by Debra Dunbar
Just to be sure I pulled my Peterson’s book onto my lap and leafed through it, just as I’d done pretty much every day since the little fox had taken to perching on it. Nothing. At least nothing I hadn’t been reading in the last few days.
I sighed and went to set the book on the table, realizing that with the white board, the laptop, and a bunch of boxes there wasn’t any room. This place was a mess. Again. I was up early. Raven clearly needed to rest before any further attempts at communication. Might as well clean up a bit before starting in on further skinwalker/shapeshifter research.
Starting with the boxes. They were filled with Raven’s books, and given her specialty with Goetic demons, there might be something in one of them about possession and skinning victims. I grabbed the edges of the cardboard and tore at the tape, gently lifting out the contents and sorting them. Within minutes I was lost in the delight of books—old and new. There were references filled with demon names, attributes, and sigils, grimoires that had been published as well as battered copies that looked like she’d scooped them up at a garage sale. There was even a collection of personal grimoires from modern magicians—no doubt deceased. The handwritten pages were yellowed and stained, but a fascinating window into the practice of mages from the last century.
The next box held a wider variety of tomes. Herbal and other naturalist identification reference books as well as spells and incantations from other disciplines. As I reached the bottom of the box, I smiled to see a few books on the history of Templars. Raven had read up on me.
There was one more at the very bottom. It was brand new, with a glossy cover and an uncreased spine. It was a book I never would have thought to find in a Goetic mage’s collection, one Reynard or any of the other members of Haul Du would probably never open.
It was Peterson’s Monsters of the New World.
Why in the world would Raven have this book? I glanced over at my copy, and then back to the pristine version I’d just removed from the box. Maybe this was the Peterson’s she’d been trying to get me to look at. Was it a different edition? Was there something in this particular book that wasn’t in mine?
Peterson’s buok. Soot in mybxk. Lolgru. It was what Raven had written on the white board. Peterson’s book. Look in my box? Lolgru—what the heck did that mean? I sat cross-legged on the floor and hefted the big book onto my lap. Lorelai? Solgrun? I fanned the pages, stopping at one that was a slightly different texture.
Loup-garou. Only after the first page, the following one wasn’t Peterson’s dry, informative narrative, it was a handwritten page that had been carefully inserted in place of the original. I squinted, recognizing Raven’s tight print. As I read, my heart stuttered, tears welling up in my eyes. It was the ritual to remove the demon mark. That’s why Raven had delayed in D.C. rather than heading straight to my parents’ house. She’d copied Dark Iron’s ritual and secreted it away in this book, taking the original with her. If something happened, no one would think to look here—no one but me, eventually, after Reynard delivered the books she’d willed to me.
Oh, God. My friend had come through. Even after death, she’d come through for me. I wiped away the tears and carefully read the ritual. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could manage this. The only hitch was it needed to be done at a specific date and time—Halloween, midnight.
Luckily that was only a little more than a month away. One month, and I’d be free of this demon mark. My soul might never be clean after what I’d done to Dark Iron, but without Balsur breathing down my neck, I might be able to stay on a righteous path.
Chapter 20
THE RELIEF I felt at finally having a solution in sight to my demon mark meant I was able to turn with renewed energy to the problem of our local band of killers. They had blood that tasted like a rotted corpse, and wore the skin of a human to assume their identity. Skinwalker? Shapeshifter? A stealthier-than-usual demon with a really twisted sense of humor? Or some sort of zombie? Either way, I’d exhausted pretty much every book in my own research library. It was time to turn to someone with a far more extensive collection, who’d spent decades devoted to information on the supernatural. I set the fox figure in front of the computer, just in case Raven was able to communicate again, and picked up my phone.
“Aria.” I heard the click of the phone switching to speaker, because that’s how my parents’ rolled. Dad sounded cheerful. I could hear noise in the background, like something frying on the stove. Unbidden, the scent of French toast and bacon surfaced in my mind.
“I’ve got good news,” I announced. “I found the ritual to remove the demon mark. Raven had hidden it in one of her books. If all goes well, after Halloween the only marks I will have on my body are scars.”
“That’s wonderful!” Mom’s voice sounded as if she were across the room. “Do you need supplies or any help with the ritual? Anything we can get for you or any way we can assist?”
“I’ll let you know. I haven’t studied it very much yet. I’ve got a few other things I need to concentrate on right now, then I’ll start working on prepping for the ritual.”
It was six weeks out after all. I doubted there was anything in there that I couldn’t manage to acquire in six weeks. If Dark Iron could get his hands on it, I, with my Templar resources, should be able to.
“No more demon summoning, Aria,” Dad warned. “If you need help with something, you call me. I don’t like you messing around with the underworld.”
I wouldn’t…unless it was an emergency and the only option. But I wasn’t about to tell my father that.
“Actually that’s why I’m calling, Dad. I need to pick your brains about some stuff. Can I rain-check the in-person visit? I’ve got to work this afternoon and can’t come down right now.”
I heard him sigh. “Of course I’ll help, but we’d really like you to come down next weekend, Aria. Roman and Athena and the kids will be here and we’re doing a family weekend. Plus, you know how Gran loves it when you visit. She’s not getting any younger, honey.”
