On one such foray he remembered talking to the damn thing: What are you? What have you done to Vicky? Then taking a swing at it.
His knuckles and wrist still ached from the impact.
"Tom and I spent the whole morning calling every place we could think of that might have heard of the Lilitongue of Gefreda. From the Museum of Natural History to antique dealers and antiquarian booksellers. Nothing."
"The Museum of Natural History? You should check with Doctor Buhmann there."
"Who's he?"
"He was one of my professors at Columbia. Specializes in dead languages."
"I'm not looking for a translation, I'm looking for somebody who knows about strange, ancient artifacts."
"This Lilitongue is ancient?"
Jack shrugged. "I know it's more than four hundred years old. The jerk says—"
"The jerk?"
"My brother."
"A shmegege you should call him. That better fits how you describe him. A shmegege and a gonif."
"I'll have to trust you on that. Anyway, the shmegege says the few mentions he found about it hinted that it was really old—maybe B.C. in origin. So you see, I need an archaeology type. If he can lead me to some old book, then I may need your professor friend. But at the moment—"
Nu, if this Lilitongue is one of a kind, you won't find anyone who's ever seen it, but someone may have read about it… especially if they specialize in translating texts of ancient languages."
Hope wanted to spark but Jack wouldn't let it. Still, Abe had suggested a direction he hadn't considered.
"Okay, maybe after we've exhausted the other avenues, I'll—"
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and hit the speak button. Had to be Gia.
"Jack?" Gia. Something in her tone…
"Something wrong?"
She sobbed. "The mark—it's bigger!"
A lead weight dropped into the pit of Jack's stomach.
"You're sure?"
"Absolutely. Last night it was between her shoulder blades, now it's touching them!" Another sob—the sound tore Jack's heart. "Jack, what's happening?"
He wished to hell he knew.
He spent a few moments trying to comfort her, assuring her that he was doing everything possible. When he hung up he relayed the latest to Abe.
"How do I get in touch with this language guy?"
"I'll see if I can arrange a meeting."
"Don't see if—do." He realized how he sounded. "Please."
Abe nodded as he picked up the phone.
"He'll remember you?"
Abe looked at him over the top of his reading glasses. "Oh, he'll remember me."
2
-69:48
"So how is Abraham doing these days?"
Peter Buhmann, Ph.D., associate conservator of languages in the division of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, professor emeritus at the Columbia University department of archaeology, was o-l-d. Figuring his age might require carbon dating. He looked frail, bent, pale, thin to the point of emaciation. Jack sensed something gnawing at his insides. Didn't look like he had much time left.
"Very well," Jack said.
Dr. Buhmann's office was small and cramped. The overstuffed shelves, threatening to drown them in paper if the building shook, made it seem even more claustrophobic.
"I haven't seen him since he graduated. One of my best students ever. A brilliant mind. I understand he sells sporting goods."
"Yes."
Jack figured the old guy would have a heart attack if he told him what Abe really sold.
He shook his head. "Such a waste of a good mind."
"He said you might know about the Lilitongue of Gefreda."
"Yes. He mentioned that on the phone. I haven't heard the Lilitongue mentioned in decades. So I went through my papers and found an entry in one of my notebooks." He opened a black ledgerlike book on his desk to a marked page. "I'm afraid it's not much."
"Anything you can tell me will be more than I've got."
"Very well." He put on his glasses and bent over the book. "These are notes I culled from various sources. The Lilitongue of Gefreda is mentioned as one of the Seven Infernals. I—"
"Which are?"
Infernal… Jack didn't like the sound of that.
"Mythical devices created in ancient times, each for a specific purpose."
"Such as?"
"Well, according to legend the Lilitongue was designed to"—he consulted his book here—"help someone 'elude all enemies and leave them helpless.' No name or purpose is known for any of the other six."
Disappointed, Jack leaned back and rubbed his eyes. He already knew that. He'd squeezed it out of his shmegege brother right before Gia's call.
"No mention of how it's supposed to do that?"
Dr. Buhmann shook his head. "None that I've ever read."
"Any picture of it anywhere?"
"None that I've ever seen." He sighed. "You must understand, the history of the Seven Infernals is shrouded in mystery. Most of the few researchers who've heard of them doubt they ever existed."
"Then why are they mentioned at all?"
A shrug. "Why are vampires mentioned? Why werewolves? Something inspired those myths, yes, but though the inspiration—say, the burial of a catatonic person in the former case, a severe manic-depressive disorder in the latter—might have been real, the folk tales that grew out of them are not."
That wasn't a folk tale floating in Vicky's bedroom.
"If I had to guess," Buhmann continued, "based on the escape fantasy offered by the Lilitongue of Gefreda, I'd say the myth was the result of wishful thinking by a persecuted culture." He frowned. "But then again…"
"What?"
"The Church seems to play an important part in the story."
The Jesuit Mendes… the map maker…
"The Catholic Church? The pope?"
"The Lilitongue was rumored to have been hidden away in the Vatican since the sixth century."
"Doesn't that tell you something?"
