Book of Shadows

Chapter Forty-nine

The Internal Affairs hearing was a formality; the media loves nothing so much as a hero and had elevated Garrett to such iconic status that no one in Boston or the free world would have dared suggest that he had broken every rule in the proverbial book.

Garrett sat before the suited panel and recited the barest facts with no inflection. “McKenna charged me with the sword that he intended to use to behead the hostage, and we fought. The fire began when lit candles on the altar were knocked over in our scuffle. I grabbed a dagger from the altar and stabbed him in the throat, and then dragged the hostages out.”

Malloy was livid; Garrett could feel the force of his fury from across the room, but there was nothing he could do; Garrett was restored to duty with extraordinary honors. He could have run for Congress that month if he’d wanted to. Any such thought was the farthest thing from his mind.

Outside, the media swarmed on the steps, and Garrett allowed himself to be jostled and photographed as the press shouted questions. A CNN reporter shoved a mike in his face.

“Is it true that you were suspended from duty for pursuing this line of investigation?”

“The department was aware of this line of investigation,” Garrett answered evenly.

“Then why were you alone at the scene, Detective Garrett?” another reporter called.

“My partner was incapacitated in a previous attack by McKenna. I arrived first on the scene and determined there was no time to wait for backup.”

The shouts of the reporters started again until one voice rose above the fray. “Is it true you alerted three separate departments to the situation and backup never arrived?”

The shifting hoard of newspeople went silent, straining to hear Garrett’s response. He stared at the reporter levelly. “It’s my understanding that all departments arrived in due time after my call.”

The crowd murmured and the same reporter raised his voice again. “You have no criticism of the way the department handled this investigation?”

Garrett looked into the camera with no expression. “I can only say I regret my own part in the arrest and detention of Jason Moncrief. We made the best determination we could based on the evidence we had at the time. I am glad the real perpetrator…” He hesitated for the first time, and on the monitors it seemed that he was looking far away. He finally finished: “Has been stopped.”

As he turned away from the reporters, he saw Carolyn standing in the crowd of police officials, watching, as lovely and polished as ever. They looked at each other without speaking, and then Garrett moved on, jostling through the shouting crowd.

The small private room of the hospital was so crammed with flower arrangements and potted plants it could have been a florist’s shop—or a greenhouse. Garrett winced unconsciously at the sight when he stepped through the door into the room, but all these blooms were fresh and colorful and alive, the plants a lush green.

Landauer lay propped up with pillows, a mountain in the bed. He had regained consciousness the night of Garrett’s battle with McKenna. Garrett had checked the precise time with the nurses and in his estimation Landauer awoke at the same moment that McKenna died.

A woman sat beside his bed. She and Landauer turned to the door to look at the same moment. Garrett stared back at them from the doorway: his partner, and Tanith Cabarrus.

“What the hell took you so long?” Landauer scowled at him.

“I stopped to get you flowers but the whole city seems to be out,” Garrett deadpanned, casting a look around the room.

“Too busy playing American Idol to check up on me, is more like,” his partner accused.

“That and I.A.,” Garrett agreed.

“Fuck ’em,” Landauer answered. “What do they know?” And the men looked at each other.

Tanith rose from her chair beside the bed. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

“Thanks for stoppin’ by,” Landauer said, then visibly struggled with himself, and met her eyes. “My wife said to say thanks, about the smoking thing.”

Tanith looked back at him. “If you go back to it, you’ll be dead within a year. You get that, don’t you?”

Landauer’s grin twisted. “Funny, she said exactly the same thing.”

Tanith smiled faintly. “All women are witches.”

“I always thought,” Landauer agreed. He hesitated. “So… if I don’t, you know, start again, how long have I got?”

Tanith stepped toward the bed and looked at him squarely… Garrett could see Landauer holding his breath…

Then she shook her head. “I can’t see that far into the future,” she said lightly.

Landauer grinned like a little kid. Then he faked a yawn and looked at Garrett. “Awright, both of you out of here. I need my beauty sleep.”

Tanith walked silently beside Garrett in the hospital hall, past a glass wall of windows overlooking the garden, while Garrett recited the facts as he knew them in a carefully neutral voice.

“McKenna had a sheet under the name Andrew Forsythe. Cruelty to animals, sealed juvie record, drug convictions, psychiatric detention, questioned in the disappearance of a teenager in Maryland. No association with any organized satanic or pagan groups or cults, just a lot of Crowley and demonic stuff on his computer and in the motel room he’d been renting for a week. He fits the psychological profile perfectly. A lone satanic practitioner who uses the trappings of satanism to satisfy his own violent fantasies.”

“That must feel good, to have things wrapped up so cleanly,” she said, and there was no mockery in her voice.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to close the book on this one,” Garrett said, and didn’t look at her.

She nodded, and bit her lip. Her voice was cool, with just a hint of a tremor. “I can understand that.”

He stopped on the bridge, and now he did look at her. She was so darkly beautiful he had to look away again. “I couldn’t do my job if there weren’t some—underlying sense to it.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I want to thank you for your help, though,” he said. “I know—” He paused, and struggled with himself. “Sorry—I—I’m still recovering from the drugs. I was dosed pretty hard.”

Something flickered on her face. She nodded slowly, not speaking.

“What I know is, those kids would be dead if not for you.” And finally he turned to her. “And I probably would be, too.”

“No. You wouldn’t have been there at all.” She looked into his eyes, and her voice was gentle. “You took a big risk. You went farther than—anyone else would have. You went out on a limb and you saved four lives.”

He shook his head. “Not four. Land would never have been in danger to begin with if I hadn’t—”

“I meant Jason Moncrief,” she said, without smiling. “Thank you for that.”

She started to turn away. He caught her hand, but flinched back at the contact, as if it burned him. “I just can’t…” He looked at her fully for the first time. “I don’t want to live that way.”

She smiled, with effort. “I know.”

“I live in this world,” he said.

“I know.”

Her hand was still in his… neither of them moved. He could feel the blood pulsing in her wrist… and a sense of power beyond imagining… a sense of dark… and light…

And life.