The Shine

Killing time

The detective called me. It's hard to remember now what she used to be like when I first met her. She used to be in control of everything and everyone. She scared me. She was scary. Now I think she's being held together by gum and shoestrings. She sounds like she belongs on a reality show about cheating boyfriends not enforcing the law.

She asked me not to do anything until she got to Grapevine. In the old days she would have told me, not asked. I wasn't eager to do more with the Swede, so Gary and I spent a couple of days hanging around his house being awkward.

We talked about the ritual a little but but otherwise we didn't have much to occupy our time. I asked him what he used to do in his spare time before I showed up. He said that he worked most of the time. Or was doing evil magic shit.

I asked him if he wanted to work out with me. I've heard physical atcitivy makes people feel better. Instead he opted for drinking a lot and watching porn on his 72-inch TV at full volume for hours. An amount of booze and porn that would make a frat boy concerned.

When the detective got there, she was composed and confident and she looked like a million bucks. She had the appearance of what she used to be. The first thing she did was put Gary in cuffs and throw him in a closet. Then she went around the house collecting his guns. When I asked her what she was doing she ignored me and started searching the house. I went out by the pool and listened to a book.

Hours later, she came outside and told me that she was there because the Swede and his friends are under surveillance. She said they were part of a sex trafficking ring. She went into a lot of gross detail about it. She must have been trying to provoke me.

There were a lot of holes in her story. Holes that she refused to address. I asked her what that had to do with her flying across country and throwing Gary in a closet. She said that we were going to kill the Swede and his men. I told her I wasn't going to kill anyone.

She said these are evil men and we can stop them. I said she could arrest them if she wanted to stop them. She said no, they had to die. I told her that I don't kill people. She said that all magic users were murderers. I told her that I am not, As we argued, her façade of self-control fell away.

She told me a rambling illogical story about her husband being undercover with a cult and somehow that had something to do with the Swede and him dying. She begged me to help her kill these men. Begged me.

It was awful.

I wanted to ask her why she needed my help, but I knew why she was asking. They can use magic against her so she needs someone magic on her side. I wanted to run away. Fuck her. Fuck Gary. Fuck whatever this is. Get out of there and forget about the whole thing.

But I didn't do that.

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