In the Air Tonight

by Lori Handeland

  Raye, who’d been leaning close, peering at the designs on the amulets, stepped away.

  “Also to invoke the goddess,” Todd continued, then shrugged. “But mostly for protection.”

  “Protection again,” Bobby said. “Did they hang them over the door, in the trees?”

  The kid’s gaze sharpened. “You should have found one hanging around Mrs. Noita’s neck.”

  Mrs. Noita’s neck, chest, pretty much everything had been covered in blood. But not so much that Bobby couldn’t see a marked lack of a pentacle.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Might be why it didn’t help.” Todd chewed his bottom lip for a second. “She wouldn’t take it off. Maybe it was torn off in the struggle. It has to be there somewhere.”

  Bobby decided not to mention that Mrs. Noita’s “there” wasn’t there anymore, along with most of Mrs. Noita. The guy was having a hard enough time as it was.

  “What are these?” Raye asked, lifting a ring from a box atop one of the cases.

  “Also pentacles. Men aren’t big on necklaces.”

  “Ever see a ring with a snarling wolf?” Bobby asked.

  “Wasn’t a ring.”

  Bobby and Raye exchanged a glance.

  “The athame with the curving blade has a snarling wolf carved into the handle.”

  “Is that common?” Bobby asked.

  “Carvings, yes. But they’re usually runes and such.”

  Bobby almost asked what a rune was, then decided to keep his eye on the ball. “No wolves?”

  “That was the only one I ever saw. Witches are associated with cats. Wolves?” He lifted one shoulder. “Not really. But after Annie showed me that athame, I did a little research. There was one group that used a snarling wolf as their symbol.”

  Raye’s breath caught. Bobby set a hand on her arm to keep her from speaking.

  “A particular coven?” he asked.

  “No. A bunch of witch-burning bastards from the seventeenth century.”

  Bobby’s fingers tightened as Raye leaned forward. “What were they called?”

  “Venatores Mali, hunters of evil. They hunted witches with the blessing of some Scottish king. Their symbol was a snarling wolf, which was seen as a great hunter in many cultures. The Norse often wore wolf skulls on their heads when they went a-viking. A lot of the Plains Indians did the same.”

  “The Scots?” Bobby asked.

  “Apparently they carved the wolf into their implements of torture.”

  “They did?” Bobby couldn’t remember any of that from Braveheart.

  “Maybe it was just the Venatores Mali.”

  “Why would the symbol of a witch-hunting society be carved into the hilt of a witch’s ritual knife?”

  “Christians liked to appropriate everything pagan. There’s a reason our sabbats fall near Christian holidays. They put the holidays next to the sabbats.”

  Bobby must have looked skeptical because Todd continued, “You think Jesus was born on December twenty-fifth?”

  “Yes?”

  “No, or at the least, no one knows for sure. The Bible is vague about his birth, oddly specific about his death. Part of that is because they weren’t really birthday-party people back then. One of the few references to the time of year among the apostles’ writings was ‘shepherds watching their flocks.’ Flocks would have been corralled in December. If you take the Bible literally, that means Jesus wasn’t born in December.”

  “Pretty slim,” Bobby murmured.

  “My middle name, dude. A lot of experts think the early Christians needed to offset the sabbat of Yule and decided December was a nice place to plop Christ’s birthday. Get the common people to confuse the two and pretty soon you’ve got a congregation instead of a coven.”

  Bobby felt vaguely sacrilegious, and he wasn’t even the one plopping Christ’s birthday in any old place.

  “What does this have to do with the wolf on the ritual knife?”

  “Why stop at appropriating pagan holy days? What if a witch hunter took the athame off one of his victims and carved his crest into it, thus changing a peaceful pagan ritual knife into a Christian tool of torture?”

  “Interesting theory.”

  “It’s a little more than that,” Todd said. “I found mention of a squiggly knife in a seventeenth-century text.”

  “They actually used the word squiggly?” Raye asked.

