The 5th Witch Read online

  Thunder bellowed, and the ground shook so violently that mock-Greek statues tipped over, and the surface of the fish ponds shuddered. Dan could see the SWAT sergeant shouting into his helmet mike, and although he couldn’t hear what the officer was saying, he could guess because the two helicopters abruptly angled away from the roof of the house and headed back toward the hills, each still trailing two burning ropes behind it.

  As the beat of their engines faded, the explosives experts hurried away from the front porch, yelling, “Fire in the hole!”

  There was a long pause. Then they yelled it again. “Fire in the hole!” But still nothing happened.

  The SWAT sergeant stalked up to them in fury. “What the hell is wrong here? Blow those goddamn doors!”

  Dan said, “I have to stop this. This is insane. It’s going to be a massacre.”

  Ernie said, “Dan—”

  “For Christ’s sake, El Gordo, admit it! It’s black magic! They don’t stand a frigging chance!”

  Dan dodged his way across the garden and ran across the driveway. Blood and smoking flesh were splattered everywhere. One of Vasquez’s SUVs was draped in pale pink intestines, like a wedding car, and there was a Kevlar helmet with a head still in it lying in one of the flower beds.

  Dan climbed the steps to the porch. The SWAT sergeant was pacing in agitation while the two explosives experts were desperately fiddling with the C2 charge on the door.

  “This was supposed to be a surprise operation!” the sergeant was shouting at them. “A frigging surprise, get it? You might as well have sent them a polite letter to tell them what time we were coming!”

  “It’s the C2, sir. It’s changed consistency. For some reason it won’t detonate.”

  “It smells bad, too. Jesus, it smells like something dead.”

  “Sergeant!” said Dan. “You really have to call this off. What I told you—you’ve seen it for yourself! Vasquez has the power to wipe out all of us if he wants to, just like those poor bastards on the roof.”

  The SWAT sergeant ignored him and beckoned impatiently to three of his men trotting up the driveway, carrying a heavy, black breaching ram. “Let’s have that baby here, now! If we can’t blow this goddamned door down, let’s knock it off its goddamned hinges.”

  “Sir,” Dan persisted. “What do you think happened up there with those rope-sliders?”

  “A goddamned flamethrower by the look of it, and grenades. How should I know? Now clear the area, Detective, before I have you forcibly cleared.”

  “There was lightning, sir. And thunder.”

  The SWAT sergeant looked up at the sky. “Do you see a storm, Detective?”

  “No, sir, I don’t, and that’s my whole point. That lightning was created by unnatural forces.”

  “Right!” shouted the SWAT sergeant. “Stand back and let’s effect some dynamic entry!”

  Six of the SWAT officers positioned themselves around the porch, their submachine guns aimed at the doors, while one of them hefted up the breaching ram.

  “Hold it!” Dan shouted. “I swear to God, you don’t want to do this!”

  The SWAT sergeant lowered his head for a moment like a man trying very hard to keep his temper. Then, without looking at Dan, he said, “You have three seconds to give me a three-word reason why not.”

  “There’s a witch inside. Vasquez has a witch. She can kill you as soon as look at you. Or blind you. Or worse.”

  “A witch? As in, The Wicked Witch of the West?”

  “Not a fictional character, sir. A real witch. She was the one who caused the chief to puke up a toad, and she was the one who killed those guys on the roof just now.”

  At that moment, Deputy Chief Days came striding up, accompanied by Captain Kromesky and Lieutenant Cascarelli. He looked around at the lumps of flesh that littered the driveway, and his mouth turned downward in disgust and disbelief.

  “You shouldn’t be here, sir,” said the SWAT sergeant. “We’re just about to breach the front doors.”

  “Oh, now you’re going to breach the front doors?”

  “We had a technical glitch, sir. It’s all under control.”

  “It’s all under control, is it? Four good men have been blown to smithereens and the media are starting to show up, and you’re standing around here with your finger up your rear end.”

