The Collector

by Cameron

  Erika stared at the side of the bed where the sheets lay crumpled. She had a pounding headache and her eyelids felt as if they were made of sandpaper. She glared at the bedside clock.

  Three-oh-six in the morning and she was wide-awake.

  It was the usual drill. She’d send away whatever Tom, Dick or, in this case, Adam, she’d pounded back a few too many with, fall asleep—or more like pass out—and wake up just a few hours later.

  She gave the clock another dirty look. Three-oh-six freaking a.m.

  She threw her arm over her eyes, sinking back into the pillow. She had some pills for the headache, but she wasn’t much for taking anything. Not her sort of poison.

  Her poison came on two legs, usually with dark eyes and an overload of testosterone. Always over six feet tall. She could afford to be picky.

  She thought about poor Seven apologizing for their one-night stand. He didn’t have a clue.

  She sat up in bed. After a minute, she got up and walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

  She knew Seven took the blame, thinking it had been all his weakness, their sleeping together. He was a nice guy, Seven. It would never occur to him that maybe he was the one being used.

  The thing with men started when she’d lost her virginity her sophomore year in high school. She knew it was all tied up with some shit about looking for a father figure. She’d even talked to a therapist once—not that it helped. Like she didn’t know she had abandonment issues? Who wanted to talk over all that daddy-didn’t-love-me crap with a stranger taking notes?

  She stood over the sink, the empty glass in her hand. That night with Seven she’d reached a new low. He’d been going through so much because of his brother and she’d taken advantage.

  Not that it excused anything, but she never would have crossed that line if her father hadn’t come back from the dead.

  The thing was, Alfonso Cabral had never been dead. It was Milagro, Erika’s mother, who’d had him declared legally dead after a seven-year absence. The truth turned out to be much harsher than her prick-of-a-father croaking. Alfonso abandoned them, leaving Erika, her brother, Miguel, and her mother to fend for themselves.

  The worst of it? He hadn’t disappeared because he’d been wanted by the cops. He wasn’t ditching creditors, or his bookie.

  He’d gotten sick of them. He’d wanted out.

  So he’d moved to Costa Rica, where he’d started a brand-new life. A life that included Consuelo, his new wife, and their two baby boys, Jose and little Alfonso Jr.

  Last year, he’d moved the whole kit and caboodle back here to Santa Ana. He said he wanted back into Erika’s life. A man needed his family.

  What bullshit….

  She turned on the faucet and filled the glass. Alcohol always dehydrated her. She didn’t want to wake up in the morning nauseated, with her head feeling like it was splitting open.

  Still holding the glass, she turned it in her hand, not taking even a sip.

  Now, Erika and her brother were expected to watch their father raise his two youngest? They were supposed to sit around while Alfonso gave his two baby boys all the love and attention that had been missing from their lives?

  The twisted thing about the whole mess was Erika’s reaction when she’d found out that dear old dad was still very much alive. She’d blamed her mother.

  Milagro had lied to her kids. Using some perverse reasoning, she had convinced herself she was sparing her children by keeping them from the truth. She’d told herself they were better off thinking Alfonso was dead than knowing they’d been abandoned.

  But Erika had a different theory. That it was mami who didn’t want to face the truth. She didn’t want to have to answer those ugly little questions that came along with the truth, either.

  Her husband had left her and her two children high and dry—and Milagro had been part and parcel of that decision.

  There was a little voice inside Erika’s head that whispered her mother could have prevented the failure of her marriage. If she’d been prettier, less passive, more…Erika didn’t know what.

  She hated that little voice.

  In the kitchen, she sat down and stared at the still-full glass of water. She fought the desire to call Seven. For a time, after the thing with his brother, he’d done that a few times. Called her up and they’d talked. But he’d stopped after they slept together.

  She missed those middle-of-the-night talks.

