Chapter 23

Regina and Dr. Wexler nodded.

“That sounds about right to me,” Dr. Wexler said.

“So,” Regina said, “we know where they’re going to be. At least, tomorrow night. What do we do until then?”

Dashiell pondered. “Well first thing’s first. I’ve always said, ‘hope for the best, but plan for the worst.’ That means we need to get ready to deal with a potential army of the dead.”

“What about magic, Dash? Anyway you can deal with them?” Regina looked hopeful.

“I’m afraid not, Regina. I’m a decent enough warlock, when the situation demands. But against a demi-goddess? Even the best wizard or witch would be damn near powerless.”

“Well can you banish Hecate?” Dr. Wexler asked.

“Highly doubtful. Ironically enough, most banishing spells actually call on Hecate’s power to succeed. I doubt she’d be kind enough to lend us her power in her own banishment.”

“So that leaves the zombies,” Regina concluded. “Everything I know about zombies I’ve learned in the movies.”

“Surprisingly, they’re not far off,” Dashiell said. “Most zombie films get the basics right. Destroying the brain of a zombie is the most effective way to incapacitate it. Depending on the superstitions you follow, salt can also be effective. In Haiti, it’s said that a zombie that has tasted salt will return to its grave.”

“Is that going to work here, Dash? These aren’t Haitian zombies.”

“I know. I’m honestly not sure. But this opens up another possibility. Typically, holy symbols don’t work to repel zombies. But since these will be raised by a pagan goddess, it’s possible that Christian, Jewish, or Muslim holy symbols will repel them. Especially if they were initially of that religion. A piece of the soul animates the dead flesh. A Christian soul should rebel against pagan presence.”

“So salt, crosses and bullets. Got it. What about the witches?”

“I think I can handle them. But if necessary, they are mortal. Bullets will work on them. But that does remind me….” Dashiell reached into his shirt and pulled out the blue bead on its leather thong. He took it off and handed it to Regina. “Take this. Wear it at all times.”

She took it, giving Dashiell a quizzical look. “What’s this for?”

“Blue beads give protection against witches. That one is from my days with the Bureau, so it’s been fortified with extra spells of protection.”

She put it on, looking slightly worried. “What about you, Dash? Don’t you need something?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a knotted handkerchief and I always carry an acorn. They both bring good luck. Besides, I can try and find another blue bead before tomorrow night.”

“So what do we do until then?”

“Rest up and gather supplies. You should inform the Captain what’s going on. I’ll put in a call to some friends in the government. Otherwise, we just have to wait.”

He turned to Dr. Wexler. “Thank you for all your help Doctor.”

Dr. Wexler nodded. “You’re quite welcome. Good luck.”

Dashiell and Regina left the Library, heading back to Regina’s car.

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Chapter 22

Silence reigned in the richly appointed room as Dashiell made this pronouncement. Finally, Regina broke it.

“An army?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. It’s the only explanation for raising a demi-goddess. They want numbers.”

“Well then,” Dr. Wexler said, “that makes it fairly obvious where they’ll go, doesn’t it?”

Dashiell and Regina both turned to regard her.

“Well...” she hesitated. “If you truly believe that raising an army is their goal…there’s only one place to go around D.C. - Arlington National Cemetery.”

Dashiell looked thunderstruck. “Of course. They can literally raise an army. My God. Think of the damage they could do.”

Regina turned to Dashiell. “Okay, Dash. So they can raise a lot of corpses. Probably thousands. Is that about the size of it?”

“It’s a little more disturbing than that, Regina. The dead often recall the skills they had in life. Even I can take advantage of the skills of a trained corpse I’ve raised. But with divine involvement, the dead may have better recall. I’ve never dealt with this situation. But it’s possible that not only will they have numbers, they’ll have trained troops. And troops who can’t be killed conventionally. If they manage to arm them….”

Regina and Dr. Wexler shuddered.

“So we need to stop them before they succeed,” Regina said.

“That’s the conclusion I’m coming to,” Dashiell replied. “So where would they set up? Arlington is a big place. We need to narrow it down.”

Dr. Wexler spoke. “Well, they’ll need a fire. I’ll believe they can do without the cave, especially since being in one of Hecate’s domains will strengthen their connection to her. But the spell repeats the phrase ‘Fire burn and cauldron bubble.’ They have to build one.”

“Well,” Regina said, “as large as it is, it’s dark at night. A fire is going to be visible for some distance in the park. They might risk it, since they wouldn’t expect a lot of foot traffic at night.”

