To Kill a Sorcerer

by Greg Mongrain

  “Well,” I said, “do you have an opinion? Which is it?”

  “I think it’s the Key of Akasha.”

  “Why?” Reed and I had never discussed the key before. His resources impressed me.

  “The ancient tales of the key always relate to purity, especially virgins.”

  “Virgins,” Hamilton said, voice low.

  “Did Watanabe confirm Amanda Meyer was a virgin?” I asked Reed.

  “Yes,” he answered. “And that her heart was ripped out with teeth.”

  I make no claim to psychic gifts, but I knew at that moment the three of us were thinking the same thing. And it was illegal.

  “What else do we know about the key?”

  “Very little. The only picture I found was a line drawing in an old book. It looks like an old-fashioned skeleton key. There is no description of its composition, though there are rumors it’s made of pure gold.”

  “Everything always is.”

  “Yes, funny, isn’t it? This drawing is an unimaginative, literal interpretation. For all we know, the real Key of Akasha doesn’t even look like a key.”

  “Why Akasha?” Hamilton asked.

  “The Akashic Records,” Reed replied. His image went fuzzy, and his voice crackled. “The book that details everything about the universe and can only be read on the spiritual plane.”

  “Everything about the universe?”

  “The past, present—even the future, if you can find the right page.”

  “How does this help Kanga?”

  Reed’s on-screen image cleared, and his voice returned to normal.

  “After three sacrificial killings—assuming the conjurer has done them correctly—he must travel to the ether, go to a certain page of the Akashic Records, introduce the key during a specific hour, while under a ‘heavenly meeting,’ and perform a final, dangerous ceremony. Then, according to the legends, a ‘lock’ will appear. And if he has done all of that just right, the key will activate, and the conjurer will be infused with ‘the power of the ages.’ Not sure what that is, but it sounds like bad news.”

  “Very bad news,” Hamilton agreed. “It sounds like a helluva lot of conditions, though.”

  “This is ancient, ultra-secret knowledge, and it requires more than just nerve to carry these rituals out. Kanga has undoubtedly been preparing to commit these murders for years. The way he’s pulled them off shows he planned them in meticulous detail. He has been waiting for this week, knowing tonight is the kind of night when extreme magical events can occur.”

  “When tonight?”

  “The exact time of the conjunction is seven oh-two. Considering his precision so far, he will probably begin the final ceremony pretty close to that.”

  “Agreed.”

  My phone chimed. Picture mail. I clicked View and held it closer. The photo was a long shot taken with a camera phone, and I couldn’t make it out. Finally, I got it. A woman on her knees. She was leaning forward, her head hanging. Her arms were shackled behind her back and chained to a brick wall. She appeared to be naked.

  There was something familiar about the figure. A gleam of thick golden hair caused my heart to stop.

  It was Aliena.

  Thirty-Nine

  Friday, December 24, 3:37 p.m.

  Information below the picture indicated it had been sent a minute earlier, from Aliena’s cell.

  “What’s the matter?” Hamilton asked.

  “Nothing.” I turned to the computer display. “Thank you, Mr. Reed. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Sure.” His image disappeared.

  I was trying to recover from the shock of seeing Aliena chained to a wall. How could a picture come from her phone in the middle of the afternoon? Of course, just because it had been sent during the day did not mean it had been taken during the day. But then who had sent it? What did it mean? I realized Hamilton had been speaking for a while.

  “Sorry?” I said.

  “What do we do now?”

  “There’s nothing to do for a few hours. Are you going in with the SWAT team?”

  “Of course. Don’t you want to?”

  “Yes, I do.” I didn’t, not now, but I did not know what else to say.

  “The staging area is a few blocks from the house in Encino. Six fifteen.”

  “Right.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “Okay if I use your computer to file a report?”

  “Sure.”

  He sat in the club chair, unplugged the computer, and dropped it on his lap.

  I lit a cigarette and stepped onto the patio, my head a whirling storm of emotion, the picture of Aliena starkly stamped in my mind.

  My phone rang. I realized I had been expecting it to.

  Moving as if underwater, I fished it out of my pocket and glanced at the caller ID. It was from Aliena. And that was not possible with the sun in the sky.

  “Yes?”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Montero.”

  I closed my eyes. My worst nightmare had become reality.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Kanga?”

  “The exact right question. You saw the picture?”

  “Yes.”

  “For this Christmas, I would like seven pints of your precious blood.”

  His request did not surprise me. Blood is the most powerful of magical ingredients. Kanga wanted a supply of my unique plasma for potions and ceremonies. I had already decided such a donation was out of the question.

  “And why would I give you that when I would rather introduce you to the business end of a sharp knife?”

  “That is hardly the Christmas spirit. However, I did not count on your charity or your willingness to assist me in my endeavors. So I abducted your lady vampire friend.”

  If it wasn’t for the picture, I would not have believed he had Aliena. “Why do you want my blood?” Negotiation was my only course, but my mind repeated that I could not give a man such as Kanga one drop.

  “That need not concern you.”

