Donovan shrugged. “Your crime scene.”
The area stood in stark contrast to the path on which they’d just arrived. Where foliage filled the surrounding woods, this clearing was entirely barren of life. Not a single blade of grass poked through the rocky soil and any leaves that had fallen or been carried here by the wind were shriveled, as dead and dry as scabs. The trees that formed the loose perimeter were all withered and gnarled beyond redemption, and they bore faint smears of paint.
Odd.
The low-level psychic sensitivity that had alerted him at the aquarium amplified the resonance of Wissex’s obscene deeds. Donovan cleared his mind, shutting out Talling’s presence, as his movements automatically became quicker. He inspected a slab of wood nailed to two stumps.
“Altar.”
He noted it stood away from the surrounding trees, leaving no place to hang the inverted crucifix necessary to a Black Mass.
But I do get a bad sense here…
He measured lines of sight and a shudder of nausea ran through him, alongside an electric charge of
knowing
.
“This would be where Wissex stood when he sacrificed Coletun.
If
he sacrificed Coletun. But not to Cernunnos. Then who? And why?”
He worked his way around the area’s outer edge, examining the ground and trees for signs of the cult’s purpose. Every movement made his stomach turn. All he found were the remains of a bonfire, cracked stones and blackened bits of wood spread in a random pattern from a stone hollow in the approximate center of the clearing. He returned to where Wissex had stood and made a slow, 360-degree turn. A real remnant of darkness remained, and it unnerved him. Blood steadily pounded the veins in the back of his head. His eye again went to the burnt debris. The more he looked the more he saw of it, and there were bits of other things: a shard of plastic, the edge of a book spine, three beads still attached to a chain.
Offerings?
Dropping to a crouch, he surveyed the ground and rolled a bowling ball-sized stone over. Its underside glistened the color of syrah.
That doesn’t make sense. Not a shade of purple…
Brushing away dirt, he walked over to Talling. “I’d like to see Wissex’s house.”
“Thought you might. While you were doing…whatever you were doing there,” Talling jerked his head towards the clearing, “I called a friend at the electric company. Power is on, so we’ll have light.”
“Great.” There was nothing Talling could do to help with this, and Donovan didn’t want to create any obstacles to learning more. “I’d like to speak to Wissex, too.”
The sheriff checked his watch as he led the way back to the truck. “Not today. Prison he’s serving his time in is down in Arenac County. By the time we get there it’d be too close to lights out.”
“Can we get there tomorrow morning, before I leave for New York?”
Talling scratched his head beneath the cowboy hat. “Ralph’s gonna fly you back to Detroit. As long as you can switch your flight there, I don’t see any reason why not.”
“I think Wissex will be able to give me a little more information.”
“Did you learn anything back there?”
Donovan re-examined his impressions before shaking his head. “Nothing good.”
ELEVEN
PRISON CATECHISM
“M
ister Chew-chew! Sit still and behave!”
Paolo Tullmo slowed his pace as he jogged around the northeastern curve of the Central Park Reservoir. A stout woman, dressed in a drab smock and matching dirty kerchief, blocked his path. A small white rabbit, frightened still by her cackle, cowered before her. As he drew nearer she lurched upright like a bear protecting her cub.
“You ain’t my son!”
Tullmo slowed. He was CEO of the Christian Yeoman Association, responsible for grants to many homeless shelters throughout the city and country, and he’d risen far enough up the food chain to avoid dirtying his hands with contact as direct as this.
“I have no money for you.” He sidestepped the woman’s outstretched hand. “Sorry.”
“You lie! Attack, Mister Chew-chew! Get him!”
Startled, Tullmo stumbled. A rock on the edge of the reservoir trail got underfoot and he tripped onto his back. The old woman scuttled forward like a crab. Tullmo scrambled to his feet, adrenaline pushing him to sprint away. After a dozen steps he risked looking behind him and saw she wasn’t pursuing. He slowed to a stop, putting his hands on his hips and breathing hard.
Crazy rabbit lady.
Fifty or so yards from the opposite direction, another runner approached.
