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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Novels
- Published: 07/03/2019
![RAISING THE DEVIL](/storage/story/story_A395559C-89FE-0431-980E-02C395888EAB-image(204x285-crop).jpeg)
RAISING THE DEVIL
By Peter W. Mills
A Very Necessary Foreword
“History is more or less bunk!”
(Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer, 1863-1947)
This is a story about someone who likes the classic movies. It is also a story about redemption and the ability of people from any walk of life (or elsewhere) to rise above their limitations. It is certainly a story about love, both between male and female and that kind that is between friends and colleagues. It is a story about someone who argued with their boss and got demoted for it. It is a story about someone who makes a comeback and struggles to get their old job back again. It is a story about someone who happens to work for the Los Angeles Police Department, or LAPD as it has become known throughout the world from its regular mention in movies and TV shows. It is a story about someone who has some truly remarkable friends. It is a story about someone who may surprise you.
This someone is me. You will probably already know about me, because I am famous. Or at least - as is the case with many celebrities, who have private lives as well as public ones - you will think you know about me. You probably assume that you do. Ah – assumptions!
Everybody makes assumptions about famous people of fact and fiction, and the world has made many assumptions about me over the years since I first achieved fame, or rather, notoriety. The public is usually happy to bask in its assumptions. Mae West never actually said: "Come up and see me sometime.” That is an assumption which became so widespread it assumed the status of a Universal (or rather, Paramount) truth. (What she actually said was: "Why don't you come up sometime, and... see me?” That slight pause was very suggestive, but too hot for the studio publicists to handle and served to launch the Hollywood movie production code).
Likewise, Captain Kirk in TV’s Star Trek never once actually said: "Beam me up, Scotty!” another myth that took on the proportions of fact in the common parlance of public assumption: the closest he came was “Beam us up, Mr. Scott.” Not once in any of the stories by Conan Doyle did Sherlock Holmes ever actually say: “Elementary, my dear Watson,” a phrase that has become a fiction within fiction: it originated in a New York Times film review on 19th October 1929. Humphrey Bogart never actually said: "Play it again, Sam!”, the words he spoke being “If she can stand it, I can. Play it!”
And likewise again, Jimmy Cagney never once said the line “You dirty rat!”: a common misquote by various impressionists, from the 1932 movie “Taxi” where Cagney’s actual line was: “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!” And, although you may find it hard to believe, John Wayne never actually killed a single Red Indian, because movies are not reality.
However, even reality contains its fair share of fictions that have become assumed fact. After Napoleon had fled from the battlefield of Waterloo in 1815, an English negotiator approached the French army to ask if they wished to surrender. History states that the French reply was: "La garde meurt, mais il ne serend pas!” (“The Guard may die, but does not surrender!”) Other sources, such as diaries of officers who were present at the time, record that the reply was actually much shorter and less intellectual, the single shouted word “Merde!”
Voltaire never said: “Je désapprouve ce que vous dites, mais je défendrai à la mort votre à le dire.” (“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”) the famous line being invented for the 1907 book Friends of Voltaire by author Evelyn Beatrice Hall. Mark Twain did not come up with: “The only two certainties in life are death and taxes.” Although he used the line, it was actually written by Benjamin Franklin in a little-known letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy.
Although it may astound some patriots, Paul Revere never actually made his famous “midnight ride” shouting “the British are Coming!” at every farmhouse and village. His mission to deliver the news to the militia was top secret, the whole countryside was filled with British army patrols, and anyway it was in New England, where the majority of colonial Americans at that time considered themselves to be British by designation and would have wondered exactly what he meant. He rode without saying a word to anybody until he arrived at HQ. The noisier and more popular version of events comes from the 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Longfellow, who invented many details using poetic license.
Marie Antoinette never said “S’ils n’ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche!” (“If they have no bread, let them eat cake!”) This legend came into history from the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau where he referred to such a statement being made by an unnamed princess in Grenoble in 1740, some ten years before Marie Antoinette was even born. The remark was later pinned upon Marie Antoinette at the Revolution as a piece of anti-royalist propaganda to incite popular hatred and add extra justification to her execution, and remained attached to her, unlike her head.
From an even earlier period there is a famous 9th century Norse Viking whose name in most reference sources is given as Ragnar Lodbrok. History book accounts of his murderous raids usually state that he was commonly known by this name, which translates from Old Norse as “Ragnar Hairy-Breeches”, and at some point was added the polite and homespun information that this came about because of trousers made of animal hides by his sweet little wife back home. In fact, his actual nickname among his earthy Anglo-Saxon, Danish and French victims, who naturally hated this sadistic, bloody-handed murdering butcher, was Ragnar Lodknott, “Ragnar Hairy-Balls”. This information was, however, considered unsuitable for inclusion in the majority of history source books, most of which were written at that time by monks, and was changed for the sake of public taste.
I mention these things simply because, in order for you to judge my own story without prejudice, and without prejudgment, and without automatically believing everything that has already been written or said about me, it is necessary for me to point out to you, as I have here, that History is not always a precise and accurate account of exactly what happened, or exactly what was said by famous personages. It has been said that “History is written by the victor”, but the truth is more often, “History is written by the censor!”
Or, as it says in the famous song by Cole Porter;
"The things that you're li’ble,
To read in the Bible -
It ain't necessarily so!"
A Conflict in the Boardroom…
The time: now and then. The place: here and there. The Corporation: big - very big. It did not have a public headquarters in the USA, or in Britain, or Switzerland, or Japan, or any offshore island, or anywhere you are probably familiar with. Oh yes, it was in all of those places, and many others as well. When an enterprise gets that big, it cannot be said to be located in just one area. It might be best if I used the word “multinational”. The Corporation had branches everywhere, regardless of political divides and local ethnic differences. Most of its business activities were invisible; the Mafia does much of its business in a vaguely similar invisible manner, but the Corporation is bigger than the Mafia. Much bigger. And I was near the top.
I was Deputy Chairman, having risen through the corporate ranks from the level of junior management in a process generally called “working your way to the top”. I could not go any higher under foreseeable circumstances because the Chairman was an autocrat of the Old School. A self-made magnate with a finger in every pie, he had founded the Corporation in a small way back in the early days, amongst a lot of cutthroat competition, and he guarded his position and power jealously. He permitted me to be his second-in-command, his right-hand-man, but if he ever so much as suspected that I might try to take his place, he would have thrown me out on my butt with hardly a second thought.
This caused me no loss of sleep, as I was perfectly content to be his Number Two. At least, I was in the beginning. I still would be, but circumstances forced my hand. Being a good Number Two brings much of the glory and other rewards, whilst saving you from the supreme intense pressure of being in the pilot’s seat, with everything sinking or floating depending on how good you happen to be at that moment. In any corporate structure from an anthill upward, everyone has someone else above them to make a higher decision, to approve or criticize, to help out in a tight spot or kick your sorry ass, and there is some comfort in this; a subliminal sense of security engendered by the knowledge that the buck can, in extremis, always be passed up one level higher. Even a Number Two has this. But a Number One has not. As that president once said, the buck stops here. There is no higher authority for them to appeal upwards to – they are it. Everybody else is looking up at them; they can only look down at everyone else. Sure, the idea of ultimate power, of absolute authority, appeals to a certain kind of person. Not me. I never wanted it. I wanted to be high, but not highest. I wanted bright, but not brightest. I wanted strong, but not strongest. I wanted rich, but not richest. I was the perfect Right Hand Man.
The Boss, however, was the kind who did relish those aforementioned absolutes, with a towering strength of character that not only coped with being the top dog, the biggest cheese, the king of the castle, but made him absolutely competent and self-assured no matter what crisis might suddenly jump out of the marketing jungle. He demanded absolute obedience. He wanted the input and skills of individuals, but all the players on his team also very quickly learned when they should become nothing but “Yes Men”. You could contribute, that was welcome and required, but you could not contradict.
This, too, suited me, because I had no wish to contradict – until, that is, the introduction of the proposed New Product. This changed everything.
Secure on the board of directors and looking forward to liberating my accumulating pension fund in a few decades and perhaps learning golf, my hand was forced. Forced by what kind of a person I am deep down inside, where it counts. Although I was blissfully unaware of it until the crisis came, there are limits to what you can stomach. In fact, I was shortly to surprise myself. I can grovel and bow and scrape with the best of them; but there will always come a point where you look at what you have become and suddenly you get disgusted with yourself. Suddenly you can no longer abase yourself, or prostitute your abilities, or keep your essential dignity locked up in some deep cellar of the personality. Sooner or later, everyone must draw their line and refuse to cross it. You cannot dance to the same tune forever, especially so when the person who pays the piper and calls the tune decides they require you to metaphorically prostrate yourself in adulation before one of their ideas which, in your own opinion, is utter crap, uncalled for, unnecessary and outside the normal established field of the business and all its subsidiaries.
I had some good friends in the days before the crisis happened, in the workforce, in higher management and on the board. It was corporation policy, as it is with many other organizations, to use only first names and never to use titles such as “Mr.” or “Ms.” My best friend in the Corporation was Michael, a board member like myself and the Number Three man in the organization. Gabriel was also close: she was beautiful, charming and very capable and everybody loved her, even when she was firing them. There were others. But it is only when the chips are down that you discover who your real friends are.
I remember clearly the board meeting when the Boss introduced us to his great idea, his New Product. The entire board was assembled and waiting and in he came with some assistants from Research & Development who were struggling with huge bundles of rolled blueprints, carefully drawn-up flipchart presentations and covered models. This looks big, I remember thinking as they set everything up. The Chairman sat down at the top end of the long conference table and waited patiently – almost smugly, I thought – while the staff readied everything they had brought with them. At length they finished and stepped back in silence, respect almost visibly oozing from every pore. The staff from the lower floors were usually obsequious, often nauseatingly so: their single motivation was to be the Chosen One in the event of a vacancy in the boardroom. If they were from the junior management levels it would not be them who rose in one leap to a directorship, but they were well aware that any change at higher levels always produced a knock-on effect downward, whereby anyone who was considered reliable got a chance of stepping up into a higher vacancy. I glanced at them disdainfully; “Yes Men”, every one of them, almost falling over each other to look good in the presence of the Chairman.
The Chairman rose to address his board.
“Some of you will already know that I intend, at some suitable point in the future, to bring my son into the business and, eventually, make him the next Chairman. I shall not be standing down myself, but I will create a new position for myself as Executive Chairman which will leave my son running everything and implementing his own policies, while I assume the role of a supervising figurehead.”
He gazed in my direction, but I just nodded slightly and remained impassive. I knew all about this already, and it did not worry me. Like I said, I was content to be Number Two, and it really didn’t bother me as to who was Number One, the father or the son. I knew the son, and we got on all right – in those earlier days anyway, that is. We had a great deal in common in respect of our interests and had had some good times together: we were friends, the son and I. Later, by force of circumstances, we became estranged; but all that came later, as I shall explain in due course.
The Chairman resumed talking.
“Now, looking ahead to that day when my son becomes Chairman, I have decided that the Corporation needs to undergo some important changes in order to be ready for him. Anyone who knows us both will also know that he and I, although we love each other like a father and son ought to, have our differences in our approach to business and our methods of running things.” He gestured expansively with his hands across the table as he spoke. “My son has, shall we say, a more modernistic approach to the whole question of corporate management, while I fully admit that my approach has always been conditioned by my own upbringing and background, and the ‘jungle market’ conditions in which I founded this Corporation and had to fight tooth-and-nail just to survive amongst a host of competitors until, by sheer determination, ruthlessness, aggressiveness, loyalty to friends, death to enemies and pulling off the odd miracle, I emerged bigger and more powerful than anyone else. I will be the first to admit it – I am not really a business manager, I am a fighter, a corporate dictator. My son is the one with the actual management skills. He is far more subtle than I – and, I think, that makes him more of a force to be reckoned with.
“I accept these differences between us. I have no intention of demanding that he becomes a mirror image of myself. When he is in control, he will run things his way, the new way; and that will not be my way. Therefore, the old order must change. It must grow, develop and evolve. We must avoid stagnation.”
So far, I had approved of what I was hearing. It made sense. And I thought it was very big of the Boss to admit that his son was somewhat different in character, and even bigger of him to consider making changes in advance of his son’s promotion in order to ensure that the Corporation was ready for the day when it would happen.
The Chairman spoke again. “Accordingly, I have authorized a New Product.” This made everyone’s ears prick up, since such a thing would naturally affect everyone at all levels. If the product of a corporation turns out to be a bad idea, if it goes wrong, if it does not work, if it attracts bad publicity or sometimes even if it is merely ahead of its time, then the corporation itself is at risk. For the first time, I stirred uneasily in my seat. I glanced at Michael on my right and Gabriel on my left, but their faces remained inscrutable.
“I have also authorized the Corporation’s entry into an entirely new marketplace in which the New Product will be placed for its launch and development. So…” he emphasized with more sweeping gestures of his spread hands “…we will be dealing with at least two major unknowns; a New Product, previously untested and so innovative that there are no previous close examples – not any successful ones, anyway – by which we can reasonably pre-judge its performance or gauge its potential weaknesses: and a new, untested and un-surveyed marketplace in which the product is to be placed for initial marketing and also for further research and development.
“Understand, the New Product may not be perfect at first: it may be full of little design faults that have not shown up yet. Such unseen imperfections will only become apparent during normal use, so we all need to be on the ball with it. The idea is to launch it in a new and isolated marketplace where we can observe its performance and make ongoing corrections and improvements to the basic design as and when flaws show up – and the flaws won’t show up unless the product is in use somewhere.”
I was still uneasy, although I could not put my finger on exactly why, and the logical part of my mind was agreeing, in principle, with what was being said. It all sounded very reasonable. Perhaps just a little too reasonable?
“Now, let’s have a look at the New Product itself.” The Chairman gestured to the people from Research and Development who immediately stepped forward and began to uncover the prototype. I have to admit, I was impressed. Despite what was shortly going to happen, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the model, and I continue to hold that opinion right up to the present time, and will continue to do so. The Chairman noticed my swift and silent appraisal – he noticed everything, of course: you do not get to be founder of such an enterprise as this without having some extraordinary qualities.
“Number Two”, invited the Chairman in a fatherly manner, “let me have your thoughts”.
“I like it,” I replied cautiously. His eyes narrowed as his mind inspected what I was saying. He knew, probably better than anyone, that I was absolutely not a "Yes Man". I was the only board member with enough chutzpah to spit in his eye if he insulted me, and he knew it. What is more, he was clever enough to value my independent character and rugged individuality. He knew that I told it like I saw it. If I disliked something, it was probably bad, and if I praised it, it was probably good. He valued my opinion, I think, more than Michael’s, and this, I also think, irritated Michael considerably, although he would never give me the satisfaction of admitting to it.
“You like it…” the Boss repeated and paused. “But? I can sense a hidden ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
“Yes,” I acknowledged quite frankly, “I do have a ‘but’. It looks a bit like you. Er – it looks rather a lot like you. In fact, apart from the absence of beard and white hair, it looks exactly like you.”
He pointed at me proudly across the boardroom table. “I knew you would be the first to spot it”, he enthused to everyone. “Yes, it’s me. I made it in my own image. The earlier experimental models seemed to lack something: anyway, they had no character or charm. So, I got this one made in my own likeness.”
“Pretty neat idea.” I was still impressed. “Yes, it might work, at that”, I nodded thoughtfully.
“OK!” interjected Michael a little brusquely beside me. “So what comes next?” I frequently got the impression that he felt he should be in my place and he quickly lost patience whenever there was any kind of subtle interchange between me and the Boss.
“Next,” answered the Chairman, “we put it in the field and see how it works out. I have already ordered the Construction Division to start building the new marketplace test site. It should be ready in six days. They are already separating the firmament above from the firmament below. On the seventh day, we can all have a day off. How’s that grab you?” There was a muted chorus of approval from around the table.
A sneaking suspicion opened a creaking door in my mind and tiptoed inside. “You make it sound all too easy,” I commented.
“Well, it is really quite simple after all,” replied the Boss blandly. “Except…”
“Except what?” My sneaking suspicion had run a couple of laps around my head and was now doing push-ups.
“Except that, once the New Product is up and running, you will all – naturally, since it is an image of me – obey what it commands. You will treat it as though it were me, myself, in person. And you will have to call it Sir and bow down before it.”
There was a silence in which you could hear a pin drop. I glanced at my fellow board members. To my annoyance I realized that they had all swallowed this instruction without so much as an angry grunt of dissention.
Anger began to course through every fiber of my being. Slightly to my own amazement, I heard my own voice, seemingly on automatic pilot, slowly but very clearly grate out: “Over my dead body I will!”
The Chairman’s eyes flashed and his long beard began to bristle. “This is not an issue I want any further discussion about,” he stated in a booming voice. “This is an order. A direct commandment. I’m having it written into the job description, and that’s an end to it.”
He tried to move the meeting on to another issue by turning to someone else and starting to speak, but like a dog with a bone in my teeth, I would not let go.
“Not me,” I stated bluntly. “I refuse! Point blank! No discussion! No way!” I chopped my hand in the air with each statement. The atmosphere became heavy with tangible amazement. I was noted and valued for not being a "Yes Man", but nobody – nobody – had ever disobeyed a Direct Commandment from the Chairman in the entire history of the Corporation. And I went on, my mouth still running on automatic pilot. “I will never – watch my lips! – never bow down before this… this…” I looked at the name highlighted in big gold letters on the polished wooden stand of the prototype, “…this Adam”.
The Chairman’s expression softened for the barest instant. I think I had actually managed to genuinely disappoint him, as though a son had said something unkind to his father.
“Lucifer,” he said gently, using my first name and not merely saying "Number Two", “think about what you are doing. Think. Please…?”
I suddenly stood up, making Gabriel jump. “I have thought!” I snapped. “I think it’s a load of crap. I won’t have any of it.”
“Very well.” His voice, though reflecting a great sadness, took on a harsh and powerful tone. He pointed at the door. “Then get out! You are dismissed from the board. I will find you another position, somewhere in the lower levels – one that reflects your… talents… more aptly!”
“You won’t get rid of me without a shareholder’s fight,” I snarled.
As I strode defiantly out of the boardroom, I saw dark thunderclouds beginning to roll up. There was going to be war in Heaven.
The rest, as they say, is history.
2. A Visitation…
Now, before we go any further, there is one thing you must try to understand, over and above everything else. I am qualified to tell you this, because I am Lucifer. That is my name. Satan is my job-title. It means “The Adversary”, or, more accurately, “The Opposer” - because I had dared to speak my mind and oppose something I had perceived, at the time, as a case of everyone else accepting necessary horse manure in order to hold on to their precious jobs at any price. Thus, I had rebelled, over what had seemed to me at the time to be a point of principle.
And what you must understand is this: despite all that you may have heard from others, Satan is not evil! Disobedient, maybe. Outspoken, certainly. Devil-may-care (no pun intended), definitely. Proud… well, OK. Willful, sure. But I am just as much a product of my training and original environment as any other Minister of Grace. As an angel, I was no angel. But I am not evil. Look, the caretaker of a graveyard is not dead, are they? They do not need to be, in order to just do their appointed job. They are merely in charge of the dead in their graves. Likewise, a zookeeper is not considered an animal and does not have to live in a cage, just because they work in the zoo. A prison governor is an official in charge of the criminals, he is not a criminal himself, even though he works in the same jail.
In a similar way, although when I was demoted I was placed in charge of the collection and processing of those mortals who had done evil, I am not evil myself. I do not cause evil, contrary to public opinion, nor do I visit it upon humankind. The garbage man does not bring the garbage, does he? He collects it and disposes of it properly. The garbage itself is provided by The People, God bless ‘em. And evil is produced by Mankind, the Human Race. You descendants of Adam and Eve are the evil ones, not Lucifer. I just clean up the mess afterwards. You all have a choice, whether to do good or to do evil, and most people face that choice numerous times in a normal month. If, at the end of mortal life, your moral balance sheet is in the black, no worries: if it is in the red, I collect the final debt and close the account.
Homo sapiens produces all the evil in the world: I am merely the cosmic garbage man. That was the position which, in the words of the Chairman, “...reflected my talents more aptly.”
And it was never intended by him to be a permanent demotion. OK, so I had fallen from Grace. It happens to the best of us. Look at Nixon and Watergate. All it really meant to me was that I had to start at the bottom of the ladder again. It was always recognized that I had another chance to make good, providing I did a proper job in the basement department I had been assigned to, and kept my nose clean. I ran a tight ship. I did good – no, really! All these silly folk who run around blaming Satan for the evils of the world and for the wickedness of fellow humans are just using my name as the scapegoat for their reluctance to face and admit the basic truth. Which is, that human beings are fully capable of behaving like utter bastards without the need for any outside guidance or temptation. In fact, the really dedicated evildoers often did it so spectacularly that they left me quite staggered by their enormities and the strange convolutions of their consciences. People like Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin, Mao Tsedong, Attila the Hun, Al Capone, Pol Pot...
Actually, I do have a confession to make; something that any other angel would clip their own wings before admitting in anything more than a whisper. The Corporation I work for, which I have briefly described, is merely one of many spiritual realities. It is, in essence, the descendent of the Hebrew way of perceiving divinity, given an extra boost at the polls by the introduction of Christianity. The other beliefs – all of them – are equally valid, equally real, to all those who believe in them: Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Hinduism, Druidism, Wicca, whatever. But since, personally, I am the morphic product of the archetypal Hebrew system, my own point of view is naturally colored mostly in that tone.
Please, though, do not make the mistake of thinking: “My Gosh! If Lucifer himself actually exists, the Bible-thumpers must be right after all and everybody else is wrong!” It doesn’t work that way at all. Or at least, it only works that way as much as someone who actually gets a personal handshake from a cigar-smoking politician regards them as more real and relevant to their needs than the other ones they only see on TV and who therefore appear less real. Human nature can be a very strange animal. In all human societies there are vast networks of laws, but in human religious beliefs, there are few. The laws of society are imposed to curb the natural excesses of lust, avarice, greed, corruption, hunger for power, jealousy, revenge, genocide, murder, rape and pillage which the human species carries within its genetic structure. There is no such legal check of these natural characteristics where human religions are concerned.
Consider. If a paid actor appears in a TV sponsorship promotion and states that Marvo Bunkum Oil will grow thick new hair on a bald head overnight, the authorities would force them off the air and probably commence court proceedings for fraud and deceiving the general public. If a man in a respectable suit and tie appears on the same TV channel and states that those who join his church and repent by mailing a contribution will be granted eternal life in a blessed realm, he gets away with it. It is said that everyone has a double. This also applies to standards.
So, the point is worth repeating: I am not evil, nor a cause of evil. I am only the administrative head of a collection and processing department. As Friday always said in Dragnet: “Just doing my job, sir”.
And the chief of the city garbage disposal department is none-the-less still classed as a civic executive, even if the other executives wouldn’t have his job for a bucketful of money and a free hat. Most likely, his position in charge of the day-to-day running of the waste department is only one stage in a planned civic career which may one day see him as mayor, or chief of police, or chief advisor to the treasury. (Yes, I suppose I am a cynic. Blame me?) Likewise, I always hoped that one fine day I would be offered a new position. I made sure I mentioned it at every audit.
It could have happened at any time. It might have been when the Mongol hordes were sweeping across Europe under Genghis Khan, or when George Washington became president, or when the Beatles released “She Loves You”, or at any other time. It was not up to me to decide when. It happened a year ago last Tuesday.
There I was, checking the work of my junior clerks, when there was a sound of distant trumpets blowing a fanfare. One of the clerks opened the office door and there stood Michael. He looked slightly ill at ease, as a former friend can who no longer wishes to be reminded of the times you and he propped up a bar together in the good old days. Luckily, I was wearing my Armani shades – he always shone so brightly. I’m sure he did it on purpose. There was really no need when there were no mortals present.
“Mike,” I greeted, genuinely surprised. “Come on in. What brings you slumming?”
“Orders,” he replied, disdainfully eyeing the general untidy bustle of my department. He stepped inside and dimmed his radiance a little. “I have a message from the Boss.”
“For me?”
“Why else would I come to this dank and dismal level?” He sniffed. “When did you last decorate? Reds and scarlets went out with Dante.”
I ignored that. “I thought it might be a social call.” I was being gently sarcastic but it went straight over his head. He always took everything seriously, at face value: there was no room for humor, sarcasm, hyperbole or anything not exactly literal in his rigid viewpoint.
“I don’t do social calls,” he stated simply. He produced a scroll of parchment all tied up with a bright red ribbon and a big wax seal. “You’ve got a chance to redeem yourself,” he offered by way of explanation.
I pointed at my chest. “Moi?” I said, innocently.
“Why don’t you cut the fooling around,” he snapped. “This is serious. The time has come.” He tapped the scroll on a tabletop. “This is a new contract of employment, complete, legal and binding. It offers you back your position on the board and your former rank as an Archangel on High.”
I was actually very surprised at this sudden development, but I tried not to show it. “That must have stuck in your craw,” I observed wryly.
He smiled back grimly. “Maybe. But there’s strings attached, so I don’t for one minute think that we will be seeing your antics in the boardroom again for a very long time.”
“What sort of strings?” I couldn’t keep the slight tinge of anxiety out of my voice: I felt I was seeing a prize sail past just out of reach.
“Tough ones”, he answered, almost triumphantly, as though it were a foregone conclusion that I would fail to meet the challenge, whatever it might be. He broke the seal and pulled the ribbon off, unrolling the parchment, his gleaming eyes scanning its contents cursorily. All angels’ eyes gleamed unless they deliberately held back the inner light.
“Well, let’s have it then! Surely nothing the Boss could cook up could possibly be as tough as being designated overseer of Hell for half an eternity!”
“You think so? Listen to this. I’ll condense it and skip all the legal terminology. You are hereby offered back your former position on the board – providing you can pass the necessary test of character by living and working amongst human beings, in some capacity to be chosen by yourself, which promotes good, combats evil and leaves the world a better place afterwards, even if only in some small way; and this for the space of one whole year without giving up.”
“Ye gods!” I exclaimed inadvertently, and then quickly added, “No offence.” I quickly mulled over what I had just heard. I knew it was true – whatever else I might think of Michael, he was honest to a fault: it went with the territory. “One whole year… living and working among human beings… doing good… combating evil. Mike, do you realize exactly just how bloody good humans are at being evil? Believe me, I have first hand experience of it.”
“Be that as it may,” he replied pompously, “that’s the deal. Signed, sealed - ” he handed me the scroll – “and delivered. Take it or leave it. Your call.”
Suddenly I found that I was very apprehensive – understandably, I think, in view of the fact that until this moment I had been shunted into managing a department nobody else wanted and then promptly forgotten about for something over seven millennia. I desperately wanted what was being offered, I wanted up and out, but my mind’s nose was busily sniffing for rats.
“Wait a moment, Mike”, I pleaded. “I need to know a few other details before I decide to take such a plunge.”
“It’s all in the contract.” The Archangel waved his hand at the scroll I now held. His attitude softened a little. “What else do you need to know?”
“Well,” my thoughts – and suspicions – were racing round inside my head like the silver ball in a Las Vegas roulette wheel, “for starters; is this one of those deals where, if I accept the challenge, I’m deprived of all my angelic powers and have to actually live under the same restrictions as human beings? And will I be constrained by the small print to obey rules like never harming a human in any way while I put wrongs to right, like Clark Kent? That would be like having both hands tied behind my back in a dark alley.”
“Clark who?” said Michael, puzzled.
“Clark Kent,” I repeated, “guy who wears blue and red tights under his suit and avoids kryptonite… never mind.” I knew when I was banging my head against the brick wall of contemporary culture. “Just give me a bit of background information about all the whys and wherefores, and maybe a couple of heretofores and notwithstandings. I need to know exactly where I stand on this deal.”
The Archangel visibly relented. He pulled up a chair by hooking it with his foot and sat down, studying my face. “It’s absolutely on the level and above-board,” he assured me. “There’s no catches or inbuilt legal tricks. No, there are no restrictions, as such, on the use of normal angelic powers. When I say ‘as such’, I mean that, under the terms of the contract, all decisions as to whether you should use your paranormal abilities in any given situation are left entirely up to you, as also is the decision whether to cause harm to any mortal, what degree of harm you should cause and so on. Everything is going to be left entirely up to you. Nobody is going to restrict you in any way. No powers or abilities will be reduced, cancelled or rationed.”
He leaned back and sighed, giving himself a surprisingly mortal manner for a moment. “You see, the whole idea behind this deal is not to improve the world but to see whether you can act morally, make sensible decisions, behave in an upright and righteous manner and, basically, behave yourself under stressful conditions. In order to establish this, you are being given a free rein to do exactly what you yourself see fit to do, under whatever circumstances you choose to operate within. That’s part of the test, see? How you choose to make use of your powers.”
I carefully considered what he had said. “No restrictions?”
“None. Oh, of course, everything you do will be closely observed and recorded in the greatest detail, but nobody Up There is going to stop or restrain you in any way in anything you may decide to do. At the end of one year, your actions and decisions will be weighed in the balance and a judgment made. You understand? The entire point of all this is to see whether you still possess, buried somewhere deep inside your persona, sufficient strength of character to use everything you’ve got wisely, justly, compassionately and for the good of humanity in some way. The test is not about what you may or may not actually accomplish in the way of results and achievements, but in the way in which you choose to go about it and the decisions you make along the way. It’s a test of character, and that couldn’t be tested to the limit if any of your normal powers were withheld for the duration of the test, could it?”
“I guess not. How do we know whether the President has enough spleen to push the nuclear button unless there is a functioning nuclear button for him to push? If everyone knows it’s a dummy button, nothing is proved.”
Michael’s expression registered the kind of blank agreement usually worn on the faces of adults whose children are attempting to explain to them the finer points of Pokémon gaming. “I suppose so,” he replied, hoping his response made sense in the light of what I had said.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I think I get it. Putting it simply, I am released into the world of human beings with all my abilities as a former Archangel intact, and if I balls it up by going on some kind of egotistical power spree, I loose. If, on the other hand, I manage to make the right kinds of decisions, use what I’ve got wisely and for the general betterment of humanity, with some measure of compassion, justice and integrity, then I win and get back my seat on the board.”
Michael nodded. “That’s it, in a nutshell. Anything else?”
“And my entire modus operandi is up to me alone?”
“Absolutely up to you. Like I said, take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” I answered quickly. “When do they start counting the year?”
“Midnight tonight, Greenwich Mean Time.”
“What’s that in Eastern Seaboard Time?”
“You work it out,” replied Michael wearily, rising to his feet. “I’ve done my part of the job. Everything else is up to you.”
He headed towards the door. “All that remains is for me to wish you good luck.” He visibly hesitated and half turned to look at me. “For what it’s worth, I mean that sincerely.”
Suddenly I couldn’t help but remember some of the good old times. I held out my hand to him. He hesitated for only the barest moment, then shook it. “One last word of advice,” he remarked over his shoulder as he left in a blaze of glory. “Keep away from the apples this time.”
“Bastard!” I muttered under my breath.
3. Like the Song Says, “I Did It My Way…”
And that, cutting a long story short, is how Satan became a Los Angeles cop. It was my own choice. Before making the decision, I drew up a shortlist of all the occupations I could think of that might hold promise for the achievement of the ends I needed, and then I went through the list crossing them off one by one for different reasons.
President of the USA; too egotistical a choice. Charismatic guru of a new religious movement: what – with Him watching my every move? Leading heart surgeon: too messy and intricate: Dictator of a banana republic: too easily misunderstood in my motives. Paramedic: not sufficiently in touch with the actual Justice side of things. Film star: too shallow and vain, even when setting a good example to fans. Campaigner for human rights: too easily jailed. Cop... cop… The idea, once the seed had been sown in my mind, swiftly took root and germinated. Why not be a cop? An honest, hardworking, crime-busting, dedicated everyday policeman, tracking down crooks, investigating rackets, exposing scams, busting drug dealers, helping members of the public… the possibilities, like my name, were legion. If I could just be a good cop for a year, I would redeem myself. I could almost hear the harp music again. My decision was made.
So then I had only to decide precisely where, out of the whole nations of the earth, to base myself for my year’s sojourn amongst living human beings. If my task was to fight evil as a cop, I ought to choose somewhere with both ample crime and an established police department; that was obvious. I decided, after a moment’s thought, on Los Angeles. Exactly why I chose it instead of other locales I can’t say: perhaps I was pulled by the lure of Hollywood. I’ve always loved the movies.
My next problem was, quite simply; how to become a cop? You cannot suddenly become a cop, just like that. You cannot: but I can. I could do anything I chose. And here I began to really understand the cleverness of the contract Michael had delivered to me. Had I wished, I could have metaphorically snapped my fingers and caused all crime to cease in the city, or the country, or the world: but instinctively I knew that this was not what was necessary. After all, the test was not to put the world to rights. The test was to see how I behaved, to demonstrate my character, to see whether I was capable of making correct decisions. Therefore, I had to limit myself, if not to merely human levels, then at least to less than apocalyptic ones.
As another famous cop had once said: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” (He also said: “I know what you’re thinking – did I fire six shots or only five; well, do you feel lucky, punk?” but this was slightly less relevant to my line of reasoning.)
Several thousand years spent in cataloguing and filing the failings of humanity had left me, as you may have realized by now, somewhat more worldly-wise than most other Archangels, who seldom descend to visit the human world. I was big on street-cred, if somewhat lacking in pearly gate-cred. This meant that I knew, almost automatically, the single thing that actually ruled the human race. All present-day countries were ruled by it and even the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians too. You think I am talking about gods and superstitions? Think again. Emperors and military might? No. Presidents, politicians, kings, dictators, democratic governments, generals, warlords, priests – all were irresistibly under its relentless domination. If you could placate it so that it supported you, you could do anything. If it turned against you, you did not stand a snowball’s chance in Hell and were doomed.
I’m talking about Paperwork. (Or in the case of the ancient Babylonians, Clay-tabletwork – same principle but bigger filing cabinets.) It went through society like the Great Plague went through Europe. You get caught speeding: “Excuse me sir, can I see your papers?” You want to buy a house, take out a loan, buy a car on installments: “Would you sign this paper, right here, and here, and here…?” You and your friends want independence from British rule in order to start a United States of your own: “Let’s sign this Declaration!” Oliver Cromwell wants to execute King Charles: “Sign this death warrant please”. You want to introduce the eighteenth amendment to outlaw the sale of alcohol and make Al Capone a very rich man: “Mr. President, please put your seal on this paper.”
And if the Paperwork wasn’t dead right, No Chance! Nothing could be accomplished by the human race until it was properly signed, countersigned, stamped, copied in triplicate and hidden for the rest of eternity in a filing cabinet. What makes a person a doctor? Their medical skill and knowledge gained from years of study and experience? No, the certificate on the wall which says they are officially qualified. What is the true basis of the power of a dictator? His army? His personal ruthlessness? No, the power to sign decrees on paper expressing his will. Providing the appropriate paperwork is correctly completed, you can have anything you want. What got Americans to walk on the Moon? Science and technology, inspiration and idealism? No, President Kennedy’s signature on a piece of paper. What ended the Second World War? The atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki? No, the signing of a piece of paper on the deck of the USS Missouri a week or so later. Even a computer screen is nothing more than a way of producing electronic paperwork.
So, if I wanted to be a legitimate policeman working for a proper police force, with the rank of, say, inspector, I did not need to go to college or training academy or on any courses, which would have taken years when I had only one year to spend on everything including results. All I needed to do was to use my angelic powers to create the necessary paperwork which would certify before all and sundry that I had already done those things, passed with flying colors and got the T-shirt.
This was genuinely not vanity; under the circumstances, it was necessity. Forgery? Well, that’s debatable. All the documents were absolutely genuine, seals and signatures likewise, because I had created them as genuine. I admit, although I usually know whether a person is genuine or not, I have never truly understood what lies at the heart of “genuine” in objects. Look, work it out this way if it troubles you
…
Take the case of a painting, an old master – say, a Rembrandt. It gives generations of art lovers pleasure, looking at its beauty, marveling at the skill of the brushwork, the richness of the colors, the composition of the subject. The museum has it insured for millions. It is a thing of great beauty and wonder, admired by all who behold it.
And then, some forensic expert states that it was actually painted by Joe Shlabotnik who lived on the other side of the canal from Rembrandt and whose desire was to emulate his more famous neighbor. The expert freely admits that it needs X-rays and spectroscopic analysis to tell the difference, because it is indistinguishable to the human eye.
Overnight, the value of the painting drops to a hundred dollars and fifty cents, and a hundred of that is the cost of the frame. It gets taken off exhibition and is boxed up in a storeroom. It is officially Not Genuine. And yet, is the beauty and wonder diminished in the eyes of all those who have seen it? Has the pleasure given to past generations of people over hundreds of years been, somehow, lessened in retrospect? Are their lives less rich now because they were looking at someone else’s masterpiece instead? I think not! Like beauty, genuine is in the eye of the beholder.
This, anyway, is how I justified my certificates and paperwork to my own conscience. It might surprise you to learn that Satan has a conscience. Think about that – and then think what half an eternity in Hell dealing with the most evil humans who have ever lived is like for someone with a conscience!
I chose the rank of inspector not because I was on an ego-trip (I could have made myself a pop star if I’d wanted that sort of thing) but simply for the logical reason that it was a good middle rank, not too low, not too high. It would give me enough freedom to work my own cases, to some extent anyway, and enough clout to do my own thing. At least, it seemed to work that way for Clint Eastwood as Inspector Callaghan in “Dirty Harry” and the sequels.
For a little time, I actually considered being a private eye instead, like Humphrey Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon”, but I eventually decided it was much better to have an official position, keeping everything as above-board as possible. While pondering this, I briefly toyed with the mental image of a private eye’s shabby backstairs office door, with the wording “Satan, Private Investigator” painted on the frosted glass. I couldn’t imagine getting very many clients.
This brief reverie, however, made me realize that I needed a nom-de-voyage. I could hardly call myself Inspector Lucifer Satan. After a certain amount of doodling, I came up with an anagram. I recalled how, in the low-budget black-and-white vampire B movies of the 1950s, Count Dracula thought he was being clever by spelling his name backwards and disguising himself as Count Alucard instead, so that nobody would suspect his real identity, despite the fangs and bad allergy to sunlight (the script writers must have been racing for a long weekend). I rearranged the letters of “Lucifer Satan” and came up with Stan A. Fericul (pronounced “very cool”).
I loved it. I was in business.
4. Memories are Made of This…
“The best laid plans of mice and men frequently go pear-shaped.” So said Burns, or something very like that, anyway.
Since I had voluntarily descended in bodily form into the material world of mortals, I suppose I should have expected my plans to be railroaded sooner or later by that inseparable companion of paperwork, bureaucracy. The two go hand in hand, like certain men in San Francisco. If the building blocks of civilization are paperwork, the builders and bricklayers are the bureaucrats. If Kennedy signed the paper authorizing project Apollo, the man who actually succeeded in getting man to the Moon was not Dr. Werner Von Braun or any rocket engineering team in NASA. It was some balding, bespectacled clerk in an office near Capitol Hill, who drew up the form for signing and then used the accumulated wisdom and experience of thousands of years of human intellectual development to file it under M for Moon. If some hostile aliens wanted to conquer the earth, they wouldn’t have to arrive en masse with big flying saucers and challenge the armed forces to a fight to the death with rayguns. All they would need to do would be to introduce a harmless virus that ate paper, with a cousin that destroyed computer files. The world would be instantly paralyzed and available for entirely peaceful and legal taking over by any alien life form carrying the right replacement paperwork authorizing them to do so, providing it was signed in triplicate.
In short, the bureaucratic system gave me a partner. This was unexpected, unplanned, unwanted and intensely annoying. It was also regulations. I suppose I could have gone behind the scenes and used my powers to change the system, but I was at least wise enough to recognize that therein lay the first step on the march towards failure. I had to keep on remembering that I was engaged in a serious test of character, and that it would look bad on my Akashik record if, at every hurdle and problem, I re-wrote the script to favor my own performance. Wherever possible, humble pie had to be my diet – and this for the entity that created the first willful pride!
The Los Angeles Police Department did not bat an eyelid when, one fine morning, a new office existed in back of a local station house where none had been the day before. Nor did they so much as blink when, overnight, an Inspector Fericul appeared on their staff register and computer records with ten year’s commendable service record in the Department attached. They noticed nothing strange when I walked into work on that first day and was greeted by all as an old acquaintance with whom they were completely familiar. But I had overlooked one detail. No partner was assigned to me. The bureaucratic quicksands of probability shifted uneasily to remedy this glitch and provide said partner, with no reference to me.
It happened on the first day. Of course, it was only the first day from my viewpoint. From everyone else’s, I had been working there for years and was as familiar as the furniture. They remembered me as surely as they remembered last year’s vacation. You see, nobody stops to question where memories come from or who puts them into their head. Did you ever see the movie “Total Recall”? The plot revolved around the concept of a company who sold the entire detailed memories of a holiday to people who could not afford the real thing. What I had done was a similar thing, except instead of selling a holiday to a construction worker I had sold my own prior career to the L.A. police department.
But bureaucracy, like water, always seeks out any weak spots in the levee and flows through into lower land. Or putting it more accurately, if you create a quantum reality with a hole in it, the whole continuum flexes and a little bit of extra reality flows into the hole and fills the gap. The hole I had overlooked in my fresh reality was to be an inspector without a regulation partner. The space-time continuum shifted uncomfortably in its sleep, rolled over, scratched its butt and automatically altered things to have this put right.
The first I knew of this was at three minutes past eight that same morning. I had arrived at my desk promptly at eight, hoping to get busy with crime reports and stuff so that I could see what needed doing and where someone like me might be able to contribute to the general scheme of law-enforcement. Three minutes later, there was a knock on my door. I had time to glance up and to notice absently that the sign painted on the glass of my door read “lucireF .A natS rotcepsnI” from this side, before the door opened and in walked a tall, good-looking black girl somewhere in her late twenties.
“Inspector Feri… Ferr… Verruca…?” she stumbled over my chosen name.
“It’s pronounced ‘very-cool.’”
She considered this briefly. “Say – that’s quite cool”, she observed.
“No, it’s ‘very-cool’” I repeated, steadfastly refusing to relax. “What can I do for you, Mam?”
She flipped open a card wallet and displayed the badge mounted within. “Detective Sandra Smith. It’s pronounced ‘Smith.’”
“Really.” I was unimpressed. I dislike being upstaged, as any member of the Hosts of Heaven would readily testify.
“Yes. Sorry, Inspector.” She lowered her eyelids for a nanosecond as evidence of contriteness. “I’m your new partner.”
My mind stopped in its tracks with an almost audible screech of brakes. “Detective Smith,” I replied slowly, trying to figure out how this had happened when I had not included it in my schemes, “I happen to be perfectly satisfied with my present partner”.
She looked momentarily nonplussed. “I was told you did not have one at present.”
“That’s right,” I agreed”, and I’m perfectly satisfied”.
“Oh please! We’re not going to have any white Anglo-Saxon male chauvinist bullshit are we?”
My mental engine was still trying to hot-wire itself in order to start up again after stalling in initial surprise. “I don’t classify as white,” I advised. “My origins are somewhere in the Middle East, Jewish-Arabic.” I relaxed a bit: I had been momentarily startled by an event I had not foreseen. I told myself I had better get used to that kind of thing happening now I had taken human form. “I have nothing against you personally. It’s just that I prefer working alone.”
“Luckily for the rest of us,” came a low growl of a voice from behind her, “this department doesn’t run itself purely on the basis of your preferences, Inspector.” The Chief of Detectives had followed her in. Also black, very big, with a moustache, muscles bulging visibly even under the suit, and the remains of a cigar clamped tightly in a mighty jaw. He was a stereotype, but such people did exist, even outside the movies. I could not have invented him; I would have been more subtle.
And the bottom line was, I had to abide by the rules of this Reality, through my own self-imposed choice.
“Welcome, partner,” I said meekly, offering my outstretched hand. She took it and smiled briefly. The Chief nodded, waggled his cigar in silent comment and left, with somewhat of the ambience of a passing storm.
“Please excuse me.” I felt the need to offer an apology. (Damn it, I was really beginning to get the hang of human reactions now, I thought. It was quite worrying.) “It took me by surprise, that's all. I wasn’t expecting a partner to walk through my door today.”
“Surely you got the departmental advice note last week?”
It was too complex an issue to explain that I had only been here last week as a memory. “Oh,” I answered dismissively, “paperwork. I never read paperwork.”
She pulled a chair forward and sat down across the desk from me. “So, what’s going down today?”
“Today, I was just going to cruise the town and keep my eyes open for any evil.”
“That’s a quaint way of putting it,” she smiled slightly. “It makes you sound like Batman.”
I had a brief, unbidden image flit across my mind of what I might have looked like as a dynamic costumed superhero: “Satan-man!” What would the Midwest Bible-Belt fundamentalists have made of that? Imagine one of them, rescued by me from a burning barn, having to stand up in church and shout “I was saved by Satan! Halleluiah!” No, the public were not ready for that. I shook my head back to sanity.
“I can be old-fashioned sometimes. It’s my upbringing,” I explained. I stood up. “Let’s go cruise.”
She leaped to her feet. “Sounds good to me.”
We took the elevator to the underground car park. All of a sudden, I had a car. My own. I could not help it. The paintwork was bright scarlet, as was the leather upholstery. The hood was longer than the cabin, with rows of shining chromium tubes protruding from it on both sides like teeth, vaguely reminiscent of the look of a World War 2 fighter plane. The hood ornament was a raised clenched fist gripping a forward-pointing pitchfork. The windows were tinted. Twin exhausts? Not me! A line of no less than eight silvered exhaust pipes extended several inches from the back. The personalized license plate bore the letters “DEVIL 1.” The front wheels were smaller than the back ones, almost in dragster fashion, giving the vehicle the appearance of a beast crouching ready to pounce. On either side beneath the doors, running-boards ended in sculptured brass talons like those of a sphinx above the wheel rims, front and rear.
It was really her fault. She had made me think inadvertently of superheroes and my mind, still containing the echoes of that idea, had instantly created the car when I needed it, according to what was in my thoughts at the time. It was better than the batmobile: it was the bat-out-of-hell-mobile. It was my car: Lucifer's limousine: Satan's saloon. Already, I was proud of her. Already, in my thoughts, it was a her.
Detective Smith was obviously impressed. “Holy shit! What a set of wheels.” She walked right round it in appreciative slow motion. “Custom built?”
“Uh huh,” I agreed.
“By you?”
“Uh huh,” I nodded modestly. Well, it was, wasn’t it? I had custom built it in my own innermost unconscious thoughts: she had not asked how I had built it. While she concluded her circular tour, I began to notice a few other details I had not registered consciously at the first glance. Each gleaming hubcap bore a scarlet enamel pentagram. The top of the windscreen curved down on both sides towards the centre, giving the car the appearance of a scowl of serious attitude. If you saw this auto draw up close behind you in your rear view mirror, its expression would tell you “Get out of my way, motherfucker!”
I pulled from my pocket a set of keys that had not been there until the last thirty seconds. The main key had a small black electronic plastic pad with red buttons on it and an L.E.D. digital display. Remote control central locking. I pushed the “open” button. The tiny display flashed up the cynical message Abandon hope all ye who enter here! and the doors opened on their own, gull winged, upwards, almost meeting together over the roof like the claws of a giant preying mantis.
I could not help laughing. “Let’s boogie!” I shouted, and jumped into the driver’s seat. Detective Smith took the passenger seat almost reverently. She studied the controls with wide eyes. The dash looked like the flight deck of the space shuttle. The steering wheel was stylishly small. Her eyes paused on the automatic gear selector lever that was set at P for “park”. Then came the usual N for “neutral”, D “drive”, R “reverse” and 1 and 2 for low gears if needed. After these came extra letters; CTB, IR and HAB.
“What do those stand for?” she asked, pointing.
About to start the engine, I glanced briefly down. “Catch The Bastard, Instant Reverse and Hell And Back” I explained. Any reaction from her was completely drowned out by the engine gunning into life - and do I mean life. It roared in the confined space of the underground car park, large though the cavernous subterranean area was, sounding like a tag match between a dinosaur and a team of hungry lions, with a home run crowd roar at the Yankee Stadium for background.
Cautiously, I depressed the gas pedal about one ten-thousandth of an inch. The back wheels spun with a scream like a thousand outraged demons: the thick smoke of burning rubber billowed into the affrighted air. The car remained motionless for the few moments it took for inertia to realize that thrust was kicking its ass, then we shot forward so fast that Smith and I were compressed many inches into the upholstery like astronauts during takeoff. From the row of exhaust pipes a great ball of fire belched out as if from a flame-thrower, leaving a big sooty patch on the concrete where we had been.
As the far wall leaped towards us with the speed of a fly-swat, I performed a neat handbrake turn, slowed down to a mere 150 MPH and steered toward the exit ramp, continuing to slow down as we went. As soon as Smith was able to lift her hands against the pull of speed-induced gravity, she snapped on her seat belt: it was one of nature’s automatic survival instincts in operation. Her eyes were fixed rigidly ahead, face immobile, expression set, lips suddenly pale. By the time we reached the top of the corkscrew ramp and approached the street outside we were only doing about 30 and I was perfectly able to stop and make sure nothing was coming before entering the public highway.
I was jubilant with proud ownership. “How about that?” I enthused as we cruised down the road at a much more sedate - and legal - speed.
“Mmmmmm...” she replied.
“Electronic fuel injection system.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Power steering.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Computer controlled automatic transmission.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Rear afterburners.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Zero to sixty in point five of a second.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Built-in laws of physics avoider.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Blaupunkt quadro sound system.”
This last seemed to be the battering ram that finally managed to smash down the raised drawbridge of her consciousness, which had decided to its own satisfaction that what it was experiencing was nothing more than a nightmare and that the best policy would be to simply sit tight and wait for waking up.
“Quad... quad... quadro sound?”
“Uh huh.” I pushed a button. The latest piece of popular soul music gently flooded the cabin, perfect in tone, pitch and volume. It did the trick. She emerged from coma.
“You know,” she mused, recovering some of her shaken attitude, “lots of men have tried to impress lots of women with their cars: you are the first to succeed.”
“Why, thank you,” I replied modestly. Still visibly shaking, she started to fumble absently in her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Can you light-up in here?”
“Honey,” I answered with a smile, “I can light-up anywhere!”
5. An Arresting Experience…
To be perfectly honest, I did not have all that much idea about exactly how detectives actually worked. I liked Sherlock Holmes, especially when played by Basil Rathbone in the old black-and-white movies, but obviously this was not really relevant, except perhaps for the example the stories gave regarding the value of an analytical mind coupled with proper observation. In fact, mulling it over as we drove, I realized that my knowledge of the police was based very largely on the movies, as perhaps you might have gathered already, and on the classic crime novels by writers such as Damon Runyon. I thought Bogart was great in The Maltese Falcon, and I used to read the Dick Tracy comic strip. I had met Al Capone and Johnnie Torrio, but only briefly while they were being introduced to E.T. (That's not the loveable little alien creature, that's Eternal Torment.)
Driving through the highways and byways of L.A. I began to reluctantly admit that perhaps I had jumped feet-first into this situation without giving it sufficient thought, not to mention research and study. I had donned my shades, for three reasons; one, because the sky was bright; two, because it looked cool; three, because it enabled me to glance frequently at Detective Smith without her noticing. But underneath this trendy facade I was beginning to get worried. I could hardly expect to encounter some major crime going down by the mere chance of happening to cruise past it in my car. Such a notion was innocent and optimistic in the extreme - and these were not two of my vices, given my personal history!
But Fate, as usual, had other plans.
It was Smith who noticed it: she was the observer, I was the driver. She had the opportunity to look round and about at everything while I concentrated on the traffic and stop lights.
I saw her head turn as we passed something, trying to keep it in view. “Ho!” she exclaimed, “Slow down!”
“What?”
“Over there, in the alley...” I was already slowing the car to a little more than walking speed, and turned my own gaze where she was indicating. A shadowy alley opened between a drugstore and a dilapidated Laundromat. I could see nothing untoward, though. A yellow cab had had to jam on the anchors and screech to a halt behind us when I braked. The cab slewed around my car in the narrow street and pulled level. Halting, the driver leaned out his window and shouted “Where’d ya learn to drive, asshole?” I slowly removed my shades, turned my head and stared at him.
The cab driver looked into my unshielded eyes when I was momentarily angry. He froze. Visibly the color drained from his face. Sweat sprang out in beads. He started to tremble. Then his nerve failed him completely. He put his foot down hard on the gas and sped away at a velocity that would have got him a gold cup at Le Mans. I found out later that he had driven until the gas ran out, cashed his savings, jumped on a plane and got a job as a rubber-plant supervisor in Sri Lanka where he became a Buddhist and chanted prayers fifteen times a day for the rest of his life: he actually became a happier and more fulfilled person.
However, I had now cruised past the shady alley by many yards. “What did you see?” I asked Detective Smith.
“A couple of very bright flashes of light in the gloom,” she explained. “It might have been just somebody opening a window and reflecting the sun, but... well, it could have been powder flashes from a gun.”
I wanted to show her that I trusted her instincts, perhaps by way of making up for my earlier display of dismay at her arrival in my office. This thought made me forget myself and without thinking I shifted the automatic gear stick out of the D “drive” and into IR “instant reverse.” Suddenly and silkily, without any lurch, jump or sound, the front of the car folded back, via quantum N space, through the body and trunk, which followed it. The effect was something like putting your hand down a sock and pulling it inside-out. It was so smooth that Smith did not even notice at first that we were traveling at the same slow speed back the way we had come. She was still craning her head backwards to peer out the rear window, which now faced what had been forwards a few instants ago. All she saw was a yellow cab vanishing up the road in defiance of all civic speed limits in a cloud of dust and burning wheel rubber. It took several moments for our change of direction to register.
“How the f....!” She spun her head like an alarmed lighthouse. “How the hell did you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked innocently as we pulled up outside the alley. The gull-wing doors sprang open and I hastily emerged from the vehicle to forestall further conversation. I strode rapidly into the gloom and heard her footsteps following behind me. I noticed for the first time that a certain kind of footstep could sound worriedly baffled.
It was an alley typical of the rather seedy side of town we were in; bins, piles of garbage, graffiti, washing on lines high up strung between the buildings. All that was needed to make it a cliché was the standard drunken bum slumped against the wall mumbling a song, but he had evidently gone for a coffee break. Far ahead was a brick wall: the place was a cul-de-sac. There were various shabby doors along the sides, but all were tightly shut. I tried each one on the right as I went past, to see if someone might have ducked inside, and I heard Smith doing the same on the left. All were securely locked.
“Nobody at home,” I commented as we neared the walled end. “Maybe it was a reflection you saw?”
“Maybe”, she concurred with a shrug. “Just trying to be thorough.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “Nothing wrong with that.”
Exactly as I said this, a pile of rain-sodden cardboard boxes in the corner slowly toppled over and an arm sprawled flatly on the filthy ground. Now here was a cliché Jimmy Cagney would have appreciated. We stood motionless for a moment. “What’s that?” she said.
“It’s an arm,” I offered, helpfully.
“I can see that!” she hissed with venom. “I meant, what is it doing there?”
I stooped slightly and watched it. “Nothing much, it’s just lying there.”
“Oh, ye gods!” In a mounting temper she stepped forward and tugged the limp hand. The rest of the boxes tumbled and an attached body slumped out. She flinched back again. I gently turned the body over onto its back. The corpse gained clearer visibility. Male, about mid-fifties, balding with a neat fringe of grey hair running from ear to ear behind his head. He wore an expensively tailored dark suit and - and now I became rather startled - a dark purple shirt with a gleaming white dog-collar.
“Jesus!” gasped Smith. “It’s a priest!”
6. Breaking News...
Now we jump forward twenty minutes straight into the middle of the next cliché: two black-and-whites parked across the entrance to the alley, lights flashing silently; an ambulance blocking the road beyond them, rear doors gaping; paramedics carrying a body-bag on a stretcher; Smith and me standing together; uniformed cops milling around trying to look useful. I touched one of the pallbearers on the arm as they went by.
“Any idea of the cause of death?”
“That’s up to the coroner,” sighed the paramedic. “But if it’s any help, there's no sign of anything obvious. No bullet holes. No knife wounds - no wounds of any kind, in fact. Could be a heart-attack.”
“Heart attack!” repeated Smith in disgust once they had gone out of earshot. “Yeah, sure. He comes into a deserted alley, hides himself carefully under a stack of old boxes, then has a heart attack. And what about those flashes I saw?”
I was equally puzzled. In fact, I was sorely tempted to use my powers to help resolve the matter. Too easy. Not a test of character. If I was to do this properly, and stick with it for a whole year, I had to do it the hard way, the mortal way. Getting myself some flashy equipment and gimmicks like my auto, that was one thing: conjuring up outright miracles, that was another. In my judgment, the first was acceptable - just; the second was not. I knew I was being watched from High Places, and it was my judgment that was on a year’s trial or return.
“OK Detective,” I snapped. “Let’s try and detect. Let’s use our brains and try and figure a few things out.” I gently grasped her elbow and piloted her back into my waiting car. There we sat in silence for a few moments. “Now, why would a Catholic priest be in the alley in the first place?”
“He might have been visiting someone. One of his church members, maybe? A ministerial visit?”
“Good thinking. You still got his ID?”
“Here.” She handed over the deceased’s wallet, taken from his jacket pocket. We had read it while radioing for the medics and now we looked at it again.
“Father John O’Hara, St. Stephen’s Church. His private address is the same - presumably a house adjoining.”
“Should we break the news to his wife?” asked Smith. I looked at her solemnly over the top of my shades. “Oh!” she was embarrassed. “Of course: they don’t marry, do they? Sorry – I’m not a Catholic.”
“Nor am I.” That was probably the understatement of the century. “Still, he presumably has a next of kin somewhere, and we ought to inform his ministry. A minor point is this: St. Stephen’s is miles away. We're in a different parish here. I doubt he was on a ministerial visit to one of his congregation. Catholics round here come under St. Mark’s two blocks away.”
“Visiting a friend?”
“Maybe.” I picked up my radio handset and thumbed the button. After a moment, the set crackled into life. I asked Control to let me know if there was anything on the records involving the alley or, more particularly, any of the properties opening into it. After a few minutes the Chief himself came on the air. As soon as I heard his voice I could almost smell the half-chewed cigar.
“Fericul?”
“Here, Chief.”
“Nothing known about the address where you are. Nothing major, anyway. A mugging last week, some small-time drug users, bums and lushes: nothing unusual. Listen, Fericul, do you have reason to suspect a homicide? First reports say ‘heart attack.’”
“Chief, when did you last hear of someone hiding themselves under a pile of garbage in order to enjoy a quiet heart attack without being disturbed?”
“That's a good point. What do you think?”
“I think I will be very interested in the autopsy report; I’ll go along with whatever it says. Meanwhile, we intend to get across town to St. Stephen’s and break the news to whoever is waiting up for him, if anyone. Maybe ask a few polite questions, like what was he doing in the neighborhood, was he on a visit, maybe even get a name, if we're lucky.”
