The Light Who Shines Page 7
Holding my hand up for a pause, I probe, “Is it possible he was tied with a rope or handcuffed?”
Nathan’s face turns into a deep scowl. “If it was rope, I would have expected to see fibers embedded and a rash. The skin is clean as though it was metal encasing his hands and feet. But handcuffs are too narrow to provide the wide grooving and callusing I see here. These injuries are more consistent with having feet shackled and hands shackled over the head.”
Nathan moves to the end of the table and gently folds back the sheet that covers the boy’s feet and lower legs. A foul odor fills the air, making my stomach roil in protest. I reluctantly join Nathan at that side of the table.
Nathan points to the bottom of the boy’s feet, which are black, wrinkled, and covered in sores. “This boy had a condition commonly known as trench foot. This is evidenced by the wrinkled skin on the bottoms of his feet and the blisters and open sores on the bottoms and sides of his feet.”
He points to the black, rotting toe and says, “Fungal infection and gangrene had set in. This stage of trench foot lasts from two to six weeks. Additionally, I found evidence of human fecal matter and urine on the bottoms of his feet. Trench foot occurs when the foot is in damp and cold but not freezing conditions for an extended period of time.” Nathan steps back and covers the feet again.
Nathan sighs. “I have one last area of injury to show you.” He gently rolls the boy over on his side and lifts the sheet to show his back. I can see wounds and bruising extending from his waist to his neck. “First of all, he has a mark, a green circle on his lower back. I assume it’s a magic mark, but you are a better judge of that than I am. As you observed at the scene, this boy had lacerations and bruising covering his entire back. They’re in various stages of healing. Because the wounds are deeper in this area,” Nathan explains as he points to the boy’s mid-back where the skin is stripped away and muscle is exposed, “I can estimate that some of this healing took place over the course of three to four weeks. The forensic report will take some time, but I found fibers in these wounds that appeared to be made of some sort of leather. Preliminarily, I believe these injuries were sustained from a leather whip.”
I step back, turn away, and clasp my shaking hands as I’m filled with insurmountable rage. The sound of my blood pulsing through my body fills my ears with a wild rushing sound as my head buzzes. I try to regain some control, but the image of the boy is vivid in my mind. I see him starving, chained, and shackled in some cold, dark place. I see him being whipped day after day until his flesh peels away like the skin of an onion. With great effort, I push the image into a corner of my mind. I need to carry on. My job is to find the monster who did it. I will find him.
With my back still turned, I ask, “Anything else?”
Nathan answers, “No. But I did check for sexual assault and am at least relieved that there are no signs he had to endure that indignity as well.”
“Well, thank goodness for small miracles. Our perpetrator is a real saint, isn’t he?” Spinning around to face Nathan and the body again, I inquire, “Did you send the preliminary report over to Detective Gambino?”
Nathan smiles wryly. “Yes, about an hour ago. I included images and measurements of the grill pattern.”
I give Nathan a tip of my hat and a slight bow of gratitude. “Thank you so much, Nathan, for doing that which needs to be done. Please give me a call if you find anything else significant or when the pathology and forensic results come back.”
“I certainly will. But can I ask you a personal question?”
I nod my assent and Nathan asks, “Why do you insist on coming here for the preliminary results rather than just accepting my report? Wouldn’t it be easier to take in writing? I can see how much it affects you.”
I look Nathan directly in the eyes to divulge my logic. “There are two reasons. First, as you know, I’m a Sensitive. While I can’t feel anything from a body when the soul has left, by looking at it and hearing and seeing what happened, I can get a feel for the shape of the evilness that possessed the perpetrator. When I encounter a soul that has the feel of someone capable of that sort of evilness, I can sometimes see a potential match. My sense can’t be conclusive, but it can tell me if a person could possibly be the perpetrator. I can also rule people out. The second reason is that I need to feel the pain. That will drive me to find the perpetrator. I’ll turn back to remember today countless times when I am frustrated and at a loss, and because of today, I’ll keep on.”
