The Infernal Heart

by R. L. King

“Huh?”

  “That’s exactly what it is, if I don’t miss my guess. Could be dirt, but I doubt it. Did you get anything back yet on the other scene?”

  Cheng nodded. “That was shit too. Human, as it happens.”

  “Can your lab tell you if the—er—samples came from the same person?”

  “Yeah, the lab guys can figure that out. It takes time, though. The labs are backed up—it’s not like on TV, where you can get everything processed right away. Something like this, though, I think we might be able to jump the line a little.”

  “I’ll want pictures of all this, if I may. And now, if you don’t mind, please don’t speak to me for a few moments. I want to try getting some impressions. Don’t be surprised at what you see.”

  “You said no chanting and dancing.”

  “No, but it’s possible I might pass out briefly. I’ll sit in a chair to minimize the chances, but if I do, catch me before I go face-first into your crime scene, all right? I doubt I’ll endear myself further to Lieutenant Herrera if I do.”

  “Uh…okay. Sure.” Cheng grabbed a chair from the dining area, placed it in the doorway, then settled down in another one where he could keep an eye on the proceedings. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Just stay quiet until I tell you otherwise,” Stone said.

  He turned away from the detective, put the chair down in front of the scene, and sat down. This wasn’t going to be pleasant, but there was no way around it. If he wanted to get any feel for who—or more likely what—was committing these crimes, he’d have to take a look with magical sight. With a scene this fresh, he should be able to get some good impressions; hell, he could practically feel the leftover psychic energy from the crime just using his mundane senses.

  He took a couple of deep breaths, dropping down into the meditative state that let him do his best work, and then shifted his perceptions.

  The room lit up.

  He shuddered as wave after wave of unwholesome energy washed over him. Most of it concentrated around the area in front of him, with the scrawled sigils glowing brightest of all in a sickly, murky red. The power was already fading from them, but not as much as he might have expected. That meant they must have been truly impressive when they were fresh.

  Stone struggled to keep his senses open, focusing on letting the visions come as they would without judging or trying to interpret them. The time for interpretation would come later.

  It didn’t always work this way for him, though over the years he’d gotten better at it with practice. His old friend Madame Huan was much more adept than he was at this sort of thing—she could read scenes with much lower emotional or psychic leftovers than he could—but when the level of impression was this powerful, it was easy enough to at least get something.

  He scanned the rest of the room, noting places with vestigial glows that were probably where other body parts had been placed, and then zeroed back in on the floor in front of him. Almost unconsciously, he leaned forward in the chair to get a better “look.”

  The muddy red glow surrounded not only the sigils, but also the little piles of leaves and twigs and excrement arranged around the area. He narrowed his magical “eye,” blocking out everything but the actual sigils. They were the key, he was sure of it. All he’d have to do was remember where he’d seen the language before, and then he’d be that much closer to translating it.

  The sensations hit him hard: Hatred. Lust. Impatience. Frustration. He struggled to keep his senses open, to receive without blocking.

  Whatever this thing was, it was potent, but somehow…incomplete? He wasn’t even sure what he meant by that, but the impression was strong.

  He sensed latent, growing power—perhaps the reclamation of something very old. A cold, calculating, mind.

  And…amusement.

  “Dr. Stone!”

  Stone snapped out of his trance as something shook him, hard. “What—?”

  Cheng was staring at him, wide-eyed, gripping his shoulders. “You okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” he snapped. “I told you not to—”

  “It’s been almost twenty minutes. Herrera’s getting antsy. And you looked like you were about to keel over.”

  His head swam, and cold sweat gathered on his forehead. Twenty minutes? It hadn’t seemed like that long. He’d barely started! He ran a hand through his hair, checked his watch to verify Cheng’s words, and stood, swaying a little. “Sorry. I sometimes lose track of time when I get focused.” Glancing past the detective, he spotted Herrera and a couple of the coverall-clad cops hanging out at the edge of the dining room, looking impatient.

  “Did you find anything?” Cheng murmured.

  “Yes, I think so. Do you want me to tell the class, or save it for later?”

  Cheng waved Herrera in. The other cop looked impatient and stressed as he entered the kitchen. “Go for it.”

  “Well,” Stone said, indicating the scene, “Your murderer is male, but you probably already knew that. Actually, I think there were two people here.” He pulled out a notebook and began sketching the sigils as he spoke.

  “That’s impossible,” Herrera said. “We found prints, but only one set, aside from the vic’s. His friends say he never has anybody over at his house.”

  Stone shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I saw. I also don’t think your murderer is the same person as whoever committed the others. In fact, I’d put money on each murderer being different. I’m guessing you’ve got a situation where one person is directing the operation, and somehow recruiting others to carry out the actual murders.”

  “What about those sigil thingies? Can you read those?”

  “Not yet, but as nearly as I can determine, your killer—or the person who’s pulling the strings—thinks he’s trying to summon up a demon of some sort, or at least make contact with it.”

  “Demon?” Herrera snorted. “Come on, Dr. Stone, be serious.”

