Smoke and Dagger

by Douglas Wynne

“I didn’t say that. I believe what I see. But I think categories like gods and devils are far too simple for a complex universe.”

  “You believe what you see. Have you seen one of these entities made visible?”

  “Visible? Yes. Maybe not physical, but certainly visible. They inhabit a dimension adjacent to ours. Close enough to catch a glimpse. My fear is that if Jack is allowed to continue combining his science with the occult lore of the Starry Wisdom, they will achieve a physical manifestation. One that can sink its teeth and claws into us.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter what you call them if they’re hungry. Gods, demons, predators…”

  He nodded. “We spent a lot of money and manpower during the war trying to understand what our enemies wanted, what they were thinking, what they might do next. Now we have people in the Starry Wisdom Church. I shouldn’t tell you that, but we do. On both coasts. From what they’ve gathered, the belief within the church is that these entities ruled the Earth before the rise of man and they will rule it again after his fall. But those who serve them shall be granted eternal life.”

  “Sounds like gods and devils after all,” Catherine said. She went to the fridge and removed a pitcher of iced tea she’d made after settling in the previous day. She poured two glasses and handed one to LeBlanc. It was probably unwise, to trust him, but there was no denying that he was not what she’d expected from the strong arm of the government. “What do you think they are? What do you think they want?”

  LeBlanc thanked her for the glass and took a drink, then set it on the kitchen table. He adjusted his tie, took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and patted his forehead. “In December 1946 Parsons employs Enochian magic to summon an elemental mate. At first, it seems that all he managed to summon is a violent windstorm. But in the weeks following, as he continues the rituals, he and his housemates experience loud knocks and raps, a power outage, and apparitions of floating lights. At the climax of the operation, Marjorie Cameron shows up on his doorstep.”

  “Were you watching his house at the time?”

  LeBlanc shrugged. “The place was Grand Central Station for Bohemians. There was always someone passing through, someone who’d been exiled like you are now. Some jilted lover willing to talk. Anyway, he and Cameron take things to the next level with rituals to create what they call a moon child: A spiritual incarnation resulting from sex magic, but not necessarily the physical offspring of the participants. Jack expects this to result in the birth of the goddess he calls Babalon, somewhere in the world, sometime soon. A dark goddess incarnate, destined to usher in the apocalypse and end the Christian era. And you see, that’s the terminology my partner gets hung up on. But consider this: Over the next two years, the floodgates are opened for strange aerial phenomena. In forty-six, we get reports of ghostly aircraft over Denmark and a blue orb in the sky over Portugal. In forty-seven, we investigate strange matter that rained from the sky following similar sightings at Maury Island in Washington State. You may have even read in the papers about the airman who crashed his P-51 Mustang chasing what appeared to be a sentient entity in a steep climb that caused him to black out over Madisonville, Kentucky. Within the government, that one was attributed to a classified type of test balloon, but when I picture Thomas Mantell rocketing into the stratosphere, I imagine him in pursuit of a thing like a great billowing jellyfish.”

  “They called it a UFO,” Catherine said. “People think they’re from Mars, like in the Orson Welles radio drama. What does any of that have to do with the occult?”

  “Parsons is a dreamer, but he is also an engineer, a practical man who has learned hard lessons about how difficult it will be to even attain the moon. He knows that if we share the universe with other intelligent life forms, it makes more sense to call them to us, to open a door in space and time, through which they might enter.”

  “The chants and incense.”

  “An apple pie left on the windowsill.”

  “The sounds they made…I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “That’s mostly Salome’s contribution. She has a genetic gift, but it’s incomplete. There hasn’t been a human larynx capable of properly sounding those mantras in over a thousand years. Even with the aid of a choir, she can’t achieve a full physical manifestation.”

  “But with Jack’s smoke as a medium?”

  “They hope the combination will be enough if it’s employed when the membrane between worlds is thin.”

