by Joanne Pence
Bennett kept his nose clean, his head down, and quickly rose to seaman third class on the U.S.S. Saratoga. The ship saw plenty of action, all unreported back home, but Bennett liked the order and discipline of Navy life and considered making it a career. When he was given a few days of shore leave in Cairo, Bennett was more than ready.
He was perusing wares in a souk one afternoon with some guys from the ship when a little old man in a turban and white flowing robes ran up to them. “My good men,” he said, opening his arms wide. “I would like to show you the wonders of this city. The pyramids, the desert, and many fine places. Secret places. My fee is very, very small. I know what sailors like.”
“You do? I doubt that, little man,” Hank said. He and the others laughed, but something about the fakir intrigued them, particularly when he mentioned secret places.
“Come with me if you aren’t afraid,” he said with a sly smile. “And, if you are brave enough, I will also tell you about your future, and what you can do to have the best life you can imagine.”
“Brave? You don’t know the meaning of the word.” Hank laughed, ready to walk away, but then seeing the gleam of curiosity in the other men’s eyes. Finally, six decided to go with the fakir, while the others headed off to see the sights on their own. Hank looked from one group to the other. He noticed space left on the jitney the little fakir drove, and at the last minute jumped on.
They rode to the Great Pyramid where the fakir took a photo with his Polaroid camera for each of them as a memento of the day. He told them to be sure to keep the photos and that one day they would enjoy looking back and remembering. “Now,” he said, “you must think of your talents, and the kind of life you would like to lead using those abilities.”
“What if you ain’t got any?” Jonny Vogel said, an arm around Kevin Wilson’s neck. “Or if you ain’t as pretty as Wilson, here?” Then he rubbed his knuckles in Wilson’s hair, giving a noogie.
“In that case, you must leave your mind blank, and the pearl will fill it in for you.” He opened a Chinese-style container. It had dirt in it, which he moved aside to reveal what he called a red pearl. None of them had ever seen a red pearl before, and doubted that was what it was, but it hardly mattered. They were amused and having fun. “Who will go first?” the Egyptian asked.
Hank Bennett volunteered. Some of the guys were only eighteen, and Hank at twenty-four was the oldest. The fakir held the pearl against his forehead. “Ah! It is very clear. If you believe, and follow the way of the pearl, you will become a very important man in computer security—one of the most important men in your country.”
“Computer security?” Hank looked at the others. “Man, I’m not even sure what a computer looks like, except that they’re huge mothers that fill big, cold rooms. Guess this means I’ll be a security guard. No, thanks!” He chuckled. “I’ll stick to the Navy.”
“He just doesn’t want to give up his uniform,” Dan Holt said.
“As a guard, he’ll still get to wear one—a rent-a-cop uniform,” Wilson added, rubbing his head where it hurt.
“Hey, man, don’t you know nothin’? The gals like Navy whites. Why else did we join, right, Stu?” Gene Oliveros slapped Stu Eliot on the back. Gene was nineteen, handsome, and wild. For him, it was join the Navy or see the inside of San Quentin.
Stuart blushed and nodded. He became the brunt of jokes when the others realized he was a twenty-year-old virgin.
One-by-one, each man let the fakir tell them what the future held. Some were surprises, such as Gene becoming a movie director. He loved that idea. Others weren’t a surprise at all, such as Kevin Wilson becoming a senator. He was already considered a class-A brown-noser.
The fakir then offered to take them to see something very special. It was still afternoon. Assured they’d be back in Cairo before the night life started up, they went along. The fakir drove them far out into the desert to see an open pharaoh’s tomb. Everything in it had been removed or stolen years earlier, so it wasn’t interesting. “Time for Cairo!” Scott Jones shouted to cheers. Enough sight-seeing; other amusements beckoned.
“I take you back,” the fakir said, “for twenty dollars each.”
“Twenty bucks! You’re crazy!” Hank yelled. “We had an agreement!”
“Five dollars to take you to see the sights,” the fakir said. “I never told you what it would cost to bring you back.”
“You piece of shit. You take us back if you want to keep your teeth.” Vogel grew up on the streets with no father and a mother who paid no attention to him. The others agreed with Vogel: the fakir either brought them back or paid the consequences.
The fakir held out the pearl, and to everyone’s surprise, it began to glow. “You are in its power,” he said. “Pay what I ask, and I will turn its attention elsewhere, sparing you. If you insist on being cheap and arrogant, you will turn into foxes.”
“Foxes? That’s bat-shit crazy.” Oliveros laughed.
“Let’s leave him and drive ourselves back,” Jones said.
Furious, the sailors tried to grab him and take the jitney’s keys. They swung their arms, stamped their feet, but as much as they tried, the young, strong Navy men couldn’t touch one short, scrawny little running and darting fakir.
“You are young and foolish.” The fakir all but danced with glee at the sailors’ growing frustration. “You have taken the first test—to see if you are good or evil. Evil will enter your short, sweet lives, and then you are forever damned.”
“Damn you!” They shouted, but couldn’t stop the fakir from jumping into his jitney and driving off.
