Chapter 7

Catlyn glanced in her rearview mirror. A frisson of fear punched her. The black sedan continued to follow her. It unnerved her that only she could see it. Even though she’d called several times over the past few days, she still hadn’t reached Jade. When Jade worked a high-profile bodyguard job, she’d be out of contact for weeks. Catlyn hoped Jade would hurry home. She needed her godmother’s help.

Catlyn’s thoughts flew back to the man with sandy-blond hair, goatee, and dark blue eyes she’d met Saturday morning at the Jupiter Moon. He seemed nice, and her unusual line of work hadn’t turned him off. As a police detective, Sean McLarkin probably dealt with all kinds of weird stuff. Maybe he’d be able to help her. Although she’d kept an eye out for him, she hadn’t seen him in the coffee shop again. She wished now she’d asked for his card.

Catlyn pulled into the Mystical Enchantments’ parking lot, parked, and rushed inside the store. Michelle quirked an eyebrow and frowned at her before returning her attention to her customer.

Instead of working on her own clients, Catlyn was scheduled as the store’s on-call tarot reader. She set up the room, covering the table with her own cloth. By her left elbow, she placed a clear selenite tower to absorb any negative energy from her clients. Next to it she laid a pale green prehnite to connect with her and her client’s spiritual helpers. The last stone she placed was the small pale yellow apophyllite cluster that helped open her psychic abilities.

Besides her usual Gilded Tarot deck, she pulled out her Lakota Sweat Lodge cards and her Medicine Animal deck. Sometimes a reading called for using oracle cards instead of the normal tarot. After spritzing the room with her aromatherapy spray, she sat behind the table and closed her eyes. Breathing slowly and deeply, she cleared her mind of the worry and fear that now clouded it almost constantly.

Cerulean-blue eyes in a white face appeared, and along with them came a sense of peace. Ever since the full moon ceremony, every time she’d mediated, they showed up. Instead of frightening her, they comforted her. She sensed someone in the doorway and opened her eyes.

Amelia stood on the threshold and beamed at her. “Oh, good. I’d hoped you were the reader today. Something exciting has happened and I need some insight.”

Catlyn smiled at Amelia’s exuberance. She gestured to the chair opposite her. “Come in. Sit. Tell me about it.”

Amelia closed the door and took a seat. She leaned forward. A lock of long, blond hair fell onto the table. “You know the guy I met at the club I told you about? Well, it turns out he’s my jerk boss’s son. I’m not sure how I feel about that. We’ve been on several dates now. Damn, his body is fine!” She sighed, a dreamy look crossing her face.

“Anyway,” Amelia continued, “what I want to know, is he the one?”

Amelia desperately wanted to find ‘the one’ to be her soul-mate and to complete her. Catlyn didn’t believe in such things. She thought you gave up your own power when you depended on someone else for your happiness or completeness. Drawing in a breath, she tapped into Amelia’s energy while she picked up the tarot deck and shuffled them once. She handed them to Amelia, who shuffled them a few times, then passed the cards back to Catlyn. Catlyn cut the deck into three piles and picked up the middle one.

The first card she laid down was the Devil. “This makes sense since you’re focusing on lust.”

A gleam lit Amelia’s eyes. “Yeah, the sex with this guy is fantastic. Just thinking about him makes me squirm.”

The next card was the Magician, and she sensed a man who easily manipulated people and his surroundings. The eight of Swords followed. A stab of pain pierced Catlyn’s ribcage as she gazed at the picture of a woman, blindfolded, bound, and surrounded by swords. An image of Amelia bound and gagged, a sword swinging toward her, flashed in Catlyn’s mind. She shook her head; she’d never before received such clear images.

“This signifies you’re feeling helpless and unable to see what is in front of you,” she said, telling Amelia the usual meaning of the card. She’d wait until the rest of the cards were down before deciding what the image she’d seen truly meant. “There’s more going on than what you’re willing to admit.”

As she continued to put down the other cards, each one added to Catlyn’s sense of unease. The last card she turned over filled her with dread. In most instances, the Death card signified only a metaphorical death or a situation ending. In Catlyn’s minds-eye, Amelia sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood.

She reached across the table and grabbed Amelia’s hands. “Please, Amelia, don’t go out with this guy. He isn’t what he seems. All the cards point to him hurting you.”

