Lynne Connolly

by The Chemistry Of Evil (Triskelion) (lit)

  “Shall I take you back there to kill the ghosts? If we go into that department again, will you treat me the same way when we get home?” he asked with a smile, but she couldn’t repress an involuntary shudder. He reached out for her and she went to him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke,” he murmured.

  “Yes, you should. It’ll pass.” Sofie had no intention of allowing that experience to dictate her actions. “What do you really think about what happened? Why were all those guards asleep?”

  “We’ll know in the morning. It could have been a burglary. Gas pumped through the air conditioning system, drugs in the water coolers, that kind of thing’s not unknown. If there’s a heist on the news tomorrow, we’ll know for sure.”

  “What about the figures – and Archie? I didn’t imagine it, Evan. I know I saw him change.”

  He stroked her hair and she relaxed like a cat. “Could be drugs again. Did you drink anything? Smell anything?” She shook her head. “Gas could affect people different ways. We need to know more.”

  She put her hand on his chest, feeling his heart pump beneath her palm. So close. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” A few moments of peace went by before he spoke again. “Cristos has done a lot of work on telepathy, but we’ve not found anyone who can control other people with their minds. Some can suggest, a bit like hypnosis, but if it isn’t in the receptor’s mind already, it won’t take. Compulsion is something else. Between you and me, if Cristos did find it, he might not report it back. It could be a terrible weapon in the wrong hands. With the world the way it is, it might be better to suppress that kind of knowledge.”

  “Compulsion?” Sofie thought it over. “Without some kind of consent, I’m not sure it could be done. How terrible!”

  “It might be an answer. Someone imposed those thoughts on you. Or it could be memory. Some people think we’ve lived before, and we retain memories from previous lives.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I’d like to. It would explain a few things.” He lifted her away from him. “When I first saw you I thought I’d seen you before.” He smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’m glad I found you now.”

  “So am I.”

  He bent and kissed her so gently she thought they might both melt. “Come on,” he said against her mouth. “Let’s shower. How’s your ankle? Can you stand?”

  “I can hardly feel it now. It was only a twist.”

  The experience of showering with a lover was new to Sofie. Evan was a considerate shower-sharer, she told him as he rinsed her back for her. His rich chuckle told her he enjoyed the compliment. “A shower is better shared.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “I’m just learning.”

  She lifted her hair into the warm stream cascading down on her. Evan found the shampoo. He poured a puddle into his hand and worked it into her hair. Sofie loved the feel of his fingertips on her scalp, massaging gently. It made her wonder what a full body massage would be like. Tingling warmth in the depth of her abdomen eagerly anticipated the experience.

  “Sofie – tell me if it’s not my concern, but I have wondered something.” She let him speak, closing her eyes against the suds that cascaded down her face. “When I first met you, you were to marry Archie. Yet that evening I never felt anything between you two. You didn’t seem connected. I don’t really know what I’m saying, but I saw you and wanted you, and I didn’t think Archie stood in my way.”

  “Did you?” The water ran clear now. Sofie lifted her head and opened her eyes. His look was completely honest. “Want me that soon, I mean? I liked the look of you, but I didn’t want to get involved with anyone else so soon.”

  “What about now?”

  “Now you deserve to know what kind of butterfly you’ve hooked up with.” They stood together, his hands gently sifting through her hair, getting rid of the remaining suds. “I want you to know how fickle I am, Evan.” She wanted to be honest with him, this man she was falling deeply in love with. “Archie was good to me when my father was murdered. I mean really good. I had an essay due – he finished it for me. The university offered me leave, but I didn’t want it. It would have given me nothing to do and I needed something. Archie was good, kind, understanding and he looked after me. Just what I needed.” Evan’s dark stare gave away nothing of what he was feeling inside, but now she had started she had to explain. Even if it meant losing him. “We got engaged, and moved in together. But over the past two or three years I got tired of his dominance. He always has to be in control. He’s not an autocrat or anything like that, but if I got something, he had to have something better. I got my doctorate first, and he was always teasing me about it, as though it really meant something and he didn’t want to admit it.” She moved closer and Evan responded at last, wrapping her in his arms and reaching for the dial to turn off the water. “When you turned up I was wondering what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t care more for the man I was supposed to marry. I’d already decided to leave him.”

