No Rest for the Wicca (22 page)

You have to help us.

You have to stop it.

The book…they cannot get the book.

Ago angajan asogwe. Lughnasadh

“Morgan,” Cole tapped my cheeks lightly. “Morgan—what’s wrong?”

I clutched at his shoulders. “I hear them,” I whispered.

“Who
?’ he demanded. “Who
do you hear?”

I took a step backward and shook my head.  “Nothing.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me.  “It most certainly is not nothing.  You look terrified.” 
He gathered me into his arms, rocked me gently. “Tell me,” he whispered. “Perhaps together, we can make some sense of it.”

I repeated the strange words. Cole listened, then frowned.

“
Seven seems to be key.  Seven points of release.  You have no idea what that means?”

I shook my head.  “None.  I’ve no idea what book they mean, either.  And as for the last part…”

Cole pursed his lips.  “Could it be some sort of ritual, designed to free or honor a spirit?  If so, it would seem like something a member of the Sevites of Marinette might be involved in.  It could be some sort of pagan ritual designed to honor her, or to grant a special favor, perhaps.”

“So it’s more important than ever we establish a connection between that society and one or all of our suspect professors.”
I shook my head. “
Before I report for work today,
I’m going to do some research in the University Library. They’re reputed to have the finest research books available on Voodoo—dammit, I have the feeling I’m missing something key, but I just can’t place my finger on it.”

The phone at Cole’s bedside rang. He glanced at the clock, pursed his lips.

“
Four a.m.
This can’t be good.” He scooped up the receiver. “
St. John
. Good morning, Commander Stone.” He motioned with his hand, and I slid from the bed, started pulling on my clothes. “What? When? Yes, yes, of course. I’ll locate Morgan. We’ll get right down there.”

I felt a chill go through me as he replaced the receiver. “Something’s happened. Not…oh God.
Another one
?”

“Yes. They found her in the culvert a mile away from the University.” His eyes met mine. “You might know her, she was in a few of your classes. Margit Culhane.”

Central City’s morgue was located in a sterile-looking slate colored building, two blocks away from the Special Forces offices. Not a particularly cheery-looking place; then again, it was a morgue. Cole and I passed through the scanner and went down the elevator to the basement.  Lord knew, when I worked Homicide I’d been a frequent visitor; in the past eighteen months I’d forgotten just how dank it could be. The smell of dead flesh socked me in the face as I stepped out of the lift, knocked me back a step.

Cole’s hand tightened on my elbow. “You okay?”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Sure. All this just brings back old memories.”

He gave me a small smile and we walked all the way down to the autopsy bay at the end of the hall. Through the glass door I could see Margit’s body on the slab, partially covered by a white sheet. Her red hair streamed like a fiery waterfall down one side of the steel table. Cole pressed a button on the side of the wall, and the door inched back. Fresh stench assaulted me as soon as we stepped through, bringing tears to my eyes.

The coroner, a tall, gangly man with wild blue eyes and spiked violet-tinted hair, handed us each a tube of VapoRub. I slathered the ointment under my nose and some of the stink started to dissipate.

“Mac Leroy.” He inclined his head. “You’re
St. John
and Hawkes, right? Commander Stone said you’d probably drop by.”

“Yes.” Cole handed his tube back to Leroy, who dropped it in a small can on one of the tables. “What have you got?”

He reached behind the table, pulled out two surgical masks and handed them to us. “If you want a close-up, you’re gonna need these.” He gave me a dubious look. “Sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’ve seen dead bodies before,” I snapped, as I pulled the mask down over my nose and mouth. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” He motioned for us to follow him. We walked over to the table when Margit lay. I stared down at her face. She looked pale, waxen, her cheeks no longer with the pink flush so becoming on her. I noted the edges of her lips were tinged blue.

“Pretty thing,” Leroy remarked with a sigh. “It’s a damn shame. Sometimes I hate this job.” He yanked back the sheet, revealing the Y-incision on her chest. My eyes travelled upward, and a wave of nausea hit me, filled my mouth and my nostrils, making it almost impossible for me to breathe. My vision started to dim, and out of the vortex I felt myself slipping into, I heard them again:

Two more.
You cannot let them get seven.

The blood of
Seven will be too late.
Too late.
We will never be free.

Ago
angajan asogwe. Lughnasadh
.

The book…the book…

I felt Cole’s arms go round me, supporting me. His fingers lightly tapped my cheek. “Morgan. Morgan, are you all right? Morgan, answer me.”

