The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3)

by Green, Layton

  Viktor felt prepared.

  Of course, there was the black-magic angle, but Viktor did not believe for a second there was anything behind these murders other than the devious mind and barren soul of a human being he once called friend.

  Defenses in place, Viktor turned to the task of finding Darius. To the clue he had uncovered in Crowley’s copy of The Ahriman Heresy.

  Tutori.

  Viktor spoke Italian and knew Latin, and while he found plenty of references to tutori on the Internet, he found nothing that intrigued him as a possible link to Crowley. He spent the rest of the afternoon sifting through books at the library and making calls to various sources in academia. Still coming up empty, he decided to mull over the problem over a late afternoon lunch at a gastro pub on Goodramgate.

  While working on his braised ox cheek with red onion chutney, he realized there was one place in town he had yet to try. He couldn’t put his finger on why, perhaps because he just had a feel for this sort of thing after decades of experience, but tutori seemed to have a religious ring. York was slathered with churches, but none as grandiose as the York Minster, built in the thirteenth century to rival the grandeur of Canterbury. The York diocese was a hugely important one for the Church of England and would have learned priests. It was worth a try.

  He made the short walk up Goodramgate to the Minster, the limestone of the Gothic cathedral casting a silver glow in the failing evening light. Despite the beauty of the town, Viktor couldn’t believe the atrocity of the late September weather, the sky thick as gravy with clouds, a perpetual drizzle, temperature close to freezing, and a biting wind that lashed at Viktor like a vengeful pugilist.

  The Minster imposed its will on the town, the cathedral itself comprising most of a city block, its parklike grounds stretching over several. His hand caught the door to the main entrance just as a red-faced man in a sweater was locking up.

  Viktor flashed his Interpol ID. “Is there a priest still on hand? I apologize for the hour.”

  The man’s eyes lingered on the badge. “I’m one of the vicars.”

  “I have a few quick questions,” Viktor said, “if you have a moment.”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “I’m investigating a matter with some rather… arcane… elements. My research has produced a term with which I’m unfamiliar, and I was wondering if someone at the church might help.”

  “What is it?” the vicar said.

  “Tutori.”

  He ushered Viktor inside but didn’t close the door. “Latin?”

  “Probably,” Viktor said. “It translates roughly to ‘the guardians.’ Have you heard of an organization with this name associated with the church?”

  His jowls bounced as he shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Do you have a library?” Viktor said.

  “The largest cathedral library in the country.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose this can wait until tomorrow? We have a church historian on hand during the day.”

  “Not unless it has to,” Viktor said. “If you have a catalog, that could expedite the process.”

  “It’s digital now. Typically you find the book you want online, reserve the book, and claim it the next day.”

  “But if the book is there,” Viktor said, “you could help me now.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Interpol sincerely appreciates your cooperation.”

  The vicar muttered a reply, locked the huge door and led Viktor down a hallway to the cramped administrative portion of the Minster, then into a carpeted office. “The library’s in another building, but we can check the catalog from here.”

  Viktor waited with folded arms as the computer warmed up. If the York Minster had the largest cathedral library in England, then outside of the Vatican this should be one of the best places in the world to find a reference to the tutori.

  The online catalog filled the screen. The vicar entered his registration information, confirmed the spelling of the word with Viktor, and typed the word into the title database.

  Nothing.

  “Let’s try a broader search,” the vicar said, “for text within the documents.”

  The search produced a few results in Italian, which Viktor scanned and disregarded as irrelevant. Viktor’s weight shifted to his heels. He had gotten his hopes up. “That’s unfortunate.”

  “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Are there any books that haven’t been cataloged,” Viktor said, “perhaps a storeroom or a rare records room?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  It was late, and Viktor decided to stop in for a pint at one of York’s countless pubs. His emerald potion awaited him at his suite, and he knew at some point in the evening he would not be able to resist. But for the first time in a very long time, he feared what the absinthe would drag to the surface more than he feared the clarity of his thoughts without it.

  A velvety darkness cloaked the town. Viktor bypassed bar after bar, each more beguiling and full of character than the last, with names like the Gimcrack, the Hansom Cab, the Three-Legged Mare, and the House of the Trembling Madness.

  He continued down Petergate to the Shambles, a stone lane once littered with blood and offal from its many butcher shops, now lined with contiguous timber-framed houses and specialty shops, the tops of which jutted drunkenly over the constricted street. Viktor decided on the Golden Fleece, a somber pub with an entrance just off the Shambles.

  A somewhat ominous effigy of a golden sheep hung from twin wires crossed above the door, but the darkened interior looked inviting, and Viktor didn’t see the usual crowd of inebriated patrons spilling out the door. He made his way down a hallway lined with newspaper clippings of alleged hauntings in York, to a small room in the rear where a fire blazed in a stone hearth and a few patrons kept to themselves at candlelit wooden tables. Viktor sat at the bar and ordered a local ale.

  The bartender set a mug in front of Viktor. Her graying hair was tied in a severe bun that made her drawn face look even tighter. “First time at the Fleece?”

  “Yes,” Viktor said.

  “You here to see the Lady?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’ve got the look of one of the ghost hunters, they come round about once a week.”

