Charmed to Death

by Shirley Damsgaard

  He shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you. Let’s get this straight, Comacho,” I said, propping my clenched hands on my hips. “I came here of my own free will because I want to see Brian’s killer caught. To me, Brian’s death isn’t a loose end, like it is to you. He was a good person and my friend. He deserves justice.”

  Comacho’s eyes never left my face. “You’re stronger this time, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea.” I reached in my purse and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper. Using the top of my car as a hard surface, I scribbled my phone number and address on the paper. Whirling around, I shoved the paper at Comacho. “Here. It’s my phone number and address. Give it to Perez or keep it—whatever. If anything new develops, let me know.”

  I got in my car, slammed the door, and drove away. I was so angry at Comacho that I didn’t see the other car follow me.

  Seven

  “Grandpa. Grandpa. Stop the swing. I can’t hear you.”

  I stood on Abby’s wide front porch. The scent of newly plowed earth floated on the spring air that drifted around me while the stars glittered in the night sky like diamonds cast on black velvet. My grandfather sat in the swing and next to him sat Henry Comacho.

  I knew it was a dream, but I couldn’t wake myself up. Nor, in the dream, could I move from my position near the porch railing. It was as if my feet were frozen to the shiny gray boards.

  Squeak, squeak. The sound was so loud that I couldn’t hear their voices over it.

  “Grandpa, stop. Don’t tell him anything. We can’t trust him.” I struggled to move closer to them.

  Squeak, squeak. Henry sat, not talking, with his head tilted, listening to my grandfather. While Grandpa talked, he stabbed the air with his finger, as if to make a point. Henry nodded.

  My panic rose. I couldn’t let Grandpa tell Henry our secrets.

  “Stop!”

  Suddenly the dream shifted, as they often do, and I wasn’t on Abby’s porch. Instead I stood in an open field, the same field I had dreamed of a few nights ago. Only this time I realized it wasn’t an open field. It was a park. In the darkness I made out the shape of the slide and merry-go-round. To my left was a Civil War monument. I knew this park.

  Yes, Wallace Park, that’s where I was. Brian and I had come here often in the summer. It was close to the university and a popular place for both the students and the staff. Surrounded by a tall hedge, its gravel paths wound through the trees. They had found Brian’s mutilated body nearby.

  The killer. He had left Brian’s body in the Dumpster and walked through this park. Was he still here? I strained my eyes searching the empty spaces, but saw nothing, only shadow.

  In the last dream what path had the killer taken? I spun around. Think, Jensen, think. Remember the dream. Yes, he went to the north, through the hedge.

  I ran down the gravel path. It exited the park on the north side, on First Street. Would I catch him this time? Would I see his face? I ran faster.

  Rounding the corner, my feet slid in the loose gravel when I skidded to a halt. There, on the street, a blue van. Moving toward it was a dark figure, Brian’s killer.

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  He heard me and looked over his shoulder, but it was too dark for me to see his face. Yanking the door open, he got in and the van peeled away from the curb. Its red taillights disappeared around the corner of First Street.

  Dang, I missed him again. Frustrated, I stood staring down the empty street.

  The sound of pounding jolted me awake. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the hotel and somebody was pounding on the door to my room. Shaking my head to clear away the dream, I stumbled to the door. I opened it to see Darci with her fist raised. Her blonde hair was tousled from sleep and, dressed in her pink satin robe, she looked like a model from a lingerie catalog. Except her robe was on wrong-side-out. She must’ve thrown it on in a hurry.

  “What’s going on? I could hear you shouting through the wall. Are you okay?” she asked, her words tumbling out all at once.

  Dang, did I wake up the whole hotel? A quick look down the hall assured me no one else stood peering out their door. I grabbed Darci’s arm and pulled her in the room, shutting the door behind her.

