In The House Of Secret Enemies m-9

by George C. Chesbro

  "That's right, Kathy. Can I help you?"

  Her words came in a rush. "I want you to get my daddy's book of shadows back from Daniel so Daddy will be happy again. But you mustn't tell Daddy. He'd be awful mad at me if he knew I told anybody. But he just has to get it back or something terrible will happen. I just know it."

  "Kathy, slow down and tell me what a 'book of shadows' is. Who's Daniel?"

  But she wasn't listening. Kathy was crying again, fumbling in her red purse. "I've got money for you," she stammered. "I've been saving my allowance and milk money."

  Before I could say anything the little girl had taken out a handful of small change and pressed it into my palm. I started to give it back, then stopped when I heard footsteps come up behind me.

  "Kathy!" a thin voice said. "There you are!"

  The girl gave me one long, piercing look that was a plea to keep her secret. Then she quickly brushed away her tears and smiled at the person standing behind me. "Hi, Daddy! I fell and hurt myself. Mr. Mongo was making me feel better."

  I straightened up and turned to face Jim Marsten. He seemed much paler and thinner since I'd last seen him, but perhaps it was my imagination. The fact of the matter was that I knew Kathy much better than I knew either of her parents. We knew each other's names, occasionally exchanged greetings in the hall, and that was it. Marsten was a tall man, the near side of thirty, prematurely balding. The high dome of his forehead accentuated the dark, sunken hollows of his eye sockets. He looked like a man who was caving in.

  "Hello, Mongo," Marsten said.

  I absently slipped the money Kathy had given me into my pocket and shook the hand that was extended to me. "Hi, Jim. Good to see you."

  "Thanks for taking care of my daughter." He looked at Kathy. "Are you all right now?"

  Kathy nodded her head. Her money felt heavy in my pocket; I felt foolish. By the time I realized I probably had no right to help a seven-year-old child keep secrets from her father, Jim Marsten had taken the hand of his daughter and was leading her off down the hall. Kathy looked back at me once and her lips silently formed the word please.

  When they were gone I took Kathy's money out of my pocket and counted it. There was fifty-seven cents.

  I must have looked shaky. My brother Garth poured me a second double Scotch and brought it over to where I was sitting. I took a pull at it, then set the glass aside and swore.

  Garth shook his head. "It can all be explained, Mongo," he said. "There's a rational explanation for everything."

  "Is there?" I asked without any real feeling. "Let's hear one."

  Someone was calling my name: a child's voice, crying, afraid, a small wave from some dark, deep ocean lapping at the shore of my mind. Then I was running down a long tunnel, slipping and falling on the soft, oily surface, struggling to reach the small, frail figure at the other end. The figure of Kathy seemed to recede with each step I took, and still I ran. Kathy was dressed in a long, flowing white gown, buttoned to the neck, covered with strange, twisted shapes. Suddenly she was before me. As I reached out to take her in my arms she burst into flames.

  I sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. My first reaction was relief when I realized I had only been dreaming. Then came terror: I smelled smoke.

  Or thought I smelled smoke. Part of the dream? I started to reach for my cigarettes, then froze. There was smoke. I leaped out of bed, quickly checked the apartment. Nothing was burning. I threw open the door of the apartment and stepped out into the hall. Smoke was seeping from beneath the door of the Marstens' apartment.

  I sprinted to the end of the hall and broke the fire box there. Then I ran back and tried the door to 4D. It was locked. I didn't waste time knocking. I braced against the opposite wall, ran two steps forward, kipped in the air and kicked out at the door just above the lock. The door rattled. I picked myself off the floor and repeated the process. This time the door sprung open wide.

  The first thing that hit me was the stench. The inside of the apartment, filled with thick, greenish smoke, smelled like a sewer.

  There was a bright, furnace glow to my right, coming from the bedroom. I started toward it, then stopped when I saw Kathy lying on the couch.

  She was dressed in the same gown I had seen in the dream.

