Book of Shadows

CHAPTER Twenty-four

The sky was dark and the moon was huge in the sky as Garrett parked again on Essex Street outside Book of Shadows. He looked up through tree branches at the shining amber disk, and realized tonight it was full—it looked twice normal size and golden-toned, as a full moon often will do. A strong wind swayed the branches of the elm trees lining the sidewalks. Dry leaves rolled and swirled in the street. Halloween weather, Garrett thought to himself, and the thought was ominous. Three weeks to go.
He climbed the front steps of the house and walked into the shop to the musical tinkling of bells, and the fragrant warmth of the shop enveloped him. Tanith looked up from the book she was reading at the counter. They were silent, looking at each other under the strings of white lights sparkling like stars, and Garrett felt the charge between them from across the room, felt it through all of his body. Finally she spoke. “Detective Garrett, we really must stop meeting like this.” There was amusement in her eyes, and also a challenge that excited him. The white cat rolled over and stretched luxuriously in front of her.
“I’m sorry to keep dropping by,” he started.
The look she gave him said she didn’t believe him for a second. “That’s perfectly all right,” she said languidly. “This time I did see you coming.”
He never knew whether or not to believe what she said; it all seemed like a game to her.
“I may have found another,” he said, knowing she would know what he meant. Her amusement vanished, and she closed her book.
“Where? Who?”
“I haven’t found a body. But a young woman did go missing on August first. A streetwalker.”
Tanith’s face was still, but she said nothing. He watched her as he spoke. “It looks like you were right, and at this point I don’t care how you’re doing it. You have some kind of understanding of all this and I need to use it,” he said brusquely, without adding “Please.”
She stood and moved out from behind the counter, walked across the shop and locked the door, then flipped the OPEN sign in the window to CLOSED. She turned and looked at him expectantly.
Garrett took files out of his binder and spread photos of the park with the angel out on the counter. “This is the last place she was seen.”
Tanith moved to the counter beside him and they both looked down at the photos of the forlorn little park. She studied the shots for a long moment. She was wearing a black, off-the shoulder sweater that exposed her long neck and delicate shoulder blades, and Garrett could smell the fragrance she wore, apple musk again, heady and enticing. He had to stop himself from reaching out to touch the curve of her neck. Then he felt an uneasy prickle as she touched her index finger to the photo of the bench that had been Amber’s favorite, the bench in front of the angel on the fountain. Tanith looked up at him, her eyes dark.
“What about this park bothers you?”
Garrett hesitated. Am I really going to trust her?
Then he drew another photo from the file and put it down in front of her: the photo of the footprints burned into the wildflowers, the shriveled weeds around them. He watched her face as she stared down. “The blasted flowers . . .” she murmured, and sat abruptly on the high stool.
“Have you ever seen anything like that before?” His voice was sharp.
She continued to stare down at the photo. “No. No, I haven’t.” Her eyes flicked up at him. “But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Choronzon.”
“I’m thinking someone else knows the story you told me and is playing games,” Garrett said flatly.
She studied him with an oblique expression. “Did you find these—the footprints—at the other crime scene as well? Where Erin was found?”
Garrett paused, struggling with himself. It was more information than he was comfortable giving her. But she was his only slim lead to something—unfathomable. He gave a brief nod of assent, in answer to her question.
Tanith leaned back on her stool. “What exactly do you want from me, Detective? It’s clear you don’t believe.”
“If there’s another victim out there, if this girl was killed, too, then I need to find her. The body.” He thought of Amber’s booking photo, which he’d pulled up from the system: a stark shot of a waif with a mop of dark hair and burned cigarette eyes. She looked like a junkie, and a child. He didn’t want to think about what her short life—and the last few minutes of it—had been like. He stabbed at the photo of the burned footprints with a finger. “This is the only lead I have. If there’s something you can do with it, I’m all ears.” He knew his voice sounded harsh and strained but it was the best he could manage.
