Book of Shadows (3 page)

Marisa withdrew her hands and looked away.

After a few seconds Nathan Shields said, “That bad?”

Marisa nodded. “Eight days in Bermuda didn’t make a damn bit of difference. I came back with a tan and Robert came back as Robert. It seems that whenever we go away together he always returns the worse for it. Last year the five of us went to England and he comes back … God, Nat, it’s getting so I hardly know him anymore.”

Nathan Shields eased off the desk and took Marisa in his arms. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is Robert hasn’t been the same since he’s gotten hold of that peculiar book—a
Book of Shadows,
they call it.”

Marisa looked at Nat and was about to say something when the little antique dealer smiled and stroked her hair. “You can tell me all about it when you return with the food. I’m starving. Tell Michael to put it on my bill and see if he’s got a Danish. I’m sick of dieting. Who wants to live forever?”

Marisa, a bag of food in one hand, turned the corner in time to see Nathan Shields lock the front door of his shop and walk across the sidewalk toward his brown and tan station wagon parked at the curb. He wasn’t alone. A stocky white-haired man had a hand on Nat’s right elbow, guiding him; a tall, thin-faced woman in thick glasses walked just behind the two men.

Waving and shouting his name, Marisa tried to get Nat’s attention.

“Nat! Nat! Where are you going?”

He said nothing. He stood calmly by the station wagon and waited for the tall woman to open the door on the passenger side. On the driver’s side, the white-haired man paused to stare at Marisa before getting behind the wheel. His left hand was near the windshield and the thick silver and pearl bracelet on his wrist gleamed in the afternoon sun like a polished mirror.

Marisa was getting angrier by the second. The two of them were supposed to be having lunch, but instead Nat Shields and two strangers were now sitting in the front seat of his station wagon and Nat was ignoring her.

Marisa ran to the station wagon and pounded on the window with the palm of her hand. “Nat! What about our lunch? The Danish, remember?”

Inside the car, the white-haired man turned the ignition key and as the motor started, the tall woman looked from Nat Shields to Marisa, who flinched as though she’d been struck. The hatred in the tall woman’s face was so strong that Marisa held her breath and stepped back. As the station wagon pulled away and eased into Madison Avenue traffic, Marisa watched the tall woman gently pat the shoulder bag resting in her lap. The tall woman glared at Marisa until the station wagon went deeper into traffic.

Marisa exhaled. What the hell was
that
all about?

Turning, she looked at Nat’s antique shop and frowned. The “Closed” sign hung in the door, but neither steel gates nor bars had been put up. She moved closer. No one inside. It was just a little after two-thirty, too early to close for the day. Hadn’t Nat said he never left the shop unattended during business hours? If he had an appointment, why hadn’t he mentioned it to her? Why hadn’t he answered her when she’d called him? And who was the weird couple he’d just driven off with?

Marisa looked up. The sky was suddenly dark; the sun had disappeared and the weather had quickly gone from hot to sticky humid. She could smell the oncoming rain. Walking to a nearby overflowing trash can, she laid the bag of food on top of it, and watched the bag roll off the trash and into the gutter. She left it there and began walking the ten blocks home, her only exercise for the day, thinking that Nat Shields better have a good explanation for speeding off without telling her why.

She didn’t want to think about the way the tall woman had looked at her.

The station wagon turned onto the George Washington bridge, which would take it to New Jersey and the farm where Nathan Shields raised golden palomino horses. He sat silently in the front seat between the Comforts and stared ahead. Rowena Comfort had hypnotized and now controlled him. Nathan Shields remembered nothing, he offered no resistance, and was unaware that the Comforts were taking him to his death.

In his conscious state, the last thing he’d seen was a beautiful pale blue light reflected off the blade of a black-handled knife. Minutes after Marisa had left him alone in the shop, Nathan Shields held the knife in his hands. It had been brought to him for an appraisal by the Comforts, who reminded Nat of many of the English people he’d met in England last year. The Comforts were on holiday, nothing fancy, just a quick flight over on the cheap to see old friends.

“The knife is an
Athame,”
said Rowena Comfort, “a ritual knife used by witches in various ceremonies. They sometimes employ it to hypnotize.”

