True Colors

Chapter Four

The Depths

True north.

What the hell did it mean?

Gideon could wish for a little time to contemplate it. For now, though, he shoveled half the contents of each skillet on to his plate, helped himself to a generous squirt of ketchup on the hash browns and set to with enthusiasm.

Those first quick bites were indescribably delicious. Salty meat, rich melted cheese and sour cream on eggs and veggies, and crunchy filling potatoes, all with a beautiful, gentle woman in a warm kitchen on a cold winter’s night. Suddenly Gideon felt happier than he ever thought possible, happier than was even comfortable. The emotion shuddered through him with such fierce intensity his fingers shook as he gripped his knife and fork. He clenched his hands, willing the unsteadiness to stop.

Gideon had been one of Cuelebre’s deadliest dogs of war, the alpha captain that led the wolves, the mastiffs and the mongrels. His brigade had been the most gifted and volatile, the troops on the extreme edge. They had hurtled first into any conflict, not baying, but racing to the battle in an eager, murderous silence. They were the advance scouts, the rangers sent in to places too dangerous for the regular troops, the sentries that patrolled the shadowed corners and slipped past enemy lines to take down their opponents from behind.

Gideon had risen in the ranks when he still had the thoughtless athleticism of youth and a strong body that could go on forever just because he asked it to. Now that boundless, youthful energy had turned to disciplined maturity, and his blond hair had faded like an aging golden retriever’s pelt. He exercised and trained hard to maintain his muscled physique, stamina and quick reflexes. Each battle he fought and won, he did so knowing that his youth might have gone but he was still at peak condition, and it was not yet time for the alpha to lose his place at the head of the pack.

He was not one of the strange, immortal Wyr who had come into existence in the dawn of the world. Wolf Wyr had a life span of around two hundred years. If something didn’t bring him down first he expected to see another good eighty, eight-five years. With discipline and constant training, he could have spent another fifty years in active combat duty before age would have forced him to consider other options.

Here in the gentle sanctuary of Alice’s kitchen decorated with pretty sunflowers and sage green cabinets, with her sensitive, bright hazel gaze resting on him thoughtfully, and the kindest, most generous and delicious meal anybody had ever cooked for him spread out before him, he could finally admit the truth to himself about why he had quit—he had grown tired.

The tips of her slender fingers touched the back of one of his hands. “Are you all right?”

Riehl ducked his head. “Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff. “Thank you for supper.”

“You’re welcome.” The tip of her tongue touched her lower lip. She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she lowered her head instead.

They ate supper in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable. When Alice finished the food on her plate, Gideon took the serving spoon and offered her another helping of the scrambled egg dish. She raised her eyebrows but nodded with a smile. He watched with deep pleasure as she ate it.

His cell rang with Bayne’s ringtone, the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive”. He ducked his head further to shovel the last of the hash browns into his mouth even as he dug into his pocket for his phone. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s my boss. I’ve got to get this.”

The shadows came back into her face. He hated to see that. She said, “Of course you do.”

Gideon strode into the living room and clicked on the phone. “Yeah.”

“Heard you found your witness,” said Bayne.

“Yeah, I’m still with her,” Gideon said. He started to pace. “We’re at her place. What’s up?”

“We’re wrapping up at Haley Cannes’ apartment.” The gryphon said to someone else, “Pack it up. I want someone to comb through every file on the hard drive, and check out every contact on her email list.” Then his voice came back stronger, “You find out anything from Alice Clark?”

Hell yeah, a whole slew of new things, but most of them weren’t any of the sentinel’s business. Gideon turned to pace another lap. Alice was cleaning up the kitchen. She had carried the dishes to the sink. Even though she had a dishwasher, she was running a sink full of soapy water. It looked like she felt the need to do something as well.

Gideon said, “We’re still talking.”

“Call or text if you find out something new. In the meantime, we’ve got a lock on the whereabouts of all the chameleon Wyr who live in NYC. Now that schools have let out for winter break, some are traveling for the holidays. A family of four has left for Arizona, a single parent, her boyfriend and her kid have gone to L.A., and a couple are headed for Miami. We’re checking with the airports to confirm their flights left before the storm shut things down, but assuming they did, that leaves us eleven chameleons still in the city.”

