Читать книгу The Sinner - Amanda Stevens - Страница 9

Four

It was midmorning and I’d already been cleaning headstones for hours. The police had arrived sometime earlier to search the area surrounding the mortsafes. Other than an occasional shout as they scoured the woods, the day had been quiet. I was surprised that the curious hadn’t come yet, but maybe word was just now getting out about the murder. In any case, I welcomed the solitude because I had a lot on my mind. I did not welcome Darius Goodwine.

He stood so deeply in the shade of the church ruins that I thought at first I had imagined him. After a restless night, perhaps exhaustion and my subconscious had decided to play a cruel trick on me. The longer I stared, though, the more substantial he became, like a fully manifested ghost.

But Darius Goodwine was no ghost, even though there was a fantastical element to his sudden appearance. He seemed so dreamlike against the backdrop of crumbling brick arches that I found myself biting down hard on my bottom lip to make certain I was fully awake.

Nearly two years had passed since our last living-world encounter, and in the ensuing months I’d prayed that I would never see him again. I’d hoped he wouldn’t come back to collect on the bargain that I’d foolishly and desperately struck with him. At the time, my only concern had been to save Devlin’s life, but Darius Goodwine was not the type of man who granted altruistic favors. I’d always known there would be a price to pay for bringing Devlin back from the other side. Now, as I felt Darius’s gaze upon me, I shuddered to think what dark compensation he’d come to extract.

A breeze blew across the graves, billowing his loose clothing. Where his shirt parted, I could see an amulet resting in the hollow of his chest and another hanging from a leather cord wound around his wrist. He was a very tall man, nearly six and a half feet. His height alone commanded attention, but it was the magnetic quality of his presence that kept my gaze riveted.

Devlin had once insisted that Darius Goodwine’s ability to manipulate and control his followers stemmed from the power of suggestion rather than the magic he claimed to have divined from his time studying with a powerful shaman in Africa. But Devlin was wrong. I’d learned the hard way that Darius Goodwine not only had the ability to cross over to the other side and converse with the dead, but he could also enter the dreams of the living and influence their thoughts.

Once a respected professor of ethnobotony, he’d let his greed and obsession transform him from healer to tagati, a dangerous witch doctor who used his knowledge and power to bring harm to others. I knew better than to underestimate him. Unlike Detective Kendrick, whose character I had yet to discern, I was all too aware of Darius Goodwine’s treachery and so I steeled myself against his insidious magnetism.

Turning back to the headstone, I continued to scrape away at the layers of moss and lichen while tracking him from my periphery as he wove his way through the headstones. Despite his height, he moved with an uncanny grace. If I hadn’t known he was a flesh-and-blood man, I might still have thought him a specter, so ephemeral and floating was his presence.

As he neared, a faint trace of ozone wafted on the breeze, leaving me to wonder if a sudden storm had sprung up or if the scent came from the man himself. A moment earlier, the day had been clear and sunny, but now a shadow fell across the landscape. I shivered in the premature twilight, keeping my gaze averted because I didn’t dare look up into those hypnotic eyes.

“Amelia Gray.” Despite his cultured manner of speaking, there was something in the low timber of his voice that reminded me of a tribal drumbeat. Amelia Gray. Amelia Gray. Amelia Gray. “It’s been a while since last we met.”

I inclined my head slightly, slanting a glance up through my lashes into those mesmeric eyes for only a split second before shifting my gaze to the talisman that hung around his throat. It was made of some thin metal, intricately engraved with hieroglyphics. I stared at it for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I lost track of the moments ticking by. I suddenly felt very disoriented, as if I had become lost once more in a dream of Darius Goodwine’s making.

I didn’t try to empty my thoughts to allow his emotions to enter. I was too afraid to trifle with such a cunning mind. So instead I focused on strengthening my defenses and on keeping him out of my head. I visualized a door slamming shut as I chanced another glance at his arresting visage. His lips curled in amusement, but I saw something that might have been surprise—or annoyance—flicker in his eyes, leaving me with a momentary triumph.