I raised my hand, wiggled my fingers. “I—I’m fine,” I gasped.

“Yeah, we can see,” Leroy muttered. “Perhaps you should wait outside—“

“No.” I straightened, shook off Cole’s hand, adjusted the mask back across my mouth. “I’m okay now. It—it was just the smell, is all. I—I’m not used to it anymore. It’s been a long time.”

He gave me a long, searching look, then shrugged at Leroy.
“Morgan used to work Homicide,” Cole said.

Leroy turned to look at me. “Yeah? Guess you did real well at it.”

“Actually, I did,” I answered. “I’m just out of practice.”

He shook his head. His violet strands looked psychedelic under the fluorescent lighting. “Whatever. Pinch your nose. I hear it helps.”

As we turned to follow Leroy back over to the table, Cole gripped my arm. “You heard those voices, didn’t you? The ones you told me about? The dead witches?”

Leroy tapped his foot impatiently. “Are you two coming? I haven’t got all night, you know. There are other bodies what need my attention.”

“We’ll talk later,” Cole murmured, and drew me alongside him as we stood, looking down at Margit.

Leroy pulled the sheet back, gestured toward the body. “It’s pretty much the same as the others. No sign of sexual molestation. She was bound. Note the rope burns on her wrists and ankles. Cause of death was massive blood loss.” He pointed to the gaping hole across her throat.

Cole leaned over for a closer look. “Any missing body parts on her?”

In answer, Leroy opened her mouth wide. I looked in, then away.

“Jesus. Just like I thought. He took her tongue.”

Leroy gently laid Margit’s head back on the table. “He’s a strange one, this killer. I performed the autopsies on all the others, and they were all pretty much the same, save for the one killed in the University.”

I looked up. “What made that one different?”

“For one thing, she wasn’t tied up. The others all had marks on their wrists and ankles. Also, the killer wasn’t as precise when he removed her eye. The others all seemed to be removed with precision instruments. This was crude, a trifle sloppy.”

I frowned. “So what are you saying? The other deaths were premeditated, while Darla’s came randomly, out of the blue?”

The coroner shrugged. “Maybe. All I can tell you is hers wasn’t as neat and tidy as the others.”

“It could fit,” Cole said. “Think about it—he realizes Florrie’s not a pureblood, he’s made a mistake. Now he needs a substitute. Darla presented herself, and he took advantage of the opportunity.”

I shook my head. “I might buy it, except for the doll. He left the messenger doll with the number five.  It indicates premeditation, unless—he changed plans. Switched gears
.  If this is the work of a society, it’s also possible more than one’s doing the killing.” 
I turned to Leroy. “Were you able to fix a time of death?”

He nodded. “As close as I can ascertain, she died sometime between
midnight
and twelve-thirty a.m.”

“Was there a doll found by this body, do you know?”

Leroy ran a hand through his thinning hair, gestured to a row of lockers at the far end of the room. “Your Commander found the body, made sure all the effects—the evidence—was collected, put in there. Top one on the left. You can have a look.”

Cole jerked open the door, pulled out a plastic bag and held it up. Sure enough, the little cloth doll lay right on top, the number six visible around its neck.

“This death was planned, all right,” he said grimly.

I reached out to touch the bag, and the voices exploded in my head again, this time with more force than ever:

The blood of seven.
Seven points releases him.
You cannot let
it
happen.

You have to help us.
We cannot have peace unless you stop it.

Ago
angajan asogwe. Lughnasadh
.

I felt my eyes roll back in my head, felt the pressure of Cole’s arm around my waist. His breath was very hot against my cheek. “Are you okay?”

I ground my teeth together. “I won’t be, until we catch this guy. I need some fresh air. Let’s get out of here.”

Back in our favorite booth at the All-Nite Diner, Cole ordered black coffee; I seconded that, plus a western omelet. Cole regarded me placidly after the waitress had disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Seems legwork gives you quite an appetite,” he remarked.

I picked up the small glass of water, drained it. “Yep, sure does. I’m exposed—the real reason I quit Homicide. So I could fit into my size eight pants again.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re more like a size six, my dear.”

I felt color stain my cheeks. “Getting back to the matter at hand,” I said, “since when do Commanders visit crime scenes?”

Cole shrugged. “All Special Forces personnel are very hands-on. Stone’s known for being very thorough.”

I snorted. “She probably just likes to see if she can find something her underlings missed so she can rub their noses in it.”

He chuckled. “You’re not far from the truth.”

“She ever do that to you?”

