I really needed a Planar directory.
I couldn't wear a watch but I had a pretty good idea my break was halfway over. I heard footsteps nearby. I stood quickly, my hands at my sides, and turned to face whomever it was. I sort of expected Mike and Raven.
I didn't expect Illiana Goldwater.
She stopped, her right hand up, a smile on her face. I was thankful for the street lights illuminating River Street. "Hey, it's me…stand down, okay?"
My shoulders slumped and I closed the distance to her. Illy was a few inches shorter than me, blond, with a round face and bright blue eyes. She was also the happiest person I'd ever met. Nothing ever seemed to get her down. I wasn't sure her face knew how to frown.
Other than Mike, Sam, and now Raven, she was the only other person in Savannah that knew about me, what I was, what I carried, and about the different Worlds around us. I never asked her how she knew. It never seemed important.
Her hand was cold on my cheek, and I leaned into her touch. "Wow…it's nice to see you."
"Dags, you look awful. I mean you look good, but you're pale and you've got shadows under your eyes. Have you eaten anything today?"
"I had a handful of sandwich meat and I just ate some wings." I pulled her hand down, pressed a kiss against the back of it, then held it in one hand. Illy confused me on many levels. I've said before that when she and I met, I didn't have any intention of starting or continuing any personal relationship. I was too confused. Too…bruised. And how could I be strong and dependable for someone when I couldn't remember a year of my life? I had baggage…alligator…and the alligator wasn't dead.
But after the past six days, two of which I'd spent insensate, just seeing Illy healed me in ways I couldn't do on my own.
"You need real food. You working?"
"'Til one. What time is it now?"
"It's only ten after ten. Three more hours. Want to grab dinner over at the diner when you get off shift?"
My spirits soared for about ten seconds before I thought of Stella, and then of our plans of going to Bonaventure. "I can't…"
"Working with Mike? Little bit of investigation about those mutilations?"
"We're looking into it. Thanks for the information—and I will take you to dinner another time."
"Damn straight you will." She went up on her tiptoes and planted a cool kiss against my lips. "I have a little more information too. How much longer do you have on your break?"
"You said it was ten after ten? Maybe another ten minutes." I was guessing I'd stepped out at ten, but I also wasn't that worried about Mark getting angry.
"Good." She led me back to the bench and sat facing me. Illy always carried a large shoulder bag. I'd seen her pull everything from an iPad to a portable printer out of that thing, so I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd pulled out a timey-wimey detector.
Instead she produced a brown folder, the kind with the two-hole fastener at the top. I scooted closer as she opened it and used the flashlight app on her phone to shine a little light. "According to accumulated police incidents, all four of the bodies were found within a four-mile radius of each other, and if you mark their found positions on a map…" She pulled a folded map out of her bag and opened it in our laps. It was a grid of Old Savannah she'd marked up with a black marker. "You see it?"
"Hell yeah." I took the map from her and held it out at arm's length. "The marks form a circle." I pulled the map in closer as she shined her phone's light at it.
Illy moved the light back to her bag and rummaged through it before she pulled out a marker. She pulled the top off with her teeth, turned the marker around, and slipped the top on the back. "You're a little ahead of me, but it's not just a circle. Put the map on the ground."
I did as she said, straightening it out on the concrete before I knelt down in front of it. She knelt down beside me and placed her bag between us before she handed me the marker. "Put the tip on Chatham Square. That's where the first body was found."
I scanned the map—still a little unfamiliar with Old Savannah's layout—and put the pen on the appropriate square.
"Okay, now draw a line to Chippewa Square."
I found it on the map and drew an upward, right-diagonal line.
"That was where the second body was found. Now draw a line from there to Calhoun Square."
I moved the marker down to the right. I'd just drawn a ^ symbol.
"That was the third body, one of the kids—"
"One of the kids?" I sat back and looked at her, frowning. "I thought the kids were found together near a dumpster."
"That's what the public report said. The police always hold something back in hopes of using it to catch the killer. But I have sources. Put your marker back."
I did. I should have suspected that was the case. But I was still new to this investigative thing.
"Draw a line from there to Pulaski Square."
I moved the marker up and to the left—
Oh no…
I sat back and took a good look at what I was drawing. "It's a Pentagram." I double-checked the direction it was being drawn. "It's a banishing Pentagram."
"I figured this was important." She picked up the folder and pulled a set of stapled papers from it. "They found another body this morning. They're not releasing the information to the paper."
I dropped the marker and took the report. After I scanned it, I swallowed. "Who?"
"They haven't identified her yet."
I didn't have to look at the report to know they found her in Lafayette Square. I grabbed the marker and drew the line from Pulaski Square. It was a banishing pentagram, having started from the lower left. Earth. So it was Earth banishing. I knew enough about Wicca to be dangerous. I grabbed her phone and launched her browser. From there, finding a definition of Earth banishing was pretty easy. My first mistake was thinking it was a Wiccan ritual. Truth was, it was something devised by The Golden Dawn.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn were popular in England in the early twentieth century. They were well known for their practice of theurgy, and claimed to be making strides in spiritual development. No one but an initiated member of the Golden Dawn could really know its secrets, but I had learned while with Bonville's cult that most of today's magic rituals were inspired by them. Bonville claimed to have been a member of the Golden Dawn.