  I bent over her. She seemed to be breathing regularly but was completely unconscious, not responding to either my voice or touch. I picked her up and carried her out into the hall, laid her down on the carpet and went back into the apartment.

  There was nothing I could do there. I stood in the door of the bedroom and gazed in horror at the bed that had become a funeral pyre. The naked bodies of Jim and Becky Marsten were barely discernible inside the deadly ring of fire. The bodies, blackened and shriveling, were locked together in some terrible and final act of love. And death.

  "They were using combustible chemicals as part of their ritual," Garth said, lighting a cigarette and studying me. "They started fooling with candles and the room went up. It's obvious."

  "Is it? The fire was out by the time the Fire Department got there. And there wasn't that much damage to the floor."

  "Typical of some kinds of chemical fires, Mongo. You know that."

  "I saw the fire: it was too bright, too even. And I did hear Kathy's voice calling me. She was crying for help."

  "In your dream?"

  "In my dream."

  My brother Garth is a cop. He took a long time to answer, and I sensed that he was embarrassed. "The mind plays tricks, Mongo."

  I had a few thoughts on that subject: I washed them away with a mouthful of Scotch.

  "Excuse me, Doctor. How's the girl? Kathy Marsten?"

  The doctor was Puerto Rican, frail, and walked with a limp. He had a full head of thick black hair and large, brown eyes that weren't yet calloused over by the pain one encounters in a New York City hospital. He was a young man. The tag on his white smock said his name was Rivera. He looked somewhat surprised to find a dwarf standing in front of him.

  "Who are you?"

  "My name's Frederickson."

  The eyes narrowed. "I've seen your picture. They call you Mongo. Ex-circus performer, college professor, private-"

  "I asked you how the girl was."

  "Are you a relative?"

  "No. Friend of the family. I brought her in."

  He hesitated, then led me to a small alcove at the end of the corridor. I didn't like the look of the way he walked and held his head: too sad, a little desperate.

  "My name is Rivera," he said. "Juan Rivera."

  "I saw the name tag, Doctor."

  "Kathy is dying."

  Just like that. I passed my hand over my eyes. "Of what?"

  Rivera shrugged his shoulders. It was an odd gesture, filled with helplessness and bitter irony. "We don't know," he said, his eyes clouding. "There's no sign of smoke inhalation, which, of course, was the first thing we looked for. Since then we've run every conceivable test. Nothing. There's no sign of physical injury. She's just. . dying. All the machines can tell us is that her vital signs are dropping at an alarming rate. If the drop continues at its present rate, Kathy Marsten will be dead in two to three days."

  "She hasn't regained consciousness?"

  "No. She's in a deep coma."

  "Can't you operate?"

  Juan Rivera's laugh was short, sharp, bitter, belied by the anguish in his eyes. "Operate on what? Don't you understand? Modern medicine says there's nothing wrong with that girl. She's merely dying."

  Rivera swallowed hard. "There must be something in her background: an allergy, some obscure hereditary disease. That information is vital." He suddenly reached into his hip pocket and drew out his wallet. "You're a private detective. I want to hire you to find some relative of Kathy's that knows something about her medical history."

  I held up my hand. "No thanks. I only take on one client at a time."

  Rivera looked puzzled. "You won't help?"

  "The girl hired me to find something for her.
I figure that covers finding a way to save her life. Do you still have the gown she was wearing when I brought her in?"

  "The one with the pictures?"

  "Right. I wonder if you'd give it to me."

  "Why?"

  "I'd rather not say right now, Dr. Rivera. I think the symbols on that gown mean something. They could provide a clue to what's wrong with Kathy."

  "They're designs," he said somewhat impatiently. "A child's nightgown. What can it have to do with Kathy's illness?"

  "Maybe nothing. But I won't know for sure unless you give it to me."

  "Hypnosis."

  "Hypnosis?! C'mon, Garth. You're reaching."

  "Trauma, then. After all, she did watch her parents burn to death."

  "Maybe. She was unconscious when I found her."

  "God knows what else she was forced to watch."

  "And take part in," I added.

