The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3)

by Green, Layton

  He led Viktor to a door in the rear of the dwelling, then gripped Viktor’s arm. “His name is Father Angelo, and you should prepare yourself. Terrible things were done to my brother. Unlike me, he’s a very holy man.”

  Anka had left no return number, and her call registered as unknown on Grey’s voice mail. She wasn’t giving him an option, he thought. She knew he would come.

  Grey ditched the car in a parking garage and hit the Underground. He didn’t know the Italian restaurant Anka had chosen, but he used to work as a bouncer at a club in Soho, and he knew the area well.

  He exited at Piccadilly, riding the long escalator to the surface and stepping into a crush of people, neon billboards, and giant video screens. When he used to stand in Piccadilly Circus, he would get a mental picture of a traveler from a distant future stumbling upon the ruins of this place, the noise and lights gone, the monolithic remains the center of a dystopian Minotaur’s maze. Now his old premonition felt eerily current, as if he were a lost warrior trying to unravel the secrets of the labyrinth before the monster devoured them all.

  Grey left the chaos of Piccadilly, limped down theater-lined Shaftesbury and entered the twisting streets of Soho. After stopping at a hip secondhand store to ditch his bloody guard’s uniform and change into a pair of jeans and a black sweater, he pressed through the crowd of pierced and tattooed Londoners, his rough appearance drawing stares. He popped a few more painkillers, then cut through an alley and spotted the brick eatery Anka had named on the phone.

  He noticed her at once. She was on the patio in her fitted leather jacket, blond hair spilling across her collarbone, sipping a glass of wine. In a café full of fashionably slim and beautiful European women, Anka still stood out like a flash of lightning in a moonless sky.

  Grey eyeballed the restaurant and the street, saw nothing out of place, then strode to Anka’s table. Her face sagged with relief as he approached, but he slapped a twenty-pound note on the table. “Does that cover it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then let’s go,” he said.

  “I just arrived, and no one knows I’m here.”

  “Now.”

  Her mouth puckered into an oval of hurt, but she grabbed her handbag and rose. “What happened to you? Why do you look like you were just…”

  “Kidnapped and tortured? Because I was.”

  She grabbed his hands. “You can’t think I had anything to do with that.”

  His flat stare never wavered. “I don’t know what I think, when it comes to you.”

  They were standing in the middle of the street. She was looking him straight in the eye with no trace of subterfuge, no telltale body language. She reached up to stroke his cheek. “I can only imagine what happened. If Dante was involved, I’m sure it was terrible.”

  At least she hadn’t given him empty promises, told him he could trust her. Regardless, he was out of options. He took her by the hand and led her down the street.

  “Where’re we going?” she said.

  “To a different restaurant.”

  Grey led her across Regent Street and into a more residential section of the West End. It was a little risky, but he had to lose the crowds to make sure they were not being followed. And if they were, then he knew who to blame.

  He wound in and out of the quiet streets and mews without a word, focused on the journey. Anka clenched his hand as they walked, peering nervously around each new corner. So far he had seen nothing out of the ordinary, and by the time they reached his destination, a hidden square with tiny streets branching in five directions, he felt sure they had not been followed.

  He led her to a bistro in the middle of the square, flanked by a coffee shop and a tandoori restaurant. Grey had once dated a waitress who worked at this bistro, and they used to meet at an after-hours lounge across the street when their shifts ended.

  Grey requested a table by one of the street-facing windows, with a view of all five streets spilling into the square. He also knew the back door of the restaurant opened to an alleyway. There were plenty of exits.

  After they ordered, Anka said, “I’ve never noticed this square before. It’s charming.”

  “It would be under different circumstances,” he said. “So let me ask you: What’s to stop Darius from doing his magic trick and popping in to greet us?”

  “You’re not asking because you think he might, are you?”

  “No,” he said.

  She looked away. “You still don’t believe me.”

  “Don’t take it personally. I’m not much of a believer in anything of that sort.”

  “It means you don’t trust me,” she said.

  “I think you believe it. But that doesn’t make it real.”

  Her face sagged, and Grey reminded himself that she had saved his life. “It does beg the question as to why you’re not worried,” he said, “but let’s move past that. Where have you been? Why’d you call me?”

  “I’ve been in hiding, but something’s happening. I think tomorrow night. And I am worried, just not about him showing up tonight. He’s too preoccupied to worry about me right now.”

  “Then what’re you worried about?”

  She met his eyes. “You.”

  “Judging by my pleasant little chat with Dante, you might need to be more worried about yourself. Most of his questions concerned your whereabouts.” Her face paled, and Grey said, “It also makes me think Darius can’t flit about the world as easily as you think he can.”

  She pursed her lips. “I’ve come to the same conclusion. I don’t know if it requires a spell or a personal connection or proximity or what, but I do think there are limits. But regardless,” she said hurriedly, noticing the glaze in Grey’s eyes, “that’s terrible what happened to you. Dante’s pure evil.”

  “You don’t need to convince me,” he said.

  “That’s why you’re limping?”

  “Yes.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand. “Because of me.”

