A Matter of Degrees

by Alex Marcoux

  Rachel took a deep breath and spoke quickly. “West and I had been dating. Last Sunday, he spent the night. On Monday, someone called and threatened him to stay away from me. Then a king cobra was planted in his office.

  “I was warned to stay away from you after we appeared to be on a date.”

  “I thought of that also. West and I agreed to stop seeing each other until this was sorted out.” Rachel sighed. “He showed up at my apartment late last night. He said he wasn’t afraid.” Rachel paused.

  “And?”

  “We were foolish and weak. Our hormones kicked in and he spent the night. There’s no answer on his cell. I called his home…His sister said that he hadn’t come home yet. There’s no answer at NYU. Jessie, I can’t explain it, but I have a terrible feeling about this.”

  Jessie could sense it also.

  * * *

  The Saab sped to the heart of Greenwich Village, where Rachel parked illegally alongside Washington Square Park. She placed a press pass on the dashboard. The women stepped from the car. Because of the cold, there was no activity in the park. Across the street was a dark red brick building, with a tall stooped entrance.

  “His sister says his office is on the second floor,” Rachel said.

  “Do you have a key?” Jessie asked as they topped the entrance stairway. “I can’t imagine the door would be unlocked at this hour.”

  Rachel squeezed the handle set, and the door opened. She dashed a look at Jessie.

  “Odd,” Jessie admitted.

  Once inside, they headed up a stairwell to the second floor. The hallway was lit only by the red light from the EXIT signs on each end of the floor. Rachel and Jessie scanned the names on office doors. The building was ominously quiet.

  They were halfway down the hallway, “Here it is,” Rachel said. The frosted glass window on the door was dark. Rachel tried the doorknob. “It’s locked.” She knocked on the door; it echoed loudly.

  Jessie retrieved a credit card from her wallet and inserted it in the gap between the doorjamb and the door.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel was surprised.

  “It’s a cheap lock; it shouldn’t be—” there was a loud click. Jessie turned the doorknob and the door creaked ajar. “It shouldn’t be tough.”

  “That’s breaking in!”

  Jessie backed away from the door. “You don’t want to go in?”

  Rachel pushed open the door. The room was dark. She searched the wall for a light switch. A fluorescent overhead fixture blinked on. From the doorway, the woman spotted a mug on top of his desk, resting on its side. Spilled coffee surrounded the cup. Rachel and Jessie glanced at each other, then cautiously approached the desk.

  Beside the coffee spill were two opened books. One was the Bible. Jessie focused on reading the other title upside down, Myths from Mesopotamia.

  “Oh my God,” Rachel cried.

  Her shriek startled Jessie. She moved to Rachel’s side and gasped. Lying in a pool of blood, behind the desk, was a man. She faltered a bit, knelt by his side, and felt for a pulse. His hand was cold. Blood oozed from his abdominal wound. “He’s dead,” Jessie whispered. “Is it West?”

  Tears welled up in Rachel’s eyes as she gazed at her lover’s body. She was in shock. “My God, what have I done?” Rachel mumbled.

  “You didn’t do this. We’ve got to call the police,” Jessie said.

  Rachel, visibly shaken, stooped beside Jessie. “He didn’t deserve this. It’s my fault,” she said between sobs.

  “This isn’t your fault.” Jessie embraced her. “Let’s call the police.”

  “Steve got killed—because of me,” Rachel rambled on.

  Jessie held her closer. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  As Rachel looked upon West’s body, her anger grew. Who could have done this? She wiped her eyes, and mascara smeared both cheeks. It was then that she noticed that one of his fingertips was bloodstained. On the floor beside his hand was a letter sketched in blood. She cleared her throat. “I think he was writing something.”

  Jessie removed a tissue from a box on West’s desk. Using the tissue, she repositioned a desk lamp and turned it on.

  “He was,” Rachel said. The letter K was visible just to the left of his hand.

  Jessie squatted beside Rachel, and picked up the cold hand. She couldn’t see beneath it. “What did he write?”