He laughed—a dry cackle. "So many strange and 'forbidden' things are rumored to be hidden in the Vatican vaults that the Church would need half of Rome to store them all!"
"Any rumor of it leaving the Vatican?"
Dr. Buhmann's eyes widened. "As a matter of fact…" He turned back to his notebook. "Yes. Here. It was rumored to have been stolen during the papacy of Innocent IX—who died in 1591 after only two months as pope." Another cackle. "Now, if I were a conspiracy theorist, I suppose I could make something of that."
"No mention of it after that?"
He checked his book again. "Not that I ever saw."
It all fit. The Lilitongue of Gefreda disappears from the Vatican in 1591… seven years later a Jesuit—at the request of the pope, if the inscription Tom had withheld could be believed—guided it to a watery grave. And it was never heard from since because it was buried in a Bermuda sand hole.
So what? He knew no more about the thing now than when he'd stepped into Dr. Buhmann's office.
Shit.
"May I ask you a question?"
Jack was tempted to say, You just did, but held back.
"Shoot."
"Why this interest in such an arcane legend? And believe me, the Lilitongue of Gefreda is very arcane."
How to answer that without telling too much…
"Someone I know thinks he's found it."
Buhmann's eyes twinkled. "Oh, I doubt that. But if your friend wishes to bring it here to the museum, I can have the objects curator take a look at it. No one knows what the Lilitongue looks like, so it will be impossible for him to identify it, but he should be able to carbon date it for you."
Nothing Jack would like better, but…
"It… it can't be moved right now."
And Jack wasn't about to self-destruct his life by becoming publicly involved with a thing that defied the laws of gravity. At least not yet.
But if everything l
ed to dead ends, then that was what he'd do: bring the Lilitongue to the attention of the world and let the scientific community figure it out.
"Besides, what would carbon dating tell me?"
"Well, the Lilitongue is said to be ancient, fashioned in ancient Babylon or even earlier. If you brought in an object that was, say, five or six thousand years old, you might really have something."
Jack already knew he had something. He pushed himself out of the chair.
"Well, thank you for your time, Professor. Any suggestion as to where else I can look?"
He smiled. "To learn about a mythical object, you might want to consult a mythical book. According to lore there once existed a book, a 'forbidden' tome, that supposedly catalogued the histories and workings of all seven of the Infernals, along with much other 'forbidden' knowledge. But the book is most likely as fanciful as the objects it discusses."
"When and where was this nonexistent book last heard of?"
"The fifteenth century. Supposedly it fell into the hands of the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada, during the initial phase of the Spanish Inquisition. He tried to destroy it—burn it, tear it apart, slash its pages—but legend says it's indestructible."
Jack felt a chill. He'd heard about this book not long ago. From a lady with a dog.
But he couldn't remember its name.
"So Torquemada buried it. But more than that, he designed and built a monastery over the spot—the Monastery of St. Thomas in Avila—where he spent his final years."
The professor's words were like a head butt: Tom had claimed the Sombra map had been found in a Spanish monastery.
One more piece of the puzzle.
But he still couldn't remember the book's goddamn name. He'd had a lot of distractions at the time, but now he wished he'd paid closer attention.
"Let's just say I come across this book. Would you be able to translate it for me?"
Dr. Buhmann's eyes got a faraway look. "If I could see such a thing, hold it in my hands just once before I die…" He shook himself. "What am I saying? Forgive an old man. I'm sure there once existed a forbidden book that was so well made that it was difficult to destroy, and thence came the legend. But should the book truly exist, and if the whispers about it are true, you won't need me to translate it."
"Why not?"
"Because the story goes that anyone who opens it sees the text in his native tongue."
"I don't get it."
"If you open it, you will see modern English. I, on the other hand, born and raised in Vienna as I was, will see German." He laughed. "Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?"
Yeah. He had. And he'd seen worse. A book in everybody's native tongue was a walk in the park compared to his experiences in the past year or so.
But he forced a laugh of his own. "Now that's pushing things a little too far."
Dr. Buhmann shrugged. "Nothing is 'too far' when talking about a book that doesn't exist. The sky's the limit."
"I suppose so."
He adjusted his glasses and looked at Jack. "But tell me, are you a scholar? Researcher? Student?"
"Just a repairman."
Dr. Buhmann shook his head in wonder. "I must confess I'm amazed that anyone outside the academic community has heard of the Lilitongue of Gefreda."
"I'm much more interested in this book that'll tell me about it."
The old man's expression turned grave. "I sense this means a lot to you. I won't ask why, but I must tell you: If this book exists, I doubt anyone alive has ever seen it or even knows where it is."
… anyone alive…
That gave Jack an idea. If he couldn't ask a living person, maybe he could ask a dead one.
He was willing to try anything.
3
-68:42
Jack called ahead to see if Lyle and Charlie Kenton were entertaining any clients at the moment. Nope. Didn't he remember that Monday was their day of rest? No seances scheduled until midafternoon Tuesday.
So he grabbed the empty sea chest from his apartment and drove out to Menelaus Manor in Astoria. He wished he could have brought the Lilitongue along too, but since that was fixed in its spot, and since Charlie couldn't leave his house, the chest would have to do.
