“Oh, I don’t know,” I said as I gently toweled her. “You’ve done very nicely by me so far.”
“That, lover, is something else altogether.” She began to towel me. “You exhibit all the over-40 signs. Uptight about marriage. Afraid of it, yet feeling it’s only right that you go through with all of society’s stupid little shopworn conventions because of what you probably think of as morality.”
“Hey. I’ve been knocking around quite a few years and I’ve managed to avoid matrimony very nicely up to now… without going in for abstinence. I’ve gotten by.”
“But I’ll bet you’ve had guilty twinges all along the way.”
She was right. But that’s another story.
“And you’ve picked up and run away every time you thought you were falling in love, or done some outrageous thing to drive away the girl, right?”
“What are you? My head shrinker?”
”Answer the lady? Am I right or am I right?”
The question was rhetorical. She already knew the answer. She looked down at her handiwork. “I should say, “she began in a mock-aristocratic British Horse Guards accent, “that Mr. Kolchak is ready for action.”
She was right again. And I had no ideas about driving her away.
“Just a sec…” She reached for a bottle of Shalimar.
“Uh, uh. I like you with just you. Come, woman, your master awaits.” I picked her up and bumped my way clumsily into the bedroom. We fell together on her bed in a tangle of arms and legs. She tasted as sweet as she smelled. I don’t think life had ever been so good. And I told her so.
“You know, Carl, there’s someone out at the university I think you should talk to. You may not be too crazy about her, but she’s just the one to see. She’s an expert on every crazy subject in the world. Ghosts, demons, vampires, ghouls …
“After lunch today I got to thinking about what you told me about Las Vegas. Prepare yourself for a little shock.”
“Go ahead. Shock me. I am impervious to surprise.”
“Her name is Dr. Kirsten Helms. Your mouth is open, Carl. Carl!”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” was all I could say.
“No doubt you will. But many years from now, I hope.”
There are clichés for this kind of situation. “Life is just full of little coincidences” and “Here we go again” come to mind. A good editor will tell you that in writing fiction (have never mentioned it, but I once tried my hand at the short story form for men’s magazines and failed) one must not lay on the “convenient coincidence” too heavily or too often. But the facts are that—here comes another cliché—truth is often stranger than fiction.
Two years away from Las Vegas. In a town as different as a place could be by virtue of weather, industry, and people. And thus far two souls who were intimately acquainted with my disastrous adventure in Las Vegas had turned up in my life once again. Vincenzo and Janie Carlson. Now there was Kirsten Helms, the very same Kirsten Helms who had given me the necessary research materials in Las Vegas to convince me I was not insane and very definitely on the right track.
However, consider the following: In Las Vegas (and probably many other places) it is not unheard of for an editor to leave his paper more than once and return. Vincenzo had left twice to take public-relations jobs on the Strip only to give up in frustration—he could never smile enough or say the right, phony things—and had once or twice tried Los Angeles. And, as much as he disliked Janie Carlson, I noticed he never stinted on giving her assignments when he wanted them done in a professional manner. His taking her along with him to Seattle was not altogether out of his character.
Which brings me to Dr. Helms. It is hardly unusual for a university-level instructor with tenure and several years beyond honorable retirement age to move from school to school in the pursuit of knowledge or some esoteric fact. I had taken a few classes from her myself at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. She was somewhere near eighty years old, though she admitted to “around 70” and looked, when I had last seen her, to be in her mid-50’s. She was feisty, acid-tongued, and very sharp of mind. It had taken heaven and earth to move her out of UNLV’s humanities department where she had held sway as the “unofficial chairman.” It was she who had told me to gather my facts about what I have supposed (correctly) to be a vampire and write a book—fiction, of course. For my health, I believe she had said.
The feeling of déjà vu began to creep over me again.
And so did Louise.
“You know something? It must be love.”
Louise nibbled my ear. I think I would follow her anywhere.
Chapter Nine
Thursday, April 13, 1972
I left Louise sleeping and crept out to the kitchen where I made some coffee, then got the Chronicle from her front doormat. Half of An Loc had fallen to the North Vietnamese. “Justifiable homicide” was the ruling of an inquest jury on the fatal shooting of John Augustus, Jr., who had shot six Seattle cops from his Bush Hotel room window on March 18. Governor Dan Evans would up his statewide tour “positively convinced” of “widespread dissatisfaction with our state’s tax structure.” And the Seattle School Board had decided to go ahead with its bussing plan for the Hamilton, Eckstein, Wilson and Meany-Madrona schools.
And where was my story? In the middle of page three with a notation on same under “Local Briefs” at the bottom of the front page. More of Vincenzo’s handiwork, no doubt.
I dressed, called a cab, and headed for the University of Washington, my trusty tape recorder in hand.
The University of Washington is situated on nearly 700 acres of greenery on the shores of Lake Washington with NE 45th Street bordering it on its northern most side, and 23rd Avenue cutting right through the center of it.
