E10: At Cahokia
 

Even though Juman didn’t have a drink with his dinner, he agreed to switch seats with Wojciechowski so that the latter could drive for a while. Before taking the wheel, the wiry old Night Hunter fetched a leather case from the trunk and took out two vials that he drank, one after another, making a disgusted face. Kit was still determined to get answers on the Sons of the Bird, but his glimpse inside the case made him curious enough to get sidetracked.

“Uh, Tomasz, what was that?”
Wojciechowski cleaned out his mouth with a sip of water, spit on the ground next to the car and took a seat. “Bialego Wilka, remember? Herbal elixirs. Help my night vision, my reflexes and my conditioning.”

Kit blinked in surprise. “[Excrement], really? We can get Witcher potions?”
Juman blew a derisive raspberry. “Dis lenky mook ain’t got na evidence it works, actually. Na doctors to tell him if it’s gonna kill him, neither. Dunda head is actually playing human test subject with dem obeyah drinks.”
“Yeah,” said Wojciechowski as he started the car. “And you still smoke, you fat [fornicator].”

Rumbling with laughter, Juman lit a cigarette and turned to Kit while the car left the parking lot and got back on the highway. “Dis mook, he quit am a month ago. We is gonna see how long he last without am dis time.”

A few seconds after Juman lit his cigarette, there was a loud squeal from the pig in the other back seat as it tried to get out of the seatbelt. Kit managed to grab it and restrain it from escaping, but couldn’t do anything about the squeals. “Guys, I think she doesn’t like the smell of smoke!”

Without any discussion, Juman threw the cigarette out the window and Wojciechowski said, in an eerily calm voice. “Żabko, you need to find coral to distract pig. Check floor.”

As pigs went, this one was not massive, weighing only about the same as a slender girl, but as Kit discovered in the back seat, that was plenty of heft for a creature throwing itself in all directions, trotters kicking wildly as shrill squeals pierced his ears. His eyes filled with tears as an errant trotter impacted his nose and he lost his grip for a moment. Once he grabbed on to the pig again, he could taste blood running down his face.
“Ouch, you [fornicating] pig[fornicator], stop kicking me! He’s the one who lit the cigarette!”

Juman rolled down the window on his side, rumbling with laughter, and as he drove, Wojciechowski was working on the window on his side. Kit wished that his combatives training had covered frenzied pigs as he tried to immobilize all the flying trotters while somehow searching the floor in a dark car for a tiny little silver-and-ivory ornament. It helped a bit when Juman flicked on the lights in the car, but it still took an eternity of wrestling an angry animal before Kit spotted the toy on the floor.

Transitioning into a grapple where he had a free hand allowed Kit to fetch the coral and wave it in front of the agitated pig. The transformation was instant. Instead of resisting him, the animal relaxed its body and started to follow the ivory ornament with piggy eyes. When Kit inserted the ivory ring of the coral into its snout, it happily suckled at the ring like a pacifier, becoming docile and easy to deal with.

With an amused timbre in his voice, Wojciechowski asked from the front seat, “Did you just need magic pacifier to win fight with baby pig?”
“If I was the ref, I woulda stopped am,” Juman added. “Dis bai was on dem ropes. I is calling it; pig by TKO. And don’t you dream of bleeding in my cyar, bai, or I’m gonna cuff you proppa!”

Kit staunched the bleeding with some napkins from what remained of his road trip supplies in the back and sighed in a nasally voice, “Well, you guys are real supportive.” If he hoped that this would have made the older men reconsider their unhelpful attitudes, he was disappointed, as a chorus of jeers greeted him from the front of the car.

“Oh, okay, laugh at the [Fornicating] New Guy while I bleed. So I haven’t got a merit badge in pig-wrestling. Manhandling livestock feels like more of a Marine thing anyway.” Kit laid back while he waited for the blood-flow to slow. “So, since I’m already feeling [fornicating] awful, how about you tell me about these baby-murdering black magicians into whose home territory we might be going for some inexplicable reason?”