“Did you collect any of the flowers?” Tanith asked, surprising him.
“Yes,” he answered warily. In fact, he had brought samples of them with him; he had been toying with the idea of showing them to her.
“And a photo would be good, if you have it. I can do a reading, if you’d like.”
A reading? Some witch mumbo jumbo? he thought, feeling like Landauer. “What does that entail?” he asked aloud, uncomfortably.
She half smiled. “All you’d have to do is watch and listen. But if you have something from the scene—both scenes would be best—I can try to see. It’s called psychometry, and the principle is that objects retain emotional imprints of the people who touch them.” Her face was shadowed in the starry lights. “If you think the killer has something to do with these footprints, if he touched the flowers, they might retain some essence of him. And then . . .” She hesitated. “I might be able to see more from there.”
Garrett stared at her, flabbergasted. He had no idea how to answer her.
“No charge,” she added, with a straight face.
What have you got to lose? he asked himself. And some internal voice taunted him, And don’t you want to know?
“I’d appreciate it,” he told her, with no idea what he was about to get into.
“This way, then,” she said, and started toward the curtain in the back, dark as night, with its weave of silver stars.
Garrett followed as Tanith walked into the inner velvet-draped room with the round table and two chairs. She moved to a cabinet standing against the wall and removed a glass pitcher, a goblet, a plate, and a bakery tin, which she took to the table.
What is this now, a snack? Garrett wondered. While he watched in bemusement she filled the pitcher with water from the sink and set it on the table, then opened the tin and placed several small cakes on the plate. She did not offer him any of what she had laid out, nor did she eat or drink herself. Instead she took a key from the cabinet, crossed the room to the door in the back, and unlocked it.
She took a lit candle from one of the shelves on the wall beside the door and stepped aside to let Garrett in to another dark room. It took him a moment to adjust to the darkness but he could feel immediately it was a much bigger room, longer. Tanith took the candle she held and began lighting candles in the tall wrought-iron candelabra that stood in each corner of the room. Garrett looked around him in the golden wash of candlelight. There were no visible windows. Heavy purple cloth draped the walls, creating a womblike cocoon. On the bare black-painted floor was inscribed a white circle of about nine feet in diameter, and there was a five-pointed star inside of that, large enough that all five of its points touched the circle: a pentagram. Garrett felt an uneasy jolt, seeing such a huge version of the familiar yet alien design. In the precise center of the pentagram stood an altar draped in dark silk, on which stood a wineglass, a small bowl, a metal box, and a gleaming dagger with crystals set in the hilt, all laid out like surgical instruments.
Jesus Christ, Garrett thought. What am I doing here?
Tanith turned away from the last candle. She was dark against the light, black spill of hair, black sweater, and that milk-pale skin.
He forced his eyes away from her and moved to lean against the wall, carefully avoiding the circle and the star. Tanith glanced at him over a bare shoulder, and lifted a tall stool from beside the cabinet. She set the stool just inside the circle. “I’ll need you to be inside the circle with me,” she told him.
Garrett blinked. “Why?”
“It’s for your protection.”
He almost laughed, but restrained himself just in time. “Protection from what?”
“The working of magic draws forces of all kinds. The more powerful the ritual, the more powerful the forces, good and bad. I’ll begin the ritual by casting a circle of protection. The circle keeps anything—unwanted—out.”
“Don’t worry about me—” he started.
Her eyes flashed. “You’ll need to stay within the circle, Detective, or we’re done.”
Garrett felt his back stiffening. Then I’m out of here, he was on the verge of saying . . . but forced himself to suppress the words. Holding her eyes, he stepped into the circle. She startled him by stepping up close to him, holding out her hand. He stood in consternation until she prompted, “The flowers?”
Garrett reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out the glassine bags containing samples of the flowers he’d taken from the crime scenes: one from the landfill, one from the park. He put them in her hand, and felt a ripple of desire as their fingers brushed. She turned to the altar and shook the burnt fragments out into a silver dish.
