The Initiate

by James L. Cambias

  Losing a year of his remaining life felt like he’d been poisoned. Sam suddenly felt weak, dizzy, and cold. Instead of collapsing, he dropped to one knee, as if in homage, and then forced himself to raise his head and look directly into the water face. “I will call for you before sunrise. Go until I call.”

  The dome of water collapsed, splashing Sam and spilling onto the floor.

  “Done!” said Taika. Miss Elizabeth sank into a chair, and even Isabella looked tired for once.

  “How strong is that thing?” Sam managed to croak.

  “Strong enough. When you call it you’d better not be standing near anything Charles values.”

  “I need to rest.”

  “You aren’t the only one. Two hours for all of us. You can use the couch in the living room. Isabella, you can sleep in MoonCat’s room. Miss Elizabeth, would you prefer the guest room or the master bedroom?”

  “Your guest room is perfectly fine for me, my dear. Very kind of you to offer. I would appreciate a little glass of sherry to help me sleep.”

  “Of course!” Taika hurried downstairs.

  “Do you know what ‘counting coup’ means, young man?” Miss Elizabeth asked Sam once Taika was out of the room.

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “That is what we are doing today. Dear Taika may hope to destroy Charles, but that sort of thing may attract unwelcome attention.”

  “You mean the cops?”

  Miss Elizabeth laughed politely. “You are quite the humorist, young man. No, I mean the Sage of the West himself. Charles is unpopular, but he is not without allies who would try to avenge him. Roger takes a dim view of that sort of thing.”

  “Well, how can I attack him if I can’t attack him? What’s that water-demon for?”

  “You may use the demon to assail Charles’s property, his minions, and the sources of his power, but please make sure that it does not cause any direct harm to his person.”

  “I’ll be careful,” said Sam.

  He was sufficiently exhausted that he actually did manage to sleep on the sofa—and when he woke he was careful to shake the cushions over the hearth and then brush any traces of himself into the fire. He took a cab up to his own apartment, showered and changed clothes, and got back down to Hell’s Kitchen in time to join the rest of the Temple of Astaroth waiting for the van.

  Only half a dozen of the “coven” had actually bothered to turn up, but the charming demon running the show didn’t seem to mind. “Tonight’s for the serious students of magick,” he told the six of them. “Not everyone can handle the deeper mysteries.”

  Sam realized with some amusement that exactly one year earlier he had actually been initiated into the real deeper mysteries, in Hei Feng’s bar in Chinatown. It had been a very busy year.

  The van was from a low-priced livery service, driven by a Filipino man who hung a St. Christopher medal from the rearview mirror. Fortunately he kept his headphones on the whole time so wasn’t able to overhear the sophomoric blasphemies of the Temple of Astaroth members during the drive across Manhattan and through Queens to Astoria Park on the East River. The van let them off between the Robert Kennedy Bridge and the Hell’s Gate railroad bridge, at a spot where a little mud flat connected the shore to a ledge of rock. A pontoon boat was pulled up in the shallows, crewed by two men wearing biker vests with “WARLOCKS” stencilled across the shoulders.

  The High Priest urged his parishoners aboard, giving each one an intense look just before they stepped onto the boat. Sam guessed he was making sure nobody had any magical protections which might interfere with the night’s ritual.

  Sam himself was bare of any magic, not even the spirits which normally protected him from injury and guarded his health. He was surprised to discover how strange it felt. If anything happened he would only have his moderately fit middle-aged body and his wits to save himself, and he knew full well how little those would help.

  The Warlocks shoved the boat out into the water of the East River and got the outboard motor started, and then cruised north past the wastewater treatment plant on Wards Island and the Con Ed power plant on the Long Island side. Past Lawrence Point the water got considerably more choppy, even though the boat hugged the Bronx shoreline until it was directly west of North Brother Island. The wind off Long Island Sound was cold, and carried the smell of sewage and jet exhaust.

  During the half-hour boat ride Sam’s mind was racing. How could he destroy White without attracting unwelcome attention? Moreno would investigate if anything happened. He would have to hope everyone involved would keep silent about his involvement.