“Not inexplicable,” Wojciechowski said. “Just being good decoys. New Year’s is liminal time, good time for all sorts of magic. We definitely want to ping cultist divination at that time; avoid them being anywhere near real protectee. St. Louis is big city, full of magic, full of danger. Drawing them there would make it hard for them to narrow us down, lot of other magic to interfere, and if we have to bring bunch of feds there, maybe bit of official attention would be good for St. Louis.”
“Uh, okay,” Kit said. “But won’t that mess up this truce?”

In the mirror, the cold smile on the old Night Rider’s grizzled face was as predatory as the wolf he liked to be referred to as. “So I should help them hide? Dante Villareal and old man Kessler care about big picture; so we have truce with Sons of the Bird. Okay, good. Tomasz Mateusz Wojciechowski never officer and never big picture guy. I care about Izzy Landry’s memory and little murdered girls Izzy never got over. So, maybe some [sphincter] Homeland spooks get tangled up with murdering [illegitimate] Sons of the Bird. Maybe I don’t cry about any of them.”
In a quiet voice, Kit asked, “What happened with the Sons of the Bird?”

Regular breathing from Juman’s seat indicated that the heavy-set Night Rider had fallen asleep almost immediately after his big meal. The highway north of Nacogdoches was neither particularly well lit nor heavily travelled at this time of night, so only occasional headlights broke up the December darkness. Without interference from Juman in matters of music, Wojciechowski had felt free to put on a cassette of Leonard Cohen, at this moment singing ‘Bird on a Wire’.

“Okay, kid,” Wojciechowski said. “Like I said, it was back in 2011, 2012. I was fairly new Night Rider, got out of Legion at end of 2009. I wasn’t stationed in Louisiana; I was Penemue team already by 2011 and we had our own stuff back in ’11 and ‘12. So I heard about most of this later from Izzy, when he’d replaced Dante as team lead on Penemue.”

Driving at night didn’t seem to bother Wojciechowski, who drove at maybe 75 mph, five miles over the speed limit, without using the full beam setting of his headlights. “Izzy figures these kid murders have occult component and gets cop friend to run some aspects through VICAP. Gets hits. Over twenty, in last three years. At least three in Mississippi, Adams and Washington Counties. Two in Alabama, Hale County. This Choctaw kid in Le Flore County in Oklahoma. Few in Ohio, maybe. And full dozen up in Illinois and Missouri. Around river, you know.”

Clearing his throat gruffly, Wojciechowski continued in a deliberately casual voice. “Of course, there were probably more. He got more hits, you see, these were just ones he was sure about. All girls, aged ten or less. Beautiful girls, all of them, because that mattered, you see? Not molested, though. Just taken somewhere, isolated and dark. Fed, cared for, in certain way, hair cleaned, combed nice and neat. And such elaborate tattoos, must have taken days to finish. So it was usually about week until their throats were cut. One cut, nice and neat like their combed hair. So they bled out slow, frightened and alone, not understanding any of it. The bird is cruel.”
“Jesus,” Kit said.

“No, boychik,” answered Wojciechowski. “That one you can’t blame on Him. Izzy spent over a year on it. Every spare minute he had, he spent with pictures, doing research. Just thinking. Trying to comprehend. Until he figured out what the spirals and symbols were supposed to do. They marked girls as sacrifices to propriate Ulusunti stone, very powerful medicine that has tendency to turn on user if not fed regularly. It was never about them. They were fuel. Batteries, for magician who’d used up all his occult juice for whatever he was doing.”

Simple guitar chords and harmonica tore up the silence as Cohen sang ‘But no one really could hear him; The night so dark and thick and green…’

“Mother[fornicator] was careful. But not careful enough, because he left prints at couple of sites, when he snatched girls. Hair, saliva, drop of blood on tattoo needle that wasn’t theirs. And it was just one mother[fornicator]. Same MO, same prints, same DNA. But he wasn’t on file. No military service, no criminal record, none of other things that give authorities ways to find you.”

