Crone’s Moon argi-5

by M. R. Sellars

  “I think you’ve made your position clear,” I said, surprised by the somewhat juvenile display but writing it off to her lack of sleep.

  Mandalay gave a tired chuckle. “We can only hope.”

  “Jeez, Mandalay,” Ben said. “I’m likin’ you more every day.”

  “Cool it, Storm,” she replied. “You’re a married man.”

  “Yeah, at the moment maybe.”

  “Aye, what’s that supposed to mean?” Felicity asked, puzzlement in her voice.

  “You still haven’t…” He waved his finger between Constance and Felicity but directed the unfinished query at me.

  I shrugged. “When have I had time?”

  Mandalay visibly straightened in her chair and cocked her head to the side as she focused her gaze on Ben. “Is that it? Is that why you’ve been so flaky, Storm? Are you and Allison…”

  Her question was interrupted as the door to the interview room swung open, and Lieutenant Albright followed it inside. A stack of files, several inches thick, was tucked in the crook of her arm, and she held them close as if they were a prized possession.

  “I’ll tell ya’ later,” Ben offered quietly to Constance and Felicity and then turned his attention to Albright.

  The lieutenant was still wearing the scowl that seemed to be a permanent adornment for the lower half of her face, but there was definitely something different about her. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but unless I missed my guess, she was ruffled.

  I suppose it could have been that she actually had overheard Mandalay’s epithet, but that sort of thing had never seemed to faze her before. This was something different, and you didn’t have to be a Witch to feel the chaotic energy emanating from her.

  She half-turned, pushed the door shut, then strode purposefully over to the table and simply glared at me. She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then closed her mouth and found a way to frown even harder than before. After a moment, she angrily tossed the file folders onto the laminated surface.

  Crime scene photos, notes, and official reports peeked out of their manila sheaths as the folders slid a few inches and partially spilled their contents.

  “These do not leave the building,” Albright announced. The deliberate control she was exercising on her voice was plainly audible.

  “Okay” was all I could think of to say.

  I glanced down at the photos and caught a quick glimpse of a headless female corpse paper-clipped to an autopsy report. A similar photo was protruding from one of the other folders as well.

  “Understand right now that I am against this,” she continued. “However, the mayor seems to think we should utilize your so-called talents regarding these cases. I did my best to convince him otherwise, but his emotions are getting the better of him at the moment. I am sure he will eventually come to his senses.”

  I don’t suppose I was surprised by the callous attitude she was displaying, but that didn’t keep me from finding it utterly abhorrent. I had plenty I wanted to say to her in response, but I knew starting yet another argument would accomplish nothing, so I picked the most innocuous of the replies that flitted through my head. “So Felicity was right. Those were Brittany Larson’s remains.”

  “Yes” was her monosyllabic response.

  “And because of her, you have a very fresh crime scene,” I pressed, unable to help myself.

  She hesitated and then replied again, almost choking on the word. “Yes.”

  Without thinking, I allowed my next thought to escape in the form of audible words. “You know, where I come from people say thank you.”

  She leaned forward, placing her hands on the table and locking her gelid gaze on me. “Do not patronize me, Mister Gant. Trust me, if it were not for the fact that one of the victims is his daughter and that you found her body by whatever godless means your kind employs, I can guarantee you that this would not be happening.”

  “Godless? Our kind?” I started. “Look, I’ve got no idea what I did to you that makes you hate me so much, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to know.”

  She simply continued glaring at me without a word.

  Getting no response, I resumed speaking. “And, apparently you aren’t going to tell me anyway… Well, Lieutenant Albright, if it’s any consolation at all, I’m not particularly excited about having to work with you either.”

  “Understand, Mister Gant, that we are not working with one another.” She placed more than the lion’s share of emphasis on the word ‘not’. “We are simply working on the same case whether we like it or not. And, I for one, do not.”

  “Then I guess we’ll just have to make the best of it for the duration,” I offered flatly.

  “Rest assured that with the exception of locking you in a cell, something I would relish mind you, I would just as soon have no contact with either of you whatsoever.”

  “Aye, the feeling is mutual,” Felicity snipped.

  “And, as for you…” Albright began, looking over at my wife.

  “Fine,” I interjected before the two of them could go at it full force. “I think we all agree that we don’t much care for one another, so let’s drop all the bullshit here and now. What, exactly, is it that you want from us?”

  “Review the files, strike whatever deal with Satan you usually make, and then find the killer,” she said, ticking off the short list in a perfunctory fashion.

  “Just like that,” I replied.

  “Is that not how you normally do things?” she spat sarcastically.

  “Well, for one thing,” I replied. “Satan is a Judeo-Christian entity. He’s your boy not ours. But, I doubt I can convince you of that.”

  “Spare me your double-talk, Mister Gant,” she growled. “I have dealt with devil worshippers before, and you cannot fool me.”

  “I’m not trying to fool anyone, Lieutenant.”

  “The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward. Proverbs, chapter eleven, verse eighteen.”

