The story hit every hippie, punk, Goth, Dionysian, counterculture pleasure center that humans possessed, and modern Salem’s tourist board took advantage of every creepy, erotic, haunting, bloody detail of it.
Already Halloween decorations were everywhere. Women in black clothing walked the streets around Garrett; he even passed some people in full costumes: zombies, pirates, and the ever-present vampires. The whole place had always given him an unsettled feeling. Tonight it didn’t help that he had the dissonant sounds of the Current 333 CD and the strange descriptions of Choronzon working on his ganglia. And even as he thought it, his heart gave a sick lurch . . . as he spotted a statue of a decapitated man holding his own bloody head in front of the Salem Wax Museum. Garrett walked quickly by, turning his face from the sight; it was too grim a reminder of Erin’s real-life fate. And he felt a flash of anger as well. He himself had fallen away from Catholicism long ago, but this deliberate courting of the dark side still felt to him dangerous and wrong. He was far out of his comfort level in every way. Going to see a witch about a satanic killing.
He had reached the 400 block of Essex, the heart of downtown: rows of walk-in shops with the worst of touristy excess. He began checking the addresses for 411. He had not called ahead, so that he could see Cabarrus in her element but without any warning.
Now he realized even though he’d been watching the numbers above the shops, he must have missed it; he was already at 413 Essex. He walked back to the last shop he’d passed, and found himself staring up at the number 409.
There was no 411 Essex.
Garrett turned in the street, frowning, as he tried to push down an uneasy feeling. Across the street two women . . . witches . . . in capes and long black skirts turned to look at him as they passed, and Garrett had a sudden sense of reality wobbling. Get a grip, he told himself.
He looked around him for some sign of the shop. Up ahead was a wooden sign hanging by chains depicting a witch figure hunched over a crystal ball and the lettering: Which Witch? Fog rolled from the doorway onto the sidewalk.
Garrett walked up and through the open door. Mist swirled around his feet from the fog machine set just inside. The shop was dim and the music was Hollywood eerie. Amid the shelves of crystals and ceramic objets, a sharp-faced woman in her early forties sat at a round table, dressed in a gypsyish purple skirt and a black fishnet shawl. She looked up from the table and a flicker of interest crossed her features as she took Garrett in.
“May I help you?” she purred.
“I’m looking for a shop called Book of Shadows.”
The gleam in her eyes dulled. “You want Essex West. This is East. But you don’t want her, believe me.”
“Why is that?” Garrett asked automatically.
She smiled, and there was something predatory in it. “Believe it or not, our profession attracts some unstable people. Best to steer clear of that one.” She paused suggestively. “But if it’s a reading you want, I can do one for you. You won’t be sorry.” The glitter was back in her eyes, an unmistakable invitation.
“Thanks anyway,” he said, and moved out of the shop.
Garrett found his car again and breathed easier as soon as he was off the main drag. Essex West was a few blocks off the downtown center, a quiet residential street. The house at 411 was a two-story Victorian and well maintained. A discreet hand-carved and painted sign on a column of the porch read:
BOOK OF SHADOWS
Books, Herbs, Readings, Psychic Healing
There were lights in the big picture window downstairs and the columns of the porch were crossed with dried cornstalks, which Garrett had seen on many of the lampposts, street signs, and porch pillars while driving into town. Some witch thing, no doubt. Otherwise, the outside of the shop was devoid of the usual flamboyant Halloween paraphernalia, and there was no fog machine. That, at least, was a point in Cabarrus’s favor.
Garrett cruised by the shop and then parked his Explorer half a block down the street so he could approach the house on foot. A small, lit sign in the window said OPEN and so he reached for the knob and walked in.
A tinkling bell announced his presence, and a white cat curled on the counter beside the cash register lifted its head to regard Garrett with green-glass eyes.
Aside from the cat, the shop was empty and very still, but there was—there was no other way to say it—an energy about it. Candles flickered in wrought-iron candelabra, diffusing a subtle and intoxicating fragrance.
