Minutes to Midnight (12 page)

Instead she produced a brown folder, the
kind with the two-hole fastener at the top. I scooted closer as she
opened it and used the flashlight app on her phone to shine a
little light. "According to accumulated police incidents, all four
of the bodies were found within a four-mile radius of each other,
and if you mark their found positions on a map…" She pulled a
folded map out of her bag and opened it in our laps. It was a grid
of Old Savannah she'd marked up with a black marker. "You see
it?"

"Hell yeah." I took the map from her and
held it out at arm's length. "The marks form a circle." I pulled
the map in closer as she shined her phone's light at it.

Illy moved the light back to her bag and
rummaged through it before she pulled out a marker. She pulled the
top off with her teeth, turned the marker around, and slipped the
top on the back. "You're a little ahead of me, but it's not just a
circle. Put the map on the ground."

I did as she said, straightening it out on
the concrete before I knelt down in front of it. She knelt down
beside me and placed her bag between us before she handed me the
marker. "Put the tip on Chatham Square. That's where the first body
was found."

I scanned the map—still a little unfamiliar
with Old Savannah's layout—and put the pen on the appropriate
square.

"Okay, now draw a line to Chippewa
Square."

I found it on the map and drew an upward,
right-diagonal line.

"That was where the second body was found.
Now draw a line from there to Calhoun Square."

I moved the marker down to the right. I'd
just drawn a ^ symbol.

"That was the third body, one of the
kids—"

"One of the kids?" I sat back and looked at
her, frowning. "I thought the kids were found together near a
dumpster."

"That's what the public report said. The
police always hold something back in hopes of using it to catch the
killer. But I have sources. Put your marker back."

I did. I should have suspected that was the
case. But I was still new to this investigative thing.

"Draw a line from there to Pulaski
Square."

I moved the marker up and to the left—

Oh no…

I sat back and took a good look at what I
was drawing. "It's a Pentagram." I double-checked the direction it
was being drawn. "It's a banishing Pentagram."

"I figured this was important." She picked
up the folder and pulled a set of stapled papers from it. "They
found another body this morning. They're not releasing the
information to the paper."

I dropped the marker and took the report.
After I scanned it, I swallowed. "Who?"

"They haven't identified her yet."

I didn't have to look at the
report to know they found her in Lafayette Square. I grabbed the
marker and drew the line from Pulaski Square. It
was
a banishing pentagram,
having started from the lower left. Earth. So it was Earth
banishing. I knew enough about Wicca to be dangerous. I grabbed her
phone and launched her browser. From there, finding a definition of
Earth banishing was pretty easy. My first mistake was thinking it
was a Wiccan ritual. Truth was, it was something devised by The
Golden Dawn.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn were
popular in England in the early twentieth century. They were well
known for their practice of theurgy, and claimed to be making
strides in spiritual development. No one but an initiated member of
the Golden Dawn could really know its secrets, but I had learned
while with Bonville's cult that most of today's magic rituals were
inspired by them. Bonville claimed to have been a member of the
Golden Dawn.

"Find something?" Illy nudged me.

"Yeah…the banishing Pentagram was used to
get rid of chaos. Sort of a cleansing ritual."

"And you use dead bodies to do that?"

"No, that's just it. The ritual I found just
uses gestures and invokes the names of Gods and Goddesses. Nothing
in here about dead bodies." I scanned ahead. "I learned enough to
know that when someone uses death to achieve something, it's like
reversing the intent."

"So…you mean someone's
trying to
bring
chaos in?"

"Or something like chaos. But I'm not a
witch. We'd have to find one to be sure. The only one I know lives
in New Orleans."

"I know a palm reader," Illy said. "I don't
know if the police figured this out, but if this is true, and they
have to complete the pentagram, then there will be one more body
found back in Chatham Square."

I looked at the map and drew the line in but
made it hash marks. A dotted line. What caught my attention next
caused my heart to skip.

The square in the center of that pentagram
was Madison Square. Mike and I lived dead center of what someone
was trying to make chaos central.

THE PAST HAS SHARP NEEDLES

Illy left the map, folder, and latest police
report with me. I managed to fold it all up and tuck everything
into the folder before I headed back up the steps toward Kevin
Barry's. Someone was creating a banishing pentagram across the
squares of Old Savannah and we were in the center. Coincidence?
Maybe. Creepy? Hell yeah. I needed to find Mike and Raven and share
the creepy with them.

I didn't hear the music as I stood across
the cobblestone street. The set was over and people were filing out
the front. I tucked the folder under my arm and shoved my hands
into the front pockets of my jeans to wait for them to come out. I
was late but I made a mental note to stay ten minutes later to make
it up to Mark.

I caught a glimpse of a face
in that crowd. A face from the not-so-far-away past. Black bobbed
hair to her chin, pale skin, black lipstick, and dramatic eye
makeup. Her black hoodie, tight black shorts, and knee-high leather
boots made a statement:
Notice
me
.

"Rhonda!"

She didn't respond as she
stood to the side of the door. I stopped before I crossed the
street filled with moving tourists and watched her light a
cigarette. That action made me doubt myself. Rhonda had done a lot
of things, but I didn't remember her ever smoking. After exhaling a
thick stream of smoke, she turned and headed to my left, walking
along the sidewalk to the
Sheraton
.

