Crimson Shore Read online

  A high-speed elevator whisked her up, the doors hissed open, and she found herself in a spare, formal space. An older woman with iron-gray hair pulled back in a severe bun manned a nearby desk. As Constance stepped up, the woman hung up her phone.

  “Constance Greene?” she asked in a voice of alarming efficiency. “Here to see the Sutter papers?”

  Constance bowed acknowledgment.

  “I am Mrs. Jobe, the archival librarian. Come with me.” She rose, fingering a card that hung on a lanyard around her neck. She looked at Constance with compressed lips, distaste writ large on her face.

  Constance followed her down a corridor. Another door hissed open at the wave of the woman’s card, and they entered a small room with a baize-covered table.

  “Please don these,” said the woman, producing a pair of white cotton gloves.

  Constance pulled them on.

  “No handling of any papers with bare hands, please. Pencil or computer use only—no pens. Have a seat while I retrieve the Sutter papers. They are certainly popular these days.”

  She went through another door. In less than a minute she returned, holding a plastic box with plastic folders inside. She put it on the table. “Only one folder should be removed at a time. Any questions, Ms. Greene?”

  Constance sensed that, once again, she was being taken for a Wiccan. She wondered whether Pendergast, were he in her position, might be able to make use of this misapprehension. Pendergast always seemed able to pitch his approach, right from the beginning, to get the best results. He was unscrupulous in seeking advantage.

  She would be, too.

  “I take it that quite a few people come to see these documents?” she asked.

  “They are among our most sought-after.”

  “Indeed? By whom?”

  “Salem is a center of the Wiccan religion, as you no doubt know.” She eyed Constance’s dress. “We have quite a few practitioners come to look at the papers and copy or photograph the, ah, inscriptions.”

  “The Tybane Inscriptions, you mean?”

  “Yes.” The woman turned away.

  “Another question, if you don’t mind.”

  The woman turned back and now Constance could see a look of impatience on her face.

  “Do you know much about this archaeologist, Sutter?”

  “Sutter was no archaeologist. He was an amateur back at a time when archaeology barely existed as a profession. To be blunt, he was a crank.”

  “And what makes you say that?”

  “You’ll judge for yourself when you look at his papers.”

  “You’ve been through them?”

  “It’s part of my job to familiarize myself with the content of these folders. Not to cast aspersions, but you will see that Sutter was, at the very least, a fantasist.” She waved her hand. “If I had my way, those papers would go into the rubbish. Their only interest is for those studying deviant psychology. Or”—she paused significantly, once again eyeing Constance—“those of the Wiccan persuasion.”

  “I see,” said Constance, returning the gaze, “that you have mistaken me for a Wiccan.”

  “What you are or are not is no concern of mine.”

  “I realize my dress is old-fashioned and my ways may appear odd, but that’s because…” She thought back to the receptionist at the Exmouth police station. “I am Amish.”

  The woman showed surprise and embarrassment. “Oh. Very well. I didn’t mean to…in some way imply you were anything but a person seeking information. We get so many of those Wiccans in here, looking at these papers. One makes assumptions.”

  “Witchcraft, the casting of spells, is an anathema in my religion. I’m here because”—here Constance did her best to choke up with emotion—“because my sister has become a Wiccan. I’m here to try to save her.”

  Now the surprise turned to confusion. “I’m so sorry… But how can these papers help? I mean, Wiccans may be drawn to them out of curiosity, but as I understand it Wiccans practice white magic, not black magic. And white magic has nothing to do with what Sutter documented.”

  “I’m trying to find her. I know she was here. Do you keep a record of those who come to look at these documents?”

  “We keep records, of course, but…they’re confidential.”

  At this Constance bowed her head and let a faint emotive noise escape her lips. “I understand. The rules must be followed. It’s just that—I don’t want to lose my sister to this…this Wiccan religion.”

  A long silence. “Well, I think we can make an exception. Let me get the files in my office.”

