Bless the Child (56 page)

Malachy Devlin sat beside her as she slept; he wouldn’t move for fear of waking her. Sleep was the only respite she would find now. There was much yet to be faced . . . the body . . . the funeral . . . the emptiness in her heart where Jenna had resided. He remembered all of it, the waking nightmare of death and its macabre rituals.

This could be taken away again.
The thought clawed at the edges of his mind.
I have found the one to love, and those sons of bitches are out to take her away from me. They’ve already beaten me on Jenna. I can’t let them harm the child, or there’ll be nothing left of Maggie’s heart. It was my own failure that cost me Daniel and Jan,
he thought, fiercely self-honest.
But not this time. This time, I’ll keep them safe.

Three hours later, at the station house, Garibaldi handed the videotape back to Devlin with a grimace.

“The tech guys say this tape’s never been used, Lieutenant.”

Devlin looked up sharply.

“Impossible,” he said.

“I guess that leaves us with a hallucination from all the stress, or an outright lie,” Garibaldi said quietly.

Devlin shook his head slowly. “She isn’t crazy and she doesn’t lie. There’s another explanation.”

Both men stood staring at the offending tape; suddenly, their eyes met, knowledge dawning.

“It’s not the same tape!” they said, almost in unison.

“Find out if Jackson let it out of his hand between my office and the VCR,” Devlin ordered.

Garibaldi was gone and back in minutes. “He says he laid it on top of the machine, because a call came in while we were still talking to Maggie. There was plenty of time for somebody to switch the tape. But, Lieutenant, this means we got one of them here in the squad with us. That’s pretty unbelievable, no?”

“Maybe not one of them, Gino. Maybe just somebody they’ve got on the occasional payroll. It’s not impossible.”

“Yeah . . . well, it means maybe we better watch our asses pretty damn good from here on in, Lieutenant. You think maybe we should take this to the Captain?”

“If the ME says Jenna’s death was murder, I’ll take it to the Captain.”

The two men’s eyes met again, the same sudden wariness in both. Now, not even the Captain was above suspicion.

The Medical Examiner pushed his half glasses a fraction of an inch higher on his large nose and looked up from the grisly work of attempting to ascertain the cause of Jenna Vannier’s death. The body was charred and grotesque. Parts of it were missing.

He sought Devlin’s eye, over the corpse. “What you have here, Lieutenant, is something very queer . . . something maybe you should keep under your hat until we know more . . .”

Devlin raised an eyebrow in lieu of asking the obvious question. Autopsies were not a favorite part of the job, and this one less than most.

“This woman didn’t die in a car crash,” the ME said definitively. “She was tortured to death. Her tongue and several vital organs are missing. And if they went up in smoke, you can bet your badge it wasn’t in the fire from any car crash.”

“Ever see anything like this before?” Devlin asked, trying not to look at the charred remains on the table. The lilting youngster in the picture on Maggie’s desk kept swimming into focus in his mind.

“That case down in Texas a few years ago . . . all those satanic sacrifices they found in an old shed on the border . . . they all had their hearts removed living,” the ME said, thoughtfully. “The tongue’s a new wrinkle, though. Maybe they just wanted to shut her up while they butchered her.”

Devlin nodded, trying to think of some way to keep the worst of this from the newspapers. Any inkling of a ritual killing and they’d have a field day with the intimate pieces of Maggie O’Connor’s life.

“Did you know her?” the Medical Examiner asked, seeing the haunted look in Devlin’s eyes.

“No, never laid eyes on her. But the mother’s a good friend of mine.”

“Hmm. Worse yet, I guess. At least the kid’s beyond pain now.”

Devlin nodded a second time. There was nothing he could say.

“When the mother comes to pick up the remains, I’ll try not to give her all the grim details.”

Devlin looked up sharply. “She already knows the details. Somebody sent her a video.”