Boldly, I lifted my chin and met his gaze. “The last I heard, you were in Africa. What brings you to Seven Gates Cemetery?”

“I’ve come to see you, naturally.”

There was nothing natural about his presence or his timing, I felt certain. “Why?”

“All in good time. We have some catching up to do first.”

I scowled up at him. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Your powers have grown stronger since our last encounter. They leave a trail.”

Was that admiration I heard in his voice? A touch of wonder, even?

I drew myself up short as I recognized another of his tactics. I wouldn’t allow myself to be seduced into a false sense of security by the likes of Darius Goodwine.

“What kind of trail?” I asked.

“They create a disturbance that might best be compared to the wake of a ship or the contrail of a jet. Easy to follow if one knows how and where to look.”

I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder. The notion that the changes inside me had left an astral pathway that could lead a dangerous witch doctor straight to my door was more than a little troubling. “Do the police know you’re back in the country?”

The dark eyes glinted. “If by police you mean John Devlin, does it matter? Now that you’re no longer together, he’s of no consequence to either of us.”

“How did...” I cut myself off before admitting my estrangement from Devlin. The last thing I wanted was to divulge my innermost pain to a predator in search of a weakness. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“I’ve known about it ever since it happened. Word travels fast, even in deepest, darkest Africa.” Another of those mocking pauses. “Was the separation your idea or his? I’m assuming it was his.”

My chin came up once more. “That’s none of your concern.”

“Isn’t it?”

The intensity of his stare drew a deep shiver, and despite my considerable resistance, my own gaze slid back and locked on to his. A breeze drifted across the graves, bringing another draft of ozone and something spicy and exotic, like the perfume of a rare flower. I had a sudden vision of a moonlit garden filled with orchids and songbirds. A seductive oasis where untold dangers lurked in the shadowy recesses. That was what I saw when I looked into Darius Goodwine’s eyes.

I quickly glanced away. “I’m not going to discuss Devlin with you, of all people.”

He laughed softly. “I admire your loyalty, displaced though it may be.”

“Meaning?”

“You don’t know the man you’ve put on a pedestal as well as you think. Few people know the real John Devlin.”

“And you’re one of them, I suppose.”

“I know him better than most. We’re far more alike than he would ever dare acknowledge.”

“That’s not true,” I said coolly. “The two of you are nothing alike.”

Another flash of those white, white teeth. “To the contrary, I would suggest that the only real difference between us is this—I embrace who I am and what I’m meant to be while John Devlin is still trying to run away from his true nature.”

He was goading me and I knew it, yet I found myself asking, “And just what is his true nature, according to you?”

“Have you never wondered why a man who professes nothing but disdain for the unknown was so inexorably drawn to someone as mystical and mysterious as my cousin, Mariama? Her great beauty aside, of course. I’m sure he gave you any number of reasons for the attraction. He enjoyed flaunting her exoticness in the face of his grandfather’s rigid conformity. Or perhaps he told you that my influence changed and corrupted her. The woman capable of such dark deeds at the end of her life was not the same woman he fell in love with.”

Devlin had, in fact, confided both motivations, but I wasn’t about to betray him to a man we both considered an enemy.

Darius continued to study me. He cocked his head slightly, as if something puzzled him. “You must also have wondered about the medallion he wears around his neck. Why would a man who claims to have turned his back on the trappings and privileges of his upbringing cling to an emblem that epitomizes wealth and greed? But then, I suppose it’s hardly surprising. Men of his ilk have always had an affinity for secret societies, particularly those that protect and promote the status quo. John Devlin is no exception.”

I didn’t try to defend Devlin this time because there was an uncomfortable truth in Darius’s words. I had wondered about those very things. I’d fretted over Devlin’s relationship with Mariama ever since we’d first met and I’d contemplated his affiliation with the nefarious Order of the Coffin and the Claw on many a sleepless night. But I found it hard to admit, even to myself, that the darkness in Devlin and those mysterious gaps in his past still worried me.

