Forty thousand dollars to fetch one old book from New Rochelle. Cassey Bane should have asked who else wanted it.
I could do without this, Cassey thought. But when things were quiet in the private detective business, she couldn’t just pick and choose her clients. At another time she would’ve declined this consultation with Miss Combs. She hated the rich bitch. Not because her last job for Combs had nearly cost her life. It was the woman’s sheer obnoxious presence.
Combs sat before her in a black Louis Vuitton polka dot dress, the same style Jolie wore at the last Oscars. But, Cassey thought with sarcasm, Jolie filled it out better. Jet-black hair, brushed with a severe centre parting, flanked her pale, oval-shaped face. As usual, Combs’s eyes were concealed behind dark sunglasses. Rounded Pollini’s, the white frames matched her Valentino pumps. She clutched a black crocodile skin handbag on her lap in white gloved hands. Today Combs smelled strongly of vanilla, a perfume she didn’t usually wear. The scent, sweet and cloying, felt as overbearing as the woman wearing it.
After the, “Thank you for seeing me,” and “I hope business is going well,” Combs got down to the nitty gritty of her visit.
“It’s just an old book, really,” she said with honey in her voice. “Up for auction at Sotheby’s. Well ahem, it should be up for auction at Sotheby’s, but I’ve done an outside deal with the current owner and I’m buying it outright. You know, I absolutely despise the ugly rigmarole of bidding, and complete and utter anonymity is a key issue here. Um, after the incident with that last item you procured for me, I know you can be trusted to keep my business to yourself.”
Bright red lips formed a large smile, revealing Combs’s perfect, shiny white teeth.
Even in her best black suit, Cassey felt underdressed in Combs’s presence. She returned the smile, said, “So it’s a simple job. You want me to pick a book up for you. And…” She paused, allowed the silence to fall between the pair for a few seconds. “What’s the catch?”
“Aha! Now this is why I like you,” Combs said. Leaving her purse on her lap, she removed her sunglasses. Large blue eyes, heavy with mascara, twinkled, along with that predatory expression that Cassey had grown to hate. “The book, they say, is cursed.”
Cassey blinked, slowly. “You’re shitting me, Miss Combs.” This wasn’t disbelief on her part. She’d dealt with a mysterious, supposedly cursed book before. But, not again, even with the wolves at her door. “No, I’m sorry, but no,” she continued. “I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
Miss Combs pouted. “I honestly didn’t think a curse would deter you, Cassandra Bane. Anyhow, I’ll give you forty thousand dollars, half now, the other half on receipt of the manuscript.” She placed her sunglasses on Cassey’s desk, and opening the clasp on her purse, reached into it to remove a large brown envelope. She dropped it loudly, closed the purse and replaced her sunglasses.
Cassey eyed the envelope hungrily, and unable to resist, reached over, pulled it to her side of the desk.
“Damn you Combs,” she whispered.
“We’re all damned my dear,” Miss Combs replied, flashing her teeth with a sneer. “It’s how we find ways to enjoy life regardless, this is what counts.”
With a sigh and a nod, Cassey said, “Okay, where do I start.”
Combs waved at the envelope. “The address you need is noted on the CD inside. There’s a little light reading so you know what you’re getting into. So that’s it, a simple book collection. Call me when you have it.”
Cassey grimaced, considered saying something about this ‘simple’ claim. Instead she replied, “Of course, I’ll have it for you in a day or so.”
“Excellent,” Combs’s face beamed. “Well. I must be going. My driver is waiting.”
Combs stood, offered a gloved hand that Cassey shook reluctantly, and left the office. To Cassey’s chagrin, the vanilla scent remained.
She waited a few minutes before emptying the envelope onto her desk. She tore the envelope, upturned it. Bundles of fresh new bills fell to the desk’s surface. A small fortune to her right now. She’d count it later. Within the pile lay a compact disc in a white paper sleeve. Cassey retrieved a bundle of notes, flicked through it, and sent her office door a foul look.
Dealing with the woman felt like selling her soul, but the money was good. She dropped the bundle and removed the compact disc from the pile.
A circular window on the sleeve displayed the CD’s title. The words The Starry Wisdom Library: The Catalogue of the Greatest Occult Book Auction of All Time were printed there in black gothic script.
“Hmmm.” Cassey flipped the sleeve over, finding a note written in spidery blue script: Read the entry on Fragments of a Necronomicon, and below this, Mr. P Lake, 180 Davenport Ave., New Rochelle, New York. The note bore the signature J. Combs.