  Rachel moved so she could make out West’s last clue. “Oh my God!”

  “What is it?” Jessie pulled the hand so that she could view it. “Shit!” escaped from her lips. Stunned, she dropped the hand. It fell beside the bloodstained floor, so that the name Kek was ominously visible. “Kek?” But how could that be? Jessie couldn’t comprehend the coincidence.

  A noise from the hallway drew their attention away from the body. “Who’s that?” Rachel asked.

  They ventured from the office and peered down the hallway where two silhouettes were illuminated from the glow of the EXIT sign.

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Jessie whispered. “Let’s go to the other stairwell.” They turned and rushed away as the men watched them. About ten feet from the other exit, the stairwell door suddenly opened and two men emerged, blocking that exit.

  “Now what?” Rachel whispered.

  Jessie reached for a doorknob to an office beside her. It was locked. Rachel took one side, while Jessie tried the other. The women moved away from the men searching for an escape. All the while, the men watched.

  “Jess, what if they’re all locked? Are we trapped?”

  “There’s a window in West’s office,” Jessie whispered.

  As if reading each other’s mind, they darted toward the office.

  “Do not hurt Addison!” One of the men ordered, and they dashed toward them.

  Rachel and Jessie sprinted into the office. Jessie slammed the door, locked it, and jammed a chair against the door.

  “This isn’t going to hold long.” With that, there was an abrupt bang on the door.

  Rachel scurried around West. She tried to open the window. It wouldn’t budge. There was a resounding blow to the door. Jessie grabbed a large book from West’s desk. She dog-eared the page that it was opened to and then lunged it through the glass, shattering the window. She cleared the jagged edges with the book and tossed it out the second-story window.

  The glass in the office door shattered behind them.

  “Rachel, quick!” Jessie assisted Rachel to the window’s edge, where she wavered. It must have been a ten-foot plunge, and she couldn’t see the ground. But when she heard the chair against the door being thrust forward, she jumped, falling uncontrollably to the frozen ground.

  Jessie, right behind her, leaped from the window. But her escape was impeded when her overcoat shoulders were snatched by one of the pursuers. She dangled in midair.

  “If that’s Addison, don’t hurt her,” a man’s voice ordered.

  “I don’t know who it is,” another man said.

  Jessie was being yanked upward. She unfastened the top button, then another, and another. One more would do it—but it wouldn’t come. Inches away from their arms, she ripped the last button free. With arms raised skyward, she plunged from the overcoat. Tumbling to earth, she jolted her knees and scraped her hands in a pile of snow and ice.

  Rachel grabbed Jessie’s arm, “Are you okay?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Jessie grabbed the book she had tossed from the window.

  The women sprinted toward the Saab as two men watched from the second-story window. Rachel clicked the keyless remote, flashing the lights and unlocking the doors. Just as they reached the car, the front door of the building burst open. Two men charged down the entrance stairway into the street.

  Rachel and Jessie hopped in. Rachel fumbled nervously with the keys and they fell to the floor. Jessie tried to grab them, and their heads collided.

  “I got them!” Rachel sputtered.

  “Lets get out of here!” Jessie locked
the doors while Rachel started the car.

  An antagonist hammered his fist into Jessie’s window. “Floor it!” Jessie ordered.

  She did. Tires screeched and the Saab sped into the street slamming against another adversary. Rachel’s pressure on the gas pedal waned when she realized that she had hit the man.

  “No! Keep going!” Jessie peered out the back window. The man was getting to his feet. “He’s fine. Let’s get out of here.”

  The back end of the car fishtailed as Rachel made a sharp turn. “Are they following us?” She floored the accelerator.

  Jessie watched the back window. “I don’t think so. Just keep going.” She tried to sort everything out—but none of it made sense. Her heart pounded wildly and her head throbbed. “What the hell is going on, Rachel?”

  “You think I know?”

  “They said ‘don’t hurt Addison.’” Jessie’s voice rose. “They knew it was you!”