“And the photo?” she asked. He reached into another pocket and withdrew the photo of Amber. Tanith took it from him and looked down for a long moment, then she made a sound in the back of her throat and turned sharply to the altar. She placed the photo gently on the silk.
Garrett sat on the stool she had set out for him and watched, fascinated in spite of himself.
She left the circle and crossed to a cabinet against the wall that looked antique, from which she removed five new candles: yellow, red, blue, green, purple. She stepped again to the circle and bent to place a yellow candle on the gleaming white line, then moved a few steps and placed the red candle precisely a quarter of the circle away, then the blue one across from the yellow one, and the green one on the fourth quadrant. The purple candle she placed on the altar in the center of the circle.
She was completely unself-conscious as she worked, as if she were alone in the room, as if she had performed these gestures hundreds of times before. As he watched her, Garrett felt a powerful drowsiness come over him, an involuntary relaxation of his own muscles. In some part of his mind he was reminded of the masses of his childhood: the candles, the altar, the incense, the rituals . . . only then, of course, there had never been a woman at the altar. It occurred to him that perhaps that was part of the point.
She returned to the cabinet again and took out a crystal wineglass and a small bowl. She filled the glass with water from a pitcher inside the cabinet and took a pinch of something white from a glass jar and put it in the bowl. She carried those items to the altar and set them there, then opened the silver cylinder and removed a long fireplace match. She struck the match and used its flame to light the contents of the square metal box: incense, Garrett could smell the pungent fragrance instantly.
She stood silent and still in front of the altar, then suddenly she lifted the wineglass of water in both hands toward the ceiling, a theatrical and surprisingly powerful gesture. She spoke aloud in a clear, resonant voice: “Water, I empty and prepare you to receive the purification of salt.”
She set the wineglass on the altar and picked up the small bowl, lifting it in both hands: “Salt, I bless you in your task of purification. May you cast out all that is unwanted so that the light may prevail.”
She poured the white crystals into the glass, then moved around the room, sprinkling the salt water with her fingertips, three times around the circle, and Garrett felt as if a rope were tightening around his heart.
When she had completed three rounds she returned to the center of the circle and stood before the altar with her hands down by her sides. She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and just stood, breathing slow, deep breaths. Then at once she opened her eyes, lifted her head, and snatched up the dagger, causing Garrett’s whole body to tense. She extended her right arm with the dagger held out, a straight line. Her eyes were unearthly dark and her voice blasted through him. “I conjure thee, O great circle of power! Be for me a boundary between the world of humans and the realm of the mighty spirits, a meeting place to contain the power I will raise herein.” Slowly she turned in place, her arm extended, the dagger sweeping the room in a circle, its jewels gleaming in the candlelight, until she had made an entire revolution. And then she turned again, sweeping the dagger up and over her head, down to her feet.
Garrett was paralyzed with fascination and unease, watching her. This is medieval, it’s completely insane.
“As above, so below. This circle is sealed. So mote it be!” she intoned, and stamped her foot once on the ground. Then she dropped her hands and stepped again to the altar.
She removed another long fireplace matchstick from the silver cylinder, struck the match, and took the flame with her as she moved around the circle again, lighting each candle in the same order that she had placed them. She stepped to the yellow candle, facing out, and called out in a clear, strong voice: “Watchtower of the East, Element of Air, I call thee to witness and guard this circle.” She bent and lit the candle. Garrett started as the flame sprung up and wavered as if in a sudden draft. He saw Tanith’s dark, heavy hair ripple in the air current and he felt a breeze against his face.
Did that just happen? What the hell?
Tanith turned and moved across the circle to the red candle, where she repeated, “Watchtower of the South, Element of Fire, I call thee to witness and guard this circle.” She bent, with dark curls spilling about her face, and lit the candle. This time it flared up, tall and strong.
