The Unknown Element

by Vince Milam

  “And this?” he asked, lifting a lid on a container of very thin bread.

  “Tortillas. Put some of that pork chili verde in one, roll it, and—never mind,” said Nadine. She grabbed a tortilla, filled it with pork chunks and green sauce, rolled it and handed it to Francois.

  “Ah. The use of the hands again. Such a thing is good. Earthy.” Francois thoroughly enjoyed the primitive presentation and lively flavors of the food.

  “You must mean the Libris Ignota,” said Nadine, filling her own tortilla.

  Francois froze in mid-bite and shifted his gaze to Nadine. She raised one eyebrow in response.

  “What’s that?” asked Cole.

  “Libris Ignota. The Unknown Books. Buried über deep in the Vatican. Only special honchos get access. Officially, these documents don’t exist,” explained Nadine.

  Francois wiped his mouth and mustache with a napkin. “There exist not twenty men on this earth that know of this.” His voice carried a grave timbre.

  “Twenty men and one woman,” said Nadine, apparently enjoying both her meal and the revelation of her unusual knowledge. “Cole, are you dating anyone?”

  “What?” asked Cole.

  “Dating. Anyone.”

  “No. Good Lord, Nadine. Could we stay on the subject? This hidden library or repository or whatever. Do those documents help us in any way?”

  No response followed, which prompted Cole to raise his beer at the waiter and signal for another one. The sheriff had clearly become frustrated, Francois surmised, by the lack of direct answers. He exhibited a lawman’s drive for irrefutable facts, typical of such men.

  “And so, Mademoiselle,” said Francois after a moment. “I must ask.” He felt it time to better understand this woman. The Libris Ignota! How could she know of its existence?

  “Yes, Francois, I do,” said Nadine.

  “May I ask in what form?” She had leapt ahead in the conversation, somehow anticipating or predicting his question. What an amazing woman!

  “Alright, someone give me a clue,” said Cole. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

  Nadine mopped her plate with a corn tortilla. “Whether I believe in God. And I’ll get to that in a while.”

  They continued to eat. Thoughtful silence again ensued until Francois burped and fished for a smoke. The waiter brought an ashtray along with dessert menus. As he adjusted himself in the chair and smoked, Francois took time to gather his thoughts. This Nadine—I have not taken her seriously enough. I shall not make that mistake again.

  “They knew God, the Hebrews. And their knowledge was passed on—the Old Testament, yes?” said Francois.

  “I’m sensing lecture time, Francois,” said Nadine. “No offense. Please just make it a good one.”

  He continued as if he had not heard her. “Knowledge of evil beings—not human—was also passed on. This, of course, was not so widely distributed. Why? Who can say?” He paused to smoke. “But the reality is well documented. And, my knowledge in this realm is quite extensive.”

  Francois leaned back, lips pursed, and moved his attention back and forth between the other two. It was time to let them absorb the information he had imparted. Cole stared at the table. Nadine’s crossed leg began to tap the suspended flip-flop against her heel. One, two, three—an apparent metronome for her thought process.

  “What you ask me to believe, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that there are actual physical beings among us who are not human,” said Nadine. “This is a biggie, Francois.” She paused to take a drink of beer. “You want my analysis to focus on walking, talking, farting nonhuman creatures. That’s a leap beyond faith. It’s leaping the Grand Canyon.”

  He nodded in response. This remarkably bright woman had succinctly grasped his contention, although the passing of wind by such creatures had not, he was certain, entered into his presentation.

  He flicked ashes off his cigarette and said, “I must add another aspect. It pains me to have less than a definitive answer. Yet the ancient manuscripts leave open the possibility that a living demon can transfer some form of possession to a human.” He felt it best to reveal as many factors as he could, particularly with the Mademoiselle.

  “So let’s focus on Moloch,” said Cole. “Is he a demon? At least a kind of demon as differentiated from the invisible demons that possess people?”

