“But you called me this morning about Randy, and that was before you even knew who the victim was.”
“Yeah, and I got my ass chewed for it too.”
“Earlier you said there were reasons I wasn’t told,” I continued. “Reasons means more than one.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Would you like to expand on that?”
“You won’t like it.”
“So what’s new about that?”
Ben paused and stared at me for a moment. “Truth?”
“I would hope.”
“It wasn’t just Albright. Deck, Mandalay, and I recommended that you be left out of it so we could keep your sorry ass from showing up here unescorted.”
“That seems to be a theme with you lately,” I returned.
“So sue me,” he answered.
“Maybe later,” I told him for lack of anything better to say.
My friend circled back to the original topic once again. “Well anyway, considerin’ the name and the evidence, I’m bettin’ this guy wasn’t a Witch.”
“You can’t base it on his name, Ben. WitchCraft crosses several ethnic boundaries, and there is such a thing as Slavic Paganism,” I answered then gave him a nod. “But you’re right. I don’t think that this victim was Pagan, and that’s what bothers me.”
Quiet fell in the room while I stood pondering the unheralded death of a man I never knew. I could feel my face hardening into a frown as I mulled over the facts I’d been given.
“Whatcha’ thinkin’ about now, Row?” my friend finally prodded.
“Why would Porter do that?” I asked aloud, talking to myself as much as to him.
“Do what?” Ben asked.
“Deliberately kill a non-Pagan individual.”
“Hell, Rowan, who knows?” Deckert shrugged and shook his head. “Covering his tracks probably.”
“But it just doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Porter’s thing has always been killing Witches. The last time around he even had a crisis of faith when he accidentally killed a non-Pagan.”
“As I recall,” Ben offered, “he ended up blaming you for that.”
“That’s how he came to terms with it, yes,” I assented.
“Yeah, well, I think Porter’s made it clear that it’s not just about killin’ Witches anymore, Row. He’s got it in for YOU.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “So why am I here?”
I knew my words sounded more like a demand than a question the moment I heard my own voice, but I couldn’t help it. The dam had finally broken on my headache, and it was ramping up at an ever increasing rate. On top of that, I had an anxious feeling slithering around inside me that I just couldn’t shake. I didn’t know if it was fear, nerves, or something ethereal. I couldn’t even pinpoint if it had to do with me or someone else. All I could say for a fact was that I didn’t feel right, and this excursion was beginning to come across as an exercise in futility.
“Whaddaya mean?”
“I mean exactly that. What am I doing here? What does Albright want me to look at?” I waved my arm in a semicircle to indicate the scene before us. “Surely not this.”
“Well, there’s more in the back,” Deckert offered then held up the brown paper bag. “But she also said she wanted you to see this.”
“So that isn’t your lunch?” I asked, fighting to keep the sarcasm out of my voice and only partially succeeding.
Fortunately, Carl ignored it.
“Hell no,” he replied as he set the bag on the end of the board that was resting across the two-by-fours and then proceeded to unfold the top. “I don’t know what it is.”
Deckert reached into the now open bag, and when he withdrew his hand, he was holding a somewhat old-looking and dirt-smeared mason jar. From where I stood, I could see that the ring holding the lid on was rusted and weathered. A winding or two of black electrical tape encircled the rim and neck of the glass vessel. It appeared to be approximately half full with various shapes; some large, some small, some dark, some light, and some were even shiny. Pale liquid made up the remaining volume to within a pair of inches from the sealed top.
“Where did you find that?” I asked.
“Flowerbed next to the front porch,” Deckert replied. “One of the Crime Scene guys noticed that the mulch had been disturbed. He found this buried about a foot or so down.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “That would be about right.”
“So you sound like you know what it is?” he half-stated, half-asked.
Ben had reached out and taken the container from Deckert and was holding it up in the dim light. He inspected it intensely, holding it close to his face as he twisted it then announced, “There’s nails and fishhooks and razor blades and all kinds of other shit in here.”
“Probably some screws, broken glass, pins, needles, and anything else sharp you can think of too,” I added. “That’s a Witch jar.”
“THIS is a Witch jar?” Ben asked.
“What’s a Witch jar?” Deckert wedged in his question.
“It’s a protective talisman from a long line of folklore.” I offered the same general explanation I’d given Ben earlier. “They are used to repel Witches and especially magick. Sometimes they’re called Witch bottles. Porter probably made it and buried it out front in order to protect himself from me.”
“So when you mentioned these things earlier, I asked you if it was something I needed to know about,” Ben said, still inspecting the container.
“Actually you asked me if you WANTED to know about them,” I replied.
“Same difference,” he shot back.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I apologized with a somewhat defensive tone in my voice. “I was just speculating at the time. I didn’t know that he’d actually leave a Witch jar somewhere.”
“Yeah, I know, but what I’m sayin’ is that you made out like it was something weird and all. I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s just a bunch of nails and shit in a jar of water.”
“That’s not water, Ben,” I told him. “It’s urine.”
