M Sellars - Harm none

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.”

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 than a few hours.

I was only superficially aware of muttered apologies and “excuse me’s” as officers pushed past me to go in and out the door. Several moments passed before I realized I was standing frozen, one step over the threshold, partially blocking the entrance of the house. Slowly, I shuffled around the room and as Ben had ordered, was careful not to touch anything-physically, anyway. As I moved farther inward, a new feeling joined the jamboree of sensations that were clawing at me for equal time. The feeling was fear. It was small and feminine but very intense. It was the fear projected by a little girl named Ariel. I pushed the feeling back and placed it on mental “hold” as I realized my breathing had quickened. I fought to maintain a grip in the physical realm, and closing my eyes, I willed myself to relax. When my respirations came back under control, I allowed my eyelids to flutter open and focused on the scene before me.

The walls in the small square room were washed with a thin coat of light blue paint, applied lethargically with what had apparently been a worn roller. Several swaths were severely lacking in coverage, unabashedly exposing the original antique white that lay beneath. The floor, at one time smooth, finished hardwood, was scuffed and gouged, with wear patterns criss-crossing the surface in a well-beaten path. A lone, straight-backed chair sat against a sagging card table-the only two pieces of furniture in the room.

The stained tabletop was littered with cigarette butts from an overflowing ashtray and a paper plate containing a half-eaten sandwich. The curl of the drying bread, a browning crust of mustard, and the unidentifiability of the luncheon meat gave evidence that the sandwich was several days old.