"How could you possibly know that Caro– that the witch would get a spell into action in time?"
Wilson said, "We couldn't be certain, of course. But considering what happened to Charles – the brave young man who took his life while in your custody – we thought it likely. And if perchance the bitch was too slow with her detestable magic, then Jeffrey would have another witch to bring to justice, and we could try again another night. But it worked the first time, I'm glad to say."
I was trying to get my mind around what he was telling me but was having trouble – maybe because I didn't want to believe it.
"Jeffrey was a plant?" I said.
"Indeed, yes. He had done some acting off-Broadway a few years ago, before he saw the light and decided to give his life to the Church. I trust his performance was moving. Whatever did you do with him, anyway? We lost track, after you left the witch's house."
I just looked at him.
Wilson gave me an elaborate shrug. "Well, no matter. He has served his purpose – which was to provide what the Russians used to call 'disinformation'. The filming will take place tonight, not tomorrow, and we are nowhere near Stansfield Avenue, by the way."
"So… tomorrow night…"
"There will be no filming at the other warehouse – which is not to say there will be no bloodshed."
I closed my eyes. Don't try to figure it all out – it'll drive you crazy. Just wait – he'll tell you what he means. He needs to.
"When your fellow officers raid Stansfield Avenue tomorrow night," Wilson said, "they will find a rather nasty surprise waiting for them. Our resident wizard Malachi, the same fellow who does the summonings, has prepared a spell and put it in place."
"So magic is only 'despicable' when somebody else is using it," I said.
Wilson spread his hands again, like a priest giving benediction. "We all use what we must, in the service of the greater good. Tomorrow night, all Malachi need do is utter a single word, and the spell will cause the deaths of everyone inside the building. Their internal organs will swell and burst. Not a pleasant way to die – although not nearly as unpleasant as yours, of course."
He doesn't know about the prayer team. SWAT deploys with a group of clergy from multiple faiths, and their prayers will disrupt any black magic in the vicinity.
Maybe.
They've never faced a spell that somebody's had a whole day to prepare. But they can stop it.
Probably.
"That conception was my own," Wilson said with a tiny smile, "and it's really quite clever, if I say so myself."
Yeah, you would. Cocksucker.
"Not only do I largely eliminate the police who have been interfering with our campaign, but the deed contributes to the campaign itself. Imagine the headlines, especially in the People's Voice: POLICE MURDERED BY MAGIC, or perhaps BRAVE OFFICERS STRUCK DOWN BY EVIL SPELL."
Then he giggled. He actually giggled – like a fucking schoolgirl.
"It should be gloooorious," Wilson said.
"Yeah. Glorious."
I didn't waste any energy on that You'll never get away with this, you fiend nonsense you see on TV. It would just make me look like more of an idiot than I already was.
Besides, it looked like there was a good chance he would get away with it.
Wilson left me alone soon after that. That's the time when, if I was 007, I'd find a way to stand on my head and open the cuffs with the lockpick I'd concealed in my left nostril. Then I'd use the plastic explosives hidden in my belt to blow the door, karate-chop the nearest guard, and grab his gun. Then I could… aw, fuck it. Thinking about James Bond just reminded me of Karl. Poor Karl – I hoped he had at least died quick. If he had, that would make one of us.
I had plenty of time to think about the horrible death I was going to experience – there was no doubt in my mind who was going to be on the receiving end in tonight's performance – unless I found some way out. After a while, I did come up with an idea of sorts. I guessed I'd find out pretty soon just how good an idea it was.
Nothing much was riding on my little inspiration – just my life, the lives of a lot of other cops, and maybe even the success of stage one of Helter Skelter.
No pressure.
The slivers of daylight coming in through the Venetian blind eventually faded to night. Assuming the ritual was due to start around midnight, that meant I still had several hours to go. My bladder was uncomfortably full, but I was damned if I was going to abandon what little dignity I had left by pissing in my pants. So I held it, and eventually got used to the ache. My throat was also parched, but I figured I'd still be able to scream come midnight, if my idea failed.
Tension and fear are exhausting, and I hadn't been to bed for more than twenty-four hours. Despite being scared out of my mind, I eventually fell asleep, sort of. You can imagine what my dreams were like.
I woke up with a start when the door opened. I realized it was time for the fun to start, and my heartbeat went the equivalent of zero to sixty in about 3.4 seconds.
There were two of them – both young and dressed like members of Wilson's little commando unit. They'd have to unlock the cuffs to move me, and I figured that might give me a chance to try something. I wasn't optimistic about my chances against two Special Forces wannabes twenty years younger than me. But desperation sometimes gives people extra strength and speed, and I was about as desperate as they come. However, the boys had already thought of that – or Wilson had.
One of them went behind me, and I waited for the sound of the key being inserted into the handcuffs. What I heard instead was the guy saying, "We don't want a lot of nonsense while we prepare you, so…" Then I felt another needle in the back of my neck. So much for mixing it up with the guards.