  He lifted her out of the shower and wrapped her in a large, soft towel. “Sometimes it happens. What you need in one part of your life isn’t always what you need later on.”

  “I know you’re right, but I still feel bad about it.” He patted her dry. Sofie was enjoying being babied by Evan. She knew it didn’t have the controlling overtones it had when Archie had done it. Evan made her feel cherished and pampered.

  “Don’t. Besides, you said Archie had changed.”

  “Completely. It’s as though he isn’t the same person.”

  Evan’s hands stilled on her body. She lifted her head to see an abstracted look in his eyes. “Possession?” he said softly.

  “Do you believe in that?”

  “I’ve seen it. I might even have felt it.”

  His attention returned. He reached for another towel and began to dry himself. “Yes. Possession. A terrible thing, the ultimate invasion of privacy. When people begin behaving differently it’s usually a psycho thing, but sometimes it’s not. Mind control taken one-step further. Possession of another’s body.”

  “And you think that’s happened to Archie?”

  “Probably not.” He finished toweling himself and let the towel drop to the floor. “Sofie, I’ll be honest with you. Cristos has a secret project, one he doesn’t want people to know about. He touched on it earlier. He believes a strong mind can take over a weaker one. We’re doing studies into some scary phenomena. Ghouls, dead bodies taken over by a spirit. The body continues to decay, and when it’s gone, the ghoul moves on. Cristos believes a live body can be taken over in the same way. He’s developing a theory, something along the lines of a profiling chart. When a person changed, how, if there was any trauma, what precipitated the change. He wants to rule out the psychological elements and keep the paranormal.”

  Sofie shivered, but she wasn’t cold. “Is this real? You mean it?”

  His mouth firmed to a hard line. “Yes, I mean it. I’ve seen it.”

  “Seen it?”

  “Seen the change.” He paused, turning half away from her towards the door. “I think I saw it recently.”

  “Who?” She knew, but she had to hear it from him.

  “Archie.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Oh God!” Sofie clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified. “You’re right, I know you’re right. How could such a thing happen? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Something causes the change, but it’s not always obvious to the witnesses.”

  “Is the change always instant?”

  “No. Months can pass from the inciting incident to the event. Usually less than a year, though.”

  Wildly, Sofie’s mind went back to last year, when she’d gone with a friend from the FBI to a party. They’d gotten drunk, and had a séance, ouija board and all. It had been for fun, but something had happened. Something Sofie’s mind still shied away from.

  Hesita
ntly she told him, how the storm had raged outside, then stopped suddenly, as though commanded by an unseen hand. How something had seized them all, memories they didn’t have, visions they couldn’t explain. Evan frowned, listening intently.

  “That could be it,” he said.

  “Then Archie’s transformation is somehow my fault?”

  He shook his head and reached for her, drawing her against his warm body. “No, love. It’s not your fault. Someone or something was looking for an out, and found you and your friends. It’s late. Come to bed, eat and sleep. I’ll contact Cristos in the morning.”

  “Will you tell him what I told you?”

  “Not all of it.”

  The remembrance of that night had made Sofie’s head throb, the way it had all day afterwards. When she put her hand to her head he soothed her. “Headache? Want some Advil?”

  “I’d prefer Paracetamol. I have some in my bag.”

  Evan tucked her up in bed and then went downstairs to fetch her bag, the one she had miraculously brought back with her from the museum. If it hadn’t been slung firmly around her body she doubted she would have remembered it. Reaching inside for the pills Sofie’s hand closed round a familiar object. One she’d thought was lost.

