Nothing happened. They read the incantation again. And again nothing happened.
They discussed the situation briefly. Then Zen took the book and Beaupré held the candle. Zen held his head up and spoke the words through a rounded mouth. Brendan could see his neck cords stand out. Vincent kept his eye on the glass door of the greenhouse.
It came without warning. The creature simply sailed over the wall and landed near the hotbeds. It moved with astonishing speed: The three monks barely had a chance to adjust their eyes when it was upon them. The candle went out and in the dark Brendan heard glass breaking.
He hurried to the greenhouse and turned the light switch. Beaupré lay still upon the floor. Vincent was rolling in pain and Zen was nowhere in sight. Shattered glass was everywhere. The creature itself was gone.
Brendan knelt beside Beaupré. His head had been twisted and his neck had been broken. He lay on his belly with his head facing the roof. He’d been killed instantly. Brendan next located Brother Zen. He had been thrown through the wall of the glasshouse and lay out on the snow. Dazed and disoriented, he was trying to get up. In a moment he stood and walked about, rubbing his rump.
“It’s gotten too strong for us,” Brother Vincent said. “I think it’s here to stay.”
There were reporters from all over, and television cameras. And hordes of curious. Brother Paul later said that the wall saved the monastery, that and a sudden onset of warm weather that turned the lake ice to a slush. It was too dangerous to walk on, and too thick for boating. The monastery became unreachable for ten days. And by then the crowds were gone, hooting after something else, somewhere else.
The monks didn’t tell the police about the Tipperary pentacle or the provenance of the creature. No one asked them. No one could think of asking them, for no one knew what the creature was, except the three monks and Brendan.
Beaupré’s death had a crushing effect on Brendan. He blamed himself for it. He had chided the three of them for hiding from a demon. Yet that’s what he was doing. He had pressured them to fight the demon. Yet that was exactly what he feared to do. And now Beaupré was dead. And the monster still loose.
For the first time Brendan took a look at himself and told himself an unpleasant truth. He was a coward. And a hypocrite.
For a while his deep shame caused him to avoid Vincent and Zen. It was difficult to look them in the eyes. But they were grieving, frightened and guilt-ridden and they never noticed him.
Worst of all for Brendan, he didn’t know what to do next.
The sun grew noticeably stronger during the next week, and in the greenhouse Brendan could feel its warmth on his back even on the hazy days when the sunlight was weak. Winter was waning rapidly.
One day he was mixing peat moss with earth as he sat on a three-legged stool. His trowel scraped away the dirt from the floor and exposed faint traces of chalk from the infamous pentacle.
He looked at it with dismay. This is where the creature had leaped into the world. Paxton’s Book of Demons had done that. What a tragedy that volume had caused. Vincent had said, “I curse the day we opened it.” And he would go on cursing that day until he died.
Staring at the faint chalk lines, Brendan had an arresting thought. If Paxton’s Book of Demons could teach Beaupré and Zen and Vincent how to raise a fiend from hell, could it teach him how to battle Satan? He turned his head and looked through the greenhouse panes to the window of the library. Brother Luke’s head was just visible where he sat over his lettering.
Could it? Was there a page in Paxton on how to fight Satan? Brendan jammed the trowel into the peat moss and stood up. He stared at the library window. The hairs on his neck prickled.
Brendan waited until late in the afternoon before going inside the library. Brother Luke was still bending over his lettering, his huge back turned to the door, working in complete silence by the fading sunlight of the winter day.
Neither spoke as Brendan took down Paxton’s Book of Demons. He sat doubtfully with it in his lap, remembering Vincent’s words vividly. “I curse the day we opened it.” But if it could teach him how to battle Satan, he would never curse that day, would he?
