Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside

by Heather Graham

  “If what weren’t backward?” Sam asked quickly.

  “Well, I’m trying to remember. My sister just started teaching at the high school, so all she knows is what others say about the past, but if I remember this correctly—and you should definitely check me out, because I’m just giving you hearsay or whatever—but Peter Andres was vocal about Abraham Smith. He said that Smith had his own money, and that he was still collecting some kind of disability. That he was a drain on the taxpayers, was the epitome of the worst of the system—stuff like that. He stood up for Malachi, but he hated Abraham. Malachi, of course, always defended his father.”

  “What did Abraham have to say about that?” Jenna asked.

  Cecilia shrugged. “Nothing—nothing that I know about. But he wasn’t the kind to have a drink and chat at the bars!” she said. She smiled at them. “A lot of the merchants around here are actually good friends, and if we don’t like each other—or don’t always share the same philosophy or vision—we still support one another. We get together to plan Halloween activities, we work with the city and the museums. That’s how we stay afloat through the cold, icy winter when tourism isn’t so plentiful! So, yes, of course, we chat when we stop at the brewery or one of the bars, and we usually do hear what’s going on around town. You know back when that incident happened at the high school, some argued that Andy and Cindy Yates had a crazy kid themselves, and even some smart people said that suggestion could cause people to do very strange things. Kind of like you can brainwash yourself. Then, the other half of the people argued on the superstitious side. There was something strange about Malachi Smith. Maybe the devil actually lived up at Lexington House and had gotten into him. But, anyway, old Abraham took his son out of school without a word, and people stopped talking about it so much.”

  “Until Peter Andres was murdered?” Jenna asked.

  Cecilia hesitated. A group had just walked into the shop. The three women were wearing beautiful velvet capes, and Jenna had the feeling that they’d just been purchased. One of the men was dressed in similar fashion, but his hooded cape was brown wool.

  “A mortar and pestle, Johnny!” one of the women said. “Ooh, in marble, how pretty—I bet I could cook up some spells with that!”

  “Excuse me,” Cecilia said, and walked over to the group.

  Jenna could see that the newcomers seemed both fascinated and amused by the fact that they were in “Witch City.” She could also see that Cecilia was accustomed to the attitude and seemed entirely unperturbed. She suggested to the woman that the mortar and pestle were also quite useful for crushing garlic and herbs.

  “She’s a good kid,” Sam said softly.

  “And a talker…but a lot of help,” she replied. She couldn’t help watching the man in the brown cape. There was really nothing out of the ordinary about him; people were dressed up all around the city. But his outfit reminded her of her vision—the caped, hooded and masked person who had rushed in on Peter Andres, felling him where he stood.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam asked her.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t ready to tell him what she’d seen. He’d mocked her at the Lexington House, and she could only imagine what he would have to say if she told him a dressed-up and horned demon had killed Peter Andres.

  “It’s Halloween. People like to play at being many things,” she said.

  “People always like to play at being many things,” he told her. “I’ll let Cecilia know we’re leaving.”

  Cecilia excused herself to her customers, hugged Sam and waved to Jenna, and the two left her shop. They walked along the pedestrian street by the museums and other shops. All around them, they could hear the delighted squeals of children as they watched jugglers or paused at various stations to take part in drawing, pumpkin carving or face painting.

  Jenna wasn’t sure where they were going, but Sam was thoughtful.

  “Assuming Malachi is innocent, what’s going on is calculated,” he said. “First murder a teacher, assuming that everyone would think that Malachi hated that teacher and would easily be suspected—which he was. And then a neighbor. But why the neighbor?”

  “According to Cecilia, everyone hated the Smith family,” Jenna said. “So, we can assume that the neighbor hated them a lot.”

  “So, it all looks like a series of events, with the killer, Malachi, having lost all hold on reality, and perhaps killing others before lashing out at his restrictive family. The question is…was there a real reason for the neighbor and the teacher, or were they just there, random victims in a plan against the family?”

  “Or was there a plan, and they fit right into it?” Jenna asked.

  “Well, the fact that Malachi and Peter Andres actually got on well together will help our case,” Sam said.

  Jenna heard him speak, but she didn’t reply. She stopped walking.

  Just ahead of them, moving through the crowd, was someone in a long brown cape, a monk’s cape with a hood. She couldn’t see the person’s face and she didn’t know if it was a man or a woman—or if they wore a mask or not.

  She reminded herself that she had just seen a man in Cecilia’s shop in such a cape.

  It was Halloween season, Haunted Happenings. People would be in costumes daily, participating in all the events, and dressing up because it was fun to dress up!

  The person paused—almost as if they had felt they were being watched.

  He or she turned and looked back.

  Jenna froze.

  The person was wearing the mask.

  The same mask she had seen in her vision of the murder of Peter Andres.

  It was the horned devil.

  5

  The horned devil stared at her a long moment, and then turned.

  She couldn’t have begun to explain how, but the person in the costume knew she had recognized him.

