Summoned Dreams Read online

  “You drive like a maniac,” she informed him, just as loudly. “Cracker Jack wouldn’t even issue you a license. You were speeding through city streets and you failed to yield at the yield sign!”

  “I was doing three miles over the speed limit! We were doing twenty-eight miles an hour! And it was a yield sign with nothing coming.”

  “We could have been killed! Do you know speeding is the second leading cause of automobile accidents behind drunk driving?”

  “Uh, actually, it isn’t,” I corrected her. They both turned to stare at me as if I had appeared from thin air. I was getting used to this when Fiona was around. My sociopathic vibe disappeared. Normally, people that fled in terror became antagonized and angry. She just did that to people. “Texting and driving is followed by talking on the phone and driving. Hands free devices have only slightly lessened the dangers of driving and talking on the phone at the same time. So, are you my ride out to the lake?” I asked.

  “Who are you?” The guy asked.

  “Aislinn Cain,” Fiona snorted. “Although, she might as well change her name to Encyclopedia Cain or Dictionary Cain or Pointless-Fact Cain. It would suit her better.” The dislike was mutual. She disliked everything about me. I didn’t know why, but it didn’t really matter.

  “She’s correct,” I stated, “but I don’t complain about other people’s driving. Have fun with the witnesses!” I gave her a finger wave as I climbed into her vacated spot in the cab of the truck. The fact that I had not used my middle finger for the wave made me think I was improving as a human being.

  The guy, who still hadn’t introduced himself, climbed into the truck. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. His face was red from anger.

  “Don’t worry. As long as you don’t kill us, I won’t complain about your driving. Hell, I don’t care if you bother to stop at stop signs.”

  “She’s...”

  “Insufferable? Unbearable? Intolerable? Detestable? Vile? Loathsome? Arrogant? Narcissistic? Just pick a few.”

  “Maybe you ought to be Thesaurus Cain.” The guy broke into a smile.

  “I’m pretty attached to Aislinn,” I smiled back. “So, they said one of the bodies was weird. Know anything about it?”

  “Marshal, I have spent the last thirty minutes with the Abominable Snowbitch. I missed the weird body.”

  “That’s a new one. I haven’t heard it before.”

  Two

  In my line of work, “weird” was definitely a relative term. We had hunted serial killers that skinned people alive, ate brains because they thought they were a zombie, and killed women by extracting their uteruses in an attempt to stop the anti-Christ from being born. I was still fuzzy as to why the guy had thought the anti-Christ was going to be born in Bangor, Maine. Washington D.C. seemed like a more appropriate place for him, but I was only mildly crazy. If I were the anti-Christ, I would have picked a woman living in a warmer climate, like Hawaii or Tahiti. In addition, it’s very hard to prove that the anti-Christ has or has not been born, so it was a futile mission to begin with. For starters, how would you know when you had accomplished it?

  However, serial killers did weird things, not their victims, except with this one. Someone had attempted to eradicate all the tattoos on the woman’s body with some unknown tool. My guess was that the someone was the killer and he had failed miserably. The body still bore hundreds of visible tattoos; all of them symbols. I had seen my fair share of tattoos. Most symbols were characters from a foreign alphabet, but not these. They were symbols meant to evoke power, offer protection, or call on fallen gods and demons.

  One in particular caught my attention. I stared at it for a few moments and then looked at my teammates. Someone was missing a disciple and they probably weren’t all that happy about it.

  “Do you want a quick analysis or something a little more?” I cocked my head to the side, trying to think of the word I wanted. A problem that had been growing since the addition of Fiona. Lucas thought it was stress. Xavier thought it was brain damage. If Gabriel had a theory, he was keeping it to himself.

  “That depends on what you’ve got right this moment,” Gabriel told me.

  The body was nude. The plastic had protected it from severe water damage. I didn’t know how long it had been dead, but the skin was yellowish and loose. I leaned in a little closer, pointing without touching.