  “Yeah. I was dreaming.” I walked past Darci to the bathroom and filled a glass with water. The cool water felt good as it slid down my burning throat. Looking at myself in the mirror, the face staring back at me looked wild. My pupils were dilated and my hair was tangled and knotted. I ran my fingers through my hair to straighten it. Taking a deep breath, I returned to the bedroom where Darci sat with her legs tucked underneath her on the bed.

  “Okay, are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?” A determined look settled on Darci’s face. “I know this isn’t just about Abby.”

  Sitting in the chair across from the bed, I tried to think of an answer. It wouldn’t do any good to lie to Darci. Most people passed her off as a dumb blonde, but I knew better. She’d keep digging till she learned the truth.

  “If I tell you, you have to promise me you’ll stay out of it. Let me handle it this time.”

  Darci made a face. “All right. I promise.”

  “I don’t know where to start,” I said, shaking my head.

  “The beginning is good,” Darci said, smiling.

  I tried to return Darci’s smile, but my lips wouldn’t bend. “Well, it seems, according to Abby, I’m supposed to find justice for Brian.”

  “How?”

  I tugged on my lip before I answered. “Find the serial killer who murdered him.”

  Darci’s eyes widened. “Wow. You’re going to catch a serial killer?”

  “I don’t know if I’m supposed to catch him, exactly. Maybe I’m only supposed to figure out who he is, then pass the information to the police.” I rubbed my palms on my legs. “At least, I hope that’s what I’m supposed to do. I’ve already been to the police station—”

  “Without me?”

  “Yes, without you. I told you, I don’t want you involved. I don’t know what’s going to happen or if I could protect you.”

  Darci made another face.

  I smacked the arm on the chair. “I mean it, Darci. You promised you’d stay out of this. If I do run into Brian’s killer, it’ll be dangerous. The man’s a butcher. You don’t exactly fit his victim profile. You’re the most heterosexual person I know, but the profile could change. I’ve already lost one friend. I don’t want to lose another.”

  She plucked at the bedspread. “Okay, how are you going to do this?”

  “Don’t know.” I ran my hands through my tangled hair in frustration. “I’ve started dreaming about the murder again. In the dream I see the killer put Brian’s body in the Dumpster where he was found. And I chase him. Tonight in the dream I recognized where we were, Wallace Park, but before I caught him, he got in a blue van and sped off.”

  “In the dream did you see his face or the license plate?”

  “No. It was too dark. But for some reason, I know the van was stolen.”

  “What are you going to do?” Darci asked, spreading her hands wide. “Keep dreaming until you see his face?”

  I cleared my throat. “Umm, Abby kind of said I’ll meet him. According to her, I’m going to meet two men: one good, one evil.”

  “You are going to find the killer,” Darci said, her excitement rising.

  I tried to keep my tone neutral. “I suppose.”

  “And because of your dreams, you’ll recognize him when you meet him?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.” I shuddered. “That’s what I hate about this psychic gift: What I see is always vague. Abby said to trust in my spirit guides and I’ll be shown the way. She also gave me my great-grandmother’s runes. They’re to help me too.”

  “Cool.” Darci’s eyes gleamed. “May I see them?”

  “Sure.” I walked over to the bed and removed the bag from under my pillow. Sitting cross-legged on the bed next to Darci, I spread the ru
nes on the bed.

  She reached out her hand to pick one up.

  “No,” I said, touching her wrist and stopping her. “You can’t touch them. Only the person they belong to may handle them.”

  “Of course, like with the crystals Abby gave me. If someone else handles them, it messes up the energy, right?”

  “Right. Your crystals are in tune with your specific energy. If someone else handles them, it can imprint their energy instead of yours.”

  “Got it. Then you have to cleanse them.”

  “Yeah, and it’s a pain,” I said, frowning. “All that smudging and rededicating. It takes forever.”

  She hunched forward, with her hands clasped in her lap, and studied the runes. “How do you use them?”

