Dante.
Grey had never met him, but he had the feeling the two of them were on a collision course that one of them would not survive.
Midmorning came and went. Grey slumped on the bench, staring at the window with heavy-lidded eyes. He could almost feel a hot shower, and would have given half his worldly possessions for a steaming cup of coffee and a full English breakfast.
He checked his watch yet again. Ten thirty a.m.
By ten forty-five he was performing breathing exercises to stay alert, and at eleven the rain picked up, turning a miserable wait into full-on torment. At eleven thirty a small East Indian man in a beige raincoat and a backpack entered the store and stood in front of PO box 550.
At first Grey thought he would open one of the adjacent boxes, but then he inserted the key into box 550, the exact position of which Grey had memorized.
Adrenaline jolted Grey awake. He watched the man hover over the PO box, extract a stack of envelopes, then stick a bundle of mail from his backpack into the box. After making his drop, the man exited the building and headed up the street, huddled under his raincoat.
Grey followed.
SICILY
Viktor’s plane landed amid the craggy parched hills outside Palermo. He thought it quite appropriate his journey had taken him to Sicily, a place whose constant exposure to the light hid the rot underneath, leaving the casual visitor with a taste of sun-kissed vineyards and bucolic mountain villages, rather than economic inequity, government corruption, and the bitter aftertaste of a culture ravaged by organized crime.
Just, he thought, like Darius’s cult.
The driver he had organized before leaving York, an angular, gray-haired Sicilian with a lined but handsome face, met him at the gate. A rush of sweltering dry air blasted them as they walked to the black Mercedes. Viktor could hardly believe the drastic change in climate.
It had been some time since Viktor had visited Sicily. A decade ago he had investigated the ritual murder of a church official in Palermo, which turned out to be a Mafia cover-up. And as a child, his parents had taken him to Taormina, a beautiful seaside resort at the foot of Mount Etna. But that was another lifetime.
Soon they were racing through the hills outside the airport and then merging into the outskirts of Palermo, a chaotic sprawl of dilapidated apartment buildings and traffic-choked streets. Impromptu trash dumps lined the freeway into town.
As requested, the driver had left a small package for Viktor in the backseat. Viktor eyed the package greedily, eager for the shiny liquid within. He had caught a few hours sleep on the plane, but he was still exhausted and feeling the effects of the absinthe from the previous evening.
He knew he was walking a dangerous line, especially with a mere three days to accomplish impossible tasks. The call with Grey had shamed him. He respected Grey, and he knew Grey had heard the tremor in his voice, both from the absinthe and the specter of his past.
As they passed through the city center, Viktor lowered the window to clear his head and was assaulted by the sound of honking horns, shouting vendors, and the whine of mopeds speeding between lanes. He rolled up the window when the driver cut through an alley, the pleasant aromas from street vendors supplanted by the nauseating stench of cat urine.
When the traffic ground to a halt the driver jumped the curb and whipped through a maze of narrow streets filled with overhanging laundry and shirtless men leaning on balconies. They charged through a square defined by a gleaming enoteca built into the graffiti-strewn ruins of a castle, and then through block after block of cement high-rises, sooty with neglect.
On the other side of the city the SUV careened back on to the highway, climbing high into the hills and following the road east along the cliffs. As civilization faded and the dry sea air rushed in, Viktor felt as if he had stepped back in time, before machines and factories had gobbled up the world, lost in a perfect union of sunlight, water and rich brown earth.
Viktor imagined Aleister Crowley traveling this same road long ago, on his way to establish his infamous Abbey of Thelema. Viktor had debated stopping in the Palazzo dei Normanni in Palermo, as it was the last place the Tutori had been mentioned. Given the three-day timeline that hung with Viktor like a circling vulture, claws extended, he decided to press on to Cefalù, reasoning that Crowley had done the legwork in Palermo for him. And he had already inquired about the Tutori with various sources at the Palazzo dei Normanni. No one had heard of either the Tutori or the Ahriman Heresy.
