"You want me to wait?" the cabbie asked.
"I suggest you cruise for a while," Danube said. "Circle back to see if I am waiting. Otherwise keep moving. A cab parked here would be too conspicuous."
"Especially with a big black man behind the wheel. Got ya," Wilson said. Danube watched the car pull away through the gray afternoon haze before turning to walk across the damp rye grass.
Ignoring the front door, he went up the driveway and spotted the Lincoln parked under the carport beside a more extravagant MG roadster.
He eased past that car and crept to the back door. He could again sense the traces of magic in the air, but they were not as strong as he had expected. Martin's magician was not here. That was no surprise.
Gently, he pressed his ear against the door, listening. He could hear the faint sound of Martin's voice, apparently raised in anger although his words were not clear through the wood.
He tried the door and found it unlocked, so he eased it open and stepped inside. In the next room Martin's voice still roared.
"Well, tell him if he shows up there I want him over at my house immediately. He has questions to answer."
The phone was slammed down. Danube stood on the tiled floor in what proved to be the kitchen, listening as Martin clomped around in the next room.
Only a few seconds passed before the businessman entered the kitchen, stopping fast when he saw Danube waiting for him.
"Have you lost your sorcerer?" Danube asked.
Martin's reaction went from surprise to anger, then outrage. He jabbed a finger at Danube and spoke through clenched teeth.
"I thought I told you to get the hell away from me. I don't know anything about any sorcerers. You must be deranged."
"That accusation might fall more appropriately on your shoulders," Danube said.
A nerve jumped involuntarily in Martin's cheek.
"A powerful man who resorts to magic over something so simple as a love affair gone wrong. Is revenge that important?"
"She shouldn't have left me. She didn't give me a chance."
"Was it worth what you have wrought?”
“Everything's all right."
"We do not know that at this point," Danube said. "You have no way of knowing what your magician is doing."
"He does what I tell him."
"Is that why you have been so frantic to find him this afternoon? He was doing experiments last night. He might still be."
"Why the hell did you follow me?"
"I thought he might come here. He has to be stopped.”
“I'll stop him."
"He is not motivated by your cash. He is motivated by power. You only granted him time and an opportunity to test his skills. He needs you no longer. Your support is past."
"How do you know all this?"
"I know the corruption magic brings. There is only one true source of dark magic of the nature he uses, and it exacts a powerful price."
The businessman shifted nervously in the doorway. His tie was already loosened, but his hand went up to tug at it as if it were strangling him.
"You can't prove anything against me."
"That is not my purpose. I seek to end this. Let me. He will come here. This has to be where his conjuring was done. I searched his apartment, and the markings and magic traces there were rudimentary."
"You're trying to trick me, make me reveal something. Are you wired? It'll never stand up in court."
"My interest is not in courts. Show me where he performed his sorcery. He is very, very dangerous, and there is little time." For the first time urgency was evident in Danube's voice.
"I think you should get out of my house before I call the police."
"What happened last night? Heaven almost died. What happened here?"
Martin's silence indicated the evening had not been uneventful.
"I need to see where he has been working. It might give me an idea of what he has planned. I don't know where he is right now, but he will have to come back here before he does anything else to prepare himself."
Martin still hesitated. Danube crossed the room to him before he could draw another breath. Gripping the lapels of his coat, Danube pulled Martin's face close to his own.
"Show me where he worked or we could all wind up dead."
He shoved Martin away but continued to stare at him. A lock of his red hair fell down across his forehead, making him appear wild, dangerous.
"It was in the basement," Martin said.
"Take me there."
Martin hesitated. Taking him there would be a final admission of what he had done. It would reveal the strange markings and the other paraphernalia down there.
"Now," Danube said.
Martin led him through the kitchen to the stairway that led to the room beneath the house. He flipped a switch on so that the lamps he'd had installed in the side walls flickered on. Their stark white light flooded through the room, creating eerie shadows from the platform and floor.
Danube walked past the raised stand to look at the markings on the floor. Some matched those in the Gnelfs storybook. Others were from The Book of Raziel. A few others he did not recognize. Those he found most frightening.
The ones he did not recognize immediately must have come from The Red Book, he decided. They resembled the markings he had read about, and the fragments he'd found as well. The potential they exuded was frightening.
He knelt beside one of the runes, running his hand slowly across the surface. It had been drawn with chalk, and the powdery substance stuck to his fingers. When he got back to his feet, he looked at the edge of the platform, where a brazier sat. He walked to it, looking down into the black ashes.
Though he picked through the residue, letting the gray crumbs slide through his fingers, they revealed no clue he could interpret. But the burning must have been conducted for a reason.
Near the edge of the platform, he noticed the brown, drying bloodstains. He turned back to Martin. "He cut himself?"
"Used his own finger to appease the fire demon you sent here."
"He's resourceful. That's bad."
"Why?"
"Because he's experimenting. He's trying to take magic and sorcery to new limits. What he might unleash in the effort could be devastating."
An ashen color spread across Martin's face, as if someone were stroking it on with an invisible paintbrush. "What do you mean?"