“Right.” He looked at Alice again. She had finished the dishes and was wiping off the table. She had just started winter break? On the one hand, he liked that she had personal time right now. She needed it. On the other, he didn’t like the thought of her possible isolation. He growled, “Eleven is more than enough if he’s looking to do a repeat of seven years ago.”

“He’d only need four more, wouldn’t he?” Bayne said. “Something bothers me about all this. If this is the Jacksonville guy, last time he took advantage of a situation that was very comfortable for him. All of his victims lived together in one place, and they tended to isolate so nobody knew something might be wrong when the group disappeared for a week. They were only found after acquaintances missed them at the Masque they had scheduled to attend. That’s not the case with these murders.”

Gideon rubbed the back of his neck. “He plots things out carefully ahead of time,” he said. “He’s got a plan and he thinks it’s going to work.”

“Yeah,” Bayne growled. “That bothers me a hell of a lot.”

That also bothered Gideon. He asked, “What about protection?” The NYPD wouldn’t have the funding to provide police protection for eleven people, but the Wyr Division of Violent Crime was supported by a separate funding stream that came from the demesne’s coffers. As the sentinel heading the WDVC, Bayne could authorize such an expenditure of manpower and money if he deemed it appropriate.

“I’ll be setting up a task force when I get back to the office,” said Bayne. “Protection’s at the top of the agenda. It should be in place for everyone by morning. I want you to head it up.”

Gideon stopped pacing at the instant surge of denial. He looked at Alice again, and said to Bayne, “No can do. You’ll have to find someone else.”

Bayne said, “I assume you have a compelling reason for turning down this urgent assignment, and you are willing to share that reason with your new boss.”

“I do indeed,” said Gideon. “But it’s difficult to go into detail right now. I’ll have to get back to you.”

“Is that some kind of secret code for she can hear everything you say?”

“Yeah, something like that. In the meantime, I need to get back to questioning Alice.”

“Has she figured out she’s next on the list?”

“I don’t know,” Gideon said. “Maybe. But it’s all right, since I will be spending the night.”

Alice lifted her head and turned to look at him, her eyes wide and startled.

“I was going to tell you to hang with her until I got a guard detail sent over,” Bayne grunted. “At least that’s one thing to cross off my list tonight.”

“You can take it one step further,” Gideon told him. “I’ll stay the point person on this assignment.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “Are there implications in that?” Bayne asked. “I don’t like implications. I can’t figure them out on my own very often.”

Gideon smiled at Alice reassuringly. He said to Bayne. “Talk to you soon.”

“You’d better, son. You’ve got a lot to tell me,” said Bayne, who then hung up.

Alice’s pulse roared in her ears as she watched Gideon pocket his cell phone. She looked down and realized she was twisting the dish towel in her hands. She fought to breathe evenly as she hung the towel on the stove handle. Clothing whispered as Gideon moved into the kitchen doorway. There had to be something sane and sensible she could say, if only she could think of it. Her rabbiting mind hopped through a series of statements and discarded each one in rapid-fire succession.

That’s pretty presumptuous of you there, Detective. Did I say I’d let you spend the night?

Of course you’ve got to stay the night. It’s too dangerous out for anyone to try to drive.

How about that storm, eh?

We haven’t even kissed yet. (NOOO. Don’t say that.)

She croaked, “Do you want coffee?”

“Alice,” said Gideon.

Her head jerked up.

Watching her, Gideon felt such a powerful surge of tenderness at the disturbed confusion on her face, he couldn’t even smile, and for once the inappropriate lust stayed subjugated to his will. He wanted to take her in his arms again, just to hold her and tell her that everything would be all right.

He told her in a gentle voice, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk things over with you first, but my boss and I would like for me to crash on your couch tonight.”

Her unsteady fingers smoothed the towel. “You think that’s best?”

“We do,” he said. “There are too many indications that the killer feels the compulsion to follow certain patterns of order.”

“What do you mean?” Her fingers stilled. “Do you think he has obsessive-compulsive tendencies?”

