The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  Vincent walked energetically toward the kitchen. "But you must. This tea has no caffeine, and it's important as a preventative against that cold returning." As if on cue, the tea kettle whistled.

  "I have news about the Ahriman scrolls," Frederika reported, following him into the kitchen.

  "Good news, I hope."

  "Yes, very good." As Vincent gathered cups and saucers, Frederika put herself down on an old chair. "Reverend Spencer-he's the man doing the translating-is skipping around the scrolls, working on the parts that are easiest. He's spent the past few days in the section called Metaphysics." She watched the channeler pause, holding the tea kettle directly over one of the cups as if he were afraid to miss the next syllable. "He's found passages that speak of angels!"

  Vincent poured slowly; the water made almost no sound cascading into the cup. "And has he found any passages about devils?"

  "If he did, he must not have told my friend."

  "Your friend works directly with the reverend?"

  "In the same room," Frederika explained, "but he has nothing to do with the scrolls. Oh, except that he has one of the only keys that can unlock them from their case. There's a security system. Two keys have to be turned at the same time to get them out."

  Vincent set the cups and saucers down at the little kitchen table and sat. "Interesting. Evidently, they know what a treasure they possess."

  "Evidently." Frederika picked up her cup. "Tell me now why certain religions can't let these scrolls exist."

  "Some other time. Does-"

  "Now."

  DeVilbiss blinked at Frederika's force of will. "Are you testing me?"

  "And what if I am? It's very easy to be made a fool of in matters of the occult."

  "I'm not making a fool of you."

  "I meant you might be a fool. Just because these scrolls are so rare and hunted by major religions doesn't mean they hold occult truths. What's so dangerous to these religions?"

  Vincent regarded the young woman for several seconds, reassessing her strength of will and his ability to control her. "I have an answer, but it alone can't convince you. If it turns out I'm a fool, so be it. You either have to take that chance with me or not. The way I see it, you have no choice." Instead of answering, she took a generous sip of tea. He saw in her eyes that he had won this round. Staying on the offensive, he asked questions about what Simon had related to her.

  Frederika could honestly tell DeVilbiss nothing, but what he asked at least proved to her that he had knowledge of the scrolls beyond that of any layman.

  "We have to be patient about getting the information we want," Vincent conceded. "But I would so love at least to look on them, even through layers of glass. Could you persuade your friend…?"

  Frederika pursed her lips apologetically. "I'm sure I'll be able to, but not before Christmas."

  "No, of course not," Vincent said, amiably.

  Frederika became aware that, unlike her first visit, he had not drunk any of his tea. As she wondered idly if this was cause for concern, the music stopped. Vincent's head swung toward the stereo system. Frederika noticed a brownish-red stain just below the hairline on the side of his neck.

  "What's this?" she asked, leaning close.

  "What's what?"

  Frederika touched the stain. It flaked off from her touch. "Blood. Dried blood!" she exclaimed, exploring his hair. "You don't have any bumps or cuts."

  "That's good."

  "Here's more, on your sweater. Do you know what it's from?"

  Vincent tugged on the collar and attempted to look at the stains, hidden in the sweater's dark material. "I believe so. A chicken," he answered, calmly.

  Frederika rocked against her seat back. Vincent's eyes met hers with no hesitation. "You killed a chicken?"

  "Yes."

  "To eat?"

  "Not myself, no. Actually, I sacrificed it for a Haitian seance earlier today."

  "That's disgusting."

  "No, it's commonplace voodoo," Vincent countered. "I happen to be a qualified hungan. I spent three years in Haiti, among my wanderings."

  Frederika had not taken her eyes from his since he examined his sweater. She knew from personal successes how difficult it was to catch a truly accomplished liar. She also knew from her first visit to him that he was a liar by profession. She knew him to be a dangerous man. Not the kind who might find an excuse to hit her when he got too many drinks into him. Not the underschooled surgeon or the overschooled advisor to presidents. She had slept with all three of that kind, had found them intriguing for those reasons, and, for the same reasons, easy to discard. This one was much more dangerous to her, however, because the subjects of his obsession were, literally, life and death. Before this visit she worried that he might either be crazy or else use her and forget his half of their deal. Now her worries deepened considerably.