  “Even better. There was a drawing, which matched Annie’s athame.”

  Bobby got a chill. “What did Anne have to say about that?”

  “She didn’t seem surprised.”

  “I bet not,” Bobby said. He was starting to think Anne had hunted down that athame with the same intensity that the Venatores Mali had hunted her.

  But why?

  Chapter 18

  “Why would Anne want an athame when she wasn’t a fire witch?” I asked. From Bobby’s glance, he’d been about to ask the same thing.

  “Who wouldn’t want it? It was probably worth fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Fifty thousand for a knife?” Bobby blurted.

  “Not just any knife. If it was the same one, that athame belonged to Roland McHugh. The founder of the Venatores Mali.”

  My breath caught. Uh-oh.

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “You notice no one’s come in since you did?” Todd indicated the books lining the walls of the shop. “I got nothin’ but time to read them.”

  Bobby rubbed his eyes. “What else do you know about the Venatores Mali?”

  “I never heard of ’em before I saw that carving on the athame. They were a secret society.”

  “They were burning people on the orders of King James. You’d think someone would have kept records.”

  “If they did, they hid them well. The only information I found was in diaries. McHugh scared everyone, including his followers. He was obsessed with witches, and once on the trail of one, he didn’t stop until they were ashes.”

  I got a shiver, which was silly. McHugh had been dead for centuries.

  “All of the witch hunters and black-robed inquisitors were fanatics,” Bobby said. “It was kind of their thing.”

  “For McHugh the hunt was personal. Sure, he fried anyone he could along the way, but he was obsessed with one witch in particular for the rest of his life.”

  “The one that got away?” Bobby asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. He burned both her and her husband.”

  “End of story,” Bobby said.

  “Not quite. The woman was a midwife who attended McHugh’s wife in childbirth. His wife and the child died.”

  “That happened a lot back then.” Bobby took a breath, let it out. “Although I can see how the man became unhinged.”

  He tried to keep his voice neutral, but I heard what lay beneath. I took his hand, and, though he cast me a curious glance, he let me.

  “The problem was that the midwife gave birth to three healthy girls shortly after. Back then, more than twins were rare and kind of witchy, their surviving even more so. McHugh got it in his head that the woman had sacrificed his wife and child so that hers would live. He vowed to find those devil-spawned children, no matter what it took.”

  “How’d he lose them?”

  Both men glanced at me, and I continued. “He murdered the parents. Did they sense the end was near and hide the babies?”

  Todd actually rubbed his palms together. Considering all the blood and fire and death, he was enjoying the tale a little too much. “Here’s where it gets interesting. The Venatores Mali surprised the couple in a cottage in the deepest, darkest forest. They built a pyre.”

  “Huge mistake in a forest,” I observed.

  “They’d made enough of them to know what they were doing,” Todd said. “McHugh believed both mother and father were witches. Strapped them back-to-back on the stake and lit them up.”

  I must have flinched because Bobby’s fingers tightened around mine. “The children?
” I asked.

  “Held in the arms of three hunters.”

  “They made them watch?”

  “They were a few days old. Doubt they could focus on much, or remember anything at all.”

  For an instant I felt the fire hot against my face, the smoke, the smell, the shouts, and the terror. My imagination working overtime again.

  “If the triplets were there, then why would McHugh spend his life searching for them?” Bobby asked.

  “They disappeared.” Todd flipped his fingers toward the ceiling. “Like magic.”

  Bobby snorted. “The men holding them ran off. Protected them. Hid them.”

  “Those dudes? Not a chance. Even if they’d suddenly sprouted a conscience, they were scared of McHugh. Those who crossed him were labeled devotees of Satan, and they fried too.”

  “There has to be a better explanation than magic,” Bobby insisted.

  “According to the diary I read, the parents chanted as they died. The flames burned so high and hot, they were incinerated in an instant. Nothing left but ashes, and if you know anything about burning bodies, that ain’t easy. The children vanished, and they were never seen again.”

  “That’s impossible,” Bobby said.

