Stained (8 page)

The purity of light guide the way to gentle sleep. Hence may I be known for the peace that I keep. I will pass Morpheus on the road, so my spell for sleep is blessed.

Sé hadn’t been sleeping well since he’d caught this case. When he had a night off he spent most of it pacing the floor, or tossing and turning, his body unwilling to shut down. He was having one of those nights now. The case was going nowhere, and if they didn’t get a new lead soon, chances were they wouldn’t solve it. It was turning cold fast. Worse, Sé felt the killer was starting to get a taste for this. Scettico still favored Thorn, but Sé didn’t see it. He wasn’t ready to take her off the list of suspects yet, because he still didn’t know enough about her. She had the means and the opportunity, but the motive just wasn’t there.

Just before dawn his beeper went off. He pushed back the blankets and groped for his pager. He called in. Another body had been found. Fuck. Sé rode his bike through the cold morning air, dodging cars in the early commute, directly to the crime scene, an abandoned building on the Oakland border. Some kids had been partying in it and found the body.

“Sé, over here,” Scettico called out.

Sé walked over to where his partner stood. “What have you found out so far?” he asked.

“Time of death was sometime between one and four last night,” he said, as he flipped through a little notebook. “Cause of death was decapitation, like the others. Same MO. Parts of her tattoo are missing too, like the others.” Scettico looked around disgustedly. “Pictures are still being taken.”

“I’m going to go look at her. Do we have a name yet?”

“Yeah, Azayrid Goldstone, age 42. Lives in Berkeley, one of these new age types, Wiccan or something like that.”

The hair on the back of Sé’s neck stood up. Who was targeting witches? And who was powerful enough to get away with it? Granted a Wiccan was not the same as a blood-born cailleach, but they still held power and were peaceful people. How did Richard fit into this? Was he a witch too? He had to ask Thorn. This was her world and her expertise. There were a lot of questions that needed answering and it all came back to Thorn.

Sé made his way to Azayrid, or to what was left of her. The coroner had courteously covered her head. Photographers were still taking pictures of her tats. Sé got in close to see them too. An image of an ancient oak tree twined halfway up her leg. Some of the roots had carefully been removed. It had been the perfect place to weave the talismans into the designs. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see what the killer had been after. This time a thorny branch had been wrapped around the victim’s wrist. A calling card, or a warning? That cop feeling hit him fullforce again. How much did he really know about Thorn? Was she capable of this? He was going to find out.

Sé went back to the station and poured over everything they had on Thorn. He spent the day trying to track down her financials. He made calls to her friends overseas.

When Sé made a call to her last known place of employment in Japan, he put the phone on speaker and waited.

“Irezumi Ink,” a heavily-accented voice said.

“This is Detective O’Bradigen from the Berkeley Police Department in California. I’m calling to get some information on an old employee of yours, Thorn, no last name?” Sé leaned back in his seat.

“Thorn, yes, we miss her greatly,” the voice said.

“Good, you remember her. What can you tell me about her?”

“She was an excellent apprentice. Her work was very beautiful. She learned quickly all our traditions. When she left we lost customers.”

“I’ve seen her work, she is very talented. What did she do in her spare time?”

“She studied Kenjutsu. She became quite good at it. Between studying here at the shop and working out at her dojo, she didn’t do much else.”

“Really,” Sé said, as he picked up a pencil and tapped it softly against the desk. “Does she still study?”

“Not that I know. I guess after her master was killed and her best friend, she lost a taste for it. That’s when she left Japan.”

“What happened to them?” Sé asked.

“Someone murdered them. Both the same day. The police couldn’t determine how her master died. It looked like he had been mummified, all dried up.”

“Had he been missing for a long time?”

“No, he’d been seen just that day. It was the freakiest thing.” The sound of someone yelling in Japanese, distracted the speaker for a moment. “Sorry,” he apologized for the interruption. “Her best friend was found later that night with her head cut off. Thorn found them both after working all day with me.”

“She was decapitated?”

“Yeah, the police figured the murderer took her master’s katana.”

“You’re sure she was working with you at the time of both murders?”

“Positive.”

“Well, you’ve been very helpful. I’ll let you get back to work.”

Sé sat back thinking about what he just heard.

“I like her for all of it,” Scettico said.

“Didn’t you hear, she had an alibi?”

“I think she got a taste for it,” Scettico said, seemingly deaf to Sé’s question.

Scettico, considered his theory, rocking back and forth on his heels.

Sé grunted in disgust. He agreed to an interview with Thorn. That much was warranted.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Divine Goddess, Goddess Divine, Divine God, God Divine, if evil dwells within this place, please make it leave my space.

Thorn woke up to pounding on her door. She sat up, instantly alert, ready for action. Her stomach clenched, and a cold sweat broke out all over her body. Her old fears of having to run from city to city gripped her, as she gathered her power about her. With her power building she sent it out to all corners of the building, trying to sense any danger. She couldn’t sense any. She threw on some jeans and a t-shirt, and answered the door. Using her inner eye she tried to ascertain who was there. She looked through the peephole. It was Detective Scettico and Sé. She didn’t like the idea of letting Scettico into her apartment, her one place of peace and purity. Opening the door, she stepped onto the landing.

“Thorn, we have some questions for you,” Sé said. He had his cop face on, it was hard to tell what he was thinking, and the circles were back under his eyes.

“Ok.” She knew there must have been another murder. She was not going to let Scettico have the satisfaction of seeing her reactions.

