Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 4



Mountlake Terrace,

A Middle-Class Seattle Suburb

The crime scene––a small, one-bedroom home owned by Robert McKale, a Methodist minister––yielded no real surprises. No sign of struggle, no sign of violence. Yet, face down in the middle of the living room floor, was one dead preacher. The Medical Examiner rolled the body over. As in the previous two cases, the man’s shirt was unbuttoned, there were strange markings on his forehead and chest, his trousers and underwear were pulled down to his ankles and, like the other two victims, a black plastic Batman coin had been stuffed into his mouth.

***

When Kane and Ravenwood returned to the office, Kane plopped himself into the chair behind his desk and stared at Ravenwood. Finally he spoke. “Sigils, huh?” he said, picking up the conversation where they’d left off as if nothing had happened.

Ravenwood was a little surprised. “So you’re ready to listen to what I have to say, I take it.”

“Might as well. Can’t dance.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I said––” he stopped and shook his head. “Never mind. Can we just get on with it? Dazzle me with your mystical brilliance.”

She ignored the sarcasm. “That’s what I’m here for.” She clicked open her briefcase, pulled out the sheet of illustrations of the odd symbols and slid it across his desk. “Like I said, I’m certain these are sigils. The word sigil is derived from the Latin, sigilum, which means seal, although some––”

“Look, lady. I don’t need a friggin’ history lesson here. Just give me the goddamn bottom line, will ya?”

She took a deep breath. How the hell did this guy even graduate from high school? “Okay, all right, no history lesson. But even you will like this next part.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Ever hear of sex magick?”

Kane chuckled. “Sex magic? Hell yeah. I’ve performed a lot of that in my time.”

“Really? That’s not what I hear.”

Kane found himself caught off guard without a clever retort.

“May I continue?” Ravenwood asked.

“By all means,” Kane said. “Don’t stop now. It’s just getting good.”

“It gets better.”

“Do tell.”

Ravenwood leaned back in her chair. “Remember I told you sigils are symbols used in magick?”

“Right. Magic.” He raised two fingers and traced the sign of a cross in the air as if performing a blessing. “Hocus pocus dominocus, betican beecha indominos.”

It was corny. It was juvenile. It was also kind of funny. Ravenwood couldn’t quite suppress a grin. “Cute,” she said. “But no.”

“Whaddya mean, no?”

“We’re not talking about hocus-pocus here. That’s stage magic. This isn’t David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell are we talking about and when do we get back to the sex stuff?”

“We’re talking about ritual magick, the dark arts as some call it. Maybe even black magick. Possibly satanic. Hard to say at this point. But ritual magick of some sort.”

“Witchcraft?”

“Maybe. It’s complicated.”

Kane thought for a moment. “You’re an expert in this stuff, right?”

“You could say that.”

“Then let me ask you a serious question.”

Finally, Ravenwood thought, trying not to look shocked. “Shoot.”

He looked her straight in the eyes. “What, exactly, does ‘colder than a witches tit’ really mean, anyway?”

She shut her eyes and shook her head. Jesus Christ, the man is still back in the sixth grade. “Actually,” she said, “I could answer that for you.”

Kane looked surprised. “Get outta here. You serious?”

Ravenwood couldn’t believe he could think she was serious. She decided to play it out. “I said I could tell you. I didn’t say I would tell you. Because you know…” her face turned deadly serious, “…if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Oh, that’s original.”

She gave a chuckle. “Yeah, I know. But there is actually an answer to that question.”

“Really?”

“Tell you what. You stop screwing with me and one of these days I’ll tell you. And I won’t kill you. Promise. Deal?”

Kane grinned. Stop screwing with you? I wouldn’t screw you if you were the last woman on earth. Well––maybe the last woman. “All right, deal. I’ll hold you to that promise.”

Ravenwood hoped the smile on her face appeared more appreciative than condescending. “Okay, then. Are we together on this magick thing? Do you get what I’m telling you?”

“Yeah, I’m gettin’ the picture but what is it with this ritual magick stuff? People believe this shit really works?”

“Yes, they do. The idea behind the practice of ritual magick is to learn how to use one’s will to bring about some intended change.”

Kane nodded for her to go on.

