Salome sensed them first, ticking her head to the side as they came up in her peripheral vision while Abdelmalek pressed the elevator button. LeBlanc swept the hood overhead, but the cuffs jingled in his hand, and Abdelmalek ducked out of range at the last second. Whittaker heard the woman cry out—a sharp sound cut short—as he slammed her companion into the steel elevator door, pinning him to it with graceless weight. The Iranian was small but sinewy, surprisingly strong under pressure, but ultimately no match for Whittaker. The sounds of handcuffs ratcheting and the muffled vocalizations of a woman with not only a hood but also a hand over her mouth reassured him that LeBlanc had his half under control.
Whittaker dropped his own cuffs and hood into his jacket pocket and snaked his thick arms around Abdelmalek’s neck, locking him in a sleeper hold that kept him from turning to glimpse his assailant’s face, squeezing the man’s carotid artery until he blacked out.
Salome kicked at LeBlanc while Whittaker hoisted Abdelmalek’s unconscious body over his shoulder and carried him into the abandoned dentist’s suite before returning to fetch Salome, who had slumped to the floor like a sack of flour in a passive effort to make moving her more difficult. It wasn’t difficult for Whittaker. “Take the briefcase,” he told LeBlanc. “And her shoe.”
There was a fair chance the fortune-teller had heard something, but her door remained closed. Passing it, Whittaker was sure of only one thing: If Madam Gamal had seen this coming, she hadn’t warned her visitors.
* * *
LeBlanc checked Abdelmalek’s pulse while Whittaker tied him to the chair. The silk hood stirred where it covered the man’s nose and mouth, indicating shallow breathing. Once the prisoners were secure, Whittaker placed the briefcase on a countertop, popped the latches, and riffled through the papers. The woman, also hooded, was tied to a kitchen chair. Whittaker had turned her around to face a wall and pulled her hood up enough to tie a tight gag over her mouth. LeBlanc could see her hands hanging like claws through the gap in the chair behind her back, could see his handcuffs where they squeezed her wrists, blanching her dark skin milky white.
“Jeremy. Look at this.”
Whittaker held an ornately carved dagger in his sweaty mitts. LeBlanc’s stomach lurched at the sight of the blackwashed silver tentacles showing between the man’s hairy fingers. On the counter beside the open briefcase: Documents. Diagrams. Things he could focus his analytical mind on. That was good. It would ground him, maybe ward off the nausea. The struggle in the hall had been brief, but it had left him overheated and struggling to catch his breath. It was the stupid suits. Who wore suits in California in July? Especially when the only people they were likely to interact with would have bags over their heads. The idiocy of government work never ceased to amaze him.
He studied the spread of loose pages laid out on the Formica counter. Most were mimeographed copies of sketches, a bestiary of gods. One jumped out at him—the crustacean warrior they’d seen last night. Lung Crawthok. Some of the pages were originals on moldering paper. These bore images of marine monsters set against swathes of blue-black ink deeper than anything the mimeograph process could reproduce. SPEAR had encountered the material before on other Starry Wisdom documents. The lab in Boston identified it as a previously uncatalogued variety of cephalopod ink.
Whittaker held one of the mimeographed pages. He tapped a knobby finger against a diagram depicting a star made up of daggers surrounded by runes. “Some kinda weapon,” he said. “Can you decipher it?”
He looked at the runes and shook his head, then looked at the woman slumped in the kitchen chair. For all appearances, she might have been as unconscious as her companion, though he knew she wasn’t. He leaned close to Whittaker and whispered, “We have the case. We could take their money, too, and just leave them here with the door open. The fortune-teller will find them, cut them loose. They might take us for thieves.”
Whittaker grimaced. “This is an interrogation, pal. We didn’t blow the location just to scamper away. Get hard or get out.” Whittaker opened a cabinet and removed another attaché case. Its gleaming aluminum provided a striking contrast to the battered leather briefcase that lay gutted beside it. He scrolled through the combination lock and raised the lid to reveal a device that bore a passing resemblance to a clothes iron connected by a black wire to a battery box. The V43 Mineralight. He flicked a switch on the handle, causing a pool of violet light to spill over the countertop.
“Now we’re cooking with gas. Get to it, professor.”
LeBlanc fished his flip pad out of his jacket pocket. It was crumpled from the altercation in the hallway. He tossed it on the counter, found a blank sheet, and set about sweeping the light over the ink-stained page fragments. Hidden messages glowed white in the UV light. Boston had also identified the invisible ink used by a secret faction within the Starry Wisdom Church: A combination of blood and semen rendered visible by the wavelength the hand lamp designed for field fluorescence of gems and minerals projected.
The page fragments contained what appeared to be pieces of a prophecy. Whether they pertained to a series of events, or were pieces of a whole, was unclear.
At the hub of the wheel, on the hill soaked with blood
In the year nineteen, in the wake of the flood
The Haunter of the Dark shall arise
And ascend the stair to the ink-stained skies
Another page:
Those who would see must first hear the voice
Who suffer now will later rejoice
First comes the herald, the saint at the bath
Then follows the prophet of music and math
The third page revealed a single line and a set of coordinates.