  “It’s my fault, sir,” Dan put in. “I’ve been advising the sergeant to exercise extreme caution. The White Ghost has a woman in there with very dangerous capabilities.”

  “A witch, apparently,” said the SWAT sergeant.

  Deputy Chief Days stared at Dan and said, “I saw you before at the hospital, didn’t I, when the chief was taken in?”

  “Yes, sir, you did, sir, and I was trying to warn you about the same woman then. Or women. There’s more than one of them. Four, in fact.”

  “Are you on something, Detective?”

  “No, sir. You’ve seen it for yourself. The hurricane at Chief O’Malley’s house. The toads. And now this. These four guys getting blown apart.”

  Deputy Chief Days closed his eyes for two or three seconds. Then he said, “Get this officer out of here. I’ll deal with him in the morning. Meantime, I want those doors open right now, and I want Vasquez and everybody else in that house arrested on every charge you can think of.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, then,” said Deputy Chief Days. “If that two-bit Colombian traqueto thinks he can declare war on the entire Los Angeles Police Department and get away with it, he has a very rude awakening in store. I’ll have his balls.”

  “Everybody in their positions?” shouted the SWAT sergeant. “Let’s do it!”

  “Listen!” said Dan. “You should at least know what you’re up against here! Cordon off the house, don’t let Vasquez leave—but before you try to break in there, I have a friend who can tell you exactly what these witches are capable of!”

  “I said, get this loony tune out of here,” said Deputy Chief Days.

  One of the SWAT officers took hold of Dan’s arm and firmly pulled him away from the house. “Okay, take it easy,” Dan told him. “I’m going.” All the same, the SWAT officer took him all the way back to the gates and pushed him out onto the sidewalk.

  “Just keep back, sir, please? Sergeant Miller’s not the kind of guy you need to get riled.”

  Dan said, “You want some advice? Stay out here in the street. Make like you’re having trouble persuading me to go home.”

  “What exactly are you talking about, sir?”

  “I’m talking about saving your life, son. That’s all.”

  “I’m not chicken, sir.”

  “I never suggested you were. But one day you’re going to find out that there’s a difference between ‘chicken’ and ‘prudent,’ and I just hope it isn’t today.”

  Ernie was waiting for Dan outside. On the other side of Rosewood Avenue, behind a police cordon, a crowd of reporters and TV cameramen had already gathered, as well as local residents in their nightwear.

  “I’m sorry, muchacho,” said Ernie. “You can’t explain anything to people who won’t listen. We have a saying in Mexico: You can tell a joke to a stone but don’t expect it to laugh.”

  They heard a hollow bang as the ram struck the heavy oak doors. Then another bang and another. Then shouting as the SWAT team poured into the house. Dan could see the lights from their guns rapier fencing with each other in the hallway.

  They waited two or three minutes, but nothing happened. There was no more shouting, no more movement. Nobody came out of the house.

  Dan looked at Ernie, and Ernie looked at Dan. “What the hell’s going on? It’s total silence.”

  Dan waited a moment longer, then walked across the road to the lead SWAT van, where a young communications officer with spiky hair was perched in front of his radio set. Dan showed him his badge and said, “What’s happening, officer? It’s all gone quiet in there.”

  The officer lifted one of his headphones away f
rom his ear. “Every channel suddenly went dead on me, sir. I can’t get nothing but static. It could have been that lightning.”

  “Okay. Just keep trying.”

  Dan looked along the police cordon. Fifteen or sixteen cops had gathered there now, most of the backup, including the dog handler and his German shepherd. They were standing around talking. The three ambulances had been called forward, too, and were waiting at the far end of Rosewood Avenue.

  The crowd was very subdued, speaking in wavelike murmurs, as if they were already attending the funeral of the men who had been killed.

  Dan went back to Ernie. “Still nothing?” he asked.

  “Still nothing. Come on, it’s only been three or four minutes. They’re probably putting the bracelets on them right now.”

