Black Easter

by James Blish

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘An example, then. All magic – I repeat, all magic, with no exceptions whatsoever – depends upon the control of demons. By demons I mean specifically fallen angels. No lesser class can do a thing for you. Now, I know one such whose earthly form includes a long tongue. You may find the notion comic.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Let that pass for now. In any event, this is also a great prince and president, whose apparition would cost me three days of work and two weeks of subsequent exhaustion. Shall I call him up to lick stamps for me?’

  ‘I see the point,’ Baines said. ‘All right, ask your questions.’

  Thank you. Who sent you to me?’

  ‘A medium in Bel Air – Los Angeles. She attempted to blackmail me, so nearly successfully that I concluded that she did have some real talent and would know somebody who had more. I threatened her life and she broke.’

  Ware was taking notes. ‘I see. And she sent you to the Rosicrucians?’

  ‘She tried, but I already knew that dodge. She sent me to Monte Albano.’

  ‘Ah. That surprises me, a little. I wouldn’t have thought that you’d have any need of treasure finders.’

  ‘I do and I don’t,’ Baines said. ‘I’ll explain that, too, but a little later, if you don’t mind. Primarily I wanted someone in your speciality – murder – and of course the white monks were of no use there. I didn’t even broach the subject with them. Frankly, I only wanted to test your reputation, of which I’d had hints. I, too, can use newspaper morgues. Their horror when I mentioned you was enough to convince me that I ought to talk to you, at least.’

  ‘Sensible. Then you don’t really believe in magic yet – only in ESP or some such nonsense.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Baines said guardedly, ‘a religious man.’

  ‘Precisely put. Hence, you want a demonstration. Did you bring with you the mirror I mentioned on the phone to your assistant?’

  Silently, Jack took from his inside jacket pocket a waxed paper envelope, from which he in turn removed a lady’s hand mirror sealed in glassine. He handed it to Baines, who broke the seal.

  ‘Good. Look in it.’

  Out of the corners of Baine’s eyes, two slow thick tears of dark venous blood were crawling down beside his nose. He lowered the mirror and stared at Ware.

  ‘Hypnotism,’ he said, quite steadily. ‘I had hoped for better.’

  ‘Wipe them off,’ Ware said, unruffled.

  Baines pulled out his immaculate monogrammed handkerchief. On the white-on-white fabric, the red stains turned slowly into butter-yellow gold.

  ‘I suggest you take those to a government metallurgist tomorrow,’ Ware said. ‘I could hardly have hypnotized him. Now perhaps we might get down to business.’

  ‘I thought you said –’

  That even the simplest trick requires a demon. So I did, and I meant it. He is sitting at your back now, Mr Baines, and he will be there until the day after tomorrow at this hour. Remember that – day after tomorrow. It will cost me dearly to have turned this little piece of silliness, but I’m used to having to do such things for a sceptical client – and it will be included in my bill. Now, if you please, Mr Baines, what do you want?’

  Baines handed the handkerchief to Jack, who folded it carefully and put it back in its waxed-paper wrapper. ‘I,’ Baines said, ‘of course want someone killed. Tracelessly.’

  ‘Of course, but who?’

  ‘I’ll tell you that in a minute. First of all, do you exercise any scruples?’

  ‘Quite a few,’ Ware said. ‘For instance, I don’t kill my friends, not for any client. And possibly I might balk at certain strangers. However, in general, I do have strangers sent for, on a regular scale of charges.’

  ‘Then we had better explore the possibilities,’ Baines said.

  ‘I’ve got an ex-wife who’s a gross inconvenience to me. Do you balk at that?’

  ‘Has she any children – by you or anybody else?’

  ‘No, none at all.’

  ‘In that case, there’s no problem. For that kind of job, my standard fee is fifteen thousand dollars, flat.’

  Despite himself, Baines stared in astonishment. ‘Is that all?’ he said at last.

  ‘That’s all. I suspect that I’m almost as wealthy as you are, Mr Baines. After all, I can find treasure as handily as the white monks can – indeed, a good deal better. I use these alimony cases to keep my name before the public. Financially they’re a loss to me.’

