Nemesis (12 page)

Ms. Louisa never looked up. She kept on knitting, her clacking needles a constant drumbeat.

Jonah Alcott said, “I don’t think Dad’s protection spell kept the tornado out. I think Dad turned it away himself. It was headed right toward us, and then it wasn’t.”

The old lady said, “No, Jonah, it wasn’t your daddy who turned away that cyclone, it was me.” She looked up. “And there was Tanny—that’s Liggert’s oldest. She’d just planted a garden all by herself. I didn’t want her to get upset if it was destroyed.”

Off the tracks. Savich said to Brakey, “You said your father didn’t use any tools of the craft. That includes an Athame? Did he own one, perhaps a collection of them?”

Jonah waved an impatient hand. “So the murderers used Athames. Anyone can buy them really cheap on the Internet. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Brakey leaped on that. “Jonah’s right, it doesn’t mean anything. No, I never saw my dad with an Athame. I don’t own one, either.”

Deliah Alcott said, “Brakey told us you had pictures of the Athames?”

Savich pulled out his cell phone and called them up. He handed the cell to Mrs. Alcott. She stared at them blankly, no signs of recognition, he was sure of it, unless she was really good. She raised her eyes to his face. “The first one, the Dual Dragon, it’s not used often, at least by Wiccans I know. It’s quite old, isn’t it? The other is quite simple, probably handmade. That’s what’s favored by most Wiccans.”

Savich passed the cell phone to Jonah. “Have you seen either of these two knives before?”

Jonah shook his head no.

Savich handed the cell to Ms. Louisa. She hummed as she looked at each of them. “Yes, what Morgana said is true. And Jonah’s right, you can buy ’em anywhere nowadays, and isn’t that something?”

Savich asked again, “Do you keep a collection of Athames here, Mrs. Abbott?”

“No. As I told you, an Athame is a very personal tool, Agent Savich. If something happens to it, then you would make another one. Neither Brakey nor Jonah as yet have made their own personal Athame.

“Listen, I assure you Brakey doesn’t know anything about any of this. He grew up with Sparky Carroll, grew up with Deputy Kane Lewis watching over him. As I’ve said before, perhaps someone is leading you to suspect a Wiccan for their own reasons.” She sighed. “But then Walter Givens isn’t a Wiccan, yet he used an Athame. Why? And Deputy Lewis’s murder—why an Athame? This is all very confusing.”

“Yes, it is,” Sherlock said. “Mrs. Alcott, isn’t it true that Wiccans believe they can influence other people’s behavior, even control it?”

“We do believe our higher magic can influence events and the people involved in them, but we do it only with their consent, and only in their interests, not ours. Again, we do no harm.”

“But do some ever try it even without consent?”

“Well, sometimes, rarely, a binding spell may be necessary.”

“A binding spell?” Savich asked.

“A binding spell,” Deliah said patiently, “is to prevent another witch from doing mischief. Otherwise, influencing someone without their consent would be unethical—abhorrent, really—to a Wiccan.”

Brakey said, “Mom, remember that time Ricky Tucker told me you were a witch and should be burned at the stake? Said it all over town?” Mrs. Alcott didn’t say anything, simply pleated the soft material of her dress. “Made me mad and I told him so, but he laughed at me, said it was true. A week later, Ricky drove his daddy’s truck into the old oak tree at Clemson Fork, broke his legs and knocked himself out. Ricky thought you did that.”

“That’s only ignorance talking, Brakey, you know that. It was an accident, pure and simple.” She said to Savich and Sherlock, “Brakey’s father and I have heard just about everything over the years. An absurd comment by a teenage boy wouldn’t concern us at all. As far as I know, Ricky’s father had nothing to say about it.”

Ms. Louisa said, “It’s true Ricky’s daddy never said much about the broken legs or the concussion, but he was real mad about the truck.” Ms. Louisa raised her eyes to Savich and gave him a big white-toothed grin. “It was totaled. He grounded Ricky for a month. Didn’t matter because Ricky was in bed with two broken legs. The truck wasn’t insured.”

