White Bones: 1 (Katie Maguire)

by Graham Masterton

  “Let them come looking for you,” said Lucy, still pacing from side to side. “By the time they find you, there won’t be very much left of you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t know, do you? When Mor-Rioghain comes through from the other side, she needs a fourteenth sacrifice, a living woman, the strongest woman in the tribe. You were perfect, right from the very beginning. It was always going to be you.”

  Katie said, “What do you mean, ‘right from the very beginning’?”

  “Right from the moment I saw you on the television nightly news, when you first discovered all of those women’s bones. I heard you talking about ritual murder, and I knew at once what kind of ritual it was, because I could see one of the thigh-bones in the background, with a dolly hanging from it.”

  “You told me your university sent you.”

  “University? I’ve never been to any university. I was living in Boston when I first saw you, working as a window-dresser. Haltmann’s Stores, at Downtown Crossing.”

  “So how did you know so much about Mor-Rioghain?”

  “She’s my reason for living, Katie. She has been for years. I studied Jack Callwood’s sacrifices in endless detail, trying to locate the exact spot where he laid the bodies out, and how many women he had managed to kill. I went out almost every weekend, but I was beginning to think that I would never find what I was looking for. His house in Boston had long since been demolished and there was no way of finding the magical place where he had buried the bones. But there you were, like an angel from heaven, if there were angels, and if there was a heaven. There you were, talking to me on my television, showing me the very place where Mor-Rioghain could be summoned, and telling me how many more women I would have to sacrifice to summon her.”

  “You’re sick. You’re totally deranged.”

  “Well, hah, I’d agree with you, if Mor-Rioghain didn’t exist. But when Jack Callwood was Jan Rufenwald, in Germany, he managed to summon Morgana three times, so he said, and each time she gave him wealth, and property, and the company of some of Germany’s most desirable women. I first found out about him when I was seventeen years old, and ever since then I’ve known that I would summon Mor-Rioghain myself one day, and today’s the day.”

  “So what do you want from Mor-Rioghain? Don’t tell me you cut up those poor girls just for money, or houses, or men.”

  Lucy stopped pacing and stared at Katie and Katie had never seen an expression like that on anybody’s face, man or woman, ever. She was alight with triumph.

  “Mor-Rioghain will give me myself. That’s something that I’ve never had. Mor-Rioghain will give me me.”

  Katie smeared the rain away from her eyes with the back of her hand. She didn’t understand this at all, but she knew that she had to think of a way of getting them away from here. Even though it was raining so hard, the smell around Siobhan Buckley’s body was sickening, a metallic mixture of blood and peat and feces, and the proximity of actual grisly death made Katie feel even more afraid.

  “Take off your clothes,” Lucy ordered her. “You have to be ready for the sacrifice.”

  “No, I won’t,” said Katie.

  Lucy came back around bloody remains and held the boning-knife up to Katie’s face. “Take off your clothes or so help me I’ll stick this in your eyes.”

  Katie unbuttoned her sodden green blouse, and peeled it off. Lucy stayed where she was, very close to her, the gun held high, the knife pointing directly at Katie’s face. It suddenly occurred to Katie that Lucy must have always carried this knife. How else had she managed to cut so deftly through Katie’s seatbelt when her car was sinking in the Lee?

  She took off her skirt and stepped out of it. “Underwear now,” Lucy insisted. Katie hesitated but Lucy prodded the knife at her. She unfastened her bra and then pulled down her Marks & Spencer panties. The rain ran down her naked back and gave her goosebumps all over.

  “Kneel,” said Lucy.

  “If you so much as lay one finger on me – ” Katie began, but Lucy screamed, “Kneel!” and so she knelt, her knees sinking into the mud.

  Lucy took a black scarf out of her coat pocket and handed it to John. “What do you want me to do with this?” he asked her, his voice sounding tight and terrified.

  “Blindfold her, tightly, so that she can’t see anything at all. Even Mor-Rioghain’s living sacrifice is not allowed to set eyes on the great one when she appears.”

  John did as he was told. Then Lucy gave him a length of nylon cord and said, “Tie her hands behind her back.”

  “I’m not too good with knots.”

