Book of Shadows

CHAPTER Forty-two

The address was an elegant old Cambridge house, a two-story stone Tudor in one of those unattainable dream neighborhoods with lush backyard gardens, waterfalls and arbors, and trellises and terraces.
The tall woman who answered the carved oak door was as aristocratic as her house; at what must have been past seventy she was still as slim, upright, and graceful as a dancer, her years only slightly softening classic aquiline features. She wore a loose silk caftan in shimmering apricots, creams, and golds, and looked Garrett over with penetrating sky-blue eyes.
Garrett silently handed her the card.
“You’re prompt.” She smiled at him without introducing herself. “I like that.” She stepped aside so that he could enter the hall. Garrett’s eyes swept the rooms that he could see from the entry; they were large and light, and crammed with antiques, real oil paintings, silk rugs on hardwood floors gleaming with age.
“If you’ll follow me,” she said, and glided down the hall past equally elegant rooms toward a high arch of double glass doors. She opened a door for him and Garrett stepped into an atrium with octagonal walls of glass enclosing a jungle of exotic plants, from orchids to tropical trees and all manner of flowers with riotous colors and voluptuous blossoms. The atrium overlooked the garden, and autumn sunlight poured through the walls of glass. As Garrett followed the older woman through the greenery, they passed a waterfall whispering into a series of connecting pools; Garrett caught glimpses of fat pale fish through the green water, in the same colors his hostess was wearing. He half expected to hear the calls of tropical birds.
Sure enough, as they slipped through an arrangement of plants that opened up into a seating area of wicker furniture, he was confronted with a cream-colored cockatoo perched on a stand.
The woman indicated a wicker sofa with a wave of her hand and seated herself on one of twin wicker chairs with high arched backs. On the low table in front of her was a silver tray with a tea service and a plate of cakes. “Would you like tea, or something stronger?”
Garrett remained standing. “I’m sorry, I like to know who I’m eating with.”
She smiled at him. “Oh, come now, Detective Garrett—surely we can dispense with the obvious.”
“Selena Fox?” he asked sharply.
“That will do.”
Garrett wasn’t in the mood for word games. “Where is she?” he demanded.
“In time,” Fox said serenely as she poured amber liquid into eggshell-thin cups. She lifted the cup and saucer toward him.
Garrett stared at her. “Lately I’m not so hot on drinking anything a witch hands me.”
Fox lifted her shoulders, a smooth, lithe gesture. “I can understand your reluctance. Still, don’t you find the end sometimes justifies the means?”
Garrett’s mind wanted to rebel against the elliptical conversation, but he honed in immediately on what she was implying: the drugged trip Tanith had induced in him had led to the discovery of McKenna’s house.
His face hardened. “My partner is in Mass General, lying in a coma. I don’t think that end justifies anything.”
The older woman’s eyes contracted in sympathy. “I’m very sorry about that, Detective. I think you’re misattributing the cause, however.” The sound of water from the fountain echoed, a whisper against the glass around them.
Garrett finally sat, though he didn’t reach for the tea. “What do you want from me? Why did you call me here?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I understood it was you who were looking for me.”
His eyes narrowed. You’re not going to trip me out with these witch games. That shopkeeper called you and said I’d been by asking for you, that’s all there is to it. Then his mind flashed on the strange red-haired boy. “Who”—he’d almost said what—“was that you sent for me?” he asked abruptly. “The kid?”
She looked amused, as if she’d heard his mental correction. “Someone who does errands for me occasionally. Very reliable. Single-minded, one might say.”
Garrett had the distinct sense that he was being toyed with. He spoke roughly. “I’m looking for Tanith Cabarrus. Are you going to help me or not?”
“She is easily available to you. It’s a matter of intention and attention.”
F*ck this New Age witch shit, Garrett thought grimly. He stood. “You can tell her that disappearing was a bullshit thing to do. There’s a warrant out on her, now. Even if she wasn’t involved with Jason Moncrief, she’s looking at serious jail time. The whole department thinks she’s complicit in the attack on my partner.”
“And what do you think, Detective Garrett?” Fox looked at him with ageless, clear blue eyes.
The question stopped him and he found he could not answer smartly or facetiously. “I know she hasn’t told the truth. I know she knows more than she’s telling.”
Fox lifted her hands. “Oh, certainly. But can you really blame her for that?”
“I know she’s been arrested for fraud,” Garrett ground out. “I know she’s been institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia.”
“For seeing demons,” Fox said pointedly.
“Yeah. For seeing demons,” Garrett said.