She bit her tongue to keep from adding she’d seen Amelia’s death. Ethical practitioners didn’t scare their clients with portents of death. The cards only showed the possibilities of what might occur under the current circumstances. Events changed as people made different choices, and this outcome may never occur. However, the cards clearly showed Catlyn that if Amelia continued dating this guy, something terrible would happen to her.

“But … but he’s so handsome—and rich. The cards even say so.” Amelia pulled her hands away and jabbed a finger at the six of Pentacles.

“Everything else points to him being greedy and cruel. It won’t end well.” Catlyn pointed to the devil card, then the death card.

Amelia slumped back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Don’t you want me to be happy?”

“Oh, Amelia, I do. I want you to find a man who will love you and treat you like a queen. This guy isn’t it. Let him go. Find someone else.”

Amelia glared at the cards for a long time, before finally huffing out a breath of air. “Okay, fine. I won’t go out with him again. You’ve never steered me wrong before.”

Catlyn sighed with relief. She glanced down at the cards, again seeing Amelia in a pool of blood. She gathered the cards together and shuffled them in with the rest of the deck.

“Are you still coming for your healing appointment on Monday?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be here.” Amelia walked out.

Catlyn stood in the doorway, watching Amelia leave the store. She couldn’t shake the image of Amelia’s dead body. “Please, Hecate,” she prayed, “watch over her.” Catlyn could only warn her clients, not make them follow the guidance she gave them. Her unease about Amelia’s reading stayed with her throughout the day, intruding into her quiet moments between a steady stream of tarot readings.

As soon as he arrived at work, Sean called the hospital to check on Carol Holcomb and her baby, like he had every day for the past week. Each time, he hoped for good news. Instead, Carol’s infection was worsening and hadn’t responded to any antibiotics. They’d rushed the baby into emergency surgery during the night to amputate his arm, and he was still in critical condition. Sean hung up and cradled his head in his hands.

Sean and the other detectives worked overtime on dealing with the rash of bizarre crimes. But the Holcomb’s tragedy weighed heavily on Sean’s mind. He kept seeing that poor baby’s arm nearly bitten off and his mother’s raked back. He doubted a human had caused the injuries, but then what had? Memories of his Granny’s stories continued cropping up. Could one of the monsters in them be responsible for the Holcomb’s injuries? He’d been too busy to drive to Temecula to visit his grandmother, and this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about on the phone.

His phone rang and the crime tech, Brian, was on the other end.

“I received the coroner’s report on the Holcomb case this morning,” Brian said. “You’re not driving, are you?”

“No, I’m in the office. It’s that bad?”

“That weird. Whatever Mrs. Holcomb killed, it wasn’t human, or at least it’s nothing the coroner’s seen before. The guy had an extra set of teeth.”

“What?” Sean rubbed a finger in his ear, unsure he’d heard Brian correctly. But it confirmed his suspicions that the person Carol had killed wasn’t her husband. He’d have to make time to go visit his grandmother soon.

“It’s nothing like what you see in vampire or werewolf movies,” Brian added, “more like how sharks have an extra set. We located David Holcomb’s dental records, and they don’t show anything like what they found in the dead guy. We tested his DNA from hair samples against the blood we recovered from the crime scene. They didn’t match, and the unknown sample wasn’t normal DNA. As if it couldn’t get any stranger, the blood samples I collected show odd microbes. The computer can’t match them to anything in the system.”

“Send a sample of that to the hospital, will you? Mrs. Holcomb and the baby both have an infection the doctors can’t make any sense of. They’re fighting for their lives. Perhaps it’s caused by those microbes.”

“Sure thing.”

Sean hung up and told Jerry what the lab had found. “We have another murder on our hands—David Holcomb’s.”

“You’re not buying it, are you?” Jerry snarled. “The wife confessed to killing her husband.”

“The body on the coroner’s slab isn’t David Holcomb, so she didn’t kill him. I’ve already recommended that the DA’s office not file any charges against Carol. Her and her baby’s injuries prove it was self-defense. With this evidence from the lab, we don’t know what she had tried to defend themselves against.”

“The lab made a mistake.” Jerry didn’t sound certain. He ran a hand through his hair.

Sean leaned forward. “We need to find out what happened to David Holcomb.”

“As if we don’t have enough strange shit going on. At least most of the cases are open and shut. The perps are being caught red-handed.”

“Or they’re being framed, or someone is drugging them.”

“Really?” Jerry raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to go with that excuse. I like the one most are claiming—the devil made them do it.”