It looked to be four downstairs rooms: the one Garrett was in, two book-lined rooms to either side of it, and a back room with its doorway concealed by a deep blue velvet curtain embroidered with glittering stars and planets. Glass jewelry cases displayed hand-wrought ornaments of silver, and gemstones on velvet stands. A wall of shelves behind the counter was lined with herbs and powders in glass jars. Another case held an assortment of card decks, variations of the Tarot; silver wands set with crystals, mysterious lumps in velvet pouches—and gleaming silver daggers. Garrett felt his pulse jump at the sight.
And still no one emerged from the back room. Very trusting, Garrett thought. Or maybe there’s some kind of spell on the place.
Since he was alone, and curious, he stepped into the next room to peruse the shelves.
He took a book out of a shelf at random and looked at the back cover—sure enough, the silver Book of Shadows sticker was on the bottom right corner. Then he gave the room an appraising glance, and stepped to a bookcase labeled “MAGICK” and a shelf labeled “C,” where he quickly located the same books he’d found in Jason Moncrief’s dorm room: Aleister Crowley’s The Book of the Law . . . The Vision and the Voice . . . Magick in Theory and Practice . . .
He heard movement in the main room, and low voices. He turned, walked quietly toward the doorway. He stepped to the side of the door and looked carefully around the door frame.
Tanith stood in front of the silver-starred velvet curtain with a petite young woman, college age at most, dressed in black tank top and jeans, with a punkish blond pageboy, and ear and nose and eyebrow piercings. The gold glitter eye shadow on and under her eyes was marred by streaks of tears . . . she was still crying as she turned impulsively to Tanith and threw her arms around her, hugging her hard.
Garrett barely heard her whispered, “Thank you.” Tanith took her hand and tucked what looked like a small drawstring bag into her palm.
“Blessed Be,” Tanith said, and stroked her cheek.
The girl took a step back, then walked toward the door shakily. She turned to give Tanith an ambiguous glance before she pushed quickly out the door. Tanith stood with her back to Garrett, watching the girl leave . . .
Then without turning, she spoke aloud in that velvety voice, “Detective Garrett.”
Garrett felt both a shock and a rush of heat at her words. Tanith Cabarrus turned slowly to face him. She was backlit by the starry lights decorating the store, which emphasized the fall of her dark hair and the tiny tightness of her waist. She was corseted, he thought mindlessly, she must be; he could have spanned her waistline with his hands. The thought and sight did not improve his disposition in the least.
“What a surprise,” Cabarrus said, her eyes on his face and her voice dripping with irony.
“You didn’t see me coming?” he shot back, without thinking. “I thought that was your job.”
He saw the curl of a smile on her mouth. “It’s been a slow day,” she said. “Perhaps it will improve,” she added, and it was all he could do not to shove her against the wall and take her there. Her eyes gleamed at him. “And what can I do for you?” she asked in a sultry drawl, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Who was that girl?” he demanded.
“A client,” she said, and did not elaborate. They locked eyes, staring at each other in the glimmering dark.
“I had some more questions about the case,” Garrett said evenly. “I’m sorry to drop in unannounced.”
She smiled with bitter amuseme
nt at the lie. “What questions would those be? You’ve indicted your man. You’ve closed the case. What more do you want?”
Garrett answered patiently. “All an indictment means is that we have probable cause for a trial. I’m still building the case.”
“But your mind is made up,” she challenged him.
He hesitated. “I have questions.”
She looked at him sharply, then something changed in her face and she smiled at him, but he noticed it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Will you have some tea, then?”
His face must have betrayed him because she glanced toward the racks of herbs and added with exaggerated innocence, “Nothing exotic. Just Earl Grey, if you like.”
She turned and stepped through the silver-studded curtain at the back of the room. Garrett stood still in the doorway, then crossed the polished wood floor and moved through the curtain, feeling velvet brush against his face. He found himself in a small, dark-painted room lit only by standing candelabra. Two ornate, high-backed Victorian chairs were set on opposite sides of a round table; a deck of Tarot cards lay in the center of the table. He smelled incense and patchouli.
