INTERLUDE II
Occido Lumen: The Story of The Book
THE BROWN-SKINNED BROKER IN THE BLACK VELVET Nehru jacket twisted a blue opal ring around the base of his pinkie finger as he strolled the canal. “I have never met Mynheer Blaak, mind you. He prefers it that way.”
Setrakian walked alongside the broker. Setrakian was traveling with a Belgian passport, under the name Roald Pirk, his occupation listed as “antique bookseller.” The document was an expert forgery.
The year was 1972. Setrakian was forty-six years old.
“Though I can assure you he is very wealthy,” the broker continued. “Do you like money very much, Monsieur Pirk?”
“I do.”
“Then you will like Mynheer Blaak very much. This volume he seeks, he will pay you quite handsomely. I am authorized to say that he will match your price, which, itself, I would characterize as aggressive. This makes you happy?”
“Yes.”
“As it should. You are fortunate indeed to have acquired such a rare volume. I am sure you are aware of its provenance. You are not a superstitious man?”
“In fact, I am. By trade.”
“Ah. And that is why you have chosen to part with it? Myself, I think of this volume as the book version of ‘The Bottle Imp.’ You are familiar with the tale?”
“Stevenson, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed. Oh, I hope you aren’t thinking that I am testing your knowledge of literature in order to gauge your bona fides. I reference Stevenson only because I recently brokered the sale of an extremely rare edition of The Master of Ballantrae. But in ‘Imp,’ as you evidently remember, the accursed bottle must be sold each time for less than it was purchased. Not so with this volume. No, no. Quite the opposite.”
The broker’s eyes flashed with interest at one of the brightly lit display windows they strolled past. Unlike most of the other showcases along De Wallen, the red-light district of Amsterdam, the occupant of this particular window was a ladyboy, not the usual female prostitute.
The broker smoothed his mustache and redirected his eyes to the brick-paved street. “In any event,” he continued, “the book has a troubling legacy. I myself will not handle it. Mynheer Blaak is an avid collector, a connoisseur of the first rank. His tastes run to the discriminating and the obscure, and his checks always clear. But I feel it is only fair to warn you, there have been a few attempts at fraud.”
“I see.”
“I, of course, can accept no responsibility for what became of these crooked sellers. Though I must say, Mynheer Blaak’s interest in the volume is keen, because he has paid half of my commission on every unsuccessful transaction. In order that I might continue my search and keep potential suitors arriving at his door, so to speak.”
The broker casually pulled out a pair of fine white cotton gloves and fitted them over his manicured hands.
“If you will forgive me,” said Setrakian, “I did not journey to Amsterdam to walk its beautiful canals. I am a superstitious man, as I stated, and I should like to unload myself of the burden of such a valuable book at the earliest convenience. To be frank, I am even more concerned about robbers than curses.”
“I see, yes. You are a practical man.”
“Where and when will Mynheer Blaak be available to conduct this transaction?”
“The book is with you, then?”
Setrakian nodded. “It is here.”
The broker pointed to the twin-handled, twin-buckled portmanteau of stiff, black leather in Setrakian’s hand. “On your person?”
“No, much too risky.” Setrakian moved the suitcase from one hand to the other, hoping to signal otherwise. “But it is here. In Amsterdam. It is near.”
“Please forgive my boldness then. But, if you are indeed in possession of the Lumen then you are familiar with its content. Its raison d’être, yes?”
Setrakian stopped. For the first time he noticed they had wandered off the crowded streets and were now in a narrow alley with no one in sight. The broker folded his arms behind his back as if in casual conversation.
“I do,” said Setrakian. “But it would be foolish for me to divulge much.”
“Indeed,” said the broker. “And we don’t expect you to do so but—could you effectively summarize your impressions of it? A few words if you would.”
Setrakian perceived a metallic flash behind the broker’s back—or was it one of the man’s gloved hands? Either way, Setrakian felt no fear. He had prepared for this.
“Mal’akh Elohim. Messengers of God. Angels. Archangels. In this case, Fallen Ones. And their corrupt lineage on this Earth.”
