jess didn’t know what it might have done to his already fragile mental state.

“So how did you find us?” Charlie asked, pulling her from her musings. Jess filled her in about going to the crime scene when she didn’t hear back from Charlie and John meeting them there and confessing his concerns about his uncle. How the captain tracked her phone to Anders’ property and John getting them here as quickly as possible.

“I’m not sure what’s going to happen to John now,” Jess finished. “Suspension for sure, maybe his job. It’s up to the captain to decide.”

“I don’t know how to feel about him,” Charlie admitted. “Family is family and I get that, but still, his uncle tried to kill me and my friend.”

“There is that,” Jess agreed. They turned as yet another police car pulled up to the house. Captain Fontaine stepped out and hurried up the steps towards them.

“Inspector Morgan, are you alright?” he asked as he stood in front of them.

“I’m fine, Captain, thank you.” Teddy acknowledged that with a tilt of head before turning to Jess.

“Give me the brief version, Jess,” he ordered. Jess gave him the rundown on everything that happened, keeping it relatively brief as he requested. Teddy rubbed a hand over his face.

“What a mess. Where’s John now?” At that moment the front door opened and John came out. The paramedics bandaged his ribs and told him they were likely only bruised, but he should get an x-ray to be sure. Jess heard him decline an ambulance ride.

“I’m here Captain.” John stood hanging his head like a schoolboy sent to the principal’s office. Teddy glared at him and stayed silent until John left the protective doorway and walked over to them.

“You are officially suspended John, pending a formal review of your actions.” Teddy’s voice was as stern as Jess had ever heard it.

“Yes sir.” John looked so miserable that Jess couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. She didn’t say anything though. Finally, the captain sighed and told John to get to the hospital to be checked out. He assigned a patrolman to drive him and John slowly walked to the car, clutching his ribs. Teddy watched him go before turning back to Jess and Charlie.

“I’ll take over here. Charlie, you can go to the hospital your friend is staying at, make sure she’s doing okay. Then both of you take the rest of the day off. You can give me your official reports tomorrow.” They both thanked him and stood up to leave.

“By the way,” Teddy added before they could walk off. “Good job solving your first case together. But ladies? Let’s try to keep the life and death situations to a minimum in the future, okay?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Jess replied, giving a mock salute. Teddy rolled his eyes.

“Smartass. Get out of here,” Teddy told them. Charlie chuckled, showing the first real smile Jess had seen since her ordeal.

“C’mon, you want a ride to the hospital?” Jess asked her as Teddy went into the house.

“Yes, that would be great. Thank you,” Charlie replied. They were opening the doors to Jess’s car when she added, “Jess, thank you for, you know, saving our lives.” Jess grinned.

“Anytime.”