Devil Dead (6 page)

Well, crap. Abigail was squeezing both Claire's hands to beat the band. Tears were flowing down her cheeks now, as if there were gigantic holes in her motherly tear ducts. Despite herself and her reluctance to get involved with a crime lord's kidnapping issues, Claire's heart clenched with sympathy. She couldn't help it. She was still human, somewhere under all the many years of jaded police work. She had lost her own child, her beautiful, darling baby boy. Oh, God. Poor Zach. She knew full well how losing a child felt. The devastation, the emptiness, the utter and never-ending thoughts of despair and unwillingness to live without him. She had felt as if her life was completely over. She had wanted to die. Still felt that way at times. If Andrea Quinn was gone for good, this distraught woman would never get over it. She put her hand on the woman's trembling back and looked over Abigail's bowed head to where Black sat and watched them in silence.

He said, “You're going private, Claire. This could be your first case. It's in New Orleans, so you could set up your office there while you work it. But it's completely up to you whether or not you take this. Totally. I'm not saying a word, one way or the other.”

Well, thank you a whole helluva lot for that, Black,
she thought.
Put the onus on me with the kid's mama begging and crying all over my pants.
But yeah, he was right on. It was her decision, and hers alone. But with a grieving, despairing, pitiful mother right there, weeping and clutching Claire's knees in a death grip, what choice did she really have? Let's see, what should she do, just push the little lady off, get up, and say, “Sorry, Charlie, ain't gonna happen. I don't deal with gangstas”? Okay, true, Claire could be a hardass at times, that was a given, but Abigail Quinn was plucking at Claire's heartstrings like a professional harpist. That didn't happen all that often, either. When the woman lay her cheek down on Claire's knees and started sobbing out loud, Claire threw in the proverbial towel. She patted Abigail Quinn's neatly sprayed coiffure.

“Okay, please, stop crying, Mrs. Quinn, you don't have to do this. I'll do my best to find Andrea. But I'm gonna need some pictures of her, the most current ones you have. I need to know her likes and dislikes. What she does in her spare time. I need copies of any letters or e-mails that she has sent to you since she's been in New Orleans, the names of anybody she's met and mentioned to you. I need to know her habits, her college major, and a list of her classes and her professors.” She stopped and thought a second. “And I need to know where she lives and who she lives with and who her friends are. Both at Tulane and from when she lived in Paris. I need to know more about this Pierre Dubois guy and if he's ever been in New Orleans to visit her. And I'll need anything else you think will help me find her.” She paused again and looked down into the woman's white, worry-wrenched face. “I'll do my very best to find her for you, Mrs. Quinn. I won't stop looking until I do find her. I can promise you that much.”

And Claire would do exactly that. She wouldn't stop until she knew what happened to Andrea Quinn. She just hoped the poor girl was alive somewhere, maybe off partying with a hot boyfriend named Pierre down in the bars at Cancun or in the Bahamas or in Key West. But a really bad feeling was creeping up and down Claire's spine now, rippling over it with some rather foreboding cold chills, even, and she was now five thousand miles away from where the girl had last been seen. But Black was smiling at her and looking very pleased, and so was Jonas Quinn. Abigail was staring up at her, and for the first time, hope was alight inside her tearful and swollen eyes, and then the woman was up on her feet and running to gather the things that Claire needed to locate her daughter and bring her home, safe and sound. It was her first job as a private investigator, and one hell of a job to be sure. On the other hand, it should be more than interesting, considering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too frightened to move much or even make a sound, the little girl cowered just inside the Sanctuary door while her mommy sat in the bathtub and hummed out that same word, over and over and over. Then the child thought about dashing back to the house. But if Spirit didn't go with her, the evil creatures in the dark might attack her. So she just sat there and remained very quiet. She spent the time looking around the Sanctuary and admiring her mommy's paintings. There were all kinds of circles, most of them with big five-pointed stars inside them, and other strange letters and symbols that she'd never seen before.