  “This one is from the Cult of the Rising Star,” I explained to him. “It started as a witchcraft cult and evolved to practicing Satanism. They generally aren’t dangerous, but there are exceptions to every rule and the current leader is sort of off his rocker. Judging by the placement of it next to the symbol of Beelzebub, she’s pretty important, meaning a very angry cult leader.”

  “Do I want to know how you know about Satanism and cults of said fallen angel?” Gabriel asked.

  “I don’t know. Do you?” I asked.

  Gabriel seemed to think about this for a long time, long enough that a couple of officers shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. The answer was easy. I was willing to learn about everything, including Satanism, extreme cults, cattle mutilations, even ghosts and Bigfoot were not out of the realm of study.

  “Where is the cult based?” Lucas asked.

  “Last I knew, Los Angeles, where all respectable, huge Satanist cults hang out.” The “duh” at the end was implied.

  “Aren’t all Satanists dangerous?” Xavier asked.

  “Not in the least, most Satanists are no different than a Christian, except for worshipping the other side. Christianity preaches following The Commandments and living a good life. Satanists believe in hedonism. However, there are extremes on each side.”

  “You say that so nonchalantly,” Gabriel commented.

  “Religion is religion. I know that isn’t the politically correct thing to say, but they really are. It doesn’t matter the denomination or worshipping practices, they all believe in the supernatural and they all believe their faith is the correct faith.”

  “Atheist,” someone muttered.

  “Oh boy,” Lucas put his hand up. “You can chastise him later. Why is she here and why is this cult possibly dangerous if they haven’t been in the past?”

  “I don’t know the answer to why she’s here. This cult has become dangerous only in the last ten years, when a former Evangelist took over. I guess he lost his faith or something and decided to serve the other side, and serve it he does. He’s brutal and has some extreme views. The Cult of the Rising Star has actually been in decline since he was elected to the position of Priest. There have even been a couple of attempted coups. Maybe she was escaping Priest Everston.”

  “You know his name?” Gabriel asked.

  “I’ve met him,” I answered. “He isn’t Jim Jones crazy. He’s more like Adolpho Costanza crazy, which is worse. He honestly believes he has powers, not just the ability to summon the other side either, but ESP and pyrokenesis. As far as I could tell, he didn’t. He thought I was sexually attracted to him.”

  “I’m trying to wrap my head around this,” Gabriel said.

  “Some people met Billy Graham. I met Bob Everston. He did a recruiting thing at the University of Washington. Do you honestly believe a satanic priest could come to campus and me not want to meet him?”

  “When most people hear the term satanic priest, they don’t jump in line to meet them. They try to avoid them,” Lucas told me.

  “Well, I admit the crowds were thin, and of those in attendance, I actually stuck out. Not enough makeup or black clothing or frowning,” I admitted. “Nevertheless, it was interesting and educational.”

  “You’ve met a satanic cult leader,” Gabriel seemed to be trying the words out.

  “You met a wendigo!” I defended myself. “Satanic cult leader doesn’t seem all that different, except Everston isn’t a Native American demon. He’s just demon-obsessed. This is by far not the strangest thing that I have ever admitted to doing.”

  “I’ll think on
it later.” Gabriel sighed and lit a cigarette. He was smoking more and more lately. I had a feeling it had something to do with me, but I wasn’t going to ask. “Any reason to think Everston would come to Minnesota?”

  “I talked to him for like five minutes,” I answered. “I asked a few questions. He asked if I wanted to meet in private. I agreed, and then he grabbed my ass. I realized I wasn’t going to get an interview and kicking the shit out of him was a bad idea, so I left and never made our so-called date. Then I read up on him and the Rising Star and realized that he was a wacko, which explained why he was attracted to me, and I never thought about it again until today.”

  “Really?” Gabriel was frowning as he smoked. I realized he was still struggling with the Satanist thing. Christians usually did. I didn’t think Gabriel was much of a Christian, but I was sure he’d been raised that way.