At the blue candle she recited, “Watchtower of the West, Element of Water, I call thee to witness and guard this circle.” She bent and lit the candle. Garrett felt he was hallucinating by now: the flame of this candle was a pure blue light, and there was a sudden coolness in the air.
She moved to the green candle, facing out, and called, “Watchtower of the North, Element of Earth, I call thee to witness and guard this circle.” She bent and lit the candle, and in Garrett’s mind, this one burned green, and he smelled loam and forest.
Then she stepped to the altar to light the purple candle and stood with her dark hair tumbled down her slim back as she chanted, low, in a voice like prayer, “Mistress Hecate, Queen of the Night, Goddess of the Dead, Watcher at the Crossroads, guide my sight; grant me perfect vision this night. I humbly ask you now to show what this petitioner seeks to know.”
She took up the silver dish and poured the burned flowers into her hand, then stood still, with her eyes closed, cupping her hands around the flowers. The candles flickered at the points of the circle as Tanith stood, breathing, slowly and deeply. Garrett couldn’t keep his eyes off her face, as pale and beautiful as carved ivory in the light. Her breathing subtly increased, became deeper: labored, shuddering breaths.
The flowers fluttered from her hand and she jerked her head up. Her eyes were completely dilated as she stared into space . . . her breath was a shallow panting. She whipped around to face Garrett, and stared at him, but her eyes were unfocused as a blind woman’s and Garrett had the eerie feeling she did not see him at all.
When she spoke it was in a harsh rasping, totally unlike her own silky voice, a grating that pained the ears to hear.
“The girl you seek is done and she’s not the only one. Three more shall he take, ere his craving he will slake.”
Garrett found he was on his feet, standing, stupefied. The voice he was hearing did not sound human. It was ancient and sibilant and utterly chilling. She rasped on.
“Samhain is the eve, when those who love the lost will grieve. Three to die to do the deed. Three captured. Three bound.” And then a hoarse, guttural shout: “RELEASE THEM!”
Her face was contorted into something inhuman. She lurched forward arthritically, her hands twisted into claws. “Release them,” she croaked again.
Garrett felt waves of adrenaline pulsing through him. He could smell earth on her breath. Through his shock, the overwhelming sense of otherness, Garrett forced out, “How? Tell me how.”
She raised a clawlike hand toward him and stared blackly into his eyes and Garrett felt his mind shudder; his thoughts were swirling in his head as if in a powerful wind. Then he was slammed with a sudden, surreally clear vision of the park. He could see himself there, standing beside the marble bench and staring toward the skeleton of the high-rise. A hulking black figure stood in the shadows of dusk: a huge shape, standing behind him, watching him.
Garrett gasped aloud. Suddenly the crone’s eyes opened wider.
“Yes. Yes. There is a watcher,” she said in that rasping voice, blank eyes unseeing. “Speed you and find him. Find the watcher in the park.”
Garrett’s hair stood up on the back of his neck and he remembered with nauseating clarity the sensation of being watched. He felt that gaze again, like touch on his neck, so strongly that he turned to look. He saw nothing but blackness beyond the shimmering circle of candlelight, but every nerve in his body was alive with the sense of danger, and his hand moved automatically for his weapon.
Behind him Tanith gasped. Garrett spun again . . . to see her shuddering through her entire body. Her knees buckled . . . Garrett leaped forward to catch her, but she stiffened, caught herself on the edge of the altar, and held up a warning hand.
“No.” It was her own voice again, and the contortion was gone from her face. Garrett stopped, holding back.
She straightened and held out her arms. Her voice was hoarse, but her own, as she called out:
“Elements of East, South, West, and North,
Return you now as I called you forth.
Open again this sacred space
Send all energies back to place.”
She moved her arms in a sweeping motion, as if catching and gathering something into her fists, then opened her hands and pushed outward. The candles wavered wildly with the force of the motion. Garrett felt a rush through his body, like electricity.
Tanith’s hands dropped limply to her sides and she stood straight and tall in the center of the circle . . . then her legs buckled and she crumpled to the floor.