  A pedestrian came from the shadows into the road, startling both of them. Rachel swerved to avoid hitting the man and almost collided with a passing car. Both exhaled when the Saab screeched by without smashing into anything.

  Jessie knew it wasn’t the time or place to discuss this. “I’m sorry. Let’s get to the police!”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Minutes later, Rachel had circled back to the Village police station. As the Saab approached, Jessie rested her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Don’t stop!

  A group of men had gathered across from the station. A man with a wrapped fist caught Jessie’s eye. It was the guy that had struck her window. The men that had chased them were engaged in a heated conversation with police officers.

  Jessie ducked, and Rachel obstructed her face with her hand. “Do we try another station?” Rachel asked as they drove by undetected.

  “Let’s get out of the city,” Jessie shivered.

  Realizing that Jessie must have been frozen, Rachel cranked the heat. Jessie had lost her coat and was dressed in a thin silk blouse.

  Jessie’s head throbbed. She massaged her temples. “Rachel, he wrote Kek. That was a name from my past-life memory. How could that have happened?”

  “I ran the names you mentioned from your past life by West.”

  “Why?”

  “I wondered if they were truly Egyptian. They are. The meaning of Lukeman is ‘a prophet.’”

  “A prophet?” Jessie whispered. Echoes of a distant past whispered in her ear: “You are now the prophet of the Neter, Lukeman. You are expected to interact with the Royal House regarding divinatory matters. You cannot hide from me forever.”

  Jessie shook from the daze, trying to purge the unresolved memory.

  “That’s not all,” Rachel interrupted. “West told me there actually was a high priest named Lukeman. Jessie, he was murdered because he taught the ancient mysteries to the lower class.”

  Jessie’s headache worsened. The Egyptian life did happen. It wasn’t a hallucination. “That explains my dreams…the sword and all the blood.”

  “He also told me that Kek means ‘Prince of Darkness.’”

  “Prince of Darkness? You mean Satan?”

  “Yes. Satan, the Devil, Abaddon, Lucifer.”

  Jessie felt as if her heart was lodged in her throat. “Do you think there’s something demonic going on here?”

  A chill ran up Rachel’s spine. She shuddered at the possibility. “I’m merely relaying what West told me. There’s more. Some time ago I researched the premise that Freemasonry could actually be devil worship. There’s documentation that suggests that the founder of the mystery schools, the one who formed the Brotherhood, was a Satan-like individual.”

  “And Freemasonry is based on the ancient mysteries.” Jessie’s heart thumped. The hair on the back of her neck stood. “There was a book about Mesopotamia on West’s desk.” She reached for the volume that she had used to break the glass. “I grabbed the Bible.” She turned to the dog-eared page. “He was reading Ezekiel.”

  “Jess, where should we go? I’m sure they know where I live.”

  “Assuming we don’t have a tail, let’s head for the cabin. I need to call Taylor. What am I going to tell her?” Jessie reached for her phone. “Oh, shit. My phone and wallet were in my overcoat.”

  Rachel handed Jessie her phone.

  Jessie glanced at her watch. There was a good chance that Taylor was still onstage. She punched in the number and left a message. “Hi, Sweetheart. I’m sorry I had to run out on your concert. Something came up. I wish I could explain. I’ll call you when I can. Please have patience with me. I love you.” She was heartsick leaving the message, knowing that Taylor deserved better.

  * * *

  When Taylor listened to the message that night, she couldn’t believe her ears. “What the hell is going on?” She punched in Jessie’s number. The call went into voice mail after five rings. She hung up.

  Taylor sensed that Jessie had shut her out. She pulled Jessie’s overnight bag from the closet and laid it on the bed. A wave of guilt hit as she removed articles of clothing. Nothing seemed unusual, except that all the clothes appeared new.

  From a side compartment, Taylor retrieved a man’s eel-skinned wallet. She opened the fold and removed a stack of cards. On top, there was a business card for Rachel Addison, from Over the Edge. Taylor recalled that Steve had worked with Ms. Addison.