Cassey didn’t know what the J stood for, didn’t particularly care.
“Okay. Let’s see what you have for me.” She dragged her laptop from the left side of her desk, lifted the screen, and pressed a side button to open the CD drive.
She slipped the disc inside, closed the drive. A few moments later, a brown rectangle appeared at the centre of the screen. The rectangle held the words, Starry Wisdom Library Loading, followed by View Entries?
Cassey touched the mouse pad, moved the cursor and tapped the box.
The Starry Wisdom Library:
The Catalogue of the Greatest Occult Book Auction of All Time.
Gold lettered with black borders, the script filled the screen. The light brown background bore heraldic designs.
Beneath Library was a shield-shaped icon with a three lobed eye inside. She moved the cursor to the shield, the arrow transforming to a hand.
She clicked it, and the screen became a list of entries.
She scrolled past Dedication, Acknowledgements, and Introduction, pausing at Summary of lots on offer.
Another click opened a new screen, paragraphs bearing the titles and cosmetic condition of various books. She scanned the names, reading titles such as The Book of Nonterraqueous, and The Daemonolorum.
This appeared to be a digitalized catalogue of books about witchcraft and demonology.
Of course it’s witchcraft, otherwise why would Combs be interested? She shook her head, scrolled further until she reached a title she recognized.
Fragments of a Necronomicon.
She tapped the name, opening a new entry.
Okay let’s get down to this.
The Necronomicon. A brief history.
A book infamous, and almost legendary, in occult circles, the Necronomicon purportedly describes the true pre-history of the planet Earth, including dealings the pre-human races had with entities and deities, many of which exist beyond our known dimensions of time and space. Its contents are said to include rituals and formulae designed to contact, summon and visit the various beings, and thus obtain the forbidden knowledge they possess.
Having had her own experiences with the outré, Cassey took what she read seriously.
The Necronomicon (Original title Al Azif) was written by the mystic Abdul Alhazred of Sanaá, in Yemen. According to his 12th century biographer, Ebn Khallikan, Alhazred lived during the period the Ommiade caliphs ruled, circa 700 A.D.
Alhazred travelled extensively, visiting places rumoured to be cursed or haunted by monsters and evil spirits. Throughout these years of wandering, he claimed to have visited lost Irem, the City of Pillars, (in Arabic: Irem dhāt al-ʿimād), and communed with the ancient entities there. Known as something of a heretic, he is said to have worshipped Yog-Sothoth, Cthulhu, and other gods blasphemous to the Muslim religion.
Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth? I know those names from somewhere, she thought. I’ve read about them certainly.
Alhazred resided in Damascus during his later years, and it is here he wrote the Al Azif. His biographer states that one day, Alhazred was attacked by an invisible entity, and torn to shreds before multiple witnesses.
The tome spent two centuries being circulated by philosophers and believers who hoped to discover its secrets. In 950 A.D. the Greek scholar Theodorus Philetas, of Constantinople, translated the Al Azif into his native tongue, renaming it The Necronomicon. Later, in 1228, the occultist Olaus Wormius translated the tome into Latin, and around this time all copies of the original Al Azif were lost.
In 1232, the Wormius translation came to the attention of the Catholic Church. Pope Gregory IX banned both the Latin and Greek editions. Many copies were destroyed around this time.
“Ah. Typical religious hysteria. If you don’t like it, burn it.” Though in the case of this book, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, she mused.
In the fifteenth century a surviving copy of the Wormius edition was translated into German. Between 1500 and 1550, the Greek edition was translated into Italian. In the sixteenth century, Alchemist John Dee translated an edition into English. This version never saw print, and exists only in his handwritten notes. The seventeenth century saw a second printing of the Latin edition, published in Spain.
Just more copies to burn, she thought. Only a few paragraphs remained.
A copy of the fifteenth century Latin text is stored in the British Museum. Of the seventeenth century reprint, four known copies exist. These are owned by the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the Widener Library at Harvard, Miskatonic University at Arkham, and the library of the University of Buenos Ayres.
Arkham, that cursed place. She’d visited the town on a case. Had no intention of ever returning.
This brings us to the lot we have on offer: Fragments of a Necronomicon.
She scrolled further.
Written by Curtis Jacobs, a nineteenth century medium who gained notoriety and a small cult following in the 1830s. After one of his trances, Jacobs claimed he had encountered a female angel named ‘Bath Kol,’ an entity that exists upon an astral plane. He met her repeatedly during the years 1834 and 1835, where she narrated the contents of Fragments of a Necronomicon, which he transcribed onto paper.