The broker’s eyes flared a moment, then were still. “Wonderful. Well, Mynheer Blaak is most interested to meet you, and will be in contact very soon.”
The broker offered Setrakian a white-gloved hand. Setrakian wore black gloves, and the broker certainly felt the crooked digits of his hand as they shook—but, aside from an impolite stiffening, did not otherwise react. Setrakian said, “Shall I give you my local address?”
The broker waved his gloved hand brusquely. “I am to know nothing. Monsieur, I wish you every success.” He was starting away, back the way they came.
“But how will he contact me?” asked Setrakian, after him.
“I know only that he will,” the broker responded over a velvet-lined shoulder. “A very good evening to you, Monsieur Pirk.”
Setrakian watched the dapper man walk on, long enough to see him turn in toward the window they had passed and knock pleasantly. Setrakian turned up the collar of his overcoat and walked west, away from the inky water of the canals toward the Dam Platz.
Amsterdam, being a city of canals, was an unusual residence for a strigoi, forbidden by nature to cross over moving water. But all his years spent in pursuit of the Nazi doctor Werner Dreverhaven, the camp physician at Treblinka, had led Setrakian into a network of underground antique booksellers. That, in turn, had put him on the path to the object of Dreverhaven’s obsession, this extraordinarily rare Latin translation of an obscure Mesopotamian text.
De Wallen was known more for its macabre mix of drugs, coffee bars, sex clubs, brothels, and window girls and boys. But the narrow alleys and canals of this port city were also home to a small but highly influential group of antique book merchants who traded manuscripts all over the world.
Setrakian had learned that Dreverhaven—under the guise of a bibliophile named Jan-Piet Blaak—had fled to the Low Countries in the years following the war, traveling throughout Belgium until the early 1950s, crossing into the Netherlands and settling in Amsterdam in 1955. In De Wallen, he could move freely at night, along paths proscribed by the waterways, and burrow undetected during the day. The canals discouraged his staying there, but apparently the lure of the bibliophile trade—and the Occido Lumen in particular—was too seductive. He had established a nest here, and made the city his permanent home.
The middle of the town was island-like, radiating from the Dam Platz, surrounded in part, but not bisected by, the canals. Setrakian walked past three-hundred-year-old gabled buildings, the fragrance of hash smoke wafting out the windows with American folk music. A young woman rushed past, hobbling in one broken heel, late for a night of work, her gartered legs and fishnet stockings showing beneath the hem of a coat of faux mink.
Setrakian came upon two pigeons on the cobblestones, who did not alight at his approach. He slowed and looked to see what had captured their interest.
The pigeons were picking apart a gutter rat.
“I am told you have the Lumen?”
Setrakian stiffened. The presence was very near—in fact, right behind him. But the voice originated inside his head.
Setrakian half-turned, frightened. “Mynheer Blaak?”
He was mistaken. There was no one behind him.
“Monsieur Pirk, I presume?”
Setrakian jerked to his right. In the shadowy entrance to an alleyway stood a portly figure dressed in a long, formal coat and a
top hat, supporting himself with a thin, metal-tipped cane.
Setrakian swallowed his adrenaline, his anticipation, his fear. “How did you ever find me, sir?”
“The book. That is all that matters. Is it in your possession, Pirk?”
“I… I have it near.”
“Where is your hotel?”
“I have rented a flat near the station. If you like, I would be happy to conduct our transaction there—”
“I am afraid I cannot travel that far conveniently, for I have a bad case of the gout.”
Setrakian turned more fully toward the shadowed being. There were a few people out in the square, and he dared to take a step toward Dreverhaven, in the manner of an unsuspecting man. He did not smell the usual earthy musk of the strigoi, though the hash smoke acted on the night like a perfume. “What would you suggest, then? I would very much like to conclude this sale this evening.”
“And yet, you would have to return to your flat first.”
“Yes. I guess I would.”