  “Such is my belief,” said Francois. The sheriff’s question showed a cultural affectation he’d experienced in past trips to the States. The Americans referred to it as “staying on the same page.” One must adjust to local mores. “It is difficult. This I know. Their nature would appear to be the same. In classical theology, demons do not have bodies as we know them. And yet, and yet, it would seem that some do.”

  Nadine leaned forward and took another smoke from Francois’s pack, then looked to ask “okay?” Francois brushed his hand through the air as an “of course.”

  Nadine lit the smoke and said, “Alright. This is a good time to answer your earlier question. I believe in a God. If you can call it that. Energy that moves through the cosmos. But I’ve never seen a tangible reflection of this on earth. Nor have I seen any of Satan’s minions. I’m a product of my experiences, Francois. And I never experienced either your version of evil or the power of God on this little ball in space called earth. No boogeyman. No miracles.”

  Francois confronted such attitudes his whole life, including within the church. Unless this woman insisted on a more esoteric conversational path, he knew it best to keep things focused on the matter at hand.

  “I understand,” he said. “It is difficult to grasp. It is a different reality. You have asked. I have attempted to reply. Let us not get distracted. How, may I ask, will you find this Moloch?”

  Nadine’s flip-flop stopped its rhythmic slap. “Facial recognition. I doubt he’ll use the same identification now. Could be wrong. I’ll trace that as well. But cameras capture everyone at US airports. Most other countries do the same. He entered the US as Moloch. Unless he is disguised, he can be tracked.”

  “Excellent,” said Francois.

  “Once I’ve identified him, I’ll find out about his past. Movements, activities, associations. Unless, of course, he appeared out of thin air.”

  Francois ignored this poke at his assertions, and Nadine continued.

  “So let’s say I pinpoint this guy. Find him. What are you going to do when you confront him? Challenge him to a duel?” She took a puff without inhaling and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling.

  “He must be confronted. This I know,” said Francois with a definitive air.

  “Bad answer,” said Nadine.

  They sat at an impasse across a table littered with small bits of corn chips and depleted stone salsa bowls. Francois smoked in silence. The triple slap of Nadine’s flip-flop started again.

  “Back to Nadine’s point. Let’s assume you catch him. Whatever he is. You corner him. Confront him. What then? How have you handled this in the past?” asked Cole.

  “It remains to be seen,” said Francois.

  “You mean it’s circumstantial. Every situation is different,” said Nadine.

  “I mean to say that I do not know,” said Francois.

  “Then what is the standard approach? Church protocol?” asked Cole.

  Francois gazed at the ceiling fan, not feeling the answer of great importance. “This will be my first attempt. My first quest.”

  Cole exhaled and sat back.

  “Cool!” said Nadine. “A blank sheet of paper. An unsolved puzzle. We can do that. Cole, do you want dessert?”

  Nadine insisted and picked up the check. On the way back to her apartment, at a stop sign in her quiet neighborhood, she waited for a woman with a stroller to cross in front of her. Just past their vehicle, the woman stopped, left the stroller in the street, and approached the open windows of their car. No other traffic moved on the street.

  Cicadas buzzed in the summer evening from the old river oaks lining the str
eets. The heat had dissipated, replaced with a desultory humidity.

  The woman stopped a few feet away from Nadine’s window, leaned over, and said, “You’ll all die. You cannot defeat him.”

  The woman turned and walked back to her baby, grasped the stroller and continued to cross the street. She cast a look back at the three and delivered a big, toothy smile. Her eyes blazed.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Nadine, as she continued to watch the woman move away.

  “Exactement, mon ami. Exactement.”

  Chapter 14

  Price Jones slid his knife back and forth over the sharpening stone with a steady rasping rhythm. Off to work soon, at that bloody blind school, but plenty of time to hone a prized possession. The Welsh Fusiliers trench knife, a World War I relic with an eighteen-inch double-edged leaf-shaped blade, had belonged to some toady prick prior to Jones’s burglary. Unlike the previous owner, he deserved it—so much so that a tattoo of it adorned the left side of his neck with the blade sticking up above his shirt collars.

