Seeking Samiel

by Catherine Jordan

  "Cuneiform," I said.

  "Say that again?"

  "Cuneiform. It's a system of pictographs used in Sumerian writing. It's not pronounced, not meant to be said. People only used it for deciphering. If one could pronounce it, the words would sound identical."

  "How do you know this?"

  "I recently read about it. For some case I'd been working on." I cleared my throat. "Never mind."

  Lindsey regarded me with silence. There was no case involving cuneiform, but if she knew I was lying, she didn't say. How did I know about cuneiform? I must've learnt it somewhere.

  "Edward has a tattoo. It's around his waist. A mark of ownership--that's what he said his wife called it. At the time, I thought it had been a sexual, dominatrix thing. I asked him why he did it, and he said he couldn't deny her anything." Lindsey stopped pacing. "I approached one of them to ask him to leave. He smelled bad. Dressed well enough. I asked him who he was. He babbled some answer; I couldn't understand a word he said. He looked right through me. Gave me the creeps." Lindsey hugged herself as if the memory chilled her. "Then he turned and walked out the front door. I followed him and watched for his car, but I didn't watch long enough. Edward called me inside." Lindsey rocked back and forth on her feet whilst she paused, one arm crossed tight against her breasts, the other fingering the top button of her blouse. "I told my husband, but no one else. Nothing I said seemed to surprise him. I haven't seen any of those people since."

  I stared behind Lindsey at the hole in the wall. Had it gotten bigger?

  "I made the mistake of keeping things to myself. Not this time." She stroked her lip, mulling over whatever thoughts filled her head then asked, "What happened at Eva's?"

  I shrugged. "It was just a party."

  "Oh, Jeffrey. You're being the ignorant one," she said. "If you won't tell me, then at least go tell Nkumbi."

  "I will not involve Eva in such drama. She's a client--the bread and butter of the firm. Do you understand how much pressure I'm under to keep things quiet, especially after what my father just did?" That hole. The dust mound underneath the hole seemed bigger, denser.

  My cheek stung. I hadn't seen her hand coming. My hand went to my cheek burning with her anger. She had slapped me, hard, and for what? Her face registered the shock I felt and then her open hand balled shut.

  "How could you?" Lindsey asked. "She's my daughter. She's under the impression you want to make her your wife. Who gives a damn about your firm and your client. You were at Eva's house. You met her. Are you really so daft? You talk to people; you had to have known better. Did you go inside?" she asked.

  "I never went inside. We both had a drink. No, actually, Caroline had a sip. If anyone should be sick, it's me. But I'm fine."

  "Was she with you the whole time?" Lindsey asked.

  I took a deep breath before answering. "She disappeared for a short time, to use the bathroom, I think."

  "What about Edward?" But she didn't wait for me to answer. "Tatwaba stays. You're going to need her," she said, eyeing my arm and leg, then ran out the door.

  "Wait," I called out to her from the front door. "Lindsey. Where are you going?"

  "The police--the Pretoria Unit."

  "Pretoria? But that's hours from here."

  Tatwaba stepped into the entryway from the dining room, dust cloth in hand. She and I watched Lindsey's Mercedes pull away. Tatwaba closed the front door and quietly returned to the dining room.

  16

  I stalked to the kitchen, head and jaw throbbing, and dug through a drawer with my wrapped arm against my chest whilst the other pulled out one medicine bottle, then another, till I found the ibuprofen. "Gads!" I shouted, throwing the empty bottle in the sink, slamming the drawer.

  Pretoria. I'd never heard of the Pretoria Unit, but assumed The Unit was based in Pretoria, one of South Africa's capitals. Long drive, if that was her plan. If she flew she'd have to make arrangements, wait for check in. Regardless of how she intended to get there, she'd be gone a while.

  I searched Caroline's room for the scarf. It couldn't be the same one, I told myself over and over as I opened dresser drawers, rummaged through her closet, and checked under her bed. That scarf was nowhere to be found. It could not have been the same scarf. I gave up the search and went downstairs.

  Sitting at the computer in the den, I searched, Pretoria Unit. Information on South Africa's capitol popped up. Scrolling through Dog Unit, Fertility Unit, Apartment Unit, and about a thousand other hits that presumably were not Lindsey's destination also popped up. Then I typed Satanism. I stared at that word, cursor blinking like a caution sign.