They crested a slope and Viktor saw the famous rock of Cefalù glowering in the distance like a titan from Greek mythology, a mammoth block of limestone that Viktor thought a fitting testament to Crowley’s ego.
The rock, which the driver said was known simply as La Rocca, jutted high above the velvety sea, the sheer cliffs topped by the ruins of a Moorish castle. The medieval town of Cefalù nestled at the feet of La Rocca, capped by the twin sandstone towers of the Duomo, under a sky so deep blue it looked bruised.
A place of surreal and isolated beauty, set amid a notoriously tight-lipped and lawless society. Viktor could see why Crowley had chosen it.
The Abbey of Thelema: Crowley’s very own school of magic, a cesspool of sex, drugs, and occult experimentation that gave rise to Crowley’s dubbing as the Wickedest Man in the World. The infamous abbey lasted until 1923, when one of Crowley’s adepts died after drinking cat’s blood consumed during a sacrifice. After a public outcry Mussolini closed the abbey, forcing Crowley to leave the country.
Despite the location, had Crowley come halfway across the world to Cefalù, a virtual lost world in 1920, merely to establish his school? More likely, Viktor thought, Crowley had the dual objective of using Cefalù as a research base to pursue the mythical Ahriman Grimoire.
So where had the Tutori gone? Had they disbanded, returned to Rome, settled in Palermo? If they had acquired the Ahriman Grimoire, what had they done with it? The obvious choice was that they had sent it to the Vatican’s secret archives, but if that were the case, then Viktor didn’t see how Darius would have acquired it, if he indeed had.
And why lead Viktor down this path? Viktor knew he was being toyed with, but Viktor had learned to trust his instincts, and his instincts told him there was something on this journey he needed to find, some important piece of knowledge to be gained.
The problem was, not all of his instincts concerned solving cases.
Viktor had just enough time to drop his bags and make his two p.m. appointment with Scarlet Alexander, Magister Templi of the Cefalù chapter of the Thelema Lodge. The rise of occultism in the last few decades had ignited a recent interest in Crowley, and a modern-day derivation of the Order of Thelema had sprung up in Cefalù, to the consternation of the locals.
According to Gareth, who had arranged the appointment for Viktor in the hours before he was burned, Scarlet Alexander possessed more knowledge on Aleister Crowley than anyone else alive.
After a brisk stop in the villa Viktor had rented he made the short walk to the medieval town center, dodging scooters as sweat poured down his collar. He zigzagged through the constricted cobblestone streets, church bells clanging in the background, relishing the pungent smell of fresh sardines heaped onto the trays of street vendors, catching glimpses of the sea down alleyways thick with hanging laundry.
He found the designated trattoria on Corso Ruggiero, the main thoroughfare lined with gas lamps and wrought iron balconies, shade from the handsome marble and stone buildings providing relief from the sun.
The restaurant was a rustic gem in the Piazza del Duomo. A few courtyard tables and palm trees were sprinkled around a fountain, a grapevine thick as Viktor’s forearm snaked across a trellis, and he had views of both the honey-colored Duomo and La Rocca looming overhead.
Viktor normally would have relished a seven-course lunch of Sicilian culinary perfection, but instead he ordered a glass of Nero D’Avola to calm his nerves, and a simple pasta con le sarde for fuel. Halfway through his meal, S
carlet Alexander arrived in a green silk dress, her brown wrists covered in bracelets, a necklace studded with multicolored crystals draping her slender neck.
Viktor’s brief research had disclosed that Scarlet was an African-American woman from Los Angeles, a former professor of sociology at UCLA, and a member of the Thelema Lodge since the late seventies. She didn’t look a day older than forty, but Viktor knew she must be nearing sixty.
Viktor rose to greet her after she addressed the host in flawless Italian. They sat, and Viktor pushed his plate to the side. “Forgive my manners. I’m rather pressed for time.”