He parked in front of the attached garage. Hadn't been back since the summer. With its dark stone walls and vaguely colonial design, the house could look menacing at night. But in the wan light from an overcast sky, it looked merely old.
Lyle met him at the door and, after making nice-nice with the handshake and small talk and why-don't-you-ever-come-to-visit preliminaries, they settled in the high-ceilinged channeling room on the first floor.
The array of spiritualist and New Age junk displayed around the room among the statues of everything from Christian saints to Hindu gods brought back memories, not all of them pleasant. The heavy drapes, usually drawn tight, had been pulled back to let in some light.
Lyle, tall, lean, black, maybe thirty, wore his hair in long, tight dreads. He was dressed in jeans and a V-neck sweater. He led Jack to the large round oak table at the far end. Lyle seated himself at the twelve-o'clock spot, directly in front of a chalk-smeared blackboard; Jack took the three-o'clock position.
Letters began to form in the chalk dust on the board, one at a time, as if written by an invisible finger.
Yo Jack
"Hi, Charlie."
The skeptic in Jack reflexively recoiled at the idea of communicating with a dead man—after all, Lyle had been an expert at faking that very thing—but his experiences in Menelaus Manor this past summer had opened his eyes. And now Lyle seemed used to, even comfortable with, being in touch with his dead brother.
He seemed to be listening, then he said, "He wants to know why you brought that chest."
"Well, my brother Tom and I—"
"—found it in a shipwreck off Bermuda. He knows. He wants to know why you brought it here."
"I need to know something, anything about what was in it. It's called—"
"—the Lilitongue of Gefreda."
"Right." This was good—very good. Looked like he was finally going to get some answers. "I need to know what it does—if anything."
Lyle didn't answer. Jack couldn't tell if he was waiting or listening. Finally…
"Charlie doesn't know. He says it comes from a different place and age when the rules were different."
Oh, shit. "The Otherness?"
"He doesn't know. He can't be sure."
"Can he at least tell me if it's harmful?"
"He says that's relative. If you want to escape your troubles, it will help you do that. But in a case like Vicky's, it's harmful."
Jack stiffened. "You know about Vicky?"
Lyle nodded. "Charlie does."
"Harmful how?"
"She'll be taken away from everyone she knows and loves, and will never return."
Jack felt his gut freeze.
"Taken where?"
"Charlie doesn't know."
"Is that what's going to happen to her?"
Charlie could see the future at times—at least he thought he could.
"She'd have to be here in person for him to tell you that, but even then… this Lilitongue is so unique, so alien… he's not sure he'd know."
Vicky… oh, God, Vicky… what am I going to do?
Giving in to a sudden, irresistible urge to move, he sprang to his feet and paced the room. The air felt thick, he couldn't seem to draw enough of it into his lungs, his fingertips tingled. He'd never felt it before but he had a pretty good idea what was happening.
Panic.
"Goddamn it, Charlie, there's gotta be something I can do!"
"There is," Lyle said. "Find The Compendium ofSrem."
Jack halted his pacing. "I've heard of that."
That was the book Herta had told him about, the one Dr. Buhmann had alluded to. But Herta hadn't been talking about the Lilitongue of Gefreda.
The Compendium ofSrem …
"That's got the answers?"
"Charlie doesn't know. He can't pierce its covers."
Then what good is he? Jack wanted to say, but bit it back.
"Well, maybe I can. Just tell me where the damn thing is and—"
"Charlie says you already know. In fact, you've seen it."
Jack stared at Lyle, blinking in confusion. What the—?
And then he realized what Charlie meant.
4
-65:55
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Tom said.
Jack ground his teeth, thinking about what a jerk he'd been. But then, he hadn't heard the whole story until it was too late. If Tom had told him about the Lilitongue's supposedly magical powers, if he'd told him about the girl and the dog, Jack wouldn't have allowed Vicky within ten miles of that thing.
He glanced at his brother the shmegege and thought about a quick chop to his Adam's apple—not hard enough to crush his larynx, just enough to shut him up. But knowing how that mark was growing larger on Vicky's back, he wasn't sure he could pull the punch.
"Not exactly. So can the chatter and let me think."
On either side of the two-lane blacktop, evergreens stood tall among the bare branches of their deciduous neighbors. The dull, overcast sky threatened snow. He hoped it held off—prayed it held off. The last thing he needed was to get stuck with the shmegege in the mountains of upstate New York during a blizzard. Talk about a nightmare.
Jack had been to this area twice last month. But both times at night—once with a passenger who knew the way, and the other following someone—so he was feeling his way.
"I'm still not clear on this: We've come out to the middle of nowhere to sneak into a house you might not be able to find so that we can search for a book that might or might not be there?"
"I have it on good authority that it exists, and that it belongs to the owner of this place we're looking for."
Jack hadn't wanted to bring the shmegege along, but he didn't know if he'd need an extra pair of hands at the cabin—if he could find it. He'd told him about his meeting with Dr. Buhmann, but not about Charlie. He didn't want to have to explain his connection to the disgraced Luther Brady either.
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