  “I take it the Lady is no longer in the realm of the living?” Viktor said.

  “Not since 1700 or so. You do know the Fleece’s haunted?”

  Viktor smirked. “Is that so?”

  “York’s the most haunted town in England, and the Fleece here’s our most haunted pub. A journalist from one of the fancy London stations stayed here for a night a few years back, doing a documentary on the hauntings. Ran out screaming before midnight. Psychics won’t touch the place.”

  “I see,” Viktor said.

  “Enjoy your pint.”

  He raised his glass. “Cheers.”

  Viktor started thinking about Crowley again. He supposed he would have to dig deeper into the occultist’s past, though Viktor had studied Crowley extensively and had never read or heard of a mention of Ahriman. Crowley had apparently kept his search for the Ahriman Grimoire under a strict code of secrecy, unusual for a man prone to public outburst. But magicians were notoriously secretive when it came to their research.

  Viktor’s eyes wandered the bar, returning to a patron he had seen on the way in, an older man with a gaunt, pleasant face sipping his beer in the corner. He was wearing a faded crimson smoking jacket with a white rose embroidered on the front. The jacket looked vaguely official, and it triggered something in Viktor’s memory, though he couldn’t remember what. Some esoteric fact to do with the Church of England, he thought.

  The bartender returned with another pint. “So what’s your business in York? Just a look-see?”

  “Something like that.” He nudged his head towards the table in the corner. Bartenders were a wonderful source of information. “Do you know that man?”

  She peered over his shoulder. �
��Red jacket?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure. Philip Lackle, captain of the Minster Guard.”

  Viktor snapped his fingers. “Of course.”

  He remembered now: The rose was the White Rose of York, and the jacket was issued to members of the Minster Guard, a tiny police force responsible for guarding the Minster since Norman times. He knew this because there were only two churches in the world with their own police force, the Vatican and the York Minster. Unlike the Swiss Guard, the Minster Guard had been relegated to mere functionaries.

  The bartender looked surprised. “You’ve ’eard of ’em?”

  “I’m a professor of religious phenomenology.”

  “What?”

  Viktor waved a hand. “I’m interested in church history.”

  “The Guard aren’t much these days, they carry a gob full of keys around and point tourists in the right direction. Philip’s a good man, comes in here four nights a week and drinks his bitters in the corner. Go on over, he’s nice as Yorkshire pudding. He’s a crack for anything to do with the church.”

  “I just might do that.” He took a few more sips, then rose and walked towards Philip, who peered up at him.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Viktor said. “Could I buy you a pint?”

  “I, well, of course I can’t say no to that.” He motioned for Viktor to sit. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  Viktor held up two fingers to the bartender, then sat across from Philip. “I’m a professor of religious phenomenology at Charles University in Prague, and I have a question about a rather obscure piece of church trivia. The bartender suggested you might be able to help.”

  Philip’s eyes lit up as he wiped foam from his mouth. “We’ll see what we can do, won’t we?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of an organization called the tutori?” Viktor said. “I suspect it’s an organization, though I’m not sure.”

  Philip thought for a minute, until the fresh round arrived. “You don’t mean the Tutori Electus, do you? That is obscure.”

  “You’ll have to educate me,” Viktor said.

  “The Tutori Electus were a select—thus the name—team of priests sent by the Vatican in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to help combat the rising tide of heresies.”

  Viktor didn’t react, but his heart started to beat faster.

  Philip continued, “A bit similar in training to the Knights of Malta or the Templars, though far smaller and more focused on the occult threat to the Church, witches and devil worshippers and the like. I read about them during a training course on church military.”

  “Can you be more specific?” Viktor said.

  “They worked in small groups, and each faction was assigned a particular heresy. They led Inquisitions, as well as church troops where necessary.”

  “Do you know if any of the Tutori were dedicated to the Ahriman Heresy?”

  Philip’s face balled in thought. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of that one.” He snapped his fingers. “Though I believe there’s a book on the Tutori.”

  “I’ve already checked the Minster’s catalog,” Viktor said.

  “Not in the Minster library, in the Guard’s library. It’s tiny in comparison but has a few books you won’t find many places.”

  Viktor leaned back and crossed his arms. “I’d love to see that book.”

  “We used to lend books to the public, but we stopped about a decade ago. I don’t think anyone has borrowed a book in twenty years.” From the inside of his jacket, Philip withdrew the largest set of keys Viktor had ever seen. “But why don’t we finish these pints and take a walk over there?”

  Grey needed sustenance, and decided to exit the Tube at King’s Cross. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked past the austere pillars of the British Museum, down a street populated with closed offices and a few cafés geared towards the lunch set, then emerged into a more lively and scraggly section of the city.

  He ducked into a pub called the Kingfisher and ordered fish and chips at the bar. The rock music was loud, the crowd louder. A group of rugby players still dirty from the night’s match were holding each other’s shoulders and singing in a corner.

  He was halfway through his meal when he noticed stares from a group of punks in a corner booth by the door. All four had Mohawks, leather jackets, and sneers, and they reeked of trouble. Their eyes flicked from Grey to a piece of paper on the table.