Wojciechowski was speaking barely louder than the music, his face like stone. “Izzy knew some tricks of trade. A few wards, some dowsing, telling fortunes, Mate Care-For to watch over him. More than most can do. But Izzy couldn’t find this child-murdering prick by casting Tarot or reading tea-leaves. More girls turned up missing, like little Mary Flores from Cherokee County just west of here. Some were found, like one in Lafayette County, Arkansas, another in Baldwin County, Alabama.”
Kit closed his eyes. Said quietly, “I never heard about no missing girl hereabouts.”

“No reason you should, boychik. No police in Alto any more to investigate and Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office figured girl’s father took her along when he got job in Arkansas. Mother was drunk, half-breed Indian, not really in position to make much noise.”
“So what happened?” Kit asked.

“Investigation,” Wojciechowski said. “All missing girls and all murders were around Southern Death Cult sites. Looking at missing person reports from Missouri and Illinois knowing what he knew, Izzy figured that he had to be based in St. Louis. Of course. At Cahokia.”

Editorial Notes
 

I'm glad Juman is not sounding too caricatured.

As for 'Banna' (meaning something like 'buddy'), I've seen it on most blogs about Guyanese slang and distinctive words I checked. It seems to associated with Guyana more than any other Caribbean country, according to Google, and is iconic enough for Norman Beaton to have used it in the title of a musical in England. And that doesn't make it dated slang, because I also found it in active use on Twitter by Guyanese now.

Of course, it's use might be a regional or class-based thing, but given that I found evidence that Guyanese of more than one ethnic origin from Georgetown in Juman's era used it extensively, I thought it was appropriate.

Well, he's very dark compared to Kit and Wojciechowski, not to mention having a darker complexion than many 'black' men they know. The most common African-American skin colour seems to be fairly light, compared to the range in African countries, although individuals, as always, vary widely.

That is important.

Surely, you must have more notes. This is a first draft and notes, on style, substance, characterization, pacing or cultural details, are something I need if I'm going to improve it.

I suppose not. Note, however, that some level of political influence not present in our world has been trying to steer public expenditures toward mental health in the prison system and that it would be strange if no extra attention was paid to that aspect, given the much higher rates of apparently psychologically disturbed perpetrators and victims than in our world.

So, given that some subset of existing inmates is going to cost more to house and handle, it might well be that there are still financial pressures to close lower security units.

Are all jobs at such units open only to full-time correctional officers?

Because Beaumont, as with several other areas, is home to numerous military veterans and/or retired law enforcement officers who have also retired from active Monster Hunting, but might be open to being available for the occasional important shift if and when the TDCJ needs to house something that normal correctional officers might not know how to handle.

It's been established that part-time Reserve Deputies can do this at Sheriff's Offices for county jails, if they have gone through the requisite training and certification, but I don't know if the state-level system has any provisos for having retired peace officers or veterans with TCOLE certification work as part-time correctional officers.

As a result of having investigated wrongful deaths within the prison population that definitely have weird aspects, they about as likely as other hands-on, street-level law enforcement personnel to have noticed something off about the world. As the Facade makes it hard to be certain about analogous memories or reach certain conclusions, most of them just have general feelings that leave them asking questions they can't answer, but more than one OIG agent of the TDCJ actively works for Kessler in a clandestine capacity.

More Notes, Please

I'd love it if I could get some more feedback and notes on how I can improve things, either what has already been written or the upcoming chapters.

E11: Rome of the West
 

The cassette had reached the end and only sounds of the powerful engine broke up the silence in the car. Wojciechowski ejected the cassette, flipped it over, and pressed play again. Cohen’s grating voice told them ‘I finally broke into the prison, I found my place in the chain…’

“It didn’t take Izzy year to figure out that Cahokia might hold some answers. It took him year to put together evidence and argument enough to convince Old Man Kessler, Mr. Alexandre and Dante Villareal to authorize team travel to St. Louis, with magician more powerful than Izzy. That meeting I attended, on Penemue, near the Windward Islands."