He flipped some of the pages. The book was written in Middle English, filled with long-dead words. He got down a Middle English lexicon to help him. Then he began with the title page. It said:
The Book of Demons. Being an Inquiry into the Ways and Means that Demons, Witches, Warlocks and their Surrogates Intrude in Our Lives, with Especial Attention to the Incubus, Succubus and Their Familiars and Consorts, and also Containing the Best and Most Useful Recipes, Nostrums, Prayers, Imprecations, Interdictions, Curses, and Spells, to Control Them; and Describing Various and Sundry Devices for Warding off Their Attacks, and Containing a Learned Disquisition on Benevolent Creatures of the Supernatural World and Their Uses, Titles, and Functions, with Instructions for Summoning Their Aid in Dealing with These Noisome, Loathesome Creatures from Hell and Including a Separate Passage Dealing with Methods for Foiling the Arch Fiend Himself, the Devil Who is Called Satan, Compiled from the Most Celebrated Authors both Ancient and Modern.
Brendan looked up at Brother Luke’s back, then at the failing day outside. He was almost afraid to open the book further. If the title page was correct, inside would be a recipe for coping with Satan himself.
He sat with the book in his lap for a few minutes, fearing to let his hopes rise. Then he reopened the cover and started to read. On the margins and interspersed throughout the text were drawings of fearsome creatures, witches, warlocks, Satanic ceremonies, devils tormenting humans, churches burning, piles of skulls, and angels confronting specters.
There were prayers and spells, curses and recipes for coping with multitudinous mischiefs by demons: How to cure a demon-infested cow of curdled milk. How to prevent evil spirits from replacing a baby with a changeling. How to exorcise demons that infest a barn. How to drown a witch.
Brendan knocked a knuckle on the arm of his wooden chair and opened the section on Satan. Paxton saved his greatest eloquence for this section. He ran out of words, synonyms and expletives as his rage spluttered across the pages.
Most of the mischief done on this earth was not done by Satan, Paxton said, but by his subjects and lesserlings. Satan intruded in the affairs of man only on momentous occasions. Many of his depredations were really done by one of his lieutenants, particularly Beelzebub.
Satan presided over such affairs as the seduction of a pope, the stealing of a saint’s soul, causing wars among nations, breeding internecine strife within the Church most holy. His greatest mischief-after Eden, of course—was the temptation of Christ.
Most men can cope with a fiend, given the right methods, for all fiends have their vulnerabilities. But few men have ever coped with Satan. The Bishop of Clontarf did—he defeated Satan roundly. So did several ascetic monks, a few original apostles and one or two others. No woman ever did.
The only way to cope with Satan was to summon the Magus. The Magus would teach the victim the correct way to confront Satan. And even then, with the help of the Magus, men did not always win.
The drawings showed the Magus teaching the Bishop of Clontarf, and the Bishop then pummeling Satan with a crucifix.
There were inconsistencies and missing facts in Paxton’s description of the Magus. He had included at least a dozen drawings of the Magus with his large white dog. One caption said: “With heer redde on his heed and eyed in bleue. The dogge is hight Repentaunce.” His hair red on his head and eyed in blue. His dog is called Repentance.
Brendan decided that his mother really must have seen the Magus in Ireland the day before Brendan was born: a redhaired priest, she said, with blue eyes and an enormous white dog. Already the Magus seemed closer to him.
Brendan studied the dog. It was a huge mastiff, and in one drawing he was baring his teeth at a hawk.
The Magus was attired just like a monk, in a white cassock. Sewn on the front of the cassock was a full-length cross made
of dark fabric and stretching from shoulder to shoulder and from throat to toe. In one drawing he was menacing demons. At his feet was a pentacle. Several demons were falling through the cracks in the earth. “Get thee to Hell!” the caption said. And the Magus was sternly pointing in that direction. Repentance was biting one of the demons on his forked tail.
The Magus, Paxton said, was an eternal wanderer of the earth, who had fallen out of heaven and was seeking the pathway back. He was the biggest foe on earth of Satan and of his tribe. Hundreds were his acts, all bent on thwarting the work of the fiends of hell. The Magus was to be called upon whenever Satan’s presence was suspected. He then gave a list of the Magus’s many titles. When Brendan read it, he sat in stunned silence. For on the list—which included Patron Angel of Farm Animals, Protector of Dogs, Keeper of the Seal of Pym, Protector of Lost Travelers, Benefactor of Monks and Mendicants, Lover of Mankind—was the most stunning title of all: Champion of the Purple Aura.