  “A lot of different ways—divination, magick, spells. My great-grandmother wrote some of their history in her journal. The Vikings would use a niding pole, a pole to cast a spell, against a neighbor who had done them harm,” I explained, nudging the runes with my finger. “The vitki—runecaster—would stick a pole in the yard facing the offending neighbor, stick a carved horse head on the top, and ritually carve his curse in runes on the pole. Or they’d write specific runes on a piece of wood to create a spell. Believe it or not, the placement of the timbers on the old half-timbered houses in Northern Europe were actually a combination of rune symbols. Usually for the protection and prosperity of the household.”

  “What about divination? Have you tried it?”

  “No, not yet. There are a lot of different castings one may use. Seven runes, five runes, or cast them all on a cloth, imagine a circle around them, and interpret the runes according to their position to one another. Whether they’re upside down, right side up.”

  “The last one sounds difficult.”

  “Uh-huh, I think so, too. From what I’ve read, the easiest is the three-rune casting. It represents the Norns, Urdhr, Verdhandi, and Skuld—the past or problem at hand, the present or path one should take, and the future or what will happen if you follow the advice of the runes.”

  “Why don’t you try it?”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, why not? Other than learning the van was stolen, your dreams aren’t showing you much. Maybe the runes will. It’s not like you’ve got anything to lose, is it?”

  “True. Okay,” I said, picking the runes up and putting them back in their pouch. When I touched them, their energy vibrated in my hand. After all these years of lying forgotten in their sack, were they excited to be of use once again?

  I cleared my mind as Abby had taught me. Silently, I asked for my eyes to see only the truth, my ears to hear only the truth, my mouth to speak only the truth, and my heart to know only the truth. With a request for protection and guidance, I formed my question in my mind. Will I find justice for Brian?

  Reaching in the bag, I slowly ran my hand through the bag, letting the runes slip through my fingers. One made my hand tingle more than the others did. I drew it out and placed it on the bed in the exact position it was when I selected it. Repeating the process, I drew two more and placed them in a row next to the first rune.

  I studied them for a moment. The symbol for the first one, the present, was upside down. Murk-stave, not good. The other two were right-side-up.

  “Well? What did you get?” Darci asked impatiently. “What do they mean?”

  “Hey, give me a minute. I’m new at this and I need to think.” Reaching over to the nightstand, I pulled out Great-Grandma’s journal. The old pages crackled while I turned them, looking up the symbols.

  Slamming the journal shut, I stared, mesmerized, at the first rune, the upside-down one, Urdhr, the problem at hand. Maybe if I stared long enough, it would turn right-side-up.

  Elhaz—grave dangers lie hidden; possibility of being consumed by unknown forces…

  Nope. Not good, not good at all.

  Eight

  “What is it? You’re three shades whiter than milk. It’s bad, isn’t it?” Darci said, reaching over and touching my arm.

  Her touch brought me out of the thoughts. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

  “The present is Elhaz—”

  “How did you pronounce that?”

  “‘Ale-hawz.’ The second is Eihwaz—‘eye-wawz,’ the third is Tiwaz—‘tea-wawz,’” I said, pronouncing each rune twice slowly.

  “Are they all bad?”

  I shook my head. “There aren’t bad or good runes. They just are. And they’re damn subtle too.”

  Darci patted her hands on the bed. “Will you please hurry up and tell me what they mean?”

  “Sorry. Okay, the first one, the problem, indicates grave dangers lie hidden. If I’m stubborn and refuse to prepare for the challenge, I could be consumed by unknown forces.”

  “Humph.” Darci snorted. “That doesn’t sound too subtle to me, especially the stubborn part. They’ve got your number on that one. What about the rest?”

  “The middle one, the path I should take, is Eihwaz. It means I have protection, toughness, and the power to defend myself. The last one is Tiwaz. It stands for justice, good over evil,” I said, picking up the last rune and rolling it in my palm.

  “But that’s good, isn’t it? It means you’ll win in the end and Brian’s killer will be caught.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s probably what it means,” I said, picking up the rest of the runes and putting them back in the bag. “Listen, it’s late and I need some sleep. I can’t be dozing off in the seminars tomorrow. You still want to go out tomorrow night?”

