Booke of the Hidden Read online

  “He’s not alleged. He’s a real guy.”

  He merely looked at me.

  “Look, I’m not crazy. I saw him lurking around here yesterday and I took this Booke over to Karl Waters today to see if he knew anything about it.”

  “What book?”

  I just opened my mouth to tell him about the Booke when I remembered Mr. Dark’s words: “They will not believe you.” How could I mention the Booke without going into Constance Howland and…everything? That would make me look like more of a suspect…and a lunatic. Instead, I asked, “Look, can you tell me what happened? This is terrible. Was it a heart attack?”

  “No. Not a heart attack. He was somehow…”

  My neck hairs stood up. “Somehow?”

  The sheriff clearly struggled to explain, using his arms. “Sort of…crushed. From the inside. Like…something sucked everything out of him.”

  My eyes must have widened to saucers. “Whoa.” I had to sit. I stumbled backwards into the nearest chair and flopped down on it. “Wh-who could have done that?” I croaked.

  “That’s what we’re investigating.” He glanced around again. “Mind if we just take a look?”

  Stunned, I nodded.

  He nodded to his deputy, and he began nosing about in my backroom. I felt fairly confident that they wouldn’t find anything incriminating, though I still wondered about the mysterious appearance and even more mysterious disappearance of Erasmus Dark.

  The sheriff was peering at something. “Booke of the Hidden,” he read. “This the book you meant?”

  I jolted up from my chair and staggered toward him. I all but pushed him out of the way to stand in front of the Booke. A surge of overwhelming protectiveness swept over me. “Yeah. It’s pretty old. Might be valuable.”

  “You said you brought it to him?”

  “I did. I found it in my house. In the wall. I thought that was unusual and so I wanted him to appraise it.”

  “Do you have any proof of ownership?”

  “Of the Booke? I found it in my wall. And I do own the shop and house. I have a picture.” I fumbled for the phone in my pocket, called up the pictures, and showed him. “See, it left a hole.”

  He looked around. “Where’s the hole now?”

  “Doc Boone was here and fixed it.”

  “Hmm…”

  “You don’t honestly think I had anything to do with Karl’s death, do you?”

  Sheriff Bradbury gave me a sharp look. “Miss, I just don’t know what to think.”

  “There was a dog,” I blurted.

  “A dog?”

  “Um…I’m not sure. Marge Todd at Moody Bog Market said it might be rabid. It was whitish with red eyes. It knocked me down. I heard it howl earlier.”

  “A whitish dog with red eyes?”

  “It…knocked me down…” I said feebly.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday. Before I saw Karl. Could he have been…I don’t know…bitten?”

  He frowned thoughtfully. “I guess that’s all for now. We’ll be on the lookout for this Erasmus Dark…and this…dog. But at the moment we consider you a person of interest. Please don’t leave town.”

  I wrung my hands. “Person of—Sure. No problem. I mean…” I gestured around the shop. “This is my new business. Where would I go?”

  He conferred with his deputy quietly for a few moments. The deputy looked back at me once before they broke apart and headed for the door. He went out first, and the sheriff held the door open, letting the cold in. He turned and looked around the shop, then at me again. “Nice little place you have here.”

  “Thanks,” I said dully.

  He nodded to me and seemed slightly embarrassed by something. Touching the brim of his hat, he said, “Miss,” and out the door he went.

  I stepped forward and closed it with a shuddering sigh. This was ridiculous. Crazy. I turned around and stifled a scream.

  “Do you see now?” said Erasmus Dark, who was suddenly standing behind me. He quirked that half-smile again before he pushed forward, blocking the door. I opened my mouth to scream for the sheriff, but Dark was on me in an instant, hand over my mouth. My spirits fell as I heard the sheriff’s car drive away.

  He hissed into my ear, “You must stop being an hysterical woman and listen to me.” I glared at him. “It will do you no good to scream. No one can hear you.”

  A spike of dark fear jabbed my chest and I stared straight ahead, waiting. Waiting for him to make a move to stop me. But nothing happened. Being that close to a person, you feel a sense of warmth, of presence. But it was the opposite with Mr. Dark. There was a distinct coldness surrounding him, like a draft had suddenly appeared. And no matter how close he was, it felt like the absence of something rather than its presence.

