The Diablo Ouija
by
Sophie Duncan
The Haward Mysteries Short Story #1
This publication is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Wittegen Press
https://www.wittegenpress.com/
Copyright 2011 by Sophie Duncan
https://www.wittegenpress.com/sophieduncan
Cover art by Natasha Duncan-Drake
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.
ISBN 978-1-908333-08-7
Dedication
Thank you to Tash and Rob for all their help and support.
~*~
Contents
The Diablo Ouija
Afterword
~*~
The Diablo Ouija
Theo looked up at the shop-front: last time he had seen it, the place had been a wreck. Now a sign proudly told him, 'Esoteric Books', and warm, orange light spilled out into the dark October night from between rows and rows of shelves within.
"DCI Swanson, bane of the criminal underworld, interrogator extraordinaire, bought a book shop?" Remy asked as he stopped beside Theo on the pavement.
His twin's incredulity was not a surprise to Theo, since this had been a secret he had promised Bill Swanson he would keep.
"Not a word to the rest of the squad," Theo decided to repeat the oath he had extracted from Remy before he had shown him a picture of it on his phone for the Fade.
"Cross my heart," Remy rolled his eyes and smirked when Theo tried to fix him with a big-brother look.
More or less satisfied that his ex-partner's secret was safe with his twin, Theo crossed the wide, London pavement towards the door, that, even at 6pm, was showing 'Open'. He was forced to step back when the door was pulled inwards and two young women dressed head to toe in black and purple practically fell through the entrance, each holding a brown paper bag and giggling a little nervously. They paused and gave Theo an up and down look, which made him wish he's taken the time to fade home and change.
"Nice costume," one of them decided.
Theo smiled awkwardly, glad that the girls didn't know the guy in the poet-shirt and breeches was a police officer on duty.
"Ladies," Remy greeted them with none of Theo's reticence, leaning half over Theo's back and left shoulder.
The girls' eyes widened and Theo knew they were admiring the glamour Remy was wearing.
"OO, teeth and sparkles, you can both come to our party if you like," the more forward of the two girls invited and made eyes mainly at Remy.
"Thank you, but we're expected elsewhere," Theo answered quickly before Remy could reply.
The young woman pouted her black-stained lips, took her friend's hand and, looking them up and down once more, replied, "Pity."
Then, with one last smile at Remy, she led her companion off down the street. Remy remained lounging over Theo's back and when Theo glanced at him, his brother's mouth was hanging open so he could just see the tips of the fangs Remy had lengthened for the night.
"Unless you want Swanson to laugh you out of his shop, drop the glittering," Theo shrugged Remy off him and took hold of the door handle.
Pushing inwards, he was followed by the tinkle of a bell and, "Oh, and I suppose he's going to be fine with your ghostly Byron impression is he?"
Theo ignored the quip and felt Remy's magic shrug off the glamour as Remy shadowed him into the shop. As soon as he was inside, the musty scent of old books hit Theo, reminding him of the library back at Blackwood and he sensed magic permeating the shelves here as well. There was a desk piled with books and what Theo thought was an old-fashioned, manual cash register somewhere underneath the varied collection of old and new tomes, but the chair behind it was empty. A much more ordinary-looking, red-headed young woman than the costumed two who had just left was sitting behind a computer, half hidden behind one of the bookshelves on the other side of the room, but she did not look up from whatever task she was on.
"The Prof will be with you in a moment," she told them, eyes on her screen.
"Prof – are we in the right place?" Remy murmured into Theo's ear.
Theo didn't bother to reply. They didn't have long to wait, although the man who strode towards them from the back of the shop was not the forever suited and booted DCI Swanson who had shown Theo the ropes in the SeCT Murder Squad. The figure had Swanson's face, which was at that moment, looking down at an open book, but where there had once been a buzz-cut, long, grey hair fell around the man's engrossed expression, and contacts had been replaced by half-moon spectacles. Coupled with a pair of rather worn old brown cords and a fading T-shirt sporting the monolith of an owl, the whole impression went much more with the title the girl had given Theo's ex-mentor than any memory Theo had of the man. The change left him shocked and Theo couldn't help himself, he was staring when Swanson walked blindly up to him and finally looked up.
The book snapped shut and a smile slowly crept over the older man's features.
"Theo," he greeted.
"Sir," Theo replied, automatically falling back on old formalities.
"Now, what did I say the last time we met?"
"Hello, Bill," Theo forced himself into the new convention, but he could see Swanson's attention drifting past his ear, so he chose to leave behind the pleasantries, "this isn't a social call."
Swanson backed off, putting the book behind him on the sales' table. The man's face straightened and he glanced between the twins.
"From the look of you two, no time to hang around either?" Swanson showed he hadn't lost any of his reasoning skills.