  The boat crossed the channel to North Brother Island just at six, bypassing the rotting pier to run directly onto the muddy shore. Trees just starting to put out spring buds came down to the water’s edge, but between the trunks Sam could see the old hospital buildings in various stages of collapse.

  “This way, this way, brothers and sisters!” called the High Priest, and led them past the old power plant toward the looming bulk of the tuberculosis hospital, now windowless and vine covered. The quaint old futuristic look of the ruin gave the whole place a postapocalyptic feel, like the cover of a science fiction magazine from the fifties.

  Did White really live here? None of the buildings looked remotely habitable. The roads and pathways were overgrown with weeds and shrubs.

  But Sam’s Inner Eye showed a different story. The island was alive with spirit presences. Sylphs and hungry ghosts circling at the water’s edge to drive off intruders. More ghosts in some of the buildings, especially the morgue. Invisible demons watching the new arrivals. Other, greater presences among the trees.

  They climbed up the crumbling old concrete steps to the doors of the tuberculosis hospital. To Sam’s surprise, the doors were still intact, though much weathered and cracked. The High Priest pushed them open and led the Temple of Astaroth members inside.

  Cries and gasps of astonishment, and a not-entirely good-natured chuckle from the High Priest as the group stepped through the doorway.

  Inside, the tuberculosis hospital was a fantastic palace, with floors tiled in jade and alabaster, walls hung with shimmering tapestries, and floating multicolored lanterns under a ceiling of golden mosaics. Nymphs and succubi drank golden wine from crystal goblets, and in the center of it all Charles White lolled on a silk-upholstered couch.

  Sam made a show of amazement and turned around—as much to hide his face from White as to survey the room. Much of it was illusion; his Inner Eye told him that. But the decaying exterior was also an illusion. Reality lay somewhere in between: White’s headquarters was dry, heated, and furnished, but the floor was ordinary hardwood and the furniture was probably from Macy’s or Raymour & Flanigan in Queens.

  Well, no point in wasting time, he thought. Every second meant White was more likely to recognize this potential victim as “Ace” the Apkal initiate.

  “Welcome, brothers and sisters of the Temple!” said White. “My name is Frater Albion, Pontifex of Satan and Thelemite Abbot of this island. Do what thou wilt is our motto here! Tonight I want to ask you to join me in a great magickal working, one which I promise will transform all of you in ways you can barely imagine.”

  Sam looked at the door and spoke, letting White’s monologue drown out his own words. “Kulullu, come to me as you vowed.”

  “…But first, refreshments!” White waved one hand in a circle and the nymphs began to hand out glasses of ruby-colored wine. Sam was pretty sure it would be box wine from Safeway—and was dead certain there’d be poppy and tobacco in it, both for symbolic magical power and to get the victims too stoned to realize what was happening to them. When a nymph handed him a glass he drank clumsily, getting wine on his face and wine down his front but none actually in his mouth.

  He set it down and pawed at one of the serving nymphs. “Gotta pee,” he said. “Where’s bathroom?”

  She smiled indulgently and pointed to a door.

  “Thanks, babe. See you at
the orgy!”

  Sam hurried to the door and went in. Beyond it was a clean, midcentury institutional bathroom, with tiled walls and floors, rows of urinals and toilets, and a window with the lower panes made of frosted glass. Sam got it open and looked out into the night. “Kulullu! Come to me and honor your bargain!”

  Beyond the trees he could see the waters of the East River reflecting the lights of La Guardia Airport and the prison on Riker’s Island. Then, about twenty yards out from shore, the surface of the river bulged up into a crude sculpture of a face, just as the basin of seawater in Taika’s house had done hours earlier. Only this crude face was a good ten feet across. “I HAVE COME!” The voice sounded like a storm.

  Sam could sense White’s guardian spirits gathering, so he called out, “Kulullu! I invite you onto this island! I welcome you into this house! Come and destroy everything you find with a spirit bound into it, then depart!”

  The “High Priest” burst into the bathroom. “What are you doing, you idiot?”

  “Just leaving,” said Sam, swinging himself up onto the windowsill. “If I were you, I’d do the same.”