  “Dante’s responsible for his own actions.”

  Her hand returned to her lap, and she looked to the side. “I saw him last night, with Darius. It’s how I know something’s happening.”

  “I thought you were in hiding?” he said.

  “I… saw the conversation.”

  “Oh. You mean like that.”

  She bit her lip. “I wasn’t present like I sometimes am. I was just sort of mentally… there.”

  Grey leaned back and crossed his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me you were into the occult before you met Darius?”

  “What?”

  “Were you or were you not studying the occult before you met him?”

  “Have you been researching me?” she said.

  “Just answer the question, Anka.”

  Despair seeped into her eyes. “Without you, I’m truly alone in this madness. Of course I was researching the occult before I met Darius. Wouldn’t you, if you suddenly found your spirit separating from your body and floating through walls? I’d never been so scared in my life. When everyone said I was possessed by the Devil, I started to believe them. I was looking for answers anywhere I could, long before Darius arrived.”

  She forced away a lump in her throat, and this time Grey put his hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, of course you would,” he said. “I’d do the same. I checked up on you because I had to be sure I could trust you.”

  “And are you?”

  “I’m not a very trusting person,” he said. “And our relationship hasn’t exactly been normal.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I guess I can’t ask for more right now.”

  “If we get through tomorrow, maybe we can talk.” Grey removed his hand from her arm. “There’s one more thing I have to ask, though.”

  “I’m not afraid of questions.”

  “Why did Dante call you Eve?” he said.

  “When I found out who Simon really was and confronted him,” she said, “he told me we should start again
, as new people. He asked if he could call me Eve. He said it was a good name for a new beginning. At that point I was terrified of him, so I agreed.”

  Part of Grey wanted to find a chink in Anka’s armor, because that would restore the natural order of things, would let him know where they both stood. But try as he might, he failed to detect a flicker of deception.

  He gave a very slow nod, and she squeezed his arm. “Thank you,” she said.

  He took a swallow of water. “Back to last night. Anything you can remember could help.”

  “I didn’t get details, just that something will happen tomorrow night, something important.”

  “Do you know where they’ll be?” he said.

  “They didn’t discuss leaving, so I assume somewhere in London. Darius asked Dante if all was ready for tomorrow night, and Dante said yes. I heard them mention a hacker as well.”

  “Like a computer hacker?”

  She held her palms up. “I think so. I’m not sure.”

  “Curious,” he said.

  “The only other thing of substance I caught was that the Inner Council would be there to observe.”

  “Did you get any names, addresses, anything?”

  “Nothing like that,” she said. “I’m sorry. Whatever it is… I fear it’s going to be terrible.”

  “I think that’s a safe assumption. There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  Her eyes moved downward. “Viktor’s name came up.”

  Grey’s lips compressed. “Another impression with no details?”

  “I’m sorry again,” she said, touching his arm.

  Their meals came and Grey devoured his without pleasure, forcing it down for fuel. He asked for a double espresso and the check, paid in cash, and had to stop and grip the table as he rose, the throbbing in his thigh from the sudden movement almost unbearable.

  He pushed away from the table. “Let’s go.”

  Brother Pietro held the door as Viktor entered a tiny bedchamber reeking of decay. A cot lay against the far wall, a wooden bedside table at its head. On top of the table was an oil lamp, a basin of water, and a leather-bound Bible with a cover worn to a nub.

  Despite his years in the field Viktor flinched when he saw the shell of a man lying on his back on the cot. A stained bandage covered his forehead. Empty, blood-encrusted sockets were all that remained of his eyes, and his pockmarked face looked ravaged by some terrible disease. Uncombed, wispy white hair spilled from his head onto the bedsheet.

  Viktor couldn’t guess his age. He looked far older than Pietro, but that might have been due to his deteriorating physical state.

  “I apologize for my appearance.” His voice was a controlled whisper that belied his appearance, and the opposite of his brother: the voice of a man completely at ease with the state of his soul, despite his terrible wounds. Viktor thought of his own aching body, and of various injuries he had sustained in the past, none of which he had borne this well, and none of which were in the same universe as the sufferings of this man.

  Then Viktor noticed his wrists, lying face-up by his side. Ooze-encrusted sores covered the middle of each wrist, bleeding at the edges. On closer inspection he realized the sores possessed a circular shape, both in the same location. Viktor had seen similar wounds on one other occasion, when he had visited a Catholic priest in Uganda who was reportedly afflicted by the stigmata.

  Hundreds of verified cases of stigmata around the world no longer caused Viktor to doubt the occurrence of the phenomenon. He believed they were caused by auto-suggestion rather than faith, an extreme psychosomatic reaction. Theological placebo effect explained the relative limitation of the occurrence to Catholics, similar to the ability of Juju priests to cause spontaneous lesions and boils on the bodies of their worshippers. An unexplained wrinkle in the Uganda case was that the blood pouring from the priest’s wound did not match his blood type. Fraud was suspected but never proven, and doctors investigating the case proffered no other explanation.