“Watch yourself,” he called, angling his head and tossing a hand. “There’s an aggressive panhandler back there. She—”
The other jogger lowered his head and charged full speed into Tullmo. The force of their collision carried them both back off the track. Tullmo yelped and tried to disentangle himself but The Jogger clutched him like a vine. They rolled back into the cover of bushes, where the crazy rabbit lady waited with a rock. Tullmo shouted once before she brought it down on his head—
***
Valdes stood over Tullmo’s unconscious body. Blood seeped from the gash Bridget’s rock had caused.
“He—he ain’t dead, is he?” she asked anxiously. “Ya didn’t want him dead, but he almost stepped on Mister Chew-chew and I got mad.”
Valdes touched Tullmo’s neck. The pulse was strong and steady. “No, my dear, he’s fine. You did a perfect job.” Her potato face radiated. “Now help put Mister Tullmo with the others, would you please?”
***
Donovan spent a restless night in his motel room. He spoke to Joann on the phone for almost two hours and still missed her after hanging up. He paced the room, gazing out at the parking lot as it filled with pick-up trucks and people coming for Saturday night karaoke in the motel bar. He considered his facts.
Whatever Wissex did last August, it turned a little boy into some kind of giant, pissed off monster. The god he worshipped didn’t demand human sacrifice, but twelve people wound up dead. The ritual area looked nothing like a circle designed to worship a fertility deity. Purple is not a color of the harvest.
From Talling’s report he got a list of the plants and chemicals used at the site, but it only tangled the issue more. He’d spent a few hours on his laptop researching the plants and found them appropriate for certain types of ritual, but nothing overtly evil. The books that Talling had catalogued from the Wissex estate after the murders were store-bought Wicca; again, nothing overtly evil.
And yet…
The next morning, gray clouds heralded thunderstorms. Donovan ducked into the sheriff’s Jeep before the first drops spattered the windshield.
“Coffee?” Talling greeted him. He gestured at the holder on the dashboard. “Got some doughnuts in the bag, too.” Donovan nodded and accepted one. “You sleep well?”
“On and off.”
“Learn anything useful when you weren’t?”
Donovan sipped from his coffee and watched the wipers go. “I’m not sure yet. A lot of what I’m doing is woolgathering. With some luck I’ll see something that means more than it seems.”
“And if you do?”
I jump over a shark tank.
“I’ll play it by ear.”
The ride took almost an hour. When they drove up to the sixteen-foot-high double chain-link fence, Donovan noted razor wire, five gun towers and a guard-filled jeep patrolling the perimeter. Talling noticed him noticing.
“Wissex killed thirteen people. State of Michigan prefers he stay put.”
They were met by the warden, a stocky man named Breech Albright. His tobacco-stained fingers clutched a large golf umbrella against the steady rain. “Welcome to Standish,” he said. “How’s Montmorency, Roy?”
“Quieter than last time I saw you,” Talling said. “Much obliged, Breech. This is Donovan Graham.”
They shook hands. “I’d like this to be as informal as possible, warden,” Donovan said. “Hopefully Wissex can tell me something that will help me stop some bad things from happening in New York, so I don’t want him to feel like he’s on the spot.”
“You going to appeal to his conscience?” The warden grinned. “As many people as he killed, not sure that would have much effect.”
“Sheriff Talling tells me he’s found religion.”
“Yep. Since Zeke’s been here he’s founded the Holy Rollers—all ex-bikers who have come to Jesus.”
“Maybe I can find something there.”
Albright led them through the initial security checkpoint. Physically the facility was imposing—solid walls and few windows, limiting illumination from outside. Inside there was plenty of cold, sterile fluorescent light, exposing every corner and allowing plenty of reaction time if someone approached. Hard-faced guards manned each corridor juncture, rubber soles squeaking on the scrubbed tile floors. Nothing was decorative among the white and beige painted cinder blocks. Everything served a function, and the function was security. Tightly controlled tension radiated from everywhere. Eyes stared at him, sullen, bored, murderous. Violence and black despair permeated the concrete like water stains in an old tenement building.
“I was going to have them bring Zeke to the Visitors Room,” Albright said, pausing next to a set of metal double doors, “but if you want to talk with him casually, he’s in here, the library. The Holy Rollers meet here every morning, after services.”