  As they were standing there, though, a sergeant and a patrolman from Metro came up to them and said, “We lost radio contact. Did they collar Vasquez yet?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The sergeant was big and beefy with sandy hair and tangled eyebrows. He gave a sharp sniff, then he said, “Deputy Chief Days is in there. I think for the sake of our pensions we should make sure that he’s not in any trouble. Morales, let’s get a half dozen of the boys together. The worst they can do is accuse us of overreacting.”

  He strode back to the police cordon to assemble his men. As he did so, Dan touched Ernie on the arm and said, “I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going back to take a look. I have to.”

  “You’re not going in there by yourself?”

  “I’ll be okay. Or maybe I won’t be okay. But I still have to go.”

  “You’re loco! Wait for the backup!”

  “Listen, Ernie, if that witch has done what I think she’s done, I can’t expect any of those other young guys to go in there. They have wives. They have girlfriends. They have children, most of them. What do I have? A recurring nightmare of Gayle.”

  “Dan—this is one thing you shouldn’t do. It’s quiet, for sure, but maybe it’s quiet because the SWAT team has them all rounded up.”

  Dan listened. Still nothing from the house. He looked across at Ernie and from the expression on his face, Ernie could see that Dan was going to go anyhow.

  “I’ll cover you. Any sign that something’s gone wrong, you get out of there, pronto. And that’s an order.”

  Dan didn’t stop to argue that he had seniority—at least as far as length of service and pay grades were concerned. He lifted his gun and entered the gardens, stepping through the ornamental flower beds with the rosebushes catching at his pants. He circled around the fishponds until he could see directly onto the porch.

  The gardens were well lit, and the double doors were wide open, but inside the hallway it was unnaturally dark. Dan hesitated for a moment, then crossed the driveway, walking crabwise, his gun held in both hands. He climbed the steps of the porch, peering into the hallway, straining to see if there was anybody there.

  “Anybody there?” he called. “Deputy Chief Days?”

  He waited. Nothing.

  “If there’s anybody there, you’d better come on out and show yourselves.”

  Another long silence. Then he heard a hoarse voice shout, “Hey! Detective! What are you doing?” Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the gingery police sergeant was stomping up the driveway toward him, accompanied by six or seven other officers, four of them carrying.223 carbines.

  He lifted his hand to indicate that the police should stop where they were. When he turned back toward the house, he saw a tall, pale figure in the darkness of the hallway.

  “Hey, come on out!” he shouted. “Come out where I can see you! And keep your hands up!”

  “Please—it is not necessary to shoot!” called a Hispanic-accented voice, although it sounded amused more than frightened.

  Out onto the porch like an actor playing Othello stepped Orestes Vasquez, with his hands half lifted. He was dressed in a white silk robe and white silk mules. His eyes, as usual, were dead and expressionless, but Dan could have sworn that—as Vasquez emerged from the shadows—he was wearing the ghost of a smile.

  Vasquez was followed by Lida Siado. She was wrapped in a complicated arrangement of black loose-weave shawls, all overlapping and fastened together with decorative silver pins. Her hair was tied up in a black silk turban with a huge glittering brooch made of emerald and ruby crystals pinned to the prow of it. The brooch was fashioned to look like a green human skull with a red snake sliding through its eye sockets.

  Dan could see four more figures behind them in the hallway—the bulky shapes of Vasquez’s bodyguards.

  “I need all of you to step outside with your hands where we can see them,” he called out. “I need you to do it in slo-mo, you understand me? Sergeant, let’s keep these clowns covered, shall we?”

  The gingery sergeant had needed no telling. He had already fanned his men out around the driveway, with their carbines lifted. Dan thought: Even a witch must be aware what a 60-grain .223 TAP polymer-nosed bullet can do to the human body.

  “All right, Mr. Vasquez,” he said, “you want to tell me what’s happened to our SWAT teams?”

  Orestes Vasquez leaned toward Lida Siado and murmured something in Spanish. Lida Siado nodded and said, “Accidente tragico.”

