Death Before Facebook (Skip Langdon #4) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time…

  A sobering thought but no way in hell was he budging. In all his years as a reporter, he’d never seen anything like this damn thing.

  They finished the speech: “For behold, I have been with thee from the beginning; and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.”

  But who the hell are you? he wondered, as people had, he realized, since “the beginning” the speech mentioned.

  The end of desire. Sure. If only it were that easy.

  Neetsie seemed to have another announcement to make.

  This Neetsie certainly wasn’t the one he knew. She was much more poised, sure, more confident.

  More adult.

  He found himself a little in awe of her, a circumstance he couldn’t have imagined before tonight.

  She spoke to the moon. “You who are with us always even when you are not; Moonmother! Shining One; dark one; large one; small one; pregnant one; barren one; crescent and circle. You who are as we are—maiden, mother, crone—though now at your height. Diana, Luna, Cybele, Aradia; Ishtar, Astarte; Inanna. Come to us tonight! Come to us!

  “Be here now!”

  Obviously following some sort of script the others shouted: “Be here now!”

  Neetsie lit a black candle and picked up a green one. She spoke to it: “And you, Lord Cernunnos. Homed one; leaper, lover, brother and son. Virile one, keeper of the animals, join us as well.” She lit the candle.

  “Be here now!”

  “Be here now!” the women chanted, and it was all Pearce could do not to shout the words with them. Though what it was they were calling, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  If it has horns, it probably has little cloven hooves as well.

  Neetsie spoke again, this time to the group, having apparently finished her colloquy with heavenly bodies and demons. “Women of the Cauldron of Cerridwen! Tonight we will speak with one as old as the pyramids. Wiser than all the pharaohs and all the gods; more terrible than an earthquake. Sekhmet the Lady of the Fifth Way! Those who work with Sekhmet mention indescribable delights and unspeakable horrors. So is it with our lady.”

  Mixing things up, aren’t they? Cerridwen was Celtic, I think, and the pyramids are Egyptian. And how the hell does Our Lady fit in?

  He was trying to think sophisticated thoughts, striving to muster up his usual cynical attitude, but he couldn’t stop a crop of goose bumps.

  “Priestess Brianna, come forward.”

  That proved to be Kit, who had rejoined the group, and now came to the center again. “Priestess Brianna, are you ready to receive the Lady of the Bloodbath?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you ready to receive the Giver of Ecstasies?”

  “I am.”

  “So mote it be.”

  The answer came: “So mote it be.”

  Once again, Neetsie spoke to the moon: “Lady Diana [she pronounced it “Deeonna”], it is your night; it is your moment And so we beg your indulgence to call into our priestess your counterpart of the daytime hours, another Shining One, a lady of the sun.”

  Pearce half expected the moon to bellow out “So mote it be!”

  “Cover us,” commanded Neetsie.

  Suby stepped forward, picked up a silvery scarf from the altar, and draped it over both women’s heads. It looked as if, inside, Neetsie held Kit by the shoulders.

  “Mother of the gods!” she shouted. “Come into our priestess. One Who Was Before the Gods Were! Flaming One! Lady of the Scarlet-Colored Garment! Awakener! Lady of Enchantments! Sekhmet of the Knives! Satisfier of Desires! Sublime One! Mother of the Dead! Enlightener! Destroyer by Plagues! Lady of the Waters of Life! Great One in Heaven! Devouring One! Bountiful One! Warrior Goddess! Beloved Teacher! Beloved Sekhmet! Come into Brianna!”

  Under the scarf, he saw Kit straighten suddenly. Neetsie lifted the scarf and stepped away. Kit’s bearing was different, Pearce thought; and one of her hands had drawn itself into a clawlike shape. With the other, she raised her ankh, slowly, agonizingly slowly, and pointed it straight ahead: “I am the Lady of the Place of the Beginning of Time. I am Sekhmet, Great One of Magic. Come forward, you who would know.”

  One of the women stepped forward and spoke quietly to Kit, who answered her too softly for Pearce to hear. The supplicant then lit a candle she had brought with her, a white candle in a jar apparently meant to serve as a wind shield.

