The Seal of Solomon

by Rick Yancey

  This is Alfred Kropp. Op Nine very hurt. 2 days to give them Vessel. Don’t have Vessel. Don’t have Hyena. Where is devil’s door? Please send help.

  AK

  I held my breath, my index finger hovering over the touch pad. I clicked, waited, and then a box popped up.

  Message Undeliverable: Unknown Recipients

  I gave a yell of frustration and pushed back from the table. From the bedroom Op Nine moaned loudly, as if in answer.

  His body jerked on the bed and his head lolled back and forth on the pillow. His color, never very healthy looking, now looked even worse, a kind of burnt orange, and spit rolled from his open mouth. I went into the bathroom for a fresh washcloth and caught my reflection in the mirror.

  I froze. Red spots with white centers the size of nickels had appeared all over my face and neck. I touched one on my cheek. It was like pressing the head of a hot match against my skin, and I yanked my finger away. What now? What the hell were they doing to me now? I pulled the sweater off and lifted the shirt underneath. The marks were there too, and on my back. I was covered in boils.

  “Okay,” I muttered, dropping my shirt and ducking my head over the sink as I wet the washcloth. “Okay. Pustulating boils. That’s fine. You wanna play hardball. I can take it.”

  I returned to the bed and wiped Op Nine’s face.

  “I can’t get through,” I told him. “I don’t know, maybe headquarter’s been destroyed or something. We’re on our own and since I can’t get through to you either, I guess that means I’m on my own. Not a happy development in terms of MISSCOMP.” He moaned, eyes jerking behind fluttering lashes.

  “You guys did lie to me,” I went on. “I’m the carrier. My blood is the active agent in the 3XD ammo. You must have taken a couple pints from me on the ship to put in your guns, and that’s really low. That borders on the despicable. You could have just asked. But I guess being a SPA means you never have to ask. No wonder Ashley told you to take a hike. You’re gonna have to answer for that, but you’re not going to have a chance to answer because they’ve scooped you out too, and you can’t help me find Mike or the devil’s door and so everything’s screwed. Game over.”

  His arms began to pull against the knotted towel, his fingers clawing in the air. I didn’t have much time before he went for his eyes. I went back into the bathroom and smashed one of the drinking glasses in the sink, picked up the longest shard, and without even a second of hesitation cut my left palm open and walked back to the bed, my hand raised over the level of my heart, palm upward, cupping the blood.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, dipped two fingers into the blood pooling in my palm, and smeared the blood over his eyelids, saying the whole time, “Now in the name of Saint Michael, I order you to be whole—though I oughtta . . .” Then I stopped, because a healing was no place for bitterness. “So be healed, Operative Nine, be healed.”

  I traced a cross on his forehead with my blood and then took my hand away. The moaning stopped, the eyes went still, and the hands relaxed. I gave his shoulder a little poke, but he didn’t wake up. Something had happened, though.

  I wrapped a hand towel around my left hand, dragged myself into the main room, collapsed on the sofa, and lay there for a few minutes before I got back up, went into the bathroom, and trimmed my toenails.

  Then I went back to the sofa, threw an arm over my eyes, and fell asleep. It would be the last sleep I got for a very long time.

  42

  I don’t remember what I dreamed during that last bit of sleep before my final showdown with the demon king. But when I woke up I knew my next move.

  Op Nine was still flat on his back, but his eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. The towel must have come loose at some point while I slept, because his arms were crossed over his chest, the way they arrange dead people in caskets, and that unnerved me, like a portent of things to come.

  “Op Nine?” I said softly.

  His eyes rolled in my direction, but his head didn’t move. The dried blood on his eyelids and forehead had turned a rusty red.

  “What,” he croaked, “is an ‘Op Nine’?”

  “That’s complicated,” I said. “But don’t worry, your memory will come back. Mine did, so I don’t see any reason why yours wouldn’t. Here’s the deal: we’re in Chicago right now, but we won’t be for very long. We’ve lost contact with HQ and so we’re going solo. You’ve been attacked by demons, only you don’t like that word, but sometimes you gotta call a spade a spade. My name is Alfred Kropp.”

