by Bill Bennett
The only answer Marley could come up with was that she cared. She cared about right and wrong. She cared about justice. She cared about making this horrific criminal organisation called the Golden Order accountable to the rule of law. But ultimately, she cared about Lily Lennox. When it came down to it, that’s why she was here right now. To help Lily and her mother. And the key to that could well be the boy sent by Lily’s uncle to drive her back to Santa Fe. But he may not even be here, Marley thought. This could be a complete waste of time. Right at the moment, though, they had nothing else to go on. He was their only hope of finding Lily.
‘It is this way,’ Olivier said, holding up a map on his phone. He’d found Skyhawk Nuevo’s next-of-kin’s address from his employment records. One of the great benefits of having high-level clearance at Interpol in France was that he could get almost instant access to any database in the world.
As they walked down a tangle of narrow winding lanes, following the directions on Olivier’s map, Marley thought back on their meeting with Dr Frederick Maguire. Yes, he was a famous surgeon, yes, he gave big chunks of change to charities and what not, and there was no doubt he was well connected at the highest levels. He knew the governor who then spoke to the chief of police who then instructed her to let Lily go, taking with her a mysterious suitcase they’d confiscated from the crime scene – a suitcase that not even the riot squad could open. So there was no doubt this doctor was a wealthy and powerful man. But who was he? And what was he? Was he a witch, as Olivier suspected? And what did he know that he wasn’t telling them?
They stopped outside a small shack built right on the edge of the rock’s perimeter – with the tail end of the building almost hanging out over a drop of several hundred feet. Marley looked at her watch – it was almost two a.m. Not a good time to wake a household, especially when their reasons for being there were so flimsy. But she could feel heat coming from the house, and a strange smell – like a medicinal herbal smell – and she felt there were people still awake inside.
She knocked on the wooden front door, splintered and pitted with age, and as they waited they heard a car start up way down in the parking lot. Olivier rushed to a nearby lookout, Marley followed, and as they stepped up to a guard-rail they peered into the darkness, and watched as a silver Mercedes SUV drove out of the parking lot.
And then they noticed something very odd – barely visible in the dark – a bird following the vehicle. It looked like … surely not … yes, the shape was unmistakable. It was a vulture. That’s weird, Marley thought. Why would a vulture be following a car? Was there a body inside?
Olivier whipped out a pair of binoculars and with the sight of only one eye he managed to catch the numberplate of the vehicle as it briefly drove past the exit lights of the parking lot. He quickly jotted down the figures and numbers, then as they turned and walked back to the shack he entered those details into a search engine on his phone. He waited a few moments, then he whistled.
‘What is it?’ Marley asked.
‘That vehicle is registered to one Dr Frederick Maguire,’ Olivier said, looking up at Marley.
They stopped momentarily.
‘Should we go after him?’ Marley asked.
Olivier shook his head. ‘No, it would take me half an hour at least to climb down again and get to our car, and by then he would be at the interstate and he could go anywhere from there. We would never find him. No, let’s see if the boy is here, if he can help us – and then figure things out from there.’
‘Okay.’ Marley knew he was right. They had no hope of chasing him down. But what had he been doing here? And had he been alone? Or had the boy been with him – perhaps even Lily as well? Right at the moment she felt like they had no real tangible leads at all and they were operating off their intuition more than any hard solid investigative facts.
They walked back to the shack and as they approached, the front door opened revealing a beaming Dr Frederick Maguire.
‘Welcome,’ he said, warmly. ‘What brings you two to this neck of the woods?’
The living room inside was smoky, with an all-pervading smell of a strange and exotic incense that seemed to irritate Olivier. Marley could see that his one good eye was starting to water, and every now and then he coughed. She knew that this, along with the pain from his eye wound, would make him very cranky. And he wasn’t much fun to be around when he was cranky.
She introduced herself and Olivier, they both presented their badges and they all sat at a rough wooden table near the kitchen fire. Marley took down the names and details of Skyhawk’s mother and a young associate of the doctor’s, a geekish-looking young man named Giannopoulos Frank, nicknamed Gummi.
