by R. L. King
Stone waited for him to separate from the deplaning crowd, then stepped forward.
Beal paused, scanning the area a bit owlishly. His bright-eyed gaze settled for a moment on Stone and then moved on.
“Mr. Beal?”
Beal jumped a little as his attention focused back on Stone, taking in his black Adicts T-shirt, jeans, and Doc Martens. “Oh! Dr. Stone! I’m so sorry. I thought you’d be—”
“Older? Yes, I get that a lot.” Stone gave him an encouraging smile and reached out his hand. “Shall I take that for you? I assume you’ve got a checked bag?”
Beal jerked the case back as if Stone had just tried to wrench it from his grasp, then grinned self-consciously. “Oh, no. I’m sorry—I hope you’ll understand, no offense intended, but I never let this out of my hands.” He held it up. “This represents about ten years’ work, so I’m a bit protective of it. And yes, I do have a checked bag.” His grin widened, and he chuckled. “I’d be happy to let you carry that for me, if you’re so inclined.”
They picked up Beal’s bag (an old-fashioned, hard-sided thing that looked almost as elderly as he did) and were soon headed back down 101 toward Palo Alto. Beal kept his briefcase nestled protectively between his legs as he settled back in his seat. “So,” he said, “I’m very interested to hear about how you came to be researching these symbols, Dr. Stone. They’re quite obscure—apart from Patricia, I thought perhaps I was the only living person in the world who even knew about them, let alone cared.”
“I don’t know how much it’s been in the news in Los Angeles, but perhaps you might have heard of a recent series of murders in this area?”
Beal’s eyes widened. “The so-called Bay Area Butcher? Oh, yes, of course I’ve heard.” He shuddered. “I heard they even had one at your campus yesterday. Scary stuff, from the sound of it. But what’s that got to do with an ancient, forgotten language?”
“The police think the murderer is associated with the occult in some way, so one of the detectives called me in as an expert a short time back. All the murder scenes so far have included various inscriptions written in those sigils. So my research has been focused on trying to decipher them, in a hope that they might reveal something about the murderer’s motives.”
Beal’s expression of astonished surprise was almost comical on his cheerful, tanned face. “You can’t be serious. Someone is committing murders and leaving these symbols at the scene? Have you had any success in translating them?”
“Not yet,” Stone said. He didn’t want to reveal anything until after he’d heard Beal’s take on the matter, especially since he suspected the old man would probably hound him unmercifully to share his sources. Researchers, especially those who were fanatical about obscure subjects, tended to get like that when presented with the possibility of new reference material. Starving lions with fresh deer carcasses would be easier to discourage. “That’s why I was so glad when Patricia mentioned your research. You’re a member of the Rosicrucian Order, yes?”
“Oh, yes. Have been for years, though to be honest I haven’t really had any involvement with it for a long time.” He clutched the handles of his briefcase. “But this is fascinating. Do you realize what it implies?”
Stone glanced over. “What’s that?”
“Well…I just mentioned that I thought I was the only person in the world who was interested in this language. Now, in less than two days, I’ve come upon not just one, but two others. You, and this horrible murderer.” He raised impish eyebrows. “Unless, of course, you’re the murderer, Dr. Stone. Perhaps I should be concerned?”
“You should never get into cars with strange men, Mr. Beal,” Stone replied in the same amused tone. “But no, I’m not the murderer. I’ve got solid alibis, and besides, I didn’t even know about these symbols until the police showed them to me. But then, I could say the same about you, couldn’t I?”
Beal chuckled. “I’m hardly the bloodthirsty type. But you’re welcome to keep an eye on me for signs of nefarious behavior.”
“I plan to do that,” Stone assured him. “But for now, I’d very much like to get started. How long will you need to get settled in?”
“Oh, I can do that later. We can get started now if you like, if you don’t mind dropping me off at my hotel later today.”
“Absolutely. Classes were cancelled today due to yesterday’s events, so we can go up to campus, if that’s all right. My place is a bit small to spread out.”
“Perfect,” Beal said.
Stone drove up to the Stanford campus. Though it was considerably lighter on traffic than usual due to the cancellation of classes, cars and students still choked the roads. He parked near a small library with a series of large, private study rooms and led Beal inside to one of them. “I’ll be along in a moment—I need to make a couple of quick phone calls.”
Once the door was closed behind Beal, he pulled out his mobile phone and called Flores at the San Jose police department. “Captain, thank you for the photos. I plan to take a look at them today. I know I signed something promising not to show them to anyone else, but I’ve found an expert on the language depicted in the sigils. Is it all right if I show them to him?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I didn’t give you the crime-scene photos, just the symbols, so it should be okay. And let me know what you find out.”
“I will. Thank you, Captain.”
Next, he called Jason. There was no answer, so he left a message. “Jason, you said you wanted to help with my little problem up here—can you check with Stan and see if either of you can track down what happened to the old box I described before, the one connected with the Dennis Avila suicide? My sources up here aren’t getting anywhere, and I really need to locate it. Thanks.”
