Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective

Chapter 30

"It's no bother. I'm just watching the TV in the sky," Herman says when Zandra approaches his glorified junkyard. He's propped atop a heap of light brush. It's a clear fall night, the smoky outline of the Milky Way visible from horizon to horizon.

"I'm in some deep shit, Herman. I need a weapon," Zandra wants to say but doesn't. She needs to choose her words more carefully.

"Could I borrow one of your knives? It'd only be for a couple days," Zandra says. She keeps her tone smooth and even.

"Borrow? I don't usually do that. I'm not a library," Herman says. He slides down the heap. A tangle of brush follows him to the ground.

"OK, how about you make one for me. Tonight. Right here and now," Zandra says. She shakes her the baggy sleeve of her purple gown. Out slips a dull lawnmower blade stained a muddled green. Zandra unscrewed it from a dilapidated push mower marked "Free" at the end of a driveway on the walk over.

Herman takes the blade from her. Looks it over. Nods his head.

"Yeah, I could cut a pattern out of the metal, grind in a new edge and wrap some paracord for a handle. It'd be rough, though. Not my finest work," he says. Raises an eyebrow. "Why do you need this so soon? And how do you plan on paying me?"

"There's a stray dog outside my apartment. I might need it," Zandra says. "I don't have any cash, but I could trade for it."

"A stray dog, huh?" Herman says. "Something tells me it's more than that. What's going on?"

Herman is as close an ally as Zandra has at the moment. She spills everything. From Gene to the remains in her apartment, Herman hears it all. He doesn't say a word until Zandra is finished.

"How do I know I'm not making a knife for a child killer?" he says. Flips the lawnmower blade in his hand.

"Take me at my word. That's all I've got right now. I'd go buy a knife at a store, but that's not going to look good considering the position I'm in," Zandra says. Then an idea hits her. "You know as well as I do that this town doesn't treat us with any respect. We're both on the outside. Catch blame for anything and everything. I need to clear my name and get to the bottom of this barrel full of bullshit. And I need some protection while I do it. I'll split the reward with you if I can find the real perp."

Is there a reward? Don't remember.

Herman thinks it over. After a minute or so, he pulls out a Sharpie from his pocket. His weathered hands trace the outline of a crude Bowie knife on the blade. He shows the design to Zandra.

"It's on the house this time. But you have to promise to find the freak who killed that little girl," Herman says.

Freak. Ironic coming from Herman.

"Thank you. And I will," Zandra says.

A dozen cigarettes later, Herman comes back from his noisy shop. The knife won't win any awards in the looks department. It wouldn't look out of place in a post-apocalyptic movie, either. Herman worked the lawnmower blade down until the metal roughly measures the length of Zandra's hand end-to-end. He cut a swooping point into one end before grinding out a scraggly edge to form a wide, almost paddle-like blade. The blade tapers into a boxy handle with three holes drilled into it. Paracord threads through the holes and around the handle for a secure grip.

Herman hands the knife to Zandra with a bow. Despite its crude construction and pudgy paracord, it feels good in her hand. She doubts she'll use it as a proper weapon. It'll be more for greasing the skids of her investigation, not hard use, especially since Herman warns he skipped his usual heat treatment process.

On closer inspection, Zandra notices something odd etched into the side of the blade. It looks like the number 27 with crude arms and legs. Reminds her of a hieroglyph.

"What's this?" Zandra says. Points at the 27.

"It's a sigil," Herman says with a grin. "I made it just for you."

Zandra's familiar with sigils from her library of occult bullshit. Herman might be a believer, but Zandra knows better. They're supposed to actualize an intention. A person would...

"...write out an intention on a piece of paper, keeping it short and simple," Herman says. "Then you'd cross out the vowels and repeating consonants. Take the remaining letters and work them into a shape. Keep working with it until you have a symbol, a sigil. Then activate the sigil by releasing energy from inside you. In this case, I created a knife and etched the sigil into it."

"Oh, OK. Thanks, I guess," Zandra says.

"Don't disregard the power of sigils. Remember when I told you a while back to look upstream? To try to peek at the reality that precedes this one? A sigil is a way to manipulate that prior reality, to bring an intention from the world behind our eyes into the world in front of them. Plato would get it," Herman says.

"So what intention did you load this knife with?" Zandra says.

"Protection. Anyone dealing with the Carey family needs it," Herman says. Winks. "Before you go, you'll need a way to carry that thing around. I like your up-the-sleeve method, but you don't want to get cut."

He produces a patch of leather and fashions a sheath sewn to the inside of Zandra's sleeve. He's quick with the needle and thread. The fit is snug so the knife won't slip out unless Zandra pulls on the handle. Best of all, the knife is completely concealed inside the sleeve. No one will know it's even there.

"Perfect," Herman says when he's done. "Now go get 'em."

Zandra thanks Herman again, then shuffles away. Time to pay her landlord a visit.