When she lifted her gaze to the ceiling, she saw some more that were drawn up there, too, and made with a magic paint that glowed white and yellow and crimson, high above in the dusky rafters. It was real pretty to look at. And there was a sweet scent in the air, not just candle smoke, but also an aroma floating off her mommy's incense sticks that were stuck down in their big copper planter that used to be on the front porch. It smelled sort of strange, but sort of good, too.

“You're not supposed to come inside the Sanctuary, baby girl.”

Startled, the little girl jerked her head toward her mother. Mommy was still sitting in the same position, eyes still closed, as if she could see the little girl without even looking. Like magic. But she'd always thought her mommy knew magic tricks. “I'm sorry, Mommy. Spirit woke me up. He was thirsty, and then he ran out here, and I heard your voice and got all scared. I thought maybe some swamp monster had got you and was hurting you and you were moaning and you needed us to help you slay them, like in my bedtime stories.”

Her mommy laughed a little bit at that, and the child felt better about coming into the Sanctuary. “Do not worry, little one. You come over here to me. Maybe the time has come for you to learn how to pray to our blessed deities. Maybe you are old enough now to understand the truth about this world of ours.”

The child stepped carefully through all the candles on the floor, taking care that her long nightgown didn't brush up against the flames. She avoided the glow-in-the-dark drawings, too, the ones that were so bright and lit up all around on the dirt floor. When she reached the bathtub, she realized that her mommy was naked, not wearing a stitch of clothing, but her eyes were open and she was smiling and seemed happy to see her little girl in her secret Sanctuary. Whew, that was good. She didn't like it when her mommy lost her temper. Her mommy got real scary when she got mad. So the little girl breathed a lot easier about coming outside the house in the dark. She did not like to upset her mommy and make her cry, either. Her mommy cried a lot, some days all day long, and she did not like to see Mommy get so upset. Sometimes Mommy didn't act like Mommy at all. The little girl didn't like her when she acted like the crazy one.

“What kind of water is that, Mommy? It's all white.”

Her mommy kept up the smiling. “It's just milk, sweetie. I am praying and purifying myself before I begin the sacred ritual for May Eve.”

“Milk? You mean, like I drink with my peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches?”

“Yes, sweetie, that's exactly what it is.”

“Okay.”

“Would you like to cleanse yourself and pray to our god and goddess, too?”

The child nodded, thinking it would be fun to hum in that deep voice and look at all the fluttering candles and bright paintings lit up on the ceiling and the walls and the floor.

“Then come, let me help you get into the tub with me.”

Her mommy reached out and lifted her into the bathtub, not even removing her Cinderella nightgown. Shocked first at how cold the milk felt against her warm skin, the little girl shivered all over, but she sat down, right in front of her mother. The milk was very deep and rose up to just beneath her chin. Mommy was humming again and seemed very happy that the little girl had broken the rules and come outside and found her. Spirit was lying on the floor beside the tub, very still now, just watching them, his dark eyes glittering in the glow of all the pretty candles.

“Where's your god and goddess, Mommy? I don't see them anywhere.”

“They are all around us, my love. All around in the air and the woods and the water and the fire and the sky.”

That surprised the child. “Really? I've never seen them anywhere at all.”

“Yes, my precious one, they are always with you. It is time that you learned about our religion and what we believe. It has gone by many names before. But we call it Wicca, and we, you and I, are true-born Wiccans. Those outsiders who are uninformed about our religion and know nothing about us, they like to call us witches, but we are not witches. We are good and never hurt anybody. Others who believed as we do came before us, long before we ever walked on this earth. They worshipped in a faraway and magical place called England.”

“Witches are bad and hurt people and have ugly warts on their noses and wear black robes and are wicked.”

“Some of that is true. But we are not witches. We are good people. We only do positive things. That's because we follow the Wiccan Rede. Would you like to hear what it says?”