“Perhaps you should ask her about that,” Fox suggested. Garrett stared at her. Her gaze on him was steady, probing. “Do you know what I see, Detective? I see two people who are not at odds. Who perhaps have two different sides to a vital puzzle. A puzzle in which lives are at stake, and in which the clock is running out.”
Garrett was not merely struck by her words, he was close to mesmerized.
She looked at him, and the sunlight behind her illuminated her pale hair. “So many lives at stake,” she repeated softly. “And perhaps more than just lives.”
Without realizing he was doing it he nodded, which she took as a sign to continue.
“Every life in the balance here—and each soul as well—deserves a little faith. And I believe that you are not a man who must follow the book to the exclusion of truth, or justice. I believe you are willing.”
“Willing to what?” he said, and his voice sounded strangled.
“Willing to make a leap of faith. Willing to do things by a different book.” Her blue eyes held his. “Three children killed,” she recited, in muted tones. “Another imprisoned. A good man at the brink of death. And three more children to die, if someone does not intervene.”
Garrett’s stomach roiled, but he couldn’t look away from her eyes.
“Your own department has banned you from the hunt, when even given what you are reluctant to believe, you know you are light-years closer to the truth than they are. This masculine jockeying will most certainly cost more lives if someone does not say, ‘Enough.’ ” She opened her hands. “Are you willing to work outside your comfort zone?”
Through his confusion and gnawing anxiety, Garrett managed to speak. “What do you think I’ve been doing?” he retorted.
Her eyes twinkled at him. “You’re quite right.”
“I want the killer.” Garrett’s voice was suddenly harsh. “I don’t care who it is. I don’t care what gets me there. I want this to stop. I want this guy put away for eternity. That’s all I want. You’re supposed to know things. You decide.”
She was very stiff and still, her eyes boring into his. And then she suddenly went limp, some hidden tension relaxing. “So mote it be,” she said, and the words were formal, with a regal import.
She took a deep, shaky breath . . . for a moment Garrett feared he would have to perform CPR. Then she glanced toward the other high-backed wicker chair across from her.
Garrett followed her gaze, and then shot to his feet, staring.
Tanith sat in the other chair, as if she had been there all along. He had not heard, nor felt her come. She sat very still, leaning on her forearms on the arms of the chair, barely breathing.
“Jesus Christ,” Garrett muttered, and wondered crazily if she had been there, invisible, all along, until she—or Selena—had chosen to make her seen. “How the f*ck did you do that?” he demanded, completely forgetting all manners.
“A trick.” Selena shrugged. “But we will need more than tricks to achieve our purpose.”
Tanith spoke, avoiding looking directly at Garrett. “I heard about Detective Landauer.”
“You heard about him?” he responded bitterly.
Her eyes flashed. “You think I would ever do that?”
“How would I know what you would do?” he demanded. “You drugged me—why wouldn’t you drug him?”
“I didn’t hurt you,” she retorted, but there was less fire in her voice, and Selena glanced at her.
“It was wrong,” the older woman said, and Tanith looked away.
There was an icy silence, which Selena broke, her voice sharp. “There’s no time for recriminations. There is one center of this investigation, and it’s time to do what needs to be done.”
Garrett looked toward her, confused. Tanith spoke warily. “Jason Moncrief.”
“Of course,” Selena said, with an impatient wave. “Have you ever even spoken to him?” she asked Garrett pointedly.
Garrett sat for a moment, stupefied at the simplicity of the suggestion, then he remembered. “Once. His attorney took out a TRO: a technical restraining order. No law enforcement officer is allowed in to talk to him.”
“That won’t do,” the older woman said. “It should not have prevented you when you knew he was not guilty.”
“I don’t know that,” Garrett countered angrily. He was about to continue arguing but she cut through him.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You have the key, Detective Garrett.” She suddenly reached forward and grabbed his wrist, a bony grip so strong Garrett drew in a startled breath. Her eyes were black, all pupil as she stared unseeing into his eyes.
“The book,” she gasped, and she kept speaking, but Garrett didn’t hear words. Images were blasting into his head: the hand-bound book of maroon leather, the rough paper, the twiglike lettering, the disturbing black-lined drawings.
He jerked his hand away from the older woman’s grip and was shocked to find he was standing, but so shaky he was barely able to keep his balance.
Selena was also standing, rigidly, drawing deep, shuddering breaths. “Where is it?” she whispered.
Garrett stared at her, for the second time wondering if she was on the verge of a stroke. Tanith rose from her chair, and her dark eyes locked on Garrett’s. “You know what she means. The grimoire.”