In the middle of nowhere, without another vehicle or person in sight, the sailors trudged in the direction they assumed would lead to Cairo, following the jitney’s tracks. It was one thing to ride around in the desert, quite another to try to walk in the heat. They had no supplies, not even water.
Eventually, the jitney’s tracks vanished. Despite hours of walking, they found no road. Hot, tired, and desperate, the first sign of life they saw was a single black fox. Its color stood out against the pale sand of the desert. It sat and looked at them.
“What the hell?” Hank said. From the gawking stares of the others, he knew they, like him, remembered the fakir telling them they would become a fox.
“If it’s able to live out here,” Stuart’s voice quavered, “it must know where there’s water. We should follow it.”
“Follow a fox?” Jones said. “You’re crazy as that fucking towelhead.”
The fox ran, but then stopped and faced them again as if it expected them to follow. They did.
Not much later, Stuart collapsed. The others coaxed him to his feet, but he was delirious. The second time he collapsed, his mouth was so dry and blistered, he could scarcely speak, but he told the others to go on.
“We’ll find help and come back for you,” Oliveros promised.
Stuart only managed to nod.
A half hour later, the sailors stopped and stared. Instead of one fox, they saw about ten huddled together eating some small desert animals. From time to time, a fox stopped and looked at them, blood dripping from its mouth. Instead of it looking disgusting, it looked wet—drinkable. The sailors moved closer.
As they did, the foxes left their food and trotted towards them. None had ever seen a fox act that way and wondered if this was some mass hallucination. The sailors backed up, and then, as one, they turned and ran back towards Stuart.
Four foxes stood over him, and they wondered if he had become a meal. They stopped but somehow, what they thought were four foxes, were four women, giving Stuart water to drink, and putting cool water on his brow. When they looked over their shoulders, the foxes chasing them had vanished.
The women offered them pitchers of lemon water. After drinking their fill, the women led them to an enormous tent. Inside the air felt cool, music played, men and women milled about, and tables were filled with a veritable banquet of familiar and exotic foodstuffs, plus wine, beer, and wh
iskey. All the women were beyond beautiful with the biggest, greenest eyes imaginable, and blonde, red, black, or brown hair that reached down to tiny waists. Handsome men were there as well, some with the physique of a body builder and others delicate and almost effeminate. As the sailors filled their stomachs and drank, the women, and even men, began giving comfort in other ways. The more they drank, and ate, and loved, the more abandoned they became. The men and women of the desert were uninhibited and insatiable. The sailors went from sated to exhausted, but kept crawling back for more. They tried everything and everyone, including each other. It was much more than any had ever experienced, or even imagined.
One-by-one, the desert creatures asked if the sailors would want to spend eternity living that way. They offered the sailors a life of everything they ever dreamed of, and then one day, during the second “Year of the Rat” from that moment, the desert creatures would come for them. One-by-one being held and caressed by the person each found the most attractive, the sailors agreed, none of them even understanding the Year of the Rat reference. When the last person, Stuart Eliot, said “yes” to the offer, the creatures vanished.
The sailors suddenly found themselves in Cairo, back in the same market place in which they had met the fakir. They looked at each other, and were filled with memories of the orgy—all except Stuart, who seemed confused and dehydrated. They said nothing, but hurried back to the ship, each acting as if they scarcely knew the others.
On board, they learned they were five days late returning, and that search parties had been sent out after them. When asked where they had been, none could—or would—answer. They pretended not to remember, except for Stuart Eliot, who truly did not remember.
The officers decided the men must have been drugged and put them in the brig. During that time, the ship was attacked. They heard the battle, felt the blasts as bombs struck, heard the cries as their fellow sailors fought and were killed and wounded, while they sat locked up, safe, but unable to do their jobs, unable to help. They later learned that all seven men who were assigned to cover their duties had been killed in the attack.
The remaining months and years of their tours of duty were nightmares. Not one of them spoke to the others of what had happened in the desert.
The little fakir, in the meantime, grew increasingly wealthy and demanding in his treatment of people around him. People in Cairo began to whisper about him conspiring with demons, and he escaped in the night just ahead of a mob that wanted to kill him. He went from one town to another and eventually reached Baghdad. There, he began his program again in its Chaldean community. He would tell them about a group of young American sailors and how they all became very wealthy following his advice. He would then show the picture he took of the sailors in Egypt, and then show news reports about them.
Several people complained to their priest, Father Yosip Berosus, about family members who went to the fakir. They told Berosus about the strange red pearl and said they feared something demonic was involved. Berosus was a quiet, holy man, and was greatly troubled by these stories.
He read widely, and talk of a red pearl niggled in his brain. He researched it, and eventually learned of stories of an evil red pearl stolen by Marco Polo, and that men throughout European history were often connected to the pearl, including Adolph Hitler. When evidence of demonic possession began to appear among his parishioners, he knew he had to get the pearl away from the fakir by whatever means necessary.
He went to visit the Egyptian under pretense of wanting to have his future told. As soon as the fakir brought out the bronze, Berosus attacked him. The fakir would not give up the bronze, and when a blow from the priest caused him to hit his head on his stone hearth, the fakir died. Berosus was horrified by what he had done. He took the bronze, the pearl, and the photo of the American sailors it had made wealthy, and fled Baghdad.