“I can get a local car to call there if you like, save you the sticky job?”
“No, that’s OK. We’d rather do it ourselves. I owe him that.”
“Owe him?”
“I’ve known a few priests over the years,” I explained, guardedly. That was entirely the truth. In the same way the Earps had known the Clantons and the settlers had known the Sioux. Still, I genuinely felt sympathy for the poor guy, and also a burgeoning desire to get to the bottom of his demise: a kind-of mutual respect thing, as two soldiers in opposing armies might have felt. Like the British in World War 2 felt for Rommel, perhaps. Something like that, anyway.
“Well, go ahead”, came the distant tinny voice of the Chief over the radio. “The coroner’s office is standing by. I'll keep you informed if there are any developments.”
“Thanks Chief. Out.”
I turned to Detective Smith. “I’ll drop you off somewhere first, if you’d rather...”
“Hell, no. I ain’t no shrinking violet. I'm with you all the way.” She paused. “There’s just one thing, though.”
“What?”
“Next time you take your car for a trip through the friggin’ Twilight Zone, let me out first please!”
So we reached St. Stephen’s church without further incident: I drove on my very best behavior. I whiled away the trip by trying to guess whether Smith was able to sense that I was continually glancing at her from behind the seclusion of my shades. I guess it was not terribly cool, but then, she was a remarkably attractive young woman - reminded me a lot of someone I used to know, a long time ago: name of Eve. Here’s a tip from Lucifer – don’t give apples on a first date, you'll never hear the end of it. As we had surmised, there was a house in the grounds of the church. The spiritual building was of the old, traditional kind, built of grey stone blocks and containing stained-glass windows; the temporal building was on a par, looking much like a small country mansion without the benefit of country. Big iron gates were open. We pulled up and emerged from the auto. The house had a rustic porch and there was a bell-pull. Cautiously I tugged it a couple of times. I half expected to hear a distant tolling. Instead, there was a bright jingle.
A woman opened the door. She was upper middle-aged, blue-rinsed, pleasant-featured and eminently respectable. She looked like an archetypal mother. She smiled and said, “Can I help you?”
We flashed our badges. “L.A.P.D.” I informed. “Inspector Fericul and Detective Smith. May we come inside?”
“Oh dear”, her expression registered genteel alarm. “Please, come on in.”
“Thank you Mam.” We followed her through a tasteful hall and into a reception room that appeared to double as a study. There was a big oak desk with a leather top and a brass lamp with a green shade. Bookcases lined two of the walls. The carpet was Persian, as were the scatter-rugs. Dotted all about the place were artifacts on display from various periods of history, some in glass cases. At her invitation, we all sat down.
“Mam”, I began, “do you know a father John O’Hara?”
“Of course. This is his church. My name is Elizabeth O’Hara; I’m his sister. He hasn’t been in another fight, has he? Last time I had to bail him out from the station house. Tell me the worst.” Her tone combined resignation with a hint of exasperation.
“I’m afraid that’s exactly what I have to do, Mam”, I answered gently. I reached forward and placed a hand firmly on her shoulder. “I’m afraid I have to tell you that your brother is dead, Elizabeth. There’s really no good way to tell someone that.” I was a good judge of people: I had been doing it professionally for over seven thousand years. This lady was strong in character, noble of bearing and unshakable in her faith. I liked her. I felt her tremble briefly and her eyes misted over. Unbeknown to anyone else, I used the powers of an archangel flowing down my arm, through my hand and into her shoulder, to impart an extra boost of moral fortitude and strength into Elizabeth O’Hara. She reached up and placed her hand firmly over my own on her shoulder.
“Young man, you have my sympathy; yours is a very terrible job.” Actually, it was better than my last one. “Thank you for your considerate manner and your deep charm and sincerity. I greatly appreciate it.” She paused to dab her eye with a handkerchief. “How did it happen?”
“There’s things I can’t say, because we don’t yet know. We’re waiting for the coroner’s report, but it may have been a heart attack.”
“Are you sure? He was an extremely active and fit man.”
“Well, no, I’m not sure. Like I said, we have to wait for the expert opinion.” I hesitated. “Mam, I’d be very interested in hearing about your brother, what kind of man he was, what his interests were, where he went and what he did when he wasn’t at home. Do you feel up to talking?”
“Certainly, Inspector.” She sighed. “Where to begin? How do you describe a life?”
She rose to her feet and wandered over to a statue on a pedestal, gathering her shaken thoughts. We waited respectfully.
“He was an antiquarian in his spare time. He held a doctorate in archaeology. His big interest was in ancient religious artifacts. He traveled in places like Greece, Egypt, even China and Russia, always collecting things.” She waved her hand around the room. “These are some of the things he found. Others have been donated to museums. He was passionately interested in ancient beliefs and everything connected with them.”
“Do you have any idea what he might have been doing in an alley near St. Mark’s?”
She shook her head. “None whatsoever. He told me he was going to St. Mark’s, but why he should stop off somewhere like that, I don’t know.”
“Why was he going to St. Mark’s?”
“The priest, Father David Martin, was a friend of his. They shared an interest in ancient antiquities. Father David phoned up last night after mass and said he had something that John would be very interested in. He invited him round this afternoon to see it.”
“What was it?”
“I can’t say. I presume it was some interesting archaeological object or something of that nature.”
“Mam, will you be all right left on your own now? We can arrange counseling if needed...”
She gave me a wan smile. “Young man, you’re never alone in a church. That is where I shall be.”
“Amen to that.” We got up and left.
We sat in my auto for a few minutes, together but alone with our thoughts, emerging slowly from the gravity of an awkward situation in which we could be sympathetic spectators but not direct participants - the grief of another.
Nobody in the world has ever managed to realize this in a thousand years of Sundays, with the single possible exception of the poet Milton in his Paradise Lost, but I had experienced my own torment of grief: therefore I understood it profoundly. Me, Satan! You don’t believe me? So how would you feel if the entire population of the world turned against you and reviled you simply because of your job? And if that condemnation had continued unabated for many hundreds of mortal generations? And if your enemies had utter control of the propaganda machine so that everyone blamed you for the evil that was really their own doing and originating from their own lusts?
“You know something, Fericul?” remarked Smith at length, interrupting my chain of thoughts.
“Like what?” I responded tonelessly, staring fixedly out the windscreen.
“I had you wrong. You’re quite a wonderful guy. The way you comforted that woman when you broke the news, in exactly the way she seemed to need, with love and humanity yet preserving her dignity. Almost as though you were able to see inside her soul. I thought you were all surface, all front and no depth. You’re not. You’re deep as the sea, but keep it well hidden. You are a very interesting man.”
Well, maybe a few others might understand besides Milton.
I gunned the engine and drove out of the church grounds. “That’s enough business for tonight,” I said firmly. “Time to sign-off. Where can I drop you?”
“Back at the station house, my car’s still there.”
We drove back largely in silence. Curiously, I noticed that it was now Smith who kept glancing at me out of the corners of her eyes.
In the underground car park I stopped. She sat for a moment without moving, in an attitude of deep thought, then asked: “Fericul - are you a religious person?”
“Well, yes and no,” I replied carefully. “It all depends on your point of view.”
“Would you care to be more specific?”
“Well,” I chose my words with great care, “I can say in all honesty that, if it wasn’t for religion, I wouldn’t be here today.”
“Do you wear a crucifix?”
“Good grief is that the time, is that your car over there, well, see you tomorrow, good night!”
7. Confession Is Good For The Soul...
In spite of my earlier expert manipulation of paper to establish myself as an instant veteran cop, I had already forgotten how powerful paper could be. I had arranged an apartment of my own, in a better part of L.A., a district about halfway between the bums and the film stars, just outside avarice on the fringes of reality; a nice neighborhood. I had a dog. Obviously, a huge black monster with red glowing eyes, drooling fangs and a growl that would render laxatives obsolete inside three seconds. If you remember the one that tried to take the seat out of Gregory Peck’s pants in The Omen you will get the general idea. My dog was not a recent addition to my lifestyle; we went back a long way. The ancient Greeks called him Cerberus. Of course, in those days he had three heads and breathed fire. We had both come considerably more up-market since then, image-wise.
I was trying to relax and get used to the things that happened to you when you were a human being. I had even poured myself a drink. Yes, dammit, I confess - it was a Martini with an olive! Brimstone was out of season, OK? My apartment was large. I liked plenty of space: I was used to it, since both Heaven and Hell are infinite. The lighting was subdued and hidden, adding a nicely mysterious touch that I appreciated. And before you think that I was reverting to type, there was also a huge brightly lit tropical aquarium and soft classical music in the background.
I had just begun to feel relaxed when my trusty dog’s mane started to bristle and he gave a soft growl. In a semi-crouch he trotted across the floor and paused by the door, staring at it. His head was waist high to a six foot man. I gestured silently for him to get away from the door and he slunk back into the semi gloom obediently, lying down behind a white leather sofa. I found it hard to believe I was going to have burglars, yet after a minute I could clearly hear someone approaching in the outside corridor, even though they were trying to be quiet about it. I stood and faced the door, intrigued.
Then whoever was outside pressed my doorbell. It was one of those tacky ones that play a piece of music, in this case the Night on Bare Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky. I stepped forward and opened the door. Standing there was Detective Sandra Smith.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in genuine surprise.
She studied me with piercing brown eyes. “I had to find out if you were real,” she stated, as though that were sufficient explanation.
“Real?” I floundered, trying to master the unexpected situation.
“Yeah. You know, not a figment of my imagination.”
I spread my hands in a theatrical shrug. “ I'm real,” I confirmed.
“Well, we could stand here all night and talk about it, or you might even get around to asking me in.”
“I’m sorry. I was taken aback. Please, come on in. But surely you could have waited to see me at work tomorrow morning if that’s all you wanted to find out.”
She entered my apartment and summed it up with what I hoped was approval. “That’s not all I wanted to find out,” she said. “I’ve got a list.”
“Then we may as well make ourselves comfortable. Drink?”
She eyed my Martini on the glass occasional table with evident distain. “Got any proper ones?”
“You name it, I got it.”
“Ice cold beer with a vodka chaser.” I went to my comprehensive bar and brought back her order on a small silver platter: I try to do things with style. I sat on the sofa, she sat in a matching armchair. I waited until she had taken a few mouthfuls.
“So, what’s this list? And how did you find me?” That’s when I was reminded once more how powerful a thing paper can be, depending only on how it was used.
“I got your address from the files at the station house. No problem. As for that list, I need to think where to begin.”
“It’s that long?”
“It’s that long. Maybe longer.”
I waited patiently for her to organize her thoughts.
“OK. Let’s see if I've got it all. I've been thinking about it all the way driving over, but not in any particular order.”
She drew a deep breath. “I look at you and see a tall, athletic-looking man with a dark skin tone, jet black hair, pony-tail halfway down your back, small beard and moustache close-cropped, eyebrows that curl up at the ends like horns. I know you’re a cop, otherwise you could be a bouncer at an expensive nightclub. My first impression was that you were devilishly good looking. Then that adjective kept replaying itself back at me through the day. Your auto has pentagrams on the hubcaps and a pitchfork on the hood. Not to mention having the power of a cruise missile. You can make it defy the laws of physics and turn itself inside out and back-to-front. It looks like it was designed by H. R. Geiger and built by Stephen Spielberg. Then, after you dropped me at the station house this evening, I did some digging and found this.”
She opened her purse and handed me a large envelope. Inside was a photograph of a lot of policemen lined up four deep. “That’s a police training academy photograph. I got the details from your own graduation certificate. Except, you’re not in the picture, and everyone who is, is identified by the names listed at the bottom.”
Damn! I had completely overlooked this particular detail. Paper again, now working against me.
“Then a Polish yellow cab driver insults you, takes one look at what was behind your eyes, then takes a runner. Do you know where he went?”
I shrugged helplessly. I was growing uncomfortable: it was like being found out and upbraided by your kindergarten teacher.
“He went at average speed seventy-five in a direct line to the airport, heading down four one-way streets, losing two hubcaps, driving over eight lawns, impacting fifteen other vehicles, going through twenty-three red lights, going through two shopping malls, driving across a city park, driving down a flight of concrete steps, damaging the base of a statue, putting skid marks through five flowerbeds, committing sixty-eight traffic violations in seventeen minutes. The tickets had to be bound as a book, then divided into chapters.”
She drew in another deep breath after this tirade. “Then he emptied an airport cash machine of his entire life savings by somehow bypassing the maximum withdrawal limit, smashing the machine in so doing, abandoned his car and jumped a plane heading for Kennedy. After that we lost track of him, but I’m sure there’ll be fresh reports soon as to his ultimate destination. There’s an APB out for him now.”
I tried to speak, but she resumed, drowning me out.
“And that was after just one single look into your eyes when you were angry. It’s a miracle nobody was hurt. So, when all these violation reports came in while I was picking up my coat, I decided to pay you a visit. I looked up your address on the file.”
Paper, again the betrayer!
“And last, but not necessarily least, who else would live here? Apartment 666, 13th floor?”
“They’re my lucky numbers?” I offered rather lamely.
She paused, verbally exhausted for a few moments, and then continued in a less hysterical tone, visibly getting a better grip on her poise. “All that’s needed to complete the picture is a huge red-eyed hellhound trotting behind you.”
On perfect cue, my dog came out from behind the sofa and padded towards her.
“Oh Jeez! Oh my God! Oh shit!” She tried to burrow backwards through her armchair with her shoulders. The dog paused a few feet away from her, looked at her sideways, red eyes glowing like coals. Then he lay down, rolled over, waved his legs in the air, wriggled his back and wagged his tail rapidly across the carpet with a sound like a besom broom.
“He wants you to rub his tummy,” I explained.
“..............!” Her mouth opened to frame words but no sound came out.
“He likes you; really he does. I can tell.”
Gingerly she pushed off one shoe, stretched out a leg and rubbed his tummy with her foot, snatching it back after three quick rubs. The dog wriggled again and whimpered with pleasure. Gaining a little more boldness after counting her feet and still making it two, she repeated the rubbing, this time for longer. The dog gave a silly undulating growl almost like a child’s happy gurgle. His tail changed direction and beat a tattoo on the floor like a snare drum.
All the pent up hysteria had been spent. She relaxed a little. “Actually, he’s quite cute. What’s his name?”
“Niblick.”
“You named your dog after a golf club?”
“Everything has to be called something.” I was growing tired of being continually on the defensive. “It’s a nice name for a sporting dog. Shakespeare said, ‘What's in a name?’”
She looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Well, what is the subject?”
“You are. Just who the hell are you? One of the Men In Black or something?” She had stopped rubbing. The dog whined pathetically and she absently started again.
“He likes people,” I remarked soothingly. This was quite true. At one time, they had been his staple diet.
“You’re not answering my question, mister.”
“All right! All right!” I waved her down with my hand. I stood up and started to pace the floor in front of her. I put my hands in my pockets as I paced. My body language was saying, “How do I get out of this one?”
I put some firmness into my voice. “First, let me ask you a couple of questions.”
She shrugged slightly. “If you insist.”
“I insist.”
I read her body language; it might best be described as “aggressive waiting”. She still stroked the dog's tummy with her foot. By now, his eyes were closed and his tongue was dangling limply from the corner of his mouth. His tail still beat on the floor in ecstasy.
“First, let me ask you: do you believe in justice?”
“You’re asking me, a cop, if I believe in justice?”
“Well - do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Justice for all?”
“It wouldn’t be justice if anyone was excluded. Even the President can be impeached.”
“Good. Good point. Very good point.” I ceased my pacing and turned to face her, taking my hands out of my pockets and pointing at her. “Now - and consider your answer carefully - from the point of view of the criminal, what is the purpose of justice?”
She did think carefully before answering. “Well, I guess, twofold. Firstly, to stop them from doing it again, whatever they did, and secondly, to try to rehabilitate them so that they are better able to take up a rightful and law-abiding position within society when they get out of jail. And maybe a third thing, too, to act as a deterrent to others who might then think twice before breaking the law.”
“OK. So we agree on three things. Putting the criminal in a place where they can’t repeat their offence; encouraging them to become better people than they were; and being a warning to others.” She nodded, puzzled.
I stopped in mid track and gave her a frown. “Do you really think our penal system accomplishes that?”
“I never said it was perfect. I merely said what I think it should be like, in an ideal world.”
“Sure. OK.” I tried to get my thread back. “So you don’t believe in justice as a pure punishment and nothing else.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No,” she said categorically. “That is nothing more than the State taking revenge. It’s a barbaric concept. I happen to disagree with the notion of capital punishment. It offers no opportunity for redemption. Justice must be about more than that, in a civilized society. Even in the case of murder. Two wrongs can never make a right.”
“I’m rather inclined to agree. Let me put a hypothetical case to you.”
“Look, there’d better be some point to this.”
“Oh, there is, believe me.”
She waved a hand in the air. “OK. Carry on.”
“Suppose there was a country somewhere where the ruler wielded absolute power. I don’t want to use the word ‘dictator’ but I can’t offhand think of anything better. Then suppose someone argued with him, which was against the law in that country. Suppose it was one of his top generals. Then suppose that, because the ruler was basically a good guy, the general was not sent to prison or a firing squad but simply demoted to being the governor of a penal colony in the middle of nowhere, cut off from all he had previously known and enjoyed.”
“Like Devil’s Island?”
“Extremely like. Then, suppose that after what seemed to the general to be an eternity, the ruler relented and gave him a chance to win back his old position in the country’s government, but to prove he had learned his lesson he must first complete a test of good character. Suppose that test was to spend exactly one year trying to help people and do good, fighting evil and at the same time learning humility and self-questioning. Would that fit with your definition of justice? Understand - I am not asking you to judge the merits or otherwise of the ruler’s regime, but to judge whether justice, as you described it, has been done. Or do you think the general should be confined to his governorship of the penal colony forever?”
She considered briefly. “I would say justice had been well served. Ignoring the fact that I regard such a regime as immoral, unconstitutional and against the democratic principles of the United States…” (I disguised a brief choking fit as a cough at this point) “…to give someone a chance to prove their worth and demonstrate that they have learned their lesson is an admirable thing.”
She paused, thinking over what I had been saying. “Are you telling me, then, that you are some kind of exile from a foreign regime who is trying to get back into your president’s good books by showing that you can be a good cop?” Her tone was slightly incredulous.
“That is exactly right. I argued with my leader, got kicked out of his ruling council, got sent to be governor of a hell-hole, got given a chance to make good again by accepting the challenge of a test of character. And that’s where I am now.”
“But... but the car, the impossible things it does, that taxi driver, your apartment number 666, this dog with volcano eyes... your story doesn’t explain those creepy things!”
I sat back on the sofa with my eyes closed, hands clasped behind my head. “Doesn’t it?” I replied gently and quietly. “The kingdom was Heaven: the ruler was God: I’m the Devil.”
-------------------
I placed a cushion under her head and bathed her forehead with a wet towel. “Is that any better?” I asked solicitously.
“What happened?” Her voice was a faint whisper.
“You fainted. Here.” I offered her a balloon glass of cognac. “Take a sip of this. You’ll soon feel all right again.” My tone tried hard to be cheerful but I was anxious for her and I guess it showed. I felt guilty, because what I had told her about myself had been the cause of her fainting and, worse, keeling out of her chair and banging her head, albeit only on the thick carpet. Niblick stood looking at her sadly, tail between his legs. As soon as she sat up and sipped the brandy he gave his tail a few encouraging wags and whined in a relieved way. “See,” I remarked, “even the dog was worried about you.”
I could almost visibly see the memory of the last hour flooding back into her mind. But she was made of stronger stuff than I realized. She reached out and ruffled the dog's head between the ears. He promptly rolled over on his back again and thumped his tail. My arm was supporting her back as she sat up, and I helped her onto the armchair.
“You can’t be the Devil,” she stated flatly.
“Why can’t I?”
“You’re too kind and gentle.”
“I’m off duty”, I quipped. She stared at me, then actually laughed.
“You’re kidding me!”
“No.”
“Prove it! Go on - you talk a big act, so prove it to me.”
I held out a hand to her. “Come with me.” Suddenly she looked nervous.
“Which way is your bedroom?”
I pointed right. “That way.”
“Which way are you taking me?”
I pointed left. “That way.”
“Fine.” She got to her feet and followed me across the big room to the huge picture window. The view was quite spectacular; a galaxy of lights in the night outlined the sparkling shapes of the office blocks of downtown LA. A door beside the window led out onto a broad balcony. There was a small forest of shrubs in wooden tubs and brightly colored arrays of flowers in planters. I opened the door and went out into the gentle night breeze. After a second’s hesitation she followed me.
On the flagstones I held out my hand again. “Please, stand close beside me.”
“I expected a better come-on line from you than that!”
I gazed at her seriously. “You wanted proof? Stand beside me.”
She did so. Swiftly I grasped her round the waist. She was startled. Then she shrieked. Loudly. Because the two of us had started to rise into the air, leaving the penthouse patio behind, flying.
At first, her eyes were tight shut. Then one of them peeped open a crack. Then the other decided to follow suit. Then both eyes were very wide and she gasped. “We’re flying!” she screamed. I just looked at her and smiled.
After a while I could tell that she was beginning to enjoy the thrill of the experience as we rushed headlong through the cool night air, soaring above great buildings, auto headlights below us like strands of sparkling dew on a great urban spider’s web. We were alone together in the velvet night sky. Gradually she relaxed her vice-like grip of panic. Bit by bit she established increasing independence, loosening an arm lock around my torso that would have drawn admiration from WWF’s finest. After a while, we were flying hand in hand. Then just fingertip to fingertip. I frowned momentarily in a sudden rush of deja-vue; I was sure I had seen something like this before at the movies somewhere, but could not quite place it at that moment. “Can you read my mind?” she was thinking.
“Yes,” I answered verbally.
“Oh shit!” Her lovely black face took on a distinct red flush for a minute.
We completed a circular tour of downtown LA at a thousand feet and I steered us back to my rooftop patio, performing a perfect three-point landing as gently as a couple of alighting feathers. Facing her, I placed my hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently, conveying the unspoken command for her to stay where she was.
I took several paces away, turned to face her and performed a manifestational transformation, something all archangels can do. Where I had been wearing an expensive dark suit and white T-shirt, I now appeared in one of the forms in which hundreds of generations of human thought had molded my anthropomorphic image. Red tights, scarlet-lined black cloak, dashing horns, arrowhead tail, pitchfork, wisps of smoke rising from around my feet - the works: the common traditional image of the Devil. This was not the real me, merely one of the forms pushed upon my aura by many centuries of mass human thought.
“Why are you here?” she breathed.
“To fight for truth and justice in the American way,” I replied earnestly.
“No, I meant, ‘why are you here dressed in that ridiculous crappy outfit from a second-rate costume shop?’”
Somehow, the magic of the moment seemed suddenly to evaporate. Hastily it was back to the designer suit again.
Silently I led the way back into my apartment and fixed another set of drinks. At the bar I turned my head. “Do you believe me now?”
“I believe you”, she answered simply. She stood up and walked over until she stood beside me. “You’ve been misunderstood throughout history. Man, you could do with a good PR firm. You’ve been branded as the enemy of mankind.”
“I prefer to think of myself as an urbane myth,” I replied, sipping another Martini.
Through the kitchen door came the sound of Niblick having a drink from his water bowl. It sounded like a fat man doing pushups in jello.
8. The Bad Book...
Next morning we found the Chief waiting for us at the office. He had a file in one meaty hand. The meat on his hand was not fat: even his fingers had bulging muscles. I suspected his fingernails had muscles, too, if only you could get close enough to have a good look. He did not waste time on pleasantries. He waved the file at us as though it was a fly swat and we were the flies. “Coroner’s report on your dead priest,” he informed, handing it to me as if glad to be rid of it. “Cause of death, a hole through the heart.”
“How’s that again?” I queried.
“The Medical Examiner states that, inside, he looks like someone has shoved a spear straight through him. There is a hole from one side to the other, passing through the heart; except, there are no matching punctures on the skin. Nothing, repeat nothing, showing on the outside of the body. Not a mark. The damage is exclusively inside. Death would have been instantaneous.”
“That’s impossible,” remarked Smith incredulously.
“I know it!” responded the Chief. “There are photographs in that file, taken by the examiner. His assistants also verify the details, just in case anyone thinks the County Medical Examiner puffs anything except good healthy tobacco. He cannot venture an opinion as to how it was done. All he can say is, it was done.” He chewed his cigar in aggressive irritation. To me, it looked like the same one he had yesterday. Maybe he kept a box of pre-half chewed cigars in a drawer to replenish them as they wore out.
“I think we should go talk to his friend, father David at St. Mark’s,” I opined. “He’s our only lead.”
“You can go,” agreed the Chief, “but you won’t get much of a conversation. Father David Martin was found dead in his study in the early hours of this morning. The body is on its way to the Coroner’s lab right now, with not a mark on it. Any bets on what they’ll find as the cause of death?”
“Come on, Smith. We better get over to St. Mark’s.”
“Can we go in my car?” asked Smith hopefully.
We did not. We arrived at St. Mark’s and rendezvoused with Taylor and Valdez, the cops who had attended the incident. An Hispanic housekeeper, her face round with uncertainty, showed us through to a study similar in general character to that of the other late cleric. There were perhaps less statues and artifacts on display, but far more books. Endless shelves of ancient leather-bound tomes marched around the walls like a silent army assembling along a border ready to invade.
“He liked books,” offered Taylor superfluously.
“So I see.” I scanned the room. “You heard about yesterday’s death?”
Taylor nodded. “Yeah, another priest.”
“This could be a first,” put in Smith. “A serial killer specializing in Catholic priests.”
“Well,” I put my brain into gear, “I know it's tough, but it's not our business to get sentimental. One killing is an incident: two is a pattern, and maybe gives us a little more to work on.” I turned back to Taylor. “We found yesterday’s body in an alley. This one was at home. Any sign of a motive?”
“Nothing we could find.”
“There’s a connection between the two priests,” I informed. “It appears they were friends. Father John was on his way here, or on his way back from here, when he met his end. Father David had phoned him and told him he had something interesting to show him.” I waved my arm round the large book-infested study. “They shared a common interest in antiquities and religious curios. Is anything missing?”
“You guess,” shrugged Taylor, nonplussed.
“I’ll do more than that. We need an inventory from someone who knows about this place. Any candidates?”
“Housekeeper told us that a nun acted as his secretary most of the time,” chipped in Valdez. “She may be able to spot whether anything has been taken or disturbed.”
“Good. Can we bring her here?”
“Sure. Who’s going to break the sad news to her - you two, or us?”
“We had our turn yesterday with the first deceased’s sister,” put in Smith quickly. “I think it must be your turn.” The other two cops accepted this philosophically and left, nunward bound.
They returned after half an hour with the good lady, flowing in the anonymous habit of her calling. “This is Sister Catherine,” introduced Valdez. He indicated us. “Inspector Fericul and Detective Smith, Sister”.
I looked her frankly and openly in the eyes. “I’m sorry we meet under such painful circumstances, Sister, but we hope that you might be able to help us in our investigation.”
“I’ll do whatever I may to help,” she replied bravely, just a trace of an Irish accent lingering under the American.
“I’d very much like to know if anything has been taken or disturbed, Mam. It may give us a lead as to motive.”
She gazed round the room from where she stood. “I can check. We kept a catalogue of all the books in his collection.” Her eyes fell on a glass-fronted bookcase in a corner. She pointed. “But I can see from here that something’s gone, over there.”
We all walked to the bookcase in question. When close, we could see that it contained rows of large, ancient-looking books, and that there was a suggestive gap like a missing tooth.
“There is a book gone from here since yesterday,” confirmed Sister Catherine. “And what’s more, I know that this particular cabinet is always kept locked. Father David kept the key on a cord round his neck.”
Taylor shook his head. “No such key was found on the body,” he observed. I glanced at Taylor and he was ahead of me. “I’ll get the fingerprint guys up here right away.” He began to talk into his mobile phone.
I looked at Sister Catherine. “Mam, are you able to tell us what is missing, without touching the cabinet?”
“Yes,” she replied simply. “These were... special books. I can see which one has gone.”
“Special in what way?” queried Smith. But I had already stooped close to the shining glass door and was squinting through at the faded gold-blocked titles.
“Special in a way I would not have thought went with his profession,” I stated, my voice sinking to little more than a whisper. “Just look at these titles: The Codex of Alexandria: The Grimoire of Innocent 3rd: The Black Pullet: the Angelus Magnus Secreti Creatoris of Sameton of Babylon: The Diaries of Dr. John Dee: the Clavicule of Solomon: the Ars Notoria: the Liber Lunæ: the Þimple Þaumaturge of Æthelbald the Saxon - these are all priceless original editions of some of the greatest works on black magic and the occult in the world. And look at that…” I pointed at one particular great thick black volume lurking at the end of a row. “That most dreadful of all forbidden magical books, the Necros Resurgere of Eblis of Thebes.” I turned to the nun and raised an eyebrow. “Sister...?”
“He collected such things,” she stated, a trifle defensively. “He thought that, if he had them, nobody else could use them for wickedness.”
“They belong in a steel safe,” I commented. “The Necros Resurgere belongs in a bunker at Los Alamos.”
Smith, obviously feeling somewhat out of her depth at the turn of the conversation, indicated the gap on the shelf. “Sister, you said you know what the missing book is?”
“I do that,” she replied. “It was his most recent acquisition. He was very pleased with it. I would say ‘proud’ if pride were not a sin.”
I sighed inwardly. There was no need to remind me of that.
“It's entered in his diary on the page for the day before yesterday,” she pointed at the desktop. “He wrote the complete title there.”
With the others trailing in my wake, I strode to the desk and thumbed open the diary until I found the appropriate page. I read the entry and took an involuntary sharp intake of breath. I hissed the title of the missing book in a stage whisper.
“The Angelus Demonica Sumnonum of Aaron!”
“What’s that when it's at home?” enquired Smith, probably voicing everyone’s thoughts.
“It’s considered to be the single most powerful and dangerous grimoire of the infernal arts ever written by the hand of man,” I obliged.
“Hold on, hold on.” Taylor waved his hand as though patting an invisible child’s head. “What, exactly, is a... what did you call it, a grimoire?”
“It’s a book. The term ‘grimoire’ originates with the French word for ‘grammar’, as in a book instructing you how to speak. Over the centuries, ‘grimoire’ came to mean only a treatise on how to work magic of some kind or another.”
Taylor’s expression was mildly skeptical. “And I suppose you’re an expert on the subject, Fericul”, he stated with some sarcasm.
“Actually, Inspector Taylor,” shot back Smith, leaping to my defense in a way that pleased but surprised me, “he’s the world’s acknowledged leading police expert on the subject, as it happens.”
Taylor raised his eyebrows as he absorbed this information, then muttered under his breath: “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“You know about these things, then?” queried Sister Catherine seriously.
“I do. The Angelus Demonica is supposed to have originally been written by Aaron, the brother of Moses, in a series of ancient Hebrew scrolls. According to legend, these scrolls were discovered by nomads preserved in a dry cave, much like the Dead Sea Scrolls, around the time of the Second Crusade. They were translated into Latin by a scholar named Innius the Insane who purchased the scrolls in Alexandria and took them back to Italy with him. The original scrolls disintegrated into fragments as he carefully unrolled them, but he was able to write down everything before they finally crumbled away. He bound the pages he had written in book form. This original book existed in the Vatican’s Black Museum, deep under St. Peter’s Square in Rome, until it was sold by an avaricious Pope in 1650 to a rich merchant from Vienna. It was looted by the Nazis during the occupation of Austria and taken to a museum in Dresden, where it was finally destroyed during the Allied bombing in February 1945.
“However, shortly after Guttenberg devised the first movable-type printing press, a printed edition of this original Latin manuscript was made in Mainz. Legend has it that only one single copy was ever printed, because as the final page was being imprinted, the wooden framework of the press burst into flames and burned the building down. The book itself was rescued by the fleeing printer who later bound it in leather. Nobody knows what happened to it after it left the binder’s workshop. That was in 1453. Then it turns up in Father David’s collection here and now.”
In spite of himself, Taylor was impressed. He turned to the nun. “Sister, have you any idea how he came by the book?”
“I’m afraid not. He was always gallivanting off all over the place in search of rare books, whenever he got the chance. I know that he brought it back with him last month when he returned from a trip to Italy. I suppose he came by it there somewhere.”
Taylor looked at me. “Is it valuable?”
“Priceless. On the open market, it would probably fetch something like twenty million dollars at auction: maybe more. It's generally considered the rarest book in the world.”
Taylor whistled softly. “Plenty enough for a motive for murder.”
“I hope you're right, Taylor,” I commented in serious tone.
“Run that past me again?”
“I hope you're right - I hope the motive was nothing more than financial gain.”
Taylor showed early symptoms of exasperation. “What else could be the point of stealing a book worth millions?”
“Watch this space,” I answered enigmatically as I turned on my heel and made an exit, Detective Smith in hot pursuit.
Once in my car, Smith spoke softly to me. “What's on your mind, Fericul?”
“The book,” I mused. “The one that was stolen.” I half twisted in the driver’s seat so that I was facing her. “If you obtained a key to ownership of the entire world and everyone and everything in it, twenty million dollars would be a handful of peanuts.”
“It’s that powerful?”
“It’s that powerful.”
9. Raising Demons for Fun and Profit...
I drove us back to the station house at an ordinary breakneck speed rather than a supernatural one: I was really trying to be good in my behavior. I even allowed the driver of a Porsche to overtake me from a standing start at a set of changing lights. Smith was thrilled rather than terrified this time, and she told me so. We reached the precinct building, raced on foot to the elevator door in the underground car park.
“What’s the rush?” she panted as the floor lights blinked on and off on the panel.
“I need to send a fax.”
“You’ve got some kind of plan, then?”
“I do. I need some information.”
“About the book?”
“Uh huh,” I nodded, “and maybe a few other things as well.”
She looked at me closely. “Fericul, you’re worried, aren’t you?”
I looked straight and level into her eyes. “Yes,” I replied simply. “I admit it.”
“You - Satan, Lord of Hell, Archangel, actually worried?”
“Me, Stan A. Fericul, former Lord of Hell, Archangel and new boy scout in the LAPD, actually very worried indeed.”
We left the elevator and walked at rapid pace through the normal turmoil of the Department into my quieter office. I took a sheet of paper from a tray beside the fax machine and sat down with a pen. She moved her chair close beside me and watched what I was doing. I drew a big circle on the paper and another circle just within the first, then I wrote some wording in the space between the two, finishing with some arcane symbols scattered here and there.
“That’s an occult symbol, isn’t it?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Right. Actually, it’s a Circle of Evocation.”
“Shouldn’t it be drawn big on the floor in chalk?”
I paused in what I was doing and explained patiently. “That was how it was done by medieval sorcerers in medieval times, when they only had medieval methods available. Now we’re in present-day times, so we use present-day methods.”
“What’s it for?”
“I need to call some old friends.” As Smith’s puzzlement grew, I dropped the paper into the intake of the fax machine and punched in a number. When the paper emerged again from the bowels of the machine, I picked it up, pointed at it and it promptly burst into flames. I dropped it into an empty metal waste bin.
A trace of smoke drifted from the top of the bin. Suddenly, it was followed by a big puff of bright pink smoke with little sparks flying within it, like a firework. “Don’t be afraid,” I told her, encouragingly.
There was a sound vaguely reminiscent of a sink-plunger being pulled out of a swamp, followed by a bright flash. I noticed Smith blink. When her eyes opened again, two demons were standing on the carpet. They were both bright purple, complete with horns, batlike wings, tails and sharp features, about four feet tall. Smith froze, her jaw open. One of the demons spoke.
“Hi, Boss.”
“Detective Smith,” I said, “these are two loyal members of my staff. Allow me to introduce Pharter and Phukkit.”
Pharter held out a talon-tipped hand. “Pleased t’ meetcha, liedy.”
Phukkit nodded cordially. “Loikwise, Oi’m sure.”
As if in a trance, Smith reached down and shook the proffered hand. Straightening, she whispered at me out of the corner of her mouth, “Why do they talk with such outrageous British Cockney accents?”
I whispered back, “They’re hoping for a part in the next Disney cartoon”. Before she could pass comment, I addressed the demons. “Guys, how’s it going?”
“Fine Boss,” said Pharter, who was a couple of inches taller than his companion and leaner in appearance, “ain’t it Phukkit?”
“Yus Guv,” agreed the other, who was shorter and tubbier. “All’s fine and dandy.”
“Have you had anyone trying to raise any demons recently?” I asked.
“Well Boss,” answered Pharter, rubbing his chin and tilting his head to one side. “Funny you should arsk that. We ‘ad a call come froo just yesterdie - you know, a Summons to Appear in corporeal form, correct incantations, magic circle an’ all.”
“Who was summoned?”
“It were Surgat, Boss.”
“Did he go?”
“Ee din’t ‘ave no choice, Boss, did ee? Ee just bang and vanished. Right in the middle of ‘is tea break. Came back after a couple of hours all cold and bothered and grumbling about it.”
“Just that one single incident?” I asked. Both demons nodded earnestly.
“Just the one, Guv,” agreed Phukkit.
“Listen,” I said. “This could mean big trouble. I want you two to keep me advised of anything else that might happen. I believe some mortal somewhere has got hold of a Book - a proper Book. You know what I mean?”
“A Book, Guv? Cor blimey! As if we din’t ‘ave enough on our plites already.”
“Did anyone manage to get a bearing on exactly where the summons came from?”
“As it ‘appens, Phixit did. You know what ee’s like wiv the ol’ direction finding gear. Ee was annoyed when Surgat vanished - they was in the middle of a game of cards - so ee jumps over to the controls and gets a bearing, just out of curiosity. Ee couldn’t ‘elp it if ee also accidentally got a look at Surgat’s cards when ee knocked them off the table.”
“Do either of you know what the bearing was?”
“No, but I can easily find out,” said Pharter. “‘ang on a mo.” He reached into his striped waistcoat and pulled out a small mobile phone, pressed a few buttons and listened. Smith and I could hear the ringing tone. Someone answered, sounding tinny and far away.
“Wot?”
“Surgat? Pharter. Boss wants to know where your summons came from.” He listened attentively: all we could hear was a muffled voice rising and falling. “Ta,” said Pharter eventually and put the mobile back in his pocket. He turned to me. “Boss, I got the address.” He repeated it and I jotted it down.
“Thanks guys. That will be all for now. Keep alert, hear?”
“Sure thing Boss,” said Pharter.
“You bet, Guv,” said Phukkit.
“OK. I grant you your License to Depart. Avaunt ye!” There was a sound like a whoopee cushion in reverse and the pair of demons vanished with a brief flash.
“I don't believe this,” remarked Smith. “They were Demons? They were almost cuddly. I could market a range of dolls based on them.”
“They are reliable workers, and quite shrewd,” I observed. “Two of my best, in fact.”
“So, do I understand correctly that someone is making use of the stolen book to summon up demons, like the sorcerers are supposed to have done in the past?”
“You understand correctly. Surgat, one of Pharter’s lieutenants, was summoned up to this address.” I waved the piece of paper I had jotted it down on.
“Well, you’re their boss – can’t you just order them not to respond if it happens again?”
“It doesn’t work like that. We are talking about fundamental principles of the cosmos, like the laws of physics. It is like saying, if you jump off the top of an office block, just order gravity not to respond. Believe me, demons do not like being summoned to the earthly plane by sorcery, they never did. Even in the old grimoires, the incantations and spells were designed to compel a demon’s obedience against its will. Demons love having a free holiday here on earth if they get the chance, but they do not like being ordered about by mortals. I guess nobody likes to feel used.”
“Are you a demon?”
I smiled. “No. I am an Archangel, temporarily fallen from Grace. I am an official spiritual administrator, they are the native labor force. We’re not actually related.” I paused, thinking. “However, being intimately acquainted with them for so long gives me the advantage of knowing them very thoroughly. I know what Surgat was summoned for.”
“You do? How?”
“Many demons have specialties. For example, one might specialize in finding buried treasure, another in making women do what the sorcerer wishes, another in raising storms and tempests and so on. Surgat’s specialty is that he will open all locks for the sorcerer who commands him. Five will get you ten that, somewhere, there has been a robbery committed where someone has simply walked through the strongest safe or strong room door as though it were an open closet. Let’s check the crime reports on the way out.”
“Then we're going to visit that address the demons gave you?”
“Too right we are! I want to try to nip this thing in the bud as soon as possible. The potential of some criminally-minded black magician armed with the power of the Angelus Demonica is too great to allow it to continue. Surgat is a relatively minor demon, and the power to open all locks is not one of the earth-shattering abilities - but when you stop to think that whoever controls him could walk into Fort Knox, or the Pentagon, or any biological warfare freezer or missile launch room in the world...”
“Let’s go!”
Out in the main office we glanced hastily through the crime reports for the last twenty-four hours, leafing through the papers like they were research notes.
“Here’s a bank robbery,” muttered Smith. “Seems normal, though; staff forced to hand over cash at gunpoint.”
“Not that one.”
“Theft of a locked truck containing thousands of dollars worth of liquor...”
“Not that one.”
“Overnight break-in at a casino, safe was opened by an expert with a drill and plastic explosive...”
“Not that one.”
“Film star’s mansion burgled through a rear door...”
“Not that one.”
“Chemical plant robbed of a new industrial formula, safe was taken piecemeal with a fork-lift truck...”
“Not that one.”
“Senator’s car broken into, laptop computer taken...”
“Not that one.”
“Museum strong room robbed of ancient stone relics, nothing damaged...”
“That one!” I quickly scanned the details over her shoulder. Staff had discovered artifacts missing from a securely locked basement strong room: all doors had still been locked when the staff arrived in the morning. “That’s Surgat’s trademark. Come on, we’ve found out what we needed to know.” I grabbed her arm and we ran to the elevator, heading for the underground car park.
We roared through the streets, albeit at conventional cop-speed. My auto had a built-in siren under the hood and a flashing light rose automatically from the previously smooth roof. Within twenty minutes we skidded to a halt outside the address Pharter had supplied. It was a vacant unit in a trading park. A tattered sign on the unkempt lawn informed that the business had moved to bigger premises at Pasadena and hoped we would continue to be a valued customer at their new address where facilities including free parking were far superior.
“My guess is that whoever stole the Book has been using this empty unit as their secret base: sometimes demonic evocation can be quite loud - no close neighbors here.”
“So how are we going to handle this?”
Once more I twisted in the driver’s seat until I was facing her. “I'm going inside through a back door, if there is one, so as not to attract attention. I would like you to stay here.”
“Like hell... sorry, no offence. Not like hell at all. You can’t include me out. I’m equally a law officer. In addition, I’m your partner. Official.”
“I know.” I felt awkward. My previous territory had not been noted for its fish, but now I felt like one out of water. “What I’m trying to say isn’t official. This situation... well, it’s likely to be extremely dangerous, and... well...” Suddenly it blurted itself out. “I don’t want you hurt.”
This unexpected news broadcast surprised both of us; I don't know who the most. She stopped herself in mid-reaction to consider what had been said. Then her tone became more gentle, less Women’s Lib. “You mean...?”
“I mean, I don’t want you hurt,” I finished her sentence in a gruff voice.
“Look,” she explained in a softer manner. “I’m fully trained. I’ve been in tough spots before. I have a black belt in Kung-fu: I have a gun: I have an impressive record of arrests: I’ve done dangerous undercover work with gangs: I have a commendation: and I have something even better than all of those, I think.”
“What’s that?”
She paused for a moment. “I have you to look after me. Don’t underestimate yourself.” Suddenly, on an impulse, she reached out and squeezed my hand. Then she was all business. “You’re just about immortal, aren’t you? So, you bust through the front door and I’ll sneak in the back in case you scare them out that way. Give me five minutes to get into position and we’ll both start breaking the doors at once. You got a watch?”
I did. I held up my wrist and showed it to her. Red numbers on a yellow face with the pointy moustache of a devil’s head forming the hands. She sighed. “We really must have a serious talk soon about good taste. OK, we strike together at exactly ten past.”
She left the vehicle and strode away out of sight round the block. I waited precisely thirty seconds then walked up the front path to the boarded-up main doors. I had no intention of waiting for Detective Smith. I wanted to go in early, on my own, while she was still well clear of the building and out of harm’s way. Apart from the implied threat of the Vessels of Shinar, I was immortal - she was not.
Reaching the screwed and nailed boarding, I raised my foot and smashed it all to splinters in a single blow: I guess part of me somewhere deep inside was angry at the thought that some homicidal maniac who killed priests to steal forbidden books might be inside ready to harm the woman I... was growing very fond of. However, neither of us need have worried on this occasion. The place was empty.
That wasn’t just an opinion, like in one of those movies when the innocent teenager thinks the house is deserted moments before something nasty jumps out at them. No, I had ways of knowing. Archangels who adopt physical form have a wide sensitivity to the electromagnetic spectrum. Human eyes receive the vibrations from red to violet. Archangels, whilst in the mortal realm, can also see in the infra-red and ultra-violet. We can’t register X-rays, but the infra-red bit allows us to “see” heat, just like a night-vision camera, and I could see that the junk-packed interior of the factory was devoid of life, except for a few bugs and spiders and a couple of fleeing rats, of the rodent variety, not the criminal kind.
Consequently, when Smith kicked open a rear door and entered, all she found was me waiting for her. “Sorry,” I shrugged dismissively, “I miss-timed my entry by a minute.”
She replaced her gun in its hip holster and eyed me speculatively, decided to let it pass. “Anybody at home?” she enquired.
“Nix. The place is emptier than a casino in the Vatican.” I looked straight up and muttered, “Sorry - just trying to be colloquially colorful.”
“Who are you talking to - Oh!”
“It’s just for the record. I’m being assessed, but sometimes I get so immersed in things that I forget. Actors call it ‘getting buried in the part.’”
We began searching the building to see if we could find anything that might offer us some sort of clue. The place was basically a huge lofty workshop with a few offices arranged around the walls. Any equipment had been stripped out, but piles of rubbish were strewn over the concrete floor; empty packing cases, pyramids of stuffed plastic garbage sacks, damaged furniture and fittings, old newspapers and magazines, bits of oily carpet. Detailed inspection required a good nosing and poking around. We drifted apart, snooping busily. Then I saw it. “Over here,” I called quietly. She came.
An area of the floor had been swept clean in a rough circle, within which was drawn a geometrically exact one in chalk. Outside the chalk ring a triangle had also been drawn. Various occult symbols and inscriptions were liberally scattered throughout the design.
“We’ve missed them,” I stated flatly. “Our bird has flown the coup. If they’re smart, they won't come back here again - and we know they’re smart, else they couldn’t have done what they already have. And that’s just a beginning.” I indicated the triangle. “That’s the Triangle of Art, into which a sorcerer summons his demon while he himself remains safe from its wrath inside the protection of the magic circle. That’s where Surgat materialized and was held imprisoned until he agreed to serve his summoner. Knowledgeable sorcerers have methods of threatening demons in horrible ways unless they agree to obey for a specific time. Surgat would have been threatened with some form of torture. And they call demons wicked!” My voice registered disgust.
I was so rattled that it was Smith who noticed the clue we had been hoping for, slender though it seemed at first. She squatted down and picked up a few fragments from the floor, examining them closely. She smelt them. “What’s this?” She dropped them into my hand. I smelt them too.
“It’s incense. To be specific, it’s Kyphi incense, as blended by the ancient Egyptians and detailed in the Ebers Papyrus; indispensable for good demonic evocations.” I relaxed into memories for a short moment. “I haven’t smelt this stuff since Napoleon’s troops returned from Egypt. It brings back the past.”
“Never mind that. This incense could be important.”
“It certainly is; our quarry could not summon demons without it.”
“I don’t mean that.” She was getting irritated at my lack of understanding her point. “What I mean is, where the h... Where the Dev... Where in the name of all that’s hol...”
“Look, you don't have to watch every word you say just because I’m the Devil.”
“Where do they get the stuff? That’s what I’m trying to say,” she almost shrieked.
“Now, that’s a good question,” I mused.
Smith took a swift walk toward the factory wall. A metal plate with dangling wires indicated where a payphone had once been. On the floor against the wall was a pile of old directories. She picked up one and opened the yellow pages. In a few moments she was holding it up in triumph. “See, there’s a listing under ‘Esoteric Supply Houses’. There's only three in LA, and only one of those has a display ad.”
“Brilliant. We have to start somewhere; it may as well be there. What’s the address?”
10. Caveat Lector (“Let the Buyer Beware”)
It was a nice looking shop, very trendy. The windows were filled with displays of colorful tarot cards, crystal balls, other crystals of all shapes, sizes and hues, Native American dream-catchers, shining brass incense burners, carved wooden boxes, runic pendants, mystical jewelry, books on magic, Wicca, UFO abductions and how to talk to trees, also a whole range of spell kits for every occasion. A sign carefully pointed out that only the ingredients were part of the sale price; the use to which they were put was nothing to do with the shop, and the shop was not to be held responsible in law for any results that might be obtained, and more especially, any lack thereof. The name above the door in Olde English lettering read “BROOMSTICKS R US” We went inside.
As the shop door swung shut behind us, the ambient sounds changed noticeably. From outside there had filtered in the steady rushing noise of passing traffic; within, the air was now gently filled with the soft tinkle of splashing water from a range of esoteric indoor waterfall ornaments, coupled with a muted monotone chanting of Tibetan monks from a CD. A card propped up on the counter conveyed the information: “Now Playing: Songs Of The High Himalayas, By The San Francisco & Pelican Island Tibetan Monks Choir (No Nationality Implied) (copyright © Electrosounds Corporation).” Maybe I was old fashioned, but I found modern trendy esotericism and New Age mysticism somewhat pointless, rather baffling and strangely unsatisfying; it was occult-free magic, insipid in the same way as alcohol-free beer and nourishment-free foods. Idly I picked up a wooden Buddhist prayer wheel and inspected it with interest. I cautiously spun it with one finger and was slightly disappointed when no prayer came out.
“Put that down,” hissed Detective Smith. “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere! You may be Satan, but sometimes you’re like a naughty little boy!”
My brain was still doing handsprings around that analogy behind my raised eyebrows when a brightly colored bead curtain behind the counter swished as two women came through from a private back room. One was blond, one was brunette; both were good-looking; both wore tightly fitting black velvet dresses, rather low cut in front. Both were of an indeterminate age somewhere between 30 and 40.
“Hello,” said the blond brightly, “I’m Claire Touchwood, and this is my sister Celia.”
We flashed our badges. “Inspector Fericul and Detective Smith, LAPD.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” responded Celia Touchwood, leaning towards me over the top of the counter, displaying a generous cleavage and eyeing me up and down, utterly ignoring Smith.
“We’re the proprietors of Broomsticks R Us,” explained Claire, gliding round from behind the counter and eyeing me down and up, utterly ignoring Smith.
“I said it would only be a matter of time before the police asked for our magical help,” said Celia, rounding the counter from the opposite end and flowing in my direction.
“What will it be?” enquired Claire, placing herself strategically in front of her sister’s advance. “Crystal balls for skrying for criminals? A spell kit for tracking down a felon? A banishing incense to get rid of illegally parked vehicles?”
“I know,” pronounced Celia, neatly side stepping her sister’s blocking maneuver and continuing her advance. “We have the very latest thing - the Sherlock Holmes Tarot Pack. (I saw him first!)” This last was whispered out of the corner of her mouth in the direction of her sister.
“Or what about a set of divining rods for locating stolen goods? (No you didn’t, I did!)”
“Or a pendulum for dowsing for guns hidden in underwear? (He’s not your type!)”
“Or a psychic wind chime to hang over your desk? Very relaxing. (Well, he’s certainly not yours my dear, this one has class!)”
“Or perhaps some uplifting spiritual music to relax with after a hard day at the line-up? We stock a wide range of CDs. (And exactly what is that supposed to mean?)”
“Or an ethnic dream-catcher to hang above your desk to ensure your snoozes are untroubled by nightmares? (Well, let’s face it my dear, your idea of a good man matches your idea of a good yoghurt - thick and fruity!)”
The sisters finished their suggested catalogue of suitable products and were now standing face to face, glowering at each other with rigidly fixed smiles; not an easy expression for a man to achieve, but one mastered by all women at an early age.
“Excuse me, ladies,” I put in quickly, glad of the gap in which to put a word in edgewise, “but we’re not buying today. We wanted to ask for your help in a case we are working on. What we really need is some specialist information.”
At once, the sister’s attitude changed and became somehow softer and more genuine, less like two tigresses squaring-up over potential prey. “Help in a case? Certainly, anything that we can do to assist,” said Claire.
“What kind of information do you want?” asked Celia.
“Are you familiar with Kyphi incense?”
“Oh yes,” responded Celia at once. She added proudly, “We are the only occult supply shop in California that has it in stock.”
Claire nodded. “Of course, MagicMart in Sacramento claims to stock it, but it’s a forgery. Their version lacks the two extremely rare ingredients that the genuine Kyphi simply must contain; the crushed seeds of the mallium plant, Latin name Malleus maleficarum, which grows only in sheltered spots in the Dakhia Oasis three hundred miles west of Thebes in Egypt...”
“...and oil from mortus lichen, which grows only inside Egyptian tombs,” finished Celia. “These are the ingredients that make it so expensive. Of course, MagicMart still charges the full price, even though they use substitute ingredients.”
I nodded. “But yours is the genuine article?”
“Oh, absolutely,” agreed Claire earnestly. “We guarantee its authenticity.”
“Well then ladies, here’s the sixty-four thousand question - have you sold any of it recently? Say, within the last month?” Mentally I was keeping my fingers crossed for a break. It came.
“Why yes, we have,” answered Celia. “It’s a very... specialized commodity. It’s easy to remember each sale. Besides, the gentleman who purchased it was rather distinctive.”
“He certainly was,” agreed Claire. “I was most surprised. It seemed quite out of character. You see, he was not exactly the kind of person you would expect to be looking for the correct incense to use for the evocation of demonic powers.”
“What sort of person was he?” I asked.
“He was a priest.”
Smith and I raised simultaneous eyebrows. “Did you manage to find out anything else about him, ladies? Like his name or diocese - anything that might help us find him?”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Claire Touchwood, pouting. “We did try to put him on our mailing list; we try that with all our customers. Mail order provides by far the larger part of our business. We even have overseas customers. However, he was extremely cagey and politely refused to give us his address; said he was traveling.”
“How about a description - can you remember what he looked like?”
“Oh yes,” interjected Celia Touchwood. “She never forgets a man.”
“Thank you, dear,” said Claire sweetly, “but I’m not the one with a cupid and heart tattoo in an interesting place with the middle left blank for names to be filled in with a felt-tipped pen.”
“(Right! That does it! No more Mrs. Nice Guy!”) Celia glided to my side and took my arm firmly in her hands. “Let me see”, she mused, looking up at me and fluttering some eyelids. “Six feet six, built like a football linebacker, sensitive artistic face, intelligent dark eyes, long pony-tail but very neat hairstyle, impeccable suit with a Beverly Hills white T-shirt. You must be either a Leo or a Virgo. I get on really well with Leo men.”
“Sorry, Mam, neither.”
She pouted slightly. “What is your birth sign, then?”
“Ophiucus the Serpent.”
She was momentarily taken aback. “That’s not in the Zodiac.”
“It was when I was born.” I gestured to dismiss the topic. “Look, if I draw a face, could you guide me and help me to fill in the details so that we can get a likeness of this priest who bought the Kyphi incense? It might help us to identify him.”
“Of course,” replied Celia.
“It would be a pleasure,” cooed Claire, edging forward and trying to grasp my other arm. I neatly sidestepped, freed myself gently from Celia’s grip and picked up a notepad and pencil from the counter. We got to work. I drew a simple egg shape to start with, then began to sketch in the details as they described them to me from memory, getting a more and more detailed face as we progressed. At length they both agreed that the result was a reasonable likeness of the mysterious customer. Smith and I looked at what I had drawn. A face that I would have little hesitation in describing as sinister glared out of the notebook at us. Dark, intense, almost searing eyes: aquiline nose with slightly flared nostrils: frowning eyebrows: mirthless smile on thin lips: high forehead: thinning dark hair graying at the temples.
“Well, thank you very much indeed, ladies,” I said gratefully. “This might help us a great deal.” I carefully tore the page out of the notebook. I offered Claire a business card. “This is my mobile number. If you see him again, or remember anything else you think might help us in our investigation, please give me a call.”
We turned to take our leave and the sisters followed us to the door of their shop, their eyes following me all the way to my car and down the street as we drove off.
I think I already mentioned that Archangels have a broader range of vision than mortals. We also have far more acute hearing, better than that of a normal dog, or even a bat. As we moved off, I could hear the sisters talking above the sound of the engine and the traffic.
“Now that’s what I call an absolutely heavenly man.”
“I don’t think you have his right neighborhood.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the tarot card reader dear, and I’m the astrologer, and I know my subject backwards. The constellation Ophiucus the Serpent was in the Zodiac once - but that was some two million years ago, just before the Ice Age, when the earth’s axial tilt was slightly different due to precession. The Zodiac would have been entirely different then.”
“He must have been joking with us.”
“You think? Didn’t you just feel the power of his presence?”
“And look at the name on his card – ‘Stan A. Fericul.’ Do you see what that’s an anagram of?”
“My dear, do you know who I think we have just been visited by.......?” The rest of the conversation finally faded even from my hearing as we turned a distant corner and sped away.
Back at the station house we poured over the files of mug shots on the computer looking for a match to my sketch. There wasn’t one. Several came close, but you could plainly tell it was not the same person. Smith stepped back from the screen at length and flexed her neck. “No help there after all,” I commented needlessly.
“You know, of course, that they were after you?”
“Who were?”
“Those sisters in the shop.”
“I thought they were rather charming,” I commented ingenuously.
“I’m sure you did! They were all over you.”
“They were just trying to be friendly...” my voice trailed off as realization dawned. “You’re jealous!” I accused, turning to face her.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped.
I stepped in front of her and stared down into her upturned face. “You can’t fool me. Jealousy happens to come within my professional field of job experience; it’s one of the seven deadly sins, remember?”
“Yeah? And so is pride,” she breathed in a low voice. “But you couldn’t stop committing that one and getting thrown out of Heaven for it.”
“Ouch!” I muttered as our faces came closer to each other. “Actually, it’s a venial sin.”
Our faces were only inches apart. “What does that mean?” she asked softly.
“It means you can be pardoned for it,” I informed. And then I kissed her, holding her in my arms. At length we came up for air.
“How do we handle this?” she panted, gazing up into my eyes. “You’re immortal. In fifty or sixty years I’ll be dead, and all you need to do is move on to the next woman - if you don’t do it any earlier.”