  “Just tie her, will you?”

  It took John a few fumbling minutes before he was able to fasten Katie’s wrists. All the time he kept mumbling under his breath, “I’m sorry, Katie, I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry.”

  When he had finished, Lucy said, “Step away. This is the time for the summoning to begin.”

  It had grown even darker than ever, and the rain was drifting across the field from Iollan’s Wood like the winding-sheets that the bean-nighe washes. John took one step back, and then another. “Turn around,” Lucy told him, and so he did. With three quick paces she approached him from behind, put her right arm around him and sliced the boning-knife across his Adam’s apple.

  55

  Jimmy O’Rourke turned to the last few pages of Gerard’s notebook. Outside he and Patrick O’Sullivan could hear police and ambulance sirens approaching from the Western Road. Patrick took out a cigarette, too, and lit it, and took a look around. “Wasn’t too tidy, was he? Look at the state of this place. Dirty dinner-plate under the couch.”

  “He was an academic, Patrick. Very learned fellow. Academics aren’t interested in dirty dinner-plates.”

  Patrick picked up a heap of Examiners and found a dogeared copy of Playboy. “Interested in dirty books, though, I’d say.”

  “Can’t fault the chap’s research, though. This is going to cause one hell of a bloody great political row, I can tell you. Wouldn’t be surprised if it starts a war.”

  “I thought you weren’t bothered with all of this guff.”

  “Well, I am now, boy. There could be some promotion in this.”

  He finished reading the final few paragraphs of Colonel Corcoran’s diary, and then he came to some slanted, hastily scribbled notes which Gerard had written at the very end. “Had reply to my email to UC Berkeley re Prof Quinn’s research papers!! She published her first study Celtic Legends in 1962!! Odd!!”

  Jimmy put down the notebook and frowned. “He says here that Professor Quinn published her first paper in 1962. Nineteen sixty-two? That would make her at least sixty-five years old, wouldn’t it?”

  “I thought you checked her out yourself.”

  “Yes, but I only checked that she existed. I didn’t ask if she was a pensioner.”

  “Have you heard from Katie yet?”

  “No, but she’s due back at lunch to talk to that Tómas Ó Conaill again.”

  “Due back from where?”

  “She went out to Knocknadeenly with Professor Quinn. She wanted to talk to the Meaghers again.”

  “Katie’s taken Lucy Quinn with her to Knocknadeenly?”

  “That’s right. She mentioned it this morning.”

  “Have you tried her cellphone?”

  “I can’t get through. The mountains screw up the signal, especially in this weather. She said she wouldn’t be later than twelve or so.”

  Jimmy picked up Gerard’s notebook again. Why had Gerard needed to talk to Katie so urgently, and why had somebody come to Gerard’s flat, smashed up his computer and pulled him apart? Maybe that somebody hadn’t wanted him to tell Katie what he had discovered. But if that were the case, why hadn’t he taken his notebook, with all his research in it? Unless that somebody could read no Gaelic, and hadn’t realized from the first few pages what it was all about.

  He tried Katie’s cellphone number again. Now the signal said
that the phone was out of service. He tried Liam Fennessy instead.

  “Inspector? Jimmy O’Rourke here. Are you anywhere near Knocknadeenly?”

  “Not far. I’m just on my way back from Rathcormac. Assault with a deadly leg of pale ham. Fellow knocked his poor old father’s teeth out.”

  “I’ve been trying to contact Katie Maguire. She’s up at the Meagher farm with that Professor Lucy Quinn, supposed to be talking to John Meagher and his mother. Trouble is I can’t get a signal, and, well – ”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been looking through Gerard O’Brien’s research papers here, and there’s kind of a cryptic note about Lucy Quinn, like she may not be exactly who she says she is.”

  “So who exactly is she?”

  “I don’t know, but it might be an idea to call up at the Meaghers’ and make sure that everything’s okay.”

  “All right, then. I’ll be down with you in Perrott Street in twenty minutes or so. You’ve got everything under control, then?”

  Oh, yes, thought Jimmy. I’ve got a dead university professor with no arms and a notebook containing the most explosive political secret of the twentieth century. Everything’s well under control, boy.