  Slowly she drew it out. It was the whistle. “I-I don’t understand. I couldn’t find it in the Museum.”

  Evan reached out. “May I see?”

  Sofie put it in his hand. “Archie was so keen to find it. There must be something about it. It’s silver or base metal. It would have deteriorated if it had been in the ground a long time. The only metal that survives more or less intact is gold.”

  “It’s not gold,” Evan said, turning the object over in his hand.

  At first glance it looked like an ordinary whistle, the kind used by soccer referees, or policemen in the old days. But there were symbols shallowly carved into its gleaming surface, symbols that looked as though they might have been done in a hurry, like graffiti on a wall. “I’ve seen these somewhere before,” Evan said. “You’ve looked them up?”

  Sofie shook her head. “I only just rediscovered it when Archie asked for it back, then all I wanted to do was get rid of it – and him. Do you think it’s the whistle or the runes he wants?”

  “I’m not sure.” He put it down on the table. “We’ll look at it later, now we’ve found it.”

  “How could I have missed it?” Sofie asked wonderingly, staring at the object. “I know it was there when I entered the Met, but when I was with Archie I couldn’t find it anywhere. That’s what he asked me for. Just that thing.”

  “Okay, wait a minute.”

  Evan picked up the whistle and went downstairs. Sofie heard the hum as the tower booted up and went to the balcony to see what he was doing. Her headache receding, she watched Evan pull out the shelf where he kept his scanners. She recognized one from her fieldwork – the kind that could scan 3D objects. He put the whistle in the box and set it off. Sofie went back to the bed and found the coverlet to wrap around her, then the headache pills. Evan had brought up some orange juice. She downed the pills then went downstairs.

  He welcomed her, opening his arms for her. She settled on his lap, felt his arms close around her. “You won’t be able to type very well.”

  He nuzzled the top of her head. “We’ll manage.”

  His chair was on wheels. He scooted it closer to the keyboard and picked up the mouse. With a few clicks he’d loaded his graphics program and the scan was on the screen. Evan flattened the image and the runes became clearer. They studied it together. Some of the scratches were faint, and Evan increased the contrast and converted the image to monochrome, black on white.

  The figures were haphazardly scattered across the surface of the whistle. Sofie saw some familiar shapes. “Runes are distinctive and regional,” she murmured, leaning closer to the screen. “They can be centered on a religion, a culture or even a village.” They were vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place them. “These don’t look very Germanic. I think they have more in common with early Celtic symbols.”

  Evan nuzzled her neck. “I love a clever woman. It makes you so sexy.”

  “Evan!” Sofie tried to be serious, but the sensations he brought to her were too good to ignore, and she leaned back into his arms and let him take her in a deep, passionate kiss. “We’ll never get anything done,” she murmured against his lips.

  “Depends what you call anything,” he replied. “You have a headache. You should eat something and get into bed. I only put this scan in so we wouldn’t lose the damned whistle again.”

  He stood, lifting her up with him, the coverlet trailing behind them and carried her upstairs to deposit her on the bed. “Now may I serve my lady?” He bowed in a courtly gesture.

  Sofie giggled. “You sound almost English.”

  “Must be all that Masterpiece Theatre I watched as a kid. I watched more when I was studying.” He busied himself loading a plate with crackers, cheese, cherry tomatoes, and a few other morsels. “Here. It shows how much I think of you, giving you crackers in bed.”

  “I’ll be careful,” she promised.

  The food did help. The pressure in her head began to decrease; she could feel it easing away. He poured them more juice and made sure she ate before piling the remains on the tray and putting it aside. After shaking out the bedclothes he slid in beside her and took her into his arms again. Sofie rested on his shoulder, her hand on his chest, feeling more at peace than at any other time she could remember. “We must have made quite a mess,” she murmured. “Have you got a vacuum cleaner?”

  He chuckled. “Somewhere. I thought of hiring help, but I don’t think Cristos would appreciate the security lapse. He’s very fussy.” He leaned over and picked up the remote that controlled the lights, dimming them right down.