As the cab moved up Memorial Way, I could see the Washington State Museum to my right. It’s an old campus with a good-sized student body of more than 33,000. Louise told me Dr. Helms’s quarters were in Denny Hall, a great gray stone structure build in 1895 and named for the pioneer who had given a generous endowment to help get the university it’s “territorial” status. Arthur Denny’s great-grandson is the present Dean of the Graduate School of Public Affairs.
Denny Hall itself is crowned by a greenish-tinged copper cupola which houses an amplifier system from which the university chimes peal forth their call to study. For the most part, it is taken up by language classes, psychology offices, and a few labs on its upper-most floors. It used to have a wooden sash decorating its exterior but this was replaced by steel about ten years ago. Inside, as expected, it’s a bit musty with a bit of the old lab smell about.
Dr. Helms’s “temporary quarters” were the remains of an old board room with eighteen-foot-high ceilings, and paneled in dark-stained oak throughout. The walls were lined with books and the two tables—one large round one and a smaller oblong affair, leather-topped—were littered with tomes, notes, and the assembled skeletons of small animals. Seated behind a huge, incredibly ugly desk, likewise littered, was Dr. Helms. She was visibly older, a bit heavier, and her spiky hair was almost snow white. But she was still the same Dr. Helms.
“Late as usual, I see, and still drinking too much. Typical of your breed, Kolchak. Sloppy student. Sloppy in personal habits as well. You’re still undernourished, under-exercised, and no doubt your mind is slowly dissolving in alcohol. I’d love to have it, “she said with great relish, “to study when you finally wind up in some alleyway. It won’t even need to be put in formaldehyde.”
“Welcome home, said the chastised reporter glumly.”
“Forget the wisecracks, Kolchak. I’m a busy woman. Your friend, Miss Harper, who by the way has an excellent mind—although I’m not sure now, seeing who she’s been associating with of late—told me what you’ve been up to. It does an old woman’s heart good to know that someone, even someone like you, Kolchak, still has enough independence of mind to not turn up his nose at things most people call ‘the stuff of fairy tales.’ Well, don�
�t just sit there on your bad record. Tell me what you’ve got, and I’ll tell you where to go.”
I just bet she would, too. “I’m still recovering from your welcome.” I turned on my tape recorder. She scowled.
“Well …?”
“Well, this time I don’t think it’s a vampire. It would seem that every 21 years since 1889…”
I gave her every piece of information I had been able to find, plus my own speculation, and related my encounter with the man in the alley, of whom I still had my doubts as a suspect.
“Vampires, I think we can rule out. As you said, the amounts of blood drawn from the victims were consistent but minor in terms of supplying a vampire with his needs.”
“Okay. Vampires are out. Tell me about walking dead men.”
“Dead men don’t walk. Undead men, perhaps. But not dead dead men.” And this from a Ph.D. no less!
“Well, then, what about zombies?”
She smiled a mirthless grin. “Not indigenous to Seattle.”
“Can a man more than a hundred years old, who’s not a vampire, still retain his vitality?” I reached for my tape recorder to turn up the volume.
“Plato and Galen both maintained… shut that damn thing off!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“You derail my train of thought once more and out you go! Now… where was I?”
“Plato and Galen both maintained…”
“… that aging is caused by imbalance of the body’s component elements. An invisible substance known as Mumia—M-U-M-I-A—can be created in a so-called elixir which can restore the body elements to a state of balance and check the aging process for an indefinite period of time. This Archidoxa Medicinae, or “Elixir of Life,’ was the goal of those known as ‘hermetic scientists’ or, more commonly, ‘alchemists.’ The main ingredient of this elixir is what the alchemists referred to as ‘The Philosopher’s Stone.’ End of lecture. Questions?”
“Dozens. First… is it possible?”
“If it were possible, don’t you think I’d be an eighty-year-old sexpot sitting here instead of a moldering crone?
“It’s a side issue anyway. Staying young was not their purpose. Alchemy was conceived as an exalted notion—man at one with the universe which, you must admit, is not such a bad or outlandish idea at all.”
I nodded in agreement. If man were truly at one with the universe, there would be no need for cops like Schubert or for reporters like me. A lovely dream.
“’Authentic alchemy is possible only if there is perfect knowledge of metaphysical principles.’ Unquote. Claude d’Yge, a well-known adept.”
“Adept?”
“Adept. Adept! Don’t you understand English? One who has attained proficiency.
“These men lived Spartan lives; most abstaining from all human concourse, living in the most humble of quarters, eating the most humble of foods. The Comte de St. Germain… well, he isn’t the best of examples… too much a lover of life at court but, well anyway, St. Germain subsisted on a diet of oatmeal, groats, the white meat of chicken, and a little wine.”
“Yummy.”
“Don’t be fresh.”
I lit up a cigar.
“And you can put that out at once!”
“Oatmeal and groats. Yech! A diet like that would make him old before his time.”
“You would do well to follow his example. He did rather nicely with his diet. Not only did he remain youthful for many years, but he was said to possess almost superhuman strength and several other amazing abilities.”
“Really! What other ingredients did this elixir have?”
“That’s an interesting question. It depends on who was doing the mixing. Those books on the table have been arranged with markers to show you the pertinent areas of research. Adepts used certain ingredients. With the ‘puffers,’ however, it was a different story.”