  The hair rose on the back of my neck, and I felt a cold chill run up my spine as the words struck my ears. The last person to quote Bible passages to me had been Eldon Porter, and he was trying to kill me. I had been convinced for months that Barbara Albright was intent on the same end, though perhaps not in such a blatant way as he. This just served to cement my belief in that fact.

  “I’ve read your book,” I told her. “I don’t need a Bible lesson.”

  She didn’t let it go. “Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand…”

  “…When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin,” I replied, continuing the verse for her just as I had done when confronted by Porter. “Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Shall I continue? Book of Psalm. Chapter one-oh-nine. I already told you, I know the drill.”

  Her voice moved up a notch. “Do not mock me!”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Just make it happen, Gant!”

  Albright had been flustered when she entered, but she was practically livid now. As if I didn’t already press all the wrong buttons in her life, I’d obviously just found one labeled do not touch.

  “Look, it ain’t like that, Lieutenant,” Ben spoke up in a well-intentioned attempt to defuse the situation.

  “I was not speaking to you, Detective Storm,” she snapped, turning her hard stare on him.

  “He’s right,” I said. “That’s not how it works.”

  “I don’t care how it works,” she replied, and then turned back to face me before continuing, her voice still a mark or two above the necessary volume for the small room. “In fact, I don’t even know if I believe that it works. All I do know is that the mayor insists that you be brought into the loop, and that is what I am doing. From this point forward, I expect you to stay out of my way.”

  “With pleasure,” I told her.

  “Good. I am gl
ad that we understand one another.”

  “So,” I asked. “Since I’m obviously persona non grata, what do you want us to do if we come up with something?”

  She regarded me silently for a moment, boring a hole through me with her stare, then pushed back from the table and stood fully upright. She reached into a pocket on her jacket and withdrew a rectangular, gold-tone case. Flipping it open, she slipped a business card from it and tossed it onto the table before me.

  “You can leave any information you have on my voice mail,” she said tersely. “Make certain that you do not waste my time, Mister Gant.”

  “Yeah,” I grunted. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Lieutenant.”

  She turned on her heel and started purposefully toward the door. Before she’d made it two full steps, my wife spoke up.

  “Lieutenant Albright,” Felicity called out, a demanding note in her voice.

  The lieutenant stopped and turned to face her, then snarled, “What is it, Miz O’Brien?”

  “I’ll be having my Jeep back now,” Felicity stated, staring coldly at the woman and not even bothering to pretend her words were a request.

  Albright was noticeably annoyed by the demand. She looked at my wife as if she were sizing her up for a fistfight, then finally returned sharply, “Have Detective Storm show you to the impound lot.”

  That said, she wheeled around and left the interview room, slamming the door in her wake.

  Ben looked over at me. “Jeez, white man. You sure got under her skin that time.”

  “Bible verses,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, Rowan,” Constance spoke up. “Are you sure you didn’t memorize the whole book?”

  “No, like I’ve said before, just the passages regarding Satan and WitchCraft,” I replied. “Those are the ones that get thrown in my face. But that’s not my point.”

  “Okay.” Ben shrugged. “What gives?”

  “She just justified her actions to me with a Bible verse, Ben,” I replied. “And then got upset when I was able to quote them back to her.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. So?”

  “Yeah, so tell me, who else do we know who does that?”

  “Eldon Fucking Porter,” he replied slowly, his eyes lighting with realization as he reached up to massage his neck. “Sonofabitch.”

  Thursday, October 3rd

  Three days prior to the new moon

  3:19 P.M.

  St. Louis, Missouri

  CHAPTER 28:

  A few days shy of four months had passed, and any lead connected with Brittany Larson’s murder had long since gone cold. To be honest, absolutely frigid was a more accurate description.

  The case had started its death spiral in the hours immediately following the postmortem on the young woman’s remains. As fresh and undisturbed as the crime scene had been, it had revealed nothing to police other than the fact that they had a dead body on their hands and that said remains had been intentionally buried in a shallow grave.

  The only hopes left in that empty wake were the autopsy results along with the off chance that someone had witnessed something and that they would come forward. The latter option quickly became the center of an official media blitz that rivaled almost any ad campaign you could imagine: everything from regular television appeals, radio spots, constant mentions on the nightly news, and full-page ads in the metropolitan newspaper. Calls came in to the Major Case Squad at a steady rate for the first few days and even ballooned in volume at one point before tapering off to a modest trickle. Unfortunately, each potential lead consisted only of attention seekers and frustrating dead ends.

  As to the postmortem, there were clues to be had, most definitely. However, they were only indicators as to what had occurred during Larson’s final few hours of life; and eventually, what had brought about her death. Unfortunately, they were not the kind of telltale signs needed to help identify her killer or even convict him, should he be found. There were no fingerprints, no foreign hair or traceable fibers, nothing.

  What the autopsy did reveal, however, was that she had been brutally tortured; and, the laundry list of things that had been done to her read like a script from a bad ‘hack and slash’ horror flick.