“But remember, the park isn’t entirely empty,” Dr. Wexler chimed in. “There’s a dress Marine guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier twenty-four hours a day. If he saw a fire, he’s sure to call it in.”

“Unless, of course, he’s used to seeing one,” Dashiell said quietly. “There’s one place in the cemetery an open flame wouldn’t be noticed, because it’s already burning. The tomb of JFK.”

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Chapter 21

“That’s easy, Dash. Luray Caverns, out in Virginia,” Regina said. “They’re the only caves of any size within a couple hours of D.C.”

“Hmmm. They’re what, 45 minutes away?” Dashiell asked.

“About that, yes,” Regina replied.

“They’re fairly commercialized, however,” Dr. Wexler said. “Lots of tourists, and a set of park rangers who regularly patrol the entrance to the caves.”

Dashiell shook his head. “Seems like a bad choice. Too easy to be trapped inside. And too hard to get inside in the first place. I imagine a car would stand out in the empty parking lot, and there’s no other easy way to get out there.”

“So you think they’ll be closer in to the city?” Regina asked.

“But what about what you said earlier, about belief and mindset?” Dr. Wexler asked.

“Well, that might be why they wanted the pilot’s thumb. To increase the connection to the spell and the play, since they knew that they wouldn’t be able to use a cave,” Dashiell replied.

“So where else would they go?” Dr. Wexler inquired.

“Well that’s what has me worried. You said Hecate is a demi-goddess of graveyards. If they are planning on raising her, they want to do it in a graveyard.”

Regina looked at Dashiell. “And why would they want to raise her there?”

“I’m afraid they might be trying to raise the dead.”

Dr. Wexler scoffed. “Mr. Aldridge, I understand you’re trying to find these women because they’ve hurt people. But you can’t seriously be considering the possibility that they could actually accomplish anything.”

Dashiell looked at her gravely. “Dr. Wexler, I worked for ten years for the Bureau of Occult Investigations. I have seen things that no living man should have to witness. Raising the dead is fairly minor among them. I assure you, it can be done. I myself have done it on more than one occasion.”

Dr. Wexler continued to look incredulous. But she didn’t seem quite so certain. “You’ve raised a Goddess of the Dead to help you raise corpses?”

Dashiell’s forehead wrinkled. “No. That’s one thing that’s been bothering me. A single witch or warlock can raise the dead. Three together can even raise several corpses together. There’s only one reason I could imagine that someone would want to summon Hecate, or a similar God or Goddess.”

“And what’s that, Dash?” Regina asked from her place by the table.

“To raise an army of the dead.”

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Chapter 20

They turned at the sound of the voice, and saw an older woman with short brown hair, standing just inside the room. “Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Gayle Wexler. I’m a curator here at the Library, specializing in the study of Shakespeare. I was asked to stop by and answer your questions.”

Regina spoke. “Well perhaps you could answer mine, then. Where do you get a dragon’s scale? Even in Shakespeare’s time?”

“An interesting question. And the answer lies in botany and alchemy,” Dr. Wexler replied. "You see, most so-called ‘witches’ of Shakespeare’s day were wise-women, or what we would call homeopathic medics.”

“See, Regina? I wasn’t that far off when I went to check into traditional remedies,” Dashiell chimed in. “So how does botony come in, Dr. Wexler?”

“Well, in order to keep proprietary knowledge over these remedies, and thus keep their place in society, these women would use code to describe the ingredients. Often times, they’d use the shapes of the leaves or flowers they needed. Thus, tongue of dog was a leaf known as ‘hound’s tongue,’ because of the shape. Today, we call it vanilla leaf.”

“Interesting,” Dashiell said.

“Okay, so then what else would they need?” Regina asked.

Dr. Wexler approached the table and pointed to the passage Dashiell and Regina had been examining earlier. “Well let’s see. In terms of homeopathic medicine, ‘fillet of a fenny snake’ would most likely be chickweed. ‘Eye of newt,’ assuming we’re not being literal, would be daisies. ‘Toe of frog’ is the bulbous buttercup and ‘wool of bat’ would be holly. To answer your original question, ‘scale of dragon’ could be either the flower daemomorops draco, known as ‘Dragon’s blood,’ or, even easier to find, tarragon.”

