Sydney, Australia
Aleksei Nechayev sipped his coffee as he booted up his laptop and connected to the Koala Café’s free wireless. This café had always been one of his favorites in Australia, primarily because it was open around the clock, which meant it was open during his prime hours in the middle of the night.
He smiled at his waitress who was now serving a group of college students who had come to the café for breakfast after a marathon night of partying. The waitress was quite pretty and he had grown fond of her during this trip to Sydney. She never questioned why he only appeared in the middle of the night and instead always offered him a trusting smile. She was too trusting, of course, but that only made her more appealing to him. Perhaps before he left the city he’d show her how wrong she had been to trust him.
As he always did when he got online, Aleksei went straight to the Alaska news websites. He missed his Arctic home and still couldn’t believe that when the Southern hemisphere winter ended he wouldn’t be returning to it this year.
He was already feeling at loose ends, especially since Katya, the girl he had chosen as his permanent companion, had abandoned him last month when he’d first brought her to Australia. She had laughed in his face and told him that he was too old and too conservative for her tastes. He had no idea where she had gone to, but she had taunted him with the knowledge that she already had her sights on a new boyfriend and couldn’t wait to explore what the world had to offer with him. Wherever she was, Aleksei only hoped she would one day come to a nasty and violent end.
The inquisitive Fairbanks detective Danny Fitzpatrick had ruined the peaceful home Aleksei had maintained in the Arctic town of Coldfoot for decades. He enjoyed checking in on the detective and, while he couldn’t help but feel a strange fondness for the man he had chosen to let live, he always hoped to find him struggling with some new problem. He was tickled to see that this time he got his wish.
Aleksei grinned from ear to ear as he read about the mysterious fires that were plaguing Fairbanks while the city suffered through its worst heat wave in history. How fascinating! And by all accounts, the police, including the dear detective, had no idea who was starting the fires or even how they were doing it.
Fire was one of the few things Aleksei feared and hated as much as humans did. He still remembered the time he had been nearly burned to death by a male witch not long after he’d arrived in Alaska. He couldn’t help but wonder if a supernatural force was responsible for these fires as well. Was there a witch on the loose in Fairbanks?
Since he was safe and sound on the other side of the world, Aleksei desperately hoped so. How would his favorite detective deal with a situation like that? And what of the fire starter? What was his, or her, motivation? What was the game?
His lousy winter here in Australia had suddenly taken a surprisingly lovely turn. Clearly, the summer in Fairbanks was turning out to be more horrific than anyone there could have imagined. He couldn’t wait to see how it all unfolded. It was going to be such fun.
****
Fairbanks, Alaska
“There’s nothing on the surveillance cameras out on the street to help us,” Danny said to Tessa, who was next to him at her desk. “We see the guy walking to the church with his hood up and his gloves on. He stops to pull the hood closer around his face right as he gets to the church. The bastard didn’t look up once.”
“You’d think someone would have noticed him dressed so peculiarly for this heat,” Tessa said. “Especially the gloves. Who walks down the street wearing gloves when it’s 90 degrees?”
“The uniforms are still canvassing but so far they haven’t turned up anything.”
It had been 24 hours since they’d discovered the burned body of Richard Phillips and the frustrated detectives were no closer to finding out who had committed the horrific crime. Worse, the media was running with the stories of the three burnings and the city was edging closer to a full-fledged panic.
“There’s something we’re missing,” Tessa said. “Anthony couldn’t find any cause to the fire, we can’t see the guy actually doing anything to start the fire on the video…” Her voice trailed off as she knew she was merely repeating words the cops had said over and over again to themselves and to each other.
Danny bit his tongue and continued watching the street surveillance footage on his computer. He was more certain than ever that he knew what they were missing. Or maybe he didn’t know exactly what it was, but he knew it wasn’t of this world. He knew it was something from the supernatural world whose existence Aleksei Nechayev had made all too real to him.
The ringing of the phone on his desk snapped Danny out of his trance.
“Fitzpatrick.”
“Detective, there’s a man on the phone who said he wants to speak with you about the fire case. He wouldn’t give his name but asked for you specifically.”
Danny rolled his eyes. Some nutcase, no doubt.
“Go ahead and transfer him,” he said.
Danny heard the click of the call coming to his line.
“This is Detective Fitzpatrick,” he said, propping the phone between his shoulder and his ear and he typed on his keyboard to bring up more surveillance footage.
“Hello, Detective.”
Danny’s fingers froze on his keyboard. He felt a chill wash over his body despite the boiling hot temperature in the office. He would never forget that voice. Aleksei Nechayev.
“Hello? Detective Fitzpatrick?”
Danny took the phone from his shoulder and sat up straight in his chair.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have expected a friendly greeting.”
Danny remained silent and noticed Tessa looking at him with a questioning expression on her face. He waved a hand as if to suggest the call was nothing and turned his back to his partner, relieved when he heard her get up from her chair and walk away from him. Still, he kept his voice low.