  Liam arrived at the entrance to Meagher’s Farm and tooted his horn. The garda on duty came hurrying through the rain and Liam wound his window down. “Is Detective Superintendent Maguire still here?”

  The garda nodded. “She’s been here about forty-five minutes, sir.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  He drove up to the farm buildings. Katie’s car was parked outside, as well as the tractor with its engine idling. He climbed out of his car and puddle-hopped over to the front door. The door was half-ajar, and so he knocked at it and called out, “Superintendent? Anybody home?”

  Katie knelt in the mud with the rain dripping from her nose and her nipples and sliding down her spine. She could hear Lucy on the far side of Siobhan Buckley’s remains, chanting and humming. “Come to me, Mor-Rioghain. Come to me, you queen of death and darkness. Come and see what I have to offer you. Come and feast off flesh and pain.”

  Katie didn’t know what had happened to John, even though he lay only a few feet away from her, his shirt dark with blood. All she could think of was: supposing I got up and tried to run, how far would I get, tied-up and blindfolded? But what else can I do? I can’t just kneel here and wait for her to cut my stomach open.

  “Come to me, Mor-Rioghain, mistress of misery. Come to me, enchantress. I will give you freedom again. I will give you substance and shape. I will set you back where you belong, on a mortal throne, in a mortal kingdom.”

  Katie was sure that she heard a kind of cackling hiss, like a tortured cat. It was difficult to tell, because of the splattering sound of the rain falling on the field, and the sighing and creaking of the trees in Iollan’s Wood, but it went on and on, and if anything it was growing louder.

  “Come to me, Mor-Rioghain. I can feel your presence close by. Come to me, sister of disaster, bringer of woe, you who walk by night through cemeteries and sepulchers.”

  Katie thought: this is madness. There is no Mor-Rioghain. There is no Invisible Kingdom. How she can sacrifice me to somebody who doesn’t exist? Yet she continued to strain her ears to hear the cat-hiss, and she thought she could detect another sound, too – a very low-frequency throbbing, like a large unlit tanker making its way up the River Lee in the middle of the night.

  “Mor-Rioghain, listen to me! Mor-Rioghain, bring me your magic! I will serve you, Mor-Rioghain, for ever and ever!”

  Lucy’s voice grew higher and harsher, and behind her blindfold Katie suddenly thought: This doesn’t sound like the Lucy I know. This doesn’t even sound like a woman. More like a beast.

  “Mor-Rioghain! Queen of the night! Empress of every decay! Come to me, Mor-Rioghain, I have given you everything you ever demanded! Come to me, damn and curse you, Mor-Rioghain! Come to me! Come to me!”

  Katie heard a deafening bang, and an echo that came from the woods, and a further echo. She threw herself sideways into the mud because she recognized it instantly. Not a witch, or a bean-sidhe, but a gunshot.

  “Armed Garda!” shouted Liam. “Drop the gun and put up your hands!”

  Lying on the ground, she closed her eyes behind her blindfold and whispered, “Mary, Mother of God, thank you. Mary, Mother of God, thank you, thank you.”

  She heard Liam squelching toward her. He bent over her and eased the blindfold away from her eyes, one-handed. With his other hand he was keeping his gun leveled at Lucy.

  “Are you all right, Katie?”

  She blinked against the lashing rain. “I’m grand, Liam. Thank you. I’m grand.” She was too relieved to be embarrassed by her nakedness.

  “You can’t stop Mor-Rioghain now!” Lucy screamed. “This has taken years, and years, and so much blood! You can’t stop Mor-Rioghain now!”

  Liam yanked at the cord that bound Katie’s wrists, and after three sharp tugs she was free. Muddy all over, she climbed to her feet and picked up her clothes. It was only when she went to retrieve her blouse that she saw John lying in a deep furrow with his throat cut.

  “You can’t stop this now!” Lucy was croaking, and she was staggering around and around in hysterical fury. “You-cannot-stop-this-now-not-after-everything! Don’t you understand? Don’t you fucking understand? I have to be me! I have to be me! I have to know what I am!”