‘My goodness, what happened to you?’ the doctor asked, leaning forward to touch the bandages around Olivier’s eye.
Olivier pulled back quickly. ‘Do not touch,’ he said testily. ‘I walk into a lamp post, if you really want to know.’
‘Really? A lamp post doesn’t leave lacerations like that,’ Dr Maguire said, looking more closely at the scratches on his face and arms. ‘It looks to me like they’re claw marks, from a large bird perhaps.’
‘Is that right?’ Olivier said, with undisguised hostility. Then he got up and walked off towards the bedrooms. ‘I’m going to take a look around, if that is okay,’ he said, looking across at Maddy, not waiting for her response as he walked into her bedroom.
‘So what’s all this about?’ Freddie asked Marley.
‘Why are you here, doctor?’ Marley batted back.
‘I come up here from time to time to do a health check of the villagers,’ Freddie said. ‘This is something I do for the community. I donate my time and services.’
‘Is that right?’ Marley said, not believing a word of it. ‘Well, where are all the medical instruments you use for doing examinations and surgery then? And where are your medicines?’
‘They’re in the parking lot, in my vehicle. I’ve just arrived, I haven’t brought everything up yet.’
‘Is that the silver Mercedes Benz 350 SUV, doctor?’
‘Yes,’ Freddie answered, cautiously.
‘Someone drove it out of the lot about five minutes ago,’ Marley said. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know who that might have been, would you?’
‘Someone’s taken my car? Are you sure about that?’
‘Five minutes ago.’
‘Then it’s been stolen. My God …’
‘Did you leave your keys in the ignition, doctor?’ Marley asked.
‘Of course not.’
‘Then if someone’s stolen it, you must still have the keys. Where are they?’
Freddie quickly searched the pockets of his trousers, then his jacket, without luck. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps they fell out as I was walking up the track, or maybe I dropped them somewhere.’ He paused, then added, ‘I can’t believe that someone from the village would steal my car.’
‘Yes, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it?’ Marley said, looking implacably at Freddie. ‘So your associate here,’ she turned to Gummi, ‘is a nurse?’
Gummi opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it.
‘No, he’s my IT person,’ Freddie jumped in. ‘He inputs all the patient data.’
‘Is that true?’ she asked Gummi.
‘What he said,’ Gummi replied and, as if feeling the need to substantiate himself a little more, he said, ‘you know, I input medical history, current symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, life expectancy, that sort of thing.’
‘Life expectancy?’
‘How long they’re going to live.’
‘Yes, I know what life expectancy means.’ Marley glanced from Gummi to Freddie, and back again. They were such bad liars.
‘So just to get this clear,’ she said, an edge to her voice, her pen poised over her notebook, ‘you arrived here this evening, at approximately …’
‘Ten o’clock,’ Freddie said.
‘Ten o’clock.’ Marley wrote it down. ‘And in the in
tervening period you did not see your niece, Lily Lennox …’
‘Absolutely not,’ Freddie said emphatically.
‘… nor did you see Skyhawk Nuevo.’
‘I did not.’
‘How do you explain this then?’ Olivier said, as he walked back into the room holding a torn and bloodstained robe. He threw it onto the table in front of Freddie.
‘It was in the bedroom,’ Olivier said to Marley. ‘Stuffed in the back of a drawer. It is the size for a girl and the blood is recent.’
Marley stared at the bloodstained robe that had been cut and shredded and torn, as if the result of a frenzied attack. She surged with anger that this man standing in front of her could have put his niece in such danger.
Freddie pushed the robe away. ‘I have no idea what this is or who it belongs to.’
‘That is bullshit, doctor!’ Olivier yelled, slamming his palms down hard onto the table, staring directly at Freddie. ‘Everything you have said since the moment we came in here has been bullshit.’
There was silence, except for the cracking of wood as it burned in the fireplace.
