Page 15 of A Witchy Spell Ride
It slowed down every time it passed.
Once when Selene was sweeping the front step.
Once when Briar showed up carrying three coffee cups and a tarot deck.
Once when the shop was empty, but the upstairs light was on.
Could’ve been a coincidence.
Could’ve been a delivery.
Could’ve been nothing.
But my gut didn’t think so.
I snapped a photo on my burner, logged the time, logged the route. Marked it: 14:17, northbound, 6 mph, driver’s outline only. I didn’t post it to the club chat. Not yet. Information is a currency; you don’t spend it until you know the exchange rate.
And then waited. It doesn’t come back. Not today.
Later, I find Bones in the garage working on his bike with Banks at his side. Covered in grease, stripped down to the waist, cursing the carburetor like it owed him money. Banks was right there, sleeves rolled, sweat on his brow, joke ready for every snapped bolt. Whatever he was, he wasn’t the guy behind the wheel of that silver sedan. Not today. And that pisses me off. Because I want it to be him. I wanted my gut to be right. I want someone to pin this on.
But instinct wasn’t enough. Not yet.
I tuck the phone away and wipe the image from my memory folder. Not because I thought I was wrong, because I didn’t want to show my hand if the wrong eyes ever saw my phone. Sometimes caution looked like erasing your own trail.
Tonight, Selene has company. Briar again. They sit on the upstairs balcony, legs kicked up, sharing something from a flask and laughing like nothing in the world could touch them. I watch from the rooftop across the street, hidden behind a drainpipe and a row of dead plants. I don’t mind the silence. Don’t mind the waiting. That was the thing about women like Selene, they didn’t just walk into your head. They haunted it.
And I wasn’t sure if I was protecting her.
Or already in too deep.
When Briar finally leaves, midnight give or take. Selene does her ritual again. Lights off in sequence, salt line checked, hand pressed flat to the door like she could feel danger through wood. I track each movement, mapping her night-fall pattern: three windows, two turns of the deadbolt, one look through the peephole. She misses nothing but the thing that doesn’t announce itself, fixation. Fixation doesn’t breathe loud enough to be heard. It waits.
I move position, crossing to the alley, and set a mark at the back, a trick from another life. A thin hair tape across the bottom of the frame of the service door where she takes the trash out. Break the hair, I know someone opened it. I chalk the hinge with a line so small it looks like dust. Disturbance tells a story if you look for it.
At 02:11, the alley stirs. Not a person. A furtive series of sound, bottle clink, step, stop, step. Cats and men sound different in alleys, hunger vs. caution. I slide behind a dumpster and slow my breathing. The figure drifts into view, hood up, shoulders hunched like a man trying to make himself a smaller target. He ain’t Banks; this one moves like he’s learned to be invisible and got addicted to it. He stops at the back door of The Witch’s Garden. Looks up. Looks down. Touches the handle light, like a lover’s throat. Doesn’t pull. He steps back into shadow and waits.
I wait him out. Ten minutes. Fifteen. A train horn moans two neighborhoods over. Somewhere a drunk sings. At minute nineteen, he takes a single step toward the door and pausesagain, as if tasting the air. He changes his mind, pulls a cigarette, cups the flame, kills it before a drag. No smoke trail. No DNA. Careful. Smart.
He leaves.
I follow him to the mouth of the alley and stop, letting distance open between us. He turns the corner onto Chartres and blends with a trio of late-shift workers heading home. No way to extract without collateral. I clock his shoes instead, work boots, cheap, heels worn on the outside edge, stride short on the left like he’s taken a knock to the knee some months back. I store it away. Weaknesses are doors with bad locks.
I text Reaper a single word: “Movement.” He replies with a dot. He’s read it. He would not call me off.
The next morning, I set up on the river side and let the sunlight turn to glare. Selene comes out for coffee and pauses when a brass band slides into “When the Saints.” She smiles, but her shoulders stay tight. Briar shows up five minutes later, shoves a pastry into her hand, whispering something crude that makes Selene roll her eyes. I like Briar fine when she is being annoying. Annoying is a cover for brave.
The sedan returns. Different angle this time, against the flow, creeping uphill. I don’t move, just tilt my head so I can catch the driver through a reflection on a second-story window across the street. Reflection gives you more than a straight-on view if you know where to look. A face ghosts into focus for half a second, male, late twenties to mid-thirties, jaw tight, baseball cap low, beard trimmed. He scratches his cheek with two knuckles, not the first time I’d seen a man use that as a prearranged signal. Hemakes it two storefronts past the shop, brake lights blip, then he rolls on.
I photograph the reflection, not the car. Better to have a face than a plate you might never get.
Briar notices the car. I see it in the way her chin tips like a challenge. Selene doesn’t or she did and decides not to feed it. Hard to tell with her. She walks back inside, bells on the door chiming like small warnings.
I change positions again. The Quarter is a labyrinth; if you don’t keep moving, it will learn you and spit you out. Up a fire escape, down a stairwell, cutting through a courtyard where laundry hung like flags. I pass a hangaround I recognize from the bar scene, kid with a too-eager grin who introduced himself last week as Briggs and then pretended he hadn’t when he saw me again. He was headed the opposite direction with a box of cheap beer and a face that said he’d just been yelled at. He gave me a nod that asked for acceptance. I gave him one that said earn it. He looks past me toward Selene’s block and lingers a second too long. I file it. Not a conclusion. A thread.
By noon it’s heat and tourists. I duck into shade and let my heartbeat slow. I take inventory. Silver sedan. Hooded figure at 02:11. Hangaround on the periphery. Banks in the garage, grease on his knuckles and something else in his eyes, a need to be seen. None of it was proof. All of it was a pattern.
I send Vex a noncommittal: “You around?” He writes back: “Always. What’s broken?”