Selena felt for the back of a chair and Tanith was there at her side, instantly, helping her to sit. After a moment, Selena lifted her head, looked up at Garrett. “There is a book, then. A grimoire. If you still think Jason Moncrief is guilty, perhaps you have only to read it to find all you need to set your mind at rest.” Her eyes drilled into his. “Do you have it?”
Garrett was about to say it was in evidence and he was off the case, and then he remembered. Not only did he still have his copy, he had his copy in the trunk of his car.
“I think we might have a look at it, then,” Selena said, and Garrett was not even surprised that she’d read his mind.
______
The two women set the copied book on a long oak table in what Garrett supposed was a dining hall. The chairs were medieval-looking, with lions’ paws for armrests and feet, and tapestries and marble friezes were hung on the walls. The women stood over the table with the stack of pages in front of them and studied them, and Garrett could only think of priestesses, of sibyls, of goddesses. They reached for pages in tandem and communicated only with looks and once in a while by pointing to passages.
Garrett paced the polished plank floor impatiently until Selena looked up at him and said, “Detective, perhaps you would be more comfortable in a chair.”
Garrett sat, and watched them, seven million conflicting thoughts in his brain. It’s easy enough to stage, he argued with himself. Cabarrus knew about the grimoire, and why wouldn’t she have told Fox about it? There’s no mind reading going on, it’s simple con artist tricks.
And then he remembered the steel strength of the woman’s hand on his arm and the sizzle of electric shock when she—yes—read him.
At one point Tanith covered her face with her hands and the elder woman put her hand on her neck, comforting her. Garrett wanted to speak but felt rooted to his chair, felt like an intruder watching something intensely private.
After a long time they closed the book and sat down in the chairs with the lion-paw hand rests. Selena looked drained, her skin fragile as paper.
“Well?” Garrett demanded, looking at Tanith.
“He was doing rituals to summon the demon Choronzon.”
Garrett tensed. “So it was Moncrief. He killed them.”
Tanith said, “No,” immediately, and Selena said simultaneously, “I don’t think so.”
Garrett looked from one to the other, focused on Tanith. “You said that was what the killer is doing.”
Her voice was tightly controlled. “What Jason was doing was on a very elementary level. It is dangerous, and dangerously stupid, but there is no indication he was considering anything involving sacrifice.”
Garrett bristled. “I saw the spell for the ‘Hand of Glory.’ And Erin’s left hand was missing.”
Selena frowned, looked to Tanith. Tanith shook her head impatiently. “The Hand of Glory is a spell that shows up commonly online. These kids who get involved in ritual magic for thrills . . . they collect spells like that.”
“Oh, really, now?” Garrett lashed out. “That’s convenient. Do you have some proof? Because a spell using a corpse’s left hand and a dead girl missing her left hand is a pretty great match to me.”
Selena clucked her tongue. “But if this young man kept such an incriminating spell in his grimoire, so openly, why would he not have kept spells of the actual sacrifice, of rituals using sacrifice?” she asked reasonably. She waved a hand over the book. “There’s nothing like that here. Nothing indicating any intention to perform human sacrifice.”
Garrett remembered that he had gone all through the book, that one long night, and studied all the sketches, and it was true that there was nothing drawn that resembled human sacrifice, and no spell titles that contained the word “sacrifice.” The Hand of Glory had been the most ominous of the drawings by far.
Selena nodded, as if he had agreed with her. “You see, a grimoire, like a Book of Shadows, is as illuminating as a diary, really. The magician makes very detailed notes of his or her preparation for a major ritual—the cleansing, the fasting, the gathering of instruments, the position of the moon and tide. Come, Detective, and look.” She lifted a graceful hand, beckoning him to her side, and Garrett rose, crossed to her. She pulled the book toward her and looked up at him. “We know the sacrifices were performed on Sabbats, do we not? Erin Carmody’s murder was on the night of Mabon, the fall equinox, September twenty-one. The killing of that other poor girl was on August first, Lammas, or Lughnasadh. But look.”
She opened the book and turned pages to the month of June. “The entries for June are spells of money, success, fame.” She turned pages and stopped on the sketch of the hand with the candle. “Here, you have the Hand of Glory spell. A loathsome thing. But it is only after that, in August, that Choronzon’s name and sigils begin to appear. A dangerous path, make no mistake.” She turned more pages. “But then in September . . . ah, this is telling, I think. The spells are for attraction. Love.” She turned more pages, to where the book went blank. “And after September nine . . . nothing.”
She looked up from the book, into Garrett’s face. “There is no indication here that he was preparing for major rituals. Moreover, there is no mention of Choronzon in September at all.”
Garrett stared at her, trying to process what she was telling him.
