Secret of the Seventh Sons

by Cooper, Glenn

  The girls who, under oaths of secrecy, were permitted to feed him and dispose of his waste, were in awe of his stone-silent beauty and his absolute concentration, although one boldly mischievous novice, a fifteen-year-old named Mary, would sometimes make unsuccessful attempts to attract his gaze by dropping a goblet or clattering a plate.

  However, nothing could distract Octavus from his work. The names rushed from his quill to the page in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands.

  Paulinus and Josephus would often stand over him in a kind of reverie, watching the frantic scratching of his quill. While many entries were of the Roman alphabet, many were not. Paulinus recognized Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebraic scripts, but there were others he could not decipher. The boy’s pace was furious, defying the absence of tension or urgency in his countenance. When the quill dulled, Paulinus would substitute another, so the lad could keep his letters tight and small. He packed his pages so densely that a finished page was more black than white. And when a page was done, he would turn it over and keep writing, drawing on some innate sense of parsimony or efficiency. Only when both sides were filled would Octavus reach for a clean sheet. Paulinus, arthritic and with a perpetually knotted stomach, would inspect each completed page, nervously wondering whether he might spot a name of particular interest: Paulinus of Vectis, for example.

  Sometimes Paulinus and Josephus talked about how marvelous it would be to ask the lad what he thought about his life’s work and for him to offer a cogent explanation. But they might as well have wished for a cow to explain what its existence meant to her. Octavus never met their gaze, never responded to their words, never showed emotion, never spoke. Over the years, the two aging monks often discussed the purpose of Octavus’s industry in a biblical context. God, the omniscient and eternal, knows all things of the past and the present, but also of the future, they both agreed. All of the events of the world are surely predetermined by dint of God’s vision, and the Creator had apparently chosen the miraculously born Octavus as his living quill to record what was to be.

  Paulinus possessed a copy of the thirteen books written by St. Augustine, his Confessions. The monks at Vectis held these volumes in high esteem since Augustine was a spiritual beacon to them, second only to St. Benedict. Josephus and Paulinus pored over the volumes and could almost hear the venerable saint speaking to them through time in this passage: God decides the eternal destinations of each person. Their fate follows according to God’s choice.

  Wasn’t Octavus manifest proof of that assertion?

  At first Josephus stored the leather-bound books in a rack against a wall in Octavus’s chamber. By the time the boy was eight he had filled ten bulky books and Josephus had a second rack built. As he grew older, his hand grew faster, and in recent years he was producing some ten books a year. When the total number of volumes exceeded seventy and threatened to crowd out his chamber, Josephus decided the books must have their own place.

  The abbot diverted workmen from other abbey construction projects to begin an excavation at the far side of the Scriptorium cellar, opposite Octavus’s chamber. The copyists who labored in the main hall above grumbled about the muffled pick-axing and shoveling but Octavus was unfazed by the racket and pressed on.

  In time Josephus had a library for Octavus’s growing collection, a cool, dry, stone-lined vault. Ubertus personally supervised the masonry work, aware that his son was behind the closed door but completely uninterested in laying eyes upon the boy. He belonged to God now, not to him.

  Josephus maintained a strict code of secrecy around Octavus. Only Paulinus and Magdalena knew the nature of his work, and outside this inner circle, only the few girls who tended him had direct contact. Of course, in a small community such as the abbey, there were whispered rumors about mysterious texts and sacred rituals involving the young man whom most had not seen since he was a little boy. However, Josephus was so loved and respected that no one questioned the piety and correctness of his actions. There were many things in this world the inhabitants of Vectis did not understand and this was just another one of them. They trusted God and Josephus to keep them safe and show them the correct path to holiness.

  The seventh of July was Octavus’s eighteenth birthday.

  He began the day by relieving himself in the corner and marching straight to his writing desk for his first ink dip. He continued writing at the precise spot on the page where he had left off. Several large candles that burned even as he slept rested in heavy, forged stands and bathed the desk in flickering yellow light. He blinked to moisten his sandy eyes and set to work.

