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“They didn't see anything.”
“Nothing inhuman,” he agreed, leaning against the headrest. “Higgins not shifting helped. Sheriffs can't kill every human who spots a couple of mangy strays running through the neighborhood.”
“Sorry about Higgins,” I said, with a somber glance at the bloodstained leather.
“Someone will be.” There existed a cheerful gloom and doom in his voice, a low undercurrent of danger, the indigo still surface of a deep river.
He didn't say another word until we'd arrived at Nokhurst Crossing in West Hartford. The streets were hushed in the predawn hour, storefronts quiet with the exception of a distant base thumping from the bar at the opposite end of the lane and two or three others scattered through the blocks.
I pulled the car in front of Zakar’s door.
“Weren't your people here?” I asked the sheriff as he stepped around the hood to assess the scene.
Strips of yellow police tape wrapped around the parking meters and nearby trees, blocking off the entrance. He lifted the taut material, ducked underneath, then held it up for me to slip under. “They were, until your sister killed Zakar. We're short-staffed. What I’ve got is headed back to Pippin Lane to contain the current scene.”
“Even with help from August’s team?” I lifted the hem of my shirt to dry. I felt guilty wearing his colleague's blood. I couldn't imagine how he felt having Higgins all over him.
“Connecticut is home to three and a half million people. A small fraction are registered werefolk, and an even smaller number work in our division. Some of our best CSIs lived in Avon. Out-of-state assistance can’t make up for what we’ve lost. Bringing you on hasn’t helped.”
He opened the door, flipping on a switch near the wall. The tented atmosphere reflected light from rigged spotlights and lamps. The acrid tang of incense and copper lingered in the air, but whatever magic had been here seemed faded and mundane.
Mindful not to disturb the scene, I did my best to follow Caela’s exact path. He stopped at the section of apparel, unbuttoned his shirt and pulled off the undershirt along with it, swapping both for a tee. He pulled another off the rack and tossed it to me. Blood stained his jeans and mine, but we lacked a convenient change of clothes in that department.
I changed tops, gathered our dirty clothes and shoved them into a plastic shopping bag marked by a jaguar’s head.
“I ain’t sure about this, Marcy.” He popped a cabinet door full of voodoo dolls, grimaced, and closed it. “The nastiest creatures I've encountered have never respected a book’s word as law.”
“You’re the one telling me a lot of the old grimoires and manuscripts referenced by true dark magic users aren’t available online. I assume because the contents are effective and the Otherworld would send a sheriff to silence them if they uploaded the documents. You don’t go around correcting human misconceptions about silver, right? Isn’t this the same idea?”
We moved into the hallway. Cool, damp air touched our skin as we passed through the striped fabric. Caelan flipped another switch. A light flicked on near the back door. Within the gloom, the hall’s light caught a reflective shine in Caelan’s eyes. An orange extension cord snaked across the floor. A second cable split halfway down the hall, coiled into what amounted to a small office.
The light in this room was small and dim. Red velvet wallpaper lined the interior, adding a soft shine. A small circle of runes and symbols had been etched in the center of the hardwood floor. At its center was a tentacled heart. Obscuring one side of the circle was a velvet beanbag, big enough to act as a werewolf-sized dog bed or a lounger for two regular people. Beside it stood a bookcase, upon which were several ornately carved boxes.
Across from it, a small fridge sat unplugged. I moved closer, curious.
“Emptied earlier,” Caelan said, noticing my gaze. “He helped clients with fertility, magical diseases, and a number of issues related to intimacy. Give me a hand with the beanbag. Jali says there’s a switch behind it to move the bookcase.”
We dragged the beanbag out of the way. Caelan activated the switch, a false wall plate near the floor, and the bookcase creaked open.
This room lacked the adornments of the first. It was no larger than my walk-in closet, with a small desk, a cigar tray, and a stack of books. Above the desk, a hatch and folded ladder was marked ‘for roof access only.’ The rest of the room was inventory, broken and new, stacked in cardboard boxes.
The books were written in Latin, others German and French, and a few thin volumes I couldn't comprehend. None of them appeared resembled the dark grimoire of my imagination. There was no human skin binding, no rusted locks or jeweled covers or hefty tomes of knowledge. They were simple and stress-worn by many hands and turned pages.
We divided the titles between us, about six each, and set to flipping. We sat on the floor of the first (and better lit) room to read. Neither one of us had wanted to sit on the beanbag, even in our filthy states.
Despite their ordinary exterior, the pages within the bindings were hand written. Drawings of ghastly creatures and sizzling potions filled the margins. How-to recipes with a chef’s edits, I thought, touching a diagram of a young lamb's throat. Caelan thumbed through a smaller volume that had a corner bent on a page depicting a small cloth bag and several herbs under the title 'gris-gris.'
It looked awfully similar to what Gram had been stuffing in our nightstands at the end.
“Thought there'd be more of a mystic element,” I said. “These are instructions. Do these things in the right order and presto! You’ve shoved a demon inside of a dead crow.”
The sheriff closed his book. “My Latin, or any other language, ain’t sterling,” he said. “Even if we were to find an illustrated binding spell, could you translate it?”
I shook my head. “High school Spanish was the extent of my language skills. My parents were fluent in German and Greek, so they taught Rhetta and I, but after the attack, Gram never carried on. I’ve forgotten everything.”
He pulled out his phone. I could see from the screen he'd missed several calls. “What if we find a few key words?”
“That could work.”
