Book of Shadows (23 page)

At the blue candle she recited, “Watchtower of the West, Element of Water, I call thee to witness and guard this circle.” She bent and lit the candle. Garrett felt he was hallucinating by now: the flame of this candle was a pure blue light, and there was a sudden coolness in the air.

She moved to the green candle, facing out, and called, “Watchtower of the North, Element of Earth, I call thee to witness and guard this circle.” She bent and lit the candle, and in Garrett’s mind, this one burned green, and he smelled loam and forest.

Then she stepped to the altar to light the purple candle and stood with her dark hair tumbled down her slim back as she chanted, low, in a voice like prayer, “Mistress Hecate, Queen of the Night, Goddess of the Dead, Watcher at the Crossroads, guide my sight; grant me perfect vision this night. I humbly ask you now to show what this petitioner seeks to know.”

She took up the silver dish and poured the burned flowers into her hand, then stood still, with her eyes closed, cupping her hands around the flowers. The candles flickered at the points of the circle as Tanith stood, breathing, slowly and deeply. Garrett couldn’t keep his eyes off her face, as pale and beautiful as carved ivory in the light. Her breathing subtly increased, became deeper: labored, shuddering breaths.

The flowers fluttered from her hand and she jerked her head up. Her eyes were completely dilated as she stared into space . . . her breath was a shallow panting. She whipped around to face Garrett, and stared at him, but her eyes were unfocused as a blind woman’s and Garrett had the eerie feeling she did not see him at all.

When she spoke it was in a harsh rasping, totally unlike her own silky voice, a grating that pained the ears to hear.

“The girl you seek is done and she’s not the only one. Three more shall he take, ere his craving he will slake.”

Garrett found he was on his feet, standing, stupefied. The voice he was hearing did not sound human. It was ancient and sibilant and utterly chilling. She rasped on.

“Samhain is the eve, when those who love the lost will grieve. Three to die to do the deed. Three captured. Three bound.”
And then a hoarse, guttural shout:
“RELEASE THEM!”

Her face was contorted into something inhuman. She lurched forward arthritically, her hands twisted into claws. “
Release them
,” she croaked again.

Garrett felt waves of adrenaline pulsing through him. He could smell earth on her breath. Through his shock, the overwhelming sense of otherness, Garrett forced out, “How? Tell me how.”

She raised a clawlike hand toward him and stared blackly into his eyes and Garrett felt his mind shudder; his thoughts were swirling in his head as if in a powerful wind. Then he was slammed with a sudden, surreally clear vision of the park. He could see himself there, standing beside the marble bench and staring toward the skeleton of the high-rise. A hulking black figure stood in the shadows of dusk: a huge shape, standing behind him, watching him.

Garrett gasped aloud. Suddenly the crone’s eyes opened wider.

“
Yes. Yes. There is a watcher,”
she said in that rasping voice, blank eyes unseeing.
“Speed you and find him. Find the watcher in the park.”

Garrett’s hair stood up on the back of his neck and he remembered with nauseating clarity the sensation of being watched. He felt that gaze again, like touch on his neck, so strongly that he turned to look. He saw nothing but blackness beyond the shimmering circle of candlelight, but every nerve in his body was alive with the sense of danger, and his hand moved automatically for his weapon.

Behind him Tanith gasped. Garrett spun again . . . to see her shuddering through her entire body. Her knees buckled . . . Garrett leaped forward to catch her, but she stiffened, caught herself on the edge of the altar, and held up a warning hand.

“No.” It was her own voice again, and the contortion was gone from her face. Garrett stopped, holding back.

She straightened and held out her arms. Her voice was hoarse, but her own, as she called out:

“Elements of East, South, West, and North,
Return you now as I called you forth.
Open again this sacred space
Send all energies back to place.”

She moved her arms in a sweeping motion, as if catching and gathering something into her fists, then opened her hands and pushed outward. The candles wavered wildly with the force of the motion. Garrett felt a rush through his body, like electricity.

