Silke added the feather to one of her potions. Trading it for a second vial, she walked along the chalk line near the church, pouring as she went. “With this potion I bind, so while in this circle, you are subject to my mind.” Then she returned to the first circle and said, “Let’s light the candles.”
She saw to the altar candles – white, gold and silver – while I lit the four candles she’d set out on the edge of our circle, one candle representing each of the four directions.
I gave Silke a hug and prayed nothing would go wrong. If she got hurt because of me, I would never forgive myself. I knew involving her was necessary since I was out of sync with things that went bump in the night. If this really was a demon, then I needed her help. I knew my twin hated violence and my job and she was being nothing if not brave.
“Thanks for helping me, Silke. What do you want me to do?”
“Just do your job and let me do mine.”
The short hairs at the back of my neck stood straight when I heard the authority in her tone, something that was definitely new. I stepped back and Silke began by closing her eyes and bowing her head.
“Guardians of the Watchtower, I summon thee to protect us. Guard our circle as we call the demon forth.” Then she picked up the vial with the feather, stirred and pulled the feather free. She raised her hand. “Spirit of Air, carry this feather to the heart of the summoning.”
As though the feather were picked up by an air current, it left Silke’s hand and floated through the air, landing directly in the middle of the binding circle.
At her signal, I called out, “By the powers of the Guardians, I call your name – Eurynomos – and I summon you to answer for your crimes.”
I was hoping nothing would happen, that this demon thing was in my head, when before us, the space above the other circle began to shift and go wavy. The energy bled to the middle of the circle in a dark column that gradually took form and color. Suddenly I was looking at a large demon over six feet tall, his blue-black body nude but for the cape of vulture feathers hanging from his fill-a-doorway shoulders. His glowing red eyes narrowed. He looked pretty pissed off.
Who wouldn’t be, when interrupted in the middle of a meal? Shards of human skin and flesh hung from his mouth, and blood dripped down his chin to his massive chest.
“Who dares summon me when I’m eating!” he boomed, bits of his latest victim spraying through his long, pointy teeth and flying in our direction.
As if there was an invisible wall between us, the bits dropped outside the protection circle.
I said, “Eurynomos, account for your crimes.”
“Crimes?” If a demon could look puzzled, this one did. His big blue face twisted, making him appear even more gruesome.
“You’ve been killing people, eating their flesh.”
“Consuming the sins of violent criminals.”
“You’re a sin eater?” I’d heard such a thing existed in the British Isles decades or even centuries ago.
“That was my task,” Erynomos agreed.
“I thought sin eaters didn’t kill anyone,” I said, "but took the sins of the already dead upon themselves through food and drink.” Thus absolving his or her soul and allowing that person to rest in peace.
“This is much more satisfying.” He licked his fingers. “Very tasty.”
My stomach clenched and then quaked just a little as his gaze ran down my body, his expression revealing a connoisseur’s interest in my flesh.
“You will stop and go back to your hell, but first I want to know who summoned you. Father Gannon?”
Not that I would ever be able to get the priest on this particular charge. Not that I knew I wanted to. I did want the whole truth, however.
The demon shrugged. “This was my last meal anyway. I’m done here.”
He hadn't confirmed my suspicion, so I said, “Father Gannon won’t be able to call you back.”
“No, he won’t,” the demon agreed as I gave my twin the signal that I was going to start the banishing spell.
Silke handed me the vial with the feather. I held it in one hand, then took a candle from her with the other. I touched fire to the oil and the vial spurted a column of flame. Making a circle in the air as Silke had instructed me, I then drew the five-pointed pentacle that completed the pentagram. “Eurynomos, I banish you to Hades to never return.”
“I was just about to leave!” the demon boomed as the pentagram that held him burst into flame and began to consume him. “Oh, Hell!”
With a shriek that knotted my stomach, he burned as brightly as the fire in the vial. Both folded in on themselves until the flames died out.
Leaving the binding circle empty.
Relief washed through me and I hugged Silke until suddenly, I remembered we’d interrupted the demon’s meal. “The victim. I need to get inside. I need to handle this alone and call it in. No one can ever know what went on here.” Not if I wanted to keep my job. "Can you do the clean up and get out fast?"
“Go.”
I ran inside.
The church was quiet as a tomb. A couple of people in a pew by the confessional fidgeted and coughed.
One of them whispered, “What’s taking so long? How many sins can one person have?”
I walked to the confessional, saying, “I need witnesses.”
I flashed my star, which immediately sent one of the guys running. I was staring after him, trying to figure out if I should know him as the others followed suit.
“Father Gannon,” I then called loud enough to be heard throughout the church. “It’s Detective Caldwell. I need to speak to you.”
When I got no answer, an awful certainty tightened my gut. I opened the confessional door—the middle one that hid the priest from the penitents while they confessed their sins.
Father Gannon sat there, a perpetual grin distorting what was left of his face. Half his chest had been eaten away—I was pretty certain his heart was gone—but the cloth of his holy garments still covered him in strips.
I called it in.
Waiting for back up, I tried to figure out an explanation for what had happened, but realized I didn’t need to. When the murders stopped, The Flesh Eater Case would go cold. I also wondered if Eurynomos had made the decision on his own to eat the priest who had summoned him...or if realizing that I was onto him, Father Gannon had chosen his own day to die.
What Gannon had done hadn’t been right. He’d committed crimes equally violent to what the offenders had perpetrated against others. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of connection with the dead priest.
Saying a prayer for his immortal soul, I had one hope for the misguided priest...that all Father Gannon’s sins had already been eaten before I’d interrupted.
***
The first Detective Shelley Caldwell novel was HOT CASE from Silhouette Bombshell. Look for HOT TRICK, coming from Carina Press and another Shelley Caldwell short story, HOT NOTE, in Thriller 3, LOVE IS MURDER, from Mira.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Other books by the author
The McKenna Legacy
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Haunted
Copyright
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Excerpt from HOT CORPSE
DANGEROUS, Collection #1 Page 42