by Irvine, Alex
This question of plastic is a complex one, apparently. I look around this cabin and see it everywhere. There are plastic containers of every shape, transparent or translucent or dyed with any color one might imagine. There are plastic bags for storage of food items, going by the moniker Ziploc—and where has the K gone from that name? “Branding,” it seems, according to Abbie. One of the functions of this activity known as branding is the destruction of words in order that they may be formed into slogans. This age views language with deep suspicion and words as things that may be mutilated for the purpose of commerce. I am, it seems, quite old-fashioned by virtue of my habits of speech and writing—at least as much as by my dress.
Where my dress is concerned, I will continue as I have thus far. Soap and water are as much a wonder as the Internet or Ziploc bags. (“Baggies” they are called sometimes, following a strange tendency in this age to apply diminutives to everything. Mystifying.) Why would I fill a closet with clothing I do not want, when I keep my own clothes clean and they suit my preferences? A man can only bend so much to the winds of fashion.
[October 23]
The Horseman is ahead of us once again. He has located and murdered a number of the Freemasons, leaving their heads in Tarrytown’s clock tower in a grotesque parody of the lanterns lit as a signal to Paul Revere—about whom more anon. The Horseman located his head and attacked the police laboratory where it was housed, killing the technician there and nearly doing away with Captain Irving, who fought off its invasion long enough to enable us to keep possession of the head. However, we have been unable to destroy it. Nothing in the guidance I have received from Katrina sheds any light on how this task might be accomplished. Irving, it must be added, is opposed to the idea of destroying the head, since he views it as evidence in several murder cases. He has been forced to confront the truth about the supernatural elements of our collective plight, of which he has until now been ruthlessly skeptical.
The Horseman also destroyed parts of a book belonging to the Freemasons, leading us to believe there is a way to destroy his head. The Freemasons knew of it, and the Horseman is out to ensure that even if we maintain physical possession of his skull, we will be doing little more than keeping it safe for him until he manages to wrest it from our dead hands.
I have had occasion to do some reading while sequestered here in Corbin’s cabin between hunting missions and responses to police emergencies. During the course of this reading, I was put in mind of Jonathan Swift—not his absurd Gulliver’s Travels but his writing from a broadsheet called the Examiner: “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after.” I gather this phrase has been adapted (to put it politely) by a number of great minds who succeeded Swift as gadflies and blackly humorous commentators on human foolishness. Yet etymology, as fascinating as I find it ordinarily, is not my purpose here. I am thinking of the benevolent lies a people tells about itself, and more to the point I am thinking of the famous story of Paul Revere’s midnight ride. One if by land, two if by sea; and I on the opposite shore will be … indeed. But the night in question was much more complex and dangerous than that little bit of doggerel suggests.
I was put in charge of protecting two fugitives from the Crown’s justice, John Hancock and Samuel Adams—and again I pause to note the way certain “Founding Fathers” have entered the popular imagination. Hancock’s was hardly the most embellished signature I ever saw, yet his signature has become the most famous in the history of this nation and his name a byword for the act of signing one’s name: “Put your John Hancock there.” It would perhaps be better if more Americans of this age knew their “Founding Fathers” as men rather than symbols. Adams was a brilliant and pugnacious man, uninterested in the malt houses from which his family earned their living, entirely devoted to ideals; his contribution to the American character comes from his steadfast Puritan idealism and his anger at the Crown. He was also mentor to Hancock, who was Adams’s opposite in every respect. Scion of a rich mercantile family, lover of luxuries, and canny exploiter of loose shipping regulations, Hancock was the scintillating figurehead the American sentiment required. He and Adams argued, fiercely at times, but when their vision of America demanded it they were at each other’s side. And so it was on the night of April 18, 1775, the occasion of Paul Revere’s famous ride.
Revere is said to have been riding to warn the residents of Boston of an impending redcoat incursion. That would certainly have been part of his mission; it was well-known among us that recent British military aggression was soon to intensify. However, the primary aim of Revere’s ride—and the cardinal reason for its timing and secrecy—was the transfer of a packet of intelligence. I saw it change hands from Adams to Revere before Revere left the safe house. I was told at the time that it contained secrets and inferred from this that Revere was to convey information about redcoat movements, troop strengths, and so forth. Upon seeing the package I noted with interest a symbol inscribed on its exterior. At the time I did not understand its significance, but I recall it as if I had only just observed Adams conveying it to Revere.
This heptagram, with its star-inside-a-star structure, was clearly a protective measure of some sort. Yet it was not until last night that I understood what I had seen. With Abigail’s assistance I was guided to a file of Sheriff Corbin’s and learned therein that this symbol is known as a Devil’s Trap.
Revere, one must conclude, was carrying secret intelligence vital to the war against the demonic legions rather than the soldiers of the Crown—although as my experience with Colonel Tarleton demonstrates, the two were at times one and the same.