When he went back inside the room, Beal had his case open and was spreading out a series of notebooks, stacks of clipped papers, and books across the table’s roomy surface. He caught glimpses of diagrams including sigils similar to those at the murder scenes.
Beal looked up. “Everything okay?” he asked brightly. “Ready to dive in?”
“I am. But a question first.”
“Yes?”
“You mentioned on the phone that you have a fascinating historical story to tell me? About something that happened around here, I think you said. I’d like to hear that story first.”
“Oh!” Beal’s eyes lit up like a kid who’d just been given the key to a combination toy and candy shop. He actually wriggled a bit in his chair. “Yes! I don’t think it’s relevant to your murders, but it’s very interesting nonetheless, in a fanciful sort of way. Very sensational. Remember I told you before that some people thought the language was demonic in origin? My story has to do with a demon who might have used it.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Stone forced himself to keep his expression neutral except for a skeptical eyebrow raise, but it wasn’t easy. “A demon.”
“Yes! Hold on, let me find the details so I don’t get them wrong.” Beal waved him to a chair and began rifling through his papers and books. “Here we go. According to what I have of the story, it happened sometime in the eighteen-seventies, up near Milpitas. I don’t have nearly as much detail as I’d like, mind you, but apparently this demon appeared in the area and began corrupting the local citizens.” He pointed at one of the papers. “If this can be believed, it even managed to get its hooks into a prominent clergyman, who it recruited to help it subvert the flock.”
“May I see that?”
Beal pushed the page across the table. “This went on, apparently, for several months: perversion, unexplained grisly murders, torture, missing children—and then it just…stopped. That’s the part I’m particularly interested in, but I probably won’t ever find out the real story. The rumor of what happened is even more fanciful: that another priest, an underling of the one under the demon’s influence, began to suspect someth
ing was up, and combined forces with another man who was said to possess magical powers. Together, they vanquished the demon and sent it back to Hell.”
“Magical powers,” Stone said. He didn’t look up from the paper he was examining.
“I know, I know! You have to understand—well, of course you understand, given your area of expertise—that people believed in magic back then, and a lot of them were fairly suggestible. Of course there wasn’t a demon at all. My working theory is that the corrupted priest had some sort of profound mental illness, and the other priest and his accomplice with “magic powers” simply lured him out somewhere, killed him, and buried him where no one would find him.”
He shrugged. “But as I said, we’ll probably never know. I found one writing that claims the priest’s friend wrote up an account of how they vanquished the demon, and passed it to his own son, who then passed it to his son. At that point, though, it disappeared. The rumor was that he hid it in a place where only magic could find it. Which is to say, he never really did it at all,” he finished with a grin. “What probably happened, if such an account ever existed, was that it was lost when the grandson was called back to Europe and perished in a shipwreck on the way. Keep the masses guessing, Dr. Stone. The first rule of getting away with anything. Anyway, that’s my little story. Shall we get started? I’d love to see your research, and I’m sure you’re just as interested in mine.”
“Yes, of course.”
Stone lost track of time as he and Beal produced and compared the fruits of their research. Stone started by showing Beal the sigils from the crime-scene photos—all but the ones that featured his name and the ones from the most recent murders, laying them out in the table in chronological order.
“What do you make of them?” he asked. It would be a good test of Beal’s bona fides—he should be able to translate at least some of the symbols if he’d truly been researching them for years.
“Hmm…” The old man examined them for several minutes, sorted through a sheaf of his own papers and an old book, and then jotted something down on a notepad. “Well,” he said at last, “I can never be completely sure, of course, but the gist of these messages seems to be that the writer is trying to summon a particular demon, and he’s gathering something together to help him do it. I can’t quite make out what he’s gathering. Something from the bodies, perhaps? I should be able to give you more if I have more time to compare these against my reference materials.” His eyes widened. “Oh, my! When I told you the story about the demon, I just meant it to be an interesting little side anecdote. But could it be possible the murderer actually knows something about the legend?”
“It’s certainly sounding that way,” Stone said. “Have you got anything else on it? Anything at all? And also, can you tell me where you got this information? If you got it from there, it’s possible the murderer did too.”
“The story is actually why I got interested in the language in the first place,” Beal said. “I found it in some papers in a special collection the Rosicrucians maintain—a collection that’s not available to the general public. The original “magician,” along with his son and grandson, were all members of the Order.”
“Do you have names? Anything in the records about them?”
Beal rifled through his papers again. “The original man’s name was Robert Goodwin. His son was also Robert, and the grandson was Thomas. Aside from the stories about the business with the demon, not much is known of Robert Senior. Robert Junior apparently led a dull and respectable life, since I haven’t found anything written about him other than his name in the list of Order membership. Thomas was one of the financial backers of the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose—but there were a lot of those. The interest in Egyptian lore and artifacts was quite high back in the early part of the twentieth century.”
“Any descendants?” Stone asked. He struggled to keep his voice dry, as if these were nothing more than vaguely interesting bits of information he was asking about.
