Book of Shadows

by Marc Olden

  It was this overall disorganization which proved their downfall. Eventually they would be crushed by the irresistible power of Rome’s mighty legions.

  Celts were a savage people, quick to fight, loot, drink, and gamble. Ironically they were also skilled craftsmen, merchants, artists, and poets, capable of complex workmanship in gold, silver, bronze, and enamel. They also allowed women to rise to the highest positions in their society, including tribal chief and spiritual leader.

  In 500 B.C. the Celts migrated to Britain, bringing with them the worship of their gods and goddesses, which numbered in the hundreds.

  Spokesmen for these deities were the Druids, priests of all the Celtic tribes. The Druids were also educators and philosophers, teaching by oral transmission and conducting courses lasting as long as twenty years. Their religion, a highly ritualistic one, was based on nature worship and was conducted outdoors, near rivers and lakes and in groves of trees, particularly the oak, considered among the most powerful and vital of all living things. Drawing its strength from the earth and fed by sunshine and rain, the oak, strong and long lived, was thought to have a unique aura. Druids and Celts revered the tree. The old English Derwydd, meaning “Oak-seer”, was believed to be the origin of the word Druid.

  The priesthood practiced divination as well as human sacrifice. Many of these sacrifices were fertility rites designed to protect the all-important harvest. A bountiful harvest meant survival. Crop failure was starvation and death.

  Druids were a brotherhood cutting across tribal lines, giving them great power among all Celts. For a time they were able to unite the tribes against Rome, but Rome proved too strong. It defeated the tribes one by one, ruthlessly seeking out the Druids and slaughtering them. Although it succeeded in destroying most of the priesthood’s power, Rome never fully eliminated it. The Druids went underground, continuing to be influential among surviving Celts, particularly in Britain.

  “Feeding time,” said Marisa.

  Joseph Bess looked up from the book to see her standing in front of him with a tray containing a sandwich, a small salad, and a glass of milk. For a few seconds the sight of her offering the food to him made him stare. She was beautiful. Eventually Marisa had to smile and say, “Well?”

  The detective closed the book. “Sorry.”

  She placed the tray on the coffee table. “Ham and cheese on whole-wheat, skim milk, and lettuce and tomato, no dressing. I’m afraid that’s all I have. As a rule I don’t keep much food in the house. If it’s here, I’ll eat it—and extra weight is something an actress doesn’t need.”

  Bess reached for half of the sandwich. “This is fine. Believe me, I can’t eat more.”

  She watched him bite into the food. It was enough to have Joseph Bess here. Even if the fat boy was still outside, Bess was with her and for a few minutes she could feel safe. From now on her safety could only be measured in minutes.

  He was stiff, knowing she was watching him. He wiped his mouth after every bite, searched for crumbs as though they were clues, and handled the glass of milk as though it were rare porcelain. His coat was open and Marisa saw the holstered gun on his left hip. It was an ugly piece of metal, dark blue with a light brown wooden handle. Regulations, he’d told her. Have to wear it at all times and you buy your own bullets.

  His clothes, she noticed, were inexpensive, ordinary; not the expensively tailored suits worn by the men in her world. His haircut was nothing special, probably costing far less than the expensive blow dry and razor cut indulged in by the men around her, who also dyed their hair and underwent painful transplants. She couldn’t see Joseph Bess doing any of that.

  He’d made two calls from her apartment: one to the precinct, which had to know his whereabouts at all times, and the other to Gina, who was with one of Bess’s sisters-in-law. Marisa noticed he never left his daughter alone.

  The men in Marisa’s world made phone calls, too. They called their wives in the suburbs to say they’d be working late, then went to dinner and bed with actresses, secretaries, production assistants, and—too frequently these days—with little boys.

  Joseph Bess seemed to live in a less contrived world, one which Marisa had spent her life avoiding and which she now looked at with a sad envy. Would she be in danger now had she married, had kids, and lived in that simpler world?

