“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I shook my head and frowned.
“Beats me, but the rest of the printed text is in German, so until it’s translated we won’t know much. Albright did recognize a few words; apparently, she took German in high school or somethin’. Prossneck, Deutchland, Folterung, Hexefertigkeit and the year sixteen twenty-nine.”
He stumbled over the pronunciations, but I’m not sure I could have done much better.
“According to Bee-Bee they roughly translate as Prossneck, Germany, torture, and WitchCraft.”
Felicity audibly caught her breath and jerked, dropping her coffee cup in the process. Hot java splattered across the table, spilling over the edge. The ceramic mug bounced once from the wet surface before falling to its demise on the tile floor. Ben jumped back in his seat and instantly began extracting handfuls of paper napkins from the metal holder next to the window. In his haste, he sent the salt and pepper shakers spilling into the seat and a bottle of catsup rolling toward me. The condiment-filled vessel came to rest against my own coffee cup with a sharp plinking noise, which is fortunate, because I wouldn’t have caught it. I was otherwise paralyzed by the words my friend had just recited.
“You okay, Felicity?” he asked as he began mopping up the spill.
My wife’s normally pale complexion was washed to stark white as she sat frozen, staring across the table at Ben. Her green eyes were wide, and it didn’t take a Witch to literally feel the fear coming from her.
“Felicity?” Ben called her name again and then shifted to me when she didn’t answer. “Row? What the hell? What’s going on?”
The throb in my head moved up the scale a pair of notches, instantly becoming far more than a nuisance. Fear-induced nausea welled in the pit of my stomach and sent a bitter burn into the back of my throat. I slipped my hand along the edge of the table until I reached Felicity’s and then clasped her fingers tight.
“It’s not going to happen,” I said, fighting to mask my own distress.
“What?” Ben pressed as he threw more napkins onto the puddle of cooling liquid. “What’s not going to happen?”
I turned my gaze to him but continued to hold Felicity’s hand tightly. “The page is most likely from a book by Wilhelm Pressel,” I recited. “It’s pretty obscure, but most anyone who’s studied the Witch Trials of the Burning Times is familiar with it. It didn’t dawn on me at first, but the minute you said Prossneck, Germany, well, that’s a bit of a giveaway. Anyway, if it is in fact a page from Hexen und Hexenmeister, then the text is an actual accounting of the first day of torture inflicted upon an accused Witch in the year sixteen twenty-nine.”
“Okay. That’s the kinda thing that would fit with this wingnut’s profile. But, what’s with the comment about Felicity’s hair?”
“The first thing the hangman did to this woman,” I explained, “was to bind her hands, attach her to a torture ladder, and cut her hair off.” I swallowed hard before continuing. “He then doused her head with alcohol and set it on fire to burn the rest of her hair off down to the roots.”
“Aye,” Felicity muttered quietly as she regained her voice. “And that was only the beginning.”
“He’s taunting me,” I stated as anger began to creep into my voice. “The sonofabitch is telling me what he plans to do to my wife.”
“Jeezus… Goddamnit…” Ben whispered. “And I thought I was takin’ the easy out. So much for breakin’ it to you gently.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I offered with a shrug.
“No,” he returned. “But the note is only half of it.”
“What else,” I asked with a grimace.
“Aww man, Jeez…” He rested an elbow on the table then dropped his head into his hand and closed his eyes. “They ID’d the victim…”
The portent in his voice was unmistakable, and it struck both Felicity and me with no less force than a physical slap across the face. I could almost guess what was coming, and I am certain Felicity could as well.
The ache inside my skull took on the properties of root canal sans anesthetic. I braced myself for the news, not truly wanting to hear it but unable to escape its reality.
“Oh, Gods…” Felicity murmured into the silence between us, audibly broadcasting her dread.
“Yeah,” Ben returned. “Randy Harper. He took out a member of your Coven.”
“Dammit,” I spat the curse. “Isn’t this how I got involved in all this shit to begin with?”
My reference wasn’t lost on him. The first investigation I’d helped Ben with had been the murder of Ariel Tanner. She had been one of my students in The Craft as well as a good friend. Moreover, she had been the priestess of the Coven Felicity and I had since adopted.
“Yeah. Deja vu and all that crap,” Ben returned.
“Gods…” Felicity moaned, and her eyes grew wide. “What about everyone else? If he knew about Randy…”
“That was the second call,” Ben said as he nodded. “I’ve kept a list in my desk since this all started. Ackman is going to contact them, and we’ll go from there.”
“What about Nancy?” my wife appealed. “Someone should be with her. Unless…”
She caught her breath as the thought struck. She didn’t have to voice it for us to know what it was.
“Don’t panic,” Ben told her. “Ackman is making the calls. We don’t know anything yet, so let’s just assume that she’s okay.”
Felicity closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she nodded affirmation. I gave her hand a squeeze but wasn’t certain how reassuring it would be. I knew she could easily sense that I was just as worried as she was. I dropped my chin to my chest and stared at the table as a solemn hush blanketed our little corner of the diner. Even the radio behind the counter was spewing only dead air.
“I’ve had enough nightmares this decade,” I finally muttered. “Will someone please wake me up.”
“Here she comes.” Ben canted his head toward me and whispered, “Play nice and keep the Twilight Zone stuff to yourself.”
It was obvious that we had not only been expected but that our arrival on scene had been announced. We had just barely topped the metal stairs leading to the roof access of the warehouse a few seconds prior to his comment. Before we could get our bearings, we were greeted by the sight of a woman wearing a heavy trench coat walking purposefully toward us from several yards away.
The assortment of circumstances combined with the raging pain in my skull had centered my mood somewhere between foul and just plain pissed off. “What if I don’t?”
“I’m not kidding here, white man. She’ll kick your sorry ass outta here,” he snarled under his breath. “And I’m damn liable to help her. Got me?”
“Listen to him, Rowan,” Felicity demanded as she squeezed my arm. “This isn’t the time. Not now.”
“When will it be the time?” I asked, my voice flat. “Tell me that.”
“I don’t know. But not now. Please.”
She was still frightened, and I couldn’t blame her. The written threat was enough by itself, but backing it up by torturing and killing a member of our own Coven drove the point past home. It fueled the horror and urged it across the line that separated intimidation from violence. Omen from action.
While I still felt some of the same fear that enveloped my wife, mine was rapidly turning to calculating anger. Still, they were both correct. I needed to keep myself on an even keel, or I wasn’t going to get anywhere.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Okay.”
“I’m friggin’ serious here, Row,” Ben said.
“I know. I know.”
Lieutenant Barbara Albright reminded me of someone’s mother. She didn’t resemble anyone in particular, actually. She just fit the appearance of a generic, prim and proper, sixties sitcom mom who had been strategically updated to fit the style of the decade-but only where absolutely necessary. She was slight of figure and wore her white hair in a shoulder-length coif that was just traditional enough not to be out of vogue but wasn’t exactly riding the cutting edge either. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, but that, in and of itself, could have been an illusion. She was very simply just that nondescript.
The one thing that stood out about her appearance was the thin-lipped expression she now wore. According