Wojciechowski took a sip of water. “What we have to understand is that Old Man Kessler isn’t looking to right every wrong. He believes that Vile Vortices represent weak areas in veil of reality, where the wrong ritual or incursion might tear open hole that won’t close, occult energies streaming through, feeding supernatural beings that then violate natural laws, resulting in an ever larger rip in reality.

"Exponential ultraterrestial event. Preventing that is our mission. And because we are few and world is large, we focus on one Vile Vortex, the one in Caribbean. ’Bermuda Triangle’, although it is not centered on Bermuda and doesn’t seem to be triangle. So, really, Kessler can’t worry too much about anything that happens outside that Vortex, or, at least, outside network of ley lines that connect to it and might presage extension of it.”

Laying in the back seat, still holding bloody napkins to his nose, Kit asked, “Ley lines like the ones that reach to Galveston?”

“Not just Galveston, żabko,” Wojciechowski said grimly. “There are many places on North American coastline connected to Vortex with metaphysical conduits. Some in Florida and Atlantic Coast, but also on Gulf Coast. Or so Kessler says. It is his arcane model that governs our actions and nobody else understands distinctions. Galveston and coastal Places of Power are important nexus to protect against Caribbean Vortex, okay. But ley lines that radiate out from old Mississippian sites are not important, he says. Minuscule chance of EUE in near future. Tertiary threats at most, he says. Not priority.”

Softly, Kit asked, “And you think he’s wrong?”

“No, boychik,” Wojciechowski said in a gentle voice as old as mountains. “I’m afraid that he’s right.” Tapping his fingers on the wheel, he continued, “Night Riders study occult, but we are mostly not gifted. I’ve met maybe six magicians who are sane enough to help Night Riders. I know about maybe six more who are not working with us; but might have similar goals. That number includes people like Izzy, who know minor tricks, but could not find murderer across states or pin-point him enough to get him. For that, I know three. In entire world.”

Kit started to ask a question, but the other man cut him off. “You want to know why we need worry about cultists finding us with divination, żabko?”
“Yeah,” said Kit. “If you only know three people in the world who could do it at all, doesn’t it seem a bit unlikely that one of them might be with these cultists and ready to do it on command right now?”

“Because, żabko, magicians aren’t as rare as we might wish. It’s sane magicians who are in short supply. Those who study magic like science and who also happen to be born with very rare natural talent to shape occult forces. And who have good sense to avoid easy shortcuts. Like finding demons to worship, spirits to appease or lost gods to accept sacrifice. I’m not born with any talent for magic, żabko, but I’ve learned enough so that given right item, place or reconstructed ritual, I could probably summon up eldritch entity to make me able to wield any power I want. For price.”

Leonard Cohen sang ‘I cried, "Oh, Lady Midnight, I fear that you grow old; The stars eat your body and the wind makes you cold…"’ and Kit shivered despite the central heating.

Wojciechowski continued his tale. “Against dozen mostly sane magicians I know about, there are thousands like our cultist friends or Sons of the Bird. Their motivations are many-fold, but at end of day, forces they serve want to eat. Sanity or sacrifices, all same to them. So. Those who are both magician and sane cannot afford time or risk to oppose every bad thing done for occult reasons. So, Izzy was wrong. I told him he was wrong. I backed Dante Villareal, my team lead at time, arguing we were over-extended already and had no infrastructure, support or contacts to operate in Midwest.”

“If Izzy was anyone else, it probably would have ended there. He might have tried to get police involved, convince them of his theory about serial killer obsessed with Mississippian culture, leave out supernatural elements, see if they could find him anyway.” Wojciechowski sighed. “But Izzy was one of les filleuls and in line for command of Penemue team next.”

Kit frowned, “Les filleuls?”