  “No, it makes sense,” Cheng said. “There’s a lot of loonies out there, trust me. Maybe you don’t see them often down here, but we get ’em where I am, and even worse up in the City.”

  “So why’s he skinning and bleeding out the vics? And how come he’s takin’ body parts?”

  “That’s a good question. I’m still working on that. Blood and body parts are often components in dark rituals, and sometimes your particularly bad cases will use human skin to create a binding for something important to them: books of spells, journals, that sort of thing.”

  “Hell, they must be making a whole damn library if that’s the case,” Cheng said. “How much skin does it take to bind a book?”

  “I’m not saying for certain that’s what he’s doing,” Stone said. “There are any number of possibilities. Remember that film Silence of the Lambs? Perhaps he’s making himself a suit.”

  Herrera gave him a look he’d gotten used to over the years: the kind that wondered if he was serious or playing some kind of deadpan prank. “Uh…okay. That’s…uh…great. So, you done? We want to finish up and head out pretty soon.”

  Stone nodded. “I’m done. Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate your allowing me to examine the scene.”

  Outside, Cheng stopped Stone before he got to the sidewalk. “Are you sure that’s all you found? I kind of got the feeling you were holding back a little.”

  Stone regarded him for a moment. Sharp guy. Sharper than Herrera, that was sure. “I didn’t get the impression that Lieutenant Herrera was giving the situation the level of respect it deserves.”

  “Yeah, I think he just wants to catch somebody and close the case as soon as possible. He doesn’t like weird shit. So what else did you find?”

  “Well…I’m definitely convinced now that there’s occult involvement. Seeing the setup around the body confirms it. As I mentioned, you’re looking for someone wit
h an interest in demonology. I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish, and I won’t know until I’m able to translate those sigils, but I believe they think they’re trying to summon something.”

  “Summon something.” Cheng looked skeptical. He swiped his hand across his brow; even at almost eight o’clock it was still over ninety degrees.

  “I didn’t say they’d be able to do it,” Stone pointed out. “Just that it appears, based on my experience and what I saw in that house, that’s what their aim is.”

  “So, what, they’re tryin’ to build a demon from spare parts? Or they’re gonna keep killing people and stealing pieces until somebody catches ’em or they think they’ve succeeded in this…summoning?”

  “Possibly.” Stone considered. He had more, but he had to be careful what he told Cheng—the detective had been cooperative, and Stone couldn’t risk losing his trust at this point. “Detective, I’ve got one other bit of information you might find useful.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Look for other crimes—not necessarily murders, but probably relatively recently—involving any sort of religious connection. Murders, assaults, or rapes of religious figures, crimes in churches, desecration of religious objects, anything like that. If you spot anything particularly unusual or out of character for the area, let me know.”

  Cheng narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  “Just a hunch. Usually where there are people who fancy themselves demonologists, the other side ends up being involved somewhere. Just let me know if you find anything, all right?”

  “You think it could be important?”

  “Quite possibly. If you want me to continue acting as your consultant on this, you have to believe me: things you might think nothing of could end up being of paramount importance. So please, Detective: check your skepticism at the door if you want to catch your killers.”

  Cheng looked for a moment as if he were wrestling with something. “There’s something I didn’t tell you about the scene. I wasn’t sure it was important, and I didn’t want to distract you.”

  “What is it?”

  “There was a crucifix on the wall in the living room. You could tell because the walls were so dirty it left a pale spot where it hung.”

  Stone hadn’t noticed it when he’d come in, too focused on the stench and getting to where the body had been found. “Hung? Past tense?”

  “Yeah. Herrera said one of his guys found it in the toilet. Along with…well…other stuff you might find in a toilet.”

  Chapter Six

  Traffic was much lighter as Stone headed back toward Palo Alto. Not that he noticed—he was so busy mulling over what he’d just witnessed and experienced that he was driving mostly on autopilot.

  He couldn’t tell Cheng the truth, of course. The man was trying valiantly to acknowledge an occult connection to the murders, but to him, “occult” meant nothing more than horror movies, devil-worshippers, and charlatan psychics and ghost hunters. He was more open-minded than most cops who’d asked Stone for a consultation, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t looking for cults, or maybe jaded kids drawing pentagrams and wearing devil horns while they chanted nonsense and tried to summon “demons.”

  The problem, the part Stone couldn’t tell Cheng without risk of being locked up himself, was that sometimes the demons were real.

  Okay, not “demons,” per se—at least Stone had never encountered an actual demon in the religious sense. He wasn’t exactly an atheist—any mage worth the title couldn’t get away without acknowledging the possibility that something out there had a hand in the creation of the universe—but he was nonetheless an avowed agnostic with a healthy and thorough distrust of organized religion. Thus, he found the idea of demons and angels battling in some endless celestial war to be more than a little farfetched. But that didn’t mean there weren’t things out there that could do a pretty good job at putting on all the trappings and acting like demons.

