The Devil's Eye

by J. R. Rain

  No wonder he looks like that. Tim’s his eleven-year-old son, and not exactly an outdoors kid, either. As smart as he is skinny, he’s more the computer gaming type. Not that he’s afraid of the outdoors or anything, but he’s not equipped for it. In fact, I’m sure he liked the idea of going off for a week of summer camp, though Ed’s expression tells me it didn’t end well.

  “Oh, no… I hope he’s okay,” I say.

  “You need to take the day?” asks Captain Greer. “Doesn’t look like you got much sleep.”

  “The case is what’s keeping me up.” Ed sighs. “Tim… The camp has an improvised shower set up on the hillside, a slab of rock basically with a curtain around it. Water’s not heated, but it’s something. Anyway… Tim’s taking a shower and I guess he steps wrong. The stone’s all sorts of slippery with soapy water and he shoots off it like a bullet, sliding bare-assed down the hill.”

  I catch myself before I laugh. As funny as that’s starting to sound, Ed looks far too worried for this to have a humorous ending.

  “… and he goes straight into a thicket of poison ivy. It’s everywhere.”

  Rick crosses his legs and groans.

  “Oh, damn,” says Captain Greer, her eyebrows rising. “That boy oughta be in the hospital.”

  Ed winces. “Well, he had his hands guarding the delicate bits, but… yeah. I’m waiting for Katy to call me any minute about taking him to the hospital if it gets too bad.”

  “I have something that can help, if you want.” I glance at Captain Greer. “I’d need to run home for about twenty minutes to brew it up.”

  Captain Greer quirks her eyebrow at me with a bit of a smirk. “Magic?”

  “Heh. If it works, I’ll try it,” says Ed. “What are you thinking of?”

  “Jimsonweed is a natural remedy for poison ivy. I’d give you an oil you add to a bath and let him soak in it.”

  “Hmm.” Ed rubs his chin.

  Captain Greer looks back and forth between us. “If you want her to, I’m okay with it.”

  Linda mumbles to herself in Spanish. I ignore her.

  “Sure. He’s basically been crying constantly.” Ed waves for me to follow. “Come on. I’ll drive.”

  I glance at the captain long enough for a nod of approval before hurrying after him.

  ***

  Ed pulls his Excursion into the driveway at my place, dwarfing Caius’ little car. I thought my Silverado was big, but someone could seriously live out of this land boat. Why on Earth would anyone want a truck this large? I jump down and give the vault-like door a shove closed before heading over to the front door, which opens before I get there.

  Caius, in a black long-sleeved shirt and pants, barefoot, glances at Ed and back to me with a look of bewilderment.

  “Only back for a couple of minutes.” I pause long enough for a quick kiss, and continue into the house toward my herb garden. Since the guys trail after me, I explain to Caius why I’m back so early.

  “Ahh.” He winces at Ed. “Ouch. Poor little man. Sorry.”

  “Ehh. Tim was looking forward to camp, but after this, I think he’s going to want to stay home and play video games.” Ed manages a feeble smile.

  “Can I offer you anything to drink?” asks Caius.

  Ed glances at me. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Ten minutes or so.” I grab my mortar and pestle, a bottle of plain oil, and some candles.

  “Thanks, maybe water… I’ll be heading straight home after taking her back to the station.” Ed smiles.

  Caius nods to me. “I can run her back there if you want to get this brew to your son faster.”

  “All right. Thanks.” Ed nods.

  I set up five candles around a small pentacle I have inscribed on a workspace, add a few ounces of the plain oil to my mini-cauldron, and place it at the center. It’s set on a base with a Sterno can, which I light. A little running around the garden later, I’ve collected what I need: blackberry leaf, a powerful healing agent and also a reagent used to invoke Brigit, who I often call upon for healing magic. Eucalyptus leaf, another herb quite helpful with healing spells. Some aloe, for its soothing properties, and a bit of blessed thistle, which ups the power of healing magic.

  My primary ingredient to attack poison ivy, jimsonweed, I’ve already extracted into oil, a bottle of which I’ve got in the cabinet above where I’m working. I start by pulverizing the blackberry leaf down to a fine powder, which I transfer to a holding bowl. The eucalyptus follows, and the blessed thistle last. After setting the mortar aside, I place my mini-cauldron at the center of the pentacle.

