Hard Spell

by Justin Gustainis

  "Now I know you're yanking our chains," I said. "That stuff's right out of Lovecraft, and you already said he made it all up."

  Vollman shook his head. "No, Sergeant, I only said that Lovecraft made up the Necronomicon. The veracity of his other material is… open to dispute, shall we say. Some maintain that he discovered things that man was not meant to know, and it was that knowledge which eventually drove him mad."

  "You keep saying things like 'there are those who say,' and 'it is believed,'" I said. "So, you haven't looked at the book yourself."

  "No, I have not, nor did I ever wish to," Vollman said. "But I have, over the years, talked to several people who did." He gave me the thin smile again. "They were the ones who survived the experience, with their sanity intact, of course."

  "So, all right," Karl said. "This Opus Mago is a recipe book for cooking up different kinds of Truly Bad Shit. And it's been stolen by somebody who plans to whip up a big, smelly batch of ian thiv>

  "Inelegantly put, Detective," Vollman said with a nod, "but an admirably succinct summary, nonetheless."

  "Big question is," I said, "how are we going to know when he makes the attempt?"

  Vollman's thin face, which would never be used to illustrate "cheerful" in the dictionary, became even more solemn. "You will know, Sergeant," he said. "Have no concerns on that account. You will know."

  The first of the murders occurred four nights later, and we almost missed it.

  The case could easily have been written off as a routine homicide. It would have been, too, if Hugh Scanlon hadn't given me a call.

  Turned out, it was the right thing to do. This homicide was anything but routine.

  A lot of "regular" detectives don't like the Supe Squad very much – I think they take that "when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you" stuff too seriously. But Scanlon's all right. I knew him from when we were both in Homicide. I eventually moved on to Supernatural Crimes for reasons of my own, but Scanlon kept working murders, and he's a Detective First now.

  The crime scene was the alley behind Tim Riley's Bar and Grill, and by the time Karl and I showed up, the routine was well under way. Nudging some rubbernecking civilians aside, I lifted the yellow crime scene tape so Karl could duck under it. Then I followed him down the alley, the smell of rotting garbage strong enough to gag a sewer rat.

  We made our way through the usual collection of the M.E.'s people, forensics techs, uniformed cops, and Homicide dicks, all of them busy or trying to look that way. Mostly they ignored us, apart from one or two hostile glances. But eventually Scanlon spotted us and came over.

  "Vic's a white male, around thirty, throat cut, bled out where we found him," he said. Scanlon's never been known to use two words when he can get by with one.

  "So why call us?" I asked him. "Sounds like a bar fight that moved out here, then went bad."

  "I thought so, too," Scanlon said. "Then I saw something. Come on."

  He led us over to where some forensics guy was taking photos of the body, his strobe flashing in the semi-darkness.

  "You about done?" Scanlon asked him.

  The guy looked up and realized he wasn't being asked a question. "Yeah, sure, all finished," he said, and backed off.

  Scanlon produced a pencil flashlight and clicked it on. The beam lingered for a moment on the throat wound that looked like a sardonic grin, then moved up to the victim's face. The dead guy had a thick head of brown hair, and some of it was combed down over his forehead. With his free hand, encased in a latex glove, Scanlon lifted the hair away so that we could see the victim's forehead clearly, and then I understood why we'd been called.

  Three symbols I'd never seen before were carved into the victim's forehead – one over the left temple, another over the right one, and a third square in the middle.

  The man in the alley wasn't just a murder victim.

  He was a sacrifice.

  • • • •

  Inside the bar, Karl made the rounds of the customers while I had a word with the bartender, a pretty brunette in her mid-twenties whose nametag read "Andrea." She wore black pants on her slim hips, and a matching shirt, the cuffs folded back a couple of turns to leave her forearms bare.

  I described the vic for her and asked if she remembered serving him.

  "Yeah, sure. He was the double Scotch and water. Sat over there" – rea gestured to the right with her chin – "third stool from the end."

  "Notice anything unusual about him?"

  She glanced back toward the spot where the vic had been sitting, as if it helped her remember. "Well, he wasn't exactly killing that Scotch. When I figured out he wasn't coming back, I cleared the space. Glass was still full – he hadn't touched a drop."

  Why would somebody come into a bar, order booze, then not have any? Unless he came to do something besides drink.

  "He didn't stiff you, did he?"

  "Hell, no. He paid when I served him, just like he was supposed to. It's either that or run a tab, but I'm only supposed to run tabs for regulars." Andrea leaned closer and lowered her voice a little. "Listen, um, the guy paid with a twenty, and left his change on the bar. I didn't touch it until I was taking the glass away. By then, I figured he was either absentminded, or a hell of a good tipper. What should I, you know...?"

