by Frank Lauria
He decided to move inside the building, his projection pouring through the doors like smoke through a filter.
Inside it was completely dark. Orient’s projection could see clearly, its senses not dependent on physical stimuli. The floor was empty. In one corner, chairs were stacked on tables.
He was moving across the dance floor and into a small glass-enclosed room. He passed through the electronic control room and through a door which opened to a passageway.
Orient felt the hovering ozone of evil all around him. He decided to find what he had come to find and return to his physical state as quickly as possible.
He was in an opulent bedroom fitted with drapes of heavy silk, and a large canopied bed made from ebony and inlaid with ivory and gold leaf. On each of the four black walls was a large mirror framed in silver. The rug was white and embroidered in its center with seven circles laid in an overlapping pattern to form a flower design. Orient recognized the Key of Solomon, a potent talisman for conjuring infernal spirits.
He passed through this room and into the temple. It was a large black room dominated by an altar made of black wood. The carpeting as black as the walls, the white pentagram, the large black cross hanging upside down… he knew immediately he was in the room of worship, the sacrificial block of the coven.
And then he saw Malta.
She was under the altar. Her body had been placed in a crypt beneath the table of power. Both her hands clutched the handle of the silver dagger imbedded beneath her breast.
Orient felt the icy brush of a chill turbulence and understood the approach of an evil presence on the Astral.
He took the form of a wasp and flew to a spot under the altar table.
The presence entered the temple.
Orient saw a sleek yellow leopard come through the side wall. It stopped in the center of the room, circled, then stood facing the table where Orient was hiding. The animal’s great jaws parted in a lazy yawn, and Orient felt the fetid stench of the cat’s breath.
The leopard stood there for a long moment, its tall twitching nervously. It seemed to Orient that the cat’s red eyes were looking directly at him. The thick silence in the room compressed, squeezing his skin taut. Finally, the animal stretched, yawned again, and padded out of the room, gliding through the far wall.
Orient recognized the leopard as the Astral form of Ose, the powerful Prince of Madness. He hesitated, then rose from his hiding place and flew across the room and through the wall in pursuit of the cat.
He was outside. Far above him he saw the leopard bounding away at tremendous speed. Still in the wasp form, Orient flew faster, trying to keep the cat within sight. Higher and higher he rose, not even taking notice that the Astral surroundings had changed. He concentrated on the animal, determined to trace the source of D’Te’s power. He strained forward as the loping figure of the cat receded, grew smaller, then abruptly disappeared.
It was only after he had lost the animal, and wearily turned for home that he sensed he was in unfamiliar territory.
He was flying through a cloying blue mist over a vast field of vegetation. As he circled, in an effort to find his direction, the mist became denser, clouding his perception. He dropped lower, searching frantically for a clear path. He was rapidly becoming exhausted. He flew closer and closer to the tops of the strange Astral plants which now seemed ominous, looming like some soundless luminous jungle.
Suddenly one of the plants lifted and opened its leaves.
It was then that he realized where he was.
He was skimming a field of carnivorous vegetation.
Desperately he beat his tiny wings, trying to lift himself higher, but his energy was gone; he began to drop.
He twisted his will in an attempt to change his form into that of an eagle, but it was too late. Ose had lured him to a level of Astral where his will would not respond.
The plant spread its leaves wide to receive the wasp.
Orient stung the blades repeatedly as they began to close over him. He knew that if he could not escape the Astral his physical body would decompose as in death, and his soul would be unable to make its way to its intended destination on the journey of existence. He would be eternally trapped between the physical and spiritual.
As the darkness closed over him, he heard the sizzling juices of the plant as they rushed up to begin the process of digestion.
He screamed a final prayer.
XIII
A slow motion tumble through a frothing sea of churning space… a booming, echoing, wipe-out in the gaseous surf of consciousness… then he was sucked violently down and around, whirlpooling into a spinning free fall at ever increasing speed…
When he regained consciousness Doctor Orient saw Redson kneeling at his side, his eyes closed tight, his hoarse voice rumbling Latin phrases, his stumpy fingers clutching a cross.
He tried to get up. The blood rushed from his head and he tasted the acid liquid of nausea in his throat. He dropped back on the floor.
“Now take it easy… ” He heard the bishop’s voice coming from a great distance. He shut his eyes then opened them immediately as he felt the vertigo of fear returning.
“Help… me up… ” he managed.
He felt Redson’s hands under his shoulders. For a moment there was no sensation in his feet, and his legs bent clumsily under him. He heard the bishop, closer now, grunting with effort. Then his knees locked and he took a few steps toward the chair. He almost passed out when he turned to sit, but then he felt the solid support of the seat beneath him and he leaned against the cool surface of the back of the chair. Methodically, he began breathing control, continuing the pattern until his body adjusted, and the tingle of normalcy returned to his senses.
Redson was talking excitedly. “I saw your face go white, dead white, and you began trembling all over—that’s when I decided to use a little prayer and precious Holy Water on your worthless carcass… ”
“A good thing… ” Orient mumbled. “I was… just about finished. I was… made a bad mistake.”
