The hair was brown and curly. It had once been neat and freshly set, but now it was messy. It was mostly the hair and the rings that told Katharine she was looking at Mary Wayne.
Just not all of her.
Still, it took a minute to understand what she was seeing. The woman’s throat was missing; internal organs that Katharine couldn’t identify were exposed to the air and rotting in plain sight where her belly had been laid open in great gashes. Katharine stepped around Allistair, disobeying even as he repeated that she should leave. She could see that some of Mary’s bones showed where her chest had been ripped. It looked as though the body were made of loosely held-together limbs. The arm with the hand that still bore the rings was hanging by a sinew.
Her senses overtaking her, Katharine at last turned around. Gulping, she fought for breath, but there wasn’t any to be had. All the air was tainted with the cloying smell of decay.
Stumbling toward the kitchen and trying to make her way out the open back door, Katharine grabbed at countertops and chairs as she passed, trying to keep a grasp on which direction was up and, most importantly, which way was out. When she was finally sitting on the back steps, on the beautiful walkway that led down to the red-brick deck and the built-in barbeque, her brain began to process what it really hadn’t been able to just a minute earlier.
Mary Wayne was dead.
Mary Wayne was torn apart. Throat ripped open, body torn limb from limb, the pieces barely held together.
Mary Wayne had been shredded by long razors, several long razors set about two inches apart.
Katharine tried to breathe, but she couldn’t. Her own arms hurt again and she wondered how long ago Mary Wayne had died. They hadn’t just missed her by minutes–Mary had been dead a while. And Katharine was now certain she was crazy, just as certain as she was that Mary Wayne had been killed by the beast that had visited her. By whatever was writing on the mirror.
She didn’t know when she finally began to focus on her surroundings. But she saw that Allistair sat beside her, his jacket and his arms draped around her shoulders. She didn’t remember either of those things getting put there.
After her vision focused, a sound broke through into her thoughts, the wailing of a siren practically in her ear. The medics were coming across the backyard, but they didn’t go inside. Allistair directed them to her, and Katharine became confused. They needed to get Mary Wayne.
In the background of her jumbled thoughts she heard Allistair’s voice saying she was in shock and probably needed fluid.
Time passed, but she wasn’t sure how much. She sat on the back step with the medic on one side of her and Allistair on the other. She answered questions about her medical history, though her words sounded slurred and mixed up even to her. After a while she was given a shot but couldn’t even be bothered to ask what it was. Surely Allistair would have stopped them if she shouldn’t have it.
Eventually, she was asked to stand, and she heard Allistair saying he’d stay with her that night and watch her. She simply felt too disconnected to protest.
She stood at his side, a blanket around her shoulders and her mouth shut, while the police asked him questions and he answered for both of them. Eventually, it began to grow dark and Allistair herded her toward the car, taking the keys from her as he folded her into the passenger seat.
Later, it felt as if she had woken up, although she didn’t remember falling asleep, and she was at her front door with Allistair. He wanted to come in, but she wouldn’t let him. Her thoughts were too confusing to make that kind of decision. And there was something in the words he said, something that had made her wary. He had known a lot about Mary Wayne. He had told the police all kinds of things she hadn’t known herself.
He thought Mary Wayne had died a while ago. And Katharine wondered how he could have known so much. Allistair had spoken to the police for a long time, or at least her drug-muddled brain seemed to think it had been a while. He’d told them all kinds of things she didn’t want to process.
He had shrugged when the cops asked about knives. But he’d seen Mary’s arms, hadn’t he? He should have connected it to the cuts on Katharine’s arms. But he didn’t. In fact, he told the police he thought Mary had fallen in with a bad crowd. Like a teenager gone a little wild.
How could he have missed something so obvious? Was he covering for someone? Himself? Or did he think he had to cover for her? She tried not to tax her tired brain too much when she knew she’d think more clearly in the morning.
She crawled into her bed, disturbed by how the covers rattled, and her thoughts skittered away and evaporated, like water on a hot pan. After several efforts to straighten her brain, she realized the covers rattled because her hand was shaking.
She should call Allistair back. He would come take care of her. He would know what to do.
But instead she slid down and pulled the comforter up around her neck, happy for the void that was coming on. With one deep breath her thoughts slipped away from her and she fell asleep.
• • •
Allistair stared at Zachary.
They stood beyond the veil, looking down at Katharine as she slumbered on in her drug-induced darkness. This time she didn’t see him–didn’t see either of them.
Zachary had gotten pissed. Allistair had made a move. He had stolen some of Katharine’s precious time. While Allistair was proud of the move, Zachary had been bound to fight back. It was against the grain to let the other get ahead. In a war like this, getting the edge meant everything, and losing it meant retaliation.
But Zachary didn’t make a move. He simply sat, as Allistair did, watching the woman they fought for. Waiting for a chance to get ahead.
Although they would have liked to have gone for each other’s throats, they couldn’t. They were evenly matched; there was no clear victor to tear out the other’s entrails as had been done to Mary Wayne.
