5th Pentagram: The sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 3 of the Darc Murders Trilogy) (Book 3 of the Darc Murder Series) (20 page)

“Please, call me Mala.”

“Thanks… Mala,” he said, stumbling a bit over her name. “I just wish I could do something to make up for it. The more I get to know Richard, the more of a prick I think he is.”

“Well,” she said, giving him an elbow to the ribs. “Maybe there
is
something that you can do.”

“Like what?”

“Keep talking to him,” she answered, with a grim smile.

“What? No. I don’t want to do that.” His face was so earnest, it almost made Mala want to laugh. Almost.

“It’s okay, Cody. I think I know how we can turn this around.” There were some ideas bouncing around in her head that could end up benefitting her, and perhaps discredit Richard to a certain extent. She didn’t really want to ruin him, just make sure that his special brand of vigilante social work was nipped in the bud.

Okay, that wasn’t completely honest. Maybe she wanted to ruin him a little bit.

The random connections that linked people was fascinating to her. The fact that two parts of her life that, in a city the size of Seattle, should be separate, but come together in such a random way was incredible to her. Two Freemasons. Chatting about work after they had participated in the rituals they performed in those temples. There was a certain brilliant kind of insanity to it.

Wait.

Geometric symbols.

Rituals.

Freemasons.

That was it. That was the link.

Mala spun around and began racing back to her car, pulling out her cell phone as she ran. Cody took a second, but then chased after her, yelling at her back.

“Do none of you guys ever say ‘goodbye?’”

“Sorry,” Mala called out over her shoulder. “I have to get to Darc. It’s about the case.”

“Okay,” he said, doing what he could to keep up. “But why are you running? Your phone’s in your hand.”

“I have to be in my car when I call him if there’s any chance to not get left behind.”

“Gotcha.” He jogged to a stop and then hollered down the hall after her. “We’ll talk later, right? About Richard?”

“You bet!” Mala answered. Taking care of Richard was way up on her priority list. Under normal circumstances it would have been right up at the top.

But these were not normal circumstances.

Not by a long shot.

* * *

It was working.

Bobby during math. Suzie after snack time. Dmitri right in the middle of second recess. It hadn’t been pretty, and Ms. Kingsley was about to pull her hair out.

But it was working.

They had followed the plan, and now they were all grouped around Janey right up in the front of the class. Well, all except for Rachel and Miguel, but they would get here soon enough. A piece of chewing gum and a box full of poppers would see to that. Then they’d all be here together.

Popeye gave her a smirk and said that only the dunces had to sit up close to the teacher.

Janey didn’t care. It was all happening according to her plan.

She had seen the bad thing, watched for a while, and then the trails of color in her head showed her a way that she could make things happen. She’d followed those bright paths and now those things were actually happening.

Not all of the things were good, of course. When Mala had come in, Janey had almost given up. She didn’t want Mala to be disappointed in her.

But this was important. It didn’t matter if she got in trouble for it. Well, it did, but Janey wasn’t the one getting into trouble any more. The colors had been ready for that one. It was all part of the plan.

No more cutting hair. She had promised. And she’d kept her promise.

There were a few other things that she had to do, but Janey was sure she could do them without getting sent to the principal’s office again. Even if Mrs. Kingsley had to call Mala again, it was worth it.

That thought made Janey’s tummy do a flip-flop and Popeye laughed at her and called her a chicken. She stuck her tongue out at him and told him he was just a weird looking dog. He hated it when she did that.

Then Dmitri handed her a note while Mrs. Kingsley’s back was turned. Janey opened it up and it was a picture. Not like the ones that Janey made that could talk to Darc, but it was a pretty good one. At least it made Janey feel good.

There was a boy and a girl and they were giving each other a hug. When Janey saw what it was, she looked up at Dmitri, who smiled and waved at her.

Popeye started singing a rude song about Janey and Dmitri up in a tree kissing and stuff. She smacked him on the head. He was trying to ruin the picture for her.

But Janey loved it. She smiled back at Dmitri and put the drawing in her desk.

