Mark of the Demon

“Demons, eh?” Harris said. “So this goes along with your suspicion that this is some sort of ritualistic series of murders?”



I nodded, still too surprised to say anything. James Harris had not struck me at all like someone who could calmly accept the arcane. I opened my mouth to explain, but he spoke first.



“I’ve done a lot of studies on this sort of thing and been to several training conferences on ritual murder. I mean, obviously it’s total crap, but the important thing is that the murderer truly believes that this stuff can give him some sort of mystical power.”



I closed my mouth, relieved that I hadn’t revealed anything crucial. I flicked a glance at Ryan and he caught my eye, giving an almost imperceptible nod and shrug. Okay, so maybe Harris couldn’t accept the existence of the arcane, but at least he could accept the concept of it long enough to pursue leads in that direction.



“Hey,” Garner said, abruptly straightening. He pointed to a panel in the comic he was holding. “Hey, this is one of our victims!”



“What?” I straightened. “Which one? Are you sure?”



He pushed the book to the others, pointing at the top panel on the right side. “Look at this girl. Isn’t this the victim that was found out in the swamp about five years ago? It would have been his fourth or fifth murder, I think.”



I stared at the drawing. Could it be? “Are you sure?” I asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice.



Garner nodded emphatically, digging through a stack of pictures, then pulling out the pictures of a clay bust—the facial reconstruction for this victim.



“Here. It’s the same girl.”



I peered at the comic and then at the photos. “Are you sure?” I repeated doubtfully. It was so hard to tell. The reconstructions were as good as they could possibly be, but there was just no substitute for a photograph of a living, breathing person—and we had those on only the few who had been identified. This girl had not been one of those few. The crime-scene pictures we had showed a young black woman with close-cropped hair, a face bloated by decomposition, eyes filled with maggots, and a network of careful burns patterned across her cheeks and throat. A significant difference from the picture in the comic, which depicted a woman dressed in flowing gowns, head adorned with flowers, lifting a hand for a small, glowing winged creature to alight upon.



“Take a look at the reconstruction.” Garner slid the photo across the table. “Take a look at the way the eyes tilt, the line of the cheekbones.”



I studied the photo carefully and then compared it to the drawing. “I … guess it could be the same. But it seems like a stretch. I mean, there’s no way to be sure.”



Garner exhaled. “Look, I know it’s hard to see. But I’m really good at this.”



Ryan nodded. “It’s true. Zack has a knack for faces.”



I looked again at the drawing and then to the photo. A sliver of excitement began to worm its way through me, and I shoved the rest of the comics over to Garner. “See if there are any others in there!”



He looked startled for an instant, then realization struck. “Oh, my God. If there are others in here—”



“Then that’s the link we’ve been looking for,” Harris finished, giving a rare smile.



I felt as if I couldn’t breathe as I watched Garner slowly flip through the comics. After what seemed an eternity, Garner said very quietly, “Here’s another.”



All three of us practically pounced on him. “Which one?” I demanded.



Garner grinned. “Number three. Here, the soldier on the rampart.” He pointed to a thickly bearded red-haired man dressed in armor, holding a spear, looking out over a rampart. The man looked burly and strong and confident, barely recognizable as the victim—a drug-addicted homeless man who’d been known to dig through garbage cans for food.



I sat back, heart pounding with deep excitement. “We have our connection. I went and spoke to the artist, Greg Cerise, a few days ago, and then he called me just a couple of hours ago.” I glanced at Ryan. “I think we have enough probable cause for a search warrant.”



Ryan nodded, and Harris did as well. “Definitely,” said Harris.



I laughed, giddy with sudden relief. Finally, a true break in the case. “I’ll start typing.”



By the time I got the search warrant typed up and found a judge to sign it, Garner had found five more victims in the comic, including one of my Series Two victims, Mark Janson. Mark had been portrayed as a musician—a slender artist with graceful fingers and an easy smile. Had Greg seen something of that in him or perhaps heard him play? I didn’t know anything about Mark—whether or not he’d actually been a musician of any sort—but the thought of that sort of innate talent going to waste was aching.



“But I think there are more that I’ve missed,” Garner said, shaking his head. “It’s tough to tell with some of these reconstructions.”



“I’m hoping there’ll be more at this guy’s house,” I said. “Something else to tie it all together.” Had all of Greg’s fluff been an act? Had I given him a chance to get rid of evidence? Or had the phone call a few hours prior just been to check and see if I was getting close? Damn, I wished that there was enough for us to actually get a warrant for Greg’s arrest, but the judge hadn’t budged on that one. It had been hard enough to get the search warrant. Judge Finn had frowned over the pictures of the victims and the drawings in the comic for several minutes before finally shrugging and shaking his head, stating that he wasn’t so sure the drawings bore any resemblance to the victims. “I think you’re grasping at straws, Detective Gillian,” he’d said, while grudgingly signing the search warrant. But the requests for an arrest warrant had drawn a flat “No. Just because you think he drew them doesn’t mean he killed them.”



We’ll find something at the house, I told myself as I went over the ops plan for the search warrant with the others. We’ll get the evidence and this will all be over.



Chapter 16



The wood of the door splintered under the impact of the heavy maul. One more hard swing of the maul by the black-clad TAC team member and the door crashed inward. Instantly, the other waiting team members poured through the door, shouting commands and signals to one another as they worked their way into the house, clearing the residence of threats.



I slipped in behind them, mentally apologizing to the landlady for the damage to the door. Ryan came in behind me, and together we slowly worked our way through the house in the team’s wake, guns still at the ready. My heart beat rapidly, adrenaline dumping into my system even though I knew logically that the TAC team could handle damn near anything that could possibly be found. Unless there’s a demon here, I thought grimly. Then it would get really ugly really fast. Warrants were dangerous anyway, and this guy would be ten times as dangerous if he did have a demon at his command.



