Payback's a Witch Read online

  “I just hope that whatever is killing these women can be stopped,” Maggie said before turning back into her building. It wasn’t the first time I wished that we could tell someone the truth about what was going on, and that we would bring justice. I couldn’t though. If there was one rule we had to follow it was that one.

  Chapter Six

  Alan hadn’t been able to overhear anything useful at the police station. We were lucky the first time, I doubted we would be lucky enough to get more. Maggie’s information about Adam changed some things. It would be a lot easier for Andrew’s spirit to inhabit someone he was related to. My worries about the spirits strength were eased a bit by this.

  “Which way is the station?” Winnie asked Alan. We needed to gather as much information as we could. If his death anniversary was in a couple weeks, that would be our best shot at capturing him. Then we would need to stay somewhere secure with the spirit until we could cross back over. That was the part I was most concerned about.

  “That way,” I said walking towards the edge of town. Alan was resting on my shoulder, he didn’t like us to be parted. I wasn’t much of a fan of it either. Winnie didn’t understand our bond at all, but she hadn’t met her creature companion yet.

  The station wasn’t even a five-minute walk from where we were. Not much was further than five minutes away from anywhere in a town this small. I had to check the sign outside more than once before I was sure that we were in the right place. The station looked like a small boutique, and the sign outside was smaller than the sign outside my office.

  “Wait for us outside,” Winnie said to Alan who hopped off my shoulder. “Make yourself scarce.”

  “Make yourself scarce woman,” Alan said, obviously not happy with taking orders from Winnie. I gave him a look and he obliged by hopping down the sidewalk. He could forage for food while we were busy inside. I’d make it up to him by spending the evening with him.

  “Hello?” I said walking into the small office. There was only two people there. One was a small old woman with glasses, orange lipstick and obviously died hair. The other was an older man with a thick mustache and a badge, clearly the sheriff.

  “How can I help you?” The man asked.

  “I’m Winnie and this is Vana,” she said pulling out our fake credentials. I followed suit and did the same.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” he said, surprised, but friendly. “You’ll be here about Allison Greenaway.” He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Tragic.”

  “That’s exactly why we are here,” I said.

  “I had heard there were some detectives in town,” The old woman said. “Staying with Nan?” She asked, though she already knew the answer.

  “Yeah, heard it was the only and best place to stay in town,” I grinned.

  “I’m Peter and this is Carol,” The sheriff said. “We’re grateful for the help around here. We certainly need it.”

  “It’s good to meet you, and that’s good to hear,” Winnie said. “It’s not always the case when we go places, more often people feel we’re stepping on their toes.” This was the reason why we didn’t use the credentials every time we had a case. People got nosy and that never turned out well.

  “Not here,” Peter said. “We need all the help we can get. It’s only me, Carol and Devon. You’ll meet him later, he’s the deputy around here.”

  “Looking forward to it,” I said. “What can you tell us about Greenaway?”

  “Not much, unfortunately. We’ve got nothing pointing to a suspect, no evidence or DNA. It’s like she was killed by a ghost.” Peter rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Pardon the irony of the expression.”

  “People think she was killed by a ghost,” Carol said with a shake of her head.

  “We’ve certainly heard about that,” Winnie nodded in agreement as if she also thought that it was a crazy idea. “How long had she been missing before she was found?”

  “A few days. Her friend Margret Chen reported her missing, but we looked into it and found that Greenaway had been known to run away. She came from a rough background, so it didn’t see too out of the realm of possibility that she had bolted.” He looked guilty, having made the wrong call. “Margret ran from the ruins of the Hellman house all the way here the night Greenaway went missing.”

  “Did you check out the house that night?” I asked.

  “We thought she had just scared herself silly,” He shrugged, sighing. “You have to understand, half of what we deal with here is people sighting ghosts. They’ve all just scared themselves to the point of believing the stories.”

  “When did you check the house?” Winnie asked. We were trying to be as gentle as possible. It wasn’t like they could have done anything to save Allison if they had gone there any sooner.

  “The day we found her body. After that we tried to take Margret seriously, but she just kept on insisting that the ghost of Andrew Hellman killed her friend. We’ve got to find who is really responsible, put an end to these crazy stories.” I could see how tired Peter looked, but I didn’t buy what he was saying. Alan had overheard him the day before talking about the ceremony to repel the spirit. If that was true, he’d know what was really responsible. It sounded more like he wanted another scapegoat.

  “Was this like the murders that happened back in the day?” We were brought into the conference room, the only place where we could all sit. Peter showed us a board of pictures and evidence. All the facts of Allison Greenaway’s murder, it didn’t seem like they had much. Carol was taking minutes of our discussion quickly scratching away in her notebook.

  “I was a kid back in the day, when all of this happened the first time. I don’t remember much of it, but I remember the town living in fear of the ghost of Andrew Hellman. People made offerings to the spirit to try and stop it from killing again. None of it worked, of course.”

  “Of course not, considering that the killer was apprehended. Adam Hillman, right?” I said it as a question. I always found that the more we pretended we didn’t know, the more information we could acquire.