I had occasion to speak with Revere after his ride, before the war drove us in different directions. He told the tale of pursuing redcoats, riding down his party and cutting them from their saddles one by one. This is one more event lost to the popular histories; I shall need an entirely different diary just to keep track of those! It is my deep suspicion—now, looking back on Revere’s tale with the knowledge I have gained since—that the Hessian was among the pursuers, although Revere never said this and would have had no reason to specify. Further, since I have learned the meaning of the Devil’s Trap, I now suspect the materials Revere delivered that night contained information on how the Horseman might be combated. His hanging of the heads in the clock tower now seems like a provocation. He wishes us to know what he knows; he wishes us to fear his apparent invulnerability. I, for my part, will fear him no more than is necessary to muster the courage I shall need to kill him.
On a lighter note: For all his Puritan dourness, Adams nurtured a love of off-color limericks. While I’m saddened that those he composed have been lost to history, I still amuse myself by crafting some of my own:
The redcoats were chasing Revere
With intentions warlike and severe
But the harlots of Boston
Tittered and caused ’em
In another direction to veer.
Lord, let it never be said
That Hancock was easily led
If he spied women sweeter
He chose as his leader
Not the big, but the littler head.
Ten strumpets and ten trollops more
Besieged General Washington’s door
He called them all in
To tell them their sin
And ended up adding one more!
And while I am amusing myself, a note on television. There is one in Sheriff Corbin’s cabin, as I gather there is in nearly every American home—not to mention every waiting room, restaurant, tavern … they are so common I find myself surprised when I can turn in a complete circle and not see one. The televised plays—shows, they are called—are bewildering in their variety.
There is a thing called “science fiction,” in which the most outlandish scenarios are treated as if they are real. My own situation is quite outlandish, viewed from the perspective of someone unaware of the dark conspiracies of Moloch and his acolytes, so perhaps I should not be peremptory in m
y assessment of these stories—yet how bizarre they are! Sentient beings from the distant reaches beyond the known planets; ships that can travel among the stars; the ingenuity of these movies makes them enjoyable.
Terrifying as well! In one, a parasite from a dead planet is taken aboard a ship and begins to hunt and kill the crew. I began watching this movie and found myself unable to look away. Then I, who have looked demons in the face and battled the minions of hell itself, was reluctant to extinguish the last light before I slept. Perhaps I will refrain from mentioning this to Abigail, who doubtless would seize the opportunity to tease me mercilessly.
[October 27]
My resolve to remain silent about last night’s fright evaporated as Abigail and I were in conversation. I told her of the movie, and my reaction to it. She laughed! Of course. I am quite amusing to her, and why not? To her, I am a character out of history, and my bafflement at what she finds ordinary is certain to be funny to her.
“That movie was called Alien, right?” she asked me. I nodded and she said, “That movie would scare Dracula. I never could watch it all the way through.”
I made inquiries as to the identity of this Dracula, and now I have an entirely new set of fables to unnerve me. Vampires!? I had never heard of such things.
How these people love to terrify themselves!
We continued our investigations at the local historical society, where we were informed that the Revere manuscript was on loan to a military museum—in London, of all places. Its contents, however, were available “online.”
And here I must digress.
The Internet. I believe I have begun to understand this strange, but seemingly important, hive of highly sophisticated calculating machines called “computers” that can also be used to store information by means of magnetism. One can access this vast storehouse of information by means of these machines, although learning those fiendish devices is a travail itself. I am doing so, but more slowly than I would like—and with the side effect of great hilarity on Abigail’s part.
Fantastic. In the old sense of unbelievable, and yet it is commonplace here. Everyone seems to have this Internet even in their coat pockets, by means of “smartphones” that can access it. One wonders, then, why they are still called phones, or telephones, since my observations would indicate that few owners of these devices use them for telephonic communication.
I see children tapping on these phones to send each other messages when they are yards away from each other. It is as if the phone convinces its bearer that he exists in an entirely separate world, only accessible to the worlds of others by means of the device itself. The phone is a gatekeeper, sentry, jailer—all at once! If ever I possess one, I would hope that a friend—should I ever have a friend in this age—will end my life painlessly and with mercy.
Common phrases and expressions I find either fascinating, repellent, or simply of interest:
OMG
Sitting duck
Shooting fish in a barrel (one wonders if this phrase has an added meaning, for after all any barrel in which fish were shot would no longer hold water.…)
LOL
Catfish as verb
Game-changer
Impact as verb (abomination!)
Win-win
For the win
Boo-yah
Gridlock
Supermarket, superhighway, superstorm—everything must be super!
Noob, troll, spam … there are so many.
