Book of Shadows

by Marc Olden

  When the old man’s corpse had been placed inside the Wickerwork Man, his face had been wet with his son’s tears.

  The sense of urgency Rupert Comfort carried with him in his search for the book was to increase. The elders had given him one month after the Book of Shadows was located to bring it back to the village. If he failed or exceeded the deadline, his grandson would be burned alive, along with the white-haired priest’s daughter. Rupert and Rowena Comfort could expect no better fate for themselves—nor did they protest the tribe’s ruling. In the wrong hands, the book meant certain destruction for the village and its changelings.

  Celtic justice, brutal and unsparing, applied to all, young and old, the highest and the lowest. The tribe’s way of life in an alien and modern world depended on the strictest adherence to all of its laws, a situation neither Rupert Comfort nor his wife questioned.

  The Americans sitting in Herod’s East Side Manhattan apartment were part of a trend toward insolence and disrespect the Comforts had noticed among affiliated outsiders. Few, however, went as far as Herod in saying that Druids like Rupert Comfort no longer had the power to command outsiders and changelings. In the past such disobedience would never had occurred. It was unlikely it would even have been thought of.

  Today it was being thought of and spoken aloud. Witches had always served Druids without question. Both served the Horned God, whom the Druids called Hu Gadarn and considered a god of fertility, the first to teach men to plough the soil. Both shared a mystic sense of the universe and both had a strong faith in that which the eye could not see. But the Druids had always been the more powerful of the two, more structured and better organized. Stronger.

  From their first contact, it was the Druids who had ruled the witches, and it would always be so. It would be no different with those changelings created by the Druids.

  The lives of Rupert and Rowena Comfort, their grandson, their daughter, and her husband; the survival of the village and the changelings it had created—all depended on recovering the book and disposing of those who had taken it.

  There wasn’t time for insolence from anyone who was supposed to serve. Witches or changelings. Those who were to obey must obey.

  Herod said, “I understand the book belonged to your father.”

  Rupert Comfort, hands resting casually on his thighs, nodded.

  “And I understand,” said Herod, “he was killed.”

  Rupert Comfort said nothing.

  Herod aimed a forefinger at the white-haired man. “That’s the point I’m trying to make. The recovery of the book is an extremely serious matter, perhaps too serious to be entrusted to a person who’s not objective. What if someone breaks the codes?”

  The names of the changelings and many of the spells were written in different codes and languages.

  Herod said, “I’m told some of the book is written in Manx, Pictish, Romany, Old Irish, and Welsh.”

  “Also Aryan,” said Rowena Comfort, speaking for the first time. “And Shelta Than, Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Aramaic. Among others.”

  “With all due respect,” said Herod, who wasn’t respectful at all, “I should point out to you that there are skilled cryptographers as well as computers in the modern world. I wouldn’t think the dead languages pose any problem for them.”

  Rupert Comfort said, “Can you speak any of these languages?”

  Herod said nothing.

  The white-haired priest said, “I thought as much. Between the two of us my wife and I speak and write all of them.”

  He stood up and walked over to Herod. Suddenly tense, the coven leader folded his arms across his chest and leaned as far back in his chair as possible.

  Rupert Comfort looked down at him. “Cryptographers. Computers. Superstitions and primitive aspects of the modern world elevated into infallible knowledge. Pathetic, I should say. Quite pathetic.”

  He placed a hand on Herod’s shoulder. “Have you ever heard of the biliteral cipher devised by Francis Bacon in 1605? It involves the use of any two letters, say M and N, or even A and B. One uses the pair in combinations of five. There is no end to the codes one can invent. There is the Caesar cipher, devised by Julius Caesar and still used by us—and effectively, too, let me add. Of course, neither code is modern, nor for that matter are any of the codes in the book. In fact, they are all what you have referred to as obscure. Yet they work. But that is a fact you will never understand, you with your modern computers. Well, Herod or whatever your name is, understand this.”

