Rituals (Cainsville 5)

Yet this particular ritual had already found its sacrifice. A young man lay in the center of the circle. Long dead, the gash across his throat bloodless. A cowled figure crouched unmoving beside him, knife in hand, and I would have thought I was seeing a still image except that I could hear someone talking, the voice too distorted to make out words.

Another figure shifted, as if growing impatient. The one with the knife turned the corpse onto his stomach. Then he positioned the knife over the dead man's shoulder blade, and very carefully, as if paring an apple, he removed a swath of skin.

My gut seized as I imagined a different man under that blade, his face so familiar I could feel the contours of it under my fingertips. I pictured his body, lying on his back, dead eyes staring at the ceiling, Gabriel crouched beside him, me asking him to turn the corpse over. He did, and there, on the shoulder, had been that same missing strip of skin, the one I'd seen in crime-scene photographs from my parents' murders, replicated on the shoulder of a man I'd loved.

"James," I whispered as I backed away.

I hit something solid and jumped to see Gabriel behind me, his face drawn in concern. "You're seeing James?"

"No, just..." I looked back at the scene. "It's some kind of ritual. There's a corpse. Someone cut the skin from the shoulder. Like..."

"The Tysons did."

I nodded. My parents were convicted of murdering four couples. The last two victims we'd proven to be copycat killings. The first two victims--Amanda Mays and Ken Perkins--had actually been murdered by couple number two, Marty and Lisa Tyson. The Tysons had established the ritual, which a host of professionals had tried to identify, but it seemed to be ritualistic gobbledygook.

"Do you want to stop watching?" Gabriel asked.

Yes. But I couldn't, no more than he could stop watching in the hall of mirrors. I had to know what I'd been brought to see.

"I'm fine. It's just..." I shivered and rubbed my arms.

Gabriel put one arm around my waist and pulled me back against him, letting me rest there, exactly as he had at James's funeral.

"Is the body Mays? Perkins?" he murmured, bending to my ear.

I shook my head. "It's a young man I don't recognize. Someone's talking, but I can't make out the words. I can't even tell gender. He or she is instructing the person doing the cutting."

"Instructing him in a ritual."

"Right. Which means..." I squeezed Gabriel's hand before tugging it from my waist. "I need a better look."

I approached the figure kneeling beside the corpse and bent to see the face under the cowl.

"Marty Tyson," I said.

Gabriel grunted, as if he'd already presumed this.

I looked up at another face. "Lisa's standing right here. Along with three others."

I rose and followed the voice giving instructions, but under its cowl I saw only a black pit. When I tried to move the hood, my fingers passed through it.

I walked up to the next figure and had to stoop to peer under the hood--she was about six inches shorter than me.

"Stacey Pasolini."

Gabriel's brows lifted. I sidestepped to the last figure, a man only a little taller than me.

"Eddie Hilton," I said. Then I rhymed off their vital stats--approximate height and weight, hair color, eye color--and Gabriel nodded and said, "Yes, that's correct." I knew it was. I'd stared at enough photos to recognize my mother's third and fourth victims.

We already knew Pasolini and Hilton were killers. That's why the Cwn Annwn made the deal with my mother--in exchange for them curing my spina bifida she would exact justice on four murderers whose crimes fell outside their purview. As for what exactly Pasolini and Hilton had done, Ioan didn't know the details and didn't care. Their prey was guilty, and theirs is absolute justice--no extenuating circumstances considered.

We'd investigated Pasolini and Hilton ourselves, but it seemed impossible to find a victim when you only knew the killers.

I moved back to the figure who was instructing Marty Tyson. "Let's get a look at you."

I shone my penlight under the cowl, but it was like shining it into a black hole, the light disappearing as soon as it left the source.

"Damn it," I said. "I can't see a face at all."