Tanith’s hands dropped limply to her sides and she stood straight and tall in the center of the circle . . . then her legs buckled and she crumpled to the floor.
Chapter Twenty-five
Garrett stood for a paralyzed moment, realizing he was loath to touch her. He fought down the feeling and sprang forward to kneel by her side. She was breathing, and when he felt for her pulse it was fluttery, but present. He scooped her up and lifted her, rising to his feet, only half-conscious that his driving impulse was to be away from the circle, away from the pentagram.
He left the circle with its candles still burning on the quarters, and carried Tanith from the room, through the door into the inner reading room. Her hair was against his face and she was a sweet, live weight in his arms, breathing shallowly against his chest. His heart was pounding out of control. He started to cross to the outer door, but she moved against him and said, “Here . . .”
He looked around him and set her carefully down in one of the high-backed leather chairs, then stood by her side as she put her head down on the table, her breathing still labored, but slowing.
Finally she lifted her head and reached for the pitcher of water she’d left on the table. She was too shaky to lift it and Garrett took it from her and poured liquid into the goblet. She clasped it with both hands and drank greedily, draining the whole cup, then she grabbed for the cakes she’d left on the plate. For the next full minute she ate and drank without speaking, as if she were ravenous. Garrett couldn’t keep his eyes off her; his head felt as if it were going to explode. He was overcome by the impulse to get out, to get as far away from there as possible—and the desire to sweep her up again, crush her to him. Finally she leaned back in the chair, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and closing her eyes.
After what seemed like an eternity, she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Amber is dead,” she said bleakly. Garrett started; he had not given Tanith the name. “Her killer carved three triangles into her body, and the number 333, the sigils of the demon, just as he did with Erin. And there is a third . . .” She faltered, looking into space. “Not like the others.”
“Not like the others, how?” he managed.
“I’m not sure. Not . . .” she stopped. “I don’t know.” Her face hardened. “He took their heads for his rituals.”
Garrett felt his stomach drop in horror. “What rituals?”
His face must have reflected his disgust, because she made an effort to speak calmly. “Necromancy. It’s a powerful black magic practice. A magician reanimates a corpse to gain information from the nether realm. This one—this man—is probably communicating with the demon through those he has killed, receiving instructions through them—”
Reanimates the dead? Talks to the demon? Garrett’s whole mind was rebelling against everything he had seen and felt. All he wanted to do was get out, get as far from all of this as he could go. But he was going to take what he could from her before he left.
“Who is he?” he demanded hoarsely.
Her gaze became distant. “Someone in the middle part of life . . . he has the bulk of a man. He is alone in the world, unstable . . . a lost soul. He is weak, so he seeks power in the dark: has been courting the demon in secret rituals for some time, and his mind has dissipated; it is the demon who drives him now.” Her eyes slowly focused on Garrett again, and she shook her head. “I saw from a distance only.”
Garrett’s whole skin was prickling, but he shoved down the feeling. Nothing but generalities, useless.
He spoke in agitation. “You said, ‘Three captured, three bound.’ Does that mean he has prisoners?” He didn’t know what he was saying, who he was asking about. Moncrief was in jail; he’d put Moncrief in jail himself.
Her face shadowed, and he heard anger in her voice. “His three victims are dead, but not free. They are between the worlds. The killer has their heads. He’s bound them to him in a ritual and their souls cannot move on.”
He felt fury, and doubt, and she leaned forward, with compassion and urgency in her face. “I’m sorry, Detective Garrett, I know this is difficult for you. I know you don’t want it to be real. But you must understand this. This man is out there now. He will take another victim on Samhain, when the veil between worlds is thinnest and the demon can come through.”
He struggled to block that thought, focus on what was real. “You said three more.” But that thing that had been speaking hadn’t been her, had it? Even now that the ritual was over he was finding it hard to believe that that horrible voice had come out of her throat, that the spasms of that twisted body had been her own.
Tanith was staring at him. “She said that?” she asked, stunned.
“Who? Who is she?” he demanded.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” Tanith murmured. “I don’t know what it means.” She looked sick, suddenly weak and faint, but he didn’t care, didn’t want to care. She was right. He didn’t believe her. He didn’t believe any of it. He just wanted out.
“Please,” she said, and reached to touch his arm. He jerked away from her as if something loathsome had brushed him, and felt logic returning.
What were you thinking? Buying into a sideshow performance like that? A few candles, some rhyming mumbo jumbo—it’s an act. This is how she makes a living. Just another gypsy con artist.
She caught her breath . . . and suddenly stood from her chair, staring at him. “You aren’t going to do anything,” she said, her voice shaky. “You really aren’t.”
He couldn’t speak, because he had nothing to say. Demons? No. Not in this lifetime.
“Then go,” she answered him. “If you’re not going to listen, then go.”
“I’m going,” he said, and shoved back his chair as he stood. “Thanks for the show. I understand how that kind of performance would keep you in business.” He turned his back on her, striding toward the door.
“Don’t forget your picture,” she called to him from behind.
He turned, and saw her extending Amber’s photo toward him. He looked down at the image of the lost girl. Tanith moved closer and he reached automatically to take it. Their fingers met with a shock of static, and he flinched back.