She waved a hand in dismissal. “I was going to apologize because I can’t stay long.” Her eyes clouded. “I assume you’ve heard about Gareth?”
“I was in the room.”
A spasm of fear twitched her face. “Dear God. It must’ve been terrible.”
“It was.”
She took a moment to compose herself. “Gareth was my mentor for a brief period when I was an adept,” she said. “A wise man. A good man.”
“He said the same of you. He thought you might be able to help me with a bit of research on Aleister.”
The waiter brought Scarlet a glass of sparkling water. “I can try,” she said.
“How much do you know of Crowley’s quest for the Ahriman Grimoire?”
She hesitated for the briefest of moments, a reaction that spoke volumes. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that grimoire.”
“It’s come to my attention that not only was Aleister in pursuit of this grimoire, but that he might have devoted a significant portion of his life in pursuit of it.”
She scoffed. “I’m very familiar with his life. Where did you get this information?”
“From a number of sources, including Aleister’s personal copy of The Ahriman Heresy, which I found among his possessions in Whitby.”
She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “It appears your scholarship exceeds mine.”
“I doubt that. Gareth mentioned you’re the world’s foremost expert on Crowley.”
Her bracelets tinkled as she raised her wrist to check the time. “It appears not.”
Viktor folded his arms and met her gaze, the gurgle of the fountain drowning out the street noise. She seemed a strong and intelligent woman, but she had been compromised. Viktor couldn’t blame her for not talking, but more lives than their own depended on the information he needed.
“Are you familiar with the Tutori?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “It’s Italian for—”
“I’m aware of the Italian meaning, as well as the Latin. The Tutori were also a small group of priests tasked by the Vatican with flushing out the members of the Ahriman Heresy.”
“I’m truly sorry,” she said, “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
She started to push her chair back, and Viktor caught her wrist. “Please. Just another moment of your time.”
She swallowed and sank back down. “A moment.”
“Is there anyone in Cefalù who was intimate with the original Order?” Viktor said.
“That was ninety years ago.”
“Perhaps a descendant of someone with personal knowledge of Crowley?”
“There was one,” she said, “living in a retirement home outside Palermo. His mother was one of Crowley’s adepts. We were friends.”
“Was?”
“He died recently.” She looked Viktor in the eye. “In a fire.”
His lips compressed. “I see.”
“To my knowledge, there’s no one else in Sicily connected to the original Order. After Mussolini ordered them off the island, it wasn’t very healthy to admit to an association with Thelema.”
“I understand the Lodge still stands, now as a private villa.”
“It’s less than a mile from here,” she said. “I can assure you the owner has no interest in magic, and no ties to the villa’s past.”
Viktor signaled for two espressos, then said, “Darius was here, wasn’t he?”
The question caught her off guard. She recovered quickly, again asserting her ignorance, but Viktor knew he had hit a nerve.
“I understand your reluctance,” he said. “He’s a very dangerous individual. But he’s corrupted your art and is a defiler of people.”
“Magic corrupts, but cannot itself be corrupted. You’d be wise to remember that.”
Viktor leaned forward. “This has nothing to do with magic. He killed Gareth, he killed your friend, and he’ll continue killing until someone stops him.”
She downed her espresso, dropped her napkin on the table, and rose. “Then you should be talking to the Italian police, not me. A pleasure meeting you, Viktor.”
She left the courtyard, and Viktor resisted the urge to bang his fist on the table. He asked for the check, acutely aware that his options were melting away like gelato in the midday sun. As he took the bill, his eyes caught the side of Scarlet’s napkin, which she had dropped in the center of the table instead of in her chair.
She had written something in pencil on a fold of the napkin, in a tight feminine scrawl.
84 Corso Montera, Sant’Ambroggio.
Viktor wet his finger and smeared the address on the napkin. He paid double the bill, unwilling to wait for change.
Grey followed the courier to three more mail stores within walking distance, then sixteen more across east-central London. For the most part the small man kept his head down and did his job, and Grey had an easy time tracking him. But after twenty stops in just a few hours, Grey wondered how many were on the full route.