  A new name. Mors. Then another name. Natus. And on and on.

  In the early morning, Mary, the novice, knocked and, without waiting for a response she knew would never come, entered his chamber. She was a local girl who hailed from the Normandy-facing southern part of Vectis. Her father was a farmer with too many mouths to feed who hoped his earnest daughter would fare better as a servant of God than an impoverished wheat thresher. This was her fourth summer at the abbey. Sister Magdalena thought her a keen lass, quick to learn her prayers but a tad too high-spirited for her liking. She was mirthful and given to playful behavior with her fellow novices, such as hiding a sandal or placing an acorn in a bed. Unless her decorum improved, Magdalena was hesitant to admit her to the order.

  Mary brought a light meal on a tray, brown bread and a slab of bacon. Unlike the other girls, who were fearful and never addressed Octavus, she would jabber away as if he were a normal young man. Now, she stood in front of his desk to try to get him to look at her. Her chestnut hair was still long and flowing and it spilled from under her veil. If she became a sister, her hair would be cut short, something she wished for but nonetheless dreaded. She was tall and big-boned, gangly like a yearling, pretty, with perpetually blush-apple cheeks.

  “Well, Octavus, it’s a fine summer morning up there, wouldn’t you like to know.”

  She put the tray on his desk. Sometimes he would not even touch his food but she knew he had a fondness for bacon. He put his quill down and started chomping at the bread and meat. “You know why you’ve got bacon today?” she asked. He ate greedily, staring at the plate. “It’s because it is your birthday, that’s why!” she exclaimed. “You’re eighteen years old! If you want to take a good rest today and put down your quill and take a walk in the sunshine, I’ll let them know and I’m sure they’ll let you.”

  He finished the food and immediately started writing again, his fingers rubbing grease on the parchment. For the two years she had catered for him, she’d grown increasingly intrigued by the boy. She had imagined that she alone would one day unlock his tongue and get him to speak his secrets. And she had convinced herself that there was something significant about his eighteenth birthday, as if the passage to manhood would break the spell and let this strangely beautiful youth enter the fraternity of man.

  “You didn’t even know it was your birthday, did you?” she said with frustration. She taunted him. “Seventh of July. Everyone knows when you were born because you’re special, aren’t you?”

  She reached under her linen smock and pulled out a small bundle secreted there. It was the size of an apple, wrapped in a bit of cloth and tied with a thin strip of leather.

  “I’ve got a present for you, Octavus,” she said in singsong.

  She was behind his chair and reached around him, putting the package on top of his page, forcing him to stop. He stared at the package with the same blankness he reserved for everything.

  “Unwrap it,” she urged.

  He continued to stare.

  “All right, then, I’ll do it for you!”

  She leaned over his back, encircled his thin torso with her sturdy arms and began to untie the parcel. It was a round golden cake that stained the cloth with sweet goo.

  “Look! It’s a honey cake! I made it myself, just for you!”

  She was pressing against him.

  Perhaps he felt the sensation of her firm small breas
ts against his thin shirt. Perhaps he felt the warm skin of her upper arm brush his cheek. Perhaps he smelled a female musk from her pubescent body or the warm gusts from her mouth as she talked.

  He dropped his quill and let his hand drop to his lap. He was breathing hard and appeared to be in some kind of distress. Frightened, Mary took a few steps backward.

  She could not see what he was doing, but he seemed to be grabbing at himself as if stung by a bee. She heard small animal-like noises whistling through his teeth.

  Abruptly, he stood up and turned. She gasped and felt her knees go weak.

  His trousers were open and in his hand he held a huge, erect cock, pinker than any flesh on his body.

  He lurched toward her, tripping on his leggings as he clamped onto her breasts with his long delicate fingers, like tentacles with suckers.

  Both of them fell to the dirt floor.