  “Wow, one day, we’ll have a talk about comparative religions in the modern age and I’ll explain all my beliefs to you so you can stop freaking out about my interest in Satanism as a religion. Furthermore, anyone who sees mythical beings, shouldn’t throw stones at other people,” I raised an eyebrow, trying to force him out of whatever place he’d entered in his head. It probably included orgies with goats and blood sacrifices, neither of which I had encountered while researching Satanism. Those things were more likely in other religions.

  “Do you recognize any other symbols?” Gabriel asked.

  “Based on my history background, yes, many. Different demon names, different spells, some are for protection, some for incantation. The only thing really strange is that the demons are not all Christian demons. I see the symbol for Ammut on the body. There’s also the symbol for Lashku who is particularly nasty to women, and I can’t imagine why a woman would want her name tattooed on her unless she was warding off pregnancies. The Rising Star only practices Christian Satanism. Lashku is Sumerian. Ammut wasn’t really a demon, but a soul-eater in Ancient Egypt. Unlike some pre-Christian demons, these don’t have Christian counterparts.”

  “Can I add demonologist to your resume?” Xavier asked.

  “No, I don’t battle demons, I just know about them,” I answered before realizing he was teasing me.

  “We need to get her identified,” Gabriel turned to Xavier, “and figure out what she was doing here and if this Everston fellow would kill for her.”

  “There is one more thing,” I added quickly. “Most people move up the ranks in The Rising Star. They don’t just achieve this status, which means they have multiple demon names next to their identification tattoo. She’s not a follower who clawed her way to the top. She was either born there or initiated there, and whoever killed her didn’t know which tattoos to remove. They removed the ones they found most visually repulsive. A member of The Rising Star would have removed the identification one first. Another Satanist probably would have removed the spells of protection and incantation. If she’s as important as her tattoo indicates, our serial killer bit off more than he could chew. Even if Everston doesn’t come kill the guy himself, someone from The Rising Star might.”

  “Great, a bunch of Satanists running around the town is the last thing we need,” a guy in a uniform remarked with snarkiness.

  “It could be worse. It could be a bunch of clowns,” I told him. He looked at me incredulously. “The fear of clowns is one of the most common fears in the world. A bunch of clowns would incite more fear than a bunch of Satanists. Fear incites panic, panic incites crime and chaos, and chaos incites riots, looting, and pillaging. If fifty Satanists show up, crime increases against the Satanists. If fifty clowns show up, well, you can’t really beat up a clown, so other crime increases.”

  “If you are done terrorizing the locals, would you please go with Xavier and catalogue all the tattoos and their meanings?” Gabriel asked.

  “And if I’m not done terrorizing the locals?” I smiled.

  “If you aren’t done, could you save it for later, go with Xavier and catalogue all the tattoos and their meanings.” Gabriel smiled back.

  “It isn’t me you have to worry about. Ask Fiona about her ride to the police station,” I whispered as I walked past him.

  Despite Nyleena’s claims that I disliked Fiona because she was a woman, I actually disliked her because she was a person. At least that was my initial reason for disliking her. Now that I had a month and a half or so to get to know her, I disliked her because she was a bad person. My opinion of bad was very fluid, so to call a person bad was a huge insult. Most of the serial killers didn’t even get labelled that. Fiona was just a detestable person. She was never happy, never. She complained about everything, all the time. Last week, it had been her shoes. On the plane ride to Minnesota, it had been the fact that we were going to Minnesota. Twenty minutes ago, it had been because a cop was driving three miles over the speed limit. Even food was fodder for her ire and displeasure, with each meal giving her new fuel to ignite her complaints.

  I was not a happy person. I was not an optimist or a person in search of silver linings, but even I was a happier person than Fiona. I wondered if it was hard to be that miserable. Was it something that had to be worked at on a daily basis? If so, I was in no danger of becoming the Abominable Snowbitch. I couldn’t dedicate myself to anything that was time consuming or energy draining. As a sociopath, I was just too lazy to make that sort of commitment. If I couldn’t save pandas and polar bears due to laziness, I certainly couldn’t become miserable.