I looked at her. “Don't plan so far ahead. I only have one year on earth, not an eternity. And after that, I don’t know where I will be, in Heaven or Hell. I face a judgment. I’m supposed to be doing good. I don’t seem to have done much of it so far, in spite of trying. I don’t know how the judgment will go.”
Suddenly she hugged me and kissed me again. “Well,” she remarked at length, “You’re doing a power of good by me!” Then she stopped in her verbal tracks as an idea hit her. “Say, why don’t we show your sketch to Elizabeth O’Hara, Father O’Hara’s sister? Maybe it’s someone she knows or has seen before.”
I was glad that one of us was still capable of thinking. It was obvious, now that I had heard the idea. I should have come up with it myself, but then, I had only been a cop for a matter of days. We dropped everything, including each other, and made for the auto in the basement, driving at lawful haste across town to St. Stephen’s church. Elizabeth O’Hara showed no surprise to see us and invited us inside. Once again I was mentally keeping my fingers crossed for a break. I began to realize that most cops must feel this kind of anxiety many times in a week.
“Mam, we’d like to ask you if you know anyone who looks anything like this.” Standing in the late Father John O’Hara’s study, I drew out my sketch and offered it to his sister. She studied it briefly, then gave us the break I had been praying for - yes, you heard right, me praying, for I was slowly but surely becoming more human as the days went by; being amongst them on earth, sharing some of their limitations, their frustrations, their anxieties, it kind of rubbed off on you.
“Why yes, I do know this man.” She glanced up from the picture. “He is a priest, although I don’t know where from, or even exactly what his denomination is. He might even be a Protestant. I met him once at St. Mark’s with Father David, may God rest his soul. I went there with my brother about two months ago to see some rare books he had recently obtained, and this man was there. He wanted to buy some books from Father David and when we arrived he was annoyed because Father David wouldn’t part with any of his collection. He left almost immediately after we arrived.” She closed her eyes to bring memories forward. “Oh, what was his name? He was Italian, it was an Italian name... I remember, his name was Giovanni Vittorio, from Rome, I believe. Father David mentioned this to us, but I recall he did not refer to him as ‘Father Giovanni’, so he may or may not have been a Catholic.”
I rose to take my leave and Smith followed my lead. “Thank you very much Mam, you’ve been a great help.”
“Inspector, has Giovanni Vittorio also been murdered?”
“Not as far as I am aware, Mam.”
“Then why are you asking about him?”
“There may be a connection, Mam. That’s all I can say at the moment. We’ll be in touch if there are any positive developments.” We left the house.
Sitting in the auto outside, Smith commented; “So now we have a name. We can run it through the records and see if it comes up.”
I pulled my mobile phone out of a pocket. “I have my own methods, Detective.” I punched in a number and held the device tight against my ear. This meant that Smith could only hear my half of the ensuing conversation.
“Hi. Is Mike there?”
(Pause.)
“It’s an old friend of his.”
(Pause.)
“Tell him it’s Lucifer. I need a quick word.”
(Slightly longer pause.)
“That you, Mike?”
(Brief pause.)
“Listen Mike, I need to ask you about something.”
(Pause.)
“There’s a mortal, name of Giovanni Vittorio, Italian I think. Is he one of yours?”
(Pause.)
“OK Mike, I’ll hold on.”
(Quite a lengthy pause, as of somebody rifling through a filing cabinet.)
“Yeah, I'm still here.”
(Pause.)
“What? You’re absolutely certain?”
(Pause.)
“OK Mike, thanks a million. I owe you one.”
(Pause.)
“OK. More than one. Sure. So long.” I replaced the mobile in my pocket.
“Was that Mike Connors at Records?” enquired Smith, somewhat puzzled.
“No, that was the Archangel Michael. He’s a bit of a pompous stiff, but basically he’s all right. We used to be best buddies before the... you know, before. He says there’s no Giovanni Vittorio on Their payroll.”
“Their payroll?” she queried, trying not to lose her depth in the conversation.
“There’s no ordained priest of that name,” I explained. “He checked the Catholic file and the Protestant file. He also checked all the other denominational files - Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist, Wesleyan, everything else. He checked all the fringe groups and even the Jewish files in the next room just in case. Vittorio might have been a rabbi - everyone just thinks he’s a priest; we don’t know what kind.”
“So what does this all mean?”
“Well,” I reflected slowly, my thoughts racing. “If he is a priest, and he’s not one of Theirs, then he must be one of ours.”
Realization dawned on her. “You mean...”
“A black magician. A priest of the black arts.”
She considered this idea. “Would that mean that you are in charge of him, or whatever way you’d put it?”
“That would be handy,” I answered, “but yet again, things don’t work that way. He would only come into my jurisdiction after he died, and then only if he hadn’t repented first. During life, mortals have been granted the gift of choice. That’s written into the contract. If someone deliberately chooses to worship evil, that’s their own business, and nobody can directly interfere, neither Heaven nor Hell. Mortals remain free to do as they please, maybe even change their minds and revoke their past deeds just before the final audit. It’s a bit like abusing a credit card. You can spend money you haven’t got in order to live the life of Riley: your neighbors envy your shining auto, your luxury apartment, your lifestyle, all the trappings of success. Ultimately, though, you get a bad news letter from the bank. If you can’t repay, you spend time in jail for fraud. If an evil person blames me, the Devil, for their actions, it’s like a credit card fraudster blaming the governor of the prison they get sent to. And the prison governor has no authority over them until they get put behind bars.” I gunned the motor into life.
“Where to now?”
“Back to my place. There are some things I need to do urgently.” I remained enigmatic all the way back.
This time, Smith greeted Niblick like a long-lost friend, and he went all googlie over her. He actually pranced. I’d never seen him do that before, ever. He was happier than when playing “fetch” with lost souls. “Is he shut up in here all day?” she asked in a tone of disapproval.
“He has to be,” I replied. “If he gets out, he chases cars.”
“Lots of dogs chase cars,” she said, pushing him over and rubbing his tummy.
“This one brings them back and buries them in the yard with their drivers,” I explained. I was busy drawing things on a sheet of paper. Smith came to watch, Niblick following her like a happy shadow, nuzzling her hand.
“That’s the symbols you used to fax Pharter and Phukkit,” she observed.
“That’s right. I want to summon them again.” I paused and looked at her. “What happens in the Department if two cops find themselves getting into something big?”
“More cops are taken off other cases and assigned to them to help out.”
“Right. That’s exactly what we’re doing now. If this guy is an Ipsissimus, we need more members on our team.”
“Ipsi-what-amus?”
“Ipsissimus,” I repeated. “That’s an occult master of the highest degree; it’s Latin for ‘Master of the Self'’. Haven’t you ever read any Dennis Wheatley novels?”
“Who?”
“British author, famous for stories about black magic. Never mind.” I finished the design on the paper and fed it into a combined fax machine and scanner on my home computer table. As before, I burned it in a metal waste bin. Once more came the cloud of sparkling pink smoke and the sound of someone pulling a big boot out of deep mud. A bright flash like a camera flashbulb, and there stood the two purple demons on my best rug, which had the design of a pentagram woven into it.
They looked slightly guilty. They had arrived in the exact postures they were in when they were transported from the nether regions, squatting down: obviously, from their positions, they had been sitting face to face at a small table. Each held a fan of playing cards. When the realization suddenly dawned as to what had happened, they snatched the cards behind their backs and straightened up, trying to look innocent. Have you ever seen a demon from Hell trying to look innocent? It just doesn't work.
“I see you’ve been busy,” I commented dryly, eying them accusingly.
Phukkit spread his hands in appeal: the cards had vanished in a small puff of smoke. “Guv, we was on our tea break.”
“Just started it,” agreed Pharter, nodding rather desperately.
“Never mind that.” I was trying to stop myself from smiling, and Smith noticed this. Behind the demons, she was grinning all over her face. “I need you both for a job.”
“Work, Boss?” enquired Pharter, growing serious. “Here, on the physical plane?” He began to look happy. To work on the physical plane without being forced to do tricks for a sorcerer was the demonic equivalent of an unexpected vacation. I handed them my sketch.
“This is the guy who summoned Surgat,” I explained. “He may well be a tenth degree occultist - powerful. You don’t need me to tell you what he might be able to do. He has a Book. He may well have other dangerous items in his possession; we’re still investigating that aspect. He used Surgat to get into a museum vault and steal ancient artifacts. I’ve still got to find out what these were, but it doesn’t look good.” The demons nodded in unison like puppets on the same string. “What I want you guys to do is to try to find him.”
“Sure thing Guv,” enthused Phukkit happily, flexing his wings.
“Right you are, Boss,” echoed Pharter. "Don’t yew worry abaht a fing. We’ll foind ‘im for yew, no daht abaht it.”
“Now look, you two,” I interrupted their enthusiastic responses. “Whoever this person is, wherever he might happen to be, we already know three things about him. He is a top-grade occultist with knowledge of arcane procedures: he is already a murderer with at least two victims on his scorecard: he is ruthless. The implication is that he has an aim or a goal towards which he is working, and whatever that aim is, it’s unlikely to be either world peace or donations to charity.” I gazed at the two demons, and for an instant I’m sure Smith noticed the fondness reflected in my eyes. “What I’m trying to say is, he can handle demons. Hey! Let’s be careful out there.”
Pharter and Phukkit shuffled their feet and sobered up a little. “We’ll watch out, Boss,” said Pharter.
“We won’t screw up, Guv,” assured Phukkit, “honest. You can trust us.”
“I know I can. That’s why I called you. Now remember, all I want you to do is try to locate his whereabouts and report it back to me. No heroics, understand? Don’t try to take him on by yourselves. He’s dangerous, even for demons - especially for demons.”
“We’ll be good, Boss,” affirmed Pharter, drawing a talon across his chest, “cross our hearts and hope to die. Except, we can’t actually die, ‘cause we ain’t never actually bin what you might call alive, leastways not in the evolutionary biological sense.”
“That’s right,” nodded Phukkit to his friend. “Only in the Descartian ‘I-think-therefore-I-am’ sense, ain’t it?”
“Well,” mused Pharter, “personally I tend more towards the Positivism of John Stewart Mill and Isidore Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive, but I ain’t goin’ ter split hairs abaht it wiv yer.”
“Well mate, per’aps we can agree on the middle ground of John Locke and his famous Essay on the Human Understanding of 1690, in which he arrived at the conclusion that sensation and reflection are the two sources of all ideas, which although it tended towards a form of logical positivism, nevertheless did not preclude the existence of the supernatural as a manifesting phenomenon.”
“I’ll give yer that,” agreed Pharter.
“Get out, you two!” I roared, laughing in spite of myself. They bustled out of my balcony door and flew off into the night.
I noticed Smith studying me with concentration written across her pretty features. “You know,” she remarked, “you seem continually able to surprise me. No matter how well I think I have got to know you, there’s always another layer buried deeper than the last. You actually love those two rascals, don't you?”
I sighed, considered denying it, then rejected it in favor of honesty. “Yes,” I admitted simply. “I’ve known them a very long time. They may be demons, sure, but they’re terribly innocent creatures.”
“I doubt if many human beings would agree with you there.”
“You’re probably right - but most of them have never met a demon off duty.”
“Maybe so, but most cultures throughout history have regarded demons as spiritual enemies, to be feared, fought and destroyed - or else to be destroyed by them.”
“Sandra,” I spoke gently, “did you ever have a pet dog?”
“Sure,” she replied, puzzled at the turn of my conversation. “When I was little, my parents had a King Charles spaniel. We were inseparable. He used to follow me to school and howl when he couldn’t go in with me.”
“What was his name?”
“Buster.”
“And, obviously, you loved him?”
“Of course I did. Everyone in the street did.”
“And yet,” I went on just as gently, “if you follow Buster’s family tree back to the Stone Age, his remote ancestors were wolves, and your remote ancestors lived in terror of them, and the unlucky ones were torn to pieces by them, and the unlucky wolves were speared, or clubbed, or shot with arrows. Until one night some unknown person - perhaps a child - brought a stray wolf cub into the cave and begged the others to let it stay by the warm fire, and they fed it and gave it water. And from that time onward, humankind and canines have marched together down the long centuries side-by-side, as inseparable as you and Buster. It was the first ever peace treaty between enemies - and it was brought about not by violence, not by hatred or fear, not by combat, force or weapons, but by the sheer power of love.”
She pondered my words. “Fericul,” she observed at length, “you are a truly remarkable man.”
We raced from my apartment back to the station house, which was no less busy just because it was night time; only the type of people being brought in for charging changed between day and night, with a higher proportion of drunks, ladies of negotiable virtue and pimps. On the way through to my glass-boxed office I snatched up a particular crime report from the general desk. It was overdue for checking out.
“Hey Fericul,” boomed a voice. It was the Chief, pausing on his way to his office, plastic drinking cup in hand and shirtsleeves rolled up. His arms looked like a pair of tights stuffed with melons. I knew he frequently worked late, sometimes sleeping in his office. “Who were those two little guys in purple fancy dress I saw through the glass this morning? What were they advertising?”
“Seaman’s Mission charity sale,” I replied without a moment's hesitation. “They wanted to know if they needed a street license.” He waved his cup and continued on his way.
I looked sheepishly at Smith. “I don’t have time for explanations,” I excused my lie. It would probably go down as a black mark on my record Above, but I had no time to worry about that right now. We burst into my office and sat down.
“This is the report from the museum.” I smoothed out the paper on the desk. Then I went very quiet, very quiet indeed, as I stared at it. Smith noticed my change of manner.
“What’s troubling you?” she asked, concerned.
“I should have checked this out earlier. Perhaps I should have gone to the training academy after all. So far, my career as a cop has consisted of a series of oversights and mistakes held together by lucky breaks.” I still stared at the paper.
“What was taken? Whatever it was, your manner tells me it was serious.”
“It was serious,” I agreed flatly. “He stole the Vessels of Shinar.”
Her tone was quiet and gentle. “What on earth are those?”
“Something that perhaps should not be on this earth today,” I answered equally quietly. “Shinar is the place where the peoples of the earth found a flat land and built on it the Tower of Babel: Genesis chapter 2 verse 2. That’s where the Vessels come from. Then they get mentioned again near the other end of the Old Testament, in Daniel chapter 1 verse 2. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem and captured Jehoiakim, the king of Judah. Jehoiakim is reported as having in his possession ‘the vessels of the house of God’ which came from ancient Shinar in the time when all the people of the earth were united and spoke only one language, before they were scattered and estranged after building Babel. He is said to have been able to use the power of these objects to defend the Israelites from the oppression of the Babylonians. There is a belief that it was the power of these things that enabled Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego to survive unharmed within the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, also described in the Book of Daniel, chapter 3, verses 14 to 27. Even the soldiers who threw them into the furnace were burned to death by the heat. ‘...And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace... and the furnace, exceeding hot, slew those men...’”
“Then, these Vessels of Shinar must have some kind of awesome power,” breathed Smith in a whisper. “This is beginning to sound like Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
“Except I’m no Indiana Jones with a way to neatly escape every danger,” I mused, half to myself. “The Vessels of Shinar were originally placed around the base of the Tower of Babel to prevent mankind from returning to it, and to cause the sundering of one tongue from another so that no tribe could understand its neighbor’s speech. And they were artifacts not of this earth, nor made by human hand.”
“Who made them then?”
“They were made by the Archangels of Heaven - my own kind. They are the only thing in the physical universe that can destroy me - and they are now in the hands of our enemy.”
“But you can’t die?” queried Smith incredulously. “You’re immortal.”
“To all intents and purposes, yes. But there is one thing in the universe that can destroy me - the power of That which made me in the first place: call it my Chairman. And it is a part of that power which resides still within the Vessels of Shinar.”
“Well, in that case, I think you had better stay at home and let me track down this black magician. Don’t risk your own self.”
I smiled somewhat grimly. “Detective, how many policemen and women do you suppose there are in the whole world, altogether? Every country?”
She pouted, well aware that another piece of my homespun philosophy was on its way. “In the whole world? I suppose thousands; hundreds of thousands; maybe millions.”
“And every single one of them, every day, runs the risk of being killed in the line of duty by some fellow human trying to commit a crime. It can happen in any country, not just the USA - in Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China - anywhere.”
“Yes, but...”
“And,” I continued remorselessly, “how many of them stay at home, hiding behind the furniture? And what sort of world would you mortals have if they did?”
“Yes, but there’s only one of you,” she finished desperately.
“There’s only one of them,” I pointed out gently. “There’s only one of you. There’s only one of everybody.” I tried to raise her spirits. “Come on, I’m not saying I won’t be careful. I have no wish to unform.”
“Unform?”
“It’s what happens to an angel instead of dying,” I explained. “We’re not alive in the strict biological sense. We are alive in the supreme spiritual sense. As such, we already transcend life and death. We don’t die as such; we unform. Become nothing.”
“It amounts to the same thing.”
“Maybe it does. But there are many other things this guy can do using the Vessels. As far as I know, there’s no reason he should have even the slightest inkling that I’m on the scene in person. Amongst mortals, only you know that. I’m reasonably certain he did not steal the Vessels with me in mind as their target. It’s my bet that he plans something involving their use, but probably not my personal demise. In any case, it will take him time to learn how to master them. It’s not merely a question of picking them up and pointing them.” I grew thoughtful. “Yes... something involving their use... I wonder just what that might be...?”
I saw her staring at my feet, crestfallen. Almost stricken. Suddenly I realized that I had to admit something to myself; I felt love. Me, Satan, custodian of damned souls, Governor of the Infernal Regions, fallen Archangel, worldly-wise cynic and movie critic. And then I realized something equally important - I should tell her. So I did, there and then. She perked up considerably. Several minutes later, when we came up for air, she said; “Let’s go back to your place. I thought we had a lifetime: then I thought we had a year: now for all I know we have only days or hours.”
Much later, sometime around four in the morning, she turned her head to me on the pillow beside mine and asked: “So how did these Vessels of Shinar come to be in a museum vault in LA?” I guess I’ll never fathom the workings of the mind of a woman.
“Simple,” I replied, stroking her hair. “When the Israelites came out of bondage in Babylon they took the Vessels with them on their journey home, but there were several battles fought with powerful tribes in Palestine who resented having to relinquish land to people who had been gone for over a generation. When the fighting became intense, many of the important holy relics were taken by trusted couriers to remote places for safe keeping. The soldiers who hid the Vessels were ambushed and killed on their way back, and so nobody knew where they had hidden them. Cut to the present day. An American archaeological team excavating in the Sinai desert, which is referred to in the Bible as the Wilderness of Shur, finds them in a tel, a mound of debris marking a place where there was once a settlement.
“Not knowing what they were, but realizing their great antiquity, they obtain permission from the local authorities to have them shipped to their museum back in the States for detailed forensic examination. They were puzzled, you see. These things - the Vessels of Shinar - are five fairly small pots or sealed jars, each about the size of a wine bottle but without the tapering neck, something like small torpedoes. They look as though they were made of carved obsidian, like black glass, but the letters and figures carved on their surfaces are not Hebrew, not Egyptian, nor any other alphabet or hieroglyphics ever written on earth. This is what puzzled the experts and made them want to ship them home until they could devote sufficient time to their study. They were locked away in a museum vault. Then enter our sorcerer, aided by Surgat who can open all locks, and that’s where we came in.”
“I see,” she whispered, then turned over and went back to sleep.
11. The Good, The Bad and The Demons...
There now came some developments in the case in which I myself was not actually a participant but, since you need to know about them, I can still tell you, because I found out about them afterwards from others who were there.
Pharter and Phukkit, as I had told Detective Smith, were both reliable and shrewd. I had given them the job of trying to track down the murdering sorcerer, and they both felt certain they were up to the task. After flying away from my rooftop patio the night before, they reached the roof of the gigantic Amalgamated Insurance building and paused to take thought together. They settled at the edge like a couple of gargoyles, heads held thoughtfully in their talons, wings furled high above their shoulders like monstrous praying hands in the dark shadows. Of course, being demons, their minds were not subject to the same restrictions as mortal humans and they were able to hold two conversations at once, one focusing on the task they had been set, the other revolving around their hobby, which happened to be philosophy. Demons can be strange people.
“Well mate,” asked Pharter, “what do you think?”
“I think I tend more towards the empiricism of Bacon than to the idealism of Spinoza.”
“No, I meant, what do you think we should do now? And we both must concur that the materialistic certainty of Helvetius and La Mettrie is right out the window.”
“I think we should contact HQ for assistance; and the common sense school of Reid in the eighteenth century is equally laughable, even though Dugald Stewart followed his lead in his Outlines of Moral Philosophy of 1799.”
“That's not a bad idea. They might be able to get a fix on this black magician with the spiritual direction-finder; but Stewart became slightly less convinced of the mathematical approach to universality in Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind written in 1805 but not published until 1810.”
“The big problem there, of course, is that we would need a cross-bearing to fix his exact location. A single bearing would merely give us the straight line he was on, which might be hundreds of miles long and take hours to check, if not days. Kant, however, sought to unite the realistic and idealistic schools and may be considered the father of nineteenth century philosophy.”
“Ah, but maybe this guy has already done some other occult working that has left a trace in the ether. Jacobi opposed Kant, though, as did Fichte with his Subjective Idealism, which carried much weight amongst the cognizant intellectual fraternity of the time.”
“I see what you’re saying - if he has already left some other trace in the ether, HQ might be able to pick it up, even though it’s fading, and get the intersecting line we need from that, giving us a precise cross-bearing. Schelling was equally opposed to Kant, with his own ideas of objective idealism which were strongly conditioned by the background of European industrialism.”
“OK, let's get on the blower to HQ and see if they can do it for us. And don’t forget the importance of Hegel’s absolutism in idealistic terms.”
Pharter took out his mobile phone and stabbed some buttons. The call was answered after a few rings. “Hello - is that Phixit? Pharter here. Look, can you get on the direction finder for us? You can? Good. You know that sod who summoned Surgat the other day? Well, I know you managed to get a cross bearing on him for the Boss then, but I want you to try something a bit more difficult now. Quite a lot more difficult, actually. His lifeline will still be on the frequency, but can you get a reading on any more recent occult activity he may have done, so we can derive a more current cross bearing for him? We need an intersection point to pin down his present whereabouts.”
Pharter removed the mobile from his pointed ear and juggled it slightly in his hand. “He’s going to have a look and see if he can do it,” he informed Phukkit. “He'll call us back.”
After about another ten minutes of philosophical discussion, the mobile played its ringing tune, Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight, and Pharter pressed the stud. “Yeah? You did? Good bloke! Where is he? Where? Right, got it. What? You reckon? You may be right at that. See you. ‘Bye.”
“What did ‘e say?” enquired Phukkit.
“He says he feels more drawn towards Schopenhauer’s doctrine uniting Kant’s idealism with the school of realism, and ‘e gave us a location off of the direction-finder. The signal was old, so ‘e could only pin it dahn to an area of abaht ten blocks, but it’s better’n having to search ‘undreds of blooming miles. We might find ‘im in a few hours, wiv any luck.”
Two pairs of huge, batlike wings unfurled and flapped away into the brightening glare of the rising sun. In various nearby crevices, traumatized pigeons slowly began to stick wary heads out, carefully looking round to see if they had really gone.
A few hours later and several miles away, a man entered a shop. Two pairs of eyes watched him from behind the cover of a brightly colored bead curtain.
“It's him!” shrieked Celia Touchwood in a whisper. It is a well-known biological fact that only a woman can shriek in a whisper: the male simply cannot do it, being capable only of either whispering quietly or shrieking loudly. “It’s the man that gorgeous policeman was asking about, Giovanni Vittorio. What do we do?”
“We serve him calmly, like any other customer,” stated Claire Touchwood firmly, “and then we must try to follow him surreptitiously and, at the same time, contact Inspector Fericul and let him know what’s going on.” They emerged into the shop. The man purchased a few specific magical ingredients from the oils and incenses section, paid for them in cash and left. The sisters gave him a minute’s start then quietly shut up shop, locked the door behind them and followed him down the street at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards.
“Get on your mobile to the Inspector,” suggested Celia to Claire. “We need help fast.”
“We’ll have to use yours,” came the reply. “I didn’t bring mine.”
“I didn’t bring mine either; I thought you would bring yours.”
“Oh great!”
The two of them suddenly had to stop and pretend to be looking in a shop window. “I'm getting jumpy,” stated Celia. “He keeps looking over his shoulder. Do you think he knows he’s being followed?”
“I don’t see how. I think he is just being cautious. What we need urgently is to find some honest, brave, upstanding, law-abiding and intelligent person in the street to whom we can explain things quickly and get them to come along with us for extra safety and support. Preferably two of them – there’s safety in numbers.”
“Are you getting jumpy too, then?” enquired Celia.
“You bet your sweet life I am.”
“I’m so keyed up, I would scream out loud if so much as a black cat ran out round the corner ahead.”
They were approaching the mouth of a narrow alley. “You duck quickly into the alley,” ordered Claire “and look for a phone booth”.
Just then, the sound of approaching voices came from around the corner in the alley. “Men,” hissed Clare, “and intelligent ones by the sound of their conversation. We’re in luck - look, to calm your nerves, just dash around the corner and grab them, whoever they are, and then you won’t be afraid of a thing.”
The voices grew clearer. One of them was saying: “Royer-Collard, Reid’s disciple, advocated an eclectic spiritual school, which Cousin built up when the materialism of Broursais and the positivism of Auguste Comte came to the front of social thinking...”
Celia dashed round the corner, hands outstretched ready to urgently grab the talkers.
In the nineteenth century, male chauvinism reigned supreme in a way that would bring lawsuits today. A medical dictionary of 1898 contains the following definition: "Hysteria, as its name implies, is entirely a disease of females...” This is scientifically incorrect, as we are all well aware. In a Los Angeles alley in the present day, however, that smug male doctor might have got it right without ever realizing it. Dashing round a blind corner and grabbing hold of two rather surprised demons from Hell did it for Celia, her nerves already almost completely shattered. The black magician had been occasionally turning his head as he walked, but now everybody in the main street within a range of nearly a mile turned their heads at the scream that pierced the morning air. A Canadian Pacific steam loco approaching a washed out bridge across a gorge at ninety miles an hour in an old movie could not have done a better job.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as they say, Smith and I were in my apartment and had finished showering. A breakfast-shaped gap had appeared in our lives. Smith, in my spare dressing gown, was inspecting the contents of my refrigerator. “Don’t you have any bacon? Bacon and eggs would be wonderful.”
“Sorry,” I apologized, “no bacon. I don’t eat it.”
“Why ever not?”
“Er - well - essentially, I have Jewish and Arabic roots, if you think about it.”
“Hmmm.” She frowned mischievously. “I’ll have to send the oysters back too, then.”
“Oysters are over-rated,” I remarked. “They’re supposed to be an aphrodisiac, but I ate twelve last night and only nine of them worked.” She threw a cushion at my head. “How about waffles?” I suggested. “Look in the freezer compartment.”
She rummaged and pulled out a pack of waffles. “They’re frozen,” she complained. “We need to let them thaw, and we don’t have the time.”
“I can microwave them.”
“I don’t see any microwave in your kitchen.”
“Just put them on a plate for me and leave them on the table.”
Slightly mystified, she did so. I aimed my hand at them from across the room and waggled my fingers very slightly. The waffles instantly sizzled, browned and sent out a delicious smell. “That was my micro-wave, see?”
She ticked off items on her fingers. “That’s good taste in wristwatches and juvenile sense of humor we need to have a serious discussion about soon.”
We put breakfast on trays and sat in my living room to eat. I switched on the TV with the remote. “We might as well see if there’s any early news stories we could link to our case - robbery at Fort Knox, someone stealing the USS Nimitz, anything like that.”
Just as the news logo appeared on the screen and the music started, however, a burst of interference covered the screen in a brief flurry of lines and snowstorms. After a couple of moments, a picture appeared again - but it was not the familiar image of two well-known news presenters at their desk. The screen went bright red and a deep voice announced: “We interrupt your regular program to bring you a newsflash from Hell!” Then a news studio appeared, with a large red and pink demon sitting behind a desk facing the camera, a sheaf of papers in his talon-tipped hands. This demon was big, built like a WWF wrestler. His head and face were modeled almost along the same lines as Butch the bulldog from the Tom and Jerry cartoons; a solitary bright fang emerged from his lower jaw on the left side and indented his upper lip. With massive hands like bunches of pink bananas he shuffled the papers absently.
I sighed. “Gaylord, must you always be so theatrical?”
The demon’s shoulders slumped and he looked abashed. “Sorry Boss,” he mumbled. “Only, I knew you had company, and I needed to speak to you, and I didn’t want her to notice anything unusual.”
“It didn’t work. Go on, Gaylord, why the sudden need to communicate?”
“Boss, there’s been another Summoning. This time it’s Raum. He’s been invoked to physical appearance.”
I started. “Raum? Invoked?”
Gaylord nodded miserably. “I thought you ought to be told.”
“Gaylord, you did the right thing. Well done, old friend. When did this happen?”
“Only about four or five minutes ago, Boss.”
“Did anyone manage to get a bearing on where he was summoned to?”
“Yes Boss, Phixit did, as usual. The place is the old Wild West Main Street set on the back lot of the MWB film studio. We think he’s in the saloon. Phixit was really on the ball this time - pinpoint accuracy.”
“OK Gaylord, and thanks. We’d better get there fast.”
“Don’t you want to wait for the weather forecast?” asked Gaylord hopefully. I turned off the TV.
“To the garage, fast,” I said with authority. “This gets worse.”
Snatching on some street clothing, we raced for the elevator. On the ride down from the 13th floor Smith had time to ask me: “I know every demon has some specialty or other, like Surgat opening all locks. What does this guy Raum do, that makes you so panic stricken?”
I had to consciously calm myself back to being a cool dude again. “Raum can tell about the past and future, he can steal any treasure - and he can destroy cities!”
The elevator seemed to take forever to reach the garage level, although actually it was a high-speed type and only took a couple of minutes. My auto’s gull-wing doors swished open as we ran towards it and jumped in. “No time for subtleties now,” I apologized, and immediately threw the automatic selector stick out of P for ‘park’ and into CTB.
“That’s the position you said meant ‘Catch the Bastard’ isn’t...” began Smith, then lost the power of speech.
Imagine a piece of movie footage that has been speeded up, oh, say a hundred times. Imagine that the camera was inside an automobile, filming a journey from the driver’s point of view. That is how it appeared to us as my car showed what it was capable of. Everything outside suddenly became transformed into a hazy blur of buildings, traffic and people. The MWB studio in Hollywood Hills was some fifteen miles from my apartment. An ordinary car could not average 60 mph through those busy, crammed streets, but if it had, it would still have taken it fifteen minutes to complete the trip. We did it inside four minutes! Smith was pressed back deeply into the padded seat and could move nothing except her eyes. I saw them swivel to watch the electronic figures flashing up on the speedo readout, which blinked up 120... 150... 200 ... 300... 350... 400 in as much time as it takes to read the numbers. Then it ceased showing numbers altogether and flashed up the message ‘Approaching Relativity Violation’. Then she registered the fact that we were not having to swerve in and out around the traffic; we were passing straight through other vehicles, buildings, trees, people, as though the outside world were made of nothing but mist.
“How...?” Smith managed to get out in a gasp of breath.
“It’s to do with quantum mechanics and relativity,” I explained. “Your scientific theorists haven’t yet succeeded in unifying the two.” I reflected briefly. “When they do, the Indianapolis 500 will really be something - unless you accidentally blink and miss it.” And then we were there, instantly rolling gently along at little more than twenty miles per hour.
I parked a small distance from the studio front gates: I did not wish Vittorio the sorcerer to see my auto, which might have aroused suspicions in his mind that I would much rather were not there. Our police badges got us past the uniformed security guards at the main gate who told us how to get to the back lot through the maze of long studio buildings. There were two permanent outdoor sets erected there which were frequently dressed up in different makeovers to provide scenes in various movies and TV shows. One was the typical modern city street, where the office buildings were mere shells built only as far up as the fifth floor and supported at back by massive wooden buttresses; the other was the equally typical old Wild West Main Street. In this latter, many of the buildings were nothing more than buttress-supported front facades, but some were complete with interiors to allow cameras to track in and out in one take without having to cut to a studio shot. The saloon was one such. Nothing was being filmed on the back lot at this time and the sandy street was deserted as we entered it. Suddenly, I felt like the gunfighter in numerous movie clichés who walks up an empty Main Street, spurs clinking. The setting was evocative, more so for someone like me who was a sap for the movies.
We stopped and I turned to Smith. “Look, this is not just sentimental bullshit, but I want you to wait. We have to work to a strategy. Whether you like it or not, you can’t argue that I know more about what might be waiting for us in that saloon, if Vittorio is still in occupancy. I’m going in first, and I want you to be my backup in case I need it. Keep out of sight on the boardwalk and then advance carefully behind me, about twenty feet. Keep alert.”
My tone brooked no argument and she nodded. I resumed walking up the centre of the street while she dropped back and shadowed me at the side, up on the boardwalk. For one of the few times in my long existence, I was decidedly nervous. This guy had the tools to destroy me, as effectively as a grenade stuffed down the pants would destroy a mortal. The only two uncertainties were whether or not he knew how to use his tools effectively against me, and whether he knew exactly who I was; the only certainty was that I was going to find out, one way or the other.
Reaching the saloon’s half-doors, I was not surprised to find a strong psychic energy field there. In earlier times, it would have been called a glamour, a variety of spell that makes things look better than they are. This was a good one, obviously cast by a competent expert. It created the illusion of complete normality, so that if any studio staff should happen to look inside they would notice nothing untoward. Indeed, they could send in a gang of set decorators to make the place ready for a shoot and they would not see or hear anything out of the ordinary while they worked around what was really going on inside.
And what was going on was this. A magic circle had been meticulously set out on the wooden floor in white paint, complete with obligatory occult symbols and names of power. Standing in the centre was a black-robed figure with their back to the door. On the father side of the circle near the saloon bar an equally well-painted Triangle of Art was positioned, within which cowered Raum the demon, obviously greatly intimidated. The robed sorcerer was shouting and screaming threats and curses at Raum, waving his arms and making fists, in the time-honored method by which sorcerers compelled demons to obey their will: the psychic field damped all sound emanating from the magic circle and triangle.
I knew what to do: none better. In order to disrupt a ritual of demonology, it was necessary to accomplish three things: distract the concentration of the sorcerer so that his will was broken for a moment; get him to step outside the protection of the magic circle; and enable the demon to escape from the imprisoning Triangle of Art so it could tear the magician to pieces. There was only one sure-fire way I could think of for accomplishing all three requirements fast enough. I charged through the half-doors and hit the sorcerer from behind with an illegal footballer’s shoulder tackle, knocking him violently out of his protective circle and sending him sprawling on the floor some yards away. Raum looked up in surprise: there was the dawning of relief visible on his face.
The black-robed figure sprang to his feet and spun to face me. About to scream some obscenity, he glanced down and realized with horror that his feet were outside the circle. I noticed that I was looking at the same face I had sketched from the Touchwood sister’s description. He stared at me, now uncertain of himself, for he knew he was suddenly vulnerable to the onslaught of the demon he had raised.
“Yes,” I remarked to him almost casually. “You have left the Circle of Protection. I have only to release the demon from the Triangle of Art and he will tear you limb from limb.”
“You bet your sweet ass I will,” rumbled Raum in a low, menacing voice, rising to his feet.
“You know nothing!” spat Vittorio the sorcerer with a sneer, rubbing his shoulder; it had impacted hard on the floor. “I cast the Triangle, and only I can banish it. No other mortal power can affect it in any way.”
How about an immortal power, I thought to myself. Raising my left hand, I easily absorbed the energy that formed the psychic fences of the Triangle. In an instant, Raum was free. He reared up, bright crimson with rather delicate yellow spots, a mighty jaw filled with bared shark-like teeth, gleaming eyes and large, flared hairy nostrils: not a pretty sight. The nostrils, I mean - the rest of him wasn’t too bad, as demons go.
Vittorio panicked. And in a panic, people do unpredictable things, usually described as knee-jerk reaction. He leaped for the rear of the saloon where there was a traditional long Wild West bar complete with a shining brass foot rail. Raum strode out of the now ineffective Triangle in pursuit, stopping briefly as he passed me to slap his hands on mine in a Harlem Handshake. “Nice one, Boss!” he growled. “That’s another one I owe you.” Then he tuned his mighty head in search of his tormentor.
Vittorio had used the few scant seconds to grab something he had hidden behind the bar. He ducked out of sight and immediately came up with a glistening black object about the size of a wine bottle. He began to touch it in a strange stroking way. Raum and I looked at each other, looked back at Vittorio, and without waiting to think about it we both dived like acrobats out of the saloon doors into the sandy street outside, gracefully flying across the boardwalk without even touching it. We landed heavily, rolling, before I could even remember that I could fly – I was also subject to knee-jerk reactions. Smith had by then reached the saloon herself and had to jerk back as we passed her at eye level. She stared at the pair of us sprawling in the dust.
“Who’s in there - John Wayne?” she had time to say, and then there was a tremendous explosion as though a bomb had gone off inside. The half-doors were blown across the street closely followed by bits of saloon furniture, fragments of Pianola and twisted bits of brass foot rail amid a billowing cloud of splinters and smoking floorboards.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Raum, and then looked guilty. Glancing up at the sky he swiftly muttered: “Sorry, inappropriate exclamation for a demon. I was caught by surprise.”
Raum was huge, about eight feet tall with bulging muscles, his legs and feet like those of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Standing up, he stooped and helped me to my feet. “That one was meant for us, Boss.”
“Perhaps,” I answered, “but I believe it was a measure of desperation in an emergency. I don’t think he actually knew what would happen if he made the activation passes in the presence of Satan. I don’t think he knows who I really am. He was just expecting you, the demon he had summoned, to be instantly banished back to Hell. It was you who frightened him, not me. He didn’t realize that activating the thing near me would make it go off like that.”
“Are we going back inside to try to catch him?” asked Raum: for a demon, he was a very thoughtful and sensible person. He would have made a good politician, except that most demons are not evil enough to qualify.
“Surely nobody inside could have survived that blast?” queried Smith.
“Come and see,” I invited. I led the way back into the wrecked saloon. Smith made to follow me, but Raum gently held out a massive clawed hand to stop her.
“Let me go next, Miss, please,” he stated firmly, “just in case.” This time, Smith didn’t argue, possibly taken by surprise at his gentle gallantry.
Inside, you could clearly see what had happened. The sorcerer, Vittorio, had obviously been quite unharmed. The rear wall behind the bar was undamaged and unmarked; even the obligatory huge baroque-framed mirror was unbroken. From the point on the bar behind which he had stood, a fan-shaped mess of sooty, fragmented floor spread out in the direction of the door. Furniture near the rear was untouched. The explosive force had issued forward like the blast from a great sawn-off shotgun, spreading out as it traveled; it had not spread spherically in all directions like the blast of a bomb. A rear door behind the bar gaped suggestively open on its hinges.
“He’s got away!” Smith exclaimed.
“Let’s get after him,” urged Raum, taking a giant step toward the open door.
“Not you, my friend,” I said to him. “Nothing personal, but we’re on the earth plane now, and you are too conspicuous.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked the demon.
“Go to Hell!” I replied. “I want you to go back to Hell and alert everyone as to what is happening here, especially Phixit - he might be able to track him on instruments if we lose his trail.”
“OK,” answered Raum grudgingly. “You’re the boss, Boss.”
“Just a minute,” put in Smith, “before you go, what was Vittorio trying to get you to do, Raum?”
The huge demon gazed at her with sorrowful eyes and shook his head in memory of it. “He wanted me to destroy Los Angeles,” he replied in a gravel voice.
“I hereby grant thee thy license to depart. Avaunt ye!” I commanded, and Raum vanished with a soggy pop like a wet gum bubble bursting.
“This guy’s a maniac!” exclaimed Smith drawing her police issue pistol. “Let’s go!”
We ran out through the back door into a maze of wooden buttresses supporting the fake buildings amongst protruding brick cabins housing those few fitted with interiors. To left and in front was a very high wall; only to the right was there any avenue of escape. Vittorio must have gone that way. We raced off in the same direction. As we ran, Smith panted a question. “Was that thing that went bang one of the Vessels of Shinar?”
“It was. Lucky for us it looks like he only brought the one with him, not all five. If he had activated all of them at once, I wouldn't be here now, and nor would Raum be safely on his way home.”
“What exactly did the damn thing do?”
“The Vessels were made with two main functions,” I answered. “To prevent mortals from seeing anything they are positioned around - particularly the Tower of Babel, but it works for anything else, too; and to react against spiritual entities like me, in case I decided to allow mortals access to the Tower after the speech of mankind was diversified into many languages. I was not dreaming of doing that anyway, but some of the other archangels distrust me, for some reason.
“Even though I have this physical form, it would have been curtains if I hadn’t leaped clear of the blast. I myself, and Raum, were the triggers. If we had not been present in the vicinity, nothing much would have happened when he activated the Vessel. Without people like me within range, the Vessels need specific rituals to activate them, and then their powers can be controlled, not loosed off in one bang - like the difference between an atom bomb and a nuclear power plant.”
We rounded a corner and saw the small figure of Vittorio disappearing into the distance. The big problem now was that this part of the studio complex was not deserted; they were in the middle of shooting a movie on the back lot. Judging by the muddy trenches, barbed wire and the uniforms of hundreds of extras that swarmed over the set, it was a World War I story.
Just as the scene came into our view, a director with an electric bullhorn shouted “Action!” and soldiers started to advance across the wasteland with fixed bayonets. If we followed the fleeing fugitive, we would have to run directly across the set amongst the extras, right in front of the cameras. You may already have gathered that I was a great fan of the movies: you could not ask me to deliberately ruin a shoot. It was not fair to my personal standards. It would be like asking a stamp collector to use his Mauritius Blue to mail an urgent letter. For one of the few times in my extraordinarily long existence I wavered in an extremity of uncertainty. Smith was stalled too, picking up on my own doubts. To sense a weakness in me was a new experience for her, and I don’t think she liked it much. Far off, Vittorio had nearly reached the far side of the set, out of camera, leaping wildly across trenches and skirting tumbles of barbed wire.
It was then that I heard music. My immediate gut reaction was to think; “Surely they put the musical score in afterwards?” An instant later, I realized that the music was coming from behind us, not from the battlefield set in front. And it was coming down from the sky! We both looked up simultaneously. And up there was a sight I shall never forget if I live to be ten billion.
The music now blared out with extreme loudness. It was Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. There in the sky came swooping down Claire and Celia Touchwood, riding on the backs of Pharter and Phukkit, the demon’s bat-like wings outstretched and swept back delta-wise like fighter planes. They all waved cheerfully as they zoomed overhead, then swooped low over the movie set. In just a few moments, they had caught up with the fleeing Vittorio.
With a sudden flash, an eruption like an exploding shell sent up a gout of earth at Vittorio’s feet, forcing him to leap wildly to one side. An instant later, another one sent him staggering for several steps. “Come on!” I barked, having thus been reminded where my realities lay. “Duty comes before spoiling a take.” We ran into the mock battlefield amid the startled and bemused extras.
The Touchwood sisters, mounted on their demonic pilots, zoomed past Vittorio at an altitude of about thirty feet, banked, turned and began another bombing run. Again, as we ran and leaped across the battlefield, fountains of earth erupted all around Vittorio, forcing him to zigzag wildly.
"Hoy-aho! Hoy-aho!” shrilled Wagner’s masterpiece deafeningly, throbbing in the affrighted air. As Smith and I pelted hell-for-leather (no pun intended) we passed within a score of feet of the camera crane and clustered technicians, dolly-grippers, boom-operators and a swearing continuity girl who was busily tearing up her copy of the script and dancing up and down on it. I heard a gaffer question the director:
“What the fuck is going on, Stephen?”
“I don’t know - but I’m keeping it in the picture. Keep that camera rolling. We’ll re-write the story to include this.”
That, I could not help thinking, could bestow an Oscar, or possibly a straightjacket, upon the writer.
Pharter and Phukkit completed another zooming turn, sounding for all the world like straining World War I biplanes. This time they zoomed in lower, only some twenty feet up. Even at our distance of about a quarter of a mile you could see their rigid wings gently rocking as they leveled up and turned directly towards the still-running Vittorio.
"Dah dah dadah DAH da!” roared the music majestically. Trenches and coils of barbed wire burst asunder in fiery explosions beneath the speeding demons, thickening the air with clouds of debris. Claire and Celia Touchwood, clinging tightly to the demon’s waistcoat collars with just one hand, whooped with the thrill of the chase and brandished their free hands like bronco-busters as they dived out of the smoky air into clearer view. Then in an instant, it was all over: direct hit! The ground burst upward beneath Vittorio’s running feet and he and a great deal of earth shot skywards, almost in slow-motion, or so it seemed to us. He landed with a thump several yards away, as limp as a rag doll.
Whilst Smith and I finished pounding the remaining couple of hundred yards to where the motionless figure lay in a small crater, the demons performed a skilful mid-air turn and prepared to land, lowering their undercarriage - that is, sticking their legs down and running fit-to-burst in mid air, trying desperately to make their pace match their ground speed. We all arrived at much the same time at the place where the body lay. The sisters dismounted and shook hands solemnly with the two demons, who saluted them proudly. I noticed that Pharter wore a leather 1917 flying cap complete with ear-flaps and goggles, with holes cut out for his horns: it reminded me vaguely of Snoopy. He even sported a white scarf. Claire Touchwood held up a small portable tape recorder and switched it off. The music stopped abruptly. Its volume had obviously been greatly magnified by magical power.
Phukkit stretched his stiff muscles and swaggered towards Smith and I. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Ahhh... I love the smell of brimstone in the early morning.”
“Well done,” I congratulated them, “very well done! Talk about ‘here comes the cavalry’. You deserve medals, all four of you. Brilliant work!”
“What about him?” asked Celia, gesturing towards the body that lay face down in its muddy crater. Smith moved quickly to the motionless form and started to examine the neck for any sign of a remaining pulse. Then she pulled back with a small cry.
“Look!” she exclaimed in a tremulous voice.
We looked. The body had no face. Just a smooth, blank oval of skin. No mouth, eyes, nose - nothing.
“Oh cobblers!” groaned Pharter with feeling. “After all that. It’s just a doppelganger.” His voice trailed off in disappointed anticlimax.
“Doppelganger?” responded Smith. “That means a double. You mean this is a double?”
I looked close, kneeling down beside the body. “I'm afraid so,” I confirmed bitterly. “It’s an occultly created double of Vittorio. He must have raised it quickly as a decoy to distract our attention and draw our fire while he himself made a neat getaway in another direction entirely. When he had no further use for it he relinquished control of it with his willpower and its facial features vanished.” I stood up again. “Basically, it’s nothing more than an astral puppet. The whole thing will disappear within a minute or two.”
“Which leaves us back at square one,” observed Smith ruefully.
In the far distance, a happy voice called out through a bullhorn; “Cut! Print it!”
12. Piecing it Together...
We couldn’t really stand about in a group in full view of hundreds of extras and studio staff, who were beginning to take more than a passing interest in us, especially in the two short stuntmen in demon costumes who could fly without special effects, so we quickly ducked out and made our way back to the Wild West Main Street set by a circuitous route. We knew that set was deserted. The saloon was largely wrecked, but the jailhouse was another of those few buildings with a complete interior and we trouped inside. On the way, I had phoned Phixit on my mobile to see whether he could get a location on Vittorio with his equipment but no trace of the sorcerer could be picked up. He was obviously being much more cautious now, and knew how to block his astral signal. I needed time to think. It galled me that we had come so close to our quarry only for him to outwit us. No - that was a lingering trace of vanity - it was me alone who had been outwitted: the others had done splendid things, all of them, and I, to whom they looked for leadership and knowledge and the ability to pull rabbits out of hats, had let them all down. I was morose.
“Cheer up, boss - you can’t win ‘em all,” said Pharter in an encouraging tone, slapping me on the back.
“‘S right,” agreed Phukkit with forced cheerfulness.
“Maybe the propaganda is right,” I muttered despondently. “‘Don’t let Satan lead you astray!”
“I told you so!” said Claire Touchwood triumphantly to her sister. “I told you it was him!”
Smith, the two demons and I turned as one to look at them; I had forgotten that they were strangers in our little soirée. I sat down in the sheriff’s chair behind a big old desk. “Yes,” I affirmed with a trace of bitterness. “It’s me. I’m Satan himself; the Devil; Old Nick; trying for a second chance, and failing miserably, OK?”
“Hey, it’s not their fault,” chided Smith. “They were on our side, remember?”
Pharter and Phukkit looked at me, a trace of disapproval in their expressions, then shuffled closer to the two sisters in a wordless declaration of support and admiration. They were my two most loyal and trusted lieutenants. Suddenly, I felt like a heel. Self-pity is a disgusting thing. I stood up and walked over to stand before the five of them, Smith, demons and Touchwoods. I felt so bad about my attitude that I knelt down on one knee before them and bowed my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice deep with shame and humility. “I was out of order. I had no right to speak to you like that. I can only ask for your forgiveness, ladies - and demons.
Claire placed her hand on my head. “Get up,” she said gently. “Of course we forgive you. You’re under tremendous stress. We understand.” I stood up, and I admit that my eyes were moist. “Hey,” she announced brightly, “this is an honor for us, isn’t it Celia? We’ve been into the occult for years - professionally, you understand - and you are the first occult celebrity we’ve met. Aren’t you going to tell us about yourself, why you’re here on the earth-plane, why you’re a policeman? It’s not exactly how we had envisioned you, you know.”
And so we all sat down and I related my story to them, the hows and whys. It was good psychology: Claire was smart. By the end, I had snapped out of it and recovered my normal poise and attitude again. Smith finished off by adding, “And you should see his dog! He’s so big and woofley, with big red eyes, and he loves his tummy rubbed.” I couldn’t help smiling. I had never before heard the Hound of Satan referred to as “woofley”. The Hound of Satan. Satan’s Hound. My dog... Niblick! Niblick! Mentally I kicked myself.
“That’s it!” I shouted. “That’s the answer!”
“Wot, Niblick?” spluttered Pharter, as though I had taken leave of my senses.
“I ain’t taking him for no more walkies,” put in Phukkit quickly. “It’s someone else’s turn. He stops and sniffs every tombstone.”
“No, no, no,” I waved him into silence. “Niblick can track an occult trace just as skillfully as a mortal bloodhound can follow a scent. We need Niblick here, and quickly. He can pick up the psychic smell from where Vittorio has been, like the saloon, and follow it to wherever he may be hiding!”
“Cor blimey, boss, you’re right!” exclaimed Pharter. “That’s a diamond idea.” He turned to Phukkit and pointed at him with a talon. “You go at full speed and bring the dog back here, pronto.”
Phukkit slouched resignedly for the door. “I knew it would be me what ‘as to take ‘im walkies,” he grumbled.
Demons exist in real-time when in the physical plane, although they can move a great deal faster through the world than can mortals: they are not bothered by speed-limit signs, for one thing, and only rarely by traffic cops. Even so, I knew it would take Phukkit about half an hour to complete the thirty mile round trip to fetch Niblick from my apartment. He would probably be a lot quicker on the way back than on the way there; Niblick pulling someone on the end of a leash during walkies resembled nothing so much as a water-skiing championship held on dry land.
I decided I must use the time wisely. I had not failed: I had only suffered a temporary setback. Mortals recover from these every day. Once more, I started to act the part of Mr. Strong Leadership. “Ladies,” I addressed the Touchwood sisters, “nobody is ordering you to do anything, or even requesting it. What we are involved in is extremely dangerous. But if you did decide to tag along and join the team, of your own free will, you would be more than welcome. Understand - and you, Detective - that if a mortal gets in to a personal life extinguishment situation, even I cannot reverse the process. If I, or a handy demon, happens to be around and paying attention, we can put out all sorts of safety nets, but when the last chips are down, if you get killed, all I can do is send you a postcard telling you what weather you’re missing. If you want to continue helping on this case - and boy! do I need help! - your decision must be made with this in mind.”
“Fericul,” snapped Smith instantly, “I’m with you all the way, whatever the ending.”
Claire and Celia looked at each other. “You can count us in, too,” replied Claire.
“We wouldn’t miss out on this for anything,” agreed Celia.
“For what it’s worth, I’m on your team already Guv, and that’s where I’m staying,” said Pharter, removing his flying helmet at last. “And I know I can speak for Phukkit and the rest of the blokes.”
Claire turned to Pharter. “You said ‘blokes’: are there any female demons, as a matter of interest?”
“Yeah,” answered Pharter, “but they mainly stay at home by the fire.”
“Oh, I see,” said Claire. Then, as a possible alternative implication of what Phukkit had said dawned on her, “Oh! I see! That fire!”
“You ladies seem to have made a conquest with my chief demons,” I chuckled.
“It was something of a surprise when we first encountered them,” Celia reflected, “but we soon became friends.”
“Yeah,” nodded Pharter. “As soon as she stopped screaming and let Phukkit and me get a word in edgeways, we soon realized that we had lots in common. They told us they had been following Vittorio from the shop, so I suggested we would find it easier to track him from the air.”
“Hmmm...” I mused, standing up and pacing the jailhouse floor. “Vittorio! What is he after, I wonder?”
“Let’s try and analyze what we know about him,” suggested Smith.
“OK. Good idea. You start.”
“Well, the dead priest’s sister said she thought he came from Italy, from Rome, so he is probably a visitor rather than an Italian-American.”
“And he can pass himself off as a Roman Catholic priest,” I added. “He managed to fool the two priests he murdered.”
“And he was dressed as a priest when he first came to our shop,” added Celia
.
“And yet he’s definitely not a priest,” I stated.
“How do you know?” queried Claire.
“I got it from the top.”
“He knows about black magic and the occult, don’t forget,” contributed Pharter, “and is probably a Man of Power - a tenth degree Ipsissimus of the black arts. I think it more than a possibility that he may actually be an unfrocked priest.”
“An unfrocked priest is one of the essential personnel of a black magic group,” said Claire.
“And he seems to have followed Father David from Rome,” I added, “probably because Father David had succeeded in obtaining the Angelus Demonica Sumnonum of Aaron there, and Vittorio wanted it for his own purposes.”
“And he managed to convince Father David that he was a fellow priest, and got him to show him the book in his collection, “reasoned Smith. “He killed Father David and stole the book, but Father John O’Hara was on his way to visit his friend and colleague, having been invited to see the book himself, because he was interested in rare antiquities. He probably blundered onto the scene of the murder, chased after Vittorio, cornered him in a blind alley... and was murdered himself in turn.”
“Makes sense,” nodded Pharter. “These humans can be pretty inhuman - beg pardon and present company excepted, o’course.”
“So, what kind of picture have we built up of our man?” I pondered. “He starts off in Rome. He knows how a priest dresses. He knows enough about the Catholic priesthood to be able to pass himself off as one to a genuine priest. He knows about rare and obscure occult books. He obviously has sufficient funds to travel to the USA at short notice, so presumably he is either wealthy or has had a well-paid job. He has studied the black arts and is, we believe, a knowledgeable occult master and quite possibly an unfrocked priest.”
“So where does that get us?” asked Smith.
An idea jumped into my mind. “I wonder...”
“What?”
“I need to make a call. Bear with me.” I took out my mobile and punched in a number. “Mike? It’s Lucifer again. Hi. Not too bad, how’s yourself? Good. That’s what I like to hear. Me? Oh, so-so. You know how it is. Listen Mike, you remember I asked you if a mortal named Vittorio was on your files as a priest? You do? Good. Well, could you do just one more thing for me - have a quick check on the past listings of the Vatican for me, and see if he comes up on that? Yeah, sure, fine.” I held on while the Archangel Michael rummaged through some more Akashik records. Then: “Yes, I’m still here. You have? Great! Where? There? You sure? Excellent! Thanks, Mike. All the best.” I disconnected.
The others in the jailhouse were waiting in silent anticipation. “I’ve got the missing piece to the puzzle,” I announced. “Giovanni Vittorio is indeed an unfrocked priest, but before being kicked out he was employed by the Vatican. He is a professor of archaeology and has doctorates in medieval history, art, mathematics and astronomy. He had a fat salary.”
“What was his job in the Vatican?” asked Clare curiously.
“A very significant one, as far as we are concerned. He was employed as the principle curator of the Vatican’s Black Museum.”
“A black museum in the Vatican?” said Celia incredulously.
“Is there really such a thing?” asked Smith.
“I’m afraid there is,” I replied. “It lies within the tunnels and catacombs deep under St. Peter’s Square, and only a handful of people have been inside it during the last four hundred years.”
“What on earth is in it?”
“Nobody except the Pope and a few top cardinals knows the exact catalogue.” I sat down again and explained. “Consider some of the greatest artistic geniuses the world has ever known. People like Michelangelo and the other Renaissance painters and sculptors. They were all men, and they were all human. They painted and carved many incredible masterpieces for which their fame will never diminish. But being human, some of them also created what was considered at the time to be very risqué images. They weren’t all pure as the driven snow.
“Then again, sometimes their works – and their ideas on early science – contained details that brought them into conflict with the official viewpoint. For example, Leonardo daVinci not only supported Copernicus’ heretical idea that the earth moved round the sun, he made a simple clockwork model or orrery showing how this could work; then he was arrested by the Inquisition and the model was impounded.
“So the Inquisitional authorities rounded up these rogue works of art and science whenever one of them came within reach, confiscated them and put them away, all wrapped up so that nobody could see them and be corrupted. That was the origin of the Vatican Black Museum. They did not wish to destroy the works, since they had been created by famous artists who had also painted or carved many great religious scenes, and by some of the leading minds of European fledgling scientific inquiry, but they did not want the world to see them or even know they existed. To this day, nobody outside the higher echelons of the Vatican administration even knows how many unknown masterpieces are stored away there. The paintings openly displayed on the walls in the Vatican are considered beyond price: in the vaults there may be a thousandfold more, as yet unknown to art historians and the general public.
“Then, over the years, various other things were also put into these vaults. Things like the original manuscripts of apocryphal gospels, golden statues of Aztec gods sent back by Cortez, ancient scrolls and parchments that disagreed with the established official doctrine, books of strange spiritual instruction, objects of power. Things we would call occult artifacts and magical grimoires. All stowed safely away under the custodianship of a succession of curators - of whom Vittorio was one.”
“So OK,” responded Smith. “We can assume he learned his magic by reading forbidden books entrusted to his charge, and the Angelus was needed to complete his collection. The next question seems to be, what does he want out of it all, and why did he want Raum to destroy Los Angeles?”
“Raum the demon?” enquired Clare Touchwood.
“Yes - why, do you know him?” I asked.
“I know of him. He’s one of the demons described in the medieval Key or Clavicule of Solomon. We sell the Mathers 1904 translation of that in the shop.”
“One and the same. We rescued him from Vittorio in the saloon down the street. That’s why it’s wrecked out front.” I turned back to Smith. “And that’s a good question - what is his overall motive? At this stage, I’m afraid your guess is as good as mine."
