“Man,” he said. “I really hate ta’ do this to ya’. This shit is enough to give ya’ nightmares. It has me.”
“Like I said,” I took the envelope, “you aren’t doing anything to me. I offered to help.”
I unwrapped the string that held the package shut and folded back the flap. Tilting it, I slid out a healthy stack of eight-by-ten photographs, some color, some black and white. I began thumbing through the pictures slowly, studying each one carefully and giving Ben my general impression of the images.
The first photo was of a crudely painted Pentacle on a wall. Sections were shaded in pastel yellow, blue, and green. The outline of the symbol was a deep, rusted red, and a portion of it was smeared with the same color.
“Now I see why you were asking about the pastels,” I stated. “But the red looks a little strange. Not really a pastel.”
“It’s the victim’s blood,” Ben volunteered matter-of-factly, his voice almost a whisper.
“Oh,” I replied. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The second picture showed the Pentacle at more of a distance, revealing a mound of black and a mound of white on the floor. The following picture, a close-up of the mounds, showed them to be candles that had burned until they extinguished themselves, leaving behind hardened puddles of wax.
“Obviously a ritual of some sort,” I told him. “I’m not sure for what.”
I thumbed through more pictures of the candles and wall from various angles. The black and white images were much easier to tolerate, though knowing that the Pentacle had been inscribed in blood made me imagine I could still see the glaring red within the crisp black and grey tones. Eventually, I came to a picture of another wall. In the same dripping crimson strokes as the Pentacle were the words “All Is Forgiven.”