  “The solstice. I saw it marked on a calendar in Jack’s kitchen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it work?”

  “I don’t know. If it does, we may pass a point of no return. If they bring the right entity through, then it could call the others. A chain reaction. That’s why I’m here. My partner might not agree, but we need your help to sabotage the ritual.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. If Salome is so important, and you know when they’re going to do it, why don’t you just detain her until the time passes? And don’t tell me the constitution is an obstacle. I know what you already did to them, and that was just for information.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “You sure do blame a lot on your partner when he’s not around. Did he torture her, too? I heard you took them together.”

  LeBlanc shook his head, his eyes fixed on a blank space on the table.

  “She’s pregnant,” Catherine said. That brought his eyes back to her with fresh intensity.

  “How do you know? Did Jack tell you?”

  “He let it slip in front of me.”

  “Abdelmalek must have been pissed.”

  “He’s pretty good at hiding it, but yes, I think he was. Why the secrecy about that of all things?”

  LeBlanc had drained his glass of iced tea. Now he picked it up by the rim and absently rotated it, turning over his answer in his mind before giving it. “There’s a belief within the church…a prophesy, about a child born to a mother with a gift for the voice, conceived by her while invoking the goddess. According to what we’ve learned from church documents and surveillance of the current oracle, we know that the child is expected to be born with a full voice.”

  “The ability to produce a physical presence.”

  “With no smoke and mirrors. Abdelmalek thinks Salome’s child will fulfill the prophecy.”

  “And Jack?”

  “He disagrees. It conflicts with his own apocalyptic vision, specifically the work he and Marjorie Cameron did to bring their Babalon into the world. Remember, he only recently discovered the Starry Wisdom. He has a lot to offer them, but he already had a magical worldview. He’s adapting quickly because the results they’re getting are so spectacular. But he’s not willing to swallow the whole doctrine. I think his disillusionment with Crowley made him a little more discriminating.”

  “What does SPEAR think? Is the child a threat? What do you think?”

  “Me? I don’t know. I try to remain agnostic about the fine points. As for the organization…it’s split. Some think preventing the pregnancy is the only thing that matters.”

  “And you could have done that. Today.”

  “I wouldn’t allow it. Not yet. Not without more certainty. You asked why we don’t just detain her on the solstice. My superiors are debating that. I think we should. It would be the safest course of action.”

  “But…?”

  “There’s another faction that wants to let things progress just far enough for us to assess the threat.”

  “That sounds risky.” Catherine almost asked him what he knew about the scarab, the Fire of Cairo. But she reminded herself that she was navigating uncharted waters. LeBlanc was disarming, willing to admit where he was ignorant, doubtful or regretful, and they had fallen easily into the rhythm of a speculative conversation between colleagues. She had to be wary of that. Anything a secret agent said was likely designed to elicit a response or manipulate her relationships to the other players involved. Negotiating the tensions between the Golden
Bough and the Starry Wisdom was perilous enough. Adding a spy agency to her calculations made it downright disorienting. “What do you think their chances of success are with Jack’s help?”

  He sighed. “When Parsons and his cohorts first approached Cal Tech about their rocketry project, they were laughed at, considered cranks. A few years later, he’s building engines for Navaho missiles to deliver atomic bombs to the Soviets. Only a fool would underestimate him.”

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Get back in with him. Keep your eyes open. Who knows—an opportunity to sabotage the ceremony may present itself.”

  “And you’re going to put your faith in that? The chance that a college girl you just met might see a way to prevent a deadly experiment. I’m no hero. And now I’ve been exiled.”

  “You’ll get back in.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You have more charm than you know.”

  “I’ll need more than charm to get near their ritual.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and removed the silver dagger she’d first seen in Abdelmalek’s briefcase. “They’ll be wanting that back,” he said. “I expect it will serve as your key to the castle.”

  “And if they suspect I have an alliance with you? Abdelmalek has the black eyes of a shark. I don’t doubt he’s capable of murder.”