The Medical Examiner stared at him a moment, digesting that piece of information, then he removed his glasses in an expressive gesture, and pressed the bridge of his nose, as if to ward off a terminal headache, before speaking. “Nice world we’ve got here, Lieutenant, wouldn’t you say? You think God is dead or He just doesn’t give a rat’s ass anymore?”

“’Homo homini lupus,’”
Devlin murmured. The ME looked closer at the detective, surprised by the Latin.

“Man may be a wolf to man, Lieutenant,” he said authoritatively, “but God damn well ought to know better.”

M
aggie felt the inexorable force of Jenna’s death wash through her with nauseating intensity, as she stood beside the two-day-old grave. She’d made it through the burial in a haze of numbness, Amanda and Ellie doing everything, leading her through the motions like a sleepwalker.

She had held back the heinous memory of the videotape by sheer force of will, till now; trying to stay alive, and in control of her faculties, long enough to do what she must. The fight for Cody was still ahead. Cody was alive. Cody
needed
her. But the floodgates hadn’t held. The horror kept seeping in. To her dreams, to her waking consciousness, inexorable and unstoppable. A living presence dripping blood through crevices, under doorways of the mind and heart. So Maggie awakened this morning know she had to meet it face-to-face, in order to stay sane.

You’re trying to survive the cold, little flowers,
she thought, staring at the wilting daffodils on the ground at her feet.
So am I.
Silent and forlorn, she wondered how this tragedy could ever have engulfed their lives.

Nobody knows, but you, what we were together in the good times, Jenna . . .
She breathed the thought to her daughter, wherever she was.
All they know is the end of love . . . but you and I shared the beginning.

Maggie let the flood of ice-cold grief enfold her, rising within her like a drowning tide.

How could it come to so bad an end, when there was so much love in it?
Did I nurse you too little, or love you too much? Did I leave you adrift too long, during your father’s long dying? I never meant to, sweetheart. I would have fed you with my own heart’s blood, if it could have saved you. Just as I will Cody. Do you understand that everything I do for her, I do for you too?

“I am not resigned to your going, Jenna,”
she whispered.
“I don’t know how to say good-bye.”

It suddenly occurred to Maggie that the murdered girl who lay beneath the earth at her feet, wasn’t Jenna at all. Jenna had died, long, long ago, when first she’d put a poisoned needle in her arm.
A poisoned spindle will prick your finger at sixteen, the wicked fairy had said at Sleeping Beauty’s Christening. And so it had.

She blessed herself and turned to go. As she left the silent cemetery plot behind, she wondered how long it would be before she slept beside her daughter on this quiet hill. And when that happened, would Cody share their endless rest?

G
hania stroked the body of her pet snake with a tolerant affection. “Oh, Malikali, my pet,” she whispered seductively, “why did I ever choose you instead of werespider, or a cat, as my familiar?” She chuckled a little at her own question. “Either of them would be so easy to carry about, while you have become so plump and so long, it is a great bother to lift you.” She patted the swaying head, taking a few moments to meet its placid reptilian gaze.

She had raised the snake from a hatchling, fed it on blood treats, and trained it meticulously for the tasks she expected of a witch’s familiar. There’d been so many of them over the years; even Ghania’s skill could not lengthen their lifespans more than two or three times nature’s intended number. This one, at least, had the added virtue of being able to terrify merely by its appearance. Snakes were anathema to most humans; it was surprising how merely being threatened by the presence of one such as Malikali loosened most tongues.

The snake was good-enough tool in some ways, she thought with a sigh, but singularly lacking in intelligence. At least with cats and dogs there was a responsive intellect to interact with the magician’s whims. In Malikali and her kind, there was simple instinct to rely on, and a sort of plodding loyalty. And, of course, the snake was an unusually good channel for her mistress’s psychic powers. If Malikali was present in a room, she was an excellent amplifier of energies, which made it easier to maintain surveillance on those Ghania chose to keep tabs on.