“Really?” Nathan Shields turned the knife around in his fingers. The black handle had been carved from stone, then polished, and the blade had been made from an odd sort of metal, perhaps steel, perhaps not. It shone like a jewel and didn’t have so much as a smudge on it. The entire knife was handmade and had an appealing crudity. He wondered where the couple had gotten it. Museum thefts were at an all time high; art treasures and antiques were in demand all over the world and the people who bought them weren’t concerned where they came from.

“It’s over a thousand years old,” said Rowena Comfort.

Nat Shields traced the blade’s keen edge with his thumb. “That would make it Celtic, wouldn’t it?”

His eyes were on the knife and he didn’t see the look that passed between the Comforts.

“That it would” said Rupert Comfort. He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “Do you know much about the Celts, Mr. Shields?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid. Last year some friends and I vacationed in England and we spent some time in your lovely countryside. We picnicked near Warwick Castle, where one of the locals warned us to watch out for ‘the washer at the ford.’”

Nathan Shields smiled. “She’s supposed to be a rather hideous hag who spends her time going from one lonely stream to another washing the bloodstained clothing of people about to die. It’s one of several legends we encountered on the trip and I must say I found them fascinating. We even drew water from a well in which your Celtic tribes supposedly tossed human heads.”

Rupert Comfort said, “The Celts were actually head hunters, Mr. Shields. We—they regarded a severed head as a fertility symbol. If you put a head into well water, it thereby gives life to those who drink it.”

“Oh, my word. That’s what I enjoyed about England. Everywhere you turn there’s history and tradition. We have no tradition in this country and we’re the worse for it. Something just occurred to me, Mr.—”

“Comfort. Rupert Comfort, and this is my wife, Rowena.”

“Pleased to meet you both and welcome to America.”

“Thank you, Mr. Shields,” said Rupert Comfort. “You were saying?”

“You mentioned human heads in wells. Is that connected in any way with our throwing coins into wishing wells today?”

“Indeed it is, Mr. Shields.” Rupert Comfort started to smile, then abandoned the effort. “You might say throwing pennies and such into water is a remnant of what civilized people like to call a pagan custom.”

“Isn’t that something! That bracelet you’re wearing. I couldn’t help noticing it. Would you be interested in selling it?”

Rupert Comfort shook his head slowly. “No, Mr. Shields, I wouldn’t. It’s been in my family for some time now.”

Nathan Shields gazed at it with interest. “I’ve never seen such magnificent workmanship. Silver and pearls. Does it have any special significance?”

Again he missed the look that passed between the Comforts.

Rupert Comfort covered the bracelet with a wide hand. “Nothing I’d care to go into at the moment.”

Nat Shields looked up at the couple. “Sentiment.”

“Sentiment,” repeated Comfort. “Of course if you believe in such things, silver is said to be a protection to travelers in strange lands, and both silver and pearls are said to invoke lunar forces.”

Nathan Shields’ smile took in the white-haired man and the tall woman in thick tweeds. “Well, I’m sure that’s not the reason you wear it, Mr. Comfort. Your wife said something earlier about the knife being used to hypnotize.”

Rowena Comfort’s strong hands gently took the knife from Nathan Shields. Her green eyes seemed to bore into him, forcing him to blink. “One has to hold it up to the light,” she said. “Sunlight, the glow of a fire.”

She hesitated, then said, “Perhaps even the moon.”

Nathan Shields forced a smile.

Then suddenly the tension was gone from him and he relaxed. Rowena Comfort’s voice was soothing, gentle, slightly seductive, and he found himself drawn to it, though he couldn’t quite understand everything she was saying.

But the pale blue light was irresistible. It came from the knife’s blade, which seemed to catch and hold the sunlight. Nathan Shields wanted to hold that pale blue light in his hands, to caress it, to be near it, because it was so lovely and compelling and Rowena Comfort was commanding yes
commanding
him to gaze at it.

“Look at the light, Mr. Shields.” He did as she commanded and remembered nothing else.

In the station wagon, Rowena Comfort said, “Look at the photograph, Mr. Shields. Look at it and tell me the names of the people standing beside you.”

Nathan Shields looked down at the photograph lying in his lap. When he spoke, his voice was level, totally without inflection. “The woman on my right is Ellie, my wife. The man on my left is Larry—”

“Who is Larry, Mr. Shields?”