Nathan looks at me with understanding dawning on his face, and I feel his empathy wafting toward me. “I can’t imagine what it is to feel the soul of a person who does things like this.”
I accept his empathy with a nod. Then I turn and walk out, remarking over my shoulder, “In case you’re wondering, you have a good soul, Nathan.” He has a very good soul.
Chapter 08
The Dragomir
Bluebell Kildare: May 27, 2022, Red Ages
I decide to swing by the Dragomir Magical Artifact Shop before heading to the precinct. As I turn onto Windsor Avenue, I think about what Father O’Brennen told me last night. Is my aura the reason I’ve never encountered a Dark Vampire before? Even though most people go their whole lives without running into a Night-Crawler, I do work in the Supernatural Homicide Investigation Unit, so it seems that I should have by now. Ernesto is our resident Night-Crawler expert at the office and leads all the hunts. Still, there has been many a time that I’ve been called out for a homicide in the wee hours of the morning just to find out the call had been reported incorrectly and was actually a case of death by Dark Vampire.
And who was the Daylight Vampire who saved me? I didn’t think to ask Father O’Brennen his name. Is he still around? Is there more he can tell me about that night?
I stop my musings as the Dragomir Magical Artifact Shop comes into view. It‘s a corner store made of flagstone and favored with a rare parking lot of its own in back. I park and walk around to the front entrance.
No merry bells announce my arrival here. Solid oak shelves covered in a thick layer of dust fill the dimly lit store. The dust is so thick it seems to swirl around me, gathering in glittering pools and eddies that hang in the air.
I wave it away from my face and look at the shelves adorned with a wonderful assortment of magical items: scrying mirrors and a looking glass fountain to keep connected with loved ones, firefly lanterns to light your house, and glow stones to brighten your garden. One entire wall is devoted to glass-covered shelves stacked with aged books on every magical subject imaginable. Another bookcase is dedicated to gorgeous parquetry safe boxes. These special boxes are made of tiny geometric shaped veneer inlaid over interlocking pieces of wood. They require a magic word to open. When you close them, their wooden designs rearrange, disguising the opening. The next time you give the magic word, the box will open from another side.
As I take in my surroundings, a few rays of sunlight peek from behind the clouds and shine through the windows in bright streams, lighting up the whirlpools of dust that still fill the air. It makes me want to twirl around like a little girl. I immediately love this store, musty dust and all.
Behind the heavy oak counter, the clerk is studiously ignoring me as she reads a book. Her reading glasses have dropped to the tip of her nose, and a mess of wavy, brown hair has fallen about her face. I wait for her to look up, but she seems oblivious to my presence. I stand right in front of her to get her attention, but still she keeps her eyes pinned down on the book. I am obviously three feet in front of her, and yet she pretends I’m not here!
This is extremely vexing, and just as I’m about to say something rude, I notice a sign that says “Please ring bell for service.” Next to it sits a large brass bell. I ring the bell, and a high pitched sound reverberates throughout the room. I resist the urge to ring it five times in a row to annoy the clerk. Then, wonder of wonders, she lifts her glasses to peer at me through the lenses. How glorious it feels to be acknowledged!
>
Even more astonishing than the fact that she now realizes I am alive is the fact that her face lights up in a beatific smile that transforms her into a very arresting mature woman. With her face lifted up, her hair now looks like a riot of soft waves that frame a face dominated by deep-set, warm brown eyes that flicker with golden light.
“Hello,” I say a little uncertainly. She has definitely put me at sixes and sevens.
She answers with a deeply melodious voice, “Hello, what can I help you with today?” Her voice is so strange. It’s like ten voices speaking all at once, or like the strumming of a harp with notes overlapping one another. It is simply musical. I tilt my head as though to hear it better.
I suddenly realize she is sitting there waiting expectantly for me to answer. I try to pull myself together, remembering that I have a goal to accomplish here. “I’m looking for Mr. Dragomir,” I respond.
Her smile immediately turns chilly, and her voice sounds like a dozen angry people speaking to me from different directions. “Mr. Dragomir is not in.” Then she points her eyes toward her book again.
