Alchemist

by Peter James

  His mother had been more violent during the past three weeks, ever since he had met the man called Thoth in the shop where he’d seen the book. He realized it was probably because he had been concentrating on preparing for today, rather than working his spells to keep her restrained. But it didn’t matter. As far as he was concerned, today was the most important day of his life. Today he would become a First Degree Initiate.

  The distant expression remained in the Magister Templi’s eyes, but this time Daniel felt an enormous power coming from them, as if the warlock was somehow drawing out and reading the thoughts inside his head.

  ‘Are you familiar with the name Theutus, boy?’

  ‘Theutus was one of the Vessels of Wrath, sir.’

  ‘Yes, Daniel. The Vessels of Wrath are the inventors of evil things and all wicked arts. Theutus taught cards and dice, he liked to make money and he was good at it.’ The Magister Templi smiled. ‘I think Theutus would be a fitting name for you.’

  Daniel tried to engage his eyes to thank him, but the Magister Templi was again staring over his head. Instead he nodded gratefully. The warlock returned his athame, and he sheathed it beneath his pullover.

  ‘It is time,’ the High Priestess Morgana said.

  ‘It is time,’ the Magister Templi said.

  They led Daniel across the small hall, and through a door into a garage which was almost entirely filled by an elderly van painted dark blue. The High Priestess opened its back doors and ushered Daniel into the windowless interior, climbing in after him. Daniel noticed she had a sash in her hand.

  ‘We have to blindfold you now, Theutus,’ she said.

  Daniel felt a faint prickle of anxiety.

  ‘We’re taking you to our temple. You are not permitted to know its location until you become a Third Degree Initiate. It is the Law.’

  Daniel nodded and obediently raised his head. He felt the cloth pull against his eyes as she knotted the sash firmly but gently. He heard the clang of the doors closing, then felt the van shake as the engine fired; almost immediately he smelled the stink of exhaust fumes. There was a grinding of gears and a sharp jolt; reversing out of the garage, he realized.

  He lost all track of time after a while. The ride was uncomfortable; the van travelled at varying speeds, bumping, lurching, and frequently braking sharply; he did not think the Magister Templi was a very good driver.

  Then, after a long run down a straight stretch, the van slowed sharply and he felt it turning to the right. It felt as if they were no longer on a road, but a farm track of some sort. As the vehicle bounced about unpredictably, Daniel had to fight hard to stop himself from throwing up.

  Finally the van stopped, and to his relief he heard a clang that sounded like the rear doors being opened, and suddenly he was breathing fresh air. It was thick with the smell of the countryside and he gulped it greedily, his nausea beginning to fade.

  The High Priestess’s hand took hold of his wrist and then he was guided out and on to the ground. It felt as though the sun had gone down, and there was a light chill to the late summer air.

  ‘We’re here now, Theutus,’ the High Priestess said. ‘Be careful of the step, lift your foot.’

  He did as he was told, walked forward, then heard a door shut heavily behind him. There was a strong carbolic smell. When the High Priestess removed the blindfold, he was in a washroom, with black tiled walls and floor.

  ‘We work sky clad here, Theutus. Please remove all your clothes then step into the shower, we must all be purified before we commence our rituals.’

  Red-faced, Daniel complied and the High Priestess took his things into a locker room. When she came out, she was naked as well.

  She pointed to the shower and followed him in, turning on the tap. She nudged Daniel gently forward, her own naked body touching his back, until the warm water was spraying hard on his chest and stomach. Taking a bar of soap, she began to wash him, massaging his skin with her fingers, working under his arms, across his belly, then soaping around his penis and testicles and probing the entrance of his anus.

  He stood still, unsure what to do and feeling intensely aroused. Fighting with all his willpower, he tried to stop himself from getting an erection; but his penis was beginning to swell.

  Mercifully, her hands moved on, down his legs. Then she sponged the soap off him, led him out of the shower and draped a large towel over his shoulders as the Magister Templi, also naked now, took his place.