Tanith’s hands dropped limply to her sides and she stood straight and tall in the center of the circle . . . then her legs buckled and she crumpled to the floor.

Garrett stood for a paralyzed moment, realizing he was loath to touch her. He fought down the feeling and sprang forward to kneel by her side. She was breathing, and when he felt for her pulse it was fluttery, but present. He scooped her up and lifted her, rising to his feet, only half-conscious that his driving impulse was to be away from the circle, away from the pentagram.

He left the circle with its candles still burning on the quarters, and carried Tanith from the room, through the door into the inner reading room. Her hair was against his face and she was a sweet, live weight in his arms, breathing shallowly against his chest. His heart was pounding out of control. He started to cross to the outer door, but she moved against him and said, “Here . . .”

He looked around him and set her carefully down in one of the high-backed leather chairs, then stood by her side as she put her head down on the table, her breathing still labored, but slowing.

Finally she lifted her head and reached for the pitcher of water she’d left on the table. She was too shaky to lift it and Garrett took it from her and poured liquid into the goblet. She clasped it with both hands and drank greedily, draining the whole cup, then she grabbed for the cakes she’d left on the plate. For the next full
minute she ate and drank without speaking, as if she were ravenous. Garrett couldn’t keep his eyes off her; his head felt as if it were going to explode. He was overcome by the impulse to get out, to get as far away from there as possible—and the desire to sweep her up again, crush her to him. Finally she leaned back in the chair, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and closing her eyes.

After what seemed like an eternity, she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Amber is dead,” she said bleakly. Garrett started; he had not given Tanith the name. “Her killer carved three triangles into her body, and the number 333, the sigils of the demon, just as he did with Erin. And there is a third . . .” She faltered, looking into space. “Not like the others.”

“Not like the others, how?” he managed.

“I’m not sure. Not . . .” she stopped. “I don’t know.” Her face hardened. “He took their heads for his rituals.”

Garrett felt his stomach drop in horror. “What rituals?”

His face must have reflected his disgust, because she made an effort to speak calmly. “Necromancy. It’s a powerful black magic practice. A magician reanimates a corpse to gain information from the nether realm. This one—this man—is probably communicating with the demon through those he has killed, receiving instructions through them—”

Reanimates the dead? Talks to the demon?
Garrett’s whole mind was rebelling against everything he had seen and felt. All he wanted to do was get out, get as far from all of this as he could go. But he was going to take what he could from her before he left.

“Who is he?” he demanded hoarsely.

Her gaze became distant. “Someone in the middle part of life . . . he has the bulk of a man. He is alone in the world, unstable . . . a lost soul. He is weak, so he seeks power in the dark: has been courting the demon in secret rituals for some time, and his mind has dissipated; it is the demon who drives him now.” Her eyes slowly focused on Garrett again, and she shook her head. “I saw from a distance only.”

Garrett’s whole skin was prickling, but he shoved down the feeling.
Nothing but generalities, useless.

He spoke in agitation. “You said, ‘Three captured, three bound.’ Does that mean he has prisoners?” He didn’t know what he was saying, who he was asking about. Moncrief was in jail; he’d put Moncrief in jail himself.

Her face shadowed, and he heard anger in her voice. “His three victims are dead, but not free. They are between the worlds. The killer has their heads. He’s bound them to him in a ritual and their souls cannot move on.”

He felt fury, and doubt, and she leaned forward, with compassion and urgency in her face. “I’m sorry, Detective Garrett, I know this is difficult for you. I know you don’t want it to be real. But you must understand this. This man is out there now. He will take another victim on Samhain, when the veil between worlds is thinnest and the demon can come through.”

He struggled to block that thought, focus on what was real. “You said
three
more.”
But that thing that had been speaking hadn’t been her, had it?
Even now that the ritual was over he was finding it hard to believe that that horrible voice had come out of her throat, that the spasms of that twisted body had been her own.