I don't know how long I was out this time, but when I came back to the world it was clear that my situation had gone from bad to worse. I was now naked and shackled to one of the chairs that I'd seen in the videos. The smell like what you'd from get driving by a slaughterhouse in summer, with your windows down – only ten times stronger. I was on the killing floor now.
Since the festivities hadn't started yet, I had time to look around, and I used it. Knowing where everyone was could prove crucial later.
As I knew from the videos, the floor was concrete and the walls red brick. High ceiling, with lights hanging down. Two big windows were built into the wall I was facing, but they were set too high for anyone to see in from outside. Across from me, in the other chair, was a guy I'd never met before. Mid-thirties, red hair, a little overweight. It didn't surprise me that his expression combined confusion with terror.
If the direction I was facing was 12 o'clock, using the Air Force system, then there were video cameras set up on tripods at 12 and 8 o'clock, about twenty feet outside the circle. Guess they had decided to go with a two-camera setup this time. A little more practice, and they'd probably have these atrocities available in 3-D. Behind each camera stood one of the commandos, who I guessed pulled double duty as videographers. I wondered if the things they had seen through the viewfinders ever gave them nightmares.
At the 10 o'clock position and further back stood another one of the commando boys. He was cradling a stocky automatic weapon with a long curved magazine, although who he might be expected to shoot was beyond me. The gun looked like one of those H&K MP5s that the Navy SEALs carry. Once a wannabe, always a wannabe. He seemed to be the only one holding a weapon.
At 3 o'clock and about thirty feet out was the resident lunatic, Patton Wilson himself. He was next to a very tall thin guy in a black suit, whose brown hair was mostly covered by a red skullcap – apparently Bishop Navarra still retained some of the trappings of the Catholic Church he hated so much. The bishop was not looking happy to be here.
Not far from them, at 4 o'clock, a portable podium had been set up. Resting on it was a large, old-looking book, which I assumed contained the incantations. A tall, balding guy, who I assumed to be Wilson's tame wizard, stood behind the podium. One
of his hands rested on the book, while the other clutched what looked like a pointed drumstick with symbols engraved on it – his wand. Malachi wore crimson robes and a tense expression. I didn't recognize him, which meant Wilson had imported him from out of town.
And that was it, except for one guest who hadn't arrived yet – but then, he wasn't expected until a little later.
I assumed we were waiting for midnight, the time when the dark powers are at their strongest. Most of those attending waited patiently – after all, they'd done this before. But Bishop Navarra was agitated. In the near-silence I could hear him speaking softly to Wilson.
"I don't see why I should have to be present for this… butchery," he said. "You didn't ask me to be here for any of the others."
"Yes, but tonight's ceremony is the one that will tip the balance," Wilson said, with the utter confidence that all madmen have. "Unlike the others, the policeman's body will be found – and what a stir that will create! Then after tomorrow night, when several more defenders of law and order succumb to the effects of black magic, the outcry will be loud and long, and few among the local community will be able to resist it. And soon thereafter the great, cleansing war will begin."
"All of that will happen whether I am here to watch the bloodletting or not!" Navarra said, although he didn't raise his voice. He probably wouldn't have dared.
"You've been spending all your time in that study of yours writing sermons, James – or in the church I built you, preaching them," Wilson said. "I thought it was time for you to gain an appreciation of the other side of our crusade – the side where people get their hands bloody."
"Patton, I have never failed to appreciate–"
"That will do, James." There was steel in Wilson's voice now. He glanced at his watch. "In any case it is nearly midnight, and time for us to commence the ritual."
He looked over at the wizard. "Whenever you're ready, Malachi."
"I'll start now, sir," Malachi said, like a good lackey. And then it began.
The procedure was the same as before. First, they killed all the lights, leaving us in darkness for half a minute or so. It should've been a welcome respite for me, but I couldn't stop thinking of all the wickedness that had been done inside this warehouse, all the suffering and death that had occurred because some lunatic wanted to start a race war. The very walls reeked of evil, and the dark only made it worse.
Then all the lights came on at once, and it was showtime. The conjuration ritual hadn't changed, but this time I paid attention to the name of the demon being summoned: Acheron. It wasn't familiar, but that meant nothing – there are lots and lots of demons. But now I had a name. In magic, names are power, and maybe this one would give me the power I needed to survive.
Acheron arrived in the column of smoke – looking almost human, apart from his ears (pointed), his eyes (red) and his jaw (large, misshapen, and revealing several rows of sharp teeth). He snarled defiance at Malachi, and was rewarded with a jolt of agony for his efforts. Demons are no strangers to pain, so Malachi must be administering quite a jolt to impress him like that.
Once Acheron agreed, reluctantly, to obey, Malachi gave him his instructions. The wizard spoke in Demon, and I had to concentrate hard to get the sense of what he was saying.