  That done, I spend a moment clearing my mind and visualizing my workspace being purified of negative or distracting energies. Ed hovers at the doorway to the garden, watching me from about fifteen feet away, thankfully remaining silent. I don’t mind having an audience as long as they don’t interfere.

  I light the Spirit candle first, then Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.

  While tracing my athame, a ten-inch dagger with a braided metal cord handle, around the outside of the small pentacle, I project my desire to establish a circle.

  “Lady Brigit, I invite you to my circle,” I intone under my breath, adding the blackberry leaf to the warming oil in the mini-cauldron, and light aflame a small pile of it in a bowl as an offering to her. “Please honor me with your presence.”

  Eyes closed, I let my head and heart fill with gratitude for her hearing my plea.

  I add the eucalyptus leaf, stirring it into the hot oil.

  “A boy trod down a blighted path,

  “Spare his skin the ivy’s wrath.”

  I pour a healthy amount of jimsonweed oil into the mixture.

  “With leaf and aloe and weed of jimson,

  “May his skin be cured of crimson.”

  I add the aloe, continuing to stir clockwise.

  “For Lady Brigit’s grace I yearn,

  “To spare this child the poison’s burn.”

  Last, I add the blessed thistle while picturing Timothy.

  “From pain and anguish, set him free.

  “This elixir I craft, so mote it be.”

  The candles flutter with a ripple of energy in the air, and I’m sure Brigit has heard me.

  Head bowed, I again whisper my thanks and continue stirring the mixture until it becomes a clear, pale green. Again, I grasp my athame, and circumscribe the pentacle counterclockwise, releasing the energy within the circle back to the universe, ending the ritual. I puff out the candles in reverse order, and cover the Sterno heating the mini-cauldron, putting it out. Using tongs, I pour the potion into a little spherical glass bottle a little larger than a golf ball, and cork it.

  “Expecting something different?” asks Caius from behind me, knowing the ritual is complete.

  “Umm. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting,” mutters Ed.

  I turn and smile back at them. Both are sipping water from tall glasses by the doorway. “It will take a moment to cool, but it’s finished.”

  “So, you said put it in a bath?” asks Ed.

  “Yes. Pour all of it into a tub of room-temperature water.” I bundle the hot bottle in a cloth to pick it up, and carry it over to him. “It’s important that he doesn’t drink this. Jimsonweed is poisonous if ingested. It’s for his skin only. He should keep the affected areas under water for at least twenty minutes, but soaking longer won’t hurt.”

  “Thanks.” Ed manages a weak smile.

  I’m sure he thinks I’m close to nuts, or ‘eccentric,’ and perhaps himself as well for being here. I smile brightly. “You’re quite welcome.”

  We wander back to the kitchen, where Ed sets his half-empty glass on a counter.

  “I suppose you need to get back to the station right away?” Caius asks me.

  I nod. “But not ‘violate the speed limit’ fast.”

  “Darn,” says Caius, snapping his fingers, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Arrive alive,” says Ed in a cheesy
voice. He salutes me with the bundled bottle. “Thanks, Wims. I’m gonna go give this to Tim. Sorry for the trouble.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. You’re like family to me… even Linda.”

  Ed laughs. “Every family’s got that one relative.”

  “Indeed.” I giggle.

  I follow Ed to the door and see him off. As he carefully sets the potion on his front seat, I almost giggle again. I seriously doubt the man started off his day thinking he’d wind up transporting a real potion from a real witch. I don’t hope it will work; I know it will work.

  Chapter Twelve

  Evisceration for Dummies

  Rick and Captain Greer walk up to me as soon as I’m back in our squad room. The trick door tries to smack me in the ass again, but this time, I’m ready for it and catch the bastard thing. Greer asks about Ed and his son, while Rick’s got that urgent look in his eye.

  “Ed’s on his way home with the salve for Tim. I don’t know if he’s planning to stay home or come in later.” I shift to face Rick. “What happened?”

  “ME called. He’s ready to talk to us about our vic.”

