What kind of person could bring themselves not only to kill a cat, but to-my gorge rose and I doubled over, retching. This time, nothing came but a thin string of acid. I spat to clear the taste from my mouth then, still bent over, wiped my face, took a deep breath of the foul air and marched to the shed to find a shovel.
Twenty minutes later, I'd buried all three cats and started dismantling the altar. 'Paige?'
Savannah's whisper sent me a foot into the air. I spun to see her jogging across the lawn.
'There's a car circling the block,' she said. 'I've been watching out the front window.'
Her eyes were red. Had she been crying? Why did I make such a mess of everything? Before I could apologize, she grabbed my arm and dragged me across the yard.
As we stepped through the back door, I glimpsed myself in the hall mirror. Blood, vomit, and dirt streaked my face, hands, and kimono. Just then lights flashed through the living room sheers. A car engine died.
'Oh, God,' I said, staring into the mirror. 'I can't-'
'I'm clean,' Savannah said. 'I'll answer it. You go wash up.'
'But-'
The doorbell rang. Savannah shoved me into the living room. I ducked below window level and ran for the other side of the house.
Leah hadn't settled for placing an anonymous call to the station's overnight answering service. No, she'd called the local sheriff, Ted Fowler, at home, babbling hysterically about strange lights and screams coming from the woods behind my house.
Fowler had thrown on clothing that looked like it came from his bedroom floor and driven straight over. In reward for his haste, he found the smoldering remains of a Satanic altar a scant ten feet beyond my backyard.
By dawn my house and yard were crawling with cops. By disposing of the cat corpses, I'd only made things worse. When Fowler saw traces of blood and no bodies, his imagination leaped to the worst possible conclusion. Murder.
Since East Falls wasn't equipped to deal with homicide, the state police were called in. On the way, the detectives woke up a judge and got him to sign a search warrant. They arrived shortly before five, and Savannah and I spent the next several hours huddled in my bedroom, alternately answering questions and listening to the sound of strangers tearing apart our home.
When I heard the oven door open, I remembered the Hand of Glory under the sink. I bolted for the hall, then checked my pace and walked into the kitchen. One officer rifled through my cupboards as another waved some kind of light wand over the contents of my fridge. They glanced at me, but when I didn't speak, they returned to their work.
Heart thudding, I waited as the cupboard searcher moved to the cabinets under the counter. When he reached for the sink cupboard, I whispered a spell under my breath. It was a form of cover spell that would distort the appearance of an object. While it wouldn't have worked on the entire Satanic altar site outside, it would do fine for the wrapped bundle under the sink.
As he threw open the cupboard, I said the last words and directed the spell at the object to be hidden. Only there was no object there. The hand and the towel were gone. The officer did a cursory search, then closed the cupboard. I hurried back to the bedroom.
'What did you do with it?' I whispered.
Savannah looked up from her magazine. 'With what?'
I lowered my voice another notch. 'The Hand of Glory.'
'I moved it.'
'Good. Thank you. I completely forgot. Where'd you put it?'
She rolled onto her stomach and returned to her magazine. 'Someplace safe.'
'Ms. Winterbourne?'
I spun to see the lead detective from the state police in my bedroom doorway.
'We found cats,' he said.
'Cats?' I repeated.
'Three dead cats buried a short distance from the scene.'
I motioned toward Savannah and lifted a finger to my lips, gesturing that I didn't want this discussed in front of her. The detective moved to the living room, where several officers were lounging on my sofa and chairs, muddy shoes propped on my antique coffee table. I swallowed my outrage and turned to the detective.
'So it was cat's blood?' I said.
'Apparently, though we'll run tests to be sure.'
'Good.'
'Killing cats might not be on the same scale as murder, but it's still a serious offense. Very serious.'
'It should be. Anyone who'd do that…' I didn't have to fake my shudder, needing only to remember the sight of those maimed bodies. 'I can't believe someone would do that, stage a Satanic altar behind my yard.'
'Stage?' the detective said. 'What makes you think it was staged?'
'It looked real to me,' one of the officers said, waving a cookie that looked suspiciously like the same cookies that were in my cupboard.
His wave scattered crumbs across my ivory carpet. I looked at those crumbs, looked at the muddy boot prints surrounding it, looked at the bookcase behind it, my books and photos and mementos shoved into haphazard piles, and I felt a snap. Just a small one.
'And you say that based on witnessing exactly how many Satanic altars?' I asked.
Silence.
'We've seen photos,' he muttered at last.
'Oh, right. The photos. There's probably one genuine photo circulating endlessly around the entire country. Attention all units: beware of Satanic cults. Do you know what Satanic cults are? The biggest hoax ever perpetrated by the American media. Do you know who builds all those so-called Satanic altars you hear about? Kids. Bored, angry teenagers trying to shock the establishment. That and the occasional homicidal moron who's already planning his defense: the devil made me do it. Satanic altar, my ass. What you saw out back there is a prank. A very, very sick prank.'
Silence.
'You sure seem to know a lot about this stuff,' one officer said.
'It's called a college education.' I wheeled on the detective. 'Are you charging me with anything?'
'Not yet.'
'Then get the hell out of my house so I can clean up your mess.'
After a tersely worded admonition against leaving town and a suggestion that I 'may want to retain legal counsel,' the police left.
Chapter 8
THE POLICE WERE BARELY OUT THE DOOR WHEN SAVANNAH appeared from her room and dropped down beside me on the sofa.
'Black Mass,' she said. 'I can't believe they still believe in that stuff. Humans are so stupid.'
'You shouldn't say that,' I said, without much conviction.
'It's true. About the Satanism stuff at least. They get all weird about it. You try to tell them the truth, that Satan's just one of tons of demons and that he doesn't give a crap about us, and they still figure you can conjure him up and hell give you anything you want. As if.' She sunk back into the sofa cushions. 'My mom had this friend, a necromancer, who used to make really good money selling Black Masses.'
'Selling Black Masses?'
'You know, setting them up for people. He ran this business, 'Satanic Rites by Jorge.' His real name's Bill, but