But I understood when the wizard told Acheron to possess the redhead, not me. Well, that figured. Then he was instructed not to damage my face beyond recognition, and to leave the fingertips of at least one hand intact. That would allow, I knew, for easy identification. If you've never heard somebody refer to your body like it was a cattle carcass about to be carved up – well, I can't say I recommend the experience.
Acheron faded from view, and it wasn't hard to tell when he had taken over the body of the red-headed guy, whose name I didn't even know. When it was clear that Acheron was in charge, Malachi spoke a word and the shackles holding the redhead dropped away. The demon-possessed human moved slowly at first, unused to this new form. He stared at me for a few seconds, and it was the kind of look that a glutton gives a big plate of prime rib. Then he walked over to the table.
I was trying desperately to keep focused, when what I really wanted to do was scream for mercy. Yeah, and good luck with that.
When Acheron turned back toward me, he was holding the blowtorch. Panic fought savagely for release inside me, but I kept the lid of that box closed, somehow.
Acheron tested the blowtorch to be sure it worked. You just squeezed a lever, and the mechanism got the gas flowing and generated a spark to light it. Once he was sure he knew how to get a nice hot flame going, he headed my way.
I swallowed hard a couple of times to lubricate my vocal cords. I needed my voice to work at the first attempt, or I'd be too busy screaming to try a second one.
As Acheron bent over me, I croaked, in Demon, "Hail, great Acheron, Lord of the Underworld!" I could have spoken in any language and been understood, but this had gotten his attention, as I'd intended.
He stared, then gave me a vicious open-handed slap on the side of the head, probably just as a warm-up. The redhead's voice snarled, in Demon, "Who dares speak to me in the tongue of the Fallen?"
"I am Markowski, a mere human and unworthy to address such as you," I said in his language. At least, I think that's what I said. "But this insignificant human can give you what you desire."
He laughed scornfully, and whacked me again. But at least he hadn't started with the blowtorch, yet. "I desire your blood, Markowski, and your tears, and your screams. And I will have them, whether you give them to me or not."
I swallowed again, hoping that my throat wouldn't constrict with fear and make speech impossible. "I offer more, great Acheron – I can give you vengeance."
More laughter, and another hard slap to the head. I'd had a bad concussion a few months ago, and blacking out right now would mean the end of me.
"Vengeance against whom? And how?"
OK, he was interested. Now to close the deal.
"Vengeance against those who would dare to summon you from the Netherworld, and would have the impudence to give you orders." I hadn't even realized that I knew the Demon word for "impudence", but the old memory came through when I needed it most.
I took a breath and continued, "I can free you. I can break the circle that you are forbidden to touch."
Another blow, but this one hit the back of the chair – and barely touched me. I didn't think that was accidental.
Acheron bent over me, the blowtorch in hand. Oh shit, did I fuck up? Is he turning me down?
Then I noticed that he had released the valve, and allowed the flame to go out. Acheron moved slightly, to block what he was doing from the cameras. He brought the flameless nozzle closer to my chest.
"Scream," he said. "Scream as if you feel the fire on you."
So I screamed – but good. If Laurence Olivier was watching from the Great Beyond, I bet he applauded a little. I screamed, I struggled against the chains, I pleaded for mercy. It's amazing what talents you discover in yourself when trying to avoid being tortured to death.
Acheron withdrew the blowtorch a little, as if giving me a respite. "If I try to release you, that fool with the book will smite me," he said softly.
Fortunately, I'd had plenty of time to work this out.
"Use the blowtorch to sever the chain holding my right hand," I said. "Pretend you are using it on me. Then strike the chair again, knocking it over. If I am close enough to reach the circle, I can break it."
He gave a loud snarl – for effect, I assume – and brought the blowtorch close. "Scream again," he said. "And continue to scream until I tip the chair. Do this for me, and you will be spared."
I resumed my Academy Award performance. Acheron restarted the blowtorch and brought it over to the chain holding my right hand to the chair.
That was when I realized something – iron is an excellent conductor of heat. As the link Acheron was working on turned cherry red, the other links and my shackle also started to glow. Th
en the heat reached me, and I started to scream for real.
It only lasted a couple of seconds, but seemed a lot longer. Then the link that Acheron was working on began to melt, and my frantic struggles broke the rest of the chain free. At once the demon struck the back of the chair hard, knocking it, and me, over.
Finally the wizard realized that something was wrong. "What are you doing, disobedient one?" Malachi shrieked in Demon, then said the word of pain again. Acheron let out a howl of anguish – and I had fallen short of the circle.
I had to reach the red circle or I was cooked – maybe literally. Using what traction I could gain with the edge of my shackled right foot and my elbow, I jerked forward, mere inches at a time, like a snail on Adderall.
My progress was slow, so slow. Meanwhile, I could hear Malachi screaming "Obey me!" in Demon, and Acheron's bellows of pain.
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