The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3)

by Green, Layton

“Do you know what you are doing?” The man said in educated British English, with only a slight French accent. “When they find you they will tear out your eyes and eat your heart.”

  Grey slapped him again, this time so hard the whites of his captive’s eyes showed and he went limp in Grey’s grasp. He shook him, and the man whimpered.

  “You should be worrying about your own health,” Grey said.

  Grey felt strange interrogating the man with the archaic chanting in the background, like it was background music for some cheap horror film. But he had already seen enough of the Church of the Beast’s handiwork to know its horrors were all too real.

  “I’ll make this quick,” Grey said. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what happens if you don’t answer my questions.”

  The man sneered. “What makes you think—”

  Grey pressed his thumb into the hollow of the man’s throat until he coughed and gagged, releasing the pressure only after the man’s eyes bulged in pain. Grey despised torture and thought it immoral, especially on an institutional level. But Grey was not an institution, and had long ago accepted that in rare situations he was going to do what he thought he had to do.

  “Trust me.” Grey didn’t waste his time asking why the man had followed him from the metro. “Who killed the Black Cleric?”

  The man said nothing, and Grey kept the knife against his throat while pressing a finger into the pressure point just below his ear, digging underneath the jawbone. Press hard enough, and the pain was excruciating.

  Grey knew that if the man didn’t have full faith in Grey’s intentions, he would refuse to talk or hold out for a much longer time than Grey had. For this to work, the man had to look into Grey’s eyes and know he would carry out his threats.

  Which wasn’t a problem.

  The man arced in Grey’s grip, causing his neck to press into the edge of the knife. Grey released the pressure point and again took him by his hair. “Who. Killed. Xavier.”

  The man’s breath came in short heaves from the pain. When he caught his breath he gave a mocking laugh. “But that is the wrong question.”

  “Enlighten me,” Grey said.”

  Grey pressed the knife deeper, drawing blood, and the man hurried his words. Victims saying anything to relieve the pain was the principal drawback to torture, which was why Grey preferred a hard and fast approach, to try and get as much of a gut reaction as possible. “We have a new leader,” the man said, “one with the blessing of the Beast. Xavier refused to step aside. He was no longer in favor.”

  “I don’t suppose this prophet wears a black robe with silver stars?” Grey could see the surprise of recognition in the man’s eyes. “He killed Xavier?”

  “He destroys anyone who stands against him.”

  “I hate to put a dent in your hero-worship,” Grey said, “but your new prophet was in San Francisco the night Xavier died.”

  The man’s condescending smirk, as if he knew that already and the six-thousand-mile difference between the two cities didn’t affect his response, sent a chill down Grey’s spine.

  “Where do I find him?” Grey said, and the man didn’t answer. “Is he here tonight?” Grey pressed his thumb into the man’s throat again, harder than before. The man gagged and still didn’t respond.

  Grey set the knife down, again taking the man by the hair. “I’m going to say this once. I know the kind of man you are; I saw your Church’s work in Gustave’s apartment. But you know nothing about me.” Grey placed the thumb of his free hand on the man’s eyeball, nudging the bottom of the pupil just enough to make him squirm. “Look at me. Look at me. If you don’t tell me his name and where to find him, right now, you’re going to lose an eye.”

  Grey pressed harder into the eye, feeling the eyeball try to slip away from the pressure. The man’s screams were drowned by the noise from the ceremony.

  “Wait!” His trapped hands clawed at the air as he tried to free his eye from Grey’s grip. “I don’t know his name, and I swear I don’t know where he is, or if he comes tonight. No one does. He comes and goes as he wishes.”

  “What do you mean?” Grey said. “Where does he live?”

  “I mean it does not matter where he is. He has the power of the Beast.”

  Grey knew the man was telling the truth, or at least thought he was, but sensed he wasn’t telling all of it. Grey increased the pressure on the eye even more, and the man convulsed in pain.

  Grey’s voice was harsh. “I don’t want to hear about magic. You know something about where to find him. You have the count of three to tell me, or you lose an eye and we move to the next. One.”

