The other three lolled in the throes of drunkenness, but Tullmo grew more frightened. “What are you trying to accomplish?”
“The larger picture doesn’t concern you.” The orange tip of his cigarette danced in the shadowy space around him as he gestured. “Your role, the role for all four of you, is at the beginning of the ritual.”
“Ritual?”
“Beginning?” Lopter glanced up, dimly aware of his situation but still cheerful. “I thought Cutie with the lipstick said we were finished. She did a good job, by the way. You ought to think about promoting her.”
“You are mad…” Tullmo whispered.
A flush reddened Valdes’s face and he opened his mouth to answer. Still looking at Tullmo, he spoke to Lopter. “A promotion? Maybe you’re right, Joe. A promotion is what you give someone who does outstanding work, isn’t it? Or maybe you throw them to the Justice Department when all they want to do is build the organization into something great?”
“That was over fifteen years ago. Does whatever happened justify kidnapping the four of us?”
“‘Whatever happened’? You can’t acknowledge, even now—” Valdes caught himself. “Of course it does. Kidnapping the four of you will get me what I want.”
“And what’s that? Your job back? Is that what this is geared towards, to intimidate us into rehiring you?” Tullmo searched desperately for a way to get through. “It’s beyond that, Neil. Whatever revelations you’ve had, you have to know none of us live in a vacuum. You have to understand there was, and still is, no way you can return to the life you had.”
“No?” Something flickered in Valdes’ eyes. “You’re half right. This,” he gestured around them, “isn’t about returning to my old life. Not immediately, anyway. This is about getting knowledge.”
“What kind of knowledge,” Tullmo flopped his hands, “requires all this to obtain?”
Valdes took another hit from his cigarette, long and slow. “Different knowledge.”
Like a curtain, the darkness parted. The giant emerged, his misshapen face full of anticipation. He carried a cheap metal TV tray, atop of which sat a wooden crate. Tullmo was startled by a sudden mental image of long ago, of his son carrying a present to give him on Christmas morning. In the crate were a bullwhip, a box of coarse kosher salt, knives of various lengths, and a short poker in a small hibachi grill. Glowing red coals filled the hibachi, heating the poker’s tip to match their color.
“You have no idea how…flexible reality is, none of you. No idea how many other paths there are besides the narrow, linear one on which you’ve lived your lives—the one from which you pushed me. When my life was at a dead end, I was afforded the opportunity to experience that flexibility and I embraced it. And what do you know—the more flexibly I behaved, the further I got. It took the best years of my life, dripping away in prison like water torture, and suffering for your sins, to put me on my true path.” A chuckle slashed his mouth. “Maybe I should thank you.”
“Neil, this is insane!” Tullmo protested. “You can’t still be mad at us?”
“I started with anger.” He selected the bullwhip from the box. It unrolled to his feet like a list of accusations. “I nursed it for fifteen years, eight months and four days. After I came to see you in March, after you dusted me off like a piece of dandruff on your Hugo Boss suits, I let that anger free. You took my loyalty and my hard work and you pissed on it. What did you think, that you could just get away with it? That you could just wash your hands of me? I’m Cornelius Valdes!” With a powerful swipe he tore the back of Tullmo’s shirt away. The gallery held its collective breath. “I started with anger, Paolo. But I’m not finished with it.”
“No, you’ve got it wrong, Neil.” Tullmo’s voice rose. “Please. I—I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry about everything. I’ll make it up to you! You can come back to the foundation! Neil, please don’t hurt me! I’m sorry, Neil! I’m sorry!”
“No you aren’t.” Valdes leaned in, his voice rough and guttural. “But you will be.”
He brought the whip up and lashed a thick, ragged red line into Tullmo’s pasty white skin. Tullmo screamed. The high, falsetto sound energized Valdes. A reddish tinge welled from the edges of his vision, loosening his grip on his rage and his sanity. Tullmo struggled, screaming, against his bonds but the whip cracked over and over, peeling flesh first in tiny bits then larger pieces as the skin loosened and the blood greased its separation from the back muscles. Every stroke fanned Valdes’s fury. His efforts bent him forward, like an Orthodox rabbi using his entire body to pray. He whipped Tullmo until his muscles screamed for relief. Tullmo shrieked and begged. Valdes ignored him.
