“Vato loco,” Alfredo repeated, looking up again as he walked away.
Donovan climbed the stairs with footsteps as heavy as his soul. The enormity of what had just happened was starting to sink in, past the bruises and the shock. He reached the top of the steps, saw the menus still scattered in front of his door, and felt a surge of irrational anger. He kicked them out of the way with his dirty, bare feet and went inside.
The energy of the fight hung in the apartment like the smell of sex. He went up to the kitchen and scooped a handful of cubes from a tray, then held the bundle in his injured hand. Shifting it like dice, he stared at the refrigerator’s bottom shelf, where his weed kit nestled out of sight. The temptation to soften the reality of what had just happened in clouds of fragrant hydroponic smoke was strong.
This isn’t a crime scene you can go to high.
Instead, he shut the door and went to a cabinet, where he took out a bottle of Bushmills and swigged a mouthful. The Irish whiskey burned past the lump in his throat. He picked up the cordless handset and called Father Carroll.
“They got her, Father.” He took in more whiskey, gripping the bottle like it was his last handle on reality. “Valdes and Coeus. It’s my fault. They took Joann.”
“I’ll come up,” the priest said immediately.
“No.” He shook his head. “I’ll come to you. We have a new lead.
“We need to figure out why Valdes needs a Vessel.”
***
“I give you, Herr Doktor, your Vessel.” He gestured triumphantly at Joann’s unconscious body. “A beautiful force for good.” Flushed with his victory and the exertion of carrying her limp body, Valdes seized her shoulders and rolled her onto her back. “I certainly hope she’s acceptable. You have no idea what it took to get her here.”
Faustus took in the curves of her body inside the fluffy white bathrobe with no hint of lust or leer. He took her chin in hand and turned her head, eyes clinical as he examined her features.
“She seems satisfactory.” When he saw the marks from the taser darts he frowned. “Once Faustus hath remedied these—”
Valdes spread his hands, “what can you do?” “I asked her to come politely.”
***
Alfredo finished boarding things up and left while Donovan took a shower. Now dressed, Donovan stuck Fullam’s Glock into his waistband, grabbed his helmet and headed for the door.
He pulled it open and stopped short. His hand snapped to his waist before he recognized the angry face of the man.
“Where is my daughter, Donovan? Where is Joann?”
In no mood, Donovan pushed him away with a hand to the chest. “Get out of my way, Conrad. I have things to do.” It was his bandaged hand, but he refused to let Joann’s father see him wince.
“You son of a bitch!” Conrad growled, seizing Donovan’s jacket. “It’s your fault!”
Donovan yanked away. “You don’t even know what happened.”
“I know people everywhere. Joann was here when this serial killer and his goon showed up. One of your neighbors told detectives they said they were there to kill you. If Joann hadn’t been here, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to take her for God knows what.” He looked like he wanted to spit. “Philosophical Hermeneutics.”
“Killing me was an afterthought.” Donovan shouldered the smaller man back and stepped out of the apartment. “They came for her.”
“Don’t try to bullshit me to soothe your conscience—”
“I’m not—” Donovan paused, furiously gaining control of his temper. “They want,” he began again, “to use her for something. That’s why they took her, because of something about her, about who she is. I don’t understand what that means, but I will find out.
“And I will get her back.”
***
“Did you kill him?” Valdes asked.
Coeus sat glowering in the shadows. The only light came from a trio of candles and a battered twenty-inch television set in one corner. Wires connecting a computer game console to it cast serpentine shadows along the floor.
Valdes folded his arms and sighed. “We got what we needed. I’m not angry. I just need to know if—”
“I don’t know!” Coeus leapt to his feet, his scarred visage inches from Valdes’s calm expression. “I tried! I tried to kill him, but we had to go! I would have killed him if you didn’t make me leave!” He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, face screwing up into an impending tantrum. Valdes could swear he heard the rumble of thunder, but it was only a growl building in the giant’s throat. With one sweep of his arm, Coeus slapped the television set across the room. The game unit flew after it like a child unable to restrain a Great Dane on a leash. They exploded against the far wall in a shower of sparks.