  He dropped down outside, landing in a tangle of bushes which broke his fall but covered him with scratches.

  A giant figure came striding ashore, its body refracting the city lights so that it looked like a stained-glass window fifty feet high. White’s guardian spirits flocked around it but did nothing to stop it. It was an invited guest, after all.

  Above Sam the demon-possessed High Priest reached the window and froze as he saw Kulullu pushing trees aside as it approached the old hospital building. Sam himself didn’t wait. He ran south, passing the sea-demon going the other way. “Do as I have commanded and you may depart. I will ask no more!” he shouted as he passed it.

  The pontoon boat was nowhere to be seen, nor were the Warlocks who had sailed it. Either they’d been smart enough to run for it as soon as they saw Kulullu, or dumb enough to try to stop a fifty-foot monster made of seawater and magic.

  Sam looked around desperately. White had to have some way to get off the island when he wanted to. But it would be hidden. The old power plant was right at the water’s edge, and had a big loading door facing the ruined dock. Sam pulled it open and found half a dozen boats, ranging from a twenty-foot cabin cruiser to a couple of kayaks.

  He heard screams and oceanic-sounding roars from the hospital. Then White’s voice shouting in what might have been Sanskrit rose above the others. More smashing sounds, and then a kind of invisible lightning flash momentarily dazzled Sam’s Inner Eye.

  When he could sense spirits again he felt many more of them than before—a great horde of them, all swirling about the hospital building, all quite powerful, all very angry, and all newly free from their confinement. How many demons had White bound to his service over the years?

  Would he be able to control them?

  Sam knew his own survival depended on the answer to that question. He picked up a kayak and ran to the shore, then knelt inside and began paddling clumsily to the west. His feet and lower legs were soaked, and he shivered. The night wind carried the sounds of more shouts, and what might have been gunfire, but soon all he could hear was the waves lapping the Bronx shore and traffic noise from the RFK Bridge.

  At 132nd Street he found a place where the shore was loose riprap, and he managed to scramble onto dry land, leaving the kayak to drift into the night. He walked to Bruckner Boulevard and found a strip club still open. Sam tipped the bouncer twenty bucks, the bartender called him a cab, and he was back at his apartment by midnight.

  Fifteen minutes after he collapsed into bed his phone buzzed. It was Taika. “What did you do?”

  “I sent your demon to bust up everything he had with a spirit bound into it. Seemed like the best way to wipe out his power. What happened?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Well, good, right?”

  “I didn’t want you to kill him!”

  “You said you wanted to destroy him, what’s the difference?”

  “I wanted him ruined and powerless.”

  “That’s what I did!” Sam had to work to sound angry and defensive. In reality he was trying not to laugh at Taika. Her ruthless ice-queen mask hadn’t just cracked, it was shattered.

  Just then another one of his phones buzzed. Moreno. Sam put down the Taika phone and answered it. “What’s the matter?”

  “All kinds of shit. Demons loose on Charles White’s island. We’ve gotta get that tamped down, fast. I’ll handle the demons, you get over to Police Plaza and give them a story to tell the public. The guy you want to see is named Michael Francis Hoffmann O’Connor. Assistant Chief of Patrol. I’ve got him under control—just use the phrase ‘Golden Cattle of the Moon’ and he’ll do whatever you say. Got it?”

  “Gold cattle of the Moon.”

  “Golden. Get down there right now.” He cut off at once.

  Sam picked up the other phone. Taika had cut off as well. He took both phones with him and got down to police headquarters.

  Chapter 20

  By dawn he was ready to collapse. He hadn’t been this tired since Tommy was a newborn. The police were convinced that the North Brother Island disaster was the result of an illegal methamphetamine lab explosion.

  Rather than haul himself back up to the Bronx, Sam got a room at a little boutique hotel a couple of blocks north of police headquarters, hoping for some undisturbed sleep. He turned off both phones and put the “Do Not Disturb” card on the doorknob, but was shocked awake by the ringing of the room phone. It had been so long since he had used a landline phone that it took him a minute to figure out what was making that noise.