  She stepped back and another came forward, then another, till everyone had had a turn.

  Meanwhile, the ones who weren’t eating from the tree of knowledge, or whatever they were doing, chanted some godawful spooky thing: it could have been “Om” or just “O,” Pearce couldn’t say, but it sounded like the baying of all the hounds of hell.

  For a while, though, he forgot to be unnerved or even cynical, and was caught by the beauty of the scene—women in flowing garments, candles, chanting.

  Oh, God, watch it, Pearce; this is how people slip into things. This is how smart people get converted to cults. They hypnotize you. They know techniques that work on your reason.

  Well, forget me. This is a nut that’s not gonna crack. Who the fuck does Kit think she is, the Pythian Sibyl?

  Those poor little girls. They actually believe that crap she’s handing out. Whatever it is.

  He amused himself composing words of wisdom she might be passing to the others:

  Give me all your money and jewels.

  Do whatever I say for the rest of your life.

  Go out and make your bones—sacrifice a human being to prove your allegiance.

  Preferably a child under ten.

  Wait a minute! Sacrifice a human being? That was even better than the other idea—the one where things got out of hand and Geoff died by accident. Could he sell this one to the cops (and of course to his esteemed readers)?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SKIP CAME AWAY oddly unnerved. Not terrified, the way she’d been before—instead, somewhat reassured, since no one had been sacrificed and no blood had been drunk. In fact, now she knew what the cookies were for at the last meeting—they were to eat. At the end, Kit had taken off her headgear and her fierce look, and the whole bunch of them had sat down and had a tea party. It was certainly a study in different styles.

  She was unnerved at her own reaction.

  She’d loved the thing.

  “Uh, Jim,” she said, “what the hell do you think that was?”

  Hodges grinned. He had worn dark clothes and he was dark. His teeth glinted in the closed car. “Don’t know, but it shore was pretty.”

  That helped. Skip had thought so too, but it made her feel weirdly guilty—as if she were breaking some kind of basic rule of society.

  She still wasn’t sure it was benign—maybe they only did sacrifices once a year, or every two months or something. And there was all that talk of bloodbaths. And of course the skull last time, the pentacle, the reference to “the horned one.” And what on Earth was a Sekhmet? In short, there were a lot of very suspicious things still to be dealt with.

  Which was why it was particularly worrisome that she felt as if she’d fallen under a spell. After she dropped Hodges, she even had trouble driving home, kept drifting off. Well, they’d called themselves witches. Maybe they’d done some sort of magic on her. Maybe one of those young women who walked up to Kit had said, “I just saw Skip Langdon hiding in the bushes. Why don’t we neutralize her?”

  What was a witch anyhow? She pondered the word. The black robes fit, but the white ones didn’t. And where were the broomsticks, the orgies? What there had been, of a witchy nature, was a cauldron, and apparently some sort of attempted contact with the spirit world.

  But she remembered that post of Kit’s on the TOWN—weren’t witches supposed to have intercourse with Satan? Only if Torquemada insisted they had, the post seemed to say, but there was still that bothersome word: Satan.

  She fell into bed and dreamed of water—of a tidal wave engulfing h
er—and awakened sweating. She got up and sipped water, knowing she had to pursue this first thing in the morning.

  I know. I’ll talk to Suby.

  Suby was probably the most vulnerable. The one most likely to crack under bullying. It was a dirty job, but the fastest means to an end.

  However, she now had enough information to ask the department experts first—someone in Child Abuse or Intelligence might know what she and Hodges had seen.

  She put in calls and waited—it was a Saturday, so it was a while before the phone rang. “Ramon, Intelligence. Returning your call.”

  She described the two rituals she’d seen, and he fixed on one word. “Witches? Did you say they’re witches?”

  “That’s what they called themselves.”

  He laughed. “Look, I’ve got a whole lot of material on it—I could give it to you if you want.”