“Godsons, boychik. Before Old Man Kessler was billionaire, he fought in WWII and Indochina as Legionnaire. Many of his most trusted men afterward were his frères d'armes, fellow veterans from Legion, whom he employed in his casino, oil companies or other ventures. It was lifetime ago, so most of them are dead now, but their sons and grandsons are around. And whether they are literal godsons or not, they are aristocracy of Old Man’s feudal court. Dr. Lapointe, both Villareals, Joders, Guillermo Wagner, Izzy and others. Most Night Rider team leads have been les filleuls.”

“Just godsons?” Kit asked indignantly, “What about goddaughters?”

Wojciechowski chuckled drily, “You should meet Magda Garcia. She would love you. No, there are goddaughters also, but none as Night Riders. It is not rule, but Kessler was born in 1918. You think I am archaic dinosaur of outdated social values? Kessler was getting on in years when I was born. In some things, his attitudes are from bygone world, and he is even more protective of family than he is of ladies in general. For anyone but Magda, not a chance. For her, well, as long as she doesn’t throw it in his face.”

“Real progressive,” Kit grumbled.

“Take it up with all your lady SEAL friends, boychik.” Wojciechowski spoke without malice or even his usual sardonic edge. “It is like I said, we’re not here to right every wrong. Enjoy what wins we can get, żabko, don’t lament what we can’t change. And unless you want kid sister following in your footsteps, to Afghanistan or worse, maybe don’t judge old men too harshly for feeling protective of fairer sex sometimes.”

The tape had reached the end again. With practiced one-handed motions, Wojciechowski removed it and inserted another. Then he continued his tale to the haunting refrain of Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’.

“Izzy made good points. As did Dr. Lapointe, who had already done divination on his behalf with the remains found where girls disappeared or near their bodies. They argued it was obvious that St. Louis, like many other cities, had home-grown occult scene. There, as well as elsewhere, occultists tended to draw power from local myths, legends, Places of Power. That meant many of those studying occult around Mississippi river were going to deal with artifacts, myths and spirits of older civilization.

"Okay, good. Not our problem what occultists get up to; as long as world not likely to end. But evidence Izzy had found pointed at just one man. Maybe with some help; followers or some kind of bonded demon patron or spirit riding him. But same man. Maybe that man belonged to organized group of occultists up in St. Louis, in fact, Izzy thought he did, but it was same man who had kidnapped and killed little girls for at least four years around sites of archaeological interest.

"Izzy called him ‘The Birdman’. And Birdman was getting better at his craft. Earlier, he chose unwise victims, was seen by babysitters or mothers, bodies were found, he left fingerprints behind or otherwise did something to cause hue and cry. Now, hardly anyone noticed disappearances. Little girls just fell through cracks. Chosen with uncanny insight, legion of the lost without any powerful protectors. And no bodies were found anymore. But Izzy and Dr. Lapointe said that they could link fifty dead to Birdman for sure, half of those in last eight months. Occult or not, everyone who watches movies knows it’s never good when serial killers speed up pace.”

“Fifty little girls?” Kit asked in horror.

“Fifty for sure,” Wojciechowski said quietly. “Another fifty probables. And that argued for amounts of occult energy that could not be ignored. There was no telling what Birdman was after, but it was potentially dangerous enough to justify our time, even if it had not turned up in Old Man Kessler’s occult calculus yet. Or so Izzy argued. Because he and Dr. Lapointe spoke eloquently and persuasively, also because of who their fathers were, fact-finding mission to St. Louis was finally approved. Dr. Lapointe for his divination and mixed team of Night Riders from New Orleans and Penemue to protect him. Dante Villareal as lead and Izzy as his second.”

“And you,” Kit guessed.
“And me, żabko,” Wojciechowski confirmed. “At that time, I was not yet proud Texan and could not as easily move among people of United States as fish through sea. But I was at least trusted to be security for Dr. Lapointe, because age and treachery beat youth and skill every time. So, I went to Rome of the West. And there I met Sons of the Bird.”

Re: E11: Rome of the West
 

Wojciechowski's voice is quite convincing, except for that clause. I think "many-fold" would fit him better.

English as She is Spoke
 

I have changed it.

