Omens

Chapter Forty-five

“So you write horror?” I said as we walked to the park.

“No. Paranormal romance.”

I glanced over.

A mock-offended look. “You think I’m kidding?”

“I’m not sure, because I have no idea what that is.”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Vampires, demons, witches, and the like. With romance. It’s a hot market.”

“So you’re trying to break in by writing it?”

“Break in? I have six books out already. How do you think I can afford to sit in a diner typing all day?”

“Sorry. You just seem young to be published.”

“I’m older than I look.”

We turned onto the path to the park.

“Do you publish under a pseudonym?” I asked.

“Have to, being a guy writing romance. Shall I tell you my pen name, so you can pretend you’ll get one from the library? Let things become horribly awkward when you don’t and I ask how you liked it?”

“So you won’t tell me your pseudonym?”

“I’ll do one better. I’ll bring a copy of my latest to the diner. Just to make it even more awkward, because you won’t have any excuse for not reading it.”

He opened the gate on the empty park and ushered me to the bench inside. “In paranormal romance, you need three elements to stand out in a crowded market. One? Sex. I’m very good at it.” He sat down. “I’m not bad at writing it, either.”

I rolled my eyes. He only smiled.

“And the other two?” I asked.

“Originality and attention to detail, both of which require extensive research. While most writers focus on the Hollywood tropes—vampires, werewolves, and such—I dig deeper. Which means I know a lot about the occult and everything currently labeled as the occult by Western Christian society, more correctly known as folklore and pagan religions.”

He leaned over and lowered his voice, fake-conspiratorial. “So, do I qualify to hear the juicy heretofore unrevealed details?”

I mentally ran through the various elements and picked the least sensational. “Mistletoe.”

His brows lifted in an expression that for a split-second reminded me of Gabriel. Proving that my former lawyer was playing on my thoughts a little more than I liked.

“Mistletoe?”

“There was a sprig of it left near the bodies.”

“Ah, that is indeed a tricky one. Very arcane lore. You see, there’s an obscure cult in Malta that worships Saint Nicolas, and every December twenty-fifth, they hang mistletoe from trees and engage in debauched kissing orgies.”

I gave him a look.

He laughed. “Well, at least you don’t believe me. Some people might. As for the real answer, either you’re just testing me or the prosecution hired some very dim-witted investigators. Mistletoe is traditionally associated with the Druids. The first known reference was by Pliny the Elder. While it’s not nearly as common as bloody pentacles, it wouldn’t be completely unexpected if one considers these potential sacrificial murders.”

“Because the Druids practiced human sacrifice.”

“Possibly. The jury’s still out on that. The problem is that we have no records from the Druids themselves. Unless you count neo-Druids, and I don’t. They’re as close to real Druids as Tinker Bell is to fairies.”

“Real fairies.”

Another flash of a grin, and his voice dropped into a perfect brogue. “Aye, ye dinna believe in the wee folk, lass? That’s trouble. The pixies will sour your milk.”

“I thought it was hobgoblins who soured milk.”

“A dirty lie. Spread by the pixies, no doubt. Nasty buggers. I’ll amend my analogy. Neo-Druids are as close to real ones as Tinker Bell is to the traditional fae of folklore. We have no writings from the Druids because they lacked a writing system. What we have comes from something even worse than pixies. Romans.”

“When the Romans discovered Britain.”

“Discovered? Like Columbus discovered America? The Romans were bloody invaders, worse than the Vikings. Spreading their culture on the tips of their lances. They thought the natives were barbarians, led by bloodthirsty Druids.”

“So the accounts we have of human sacrifice all come from the Romans, which means it may have been a public relations smear? Convince everyone back home that all Brits are murderers who need to be annihilated.”

“Or it may have been true.”

I looked over at Patrick.