Deliah said, “I think you’ll agree we’ve been very cooperative with you, Agents. We kept to Brakey’s bargain with you. My boy Liggert is the only one who couldn’t be here. He told me it was wrong not to have Eileen, our lawyer, here.”

“Liggert’s a smart boy,” the old lady said. “One thing about Liggert, he’ll always do the needful.” Ms. Louisa cocked her head to one side, stared at them, but didn’t stop knitting, the low clacking a constant rhythm. Sherlock wondered if it drove her daughter-in-law mad. It would her.

“We’re nearly done here, Mrs. Alcott,” Savich said. “I have one final question for Brakey.” He turned to Brakey, who looked back at him like a trapped deer. “I believe you when you say you have no memory of Deputy Kane Lewis’s death. We have a way to help you remember. I want you to come to Quantico with us, and our expert, Dr. Hicks, will hypnotize you. He can help you find out what happened to you, help us all find out. We can end this once and for all, Brakey.”

“He didn’t kill anyone!”

Sherlock said, “Mrs. Alcott, someone did, and the fact is Brakey had to have been there, and he has no memory of it. We need to find out, for everyone’s sake. And Brakey can tell us what happened.”

Jonah said, “That’s bull. You can probably get him to say whatever you like.”

Sherlock said to Brakey, “No, that isn’t true. Brakey, it’s not dangerous, and it’s the only way for you to get past this.”

“No!” Mrs. Alcott shook her finger at them. “No hypnotism. I will not allow you to poke around in Brakey’s unconscious mind. I forbid it. Your father would forbid it, Brakey.”

Sherlock said, “Mrs. Alcott, your son is twenty-four years old. He is an adult, he can answer for himself. Unless he helps us, we’ll have no choice but to arrest him. The preponderance of evidence is against him.”

Deliah looked like Sherlock had slapped her. She lowered her voice, pleading now, “Brakey, you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to do this. I can call Eileen, she can help you. They cannot force you to do this, do you understand?”

Brakey looked thoughtful, then straightened, squared his shoulders. “Agent Savich, I didn’t lie. If I killed Deputy Lewis, I don’t remember doing it. I need to know, you’re right about that.” Then he looked at his mother and suddenly he looked like a little boy. “I don’t want to go to jail, Mom, I don’t.”

Jonah Alcott stepped forward. “I think Brakey had some kind of fit, and maybe he killed Deputy Lewis in some kind of fugue state. If that’s what happened, they’re not going to be fair. They’ll have you signing a confession, Brakey, right then and there, and you’ll go to jail for a long time. I agree with Mom. Don’t do this.”

“Your brother’s right,” Mrs. Alcott said. She walked swiftly to her son, took his head between her hands. “Brakey, look at me. You do not want to do this.”

Brakey’s hands came up to rest on her shoulders, strong hands, Savich saw, strong enough to bring down a man, stab him in the heart. “I’ve been so scared, Mom, but more than anything I can’t stand not knowing what happened, not remembering. Now I can know. Mom, they believe I killed Deputy Lewis. You heard them, they could arrest me and convict me anyway, surely you can see that. What if they’re right?

“If I killed a man I should be punished for it, that’s what you believe, it’s what Dad believed. I’m going to find out what really happened.”

Sherlock said, “Mrs. Alcott, Dr. Hicks is an expert. He’ll help us find the truth. Let me say we have reason to believe Brakey may not be responsible for Deputy Kane Lewis’s death. Someone else is. Allow us to prove that. Brakey wants the truth. You should, too.”

“When can we do this?” Brakey asked, his voice thin as a reed.

“Tomorrow morning, Mr. Alcott, we will send someone to drive you to Quantico. We will meet you there.”

Ms. Louisa looked up at her daughter-in-law, nodded toward Savich and Sherlock. “Seems to me these pretty young people think something very strange is at work here. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? If their shrink wants to dig into Brakey’s brain, let him. Who knows what he’ll find? Maybe a murderer, or maybe a boy who doesn’t know his elbow from his knee.”

