M Sellars - Harm none

I paused and waited for the chairs to quit shifting and the whispers to subside.

“If you will allow me to explain,” I told them. “I am not saying that the person committing these murders is not attempting to practice some type of ritual magick, in fact, I definitely believe that that is exactly what he is doing. I also believe that he thinks the rituals used by a practitioner of The Craft play some part in it. This is very simply not true. An actual practicing Wiccan, or Witch, holds to a very specific covenant within the religion. That covenant is to Harm None. Witches do not, I repeat, DO NOT sacrifice people or animals in their rituals. The reason I’m telling you this is that it’s going to be very easy for you to point your finger at anyone who might happen to be a Wiccan practitioner, simply because this killer is mimicking one of our rituals. I really would like to avoid that. Not only would it cause undue grief for innocent individuals, it would be extremely counterproductive. For example, just because lemons are yellow and tennis balls are yellow, it doesn’t mean you can make lemonade out of tennis balls…What I’m really trying to get at is that just because one mentally unstable individual is using the symbols of the Wiccan religion and committing violent murders, it doesn’t mean that all Wiccans are psycho serial killers. Don’t put blinders on and follow that kind of distorted logic because it’s not going to get us anywhere.”

They were looking back at me a bit more attentively than earlier. I didn’t know if I had convinced them, but I hadn’t lost them, and at this stage of the game, I had the feeling that this was all I could hope for.

I motioned to Detective Deckert and Felicity once more, and again the room was pitched into darkness. Instantly, the slide projector came to life, clicking rapidly as my wife backed the tray to the beginning.

“This, as we have already established, is a Pentacle. In this position, with a single point at the top, it represents man and life. It is a very common symbol in the Wiccan religion. If this were to be turned one hundred-eighty degrees so that there were two points on top, it would then be referred to as a Pentagram. Some cults have taken it upon themselves to assign a meaning of evil and darkness to the Pentagram, claiming it represents Satan. Notice the horns and the pointed goatee.” I indicated the various points on the screen, “Factually, this is inaccurate; however, it has become widely accepted as true over the centuries. That’s probably where you got your misinformation, Bill.”

I stepped away from the podium and into the path of the slide projector. The image took up a large portion on the wall, and I was able to physically point out aspects without entirely blocking the beam of filtered light.

“In this instance, an upright Pentacle was inscribed as part of a ritual known as an Expiation spell. This spell, or ritual, is particularly Wiccan and is the one that the killer has mimicked with some notable variations. Next slide please…” The projector clicked and chunked as the first image was ejected and the second one dropped in its place. “These words, ‘All Is Forgiven,’ are also a part of this ritual. The Pentacle and the words were all inscribed at both crime scenes. As Detective Storm already told you, the victim’s blood was used to draw the symbol and letters. This would be one of the deviations I mentioned a moment ago. The other would be that instead of using wine or water for the spell, the killer once again used the victim’s blood…The fact that this was done, shows that this second ritual was performed after the murder. This correlates with the fact that an Expiation spell is used as something of a ‘self-atonement’ ritual-similar to penance given in a confessional. This leads me to believe that the killer is feeling remorse for what he’s done and is seeking to relieve the guilt.

“Next slide.” Once again the projector rotated the tray and displayed the grisly image of Karen Barnes’ mutilated corpse. “The method of killing has involved ritual flaying in both cases, followed by cutting the throat in the case of Ariel Tanner and removal of the heart in the case of Karen Barnes.”

“What’s the point?” a voice asked. “Is he some kind of sadist or something?”

“While that wouldn’t surprise me,” I answered, “the point behind skinning the victim is to bring them to a heightened sense of pain and fear before their death. From what I have been able to research, our killer appears to be attempting to invoke, or call forth, some spirit or daemon. This, he apparently believes, requires a human sacrifice and requires that the sacrifice be aware of the process. Whatever it is that he desires to call forth apparently feeds on pain and fear.”

“I thought you said you Witches didn’t do shit like that” another voice came out of the dark.

“We don’t,” I replied. “Like I said, he isn’t a Witch.”

“Then where’s he coming up with this stuff?” the same voice asked.

“Fiction,” I answered. “Horror movies. Novels. Perhaps even any number of texts available on the subject of Black Magick, both accurate and inaccurate. It wouldn’t surprise me to find a little of the Spanish Inquisition mixed in as well.”

“So,” a different voice piped in, “what you’re sayin’ is that all this is just a ration of shit, and he’s just a sick bastard goin’ around killing people.”

“Yes and no,” I returned. “I definitely agree with the ‘sick bastard’ part of your comment, but his rituals aren’t just some ‘ration of shit’ as you put it. First off, a ritual is nothing more and nothing less than you make it. It is a way of focusing one’s energies, and it can be something that you make up yourself. It doesn’t have to be some pre-prescribed set of instructions that were written by someone else.”

“Hold the phone,” another voice chimed in the dark. “You aren’t actually suggesting that this wacko is going to bring some beast or demon here from hell or something are you?”

“What I’m suggesting,” I told them, “is that a ritual is used to focus one’s energies to make something happen-like praying or the chants that monks sing. If you’re asking if I personally believe that he’s going to invoke something, just let me say that I think there are forces out there that are better left alone, and we’ll leave it at that.”

I waited wordlessly while my last statement soaked in. There were a few whispers among the group but to my surprise, no recurrence of the earlier heckling, so I continued.

“Now, I realize I haven’t really told you much about the killer, and unfortunately, I’m not able to do much more than speculate based on the existing evidence.

“First, as I said, he’s not a Witch, but he appears to be intimately familiar with The Craft. He might have been a member of a coven at one time or another, but if he actually practiced, I would think it more likely that he was solitary. It’s possible that his knowledge of Wicca was or is derived mainly from literature available at almost any bookstore.

“Second. Because of the lack of various components, I have reason to believe that Ariel Tanner’s murder was done out of his need to practice his ritual. Karen Barnes’ may well have been an actual performance of the sacrifice. I can’t be absolutely positive about that because as I told you, he’s making up his own ritual here. The basic components of it tell me generally what he’s trying to do, but so far, he’s left nothing behind that points me to anything specific. Based on what was done to Karen Barnes, my guess would be that it was the real thing for him, but I don’t believe he’s finished. Until he at least perceives that he has conjured whatever or whomever he seeks, then he will continue to execute the ritual.