To her left, a glass-topped case cracked and fell to the floor. Inside, an entire rack of jewelry slid to the floor on top of it, fake diamonds glittering. Shoppers raced in and grabbed up whatever was on the floor, one woman scooping glittery jewelry into her pocketbook, her hands like brooms. Security guards and the police from the electronics fight descended into the mess and arrested more people.
I watched the little girl as she watched the action. Occam looked back and caught the direction of my stare. He moseyed over, easy to do because he was wearing cowboy boots and jeans for this undercover op. “A kid? Naw,” he murmured.
“She’s the source of the magic. And I don’t see anyone watching for her. I think... I think she’s homeless. I think... she’s living here. In the store. Stealing food. Maybe she was abandoned? Or homeless and got lost? Thrown out by her parents because weird things were happening and they were afraid of her? Doing magic by accident maybe?”
To her right, an entire row of cosmetics hit the floor with a clatter. The little girl didn’t even turn that way.
“Who do we call?” Occam asked.
“Social Services for sure, but she’ll need a foster who can handle a witchling.”
“T. Laine,” he said, speaking of the unit’s resident witch. It was her day off, but she’d come for this. Occam pulled his cell to text JoJo at HQ. He also managed to wander around behind the wild child to cut off possible escape.
We didn’t approach the child, just appeared to shop as we wandered around her. She didn’t move.
Half an hour later T. Laine showed up and we formulated a plan to approach the little girl.
Lainie knelt near the child, as if inspecting a scarf on an endcap. She twirled her fingers, creating a flare of light, quickly extinguished. The little girl whipped her head to the side, her eyes on T. Laine. Without looking at her, Laine said, “It’s not bad. It’s not dangerous. It’s just a gift, like being able to see or smell or taste.”
“You’un’s a witch. You’un’s gonna burn in hell. Maybe on a stake first.”
My heart fell to my feet. The little girl was speaking church-speak, the accent that set the members of God’s Cloud of Glory apart from most other people of Appalachia.
“Nope,” Lainie said, quickly adopting the accent I had used all my life until I joined PsyLED, the Psychometric Law Enforcement Department of Homeland Security. “Ain’t nobody gonna hurt me. ’Cause I’m a police officer and I got a gun to go with my magic. I can keep myself safe.”
The little girl blinked, slowly. “Safe?” The single word was a tone of disbelief, hope, and pain all at once. “I ain’t never been safe.”
T. Laine’s face underwent a series of reactions, too fast to interpret, but leaving tears in her eyes. “I’ll keep you safe. My name is Lainie. What’s your name?”
“Rebecca the witch.”
“Well, Rebecca, how about we go to the McDonald’s over there in the corner, get a hamburger and a milkshake.” Laine held out her hand. Slowly, Rebecca placed her Cheeto-grubby hand into Lainie’s. Together they walked to McDonald’s, placed an order, and took seats in the back, heads bent close in conversation.
“Looks like Lainie’s got a houseguest for the night.” Occam handed me a crisp hundred-dollar bill. “She’ll need some stuff. Go shopping. I’ll keep watch.”
I nodded and found a buggy, taking the aisles through the toys and dolls and stuffed animals and then children’s clothes and toiletries, picking out both sensible and frivolous things to wear and play with. Working out all the holy hell I was planning to bring down on the church come morning.
I finished shopping fast and paid with Occam’s hundred, adding everything I had in my pocket. Because Christmas shopping mattered.
A social worker appeared through the doors slightly before ten p.m. T. Laine and Rebecca the witch left the store, hand-in-hand. Occam and I took a break in McDonald’s and dined on shakes and fries and watched the shoppers. Thinking about a little girl abandoned and hiding and finally rescued, on Black Friday.
How Occam Got His Name
First appeared as a serial short, as part of a blog tour in 2018. It is written from the point of view of Occam and answers fan questions about the origins of the were-leopard special agent.
“ ’Em’s the biggest bobcat prints I ever seen,” Wayman said.
Trace knelt, his .30-06 pointing at the sky, and angled the flashlight to see better. He held his hand, fingers spread, over the paw print. “They’re bigger ’an my hand.”
“I hope we see it.” Wayman knelt beside him, his blue jeans appearing in the circle of light. “Maybe we should come back with a raccoon trap and catch him.”
“I think this bobcat would eat us for dinner and still be hongry.”
“Nah,” Wayman said. “We’ll jist wave our arms and jump up and down and yell a lot. My daddy says my voice is so high that it’d scare off the devil hisself.”
Trace had to agree with that. At the Halloween carnival last year, when a zombie clown popped up in front of them, Wayman screamed so high the guy in the clown suit ran. It hurt everybody’s ears but it was so funny nobody cared. “I don’t know, Wayman. Something about the prints bothers me. They’re too big.”
“Maybe one a’ your daddy’s demon sermons is scaring you. Trust me, Trace.” Wayman shined his flashlight into Trace’s face and backed away. “Demons ain’t got paws and claws.”