Darius Goodwine had wasted no time in homing in on those niggling misgivings.

He knelt and picked up a stick, using the pointed end to trace the shadow of a gravestone in the dirt. I watched, mesmerized by his languid movements. His fingers were long and tapered like those of an artist and his nails were meticulous, bringing to mind the dirt-and-blood-encrusted nails of the victim.

Was that why he had come? I wondered. Did he know something about the dead woman? About her murder? Should I shout for the authorities? They were still combing the woods and the clearing. Too far away to hear anything other than a scream.

“The Order of the Coffin and the Claw.” Darius pronounced each word with derisive exaggeration as he drew a snake wrapped around a claw in the dirt.

I hardened my tone. “Why are we talking about the Order of the Coffin and the Claw or even Devlin for that matter? Why don’t you just tell me why you’re really here? What do you want?”

“You made an important discovery yesterday. You’ve no idea how important. In order to deal with the consequences, you must understand the deep roots and entangled affiliations of those involved.”

“By discovery, you mean the caged graves?” I slid a hand to my chest, tracing the outline of the key resting beneath my shirt. “How do you know about those?”

He smiled. “Have you forgotten that I have eyes and ears everywhere?”

“Even in the Ascension Police Department?”

“Everywhere.”

“Even on the other side?”

“Everywhere.”

“What do you know about those cages? About the victim?” I demanded.

“I know she won’t be the last to die unless you unmask her killer.”

I stared at him in shock. “Unmask her killer? How am I supposed to do that?”

“Think back.” His voice dropped to a silky murmur, soothing and hypnotic. “In all your years of research and cemetery work, surely you’ve come across references to other secret societies. Some, perhaps, with close alliances to the Order of the Coffin and the Claw. Have you never heard of a group called the Eternal Brotherhood of Resurrectionists?”

I frowned at the unfamiliar name. “No. But I know that body snatchers for hire in the early nineteenth century were called resurrectionists.”

“That was in Europe,” he said. “Here in the Lowcountry there was a more literal meaning—those who raise the dead.”

A shudder rocked through me. Those who raise the dead. What did he mean by that?

He continued to scribble in the dirt with the end of the stick. “For generations, the Order of the Coffin and the Claw provided men of a certain class and breeding—men like Devlin and his forefathers—protection from their indiscretions and unsavory appetites, but the Brotherhood promised them immortality.”

“How?” The flesh on the back of my arm crawled and I looked down to find a corpse beetle inching toward my wrist. Repulsed, I tried to flick the insect into the grass, but the pincers dug into my skin and clung. I glanced across the grave where Darius had drawn a likeness of the beetle in the dirt. He wiped away the image with the palm of his hand and the one on my arm disappeared.

For the first time since his arrival, I felt the shock of real fear. Darius Goodwine was up to his old tricks and everything inside me warned of imminent danger. I wanted to rise and put more distance than a grave between us, but my limbs suddenly felt weighted.

He was in control now, I realized. I could protect myself to a certain extent, but he was clever and cunning and knew too many ways around my defenses. I’d insisted that I wouldn’t discuss Devlin, and yet that was exactly what we’d done for almost the entirety of his visit. I’d convinced myself that I could keep him out of my head, but he’d slithered underneath the slammed door and manipulated my perception.

No more than a moment had passed since I’d glanced at the ground, but Darius had already etched another symbol. Where he’d wiped clean the rendering of the beetle, he’d drawn three linked spirals. I’d seen a variation of the emblem before, but there was something sinister about his depiction.

“Do you recognize it?” he asked, still in that same numbing voice.

“It’s a Celtic triskele. The spiral of life.”

