Page 33 of Thunder Road

“You mean the usual wardings, protections, raising of protective spirits, and witchy, Voudon and Hoodoo spells to keep the dark energies at bay? Yes. I hate to think what October would be like without them.” Vic’s initial skepticism had given way to a deep and sincere appreciation of the role Myrtle Beach’s supernatural protectors played in quietly helping to keep the peace and avert harm.

“You and me both,” Ross replied.

Vic’s computer pinged, and he downloaded the file that arrived.

“What’s that?”

“A hunch. I know we went through all the missing person reports, and it looks like the troll is abiding by his truce. But my cop radar doesn’t believe it. If we haven’t found a paper trail,maybe the troll is smart enough to pick people who won’t be noticed.”

“I think you’re probably right, but I’m not sure how we prove it,” Ross said.

“I’m working on that part. I figured I’d start with the usual caseworkers, shelter staff, night shift folks. Ask who hasn’t been around in a while, and figure out who just moved on and who disappeared.”

“That’s a thin line with the folks at rock bottom,” Ross said. “So many of them are totally disconnected—no family, no friends, no attachments. We usually only know something went wrong when we find a body. But without that?—”

“Yeah, I know. Makes the perfect crime. The troll is ancient, so he knows where to look for easy food and not get caught. Then again, maybe he prefers healthier stock.”

“What are you hoping to find?” Russ settled in with a fresh tablet and pen.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a dead end. But I’ve got a hunch the troll is too hungry to just stick to his bargain, especially if he can cheat. That way he gets one assured meal without angry people hunting him, and there’s nothing stopping him from snatching extras that won’t be missed.”

“Even if we put a list together of suspected missing persons, we can’t prove the troll did it.”

“No,” Vic admitted. “But if he’s taking people, then we aren’t breaking the truce to go after him. The same way we’d go after a serial killer targeting the same group.”

“Does this have something to do with rules of magic?”

“I guess it does. According to Simon, the real thing is different from most of what’s on TV. There are rules of engagement and etiquette that are taken very seriously. Breaking them can cause serious penalties.”

“We’re talking about a troll. Super old and very powerful. Why would he care?” Ross sounded skeptical but interested.

“He made a pact to keep from being hunted. If he breaks the bargain, all bets are off.”

“Could Simon and his friends kill the troll?” Ross looked intrigued.

“I hope we don’t have to find out. But if he’s right about the lighthouse keepers being guardians and having something to do with protecting the Grand Strand, then maybe there’s more than one way to limit the damage the troll can do,” Vic said.

“Here’s how I understand it—although Simon might snicker at my translation,” Vic continued. “When the lighthouse keepers started their protections, it put limitations on the troll, even if it didn’t kill him. That kept him from overfeeding. From something Simon found out, he can’t make people vanish over and over without taking a break in between to recharge, which works in our favor. Except we don’t know for sure how long he takes to power back up or when the timer started over again. Many decades later, the motorcycle club offered him guaranteed meals without repercussions, and whether in good faith or bad, the troll took the deal—not long after the lighthouses became automated.”

“Maybe he always planned to cheat. Or he waited to make sure that the keepers—guardians—were really gone before he started to break the deal. If he’s really ancient, perhaps in the past he had a different deal to clean up the vagrants, and as long as he took the people no one missed, the hunters didn’t intervene.”

“Harsh.”

“But possible,” Vic argued, and Ross shrugged in acknowledgment.

A couple of hours working their contacts yielded a list of several dozen possible disappearances going back a few years.

“None of them were on the missing persons list we started with,” Vic noted when he and Ross finished their calls. “Their habits weren’t regular enough for anyone to be sure they hadn’t just gone off on their own accord—wherever off might be.”

Police work involved seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly of human nature—and the places where community and government systems failed. Non-profits did the best they could with the resources they had, but there was always the need for more. Too often, bad people—or creatures—exploited those gaps, knowing it would be easy to avoid detection.

“I don’t know whether to be furious or depressed,” Ross confessed. “I wish the community could do better. But I don’t know how to fix the problems.”

“Yeah. Same. Which means we just tackle the little corner that we can affect and take it as a win.” Making peace with a broken system was a survival skill cops learned early. Not being able to ignore the consequences drove plenty of them to drink.

“How do you think this is going to play out?” Ross asked. “If we can’t kill the troll, and he won’t keep the bargain, does he just keep taking people?”

“From everything Simon’s found, during the years that the lighthouse keepers were guardians and worked their wardings, it reined in the troll. That’s what we’re hoping to find out more about tomorrow, visiting the sites,” Vic said.

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