Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 20

The loot from the warlock’s bowling alley HQ was extraordinary. Sassy Moore had spent the night going through the tomes and trinkets, impressed with his ability to collect such a diverse library of the arcane. What the warlock had had before his delightfully untimely but uniquely appropriate demise easily rivaled her collection in its magnitude and scope, but then again she’d concentrated on her own path and hadn’t diverged as much as her dear dead enemy. He’d concentrated most of his efforts on fabrication; at least it had appeared so from the immensity of that gargantuan creature. Had Van McKee spent half his time concentrating on astral battle tactics, she wouldn’t have been able to disembody him so easily.

But at least now he was dead. He’d been a thorn in her side for years. He was a controller and wanted her tidily working for him, whether it was under the auspices of one of the covens or druid circles he belonged to or as his own personal servant. Now that Section 9, with the help of the remarkable Jack Walker, had helped her to remove him from this plane of existence, her path toward her own supremacy was clear.

Normally, she’d take her new things and slip away. She had to rebuild her life and establish a new magical focal point. But with the Wild Hunt running amok and the mysterious Red Grove controlling its actions, she’d have to pretend to be a team player. Oh, how droll it was to smile and grin at mortal humor. She’d much rather poke her eyes out and so much as promised herself that she would if she ever found herself in a similar position—one in which she’d have to go hat in hand to the nice military men for support.

Walker came into the room, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, wiping his face with his hand and yawning. He’d only been sleeping for a few hours. He reached into the refrigerator, grabbed a water bottle, twisted it open, and drank it half down before he noticed the witch regarding him.

He glanced down at his boxers, then back to Sassy Moore. “I didn’t see you sitting there.”

“That’s okay. I was invisible.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

Dolt. “No. I was just teasing. I can’t really make myself invisible.”

Still, he looked at her warily. It seemed to wake him and he regarded a box of books on the coffee table in front of her. He came over and lifted the top one free. “Are these helping? Funny-feeling book cover. What’s it made from?”

“Anthropodermic bibliopegy.”

“What kind of animal is that?”

“Not an animal. It’s a term used to define books bound in human skin.”

He dropped it like a sheet of acid and wiped his hand on the side of his boxers.

“You could tell a guy.”

“You might not just walk up and grab stuff.”

He shook his head and gave the entire box a distasteful look. “What’s it about?”

“The Red Barn Murder. William Corder murdered the mother of his child near Suffolk in 1827. He was later killed for his crime, and a surgeon stripped and tanned his skin to use it as a binding for the book about his deed, the subsequent trial, and execution.”

“Morbidly dreary. What’s it used for?”

“Not sure. My guess is it’s a focal point for someone to contact the soul of William Corder.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Walker thought better of it and waved his hand. “Never mind. It would probably be disturbing.”

She smiled primly. “People sure love to eat sausage, but they can’t stand seeing it made.”

He nodded. “I’ve used that saying before myself. It’s absolutely true.” He drank the rest of the water, then broke down the plastic bottle, the crinkling sounds filling the silence. “I’ve been tossing in bed going over the day’s events. I’ve been especially thinking about Sir MacDonald and why he’d be so keen on shutting down a unit almost no one knows exists. It’s not like he can take public credit for it.”

“That’s true. What’s his motive?” She eyed Walker speculatively. Perhaps he was more than the sum of his handsomeness and muscle. “I did find it interesting that he was so quickly able to deflect my power. He’s either shielded or a warlock. I don’t recognize any of the warlock tells I’m familiar with, so my bet is that he’s shielded. How and why is what I’d like to know.”

“How does one go about being shielded by a warlock? Is there a section in the yellow pages? Craigslist?”

“I don’t know what either of those is, but I think your attempt at humor referred to something available to the common man. To answer your question, no. A warlock, or a witch, for that matter, wouldn’t advertise. We prefer our privacy. No, whoever is involved with Sir MacDonald was involved from well before this day.”

“Could it be someone from the Red Grove?” Walker rubbed an itch in the center of his chest. “Perhaps we should see where he goes. I wonder if Preeti couldn’t develop an algorithm which would allow the CCTV cameras to trace his comings and goings.”

She raised an eyebrow. U.S. Navy SEALs weren’t the knuckle draggers she’d believed them to be. It seemed the selectors valued intelligence. And to think that there were more coming. Yum.

“I’m going to go see if she’s still awake.” He took a few steps, then paused. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine, Mr. SEAL.”

He stared at her a moment, then shook his head. Soon he was out of the room and headed down the hall.

She leaned over the box and stared at the book he’d picked up. Beneath it was another book bound in human skin titled L’Esprits des San Ignacio Mini. Although she’d never seen the book, she’d heard of it. Who hadn’t heard of it? Written in 1613 by a Jesuit priest who was also known to be a practicing warlock, it was the record of life and death and daily events at a small mission run by Spanish conquistadors in the northeastern corner of present-day Argentina. Father Jose Cataldina finished writing the book in 1721, then had the skin from his back removed and used it to bind his work. For years it passed from hand to hand. It wasn’t until 1852 that it was found once more when Vicar John Baptist Miège, Vicar Apostate to the American Indian Territories east of the Rocky Mountains, came into contact with the book. As he wrote in his own private ledger, he discovered a simple Elizabethan substitution cipher hidden within the text of the book, which revealed a series of resurrection spells of such complexity that they could never be replicated. Many a coven had rumored that a spell of forgetfulness had been placed over the tome to discourage copying. To Sassy’s recollection, no one had ever decoded any of the spells believed to be in the book, much less been able to incant them.

She opened the book with the tenderest hands, letting her finger linger on the pages as she turned them. She felt power here. Substantial and ancient. She’d fiddled with Elizabethan ciphers before. As an apprentice witch she’d passed notes to other witches, their true nature hidden behind replaced letters and numbers. The real genius, of course, of an Elizabethan cipher was that it still had to make sense to better hide what it contained.

With the Wild Hunt once again returned to England and the Holly King successfully resurrected, it was likely that the spell that made that possible was hidden away in this nasty piece of work she now held in her hands.

Knowing the spell would allow her to unmake it.

The question was, did she really want to unmake it? If King Arthur had indeed returned, did she want him there?

She wasn’t sure what she wanted, nor would she be until she determined exactly what the reasoning was for bringing back the Hunt. Until then, she’d work on breaking the code and search the remainder of the warlock’s materials for a link to the Red Grove.