I have done it. Surmounting the obstacles we faced, I obtained a paper copy of the Revere manuscript and immediately saw it was a cipher. Adams was a partisan of a particular encryption method now known as the Vigenère cipher—I used that name when speaking of it to Abigail, because I assumed her police training would have included at least the basics of cryptography, and took care to brief myself on the terms now in use. In my time this construct was known as the polyalphabetic cipher of Giovan Battista Bellaso, for it was only later—while I lay in the cave under the spells of my beloved Katrina—that it was misattributed to Blaise de Vigenère.
The fundamental principle of the Vigenère cipher is multiple layers of substitution. A simple code is easily broken if one has any grasp of the relative frequencies with which different letters occur in the message’s language. In English, the most common letter is E, followed by T and A. Once the positions of those are established, the rest of the content may be deduced with ease. The difficulty is multiplied infinitely by the introduction of a second key, a phrase overlaid on the first cipher that changes the substitution with each letter. Without knowing the key, it is nearly impossible to grasp the underlying pattern of the cipher. I wrestled in vain with the coded passage, trying a number of keys—Washington, Adams, Hancock, Revere, various others—until in a moment of frustration I glanced over at the Horseman’s skull and saw something unusual. Sunlight from the archive’s high windows was now, late in the day, striking the skull at a different angle, revealing that the skull’s teeth were inlaid with silver. On that silver were etched letters: CICERO.
In that moment I knew this must be the key.
Who had done this? Someone had taken possession of the Hessian’s head, reduced it to bone, and left this message. Undoubtedly a circuitous route to follow if one wished to communicate a code key, but it made as much sense as any other method given the circumstance. The visionary who had left this message had known that a future confrontation with the Horseman loomed, and knew too that the knowledge of how he might be fought would be lost over the centuries. I suppose, seeing the material of the inlay was silver, that Paul Revere himself—a silversmith by trade—performed the task. If so, all Americans have yet another reason to be grateful to him.
Why Cicero? I can only speculate that Revere chose this key in honor of the Roman orator’s belief in republican ideals. He was a defender of Rome against the constant encroachment of tyranny—though I suspect he would consider the United States, with its numerous representative bodies and constant bickering, an undisciplined rabble. One must always be wary of ascribing to the ancients ideals more at home in this modern age.
Cicero was also the pen name chosen by Arthur Bernard, whose pamphlets Revere would have read. Perhaps he also knew Bernard personally. I cannot help but believe that both Revere and Bernard drew on the legacy of Ciceronian thought: Bernard to disguise himself, and Revere to unlock the secrets of the Horseman’s vulnerability. What tangled webs we weave.
VPGLFF UMOEEO DPQVJH JMTEUW CVEIFT UWNMKW UPKWNS CSPIJG JMEEEB QBDIYS NLHSIS XMTAYC YWWPUG GQBIYW OCUIKV KAUMXW NIFIMW NAVVRD CVFQLG VNKRUO YQVGYK JWOEPA CSGPLB CWHWFZ IE
I write the Vigenère cipher thus, broken into six-letter groups, because the key CICERO consists of six letters. W, the first letter, corresponds to the first C in CICERO. C is the third letter of the alphabet—or two moves from the letter A—so the V has been advanced two places from the actual letter. In other words, for that letter, V equals T. Next, P, which corresponds to the I in CICERO. I being eight moves from A, that P must be moved back eight places in the alphabetic order—yielding H. And so forth. Continuing, one finds (with correct word breaks and a guess at intended punctuation):
THE HORSEMAN ABHORS THE RADIANCE OF SOL. IT IS HIS WEAKNESS. HE CANNOT BE HELD FOREVER; WHO WOULD SEIZE HIM USE THIS SIGIL, A DEVIL’S TRAP—AND MUST FIND A WITCH WHO MAY MAKE LUNA OF SOL. GW
Thus I broke the cipher and went to find Abigail—who was deep in conversation with the revenant Brooks. I write those words as if the occasion was nothing unusual, and indeed given other recent events a casual conversation with an undead man is barely worth notice. Brooks was wracked with guilt over his complicity in the Horseman’s actions, and agreed to convey a message that the Horseman should meet us at the clock tower at nightfall.
Abigail, naturally, demanded to know why I sought a direct engagement with the Horseman. Showing her my scrawled decryption of the manuscript, I explained the outlines of my plan. The Horseman of Death cannot be captured, but he can be trapped�
��thus the Devil’s Trap on the packet Revere carried. His weakness is sunlight, which we would have inferred from his nocturnal attacks thus far even if Katrina had not told me as much weeks ago, and to trap him, a witch must be found who can work a spell to transform the sun into the moon. This seemed a metaphor to me at the time, and I still am indecisive as to its true meaning.
Tonight will tell. We have gathered the materials we need and all that remains is to wait for night.
Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino qui fertis super caelum caeli ad Orientem
Ecce dabit voci Suae vocem virtutis, tribuite virtutem Deo.
Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.
Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te.
Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.
Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis.
Humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt.
Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine.
Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos.
Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos.
Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae te rogamus, audi nos.