“I asked what you wanted. Why are you calling here?”
“I’ve just read about your new case that has Fairbanks buzzing. Or burning would be more accurate, wouldn’t it?”
“And?”
“And I wanted to hear more about it. Who do you think is behind it? How are they doing it? Oh wait, you don’t know the answer to that question, do you?”
“I’m hanging up. Don’t call here again.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t you even want to know how I’m doing? Where I am?”
Danny paused and looked at the caller ID on his phone. The number had been blocked. “You’re not here in Alaska, are you?”
“In the summer, are you kidding? With that sun I’d be burning up just like your victims. No, don’t worry; I’m far away from you on the other side of the world. I’m in Sydney, Australia to be exact. The Southern hemisphere is much healthier for me this time of year.”
“Okay. So I’ll ask you again. What do you want?”
“You got my postcard from St. Petersburg, didn’t you?”
“I did. And I sent an anonymous tip to the police that I had reason to suspect one of the most wanted murderers in the world was there in their city.”
“Right, of course you did. And I imagine you’ll be notifying the Sydney authorities as well. But before you do that, you might want to give it some thought. And you might want to look up an incident that happened to several St. Petersburg officers not long after you made your report. It was a terrible thing, really. A bloody mess. But Katya and I had a ball.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“I could say the same about you. I tried to send you a friendly greeting and you set the police on me.”
“I don’t have time for this. I’m working.”
“I know. That’s why I called. I want to talk about the case you’re working on. What do you think about it? Do you think a monster is behind it? A literal one, I mean.”
“You mean one like you?”
“Well, no. Trust me; my kind wouldn’t be setting fires. We hate them even more than you do.”
“So I’ve heard. Wish I’d known that when I went to Coldfoot.”
“I guess you should have done better research. Luckily for me you didn’t. But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“I have no idea who is doing it.” Danny paused and bit his lip. Should he really continue this conversation? Remembering the burned body of the Reverend Phillips, he answered his own question. Maybe he could actually get something useful from Aleksei. “Do you have any ideas?” he asked. “Is that why you’re calling?”
“You mean am I calling to help you? Maybe. I don’t really have anything else to do. Katya left me, if you can believe that. That little bitch.”
Danny couldn’t suppress a smile. At least Aleksei didn’t always get what he wanted.
“And it may interest you to know” Aleksei continued, “that I was almost killed by fire when I first came to Alaska.”
“Is that right? Too bad it was ‘almost.’”
He heard Aleksei’s chuckle on the other end of the line.
“You still hate me, obviously,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” Danny answered. “Obviously.”
“Regardless, I was almost burned to death by a Ukrainian who knew witchcraft. Black magic. That exists, did you know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Now you do. I became a bit of an expert on it after the attempt to burn me to death didn’t work. I wanted to know what I was up against if it ever happened again.”
“You’re an expert on witchcraft?”
“Not all of it. But fire magic is interesting to me. And wouldn’t it be interesting if that’s what is behind your cases there? What would you tell your colleagues? Or the media? Imagine what they’d do with a story like that.”
“Yeah, just imagine it.”
“Well, I merely called as a friend to offer you advice. You’d be smart to heed it. You might be able to stop this murderer in his tracks.”
“And why exactly do you want to help stop a murderer? I would think you’d actually be admiring his work.”
“I am. But I can’t abide his methods. I told you, I hate fire. And besides, I want to see what you’ll do with my advice. Will you consider this possibility at the risk of your career? How would it make you feel if your colleagues all considered you insane?”
“Believe me, that wouldn’t be anything too new for me. And thanks to you, there isn’t much I won’t consider. I really don’t need your advice.”
“If you do decide you’d like to know more about fire and witchcraft, you can always call me. My cell number is 4555-55555. The country code is 61 for Australia.”
“I don’t want or need your number. And I’m hanging up now. Don’t call me again.”
Danny ended the call before Aleksei could respond. He looked down at the notepad in front of him, on which he had scribbled Aleksei’s cell number. He tore the paper off the pad and stuck it in his drawer. There was no harm in writing it down. But he had no intention of ever calling it.
****
“Who was that on the phone?” Tessa asked. She walked towards Danny and sat back down at her desk.
“What? Oh, no one,” Danny said. “Some nut who wanted to let me know that the fires were a sign of the apocalypse.”
“Strange that he asked for you personally.”
Danny shrugged. “He probably read about my exploits up in the Arctic and remembered my name from that.”
“I guess so. Still nothing on the surveillance cameras?”
“No. And I’ve got nothing from the church donation list. There was nobody with a record or a history of trouble.”
“I’ve been going over the hospital employee records looking for something that stands out just in case our killer did know Max Fugate. There’s nothing though.”
“I guess it would be too easy to find an arsonist among Max Fugate’s colleagues, wouldn’t it?”
Danny got up from his chair and ran his hands through his mop of thick hair. He stared out at the sun beating mercilessly down on the sidewalk and watched the pedestrians who were walking past. Would one of these people be burned next? Or was one of them the arsonist who was doing the burning?