“This boy has not been circumspect in his magical practice. He wrote down what he was doing. According to these entries, the obsession with Choronzon was waning, not increasing.”
And maybe he just knew enough not to write about it, Garrett thought, and Selena smiled. “You think he was dissembling. Perhaps. But my experience is that a nineteen-year-old boy is not a paragon of control, including in matters of deception.” Her eyes twinkled at him, and Garrett was uncomfortably reminded of his biggest doubt he’d had about the case from the beginning: that a nineteen-year-old could be capable of the kind of precision and control that he felt in this killer.
“Ah, you do understand,” Selena said.
“So what else do you see in this—diary?” Garrett said roughly, resisting the pull to trust her.
Her twinkle disappeared. “A very troubled boy indeed.”
“Stupid,” Tanith muttered. “Stupid. Reckless. Arrogant.”
Selena sighed. “Yes. All of that. And more.” She glanced obliquely at Tanith. “Children—people—who feel powerless will seek power wherever they can find it. Even a power that tricks and traps and enslaves. And this particular darkness is very aware of the weakness of vulnerable people.”
“I don’t think I understand,” Garrett said, even though on some level, he did.
“This is how he got caught up in all this. This is why he’s in such peril,” Tanith said impatiently. “You open a door like that with thoughtless experimenting and anything can come through. He invited the demon in, and it used him for its own purposes.”
The words shot a chill through Garrett. He suddenly remembered his encounter with Jason: that stretched-tight face and guttural voice, the layers of babbling voices on the tape of the interview . . . “You’re saying Moncrief is possessed?” He stared from one woman to the other.
“Not possessed . . . but infected, perhaps.” Selena’s eyes were clouded. “Evil is a contagion.”
“It used him,” Tanith said. “Found Erin through him. Even framed him.”
“The demon framed him,” Garrett repeated incredulously.
“Through its human instrument,” Tanith answered. “So he would not be interrupted before the time came. Jason is being used as a pawn. A distraction.”
Garrett felt prickles of doubt, like sandpaper scraping on his skin. All this time we’ve had Jason Moncrief locked up, McKenna’s been out there, completely under the radar . . .
He walked in a circle on the Persian rug, and laughed. “If you believe Moncrief is infected with a demon, what would make you think he didn’t kill these girls? Or at least was part of it with”—he almost said McKenna—“someone else’s help?”
“The same thing that makes you think it,” Selena said calmly. “The truth that you see. The fact that he didn’t.”
Garrett stopped his frenzied circling and looked at her.
Behind him, Tanith exploded, with raw nerves. “Talk to him. The point is, talk to Jason. He’s communed with the demon. That’s your most direct link.”
“Exactly,” Selena affirmed. “That’s your most direct link. Go.” She looked from Garrett to Tanith. “Both of you. Go now.”
Garrett stared at the older woman. “Take her into Suffolk County? There’s a warrant out for her arrest.”
“Then if you’re caught, you were simply bringing her in, weren’t you?” Serena said placidly.
“Why don’t I just arrest her now and save a step?”
Serena quirked an eyebrow at him. “Are suspended officers allowed to make arrests?” she inquired, the picture of innocence.
“I know for damn sure we’re not allowed to sneak them in to see inmates in correctional facilities,” he shot back.
“She can go in as a member of Jason’s legal team,” Selena said.
Garrett turned to look at her in disbelief. “No one would buy that.”
Selena shrugged again, that irresistible lift of her shoulders. “Try it.”
Garrett shook his head. “This is crazy—”
“Tanith is your best chance of getting in to see Jason Moncrief,” Selena said.
Garrett looked to Tanith now, who sat watchful as a cat in the window seat. “You mean he’ll confirm this attorney story because you know him already.”
Selena sat wearily back against the medieval chair. “Detective Garrett, you do not seem the sort to resist a golden opportunity. Why are you resisting this one?”
He stared across the long oak table toward Tanith, who said nothing. “Because I don’t like gift horses. Because I don’t trust her.”
Tanith’s face blazed with fury, but Selena spoke calmly. “But you are not a stupid man.” She found Garrett’s eyes and held them with her clear blue ones. “You know what is at stake, and you will take this chance, because it must be done. And we have no more time to debate.”
Tanith was like a statue in his passenger seat as Garrett drove the circular driveway out toward the street.
The calls had been made and astoundingly Jason had given consent to the visit. But just as the Explorer reached the front gates, Garrett saw something that changed everything.
A large dark man in overalls and a straw gardening hat stood beside the garden wall, with shears, trimming the roses that rambled over the stonework.
Garrett’s eyes widened in recognition.
It was the Dragon Man.