  He merely looked at me, eyes scanning over my face as if examining me, until he slowly drew his hand away from my mouth and stepped back.

  I scrambled away from him and breathed hard. “Who’s a hysterical woman? I think I’ve earned the right to be a little…high strung at the moment.”

  “But it won’t help.”

  I grabbed my phone from my pocket and punched in 9-1-1 again.

  “That will do you no good.”

  I put the phone to my ear and heard a busy signal. What the—? I stared at the phone and then up at him. “What…?”

  “You have work to do now.”

  “Just who the hell are you?”

  “What did Karl Waters tell you?”

  My eyes found the Booke again and I couldn’t help that creeping feeling heading up my neck. “We…looked at the court documents of Constance Howland.”

  “And?”

  “And she claimed that she let out demons or spirits and had to send them all back or something. She was chased to her death by a dark man. So the accounts say.”

  “Did they?”

  “Yes. And there’s this engraving of her clutching a book and heading for a cliff…with a rather intimidating fellow on her heels.”

  The corners of his mouth edged upward. “You can’t believe everything you read.”

  “What am I supposed to believe?”

  His eyes tracked over my face. I took an awkward step back. “Who are you really?” I whispered.

  He did smile then, but there was no warmth in that either. “One concerned about the book. About containing it. About…you.”

  “What about me?” When had I become so breathless?

  He shifted closer still. His heavy brows drew down, shadowing his eyes. “You and Mistress Howland would seem to have a great deal in common.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His smile was reptilian. “You, too, have a task now. You, too, must now contain that which you have let escape. The book is a gateway. It unleashes unholy forces, forces that kill and strike fear in the hearts of you mortals.”

  “‘You mortals’? What about you? Don’t you belong in that category?”

  He chuckled. “I think you know that there is something…different…about me, Miss Strange.”

  I stared at him, running my gaze over his features, perfectly human features. Except I had the feeling that if I didn’t look directly at him, if I saw him peripherally, he wouldn’t quite look the same. And that feeling, that deep subconscious prehistoric knowing froze me to the spot.

  “Karl Waters said Constance Howland had to write in the Booke. Had to write about those…spirits or whatever they were…to trap them.”

  He studied me. And now that I knew something about his true nature—and I was certain of it now—I could see something other than causal interest in his eyes. He was interested in me, yes, but more like he was looking at a menu than at a woman. “That’s one way,” he said.

  “What’s another?”

  He smiled again. It looked like too many teeth. But when I looked a second time it was the normal amount, after all…wasn’t it?

  “We don’t need to discuss that…for the moment.”

  �
��Okay.” I sat on a nearby stool. “Then tell me, since you seem to know everything. What happened to Karl Waters?”

  Erasmus Dark sighed. “I’m not allowed to say.”

  I shot to my feet, hands clenched. “Who is not allowing you to say?”

  “My superiors.” He inclined his head toward the Booke. “Keep it close, Miss Strange. You have a job to do now.” With that, he spun on his heel and grasped the doorknob.

  “Wait!” He paused, but he didn’t turn around. “That’s it? Just ‘keep the book close’?” I said in the best imitation of his posh accent. He turned at that with an insulted sneer. “Is that your job? To make these outrageous pronouncements and then sweep away? No help? No suggestions? What sort of oracle are you?”

  “I’m not an oracle.”

  “Then what the hell are you, Mister Dark?”

  He leaned in and for just a moment, I thought I caught the strong whiff of sulfur. “There are some things in life worse than nightmares,” he rasped.

  I shoved him. He hadn’t expected it and landed inelegantly against the door. His eyes shot to mine in surprise.

  “But there’s nothing worse than a pissed-off woman, and you have crossed over the line,” I said shakily. “If you’re not going to be helpful, then get out!”

  He straightened his jacket and with a huff, he yanked open the door and stepped outside. “I…I was planning on it.”

  I tried to watch him go, to see in which direction he traveled, but a gust of wind swept up, bringing with it a shower of dried leaves and dust, and once I opened my eyes again he was gone. “This is so not good.”