  “You bet. I want to go to this really cool bar. Tim took me there on our date. It has a great dance floor.”

  Darci got up and walked to the door. Stopping, she turned and looked at me still sitting on the bed.

  “After all of this, it would do you good to get out and have a little fun. Forget about killers, runes, and dreams for a while,” she said.

  “You’re right. I’ll look forward to it,” I answered, smiling.

  After she left, I walked to the door, locked it, and put the chain in place. Leaning against the door, I looked at the bag with the runes lying on the bed.

  Darci thought it was the first rune that had scared me. Its prediction of grave danger wasn’t a surprise. I was dealing with a serial killer, after all. And Darci was right about the rest of the reading. The runes showed my stubbornness and my reluctance to accept the challenge I had to face. Also that I had the power to protect myself—if only I would use it.

  But Darci didn’t know the whole truth about the last rune, the one that scared me.

  It did mean justice and success, but it was also the symbol for the Norse god Tyr, the god of war. According to the sagas, a wolf was about to devour mankind, but Tyr tricked the wolf by placing his right hand in the wolf’s mouth. The trick distracted the wolf long enough so that he could be bound and stopped from eating all the humans. When the wolf discovered Tyr’s trickery, he chewed the hand off. Tyr sacrificed his hand to protect man.

  Self-sacrifice. What would I be called on to sacrifice in order to stop a killer? My life? Someone dear to me? Unfortunately, the runes didn’t answer that question.

  Half-asleep, I rolled over to shut the alarm off. I did not want to get up. To hell with the seminars. I’d stay in bed for the rest of the day. But I couldn’t find the snooze button. Where was it? Aww, here it is. I pushed it again and again, but the clock wouldn’t stop ringing. Finally, it penetrated my sleep-fuzzed brain that it wasn’t the alarm. It was the phone. Dang.

  “Hello,” I said, my voice sleepy.

  “Hi, dear. Sorry to wake you, but I wanted to catch you before you left for the day. What happened at the police station?”

  Abby. I should have known. I glared at the clock: 6 A.M. I sat up in bed and clicked the alarm off.

  “Ophelia, are you there?”

  “Yeah,” I said and scooted up in bed. “I was shutting off the alarm.”

  “What happened?”

  “How do you
know I went to the police station?”

  “Please—”

  I cut her off. “Okay, dumb question. I went, talked to a Detective Perez. The case is still open. There have been other killings they think are related, but he wouldn’t say if they were any closer to catching the killer. The DCI and the FBI are involved now.”

  “I see. Hmm—interesting.”

  “Oh, and I ran into not only Henry Comacho, but also Fletcher Beasley.”

  “How unpleasant for you. Did you speak with either one?”

  “Oh yeah, Comacho insisted on walking me to my car. He’s still cold and calculating, still convinced I’m hiding something, and still determined to find out what it is.”

  “What about Beasley?”

  “I didn’t speak with him, Comacho did. Seems he doesn’t like Beasley any more than he likes me. Are you getting any vibes on him when I mention his name?”

  “No.”

  “Shoot.” I let out a long sigh. “Well, I gave him my number and told him to call me if there are any new developments. Oh, and Darci now knows. I had a dream last night. She heard me shouting and came to my room.”

  “What did you dream?” she asked.

  I plucked at the sheet, not answering. Did I tell her about Grandpa?

  Abby continued. “Was it the same as before?”

  I made my decision. “Sort of. But it started with Grandpa and Comacho sitting on the swing on your front porch. They were talking, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Grandpa was doing all the talking and Comacho was listening. I remember I was afraid Grandpa was telling him our secrets. What do you suppose it meant?”

  “I don’t think that part of the dream was necessarily prophetic. My house represents security to you and the detective threatens it with all his questions. What was the rest of it?”

  “I was in the empty field, same as before, only this time I recognized where I was. Wallace Park. I chased the killer again, but he got away in a blue van. I didn’t see his face, but for some reason, I know the van was stolen.”

  “Interesting. Are you going to tell the police?”