  Ligature marks on her forearms, wrists, and calves, along with patterned bruising showed that she had been bound, possibly in a chair, for several hours. Hypostasis of the blood in her lower extremities showed that she had died in that position and remained there for some time before being moved. Deep cuts and punctures scored her torso, most having occurred while she was still alive, although some well after she had expired. Her breasts had been severely mutilated, and she was pockmarked with well over one hundred cigarette burns of varying degrees. I don’t suppose any of these came as a great surprise to us considering the stigmata that had displayed across Felicity’s body the night she channeled Larson. Still, the photos were more than just a little hard to take.

  There was vaginal and anal tearing, indicating that she had been violently raped, but there was no trace of semen whatsoever. This lead the investigators to believe that either there had been no ejaculation, a condom had been used, or more likely, due to the amount and nature of the trauma, that the penetration had been performed with a foreign object. Conspicuously absent from the trauma was bruising, which meant she had been defiled post mortem, a small consolation for her.

  Another of the glaring observations was, of course, the fact that her head was missing. This, and the fact that hacksaw marks were found on the exposed vertebrae instantly tied her homicide to those of Tamara Linwood and Sarah Hart. That was something we had all suspected, and in fact known in our own way, but the physical evidence simply proved us out.

  The final bulleted point in the report was also one of particular note. There were various torn ligaments and ruptures within striated muscle tissues. These, coupled with several blistered marks on her skin that were consistent with electrical burns, told a gruesome tale in and of themselves.

  There had been deeper dimension to her senseless torture- an added layer that had racked her both mentally and physically. And, it provided an explanation for the ethereal electrical storm my wife and I had endured and barely survived.

  In the end, the listed cause of death was asphyxia. The notes explaining the possible cause outlined that various indicators pointed to the fact that it may have been due to prolonged high-voltage current passing through the thoracic wall- the result being violent spasms of the intercostal muscles and diaphragm.

  In short, she had been electrocuted into suffocation but not before enduring many hours of unimaginable agony.

  The report had been a horrific chore for me to read. Even as jaded as I had become these past few years, simply reading what had been done to this woman made me physically ill. The darkness one had to possess in their very soul to do such a thing to another living being was unfathomable to me. Equally distressing was the fact that I realized whoever had done this had done it not out of anger or spite, but because he enjoyed it. It brought him pleasure in the most intimate sense, and that very concept sent bile rising in my throat.

  I had to set the folder aside on more than one occasion that day we spent at Police Headquarters. I simply had to place some distance between it and me for a while before I could gather the stomach to continue with the next page. Even avoiding the autopsy and crime scene photos after the first glance through didn’t give me any relief. The words on the page were enough by themselves to spark violent images in my head that I was certain would drive me insane.

  One of the things that pained me as well was the fact that I couldn’t convince Felicity not to read it. She wasn’t content to hear my carefully edited version of the postmortem. She had to see it for herself, and when she did, she alternated between sorrowful tears and raging fits of anger with each clinically descriptive paragraph she digested. Before it was over, we were both inhabitants of an emotional wasteland: disgusted, overwhelmed and spent, prone to moodiness and withdrawing rapidly from the world. Ha
d it not been for a number of sessions with Helen Storm, my wife and I would surely have imploded. I already had a healthy respect for Ben and anyone else with a badge for that matter. What I saw in this report just made me admire them that much more. How they could face this sort of thing and not simply crack, I would never understand.

  On top of it all, there was a secondary driving force that kept us going. We both knew that Brittany Larson was but one of the victims. There were at least two others who had been put through the same horrors we now beheld in black and white. And, the truth was that no one knew if it stopped there. The police had a list of names that shared some very simple traits: women who were young, pretty, and more to the point, missing. Fortunately, by the blessings of The Ancients, that list was very short. Still, it existed and that was a horror in itself.

  As if utter failure on a mundane level weren’t bad enough, it just got worse. True to what I had told Lieutenant Albright that first day in the interview room, it simply didn’t work the way she wanted. The winds of the ethereal plane could be as fickle as the doldrums and at times, even more unforgiving.

  And, this go around, that is exactly what they were. Not only had it not worked the way she wanted, it had not worked at all. Magick, it seemed, had forsaken us.

  Of course, this only served to fuel the lieutenant’s crusade against me, and it wasn’t long before she managed to sway the mayor back to her way of thinking. After less than two weeks, we were unceremoniously banned from any involvement with the investigation. Felicity and I were out, Ben was quickly reassigned back to the city homicide division, and some thirty-odd days later special agent Mandalay had no choice but to move on to more pressing FBI business.

  To our chagrin, any and all ethereal contact between the spirit of Brittany Larson and Felicity had abruptly ended the moment my wife had located her decapitated corpse. Not that we hadn’t tried our best to reestablish the connection, but in some ways I was relieved that we hadn’t. After what we had been through, I was particularly gun-shy about Felicity setting foot into that realm ever again. I knew there was no way I could stop her, but each day that she didn’t cross the veil was a day I didn’t have to worry about her on that level.