Crime Spells Part 7

Hector took me through into the holding area. Two big cells separated by a tiled corridor. Usually it was awash in profanity, urine, spittle, blood, and any other bodily fluid or solid that could be squirted, hurled or expelled. People didn't like being caged like animals; so they acted like animals in protest.

Not this time, though. Martha Raines sat on a cot, with all the other inmates sitting on the floor and the people across the corridor hanging onto the bars. And hanging onto her every word. She just spoke in low tones, so quiet I could barely hear her.

Maybe I couldn't. Maybe I was just remembering her calm voice and soft words. I heard her telling me that drinking myself to death wasn't going to solve problems. She told me I had something to live for. It really didn't matter what. I could change things from day to day. They were out there. I owed it to them and myself to straighten out.

"Been like that since we put her in the population. See why I don't want to take her out?"

"Yeah. You'll call me if there is trouble?"

Hector nodded. "I have to call Prout, too." He glanced up at the security cameras. "I wouldn't, but he wanted to know when you showed up, and he'll go through the tapes."

"Got it. Don't want you jammed up."

"I'll wait till the end of my shift, about an hour, to call, you know, if that will help."

I nodded, even though I didn't care. He'd call Prout. Prout would call me. I wouldn't answer. It didn't matter.

"Thanks." I left the jail armed with two things. The first was the list. The fact that Martha had given it to me without hesitation spoke against her guilt. If she were killing people, there's no reason she would hand me a list of her victims.

Unless she wanted to be stopped.

Serial killers feel compelled to kill, which is why they cycle faster and faster, their need pushing aside anything else. I wanted to dismiss the possibility of Martha's guilt outright, but I didn't know if she had alibis. I only had her word about how nicely things had gone. What if Anderson and Hogan set up the trusts for another reason, to deny her funding and to oust her? What if they were scheming to move the mission and profit from the location, using that project as some cornerstone to gentrify a swath of the city? Would that be enough to make her snap?

I crossed to a little bistro and ordered coffee. Martha was talented. She sat in that den of lions and made them into lambs. I'd felt it. I knew her power. I'd benefited from it. But that was the good side of it. Was there a dark side? Could she talk someone into hanging himself or chopping off his own leg?

And if she could do that, could she convince a jury-no matter how overwhelming the evidence-to let her go? If she could, there was no way she could ever be brought to justice. While the Fellowship was a n.o.ble undertaking, did its preservation justify murder?

Those were bigger questions than I could answer, so I did what I could do with the meager resources at hand. Starting at the top, I called down the donor list. I left messages-mostly with servants, since these sorts of folks like that personal touch-or talked to the donors directly. I told them there was a meeting of donors in the Diamond Room at the Ultra Hotel at nine. I told everyone to be there. I didn't so much care that it disrupted their evenings as much as I hoped it would disrupt the killer's pattern.

It took me two hours to go through the list. I spent a lot of time on hold or listening to bulls.h.i.t excuses, so I used it to study those case files. Cate was right; I really didn't want to look at the Preakness photos. There was something there, though, in all of them, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

At the end of those two hours I was no closer to knowing who the next victim would be.

Then it came to me.

Prout.

He'd never called.

I drove to his home as fast as I could. Red lights and a fender bender let me double-check the full case packages Cate had sent me. I finally saw it. As far as a signature for a serial killer goes, this one was pretty subtle. Maybe there was part of me that didn't want to see it before, but there was no denying it now.

I rolled to a stop on the darkened street in front of the little house with the white picket fence. Figured. He probably owned a poodle. A sign in an upstairs window told firefighters there were two children in that room. I didn't even know he was married.

I fished the whiskey from beneath the seat and drank deep. I brought the bottle. Prout wouldn't have anything there, and if he did, he'd not offer.

That's okay. I don't like to impose.

I crossed the street and vaulted the fence. I could have boosted my leap with magick, but there was no reason to waste it.

And it didn't surprise me that the hand I'd put on the fencepost came away wet with white paint. Had my head not been full of whiskey vapors, I'd have smelled it. White footprints led up the steps and across the porch, hurried and urgent. The screen door had shut behind him, but the solid door remained ajar.