“Puffers?”
“Pretenders. Fake alchemists who were definitely not dedicated to the notion of man being at one with the universe. They tried to transmute lead to gold for no reason save profit and power. And they dabbled in what might commonly be called ‘black magic.’ Some achieved amazing results… and most, if caught, were quickly and painfully put to death.”
“Then, perhaps, since I’m tracking a known murderer who draws blood from his victims, I’m really after one of these… uh… ‘puffers.’”
“Not at all unlikely, since we have gone this far.”
“Which brings me back to my original question. What other ingredients might this elixir have?”
“Well, assuming the alchemist doing the preparing is, indeed, a man of evil intent… milk… or meat… celandine… sometimes honey. Red wine vinegar. Hair, Sweat. Blood.”
I dreaded to ask. “What kind of blood?” I already knew the answer.
“Why, human blood, of course.”
She explained that while alchemists, as a whole, were distrusted, it was largely through the efforts of these puffers or pretenders to the hermetic art that alchemists came to be feared as disciples of the devil. Then she told me to read the books and make whatever notes or tapes I liked and handed me a hefty volume of her own: Alchemy and Avarice, all 432 pages of it, devoted largely to the efforts of these pseudo-adepts.
Chapter Ten
I don’t pretend to understand half of what I read, but i became clear that much of the basis of modern chemistry stems directly from alchemy (the discovery of phosphorus being an example that comes readily to mind) and that the alchemists have been with us practically since the first of recorded history. From ancient Egypt eastward to China, and westward to equally ancient Greece, alchemists and their activities have been well and lovingly recorded. They were prominent in Europe throughout the last years of the twelfth century and well into the thirteenth. The University of Montpellier, founded in 1181, numbered among its pupils two saints—Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus—as well as Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Michel de Nostredeme (better known as Nostradamus), Erasmus and Rabelais. All of them practiced the hermetic art.
The list of names is impressive. There were Jewish adepts like Mary of Alexandria in the fourth century (women’s libbers, please note); Jabir the Arab in the eighth century; and the tenth century is graced by the name of Pope Sylvester II, who was born Gerbert, and was a known French alchemist (Catholics, please note).
The thirteenth century produced not only Roger Bacon, a recognized adept and a Franciscan monk, but several others as well.
In the fourteenth century there was the famous Nicholas Flamel, a French adept and public “scrivener” (journalists, please note). And there was also Pope John XXII, who denounced what he practiced. Basil Valentine was active in the fifteenth century. He was a Benedictine monk. Bernard of Treviso was a contemporary of his.
Alexander Seton, known as Alexander the Cosmopolite, was active in the sixteenth century.
The seventeenth century produced Eirenaeus Philponos, who, despite his fancy-sounding name, was an Englishman, nonetheless. It has been written that he was also the Comte de St. Garmain, who, from what I read, really got around and was anywhere from 85 to 150 years old when he “died,” although witnesses to this death were not considered reliable.
Adepts, alchemists, and puffers have been with us right up to the present and, interestingly enough, a certain Armand Barbault is reported to have spent more than 20 years conducting experiments with a scant four pounds of ordinary earth and early morning dew (gathered with bedsheets), along with the rising sap of young plants, to produce a compound or elixir that defied analysis in the most modern of German laboratories but was found to be good for heart ailments. This, in the early 1960’s!
He could not be contacted for comment, but as far as is known he is still at work and his preparation has been impossible to either analyze or reproduce on a commercial basis, because 1. it takes much too long to prepare the materials, and synthetics do not produce the same results; and 2. his elixir apparently contains elements (which he
is said to have claimed to produce himself) that are as yet undiscovered and unknown.
As to the ingredients of the Elixir of Life, there seems to be much disagreement as to exactly what they are and in what combination they must be used to produce the life-prolonging substance. Some say the two “germinative” substances are gold (the “male” principle) and “philosopher’s mercury,” the “prime agent” (and “female” principle).
Others claim the so-called prime matter consists of silver and gold, combined with mercury and using quicksilver as a unifying agent.
Preparing this Elixir of Life is only the first step in making the Philosopher’s Stone, which is not a stone at all, but yet another preparation that may take an entire (albeit ordinary) lifetime. Some of the materials are arsenic pyrites, iron, lead, silver, mercury, and acids like citric acid. These elements are combined over months and years by pulverizing, heating and dissolving with still more acids.
Then follows a process of drawing off all toxic gases, certain liquids as well, and a recalcining process for the remaining solids. All this takes years and years, according to what I read. And, I imagine, great patience. Oxidizers are added, and then more dissolutions, calcinations, ad infinitum.
As I said, I don’t even pretend to understand most of what I read. However, after these many laborious steps, whatever liquid mixture remains is put into a rock crystal container, which is hermetically sealed, and heated very, very slowly.
The whole idea is to produce, by heating and cooling continuously, and then distilling, time and time again, a water, often ruby in color, which has incredible chemical and medicinal qualities. This substance, whatever it is, (and I have never tasted it but have, as you will see, discovered what happens when it is not taken) is the Elixir of Life.
Kolchak The Night Strangler Page 6