by J. R. Mabry
“We’ve got two other threads in play, here,” Terry said. “We shouldn’t forget that we have a commission—we still have no idea how Bishop Preston could have won election to the Episcopal Diocese of California. Brian, you were researching talismans, yes? What did you find?”
“I found three possibilities,” Brian said. “Two of them are lost, but that doesn’t mean anything. Magickal artifacts don’t like to stay lost, as we all know, and they surface regularly. Anyway, there are two Talismans of Sedephora—that’s the demon that rules psychic phenomena. The talismans were made twenty years apart, when one of them had been stolen. I’m thinking it must be one of them since it has a limited range.
“The third option is a glorified glamour—the Stone of Tsarit. It’s a stone—a piece of volcanic resin, actually—that makes it appear as if people agree with you. But there’s no range—its effects can be worldwide. The stone hasn’t been seen since 1277, and the older Talisman of Sedephora disappeared around 1942, purchased by Jack Parsons, of all people. He used it to lure into his circle…well, let us say, several science fiction writers, one of whom would go on to found one of the most nefarious cults the world has ever known.”
“And the younger talisman?” Terry asked.
“Sold by Coventry Magickal Supply just last month,” Brian checked his iPad. “For a cool 1.3 million dollars.”
Mikael whistled. “I think that’s our baby.”
Terry felt something nagging at him. “Brian, what about the Spear of Longinus?”
Brian jerked upright. “Where the fuck did that come from?”
Terry smiled. “Humor me, Honey Pie. Could the Spear have done this job?”
“What’s the Spear of Long…How do you say it?” Kat asked.
“It’s the spear that was used to pierce Jesus’s side during the crucifixion,” Terry said. “It’s coated with the bile containing the sins of the world.”
“Okay, that sounds…evil.”
“It is.”
Brian’s face screwed up in thought. Tapping the table with his fingers, he said. “Maaaybe the Spear could do it. It wouldn’t have been my first choice—and still isn’t.”
“Why not?” asked Kat.
“Because it’s counterintuitive. It’s like using a jackhammer when a butter knife will do.”
“So, the Spear is more powerful than what we saw on those diocesan convention videos?” Mikael asked.
“Waaaaay more powerful,” Brian said.
“What about proximity?” Mikael asked. “If it’s so powerful, why is proximity an issue?”
Terry slapped at the table. “User proficiency!” He looked hopefully at Brian. When he saw him nod, he pounded the table again. “Yes!”
“It could be that Bishop Preston is just figuring out how to use it. He’ll get better, though, trust me. If it’s the Spear, that is.” Brian held up a finger. “I still want to know why you brought it up.”
Briefly, Terry told them what he’d heard at his visit with Mr. York. Mikael whistled. “I think we need to establish whether the story is true.”
“How are we going to do that?” Kat asked.
“A little breaking and entering,” Mikael said.
“Is this a job for The Confessor?” Kat asked slyly.
“For who?” Terry asked.
“Nobody,” Mikael said. “Terry, are you up for a little nocturnal visit to Saint James’s?”
Terry nodded, looking Mikael in the eye.
“Can I come?” Kat asked. Before Mikael could answer, she held up a warning palm. “Consider carefully, as you have already witnessed more feminine fury tonight than the male constitution can comfortably tolerate.”
A glimmer of fear came into Mikael’s eyes at that. “Eleven o’clock?”
“Fine,” Kat said.
“Kat, how did that Lutheran exorcism go?” Brian asked.
“Slow. Susan kicked him in the head.”
“Was that effective?”
“I think it was effective for Susan. She’s pretty frustrated.” Kat smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “We’ll go back tomorrow. Stay tuned.”
“Okay, is that it, then?” Brian asked, ready to get up. He was already looking around at all that needed to be done in the kitchen.
“Wait,” Terry said. “There is one more thing. Charlie is in Hell.”
“Charlie’s in Hell?” Brian asked.
“Yeah,” Terry said, slouching. “Just an educational field trip. He took to it.”