"Death for us. Destruction. Some of the great terrors of history were not created by nature alone. Earthquakes, famines, madness. They are the price frequently exacted."
Martin raised a hand to his brow, bowing his head slightly and blinking his eyes. "What have I caused?”
“So far, nothing that cannot be stopped," Danube said. "Help me. Has he spoken of anything to you?”
“He's just been promising that he could deliver what I wanted."
"He has given you no indication of what else he might have in mind?"
"No."
Danube ran a hand through his hair. He was frustrated, but had no outlet for his anger. He could not strike Martin, and he could do little to prepare for a confrontation with the magician.
"What is his name?" Danube asked.
"Simon. That's all he's ever told me."
"Not surprising. He considers himself the greatest of witches."
The greatest of witches sat silently in the passenger seat of Althea's car. He had stowed the dagger beneath his coat, but Althea could not bring herself to defy his will. In addition to his threats, she could feel some impelling force urging compliance. She suspected she must be touched by some spell in addition to his fear tactics.
She kept trying to force some way of resisting to develop in her imagination, but her thoughts would not serve her. Instead, images of the slobbering Gnelfs kept fighting their way to center stage, re-enforcing her apprehension.
She didn't want to be violated by the little creatures, dammit. He'd found her weakness, her unwillingness to endure the tortures she'd
known before.
Her hatred of what she had been put through deepened her desire to thwart his efforts to terrorize Heaven, however. She thought about wrecking the car, but when the notion entered her brain, he turned to her with a wry smile, as if he knew everything she was thinking.
Some familiar was probably sitting on her shoulder, telling him every time her brain fired an electrical impulse. She wanted to drag her fingernails across the chalk-pale skin of the bastard's face, then spit in his eyes; but she knew she wouldn't move an inch before he knew what she was about to do.
The glimmer in his eyes as he continued to look at her confirmed the fact. Then, casually, he reached over and patted her leg.
"It will be all right," he said. "As long as you cooperate."
"What about Gab and Heaven?"
He was silent.
"What did they ever do to you, you bastard? Leave them alone."
"There are greater causes than the well-being of a few mortals," he said coolly. "I need them. It is as simple as that."
"And me? I'm a pawn too? Why should you be allowed to manipulate and hurt so many people?"
"The simple answer is because I can." He laughed, a cold, dry laugh. "The more complex answer is that I have suffered. I have always been construed as different. You're a psychologist. 'Alienation,' I believe, is the word you might apply."
If you want my sympathy you must know you won't get it. If you are aware of the scars, you must realize you should have sought help instead of hurting other people."
"You know things are not as simple as that. I'm addicted to power. I'm not responsible for my actions."
She felt contempt for him, for his self-examination and for his willful acts that harmed others, but her professional orientation stirred her to ask, "What happened to you?"
"It started when I was very young. I was a small boy, thin. Some things carry over. I became bookish since my mother feared I would be harmed by playing with other children. I could read before I started school, and subsequently I had more knowledge than the average child."
He seemed to grow more pale as memory tightened its grip on him. "The class bully seemed to zero in on me from the beginning of first grade. But he was a goddamn clever bastard—the teacher's favorite." He smiled. "You know the type, Doctor. You'd have a word for that too. His name was Mal James. He had one of those flattop haircuts. They weren't in then. He would do things, tell on me, pull various stunts to get me into trouble. The teacher always fell for them. I bumped into him once while a group of kids was playing. He went to the teacher and told her I had kicked him, and the fucking whore ranted and raved at me for five minutes. Five fucking minutes."
Althea gripped the steering wheel more tightly as the anger began to burn through him. She realized something was always simmering inside him, resentment, rage.
For a moment, just for a moment, she was almost touched even though she had seen the horrors he had caused.
"Another time, Mal grabbed me and choked me, held my throat until my face turned purple. It took me a while to catch my breath, but then I went to the teacher, expecting, since a kick on the playground had inspired such ire in her, the whore bitch would do something to him finally. I told her he had choked me, but she didn't look up from the papers she was grading. I repeated it, that he had choked me, and she ignored me.
"And Mal had other moments. The time he put a snake on me. The time he pulled my pants down. The bastard."
There were tears in Simon’s eyes now, angry hurt tears, the tears of a little boy who didn't quite fit in, a little boy thrown into a situation he didn't quite understand because he had no reference point for the contempt of peers or the pettiness of some people in positions of authority.
She bit her lip. She couldn't let him make her feel sorry for him. He was too dangerous. Maybe under other circumstances she could have helped him, but for now she had to view him as an enemy. She had to think of Gabrielle and Heaven.
His fist slammed down on the dashboard, the vibration jarring the plastic. His pale cast was gone, replaced by a red, twisted mask.
Slowly a smile formed again, however, and he sat back in the seat, smugness settling over his features.
"It took me a while to find Mal after I had begun to learn to manipulate the forces that lurk around us," he said. "He was working in California, but he had a job that required him to travel. I began to watch him, studying his actions. He had numbers he could call when he stopped in cities. The calls would bring women to his door.