“For example, let’s say there’s this job that you really want but you heard the employer is intending to hire someone else for that position. So you would engage in some particular magickal ritual in which the intention is to bring about a change in the employer’s decision. You could be very specific about the means by which you would like your intended outcome to manifest or you could leave it open-ended. Either way. Doesn’t matter, really, just as long as the end result is that you get hired instead of the other person. See what I mean?”

Kane raised an eyebrow. “Or you could do one of these rituals to make somebody die?”

She nodded. “That, too.”

“Okay, I’m getting the gist of what you’re saying. I don’t believe a word of it, but I get it. So what exactly are these rituals, anyway?”

Ravenwood spent the next several minutes explaining some of the various forms of ritual magick: invocations, evocations, consecration, divination and others. Most of it was over Kane’s head. His eyes were glazing over.

“And, of course,” she added, “sex magick.”

Kane’s eyes brightened.

Ravenwood grinned. “I knew that would wake you up.”

“What can I say? I’m a guy. So what about this sex magick thing.”

Ravenwood launched into a short introductory course on sex magick while Kane listened intently. Even though it wasn’t more than fifteen minute’s worth of information on a subject she could have expounded upon for an hour, she didn’t hesitate to mention some of the more lurid elements that are occasionally included in such rituals.

Kane thought he’d heard it all in his line of work but this was definitely a new one on him. He sat up and, for the first time, showed some signs of genuine interest. “So,” he said, “let me see if I’ve got this right. Basically, what you’re saying is that these people use sex to get what they want. What’s new about that? It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.”

“You’re not quite getting it. What I said was, the practitioners of this particular ritual use the sex act and the energies it releases as a tool for activating the intended outcome––for good or for evil––whatever the case may be. The orgasm is that momentary window of opportunity, when the sexual energy is at its peak. The practitioner has one goal at that moment: to cast his spell and give it life in the real world. In other words, to make the intention become a reality. It’s entirely a mental exercise requiring the most intense concentration.”

Kane leaned back and scowled. “Hmm… Doesn’t sound like much fun. Now, me, I’d rather––”

“I don’t really care what you’d rather, Lieutenant. This isn’t about you. I’m trying to get to a point here.

“Well, hurry it up then. Get to the point.”

“Thank you. Now––”

“You want some coffee?”

“What?”

“Coffee,” he said, nodding toward the coffee maker on the file cabinet. “You want some?”

My god, she thought. His Teddy Bear is showing. “Well, sure, thank you.”

“Cream? Sugar?” Arsenic?

“No, just black, thanks.”

He got up, filled two Styrofoam cups and handed her one. “Careful,” he said. “It’s hot.” He thought about adding the words, like you, but caught himself before it came out. Christ. I must be slipping.

“Thank you,” she said. Now, where were we?”

Kane sat down and blew the steam off the top of his coffee. “Sex in front of the window or something like that.”

“Lieutenant.”

“Okay. I get what you were saying. It’s weird shit but I get it. What I don’t get is what this has to do with the case.”

“I’m getting to that.”

“Think you can get to it before the coffee gets cold?”

Teddy Bear doesn’t stay around long. “Okay. Here is where we begin to put a couple pieces of the puzzle together.”

“Which pieces?”

“The sigils and the sex magick. Remember I told you the sigils are symbols that represent something?”

Kane gave a nod.

“Well, sex magick can be used to activate a sigil. In the ritual, the sigil can be physically applied to the practitioner’s partner. On the forehead, on the chest, the back of a hand or whatever.”

“Like on our dead preachers.”

“Exactly. But usually the application is nothing more permanent than an ink drawing or, in more extreme cases, blood might be used instead of ink. The practitioner––or magician, to use the more common term––then holds this image in his mind during the sex act. Then, at the very moment of orgasm, the magician mentally launches the sigil into what is thought of as the logosphere.”

“The what?”

“The logosphere. It’s believed to be a kind of cosmic void in the universe where the symbol is interpreted and sent back to the earth in the actual form of the thing the symbol represented in the first place. Follow me?”

“Yeah, I’m with you. Does this shit get any weirder? Because I’m pretty much maxed out on the weird-o-meter here.”