Darn, I lost her again. Beginning to catch on, I ask, “Are you Mrs. Dragomir?”
She looks up and says with great power, “I am the Dragomir.” I feel unaccountably humbled and apologize. “I am sorry, Dragomir, for my error. My friend Alexis from Herbal Enchantments referred me to you.”
Looking slightly mollified, but still a little snippy, she says, “Please call me Dragomira. Now, what can I help you with?”
“Excuse me for commenting on this, but your voice is the most remarkable voice I’ve ever heard.” Then I pull out my ID for her to see. “My name is Bluebell Kildare. I’m with the Supernatural Investigation Bureau. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions.”
Dragomira ignores my statement about her voice and my ID, looking unimpressed with both. “It depends on the nature of those questions.”
“I’m looking for information on a particular amulet. If you can give me a piece of paper, I’d like to make a sketch.”
Dragomira, still exuding a markedly severe demeanor, deigns to get off her stool to retrieve some paper and a pencil from a nearby drawer.
Undaunted, I sketch the amulet, drawing the triangle within the circle and the cutout in the shape of an eye. My sketch includes the hole in the center of the amulet and a depiction of the back that includes the ridging and beading.
As I sketch the amulet, Dragomira’s eyes become riveted, and I swear they start glowing amber. When I finish, she puts her hand up and her chorus of voices whispers, “One moment. This conversation requires no audience.”
She goes to the door of her shop, turns the heavy brass deadbolt, and places her “Closed” sign face out.
When she returns, I say, “I take it you know this amulet. Should I pull out my privacy charm?”
Dragomira laughs softly and says, “My dear, this shop is so well warded the Gods themselves would have trouble entering. Perhaps I know this amulet. Tell me, what it is made of?”
I look curiously around the shop, then point to the sketch and answer. “The amulet is gold. The triangle looks to be jade. The grooves on the back are gold, and the beading is some sort of white metal, perhaps white gold.”
“It’s platinum,” Dragomira says crisply. “Yes. I know of this amulet.”
“What can you tell me about it? Why would someone want it?”
Dragomira leans her arms on the counter, and her warm brown eyes betray her worry. She shivers. “Ah, Illustrissima! That is the question. What would someone want with the amulet? I am afraid of the answer.
“This amulet has two pieces. What you drew here is only one part. The triangle is made of jade, the stone of wisdom. Its significance here is that it’s part of a key used to unlock a book. The missing part, the center, is in the shape of an eye. The iris of the eye, carved with the circle of life, is made of sugelite, a purple stone, which issues dire warning.”
Dragomira jabs her long, elegant finger repeatedly at the center of the eye in the drawing as she speaks. “It warns of the end of humanity. In the center of the eye is a pupil made of amber, used for its properties of attraction, to help you find that which you seek with the book. The eye fits into the hole in the center and has grooves and beads of its own. The two pieces, when joined together, form the symbol for the All-Seeing Eye, which sees across planes and into the Underworld.”
When she finishes with her explanation, Dragomira assesses my reaction in a way that makes me feel somehow inadequate.
I forge ahead anyway. “What book does the key open?”
“Ah,” Dragomira says heavily. “You plunge right in, do you not? It opens the ancient Grimorium Cantionum Spiritualium—The Spell Book of the Spirit and Soul. It is a book that contains the knowledge to call demons and spirits from other planes, including the Plane of Death. It is a very powerful book, and those who have possessed its knowledge have done massive damage to those who live in this world.”
I shift a little uneasily as this case seems much more dangerous and complex than I’d originally thought. “What sort of damage?”
Dragomira gestures toward a stool at the end of her counter. “I will tell you a story. Please sit down.”
I drag the stool over and take a seat, listening avidly as her hypnotic voice begins to weave a picture of ancient times.