  Captain Greer nods at us. “All right. Go deal with that. I’ll give Ed a call in a little while.”

  Linda looks up from her computer screen, shakes her head, and goes back to what she was reading.

  I hurry off behind Rick down the hall and out to the parking lot.

  “So, how’d it go?” he asks.

  “It went. All the energy felt right, but it’s not exactly a complicated brew.”

  He pushes the door open, chuckling. “And that shit really works.”

  I grin. “Always, and it’s not shit.”

  “Right, sorry.”

  I wave it off. Rick didn’t mean to offend. “Did you get anything from the ME over the phone?”

  “Just that he has answers. Your friend at the Bureau of Prisons got back to us. Manning didn’t have any major incidents while in custody.” He hops in and starts the engine.

  I fall into the passenger seat and buckle up. “Damn. Nothing?”

  Rick shrugs. “I’m sure he had some issues, but nothing significant enough to appear on his record.”

  “So, prison grudge seems unlikely.”

  “Yeah. Maybe something will still turn up from another inmate.”

  “Possible,” I say, but the lead feels cold.

  “Hey, on the bright side,” says Rick. “We still have our devil-worshiping teens to look into. Maybe one of them is a little short in the sanity department. I did some calling around when you ran home to do the Witch Hazel thing.”

  I smirk.

  “One kid’s kinda got a reputation as an outcast. He’s had a bunch of police complaints, but that’s all… just complaints.”

  “The locals giving the pagan a hard time?” I ask.

  “Maybe.” Rick slides us into the left lane and slips through a turn on a yellow light. “Or it could be technicalities. We should probably talk to them at least.”

  I let my head sink back against the seat and sigh out a, “Yeah.”

  ***

  The Thurston County Coroner’s office building always gives me weird vibes.

  I mean, it doesn’t look creepy or anything, more like a nice veterinarian’s office with a sloping green roof and well-manicured grounds. Still, the air here has an ‘off’ vibe, but I suppose any place where the dead are held against their will is going to have issues. It doesn’t matter what faith a person comes from, lying in a cooler on a slab doesn’t sit well with what should happen after death.

  Dr. Simon Ferrante, the medical examiner, meets us in a procedure room where the remains of Mr. Walter Manning lie under a sheet, a creepy sunken hollow where the chest should be. The doctor is in his early fifties with neat, short white hair. I will confess that the sight of him, gaunt, tall, hooked nose, and a permanent serious expression, would have scared the hell out of me as a kid. He’s unsettling enough now and I’m thirty-five.

  Fortunately, I’ve spoken with him before and all the eeriness leaves as soon as he opens his mouth. His voice is deeper than one would expect from a man so thin, and he speaks with a sympathetic cadence likely crafted over many years of comforting the relatives of his clients.

  “Sorry about the delay,” I say while shaking his hand. “My fault entirely. Helping Detective Parrish with something.”

  “Nothing too bad I hope.” Dr. Ferrante smiles.

  I explain his son slipping off an outdoor shower and sliding naked down a muddy hill into a grove of poison ivy. He cringes. Rick covers his groin again. Goddess… boys and their parts.

  “Whatcha got for us, Doc?” asks Rick.

  Ferrante holds up his tablet computer and pokes at the screen. “My official ruling as to the cause of death is going to be stab wounds to the heart.”

  “Wow.” Rick blinks. “Impressive. Mind if I ask how you came to that conclusion?”

  “Not at all.” The doctor smiles. “There are marks on the interior thoracic cavity and spinal column from the point of a blade consistent with a weapon of at least eight inches being thrust into the chest. The uniformity in the penetration depth, plus analysis of the lacerations on the organs recovered from the scene suggests a dual-edged, straight blade from eight to ten inches. My opinion is a combat knife or a replica medieval dagger. The weapon was sharp, but not to an extreme degree. The lacerations weren’t clean and had signs of tearing.”

  I nod while jotting down notes.

  “I found no evidence of a struggle. The victim’s fingernails did not contain foreign tissue and he had no bruising indicative of any attempt to defend himself. This is consistent with the results of the blood analysis, which showed high levels of gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid. I believe he was unconscious while killed.”