First the aquarium, now this. Coeus doesn’t seem much of a problem to him.
Valdes considered the implications before ultimately dismissing them.
Then again, I’m not Coeus.
SIXTEEN
QUESTIONS
Joann’s body absorbed the effects of the taser shock like a sandbar defeating a rising flood. Consciousness returned in a solid mass, without nuance or detail. At first she accepted this; the torpor was not unpleasant, and remaining at this base level kept her anxiety in check. Detached bits of information gradually began to filter through her senses: soft cloth across her face, garbage dressed with urine, a sense of weight above and around her, newspapers and a rough blanket under her.
She groaned and pulled off her blindfold.
Three bare fluorescent bulbs cast funereal illumination around the windowless room. Filthy, water-stained tiles edged by dark rust and mold lined the walls. The single door had a twelve-by-twelve inch space that was all wire reinforcement and no glass. Gaps in the cement floor suggested furnishings long since removed by scavengers.
Rotating her neck muscles, she took stock of herself. Her body no longer hurt; she was surprised to find there was no swelling or soreness from where Valdes had zapped her. Her feet were bare and she still wore Donovan’s white robe, although now it was considerably less fluffy and smelled like her makeshift mattress.
She heard a noise and went to the door. An old woman shuffled by outside, bent back and ruddy face suggested long days gathering sod off the bog for the fire. A white rabbit trembled at her feet. “See what happens if you don’t obey me, Mr. Chew-chew?” She jerked its leash and nodded at Joann. “I’ll put you in a cage to starve and rot and die!”
Joann stared as the woman passed into the darkness. What in the world—? She banged the door with the butt of her hand. “Hey! Hey!”
“Ah, my dear. You’re awake.”
Valdes came down the shadowy corridor, a ray of sunshine. Charming Man, Joann thought. Coeus lurched behind him, and a chunky blonde girl with bad skin followed shyly. He unlocked the door to her cell, and all three of them crowded in.
“Where am I? What time is it?”
“You’re my guest, and it’s morning. I hope you’ve suffered no ill effects? The drugs I have are hardly top quality, and I was afraid there might be some side issues.”
“Drugs?”
“To help you rest.” His smile widened by a few teeth. “You have a big day ahead of you; or, rather, a big night tonight.”
Fear tightened her face, so she reached for her prosecutor’s manner. “What do you want?”
“At the moment, I want you to be comfortable. You’re my guest, and I’m not a savage.” He angled his head. “This is Lude, and I think you know Coeus. They’ll take you to the showers, then to the dining hall.”
She folded her arms to keep them from trembling. “I’ll ask again: what do you want?”
“I don’t want anything.” His lips twitched, restraining a smile as he glanced at the giant. “Mister Fizz does.”
***
Donovan snapped awake.
“Good morning.” Father Carroll stood next to him, holding a paper cup from which wafted a nutty vanilla trickl
e of steam. “Bad dream?”
Donovan nodded, dry-washing his face. “Joann. Covered in blood. Smiling.”
“Indeed?” The priest’s eyebrows rose as he went behind his desk, to the seat he’d occupied all the previous night. “I shouldn’t worry, my son. Dreams tend towards the dramatic when expressing anxiety, you know that.”
“They can also demonstrate prescience. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything that might be a clue. Just…Joann, covered in blood. Smiling.” He sat silent for a moment. “No help finding her. Like this,” he gestured at the materials they’d been searching all night. “I’ve studied it for years, but when I need it most, it’s no help.”
“It’s only failure if we cease our efforts.”
“It’s not our efforts, it’s our direction, or lack thereof. We have no idea who or what she’s supposed to be a vessel for, and less idea than that on how to save her.”
“Now we know there are two rituals,” Father Carroll pointed out. “The resurrectus maledicat and the ritual in which Valdes will use Joann.”
“You’re sure he didn’t take her for the resurrectus maledicat?”