"Find something?" Illy nudged me.
"Yeah…the banishing Pentagram was used to get rid of chaos. Sort of a cleansing ritual."
"And you use dead bodies to do that?"
"No, that's just it. The ritual I found just uses gestures and invokes the names of Gods and Goddesses. Nothing in here about dead bodies." I scanned ahead. "I learned enough to know that when someone uses death to achieve something, it's like reversing the intent."
"So…you mean someone's trying to bring chaos in?"
"Or something like chaos. But I'm not a witch. We'd have to find one to be sure. The only one I know lives in New Orleans."
"I know a palm reader," Illy said. "I don't know if the police figured this out, but if this is true, and they have to complete the pentagram, then there will be one more body found back in Chatham Square."
I looked at the map and drew the line in but made it hash marks. A dotted line. What caught my attention next caused my heart to skip.
The square in the center of that pentagram was Madison Square. Mike and I lived dead center of what someone was trying to make chaos central.
THE PAST HAS SHARP NEEDLES
Illy left the map, folder, and latest police report with me. I managed to fold it all up and tuck everything into the folder before I headed back up the steps toward Kevin Barry's. Someone was creating a banishing pentagram across the squares of Old Savannah and we were in the center. Coincidence? Maybe. Creepy? Hell yeah. I needed to find Mike and Raven and share the creepy with them.
I didn't hear the music as I stood across the cobblestone street. The set was over and people were filing out the front. I tucked
the folder under my arm and shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans to wait for them to come out. I was late but I made a mental note to stay ten minutes later to make it up to Mark.
I caught a glimpse of a face in that crowd. A face from the not-so-far-away past. Black bobbed hair to her chin, pale skin, black lipstick, and dramatic eye makeup. Her black hoodie, tight black shorts, and knee-high leather boots made a statement: Notice me.
"Rhonda!"
She didn't respond as she stood to the side of the door. I stopped before I crossed the street filled with moving tourists and watched her light a cigarette. That action made me doubt myself. Rhonda had done a lot of things, but I didn't remember her ever smoking. After exhaling a thick stream of smoke, she turned and headed to my left, walking along the sidewalk to the Sheraton.
Do I follow her? Make a fool out of myself? What if it wasn't her? Rhonda Orly was the reason my memory was Swiss cheese. According to Nona and Jason, Rhonda was the one that manipulated me into loving her and forgetting Zoë. My distrust of her was well justified. Others told me how she used the book to control me and my memories. And she paid a high price for her actions when Zoë took her power.
After that, Rhonda disappeared.
My eyes never lost sight of the woman who looked like her as I moved through the crowd, past the pub, and stayed several feet behind her as she walked. The entire time I followed her, I thought about ways to approach her and things to say in case I made a fool out of myself. I wasn't really interested in getting to know her, given her past interaction with me. But I was interested in why she was here—in the same town. I also wanted to know if that had been her in The Night Pub with Darius.
The irony of her being a witch—even if she didn't have power—and Illy showing me what she found wasn't lost on me. But I didn't want to jump to any conclusion that Rhonda was connected to what was happening.
She entered the Sheraton and I went in a few seconds behind her, still holding the folder. Damn…if it was her, I didn't want her to see what I had. Illy had given the folder to me in confidence. I moved to the side in the lobby behind a group of people and watched her get on the elevator. It took a lot of "excuse me" and a few "pardons" to get to the elevator, which was filling up, and push my way inside just as it closed.
It was times like this being a bit short came in handy. I spotted the top of her black hair. Rhonda was also short, so if I was lucky, she couldn't see me over everyone else. That also meant I would have a hard time watching her. So I concentrated on her legs. When I thought she looked at me, I put the folder up in front of my face as if I was looking at it like a tourist.
She got off the elevator into the lobby off Bay Street and I followed her to the front desk. There, the receptionist handed her an envelope. She opened it and I thought I saw a brick of cash inside, but I couldn't be sure. I was too busy trying not to look suspicious as a guy wearing a Kevin Barry's T-shirt hiding behind a potted tree.
When she headed to the hotel's front entrance, I stashed the folder under the potted plant and sent a quick text message to Mike. ILLY FOLDER. UNDER PLANT. SHERATON. Then I headed outside to continue following. She walked along the streets, moving away from River Street, her phone at her ear.
My present memory of Rhonda was little more than a few meetings. First in Nona Martinique's botanica and tea shop in Little Five Points, Atlanta. Then during an encounter with Shadow People at my former place of employment. And then again at Nona's…where everything just stopped. It was an odd feeling to be told you'd been intimate with someone—obsessed, really—and not remember much about them.
"Them" as in two. Nona said I'd been in love with her daughter first then tricked by Rhonda.
To deal with it, I put the entire situation at arm's length.