“Wait a second,” instructed Smith. “I’m going to do something more than just guess.” She pulled out her own mobile phone “I’m ringing a friend of mine at the precinct, on the assignments desk.” She gave the phone her attention as it was answered. “That you Sharon? It’s Sandra. Hey, have any crank calls come in during the last ten hours or so? I’m checking out nuisance calls from nuts.” She listened. “Thanks Sharon. Keep me posted on anything else like that, would you? See you.”
Smith turned back to us. “My hunch was right,” she advised without triumph. “Apparently the mayor’s office received a call a few hours ago from a man with an Italian accent calling himself Giovanni Vittorio. He demanded that the President should resign and that he should be appointed president himself immediately. If the government refuses, he threatened to start destroying major cities throughout the USA one at a time until they agree to his demands. He said Los Angeles would be destroyed at eleven-thirty as a demonstration of his powers. Naturally, the call was dismissed as the act of a crank or junk-head. When eleven-thirty came and went and they were still there, they filed the report in the waste basket.”
There was a long silence from the rest of us. Then Pharter said somberly, “But we know why LA was not destroyed, don’t we Boss - and we don’t know the next city on his list!” This fact was so obvious it needed no additional comment.
“There is one possible safety move we can accomplish,” I said after thinking deeply and quickly. “We can summon Raum back here to the mortal realm, then Vittorio won’t be able to summon him himself again for as long as he remains with us. Even a demon cannot be in two places at once.”
“Neat idea,” agreed Pharter, “except that Raum ain’t the only demon who can blast cities. Even you can’t materialize every single creature in Hell up to the mortal world simultaneously, Boss… it would make a damn good movie, though...” he mused wistfully, suddenly imagining the implications of what he had just said.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” I agreed, ignoring his last comment. “However, Raum was his first choice.”
“Understandably,” agreed Pharter. “After all, he is the leading expert in his field. Look what he did to Sodom and Gomorrah!”
“Yes, but what I meant was, Vittorio only purchased the one special kind of incense, for raising Raum. If he now switches to a different demon, he’ll need different ingredients. At the least, that should delay him for a while. The correct ingredients are generally very hard to come by in this modern world. These ladies’ shop is the only place in the state that sells genuine Kyphi, for instance - and we can bet he won’t go back there again. This might buy us a bit of time.”
“But how will you summon him?” asked Claire Touchwood. “We haven’t got any of the necessary ingredients here with us.”
I smiled wanly. “You forget, I’m their boss; I don’t need the artificial boosters that humans require.” I pulled out my own mobile once more and hit the buttons. “Phixit, it’s the Boss again. You got my current co-ordinates? Good. Put Raum on the elevator, would you? Thanks.”
About three minutes later the room started rumbling slightly. The three mortal women started glancing at each other uncertainly. “Nothing to worry about,” I reassured them. There was a sound like a paper grocery bag full of custard falling onto a sidewalk from two stories up, a puff of green and red smoke, and there in the middle of the floor stood, not one, but two large demons. Raum had brought his friend Gaylord with him.
“Sorry boss,” Raum excused the double act, “but I was scared to come back here, and Gaylord offered to hold my hand. He’s good like that.”
I sighed. What did one demon more or less matter right now? “OK boys. You’re here now, that’s all that matters. This means that our enemy can’t invoke you again, Raum. You’re safe from misuse as long as you stay on earth.”
“Well!” said Gaylord to his friend. “I bet that’s a relief, isn’t it Trevor.”
Heads swiveled. Claire, who was nearest to them, spoke for all. “Trevor?”
Gaylord tossed his mono-fanged and heavy-jowled head. “That’s his name, darling, Trevor Raum. All his friends call him Trevor,” he nudged Raum, “don’t they luv? Personally, I always insist on being called by my first name.”
“If ‘Gaylord’ is your first name, what’s your other name?” asked Claire, getting interested and settling down for a gossip with the demon.
“Gomory. I don’t use it very much - it sounds sooo hard and butch, if you know what I mean, dear. And as for using both names together, too much emphasis on the ‘G’, I feel. Each one detracts from the effect of the other.”
Celia tilted her head as though trying to remember something obscure. Then: “That’s it! Yes. I remember, you’re described in the Key of Solomon, aren’t you?”
Gaylord simpered and bent his huge clawed hand dismissively. “The price of fame, darling.”
“I seem to remember, the description says that when invoked by a sorcerer, you usually appear in the form of a beautiful woman.”
“It’s only a hobby, dear,” responded the demon quickly. “Women’s clothes are sooo much more comfortable than all that drab stuff demons are supposed to wear. And when you’ve got a face like mine, lets call it ‘lived in’, a little makeup can work wonders for your self-esteem.”
Suddenly Pharter broke up the chatting. He was squatting near the door. Holding up a hand he said, “Hush everyone! Listen - can you hear that?”
Alerted, we all listened. As an Archangel, I heard it before the others. In the remote distance there was a long, drawn-out and rather shrill scream which didn’t stop: instead, it just got steadily louder, obviously issuing from some terrified throat which was moving fast and coming closer all the time. We all rushed outside the movie jailhouse onto the boardwalk to see what was happening.
13. Treading On Thin Air...
What was happening was Phukkit returning with Niblick. As we looked down the dusty avenue of Wild West Main Street, the piercing, drawn-out scream grew steadily and swiftly louder. A cloud of dust appeared in the distance, rounding a far corner by the livery stable. Then along came the demon and the dog. Niblick was running in a transport of pure delight, enjoying the longest walkies he had had for ages. The trouble was, as a supernatural hound he could move faster than a Porsche heading for a hot date. The block where my apartment was situated was the location of the only pet psychologist in LA specializing in traumatized cats.
Phukkit was the source of the continuous scream. Grimly, he held the end of the dog’s leash, as though the act of letting go would be open acknowledgement that he had lost control of the situation. He was being towed along behind the big dog, leaning backwards at an angle of 45 degrees, legs rigid before him in a doomed attempt to apply braking traction. The result of this stance was that his feet were carving two great furrows in the ground behind him, dirt, tarmac, concrete - whatever; occasional distant fountains indicated fire hydrants ruptured by his progress. His eyes were open wide and noticeably glazed with terror.
As the two of them drew quickly nearer, Niblick spotted us from a couple of hundred yards away and loped up a few wooden steps onto the boardwalk. Phukkit’s drawn out scream became articulated into a word: “Noooooooooooooo !" Too late. The dog began pulling him along the boardwalk. Planks, splintered wood, termite powder and twisted nails shot up into the air about his legs in a cloud. It looked like a giant buzz saw approaching.
Then they had reached us. Niblick leaped joyfully up at Smith trying to lick her face, tail wagging, then he transferred his attention to me the same way. He was pleased to see us. So was Phukkit. With great care and slow, deliberate dignity he climbed carefully out of the hole he had made in the wooden surface. He stood breathing heavily. From his clawed feet, clouds of steam began to rise with a faint hissing sound. “Never,” he spoke slowly and with considerable emphasis, delicately removing nails and splinters from various portions of his anatomy, “never, never again! That’s the last walkies I do. Watch my lips - from now on, I’m not a walkies person. I don’t do walkies.”
Meanwhile, Smith and I had finished making a fuss of Niblick, and I took the leash from an extremely grateful Phukkit. “Will he pull at the leash with you?” asked Smith, interested.
“Not a chance. Remember, he’s my dog. Besides, we’re not going to keep him on the leash when he’s tracking Vittorio’s psychic scent. That would slow us down. We need speed, before he can rustle up the correct ingredients to summon some other unsuspecting demon of mass-destruction.”
“Won’t we lose him if he’s off the leash?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied, looking down the street. The sight of the livery stable had given me an idea. “Come on, everybody!” I led the way rapidly in the direction of the stable building, which was yet another completed interior set, familiar from countless movies and TV cowboy shows. Niblick trotted faithfully at my heel, eyes glowing like red beacons. Phukkit, hobbling along on aching feet, still eyed him warily. We reached the livery stable and went inside: it was empty except for the obligatory piles of straw and bundles of dusty tackle hanging on the beams.
“What’s the idea, boss?” enquired Pharter, as everyone assembled in a curious group behind me.
“We’re going mounted,” I revealed. “That way, we can follow just as fast as Niblick can lead us.”
“Er...” put in Celia Touchwood, “there’s just one slight problem - this is a movie set. There are no actual horses kept here.”
“Not at the moment,” I agreed. “I’m going to borrow some.”
There was a nonplussed silence during which people and demons looked at each other to try and see if anyone else knew what I was talking about. Ignoring them, I pulled out my trusty mobile once more and pressed the buttons. The call was answered after a minute or so.
“Hello,” I spoke into the mobile, “is that the Apocalypse Department? Could you put me through to Obi, please. Tell him it’s his old friend Satan on the line. Thank you Miss. That’s OK, I’ll wait.” A pause of about two minutes, then: “Hi, Obi, it’s Sate. How are you, you old bastard? That good, huh? How’s the wife? Good. And the kids? Good, good. Glad to hear it. Listen, Obi, I need a favor. If you do this for me, I promise I’ll cancel your last poker marker. Yeah, it was a good game. Someone has to lose. Yeah, I give you my word, I’ll tear it up if you just do this one thing for me. OK, I need to borrow eight horses from your department. Only for a few hours or so, and I promise I’ll look after them and return them to you in perfect condition. Yeah, I know it’s against the rules. If anyone grumbles, blame me. I take full responsibility for it. How about it? You will? Good man! Look, phone Phixit and he’ll give you my exact co-ordinates, OK? Fine. We’ll have another poker evening soon, eh? My place, drinks on me. OK. So long.”
I turned back to the others. “Please stand round the walls and keep the floor clear,” I requested. They hastened to obey.
Soon, the wooden building began to tremble slightly. Streams of dust fell from the high beams and wooden ceiling and a low-frequency rumbling filled the air. Then there was a tremendous flash and a loud crash of thunder. The loose straw in the centre of the floor burst into flame in a huge but perfect ring, sending up a circular cloud of smoke. Almost at once, the flames flickered out again and the smoke wafted clear. There, standing inside the charred ring, were eight horses. And what horses!
“You don’t seriously expect us to get up on them do you?” shrieked Smith, backing away, her eyes wide.
“Certainly I do. They’re perfectly safe. Highly trained. Beautiful animals.” Smith continued to stare at them in horror. “You’ll soon get used to them,” I soothed, encouragingly.
There were eight of them. They definitely resembled horses more than anything else. Seven were black and one was a very pale white. They were a bit of a surprise for my mortal friends perhaps, on reflection, but this was no time to be picky. The beast’s heads differed slightly from regular horses, in that they had long mouths like snarling wolves, filled with obviously carnivorous fangs. The insides of their heads were filled with blazing red fires, which sent flickers of flame out through empty eye-sockets, mouths, ears and nostrils. They were huge, sleekly muscled, and all were wearing wonderfully patterned versions of medieval horse-armor. Their saddles were also of medieval design, with high flat backrests like upholstered chairs, richly embroidered with ancient religious and occult motifs in tapestry style.
“Hold on,” said Claire Touchwood, working things out in her head. “You asked for the Apocalypse Department... These can’t be... Surely not! There are eight of them.”
“They have spares,” I pointed out reasonably. Claire’s tone took on a touch of awe.
“Death, Pestilence, War and Famine! The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse... and Death was the rider upon the pale horse...”
I gently slapped the pale horse’s rump. “You’ve got it. One of them is a particular friend of mine. We used to play cards now and then - you know, on those evenings when the boys get together over a few beers.”
“‘Obi’ you called him,” pondered Claire, still working things out. “I know that can’t be ‘Obi-wan Kenobi’, can it?”
“Good old Obi,” I said. “That's what everyone calls him. It’s short for his full name Obitius Nullius Redderius.”
“That sounds like Latin,” opined Claire.
“It is,” I confirmed. “It translates in personalized name-form as ‘Death, No Refunds.’ It’s a little-known fact that he’s the one in charge of the horses.”
“Yipeeee!” yelled Pharter in cowboy style, taking the end of an embroidered rein and thereby claiming a mount for himself.
“We’re heading for the last roundup, hombres!” shouted Phukkit, relieved at the thought that he could rest his still-steaming feet.
Claire and Celia looked at each other, then, not to be outdone: “Yahooo!” they yelled in unison, beginning to mount up. “We’s a commin’ t’ git ya, Vittorio!”
Smith copied them quickly, afraid they were going to steal her thunder. “Ride ‘im, cowgirl!” she shouted.
Huge Raum ambled up to a steed in a brilliant John Wayne impersonation, drawling “Git on yer high horse!”
Gaylord stepped cautiously towards a horse. “Ooh! I hope I don’t fall off. Mind you, the saddle is a pretty color. Nice needlepoint.”
I was the last to mount up, on the pale horse. Before I did so I slipped Niblick off his leash and spoke to him while I knelt down and ruffled his ears. “Good boy: have a good sniff around, now. Find a black magician. He was in the saloon. Mark his trail, boy. You can do it – go seek!”
Niblick trotted out of the livery stable and cast around for a few moments in the vicinity of the saloon, rushing backwards and forwards, darting here and there, smelling everything he came to. Then he sat down on his haunches, raised his huge head, and bayed. He had found the psychic scent. The sound of Satan’s hound baying was something never to be forgotten, although some people had joined the French Foreign Legion for forty years in a vain attempt to do so. As we trotted out into the street on our mounts, Niblick tensed, then leaped into a run. We urged our horses into a gallop to follow the dog.
My idea had been good so far. Unfortunately, in my eagerness to catch up with Vittorio before he could start destroying cities, I had overlooked one slight detail; we were not, actually, in a Wild West township. We were in the middle of a vast motion picture and TV studio complex in the centre of Hollywood Hills. Oh well. Needs must when the Devil drives, as the highly appropriate saying goes. Except the Devil wasn’t driving, I was riding. The strangest posse ever to pursue an outlaw was hitting the trail.
And the trail led Niblick straight into one of the long studio buildings via a big hangar-like door through which big pieces of painted backdrop were being manhandled. We dared not stop or even slow down; we had to try and keep pace with the huge running dog. In we charged, at the gallop. The Apocalyptic horse’s hooves, as big as dinner plates, produced sparks like fireworks whenever they impacted upon a concrete floor: not just the flint-and-steel glint seen occasionally with normal horses, but veritable showers of bright yellow stars. And they were tall beasts. The familiar American horse was of Arab stock, comparatively light and thin-limbed. Our mounts were built like the grandfathers of the medieval knight’s charger, of whom the now-rare Shire horse and Clydesdale are but a distant memory. They stood some seven feet at the shoulders, and huge Raum’s head was a good dozen feet above the ground. Studio staff took one look at the eight of us bearing down through the building at full gallop and simply flung themselves headlong away from our path. Gaylord spoilt the overall effect by shouting out “Giddy up, Dobbin! Oooh, I like your costume dearie,” as he passed by a group of panic-stricken male ballet dancers, but his voice was largely lost in the general turmoil.
In the distance, far down the long, equipment-crammed interior, I saw a possible problem ahead - a wall, containing a large, shut double door with a sign on it saying “Studio Six” and a red-lit box above it bearing the warning “RECORDING IN PROGRESS – NO ADMISSION.”
There was nothing else for it - Niblick was already pushing his way through the doors and come what may we couldn’t afford to lose sight of him. In the lead, I lowered my head and charged, slowing to a rapid trot as I approached the door, the others following suit. There was a second set of doors beyond after a short dark space, and through these we erupted into a TV studio.
It was one of those human interest/agony shows. An audience of hundreds sat on rising tiers of seats. Cameras were gliding round the floor, their cables snaking behind them. On the stage, a seated row of social misfits and dysfunctional relatives were being goaded into ratings-boosting antagonism by a face-lifted man in a two-thousand dollar suit and lacquered coif who wore heavy-rimmed glasses to prove his sincerity: Niblick dashed in and raised a back leg over five hundred dollar’s worth of trouser to prove his. Everyone’s a critic. Then we arrived at a fast trot.
The word ‘pandemonium’, like many other words, comes into English from Latin and derives from two roots, ‘pan’, meaning ‘general’ or ‘universal’, and ‘demonium’, meaning ‘realm of demons’. No thesaurus could provide a more apt single word to describe the scene as we appeared in the studio. Only the program host remained motionless, rooted to the spot like a statue in a pool (the latter courtesy of Niblick) with his mouth dangling open: the said Niblick was now disappearing out of the farther doors on the other side of the stage.
“I’m terribly sorry,” I called out as I rode past him.
“We’re trying to catch a criminal,” explained Smith as she passed by him next, flashing him her police badge.
“I liked last week’s show,” said Claire encouragingly as she went by.
“I think he should have married his mother-in-law,” shouted Celia.
“Personally, I prefer Oprah,” called out Pharter, riding by.
“Can I order a copy of the video?” said Phukkit, who was next in line.
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!” drawled Raum.
“I think you’re a very brave man, wearing that tie with that suit,” said Gaylord.
And then we had gone, with nothing but a damp stage and trouser leg to show we had ever been there. Niblick was tearing off down another long corridor, and we were in hot pursuit. And suddenly, we realized that we, in our turn, were being pursued. A woman was running after us down the corridor. She was thirtysomething, dressed well, if plainly, in a grey two-piece, immaculate hair and impeccable makeup. Behind her trotted an athletic cameraman with a video cam on his shoulder, and a sound engineer with a handheld boom from which dangled a fluffy microphone. I had sometimes wondered why the microphones you saw occasionally on TV outside broadcasts were often fluffy; I had vaguely imagined it was to filter out any serious comment. In the confined space of the passage, we were unable to move the horses at anything like full speed, and the woman and her small team were catching us up. She had clearly marked me out as the leader and she ignored the others, overtaking them. I couldn’t help being a little impressed. As she drew level, she called up to me.
“Jackie Cameron, AMI News. Can I ask you, are you harbingers of the Apocalypse? Is this the end of days?”
“Er - “ for a second I was nonplussed, then, “er, no, I hope not. Not today.”
“And is it true that you are the Wild Hunt in pursuit of a Hound out of Hell?”
“Not exactly.” I had no wish to be impolite by ignoring her. “We’re a fairly Tame Hunt taking a Hound out of my Apartment for walkies.”
I urged my mount to a slightly faster speed and pulled ahead of her. She dropped back a few paces and spoke to Detective Smith. “Can I ask you, are you seeking to reinforce the black woman’s right to grasp supernatural issues?”
“No,” replied Smith, “I’m seeking to reinforce this black woman’s grasp of her saddle before I fall off!” She, too, urged her horse forward.
Reporter and accompanying crew transferred their attentions to Claire and Celia, but before questioning could begin, the sisters, aware of a sudden unexpected commercial opportunity, smiled beautifully straight at the camera and burst into song:
“Tired of spells that do not work?
Is your local witch a jerk?
Cast your own without a fuss,
Come and see Broomsticks R Us!”
It was actually a rather catchy little tune.
The reporter dropped back a little further and addressed Pharter, Phukkit and Raum.
“May I ask you... er... gentlemen for a comment on the esoteric aspects of this incident?”
“We are members of a persecuted ethnic minority,” answered Pharter, “and we are attempting, by law-abiding methods, to highlight our campaign for inhuman rights.”
Somewhat baffled by this, the reporter dropped back once more and looked up at bulldog-faced Gaylord, the last in our cavalcade. “A quick final word from you sir?”
“Certainly,” effused Gaylord, letting go of the reins with one hand and placing it on his hip. “Use Revlon lipstick instead, dear - they make a darker shade of plum. It will enhance the line of your mouth and stop your face looking so bland, especially under bright studio lights.”
With this Parthian shot, our troupe of mighty steeds shouldered its way through another set of double doors at the corridor’s end and emerged into a palm-lined boulevard leading to the massively arched studio main gate. Urging the horses to full speed, off we charged again. Niblick could just be glimpsed disappearing past the uniformed security guards in their office on his way into the public highway beyond. The guards had heard him coming, rushed out, taken one look at what was heading their way, rushed back in and slammed the door. As we galloped past with a noise like a panzer unit in a hardware store, I could see them through the window piling filing cabinets and furniture against the inside of the door.
I thought the studios had been difficult to negotiate on horseback. The ordinary streets were even worse. We had to thread our way through traffic. People who would have run in terror had they been pedestrians became aggressive, horn-fisting Kamikaze pilots behind the wheel, intent on nothing except preventing anybody else from taking liberties with their own right of way. This is a universal trait of all drivers throughout the world. A new term has even been added to human vocabulary – Road Rage. A sweet little old lady who drops her spare change into a beggar’s cup can get into her car and suddenly transform into an aggressive mean-assed punk, refusing to give way to any other driver, her previously generous attitude morphing into a snarled “Let him come - I’m not giving way!”
Oh history! If Mahatma Gandhi had only had a car - and if Adolf Hitler had only been denied one!
The need to thread our way through unyielding traffic was slowing us down. I could still just glimpse Niblick’s tail waving between vehicles in the distance, but it was getting smaller all the time.
“Fericul!” Smith shouted at me. “Aren’t the Horsemen of the Apocalypse supposed to ride through the sky on the Day of Judgment? Can’t we take off?”
“Yes,” I shouted back, “but I don’t know where the flap-controls are.”
It was Pharter who saved the day. “Boss, everybody,” he yelled. “All you have to do is shout ‘upupup’ to the horse, and ‘downdowndown’ when required. Like a camel rider shouts ‘huthuthut’ to get it going. I once moonlighted cleaning their stables.”
Armed with this simple but vital piece of information, the eight of us were soon soaring into the air on flying steeds above the congested streets. Niblick came into clearer vision below. We got our revenge on the traffic too, because several of the vehicles crashed into each other as their drivers watched us rising into the sky out of their windows. However, this could not really be blamed on me - could it? It troubled my conscience that I had, even momentarily, felt a sense of revenge. Another cross instead of a tick on my spiritual report card, I guessed. I was not very good at being good. Still, I had more important things to worry about than even that - if we weren’t on the ball, millions of mortal lives would be lost when Vittorio started destroying cities. That must remain my overriding concern. My own advancement was as nothing by comparison.
So, as we soared through the air rising above the tops of the highest skyscrapers, my mind was occupied with worries of this nature — which, of course, meant that I was letting my mind use me; I was not using my mind. In such a state, I was ripe for making a big mistake. And it hit us. I immediately realized exactly what had happened. Vittorio had been aggrieved that we had spoiled his little plot, and he had taken steps to eliminate his opponents. In fact, unused as I was to having to live in the real world amongst mortals, I had committed the classic tactical blunder: I had underestimated my enemy! From somewhere ahead of us in the direction of downtown LA, he had released the power of the Vessels of Shinar against us.
There was good news and bad news. The good news was, he evidently still had not fully mastered the complete range of the vessel’s powers, so that what we got was not enough to actually harm either myself or the demons directly, and the energy had no effect on Detective Smith or the Touchwood sisters because they were not supernatural beings. What the beam of energy did accomplish was the banishing of supernatural creatures who lacked the power of reason. Namely, the Apocalyptic horses. With the briefest of bright flashes their hold on physical reality disappeared and they were transported back to their stables in Limbo. As far as the mortal realm was concerned they vanished in a puff of smoke. We were all left unhorsed. At about six thousand feet. What might be termed a situation of extreme gravity.
Nowadays, not everyone realizes that Darwinism applies also in the non-material planes. That is, as was well known to ancient peoples such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese, Hebrews and others, demons come in various different species. This might seem only of passing academic interest, but in fact it had a terrible relevance to the situation we now suddenly found ourselves in. Pharter and Phukkit had wings. Raum and Gaylord, who were considerably heavier, did not. I could fly myself and support one passenger. Detective Smith, Claire and Celia Touchwood could not. This left a mathematical imbalance. Three flyers and five non-flyers were suddenly placed in mid air at six thousand feet altitude. This could be expressed in mathematical terms by the formula 3f-5nf (6000) x [ri=32’ sec2] = splat x 2; which in layman’s terms means that three flyers could rescue three non-flyers, leaving two non-flyers to find their own way down.
Thinking quickly, I realized that as an Archangel I could probably support the weight of two of the non-flyers, leaving only one to plummet. But, again, it was Pharter who came to the rescue with the solution. (As a matter of semantics, and with due consideration for the fact that he was a demon, I suppose using the expression “bless him” might be viewed as a contradiction in terms.)
“Boss, grab ‘em!” he yelled, zooming in and snatching Claire’s arm, then flapping hard until he could grab Celia with his other hand. Under the combined weight of two mortals, he began to fall, but not as rapidly as someone without wings would have done. I grabbed Smith and headed for Pharter, linking arms with the demon. Phukkit grabbed Raum and Gaylord in the same way and headed for us as we all fell, linking arms in turn like some very strange parachute display team. The resultant combination worked - just. Me, Pharter and Phukkit supporting the weight of the Touchwoods, Smith and the considerably heavier Raum and Gaylord. Thus united, we managed to make it safely to the ground at around normal parachute descent speed. Just a few fast bumps on landing, but nobody hurt.
“You see, boss?” panted a triumphant Pharter. “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I mean, one flyer can support one non-flyer, but two flyers can support three nons, and three flyers were able to support five.”
“Yeah, man,” agreed Phukkit. “United we stand, ain’t it? Oof!”
The ‘Oof!’ was because at that moment Claire and Celia picked up a demon each with a bone crushing hug and planted big kisses on their cheeks. “That’s for saving our lives, boys,” explained Celia. The two demons were purple, but a brighter mauve tinge suddenly suffused their faces. They looked at their feet and shuffled them.
“Aw, shucks!” said Pharter. The notion of an embarrassed demon is another image which is not readily describable in words.
What none of my friends knew is exactly how close I had come, during those moments of high-altitude confusion and terror, to giving up my self-imposed rules of conduct in the mortal realm and using the full power of an Archangel to produce an actual miracle, thereby saving all their lives, even though it would have assuredly meant failing in my test of character and being condemned to remain the Ruler of Hell for the rest of eternity. Mentally I breathed a sigh of relief. If the quick thinking and reasoned aerial logistics of Pharter had not come through and saved the day, I could imagine the entry that would have been written in to my Akashik record: Satan, when placed under pressure, deliberately chose to use the divine power allocated to him in order to selfishly ensure that his own friends and colleagues remained unharmed; by so doing, he acted outside the limiting conditions of the agreement which has been offered to him for his redemption; it is the considered verdict of this tribunal that Satan has failed... It was a depressing thought.
And one depressing thought led to another. If Vittorio was beginning to make use of the Vessels of Shinar as a weapon, then the demons, all of them, were extremely vulnerable.
So was I, of course, and my own level of vulnerability grew greater with every increase in Vittorio’s understanding and ability to control the vessels. But I was the one who was on a mission, and I alone. I had no right to even ask the others to risk their mortal and immortal lives in this business. The last incident had made me see this clearly. I was there to prove my character. They were only tagging along because of... what? I had not previously allowed myself the luxury of speculating on their motivation - or else, perhaps I had been unconsciously avoiding doing so. But when it came to analysis, the others, all of them, Smith, Claire, Celia, Pharter, Phukkit, Raum and Gaylord, had already risked everything far above and beyond the call of duty.
They were there because of love. I finally had to accept and understand that simple fact. They were there because, in different ways, they loved me and wanted to be on my team. This was a difficult concept for me. In fact, it was a unique concept for me. And, as if that wasn’t enough, the reverse applied. I loved all of them in their own different ways. And that meant I could not ask them to go any further with me on this case: it was becoming far too dangerous.
Problem was, how to put this over to them? I understood enough about human nature, and inhuman nature, to guess that if I simply outlined it to them in basic words they would reject my order to quit while they were ahead - or at least alive - and insist on keeping the old team intact. Therefore, perforce, I had to be devious about it. You might think that deviousness and distortion of truth were attributes in which I was a past master, and you might be right. But nevertheless, now, I felt distinctly uneasy about what I knew I had to do for their own safety. I knew I would have to spin them a yarn in order to involve them in some non-dangerous side issue while I continued the attempt to track down our enemy and put him out of business on my own, at my own risk and nobody else’s.
“Spin them a yarn!” That phrase was nothing but a metaphor, a prettier wrapping for something ugly, of which all the different languages of the world were replete. In English people say things like “resting” or “finally asleep” which is the wrapping of the blunter and more truthful phrase “stone cold dead”. They say “between jobs” instead of “unemployed.” “He’s had one too many” instead of “he’s roaring drunk.” Some people call such metaphors “white lies,” but even that is nothing but another metaphor. Truth is an absolute. You can’t have degrees of truth. You can’t really have “a little white lie,” any more than you can say Abraham Lincoln is “only a little bit dead.” Either something is true, or else it is untrue: there is no in-between. It is as misleading to say that something is “very nearly true” as to say that “two plus two is very nearly five.”
And here was I, who had long ages ago been accorded the epithet The Father of Lies, going through a turmoil of conscience of my own making about whether or not I was morally justified in lying to my friends for their own well-being. It really took no time at all to decide. There was no way I could allow them to continue to expose themselves to dreadful risks simply because they wanted to be with me out of friendship and love. I realized that I would be clocking up yet another black mark in the book of my deeds by deliberately lying, and that this would in all likelihood be yet another torpedo I had launched against keeping my own self afloat. But it had to be done. And it had to be done without letting any of them see the deep inner moral anguish and guilt I was feeling for practicing deceit upon them, even though it was undoubtedly for their own good.
We had landed in the middle of a shabby used car back lot: the only difference between this place and a scrap yard was that there was no crusher or magnetic crane and every windshield had a dollar sign with numbers stuck inside it. Near to where we had touched down was a small VW camper van, hand-painted with bright flowers and abstract wavy lines: it looked like it had time-traveled out of the 1960s. “In there,” I told the others. “We need a council of war out of sight, and that’s as good a place as any.” Everyone clambered inside. When Raum went in, the chassis groaned and sank several inches. There were long seats that could be extended to double as beds on a trip, and there was even a tiny kitchen, with a basin and gas ring. We all sat down, except Gaylord who put the kettle on and started to make a pot of tea, managing to locate cups, mugs and ingredients, even a tub of powdered milk.
Smith was almost bouncing up and down with urgency. “We’re letting Niblick get away,” she pointed out. “We’ve already lost his trail.”
I nodded. “I know, but I also know how to find him again.” I hoped. “Now listen-up everyone, this is important. We’ve lost the horses. They’ve gone back to Limbo, by occult banishment, which means that even if I call in another marker from Obi we can’t get them back again for at least forty-eight hours; that’s the way it works with banishing energy.” The others nodded in silent understanding.
“That means,” I continued, making it up as I went along, “that only I can follow Niblick’s trail, because apart from Pharter and Phukkit, only I have the ability to fly. And as you possibly noticed, I’m an Archangel, not Superman - I can only carry one passenger, not many of them, and even that slows me down considerably. The same applies to Pharter and Phukkit; although they can fly, passengers slow them down from Mach 3 to Sopwith Camel.” I drew breath.
“Apart from all that, I need you to help me,” I pointed at the three women, “because another thing I can’t do is be in three places at once. And demons - with all due respect fellows - are too conspicuous in the physical plane to carry out low-profile investigations.
“Detective, I need you to get back to Headquarters as fast as possible and check up on all incoming reports of unusual phenomenon; UFOs, earth tremors, strange noises, peculiar beasts, creepy neighbors, you know the kind of stuff. In case I can’t pick up Niblick’s trail after all, reports of that kind might possibly give us a lead as to which direction to look in. See what I mean?” Rather reluctantly, she nodded her compliance.
“And you two ladies,” I turned to Claire and Celia, “if you wouldn’t mind, I would deem it a great favor if you could start to contact your business rivals, all other stores and private dealers who sell magical ingredients in LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, even outside California if you can. Try to find out if our man has been buying up special incenses and other occult paraphernalia. If you can discover anything like that, the knowledge of exactly what he has purchased might enable us to predict which unsuspecting demon he is likely to try to summon next. I know it’s a long shot, but we shouldn’t ignore the possibility just because of that.”
The sisters, also somewhat reluctantly, agreed to my suggestion.
“As for you, lads,” I addressed Raum and Gaylord. “I think you’ve had enough of the mortal plane for now. Pharter and Phukkit are small, and they can fly, so they can get around without attracting much attention, except from UFO spotters, and who takes them seriously anyway? Except the Sirians of course, but that’s not important right now. So, Trevor Raum and Gaylord Gomory, I hereby grant thee thy license to depart. Avaunt thee! Hang loose, hear?” The two large demons vanished in the obligatory puff of smoke.
“OK guys,” I announced, rising to my feet in a crouching position necessitated by the low roof of the camper. “We’ve all got important things to attend to.” I jumped out onto the ground followed by the others. “Let’s split. Keep in touch by mobile, you’ve all got my number. And good hunting.” Smith and the Touchwoods departed, Smith already on her phone arranging a pick-up by car. I remained for a few minutes with the two small purple demons, watching the others head off.
“Nice work, boss,” remarked Pharter. “You’ve sent them away to safety.”
“Was it that obvious?” I asked, slightly perturbed.
“Only to us,” replied the demon. “I think.”
Phukkit gazed into the distance and then voiced it for all three of us. “Suddenly, I feel a bit lonely.”
14. Following The Scent...
I wasn’t particularly worried about Niblick getting such a long head start on us. Sure, he was now long out of sight, by many miles; but I knew what direction he was going in. From the film studio until we lost him when our horses vanished under us, he had traveled in a geometric straight line. All I had to do now was follow the continuation of that line until... until whatever. Niblick was too well trained and intelligent to go in on his own against a Tenth Degree occultist; once he had reached the lair of his quarry he would keep an eye on things until I got there, just quietly blending into the surroundings unnoticed. Providing, of course, said surroundings were the Rancho la Brea tar pits and their prehistoric creature display.
The two small demons shuffled along in my wake as I walked swiftly towards the exit gate down an avenue of sad vehicles, their grimy headlights like gloomy eyes. Before we could leave the lot however, a used-car salesman leaped into our path out of nowhere. The used-car salesman is related genetically to the pitcher-plant. That carnivorous vegetable has a leafy tube designed by nature so that insects can easily get in but find it impossible to get out again. Used car lots and their salesmen germinate from similar seed: you can easily wander into one, but it is virtually impossible to get out again without being accosted by a loud-suited man who can talk faster than you can think. Pharter and Phukkit managed to scuttle out of sight behind the big rear fins of a 1968 Oldsmobile. From this hidden position they worked their way round the back of a small office building, took to the air and made good their escape.
“Hello there, friend,” gushed the salesman. “I can see that you know something about cars by the way you are looking at them.”
“You’re absolutely right,” I answered him, “and that’s why I’m going.”
“Hey,” he exuded with exaggerated affront and an even bigger smile. “Can you give me one good reason why the car of your dreams might not be here waiting for you to notice it?”
So I did. If I can physically touch someone, I can read their genetic life energy trace as easily as looking at a computer screen. I gently caught hold of his shoulder and brought my mouth close to his ear. Within thirty seconds, I whispered the names of his father, grandfather, great- grandfather, great-great-grandfather and so on back to Plymouth Rock: then in the next thirty seconds I recited in the same order the reasons they had been in jail, the length of each sentence, the name of the presiding judge and the geographical location of each prison. Then in the next thirty seconds I informed him in specific detail about his own false returns to the IRS, the exact profits he made on the crooked license-plate scam for various car thieves of his acquaintance and the number of the secret bank account he maintained to pay his girlfriend’s apartment rental without his wife knowing. I left him sitting on a retouched fender, pale, shaking, gazing into infinity and beginning to plan how to rearrange his life along the lines of decency and honesty instead. Well, as I always say, like the song, “If you can help somebody...”
Now I was in need of some real haste. Niblick was miles away, I had sent my mortal friends to safety, likewise Raum and Gaylord. Pharter and Phukkit were providing aerial reconnaissance. That left me to zero-in on Vittorio the sorcerer. Like I said, I could work out the direction to take by extending in my mind’s eye the straight line Niblick had already established before we lost sight of him. All I didn’t know was how far along that line I would need to travel. So, with nobody looking, I took to the air myself. Once I was sufficiently high that the suburbs of LA looked like a map, I could mentally plot the continuation of Niblick’s route.
I was hoping that there would be some obvious location along this line which a black magician would be likely to favor as a base, but I was disappointed. There was no Gothic mansion with big neon signs flashing “Evil Sorcerer’s Secret Hideout. Parties Catered For.” However, the direction Niblick had been relentlessly heading in was through the north-easterly suburbs and in this general locality spreading out beneath me the desert came quite suddenly. In other directions there was a more gradual change from the water-sprinkled green lawns of houses and golf clubs to the amber and ochre of the desert north and east of LA past Palmdale, but here the change was more like a line of demarcation. Right at the edge of the urban development area there were even some streets where one side was lined with green front lawns and the other side was yellow sand and rock. And what I was now calling in my own thoughts the “Niblick Line” headed, if extended ad infinitum, straight across this divide and into the Mojave Desert. In this, there was rather a lack of suitable places for anyone’s secret base, except perhaps Uncle Sam’s since the line would eventually cross Edwards Air Force Base before heading on and plunging into Death Valley two hundred feet below sea level.
A swift examination of the ground beneath, coupled with a process of elimination, revealed a possibility, however. There was a clearly abandoned factory, single storey, surrounded by a chicken wire fence, almost opposite a slightly more famous building, the modernistic St. Columbia Cathedral built during the 1970s and famous for its byline “The last cathedral this side of the Rockies.” Something clicked in my thoughts. I pondered briefly. Vittorio had used an abandoned factory before. He was evidently a former Catholic priest. The Niblick Line ran like an arrow straight towards the place. OK, so none of these things may have been relevant to that specific locality: but how many pieces of jigsaw are required to turn a hunch into a possibility? At the least, it was worth checking out. I called Pharter and Phukkit on my mobile cellphone, explaining what I intended to do. They had been flying half a mile behind me, following my lead. They remained hovering at about four thousand feet while I quickly descended. You can’t peer through windows from high above, so I wanted to watch the abandoned factory from ground level and I needed a place of cover.
Alighting on the ground without being seen, I walked casually up the cathedral approach, which consisted of a bright green closely-cropped and mower-striped lawn through which a broad crazy-paved path wound between ground-hugging dwarf conifers and nests of white ornamental boulders. It was really rather beautiful. The entire cathedral was finished in what used to be called Scandinavian style: lots of clean bare brick walls, lots of polished teak, lots of glass in inventive places, much of it stained in Picasso-like interpretations of religious imagery. Call me iconoclastic, but it was a style I loved: much more user-friendly than the Gothic overstatement of most of the great medieval churches, in which the designers had a deliberate agenda to overwhelm and overawe the visitor. Places like Notre Dame and Chartres were undoubtedly magnificent and were sincere attempts to demonstrate the perfection of ultimate faith by taking contemporary building methods beyond previously recognized limits, but they could also seem rather intimidating - like the ordinary person who lives in an untidy apartment can feel when visiting an imposing British stately home; it’s wonderful, but it bears no relation to how they live, like looking at Mars through a telescope. This building, though, seemed to be saying to passers-by: “Hey, Bud, good to see you - why not drop in and visit a spell, take your boots off and unburden your soul, make yourself at home.”
And if anyone thinks it strange that Lucifer should have positive views about churches, it might be necessary once more for me to point out that I was - and in essence still am - an Archangel. Churches are some of the branch offices of the boss I still worked for, even though I was demoted. So, come to that, are synagogues, ashrams, mosques, Hindu and Sikh temples, Wiccan circles and ancient stone rings. Only the name of deity has been changed to protect the innocent.
Consequently, although there is a popular image of the Devil melting into dust when faced with the edifice and symbolism of the Church, like Count Dracula at the end of each movie, it really doesn’t work like that. Entirely undaunted and gazing appreciatively at the artwork and modernistic decor, I entered the cathedral. Admittedly, my purpose was to use it as a surveillance post on the abandoned factory on the next block. But then again, I was, as it were, on the staff. At least in a certain manner of thinking. Look, I’ll argue about it later if necessary, OK?
Inside the vast airy modernity of the cathedral there were rows of beautiful polished teak benches and there were scattered people kneeling at their private devotions. I looked around, sizing up the layout of the place. I needed to find somewhere where I could loiter for an indefinite period and from where the neighboring factory was visible. The matter of external visibility was quite simple, since the cathedral had a wealth of big windows around its walls and there were adequate clear sections amongst the stained glass. However, the other matter of finding somewhere to hang loose inconspicuously was more difficult. If I joined the few others kneeling in the rows of pews at prayer, I would not be able to see out of any windows. I really needed to be near the walls, and I could hardly just lean casually against the brickwork without drawing attention to myself. There was one possibility. The booths of the confessional happened to be placed exactly right. They were all empty, and no priest was present. It would be possible to slip unseen inside a booth, draw the red curtain almost closed but still look out of a small gap straight at the empty factory across the broad lawn and the passing road. Looking round to make sure I was unobserved, I slipped quietly into one of the confessionals.
I had no clear idea of how long I would be prepared to wait. I had no proof that I was on the right scent; I could be wildly wrong about the abandoned factory. It was nothing more than an educated guess, which was a high-class name for a plain hunch. However, something - something - made me want to stick it out here rather than go on to any other tack. Some still, small voice deep down inside kept stopping me from giving up my vigil.
After several minutes, though, said vigil was not continued without some distraction. I thought my entry into the confessional had been unobserved. I was wrong. Suddenly there was a sound of a door-catch opening and closing, a rustle of cassock, a warm human sound of breathing. I froze, silent.
Not receiving the expected response of “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” after a few moments the priest spoke softly through the brass trelliswork.
“I am ready to hear your confession, my son.” He had, of course, no idea to whom he was actually talking.
“How long have you got?” I asked innocently.
It was three hours later when, at last, I spotted telltale movement in the supposedly empty factory. A single guttering light in the gathering dusk was moving along like a Will-O’-the-Wisp behind a few windows. It looked as though someone was walking carefully along carrying a candle. That was all I needed to see, in a building supposed to be abandoned. Now at least I knew there was something amiss within the factory, and I also knew it wasn’t going to be any burglar in an empty building. A hobo looking for a sheltered place to spend a few nights, perhaps: such things were not unknown. Maybe a junkie looking for a place to shoot-up undisturbed. But my main money was on Vittorio. Gently I eased myself out of the confessional booth and respectfully headed out of the cathedral.
Behind me, the booth door clicked open and a pale hand flickered out, grabbing hold of the jamb. It trembled slightly. Then its tendons flexed as it supported the rest of the emerging priest. He staggered, his face white and drawn, brow beaded with sweat, and snatched at the backrest of a wooden pew to maintain his balance. One of his legs beneath the cassock seemed to buckle slightly, and the other was having trouble bearing his weight. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, emitting no sound. His wide, staring eyes followed my departing figure, the whites showing all round each pupil. I sympathized, but had no time for a guilt trip. Besides, why should I feel guilty? Every job has its professional hazards and the vocation of priest was no exception. He should feel pleased. Not every priest has heard the Devil’s confession.
Since, this time, I was on my own with no mortal friends to worry about or cramp my style, as soon as I was outside in the gathering twilight and certain that nobody was watching, I flew into the air. As the sun set behind me in a blaze of dark red and purple clouds, I reflected that for a scene like this I really ought to be wearing a billowing black cloak with a scarlet lining and a high pointed collar rather than a loose fitting stylish Italian suit and T-shirt. Sadly I shook my head at my own train of thought: I loved the movies, but if I ever tried to direct one of my own, it would be full of clichés and stereotypes. With a certain wistfulness, I had to admit that Satan’s main vocation was probably not in the field of entertainment.
You know how one thought leads to another? Before I reached the factory roof my mind, refusing to entirely abandon the idea of performing to an adoring public, offered me another set of images. Some people get huge viewing figures on the ratings not by being entertaining in themselves, but by hosting chat shows on which entertaining people guested, like Johnny Carson. In my imagination I clearly heard an announcer’s voice calling out in rising excitement “Tonight, from Studio City, it’s the Satan Show!” followed by frantic clapping and cheering as an off-camera technician held up a big card with “applaud” written on it. The image was spoiled slightly by another technician holding up another big card which read “or else!” I sighed. Even my own unconscious insisted, like the bulk of humanity, in type-casting me. Smith was right that night she first visited my apartment: I did need a good PR firm. And then I reached the factory roof.
I stood there for a moment, puzzled. There was no sign of Niblick. I had rather hoped that he would be lying down behind a bush or something, “pointing”, as they say about a hunting dog that had spotted the game. There was no sign of him. This, above all, made me seriously doubt whether I was on the right trail. Maybe Vittorio had resisted the temptation to hole-up in a similar place to his previous hideout. Maybe he was miles away. Maybe he was in the next state. Maybe I was terribly wrong and had allowed the trail to grow uselessly cold. Maybe the guttering light I had seen had been nothing more than a vagrant. There were lots of maybes. Well, I was here now, and I had invested hours of valuable time in maintaining my stakeout, so whatever, I had to check the place. In the back of my mind the absence of Niblick bothered me.
At the centre of the roof was a small group of service apexes, each of which contained a door. I chose one farthest back, since it was also farthest from the windows through which I had seen the flicker of light. At the side of the apex an extractor fan was motionless behind a secure grille: the electric power to the building had apparently been disconnected at the main box. The door was metal and locked, but offered little resistance to a seriously strong tug from me.
Immediately inside was a flight of steps leading down into even deeper darkness than was now descending outside with the sunset. This did not bother me: I could see in the infra-red and ultra-violet, which made the view as clear to me as if it had been noon with floodlights. The stairs disappeared round a corner, and as I cautiously followed them down I came to another door. Shouldering this open as quietly as I could, I stepped into the factory area. It was big and empty, not even any rubbish piled up anywhere. Nothing. The windows through which I had seen the faint light moving were dark in the far wall. I began to doubt what I thought I had seen. Perhaps it had been nothing more than the reflection of distant automobile headlamps?
Then I noticed something. Over at the side of the big empty interior, on the concrete just below the windows, something round and shiny lay on the floor. Very cautiously now, I approached. It was an old-fashioned crystal ball resting in an ornamental stand. Around it on the concrete had been drawn in chalk a small pentacle filled with occult symbols. As I drew nearer still, it began to glow, getting successively brighter with each slow step I took. When I was finally within arm’s reach of it, it was as bright as a 40 watt light bulb. Such control of astral energy was a certain tell-tale sign of a Person of Power, a Tenth Degree occultist. I stood and stared at it for several long moments, unsure exactly what it meant and why it had been left there.
Then it rang, in a trilling musical tone exactly like that of any mobile phone.
15. Me - Outsmarted...
The crystal ball was approximately half the size of an average bowling ball, and much lighter. I picked it up and gazed into it. Immediately I lifted it off its stand, the musical trilling stopped. Vittorio’s face, familiar from my pencil reconstruction, wavered into view within the glass ball.
“Hello?” queried his voice, speaking in Italian. Being who I was, I was totally fluent in every language that had ever been spoken on earth, and all those that were yet to come. “Is that il Diablo?”
“Yes,” I answered quietly. “This is the Devil speaking.”
“Ahh - bene fads.” He was saying “thank you” in Latin now. “I wondered if I could be right about you. I apologize for doubting you... Master.” His head bobbed minutely in an optimistic token of obeisance.
“I’m not your master,” I snarled into the glowing sphere, “and I never was!”
A look of puzzlement appeared on the face I could see in the crystal. “But you are the Devil,” he pondered aloud. “Everything I have done, I have done in your name. I have worshipped you, Satan, the true Lord of Creation. It is your will I carry out on earth.”
“Nuts!” I commented. “You’re as much in error as all the great, misguided fools of history.” His kind of remarks made me hot under the collar - and you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. “Yes, I’m Satan, the Devil himself. But I’m not evil. I don’t promote evil. I don’t cause evil.” With each statement, my voice rose in its pitch of anger. “I’m an Archangel, get it? I got given a job, OK? I was put in charge of lost souls, comprende? I’m not the ‘Lord of Evil’, nor am I your lord, or any lord at all. And I’m sick of people who override their conscience and twist their minds to suit their own beliefs and carry out their own brand of evil, and then turn round and blame me for all they have done! I’m tired of being the universal scapegoat! And I’m not taking it any more - do you hear what I say?”
Vittorio considered this revelation with pursed lips for a long moment. “Then,” he said at length, “if Satan is not the Lord of Evil, who is the Evil One? Who is in charge of all the evil committed on earth?”
“I can tell you his name,” I replied wearily. “It’s Homo sapiens.”
“That is a shame,” concluded Vittorio with mock sadness.
“Why?”
“Because that puts you among the good guys – that puts you among my enemies.”
“I don’t regard that as a shame,” I responded.
“Maybe not, but perhaps your friends might.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly feeling uneasy.
“Well, I thought it would be wise to take out some extra insurance when dealing with the Devil himself, even when I thought you would be on my side,” he explained. “If you are not on my side, it becomes even more necessary. Look.”
He moved his own crystal ball, which communicated with the one I held in a manner analogous to a TV camera. His head swam out of vision as he aimed his one in a new direction, wherever he was. As his ball moved, some of his surroundings came into view. I saw a wall of grey stone blocks which looked vaguely like the interior of a military bunker: it could have been anywhere from a Beverley Hills wine cellar to an English castle. Then, as the view increased its scope, I saw two other things. Two cages of iron bars. Niblick was in one, and Detective Smith was in the other.
“They are unharmed at the moment,” resumed Vittorio conversationally. “But, if you attempt to thwart my plans once again, then... well, the dog I don’t know about. I don’t know if the legendary Cerberus himself, the Guard-Dog of Hades, can be killed: but if anything can do it, these can.” He turned the crystal ball so that I could see the arrangement of all five of the Vessels of Shinar placed around the dungeon or whatever the place was. “However, there is no such doubt about the girl. She is merely mortal.” His voice took on a harsh edge. “I trust I make myself perfectly clear, il Diablo?” The image within the crystal ball vanished as though a TV set had been switched off.
For once in my existence, I felt powerless, hopeless and sick at heart. I had been out-thought and out-flanked, and by a mortal to boot. The whole business of the abandoned factory had been nothing but a very cunningly thought-out trap. Obviously, while I was wasting time in the cathedral staring at vacant windows, Vittorio had been out kidnapping Smith. I mentally kicked myself. Apart from that, I should have realized that the Vessels of Shinar would have given the black magician the perfect tool for overpowering and capturing Niblick. This man, whatever else he might be, was no fool; he had been studying the vessels and learning ever more about their powers as time went by – and through them, learning about me.
I stood in the cavernous deserted building, motionless. Mortals called it being stunned. I had no ideas. I had no clever plan. I was without hope. My mind flooded with bitterness. My heart flooded with other feelings, mainly concerning Smith. There was no use fooling myself; no use pretending to be the nonchalant High Spirit, divorced from mundane human affairs; no use pretending to be unaffected by human beings. I finally had to admit to myself, deep down in my innermost heart of hearts, that I loved her deeply and passionately. And before anyone tries to argue that this could not be, that Divine Spirits cannot fall in love in the physical plane, that Archangels are immune from such temptations, they should listen to the words that now thundered in my memory like the blows of a great hammer upon an anvil. I remembered them well, from the First Book of Enoch: “And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said one to another: Come, let us choose wives from among the children of men and beget us children.” So there was precedent for the way I felt, even though the Book of Enoch had not been included in the standard Bible due to difficulties in the editorial stage.
This, for me, was an cathartic moment. I had tried, really tried, to be a force for good. I had tried to limit my actions and not be apocalyptic. I had resisted the temptation to use the unrestricted powers of an archangel, which could change the flowing of time, level continents, raise the dead, damn the living, rewrite history, stop the planets in their orbits, make the stars fall from the skies and even put the New York Yankees at the top of the Major League.
And because of this overriding self-regulation, here I was, motionless, without an idea, without a clue, aching in my heart, hands metaphorically tied behind my back, helpless, powerless, standing like a mere shadow in the night. Slowly, another emotion began to rise up inside me – a resurgence of anger! Who did this sonofabitch think I was? His underling? His junior? Some little provincial politician who could be intimidated by his ruthlessness?
My brows darkened and lowered. My eyes began to glow, sulphurous yellow at first, then suddenly bright blazing red. I raised my head and snarled against the darkness, theatrically producing a loud peal of thunder which reverberated round the sky outside. I was Satan; the Devil himself; the Archangel Lucifer fallen from Heaven. And he was in deep shit.
The time had come to stop being a wimp. I believe the modern expression is “wos” from “waste of space”.
But first, I must use my head. That head had been on my shoulders for umpteen millennia, so should have had sufficient time to absorb the necessary cunning to out-fox mere transient mortals. There was no point rushing round like a headless chicken. I needed to be clever. In fact, diabolically clever. In fact, diabolic!
All electronic communication devices whether radios, TV, emails, even cell phones, leave traces in the ether that can be followed for a time. Crystal balls do not, not even psychic residue of the kind Niblick could track, which was obviously why Vittorio had chosen this method of contact. My most urgent priority, then, was somehow to locate Vittorio’s base, the place I had caught a meager glimpse of in the background of his image. It could have been anywhere in the world. Furthermore, if at all possible, I must accomplish this by sheer natural cunning, allowable deviousness and genuine capability, not by stepping outside my brief - as the heavenly lawyers would term it – and rewriting future history with apocalyptic powers in order to arrange a successful outcome. To be true to myself and prove History wrong as my judge, I must remain within the bounds of good character. Or at least not stray very far outside the margins. If only there had been some super-directory which listed the exact current location of every single human being alive… my thoughts suddenly exploded! There was such a directory – the only problem was accessing it.
I must make use of my assets. Vittorio, no matter how clever and powerful a magician he was, had no way of knowing the inner workings of Hell - yet, anyway. I was not just Inspector Stan A. Fericul of the LAPD: I was the director of a vast, ancient, well-oiled and mighty organization. It was time to start making use of my corporate assets. I had the seeds of a plan, and it depended on the help of friends.
16. A Hell Raising Experience...
Hell is not really underground; that image is merely a mental impression fostered by thousands of years of human psychology. Air, sky, clouds and starry space have always been associated with the abstract concept of freedom of the spirit, and so heaven came to be pictured as a series of cloudy landscapes. The opposite concept - slavery, imprisonment, punishment and lack of freedom - has always been associated with things like dungeons, caverns and the interiors of volcano systems. Consequently, Hell has usually been pictured in the collective human psyche as being a kind-of huge cavern system with cells, torture chambers, furnaces, wall-irons and the like. In fact, the actual truth was that Hell, and Heaven, were states of mind. But that is not to say that they do not exist. The mind, after all, is a real place.
(If, like certain philosophers and advertising agencies, you do not believe that the mind is a real place, you can try a simple experiment in the privacy of your own home. Place your index fingers in your ears as though you were expecting a sudden loud bang to occur. Now push very slightly. If the tips of your fingers meet, this will prove that your mind is not a real place: if, on the other hand, the fingertips cannot meet, then your mind is proven to be a real place. QED.)
There was a place like a very big and shabby hut or ramshackle warehouse made of wood and corrugated iron: it badly needed a fresh paint job. On one wall inside was a big frame of numbered pigeon holes, some containing a scattering of papers awaiting distribution. Beside this stood a couple of rather dilapidated clerical grey filing cabinets, on top of one of which was a dust-enshrouded pool tournament trophy dated 1923. On another wall was hung a big map of the world printed on shiny cloth: it was even older, and included vivid pink and yellow areas: countries like Bohemia, Bechuanaland and Persia were mentioned on it. There was a plain, stout wooden table loaded with jury-rigged electronic equipment: metal boxes, arrays of glowing valves, wires strewn like spaghetti, circuit-boards, cathode ray tubes, small round green screens and lopsided junction boxes. Amid this general electronic chaos there was a chessboard with the pieces set out in mid-game array.
Close by there was also a small green baize folding card table, around which were drawn up three old chairs of a design which school dining rooms had discarded in the 1950s. Seated on the chairs were three small demons, the biggest no more than four feet six, had he been standing. The one with his back to the electronics was wearing an immense pair of ancient Bakelite headphones from which trailed a thick, coiled wire connected to a plug in a circuit-board. He also wore a green croupier’s eyeshade peak on his forehead. All three had smoldering roll-ups dangling from the corners of their mouths: a heaped glass ashtray sat on the green baize. In front of each demon was a shot glass and a small pile of coins of various nationalities and periods of history. The demons were playing cards with single-minded concentration. A half-empty bottle of bourbon stood next to the overflowing ashtray.
“Raise you four groats,” grunted one.
“Your four groats, and a denarius of Trajan,” grated another.
“Four groats, a denarius and a Cromwellian fifty-shilling piece,” said the third with a suppressed air of triumphal superiority.
“A 1697 golden five guinea piece to see you,” said the first, smugly triumphing the other’s triumph.
The third demon slowly laid down his small fan of cards for all to see. “Four aces and a ten,” he declared defiantly, reaching out a claw towards the pile of assorted coinage. The first demon laid his claw on the other’s arm to stop him in mid-reach. Slowly he laid down his own cards, face up.
“Four aces and a king,” he announced firmly. “That beats four aces and a ten.”
“Would you Adam ‘n Eve it?” grumbled the third demon, withdrawing his outreached claw. “Wot you got, Phumble?”
“Nuffink much,” said the second demon resignedly. “Just three aces and a pair o’ sixes.
The third demon gathered up the cards, squared up the pack and dropped them in front of the first. “Your deal, Phungus.”
The first demon, Phungus, picked up the cards and was about to start dealing when I suddenly opened the door to the big shed-like room and hurriedly burst in. The playing cards flew into the air in a cardboard shower as the three demons reacted in a knee-jerk panic. The card table tipped over against the pigeon holes. In a flustered race to be first, the three leaped together in a row, snapped to attitudes of attention, clicked their heel claws and saluted. “Hi, Boss,” said the first demon with a sickly smile, as might be worn by an optimistic child caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “It’s our tea-break.” Without lowering his gaze, he scuffed a few playing cards behind him with his foot.
“Yeah, that’s good -“ agreed Phungus, “er, I mean, yeah that’s right Guv, tea-break, innit?”
“We was jus’ finishing, Guv,” nodded Phumble, “’onnist we was.”
There was a sudden unexpected buzzing sound from the electronics table. The first demon glanced nervously behind him from the corners of his eyes and hastily removed the huge set of 1930 padded earphones from his head, trying to hide them nonchalantly behind his back.
“What’s that noise?” I demanded, momentarily sidetracked from my main purpose.
“Er - nuffink really Guv - it’s a buzzer,” replied the earphone demon, trying not to break out into a guilty sweat.
“I know it’s a buzzer, Phixit, it’s buzzing,” I spoke very quietly and slowly, “but why is the buzzer buzzing? And it would be very wise to keep it short and factual.”
Phixit sagged visibly, resigned to being on the carpet. The two demons on either side of him tried to ooze dutiful disdain and pretend they weren’t in the same line-up. “Well, Guv, it’s me chess game, see?”
“Not quite...” I admitted, fixing him with a stare and a raised eyebrow.
