Book of Shadows

by Marc Olden

  A deliberate and terrifying pattern of events was developing around her and she needed help.

  And there was Robert and the changes in him since he’d gotten the Book of Shadows. But Marisa wasn’t ready to discuss that with Joseph Bess or anyone else. Not yet.

  Because she herself didn’t want to believe the thoughts creeping into her mind about Robert and that book.

  She looked at the unlit cigarette in her fingers. “I thought I had kicked the habit. Actually I had. Eight months without one until this business with my front lock.”

  “Throw it away.”

  She looked at Bess. On the other side of the closed door, telephones rang and men laughed. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  She kept her eyes on his face as she dropped the cigarette in the ashtray.

  “The pack,” he said.

  She did as he ordered. Obeying him gave her the first moment’s peace she’d had in two days.

  She told herself that it was gratitude she suddenly felt toward him and nothing else, but she looked away, first at the ceiling of the tiny office with its peeling paint, then at the few pieces of battered furniture around her and the one window, its cracked, filthy panes covered by thick wire mesh.

  Joseph Bess pulled open a desk drawer, removed a folder and dropped it on the stained green blotter. “Goddam weed’s no good for you. My father and uncle survived the Turks, the Greeks, and they make it all the way to America to die from lung cancer.”

  He drummed on the folder with fingers whose nails were bitten down to the quick. “Yesterday after you hung up, I made a few calls.”

  “I was wondering whether or not I’d been coherent.”

  “You were. Let’s say I somehow managed to understand you.”

  They’d been on the phone forty-five minutes. Marisa didn’t realize she’d talked that long until she had hung up. She and Joseph Bess hadn’t seen each other in over four months, but sitting across from him now made her feel as if they’d only been apart for days.

  He opened the folder. “Let’s start with Larry Oregon, born Laurence Jerrold Ornstein, male Caucasian, age twenty-three. Unmarried. Survivors: parents, one older sister. Cause of death: dragged by runaway horse in Central Park.”

  Bess looked at Marisa. “Traces of angel dust were found in his system. That’s the roughest drug on the street at the moment. Gives the user a feeling of superiority. Some kids take it to get up the courage to kill somebody.”

  “Larry was vain about his body and his looks,” said Marisa. “He didn’t smoke, drink, or even touch aspirin, let alone anything else.”

  Bess tapped the page lying in the open folder. “I’m reading what’s on the paper. There was also evidence of recent homosexual intercourse.”

  Marisa closed her eyes.

  Joseph Bess said, “It looks as if there was some kind of sex and drug scene in the park and it just got out of hand. We found Oregon’s clothing in the Ramble, also his ID and wallet. No cash, naturally. Appears like he had a little party and after it was over somebody dared him to go riding bareback and he took the dare. If he was stoned, then …”

  Bess shrugged.

  “Doesn’t sound like Larry,” said Marisa. “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t.”

  “Miss Heggen, it’s almost summer, and in summer a lot of weird things go down in Central Park. You got gays, you got muggers, and you got something else, which few people know about. This city’s flooded with illegal aliens. Most of them come from Mexico, the Caribbean, South America. These people bring their customs with them, especially their religious rites, which include some freaky things involving the occult.”

  Bess shook his head. “They turn the park into something really off the wall. I mean, it’s one huge outdoor altar. Every morning we find chickens with their heads sliced off, dead birds, goats with their throats slit. People are doing some strange things in the park. Nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing.”

  “Larry didn’t kill himself,” said Marisa. “Not accidentally, not deliberately. And before you tell me I’m a hysterical woman who’s walking across the ceiling because some junkie tried to force his way into her apartment, let me tell you something. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of a man dying the way Larry did. Last year when I went to England on vacation, I heard the same story. It was told to me by a man named Jack Lyle, who said it took place hundreds of years ago when the British army put down some sort of uprising in the north.

  “Lyle said it was a true story. It was a punishment given to a young rebel boy, the fastest runner in his village. The boy was told his life would be spared if he could outrun the general’s horse. The boy agreed to try. The soldiers tied him to the horse and it dragged the boy to death. The soldiers cheered and laughed.”

  Bess said, “What’s the point?”

  “The point, sergeant, is that a piece of English history suddenly turns up in New York one year after five of us go to England. The point is that a friend of mine, Nat Shields, is burned to death just as Jack Lyle predicted. The point is I’d like you to do something.”

  “What?”

  Marisa closed her eyes. “Where are my cigarettes?”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Bess said, “Come.”

  The door opened and a heavy-set long-faced man stuck his head into the room. “Princess Grace. On two.”

  The big man looked at Marisa, then at Joseph Bess, and winked.

  Bess ignored him and reached for the phone. “Bess.”

  He listened without expression, then said, “You sure?”

  Finally he said, “If you’re righteous, Princess, I’ll take care of you. Keep in touch.”

  He hung up.

  The big man was still in the doorway leering at Marisa. Bess said, “Thanks, Whopper. Don’t slam the door on your way out.”

  When they were alone again, Marisa said, “Princess Grace?”