  "Assuming she did see her parents die, don't you think that-along with everything else-might not be enough to shock a girl to death?"

  "I don't know, Garth. You're the one with all the explanations."

  "God, Mongo, you don't believe that stuff Daniel told you?!"

  "I believe the Marstens believed. And Daniel."

  "You're right, Mongo. They are occult symbols."

  I watched Dr. Uranus Jones as she continued to finger the satin gown, examining every inch of it. Uranus was a handsome women in her early fifties-good-looking enough to have carried on a string of affairs with a procession of lab assistants twenty years her junior, or so rumor had it. Her gray-streaked blond hair was drawn back into a ponytail, which made her look younger.

  The walls of her university office were covered with astronomical charts, many of which she had designed herself. It was an appropriate decor for the office of one of the world's most prominent astronomers. But I wasn't there to discuss astronomy.

  Uranus had a rather interesting dual career. As far as I knew, I was the only one of Uranus' colleagues at the university who knew that Uranus was also a top astrologer and medium, with a near legendary reputation in the New York occult underground.

  "What do they mean?"

  "They look like symbols for the ascending order of demons," she said quietly.

  "What does it mean as far as the Marstens are concerned?"

  Uranus took a long time to answer. "My guess is that the Marstens were witches practicing the black side of their craft. I'd say they were into demonology and Satanism, and they were trying to summon up a demon. Probably Belial, judging from the symbols on this gown. From what you've told me, I'd speculate that the Marstens were using a ritual that rebounded on them. The rebound killed them."

  "Rebound?"

  "The evil. It rebounded and killed them. They weren't able to control the power released by the ritual. That's the inherent danger of ceremonial magic."

  "What 'power'?"

  "The power of Belial. I assume that's who they were trying to summon. He killed them before they could exercise the necessary control."

  I studied Uranus in an attempt to see if she was joking. There wasn't a trace of a smile on her face. "Do you believe that, Uranus?"

  She avoided my eyes. "I'm not a ceremonial magician, Mongo."

  "That's not an answer."

  "It wasn't meant to be. You asked about the symbols on the robe, and I'm responding in the context of ceremonial magic. I'm describing to you a system of belief. It's up to you to decide whether that system could have anything to do with the fact that Kathy Marsten is dying. It's your responsibility to choose what avenue to pursue, and, from what I understand, you don't have much time."

  I wasn't sure there was a choice. According to Dr. Juan Rivera, the practitioners of the system called medicine had just about played out their string. I risked nothing but making a fool out of myself. Kathy had considerably more to lose. There was a sudden ringing in my ears.

  "All right. Within the context of ceremonial magic, why is Kathy dying?"

  Uranus looked at me for a long time, then said: "Belial is claiming a bride."

  "Come again."

  "The gown: It means that the child was to be a part of the ritual. My guess is that her parents were offering her up to Belial in exchange for whatever it was they wanted. He killed her parents, and now he's taking her."

  "You're saying that Kathy is possessed?" "Within the context of ceremonial magic, yes. And she will have to be exorcised if you hope to save her. To do that, you will need to know the exact steps in the ritual the Marstens were using. Needless to say, that's not something you're likely to find in the public library. And I don't mean that to sound flippant. Assuming that such a ritual does exist, it would have taken the Marstens years to research from some of the rarest manuscripts in the world."

  The ringing in my ears was growing louder. I shook my head in an attempt to clear it. It didn't do any good. "God, Uranus," I whispered, "this is the twentieth century. I only have a little time. How can I justify using it to chase. . demons?"

  "You can't, Mongo. Not in your belief system. Because demons don't exist in your belief system. But they did in the Marstens', and Kathy Marsten is dying."

  "Yes," I said distantly. "Kathy Marsten is dying."

  "Consider the possibility that you are what you believe. What you believe affects you. The witch and the ceremonial magician perceive evil in personal terms. Belial, for example. Most men today prefer other names for evil. . Buchenwald, My Lai."

