The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3)

by Green, Layton

  “It’s just over the moor. There’s a good pub if that’s what you’re after. You fancy a drink for the journey back to York?”

  “Not tonight,” Viktor said.

  “Where to, then?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  The driver took the next turn into the foothills. Though it was dark, Viktor imagined the brown smudge of moor in the distance, and knew they were passing through a land of moist dales and peat bogs and long sloping ridges, stunning when the purple heather was in bloom and beautiful in a stark and lonely way the rest of the year. Just before they entered the village of Glaisdale, Viktor instructed the driver to make a few more turns, bringing them to the top of a low hill.

  Viktor pointed at a gravel pullover. “Here.”

  The driver did as Viktor said, then craned his neck towards Viktor. “Mate? There’s nothing around but this dodgy weather.”

  “I need fifteen minutes,” Viktor said. “Keep the meter running.”

  “Fine by me.”

  The rain had slackened, but the wind had turned into a gale, whipping up leaves and whistling through the trees. Enough light from the moon seeped through the clouds to illuminate a stone path just off the road. Viktor hunched and headed down the path under a canopy of gnarled yew, crossing a brook on stepping stones and then following the path up a short hill.

  Shoes soaked and caked with mud, he emerged from the trees at the crown of the hill. A stone archway greeted him, flanked by the remains of a wall. Through the archway he saw the ancient chapel, a mass of granite capped by a bell tower. Tombstones littered the courtyard around the chapel, stained green by hardened moss, tilted and sunken into the earth.

  Viktor picked a wild rose from a vine snaking up the archway, then walked towards the chapel, memories stirring at the smell of damp earth and old stone. The wind was worse on the hill, a constant rush and whoosh, slamming into Viktor as he left the pathway and tramped through the knee-high grass. He wove in and out of the headstones, stopping when he came to a moss-covered stone engraved with a Celtic cross. It was part of a forlorn trio of family graves.

  Spurts of rain splashed onto Viktor’s head and face, the sky a leaky faucet. As Viktor laid the rose on Eve’s grave the memories rushed forth, no longer a repressed whisper, spinning in his gut like a tornado as his finger traced his beloved’s name on the headstone.

  Eve’s visions had started the morning after the ritual. Her eyes had returned to their normal robin’s-egg blue, and Viktor chalked up the sudden dilation to extreme stress or fear, both of which Viktor’s quick research confirmed as a possible culprit.

  When Viktor woke in her apartment, he found her whimpering on the floor, clutching her pillow to her chest. She was staring at the wall, eyes wild, rocking slowly back and forth.

  Eve! What’s wrong?

  He went to her, bringing her into his arms on the edge of the bed.

  He came, Viktor.

  Who, love?

  Her voice barely cracked a whisper. Ahriman.

  Prickles of gooseflesh ran up and down Viktor’s arms. There’s no one here, Eve. It’s all in your head. We didn’t finish the ritual.

  We didn’t have to. I disrupted it, and he’s terribly angry with me. He’s been here all night. He’s like nothing we could ever imagine, so beautiful and terrifying.

  Viktor threw back the blinds, flooding the room with sunshine. Let’s find someplace nice to go today, perhaps that walk by the river you love. You’ll forget all of this by noon.

  A small, saddened smile crept to her lips. Viktor, my Viktor. I love you more than I thought I was capable of loving. But we shouldn’t have done that. I never cared for the occult at all, you know. I only cared for you.

  Viktor dressed both of them, slipping her into slacks and a sweater. The daylight seemed to help, though she barely said another word. He felt as if she were only half present, lost in a dreamworld that only she could see. By nightfall she wouldn’t let Viktor leave her alone.

  Help me, Viktor. Make him go away.

  It’s in your mind, Viktor said gently. It’s not real, Eve. What’d you take this morning?

  Nothing. I’m afraid to make it worse.

  Maybe a sample would help steady your mind?

  No.

  Viktor was taken aback. Eve never refused pills.

  It was the worst week of Viktor’s life. Eve barely slept, and when she did she would awake screaming within an hour, claiming the nightmares were so visceral they made her physically ill.

  Darius tried to see her, and Viktor told him what was happening. Darius grew very pale. We have to reverse the ritual, Darius said. I can do it.

  That’s hardly what she needs.

  Darius reached up to take Viktor by the shoulders. This isn’t a game. We botched the ritual. She entered the circle. Where is she?

  She doesn’t want to see you.

  I don’t care what she wants! This isn’t about me and you, it’s about Eve and Ahriman.

  There’s no Ahriman, you fool!

  Darius struck him across the face. Just because you don’t have faith doesn’t mean that other people don’t, or that it isn’t real. Ahriman exists whether you like it or not, and he’ll tear her to pieces.

  Viktor stood in front of Darius for a long time, his hand on his cheek where Darius had slapped him. He knew his friend was in love with Eve and that he deserved that slap. I’ll grant you, Viktor said finally, that Eve’s beliefs are the ones that matter, not mine.

  You have to let me do this, Darius said. We have to reverse the ritual.