  The sad-faced little cop cracked his first smile of their meeting. “She’s a transvestite. One of the best informants I’ve got. Just told me something about somebody involved in this case I’m working. It’s costing me twenty bucks but it could be worth it if she’s right.”

  “What kind of case is it?”

  Joseph Bess unwrapped a stick of gum. “Better for you than smoking.”

  He chewed for a few seconds, then said, “Child prostitution. I’m trying to locate a little blonde girl known as Fancy. She’s the prettiest and hottest thing in kiddie porn at the moment. Her films, books, photographs sell for more money than any of the others’ and somebody’s getting rich. You might say Fancy’s a superstar. She doesn’t see a penny, and some of the things she’s made to do would tear your heart out. Fancy’s ten years old. She’s been doing porn since she was three.”

  Marisa gasped.

  “I want the man behind Fancy, the man who started her in porn, the man who owns her, rents her out, poses with her in films and books, the son of a bitch who’s getting rich off her, the one who’s crucifying her every day she breathes.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “Yes. Her father.”

  Marisa looked away.

  “Princess Grace says Fancy and her father are due in New York either tomorrow or the day after. They divide their time between Los Angeles and New York mostly, though they hit a few other cities as well. Raymond—that’s her father—rents her out to guys who can afford to pay as much as two thousand or more a night. Sometimes it’s two or three men who pay, then make their own home movies with themselves and Fancy. Raymond collects and then moves on.”

  Marisa said, “That child doesn’t have a chance in the world of growing up normal. She’s scarred for life. When you catch Raymond, why don’t you just save the taxpayers some money and shoot his balls off?”

  Bess smiled. “That’s what I like about you civilians. You’re all over us for police brutality until you come across something that offends your particular moral code, then you want us to string
the perpetrator up by the lips. I’m on Raymond, don’t worry. I’ve got my own reasons for getting him. If he gives me an excuse to blow him away, I’ll thank him for it. But according to the rules, the man deserves his day in court.”

  “Like hell he does.”

  The detective toyed with a half smile. “Still seeing the writer?”

  She nodded once.

  “How’s he doing?” said Bess.

  “Very well. His book’s been sold to the movies and he’s writing the script. His agent’s working on a three-book deal for him. It’s big bucks for Robert these days.”

  “You don’t sound pleased.”

  “You don’t miss much, do you?”

  “That’s the fun of being a cop. You get paid for being nosy. He was having a hard time there for a while.”

  Until he found the Book of Shadows, thought Marisa.

  She said, “Win some, lose some. At the moment Robert’s living life in the fast lane. God knows where he’ll end up.”

  Joseph Bess listened to the ringing phones on the other side of the door. Then he said casually, too casually, “I spoke to Sergeant Laura this morning.”

  Marisa jerked upright in her chair.

  Bess said, “I see you’ve heard the name. Sergeant Laura had contacted the Newark police department, who in turn notified the New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and Washington police departments. I read it on today’s green sheet.”

  Marisa’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Never could get the difference between a green sheet and a yellow sheet.”

  “Yellow sheet is a criminal’s record. Green sheet lists all crimes committed during the past twenty-four hours.”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “A farmer who lives near Laura claims his dogs turned up a human hand. From what they could learn, the hand had been buried at the base of a tree on Nat Shields’ property. His land was next to the farmer’s land and the farmer’s dogs ran—You feeling okay?”

  “Stuffy in here. I … I …”

  Bess stood up and turned. “Damn window sticks, but if you try hard enough you can—yeah, that’s it.”

  He opened the window, rubbed his hands together and turned to see Marisa gripping the arms of the chair, a vacant state on her suddenly pale face.

  She said softly, “Was it an oak tree?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The hand. Was it buried near an oak tree?”

  “Laura didn’t say. Why?”

  “Jack Lyle said it belonged to the ritual. Skulls, hands. You use them to frighten your enemies, to protect a sacred place. When they killed Nat, they left the hand near the oak. They worship the oak, they’ve always worshiped it.”

  Bess frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Nat Shields was murdered by them. And so was Larry.”

  Tears slid down her face. “They’ll kill us. Robert, Ellie, me. They’ll kill us all. Lyle said they would.”

  Bess was at her side, an arm around her shoulders. “Slow down. Take it easy. Who’s going to kill you?”

  She willed herself not to scream. “The Druids.”

  Joseph Bess didn’t say he didn’t believe her. His arm slipped away and he stood up, walked to his desk and sat down on the edge. “Listen, that hand the farmer turned over to Laura didn’t belong to your friend Nathan Shields. You hear what I’m saying? It had nothing to do with Nathan Shields.”

  Bess pulled the folder toward him and looked at the page inside. “I said I’d make a few calls. We had no problem matching the hand with a body. It belonged to Ivan Baez, nineteen, Hispanic, resident Manhattan. His first name and his girlfriend’s first name were tattooed on the back of the hand. Now Ivan was bad news from the word go. He was a burn artist, him and his brother and his cousin. They sold people bad dope and in some cases they promised dope and didn’t deliver. They also robbed a few small-time dope dealers and the word is they sometimes did contract killings. There’s a whole lot of other charges here on Ivan and his friends, so what happened to him is what happens to a lot of people on the street who make too many enemies.”