  Orestes Vasquez looked back at Dan and gave him a shrug. “You heard what Ms. Siado said? A most tragic accident.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Accident? What are you talking about?”

  “I am very sorry. None of them survived.”

  “They’re dead? Are you pulling my chain?”

  Orestes Vasquez shrugged again. “It was most unfortunate. There was nothing at all that we could do.”

  Dan lowered his gun. “Mr. Vasquez, there were twelve heavily armed men in those two SWAT teams. And the deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department was here, too, along with two of his senior officers.”

  “I am very sorry, Detective. We were powerless. We had no idea that they were police—they came bursting in before we could warn them.”

  “Warn them?” demanded the gingery police sergeant, harshly. “Warn them of what?”

  “Tonight is a very special night in the mythical calendar of Colombia. Tonight we hold a ceremony to celebrate the creation of the world.”

  “What is this shit?”

  “You should not underestimate it, Detective, or insult it. It is the very power from which the world was first made. Unfortunately, it can be very dangerous to those who do not understand it.”

  “Where are the SWAT teams, Mr. Vasquez? What have you done to them?”

  “I will let you see for yourself. Please…follow me.”

  Dan climbed the steps, and the gingery sergeant followed him with his officers close behind. Vasquez’s bodyguards stepped forward to block their way, but Vasquez said, “No…let them in. All are welcome to witness the terrible power of Father Naimuena.”

  “Just keep your hands where we can see them,” Dan told him.

  Vasquez and Lida Siado led them along the hallway, switching on the lights as they went, one chandelier after another. Like everything else in the house, the chandeliers were strikingly modern, like showers of shattered crystal. The floor was tiled in shiny white marble, and there were abstract paintings on each side in the styles of Pollock and Mondrian and Kandinsky.

  By the time they reached the end of the hallway, it was glittering with light from one end to the other. Ahead of them was a pair of cream-painted doors with triangular gold handles. Orestes Vasquez turned around, and for the first time Dan noticed that there were fine speckles of blood on the lapels of his white silk robe.

  “In here…this is my library,” said Vasquez. “In here, we were holding our celebration when your police officers came bursting in. You can see by the marks on the doors where they battered them open, although it wasn’t at all necessary. The doors were not locked.”

 
“They surprised you?” said Dan. “How the hell could you be surprised? You had two helicopters hovering right over your roof, your front gates were blown open with explosive, and your front doors were knocked open with a breaching ram.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” said Lida Siado. “During the celebration of the creation of the world, none of us is aware of anything real.”

  “Well, you’re absolutely right there. I don’t understand.”

  “In the very beginning, when there was nothing, the world was created by an illusion. Father Naimuena attached the illusion to the thread of a dream and kept it there by nothing more than his own breath. It was a mirage, a mystery. For a while, we lose our consciousness of the physical world and become part of that mirage.”

  “Where are the SWAT teams?” Dan demanded. “Where is Deputy Chief Days?”

  “Listen. Before you see them, you must understand what has happened to them. When we are lost in the mirage, we are guarded from harm by the spirit of the Night Wind, and the kukurpa creatures that always follow in the Night Wind’s wake.”

  “The what?” asked the gingery sergeant. “What the frig are you telling us, lady?”

  “I have told you all you need to know. Now you can see for yourself. Open the doors.”

  Without hesitation, one of Vasquez’s bodyguards opened the double doors. Inside, it was very gloomy, but Dan could make out a large hexagonal room with a high ceiling that reached right up to the second story. On the far side of the library was a tall window, which must have looked out over the gardens at the rear of the house. The night was still inky black, so Dan could see his own reflection, like an explorer looking into the mouth of a cave.

  One of the officers said, “Jesus, what’s that smell?”

  Dan sniffed. A thick, nauseating stench was rising out of the library, both metallic and sour.

  “Let’s have some illumination on the subject, shall we?” said the gingery sergeant.