The priest of the deep shall wake from his sleep: 47° 9′ S, 126° 43′ W
Reading over his shoulder, Whittaker grunted in disdain at the poetry. He opened a drawer and produced another, more primitive tool for extracting hidden information—a pair of pliers. “Come on. Help me get his stompers off.”
* * *
Abdelmalek jerked awake to find his arms and legs bound. He was in some kind of reclining chair, his head cupped by a firm support. But he was still in darkness. He blinked, his eyelids brushing against fabric, and remembered the hood. It smelled of mold and peppermint. Where had they brought him? How much time had passed since the ambush at the elevator? There was no way of knowing. It seemed unlikely he’d been out for long unless they’d drugged him, and how would he know if they had? A needle prick wouldn’t leave a sting. Was he even in the same town? The same state? He didn’t feel groggy or cotton-mouthed. Where was Salome? Where was the briefcase?
His shoes off, they removed his socks. How many of them were there? Did it even matter? He was bound to a chair. Even one man could do to him whatever he liked. But it was most likely two; the pair he’d seen lurking around Jack’s house. Some kind of law enforcement. The church had been under federal scrutiny for years, ever since the raid on their sister sect in Innsmouth.
“He’s awake,” a familiar voice said.
“We’ve been through your papers, Mr. Abdelmalek.” A gravely voice. Probably the big man. “Yes, we know who you are. We know you went to the oracle today looking for clarity on some big questions. Well, we have some big questions, too. It’s up to you how hard we will have to work to get answers, but we will get them.”
“Where is Salome?” he asked through the hood.
“She’s fine. Don’t you worry.”
A muffled groan reached his ears. She was here with him, wherever here was.
“I’m not a communist. I came to America for an education, to have a career.”
“You sided with communists in the uprising, but it’s your religious affiliation that concerns us.”
“The Starry Wisdom is a philosophy of peace—”
“Don’t give me that. You belong to an apocalyptic cult known as the Order of the Crawling Chaos.”
“My religious practices are protected by the first ame
ndment.”
“Not if they endanger others, they’re not. What are you and Jack Parsons working on? What’s your goal?”
The men had let go of his feet while the gravel-voiced one questioned him. Now he felt his right foot seized around the ankle. Cold metal brushed his big toe and a tool gripped the nail.
“We know you’re summoning dark gods. We know you’ve achieved partial manifestations. And we know that your lady friend has made that possible. It’s her voice, isn’t it? She can chant notes that you and Jack can’t. And it’s not just because she’s female. Isn’t that right? Marjorie Cameron engaged in sex magic with you perverts, but with her, you could only raise things in a mirror. Now, if you want to keep your toenails, you will answer my question, because I’m only going to ask it once. One question, one toenail. When I run out of toenails, we move on to teeth. What makes Salome special, and are there others like her?”
It was probably a bluff. Americans didn’t torture people. They had underestimated him, thinking he would fold at the first threat of pain. And he would never give them a reason to harm Salome or damage her voice. Her gift was genetic; it couldn’t be replicated. She was the closest the church had come to a tangible evocation in generations, thanks to Jack’s incense.
A heavy hand struck his face through the hood and he squealed like a whipped dog, more from surprise than pain. A watch ticked in his ear. “You have five seconds to answer.”
The five seconds elapsed. The sound of the watch faded. The pliers cracked his nail and he struggled to kick out, but the hand around his ankle was too tight. He tried kicking the pliers away with his other foot, but his calves were bound tightly together.
It was quick when it happened, the nail ripped out in a streak of white fire that tore through his body from toe to scalp as he screamed.
When the flare of pain faded enough to let other perceptions return, he became aware of the warm, slick sensation of blood running between his toes. He writhed in the chair to no avail as the pliers gripped the nail of the next toe.
“No. Wait…you don’t have to do this. You misunderstand what we are. We can talk about it…we can talk.”
“Then start talking, Abe. But only in answers to my questions. Or we’re gonna see if this little piggy goes wee-wee-wee all the way home.”
He was hyperventilating now, not drawing enough oxygen through the musty silk. Maybe he would pass out. He made a silent prayer to Nyarlathotep that he would. Nearby, he could hear Salome groaning through her gag.
“Don’t…please…” It was all he could get out.
“Question two: What is the Fire of Cairo? Is it a weapon?”
He let out a grunt.
“Yes or no is okay for starters. Is it a weapon?”
“Not like you think.”
“You don’t know what I think.” The pliers released and reclamped. This nail was smaller, shorter, harder to get a grip on. “Explain.”
“It’s not dangerous to people…only to gods.”
“And it’s a gold scarab?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
The muffled sounds from Salome became urgent, an incoherent warning.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know. Lost. It’s been lost for ages.”
“But you’re looking for it. Why is that?” His tormentor’s voice changed direction for an aside to his partner. “I think he’s withholding.” Then, directly again, “Why would you be seeking a god killer?”
“We preserve the old knowledge.”
“And if you found the scarab, would you preserve that, too? I don’t think so. If it’s what you say it is, I think you’d destroy it. But I don’t think you’ve suffered enough to sing true.”
