“Goat.” Cade pushed it toward me. “A hiker came across it walking on the trails up around Gallows Hill.”
“When?” I asked, eyes on the picture.
“Late June.”
The goat was similarly slaughtered, its pieces artfully arranged by someone who put great thought into their actions. I clenched my hands together beneath the metal table, trying not to show how horrified I was. Not only by what I was seeing, but by the idea that there was someone out there in my community hurting innocent creatures — and, evidently, taking such pride in showing off their unhinged behavior.
I was reaching my limit for looking at murdered animals. I liked animals. I especially liked goats. Flo and I once did a yoga class with baby goats — they scampered all over us as we performed downward dog and child’s pose, clattering around on their tiny hooves, their little kid bleats making us giggle. One even fell asleep in my arms afterward. Flo had to drag me to the car and check my purse twice to make sure I wasn’t trying to smuggle it off the farm.
I tried not to look too closely at the severed parts. Instead, I studied the pagan hieroglyphs smeared on the lush, early-summer grass, and wondered what they meant. They were as much a mystery to me as those that decorated the cobblestones in my alley this morning. One looked like an inverted letter “Y” with a slash through its base. Another was like a yin-yang only more jagged, its lines sharper and somehow crueler in nature. A third appeared to be a set of imbalanced scales.
My examinations were cut short when the photograph was swapped for the fourth and final.
“Found this one last month. Beginning of August, some high school kids were tossing a football down on Bertram Field. Came across this behind the bleachers.”
I glanced at it for only a few seconds, but the image seared itself into my brain in such a way, I knew I’d never forget it. The pot-bellied pig, hacked apart. Its head upside-down, snout pointing toward its torso. Legs spread out in a circle, forming the pentagram points. Curly tail and fuzzy ears artfully arranged, like finishing touches. Vivid scarlet blood clashing horribly against pale pink, peach-fuzzed skin.
“I’m sorry, I—” My words broke off as my stomach roiled. I pressed my eyes closed and sucked in a gulp of air. “I don’t want to look anymore.”
“That’s fine, Gwendolyn.”
In the wake of Cade’s quiet assurance, I heard the sound of the photographs sliding against the stainless tabletop, hands shuffling them back into the folder. When the room fell silent, I risked cracking my eyelids open a sliver. The photographs were gone. The two men were staring at me. Cade looked solemn, but there was concern in his lively blue eyes. Graham was, as ever, inscrutable, his green gaze unflinching as it scanned my face.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“Don’t be. Your reaction is normal.” Cade tapped a finger against the closed folder. “This shit is not.”
“It’s just so violent. So… bloody.”
“It isn’t just the violence of it.” Graham pushed away from the wall and approached. Planting his hands on the table, he ducked down slightly to catch my eyes. “Plenty of people do violent shit. Disturbing shit, even. But this… This is different. This is exhibitionist. Whoever is doing this takes great pride in his or her actions. They derive purpose from them. They may even feel they need to do this, compelled by some greater force.”
“Like the devil?” I whispered, wide-eyed.
Graham just stared at me.
“Like mental illness,” Cade offered gently.
“Oh. Right. Obviously.” I swallowed. “So, my alleyway…”
“The donkey this morning makes five. Five animal sacrifices, scattered all across town.” Cade sighed. “No known commonalities in their locations, so far as we can tell. It seems totally random. And, like I said earlier, there could be others we simply never discovered. We didn’t even put it together that this may be some sort of pattern until we found the goat.”
“What about the symbols? Surely they can tell you something about the reason for the sacrifices.”
“We’ve had a parade of experts in to look over them. Historians, professors, even a self-proclaimed High Priestess from a coven of practicing Wiccans.” Cade shook his head. “No one can make much sense of it. The pentagrams aren’t following any traditional lore.”
I bit my lower lip as I thought that over. My knowledge of the occult was not exhaustive by any means, but I hadn’t been lying earlier when I’d told them I’d read my fair share of books on the subject.
“Spit it out,” Graham ordered, bossy as ever.
My eyes snapped up to his. “Pardon?”
“Whatever you’re thinking right now. Just say it.”
“It’s not really unusual that even experts in the field can’t make sense of this. Many pagan circles create their own codes and rules and sigils. When a coven forms, they often hand-write their own grimoire.” Seeing Cade’s raised eyebrows, I clarified. “A spell book, that is. They’d probably refer to it as their Book of Shadows. A sacred tome detailing all their practices, rites, and rituals.”
“Then if we find this book…” Cade trailed off.
“You find their book, you’ll know what those symbols mean. You’ll know why they’re doing this.”