“No. He never married. By the few accounts I’ve seen, he was a bit of an…odd duck. He was quite devoted to his work, and more than one rumor hints that he might have been homosexual, which is a reasonable explanation for his lack of marriage. As I said, he was killed shortly after the Museum was built, lost in a shipwreck when he was called to Europe for some urgent business.”
“So you think he took this document with him?” Stone asked.
Beal shrugged. “No idea. It was never mentioned. It could have gone down with him, or been lost to the mists of time as often happens when someone dies without leaving heirs. Most of his assets went to the Order, I believe, but I never found any evidence of it when I lived here and was doing my research.” He smiled and sorted a series of clipped-together stacks of papers, shoving one across the table. “This is all very interesting, but not very scholarly, I’m afraid. I was hoping to spend a bit more time on the structure of the language. This is everything I have on the Goodwin family and the demon story. There might be a few more bits and pieces you might find interesting or useful. You’re welcome to make a copy for your own use, but I wonder if we might get back to—”
“Of course,” Stone said. “You’ll have to forgive me—right now I’m more focused on the murders than on studying the sigils for academic purposes. But you’ve certainly given me some things to think about, so I’ll take you up on that and study these later. In fact, we might be able to combine our two areas of interest to start with, if you don’t mind.” He produced the last crime-scene photo, the one from the Stanford murders. “This is the most recent collection of sigils, from the murders yesterday. I just got them this morning, and I haven’t had a chance to examine them closely yet. Perhaps you might have some insights.”
Beal took the photo and studied it. “Hmm…” he said after a few minutes. “This is very interesting indeed. Some of it is similar to the others, but this whole section here is different.”
“Exactly,” Stone said. “I’d already worked out the basic thrust of the others—I came to the same conclusion you did—but this new bit doesn’t have much in common with those. I was planning to spend the day studying it when you called me this morning.”
Beal held up a finger. “Shh, shh, please. Give me a little time. Oh, this is fascinating. If you wouldn’t mind—”
“I’ll shut up and leave you alone,” Stone said, chuckling. He was no stranger to the demeanor of every academic who’d suddenly been presented with an interesting puzzle in his field of study. “Just let me know if you get anything.” He pulled the sheaf of papers Beal had given him closer and began reading.
He’d gotten through a careful perusal of about half the pages when Beal put his pen down. “Very interesting!”
“You’ve got something?” Stone leaped up and hurried around the table.
“Yes, I think so. Some of it doesn’t make sense to me, but perhaps it will to you.” He pointed at the part Stone had recognized from the previous scenes. “This is the same sort of message: gathering together something from the bodies, part of the whole, invoking something…but this—” He pointed at the new section. “This makes it sound as if he’s completed what he was doing. Again, it’s very imprecise, but something like, ‘Now the body is complete, and I can begin my true work without further interruption.’ Something like that. And then this bit here says something like, ‘You won’t be able to hide from me, and your life will feed my workings.’” He shook his head. “I’d swear he’s referring to a particular person, rather than some generic enemy, but I don’t see any names in here that indicate who he’s talking about. Do you? Have I missed something, or are there bits you haven’t shown me? Regardless, he’s quite emphatic in his words.”
Stone stared at the sigils, gripping the back of Beal’s chair.
So the last two body parts were the end—Archie had what he needed to complete his earthly body.
And now that he was
here, or would be here soon, it was no mystery to Stone about who he was referring to in the next stage in his plans.
Beal’s demon legend had better contain the key he was looking for, because Archie was coming for him, and he needed to be ready for it.
Or even better, get to Archie before the demon got to him.
Chapter Forty-Three
Stone finally managed to excuse himself two hours later, citing appointments he needed to keep. Beal seemed content to chatter on about his findings on the language, his research into its possible origins, and other related topics that Stone had to fight hard not to nod off in the middle of. He didn’t care about Beal’s ideas regarding where the language came from and what its purpose might be—he already knew that, and every minute he didn’t spend trying to track Archie down was one more minute the demon would have to solidify his plans.
He dropped Beal off at his hotel around three p.m. “I’ll be here for at least tonight,” the old man said. “Possibly longer, if you think we can get any further with our collaboration.” He gripped Stone’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Thank you so much, Dr. Stone! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me with your help. I was very much afraid my research had reached a dead end, and now here you come like a little gift from the gods to spur me on my way! If I can be of any further help to you in trying to trace your murderer, please, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll stay as long as I need to.”
“Thank you, Mr. Beal. I appreciate it. For now, if you think of anyone else who might have shown any interest in this language—perhaps someone who contacted you in the past, or others you’ve run across in your search—please let me know.” Despite his lack of interest in listening to Beal prattle on about his scholarly findings, he didn’t feel entirely comfortable leaving the man on his own, but there was no helping it. He couldn’t exactly ward the hotel room against Archie and his minions. He’d just have to do his best to get what he needed from Beal and get him out of the area as fast as possible.
