M Sellars: The End Of Desire

I practiced flipping the improvised ID case open, giving a silent count, then snapping it back shut, trying to instantly master what I’d seen Ben and the other cops I’d worked with do so many times in the past. My big problem was that I was going to need to look convincing but still only show the badge long enough to create a belief that I was official. If I was asked to let someone see it up close, I was in trouble.

If it weren’t for the fact that I was so nervous, I might have considered trying to throw a little magick behind the ruse. It was really all just the power of suggestion combined with a bit of inner energy to create what, in the parlance of WitchCraft, was called a glamour. In short, it was an illusion. A way of making someone believe they were seeing something that wasn’t really there. I actually had more than half the battle won already, given the physical appearance of the toy. But, casting a glamour involved affecting someone’s will, and while I wasn’t so white-light as to have a problem with that, I did seem to be having issues controlling my own will at the moment, much less someone else’s. Applying magick to the situation just seemed like a very bad idea, especially magick born of anxious energy. Of course, everything about what I was planning to do fell smack into the middle of the bad idea category, so it probably didn’t matter.

At one point it even dawned on me that some of the most notorious serial rapists and killers in recent history had used this very trick to gain the trust of their victims. This type of musing wasn’t new to me. I’d had thoughts like it before. In fact, I often wondered if my unfettered psychic connections to both the victims, and at times the criminals themselves, were doing irreparable damage to my psyche. This was, however, the first time that such contemplation left me afraid that due to that possible damage, I might be becoming just like them.

I sighed and tried to forget about the knot of fear that my wandering brain had just created in my already churning stomach. I had enough to worry about without tossing that in on top of it.

The time had been pushing 3:45AM when I shut off the car, and by now I was sure to have been sitting here for a solid fifteen minutes, maybe even longer, prepping the phony badge and trying to work up the courage to actually use it. I looked across the lot at the office. It was dark except for the pink neon glow of the NO VACANCY sign in the window. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I hoped that it just might work to my advantage.

I took one last sip of my coffee and swallowed hard before settling it into the cup holder and getting out of the vehicle. Though the temperature had been mild earlier, and I am certain that it hadn’t suffered any significant change, I felt a damp chill run the length of my spine. It hit me like a rush of excitement in fact, and that worried me. However, I pressed on across the quiet lot.

Arriving at the office door, I reached out and gave it a tug, only to find that it was locked just as I had hoped it would be. It would definitely increase my chances of being able to pull this off if I could hang here in the shadows where the darkness could obscure the telltale giveaways surrounding the lie.

I hesitated for a moment, then reached up and rapped my knuckles hard on the glass pane of the door. I waited as thirty seconds stretched into one minute, and then that folded itself into two. Seeing no movement inside, I hammered my fist against the door again. This time a dim light switched on and was visible through the doorway behind the small check-in desk. I stood watching my reflection in the mirror on the back wall and waited. A short moment later, a disheveled, middle-aged woman in a housecoat appeared through the opening and squinted at me. Immediately shooting me a disgusted look, she pointed at the glowing NO VACANCY sign and started to turn.

I thumped the heel of my palm against the door once again to get her attention then flipped open my wallet and pressed it against the glass. Up until this point I could have turned and walked away, no harm, no foul. But now I was committed, and in the back of my head I was telling myself that was exactly what I needed to be, committed-although my inner voice was using a vastly different sense of the word.

The woman squinted at me again, and I watched her closely as my heart raced. Her face sagged, and then her posture seemed to relax somewhat as she started through the opening and out around the desk. It then came to my attention that I was holding my breath, so I let it out slowly and took in a fresh lungful of air as I waited. She continued across the lobby toward the door, and when she was within a few feet, I slowly pulled the wallet away, flipped it shut and tucked it into my jacket pocket.

A moment later the deadbolt clicked, and she pushed the door open.

“How can I help you, officer?” she asked through a tired yawn. While her voice was definitely cloaked with the hallmark cadence of the region, her accent seemed to hail more from the mid-South; therefore, she lacked the clipping of syllables I’d learned to expect from natives of the area.

I felt a fresh chill traverse my spine, but this time it wasn’t a sense of excitement. It was more a sense of fear-but not for myself. I was afraid for her and the fact that she had so willingly believed I was a cop without closer inspection of my credentials. I tried my best not to let it show and instead simply pasted on what I believed to be an official looking expression.

“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” I launched into my spiel. “My name is Gant, I’m a special investigations consultant with the Major Case Squad in Saint Louis, Missouri.”

I had considered using an alias but figured I would just stumble over it if I did. Considering the amount of deception I was forcing myself to engage in all at once, I thought keeping it simple would be my best course of action. Besides, if I did this correctly, I could get away with a majority of planned misdirection and only a little actual falsehood. In fact, so far I hadn’t lied so much as tested the elasticity of a not quite current truth. I was, in fact, a consultant to the MCS, just not lately. Splitting hairs, I know, but I was trying to work within a scheme that would keep my anxiety at bay, otherwise I knew I would never be able to pull this off.

“I’d love to help you, hun, but cop or no, I still don’t have a vacancy.”

“Actually, ma’am, I’m here on official business,” I continued. “There was a homicide here last week, correct?”

“Yes, and I’ve been paying for it ever since,” she grumbled. “Fortunately, it hasn’t kept the Feds from renting the rooms.”

“So I see,” I acknowledged, pointing toward the neon sign. “Well, the reason I’m here is to look over the scene.”

She cocked her head then asked, “But I thought you said you were from Missouri, hun?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied with a nod. “I can’t really get into any details other than to say we have a couple of cases in Saint Louis that appear to be related to this one.”

“Like maybe a serial killer, you mean?” she pressed.

“I really couldn’t speculate about that,” I replied, shrugging as I shook my head. “I’m just here to look at the crime scene.”

She reached up with her free hand and rubbed her eyes, then shot a quick glance at her watch. Looking back to my face, she asked, “This couldn’t wait until morning?”

“I know.” I shook my head apologetically. “But the lieutenant sent me down here for a quick look. I just got in a little while ago and drove straight here. My flight back home leaves at ten so I only have a few hours.”

“They don’t give you much time to work, do they?”

“That’s just how it happens sometimes.”