“The real riches of the gold rush weren’t found in the mountains,” he said, “but the pockets of the treasure-seekers’ Levis.”
“Joseph printed out a photo.”
She showed it to him. It was a scale model of the Niantic as converted to a hotel, a diorama from the Maritime Museum. Piers encircled the dry-docked ship. The entire hull had been roofed over. Its main cabin had been built up into a two-story wooden structure, presumably the tavern.
“He hid the Abraxas stone in a safe in the bow of the hull just before it was buried,” she said, “figured its hiding place was foolproof. Problem was, the Niantic wouldn’t stay buried. It was rediscovered during excavations in 1872, and in 1907 after the devastating San Francisco earthquake and fire. Excavators found cases of champagne, but the stone remained hidden. Then, in 1969 came the plans to build the Transamerica Pyramid, practically on top of the buried hull of the Niantic.”
“I’ve been down that way, when I first went undercover as Contreras’s bodyguard,” said Torrino. “It’s not on the waterfront.”
“Six blocks away,” said Christa. “That shows how much of the city is built on landfill around abandoned ships.”
“Pyramid,” said Braydon. “I bet the prospective cult members ate that up.”
“Especially since one of the earliest references to Abraxas is an ancient Egyptian demon,” said Christa. “The current guardian’s uncle told him he was going to inherit the guardianship. A weighty responsibility, but he figured he had it made, guarding a stone that was buried. His uncle left the substantial family fortune and political influence, along with guardianship of the Abraxas to his nephew. But he didn’t get a chance to tell him who his second was.”
“It had to be the rabbi,” Braydon said, “O’Malley’s friend, Ezekial, in New York.”
“Makes sense,” said Christa. “Joseph’s oral history from the Circle of Seven is sketchy after that. Two months later, in 1969, he knew they started surveying the TransAmerica pyramid. He figured that’s what prompted Adam to start the Abraxas cult. The stone was in the bow of the ship, only accessed by the cult’s secret passageways.”
“Great,” muttered Braydon, “underground again.”
“I don’t like the idea any better than you do,” she said, “but it worked. The bow of the ship remained hidden, even when another section of the Niantic was excavated in 1978 for a building on Sansome Street. Excavations were hurried and the bow remains intact, under the parking lot.”
“So where does this black magic woman come in?” asked Torrino. “The one Joseph told you about.”
“Apparently, according to Joseph’s notes, she was instrumental in recruiting the founding members for the Abraxas cult,” said Christa.
“Someone named her the Black Magic Woman,” said Braydon, “probably for a reason.”
“Adam must be in his sixties by now. He was probably part of the counter culture of San Francisco back in the 1960s,” said Christa. “After his tour in Viet Nam, the sudden death of his uncle pushed him over the edge. Before he disappeared, he told Joseph he had to seek out peace and redemption.”
Torrino guffawed. “And he thinks he found that in a woman?”
“It was either that or black magic,” said Braydon.
“Same difference,” said Torrino.
“Save your punches for the bad guys,” said Christa. “She was his psychoanalyst when he got back from Nam, treating him for what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Before long, she advised him to cut off all communication with Joseph.”
“Adam was vulnerable,” said Braydon. “She used him.’
“This black magic woman must have been a master at twisting minds around her finger,” she said. She adjusted the map on the SUV’s GPS screen. “Joseph thinks that the connection still exists. It may be the only way to find Adam and the Abraxas. The nav system has five listings for Black Magic Woman.”
“We must be in San Francisco,” griped Torrino.
“A clothing boutique, magic shop, record store, psychic and get this,” said Christa, “a medicinal marijuana distributor.”
“Could try the psychic first,” said Braydon. “If it’s not the right place, she could look in her crystal ball and tell us which one is.”
“Could go for the weed shop,” said Torrino. “Then we wouldn’t care if it’s the right place.”
“The record store,” said Christa. “Black Magic Woman is best known as a song title by Santana.”
“Agreed,” said Braydon. “Carlos Santana is from San Francisco.”
Torrino snapped his fingers and grinned. “Abraxas,” he said. “It’s the name of one of Santana’s albums.”