“Hmm.” The figure ventured forward a step, tapping the metal toe of its cane on a cobblestone. Wings fluttered, the pigeons taking flight behind Setrakian. Blaak said, “I wonder why a man traveling in an unfamiliar city would entrust such a valuable article to his flat rather than the security of his own person.”
Setrakian switched his portmanteau from one hand to the other. “Your point?”
“I do not believe a true collector would risk allowing such a precious item out of his sight. Or his grip.”
Setrakian said, “There are thieves about.”
“And thieves within. If indeed you want to relieve yourself of the burden of this cursed artifact for a premium price, you will now follow me, Pirk. My residence is just a few paces this way.”
Dreverhaven turned and started into the alley, using the cane but not reliant upon it. Setrakian steadied himself, licking his lips and feeling the bristles of his disguising beard as he followed the undead war criminal into the stone alleyway.
The only time Setrakian was allowed outside Treblinka’s camouflaged barbwire fences was to work on Dreverhaven’s library. Herr Doktor maintained a house just a few minutes’ drive from the camp, workers transported there one at a time by a three-man squad of armed Ukrainian guards. Setrakian had little contact with Dreverhaven at the house, and, much more fortunately, no contact with him whatsoever inside the camp surgery, where Dreverhaven sought to satisfy his medical and scientific curiosity in the manner of an indulged boy left alone to cut worms in half and burn the wings off flies.
Dreverhaven was a bibliophile even then, using the spoils of war and genocide—gold and diamonds stolen from the walking dead—to spend outrageous sums on rare texts from Poland, France, Great Britain, and Italy, appropriated with dubious provenance during the black market chaos of the war years. Setrakian had been ordered to do finish work on a two-room library of rich oak, complete with a rolling iron ladder and a stained-glass window portraying the rod of Asclepius. Often confused with the caduceus, the Asclepius image of a serpent or long worm coiled about a staff is the symbol for medicine and doctors. But the head of the staff on Dreverhaven’s stained-glass representation depicted a death’s head, the symbol of the Nazi SS.
Dreverhaven personally inspected Setrakian’s craftsmanship once, his blue eyes crystal-cold as his fingers traced the underside of the shelves, seeking out any rough spots. He praised the young Jew with a nod and dismissed him.
They met one more time, when Setrakian faced the “Burning Hole,” the doctor overseeing the slaughter with the same cold blue eyes. They did not recognize Setrakian then: too many faces, all indistinguishable to him. Still, the experimenter was busy, an assistant timing the interlude between the gunshot entering the back of the head and the last agonal twitching of the victim.
Setrakian’s scholarship in the folklore and the occult history of vampires dovetailed with his hunt for the camp Nazis in his search for the ancient text known as Occido Lumen.
Setrakian gave “Blaak” plenty of leeway, trailing him by three paces, just out of stinger range. Dreverhaven walked on with his cane, apparently unconcerned about the vulnerability of having a stranger at his back. Perhaps he laid his trust in the many pedestrians circling the Wallen at night, their presence discouraging any attack. Or perhaps he merely wanted to give the impression of guilelessness.
In other words, perhaps the cat was acting like a mouse.
Between two red-lit window girls, Dreverhaven turned a key in a door lock, and Setrakian followed him up a red-carpeted flight of stairs. Dreverhaven had the top two floors, handsomely decorated if not well-lived-in. The bulb wattage was kept low, downturned lamps shining dimly onto soft rugs. The front windows faced east. They lacked heavy shades. There were no back windows, and, in sizing up the room dimensions, Setrakian determined them to be too narrow. He remembered, at once, harboring this same suspicion at his house near Treblinka—a suspicion informed by camp rumors of a secret examining room at Dreverhaven’s house, a hidden surgery.
Dreverhaven moved to a lit table, upon which he rested his cane. On a porcelain tray, Setrakian recognized the paperwork he had earlier provided the broker: provenance documents establishing a plausible link to the 1911 Marseilles auction, all expensive forgeries.
Dreverhaven removed his hat and placed it on a table, yet still he did not turn around. “May I interest you in an aperitif?”