  But she had to be an actress as others have to breathe. The so-called real world held no attraction for her. It never had. The only world she felt comfortable in was the world of acting, of costumes, scripts, and dressing rooms. She’d never wanted marriage and she’d never wanted children, a condition understood only by other actresses. Men had never understood it, nor had her family, for they looked upon her choice as a condemnation of them. Their self-interest prevented them from seeing her truth.

  The disapproval by men and by her family had stung and caused her to sometimes doubt herself, but when she was acting, when she was on stage or in front of a camera, when she was in makeup and costume, she was someone else in a world somewhere else, and nothing anyone said could touch her.

  Acting filled every empty space in her life. But it couldn’t fill those spaces all the time. While she worked harder at acting than at anything else, there were sometimes other needs, other relationships. Men were always a part of her life; sometimes she needed their love and, unfortunately, their approval. But most of the time she didn’t, and was grateful for that.

  She could walk away from most relationships and the times when she couldn’t, when she was caught and being hurt, hidden away in her mind was the knowledge that a role would come up, an agent would call, and she would be torn away. Acting would save her. It always had.

  Until now. Until the Book of Shadows.

  Joseph Bess ate silently and tried not to look at Marisa. Was he shy? Was he awed by her being an actress and famous? And was it true that she was beginning to look upon Joseph Bess as someone who could be as important to her as acting?

  Now that was a frightening thought. It was also attractive and exciting.

  She pointed to the book he’d been reading. “What do you think of it?”

  “Interesting. I learned the origin of the phrase ‘touch wood.’ You know, for good luck?”

  Marisa nodded, drawing one foot under her and leaning back on the couch.

  He said, “Comes from the Druids. They worshiped the oak tree like it was some sort of god. They thought the tree was alive, that it contained holy spirits.”

  “They were also headhunters, which I find somewhat disturbing.”

  “Yeah. You mentioned you think they killed the Puerto Ricans.”

  “And planted that hand near Nat Shields’ farm in New Jersey.”

  Bess eyed her over his glass of milk. “Your turn. What have you learned?”

  She linked her fingers in her lap. “Why are we having this conversation?”

  He shrugged. “If you don’t want to talk about it, don’t.”

  Smiling, she said, “I forget how blunt you can be. That’s part of your charm. I think.”

  She shrugged. “Jack Lyle said the Druids burn people. He mentioned something about the Wickerwork Man.”

  “I know. Straw and twigs wrapped around some poor unfortunate, who’s then burned to death.”

  She nodded. “Sometimes the Wickerwork Man was a cage big enough to hold several people as well as animals. The fire represents the sun, whose light and heat was needed to make the crops grow. The unfortunates, as you call them, are an exchange. Their lives for the life of the crops.”

  “Give the gods a life and the gods put life into the ground. A hell of an approach to agriculture, if you ask me. Would it be too much trouble to have another glass of milk?”

  “No.” Marisa stood up, continuing to talk to him as she left the room.

  “Sometimes they burned criminals. At other times they burned prisoners of war. The wickerwork was occasionally covered with grass and leaves to represent the forest home of the tree spirit—”

&nb
sp; “Who lived in the oak,” said Joseph Bess.

  “Right you are, sir.” Marisa returned with the milk.

  “The Druids even burned sacks of live cats,” she said. “Always a life for a life. The custom of burning people and animals exists or existed in quite a few cultures—Russia, Spain, Italy. Cats, poor creatures, represented the devil or witches, which is why they were burned. By doing that it was believed witches were prevented from hexing the harvest. There are festivals in Europe today which still have these ceremonies, minus the actual burning of people, of course:”

  Joseph Bess finished half of the milk. “All of it left over from Celts and those wacky little Druids.”

  “Well, I’m glad somebody can laugh about it. I can’t.”

  “I’m not laughing. Cops see a lot of grim things. We survive by having our own weird sense of humor and believe me, cop humor can be weird. Go on.”