  "Might as well treat it like a tip and keep it," I said. "Let the guy's last act on earth be something good, even if he didn't intend it that way."

  "I like the way you think," she said. "Thanks."

  She straightened up, restoring the distance between us.

  "Do you remember him talking to anybody?" I asked her.

  "Uh-uh. He sat by himself, and I didn't see anybody come over. Only time I heard him talk was when he ordered the Scotch." She frowned. "Wait – his phone went off, once. I remember, cause the ringtone was this old Blue Oyster Cult song that I like."

  "'Don't Fear the Reaper'?"

  "Yeah, that's it. How'd you know?"

  "Lucky guess," I said. "So he got a phone call. Did you hear any of the conversation?"

  "Nah, I had customers further down. Anyway, I don't eavesdrop. I just went down his way cause I needed some ice." I saw her eyes narrow.

  "What?"

  "Nothing, I guess. But it wasn't long after the call that I noticed his chair was empty. At first, I just figured he went to the john."

  I glanced down and saw that the inside of her right arm was covered with thin scars running in all directions. I looked up before Andrea caught me staring.

  So she was a cutter. She fit the profile – it's almost always young women who feel the need to wound themselves in that particular way, over and over. Some of them do it so they can stop feeling whatever's gnawing at them. Others do it in the hope of feeling something, anything at all.

  I thanked her for the information and got up from the bar stool. Mentioning the scars wasn't going to do anything except embarrass Andrea. I wanted to think that she'd gotten help someplace and put it all behind her, but I knew better. A couple of those cuts were as fresh as yesterday's tears.

  We've all got our demons. And most of them can't be exorcised with a razor blade – even for a little while.

  Karl and I walked back to our car, which we'd had to park half a block away. The bars were closed now, and the streets had grown quiet. Some tendrils of fog from the Lackawanna River were wrapping themselves around the trees and lamp posts.

  "Since I came up with zip from the customers, that phone call of yours is about the only lead we've got, unless forensics finds something," Karl said.

  "The CSI guys? Hell, they'll probably crack the case tomorrow. Don't you watch TV?"

  "Well, just in case they don't, I hope one of the phone companies will tell us who called the vic tonight."

  "That would be nice," I said. "Not as good as the perp confessing on the front page of the Times-Tribune tomorrow, but still not bad."

  "Is your buddy gonna send us a copy of the autopsy report?"

  "Ye
ah, along with the crime scene pictures, for all the good they'll do."

  "It was no bar fight, that's for sure," Karl said. "Hell, I knew that, soon as I got a look at the vic's wound."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Guy's throat was sliced, haina?" Karl said.

  "Yeah, so?"

  "So in any kind of a fight, guy uses a knife, you're gonna have stab wounds as the COD. Maybe some defensive cuts around the hands and arms, but the real damage comes from punctures." Karl kicked an empty soda can and sent it clanging into the gutter. "This was no fight, this was pre-fucking-meditated murder."

  "Could've been a mugging," I said. "Guy comes up behind the vic, knife to his throat, says, 'Give it up, motherfucker.' The vic struggles, maybe gets in a good kick backward or something. Then the perp panics, bears down too hard with the blade, the vic tries to pull away, and it's good night, sweet prince."

  "Yeah. But," Karl said.

  "'But' is right. We've got that artwork carved into his forehead."

  "You ever come across anything like those–" Karl stopped talking suddenly, and a moment later I realized why.

  Somebody was leaning against our car.

  The man was just a lean silhouette, until he turned his head a little and let the streetlight's glare fall on his face.

  It was Vollman.

  "You were summoned tonight to the scene of a crime," Vollman said. "A murder, in fact."

  "How the hell did you know that?" Karl asked him.

  Vollman gave one of his narrow smiles. "I have my resources," he said. "Perhaps, in this instance, something as mundane as a scanner that picks up police radio broadcasts."

  "You seem to know why we're here, Vollman," I said. "But that doesn't explain why you are."

  "I assume the murder had one or more... occult... elements, or you gentlemen would not have been called to view the aftermath," Vollman said.

  "Yeah. So?" I took a long breath, made myself a little calmer. Vollman was a fucking bloodsucker, but for the moment, we needed him. The minute we didn't...

  "May I ask what those elements were?" He was a polite leech, I'll give him that.

  I took another one of those long breaths, then looked at Karl, who shrugged, "Why not?"

  "The victim had some esoteric symbols carved into his forehead," I said. "Three of them. Could be occult-related, although they don't fit in with any system of magic that I ever heard of."

  Even in the half-light, with the fog getting thicker, I could see something cross Vollman's lean face. I wondered what it was. After a long pause he asked, "Can you describe them?"

  "I can do better than that," I said, reaching for my notebook. "I drew them."