‘Whoever did that dressing was a novice,’ Freddie calmly said, nodding to the bandage over Olivier’s eye. ‘Such a shame I don’t have my medical kit, I would have reapplied it.’
Olivier glared back at him from his one good eye, his face going red, as though he was about to explode.
Marley put her hand on his shoulder, gently pulled him back away. ‘Olivier, go search the other rooms. See what else you can find.’
He stared at the doctor one beat longer, then he stalked off.
Marley held up the robe. ‘I think you know who this belongs to, doctor. It belongs to your niece, Lily Lennox, doesn’t it? And from the look of these stains it looks as if she was wearing this not so very long ago. Am I right?’
‘That’s an interesting proposition,’ Freddie said. ‘I’m sure in due course your lab technicians in forensics will tell you if you’re right or not.’
‘If I find, doctor, that you’ve been withholding information from us, believe me I’ll have you charged with obstructing the course of justice, I swear to God!’
‘Oh, I believe you, detective,’ Freddie said. ‘But let’s just cut to the chase here, shall we? Instead of your silly threats, how about we discuss this with the district attorney? Alan Langhorne. Nice fellow. I have his private number. We can call him now, if you like. He’s usually up late. I did a procedure on his wife not so long ago when she was quite ill. He was very grateful.’
Marley stared at him, then she got up from the table and walked over to a window. She looked out across the night plains. In the distance she could see the lights of the SUV driving away, its dusty plume following like a balloon tugged on a string.
She took a few deep breaths. She knew that with his high-level connections, the doctor could quash any charge she could lay on him. And direct confrontation wasn’t going to work. She needed his cooperation.
Olivier walked back out of Skyhawk’s bedroom, shook his head at Marley to indicate that he’d found nothing else, then he sat down opposite Freddie. He nodded to the bloodstained robe. ‘This looks like a witch’s robe,’ he said. ‘I have seen this kind of a robe before. Most times I see it black, but this one is white. Why would your niece be wearing the white robes of a witch? Can you tell me that, doctor? And why would there be blood on it?’
‘You’re making some wild assumptions,’ Freddie said coolly. ‘You don’t even know this was worn by my niece.’
‘I will get a DNA match.’
‘Good luck with that. It’ll take weeks.’ Freddie smiled. ‘Can I suggest that all this is a huge waste of valuable time? You’re better off leaving me to do my work here and getting out and helping find my sister. That’s what you should be doing, rather than waving dirty laundry in my face. Now, if you don’t mind …’
He stood, and began to usher them out, but Olivier suddenly grabbed Freddie’s jacket, whipped his hand in and pulled out his wand.
‘What’s this?’ he asked, showing the wand to Marley.
‘Give it to me,’ Freddie said, furious, trying to grab it back.
Olivier stepped away nimbly. Freddie mumbled something under his breath and suddenly Olivier screamed in pain and dropped the wand, his hand cramped into the shape of a claw. Gummi rushed over and picked up the wand and handed it back to Freddie, while Olivier massaged his palsied fingers. Then he spotted Gummi’s laptop on his chair. He strode over and grabbed it.
‘Were you sitting on this? To hide it from me?’ he asked Gummi.
‘No, to keep it warm,’ he said, poker faced.
‘What you have been working on?’ Olivier sat down at the table, opened up the laptop, but realised it was locked.
‘What is the password?’
‘None of your goddamn business,’ Gummi said.
‘Okay then.’ Olivier picked up the laptop and took it over to the open window. He thrust it out into the night sky, a drop of several hundred feet below. ‘Give me the password or I drop it.’
Gummi raced over, tried to reach for the computer. ‘Give it to me!’
‘Give me the password,’ Olivier said, keeping him at bay, holding the laptop further out. ‘Oh, my hand is having another cramp. I think it is slipping …’
‘Okay okay okay,’ Gummi said. ‘I’ll open it for you. Just give it to me, okay?’