SAVICH HOUSE

GEORGETOWN

Friday night

I
t was late. Sherlock was asleep, her hand over his heart, her breath warm against his shoulder. Savich kissed her hair, breathed in her scent, and closed his mind down. He fell asleep and into a cold so brutal his bones were going to shatter. Fast as snapping fingers, the cold was gone, and he was standing in a small, circular clearing in the middle of a thick pine-tree forest, the thick-needled branches spearing upward, nearly meeting overhead. It was full-on night, yet oddly he could see around him as if it was twilight, the darker night hovering indistinctly in the billowing shadows at the edge of the trees.

He was alone beneath the motionless sentinel pines with no idea of where he was. He was naked but he didn’t feel cold, and surely that was strange, because he could make out small patches of snow. He realized he didn’t feel the rocky ground beneath his feet, and he felt a stab of panic. He had to be dreaming, but why would he dream this? And if he was conscious of it, knew he was dreaming, surely he could change the dream. That’s what a conscious dream was, wasn’t it? Could he bring himself out of it? He willed himself back into bed, wrapped around Sherlock, pictured himself kissing her neck.

Nothing happened.

Another shock of panic. He calmed.
Relax, go with it.
It wasn’t as if he had a choice anyway.

He sniffed the air, smelled smoke. He couldn’t remember actually smelling anything in a dream before, but now he could. It was burning wood, off to his right. He walked toward it, along a wide trail through the trees and the undergrowth, noticed again that he didn’t feel the brambles on the trail under his feet, though he walked right over them. He reached out to touch a pine tree, but his hand went through it. He drew back, slashed his hand through the tree again, harder. Nothing there. He knew then this wasn’t a dream. His subconscious had nothing to do with this. No, it was something else. Was he in some sort of hologram?

Something or someone else was in charge of his spirit-walk thought these woods and toward the unknown. He felt a presence, a presence he knew he should fear
. What do you want from me? Why am I here?

Savich stepped out of the pines and into another clearing. An ancient stone tower stood before him, lichen growing thick on the stones. He saw two rough-cut skinny windows covered with what looked like animal hides.
Why this bizarre tower?

He raised his hand to push the knob on the large black door, paused. Slowly, he laid his palm against it. He was surprised. It was solid, the wood rough against his palm. Savich shoved and the door swung open. He stepped into a magnificent Moorish-tiled entryway with a soaring ceiling so high he couldn’t see the top. The smell of smoke was strong inside, as if the air itself were burning, making his eyes tear. The stone beneath his bare feet felt icy cold and as solid as the door. Very well, for whatever reason, inside this tower, he wasn’t insubstantial, he was real.

He felt a sudden blast of arctic air. What was that—a touch of the spurs? Had he broken a rule? Whose rule?

He slapped his hands to his arms for warmth and looked around. He had to admit it was an awesome illusion, a vast space replete with Gothic trimmings. There were rush torches fastened to the stone walls, but they weren’t lit.
Couldn’t you manage that?

Some twenty feet beyond him, wide stone steps led upward, fading into the roiling shadows in the distance. They looked well worn, as if centuries of heavy booted feet had marched over them. There was a solid stone wall on his right and an arched stone doorway on his left. He walked through it and into a room from the past, filled with dark, heavy, richly carved furniture, like he’d seen in an old castle near Lisbon. There was a blazing fireplace large enough to roast a cow, which blew out blue puffs of smoke. He walked over and reached out his cold hands to the flames, but they held no heat, no warmth at all, like a moving picture of a fire. There were dark beams crisscrossing overhead, but no windows, only large faded tapestries of medieval hunting scenes on the walls.

The air was oppressive, heavy, but the thick smell of smoke was now gone. He felt something stir behind him. It was the presence he’d felt in the forest. It was here. He turned slowly, but there was no one there.

He called out, his voice clipped and impatient, “You went to a lot of trouble to bring me into this elaborate dream with you. I smelled your smoke and found you, as you wanted me to. Time for you to show yourself and stop showing off.”

Savich heard a laugh, a man’s deep laugh, not the sort of laugh you’d join in. It was crude, mocking. He turned toward the arched doorway. It was no longer empty.