  I showed Vollman my version of the marks from the victim's brow. He looked at them as if he was trying to burn the images into his memory.

  "These drawings are accurate?" he asked.

  "Pretty close," I said. "I should have photos to check them against in a day or two, if it matters.

  There wasn't enough light to use my phone camera."

  "You recognize them?" Karl asked.

  "Not precisely, no," Vollman said, without taking his eyes off the paper. "They are very old in origin, I think. Sumerian, or possibly Babylonian. I have some books that I can consult."

  "And if you find something, you're going to let us know, right? Since we've been so open with you about this case and everything," I said.

  "Of course," Vollman said. "But in the meantime, Sergeant, may I offer a suggestion?"

  As if I could fucking stop you. "What?"

  "Ask whoever conducts the autopsy to look closely at the throat wound, with special attention to any trace elements that may be found there. It is very important, I think, to know exactly what was used to inflict the fatal cut."

  "What was used?" Karl said. "Shit, that oughta be obvious. It was a knife, and a damn sharp one, too. Or a straight razor, maybe."

  Vollman nodded. "I expect you are correct, Detective. But a crucial point is the material that the blade was made of."

  "Why's that so important?" I asked him.

  "The answer to that depends on what you find out," Vollman said with another one of his toothless smiles. Didn't want to display his fangs, I guess.

  The smile didn't last long. "I will be, as you say, in touch."

  Vollman took a couple of steps back, the fog and darkness making his form indistinct.

  "I need you to do better than–" I began, then stopped. "Vollman? Vollman!"

  He was gone, the stagy old bastard.

  Karl summarized my feelings very well. "Fucking vamps," he said.

  The autopsy report only took twenty-four hours or so, which was almost as big a miracle as the one that followed "Lazarus, come forth!" It informed us that the victim died of "exsanguination following a single deep, narrow laceration that severed carotid artery, windpipe, and jugular vein, with aspirated blood as a contributing factor."

  In other words, somebody cut the guy's throat, and he bled out and died, inhaling some of his own blood in the process. Big surprise.

  The tissue analysis of the wound area took another couple of days. Would've been longer, but the Homicide guys had put pressure on the lab. Good thing, too, or we might have had to wait a week or more for the results. Nobody rushes stuff for the Supe Squad.

  Homicide was treating this as their case. For the time being, we were letting them think it was. But we still got copies of all the paperwork. Scanlon saw to that.

  "Silver?" Lieutenant McGuire stared at the top sheet of the lab report I'd just dropped on his desk. "They're sure?"

  "Sure as the lab is likely to be," I said. In the chair beside me, I heard Karl give a quiet snort of laughter. He was probably thinking about some of the notable fuckups the lab had made in the past.

  "I could have a sample sent to the FBI in Washington," I said, with a straight face. "They've got better facilities, as they're always reminding us."

  "Sure," McGuire said. "And the results might even come back before I collect my pension. But I doubt it."

  He was right. When it comes to requests from local law enforcement, the FBI lab could make a glacier look speedy.

  "You didn't get to the good part yet," I told McGuire. "Keep reading."

  He gave me a look, then returned to the lab report. McGuire's a fast reader, and I wondered how long it would take him to get to the punch line.

  One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four–

  "A vamp? The vic's a fucking vampire?"

  I was about to say something stupid like "Yeah, where do we send the medal?" when Karl piped up with, "Must be, boss. It's pretty hard to fuck that up, once you know what to look for. There's, I think, nine different tests they can do."

  We both looked at him. He shrugged and said, "I read a lot, okay?"

  McGuire sat back in his chair, frowning. "Why would somebody use a silver-coated knife to off a vampire? There's plenty of easier ways to do it."

  "Beats the shit out of me," I said. "But Vollman thought we might find something interesting in the wound. That's why I requested the tissue analysis."

  "Who's Vollman?" McGuire asked. "Oh, right – your informant, I remember now. Maybe you better ask Mr Vollman why he thought the laceration would have unusual material in it."

  "I'd love to," I told him. "But I don't know how to contact the bloodsucker."

  McGuire raised his eyebrows at that, then lowered them in a first-class glare that included both Karl and me.

  "The old bastard wouldn't give us his contact information," Karl said. "Said he'd get in touch with us, instead."

  McGuire shook his head in disgust. "Then you two clowns had damn well better hope–"

  "Excuse me, Lieutenant?" Louise the Tease had appeared in McGuire's door. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's a man here to see the detectives." Louise looked at me. "It's the one who was here before – Vollman."

  I thought that kind of timing only happens on TV, but maybe Karl and I were
having a change in our luck. And about time, too.

  We excused ourselves and got out of his office before the lieutenant could finish cutting each of us a brand new asshole.

  "Silver," Vollman said thoughtfully, after I'd told him about the lab report. "I thought it might be some such."