  Chapter Five

  I slammed the door and locked it. Then I stalked over to the Booke—book, dammit!—and glared at the thing. “This is your fault!” I shook a finger at it. It seemed to vibrate and I took a cautious step back, which stopped it. This was blatantly insane, as if I had stepped into one of those paranormal shows on TV.

  Peering out the window, I tried to catch of glimpse of Mr. Dark, but there was no sign of him.

  Now what was I going to do? That good-looking sheriff—Sheriff Bradbury, was it?—suspected me of foul play. But Mr. Dark knew a little too much about it for my liking. My only other ally was dead, the life sucked out of him. I needed help.

  I ran to my purse and rummaged around before digging out Doc Boone’s card. I punched in his phone number and waited impatiently for it to pick up.

  “Doc Boone!” I yelled.

  “Ay-yuh? This Ms. Strange?”

  “Yes. I’ve changed my mind. I do want to meet your Wiccans. How soon can we get together?”

  • • •

  That evening I drove the few blocks into Moody Bog’s pleasant tree-lined neighborhood and pulled my car up to a small cottage covered in shingles, with a wide porch all around it. Several wooden whirligigs out front twirled overtime with the wind that was swaying the trees. I slammed my car door and quickly hustled up the flagstone walkway.

  My first knock brought footsteps to the door and Doc Boone opened it. I was relieved to see him wearing an ordinary flannel shirt and dark slacks. I guess I was expecting robes and flowers braided into his hair.

  “Come in, Kylie, come in.” I stepped through to a warm interior. There were lit candles in sconces above a fireplace. The hearth crackled with a log fire, and more lit votives on the coffee table gave it a cozy feel. When I faced the room to peel off my coat, I saw the rest of the coven. My heart sank just a little.

  A striking older woman was there, with lots of eye make-up and wearing large earrings and gobs of necklaces over a flowing blouse covered with a chiffon shawl. She sat next to a young man wearing a loose-fitting dark sweater. When he saw me, he jumped to his feet. He was slim, with a pronounced Adam’s apple on his skinny neck and floppy dyed black hair hanging over his eyes, which he swatted away with a giant paw of a hand. He wore spike earrings, but his Goth vibe was cut by his extreme politeness.

  He reached across the coffee table to offer his hand. “Hi. I’m Nick Riley.”

  The woman wiggled her fingers and scrunched her nose at me in greeting.

  In a wooden rocker sat a girl, sixteen or so, with her feet tucked under her. She was wearing dark leggings under a short dark skirt and a heather gray sweatshirt with sleeves that covered most of her hands. A wool hat with knitted animal ears was pulled down over her brown, shoulder-length hair. She waved distractedly.

  “This is Seraphina,” said Doc Boone, gesturing toward the fine-boned woman. “And Nick works at the Coffee Shack over on Main. And this is Jolene Ayrs, the junior member of our coven.” He leaned into me, and in a stage whisper added, “Her parents say it’s okay.”

  I waved vaguely to Jolene who seemed to sink behind her clear plastic-framed glasses. She dropped her nose back into the book on her lap.

  “You’re a little young to be a Wiccan,” I said, hoping it sounded friendly.

  She squinted up at me through her thick lenses. “There’s no age requirement,” she said with a hint of teen irritation.

  “No politeness requirement either, apparently,” I muttered.

  There was incense burning and something that smelled cinnamony coming from the kitchen. It was all so normal. Just coffee with the neighbors…except when I looked down and noticed I was surrounded by a chalked pentagram on the floor. I jumped out of it and scrambled toward the rug, ending up perched on the hearth.

  “Oh, don’t pay that any mind,” said Doc. “It’s there to bring us more in tune with the forces of Nature.”

  “Okaaay,” I muttered. He motioned for me to sit on the couch next to Nick, who seemed overly exuberant about the prospect. I opted instead to sit in a wooden ladder-back chair on the other side of the coffee table.

  “It’s funny you should call,” said Doc. “Seraphina here is a bit of a psychic—”

  “She’s as psychic as this plate of Chex Mix,” said Nick, frowning at Seraphina, who was looking daggers back at him. “She just thinks she is.”

  “I am so psychic!”

