Chapter 7

7

Farryn

For the three hours that followed, I read my father’s journal, riveted in the descriptions I remembered from my childhood, of a place that could’ve easily been in a dark fairytale. A place of strange woodland creatures, some of which he’d sketched, that looked like nothing I’d seen before. A place where shadows crawled independently from the objects casting them, and the wind carried whispers when no one was around.

Like some kind of messed up Wonderland.

As I read his vivid descriptions, I wondered two things: Had he actually been to that place? And exactly how sound was his mind when he wrote the journals?

On closing the cover, something drifted out from within and onto the desk. A scrap of a page that looked as if it’d been torn out of the book. Only a small portion of the writing remained on it, and on flipping back through the book, I noticed a number of pages had been torn out, down to the book’s spine.

I fear I’ve made a grave mistake. That I’ve unearthed something not meant to be found. God, forgive my ignorance.

The rest of the page had been torn out, leaving me to puzzle the meaning of his words, and I flipped it over to the next.

In my studies and inquiries, I was made aware of someone who might help me traverse this plane. He goes by the name of Xhiphias. A very knowledgeable man with insights I’ve not previously come across in another human being. For the sake of my Farryn’s life, I must cross over to Nightshade and find Van Croix before the next blood moon. I’m certain Xhiphias can help accomplish this.

It’s only a matter of time before the Pentacrux find her.

My blood turned cold on reading that, recalling the message in my dream.

Find Van Croix in Nightshade.

The clammy feeling of nausea had me breathing through my nose. I’d heard stories of people communicating with the dead through dreams, but I couldn’t say I actually believed it to be possible. Even then, I sat shaking my head, certain I must’ve read that prior to dreaming.

Besides, I didn’t even know for sure if he had died.

And who the hell was this Van Croix, and what did he have to do with anything? What was the significance of the blood moon? What had my father unearthed?

The questions in my head crashed and bounced, stirring up an awful ache. I rubbed my temple, trying to make sense of the cryptic little messages, and deciding that maybe I had just stared at this too damn long. Lifting the book from the desk, I read the last sentence again, just to be sure I was reading it right, and as I did so a thought struck me.

What if my father was alive somewhere, and what if Xhiphias had been the last to see, or speak to him?

On the back of the torn page, I found an address in Chicago. Not the best neighborhood, for sure, but about twenty minutes from where I lived. A quick Google Maps search showed it as a business address. An apothecary store, where, hopefully, there might be other patrons. A public place versus some shady abandoned factory. Red flags practically flashed across my eyeballs, but my curiosity had already been piqued.

A bell rang, and I shot my head toward the foyer beyond the office door. Had I ever actually heard it ring before? The last visitor I’d had was the neighbor lady telling me her dog had pissed all over Aunt Nelle’s rose bushes.

Frowning, I stood up from the desk and padded out of the office toward the front door. Through the peephole, I saw Detective Hines staring back.

What the …

After a moment’s hesitation, in which I mentally debated whether or not I was lawfully required to acknowledge him, I unlocked the deadbolt, all three of them, and opened the door a mere crack.

His lips stretched to a smile. “Miss Ravenshaw, I’m sorry to bother you so late. I just had a couple things I was hoping to discuss with you.”

Jesus, it had to be midnight. “How did you …. How did you know where I live?” I silently dared him to tell me that he’d searched for me, because I’d gone through painstaking efforts to remove my information from the internet. Or worse, that Father Bane had given him my address, after all.

Lips flattened, he crossed his arms and huffed. “Look, I’m going to level with you.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “It’s not every day that I seek someone out and invite them to review my files.”

“You still haven’t answered the question. How did you know where I live?” Even if he’d used some super-invasive police database to track me down, I wanted to hear him say it.

“I followed you home.”

“Well … that’s creepy as hell.”

“So … we’re going to have this conversation through the door? I won’t take up much of your time. I promise.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure about talking to him about my findings. “I’m going to level with you. I’m inviting you in under the pretense that you’re a professional, here to discuss religious cult symbolism.” Well, that didn’t come out sounding right, either.

“What else would I be here for.” It was then I noticed the folder tucked under his arm, and after the dream I’d had, and seeing the picture he’d shown me of the murdered woman, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that file contained.

With reluctance, I glanced over my shoulder toward the opened door of the office, where the feather lay on the desk in plain sight. “Can you excuse me one moment?” I said, closing the door on him. I dashed across the foyer and yanked the office door closed before rushing back, and when I swung open the door, he quirked a brow.

“You live alone?” Scanning the place, he stepped inside, and for whatever reason, my stomach lurched.

I’d never invited anyone into my personal space. Just seeing him standing within Aunt Nelle’s foyer felt invasive. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

Hands fidgeting, I led him toward the kitchen. Could’ve been leading a psychopath to the one room in the house which held all the knives, and yet, I still took the lead like the freaking tour guide to Butcherville. An oily sensation crawled over my skin, and I glanced over my shoulder, making sure he kept his distance behind me.