“I’m playing a game of chess, see?” He gestured at the board on the table. “We each make a few moves every day - only during tea-breaks, of course - and we do it over the communication system. I made a move about two hours ago - er, that was during a different tea-break - and the buzzer means that my opponent has got a move ready to tell me, see? Some humans do it like this through letters in the post, don’t they Guv? We do it over the old transmitter, that’s all.”
I frowned. My business was very urgent, but I was intrigued and thinking both fast and ahead as much as possible. “Phixit, who are you playing chess with?”
“He plays white,” jabbered Phixit, showing symptoms of panic. “My last move was a beauty, Guv. I moved king’s bishop to call check, and I think his only response will be to move his queen to block, and then I can take his queen... "
“Phixit, who are you playing chess with, that it needs to be done over a long-range transmitter?”
“...And then I can move my rook and get checkmate in seven moves...”
“Phixit, who are you playing chess with?” My voice had sunk to a menacing growl.
Phixit clasped his hands behind his back and stared at his feet. He mumbled something.
“I can’t hear you,” I stated, with a voice in which patience was standing on the edge of a cliff.
“Barchiel,” he repeated sullenly, still staring at the floor.
“Barchiel? Barchiel is an angel, Phixit,” I said, in a dangerously reasonable tone.
“Yus Guv,” agreed Phixit.
“He lives in Heaven, Phixit,” I labored the point.
“Yus Guv.”
“You, Phixit, are a demon.”
“Yus Guv.”
“You live in Hell, Phixit.”
“Yus Guv.”
“Then how, in the name of all that’s profane, did you ever manage to make friends with an angel?”
Phixit looked up at me in a kind-of sidelong way and gave a lopsided smile. “We’re pen-pals?” he offered.
I couldn’t keep up the drill-sergeant act any longer. Phixit knew me a little too well, I think. I just burst out laughing. Phungus and Phumble breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “Just speak to him and get his move,” I said, in a much more relaxed manner. “Then we’ve got some extremely important work to get organized.”
You may wonder that I was acting as though there was now all the time in the world, but in fact, there was. I had left the material plane behind me and re-entered the astral realms, where Heaven and Hell were located (along with the Happy Hunting Ground, the Dreamtime, Oz, Middle Earth and many other less traveled spiritual refuges). In this non-physical series of dimensions, time as human beings know it does not exist. For example, the entire sequence of events and conversations transpiring since I had burst through the door of Phixit’s tracking outpost and interrupted a very suspect poker game containing more aces than a professional tennis tournament, had so far occupied less real time than it took for an electron to complete one orbit of the nucleus of an atom. As I said just now, I was starting to use my head along with the assets of my long-established infernal organization. Phixit adjusted the pieces on the chessboard and removed his earphones, thereby signifying that I had his undivided attention.
“OK guys,” I addressed the three of them. “We got stuff to do - big stuff. Friends of mine are in trouble, including Niblick, and we’re going to do something about it.” Niblick was a favorite of the demons throughout Hell, except for the ones who had been taken for walkies.
“Right Guv,” snapped Phixit, alert and suddenly authoritative. “What’s the plan?”
“First, we’ve got to alert everyone. We need to grab the whole of Hell’s attention and stir up Heaven into confusion.”
“Not... Guv, you don’t mean...?”
“I’m afraid so.” My tone was serious and commanding. “Phixit, sound the Apocalypse Alert!”
Phixit visibly stiffened; he swallowed and took a deep breath. Like a lieutenant who had been given an unwelcome order by a general, he snapped to attention, turned on his heel and marched five or six paces with military arm-swinging until he stood before a small red box mounted on the wall. It had a pane of glass on the front, on which was printed in red: “In Case of Universal Armageddon, Break Glass. Penalty for Improper Use.” Dangling from it by a piece of string was a small hammer with a head like a metal golf-ball. Phixit grasped the hammer in his finger and thumb and smashed the glass with a brisk hard tap. Inside the box was a red pushbutton. Phixit paused with his thumb on the button and glanced round at me; I nodded. He pressed the button.
Of course, there is an exactly appropriate expression to describe what happened next.
All Hell broke loose.
From outside came the sound of a loud siren rising and falling, and a swiftly rising hubbub of voices. Followed by the trio of demons, I headed for the door of the radio-hut. Outside was parked my car – the automatic gear-shift marked HAB, “Hell and Back”, had come in handy. In the middle distance, as if in a truly gigantic cavern, there was a city, looking for the most part something like a cross between one of the Native American Pueblo towns and an archaeological reconstruction of ancient Babylon, with dashes of Planet of the Apes and the seamier part of Brooklyn thrown in for good measure. There was traffic, but it had come to a standstill with the wailing of the sirens. Demons of all shapes and sizes began pouring out of the offices and apartments in long queues for as far as the eye could see, which was a considerable distance because Phixit’s hut was on a hilltop outside the city perimeter, making it a good vantage point. Other demons with round white helmets and batons were assuming point-duty to direct the queues in an orderly fashion to their nearest A-shelter. “A” in this instance, of course, standing for “apocalypse”. On the white helmets of the nearest police-demons could be discerned the printed black letters ARP - “Apocalypse Raid Precaution”.
Phixit took a deep breath. “We’ve really started something, Boss.”
“Good,” I stated emphatically. “I wanted just that.”
Suddenly I became aware of a demon riding a fast motorcycle approaching with a roar of finely-tuned engine. He skidded to a halt just in front of us sending out a small tidal wave of dirt, saluted without dismounting and held out to me a small, long package. I took it and signed for it on the clipboard he produced. The messenger gunned his machine and roared away. “What’s that, Guv?” asked Phumble, curiously.
“I believe it’s the candlestick, the first sign of the Apocalypse,” I replied absently, watching the scene below and before us.
“Candlestick? What candlestick?”
“It’s mentioned in the Manual,” I informed absently. “Revelation, chapter 2, verse 5, describing the very beginning of the Apocalypse - .... and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place...’ So, at the start of any apocalypse alert, we always bring our candlestick to a place of safety as a matter of urgency. It’s a tradition.”
“A candlestick...?” repeated Phumble, as if to ensure that we were talking about the same thing.
“Yes,” I snapped. “I know it’s not logical, but you can’t argue with tradition. Especially when it’s written in the Manual.”
Before Phumble could make any further comment, there was a sound of a rather loud trumpet from within Phixit’s radio hut, blowing a regular fanfare. Phixit quickly went back inside, emerging a few moments later. “You’re wanted on the hot-line, Boss.”
I was expecting this. I went inside and strode over to a small shelf where a bright red telephone sat and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hello? Who is that?”
“This is Satan speaking.”
“Oh, hi Sate. This is Seal Control in Heaven.”
“Is that you, Sepherial?”
“In the flesh - or at least, in the spirit, you know how it is, ha ha.”
“Sure pal. Long time no see. How’s tricks?”
“Oh, so-so. Listen, did you just push the button on an apocalypse alert?”
“‘Fraid so, Seph. It’s only a practice drill, not the real thing.”
“Thank fuck for that! Er... I mean, Praise Be!”
“Yeah, only I thought, we haven’t had a drill for a long time, and we all might be getting a bit rusty.”
“Good thinking, Sate. It has been a long time since the last one. Say, when was the last apocalypse alert, anyway?”
“During the early 60s - the Cuban missile crisis, remember?”
“Ah yes, the good old days; Peace Man, Flower Power, Make Love Not War and all that. Whatever happened to the Hippies?”
“They grew old and bald and got trampled in the stampede of later generations running to get rich and genetically altering the flowers.”
“Sad. Anyhow, so I can tell Razadiel not to open any of the Seven Seals this time?”
“Just ask him to open the last one, the Seventh, on its own. Just to make the practice look good. We want everything to look a bit authentic, don’t we? Tell him not to bother with the first six.”
“OK chum, thanks. Catch you later. Oh, by the way, I got a message here for your man Phixit. Tell him, Barchiel says queen’s bishop to queen’s bishop 4 and check. See you.” And with a click the line went dead. Phixit had followed me in and I gave him the message. Quietly he went to his chess board and picked up the white bishop. Before repositioning it, he jiggled the piece in his hand a few times, deep in thought. Then, with a decisive movement, he banged it onto the chequered board and turned to face me.
“Boss, something’s up, isn’t it? Something’s really bugging you.” I stared into his green eyes, seeing the genuine concern behind them. “Come on, Boss,” he went on in a gentle tone. “I’ve worked for you for a long time, and I know you too well. Level with Uncle Phixit, eh?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “Something is up. I’m angry, frustrated, mentally tired, anguished, screwed-up, homicidal, suicidal, overwrought, off-balance, desperate, riddled with anxiety, depressed, liverish, dim-witted, dull, maniacal, emotional, self-critical, traumatized, aggressive, irrational, unreasonable, stressed, pressurized and angst-ridden. In fact, I have become almost completely human.”
“But...” Phixit grinned at me; he knew me very well. He knew there must be a “but”.
“But: I have a plan, of sorts.”
“And that’s what this is all about, is it?” said the demon, in a terribly level and sensible tone of voice. “You’ve ordered an apocalypse alert, bringing the entire normal workings of Hell to an instant standstill, placing Heaven on standby, recalling all demons and angels to their assigned duty positions, no matter what important work they may have been engaged in, just because you have a personal axe to grind?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
Phixit’s grin broadened even further. A glint appeared in his eye. “That’s the old Lucifer we all know and love!” He paused, considering. “What happens next?”
I grew reflective. “People who didn’t like me once called me ‘The Arch Deceiver’. Very unfair, I always thought. However, with any luck, I’m about to pull-off an Arch Deception!” I raised my gaze to the vaguely cave-like roof miles above, indistinct with distance and billows of slowly rolling dark mist.
17. Heaven Can't Wait...
Not exactly ‘up’, or ‘above’, for such dimensional directions are purely physical and the mythic creations of generations of human thought and belief have nothing to do with the limitations of physical attributes, but simply ‘elsewhere’, there was Another Place. It was white and bright and light, ornamented with fluffy white clouds and tasteful buildings seemingly of whitest marble and trimmings of pure shining gold. The citizens of this Place sported iridescent wings and tended to wear flowing white robes. The gentle music of harps played in the background. My idea of heaven would be a tropical beach where waves of crystal clear water lapped the sand and beautiful tanned maidens wearing sarongs served fruit and cocktails while the palm trees waved gently in the background. However, I had been outvoted at the committee stage.
Actually, there were many heavens; each strong belief ever held by mankind had gained morphic reality in the spiritual realms and existed in harmony side-by-side with each other like parallel universes in quantum theory. But this was the one we were interested in. This was the one that could help us - if my plan worked, and if my friends could succeed in playing their part.
The translucent white streets and thoroughfares were thronged with hosts of angels going about their heavenly business. The whole place was reminiscent of a vast series of crowded shopping malls with decor by the Disney Studios. In the remote distance could just be seen the sparkling outline of huge pearly gates: there seemed to be a long queue outside. Inside, two smallish angels flew with slow grace along a cloudy avenue past buildings which looked as though the DNA of some Ivy League university campus had become mixed with that of Beverly Hills then rebuilt in alabaster. The two angels minded their own business, and nobody gave them a second look.
Which was just as well.
The hoods of their white billowing robes were pulled over their heads and close around their faces. Their beating wings, protruding from tailored holes cut in the back, were a blur in the air. Some ten feet above what would have been the ground if it hadn’t been spiritual, they skimmed side by side in the general direction of a distant mighty edifice of gold, pearl, rainbow and dazzling sculptured light which gleamed on the far side of the Celestial City on what would have been a hilltop except it was another cloud. No matter the nationality, in any city a building of that nature, big and raised and with more of everything than anywhere else, was obviously some kind of administrative capital. And as the two rather small angels passed along the heavenly thoroughfares towards it, they conversed together to pass the time.
“I strongly think that the associational psychology of Joseph Priestly, as gradually made concrete in his eighteenth century books The Scripture Doctrine of Remission and The History of Electricity, benefited enormously from the approval of Charles Darwin, which in turn espoused it to John Stuart Mill.”
“I concur, but it must be born in mind that this line of thought, together with the favor Darwin bestowed upon it, also encouraged Herbert Spencer - who although originally a railway engineer went on to become sub-editor of The Economist in 1848 - to widen the scope of that school of thought into the Doctrine of Evolution, which may have helped crystallize his views towards his book Man versus the State, which although pre-dating Carl Marx’s Das Capital, served in a real way to attack the foundations of Communism even as they were being laid down.”
I’ll give you three guesses who the two “angels” really were; and all three guesses would be right. Pharter and Phukkit were on a mission. They were not exactly in enemy territory, bearing in mind the forgiving nature of the place where they were, but none the less there were certain dangers attached should they be discovered. Be honest with yourself - if you had enjoyed playing a few hands of poker during every tea-break for several thousand years, would you relish the idea of spending eternity in a place where any form of gambling was forbidden? It is a fairly well known fact that demons are, in origin, fallen angels; it is less well known that more than a few of them resigned of their own accord out of sheer boredom.
Fortunately, although everything moved at a terribly sedate and dignified pace all around, Heaven was actually in a turmoil - by its own standards. Normally, hardly any movement at all could be discerned amongst the inhabitants: why bother to rush, or even to move, when you had all of eternity stretching before you? But at the moment there was an apocalypse alert, and this had put the metaphorical cat amongst the heavenly pigeons. Most importantly, it created a certain amount of coming and going amongst the angels, which provided the demonic duo with a useful amount of cover for their own movements.
Naturally, within Heaven itself there were no such things as guards, lookouts, patrols, sentries or anything of that nature. However, all it would take would be one angel noticing something not quite kosher about the pair of disguised demons to raise a hue and cry. You can’t really fly on tiptoe but if you try to imagine it you will get an idea of how they were proceeding. Not far away now was the great, imposing gold and crystal door of the administration building, the Headquarters of Heaven. This, incidentally, was the building in which was located the boardroom from which, eons ago, I had been fired for refusing to bow down before the New Product, Adam.
As bold as brass, Pharter and Phukkit flew through the imposing vestibule inside the enormous doorway which was big enough to admit four 747s holding hands, the vestibule bigger than Central Park. Inside, there were beautiful fountains, cloudy sculptures and pillars of light. This was perfect cover for two demons disguised in white robes who needed a place to hide for a moment in order to confer about mystical esoteric matters, such as which way should they go now?
“Let’s ‘ave another butchers at that bleedin’ map before you get us any more lost than we already are,” grumbled Pharter.
“‘Lost’ is an absolute term,” pointed out Phukkit. “You can’t be more lost, or less lost, any more than you can be more found or less found.”
“Look, when I want a lecture on popular semantics, I’ll ask for it, OK?” growled Pharter out of the corner of his mouth as he perused the scroll of map his companion had pulled out of a deep pouch in his robe.
“It ain't semantics, it’s grammar,” grunted Phukkit, squinting at the parchment over his friend’s shoulder. “Anyhow, hark who’s blaming me for getting us lost: ‘Turn right at that cloud and then we go left at the second pillar of light’, you said."
“All right, all right, keep yer horns on,” answered Pharter absently, experimentally holding the map upside down and frowning at it. He looked up and checked the local landmarks. He pointed. “That way.”
“Are you sure?” asked his friend doubtfully.
“Positive. Look at the map - under the crystal dome, past the Fountains of Paradise, turn left at the Pavement of Perfection, straight down the Avenue of the Archangels, up the Stairs of the Saints, across the Square of Eternal Light, turn right at McDonalds, then next left.”
“OK. Let’s go for it.”
Stuffing the parchment map deep into its pouch, they took to the air again and drifted along the prescribed route. Eventually they reached their chosen destination.
“See?” hissed Pharter triumphantly. “I told you so. Look at that.”
What he was pointing at was a large sign in gold lettering on a polished marble lintel over a broad flight of stone steps leading to the entrance of a splendid building. Of course, all the buildings were splendid and it would be further bad grammar to describe one as being more splendid, since the word ‘splendid’ is another absolute, like ‘lost’ and ‘found’. However, this was Heaven, and this building was very extremely much more splendid than even a grammatical one. The sign above the imposing entrance read: “The Seventh House”.
“Hey,” remarked Pharter as they paused briefly before the great edifice . “That’s Aquarius, ain’t it?”
“Wot is?” replied Phukkit in a slightly baffled tone.
“The Seventh House. Remember that musical we went to see all them years ago, back in the sixties, Hair? Remember that great song...” he began to sing, rocking and snapping his fingers; “When the Moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace shall rule the planets, and lo... ove shall steer the stars. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Age of Gmuumphtd!” His happy song ended abruptly as Phukkit’s hand clamped suddenly and firmly over his mouth.
“Shoosh!” he hissed in a stage whisper, looking about hastily from within the depths of his hood. “You want us to get our collars felt?”
Pharter twisted his mouth free from the clamping hand. “Fer cryin’ aht loud, I’m only being ‘appy, ain’t I? This is ‘Eaven, ain’t it? People is supposed to be ‘appy in ‘Eaven.”
“For your Hinformation, people Hain’t Happy in Heaven.” Phukkit emphasized his aitches to increase his moral distance from his friend’s remark. “People are blissful in Heaven. They’re not happy. Happy is what you are boozing in a pub; at a football match wiv yer mates; when you’re beating the crap out of someone you don’t like; when you realize the shop gave you too much change; when you’re havin’ a good nosh-up of fish n’ chips; in your girlfriend’s bedroom; when you find a fetish magazine in your boss’s drawer; when you find your boss’s drawers in a fetish magazine: that’s happy. Nobody’s happy in Heaven. They’re blissful. They’re two different fings. There’s no place for happy in Heaven – it ain’t dignified.”
“Sorry,” grunted his friend, slightly abashed. “Well, why is it called the Seventh House then?”
“Because,” explained Phukkit with greatly exaggerated patience, “it is the place where they keep the Seventh Seal. That’s what we’re after, innit?”
“Oh yer,” said Pharter brightly as though he had just woken up.
Phukkit looked around again to make sure nobody was watching. “Come on mate, in we go. Stay sharp. And make sure your body language don’t say ‘happy’.”
The two white-robed figures floated through the vast archway, shoulders slightly slouched, heads bowed, hands clasped in front of them. Their body language might have been trying to say “blissful”; it certainly wasn’t saying “happy”.
After drifting down many vaulted and cavernous halls, where beams of lustrous light criss-crossed and made the air radiant, they reached the Great Auditorium. This most resembled a Pope’s idea of the United Nations General Assembly room, inasmuch as there was a central dais surrounded by banked tiers of crystal stages rising in ever-higher terraces towards the walls which were golden-hued and misty with distance. The place was becoming packed with a shimmering white multitude of angels. The two disguised demons paused briefly in the great entrance to this enormous chamber.
“What’s the collective noun for a lot of angels?” asked Phukkit musingly.
“A choir of angels, I fink,” ventured Pharter in a whisper, awed by the sight before them.
“But they ain’t singing,” observed Phukkit reasonably. “Is it still a choir if the angels ain’t singing?”
“It’s a siege of heron,” reflected Pharter, “and an exaltation of skylarks, and a parliament of crows, and of course everyone’s heard of a gaggle of geese.”
“An’ you can have a pod of whales and elephants.”
“I know!” said Pharter brightly, suddenly making it up, “It’s a pinhead of angels.”
“A pinhead...?”
“Yeah. You know, like that geezer in olden days wot tried to work out how many angels could dance on a pin’s head, see? Hence, a pinhead of angels.”
“You just made that up,” said Phukkit doubtfully.
“Did not!”
“Did!”
“Shurrup! We’ve got work to do. Everything depends on us being in exactly the right place at precisely the right time.”
“Come on then”, agreed Phukkit. “Let’s join the... pinhead.”
“See?”
“Just ‘cos I borrow the term for convenience, it don’t prove anythin’”
“Shurrup!”
The two of them floated into the massive auditorium and merged with the multitude of angels who were settling there like white doves in a dovecote, or from the demon’s point of view, like seagulls in a Hitchcock movie. On the dais at the centre, a solemn angel with a rather gaunt face stood facing an ornate golden lectern bearing a huge brass-hinged leather-bound book. Carefully, inconspicuously, the two demons edged their way forward towards the centre, as near as possible to the dais, as though looking for a pair of empty seats. Suddenly, as they arrived at the very edge of the raised platform, an intense ray of light blazed down from some point above indistinct in the fluorescent high mist. It was like a stage spotlight on the dour angel standing at the lectern. An unseen trumpet sounded a brief fanfare.
“Bingo!” whispered Phukkit. “Perfect timing. Ready?”
“Ready,” came Pharter’s answering whisper.
On the dais, the somber angel gripped the great book with one hand and produced a huge golden key with the other. On the cover of the book was a large, elaborate golden seal with a keyhole in it.
“I am about to open the Seventh Seal,” he announced theatrically.
“Get on with it Razadiel,” came an irritated cry from somewhere in the throng, “it’s only a practice alert, not the real thing.” There was a restrained murmur of agreement from a multitude of bored watchers.
Razadiel glowered at his audience and thrust the key in the lock. He opened the great book of the Seventh Seal. There was a brief flash of light. He closed the book again and locked it. “Right. Now we can all get on with what we were doing before the alert was sounded.”
Nearby, Pharter and Phukkit faded quietly into the midst of the departing throng. Unobserved, Pharter raised his right arm and glanced down the voluminous sleeve at his hand. The camera it held was making a gentle buzzing noise as it slowly ejected the developing photograph.
(END OF PART ONE – CONTINUED IN PART TWO)
RAISING THE DEVIL (PART TWO)
18. In Enemy Territory...
As explained earlier, it is important to recall that the spiritual planes run according to a different time-frequency than the physical universe. You may also recall the threats Vittorio had made to me through the crystal ball, showing me that he had captured Smith and Niblick and was holding them in cages as insurance against my good behavior. Well, as Pharter and Phukkit scuttled warily over a deserted back wall of Heaven and began the long return to the slightly warmer climes they were more familiar with, only five seconds had passed in the mortal world since the crystal ball had gone dark.
I was waiting inside Phixit’s radio shack trying to look like the calm, aloof and saturnine Lord of Hell and actually looking like an expectant father pacing up and down smoking in a maternity hospital waiting room. You may think it strange or out-of-character, but I don’t actually smoke - combustible products, that is. Bits of me occasionally smoke, especially when I am angry, nervous or worried. The interior of Phixit’s shack had grown decidedly foggy.
Pharter and Phukkit burst suddenly through the somewhat rickety door, an air of suppressed triumph in their demeanor. Pharter gleefully waved a small square of card as though it bore the solution to Fermat’s last theorem.
“Boss, we got it! We got it!” He was so excited there were almost tears in his eyes, although he would deny it for many centuries. Almost gingerly, I took the piece of card from him: my own hand shook. If this gamble had not worked like I hoped it would, I would have lost… well, everything. Phixit looked over my elbow curiously; he was too short to look over my shoulder without flying. The piece of card was a photograph from an instant camera.
“The camera is a special one,” I breathed to Phixit as I examined the picture. “Mortals sometimes use them for taking what they are pleased to call ‘auragraphs’ -photographs of the human aura. Amongst other things, the film itself has to carry an electrostatic charge when it is exposed.”
“Like Kirlian photography?” queried Phixit with interest.
“That’s it,” I agreed. “Such equipment can photograph spiritual actualities, where an ordinary camera cannot. In fact, as a matter of interest, although it’s a well known fact that vampires don’t show in photographs, like they don’t in mirrors, this kind of camera will catch them in every detail, whether or not they’re saying ‘cheese’. However, here we have something far more vital to our purposes.”
“What’s that, Boss?” asked Phixit.
I showed him the picture. “An astral photo of the Seventh Seal, opened.” Phixit gave a low whistle and gazed at Pharter and Phukkit with greater respect.
“And, as we all know, the Seventh Seal, which is opened only during the Apocalypse or an apocalypse alert, contains details of the exact current whereabouts of every single soul on earth, the idea being that nobody can escape the Day of Judgment by hiding out in the middle of a jungle or in a nuclear sub under the North Pole, or in the central chamber of a pyramid.”
“Every single soul... ?“ began Phixit, then understood.
“Exactly,” I answered his unspoken realization. “It’s the perfect way to find out where someone is, no matter how cleverly they may have hidden themselves. In fact, if you need to pinpoint a tenth grade black magician, who might be anywhere in the whole world and has hiding abilities aided by a twisted mind and you need to do this in mere minutes, it’s the only way.”
We all stared at the small photograph I was holding in my fingers. Pharter gasped in reluctant admiration. “They even list them in alphabetical order,” he breathed. “It’s the ultimate directory."
We scanned down the impossibly long list of names; after all, there were now officially over six billion human beings alive on earth. It is a boggling thought that this list inside the book of the Seventh Seal is updated for births, deaths and movements from room to room every thirty seconds. Only Heaven could do this. Only Heaven would want to. Such a gigantic list could only be recorded in a spiritual medium, not in a physical one, which is why it needed an auragraph camera to snap it in its entirety. The information was not shown in printed words but in intra-dimensional thought-forms. We skipped over immense sections of the population whose names began with letters of the alphabet we were not interested in. Soon we came to the initials we wanted - S for Smith and V for Vittorio. There was a short nonplussed silence.
“We got big problems, Boss,” said Phukkit, his eyes widening.
“We sure have,” agreed Pharter.
Smith and Vittorio were both listed. They were inside the Vatican, in the black museum vaults.
It was obvious in retrospect. Vittorio had evidently once been curator of the place; it was probably like a second home to him: he would know every nook and cranny intimately, plus ways to get in and out. It was, in effect, his secret little kingdom. The perfect place to use as an ultimate HQ. There were certain occult techniques available to an Ipsissimus, a Master of the Tenth Degree, which would enable them to transport themselves and their entourage in a few moments across the world, from California to Rome. I was still guilty of severely underestimating my enemy. I had discovered his hiding place. And I was powerless to do anything about it!
“This above all - to thine own self be true.” This might possibly be the best piece of advice ever given to the human species; but, if you looked at it from the opposite direction, it could also be viewed as a trap, if the interpretation is that nobody can escape from the limitations of their own nature. It applied equally to organizations as well as to individuals. For example, the IRS would never say “Well, it’s only a few hundred dollars, we’ll let you off this time.” And it also applied to spiritual realities.
What I’m getting at is this. The entity called Satan - me - is a specific part of widespread human belief. This means that I have to abide by the rules of my nature. By “nature”, I don’t mean my personality, I mean the very forces which created me. Just like a mortal’s nature is Human Nature, so mine is, in effect, Spiritual Nature, if you follow my drift. And I cannot transgress the bounds of my own creation, any more than a mortal human can become a rabbit or tiger at will.
In short, what this all means is quite simple and fairly logical - if you have a degree in theology. It means that Satan cannot set foot inside the Vatican. Any human being can, but not Satan, nor any entity whose address on the electoral register happens to be Hell. Vittorio, although evil, was a mortal human, and therefore this restriction did not apply to him. Niblick was in origin not a creature of Hell but of Greek mythology, being Cerberus the hound who guarded the Underworld. I had merely adopted him a few thousand years ago, because my heart ached when I heard the whining from outside the gates of Hell when the lights were turned off for the night. This meant that he could be taken into the Vatican, as Vittorio had obviously done...
And then, prompted by this frantic musing, I began to think more constructively. It was a slender chance, and a dangerous one for me, but it seemed like the only possibility.
“Niblick!” I cried. “There’s a clue there.”
“How do you mean, Boss?” enquired Pharter, puzzled.
“Don’t you see - if Niblick can survive in the Vatican, even as a prisoner, then perhaps so could I.”
“What?” exclaimed a chorus comprising of Pharter, Phukkit and Phixit.
“Boss,” went on Pharter. “You know as well as I do that if you step over the boundary line that marks the border of the Vatican City, you will loose all your spiritual powers, all your abilities - everything.”
“Yes - but at least I won’t be destroyed - I think.”
“You think, Boss? Is that enough to go on?” There was genuine concern in the little demon’s eyes.
“Look,” I tried to sound far more confident than I felt. “We have that slender piece of information, which I nearly missed the significance of. Niblick is alive and well, even if caged, inside the Vatican.”
“Yes,” argued Pharter doubtfully, “but you and him come from different ethnic backgrounds. You’re biblical, he’s ancient Greek myth. What works for him might not work for you.”
I looked him squarely in the eyes. “My old friend, that’s a chance I must take. There’s no other way. As they say in the movies, if anyone’s got a better plan, now’s the time to hear it.”
I headed for my parked car. Pharter and Phukkit trotted behind me. I held up a hand. “Sorry, boys; this time I’m on my own.”
The last thing I heard before igniting the engine was Pharter grumbling to the others. “It’s like Superman going to the Kryptonite museum!”
There’s nothing like a comforting thought when you need it.
My car got me back to the real-time material world in little more than an instant. My steering during that instant was pretty cool - I emerged not in California, but in Rome. I don’t know whether you have ever been to Rome, but there’s just nowhere to park anywhere near St. Peter's Square, unless you happen to be in the armored Pope-mobile which, in these uncertain times, is considered necessary to protect the earthly representative of eternal life from sudden death. So, to park, I took advantage of my abilities while I still possessed them and turned the steering wheel through an N dimensional U-turn, folding the front into the back and effectively making the vehicle disappear. Only I could find it again, if I needed it - and if I was still around! To comfort my conscience, I put a coin in the nearest parking meter, giving somebody else an extra hour.
I was about to undertake the single most dangerous act I had ever attempted, without a safety net. I was going to walk into the Vatican City, the world’s smallest independent state. It was extremely risky, because it was unprecedented and therefore unpredictable. I had never done anything like this before, throughout a long history, and I had no way of knowing what the results would be. Despite the cover of confidence I had put on for the sake of the demons, for all I knew I would cease to exist the instant I stepped over the border of the Papal country, flashing into a pillar of fire like a movie vampire passing a sun-ray lamp. After all, although I was a creation and operative of the same creator they believed in, that was not by-and-large how they saw me. One of the prime purposes of the Vatican for its entire existence has been to combat Satan, and that kind of fervent fanaticism, no matter the particular religion, always created a dangerously powerful collective thought-form, like a spiritual black hole for people like me.
But I could not afford the luxury of dwelling on this, or of taking my leisure about approaching the life-or-death test, because those I loved were in peril and needed saving. As I strode purposefully towards the great Catholic complex through avenues thronged with happy tourists, I smiled grimly to myself at the irony of it all. Here was Satan, trying to be a savior, rescuing souls from the Vatican. If I succeeded, they would have to add a sequel to the Bible!
From my parking place I had walked to the Viale Vaticano, the road which runs outside most of the Vatican City’s walls except in the east where it becomes the Via di Portia Angelica that runs down to the Plazza San Pietro, Saint Peter’s Square. I was north of the complex and found myself near the public entrance to the Musei del Vaticano, the vast and incomparable Vatican Museum. If I entered here I knew that, providing I could find an unguarded exit at the southern end of the museum where it adjoined the Sistine Chapel, I might be able to make my way west along the Via del Governatorato which skirts the rear of St. Peter’s Basilica, the world’s largest Catholic church, and leads to the Governatorato itself, which is essentially a large administrative office block housed within a Renaissance building. From the basements of the Governatorato, according to legend, a modern passage led beneath the Viale dell’ Osservatorio and ran back underground in the direction of the Basilica, beneath which lay hidden the Scavi, or Vatican Necropolis, rediscovered during archaeological excavations in the 1940s. This place is nothing less than a veritable underground network of tunnels and vaults which include the third century Tomb of the Julii and a necropolis, or burial place, dating back to the time of the Roman emperors. Also, from the same office basement, there was an equally ancient and very secret set of underground passages leading down to the mythical Vatican Black Museum. Or so generations of fleetingly whispered rumors had it.
Outside the public entrance there was a queue of visitors from all parts of the world. I suppose one could hardly call them “tourists”, even though they looked like it: they were pilgrims; for most of them, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Come to that, so it was for me. Four members of the Swiss Guard - the Pope’s small traditional private army looking something like a Harlequin version of the Beefeaters of the Tower of London with bigger pantaloons - stood to attention either side of the open doors. Slowly, the queue was wending its way inside.
However, before I could follow, I had to cross the boundary and I was approaching the invisible line of demarcation, alone and on foot. Tourists and pilgrims stepped over it without a second glance: to mortals, the border was nothing but an unseen political device separating a big country from a little one within it: no more than a curiosity for the average person.
So, as I drew relentlessly nearer to the entrance, I had no idea what would happen to me as I committed the act of crossing its threshold. I tried to walk with bold strides, resisting the impulse to cringe, to shorten my steps, to give up and run. I broke into a cold sweat. This was unusual for someone very used to heat. For a few seconds, I whimpered mentally. My right foot rose, seeming to me as though it were all in slow motion. It swung forward, to the step - over it - down - onto the building’s polished floor. The rest of me followed it, and then, suddenly....
Nothing!
Nothing happened. Except that I continued walking, safe, unfrizzled, un-pillar-of-ashed. I followed the end of the queue of visitors, feeling suddenly elated and somewhat light headed. I had survived. I breathed a huge sigh of pure relief, which my throat and mouth modulated unconsciously into the words I was thinking. “I’m alive!” came my gasp.
The American tourists - sorry, pilgrims - immediately in front of me in the queue turned to face me, smiling beatifically. The wife was blue-rinsed and wore spectacles with pointed pink rims. “Gee, honey, we know how you feel, don’t we George?”
“Sure do,” drawled George, absently easing some of his camera straps. He made a fist and thumped his heart lightly. “Kinda gets you right here, doesn’t it?”
“We’re the Johnsons from Baltimore,” supplied his wife, still beaming.
“I’m the.... from....” I tweaked a silly grin, “Hi.”
The queue wound its way into the ornately appointed renaissance building, not slowly like a theatre queue, but still too slow for me. All the time, the friendly Johnsons kept up a sporadic covering fire of polite conversation.
Within the stately museum foyer, we found we were part of a group of about thirty visitors under the supervision of an official tour guide with an ID card and photograph hanging on his lapel. We wended our way past some of the world’s very greatest art treasures.
“Gee,” remarked Mrs. Johnson in awe. “This is even more than I expected.”
“Sure is,” agreed her spouse. He tapped my arm, pointing through a large window. “That’s St. Peter's Basilica, the mother church for all the world’s Catholics.”
“I know,” I said, deciding not to mention that I knew its founder personally.
“I wonder how long the Popes have lived here?” speculated Mrs. Johnson. She managed to make it sound like she was talking about a family in Baltimore.
“Since the fifth century,” I replied absently, trying to form plans in my head, “except between 1309 and 1378 when the Papacy was based in Avignon in France.”
“You don’t say?” responded Mr. Johnson warily.
“And for all that time, the Vatican has been a separate state, an independent country, a bastion against the evils of the world,” enthused Mrs. Johnson with a happy sigh.
“Er - not exactly,” I advised. “It was only granted a status independent from Italy in 1929, and it contains its own torture chambers, no longer used of course.”
“Oh, really?” said Mrs. Johnson, also growing slightly wary, as some mortals do in the presence of someone who knows more than they do about their chosen subject. “You mean it took them until then before some enlightened, liberated politician saw the Path of Righteousness and gave them the freedom of independence?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“Who was that enlightened man?”
“Benito Mussolini.”
There was a silence like disinfectant.
“He negotiated the Lateran Treaty, offering the Vatican independence if it recognized the Kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy,” I added.
There is a human knack, extremely prominent amongst middle-classes the world over, of being able to ignore anything which does not tally with one’s own world-view. Karl Marx mentioned it in a diatribe against the petty bourgeois in Das Capital. The Johnsons were experts. One of the secrets of this ability is continuing to talk as though nothing had happened, the conversational equivalent of someone in evening dress who passes a sprawled down-and-out drunkard in a street and immediately walks on, instinctively not even looking at them or acknowledging their existence.
“And it’s so peaceful,” Mrs. Johnson trilled, looking round appreciatively. “No hurley-burley, no hustle and bustle; nobody rushing to get to the office. A complete break from Mammon and from commuting to work just to earn money. No TV or radio to pollute the mind. No blazing newspaper headlines. No police sirens wailing in the distance. Just divine peace”
“Actually,” I contributed, “the Vatican has its own railway station, and its own broadcasting station, and although it uses the Italian lira, it has its own coinage. It also has its own newspaper, and even its own police.”
What I said was true, but it did not fit with what the Johnsons wanted to know. Like so many mortals, they were off in a world of their own where the truth was an objectionable intruder. I decided against telling them that Michelangelo was gay, or that Pope Honorius had written an instruction book on black magic, or that people had regularly been tortured to death within these very grounds. If the illusion is sweeter than reality, it takes grit to face truth. In the Johnson’s sanitized world, grit was what respectable people put down on their front drive in winter.
However, so far, my plan for a one-man rescue mission seemed to be working. Surreptitiously abandoning the throng of tourists, I was now actually within the Vatican City only some twenty minutes after leaving Hell in my car. I knew where I needed to head for - the private administration building I mentioned just now where, at the rear of the ground floor, a number of staircases were located. Some of these went down to huge kitchens and storehouses, including the wonderful wine-vaults for some reason closed to the general public. But there was another staircase, leading down to the passage that led to the Scavi or catacombs, and to ancient dungeons and torture chambers not only closed to the public but not even mentioned in official guidebooks. This ultimately descended to a cellar and a passage which led to the secure doors of the secret Vatican black museum, many meters below ground level.
The Vatican, of course, is built on top of the Vatican Hill which is not one of the seven ancient hills of Rome, and before Christianity it was the home of the pagan high priest of the Roman gods, the Pontifex Maximus, a title which lingered and was transferred to the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. According to legend supported by a few vague hints in ancient documents, the vaults of the black museum were dug so deep that they were below the high-water table of the Tiber. Again according only to largely unsubstantiated legend and a brief piece of writing on an ancient parchment, a brilliant Roman architect and engineer at the time of the emperor Constantine, one Avidius Cassius, many years ahead of his time, had ordered whole Dalmatian pine forests cut down to provide thousands of gallons of pitch which were poured into a special reservoir beneath the cellars and allowed to solidify, thereby producing an effective damp-proof course which kept the deepest cellars dry even in times of flood.
My problem now was to gain access to the museum. I knew this would be extremely difficult, because I knew my limitations. Experimentally, I tried to fly a few feet above the ground; nothing. I remained in contact with the marble floor. As I had expected, even though entering the Vatican had not destroyed me, it had stripped me of all powers and abilities except those I shared with ordinary mortals. I could walk, talk and think. Pinching myself for confirmation, I could also feel pain. In short, within these time-honored precincts, I was entirely mortal. It was a strange feeling, but in spite of a certain apprehension, even fear, I refused to turn round and run for the border to regain immortality. I had a job to do. People I cared for were in trouble, and only I might possibly be able to help them. Naturally, like any decent person who owns a dog, I considered Niblick to also be a People.
I hid behind a marble plinth bearing a beautiful statue cast in bronze, about life-size, until the guide and the party of visitors had gone ahead and disappeared around a corner of the big corridor. I was alone. I glanced at the bronze statue. It depicted St. Michael with raised sword slaying a dragon representing the Devil. I hoped it wasn’t an omen. Mike would never do that anyway - except perhaps on that occasion when I threw a cocktail party and told only him that it was fancy dress. I don’t think he has ever really forgiven me for that one.
The first thing I needed if I was going to wander through the place unchallenged was a disguise of some kind; I must not look like a visitor. The Swiss Guard, traditional soldiery of the Vatican, had the power to arrest trespassers, and I knew that there were also plain-clothed security men and closed-circuit TV cameras in the great building, as well as invisible alarm beams in front of all the art treasures. Apart from all this, there were many staff hurrying up and down the ornate passages on official business and, as I had informed the Johnsons just now, there was also a regular Vatican police department. If anyone saw me away from the designated tourist areas, they would quickly suspect that I was up to something and raise the alarm.
Fortune favors the bold, it is said. From a litter bin I salvaged a small sheaf of papers – a guide book, a screwed-up letter and a leaflet with coffee stains – and bustled along examining these as though I worked there and was on my way to an office. Several minutes later I had reached the far end of the great museum’s galleries and found an unwatched exit leading to the road outside, which led me after a quarter of a mile without incident to the steps of the Governatorato, the administrative office building. Although there were a few people going about their own business, nobody bothered to stop me or ask any awkward questions. Looking like I knew exactly where I was going, I entered the front door of the building and went inside.
My mind was working at fever pitch and it came up with a good idea. Risking a sprint along a few carpeted corridors and through several doorways without encountering anyone, I deliberately headed in a direction where the rich trappings and treasures grew visibly less imposing and were obviously petering out, at least slightly. I knew that there must be staff rooms and offices somewhere, and the subtle but noticeable reduction in splendor and increase in functionality was an indication that they were nearby.
After a short period of nosing about - during which I twice had to hide from robed clerics - I found something useful. Quite simply, a men's changing-room. Apart from the general tidiness, the high vaulted ceiling, red carpet and lack of spray can graffiti, it could have been a locker-room in any college. To my surprise and annoyance, the lockers were locked. Fear of thieves inside the Vatican? Was nothing sacred? Surely the Swiss Guard protected the place from crooks – but that thought reminded me of something: I had a Swiss Army pocket knife, and I used it (breaking two blades and the thing for getting stones out of horses hooves in the process) to force open a locker at random. Inside was something very useful - a priest's complete costume, robe, hat, shoes, everything. They were not my size, but the garments were loose-fitting robes and it was only the shoes that were impossible to put on. The real owner was obviously of slightly smaller stature than I. The hat was a bit tight, but what the hell, this was an emergency. I put in a couple of small slits at the back with the scissors bit of the knife and at least got it on my head.
A minute later, the newly robed Father Satan strode briskly down a corridor looking for anything resembling the back stairs. I knew I needed the basement vaults, but the place was huge, with a scarcity of handy notice boards giving directions. There was no door with "Janitor" stenciled on it, even in Italian, which of course - like every other human language - I understood perfectly, even without supernatural powers. Don’t forget, I had been around for a long time.
The only sign I saw was on a polished wooden stand-post and pointed in Italian to "squash courts: clerical staff only", and this explained why there was a priest's locker room nearby. It is a little known fact that the Vatican maintains a set of squash courts for staff in an inner square open to the sky but closed to the public.
Unfortunately, as I hesitated, trying to decide what direction to take next, a man who had obviously been playing squash approached from the direction of the courts. He wore white shorts, trainers and shirt, was mopping his face with a white flannel and carried a squash racket in one hand. I instantly decided that I must look as though I actually knew where I was heading: he who hesitates is lost, and therefore an obvious stranger.
Consequently, I found myself striding through a maze of wide and lengthy palatial passages with the squash player trotting by my side, eager to engage me in conversation. I could not be rude and simply ignore him with a cold shoulder: firstly, I am not that way inclined, a polite interest in people being part of my basic character; secondly, I needed to remain incognito and not risk arousing anyone's suspicions if at all possible. The man was Italian, and was a priest. We passed the turn leading to the locker room, but my hope that he would head off to change did not materialize.
“Do you not wish to change, brother?” I asked politely.
“Indeed yes brother,” came the reply, “but my office is nearby and so I change there, not in the locker room.”
“Ah,” I nodded. “I myself am a stranger here and am still learning my way around.” To say that Satan was a stranger in the Vatican was, I suppose, something of an understatement. I felt somewhat wretched, because I respected the institution I was trespassing within. If that notion sounds strange to you, please remember that I come under the same ultimate jurisdiction.
“How long have you been here?” asked my fellow traveler.
It would be stupid to lie. “Actually brother, this is my first day.”
I could sense the conversational map leading us in the general direction of “what is your new post?” territory, so I decided to prevent this by getting in first. “And may I ask, what is your task here, brother?”
“I am Father Bernardo,” he replied amiably. “I am the secretary of His Eminence Cardinal Sanger, who heads the police, security and Swiss Guard office.”
“Ah,” I nodded, trying to appear calm. Suddenly I felt like a mouse at a cat show.
19. Through a Glass, Darkly…
I prided myself - or maybe kidded myself - that I was a good judge of human character. I knew now that I would have to put my money where my mouth was. I was running out of time, in more than one direction. First, my friends were at risk as a maniac’s captives and no time must be wasted in attempting their rescue: second, I could hardly expect to be left unnoticed and at large, and un-arrested, whilst trying to find my way around this labyrinthine establishment: third, I needed to get the necessary information regarding the direction of the stairs to the deep cellars; and “You are here” maps appeared to be somewhat thin on the ground.
In an attempt to make friends quickly with Father Bernardo while trying also to sound him out, I offered: “Security, eh? Perhaps we have something in common, brother. I was a policeman in Los Angeles before my destiny brought me in the direction of the priesthood.”
I would like to point out that this statement was faultlessly true; to travel toward the Vatican is incontestably to head in the direction of the priesthood. Any implication that I was a priest was purely in the assumption of the listener (although Perry Mason would doubtless have drawn the court’s attention to the fact that I was also wearing purloined priestly garments…)
“Ah,” came the reply. “We do have something in common. I, too, was a policeman, in Milan, before deciding to take Holy Orders.” He looked appraisingly at me as we walked. “May I know your name, brother?”
Yipes! I was in a spot with this one. There were only two choices - lie or tell the truth. The universe is an unfair place. One of the soubriquets saddled on me by some humans was “father of lies”, and yet, even under these current high-pressure circumstances, I could not bring myself to lie barefaced to a priest. Besides, “Father Satanicus” would be hopelessly optimistic.
I gently put my hand on his elbow and we both drew to a halt. I braced myself and asked, “Brother, do you have time to hear a confession?”
He gave me a curious look and guided me in silence down a short corridor into a spacious room lined with bookshelves and containing a polished antique desk, chairs, a telephone and filing cabinets. “We can use this room,” he advised. “It is the directory room and we are unlikely to be disturbed. Besides, it can be locked from the inside for privacy.”
“Directory room?” I queried.
“The Vatican is the centre of a world-wide organization. It is convenient, indeed often essential, for us to maintain a continually updated collection of all the world’s telephone directories, gazetteers, official listings, government and ministerial publications and so forth.” He swept his hand expansively round the room. “This is it. If you need to get in touch with the official who knows the population figures for ethnic minorities in Tibet, or the head of carpet purchasing for the Kremlin, or the secretary who handles distribution of Church leaflets in a village in Zambia, or find the names of all Roman Catholic senators in the USA, this is where you come. Of course, computers and internet search engines are replacing printed reference books, but we still maintain this room, because traditions are sometimes slow to change. ”
“I see.” I was impressed despite myself. Father Bernado sat down behind the Louis quinzième desk and regarded me curiously. The fact that he still wore white squash shorts and shirt did not serve to make him appear any less intimidating.
“Now,” he raised one eyebrow, “what is this about a confession? Are you speaking spiritually or secularly?”
I availed myself of a chair and regarded him across the desk. I took a deep breath. “Both”, I replied. I faced yet another major decision and made what was in all probability another wrong choice to add to my growing tally: I could tell him a carefully edited version of the truth, in which – say – I was a special agent or even a cop on a special mission: or I could tell him the complete and utter truth, the real and genuine truth. The saying leaped into my mind; “Tell the truth and shame the Devil!” So be it – I gave him the complete factual story, trimmed and edited of superfluous detail for the sake of necessary brevity, but none the less containing all salient facts and no word of a lie. I wondered what his reaction would be; would he think I was a madman, be angry, call reinforcements and have me locked up? As I finished my explanation, a wee small voice deep inside me muttered, “He ain’t gonna believe you, chum!” and a second equally minimal internal enunciation replied, “Do you blame him?”
Rather to my surprise, he simply threw back his head and laughed, long and loud. After half a minute he wiped his eyes with the sports towel round his neck and made a visible attempt to grow serious once more.
“That’s the best story I have heard for many a long year,” he chortled. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m stone-cold sober,” I answered levelly.
“Then you are a lunatic,” he concluded decisively. “You are suffering from paranoia – delusions of grandeur.”
“I’m sorry you think so.” I kept my tone deliberately even and calm. “What I have told you is the truth. I have urgent need of a little help here.”
He nodded slowly. “You certainly do, my friend.” His voice became conciliatory. “I will just make a telephone call, and everything will be all right, you’ll see.”
“Look,” I snapped, “I haven’t got time to play silly games. I am who I say I am. That’s all there is to it. Surely you believe in the Devil?”
“Of course,” he acquiesced with a gesture of his hands. “What I don’t believe in, is people who claim to be Satan, Christ, the Next Messiah, God Almighty, Leader of the Comet People or Napoleon Bonaparte!”
In a torment of anxiety and self-recrimination I stood up and began to pace the carpeted floor. Father Bernardo watched me coolly, his face a mask. Slowly, his movements obviously intended not to startle me, his hand reached for the telephone receiver on the desk in front of him.
“Listen,” I begged, still pacing up and down. “What can I do to convince you I am telling you the truth? In this place I have no powers, no abilities beyond those of a normal human being.” His hand reached the receiver and lifted it.
I had to keep trying; it was the only card I had left to play. “I am begging you to believe me. At least come with me to the museum and see for yourself.” His other hand carefully extended and started to tap the receiver cradle to attract the attention of some distant switchboard.
“What else can I do to convince you?” I pleaded, ceasing my pacing and turning to face him where I stood, spreading my hands wide in supplication. I suddenly realized that I had never, in my whole extraordinarily long and varied life, felt so completely wretched and hopeless.
At that exact moment, he froze. All expression left his face. His penetrating eyes grew wider. Slowly – much more slowly than hitherto – he pressed the telephone cradle down firmly with his fingers and replaced the receiver without taking his eyes off me; his hand trembled very slightly. He was visibly turning pale. He tried to speak but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again with a conscious effort.
“Nothing,” he answered my last question in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper. “I think I might be becoming convinced.”
I looked at him and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Then I noticed that he was not actually looking directly at me; he was staring, almost transfixed, over my right shoulder. Puzzled, I turned to look behind me. There was just a wall almost hidden by bookshelves, with a large ornamental fireplace of carved marble. Over the fireplace was a huge gilt-framed mirror. I could see the reflection of the room behind me, the pattern of the carpet, the desk, Father Bernardo, the distant window, even a bird in the air outside. What I couldn’t see was me.
This surprised me almost as much as it did Father Bernardo. I had mirrors in my apartment, in the hallway, the living room and the bathroom; the station house had a few mirrors too, and many glass partitions around enclosed office areas. In all of these, I could clearly recall seeing my own reflection on a daily basis in a perfectly normal way. My mind raced, while Father Bernardo got to his feet still apparently working in slow-motion and moved somewhat unsteadily around the desk, the fingers of one hand sliding across the blotter as though seeking the reassurance of available support for balance. In all his movements his face never changed direction, remaining fixedly aimed at the big mirror behind me. His eyes, though, repeatedly flickered between the mirror and me, as though continually needing to prove to himself that what he saw in the room was what he did not see in the mirror.
I began to figure things out, as best I could, employing the principle of Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation was also the likeliest. The mirror must have been hanging in the Vatican for more than two hundred years, since it was in the style of the reign of Louis 15th of France and obviously genuine. In that time it had become impregnated with the continuous atmosphere of highly charged sacred belief and thought that permeated the holy palace twenty-four seven. As a consequence it had taken on certain characteristics not shared by other, common-or-garden mirrors or reflecting surfaces, and could not contain or exhibit a reflection of an entity who, although not themselves intrinsically evil, had nevertheless unarguably been demoted by that being we have previously referred to as the Chairman of the Corporation.
I broached this theory to Father Bernardo as he approached me. He patted his hand on my shoulder to confirm my physical presence, whilst at the same time watching his own reflection in the mirror appear to pat thin air. On an impulse, I took a few steps and withdrew a large reference book from its shelf, opening it at random and offering it to him opened. Out of the corner of my eye I saw in the mirror that the book seemed to float out of the shelf of its own accord, open itself whilst hovering in mid air and thrust itself in the direction of the priest. As if in a dream, he took it without even glancing at it, closed it and placed it on the corner of the desk, immediately forgotten.
As politely as I could I waved my hand up and down before his eyes, trying to break the trance and attract his attention back to the present situation. I saw him give a slight start and refocus. “Help?” I said, reasonably.
Bernardo seemed suddenly to relax. His shoulders slumped slightly. “You want help?” he almost whispered. “You want help? You want help? From us? From me?”
I tried with what I considered to be commendable success to stop myself from saying, “You catch on quick!” Instead what I actually said was, “Now that you seem to accept the reality of who I am, are you implying that I am outside the possibility of getting any help from you, even for saving the lives of innocent people?”
“No,” he waved his hand vaguely, “no, not at all. You misunderstand me. I am still coming out of shock.” He glanced swiftly once more at where I wasn’t in the mirror. “You mean, you really are the Devil?”
“Yes”.
“Satan himself?”
“Yes”.
“The fallen angel Lucifer?”
“Yes!” I was getting bored with this line of conversation, but his next words took even me by surprise.
“Oh joy!” He clasped his hands together, almost clapping. His face transformed into a beaming fount of happiness. He was almost dancing up and down with excitement. Tears sprang in his eyes.
“Er…” I hesitated. “I’m not sure I completely understand…”
“But don’t you see what this means?” he enthused.
“It means I’m asking you for help?” I reminded him gently, trying to get him focused on my urgent mission.
“No, no! I mean, yes, yes of course I will help you. But you should know that you have saved me!”
“I have?” My expression must have registered nonplussed blankness. “Am I missing something here…?”
He took a visible grip on himself and his voice calmed down a little. “I saw such terrible things as a policeman when I entered the Arma dei Carabinieri. Murders, gang killings, rapes, kidnappings, assassinations, corruption in high places, extortion, violence, blackmail, innocent victims, unrecognizable corpses… I lost all faith in humanity, in my religion, in God Himself.” He rapidly crossed himself with a “May He forgive me!” then resumed, “So I had a breakdown and quit my job. On leaving the clinic, seeking some kind of reassurance of my sense of values, trying to regain my destroyed faith in a Universal Plan, I took Holy Orders and became a priest. All I found was a religious organization, not the miracle I was searching for in order to grant me a personal transformation, a private renaissance. I immersed myself in prayer, in good works, in serving the Faith, in my duties, in trying to regain my belief. None of it did any good. None of it provided me with the miracle I sought. Now you – you - are here. I have met you. You are real!”
I could only nod wordlessly.
He continued, becoming almost breathless. “And if you are real, then He must be real. If there is a Devil, there must also be a God! Oh, Signore…? Signore…?”
“Just Satan”.
“Signore Satan, you have restored my faith to me, the most precious of gifts imaginable. I have regained my soul thanks to you!” Impulsively he reached out and pumped my hand like a state lottery winner receiving the check.
I would have to leave the theologists to argue all the finer connotations of this one; it should only keep them occupied for a couple of centuries. At the moment, I had more urgent matters to attend to.
20. The Terror of Satan…
Events now began to move with a gallop, bolstering my diminished self-confidence somewhat by granting me at least the merest suggestion that, perhaps, not all my recent decisions were deserving of a resounding Bronx cheer! It took me only five minutes to explain again in more detail to Father Bernardo about the defrocked priest Giovanni Vittorio, how he had been a former curator of the Black Museum, and how he was now holed up there with my partner (in the business sense) and my highly trained police dog as hostages. I spoke no lie – Niblick was a dog, wasn’t he? He was more highly trained than any other canine in history with the possible exceptions of Rin-Tin-Tin and Lassie, who were played by several different dogs anyway, each specializing in a different range of tricks for the camera, and he was my dog and I was a policeman, so he was by all definition a police dog. My mind added these caveats in my thoughts as I spoke: I knew that, in a vastly larger theatre, I was being tested and judged, and I felt that I should at least cover my statements with a pretended frosting of truth: unfortunately, the more rational part of my mind kept repeating; “You ain’t foolin’ anyone but yourself, buddy!” However, overriding all of these schizophrenic self-discussions was the absolute conviction that my own situation and career was of secondary importance when there were lives at stake.
Father Bernardo may have had recent grave doubts regarding the applicability of his spiritual calling, but I quickly began to loose any doubts regarding his ability as a roughneck cop. If I thought he had perked up my self confidence a bit, then it appeared that I had sent his bursting through the top of the barometer. Barking out for me to follow him, he ran to the door, unlocked it, and sprinted off down the carpeted corridor with me hot on his heels.
“Actually,” he remarked as I rapidly caught him up, “it is against the rules to run inside the Vatican buildings.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for you doing something you shouldn’t,” I shot back. He gave me a sideways grin.
“The Hell you don’t.”
He even had my own sense of humor. I was becoming increasingly impressed by Father Bernardo. He led me to a huge doorway surrounded by a beautifully carved wooden portico. There was a small keypad on the wall, and Bernardo rapidly typed in a set of numbers and letters. A tiny light flashed and he opened the door, explaining to me that this was the office of his superior, Cardinal Sanger, head of Vatican police and security and commander of the famous Swiss Guard. He informed me that the Cardinal was in Brussels for a few days visiting Interpol headquarters for a discussion on measures against terrorism, otherwise he would not have dared admit himself without permission. However, he certainly dared to help himself to various bunches of keys from a safe, for which he knew the combination.
One of the keys he inserted into a tiny keyhole on a magnificent Rococo inkstand on the main desk, giving it a quick twist. Somewhere, a quiet buzzer sounded twice. That was all. Bernardo sat in the chair behind the desk and, holding his hand palm upwards, ran his fingers under the rim of the desktop. I heard a click as he pressed a hidden button. Silently, on well-oiled runners, a drawer slid open at about knee-height, exactly where a seated person’s hand might be if his arm was relaxed. Bernardo pulled out a handgun, a state-of-the-art piece.
Thus armed, we ran again, down another of the limitless corridors and – to my initial surprise since I wanted the cellars – up a flight of stairs. A door led to a smaller passage, paved in marble tiles, and then, after a few more twists and turns during which the marble changed into white stone, another passage led us to the top of a spiral stone staircase which disappeared downwards. This, then, was the access to the cellar depths I had been seeking. I realized I had not really stood any chance of finding it on my own.
Of course, while we sped along, completely ignoring the astonished expressions of the occasional passing clerics and staff, we held a kind-of high speed council of war during which I told him everything I could think of that was relevant to the situation ahead of us. By the time we had reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, we had managed to hatch a plan between us; it was slightly threadbare as grand strategies go, but it was the best we could come up with.
The spiral stairs went down for what I judged to be about four stories and debouched into a large cellar, cavernous and brightly lit with electric lights. The walls of the whole place were surfaced in clean orange bricks and the floor consisted of large square stone flags. There were many arches in the walls, each grilled with metal gates behind which the light faded into dark shadows: each gate had a small panel of electronic readouts, dials and switches set into the brickwork of the arch. As we ran past, I saw that these were temperature control systems. This must be the wine cellars.