“He might. He’s undeniably bright and capable of a great deal of organization, so he also might be able to hide his true nature under an appearance of normality. The ability of concealment that some psychopaths have is what psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley referred to when he first coined the term ‘mask of sanity’ in 1941.” Gideon took a deep breath and forced himself to continue. “A lot of details from Jacksonville have never been released because the killer hasn’t yet been caught. He held the group prisoner and executed one a day. They were killed in alphabetical order.”

He noted the moment that realization struck. She sucked in a harsh, shaking breath and looked up again. Then he couldn’t hold back any further. He strode over to take hold of her slender shoulders in a firm, reassuring grip.

“Which is not going to happen this time,” he said strongly into her whitened face. “It’s also quite apparent that the number seven has a great deal of significance for him.”

“It’s significant to all the Elder Races,” Alice murmured. “Seven demesnes in the U.S., seven Primal Powers or gods.”

“The previous murders occurred in the days leading up to the Festival of the Masque,” Gideon continued. “So we think that the seven gods have some particular meaning for him. He murdered seven people in seven days. Now, seven years later, the murders have started again. He excavates seven organs from his victims—the liver, gall bladder, pancreas, the two kidneys, the spleen, and he goes up under the rib cage to remove the heart. And he places the organs in a distinct pattern, although we haven’t figured out what the significance of that is yet.”

His hands on her shoulders were massive and warm. She gripped his forearms, and the feeling of his warm skin over solid muscle steadied her again. Her mind arrowed back to that terrible stillness in Haley’s apartment, but when she recalled the gaping dark red hole in Haley’s midsection she froze and couldn’t force herself to go any further.

She said through gritted teeth, “I can’t see it. I don’t remember. Does he always use the same pattern?”

He hesitated and his striking pale eyes searched her face. He said heavily, “Yeah. The heart is in the center, with the other organs set around it.”

She frowned up at him, her mouth held so tight her lips were bloodless. “How are they positioned?”

She could see him warring with the impulse to protect her from the details. Finally he said, “He puts the liver at twelve o’clock, spleen at six, and the gall bladder and pancreas at three and nine o’clock respectively.”

“The four directions,” she said.

“Excuse me?” he asked, taken aback. Her gaze was still trained on him but he didn’t think she saw him.

“Seven gods. Seven. Four. Two.” She asked, “Where does he place the two kidneys?”

His expression grew intent. “On either side of the liver, at the top of the circle.”

“I know that pattern,” Alice said. “I use it all the time.”

He stared at her. His grip on her shoulders tightened. Then he let her go and stepped back. “Show me.”

She rushed from the kitchen. Gideon strode after her, watching her mutter to herself. She moved down the short hall and flipped on a light to the front bedroom. She had turned it into a home office, with a computer desk and chair against one wall, and a futon set in a couch position against another wall. Like Haley, Alice had pulled out boxes of Masque decorations. They were set in the middle of the floor. She dropped to her knees in front of one box and dug through it.

“It’s a silly hobby of mine,” she said over her shoulder. “I don’t really know a lot about it. I just dabble, not like some people. Every year we hold a Winter Solstice Masque as a fundraiser for the school. I give Tarot readings—I use the Primal Tarot, of course, not any of the European decks. Those came later, around the fifteenth century, I think. The Primal Tarot is much, much older. I only know half a dozen of the most used card spreads.”

He rubbed the back of his neck as he listened to her rapid speech. “You’re talking about fortune telling?”

She emerged from the cardboard box with a smaller hand-painted wooden box clutched in one hand. Her cheeks flushed. “Actually, historically it was used for divination and considered a serious religious matter. If it was done in a prayerful manner, it was supposed to be a way for the gods to speak to us,” she said. “It was only in the nineteenth century that it became more like the fortune telling one might find at a carnival. I don’t have any Power for real divination nor do I practice it as a religion. I just do a carnival-like show. I can make twenty-five bucks for a fifteen-minute reading. It’s very popular at school. Usually I end up with several hundred dollars at the end of the night.”

“Okay,” he said. He squatted in front of her. “Why don’t you show me what you’re talking about?”