  Todd lifted one shoulder. “Blood magic is the most powerful kind. Their disappearance made McHugh nuttier than before. He vowed vengeance on his deathbed.”

  “He could vow whatever he liked,” Bobby said. “Death is the end.”

  Not always.

  The words whispered through my head. I glanced around, but I didn’t see any ghosts.

  “He swore death wouldn’t bind him. That he would come back and obliterate the line of the witches that had obliterated his.”

  “He could have had more children,” I said. “His line didn’t have to end.”

  “Because a kook like him was such a great prize,” Todd muttered. “I bet he had a damn hard time getting dates when he smelled like dead people.”

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  “Plague of 1636 in England. He should have used fire for more than killing. A little sterilization would have worked wonders.”

  “Not a word of him since?” I continued.

  Bobby cast me a glance. “Really?”

  I shrugged and spread my hands.

  “Not that I’ve heard, though if the Venatores Mali are trying to raise him—”

  “Raise him?” Bobby interrupted. “Dude.”

  “The Venatores Mali are killing witches,” Todd began.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I can add. Witches are dying. The snarling wolf symbol is involved. If McHugh isn’t back—”

  “He’s dust,” Bobby said tightly.

  “If there are people calling themselves Venatores Mali, following McHugh’s rules, hunting, killing, burning, then McHugh isn’t really dead. He never will be.”

  “Why now?” I asked. “Why here?” I left out why me. But from the glance Bobby gave me, he heard it anyway.

  “If we find that out, we might find them,” Bobby said. “I should take a look at that athame.”

  “You’ve got the key to her apartment.” Todd indicated the stairs to his left. “Knock yourself out.”

  “You know where she kept the knife?”

  “Last I saw the thing it was on her bedside table.”

  Bobby went up the stairs with me close behind. He inserted the key into the lock and pushed open the door.

  Expecting the apartment to be dark and musty, I was pleasantly surprised by a room full of sunshine, which smelled of mint. The reason for both was immediately apparent. The shades on Anne’s eastern windows were up, the sill lined with tiny pots of herbs. Even without the scent I would have recognized mint leaves.

  I crossed the room, set my fingers on the soil. “I should water these.”

  Bobby didn’t answer; he’d already stepped into her bedroom. I followed, curious to see the athame. He stood next to her bed. The only thing on the table was a lamp. He opened the drawer; stuff rattled; he cursed.

  “Not there?”

  “No.” He went onto his knees and peered beneath the bed, then straightened. “We’re going to have to toss the place.”

  The apartment was smaller than mine, and that wasn’t easy. “It shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  Bobby headed for her dresser. I found the watering can next to the kitchen sink and sprinkled the pots before I forgot. Besides mint, she had basil, thyme, and rosemary. I plucked a few leaves of the latter and tucked them into my pocket. Just in case.

  A loud smack had me spinning, sloshing water onto my foot. A Siamese cat sat on the coffee table, peering at me with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen on an animal. The face was such a dark brown it was nearly black, which might have contributed to the intense shade of those eyes. The ears were huge, also deep brown, matching the paws and the tail. Everything else was the shade of sand.

  The cat let out a long, loud, very human yowl, and the tail twitched once as it stared pointedly at the book on the floor before lifting those freaky eyes to mine. He, she, it must have knocked the volume off the table.

  “Raye?” Bobby appeared in the bedroom doorway. “You o—” He saw the cat. “Where did that come from?”

  “Must be Anne’s. It knocked something on the ground.” The cat jumped down and sat on the book, claws flexing against the binding and making a sound that caused my skin to prickle.

  “I’m fine.” I kept my gaze on the cat. “You can go back to what you were doing.” When he did, I moved closer. “What’s your name?”

  The cat didn’t blink. I wasn’t sure what to do. I’d never had a cat, or a dog either. I’d once had a goldfish from the goldfish game, but it hadn’t lasted long enough for us to bond.