Ghania sighed again, patted the snake absently and stood up. She had decided to use this creature to awaken Cody’s talents, fully. But the process would demand great care, for this child was just the right size to seem a perfect morsel to Malikali, whose obedience could be just as dull-witted as the rest of her. The witch shook her head at the imponderables; there was always so much to remember in the cases of awakening latent powers . . . and never had there been a reward like the one at the end of this rainbow.

Ghania opened the cage of rabbits and pulled out the two largest; the snake could use the exercise she’d get in running these two to ground. She dropped the protesting rabbits into the cement pit, which the snake used for feeding, and turned to go. There was no need to watch the spectacle. Malikali would have some fun torturing the two, and then, inevitably she would eat them. As familiars go, the snake might be boring, but she was really very little bother.

As she made the return trip to the nursery, Ghania pondered the precise methodology she would use on the child, now that the time had finally come. There was no question that Cody had made contact with the Guardians. The episode with the rabbit had been a perfect catalyst, the child’s soft heart made her particularly vulnerable to the animal’s suffering, and she had been forced to the brink . . . where the Guardians hovered. She had made contact, all right. And she had been practicing communication with the animals, too; several had relayed that fact to Ghania, telepathically. She had even begun trying to communicate with the mineral and vegetable kingdoms, the Orishas had reported—although it seemed that Cody did not yet trust her own abilities.

At last, all the ingredients were in the cosmic beaker—all that was needed now was for Ghania to devise the perfect torment to complete the alchemical formula that would transmute child into Messenger.

The Infernal Names must be consulted, of course; Sabazios of Phrygia, Astaroth, the Phoenician, Cimeries, ruler of all Africa, Negral of Babylonia, Abaddam of the Hebrews . . . Ghania invoked their names reverently, as she stood before her altar, and awaited their response. All those arrogant fools of Adepti who had gathered for the dress rehearsal thought they knew true magic. But each was confined to his own system and his own demons, while Ghania was confined by no such artificial constraint. She belonged to the Prince of Darkness in all his manifestations; Babylon, Sumeria, Nineveh, Tyre, Greece, Rome, Egypt, wherever evil had prospered, Ghania held sway, for there was no limit to her Master’s dominion. Only Eric, Nicky, and Hazred suspected her true powers, the other dismissed her as a glorified servant. The fools.

Ghania dropped her garment to the ground and stood clad only in the ibante loincloth that housed her potent magic; the ancient, blood-soaked rags had never left her body since the day of her initiation. She could cloud men’s mind if need be, so they would not be repelled by its odious appearance, but she could never remove her JuJu.

Ghania raised her large arms in demonic salute, and entered into the company of true Evil. She would consult them on the Star-Child’s final torment.

Y
ou are like the caged lioness, tonight, dona Maggie,” Maria said worriedly. She had watched Maggie push the food around her plate, then abandon it altogether—then she had seen her pick up a dozen projects, only to lay them down again, moments later. Now she watched her moving restlessly from place to place.

“It’s Cody, Maria,” Maggie answered her agitatedly. “I have this horrible foreboding about her tonight. Something
awful
is happening to her . . . something
strangling.
I can
feel
it. It’s been growing worse all evening.” She shook her head, frustrated by her apprehension. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“The detective, dona Maggie,” Maria offered tentatively. “Can he not make the police do something for us! He is a good man. Where is his posse to save this little one? Will he do nothing?”

Maggie shrugged expressively.

“And the priest? I have not seen him so much this week? Perhaps he has gone to visit my friend Padre James?” Maggie knew James had been elevated to sainthood by his prowess in the kitchen, and his reverence for Maria’s cooking.

“Perhaps he has,” Maggie said noncommittally and Maria Aparecida raised her magnificent eyebrow, and pursed her lips at this unsatisfactory response.

“We are sorely tried,” she said, including herself in the current purgatory. “But God will not abandon us.”

“Why do you say that, Maria?”