She sat cross-legged on the carpet, opened the box and pulled out an old deck of cards. Gideon settled on the floor opposite her. He picked up the box that she had put to one side. It was made of cedar and a faint Power thrummed gently in his hands, old Power that had saturated the aged wood. He considered the painting on the top. It was white and royal blue and gold, with outlines of black and a small highlight of crimson. The colors must have been brilliant once, but they had faded over time. The painting was of a stylized face. One side was male and the other side female.

“This is Taliesin, right?” he asked. He wasn’t very religious, but he knew at least that much. To the Elder Races, the seven Primal Powers were the linchpins of the universe. Each Power had a persona, or a mask of personality. Both male and female, Taliesin was the first among the gods of the Elder Races, the Supreme Power to which all others bowed.

“Yes,” Alice said. “Isn’t it amazing? The whole deck is hand-painted. I found it in an antique store about twelve years ago.” She touched the corner of the box as he held it. “I fell in love and ended up paying far too much for it. I ate a lot of macaroni and cheese that year.”

He set the box aside with care and turned his attention to Alice.

“The Primal Tarot has forty-nine cards in the deck,” she said. “The Major Arcana in this Tarot are the seven gods in their prime aspects—or how most people know of them.” She set the first card on floor between them and named it. “Taliesin, the god of the Dance, is first among the Primal Powers because everything dances, the planets and all the stars, other gods, ourselves. Dance is change, and the universe is constantly in motion. Then there’s Azrael, the god of Death; Inanna, the goddess of Love; Nadir, the goddess of the depths or the Oracle—legend has it that Nadir is the one who gave the Primal Tarot to the Elder Races.”

“When was that supposed to have happened?” he asked.

“Around the third century, or at least that’s the age of the earliest known Primal Tarot. Then there is Will, the god of the Gift; Camael, the goddess of the Hearth; and Hyperion, the god of Law.”

He studied each card as she laid them out, the famous green eyes of Death, the seven royal lions that pulled Inanna’s chariot, the dark sense of vastness captured in the stars in Nadir’s gaze. The cards were arresting but not quite beautiful. They were too uncomfortable for that.

He murmured, “Someone with real Power used these once.”

“I think it’s the person who created them,” Alice said. “The rest of the cards are the Minor Arcana. The gods have their major aspects, and then they have all their minor aspects. Take Azrael. Death is his major aspect, but in the Tarot deck, he has six other minor aspects. He’s also the god of regeneration and green growing things, and he’s known as the Hunter, and he’s also the Gateway or passage. See?”

“Yes,” Gideon said. He was growing fascinated despite himself.

“Inanna’s easy, her minor aspects are Love in its manifestations—romantic, platonic, etc.—and also love’s opposite, which is apathy. Taliesin’s major aspect is the dance, or change, but there’s also stasis, or the pauses between measures in the dance. Some of Will’s other aspects are the wanderer or sacred stranger, and sacrifice, and also greed.” As she talked, she laid out the Minor Arcana in lateral rows underneath the Major cards, six under each, until all forty-nine were placed on the floor. “Camael has both the sacred fool and old wisdom, and Hyperion may be law, but he’s also the trickster.”

“So where do the four and the two come in?” he asked.

“They come in the spreads.” She gathered the cards up and shuffled them swiftly. “There are three classical card spreads used in Primal Tarot readings, but really it’s just one original spread with more detail added in the other two. All the other card spreads were created or invented some time after the original three. The person who gets the reading is supposed to be the one to shuffle the cards and lay them out. The first card is called the Primus, or the primary force or influence in one’s life at the time of the reading. Sometimes it’s called the keystone card of the spread. The interpretation of all the other cards is always based on this one.”

She pulled out a card and laid it on the floor. They gazed down at Azrael’s emerald green painted eyes.

Lord Death.

“Well, that’s more apropos today than I would have liked,” she muttered. “There are three layers to a spread—the Primus, Secondus and Tertius—and it matters if a card is right-side up, or reversed. The top part is what you’re working toward, either a goal or some unforeseen event. The bottom is where you’re coming from. The right side has negative influences, and the left is positive. The last two cards at the top actually have to do with the future.” She set down the last card and looked at Gideon. “Is that the pattern you were talking about?”

He stared down at the cards. “Hell yeah,” he said. “That’s it. He’s attempting divination. That’s why he does it in the days leading up to the Masque. The bastard’s trying to talk with the gods.”