The interior of the house was painted in unexciting colors, a palette of browns and dark maroons that might have been called “autumnal” a decade ago but now merely made the house feel dark and depressing. No wonder Greg went elsewhere to do his work, I thought. The front door opened onto a living area occupied by a dull brown couch that was so close to the color of the wall that it almost blended in. There was no television in the room, just a floor lamp in the corner and a glass-topped coffee table in front of the couch. A hallway led off to the left from the living room, and to the right was a swinging door that I decided probably led to the kitchen. There were no decorations on the wall, no shelves with pictures or trinkets, no ornamentation of any sort anywhere that I could see. And it was painfully clean. The tracks from a vacuum were still visible in the dull tan carpet, marred now by a multitude of boot prints from the TAC team.



I paused as a fluttering touch of sensation brushed against me—a nebulous whisper of the arcane. I frowned, trying to catch that fleeting sense again. I couldn’t see any arcane markings in the house so far—no wardings or protections, or even traces to show that arcane activity had occurred here. But something wasn’t right.



I heard a shout from beyond the swinging door, then the voice of Sergeant Dimera, the TAC team leader. “Hey, Gillian. You need to get in here.”



I quickly pushed through the door, then stopped in my tracks and let out a low curse. Now I knew what it was I’d felt.



Ryan came up behind me. “Ah, shit.”



Lying in the middle of the linoleum of the kitchen floor was Greg Cerise, spread-eagled like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and surrounded by a chaotic circle of runes and sigils painted in blood. On his chest, gouged messily as if with a butcher knife, was the symbol, large enough to cover nearly his entire torso. In my othersight, ugly purple clots of arcane potency twisted around the body, bloated and wallowing with hatred and anger. This had been done quickly and nastily—both the murder and the arcane sigils and markings. Even if I hadn’t spoken to Greg a few hours ago, I would have known that this was not done with the same care and precision as the others.



“Is anyone else in the house?” I asked Dimera, not taking my eyes off the body. There was always the chance—slim though it was—that the killer was still here.



Dimera shook his head. “It’s all clear.”



I muttered a curse again and shoved my gun into its holster. “Call this in, please. And we’re going to need the lab.”



Dimera nodded and stepped out of the room, door swinging shut behind him. I could hear him relaying the information on his radio as he moved toward the hallway, checking on the rest of his team. I crouched, looking over the pattern of blood and the markings on the artist.



“These aren’t the same runes that I saw on the other body,” I said, glancing up at Ryan.



“Do you know what they are?”



I peered at the runes that had been painted in blood, then stood and moved to a point near the artist’s head, being exceedingly careful not to mar or touch anything. “Yep. These are diagrams of warding, the kind used in a summoning.”



“So, wait, is this our guy? Did he fuck up a summoning?”



I shook my head. “No, he’s not the one.” Shit. “I just talked to him a few hours ago, which means he was probably killed right after he talked to me.” I felt cold. “This is not an actual summoning diagram. There are certain elements missing. But this was drawn deliberately to be recognized by anyone who is versed in those arts.” I rubbed the back of my neck, tense.



“It’s a message,” Ryan said, voice quiet. “To you.”



I looked at him sharply. “Or a test. To see how much I know, how much I can see.” The implications of that were deeply unsettling. He knows I can use the arcane. So what will his next step be? I must be getting close. But if I was close, why did I still feel like I was stumbling around blindly?



“Kara! Ryan!” Garner called. “Come see this!”



“You go,” Ryan said. “I’ll stay here and make sure no one messes this up before it can be documented.”



I nodded, then headed through the living room and down the hall toward Garner’s voice. As soon as I entered the room, I knew why he was so excited. “Oh, wow.”



It was a workroom where Greg had obviously done a great deal of the final work on the comic. Framed covers of the series were arrayed on walls that had been painted in chaotic patterns—wild colors that clashed with the black-framed pictures and presented a sharp contrast to the muted tones of the rest of the house. Interspersed among the covers were photographs of varying sizes, thumbtacked or taped to the wall, and each photograph had several drawings surrounding it, tacked up in similar haphazard fashion.



“Oh, wow,” I repeated, stepping into the room, looking more closely at the drawings that surrounded the photographs. Some were just pencil sketches, others fully inked and colored. I shifted my attention to the photographs. “It’s more victims. Holy shit. They’re all here. All the victims.”



“Plus a bunch of others,” Harris said, expression dark. “We have our link now.” He jerked his head toward the door. “So, our guy is dead? Did a victim fight back and do him in?”



“No, he’s not the Symbol Man,” I said absently, eyes still traveling over the pictures. “But the Symbol Man sure as hell knew him or worked closely with him.” I tapped my chin. “Did Greg do all of the work on the comic himself? If not, we need to get a list of everyone else who worked with him. Check them all out.”



Garner shook his head. “It looks like he did all of the work by himself.” He let out a low whistle. “Amazing that he turned out such an impressive product on his own.” He glanced up at me. “Comics usually have teams of people who work on them. Different people do the concept, script, penciling, inking, coloring, lettering, and so forth.” He touched one of the framed covers. “He was talented, that’s for sure.”



I stepped closer to the wall of pictures. “All these people. He used them as models.”



“Maybe he wasn’t very good at drawing people out of his imagination,” Garner offered. “Lots of artists use references. In fact, there are websites devoted to pictures that can be used as references for comic artists.”



My mouth twitched. “I take it you like comics.”



Garner grinned shamelessly. “Love ’em.”



I couldn’t help but smile. And people said I was weird. Garner looked far more like a jock than a comic nerd, with his tanned face and surfer-blond hair. “Okay, so he took pictures of these people so he could use them as models? Why these people?”