by R. L. King
“Oh, that’s right—that was just after you started here. You probably had other things on your mind at the time.” Mortenson rose, her multitude of bracelets and necklaces clinking. “Well, if you need any help or want to discuss anything, I’m available, of course.”
Of course you are. “Thank you, Edwina. I appreciate it. But I think I’ve got it under control, at least as much as it can be.”
He didn’t miss the half-frustrated, half-hurt expression on her face as she turned away and slipped out the door, but he didn’t say anything about it, either.
A few years ago, he might have. If Edwina Mortenson had been any more transparent about her jealousy of Stone, she’d have had to start taking out adverts. He used to find it amusing, when he was younger and perhaps a bit less tactful—or maybe it was simply that as he’d gotten to know the woman better, he made a bit more effort to understand her. After all, he had shaken up her comfortable little world when he’d arrived at the department.
Mackenzie Hubbard, the other Occult Studies professor, was different: he was as jaded and cynical as Mortenson, but as long as he was allowed to carry on as he had been for the last several years, do as little as possible, and have enough free time left over to continue working on his impenetrable horror manuscripts, he was fully willing to let Stone come in and dominate the limelight. Stone doubted he’d even noticed the news story, let alone that he’d bother himself sufficiently to come by and discuss it.
Mortenson, on the other hand, suffered from an unfortunate combination of traits: a deep passion about her subject, coupled with a level of natural charisma that wouldn’t compare favorably to some particularly ambitious species of mollusk. The bottom line was that, while she tried hard to engage her classes regarding her particular interests—mostly the origins and evolution of classic supernatural favorites such as vampires, werewolves, and psychic phenomena—her prickly personality and tendency to get huffy when challenged meant her student evaluations were consistently unfavorable.
Stone knew, with no particular conceit, that his more dynamic teaching style, popularity with his students, and the success of his published papers grated on Mortenson, so he supposed he should give her credit for being as professionally pleasant to him as she had managed.
That didn’t mean he was planning to consult with her on Cheng’s case, though. While it was dimly possible she might come up with something helpful, the risk of her discussing the events with others was too high. As far as he knew, so far he was the only one who knew this wasn’t just a bunch of sadistic devil-worshipping crackpots, and it was probably safer if he kept it that way at least for now.
He only had one class that day, but the moment he showed up, Stone knew it had been a mistake. At least five of the students had folded copies of the Mercury News in front of them, and others conversed in twos or threes in the tiered aisles of the lecture hall.
He threw his briefcase down on the desk with a smack, then perched on the front edge facing the startled class. “Right, then,” he called. “I can see we aren’t going to get a damned thing done today until I’ve satisfied your curiosity, so let’s have it. Five minutes for questions, then we’ll get on with the lecture. Fair enough?”
The students looked surprised, but quickly hurried to their seats. One young man called out, “So, it’s true? You’re consulting with the cops on some serial-killer thing?”
“I can’t really claim the photo isn’t me, so—yes. I am. And I can’t say much about it because I’ve been asked not to.”
“Is there a supernatural connection?” asked a woman with purple hair and a nose ring. “I mean, if they’re asking you for help, it must be, right?”
“They think it’s got an occult connection, yes. But you know as well as I do that ‘an occult connection’ could mean a lot of things, most of them quite non-supernatural.”
“I heard the victims were cut up into pieces and skinned,” another woman said. “Is that true?”
“You know I can’t comment on that,” Stone said, though he wondered who’d gotten wind of that detail. He supposed there was always at least one person at the police department who could use a few dollars under the table from a less-than-scrupulous reporter.
They asked a few more questions, and he either answered them or deflected them, depending on how much he’d have to reveal. As he glanced at his watch and noted the allotted five minutes were almost up, a thought struck him.
“I’ve just had an idea,” he said. “Since you’re all obviously curious about this and I’d like to get back to today’s lecture since it will be on the next exam, I’ll make it an optional extra-credit assignment. Do some research for me. Track down whatever news sources you can get hold of about the case, and see if you can discover any occult phenomena, supernatural creatures, and so forth that might be connected to such a case.”
He turned away from them toward the whiteboard, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. Shielding the paper with his body, he drew three of the sigils from the murder scenes—two from the one he’d first seen in the photos Cheng gave him, and one from the one he’d seen in person. “There. There’s something to get you started—see if you can find the origin of those sigils, or make up something plausible if you can’t. Then take what you know and what you’ve discovered and pitch your hypothesis to me. You can be as fanciful as you like, but sell it to me with your research. Do you think it could be a vampire, a werewolf, a secret cult of Satanists? Make me believe it. I’ll warn you it won’t be easy, but if you manage it, there’s a point or two of extra credit in it for you.”
His gaze roamed over the students’ faces as he spoke, and he was pleased to note that most of them looked intrigued. Hell, maybe one of them might come up with something that sparked a useful idea. He wasn’t completely sure he should reveal the sigils to anyone, but technically he’d only promised not to show the crime-scene photos. And if there were any message in the sigils, he wouldn’t be giving it away by only sharing part of two different instances.