  ‘What kinds of fees are you interested in?’

  ‘I begin to exert myself slightly at about five million.’

  If this man was a charlatan, he was a grandiose one. Baines said, ‘Let’s stick to the alimony case for the moment. Or rather, suppose I don’t care about the alimony, as in fact I don’t. Instead, I might not only want her dead, but I might want her to die badly. To suffer.’

  ‘I don’t charge for that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Mr Baines,’ Ware said patiently, ‘I remind you, please, that I myself am not a killer. I merely summon and direct the agent. I think it very likely – in fact, I think it beyond doubt – that any patient I have sent for dies in an access of horror and agony beyond your power to imagine, or even of mine. But you did specify that you wanted your murder done “tracelessly”, which obviously means that I must have no unusual marks left on the patient. I prefer it that way myself. How then could I prove suffering if you asked for it, in a way inarguable enough to charge you extra for it?

  ‘Or, look at the other side of the shield, Mr Baines. Every now and then, an unusual divorce client asks that the ex-consort be carried away painlessly, even sweetly, out of some residue of sentiment. I could collect an extra fee for that, on a contingent basis, that is, if the body turns out to show no overt marks of disease or violence. But my agents are demons, and sweetness is not a trait they can be compelled to exhibit, so I never accept that kind of condition from a client, either. Death is what you pay for, and death is what you get. The circumstances are up to the agent, and I don’t offer my clients anything that I know I can’t deliver.’

  ‘All right, I’m answered,’ Baines said. ‘Forget Dolores–actually she’s only a minor nuisance, and only one of several, for that matter. Now let’s talk about the other end of the spectrum. Suppose instead that I should ask you to … send for … a great political figure. Say, the governor of California – or, if he’s a friend of yours, pick a similiar figure who isn’t.’

  Ware nodded. ‘He’ll do well enough. But you’ll recall that I asked you about children. Had you really turned out to have been an alimony case, I should next have asked you about surviving relatives. My fees rise in direct proportion to the numbers and kinds of people a given death is likely to affect. This is partly what you call scruples, and partly a species of self-defence. Now in the case of a reigning governor, I would charge you one dollar for every vote he got when he was last elected. Plus expenses, of course.’

  Baines whistled in admiration. ‘You’re the first man I’ve ever met who’s worked out a system to make scruples pay. And I can see why you don’t care about alimony cases. Someday, Mr Ware –’

  ‘Doctor Ware, please. I am a Doctor of Theology.’

  ‘Sorry. I only meant to say that someday I’ll ask you why you want so much money. You asthenics seldom can think of any good use for it. In the meantime, however, you’re hired. Is it all payable in advance?’

  ‘The expenses are payable in advance. The fee is C.O.D. As you’ll realize once you stop to think about it, Mr Baines –’

  ‘Doctor Baines. I am an LL.D.’

  ‘Apologies in exchange. I want you to realize, after these courtesies, that I have never, never been bilked.’

  Baines thought about what was supposed to be at his back until the day after tomorrow. Pending the test of the golden tears on the handkerchief, he was willing to believe that he should not try to cheat Ware. Actually, he had never p
lanned to.

  ‘Good,’ he said, getting up. ‘By the same token, we don’t need a contract. I agree to your terms.’

  ‘But what for?’

  ‘Oh,’ Baines said, ‘we can use the governor of California for a starter. Jack here will iron out any remaining details with you. I have to get back to Rome by tonight.’

  ‘You did say, “For a starter?” ‘

  Baines nodded shortly. Ware, also rising, said, ‘Very well. I shall ask no questions. But in fairness, Mr Baines. I should warn you that on your next commission of this kind, I shall ask you what you want.’

  ‘By that time,’ Baines said, holding his excitement tightly bottled, ‘we’ll have to exchange such confidences. Oh, Dr Ware, will the, uh, demon on my back go away by itself when the time’s up or must I see you again to get it taken off?’

  ‘It isn’t on your back,’ Ware said. ‘And it will go by itself. Marlowe to the contrary, misery does not love company.’