  It's not like the word is poisonous, or that it will bite, said the voice in my head.

  "Of course not," I told the voice. I hit "enter".

  The first thing that came across the screen was the definition, and then a few articles. I read one news post about the mutilated torso of a person pulled from The River Thames. The appendages had been carefully removed and the torso drained of blood. Even the genitalia were gone. The evidence suggested African ritual killing. According to the article, drained blood is poured on the ground to invoke the spirits of the dead. Muti murder, as the next paragraph said--muti is the isiZulu word for medicine--is often done whilst the victim is still alive so the body parts can be harvested. Also, the more the victim screams, the more powerful the muti. A harvested brain is used to bring knowledge and the skull is used as a bowl or cup. Genitalia bring virility, an eye brings healing, and the nose is used for luck in gambling. The article concluded by saying that the body was never identified, and the killer never found.

  A second news post reported the recent desecration of grave sites. It warned readers not to post the reason for death in obituaries, because suicides and murder victims were being dug up, their body parts used for muti. Violent deaths, it seemed, were revered by evil Sangomas who charge high prices for their muti.

  And then I came across the infamous Aleister Crowley. He was an influential English occultist and known as the most evil man in the world. People were reported to have heard moaning and crying in the air around him. He named his daughter after the female demon in The Bible, Lilith.

  I'd heard that name before. Where? I raked my hands through my hair. I wanted to research that name, but the one the computer directed me to next was Anton LaVey--the man who wrote the Satanic Bible and was dubbed The Black Pope. He had dropped out of high school to join the circus and went on to become a local celebrity through paranormal performances.

  Lilith. I typed that name in the search bar. A Kabbalah Myth, said the first article. Kabbalah, Jewish Mysticism, said Lilith was Adam's first wife and was punished for using God's unutterable name, YHWH, in magik spells. God expelled her from Eden and created Eve. Her legend referred to her as a female demon who fed on infants, a succubus, a cannibalistic vampire, and a dream stalker. The search sites had her synonymous with Lamia, her name being the Hebrew translation of Lilith's. It was Keats who had popularized Lamia in a poem with his description of her as a woman with a serpent's tail below the waist, a demon.

  What a bunch of rubbish. Lindsey had no reason to run off. She was a fear monger. I didn't fear what couldn't possibly be real, especially when there were far greater, more realistic evils than demons and devils. Drug dealers, child molesters, Mugabe, Apartheid and its prejudices. There would always be prejudices, of course, and from most of what I read, Satanists worshipped the devil because they simply didn't believe that God existed. They were pagans worshiping a god, the fallen angel Lucifer, who had overrun the heavens and the earth. I supposed that in their minds Satan was God. And God is good, mostly.

  Eva was high class; I couldn't imagine her in an empty field torturing cats and chanting spells whilst howling at the moon. And she was an educated parapsychologist. There was science behind the claims made in her book, a book which I had yet to read.

  I intended to marry Caroline, a black Catholic. Would I befriend a white Satanist that held the ke
y to my economic future? Yes. I would. I would do that and whatever else it took.

  Surprisingly, I had not thought to research Eva before now. I usually researched potential clients for business purposes. But after entering Eva's name I found nothing on her. Then my father's words came to mind again--"Melanoma, she gets it every time." As I looked up the information about melanoma on the computer, another type of cancer popped up onto my screen; Xeroderma Pigmentosa. Also referred to as XP, it was described as a genetic disorder, one in which DNA fails to repair damage caused by ultraviolet light. Exposure to sunlight must be forbidden, no matter how small, and severe melanoma would be the result if the afflicted were to be exposed to UV lights. Gads, those pictures were horrendous--adults and children with the disease had blackened, sun-charred skin covered in pustules and open, red sores. Some were so disfigured it made me wince. The eyes on all the victims were cloudy, as most had gone blind from the sun. Eva was beautiful. She did not look at all like any of those poor creatures on the screen. I turned the computer off.

