About An Impossible Abduction:
What do you do when things go surreal?
When
things blow up on Matt Cramer, they can be messy. This time the mess
might be blood. Whatever it is, right now that bloody mess is all over
the walls.
A newly minted private investigator, Matt returned to Silver City, New Mexico to open his office. This isn’t a good start.
Josh,
the office painter, is missing and that’s not a good sign. Nor is the
ominous attitude of Officer Ravenwalk, or the fact that the local coffee
shop is owned by witches, or that Matt somehow has found himself
partnering with a shaman and the blood, if it is blood, is somehow tied
to a woman’s disappearance—a disappearance that might involve aliens.
Excerpt:
The sun was bright and hot in a clear sky that showed no hint of knowing what a cloud looked like, much less a sky that might offer hope of rain.
Matt and Cliff arranged to meet in a small, pleasantly green neighborhood park on Spring Street. On the way into town, Matt stopped at a convenience store on Hudson and picked up a couple of bottles of spring water. Now he walked over to where Cliff sat at an empty picnic table under a roof and handed him one.
“Thanks,” Cliff said, twisting off the top. “Dealing with spirits can dehydrate a person.”
“Sitting in the sun does it too. Did you get through to him?”
Cliff took a deep drink of water, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think so.”
“You think so?”
“It can be hard to tell. Ever have a friend who didn't really respond to things when you try to tell them something, they act like they didn’t even hear, but then get bugged if you ask if they heard you?”
“Yeah.”
“That's Coyote. He didn’t answer, but I think he heard. My guess, based on my experience, is that most spirits are self-absorbed beings, and, in his case, I don't have to guess. He is all about him.”
“Did he give any indication of Helen's whereabouts?”
Cliff snorted. “If she's with him, then he isn’t letting on.” He rocked his head back. “But it doesn’t feel right. None of this does.”
“This?”
“Coyote playing with a witch.”
“Do you think he is helping her somehow?”
“If she's really a witch,” he made the word sound dirty, “then it isn't a matter of helping her. If she used my spells to get to him, then what’s going on would be a power struggle.”
“A power struggle?”
“The spirits don’t get on with witches. There is some kind of one-upmanship going on. I don’t know enough about witchcraft to understand it. Never was interested in that sort of magic. The sun and moon, the stars, the healing properties of the things the spirits provide… those have been enough magic for me.”
“And Coyote.”
“Well, there are lots of spirits. My point is that if she used versions of my incantations to summon him when he opened the door —” he looked at me the way a grade school teacher does. “I’m talking about a virtual door into his world… to see what was going on, she probably jumped through.”
“Like a door-to-door salesman.”
“Good metaphor. I can picture her sitting on his couch working her ass off, selling him something he probably doesn't want or even care about. Too bad he can't just toss her out on her ear.”
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