A cold wind tickled his skin.
The candles flared to life.
Valdes looked down. The book was lying at his feet. He extended a tentative hand to turn the first page.
Revenge is a universal urge, an integral element of the world, a kind of justice, even. Forgiveness is learned behavior separating us from the natural order. Why should we accept deviation from the intended state of things? Who are others to deny us what is ours? If they do, they must be taught the error of their ways. Methods may vary, but revenge must be exacted. Scales must be balanced, equilibrium restored. Taking pleasure in this is not unnatural, it’s humanity acting with nature. We know it’s right because it feels so. Those who seek to deny us our desire are the antithesis of who and what we are, what we strive to be. They must be overcome, in a way that their removal is useful in the grander scheme.
In our ascent to greatness, are there better stepping stones than the bodies of our enemies?
It was fascinating, powerful material whose astonishing applicability to his own life sparked hesitation within him.
Is this some kind of joke?
Unable to stop, he read on:
Ancient Egyptians believed thirteen to be the number of rungs on the ladder of knowledge bridging our world and the next, with the thirteenth giving access to heaven. They were right, in a manner of speaking: thirteen is the path to the highest knowledge of power. The association of bad luck is a Christian contribution; at the Last Supper, there were twelve at the table until joined by Judas Iscariot. Far from bad luck, this is actually a valuable point: if it can be accessed, the thirteenth changes the course of history.
“The thirteenth? What does that mean?” Valdes frowned. “Accessed how?” He turned the page. Facing him were two words made sinister by the flickering candles:
“Resurrectus Maledicat”
Eagerly, he turned the page and started to read…
***
The ritual killings uncovered in him a brutality he wouldn’t have suspected was there. Fifteen years of prison life hadn’t driven him this far along the darkest path of his soul, but one night with the book changed everything. He’d always believed building a network for charitable donations, creating a system to help this lowest caste from which he himself had risen, had fostered goodness and kindness within him. To discover such a new, radical perspective was sometimes daunting. He sought refuge in the writings of occult practitioners like LaVey and Crowley, men who had also chosen the path of desire. He buried himself in the planning of the sacrifices, each one a complex mix of timing and daring. Always the book was there, inexplicably guiding him to the right choices. March became April became May and his frozen pile of limbs and organs grew. As it did, he came to truly understand that he’d made the right choice by following the giant that night.
Mister Fizz
.
Valdes chuckled at the childish misinterpretation of the name he’d deduced. He lit another cigarette and thought about the ritual’s next step.
***
The following Thursday, Donovan was working the service end of Polaris’s bar. Thursday was always busy; in addition to the usual pre-theater reservations and tourists, Thursday is the night Manhattan people go out before the weekend bridge and tunnel mobs cross into the city from New Jersey and the outer boroughs.
The crowd was three deep. Donovan was pouring a glass of meritage with one hand and shaking a stainless steel cup full of cosmopolitans with the other as waiter tickets came clicking up from the printer. It was backbreaking work in an environment one notch above feeding time at the zoo, but he barely noticed the chaos. Shouts for single malt scotch and house specialty cocktails—even the ones made with cucumber or elderflower liqueur—were laughably mundane after his involvement with Fullam’s zodiac murders. Where once he’d plunged fully into the middle of the frenzy, now he felt a strange lethargy.
“Donovan.”
He glanced over his shoulder, startled. The sergeant stood at the bar, his manner clearing a tight but respectful space around him. He hadn’t raised his voice, but still had made himself heard over the din.
“Hey, Frank. What’s going on?”
“You free this weekend?”
“Why?”
Fullam reached into his suit coat and pulled out a paper-clipped set of papers. “Finally got a hit from NCIC on the giant’s prints.”
Donovan’s pulse jumped. “This weekend?”
“Those are from the aquarium. Check out the next page.”
Ignoring a man waving a black Amex card at him, Donovan looked at the first sheet, a set of oversized fingerprints that were rough and smeared at the edges. He flipped the top sheet over and saw a second, smaller set. “‘Montmorency County School System,’” he read from the top of the page. “School system?”
“The hit came from a place in Michigan, Blue Moon Bay. The schools in that county have something called Project ChildSafe; get fingerprints and DNA samples of all school kids in case, well, in case the worst happens. The second set is from a boy named Coletun Ruscht.”