“Nope. But I know Stone often does patrols at night, particularly what we refer to as the problem areas—which the University is, right now.”

I sighed. “Just strikes me a little odd, is all. You’d never see the Police Commissioner or Captain Gilley out in the trenches.”

“Different strokes,” Cole smiled up at the waitress as she set a steaming mug of coffee in front of him. She put a similar one in front of me, as well as a heaping plate of fluffy omelet. I picked up the ketchup, squirted it liberally over the eggs.

Cole wrinkled his nose. “You’re drowning it.”

I eyed him as I picked up my fork. “Hey, I thought you’d appreciate it. They look like they’re leaking blood, right?”

“Very funny.”

“Yeah, well. Death always brings out the comedian in me.” I took a bite, rolled it around my tongue, nodded. “Good. Damn good. I have to come here more often.”

Cole took a sip of coffee. “Not to interrupt your feeding time, but…our killer repeated a body part, you know. He took Florrie’s tongue, too.”

I paused, fork in mid-air. “Yes, but Florrie wasn’t a pureblood. He substituted Margit for her, so it meant he had to replace the body part.” I popped more egg in my mouth, tapped my fingers against my chin, and swallowed.  “They’re specific.”

Cole looked up. “What?”

“The body parts. For him to repeat, he must need specific body parts,” I muttered. “Why?”

“Obviously, it must be integral to his master plan.  Some voodoo spell to invoke one of their spirits—“

“Possession,” I said. “In voodoo, the only way to completely commune with an
lwa
is through possession. It’s considered a tremendous honor.” I tapped my fork against the edge of my plate.  “Some possession rituals do involve making offerings to the
lwa
. Food, alcohol
--s
erving an
lwa
is like entering into a contract. If you fulfill the terms, you’ll receive the full benefits and protection of the spirit; fail, and the punishment is great.”

“So,” Cole said, “this
collection of body parts is the fulfillment of some contract?”

I stuffed more egg in my mouth. “It’s possible,” I mumbled. “Another thing that bothers me was Darla’s death. This killer obviously has a plan. Why did he kill Darla?”

“Why, as a replacement for Florrie, right?”

I shook my head. “No. If that were the case, he would have removed Darla’s tongue, not her eye. No, Darla was unplanned. It was a bonus she was a witch, though, because she fit right in.  I think he’d planned to off someone else—who knows, maybe even Margit—but something changed his mind. Darla,” I muttered. “Something she did or said changed his mind.”

“Maybe she interrupted him preparing to kill Margit,” Cole suggested. “So he took her life instead.”

I shook my head. “No. Let’s think this through. The message she left on Xia’s cell said she had to meet up with someone to make sure she got credit for her contribution.”

“Contribution to what?”

“Ah, the million dollar question. I’ll bet something precious it has to do with Graft’s research. She said it was something she’d been working on for a long time.”

Cole frowned. “Did you ask your cousin if she had any idea what it might be?”

I shook my head. “According to Xia, Darla had many contacts and many irons in the fire.”

“Maybe your cousin can inquire of the others. Possibly they know who Darla was going to meet.”

“I’ll ask Xia, but Darla was pretty close-mouthed. They most likely don’t know.  But it wouldn’t surprise me if
it were either Graft or Morrow.
Maybe when I start work tomorrow—oops, I mean today—I can find out something.” I gave a short laugh. “If we’re real lucky,
one of them
might have noted it on his calendar: Give lecture, kill witch.”

Cole steepled his fingers, tapped them against his bottom lip. “Interesting,” he said at last. “But it all rather leads us back again to the why? Why the mutilation? It speaks more to a serial killer, so I have to ask: are all these body parts symbolic? Or is it some sort of offering?”

I frowned. “It could be part of some possession ritual. A person possessed takes on all the characteristics of the possessing
lwa
. The horse would be able to harness all their power.”

Cole leaned forward. “Did you say the
horse
?”

I chuckled. “It’s voodoo speak. The real term is
chwal
, which means horse. It refers to a devotee who’s been possessed by an
lwa.
”

Cole’s lips twitched upward, and he leaned over, touched my nose with his finger. “See, I told you. Your knowledge of voodoo is invaluable.”

I sighed. “It’d be more invaluable if I knew
for sure the killer was worshipping Marinette, or another dark
lwa
. Also
what ritual involves the offering of body parts. Specific ones, too.” I pulled at a strand of hair. “I have the feeling the answer is right in front of me, but for the life of Zeus, I can’t see it.”