  As she left, Constance kept her head bowed for a moment, allowing a small smile to vanish from her face. The displeasure she felt at feigning an emotion she would never, in real life, reveal to another human being was overshadowed by successfully confounding this disapproving, opinionated woman. Face composed, she raised it once again, drew the plastic file toward her, and removed the first folder, labeled “New Salem.”

  Inside were several yellowing paper documents. She laid the first on the baize and opened it gingerly. It consisted of perhaps a dozen pages, all covered with an elaborate spidery script.

  Notes Regarding the Re-Discovery of the Ancient Settlement of New Salem, the Long Lost Witches’ Colony in the Exmouth Marsh Lands.

  By Jeduthan Sutter, Esq.

  Fellow of the Learned Society of Antiquaries of Boston, Discoverer of the Ostracon of Sinuhe

  Author of Fasciculus Chemicus, and Keys of Mercy and Secrets of Wisdom.

  On the third day of July 1871, I, Jeduthan Sutter, Esquire, after many weeks searching the Exmouth Marsh Lands, discovered the Witches’ Settlement of New Salem in a Desert Location far from Habitation. I Elucidated the Arrangement of the Quincunx, which indicated the Ceremonial Altar of the Village where the Witchcraft Rituals and Abominations were Consummated. Wherefor, having Located the Central Altar I dug down and Recovered the Stone that was the Blasphemous Object of Worship, which contain these Devilish Revelations and Abominations. This I did with a Wise Purpose, according to the Workings of the Spirit of the Lord, who Knoweth all things, as a Warning to All. And now I, Jeduthan Sutter, prior to destroying the Foul Stone of New Salem, so that the Evil embodied in its essence, and which hath moved on from this place to Another, can no longer Harm the World, do first Finish Out the Inscriptions found on said Stone, recording for Posterity those Inscriptions as in Life, made according to the Knowledge and Understanding of the Lord God, who giveth me His Protection from the Evil they contain.

  A quincunx. Constance was aware of that peculiar arrangement, as in the array of pips on the number five on a set of dice. The quincunx, she knew from her reading, had a mystical meaning to many religions.

  She turned her attention to the next document: an oversize double-quarto sheet of paper, folded. With care she unfolded it and found a finely drawn outline of what could only have been the Tybane Stone, apparently life-size, with its inscriptions—the same five symbols she had seen carved into the body of the historian, Mr. McCool.

  She took out her cell phone and began taking pictures, near and far, with and without flash, working swiftly. When she was done, she went through the rest of the papers but found little more of interest—no indication where the settlement had been found, for example, or why Sutter was looking for it in the first place. Instead, the papers consisted of numerous quotations from scripture and other religious ramblings. Sutter, as the archivist had observed, had certainly been a crank. But even cranks make interesting discoveries.

  Mrs. Jobe returned with a piece of paper. “This is a list of our visitors, going back six months. We also have a security camera, concealed in that EXIT sign. It’s confidential, of course—we don’t speak of it to visitors.”

  “Thank you so much,” Constance said, taking the list. “I’ll have to look this over later. First, I must decipher these inscriptions.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” said the archivist, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the
inscriptions are gibberish. Poppycock. As I said, Sutter was a fantasist.”

  “Do you have other files on witchcraft that might help me understand these symbols—or determine if they’re a sham?”

  “We have transcriptions of all the Salem witch trials—on microfiche, because the originals are too fragile—as well as a fine collection of rare books on witchcraft and demonology in what we call the Cage. But I’m not sure how that will help you find your sister.”

  Constance looked at her with a drawn face. “I must understand them if I’m to understand why my sister would be attracted to this…filth. You see, Mrs. Jobe, whether these inscriptions are poppycock or real, it is the intention to do wickedness that is this world’s true evil. But if they are indeed fraudulent, it could help my case with my sister…when I find her.”