“He’s at home,” Brian said, nodding.
“He’s at home,” Terry agreed.
“Well, who are we to judge?” Brian said. “He knows how to get back. He can walk out anytime he wants to.”
“I feel so bad about this,” Terry confessed.
“Where’s his body?” Brian asked. “Is it breathing?”
Terry nodded. “Alta Bates Hospital. We called the paramedics earlier.”
“Poop,” Brian said. “Just what the world needs—”
“I know, another comatose magickian.”
Just then, Kat’s cell phone vibrated. She pulled it out and checked it. A look of shock came over her face. “What is it?” asked Terry, noticing.
“It’s an email…from my brother.” She looked at the space on the wall where his mirror usually hung. It was empty. “Where the hell is my brother?” Panic forced her voice into an almost painful pitch. Her phone buzzed. She looked down at it again. “I’m in the bathroom,” she read. “It’s boring in the bathroom. At least I can surf the web.” Kat looked up. “What??”
Brian said, “Ah. Just a moment.” He got up, walked to the back bathroom, and returned moments later with the mirror. He hung it in place and plugged in the suction cup mic.
“Hi, Sis,” Randy said, waving. “Thanks for leaving me in the bathroom all day, Brian.”
“Sorry,” said Brian.
“It sucked.”
“Sorry.”
“How were you able to send me email?” Kat asked.
“The bathroom door was ajar,” Brian said. “Part of Susan’s office was visible in the mirror when I went to get him. My guess is that he was able to access the internet in the reflection of her computer.”
“Yeah, you might want to close those windows,” Randy said, shuffling his feet. “Susan will not appreciate all the porn that is open on them now.”
“Jesus Christ, Randy,” Kat said.
“No, this is really important,” Brian acknowledged. “Knowing that Randy can get online can substantially contribute to his quality of life.”
“What he said,” Randy agreed. “Only less geekily.”
“Randy, I’ll leave a laptop or an iPad or something on the kitchen table whenever I can. Remind me,” Brian said to the mirror.
“Will do,” Randy saluted.
“So, what can we do about Charlie?” Kat asked.
“Wait, so did I hear this right? Charlie’s in Hell?” Randy asked. “Why is Charlie in Hell? Has anybody ever told you people that you are not safe to be around?”
Terry ignored him. “There’s nothing we can do, Kat. He walked in willingly—we all did. And he can walk out, too. He just doesn’t want to.”
“Can I go in and drag him out?” Kat asked.
“No,” Terry said.
“What’s stopping me?” she asked.
“Any one of about a thousand demons,” Terry said.
“What demons?” Kat asked.
Terry’s eyes opened wide. “Holy shit, she’s right. There were no demons there. Brian, why were there no demons in Hell?”
“There were no demons?” Brian scowled. “Well, I have a theory.”
“Hit me,” Terry said.
“I don’t think there are any demons in Hell,” he said, getting up and going to the window, “because they’re all out there. And there will be more of them every hour until—hey!”
“What?” Terry asked.
Brian looked up and down the street. He turned back and
faced them, a look of confused concern on his face. “Uh…guys, that horde of the possessed we were just talking about? They’re all gone.”
48
AS DYLAN WALKED, he went through a short checklist of scoring possibilities. There was a medical marijuana dispensary on Telegraph, but that would require money. There would also be boho kids camped out on the sidewalk smoking—it was conceivable that he might bum a hit off the odd splif. That was especially likely in People’s Park. He made a slight course correction and headed for the UC Berkeley campus.
Telegraph lay just on the other side of campus, so the shortest way there was simply through. Dylan shivered as the dusk settled over Berkeley, bringing with it a foggy chill, even in summer. He hugged his arms around his chest for warmth.
He’d just stepped onto the campus when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked to the right and stopped in his tracks. Walking down Hearst Street was a mass of at least a hundred people—probably more. Berkeley was ground zero for street protests, so the sight was not unusual, but there was something odd about this particular group that caught Dylan’s attention. There were no signs. No one was singing or chanting. There was not even a hint of the party atmosphere that accompanied most protests.
