Alexandra Sokoloff - Book of Shadows

“There. There.” She squeezed his hands reassuringly. “You were wonderful. Thank you.”

After a moment, he ducked his head and nodded shyly.

She pressed the crystal into his hand. “Keep it.” As Roland looked at her in wonder, she told him, “Detective Garrett is going to take you back to your bed, now.” She looked to Garrett. Garrett stood for a moment, staring back at her… then he stooped and helped the big man up, and led him through the plastic sheeting to his bedroll. The Dragon Man dropped heavily to his knees and stretched out on the floor, clutching the crystal to his chest. No sooner had he put his head down than he was snoring again, with tracks of tears drying on his face.

When Garrett moved back through the sheeting, Tanith was sitting against a concrete column, her hands over her face. She quickly lowered them and sat up as he stepped in.

“What the hell was that?” he said, low.

“He is being watched,” she said bleakly. “I’m afraid the healing drew his attention.”

“ Whose attention?” Garrett demanded.

“You know,” she said quietly. “Choronzon. And the one who serves him.”

The wind breathed between the columns, stirring the white cement powder into dust devils. Garrett felt another wave of paranoia that this was all some elaborate con, set up by the two of them.

He said in a harsh whisper, “This doesn’t add up at all. How could that man”—he stabbed his finger in Roland’s direction—“how could he possibly have been both places—just happen to be there when the killer is picking up the girl—then again when he disposes of her body, in a whole different place… maybe as much as a day later?”

Tanith was silent in the dark. She finally raised her head and spoke. “But that’s rational thinking, and we’re not dealing with the rational. Roland had—has—a connection with Amber. He was looking for her and he found her. It’s not rational. He didn’t do it rationally. He did it by intention. He wanted to find her and he did.”

Garrett stared at her. “That’s…” He shook his head, laughed in disbelief.

She smiled tightly. “I know that’s not how you think the world works. But the mentally ill are sometimes extremely psychic. They sense, they intuit, they see things that we can’t. He’s telling you the truth as he knows it.”

She stood from the floor and stepped to the silk circle. She stooped to pick up a candle, and as she extended her arm, Garrett had a glimpse of dark stains on the white sleeve that had not been there before.

He strode toward her and seized her arm, turning it over to look at it. The sleeve of her blouse rode up above her wrist with the movement, and Garrett saw ragged dark gashes, fresh blood in her pale flesh.

He had a flash of her staggering backward in the circle…

“What are these?” he demanded.

She pulled her arm away. “You don’t believe it, do you? So don’t believe.”

Garrett’s mind was racing. The cuts were still wet. She could have done it herself when I took Cutler back to his bedroll. Classic con artist trick.

Tanith shook her head as if she understood what he was thinking. She glanced toward the wall of plastic sheeting. “I can’t leave him here, it’s not safe anymore.” Her eyes moved to the darkness beyond the purple circle. “I’m going to take him to Arlington. Even when they have no beds they can sometimes find a bed.”

He looked at her, wondering how she would know the policies of a mental institution. She smiled wryly. “This line of work, you need to be able to refer clients to what they need. Believe me, Detective Garrett, I can tell mental illness from possession.” Her face shadowed. “But Choronzon causes mental chaos. If Roland chanced to meet the demon, the encounter may well have affected his mind.”

Behind her, the plastic sheeting rippled like water in the wind.

Tanith took a step toward him, looking into his face. “Will you go to the Channel?” Their eyes met and Garrett felt the heat between them, felt it in every cell of his body, and for a moment, neither of them moved. Garrett’s mouth was dry. Then he nodded.

“Be careful,” she said softly.

“He put her on a chain and sunk her down, down, down.”

In the dark of night, Garrett strode on the concrete path of the HarborWalk, with the Channel glimmering beside him. His breath showed in the cold, misty air. His emotions were still roiling from the—whatever it was that had just happened—and he felt a powerful drowsiness that he recognized as partly denial.

Tanith’s voice echoed in his head. “Be careful.”

He snapped himself into focus, looked around him to stay alert.

In daylight the HarborWalk was a popular tourist destination, and in warmer months joggers and lovers strolled beside the water in the evenings, drawn by spectacular views of the lights of downtown Boston and their sparkling reflections in the dark water.

But after the restaurants and cafés closed, the area turned ominous, with large parts of it still under construction and detours that jogged through too-deserted streets. A cold wind off the Channel made Garrett pull his coat tighter around himself; the crescent moon was an icy shimmer in the water.

It makes no sense. Why would the killer chance leaving her in such an open area?

The water, he answered himself. In some part of his mind he knew it had something to do with the water. The elementalness of it. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. He put Erin in the dirt and he wanted Amber in water.

Garrett wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, but the good news was Binford Park, the spot the Dragon Man had named, was tiny, just half an acre of landscaping beside the waterfront, with a pergola and an unobstructed view of one of the wider sections of the Channel.

The concrete path along the waterfront was edged by a low concrete seawall, with a chest-high black iron railing. Garrett stopped at the railing and looked over it. The water was ten feet below where he was standing. Waves lapped against the wall.

“He put her on a chain and sunk her down, down, down.”

What are you doing here, anyway? he asked himself. If he dropped Amber’s body in the water, then you’ll need a dredging crew to find it.

Garrett knew he was looking at one of the deepest parts of the Channel. Before Binford Park was constructed, almost half a million cubic yards of dirt had been excavated from the area, creating a gigantic casting basin that was used to construct huge concrete sections of tunnel, which were then floated into the Channel and submerged in a trench as part of the “Big Dig.”

No, there’d be no finding a body here without a diving crew. If there’s even anything left to find. Garrett had seen what marine animals do to human remains. There’d be no flesh left by now, and the bones would have separated and been carried out by the tide.

But the Dragon Man’s words kept running through Garrett’s head:

“He put her on a chain and sunk her down, down, down.”

“He put her on a chain.”

Garrett leaned out over the metal railing and looked down the blocky stone wall below him. And down by the waterline he saw what he had been looking for, something he had apparently remembered from—he didn’t even know what—published photos of the HarborWalk construction, or some previous trip to explore the new pathways.

There were thick metal rings embedded into the stone, every ten feet or so, along the seawall.

Garrett began to walk the path, stopping every ten feet to look at each metal ring. With every step his dread increased.