No one was, but I had a feeling Essie would outlast my parents and probably me, too. “I promise. I’m supposed to work Sunday night, but I’ll switch with Chalese. She’s wanting something called ‘balayage’ on her hair and it evidently costs about the same as a used BMW, so she’s eager for the extra hours.”
“What’s balayage?” I heard my dad whisper. I could practically see my mother shrugging in the background. Her natural blond hair had only become more beautiful with the increasing streaks of silver. I doubt she’d ever been within twenty feet of hair color.
“There was a murder here earlier this week—a dead body was found skinned in a museum broom closet.” I didn’t tell them that I’d been the one that found it, or that it had toppled out on me from said closet. Or that I was going into the closet to make out with a guy.
“Skinned?” Mom’s voice rose in pitch with the word. “What kind of monster does that?”
“Exactly. At first we, the police and I, thought it was a human serial killer with a weird taxidermy thing going on, but recent events have caused me to believe the killers might be non-human.”
“Killers? As in plural?” My dad sounded intrigued, which was a good thing. Even if he didn’t know what the murderer was, interesting him in the case was a way to assure he’d spend a sleepless night in the vault checking information in manuscripts only he had handy access to.
“We think there are three. One of the suspects has the same knee replacement serial number as the dead body found in the museum. Another was seen fleeing the scene of his sister’s murder with the first suspect. His backpack left behind contained a human skin and a cooler in his garage contained a skinned body.”
“Two.” I could practically hear the gears turning in my dad’s amazing mind. “Could be any number of creatures who utilize human skin, or could still be a human murderer. What makes you think the killer is paranormal?”
“Both of their families insisted that they suddenly changed this week, tha
t they were imposters inside their loved ones’ bodies. The dead woman even called a priest in to exorcise a demon from her brother. That’s how convinced she was that whoever was walking around in his body wasn’t him.”
“Okay,” Dad mused. “Could still be humans. People snap. There are triggers that can cause a psychotic break that would make family members feel they no longer knew their loved ones.”
“Last night a dead vampire was found skinned up north of the city. Dario says a vampire bit the suspect and she tasted like a rotted corpse. The victim was somehow subdued, her neck broken and blood drained before she was skinned. After skinning her, the killer ripped the vampire’s heart out to ensure she remained dead.”
I heard my parents muttering in the background and waited for them to talk among themselves before continuing.
“It would take a lot to subdue a vampire like that and keep them down while they were skinned,” Dad mused. “Sounds like the killer is either non-human or a mage with a spell that would freeze or knock a vampire out.”
“Which fits with a skinwalker,” I interjected. “They’re mages. If they’re powerful enough to use a human skin to assume the victim’s identity then they’re powerful enough to spell a vampire unconscious.”
“But why a vampire?” Mom asked. “A mage that skilled should be able to lengthen their lifespan without the constant hunger and sunlight limitations of being a vampire.”
“I think the skins are temporary,” I said. “Like a disguise. If they collect enough, it would be almost impossible to track them. The skinned bodies will take forever to identify—if they can be identified at all. We lucked out with Huang and his knee replacement device. Otherwise he’d still be a John Doe at the morgue.”
“So there has to be a reason she wants to be a vampire,” Dad mused. “Are these three trying to take over the city? Are they consumed by a need for vengeance, like your necromancer friend was?”
A vampire, a middle-aged museum employee, a deadbeat college drop-out, a teenager from South Carolina, a girl who wears too much make-up and “wants” a vampire… It was an eclectic batch of individuals.
“I have a hunch they’re not thinking that far ahead. It’s like they’re children turned loose in a candy shop after hours, taking whatever catches their eye. The girl expressed a fascination for vampires. Except for the museum victim, the others are young guys.”
“But how could kids have that sort of magical ability?” Mom asked. “Unless they’re old in terms of years, but emotionally still children.”
“Which is a strike against skinwalkers,” I reasoned—so far my best match in terms of paranormals who take and wear human skins.
“Not necessarily,” Dad cautioned. “What if they are part of some cult, taken and sequestered at a young age to learn their magical skills? Maybe their mentor died and this is the first time they’ve been out in the big world on their own. It’s got to be a heady feeling. And it would explain the odd victim choices and lack of restraint. Just an idea.”
“Or shapeshifters,” Mom added. “They age very slowly compared to us. I don’t know if any of them use human skins, but there are types who can kill and take on a human’s identity.”
“What about demon possession?” I asked, throwing yet another of my theories into the mix.
“I don’t know,” Dad mused. “I’m leaning toward skinwalker. It’s the best fit in terms of the human skin and the unconscious vampire. Perhaps there’s something in the skinwalker magic that rots their insides, metaphorically as well as physically?”
“I wouldn’t completely rule out shapeshifter,” Mom cautioned. “Demonic possession is probably not what's going on here. Three of them would be running around trying to kill as many people as possible, not impersonating their victims. Skinning would be dramatic for a demon, but they’d make sure to present the body for the biggest shock.”