  “The one and only, direct relation of Andrew Hellman,” Peter said with confidence. He seemed to believe that he was guilty of something. That or he was confident no one would think otherwise.

  “Is he still locked up?”

  The sheriff nodded. “So he can’t be responsible for this murder.”

  “No he can’t be. It does seem like it though, Allison looks so much like the other victims. She was killed the same way, but anyone who has read a newspaper around here could copy the murder.” Peter sighed.

  “That doesn’t make it an easy case.” I was sympathetic but still suspicious of the sheriff. He knew more than he was saying, even without knowing what Alan overheard I could tell as much. Peter wasn’t trying to find who was guilty, he was trying to find who looked guilty. “Tell us more about the offerings people made.” It sounded a lot like the ceremony or the ritual they might be performing.

  “Well, like how people used to make offers to ancestors or gods to keep them satisfied and happy. Some of the town folk started to think that maybe we ought to do the same,” Peter explained.

  “It was something we did when I was a little girl, and had been going on since my mother was little, and my grandmother before her. I always felt it was silly, but it was just what we did,” Carol interjected. “Just brought fresh food offerings to the house. My grandmother said that for years after the hatchet man’s death people and livestock were axed to death around the time he was killed. The usual type of folklore. But according to her, after the offerings started, the deaths stopped.”

  “Sounds crazy to me,” Peter said a little to quickly. I was starting to question Carol’s honesty as well.

  “We’re going to have to take a look at the house, where Allison was found.” I felt like it was best to not comment on the offerings. I’d have Winnie talk to Peter about them later. She could use her skills to get more information out of
him. She might even be able to get him to tell us all about the rituals.

  “We can take you out there, but I don’t think you’ll find much of anything,” Peter sounded a little defensive now, making me think we might find something. “All the evidence is bagged and tagged already.”

  “We just want to get a feel for things, that’s all,” Winnie said smoothing things over.

  “I’ll get Devon down here to drive you over there,” Peter said pulling his phone out before we could protest. I would have preferred for us to go alone, but it didn’t seem like we had much of a choice.

  Chapter Seven

  The Hellman house wasn’t what I had expected. People had referred to it as ruins, but it looked like just a house to me. Winnie and I shared a glance, this was better than some of the motels we’d stayed in over the years. It was even quaint comparatively.

  “Well, this is it,” Devon said slowly. He was a transport from the South, with a thick accent and a slow way of talking. Despite this, there was an uncommon amount of intelligence in his eyes. He was as quick as a whip, even if he didn’t sound it. I’d bet it was an act to make people less cautious around him. “If it didn’t used to be haunted, I’d reckon it is now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just mean that stories are pretty powerful things,” Devon answered Winnie’s question with a shrug. “Sometimes they take on a life of their own and when something is said over and over again it might start to become true.”

  “So you think because people believe it’s haunted then it is?” Winnie challenged.

  “Could be,” He looked embarrassed now, and I felt bad for him. Winnie was formidable, and beautiful despite the eye patch. “Could not.” It was clear he thought the house was haunted, even knew it was. Probably assuming we thought it wasn’t, he didn’t want to appear like some country bumpkin believing in ghost stories. If only he knew the truth about Winnie and I.

  “It doesn’t look like a wreck,” I appraised the building. In another life I might have flipped houses like all those people on television do. I might have even considered buying the place and redoing it. A bit of paint could do the trick.

  “Wait till you’re inside.” He was right. Though the outside structure had somehow managed to weather through the years, the inside was what I’d call a ruin. Maybe more than just a bit of paint then.

  It was larger than I expected, and even bigger inside than it looked. Walls surrounded us, as though each part of the house was sectioned off into smaller rooms. It appeared as though there was once a second floor, what remained of it was now on the first floor. You could look straight up into the sky because about half the roof was gone. It was a wonder that the Midwestern winters hadn’t destroyed the whole thing. Chunks of old floorboards and ragged furniture littered the ground.

  “This is more what I expected,” I chuckled.

  “It’s hardly even fit for squatters,” Devon shrugged. “Which is fine by me...means that I don’t have to come here very often.” The deputy had followed us inside. I had the feeling the sheriff had asked him to keep a close eye on us.

  “Does it feel warmer to you?” Winnie asked me quietly. She was squinting her one eye from the bright sun. According to her, sunglasses ruined an outfit. Not to mention she wasn’t going to cover her eye patch up with something as boring as a pair of sunglasses.

  “No,” I shook my head. Maggie had said that the walls felt like an inferno, but all I could feel was the normal heat from the sun.

  “It’s enough to give anyone the creeps,” Devon commented with a shiver. “This is the spot where a man killed two of his three children and hacked his wife to death with an ax Now people don’t remember the kids or the wife, they only remember the man who killed them. That doesn’t sit too right with me.” He shook his head. “It’s been the site of disappearances, murders and the like. More than one body’s been found here.”