I knew that the Vatican had a much-envied store of wine from its own vineyards, such as Cuvée Du Vatican from the Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Rhône valley, all bottled under its own exclusive label, both red and white, the red being used for Mass. I fleetingly remembered how in 1943 during World War 2 a stick of German bombs had struck the Vatican and penetrated this cellar in a house-of-cards structural collapse, where the first bombs struck the floors above, clearing the way down, leaving only the final bomb to actually enter through the vaulted roof of the cellar. The blast did little damage, only smashing some hundred bottles of excellent cognac so that it formed a pool inches deep on the flagstones. The troop of Swiss Guards who rushed to see what had happened tried to stop the liquor from being wasted by dutifully lapping it up. That particular bomb is the only one on record that caused five nasty hangovers and a black eye from a fist fight.
Following Father Bernardo at speed round a vaulted corner, we came to a smaller stone arch in which another flight of steps curved downwards out of sight. Beside the ancient arch was a modern set of large metal elevator doors. Bernardo stopped and drew some rapid breaths.
“This is the elevator from the distribution warehouse above,” he explained, panting. “It is used to take crates of wine up and down. It is also used, whenever necessary, to take large or heavy objects in and out of the museum, so it goes down a further distance beneath the wine cellar. We can take the stairs or the elevator – which do you think?”
“Do the doors open automatically when the elevator reaches the floor?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Then we take the stairs. We can be more stealthy that way and not get exposed to view as soon as we arrive!”
“Good plan!”
I took the lead as we descended the stairs, treading as quietly as we could for fear of sending down advanced echoes of our approach. Behind me, keeping his gun steady in his right hand, Bernardo raised his left with the index finger lifted to signify caution because we were approaching the foot of the spiral stairs. No spoken words were necessary. Even though I was no longer alone, as we drew nearer to the place where those I loved were being held hostage by a madman I felt increasingly afraid at every step. Not afraid for myself, but in case something went wrong and the others got hurt and I couldn’t pull any more metaphorical rabbits out of any hypothetical top hat. In fact, when cold sweat began to trickle down my spine like a rapidly-growing icicle it began to dawn on me, in that kind of abstract way in which thoughts and ideas manage to creep around beneath your overriding mental focus, that for the first time in my very long life I was actually experiencing terror.
However, above all else, I knew that whatever might happen I must do everything I could in order to prevent any of the others from harm. Even though stripped of my angelic powers in this place sanctified by centuries of passionate human belief, I knew I must take the lead, take the initiative, go out in front and make myself the centre of attention where Vittorio the madman was concerned. Accordingly, I strode quickly past Bernardo and went ahead along the vaulted stone passage that opened out ahead in the semi-darkness at the foot of the staircase.
As we silently moved forward, I could see that the passage seemed to have something like a dark tide mark on the walls up to about three feet above floor level. I guessed that this marked the upper limit of the waterproofing barrier of solidified pitch, that remarkable construction feat of Avidius Cassius the ancient architectural engineer of Constantine, which prevented the very lowest levels of the cellars from damp and flooding.
Somewhat incongruously, the ancient black levels along each side gave the tunnel a distinct atmosphere reminiscent of the New York subway system, which I had visited occasionally in my previous job. The tunnel was very dark, and I could no longer see in the dark. There was a single dim electric light in a wire cage above the arch at the foot of the staircase we had descended, and then no more. The further we stalked, the more dim and distant was the pool of light dropping behind us. And the greater my terror that something would go wrong. That we would be too late. That we would not be good enough to win. That I would… fail and fall.
Again!
At that point, goaded by such thoughts, I started to pull myself back together. This whole business inside the Vatican with all the limitations of a human mortal had unnerved me, almost to the point of despair, and recognizing that, I grew strict with my own inner weaknesses and locked them back in the dark cupboard they had escaped from. Some of the humanity I had inherited by being human for a short time was coming to the forefront. Ashamed, the thought occurred to me that when a mortal human had their back to the wall there was only one way out – use whatever nature has given you to the fullest extent. I immediately understood that I needed to form a more detailed plan of campaign, not just blunder in like a man falling down a hole.
With the return of a bit of self-confidence, a new plan occurred to me – one that might just work. I quietly asked Bernardo to halt briefly and I explained my idea to him in as few words as possible. As I spoke, his expression slowly broke into a broad grin. He liked it. This made me feel even better about our chances. It was very human to gain inner strength from a companion, and right now, I was very human.
At the end of the dark tunnel was something quite similar to the huge round steel door of a major bank vault, some twelve feet in diameter, complete with a central handle with metal spokes protruding for gripping. A solitary red electric light in a mesh casing cast a dim baleful glow by which the details of the heavy-looking door could be discerned, including all the complex state-of-the-art digital screens and keyboards that were obviously some kind of cyber controlled combination lock and security system. Bernardo turned to me.
“I cannot get us through that,” he whispered hoarsely. “I am not in sufficient authority to know the combinations. It is the entrance to the unacknowledged storage facility for historical items of indeterminate merit.”
“The Vatican’s Black Museum,” I translated into simpler terms.
“As you say,” he agreed with a shrug. “I have only been this close to it once before, and that was only because I got lost while trying to watch a member of staff suspected of stealing bottles from a rack of rare wine. How will it be possible for us to get in?”
For a moment I, too, was nonplussed. I even thought I might have to hammer on the door with my fist and ask for admission. However, as we cautiously drew closer to the massive vault, there came some well-oiled whirring and clicking noises, a couple of echoing clangs as huge invisible bolts within the works were hydraulically withdrawn, and slowly the round metal door swung open on massive complex hinges. We were expected and had been invited within.
21. Inside the Black Museum…
Once through the bank-like vault door the place opened out into a well built and very large inner series of almost warehouse-sized storage rooms with smooth stone walls and a high ceiling from which hung fluorescent lighting. Here and there big tubes covered in metal foil ran through the ceiling and along the walls, ending in grills from which cool fresh air hissed quietly. There was temperature and humidity control. Everywhere were concrete paths between isles of neatly arranged and stacked crates and boxes of various sizes, some of which by their shape obviously contained paintings, while others were sufficiently large to hold a grand piano plus an accompanying string section and maybe the conductor standing on top. I knew that at least one of these was a sculptured masterpiece in marble by Michelangelo, a whole basin and fountain featuring the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which had been declared too immorally suggestive and had been unseen for centuries. However, my task of the moment was not artistic criticism.
I honestly did not know what to expect. Bernardo and I had the plan I had hatched, but there were enough unknowns involved to render it obsolete very quickly if circumstances were against us. In fact, both Bernardo and I knew we were laying our lives on the line here. For Bernardo, it was evidently a thrilling experience which reminded him of the good side of his former police career; for me, it was an entirely new and frightening experience to be without any powers save normal mortal ones, which were not terribly spectacular in respect of coping with such potential dangers as rapidly approaching bullets. The memory flitted across my mind of hearing a soldier once state to a rookie colleague that ‘you never hear the one that kills you’. The bullet arrives before its own sound. I deliberately shook such worrying thoughts out of my head and concentrated on the moment, trying to induce calm, trying abstractly to recall all I knew about Zen – I thought it had something to do with motorcycle maintenance.
We walked cautiously through the stored crates and boxes of artworks and artifacts that had been concealed from history by a series of devout censors, as though we were trespassers in a giant’s castle. Every crate or piece of wrapping bore a transparent plastic envelope containing a paper displaying a bar code reference. One of the pathways between the stored goods was clearly the main road through the great subterranean warehouse, being as wide as a city street, although at intervals this thoroughfare branched round tall central islands of stacked crates which blocked the view ahead. Rounding one of these, we came quite suddenly on the man we were hunting, Giovanni Vittorio, unfrocked priest, black magician and former curator of this very place. From my view of him within the crystal ball and my sketch made in the Touchwood sister’s shop I easily recognized the penetrating eyes, the Roman nose with slightly flared nostrils, the stormy eyebrows, thin lips and high domed head of thinning black hair turning grey above the ears. I also recognized Detective Sandra Smith and my dog Niblick.
I did not really know what I had actually been expecting, but I had been torturing myself mentally about it. The reality, it turned out, was thankfully more bland than my imagination. Sandra and Niblick were still being held in the same two steel cages, large enough for ample movement, and were both unharmed. Sandra had a length of duct tape over her mouth preventing her from speaking. Niblick, who like me had no supernatural powers in this place, was muzzled but happy to see me; his tail had started to wag vigorously.
“I was compelled to stop your lovely lady from talking,” were the first words Vittorio spoke, casually. “I soon grew tired of her interminable threats and imprecations.”
I took an instant to view the scene and make notes of important items. The Vessels of Shinar – all five of them – were assembled on top of a table-sized packing case beside which Vittorio sat in a swivel chair. That was important. It was important because I knew Vittorio would have them with him, and by now he would know far more about them and their powers than previously, since he had only taken one with him when raising Raum in the movie set Wild West saloon, not all five, and had seen the effect my presence had on it: a directed explosion like a giant shotgun. He would certainly now know what had caused that – me! And he would therefore also now know that he should use all five of them together in order to obtain the maximum blast. As I have said elsewhere, the Vessels of Shinar were constructed with people like me in mind, to prevent interference in the scrambling of human languages at the Tower of Babel. Vittorio would now know that I would be unable to approach closer than some fifteen feet to the Vessels without triggering my own utter destruction. This was the ace he held.
It was also the same ace I held. At least, if it was not my ace, it was my joker. I say this because even at this critical moment I was not certain whether the reasoning behind my plan was sound or not. In fact, it was my gamble. The first part of the plan was to try to take Vittorio off guard. It only mattered for a few moments, but it was necessary to put him off balance and then make my move. This is where my new friend Bernardo played a pre-arranged part. He stood there facing forward, expressionless, not reacting to anything. I saw Vittorio’s eyes scan him up and down. Before he could say anything else, it was imperative that I make my play.
“Ah, Giovanni,” I addressed him suavely, copying the style of the typical chief villain in a James Bond movie. I idly pretended to examine one of the nearby packing cases, seemingly paying him scant attention. I then switched movie villains. Lowering my voice to a deep, husky growl I continued: “You have done well, my young apprentice.”
“What?” he asked uncertainly in skeptical surprise.
“You have passed the test. You know exactly who I am. Did you think you could just snap your fingers and compel me to grant you the gift of Satan’s approval? You had to earn it, so I made it difficult for you. Congratulations, you have succeeded in passing the test I set you. Now, Satan is yours to command.” I bowed to him low and theatrically. At the edge of my vision I could see Sandra’s eyes widen in horror.
Casually, I strolled towards the perplexed Vittorio. Now it was time for me to take the biggest gamble of my existence. I was drawing ever closer to the threatening array of the dark shapes of the Vessels of Shinar, triggered to destroy any supernatural form that came close to them. I just needed to buy a few more seconds.
“You will require two human sacrifices to make your pact with Satan complete,” I remarked in my most sinister manner, “one man and one woman. You already have the woman. I have brought you the man.” I gestured at Bernardo, who continued to stand like a shop window dummy. “I have placed him under strong hypnosis in order to obtain his compliance.”
This sudden turn-about in my attitude and behavior did exactly what it had been intended to do – it bought me time. It caught Vittorio off balance. Only for a handful of seconds, but this was all I needed to reach the packing case where the Vessels of Shinar were arrayed. I drew closer to them than fifteen feet. I reached the chest. Nothing happened. I managed to resist breathing a sigh of relief. I had guessed right – but it had only been a guess.
Quite simply, since within the borders of the Vatican I was mortal and had lost all my supernatural attributes, I no longer triggered the blast of the Vessels as I would have done elsewhere. I was gambling on Vittorio not being aware of the reason. He would – I prayed – naturally think that his own information was wrong and that I was always impervious to the Vessels. If he thought this, he would be worried by the thought that he had no ultimate weapon to destroy me with after all. He would therefore psychologically, and with a bit of luck, be more inclined to hope that everything I was now telling him was true. This was my trump card, and it was a flimsy one at that. I played it for all it was worth.
To Vittorio’s evident astonishment, I picked up one of the obsidian Vessels and absently flipped it round in my hand a few times like a juggler’s club, trying hard to act like a villain in a movie and mentally groping for inspiration. I lowered my voice again to a sinister growl.
“As you can see,” I remarked to Vittorio, “I can control these things. They hold no terror for me. Nothing holds terror for Satan himself, my young apprentice.”
“And you are saying that all that stuff about not being evil, and not wanting to aid me, was nothing but a test?” asked Vittorio, still incredulous.
“Of course,” I shrugged, turning to face him, still flipping the heavy vessel about in one hand. “Why – did you think I meant it? Did you think that endless millennia of spiritual thought could be wrong about me?”
“I did at the time,” he replied. “I am still not altogether certain that I…!”
He stopped speaking when I suddenly threw the Vessel at him and it hit him hard on the head. Believe me, it took a supreme effort of self control for me to moderate the blow to merely knock him unconscious rather than killing him outright. Later on I allowed myself a glimmer of justifiable pride that I had resisted that particular temptation. Back at the moment of truth, I had had to turn all my willpower to doing the resisting.
22. A Higher Authority is Required…
We found keys to the steel cages in Vittorio’s pockets and quickly released Smith and Niblick. Thankfully they were unharmed, having been initially overpowered and rendered unconscious by the Black Magician’s occult powers before being transported to their temporary prison cells by the same agency, where they had woken up eventually to find themselves helpless. As I mentioned, within the environs of the Vatican, Niblick, too, was bereft of the supernatural side of his being; otherwise he could have cheerfully gnawed through steel bars as though they were made of candy and presented Vittorio with a sudden and interesting career-change as a dietary supplement.
After a pause during which Detective Smith showed me how much she had missed me and how pleased she was to see me again, and during which, with not even a suggestion of apprehension or doubt but lots of tact, Bernardo knelt down and put his arms round Niblick’s great floppy neck and fussed him, it was time to resume business. By then, Niblick had rolled over and Bernardo was rubbing his tummy. I introduced Smith to Bernardo and between us we gave her a description of what had happened. Then I pointed at the Vessels of Shinar.
“I think those should remain here,” I remarked firmly.
“Isn’t it our duty to return them to the museum they were stolen from?” queried Sandra.
“We have a higher duty,” I replied quietly. “If you had found a ticking nuclear bomb, where would you rather take it – the New York Science Museum or the nuclear storage facility in Alaska?”
“I see what you mean,” she acquiesced.
“I agree,” put in Bernardo. “Signore Satan, I think you should pack them up in a crate and place them in the depths of this vault, with no label on them. The next inventory is not for another eighty years, and with luck they will by then be forgotten.”
“There is certainly no safer place on earth for them.” I followed his suggestion; there were a number of spare empty packing cases stacked nearby, and I used one of them, carrying the boxed Vessels many hundreds of yards to the very depths of the vault and stacking as many other crates as I could lift on top of them. Returning to the others, we began to drag the unconscious black magician towards the door of the vault by his arms, but Bernardo grasped the recumbent figure and hoisted it athletically onto his shoulders, whereupon our progress became quicker and easier. As we reached the door, I asked him how we could unlock it from within, as he had already told me he did not know the combination.
“Do not worry,” he advised. “The door is automatic. To open it from the outside you need the correct combination, but there is a safety feature that safeguards against anyone being accidentally trapped inside – you just strike one of those,” he pointed at a nearby metal box on the wall with a red mushroom-shaped pushbutton set in it, “and that opens the door. That’s how Vittorio let us in. The assumption is, if you are inside already, you must have had the correct combination to begin with, so there is no security risk about opening the door from the inside. When the door closes again, it automatically locks tight. Watch.”
It happened just as he had said, the great steel valve swinging open to let us out, then shutting silently until the clicking and clunking of the complex locking mechanism began, leaving us outside the vault and the Vessels of Shinar safely – and anonymously – inside. Hopefully for at least a few more centuries.
“What do you wish to do now, Signore Satan?” asked Bernardo turning away from the vault door towards the way out.
“I need to take Vittorio back to the station house in LA,” I reflected. “He must be properly charged according to US law, given a fair trial and, if found guilty, a statutory sentence for his crimes – which were largely, it seems, committed in the USA.”
“Shouldn’t you read him his rights?” enquired the priest, hefting Vittorio’s unconscious body to his other shoulder for a break.
“When he wakes up, I shall,” I agreed.
“But we have now encountered a slight procedural difficulty,” mused Bernardo as we walked along the various passages. “Yes, he has broken US law when he was in America – however, he is an Italian citizen and he was apprehended while breaking the law in a different and independent country, the Vatican State, with a police officer of that state in attendance during the arrest – me. According to international legal conventions, this gives the Vatican State first claim on processing his arrest and trial, which would be carried out under existing Italian criminal law as the Vatican has no independent criminal court or judiciary. This places me in a very difficult position, Signore Satan. According to all the legal technicalities, you cannot lawfully take him back to the USA for trial without the authorization of an extradition agreement from the Vatican State. It is red tape, I know – but it is the law, and both you and I, as serving police officers of our respective countries whatever else we may be, are bound by duty and honor to uphold the letter of the law.”
He was right, of course, and I told him so. Besides, had I decided to act willfully and simply spirit him out of the country, it would certainly prevent his coming to trial in the US, since the Vatican would lodge a complaint, and the highest political levels would be involved in sorting out an international incident, making things rather awkward for continuing my career in the LAPD.
“How does one go about getting an extradition agreement in this state?” I asked him.
“Well, it needs to be agreed and authorized in writing on an official form, and by a sufficiently high authority within the Vatican. Someone far above my own level, I’m afraid.”
“Look, my friend,” I appealed to him as we ascended a staircase, “do you know anybody here who might agree to release Vittorio into my legal custody, on a bone fide basis, all signed, sealed and delivered?”
Father Bernardo thought carefully for some moments. “Nobody who would believe our story, or be prepared to take independent action and place their name on such a document without referring it up to a higher authority. Bureaucracy is the same anywhere in the world.”
I considered the matter carefully. “Then I have only one option, my friend,” I stated slowly. “Do you think you could somehow arrange an audience for me with the Pope?”
Bernardo said nothing, but stared at me with a blank expression. I believe an apposite modern word would be “gobsmacked’” although someone of my old-fashioned upbringing might prefer “thunderstruck”, which in my past experience usually came in the company of lightning, hail and the occasional earth tremor. My instincts here were not far wrong.
23. Diplomats from a Foreign Regime…
We spent a tense fifteen minutes back in the office of Father Bernardo’s absent boss Cardinal Sanger, the security chief. Bernardo spent most of that time sitting at the great desk piloting the internal telephone system from office to office. I realized that he was putting his career on the line, and most probably even his ordination as a priest. I knew he was also calling in the marker on several favors in various quarters, and I was discrete enough not to enquire what these might have been. Detective Smith and I conversed in lowered tones while Bernardo worked, filling in the few gaps we both had in our knowledge of what had happened to each other.
It turned out that all that had been necessary to catch Niblick off guard had been a gigantic and heavily drugged medium rare steak, with a sprinkling of fried onions, dangled on the end of a long steel cable attached at the other end to a 90 horsepower diesel-driven super-fast industrial winch stolen from a research ship docked at Oakland and normally used for raising heavy equipment off the seabed beneath offshore oil rigs. His departure had been sudden. Sandra had been hoodwinked by a powerful spell of hypnosis which, basically, had turned her into a sleep-walker, unaware of anything until she woke up inside the metal cage in the black museum. I guessed that Vittorio, whom I knew from experience to have already mastered the art of creating a dummy figure of himself, a doppelganger, had also mastered the extremely rare and difficult occult art of bi-location – being physically in two different places at the same time. This was not entirely unknown to students of the magical arts, but was extremely difficult to accomplish.
Put simply, there have been occasional instances in history where occult masters have – for example – been at home surrounded by guests, or walking down a crowded street, or even in one recorded instance amongst the audience in a theatre, yet at the exact same time they have been seen elsewhere by reliable witnesses. There is a well known example from 1870 where the French occult master and writer Alphonse Constant, better known by his nom-de-plume Eliphas Lévi, was seen by many dozens of people at the Grand Opera in Paris where he was sharing a box with several friends and acquaintances including Charles Durous, then an upcoming reporter of La Chronique Illustree who later became an internationally celebrated writer for his reports on the massacre at Sedan during the French Civil War which began later that same year. It subsequently emerged, as recorded by Durous and confirmed by several of the others, that at this precise time Lévi was also sworn by witnesses to have been engaged in a conversation with the British aristocratic writer and occultist Lord Lytton in Lytton’s club in Chelsea, London where – what is more – Lévi signed the register as a visiting guest at the same time he was witnessed applauding the performance in Paris.
Or in other words, an occult master of the 10th degree, an Ipsissimus, can, when they wish and when they have sufficient time and energy to arrange the technicalities, quite literally be in two places at once for several hours before one of their versions disappears. This process is also, like creating an occult robot dummy, sometimes known by the German word doppelganger, which has come to mean any perceived double or look-alike but originally specifically meant the solidified astral body of a sorcerer.
Musing on this and attempting to play Sherlock Holmes by making educated guesses about how Vittorio had accomplished the trick of transporting himself, Sandra and Niblick from California to Rome in a few moments of real time, I began to grow uneasy somewhere in the back of my mind. However, as you can naturally understand - I hope - I was also trying hard to listen to the progress of Father Bernardo’s journey through a succession of ever higher-ranking telephones. I guess I was not firing on all cylinders. After all, I was only human.
For the time being.
“Very well!” exclaimed Bernardo finally. “I have sold my soul to the… well, to you, signore – metaphorically speaking. No offence meant.”
“None taken.”
“I have managed to arrange an audience for you with his Holiness the Pope. By so doing, I shall probably be defrocked by sunset. Still,” he reflected thoughtfully, “I can now return to working as a police officer if necessary, and no longer riddled with doubts and troubled by a personal nihilism. Thanks to you. So it is worth it.” He smiled broadly. “After all, what the hell!”
Detective Smith chuckled at this pun, and I smiled back.
“Bernardo,” I stated quietly, “you are a truly great man, and I thank you for allowing your humanity to rise above ingrained prejudices – that is perhaps the greatest and most difficult challenge any human being can face – and you came out on top, in my book.”
“Mine too,” added Sandra. Niblick thrust his great head under Bernardo’s arm and nuzzled him; an experience not unlike being fondled by a wet yard broom.
“When is our appointment,” I asked, “and can Detective Smith accompany us, or is there a problem because she is a woman?”
“No, no problem,” replied the priest. “Women cannot be ordained as priests in our faith, it is true, but visiting women VIPs can have audience with his Holiness without any problem. For example, the Queen of England has been here and been received by his Holiness, as indeed has more than one First Lady of the United States.
I… er… I am, however, not certain about the dog,” he rubbed Niblick’s ears, producing a gaze of cross-eyed gratitude. “However, we shall just have to chance it. I… I’m not quite sure how to put this… is he house trained?”
“Oh sure, you can be completely confident of that,” interjected Smith. Then, under her breath, “’Cause there ain’t any house big enough!” However, Bernardo did not hear this last.
“Well, I have been told that his Holiness will receive us for a private audience in half an hour, as soon as his meeting with some visiting diplomats from a non-Catholic country is concluded. We had better go now – it is quite a long way, and nobody, nobody, is ever late for such a meeting. We will wait in the anteroom until the guards are instructed to admit us.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Smith, impressed. “Hey, I never thought I would have an audience with the Pope. I’m not even Catholic.”
“You think you’ve got problems,” I commented wryly. “They think of me politically as the Leader of the Opposition!”
On that happy note, Bernardo led the way from Cardinal Sanger’s office and began to navigate our little party, Niblick included, across courtyards, down avenues, through more mazes of sumptuous halls and corridors. There was one problem to be solved on the way, and that was Vittorio the black magician: I could hardly approach the Papal suites dangling an unconscious body over my shoulder. Bernardo solved this by taking us first down a single flight of stairs to the floor immediately below the security chief’s office, where – to Detective Smith’s surprise – there was a virtual police station including a short row of very secure-looking cells. The place was manned by half a dozen of the Swiss Guard, on one of whom I recognized the insignia of an officer. Their uniforms might have looked somewhat quaint, but down here, out of sight of tourists, their button-holstered personal side-arms looked businesslike.
“These are only temporary prisons,” explained Bernardo a little apologetically, “made necessary by the risk of fanatics and the mentally disturbed. The most recent prisoner here was a man who desired to deface with a spray-can of fluorescent paint some of our priceless paintings of religious themes on display in the public galleries. The normal procedure is that anyone arrested in the Vatican is held in these cells while arrangements are made to either transfer them to the main police station in Rome for formal charging, or if they are not of Italian nationality, to lodge their details with a complaint to their local embassy or legation while the prisoner waits here for collection.”
I lowered Vittorio’s limp form onto what was actually quite a comfortable looking bed in a cell, while Bernardo conferred with the captain of the guard and instructed him to observe all possible cautions, including putting the prisoner in handcuffs before locking the steel door on him. Seeing the unconscious state of the prisoner and the nasty welt on his forehead, the captain wanted to summon a doctor to examine him.
This gave me a difficult moment; part of me wanted to refuse this, since there was no knowing what Vittorio might do to someone who underestimated his abilities; on the other hand, whatever else he may be, he was also a human being, and a rather severe blow on the head could be extremely risky and really ought to be checked out by a medic. After agonizing for about five seconds I accepted the necessity and plain compassion of allowing a qualified doctor to examine him, but on the stringent proviso that at least three armed guards should be present the whole time and the prisoner was to remain handcuffed. That was the best I could do.
In view of the threat the man posed to life and world peace, somehow I wondered whether this decision had given me yet another black mark in the heavenly accounts book that was being kept to detail my progress or failings.
Anyhow, there was really little choice. Bernardo led our small party on again, walking softly through the labyrinthine architecture until we reached what was a surprisingly small door, if ornate and inlaid with gold leaf. Outside was stationed a serious-looking group of the ubiquitous Swiss Guard, looking none-the-less tough despite their renaissance uniforms. On Bernardo conferring softly with them – in fluent French, I noticed with admiration – the gilded door was opened and we were admitted.
During the short interval, I had worked out that the smallness of the door, which was little bigger than any normal household door although surrounded by a much bigger ornate frame, was most probably a deliberate security measure; only two people at most could pass through it at once and, in any real emergency, the guards would be more able to defend it than would be the case if five or ten people could rush through it abreast.
Beyond this outer door the palace opened out into a suitably large and richly decorated anteroom. Whatever you may choose to call it, it was a waiting room – but what a waiting room! The walls were tastefully hung with genuine old masters, not mere reproductions, amongst which I recognized the bold touch of my old friend Michelangelo (he hadn’t known who I was, but I modeled for him when he was sketching part of the roughs of the Sistine Chapel ceiling), together with Caravaggio, daVinci, Raphael and Uccello. I recalled photographs I had seen of a similar room in the White House where important people waited to be admitted to see the president, and while the taste and trappings there were undoubtedly first rate, this room made it look like the waiting room at a Hicksville railway station somewhere in the Ozarks. On an exquisitely carven oak cabinet stood a beautiful Maiolica vase rubbing shoulders with a Maestro Giorgio Andreoli decorated platter; behind them had been carefully placed a wooden panel painted with a religious scene by Nicola da Urbino; if you don’t know these people, trust me – they represent the best of the best. Many other wonderful examples of the supreme artistic skills of European craftsmen during the last six or seven hundred years were similarly placed about the room, with what I can only call great casual care.
As I expect a great many illustrious people have done before us, we wandered slowly round this wonderful room admiring and marveling at the workmanship on display. In the great wall opposite the small entrance door was another door, this one a vaulted portal that Ben-Hur and his friends could have raced their horse-drawn hotrods through abreast, with bladed wheels as well. Here, a dozen or so of the Swiss Guard were assembled, standing stiffly at attention in the same military inflexibility as the guards at Buckingham Palace, gleaming and rather wicked-looking halberds gripped firmly before them. Only their eyes moved, watching all four of us like the proverbial hawks. Father Bernardo approached their captain and advised him that we were the people who were expected and who had been granted the next appointment. Without a change of his fixed expression, the captain gave a single slight nod of his head in acknowledgement; if he had been balancing an egg on top of his head, it would not have fallen.
Naturally, when we spoke, we did so in whispers, and the room was hushed of extraneous sound. Then, suddenly, my blood ran cold and an icicle seemed to grow where my spine had recently been. The twin valves of the immense doorway to the Pope’s inner private audience room were open a small crack, allowing the sound of conversation from within to leak out in the vicinity of the portal. Pausing beside the door to examine a magnificent five-foot ornate vase, I heard from within the voices of the Pope’s current visitors who were, so Bernardo had been advised on the telephone, visiting diplomats. Filled with a sense of horror, I silently beckoned Sandra to join me and listen. She blanched and her pretty face registered something between fear and astonishment.
We were listening to the muted but distinct tones of people talking beyond the door. My immediate knee-jerk thought was, this development could ruin everything and bring untold retribution upon all of us. What we heard was;
“…’course, your Holiness, it was Peter Abelard in the twelfth century ‘oo brung nominalist philosophy into the Middle Ages before the resident Latin tradition rediscovered Aristotle, an’ ee advocated the application of reason to questions of faith.”
“Yeah, yer Excellency, but be that as it may, ‘is approach to bringing contemplative analysis directly upon theological issues was viewed by many of ‘is contemporaries as an unequivocal confrontation of their more conservative notions, an’ as a consequence ‘is writings was condemned by the examination of the Synod of Soissons.”
“So wot’s yer point, mate? That don’t proove ‘im wrong, do it?”
“I’ll give yer that, chum, but ‘is idea that deeds are morally neutral in themselves and that the agent of morality is, rather, the person what dun the deed, modulated by their particular motivation, was an early echo of the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, ‘oo maintained that the dualistic epistemology of modern metaphysics should be rejected, proposing instead a more natural view that the arrival of knowledge ‘as to be intrusive and primarily stems from the observer’s processes of adaptation to their environment.”
“So, in simple terms, do you mean ‘ee said the acquisition of experiential knowledge is more-or-less an accidental by-product of the observer being posited within a particular evolving situation?”
“Yus. I fink so.”
“Well mate, surely that’s just ‘I think therefore I am’ in so many different words?”
“oooOOOooo – ain't we sharp, then? Mind yer don’t cut yerself!”
And then, to my surprise, a third and very different voice, a human one, gave forth with a huge burst of merry laughter.
The unhuman voices were unmistakably those of Pharter and Phukkit.
24. An Historic Summit Conference…
There was a sound of soft footsteps on expensive carpet and a caparisoned elderly cleric gently opened one of the twin great door valves and peered into the anteroom. He immediately showed signs of recognizing Father Bernardo and nodded at him. He spoke to him quietly in Italian.
“Father, you may please come in now, and your guests may enter as well.” The senior priest eyed Niblick in faint alarm, but said nothing as we all walked past him into the audience room beyond.
The room was everything you would expect, but with fewer standing art treasures; it has sometimes been shown on TV when news cameras have been allowed inside to record the Pope’s meetings with various dignitaries and VIPs such as the presidents of countries, kings and queens of Europe, prime ministers and suchlike, so I need not describe it at length. There were two more priests attending on his Holiness and these were joined by the one who had come to the door to admit us. These men were discretion incarnate: they were seated at antique desks and seemed concerned with nothing but studiously writing notes on sheaves of paper. They did not so much as glance up.
This was impressive, for it cannot be every day that they came into personal contact with real demons. However, they were studiously ignoring everything else in the audience room and immersing themselves in their writing.
The main event was taking place before the richly canopied throne on which was seated his Holiness the Pope, and it consisted of Pharter and Phukkit sitting on plushly cushioned carven and gilded renaissance chairs before the throne, having a cozy chat with the head of the Roman Catholic Church. It was another one of those sights to add to my growing list of ones that I would never forget - no matter how hard I tried. I was uncertain which aspect of the scene not to believe first – the fact that the demons were here, or the fact that the Pope seemed completely enchanted with them. I felt I might be missing something.
The current pontiff was a small, sprightly man of very advanced years. By birth he was French, but he had the slightly darker skin of an Italian. Had he been just a little bit darker and wearing a dhoti instead of robes, he would have been almost a double for Mahatma Gandhi. He was one of those rare people who are not only instantly likeable, but instantly respected too, and these qualities do not often go hand-in-hand. He had an ambient gravitas that stayed with him even when he was doubled up with mirth and giggling like a child, a condition from which he was just emerging as we entered.
Before I could say anything, both the demons leaped to their feet and saluted, somewhat incongruously. Pharter then bowed theatrically to his Holiness in proper Shakespearean manner, genuflecting his hand at his forehead before elegantly raising it to his side as he bowed low, with one knee bent.
“Yor Worship,” he announced like the MC of a wrestling bout, “may I present to yew, the Archangel Lucifer ‘imself, of the LAPD, togever wiv Detective Sandra Smith, also of the LAPD, the hanimal Niblick formerly known as Cerberus, and…” his voice trailed off into a rapid mutter, “…some priest wot I ain’t never seen before.”
Suddenly, the Pope was staring at me, directly into my eyes. His eyes were already creased with humor at the corners, and in an instant he was smiling broadly. To my astonishment, he held out both hands to me in a gesture of what could only be interpreted as affectionate welcome. Of all the reactions I had fearfully anticipated to my arrival, this was one I had not even considered. The whole situation had already developed into something very different from the “clap him in irons” result I had been mainly expecting. I hesitated microscopically, and he noticed this.
“Come,” he invited, a genuine warmth in his creaking voice. “Do not be afraid.” The smile of this frail little old man was something that would melt a snowman.
Mentally drawing myself up and getting a grip on things as best I could, I approached the covered dais where the pontiff was seated on a throne-like chair. My mind was reeling. To mix religious metaphors, I knew that I was kosher, but you must remember I have spent almost my entire life – measured in geological eras – in the somewhat vain attempt to convince others that I am an OK guy. I think I might be forgiven for flinching inwardly at such a juncture as this. Be honest - how would you feel if you were standing in the queue at the local supermarket checkout and the customer in front of you turned round for a chat and you saw it was Elvis? You would probably be a little tongue-tied to start with. This is the best way I can compare how I was feeling right now, and I ask you to forgive my analogy, which is not meant to be disrespectful to anybody. Putting it more simply, I was, for a moment, utterly out of my depth.
A few paces later I took the fingers of the hand he offered me and, moved in my heart by the kindness of his words, in time-honored tradition I knelt on one knee, bowed my head and gently kissed the great jeweled ring he wore. Then, to my surprise, everyone in the room – the priests, the demons, Father Bernardo, Sandra and even the twenty normally statue-like Swiss Guardsmen standing to attention round the walls, burst spontaneously into a great round of applause. I glanced fleetingly round at them all, then had to surreptitiously brush away a tear from my eye.
“I… I don’t understand,” I stammered. “You must know who I am?”
“Of course,” replied his Holiness. “I know all about you from the historical point of view, and I have heard a lot more from Ventosus and Amator here,” he gestured at Pharter and Phukkit who were attempting to look as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, having obviously introduced themselves using Latin versions of their names as a concession to the occasion. “Now,” he waved the others forward, “come, tell me all about what has been going on and what brings you all here like this.”
And so, with some helpful additions from Detective Smith, Pharter and Phukkit – sorry, I mean Ventosus and Amator – and, later in the narrative as we came up to the present, from Father Bernardo, the entire tale was told right from the very beginning, pretty much as you have heard it from me here, except for a little bit of judicial editing applied on a “need to know” basis.
“A genuinely remarkable account,” commented the Pope, “and not least, remarkable for the people who have related it to us, especially you, Lucifer.” He mulled over what had been revealed to him.
Needing to simply break the awkward silence which now descended on the proceedings, I remarked; “I am impressed with my reception here, and with your agreeing to give me audience, your Holiness.” I added; “I had rather feared you would have me burned at the stake or else at least thrown out on my ear. I have to state that it is very noble of you to agree to meet with me.”
The old man smiled like a wrinkled child, releasing what can only be described as a tangible burst of happiness into the room. Again I was reminded very much of Gandhi. “But you are, most truly, an ambassador from another realm,” he pointed out reasonably, “and – to be honest with you – I would rather meet with you than with one or two human world leaders I could name.” He chuckled. “After all, there is a saying in America, is there not; ‘only Nixon could go to China.’ You are not Nixon and this is not China, but I believe the comparison stands up to analysis.”
He paused, his smile becoming what I can only describe as wickedly gleeful, a twinkle flickering in his eye. “After all, Lucifer, this is the Christian Roman Catholic Church – where would we be without you? Had you not existed, we would not have been made necessary in the first place.”
That was yet another angle I would have to leave to the theologists to argue about over the next few centuries. I felt it would be inexpedient under these present circumstances, not to say ungracious, to argue that the negative energy of evil which all upright religions in the world were pledged to combat had, since the very Beginning, exuded solely from human beings as a consequence of their freedom of will, and that both angels and demons were little more than astonished onlookers to the ebbing and flowing currents of this dreadful tide over seemingly endless eons. Instead, swallowing whatever pride I may still have had left, I gallantly responded as an officer of the LAPD should; “Glad to have been of service, Sir.”
“And after all,” added his Holiness reflectively, half to himself, “we expect and encourage the leaders of all the nations of the world to deal with each other on peaceful and friendly terms, finding love in their hearts instead of hatred – and what a fine world this would be if it could be so – and how may we expect this of the people of the world if we ourselves cannot overcome our own prejudices and find universal love and respect for all things under heaven in our own heart?”
I was deeply moved by what he said. “That is a beautiful philosophy, your Holiness, and I agree with you.”
The two demons managed to spoil the beauty of the moment somewhat, like happy puppies trampling through a flower bed.
“Yer,” said Pharter approvingly to me, “ee’s good at philosophy.”
“Ee’s got a degree in it,” added Phukkit, with all the approval of a teenaged lad boasting that his grandfather goes skateboarding in the shopping mall.
His Holiness laughed merrily again. “As for you two,” he remarked with mock severity, “I must admit I have learned something from you today. I must now learn to accept that not all demons are evil, and perhaps they are simply misunderstood.”
Pharter took a few paces closer to the throne and bowed his head, hands clasped in front of him, like a contrite schoolboy addressing the principal. “Seriously for a moment,” he stated in a lowered voice, “we ain’t evil at all, left to ourselves. We are primordial intelligences, not yer actual life-forms as such, an’ we came into this universe when it were made, wiv complete an’ utter innocence, like a blank sheet of paper. Then, after a time, human beings learned they could write stuff on those blank bits of paper, if yer sees wot I means, yer Grace. This meant that humans wiv evil in their ‘earts used us for their own ends, makin’ us do stuff they wanted us ter do, an’ because we was all innocent primordial energies, we ‘ad no option but to do as we was ordered.
“Consequently, us demons became hated and persecuted, exorcised and feared, an’ all because we was bein’ used fer evil purposes by a few humans here an’ there in various ‘istorical periods. You might as well blame the gun fer the murder, instead of the bloke what takes aim an’ pulls the trigger. Like a Colt 45, we can only do what we are made to do by someone who makes use of us. A gun left alone does no ‘arm – it only kills if someone uses it wrong. Demons are the same – we’re simple creatures, an’ we’re as bad or as good as people make us, that’s all. Be ‘onest Guv – when did you ever hear of someone invoking demons to perform good deeds? We can, you know; but people don’t usually want us fer that.”
Apart from the grammar and missing aspirants, it was one of the best impromptu speeches I had ever heard. And, of course, he was perfectly correct.
“That’s true, Holiness” endorsed Phukkit. “Why, our mate Raum – another demon, yer Honor – was being used by that bloke Vittorio we came ‘ere after, ‘oo wanted ‘im to destroy cities. When we saved ‘im, ee were completely traumatized, an’ in a state of emotional shock. We ‘ad ter give ‘im therapy.” I knew that this, too, was hardly an exaggeration: Raum was a sensitive creature.
The Pope raised his hand to Father Bernardo who, with Detective Smith, had been taking a back seat during conversations they felt were outside their experience.
“My son,” he spoke kindly, “at first I was outraged when it was told to me what you have done – assisting Satan, and within the Vatican itself, and of your own volition.” He sighed deeply. “But now I see more clearly, thanks to those who are, after all, still agents of God, whatever their species or title might be. You have done well. Without you, great evil would have transpired – probably much greater than anyone can even imagine. You came into a crisis by accident, and you followed the message from your heart, not the formal instruction of rigid custom. It was the right choice, for custom is the cage of the spirit built by human preference, but the heart is given to us by a Different councilor. You did well, and you will be rewarded. You deserve promotion within your official duties, and I shall make you Head of the Security Office when Cardinal Sanger retires from that duty in three month’s time.”
Bernardo knelt and bowed. “As you command, Holiness.”
Then the old man turned his attentions to me.
“You will understand, I hope, that I cannot make any official acknowledgement of your visit here today.” He smiled sadly. “I am afraid the concept will not be received well amongst those whose values are mired in ancient prejudices and, like the dinosaurs, cannot adapt and therefore will eventually – one hopes – become extinct. Except that this old-fashioned simile is now known to be incorrect, for the dinosaurs were highly evolved animals, very adaptable and not the lethargic and lumpish swamp-dwellers that was once thought.” He turned his head to Pharter and Phukkit with an impish grin. “I also have a degree in geology, Amator.”
Returning to me, he continued with a chuckle, “Sometimes I wonder why I got this job; why I was elected by the cardinals. I believe in God, and I believe in evolution; I believe in the Creation, and I believe in the Big Bang; and who is to say that they are not the same thing viewed from two different minds? Perhaps I came to this position because the Church and all people in the world of whatever belief they may be need a new affirmation of meaning and positive direction in their lives – one that does not originate with outdated concepts and provable falsehoods, but which instead revalues our Faith, as a struggling dollar or lira is revalued and thereby finds the means for a renewed future vitality where it can help the citizens generate a new wealth. The dollar can be revalued, and yet it remains the almighty dollar, with the same face upon it, and is loved as much by those who worship it. So too, I believe, can mankind’s relationship with God, in whatever form or conception He may be perceived, be revalued to take account of all that is good within human beings and abandon all that is merely dogma and habit, casting off that which needs to be left behind and embracing that which still remains – the same face upon the universe and the same love and worship of its true glory.
“But whatever else I may or may not be, I am but one man, and there are limits imposed upon me by convention and edict, and also by vows I have made, so that I may not be as liberal as I would wish, and as my faith insists is necessary. Therefore, I must continue to observe the proprieties and guide the tiller of this great ship of Christendom with gentle nudges, not with unbalancing lurches.
“Therefore, your visit must remain a closely guarded secret, and I cannot give to you the acknowledgement I would personally wish. However, I have heard much from your own mouth, and much from the mouths of those who have come to love you as a loyal and steadfast friend, and if I may, I would give to you, instead of a Papal medal, a piece of advice which may or may not be wisdom, and which may or may not be relevant – although I think perhaps that it is.
“I have learned that you are not evil, and I already knew that all evil flows from the darker places within the human heart, or personality as we should nowadays refer to it, and not from any demonic ‘tempter’ or any outside agency. I have learned that you are brave and stalwart. But I have also learned that you have severe doubts about your own worth, your own abilities, your own path and your decisions and actions. These you question endlessly because you are afraid of failure. Because you have failed He who is highest once before. In your heart, your personality, you are continually wringing your hands because you believe you are unworthy, you believe you are not doing the right things, or that you may be doing them the wrong way.
“I cannot give you a medal; but instead, I can give you some words of well-meant advice from a very old man who has studied man and God all his life.
“Have faith. You are in danger of losing it. You have met beings whom mortal people can only experience by acts of faith. I need faith in the Almighty, and it is that faith which has served me all my life and brought me through innumerable crises. You, however, do not need that kind of faith, for you have experienced the proof itself; indeed, you are part of the proof. But because you have proof where we must rely on mere faith, you have lost the quality of faith, or at least you are in danger of losing it.
“Do not loose your ability to experience faith, my friend, for it is a quality and a gift that will remain behind within us when everything else seems to be shrouded in darkness and despair. And if you replace all faith with certain knowledge, then you will have no need for faith at all. And with that ebbing away of faith, you will loose as well the ability to have faith in yourself!
“Lucifer Satan, Archangel of the Lord no matter what your past indiscretions may have been, you must keep faith in yourself and your abilities and actions, and your decisions, for otherwise you will one day find you have lost all faith in everything – and then you will return to the nothingness from whence we all came; even if you are immortal, you would be but a hollow person unless you nurture your faith in yourself.
“Now, having delivered to you this lecture, may we still part as friends? For I cannot have much time left upon this world, and it would please me to know that – just perhaps – the first part of that great new bridge across the chasm of understanding to a new and better universal view has been built, and built here today by you and I.”
He turned to Bernardo again. “Think not that I have tamed the Devil – think rather that the Devil has given me renewed hope that there can be a future one day that will need neither of us.”
Turning back to me, he concluded with that wonderful merry laugh that was like refreshing raindrops splashing on a deep pool, “Can you imagine that day, when it comes? You and I sitting on rocking chairs on some veranda of a cosmic farmhouse, whiskered and nodding in our dotage, relics of a past era?”
His tone then became more serious and formal.
“As to the legalities, since we cannot acknowledge your visit, it would be difficult, to say the least, to acknowledge the presence and activities of the former priest Vittorio in our vaults and our cells. If some tourist deliberately intrudes into the prohibited areas that are off the official tourist route, and if they are objectionable when approached by our security officers, they can be placed in our cells for a few hours before being released outside again and nothing further is said or done. I believe you would call it ‘cooling off.’ In extreme cases, for instance theft or vandalism, the culprit is kept in the cells and arrangements are made to hand them over to the consulate or embassy of their particular nation, or to the police station in Rome if they are Italian.
“Well, you are an ambassador – I think nobody can deny that – and you are also a policeman, even if only in the jurisdiction of the USA. So, I think it appropriate, not to say expedient for all of us, that we release Vittorio into your custody without the encumbrance of any paperwork or official warrants of extradition.” He raised his head in the direction of the still-scribbling priests at their desks. “See to it please, by our command.”
One of the priests picked up a telephone and pressed some numbers, speaking softly into the mouthpiece. Then he hung up and said with great respect, “It is done, Holiness.”
The Pope stretched out his hand to me, and I took it in mine with feelings of both immense respect and great love. This gentle old man had hit the nail right on the head – I was in danger of losing all faith in myself, and the self is the last bastion of all faith. Words from a greatly distant past echoed faintly in my head: ‘How profits it a man if he should gain the whole world yet loose his soul?’ And I admit, I had been terrified of meeting him before we entered this room, afraid that my friends would be reviled and punished, afraid that I would be accused and cast out, afraid that I would be judged as having failed my test of character – afraid of so many uncertainties and variables.
It had taken a mortal human being – a very old and wise and compassionate human being – to show me the error of my ways. My intentions were honorable, but my self-respect had been eroded so much during thousands of years of being reviled by the whole world that I had been beginning to drown in a tidal wave of pessimism which affected my evaluation of everything I was and everything I did. I knew that from the time of this extraordinary and unofficial summit conference, I would re-evaluate and repair my faith, starting with faith in myself and my own actions and then spreading out into my outlook on the universe around me. From that time onward, I began to face the future with a slowly building confidence.
Wordlessly, and with a glint of a tear in my eye, I gently but firmly shook the proffered hand and kissed it again. As we made to take our leave, his Holiness caught Smith’s eye and waved her closer to his throne. His final words were to her.
“My dear lady, whatever may happen, cherish your man.”
“You guessed we are… involved?”
“Your eyes never left him since you all entered here; I do not guess, I see and I know.” He reached forward and placed his hand on the top of her head in benediction. “Be blessed, my child, and remember, love can overcome mountains.”
25. Cold Calling…
Then, guided by Father Bernardo, we were outside the official audience chamber and back in the magnificent waiting room. I stopped and rounded on Pharter and Phukkit.
“Now look, you two wise guys, what do you mean by…”
“’Arf a mo Guv,” hissed Pharter sibilantly. “We ain’t incognito yet.”
The two demons glanced furtively over their shoulders as though checking for spies – in a vast room containing at least a dozen astonished but motionless Swiss Guards – and then swiftly stooped and darted behind a nearby red and cream striped Napoleonic chaise longue. After a few moments they emerged into full view again. Now they were wearing floor-length shabby mackintoshes with belts tied and collars pulled up high round the sides of their heads; their ensemble was completed by equally shabby homburgs pulled down tight, almost meeting the upturned collars. The hats were several sizes too large for their heads in order to fully accommodate their horns. With hands shoved deep into pockets they looked something like a cross between a stereotypical secret agent of the 1930s and some kind of vaguely sinister giant toadstool.
“Now we can pass unnoticed,” explained Phukkit conspiratorially out of the corner of his mouth. “This is ‘ow we got in.”
For once in my long life, words completely failed me. I merely stared. Then a couple of seconds later I heard unusual noises from behind me. Glancing round, I saw that it was Sandra Smith and Father Bernardo both doing their best to stifle laughter, and failing nasally. Then I, too, saw the funny side. All I could manage to splutter was: “Wait ‘til I get you home…”
Then I remembered that I was still wearing a borrowed priest’s outfit a few sizes too small for somebody six feet six inches tall. That was why the two demons were now giving me a jaundiced look up and down, their mutual silence speaking volumes. Of course, Bernardo was still wearing his white squash court duds, and we agreed silently with our eyebrows that perhaps some changes of attire should be given priority. The Swiss Guard in this room and the audience room were far too professional and discrete to interfere with any strange people – and do I mean strange! - who had been invited thus far by his Holiness; however, elsewhere in this vast and labyrinthine city within a city we could not expect to pass through unchallenged and we needed to look more normal.
Or at least, as normal as we could. Which was not saying much, really, when you consider it.
With a quick detour via the squash court locker room where I picked up my suit and Bernardo donned his priest’s apparel, we all headed to the security offices and the stairs which led to the small row of modern cells beneath. I gave Pharter and Phukkit specific instructions along the way, telling them to go to Hell and await further orders. How could I be angry with them for disobeying instructions not to follow me into the Vatican, since they only did it because they were worried about me and wanted to be on hand in case I needed help?
And in any case, their impromptu infiltration of the Pope’s private rooms had helped pave the way for my own arrival there in a more orthodox manner. We were all fortunate that the current pontiff was such an extraordinary person, with a world view that was not merely broad but perhaps also unprecedented. If politicians could be half as wise as he, the world might enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity. Perhaps, also, I was extremely lucky to have two such demons as they. If I can mix metaphors with even more abandon than usual, they were saints amongst demons.
After promising Pharter, cross my heart and hope to die, that no walkies were involved whatsoever, at any point or under any circumstances, he agreed to take Niblick back with him and drop him off at my apartment on the way. The demons and the dog left us, heading for the nearest exit that would take them across the Vatican threshold into formal Italian legislature in which they could regain the supernatural ability to vanish into the spiritual realms.
At the small reception room of the cells, an officer of the Swiss Guard rose from his desk when we entered. He spoke with Father Bernardo in the manner of a subordinate addressing a superior.
“He is saying that…” I began translating for the benefit of Detective Smith.
She cut me off. “He is saying that the man given into charge in the cells had a wound on his forehead, so they sent for a surgeon who checked his eyes for signs of concussion, put in two stitches and dressed the wound.”
“You speak Italian? I never knew,” I remarked.
“We lived in the Italian quarter until I was 20,” she advised. “It was right next door to the Chinese quarter. I’m pretty passable in colloquial Chinese as well. I also speak French and Spanish enough to be understood, if not like a native.”
I smiled, impressed. We were taken in by the cells officer to where Vittorio was nursing his headache behind a locked door as sturdy as anything in an LA precinct house. As Bernardo cleared it with the guard captain for Smith and I to take custody of the prisoner, a very slight and – some might say – inconsequential movement caught the corner of my eye. On a cabinet beside the captain’s desk was a small TV set in which cameras in the cells relayed an image from within each. There were six cells, five of them empty, and the images appeared on the single screen in six small frames arranged in two rows of three. The frame on the top left was the view of Vittorio’s cell. As we approached the desk, I swear Vittorio looked up and smiled evilly at me, looking directly into my eyes through the camera, as though he could see me. I shook my head quickly and he was staring at his feet. I dismissed the incident as the result of my temporarily being limited to human parameters and suffering from nerves.
Events then began to proceed rather more smoothly for a time. Vittorio was released into our custody, and my only awkward moment was when I was presented with an official form on a data board for signature. I decided to simply sign as Stan A. Fericul, Inspector, LAPD – I felt signing it as “Satan” might not be a sensible idea under the circumstances. Then Bernardo escorted us out of the great walled complex, walking with us as he bade us a fond and sincere farewell. The instant I once again crossed that invisible line of administrative demarcation, I felt myself expand and, somehow, thicken (that’s the only way I can describe it) as all my angelic powers flooded back into my being.
As we approached a completely full metered parking area a rather long walk away, I could sense Bernardo staring at all the parked autos, trying to guess which one was mine. I was actually heading for an ancient Citroen 2CV, the kind that looks like the offspring of a collision between two trashcans and a pram. I noticed Bernardo’s eyebrows twitch. Then I produced my keys and pressed a button on the fob. My scarlet ride with all the trimmings silently slid out of inter-dimensional N-space into this realm of reality, seeming to emerge sideways with nonchalant attitude from a two foot gap between parked cars. Equally silently except for a swishing of air currents, the gull-wing doors opened upwards into their “praying-mantis” position. Sandra gave Bernardo a quick chaste hug and folded herself into the passenger seat. I put one hand on his shoulder and warmly shook his hand with the other.
“Father Bernardo…” I briefly choked with emotion of gratitude.
“I know,” he answered quietly. “Just remember, whatever I may have done to help you, you have helped me even more, by saving my soul.” He smiled. “And who would have ever thought that?” He paused, reflecting. “Now, I can believe what I needed to believe but couldn’t. I am reborn.”
I raised a hand in salutation and quickly sat in the driving seat, gunning the engine into roaring life. After announcing to the neighborhood that it was alive, the engine settled down into a deep-throated purr like a lioness. Then we were away again into trans-dimensional N-space, disappearing into a quantum vortex that led as sure as a freeway to downtown LA and the station house, where we were cruising to a halt in the underground car park inside three point five seconds.
It was dark outside, very early in the morning before sunrise. Accompanied by Detective Smith, I bundled Vittorio into the elevator and through the general department into my office. I pulled a large notebook out of a drawer and made ready to formerly interrogate the suspect, since there was still much about his activities and actions that were unknown to us.
“Just a moment,” objected Sandra, raising a cautionary hand. “We can’t do this, you know.”
“How do you mean?” I queried, puzzled.
“Well, just think for a minute – you know he’s guilty, and I know he’s guilty, but that doesn’t count for squat in any court of law. In point of fact, we have actually performed an illegal arrest, outside of our jurisdiction by thousands of miles. Technically speaking, despite everything, we are committing an offence by keeping him here against his will.”
“Huh?” I floundered.
“Look – no matter what he has done, no matter how evil he is, unless you want to act entirely outside the law, he has to be arrested and formerly charged within our jurisdiction, which extends just as far as the county line. A case can be made, certainly, that the matter comes under Federal law, since he made criminal threats against the President and government and threatened other cities, but even then we are in the wrong to haul his ass in from Italy. And as far as I know, there’s no Federal warrant been issued. Even a mediocre defense lawyer would be able to demolish not only our case but also very probably our careers.”
“You are telling me, we can’t we get him tried and convicted?” I responded, although I was already recognizing the truth of what she said.
“When Hell freezes over,” she replied miserably.
Just then the telephone on my desk rang. I snatched it up. “Yes?” I demanded irritably.
A voice I instantly knew spoke. “’Allo Guv, sorry to intrude on yer at work, but sumfink ‘ighly unusual ‘as ‘appened ‘ere.”
I sighed to myself. “What is it, Pharter?”
“Well, Guv – Hell is freezing over!”
I swear that his teeth were chattering.
26. A Change of Atmosphere…
For a number of seconds I was completely nonplussed. Almost of its own accord the telephone receiver in my upraised hand moved away from my ear. I noticed Sandra cock a quizzical eyebrow at the tinny sounds emanating from the instrument; sounds like a distant set of rather haphazard castanets. Then I began to wake my ideas up.
“Hold on,” I snapped out encouragingly. “We’ll be right there.” I hung up.
“What on earth was that all about?” enquired Sandra, mystified.
“It wasn’t on earth,” I advised with a firm voice. “It was a person-to-person call from Hell.”
Leaving her to ponder on this information, I swung round in my chair to face Vittorio, who had been sitting silently, handcuffed, the expression on his face radiating nothing so much as calm malicious satisfaction. I pointed at him.
“You know something about this, don’t you!” It was a statement, not a question.
“I might,” he grated in an Italian-American accent similar to that of Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” but with clearer enunciation, “and then again, I might not.” He smiled smugly. Evidently he thought he held some kind of royal flush against my pair of twos.
“Listen,” I grated. “I don’t know yet what is going to happen to you, or under which set of laws you will be judged, or who is going to do the judging – but you know who I really am, and you can believe me when I tell you, you are going to be judged! There will be an enforcement of laws either here or somewhere else, and somebody – somebody – is going to do the judging. And whatever happens, however we work out the fine legalities, wherever the trial is held, it will go better with you if you change your manner and begin to offer up something constructive and helpful.”
He looked at me with a sneer but couldn’t keep up the cool attitude when he saw my eyes and his gaze flinched away. “Cherche la femme,” he muttered, a new expression, one of fear and guilt, flashing quickly over his features. If I had blinked, I’d have missed it.
“Cherche la femme?” repeated Sandra rounding on him, maybe thinking to play “good cop” to my “bad cop”. “Find the woman?”
“You go find Her,” invited Vittorio, suddenly sullen. I was certain I had not been mistaken; the way he uttered the word, there was definitely a capital ‘h’ in ‘her’.
“You’re not trying to tell us there’s a woman somewhere at the back of all this?” I demanded, increasing the volume of my “bad cop” act.
“Maybe,” hedged Vittorio, suddenly self-possessed once more, “or then again, maybe not. Why don’t you find out?”
“Is she your girlfriend?” asked Sandra.
Vittorio’s eyes gleamed for the briefest instant. “If only…” he breathed to himself. “The joys – the inconceivable pleasures…” Then he clammed up sullenly once more.
“Mean anything to you?” she queried.
“Nothing,” I answered, racking my brains and coming up with a row of zeros. “Come on. In my opinion, we’ve got an emergency on our hands – possibly a very big emergency. We’re all going for a ride – and that includes our friend here.”
I hauled Vittorio to his feet by his collar and frogmarched him back the way we had come, out of my office, through the general detective department where the day-shift was turning up and sparing us puzzled looks, and into the elevator. Equally puzzled, Detective Smith followed close, trying for the benefit of the rest of the staff to look like she knew what was happening. Soon we reached the basement and got back into my auto.
“Sandra,” I began, my hands on the wheel, “I should tell you where we’re going. I have to give you the option of staying here and not coming with us. I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this. Maybe your particular religious upbringing will discourage you from wanting to go where we are going.”
“So spill the beans,” she shot back.
“That phone call was from Pharter; there’s big trouble in Hell, something unprecedented. I think something’s brewing up. That’s where I’ve got to go, and I’m taking Vittorio with me for good measure, since I want him where I can keep my eye on him.”
“So… you’re asking me if I want to go to Hell with you?”