  Rupert Comfort yanked the slim coven leader from his chair and hurled him to the floor. Herod yelped. And the Druid was on him.

  Rowena Comfort leaped from her chair, knife in hand, and positioned herself in front of the remaining witches.

  None of the three moved.

  Rupert Comfort kept the coven leader face down on the carpet, left hand pushing Herod’s head hard into the floor, right knee tight against the elbow of Herod’s extended right arm.

  Gripping Herod’s wrist, the Druid pulled up with all his strength, savagely breaking the arm at the elbow.

  Herod shrieked and the one female witch fainted.

  Quickly turning Herod over on his back, Rupert Comfort covered the little man’s mouth and using his ritual knife, slashed the coven leader’s forehead to the bone three times.

  Herod twitched, jerked. He fouled himself, staining the carpet beneath him and filling the room with a sickening stench.

  When Herod’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fainted from the incredible agony, Rupert Comfort wiped his knife on Herod’s shirt and stood up.

  The Druid kept his eyes on the unconscious man as he spoke. “Scoring above the breath, it’s called. It’s a superstition you so-called witches should be familiar with. Bleed a witch above its breath and it loses its power. The power supposedly runs out with the blood.”

  Rupert Comfort slipped his knife up his right sleeve and into its hidden sheath. “Hear me well, you stinking little bunch of pretenders, you play actors who pretend to understand deeper mysteries in order to impress your friends. I have much to do and little time in which to do it. And that is why I will kill the next one of you who disobeys me. Pass this word of warning to your coven and to those changelings who dared question me. I shall give no further ultimatum.”

  Seconds after the Comforts had left the luxury East Side apartment, Cornell Castle, one of the three terrified witches, threw up.

  NINE

  IN HER DRESSING ROOM Marisa sat in front of a lighted mirror and brushed wine-colored blush onto her cheeks while talking with Joseph Bess.

  “I keep telling myself if I’d only had cheekbones like Katherine Hepburn, I’d have been a star. Once I considered having all of my back teeth removed, uppers and lowers. Had to have that gaunt, thin-faced look. Decided against it. Would have meant saying goodbye to corn on the cob and peanut brittle.”

  The detective smiled. “You’re doing all right as is.”

  “If you can call working with Hitler’s child all right.”

  “Hitler’s child?”

  “Our director. Tact is not one of his strong points. Where’s Gina?”

  “She’s with Jackie No.”

  Marisa stopped. “God, don’t ever say that to her face.”

  Gina was Joseph Bess’s eleven-year-old daughter, whom he’d brought to World and Forever at Marisa’s invitation. The child was in the dressing room of an actress the show called “Jackie No” behind her back. When it came to sex, the actress rarely said no.

  Jackie No and Gina had hit it off immediately and the child had been invited to help the actress dress for the upcoming taping.

  “Jackie’s a good kid,” said Marisa. “Not as selective as she should be, but then again, most of us aren’t. She loves children. Wants to have a few of her own. She’s always looking for somebody to love. I suppose that’s her problem.”

  Joseph Bess said, “Thanks for asking Gina to the show. She’s really getting a kick out of it.” />
  Marisa reached for her eyeliner. “Why not? It’s the least I could do, considering I fainted in her father’s office the other day and made a fool of myself. Not to mention knocking over an ashtray.”

  “Not to mention there are a few things I have to tell you.”

  Marisa stopped. And waited.

  Bess moved from the open doorway and straddled a chair, his arms resting on the back. “You have to understand something about police work. We deal in specifics, in facts. You can’t go into court with speculation and rumor. Our job is to get enough on somebody to take away his freedom, maybe his life. This means you have to be sure—I mean really sure. What I’m saying is we’ve got this package on you.”

  “Package?”

  “File. Actually it’s only a few pages. It’s about that complaint filed by your producer.”

  Marisa dropped her chin to her chest.