“Fairly certain. The purpose of the resurrectus maledicat is to assemble a dozen life forces and create a vessel for the resurrected. In this case, pieces of each victim were removed.”
“Frankenstein lives.”
“And provides a vessel for the ritual. It thus stands to reason Valdes would need Joann as a vessel for something else.”
“But what?” His cell phone buzzed. Donovan looked at the number, then at the priest. “Frank.” He flipped the phone open. “Any news?”
Fullam paused a second before answering. “I’ve got someone who wants to speak with both of us. Here. At the precinct. Now.”
“What do you—?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Mister Graham.”
Donovan’s stomach tightened at the soft Texas twang. “Of course, Chief Yarborough. Give me a half hour.”
Yarborough cut off the connection before Fullam could say anything else. Father Carroll looked puzzled. “That was…?”
“Frank’s boss, Chief of Detectives Hugh Yarborough.”
“Oh, my. Why would he want to speak to you?”
“No idea.” Donovan gathered up a few pages of notes. “Guess I’ll find out soon enough.”
***
“You don’t have to do this.”
Joann had waited until she and Lude were alone before speaking. Coeus stood outside the shower room door, preventing any break for it, but Joann had already sized up Lude and decided the chubby blonde girl with the bad skin was a weak link.
“Hunh?”
Joann let the water run but didn’t move. “When people are young, they sometimes do things they wouldn’t have if they thought about it. I’ve seen it a hundred times, at my job. I work for the courts in Brooklyn.”
The girl stared blankly at her. “Don’t you wanna take a shower?”
“I’m just saying,” Joann slowly lowered the robe, keeping her tone neutral-friendly, “sometimes people think they’re trapped in a corner. I know how to get them out. I’m a lawyer, I do it all the time at work.”
“I sleep in the middle of the room, not in a corner,” Lude said. “But sometimes I feel trapped. I shouldn’t hafta hang out with people I don’t wanna hang out with, should I?”
Joann shook her head.
“I mean, it was cool at first, you know? Big C is, well, Big C. No one never messed with me when we was hanging out, not even Dez. Even though she’s my friend, she still fucks with me sometimes, you know?”
“Big C is Coeus? Is he your boyfriend?”
“Oh no, nothing like that.” Lude flushed. “We just hung out, you know? Played video games—he’s got a real cool set-up that George did for him, in his room way downstairs.”
Joann stepped under the shower, goose pimples rising under the stinging cold spray. “You don’t hang out with him anymore?”
Lude glanced around before lowering her voice. “It got weird, you know? Ever since Mister Valdes and Doctor Fowlstus and those four guys he, uh…” She leaned in closer, face pale. “I don’t like it here anymore. I’m scared. Really scared.”
Fowlstus? …Faustus? Mystified, Joann nodded, sympathy warming her smile. The level of danger she was in left no room for error. “When I get scared, you know what I do?”
“What?”
“I go have a drink. If I go out and have a few cocktails, it usually relaxes me enough so I can see a new approach to whatever’s bothering me.” She shrugged. “Have a few drinks, talk to the bartender, get my head straight.”
“Yeah?” Her blemished features reflected her delight at being spoken to as an equal by this woman. “I like to hang out in bars sometimes, but usually they’re too loud to talk to the bartender. Sometimes Dez goes home with him, but I never do.” Her face fell. “I’m not as hot as she is.”
Joann nodded sympathetically. “Well, if you want to talk to a cool bartender, I can tell you where to go. Tell him I sent you and he’ll buy you the first drink…”
***
Figuring it would be a bad idea to show up at Midtown North with an unlicensed, illegal handgun, Donovan stopped by his apartment and left Fullam’s Glock there before heading over. Although he’d straightened up the apartment a little before going to Father Carroll’s, there remained a sense of disarray from the fight.
He knew something was up as soon as he got to the precinct. Yarborough’s linebacker-sized driver, Detective Wright, was waiting for him outside the detectives’ squadroom. “Chief Yarborough wants me to take your statement from last night.”
