A Weaving of Ancient Evil

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  “Very noble,” Stock said sourly.

  He was finding it hard to get a grip on his emotions. He should be feeling elated now. When it was first suggested to him that there was a possibility Frank could be brought back he’d been euphoric. That was a little over a year ago. Then the scepticism set in and he had left the matter alone. He’d supported the Church of the Divine Light financially at Marlene’s insistence, but had long regarded them as cranks. It was only over the last two months his scepticism had abated.

  According to Leon Cooperman, Marlene should be dead. Every day she survived confounded Cooperman more. He had been against Stock bringing her home from the hospital, and almost apoplectic when Stock announced that the only nursing care she was going to receive would come from the Sisters of the Divine Light. Cooperman had been persistent, and to finally quieten him down Stock had allowed him daily visits and the pain reducing shots of morphine for Marlene.

  Now, it seemed to Randolph Stock, that Marlene’s condition was actually improving. Of course, Cooperman disputed this, as did Caroline. They thought it was just an old man’s fancy, his inability to face up to the fact the wife he cherished was soon to be taken from him. But Stock knew differently. On the times he went to sit with her he would hold her hand, and just lately, instead of her small withered hand lying inside his like a dead bird, she’d actually been holding back, gripping his fingers weakly. And there was a light in her eyes when she looked at him, a vital spark that had been absent for so long. Randolph Stock was now beginning to believe strongly that if the ministrations of the Church of the Divine Light could bring about that much improvement in his wife’s terminal condition, then they may, just may be able to substantiate other, more outlandish claims.

  He knew that if there was only one chance in ten million that his son could be returned to him then he had to take it. So why now did he feel so hostile to the fat man in the white robe who went by the unlikely name of Brother Simon? He should be feeling grateful to him. Randolph Stock realized with a shock that gratitude was a feeling he hadn’t felt for years. He’d forgotten how to express it.

  But there was another reason. He didn’t like Brother Simon. He didn’t like the way the fat man sat opposite him, sweating like a pig and wiping his jowly face with the sleeve of his robe. He didn’t like the way the man always smiled, as if his lips had been glued into position. And he didn’t like him because he didn’t trust him any more than he would trust a sleeping rattlesnake. Over the course of his business life he’d learned to assess people quickly and accurately, and there was something about Brother Simon that just didn’t hang right, and it wasn’t only his white robe.

  “You’re a surprising man, Mr. Stock,” Brother Simon said.

  “Oh, why?”

  Brother Simon adjusted himself in the chair again. “Because you are a very shrewd business man, you must be to have reached the position you now occupy. And yet not once during the discussions we’ve been having over the last two months have you asked what the terms would be.”

  Randolph Stock looked at him neutrally. “As I’m sure you are aware, I’m a very rich man, and I’m well aware that your church isn’t a charitable institution. So far the nursing care for my wife has cost in excess of four hundred thousand dollars. I’m quite prepared to double that figure to have my son restored to me.”

  “Admirable,” Brother Simon said. “But, my dear Mr. Stock, while your donations towards our church have been gratefully accepted, Dr Romodon had instructed me to tell you that he feels we can no longer impinge on your generosity.”

  “You mean this is going to cost me nothing?”

  Brother Simon laughed. He had an irritating laugh, like a car that refuses to start. “Forgive me, I have unintentionally misled you. There will be a cost. We have a number of overheads that have to be met, and I’m sure you’ll agree that four hundred thousand dollars is a small sum to pay to see your beloved wife now on the path to a complete recovery.”

  “How can I believe you?”

  A frown creased Brother Simon’s brow but was soon absorbed by a layer of fat. “But surely you have seen for yourself that she is slowly recovering. The sisters have been most diligent in informing me of any change in your wife’s condition, however slight. And I must tell you that Dr Romodon has been told of the improvement and he too is delighted.”

