“There it is,” I say from behind the steering wheel of the Hudson. “Well, I think that’s it.”

  I’m looking at a rusty, dinged-up mailbox. The numbers on the side are faded. Still, they look like they once clearly read “432” in white paint.

  “I think you’re right,” says Joe. “Pull up to it, boyo. I’ll get out and check.”

  “No, I’ll check,” I say, thinking of his limp.

  “You think I’m too old to walk?”

  “You’re too old to drive, much less walk,” I say with a wry grin.

  “Go earn your paycheck then, young buck. I’ll start drawing my pension.” His words are acid, but I know he’s joking.

  I put the Hudson in park. With the engine running, I slam the door shut and hurry over to the mailbox.

  432.

  Swinging the Hudson’s door open, I hop in.

  “Well?” asks Joe.

  “This is it,” I say, swinging the door shut and putting the car in drive.

  I pull into the driveway and park, shutting off the engine. We get out and make our way to the front door.

  The lawn is brown, typical of Pacific Northwest grass this time of year after it's been baked in the dry summer kiln. Though it’s also overgrown, very atypical for this time of year. Grass doesn’t grow in the summer around here. It just dies. The lawn hasn’t been cut in well over a year, it seems.

  Fox Hollow Rd. cuts through a forest. Mrs. Jones’s house is tucked away inside with some neighbors on either side and across the street, though I wouldn’t exactly say they live close together.

  Stepping stones make a walkway up to the porch. An eclectic number of wind chimes greet us in the autumn breeze, swinging from the awning. The home is modest. I’d even call it nice if someone gave it a new paint job: the weathered exterior is chipped and cracked.

  I open the screen door and wrap my fist on the wooden one with a few heavy knocks.

  Blap, blap, blap.

  No one answers.

  Blap, blap, blap.

  “Everyone must be at work,” I say. “We’ll have to go back and put in another request. Maybe we can find where she works.”

  “What a stupid waste of time this has been,” says Joe. “Let’s head back to the office. I’ll make sure the warrants and requests get taken care of. Why don’t you take the day and go study that book?”

  I turn around and sigh, letting the screen door shut with a clattering bang.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Over Joe’s shoulder, I see a wind chime fashioned from a cross with a circle made of two serpents trying to eat each other. The Cross and the Ouroboros.

  “That’s an interesting combination there,” I say, throwing a nod at the windchime.

  Joe turns and looks at it. He raises an eyebrow.

  “Had I seen this before yesterday, I’d have thought little of it. Tacky, maybe, but I don’t think I’d have cared much more than that.”

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  “What do you think now, then?”

  “It’s in the book, Marlowe.”

  “That?”

  “Yes. There’s an almost exact illustration of that in the grimoire we found at the cabin, and now I know exactly what to call it: infernal blasphemy.”

  “How so?” I can tell he’s about to start sounding more Irish.

  “Christ have mercy! I’ll explain it in the car. Thinking about it boils my blood.”

  With that, he limps back through the yard to the Hudson. I follow him.

  [ DRIVE ]

  “The Ouroboros itself isn’t a sacrilegious symbol,” says Joe.

  The Hudson’s engine hums as we cruise back to the office.

  “What is it then?” I ask.

  “It’s neutral,” he continues. “It comes from alchemy, though I’m not sure where the alchemists got it. That’s beyond my knowledge. The Church has never explicitly condemned alchemy, but it condemns many of the conclusions alchemists draw.”

  “Okay, so what’s the problem with the Cross and Ouroboros?”

  “In the Catholic faith, the Cross symbolizes the triumph of Christ, our King and our Lord, over death through His humility, obedience, and self-sacrifice. Yet, in the grimoire, the Cross is a tool to be wielded like some magic wand, granting the wielder symbolic power over life and death. They call it the Sceptrum.”

  “Sceptrum. That’s Latin.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that where we get the word scepter from?”

  “Probably. I’m a detective, not an etymologist.”

  “You’re Catholic. You’re supposed to know everything about Latin.”

  “Anyway, Marlowe, the Ouroboros is the symbol the author of the grimoire chose to represent life and death, but he make an alteration: historically, the symbol has shown only one snake. In the grimoire’s Ouroboros, there are two.

  “Alright.”

  “The grimoire says the two serpents represent duality: order and chaos, light and dark, good and evil. Furthermore, it sees this duality in human life.”

  “I don’t really get where you’re going with this. Other than that it’s curious that the symbol from the book was turned into a wind chime.”

  “Human sacrifice.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Sceptrum Ouroboros represents power through human sacrifice. Both the living and the dead are offered to demons in exchange for power over life and death. Necromancy!”

  “I’ll have to read it for myself.”

  “Remember: it doesn’t matter if you believe a word written in that book. The boys who were reading it did, and it’s most likely that whoever lent it to them believed it too.”

  “So, you’re saying Mrs. Jones sacrifices people on the weekend?”

  “No. She likely has no idea the nefarious meaning of the symbol. That’s the thing about symbols, especially in the occult: they are never simple. To her, it probably represents something harmless. Good, even. Something like ‘eternal life in Christ.’ I don’t know enough about the New Faith Unitarians to speculate further, but I do know enough to know where that symbol comes from. Be careful on Sunday. Bloody Protestants! Always grave robbing ancient heresies.”

  “You think they’ll nail me to a cross or something?” I ask with flippant indifference.

  “I think someone will figure out you’re a threat to whatever they’re doing, and they’ll do whatever they need to in order to remove you from the equation.”

  He’s taking this more seriously than I thought.

  “Maybe we need to push this up the chain,” I say. “If something this vile is happening, we’re going to need more men involved.”

  “I’ve thought about that, but let’s wait. We still don’t know how deep this goes.”

  “Here’s one thing I haven’t quite figured out yet.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where did the grimoire come from? I had thought the boys ordered it on loan from an ad in one of those old Weird Tales magazines, but it seems … closer to home for them.”

  “Maybe those have nothing to do with each other.”

  “Could be. It’s just a weird coincidence.”

  “This is the first you’re telling me about an ad in a magazine,” says Joe, his face looking more troubled and brooding with each revelation.

  “Yeah, sorry. It slipped my mind.”

  “Then again, it could be both that they got the book from the ad and this whole thing is closer to home than you imagined.”

  “Whatever the case, you were right.”

  “Remind me. I’m right about a good many things.”

  “A case is always more than it seems.”

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