Book of Shadows (35 page)

“And what do you think, Detective Garrett?” Fox looked at him with ageless, clear blue eyes.

The question stopped him and he found he could not answer smartly or facetiously. “I know she hasn’t told the truth. I know she knows more than she’s telling.”

Fox lifted her hands. “Oh, certainly. But can you really blame her for that?”

“I know she’s been arrested for fraud,” Garrett ground out. “I know she’s been institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia.”

“For seeing demons,” Fox said pointedly.

“Yeah. For seeing demons,” Garrett said.

“Perhaps you should ask her about that,” Fox suggested. Garrett stared at her. Her gaze on him was steady, probing. “Do you know what I see, Detective? I see two people who are not at odds. Who perhaps have two different sides to a vital puzzle. A puzzle in which lives are at stake, and in which the clock is running out.”

Garrett was not merely struck by her words, he was close to mesmerized.

She looked at him, and the sunlight behind her illuminated her pale hair. “So many lives at stake,” she repeated softly. “And perhaps more than just lives.”

Without realizing he was doing it he nodded, which she took as a sign to continue.

“Every life in the balance here—and each soul as well—deserves a little faith. And I believe that you are not a man who must follow the book to the exclusion of truth, or justice. I believe you are willing.”

“Willing to what?” he said, and his voice sounded strangled.

“Willing to make a leap of faith. Willing to do things by a different book.” Her blue eyes held his. “Three children killed,” she recited, in muted tones. “Another imprisoned. A good man at the brink of death. And three more children to die, if someone does not intervene.”

Garrett’s stomach roiled, but he couldn’t look away from her eyes.

“Your own department has banned you from the hunt, when even given what you are reluctant to believe, you know you are light-years closer to the truth than they are. This masculine jockeying will most certainly cost more lives if someone does not say, ‘Enough.’ ” She opened her hands. “Are you willing to work outside your comfort zone?”

Through his confusion and gnawing anxiety, Garrett managed to speak. “What do you think I’ve been doing?” he retorted.

Her eyes twinkled at him. “You’re quite right.”

“I want the killer.” Garrett’s voice was suddenly harsh. “I don’t care who it is. I don’t care what gets me there. I want this to stop.
I want this guy put away for eternity. That’s all I want. You’re supposed to know things. You decide.”

She was very stiff and still, her eyes boring into his. And then she suddenly went limp, some hidden tension relaxing. “So mote it be,” she said, and the words were formal, with a regal import.

She took a deep, shaky breath . . . for a moment Garrett feared he would have to perform CPR. Then she glanced toward the other high-backed wicker chair across from her.

Garrett followed her gaze, and then shot to his feet, staring.

Tanith sat in the other chair, as if she had been there all along. He had not heard, nor felt her come. She sat very still, leaning on her forearms on the arms of the chair, barely breathing.

“Jesus Christ,” Garrett muttered, and wondered crazily if she had been there, invisible, all along, until she—or Selena—had chosen to make her seen. “How the fuck did you do that?” he demanded, completely forgetting all manners.

“A trick.” Selena shrugged. “But we will need more than tricks to achieve our purpose.”

Tanith spoke, avoiding looking directly at Garrett. “I heard about Detective Landauer.”

“You
heard
about him?” he responded bitterly.

Her eyes flashed. “You think I would ever
do
that?”

“How would I know what you would do?” he demanded. “You drugged me—why wouldn’t you drug him?”

“I didn’t hurt you,” she retorted, but there was less fire in her voice, and Selena glanced at her.

“It was wrong,” the older woman said, and Tanith looked away.

There was an icy silence, which Selena broke, her voice sharp. “There’s no time for recriminations. There is one center of this investigation, and it’s time to do what needs to be done.”

Garrett looked toward her, confused. Tanith spoke warily. “Jason Moncrief.”

“Of course,” Selena said, with an impatient wave. “Have you ever even spoken to him?” she asked Garrett pointedly.

Garrett sat for a moment, stupefied at the simplicity of the
suggestion, then he remembered. “Once. His attorney took out a TRO: a technical restraining order. No law enforcement officer is allowed in to talk to him.”

“That won’t do,” the older woman said. “It should not have prevented you when you knew he was not guilty.”

“I don’t know that,” Garrett countered angrily. He was about to continue arguing but she cut through him.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You have the key, Detective Garrett.” She suddenly reached forward and grabbed his wrist, a bony grip so strong Garrett drew in a startled breath. Her eyes were black, all pupil as she stared unseeing into his eyes.

“The book,” she gasped, and she kept speaking, but Garrett didn’t hear words. Images were blasting into his head: the hand-bound book of maroon leather, the rough paper, the twiglike lettering, the disturbing black-lined drawings.

He jerked his hand away from the older woman’s grip and was shocked to find he was standing, but so shaky he was barely able to keep his balance.

Selena was also standing, rigidly, drawing deep, shuddering breaths. “Where is it?” she whispered.

Garrett stared at her, for the second time wondering if she was on the verge of a stroke. Tanith rose from her chair, and her dark eyes locked on Garrett’s. “You know what she means. The grimoire.”

Selena felt for the back of a chair and Tanith was there at her side, instantly, helping her to sit. After a moment, Selena lifted her head, looked up at Garrett. “There
is
a book, then. A grimoire. If you still think Jason Moncrief is guilty, perhaps you have only to read it to find all you need to set your mind at rest.” Her eyes drilled into his. “Do you have it?”

Garrett was about to say it was in evidence and he was off the case, and then he remembered. Not only did he still have his copy, he had his copy in the trunk of his car.

“I think we might have a look at it, then,” Selena said, and Garrett was not even surprised that she’d read his mind.