Cabarrus crossed to the table and folded the cards into a dark piece of silk, then set them on a shelf. She turned to a hot plate on a narrow table and removed a teapot, from which she poured amber liquid into two cups. She brought the cups to the table and set them down before she sat, with that perfectly straight back, and indicated the opposite chair.
Garrett sat, and in all his experience as a cop, all the weirdest places he’d been, he couldn’t remember ever feeling so out of place and uncomfortable. He had the distinct sense that that was the point.
Tanith smiled at him, dark eyes shining, and answered his thought. “I’m sorry. Not exactly your style, is it? But it is more private.” She sat back in her own chair and crossed those endless legs.
Garrett cleared his throat. “I’m a little out of my league with this magic stuff. You were a great help the other night and I was hoping you might be willing to clear some things up for me.”
Her smile died as she stared across the table at him. “I’m more than willing to do whatever it takes to help catch the real killer.”
“I appreciate that,” he said without expression, while thinking: She’s covering for this kid. Why?
Aloud he said, “Are you familiar with this design, or what it means?” He took his notebook from a coat pocket and drew the pattern of three triangles, pushed it to the center of the table between them.
She looked down at the drawing and frowned. “It’s a sigil: a symbol used in ritual magic. This is the sigil of the demon Choronzon.”
Garrett felt an electric thrill, the feeling of puzzle pieces falling together. “Choronzon,” he repeated carefully. “So what would it mean to have this—sigil—written somewhere?”
She looked disturbed. “It depends on where it was written. But it would probably mean that someone was trying to summon the demon. Writing the sigil is a way of calling it.”
It wasn’t written, it was carved into Erin Carmody’s body. The memory made his skin crawl. But that wasn’t information he was willing to share.
He shook his head in real bewilderment. “Why would anyone want to summon a demon?”
A dozen conflicting feelings passed over her face, like the rippling of water on a lake. “To use its power. To make it do your bidding,” she answered.
For a moment he could only stare at her. She actually believes all this.
He shifted in his chair. “This is probably a stupid question, but why would a demon do anything a—human—wanted?”
“It wouldn’t,” she said. “You would have to bind it.” Before he could ask, she answered, “Not with ropes. With a spell.”
This is totally insane, he thought, and forced a neutral tone. “And then it would do what you wanted it to?”
Again, that conflicted look. “If you were a powerful enough magician to control it.”
It was probably the weirdest conversation he’d ever had in his life. “It sounds kind of risky.” Not to mention batshit crazy.
“You are right about that,” she said flatly.
“Are demons stupid enough to let that happen?”
She looked at him in the wash of candlelight. “The demon would have its own agenda, of course.” She sighed, and answered his unspoken question. “Since they have no corporeal form themselves, demons can only do their work through human agents. And they covet our life. Demons are drawn to human life. They envy us desperately.”
A phrase from the Crowley text popped into Garrett’s mind: It craves to become real.
“That’s how they’re able to be lured,” Tanith said, as if she’d heard him. “Of course, arrogance has something to do with it. Thinking they’re too powerful to be bound.”
She glanced at his face and leaned forward slightly, startling him. “Detective Garrett, you might be more comfortable with this conversation if you thought of it as a metaphor.”
“Did I look uncomfortable?”
“Just a bit,” she said drily.
Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, he thought. But the idea of wanting to summon a personification of evil was incomprehensible to him.
“Do you think of demons as metaphors?” he asked her.
She narrowed her eyes. “We’re not talking about me. Why do you want to know about Choronzon?” she said, with obvious tension in her voice.
He ignored the question. “Do you do that kind of thing—summoning demons?”
A strange look flickered over her face in the candlelight. “Regardless of what you may have seen in the movies, witches don’t have anything to do with demons.” She pushed back her chair.
Afraid he’d lost her, he half rose and said quickly, “I’m sorry, this is all new to me.”
She stared at him across the table, and then relented, sinking back into her seat. “I understand that.”
He grappled with his thoughts. “How many demons are there, exactly?”