A skinned corpse falling out of the closet of a museum in the middle of a posh reception was a big shock, but concealing bodies in rarely-used coolers and skins in backpacks, stuffing a skinned vampire body in out-of-the-way bushes—none of that matched with what I knew about demon personality. Mom was right.
I heard Dad stirring something in the background. “I’ll look into it, Mavia, but I don’t believe the shapeshifters you’re thinking of require a human skin. They kill their victims so they can easily assume their identity, and I believe they have a method to collect their thoughts and memories, but I don’t recall any past incidents where they’ve skinned victims.”
“So skinwalkers or shapeshifters, but probably not shapeshifters?” My parents had been a huge help. I was down to two theories instead of three.
“Navaho or Cherokee skinwalkers are where I’m leaning in this one,” Dad continued. “The Cherokee ones are called spearfinger, because when they kill one finger extends into a sort of long hollow knife to stab their victim and drain the blood.”
“Wait.” That sounded oddly familiar. “Do they stab them in the back of the neck? Because the M.E. said that’s where some type of awl or knife was inserted in order to drain blood from the victims.”
“I believe my notes say they’ve always stabbed in the chest. Mavia? What have you seen?”
Seen? My mother had actually seen a spearfinger?
“Only one case in Georgia,” Mom chimed in. “The stab wound was in the chest, but I don’t know if they always kill that way or not.”
Crap. “Skinwalker, either Cherokee style or Navaho style. Shapeshifter, although that’s less likely. And one of them either has a vampire fetish or has watched too much Blade.”
“Or.” My heart sank at that one word from my father. “Or it could be something else. I’m not as knowledgeable about American legends outside of the U.S. and Canada, but I believe there’s an Aztec god who also has something to do with skinning his human victims. And I seem to recall another god from South America who also collects human skins. Let me check with Javier. He’ll know better than me. It’s pretty farfetched, but I’d be negligent not to throw it out there.”
I had no time to wait for my father to have a face-to-face meeting with this Javier. Templars didn’t exchange information over the phone or via the internet, even though my dad seemed to be making an exception in that rule for me.
Theory three was now: A south-of-the-border god skins humans and vampires in the Baltimore area. Details at ten.
I needed to cross some of these off my list. Shapeshifter seemed less likely after talking with my father. The shapeshifter didn’t fit based on what he’s said, and the demons? I’d expect them to cause more chaos, to be more into a spree of mass killings rather than this onsie-twosie stuff. If this was three demons I’d think the body count would be higher, and they’d be more prominently displayed. Demons had nothing to fear from human law enforcement. Why hide the body in a broom closet when you could perch it on an exhibition of medieval jewelry? Why run from the scene of Amanda Lewis’s murder when you could just kill her boyfriend and add one more corpse to the mix?
Mom was right, this just didn’t feel like demons. Which left me with the skinwalkers, or this new, disturbing idea of my father’s that the killer might be an Aztec or Incan god.
Oh, Lord, don’t let it be a god. With scant worshipers they’d been dormant for millennia. If one of them awoke, it would take every Knight of the Temple to conquer them. I don’t think they could even be banished. The best we probably could do was contain them.
Contain. The worry that had gnawed at my insides since last month had been fading, but now it was back in full force. The death mages had been trying to contain some horrible unnamed thing from Baltimore. They’d needed human sacrifice as well as soul magic to hold this monster in check. What if that monster was loose now that the rituals had stopped? Chuck as well as the others in Fiore Noir had said it was only a matter of time.
Soul magic to stop a god. My stomach churned at the thought. Could this be what was plaguing Baltimore? If so, it was only going to get
worse. Gods had servants, and I envisioned more and more of these murders with skinned corpses, all dedicated to the glory of whoever. A god with minions who killed for him, who assumed the victims’ identities and searched for additional sacrifices.
I needed to see Chuck. Sean said he’d just been sentenced to twenty at Jessup. I said goodbye to my parents, promising to see them next weekend for family time, then immediately pulled up driving directions to the prison as well as visiting hours and protocol.
I’d call Tremelay to facilitate the meeting, then get on the road. If I hurried, I could talk with Chuck and be back in town in time for my shift at Holy Grounds. Hopefully.
Chapter 21
JESSUP WAS GOING to have to wait until tomorrow morning. I’d asked Tremelay to coordinate an interview with Chuck, and was just about to update him with my three theories when he interrupted.
“We got Huang.”
Huh? “What do you mean you got him?”
“Caught him at the bus station trying to get a ticket to South Carolina. He didn’t have enough money and was acting suspicious, so security called in his name. He’s at the station now.”
“I thought you didn’t have enough to charge him with anything.”
Tremelay snorted. “We don’t, but we can hold him for twenty-four hours. Want me to sneak you in to watch while I talk with him?”
Did I ever. I needed to make sure the detective was safe while in a room with what could be a dangerous paranormal creature. A skinwalker. Or something else. I’m sure Tremelay was smart enough to take precautions, but he was assuming Huang was either a human serial killer, or an equally human accomplice.
“I don’t think Huang is human.” I told him. “I mean, he once was human, but he’s not now. That body in the broom closet at the Walters? That’s Brian Huang. The guy you’ve got in custody is someone else who is wearing his skin.”