Evil Dark (14 page)

  Castle thought about that. "Even if Hudzinski disappeared locally, that doesn't mean he was killed here. Most car trunks contain ample room for a body, either living or dead."

  And I bet you'd know, I thought.

  "That's stupid," Karl said, which earned him a glare from Castle. I don't know if the Supefather was pissed at being talked to that way by a cop, or by a cop who was also a fellow supe.

  "It makes no sense," Karl went on, "for them to transport a prisoner from Scranton to, say New York. There are lots of risks, haina? You could get pulled over for a busted tail light, or the guy could escape somehow. Hell, he might even die on you along the way. It's too complicated."

  "He's right," I said. "If they wanted to film their fucking torture sessions in New York, or even Altoona, it'd be a lot simpler just to grab a couple of guys in those local areas."

  Castle made a small gesture acknowledging defeat, which I thought was gracious of him. "All right," he said, "for the sake of discussion, let's posit that all of this 'torture porn' is being made locally. What do you want from me?"

  "Names," I said. "That's what I want. If this stuff is being filmed around here, there's two possibilities. One is that the wizard doing the conjuring is from outside the area and came to town fairly recently. You know of anybody like that?"

  Castle shook his big head slowly. "No one comes to mind. He wouldn't be required to check in with me upon arrival, but any practitioner who expected to remain in this community would probably have the good manners – and the good sense – to pay a courtesy call."

  "The first of these videos was made while Vollman was still alive," Karl said. "Maybe the wizard checked in with him."

  "That could be," Castle said. "But there's no way to know for certain. Vollman and I weren't close, and he didn't leave any written records that I've come across."

  "The other possibility," I said, "is that the wizard is a local boy gone bad. How about it, Castle? Anybody in your community dabbling in black magic these days?"

  "From what you've described, this individual is doing more than just dabbling," Castle said. "But in any case the answer is no. If I were aware of any such activity, I would of course have reported it to the police." He said that with a straight face, and any irony in his voice might have been my imagination. Or maybe not.

  "Or you might've just handled it yourself," Karl said. "To avoid troubling the authorities, and all that."

  The look that Castle gave Karl said,
Just be glad you have that badge to hide behind, pal, or I would have your balls for breakfast
. I hoped Karl would never have to deal with Castle without his status as a cop to back him up.

  What Castle said was, "I suppose there is that possibility. But if I had, we would not be having this discussion, would we?"

  We left the rug shop with Castle's promise that he would shake the supe community's tree a bit to see if any black magicians fell out, and would let us know if they did.

  As we walked to the car, I said to Karl, "You gave the Supefather a fair amount of attitude back there."

  "The guy's an asshole. Just rubs me the wrong way."

  "You weren't like that with Vollman."

  "Yeah, well," Karl said, "that was fucking then and this is fucking now."

  I decided not to share that observation with my partner.

  "I notice you didn't say anything about the werewolf in Nay Aug Park," Karl said.

  "I'm keeping that as my ace in the hole," I said. "Although what game we're playing here, I have no clue. Besides, if Castle really is the Man, like Vollman was, he'll know about it from his own sources soon enough."

  When we returned to the car, the red light on the police radio was blinking, which meant that we'd had a call while we were in the rug shop. I got in on the passenger side and picked the radio out of its holder.

  "Dispatch, this is Markowski. A call came in for us sometime in the last half hour."

  "Wait one, Markowski."

  A couple of seconds later, a female voice in my ear said, "This is Agent Thorwald."

  I'm pretty sure I blinked at that. "This is Markowski. How is it you're on the police radio net?"

  "Lieutenant McGuire let me borrow one of the units. I've been trying to raise you for the last twenty minutes," she said, not sounding happy about it.

  "Sorry, we were engaged in a gunfight with a gang of desperate criminals."

  "Really?"

  "No, not really. What can I do for you, Agent Thorwald?"