  “No, it doesn’t sit right with me either,” I agreed. I knew as soon as I walked in that the house had a darkness to it, an evil. The spirit of Andrew Hellman definitely hadn’t left it. Clearly, you didn’t have to be a witch to feel that.

  “I’ll, uh, leave you to it then,” He said with a nod. It was as though he suddenly decided to trust us, or the negative feeling of the house was enough for him to not care. With him outside the door we still had to be careful.

  “I can feel he’s here,” Winnie said in a low voice.

  “We need to do something about this soon, I have a feeling this is only just beginning.” Winnie and I went deeper into the building. I started to feel the heat coming from the walls that Maggie had mentioned. Devon had told us that the crime scene was down the hall and three doors down. It wasn’t hard to see it when we got there.

  “Oh my,” Winnie said with a gag. “Gross.”

  The walls were bloodied, to me it looked almost like decades of different splatters were on the wall. Some a deep red, some a rust color and others barely visible. There was crime scene tape and little yellow indicators near the evidence they had collected already. It wasn’t what we were there for anyways.

  “That’s one word for it,” I agreed with a grimace. It was gross.

  “You think there will be more?” Winnie asked. “More victims?”

  “If a spirit as bad as this one has been dormant for this long, and not of his own volition, and now he’s active again, I’d bet he’s going to be more active than he ever has been.” I could feel how angry his spirit was just from the amount of blood alone, let alone the fact that the house was practically vibrating with it.

  “It feels that way to me too,” Winnie agreed. “So, where is he?” She asked. With the more docile spirits we’ve dealt with in the past once they felt another supernatural presence, they revealed themselves. The difference was they wanted to come with us.

  “I don’t think this is going to be like other times,” I said regretfully.

  “Remember Silvia?” She asked with a grin, remembering easier times. Silvia was a spirit we apprehended a while back. Not a violent one, but certainly not benevolent.

  She’d been stuck in the normal world for decades, and after a while boredom got the better of her. Silvia decided to haunt the new owners of the house she lived in. Harmless things like flickering lights and moving objects around, but enough to get us called in to bring her over. Once she moved around a set of keys so many times the woman who they belonged to bought six copies and lost each of them.

  “I remember.” She was overjoyed when we told her where we were from and that she had a home there as well. No more boredom for her. Andrew Hellman was definitely no Silvia. “I think we need to try and get in on the ceremony.”

  “How?” Winnie furrowed her brow.

  “How’d you know ‘bout that?” Devon stood behind us, making both of us jump. Winnie threw her arms up and one of her hands hit the wall.

  “Ew!” She yelled shaking her hand and wiping it off on her coat.

  “How’d you know about the ceremony?” He repeated with a red face.

  “We’ve heard things,” I said vaguely. “Like the fact that it didn’t work this time.” It was risky, but we needed to make some kind of play. Move things along a bit faster.

  “We might even know a way to make it work,” Winnie offered to the dumbfounded deputy. Alan flew inside gracefully.

  “Jeez Louise,” Devon ducked as the bird flew by. With wide eyes I tried to warn him off, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “What are you doing here?” Winnie asked Alan.

  “What do you mean?” Devon replied, completely bewildered. “I brought you here.”

  “Not you, the bird,” Winnie rolled her eyes. I guess we were just dropping the act completely then. Sometimes it was necessary. I didn’t really think it was this time around, but apparently Winnie did. I’d have to go over the rules with her again. She flew by the seat of her pants too often.

  “I didn’t know I wasn’t welcome,” he replied with a ruffle of h
is feathers. I gave him a look which he mimicked.

  “What the hell is goin’ on here?” Devon ran his hands through his hair as though he thought he might have been going insane.

  “I was just wondering why you were here. I thought we said to lay low.” Devon snapped his head back and forth between the three of us.

  Alan looked at Winnie without amusement. How he managed to be as expressive as he is, I don’t know. It would seem to be hard to do with beady black eyes and an essentially immobile face, but he managed it.

  “Did you find something?” I asked him, wishing we could have kept up the ruse longer. They had given me no choice though. Whatever he had to say better be important.

  “I saw a van off the highway...its painted with a bunch of ghosts and gravestones,” Alan explained. So, it clearly wasn’t that important.

  “What about it?” Winnie asked.

  “What about what?” Devon shook his head as if that might help to clear things up. “You people are talking to a bird.”

  “So?” Winnie answered. “Lots of people talk to birds...you know, Polly want a cracker...that sort of thing.”

  Devon shook his head. “I know that, but you all are having a conversation with him and he's answering you.”

  Winnie looked at me. “Well, I guess the secret is out.” She turned to Devon. “Alan here is a specially trained raven. You know how the government trains dolphins, monkeys, and so on. Alan here is special...they trained him to spy and then bring us back the goods.”

  “But how?” Devon wasn't buying it. “How would they train him to have a conversation.”

  When you hit a rough patch, play dumb. “We don't ask those questions Devon,” I responded. “They give us the tools we need and we use them and keep our mouths shut. Sometimes it's better not to know certain things.” He nodded, still scratching his head.