She would take it home and keep it forever.

* * *

“Turn around,” Darc said to Trey.

“What? But we’re almost to the—”

“Turn around now.”

“Okay, okay. Jeesh.” Trey slowed down only long enough to let a car in the oncoming lane pass before whipping the wheel to the left. Hard.

The turn created enough centripetal force that Darc was thrown against the passenger side door. The pressure would no doubt result in a sub dermal hematoma, but that was irrelevant. The information Mala had just communicated to him had jolted all of the data into place, clarifying the next location.

“What the hell’s going on?” Trey asked, weaving in and out of traffic. “You were only on the phone for like three seconds. And did you say something about the Greenbelt?” Darc ignored the noise coming out of his partner’s mouth and focused instead on the rush of new facts.

It was similar to a fog lifting. One moment, all was obscured. The next, far off points of reference settled into pinpoint focus.

The internal pathways and symbols had been snagged, snarling at one another as they attempted to find cohesion. When Mala spoke the word
Freemason
, the threads untangled themselves, pointing the way for the various representations of logical fragments to find their respective docking bays.

“I’m telling you, that little priss over in the Mayor’s office is going to have a conniption when we don’t show up,” Trey grumbled to himself. His words were tiny threads that blew about the greater tapestry of light that was assembling itself within Darc’s mind.

The upside down pentagram in the metal fabricating warehouse. Darc had surmised that its orientation was downward as an indication of the left-handed path favored by Satanists.

Such was not the case.

The pentagram was also a symbol used by the Freemasons, used to denote the five points of fellowship. But it was almost always upright. In this case, it was upside down to give orientation to the points on the map. Rotating the figure one-hundred and eighty degrees caused the map to click into place. The symbols synched, creating a framework for the Golden Ratio spiral that led to the next point on the pentagram.

To the West Duwamish Greenbelt.

It was the largest contiguous forest in a city that was known for its greenery, and most particularly its trees. The northern part of the Greenbelt had trails and ended on a large elementary school, but where they were headed was nothing but growth.

As they traveled, Darc retraced the steps of the case. There had been other indicators of Freemasonry, before the conversation with Mala had pointed them out. Clues that Darc had missed due to his distraction with the sound number sequence.

Even the specific mutilations matched many of the warnings of the Masonic rituals, symbolic punishments reserved for those who betrayed the secret rites of their brethren. The tongue torn out by the root. The throat slashed. The entrails removed and burned. The sword piercing the heart.

Any deaths that occurred from here on out could be laid at Darc’s feet.

As they raced down 16
th
Avenue, they came to the turnoff leading into the Seattle Chinese Gardens on one side, the Community College on the other. Darc pointed straight ahead, following the trail of blue light that led them.

“Wait,” Trey said, peering ahead at where they were going. “I can’t go straight here. I’ve been here before. We go through a parking lot and then right into the forest.”

“That is accurate,” Darc replied. The lines of light sorted and cross-referenced the data flowing in. The area of the forest was over 800 acres, and contained big leaf maples, alder and cottonwood, as well as red-legged frogs, foxes, eagles and hawks. They were entering a space that was not at all urban.

“So we’re going in there?” Trey asked, his pitch raising by an octave.

Darc nodded once.

“That’s it,” Trey said and slammed on the brakes. A car behind them swerved, narrowly avoiding rear-ending the Land Rover. Trey waved the man past as the driver made a gesture with one of his fingers. Strange that he would use that digit to point.

“Why are you stopping the vehicle?” Darc queried.

“Because I’m not going traipsing into some jungle with you without backup.”

“It is not a jungle. It is a stage two and three deciduous forest. In addition, the murders could be talking place—”

“I know, I know,” Trey interrupted him. “They could be happening right now. Or they could have just happened. Or maybe they won’t even end up happening at all because we’ll be here to stop them.” He held up a hand to keep Darc from speaking. “
With
backup.”