  “Could you meet me at headquarters in a few minutes? I want to interview somebody and I don’t really want to go in cold.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  What he told her, what she read, was fascinating, but it left most of her questions unanswered.

  She hoped Suby didn’t live with her dad—she didn’t have the heart to accuse her of witchcraft with Mike Kavanagh in the house.

  The house where Kit had picked her up was big, but probably a duplex. A slender girl answered the door, not Suby, but maybe one of the witches. Moonlight changed faces, she realized—all the women had looked beautiful, even Kit with her odd hair and makeup. “Is Suby home?”

  “I don’t know if she’s up yet.”

  Skip produced her badge. Wide-eyed, the girl went to find her roommate, leaving Skip in a living room furnished with what were obviously parental castoffs. She sat down on a brocade couch with the stuffing coming out of one of the arms. A black cat, no doubt the couch-killer, came and rubbed against her.

  Somewhere in the back of the apartment, a radio went on; an old jazz tune broke the stillness of the Saturday. WWOZ, she thought.

  Finally, Suby appeared, in jeans and sweater, hair freshly brushed but wearing no makeup. At the TOWN dinner, Skip had paid her little attention, had noticed only that her features were like her father’s, Irish and rather coarse. A flat, slightly piggish nose spread out on her face, but her skin was lovely and her hair was thick. When she said hello, Skip realized something she hadn’t before—that her best feature was her voice, and it was fascinating—unexpectedly deep and throaty, yet at the same time very soft, very feminine. She spoke slowly, which made her sound as gentle and reassuring as your favorite aunt. A nurturing person, Skip thought, and found herself drawn to her.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “I’d love some. Shall I help you?” Despite Suby’s protests, Skip followed her to the kitchen. Favorite aunt or no, she wasn’t taking a chance on getting eye of newt for breakfast.

  “You must be here about Geoff.”

  “Suby, I need you to tell me something—what’s the Caudron of Cerridwen?”

  Suby whirled, her cheeks flaming. “How do you know about that?”

  “It’s my job to know.”

  “Why are you asking?” She turned back around and began very carefully measuring out coffee.

  “How old are you, Suby?”

  “I drive. I’m sure that’s on record somewhere.”

  Skip couldn’t believe she’d picked this one believing she’d be an easy target. She took a breath; here was where the bullying started. “It is. You’re nineteen; that’s still a minor. As you know, I work with your dad. Now, we’ve had reports about Satanist activity in the area and I wanted to give you a chance—”

  Suby whirled again, this time knocking over a dirty glass on the counter. “Satanist! That makes me so mad!”

  “I’m giving you a chance to explain.”

  “Goddammit! My dad dragged me off to mass a couple of weeks ago and the priest was talking about ‘pagans’ like we were those heavy-metal types with the spiked hair and the inverted pentagrams. It makes me so goddamn mad. There’s no religious toleration in this country unless you’re goddamn Catholic. My dad could probably get Kit arrested for contributing to my delinquency or something and she hasn’t done a goddamn thing except teach me…”

  “What?”

  “Things I need to know.”

  “I guess I know what your favorite word is, anyway.”

  “Oh. You mean goddamn. Sorry. It’s just that it makes me so mad.”

  “I get the hang of it. Look, I’m not here to hurt you. I just need some information, that’s all. What’s an inverted pentagram, for openers?”

  Suby drew a star and turned it upside down, so that two of its arms pointed upward. “There. It’s supposed to be a Satanic symbol—I’ve never seen one except on, like, album covers. Death-rock kind of stuff.” She turned it back around. “Not to be confused with this one, which means the four elements and spirit. Or… lots of things, I guess. That’s just how I think of it.”

  The coffee had dripped through its filter. She turned back and poured Skip a cup.

  “So tell me about the Cauldron of Cerridwen.”

  “I guess I have to, huh?” She seemed to have calmed down.

  “It’s probably a good idea.”

  “The only thing is, I don’t know where to start. Let’s see. Well, we’re a group that has a name that I’m not going to tell you yet, because it’s kind of inflammatory. What do you know about neopaganism?”