  When she spoke again, her voice was matter-of-fact. She had controlled her temper, rather than ream my ass out for joking around with her. That earned her a point in my book. A small one.

  "You and your partner had best return to the squad area," she said. "ASAP."

  "Can I ask why?"

  "An agent from the Scranton field office brought over something that arrived there today, special delivery. It's another snuff film."

  I felt my guts contract. Some other poor bastard had died in unimaginable pain, for the amusement of a bunch of fucking sickos.

  "I agree that we should take a look at the video," I said. "But can't it wait until near the end of our shift? We've got a couple of other stops to make." I was in no hurry to sit through another episode of Grand Guignol with real blood, although I knew that I was just postponing the inevitable.

  "Up to you," she said, "but I'd recommend you come in now. This one's different from the others."

  "How so?" "There's a woman in it."

 

The set-up was the same, except that it wasn't. They had the pentagram, all right, and the red protective circle surrounding it. What looked like the same blood-spattered wooden chairs sat within the circle, and nearby you could catch glimpses of the table with its instruments of agony all ready to go.

  One of the chairs contained another naked man, manacled and clearly terrified. He looked to be about thirty, with close-cropped black hair, a heavy five o'clock shadow of beard, and a tat on one shoulder that looked like a coiled cobra.

  The other chair, just like Thorwald had said, held a woman. Her face was turned away from the camera, but the sex was pretty clear from the styled blonde hair, the smooth-shaven leg visible in its shackle, and a side view of one of her breasts.

  I guess whoever was behind this operation had decided to give the pervs a real treat this time.

  The same voice off-camera was chanting the same words in Demon as before, with an identical result.

  The air within the circle shimmered, then produced smoke that went from white, to gray, to black. The demon appeared, and was driven into submission by pain. Then the male prisoner jerked as the demon invaded, and I gave a small nod as my expectations were confirmed. I'd assumed that the woman had been brought in to play the role of victim. That's a common feature of torture porn, or so I hear, and I was assuming this exercise in sadism was aimed at the same general audience – or at least the portion of it that had a thousand bucks to spare.

  It was at that moment that the woman first turned her face toward the camera, and an instant later I felt like I'd just been stabbed in the chest with an icicle. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't speak, but worst of all, I couldn't take my eyes off the video screen.

  Karl must have realized that something was seriously wrong, because he grabbed the remote, pointed it at the DVD player, and pushed Pause. Part of my brain wished he'd hit Stop instead, and that the show would never start again. Ever.

  "Stan? What is it, man? Your heart's going like a million beats a minute. You want the paramedics? Stan!"

  I closed my eyes, and when I opened them a few seconds later, I found out that I was capable of speech, after all. "Karl, oh dear Jesus God, Karl! This can't be real, I must be fucking dreaming and I wish I would wake up. It's impossible!"

  "What, Stan? What's wrong? Is it the woman? We already knew there was gonna be one this time – Thorwald said so. What's going on, man?"

  "Jesus, Karl, don't you fucking
see
?"

  "See what, Stan? Come on, work with me. What is it?"

  "You've met her, I know you have, that time in Pittston. Don't you fucking
recognize
her?"

  "The woman in the video? I've never seen her before, Stan. Who is she?"

  "What're you, fucking
blind
, you with your fucking vampire sight, you can see in the dark and you can't even fucking see
that
?" I said.

  "Stan–"

  "Karl,
it's Lacey Brennan
."

  Karl grabbed my arm. Even through my shirt and sports coat I could feel how cold – and strong – his grip was.

  "Stan, take a deep breath. Stan, listen to me –
it's not Lacey
. It isn't her, Stan. I'm sure of it."

  "What makes you the fucking expert? You only met her once, you said so yourself."

  "No, Stan, that's what
you
said. I know she was at that crime scene in Pittston last summer, but I saw her twice before then, and I remember what she looks like. There's a resemblance, yeah. I can see how you'd get faked out by it. But it's
not
her, Stan."

  "How can you be so–"

  "And I think I can prove it."