“That will only put more lives unnecessarily at risk. We should—”

“No, Darc. Just
no
.” Trey glanced over as another car passed by them, the driver of the vehicle staring intently into the Land Rover while sounding his horn. Darc’s partner shook his head and turned back. “You can’t tell me that you know for positive that those murders are happening right now.”

“The data is not that conclu—”

“Darc!” Trey’s voice cut through Darc’s attempted explanation of the vagaries of the logic pathways. “Look. I get it. You’re still broken up about all the cops we lost in the slaughterhouse—”

“And in the Underground.” It was Darc’s turn to stop his partner from speaking. “And then in the cathedral, where you were knocked unconscious with unknown injuries and I was forced to strangle Janey to save the city.”

The memories surged up within him, a tsunami wave on the shores of the gray emotional topography of his psychological makeup. His reaction was stronger than he would have anticipated, but the streams of light wove themselves about the landscape, protecting the battered surface with the cold illumination of information.

Trey sighed, seeming to read something in Darc’s face that tempered his own emotional reaction. Darc could not read what Trey’s reaction was, but it seemed to be fear. Fear of injury? Fear of failure? There was no way of knowing for sure.

“Listen, man, I know where you’re coming from,” he said, and then pointed straight forward at the dark green line of trees awaiting them. “But look at that. There’s no way we can search that with just the two of us.”

The lines were insistent. They knew where to go. There was a pulsing insistence to their directions, speaking to Darc in his mind.
Move, go forward, follow our guidance. Now.

But Trey was pushing in the opposite direction.
Wait for backup. Hold on until we have help. We can’t do this alone.

And Darc did not know what to do.

Then Trey said something else. “What about Mala?”

“I do not understand the question,” Darc replied after a moment’s processing gave him no indication of his partner’s meaning.

“You told Mala we were headed here, right?”

“Correct.”

Trey shook his head. “So you think it’s a good idea to take off into the woods, leaving her out here, wondering if we’re dead.”

The lines snarled and spat, repudiating Trey’s reasoning. “I do not understand how her state of mind is relevant.”

“Darc. C’mon. You love her, right?”

Darc stared back at Trey, unable to answer the question in any way that would satisfy either his partner or himself. It was a query that landed with a reverberating crash directly in the middle of the ravaged gray landscape. A place from which emerged no clear or direct answers.

Finally Trey continued. “I’m pretty sure you do. And even if it’s just a strong case of like or even lust… which,
ew
, by the way… you’ve got to start thinking about how these things are going to make her
feel
.”

From somewhere within that darkened topography, a clear beacon of light threaded its way out. The light was clear, which was unusual. The information streams always took on color. The shaft of clarity settled on his figures, brightening the symbols and interwoven strands of logic, giving them a new meaning.

Waiting for Mala, even waiting for backup, was not a sign of weakness or irresponsibility. In fact, with the new source of light, Darc could see the benefits of entering the forest with Mala’s help. What’s more, there was strong evidence that by increasing the numbers of their team, they would greatly improve their speed in finding the exact location.

There would be no time wasted in the long run.

How could this be? Were the bands of light so myopic in their scope? Had Darc been led by information that could not see beyond its own speed, accuracy and cleverness? That thought was troubling.

And just like that, the clear light faded, leaving Darc once more in the weak reflected glow of the information. The difference in scope was stunning.

He had no idea what had just happened. But he did understand one thing.

They would be waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.

CHAPTER 14

Mala pulled into the huge parking lot shared by the community college and the Chinese gardens. There, off to the side, was Trey’s Land Rover.

And there, resting on the hood, were both Trey and Darc.

Blinking to make sure the vision was real, Mala jumped out of the car and rushed over to join the two detectives. Trey waved a hand at her as she approached.

“Hey, Mala. Took you long enough.”

She ignored the playful banter and leapt right to the question. “Why are you still here?”

“That’s a fine line of inquiry there, Doc,” Trey drawled. “And to be honest, I have no clue.” He pointed at Darc, who was staring at the ground. “One second we were fighting about whether or not we were going in without backup, and the next second, he turns meek as a kitten.”