  The detective said, “I know you’ve got the kind of role on this show that attracts a lot of freaky fan mail. I suppose everybody in your business gets mail, but according to the file some of yours … well, some of it’s really desperado. Off the wall in spades. People have sent you switchblades, bullets. One guy even sent you a two pound box of shit, because he thought you were the bitch of all time. You life’s been threatened I don’t know how many times. Schizo phone calls, letters. You’ve even been stopped on the street and had your face slapped more than once by people who take their soap operas seriously.”

  “Where’s all this leading?”

  “It’s leading to what happened six months ago.”

  Six months ago. The letters, all in pale green envelopes, began arriving shortly before Christmas and continued every day for three weeks. Vile letters. Obscene and frightening, some of them sticky with male semen and dried human blood. The sender mailed them to Marisa’s home address, as well as to the studio.

  He signed himself Carl, servant of God, and threatened to rape and dismember Marisa before Christ rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. She was a heathen bitch, an enemy of Jesus and a consort of the Antichrist and would bring about the destruction of Christian America unless she was struck down by the servant of God. Marisa had to die.

  All of the regulars on World and Forever always received mail, a certain portion of it from psychos. However, the letters from Carl had frightened Marisa and her producer, and they’d turned the correspondence over to the police, who took only three days to locate Carl. He turned out to be a retired sixty-five-year-old high-school principal living in Darien, Connecticut.

  Joseph Bess said, “I have to be up-front with you. The people who tell me what to do feel you’re imagining things. They say what you think is happening to you right now is nothing but a repetition of what went down six months ago with Carl. I mentioned the white-haired man and the tall woman, and I mentioned the business about the horse dragging the guy to death in England and what happened to Larry Oregon.”

  “And?”

  The detective rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh, I mentioned Druids.”

  “I get the feeling your superiors look upon all of this as absolutely hilarious.”

  “Marisa, let’s face it: You’ve got people out there watching this show who aren’t wrapped too tight. Even you will admit that.”

  She said, “I took your advice. I called the travel agency that booked my vacation to England last year. They made a transatlantic call for me concerning Jack Lyle.”

  Her eyes found Joseph Bess’s eyes in the mirror. “A month after we left England, Jack Lyle put a gun in his mouth and blew the back of his head off.”

  “This doesn’t help your case any.”

  “You mean Lyle’s not around to back me up?”

  “That’s right. And I bet if I call England they’ll tell me there’s nothing out of the ordinary about his death.”

  Marisa turned around and faced Bess. “Lyle vowed they’d never burn him alive. He vowed he’d kill himself first.”

  “Apparently he did.”

  “This doesn’t tell you anything?”

  Bess shook his head. “I won’t lie to you. It doesn’t.”

  Sharply turning her back to him, Marisa reached for a hairpiece. “The next thing I know is you’ll accuse me of looking for publicity, of making this up.”

  “It’s been mentioned.”

  “And what did you say?”

  Joseph Bess dug his pinky finger in his ear. “We located the horse that killed Oregon. It was floating in a Central Park lake. Apparently it drowned.”

  Bess stood up and placed one foot on the chair. “Horse came from a rental stable on West Eightieth. From there we got the name of the guy who’d taken the horse out.

  He’s married and was riding with somebody’s wife and he doesn’t want to get involved. His story is the two of them rode for around forty-five minutes, then stopped to rest. Rest. That’s the word he used.

  “Anyway, they tied their horses to a tree and were resting when he sees some kid climbing on the horse’s back and the next thing the guy knows is the kid and the horse are gone.”

  Bess grinned. “No disrespect to your friend Oregon, but city cops don’t run into horse thieves every day. The guy and his gal return to the stable and report the stolen horse. They make a deal with the owner: They’ll pay if he keeps quiet, if he doesn’t report it to the cops. The owner’s not dumb. He’s got a chance to collect twice: once from the cheaters and once from the insurance company. Everybody was keeping quiet until we mentioned Oregon’s death. The fact that it was in the papers and on the eleven o’clock news didn’t cause anybody to come forward either, but they’re all good citizens now.”