  LeBlanc placed a second silver weapon on the table beside the firs—a small, chrome handgun. “Keep it on you as a last resort. But don’t worry. We’ll be watching.”

  13

  Days passed. Catherine swam in the ocean and ate in cafes. She studied the silver dagger and tried to translate the hasty notes she’d made from fragments of the scarab and dagger pages, but her efforts brought her no closer to the knowledge of where in the world the amulet was. To fill in the blanks, she would need to develop the film in the Minox camera Hildebrand had given her, but she wanted to wait until she was back in New York before doing that. Undeveloped, the film was safe from the prying eyes of any who searched her. Still, the problem nagged at her. The Golden Bough had sent her to California to learn one thing, and thus far the knowledge had eluded her while she was entangled in a web of other players. It reminded her of the Rumi poem. It is as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do.

  She watched the sun set on the Pacific and gave Jack time to cool off, time to turn his attention to the imminent problem he now faced. His powder might be effective in combination with Salome’s voice, but only for a brief window of time when the stars were aligned. According to Agent LeBlanc, there was one other advantage the Order of the Crawling Chaos had included in their calculations for the solstice: the Talon of Nyarlathotep. A dagger sharp enough to rend the veil when the membrane between worlds was thin, facilitating the emergence of a Great Old One. If she presented it to Jack on the day of the solstice, he would have little time to reflect on his stroke of fortune. She handled the gun, unloading and reloading it, making her hand and eye familiar with it. She did not see LeBlanc again, and the phone on her bedside table did not ring.

  On July 21, she rose at dawn, showered, and dressed in canvas slacks and a black shirt. She tied her hair back and hid the revolver in a knee high stocking. Then she wrapped the dagger in a scarf, tucked it into her shoulder bag with her note pad and pencils, and set out for the concrete castle.

  * * *

  Salome opened the door, holding a Turkish cigarette in one lazy hand. It was Catherine’s first opportunity to see her up close. She wasn’t wearing as much makeup as she had on the night of the ritual, but her full lips and long eyelashes still dominated a face that was not as blemish free as it had appeared by firelight from the balcony. Her hair was swept into the same high wave as before and she wore a green silk kimono over a simple black dress. If she was indeed pregnant, she wasn’t showing yet. Salome cocked an eyebrow at Catherine, then called over her shoulder. “Jack. Someone to see you.” She twirled away from the door without a word of welcome, leaving it hanging open on its hinges, a passive invitation. Catherine had set one foot over the threshold when Jack appeared in an oil-stained apron, a pair of green-tinted safety goggles hoisted up into the wild nest of his curly black hair.

  His boyish face darkened at the sight of her and he moved with sudden purpose, a leather-gloved hand reaching for the oak slab to slam it in her face.

  “Wait!” Catherine reached into her bag and thrust the silk-wrapped dagger into his extended hand. She watched uncertainty dawn as he registered the weight and shape of the object. Then he scanned the street and ushered her into the house, closing the door behind her before greedily unwrapping it.

  “A peace offering,” she said.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “The agent who took it came to interrogate me as well. I convinced him that the Golden Bough sent me here to interfere with your solstice ritual and that I needed the dagger to do it.”

  “And he just handed it over and let you go.”

  “What I told him was close to the truth, so he bought it. ”

  Jack wrapped the scarf around the dagger again and looked her in the eye. “I don’t know what to make of you, Catherine. You were sent here to spy on us. You’re not denying it?”

  “I told you already. After seeing what you can do, I want to see more. I want to be a part of it. Let me in. Let me help. You’re doing things they can only dream of in New York.”