“Fucking murderer!” Czerki shouted.
“Not murder.” Valdes panted from his exertion. He returned to the TV tray and grabbed the poker, whose end sizzled when he yanked it from the coals. “Ritual killing.”
The blood of Lopter and Czerki and McQuail splattered everywhere as he vented his rage on each of them. Energy crackled through the air, and in flashes of lucidity among the anger Valdes understood why the book had been so adamant about conserving emotion. The force he was releasing drove him to astounding heights of cruelty. Every scream that thickened the air heralded something infinitely more terrifying but he didn’t care. This was his vengeance. This was his judgment.
As he worked, Coeus moved around the circle, taking each velvet-wrapped bundle and driving a long copper nail through it, securing it to the cross. When he finished nailing the final bundle to the cross he grunted again. Valdes paused, breathing great gulps of stench and the terror as the giant broke McQuail free and brought him to the final spot. Valdes took the dagger, now tacky with congealed gore, and slashed it across the weeping man’s throat. McQuail’s final gasp became a gurgle as air bubbled out of his exposed windpipe. Valdes dropped the lifeless body to the ground.
“See you all…soon.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when something changed in the atmosphere. Multi-hued charges began to arc out of the cross. The candle flames absorbed them and grew higher, stakes impaling the souls of the murder victims. Valdes reached across the bundles and lifted the book. He flipped past the passages he’d read until he came to the end, to the blank pages that comprised the last section. With the blood soaking into his hands and the book’s cover, Valdes watched words rise into view. These were the final incantations of the resurrectus maledicat, and they slowly emerged from the blank whiteness like new mountain ranges pushing through the earth’s crust. His eyes widened in triumph.
“‘These Paschal candles, pure symbols of Christian resurrection, serve our dark needs! Let them light the path from the other side! The candles draw and hold the life force here! Let them be as mother’s milk, to suckle and strengthen! We have satiated the bloodlust! We have satisfied the pacts and upheld the bargains! We care nothing for the good and shun the righteous! The Infernal have demanded and we have provided! These are the bodies! This is their blood! You must accede our wishes!”
Wind from the astral plane swirled like a tornado from the circle’s center. Valdes could feel something straining to break through. Holding the book in one hand, he unlooped the chain from around his neck with the other. The wind blew harder, swirling dust devils and smoke around the stone pillars. Valdes held the amulet above his head like a priest offering a host for consecration.
“Do not forgive us—”
He hammered his amulet into the top of the cross. A white bolt flashed and the metal sank halfway into the wood. Energy foamed the air with pops and sizzles. Astral winds blew harder; somehow the candles all remained lit. Valdes pressed the side of his amulet and a wicked little blade popped out. He regarded it, then his palm.
“—we know what we do!”
He slammed his hand down on the blade.
Pain burst stars behind his eyes and his knees buckled. He wrenched his hand in a counterclockwise motion, like he was opening a door. An ivory flame exploded upwa
rds. Valdes reached his free hand up and into it. The flame became energy and flowed down his arm, through him, over the cross and into the twelve bundles. They began to glow. The wind spun counterclockwise around the room, building momentum as it narrowed around the circle. Dark magic tore the souls apart as the whirlpool plunged deep. Valdes shouted the name and suddenly the vortex reversed. A backlash of psychic energy blew him out of the circle. The wind abruptly died and the silence shocked his ears. The candles went out in rapid succession, a pair at a time, spiraling all the way to the inner circle. The red candles on the cross flared. Valdes watched until the brightness forced him to shield his eyes.
And then, it was gone.
Valdes got slowly to his feet, feeling a chill despite the stifling heat. He rubbed spots from his eyes and searched for Coeus. The giant crawled to his feet.