The book holds descriptions of various spiritual planes and their inhabitants, with instructions on how to reach those planes, both through trance and physically. It also has instructions on how to summon the denizens of the planes, including Bath Kol herself.
Cassey frowned. So an angel revealed the contents to him? More likely he had a copy of the Necronomicon of his own.
In 1836 Jacobs had fifty copies of the book published at his own expense. In the first month of its release, seven owners disappeared, and five died, murdered in horrible circumstances. A disturbed Jacobs went on to destroy all the copies of the book he could find, including those he retrieved from the estates of dead and missing owners.
His followers’ faith did not diminish, and a year later, after he himself disappeared, his cult claimed he had transcended to Bath Kol’s spirit plane.
In 1838, a group séance, formed to contact Jacobs, led to multiple deaths, some to suicide, some to murder. Two members found missing were presumed guilty of the killings.
She understood why Combs wanted this book. The woman collected all kinds of occult crap, some of which Cassey had procured for her. Scanning the rest of the page, she discovered that a surviving copy of the book, used in that fatal séance, was up for auction, complete with bloodstains. I should have said no. I really should.
To her, the book’s history seemed on par with Tutankhamun’s “curse.” Occult books often had sordid, mysterious histories, the older they got, the more devilish prestige they gained. She certainly wouldn’t want to test her pessimism by reading it, however. Combs on the other hand…
“Oh.”
She found a black and white drawing further down the page. The illustration depicted a bizarre creature, shaped like a scaly cone and topped by two back-to-back female torsos. Bald, naked and full breasted, each bore wings in place of arms. These protruded from the shoulder blades, and had sharp, sword-like protuberances in place of feathers. The elfin faces, high browed with pointed ears, had haughty expressions.
Beneath the illustration she read: The Angel Bath Kol.
Was it just her imagination or did the faces resemble Combs? Perhaps it came down to the arrogant demeanour the artist had so skilfully portrayed. The picture offended her anyway, and with the entry finished, she closed the window.
“Think of the money,” Cassey said, and began scooping the cash back into the envelope.
Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Doors stood to her left and right, each with a set of bars over a small window slot. She was running through the asylum, a terrible environment she revisited in her darkest nightmares. Something huge rumbled behind her, a thing that rolled and stamped and squeezed itself down the corridor, growing closer by the second. She couldn’t look back, for the thought of seeing what pursued her made her weakening legs turn to jelly. That it was a horror, an obscenity, a sanity-blasting fiend, she had little doubt. The corridor continued, its termination remaining distant no matter how far she ran. And the horror was closing.
Cassey passed an open door, spied a cavernous room with benches reaching to a pulpit. A church? Droning voices issued from row upon row of indistinct figures. In place of a cross, she’d glimpsed a monstrous, winged shape hovering beyond the pulpit.
This was new. These doors were always locked tight.
Another open doorway. Beyond stood a wood-panelled room centred by a huge circular table. Corpses littered the room. The stink of blood from the mangled flesh remained with her as she ran.
Her pursuer roared. Something like an elephant’s trumpet, but so deep it made the floor vibrate beneath her.
So close now. Cassey could feel the heat from its incredible form.
She had to escape. But to where?
Noting another open doorway ahead and to her left, she darted towards and through it, slamming it shut behind her.
The risk paid off, for the horror rumbled past outside. She gasped loudly as she slowed her panicked breathing.
This room though. It wasn’t a cell. Not a regular one anyway. Stone slab walls, sandy stone blocks beneath her feet, a man sat with his back to her in its centre: a naked, emaciated form.
Exotic spices filled the air.
He had dark skin, his back, arms and buttocks covered in intricate cuneiform writing.
“H-Hello?” she said.
At the sound he turned his bald, jaundiced head.
Cassey recoiled.
His eyes bulged from the sockets, for there were no lids to frame them.
The tattooed script covered his cheeks and forehead.
Feeling renewed fear, Cassey pushed herself against the door. The man’s dry lips opened, revealing yellow-stained teeth. A shrill, unnatural drone issued from his mouth.
The sound continued as Cassey swam up from the nightmare. A few seconds later she groggily reached for the cellphone on her bedside table. Her first attempt at retrieving it failed, and it clattered back down. She gripped it tighter, brought it to her face, and tapped her thumb on the screen to unlock it.
The time read 4:42. Beneath this, a flashing red phone icon and the words: CALLER UNKNOWN.