  ‘I have to blindfold you again now, Theutus,’ Morgana said crisply, as if nothing unusual had happened.

  Daniel tensed as she secured the sash once more over his eyes. Then she removed the towel, took his hand and led him forward.

  He heard the click of a latch and there was a draught of air accompanied by a strong smell of incense and hot wax. The floor was cold beneath his feet. As he walked ahead, he sensed the presence of a large number of people, all of them silent.

  The High Priestess’s hand jerked him to a halt. He heard her voice call out, in a loud intonation: ‘We bring Theutus here to our temple today and we now prepare him to enter our sacred circle.’

  There was a low sound, as if a dozen or more voices were chanting in unison. The chanting slowly grew louder, getting closer. And Daniel sensed fire, also, fire moving closer. He could hear the sound of flames consuming air, cracking, thumping, hissing. An intense heat moved towards his chest; he wanted to step away from it but dared not.

  Then he felt an intense heat closing in on his back; then another below his genitals; another against his face. The heat was all around him, he wanted to cry out, had to stifle his voice. There was a crackle and the strong smell of singed hair; he felt some of the hair on his head burn, then some of his pubic hair.

  Suddenly the heat went. The chanting ceased abruptly. He heard the clank of a chain, then droplets of icy water were spattering on his face and body. The chain clanked again and more water spattered his body, making him jump.

  He braced himself for more, but instead of water a whip lashed across his naked back, making him cry out. There was another stinging lash, on his buttocks this time. Then on his stomach. Then another across his genitals, striking his testicles, doubling him up in pain. The back of his legs; his ankles; neck; right cheek: the lashes rained, one after another. But Daniel stood his ground, fought the tears, determined.

  The marks, he thought, with more terror than pain. My mother must not see the marks.

  At last the lashes stopped. Daniel stood still, his whole body stinging and raw.

  ‘Can we trust you, Theutus?’ It was the voice of the Magister Templi. ‘Can we remove your blindfold and let you see our temple and our faces?’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  ‘Say after me: Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law.’

  Daniel repeated the words. Then the Magister Templi continued. ‘Lo, Jesus of Nazareth, how thou art taken in my snare. All my life long thou hast plagued me and affronted me. In my name – with all other free souls in Christendom – I have been tortured in my boyhood; all delights have been forbidden unto me. Now at last I have Thee, Satan.’

  He paused for Daniel to follow suit and then went on. ‘I commit my mind, body and eternal soul to Thee, Lord Satan, eternally. And if I shall ever divulge to any living soul of this bond, outside of this Temple, my tongue and my eyes shall be ripped from my living body as my punishment.’

  There was a long silence after Daniel had said these final words. Then, abruptly, the knot of the blindfold behind his head was untied and the cloth pulled away.

  He blinked as his eyes focused; he was too stunned by what he saw to feel embarrassed or shy about his nakedness. His mouth fell open. He was inside a large barn, the ceiling of which was painted crimson, and the walls completely draped in black cloth. Two black candles, a good four feet tall, rose either side of an altar in the centre of a pentacle painted in gold leaf on the floor. There were many more candles all around, and a row of blazing medieval-looking
torches in sconces on the walls.

  A dozen people inside the pentacle were staring at him, motionless. Except he could not see their eyes. They were wearing eerie, animal-head masks and were otherwise naked, apart from the silver emblems which hung on chains from their necks.

  A pig’s head confronted Daniel above the naked body of a man. A cat’s face had a woman’s body. A snarling wolf and a leering goat also had human forms. Each held their athame pointed upwards and flames glinted off the blades. A young, naked woman lay on her back on a black cloth in the centre of the pentacle, her outstretched arms and legs bound elaborately with cord.

  Daniel’s gaze went from the eye slits in the animal heads to the naked girl, then back to the animal heads. The way they were looking at him, the way they were raising their athames, filled him with dread.