He devoted his life to prayer, to penance for the death he had caused, and to learning how to stop the evil of the pearl.
The demons inside the pearl constantly attacked him. At times they mocked him and said he was wasting his life as a priest, and then attempted to seduce him with visions of pleasures of the flesh if he would simply release the pearl from the container. At other times, they said he was an evil murderer who would spend eternity in Hell for killing the fakir and that the only way to avoid damnation was to give the pearl to someone who would use it ‘properly’—as the demons wished it to be used—in other words, to do evil. The more they attacked, the more steadfast he became. They posed a danger not only to his soul, but to anyone he came into contact with. They attacked his fellow priests and bishops, causing several to go astray. Berosus went into hiding, spending his days in prayer to overcome the temptations the demons threw at him, and to keep their attention on him rather than on others.
He learned that the owner of the pearl had control over the demons, but also, the demons could look into the owner’s mind and find his weak spot, then go after it, again and again, to get him to commit outrageous acts against others. A constant battle of wills ensued.
Berosus wrote to the seven Americans in the fakir’s photo, asking if they had found a way to combat the demons, but none of them answered him. He continued to struggle alone until, worn out and dying, he passed the pearl to the only man he could find that might believe how dangerous it was.
The Americans who received his long, rambling letter, written in poor English, and easy to dismiss as being from a crazy crank, had all become successful beyond their wildest dreams. They chose to believe that success came about because of their hard work and superior intellect—traits which none of them possessed before their strange time in the desert.
Only one, Hank Bennett, was troubled by it. And another, Stuart Eliot, had no idea what the priest was talking about.
Then, ten years ago, Stuart Eliot, owner of a mining operation called Powermore Industries, had an accident in one of those mines that nearly killed him. During the time he had no heartbeat and wasn’t breathing, a black fox came to him and told him it was ready to receive him. With that, everything that had taken place while he was on that bizarre shore leave in Cairo came back to him.
He remembered the priest’s letter and immediately contacted the men who had been on leave with him. He believed he was going crazy, and wanted them to assure him that none of his memories were true—that the priest’s letter was a sick joke, and the words of a fox a horrible nightmare. All refused to speak to him except Hank Bennett.
Bennett, too, had been plagued by memories of that time, and learning that a black fox came for Stuart Eliot at the time of death, threw him into a panic. He and Stuart spent whatever it took to find out all they could about the pearl’s history and learned relatively quickly what it had taken Father Berosus decades to discover.
Also, since Stuart was a geologist who once owned several rare earth element mines, he realized that the ‘special earth’ that neutralized the demons in northern China and Inner Mongolia had to be the rare earth elements—the metallic, chemically similar scandium, yttrium and lanthanide series of elements—so prevalent in those areas.
Stuart knew that good quantities of the elements were also found in Idaho. He and Bennett sold everything and went there, searching until they found a rugged area, high in the mountains, where the landscape had reddish brown earth with glints of crystalline metals in it—rare earth metals. They hoped that there, surrounded by rare earth elements, and cut off from temptations, that they would be out of reach of the demons, and when the end came for them, they would be spared eternal damnation.
They re-read Berosus’ letter and realized he had to be somehow keeping the demons in check.
They learned the “Year of the Rat” referred to the Chinese zodiac, and its second occurrence from the year they were in the desert, the time they should have all returned to the desert creatures, was 1999. They also discovered that rats were favorite foods of foxes.
They tried to contact Berosus, fearing what might h
appen when he died. They couldn’t find him until Bennett found an article in a Florence newspaper with Berosus photo in it, and sent a private investigator to see what he could learn.
They heard that the priest was dead, and the pearl was missing.
And then the deaths of the American sailors began …
Chapter 43
“I’ve never heard such nonsense in my entire life” Renata folded her arms and gave them all a harsh glare. “Demons? Seriously? I know all of you like old tales, obscure history, and the paranormal. I even went along with your story about Marco Polo and a red pearl because it was all basically harmless. But this is ridiculous. And it’s getting more and more dangerous. We really need to leave before something bad happens.”
Michael glanced at Kira. Her expression was also filled with disgust and skepticism. Jianjun met his eye and raised his eyebrows.
“Listen,” Stuart said, ignoring Renata’s outburst, “I know you’re good people and want to find out who killed Kira’s father and the others, but you can’t. Believe me, if you want to live, forget all about the red pearl, and everything else you’ve been dealing with. Michael, if you have the pearl, give it to me and Hank. We’re part of the problem, and we’re the ones who need to fix it.”
“Are you saying,” Kira eyed him coldly, “because you surrounded yourselves with the rare earth elements, the demons left you alone? Why didn’t you warn the other men who died?”
“We tried!” Stuart cried. “They wouldn’t listen.”
“In that case,” she continued, “why, when you left the safety of those elements, didn’t the demons kill you?”
“I don’t know,” Hank said. “Perhaps they were more interested, at that point, in Doctor Rempart, and wondering what he was up to. I suspect, however, their attention will come back to Stuart and me. That’s why we’re here.”