Dylan cocked his head. He looked south across campus in the general direction of Telegraph Avenue. Then he looked west after the marching group of people. He looked south. He looked west. “Awwww, dammit all to Hell!” he swore and began walking west after the crowd.
He hadn’t gotten far before he realized that he recognized a couple of them. They had been gathered outside the friary. These were the possessed. With that realization, he hung back and hid behind a plumber’s van.
Looking from side to side, Dylan debated internally what to do. He was simply too recognizable in his cassock. But it was nippy, and the temperature was dropping. “Shit,” he said out loud and pulled the cassock over his head. He rolled it up, tucked it under his arm, and set out again at a slight jog to catch up with the lumbering horde.
Reaching the rear flank, he stopped jogging and matched the steps of the possessed. He noted with some alarm that many of them were carrying garden tools or bricks. Since none of them were paying any attention to him, he double-stepped to move through the crowd, hoping to gain some sense of where they were going, and why.
The group had reached Oxford Street now and was stopping traffic, stepping out to make an enormous group left-hand turn. Watching carefully to see who was leading, Dylan almost tripped when their point person came into view.
“Larch. Well, Ah’ll be damned.” Dylan had been curious before, but now he was fairly champing at the bit. He didn’t feel cold anymore, nor was he thinking about scoring. He kept Larch in his line of sight but was careful to keep a prudent distance since he did not want to be recognized. Weaving his way through the crowd, Dylan saw a few of the other lodge members walking near the front of the advancing horde.
At Allston, they made a right and stopped. Dylan knew the place—it was the Maccabee Museum of Jewish Art and Life, a cultural fixture in Berkeley for nearly half a century and a place where Brian lectured regularly on Jewish mysticism and magick.
Dylan was sure it must be closed, but that didn’t seem to stop them. Dylan ducked into a recessed doorway of a nearby building to watch as Larch and his lodge cronies hung back. The possessed lumbered forward and brought the bricks and tools to bear on the long, frosted windows facing the street.
The glass shattered with a crash that Dylan could hear nearly a block away. The possessed draped themselves over the exposed shards of glass to provide safe passage so that the magickians could climb over them and into the museum. Others of the possessed followed. Dylan heard gunshots coming from within the museum, and he heard the roar of sirens.
He’d seen enough, and as he didn’t really feel like being detained for questioning, he walked nonchalantly past the possessed bodies draped over the cut glass, now bleeding and still. Deftly, he snagged a wallet out of the back pocket of one of the dead. He patted the man’s butt uncomfortably, muttered, “Sucks to be you, dude,” and made a quick left at Shattuck.
A block later, he headed due east, making for the UC campus again. Once across the street, he pulled on his cassock and examined the wallet. Inside were four twenty-dollar bills—exactly enough for a quarter ounce of medium-grade smoke. He stuffed the wallet into his pocket and headed as directly as he could for the dispensary.
49
THE SUN WAS DIPPING out of sight just as Richard took the southbound ramp to I-5, toward Los Angeles and ultimately, Riverside. Tobias sat in the passenger seat, alert and erect, eerily as a human might. Richard, having never been on a road trip with the dog, didn’t know if that was just Tobias, or the influence of the angel somehow.
Then it occurred to him that it didn’t really matter. When are we going to stop for dinner? asked the voice in his head.
“We haven’t even been driving for an hour. What are you, six?” Richard responded.
More like six hundred thousand, asshole, so don’t be snotty. If I’m hungry, you’re hungry, and you are hungry, Duunel answered.
“Yeah, but I want to make some time before we slow down,” Richard said. “After all, I don’t plan to drive all night. It’s not safe.”
Why not? There’s two of us to keep us awake, Duunel argued.
“Because I don’t trust you not to run us off the road into a gas tanker just to watch the pretty lights,” Richard said.
You are harsh. And hurtful. Duunel’s voice sounded almost like he was pouting.