Theo shook his head in agreement and asked, "Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"
"Chloe, mind the shop for me," Swanson called to the girl at the computer and turned back the way he had come.
The girl made a face, but did wave what had to be an affirmative.
"Chloe is my computer guru and manages my online store for me. You know what I was like with computers," Swanson told Theo as he followed him towards the back of the surprisingly long room.
"I remember them being a mystery to you whenever there was a report to write, Sir," Theo returned, emphasis on 'sir'.
Swanson chuckled, a deep and much more relaxed sound than Theo had ever heard from him at work on a case.
"Now why didn't I think of that?" Remy joined in, slapping Theo on the back.
"Finally got yourself saddled with the reprobate, I see," Swanson quipped and glanced over his shoulder as he took hold of the door handle of an office hidden at the back of the shop. "Didn't anyone else want him?"
Theo didn't say anything, he just allowed himself a ghost of a smirk as Remy audibly ruffled behind him. Swanson winked at him and then led them all into the office. The light flicked on with a small rub on the charm around Swanson's neck and he crossed to a chair that had been pushed under the desk in the corner. Swanson sat down a little heavily, puffing as he did so, which caught Theo off guard again. His disquiet had to have been showing on his face, because when Swanson looked up at him, the man showed his disapproval.
"We all get old, Boy, even if you and yours will take longer to get there than the rest of us."
Swanson had been one of their few fellow police officers who had not thrown their Natural Magic
User status back at the twins, so the jibe dug a little deeper than normal for Theo. However, he had more important things to think about, so he grabbed the spare chair in the room, sitting down opposite Swanson and left his brother to stand at the door, which Remy had already closed. Swanson blinked and moved on from the moment with, "So, what is so important you turn up on my doorstep on Hallowe'en, one of my busiest trading nights?"
Remy pulled out a small laptop from one of the oversized pockets on the oversized coat he was wearing, opened it and handed it to Swanson.
"The Diablo Ouija has been stolen from the dangerous evidence store and three teenagers are already dead," Theo revealed the reason he and Remy had been called in on a planned night off.
A palpable silence fell as Swanson adjusted his glasses and flicked through the crime-scene images Remy had given him. Theo watched, the knot that had started in his belly on discovery of the victims growing tighter. The Diablo case had been his first experience of hunting a serial killer, twelve victims, all killed in threes over four nights, starting on Hallowe'en two years ago. The whole squad had been involved, led by Swanson as SIO and it had been Swanson and Theo who had tracked down one Raymond Holiday. At least, Swanson had given Theo some of the credit for the collar, but, in truth, Theo had not been present during what had turned out to be a deadly battle between the experienced detective and the vicious killer. They had never spoken of the details of that night, only bare facts, enough to satisfy the investigators who had made sure the use of deadly magic had been warranted to save Holiday's last three victims and Theo had always known there had been more to the encounter than just a rescue. The secret was in Swanson's eyes as he finally looked back up at Theo.
"I'm retired, Theo," Swanson began, shutting the computer and pulling off his glasses.
"And I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important, Bill," Theo challenged earnestly.
Swanson sat stiffly, clearly uncomfortable, but Theo would not back down: he met his old mentor's gaze steadily, letting him see the concern that had been churning his belly since DSI Sato had called him and Remy in almost two hours ago. Eventually, Swanson looked down at the closed computer and huffed.
"So what is it you want?" the man muttered, his voice gruff with the discomfort that was still in the set of his shoulders.
Theo didn't allow himself to relax, instead, he glanced at Remy. With a small nod, his brother backed up to the door, took hold of the handle and then was gone.
"I need to know what happened, Bill," Theo cut right to the point.
Swanson bristled and objected, "You know what happened, you were there."
"The room was locked, I was outside. You were in there with Holiday for twenty minutes. I need to know what he said, there might be something that could lead us to the copycat, and I need to know why you took him out," Theo replied as calmly as he could.
"Holiday had the kids hostage, it was the only way," Bill returned, too quickly, and he would not meet Theo's gaze.
"There are three more on the slab now, Bill, and there will be more unless we can find Holiday's copycat. Did he mention a fan when you were with him, anyone who could have decided to pick up where he left off?" Theo started to dig for specifics, just as Swanson had taught him.
Bill shook his head.
"Raymond Holiday was a loner all the way. The only thing he cared about was that spirit board and feeding it with..." he stopped before he finished his sentence and shook his head. "No way he was training a disciple."
"What did Holiday say?" Theo pressed as he watched Bill's resistance waning.
"A lot of hocus pocus twaddle," Bill dismissed with a wave of his hand, but Theo could see the look in the man's eyes and it said Swanson was not as sure of himself as he was making out.
"Bill," Theo challenged.
Swanson looked up finally then and he huffed, but Theo saw the break in the other man's composure and he knew the truth would be forthcoming.