  “Granted she does seem stronger, but Dr Cooperman…”

  Brother Simon raised his hand. “Please, Mr. Stock. Dr Cooperman is a man of science, and where science and faith meet there is always bound to be conflict. Science is the arrogance of ignorance. Anything that cannot be explained away under laboratory conditions is treated with scepticism. Why only the other evening I was watching a television program where a team of scientists were trying to explain away the phenomena of spontaneous human combustion, by giving very plausible rational explanations, but ultimately declaring that there was no such thing. I must say, I could have been swayed by their argument had I not witnessed the self-immolation of a holy man in Tibet. He caught fire and burned to cinders within an hour, and there was no outside cause of ignition, in fact he was sitting in the middle of a deserted temple. Only Dr Romodon and I were present to witness the occurrence, but I swear on everything that is holy that the man simply caught fire spontaneously. So you see, you shouldn’t believe everything Dr Cooperman tells you.”

  Randolph Stock sat unmoved. He firmly believed that seeing was believing.

  Brother Simon smiled. “I see I haven’t convinced you. You must try to rid your mind of all preconceived ideas of illness and death. There is a phrase they use in the west; it’s all in the mind. Well our philosophy supports this. So much that happens to the physical body is dictated by the mind and the spirit. Let me give you a demonstration. Quite crude, I’m afraid, but it might help convince you.” He made a small beckoning gesture and one of the hooded figures came from behind his chair to stand next to him.

  “Take off your hood, sister, if you would,” Brother Simon said.

  The hood was thrown back and Randolph Stock stared up into the face of an extraordinarily pretty young girl. She couldn’t have been any older than Paula, his granddaughter. She had a pale European face, with a finely chiselled nose and expressive green eyes. The only off key feature about her was that her head was completely shaved. With hair, Stock decided, she would have been stunning to look at.

  Brother Simon was watching Stock intently. “Please would you roll back the sleeve of your robe, sister?”

  The young girl obeyed, revealing a long white forearm. The fine downy hair was light to the point of being almost invisible.

  “Now if you please, Mr. Stock, your cigar.”

  “My what?” Stock stared at the Havana between his fingers. He’d completely forgotten it was there and there was an inch of ash on its end, but still it smouldered.

  “Please, Mr. Stock,” Brother Simon said and reached out to take it.

  Randolph Stock flicked the ash into a brass ashtray and handed the Havana across to him.

  Brother Simon smiled. “Now, please observe.” He blew on the smouldering end of the cigar until it was glowing a fierce red, then he took hold of the young sister’s wrist, turning her arm so the sensitive skin on the inside of her forearm was exposed. With a flourish that would have done justice to a stage magician he set the glowing end of the cigar against the girl’s arm, pressing the burning tobacco hard into her skin.

  Stock watched, horrified as tears filled the girl’s eyes. She was biting her lip to keep from crying out, and sweat was beading on her forehead. Brother Simon held the cigar there for thirty seconds as the skin of the girl’s arm began to char and blister. Finally Stock could stand it no longer. The girl’s face had become a mask of tortured agony.

  “Enough, man, for pity’s sake stop!”

  Brother Simon removed the cigar from the girl’s arm and turned to smile at Stock. “Please don’t be alarmed. Watch.” Still holding onto the girl’s wrist, with his o
ther hand he covered the scorched flesh of her arm. His face wrinkled into a frown of intense concentration and his mouth opened and closed uttering words that Stock strained but failed to hear.

  A minute passed and then, with another flourish, Brother Simon took his hand away from the girl’s arm.

  The skin wasn’t marked, save for a slight brownish discoloration where the burning end of the cigar had been.

  “But that’s…” Stock looked in astonishment from Brother Simon to the girl. She was smiling back at him. A deeply serene smile that disclosed nothing of the agony she had recently suffered.

  “So you see, Mr. Stock, not everything is as science would have it.”

  “I guess not,” Randolph Stock said, and took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his perspiring brow.