  He glanced at Salome, perched on a leather couch and painting runes on her nails with indigo polish. She seemed so intently focused on the task that there was no doubt in Catherine’s mind she was listening to their every word. Jack ran his hand through his hair and nodded to himself, then spun around and took a cigarette from a pack on his worktable. The space was neater than when Catherine had last seen it. She wondered whether he’d cleaned up his materials because his project was finished or stashed them somewhere in anticipation of a raid. For a moment, he paced the Persian rug, drawing deep lungfuls of smoke and burning the cigarette down to a long plug of ash before stamping it out on the mantle. Then, with the quick motions of one who has committed to a course of action and wants to execute it before he can change his mind, he swept the rug aside to reveal the encircled triangle painted on the floor. Catherine’s eye was immediately drawn to something she hadn’t noticed when she first saw the symbol through smoke and shadow from the balcony: A brass ring attached to what could only be a trap door.

  Salome waved her freshly painted nails to dry them and gave Jack an enigmatic look—not a warning. An inside joke?

  Jack slid a finger through the ring and pulled the plank door up, setting it down on the rolled up rug. Stairs led down to a basement lit with paltry electric light. He picked up the wrapped dagger from where he’d set it on the floor and started down the stairs. “Wait here,” he said as his head sank below the floor.

  Muffled voices droned from the basement. Catherine couldn’t make out the words, but the tone of the other man told her all she needed to know as it moved from incredulous to combative before hushing again under Jack’s mellifluous persuasions.

  “Catherine,” Jack called. “Come down.”

  She descended the steep stairs. The air tasted of mold. A dim room came into view. Her sense was that it ran most of the length of the house, maybe farther, but the bulb suspended above the workbench where Abdelmalek sat only reached a close circumference before giving way to the vague suggestion of shelving units and objects draped with linen. The slow, steady echo of water dripping into a puddle reached her ears from somewhere farther off, reinforcing her sense of a larger space.

  Abdelmalek leered up at her with a smile—a crooked thing underpinned by pain he was too proud to show. Laid out on the bench in front of him was the body of a rocket in several pieces—a copper tube with steel fins, a canister that might have been an exposed solid fuel engine, and a cone propped upright in the sort of wire rack that might be us
ed to hold test tubes. A jar of what could only be Jack’s incense powder sat beside the cone, the handle of a measuring spoon poking out of it. If she didn’t know about the mystical aspect of their plans, she would have thought he was packing an explosive shell with black powder.

  Beside the disassembled rocket lay the dagger. Abdelmalek laid a hand on the antique silver hilt. “You made the right choice,” he said. “The only choice with a future, anyway. How far did you get in the Golden Bough?”

  “Neophyte.”

  “You believe her, Jack? They sent a Neophyte to infiltrate us?” He laughed, poured another scoop of powder into the rocket cone, then used the blade of the dagger to level it off.

  “It makes sense,” Jack said. “If she was found out, she couldn’t give up the passwords and gestures of the upper grades.”

  “We have infiltrated their ranks as well,” Abdelmalek said. “Who was your sponsor, Hildebrand?”

  Catherine nodded.

  Abdelmalek sneered. “Such a self-righteous crusader for the light. What a hypocrite.”

  “How?”

  He waved his hand as if shooing a fly. “They believe in the nobility of mankind. They believe that man is evolving to godhood, or haven't they told you that yet? They claim to be the progenitors of an ancient lineage of priest-kings who guard a secret seed of enlightenment, a seed of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which will one day be unlocked by the power of science to usher in an age of peace. But it’s the same old Christian lie: Man is the favored son of a benevolent creator and deserves dominion over all life on earth. They worship the light!” He laughed. “Did you see what happened four years ago when man unleashed the power of the sun on Japan to end the war? Left to his own devices, man will destroy all life on earth.” His words slurred slightly and she wondered if he had been drinking or using painkillers to deal with what the agents had done to him.

  Catherine didn’t know if his was an accurate portrayal of the order’s inner doctrine. She’d read enough to know that the esoteric teachings of the Golden Bough were something along these lines, but did the Starry Wisdom really have members who had infiltrated the second gate?