  I stared at him. "And how the fuck are you gonna do that?"

  "Stan, does Lacey have a long scar that runs down her right calf?"

  "I don't — how am I supposed to know
that
? How the fuck do
you
know that?"

  "That crime scene in Pittston was in the top floor of a duplex, remember? I was behind Lacey going up the stairs, and we had to go slow because the stairs were shaky. There was nothing better in my field of vision at the moment, so I looked at her legs. She had a skirt on, remember? A little short for official business, but on her it looked good."

  "Karl," I said, "are you telling me you're hot for Lacey?"

  "Nah, she's too sarcastic for my taste. But following her up those stairs I noticed her legs, and they were first-class. Shapely, and without a mark or blemish. Perfect skin – I remember thinking that at the time."

  "Perfect, huh?"

  "Yup. Apart from that, I'm sure it's not Lacey's face, but that's not proof. The scar is."

  "Christ, she could have picked it up since the summer," I said. "It could've happened anytime."

  "Not this one – the scar I'm talking about is old. See for yourself."

  He pressed Play and the DVD started again. But instead of letting it run, he used the Reverse button to bring the action back to a point before the real action started. Then he paused it again.

  "Look, Stan – it's a long scar, pretty hard to miss, especially close up. And it's
old
, man. Look at it."

  "Yeah, OK, all right, it's an old scar. Years old, probably."

  "Absolutely. Now, take a look at this."

  He advanced the recording slowly, a few frames at a time. When he hit Stop, the screen showed a good, clear shot of the woman's face.

  "See that? Really look at it. Her face is fuller than Lacey's. In fact, her whole body is at least twenty pounds heavier than I remember Lacey to be, haina?"

  I looked at the image for several seconds, and something inside me that had been clenched hard started to loosen up. "Yeah, I think you're right, Karl."

  "And this chick is older than Lacey, too, wouldn't you say? By at least ten years."

  I looked some more. "I guess you're right about that, too. Thanks, buddy."

  I reached inside my jacket pocket for my phone.

  "What're you doing?" Karl asked.

  "Something I should have done five minutes ago."

  I opened the phone, selected a number in the directory, and touched Call. After two rings, it was answered.

  "Occult Crimes Unit – this is Sandra. How may I help you?"

  "Hi, Sandy. It's Stan Markowski, in Scranton."

  "Well, hi, Sergeant. How you been keeping?"

  I decided to lie. "Not too bad, thanks. I'm surprised you're on the night shift – I thought you worked days."

  "I do, but the night girl is out with the flu, so I'm putting in some OT. Can always use the money."

  "Is Detective Brennan available?"

  "No, she's out on a call, Sergeant. If it's urgent, I can patch you through."

  "That's OK, Sandy, don't bother. But she
did
come in to work tonight?"

  "Sure, I saw her less than half an hour ago. Care to leave a message?"

  "No, that's all right. I'll give her a call tomorrow."

  "OK, Sergeant. You take care now."

  I put the phone away and said to Karl, "I can't handle watching the rest of this right now. Why don't we go get a cup of coffee – or, in your case–"

  "Yeah, I know. Sounds good to me. We'll watch this shit later. Come on."

  As we waited for the elevator – which, like usual, took forever – I looked at Karl. "Listen, some of the stuff I said to you back there in the room – I got no right to talk to you that way. I was just crazy for a couple of minutes, that's all."

  "Forget it. If it was me, I'd have been worse. A lot worse. But then, everybody says I'm a guttermouth."

  The elevator finally pinged, signaling the car was about to arrive.

  "Do they really?" I said.

  "Fuckin' A."

 

After a cup of java – and a lightly warmed glass of Type O for Karl – at the place around the corner, we went back to the squad and made ourselves sit through the rest of the torture video. Apart from the gender of the victim, this one wasn't very different from the one that the Feebies had shown us a couple of nights earlier. Thorwald had been right about one thing, though – looking at that stuff doesn't get any easier with repetition.