Albright led them through. Donovan gazed around. The space looked like it had been designed as a gymnasium. Its ceilings were high, with a ring of arched windows reaching far enough down the gray walls for plenty of light, but not far enough to encourage thoughts of the world beyond. Rows of bookcases filled the floor, with a cluster of tables between them and the door. Ahead, he saw six men gathered at a long wooden table. All were white, muscled and tattooed. All wore gray prison t-shirts, jeans, and white rubber bracelets embossed with W.W.J.D. All had notebooks and copies of
Confessions
by Saint Augustine. At the head of the table sat Wissex. Donovan had met three other “trust fund kids” in his life; Wissex was bigger than all of them combined. His hair was a mane of blonde and he wore a slightly long, but shaped, beard and moustache. Serenity radiated from him and cast an aura of harmlessness about the men.
Maximum security angels
, Donovan thought.
“You want company?” Talling asked.
He shook his head discreetly before approaching the group.
Closer up Wissex was even more muscular than his mug shots and the pictures from his trial; obviously he’d been putting the prison gym to good use. His hands lay relaxed on the table in front of him like medieval maces. He sat extremely still, almost beatific.
“What’s going on, Zeke?”
Wissex looked at Albright and the others, then regarded Donovan without malice or sympathy. “Atoning for our sins.” His voice was caramel-soft, enveloping and warm. Donovan could see how he’d been able to gather the girls of Blue Moon Bay with a little sweet talk. “Yourself?”
“Looking for answers.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“About this past Lammas Eve.”
The Holy Rollers shifted in their seats. “We all made mistakes, before we found Jesus,” said a bald man with a spider web tattooed on his neck. “Zeke’s serving his penance for what he done outside.”
Donovan didn’t take his eyes off Wissex. “You all follow Saint Augustine?”
“His example inspires us. Augustine was also a great sinner before repenting.”
“If you killed twelve people, your penance better be more than organizing catechism for convicts.”
The Holy Rollers tensed. A couple started to rise before Wissex’s shake of the head restrained them. Donovan sensed the guards’ hands moving towards their radios and weapons. “I murdered
thirteen
people, not twelve,” the big man said softly.
“Did you?”
A tiny crease formed on Wissex’s facade of calm. “What are you talking about?”
Donovan waited.
After a few seconds, Wissex waved the Holy Rollers away. The men rose from the table and stepped back but watched Donovan like pit bulls watch an annoying child.
Donovan sat. “Coletun Ruscht is still alive.”
Wissex’s fists opened and he wiped his palms on the wood, leaving smears of sweat. “I don’t think I got your name.”
“Donovan Graham.”
“You’ve
seen
Coletun?”
“I’ve run into him,” Donovan said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s changed a little since you bought him from his father.”
Wissex curled his hands back into maces. “You have no idea why I did what I did.”
“You’re right,” Donovan admitted. “I don’t. I don’t know why you bought a nine-year-old boy. I don’t know why the ritual circle for a god of vitality was a barren waste. I don’t know why twelve of Cernunnos’s disciples wound up dead worshipping him. I’m here to find out.”
“Cernunnos? Ritual circles?” Wissex sized him up. “For a cop, you know some pretty esoteric things, man.”
“For a biker, you speak pretty well.”
“Ivy League education.” Wissex folded his massive arms over his chest.
“I’m not a cop. I’m consulting for them about…an esoteric thing.”
“Really?”
“I’m a little bit of a geek about scary things,” Donovan conceded without apologizing. “Lately, my interest is being reciprocated.” Something flickered in Wissex’s face, an understanding Donovan recognized, and he took the opening. “None of the plants used in your ritual were for black magic. Fumitory incense? Basil? Hawthorn? Galangal? I would have expected an orgy to break out with those herbs, not a mass slaughter.”
Wissex almost smiled. “That was the plan, all right. An orgy.” His demeanor chilled. “In here, people have no sense of humor about helping cops.”
“Sure. But your help might stop bad things happening in New York.”
Wissex made a “so?” face.
“What would Jesus do?”
“Are you trying to be funny, man?”
“Not that time. Is that just a bracelet you wear?”
“Having principles doesn’t make me stupid. You want me to help you. What can you do for me?”
“More than anyone here,” Donovan said, “I can believe you.”
The big man took a second before answering. “That supposed to mean something?”