  "What can I tell you?" Vincent continued, mellifluously. "I require money to live. I was recommended by friends of friends. They demand the sacrifice, not I." His hand went to his chest. "Would you cast such a dismayed look at your butcher for doing his job?"

  Frederika labored a smile, thinking he was probably seeing through to her feelings. To compensate, she touched his hand sympathetically. He took hers and stood, compelling her to rise.

  "I should have looked in a mirror after the session," he said. "I scoured the kitchen until not a drop was left, but I failed to be so thorough with myself."

  "And where's the remains?"

  "They took it with them, naturally. You think they would throw away a perfectly good dinner?"

  "But it was a sacrifice."

  "You sound as if you don't believe me."

  "No, of course I believe you." She looked at her watch. "It's late; I have to go."

  Vincent backed into the dark, brown hallway, gently dragging her after him. "Not yet. Now you've made me feel dirty. I must shower. For your penance, you will accompany me."

  Frederika leaned her weight backward. "No, thank you. I don't need a shower."

  Vincent whirled around and scooped her into his arms. "Who said anything about need?"

  Frederika struggled against him. She was amazed and more than a little frightened by his strength, far greater than she imagined a man of his size and age could possess. He carried her straight into the bathroom, slammed the door behind him and only then did he flick on the light.

  "I can't stay late," Frederika insisted.

  Vincent set her down and inched her backward against the wall. His smile was gentle and playful, contradicting her fears. "Why not?"

  "I have a friend visiting who worries when I'm not back by eleven."

  "Your friend sounds more like your nanny," Vincent observed, bringing his face close to hers.

  Frederika smirked. "That's the truth." The image of Simon in front of the fireplace floated pleasantly in her mind, but she had trouble holding on to it. Vincent's strong and handsome countenance was almost upon her, his lids dropping and lips parting as he prepared to kiss her. She tugged lightly on his earlobe with the tips of her teeth, exhaling warm air into his ear, making him groan with pleasure. Her tactics never failed to satisfy men. She knew males were seldom, by nature, interested in kissing. No man had ever complained when Frederika evaded their lips and immediately moved toward coitus, and that was fine with her. She avoided the hot lips and snaking tongues whenever possible. Nor did she want protracted hand-holding, moon-eyed stares, or protests of undying love. But, inevitably, the less interest she showed in the aspects of romance that men expected women to desire, the more emphatic each man's romantic attentions became. Within days or weeks, she reached her tolerance level and expunged them ruthlessly from her life. For eight years-since the beginning of her sexual experiences-it had been so. She accepted it, simply, as her nature. Her passion for this man had certainly withered, but from fear rather than boredom. She determined to give him a token of what he wanted, so that she could get away and think clearly about whether or not she should have
anything more to do with him.

  While Vincent tugged single-mindedly at Frederika's sweater, she became anxiously aware of a lassitude creeping through her. Her expanding physical and mental enervation was countered by his growing sexual excitement. He tossed her sweater onto the counter, roughly unsnapped her bra and lowered his mouth to her breasts. She responded mechanically.

  Vincent stripped off his own sweater, revealing his well-muscled chest and abdomen, as well as the golden keychain that hung around his neck. He removed the chain, passed it over the shower curtain rod, dropped the items hanging from the chain through its loop and set the chain swinging.

  "You said the scrolls are kept locked with two keys," Vincent said to her. "Little keys like these?"

  Frederika realized through the rising fog that he was trying to hypnotize her. She turned her face forcefully toward the door, but he brought it back with a relentless pressure.

  "Look at the keys," Vincent whispered.