Beyond it, darkness and the flickering of candles. That wasn't right for the house. It should have been brightly lit, all Formica and white vinyl, with plastic couch-condoms covering every stick of furniture. Lace doilies, and white leather-bound editions of the Bible scattered about.

I toed the door open.

I got the last thing right. Bibles had been scattered, page by page. They littered the darkened living room. Across from the doorway sat a woman in a modest dress, and a little girl in a matching outfit. Both had been duct taped into spindly chairs, with a strip over their mouths to keep them quiet.

On the wall, where I guess once hung the slashed portrait of Jesus crumpled in the corner, someone had painted a pentagram in sloppy red strokes. A little boy hung upside down at the heart of it, from a hook to which his feet were bound. He'd been muted with duct tape too, and stared in horror at the center of the floor.

His father sat there, naked, in a circle of black candles. Thirteen of them. He'd cut himself on the neck and wrists-nothing life-threatening-and blood had run over his chest and been smeared over his belly. He clutched a long carving knife in two hands. He waved it through the air, closing one eye, measuring his son for strokes that would take him to pieces.

I took another drink, and not because I needed the magick.

Prout looked up at me. "Yes, Father Satan, I have serve thee well, and I now have this sacrifice for you."

I held a hand out. "Easy, Prout."

He wasn't listening. "You come to me in the shape of my enemy to mock me. I did harm to your pet. That opened my heart to you, didn't it?"

I had no idea what he was going on about, but talking was better than slashing. "You begin to see things, my son."

He nodded and studied his reflection in the blade.

I looked at him through magick. Prout had always been leopard-spotted, just full of weaknesses. That had changed. The spots had become long, oily rivers that ran up and down his body, like circulating currents. I'd never seen its like before, but it wasn't part of Prout. He had no talent.

I closed my fist and opened it again. A blue spark, invisible to Prout and his family, flew from my palm and drilled into his forehead. His stripes went jagged. He tried to rise, then toppled and fell, snuffing two of the candles against his belly.

I looked past him toward the kitchen. "Come on out, Leah. This ends here."

The young artist stepped from the darkened kitchen, glowing silver with magick. She'd streaked paint over her face and in her hair. It had to be her trigger-something in it, or the scent-and the glow made her very powerful. She opened her hands innocently and stared into my eyes.

"You don't know what he did, Trick."

"He arrested Martha for your murders."

"Not that." Her voice came soft and gentle, like a lover's whisper. "Before that, when he was investigating you. He knew you were set up. He had evidence to clear you. He didn't. You know why? Your mother is part of his church. You were an embarra.s.sment for her. He wanted to make you go away."

I stared down at the man and suddenly found the knife in my hand. Prout had known I was innocent. He destroyed my life because magick was evil, and he couldn't abide it. He got me tossed from the force and hid behind being a good church-going man, an upstanding officer.

I weighed the knife in my hand. "Right. He's a hypocrite."

"Just like the others. They all pledged money, but only in trust, only upon death, for capital expenses, not operations." Leah's eyes narrowed. "They knew how tight things were for the mission. They helped Martha to expand until she couldn't keep the place going. They had their own plans. They'd move her out, revoke their gifts. They had to be stopped."

"You made them pay."

"I made them reveal themselves. They wallowed in their own vanity. They died embracing their inner reality."

"Why the staging? The rotten food from the vanitas paintings?"

"It was all a warning to others. They should have seen death coming."

"And the Twinkie. I saw one at each site."

Leah smiled coldly. "The promise of life everlasting. They never saw it."

"They never could have understood."

"But you do, Trick." Her eyes blazed. "You have to kill Prout. He betrayed you. Let him die here. Let everyone see how black his heart really is."

Argent arcane fire poured over me. Every moment of pain I'd felt exploded within. I'd made a good life. I'd had friends. I'd been respected, and Prout conspired with my mother and with criminals to smear me and destroy me. Leah's magick wrapped me up and bled down into the blade, tracing silver lightning bolts over the metal.

One second. A heartbeat. A quick stroke and Prout's blood would splash hot over me. I could revel in it. Victory, finally.

Then it was over.

I dropped the knife.