  She drank the water quickly, downing it in one long gulp. She slammed the empty glass on the table. She knew it wouldn’t do any good to wake up Seven with some lurid confession. Hey kiddo, you know that night we slept together? It’s kind of a bad habit with me…one I really plan to kick once I can face myself.

  Instead, she brought her laptop into the kitchen and turned it on. Dead fortune-tellers, strange artifacts…the case was going to be one giant headache.

  Or a ton of work she could disappear into.

  Erika smiled, pulling the laptop closer.

  She hadn’t liked Gia Moon—liked even less that the psychic had been dead-on about key details in the case.

  Erika grabbed a Diet Coke out of the refrigerator, figuring she needed the hit of caffeine. Back at the computer, she opened a file and started transcribing her notes from the interview with the professor about the glass bead. She’d never admit it out loud, but all that supernatural stuff scared the crap out of her.

  Earlier, Seven had asked her about Santeria. Well, she had more than a passing acquaintance with the practice.

  She’d been eight years old. Her mother and she had gone with a friend to the home of an acquaintance. Erika had been given something to eat, a tart made with coconut and chocolate.

  Only she and her mother had eaten the pastry.

  They’d both become very ill. Her mother recovered after a day, but Erika had only grown worse, breaking out in a strange rash. The pediatrician had given her pills and creams, but nothing seemed to help. In desperation, her mother had taken her to a santera, a priestess, a white witch.

  The ceremony that had followed was something Erika would never forget. Her mother had dressed her all in white. Like an angel, she’d told Erika. She’d been taken inside a room that was completely white. And there had been a strange smell, too. Incense maybe. The santera had also dressed in white. She remembered the woman chanting and praying over her.

  According to her mother, the rash had disappeared then and there. Like a miracle. The only thing Erika remembered was the woman taking her hand and looking into her eyes. Speaking Spanish, she’d told Erika she belonged to her now, that Erika would always be protected. She called herself Erika’s guardian angel.

  That had been almost twenty years ago. Her mother hadn’t stopped spending money on the espiritistas and santeros ever since. To this day, Milagro, whose name literally meant “miracle,” believed the priestess had saved Erika from whatever had poisoned her. Erika wasn’t so sure. But she found the memory unsettling…particularly her mother’s dedication to those bloodsuckers during the years that followed.

  “Maybe that’s what I need,” Erika told herself, pulling out her notes from the interview with Professor Murphy. “Una limpieza.” Rid herself of those bad vibes.

  But she wasn’t much for the pity-party scene. She focused instead on trying to decipher her shorthand.

  After a while, she sat back and picked up the Diet Coke. “What the hell is a Greek artifact doing in the mouth of a Vietnamese fortune-teller?” she asked out loud.

  Murphy had been a real character. Still, he seemed to know his stuff. She flipped the page in her notebook, coming across the name Estelle Figaro circled on the page.

  Erika frowned, taking another sip of Diet Coke. The professor had said something about the woman being a bit of a Cassandra.

  To jump-start her brain, Erika logged on to the Internet and clicked over to Google. She typed in “Cassandra,” skimming through a short blurb.

  Cassandra makes an appearance in
many plays and stories where she is depicted as a prophetess…

  Erika returned to her notes, circling words like oracle and sibyl and psychic archaeology. The professor had said that Figaris, as the name appeared the second time she’d written it in her notebook, had worked with a guy named Morgan Tyrell. Something to do with Harvard and research on parapsychology?

  She Googled the name Morgan Tyrell.

  The first entry that came up: Institute for Dynamic Studies of Parapsychology and the Brain.

  “Okay, so Figaris or Figaro, or whatever,” she said, summarizing her notes out loud, “believed she had psychic ability and now she’s dead. Another dead psychic connected to the bead.”

  So maybe the key was finding out more about “Madam F” and how she’d died? For all Erika knew, she’d been found with a bird stuffed in her mouth, too.

  “All right, Estelle,” she said. “Let’s see if we can find you somewhere in cyberspace.”