  Frederika squeezed her eyelids shut. A moment later they snapped open, from the pain of her pinched nipple. The moment she focused on the pendular chain, glinting and glistening as one section and then another caught the light, her eyes were locked to it. The pain in her breast disappeared. Her pupils followed the moving items at the chain's low point as they described a graceful arc, back and forth, back and forth.

  "Little keys like these?" Vincent repeated.

  "I don't know," she murmured. "I've never… seen them."

  DeVilbiss released Frederika, keeping his hands raised until he was sure she could stand without toppling over. He yanked off his shoes and socks, watching the young woman's rolling eyes, her lids drooping lower and lower. "Do you recognize the other things?" he asked, softly.

  Frederika leaned toward the chain. "An ankh, a… cross and a circle."

  "Yes," Vincent said, as he unbuckled his belt and pushed his trousers and underwear toward the cool tile floor. "All symbols of eternal life. That's what we both seek, isn't it?" She nodded and continued to follow the lessening arc. He unbuttoned her bluejeans and shoved them and her panties down, kneeling in front of her, guiding her clothing over first one foot then the other. He tossed the bunched material aside and pressed his face into the golden curls of her pubic mound.

  Now it was Frederika's turn to groan. Vincent intensified his skillful contacts. Past experiences using drugged tea and a swinging chain had taught him that the trance he induced would also increase the woman's sexual appetite, robbing her not only of volition but also of inhibitions. Squeezing and fondling her own breasts, Frederika writhed as one possessed.

  DeVilbiss guided Frederika backward into the shower stall, then pressed himself hard against her, forcing his erect penis between her legs. He turned the shower on and took the cold stream upon his own back until the temperature had adjusted. Then he angled her into the spray, placed his hands under her buttocks and lifted her against the slippery tile wall. With his groin he coaxed her legs apart and began a slow but persistent grind. He tried to kiss her lips, but she turned her face away, as she had before the drug took effect. He trailed his mouth instead down her chin, along the line of her jaw and to her throat. He sucked hard on her flesh with his lips, then let his teeth press furrows in her flawless skin. Had he not drunk from the rapist earlier in the evening he would have been incapable of resisting his bloodthirst.

  DeVilbiss quickened the pace of his plunges. He and the water made similar hissing noises. An unbidden thought flashed through his mind, about one of the more idiotic superstitions-the legend of creating more vampires simply by drinking until the victims die. He was grateful that no such transmogrifications occurred. Otherwise, over the course of five hundred years, he alone could have initiated a chain-reaction plague that would have turned the entire human race into vampires. Yet if he could make the legend true, just once, he would have chosen Frederika Vanderveen to become his instant kindred spirit. What he truly hoped for was an even more selfish solution. She had responded well to the dose of genuine elixir he had laced in her tea the first time she visited the house. And she had not even sickened from, much less been poisoned by, the imitation elixir he had slipped into her wine forty-eight hours before. In fact, he thought he felt a definite increase in her physical and mental strengths when she had just resisted him. At long last, he had reason to hope that the elixir's secrets had been decoded. He would force her under a prolonged hypnotic spell to continue a daily dosage for at least six months. She could not stay with him; Little Nick would surely recognize her changes. But when he was compelled to leave Princeton, he would make her follow at a distance. During the daylight hours, when he was safe from scrutiny, he would teach her what else she needed to survive. She would learn about her need for human blood to complete the regimen, and he would kill for her. After six months, he would try to destroy her. If she survived, he would be halfway to freedom. Then he planned to send her away, supplying her with formula just as he was supplied. If, in ten years, she had not aged, he would know for certain that he need no longer be a slave. He would release Frederika then from her hypnotic indenture. She would discover what she had become, what he had made her. She might hate him at first and flee from him. But soon enough she would feel, as he did, a hunger for companionship and understanding. Then she would be truly his, and they would walk through the centuries together.