  Given the circumstances, it hardly made a difference. What they were dealing with here was some sort of supernatural entity—spirit, demon, monster, whatever they wanted to call it—that was trying to accomplish some purpose.

  What that purpose was, he wasn’t sure yet. Based on his past experience and his studies, its actions didn’t make sense, at least not when taken together. Some supernatural beings liked blood. Some—including some very human mages—skinned their victims to make leather, either to bind grimoires or to fashion some kind of costume. The dismemberment was unexpected, but not entirely unheard of. Likewise, some of the nasties from the other side took trophies, which could explain the missing body parts.

  If Stone had encountered any of these practices separately, they wouldn’t have surprised him. But seeing them all together didn’t make sense. He had no idea what the—hell, let’s just call the damn thing a demon for lack of a better word—demon had on its mind, or even how directly it was involved in the proceedings. It could already be in the world, either directly or manipulating from behind the scenes, or it could be making contact with earthly agents to do its bidding, possibly because it wanted to be summoned here.

  But if that were true, then why? What had happened to suddenly stir it up? Why had these crimes started only a few weeks ago? If he were to check harder, would he find more of them, further back in time or more distant geographically? Or was he looking for some event that might have…what? Awakened it? Contacted it? Captured its attention?

  The other thing that troubled him was the sense of incompleteness he’d felt when he examined the scene. Were the murders designed to help it finish something, or bring something together? If so, he had a feeling he’d better figure out what it was before it had a chance to finish, or these murders would look like child’s play by comparison.

  He sighed, cranking up the BMW’s air conditioning to near-arctic levels. He still had some time tonight—he’d consult a few more of his books with the new information in mind and see if he could turn up anything. If not, and if Cheng didn’t call him back soon, he might just have to take a trip home to England and see if anything in his library there would prove helpful.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning when Stone showed up at his office following an uneasy night haunted by demonic images and visions of bloody, frustratingly shifting sigils, Edwina Mortenson fell in behind him and stopped in his doorway.

  He glanced up in the act of setting his battered leather briefcase next to the desk, still holding a steaming cup of industrial-strength coffee. “Morning, Edwina. Something I can do for you?”

  She held a copy of the San Jose Mercury News, folded open to the local-news page. Her face set in a disapproving frown, she dropped the paper on the desk in front of him. “I take it this is what you were consulting with that police detective about?”

  Stone looked at the page. Police Have Few Clues in Occult-Style Murders, the headline read.

  It wasn’t the headline that caught his attention, though—it was the accompanying photo. It showed the outside of last night’s victim’s house in Gilroy, and included a clear shot of himself and Detective Cheng as they headed out toward the street. The caption beneath the photo read: San Jose police are consulting with Stanford professor and occult expert Dr. Alastair Stone on an unsettling series of brutal murders.

  Damn.

  He hadn’t spotted anyone with a camera when he’d left the house, but he hadn’t really been looking, either. “Er—yes, that’s the one. Frightful photo, isn’t it? Do you want to fill me in on the rest, or shall I read it myself?”

  Before she could answer, his desk phone rang. He held up a finger to stop her from responding and picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Stone? This is Mike Wolf from the Chronicle. I was wondering if you could—”

  Lovely. “I’m sorry,” he said, cutting the man off. “I’ve no comment. Terribly busy. Good day.” He hung u
p and sighed at Mortenson. “Well, that’s unfortunate. I’ll have to ask Laura to screen my calls until this mess blows over.”

  “What mess, exactly, if you don’t mind my asking?” She indicated his guest chair, and when he waved her toward it, sat down. “The article is light on details, but it sounds like they’re looking for some sort of cult serial killer.”

  Well, the proverbial cat was out of the bag now—it wouldn’t hurt to toss Mortenson a bone. “I can’t go into details—the detective made me promise I wouldn’t. But yes, there’s definitely some sort of occult connection. I was trying to help them out, but I didn’t know it would land me in the newspaper.”

  Mortenson consulted the paper. “‘Sources close to the investigation,’” she read, “‘state that, as in three other similar murders—including one in San Jose—the body was mutilated, and odd symbols were found scrawled in blood at the scene.’” Her gaze came up. “Odd symbols?”

  Stone’s phone rang again. He punched the voicemail button. “Mystical sigils of some sort. I’m not sure what language they’re written in, but whatever it is, it’s ancient. I’m trying to track it down with some of my reference books so I can translate it, but no luck yet.”

  Mortenson considered. She looked down at the paper again, and back up at Stone. “Are you going to keep helping out?”

  “If they want me to. I’d have preferred my involvement not to be plastered all over the local paper, but I forgot about how persistent the press can be—especially with something this unsettling and sensationalistic. Suppose I can’t blame them, really.”

  “It reminds me of the Cannibal Killers case, a few years back,” she said. “Do you remember that one?”

  “Vaguely,” Stone lied. At least she’d never found out the extent of his involvement in that particular case, and neither had the press. With the exception of one reporter, anyway, but given that he was deeply involved and had less desire for the public to find out than Stone did, he didn’t exactly count.