  “Alfred Kropp!” His eyes widened. “I know that name!”

  “I’m going to order some room service because I haven’t had anything except a Snickers and a Coke—not counting the dead cat, which I’d rather not.”

  “Dead cat?”

  “You want anything?”

  He swallowed. “Perhaps some water.”

  “Bottled or tap?”

  He didn’t answer. I fetched a bottled water from the mini-bar and held it to his lips while he drank. He emptied it in about four swallows.

  “Okay,” I said. “I gotta make a phone call. Try to remember what you can.”

  I picked up the phone and dialed room service. It rang about fourteen times before somebody picked up.

  “What?” they shouted.

  “I’d like to order some breakfast,” I said.

  “Kitchen closed!” And they slammed the phone down.

  I got up and looked in the bathroom mirror. The boils had popped open during my nap. I splashed some warm water on my face and yelped, clawing for a towel. The water burned like acid.

  I came back to the bed.

  “You know, I sat in that briefing listening to everybody discuss where Mike might have gone, and it never occurred to me that I might know exactly where he’s gone. It’s the obvious place, like Director Merryweather said. Too obvious, and that’s why he went there. He knew it was obvious and he knew you knew it was obvious, so he went there knowing its obviousness was what made it un-obvious. So I’ve got one more call to make. You okay? You need to go to the bathroom or anything?”

  He shook his head.

  “Okay.”

  I dialed 411 and got the number I needed. Then I dialed the number and told the person who answered that I needed to talk to Mr. Needlemier right away. They put me on hold. The Beatles were singing “Yesterday.”

  “I am a priest,” he said suddenly.

  “Not anymore,” I told him.

  “No?”

  “Now you’re a demonologist working for OIPEP.”

  “OIPEP?”

  “The Company. Only you may be unemployed because I’m not sure OIPEP exists anymore. I’m not sure what exists anymore.”

  The music stopped and the line crackled with static.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “Mr. Needlemier,” I said. “This is Alfred Kropp.”

  “Alfred Kropp!”

  “You know, Mr. Samson’s son.”

  “I know who you are, Alfred . . . Alfred, where have you been? And where in heaven’s name are you now?”

  “Chicago, but not in heaven’s name.”

  “Chicago!”

  “Mr. Needlemier, I don’t have time to explain everything, but here’s the important thing: I need to get a plane back to Knoxville ASAP.”

  “ ‘Giddyyap to Knoxville’? Alfred, I can barely hear you . . .”

  “I said I need a plane! Pronto!” I shouted into the receiver. “Tonto?”

  “Pron! Pron! Not ton!”

  “Not on? What’s not on?”

  “Plane!” I yelled. “Chicago! Can you get me one?”

  “No planes, Alfred. All planes are grounded!”

  I walked to the window and pulled back the curtains. The world was gray and shadowless, except for the orange flickering of the fire-rain and the fires that seemed to burn on every block.

  “A car, then, the fastest you can find,” I said. “I’m at the Drake Hotel. Did you hear me?”

  �
��Yes, yes, Alfred. I’m writing this down. What kind of car did you say?”

  “I didn’t say. Just the fastest you can find. The fastest car in the world. And I need it in the next thirty minutes.”

  “Thirty minutes! Alfred, I don’t know if that’s possible—”

  “Make it possible!” I yelled.

  “All right. Fastest car. Thirty minutes. Drake Hotel. Anything else?”

  “No. Yes. I need to know where the devil’s door is.”

  “Devil’s door?”

  “Or the gate to hell. It might go by either name, or both.

  And I need the answer by the time I get to Knoxville.”

  “All right, all right. Devil’s door. Hell’s gate. What else?”

  “Nothing. Wait, there is something.” I told him what that something was, gave him the number of the hotel, and hung up.

  I plopped Op Nine’s bag on the bed, pulled out the semiautomatic, and dropped it into my pocket. I opened one of the maps and spread it out over the bed while Op Nine watched.