“Hmmm,” Dashiell ruminated. “Well that takes care of a lot of this. But obviously it can’t all be code. We have one very dead tiger at the National Zoo, alone with his zookeeper, as well as a dead baby and a disfigured corpse or two. I’m also concerned about ‘nose of Turk’ and ‘Tartar’s lips.’”

“Yes, that is disturbing,” Dr. Wexler agreed. “Shakespeare chose to use three items from heretics. Hence the blaspheming Jew, Tartar and Turk. All three were non-Christian, and were viewed as unclean in Shakespeare’s day. And yes, there is no herbal equivalent for the ‘finger of birth-strangled babe.’ At least none that any of the literature has been able to uncover.”

“Well, Dr. Wexler,” Regina said, “someone, or several someones, have been trying to recreate this spell.”

“To what possible end?”

“I think they’re trying to summon Hecate,” Dashiell said. “And we intend to stop them.”

Dr. Wexler laughed nervously. “But that’s crazy! Hecate doesn’t exist. You can’t summon her.”

“Someone seems to think you can,” Dashiell said. “So humor us. Tell us everything you know about her.”

Dr. Wexler sat down in a chair at the table, looking slightly shaken. “I still can’t believe you’re taking this seriously. But I’ll tell you what I know so you can catch whoever did this. Let’s see…” She fidgeted, trying to remember. “Hecate is the Goddess of the New Moon and magic. She’s the Greek Goddess of the crossroads. Both literal crossroads, and the crossroads of life and death. In some cultures, she’s known as the ‘Queen of Ghosts’ and has power over graveyards. This goes hand in hand with her role as a lunar goddess.”

“And it matches up with the use of yew in the spell,” Dashiell said. “Which has long been tied to both the moon and life and death. You say she’s tied to the new moon. That’s tomorrow night. I’m guessing by the way they’ve stepped up their boldness that they plan to complete the spell then.”

“So where would they go to do it?” Regina asked.

“Well the scene takes place in a cave,” Dr. Wexler said. “If what you were saying when I came in is true, that might indicate they would use one.”

“Well I’d guess they’re planning on casting this nearby,” Dashiell said. “They’ve been moving in on D.C. as they get their harder to find ingredients. And with the deadline, they’re likely to be doing this somewhere nearby. So where are the nearest caves?”

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Chapter 19

Thunder. Enter the three Witches
First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch
Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.

First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Dashiell and Regina hovered over a copy of Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I.

“Dash, how did you ever come up with this?” Regina asked.

“Well, it was fairly simple, actually. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. But as you can see, it uses some fairly archaic terms. A ‘tiger’s chaudron’ is a tiger’s entrails. That explains the zoo. ‘Finger of birth-strangled babe, ditch delivered by a drab.’ Drab is another word for prostitute. And the liver of blaspheming Jew. You said Mr. Goldman was killed in his home, Friday night at 8. Goldman is a Jewish name, and 8 pm is the Sabbath. He should have been at Temple. So it adds up.”

“Okay Dash, but what about the pilot’s thumb? That’s not here. And they didn’t even have airplanes in Shakespeare’s day. So it had to be some other kind of pilot, like on a riverboat.”

“Ah, well this is where the cleverness comes in. And something of the nature of witchcraft. Most witchcraft spells are designed the way they are not because you need anything specific. Rather, they exist to help clear and focus the mind. The actual words and ingredients are unimportant. In this case, having an airline pilot’s thumb helps the witches concentrate on their end goal. And the fact that it isn’t part of this spell doesn’t matter. It’s associated with the play. Which makes sense. I think they’re trying to summon Hecate. And there’s no reason a demigoddess would be called by a potion. But as you can see, she appears right after the charm is completed. That should be enough to work in this day and age.”

“Alright fine. But what about some of these other ingedients? A witches’ mummy? The ‘maw and gulf’ of a ‘ravined salt sea shark’? And scale of dragon? There’s no such things as dragons, Dash. How can they possibly hope to complete the spell?”

“I think I can answer that,” said a new female voice from the door.

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Chapter 18

Dashiell stepped into the dark room and the lights automatically flickered on. The room was clean, but it appeared unused. For all he knew, he was the first person to enter the archives since the Bureau had been closed.

He always thought of it as the Bureau, even though most people meant the FBI when they used that shorthand. But he figured it served them right. After all, even though the official designation for his former employer was the BOI, most feds couldn’t resist making a play on the nature of what was investigated, and referred to it as the Bureau of the Occult, or to be cute, BOO.