The temperature dropped as I followed Rhonda down the sidewalk. I made sure others walking along moved in front and behind us, but she never looked back, just made calls and received calls, oblivious to the stalker behind her. That kind of behavior was just asking for trouble. There were a lot of pervs out there, wackos who could just follow behind her without her paying attention….
Pot, meet kettle.
Oy.
When we passed Orleans Square, I tried recalling the map I'd left at the Sheraton. Wasn't Chatham Square down this way? And what do I do if she actually went into Chatham Square? Yell for her not to? Tell her some deranged killer was making a banishing pentagram and her not paying attention could make her the next target?
Then again, how would that kind of warning sound coming out of the mouth of someone who just followed her from River Street for four blocks?
When she did stop at the corner of Oh Shit and Pentagram's End, I ducked down behind a group of trash cans along the sidewalk, then peeked out around the cans to see her cross the street and stand just outside the square. The name of the square was emblazoned on a sign visible to oncoming traffic as they made their right loop around the plot of land.
Chatham.
I was in the middle of making the decision to stay and watch or run away and call Mike when someone made that choice for me. I should have been paying more attention, given that I'd been privately admonishing my target for not being aware of her surroundings. I'd been so focused on her I'd shut down my own perimeter defenses.
My first clue I screwed up was the sting at the back of my neck, followed by the worst case of the woozies I'd ever had. I reached up to feel something thin and grabbed it. But when I brought it back around to take a better, if not blurry look at it, it took a second to register I was looking at a syringe.
Oh…
…no.
My knees gave first, followed by my hands as I dropped the implement of whatever drug had just been shot into my system. The rest of my muscles turned to Jell-O and I unceremoniously fell back on the concrete. I couldn't move as the edges of my vision burned like charred paper.
"Well, well, well…I didn't think it would work. But I guess it's true: If you send out the right bait, you get the best fish." A face interrupted my view of the night sky peeking through the treetops. It was a familiar face…someone I knew. He had dirty blond hair, a thin face, and a chipped front tooth. Where had I seen him before? "It's finally time for payback, Darren."
I narrowed my eyes as at him as my vision grew darker. The woman I thought was Rhonda appeared beside him as he straightened and looked down at me. Now that she was closer, I knew it wasn't her. "This him? He's cute. So what're you gonna do?"
"That's not something for you to worry about, Princess. You got your cash. Now beat it."
"You're not gonna do something perverted with him, are you?"
"Go, or I'll shoot you with this." He held up another syringe.
She looked put out, and gave me one more look. "Not sure your Cruorem buddies are gonna like this."
Cruorem.
The cult I'd stupidly joined. Bonville's four quarters.
I'd just been drugged by one of them.
Jack Klinsky.
Fire Quarter.
And that's about the moment I stopped remembering anything.
THE CRAZY TRAiN
We pay for our mistakes.
My mom used to say that all the time in her own way. "Darren, just remember that whatever you put out into the world, it will come back to you threefold."
I didn't realize until later what it meant. She was referencing to what's known as the Threefold Law. If you treat others with kindness, then you get three times the kindness back. And if you were an asshole, then you'd get three times the asshole.
I interpreted it a little differently than most. I didn't think your credits and debits come back three times the value of what you bought and sold. I believe the "threefold" meant that they would come back to you on three planes. That if you were kind, that kindness would effect you on the Material, the Mind, and the Spirit.
But lately, with the events of my life unfolding in an ever-changing pattern, I was starting to think I had it wron
g. I usually did right by people, so shouldn't that be racking good points on the threefold angle? You would think. Yet I still had people trying to kill me.
There I was, shirtless, shoeless, and locked in some dark place with a wet concrete floor. My jeans were soaked and I couldn't stop shivering. I woke to find my wrists tied tightly behind my back, my phone and keys gone, and a clobbering headache. I lay there on my side, shaking, as I tried to orient myself. I was in a small space—five by five, maybe—in a corner of a basement room. Or at least a room somewhere underground. I was inside a cage of rusted bars. From the looks of the ceiling, dimly lit by a low-wattage bulb hanging outside the makeshift cell, I figured I was under one of the larger, older homes in Old Savannah. No windows, and a few broken wooden wine racks stacked just outside my cell—wine cellar, maybe? I tried to recall the layout of Chatham Square but couldn't. I just wasn't as familiar with the city as I should have been.
I had lost all feeling in my hands, which I suspected was the point of the tight binding. I guessed the headache was from whatever drug he'd used on me. I tried to keep still so my brain didn't feel like it would rock out of my skull.
A door opened, or at least that's what it sounded like, and I watched with blurry vision as sneakers and jeans descended the steps on the other side of the single hanging bulb. I recognized Jack again when his head came down. He'd changed clothes—or was it the next day? The thought that I'd lost part of a day again alarmed me. If it was somehow the next day, then I had even less time to find a way into the Peripheral and get Stella. I wondered if Mike had gotten my message and understood it. The longer I was here, the lower my hope meter hung because it meant he hadn't found me yet. I regretted sending him such a cryptic text but it would have to do. I had faith in him.
I had to. I had nothing else at the moment.
Minutes to Midnight Page 8