Just then, the radio began to hiss static. They had travelled beyond the reach of KFOG, San Francisco’s classic rock station. Richard punched a couple of buttons on the radio, trying to home in on the signal a little better. “Fucking newfangled radios,” he said. “Give me a dial anytime.”
You are old, Father William, quoted Duunel.
“You are a pain in the ass, fuckhead,” Richard responded, nearly automatically.
Do you pray with that potty mouth? Duunel asked.
“Anyway, there are plenty of country music stations around,” Richard said mock-cheerfully.
If I could die, I’d say “Kill me now,” Duunel complained.
“Ah, but there’s hope,” Richard said. “See what I’ve got here?” He held up his iPhone.
It’s a phone, Duunel deadpanned.
“Yes, but it’s also holding every CD Amy Grant ever made,” Richard said.
Who? Duunel asked.
“So, since we’ve got a long trip, I say we start at the very beginning, with the eponymous album,” Richard said.
I should be worried about this, right? Duunel asked.
Richard jacked the iPhone into the stereo, keeping one eye on the road. “No, seriously, you’ll love this,” Richard said. “Brown Bannister’s production is so sweet, you’ll be raising your hands and praising Jesus before side one is over.”
I knew you were a pervert and an alcoholic, but I didn’t think you really had a cruel streak in you, Duunel noted.
“You’re making me blush,” Richard said, and a moment later the syrupy strings and horns of “Beautiful Music” filled the car. Instantly, Richard started singing along.
You really know all the words, don’t you? Duunel asked.
“So do you, then, right? C’mon, access ’em, and let’s have us a sing-along. It’ll be fun!” Richard began to mimic the strings part.
So…country music isn’t so bad, right? Duunel asked hopefully.
“Toby seems content,” Richard said.
Toby’s idea of aesthetic value is gauged by two questions: Is it dead, and can I roll in it? Duunel said.
“Now who’s harsh?” Richard asked.
Halfway through the My Father’s Eyes album, Richard noted a rest stop approaching and indicated a lane change to catch the off-ramp.
Oh good, Duunel said, rousing finally. He seemed to have gone into hibernation halfway through the fir
st Amy Grant album. Your bladder is starting to become painful.
“You’re free to leave anytime,” Richard said. “Look, there’s some cows.”
No, thanks.
“Mmmm…cows are comfy. So calm. So noble. So much yummy cud to chew.”
You know, eventually I will leave this cesspool of a brain of yours, but you are trapped in here for life, Duunel said.
“The sooner, the better,” Richard said. He pulled into a space and got out. He stretched and then called to Tobias. “C’mon, big boy, there are weeds that need watering here. Come, and do your duty.”
Tobias leaped from the car and began sniffing around the little patch of grass that separated the parking lot from the restrooms. He seemed excited to find the picnic table. He investigated it thoroughly then lifted his leg on it. Then he leaped off, running back and forth with abandon.
“Okay, big guy, back in the car before I burst,” Richard called. Tobias jumped up in the car, and Richard shut the door. The dog leaped into the backseat and lay down, scratching his back against the seat, all four paws in the air.
Richard walked quickly to the small building, trying not to dance. He unfastened the Velcro of his cassock as he did so and made a beeline to the urinals. Sweet relief flowed over him as he released his bladder.
Ah…that’s better than sex, Duunel said.
“I’m not going to dispute that one,” Richard agreed.
Urgency past, Richard washed his face and took a turn in the stall, just in case. He tossed the wadded paper towel into the trash and turned back into the warm Central Valley night.
He walked back to where he’d parked the car but then stopped short about halfway there. The parking space was empty. The car was gone.
50
MIKAEL PARKED about a block from Saint James’s. Terry peered out the back window. “All clear.” The church was isolated from the road by a wall of trees, located as it was in the posh Berkeley Hills. Trees rose up all around them, separating them from city lights and stars alike. The church was visible only in silhouette, a featureless black hole set deep in a copse. Mikael opened the door and got out.