“Detective,” she said with contempt. “Fare thee well.”
He turned and pushed through the curtain of stars.
He stood in the hall of Carolyn’s high-rise, ringing the bell.
Inside he heard soft footsteps and the hesitation that he knew was Carolyn putting her eye to the peephole.
After a second she opened the door, and stood barefoot, in a white silk robe. Before she could speak, he had backed her into the marble-tiled hall and kicked the door shut behind him. He pushed her against the wall and bent to kiss her neck, and heard her purr, “Well, well . . .” before he took her mouth, took her breasts, took her, took himself into welcome oblivion.
Chapter Twenty-six
October 15
For Garrett, the next week was a blur. Jason Moncrief was arraigned, and entered a plea of “not guilty” with the judge.
Of course he did, nearly everyone does. It means nothing.
The judge set a trial date, which as Carolyn and the detectives had expected, was three months away, giving them plenty of time to keep gathering real evidence.
The DNA reports came back in, and as everyone in the department, the D.A.’s office, and anyone in the U.S. or maybe the world who watched the evening news or signed on to the Internet had expected, the tests proved that the semen found in Erin Carmody’s body was Jason Moncrief’s, and the blood found on Jason’s jeans and sheets was Erin Carmody’s. For the last week Landauer had been positively glowing, and Garrett knew why—it was as strong a circumstantial case as they had ever been a part of.
Garrett himself had been doing a bang-up job of forgetting that night with Tanith Cabarrus, her ritual performance and ominous predictions . . . and the feel of her body in his arms. After all, this was reality, and there was plenty of real police work to be done.
But with every day that passed, the specter of Halloween loomed larger in his mind.
“Three more shall he take, ere his craving he will slake . . .”
And Amber’s burned-cigarette eyes stared out of the photo that Garrett had filed away . . .
And the sweet, haunting lyrics of Jason’s song to Erin would not stop playing through his head.
So this afternoon Garrett stood outside the Suffolk County jail in a mercilessly cold wind. The sun was sinking and the jail was right off the Charles River. Garrett turned away from the glistening silver water and headed toward the facility.
Suffolk County, where Jason Moncrief had been sent for pretrial detention, was a seven-story brick building with a facade of columns and a triangular piece on the roof that made it look vaguely like a temple. In reality it was a maximum security facility housing nine hundred pretrial detainees in thirteen separate housing units with 453 cells, and 654 beds, making it as massively overcrowded as almost every correctional facility in the U.S. As he passed through security, Garrett tried not to dwell on what Jason’s life had been like inside.
On an upper deck of the building, Garrett looked out over the exercise yard. Inmates in their radioactive orange jumpsuits milled in their mostly racially segregated groups, some playing basketball at dilapidated backboards, some pumping iron at the rows of benches and weight machine. The technical restraining order was still in place and Garrett couldn’t get in to talk to Jason in person. But he could look at him. And Jason wasn’t hard to spot, with his dark hair and eyes and pale skin, so like—
Garrett forced himself away from the thought of Tanith.
Jason was completely alone on the bench of the riser on which he sat. More than alone: there was no one at all in his vicinity; he seemed segregated, himself. Garrett had been watching for fifteen minutes and no one had come near him. Usually a kid that young, with the looks he had, would have all manner of unwelcome attention—or alternately, the scrupulous attention of one large older inmate who had taken him “under his wing.”
Jason looked alone in the yard.
Garrett turned to the bulky hack—corrections officer—who had escorted him up to the observation deck. “This kid Moncrief. How’s he been?”
The C.O. looked down on the yard and flicked a hand in Jason’s direction. “Just like you see. Complete loner. He’s in solitary except for weekly exercise. But it’s always the same. No one goes near him.”
Garrett raised his hands, but didn’t have to ask the question. The C.O. shrugged. “Spooky kid. There’s something about him. Maybe Satan’s protecting him, like he says.” He laughed shortly, but there was no conviction in the sound. “He draws these fucking freaky designs all over himself and sits in his cell and—chants—all day long. Weirds out everyone on his block. And sometimes . . .” The C.O. trailed off.
“What?” Garrett asked sharply.
“Sometimes it sounds like there’s other people in there with him.”
Garrett felt a jolt. Back to the voices. “An early sign of demon infestation.” “Crazy,” he murmured, without realizing he’d said it.
“Yeah,” the C.O. answered. “That’s what they keep saying.”
Garrett nodded thanks to the C.O. and started down the metal stairs toward the ground floor. In his mind he was turning over the jail screw’s remark about “freaky designs” on Jason’s body. Well, that’s something, isn’t it? If the kid had been stupid enough to cover himself with
the sigils of the demon Choronzon
the same designs he had carved into Erin Carmody’s body—then fuck the pretty song. He’d just hammered another nail into his own coffin.
Garrett was making a note to get a physical search warrant to check out Jason’s homemade tattoos when he reached the ground floor. He hesitated, looked through the chain-link fence at the yard.
Jason had not moved.
But as Garrett studied him, he suddenly looked up, straight into Garrett’s face. Garrett froze as they locked eyes across the yard.