  Maybe my father was using the melanoma as some sort of metaphor. But that didn't make any sense. Did he know she was a parapsychologist? Probably. But did he know, or believe that she was a Satanist? So what if he did. And so what if Eva was a Satanist. If Caroline and Edward were willing to accept her, as my father certainly had, then that was good enough for me. Plenty of people out there had strange religions and practices--screwy Protestants protesting about a man who came back from the dead as God; Christianity wasn't any easier to swallow.

  Still, I figured I'd better ring Eva. Warn her about Lindsey. Apologize about Caroline. Her number was at the office tucked away in Father's phone book.

  I checked in on Caroline first. The paramedics had doped her with Percocets, leaving a small bottle containing only two pills on her nightstand. She was scheduled for a seven thirty p.m. doctor appointment at Groote Schuur Hospital. I checked the clock on the nightstand. One forty-five p.m.

  That hole. "What did you do?" There I was, faulting her again. Had to stop doing that. But upon closer inspection the hole didn't look bigger; reading about the supernatural must have been making me see things that weren't there. I flattened the dust with my palm and raked it into the carpet with my fingers.

  After dressing slowly, as my arm and foot wouldn't allow me to hurry, I drove to the office in Caroline's Jeep. I'd ring Eva from there.

  17--EDWARD

  Edward sat in a beige recliner in an empty room gripping a whiskey in one hand and a pistol in the other--both cold. The red stain on his white shirt grew and Edward looked down at his sliced chest for only a brief moment.

  Glossy white paint covered the blank walls. The sealed windows, all curtained in the same red damask, kept out the sun. Just last month, stacks of books had lined the walls and newspapers piled on the floor around his chair. Clocks, ones that he could never get to work no matter how he tinkered, had surrounded his space. They lay in pieces in the kitchen trash. The books and papers burnt in the kitchen incinerator along with the gold chained medallion he had tried to insert into his chest. It was meant for Jeffrey, but Edward had hoped he could wear it instead. Edward had found it in the wall the night of the party.

  After Caroline and Jeffrey had left Eva's, Edward came into the house ready to confront Eva about what had happened. That's when he saw the red-rimmed hole in the staircase wall. Mena knelt in front of it, peering inside. Edward stood behind her and asked, "What happened? Is that blood?" Mena said, "It got out." "How?" Edward asked. "I found this," was her answer, as she handed over a necklace covered in mucus and blood. In the past, he'd overheard Eva talk about a necklace to her invisible fiend that lived in the walls; Mr. Granger. "It's intended for him," Eva had said to Granger. "Guard it for now." She then talked about its beauty and where it came from and how it would magically draw two people to each other, and although he could not hear Mr. Granger's responses, he understood that the necklace was meant for Jeffrey, because he was the one. At some point he heard her say how the necklace was worn. "Under the skin."

  Edward had lived a desperate life, always aware that it would come to an end all too soon. She was getting ready to make an offer to Jeffrey, the same one she had made to Edward about fifty some years ago. In Edward's mind, Eva could do anything and that included extending her lifetime with him. He loved her, damn it. Edward had tried asking her why he had to be replaced, but she was adamant; she could not return the emotion, and Jeffrey was the one.

  Speckles of glass twinkled on the floor in the candlelight. White porcelain fragments lay swept into the corner. A tiny gold clock hand sat on the floor under the empty built-in bookshelf and a twisted gear had been flung onto the windowsill. They were all that remained of Edward's antique clock collection. He felt as empty as the room.

  Decadence and luxury, what had seemed like an infinite amount, had dominated his life when he married Eva's mother. She had denied him nothing, even encouraged things he looked back on with shame. The cover-ups, the lies, the payoffs, all so he could live the life he pleased without reproach. He had traveled the continent, having hotel and vacation house maids clean up after him. They knelt and wiped away any scuff he left behind. They picked up any little scrap that fell from his pockets. Money came whenever he asked for it. Any woman he wanted. Men, too, if he had wanted them.

  Edward had too much at his disposal. He knew that, now. He sat restless in an empty room. At this point, no woman, not even Lindsey, would touch his gnarled and wrinkled body. And no matter how much he drank, he was as thirsty as a man lost in the desert. Her invasion caused the cough, dry mouth and thirst. Her drink was the only thing that quenched his thirst, but she had stopped making it for him.