Tanith was staring at him. “She said that?” she asked, stunned.

“Who? Who is she?” he demanded.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Tanith murmured. “I don’t know what it means.” She looked sick, suddenly weak and faint, but he didn’t care, didn’t want to care. She was right. He didn’t believe her. He didn’t believe any of it. He just wanted out.

“Please,” she said, and reached to touch his arm. He jerked away from her as if something loathsome had brushed him, and felt logic returning.

What were you thinking? Buying into a sideshow performance like that? A few candles, some rhyming mumbo jumbo—it’s an act. This is how she makes a living. Just another gypsy con artist.

She caught her breath . . . and suddenly stood from her chair, staring at him. “You aren’t going to do anything,” she said, her voice shaky. “You really aren’t.”

He couldn’t speak, because he had nothing to say.
Demons? No. Not in this lifetime.

“Then go,” she answered him. “If you’re not going to listen, then go.”

“I’m going,” he said, and shoved back his chair as he stood. “Thanks for the show. I understand how that kind of performance would keep you in business.” He turned his back on her, striding toward the door.

“Don’t forget your picture,” she called to him from behind.

He turned, and saw her extending Amber’s photo toward him. He looked down at the image of the lost girl. Tanith moved closer and he reached automatically to take it. Their fingers met with a shock of static, and he flinched back.

“Detective,” she said with contempt. “Fare thee well.”

He turned and pushed through the curtain of stars.

He stood in the hall of Carolyn’s high-rise, ringing the bell.

Inside he heard soft footsteps and the hesitation that he knew was Carolyn putting her eye to the peephole.

After a second she opened the door, and stood barefoot, in a white silk robe. Before she could speak, he had backed her into the marble-tiled hall and kicked the door shut behind him. He pushed her against the wall and bent to kiss her neck, and heard her purr, “Well, well . . .” before he took her mouth, took her breasts, took her, took himself into welcome oblivion.

October
15

For Garrett, the next week was a blur. Jason Moncrief was arraigned, and entered a plea of “not guilty” with the judge.

Of course he did, nearly everyone does. It means nothing.

The judge set a trial date, which as Carolyn and the detectives had expected, was three months away, giving them plenty of time to keep gathering real evidence.

The DNA reports came back in, and as everyone in the department, the D.A.’s office, and anyone in the U.S. or maybe the world who watched the evening news or signed on to the Internet had expected, the tests proved that the semen found in Erin Carmody’s body was Jason Moncrief’s, and the blood found on Jason’s jeans and sheets was Erin Carmody’s. For the last week Landauer had been positively glowing, and Garrett knew why—it was as strong a circumstantial case as they had ever been a part of.

Garrett himself had been doing a bang-up job of forgetting that night with Tanith Cabarrus, her ritual performance and ominous predictions . . . and the feel of her body in his arms. After all, this was reality, and there was plenty of real police work to be done.

But with every day that passed, the specter of Halloween loomed larger in his mind.

“Three more shall he take, ere his craving he will slake . . .”

And Amber’s burned-cigarette eyes stared out of the photo that Garrett had filed away . . .

And the sweet, haunting lyrics of Jason’s song to Erin would not stop playing through his head.

So this afternoon Garrett stood outside the Suffolk County jail in a mercilessly cold wind. The sun was sinking and the jail was right off the Charles River. Garrett turned away from the glistening silver water and headed toward the facility.

Suffolk County, where Jason Moncrief had been sent for pretrial detention, was a seven-story brick building with a facade of columns and a triangular piece on the roof that made it look vaguely like a temple. In reality it was a maximum security facility housing nine hundred pretrial detainees in thirteen separate housing units with 453 cells, and 654 beds, making it as massively overcrowded as almost every correctional facility in the U.S. As he passed through security, Garrett tried not to dwell on what Jason’s life had been like inside.