  Jones lived in a seedier section of old Cardiff, but it worked well enough. Dole from the government and odd jobs would do, usually cleaning tables or washing dishes for the dinner crowd or, like now, a nasty temporary janitorial job. The tiny apartment did not represent home as much as online with his mates did. Fantasy war games and chat forums made for a comforting environment. Some of the forums linked to dark places, and while mates on those sites expressed plenty of adulation for murky forces, they never tossed negative judgments back when he expressed personal thoughts and feelings. Many people felt, and lived, as he did.

  He flipped the blade over, one run on the stone per edge. Last night had been another bloody disaster, except for that old codger.

  Bloody tarts. Women too stupid to grasp his qualities—good looking, fit, and smart. Anyone with half a brain could see that. He’d stopped at a pub on his way home from work. He stood at the bar, ordered a pint, and looked around. Two young women stood next to him, laughing about something stupid and lingering over the last of their beers. The woman next to him in a red sweater had her back to him, so he looked past her to her friend, a tall blonde.

  “Sounds bloody interesting,” he said.

  “What?” asked the blonde.

  The girl in the sweater turned around to see who her friend had talked to. She wasn’t a bad looker and the blonde definitely wasn’t dog food either.

  “Whatever it is. You are both laughing at something. Must be bloody interesting.” He made sure to sneer slightly when he smiled; it gave him a hot bad boy image.

  “Not really,” said the blonde. The girl in the sweater rolled her eyes and turned her back again. He pointed his chin at the other.

  “You chat online?” Jones asked the blonde.

  “What’s that?”

  “Forums. Chat rooms. You know, online.”

  The girl in the sweater swallowed the last of her pint. Her friend said to Jones, “I don’t fancy those things. A bit of Facebook, but that’s all. The rest makes no sense.” She too finished her beer.

  Stupid, stupid tarts, thought Jones. Sweater girl wouldn’t even talk to him. But they were somewhat hot and you never knew. That leggy one was a nice bit of blonde. Online mates often told of conquests that started with more humble beginnings, and he had to look better than most of them. He finished his beer and followed them out to the dark street. The air hung with a light coastal mist, creating a sheen on the cobblestones.

  “So where would you be off to?” he asked. The question clearly surprised both young women. They must not have heard him follow them out of the pub.

  “Home,” the girl in the sweater replied. “Alone.”

  The other one was better looking anyway, so Jones shifted his attention to her.

  “And you? Up for a bit of late night fun?”

  “Sod off!” said the young woman. “What makes you think I’d have anything to do with you?”

  The two women linked arms and walked away. “That one’s a beauty!” he heard one of them comment. The other laughed.

  Jones stood seething in the dark mist and watched them disappear.

  “They are stupid girls.” It came low, accented, and empathic, from the street alley next to the pub.

  “Who’s that?” asked Jones, squinting into the darkness of the alley.

  “Stupid, stupid girls,” came back the voice, followed by the appearance—as he moved into the light from the pub window—of a tall, bald man. Hard to tell his age, but he had a tight smile and his hands were open and faced Jones, in a gesture of greeting.

  Jones did a quick assessment. Some old codger, probably harmless. But to the old guy’s credit, he’d seen what had happened and understood it.

  “Frustrating, isn’t it,” said the stranger. “You have a lot to offer. More than most men. They couldn’t see that.”

  “I could have shown them a good time. Their bloody loss, because I’m capable of a lot.” Jones caught a final glimpse of the girls under a distant streetlight, the deep mist enveloping them as they continued.

  The stranger moved closer.

  “Yes. I’m very sure you are.”

  Now he returned the oiled blade to its sheath and stood to go to work. Later he would meet for a drink with the old git he’d met outside the bar last night. It struck him as weird that the stranger wanted to have a drink with him, not from some sexual vibe the guy gave off, but because of the way the stranger was able to know him. Empathize with him. But the old man said he’d buy the drinks. Jones could put up with him long enough to down several whiskies.

