The Diviners (The Diviners #1)

Detective Malloy led Will around the wall of oyster shells and she watched her uncle’s face go even paler, saw him put a hand to his mouth to hold back a shout or vomit. He turned away for a minute and bent over to breathe, and Evie saw her chance.

“Unc, are you all right?” she said, rushing at him.

“Evie…” he started, but it was too late. Evie had turned around.

The only time she could recall ever feeling so punched clean of breath was the day the telegram from the war department arrived. It took a moment for her mind to register that what lay sprawled on the old wooden pier had been a human being. She took it in by degrees: A shoe half-off. The filthy, shredded stockings pooling around swollen, blackened ankles. The torn dress and bruised limbs. The skin of her eyelids slack and sunken around empty sockets.

Her eyes. The killer had taken her eyes.

Dizziness whooshed up and over Evie as if someone had swung a hammer hard against a carnival bell. She dug her fingernails into her palms to keep herself alert.

The girl’s battered body had been arranged on the pier with her arms and legs stretched out. Her head was shorn of all hair except for a few tufts the scissors had missed. Cheap five-and-dime-store pearls ringed her neck, and toy rings encircled her fingers. Her blood-drained face was made up in garish fashion—heavy powder and rouge. A red slash of lipstick barely disguised the blue of her dead lips. HARLOT had been scrawled across her forehead.

A policeman had offered Will smelling salts and he stood, a little woozy. Evie hadn’t moved an inch. Back at the apartment, it had seemed very exciting—a real murder scene, something to tell new friends about. But now, looking at the violated corpse, Evie doubted she’d ever want to discuss this. She wished she could unsee it. A single tear trickled down her cheek. She wiped it quickly away and stared down at her shoes.

“She’s been dead about a week, give or take,” Detective Malloy said. His voice seemed to come to Evie through a tunnel. “Pocketbook has a tag inside with a name and address. Ruta Badowski of Brooklyn. Nineteen years old. Family’s been contacted. A little over a week ago, Ruta went to one of those crazy dance marathons with her steady fella, Jacek Kowalski. We pulled him in for questioning, got nothing. He claims he slept on a stoop and went to work at the brick factory the next morning. Boss confirms it.”

Evie chanced another peek at the girl’s disfigured face. Nineteen. Only two years older than Evie. She’d been out dancing. Now she was dead.

“This is what I wanted you to see.” Malloy opened the girl’s dress. On her chest, above her dingy brassiere, was a large brand of a five-pointed star encircled by a snake eating its tail.

“What is that, Fitz, some kind of voodoo charm?” Malloy asked.

“It has nothing to do with voodoo. And voudon is simply West African and Caribbean spiritualism, which is nature based,” Uncle Will said with impatience.

Malloy made a gesture of apology. “Okay, okay. Don’t get sore, Fitz. What is it, then?”

Will crouched low to get a better look. Evie didn’t know how he could do it without screaming. “It’s a pentacle, a symbol of the universe,” Will explained. “Many religions and orders use them—pagans, Gnostics, Eastern religions, ancient Christians, Freemasons. The Seal of Solomon is the most famous such symbol. It’s often used as a form of protection.”

“Didn’t help her much,” Malloy said.

Uncle Will walked around the body. “This one is inverted.” Will gestured to the two points up and the one down. “I’ve heard it said that the inverted pentagram suggests a lack of balance, the triumph of the material over the spiritual. Some claim that such a pentagram can be used for darker purposes, for sorcery or forbidden magic—to call forth demons or angels.” Will stood up and faced away for a minute, taking three big gulps of air and blowing them out again. “Fish. Hate the smell of fish.”

“Here, Unc,” Evie said, passing him a tiny compact of solid perfume from her purse. Will gave it a sniff and passed it back. Evie held it up to her nose as well. She felt faint again, and she forced herself to look up at the magnificent span of steel arching across the river to Brooklyn.

“Could the murderer work in a factory, or with cattle?” Jericho said, breaking his silence. She hadn’t even noticed that he’d come to stand beside her.

“We’ve already checked around the city to see if the brand looks familiar. Nothing so far,” Malloy said. “There’s something else.”

Malloy signaled for one of the flat foots, who brought him a yellowed scrap of paper, which he handed to Will. Evie inched next to her uncle, reading from just behind.