They both looked to the circle’s center.
The cross and the bundles had vanished. In their place lay the crumpled figure of a man. Slowly he sat up.
“The mightiest sorcerer of medieval Europe,” Valdes said. “The magician who could do anything. The necromancer whose power was so dangerous his name was relegated to fiction, an object lesson in a religious morality play.”
The man blinked and gazed around. “Mephistopheles?” His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed.
“Cornelius Valdes,” he told the unconscious form. “You are…Doctor Faustus, I presume?”
***
Transportation delays with Ralph and his Cessna, along with some weather problems, meant Donovan wasn’t able to get a flight back to Newark until ten-thirty Sunday night.
For most of his time in the air he stared out at the black mirror of night, trying to put things into some kind of order. He’d told Wissex he could believe anything the big man said, but did he? Could he?
A bonfire turned into a portal? Something coming from it and possessing him? I know ritual magic done “right” is supposed to work—whatever that means—but Wissex’s story just sounds…nuts.
He thought about his conversation with Father Carroll, about candles made of ghosts.
Get into the spirit of things. Ha.
Wissex’s sketch sat on the tray-table in front of him, and every once in a while he picked it up, glanced at the symbols, and put it down. After some thought he identified one that looked like a cross, with two T-bars atop three step-like lines, as the cross of the archangels, or the Golgata cross. It was representative of messengers.
But from whom? Mister Fizz, who or whatever he is?
Since he only had his carry-on bag, he came off the plane at Newark and headed for the taxi line. It was almost one a.m. The terminal was quiet and uncrowded. As he approached the sliding glass doors, a large, well-dressed black man intercepted him.
“Donovan Graham?”
Donovan stopped. “Yeah?”
The black man showed an NYPD shield. “Detective Marcus Wright. Chief Yarborough would like a word.” He gestured ahead of himself with a large hand marred by scars and rough fingernails. “This way, sir.”
Donovan wondered how many suspects Wright had ushered with less cordiality. “Sure.” He followed the detective to a dark gray Lincoln parked in the No Parking Zone. A black man with a close-cut Afro and neatly trimmed moustache sat in the back seat. Hints of salt were beginning to mix with the pepper, lending him a distinguished air augmented by his clothing: dark gray Brooks Brothers suit, white Christian Dior shirt, red-and-white striped Yves St. Laurent tie, and buffed Florsheim shoes. His style reminded Donovan of the sergeant except that his things were more expensive. Even sitting down he was short, but he held himself with a cockiness that said, no matter the situation, he was in charge.
Now what?
“Mister Graham. I am Chief of Detectives Hugh Yarborough, of the NYPD.” Yarborough’s soft Southern accent made Donovan’s last name two distinct syllables—Gray-yum. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Chief Yarborough. I didn’t know you wanted to.”
Yarborough waited for Detective Wright to climb behind the steering wheel. “Mister Graham has had a long flight, Marcus. Let’s get him home quickly.” He gave Wright the address to Donovan’s apartment. Donovan wasn’t surprised the Chief of Detectives of the NYPD knew where he lived, but it was a little disquieting to hear it rattled off so casually.
The car moved smoothly towards the New Jersey Turnpike. “I heard what you did at the aquarium,” Yarborough went on. “The NYPD is always grateful for assistance from the public, although if I’m not mistaken, you did apply for the Academy. If I may ask, why didn’t you pursue that option?”
“School. Life.”
“If the change in your circumstances causes you to reconsider a future with the NYPD, I may be able to help you out. Congratulations on receiving your degree, by the way. Philosophical hermeneutics, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.” He knows where I live, he knows what my degree is in. “I appreciate your interest in my life, sir, but I’ve got some plans in mind.”
“Fair enough,” Yarborough conceded with a slight nod. “Now, about your trip—did you learn anything useful to Sergeant Fullam’s investigation?”
Donovan didn’t answer right away. Whether it was because he didn’t want to give the information to Yarborough or because he wasn’t sure how to, he didn’t know.
