The Framing of Jon Smith

[joegoda]

18265 / 50000 words. 37% done!

"I can see the horizon lighting up," Dick said as we sped towards the warehouse district. "I wonder if Betty ever called the fire department."

"Let's hope so," I said, looking at the orange glow coming from the direction we were headed. "Cuz it doesn't look good, Dick."

"No, old son." He nodded grimly, taking a corner at twice his normal cautious speed. "No, it doesn't. Let's just hope nobody got hurt." He paused a bit and his jaw tightened. "You said that you think someone is trying to kill Mary. Got a reason for that suspicion?"

"Huh," I grunted. "Sparky was a hint. He said he wanted to be down at the fire to keep it from getting worse. I think that's because someone, or someones, was going to be there and Sparky was going to act as damage control. Like he said, he could direct the fire."

"But he wasn't even a real Salamander," Dick reasoned. "He didn't have any real abilities. Did he?"

"Hell, Dick," I shrugged. "Who knows. As far as all that magical stuff goes, I don't have any real abilities. Mine fall more into the realm of psychic stuff."

"Seems to me, Johann, that you know a lot more than you let on, at times." Dick's tone was a bit heavier than I'd like and it made me a bit nervous.

"I have," I told him, "dabbled here and there and gotten to know a lot of pretty powerful Elite. I've never gotten past doing what you know I can do. That doesn't mean that I'm not aware of a lot more, I just don't have the ability or knowledge."

It was true. I've been around the block five or twenty times, and I've seen my share of demons and bad things and horrible things. I've even done one or two horrible things on the road and fought a couple of demons. I even have the scars to show for it, all they're all on the inside. Demons don't scar bodies as much as they scar souls. Bodies heal. The real world is always much worse than is supposed. It's always much better, too.

"Ah," Dick nodded, understanding. "Like growing up as the cobbler's son. I know how to make shoes, I just don't."

"Something like that." I tapped my forehead. "I have a lot of stuff in my brain, but knowing a lot doesn't make it functional."

"All right, that makes..." Dick slammed on the brakes. "Whoa. Old son, this doesn't look good."

He was right. The entire side of the warehouse district that lay along Water road drive seemed to be on fire. There were a lot of homeless that lived there, as the warehouse was famous for being very generous with stuff that was out of date, lost and not claimed, or broken goods. There were some of those ramshackle houses that contained better furniture than my apartment. Which, technically makes the homeless on Water road not homeless at all. Until now, that is, since every building seemed to be on fire.

There seemed to be hundreds of people milling about, and it seemed as if every firetruck in town was here, lights flashing and water pumping and men and women in black and yellow slickers and wearing heavy black helmets moving about purposely. The flames were jumping twenty, thirty feet into the air, and what I had seen as a glow on the horizon was a roaring, leaping hungry spectacle of heat and sparks. The sound was a horrendous roaring, even from inside of the car. The Beast called Fire was on the loose tonight.

"This doesn't look good at all," Dick shifted into policeman mode, swung the car to a safe parking spot and, after hanging his shield around his neck, climbed out of the car. "You stay here while I check the situation out."

Without waiting for my answer or acknowledgment, he ran over to the nearest fireman and started an arm waving shouted conversation. I caught bits and pieces of it.
"When did it start?" Dick asked.

'Twenny minutes ago, we think," came the sinusy reply. That's when the call came in."

Sounded like Betty got the word out, after all.

"Anybody hurt?"

"Too early to assess that. Probably, but look around. We've got over half the population of Water road out here."

A huge crash as a two story building collapsed to the weight of the Fire Beast.

"Where did it start?" Dick again.

The fireman waved in the general direction of further down the row of burning buildings before he headed quickly into the fray. Dick ran back to the car, to the passenger side and opened the door.

"Old son, do you think your special abilities would help here?" Dick's face was hard and serious. "The fire's only been going..."

"Yeah, about twenty minutes or so," I said as I hauled myself out of the car. "I don't know if I can get anything at except static, but I do know that if I don't try I'll have a hard time sleeping. Let's go."

I followed Dick, who ran interference for me in case anyone questioned what I was doing there. I didn't expect any resistance, considering the number of people just hanging around, but you never know. Most of the spectators were kept behind the police line and having someone who was obviously not a fireman or policeman running through the scene might just look a tad suspicious.

The place where the fireman thought it all started was a complete waste, burned down to the ground as they say. The bare bones of the shack were still standing, for the most part, but they were smoldering badly and there were little gouts of flame shooting out here and there. A large scorch mark, deep and leading from the street to the burning house, seemed to be a logical place where it all started.

"What do you think?" Dick asked.

"It looks like Sparky was right, is what I think." I pointed to the scorch mark. "See that scorch? Either a real Salamander was standing there, or someone was using a badly tuned flamethrower."

"Yes, I can see that," Dick said a bit impatiently. "What I want to know is what you see, with that power you have."

"Okay, I just wanted to take a moment to speak the obvious, all right?"

I took a deep breath and stared long and hard at the scorch mark. The world shifted and grew fuzzy around me except the spot on which I was focused, that spot gained a crystal clarity. There was a blurring around the edges where the past had pushed the present away and the interior shifted like the sands of the desert of time... which they were, by the way. It was like there was a winter window, all frosty and ice crystally and I had rubbed away a perfect oval spot from which to watch the world as it was.

The world of five to ten minutes ago contained much less noise, and much less crowding. The world of five to ten minutes ago was full of smoke and flame, and it was all centered around the charred spot I was focused on. The world of five to ten minutes ago also held a large man-like shape that stood about eight feet tall amid the smoke and flames. It had a long whipping tail that ended in a double fork and had, I kid you not, little horns that grew out of his head. A more stereotypical devilish devil, you'd never see. I suddenly got a craving for deviled ham, he looked so positive. And that was just wrong. Wrong as a dog wearing antlers or a cat wearing a mouse suit.

