In the movies there’s noise to go with the lights, but sometimes like now, when you get out of the cars, it’s quiet, just the colored lights swirling over and over the huge brick buildings and empty brick courtyard. In the 1800s the brewery had been one of the major employers in the city, but it had been abandoned for years. Someone had bought it and was trying to convince people it could be condos and office space, but mostly it rented out for photo and video shoots. The two police cars looked empty. Where were the cops who went with them, and why weren’t they answering their radios?

Detectives Clive Perry and Brody Smith got out of their car. Perry was tall, slender, neatly but conservatively dressed. He was African American, but his skin wasn’t as dark as the colored lights made it seem; Smith was a natural blond, and he looked paler as the lights painted him blue and red. Perry was almost six feet, Smith not much taller than me. Perry was also built like a long-distance runner, all height and slender frame; Smith’s shoulders were broad and he was built like someone who’d muscle up if he ever hit the gym enough. Smith’s white shirt was open at the collar, no tie, and his jackets always fit wrong through his shoulders, as if he had trouble finding suits that fit them and were still short enough for his height. They say opposites attract, or at least work well together, and Perry and Smith did. Perry was the normal one of the pairing, and Smith the supernormal-which sounded better than psychic, or witch. Smith was part of an experimental program that St. Louis was trying in which cops with some psychic ability were trained up so they could use their talents for more than just following their gut. What had surprised the top brass had been how many cops were psychic, but it hadn’t surprised me. Most cops talk about their gut feelings, instinct, and most of them will tell you it’s kept them and their partners alive.