“That’s right.”
“I thought you’d never invite me to see the folks back home. Cut the guilt trip and let’s go.”
I grinned broadly, gunned the motor into life and slipped the automatic selector straight into the position marked HAB, which, as I seem to remember explaining long ago, stood for “Hell and back”.
Although Sandra had traveled in my car before, the last time just some fifteen minutes ago, what followed was a new experience for her. Quantum N-space, through which the vehicle slipped to avoid traffic queues in the space/time continuum, was none-the-less part of the universe of physical dimensions, even though it had not yet been recognized by science as anything other than a quasi-mathematical theory suggested by people in white coats, and believed in only by people being taken away somewhere for a nice rest by other people in white coats. To get to my intended destination, we had to travel instead through spiritual dimensionality, which is a different kettle of equations altogether.
Thus, instead of the usual rocket exhaust belch normally emitted at the back on turning the ignition, the HAB mechanisms locked into position and a huge ball of fire like special effects from Towering Inferno whoofed out in all directions from underneath the vehicle, momentarily hiding the view through the windows. When the smoke and glare had been left behind, we found ourselves suddenly racing through outer space in a graceful trajectory like the USS Enterprise tracking away from camera in a Star Trek movie. Through the side windows on the left could briefly be seen the planet Saturn with its rings, and then we were leaving the Milky Way galaxy altogether; it was that quick. Two seconds later even the stars vanished in a velvety black eternity. For the benefit of anyone who thinks I am too fond of making analogies with the movies, I would like to point out at this juncture that there was definitely no “corridor of lights” like the one in Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Reality never wins Oscars.
And then we were arriving. Like heaven, hell is a psycho-sentiric novitatis. Some might prefer to use the definition manifesting experiential cospirituality, or maybe mythomanifesting protosubstantiality. Whichever way you look at it, Hell is a sub-prime reality created by ten thousand years of negative investment in underfinanced human aspirations. In visual terms, this simply meant that it looked as though a truly gigantic continent-sized cavern with a roof so high that entire flocks of jet airliners could migrate south through it had been decorated by a 1950s Hollywood set-designer contracted for Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
My vehicle lurched into existence again atop the hill outside the main city whereon stood the rickety-looking tin-roofed shack with its bristling antennae that was my unofficial administrative observation post. My real offices were in the large office-block visible near the centre of Hadea, the distant capital city of Hades. Last time I had been here - not all that long ago, when I organized an apocalypse alert as a cover for obtaining a psychic photograph of the great book of the Seventh Seal – the predominant scheme of décor had consisted largely of reds, yellows and oranges, much of it flickering. This is what I had expected to find. That made it doubly unsettling to see what I actually saw.
Snow was falling very thickly and the entire landscape was covered in its whiteness. Some of the vaguely distance-fuzzy Empire State-sized stalactites dangling from the ten-miles-high cavern ceiling appeared to be rubbing shoulders with equally gigantic icicles that had formed between them. On the ground outside the radio shack someone had built a snowman (actually a snow-demon) and Pharter, Phukkit, Phixit, Phungus and several of their colleagues were joyously flinging snowballs at it to try to knock off its crooked top-hat. Pharter was wearing a scarf and Phukkit sported a pair of horn-muffs. Phixit was wearing gumboots, which looked just a little incongruous on him since they were at least three sizes too big. As we watched, somewhat dumfounded by the whole turn of events, one of the boots stuck in the snow and was left behind: Phixit started to hop back to it in the remaining boot, which promptly decided to get stuck as well, resulting in him hopping out of that one too. It was Smith’s unsuccessful attempt to stifle laughter that made the scampering demons suddenly aware their Boss had arrived.
“Err…” began Pharter, all in a sudden fluster, “…it’s a…”
“I know!” I shot back. “It’s a tea break – am I right?”
“Spot on,” agreed Pharter unabashed.
“Gang,” I drew their attention and pointed at the scrapyard-looking shack, “inside – conference – big problems.”
“Oo’s he?” queried Pharter, pointing at Vittorio. “Is ‘e oo I fink ‘e is?”
“I believe so,” I replied. “He’s Vittorio, the unfrocked priest who we thought was behind all the trouble.”
Pharter puckered his brows. “’Thought was,’” he echoed. “That’s the past tense, Guv. You mean ‘e ain’t behind it after all?”
“Oh, he’s as guilty as sin,” I offered, “but I now think he’s nothing but somebody else’s pawn – a woman’s.”
The demons digested this information as they trudged dejectedly out of the snow and into the radio communications shack. Detective Smith looked at Phukkit who was conspicuously dragging his feet.
“Why so glum, chum?” she asked him light-heartedly, in an attempt to cheer him up.
Phukkit looked up at her, his purple face wistful. “I ain’t never seen snow before, Miss” he mumbled gloomily. “I was enjoyin’ meself.” Then he grinned rather wickedly and flung a snowball which exploded into a shower of cold lumps on the back of Pharter’s head and down the collar of his waistcoat.
27. Staff Meeting…
Once everyone had entered the shack and the door had been closed to keep out the cold wind, I told Phixit to get on the telephone and summon a few others of my best men – I mean demons – and to tell them this was urgent. Vittorio had been looking at the scenery and demons with rather pop-eyes, although he blinkered them if he thought anyone was looking at him, attempting to keep up his act of being unshakably sour-faced and sneeringly aloof. I bundled him into the shack without ceremony and handcuffed him to a chair; this was unnecessary – where could he run to? – but it made me feel better. As for Sandra, as always she was enchanted by the demons and coming through the front door she was already gossiping with them like neighbors over a garden fence.
Once everyone was seated or slouched inside, I introduced Sandra to those who had not met her previously, and vice versa.
“Detective Smith, these are some others of my best staff.” I pointed from one to the other around the room. “This is Phungus, Phixit, Phable, Phorger, Phacile, Phetish, Pharce, Phate, Phelon, Phiend and Pherret.” Smith smiled at each in turn and immediately won their hearts.
“May I ask a personal question?” she enquired of the room at large.
“Go ahead Miss,” answered Phukkit.
“Well, why is it that all of you seem to have names beginning with an “f” sound, whereas other demons I have already met have names like Raum, Gomery and so-on?”
“Ah, well, you see Miss,” began Phukkit, “there are diff’rent kinds of demon, ain’t there? F’rinstance, did you notice anyfing that might distinguish demons like Raum an’ Gaylord from demons like us?”
“Well, only their size – they were a bit bigger than humans and you are all a bit smaller.”
“PRE-cisely,” responded Phukkit. “You see, Miss, those of us who are bigger, like them, are yer actual demons of power, as featured in the great occult grimoires of old, such as the Clavicule of Solomon. Each of them has a range of specialties, so to speak, or as yer might say, a particular field of operation, or an individual talent, if yer sees what I means. Whereas us, you see, well, we are more yer imps. We don’t much specialize, we just hang about doing whatever grabs us, if yer takes my meaning.”
“Yeah,” contributed Phungus. “The big guys, they’re the prima donnas, as it were, an’ we’re the supporting act.”
“I see,” said Smith, thinking quickly and diplomatically. “And, of course, every job is important. If the supporting act didn’t turn up, the prima donnas would look a bit silly having to play every role in the theatre.”
There was a chorus of “Yeah”s and one “Right on!” and a room full of approving nods.
“OK Guv,” interjected Pharter. “What’s the big story then? What’s happening, and why should it worry us?”
“Yeah,” added another demon somewhere in the back. “We like snow – it’s luvverly stuff, innit?”
“It’s lovely stuff in the right place and in the right quantities, and especially in the right dimension,” I replied patiently. “This is not the right place. We don’t have weather in Hell. We don’t even have atmospheric conditions to support weather patterns. And most of all, we do not have cold fronts or precipitation, either rain or snow. It’s never happened. This is very wrong. And anything very wrong is also very worrying, and more so when we don’t know how or why it is happening. Look, guys, nobody can call me a control freak, but when things get this much out of control, I freak-out.”
There was a general demonic sobering-up throughout the shack.
“Sure, Boss,” said Pharter. “We never looked at it like that, did we?” There was a muted chorus of shamefaced agreement and some foot-shuffling.
Just then the front door was opened from outside, letting an icy blast of snow-laced wind gush momentarily into the room with that hollow moaning noise that generally comes with such things. Five larger demons came inside hurriedly, stamping their feet and slapping their arms, closing the door quickly behind them. I knew Smith had instantly recognized Gaylord and Raum, who came over to her and started chatting. I felt obliged to introduce the other three to her.
“Detective Smith, this is Gamygyn, Sabnack and Eligor, three of the demons mentioned in the Clavicule of Solomon. I asked them to come to this meeting.”
The new arrivals settled themselves on ancient chairs of tubular metal and canvas which Phungus hauled off a stack for them. On the canvas backrest of each was stenciled the faded legend US GOV FT BRAGG 1942. For their benefit, I recapped what I had said about the weather, leaving them looking thoughtful.
“Oooh,” trilled Gaylord. “This could be just awful.” Then, offering an explanatory afterthought, “I don’t look good in ski-pants.” I tried unsuccessfully to keep the picture in my imagination from forming.
“Well then,” I offered, trying to seize back command of the meeting when everyone else, judging by the expressions on their faces and a few sets of white knuckles, was obviously wrestling to suppress the same mental image, “does anyone have anything constructive to offer?” I emphasized the word constructive.
There was a lengthy silence broken only by the soft sounds of a lot of people trying not to fidget. Then Phixit spoke.
“Boss, if I understand rightly what you say, there are things happening here, yet the same things are impossible and cannot happen here. There’s a conflict of factuality, something like that old saying about when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. It’s completely impossible for it to snow in Hell, yet here we are, in the middle of a snowstorm.” He paused to gather his thoughts.
“That’s the situation,” I agreed needlessly, just in order to let him know I appreciated a contribution to the conference – any contribution.”
“Well now,” resumed Phixit, frowning and furrowing his brows in deep thought. “On the surface of it, that doesn’t seem to be much to go on – not much to predicate a theory upon, if you get my drift. But –” and he stabbed the air decisively with a talon – “ I believe we can build on the negatives.”
Suddenly I began to take him more seriously. “How do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, look at it this way. If a bloke in a zoo is expecting two different deliveries and finds a big packing case with animal noises coming out of it, it might be a tiger or it might be a sheep, and he don’t know which. So what does he do? If he opens the box and it’s a tiger, he’s in trouble. If he opens it and it’s a sheep, he’s OK. But he has another fact to help him, if he can think logically. He can deduce that the box can’t contain both a tiger and a sheep, because the tiger would eat the sheep. But the sheep wouldn’t eat the tiger. Therefore, he can reason out that, statistically, the case most probably holds a tiger, and he leaves it alone.”
“I’m not sure I understand…” I murmured, not wanting to discourage initiative by pointing out the fallacy in this line of reasoning.
“Well, convert that theorem into our present situation,” explained Phixit. “We got a certain situation here in our cospiritual reality: but this situation cannot exist here: but it does exist: but it can’t: and so-on. Do you see where this is leading?”
Without exception, everyone else in the room, including yours truly, looked utterly baffled.
“Look, half a mo,” snapped Phixit. He bustled to the back of the room and sat down at his battery of communications consoles, placing the huge antique earphones on his head and dangling the long tightly coiled cable over his shoulder. Busily he began to turn knobs, spin dials and switch switches. He called over his shoulder “Hang about, I’m trying something here…” his voice trailing off as it was swamped by his concentration.
As he worked, listening intently at whatever was coming through the earphones, a discussion was breaking out amongst the other demons.
“That thing about the tiger and the sheep is a logical syllogism,” complained Pharter. “It don’t work.”
“Why not?” asked Gaylord.
“Well, if the tiger is in the crate, the bloke’s got problems. If the tiger and the sheep were in the crate, the tiger has eaten the sheep and only the tiger is left in the crate and again the bloke’s got problems. If the sheep alone was in the crate, the bloke won’t know the factual identity of the animal until he opens the crate anyway, like Schrödinger’s Cat, so either way, opening the crate is a gamble. It don’t prove nothing!”
“Now, your line of reasoning is a good example of logical positivism,” commented Phukkit.”
“I would have said it’s more empiricism,” opined Phungus.
“Same thing,” argued Phetish. “Logical positivism, as a discrete school of philosophical evaluation, grew from the discussion group at the Café Central in Vienna and ultimately came to oppose all metaphysical phenomenon as having no verifiable meaning. Sounds like it fits the thing about the tiger and the sheep.”
“Yeah,” agreed Phorger. “The criteria of assessment in logical positivism are the evaluation of propositions as either true, false or meaningless according to the absolutes of verifiability, thus positing logical positivism itself in direct contradiction to quantum theory as expressed in the theorem of Schrödinger’s Cat.”
“It could be a categorical syllogism,” contributed Phiend. “Like that one that goes: Superman can fly: Superman wears red boots: everyone who wears red boots can fly.”
“Yeah, but according to the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the use of language must be gradually replaced throughout society by substituting more exact equivalents, wherein dichotomies of a purely vocabularic inception cannot manifestly occur.”
“What if it was a gorilla in the packing case?” asked Gaylord, hopelessly out of his depth and attempting to catch up. It brought the animated conversation grinding to a halt with a general crash of mental gears.
Then the debate was abandoned, or at least postponed, because Phixit called out over his shoulder, “Hey! I’ve done it! I’ve found something.” There was a rush of everyone to his side, with me in pole position. I saw that he was staring at an old-fashioned round glass cathode ray tube, the kind used in radar stations and science-fiction movies in the 1950s which only displayed an illuminated zigzag line moving up and down to indicate something happening within the field of the detector.
“What is it,” I asked him softly, voicing everyone’s thoughts.
“There’s a reality field very close to ours,” he stated. “It seems to be slowly but surely converging. Its outlying wavelengths are overlapping Hell’s own mythomanifesting protosubstantiality already, which is what is lowering the temperature and causing the snow and ice.”
“Wot’s all that in plain language?” asked Phukkit.
Phixit turned round to look at me, and suddenly I could see fear in his eyes.
“If you want it in words of fewer syllables,” offered Phixit, “we are shortly going to catastrophically collide with a rogue Creation.”
28. Universes That go Bump in the Night…
“Run that past me again,” I requested, my mind already instructing my stomach to experience a sinking feeling. Sandra drew close to my side in silence and sought my hand to hold.
Phixit sighed, removed his earphones and wiped his arm across his brow. “OK, let’s start simple and work our way up. If a bull elephant leaves the herd and runs amuck, he is called a rogue; likewise with other animals, even cattle.”
(“Perhaps it’s a cow inside the packing case, then?” whispered Gaylord breathlessly, to universal disregard.)
“This same term has been applied in theoretical astronomy and astro-physics,” continued Phixit. “If a planet somehow breaks out of its orbit and heads wildly towards other planets, it is referred to as a ‘rogue planet’. So far this has never happened in the solar system since its earliest days, when a rogue planet about the size of Mars is now postulated as having struck the earth before life began, causing a cloud of orbiting debris that eventually became the Moon. Scientists have also defined the possibility of ‘rogue galaxies’, which can gravitationally devour other galaxies.”
“I’m with you so far,” I nodded.
“Well, let’s take this speculative analysis a bit further. There have been various science-fiction stories in which different dimensions collide – the result of a ‘rogue dimension’, in fact. A disunity within the quantum flux. Take it further still – the normal universe plus various trans-dimensional reality extensions, such as all the various religion’s heavens, hells, limbos and Las Vegas, are part of the composite entirety of Creation. This is in accord with the wilder claims about quantum mechanics”
(“I know,” whispered Gaylord again, trying to keep up, “It’s Schrödinger’s Cow.” He was even more energetically ignored.)
“OK, I’m still with you.”
Phixit’s voice lowered and became husky. “Well now, whereas this whole universe’s Creation event was initiated by You-Know-Who and His equally godly colleagues,” he pointed at the ceiling and raised his eyes in the same direction, “just suppose that, somehow, someone else has managed to perform a similar Creation event, bringing a whole new Creation into existence – and then sending it onto a collision course with this one!”
He paused to take breath and pointed to his equipment. “And in case anyone is in doubt, I’m picking up the signal spike from it right now!”
I hesitated momentarily. “Are you certain? Is there any other explanation of this signal?”
Phixit looked up at me sorrowfully. “I’m afraid not, Boss. I know my equipment and its capabilities, and its limitations.”
“How long have we got?”
“If it keeps on approaching at its present velocity and direction, there’s going to be one mother of a bump in about three normal days – hold on…” He took out an antiquated slide rule and adjusted several knobs and dials, doing handwritten calculations on a jotter with a pencil stub. “Make that seventy-five hours, eleven minutes and seventeen seconds.”
If he was as certain and specific as that, I believed him. “What do you think will happen when it bumps into our Creation?”
Phixit stared in horrified fascination into his small round screen. Only his mouth moved. “Like the cowboy said, Boss – there ain’t room enough in this town fer the both of us. Only, make that ‘existence’ instead of ‘town’.” Then he turned his back on his equipment and faced the rest of the room. In a small voice, he finished:
“When it happens, we won’t be here any more. The arrival of a new Creation will be like matter encountering anti-matter. It will undo this one completely and annihilate even its sub-atomic quantum matrixes – the planet earth, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, the Happy Hunting Ground, Paradise, Cloud Cuckoo Land – everything – all of it – gone!”
“Do you think Heaven knows about this?” I asked him, although I knew that if this had been so, Hell would have been told.
“I doubt it,” offered Phixit. “They get the lion’s share of the budget funding and only have state-of-the-art equipment. You see, my equipment here is - let us say - somewhat antiquated. I love this old stuff, which is just as well because it’s all that drops down here. And it’s only because my outfit here uses coils and valves and copper wiring and circuit-breakers and items like that, all salvaged from shipwrecks, plane crashes, wars and suchlike, instead of all the up-to-date electronics gear, that it picked up the signal at all.”
“Can you get a signal through to Heaven?”
Phixit twiddled more knobs and dials. “Nix, Boss. The incoming interference signal is growing too strong. Listen – you can hear the snowstorm outside getting worse. It’s all part of the same thing. The closer the rogue Creation gets to us, the stronger its effects will become until… well, bump!”
Sandra had been listening quietly beside me. Now she spoke, with a clear and level head. “If you can’t get an outgoing signal to Heaven, do you think you can send one to the oncoming rogue Creation?”
Phixit thought for a moment. “Possibly,” he nodded. “I might be able to transmit a powerful short-range carrier wave and place a coherent message signal inside it. The surrounding carrier wave could act like a sort of protective shield for the message transmission. I seem to remember there were some experiments made by the old Soviet Union with that method for the use of military aircraft, in an attempt to send messages through electronic jamming interference. But in any case, what good would that do us? It only works over quite short distances. We couldn’t reach the receivers in Heaven.”
“Maybe not,” agreed Sandra. “But we might be able to reach whoever made that other Creation, and is presumably piloting it, or directing it, or whatever you do to them to make the thing go where you want it to.”
“I’m glad one of us is thinking,” I responded to this suggestion. “If it’s something accidental, we could warn them; if it’s something deliberate – well, at least we’ll know.”
“I can try,” shrugged Phixit.
More knob turning and dial twiddling. Then some switch flicking and a few loud metallic blows on the top of a consul with a clenched fist.
“Well Boss, I’d be prepared to bet they can hear you now if you speak over the mike – the carrier wave is strong at least and our signal is spiking well in its centre. Mind you, there’s no guarantee that anyone’s listening there, or even that there’s any equipment for receiving and transmitting. We don’t know anything about what it’s like inside the rogue Creation – it may not even be a cosmos as we know it.”
I tried. I picked up the unwieldy old microphone from atop the main consul: it was another antique, shaped like two coffins joined head-to-head held in a steel ring and had the legend WEAF on top in big metal letters. “Hello – hello! This is Hell broadcasting to the unidentified universe approaching us. Are you receiving me? Over.”
Nothing came out of the speakers except an irregular pattern of static. I tried again with the same message, with the same result; as much conversation as you’d get from a bigmouth - of a cave. I repeated my spiel several times more for good measure, then reluctantly lowered the microphone.
“Either they can’t answer, or they won’t, or else there’s nobody there to answer. Perhaps rogue Creations can’t support life as we know it.”
Meanwhile, the temperature inside the sprawling shack had dropped noticeably. I saw that the snowdrifts piling up outside had reached the bottom of some of the cracked and grimy windows.
Things were quickly getting very serious. I had brought living mortals to Hell, one of whom was the woman I loved, and I did not know whether it was possible for a mortal in Hell to die, or whether they had to be on the mortal plane in order to expire. If death in Hell was possible, then the noticeably rapid dropping of the temperature was a very major concern. I was on the point of ordering Sandra to take Vittorio back to my car and return to the normality of the mortal world without me, whether she liked it or not, when suddenly there was a new and startling development.
Without any warning, the faint irregular background hissing and buzzing issuing from Phixit’s array of speakers abruptly ceased. I suppose most people are familiar with that slightly strange sensation of being so used to an unnoticed background noise that the silence when it stops seems loud for a moment. Everyone in the room instinctively became more alert. Gaylord’s bulldog-like mouth snapped shut with a loud click.
Before anybody could say anything, a voice came clearly and without any interference from the speakers.
“Well, well, well. I am privileged! The lord Lucifer himself, no less, and already back in Hell. What’s the matter – did you fail your test so soon?”
It was a woman’s voice.
29. Queen of the Night…
There was a nonplussed silence. After about six seconds, Sandra was heard to whisper: “Who’s that?”
I remained silent, thunderstruck. I thought I recognized that voice – but surely not! It couldn’t be – could it?
“What’s the matter?” asked the voice from the speakers. “Cat got your tongue? Perhaps I had better pay you a little visit.”
Before I could react, Vittorio started to rock backwards and forwards in his seat, hands still cuffed behind his back. He was sweating. “She comes,” he moaned in an agony of perverse apprehension. “She comes…!”
The static interference noise came back into the speakers. Slowly, Phixit turned the volume down. Nobody said anything – nobody could think of anything intelligent to say and Gaylord at least knew better than to make the attempt at this juncture. Everyone looked with blank expressions at everyone else.
Then, without any other accompanying special effects, a ten-foot circle of bright green light appeared on the wall at the rear of the shack, between a 1929 Wall Street tickertape machine and a glossy 1967 psychedelic poster of The Beatles: part of the circle overlapped Ringo, giving him a sudden uncharacteristic sallow complexion. As if the circle of light were, somehow, a vertical pool of water, a human-shaped figure emerged through it and stepped into the room. The strange green light faded a little and it was only then that any details of the unexpected visitor could be discerned.
It was, indeed, a woman – and what a woman! I believe an appropriate word might be “Junoesque”, or “statuesque”. Put simply, at eight feet tall and with all the appropriate trimmings in perfect proportion, including a mane of red hair reaching to her bronze-greaved knees, she made Xena the Warrior Princess look like a runner-up in the Miss Supermarket Checkout Queue contest. And I knew her.
“Lilith,” I breathed in amazement.
“Well, I suppose I should be flattered that you at least remember me,” she retorted with a strong hint of scorn. “However, you will soon be regretting your past even more than you ever have done. When I’ve finished with you and all your friends, and your beloved planet earth, you will really know the meaning of fallen angel!” She turned back to the circle of green light on the wall, then turned again to utter a Parthian shot. “You realize, of course, that this is personal.” She spat out the final word with considerable venom.
Then, without warning and before anybody could stop him, Vittorio had leaped out of his chair, arms still handcuffed behind his back but – a regrettable oversight – legs still free, and he charged across the room with his head down like some strange quarterback. He dived headfirst into the green light on the wall and promptly vanished from sight.
Then she stepped through the green light as though it were an open doorway and vanished. So did the circle of light.
There was a stunned silence for several long seconds.
Sandra Smith was the first to speak. “What is she to you?”
“Nothing at all,” I replied, spreading my hands in innocence. “We went on a couple of dates before the Ice Age, and that was it. Truly.” It sounded so lame that I felt an automatic male need for back-up. “Guys, do I speak the truth here?”
It was big Raum who answered, his deep, slow voice somehow signifying a speaker who was beyond all possibility of falsehood. “Miss Smith, that is an absolute fact. The Boss was still an archangel then; it was before he was dismissed from the board of directors. They had three dates. He behaved honorably and decently. I believe it was this that made her break it up – she doesn’t like that type. She is attracted to the baser side of a man’s nature – and I’m sure you have noticed, despite all the hype against him in your world, the Boss doesn’t have much of a baser side.”
“S’right,” endorsed Pharter, more subdued than usual. “The Boss is a good bloke.”
Sandra waved her hands. “All right, all right.” She looked into my eyes. “I believe you. But all that aside, exactly who is Lilith?”
I sat down. “How long have you got?” I asked rhetorically. “There has been a degree of what might be called ‘official cover-up’ about her in the mortal plane.”
“Go ahead, spill the beans some more,” encouraged Sandra, moving to my side and taking my hand in hers again.
“Lilith was Adam’s first wife, before Eve came along. She was one of the… call them ‘failures’… formed before the perfected human Adam was created. She is mentioned in Isaiah and referred to as a ‘screech owl’ of the desert. She was known to the Jewish exiles in Babylon as a terrible female vampire, noted for her beauty and long flowing hair. The ancient Mesopotamians regarded her as a storm demon who could take the form of a screech owl and she is mentioned in the Sumerian King List and the Epic of Gilgamesh, which also makes mention of her long hair, and in cuneiform inscriptions dating as far back as two thousand BC. She is also mentioned in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in the Jewish Talmud where, again, it mentions her long hair. In Jewish legend she is a terrible, shrieking bloodsucking demon of the night.
“The Akkadians of Sargon the Great in Mesopotamia over twenty centuries BC describe Lilith as a beautiful but deadly vampire demon stalking the darkness of the night and deserted ruins, pouncing on victims in the form of a shrieking bird-like creature. Even some Native American tribes, before Columbus, had legends of the Lillitu, the terrible, long-haired and lascivious were-woman who, in the guise of a screech-owl, would descend at the darkest time of night, attracted by the erotic dreams of men, and make love to them before draining their life-blood.
“The ancient Greeks knew her as Lamia, a vampire demon who stalked the night winds in the shape of a screech owl looking for victims in order to descend and suck them dry of blood. She is known in Arabic legend as Q’rina, or Karina. She is known in one guise or another to all the world’s cultures. In astrology, Lilith is the name given to the ‘dark moon’ at the point where the moon’s elliptical orbit takes it farthest from the earth, which is also referred to as the ‘black moon’ and the ‘ghost moon’. The ancient Egyptians left a warning inscription in some of their tombs: ‘When the ghost moon rises, Lilith the shrieking night-demon stalks the earth seeking the blood of her prey.’
“Put simply, she is the essence and origin of all the legends of the classical vampire, whether male or female. Goethe mentions her in part one of ‘Faust’ during the Walpurgis Night scene. When Doctor Faust asks who she is, the reply is: ‘Adam’s wife, his first; beware of her; her beauty’s great boast is her dangerous hair; when Lilith winds it tight around young men; she doe not soon let go of them again!’ She has some kind of hang-up about men – which, incidentally, has nothing to do with her very brief association with me, since she already had it when she threw me over. She has some kind of compulsion for ruining men, one way or another, whether mortal or immortal.”
“She sounds like a nasty piece of work. I know the type,” reflected Sandra. “Where I live, her kind normally has a whole firm of topnotch shyster lawyers in tow. There’s more than one way to suck blood.”
“She evidently never forgave the Boss for resisting her snares,” commented Raum reflectively. “I believe you might call it a grudge-match. I can guess what’s behind this rogue Creation thing now – Lilith is after her revenge: revenge on all the normal Creation. She wants to destroy the entire universe, and she wanted the Boss to know it was her doing it.”
Somewhere in the back, Gaylord muttered: “Like they say, darling; ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman’s corns!’”
30. Out of This World…
“The big question is; what are we going to do about it?” announced Detective Smith decisively. “And if anyone wails ‘there’s nothing we can do’ I shall hit them. Hard. Got that?”
“Well,” I mused, trying to think quicker than I ever had before, “let’s start with a ‘to do’ list and take it from there. We have to get out of here: pretty soon it will be too cold for mortal life, and even us immortals are getting chilly. Then we have to send an entire rogue universe back where it came from, before it strikes our own. Then the big one – we have to arrest Lilith and take her into custody.”
“On what charge?” asked Sandra with great interest.
“Violating the Agreement,” I answered.
“What agreement is that?”
“Well, on earth the various countries that survived World War 2 and felt threatened by the Soviet Block formed a united self-supporting group called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or N.A.T.O.”
“So?”
“So, a long time ago in a far off astral plane, all the varied deities, both major and minor, of all the world’s different religions, made an agreement that there was room for all of them and none of them would rock the boat. It was signed by such notables as Jehovah, Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Aphrodite, Vishnu, Shiva, Cernunnos, Zarathustra, Krishna, Mithras – the whole Who’s Who of the world’s gods and goddesses. Thus was formed the Peace Over Total Arcadian Territories Organization, or P.O.T.A.T.O. According to the POTATO agreement, no religion is permitted to mash any other.”
“And Lilith is a masher?”
“You can say that again, dear,” remarked Gaylord dryly.
Sandra was suddenly quiet, thinking deeply. Then she said, “What about Buddhism?”
“What about Buddhism?” I fired back.
“Well, strictly speaking, mainstream Buddhism does not contain or acknowledge any supernatural entity; it has no gods or goddesses, just the teachings and example of Gautama Buddha, the Enlightened One, who is regarded as a completely mortal person of superior vision and understanding. Yet it represents one of the major belief systems of the world. Who signed your agreement on their behalf?”
There was a blank silence for several moments before I replied, “I don’t think they were included in the agreement, but the fact never registered until you pointed it out. If any god had appeared waving an agreement for Buddha to sign, he would have told them they were manifestly wrong to believe in themselves and he was not going to get involved in anything featuring such an obviously phony premise. Rather like a New York stockbroker when the Jehovah’s Witnesses come calling at the door.”
“So Nirvana is not included in the agreement?”
“Strictly speaking, Nirvana is not a heaven as such, it is a state of mind. Unfortunately, anything that exists within the collective human consciousness eventually gathers sufficient emotive energy to manifest as a functioning spiritual reality.”
“You mean we humans grow our own heavens?”
“And your own hells,” I agreed without cynicism. “Throughout history, the real Hell’s main competition has come from the good intentions of motivated fanatics.”
The discussion had taken on definite philosophical overtones, and so it was no surprise when Pharter suddenly leaped forward, closely followed by Phukkit, and interrupted us.
“’Ere, just a minute,” he shouted excitedly. “I got an idea. It’s still coming to me.”
“Let’s have it,” I encouraged.
“Well Guv, it looks like we can’t contact Heaven because of the strong interference on the astral wavelengths, so we can’t warn them or ask them for advice or assistance, and we can’t go there because the rogue Creation is getting in the way. This probably means we can’t even reach Olympus, Asgard, or any of the other Heavenly States. We probably can’t even escape back to mortal earth, even in your car.”
“So tell me something I don’t know,” I invited.
“Ok, how abaht this? We might be able to pull off a kind-of short-circuit, in spiritual terms,” the little demon explained. “We might be able to get to Heaven for help by going there via Nirvana, which is a state of mind rather than an astral plane and, perhaps, is therefore not as subject as all the other religious beliefs to astral interference from Lilith’s universe. Perhaps she didn’t take that into account – it’s worth a try, innit?”
“You mean, use Nirvana as a kind-of ‘stepping stone’ for gaining access to the regular heaven?”
“Pree-cisely. ‘Course, it ain’t the direct route, an’ we might ‘ave to bugger around a bit hoppin’ from one heaven to another until we find the one we want. But at least it might work.”
“Yeah,” enthused his friend Phukkit supportively. “It increases our chances from zero to one-in-a-million.”
“Never quote me the odds,” I grated. “It’s the best plan we’ve got – it’s the only plan we’ve got. If anyone has anything better, this is a good time to air it.” There was a loud silence. “Let’s try it,” I decided.
“What’s the best way go about reaching Nirvana?” queried Sandra.
“Allow me to organize it,” answered Pharter pompously, sauntering to the end of the room and turning to face everyone, like a teacher about to address the class.
“Are you OK wiv that, Guv?” he asked, seeking my assurance.
“OK. Fine. Just get on with it,” I ordered.
“Right. Everyone sit on the floor wiv their legs crossed in a semi-circle.”
“I can’t cross my legs in a semi-circle,” complained Phukkit. “They only bend at the knees.”
“I means, sit in a semi circle and then cross yer legs, stoopid,”
When everyone was thus seated on the floor – including big Raum who found it most difficult with his T-Rex legs – Pharter relaxed somewhat in his instructor’s demeanor.
“Now, I want everyone to do two simple things, and there’s a third simple thing later on when I give the word. The first thing is to breathe deeply and exhale fully in time with my counting, a count of five to breathe in and a count of five to breathe out – yes Phungus, even those of us who don’t normally have to breathe at all. That’s very simple; nobody should have a problem wiv that. We’ll keep doing this for a little while. Then, when I judge it’s bin long enough, I’ll tell you to stop. That don’t mean stop breathing, it just means go back to however you do it normally, or not at all, as the case might be, right? OK.
“Now, the second simple thing is, at the same time as we’re doin’ the breathing bit, I want everyone to try to close down their thoughts. What I mean is, try to let yer mind go completely blank – for some amongst us, this has already happened!” He looked pointedly at Gaylord, who tossed his great head and harrumphed.
“The third simple thing is, when I start it off, everyone starts chanting the same words what I chant, an’ doin’ it together, without shouting. There ain’t no tune to remember, so it’s easy. The words are all chanted in the same note and tone. These words will be ‘Om Mani Padme Hum.’”
“You said it were easy!” complained Phukkit. “That’s a lot to remember.”
“No it ain’t,” contradicted his friend. “Just three steps, right? Breathing while I count you in and out, making your mind blank, then ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’. That’s it. What’s difficult abaht that, might I arsk?” He raised his eyebrows, which made his horns waggle slightly.
True to the classroom spirit of the occasion, Sandra raised her hand to ask a question.
“Yes, Miss?” responded Pharter, far more politely.
“I understand what you are saying; I’ve actually done it at meditation classes – but do you really think this simple breathing exercise and mantra-chanting will transport a whole bunch of people like us out of this threadbare warehouse and off through the clouds to the Buddhist Nirvana, as though we were on a magic carpet or something?”
“Well now, Miss, I quite sees your point. On the mortal, physical plane where you come from, this would probably need much more work, and it might not even work at all.” He raised a talon and winked. “But we are not on the mortal physical plane now, are we? That is what makes all the difference. Here, we are not bound by physical laws but by spiritual laws. These are even stronger, I grant you – but they work in an entirely different way.
“Remember, if enough mortal people start believing in some particular spiritual matter – say, just for the purposes of illustration, the Land of Oz – then the Land of Oz will come into existence on the astral plane somewhere. That is why Hell itself exists – because enough people have believed in it for so long that it came into existence. Ditto Heaven; ditto Asgard; ditto Mount Olympus, et-ceterah et-ceterah.”
Suddenly I realized what Pharter reminded me of at the moment – an army sergeant instructing a squad of rookie troops. Didn’t someone once say: ‘the problem produces the man’? Of course, I knew that everything he was saying was perfectly correct. However, I did not permit myself to hope. Not yet. I could not face the idea of all hope being destroyed by failure.
“Because of this,” Pharter was continuing his explanation to Sandra, “if we can just manage to clear our minds of all other interruptions and think of the chant as the route to Nirvana, which has already been created long ago as a state of mind and consciousness, we should generate what you might call an ‘astral short-circuit’ which will act like a temporary bridge or tunnel by which we can be transported across from an astral reality, Hell, to a kind-of in-between place, Nirvana, from which – wiv any luck – we should tumble straight through into the nearest available heavenly realm”
“All right, I see what you’re saying,” said Sandra somewhat doubtfully, “but why don’t we make a jump right into Heaven itself, which is where we want to get to, instead of aiming at Nirvana?”
“Because,” answered Pharter patiently, “there is too much cosmic interference from Lilith’s rogue Creation jamming all communications with regular ‘eavens and ‘ells, including teleportations and materialisations, so we can only reach Nirvana, if we can reach anywhere at all, because it ain’t an actual spiritual plane but only a state of mind. From there, we will most likely fall into a regular heaven, but it will be a matter of pure chance that determines exactly which belief’s heaven we find ourselves in – I trust I make that all clear now?”
I spoke up. “To put it in simple terms, what we’re trying to do is to find a tradesman’s entrance into Heaven, by going via a roundabout route that might – just might – not yet be blocked by Lilith’s spiritual jamming interference. I don’t know if it’s going to work – but it’s our only plan. So, everyone – give this your best shot.”
Now, what I need to tell you next requires something of an exercise of the imaginative faculties. You have to picture the scene inside an old corrugated iron and wood shack the size of a small warehouse, full of collected odds and ends of the centuries: Satan, the Lord of Hell and LAPD cop, with a semi-circle of demons of various sizes and attributes, plus a beautiful black woman who was also in the LAPD, all seated cross-legged on the floor with their hands resting in their laps in the lotus position, and all chanting peacefully in time together. Since the moment I accepted the challenge of proving my good character, I had seen a few sights I would never be able to forget. This was one of them.
The last thing I noticed before my mind descended like Apollo 11 into a sea of tranquility was that the snow drifts had now covered the windows entirely, dimming the light inside the shack, which came now only from a single bare light bulb dangling on a wire above Phixit’s communications array. Outside that circle of yellow illumination the darkness had already gathered. Deliberately I dismissed all worries and extraneous thoughts from my mind and allowed the chanting, encouraged by the preceding rhythmic breathing exercise, to calm my consciousness and relax body and brain. After a while – I had no conception of how long – I felt myself gently drifting into realms of pure being.
31. Somewhere Over the Rainbow…
There was no real way of measuring how much time elapsed while we were all in that euphoric state of total mental one-ness, but weighing it up afterwards it could not actually have been much more than ten minutes, although of course, the passage of time is very different anyway in the astral realms such as Heaven and Hell, so it may only have been a minute or two. Coming out of this strange trancelike state was a bit like waking up on a crisp spring morning after a night of partying when you need to shake your brain into full wakefulness in order to make sense of everything. The first thing I consciously noticed was that everyone - Sandra, myself and the assorted demons - were still sitting cross legged in the same semi-circle, and this made me feel more than a little despondent as it seemed that nothing much may actually have happened after all.
Then, as the others started to stir out of their meditations, I realized with a surge of hope that we were no longer inside a cold, dark, antiquated shack; we were – of all things - sitting on grass and surrounded by sub-tropical jungle. A brightly colored parakeet squawked loudly in the bushes and flew off with a whir of wings.
I stood up and walked over to where Pharter was rubbing his eyes.
“Old friend,” I told him, “I apologize for any previous times when I may have underestimated you. You did it! We have escaped out of Hell. Your idea has rescued us.”
There was a ragged but enthusiastic cheer from the others, and a cry of “Good ol’ Pharter!” from someone at the back.
Pharter scrambled to his feet and looked slightly embarrassed.
“Gee – er – um – ah!” he stammered. “Well, I’m glad you all appreciate it, anyway. Personally, I didn’t seriously imagine that the idea would work. I only cooked it up to keep everyone’s spirits up and give us something to occupy our thoughts with for a bit longer before we all froze.”
The cheering rapidly faded into a baffled silence.
“What does Olympus look like?” asked Sandra a little whimsically in the brief quiet.
“I seen it once, Miss” offered Pharter, gratefully accepting the opportunity to change the subject. “Looks summink like the Acropolis, only in better condition, much bigger an’ wiv outbuildings.”
“Nah,” commented Phukkit, shaking his head disbelievingly. “You’re making it up, ain’t yer? The Acropolis is fiction, ain’t it.” He spoke as though stating a firm fact.
“The Acropolis – fiction?” spluttered Pharter, outraged. “It’s a real place in Greece, you moron.”
“’Course it ain’t,” rejoined Phukkit with confident assurance. “It’s complete fiction, an’ it ain’t in Greece, it’s supposed to be somewhere in America - it’s where Superman lives, ain’t it?”
His friend, for once, was speechless.
I stood up and walked round the small clearing we had found ourselves in. A stream flowed over some rocks in a picturesque waterfall where the bushes thinned: tiny rainbow-hued fish flashed and darted in the pool it fed.
“Does anybody have the slightest idea where we are?” I asked. There was a ragged chorus of no – and a single rather timid yes from somewhere at back. You could easily tell who had voiced it – all other heads were swiveling towards the source like magnets round a north pole. It was Gaylord.
“You think you know where we are?” I enquired, more out of sympathy than anything else.
“I do, despite everyone’s expressions,” stated Gaylord archly. He pointed through the trees. I looked. Through the jungle, in the distance, could just be seen a building, itself half-covered with creepers and green growth. There was no mistaking the outlines – cyclopean masonry rising at an angle to a flat top, a long, long flight of stone steps rising up the sloping surface. It was a huge Aztec pyramid.
“I reasoned it out,” supplied Gaylord in a tone that defied anyone to dare argue with him, whatever their opinion. “We can’t be in Central America on earth, which we all know is an impossibility under the circumstances, what with all the spiritual interference. And yet, that is indisputably an Aztec temple. Therefore, we must be in Tomoanchan.”
“Tomoanchan?” I queried encouragingly.
“It’s the paradise of the Aztecs – their heaven, if you like, or the corresponding concept. It is ruled over by an Aztec deity named Itzpapalotl.”
“So we’ve reached somebody’s heaven, if not our own,” mused Sandra. “Why did we pop up in this particular one, I wonder?”
“The Aztecs are first in alphabetical order?” suggested Phukkit. Phelon threw a banana at him. It impaled itself on one of his horns.
“Well,” I summed up, “we are in a heaven, an astral reality, which means we have actually managed to sidestep through the Buddhist Nirvana to get around Lilith’s interference blockade of Hell.” I looked at Sandra, because I was saying this for the benefit of her understanding. “That means we should be able to find a way out of this particular paradise and work our way towards the one we need to contact.”
“Work our way how?” she asked. “Do we have to do another round of Buddhist mantra-chanting?”
“No, hopefully not,” I informed. “That was the thing that got us through the spiritual interference which was causing all the problems, because we were able to use Nirvana, a state of mind rather than of spirit, as a kind-of stepping stone, or escape tunnel – choose your favorite analogy. From now on, all we have to do is find the entrance to the service passages and follow them in the right direction.”
There was a significant pause.
“You’re kidding me,” she stated flatly in disbelief.
“Not at all,” I answered very seriously. “All the heavens ever conceived by humankind are connected by hidden service passages – how else do you think the cleaning staff get around without disturbing the bliss of the occupants?”
“Cleaning staff…!!!???” Sandra exploded in incredulity. “The astral planes need cleaning staff? This time you’ve got to be winding me up, mister!”
I sighed. “Sweetheart, I tell you no lie. But it’s not cleaning staff as you might understand the term. Let me tell you some spiritual truths. Don’t think of it in merely earthly terms – consider a vastly bigger picture. Heaven, Hell, this Aztec place we are in now, all the world’s other heavens, hells, paradises and big doughnuts in the sky, are all part of an inter-connected collection of astral realities created over the entirety of its existence by the human species, all of them grouped more-or-less together and held in place by the collective unconscious spirituality of humans – like the balloons in the ceiling net over the dancehall on New Year’s Eve before the clock strikes twelve.”
I continued before she could say anything. “But that’s only the human collection of balloons.”
Pointing rather vaguely at the bright blue sky above us, I went on; “Out there, there’s a whole galaxy full of planets orbiting millions of other stars, and beyond that, countless millions of other galaxies. There are countless billions of other life-forms going about their business in the greater universe, and most of them have some kind of spiritual belief. No life-form likes to admit that merely what they are and how long they live is the sum total of existence. Everyone needs a rainbow to be somewhere over.
“So there are countless billions of what you might call ‘astral clusters’, one for each life-bearing world in the universe – clusters of individualized heavens and hells, all tailored to suit the yearnings of the particular species on its particular planet who unconsciously created it.
“Now, consider an analogy. On earth, there are many thousands of radio and TV channels, plus other wavelengths such as military communications, police, medical emergency, fire departments, mobile phones, satellite control and so on. It is a well known phenomenon, experienced now and then by just about everybody, that sometimes there are things like freak weather conditions which cause one wavelength or TV channel to interfere with another, often producing what is sometimes referred to as a “ghost” image on a TV screen. If the interference is strong, you might get a chorus line of transparent ballet dancers point-stepping across the middle of a football match. Have you never seen a TV channel displaying a note at the bottom of the screen apologizing for what is sometimes technically called ‘cross channel interference’?”
Sandra nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ve seen that,” she replied meekly.
“Well, something similar happens in the astral realms. You’ve already seen an example of deliberate and directed malicious interference, from Lilith’s home-made rogue universe. What can sometimes happen is that some other planet, maybe in some distant galaxy, gets affected by, say, a sudden huge gamma ray burst, or the electro-psychic effects of a supernova explosion, or a black hole swallowing another star for lunch, or supercharged x-ray streams from a quasar, whatever, and this can produce random psycho-spiritual phenomenon.”
“Right,” she said slowly. “Random psycho-spiritual phenomenon.”
“Sure,” I confirmed. “The astral equivalent of cross-channel interference on a TV picture.”
Sandra held up her hands, palms towards me, and shook them a few times. “Ok, ok, I think I’ve got all that. As well as I can, anyhow. But I still don’t see what the connection is with cleaning staff.”
“Well, suppose in the afterlife you were in a deckchair sipping a mint julep through a straw enjoying a well-earned eternal rest in the paradise of your choice, when suddenly, through no fault of their own, you found yourself exchanging pleasantries with a three-legged, multi-tentacled, twelve-eyed green spiritual entity suddenly short-circuited into your heaven from the heaven of the sentient octopoids of Rigel 7, as the result of a quantum energy burst from a neighboring collapsed red giant?”
Very slowly, considering every possible aspect of this image, Sandra replied, carefully, “I might find my equanimity a trifle unpoised.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “So, what do you do in such a circumstance? That’s easy – you send for the cleaning staff, who come in through the service passages and politely escort the errant ghost back to its own paradise, where it can resume its own eternal rest relaxing up to its tentacle-pits in bubbling primeval slime whilst eating fish canapés to its multiple hearts’ content.”
“You paint an enchanting picture!”
“There’s more subtle variations on a similar theme,” I added. “Given a suitable burst of concentrated gamma-ray disruption striking randomly in the astral planes, a strict 7th Day Adventist busily enjoying himself in their particular heaven by denying himself all possible pleasures could, instantly and without warning, find themselves materializing in the Islamic paradise where they automatically have 72 wives and are expected to relax all the time attended by beautiful semi-naked Houris. The inter-heaven cleaning staff are also experts at administering therapy in such cases.”
Sandra gave a theatrical sigh and shrugged her shoulders. “All right. So, how does one find the entrance to these service passages?”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” I murmured, looking around at the jungle scenery. I called to all the demons. “Hey, guys, let’s spread out in this heaven and find a staff entrance.”
“Sure thing, Boss,” rumbled big Raum, striding off easily through the verdant undergrowth on his dinosaur legs. The others fanned out in different directions, those of them with wings taking to the air, including Pharter and Phukkit who headed directly for the great Aztec pyramid in the distance. Nearby in the undergrowth somewhere, another parakeet squawked happily.
32. Whistle While You Work…
Of course, on the face of it, a search such we were attempting would not have been an easy task because every individual heaven, no matter that all of them were gathered together in a big connected cluster, was infinite in size. However, we had a significant advantage because, being astral beings ourselves, the demons and I were not only experienced in these matters but additionally we could vaguely remember the original design plans of the whole system, having inspected them in the Pliocene Era.
This is perhaps best explained by comparing it with a commuter on the New York subway; although he or she might only travel on a daily basis from their apartment in Woodlawn to their office near the Lincoln Centre, if a visitor asked them where to find, say, Brooklyn, Flushing or JFK Airport, the commuter would at least have a vague idea of where to point on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority map. Similarly on the London Underground, even commuting Londoners who had never set foot in the East End would know how to get to Barking or Mile End if someone asked them in Ealing.
So it was that, even though we were a bit foggy about the exactitudes of the layout, we at least had an approximation of it in our minds, and we had the regular passenger’s added advantage of knowing what a railway station entrance looked like, except it wasn’t a railway station we were looking for, which is merely an analogy, but a camouflaged entrance to the system of interconnecting heavenly service passageways.
After only some ten minutes, Pharter and Phukkit flew back bearing news to Sandra and myself, who had not gone more than several hundred yards from the clearing.
“Boss! Miss!” cried Phukkit in excitement as they performed a flapping vertical descent like Ray Harryhausen harpies through the trees and dangling vines. “Eligor found it; he’s only gone and found it!”
Eligor was one of those demons mentioned in the Clavicule of Solomon I had asked to attend our meeting in the snowbound shack. In the Clavicule, he is described with the ability – amongst other attributes – to discover hidden things. It seems he had lived up to his reputation for us. Quickly we followed Pharter and Phukkit who led us on foot to the spot.
Eligor was waiting for us beside a fairly nondescript tree growing at the edge of the jungle, where a piece of carefully mown grassland resembling a golf course surrounded the great pyramid. There were a few people in the lee of the structure several hundred yards from us, enjoying their heaven by having a barbecue: there were several smoking braziers and some colorful garden sunshades, and a Latin-American rhythm throbbed from a ghetto-blaster on a plastic table. Several folk lay dozing on sun-loungers or sat up sipping cold drinks. However, the locals did not even notice us, or if they did, they ignored us; they most likely assumed we were a maintenance crew or gardening staff.
“This is it, Boss,” announced Eligor proudly, tapping the trunk of the tree. “It might not look like much, but I can sense an inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field running along the edge of the trunk.”
“Good work,” I congratulated him. Then, turning to Pharter and Phukkit, “Go get all the others, boys.”
“You bet, Boss.” The two of them flapped into the air and sped away.
“I have to ask you,” said Sandra to Eligor, “what, exactly, is an… an… an inter-spiritual chromo… whatever you said?”
“Inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field,” repeated Eligor. He was about five feet five in height, somewhat stout, red of hue and sported a huge idiosyncratic moustache like those once associated with British RAF pilots. He wore a metal helmet with riveted holes for his horns. His description in that ancient Who’s Who of demons the Clavicule of Solomon reads: “A great duke, appearing as a goodly knight carrying a lance, pennon and scepter.” True to form, he bore a spear-like lance on his back which rattled in a long quiver, its tip rising a foot above his head. A small yellow pennant indeed dangled from it below the point. If you looked closely at the pennant, you could make out the legend “Support Cleveland Indians 1920 Season.”
“You see, my dear,” he elaborated in a perfect aristocratic English accent, twirling his moustache with a talon, “an inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field is something like a secret door between dimensions. Are you familiar with string theory?”
“Not as much as I’d like to be,” answered Sandra cautiously.
“Well, proponents of string theory postulate that everything is made up of what are called ‘strings’ on the sub-atomic level. A string might be described, if you like, as the ‘grain’ of the universe, like the dots that make up a newspaper picture, only lines instead of dots. Now, if you take a single such string and lengthen it to several feet, then nail it in place on a wall, a rock or, in this case, a tree – why, then you have a single dimensional doorway you can pass through into another reality. It has length, but no width.” He started twirling the other side of his moustache. “I hope that makes it all clear?”
“Right,” said Sandra, nodding thoughtfully. “Thank you for being kind enough to explain it to me.”
“A pleasure, my dear.” He turned to me. “Charming woman, sir.”
Very soon all the others had assembled around the base of the tree. I reached out a hand and poked a finger at the edge of the trunk, the place that would be a line if the tree were a drawing on paper. My finger vanished up to the knuckle.
“Here goes,” I announced. “Everyone follow us.” I grabbed Sandra’s hand and gently tugged her after me as I took a step towards the tree. Under normal circumstances, I would have simply collided bodily with the trunk, but Eligor had been quite right. We stepped through a gap in the universe as high as a door and with no dimension of width, and found ourselves in a spacious, clean, airy and well-lit corridor maybe twenty feet broad and ten feet high. The appearance of the walls suggested sectionalized light metal sheeting with a white plastic coating. Within a matter of moments, all of us were milling about inside this passageway.
“Voila!” exclaimed Phukkit looking around suspiciously.
“Our next problem,” pointed out Pharter, “is, which way to go – there ain’t no signposts.”
“I suppose we could split up and some go in each direction?” remarked Phixit without much enthusiasm.
“I think we should all stick together,” I decided. “It’s safer that way. Remember, we are breaking the rules being here at all, and we need to find Central Heaven HQ and tell them what’s happening.” I thought quickly. “Look – the passageway has to go somewhere in each direction. Let’s just choose left or right and all get going as fast as we can until we find another door, and maybe that will give us a clue as to where we are heading.”
“Which way then – left or right?” queried Pharter.
“I’ve always preferred the left-hand path,” said Phukkit.
“You would!”
“We’ll go right,” I said decisively.
Round the very first corner there was a double door in the wall, but it turned out to be nothing more than a large storage room containing dozens of buckets, mops, brooms, dusters, boxes of cleaning powder and suchlike. There were also a large number of white janitor’s coats hanging on rows of hooks. As we began to exit the room in disappointment, we heard footfalls and the sound of several people talking coming towards us from beyond the next bend in the corridor.
“We’re rumbled!” exclaimed Pharter.
I had an idea. “Quick everyone, put on one of those white coats and take a mop or something. We can try to pass ourselves off as a work-party.” It was not an especially good idea, I grant you; it was more sheer desperation; but it was the only idea in town at that moment.
Hurriedly the assorted demons donned white coats and sorted out mops, brooms and buckets to carry. Sandra and I did the same. Thus disguised, we crept along the passage in the direction of the approaching sounds.
“Hold on everybody,” I whispered hoarsely. “We look like frightened fugitives creeping along like this. We need to give the impression that we belong here, that we’re on our way to work somewhere, and we need to march quickly and look brisk, otherwise we’ll blow our cover – such as it is.”
By saying this, I suppose I must take some responsibility for what happened next, but it was too late to tell everyone that I had not meant it quite in the literal way in which they interpreted it. The approaching voices were very close now, and the corner was not far ahead.
Clad in white coats, which trailed along the ground behind the shorter demons and dangled at the knees of the bigger ones, carrying assorted mops and brooms over their shoulders and buckets and sponges in their other hands, marching along the corridor in an uneven line, the demons spontaneously started singing the famous Disney film song, Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It’s Off To Work We Go…!
My album of ‘Sights I shall never forget’ was getting larger by the hour!
Rounding the corner, our column of singing demons marched straight past the oncoming party, which consisted of about a dozen astral workers who also wore white coats and carried cleaning tools, but who were conspicuously not demons. Not one of us looked in their direction as we passed. The song progressed to the whistling bit as we reached them, and we just kept on marching, brazening it out. Although we were all staring straight ahead, I think all of us could feel the surprised looks the people in the other party were giving us. Personally, I didn’t blame them.
As the others disappeared around the corner behind us, we could all hear one of them say to his colleagues, “Which one’s Dopey?” to their evident amusement. Pharter, who was last in the line, turned round raising a bucket to throw, but they had vanished out of range and sight, which was probably just as well because he caught his feet in his own trailing coat-tail and fell over headfirst into the upturned bucket which wedged itself tightly on his horns. It took a couple of minutes to pull it off him, during which we were fortunate that his words emerged only as an indistinct metallic echo.
After about a quarter of a mile we came upon another door. This one was not a storeroom; it was like the one we had entered the passageway from. Cautiously I opened it and stepped through. A quick glance round told me that this inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field opened into somewhere I knew. I ducked back.
“We’re in luck,” I told everyone. “It’s the Roman Catholic heaven. It’s right next door to HQ. We can take a short-cut through it and all we need to do then is look for another doorway. Once through that, there’s another staff corridor for about half a mile, then a door into HQ itself – the Head Office. That’s where we need to be, so that we can get official help in stopping Lilith and her rogue Creation.”
“We’re be’ind you all the way,” confirmed Pharter in a gloomy monotone, gently massaging his bruised horns.
33. You Have the Right to Remain Silent – Permanently!
“Why can’t we just follow the service passageway to your heavenly HQ?” asked Sandra. “Why do we have to go through someone’s heaven? It’s a very personal place, after all, if you see what I mean. I don’t like the idea of disturbing people during their eternal bliss, whatever particular form it may take.”
“You have to remember that, perhaps confusingly, there are a large number of heavens, one for every different religious belief that has ever existed,” I explained. “Even though each of them is independently infinite on the inside, once outside the distance between them varies from a dozen miles or so to hundreds of miles. This corridor could therefore go on for many hundreds of miles before reaching the doorway to HQ, and furthermore, we would have to open every door we came across along the way in order to see if it was the one we wanted – perhaps even go in and explore each heaven until we could identify it.
“We only have sixty or seventy hours in real time left now, at best, before an inconceivably catastrophic collision destroys all of them, all of this – everything we know. It is a stroke of luck that we have stumbled upon a heaven we recognize, and even better, which itself has a direct link to HQ. All we have to do is enter the Roman Catholic heaven and find our way quickly to another service corridor that will take us right into the neighborhood of our HQ building. If we try to navigate the maze of service tunnels without a diagram, it could take us weeks.”
She nodded her understanding and Pharter opened the door. We all passed through the doorway and found ourselves emerging on the other side from a string, another hairline crack in reality which was situated along the edge of a tall marble pillar bearing a religious sculpture.
We appeared to be inside a colossal and very beautiful building; a cathedral with buttress-vaulted roofs where clouds could hold a union meeting, distant painted ceilings which looked like – and probably were – original Michelangelos, cushioned pews to seat hundreds of thousands, gilded ornamental carvings and filigree work everywhere, exquisite round stained glass windows bigger than the Michigan Stadium, finely-carven stone arches the size of luxury liners standing on end – the works. The interior was sufficiently capacious to contain St. Paul’s of London, St. John the Divine of New York, St. Basil’s of Moscow and Sts. Peter and Mary of Cologne as mere altar-pieces. Gigantic multicolored shafts of light from the serried ranks of saint-encrusted windows criss-crossed the vast interior spaces on a graceful march to infinity in all directions. It was breathtaking. The single oddity about the place was that, apart from us, it appeared to be empty.
Feeling rather like ants that have strayed into someone’s palace, we walked quietly and respectfully down the pillar-bordered main aisle through the nave. The aisle was at least half a mile wide and five miles long, and all of it seamlessly carpeted with a rich red broadloom. Continually in the background the varied tones of medieval plainsong from some invisible heavenly choir graced the air with its sound. I was impressed. I sighed deeply and began to relax for the first time in quite a few days. Unfortunately, I was being lulled into a false sense of security.