  The man jerked and bucked, but couldn’t break the hold.

  “Two.”

  A gong sounded in the background, above the chanting. “Oui, stop!” the man said, and Grey released a tiny bit of pressure.

  Pain rattled through his voice. “It is you who now has the choice.” His eyes flicked towards the cavern. “That was the signal to begin the sacrifice. Do you torture me, or save the girl? She has seconds to live.”

  “You obviously don’t know me very well,” Grey said evenly. Any trace amount of sympathy he possessed for the man had just left the room, but Grey didn’t want him to know that his statement about a sacrifice, uttered with the composure of truth, had gotten to Grey.

  “And you misjudged the timing,” Grey continued. “She has seconds, but you don’t. Three,” he said, increasing the pressure to an unbearable level, feeling the eyeball start to separate from the socket.

  “London!” he screamed. “Dante’s in London serving the Magus. I have no idea where or why. That’s all I know, I swear by La Bête.”

  Grey jerked him up by his hair, striking his temple with his free elbow. The man went limp. Grey picked up the knife and the cloth-wrapped torch and sprang to his feet, donning the man’s black cloak before racing into the passage.

  Zador led Viktor to a nest of rooms in the rear, an area somewhat more orderly than the front room, stuffed with books from every conceivable genre of magic and the occult. Entire shelves were devoted to thematic subjects such as Egyptian, Babylonian, and Druidic magic, as well as rows of rarer specialties like Shamanism, Necromancy, Geomancy, and Numeromancy. There were plenty of one-offs as well, esoteric titles that made Viktor shake his head, such as Variants of Subtropical Lycanthropy.

  Many of the books were secured behind glass cases. Viktor’s fingers twitched at the sight of it all, and he would have given a small fortune to spend a day alone in these rooms. Zador led him past the glass cases to a study in the very back of the store. The study contained two musty leather chairs, a floor lamp, and an antique writing desk.

  Zador pulled a chain on the floor lamp, filling the room with mellow light. “He was on a journey, that one.”

  “Darius?” Viktor said.

  “Perdurabo. The Great Beast.”

  Viktor frowned. “Crowley? What does he have to do with this?”

  “We discuss the world of magic, do we not? If we discuss magic in the modern era, we discuss Aleister.”

  Viktor wasn’t quite sure when they had started talking about magic, but he would play along. It was true that Aleister Crowley was the most infamous black magician of the twentieth century. A rival of Yeats in the Golden Dawn magical society, a prolific author of occult texts, and the founder of his own magical society as well as the infamous Abbey of Thelema, Crowley was reviled for his publicized use of sexual and drug-induced rituals. Believed by many to possess potent supernatural powers, Crowley was feared even more than he was loathed. “To be honest,” Viktor said, “I never understood why a true magician would seek fame and fortune.”

  “Aleister was an egotist, yes, but he kept his secret magic, his true ambition, to himself.”

  Viktor’s eyes narrowed. “Then how do you know about it?”

  “One’s innermost secrets are revealed through one’s choice of books.”

  Viktor snapped his fingers. “The San Fran
cisco visit.”

  Viktor had studied Crowley’s life in detail, and he knew there was speculation that he had been searching for someone or something in San Francisco, though no one had ever figured out who or what.

  “The San Francisco visit was well before his death,” Viktor said, “not long after the turn of the century. Did your predecessor know him?”

  “You were very much alike,” Zador said, ignoring the question. “He was large in body and spirit, full of life and himself. And, yes, full of power.”

  “I long ago learned the foolishness of being full of myself,” Viktor said.

  “Of course you did, of course. That was Aleister’s undoing, you know. He sought to become a god on earth, as does someone else. As perhaps do you. As perhaps do we all.”

  “Someone else?” Viktor said. “Who? Darius?”

  Zador’s gaze stopped wandering, fixating for a rare moment on Viktor. “I shall tell you what I told him: I’ve never touched it, and I never will. That book should never have been made.”