And then Jason stood from his seat on the riser and walked deliberately toward the fence, toward Garrett: a sinuous, almost reptilian walk.
Garrett stood still behind the fence, in a kind of disbelief, watching his approach.
Jason stopped in front of the fence, staring through the links. “Detective,” he said, in that sly, feral voice Garrett remembered. “How good of you to come. Are we going to talk, now? Are you here to have the Mysteries explained? Do you crave an audience with the Master?”
Garrett lunged toward the fence, but stopped himself just in time. He was shaking with rage.
“You murderous little shit. I know you killed her. Her parents put her in the ground without her head, you sick fuck. I hope you burn for this.”
Jason shuddered through his whole body, and suddenly someone else looked out through his eyes, someone lost, and haunted, and terrified. “Erin,” he whispered. His face trembled. “I didn’t touch her. I didn’t do it. I swear it.”
Two C.O.s were suddenly behind him, pulling him away from the fence as a bell jangled dissonantly through the yard. “I swear it,” Jason said miserably, his eyes desperate on Garrett’s face. “I swear it.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
In the anemic wash of the streetlamps, the deserted park was ghostly and colorless, a stage set of dead trees and shrubs with the dry fountain and angel in the center. The park had that in common with the landfill; there was a brutality about the ruination, a killer deliberately seeking ugliness.
Garrett parked his Explorer around a corner and a block away so his approach would not be as obvious. In the dark car he reached into the backseat for an old White Sox sweatshirt. He crumpled the garment up in his hands, spilled the dregs of his coffee on it for good measure, then stripped off the business shirt he was wearing, strapped on the shoulder holster for his Glock, and pulled on the wrinkled and newly stained sweatshirt over that, to create an impromptu derelict look. Then he opened the glove compartment and removed a Taser and an extra set of cuffs.
You have a partner, he told himself harshly. What are you doing out here without your partner?
Jason’s voice whispered back to him.
“I didn’t touch her. I swear it.”
He left the car and walked toward the park.
On this cold and windy night the streets were deserted except for an occasional disreputable car cruising by. There was a chill in the clear air and the waning moon was a stark misshapen disc in the sky. Garrett walked through the brick gateposts of the park and onto the concrete paths, past the twisted tree with its leaves like blood. He moved slowly so that he could get a good sense of his surroundings, and he weaved a little, stumbling on the path as if he were drunk. The wind whispered in the weeds and bushes beside him.
Garrett didn’t know what he could reasonably expect to find there. But he could not forget the words of whoever or whatever had been speaking to him that night in Tanith’s candlelit circle, the words that had been tormenting him since that unnerving night:
“There is a watcher in the park.”
Is.
He reached the bench—Amber’s bench—and half fell onto it, slumping back as if the walk had been an effort. Although he couldn’t see them he was weirdly aware of the burned footprints right behind him; he didn’t like having his back to them.
The demon blasts the flowers of the field . . .
He stared up through the moonlight at the stained angel, as Amber must have done a hundred times before.
In his mind he saw again the circle in the candlelight, Tanith’s bottomless eyes as she croaked at him in that inhuman voice: “There is a watcher in the park . . .”
Then he felt the same prickling on the back of his neck, and every sense suddenly sprang to alert. There was someone behind him.
Garrett stayed slumped in position, barely breathing. And then in one move he stood and twisted around to look behind him.
A huge dark shadow moved b
eside the gnarled tree. Garrett’s pulse skyrocketed as he spotted the shadowy figure. Undeniably real. He reached for his holster and drew his weapon and shouted, “Police, don’t move!”
The shadow took off running—big, bulky, silent. It bolted toward the perimeter of the park, darting through the parched bushes. Garrett took off running after it. It was a stretch that he had any cause for pursuit—loitering, maybe, trespassing—but he’d think about that later.
For the size and bulk of the fleeing man, he was amazingly fast and light on his feet. Garrett was panting by the time he’d dodged through the dry and browning hedges and reached the sidewalk. The hulking shadow had disappeared; there was no movement Garrett could see. He spun around, scanning the dark . . .
. . . and across the street he spotted a black shape squeezing itself through a gap in the green plastic fencing blocking off the front of the construction site, surrounding the skeleton of the building. Now his suspect was trespassing, and that was cause enough. Garrett pulled himself upright and darted across the street in pursuit. As he ran he grabbed for the cell phone in his pants pocket and hit speed-dial for Emergency Dispatch. He barked into the phone, “Detective Garrett in foot pursuit southbound Tremont and Washington.” He sucked in air, stopped on the sidewalk, and searched for an address on the curb of the site. “Suspect trespassing at 93 Tremont, wanted for questioning in homicide. Suspect African-American male, six-four, heavyset, dark parka and pants.”
He heard the response, “Copy, Detective Garrett,” and shoved the phone back in his pocket as he stopped on the sidewalk in front of the green fencing, quickly calculating. He knew units were already on their way, but the watcher could be through the skeleton of the building and out the other side in just minutes.
It was his least favorite type of situation because there was no way of seeing what was beyond the fence; the watcher could be right on the other side of the gap, with any kind of weapon at all.
Book of Shadows Page 17