There are layers to reality. Most folk live on one or two levels... maybe three at the most. I met one guy who lived seven levels deep and one woman who claimed to be eleven deep. Those two were both crazier than bedbugs and not to be trusted with your back turned. Still, there you have it. I can go about four deep and that's as good as I like it. Much more and the world takes on a Daliesque kind of look, all melty and slippery like. It takes time and experience to be able to peel away the layers of what is really really real. I think being able to slide back and forth through time helps a bit, too.

Peeling back the layers of reality isn't that hard. I just look at what I'm looking at and send the message 'show me more' and the Universe does. Well.. getting past layer one and two isn't that hard, but the deeper I go, the more resistant reality is. I don't think we're supposed to see all the way down to the core of what is really real. I think that we won't see that side of the Universe until we've changed into something else.

Anyway, I pulled the devil suit off the devil. And I'll be darned if it wasn't another devil suit, except this one was a bit more believable. Short, twisted, scowling and definitely lumpy over everyplace more than anyplace. I think I've mentioned that I've fought a few demons once upon a time. This looked like one of those type. Mean and nasty looking. Still, just because something looks one way, doesn't mean it's gotta be that way. So, I pulled off another level, just to be sure.

Yep, still just as ugly, still just as nasty looking. So, what was a demon doing at the warehouse district? I feared for Mary. Demons aren't known for their politeness or their social manners. Imagine my surprise when this particular demon waved his hands and the flames parted like so much Red Sea. "Hurry up, your highness," I heard his cement-truck grinding gear voice say. "It's time to go, go, go."

What the hell? No, seriously. What the hell?

I watch Mary, all blond curls and short brown coat, walk through the arbor of flame and into the night. The demon let go of the flames and they fell back with a whoosh that shot higher into the air and rushed to engulf the rest of the district.

"A lot of people will die here tonight," Big and ugly said.

"Hell with 'em," Mary said. "I'm tired of the stench. Open the door, Roy."

"Roy?" I muttered under my breath. Who ever heard of a demon named Roy?

"Roy?" I heard Dick's voice say. "Who is Roy?"

I didn't answer him right away. I wanted to see what door Roy was going to open.

I didn't have to wait long. Another wave of Roy's clawed hand and a seascape appeared in the middle of the flames. Roy reached to the edges of the rift window where the waving palm trees and the crashing surf could be seen and pulled the edges further open.

"Hurry, hurry!" Roy growled. "This isn't as easy as it looks!"

I watch Mary gingerly step over the rift threshold and take off her coat. "I won't be needing this any more," she said smiling and seemed to be looking directly at me. She also seemed to wink at me and blow me a kiss before waving goodbye. "You can let go now, Roy."

"Okay," Roy said. The edges of the rift flapped back together and all that was left smoke, fire and a demon named Roy.

Who then promptly blew up. Really. I mean, Roy seemed to inflate and grow larger and bigger all at the same time and then he... it ... Roy just erupted into a big ball of flame and heat. It surprised me so much I audibly gasped, let go of my viewpoint and the past joined the past.

"Wow," I muttered, falling back onto my rear end into the damp mud. "That's one way to get rid of witnesses."

"What did you see," Dick asked. "Who is Roy?"

"Roy, my good friend," I said as I hauled myself upright, "is a demon. Not a very powerful one, I don't think and not a very bright one, which is pretty typical." I wiped what I could of the mud hanging to my butt. "What I saw was Mary, little Match Girl Mary, pass through a demon door to somewhere with palm trees and white beaches. What I saw was Roy, the demon, then self-destruct after Mary exited stage left."

"Self destructed?" Dick scratched one red tufted ear. "Is that normal for a demon?"

"Nope," I shook my head. "Demons don't go kablooey under normal circumstances. Then again, under normal circumstances, demons should eat little Match Girls and then use their little matches to clean between their teeth."

"Strange doings, Old son?" he asked.

"Strange doings, Dick Reed," I agreed. "Strange doings, indeed."

"So it looks like our little Mary knew all about the murder, right?" He thought about it. Thought about it like a cop, that is. "No, it just suggests that Mary knew a demon who knew where Mary wanted to go for a vacation. There's nothing here to indicate that Mary knew anything about Mendlehousen's death."

"There's nothing here to indicate anything, except for that, right." I nodded. "Except that she knew I was watching. "

"Huh?" Dick looked at me as if I was a Victrola and he was Nipper, wonder where that voice was coming from.

"She knew I was watching, Dick." I scratched my head. "She winked at me and blew me a kiss."

"Are you for sure, Johann?" Dick frowned. "It would mean that Mary could somehow see into the future."

There was that, and by definition of her particular curse, Mary could not perform magic herself. "Okay. If not me, then someone standing exactly where I was standing."

"That makes more sense, there," Dick nodded. "Go stand where she was standing and do your thing looking back where you are."

"Gee, Dick," I said, dripping sarcasm. "If only I had thought of that." I stood to the back of the scorch mark, where Mary had been standing and opened a window to the past, looking back at where I had been standing moments before.

Once again, the world both blurred and became crystal clear. I saw a replay of the demon, Roy, open the flame curtain and saw Mary step through them, but from an angle looking at Mary's back. More importantly, I saw the person that Mary was winking at and blowing kisses to.

Bobby Barrick. Man about town, and searching for a candidate to give him an heir. What a surprise. yeah.