by Daniel Jeudy
Addison found himself growing frustrated by the uppity sounds of displeasure he could hear in the woman’s speech, even more so when he considered how she’d been the one who instigated contact with him. Nevertheless, she might have vital information up her sleeve, which meant he needed to try to win her over.
“I can certainly agree with you when it comes to preconception, and I apologize if I’ve given you the impression that we’ve come here today because of a belief you may somehow be involved in a crime. I understand how insulting such a premise would be for you.”
Plume regarded him with a kind of expressionless boredom like he was an uneducated shitheel from a backwater river shack. A ghost of a smile threatened to touch the edge of her mouth before she unveiled a row of perfect white teeth.
It required a concentrated effort for him not to say anything objectionable.
“You’re not originally from these parts, are you?” Her decree was rich in arrogance.
“What betrays me?” he asked facetiously. California had transformed many things about him over the years; however, his dry Texan drawl remained as strong as ever.
Plume dismissed Addison with a wave of her hand and set her eyes on Jed.
“I intend to provide you with information. Why else would we be sitting here today? Whether it has relevance to your investigation, I can’t say. However, before I begin, I’m going to require assurance that my identity will be withheld from everything you do moving forward. If you cannot guarantee my anonymity, then I’ll bid you both farewell, and you can show yourselves out the front door. I have no interest whatsoever in being a known participant in this investigation. Are we clear?”
“You have our word. I will leave your name out of all of our records, irrespective of what you might end up telling us,” Addison assured her.
Plume held his eyes for ten seconds before responding. “Very well. I can only hope you turn out to be a man of your word. Let me kick things off by saying this information comes with two key disclaimers. Firstly, and most importantly, it would seem, is that I’m in no way certain whether the people whom I’m about to speak of exist. Secondly, my learned experience is that most doomsday cults and spiritual crazies usually disband over time. They break apart from the inside long before anything significant emerges. Now, the only reason I contacted you is that I was informed the victims are being branded with an inverted Christian cross.”
Addison and Jed stared back at her with perplexity.
“Where did you hear that?” Addison said. His tone wasn’t quite accusatory, but it probably wasn’t far from being so.
“From a friend whose husband works for the coroner. Anyway, if the people I’m thinking of are somehow involved in these crimes, then you will have your work cut out for you. It would suggest they have been doing this kind of thing for several years while remaining very much underground. They won’t be recruiting people on Facebook; I can assure you of that.”
Jed leaned forward with a pen in one hand and a notepad in the other.
“So, what you’re saying is you might know people who could be implicated in these crimes, but they may also be nothing more than a fairy tale?”
Addison observed Plume while she drummed her red manicured nails on the armrest of her chair and pondered his partner’s question.
“Nightmare,” she replied eventually.
Jed appeared to be momentarily confused. “Excuse me?”
“Most of the fairy tales I’ve read concluded with a happy ending.”
Jed leaned back into the sofa as Plume elaborated.
“When a person has been active within the occult universe for as long as I have, they are going to hear whispers on occasion. It may help if you consider that the people I associate with practice a blend of spiritism, which is considered strange to average folk, perhaps even a little frightening. We exist in confidence, and we’re told of peculiar rumors from time to time. I have realized that most of the spooky stuff is nothing more than legend, no different to vampires or werewolves roaming the woods. Though, if a story like this did contain an ingredient of truth, then I’d imagine anyone found sharing it may find themselves dancing in flames.”
“I can understand how you might have reservations about passing on information, Ms. Plume, but we could use your help here,” Jed reasoned.
Plume unfolded her legs and leaned into the armrest of the chair. “Please, Detective Perkins, you may call me Liz,” she replied.
Jed flashed his winning smile. “Like I was saying, Liz, I can appreciate why you might be apprehensive about disclosing certain details to us, and we wouldn’t expect you to place yourself in harm’s way. But two girls have been brutally murdered, soon to be three, and we need to either intensify the direction we’re now heading or change our focus altogether. So anything you can tell us would be greatly appreciated.”
Plume returned to an upright posture, knitting her fingers before consigning her hands to her lap. Addison recognized a specter of darkness sweep inside her eyes, an expression to suggest she’d spent her lifetime gazing into things that were best left undiscovered.
“I really can’t give you much at all,” she replied candidly. “Certainly, nothing I can confirm as fact. But I was informed about a supposed group of dangerous individuals several years back, and a story may be all it is. Nevertheless, if the narrative I heard is genuine, then I wouldn’t be the least surprised if they were involved. I remembered hearing how the inverted cross is meant to have great significance to their spiritual compass. So, when my acquaintance told me about the brand, I decided to give you a call.”
The detectives reflected on the information for a moment.
“Does this story of yours have a name?” Jed asked expectantly.
“I don’t know any name, but there is a person who might. He’s extremely private, and I’m not certain he will even be prepared to speak with you. The man I’m thinking of is a revered demonologist named Harry Bath. Harry knows much more about these allegations than I do. I’ll provide you with his details, but whether he decides on entertaining you will be entirely up to him.”
“We’d very much appreciate that, Liz,” Jed said.