"That boy knew nothing about our kind of magic," Bill finally spoke with a frustrated tone to his voice and waved the source around his neck at Theo to make his point. "When I got into that room he had the kids tied to the chairs around the Ouija board, just like the report says and he was intoning at the board with its ghastly devil doll standing over it, but it wasn't Grail, wasn't even any language I'd ever heard, just made up gibberish and he wasn't controlling that board."
Bill rubbed his face and shook his head again, something akin to disbelief in his expression. Theo had seen how hard the case had hit his mentor at the time, but he had had no idea that night still stayed with Swanson.
"You called to him, I heard you, and that is when the door slammed on me," Theo decided to move things along.
Bill seemed grateful for the support and paused a moment, regarding Theo carefully. Finally he continued with a short nod, "Holiday did that, dived for the door and locked it, threw the key across the room. I went to try and grab him, but he had a knife, so I backed off and he started yammering at me about souls and that it was too late, that the board would have its fill. I tried reasoning with him, then I tried a little magical persuasion, but it bounced right off; he wasn't using any magic of his own, but the bloody board protected him."
Swanson sounded like he was trying not to believe what he was saying, but he was sincere and Theo just listened.
"He kept me going for a long time, pacing around the back of the room away from the board, waving his knife, threatening himself and me if I even tried to check on his victims. In the end though, I realised he'd been playing me for a fool, giving the board time to warm up. The doll dropped the planchette on the board and I felt the magic spike. In all my days, I'd never seen anything like that board. The magic was totally autonomous. This blue-white mist rose up from in, spreading out towards the kids and they didn't move at all, like they were in its thrall. I couldn't let it take them, so I balled up all the energy I had in my talisman and aimed it into a fire spell. I went for the board, but Holiday yelled as I let the flames rip and dived in front of the whole bloody expression. He went up like a roman candle."
Bill ran his fingers through his wild hair and shifted awkwardly, the pain of remembering it in his face.
"There was nothing I could do, I just watched as he started screaming and he fell back onto the board, knocked it away from the kids. I grabbed their chairs and pulled them away further. I'd tapped out my talisman with the expression, had no power left to put the flames out, but the white mist wrapped itself around Holiday and he stopped moving. The fire just went out like it had been doused with water, didn't even touch the board and then that damn doll moved. I swear it looked up at me and the kids from where it was half bent over Holiday and its arm, the mechanical one that held the planchette, it lifted up like it was pointing at us. Then the magic was gone."
Bill ran out of words, but Theo felt there was something more his friend was having difficulty expressing. Swanson had never been an overly emotional police officer and the man was keeping himself under rigid control as Theo watched him, but Bill had been unable to keep the horror out of his words. The death of a suspect was unusual, but not unheard of and the investigation had cleared Swanson of any wrong-doing, but it wasn't guilt that Theo could see. Still, looking at a dead end enquiry, he couldn't afford for Bill to hide anything.
"What's the matter?" Theo prompted.
Bill looked at him through his fringe.
"You're going to think I'm nuts," Bill replied.
"Try me," Theo responded immediately, not the first time he and Swanson had thrown around odd ideas.
Bill sat up straighter at that and assessed Theo again. He made his decision and began, "Our report said Holiday was using the board to drain power from his victims."
"Standard magical parasitic attack," Theo nodded.
"Then why were only two out of the fifteen victims magic users, and only one of them was a Natural?"
"Holiday didn't know what he was doing," Theo responded with the explanation
that had made sense at the time.
"Okay, suppose he didn't know how to spot a Natural, why did he kill his victims when he could have left them alive and used them again?"
"Incompetence."
Bill shook his head vigorously this time.
"No, killing them was deliberate."
Bill stopped, on the cusp of admitting his thoughts and so Theo stayed very still, not wanting to stop him. Swanson took in a deep breath.
"He wanted their souls."
Ice sliced down Theo's spine and every sensible thought in his head denied Bill's statement. Souls were the realm of religion, not magic. However, before his denial could make it to his mouth, Bill held up a hand and continued, "Think about it: it's a spirit board, designed to commune with dead people. Why make a board like that with magic unless you're trying to mix the two?"
"No," Theo dismissed the idea. "We can measure magic, it's real, it exists: ghosts are stories to scare children. And even if they did exist, how do you mix real and ethereal?"
Bill slumped back in his chair and held out the computer.
"Alright, don't think about it. Only other thing I have to offer is, look to the survivors, they were exposed to that thing for hours before we got there and that thing leaves it mark," he finished.
Theo took the computer and the dismissal, standing up as he did so.
"Thanks, Bill," he nodded to his ex-mentor.
"Next time, make it a social call," the man replied, half a smile on his lips.
Theo managed a watery smile back and then headed to the door.
"And Theo," the call brought him to a halt and he glanced at Bill once more; the man was sombre, "be careful."