  “Nothing much more to tell. Those wacky little Druids, as you call them, believed that burning someone to death was one way of making sure he didn’t bother you again. They believed in magic and to eliminate the magic of their enemies, they burned them.”

  “That’ll do it every time.”

  “It’s also the reason why they burned animals. Witches were said to be able to turn themselves into animals, particularly cats, rabbits, foxes, and snakes, so these were the animals that got burned the most frequently. The Druids burned those witches who they thought would harm the harvest, and it figures that the more people who were burned, the more fertile the soil would be. The more life you gave, the more life the gods would return to you in the ground.”

  Bess sighed. “Fire in exchange for sun. Dead people in exchange for corn and wheat.”

  He looked at her. “They call it religion, we call it magic, and who’s to say who’s right? A thousand years from now somebody will look at what passed for religion in our day and call that magic and superstition. Time diminishes everything and everybody.”

  She looked down at the floor and Bess wanted to take her in his arms. She seemed fragile, vulnerable. His heart went out to her.

  With a hand on his injured side, he got up and went to the window.

  “Still there,” he said. “But he’s stopped eating.”

  The detective looked at Marisa. “I want you to leave the apartment.”

  “What?”

  “Now. And let him see you. Walk up to the corner and make sure he sees you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Bess said, “He hasn’t moved. He doesn’t know me and he doesn’t know if you’re alone or with somebody. All he’s done is stand there as though waiting for you to come out again or …”

  “Or what?”

  “Or leave the apartment so he can get in. Get ready.”

  “I don’t know. What if he follows me?”

  “Won’t matter. I’ll be following him.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise. Let’s goose fat boy into making a move, and if he does something that isn’t kosher, maybe I can come down on him officially.”

  Marisa took one step, stopped and turned to face him again.

  He said, “What is it?”

  Her smile almost melted him on the spot. “You’re helping me,” she said. “You’re actually helping me.”

  She rushed back, threw her arms around him and held him tight.

  Bess, embarrassed and surprised, slowly, tentatively lifted both hands and gently touched her back. “I … I’ll do the best I can.”

  Smiling she stepped away from him, her eyes glistening with tears, and ran from the room.

  At the window, Joseph Bess looked down at the fat boy who sat on a stool in the pizza stand sipping a coke.

  Me and you, pudgy, thought the detective. You come near her and it’ll be me and you.

  THIRTEEN

  THIS TIME THE FAT boy was determined to be more careful.

  Crouched in front of Marisa’s apartment door he slowly inserted the third lock pick in the bottom lock. Then using a thumb and forefinger he carefully turned the pick left then right, avoiding the two picks protruding from the lock. He listened for a click.

  Ten days ago he’d tried to open this door using just one pick. He’d been in a hurry then, anxious to get inside before anyone saw him in the hallway. And because of his impatience he’d broken off a pick in the lock, making it impossible to open the door. When the Comforts had learned this they had been angry, an anger that the fat teenager, whose name was Gregory Vandis, had found frightening.

  Along with his mother, Denise, Gregory was a member of Herod’s coven and was thoroughly convinced that the Comforts were people to be obeyed at all times. Look at what they’d done to Herod. Not to mention Mr. Shields and a few other people.

  Rupert Comfort had given Gregory something important to do this evening. Nothing had better go wrong this time.

  The fat teenager had followed the actress home from the television studio and waited in front of her apartment building until she’d come out again. There was no need to follow her any more, not today anyway. Gregory had something else to do and it had to be done in an empty apartment.

  Despite a doorman and closed-circuit television, getting inside the actress’s building had been easy. Gregory had slipped in through the basement garage, hiding behind parked cars, making his way past the laundry room and dry cleaners, then walking up four flights of stairs. No one had answered when he pushed the actress’s bell.

  And the hallway was empty. Slipping a leather case from the back pocket of his jeans, he unzipped it, selected a pick, and went to work.