“He’s my lover.”

“Go on.”

“The woman next to Larry is Marisa Heggen and the man on her left is Robert Seldes.”

Rowena Comfort took the photograph from Nathan Shields’ lap and said to her husband, “Their names are in his address book.”

Rupert Comfort reached the end of the George Washington Bridge, braked to let a limousine cut in front of him, then turned left. “Ask him,” he said.

Rowena Comfort said, “Do you have the
Book of Shadows,
Mr. Shields?”

“No.”

Rowena Comfort looked at her husband, who didn’t take his eyes off the road. Rupert Comfort said, “Ask him who has it. No, wait. Ask him if he’s read it.”

Rowena Comfort did.

“Yes, I’ve read it,” said Nathan Shields. “We all have.”

The Comforts looked at each other.

Rupert Comfort’s foot pressed down harder on the gas. “Ask him who has the book.”

Inside the darkened barn, the two palomino mares whinnied and stamped nervously in their stalls as though sensing what would soon happen. Nathan Shields, a pair of rusted antique kerosene lamps at his feet, stood calmly in the center of the barn. Both lamps were lit. Behind him in the blackness were two from the outside world: a fat teenage boy and his mother, who’d come to aid the Comforts in this ritual murder and who now watched the English couple pull straw from one of several bales, then quickly and expertly braid it into strips.

Outside, lightning cracked and thunder rolled across a gray-black sky, but the rain did not come. With a knowledge of nature possessed by few men on earth, Rupert Comfort knew the rain wouldn’t come for at least another half hour. The rain would come when he needed it, when he wanted it. The thunder god had told him so.

Meanwhile he and his wife braided the straw and used their knives to shape it into a crude Wickerwork Man. When it was finished they stood up, brushed straw and dirt from their clothing, and looked at Nathan Shields. Rupert Comfort nodded and Rowena walked over to the antique dealer, took him gently by the hand, and led him over to the straw man.

“Lie down, Mr. Shields.”

The antique dealer obeyed her, lying on the straw form and allowing his arms and legs to be placed on those of the Wickerwork Man. Without a word, the Comforts again pulled straw from the bale, braided it into strips, and attached the strips to Shields’ feet, legs, thighs, stomach, chest, arms, and face. A mare kicked her stall; the fat boy’s head jerked towards the sound. His mother moved closer to him, squeezing his hand and forcing him to look at Nathan Shields.

When the Comforts had finished, the antique dealer was completely covered by straw in the crude shape of a man. Rain splattered on the barn roof and Rupert Comfort permitted himself a half-smile. The timing was perfect; the thunder god had sent the rain at the precise moment, the right moment.

Rupert and Rowena began the death chant slowly and seconds later the mother, her breasts rising and falling with excitement, joined in. The fat boy, his mouth open, watched silently until his mother painfully squeezed his hand with both of hers and then he too began the chant in his high monotone. Still chanting, Rowena Comfort stepped forward, the black-handled ritual knife in her hand. Crouching over Nathan Shields, she lifted him over on his stomach. Using the fingers of her other hand she gently probed through the straw until she found his spine, then ran her fingers down to its base and stopped. Placing the knife’s blade against that spot, she took a folded handkerchief from the breast pocket of her tweed jacket and laid it on top of the blade to protect her hand. Gripping the black handle and pressing down on the handkerchief with the heel of her hand, she leaned on the knife with all of her strength, slashing deep and severing Nathan Shields’ spinal cord.

The antique dealer stiffened, jerked, and Rowena Comfort stood up. Nathan Shields’ legs were now useless: he couldn’t run or even crawl away from his death. In the darkness, the mother licked her lips and felt a sexual stirring in her loins. Her nipples hardened and her breathing grew louder.

The Comforts each picked up a kerosene lamp in one hand and with their ritual knife in the other, lifted both arms high overhead, closed their eyes and prayed silently. Nathan Shields groaned; blood from his spine trickled onto the pale yellow straw.

Rupert Comfort opened the tiny glass window on his lamp and laid the lamp on Nathan Shields’ back, flame against the straw. Rowena Comfort placed the flame of her lantern between Shields’ legs and the straw caught fire almost immediately. Her husband stepped back and again began the death chant.