  Marisa looked into the mirror a long time before speaking. “This kid who stole the horse, was he fat?”

  Bess paused with a stick of gum in front of his mouth. “Why do you ask?”

  “Was he fat?”

  “Yes. The guy and his girlfriend both agreed on that. A fat teenager, white—”

  “Round faced. Open mouth, crooked teeth. Dirty black and yellow sneakers. Long blond hair. Sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. I said I was being followed. He’s the one.”

  “Five minutes everybody! Five minutes to taping! Let’s get ready to make magic!”

  A shaken Marisa stood up and held on to her chair for support. “I … I … That was the stage manager. It’s time to tape—”

  Bess gripped her shoulders firmly.

  She tried to pull away. “Please,” she said. “I’ve got a show to do.”

  “I’m taking Gina home, then meeting my partner and we’re going after Raymond and Fancy tonight. My home number’s on the back of this card. Call me any time. Day, night, doesn’t matter. You hear what I’m saying?”

  Marisa pushed past him.

  And then he was alone in her dressing room, smelling her perfume, feeling her fear. She was special and he wanted her and there wasn’t a chance in the world of its happening. Marisa Heggen was out of his league. Joseph Bess’s wife had died more than three years ago. He’d told himself his heart had been buried with her, but then he’d met Marisa and all he’d done about it was stare and look away when she looked back.

  Even normal women found it hard to share a cop’s life. Women like Marisa Heggen, women who lived like royalty, would find it impossible. Besides, there was Robert. Bess had met him twice and hated the bastard.

  Down at the precinct, Bess’s superior had told him Marisa was blowing smoke. She was lying. Druids. The lieutenant hadn’t even bothered to laugh. All he’d said was why couldn’t she be bothered by niggers and spics like the rest of the broads in this town; to tell her we don’t need no imported talent.

  “She’s jerking you off,” said the lieutenant. “Lucky you. But don’t bother me with that shit.”

  As a cop, Joseph Bess had to listen to the lieutenant.

  But he’d just listened to Marisa describe the fat kid in exact detail.

  He thought about that as he left the dressing room and went lookin
g for Gina.

  TEN

  FOR DINNER ROBERT HAD chosen a French restaurant on East Sixty-first Street, a place he’d been unable to afford until recently. A higher income was only one of several changes Marisa had noticed in him, all of them dating from his acquisition of the Book of Shadows.

  His writing had improved considerably. It was simpler, clearer, and much more marketable. He’d somehow found his own voice, while simultaneously managing to reach a wider public. Marisa was amazed at the way he seemed to thrive on hard work. Robert was now capable of writing twelve hours or more at a stretch, locking himself up alone in his apartment and refusing to answer the telephone or doorbell until he’d finished as much as thirty-thousand words.

  He’d found an aggressive agent, who on the basis of an outline and two chapters had negotiated a six-figure advance for the book Robert had started immediately after returning from England with Marisa. The agent, whom Marisa found cold and intimidating, was a bony-faced Russian woman with reptilian eyes and a talent for legally extorting money.

  Robert’s book had gone to a reprint house for over $800,000. A book club sale, first-serialization rights, and foreign rights were to bring Robert a half million dollars, with an equal amount from a film version. The reptilian-looking Russian had added a series of bonus and escalator clauses to all contracts, which caused Marisa to wonder if even the Mafia could take her on and survive.

  Prodded by the Russian, Robert’s publisher had arranged a ten-city tour, with hefty advertising. The Russian, whose age was somewhere between seventy and the grave, used her jewel-studded cigarette holder as a baton while coaching Robert in what to say during his interviews. Marisa had observed that Robert, who usually took advice from no one, listened carefully to the Russian and did as she ordered. He refused to make a move without consulting her and, as far as Marisa knew, he’d never once argued with or abused the old woman, something he’d done to every other agent he’d ever had.