  Three

  Books and the internet were required to catalogue all the tattoos on the woman’s body. Some I knew, most I did not. However, I’d never forget them now that I had researched them. Xavier was taking fingerprints and dental impressions and loading them into a database.

  Gabriel walked in, cigarette in hand, despite the large “No Smoking” sign posted over the door and in several spots around, not just the room, but also the funeral home as a whole. His hands were shaking as he reached for the cigarette to pull it out from between his lips.

  “You can stop,” he told me. “So can Xavier. We have the killer, and we have the killer’s killer, and we have a whole town on the verge of a meltdown, and another case.” He walked out without another word. Xavier and I exchanged looks. We took off our protective clothing and followed.

  Smoke billowed in the distance. The plume rose into the air, creating a dark, ugly streak on the otherwise clear blue sky. Closer, a second plume of smoke puffed out from the inferno that made it. The town wasn’t on the verge of a meltdown. It appeared to be in the process of melting down. Serial killers can do that, especially in a small town.

  “What’s burning?” Xavier asked.

  “The killer’s house and the killer’s business. He owned the local real estate office. Someone leaked the photos of the truck and the town took matters into their own hands. However, it was a F. W. Sams that killed him,” Lucas told us. “He ran over him at least forty times with his pick-up.”

  “So, why is Gabriel so shaken up?” I asked.

  “Gabriel was talking to the killer when F. W. Sams decided to run over him for the first time. If Gabriel hadn’t honed his jumping skills as a Marshal, he’d be dead too,” Lucas added. “Also, there is an ironic connection. We just learned of a series of house fires in Detroit.”

  “I hate arsonists,” Fiona whined.

  “How many dead?” I ignored her.

  “Seven houses, seven dead, the houses were all abandoned and the killer is removing the teeth of his victims, which makes dental identification difficult,” Lucas told me.

  “Aside from the dead bodies, burning down abandoned houses in Detroit really doesn’t seem like a bad thing,” I told him. “Or are the dead bodies alive when the fire starts?” If I had a fear, it was burning to death. Not the whole “died in the fire” thing, where the victim succumbs to smoke inhalation, but actually burning alive. Don’t get me wrong, the smoke inhalation isn’t pleasant, but burns were my idea of the ultimate pain and burning to death see
med like the ultimate form of torture.

  “Dead,” Lucas told me. “Cause of death is a little mysterious. There are marks to indicate they had their throats slit, but not enough to mark it as definitive.”

  “Detroit, huh?” I shook my head. I had been to Detroit, once. It had strengthened my suspicions that the United States was in decline. The city managed to have the second highest crime rate in the country, a feat considering it seems to be in the process of becoming a ghost town.

  That was my other thought. It was becoming a ghost town. Visiting a ghost town in the Old West was one thing, but to find a major metropolitan area becoming a ghost town was strange. The office buildings were still in use, commuters flowing in and out of the city via the highways and toll roads. Abandoned houses seemed to outnumber occupied homes. Giant warehouses and factories had closed up; their windows broken out, their doors jimmied open, and layers of grime on the facades seemed to mock the used offices.

  The car factories that had given Detroit its nickname were still being used and had actually been increasing production in recent years. However, the workers no longer lived in Detroit. Even the line workers commuted from the suburbs.

  Those poor souls still living within the confines of the metropolis fell into two categories. One group was the stubborn survivors. These people were determined to stay because they had grown up there. It was their home and they believed that the desolate, desperate conditions could be fixed. The other was the societal throwaways. This group was too poor to move. Either the jobs they worked weren’t enough to sustain a life away from the crime or they didn’t work. A large number were drug addicts, dealers, pimps, and prostitutes, using the Detroit nightlife to fulfill their needs.