Plume turned her attention to Addison.
“Please be sure to withhold the details about our meeting here today when you contact him. It might destroy my credibility if you don’t. And if those stories are true, I don’t even want to begin thinking about that.”
“Is this Harry Bath located in the Los Angeles area?” Addison asked.
“Kind of. He lives down in Simi Valley, and he’s a retired priest.”
Plume appeared to appreciate their reaction, smirking.
“Oh, don’t be so astonished, gentlemen. The world which exists behind the door you are now knocking on is composed of many shifting shadows. Think Alice in Wonderland, but a creepier version written for adults. The stubbornness of organized religion has been striving to eliminate occult practices since the beginning of time, yet witchcraft continues to flourish worldwide. Magick is extremely popular nowadays, even inside the LAPD, if my memory serves. Anyway, let me go find Harry’s details for you before I change my mind.”
When Plume finished speaking, she raised herself from the chair in a sleek, effortless motion and glided out to another section of the house. It left the detectives to sit in thoughtful silence and consider some of the things they’d just heard, quietly wondering what might be waiting for them on the other side of the door.
Twenty-One
Jennifer lay bound and trembling on the floor, whimpering while Edward stared down at her in silent consideration. He could feel a sophisticated terror scratching its way out through the pores of her skin, an omnipresent fear that got his heart racing as she squirmed about, hopeless, in the center of the goat’s-head pentagram.
Her movement implied she was no longer inhibited by the ketamine he’d injected into her neck seven hours earlier. Edward had spent the night twining terror to her every thought, and it
was now time to increase the misery. Adrenaline began its surge while he applied a blowtorch to the steel brand. Bloodlust blistered his core as visual descriptions flickered behind his eyes to create an expectancy that never found lasting satisfaction.
The girl’s wailing intensified as she caught sight of the hissing blue flame, and Edward barely resisted the impulse to cave her face in with his boot. He had stopped dispensing the drug to ensure she comprehended the full sting of his blade. There wouldn’t be any need to cut through bones today, and the pain might help extract the energy from inside her body.
Conventional sacrifice was about maintaining equilibrium. The controlled violence was entirely different from the pandemic-like ferocity he unleashed during regular killing frenzies. A symbiotic relationship connected physical suffering and psychedelic terror to produce a twisted association rooted in morbidity. Edward always submerged his subjects within the bowels of defilement until they became malignant beneath the intensity of their torment. The slightest adjustment in either direction could significantly impact the variant planes of Magick, so there was never much latitude for conjecture.
Edward would have spent longer preparing the offerings if it were feasible; however, he needed to get a wriggle on before the Old Man intervened. He understood the gamble he was taking by leaving their bodies in the hills. Still, if he had abided by the rules and disposed of the corpses, the raging furnace of community fascination could never be factored into the conclusion. Edward assumed somebody would alert him if the Old Man decided to entangle himself in matters. Meagan Banks, for instance. She was incredibly supportive of the initiative, although her loyalty likely hinged on how well he fucked her.
The first time he witnessed a human heart get ripped from inside a rib cage, it released endocrine shocks through every part of his body, creating a hardness in his chinos that lasted for hours. Edward thought he surrendered everything to Filii Reprobi that night, adopting his destiny with gratified giddiness while his senses indulged upon the woman’s grave misfortune. Her horror remained despite the emergence of death, articulating the gravity of her affliction through filmy eyes as life began curdling inside her. An arcane spirit soaked the hall afterward, penetrating his bones while it slithered around the place to attach itself on the living. It was entirely impossible to rationalize such potency with anybody who hadn’t experienced it.
Edward didn’t consider his defiance to be an act of impertinence. It had taken six months of internal deliberation to arrive at a resolution, and he was no longer receiving satisfaction by protecting his stake in the game. His obsession with resurrecting Linda’s ghost was the driving force behind him disregarding the Old Man’s regulations. There were no guarantees he would emerge from this venture intact, but he’d grown indignant toward the people who had determined Linda’s sacrifice as being categorical to his initiation. Perhaps he might have felt differently if time deleted her presence from the fabric of his memory; however, she continued haunting him from the shadows.
When the brand began to glow orange, Edward reefed Jennifer’s shirt over her face and pressed the hot steel down onto her breast, smiling while she howled over the whistle of burning flesh. The sweet aroma of cooking skin filled his nostrils. He absorbed the jolt of her screeching as the Reaper’s essence drenched the atmosphere in restless anticipation. Jennifer was gaping up at him with mortal dread. Her eyes sailed at half-mast as her words spewed out in garbled surges, still attempting to plead with a nemesis who would never relent.
Edward floated across to his bureau to fetch a barber’s razor from the drawer, singing “Peter Pumpkin Eater” while making his way back. He crouched beside Jennifer’s head, where he sampled her tears with a pasty cardboard tongue. She was searching for air in shallow gulps as Edward brought the blade down over her ear to trigger a penetrating rodent squeal that filled every crevice inside the room.
He applied rough strokes to break through the cartilage on the side of her head, appreciating the crunchy sound of tearing flesh as Jennifer’s cries bounced around the walls. She began growling like an animal caught in a trap, and when the ear broke free, he dangled it between two fingers like a rabbit’s tail.