  “Now where were we?” Brother Simon said. “Ah yes, we were discussing terms.”

  Dean Rulski pulled on his shirt, trying hard to avoid Paula’s gaze.

  “Lighten up, can’t you?” Paula said. She was still lying naked on the sun lounger, a slight film of perspiration sheening her body. With a sigh she sat up and picked up her bra from the floor. “Look, you were okay. Sure, you weren’t the best lover I’ve ever had, but for a first time outing you did okay.”

  Dean buttoned his shirt. “I’m going back to the house,” he said, wondering why he felt vaguely dirty. His first time with a woman! Somehow he’d always imagined it was going to be something wonderful, instead he felt tarnished in some way, and he felt as if he’d let his parents down. Perhaps kids from Arizona were different from other kids. Perhaps other kids would want to brag about something like this. All he wanted to do was to get back to the party and away from Paula Devereaux. She was something else. Something from outside his sphere of experience. The predatory female; he’d read that phrase in a book somewhere, and it described Paula Devereaux perfectly.

  “Hey, lover boy,” Paula cooed from the lounger. “Your bow tie’s on crooked.”

  Dean ignored her and headed for the door. He gripped the handle and twisted it, and then remembered Paula said she’d locked it. He turned to look at her. She was pulling her dress over her head.

  “I need the key,” he said.

  “In my purse,” she said.

  “Can I have it?”

  She reached under the lounger and pulled out her purse and tossed the key across to him.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” he said as he fumbled the key into the lock.

  “He comes in a boy and leaves a man,” Paula said heavily. “Don’t they teach you manners in Arizona?”

  “Sure they do.”

  “Well?”

  He stared at her blankly.

  “Dumb jerk, you could at least say thank you.”

  “For what?” He opened the door and let himself out.

  Paula sat down on the lounger and swore softly.

  From his vantage point on a garden seat Ray watched the boy leave the pool house.

  He’d guessed Paula was the occupant there. Caroline had been a wild child in her youth, and he’d heard rumours her daughter was following in her footsteps. Still, you were only young once. It was her eighteenth birthday, and if she wasn’t allowed to break a few rules today of all days, then when could she?

  When Ray looked back on his own life it was the loves he remembered. The times he had made love, found and lost love. The regrets would be not having enough occasions when he could love in any way, shape or form. The times he had passed up the opportunities for intimacy, for sex. Why? Reasons far too vague to recall now, but which must have made sense to him at the time. Probably his innate sense of self worth that had been formed early in his childhood. The curse of being the other son has coloured his life for as long as he could remember.

  He stamped out his cigarette and immediately lit another.

  He hadn’t enjoyed the meeting with his sister, but it hadn’t gone any worse than he might have expected it to. There had been no chance to see his father yet, and with the way the evening was going he guessed he wouldn’t get a chance to lock horns with the old man until morning. Assuming he decided to take up Caroline’s offer and stay over; which he guessed he would. He would have liked to have seen his mother, and when he had spoken to Paula, he decided he would go up and see her.

  He had no plans formulated for what he would say to his niece, but he had a vague notion he wanted to move her onto a path that would lead her into a different place from her mother.

  Ray had drifted into a way of life that suited him. He judged Caroline had taken a route that she thought she should. One of them had plotted things out deliberately, while the other had ridden whichever wave took them on the most exciting journey. He knew he was happy enough, but he doubted Caroline would recognize the emotion.

  What he was still trying to decipher was what his sister had meant about their mother thinking their brother, Frank, hadn’t died.

  It was a rain swept evening. Cars in those days weren’t quite as sophisticated as they are now. They were big, and Randolph Stock’s Cadillac was as large as any. Luxurious, comfortable, and as safe as they made them. It was the drivers that generally made such cars unsafe.

  Drink and driving wasn’t nearly as transparent as it is nowadays. DUI notices were nowhere near as prominent. Social drinking, and then taking the car home afterwards, was a common occurrence.