“Regrettably, no,” answered Setrakian, undoing the twin buckles on his portmanteau while leaving the top clasp closed. “Travel upsets my digestive system.”
“Ah. Mine is ironclad.”
“Please don’t deny yourself on my account.”
Dreverhaven turned around, slowly, in the gloom. “I couldn’t, Monsieur Pirk. It is my practice never to drink alone.”
Instead of the time-worn strigoi Setrakian expected, he was stunned—though he tried to hide it—to find Dreverhaven looking exactly as he had decades before. Those same crystalline eyes. Raven-black hair falling over the back of his neck. Setrakian tasted a pang of acid, but he had little reason to fear: Dreverhaven had not recognized him at the pit, and surely would not recognize him now, more than a quarter century later.
“So,” Dreverhaven said. “Let us consummate our happy transaction then.”
Setrakian’s greatest test of will involved masking his amazement at the vampire’s speech. Or, more accurately, his play at speech. The vampire communicated in the usual telepathic manner, “speaking” directly into Setrakian’s head—but it had learned to manipulate its useless lips in a pantomime of human speech. Setrakian now understood how, in this manner, “Jan-Piet Blaak” moved about nocturnal Amsterdam without fear of discovery.
Setrakian scanned the room for another way out. He needed to know the strigoi was trapped before springing on him. He had come too far to allow Dreverhaven to slip free of his grasp.
Setrakian said, “Am I to understand, then, that you have no concerns about the book, given the misfortune that seems to befall those who possess it?”
Dreverhaven stood with his hands behind his back. “I am a man who embraces the accursed, Monsieur Pirk. And besides—it seems no misfortune has befallen you yet.”
“No… not yet,” lied Setrakian. “And why this book, if I may ask?”
“A scholarly interest, if you will. You might think of me as a broker myself. In fact, I have undertaken this global search for another interested party. The book is rare indeed, not having surfaced in more than half a century. Many believe that the sole remaining edition was destroyed. But—according to your papers—perhaps it has survived. Or there is a second edition. You are prepared to produce it now?”
“I am. First, I should like to see payment.”
“Ah. Naturally. In the case on the corner chair behind you.”
Setrakian moved laterally, with a casualness he did not feel, finding the latch with his finger and opening the top. The case was filled with banded guilders.
&nbs
p; “Very good,” said Setrakian.
“Trading paper for paper, Monsieur Pirk. Now if you will reciprocate?”
Setrakian left the case open and returned to his portmanteau. He undid the clasp, one eye on Dreverhaven the entire time. “You might know, it has a very unusual binding.”
“I am aware of that, yes.”
“Though I am assured it is only partially responsible for the book’s outrageous price.”
“May I remind you, Monsieur, that you set the price. And do not judge a book by its cover. As with most clichés, that is good advice often ignored.”
Setrakian carried the portmanteau to the table containing the papers of provenance. He pulled open the top under the faint lamp light, then withdrew. “As you will, sir.”
“Please,” said the vampire. “I should like you to remove it. I insist.”
“Very well.”
Setrakian returned to the bag and reached inside with his black-gloved hands. He pulled out the book, which was bound in silver and fronted and backed with smooth silver plates.
He offered it to Dreverhaven. The vampire’s eyes narrowed, glowing.
Setrakian took a step toward him. “You would like to inspect it, of course?”
“Set it down on that table, Monsieur.”
“That table? But the light is so much more favorable over here.”
“You will please set it down on that table.”
Setrakian did not immediately comply. He remained still, the heavy silver book in his hands. “But you must want to examine it.”
Dreverhaven’s eyes rose from the silver cover of the tome to take in Setrakian’s face. “Your beard, Monsieur Pirk. It obscures your face. It gives you a Hebraic mien.”
“Is that right? I take it you don’t like Jews.”
“They don’t like me. Your scent, Pirk—it is familiar.”
“Why don’t you take a closer look at this book.”
“I do not need to. It is a fake.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps, indeed. But the silver—I can assure you that the silver is quite real.”
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