  She was far stronger than Octavus but the shock had made her weak as a kitten. Instinctively, he pulled up her smock and exposed her creamy thighs. He was between her legs, pushing hard against her. His head was draped over her shoulder, his forehead pressed to the ground. He was making his quick little whistling noises. She was a worldly girl; she knew what was happening to her.

  “Christ the Lord, have mercy on me!” she cried over and over.

  By the time José, the Iberian monk, heard the screams and rushed down the stairs from his copy desk in the main gallery, Mary was seated against the wall softly crying, her smock stained red with blood, and Octavus was back at his desk, his trousers around his ankles, his quill flying over the page.

  JULY 15, 2009

  NEW YORK CITY

  It was sticky and steamy, a high-humidity afternoon where the heat radiating off the pavement seemed like a punishment. New Yorkers tread on hot-plate sidewalks, rubber soles softening, limbs heavy with the effort of walking through what seemed gruel. Will’s polo shirt clung to his chest as he lugged a couple of heavy plastic grocery bags bulging with the fixings for a party.

  He cracked a beer, lit a burner, and sliced an onion while the saucepan heated. The sizzle of the onions and the sweet smoke filling the kitchenette pleased him. He hadn’t smelled home cooking in a long while and couldn’t remember when he’d last used the stove. Probably in the Jennifer era, but everything about that relationship had gone blurry.

  The ground beef was browning nicely when the doorbell rang. Nancy had an apple pie and a melting tub of frozen yogurt and looked relaxed in hip-hugger jeans and a short sleeveless blouse.

  Will felt relaxed, and she noticed. His face was softer than usual, his jaw less clenched, his shoulders less rounded. He grinned at her.

  “You look happy,” she said with some surprise.

  He took the bag from her and spontaneously bent to deliver a peck on the cheek, the gesture taking both of them by surprise.

  He quickly took a step back and she made a blushing recovery by sniffing at the spicy cumin and chili-pepper haze and making a joke about undiscovered culinary skills. While he stirred the saucepan, she set his table then called out, “Did you get her anything?”

  He hesitated, his mind grinding on the question. “No,” he said finally. “Should I have?”

  “Yes!”

  “What?”

  “How should I know! You’re her father.”

  He went quiet, his mood turning sooty.

  “Let me run out and get some flowers,” she offered.

  “Thanks,” he said, nodding to himself. “She likes flowers.” It was a guess—he had a memory of a toddler with a bunch of freshly picked daisies in her chubby hand. “I’m sure she likes flowers.”

  The past few weeks had been drudgery. The substance of the larger case against Luis Camacho eroded away, leaving only one count of murder. Hard as they pressed, they couldn’t make a single other Doomsday case stick to him; in fact, they couldn’t come close. They had painstakingly mapped him, reconstructing every day of his life for the past three months. Luis worked steadily and reliably, jetting back and forth to Las Vegas two to three times a week. He was mainly domesticated, spending most nights in New York at his lover’s house. But he also had the instincts of a tomcat, drifting to clubs and gay bars when his partner was tired or otherwise occupied, zealously pursuing liaisons. John Pepperdine was a low-energy monogamous sort, while Luis Camacho had sexual energy that burned like magnesium. There wasn’t any doubt that his fiery temper had led to murder, but John, it appeared, was his only victim.

  And the killings had stopped: good news for everyone still drawing air, bad news for the investigation, which could only rehash the same tired clues. Then one day Will had a Eureka moment, of sorts. What if John Pepperdine had been the intended ninth victim of the Doomsday Killer but Luis Camacho had struck first in an ordinary crime of passion?

  Maybe Luis’s Las Vegas connection was a classic red herring. What if the real Doomsday Killer was there on City Island that day, on the other side of the police tape, watching, bemused that someone else had committed the crime? Then, to bedevil the authorities, what if he had gone into hiatus, letting them stew, sowing the seeds of confusion and frustration?

