Chapters (46)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
I could hear Lucas’s voice. The fact that the deceased are found in a common location may speak less to a connection than to a simple matter of convenience. Yes, Lucas really did talk that way. Drove me nuts, especially when I found myself slipping into the same speech patterns. On the plus side, I may not be an A student, but I sure as hell can sound like one.
When I told Jesse my theory—small town, not a lot of places to put a body, someone had already used this one, so the second killer followed suit—he shrugged. “Possible, but in this particular small town, there’s no shortage of abandoned buildings.”
“What’s the local murder rate?”
“You’re looking at it. This double killing last fall, then the single one ten days ago. Before that, the last homicide was a domestic incident in 1999.”
“Lot of drug activity in town?”
“It has its share, maybe a little more. You can blame that on a depressed economy, though. It’s not exactly a hotbed of gangsta activity. Mostly kids selling pot from their lockers, the laid-off guy down the road dealing out of his garage, that sort of thing.”
“Do the police think it’s the same killer for all three?”
“Yep, but only because otherwise they’d need to catch two murderers, and that’s more work than they care to contemplate.”
“You’re going to make me guess what the supernatural connection is, aren’t you?”
“I was just seeing if you’d pick it up. It’s—”
I lifted a hand to cut him off. “Is the answer here?” I asked, pointing at the photos.
He nodded.
“Give me a minute.”
two
two
I studied the victims for some sign they’d been killed by a supernatural—puncture wounds, gnaw marks, weird burn patterns. But the only sign of trauma was the bullet holes.
Next I looked at the background for evidence that the victims had been used ritualistically. If so, then we probably weren’t dealing with a supernatural killer. There were black art rituals involving human sacrifice—usually high-level protection spells that required a life in forfeit for a life protected—but that’s a lot more rare among witches and sorcerers than Hollywood would have people believe.
If these were indeed ritual murders, then the most likely culprit was Hollywood itself, for suggesting that it’s possible to harness the forces of darkness through sacrifice. As if a demon really gives a rat’s ass about a dead human or two.
When humans ritually kill, though, they’re rarely subtle. Pentacles in blood are a particular favorite. Apparently, if you’re going to the trouble of proving what a badass occultist you are, you want to make sure the whole world gets it.