  Eve wouldn’t entertain the idea. She wanted nothing more to do with rituals or magic, and Viktor didn’t blame her. But the visions continued, and Viktor grew more desperate. He took Eve to three different psychiatrists, Oxford professors with PhDs from the best universities in the world. Each prescribed a different drug, telling Viktor the same thing: that Eve was schizophrenic and needed help.

  Eve’s family had a history of mental illness, and Viktor believed the ritual had triggered something in Eve’s mind. She began a regimen of Haldol and then Stelazine, but she still grew worse, afraid to be alone or in the dark, sleeping during the day with the blinds thrown wide. Her family came and talked to the psychologists, and she was dangerously close to being sent away.

  Near the end of summer Viktor woke to find Eve naked in the street outside her apartment, brandishing a knife and screaming at the top of her lungs as she moved in circles, as if stalked by a predator. When Viktor approached she tried to stab him. It took him the rest of the night to calm her.

  Viktor decided to try one last course of action. He would take her to London and hope against hope the bright lights of the great city would take her mind off what was happening, shake her back to normalcy. If that didn’t work, he would take her to the ends of the earth, to a sun-drenched beach in the South Pacific or to America, as far from this sodden island as possible.

  The doctors agreed a short trip might be a good idea, as long as she took her meds. Her mother had been in and out of a mental hospital for years, and her father, ashen at the prospect of institutionalizing another family member, also agreed.

  Eve was excited. She may have been rapidly decompensating, but the one thing that remained constant was her love for Viktor. He took her to the Savoy in London, taking the suite with the most natural light. Eve managed a small smile when she saw the room, though her eyes kept darting to the corners, searching for the things only she could see.

  They took a walk in the steep hills and swaying grass of Hampstead Heath. After a light lunch they ended up strolling down Swain’s Lane, passing a walled cemetery with an elaborate, fortress-like entrance. Viktor knew the place: Highgate Cemetery, an infamous Victorian-era burial ground full of elaborate tombs. Neglected by the city, it was now a decrepit, overgrown eyesore. There were rumors about strange sights and sounds coming from the cemetery, though these were likely due to the criminals and occultists known to frequent the place at night.
/>
  A weird brightness came into Eve’s eyes, and she pulled him towards the cemetery. Let’s go in there.

  I don’t think that’s a good idea, Viktor said.

  It’s so beautiful and gothic. Take me.

  It’s closed, Eve. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

  Viktor pulled her away, and after dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant in Knightsbridge they saw Oliver! on the West End. She clapped after the show, her face bright, and Viktor felt a glimmer of hope. If one day in London produced these kinds of results, what would a week in Paris do? A month? A year?

  They returned to the room and made love for the first time since the ritual. When they finished, Viktor brushed a hand down her cheek. He had one more card to play. Wait here.

  She gripped his hand with such force he was taken aback. Don’t leave me.

  I’ll never leave you, love. I’m just going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.

  Viktor went into the bathroom, disturbed at the fear in her eyes. The thought of losing her to a barbaric mental hospital nauseated him. He splashed water on his face and took out the diamond ring from his travel bag.

  When he reentered the room he got down on one knee beside the bed. Eve’s eyes filled with tears, and she took his face in her hands.

  Will you be mine? he asked, his voice catching.

  Oh, Viktor, I was yours before you knew me. And, yes, I’ll be yours forever. He can’t change that.

  Viktor swallowed. There’s no he, Eve. Things are going to be different now.

  He hates that you make me happy. Just know that no matter what happens, I’ll always be with you.

  Eve! Stop talking like that.

  I love you, Viktor Radek.

  They made love again, and Viktor fell asleep with his fiancée in his arms, more content than he had ever been, despite the tragic circumstances.

  He awoke in the middle of the night to her screams. She stopped screaming when she hyperventilated, pointing at the corner by the window. He’s in here, she gasped.

  Did you take your meds? Viktor already knew the answer. He always watched her take them.

  Yes.

  Did you take more than your dosage?

  No.

  He finally calmed her, and she lay quietly in his massive arms, her head on his chest, eyes wide and staring into the corners of the room. Sometime deep into the night he dozed, and when he woke she was gone.

  He at once berated himself for falling asleep. She had seemed calm, but he knew better than to trust her moods. He gave the suite a frantic sweep, then rushed downstairs. No one knew where she had gone. Later that morning, when the hotel received a call from the police, Viktor was in the lobby. The concierge handed him the phone.

  You should come right away, the officer said. Do you know Highgate Cemetery?

  Viktor let the phone drop and rushed to a cab. When he saw the police officers surrounding Eve’s body in the middle of the cemetery, one of the hotel’s bedsheets still hanging from the branch of a cedar tree ten feet above the prone form, he swooned for the first and last time in his life.

  Memory merged with the present, and Viktor laid the flowers on the grave, the wind pressing the petals against the headstone. Then he knelt beside his beloved and wept.

  It was dusk when Grey returned to Cambridge. As he passed through a courtyard surrounded by ivy-covered walls, purple lights dancing in an attractive little fountain, he debated whether to take a room in town or return to London.

  He put a foot on the edge of the fountain and started to call Viktor, then canceled the call. Anka was walking towards him from the south side of the square, still in her leather jacket, jeans tucked into knee-high lambskin boots, now wearing a soft white hat.

