Leah shrieked and leaped back, her arm vibrating with the shock and her heart giving a funny bumpity-bump in her chest, as if whatever’d just happened had kicked it off rhythm.
Hello, static electricity, she thought, though the air was humid and her floors weren’t carpeted. But what other explanation was there?
Mr. Coffee didn’t so much as gurgle when she hit the ON button, suggesting that she’d fried something vital, so she went with tea for her morning caffeine hit as she powered up her laptop and glanced at her notes from the day before.
The Calendar Killer had taken twelve victims that they knew of, two at each equinox and solstice over the past eighteen months, with the exception of the previous month, when the summer solstice had passed without new victims.
Granted, Nick had died that day, but the signature was completely different; the only connection was the ritualistic nature of the Calendar murders, which might or might not point to the 2012ers, and the fact that she and Nick had been waiting for info on the leader of Survivor2012.
Chicken and egg or coincidence? Damned if she knew.
Then there was Vince’s death. Guilt twisted tight when she pushed herself to remember exactly what’d happened. She should’ve insisted that he leave the investigation to the task force. Hell, she should’ve left the investigation to the task force. If she had, Vince would still be alive.
Then again, if they’d left it alone, the task force wouldn’t be taking another look at Survivor2012.
The explosion seemed to have been aimed at the heart of the group, their ceremonies. The Calendar Killings could—although this might be stretching it a little—have been intended to throw suspicion on the group. Which might mean the killer wasn’t necessarily a member of Survivor2012. He could be its enemy.
The thought brought a flash of piercing blue eyes, the image of a big man who had moved like a fighter and bombed a charity gala, yet had somehow gotten her out of a locked chamber before it blew.
Logic said she’d gotten blown clear by the shock wave. But the door had been shut, and even if it’d been open, the shock wave would’ve splatted her on the opposite wall rather than taking a right-hand turn and dumping her in the main hallway.
Logic also said that the dreams were nothing more than a pastiche of her experiences over the past few months, a way for her subconscious to deal with the pain. But the skulls in the older dreams had screamed a blast of water rather than a trickle, and the blue-eyed warrior had worn cutoffs rather than combat fatigues. And rather than a murderer, he’d been her lover.
It didn’t make sense. None of it did.
But she sure as hell intended to figure it out. For Matty. For Nick. For Vince.
For her own sanity.
Ignoring the tea that cooled at her elbow, she got to work. She wasn’t looking for the names and faces of people who might want Survivor2012 gone for good— the task force was already on that, and with a ton more computer power than she had at her disposal. No, she was coming at it from another angle.
She was trying to figure out what made the doomsdayers tick. Maybe it was partly because, if she accepted the 2012ers as the victims rather than the perps, that meant Matty hadn’t been stupid for joining them, meant she hadn’t been irresponsible for letting her brother run with the crowd that’d killed him. Maybe it was because the snippets she’d caught from the 2012ers’ educational programs had been oddly compelling. And maybe it was an effort to understand her own response to the dark-haired stranger.
Whatever the source of the compulsion—obsession?— she worked through the day, bent over her computer until her eyes burned and her joints ached and her head buzzed with strange words that made more sense to her than they ought.
She didn’t get dressed until midafternoon, didn’t have lunch until four. And when darkness fell, she kept working.
As the stars prickled to life overhead, she discovered an author named Ambrose Ledbetter who seemed to know more than all the rest, or maybe he just put it in words that a nonexpert could understand. Either way, his articles seemed to synthesize all the information, ask all the right questions. Ledbetter had written in an article published just before the Calendar Killings began:
Thompson’s elucidation of the Long Count calendar of the classical Maya gives an end date when the backward-counting calendar will reach zero. Mc-Kenna identified complementary patterns buried in the Chinese I Ching also pointing to a paradigm shift on the same day. He called this shift ‘‘Timewave Zero.’’
Although the end-time prophecy may seem like the realm of historians (or perhaps only pseudoscientists) , recent discoveries suggest otherwise. For one, quantum physicists have identified a degenerating mathematical fractal pattern that will reach its endpoint on the exact date cited in the ancient texts. Perhaps more persuasive is the supported astronomical fact that on that same day, the sun, moon, and earth will precisely align at the center of the Milky Way in a Great Conjunction the likes of which occurs only once every twenty-six thousand years.
This alignment is predicted to trigger devastating sunspots, shifts of the magnetic poles, and changes in the orbit of the Earth itself, all of which will have heightened effects due to mankind’s progressive destruction of the ozone layer. In sum, therefore, both ancient prophecies and modern science combine to predict that the total and catastrophic destruction of our world will occur on December 21, 2012. Legend holds, however, that this destruction may be averted by—
A knock at the door had Leah jolting. She’d been so into the research that she hadn’t heard the sound of a car, or footsteps coming up the drive. But the interruption was probably a good thing, she realized as she stood and the room took a long, lazy spin around her. She needed to move around, get her blood pressure above ‘‘hibernate.’’
When the knock came again, she called, ‘‘Be right there.’’
The floor seemed to move beneath her feet, swaying, and the air hummed faintly off-key. She had a hell of a headache—when had that started? She didn’t remember. The pressure began at the base of her skull and radiated upward, somehow seeming more like desire for something forbidden than actual pain. It also felt familiar, though she couldn’t have said why.
When she reached the door, she left the security system armed and checked the peephole. She saw Connie standing there, looking sleek and stylish even after a full day of work, and faintly irritated by the wait.
‘‘One sec,’’ Leah called. ‘‘Let me kill the alarm.’’
She also took a detour through the kitchen and shoved her computer and the messy pile of printouts into a cabinet. No reason to let Connie know she was working on her own—that would only slow her return to active duty.
An obsessed cop was a cop without perspective.
Which was true, Leah acknowledged as she headed back to the door and disarmed the security system. But an obsessed cop also sometimes saw stuff the others missed.
Giving her appearance a once-over in the hallway mirror, Leah pulled open the door. ‘‘Hey, Connie. I was just—’’
The world went luminous green. Then black.
Something was wrong. Strike didn’t know how he knew it, or what exactly ‘‘it’’ was, but the wrongness hummed over his skin alongside the aphelion’s power as he and Jox finished prepping the ceremonial chamber for the binding ritual.
The room was located on the top floor of the mansion, roughly in the center of the sprawling footprint of the big house. It was one of the few spaces they’d left alone during the renovations, mainly because the altar itself was set in a cement pad containing the ashes of nearly seven generations of Nightkeepers. There was serious magic in the room, serious power.
And seriously weird vibes, Strike thought, frowning as he counted the tapers—lucky thirteen—and assured himself that the stingray spines, knives, parchments, and bowls were all set out and ready to roll. ‘‘Why do I feel like we’re forgetting something?’’