I originally wrote it with a 'y', but the American spellchecker changed it and I was not aware that the pronunciation was different.

Like most Europeans who learned English in classroom settings before the turn of the millennium, Tomasz Mateusz Wojciechowski was taught a vaguely formal variety of British English. What books in English he read were also more likely to be from the UK than the US (and usually old enough to be literature, not popular fiction, so that they were not banned), at least at first. As for using the language, the first English-speakers he spoke with were SAS chaps helping to set up GROM, the Polish military premier special operations unit. who were based on the SAS at first.

After 1990, however, obtaining American popular culture became easier and when he moved away from Poland in 1999, he'd have seen the occasional movie in English (rarer than you'd think, however, as France still dubs some entertainment and dubbed pretty much everything in the 90s). It's not until 2010, when he moved to the United States (his home of record was in Texas between 2010-2015, though he spent about half the year in various Caribbean locations) that he started to hear American English spoken regularly.

It's possible that Wojciechowski, who is a ferociously intelligent polymath, is capable of consciously choosing his diction and syntax to emulate a native speaker. Still, that's pretty hard to do and isn't the sort of thing you do when you are conversing naturally and trying to relax. So we haven't really seen him make any such attempt, which means that his English is mostly the standard educated European variety, i.e. vaguely British syntax delivered in a strong accent of his native language and flavored with American popular culture.

Oh, and most articles, definite and indefinite, dropped as unimportant and extraneous.

In GURPS terms, though, it's not English (Accented), though, as his vocabulary, reading comprehension and general level of language knowledge is way above that level. It might be a Quirk, I suppose.

---

Any more notes?

Seriously, professional authors usually get oodles of notes on first drafts and they are years and years of writing experience more polished than I am.

And, yes, I am working on today's episode, though not very diligently as yet. Suspect I shall need an early lunch before I can be productive.

E12: It Was a Blonde
 

Leonard Cohen was singing about a stranger on the scratchy cassette tape and Juman was snoring resolutely in the front seat. To Kit’s left, the young pig suckled on the ivory coral, slurping noises competing with Juman’s snores and the purr of the engine.

After waiting as long as he could, Kit broke the silence, “Tomasz, I don’t want to drag it out of you, or anything, if it’s a painful subject, but you can’t start a story like that and not finish it. I will literally scream in frustration the entire trip of you don’t tell me more.”
“Literally?” Wojciechowski asked in an amused tone of voice.
Kit shrugged, “Fine, figuratively, if you want to be all prescriptive about it. But I’ll ask annoying questions as long as I’m awake and until you finish your story, I can’t imagine sleeping.”

Wojciechowski chuckled drily, “Oh, [fornicate] it, żabko. If it will save me from steady stream of ‘Are we there yet’ all way, I’ll give you story time. I warn you, it’s less exciting than you think and there isn’t satisfying resolution. Real life isn’t tidy.”
“It’s also [faeces] for dramatic structure, but the touch of authenticity makes up for a lot,” Kit said. “Get on with it, Peripheral Narrator.”

“Okay, kid,” Wojciechowski said. “We drove out, just like we’re doing now. Most of us Night Riders aren’t really capable of occult feats that might compromise flights or make modern cars unreliable, but Old Man Kessler doesn’t believe in taking chances. So, we drive classic cars, before electronic injection and before computer chips. Not much of sacrifice, really. Much nicer cars anyway. That time, we had Oldsmobile Cutlass sedan with V8 4-4-2 455ci engine. Beautiful car.

"So, me and Vlad Jakavienka, another old Legionnaire, we were assigned to Dr. Lapointe as his close security element. It meant that Lapointe spent lot of time walking around with esoteric materials looking for good place to perform divination ritual. We did sight-seeing and I beat Vlad at chess in evenings. Rest of Night Riders were front and follow surveillance, plus reaction team. No contact between us, except secure phones at pre-arranged times and radio for emergencies.