“Oh, it gets a lot weirder. Believe me. But do you understand what I’m trying to explain?”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. And you’re suggesting that somehow some crazy a*shole out there is killing these preachers, branding symbols onto their bodies and then he has sex with them in order to turn his symbolic squiggles into something real. Am I right?”

Ravenwood’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Very good, Lieutenant! You’re not as––” She stopped herself mid-sentence.

“No,” he said, “I’m not.” He reached for the crime scene photos of the dead preachers, studied them for a moment and then spread them across the desk. “So let’s say you’re right about this. Then what the hell do these sigils mean? You’re saying they represent something, right? So what do these particular sigils represent? What the hell is he trying to manifest?”

Ravenwood drained the last sip of coffee from her cup and set it on Kane’s desk. “I’m afraid I haven’t been able to figure that out yet. The sigils on the chests of the victims seem vaguely familiar but I can’t nail down where I might have seen them.”

“Well, that’s a good start.” His tone was drenched in sarcasm. “And what about that weird mark on their foreheads? I suppose you don’t know what that is either.”

“Well, that’s not technically a sigil. At least not like any sigil I’ve ever come across. But I’m working on it. I have quite an extensive library full of this kind of information. But the bottom line is, I think the perpetrator is attempting an evocation of some sort by––”

“Hold it. An evo––what?”

“It’s another magick term. Evocation. To evoke something. Usually it has to do with attempting to call on the services of a particular angel… or demon. I suspect that’s what our perp is trying to do. And I’m guessing it’s not an angel he’s looking for. Another guess is that these sigils, these marks on the chests of the victims, are somehow associated with whatever demon––or demons––he’s attempting to evoke.”

Kane shook his head. “Lot of guesses.”

Ravenwood shrugged.

Kane rubbed his eyes. He was tired and pretty much mentally tapped out from this barrage of bizarre information. A whisky shot with a beer chaser would be good right about now. “You do know how insane this all sounds, right?”

“Of course. But insane or not, that’s what we’re dealing with.”

Kane thought about it for a moment. “So, again, let’s just say you’re right. I mean, let’s just assume for the sake of argument that these deaths are actually homicides, murder. Two big questions still remain. How the hell is he killing them? And what the hell are the Batman coins all about?”

“Right, the coins. Glad you brought that up.”

“You got something on them?”

“Well, obviously they have some profound meaning to our killer. God only knows what that might be. But I found out those coins were promotional items distributed by a breakfast cereal company about 10 years ago. There were nine coins in the complete set and each one was numbered. Kids collected them and it looks like maybe our perp was one of those kids. That alone might give us a clue as to how old he is now.”

“Good point. Unless he just went out somewhere recently and bought a complete set––assuming, of course, that he actually has a complete set.”

“I think he’s had these coins for a long time. Long enough to have developed some deeply personal psychological attachment to them.”

“Really? Well, if he’s so attached to them, why is he suddenly giving them away like party favors?”

“Part of the ritual. A sacrifice. He’s giving up something to get something in return.”

Kane considered the idea.

“There’s more,” she said. “According to your own forensic reports, the coin found with the first victim had the number ‘one’ stamped on it. The second victim had coin number ‘two’. Just an hour ago––while we were at the crime scene––I took a quick look at the coin they pulled out of the victim’s mouth. It was stamped with the number ‘three’. So, if our perp did have all nine coins he could be telling us how many preachers he intends to kill before this is over.”

“Nine?”

Ravenwood shrugged. “Just about stake my reputation on it.”

Kane considered Ravenwood’s analysis of the situation and had to admit that her speculations at least followed some logic. Maybe they were beginning to get somewhere. “But, still,” he said, “how is he killing them? The Medical Examiner says heart attacks. I know certain drugs can be used to induce a heart attack even in a completely healthy person. But the autopsies show no evidence of any such drugs in the bodies. Got any ideas on that one?”

Ravenwood stared at the floor for a moment then looked up. “You know, Lieutenant,” she said, looking Kane straight in the eye, “I don’t have the slightest f*cking idea.”

Kane had to laugh. “Well, that’s a big help. But I do love it when you talk dirty. More coffee?”

“Just trying to fit in,” she said with a coy grin.

“Fat chance. You’re FBI. You’ll never fit in.”