  “I have to think it over.” With Aliena in his possession, I could not wait long.

  “Yes, of course. Take all the time you like. If I get bored waiting, I can always amuse myself with the vampire.”

  I felt sick with hatred. “How did you want to do this?”

  “A simple exchange. You bring me what I want, and I release your friend to you.” He gave me an address in the hills off Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

  “Do you know where that is?”

  “I can find it.”

  “I understand a SWAT team has been dispatched to that little house you visited. I have no problem with that. The police may flex their meaningless muscles. However, if such a team were to find me here, I could not prevent loss of life while defending myself. You understand that, Mr. Montero?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you would like to bring Mr. Hamilton to negotiate that part of it on behalf of LAPD, you may, but only him.”

  “I understand.”

  “Excellent. I presume you will want to wait until nightfall to take your friend with you.”

  “Yes.” I tried to keep my voice even when I asked him, “Was she naked in that picture?”

  “She has her panties on.” It sounded like he was smiling, and I was suddenly sure he was staring at her while we spoke. “Stunning physique. You are rather fond of her, aren’t you?”

  My face grew hot. “Let her get dressed when she wakes up.”

  “No.”

  “If you want my—”

  “The vampire’s nudity is hardly your concern at this point, Mr. Montero, and in the next couple of hours, it would serve you well to remember what is. Sunset is at four fifty-one.”

  I went inside and grabbed another cigarette.

  “Almost finished,” Hamilton said without looking up.

  I nodded, returned to the patio.

  In spite of what Kanga had said, I did not know if I could take Hamilton with me. He would ins
ist on bringing the SWAT team with him. Kanga’s threat to kill some or all of them if that happened was not an idle one. With the power he undoubtedly possessed after the murder of Amanda Meyer, he could easily handle an LAPD Special Forces team and inflict serious damage on any unit sent in to take him.

  Even if I could convince Hamilton that going alone was our only option in order to save Aliena, there was the problem of her being a vampire. The only way Kanga could possibly be safe around her after dark would be to use magic on her, probably charms and spells surrounding her. Hamilton would see this and wonder why the enchantments were there.

  And if he then heard the negotiation between Kanga and me, that would raise questions in his mind about the significance of my blood. It was not hard to imagine him connecting that with the strange, powerful blood recovered at the Leoni crime scene.

  As these things rolled through my mind, I came to realize none of them mattered. He had to come with me even if it meant he discovered things I’d prefer he didn’t know. If I went alone and something happened to me, and Kanga still intended to kill Hamilton, the detective did not stand a chance. It seemed fair that I give him the opportunity to help me, since he was probably dead if I failed.

  I returned to the living room, sat on the couch, and waited for him to finish. He continued typing for a few more minutes, set the laptop back on the table, and reconnected the power cord.

  “At least now Reyes knows we’ve been working on this,” he said.

  “Did you report that you were attacked by invisible entities at the Meyer home?”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Why not? Afraid it will make you sound like someone who was abducted by aliens?”

  “It would be premature to report what happened,” he said, eyes flashing. “My memory may be subjective and not accurate.”

  “Talk about denial. What’s subjective about you being lifted off your feet and carried through the air by forces neither of us could see? What about—”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hand to his chest and grimacing, just as I had after the damned things attacked me. “I didn’t want to sound like someone who saw a UFO, all right?”

  “And that is why there is so little credible evidence for these events. People like you do not step forward for fear of harming your professional reputations.”

  “What’s with you? Are you really that upset I didn’t report this?”

  I took a deep breath. “No, it’s not that, although I do find it ironic after what we talked about just last night.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I still hesitated. “That was Kanga who called me just now.”

  “What? Are you serious?” He looked flabbergasted. “Why the hell would he call you? I don’t suppose he wants to surrender to us?”

  “Not exactly. He wants to meet with us.”

  He leaned forward. “How did he get your cell number? What is this guy?”

  “He’s a sorcerer and a powerful one. You heard Reed, and you felt those spirits.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wants us to leave him alone.”

  “And why would we do that?”

  “He has Aliena.”

  Forty

  Friday, December 24, 4:26 p.m.

  Hamilton’s face blanked. “How does she figure into this? Why grab her?” He paused. “Do you know—is she a virgin?”

  “Yes, she is.” That didn’t matter, though, since Kanga’s ritual did not require another sacrifice. He had kidnapped her because she was important to me. That gave me little comfort. Madame Leoni had not been necessary to his ritual, either.

  “Jesus.” He scrunched his eyebrows in thought. “It still doesn’t figure. He doesn’t take hostages. And he’s offering her to us in exchange for what? We can’t give him his freedom. We couldn’t promise him that even if he was holding the president.”

  He was right, but I could not tell him Kanga’s real request. So I did the only thing I could.

  “He will probably tell us what else he wants when we meet with him.”

  “Sebastian, when we see Kanga tonight, we’re going in with a SWAT team, or had you forgotten? We’ll hold his ‘meeting’ in the station.”

  “He will kill Aliena if we do that.”