  I knelt and the cat scooted behind the sofa so fast, I barely saw it move. I considered following and trying to coax the animal out, then I saw the title on the palm-sized volume that lay on the floor.

  Book of Shadows.

  Compelled, I opened the cover and forgot all about the cat.

  This Book of Shadows belongs to Anne McKenna, an air witch. Should any harm befall her, the book is gifted to the next witch of that element who beholds it. Use the information wisely and well. Harm none.

  The pages ruffled forward, as if blown by a breeze, but the windows were closed. I turned back to the first page. Though I knew it was impossible, there was more writing there now than there’d been before.

  The new words seem to be inscribed by the same hand as all the rest, which made me think at first that I’d just missed the final line. Anne was dead. Even if a ghost could write, I hadn’t seen her here, and seeing ghosts was what I did. The new entry read: “Raye Larsen’s Book of Shadows,” followed by today’s date.

  I dropped the book. It made less of a smack this time since I was on the ground. Good thing too. I might have fallen if I wasn’t already there.

  “Raye?”

  I shoved the tome into the pocket of my jeans. How was I going to explain why my name was in it?

  “The cat,” I said, then peered behind the couch.

  No cat.

  Bobby appeared next to me. He held out a hand, and I took it. He frowned. “You’re like ice.”

  He folded me into his embrace. I spent the time worrying that he’d feel the book in my pocket, rather than enjoying the hug.

  “There isn’t a knife in her bedroom. Did you find anything out here?”

  I hadn’t had much of a chance to look. “Not yet.”

  Together we made our way around the room, rifling drawers, peeking under cushions and furniture. Bobby went into the teeny bathroom and from the increase in volume of the slams and thunks, he wasn’t having any luck finding it there either.

  He stepped out. “No athame.”

  “No,” I agreed.

  “Shit.”

  “You think someone stole it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She could have taken it with her when she left.”<
br />
  “I read the reports. It wasn’t on her body, or in her car.”

  “So if it wasn’t stolen here…”

  “It was stolen somewhere.” He let out a breath. “I figured the chances of there being two squiggly knives was pretty damn slim.”

  A crash from below was followed with cries of “Help!” and “Go away!” and, oddly, “Shoo!”

  We hurried down the stairs. At the bottom, Bobby drew his gun, glancing over his shoulder with a stern “Stay” before he went around the corner.

  “Don’t shoot!”

  Todd’s voice. No others. Curious, I took a look.

  The cat sat on the counter, staring at the kid, who cowered in the corner. The only movement from the animal was a twitch of the tail, back and forth, back and forth.

  “Get it out of here!” Todd sneezed—once, twice, again.

  Bobby reached for the cat and it hissed, arching like a Halloween decoration. He dropped his hand.

  Todd coughed. His eyes were already red. “You gotta get her out of here. I swear she comes by me on purpose.”

  “You’re allergic,” Bobby said.

  “Y-y-ya … think!” The last was emitted with a sneeze.

  “What’s her name?” I asked, stepping into the room.

  “Samhain.”

  The cat leaped into my arms. I waited for the spike of her claws. Instead, she rubbed her head under my chin and began to purr.

  Todd straightened from his cowering pose. “I’ve never seen her act like that with anyone but Annie.”

  “Has she been locked upstairs by herself?”

  “Natasha, the other employee, fed and watered her.”

  “She seems lonely,” Bobby said.

  “Dude,” Todd murmured, “aren’t we all?”

  Bobby snorted. Todd kept a wary gaze on Samhain. “I think she loves you.”

  Personally, I thought she hated Todd, or maybe she just liked messing with him. I stood with my arms full of cat, my pocket full of The Book of Shadows as the kid sneezed and coughed and dribbled. If I didn’t know better I’d think Samhain was sending waves of dander his way on purpose. Todd was so pathetically pathetic, I felt bad. Then he said it.

  “I’ll have Natasha drive her to the shelter as soon as she comes in.”

  I swear Samhain’s purr lowered to a growl. But how could she know what he’d said?