  Baring his teeth, Baines said, ‘We’ll see about that.’

  For a moment, Jack Ginsberg felt the same soon-to-be-brief strangeness of the man who does not really know what is going on and hence thinks he might be about to be fired. It was as though something had swallowed him by mistake, and – quite without malice – was about to throw him up again.

  While he waited for the monster’s nausea to settle out, Jack went through his rituals, stroking his cheeks for stubble, resettling his creases, running through last week’s accounts, and thinking above all, as he usually did most of all in such interims, of what the new girl might look like squatting in her stockings. Nothing special, probably; the reality was almost always hedged around with fleshy inconveniences and piddling little preferences that he could flense away at will from the clean vision.

  When the chief had left and Ware had come back to his desk, however, Jack was ready for business and thoroughly on top of it. He prided himself upon an absolute self-control.

  ‘Questions?’ Ware said, leaning back easily.

  ‘A few, Dr Ware. You mentioned expenses. What expenses?’

  ‘Chiefly travel,’ Ware said. ‘I have to see the patient, personally. In the case Dr Baines posed, that involves a trip to California, which is a vast inconvenience to me, and goes on the bill. It includes air fare, hotels, meals, other out-of-pocket expenses, which I’ll itemize when the mission is over. Then there’s the question of getting to see the governor. I have colleagues in California, but there’s a certain amount of influence I’ll have to buy, even with the help of Consolidated Warfare – munitions and magic are circles that don’t intersect very effectively. On the whole, I think a draft for ten thousand would be none too small.’

  All that for magic. Disgusting. But the chief believed in it, at least provisionally. It made Jack feel very queasy.

  ‘That sounds satisfactory,’ he said, but he made no move towards the corporate chequebook; he was not about to issue any Valentines to strangers yet, not until there was more love touring about the landscape than he had felt in his crew-cut antennae. ‘We’re naturally a little bit wondering, sir, why all this expense is necessary. We understand that you’d rather not ride a demon when you can fly a jet with less effort –’

  ‘I’m not sure you do,’ Ware said, ‘but stop simpering about it and ask me about the money.’

  ‘Argh … well, sir, then, just why do you live outside the United States? We know you’re still a citizen. And after all, we have freedom of religion in the States still. Why does the chief have to pay to ship you back home for one job?’

  ‘Because I’m not a common gunman,’ Ware said. ‘Because I don’t care to pay income taxes, or even report my income to anybody. There are two reasons. For the benefit of your ever-attentive dispatch case there – since you’re a deaf ear if ever I saw one – if I lived in the United States and advertised myself as a magician, I would be charged with fraud, and if I successfully defended myself – proved I was what I said I was – I’d wind up in a gas chamber. If I failed to defend myself, I’d be just one more charlatan. In Europe, I can say I’m a magician, and be left alone if I can satisfy my clients – caveat emptor. Otherwise, I’d have to be constantly killing off petty politicians and accountants, which isn’t worth the work, and sooner or later runs into the law of diminishing returns. Now you can turn that thing off.’

  Aha; there was something wrong with this joker. He was preying upon superstition. As a reformed Orthodox Agnostic, Jack Ginsberg knew all the ins and outs of that, especially the double-entry sides. He said smoothly:

  ‘I quite understand. But don’t you perhaps have almost as much trouble with the Church, here in Italy, as you would with the government back home?’

  ‘No, not under a liberal pontificate. The modern Church discourages what it calls superstition among its adherents. I haven’t encountered a prelate in decades who believes in the literal existence of demons – though of course some of the Orders know better.’

  ‘To be sure,’ Jack said, springing his trap exultantly. ‘So I think, sir, that you may be overcharging us – and haven’t been quite candid with us. If you do indeed control all these great princes and presidents, you could as easily bring the chief a woman as you could bring him a treasure or a murder.’

  ‘So I could,’ the magician said, a little wearily. ‘I see you’ve done a little reading. But I explained to Dr Baines, and I explain again to you, that I specialize only in crimes of violence. Now, Mr Ginsberg, I think you were about to write me an expense cheque.’

