Unholy Ground

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Susan’s place was actually one-half of a duplex, in a neighborhood that might have been considered “rough” ten years ago but which now was part of the gentrification that had spread into many of L.A.’s previously overlooked areas. Like Audrey’s own house, this place appeared as if it had been built sometime in the first decade or so of the twentieth century, and was freshly painted in pale green with darker green trim and a small but immaculate lawn out front.

The two of them got out of Michael’s Land Cruiser, which he’d parked at the curb in front of the duplex. A gray-haired woman came down the two porch steps to meet them. Audrey could see the woman’s gaze travel to the beat-up SUV and then back, but she seemed to relax slightly as she took in the dark suit Michael was wearing, Audrey’s skirt and blouse and heels. They’d both dressed up for the meeting at the cable exec’s office, and neither of them had had the time to change once they were done.

“Ms. Armentrout?” Michael asked, hand extended.

“Yes, I’m Jill Armentrout. But please call me Jill,” the woman replied, taking his hand and shaking it briefly, then doing the same with Audrey. Although she had to be in her early sixties, Jill was very trim, chicly casual in her dark green top, jeans, and flats. Turquoise flashed blue at her ears and wrists, and her white-streaked gray hair seemed a deliberate choice, styled into a long bob. “I’m so glad you could come. I’m — I’m not really sure what to do with what I found in there.”

“And what was that?” Michael still wore a pleasant expression, but Audrey noticed how his brows pulled together in the beginnings of a frown.

Jill glanced away from him, toward the sidewalk, but no one was out and about on this late afternoon in early spring. The worry in her blue eyes was almost painfully obvious. “Come inside. I think it’s better if you see for yourself.”

After delivering that cryptic remark, she turned and went back up the steps and into the duplex, leaving Audrey and Michael no choice but to follow. Once they were inside, Jill shut the door behind them.

As far as Audrey could tell, this place looked just like Susan — almost painfully neat, two matching love seats covered in beige linen facing each other across a glass coffee table. Black and white prints of Ansel Adams photographs hung on the walls, and a smallish flat-screen television sat on top of a low entertainment center in pale wood.

“Susan Loomis was always a wonderful tenant,” Jill said. “Maybe she thought she needed to prove herself to me.”

“‘Prove herself’?” Audrey echoed. “What do you mean?”

“When she filled out the application for this place, she didn’t have any personal references she could give me. Said she was leaving an abusive relationship back east and had severed all connections with the people she knew there.”

A sad story, and one Audrey had heard before. It was difficult to start over, and even more so if you didn’t have any way of proving who you were. She nodded, and Jill continued.

“But she had several recent pay stubs from work she’d done here in Los Angeles, and I told her that was good enough.” Jill shook her head. “She seemed so worried that I’d turn her down. She said she loved the house and the neighborhood, and that she’d take very good care of things for me. And she did — she lived here for four years and was a model tenant. Paid her rent early, didn’t make unreasonable repair requests.” A pause, and she added, expression darkening, “That’s why I’m having such a hard time connecting the Susan Loomis I knew to what I found in her spare bedroom.”

“Will you show us?” Michael asked. The frown was back, but he sounded calm, unruffled.

“This way.”

The duplex was small — just the front room, which had a dining area off to one side, a tiny kitchen with an apartment-sized stove and diminutive refrigerator, and a short hallway. Three doors opened off that hallway; one was the bathroom, while another was obviously what had been Susan’s bedroom, with a queen-size bed that took up most of the space, a small table placed next to it, and a narrow highboy in one corner. The third door opened on what had probably been intended as a second bedroom or possibly an office or studio…but that wasn’t how Susan had been using it.

A small gasp escaped Audrey’s lips before she could hold it back, and Michael’s frown deepened as they stared at the room’s contents.

The wooden floor was bare. Carved into it were intricate runes and sigils, not unlike what Audrey had seen in the basement of the Whitcomb mansion, but even more complicated. Off to one side was a rolled-up flat-weave beige rug — probably to cover the floor in case Jill ever came by to inspect the property. The walls were utterly bare, and at the far end of the room was a low table that seemed to function as a shrine of some sort. On that table was a large statue, probably at least three feet tall, of a horned figure with goat legs. Hanging around the statue was a thick silver chain, from which dangled an upside-down pentacle, also made of silver.

What the ever-loving hell?

Something about the air smelled wrong, as if some kind of cloying incense had once been burned the room, although Audrey couldn’t see any evidence of it now — none of the little bowls or flat trays people commonly used when lighting incense. And it felt colder in here than in the rest of the house, but that could have simply been because of the bare walls and bare floors.

“I’m not one to judge people for their beliefs,” Jill said, as Michael went into the room and crouched in the center, bending down so he could more closely examine the symbols on the floor. “But this? I have to tell you, it definitely shook me up. And the floor — how am I supposed to fix that?”

Audrey looked down at the wooden floorboards. They were a medium shade of oak and appeared to be original to the house. The carvings in them were deep enough that she didn’t think they could be sanded out.

“You can’t fix it,” Michael said. He stood up, his expression now very grim. “You’ll have to tear out the entire floor — and make sure the boards are burned afterward.”