“You went to Michigan on the NYPD’s dime. That makes me your boss. All I’m asking is, did you learn anything for his investigation into these so-called satanic murders?”
“So-called?”
“This is not the first time Sergeant Fullam has gone out on a limb with an investigation that holds the potential to severely embarrass the NYPD. A few years ago he was involved in a situation with one of your professors, Father Maurice Carroll, and could have not only embarrassed the department but also set NYPD relations with the city’s Hispanic community back twenty years. As a student of philosophical hermeneutics, you understand the dangers of misinterpretation, particularly involving the deaths small children.”
“Hispanic community?” Donovan raised his eyebrows. “Santeria?”
“He claimed involvement by one of the city’s practitioners of an alternative form of worship in the deaths of a group at a day care center in Brooklyn. But that’s not the issue at hand,” Yarborough said, waving it away. “What I’m currently concerned with is his investigation into these ‘zodiac murders.’ What did you learn out there?”
Donovan considered how he could respond. Through chain of command, Yarborough was technically accurate when he said he was Donovan’s boss. Donovan had taken money from him, he owed the man his best (unless he wanted to return the money, which he’d already used to make a payment on Joann’s ring). By the same token, he knew the man who doubted Santeria wouldn’t want to hear about opened portals and the thing that possessed Wissex and turned him into a butcher.
Not sure I blame him…
He told him about his time with Talling and Wissex, leaving out the esoteric elements of the big man’s story. On Forty-Eighth Street, Detective Wright pulled over in front of his building. Yarborough stopped Donovan before he could leave the car.
“Awful thing, the death of a child,” he said. “Did you find any clue in the case or in Wissex’s story that might help Sergeant Fullam with his current investigation?”
Donovan felt the folded paper in his pocket, the one with the symbols Wissex had seen. He left it where it was. “Probably not, but I’m not a cop, so I’ll let him decide when I tell him what I just told you.”
“No.” The chief eyed him before sitting back. He dismissed Donovan with a brief wave. “Thank you for your help, Mister Graham. However—” he pronounced it “ha-evuh”— “I believe your usefulness has run its course. I’ll inform Sergeant Fullam you and Father Carroll will no longer be required to offer your, ah, research expertise.”
“You’re the chief.”
“Yes,” Yarborough said dryly. “I am.”
Donovan
got out and pulled his bag behind him. “Thanks for the ride.” He watched them drive away before turning to his building. “Probably not?” A slow smile curled his lips. Semantic games with people who can put me in jail. What am I, high?
He chuckled and went inside.
Not yet…
THIRTEEN
DINNER AT THE BAR
Donovan wanted to smoke a joint and drift off, but his conversation with Yarborough bothered him. Joann would already be asleep; Father Carroll, like himself, was a night owl.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Father. It’s Donovan.”
“Oh, hello, Donovan. Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Sorry to call you so late, but I just got back from Michigan.”
“Ah, the fingerprints. Did you learn anything useful?”
“More than I can go into now. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow, after I have a chance to process it, but there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“What I found out in Michigan… I think I believe most of it, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“I don’t understand.”
Donovan paused. How to phrase this? “Look, you know I’ve read about this kind of thing—demons, possession, all this stuff—since I was a kid. I read The Exorcist when I was eight, for crying out loud.”
“So you’ve told me.”
“And as I got older, and started to learn about the mythologies and the religions and the philosophies behind these weird things, I wanted to know more.”
“Yes.”
“And I know I’m a big, tough guy, but this? This is…a lot.”
Father Carroll considered this. “Do you remember at graduation, when I told you God has a greater destiny in mind for you than ‘research assistant’? I truly believe that, and I believe that involving you in this is part of His plan.”
“Metaphysics is not reassuring to me right now.”
“Then consider reality: if you hadn’t been at the aquarium, I might have been fed to the sharks. Your concern is certainly valid when you wonder about the things we face, but you’re not sure you can handle it?” The priest chuckled warmly. “Don’t you see you already are?”
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