How far did the reach of the Order of New Enlightenment already extend?
Though he had kept his wig, Grey’s larger worry was that one of Dante’s hired thugs would spot him among the crowds. At least the incessant rain allowed him to shrink into his waterproof jacket.
Midday came and went without trouble, but as evening approached, a few things gave Grey cause for concern: The cessation of the rain left Grey more exposed, the courier had stopped delivering envelopes, and Grey was now following him on the London Overground deeper into the East End.
At Dalston Junction the courier picked up a bus heading southeast. Grey took a seat near the driver, where he could keep an eye on the courier in the rearview and not arouse suspicion. The courier had his head buried in a newspaper, and Grey kept one eye on the courier and one on his surroundings.
As the bus wound through Hackney Central, the streets reverted to the warren of brick alleys Grey remembered, damp and crowded. A swarm of downtrodden white faces filled the streets, mingling with hijab- and burka-clad immigrants. Pawn and kebab shops lined the larger thoroughfares, along with a shocking amount of drab public housing. The nonpublic housing consisted of decrepit Victorians with front doors set ten feet apart, crowding out the sunlight in true Dickensian fashion.
Fifteen minutes later Grey began to worry. The crowd on the bus had thinned considerably, and he knew the environs only got worse the farther south or east they went, until they hit Canary Wharf.
Before they reached the Docklands, the courier exited on a potholed street running alongside a canal lined with warehouses, most of them graffiti-covered and abandoned. Grey asked the driver to let him off a block down the road, then hurried back to find the courier, spying him at the end of the street.
Grey stayed half a block behind as they paralleled the swampy canal. The courier kept his head down and maintained a fast clip. Grey suspected he was returning home. If so, Grey would have to make a decision. He couldn’t afford another half-day wait while the courier caught up on sleep.
A few high-rises appeared in the distance, and Grey guessed they were finally nearing the Docklands. Then he saw a strange sight: a beautiful cylindrical glass building, five stories high and capped by a crystal dome, surrounded by barbed wire and sandwiched between a pair of weed-filled lots. The building looked new, a gleaming anomaly in the gutted neighborhood. Grey noticed the courier’
s gaze lingering on the building as he passed.
At the next intersection, Grey could see the Millennium Dome in the distance, a gaudy bauble squatting above the brackish crawl of the Thames. A few blocks later the package stores and corner shops returned, and the courier entered a seedy two-story pub painted entirely in black, including the windows. Grey saw the name of the place scrawled in red on the front door.
BAR 666.
Lovely.
Before Grey had a chance to decide what to do, five patrons spilled out of the front door, just after the courier entered. All five were blocky young men with creased stares, three of them sucking on cigarettes, all wearing West Ham United hoodies or jackets.
Grey tensed, though none of them was looking at him. They were talking in thick Cockney accents, and they started down the street in Grey’s direction. His only chance to avoid attention was to keep walking.
As they passed, Grey kept his head down, hands in his pockets, disappearing into his jacket. No one said a word, but then four more patrons spilled into the street, holding pints and smoking.
Damn. Five behind him, four in front, buildings on either side of the street. Grey did the only thing he could, which was to act natural and keep walking with his head down, hoping no one noticed him.
When he was twenty feet away he saw one of the men outside the bar pointing at him. The chatter ceased, and the man who had pointed, a rangy man with a shaved head, flicked his cigarette at Grey.
“Hey, mate!”
Grey kept walking, head down.
He stepped into the street ten feet from Grey, the other three behind him. “I said, Hey, mate. Are you Dominic Grey?”
“Sorry,” Grey said. “Wrong guy.”
Grey kept walking, but no one moved. One of the men in back whistled and waved at the men who had just passed Grey in the other direction. Grey knew his window had just closed.
The man with the shaved head dipped a hand into his coat and pulled out a two-foot piece of metal piping. “There’s someone wants to have a chat with you.”
The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) Page 25