“You’re welcome to have a seat at the table, Detective. Can I get you a drink?”

“No. I won’t stay.” He plopped a little too hard into one of the chairs, making me cringe at the way the delicate wood groaned beneath him.?For an uncomfortable minute, he stared back at me. “I cannot get over your eyes. They’re so … unusual.”

My father used to tell me an entire celestial galaxy lived inside my eyes, which was about as disturbing as a gum tree in the stomach.

“I’ve never seen that before.” He gestured toward his own eyes, which I noticed were a deep brown. “All the different colors.”

“They’re a bit unusual, I suppose.”

After another moment of his staring, I wanted to climb right out of my skin. Thankfully, he cleared his throat and lowered his gaze. “I was, um … recently made privy to the information that we attend the same church.”

“I don’t actually attend.”

“Right. You go for confession every few weeks. But you have a fairly strong Catholic upbringing, do you not?”

“Forgive me, Detective, but is there a purpose to all of this inquiry into my personal affairs?”

“Father Bane merely mentioned it, is all.” He glanced around the room in a way that had me feeling as though he was looking for something, and the regret over having invited him inside burned like indigestion in my gut. Laying the folder on the table, he sighed.

Hesitant, I scooted the chair away from him a bit and took a seat at the table.

“Early yesterday morning, I received a call from the Cathedral of the Felician Sisters.” As he flipped open the folder, my pulse raced.

The first picture he showed was an oversized crucifix of Jesus that’d been turned upside down, at the front of what appeared to be a church altar. I couldn’t help but wonder how the hell someone had accomplished the task of twisting it. The thing looked huge against the wall.

“This is their cathedral, where a couple of the nuns were stationed for perpetual adoration.”

“Devil worshipper? Disgruntled parishioner? This seems kind of obvious.”

He made an unamused sound in his throat and slid another image out of the folder. In it, a slightly overweight woman, late sixties, given the gray in her hair and the few wrinkles in her skin, sat on her knees, naked and hunched over. Her body had been propped in place by a pole that impaled her skull. A closer angle showed fingers had been fused together, as if in prayer, wrapped in a metal belt that must’ve held prongs, as blood dripped down her arms. A rosary dangled from her clasped hands.

The worst part, though? Her spinal column had been removed--removed--leaving a grisly trench of mutilated flesh down the center of her back. In its place, thick braids of barbed wire, spun and bent together, had been attached to her skull and sacrum, serving as a grisly, artificial spine.

“She’s their Reverend Mother. Head nun there.” The sound of Hines’s voice was drowned by the thudding of blood in my ears. “One of the sisters from the dorm, or wherever it is they sleep, said she was called over about some noise heard down in the chapel. Said it sounded like banging on a pipe, or something,” he prattled on, his voice getting quieter by the second.

A hard swallow failed to clear the clogging in my ears, as I stared, frozen. Mesmerized by the horror laid out before me. The most gruesome thing I’d ever seen in my life. “Her spine. I don’t suppose you’ve come across it?”

“No,” he answered. “Seems he kept it as a souvenir. She’d apparently referred to the faithless as spineless cowards.”

Breathing hard through my nose was a poor attempt to hide my shallow breathing. “The faithless?”

“We’re assuming she meant Alicia Maxson’s murderer.” The first case he’d brought to my attention with the prostitute in the motel room. “We learned she was a former student of the convent. For a short time, anyway. She left. Ended up on the streets soon after. In spite of her … life choices, it seems she was well-liked by the nuns. Particularly the Reverend Mother.”

“Huh. A spine must’ve made quite a trophy.” My voice cracked at the end, as the acids rushed up my throat.

God, don’t throw up.

Just in case, I covered my mouth with the back of my palm.

“I’m no medical person, but this makes no sense.” Hines shook his head, as if oblivious to my struggle to keep my own last supper in check. “The spine was ripped out. Ripped. There’s no incision. No sawing of bone. The spine is attached to ribs and the skull, and whatever the hell else. The perp would’ve had to use a goddamn Sawzall to accomplish this, and someone would’ve had to have heard the sound of a saw.”

“No one heard anything?”

“A couple of nuns reported hearing screams sometime after eleven. Other than that, no.”

“So, what gives you the impression her spine was ripped out?”

“The cracks in her ribs. They’re splintered as if it was violently torn away. The medical examiner will confirm, of course, but that’s our first impression.”

Lifting my eyes to the ceiling, I willed myself to breathe through my nose and, for fucks sake, not to look at that barbed spine again.

Unfortunately, Hines asked, “Any thoughts on this? The metal thing on her hands? The barbs? The way it’s kind of lodged in her flesh there?”

A hard swallow was all I could do to tamp down the acid determined to splash on the floor any minute.

“Ravenshaw?” At the sound of Detective Hines’s voice, I choked it all back and turned my attention back to him. “’You okay? You look a little pale.”