  “If you’re so psychic then why don’t you pick the lottery numbers?”

  “I’m not that kind of psychic!” she cried, snapping her shawl across her chest.

  “What does that even mean?”

  Doc gestured calming motions. “Now, you two. As I was saying, Seraphina is our little psychic. She picks up feelings about Nature and what’s going on. Isn’t that right, Seraphina?”

  Seraphina’s eye shadow was a deep teal and painted to a point out to the edges of her eye, making her look like an Egyptian queen. The silver bangles on both her wrists clanked as she moved her arms. “Oh yes,” she purred, closing her eyes. “I felt something odd the other day. Like a door in the cosmic plane opening. It was very strange.”

  A chill ran down my back. “Really?”

  “Yes.” She leaned forward. Her giant hoop earrings tangled in her blazing red hair. “Did you feel it, too?” She looked at the others. “I think Kylie is a ‘sensitive.’”

  I looked around at the four of them looking back at me curiously: a bejeweled middle-aged cougar, an old country doctor, a gangly barista, and a kid. How in the world were they supposed to help me in this supposed mission?

  I rose. “Look, maybe I’m wasting your time.”

  “Now, now.” Doc Boone took my shoulders gently. “You sounded a mite upset to me on the phone and you seemed to think we could help.”

  Slowly I sat again. What did I have to lose? The coven couldn’t very well look down their noses at me for my Booke-of-the-Hidden problem. I centered myself. “Okay. What do you know of the local history? Like eighteenth-century history?”

  They exchanged glances until they all turned as one toward Jolene. She heaved a world-weary sigh. Snapping her book closed she gave me an impatient look. “I guess I’m your girl.”

  “Right. So in Moody Bog there was this Constance Howland in 1720, and she was charged with witchcraft. She had this Booke…”

  Jolene peered at me
with narrowed eyes. “This sort of sounds familiar. Is this the one who threw herself from Falcon’s Point?”

  “Yeah, Falcon’s Point. I think that was the name of the place.”

  “Okay.” She seemed to be accessing her memory banks by staring up into Doc Boone’s ceiling rafters. “I remember that. They accused her of being a witch and she was chased or something over the cliff before they could hang her. Witch burning had been outlawed by then. But they were allowed to burn the remains. She jumped off of Falcon’s Point. They never recovered her body, or never bothered trying to find it.”

  “Nice,” I muttered. “Well, there was slightly more to it than that. There was this Booke she found, the Booke of the Hidden, and when she opened it, it released all these evil spirits and stuff into the world and it became her responsibility to put them all back. I think she was able to accomplish it by writing about them in the Booke.”

  Jolene frowned. “Interesting.” She put down her book and picked up her tablet, and began typing into the keyboard and swiping pictures past her screen with a swoosh of her finger. “This sounds like something I read over at the Gifford Corner Museum once.”

  “Oh. Yeah. About that.” I swallowed hard. “Well, it seems I found something…um…in my shop. And it looked like an old book. Holed up in my wall.” I flicked a glance at Doc Boone and he put his fingers up to his lips. “Yeah,” I said to him. “That hole. I got the information I just told you from Karl Waters at the Gifford Corner Museum but…he was murdered today.”

  Everyone gasped. I took in each wide-eyed face in turn. “It was after he told me about the Booke. I brought it over there for him to look at…but after a few hours…something had killed him. Sucked the life out of him.”

  No one spoke. Only the crackle of the fire broke the numb silence. Doc moved on his chair, causing it to creak. “How do you mean, Kylie?” he asked.

  “Well…that’s what the sheriff said. I don’t exactly understand what that means.” They hadn’t moved, hadn’t stopped staring at me. “And then there’s this guy. Actually, I’m not so sure about him. But he calls himself Erasmus Dark—”

  “The dark figure in the engraving!” said Jolene. “Look.” She passed her tablet to Nick, who looked at it with raised brows before he passed it to Seraphina. She scanned it a moment before handing it to me. It was the same drawing that Karl Waters had. I showed it to Doc. “Yeah. A dark figure, all right. He knew all about the Booke, knew it was in the wall, and that I’d opened it. And he also knew about the murder before I did, before the sheriffs came calling.”