  Now he listened for the click.

  “Freeze!”

  Gregory snapped his head to the right and saw a man crouched several feet away, a two-handed grip on a gun aimed at Gregory’s head.

  “Don’t even blink, “said Joseph Bess. “Just stand up and do it real slow.”

  Cop. Gregory sensed it, smelled it.

  The two of them had tricked him, pretending to leave the building then doubling back. They hadn’t come off the elevator. They must have taken an elevator to the floor below or above and walked one flight without making a sound. Gregory had been too busy with the locks and worrying about the Comforts to notice the cop and the actress sneaking up on him. Damn them.

  Gregory’s round face turned red with hatred. They would be responsible for the Comforts’ getting angry at him again. The fat boy licked his lips, his left hand squeezing the small, unzipped leather case that held the lock picks.

  The cop and the actress came closer.

  Joseph Bess said, “Face the wall and spread your legs. I’ll read you your rights—”

  Gregory hurled the leather case in Joseph Bess’s face.

  Lock picks sped towards the detective’s eyes and he put up both hands to block the potentially deadly thin pieces of metal. Gregory charged him, driving his head into Bess’s stomach and knocking the wind out of him, shoving the little detective off balance.

  Bess slammed into the wall and a strangled cry of pain came from him. His ribs.

  The gun flew from his hand, bounced off the wall, and landed on the carpeted hallway floor. Gregory dove for it.

  Marisa threw herself on top of him, both hands gripping his thick wrist, preventing Gregory from bringing the gun around and shooting Joseph, now slumped at the base of the wall. The fat boy was strong, much stronger than Marisa, and he tried to shake her off. Knowing that the boy would soon win the struggle, that she and Bess would be in danger, gave Marisa a last spurt of determination.

  She sank her teeth in his ear, biting deep into the flesh. Gregory screamed and twisted and then the two of them were lying on their right sides, Marisa behind the boy. Gregory lashed out with his elbow, grazing her left breast and stinging it.

  And then she was on her back, Gregory face up and on top of her and she’d lost her grip on his wrist. He had the gun and she and Bess would die. Gregory’s weight
on Marisa was immense, crushing her painfully, but she found his eyes with her left hand and clawed at them, feeling her nails scrape his flesh.

  “Fuckin’ woman!” he screamed. “Fuckin’ woman. I’ll kill you, kill the both of you—”

  Joseph Bess had staggered to his feet and was standing over Gregory and Marisa. Holding his ribs and gritting his teeth against the pain, the detective lifted his right foot and brought it down on Gregory’s balls.

  The fat teenager squealed, rolled off Marisa and curled up, knees to chin. Stepping until he stood facing the boy again, Bess kicked him in the side, once, twice.

  An apartment door opened, then closed quickly.

  Leaning against the wall, Joseph Bess closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth. “Thanks.”

  Marisa sat up and fought for breath. Combing hair from her face with her fingers she said, “What for? You just saved my life.”

  “We could argue that point all day. Seems to me you did all the saving.” Bess stiffened. “That little bastard really hurt me. Do me a favor.”

  Bess reached behind himself and pulled handcuffs from the small of his back. “Cuff him. And hand me my piece, will you?”

  Another apartment door opened. “Police,” yelled Bess. “I’m a cop. Dial nine-one-one and have them send over a squad car. Tell them an officer needs help.”

  The apartment door closed.

  “Maybe they’ll call and maybe they won’t,” said Bess. He took the .38 Smith & Wesson from Marisa and stuck it back in his belt holster.

  He said, “Let me help you turn him over on his stomach.”

  “Why? We can cuff his hands just as easily in front.”

  “No we can’t. You always cuff a suspect’s hands behind him. Otherwise he’ll use the cuffs as a weapon and give you a new face.”

  Marisa nodded.

  When Gregory lay face down and moaning, hands cuffed behind his back, Marisa said, “I owe you an apology.”