Do I follow her? Make a fool out of myself?
What if it wasn't her? Rhonda Orly was the reason my memory was
Swiss cheese. According to Nona and Jason, Rhonda was the one that
manipulated me into loving her and forgetting Zoë. My distrust of
her was well justified. Others told me how she used the book to
control me and my memories. And she paid a high price for her
actions when Zoë took her power.

After that, Rhonda disappeared.

My eyes never lost sight of the woman who
looked like her as I moved through the crowd, past the pub, and
stayed several feet behind her as she walked. The entire time I
followed her, I thought about ways to approach her and things to
say in case I made a fool out of myself. I wasn't really interested
in getting to know her, given her past interaction with me. But I
was interested in why she was here—in the same town. I also wanted
to know if that had been her in The Night Pub with Darius.

The irony of her being a witch—even if she
didn't have power—and Illy showing me what she found wasn't lost on
me. But I didn't want to jump to any conclusion that Rhonda was
connected to what was happening.

She entered the Sheraton and I went in a few
seconds behind her, still holding the folder. Damn…if it was her, I
didn't want her to see what I had. Illy had given the folder to me
in confidence. I moved to the side in the lobby behind a group of
people and watched her get on the elevator. It took a lot of
"excuse me" and a few "pardons" to get to the elevator, which was
filling up, and push my way inside just as it closed.

It was times like this being a bit short
came in handy. I spotted the top of her black hair. Rhonda was also
short, so if I was lucky, she couldn't see me over everyone else.
That also meant I would have a hard time watching her. So I
concentrated on her legs. When I thought she looked at me, I put
the folder up in front of my face as if I was looking at it like a
tourist.

She got off the elevator into the lobby off
Bay Street and I followed her to the front desk. There, the
receptionist handed her an envelope. She opened it and I thought I
saw a brick of cash inside, but I couldn't be sure. I was too busy
trying not to look suspicious as a guy wearing a Kevin Barry's
T-shirt hiding behind a potted tree.

When she headed to the hotel's front
entrance, I stashed the folder under the potted plant and sent a
quick text message to Mike. ILLY FOLDER. UNDER PLANT. SHERATON.
Then I headed outside to continue following. She walked along the
streets, moving away from River Street, her phone at her ear.

My present memory of Rhonda was little more
than a few meetings. First in Nona Martinique's botanica and tea
shop in Little Five Points, Atlanta. Then during an encounter with
Shadow People at my former place of employment. And then again at
Nona's…where everything just stopped. It was an odd feeling to be
told you'd been intimate with someone—obsessed, really—and not
remember much about them.

"Them" as in two. Nona said I'd been in love
with her daughter first then tricked by Rhonda.

To deal with it, I put the entire situation
at arm's length.

The temperature dropped as I followed Rhonda
down the sidewalk. I made sure others walking along moved in front
and behind us, but she never looked back, just made calls and
received calls, oblivious to the stalker behind her. That kind of
behavior was just asking for trouble. There were a lot of pervs out
there, wackos who could just follow behind her without her paying
attention….

Pot, meet kettle.

Oy.

When we passed Orleans Square, I tried
recalling the map I'd left at the Sheraton. Wasn't Chatham Square
down this way? And what do I do if she actually went into Chatham
Square? Yell for her not to? Tell her some deranged killer was
making a banishing pentagram and her not paying attention could
make her the next target?

Then again, how would that kind of warning
sound coming out of the mouth of someone who just followed her from
River Street for four blocks?

When she did stop at the corner of Oh Shit
and Pentagram's End, I ducked down behind a group of trash cans
along the sidewalk, then peeked out around the cans to see her
cross the street and stand just outside the square. The name of the
square was emblazoned on a sign visible to oncoming traffic as they
made their right loop around the plot of land.

Chatham.

I was in the middle of making the decision
to stay and watch or run away and call Mike when someone made that
choice for me. I should have been paying more attention, given that
I'd been privately admonishing my target for not being aware of her
surroundings. I'd been so focused on her I'd shut down my own
perimeter defenses.

My first clue I screwed up was the sting at
the back of my neck, followed by the worst case of the woozies I'd
ever had. I reached up to feel something thin and grabbed it. But
when I brought it back around to take a better, if not blurry look
at it, it took a second to register I was looking at a syringe.

Oh…

…
no.

My knees gave first, followed by my hands as
I dropped the implement of whatever drug had just been shot into my
system. The rest of my muscles turned to Jell-O and I
unceremoniously fell back on the concrete. I couldn't move as the
edges of my vision burned like charred paper.

"Well, well, well…I didn't think it would
work. But I guess it's true: If you send out the right bait, you
get the best fish." A face interrupted my view of the night sky
peeking through the treetops. It was a familiar face…someone I
knew. He had dirty blond hair, a thin face, and a chipped front
tooth. Where had I seen him before? "It's finally time for payback,
Darren."

I narrowed my eyes as at him as my vision
grew darker. The woman I thought was Rhonda appeared beside him as
he straightened and looked down at me. Now that she was closer, I
knew it wasn't her. "This him? He's cute. So what're you gonna
do?"

"That's not something for you to worry
about, Princess. You got your cash. Now beat it."

"You're not gonna do something perverted
with him, are you?"

"Go, or I'll shoot you with this." He held
up another syringe.

She looked put out, and gave
me one more look. "Not sure your
Cruorem
buddies are gonna like
this."