office at three for the keys to his mother’s place. He picked up the keys and headed to the house.
He let himself in and stood in the dark living room, listening to the silence. Then he turned on the lights. The curtains were drawn and he moved to the kitchen, wondering where to begin.
He went to the bedroom and turned on the lights. The wall and floor were bloodstained with the remnants of death.
Something drawn on the wall in blood, on the other side of the bed, made him gasp.
Tom Hoffman told him about the atrocities performed on his mother but on his earlier trip, in the dim light, he hadn’t noticed this drawing. It was set apart from the other scribbles on the opposite wall where the bed’s headboard had rested against.
No wonder Tom Hoffman thought this was a cult related murder.
Drawn at about chest height was a horned figure. Vaguely satanic, its body was winged, its face long, eyes blazing. It was centered within a circle and a strange design that was not written in blood; rather, it appeared to be drawn with a felt tipped marker. Vince did not recognize the symbol. It wasn’t a pentagram by any means. It held to geometric lines that were similar, but there were a lot of angles, a lot of circular shapes that twisted and turned within it. Scrawled close by, also in blood, was a line of gibberish. M’gwli acht K’tluth K’ryon Hanbi e ’ghorallth liber daemonorum .
He turned away from what was written on the wall and looked around the room, images of the past flickering past the lenses of his mind. This room was as good as any to get started.
He got down to business, going through the closet and the chest. As he began sifting through her belongings, he thought he would stumble upon information somewhere that would reveal relatives; he knew she had a sister somewhere. And she had to have parents. He dimly remembered mom talking about them years ago, but she stopped talking about them after their first move to upstate New York. Now he wanted to find out everything about her, which was almost nothing.
He spent the next three hours going through the house from top to bottom. He searched through the closet in her bedroom, the hall closets and linen drawers, the closet in the second bedroom that had once been his room, and the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen and bureaus in the living room. All he found were clothing, shoes, old books on Christian philosophies, Bibles, a few boxes of Christmas decorations, boxes of old silverware, and an old stereo system. When he left home for college, he’d left a collection of Circus magazines in a cardboard box at the bottom of his closet. Now all those items were gone. Probably burned them , he thought. That would have been her way of thinking. Burn the devil’s possessions and cast the beast out .
By the time he reached the living room he was convinced he wasn’t going to find a single thing. The closest he’d come to actually finding something was a scrapbook in the bottom of the chest in her bedroom. When he opened it all he found were photos of their lives in Toronto.
When he opened the drawer in the kitchen near the silverware compartment he didn’t think he’d find anything either. Amid the scraps of paper, some pens and pencils, a pair of scissors and some clothespins, he found a worn phonebook. He pulled it out and opened it. He flipped through it slowly. Not many names. Twenty in all. All of them people he either knew growing up—people like Lillian Withers, who’d traveled with them from Canada—or their phone numbers and addresses were all local. Not an unfamiliar name in the book.
He closed the book and sighed. He had planned on starting the de licate task of calling some long lost distant relative bearing the bad news, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. A small part of him that had held out hope in finding out who her relatives were shriveled up and died. He’d probably never find out where she came from, who her family—
He let himself in and stood in the dark living room, listening to the silence. Then he turned on the lights. The curtains were drawn and he moved to the kitchen, wondering where to begin.
He went to the bedroom and turned on the lights. The wall and floor were bloodstained with the remnants of death.
Something drawn on the wall in blood, on the other side of the bed, made him gasp.
Tom Hoffman told him about the atrocities performed on his mother but on his earlier trip, in the dim light, he hadn’t noticed this drawing. It was set apart from the other scribbles on the opposite wall where the bed’s headboard had rested against.
No wonder Tom Hoffman thought this was a cult related murder.
Drawn at about chest height was a horned figure. Vaguely satanic, its body was winged, its face long, eyes blazing. It was centered within a circle and a strange design that was not written in blood; rather, it appeared to be drawn with a felt tipped marker. Vince did not recognize the symbol. It wasn’t a pentagram by any means. It held to geometric lines that were similar, but there were a lot of angles, a lot of circular shapes that twisted and turned within it. Scrawled close by, also in blood, was a line of gibberish. M’gwli acht K’tluth K’ryon Hanbi e ’ghorallth liber daemonorum .
He turned away from what was written on the wall and looked around the room, images of the past flickering past the lenses of his mind. This room was as good as any to get started.
He got down to business, going through the closet and the chest. As he began sifting through her belongings, he thought he would stumble upon information somewhere that would reveal relatives; he knew she had a sister somewhere. And she had to have parents. He dimly remembered mom talking about them years ago, but she stopped talking about them after their first move to upstate New York. Now he wanted to find out everything about her, which was almost nothing.
He spent the next three hours going through the house from top to bottom. He searched through the closet in her bedroom, the hall closets and linen drawers, the closet in the second bedroom that had once been his room, and the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen and bureaus in the living room. All he found were clothing, shoes, old books on Christian philosophies, Bibles, a few boxes of Christmas decorations, boxes of old silverware, and an old stereo system. When he left home for college, he’d left a collection of Circus magazines in a cardboard box at the bottom of his closet. Now all those items were gone. Probably burned them , he thought. That would have been her way of thinking. Burn the devil’s possessions and cast the beast out .
By the time he reached the living room he was convinced he wasn’t going to find a single thing. The closest he’d come to actually finding something was a scrapbook in the bottom of the chest in her bedroom. When he opened it all he found were photos of their lives in Toronto.
When he opened the drawer in the kitchen near the silverware compartment he didn’t think he’d find anything either. Amid the scraps of paper, some pens and pencils, a pair of scissors and some clothespins, he found a worn phonebook. He pulled it out and opened it. He flipped through it slowly. Not many names. Twenty in all. All of them people he either knew growing up—people like Lillian Withers, who’d traveled with them from Canada—or their phone numbers and addresses were all local. Not an unfamiliar name in the book.
He closed the book and sighed. He had planned on starting the de licate task of calling some long lost distant relative bearing the bad news, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. A small part of him that had held out hope in finding out who her relatives were shriveled up and died. He’d probably never find out where she came from, who her family—
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