“Do you think he’ll send us another message?” he asked.
“I hope he does. Maybe it would give us something to work with.”
Danny flopped back into his chair. “This is a nightmare,” he said.
Tessa closed her laptop and stood up from her desk. “I’ve got an appointment to take Maya to the vet.”
“Something wrong?”
“No, she’s just due for her vaccinations. And I’m tired of looking at nothing here. I’m hoping that if I step away from it for a little while something will hit me when I come back.”
“That would be nice, but I don’t expect it. We’ve got a big old pile of nothing, period.”
“I’ll see you later. Call me if something breaks.”
Danny nodded and turned to his own laptop. It was true, he and Tessa had nothing. Or was there something they had that neither one wanted to consider? Danny had known from the time he’d seen the shadow in front of Nick Torrance that there was something strange about this case. He’d known it when he’d watched the faceless young man on the church surveillance camera burn Richard Phillips to a crisp without moving a muscle. But now Aleksei Nechayev had said aloud what Danny never could. There was something supernatural about this case.
There was a reason none of their conventional investigative methods were yielding any results. However these fires were happening, the method wasn’t of this world. It was part of something most people would never believe existed. Danny counted himself among those people who never would have believed it before he’d been forced to acknowledge the existence of the supernatural in the form of Aleksei Nechayev. Was the vampire now right about black magic? Amanda had mentioned magic when he’d told her about the chanting the kids at the baseball game heard. Maybe he should have followed up on her idea. But how could he go about doing that?
Danny clicked on his browser and glanced around the room to make sure no one was paying any attention to what he was doing. All he needed was for one of his colleagues to walk up on him and see him searching for magic shops. It would be even worse if Jack Meyer walked up on him and saw it. He’d never hear the end of it.
Convinced no one was watching him, Danny googled Fairbanks and magic. To his amazement, the city did have its own magic store called Locklear’s Metaphysical Mementos. Well, it was listed as a Wiccan store, but Danny figured it was probably the same thing. Or close enough anyway. As far as he knew, wiccans cast spells. They would likely have magical ingredients. Or whatever the hell people used to cast spells.
Part of him couldn’t believe he was following this train of thought. But then he remembered Aleksei staring at him with his fangs exposed. And the monster who had once been a teenager named Katie entering the room with the same fangs and the same bloodlust.
Danny browsed the online section of the store and clicked on cauldrons and amulets, rune stones and pendulums. He brought up spell ingredients such as bat's eye, dove's blood, and something called goofer's dust. Could someone use items such as these to start fires? Remembering the teens' report of hearing chanting at the baseball game prior to the fire, Danny clicked on a link for spell books. He rolled his eyes when he came upon a “spell-a-day” almanac.
Thinking he heard footsteps coming up behind it, Danny slammed his laptop shut lest anyone see what he was browsing. He glanced around and realized he had imagined the footsteps. It was nearly 8:00 and except for the night shift officers almost everyone had left the office. He scowled and grabbed his laptop from his desk as he stood up to do the same.
He could almost hear his old colleagues in Chicago laughing their asses off if they knew he was perusing a Wiccan store looking for spells to create fire. The majority of his Fairbanks colleagues already thought he was a crazy drunk. He couldn't really argue their point.
Danny walked outside and felt beads of sweat immediately gathering on his forehead. He got in his car and turned the air conditioning on full blast as he lit a cigarette and gratefully inhaled the nicotine. He couldn't let himself go off the rails with this case. Yes, he knew there was something odd about the fires. But he had come upon plenty of odd things in Chicago long before he'd ever heard the name Aleksei Nechayev. And they'd all had rational explanations.
He needed to follow Tessa's lead on this. She was right that they were simply missing a piece of the puzzle and the way to finding it was through good old-fashioned police work, not hocus pocus. Danny had solved the Nechayev case when a cold case he was working on bore striking similarities to Nechayev's last victim. That was how investigations worked sometimes. Days or weeks or even months of fruitless leads and tedious monotony until all of the sudden you connected a few dots and blew the whole thing wide open.
Danny may not know how their arsonist was setting his deadly fires but he did know that the man wasn't new to whatever game he was playing. No one was born a sophisticated criminal who was astute enough to taunt the police and media without getting caught. This guy had to have left a trail somewhere. Danny didn't need to worry about amulets or cauldrons or spells. He just needed to find that trail.
Feeling strangely invigorated, Danny pulled out of the parking lot and vowed to keep Aleksei Nechayev out of his head. He'd go home and spend the evening with Sox and watch some baseball. A night away from the case was just what he needed. He would start fresh tomorrow with the cold case arson files. He just had one stop to make before he went home.
He turned into his favorite liquor store and got out of the car. Getting Nechayev out of his mind wasn't going to be easy. Five minutes later, Danny returned to the car with a 12 pack of beer and a bottle of scotch. He needed a drink.
****