“You really ought to change your perspective. Hold tight to every moment because you don’t have many left,” Edward declared with a humorous sincerity. “I’m going to slash the main artery in your neck as soon as I finish removing your other one.”
He reached for an old brass canister on the floor. “That’s why I have this.”
* * *
Wickedness engulfed the room as Jennifer pulled against the ropes with a futile resistance. Fear had coiled its hands around her throat from the very moment she’d awoken inside the cage; even so, this present horror was something else entirely. She no longer felt trapped within some twisted cartoon of malevolence. Those delusions had been extinguished; in their place came the judgment of eternal suffering.
Jennifer wailed as Edward began working on her other ear, yet the sound of his deranged cackling penetrated her brain. She sensed his perversity whenever he leaned in. The proximity of his presence generated an influx of bile at the back of her throat. A metallic stink infused her nasal passages as her lungs contended with the concentration of his cruelty; Jennifer’s shrieks came out in raspy whispers. His hand was severe as it gripped her hair like a vice, and she didn’t notice when the last strand of flesh surrendered its grip. A racking cough rattled her lungs, shook her bones, and fired nails through her chest. Obscene images tormented Jennifer’s mind while a mystical perception resisted the fade of her body.
She heard him talking, but his voice was now gurgling liquid going down a plug hole. Jennifer’s resistance had dissolved when he tilted her head to rip his razor across the side of her neck in a slashing arc. The dull thudding inside her brain became louder than anything she had ever heard. As if someone was standing at the center of her mind banging away on a steel bucket. Everything transformed into a kaleidoscope of angry color, then darkness spread across the room as a gray wraith descended to consume the light.
Jennifer saw herself making sandcastles with her brother on Venice Beach when they were kids before the soothing tone of her father’s voice began calling her name. A lifetime of remembrance flashed perfectly behind her eyes, and she recognized her grandmother waiting in the distance with outstretched arms as blackness crashed over her like a wave.
Twenty-Two
They were anxious to contact Harry Bath and needed to act super-fast if Jennifer Hill was to have any hope of being found alive. Addison had already made several attempts to reach the priest in the afternoon, but his calls went unanswered, and there was no way for him to leave a message.
Collins was back at his desk after a lengthy meeting with the captain, meaning they would soon be required to bring him up to speed with the latest information. The prospect of having to engage in an exhaustive discussion about a cleric who summoned demons didn’t invoke much excitement, and things might prove less complicated if they managed to get a hold of Harry Bath beforehand.
Addison searched the internet for any demonologists located in the county while Jed continued creating the timeline, he’d started piecing together the previous day. The detectives working the phones generated a persistent hum as an atmosphere of heaviness settled inside the office. Everybody felt the mounting pressure, and no slapstick humor was bouncing back and forth.
Addison was in the process of calling the priest’s number again when the lieutenant’s voice came booming from across the room. “Mowbray, Perkins, my office. Now.”
A morose expression spread across Jed’s sun-bronzed features as if an audience with Collins might be the very last thing he wanted to be a part of right now.
“Relax, buddy,” Addison assured him. “I’ll take the lead on this one.”
Jed shoved his hands into his pockets like a kid who expected a scolding as they began making their way through the cubicles. Their progress stalled when Detective Lyn Holbr
ook announced herself by leaning into the aisle and rolling her eyes.
“Like that, is it?” Addison asked.
Holbrook and her partner, Tom Rodgers, were seated on either side of her desk.
“Yeah,” she replied. “It sure has been a whole load of fun in here today.”
Holbrook was a frumpy woman in her early forties with strawberry blond hair, thin lips, and weird brown eyes. Most of the detectives in HSS referred to her and Rodgers as the odd couple, mainly because Tom was built like a truck and fancied himself a ladies’ man. At the same time, Holbrook was quite unattractive and forever traversing a path of singledom.
“How are things going?” Addison asked casually. “You find anything useful?”
Rodgers appeared stuck somewhere between uninspired and bored shitless.
“Nah, we’ve found nothin’. Been tied to these phones all morning like a fuckin’ house mouse while Sarge shits down our throats. Collins has been riding him like a bitch on heat, so it’s probably best to avoid the man if you can.”
Holbrook tossed a stress ball at her partner and smiled.
“The Sarge lost his head with Tommy boy twice this morning,” she said playfully. “He’s getting about the place with fire in his eyes while he searches for someone to feed on.”
Addison nodded aimlessly.
“Are you guys still calling healthcare facilities?”
“Nope,” Rodgers replied. “We’re presently focused on animal hospitals and local colleges. The captain decided to appeal to the city hospitals through the press to save time. He thinks it might be easier to get hold of this stuff through a vet.”
“Well, it’s hard to question his reasoning there.”
Holbrook swung around in her chair. “Shit, Perkins, don’t you look thrilled to be here.” Her flippant interjection came with a mock-toothed grin.
“Well, you wouldn’t want us to start stepping out with a can-do attitude. If we did that, you might find yourself becoming irrelevant around here in no time.”