So they stared, each knowing what the other knew. Each knowing that they could make no moves now. But neither would be the first to step away. Neither would leave Katharine alone with the other if it wasn’t a necessity of the charade.
They could have gone on like that forever.
But Katharine heard her phone ring and began to stir.
Allistair shivered and began backing out of Katharine’s space. She had been seeing more than he expected. Let her find Zachary there.
Maybe his opponent didn’t know about the drugs that would still be in her system. Didn’t realize that the change in her consciousness would let her see through the veil, see them as they were. Two beasts, one black and deep as oil, the other silver and liquid-skinned.
So Allistair fled the scene, pissed again when he felt Zachary fade out just a split second after he had. That meant Zachary knew about the drugs, and that meant he had been following them earlier today and Allistair hadn’t known.
He cursed his stupidity and wished for a solid wall to hit.
The need to hit something only depressed him more. It meant he’d been spending too much time in human form already. And there was nothing to be done for it.
He let the anger rip through his brain and swore one more time, knowing full well the power of the words he said. He only took a brief moment to contemplate the ripples his anger sent out into the world. The job at Light & Geryon was both blessing and curse. He was able to be close to Katharine, but on days like these when she wasn’t in, he was still expected to show up as Allistair. And he had only a small window of time to make the change.
He cursed again.
• • •
Katharine held the phone to her ear, trying to look casual. “No, I really can’t right now, but thank you.” Though it didn’t really address what Margot had said, it would get the point across.
There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line as the librarian gathered a protest. “You need to meet with me. It’s about the messages.”
“Later then. That would be great.” Katharine faked a smile, even thou
gh she could practically hear Margot simmering .
“No!”
Katharine’s head jerked back a little. She hadn’t expected that from a research librarian. Unfortunately, the move caused Allistair to look up from his work, his frown asking, “Is everything all right?”
Katharine gave him a benign and reassuring smile as Margot’s words filtered in.
“Look, I translated the last message, only I’m too late. Were you even okay when we talked this morning?”
“When we talked? When did we talk?” Katharine didn’t pay attention to what she’d said and immediately worried what Allistair would think. But that concern was quickly yanked from her thoughts as Margot spoke again.
“This morning, early.”
“No, I was asleep.”
Margot sounded like she was beginning to put a few pieces together, but Katharine wasn’t. “That’s what you sounded like, almost like you never really woke up for the whole conversation.”
There was a pause, then Margot continued. “You said something about the messages you’ve been getting, and it matches what I found.”
Katharine put a hand to her head, no longer trying to cover for anything. A cold river snaked through her. What had she said? The drugs they had shot into her had worn off when she woke up this morning, but apparently she had talked to Margot while she was still affected. And she had no memory of it.
Margot’s voice pulled her back to reality, or what passed for reality these days. “Where do you want to meet?”
“My place?”
She gave Margot a quick set of directions, then grabbed her jacket and headed out the door, barely saying good-bye to Allistair and Lisa.
Margot awaited her in the lobby of the building. Katharine spotted her just as the guard was starting to tell her she had a visitor.
All she needed was a wave of her hand, and Margot was up on her knock-off designer heels and following. The flat expression on the librarian’s face wasn’t a comfort.
Just as the elevator doors closed, Margot turned and began asking what felt like a thousand questions. “What were you saying on the phone this morning? It sounded like you had seen something. Did you–”
Katharine cut her off. “I live here. Please be quiet until we get to my condo.”
Not that there was anyone else in the elevator, but Katharine was good and ready to add paranoia to her list of complaints for when she finally caved and checked herself in to the psych ward.
After she shut and bolted her unit door behind them, she shed her jacket and threw it across the arm of the couch, a place she was certain it had never been before. Margot gently laid her own coat on top of Katharine’s as Katharine began firing her own questions. “What did I say this morning?”
With her hands planted firmly on her hips, she attempted to stare Margot down. It didn’t work.
Although she was answered, Katharine knew she hadn’t intimidated the woman.
“You said you had found a dead woman. And that she had been ripped open. That it looked like it was by the same thing that had cut your arms a week ago. And you said it so matter-of-factly that it made me go cold.”
Katharine wasn’t sure what to say to that. It was all true. It was all due to the drugs.
But she didn’t need to speak. Margot took up the conversation again. “I tried to reach you all day yesterday, but you weren’t answering. It sounds like you were out finding dead bodies. I got the translation of the last message, even though yesterday was already too late.”
“What do you mean ‘too late’?” Katharine waited, her hands on her hips putting forth the only power she had right now.
“The message says ‘I will come in the first vigil of the night.’” Margot picked up her purse from the couch and dug a scrap of paper out of her purse from where she had set it on top of her jacket. As though the paper was proof of the message.
Looking at it, Katharine asked, “What does it mean by ‘vigil’?”