She rolled onto her back, tapped the icon, and placed the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
Silence, a slight crackle of static.
“Who is it?” she asked, becoming annoyed. She went to sever the connection when a quiet male voice said, “Miss Cassandra Bane, is that you?”
“Speaking,” Cassey replied. “Who is this?”
“Friend,” came the reply. “The book you are seeking. We need it.”
“Uh, this is way too early for this kind of shit.” Cassey yawned, rubbed her eye.
“Whatever Combs is offering, we can offer more. Meet?” the voice continued, and at this point, Cassey had had quite enough of her mysterious caller.
“No dice. A deal is a deal,” she said. Ending the connection, she set the phone to silent and tossed the cellphone to the bedroom floor.
Someone else looking for the book? Maybe Combs spoiling that auction rubbed someone the wrong way. Too tired for further speculation, she rolled over, curling up to embrace the remainder of her night’s sleep.
The next day she found twenty five missed calls on her phone, all from that same unknown number.
She blocked it, and spent her morning doing paperwork in her office.
At lunchtime, she ate a falafel from the vendor outside her building.
A short while later she was entering her silver Toyota Venza on Combs’s errand.
After fastening her safety belt, she tapped the address Combs provided into her GPS. A simple enough route: she needed to turn off 25th Street, drive down 23rd to the East River, then down FDR Drive until the Interstate. Her GPS estimated a fifty-minute journey, but this depended on traffic.
She released the handbrake and set off, following the male-voiced GPS’s instructions. It was a clear journey until FDR Drive, where she was forced to halt for road works.
As men in white helmets and fluorescent yellow vests worked in ditches, her thoughts turned to her dream.
Those rooms. New to her nightmare and quite unwelcome. The book had influenced it certainly. A cult meeting hosted by Jacobs; the séance that led to all those brutal deaths… The man in the final room though, covered in strange script. Abdul Alhazred himself? Almost certainly. And that damned caller.
“Fuck you Combs. It’s always the same with you isn’t it?”
The sooner this day was over the better.
The traffic light changed to green, and she got moving again.
Robert F Kennedy Bridge came next, the Harlem River’s dark waters stretching beneath her.
The river would be a good place to dump the book. Combs too for that matter.
A straight drive along the Interstate, and she was crossing the Hudson. Next, the New England Thruway and forest began flanking the road.
Seeing a sign for New Rochelle, Cassey realized she was nearing her destination.
Almost there, thankfully.
The GPS directed her right onto Drake Avenue, a wide street of white panelled houses. A couple more streets followed, and she entered Davenport Avenue. The end of her journey.
It looked like a nice area, nicer than her Red Hook home and its grey concrete surrounds anyway.
The properties on either side stood behind freshly cut lawns and trees, some almost invisible behind the tall masses of foliage.
So Mr Lake, where are you?
The GPS directed her to a two-story structure, with red wooden panels and a grey-shingled roof. No driveway to speak of, but a wide path stood between trees to the house’s right.
Cassey pulled up and checked her watch. It was just after eleven, meaning the journey had taken an hour.
Well here we go. About to exit her car, Cassey paused. Gun. Do I need my gun?
Her hand was halfway to the glove compartment when she decided against it.
She left the car and found another, smaller path nearby between overgrown bushes.
She eyed this dubiously then headed forward, her shoes treading on mulch as twigs scratched at her jacket.
The path ended at a brown door lined with dirty glass panels.
This didn’t feel right. The garden looked too overgrown, the house, with its lichen-stained panels and peeling paint, too unkempt in appearance.
Maybe the owner is down on his luck. Hence the deal with Combs. Perhaps the curse got to him.
Cassey giggled nervously.
She knocked on the door, three light taps.
Nothing for a few moments, then she heard a shuffling beyond the door. The sound of bolts being pulled followed, the removal of a chain, and finally, a key being turned.
Someone’s paranoid, she thought. The door opened half a dozen inches and halted at another chain.
An unshaven face appeared in the gap, wrinkled with a grey head of hair. The man squinted as he sized her up, said: “Combs gave me a description. I guess you fit.”
“I guess I do at that.”
His following smile, more of grimace really, didn’t reach his eyes.
“Hold on,” he said, and disappeared back into the house.
While Cassey waited, she tried to work out the man’s accent. British? No… that’s not it. As she settled on Australian he returned.
His face appeared in the gap, as did an object bundled in brown paper.
She paused the bundle’s progress with her hand.