  Rick finishes writing something and looks up. “What do you make of the, umm, dissection?”

  Dr. Ferrante sighs with a hint of an eye roll. “The killer sliced up the poor man’s guts, but it’s not even the work of a hunter cleaning a deer. Whoever did this had no idea what they were doing from an anatomical standpoint, and even less of an idea how to use a knife. Many of the organs have common lacerations, which suggests the killer was unable to differentiate them and merely hacked away.”

  “Hmm.” Rick glances at me. “A group of dime-store, high school Satan worshippers would’ve had to have incapacitated a grown man before sacrificing him.”

  I fidget. He’s got a point, but it doesn’t feel right to me. My expression gives away my feelings of dissonance, but they’re not quite strong enough for me to dismiss those kids entirely.

  “Anything else?” I ask.

  “Yes.” Dr. Ferrante nods. “He had high levels of marijuana, GHB, and alcohol in his system as well. Or what was left of his system. Drink is the most likely agent for introducing the GHB, commonly called the date-rape drug. Oh, and I would put the time of death at approximately 2:20 a.m. to 2:40 a.m. the night before the body was discovered.”

  “So the body wasn’t out there that long.” Rick nods. “Thanks.”

  “Have you located any next of kin?” asks the doctor.

  I shake my head. “Not yet. We only got his name recently.”

  “All right. He can sleep here for a while then. Oh, before I forget…” The doctor holds up the tablet, showing pictures of a man’s shin. Crystals, like diamonds, gleam from within a deep incision.

  I squirm a little at the gore, but it’s honestly tame compared to the rest of him. Why is it the smaller injuries like that make me squirm so much more? Guy gets his head blown apart by a shotgun is bad, but I really cringe watching a skateboarder scrape their knees. Guess the lesser injury is more relatable… I can imagine what that feels like. “Is that a diamond?”

  “No. This man had several pieces of glass embedded in his leg. The wound was fairly recent. It had only just healed. A small bump drew my attention to it. It may or may not be helpful, but it’s a fairly common type of glass used in doors. Safety glass that
turns into little bits when broken.”

  “Don’t they use that for car windows too?” asks Rick.

  “Similar but different type,” says the doctor. “The glass in your victim’s leg was completely flat, suggesting a door or window. It’s rare but not unheard of to be in house windows, but this glass definitely did not come from a car.”

  “Hmm.” Rick rubs his chin. “Any idea how a guy would get that stuck in his leg?”

  “Kicking in a door?” I swipe at my hair, pulling it off my face. “Having a piece of plate glass swung at you like a weapon? Falling down stairs drunk and going through a door? You need more examples?”

  Rick shakes his head. “That was quite enough, thank you.”

  “Tripping and landing on a scattering of already-broken safety glass as well,” I add anyway.

  “You done, Wimsey?”

  I grin.

  Dr. Ferrante swipes at the tablet and pokes the screen twice before saying, “The glass being in his leg is likely to raise more questions than it answers right now, but may likely explain something you find later.”

  “Good to know.” Rick nods.

  “Or it won’t.” Dr. Ferrante winks at us. “It may very well be unrelated.”

  “Thanks, Doctor.” I glance at Rick. “So, we know that someone probably drugged him unconscious, tied his hands, and carried him out to the woods where they stabbed him to death before cutting him open.”

  “Sounds about right.” Rick tucks his notepad away.

  “For what reason, though…?” I mutter, intending to be rhetorical.

  “That’s why they pay us the big bucks.” Rick pats me on the shoulder. “Well me, anyway. I assume you make less than me.”

  My eyes narrow, but I can’t conceal a smirk. “Asshole.”

  ***

  Back at our desks, I find the victim’s last listed address while Rick checks out his job. He’d been working labor at construction sites, which opens the possibility for a work accident to explain the glass in his leg.

  “No, no… no need to fire him,” says Rick into the phone. “Mr. Manning was found dead yesterday.” A pause. “Yes, we’re sure. Do you know anyone who might’ve had a reason to hurt him?” Rick listens to the phone, nodding, for a little while. “All right. Was he involved in any accidents on a work site within the past year? Mm-hmm. Right. Okay. Thanks for your time.”