“Our intention is only good for the little chicken, dona Maggie. When God sees into the heart and finds purity, he sends his angels. You will remember my words.”

Maggie watched the huge retreating figure, wishing she could feel so assured. She glanced at the clock; it read 11:06. Eleven-oh-six on April 28th. Nearly Walpurgisnacht. The beginning or the end. She was suddenly afraid, in a new and internal way. It was a spiritual dampening, as if some alien force were lurking in the corners, spreading fear throughout the brownstone.
What other dungeon is dark as one’s own heart?

She felt her life emptying . . . loved ones slipping away inexorably. Jenna gone forever. Peter, too. There was an emptiness in her soul, where they had been; deep fathomless, inky, free form—like a terrible hunger that couldn’t be sated, or an essential task left undone. Who would be the next to go?
Not Cody, God!
Please not Cody.

Angry with herself, Maggie went to the kitchen to make tea, grateful for the small diversionary action and the whistling sound of the kettle in the still house. Maria was upstairs now, and even the cuckoo clock in the hall seemed quieter than usual.

Why did she suddenly feel so guilty at her aloneness? As if she’d failed some primal test of worthiness, and this was her just punishment. Perhaps, if she’d been a better person. Perhaps if she’d understood Jenna better. Perhaps if Peter hadn’t been a priest. Perhaps, if she’d known how to respond when Dev said “I love you.” Perhaps, if Cody hadn’t been kidnapped. Perhaps if . . . perhaps if . . .

She had to get through tonight; had to collect her thoughts enough to plan tomorrow. Time was running out. Why was it so hard to figure out how to do what she must? Why was she not bigger and smarter and more able to make everything turn out all right?

Was that creak a noise in the upstairs bedroom? Stop it! Now you’re just letting yourself get spooked by the loneliness. Hating herself for needing to, Maggie tiptoed through the bedrooms and checked the closets for the source of the sound; finding no one, she turned on all the lights and pulled the shades, feeling vulnerable.

She tried to pass Cody’s bedroom by, but couldn’t so she entered tentatively and stood staring at the child’s stuffed toys that were so forlorn. “And I have come upon this place by lost ways . . .” she whispered aloud into the still room. “And by what way shall I go back?”

The room had been Jenna’s, too. Oh, God! Don’t let me think about that! Maggie walked to the bookcase and, on impulse, pulled out the little leather-bound book of poetry that had been hers and Jenna’s before it was Cody’s; it opened to a well-worn place and she read the familiar words:

Lord, behold our family here assembled

Give us peace, gaiety and the quiet mind

Soften us to our friends,

Strengthen us to our enemies,

That we may be brave in peril,

Constant in all changes of fortune,

And that down to the gates of death,

We may be loyal and love one another.

Down to the gates of death . . . she repeated the words softly. Maybe that’s where this all will lead, inevitably. Jack would be waiting. Maybe Jenna, too . . . She couldn’t bring herself to leave the room, so with a sigh, Maggie lay down on Cody’s bed, and pulling the child’s favorite Love Bear into her arms, she drifted off to restless sleep.

The
room where Cody had been left by Ghania was windowless and very, very cold. There was no furniture, only a few boxes and an old cot mattress on the floor, that smelled of ancient sweat.

Cody huddled herself into the farthest corner, as close to the shelter of the walls as she could press her shivering body. She had no idea why Ghania was doing this terrible thing to her—she hadn’t done anything that was against the rules. But suddenly with no warning at all, Ghania had pulled her away from her warm bed, and brought her to this cold, awful place with the snake. Then she had unlocked Malikali’s cage and left them alone together in the icy darkness.

She had seen Ghania let him slither out into the room before she turned off the lights. Cody hunched down, making herself small as possible, listening with a terrible tension . . . the snake was somewhere close by; she was afraid to open her eyes for fear of seeing him.