Brendan stared at the words. Champion of the Purple Aura. Paxton didn’t explain the title. Below it was a “Recipe for Summoning the Magus.”
Brendan could sit no longer. He got up, pulled on his coat and went out into the bitingly cold air of sunset to pace up and down in the footpaths worn in the snow. Several monks, bent against the cold in their cowls, walked ahead of him.
It was beautiful there. A long flight of crows flew by on the other side of the frozen lake, cawing to each other, heading for their nightly roost. The whole western sector of the sky was a deep-rose color as the sun set. Brendan watched his frosty breath hang in the still air.
He’d come to love the monastery. The warmth and peace inside, set in the midst of a terrible northern winter, filled his heart with great affection for the other monks. But he yearned to be with Anne. She was never out of his mind. And now he felt a faint stirring of hope. Might he see her again? Paxton had shown how to raise a demon. Could he help Brendan? He had to find out.
Brendan was thoroughly chilled when he went back into the monastery. He was afraid to reopen Paxton for fear of disappointment. Maybe he’d misread it. Maybe he’d made a bad translation.
He went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee and watched the sun drop behind the distant mountains. Darkness came abruptly. At last he stood up and returned to the library. Brother Luke was gone. His desk was put away and the room seemed colder. Hostile almost.
He opened Paxton again. And translated the passage with infinite care. It was true: The Magus was Satan’s archenemy; he was to be called upon whenever Satan’s presence was suspected; he was truly Champion of the Purple Aura.
Brendan now read the recipe for summoning the Magus.
The instructions were simple and detailed. The supplicant was to build two fires. He or she would don a purple gown and stand outside in the open between the two fires in full view with head bared. The company of a white dog was suggested; if possible, a purebred mastiff. Paxton gave the prayer that was to be read aloud:
“O Magus, hear my plea.
“I am sore beset by Satan and his works. I believe in the forgiveness of sins, in the redemption of fallen souls, in the ultimate destruction of Lucifer and his followers. Come help me in my struggle with this Arch Fiend, and I will requite thee with my gratitude and with my prayers for the forgiveness of your transgressions and for your safe return to the bosom of the Lord. Amen.”
Brendan reread the instructions and the prayer with growing doubt. Two fires? Head bared? In a purple gown? If he did that even at night, he’d be easily visible to the creature.
It would be a hidden race—between the creature and the Magus. And Brendan would have to bet his life on the Magus reaching him first.
He pictured himself standing out in the open with two fires, his head bared in the freezing night air, uttering the prayer and waiting. And waiting. In the warmth and relative safety of the monastery library, he shrank from such a risk. There had to be an easier way. He put Paxton back on the shelf and went off to supper.
The eight monks sat in the refectory, eating. Their faces were ruddy in the soft light and steam rose serenely from their soup. It seemed more appealing a life than ever. Better than Paxton’s game.
Brendan took another walk after dinner, his feet crunching in the snow, guided only by the moonlight. He had to take action soon. That creature was preparing something spectacular, a catastrophe of great magnitude. It had to be stopped. Also, he knew that eventually the creature would detect his purple aura. His incredible luck couldn’t last much longer. In his dreams that night he saw Satan riding with Death again. He woke in the morning with Anne’s name on his lips.
When he got up, he went looking for two metal barrels that could contain a blazing fire.
Getting the mastiff could prove to be difficult. Any white dog would do, but Brendan was not inclined to cut corners.
It took a forty-mile trip in the monastery’s old four-wheel Jeep to find a mastiff. Brendan thought it strange that no one challenged him when he rousted out the two old metal barrels; they never cast a glance at the purple fabric he’d fashioned into a loose gown; and they never even asked him why he wanted to use the four-wheel Jeep. In the monastery every man’s business was his own alone.
The mastiff was quite the largest dog Brendan had ever seen, over thirty inches at the shoulder, with rippling muscles, a deep chest and a deep bass bark. It weighed over 150 pounds. The man who bred it laughed when Brendan asked if he would have any difficulty handling the dog.