“In ancient Ireland,” she begins, “a talented sorcerer’s apprentice somehow came to possess the Grimorium Cantionum Spiritualium. We now know this apprentice as Patersuco—“Father of the Vampires.” Patersuco was deathly ill from a blood sickness and desperate to save his own life. The learned now speculate that he suffered from leukemia, but that matters not to this story. Patersuco was a selfish and greedy man, so he sacrificed his first-born infant son and used the knowledge of the book to summon the greatest demon of the Plane of Fire, Lilith, second only to Lucifer.
“When Lilith arrived, Patersuco tried to bargain with her for immortality. Lilith asked what he would give her in return, and Patersuco said that the sacrifice of his son was his gift to her. Lilith laughed at him and said that sacrifice was nothing. She said the baby’s soul was innocent, so it went to the Plane of Light, and all she received from the sacrifice was a blood gift. She taunted him, telling him that rather than kill his son, he could have simply slit his flesh and dropped some blood on the altar. Patersuco’s sacrifice, she said, was only enough to buy her audience.”
Dragomira sees the shocked look on my face at the idea that a man had so easily sacrificed his own son. “This was just before the Red Ages, and the earth was still wild and untamed. Man also was wild and untamed. Human sacrifices were not uncommon, as wrong as they may be. But even then, sacrificing one’s own son was unheard of.”
I interject, “I also think Patersuco was foolish to think that Lilith would trade a mortal life for an immortal life. Isn’t it immortal souls that are collected on the Plane of Fire?”
Dragomira raises her eyebrows at this. “Excellent observation. Indeed, a mortal life has no value to Lilith. Nonetheless, Patersuco, in his foolishness and arrogance, was enraged that she made so little of his sacrifice—but he was determined to achieve his goal. So he then offered to give her his soul when he died. Lilith laughed at him again and said that he had killed an innocent in cold blood, his own living flesh, even, so his soul was already destined for the Plane of Fire when he died. She also pointed out that since he was asking for immortality, she would have to wait a long time for that prize.”
“Lilith sounds highly conniving. Apparently by sacrificing his son, he had given her his own immortal soul. But Lilith didn’t recognize this as part of his payment to her.”
Dragomira says, “She is second only to the Prince of Lies, the Prince of Thieves, the Master Bargain Maker. She is indeed skilled, and instead of taking his bargain, she offered him another.”
By now I’m sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for Dragomira to spin the rest of the tale.
/> “She said that she would cure his blood disease, but it would require that he drink the blood of other humans to survive. She said to make this easier, she would make him desire blood. She would give him strength and resistance from disease, but he would always carry her mark. He would live a long life and be difficult to kill, but the only immortality she would grant him would be the same that all mortals achieve: through creating more of their kind. He could not conceive new life; he could, however, fill others with his blood, and they would carry the same gifts she had given him. But she gave him a warning. If he killed in bloodlust, his soul would immediately belong completely to her.”
Dragomira suddenly stands up and tilts her head as though listening to the ceiling. Then she closes her eyes and starts saying a string of words in an ancient-sounding language, painting patterns in the air with her hand. She seems to be in some sort of trance. I sit silently, unsure of how to respond.
Finally, after what seems like forever, she opens her eyes. “Excuse me for that,” she says. “I felt a disturbance in our wards. Someone was trying to enter uninvited. All is well now.” Then she sits back down and continues as though nothing had happened.
“Patersuco, unwise as he was, accepted this offer. Thus, Lilith created the first Vampire. All Vampires are descendents of those turned by Patersuco. All Vampires carry Lilith’s mark. All Vampires are doomed to the Plane of Fire. Because of this bargain, Lilith ensured that many more generations of souls would come to her.”
“So she really pretended to give Patersuco what he wanted, and in return she got over two thousand years of an ever-increasing number of souls. Patersuco offered a very cheap price for the boon he ended up giving her in return!”
“Exactly. He was a selfish, greedy man and a lousy bargainer. Lilith gave Patersuco the ability to create new beings, each of whom has the temptation of bloodlust, and eventually when they give into that bloodlust and kill, their souls go to her. When their souls go to the Plane of Fire, their flesh is left on Earth to continue to ravage humans, and ravage they do.