  If it was a him. It was impossible to tell.

  Jenna found herself following the horned devil. Even as she quickened her pace, she wondered what she would say if she caught up with them.

  Excuse me, but in my mind’s eye, I saw you murder Peter Andres, or at least, I saw someone in the costume you’re wearing….

  “Hey, where are you going?” Sam called. She hadn’t realized that she’d been walking so quickly until Sam had caught up with her. By the time she looked up from where Sam’s arm was on her, she saw that she’d lost her target in the crowd. The horned devil had disappeared by diving through a group dressed as plums and apples and the rest of the Fruit of the Loom underwear set.

  Halloween season. The season of the witch, so many thought. And in legend, the night when souls could return to earth….

  And try to linger on.

  But the dead weren’t really returning; the living created evil.

  “Jenna!” Sam said.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I thought I saw an old friend.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “Someone I might know?”

  Jenna dead-blanked on the name of anyone she might have known in Salem.

  “Just—just a girl I saw now and then. She might have been friends with Cecilia, too. I actually can’t remember her name.” Jenna tried not to blink, fidget, look downward or to the side, or do any of the things that automatically identified you as a liar.

  “Oh,” he said, looking back at her. “Well, I can’t help you there.”

  “Oh, nothing to worry about,” she said and shrugged.

  Jenna realized that in her pursuit she had turned down the street toward Old Burying Point Cemetery. The cemetery contained the graves of a Mayflower Pilgrim, and John Hathorne, one of the witchcraft trial judges. Nathaniel Hawthorne had added the “w” to his family’s name, and written many of his works, because he’d been disturbed by his ancestor’s involvement in the trials. Jenna mused that it was an interesting place, and she was grateful for the historic preservation there and for the monument of benches and names that had been
added just outside the gates for the tercentennial of the trial in 1992.

  It was a place steeped in history and the past. A place where the dead had been interred for hundreds of years. Though tourists walked among the gravestones and sought out those of the greatest interest, Jenna could still see the hazy images of a few of the departed wandering about. Most spirits did not remain to haunt burial grounds; their business was seldom at the place where their earthly remains had been interred. Perhaps those who came just did so out of respect to others. The cemetery wasn’t crowded, but she could see a man in a ship captain’s jacket, a few in more puritanical dress, and a beautiful young woman in a gown that belonged in the early eighteen hundreds.

  “Ah, the old burying ground,” Sam said.

  “I doubt if we’ll find any answers here,” Jenna said, turning away from graveyard itself to look at him, hoping she gave away nothing of what she saw.

  “You never know. The past can usually teach us a lot. I always find people amazing—and the trials extremely interesting, as far as the legal process of the time went,” Sam mused. “Those who admitted to witchcraft—dancing with the devil, whatever!—managed to save their lives. Those who denied it to the end, certain in their belief in God or just determined that they wouldn’t admit to such ridiculousness, were the ones who were hanged. Or, in the case of Giles Corey, pressed to death.”

  “I know. I’ve always wondered how people managed to stay fast to such a declaration. I wonder about myself. If I believed I could be forgiven and redeemed by stating a lie—and I knew that I’d wind up being hanged if I told the truth—I’m not sure I would have stayed the truth course. But our standards have changed. We know the world is filled with beliefs, and we have to be tolerant of them now. I’m convinced that God would forgive anyone such a lie to save themselves, since their accusers were obviously so sadly mistaken in the law, religion—and witchcraft!” Jenna said.

  She found herself sitting on one of the cantilevered benches, looking at the trees that seemed to whisper softly in the autumn air. She had chosen the bench that was inscribed to John Proctor.

  Sam smiled, setting a foot on the bench and leaning toward her on his knee. “How wonderfully logical, Miss Duffy.”

  “Are you mocking me again?”

  He shook his head, serious despite the charming curve of his rueful smile. “I often wonder myself how people could adhere to principle with such determination in the face of such horrible consequences. Take old John Proctor. He argued that, ‘the girls will make devils of us all!’ He gave his girl a good whack—hardly accepted these days, of course—and her fits stopped. She got back with the other girls, and her fits started up again, and John Proctor wound up being hanged because the girls accused him. We can never, ever forget the power of belief and the human mind!”

  Then he looked around wistfully at the various graves. “Well, you’re good at lying,” he said suddenly, catching Jenna off guard.

  Startled, she stared up at him.

  “Or, not so good…” he said.

  “I don’t know what—”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Who were you just chasing?” he demanded.

  “If I told you, you’d make fun of me,” she said defensively.

  “Try me—since I know you’re lying anyway, and I’d rather you tell a truth that I might mock.”

  “I don’t particularly enjoy being mocked,” she said.

  “My mind isn’t that closed—there’s a door in there that’s slightly ajar.”

  “All right—I went to the murder site. The barn.”

  “I know that.”

  “I sometimes have what they call retro-cognition or postcognition,” Jenna told him.

  “You see the past.”

  She nodded. “And you’re going to laugh.”