  When the bartender swung by, Grey asked for the check and said, “You know anything about the Mohawks in the corner?”

  He scowled in their direction. “They’re part of a Newcastle gang that runs around the council housing in Euston, all of ’em on the dole. I’ve ’ad to kick the buggers out before, though they won’t start trouble while the boys are here.” The bartender glanced over at the rugby players, then back at the Mohawks. “They’re looking your way; you ’ave words with one of ’em?”

  “Not yet,” Grey said.

  “They’re bothering you, I can call the boys over.”

  Grey glanced at the rugby players again, now swaying and moving in a circle, heads tilted back as they sang. “Thanks, but no need.”

  “You a copper?”

  “No.”

  The bartender looked Grey up and down, trying to figure out his angle. Then he reached for the stereo and cranked the music even louder, gave Grey a knowing look, and started washing a glass.

  Grey left a huge tip, pushed away from the bar, and walked to the booth shoved against a window. All four punks watched him approach, and the one nearest Grey stood when Grey reached the table. Grey shoved him back in the booth and squeezed in beside him, trapping the two on his side against the window. His eyes flicked to the piece of paper on the table; it was a photocopied picture of himself, taken on the street outside Oak’s house.

  The one he had shoved had multiple piercings on his face, and a chain running from lip to nose. He started to stand again. “What the fook—”

  Grey grabbed his nose chain and pulled him back down, hard enough to cause the punk’s eyes to water, but not hard enough to rip it out. The nose was one of the most sensitive parts on the human body, and Grey marveled that anyone with tough guy aspirations would offer such an easy handle.

  Grey shouted as he increased the pressure, the music muffling everything. “Stay down or I’ll rip it out.”

  The kid seethed but stayed in his seat. The punk opposite Grey pulled a knife and started to rise. Grey already had one foot wrapped behind his ankle, and he kicked the side of his knee with his other foot, not hard enough to shatter the patella but hard enough to cause severe pain. He screamed and dropped the knife. Grey swept up the knife in his left hand, then slammed it on top of the photo, point-down in the wooden table.

  “Where’d you get this?” Grey said.

  All four gave him sullen looks. No one answered. Grey pulled harder on the nose ring.

  “Okay, shite! Look, some guy passed it to us. Who the fook are you?”

  “I’m asking the questions.”

  “We were just told to find you—”

  “I know what you were told,” Grey said. “I want to know who told you.”

  Grey extracted the knife, twirled it in his fingers, and slammed it down again, this time hilt first. All four jumped. “If I don’t hear a name, I’m going to break a kneecap and rip out a nose chain.”

  He increased the pressure on the chain to the ripping point, the punk next to him bent double to relieve the pressure. “Dickie, man,” he screamed. “It came from Dickie.”

  “Who the hell is Dickie?” Grey said.

  “Dickie Jones.”

  Grey blinked, then pulled him around until he was looking Grey in the eye. “The fight organizer? If you’re lying to me I’ll come back and rip out every piercing in your body.”

  “Yeah, fook, that’s him. For Christ’s sake don’t tell him we told you.”

  “Where is he now?” Grey said.

  “He runs shite outt
a his gym in Tower Hamlets, down by Spitalfields. No shite man, you can’t tell him.”

  Grey released his hold and stood, and the punk sank in relief. The one across from him was still holding his knee, hunched in pain, and the other two were pressed as far against the wall as they could go. Grey snatched the photocopy off the table and left.

  At first Grey couldn’t believe what he had heard, but on second thought he supposed he could. Most people never changed, and apparently Daisuke “Dickie” Jones, a half-Japanese IRA crony and organizer on the underground fighting circuit when Grey had lived in London more than a decade ago, hadn’t either.

  After a careful return journey to his hotel, Grey wedged a chair under the door handle and collapsed into bed. The next day he was shocked when he stepped off the bus near Spitalfields Market, at the western edge of the East End.

  Once a place for the working class to pick up cheap goods and have a pint in a gritty pub, the cavernous Spitalfields Market was now surrounded by organic grocery stores, gastro pubs, and yuppies patrolling the streets with double strollers and lattes. The Spitalfields Grey knew had barely been civilized, let alone gentrified. He walked a few streets over to Dickie’s place, now a plush, air-conditioned gym with signs advertising Pilates and yoga classes.

  Grey entered and asked for Dickie at the front desk, still shaking his head. The last time Grey had been here a boxing ring had dominated the room, surrounded by free weights, heavy bags, and a legion of local toughs.

  The perky front-desk clerk led him to an office in back, where Dickie himself sat in a leather chair, reading a paper with his feet kicked up on the desk. It was the same bald head, swarthy skin, and short but powerful body Grey remembered. Instead of a stained tank top, however, Dickie now wore a pair of sleek jeans, a tight black shirt, and diamond studs in his ears.

  He didn’t look up as Grey and the desk clerk entered. “All right?”

  “Dickie, someone’s here to see you. Says he knows you.”

  Dickie lowered the tabloid, his curved eyes widening and then sinking into a guarded stare. “Thanks, love,” he said, without taking his eyes off Grey. The attendant left and closed the door.