  Viktor wanted to throttle the old man. “Does this book have a name?”

  “All books have a name,” Zador said, amused. “It is called the Ahriman Grimoire.”

  Viktor worked hard not to reveal his shock at the mention of Ahriman. “I’ve never heard of that book. And I’m aware of all the major grimoires.”

  “Are you?”

  Viktor couldn’t imagine a grimoire existing that was both unknown to himself and so important that both Crowley and Darius would have gone to such lengths to search it out. Surely it would have come across Viktor’s radar at some point in his studies.

  “What is it?” Viktor said. “What did you tell him?” Viktor was letting his excitement get the better of him. He forced himself to regain his stoic facade. “What can you tell me about this grimoire?”

  Zador’s eyes started roving again, and Viktor had the disconcerting feeling that Zador was talking to someone else, in another place and time. “A codex, made in the time of the monks. There is only one copy in existence, if it in fact still exists. It is said the grimoire forbids the reader from making another. The power is not just in the content of the words, but in the making.”

  “Which was?” Viktor said.

  “Legend says the scroll was authored with a pen dipped in the still-warm blood of virgins, dripping from their bodies during prolonged torture. The victims were sacrificed at the end of the ritual, the edge of the codex bound and covered with leather soaked in their blood.”

  It sounded outlandish, but Viktor had heard of plenty of similar grotesqueries performed during human history, especially during the Middle Ages. The more disturbing fact was that Zador had memorized the process.

  Viktor said, “When was it written? Ahriman hasn’t been worshipped for two thousand years.”

  “The grimoire was allegedly written in Avestan.”

  Viktor caught his breath. Avestan was a variation of Old Persian, and the sacred language of the Zoroasters. Spoken, he knew, from roughly seventh to fourth century BCE, and transcribed a century or two after Christ.

  “Would you care to see a book on the subject?” Zador said. “This book is not so rare as the Ahriman Grimoire, but rare indeed. I believe there are”—his head moved side to side as if mentally making calculations—“yes, six copies in existence outside of the Vatican.” Zador’s eyes gleamed, and Viktor wondered why he had become so helpful all of a sudden. He had the unsettling feeling that he was being led down a path, that this whole visit had been a hand of tarot stacked and dealt by Zador.

  “I would,” Viktor said.

  Zador disappeared, then returned cradling a thin book with a binding so aged it resembled peeling sandpaper. There were a few areas of water damage, and several gouges in the cover, but the book was otherwise intact.

  After setting the book on the table, he handed Viktor a pair of disposable latex gloves and a pen-shaped device Viktor knew was used to turn the pages of rare books. The title, written vertically on the side in Latin, was The Ahriman Heresy.

  “When was this written?” Viktor said.

  “In 1551.”

  A muscle in Viktor’s neck twitched in anticipation as he eyed the piece of living history on the table. “The price?”

  Zador’s oversize head wobbled back and forth. “Ah, but this book is not for sale. You may explore its contents in this room alone.”

  “You haven’t heard my offer,” Viktor said.

  “The purpose of this shop is to preserve and spread knowledge, not just to sell wares.”

  “If you were interested in spreading knowledge, you’d open the back rooms to public browsing.”

  “Ah,” Zador said, “but not all knowledge was meant for everyone.”

  “Do prdele. Why then, pray tell, was I chosen to receive such sacred knowledge?”

  “As you know, the practice of magic requires balance. One of the darkness has read this book recently, and so shall one of the light.”

  Viktor stifled his chuckle, amused both by Zador’s melodrama and the content of his words. The day Viktor represented the light was a sad day for the forces of goodness. Maybe Zador was talking about something else again, or maybe he was just addled.

  “Sometimes we do not choose which side we represent,” Zador said with a grin. “And sometimes, we’re forced to switch sides in the middle of the contest.”

  Viktor put the gloves on. “I’ll take a look, but why have I never heard of this work or the Ahriman Grimoire?”

  “The Vatican took great pains to destroy all evidence of the Ahriman Grimoire and the short-lived heresy it spawned. Including the book you now hold in your hands, which is but a history treatise detailing the heresy.”