“Yes, you think you’re clever with your reincarnation and Tibetan folderol, but you’re going to be in a serious fix if you don’t go slowly.” Redson’s voice rose.
“True enough.” Orient inhaled deeply and fought back the vivid jumble of impressions at the bottom of his thoughts. “But we’re in a serious fix, no matter what happens.”
Redson stared at Orient. He took a long time to speak. “What are we up against?” The question hung softly in the silence.
Orient pulled his thoughts into sequence. “I was detected and Ose led me into a trap. If you hadn’t been nearby I would have been powerless.”
“You’re sure it was Ose?”
Orient nodded. “And D’Te sent him. Malta’s body is under the shrine in his temple.”
Redson began erasing the chalk lines of the pentagram with his foot. “Where is the temple?” he asked, inspecting the floor.
Orient looked over at the bishop and smiled. Redson was brushing the chalk from his shoes. “Thinking of investigating D’Te yourself?” he asked.
“I’m thinking of investigating the validity of your Astral Plane.” Redson continued to work on the pentagram.
“I’m going to hold the location until we decide what we can do,” Orient said, almost to himself. “There’s so much power there that even daylight is risky.” He rose unsteadily to his feet.
When Redson was satisfied that the pentagram had been removed he joined Orient at the door of the chapel. “Do you know you were out for only seven minutes?” he said, as they went slowly up the stairs.
Argyle woke up thinking.
He squinted into the sunlight blasting at the window before jumping out of his bed and drawing the blinds. He had trouble reading his watch. It was ten o’clock.
He walked slowly around the room as he tried to pull the scattered elements of the dream together. Doctor Orient. The girl. Dancing. He decided to take a shower.
While he
was shaving he remembered the most important part of the dream.
The place. The nightclub where Orient had been dancing with the girl. The Seventh Door. That’s what the voice had said at the séance. It kept repeating “seven door, seven door,” And in his dream he had seen the awning.
Seventh Door. And inside Orient was dancing with the girl. Very solemnly, while she hung in his arms laughing, her head flung far back. He wondered about Orient. Up front the man had a wild mind. Orient had helped him develop his telepathic potential to the point where it was really making his life sing. But on the other hand he didn’t feel that he owed Orient anything. As a matter of fact, neither did Orient. The Doc demanded no particular loyalty, and he set the training up on a completely unemotional basis, keeping the transference factor down to a minimum. Argyle liked Orient for that. That’s why he was willing to help him. Orient wouldn’t be going through these changes if it wasn’t vital.
He went to the closet and pulled out a suit. He was seeing his agent and the bastard would insist on a public lunch.
As he selected a tie he considered another possibility. Suppose that there was something out there Orient wasn’t reading. He had already opened up one channel, and suppose there were others that Orient didn’t even know about. Orient had a wild mind, but Argyle wasn’t crazy about his life style. Orient was a little too dedicated, a little too involved with his science. He never loosened up enough to get sweaty. And Argyle had learned that men who didn’t understand their physical nature were ultimately deluded. A man had to feel life to understand it. He wondered if there was something at the Seventh Door for him. He finished dressing and went downstairs to breakfast.
Later, when Orient came down to breakfast he found Bishop Redson waiting for him.
“Good morning, Owen,” Redson boomed as soon as Orient entered the dining room. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
Orient ignored him and sat down. He stared at his empty plate and hoped the bishop would wait a few hours before demanding conversation. His hopes were shattered immediately.
“Well?”
Orient shook his head slowly from side to side. “Just have to wait, Bishop.” He poured himself a glass of papaya juice.
Redson drummed his fingers on the table. “Simpson went out,” he said finally.
Orient dropped a dollop of yogurt onto his soy cereal. “Would you pass the honey?” he requested, not looking up.
Redson pushed the jar across the table. “You know where she is. Why can’t you inform the authorities? Tell them there’s been a kidnapping and a murder?”
Orient watched the shelves of honey settle on the yogurt. “All that would do would be to inconvenience D’Te. In fact, it would ultimately inconvenience us. He’d remove the body to some other location. And then we wouldn’t know where it was.”
“He could do that now.”
“No reason to. He knows that there’s nothing we can do to him right now.”
“Why can’t we work up a spell of destruction and take care of him here and now?” Redson demanded, pounding his fist on the table.
Orient waited until the juice in his glass had stopped moving before answering. “To use the words of destruction is forbidden,” he said quietly. “To call up negative elements you must become part of that reality. D’Te wins if we destroy him using negative energies. It proves that his way is most effective, that destruction is the destiny of existence.”
For a long moment the only sound was the fretful tattoo of Redson’s fingers on the table. “You’re right, Owen, of course.” He reached for a Player. “But that means that this man can just do as he pleases while we sit and watch.”
“That’s not entirely true.” Orient poured a second glass of juice. “There are a number of things we can do—provided he makes the first move.”
“Like what?”
“Depends on what he does.”
Levi shuffled into the dining room, scratching his beard. “Mawnin.” He sat down next to Orient and reached for the juice. “You decided what you’re going to do?”