He sat the jar back onto the board in a quick flurry of motion and then began wiping his hand on his pants leg as he screwed up his face in disgust. “What the fuck?! You mean he pissed in it?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “That’s how you make a Witch jar.”
“Jeezus, white man. That’s just gross.”
“Hey.” I shrugged. “I told you that you probably didn’t want to know.”
“Well hell, I can see why they would work,” Ben, announced. “I’m repelled by the damn thing myself.”
“That’s not exactly the intended use, Ben,” I told him. “It’s not the ‘disgust factor’ that does it; besides, now that it’s no longer buried it’s pretty much useless.”
“It has to be buried?”
I canted my head in a quick nod. “In order to work, yes.”
“So it’s just a jar of piss?” he asked.
“Pretty much.” I nodded. “With sharp objects in it.”
“So was it like some kinda magic or spell or somethin’?”
“More or less.”
“Well, there’s a WHY for you. If Porter is so dead set on killin’ Witches then why would he do something like this?”
“For the very same reason he wants to kill Witches,” I explained. “Superstition. Like I said, a Witch jar is something drawn from folklore.”
“So if it’s just a superstition then how can it work?”
“Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy?”
“You mean like when you get yourself so worked up worrying about something that you actually make it happen?” Deckert asked.
I nodded my head. “Exactly. It’s the same concept. That’s the thing about magick. If you believe in it enough, you can make it real.”
“Okay, but this thing is still gross.”
“I’m not going to debate that with you,” I replied as I motioned to the vessel. “But, now you know what a Wi
tch jar is.”
“Wunnerful,” he muttered. “I feel sufficiently educated now.”
“So, Carl, you said there was something in the back?” I ignored my friend’s sardonic tone and directed my question to Detective Deckert.
“Yeah.” He pointed to the doorway at the other end of the divided room. “He got a little artistic on the walls back there.”
“Monogram of Christ?” I mentioned the wreath-encircled X bisected by a P because it had been one of Porter’s calling cards the last time he had gone on a killing spree. I had even been on the receiving end of a series of ethereal stigmata of the same shape each time he claimed a victim. Unconsciously I reached my right hand over to massage my left forearm, as it had been the canvas for the bloody signs. Fortunately, there were no indications of a repeat performance at the moment.
“Yeah, there’s a couple of those.” He nodded affirmation as he spoke. “But there’s some other stuff. Star kinda things. Not sure what they’re s’posed to be. You’ll just have to look at ‘em.”
I shuddered for a moment and looked around as the hairs on the back of my neck rose painfully to attention. The tickle of gooseflesh serpentined down my spine and spread out from there, making me tense my muscles in pure reflex.
“You okay, white man?” Ben asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied without looking at him. “I feel…”
I allowed my voice to trail off very simply because I couldn’t find words to describe the feeling that had come over me.
“You feel what?” my friend pressed after a moment of expectant silence.
The tingle that was prancing about on my skin oozed down my arms and welled in my hands, making them feel as though circulation was only now returning after an extended absence. Painful pricking sensations needled my fingers in a rapid-fire assault. I looked down at my hands and rubbed my thumbs against my fingertips. The pain intensified with each pass, and my hands began to burn as if they were on fire.
I’ve never been a big fan of Shakespeare, so I don’t quite know why I picked his work to quote other than the fact that it seemed to fit. I looked up at them, and the line of prose exited my mouth before I could even think. “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”
CHAPTER 15:
“That’s Shakespeare, ain’t it?” Ben asked.
“Macbeth,” Deckert offered. “Act four, scene one.”
Ben looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.
“Gimme a break, Mona’s a high school English teacher.” Deckert shrugged as he referred to his wife. “I’ve seen the play a few hundred times.”
Ben turned back to me. “So is this some kinda Twilight Zone thing, Row?”
“Yeah,” I said as I nodded. “You could say that.”
“Okay.” He gave me a questioning gaze to match his tone. “What’s it mean?”
“How many times do I have to tell you…” I began.
“Hold on,” Deckert interrupted and motioned for us both to be quiet. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “It sounded like it was coming from upstairs.”
Ben shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything.”
We stood in relative silence, gazing up at the drop ceiling over our heads and listening intently. Detective Deckert still held his hand up, frozen in place as we waited.
“Listen.” His eyes grew wide as the noise filtered down to us. “There it is again.”
To me, it sounded akin to a screaming hiss, coupled with a dull roar, and occasionally punctuated by a popping sizzle. It was muffled by the walls and ceiling above us, but it was definitely growing louder by the second. There was something frighteningly familiar about the sound, and I was searching my memories as fast as I could, trying to place a cause with the effect.
Before I managed to make the connection, my friend spoke up. “Hear something hell, I can smell it.”
He wasn’t the only one. The acrid bite of burning wood and synthetic materials now mixed with the earlier odors in the basement and wafted through on a thin layer of smokiness.
“Seems a bit strong to be someone’s fireplace,” I observed.
Suddenly, the piercing wail of a smoke detector lanced its way through the basement from the direction of the stairs.
“Holy Jesus, Mary Mother of God,” Deckert muttered.