  On Google, she typed in “archaeology” and “Estelle Figaris.”

  Google came up with: Do you mean Estelle Fegaris?

  “Good old Google,” she said, hitting the search prompt.

  18

  You watch the security people fiddling with their wires and cameras. No one notices you. You have a talent for that…the ability to make yourself invisible.

  The lowly cows actually believe they are ignoring you. They don’t understand that you can get inside their heads. It’s you pulling the strings, not them.

  You watch as they set up the video feed with lots of motion sensors. It makes you tingle inside to watch how he protects his collection. These are his children. Inside this room he hides his mojo.

  You remember his stories like lullabies. Freya, the Norse goddess of love and magic, fornicating with her hideous dwarfs for the prize of the Necklace of Brisings. Prisoners buried alive as sacrifice for consulting the Sibylline Books. He showed you oracle bones. But when you saw the bronze Etruscan liver marked into sections representing the gods in the heavens, you were lost.

  The ancient Etruscans—the Rasna—an advanced society that preceded the Roman Empire and brought the practice of haruspicy to life. They have a mysterious language, unrelated to any other tongue—unique, just like you. But more importantly, they are experts at the art of divination.

  Haruspicy is their method: the reading of entrails to tell the future. Such diviners were consulted throughout history. Emperor Claudius created a college of haruspices. Pope Innocent agreed to their services as long as their rites were kept secret. You’ve seen a copy of the Libri Tagetici, a collection of writings dedicated to the childlike being who brought haruspicy to the world.

  In ancient times, the haruspex would inspect the entrails of ritually slaughtered animals in order to interpret the divine will. In preparation, the diviner must have the proper attitude of respect for the gods. He must be sober and wear clean, festive clothes. He should fast for at least twelve hours before the ritual…three days is best.

  That’s where you made your mistake with Michelle. You weren’t ready. The vestments, the fast, it was all off.

  You were too hasty in your desire for blood, the slaughter—a broken glass across her throat—too impulsive. You didn’t follow a plan. Your lust made you unworthy of Michelle, flawed and distracted. Her blood on your hands mesmerized. The police came long before you were ready. A neighbor calling 911.

  You hadn’t wanted to wash your hands. It was all you had left of the moment. Blood, her life source. But he forced you—he made you clean your car and burn your clothes. He destroyed your memories, taking everything. He steals.

  Only he is allowed a collection? Fuck him.

  He destroys yours—you destroy his.

  It took you a long time to get over the loss. In hindsight, you realize how paltry your early collection was, how unworthy of you. Entrails of birds and cats. A child’s game.

  You collect things of much greater worth now.

  Mimi was easy. You don’t like that. You think there should be more…more blood, more emotion, more…everything.

  You like it when she fights. Good versus bad.

  Mimi is evil—and a fraud, which you believe worse. She didn’t understand that only you have the power to manipulate thought. Like Michelle, she pretended.

  But you know the truth. The power he seeks, it’s not his. It’s yours alone.

  Now you watch his stupid sheep, knowing that there’s nothing these menials can do to stop you. He should, of course, take the collection away to a safe place. Not that it would matter. You will hunt him down. You’ll take what you want, when you want it. You have that power.

  But you know he’ll never let his treasures out of this house. Leave his children? Hide them for safety’s sake? His hubris will not allow it.

  In a way, you understand. You could never part with your own collection. It stays here, close by.

  In your pocket, you have the latest addition. A feather, tipped with dried blood. You fondle it lovingly.

  The bead in the beak, the beak in the mouth. You smile at the image.

  In the book Dracula, Dr. Seward’s zoophagous sanatorium patient, Renfield, feeds flies to spiders, and spiders to sparrows. When he is refused a cat, he eats the birds, trying to absorb their life force.

  There was an old lady who swallowed a fly…perhaps she’ll die.