Braydon leaned forward. “I’m not going to ask how you know that,” he said. “Or why you didn’t mention it earlier.”
“I’ve been distracted,” said Torrino, “saving your asses.”
“The record store is just a few blocks away,” said Christa. “Turn right.”
Within minutes, the SUV was “arriving at destination, on left.” The Black Magic Woman Record Store didn’t have much of a storefront, just a tired, sun-faded display of a few record albums in the window. The Open sign hung gamely on the front door, but the street was nearly devoid of traffic. This was the city’s financial district and it was Sunday afternoon.
Braydon glanced at the GPS map. “Torrino, you can walk to a BART subway stop a few blocks up Clay Street,” said Braydon. “It will take you to the airport.”
Torrino parked the SUV, twisted around and snarled, “Forget about it, Braydon. I’m covering your back on this one.”
“Go home to your family,” he said. Torrino had called home as soon as they got out of the dead zone in the desert. His wife and kids were already tucked away in the pre-planned safe house, but Braydon knew his friend was worried about them, for good reason. The madness in New York was escalating and though the poison might be confined to Manhattan and Princeton water systems, the crazies were not. The news reporters were giddy with the stories of increased violence spreading out from the city like rats with the plague.
“I’m telling you,” said Torrino. “There is no way Rambitskov could make it out of that desert on foot, even if he did survive the beasts.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Braydon. “Your cover is blown.”
As if to seal the deal, Christa leaned across and embraced Torrino. “Thanks,” she said, then, after a moment, sat back. “And let me know if you find out anything about my nephew, Liam. I still can’t get through on the phone.”
Braydon held out his open palm. Torrino reluctantly handed him the car key. Braydon didn’t tell him what he saw parked down the street. Stonington’s vintage Alfa Romeo, a bloody handprint smearing the inside of the driver side window.
CHAPTER 60
Braydon stepped out of the car. Christa followed. They crossed Sansome Street to the Black Magic Woman record store. The thick fog had rolled in from the bay, casting a surreal gloom over San Francisco. Although only mid-afternoon, the streets were dark with storm clouds, but the air was preternaturally still. It had the feel of Gotham at midnight. The Transamerica Pyramid pierced through the fog and clouds like a beacon for malevolent aliens.
“Closing early, man,” the aging hippie called from behind the counter as Braydon led Christa through the door, “due to the end of the world.” Decked out in tie-dye shirt, granny glasses and long, gray hair in a Willie Nelson braid, the hippie had a weirded-out look in his eyes like he’d gotten hold of the brown acid. The Doors song, The End, played loudly on the speakers. Braydon half expected to hear Huey blades thumping above them and the odor of napalm in the air.
The record store was as surreal as the street, as if they had crossed a threshold to 1969. There wasn’t a CD in sight. Bins of albums crammed into the small space. Psychedelic posters on the walls promoted the “upcoming concerts” of the Grateful Dead, King Crimson and Jimi Hendrix. Behind the counter, an old black and white television was tuned to a
news channel broadcasting the riots in New York. Like primeval predators stoking up for battle, a mob danced around a car engulfed in flames and black smoke in front of the Public Library.
The hippie’s movements were frenetic as he selected and rejected albums to place in the old whiskey box on the glass display counter in front of him. “Apocalypse now, man,” the hippie shouted over Jim Morrison crooning that, “all the children are insane.” Braydon appreciated the hippie’s sense of drama, but he wasn’t about to surrender to the lyrics, especially given that Morrison’s next line was “ride the snake to the lake.”
If angels could fall, then so could guardians, he figured. War could do that to a man. But he couldn’t see this hippie as the Charles Manson type who could command a legion of cultish barbarians.
Christa elbowed Braydon and nodded towards the one album cover framed on the wall behind the counter. It was a frenetic, psychedelic collage of a jumble of boldly colored images, most distinctively, a winged female figure in red hovering over its shadow creature in black and two words, barely distinguishable from the chaotic background, Santana and Abraxas. The poster next to it featured a quote, red letters on black. I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the seven living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on Conquest. The quote was labeled, King James Bible, Revelations 6:1-2.
