M Sellars - Never Burn A Witch

He had arrived hot on the heels of the uniformed Briarwood officers who had been first on the scene. They were in the process of verifying my ID when his van fishtailed to a halt in front of my house, a magnetic bubble light on the corner of its roof casting evenly spaced red flickers across the faces of my neighbors homes.

Now, as we spoke, the Crime Scene Unit was gathering what little evidence they could from my defaced garage door. A thorough inspection of the house had revealed nothing to indicate that the perpetrator of the painting ever made it inside, or even tried to for that matter.

“I’m not gonna yell,” he replied with a tired sigh. “I’ve discovered it doesn’t do any good with you. You aren’t scared of me.”

I didn’t say anything else. I simply took a sip of my coffee then held the cup cradled in my hands. Felicity and Austin had returned and were positioned around the dining room table with me. They remained silent as well.

When Felicity had returned, she jumped from the Jeep and hit the ground in full motion the moment she saw me standing in the driveway with Ben and the other officers. She slammed into me with all the force her petite frame could muster while running in a long, far less than billowing, wool skirt. She had clenched her arms around me, and the very first thing she said was, “For as long as you live Rowan Linden Gant you NEVER ask me to do something like that again, or I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

I knew she meant it.

Ben leaned against the wall then neatly folded his arms across his chest and eyed me calmly. “So what exactly were ya’ plannin’ ta’ do if that asshole had been in the house?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted with an embarrassed shrug.

“Good plan.” He added a raised eyebrow and quick nod of his head to underscore the sarcastic statement.

“I know… I screwed up.”

“Yeah, ya’ did,” he agreed. “You started by gettin’ here before eleven, which I specifically told ya’ not ta’ do. Both of ya’. If you’d just stuck ta’ the damn schedule, I woulda been here already. Now other than that, ya’ did great right up until you got outta the Jeep.”

“Yeah. I know,” I conceded.

“You entered a potentially dangerous scene unarmed and completely unprepared. It’s beyond me what ya’ were thinkin’.”

“I was thinking this guy needs to be stopped.”

“Yeah, I can agree with that. But just how did ya’ think you were gonna do it?”

“I hadn’t gotten that far yet.”

“Jeez, Rowan,” he exclaimed. “Whatever’s got ya’ all outta whack on the hocus-pocus stuff must be affectin’ your judgment too. What ya’ did was just plain stupid!”

My friend fell silent and studied me from across the room. I wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, but the glassy shimmer in his eyes told me that he was wrestling with something that was going to involve a serious decision.

“You’d do it again, wouldn’t ya’?” he finally asked.

I pondered the question with a frown and after a moment doled out the truth, “Given the circumstances, yes, I probably would.”

“Storm?” A deeply timbered voice vied for attention from the kitchen doorway.

“Yeah, Murv, whatcha got?” Ben turned to the head crime scene technician.

“A lot of nothin’,” the man drawled. “No prints, no fibers, no nothin’. Looks like whoever it was just did the spray job and beat feet… And they apparently did that entirely on solid ground ‘cause there’s not a fresh imprint in the snow anywhere around this house.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

The CSU tech shrugged. “Got samples of the paint for the lab, not that I’m expecting much.”

“Great, thanks,” Ben told him. “Why don’t you and your team go ahead and wrap it up.”

“Will do.”

“Austin?” Ben directed himself at my brother-in-law.

“Aye?”

“Can you hang out for a bit and keep Felicity company?”

“Aye, no problem that.”

“Good. Come on, Rowan, let’s you an’ me take a walk.”

“This,” Ben told me, “is a Glock Seventeen.”

We were standing on the street at the back of his decrepit looking Chevrolet van. The doors were splayed open, and he had just withdrawn his large hand from a gym bag. In his palm was a sturdy black holster filled with the handgun he was now describing.

“Austrian designed, mounted on a lightweight, high impact plastic frame,” he continued as he unsnapped the holster and withdrew the firearm. “Magazine releases here.”

He held the pistol out into the glow of the streetlamp with the muzzle pointed at the ground and displayed the grip to me. Using his thumb he pressed the release and slid the magazine out with his other hand.

“Ben…” I started to object as I realized where this was heading.

“Shut up and learn.” He cut me off succinctly and then began indicating points on the weapon with his index finger. “Sights are here and here. This is a semi-automatic, and the firing pin is fully enclosed here, so there’s no hammer like on your revolver. The slide is spring-loaded and it’s actuated each time you fire, so keep your thumb down and out of its way, or it’ll take a chunk outta it. Guaranteed. There’s a safety here. You depress it automatically when ya’ squeeze the trigger, so the only thing it’s good for is keepin’ it from firin’ if ya’ drop it. Follow me so far?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“This is a high capacity magazine.” He held up the oblong rectangle for me to view. “It holds seventeen nine-millimeter rounds.” He turned the magazine at an angle to display the blue nosed bullets it carried. “These are Glaser Safety Slugs. They’re eighty-grain rounds with number twelve shot suspended in Teflon gel. They’re specifically designed to frag on impact and not ricochet. This does two things. One, ya’ don’t send a wild round through the wall and kill your neighbor. Two, they make a very nasty mess of soft targets. If you hit ‘im you’ll fuck ‘im up. Guaranteed.”

He turned the magazine back on its side and made a show of sliding it into the bottom of the grip. “Mag goes here, just slide it in till it locks.” The telltale snap of the catch taking hold punctuated his instruction. “Pull the slide back, let it go, and it’s ready to rock.”

Ben jacked the metal slide on the weapon backwards as he stated the instruction then released it. With a quick mechanical snap and a metallic ping, a shell was extracted from the magazine and chambered. He lifted the Glock and continued his demonstration.

“Hold it firmly, cup your left hand and press the knuckles of your right hand into your left palm. Extend your arms and pull back with your left while pressin’ forward with your right. Use equal pressure and ya’ get a stable firin’ position. No stupid TV bullshit or anything. Hold it upright and use both hands. Sight down the barrel just like you would with your revolver and squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it.

“If it misfires or jams, don’t panic. Just turn it on its side and repeat what I just showed you. Just rack it and return to the firing position. Got it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

Ben carefully slid the sidearm back into the nylon holster and snapped the loop over the grip before handing it to me. “I want that on your belt at all times. Any questions?”

I could smell the pungent odor of solvent and light oil wafting from the handgun as I hefted it. It had obviously been very recently cleaned. This told me that Ben hadn’t made this decision on the spur of the moment as I had originally believed. There had been serious thought involved, and he had intended to arm me even before the incident tonight. Still, I wasn’t sure how comfortable I was with the idea.