She stared at me. "How?"

"I've been where you've been, darlin'. As low as can be." I let blue energy gather in my palm. "No vanity. No illusion. I know exactly what I am."

The azure bolt caught her in the chest and smashed her back against the wall. Plasterboard cracked. She left a b.l.o.o.d.y smear as she sank to the floor.

In turn I used magick to put Prout's family out and to let them forget. They'd have nightmares, but there was no reason to make them worse.

And it was going to get worse.

I'd been worried that Martha could have turned a jury with her talent. There's no juror in the world, much less jurist or lawyer, that isn't a little bit vain. I never figured the way Prout did, that being talented meant one was evil; but I knew better than to rule it out.

I had to deal with it.

I picked up the knife. I wrapped Prout's hand around it.

We went to work.

Cate found me on the hill overlooking Anderson 's graveside service. Huge crowd, including Prout. He dressed properly. The only white on him was his shirt and bandages on his face. He stood beside my mother, steadying her, being stoic and heroic.

That was his right, after all, since he'd put an end to the Society Murderess.

"How can you watch this, Trick?"

"Only way I can make sure he's dead." I half-smiled. "Think my mother will throw herself on the casket?"

"Not her. Prout. Preening."

"Why shouldn't he? He's a hero. He killed a sociopath." I nodded toward him. "She put up a h.e.l.l of a fight before he stabbed her through the heart. I heard his jaw was broken in two places."

"Three. Cracked orbit, busted nose."

"Whoda thunk she could hit that hard?"

"Never met her." Cate shook her head. "How's your hand?"

"Sc.r.a.pes and bruises. I'll be more careful walking to the bathroom in the dark."

"You know, there were some anomalous fingerprints on the knife."

"Ever match 'em?"

"No. Was I wrong about you, Trick?"

"I don't think so, Cate." I met her stare openly. "They need their heroes. They need someone to fend off the things lurking beyond the firelight. Prout battled to save his family. Its best he never knows how much danger he was in. How much danger they were all in. All their fear and they couldn't even imagine."

"I don't think they really want to."

"You're probably right."

Down below, Martha Raines closed the prayer book and made a final comment. I didn't hear it. I didn't need to.

They did, and they looked peaceful.

Witness to the Fall.

by Jay Lake.

The bottles shiver quietly in their rack on the kitchen windowsill. Wind gnaws at the house like a cat worrying a kill. Rafters creak the music of their years fighting gravity's claim. Outside a groaning window, trees dip in a dance likely to break a back and give me kindling for half a season.

Most strange is the sound. The weather hisses and spits, a long-drawn ess slithering from one horizon to the other. I can yet see the water-blue of the sky, furtive clouds hurrying along the wind's business. This will not bring rain, no relief of any kind. It is only the hands of angels pushing the house (and me) toward our eventual ashy dissolution.

Down in the town there has been a murder. People will say it was the blow, five days of wind so strong a man could not stand facing it. People will say it was an old love gone sour, the harder heart come back for one last stab at pa.s.sion. People will say it was a baby, never an hour's rest since the poor squalling mite was first born into this world.

Me, I listen to the quiet clatter of the bottles, a tiny sound beneath the roaring lion of the air, and hear the song of death as clearly as if I'd played the tune myself on the old piano in the parlor.

Knowing the truth, I turn out my cloak, fetch my bag and inkwells. Soon enough the preacher man or old Cromie will call for me to sit judgment. It has never hurt to be prepared, to remind them of their own belief that I can hear the hammers of their hearts.

That's not all true, but I never lost by letting them think such a thing.

I am surprised when Maybelle turns up for me. She is the preacher's daughter, a pretty peach borne off the withered branch that is Caleb Witherspoon. For every glint-eyed slight and patriarchal judgment out of him, she has a smile or a warm hand or a basket of eggs and carrots. Of such small economies are the life of a town made.

Still, she has not before called at my gate on business such as this. A Christmas pie, or a letter come by distant post over mountains and rivers, yes, but she has never come for blood or sorrow.

I open the front door before she can raise her hand to knock. "h.e.l.lo, child," I say, though in truth I do not have even ten years on her new-grown womanhood.