“Hey, Mister Lake? I take it you’ve been paid for this?”
He nodded, said, “Don’t you worry about that. Now please, just take the book.”
She accepted the package, pulled it through the gap.
Cassey felt as if she’d agreed to some unknown compact.
“Good luck,” Lake said, and a second later, the door closed. She heard the bolts being quickly replaced.
“Huh. Thanks… I guess.” He couldn’t wait to be rid of it, and me.
Cassey looked from the door to the package. The brown paper, neatly folded, had been taped like a Christmas present. She turned, made her way back to her car.
Back on the sidewalk, she unlocked the trunk. She tucked the package into a small green rucksack sat between the spare tyre and the toolbox. Cassey locked the trunk, and a few minutes later was turning the car, heading back through Davenport Avenue.
Streets of trees and wide lawns led to rows of red brick apartment buildings. Soon after, thick woods replaced the buildings. She was the only driver on the road. This, combined with the pleasant scenery, soothed her mood. Cassey unwound the window and relaxed. Things were going smoothly. Soon the book would be out of her hands and hopefully, Combs would be out of her life for a while.
Fingers crossed.
Movement in the rear view mirror caught her eye; an ice blue Cadillac driving at speed behind her.
There was plenty of room to overtake. She slowed down, indicated for the car to pass.
The car sped up beside her. Cassey saw a pale face staring at her from the passenger side.
What the?
The car veered right, slamming into her. A violent jolt followed, the heavy crunch of impact making Cassey lose control of the wheel.
“Shit!”
She gripped the wheel in panic. Another jolt from the Cadillac sent her careening towards the roadside. She stamped the footbrake, the tyres screaming as the car came to an unruly halt before the forest. The sudden stop jolted her neck, painfully.
More angry than shaken, Cassey said, “You motherfuckers!”
She leant forward, opened her glove compartment and retrieved her Colt Defender.
“I should have expected this,” she said with a snarl. Undoing her seatbelt, Cassey went to open her door.
It was wedged shut from the attack.
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
The Cadillac had halted nearby.
“You bastards come for the book? Well come—” She left the sentence unfinished, scooted to the passenger’s side door. This one opened, with difficulty.
She fought against foliage, pushed the door through clinging brambles until she’d forced it open enough.
A quick look at the Cadillac showed her attackers getting out.
They approached slowly, leisurely towards her. This infuriated Cassey even further.
The male wore a grey suit, something in an old style. He had slicked back grey hair and an expressionless face. The woman? A baggy green dress and a black floppy hat, drooping around her straw-like blonde hair.
Thrift shop rejects.
She stepped around the car, pointing her gun between them.
“Listen, you fuckers. I don’t know who you are, but back off, just back off.”
Cassey breached the gap until only half a dozen feet stood between them.
A foul odour wafted from the pair, something ripe and stale. Rotten eggs and congealed grease.
They looked to one another. Up close they could be twins.
The male said, “Projectile weapon, chemical reaction. Quite dangerous.”
His voice seemed wrong, off kilter. It sounded like it issued from a badly tuned radio. It reminded her of the mysterious caller from last night.
“Crude but effective,” the woman replied, her voice as unusual as his.
The pair looked to her as one. They didn’t appear afraid of the gun whatsoever.
Cassey stepped forward, pressing the gun against the man’s head.
“Turn around. Leave. I mean it!”
The man seemed unfazed. “We require the book for our return.”
“What?” Cassey frowned.
“A split in the Einsteinian spacetime continuum invoked a dimensional violation,” the woman replied. “Trapped us here for decades.”
“We require the book for our return,” the man repeated.
“High chance she will discharge the weapon. Contingency required.” The woman raised her hand, revealed a black stone disc with chunks of crystal embedded in its flat surface.
The fillings in Cassey’s teeth started to vibrate. The cartilage in her joints seized up.
Waves of agony wracked her from head to toe. Her blood boiled. She dropped backwards to the ground.
Thick grass cushioned her fall somewhat, but unable to move, Cassey found herself staring at the sky.
She couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything but lie there helpless. The woman leant over her, followed by the man.
“Take the firearm,” she said. “Discharge the projectile into her head. It will terminate her quickly.”
Cassey still held the gun, her finger on the trigger. She fought the pain, focused all her willpower on that trigger. Her life depended on it.
The gun leapt in Cassey’s hand, the shot ringing loudly in her ears.
The pain disappeared. Finding she could move again, Cassey sat up.
The man was looking at his companion. She trembled where she stood, staring at the bullet hole in her left breast.