“‘Burned’?” Jill Armentrout echoed, looking startled. “Why?”

“Because these markings are dangerous. They can’t be allowed to remain intact.”

For a second, the older woman didn’t reply. She pulled in a breath, looked down at the floor, then back up at Michael. A flash of suspicion crossed her face, and she said, “How do you know Susan, anyway?”

“We worked together,” Michael replied. His tone was very calm…almost too calm. “But none of us knew this about her. I would never have allowed her near me or anyone I cared about” — his gaze strayed to Audrey, then returned to Jill — “if I’d had any idea what she was hiding here. I do work in the field of the supernatural, Ms. Armentrout. But on the side of light…always on the side of light.”

“He’s a Unitarian minister,” Audrey offered, hoping that particular detail might help to allay some of the landlady’s obvious suspicions. “And I’m a psychologist. I can tell you now, while I didn’t know Susan well, I can say that during the time we worked together, there was absolutely no sign of her, well….” She faltered there, not sure how she should even describe what she was looking at. Had Susan been a closet Satan worshipper, or something even worse? Had the demon Alastor jumped to her because it knew it would find her a willing host?

Jill Armentrout looked somewhat relieved by their credentials, but she was still clearly uneasy, arms now wrapped tightly around herself, as if she’d been overtaken by a sudden chill. “So I tear up the floorboards and burn them. What else?”

“I’d have a priest bless the house after you were done,” Michael said.

This suggestion was met by an uneasy chuckle. “I’m not exactly a religious person. I don’t even know a priest.”

“The local diocese should be able to help you. If not, let me know, and I’ll make a few calls.” He paused, then glanced past the two women in the doorway as though focusing on the rest of the house. “Do you mind if I look around a bit?”

“No.” A faint smile touched Jill’s nude-glossed lips. “It’s not like Susan is here to say you can’t.”

“True.” Another brief hesitation, and he went on, “I know this seems like a lot to deal with. If I can find any information on next of kin, then I’ll pass it on to you. But if not….”

“Then I have to figure out what to do with all of this,” Jill finished for him, looking dismayed by the prospect of having to dispose of Susan’s belongings.

“There are charities that can help you if necessary,” Audrey said. “But let’s see what Michael and I can find first.”

“Do I need to stay?”

“No,” Michael replied at once. Audrey got the distinct impression that he would prefer to do this without an audience. “I can call you when we’re done. Do you live close by?”

“In South Pasadena.”

Only ten minutes or so away. That made things easier.

“Then go on home,” Michael said. “I know this has been a shock.”

Jill nodded, mouth tight. Then she asked, “How did it happen?”

“An accident,” he said swiftly, before Audrey could reply. His eyes met hers, and she knew he was trying to press the point home once again, doing his best to remind her that she shouldn’t blame herself for Susan’s death. “We were shooting a cable TV show. Susan…took a very bad fall and didn’t survive.”

For a moment, Jill Armentrout was silent. A small shake of her head, and she said, “That’s terrible.”

“It was a shock for all of us. We’re still trying to come to terms with what happened. And this” — he looked back toward the bare little room with its horrible shrine — “this just makes it that much worse. But we’ll handle it, one way or another. For now, just let us work, and I’ll be in touch if I find something, or at least to let you know we’re done so you can come back and lock up.”

“Thank you,” Jill said. “I do think I need to get out of here. I feel a headache coming on.”

Audrey offered her a sympathetic glance, at the same time thinking she knew exactly how the other woman felt. Something about the little house oppressed her, although that could have just been her imagination working overtime. As far as she’d been able to tell, the duplex’s other unit seemed to be occupied, since she’d spotted some flowers in pots on the front porch. However, whoever lived there didn’t seem to be home at the moment. Had Susan’s activities in the spare bedroom affected them, or had she taken steps to ensure that there was no spillover from the dark magic being worked here?

Impossible to say for sure, and since Jill had already left, they couldn’t ask her if there had been any complaints. Probably not, though; Susan sounded as though she’d been a model tenant.

Now Audrey and Michael were alone in the duplex. They looked at each other, and he ran a hand through his hair, clearly just as flummoxed as she by this sudden turn of events.

“Well,” he said at last, “I guess we’d better get to work.”

Michael went into Susan’s bedroom, Audrey right behind him. At the moment, he didn’t know for sure what he was supposed to think. If it had just been the altar — which, in its kitschy ugliness, looked like something a rebellious teenager might put up in his room — then he might have been able to dismiss the whole thing and walk away. He might have been surprised that Susan, calm, kind, sensible Susan, would dabble in such things, although he knew better than most that people’s search for meaning in this insane world sometimes took them down some very strange paths.

But those symbols and runes and sigils scratched with such painstaking care into the floor of the duplex’s second bedroom…only someone well versed in the dark language of summoning, of submission, would have been able to do something like that. Which meant Susan had given in to the dark path years and years ago, probably long before she ever came to live in Southern California. While he knew that the story about an abusive ex was definitely a lie, his instincts told him she was no native of the area, was as much a transplant as he.