  “No, honestly, I’m not. I have to admit, I’m not sure that anyone really sees the past, but I believe that the mind is amazing, and perhaps such things as postcognition, as you say, exist because of something locked in the deep subconscious. You know an area, you’ve seen things, you’ve heard things…they come alive in the back of the mind,” he said.

  “Well, then, in the back of my mind, I saw the killer go after Peter Andres.”

  He stared at her a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands. “Well, let’s hope you’re right. If we know who, we just have to find proof and motive to back it up. You know, evidence. So who was it?”

  “I don’t know who.”

  “But you saw them.”

  “Whoever killed Andres did so in costume.”

  “In costume?” he asked, staring at her blankly. “Like in a Halloween costume? It wasn’t the Halloween season when Peter Andres was killed.”

  “I know.”

  “So…what kind of a costume? I hear clown costumes are great—in horror movies, at least. There there’s always your traditional white plastic mask à la the Friday the 13th movies. Or a rubber Freddy Krueger—”

  She stood up. “You may be the attorney. Well, then, you have all kinds of legal research and studying to do, motions to file, arguments to plan. You know the law, Sam. I’m not so sure that you know people, or really understand much about the human soul. I think I’m better off on my own.” She turned to leave, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll call you when I have something tangible.”

  She walked away, thinking that he would call her back, that he would apologize.

  He didn’t.

  * * *

  Sam watched Jenna go, feeling a growing sense of irritation—battled by a longing to rush after her.

  He steeled himself to hold still. Somehow, her crazy-good uncle had convinced him to take on the defense of a youth who had been caught with the blood of the slain all over him. Somehow, he had gotten himself into this. Jamie had always been happy to tell a tale about the gnomes, pixies, leprechauns and banshees, and how a battle of giants had created great stone steps in Ireland. His stories were fun—good drinking fare in a pub, sure to entertain.

  But, now, his niece, FBI special agent, was telling him she could see what had happened in the past. Except that she couldn’t actually see who had murdered the Smiths, Peter Andres or Earnest Covington. Nope, nope, just someone in costume.

  A brilliant red leaf drifted down on the stone slab seat where Jenna had been sitting. He read the writing engraved there: John Proctor, hanged, August 19, 1692. Arthur Miller, in The Crucible, had cast the man in his early thirties, a romantic fellow who had engaged in an affair with his chief accuser, Abigail Williams—who had, in truth, been eleven at the time. There had been no affair, and the girl who had cried out first against the family had been Ann Putnam, and she had accused Elizabeth, his wife.

  Sam’s lips tightened grimly. Growing up in Salem, it had been impossible to miss learning about the Witch Trials, backward and forward. And also the Hollywood versions of them.

  “‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’ Exodus, 22:18,” he murmured aloud. Witches—those who had made pacts with the devil—did not exist. Wiccans didn’t even believe in the devil of the New England forefathers, no matter what those like the Smiths had thought.

  Jenna might well have been hanged as a witch—in the colonies. Burned if she had stumbled back to Scotland or the European continent.

  Sam got up and wandered in through the gate, and over to the Hathorne grave. He wondered if the remains of the man who had been instrumental in the persecution were even vaguely in the spot anymore—the earth shifted over the years. Embalming hadn’t existed here when Hathorne had died, and coffins were not made to try to stave off time. The thing of it all was that history was the greatest teacher. Nathaniel Hawthorne had been so disturbed by his family’s part in the hysteria that he’d found a way to try to right the wrongs of the past on paper, not just in works such as The Scarlet Letter or The House of the Seven Gables, but in his short stories, such as “Young Goodman Brown,” in which the protagonist was late getting into the woods
because of his wife, Faith, who held him back before he entered the realm in which an old man, née the devil, informed him he had many friends in New England. Fear so overcame Goodman Brown that he “lost Faith.” It was far too easy to believe in the evil that might be around than it was to fight against it.

  The autumn breeze was rustling, and he looked around at the beauty of the leaves. He loved New England. It was home. And New Englanders, who usually accepted all their history with a grain of salt, were truly no different than people anywhere. Especially in the twenty-first century. The pace of living was frantic; the internet brought the escapades of the world closer and closer together. And people everywhere had a tendency to be influenced by the crowd around them.

  Well, back in the seventeenth century, sane men were led to believe in “spectral” evidence. A witch’s evil soul could leave her body and squeeze the bowels of the afflicted, pinch and scratch them. And while the modern world scoffed and laughed at such a possibility, people were still fascinated by out-of-body, near-death experiences.

  And Jenna Duffy could close her eyes and see the past….

  None of it mattered, he told himself. He was dealing with flesh and blood—literally. Malachi Smith had been found covered in the blood of his family.

  That was evidence—hard evidence. That was the stuff he had to deal with, no esoteric comparisons of human nature over the centuries.

  Sam himself had been the first to see Malachi that night. And hadn’t he at first refused to acknowledge that it was blood the boy was covered in? His first impression—his unconscious—couldn’t even be brought to think the boy a killer.