The grip tightened. “Question three: What is the purpose of the black mirror?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking ab—AAAaagh!”
“Nine months ago, you removed it from the Starry Wisdom Church in Los Angeles and brought it to Jack Parsons. What is its purpose?”
Abdelmalek focused on his breathing. His racing heart made it difficult to slow the rhythm.
“What is the purpose of the black mirror?”
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Praise be to Nyarlathotep.
Pain exploded from his foot in jagged stars. He tasted blood from biting his tongue. The hood was tugged away from his mouth and someone squeezed the hinge of his jaw, forcing it open.
“I lied. We’re not waiting until we run out of toe nails.”
The tool burrowed between his lips and knocked against his teeth. He tasted blood and rust, bitter metal. Hands held his head as the pliers gripped a molar.
“What role does the Order of the Golden Bough play in your plans?”
Abdelmalek moaned around the tool, shaping the sound into something that resembled a desire to speak. Here, finally, was a question he could answer without betrayal. His tormentor removed the pliers. “No role. We have no connection.”
“Bullshit. We know a member of the order arrived at Parsons’ house last night. Are you training her to perform similar evocations in New York?” The tool whacked his temple through the hood. “Speak!”
“She’s just some student Jack met on the beach…”
“Bullshit. We tracked her from New York. I’m going to ask one more time: What is her role in your operation?”
The pliers penetrated his mouth again, fishing for a tooth. A jangling phone rang, reverberating off the walls in an adjacent empty room. The tool withdrew and the other man—the non-smoker—answered it.
“Yes?”
A pause. He could hear the heavy breathing of his tormenter beside him.
“Yes, sir. We have it. There were hidden inscriptions on the pages.”
Another pause for a question followed by an answer muttered softly. The handset clattered into the base. When the man spoke again, he was in the room addressing his partner. “Cut them loose. We’re supposed to let them go.”
“What? We’re just getting warmed up here. What did you say? That I’m not getting anywhere?”
“No. They just want the briefcase. No subjects in custody.”
“This isn’t custody. We’re not finished.”
“Take it up with the boss. We don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. Let’s pack this up.”
Abdelmalek heard a drawer slide open. A moment later a shadow fell over the dusky light that reached him in the hood and a needle pricked his neck. A deeper darkness fell quickly.
11
Something called to Catherine from the bookshelf, something magnetic and malign. It tugged gently at her blood in a way that reminded her of the meteorite at the museum. Only that wasn’t quite right. This felt more like standing in the cross draft of two open windows on an icy winter day. She focused on the sensation and tested its reach, walking away from the books, toward the workbench where Jack was measuring his powders. The link gradually weakened, then fell away entirely.
Jack showed no interest in which tomes she perused or which objects on the mantle she examined. He had given her free reign to explore the books and artifacts that covered the shelves. Among the hanging swords and knives that adorned the walls were statuettes of Egyptian gods and even a painted wood carving of an Aztec calendar, but all of these were the sorts of reproductions one could find in a tourist shop.
Nor were the books rare. There were interesting titles to be sure, but nothing truly antiquarian. Most had been published in England by Crowley. She hadn’t encountered many modern occult treatises before, so these were a curiosity. But despite Jack’s wealth, he hadn’t acquired any of the rare editions she’d found in the universities and museum libraries of New York. If he possessed a copy of the Mortiferum Indicium, he was keeping it well hidden.
She wondered about the chemical experiments he was engaged in. Testing the properties of his ingredients with solutions and tabs of paper that changed color on exposure. Measuring and mixing. Crushing with mortar and pestle. He claimed these were mor
e of his smoke powders—designed for scent and texture and intended to provide a physical medium for the manifestation of spiritual entities. In close proximity to the workbench, she idly wondered if a mistake on his part might cause an explosion. But her subtle senses told her that the real danger in the room was coming from the bookshelf, regardless of the mass-produced titles.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Jack said without looking up from his work.
Catherine stared at him until he met her eyes with a faint smile. “Candy always sensed when it was near,” he said. He tapped out a measure of some yellow powder onto a sheet of blue paper, then stepped away from the table and reached past her to pull a large, hardback from a shelf of mathematic textbooks. She had glossed over this shelf related to his scientific work, but when he opened the cover she saw the inside of the book was hollowed out, a secret compartment cut through the block of pages. It appeared to be filled with a bundle of white silk, which Jack now removed and unwrapped, revealing a disk of polished black glass. As he stepped toward her with it, a cold wave wafted through her. She recoiled, crossing her arms across her chest and cupping her elbows in her hands.
“Abdelmalek would have a heart attack if he knew I was showing it to you, but it called to you. That means you’re meant to look into its depths. It wants to show you something.”
“I’m not sure if I want to see. I just…I don’t feel well, Jack.”
He studied her face, nodding at what he saw. “It’s powerful. You need time to get acclimated to it.”
“Put it away. Please.”
But he made no move to cover the black glass. Catherine resisted the urge to look into the obsidian void, but could not avoid the sensation that it looked into her.
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