Olivier brought the laptop in, took it over to the kitchen table, opened it up and stood back, as Gummi typed in the password. The computer came alive. Olivier pushed Gummi aside and immediately went to his browser’s history menu. He looked at all the sites that Gummi had recently visited.
‘What is this?’ Olivier asked, looking at links to the Deep Sink Mine. He clicked on a link, then another, then another. Marley moved her chair over and together they scanned the stories on the curse of the mine.
Marley tried to contain her excitement as Olivier searched further. ‘So why would a doctor and his IT assistant, apparently here to do free medical clinics, spend –’
‘Seven minutes,’ Olivier said, checking the timing on the browser history.
‘Seven minutes,’ Marley continued, ‘online at two a.m. checking out a haunted coal mine in the far reaches of West Virginia?’ She looked over at Freddie and pinned him with her gaze.
Gummi quickly jumped in. ‘The doc’s planning a vacation. And he likes to go to creepy places. That’s his thing. That’s why he’s got that wand. It’s kind of like a hobby for him, you know, playing witches and wizards and stuff like that.’
‘What is a Dragon Knot?’ Olivier asked, turning to Gummi. ‘Because before you did this search for the mine you spent even more time on Google Maps, which you’ve re-coded I see, looking at these Dragon Knots.’
He turned the screen around to Marley, so that she could see a map of the United States overlaid with dozens of throbbing red dots.
‘And the biggest of these dots is where this haunted mine is,’ Olivier added.
Freddie paused. And then said, ‘Dragon Knots are the nodal points where foul energy lines intersect. These lines crisscross the country, and indeed the world. They counter the beneficent energy lines, called ley lines, which also crisscross the world. Energy always seeks to keep in balance, you see. The reason I asked Gummi to prepare this map was so that I could determine where my sister might be. We both know she’s been taken by witches, and witches tend to hang out in foul places, hence the map of the Dragon Knots. And the mine …’
Olivier pushed the laptop away from him, looked over at Freddie. ‘So doctor, you have finally decided to be honest with me?’
Freddie shrugged and smiled disarmingly. ‘We both want the same thing. To get my sister back safe. There’s no reason we can’t work together.’
‘And while we are in this kissy-kissy state of transparency, are you a witch too?’
Freddie shook his head. ‘No. I keep that wand as a lucky charm, that’s all. I’m a surgeon. We me
dicos don’t tend to believe in such things as fairies and magic.’
‘And yet you believe in a Dragon Knot. And a demonic lamb and a haunted mine.’
‘I’m only trying to think the way they would think.’
Marley stared at the map with the pulsing red dots. Then up at Freddie. ‘So your niece was here? And the boy too? And they took your car and they’re now heading to this mine?’
‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Freddie said, quietly.
Marley let out a long deep breath. ‘You know, I should call the state troopers and have you locked up immediately. What sort of uncle, guardian, human being, are you to send a young girl off like that into God only knows what sort of danger? These people that took your sister, do you know what they’re like? Do you have any idea what we’re dealing with here? We’re dealing with monsters. With psychopaths. Are you insane?’
‘And did you know that there was a vulture following your car when it left here?’ Olivier said.
Freddie looked across at him sharply. ‘A vulture?’
‘A vulture,’ Olivier repeated. ‘It is odd, a bird of prey such as that would follow a car at this time of night, don’t you think, doctor?’
Freddie said nothing.
‘We’re wasting our time here,’ Olivier said to Marley, getting to his feet. ‘You and you,’ he said, pointing to Freddie and Gummi, ‘You are coming with us. To this mine. Collect your things, we’re going.’
Marley shot him a glance. ‘We’re taking them?’
‘Yes,’ said Olivier. ‘There is more from them that we can learn, that will be helpful. And this man,’ he said, nodding to Freddie, ‘is a powerful witch. I know that. He could perhaps assist us. I don’t know how, but it is better we take him with us than leave him here. Here, he is a loose cannon. An actor that could cause us complications. With us, he is under our supervision. And he could be useful.’