Ben skipped past any semblance of muttering and went directly to exclamations. “Sonofabitch!”
He was already moving when he bellowed the expletive, hooking around me and heading for the stairs. Deckert and I followed close on his heels.
This particular staircase was positioned such that it formed a steep angle diagonally against the far wall. Due to the structural design of the foundation, in order to keep that angle from being far too oblique, it reached a small landing near the bottom, then made a ninety-degree turn, and continued down for another short flight of steps. The stairwell, in and of itself, had been a part of the remodeling project and was now enclosed by thin sheets of paneling applied directly to the wooden studs.
Ben was several steps ahead of us and hit the bottom stair at full speed, launching himself past the other two and onto the landing. By the time we reached the opening, we could hear him bounding upward and coughing violently.
Deckert urged me ahead, and I stumbled for a moment, raking my shin against the edge of the stair. I groped for a handrail and found none, so I pushed off and started upward again, ignoring the pain in my lower leg. As I hit the landing with the older detective puffing hard behind me, I made the turn and was immediately enveloped in a thick haze of smoke.
The detector in the stairwell was still screaming at full volume, echoing from the paneled walls and drilling an intense pain deep in my ears.
The cloud of smoke was increasing at an alarming rate, and it easily began to overtake the narrow space as it billowed in from beneath the door. I came to a sudden halt as my eyes began to water and burn. Partially blinded, I held my arms outstretched, trying to feel my way up the staircase, and lurched forward.
My heart was racing, and I involuntarily sucked in a deep breath of the polluted atmosphere then immediately hacked it outward, sputtering and choking as I fell once again on the stairs. I could hear Ben up ahead of me barking out his shallow breaths and then the heavy sound of a body against solid wood as he threw his weight against the door. The thud was followed by my friend’s choking voice. “Owwww! Shit! Jeezus! Goddammit!”
I pulled the neck of my shirt up over my nose and mouth and dragged myself upward. Deckert was immediately to my rear, and he grabbed my arm in an attempt to help me up, but he was already breathing so hard when we hit the landing that the sudden rush of smoke was taking a far quicker toll on him.
The din of the fire was echoing from the walls, and dangerous sounding creaks and groans were now beginning to insinuate themselves into the fray.
I squinted hard in the darkness of the thickening atmosphere and saw a pinpoint of reddish-orange appear above me. It started to grow, and I realized that I was standing directly beneath it. I threw myself backwards, barreling into Deckert, and propelling us both into the wall at the bottom of the landing. The slab of paneling that angled up over the stairs suddenly erupted as flames ate through, fed by the noxious gases the treated laminate was expelling. The smoke detector began to warble sickly as the blaze lapped at it with an arcing fan of orange. A moment later, there was a loud snap followed by a crash as the sheet of paneling broke apart and fell across the stairs.
Bright orange light illuminated the cloud of smoke in the stairwell as the roar of the conflagration announced its arrival. I thought I could see the silhouette of my friend moving at the top of the stairs. I started upward amid the rush of heat and began kicking the flaming pieces of pressboard off to the sides in order to make a path.
I was still working at the task when he started down through the maelstrom. My ears were met by the cacophony
of a repetitive thump, and before I could look up, I collided with my friend.
“Down!” he croaked, grabbing me by the shoulder and twisting me around. “Back down!”
I pushed forward, taking hold of Deckert’s arm as I went and pulling him back down the stairwell with me. The three of us stumbled back into the basement hacking and gulping at the less tainted air. I looked back and could see the smoke now curling along the ceiling at the mouth of the stairs, stretching grey tendrils to undulate languidly along the acoustic tiles. The paneled wall along the stairs was starting to bow and discolor, and in the amount of time it took me to suck in another breath, yellow flame began to pry open the seams.
“It’s fuckin’ blocked or somethin!” Ben sputtered the words and then coughed hard before continuing his frenzied explanation. “I couldn’t budge it. Besides that, it’s hotter than hell.”
“There’s got to be another exit,” I appealed.
“In the back,” Deckert wheezed. He had lost his hat in the rush, and his hair was sticking out in disarray. He seemed to be having even more trouble breathing than Ben or me, and he was fingering his tie in an attempt to loosen it.
“Carl, are you okay?” I reached over and worked the knot loose for him as I stared into his face.
He managed to spit out a response. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.”
He was lying. His face was pale, and I could see that his left hand was clenched into a fist.
“Come on,” Ben urged, hooking a hand under one of Deckert’s arms as I took hold of the other. “We gotta get outta here before…”
The fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling buzzed loudly and immediately doused, throwing us into almost complete darkness. The smoke was now rolling into the room behind us, and it was no longer content with hanging in wispy cloudlike formations around the ceiling. It had taken on a life of its own, and it was intent on filling the room to capacity with its airborne virulence.
A wave of heat was pushing through the room, chasing away the earlier frosty atmosphere that had plagued me. We started forward across the darkened basement, aiming for the dim light of the doorway some forty feet away. We had taken three steps when from behind us there came a noise unlike any I’d ever heard.
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