  Skip shrugged. “I’ve never even heard the word before.” (Before talking to Ramon, anyway.)

  “Well, it’s a kind of made-up religion based on—um… what? All the religions that ever were, practically. Unlike Satanism, by the way, which is an offshoot of Christianity. We don’t even recognize Satan, who is a Christian concept and nothing to do with us.”

  “Wait a minute—this thing is based on all religions except Christianity?”

  She flushed. “Well, there are pagans who are also Christians. I just don’t happen to be one of them.”

  “And Kit?”

  “I have no idea. The great thing about it is there aren’t any rules or any dogma. You can believe anything you want and nobody’ll care.”

  “Except about Satan.”

  She flushed again.

  “I take it back. There’s a code of ethics. Black magic is precluded.”

  “Whoa! I’m in way over my head.”

  “Most of the ancient religions did go in for magic. Think about Native American shamanism, or voodoo. We think they were on to something. But we don’t use what we do for evil. As I understand it, Satan’s evil by definition.”

  “You call yourselves witches then.”

  “That’s right. How’d you know that?’

  “Tell me more.”

  “Okay, the word I was avoiding is ‘coven.’ It’s a group of witches who work together. Ours is all women, but we aren’t Dianic.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. That’s a technical term for witches who only call the goddess, and that’s not us. See, we reject the idea of a male god. That is, only one god who happens to be male. Most ancient cultures had a goddess before they had a god—the god is her consort, but also her son and her lover, depending on what time of year it is.” Seeing Skip’s confused look, she said, “Most of the beliefs come from agricultural cultures. The goddess represented the Earth itself and the god represented the grain. He dies, so he has to be born again. That’s why he’s her son.”

  “Let me get this straight. She mates with him, he dies, and then she gives birth to him again.”

  Suby shrugged. “They don’t call these things mysteries for nothing.”

  Skip was thinking that this pat little lecture explained a few things, but Suby was making it sound a lot more cheerful than she had found it.

  “Come on, Suby. Why would you need human bones for the sort of thing you’re talking about?”

  “Human bones? What on Earth are you talking about?”

 
“A skull on your altar.”

  Her cheeks flamed again. “You’ve been spying on us.”

  Skip shrugged.

  “Oh, God, we were doing that crone ritual. Oh, Jesus, this is starting to make sense. We even made jokes about it—if someone saw this, wouldn’t they freak out, ha, ha, ha. And it would be a cop.”

  “Why don’t we go back in the living room? I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be here a while.”

  “You want some toast? I’m starving.” Now that she knew what Skip knew, Suby was friendly as her own little black cat—which Skip now thought of as her familiar.

  Carrying their coffee and Suby’s toast, they went back in and settled on the shabby sofa. Suby put a hand to her head. “God. How can I explain this?” Finally, she pointed outside, at the gray sky. “This is the crone’s time of year. Wmter. The maiden is spring, and the mother is summer.”

  “That works metaphorically.”

  “Ah. That’s a word I should have used myself. You’ve got to think of this stuff as metaphor. We’re a very dramatic coven—we’ve got the right clothes for everything, and these real formal, real dramatic rituals with a lot of memorization and fancy words—mostly at Neetsie’s insistence.

  “Once we did this ritual to banish all our bad habits and Neetsie insisted we all go do it at the hospital where Kit works, in this spooky old room where she goes to smoke. Can you imagine what that was like? Getting all our robes and gear past the hospital staff? That Neetsie’s something else. By the way, it didn’t even work that well—Kit still smokes, I still eat chocolate, and Lenore… oh, well, that’s her business.”

  “What about the skull?”

  “Sorry. I just wanted to emphasize that there’s nothing like having an actor around to get a little drama in your life. So naturally, we’ve got white robes for the maiden, which we also wear at the full moon, and red for the mother, and black for the crone. Also, we use black candles for the crone.

  “I know it sounds gross, but basically we’re talking death here—that’s what winter’s all about, right? Halloween is All Hallows’ Eve, when the veil between the worlds is thinnest—”