  A trap, he realized. He had been brought into a trap.

  He spun round but the door was blocked by the Magister Templi and the High Priestess, both naked as well. The Priestess was holding her athame. The Magister Templi was holding a huge sword high above his forehead as if he were about to strike Daniel. And they were both solemn, unsmiling.

  ‘You have renounced Jesus Christ the Impostor,’ the Magister Templi said, staring him directly in the eye for the first time. ‘You have renounced God. You have chosen our way instead. You have sworn an oath of secrecy to us.’

  ‘But why should we trust you, Theutus?’ the Priestess said in a sneering tone.

  ‘Can we believe in you, Theutus?’ the Magister Templi challenged.

  ‘Or would it be better to sacrifice you now, Theutus, and spare you the agonies of physical torture later?’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw the Magister Templi’s sword rise a fraction higher and noticed his knuckles whiten on the hilt. For the first time his courage deserted him completely. He wanted to turn and run, but found he could not move a muscle. His whole body was paralysed – but not by fear. He was being held by some unseen force that was more powerful than anything else he had ever experienced. It held him a prisoner, rooted to the spot and helpless.

  48

  London. Friday 18 November, 1994

  Conor hastily washed the last of the shaving foam off his face, then splashed on some Eternity aftershave. 6.58 a.m. Twenty minutes before he needed to leave for work.

  He draped the damp towel around his shoulders as meagre protection against the chill – Jesus, this apartment was cold – and walked into the open-plan kitchen area. He made himself a mug of coffee and carried it into the living room where his laptop computer lay. Following the procedures in Minaret Internet’s instruction manual step by step, although he was familiar with the software anyway, he logged into his mailbox to see whether his efforts of yesterday had yielded any results.

  Almost instantly along the top of his screen appeared the words; TRANSFERRING … 1 OF 25.

  Shit! he thought, with a broad grin, and dashed to his bedroom to get dressed while the mail was downloading.

  As he was straightening his tie, he heard the gong on his computer announcing that the transfer of messages was complete, and went back in to log off. It was seven fifteen. He debated whether to look through them now, which would make him late, or to read them at work.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he shut down his computer, closed the lid and put it in his briefcase. Having taken half the afternoon off yesterday, he decided he ought to be in on time. He could read the mail on his laptop in the office and no one would know what he was doing. He scooped up his car keys and left, burning with curiosity to know exactly what had fallen into his net.

  Monty was having a bad morning. Her father, upset by the news of Walter Hoggin’s death, was in a filthy temper, made worse by his being unable to find a particular file. He swore he’d had it in the office only a couple of days previously, but Monty was convinced it must have been misplaced during the transfer from Berkshire. If it didn’t turn up she would have to go into their old lab over the weekend to hunt for it, but she didn’t relish that prospect. It was depressing enough going there during the working week now, let alone when the building was completely deserted.

  Only a handful of their original staff were still there, as the final wind-down took place, and within a month even they would be gone, some tempted into early retirement, others to work at the Bendix plant in Reading where Walter Hoggin had gone. But it was Walter’s death, more than the takeover by Bendix Schere, which symbolized the end of an era, and she was dreading the funeral.

  When she’d reached the Bendix Building just after ten she’d found a message from Conor Molloy waiting on her voice mail box but, ringing him back, she had in return got his recorded voice and had left another message.

  She came back up from the Stacks on the floor below, the nickname given to the massive filing room that served as an archive for all the labs, where copies of all the documents and research notes automatically printed off the computers every weekend were stored in fire-proof cabinets as back-up for the computer files. But her search there had revealed no trace of the missing file either.

  She was just inserting her smart-card into her office door when she heard the phone ring. She hurried in and grabbed the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Miss Bannerman. Good morning – we’ve finally made contact.’

  ‘Mr Molloy. Hello.’ The formality struck her as particularly absurd now that she felt an increasing bond of friendship with this man. ‘How did your moving go?’