  Yes, she dies. So will the next one. And the one after her. You will kill his endless supply of whores and frauds.

  You stroke the feather in your pocket. You have her name now. Very soon, you’ll have another treasure.

  You look up at the camera and smile. You are invisible. And your eyes are everywhere.

  Gia sat up in bed. She grabbed her throat, unable to breath. She felt as if she were drowning, choking on something.

  Blood! Blood everywhere! In your mouth…down your throat. It’s filling your lungs.

  Beside her, Stella groaned softly and turned over on the king-size bed. Gia forced herself to calm down. When she could, she slipped out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and looked up into the mirror.

  There was blood dripping from her eyes.

  Horrified, she pushed away from the sink, scrubbing her face with her hands as if trying to wipe off the blood. Her back hit the wall, the towel rack digging into her spine.

  “It’s just a dream, Gia,” she said, her eyes shut tight. “Just a dream, just a dream.”

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look up into the mirror again, trying to focus. This time, her eyes were clear.

  “Just a dream,” she whispered.

  A bad one.

  Back in the bedroom, she glanced at the bedside table. The clock read 3:06 in the morning.

  She watched her daughter sleep, her chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm. Gia tried to match her breathing to Stella’s, waiting until her heart rate reached normal.

  The images were stronger this time. More distinct.

  He’s closer.

  She grabbed a sweatshirt off the rocking chair in the bedroom and headed for her studio.

  Two hours later, she put down the paintbrush and stretched her back, trying to ease a cramp. She felt like one of those women at the Salem witch trials. Their accusers would press the life out of them by placing a board on top of them and adding one stone at a time. She could feel the weight of her dreams crushing her.

  Guilty or innocent? she asked herself.

  She looked up at the painting, where she’d been able to flesh out some detail from the shadows, wondering what it all meant.

  “Bird entrails,” she whispered, trying not to judge what she painted.

  She could still feel that tightness in her chest, the breath being choked from her. She’d experienced that once, many years ago. And that’s what scared her most. She felt now, as she did then, on the brink of death.

  The first dream, she’d been in the killer’s childhood. Puerto Rico…not what she’d expect
ed. It didn’t fit the pattern—which didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  She sighed, examining the enormous canvas. That was entirely the problem—how not to let her own thoughts and fears manipulate her vision. The spirit coming through could very well be only the messenger, guiding her to the real killer. She couldn’t let her own dark past influence the message.

  She reached out to touch the canvas, where she’d painted what looked like a stylized eye. This image she knew only too well. The Evil Eye.

  She’d learned a lot about objects of power like this. Some thought the eye came from ancient times, representing the blue eyes of Athena. If someone wished you harm, the curse would merely bounce back to them, the amulet keeping the wearer safe like a force field. Gia had just such a bracelet hidden away. A gift from her mother.

  She stared up at the jumble of images on the canvas. She didn’t know how long she sat there, falling into those images, but her hand began to tingle. She glanced down.

  In her hand, she held a blood-tipped feather.

  She dropped the feather with a gasp, jumping to her feet.

  But when she looked down, she saw it wasn’t a feather at all that she had dropped. On the wooden floor lay her paintbrush, red paint splattered across the shop-blasted concrete.

  She slumped back into her chair. Great.

  This spirit liked to play games.

  After she cleaned up, she looked at the clock. Almost six in the morning. Pretty soon she’d have to wake Stella and get her ready for school.

  Gia stood before the painting, looking at the one dark corner she had yet to give definition to. She’d never felt so drained.

  She was playing a dangerous game. If she was wrong, how much could a mistake cost the people she loved? Already, too many had died.

  A few minutes later, she slipped into bed next to Stella, hugging her. Gia thought about the woman detective, the flash of sadness she’d received when she’d touched Erika Cabral’s hand.

  Her father had abandoned her.

  Gia held Stella closer, wondering what lingering questions her daughter might have about her own missing father. Dreading the day she would have to tell her the truth.