  Will obtained subpoenas for the news organizations that had been on Minnieford Avenue that warm bloody evening, and over the course of several days he and Nancy pored over hours of videotape and hundreds of digital images looking for another dark-skinned man of medium height and build who might have been lurking at the crime scene. They came up empty, but Will thought it was still a viable hypothesis.

  Today’s celebration was a welcome respite from all that. Will dumped a box of Uncle Ben’s into boiling water and opened another beer. The doorbell rang again. He hoped it was Nancy with the flowers, and it was, but both she and Laura were there together, gabby and happy like girlfriends. Behind them stood a young man, tall, whippet-thin, with intelligent, darting eyes and a mound of curly brown hair.

  Will grabbed the bouquet from his partner and sheepishly handed it to Laura. “Congratulations, kiddo.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” Laura joked.

  “I didn’t,” he said quickly.

  “Dad, this is Greg.”

  The two men checked out each other’s grip with handshakes.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

  “Same here. Weren’t expecting you but I’m pleased to finally meet you, Greg.”

  “He came for moral support,” Laura said. “He’s like that.”

  She pecked her father’s cheek as she passed, put her bag down on the sofa and unzipped a side pocket. Triumphantly, she waved a contract from Elevation Press in the air. “Signed, sealed, delivered!”

  “Can I call you a writer now?” Will asked.

  A tear formed and she nodded.

  He quickly turned away and retreated into the kitchenette. “Let me get the bubbly before you get all blubbery.”

  Laura whispered to Nancy, “He so doesn’t like it when you get emotional.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Nancy said.

  Over steaming bowls of chili, Will toasted for the umpteenth time and seemed to take pleasure in the fact that all of them were swigging champagne. He fetched another bottle and continued to pour. Nancy mildly protested but let him continue until the froth overflowed and wet her fingers. “I almost never drink, but this is tasty,” she said.

  “Everyone’s got to drink at this party,” Will said firmly. “You a drinking man, Greg?”

  “In moderation.”

  “I excessively drink in moderation,” Will joked, catching a sharp look from his daughter. “I thought journalists were big boozers.”

  “We come in all stripes.”

  “You going to come in the striped model that follows me around news conferences?”

  “I want to do print journalism. Investigative reporting.”

  Laura chimed in, “Greg believes that investigative journalism is the most effective way to tackle social and political problems.”

  “Do you?” Will asked with a ja
b to his words. Sanctimony always raised his hackles.

  “I do,” Greg replied, equally prickly.

  “Okay, I now pronounce you…” Laura said lightly, to head off a problem.

  Will pressed. “How’s the job landscape look for investigative journalism?”

  “Not great. I’m doing an internship at the Washington Post. Obviously, I’d love to get a gig there. If you ever want to pass me a tip, here’s my card.” He was half kidding.

  Will slipped it into his shirt pocket. “I used to date a gal at the Washington Post.” He snorted. “It wouldn’t help your chances to use me as a reference.”

  Laura wanted to change the subject. “So, you want to hear about my meeting?”

  “Absolutely, give me details.”

  She slurped through the champagne foam. “It was so great,” she cooed. “My editor, Jennifer Ryan, who’s a real sweetheart, spent almost half an hour telling me how much she liked the changes I’d made and how it only needed a few tweaks, etcetera, etcetera, and then she told me we were going up to the fourth floor to meet with Mathew Bryce Williams, who’s the publisher. It’s an old town house, so beautiful, and Mathew’s office is dark and filled with antiques, like some kind of English club, you know, and he’s an older guy, like Dad’s age, but way more distinguished—”

  “Hey!” Will howled.

  “Well, he is!” she continued. “He’s like a caricature of an upper-class Brit but he was urbane and charming and—you’re not going to believe this—he offered me sherry from a crystal decanter which he served in little crystal glasses. It was so perfect. And then he went on and on about how much he loved my writing—he called my style ‘lean and spare with the muscularity of a fresh young voice.’” She spoke his words with a mock English accent. “Can you believe he said that?”