“Difficulty? Well, let’s see.” He walked Brendan down behind his home to the dog pens. He opened the gate to a runway and led Brendan to a pen and opened the door.
“His name is Fury,” the man said, and he laughed.
The dog lay with his head on his paws. Faintly he wagged his tail at his owner without raising his eyes. He was inexpressibly bored.
“Up, you fearful monster,” the man said.
Fury yawned and sat up.
“Doesn’t he ever move?”
“Oh, yes. In breeding season, he dances around like Fred Astaire. He dotes on his work then. And of course, the mere sight of food—I think he lies about all day just thinking about food. I’ll show you what I mean.” The breeder leaned over and said into the dog’s ear, “Steak!” The dog jumped up and ran in circles, barking at the sky.
“Ah, sit down, you fiend,” the breeder said. “A fat chance you have of seeing real steak ever again … Prices—” He looked at Brendan. “Just one thing you should remember. If this breed ever closes its jaws on anything, it never lets go. Never.”
Brother Zen made a place for the dog down behind the greenhouse in an old tool shed, where it promptly went to sleep. And they fed him from kitchen scraps, pounds of them. The dog loved to eat. Late at night Brendan took it for a run on the ice. He threw a red ball and the dog bounded after it. Fury conceived a great affection for Brendan and would plant his front paws on Brendan’s chest to lick his face. Usually the movement was so quick Brendan was unprepared and would fall backward with the huge dog on his chest.
Two nights later, he was ready. He pulled the purple gown over his winter clothes. “Good grooming doesn’t count,” he said, looking in the mirror.
It was a clear cold night. A full moon was to rise at 3 A.M. At 2 A.M., long after the monastery had gone to sleep, Brendan, as quietly as he could, pulled the two barrels on a sled out on the ice a distance from the monastery and set them up on a platform of bricks. The holes around the base of the barrels acted as a draft and he soon had a roaring fire in both barrels with hissing flames leaping at the darkness.
The moon was just rising in the southeast quarter of the sky. Brendan gazed up. Never in all the years in the city had he seen such a gathering of stars. The sky was encrusted with them. He felt as though an enormous cosmic audience had come to observe. He unrolled a canvas tarpaulin to stand on.
Brendan looked critically at the arrangement. He was standing in his purple gown before the lectern be
tween the two barrels of fire. The rising moon made everything a varying hue of silver. Details were indistinct. On the lectern beside Paxton’s book, in a hurricane chimney, was a small candle that cast barely enough light to make the prayer legible. At Brendan’s side, the mastiff sat looking with patient curiosity at him.
Last chance to back down. Brendan thought about the dead horse, about the burned church, the dead minister, the lethal Walpurgisnacht with the inmates of the madhouse, and the dead monk Beaupré with his twisted neck. And he thought about Aunt Maeve and Jackie and his family. But most of all he thought about Anne. Without her, his life was a living entombment.
He pictured the creature growing ever stronger and leading legions of adulators to sack and smash cities. He saw the creature attacking his family, attacking Anne.
He gazed back at the walls of the monastery. An icy draft stirred the skirts of his purple gown. Within minutes he could be dead, lying on the ice with his head twisted almost off his shoulders.
Brendan stepped up to the lectern and prayed silently for strength and deliverance, then addressed himself to Paxton’s book.
Patience. The issue could soon be decided. He pushed back his cowl and removed his wool cap, exposing his head to the wintery night. He looked at the text. Drawing a breath, in a loud clear voice he began to read: “O Magus, hear my plea.” After he’d read it through once, he paused to scan the lake. The creature could come with violent speed, he knew, from any direction, full of rage, murderously. But which way would the Magus come?
Fury looked fondly upon Brendan. Then he yawned and lay down. Brendan read the prayer again. Nothing happened.
The fire eagerly consumed the wood and soon all that remained was a red glow of coals. Deliberately Brendan gathered up more firewood from his pile and thrust it into the two barrels. Soon he had a whistling, snapping fire going again. Once more he read the prayer aloud and waited. His head was growing numb in the subzero temperature and he could feel the cold penetrating his pac boots. Standing near one of the barrels, he let the rushing heat bathe his chilled head and his hands.
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