  He met her halfway and she peered up at him, huge eyes swimming within her hair and rimmed with fear.

  “Your jacket’s dirty,” he said.

  “Dante was waiting for me at the train station.”

  “Dante? Why?”

  “To send me a message, or worse. I managed to hide until he left. We shouldn’t be doing this, Grey. He could show up any minute.”

  Grey saw the trembling of her hands and heard the flutter in her voice. “I’d like nothing more,” he said.

  They walked in silence, drifting over the winding lanes. He waited until she calmed before he spoke again. “What will you do now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t go back,” he said.

  She pressed her lips together. “Why don’t we talk about something else for a while? I can’t think about that right now.” She looped an arm through his as they resumed walking. “Who are you? Where do you live, what do you do?”

  “I assumed someone who can appear in a catacomb in Paris would be able to divine who I am.”

  She looked at him as if trying to judge his intentions, but even Grey wasn’t sure what they were. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said.

  Grey felt guilty when he heard the hurt in her voice. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  They walked a bit farther, and he said, “I live in New York for now. I’m not really from anywhere.”

  “Why not?”

  “I guess it just worked out that way,” he said.

  “You have the look of someone who’s never at rest.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “Just that you’re pensive, like you understand how sad life is.”

  “It’s sad all right.”

  “But beautiful, too,” she said. “And I can tell you see that as well, or you’d just be angry all the time, not pensive.”

  Grey didn’t respond.

  “You don’t have a family?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Then I guess we’re both orphans.”

  They had wandered to the edge of town, where a line of cozy restaurants dotted the river. “Hungry?” she asked.

  “Starved,” he said.

  “I like the look of the small one near the end.”

  She led him to a cottage tucked against the river, a tiny establishment with a sign that read BABETTE’S. Inside he saw a smattering of tables, a few more on a covered patio overlooking the river. A chalkboard menu covered half of the wall to Grey’s left, and he felt a pang of sadness for Nya, deeper and sharper than he had felt in some time. She was the girl he had loved most and then lost, the closest he had ever come to a soul mate. He had met her while posted in Zimbabwe, during his first case with Viktor.

  He realized that pangs such as those would never go away, they would just become buried deeper over time, brought to the surface in dreams or by rare moments of association.

  And that was okay.

  Anka removed her jacket as they sat on the patio. Grey let her order a bottle of wine, though he would have preferred a cold beer. He never went to intimate French restaurants with beautiful women, so he thought he might as well have some wine.

  As they waited for the food she said, “You never told me what you do. I assume you’re in law enforcement?”

  His eyes found the curve of her neck, following it to the cheekbones that provided just the right arch to her oval face. “I used to be with Diplomatic Security. Now I investigate pathological cults.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “That’s quite a transition.”

  “My employer, Viktor Radek, is a professor of religious phenomenology—the study of the effect of alleged religious phenomena on practitioners. We worked on a case together when I was posted in Zimbabwe. Diplomatic Security didn’t work out. Viktor did.”

  “Religious phenomenology—Hegel and La Saussaye, more recently Van der Leeuw and Duméry? Analyzing the subjective nature of the religious experience?”

  “That’s right,” Grey said, surprised.

  “I used to work in a library, remember. Viktor must be an interesting man.”

  “Interesting and accomplished,” he said. “He’s the world’s foremost expert on cults, or
at least the violent ones.”

  “Are you an expert, too?”

  “Hardly,” he said. “My knowledge is a drop in the ocean compared to his. A very deep ocean.”

  “What does he think about Darius?”

  “What do you think?” he said.

  She swallowed and fingered her wineglass. “Why were they chasing you in the catacombs?”

  Grey watched her. “You really don’t know?”

  “I just know he sent them to find you and that you were in danger.”

  He told her about the ceremony, and her face paled. She set her fork down, staring at her half-eaten trout almondine.

  When they finished eating, the waiter filled their glasses with the last of the wine. After the chocolate mousse arrived Anka said, “Why’d you leave Diplomatic Security?”

  “The government and I were never a good fit. I don’t take orders very well.”

  “The world needs more people like that,” she said.

  “It’s my one redeeming trait.”

  She eyed him as she raised a spoonful of chocolate mousse to her mouth. “Other than witty, attractive, and dangerous?”

  Grey mumbled his thanks. After dessert Anka moved her chair next to his and laid her head on his shoulder. “I almost feel safe with you.”

  They were alone on the patio, the only sound the clink of dishes from inside. Grey’s eyes found the ripple of the current in the darkness, and after a moment he felt the warmth of Anka’s breath on his neck. When he turned, her hair was brushing his cheek, lips an inch away, her scent enveloping him. He remembered his dream about her and pushed the memory away.

  She moved forward until their lips brushed, and he tasted the sensual residue of wine on her tongue, her lips so soft they seemed to engulf his. He put a hand on her waist and cradled her neck, drawing her in. She ran her fingers through the cowlicks in his hair, pressed her body tighter.

  When she pulled away they both glanced inside the restaurant with sheepish eyes. She traced a finger along his lips, her eyes flicking nervously to her watch. “I should leave.”