  "She was talking about the mind of man," I said. "That's where the demons are. It's where they've always been. The question is whether or not evil can be personified. Can it be made to assume a shape? Can it be controlled?"

  Garth shook his head impatiently. "That's all crazy talk, Mongo. You're too close to it now. Give it some more time and you'll know it's crazy. There's an explanation for everything that happened. There aren't any such things as demons, and you damn well know it."

  "Of course there aren't any such things as demons," I said, lifting my glass. "Let's drink to that."

  "Uranus, what's a 'book of shadows'?"

  She looked surprised. "A book of shadows is a witch's diary. It's a record of spells, omens. It's a very private thing and is usually seen only by members of the witch's coven."

  "A few hours before the fire Kathy Marsten asked me to get back her father's book of shadows. She said it had been taken by a man named Daniel."

  Something moved in the depths of Uranus' eyes. "I know of Daniel," she said quietly. "He's a ceremonial magician."

  "Meaning precisely what?" I asked.

  "A man who has great control over his own mind, and the minds of others. Some would say the ceremonial magician can control matter, create or destroy life. The ceremonial magician stands on the peak of the mountain called the occult. He is a man who has achieved much. He works alone, and he is dangerous. If he took someone's book of shadows, it was for a reason."

  "Then there could have been bad blood between this Daniel and the Marstens?"

  "If not before Daniel took the book, then certainly after."

  I didn't want to ask the next question. I asked it anyway. "Do you think one of these ceremonial magicians could start a fire without actually being in the room?"

  "Yes," Uranus said evenly. "I think so."

  "I want to talk to this Daniel."

  "He won't talk to you, Mongo. You'll be wasting your time."

  "You get me to him and let me worry about the conversation."

  A Philadelphia bank seemed like an odd place to look for a ceremonial magician. But then nobody had claimed that Daniel could change lead into gold, and even ceremonial magicians had to eat. It looked like this particular magician was eating well. He was sitting in a bank vice-president's chair.

  He looked the part; that is, he looked more like a bank vice-president than a master of the occult arts, whatever such a master looks like. Maybe I'd been expecting Orson Welles. In any case, he matched the description Uranus had given me; about six fee
t, early forties, close-cropped, steely gray hair with matching eyes. He wore a conservatively cut, gray-striped suit. There was a Christmas Club sign to one side of his desk, and beside that a name plate that identified him as Mr. Richard Bannon.

  I stopped at the side of the desk and waited for him to look up from his papers. "Yes, sir?" It was an announcer's voice, deep, rich and well modulated.

  "Daniel?"

  I looked for a reaction. There wasn't any. The gray eyes remained impassive, almost blank, as though he were looking straight through me. I might have been speaking a foreign language. He waited a few seconds, then said: "Excuse me?"

  "You are Daniel," I said. "That's your witch name. I want to talk to you."

  I watched his right hand drop below the desk for a moment, then resurface. I figured I had five to ten seconds, and intended to use every one of them. "You listen good," I said, leaning toward him until my face was only inches from his. "There's a little girl dying a couple of hours away from here. If I even suspect you had anything to do with it, I'm going to come down on you. Hard. For starters, I'm going to make sure the stockholders of this bank find out about your hobbies. Then, if that doesn't make me feel better, maybe I'll kill you."

  Time was up. I could feel the bank guard's hand pressing on my elbow. Daniel suddenly raised his hand. "It's all right, John," he said, looking at me. "I pressed the button by mistake. Dr. Frederickson is a customer."

  The hand came off my elbow, there was a murmured apology, then the sound of receding footsteps. I never took my eyes off Daniel. He rose and gestured toward an office behind him. "Follow me, please."

  I followed him into the softly lit, richly carpeted office. He closed the door and began to speak almost immediately. "You are to take this as a threat," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I know who you are; your career is familiar to me. I do not know how you know of me; I know of no person who would have dared tell you about me. But no matter. There is absolutely nothing-nothing-you can do to me. But I can. . inflict. You will discover that to your surprise and sorrow if you came to trifle with me."