“I’m looking for the Black Magic Woman,” Braydon shouted over the guitar riff.
The hippie straightened up, his eyes suddenly clear and focused on them. He depressed a button on the ‘sixties vintage, manual cash register. The cash drawer opened with a ringing clang. The hippie pulled something out. He thrust it towards them. Braydon reflexively yanked Christa behind him. The hippie clenched a handgun, looked like a M1911 Remington single action, semi-automatic, standard issue handgun in Viet Nam. “I don’t want to do this, man,” the hippie said.
“Then don’t,” said Braydon, adrenaline zinging into his system. He was nearly one hundred percent sure that he could get the drop on this older, drug-addled threat, but killing him wouldn’t get them any closer to the Abraxas stone, and winging him would put Christa in more danger.
“She said you would come. She told me if anyone else came looking for her, I should kill them,” the hippie said, visibly disturbed, his voice as shaky as the hand holding the gun.
Christa stepped out from behind him, her arms outstretched. “Joseph of the Circle of Seven sent us,” she said. “He told me to tell you this. A brave man dies but once, a coward many times.”
The hippie narrowed his eyes. He was either drawing a bead on Braydon’s forehead, or struggling to wrap his mind around Joseph’s message. He relaxed his stance just enough that Braydon could make out the peace sign tattooed on the inside of his elbow, where he might have shot up heroin in the day. “You’re too late,” he said. “The black magic woman took him to the Abraxas. He thinks he will find the stone, but he will only find his end.”
“She took whom?” asked Christa, worry honing her voice.
The hippie shook his head, lowered the gun to his waist. “The man with blood in his eyes. He boasted that he had battled the hounds of hell and lived. He said he would snap every bone in my body, from small to large, until I told him where to find the Abraxas. He was a giant of a man. He could do it, and he would, he told me, to save our country.”
“Rambitskov,” Braydon seethed. “He beat us here. And he’s probably got Stonington.” Which explains the bloody hand on the Stonington’s car window.
“The little guy,” Adam said, “in the fine suit.”
“Sounds like Stonington,” said Braydon.
The hippie’s grip on the pistol loosened even more. With his free hand, he toyed with the love beads around his neck. “The first horse of the Apocalypse rides a white horse, the horse of Conquest. It can be the conquest of good, or of evil.”
Braydon lunged forward. He snatched the pistol from the hippie’s hand. “I’m putting my chips on good,” he said. He checked the gun’s magazine. Empty. He looked at the hippie. “No bullets. I guess you are, too.” He set the gun down on top of the glass display case.
Christa stepped forward. “You’ve got to take us to the Abraxas, now.”
“The man before you fell under the spell of Basillades,” said Adam. “He failed in getting the Abraxas from her. What makes you think you will succeed?”
“Because we have to,” said Braydon.
The hippie’s face was ashen. “I can’t see any more death, whole villages wiped out,” he said. “I can’t.”
“Whole villages wiped out,” said Christa. “That’s the same words Salvatierra wrote in his letter about Alvaro Contreras ravaging the Muisca Indians.”
“This guy isn’t reliving the times of the conquistadors,” said Braydon. Then again, in a sense, he was, just on a global scale, but Braydon didn’t want to completely blow the old hippie’s mind. “This time, you can stop it, Adam,” he said. He pointed to the television. “This isn’t Nam. It’s New York. Children are dying. You can save them if you help us.”
“You have not seen the Abraxas,” he said. He hugged his arms across his chest. His eyes were darting back and forth. “You don’t know its power, man.”
“You’re a guardian,” said Braydon. “One of the Circle of Seven. Your uncle chose you because he knew you could protect the Abraxas stone.”