“Fine. Um. The barbs, of course, might have some reference to Jesus and the crown of thorns, but …” I swallowed again, flinching at the burn. It’d be a wonder if my throat didn’t have holes afterward. “The chain at her hands seems to be some kind of cilice belt.”

“What is that?”

“A chain belt with prongs designed to irritate the skin. It’s a means to atone for sin.”

“Interesting.” Shaking his head, Hines huffed. “At any rate, the marking I wanted to show you was found in the undercroft.”

He slid yet another picture from the folder, and a cold rush of shock washed over me.

The brick wall. The one from my dream. The Nightshade symbol written in black, exactly as I’d seen it.

Mouth gaping, I froze. Paralyzed. Scarcely daring to breathe, for fear it might arrive as a whimper.

“A couple weeks ago, two other nuns were reported missing here.”

Forcing my lips together, I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. “Do …. Do you … think they might’ve … been murdered, as well?”

To my horror, he slid yet another picture from the folder.

The brick wall had been demolished, revealing two nuns tethered by their necks.

With a trembling hand, I covered my mouth and willed myself not to scream. Dizziness shot to my head, and I gripped the edge of the table to steady myself. The pounding of blood in my ears drowned the sound of Hines’s voice.

“Are you all right, Miss Ravenshaw?”

“What’s that?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the image. A perfect replica of my nightmare.

“Are you all right?”

Ignoring his question, I cleared my throat. “This cathedral … is there a… a statue out front, by chance?” I broke my staring at the nuns in the image to think back on what the hell it was in my dream. “Felix of … Prae-something.”

“I don’t recall a particular statue off hand. Why do you ask?”

“I just … was just curious. Testing my knowledge of saints,” I said on a nervous laugh.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m afraid … I need to … I’m not feeling good. If we could maybe … meet later?”

The tapping of his finger on the table caught my attention, because it’d grown louder, more apparent in the quiet that lingered like rot in the air. “What are you hiding, Miss Ravenshaw?” His question shot a bullet of anxiety into my chest that exploded in alarm.

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“You think I’m foolish, don’t you? That I don’t know when someone is lying to my face? You found something. Give it to me.” Animosity flashed over his face, and he pushed to his feet until standing over me, making those alarms blare louder. “I know you have it.”

The feather?

“Where. Is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Quit playing games!” He jumped toward me, and I tumbled backward out of my chair.

The kitchen floor smashed into my tailbone, my head hitting the wall with a hard thunk. A rush of adrenaline coursed through me, my fight or flight quickly evolving into push or punch.

Over the turbulent thump of my heart, the sound of Camael growling caught my attention, and I diverted my intense eye contact to see her standing behind Detective Hines. The baring of teeth and arched curve of her back showed a hostile side of her I’d rarely seen before. She’d always been relatively aloof and disinterested around visitors.

Detective Hines backed away from me, away from Camael, eyes directed toward the cat as he edged his way toward the foyer.

Scared?

Granted, the cat could sound downright evil when she wanted to, and look like something spawned from the underworld, but it certainly didn’t warrant the trembles I could see wracking the detective’s body all of a sudden.

“I didn’t realize you had a cat,” he said.

I didn’t have to ask him to leave, as he disappeared into the foyer without saying a word.

My heart raced inside my chest, as I listened to his retreating footsteps, and at the click of my front door, I let out a shaky exhale. I padded quickly toward the door and locked all three deadbolts, teeth grinding with the frustration of his unannounced visit and my now-rattled nerves.

When I turned back around, Camael sat licking her front paw, as if nothing unusual had just gone down .

“I take it you don’t like him.” I lifted her up into my arms, cradling her like a baby, while my body still shook with the lingering rush from earlier. “Well, that settles that. I’m definitely not telling him about Xhiphias.”

* * *

Anoise roused me from sleep, and I opened my eyes to the darkness of my room.

Clang, clang, clang.

As if someone were inside the walls, whacking a hammer against the metal pipes, the sound echoed through the room.

Clang, clang, clang.

Exhaustion still claimed my eyes, after hours of reading my father’s journal, and I blinked to find Camael at the foot of my bed, her back to me, facing the wall.

Nothing appeared to be there.

Clang, clang, clang.

My thoughts turned back to earlier. My dream. The nuns in the wall.

Camael hissed and growled a long creepy sound, like something out of a horror movie.

The hairs on my neck stood on end, and I sat up in bed. “Camael.” The sound of my voice failed to distract her from whatever had captured her attention. “Come here, you crazy cat.” The lightness of my tone betrayed the unsettling feeling in my gut, but still, she didn’t move. Instead, she kept on with her hissing and growling.

“Ca’ligo an a tua,” I whispered. Even if it was silly, it brought some small measure of comfort to say the words.

Only when I flicked on the lamp beside me did she finally turn around, and the growl from before turned into a soft meowing.

She sauntered across the bed toward me and curled up on one of the pillows next to me.

The banging sound disappeared.

With a frown, I sent one more glance toward the wall before flicking the light back off.

Not once did I take my eyes off the foot of the bed.