  That made sense to Viktor. History’s victors tended to do the telling, and over the centuries, the Catholic Church made the Nazis seem like concerned librarians when it came to disposing of books with which it disagreed. What the Church did not want known, they destroyed or kept for themselves, making the Vatican the largest rare bookstore on earth. Unfortunately, membership was required.

  Viktor said, “Why did Crowley and Darius want this grimoire so much?”

  “I haven’t read this book.”

  “But you know.”

  Zador didn’t answer, his gaze floating over Viktor and around the room.

  “Did Crowley read The Ahriman Heresy here?” Viktor said.

  “He had his own copy.”

  That comment set Viktor’s fingers tapping. “Then the grimoire must be mentioned in The Ahriman Heresy, and he was here looking for it.” Viktor decided to ask a blunt question. “Do you know where the grimoire is now?”

  “Not here,” Zador said, and Viktor knew that was the most direct answer he was going to get.

  “Darius was looking for it, too, wasn’t he?” Again no response, and Viktor said, “Did you send him anywhere?”

  “Soon you will know as much as I.”

  Zador left the room with a half bow, closing the door on the way out. At first Viktor thought Zador meant the answer lay within the copy of The Ahriman Heresy, but he realized if that were the case, then Crowley wouldn’t have come to the bookshop searching for the grimoire.

  Darius was following Crowley, he mused to himself. Crowley might have learned about the grimoire from The Ahriman Heresy, or from another source, and then begun his search. Where did Crowley look next, that’s the question.

  That something like the Ahriman Grimoire had survived did not surprise Viktor. No matter how great the persecution, powerful ideas and hidden knowledge have a way of staying alive, secrets buried in the cracks of history, waiting to be uncovered like vine-covered ruins in the jungle.

  Wishing he had his absinthe, Viktor settled into the chair to read. When he finished he closed the book and sat in silence, his elbows on the table, fingers steepled against his mouth.

  Alone in the catacombs, Grey’s mind shouted at him, with God knew how many members of the Church of the Beast in that caver
n and a maze of tunnels in every direction. But if there was an innocent girl bound to a rock slab in that tomb of horrors, then he had to do something, or at least try.

  He sprinted down the passage. As he closed in on the mouth of the huge cavern and saw what lay inside, he started to shake. Not from fear, though part of him was afraid, but from an emotion that had always been more powerful than fear for Grey, one that shuddered him to his core as he took in the scene.

  Anger.

  Dozens of black-cloaked worshippers lined the walls and filled the center of the cavern, surrounding a wooden contraption in the middle, a fifteen-foot-high hangman’s tower that supported a table-size platform four feet off the ground. A silver bowl rested in the middle of the platform, and on each corner sat an enormous gas lantern, together casting a reddish glow throughout the cavern.

  Hanging upside down above the platform, feet tied to a rope suspended from the top of the wooden tower, long blond hair swaying underneath her, was a naked young woman.

  She had cuts on her neck and wrists, her outstretched fingertips dangling above the huge bowl. Blood dripped from her wounds into the basin, her blood-streaked hair and face giving her a ghoulish appearance. Grey could see her swaying a few inches back and forth, fingers wriggling, probably too weakened by blood loss to do much more than attempt a feeble struggle.

  Rage.

  She was alive, and Grey clung to that fact with a desperate hope. A priest in a black cassock stood on the platform beside the girl, holding a red goblet in one hand and a curved knife in the other, identical to the one Grey had taken from his captive. Grey noticed everyone holding a goblet. His eyes flicked to the bowl, and his soul shrank from the implication.

  Grey edged into the cavern, still behind the other cult members. Either no one had noticed him, or no one thought twice about another black-cloaked arrival. Just inside the cavern, placed on ledges on either side of the entrance, Grey saw two smaller lanterns, similar to the ones on the platform. He also saw a basin of water, probably to extinguish the torches. Looking around the cavern, he saw three other entrances, each illuminated by lanterns.