“You have to admit, something is turning our law-abiding citizens into maddened killers and making our streets a war zone.”

“Maybe there is a new drug out there,” Jerry conceded. “I’ll check with my buddies in the narc division, see if they’ve heard of any new drugs hitting the streets.”

In the meantime, Sean would investigate what happened to David Holcomb. He wished he could ask Carol more questions, but she wasn’t coherent. He did a background search on her husband. It was nice to be working a normal homicide after all the craziness of the past two weeks. A familiar name popped up: Michael Drogger. The Red Orchid had hired Holcomb a few months ago as a bouncer. Sean didn’t like the coincidence of the connection. Sean studied Holcomb’s picture, frowning. He didn’t recall seeing Holcomb at the club.

“I’m checking on a lead,” Sean informed Jerry as he slid his chair from his deck and stood up.

The late fall sun warmed his face. Enjoying the nice weather, he rolled up his shirt sleeves and popped the top off his convertible Camaro. The breeze ruffled his hair as he drove down the freeway to the Red Orchid club. He’d caught the traffic at a lull between the morning going to work and lunch traffic, and he reached the club in a short time.

Joshua Wyndmeyer, the acting manager of the Red Orchid, met him at the door and took him up to his office. Michael held the title of manager, but Joshua did all the work. Over the past two years, while Sean chased the Iron Maiden killer, he’d come to like Joshua and appreciated his candid dislike of his boss.

“Where’s your boss?” Sean asked after he’d sat on the plush leather seat facing Joshua’s desk. He accepted the bottle of water Joshua handed him and sipped on it.

Joshua examined his cuticles. “Probably fucking his new lady friend. I don’t know how that asshole gets such lovely women. This one doesn’t fit his usual tastes. She’s too sweet and innocent.”

Sean absorbed this information. Michael tended to prefer the slutty type, but would charm any woman. He made it as a personal challenge to sleep with every woman who crossed his path, then throw them away—like Ginny. Heat suffused Sean’s face. Even after a year, the thought of his ex-girlfriend and Michael together made him furious. He took a drink of water, letting it cool his anger.

“Is David Holcomb your employee?”

“Yes, he was. What’s this about, Detective?” Joshua leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. “You usually ask that type of question when there’s been another murder. But it’s too early for the Iron Maiden killer to strike, isn’t it?”

“It is. David’s dead, at least we think he is. We haven’t found the body yet. I don’t know if it’s connected or not. You said he was an employee. What happened?”

“Last week he got stoned and drunk on the job, which was surprising because he was proud of being five years sober. I don’t allow that behavior in my bouncers.”

“What day was that?”

Joshua crinkled his nose, looking to the side. “Wednesday.”

Sean jotted it down in his notes. That was three days before the attack on Carol.

“I had to fire him. Michael was pretty upset. Turns out David was a college buddy. He forced me to rehire David. He worked Thursday, still acting hungover, but hasn’t shown up for work since, so I let him go—again. Michael can bite me. I’m in charge of personnel. I thought David was on a bender. When people fall off the wagon, they usually fall hard. It’s a shame. He was extremely proud of his new baby and being a father. How’s Carol taking this?”

“His wife and baby are in the hospital with a serious infection.” Sean didn’t elaborate on how they’d become infected. He told Joshua which hospital they were in. “Is Michael going to be in tonight? I’d like to ask him about David.”

Joshua shook his head. “No. He mentioned taking his new fling out to La Boucherie in LA. They might swing by after dinner, but I doubt it.”

Sean thanked Joshua and drove back to the police station. Something about David had his instincts pinging. He thought about the Holcomb’s house and couldn’t imagine David being able to afford it on a bouncer’s salary. Perhaps he was one of those losers who lived off his wife’s income.

Like he told Joshua, David’s death was too early for the Iron Maiden killer, but the time was close. He expected to find a gruesome body in the next week or so. He couldn’t help wondering if this latest spree of violence and the Iron Maiden case were somehow related. There had always been an increase in violent crimes at the same time as the Iron Maiden killings. But it hadn’t ever been as bad as the past two weeks had been.

Sean worried Michael’s new playmate was another Ginny. As soon as things calmed down, he’d check on Ginny and make sure she was okay. In the meantime, he’d trail Michael and get a good look at his girlfriend. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t, and something happened to her. A call to the restaurant, and a few choice words about obstructing justice, and he learned Michael’s reservation was at eight. Before Sean left the office to head to LA, he grabbed a surveillance camera.