She looked bleak. “Legions.”
He felt a twinge at the ancient word. “So what do you know about this one . . . Choronzon?”
She paused before she spoke. “Choronzon is not one of the host of more well-known Solomonic demons. He’s in a class by himself. He was made famous—relatively speaking—by the magician Aleister Crowley.”
Garrett kept his face still and wrote on his pad. “Aleister Crowley,” he repeated, with no expression. “Can you tell me about him?”
She looked at him stonily in the orange light. “You know of him.”
He blinked. “Why would you say that?”
She glanced at his pad and he realized she had been aware of what he wrote all along. “You spelled his name correctly. It’s not a common spelling. In fact, Crowley made it up himself.”
“I’ve only seen the name,” Garrett said stiffly, annoyed at being caught. “Jason Moncrief had quite a few books by this Crowley on his shelf.”
She looked amused. “What a surprise.”
“What do you mean? Do you know Jason Moncrief?” he demanded, perhaps jumping the gun.
She frowned. “No. I know the type.”
He felt a twinge of disappointment—and anger. She’s lying. Unless . . . He glanced out toward the shop. “Do you have any employees helping you here?”
“No. I work alone.”
And I doubt you’d not remember Jason Moncrief buying a set of books on Crowley. I doubt you miss much of anything at all. But he kept those thoughts to himself. Don’t confront her. Not yet. Better to see what else she might let slip.
“You said this magician, Crowley, made the demon—Choronzon—famous. Can you tell me about that?”
She studied him warily. “What do you need to know?”
“Everything.”
Her eyes held on his face . . . and Garrett suddenly found it hard to move. Then she got up and left the room, pushing the velvet drape aside. Garrett sat in the flick
ering dark of the velvet room, his heart beating faster than it had any right to. After a prolonged moment, she returned carrying several large volumes and he felt himself breathe again.
She sat back in her chair and opened a book, turned it toward him to show him a black-and-white portrait of a man with a handsome but dissolute face and burning, compelling eyes. “Crowley was an early twentieth-century magician and author of numerous occult books on spiritualism and magick practices. He was a Cambridge graduate, a chess master, a voracious drug user and voracious bisexual, and some say a British spy. His father was an English gentleman and a preacher, but from an early age Aleister Crowley sought what he called ‘Satan’s side.’ He had a lifelong obsession with the nature of evil and with Satan particularly. At first he joined and studied with a group of magicians called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, but when he began studying the demonic system known as Abra-Melin, a higher magician in the Golden Dawn accused him of dabbling in malignant forces beyond his control. So Crowley left the Order and founded his own magical order: Astrum Argentium, the Silver Star. And at some point . . .” She paused, her face going blank for a moment. “Crowley started to go off the deep end, indulging in sexual sadism and fetishism, abusing absinthe and other drugs. He was infamous for orgiastic parties and bizarre sexual exploits, and became known as ‘the Great Beast,’ ‘the Wickedest Man in the World,’ and even ‘Antichrist.’ ”
Garrett stared at her. “You know a lot about it for someone who has no interest in demons.”
She stared back into his eyes, and hers were like onyx. “I didn’t say I had no interest. I don’t work with them, myself. But any student of magic knows Crowley. He casts a long shadow.”
Garrett backed down, glanced at his pad. “So—Choronzon.”
“Choronzon is a demon from Enochian magic—a system supposedly dictated by angels to Renaissance occultists John Dee and Edward Kelley. Dee and Kelley called Choronzon ‘that mighty devil,’ and ‘the deadliest of all the powers of evil’; they equated him with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.”
She turned the pages of another book to reveal illustrations that chilled Garrett’s blood: spiny, bestial, deformed, reptilian creatures, with split tongues and lizard hands, eyes like black holes and jagged rows of spikes for teeth. Garrett had to suppress a shudder of revulsion; they were creatures from the hell grimly detailed by the nuns who had taught him, in stories that had given him screaming nightmares as a child. Superstitious crap, he told himself, but the thought was hollow.
Book of Shadows Page 13