  Bess closed the folder. “I’m telling you all this so that you can put certain things out of your mind. Laura says he’s spoken to you and he got the feeling you thought something was fishy about Shields’ death. The local police and fire departments found nothing out of the ordinary and I know what you’re going to say. The hand. Okay, let’s talk about the hand. I just told you what a nasty citizen the late Ivan Baez was. Couple of weeks ago we found his body in Central Park. Like I said, he had enemies and it looks like they closed the book. Somebody did a job on him with a knife. They also lightened his cousin’s load by removing said cousin’s head as well as one of his hands.”

  Bess leaned forward. “No Druids, Miss Heggen. Just somebody out there getting even for getting ripped off by two chumps. We haven’t found cousin Crazy Horse’s hand, but I’m sure it’ll turn up. Whoever went to work on Ivan believed in being thorough. They also cut a hole in his stomach, pulled out his intestines and wrapped them around a tree.”

  Marisa’s eyes snapped up into her head. She stiffened in her chair and the sickly warmth in her stomach exploded, choking off her air and she leaned forward, falling into a horrid blackness. Before losing consciousness she saw Joseph Bess rush forward to catch her, but he was too late.

  The blackness claimed her first.

  EIGHT

  THE MAN CALLING HIMSELF Herod said, “You’ve killed four people in New York and you still don’t have the book.”

  “We intend to kill more,” said Rupert Comfort.

  “That’s just what I mean. Certain friends are having second thoughts regarding how you’re going about this matter. We were told you planned to dispose only of the five who’d taken the book. It now looks as though you’ll leave at least seven dead behind you, if not more. I’ve been ordered to tell you both that each dead body is a potential hazard, that any one of the executions could trigger an investigation leading to trouble.”

  The white-haired man said, “Those whose names are in the Book of Shadows ordered you to talk to us, of course.”

  “They’re wondering if it wouldn’t be better to handle the matter of the book themselves. They’re asking if they couldn’t have gotten the book without you.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then they would worry less.”

  Rupert Comfort’s eyes narrowed. “I see. Your friends are now ordering me about, are they?”

  Herod linked his long fingers in his lap. “It’s true we here in New York have a working arrangement with you, Mr. Comfort—”

  “The arrangement is we tell you what to do and you do it.”

  Herod continued speaking calmly, as though there had been no interruption. “—but I’m afraid you need to be made aware of certain … shall we say, ramifications. Let’s start by saying New York isn’t England and we, all of us, live in changing times. At one time, perhaps, there may have been a need for more direction from you. But let me be blunt on this score: We don’t need much direction from any quarter these days.”

  Rupert and Rowena Comfort exchanged glances, then eyed the four people—three men and a woman—sitting in front of them. They were all outsiders, members of a coven led by Herod, a dark, slim, bearded man who barely hid his contempt for the Comforts.

  “The important people listed in the book,” said Herod, “don’t wish their names to become public, not even accidentally.”

  “And you think the killings will lead to that,” said Rupert Comfort.

  “Someone does.”

  “Someone should stop thinking in such fashion. In fact, when it comes to the book, someone should stop thinking altogether.”

  Herod fingered the black crucifix hanging from his neck. “Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said, Mr. Comfort. This is New York and we live in changing times. You’re not on home ground anymore. People here are upset at how you and your wife have been conducting
your business in New York.”

  Rupert Comfort leaned back in his chair. He appeared to be relaxed.

  The Book of Shadows held more than a collection of spells and rituals. It held the key to the continued existence of the Druids’ village. To remain hidden and safe the Druids and witches had created “changelings” and placed them in positions of power in the outside world, substituting them for men, women and children who either had influence or would attain it.

  It was the responsibility of these changelings to do whatever was necessary to prevent or head off exposure of the Druids. The changelings from the Comforts’ village were the equivalent of espionage “sleepers,” spies who maintain normal lives in an enemy nation until assigned a mission by their own country.

  The use of changelings had been successful; the village survived unmolested.

  Those changelings who attempted to betray the village, who forgot their sacred task, were disposed of by carefully contrived accidents. Occasionally they were taken care of in “the old ways,” such as by the Wickerwork Man.

  The Book of Shadows stolen by the Americans belonged to Rupert Comfort’s father. Once a powerful Druid, he was the senile, toothless old man rocking in front of the cottage the evening the entire village had gone to the fields for the all-important midsummer’s eve fire festival. His had been the magic that had created changelings now in cities all over the world. Their names were written in his Book of Shadows.

  The book’s loss represented such great danger to the village that the tribe had no choice but to apply its justice harshly. Rupert Comfort’s father was the first victim of that justice. He and the boy guarding him, Rupert’s grandson, had been sentenced to die.

  Rupert Comfort’s position in the tribe had saved the boy’s life. After much pleading, the white-haired priest had been told to choose just one who would die immediately. He had chosen his father, because the old man’s life was almost gone, and so was his mind. To spare him the agony of a fiery death in the Wickerwork Man, Rupert Comfort had been allowed to strangle his father with his bare hands.