  “Not all of this was done by my last visitor,” the priest said. “I have been… afflicted… for some time.”

  “It’s fine, Father. I’m not troubled by your appearance.”

  “You’re Viktor Radek?”

  “I am, but I never told your brother my name.”

  “It was told to me by my visitor.” He grasped the iron cross attached to the rosary around his neck, fingers trembling. “The follower of Ahriman.”

  Viktor didn’t say a word, but a nausea started building in his chest. Could Darius truly have done such a thing? He tried not to look at the priest’s face, but his eyes kept sliding back to those empty sockets.

  “You wonder why he left me alive. Why bother to pluck my eyes, to lay his hands on my body and scar me with his heresy?”

  Like a baby’s first struggling movements, the priest’s hands moved to the top of the bedsheet, unfurling the white covering to reveal a chest covered with thickened red welts. At first Viktor didn’t see it, but then he realized the scars formed a crude word written in Avestan.

  Ahriman.

  “Could you recognize his voice in a court of law?” Viktor said thickly. “Did he say anything you can remember?”

  “He said to tell Viktor Radek he will always be a step behind.”

  Viktor’s mouth opened, but then his face flushed and he clenched his jaw, an almost unbearable rage rising within him. Father Angelo replaced the bedsheet. “He’s changed since you knew him, hasn’t he?”

  “Sorry?” Viktor said.

  “Does he win the hearts and minds of men, has he mastered the art of the flesh, does he move about the world unseen? I’ve heard about the murders, even here.”

  “There’s a plausible explanation, of that I assure you. Darius is a master magician, an illusionist.”

  “Do you understand the reason for the last power? It’s a perversion of Jesus’s appearance to his disciples after the resurrection. True bilocation. Are you familiar with the case of Padre Pio?”

  “An Italian priest who witnesses claimed could bilocate,” Viktor said. He looked at the priest’s wrists and said quietly, “He also had wounds such as yours.”

  “Yes, he was united with the passion of Christ. Allowed to share in the tiniest portion of His pain.”

  “As do you, I presume,” Viktor said.

  “One never presumes such a thing. Christ would never give such a power, or cause an affliction such as the stigmata. They are gained through intimacy with Him, a physical manifestation of empathy with our Lord and Savior.”

  “What do you know about Ahriman, and about Darius’s beliefs in this being? How do I find him?”

  “Ahriman corrupts. He has defiled this man, and you cannot hope to overcome him now. His own faith alone can defeat him.”

  “This is about justice, not faith,” Viktor said grimly.

  “Faith is what connects us to God, drives the miracles of the saints. So, too, it allows Ahriman to work through this man. You must sever the tie.”

  Viktor tried to keep the impatience from his voice. “You mean the grimoire.”

  “The grimoire is an empty vessel, a tool used by Ahriman to strengthen the faith of his followers. A manipulation of the mind of man.”

  “You’ve read it?” Viktor said.

  “How can we defend against that which we do not know?”

  “Surely there’s something inside that can help me. Is there a ritual he must perform, perhaps at a certain place?”

  “Of course there’s a ritual,” the priest said. “Ritual is the first step towards faith, though ultimately unnecessary. True faith is rare in the extreme, and thus Ahriman must convince his servants that they are able to gain his favor. Terrible, terrible things are proffered within the grimoire, wicked deeds to be performed, unholy consumptions to be made.”

  “You’re saying you believe anyone could gain these abilities if one’s faith were strong enough?” Viktor said.

  “‘I tell you the truth, if you have faith
as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”

  Viktor stared in frustration at the sightless priest.

  “But there is a limit, a constraint,” the priest said. “To strengthen the faith of the servant, the grimoire claims there can be but a single favored disciple at any one time. Only one granting of the three powers.”

  “Forgive me, Father, but none of this helps me find Darius. I need something concrete. Do you have something his followers would fear? Perhaps another relic, from the days of the original heresy?”

  “I told you, the relics mean nothing. It’s not the letter of the law that concerns God but the faith it imparts. You must use faith as a weapon.”

  “And I told you that I’m not a man of faith,” Viktor said.

  “Not yours,” he whispered, “his. Ahriman cannot be defeated, but his servant can. Sever the tie.”

  “You’d make a good religious phenomenologist.”

  The monk’s eyelids closed, and he folded his hands across his chest. Viktor had to move closer to hear his murmurings. “‘And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns as a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast… and his number is six hundred threescore and six.’”

  “Revelations Thirteen,” Viktor said. “With all due respect, Father, quoting Revelations doesn’t make sense. Darius is a Diabolist, a follower of Ahriman because he believes this being grants him power. Ahriman and Zoroastrianism have nothing to do with Christianity, except for a commonality of myth.”

  A convulsion lifted the priest’s body off the cot, and it took him a moment to recover. “Do not be deceived. There is a singular evil force in this world, in this universe, and its name is irrelevant. Satan, Baal, Iblis, Mara, Kali, Tiamat, Ahriman: These denominations are human constructs. I quote the word of God as I know it to be, with the tools God has given me to humbly understand a portion of His design. Others do the same.”