It was a male victim this time, with a stick-thin frame that spoke of some sort of drug addiction, perhaps in his twenties though it was difficult to be sure. He had dark greasy hair and a scraggly beard and mustache that looked like they hadn’t been trimmed in months, and for a bizarre instant I thought that he was my intruder from the other night, until I remembered that he’d had stubble, not a full beard.
But the pattern of injuries drew my attention quickly. The Symbol Man had changed his technique from the previous victim. Instead of perfect and precise lines carved into the flesh by blade, this victim had been burned in the same sort of pattern. All I could think was that the killer had merely turned the blade over and heated it, using the thin edge to lay hundreds of agonizing brands up and down the victim’s body. A thousand times more painful, I thought. There were even perfect patternings of burns seared onto his genitals. I’d seen similar signs of this sort of ritual torture in the pictures of previous victims, but it was far different to see for myself.
I shivered at the mere thought of how agonizing it had to be for this victim. It’s a wonder he didn’t die of shock. And how long did all this take? How long was he tormented before being finished off? And a disturbing realization: The Symbol Man had this guy and the other girl at the same time. He just finished with her sooner.
Now that I knew to look for it, I could see that this man had the same deep cuts at his elbows and ankles as the other victim, and the symbol was there as well, burned perfectly into the skin just above his pubic area. A pattern that was oddly beautiful and at the same time disturbing, the symbol was an intricate writhing of circular forms that hinted of teeth and claws, twisting in on itself and defying identification. It looked vaguely Celtic but with shades of Egyptian or perhaps Oriental flavor. My frustration coiled more tightly. Damn, but I wished I knew what that was! This same symbol was on every victim, though not always in the same place. I just knew it was something arcane. I’d shown pictures to Aunt Tessa and had spent countless days poring through every book and scroll in my aunt’s library, but while Tessa agreed with my conviction that the symbol was arcane, nowhere could we find what it meant or to what it could possibly refer.
I took note of the deep ligature marks on his throat, red and purple flesh squeezing up between the deep grooves, as well as the petechial hemorrhaging that indicated strangulation, just like on the other body. And this victim had the arcane smudges too. I frowned and crouched. The body flickered with sigils barely visible to my othersight. Just traces, like smeared fingerprints, but they would be there only if the murderer was using the deaths as some part of a ritual.
It had to be a summoning. Everything fit, especially the way the timing of the three-year break fit with the convergence of the spheres. But why use blood magic and death magic for a summoning, unless it was for a demon who couldn’t be bargained with? One with whom agreeable terms could not be set? But what demon could be worth all of this trouble and mayhem? None of it made any sense to me.
I clenched my jaw in frustration. If I could just figure out some way for my aunt to see these smudges, surely we’d be able to decipher them—or at least more so than I was able to do on my own. Unfortunately, there wasn’t even enough left of the arcane traces and sigils to sketch. I scrubbed my hand over my face and sighed. I really needed my aunt to actually look at the body.
Too bad I had no idea how to manage that. I was vaguely aware of Jill shifting behind me, but I continued to focus on the traces and smudges, gathering as much impression from them as I could. They were fading even as I studied them. Beyond frustrating.
I finally stood, knees creaking after being forced into a crouch for so long. “All right, I guess we can call the coroner.” I turned and walked back the way I’d come in. “I assume the rest of the area has been swept?”
“Nothing,” Jill replied. “I mean, the usual cigarette butts and trash, but nothing else. It’s a ball field, so there are a ton of footprints all over. But no tire tracks or drag marks on the field itself.”
I looked around at the field and its placement in reference to the road and driveways. “It would have been pretty easy to carry the body over here. He doesn’t look like he weighs all that much.”
“Yeah. Skinny little fuck,” she agreed. “Probably a homeless crackhead.”
“Maybe this one will actually have a criminal record, so we stand a chance of identifying him.”
“I’ll take prints when the coroner gets here and run them as soon as I get back to the office.”
I smiled, grateful. “You rock.”
Jill laughed. “Yes, I do.”
A whistle caught my attention, and I looked up to see my captain standing on the other side of the crime-scene tape, motioning me over. Jill made a rude noise beside me.
“God forbid he should actually enter a crime scene,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
I suppressed a groan. I respected his reasons for not entering scenes. I really did. But, unfortunately, Captain Turnham still wanted to know what was going on beyond the tape, and he had developed a rather aggravating habit of whistling to his detectives and motioning them over every few minutes so he could find out what they’d come up with.
Not even six in the morning and he was already showered, shaved, and dressed in clothes that held more starch than I had ever worn in my entire life. “Morning, Gillian,” he said when I reached him. “What do you have?”
“Morning, Captain. It fits the pattern of all the others. Shitload of torture—burned in a zillion little lines.” I shuddered. “It’d look really cool if it wasn’t so nasty.”
“Symbol on the body?”
“Right above the pubic bone. And cause of death is probably going to be ligature strangulation.”
He nodded, face impassive. “I pulled Boudreaux and Pellini from their other cases for the day to canvass for witnesses, but I’m working on getting you some permanent help.”
“I met Agent Kristoff yesterday during the autopsy on the other victim.” Some sourness must have crept into my tone, because my captain gave a dry laugh.
“He didn’t light your fire?”
“He barely spoke to me.”
“You know how some of those Feds are. He isn’t even officially assigned yet. He called me after the body was found at the wastewater plant and asked for the file.”
“Well, that’s strange,” I said, frowning. Hadn’t Kristoff said that he’d been assigned to a task force?
The captain gave a half shrug. “Actually, not really. He’s on another task force that focuses on ritual murders and cult things. He’s probably evaluating the case to see if it falls under their sort of thing.”
“Oh, jeez.” I groaned. “Is he the kind who’s going to insist that it’s satanic rituals?”
Captain Turnham’s mouth twitched slightly. “I’m well aware of how you feel about that.”
“Sorry, Captain, it’s just that it gets a little old having the ‘satanic’ label slapped onto everything—especially when the people don’t have a fucking clue about satanism. It’s almost as bad as when they start screaming about witchcraft.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me. “Your aunt’s been ranting again?”
“Yeesh, you should hear her whenever she gets wind of that sort of thing. She’s considered an expert on the occult and paranormal, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know.” He tilted his head. “It still amazes me that she never gets hassled for that. This is the Bible Belt, after all.”
I shrugged. “Everyone just thinks of her as a harmless eccentric.”
He nodded, absently polishing his glasses on his sleeve. “So, did Crime Scene find anything that we can work with?”
“Not yet.” I paused, then decided to take a chance. “Look, Captain, I know this is going to sound insane, but is there any way I can bring my aunt out here to take a look at the body?”