He made his way through the spacious room, looking around for the reference materials. Once he located them, he took his time trying to locate the volume he wanted. But at last, there is was: “Deities and Demigods.” He pulled the large volume from the shelf next to the more popular Monster Manual, and headed to a large table.

He flipped open to the index and started looking for cross-references to tigers. There were at least 30 different Gods and demigods listed. He decided to skip over the Gods and move right to the demigods and demigoddesses. This still left over twenty five deities. Several were Tiger-Gods, while others were only tangentially related to tigers.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated.

He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the display. It showed the number for Metro P.D. That meant it was either the captain calling to check up on him, or Regina with something to tell him. Either way, he decided to answer the phone.

“Aldridge here.”

“Hey Dash.” It was Regina’s voice. “How goes the investigation?”

“Slowly. And I’ve come up with some disturbing possibilities. How about on your end?”

She sighed heavily. “You know, you’d think it’d be easy to return information that I asked for, and not a bunch of extraneous crap. I sent out a bolo to all the local M.E.s asking for information on bodies with missing extremities, and I get all sorts of random bullshit. Like the idiot up in Baltimore who sent word of the body with the missing liver.”

Something in Dashiell’s brain sat up and took notice.

“Wait, what?”

“Huh? I said we got word of a guy with a missing liver. Why? Is that significant?”

“I’m not sure. Tell me about it.”

There was the sound of shuffling papers as Regina looked around on her desk for the file.

“Let’s see….Abe Goldman, 57, killed in his home last weekend, liver had been removed.”

Dashiell’s face creased in thought. “When last weekend?”

“Uh…Friday night.”

“What time on Friday?”

“Let’s see….best the M.E. can tell is sometime around 8 p.m.”

That seemed right. He was right on the edge of something. Like a name on the tip of your tongue.

“Regina, did the Fairfax M.E. send you the report on the car accident on the 273? The local Coroner told me about it.”

More shuffling papers. “Yeah, here it is. Captain Todd Stevens. What about it?”

“Captain? Was he in the armed forces?”

“No. Says here he flew for Delta Airlines.”

The thought that had been percolating in Dashiell’s subconscious for the last several hours sprang fully formed into his mind. It was almost too absurd to be believed. Could someone really be trying that? His eyes scanned the list of demigods on the table in front of him and he found the name he was looking for.

“Which way was he headed when the accident happened? In towards the airport, or away?”

“Uh…westbound. Away from the airport.”

Words flashed through Dashiell's mind. "Here I have a pilot's thumb, wracked as homeward he did come."

“Clever girls….” His voice was soft, as if he was speaking to himself.

“What was that Dash?”

“Regina, I’m almost positive our cases are connected. And that means we’re looking for women. Three of them.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ll explain when we meet, Regina.”

“Meet where?”

“The Folger Shakespeare Library.”

Next>

Chapter 17

Dashiell approached a door with a frosted glass window, the words “Restricted Access” emblazoned in large letters. As if this wasn’t enough, the two armed guards on either side, members of the Library of Congress Police Force, ensured that no one entered without a proper pass.

Dashiell reached into his jacket and pulled out a slim black wallet. He flipped it open. Inside was a badge that identified him as a former government employee with clearance to enter this portion of the Library. The guard on the right looked over the ID, nodded and then turned to the door. He pressed a code into the keypad next to it, while the guard on the left pressed his thumb into a sensor on his side.

With an audible click, the door opened, and Dashiell stepped through. It closed behind him and he heard the locks engaging. He nodded to the two guards on this side of the door, before looking at what lay before him.

He was standing in a well-lit hallway, florescent bulbs in the ceiling reflecting off the hospital white tile floor. This portion of the Library looked different than the public sections. The hallway was wide. Three people could easily walk abreast down it, without brushing shoulders. Running down either side of the hallway were large oaken doors. Each door was made of a dark, solid oak, and each had a keypad over the handle.

The doors had no nameplates. Instead, the only indication of what lay inside were the official seals that marked the doors in gold paint. The first few doors carried the familiar symbols of the cabinet departments. A cursory examination would show that, starting with the first door on the right, and then alternating across the hall, the cabinet offices were in order of creation, from the oldest, State, to the newest, Homeland Security.

He walked a good way down the hall before he came to the door he was looking for. It was on the left. He briefly reflected on the fact that the secret archives of his former employer was on the sinister side of the hall, and knew that the former Director would have had something to say about it.

