The Hell Yo - lanyon Josh - Страница 60
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glanced down to see a large white rabbit hopping beneath the table.
Selena returned carrying a tray with an earthenware teapot and mugs. She sat across
from me. “Sugar? Cream?”
“Black.”
She nodded. Poured the tea, passed me the cup with a smile. “How can I help you,
Adrien?”
I don’t know if it was that smile, which was warm and reassuring and genuinely
interested, or the worn beauty of her face, but for the first time in a long time I felt myself
relaxing.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t think there’s much you can tell me about this that I
don’t already know.” I offered the well-handled photos of the inverted pentagram. “I have a
feeling this is not your line.”
She took the photos, going through them slowly, without expression. Then she set
them aside. “No, they’re not my line. Tell me what you know about them.”
I can’t explain why – maybe it was the profound peace of that isolated cabin or the
grave serenity of the woman herself – but I found myself pouring out all my troubles.
I told her about the Scythe of Gremory and the three blades. I told her about Angus. I
told her about Guy. I even told her about Jake. I probably would have blabbed all night if she
hadn’t finally said, into one of my rare pauses for breath, “What do you think is behind these
murders?”
“What or whom?”
“What.”
“You mean the motive?”
She smiled a little. “If you want to call it that.”
I stared at her bleakly. “I think Kinsey was killed because they wanted to frame
Angus.”
“But to kill one of their own?” She spoke gently.
She was right. I hadn’t given much thought to motive – partly because Jake always said
that if means and opportunity were there, motive would turn up. And partly because I had
spent all my energy chasing demons, but the real demon of this case was named MacGuffin.
“She did something to turn the others against her,” I said slowly. What had Angus’s sin
been? By attempting to leave the club, he had threatened disclosure, exposure, revelation.
What he had threatened, Kinsey had unwittingly accomplished. “She came to the bookstore
that day and tried to intimidate me. Until then, I didn’t know who any of them were. After
that I had names, faces.”
Selene nodded, sipping her tea. “And so did the police – through your friend Jake. That
was a serious miscalculation on her part. Whatever her previous ranking, and I imagine it
was quite high for her to persuade the other girl to follow, she would have lost favor
following her visit to you. Remember, in these groups there’s a good deal of rivalry and
competition.”
“So someone aspiring to her position as…Adept…might have been willing to silence
her?”
Her expression was grave. “It wouldn’t be the first time, would it? That’s what
frightened your young assistant. Murder.”
I nodded. Drank more tea. It had an odd aftertaste, but it was good. I felt less weary,
less depressed.
“The other two murders…” I had been thinking aloud. Selene was silent. “One kid
disappeared in October. One kid disappeared in May. Those correspond with witches’
Sabbats, right?”
“Samhain and Beltane both fall in those months.”
“How many Sabbats are there?”
“Eight.”
“How many of the Sabbats require human sacrifice?”
She opened her mouth to object, I said, “I realize that Wicca doesn’t follow these old
traditions, but you share the same Sabbats with the Satanists.”
“The four major Sabbats are Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas, and Samhain.”
“So there could be more deaths.”
She nodded.
“There might be more bodies out there.”
“It is possible.”
I reached for the photos. “Was this meant to scare me, or was this an actual death
threat?”
“I think it was intended to frighten you. I can’t be sure. In any case, you’re more of a
danger now than you were then.”
I considered this from a tired distance. It occurred to me that if I didn’t hit the road
soon, I’d be asking for a place on her sofa.
I stood. “Thank you for your time. This was helpful.”
Selene rose also. The three-legged dog, still watching us from the doorway, made a
determined hopping effort to get to its feet.
She walked outside with me, her bare feet seemingly impervious to the frost on the
ground.
As I opened the car door, she touched my arm. “Adrien, you’re very tired. Be careful
driving back.”
I looked at her in surprise. Took the hand she offered.
“Can I ask you a question? Do you make a living at this?” I gestured to the cabin,
outlined in silver moonlight.
“You mean do I have a day job? Yes, I’m a criminal psychologist.”
She chuckled at my expression. I climbed into the Forester.
I caught a final glimpse of her standing in the cabin doorway, the dog beside her. The
firelight seemed to form an aureole around her.
The next bend in the road took the cabin from sight. It was dark out here, deathly
quiet. The headlights picked out the sign leading back to the main road.
High overhead, a wicked crescent moon shone like a crooked smile over the waves and
waves of black pine trees. I clicked my high beams on.
After the earlier workday traffic, Angeles Crest Highway was startlingly empty. Miles
ahead, I spotted a single pair of headlights winding their way toward me.
As I drove, the winding highway seemed to pick up a kind hypnotic rhythm.
Accelerate in, decelerate out, the road looped and rolled around the mountains, narrowing to
a pass between hills that looked more like rockslides and then widening deceptively.
I passed the car I had seen miles below me, dimming my high beams briefly as we
flashed past each other. Then nothing more but a long empty stretch of invisible road.
Selene Wolfe was right. I was tired. I had been sleeping badly. It was harder to avoid
demons in dreams – especially when they were your own.
Shortly before he died at age eighty-one, Joseph Hansen started a blog called
Lastwords. I’d found it once, surfing the ’Net. Three posts filled with the loneliness of having
outlived pretty much everyone and everything that mattered. Three posts and about as many
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