  He had lost his mind, wanting everything and then never having enough. Not even enough time, and she would not give him more. So he smashed his clocks and using a piece of glass, had cut his chest open, in vain. The necklace had repelled from his open wound and landed at his feet.

  The phone on the table in the foyer, the only telephone in the house, rang and rang and rang. "Mena. Mena!" It wasn't his job to answer. "Damn it, woman. What good are you?" To himself he complained, "House is too big for her to hear me, and she's too useless to be anywhere she should. Mena!" The phone's shrill forced Edward to get up and answer. He slammed his drink on the table and dropped the gun in his jacket pocket.

  "Howzit?" he growled, breathing heavily into the receiver.

  "Tell Eva her delivery isn't available," said a man's voice that Edward immediately identified. "I'll have to pick it up next week."

  "Phred. I'm not delivering that wonderful news to her. No wonder Mena didn't answer. Probably knew it was you. Tell her your damned self, you creep."

  Edward slammed the phone as a woman's black-skirted leg stepped across the doorway. "Hey! Mena. Do your job! You know who that was, eh? You tell Eva the groceries won't be here until next week. You tell her Guert's going to have to serve the party leftovers for the next few days." Her heels hammered down the basement steps.

  Useless. Perfect word to describe those two maids. What did they do all day, he wondered. Nothing, as far as he could ever tell. Never saw them dust, or sweep. They both ignored him, treating him like an unwelcome guest in his own home. Edward hated them. He picked up his drink and pulled out the gun. The phone rang again.

  "What?" Edward screamed into it.

  "Mr. van Hollinsworth?"

  Edward cleared his throat. "Yes?"

  "This is Jeffrey Thurmont."

  "Jeffrey, I was just thinking about you." Edward finished his whiskey in one audible gulp, the amber warming his chilled body. Holding the Colt by the grip, he thumbed the cylinder and watched it spin.

  "May I speak to Eva?" Jeffrey asked.

  "What for?" The alcohol's numbing sensation had already spread to his tongue and lips and penetrated his limbs.

  "Well, sir, I have a situation I need to discuss with her."

  "Yeah, I'm sure you do. Why did you bri
ng Caroline here last night? Is she okay?"

  "She's sleeping, sir. Got a little sick, that's all. Lindsey is looking for you, though."

  "At least she knows better than to come over here looking for me. Why don't you come on over, eh? Eva would love to see you now." Edward laughed as he eyed the curtained windows. She was sleeping upstairs. Not even the jaws-of-life would pull her out of that bed. "It's not too early?" Jeffrey asked.

  "Nope, not too early. What time is it, anyway?" Ask Edward the time and all he could tell you was how a clock worked. He didn't bother with a watch. The sundial he had put out back was also a failure. Only Eva knew the hour down to the second. No one considered time as often as she did, weighing it, wondering how much of it her disease would allow.

  "It's, uh, almost two, sir."

  "Wonderful," Edward said. "You remember the way?"

  18--JEFFREY

  My head told me to go right now; it was that important. Caroline would understand. Yes, I reasoned, Caroline would want this. In fact, if she were me, she would go.

  I started the car and tuned on the radio, loud. A song by The Clash was playing. "If you say that you are mine I'll be here til the end of time." I heard the neighbour's kids squeal. In the rear-view mirror I saw them dancing through the sprinkler and kicking around a ball on another well-maintained yard across the street. Part of me wished I could go home to England, to the home in East Finchley, and play a game of football.

  "Always tease, tease, tease, you're happy when I'm on my knees."

  The seat belt harness swung down over me when I closed the Jeep's door. I winced, the tight belt pressing against my torn shoulder. "Should I stay or should I go now." The harness tangled across my chest, and when I tried to raise it back over my head with my good arm it caught around my neck. I tried to open the door, hoping that would release the belt, but the door wouldn't budge. Nylon cording tightened with each stretch, with each yank as I squirmed in the driver's seat. "If I stay there will be trouble," This would be comical, I thought as I relaxed for a moment, if it didn't hurt so much. "If I go there will be double." I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear view mirror; left arm suspended in the air, hand dangling, ear pressed to my shoulder, stabilized arm useless against my side. No way was I yelling for help. I was trapped in one of those kid's' games of hand strings--a cat's cradle.