“I want to emphasize, though,” he added quickly, “that this is a library research assignment only. I do not want you attempting to speak with any reporters, police, or anyone else who’s likely to come looking for me for giving you such a tasteless assignment. Keep in mind that even though this might be an interesting exercise in occult studies, these murders also have real victims with real friends and families. Just between you and me, I do not want a lecture from Dr. Mortenson on the proper use of extra-credit projects. Got it?”
They all nodded, and some of them laughed nervously.
“Right, then.” He nodded, satisfied. “Let’s continue our discussion on alchemy, shall we?”
Chapter Eight
Detective Cheng called him again later that evening, after he’d arrived home and was settling in with some takeout to look through a couple of the books he’d retrieved from the library in his study. “Hey, Dr. Stone. Is this a good time?”
“Detective. Good to hear from you. I trust you’ve seen the newspapers today?” Stone settled back on his couch and levitated his chopsticks back into the carton of kung pao chicken he’d picked up on the way home. He’d already cleared five messages off his answering machine from people who’d managed to get his home phone number and had opinions to offer about the case. The most amusing—or perhaps disturbing—of them was the nervous old lady who’d claimed that her pet Chihuahua, Pedro-Bob, routinely communicated with her and had, in fact, confessed to the crimes. All of them. She wanted to know if it was safe to continue sharing her house with him. Stone didn’t call her back.
“Couldn’t exactly miss ’em,” Cheng said. A faint crackle hung in the air as he paused.
“Detective? Is something wrong?”
The pause drew out a little longer. When Cheng spoke again, he sounded tired. “The captain called me in for a chat today, Dr. Stone.”
Stone sat up a litt
le. “Yes?”
“He wasn’t too happy about the publicity. Said the department’s been getting all kinds of calls ever since that piece came out—some from crackpots, some from uptight citizens who don’t want their tax money being used to pay—how did he put it?—‘wicked godless practitioners of the dark arts,’ I think one lady said.”
“I suppose telling her I wasn’t being paid didn’t help,” Stone said, half-amused, half-annoyed. This was why he rarely even told people about the specifics of his mundane job, let alone let them in on the fact that he was the real deal.
“I think it was more the wicked godless thing that torqued her off,” Cheng said, and sighed. “Anyway, I’ve been given the word from on high—no more consulting with occult experts.”
“I see.” He brought his bottle of Guinness to hover over next to him and took a drink. “Well…I hope whatever small aid I was able to provide you was useful.”
“Yeah…yeah, it was.” Cheng sounded odd, hesitant, as if he were trying to think something through at the same time he was talking. When he spoke again, his voice held more conviction. “Listen, Dr. Stone. You didn’t hear me say this, and if you tell anybody I did, I’ll deny it. But I think you’re on to something with these weird symbols. I got the photos from the other crime scenes, and not only do they all have ’em, but they’re all different. Just like you said. So…I can’t officially ask you to keep helping me. You won’t have access to the crime scenes—assuming there are any more, which I damn well hope there won’t be—and we won’t be able to talk officially. But they can’t stop me from talking to you on my own time. And—if you want to keep on with this, I’ll send you things when I can. Unofficially, of course.”
Stone raised an eyebrow, impressed. He didn’t think Cheng had it in him to go against his superiors’ wishes on this. Most policemen, regardless of level, didn’t—the young ones were too scared of making a mistake and torpedoing their budding careers, and the older ones were too cynical and battle-scarred to want to make the effort to think outside the box. It wasn’t necessarily a dig on them—most of them spent their whole lives dealing with the kinds of crimes where a dogged by-the-book approach got them success most of the time, and didn’t rock the departmental political boat. But when he ran across one who was willing to make the extra effort necessary to run the weird crimes to ground, he took note. “Well,” he said, “I won’t lie to you—this case has me intrigued, and I do believe there’s more I can do to help. I don’t want to get you in trouble, though. My curiosity tends to take me to odd places sometimes.”
“Hey, what you do on your own time is none of my business,” Cheng said. “But like I said, stay away from the crime scenes. But I think the Cap is wrong on this one, and sometimes I gotta go with my gut.”
“All right, then. You’ve got me as long as you want me, Detective.” And given the nature of these killings, probably longer than that.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Cheng sounded relieved.
“I trust there haven’t been any more murders since we last spoke.”
“Not that I’m aware of, no. Now that we’ve made the connection between the ones around here and the others, I’m sure we’ll hear right away if anyone finds another body.” He paused. “But there is something else.”
Stone perked up. “Yes?”
“Well…you told me to look for anything that might have a religious connection. It’s probably nothing, but you said anything might be useful so I figured I should pass it along.”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. So…about a month ago, a body turned up in an apartment in east San Jose. The guy was found slumped over his breakfast bar with his throat slashed. Weirdly enough, every sign points to suicide, even though that’s a pretty uncommon method. There are a hell of a lot easier ways to kill yourself—especially since the guy had a registered handgun in the apartment, locked in a closet.”