______

The two women set the copied book on a long oak table in what Garrett supposed was a dining hall. The chairs were medieval-looking, with lions’ paws for armrests and feet, and tapestries and marble friezes were hung on the walls. The women stood over the table with the stack of pages in front of them and studied them, and Garrett could only think of priestesses, of sibyls, of goddesses. They reached for pages in tandem and communicated only with looks and once in a while by pointing to passages.

Garrett paced the polished plank floor impatiently until Selena looked up at him and said, “Detective, perhaps you would be more comfortable in a chair.”

Garrett sat, and watched them, seven million conflicting thoughts in his brain.
It’s easy enough to stage,
he argued with himself.
Cabarrus knew about the grimoire, and why wouldn’t she have told Fox about it? There’s no mind reading going on, it’s simple con artist tricks.

And then he remembered the steel strength of the woman’s hand on his arm and the sizzle of electric shock when she—yes—
read
him.

At one point Tanith covered her face with her hands and the elder woman put her hand on her neck, comforting her. Garrett wanted to speak but felt rooted to his chair, felt like an intruder watching something intensely private.

After a long time they closed the book and sat down in the chairs with the lion-paw hand rests. Selena looked drained, her skin fragile as paper.

“Well?” Garrett demanded, looking at Tanith.

“He was doing rituals to summon the demon Choronzon.”

Garrett tensed. “So it was Moncrief. He killed them.”

Tanith said, “No,” immediately, and Selena said simultaneously, “I don’t think so.”

Garrett looked from one to the other, focused on Tanith. “You said that was what the killer is doing.”

Her voice was tightly controlled. “What Jason was doing was on a very elementary level. It is dangerous, and dangerously stupid,
but there is no indication he was considering anything involving sacrifice.”

Garrett bristled. “I saw the spell for the ‘Hand of Glory.’ And Erin’s left hand was missing.”

Selena frowned, looked to Tanith. Tanith shook her head impatiently. “The Hand of Glory is a spell that shows up commonly online. These kids who get involved in ritual magic for thrills . . . they collect spells like that.”

“Oh, really, now?” Garrett lashed out. “That’s convenient. Do you have some proof? Because a spell using a corpse’s left hand and a dead girl missing her left hand is a pretty great match to me.”

Selena clucked her tongue. “But if this young man kept such an incriminating spell in his grimoire, so openly, why would he not have kept spells of the actual sacrifice, of rituals using sacrifice?” she asked reasonably. She waved a hand over the book. “There’s nothing like that here. Nothing indicating any intention to perform human sacrifice.”

Garrett remembered that he had gone all through the book, that one long night, and studied all the sketches, and it was true that there was nothing drawn that resembled human sacrifice, and no spell titles that contained the word “sacrifice.” The Hand of Glory had been the most ominous of the drawings by far.

Selena nodded, as if he had agreed with her. “You see, a grimoire, like a Book of Shadows, is as illuminating as a diary, really. The magician makes very detailed notes of his or her preparation for a major ritual—the cleansing, the fasting, the gathering of instruments, the position of the moon and tide. Come, Detective, and look.” She lifted a graceful hand, beckoning him to her side, and Garrett rose, crossed to her. She pulled the book toward her and looked up at him. “We know the sacrifices were performed on Sabbats, do we not? Erin Carmody’s murder was on the night of Mabon, the fall equinox, September twenty-one. The killing of that other poor girl was on August first, Lammas, or Lughnasadh. But look.”

She opened the book and turned pages to the month of June. “The entries for June are spells of money, success, fame.” She turned
pages and stopped on the sketch of the hand with the candle. “Here, you have the Hand of Glory spell. A loathsome thing. But it is only after that, in August, that Choronzon’s name and sigils begin to appear. A dangerous path, make no mistake.” She turned more pages. “But then in September . . . ah, this is telling, I think. The spells are for attraction. Love.” She turned more pages, to where the book went blank. “And after September nine . . . nothing.”

She looked up from the book, into Garrett’s face. “There is no indication here that he was preparing for major rituals. Moreover, there is no mention of Choronzon in September at all.”

Garrett stared at her, trying to process what she was telling him.

“This boy has not been circumspect in his magical practice. He wrote down what he was doing. According to these entries, the obsession with Choronzon was waning, not increasing.”

And maybe he just knew enough not to write about it,
Garrett thought, and Selena smiled. “You think he was dissembling. Perhaps. But my experience is that a nineteen-year-old boy is not a paragon of control, including in matters of deception.” Her eyes twinkled at him, and Garrett was uncomfortably reminded of his biggest doubt he’d had about the case from the beginning: that a nineteen-year-old could be capable of the kind of precision and control that he felt in this killer.

“Ah, you do understand,” Selena said.

“So what else do you see in this—diary?” Garrett said roughly, resisting the pull to trust her.

Her twinkle disappeared. “A very troubled boy indeed.”

“Stupid,” Tanith muttered. “Stupid. Reckless. Arrogant.”

Selena sighed. “Yes. All of that. And more.” She glanced obliquely at Tanith. “Children—people—who feel powerless will seek power wherever they can find it. Even a power that tricks and traps and enslaves. And this particular darkness is very aware of the weakness of vulnerable people.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Garrett said, even though on some level, he did.

“This is how he got caught up in all this. This is why he’s in such
peril,” Tanith said impatiently. “You open a door like that with thoughtless experimenting and anything can come through. He invited the demon in, and it used him for its own purposes.”

The words shot a chill through Garrett. He suddenly remembered his encounter with Jason: that stretched-tight face and guttural voice, the layers of babbling voices on the tape of the interview . . . “You’re saying Moncrief
is
possessed?” He stared from one woman to the other.

“Not possessed . . . but infected, perhaps.” Selena’s eyes were clouded. “Evil is a contagion.”

“It used him,” Tanith said. “Found Erin through him. Even framed him.”