"In those days, even best magicians needed ages of preparation for simplest trick. You think precise divination is hard today? Back then, they were almost impossible. Unless you were inside Vile Vortex, Place of Power or portal to some kind of hell world, magic was not going to help much on tactical scale. For humans, at any rate, at least if we were unwilling to sacrifice people for energy.

"After few experiments with tracing ley lines, Dr. Lapointe got three of us room at Hyatt-Regency downtown, by Gateway Arch. Good vibes there for thaumatology; so he was eventually able to perform several divination rituals that got us important information. Like that Birdman spent most of his time in mansion overlooking golf course and country club in Ladue. At least, person who left fingerprints, hair and blood at murder scenes did.

"Mansion was owned by one John Merrill Bates, senior executive at Sigma-Aldrich. Born rich and only grown more so with time, now in his vigorous, golf-playing sixties. Pretty modern for old money, which still meant plenty of staff, but none of them live-in. Widower, divorcee, keeper of series of trophy wives. No children, thank good Lord.

"Just looking at pictures of that guy, John Merrill Bates, you knew he was soulless, callous, cruel son of bitch. Handsome, in cold, saturnine way, eyes like dead fish. We looked into his background, using contacts in law enforcement and public records. Wife who died? Died in 2008, accidental causes. Accidental like overdose of sleeping pills while in bath, but family too important for doctor to find suicide. Or murder. Then after that, his father, two aunts and uncle die. In period of about fifteen months, 2008-2010. All natural causes or accidents. Of course. So John Merrill Bates inherits mansion and even more money than he already had.

"So, Izzy Landry and his guys shadowed Mr. Bates, learned his routine, details about his life. Meanwhile, Dante Villareal sent man on exciting commando raid, wearing tuxedo like James Bond. To steal whiskey glass from country club waiter after Mr. Bates finished his drink. We get glass and Dr. Lapointe used it for ritual that night. Because we are not savages and we require confirmation. But real life is not tidy and villains don’t always come in convenient hateable packages.”

“[Excrement]! It wasn’t him?” Kit asked.

“It wasn’t him,” Wojciechowski confirmed. “John Merrill Bates hadn’t been anywhere near those children. Not his hair, not his blood, not his fingerprints. Not to mention, analysts in Houston working with public records and, eh, other sources, were able to rule him out for many murders committed away from St. Louis, because his whereabouts were accounted for at those time periods. Soulless corporate executives may do bad stuff, but they don’t disappear for weeks at time.”

“So it was someone else who lived there, right?” Kit leaned forward in his seat. Fortunately the bleeding from his nose had stopped, so no new flood followed his change of position.

Wojciechowski nodded. “Mr. Bates remarried in 2010. Almost forty years younger than him, so bit of scandal, but otherwise very suitable, like others before her. Socialite from good family, pretty as picture, recent graduate from University of Illinois. Veronica Tinsley Bates, neé Farrar.

"Just ‘pretty’ is unfair description, żabko. Try imagining goddess of love and beauty. Mid-twenties, lovely like young girl, but graceful, sexy, like woman. Golden hair, like halo, eyes bluer than summer sky after rain. Perfect skin, milky white, with few tiny freckles on her cute nose that made you wonder if you could find any other freckles on her beautiful body. Bosoms to stop man’s breath and legs, ah, żabko, such legs that go all the way up. Legs to make bishop kick hole through stained-glass window, and if he could see where they ended, he wouldn’t be bishop much longer.

"Bit more bookish than typical for trophy wives, in Ph.D program when she married. Anthropology student, boychik, would you believe? Turned out she’d been helping Professor Pauketat research for his book on Cahokia and that her doctoral thesis was going to be on particularly abstruse aspects of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex religion. After she married, she went into charity work, as would be expected of her. Of course, there were cultural and historical societies, donations to academic causes, museums and similar. Related to her interests, obviously. Nothing strange about that.

"Husband and wife went to parties and she was decorative hostess from time to time, but otherwise, they didn’t spend much time together. She had her life and he had his. Not many hobbies in common, I suppose. Narrowing down her location any time she was not at well-photographed party or event was challenge, but analysts could not rule her out for anything.