No blood visible, just blackness between the scorched green fabric.
“Oh dear,” he said.
The woman’s face transformed. Lips drawing back, clenched white teeth parted to release a powerful shriek. Her head spasmed, the hat and her hair slipping off. The loss of the wig revealed a scaly scalp, pointed ears.
Cassey nearly screamed herself as the head twisted round, revealing a duplicate face.
The shriek became a chorus as to Cassey’s horror, the head extended from the woman’s neck, revealing another pair of faces, and another.
Her gorge rose at the sight of those greasy, howling faces. She swallowed it back and fired three shots into the woman’s chest.
The impact sent her staggering backwards. She collapsed, the bulbous, elongated mass of faces flopping on the ground.
Cassey backed away through the bushes, continued firing shots towards the writhing horror.
Throughout this, the man stood immobile, staring at his companion.
The gun fired empty.
The woman was changing again, pulsing and growing as her cries grew deeper, less human.
Cassey tucked the gun into her waistband, turned, and rushed to her car. Getting inside, she slammed the passenger’s side door closed, climbed across to the driver’s seat. She’d thankfully left the key in the ignition.
“Car don’t fail me now!” she said, and tried the key.
The engine screeched, stalled, and refused to start.
“Dammit!” Cassey tried again. To her relief, the car roared to life. She fastened her seatbelt, performed a quick turn while reversing, and faced her attackers through the windscreen.
Cassey gasped. The woman had become something monstrous: a jet-black creature of wavering tentacles attached to a circular trunk. The trunk, covered in eyes and mouths, terminated in a mass of hoofed feet.
Those mouths hooted and bellowed. One snaking tentacle gripped the man by his throat. He flailed his arms, kicked about in panic, but remained trapped mid-air.
“You fuckers,” she said, revved the engine, and rammed them.
“It’s very good to see you Miss Bane,” Combs said with a grin. For a change, Combs wasn’t wearing sunglasses: her blue eyes appeared tired, with no makeup to hide the dark rings below.
Sat legs-crossed on the opposite side of Cassey’s desk, today she wore a short sleeved, bright red dress. Cassey didn’t recognize the brand. Combs’s pale arms and legs didn’t suit the look at all. Her calfskin ankle boots were the same black as her gloves and crocodile purse.
Cassey stared back, unsmiling, waiting to see if she could make Combs sweat.
Combs sat forward, gripped a knee, and said, “Ahem, well—”
“Just don’t,” Cassey interrupted. “Just don’t give me any of your friendly bullshit. You knew you were sending me into the thick of it with that blasted book.”
Combs’s face dropped momentarily. She frowned, grinned, said, “But nothing you couldn’t handle. I take it?”
That God awful leering smile. Cassey felt her anger grow. She kept it in check, and reached for the right desk drawer. Opening it revealed her gun, reloaded and sat atop the bundled book. She lifted the gun aside, retrieved the book, and left the drawer ajar.
Combs reached for the package, but Cassey pulled away. Combs sprang back as if she’d been electrocuted.
“My money,” Cassey said. “And there’s also the bill for the repairs on my car.”
“Of course.” Without taking her eyes off the book, Combs opened her purse, removed a white envelope. “Send the bill to my P.O. Box.”
Seeing Combs flustered felt priceless. Cassey accepted the envelope and passed the book across.
Combs shifted the package around in her hands, examining it. She paused and tore a slice of paper from a corner.
Cassey smelled the vinegary musk of old paper.
Combs clutched the book to her chest.
“Finally,” she said. Combs sounded sincere about it too.
Cassey needed to get something off her chest. Since the encounter with the twins, aspects of this case had been pressing on her. It all went back to Jacobs’s supposed contact with beings from across the veil. Add to that, the two survivors from that bloodbath of a séance. Where had they gone? Had something from that séance left with them? And the sketch, depicting an otherworldly being that resembled the woman seated across from her. It fitted together if you ignored the logic of a stable reality.
Or perhaps her client was just a rich young woman with a taste for occult memorabilia.
“Miss Combs. This isn’t the first time you’ve been in contact with the book, is it? And may I ask, where are you from, originally?”
Combs flashed her an enigmatic smile.
“Even your discretion may have its limits,” she replied.
Since returning from New Rochelle, Cassey had been in two minds about destroying the book. Seeing it now, in Combs’s possession, made her hope she got everything coming to her.
“Enjoy it,” Cassey said, and wondered if she’d ever see Combs again after today.