  Two hours later, Constance sat back in her chair, blinking. The microfiche machine was a wonder of hideous 1980s technology, seemingly designed to cause blindness through prolonged use. Why computers had not been introduced here, when the Historical Society was apparently flush with money, was a mystery. Perhaps they did not wish to make it easy to review these terrible trials.

  But after all that, the transcriptions of the Salem witchcraft trials had proven a dead end. All too clearly, the “witches” who were put on trial were innocent. There were, however, a few instances in which—reading between the lines—Constance got the decided impression that there were actual witches, both male and female, involved in the witchcraft trials: not as accused, but as accusers, judges, and witch-hunters. It made a degree of sense: What better way to sow fear and hatred in a community, while at the same time disguising one’s own connection to evil?

  It was time to visit the Cage.

  She called for Mrs. Jobe, who led the way. The Cage was housed in the building’s basement: a small vault, its floor, walls, and ceiling constructed out of steel bars, with a single locked door. Inside were two shelves of ancient books—one along each wall—and a small table and lamp in the center. The air was cool and dry, and Constance could hear the running of a forced-air system. A nearby wall sported various environmental and atmospheric monitors and dials, including a turning drum that, no doubt, registered temperature and humidity. It was a dark and sinister space that—in high anachronism—was festooned with sophisticated digital instruments.

  The archivist locked her in, with another admonishment to wear gloves at all times.

  There were not many books on the shelf labeled “Occult & Miscellanea”—no more than three dozen. Most she recognized from Enoch Leng’s library at 891 Riverside Drive, which had a deep section on poisons and witchcraft. She began perusing the titles, taking a mental inventory: There was the famed Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches); Nider’s Formicarius; Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft; the French classic De la Démonomanie des Sorciers; the fabulously obscure Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis; and the dreaded, shadow-haunted Necronomicon, bound (although no doubt Mrs. Jobe was unaware of it) in human skin. She was already familiar with the contents of these, and knew they would contain nothing to help her decipher the Tybane Inscriptions—if indeed there was a decipherment to be found.

  But at the end of the shelf stood a row of extremely old, obscure, and dirty volumes. She glanced at these, finding most to be irrelevant. But the very last book on the shelf, pushed back from the others as if almost deliberately hidden, was an untitled volume that was not, she discovered, a book at all, but rather a manuscript. It was in Latin, titled Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (The False Monarchy of Demons), dated 1563.

  She laid it on the small table and carefully turned the pages, surprised by the abundance of detailed illustrations. It appeared to be a kind of grimoire or list of all the demons alleged to exist: sixty-nine in total, with their names, offices, attributes, symbols, and what they could teach the person who raised them in an unholy ceremony. The paper crackled under her gloved touch, and she had the sense no one had examined the manuscript in a very long time.

  She leafed through it, looking for matches to the Tybane symbols. Most of the symbols represented the demons themselves, but a few were symbols indicating movement, travel, directions, and place.

  As she paged through, her eye caught one symbol that, in fact, had a match with the Tybane Inscriptions:

  It was translated as Obscura Peregrinatione ad Littus (A Dark Pilgrimage to the Southern Shore).

  A diligent search turned up a second Tybane symbol:

  The translation was Indevitatus, meaning “unavoidable,” “inevitable,” “imminent.”

  With greater interest now she continued combing the text, page after page. Toward the end she hit upon two more symbols.

  This first was the sign for the demon known as Forras, and she mentally translated the Latin text:

  The Thirty-First Spirit is Forras. He appears in the form of a strong man in a fair human Shape. He can give the understanding to men how they may know the virtues and poisons of all herbs. He teaches the Arts of Law in all its parts. If desired he makes men to live long, and to avoid discovery of their evil. His Seal is this.

  The seal was identical to a symbol in the Tybane Inscriptions.