Orient leaned back and looked up at the ceiling.
“We don’t know yet, Levi.” Redson turned in his chair and gazed out the window. “We just have to wait.”
Levi leaned toward Orient. “Have you ever thought of hypnotizing the bishop?” he asked.
“Hypnotize him? What for?”
“Well, perhaps by using hypnotism we can remove the psychological blocks that prevent the bishop here from enjoying the delights of telepathy.”
Orient considered the idea. “You know,” he began, “that’s very interesting… ”
“Ridiculous,” Redson snorted.
“No, it’s not a bad idea at all, Bishop,” Levi corrected. “I could make it easy for you to accept new techniques.”
“What he says is true,” Orient put in. He was already taken with the prospect of teaching Redson to communicate telepathically. If they were successful with Redson, who was committed to the old mathematics of sin, they could probably open up other potential telepaths with the process. “Let’s try it. I promise you it will be interesting, and if it works you’ll have helped us solve a tremendous problem.”
Redson glared at the two men. “I don’t like it,” he said.
“Don’t be afraid, Bishop, I’m painless,” Levi said.
“Really, Bishop, you should give it a try,” Orient urged.
“Okay,” Redson replied, “but I don’t believe you can do it.”
Redson was right.
Orient and Levi tried all that afternoon, but at the end of the day they still hadn’t managed to hypnotize the bishop.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” Redson declared as they left the study, “I didn’t find it to be the most interesting experience of my life either.”
“The man’s head must be made of solid bone,” Levi confided loudly to Orient as they entered the recreation room.
Hap and Argyle were sprawled out on the couch watching television. Redson went over and plopped down between them.
Orient and Levi took their places at opposite ends of the chess table.
In a few moments Argyle was regaling the bishop with stories of his day.
As Orient set up the pieces he heard Redson’s delighted howls as Argyle described lunch with his agent and a brace of starlets. Hap, as usual, was absorbed in his own thoughts.
“Then the redhead asks me if I think Amanda Rizzotta is sexy. And she got insulted when I told her that Amanda is about as sexy as a plate of eggplant. Henry’s been telling her all this time that she’s the American Rizzotta.”
While Orient was listening, Levi swept his knight off the board and checked his queen.
“Do you know this guy?” Redson asked as a comic was introduced to the television audience.
“He’s crazy,” Argyle informed him. He once asked me to leave his table because I wasn’t laughing at his jokes.”
“Did you leave?”
“Of course not. I told him that he’d better come up funnier or come up strong enough to throw me out himself.”
Orient removed Levi’s bishop.
“Checkmate,” Levi said, quietly dropping his knight into place. As they began setting up another game, Sordi came in with the food.
After dinner Orient took Hap, Levi and Argyle into the study for a review of their defensive patterns. He tried to make the exercise interesting for them by also teaching them the basic methods of telekinetics; the technique of moving objects through space using the physical energy of the mind. At the end of the evening Levi and Simpson were exercising control over small objects but Hap was finding it difficult to even budge balls of paper.
“Don’t worry, Hap,” Orient said as they drifted over to the recreation room after the session, “you’ll get it. Your defensive techniques have really shaped up in the past few nights.”
“Yeah, terrific.” Hap sighed, moving off toward the couch.
Orient didn’t really feel
up to another game of chess, but Argyle and Redson had decided to watch Joe Kirk on television, and the program was not one of his favorites. It had an interview format that served as a crude device to allow Kirk to insult his guests. Orient found Kirk personally repellent. He objected to the man deliberately embarrassing and berating people in the name of journalism.
Orient began setting up his pieces.
The urgency in Redson’s voice stopped Orient’s hand in mid-air. “Owen,” the bishop was whispering, “come here. Now.” He got up and went to the couch. Levi followed. Redson pointed at the TV screen.
Kirk’s guest was a stocky man dressed in a white robe. Kirk introduced him reverently as Susej. Susej spoke a few words about something he called “the Clear Power.” He invited members of the audience to step up and discover this power for themselves. Kirk refrained from calling the man a fool and a fake as he usually did but echoed Susej’s request for a subject.
“What is this, Bishop?” Orient knew the answer before he asked the question.
Redson jabbed his finger at the screen. “That man. Susej. That’s D’Te.”
“Are you sure?” Hap half stood, crouching awkwardly in the cold glare of the screen. He looked at Orient expectantly.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Redson murmured, as Hap sat down. They watched in silence as the camera focused on an old woman walking uncertainly down the aisle. She walked with difficulty and had to be helped up the stairs by an usher.
“Sit right here, mother.” Kirk rose to assist her. He led her to a chair in the center of the stage. She sat down very slowly, her limbs stiff. “What’s your name, dear?” Kirk boomed. “Speak up so we all can hear.”
“My name is Mrs. Sterling,” the woman said waveringly, “and I’m eighty-six years old next week.”
Kirk led the audience in applause.
“Now say hello to Susej, dear,” Kirk said. “He’s a good man and he’s going to help you if he can.”