The room was cast in the eerie bloodred that was darkened by the shadows of the coming night.
It had once been beautiful, with Italian marble floors, elegant throw rugs and crimson Duncan Fife furnishings. Over the years, it had become cluttered, and not with the usual accumulation of silly souvenirs, magazines or papers. There were boxes everywhere. A suit of armor—real—stood in a corner, near a Victorian coffin with a window at the head and a painting beneath the window to display how the dead might have been shown. A mummy case lay to one side of the fireplace, and an authentic voodoo altar lay to the right. A glass dome covered a shrunken head he knew to be from New Guinea, and a stuffed raven took precedence on the mantel. Everywhere you looked, there was an artifact from somewhere, some in pristine condition, others worn and falling apart. Animal heads adorned the walls along with African masks and feathered spears.
There was so much in the room to attract the eye in the strange mixture of shadow and light that Liam didn’t even see the dead man at first.
And then he did.
Like one of his relics, Cutter Merlin was covered in a thin patina of dust. A spider had spun her web from the edge of Cutter’s reading glasses to the armrest of the rocking chair on which he sat.
Liam felt his heart sink. He’d known, of course. He found himself suddenly wishing that he—or someone—had kept up with the old recluse. Cutter Merlin had always been kind to children. He’d been filled with wonderful tales about distant lands: Asia, Far East, Middle East, the jungles of South America and the sands of the Sahara desert. But his daughter had died, his son-in-law and granddaughter had moved away and he had closed himself in with his treasures. Then there had been the strange rumors about the old hermit and his collections. He practiced black magic. He made deals with the devil.
He sat now, just sat, a book in his hands, dust motes dancing in the crimson air around him. Old and frail, his hair long and white, his cheeks covered in a stubble of white beard, he looked as if he might speak. But, of course, he would never speak again.
“Ah, Mr. Merlin!” Liam said softly, walking toward the old man. He noted then that the corpse’s mouth was slightly open, while its eyes were wide-open as well behind steel-framed reading glasses. It was as if Cutter Merlin had died staring toward the foyer and the grand front entry, terrified of whatever he saw there. The expression on his face was so filled with horror that Liam found himself turning to look.
But there was nothing there. He turned and came down on one knee by the corpse. He realized that he would be saturated with the smell of death when he left, but it didn’t matter; he had known the man. He was a sad old fellow who had given a great deal, and he had died alone, in fear.
He sighed softly, shaking his head sadly. He took out his cell and called in the death; the medical examiner would arrive soon.
There wasn’t a terrible rush; Cutter Merlin was dead. The spider that had spun the web about him emerged from the old man’s mouth, causing Liam to start and shudder—and be glad that no one had been there to see his horrified reaction.
Liam frowned, noting the book on the old man’s lap. It was large, with gold trim on the pages, and Liam judged it to be a hundred or more years old. He carefully lifted the cover, but the bloodred twilight was turning to darker and darker shadow, so he took his flashlight from his pocket, carefully lifting the book with the tip of the light.
In Defense from Dark Magick.
There was something in the old man’s hand, as well. Liam knew not to touch him until the M.E. came, but he was curious, and it hardly appeared that this could be a case of murder. An old man had scared himself, and died from a heart attack.
His gloves were in the car, so he used the tip of the small laser light to shift the hand and see what was clutched in the fingers. The old man had long since gone in and out of rigor, so he wasn’t stiff, and Liam was easily able to see what he clutched.
It was a casket, a little gold casket, like a jewelry box with its lid open for a special piece. Liam hadn’t been an altar boy, but he had been brought to church every Sunday when he’d been growing up. It seemed to him that the box was some kind of reliquary. It appeared to contain a small gold ball, filigreed, with the ball designed to fit into the casket, and the casket designed just to fit the ball.