Ghania had said she would die tonight. Malikali would wrap himself around her, and squeeze and squeeze . . . then the snake would swallow her, like it had the goat, and she would be trapped inside it, screaming and screaming where nobody could hear . . . Cody whimpered in the darkness, her voice a tiny strangled sound.
“Mim . . . Please, Mim. Please don’t let him eat me!”
She began to cry softly, afraid even to sniffle for fear the snake would come.

She could hear the sliding slipping motion of the huge body, as it pulled itself along the concrete floor toward her. It was coming, now. Slithering closer. Cody pressed herself against the restraining wall and begged Mim to come for her. Why don’t you come and save me? She had shrieked that terrible question so long, it had worn a hole in her heart that everything had fallen through.

“Mim!” she whispered urgently. The she saw it clearly . . . its eyes, shining yellow slits in the darkness and all restraints broke loose at last. “Mim!” she shrieked in absolute terror. “Mim! Mim! Miiiiiiii . . .”

“iiiiim!”

The desperate scream pierced Maggie’s consciousness in the dream. She was running toward the sound.

Cody was screaming her name. Over and over and over, the echoes reverberating all around her now.

But where was it coming from?

The dream/Maggie looked frantically right and left. Which way to run?

“Mim! Help me!”

Over there! Through the ink-black trees. Maggie started toward the sound.

“I’m coming!” she cried out. But the whipping wind blew the words back into her throat. “I’m coming baby. Where are you?”

The tangling vines were reaching out to ensnare her feet. And the ground beneath was shifting . . .

“Mi i i i i i i i m m m m m . . .” The long echoing shriek was fading, “M i i i i i . . .”

Maggie sat up in the frilly bed. She was soaked in sweat and tears were running down her face.

Shakily she rose and turned on the bedside lamp. This dream was real. Something terrible was happening to Cody.
And, it was happening now.

Maggie hurried to her own room, yanked off her dripping T-shirt and pulled on her sweatpants, hastily grabbing her keys from the bureau. She had to think . . . had to move . . . had to figure it out. Tonight.

She pulled a hooded sweatshirt from the rack in the front hall and let herself out the door. She needed to run. Run to Cody. No. That was insane. The only way to save her was to think it through.

Maggie started to run. Running was real. Running would help her think. She rounded the darkened corner of St. Luke’s Place and calculated a route that wouldn’t take her into dangerous territory. Over to Sixth and up toward Eighth—there would be streetlights there. And people. No matter what the hour.

The cold damp air flooded her lungs, the oxygen infusion pushed her into full wakefulness.

It was inventory time. All the mystical mumbo jumbo in the world was not going to save Cody, if somebody didn’t get her out of that fucking house. All the police work Dev had done was fine, as far as it went, without him she wouldn’t have known a fraction of the truth. But if the department would not, or could not, get involved, then Dev’s hands were tied, and there’d be no point thinking the police would rescue her.

And time was running out.

There was only one possible course of action left—she knew it as she hit the corner of Christopher Street and turned right. She had to get Cody out of that house herself. Okay! Then what? Then run like hell, if need be. Run to somewhere, anywhere, that Cody would be safe. Eric would have to give up eventually. The critical date would be past, and what would be the point of pursuing Cody into infinity, if he didn’t know where to look?

But they can find you on the Astral,
the internal voice reminded her. If they can manifest a Sending, they can damned well find you wherever you’re hiding!

Maggie’s lungs were burning. She could feel her body straining against the demands of the run. She needed to stretch herself. Needed to force herself beyond the possible. There had to be a way out of this box.

Maggie pushed her run to the limit.
Fear and sorrow can deplete you,
Mr. Wong had said. The words were beating in her head to the rhythm of her feet on the pavement.
Some sorrows are too deep for tears.
Even too deep for laughter to root them out. They lodge in heart tissue, brain tissue, gut. They acid-etch the spirit and seep between the cracks of consciousness.

Some sorrows defeat you.
I cannot let that happen.