  In order for all this to come to pass, zombielike servitude was demanded of the woman. DeVilbiss needed to induce a deeper and more abiding hypnotic state than any other he had yet created. But first things first. Roaring out his release, he climaxed into Frederika, pinning her against the wall, his muscles hardened like steel and rippling with tension. When he recovered, he realized that she had not been satisfied. Still rampant and aroused by the conquest of her and the hope of his freedom, he determined to fornicate until she screamed out a release as unbridled as his. He wanted her subconscious mind to remember his skill, to create a slave physically as well as mentally dependent on him. He drove on and on, until her weight grew too much even for his inhuman body. He carried her into the bedroom without toweling either of them off, set her on the bed and stoked into her with abandon until he could not resist releasing again. Several times he felt her tensing for climax, then pulling back, forbidding it to happen. He began to stimulate her gently, guessing that her neural circuits had been overloaded. Her responses were as wanton as he could desire, and yet she somehow maintained the force of will to stubbornly refuse to elevate beyond a certain euphoric plateau. He exhausted the myriad sexual positions of the Kama Sutra and added even more exotic maneuvers that invariably brought women to shrieking orgasms. Each time he was met with failure. He refused to place the blame on his technique; in his five centuries he had taken by his estimation at least four thousand women, beggaring the legendary Don Juan's "thousand and three in Spain." If he had been forced to pay the terrible price for the continued joys of the flesh, then by God he would master those joys to the fullest.

  Grudgingly, Vincent withdrew himself from Frederika and lay down beside her, gently stroking her hair. He was convinced now that she had faked orgasm during their first coupling. She was a true challenge. Did it have something to do with her desperation to contact her father? He was too tired to wander through the labyrinths of her mind via tedious questioning. He also had yet to program her and get her home before her unnamed houseguest called the police. He wanted no history of a connection to her when the two of them quit Princeton after destroying the scrolls. After that, there would be ample time to plumb her mind and shed light on her sexual dysfunctions.

  Vincent swung off the bed and lit the banker's lamp on the desk, giving Frederika just enough light to see his eyes. Looking at her caused an aching inside him. He sat again on the mattress.

  "I am your friend," he said. "The truest friend you have. Do you understand?"

  "Yes," Frederika replied. Her face was serene; her eyelids did not blink.

  "I want what you want. You will never sp
eak with your father unless you obey me. Never, unless you obey me. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "You must do whatever I tell you, even if it does not seem to make sense. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  DeVilbiss took Frederika's hand gently. She allowed it to be held, returning no pressure of touch.

  "You will continue to do your normal work, to live your normal life. Everything just as always. You will also report everything you learn about the scrolls. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Repeat what I have just said," he commanded. She obeyed, exactly. "Good," he praised. "What is the name of the professor translating the scrolls?"

  "Reverend Willy Spencer."

  "What is the name of your friend who works in the Rare Manuscripts section?"

  "Simon Penn."

  "Simon Penn. Have you tried to seduce him to get his help?"

  "Yes."

  "What happened?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing? Why?"

  A look of confusion swept across Frederika's face. "I don't know. He's a… gentleman."

  "Perhaps he's no kind of man at all," DeVilbiss murmured to himself, glancing along Frederika's naked length.

  "He just left his girlfriend," Frederika added.

  DeVilbiss registered the words, although he was not sure how they provided explanation. "You will telephone me every day, at the noon hour and in the evening."

  "Yes."

  DeVilbiss paused to arrange his thoughts precisely. "On Friday you will draw all but one hundred dollars from your checking and savings accounts and take the money in large-denomination bills. You'll stay in your house and wait for my phone call. Pack two suitcases for a long trip. Do you have a valid passport?"

  "Yes."

  "Bring it also. Let no one see you drive here. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Repeat what I just said," he commanded. She obliged. DeVilbiss leaned close to her face and noticed for the first time that one of her eyes drifted slightly outward. "Kiss me," he ordered. "On the lips."