  Katie knelt down beside John and felt his pulse. The boning-knife had cut his larynx but it had missed his carotid artery, and although his breathing was very shallow he was still alive. She took out her handkerchief, folded it into a pad, and pressed it against his throat. Then she said, “Liam, quick, give me your phone. We have to get the paramedics up here.”

  Lucy kept on spinning around, her arms flailing. Liam threw his phone to Katie and then he approached Lucy with his gun held in both hands. “Keep still! Don’t move! Stop going round and round, for feck’s sake! Put your hands on top of your head and kneel on the floor!”

  Lucy abruptly stopped spinning, and lifted her head, and gave Katie that mad wide-eyed stare that she had given her before.

  “Do you hear something, Katie?” she said. “Do you hear something, coming through the woods? The door’s open, Katie. The door’s open! Mor-Rioghain is rushing our way!”

  “Will you ever put your fecking hands on top of your head!” Liam roared at her.

  Katie slowly lowered Liam’s cellphone. She could hear something, she swore it. That cackling hiss, that ground-quivering rumbling sound. And there was a feeling, too, an indescribable feeling that something huge and terrible was coming closer and closer.

  “She has to have a living sacrifice, Katie, and if it can’t be you then it’ll have to be another strong woman, won’t it? And who can you think of who’s stronger than me?”

  “Lucy! Calm down! Calm down! Do what Liam tells you! Put your hands on your head and kneel on the ground!”

  “Too late, Katie darling! Mor-Rioghain’s coming!”

  With that, Lucy wrestled herself out of her black leather coat and threw it aside. Then she pulled off her black polo-neck sweater, and her black lacy bra. Her breasts were big, and dark-nippled, and veined with blue.

  “Kneel down!” Liam yelled at her.

  “You don’t understand anything!” Lucy screamed back at him. “You don’t understand anything at all!”

  Then, suddenly, she stiffened, and stood still, as if she had heard what she was waiting for, and she smiled a waxy-looking smile.

  “Mor-Rioghain,” she breathed. Behind her, the branches of Iollan’s Wood were thrashing from side to side like the arms of drowning bathers. Katie swore that the temperature was dropping, and that the rain was even colder, and when she looked up the sky was crowded with silent, wheeling crows.

  Raising her voice against the rain, Lucy said, “All my life I never knew what I was, or understood myself. And then I found out about Mor-Rioghain – that she could
give you everything you ever wanted. Other people get everything they want, other people understand themselves. Why not me?”

  The wind was rising. The wet leaves of autumn were being lifted from the floor of the woods, and there was a death-rattle of bracken-stalks, like a thousand old people with bronchitis. Soil began to fly from the furrows in a black blizzard.

  “You can’t have anything at the price of somebody else’s life!” Katie shouted. “You can’t!”

  Lucy unbuckled the belt of her tight black leather trousers. “Who are you to judge me?” she shrieked. “Who are you to judge? If I can’t have you as a sacrifice, then I’ll sacrifice myself, and ask for Mor-Rioghain to give me my life back!”

  She forced her trousers down to her knees. She wasn’t wearing any underwear, and when Katie saw her she slowly raised her hand to her mouth, and stared at her, and simply couldn’t believe what she was looking at.

  Lucy had a fully-developed penis, and testicles, and curly black pubic hair.

  “Christ,” said Liam.

  Something happened then, but Katie didn’t mention it in her report, and neither did Liam, and they never spoke about it again, even to each other. But they both felt as if the world had gone blind, as if the atmospheric pressure had dropped so much that nobody could breathe. Lucy picked up her boning-knife and what was Liam going to do? Shoot her?

  Katie felt as if a huge dark presence swept over them, or perhaps it was only a katabatic gust of wind. But Lucy threw her head back and stuck the boning-knife into her chest, right up to the handle, and drew it downward, not hurrying, as if she were relishing the way she was opening herself up. For a long, calm moment she stood in the rain with her intestines sliding out of her, all down her thighs, and her face was as strange and pale as beautiful as the face of Mor-Rioghain herself.

  “Now, Mor-Rioghain, you have your sacrifice!” she cried, even though her voice was juddering with pain. “Come through, O Pitiless One, and take my offerings! Come through, maker of widows and orphans, carrier of grief and shadows! I call you once, I call you twice – ”