He shrugged. “I have no love for the Romans, but I’m not convinced the Druids didn’t practice human sacrifice. The problem comes in the interpretation. Or the misinterpretation. The Romans saw it as a fundamental disrespect for human life. It wasn’t. Romans understood the core concept—like the Celts, they practiced animal sacrifice. But when you really want—or need—to get the attention of the gods, you offer them your best. Something you value more than the life of an animal.”

“The life of a human.”

“Exactly. So, too, would the Druids, if they did indeed practice human sacrifice. Are you really telling me no one interpreted that mistletoe as Druidic?”

“It was mentioned, but none of the other elements seemed to be Druidic, so it lent credence to the theory that the Larsens were incorporating disparate elements to fake ritual sacrifice.”

“The Larsens. Is that how you think of them?”

“Yes.”

He made a noise in his throat. Not really disapproval. Just a noise.

“I know they’re my biological parents,” I said. “But I don’t think of them as Mom and Dad. I already have those.”

“Fair enough. So what did the Larsens do with the mistletoe? I suspect it wasn’t just lying beside the bodies.”

“It pierced a symbol on the women’s stomachs.”

He frowned. “What kind of symbol?”

I hesitated, then pulled out a drawing of it.

“Pictish v-rod,” he said. Then he shook his head. “Did Gabriel hire these researchers? I’ll have to speak to him. He should demand a refund if they couldn’t identify this one.”

“By Pictish you mean the Picts, right? Iron Age tribe? Northern Scotland?”

“Late Iron Age, early medieval.”

“Any connection to the Druids?”

He nodded. “Before they converted—or were forced to convert—to Christianity.”

“And the v-rod means?”

“No one knows. Again, no records. No reliable ones anyway. It’s believed to have something to do with death. As for piercing it with mistletoe?” He shrugged. “I’ve never heard of that.”

A mishmash of symbols. Someone randomly linking them in a made-up ritual.

I showed him the symbol carved onto the thighs next, but he didn’t recognize it. Nor did he know what a stone in the mouth might signify, further supporting my theory.

As we walked back to the diner, he offered to look into the other symbols. No charge. He liked a challenge, and as long as I kept his coffee cup filled, we could call it even.

After my shift, I did a little more research on my laptop. I was popping over to read an old article on the Sun-Times website when a name on the home page caught my attention. James Morgan. There was another name there, too. One I knew well. Eva Talbot.

James always joked about how long it took to catch me. But he left out a few pertinent details that made the story a little less romantic.

At a Christmas party the year before last, James had overheard me make an offhand reference to Chicago history. He’d minored in history in college, so we’d talked about it later, probably the first private conversation we’d ever had.

A few days into the New Year, James had called. His firm wanted to run a white-ribbon campaign and the shelter where I worked seemed a good recipient for donations. That led to long talks on the phone, then over coffee, then over lunch…

James was trying to gauge whether his interest was mutual before he asked me out because … well, there was an obstacle. Eva, a socialite he’d been dating for two years.

In retrospect, I suppose this should have told me that James was never, ever going to chase me out that door when I broke off our engagement. Never going to suggest we fly to Vegas and get married. Never going to say, “To hell with everything—this is what I want.” He had to be sure that the ground was firm before he stepped on it.

When I hadn’t given him the signs he was hoping for—I don’t flirt with unavailable guys—he’d finally asked point-blank. If Eva wasn’t in the picture, would I go to Paris with him?

I should have said, “Get her out of the picture and then ask.” Force him to take a chance. But at the time, the question spoke to me of honesty, not a lack of spontaneity. So I said yes, and Eva Talbot got the breakup talk.

Now I was reading a piece about a charity dinner last night where James and Eva had been spotted together. Complete with a photo of them at the table, James leaning over to whisper something, Eva gazing at him adoringly. Sources confirmed the two were seeing each other again, Eva consoling him. There was even a quote from her, after the dinner, about poor James and all he’d been through.

Bitch.

That was the most vitriol I could work up for Eva, though. Only a little more for James. I stared at that picture and I thought of us, at our last dinner together, how happy we’d been.

I’d given that up. Willfully given it up. And he’d already moved on.