  Next, there was a handful of calling cards from a reporter at The Empire. “Brennan Keller,” she read the name aloud. Then, there were a credit card and social security card in Brennan’s name. “Odd!”

  About halfway through the stack of cards was a New York driver’s license. Taylor recognized Steve Mercer’s picture on it. She gasped when she read the name. “Brennan Keller? Steve what were you involved in?” Taylor, being familiar with the Catskill Mountains, recognized the town of Jewett on the license.

  She sat on the bed beside Jessie’s belongings. Jessie, what are you involved in? Her attention returned to other items in the wallet.

  * * *

  It was close to one o’clock when Jessie and Rachel arrived at the cabin that morning. Throughout the trip, Rachel detoured from the highway and picked up secondary roads, assuring that they weren’t being followed. Then, they passed the cabin twice before they finally stopped. Once inside the house, they crashed from exhaustion.

  Just before nine o’clock the following morning Rachel found Jessie reading and sipping coffee in the kitchen.

  “I see you found the sweat suit I laid out for you.” Jessie wore similar attire. “Women’s clothing is rare around here. It’s the smallest one I had. Will it work?”

  Rachel held out her arms, demonstrating the baggy workout suit. “It’ll do.”

  “There’s coffee in the decanter,” she pointed to the counter.

  Rachel poured a cup and moved to a window. The ground was freshly covered with a blanket of snow. She joined Jessie at the table, “I need to apologize. I don’t know what’s going on. But after last night, I realize there’s a good chance that Steve would still be alive, if it weren’t for me.” Tears welled in Rachel’s eyes as she relived the loss of West and Steve.

  “You don’t know that.” Jessie reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  Rachel saw the Bible opened in front of Jessie. “What are you reading?”

  “Ezekiel. I didn’t see it last night, but West had highlighted a section of the story of when Ezekiel meets God. Here, let me read it to you.”

  As Jessie read from the great book, Rachel meandered back to the window.

  And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

  “I don’t like this!” Rachel blurted out, staring out the window. The color from her face was gone.

  “What’s wrong?” Jessie moved toward her.

  “Look!” She pointed to a set of tire tracks in the driveway
. It looked as if a car had pulled into the driveway, then backed out. There was no sign of the car. “They weren’t there a couple minutes ago.”

  “There are no footprints.”

  From behind them glass shattered from the deck’s sliding-glass door. Two men stormed through the opening. Jessie snatched the keys from the table and was on Rachel’s heels for the front door. Rachel halted abruptly, stopping Jessie in her tracks, as two other men pounded open the door. The women positioned themselves between the sets of men.

  “Who are you?” Jessie asked.

  They didn’t answer. One of them approached Jessie. His fist was bandaged with blood-stained gauze. He pointed at the couch. “What are you doing here?” Rachel demanded.

  Another man moved toward Rachel. He shoved her toward the couch. Both men gestured for the women to sit, and they did. One man stood in front of them, while the other shifted to the rear of the couch. A third man repositioned himself by the deck doorway, while a fourth closed the front door and guarded it. Oddly, they all stood silently, and were dressed in black suits with black trench coats. They were clean-shaven, had short hair, all in their late twenties or early thirties.

  “Is anybody going to tell us what the hell is going on?” Jessie asked.

  They didn’t respond. They stood watching them.

  A frigid breeze gusted through the shattered glass opening. “How did they find us?” Rachel whispered.

  “There must be a tracking device on your car.”

  Why? Rachel wondered. Had her research uncovered something so outrageous to justify this assault? To justify West’s murder?

  The man who guarded the front door retrieved his phone. He punched in a speed dial number. “Situation contained,” he said in a cold, detached voice.

  Although the cabin’s tiny furnace blasted, the room was freezing. To test the men’s reaction, Jessie stood and walked toward a nearby chair. The closest guard grabbed her and forcefully shoved her back toward the couch. Remaining calm, she pointed to an afghan on the back of the chair. As she spoke the words, she could see her breath. “If you haven’t noticed, it’s a bit chilly in here.”