  “Yes?” he said, still muzzy.

  “Don’t go hiding on me right now,” said Moreno. “I’m downstairs. Can we talk?”

  “Sure, come on up.”

  He had time to pull on some pants before Moreno knocked on the door to his room. As soon as he stepped inside Sam felt the same hyperclarity he’d experienced last time he’d been near the Mitum.

  “Did you fix things with the police?” Moreno asked as soon as the door clicked shut behind him.

  “It’s all fine. A meth lab blew up. Helps that all the survivors were full of opium and ’shrooms. Anything they saw is just the drugs. How are things on the island?”

  “I just got back. Spent eight hours wandering around the place with this. A hell of a mess. White must have had a hundred demons in bottles, and something let them all loose at once.”

  “Any idea what happened to him?” asked Sam, trying to sound casual.

  “Doesn’t sound good. Some of the witnesses mentioned a naked hairy guy fighting against men with bat wings and flaming serpents, and one kid claimed he saw them carry the naked guy off into the sky.”

  Moreno crossed the room to look out of the window at the view of the massive Criminal Courts building across Columbus Park. “So…you got anything to add?”

  “Not much,” said Sam. “A couple of months ago Taika Feng asked me to find out about the island, and where White was getting the people he was selling. I thought it was worth knowing, and I wanted to find out what she was up to, so I played along.”

  “Did she control you?”

  If she had, the Mitum would negate it. Should he claim it was all her idea? Tempting, but…too tempting. It felt like a trap. Sam shook his head. “No. I never let things go that far between us.”

  “You know I’m going to ask you again, without the Mitum around, right? Anything you want to clear up now?”

  “No.”

  Another long pause, and then Moreno turned away from the window. “Okay, then. Get dressed. We’re going to see Taika.”

  Fifteen minutes later Sam was in the passenger seat of Moreno’s old Citroen as the car turned from Canal Street onto Sixth Avenue. Moreno’s phone played the chorus of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” and he tapped it with one finger. “Moreno.”

  Sam recognized Taika’s voic
e. “Animals are in my house! I can’t control them! Help me!”

  “Be there in five.” Moreno mashed the accelerator and the horn at the same time. “What kind of animals are they?” The car wove through traffic up Sixth Avenue.

  “Rats and snakes, bugs—everything.” Sam heard the sound of broken glass and then Taika shrieked. “Hawks!” Some thumping and a bird screech, then the sound of a slammed door. When she spoke again she was breathing heavily, and sounded like she was inside a small space. “There’s just too many of them. My spirits can’t stop them all. Please—” She shrieked again and they heard the phone clatter to the floor.

  “Crap,” said Moreno. With the Mitum in the car he couldn’t use the laser-pointer gremlin, so each traffic light seemed to last for centuries. “Fucking one-way streets!” They were only a couple of blocks from the house but had no way to drive there. Finally Moreno just parked the car nose-first at a fire hydrant at Third Street and started running west. Sam followed.

  A block from Taika’s house they started to notice the animals. All the creatures of the city were hurrying in the same direction they were: birds, dogs, cats, even a couple of raccoons and a fox. The animals didn’t look rabid, or even angry, but they hurried along with single-minded disregard for all the humans they passed.

  In her block they had to slow down because the sidewalk was simply too crowded. All the humans had retreated across the street and were staring in amazement. Sam and Moreno pushed their way through a mob of creatures all struggling toward Taika’s house. Within a few yards of the Mitum the animals lost their obsessive focus, and either darted away or stood vaguely as if wondering how they had gotten there.

  The front steps of Taika’s house were heaped with animal corpses, so that the two men had to push them aside just to reach the door. Half a dozen large dogs had smashed the door open, killing themselves in the process.

  Inside, the house was packed with living and dead creatures. The floor was covered by a layer of corpses, with another layer of live animals squirming and struggling. Even with the Mitum to stop whatever magic was driving them, the sheer number of animals made progress almost impossible—and a house packed with panicky animals wasn’t much better than one full of magically controlled ones. The dogs around Sam and Moreno set up a cacophony of barks and whines.