  “Are we fugitives?” he asked.

  “More like refugees.”

  He sighed. “We are at war, then?”

  I nodded. I was trying to use the key on the map to figure out how many miles lay between us and Knoxville. The last time I had tried something like that was in the third grade, but I figured five hundred and fifty miles. I folded the map and jammed it into my back pocket.

  “What is in Knoxville?” he asked.

  “A certain Hyena that I’m gonna pop in the nose when I find him.”

  He frowned. “A hyena?”

  I nodded. “And the Holy Vessel of Solomon, I hope, because if I’m wrong and it isn’t, this war is over and the world is toast.”

  43

  Op Nine said he had to use the john, so I helped him into the bathroom and averted my eyes while he leaned against me and peed. Then he collapsed back onto the bed, breathing hard.

  “I am too weak to travel,” he gasped. “Leave me.”

  “Don’t think I’m not tempted,” I told him. “You pulled a fast one on me, Nine. You lied to me and used me, I guess because you’re a SPA and you figured that gave you the right, but I don’t care what’s written down in your precious Charter, some things are just wrong and the whole world signing off on it doesn’t make them right.”

  I shut down the laptop and stuffed it into the bag. My whole body felt as if it were on fire, and every time I moved, my clothes rubbed against the boils, which now itched as well as burned, making it very hard to concentrate, something I’m not that great at even in the best of circumstances.

  I decided we should go on down to the lobby to wait for the car. That worked better in theory than in practice. I had Op Nine on one shoulder and the big duffel on the other, and it felt like any second I was going to topple over and land smack on my pustulating face.

  The lobby seemed even more crowded and noisy than before. I managed to get us close to the revolving door so I could check out the street. I looked at my watch. Forty-five minutes had passed. I dialed Needlemier’s number on Op Nine’s cell phone and, after counting fifteen rings, hung up.

  Five minutes later, a man in a gray suit with dark shiny hair appeared beside me and touched my elbow.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  He drew back a little when I turned to him. I guess he wasn’t expecting Weeping Boil Boy.

  “I’m Alfred Kropp,” I said.

  “I know who you are. My name is Gustav Dahlstedt, with the Koenigsegg Corporation.”

  “You’re the car guy.”

  He nodded and smiled. “Alphonso Needlemier sent me. He said it was urgent, yes?”

  “Urgent, you bet.”

  He touched the strap of the duffel. “May I?” I nodded, he shouldered the bag, and I followed him through the revolving door. Revolving doors are tough enough, but try doing it with somebody the size of Op Nine draped all over you.

  It was freezing outside, but the tall buildings blocked most of the icy fireballs falling from the sky. We followed Mr. Dahlstedt into the alley beside the Drake. Parked beside a Dumpster was a low-slung sports car the color of a smoky sunset.

  Mr. Dahlstedt’s chest swelled a little as he said, “The Koenigsegg CCR, the fastest production car in the world, Mr. Kropp. Note the boldly shaped side air intakes and the front splitter, designed to optimize high speed aerodynamics.”

  “That’s fantastic,” I said. “Can you pop the trunk for me?”

  He blinked. “There is no trunk.”

  He had the key ring in his hand. He pressed a button on the remote and both doors slowly rose and rotated forward. I lowered Op Nine into the passenger seat, grabbed the duffel from Gustav, and stuffed it into the little space behind Nine’s head.

  “The engine of the CCR is boosted by a bicompression Centrifugal Supercharging System,” he went on, as if I wasn’t fully appreciating my good fortune. “With twin parallel mounted Rotrex compressors, generating the one-point-four bar boost pressure needed to create the colossal output.”

  “Colossal output, gotcha,” I said. On the hood of the CCR I noticed a silver logo of a ghost floating inside a circle.

  “Ah, you have discovered our ghost. It adorns all our CCRs. An homage to the Swedish Fighter Jet Squadron Number One.”

  “I’m not too crazy about spirits,” I said. He trailed after me, speaking rapidly now, like the spiel came with the wheels.