Donovan flipped back and forth between the two, eyes narrowing. He removed the paper clip and set the pages side-by-side on the bar. The noise and crowd fell away as his eyes widened. Except for the size—Coletun’s were about three times smaller—they matched perfectly. He read the age of the child and glanced at the lieutenant.
“Coeus the angry giant is…a nine-year-old boy?”
“First flight is at six-forty-five tomorrow morning.”
Donovan shook his head. “I’m closing tonight. What else do you have?”
“One p.m.?”
Guzman, who had been working the front bar, noticed their interaction and drifted over. Donovan turned to him.
“Can you cover some shifts?”
TEN
BUSINESS TRAVEL
F
ullam picked him up at his apartment the next morning just after eleven.
“Your flight will get into Detroit about three o’clock.” He deftly steered between cars on New Jersey Turnpike, driving as though he had his siren on even though he didn’t. It was the same Crown Victoria in which they’d returned from the aquarium. Donovan hoped this time he’d have better results. “Transfer to a puddle jumper at the private airfield next door to the airport, then fly up to a local airstrip. The sheriff’ll meet you there. His name is Roy Talling.”
“He’s expecting me?”
“I called to let him know you’re coming.”
“What, exactly, am I looking for? A bunch of empty steroid bottles in Coletun’s toy box?”
“Steroids wouldn’t cause a growth spurt like that. I spoke to an endocrinologist at Johns Hopkins about our problem. Could be a tumor on his pituitary gland. There’s also a hormone called ‘IGF1’ that can cause bizarre growth and acromegaly, but they’d never heard of either case creating someone the size of Coeus. Not in less than a year.”
Donovan gazed out a side window. An edge of condensation from the air conditioning fogged one corner. He swiped it away. “Then—again—what am I looking for?”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll know it,” the sergeant said, sliding the Crown Victoria to the curb at Newark Airport’s Terminal C, “when you see it.
“Have a good flight.”
***
Her real name was Paula, but her red hair and jug ears had earned her the nickname “Pixie.” A happy sort in spite of her occasional brushes with the law, her demeanor suggested she was always on the verge of breaking into a song.
She whistled now, making her way along access tunnels somewhere near the bowels of Rockefeller Center. The damp, the stench; these might have discouraged the less hardy. Pixie welcomed them, for they signaled she was nearly home.
Close by, a B train rumbled towards the Upper West Side.
Pixie had spent the previous thirty days as an involuntary guest of a New York State Correctional facility, so the sight of the steel door was a comforting one. She sauntered a few steps closer before realizing it stood ever so slightly ajar. A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows. Aside from the feeling of peace the space provided her, the main reason she’d chosen this spot was its seclusion. Whether it was the depth beneath the streets of Manhattan, or the subway noise, or the thick stone walls, she could sing as loudly as she wanted or have a hundred yowling cats without fear of being rousted. The idea that someone had moved in to squat in her home while she was away drew a frown that she turned upside down when she realized it meant now she might have someone to play checkers with. Grinning ear to ear, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The chamber seemed larger than she remembered, with its age-blackened brick walls and rows of pillars that disappeared up into the dark. Shadow-filled cul-de-sacs lurked in asymmetrical corners while cryptically carved blocks lined a far wall. All manner of clutter choked the room: boxes, piles of moth and mildew-eaten fabric, wooden crates overflowing with implements of ceremony. Dusty booklets covered by generations of spider webs had been stacked everywhere. The only clear space was in the center, where she’d set up house. It was from here Pixie heard voices.
“—de chances of bein’ found while we works?” a Jamaican-accented man’s voice asked. “If I be hammerin’ it might get loud…”
“Not to mention our music,” a teenage girl’s voice added.
“Very slight,” a second man responded as smooth as milk sugar. “I learned of this chamber on a private tour of the church years ago, when I was still a Christian yeoman. It was a crypt briefly, but the secular needs of storage—and the city health codes—forced those in charge to change their ways. In fact, I believe access from above may have been walled off during remodeling. The door by which we entered is the only entrance, as far as I know.”
“The rule is, make sure the place is secure,” a third voice growled.
Pixie started as a smelly bear of a man grabbed her in a hug from behind, clapping a filthy hand over her mouth. She squeaked and tried to kick free but the man had a grip like a straitjacket as he carried her to the other three voices.