“It’s a Latin term.” Margot was in her element now. She knew this stuff and wanted to share. “The night is divided into vigils; the first is from dark to midnight and so on.”
Katharine nodded, somehow not preparing for Margot’s next question.
“So, did he come?”
CHAPTER 13
Katharine looked at Margot like she’d grown a second head. “What?”
“It said, ‘I will come in the first vigil of the night.’ You said you had gotten the message the morning that you saw me. So that would have been two nights ago. That’s why I know my translation was too late.”
“No. He didn’t.” Katharine turned around, but it didn’t prevent her from hearing Margot.
“You’re a bad liar, remember? So, he came.” There was a long pause. Maybe she was waiting to see Katharine’s face, but Katharine wasn’t going to give her that. “Are you okay?”
She caved. She had to give Margot something. “He came, yes. He just sat there, wanted to show me that he could break in. That’s all.”
“But he’s not human.”
Katharine’s whole body snapped around. She had no idea how a normal person would react to that, but she tried to fake it. Once again, she tried to lie her way out of it. She frowned at Margot as though the woman were suggesting they make mud pies in the street while wearing feather boas.
But her face was as bad a liar as her voice was.
Margot’s voice confirmed it. “I thought so.”
Neither of them had been prepared for that. After the instant of satisfaction at being right, Margot crumpled to the couch, landing in a ladylike position though she appeared to have no control over her limbs.
Katharine found herself grateful that she didn’t have to speak; Margot read her well enough that there was no need to say anything. So she calmly walked to the couch and sat herself on the other side. Her mind blanked. Although she knew she should be asking questions or throwing the librarian out, Katharine didn’t seem to be able to do either.
Quietly, she stayed still, hands folded in her lap, wondering whether the librarian could read her, whether she could see the thin stream of relief that was somehow widening to a river. Katharine could only guess the relief was due to the fact that now someone else knew, someone who, at least on the surface, seemed and sounded sane.
Long moments passed while the two women shared space but not thoughts, each as shocked by the revelation as the other. As they sat there, Katharine realized that Margot had thrown the crazy statement out there knowing Katharine was unable to lie. But she hadn’t expected to be right.
Finally, although she was uncertain when she’d decided to tell Margot everything, Katharine started speaking. “How did you know?”
For a moment there was only a deep sigh. “Seriously, I’ve never heard of a stalker who writes you notes in Latin but leaves no trace of his presence. Who would bother to threaten like that when you don’t even understand the messages and would have a really hard time finding someone who could even translate them? It’s not a curse or a spell, meaning it has no value other than as a threat. And you said something about a ‘thing’ that might have cut you. So either you are the target of a seriously deranged, overeducated, and black-ops-trained man or … Well, I tried to think of who could get through triple-locked doors and speaks Latin.”
Katharine didn’t say anything. What could she say? That she was impressed that she’d clearly given away too much information even in the little amount she had indulged?
“The only people who speak Latin these days are priests, and I figured I would go to the cops if I had a priest stalking me. But you didn’t.” She shook her head. “Anyway, a demon is the only thing that made all the pieces fit, as crazy as that sounds.”
Margot still didn’t look at her. This was some bizarre territory they were covering.
But somehow Katharine found her backbone and renewed her resolve to save herself. She’d need to know everything she could, including what Margot knew. So she forced herself
to ask, “Why does a demon fit the profile?”
A long sigh came out before the words. In a way it was reassuring that this other woman found the subject as odd as she did. It indicated that Margot wasn’t a nut job out looking for evil and finding Katharine as a ready target.
But as fast as it soothed her, Katharine felt the chill seep in. If Margot wasn’t looking for demons, then it became more likely that was what she was actually dealing with. Sucking in a deep breath, she forced herself to wait until all the evidence was in before she panicked.
“It’s the Latin. In many texts, it’s the main language of demons and angels. Also, you had asked me if the first message was in Aramaic. So I thought that was what you were leaning toward.”
“I was.” Katharine didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know where to put her trust, what would get her institutionalized, jailed, or killed. But if she had a demon, it was a lot stronger than she. And she had never been strong. Not physically, and certainly not in any other way.
Sitting on her couch, with the afternoon light filtering through the blinds she’d only partially opened that morning, Katharine surveyed her thoughts. She pondered the familiar condo that she was used to but not certain that she loved. The new boyfriend she felt passionate about, and the man she was cheating on him with. The job she had loved and only recently seen for what it truly was. The fact that, at age thirty-two, she was only just now realizing that she didn’t agree with everything her parents had taught her.
She stood to lose all of it, good and bad, solidified past and open future.
So she had to trust someone, because there was no way she could keep her own head straight about what was happening. In that split second, she chose Margot. The woman was the least involved, had no reason to lie, and could give Katharine objective advice–which wasn’t true of just about anyone else in her life. The people in her life were few, but even Lisa, whose only relationship to Katharine was as her assistant, held some sort of sway. Besides, for some unknown reason, Katharine found she already trusted Margot. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
God's Eye Page 19