“A triskele, yes, but the origin isn’t Celtic. The symbol dates all the way back to the Egyptians. Since the beginning of time, the concept of triplism has taken many forms in many different cultures. Maiden, mother, crone. Land, sea, sky. The Trinity. For the Resurrectionists, the interlocking spirals represented birth, death and resurrection. You’re familiar with the concept of a dual soul?”

“Yes. According to some beliefs, the soul and spirit divide upon death. The soul leaves the body and transcends its earthly bounds, but the spirit lingers to interfere in the lives of the living. That’s why graves in Gullah cemeteries are sprinkled with white sand. Sometimes whole graveyards are covered in order to keep the dead from coming back as bakulu.”

“You have it partially right.” The stick continued to move in the dirt even though Darius’s gaze never left me. “When the final breath is drawn, the soul is immediately aware of death and transcends. But the spirit lingers in the body, not to interfere in the lives of the living as you suggest, but because it isn’t yet conscious of death. While the spirit still resides inside the deceased, transference may be attained.”

“Transference?”

“A powerful spell by which the spirit can be harvested from the dead and transplanted into the body of a living host.”

“You mean possession.” My voice grew heavy with dread as I flashed back to what I’d witnessed and experienced in Kroll Cemetery.

“It may be easier to think of it this way,” Darius said. “Possession is more of a hostile takeover, but transference is a peaceful merger with a willing vessel. The essence of the dead is allowed to exist in the living host, thus attaining immortality.”

“This is all very fascinating,” I said, with far more bravado than I felt. “But I still don’t understand what any of it has to do with me.” I drew my hand away from my neck and found another beetle clinging to my flesh. I flicked the insect to the ground where it scurried into one of the spirals. The symbol disappeared, leaving the poor beetle exposed in the dirt. When I looked again, I saw that the insect was nothing more than a pebble.

“Nothing is as it seems,” Darius warned. “The Resurrectionists are skilled in deception and trickery, as are their enemy, the Congé.” He pronounced the word kän-zhā.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Zealots who believe it their mission to stamp out that which they do not understand. Someone with your gift and abilities would be wise to steer clear of them.”

The Resurrectionists. The Congé. It was all very much Greek to me. But his voice was so honeyed and persuasive, I found myself nodding in agreement even though I hadn’t a clue what he meant. I realized that he had once again found a way through my defenses and I tried to summon my resistance as I fought off the seductive lethargy of his hypnosis.

“Do you understand now why you were summoned?” He peered into my eyes, into my soul.

“I don’t understand any of this,” I said.

“You were summoned because you are the only one with enough power to end this.”

My heart thudded in agitation because I instinctively knew that what he said was true. I might not be familiar with the players or the particulars. I might only understand a sliver of his convoluted missive, but I’d known from the moment I entered the caged grave circle and experienced that strange vacuum that I had been called to this place for a purpose. My gift was needed to track an uncanny killer. Yet I continued to resist because a part of me still wanted to believe that I could control my own destiny.

I mustered up a flimsy argument even though my fate was undoubtedly sealed. “You do realize what you’re asking of me, don’t you? Trying to uncover a murderer could get me killed. At the very least, I could be arrested for interfering in an official investigation. The authorities won’t take kindly to me poking my nose into places it doesn’t belong. I have to live here until I finish the restoration so I’d rather not get on Detective Kendrick’s bad side.”

Darius’s head came up and I saw a shadow move through his eyes. “Lucien Kendrick?”

His reaction startled me. “Yes, do you know him?”

“Our paths have crossed,” Darius said darkly as his gaze darted toward the woods. “From what I’ve heard about him, he is a ruthless and relentless investigator.”

“Then why not let him do his job?”

“You’re still asking the wrong questions,” he said with a rare spark of impatience. “Like your wretched John Devlin, you’re still trying to run away from who you are and what you’re meant to be.”

“Or maybe I just don’t trust you,” I said with a scowl. “If you know anything about that woman’s murder, you should go to the police yourself, no matter your history with Detective Kendrick.”

