My new partner was Karl Renfer, a tall, gangly kid, all elbows and knees. Far as I'm concerned, a "kid" is anyone younger than I am, and Karl's just past thirty. He'd been with the Supe Squad about six months. I remember when he'd been a basketball standout at Abington High. After graduation, he joined the army, and they made him an MP. He says that's when he realized he wanted to be a cop.
Karl'd had a pretty good record in uniform, and ordinarily I'd be okay about him riding with me. I've gotta have a partner, and it might as well be him. But there was already a cloud over him in the unit.
When he first transferred in, Karl had been paired up with Marty O'Brian, who's about eighteen months away from his pension. Not one of my favorite cops, O'Brian. It's not that he's extremely lazy, or stupid, or mean, or careless about regs. He's just a little bit of all those things, so I don't have a lot of use for him. But he's been on the job a long time, and that earns him some degree of respect. I guess.
One night, O'Brian and Renfer had been sent to check out a cemetery at the edge of town, where a voodoo houngan had been spotted trying to raise zombies. Following procedure, they'd split up, with O'Brian approaching through the front gate and Karl finding another entrance at the side, or maybe the back.
At least, that's the way it was supposed to go down.
There was a houngan at work, all right. He'd already raised four zombies by the time O'Brian arrived on the scene. Instead of giving it up, the old man sent his newly created shamblers after O'Brian, who was forced to kill (or re-kill) all of them. In the process, a stray bullet found its way into the houngan's head, as well.
That's the way O'Brian tells it.
Karl Renfer didn't arrive until after the shooting was over. He said all the other cemetery gates were locked. He'd checked every one, and then tried to climb over the fence. But the church had been worried about vandals, so the fence was high and difficult. Karl wasn't able to get in until he found a trash barrel that he could up-end and use to boost himself over the top. He got to where O'Brian and the action was as soon as he could.
That's what Karl claimed, anyway.
O'Brian said Karl was yellow, that he'd been cowering somewhere while O'Brian heroically risked his life against the zombies and their evil master.
There'd been no way to prove or disprove either story. The only possible witnesses were dead, either for the first or second time. After a Review Board hearing, Karl was cleared and sent back on the job. But O'Brian refused to work with him anymore, and, like I said, he's got a lot of seniority.
So the new guy needed a partner. And for my sins, they gave him to me.
O'Brian's an asshole, and maybe this was just more of his self-promoting bullshit. But "maybe" isn't good enough in this job. You have to be able to trust your partner all the way, every time. If there's any doubt about that, then the partnership isn't going to work.
Every time we went out on a call, that doubt rode with us like a third passenger.
I was thinking about Big Paul again as il rought our unmarked car to a stop in front of the address we'd been given, just off North Keyser Avenue. The expression on his face when Paul realized he wasn't going to make it…
Then I pushed all that stuff out of my mind and focused on the job. Wool-gathering's for sheep, and sooner or later, sheep get slaughtered.
The place looked like an abandoned warehouse. That figured. I sometimes think companies build these things and leave them deserted just so bad guys will have someplace to hang out.
There'd been a report that some Satanists were holding sacrifices in there, although nobody'd caught them at it yet. But this was the first night of the full moon, and if there was any coven activity going on, tonight was a good time for it.
We've got freedom of religion in this country. You can worship Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Vishnu, Satan, or Brad Pitt, for all the law cares. But killing dogs, cats, goats, or whatever – that comes under the animal cruelty laws, although some Santeria practitioners are fighting it in the courts.
Normally, dogs and cats would be a job for Animal Control, or maybe the SPCA. But every serious Satanist cult I ever heard of eventually moved up to sacrificing what they call "the goat without horns" – a human being.
Unless somebody stopped them first.
I turned to Karl. "Stay here. I'll call you on the radio if I find anything interesting."
Karl gave me a look I was already getting tired of, and said, "When are you gonna stop treating me like a fucking rookie?"
"I'm treating you like my partner," I told him, "who happens to be the junior partner on this team and is supposed to do what he's told. And I'm telling you to wait here."
I got out, and just before slamming the door shut I snapped, "And stay awake!"
I was pissed off, but I couldn't have said at who. Maybe both of us.
I made a careful circle of the warehouse. All I learned was that the loading dock was in back and there was a normal-sized door on the north side. I approached the door and carefully tried the handle. It was unlocked.
I wasn't sure whether I was happy about that or not.
Inside, it was darker than the boots of the High Sheriff of Hell. I thought I could hear voices chanting, but they weren't close.
I took out my flashlight, and held it well away from my body before flicking it on. If the light was going to draw hostile attention, I didn't want any of it hitting me. But nobody shot, or shouted, or seemed to give much of a shit that I was there at all.
I wasn't sure whether I was happy about that, either.
The flashlight beam showed me that this part of the warehouse was divided into rooms by sheets of cheap plywood. There were a couple of hallways at right angles to each other. I followed the one where the chanting seemed loudest.
After rounding a couple of corners, I saw a door with light under it – the faint, flickering light you get from candles.
That door was unlocked, too. These people were either really stupid or really cocky. I turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly, praying the hinges wouldn't squeak.
I soon learned it wouldn't have mattered if the door was wired to start playing "The Star-Spangled Banner", in stereo. The people inside were so intent on what they were doing, they didn't even notice me. At first.
I slipped inside the room and quickly counted the house. It looked like thirteen of them. Well, that figured. They were all dressed in those hooded gray robes that were probably the height of fashion in the fourteenth century.
The cultists were standing in a rough semicircle, their backs to me. As I crept closer, I got a better view of what they were all staring at. That's when I realized it wasn't a case for Animal Control any longer.
This coven had already moved beyond goats and chickens. They had gone all the way to the big time.
The scrawny blonde teenager they had on the floor, tied spread-eagled and gagged, was dressed like a streetwalker. No surprise there.
Prostitution is the only job that requires a woman to go someplace private with a complete stranger. That makes working girls easy prey for guys who have more on their minds than a quick blowjob. Psychos have known that ever since Jack the Ripper, if not before.
It looked like they had just finished cutting her throat.
Her blood was flowing slowly across the wooden floor in the direction of the pentagram that somebody had drawn there in yellow chalk. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what they had in mind.
These morons were trying to conjure a demon.
Despite what you see in the movies, a summoning isn't all that easy to do. Hellspawn don't much like to be bothered by humans, who they regard with contempt. And most of the grimoires that you find are either completely worthless or they've got just enough accurate information to get you killed. Or worse.
Conjuring a demon is like that proverb about grabbing a tiger by the tail – the slightest mistake, and you're lunch. I wondered if these fools would succeed in calling something from the netherworld. If they did, they might soon wish they'd failed.
I had just decided to sneak back out and radio Karl to call for backup when the stream of the girl's blood reached the pentagram. As soon as it did, the air in the center began to shimmer and sparkle. The conjuration had worked, after all.
Something from Hell was on its way.
I drew my weapon and stepped forward. Summoning a demon is a crime all by itself, and there was no way to tell whether these clowns had constructed their pentagram properly. If they hadn't, we could soon have a demon loose in my city, and I was not going to let that happen.
"Police officer!" I yelled. "Stop the chanting and put your hands in the air! Do it! "