Page 46 of Girl, Unseen

‘It’s all mixed up. Death worship, spirituality, elements as the basic building blocks of existence. The eternal transformation of matter and spirit. Pure crazy, but when you're in it... when you're part of it...’ He trailed off, lost in some memory he didn't seem eager to revisit.

A part of Ella wanted to scream. She remembered her old psychology tutor once showing her images from a ‘Stroke Simulator,’ which featured a bunch of objects that had been edited and blurred until they were unrecognizable. Felix’s words felt like the verbal equivalent.

She had a killer to find, and none of this spiritual nonsense was helping.

‘What happened next? You meet this cult, get indoctrinated, then what?’

‘We’d just… get together. Every two weeks.’

‘And do what?’

Felix scrubbed a hand over his face. 'Talk, mostly. It's like group therapy. Everyone sits in a circle. Some people talk, some stay quiet. We didn't go out killing people if that's what you're asking.'

Luca found a picture of the symbols on the rocks at the quarry. He slid it across the table. ‘Well, one of you went out killing people. And you left this message behind.’

‘You keep mentioning symbols,’ Felix said as he inspected the photo, ‘but these are not the Order’s symbols. I don’t even know what these are. They’re not alchemic or spiritual, at least not any that I know of. The Order didn’t do this.’

Ella asked, ‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Because we drew the same symbols every time. Earth, fire, water, air, transmutation, ascendance. We didn’t do… this.’

She found a picture of one of the defiled graves and pushed it over. ‘Funny, because the symbols on these tombstones these look pretty identical to the ones from our crime scenes.’

Felix inspected it, then held up his palms in surrender. ‘Whoa, hold up. The Order wouldn’t… dig up graves. That’s insane. We weren’t body snatchers.’

Ella sat back and tried to make sense of everything. Somewhere out there was a group of alchemist, occultist wannabes with a shared devotion to the elements. They spray-painted walls, killed animals and may or may not have desecrated graves and murdered at least two people. Ella had no idea where fantasy ended and reality began, and for all she knew, the man in front of her might just be taking her for a ride. A part of her was now convinced that Felix Blackwood was not her killer, because if this bizarre cultdidn’texist, it was the most elaborate defense since David Berkowitz and his demonic dog.

But while Felix Blackwood might be innocent of murder, one of his cult-colleagues might not be.

She tapped the book again. ‘Your little Bible here. Who wrote it?’

‘Ezra,’ Felix said. ‘Ezra Crowley.’

Luca shot Ella a grin that saidtold you so. She ignored him. ‘Ezra Crowley? Tell me that’s not his real name.’

'No, it's not, but I don't know his real name. He kept it secret.'

Ella’s stomach began to churn. Charles Manson. Jim Jones. Paul Mackenzie. All cult leaders who eventually progressed to murder. Could this Ezra Crowley guy have joined the ranks?

‘Tell me about Ezra Crowley. Looks, personality, everything.’

Felix hesitated. He looked down at the table and said, ‘I don’t know. He looked like a guy. Long blonde hair, shaved at the sides, like a Viking. Biggish dude. Definitely on the juice. Maybe it messed with his head.’

Luca leaned closer to Ella and whispered, ‘Roid rage.’ Ella waved it off.

‘And what did Ezra talk about exactly? Anything that might resemble two dead bodies?’

‘Yes and no. I mean, he talked alot, you know? Cosmic stuff, enlightenment, hidden knowledge.’

‘And you bought into it?’ Ella watched his face for tells. The nervous twitches kept piling up.

‘At first. You know how it is. You're lost, you're searching. Ezra had this way of talking that made everything sound profound. Even the crazy stuff.’ Felix let out a laugh that belonged in an asylum. ‘He'd go on about the elements for hours. Like he's revealing secrets the rest of the world is too blind to see.’

Ella had never dealt with cult members before, be it leaders, followers, or ex-members. She was covering new territory with every step, and a part of her felt like she’d waded a little too deep for comfort.

‘You said you left the group. Why?’

‘I didn’t leave as such. I just stopped showing up to meetings last month.’

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