  The other symbol of interest was of another demon called Morax, and the accompanying text translated as:

  Morax is a great and mighty prince of darkness, and when he puts on the shape of a man, he shows out dog’s teeth, and a great head like to a deformed ape, and drags a devil’s tail; he makes wonderful cunning, incites lewdness, and will lie with any woman he so desires; he has a great thirst for the blood of man and he revels in the viscera of those he kills. His Seal is this:

  The Tybane Inscriptions, as she understood it—and as the body of McCool gave evidence to—comprised a series of five symbols. Four had a match in this book: the avatars, apparently, of four demons.

  Near the end of the manuscript, she came across the final symbol of the Tybane Inscriptions:

  The Latin inscription was Errantem Locus, meaning “wandering place.”

  Constance paused, looking up from the manuscript. There was still a lot more to decipher. But she was now sure of one thing: the Tybane Inscriptions were genuine. They were not the product of a crazy fantasist. They had been created by someone truly dedicated to Satan and the worship of the dark arts.

  24

  Sergeant Gavin manned the tiller again as the incoming tide bore the boat forward, deeper into the salt marshes. Once again Pendergast sat in the bow, consulting a map and moving only to point directions, leading them up a seeming infinitude of channels.

  Gavin wondered what the heck Pendergast was doing again in the marshes. But he kept his mouth shut. He realized a man like Pendergast was the kind who simply did what he wanted, without explanations, apologies, or justification. Nevertheless, he was convinced this would end up a wild-goose chase. It seemed obvious that the killings of the historian and the lawyer were banal, most likely the work of drug addicts trying to cover up their robberies with symbols, which were known to at least some locals familiar with the story of the Tybane Inscriptions. Pendergast had given him some nonsense about looking for the Gray Reaper. But as he eyed the bulky metal detector lying athwart the skiff’s seats, poking out of a partially zipped-up bag, he wondered: What was Pendergast going to do with that?

  The hand pointed, Gavin turned. He really wished Pendergast had not insisted that he pilot the boat. There were plenty of others who could have done it. But Pendergast had particularly asked for him, and since the autopsy on Dunwoody wasn’t going to take place until the next day, the chief agreed.

  This time, they were way the hell out in the marshes. They were completely surrounded; all you could see for 360 degrees around was grass and water under a gray, late-afternoon sky.

  Pendergast held up his hand, and with a gesture indicated Gavin was to throttle down. Gavin did so, putting the engine into neutral. The boat continued drifting on the current.

  “We seem to have taken a wrong turn
, Sergeant Gavin.”

  Gavin shrugged. “You’ve got the GPS. I’ve been totally lost for a while.”

  “One moment.” Pendergast spent a few minutes working the GPS and checking the map, back and forth, back and forth. “Let us backtrack.”

  With a suppressed sigh Gavin turned the boat around and maneuvered upcurrent at half speed. They emerged into a broader channel.

  “This way,” said Pendergast.

  Yet another endless series of channels—and then he once again held up his hand. “This is it.”

  Gavin stared at the mud embankment and the sea of grass beyond, which seemed to rise into the faintest of hills. He had a sudden bad feeling.

  “If you don’t mind, Sergeant, please stay with the boat and wait for me.”

  Gavin glanced at his watch. “It’s going to be dark in an hour. After that it’ll be hard to navigate.”

  “I shall be back well before then.” He grabbed the equipment bag and climbed out of the boat. In a moment he had disappeared into the grass.

  Gavin shifted on the hard metal seat. The bad feeling began to deepen. Of course, he could just take off and strand Pendergast there. But if he did that, the shit would really hit the fan. You just didn’t mess with a guy like Pendergast.

  A. X. L. Pendergast knifed his way through the salt grass, bending it aside with one arm while slinging the equipment bag over the other shoulder. Every minute seemed to grow colder and grayer than the last, with that penetrating, barbaric cold so prevalent near the sea.

  Pendergast paused several times to check his GPS. After about ten minutes, he arrived at the place where he had found the object the night before—and what, apparently, were the remains of an old settlement.

  Of course, his goal was not—as he had told Sergeant Gavin—to search for the Gray Reaper, whatever that creature might or might not be.