“Where were you last night between one and four in the morning?” Scettico asked her.

“About one thirty I took a ride on my bike. I got back a little after three. Then I read for a while and went to bed, why?”

“Can anyone vouch for that?” Scettico asked, his posture and voice aggressive. “Do you know a woman named Azayrid Goldstone?” Sé kept his head down as if he weren’t a part of his partner’s performance.

“In passing. I don’t know her well.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come down to the station with us for more questioning, Miss Thorn,” Scettico said, obviously enjoying himself. This is what Scettico lived for.

“Why? What does this pertain to and will I need a lawyer present?”

“Just come with us and don’t ask a lot of questions,” Scettico said, bristling like a challenged bear.

Raven flew from his perch and Scettico suddenly had a foul streak down his suit. Sé coughed, a sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“Raven!” Thorn admonished.

“Pretty bird, pretty bird,” Raven sang.

“Is this shit? Is this what I think it is? Fuck! Aww fuck!” Scettico shouted in outrage.

“I’m so sorry. Let me get something to clean that up.”

“No, I’m fine,” Scettico growled.

After recovering from his coughing fit, Sé turned back to Thorn. “You’re entitled to a lawyer, Thorn. Azayrid Goldstone was murdered last night in the same way as the other two victims,” Sé said, gently pushing past a cursing Scettico.

Thorn nodded and went straight down the stairs. The men followed her as she went to the employee break room. She picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart. She whispered a quick, terse conversation and then turned back to the two detectives.

“My lawyer told me that I’m not supposed to go with you unless you have an arrest warrant. He’ll be in town in a couple of days and will accompany me to the station to make a formal statement at that time. If you two gentlemen have anything else to say, you can say it to my lawyer, Charles Beglan.” Thorn took one of her business cards and wrote her lawyer’s number on the back. She handed it to Sé. Sé looked somewhat relieved. She felt some of her tension ease as his face relaxed. She needed him to be in her corner.

Scettico reached for the card and read the number on the back.

“What kind of number is this? Where the hell is your lawyer from?” Scettico complained.

“Come on, Scettico, there’s nothing else we can do here,” Sé said, gruffly, putting on his cop persona for Scettico.

“We’ll be back with an arrest warrant. You won’t be able to hide behind a lawyer then.” Scettico flexed his muscles and cracked his neck. His shirt bulged out. He stank of adrenaline.

The minute they left, Thorn went out front to the shop and had Jason cancel all her appointments for that night, and the two nights after that, something she had never done before. She needed to study. Someone was out to get her and her creations and they were taking out her customers. She had to protect Sé or he might be next. She had to protect herself.

Upstairs, Thorn fed Raven some meat and changed his water.

“I take this to mean no ride tonight?”

“No, I’ve got too much work to do. Uncle Charles is coming into town and I have to find out who is committing these murders. Why target me?”

“Do you think the bad one has found us?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t felt him. But he may have learned to cloak himself better this time. The more I learn, the more he could learn as well. Azayrid was a wise, peaceful soul. She did not deserve to die that way.”

“None of them did.”

“No they didn’t. I’m going to need some of your lucky intuition tonight Raven. Help me to put the pieces together.”

Raven mantled, puffing his feathers, drawing his wings up as if to shelter her, and cawed.

Thorn went to her bookcases and took off the wards to the old grimoires bound in worn leather, and held together with magick. Many ancient texts, some bound in rough animal hides, some in wood and some in fine-grained leather. They were warded to look like ordinary books until she took the spell off. She pulled down her family’s grimoires handed down among witches for generations, her book of shadows and any other texts she thought might help her in her search. Tonight would be long and arduous, and if all else failed she would scry for the dark one. She hoped she didn’t have to go that far. It would be like ringing his doorbell.

Thorn moved the first and most likely grimoire close to the light so she could study it. It was older than her, older by 300 years and written in Gaelic. The cover was dyed black leather and the pages were fading. The spells placed on them kept them from disappearing altogether. Intricate drawings littered the margins and bizarre ingredients that were very difficult to find were listed throughout the book. Thorn tenderly went through, page by page studying each one, looking for something that made sense.

Towards the end of the book she found an annotation that intrigued her.…to capture their power you must use a bag made of skin from magick makers…

It was written in someone’s handwriting and the rest had faded away. But it grabbed her attention. She quickly pulled down another book, and another, to cross-reference power-stealing. What she found both amazed and frightened her.

She learned there was more than one way to capture another witch’s power. One was at the time of their death. You said an incantation over them after you killed them. The crux was that you must be the one to kill them. This was definitely dark magick. No wonder she had never heard of it before. The second way was the way she was looking for, and much more difficult. She felt sure the killer was using both methods.

In the second power-stealing method, you used a bag or satchel sewn out of the skin that has been magicked. Her talismans would fit this requirement perfectly. In this bag you would capture the powers of a particularly powerful witch. The actual attack would take place during a battle and would strip the witch of his or her power. This was the only way to take the power of a born witch. It was best to use pixie, fairy, or vampire skin, but witch skin would work in a bind. Since the first two were very hard to find, the killer must be banking on her bewitched talismans to make the skin more powerful. That’s why this killer hasn’t tried to kill her. He doesn’t have enough skin yet.

Now, to track the dark one. He was a born witch too. His father had taken him away at birth and she only found out about him after Muirin died. She remembered meeting her brother, the first time.

It was the night Raven came to her. He’d flown in the window and cawed softly at her.