The little girl smiled and nodded, eager to learn about these strange gods and goddesses that were all around them, even if they couldn't ever see them. She wished she could see them. She bet they were very beautiful creatures, like angels or fairies with white hair and white robes.

Mommy smiled as if very pleased and hugged her child's back tighter against her. “The Wiccan Rede says this, my love: ‘An it harm none, do what ye will.' What do you think that means, sweet child of mine?”

The little girl thought about it for a moment. “I think that means that if we don't hurt anybody or do anything wrong, then we can do whatever we want. Is that it?”

Mommy smiled again. “Very good, my love. We never hurt anybody, never do harm to anyone. We just pray to the spirits of the rivers, and trees, and bayou, and commune with their spirits and the spirits of the animals that we hunt for our food and livelihood.”

“Will you teach me, Mommy?”

“Of course, I will. But you must never tell anyone what we do out here in the Sanctuary. You must never tell anyone that you are a Wiccan. Do you understand me, dear one? People around here don't understand us. They will think we are evil like the bad witches you've seen in your storybooks. But we are good Wiccans. We follow the right path, the path of good.”

“I won't tell anybody. I promise.”

“That's a good girl. We will have our spirit names, too, child. From this day forward, I will call you Diana and you will call me Luna. Only the two of us will know these secret names. We will pray together, and I will teach you all the rituals, just like your Gram taught me, and her Gram taught her.”

The little girl nodded, okay with being Diana. It was prettier than her real name. But she really didn't understand what Mommy was talking about. Nothing was making much sense to her, but that was okay, everything was just always so hard for her to understand. She always just forgot what she learned and had to learn it all over again. She sure did hope that her mommy wouldn't go into one of her quick rages or start crying so hard that she couldn't stop until she fell exhausted onto her bed.

Right now, in this place, inside the Sanctuary, Mommy was very calm and happy, and that's the way Diana liked her to be. Truth was, she kinda did like all this new stuff she was learning, but right now she was cold and shivering. She'd rather take her regular kind of bath instead of sitting in cold milk. She liked the tub with the claw feet up in their bathroom and the nice warm water running out of the tap and making lots of bubbles from her Mickey Mouse bubble bath. She wondered if the milk would make her skin turn white. Mommy's skin was really white; maybe it was because of sitting in milk all night.

“Now we will get out and I will perform the ritual of Beltane. You will not remember this, but you had your Wiccaning when you were a little tiny baby. Gram performed it for you, but now that you know more, you will have to study and learn our ways for a long time. For one year and one day. Then you will be acceptable to worship our Moon Goddess and the Horned God. You will learn all about them and how they protect us from the evil ones who roam this earth and are outside even now, watching us.”

That scared Diana a lot. She didn't really understand any of that Wicca stuff, but it all sounded okay to her. “Okay. If you want me to.”

So they climbed out of the milk, dried off on some soft white towels that lay beside the tub, and then her mommy, now named Luna, put on a long loose white robe and wrapped Diana up in three white towels with one over her head like a hood. Luna led her to a table that had been placed up against the loft steps. Diana saw that there were some shiny things sitting on top of it. There was a pretty engraved silver knife, a tiny silver bell, and a magic wand kinda like in that Harry Potter book Mommy read to her sometimes. And a picture of a star with five points with a circle around it, like the other glowing ones in the Sanctuary, and a big silver chalice. There was a broomstick lying across the back, too, and a big kettle-like thing, and lots of burning candles all lit up and beautiful to look at.

Her mommy—no, she had to remember that she was Luna now—picked up the long and shiny silver knife. “Diana, my love, we call this the athame. It is very sharp so you must never touch it until you are older and I give you permission to handle it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

Her mommy looked down at her and frowned. “What did you just call me?”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Mom—Luna, I mean.”

“This star inside the circle is called a pentacle. It has five points. See the one on top? It symbolizes the spirit.” She pointed at another one. “This one represents water, which sustains all living creatures, and this one is fire. This one is earth and this is air. You will learn much more about these elements as I teach you, my love.”