"One night he was visited by a particularly beautiful one, a woman with hair of flame and a sensuality he had never known. When he lay with her, he thought he had never known such pleasure."
Simon's eyes almost seemed to glow. He wasn't talking to Althea. He was reliving something he had watched, savoring the memory.
"She fulfilled his desires in every way. Performed the acts he dreamed about, and he cried out with pleasure. Then, when it was over, she lay over him, kissing him, letting her mouth move down across his chest and stomach."
He did turn to Althea now. A spray of perspiration dappled his brow, and one drop slid down from his temple, trailing along his cheek. "Can you imagine what happened?"
Althea was suddenly very cold, chilled from the inside. She could not imagine how fear had seized the man, but she knew it had been horrible. She tried to swallow and found her throat had closed.
"Well?" Simon asked.
She licked her lips, but was still unable to produce much moisture. "Emasculation, I suppose."
"Emasculation?" He whispered his confirmation: "Yes. She closed her lips over him, over his man-root if you choose, then she bit down.
"He screamed, oh so loudly," the magician said, his voice now gleeful. "Then he saw two things. He saw her yank her head back, his genitals dangling from her lips, and before his eyes, the image of my face was projected by magic. He looked at me and, with terror in his eyes, knew why it was happening to him. He wept. Wept the way I wept on days after school when I went home suffering from his humiliations.
"I had never wanted to harm anyone, had been content to leave other people alone, but he spearheaded the effort that made me what I am. It was fitting that he should serve as an experiment, for I was just beginning to test my skills in those days." He laughed now, deep and hard. "I was good, so good, and I laughed at him because I knew then, for certain, that I had the power. And his blood served as a sacrifice to the demons of the night, and they became my brothers then. My servants, because I had delivered for them. They descended, and while he was alive, they feasted on his sinful soul. He cried out to God, but he had no redemption that night."
Althea found it hard to steer the car. The horror of what had happened was almost paralyzing. She kept picturing the scene in her mind, hearing the screams.
For the first time it became apparent just how dangerous this madman could be. He had caused horrible deaths, but he was capable of much greater cruelty and brutality.
She thought she was going to be sick, but he placed a hand on her forearm, gripping it tightly. She felt pain as the muscle was squeezed. It was like a lightning bolt shooting up her arm.
“You won't lose control," he said.
It was not a reassurance. It was just a warning that she would regret noncompliance.
She didn't want to submit to his control, didn't want to comply with any of his orders; but for now she would go along, waiting for an opportunity to resist.
Moving the brazier so that it would not topple off, Danube stooped beneath the platform. More fragments of brittle pages rested atop something silvery reflecting light.
He reached into the shadows and extracted it, a small bowl-like crafting of metal with symbols etched into its surface. He turned it over carefully, his fingertips tracing the markings he recognized as protective symbols. The discovery did nothing to ease the burning feelings that were gnawing away at him.
The holder of The Red Book would need a protective helmet. Danube had hea
rd it mentioned in legend, how the conjurer wore the metal guard when reading from the pages.
"Did you ever see him wearing this?"
Martin looked down at the bowl. "Sometimes when he was studying his symbols. What is it?"
"A shield of sorts. it basically kept him from becoming a channel for the spirits before he was ready." He turned the cap around, displaying the markings. "These signs block spirits and demons."
Martin's mouth dropped open slightly.
“You did not realize the extent of all this," Danube said.
"Few people realize what they are opening the door to."
"I only wanted to scare her."
“She is scared," Danube said. "As am I."
Chapter 20
At Katrina's insistence, Gabrielle took a long shower. When she had finished, she slipped on one of Katrina's nightgowns and lay down in the guest bedroom, where she managed to doze.
Heaven was resting, and Gab knew she, too, needed rest. She would not be able to support her daughter if her own condition deteriorated. Her nerves were starting to remind her of old rope, unraveling in all directions, but her mind shut out her anxieties for a while.
She even managed not to dream. Until Tanner showed up. At first, in thoughts detached from the dream, she wondered if her brain was offering up a vision of solace, a collage of might-have-beens to distract her from pain and anguish over Heaven's dire situation.
She wondered if pastoral scenes were going to unfold, bringing bittersweet non-memories of trips never taken and laughter never shared. Those were the kinds of things you woke up feeling both complacent and disturbed about, warmed by the pleasant feelings, tortured by the slap of reality, the reminder of how unreal the visions were.
When she saw the look on Tanner's face, she knew it was not that type of dream. He had not come to comfort her. He looked at her accusingly. Yes, this was to be a dream drenched in guilt, guilt trotted out from the Pandora's box of her subconscious.
She had come to know her psyche well in the months since the divorce. It had played games with the skeletons buried in the boneyard of her brain. She had dreamed of what the separation would do to Heaven, had been tortured over whether she was acting for herself without concern for her daughter's needs. Now she was about to suffer the blame for Tanner's death. Hadn't she caused it, after all? Wouldn't he be alive if she hadn't gone to hear him read? Perhaps she deserved whatever accusation his image offered.
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