  That evening, Jones slid into a booth at the Lion’s Paw pub and waved off the waitress. He’d wait for the stranger, and the stranger’s cash, before he ordered a drink. The lousy workday was over, spent wiping down hallways and cleaning toilets for a bunch of blind people. The Cardiff School for the Blind was arsehole central. They had a lot of inside jokes only blind people could understand. He suspected many of these inside comments, followed by general laughter, had to do with him. Screw them, he thought. Stupid blind people. Ingrates.

  After-work patrons crowded the Lion’s Paw, and Jones snapped his head up when the stranger slid into the booth opposite him. He had not seen the stranger enter.

  “Right. So what’s your name?” asked Jones. “And you said you’d buy.”

  The stranger put his large hands flat on the table, pushed himself back, and cocked a head toward Jones. “My friends call me Adal. Would that work for you?”

  Those large hands, bristling with black hair on the backs of the fingers, highlighted how peculiar this old codger appeared.

  “Fine. Whatever. Adal. Are we going to drink? I’m a bit hungry as well. Fancy a bite?” He might as well soak the stranger for whatever he could.

  The server arrived to take their orders. “My friend hungers and thirsts. I will have whatever he is drinking. I will pay,” said the stranger, never taking his eyes off Jones.

  Jones ordered, satisfied that food and drink were not his concern this night.

  “So tell me,” said the stranger. “Tell me all about yourself. You strike me as a very capable young man. Very capable indeed.”

  This stranger understood. This old man could see. No one else did.

  Chapter 15

  They returned to Nadine’s apartment and sat in their original seats. Mule, still on the couch, cast a jaundiced eye toward Francois. The priest returned the favor.

  “Okay. I admit, that was unnerving,” said Nadine. “Probably a psychotic. Let’s not leap to the conclusion that demonic badasses pushing baby strollers are walking around my neighborhood.”

  She found the whole thing disconcerting as hell. It had come out of the blue and coincided with their discussion on demons and Moloch. Rack it up to happenstance, albeit long odds for such a coincidence. Still, that weird vignette had taken a little of the shine off this new adventure. The priest had painted an interesting reality—almost like a parlor game—but that
crazy woman walking up to the car and making those statements made the whole thing darker. It felt good to be back in the apartment.

  Cole retrieved the bottle of Maker’s Mark from the freezer, poured a stiff shot, and held the bottle in Francois’s direction. The priest nodded. Cole offered the same to her. She waved off the offer, focused on the moment. Cole kept the bottle on the small table next to his chair.

  “You’re drinking too much,” she said to Cole. She meant no moral judgment. “This is new. What’s different? Pain? Uncertainty?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks for the concern,” said Cole. “I mean it. But let’s address the issues at hand. Starting with that woman with the stroller.”

  Watching their exchange Francois lit another smoke. “The issue at hand is most definitely related to that woman,” he said. “She is a fiber—an associate—of that which we seek.”

  Nadine watched Cole down his drink in one swallow, and hoped he wasn’t cracking at the seams. He’d passed through the grinder with the Rockport massacre, and the weirdness around Moloch and now stroller-woman only layered icing on the cake. Her skills in the body and soul repair business were lacking. While that was a bother, she could at least pick up on the connected dots, and a large set of those dots orbited around the arrival of the priest and his world of demons. Its effects on Cole, she would bet, looped back to his pounding down liquor. Plus the priest seemed so damn sure of himself and that in and of itself was irritating. Assuredness had a certain appeal in the real world, but anchoring arguments in fantasyland, as the priest did, hardly lent itself to supporting a guy like Cole, who’d been through an awful lot the last few days. Cole needed an ally in this whole mess. She would fill that role.

  “Do you fear, Francois?” asked Nadine, turning to the priest.