“My uncle didn’t choose me as guardian,” said Adam. “It was supposed to be my cousin. He died in Nam. He was killed because I didn’t cover his back. They were coming in to napalm that village. He went to save this kid. I tried to stop him. I was scared, man. Then the jets come. No more village. No more cousin.” Adam grew more agitated. His hands shook. He paced back and forth behind the confines of the display counter. His hand dove back into the cash register drawer. Braydon tensed, but Adam was only getting a joint. He stuck it between his lips, snatched a lighter from beside the cash register, and lit it with trembling fingers. He breathed the smoke in deeply, closed his eyes. When he spoke, smoke came out in puffs with the words. “This isn’t my destiny,” he said. “I didn’t ask for this.”
Braydon lunged across the glass case and grabbed Adam by the scruff of his t-shirt. “I didn’t ask for this, either,” he said, “but some crazy guy poisoned our city and our villages this time. And the only way to save them is for you to lead us to the Abraxas. Your cousin’s death, all your buddies in Viet Nam, they fought for nothing if you don’t help us now. This is the only way to save your country.”
“That’s what the other guy told me,” he said. “You know what I did.”
Christa sidled around to the back of the display case. She lifted the needle off The Doors record on the phonograph. The silence brought relief. Jim Morrison had gotten to the part where the minor chords could mesmerize even a sober listener into wanting to escape into a drug-induced unreality. Christa laid her hand gently on the hippie’s arm. “Knowledge isn’t persecution,” she said. “It is redemption. Take us to the Abraxas.”
The hippie looked up at her, then out the window towards the street. His gaze focused on the stepped base of the Transamerica pyramid. From this angle, he could only see the angled girders of the ground floor anchoring the forty-nine floors tapering to a point above. “Beneath the pyramid is a tomb,” he said. “All who enter it are cursed.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” said Braydon. “And I’m going to make damn sure it’s not the last. In the past two days, I’ve been shot at, chased by phantoms, nearly crushed beneath a cathedral, half drowned in a flash flood, and attacked by Skinwalkers. I’m not giving up now.”
Adam worried his love beads. “And you survived all that,” he said. “Far out, man.”
“Sort of like a miracle,” said Braydon, “if you want to think of it that way.”
“So you believe this is part of God
’s plan,” said Adam.
“I believe this is part of God’s nap,” said Braydon. “And I wish He’d wake up.”
“But He saved you,” said Adam. “So He could save me.”
Braydon hadn’t thought about their calamities being a godsend, but, he had to admit, the phantoms, the flood, the Skinwalkers, all of it actually did save them, brought them here, to this place. “Listen, we’re not here for a rap session, Adam,” he said. “If we don’t get that Abraxas, a lot of good people will die.”
Adam gestured for them to follow him. He led them to a storeroom in the back, then to a steel door. Adam shifted a pile of beat up boxes. Behind them, on the wall, was a keypad. Braydon watched as Adam punched in the code, 666, the sign of the beast. Easy to remember, at least. The door opened to a set of metal stairs descending a good twenty feet, one landing halfway down. Braydon couldn’t shake an ominous feeling of dread, and it wasn’t only that he was building up to a severe case of claustrophobia.
Adam led the way down the stairs from the back of his record store. Braydon followed his trail of marijuana smoke, trying not to breathe in too hard. This situation was whack enough without being stoned.
At the bottom of the stairs, the passageway reminded him of an underground bunker, a fall-out shelter of gray cement walls dimly lit with caged bulbs every fifteen feet. It bent at a right angle ahead, then another. The cement floor was slick with moisture. A damp chill pervaded. He and Christa followed as Adam’s Birkenstocks scuffed around the corner ahead.
A howl, followed by a scream, reverberated down the passageway. Christa slid to a stop. So did Braydon. He strained his ears, but could hear only the patter of Adam’s footsteps getting further away. Then, something else, at first low, hard to hear, a chanting. Although they hadn’t moved, the chanting grew louder.
Braydon slipped his gun quietly from his holster. He stepped in front of Christa, moved forward cautiously, gun first. Over the chanting, he heard Christa breathing hard and fast behind him. No, it wasn’t her. It was him. A terror like none he had ever experienced gripped his gut. A giant fist was squeezing the air from his lungs. He wanted nothing more than to turn back. The chanting grew louder, faster. It was a rhythm of harsh, unfamiliar syllables, repeated, over and over.
The Seventh Stone Page 38