  “Eight hundred and six horsepower extreme peak value at six-point-nine rpms. Zero to sixty in three-point-two seconds. Three-point-two seconds, Mr. Kropp.”

  I dropped my boil-covered butt into the driver’s seat and put both hands on the tan, leather-covered steering wheel.

  “How fast does it go?” I asked.

  “Oh, now that is something we do not advertise,” he said, beaming. “We tell our customers 245 plus. The ‘plus,’ of course, relies upon road variables and your own conscience.”

  So Mr. Needlemier had taken me literally: I was behind the wheel of the fastest car in the world.

  He handed the keys to me and I started the car. The thing woke up and growled.

  Mr. Dahlstedt held out a credit card.

  “At the direction of your company, for gas and incidentals,” he said. I took the card. Platinum AMEX in the name of Samson Industries.

  “Thanks, Mr. Dahlstedt,” I said. “Thanks a bunch. How do I close these doors?”

  He showed me the button and kept talking as the doors rotated shut.

  “We appreciate your business, Mr. Kropp! My card is in the glove compartment. Do call if there is any—”

  The doors snapped shut, cutting him off. I gingerly pressed down on the accelerator and the car leaped forward, like some kind of beast being let out of a cage. I made a hard left out of the alley, back wheels screeching and sending up twin plumes of white smoke.

  Damn the road variables. And damn my conscience too. I was going to find out how much “plus” there was in 245 mph “plus.”

  44

  Orange and white barrels blocked the on-ramp onto I-90. I didn’t let the barrels concern me. Op Nine jerked in his seat when I took them out at sixty-five and his jaw clenched as I hit the interstate at ninety-seven. Then we really booked. After twelve minutes and taking out another set of barrels, we were on I-65 heading south toward Indianapolis pushing 240 miles per hour.

  It was about ten o’clock in the morning, but it seemed like twilight under the low gray clouds spitting burning chunks of ice. The hell-storm was beginning to slack off though. I didn’t know what that was about but maybe the demon hordes were honoring my request to back off so I could deliver the goods.

  “There are faces in the clouds,” Op Nine murmured. “Do you see them?”

  I could see them. Distorted human faces that bulged and receded, some laughing, some snarling, some with hooded eyes and crooked noses and some blank as masks, which was scarier in a different way.

  “Does the name Abalam mean anything to you,
Alfred?”

  he asked, staring into the clouds.

  “It sounds familiar.”

  “Is it my name?”

  “I think it’s the name of a demon. One of the lackeys to Paimon.”

  “Paimon?”

  “He’s the one who took the Seal.”

  He looked over at me. “The Seal?”

  “The Seal of Solomon. This ring you use to control the demons. Only Paimon has it now, so he’s in control.”

  “In control . . . of Abalam?”

  “Of all of them. There’s about sixteen million. Abalam’s probably the one we met at Mike’s house, and that’s why you remember its name.”

  He shook his head. “This is all very strange. Very strange.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “We are two—against sixteen million?”

  “More like one against sixteen million: You’re at half speed right now and I’ve always been, so that’s the math. Not very good odds, but you gotta hope. You told me that once. Do you remember?”

  “I wish I could. But I am somewhat glad I can’t.”

  I nodded. “Dude, I know the feeling.”

  The interstate was deserted. Occasionally we roared past abandoned cars parked in the median or in the emergency lane. The only moving vehicles I saw between Chicago and Louisville was a convoy of National Guardsmen, the soldiers crammed into the backs of canvas-covered trucks, and they craned their necks to stare as I barreled past them.

  I turned on the radio. I expected every station to be talking about this first phase of the last war, but only the talk stations were jabbering about the crazy weather that had brought the entire world to a standstill. The music stations stayed with their programming, like the dance band on the Titanic. I found a PBS station out of Chicago where somebody from the government droned on about how the latest “meteorological crisis” demonstrated we still have a long way to go in our understanding of global atmospheric phenomenon. I laughed out loud.

  “What?” Op Nine asked. “Why is that humorous?”

  “Well,” I said. “At least your personality’s still intact.”