  “Evan?”

  “Hmm?” His voice came sleepy.

  “I know I shouldn’t ask, but I’ve wondered how you manage a loft in Tribeca on a CIA agent’s salary.”

  “Ah!” He chuckled. “Thought I was still hacking into Wall Street, did you?” His hand moved over her breast in a lazy caress. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not as exciting as that. Dad was part owner of an ad agency. When he died I let Miranda use my share of the money to invest with her own, and she did us proud. If you marry me, you won’t need to worry.”

  “Marry?”

  There was no reply. Evan had fallen asleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Sofie woke, she was alone in the bed; the sheets tumbled around her. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and sat up. The now familiar hum of the computer was in the air, and the welcome scent of fresh coffee. Muzzily she took stock. Her headache had gone, and Evan had said something so amazing just before she fell asleep she was ready to admit she had dreamed it.

  She threw back the sheets and went to the guestroom to find her robe. She wanted to know what he’d discovered.

  When she went down the stairs he looked up and smiled. Sofie wondered how she could have thought of Evan as forbidding and dark. Shadows seemed to have passed from his face. He even looked younger. Going to him for a morning kiss seemed to be so natural she could have been doing it for years, except for the thrill she felt coursing through her body when he slipped his hand under her robe and caressed her waist and hip. He drew back and examined her face, care and anxiety in his gaze. “You look better.”

  “So do you.”

  He grinned and turned back to the computer. “I think I’ve found something.” The screen still showed the scan of the whistle, but he’d switched other screens on, and they showed various research sites and a page from Google.

  He leaned over and picked up a book that lay open on an unused keyboard to one side of him. “Here.”

  It was one of his Crowley books. Turning to the front she saw it was “The Book of Thoth,” and she realized it was about the Tarot deck. There was a drawing on the page. Sofie studied it closely then she saw what he meant. />
  “It’s the Fool,” Evan said quietly. “The searcher of truth, the seeker, the Green Man, Robin Hood, the Pilgrim. It’s not the symbols on the card, it’s the shape of the man on the page.

  It was true. The Fool, grinning inanely, wide legged, arms outstretched horizontally, two great circles extending from his head to his knees and ankles. A tiger bit one leg, a pile of discs lay disregarded behind him, a crocodile coiled below him. “That’s it! That’s the rune!”

  Sofie stared at the picture then read the commentary.

  Air, the father and mother of manifested existence. The Green Man of spring, the Holy Ghost, Harpocrates or Parsifal. The bi-sexual Zeus, Dionysus Zagreus or Bacchus. Baphonet. The Ox. Scintillating intelligence. The power of divination. His perfume is Galbanum, his weapon the dagger or the fan. An original, subtle, sudden impulse of impact, coming from a completely strange quarter. A bearded ancient.

  “What does all that mean?”

  “It means that someone knows Crowley, and knows the power hidden in the Book of Thoth. This is someone who has studied for many years. I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface, and some of the information terrifies me.”

  Sofie stared at him. He meant it. When he spun his chair to face her she saw only worry and a deep concern. “This isn’t a fashionable area of study. Eventually it drove Crowley mad, and he ended his life a travesty of what he could have been. I began to study when I discovered a natural gift, and any study of sexual magick leads to Crowley. I can do what he tried all his life for, link and become more powerful through sex. I won’t take part in any study. I don’t want to be any part of developing sexual weapons.”

  This was almost beyond Sofie’s understanding. Only her studies of ancient British religions had prepared her for such pragmatically fantastic confessions. “You can really do it?”

  “If we have unprotected sex, we will link. You might not like it, love.”

  “Probably not. What does it mean?”

  “We’ll be one being, one person. We’ll share everything, all thoughts, actions and memories. Think about it. When you visit the bathroom you will take me in there with you.” He leaned back and grinned. “A definite passion killer, huh?”