  He stood, paced past the Christmas tree to the fireplace and back. “The SWAT team’s going in at seven. Even if I could stop it, I wouldn’t.”

  “I know.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Does he want to meet with us before that? If we report it, Reyes may not allow it.”

  “I am sure she wouldn’t.”

  He stared at me suspiciously. “Christ. He’s not at that address, is he?”

  “No.”

  “Dammit, Sebastian.” He pulled his phone out. “We need to cancel the raid,” he said, punching buttons. “Did he give you his real location?”

  “Put your phone away, Steve. No one else can be involved in this.” I stood and moved around the coffee table so nothing stood between us. “If you continue your call, I will disable you and leave you here while I handle this on my own.”

  He slowly lowered the cell and canceled the call. “What do you want me to do? Ignore that this guy has killed four people? We have to arrest him!”

  “We can’t. You still don’t understand what we’re up against. Kanga will kill any squad that attempts to arrest him.”

  “Come on! You’re saying he can take down a crack team attacking him with flash-bangs, assault rifles, full body armor, and do it all by himself?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “He sent spirits after both of us. You felt their power. I got lucky and survived and was able to defend you. Believe me, that is a soft sample of his abilities.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  Stall, I thought. But how? Kanga would not be patient after dark. “Reed said the conjunction was part of the ritual, and that it was at seven oh-two.”

  “So?”

  “We need to delay him until then. It will buy us some time to figure out what to do.”

  “Why not just wait until he goes into the astral plane and attack his body then?”

  “That’s two hours from now. He won’t wait that long at his current location. If I haven’t shown up in an hour, he will take Aliena—or kill her—and leave. We may never find him after that.”

  “How do we distract him?”

  “He already wants to meet us. We attempt to prolong that meeting.”

  “It sounds like you’re placing us in harm’s way,” he said.

  “I suppose I’m using ‘we’ a bit freely. I must go. You have no obligation to do so.”

  “Oh, I’m coming. I just wish we had a better plan.”

  5:06 p.m.

  The Laurel Canyon address Kanga had given me lay past the Mount Olympus area, on a part of the Boulevard that really was inside a canyon. Many of the properties here stood back from the road on undeveloped—and sometimes wooded—land. Kanga’s place sat in an especially out of the way area.

  I turned off the winding two-lane road onto a smooth dirt path running between rows of cedar and eucalyptus trees. The sky had darkened to purple-black, which meant Aliena was awake.

  The plan Hamilton and I had come up with was similar to the one I had devised with Aliena and Marcus. We agreed that if Kanga were distracted, even for a moment, I could fire and get a bullet or two in him before he realized I had drawn my weapon.

  The probability of success was low. Having Marcus with us would have been better, but I did not know how to contact him.

  “If I’m going to be the bait,” Hamilton said, “isn’t there a good chance he’ll jack me up?”

  “Yes.”

  “As long as I know. Now I can relax.”

  The Maserati’s headlights shone brilliantly as we hurtled through the trees. The grove thinned, and we emerged into a wide clearing. A two-story house rose at the base of the canyon wal
l. Spanish colonial, with a white stucco facade that reminded me of the missions of San Diego.

  “Not what I expected,” Hamilton said.

  “No.” The place looked more like the home of a retired movie mogul than that of a pharmaceutical chemist moonlighting as a satanic serial killer.

  I parked by the walk leading to the house. Hamilton and I checked our weapons as we approached the front door.

  “Do we knock?” Hamilton asked.

  I opened the front door and walked in. He followed.

  “Mr. Kanga?” Hamilton called. “It’s the police. LAPD.”

  No answer. The house was dark. I flipped a switch in the foyer to the left of where we were standing. Only one light came on in the living room, but it was enough for us to see our surroundings. White sheets and blue mover’s pads covered the furniture.

  Hamilton followed me across the living room and into a hallway.

  We moved quietly down the passage. The last door stood open. We proceeded through it, me in the lead.

  We emerged in a shadowy atrium filled with plants on long rows of tables. Through the clear ceiling, the crescent moon shone. At the other end of the room loomed a pair of broad, intricately carved doors. They were ajar and flickering light emanated from within.

  Kanga’s voice boomed. “Welcome, gentlemen.”

  Hamilton and I crossed the room between two rows of fruitless plum trees. My skin prickled as I recalled my last encounter with the sorcerer. I stopped at the entrance, glanced at Hamilton. He nodded.

  We stepped into the presence of the Voodoo Killer.

  Forty-One

  Friday, December 24, 5:27 p.m.

  The chamber looked as if it belonged in the catacombs of an ancient European cathedral. Stone floors. Heavy torches placed at intervals along the walls lit up the room, the smoke spiraling into ventilation shafts in the ceiling.

  Tables stood around the room, covered with books, cups, scattered herbs, scientific instruments, dozens of labeled jars, and many devices with unknown purposes. A huge fireplace filled with burning logs lent the room a flickering glow. Hellish tapestries and lurid paintings of ritual sacrifice adorned the walls.