“Who dat?” a Jamaican man in a top hat asked, one hand going to the hammer on his belt. “What you got dere, Officer Burt?”
“A spy?” a girl in a black leatherjacket asked. Chains jingled from her zippers when she pulled out a knife. “What did she hear?”
The second man lifted a restraining hand. Although only a few inches taller than Pixie, with a not-unkind face, he was clearly the leader of this unnerving crew. “Easy, Dez. I’m sure the young lady meant no harm?” A tickle of calm soothed Pixie’s fear when he looked at her. She tried to shake her head in the unyielding grip but only managed to twitch a few red hairs. “In fact,” he continued, gesturing around, “if I’m not mistaken, this must be the previous tenant of this space?” He nodded at Officer Burt, who released her.
“Puh—previous?” Pixie fought back the urge to throw up from the taste of him. “No, I din’t move out. I was, uh, somewhere else I couldn’t leave from.” She gazed hopefully at the smooth man. “But if you want to stay here, there’s a lot of room! We could clean up, maybe find some furniture, make it like a…home or something?” His expression didn’t change. “No, hunh?” Pixie felt her spirit start to deflate, so she put on a brave face. “Well, I guess I can’t complain. I wasn’t here, I can’t say it’s mine. Finders keepers, right?” She stooped and started to gather some nearby rags. “You’ll like it here. It’s real quiet and peaceful. You know where we’re under, right?”
“St. Patrick’s cathedral, if I’m not mistaken,” the smooth man said. Dez snickered and the Jamaican man’s lip curled with a hint of sneer.
“Yeah. I guess that’s why it’s peaceful, hunh?”
Dez snickered again. “Not for much longer.”
Dread crawled on centipede legs across the hairs of Pixie’s neck. “Uh, whatever.” She grabbed a final scrap of cloth and stood, edging towards the door. “So I’ll just do my ‘losers weepers’ somewhere else, hunh? Enjoy this space. Take, uh, take good care of it.”
Officer Burt stepped in her way.
Pixie gasped as a hand touched and turned her. The smooth man was there, folding his hands preacher-style while he inspected her.
“Please don’t,” she begged.
“‘Please don’t,’” Dez mimicked in a high-pitched voice.
The smooth man’s glance silenced her. Hope peeked into Pixie’s soul. “Once upon a time that would have worked,” he murmured, stroking her cheek. “Now I’m prioritizing my own needs. The book says: ‘As the most sacred is made profane, so must its birthplace be desecrate.’”
“Wh—what does that mean?” Officer Burt seized her again in his rank embrace. Pixie yelped. “Are you going to kill me? Here?”
The smooth man paused. “Rape her first,” he said, turning away. “All of you. Then kill her. That should do the trick.”
***
In Detroit he transferred to a tiny Cessna flown by a pilot with a crazy grin and a thermos full of something other than coffee. An hour of occasionally jarring mid-air drops and listening to the pilot sing along with the oldies station—almost always on-key—did little to alleviate Donovan’s nerves.
Not steroids, not hormones
.
What does that leave? Do I want to know?
Finally they landed at an airstrip bordered by woods on one side and a river on the other. An older man, lean, weathered and traveled, waited with a Jeep. He wore a tan cowboy hat and a dark blue windbreaker with “Montmorency County Sheriff’s Department” stenciled under a crest.
“Mister Graham?” He extended his hand. “Sheriff Roy Talling. Hope your ride wasn’t too rough. We’ve had pretty harsh thunderstorms this spring.”
The pilot gave a thumbs-up. “He’s okay, Roy. I gave him the smooth route.”
The smooth route?
“I’m fine,” Donovan said. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“Not many cabs out here. Much obliged, Ralph.” Talling tipped his hat to the pilot. “Just toss your bag in the back, Mister Graham, and we’ll head over to the office.”
“The office” wasn’t in Blue Moon Bay but in the county seat, a town called Atlanta. Unlike its namesake in Georgia, this Atlanta’s population probably didn’t exceed the night shift at the Coca-Cola plant. As they drove through town, Donovan became aware of a peculiar demeanor among the people. Although only the barest breeze stirred the late afternoon cool, the townsfolk shuffled about as though in the harshest cold of winter. Evasive eyes remained lowered in faces tight against the world. He made no comment as they pulled up in front of what looked like a quaint Long Island antique shop.