  ‘So I was.’ But still he hesitated. At last Ware said with delicate politeness:

  ‘Is there some other doubt I could resolve for you, Mr Ginsberg? I am, after all, a Doctor of Theology. Or perhaps you have a private commission you wish to broach to me?’

  ‘No,’ Jack said. ‘No, not exactly.’

  ‘I see no reason why you should be shy. It’s clear that you like my lamia. And in fact, she’s quite free of the nuisances of human women that so annoy you –’

  ‘Damn you. I thought you read minds! You lied about that, too.’

  ‘I don’t read minds, and I never lie,’ Ware said. ‘But I’m adept at reading faces and somatotypes. It saves me a lot of trouble, and a lot of unnecessary magic. Do you want the creature or don’t you? I could have her sent to you invisibly if you like.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not invisibly. I’m sorry for you. Well then, my godless and lustless friend, speak up for yourself. What would you like? Your business is long since done. Spit it out. What is it?’

  For a breathless instant, Jack almost said what it was, but the God in which he no longer believed was at his back. He made out the cheque and handed it over. The girl (no, not a girl) came in and took it away.

  ‘Good-bye,’ Theron Ware said.

  He had missed the boat again.

  Father Domenico read the letter again, hopefully. Father Uccello affected an Augustinian style, after his name saint, full of rare words and outright neologisms embedded in medieval syntax – as a stylist, Father Domenico much preferred Roger Bacon, but that eminent anti-magician, not being a Father of the Church, tempted few imitators – and it was possible that Father Domenico had misread him. But no; involuted though the Latin of the letter was, the sense, this time, was all too plain.

  Father Domenico sighed. The practice of Ceremonial magic, at least of the white kind which was the monastery’s sole concern, seemed to be becoming increasingly unrewarding. Part of the difficulty, of course, lay in the fact that the chiefest traditional use (for profit) of white magic was the finding of buried treasure; and after centuries of unremitting practice by centuries of sorcerers black and white, plus the irruption into the field of such modern devices as the mine detector, there was very little buried treasure left to find. Of late, the troves revealed by those under the governments of Och and Bethor – with the former of whom in particular lay the bestowal of ‘a purse springing with gold’ – had increasingly turned out to be underseas, o
r in places like Fort Knox or a Swiss bank, making the recovery of them enterprises so colossal and mischancy as to remove all possibility of profit for client and monastery alike.

  On the whole, black magicians had an easier time of it – at least in this life; one must never forget, Father Domenico reminded himself hastily, that they were also damned eternally. It was as mysterious as it had always been that such infernal spirits as LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE should be willing to lend so much power to a mortal whose soul Hell would almost inevitably have won anyhow, considering the character of the average sorcerer, and considering how easily such pacts could be voided at the last instant; and that God would allow so much demonic malice to be vented through the sorcerer upon the innocent. But that was simply another version of the Problem of Evil, for which the Church had long had the answer (or, the dual answer) of free will and original sin.

  It had to be recalled, too, that even the practice of white or Transcendental magic was officially a mortal sin, for the modern Church held that all trafficking with spirits – including the un-Fallen, since such dealings inevitably assumed the angels to be demiurges and other kabbalistic semi-deities – was an abomination, regardless of intent. Once upon a time, it had been recognized that (barring the undertaking of an actual pact) only a man of the highest piety, of the highest purpose, and in the highest state of ritual and spiritual purification, could hope to summon and control a demon, let alone an angel; but there had been too many lapses of intent, and then of act, and in both practicality and compassion the Church had declared all Theurgy to be anathema, reserving unto itself only one negative aspect of magic – exorcism – and that only under the strictest of canonical limitations.

  Monte Albano had a special dispensation, to be sure – partly since the monks had at one time been so spectacularly successful in nourishing the coffers of St Peter’s; partly because the knowledge to be won through the Transcendental rituals might sometimes be said to have nourished the soul of the Rock; and, in small part, because under the rarest of circumstances white magic had been known to prolong the life of the body. But these fountains (to shift the image) were now showing every sign of running dry, and hence the dispensation might be withdrawn at any time – thus closing out the last sanctuary of white magic in the world.