"In fact, Veronica Tinsley Bates was attending opening of new exhibit at museum at Travellers Rest in Nashville in 2011 and photographed at Iron Bowl in Tuscaloosa in 2010, guest of university because one of her charities was supporting archaeological lab at Moundville. Girls disappeared in both places at those times. Not conclusive, żabko, but pretty damn suggestive.

"So, lovely goddess Veronica Tinsley didn’t golf or drink whiskey at country clubs, but she maintained her perfect figure at exclusive health club, ‘Venus in Robes’. Women’s health club, all female trainers and staff. Small problem, but no place impregnable to prepared men. Also, night crew of janitors mostly illegals and not always only women. Out of sight; out of mind. If they’ll accept payment in peanuts and nobody is supposed to see them, who cares who they are?

"Team lead Dante Villareal is half-Cubano, half-Spanish. Carries himself like Grandee of Spain, attended St. Cyr in France. Eh, in America, olive skin, accent and willingness to work for almost nothing means illegal, right, żabko?”

“Racist,” Kit said. “Also simplistic and not completely true.”

Wojciechowski shrugged. “True enough. Bribe real janitor not to show, get couple of people to act as references, get him hired, all sounds harder than it is. Money is better than ammunition any day. Then just wait for night when incomparable Mrs. Bates goes to gym late, have Dante go in there with dowsing rod Dr. Lapointe had attuned to find sympathetic residue of same person left blood, hair, fingerprints at scenes of crime. Law of Contagion.”

There was a long pause. Kit tried to contain himself, but his curiosity was too much for him. “And?”

“Night Riders were outside health club as security and immediate reaction force.” Wojciechowski grimaced. “Me and Vlad stayed at hotel with Dr. Lapointe. We waited there for hours. No news, no contact. SOP is not to call Night Riders on ops, but we contacted Houston and Penemue. We could confirm that there were no shots fired at health club, no police, no disturbance. But Old Man Kessler has no tame cops in St. Louis. No reserve deputies, no retired law officers, no former special operators or weekend warriors living nearby. No one to send to help.”

“So what the hell did you do?” Kit asked impatiently.

“Dr. Lapointe performed fortune-telling. Answer cryptic, but told us that something occult was going on at health club. And that Dante, Izzy and others were still alive, in there.” Wojciechowski shrugged, “So. What could we do, żabko? We’re Night Riders. We tooled up and rolled out; two-man rescue team and academic specialized in Elizabethan theater.”

Re: English as She is Spoke
 

You are a lawyer and therefore very much a professional author, or do you not have to file written briefs in iceland? In germany oral arguments are usually a formality, most real work and arguing is done in advance in writing.

Re: English as She is Spoke
 

Okay, fine, but that's a very different style, not usually fiction and written in Icelandic. English is only my third language.

Re: [MH] (Caribbean by Night) Driving Miss Piggy
 

I'm not 100% up to date on formal writing rules, and am suffering from a low-grade fever, so I may be off about this, but I'm fairly certain when breaking a person's speech into multiple paragraphs, you reopen quotes each time you start a new paragraph. That is, this would be more appropriate to write as this
Still very much enjoying the story. Sounds like Mrs. Bates' good looks are a bit more than natural; I'd almost suggest you name her Elisabeth, but that would make it too obvious

More Notes From the Editor
 

Very good note. Something I genuinely did not know about accepted writing standards* and it never occurred to me to look up. I have changed it accordingly.

*I don't have a very visual memory and don't remember how text I've read actually looked. The act of reading is completely unconscious to me and I tend to remember what I read only as information filed however it makes sense to my mind, without retaining extraneous details like organization or appearance on the page.

That is good to know. Any requests, notes, comments or perverse desires?

Ah.

You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Were I to do so, which, obviously, I couldn't, I might suggest that someone, not me, of course, but someone, might be inclined to find some meaning in Mrs. Bates' given names regardless.