  No one suggested Stock was drunk, but if any of the police that attended the crash scene had been brave enough to test him, he would have been outside any safe parameters.

  Father and son had been at a fund raising event in the Hills. His vast personal fortune was still a future goal but Randolph Stock had been born into old money. His father, and his father before him, had built up a family dynasty based on construction; in the city and the outer limits. Stock had managed the businesses sensibly, but without the passion he later demonstrated through his gemstone and diamond business.

  Frank was being groomed to take on a senior position alongside his father, and ultimately to take on the top position. Still in college, studies going well, this was a welcome evening off. Frank shone in the company of his father and the adulation was reciprocated. Ray had recognized the mutual worship long before, and had done his best to ignore it.

  It was after midnight when the pair managed to make their excuses and leave. They had helped the organizers raise a decent sum for a home for under privileged children; few of the rich people eating and drinking to excess realized the irony of why they were gathered together.

  The rain was insistent; the sky, already dark with night, was crowded with black clouds. Frank asked his father to let him call a cab, but driving home was something Stock had factored into his plans for the evening, and he wasn’t a man to change his plans for anyone.

  Stock instructed the valet to bring his car around and stood waiting under the canopy of the porch, chomping on the cigar that had been given to him at dinner by the vice president of an oil company.

  The Cadillac loomed out of the darkness, and the valet jumped out, running round to open the passenger door. He handed the keys to Stock and accepted the folded dollars that were pressed into his palm.

  Frank got into the passenger seat and shook the raindrops from his hair. Randolph Stock opened the window so the cigar smoke had a release. He inserted the key, engaged gear and pulled away.

  The wipers did an adequate job trying to keep the screen clear, but the rain gradually got worse, and Stock had to concentrate just to keep in a straight line. There was little traffic about, and once they left the highway they were the only vehicle.

  The crash report commented on the road conditions, mentioned the circumstances of the driver’s evening. The skid marks where the large car had braked and the driver had lost control were measured and remarked upon in the report. Eventually the report was filed away. Money, old money in particular, has a lot of favors it can call in when it needs to.

  Stock remembered exactly what happened. He
remembered it every day and every night. He didn’t need a report, not even a doctored one.

  He wasn’t driving too fast, not for normal road conditions. Except the conditions were far from normal. The road twisted and turned and there were no streetlights. The bend loomed in front and he turned the wheel a second too late. The tarmac bent to the right but the car carried on to the left.

  The fence was designed merely to mark the edge of the road; to divide the driving part from the steep drop on the other side. The Cadillac ploughed through the flimsy metal fence as if it were made of straw. Stock struggled to keep control, believing if he kept the wheel straight he might be able to steer the car on all four tires. He never got the chance.

  As soon as the car left the road it was as good as flying. Trees slowed it down but it didn’t come to a halt until it hit the rocks that framed the creek at the bottom of the narrow ravine.

  Frank was pronounced dead at the scene.

  Randolph Stock was flung clear some time during the descent. He ran to the car as soon as he heard the dreadful sound it made as it connected with the rocks. He hauled his son out, fearful of the car igniting. When the police and the ambulance arrived Stock was cradling his dead son in his arms. No one repeated what he was saying, and his words didn’t make the report.

  Randolph Stock walked away from the crash without a scratch.

  Carl Anders had taken a while to locate the bathroom where the people had been seen taking drugs. He’d assumed they would be men. Suited types, believing a little recreational coke was fashionable and cool.

  Anders was surprised to the point of shock to find three young women, dressed in white robes.

  He stood in the doorway, his mouth opening and closing as if he was a fish gasping for air, while his mind went through the slightly painful process of coming to a decision. Eventually he decided he needed to exert his authority. He had been given an assignment; throw the drug takers out of the house. Even though they were female, and even though he was never quite as comfortable with women as he was with men, he felt duty bound to see the project through.