“For any number of reasons, I can’t get involved. It would be better for both of us if no one finds out that we’ve talked.”

“That hardly instills me with confidence,” I said, still with that forced bravado. “Give me one compelling reason why I should believe you, let alone help you.”

I expected him to remind me of the bargain we’d struck at Devlin’s deathbed, but instead he said, “The key you wear around your neck belonged to your great-grandmother, did it not?”

My hand flew again to my chest where the key was still concealed by my shirt. “How did...”

“The key is special,” he said. “Blessed by a divine hand. Like hallowed ground, it offers a temporary reprieve from the ghosts. But they’re irresistibly drawn to the light inside you so they’ll keep coming back, more and more, until you no longer have the means or the fortitude to protect yourself. You’ll likely suffer the same fate as your great-grandmother unless...” He trailed away tantalizingly.

“Unless...what?” I held my breath.

“There is another key, a lost key. A key that would lock the door to the dead world forever. Think of what that would mean. No dread of twilight, no fear of ghostly visitations, no riddles of the dead to solve. Eventually, your gift would wither like one of your cemeteries and your calling would become nothing more than a distant memory.”

His words drew an irresistible picture, one that I had been painting in my head ever since the night Devlin had stepped out of the mist to confront me. Darius Goodwine had tapped into my innermost dreams, my deepest desires, and I would be a fool to fall for his manipulations.

But he wasn’t the only one who had spoken of the lost key. I had known of its possible existence since my visit to Kroll Cemetery. If the key really could lock the door to the dead world forever, how far was I willing to go to find it? What risks would I take to possess it?

“How do I know the key is even real?” I asked. “Or that you can help me find it?”

He said nothing as he continued to scrawl in the dirt. I glanced down to see a series of numbers in the same formation—I could have sworn—as the ones my great-grandmother had painstakingly scribbled on the walls of her sanctuary. I still had no idea what they meant, but I’d wondered for over a year if they were positions on a map. Ethereal coordinates that could lead me to the location of the lost key, either here or on the other side.

My adrenaline surged at the notion, but before I had time to commit the arrangement to memory, Darius erased the numbers with the palm of his hand.

I glanced at him with a gasp. “Why did you do that?”

“Unmask the killer,” he said. “And I’ll help you find your great-grandmother’s key.”

He rose gracefully and I followed, lifting my gaze to take in his full height. He towered over me by almost a foot, and for a moment I stood with tilted head, studying his remarkable features—the prominent nose, the magnetic eyes, the full, sensuous lips that parted slightly as he became aware of my survey.

He lifted a hand and beckoned. I took a reluctant step toward him as though I were a marionette responding to a puppeteer’s commands. I caught myself and turned away from him. His hold on me diminished, but before I could celebrate another small victory, I realized my freedom hadn’t come from my own strength and resolve, but from Darius’s lack of focus.

Something in the woods had caught his attention. He knew something lurked in the shadows, hiding among the trees. Like me, like Detective Kendrick, he could sense a presence.

Shifting my gaze to the woods, I emptied my mind once again, trying to detect a hint or a clue of the lurker’s true nature. The barrier came up once more. Whatever skulked in those woods was unlike anything I’d ever come up against.

“You feel it, too,” I said, but Darius didn’t answer. His gaze remained fastened on the trees. He lifted a hand to trace a symbol in the air as he muttered something in a language I didn’t understand.

Out over the sea, clouds gathered and I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. As my eyes adjusted to the aberrant twilight of the woods, I saw something white and nimble darting among the tree trunks.

My breath quickened as I reached for Rose’s key. As I lifted the talisman from my shirt, Darius’s attention shifted again. He was still looking at the woods, but I could feel a tingle across my scalp, as though one of his beetles had buried itself in my hair.

“What’s out there?” I whispered.

He lifted a hand, trailing blue sparks. “Tread carefully,” he said. “And trust no one.”