  ‘Fine, no problem. Except I’m still unfurnished.’ He paused. ‘How you doing?’

  ‘Not great. I –’ She glanced through the window into the corridor, saw a technician coming out of the lab door opposite, and pushed her own door shut, lowering her voice. ‘Could we meet outside somewhere? I need to talk to you. Can you do lunch?’

  ‘No – I have a meeting here. I’ve a gap right now, I guess – any good?’

  Monty glanced at her watch. It was 11.10. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How about the same place we had lunch, in ten minutes?’

  ‘Fine.’

  As she hung up, she realized her hands were shaking.

  Il Venezia was in the mid-morning lull between breakfast and lunch. Monty arrived first and went over to the alcove where they had sat before, keeping on her coat.

  She’d only beaten Conor by a minute. The door opened and he walked in, clutching his briefcase, the collar of his Crombie turned up. The sight of him immediately made her feel reassured.

  He walked over to her with a grim smile. ‘Hi,’ he said, pulling up a chair and sitting down. ‘I have something interesting to show you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Everything about him seemed so safe, even the way his strong hands flipped open his briefcase and took out his laptop. The Italian waitress came over.

  ‘What would you like?’ Conor asked Monty.

  ‘Just a cappuccino.’

  ‘And I’ll have a double espresso – and a doughnut. Have one yourself,’ he said to Monty, ‘they’re really good here.’

  She smiled at his appetite, the attraction she felt towards him increasing with every moment she was in his company.

  The waitress went off.

  ‘Are you OK, Montana? You look very pale.’

  Monty watched until the waitress was a safe distance away, then looked back at the American. ‘Do you remember on Tuesday I told you I’d asked our old Chief Lab Technician, Walter Hoggin, to see if he could get some Maternox samples?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  She twisted her fingers together nervously. ‘He died yesterday. Had a heart attack.’

  Conor frowned. ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Sixty-six.’

  ‘Did he have any history of heart disease?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘At the Bendix lab in Reading where he worked.’

  ‘Where was he taken to hospital?’

  ‘I – I don’t know. Why?�
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  ‘You don’t know if it was a public hospital or a Bendix one?’

  ‘A Bendix hospital?’

  ‘Sure – one of the Bendix clinics – that’s where staff usually get taken.’

  ‘I was told he died in the ambulance.’

  The waitress brought the coffees and two fat, circular doughnuts, then departed. Conor studied his espresso, then he said: ‘You ask Mr Seals to get you the information and the capsules and he dies. The newspaper reporter gets involved and she dies. Then you ask your Mr Hoggin for help and he dies. That’s a lot of coincidences.’

  ‘Where does the point come at which you stop believing in coincidence?’ she asked.

  Now he was eyeing the doughnut. ‘When you’re a kid growing up, you get to a certain stage where you stop believing in the tooth fairy and in Father Christmas. There’s no specific date, no mark drawn on a wall; it’s a gradual process, right? You realize, slowly, that things don’t make sense any more the way you’ve been perceiving them, and that’s when you start to figure out the truth.’

  ‘I think I’m at that point now,’ Monty said. ‘I think actually I’m way beyond it.’

  Conor picked up his snack and bit a chunk out of it, licking the oozing custard inside, and chewed for a moment. He swallowed, then held the doughnut out in front of her as if it were an exhibit. ‘See the glaze?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, a little surprised.

  ‘That’s made from the same gel Bendix Schere uses in its labs for testing DNA. They’re the largest manufacturers in the world of this gel.’

  She looked down at her own doughnut and grimaced. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘I’m not sure it looks so appetizing all of a sudden.’

  ‘Didn’t you know, Bendix Schere’s everywhere.’ He put the remaining portion of his doughnut back down on the plate and wiggled his fingers. ‘Little tentacles creeping out. They’re slowly working towards a monopoly on the world’s health. They’re already heading towards a monopoly on baby food. Here and there they’re making inroads into adult food.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Where do they stop?’