Donovan looked around him—difficult but not impossible. The sergeant’s desk was empty. “Where’s Frank?”
Wright looked down at him. Between the detective and Coeus, Donovan was starting to feel small. “Take a seat. When you’re done, the chief will talk to you.”
“Is there any word on Joann?”
The barest trace of sympathy trickled off him. “Sorry. Haven’t heard anything.” He stepped over and pulled out a chair. “Sit down.”
Donovan took a deep breath, restraining his desire to challenge him. This is another way to find her, he reminded himself.
After Wright had finished, he took the statement and left the detectives’ squadroom. Donovan sat with a can of Diet Coke, glancing around for sign of Fullam, but saw none. The detectives moved around him, occasionally giving him looks that varied from disinterest to disdain to discreet approval. After fifteen minutes he was ready to leave, but before he could Wright appeared back in the doorway and gestured for him to follow.
***
“Ah, Mr. Graham. Come in.”
Yarborough invited Donovan into the office of the precinct captain, waving him to a padded leather chair in front of a large oak desk. The office was done with style, masculine woods and deep reds and golds accessorized with flags—American, NYPD and Marine Corps. Pictures of smiling men studded the walls, at Ground Zero, shaking hands with Mayor Bloomberg, and one smiling with Barack Obama.
“Is there any word on Joann?”
Yarborough sat on the edge of the desk, making himself taller than Donovan. “Unfortunately, Ms. Clery remains unaccounted for. However,” again it came out “hah-evuh,” “there is another matter to address.”
“No, there isn’t. Joann is the only thing that matters. Whatever politics you want to play, play them after we’ve found her.” Before Yarborough could comment, Donovan took out the pages of notes. “Valdes performed a ritual called resurrectus maledicat. It had certain material requirements. If we can track him through the suppliers, we’ll find her.”
“Paschal candles?” Yarborough glanced at the list. “Yew wood?”
“Paschal candles are for Easter. You light them the night before Easter Sunday and let them burn next to the church altar until the Feast of the Ascension. Yew wood is used in magic ceremonies to raise the dead. Resurrection theme—Easter is the time of r
esurrection; resurrectus maledicat, cursed resurrection. Get it?”
“Raise the dead,” Yarborough repeated slowly. “I know serial killers can create elaborate designs to surround their deeds, but—”
“Valdes isn’t a serial killer. This isn’t about episodic aggressive behavior. There’s a plan, and the murders are part of it.”
“I believe your degree is Philosophical Hermeneutics.” He tapped his black and silver Mont Blanc pen on his palm. “Are you formally trained in aberrant psychology as well?”
“I’ve had some practical experience in the field. I’ve also done my homework—they didn’t kidnap Joann on a whim. She’s still alive because they need her for something.”
“This, ah, ‘cursed resurrection’?”
Donovan shook his head. “Father Carroll and I figured out there are two rituals—the resurrectus maledicat, and one in which Valdes needs Joann to serve as a vessel.”
“Two rituals,” Yarborough repeated. “Did the first one, this resurrectus maledicat, succeed?” Donovan almost answered before realizing how it would make him sound. “So he committed all these murders, resurrected someone, and is now planning another, equally bizarre ritual for which he needs your fiancée?”
Hearing it said aloud confirmed his fears, so he remained silent.
Yarborough stared at him, then selected a file from behind him, opened it, and put on a pair of reading glasses. “Cornelius Valdes is the former chief fundraiser with the Christian Yeoman Association Foundation. A brilliant organizer who was promoted to Chief Financial Officer. Apparently this introduced too much temptation into his life, and he was convicted almost sixteen years ago of embezzling the funds he raised. Released from Danbury Federal Penitentiary last March on good behavior. Although, as the name suggests, the charity has some religious ties, and he showed his face at the right churches at the right times, Valdes never expressed interest in the spiritual side of anything besides his bank account.” He glanced at Donovan over the tops of his glasses. “Does that sound like someone who gets involved in weird rituals?”
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