The little hairs on the back of Stone’s neck tingled. “That is odd,” he agreed. “But what’s that got to do with—”
“It’s not the guy that twigged my curiosity. It was what was found with him. Next to the body was an old stone box—really old, like museum old—with religious symbols on it. About the size of a cigar box. It was open, and next to it were a red cloth and a wooden cross with some odd symbols carved into it.”
Stone went still. “Odd symbols? Like the ones around the bodies?”
“No. I would have noticed that right away. These were different. But nobody in the department could read them. It’s not my case, so I’m not sure if they investigated them any further—I think they just figured the box was in the guy’s family, and he had it there for comfort while he did the deed.”
When Stone didn’t speak for a long time, Cheng asked, “So…do you think it could be relevant?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can see this box, or the cross?”
“No, I’m not even sure where they are anymore. They were in Evidence for a while, but I don’t think they’re there anymore. I imagine they’ll be returned to the vic’s family after the investigation’s complete. But what I can send you is copies of the photos that were taken of them. You can see the carvings on the box and the cross, and see if you think they have any connection. Do you want to see them?”
“Oh, yes. Most certainly. I’ve no idea if they are connected, but I do want to see them. Just to be clear—this victim didn’t have anything else in common with the others? He wasn’t skinned, bled out, dismembered—?”
“No, nothing like that. No other weird symbols. He was just…sitting there. Looked like he was halfway through dinner when he decided to off himself. Only other living things in the apartment were his cat and a couple of half-dead plants. Oh—and one other slightly weird thing: the box was found on a newspaper, with a small quantity of fresh dirt scattered under it. Like maybe it had been buried. The guy was a backhoe operator, so they think the other possibility is that he dug it up and took it home with him. Not sure they followed up on that—I didn’t see anything in the files about it.”
Interesting… “All right, Lieutenant. Thank you for letting me know. Should I meet you somewhere to pick up the information?”
“Probably best if we’re not seen together for a while,” Cheng said with obvious reluctance. “I’ll overnight it to you—you should have it tomorrow. If you think there’s anything we should talk about after you’ve taken a look, give me a call on my cellphone.” He gave Stone the number.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll be in touch if I come up with anything.”
After Cheng hung up, Stone sat for a long time, picking at the kung pao chicken and pondering. He had no idea if the suicide (if it was, in fact, a suicide) was connected with the other murders, but the odd carving on the cross found near the victim was intriguing. So was the dirt.
The cause of death was odd as well. Cheng was right: slitting one’s own throat was an uncommon suicide method. As Stone well knew from when he’d temporarily lost his magical abilities and briefly contemplated it himself, gathering the willpower to do the deed at all was difficult. But if someone was determined to do it, many easier, faster, and less painful methods were close at hand for the average person: overdose, slitting one’s wrists in the bathtub, or closing oneself in the garage and leaving the car running were three that came to mind immediately. Hell, Cheng had even said the man had a gun in his apartment, so shooting himself was another option.
Cutting his own throat, though—that took serious determination. He wouldn’t die right away, so he could have had seconds or even a couple of minutes to contemplate what he’d done as he bled out, depending on the specific location of the slash. Stone couldn’t imagine anyone choosing such an unpleasant method to end his life.
Briefly, his thoughts touched on other reasons why a man might kill himself in such a way, and as usual
they went straight to possession. Had something possessed this man and forced him to kill himself? There were still scattered soldiers from the Evil’s invasion force knocking about, but Stone hadn’t heard anything definitive from any of them since a couple years ago in Las Vegas. His working theory was that, since they were forced to remain on Earth with no way to get home and no chance of reinforcements, they’d simply settled in with their unwilling hosts and made the best of their new lives. If they positioned themselves in jobs that allowed them to draw the sustenance they needed in the form of grief, despair, anger, and other negative emotions, they wouldn’t need to attract attention to themselves.
But in this case, it didn’t make sense for it to be the Evil. If this man had killed himself inside his own apartment with no one present but his cat, all he’d accomplish was to kill the Evil inside himself. Sometimes the higher-level Evil (when there’d been any around) had instructed the soldiers to sacrifice themselves and their hosts in order to provide sustenance for others of their kind, but in this case it didn’t sound like there were others present.
That didn’t mean there weren’t other things out there capable of possessing a man and forcing him to kill himself (again, his mind flitted to unpleasant places, and he blocked the memory of Lindsey Cole from his mind), but in this case Stone’s instincts told him he wasn’t looking for possession. Especially if this case were somehow related to the others. After all, you couldn’t possess a man and force him to bleed out, skin, and dismember himself. True, there might have been more than one killer involved, but…
Stone shook his head. All he was doing now was speculating, and that was all he could do until he got the information Cheng was sending him. He got up heavily, carried the rest of the chicken to the kitchen, then trudged upstairs with his books and his half-full Guinness bottle. He didn’t think he’d find anything—he’d probably have to go back home for some better reference materials—but at least it would keep his mind from spinning over things he couldn’t do anything about.