He looked at the seal. He hadn’t thought about it in nearly seven years. It would have been both familiar and disturbingly unrecognizable to the average citizen. It looked much like the Seal of the Department of Justice. But where the eagle on the DOJ seal was sitting atop a shield, this eagle was sitting atop a pentagram.

This was the seal of his former employer, the Bureau of Occult Investigations.

Dashiell punched in a seven digit code, then turned the handle.

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Chapter 16

Dashiell shook himself out of his reverie. Dark thoughts lay down that path and he wasn’t sure he could afford to entertain them. Then again, he was even more worried that he couldn’t afford not to. The more he thought about it, the more sure he was that he was right.

And while his subconscious had yet to cough up whatever it was that had started nagging at him in the coroner’s office, it did tell him that this seemed to fit. He just hoped it would spit out whatever it was chewing on soon. He had a feeling he didn’t have a lot of time.

He shook himself again. Okay – he was fairly certain whoever he was looking for was in the process of calling up a god. An incredibly risky and stupid maneuver. But then, smart people didn’t go for a life of crime. So now, the question was, which god? If Dashiell could figure that one out, he might get a jump on finding whoever they were.

Well, he could rule out Western religions. The God of Christianity and Judaism, not to mention Islam, didn’t come when summoned. He came when He felt like it, and contacted the individual or individuals in question. Of course, that was true for most full Gods. Some would deign to respond, when summoned. But most preferred to be the instigators of any contact. And then they’d provide a much easier way to get in touch than this. No, this much power was designed to get a god’s attention.

Maybe they were just going for a demigod. That was much safer, could be handled by three witches or warlocks without too much risk to the casters, and was much more likely to respond to a summons.

Of course, that list wasn’t exactly slim. But he had a big clue. It would be a demigod linked to tigers in some way.

He looked around the section of the Library he was in. Well, there would be some books here, but mainly pop cultural stuff. For the sort of details he needed, he’d be better off with the work the Bureau had done. Much more authoritative.

So he got up and headed even deeper into the building, headed for the parts not open to the public.

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Chapter 15

Dashiell entered the building and showed his Library of Congress ID. He then headed back into the depths of the labyrinthine library. The place smelled of an odd mixture of old paper and furniture oil. He headed to the room that contained the B section of the call numbers. That’s where the books on magic and superstition were located. If he struck out there, he always had his government ID that would get him into the more restricted section, where the Bureau’s old texts were kept.

He studied the symbolism of the tiger and didn’t like what he found. In India, the god Shiva was known to wear a tiger skin when in his aspect as the destroyer. It was this aspect of Shiva that Oppenheimer invoked when he saw the first atomic bomb – I am become death, shatterer of worlds.

Could whoever he was looking for be trying to conjure up a God? That would explain the effort to keep the knife pure. That was the sort of power that would require purity in the harvesting of ingredients.

But summoning forth a god, while possible, was extremely difficult and even more dangerous. In fact, it was not something that could or should be tried alone. So perhaps he was looking for more than one culprit.

Suddenly, something clicked in his mind. Of course. He had seen marks of three candles on the ground at the zoo. He had assumed that they were three separate focus points to control male, female and tiger cubs. Apparently, he’d been only half right. Those candles had been used by three separate people.

This had its own comforts and fears. It was comforting to the extent that it meant that he wasn’t dealing with a truly powerful warlock or witch. That had been bothering him ever since the zoo.

On the other hand, if he was correct, it made this new theory that much more possible. Witchcraft was a funny thing. Witches and warlocks, working together, were capable of much greater feats than either one working alone, even if they were working on similar spells. When you started messing around with mystical numbers, it got even more powerful. There was a reason that Charmed had three main actresses. Circles of 3, 7 or 13 witches could bring about truly powerful magic.

That was why the Bureau always made sure it had 273 witches or warlocks available in D.C. at all times. When combined, this circle, made up of all three mystical numbers, could do anything. But it took the organizing force of a government to bring together that much magical ability.

If it were Dashiell, he wouldn’t even risk calling forth a god with less than 7, and he’d prefer 13. And even then, he’d stick to the more benign end of the pantheon. Calling up anything more serious, he’d want at least 21 or 39, a combination of two of the three numbers.

To do anything less would be insanity and risk loosing a destructive force on the plant that nothing could stop. Ever since the Administration closed down the Bureau, the agents had scattered to the four winds.

Dashiell had the sudden sinking feeling in his gut that he couldn’t afford to get this wrong. He had to stop whoever was doing this before they could complete their work.

But how?

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