After traveling about a mile, we saw the monks. They were waiting for us, about two hundred of them wearing white habits with black hoods and red belts with broadswords hanging from them in golden ornamented scabbards. Some of them held poles topped by an assortment of religious banners. Others carried burning brands, which was a clue. As we approached a cluster of pillars rising like redwoods on steroids to a ceiling higher than Everest, they emerged from behind the structure. They had ‘Necktie Party’ written all over them. Not liking the look of this, I was about to give the order to turn back and run for it when a huge and extremely strong net dropped unexpectedly from somewhere overhead and folded itself uncompromisingly over all of us. We were well and truly trapped.
One of the monks was evidently the head honcho, because he approached where we were struggling in the restrictions of the net and was obviously taking a grim satisfaction in our plight.
“Let us out of this,” I demanded with justifiable anger. “Is this how you treat visitors?”
Ignoring this, the head monk pointed at us. “Unholy creatures!” he pronounced in distain embellished with a central European accent. “Demons from the darkest pits of the infernal regions! Satan himself, and his concubine! We have been expecting you and we are well prepared to deal with you as you must be dealt with.”
I froze in mid-struggle as the implications of what he had said came home to roost in my mind. “Expecting us?” I queried incredulously. “How could you possibly be expecting us?”
“Oh foolish spirit of evil,” he replied in a sonorous voice – boy, was he overacting – “you who thought you would defile the sanctity of the powers of light and righteousness, be aware that all the plots of Satan shall come to naught and be found wanting in the judgment of the virtuous. Your wicked plans have been undone and ye shall be cast back into that great abyss from whence there is no escaping.”
“Ok, ok,” said Pharter uncomfortably and partly muffled from somewhere deep inside the folds of the net. “What you mean is, you got us by the short-and-curlies. Why not just say it in plain words?
”
“Silence, demon!” thundered the monk. And then, “Behold! He who hath undone ye and brought thy wicked schemes down into the bitter dust of failure.”
He held out his arm with a spasmodic jerk and the crowd of monks parted down the middle like Cecil B. DeMille’s Red Sea when Charlton Heston got there. At the back of the bunch was revealed a single figure who began to walk forward. As the figure approached, I could see they were wearing a red monk’s habit with a black cap and black trimmings. As they came closer still, we could all see who it was.
“Vittorio!” I breathed in surprise. “How…?” my voice trailed off in disbelief.
However, none of us had any time to speculate or ask further questions. The chief monk produced from the folds of his robe a great ribbon-tied parchment scroll and proceeded to unroll it and hold it out at arm’s length in order to bestow upon it a properly theatrical reading. In deep, sonorous tones he pronounced its contents. It was word-perfect and something I had not heard spoken for over three hundred years.
“Unrighteous creatures, by writ of Nulla Salus Extra Ecclesium et Neca Eos Omnes Deus Suos Agnoset and the Authority of the Ad Abolendam of 1184 Anno Domini, and the Ad Extirpanda of 1252 Anno Domini and the Papal Writ of 21st July 1542 Anno Domini establishing the Authority of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, ye are hereby charged, accused, blamed and indicted of the sin and crime of being recusant, perversely defying the authority of the Pope and the holy writ of scripture as preserved through the grace and guardianship of those acknowledged and appointed as bearers of the mantle of Peter in infallible rectitude and wisdom.”
“What did all that stuff mean?” asked Sandra.
“I’m afraid it means that we have all been formerly and properly summoned to stand trial by the Inquisition,” I explained. “What he just read out was once considered the grimmest pronouncement that could ever be made in the world.”
Before anything else could be asked or said, the whole net-full of us was roughly bundled away into monkish custody.
As I explained to Sandra while we were marched towards some as-yet unknown destination, I could not perform any archangel feats here, as I could on earth and some other places, because this was the astral plane and, essentially, archangels are astral beings. This meant that I and our gang of assorted demons were remorselessly bound by the astral laws that governed everything in this particular heaven, just as a mortal on earth is likewise bound to the physical laws. In some other heavens I could be Superman, but here in this one the occupants had always had an especial aversion to demons and the Lord of Hell – me! The demons with wings would be able to fly here, as this was an astral echo of a physical possibility, but since they were by now all tied up with wings bound, this was not currently an option either.
After an hour’s march we reached the side wall of the gigantic super-cathedral and were taken through a great wooden door not unlike the one you may have seen in the native village on Skull Island in the original black-and-white King Kong. This led by a fairly short passage to a stone-flagged anteroom, and from there we all went through another great door and found ourselves in a nightmare version of a medieval open-air courtroom.
At the centre was another flagstone area as large as a respectable town square, and this was surrounded by spike-topped polished wooden walls behind which rose bank after bank of benches thronged with people who were looking down at us. Somewhat incongruously, most of these folk were in fairly modern dress, although a proportion were in the costumes of earlier times: it depended when they had shuffled off the mortal coil. Atop the centre of one of the walls was the judge’s platform, reminding me a bit of the Roman emperor’s private box in the arena.
“This looks bad,” I muttered, very worried.
“Deny everything, Boss” advised Pharter out of the corner of his mouth.
I smiled wanly. “That probably won’t be an acceptable defense, under the circumstances.”
I was right. A panel of six judges arrived and took their seats on the platform. Each was dressed in a scarlet monk’s habit with a black felt hat that came to a point over the forehead. Each of them also sported a gold chain of office. Then Vittorio, similarly attired but without the golden chain, was respectfully conducted onto the same platform and seated alone to one side: the star witness for the prosecution!
On another platform below the judge’s box was assembled a group of lesser officials who, disconcertingly, all wore black executioner-type face hoods in the style of raven’s heads with slits cut for the eyes and only their faces below the black beak above the nose being visible. One of these banged a staff on the wooden planks of the floor and cried: “Silere! Silere! Silere!” which, being fluent in Latin, I understood as: “Be Silent!” Unsurprisingly, the chattering crowds became silent with extreme alacrity.
One of the judges rose to his feet and commanded, “You will confirm your identity to this court.” Pointing directly at me he demanded, “Are you Satan, the Evil One, Despoiler of Eden, Fountain of Sin, Dragon of the Eternal Night, Great Beast of the Apocalypse, Commander of the Legions of the Damned, Despoiler of Creation and Rebel of the Outer Darkness?”
Pharter sang quietly, “And a partridge in a pear tree!”
I faced the judge who had spoken. Until we had entered the courtroom I had been worried, mainly because all of this was delaying our mission to save the universe. After we had entered I had been afraid, mainly for Sandra and my friends. But now I was angry and growing angrier by the moment. I drew myself up to my full six feet six inches and squared my broad shoulders.
“Those are not names,” I flung back at him. “They are old women’s fancies.”
“Be silent!” the judge commanded, growing angry in his turn. “Are you Satan?”
“How can I answer you if I am to be silent?” I enquired reasonably.
The judge quickly took on symptoms of apoplexy. “Answer the question!” he shrieked. “Who are you?”
I lowered my voice as a contrast to his rage and answered him in a level tone which held no trace of shame. “My name is Lucifer.”
The judge instantly became triumphant. “Then you are guilty! Guilty of all the greatest crimes perpetrated since the Beginning. You are the Night of the Soul! You are the Flame from the Pit! You are the Abomination of Ages! You are the Father of Lies! You are the Traitor of Righteousness and the Leviathan of Wickedness!”
“Actually, I’m a Los Angeles cop,” I replied calmly.
“And just for the record, mister,” called out Sandra, her voice reaching everyone in the huge audience, “I’m proud to be his concubine, as you put it. He’s more of a man than any of you!”
“Be silent! You are guilty and your punishment shall be dreadful!”
“Just a minute,” I protested, “don’t we get a council for the defense?”
“This is a Court of the Inquisition,” called back the judge smugly. “Our purpose is not to find whether you are guilty or innocent. Anybody who appears before the Inquisition is automatically guilty beyond any possibility of innocence. The task of this Court is merely to determine the necessary degree of guilt and command a suitable punishment.”
“Can’t we plead the Fifth Amendment?” called out Phukkit. The judge completely ignored him and sat down once more.
“It is the sentence of this Court,” he pronounced with grim satisfaction, “that you will all be immediately burned at the stake and your ashes scattered to the four winds.”
“’Ere, ‘ang on,” spluttered Pharter, “that’s a bit unfair, ain’t it? Oo do you fink you are, anyway?”
Again the judge and all the officials completely ignored the demonic interruption. Towering Raum struggled in his bonds and growled at me, “Boss, if I can bust out of these steel hawsers, I’ll take on the lot of them.”
“No, old friend,” I soothed him as best I could. “This is not the time or place. It’s their heaven, and we’re the trespassers. Violence will only count against us – it will give them the satisfaction of believing they are right.”
“If you say so, Boss.”
I tried to be constructively positive. “Our best bet is to play along for a while and look for opportunities.”
But I knew I had run out of ideas.
Raum looked at me appraisingly out of the corners of his eyes, but loyalty made him close his mouth on the opinion he was about to vent on my advice.
The judge on his high platform raised a black-gloved and gold-ringed hand in a gesture and a troop of some fifty or sixty sword bearing monks came running from outside the arena-like square and assembled in a cordon around us. Some of them also carried loaded crossbows.
Sandra asked me the obvious question. “Hey, can all of these things harm us on the astral plane? The weapons? Fire?”
“I’m afraid they can,” I answered with grim honesty. “The danger comes from the intensity of the belief of the people here. If a spirit on the astral plane, in any of the heavens, only believes half-heartedly in a tree, they can walk right through it without a collision. Unfortunately, these people here have a whole-hearted turbo-powered belief in what they do and why they have to do it. This is more than just a hobby to them. Therefore, everything about it takes on one-hundred per cent astral reality, which is pretty much the same from our position as physical reality on the physical plane.”
Whilst giving this explanation, I was weighing up the chances of taking Raum’s advice and starting a local rebellion by somehow breaking out of my bonds, grabbing one of the nearby crossbows and setting an example for the rest of our group to follow. More than anything else I felt a tremendous sadness that it should have to come to this – the prospect of open warfare simply to escape with our lives, and heavily outnumbered to boot.
I was about to shout the order. I actually had my mouth open to call “Get them!” But before the sound could come out, another voice spoke.
From somewhere more distant came a command, “Stop, I order you! Stop this at once!” The judges on their platform looked here and there, startled, trying to identify the speaker. The crowd rhubarb-rhubarbed amongst themselves in surprise, exercising their neck muscles while trying to look everywhere as well.
A few moments later the crowd of onlookers in one of the tiered banks of benches were pushed aside without undue ceremony by a squad of a couple of hundred monks, looking for all the world identical in habit and armament to the ones who surrounded us. The new arrivals marched down the sloping floor of the seating area in two columns, assisting with their well-aimed mail clad feet any of the audience who were slow to move aside. Out of the resulting hubbub of confusion a clear path was created through the crowd. The new monks then smartly stood to attention, facing outwards, forming a protective line down each side of the newly cleared avenue. Where the crowds had been pushed back it could now be seen that the sloping floor beneath the tiers of wooden benches had regular flights of steps here and there. It reminded me of a 1930s wooden baseball stadium.
However, my attention, and everyone else’s, was immediately riveted upon a small, solitary figure who now appeared at the top of the sloping path. The figure began to walk slowly but deliberately down towards the arena-like area at the centre of the court. As he passed by, the crowds who were being kept away by the stationed monks gasped and showed signs of surprise and respect. Many of them genuflected, something not done in public for so long that young people today would probably need to look it up in a dictionary. The panel of judges looked on in helpless confusion and obvious anger.
Slowly but surely the small solitary figure drew nearer to the front row stalls; he was obviously aiming for the judge’s platform itself. As he came ever nearer to us I recognized him. There could be no mistaking that wizened, peaceful, Ghandi-like face and frame – it was the Pope.
34. A Friend in Need…
“Who are you, that dares so to interrupt the proceedings of this Court?” asked the chief judge haughtily.
“I am your superior,” announced the Pope with calm authority as he approached the judge’s platform. “I am your Pope, whom you are sworn to honor and obey in all things.”
“There are many Popes here in this blessed realm,” pointed out the judge, a little uncertainly now. “All of them, in fact.”
“Undoubtedly you are correct in what you say,” agreed the little man, mounting a short flight of wooden steps to stand on the platform. “However, I must point out to you the evident truth that all of them are, in point of fact, previous Popes – former holders of the office. I am the only current Pope in Heaven. Therefore, as far as you and your colleagues are concerned, I am the Pope, your Pope, your superior and your overseer. And I say,” he raised his voice so that all could clearly hear, “that this trial is cancelled forthwith – it is over!”
There was a low murmur of acceptance from the vast crowd, the majority of whom had already begun to get to their feet and look towards the exits. They knew when the circus had left town. To reinforce the Pope’s proposition, a dozen of his own armed monks also ascended the steps to the judge’s platform and adopted looming and significantly intimidating positions right behind the judges: indeed, one of them was obliged to shuffle forwards a couple of grudging steps in order to stop a crossbow bolt from pressing uncomfortably into his back.
Gathering up as much dignity as they might, all the judges left the platform in a file and abandoned the gigantic courtroom. Seeing this, the majority of the crowd also began to head for the gates in good order. Within half an hour only a dribble of diehard nosy pokes, Sandra and I, the demons, the new troop of monks, a few disappointed hotdog vendors and the Pope were left in the court arena. Calm and possessed of a natural dignity, the Pope descended the steps from the judge’s platform and walked over the flagstones until he had reached us. Half a dozen of his bodyguard came with him, and at his order they immediately began to cut the ropes which tied us all.
“Satan saved by the Pope,” I said, smiling at him. “That’s another one for the theologians to argue about for a couple of hundred years.”
The wizened features creased into a warm grin. “I like to think I came to the help of friends,” he remarked. “I know you have a good heart.” He turned to the demons. “You all, I think, have good hearts, although I have only yet been introduced to Ventosus and Amator here. But, having got to know them, howbeit briefly, I do not think any friends and colleagues of theirs would differ greatly in being equally innocent creatures.”
“Hey,” whispered Sandra to me, “you once told me that demons were innocent creatures, and I disagreed. I apologize.” Then she turned to the Pope. “Sir, I want to thank you for coming to our rescue. But I don’t understand - how did you manage to get here?”
The old man turned his radiant smile on her, a distinct twinkle in his eye. “The usual way, dear lady – I died of a heart-attack a few hours after we last met. I shall not be going back to the veil of tears. I am now resident here for eternity.”
He spread out his hands to include all of us. “Please, my friends, do not judge us by what has happened here. You must bear in mind that this blessed realm contains the spirits of everyone who has entered herein for some two thousand years, and in respect of overall numbers, only a relatively small proportion of them are from more modern times. Therefore, the preponderant views of the populace are bound to be, shall we say, a little behind the times and not fully conversant with contemporary ideas. These are all none-the-less good people, and they are my people, my flock. I believe good people shall always prevail over misguided thoughts, and I believe any nation or multitude of peoples are best judged from those who represent their soaring visions, not those who represent their entrenched prejudices. In every city, one can always find something primal – the challenge is to always search for a better enlightenment.”
Then, guided by the captain of his escorting monks who had local knowledge, he led us out of the arena of the court and into some nicely-appointed living quarters which, the captain explained, were the judge’s private chambers. The Pope ordered the flustered judges to vacate the place for the present, explaining to them that he was still indisputably the official and duly chosen Pope, even though he was technically dead, until the cardinals back in Rome elected and officially appointed his successor, which might take a week or two. Until then, his word was law here. After the judges had left, he explained to us that on his unexpected arrival following a sudden heart attack he had been advised by the welcoming committee of the events that were occurring in the great Inquisitional courtroom and, grasping the urgency of the situation, had assembled a division of soldier monks and immediately marched to our rescue. I could not help thinking, what a man! Heaven’s gain was the world’s loss. Human civilization needed more people like him. I profoundly hoped it would get them.
Once he had told us his story, we told him ours. He instantly understood the pressing complexities of the situation and promised to help us in any way he could.
“Right now, we need to get to the Great Arch of Constantine,” I advised. “There is a hidden doorway somewhere there that will give us access to – well, call it the HQ of Heaven. We need to get there as fast as possible. It’s only at HQ that we stand any chance at all of doing something to prevent Lilith destroying the whole universe, physical and astral, for her warped revenge.”
“I see,” he nodded. “You must forgive me – I’m new here. Where exactly is this arch of which you speak?”
“It was put in place as an astral construction by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great himself when he arrived here after he died,” I related. “He was the first Roman emperor up here. It’s about fifty miles from here. I’ve never been in this heaven before, but I can vaguely remember seeing the blueprints long ago.”
“Then, my friend, I will do everything I can to speed you on your way – and for the sake of everyone in Creation, whatever their beliefs may be, I can only hope your mission is successful.”
He was as good as his word. Within the hour, twenty one huge medieval chargers – similar to shire horses but larger and more athletic – had been brought to an outer courtyard for myself, Sandra and the eighteen demons, not forgetting Vittorio who was now our prisoner once again. We were to ride to the Arch of Constantine, the fastest method of travel on option here. Not only that, but we were provided with an escort – two hundred equally mounted ancient twelfth century knights of the Third Crusade, all replete with a bucket-shaped riveted helmet, flowing white surplice ornamented with large red cross over chain mail long-johns, great dangling broadswords and a liberal sprinkling of spear-mounted flags larger than bed sheets. The wise old Pope bade us a fond farewell and bestowed his blessing upon us as we rode off with a noise like clattering thunder.
Mounted crusaders protecting mounted demons, some with wings outstretched and flexing to maintain balance, galloping at speed on gigantic steeds through a picturesque green and pleasant landscape, the local population stopping dead in their tracks and gawping at us in astonishment – sights I would never forget seemed to be coming ever more frequently. In the midst of it all, I felt like Errol Flynn.
It was, of course, Eligor who sensed the precise location of the next string, the doorway between heavenly dimensions, and he had been able to feel its presence from some miles away because this was the big one. That is, this particular astral doorway led directly into the HQ of all the heavens, the location of the Chairman of the Board, or Executive Chairman as he now was, who had demoted me from archangel in the first place. The spiritual power resident in that place could be felt at a great distance by Eligor, enhanced by his own innate ability of locating secret places.
Now, though, as we galloped ever closer to this final doorway I began to be plagued by self-doubts. Once we had made it into HQ, what then? To be there at all, I would be breaking yet more rules. And what could we actually accomplish there anyway? How could Lilith’s rogue Creation be stopped or turned away from an apocalyptic collision? What were we to do? How were we to do it? What if we failed?
Then, a moment after this wave of multiple doubts struck me, I swear I heard a voice, clear and slightly echoing in my ears. It was the old Pope’s voice as he had bidden us farewell at the end of our audience in the Vatican: “Lucifer Satan, Archangel of the Lord no matter what your past indiscretions may have been, you must keep faith in yourself and your abilities and actions, and your decisions, for otherwise you will one day find you have lost all faith in everything – and then you will return to the nothingness from whence we all came; even if you are immortal, you would be but a hollow person unless you nurture your faith in yourself.”
I shall probably never know for certain whether I actually heard those words, somehow transmitted to me at that moment, or whether I was merely remembering them vividly. Whatever the case though, I listened to them. I listened to them well. By the time we arrived at the arch I had formulated a plan. It might have been as full of holes as a sieve but at least it was a plan.
35. Strangers in Paradise…
A major part of my plan called for a secret discussion between myself, Pharter and Phukkit. The opportunity came for this when we had reached the Arch of Constantine, a typical if more than gigantic Romanesque commemorative edifice. The escorting Crusaders saluted us in farewell and rode away back the way we had come. We all dismounted and managed to convince our great steeds that it was a good idea for them also to return to their stables. I had already given Sandra the full details of the plan as we rode side by side and during this short period of minor confusions with knights and horses I managed to catch a moment with the two demons and quickly fill them in with what I wanted and why I wanted it. I asked them to carefully spread the word amongst the rest of the bunch but ensuring not a whisper of it reached Vittorio, who was lumbering along with us bound in ropes and led by another tied round his wrists, which were held in front of him.
I found that the very fact I had formulated a plan, no matter whether or not it may have been a good one, generated within me a renewed feeling of confidence. It helped that the two demons seemed to be impressed with it as I had outlined it to them. Surreptitiously, without making a big deal out of it, they sidled up to Gaylord who was holding Vittorio’s leash and gently took over the responsibility themselves. Gaylord was only too pleased to be let off manual duties.
Once I had attended to these important details we all took a few minutes to study the Arch of Constantine. It can best be described as being designed in something like the architectural style of the Coliseum in Rome if it could be restored to its original glory, but square and with a giant tunnel through the middle, like an ancient Roman Arc de Triomphe. All over it were inset rows of sconces containing huge marble statues. Even though it was an astral construction, it was nevertheless impressive to the eye. It was beautifully colored. It is easy to forget that all the old historical ruins of the mortal world, which we are now used to seeing as white statues, worn stone, collapsed sections and disintegrating rendering, were originally brightly painted, even the Pyramids and Stonehenge. We quickly located the string, several feet high and less than half a quark wide, running along a corner of the edifice.
This was the doorway through to another part of the astral planes, our own heavenly HQ. That place was no mystery to most of us, even though some of us might need maps or directions to find our way around if we were looking for specific places, as was the case when Pharter and Phukkit paid the place a surreptitious visit some time ago to take an illicit photograph of a certain Great Seal in the Seventh House.
Now two things were necessary. First, it was vital that once we went through this astral doorway we should be able very quickly to determine exactly whereabouts we had emerged; get our bearings, in fact. Second, certain other things that were part of the plan I was about to set in motion must move like oiled clockwork, even down to certain people being in certain places at a precise time. As never before, I would need to rely utterly on the competence and quick wittedness of my demonic staff officers.
I stepped through the astral doorway with my mental fingers crossed, followed quickly by Sandra and then, in turn, all the others. Vittorio stumbled clumsily through, shoved rather ungraciously from behind. The first vital condition had been satisfied - I recognized where we were. It was a small courtyard in white marble with pillars and gold decorations – nearly everything here was in white marble with pillars and gold decorations – and it was thankfully deserted. On one side, a heavenly city could be seen shining in the middle distance through the row of pillars. Quickly I went into a huddle with the demons.
“We’re outside the Heavenly City in that old courtyard near the Transept of Temperance,” I related. “Luckily for us it’s not a very popular place for visitors.”
“What next?” asked Sandra.
“Next, we need to move from here without being seen. We can’t disguise ourselves with white raiment – we’re unprepared and there’s no washing lines to steal from here. If anyone notices a bunch of demons walking through Heaven, they may regard it at the very least as slightly suspicious, and the same applies to people like you and me dressed in smart casual. There’s very little smart casual in Heaven.”
I turned to Phixit. “All right, my friend, this next bit’s up to you. Where does he live?”
“Well,” replied Phixit pondering, “it’s debatable whether you can say anybody actually lives in Heaven, ‘cos they got to be dead to get to live here. But I take your meaning in its colloquial application, and he lives about six blocks in that direction.” He pointed. “It’s about ten minutes, local time. We could get there quicker if we took the direct route along the Avenue of Aspirations, but we got to keep a low profile, so we have to go the back way where there’s places to hide if necessary – pillars, walls, small buildings, parks, gardens, that sort of thing. Handy, but time consuming to weave around, especially if we need to keep diving for cover.”
Pharter looked at him with frowning brows. “You’ve bin ‘ere before, ain’t you?”
“Maybe,” replied Phixit, waggling his shoulders defensively.
“You crafty little git!” Pharter said with admiration and suddenly grinned broadly. “Good fer you.”
“We’ve got to do this like a commando exercise,” I instructed. “I’ll go first, heading for the first bit of available cover. If it’s safe, I’ll wave. Sandra, you come next. Once she’s there, Phixit comes next, because he knows the route. When he’s safe, the rest of you follow the same way, one at a time, except Raum and Sabnack who come last and bring Vittorio between them. If he shouts, gag him. Then we repeat the whole procession in the same order to the next bit of cover, and so on.”
All the time, in the back of my mind, part of me was carefully judging the timing. What I was planning depended on almost split-second action, and I don’t mean the commando advance. It also depended – and this was the part that made me feel sick with worry inside – on a certain person being at home when we got there. If they happened to be out, everything was lost – and I do mean everything! Under other circumstances, it might have been possible to use my mobile and phone ahead to make certain, but Lilith’s harsh crackling interference was now blocking all low-power transmissions, even in HQ.
It required no less then eleven staged moves, one-at-a-time from cover to cover – except the two demons who brought Vittorio with them who, of course, were obliged to move as a trio. The first three stages went well; from the old courtyard where we had arrived to a large array of statues and fountains, then to a small public garden with perfect floral displays and covering bushes, then a short wall behind a building. The fourth stage was more risky, a narrow winding lane between more statuary, where we could not tell whether the route was clear without going through it. Fortunately we found it deserted. And so it continued, most of the time with our hearts in our mouths and jumping at the slightest noise. And then at last, guided by Phixit, we had reached our destination.
It was a house, very much like a colonial New England mansion but with marble and gold instead of weatherboarding and painted carpentry.
“This is it,” assured Phixit as everyone arrived in sequenced short intervals.
Sandra appeared surprised when I reached for a small button beside the front door and it went Bing Bong, but she did not say anything. After a few moments the door was opened from inside and there before us stood a rather astonished angel.
“Surprise!” chorused Pharter, Phukkit and Phixit together.
36. Of Angels, Doilies and Demonic Cushion Embroiderers…
At that precise moment, when everyone’s attention was on the open door and the prospect of getting inside out of sight, Vittorio made a break for it. He somehow managed to slip out of the ropes that tied him and he ran for it like a champion sprinter, vanishing around a corner.
None of us called out or tried to give pursuit. We had been banking on him doing exactly what he had done. It was a necessary part of my plan. It helped that he had done it at the last moment before we entered the house.
Once all were safely inside, Phixit made the introductions.
“Everybody, this is my good friend, chess opponent and pen-pal Barchiel. Barkers, this is my boss Satan; you’ve probably heard of him; the beautiful lady is his friend and colleague Detective Sandra Smith of the LAPD, and the rest are a bunch of my pals.”
“Very pleased to meet you all,” said the angel. “Any friends of Phixit are friends of mine. Come on in.”
“Barchiel,” I said urgently, “we need to ask you a big favor. We’re here on business – we are trying to save the universe from imminent guaranteed total destruction.”
“I can’t offer you any tea and crumpets then?” asked the angel hopefully.
“Perhaps later. Right now, it is absolutely imperative that we can get to a fairly powerful transmitter – like the one you and Phixit use to give each other your chess moves. We need it now.”
“Well, follow me,” invited Barchiel.
The angel was a sprightly, balding, middle-aged man, and he was – naturally – wearing a radiant white smock from the back of which protruded a pair of folded white wings. He led the way along a bright hallway where tastefully positioned occasional tables supported vases of arranged flowers. Reaching a door, he opened it and indicated that we should enter.
“This is the hobby room,” he explained. “Please forgive the mess, but I wasn’t expecting visitors. I haven’t Hoovered for a week. There’s probably gold dust under all the furniture.”
“I think it’s all very charming,” remarked Gaylord. “Is that a needlepoint tapestry?”
“Yes,” beamed Barchiel, “and I have my own loom for weaving curtains and other fabrics.”
“Oh, I would like to try that,” enthused Gaylord.
“Well, why don’t you pop over sometime? We could have a fabric evening.”
“What a lovely idea, I’ll do that. I’ll bring my embroidered cushion-covers.”
I coughed. “Can we attend to more urgent matters first, please?”
“Pardon me for opening my mouth,” said Gaylord. “It’s just so nice to find someone with good taste.” He looked pointedly at Pharter and Phukkit.
Barchiel led the way through an arch leading to an adjoining room or annex. “This might be what you need,” he advised.
Indeed it was. The room contained the angelic equivalent of Phixit’s electronics laboratory in the old shack. Instead of equipment salvaged and restored from shipwrecks, plane crashes, wars and other disasters since the days of Faraday and Marconi, Barchiel’s outfit looked like a NASA mission control adapted for household use. None of the electronics equipment was over a couple of years old, and nestled amongst it all were an ultra-modern state-of-the-art home computer and a chess board laid-out in mid-game.
Phixit gestured at the fantastic layout. “May we?” he asked.
“Be my guest,” replied Barchiel. “You know how it all works from your previous visits. You probably won’t be able to do much, though, because there’s been some really nasty interference affecting everything these last few days.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I remarked, filing away the remark about Phixit’s “previous visits” for a discussion with him at a later date; if there were any later dates. “It’s a jamming signal originating in a rogue Creation which we think is being deliberately piloted to crash headlong into this one. We have to stop it.”
“Quite so!” agreed Barchiel with raised eyebrows. “Can you do that with my equipment, do you think?”
I smiled grimly. “I believe we can. It all depends on my prediction coming true.”
“What is that, pray tell?”
“Phixit, start up the works,” I ordered. “My prediction is that, during the next four or five minutes, the jamming signal will disappear for about thirty seconds. That’s our window. In that half minute, or less, we will once again be able to make an incorporeal teleportational jump that transfers us from here to the interior of the rogue Creation. Once there, we have to find a way of stopping it.”
“Is that all?” remarked Barchiel dryly. “How do you know the interference is going to stop for that time interval?”
“Because a mortal called Vittorio slipped out of our clutches outside your front door,” I answered with a certain grim amusement. “He is unaware of the fact that we deliberately loosened his bonds during our journey here so that he would be able to escape. He is an underling of the person who is behind the whole plot and is responsible for the rogue Creation. I am betting that he is being monitored by equipment from inside the rogue universe which is tuned to get through the interference pattern. If I’m right, any minute now he will be transported back there – and to do that, the jamming signal must be turned off for a short time, maybe thirty seconds at most. Therefore, we need to be looking out for that brief period, and we need to act instantly when it happens. She will be expecting her servant to materialize; instead, she will get all of us!”
“That sounds like it could be rather dangerous,” queried Barchiel.
Gaylord spoke up. “Danger is our middle name, dear.”
I smiled grimly again. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
Under Phixit’s expert handling, the system came to life and the roar of static interference filled the room. Phixit adjusted the volume so that it was quieter.
“Do you want me to do anything while you’re gone?” asked Barchiel.
“Yes please,” I replied seriously. “Pray.”
“You could also keep the speakers on and listen out,” advised Phixit. “If we succeed, the interference will cease. If not…” he did not complete the sentence.
“If not, what?” insisted Barchiel in a worried tone.
“If not, the interference will keep on getting louder for the next twelve hours, and then bang – the end of everything. Instant apocalypse. Singularity time.”
Barchiel thoughtfully glanced back towards the main part of the hobby room and murmured: “I wonder if I have time to finish my crochet doilies?”
Once again Sandra and I reached for each other’s hands to hold, without even realizing we were doing it. All ears, rounded or pointed, were straining at the sound of the static interference hissing through the speakers. A minute went by during which nobody spoke a word. Then another minute. Then another. The tension was reaching an almost unbearable pitch.
Despite our riveted attention, or perhaps because of it, when the sound did suddenly stop it caught us momentarily by surprise. I did not even allow time to congratulate myself on the success of my plan so far.
“Now!” I yelled at the top of my voice, and everything went dark.
37. I Saw You Flash, Gordon…
As predicted, we all jumped across time and space in a manifestational teleportation at the same time that Vittorio did, making use of the same window in the interference that had been provided for him. This had been my plan, including accidentally-on-purpose ensuring that Raum and Sabnack had handled him with sufficient roughness to loosen his ropes.
Beyond this, my plan began to lose some detail. The remainder of it could be summed up as: (1) get there: (2) stop it happening.
We got there. Statistically, this completed half the remainder of the plan. I realized, though, that I was fooling nobody except myself with this encouraging thought.
We found ourselves on a grassy hillside at night, and boy, what a night. In the black sky were five planets, one looking enormous because it was so close, the others scaling off to little bigger than the full moon seen from earth. As a backdrop, as well as whole clouds of scattered stars like a Hubble image, a gigantic neighboring galaxy seen nearly edgeways-on ripped the sky apart from horizon to horizon with its whorled blaze.
Sandra was impressed. “It’s like something out of the movies,” she breathed in awe.
“Yes,” I agreed, “but it’s not right. There’s something very wrong here. At least two of those planets up there are inside the Roche limit of a planet the mass of the one we’re standing on.”
“The what limit? And how do you know the mass of this planet ? It might be any size, surely?”
“We can easily tell how massive this planet is by our own weight. I don’t feel any lighter or heavier, so it must be roughly the mass of earth. Also, the air here is of a similar density and pressure, which again implies an earth-type mass. The Roche limit is the measure of the distance one planet can approach another before the interacting gravitational fields of the two bodies cause them to disintegrate. Planets are not solid objects like a bowling ball; they are crumbled rock, liquid magma and hot cores held together by gravity. Two planets cannot collide, as such, not in the same way as pool balls or automobiles, for instance. As they draw nearer to each other they will reach the Roche limit, at which point each one’s gravity works against the other, pulling lumps out of each planet and making them disintegrate. If a small body like a moon comes within the Roche limit of a much larger planet, only the smaller object will disintegrate. This is how Saturn’s rings were formed.”
Sandra digested this information. “So… how come those things up there aren’t breaking apart, and how come whatever we’re standing on is un-disintegrated?”
“I don’t know for certain,” I replied slowly, “but I have the beginnings of a theory…”
I was silenced by a scream from nearby. I looked round in the night, which was made as bright as twilight by the nearby astronomical objects. It seems that Vittorio had materialized at the same moment as us and only a hundred feet distant. Seeing us, he had tried to run for it. Raum had brought him down with a quarterback’s football tackle.
“Any broken bones?” I called out.
“No, thanks, I’m fine,” rumbled Raum cheerfully.
“I meant Vittorio,” I pointed out.
“Oh. Hold on, I’ll try to wake him up and ask.”
“Never mind,” I answered wearily. “Just tie him up again please. Gently.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
Sandra took another look around, including the magnificently spectacular night sky. “So, ahh… where do we go?” she asked. I was grateful she did not add: What do we do when we get there? Because I was not sure. Even that is an understatement. Someone with two or three options available to them might not be sure. Someone who cannot perceive any options whatsoever is not unsure, they are completely at a loss. I was trying to think quick, to form a plan, to think of something.
All I could come up with was a fairly obvious observation, but it sounded good, as though I had situation management under control.
“Vittorio started running in that direction, before Raum apprehended him,” I pointed round the curve of the hillside. “In panic, people often go where their legs tell them instead of stopping to think about it. So we go that way too. Come on.”
At least I had sufficient savvy to arrange our little party according, moderately, to the rules of combat in enemy occupied territory. Instead of a single file line, I positioned us in three rows of five, about forty feet apart, with Sandra and myself in the front row. Gaylord and Eligor, once more manhandling the now unconscious Vittorio, were a couple of dozen yards in the rear where they could also be a rearguard. Raum was in front at point, Gamygyn and Sabnack were positioned on either flank. In this formation we cautiously went forward and rounded the right shoulder of the hill.
I’m not sure what I expected to see when we had gone round the hillside, but what we did see was a moderately large but rather tasteful ancient-style temple on the grassy plain below. I guessed it was Lilith’s base in this home-made universe of hers. The architecture was a subtle blend of Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian, Egyptian and Chrysler Building.
“Jeez,” breathed Sandra. “The last time I saw anything like that, Ming the Merciless of the planet Mongo lived in it.”
“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” I commented. “It’s a very clever and well-planned blend of different interesting parts.”
“So was Frankenstein’s Monster,” she observed. “The question is; what are we going to do now we’ve found it?”
I thought very carefully for a moment. Then I said, “Before we do anything else, I need to conduct a small experiment.” I turned to Pharter and Phukket who were in our line. “Guys, will you do something for me?”
“Sure Guv,” replied Pharter.
“Just name it,” agreed Phukkit.
“It’s not complicated, but it needs to be done exactly right,” I advised. “I would like you both to fly away from this spot and in opposite directions. Both of you get as far away from me as you can, but without allowing me to get out of your sight.”
“Easy-peasy,” said Pharter. “What do you want us to do then?”
“When you are back on the ground at maximum line-of-sight range, I want you, Pharter, to flash at me.”
“Wot? You want me ter drop me pants and moon at yer?”
“Not that kind of flash. You’re both demons, you can produce a quick flash of fire. I want you to do it when you have touched down. Just a one-second burn.”
I turned to address Phukkit. “You will be at maximum line-of-sight range in the opposite direction, with me in the middle between you. You probably won’t be able to see Pharter at that distance in this twilight, but you will certainly be able to see his flash of fire. The very instant you do see it, I want you to flash as well, in the same way. When you’ve both finished, you can come back.”
“I understand what you is asking’” reflected Pharter, digesting the instructions, “but I don’t see what use this is all goin’ ter be to man or beast.”
“Just do it, and trust me. This is a vital experiment. It will help us, I am positive.”
If my theory was correct, I added to myself.
“Just a couple of flashers, that’s us,” grumbled Phukkit as the two flapped into the air and flew away in opposite directions.
Sandra looked at me sideways. “I cannot conceive of the slightest sense or reason in what you have asked the boys to do,” she said quietly. “But at least I know you well enough by now to realize that there must certainly be a valid reason behind it.”
“Oh, there is,” I assured her.
A couple of minutes later there came a small flash of fiery light in the distance, not unlike a firework seen from two miles away. I turned to look in the opposite direction. A few moments later there was an identical flash a similar distance out in that direction. I smiled in grim satisfaction at this result. A few minutes later the two demons had flown back and rejoined us.
“Thanks guys,” I said appreciatively. “That was extremely helpful.” The two demons looked at each other and shrugged blankly.
“As long as you’re ‘appy, Boss,” soothed Phukkit.
“Now,” I raised my voice for all to hear, “we’re going visiting. Follow me!”
With a new firmness in my heart and a new sense of purpose in my mind, I strode forward. I saw that Sandra had to break into a short run every dozen feet or so, in order to keep up with me. I slowed down a little so she could keep pace more easily.
As we drew within the shadow of the temple cast by the glow of the giant planets overhead, she asked me, “What are we going to do? Simply march up to the front door and knock loudly?”
“Exactly that,” I replied firmly. “I think I’m holding an ace up my sleeve.”
“That’s not exactly a tremendous comfort, given this whole situation,” she commented. “Still, whatever, I will stand by you forever.” She reached out and took my hand in hers as we walked towards the ornamented Gothic wooden door of the big temple-like structure.
What else could I do anyway? I went up to it and knocked loudly, with a shave and a haircut, two bits flourish. That’s what you do when you want someone to open a door and let you in, isn’t it?
I had a mental bet with myself that the castle-like door would swing open of its own accord, inviting us to enter at our own risk. In my bet, I spent two whole seconds trying to decide whether or not there would be an accompanying sound-effects grating creak. I bet on silence. Lilith was not consciously theatrical; she may appear to be at times, but with her it was natural and humorless, not a calculated contrived personality act; which made her all the more frightening as a person. Perhaps I sometimes played a part and thereby came across as theatrical, but with me it was smoke and mirrors to cover the inner doubts and anguish; at that exact moment my own truth hit me – where Lilith’s larger-than-life personality made her frightening, mine made me tragic.
I forced myself to get a grip and filed such considerations away for future reference. This was not the time to resolve personal issues; I could visit a therapist next week. My task right now was to ensure there was going to be a next week, for everyone. Silently, the great door swung open.
In a group, with orders from me not to huddle together in a way that betrayed lack of confidence, thirteen smaller demons with wings, five bigger demons without wings - one of whom walked with a slight mince - one bound and unconscious defrocked priest and two honest, hardworking cops of the LAPD, one of whom happened also to be Satan, walked through the temple door. We were not the Wild Bunch. More like the Peculiar Bunch.
Inside, we found ourselves in a tasteful entrance hallway. It was large, sure, maybe a hundred feet across with a thirty foot ceiling and perhaps a hundred yards long, but, with breathtaking incongruity that suggested post-modern-retro interior designer genius, or else total insanity, the décor, wallpaper, carpeting, pictures, crystal chandeliers, casual furniture and ornaments were Napoleonic Regency or First French Empire. Gaylord was enraptured, swiveling his head in so many directions it was surprising it did not unscrew and fall off. Anyone who had judged the place from the outside and was therefore expecting the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle interior from the Wizard of Oz was going to be bitterly disappointed, but rather more comfortable.
At the far end of the big hallway was another door, this time a glossy white wooden paneled type as found in exclusive homes everywhere. In fact, I felt distinctly that things were now suddenly becoming far too normal. I had expected a typical principle villain’s secret base, with maybe the odd overhead crane for moving nuclear devices, perhaps a sinister monorail, lots of people in private uniforms and red hard-hats doing stuff with data boards in front of huge control panels resplendent with flashing dials and gauges, tannoys reeling out endless instructions in the background, maybe a glass-fronted private office high up on a cavern wall in which Lilith could sit and enjoy watching the fruition of her plans.
What I got was a rather beautiful and extremely tasteful French chateau.
Somehow, it was just a little bit disappointing.
Then again, as I suddenly realized, there would probably be a great many people who would consider me to be a principle villain, and I lived in a luxury apartment in downtown Los Angeles with a pet dog and tropical fish.
My last bastion of dramatic stereotyping was a sneaking hope that this next door would be opened with a flourish by Grunt, the huge lumbering Quasimodo-like personal bodyguard who got creamed in the final reel. Again, I was in for a surprise.
The door was indeed opened, but very calmly and quietly and by Lilith herself, wearing a wonderful cream and gold French Napoleonic puff-shouldered, plunging-necklined and lace-fringed designer gown which trailed delicately on the carpet behind her. This creation perfectly enhanced her eight-foot height and other proportionate attributes. Her red hair was gathered into a six-foot pony tail which emerged from a gold clasp at the back of a dainty diamond tiara. Matching evening gloves which covered her arms almost to the shoulders completed the ensemble. Apart from her goddess height, she would not have looked out of place at an ambassador’s ball.
“Hello,” she welcomed.
This was probably not how any of us had anticipated events to proceed.
38. The Other Side of the Story…
“We’ve returned something that might belong to you,” was all I could find to say. I pointed at a long striped sofa against one wall. Silently Gaylord and Eligor carried the semi-conscious and moaning Vittorio over to it and laid him down.
“Is he all right?” Lilith asked.
I was taken aback by her question. In ancient times when the Sumerians were the leading edge of the advance of global civilization, she had been a goddess; later, with the march of time and social attitude, she had been considered a demon, although from a different tradition to those in my department. Either way, I would never have predicted that her first piece of conversation would have been to express concern for someone else, especially a mortal underling like Vittorio. It made me feel somewhat gauche.
It was Raum who answered her, in his deep, gravelly voice. “He’s fine. I just knocked the wind out of him.”
“Can he not be untied?” she asked.
Gaylord looked at me and I nodded slightly. He reached down and with only his hands snapped eight turns of rope pinioning the man’s arms like so many bread sticks. It was easy to underestimate Gaylord.
Seeing Vittorio breathing a little easier and making the attempt to rise on one elbow, Lilith turned her attention back to me.
“Would you care to talk, or would you like to go straight ahead and smash the place up first?”
“That’s not why we came,” I said simply, although admitting to my innermost self that it might have been on our list of options.
“Isn’t it? Then why did you come?” She extended a graceful gloved hand to encompass our whole party. “This doesn’t quite look like a social call.”
It was a good question. It left me wishing I had a better answer.
“We came to stop you,” I stated flatly. I was beginning to feel clumsy and uncouth. It was as though the pitchfork-wielding mob of villagers had stormed the baron’s castle only to find an innocent family having tea in the parlor.
“Stop me from what?”
I decided to put on my Humphrey Bogart policeman act. “Don’t try to play the innocent, lady. We know what you’re doing. We know you created this universe to deliberately crash it into ours.”
Of all the lines in all the world, I wish I could have come up with a better one than that.
“Then you’ve got it completely wrong, Lucifer, as you generally do.”
“How so?”
Lilith sighed in mild irritation and turned to walk briskly back through the door. Over her shoulder she said, “You’d all better come in. If we’re going to talk, let’s at least do so in a civilized manner.”
Like a troupe of door-to-door salesmen we all followed her inside the next room, which was a large lounge reminiscent of interiors in the Elysée Palace in Paris. Lilith did not pause there but led us through it like a majestic galleon under full sail until we entered an equally spacious dining room. The centerpiece was a great oval wooden table with a highly polished glass-like sheen. Regency style dining chairs with red and cream striped seats and backrests surrounded the table. Five exquisite silver candelabra stood at intervals down the thirty foot length of the tabletop. Overhead hung another glinting crystal chandelier as big as a kid’s carousel in a park. On the walls were old masters by the original artists – unknown Vermeers, Canalettos, Turners, Rembrandts and others. Here and there were examples of beautiful occasional furniture and the odd sculpture or objects d’art from ancient Egypt, India, China and Babylon placed as conversation pieces.
“Feel free to sit down,” Lilith invited. She paused in a deliberate and expectant fashion beside a chair. Her action and stance created something I can only describe as a sudden vacuum of manners. Sensing this on an instinctive level, Raum strode across to her and gently pulled her seat out and placed it back perfectly beneath her as she sat down. Made suddenly even more awkward by this example, I hurried to do the same thing for Sandra, who then smiled up at me and made me feel a little more confident.
As everybody sat down, I heard Pharter whisper to Phukkit, “I wish I’d wiped me feet first.”
“Why?” enquired Phukkit with interest. “You trodden in sumfink?”
“Nah, I just feel – you know – sort of… awkward.”
I think this description fitted us all.
“Now,” began Lilith as we became seated round the table, “what’s all this about colliding universes?”
“Do you deny you made this Creation?” I demanded.
“Of course I don’t,” she snapped with a little irritation. “Everyone needs somewhere to live. Or don’t I have even that right, in your view?”
“Well, what’s all this about ‘You will soon be regretting your past even more than you ever have done’ and ‘When I’ve finished with you and all your friends, and your beloved planet earth, you will really know the meaning of fallen angel?’ And I quote.”
“As I also said on that occasion, this is personal. Get it? Personal, as in you and me.”
“You mean, just because we had three dates thousands of years ago and then lost interest in each other, you still hold a grudge?”
Unexpectedly, Lilith threw back her head and laughed loud and long.
“I don’t believe it,” she remarked finally. “You’re such a typical man, Lucifer. You’re not a demigod – you’re a chauvinist. Do you honestly believe that I have spent the last few millennia brooding over my lost opportunity to have an association with you? And that it has taken me all that time to come up with some ridiculous master-plan to extract my revenge?”
“Well…” I was about to admit it, but she cut me off.
“What do you think I am?”
I was left shamefaced in a rather stunned silence. Lilith turned to face Sandra.
“You are quite welcome to him my dear. I assure you I have absolutely no designs on this man. From a woman’s point of view, he has some good qualities buried away inside him, and he is certainly macho when he wants to be, and he’s a looker; but he needs licking into shape some more before he can become properly suitable as a life-companion. I have neither the patience nor the inclination to undertake that task. It requires love, doesn’t it? I’m sure you’re the one who will accomplish it.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” answered Sandra. “And I feel we should apologize for bursting in on you like this. I have to say, you seem to be a nicer person than legend has it.”
“Oh, I have my fiery and terrible side too,” Lilith confessed with a smile. “But then again, what woman doesn’t?”
“According to legend, you take the form of a monster bird and drink blood.”
“Ah, but according to legend, Lucifer is the source of all evil and the greatest monster imaginable, and the cause of the ruination of humankind. You can’t make legends the basis of your belief, otherwise one day Walt Disney will become a god.”
“So – you are as misjudged as Lucifer has been?”
Lilith lowered her head in silent agreement.
“That is so unjust,” fumed Sandra. “I’ve come to realize, from personal experience, that Lucifer has been completely misrepresented and is actually a very good person at heart, if easily confused; but until now, I never suspected there were others in a similar situation.”
“People are seldom as black and white as society paints them,” remarked Lilith. “The media says: ‘This man is a crook’, or: ‘That woman is a harlot’, or: ‘That film star is a junkie’, or: ‘That politician wants to wreck the country’. And everyone starts to believe that a person’s whole life, the entire sum of all the hopes and fears of their years since first childhood, all their daily experiences and everything they have ever said and done, and felt, and grieved, and aspired to, and achieved, is now accurately categorized by that short label they have suddenly been branded with.
“That is how society operates. The media is older than television and newspapers; it is older than Guttenberg; it is older than the town crier; it is older than the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It is as old as the cave-paintings of Lascaux, and older. It is as old as: ‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”
Suddenly it came upon me with a rush that I might have been terribly mistaken. I looked at Sandra with hollow eyes. She had obviously been struck by the same revelation, for she looked at me, and to my surprise there was a glimmer in the corner of her eye that could only have been a newborn tear.
“I can remember a night,” she breathed softly, “when a judgmental policewoman with pre-fixed ideas and statutory opinions paid a visit to Satan’s apartment, 666 on the thirteenth floor. I can remember how he gently and politely explained how public opinion and history had wrongly branded him evil when he was only doing his job as governor of Hell. I can remember him explaining how the governor of a prison is not viewed as a criminal simply because he has to be in the same place as criminals in order to do his job. I can remember falling in love with him because, under his hard shell, he was so vulnerable.”
She paused while the tear fell unheeded into her lap. “And I can remember being told that he had been given a second chance to make good, to redeem himself for an act of disobedience – to be forgiven…”
I had no choice. I was compelled by my own conscience to finish the line of thought for her.
“And now here am I – I who have complained for so many ages about being mistakenly typecast, incorrectly branded as evil because I was placed in charge of evil human souls, unjustly held up by the opinion-makers of society as the source of all wickedness, as the ‘Evil One’, as an abomination – doing exactly the same thing to somebody else.”
I was horrified by my own sweeping ignorance, by my one-way-street point of view – yes, by my hitherto unnoticed arrogance. Lilith was right – I was a chauvinist.
“’Judge not, that ye shall not be judged,’” I whispered to myself.
Sandra, the bit now firmly between her teeth, spoke to Lilith.
“Should I call you ‘Goddess’?”
Lilith smiled at her. “Why not call me Lilith? That’s my name.”
“Lilith, exactly why did you want revenge against Satan? You were spitting sparks when you came through that green light thing. And what is the purpose of this rogue Creation, and the powerful static spiritual interference field emanating from it?”
“Why did I want revenge against Satan?” she repeated the question quietly. “Because, unlike me, he was offered a chance to gain forgiveness, to get his old job back, to become an archangel once more, on the board of directors. I have been equally wronged by history. Why cannot I be offered a chance of redemption also?”
She sighed. “I am close to admitting that I was motivated by jealousy. Not a good motivation. I intended to spike his guns, to upset his plans, to spoil his chances of succeeding, his chances of being the new ‘teacher’s pet’ in class. My plan was simply to put some mud in his pond.
“As for this universe, I made it some time ago. It has been my home for many thousands of years. I have always believed in ‘sauce for the goose’ – if one deity could fashion a Creation in six days, then so could I; it was my prerogative as a goddess. Or so I thought. It’s not nearly so well-made, and was always much smaller. And I couldn’t get it to expand properly like yours. But it’s home. All I was trying to do was move it as close as possible to your universe to cause some clever scientists to make headlines with ‘End of the World’ stories. That is why I organized the interference; it seemed a good way of saying ‘Boo!’ scientifically. And when the end of the world is believed to be coming, people tend to blame the Devil. That’s what I wanted. There wouldn’t have been an actual collision. The idea was simply to moor up alongside, like a tender to a ship.”
“What about Vittorio,” asked Sandra. “Where does he fit in, with his plans to summon demons to destroy cities and blackmail governments?”
“Him?” answered Lilith. “He’s another tragedy. He fell in love with me.”
“What? How?”
“Honey, he was into what mortals call black magic. He searched for old books by ancient sorcerers, that sort of thing. One night he invoked me, and I was obliged to appear before him in his wretched dank cellar. I must have impressed him, and I recognized all the signs. He fell for me like a ton of bricks. Possibly the fact that I was taking a shower when he invoked me to appear had something to do with it.”
She leaned back in her chair and sighed deeply. “I might be called a femme fatale, but I’m not completely without pity. I tried to let him down gently. I quietly and politely pointed out to him that I was an immortal goddess worshipped in golden temples in ancient Sumer and Babylon who lived in a palace in a private universe in a far dimension, and he was a pathetic little jerk. I think this might have motivated him to make the attempt to try to take over your world, so that I might be a little more impressed with him.”
I could visualize it now in my mind’s eye. A small, skinny, balding, sour-faced middle-aged unfrocked priest trying to win the heart of a stunningly beautiful, eight-foot tall, flame-haired immortal goddess by offering her the whole world on a plate. Truly a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, or Goethe. Even Dr. Faust had only wanted Helen of Troy.
“I never wanted to hurt him,” Lilith continued. “In a small, peculiar way, I guess I might have been a tiny bit amused. Like a film star at a premier when a fat teenage boy with a bad complexion throws them a bunch of flowers and they return the favor by signing the kid’s autograph book. That’s why I rescued him from Hell, right in front of all of you. I didn’t know what your intentions were towards him. I was merely doing a fan a favor. I felt uncomfortable seeing him all hog-tied.”
“Lilith,” I stated sincerely and urgently. “I owe you an apology. You will get one from me, with a big bunch of flowers. But first there is an even more urgent matter. Are you aware that you, and us, and the entire cosmos, is right now in the most imminent danger of total annihilation?”
39. The End of the Universe, With Full Supporting Program…
Lilith stared at me. She instantly knew that I was deadly serious.
“Explain,” she demanded; then as an afterthought added more gently, “please.”
“Are you aware that this universe of yours is imploding – collapsing with exponentially increasing velocity into a gravitational singularity like the mother of all black holes, with less than a few hours to go before it blinks out of existence?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you.” It was not a question; it was a statement of recognized fact.
“I am perfectly serious. With all due respect, your Creation is not as well made as the other one; the solitary craftsman is seldom able to compete with the product of the big corporation. Put simply, your universe was always fragile. By moving it towards the other Creation, like the Hindenburg moved towards Lakehurst New Jersey, you have inadvertently brought about a quantum interface pressure trauma. As they say in LA, you’ve put the squeeze on it.
“You have already told us that you couldn’t get it to expand properly. That means it must have been held in a stasis balance, a static universe, neither expanding nor contracting, just wobbling like a big soap bubble. Making it move towards another universe has destabilized it and inaugurated a catastrophic contraction. What some scientists on earth refer to as a ‘Big Crunch’ which has been proposed as the way our universe will end in scores of billions of years time when its expansion ceases and it shrinks again. I’m afraid your ‘Big Crunch’ will be here before teatime. If we are still here, it will take us with it.”
“Are you sure of this?” she asked. “How do you know what’s happening?”
“Haven’t you seen how close the planets, stars and galaxies are getting? The space between them is shrinking.”
“I thought they were just readjusting their position and balance to compensate for the movement of this universe.”
“It’s more than that, Lilith. We conducted an experiment outside before we reached your front door. I timed how long it took light to travel some six miles. It was only a crude test of your current laws of physics, but even so, it was revealing. Light should be the fastest thing in any physical universe; its speed is constant and approximately one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. Half an hour ago, light took thirty seconds by my wristwatch to travel about six miles – four miles from Pharter to Phukkit, then two more miles back from Phukkit to me.”
I rammed the point home: it was necessary. “Thirty seconds to go six miles – that means your light here in this universe is now traveling at about the speed of sound – slower than a supersonic aircraft. Your gravitational fields are also distorting; the Roche limit for coherent planetary approach has shrunk by a huge factor. If you want to check it out, just look outside – there are planets whose gravitational fields should be tearing each other apart into fragments still looming solidly overhead, there’s a galaxy that should swallow this galaxy sat only as distant as your nearest stars should be. As your universe shrinks, your gravitational curvature of space-time shrinks with it. Soon, all the planets, stars and galaxies will be physically touching each other. The heat will be greater than Hell, and I should know! It’s the reverse of the Big Bang sequence.”
I took another deep breath. “The further it goes, the faster it will happen. Within an hour or less, this universe will be winding back to what astro-physicists on earth call a universe’s Dark Ages, when particles are so densely packed together that no light can radiate. The lights of the universe will snuff out. Then time will run backwards through the Photon Epoch, the Lepton Epoch, the Hadron Epoch, the Quark Epoch, the Electroweak Epoch, the Inflationary Epoch, the Grand Unification Epoch and the Planck Time Epoch. These epochs occur in the tiniest fractions of a second. The temperature throughout this universe will rise to ten-to-the-thirty-second-power Kelvins, which is a number of degrees above absolute shown by a ‘one’ followed by thirty-two zeros. Time itself will cease to exist; so will matter; so will energy.” I raised my hands in a dismissive gesture. “Oblivion.”
Lilith was impressed with my statistics. She surrendered. “What do we do?” she asked in a small voice.
“Run,” I answered.
First, I ascertained from Lilith that she was alone in her Creation. There were no life-forms of any kind anywhere; she had not been powerful enough to create life as well. Her universe was sterile. This meant that we only had to take care of ourselves. All that was stopping us from making an astral leap back to our own universe was the still-functioning static spiritual interference field. This meant that even on Lilith’s own world we were limited to having to make use of our legs, or wings as the case may be, in order to get around.
It turned out that the interference field was generated by a football-sized crystal held in an occult energy lattice in a small pyramid about a mile from Lilith’s palace. We all ran to the front door, picking up a startled Vittorio on the way through, and Lilith pointed out the pyramid in the gloomy distance. She assured us it was unlocked – indeed, the tunnel to the crystal chamber was open to the outside. We began to head in that direction as fast as we could. Of course, the winged demons could travel much faster than anyone on foot and I charged them with the duty of racing there through the air ahead of the rest of us and destroying the crystal. They took off and sped away like a flock of giant bats in the dusky light.
Without scientific instruments, my estimates of the speed of light and the timing of the sequence of anticipated events were extremely approximate. We saw the flying demons reach the vicinity of the pyramid.
Then, without any warning, utter darkness instantly fell. The light in the universe went out. It was then that I abandoned hope. It was a dreadful moment. This universe had wound backwards into its Dark Ages, where light could no longer travel through space. Faintly, I could hear a succession of thump-splat, thump-splat. The flying demons were evidently missing the opening in the dark and hitting the pyramid instead. Various lurid curses came back through the air. There was a distant agonized yell of “Get yer horns out of my arse!”
Sandra found my hand. “How long?” she asked bravely.
I needed to be honest in our final moments. “About another ten seconds,” I answered.
Sandra counted them down aloud. “Ten; nine; eight; seven…”
Then something unexpected happened. A shout came out of the darkness, with an accompanying echo suggestive of a stone passage. The voice was Pharter’s, and it was the best news I had ever received. He had obviously found the passage and was about to shatter the crystal. The message he screamed was basic and urgent.
“For pluck’s sake go now!”
There was a sound like a full goldfish bowl being dropped onto a concrete floor, a tremendous gout of heat and then nothingness…
40. The New World Order…
We all jumped together in an astral leap. The interference had vanished with the smashing of the crystal. Given the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that we landed by dropping in a tangled heap of bruised and smoldering bodies. There was a general chorus of “ouches” and “arghhs”, a “Cor blimey!” and a “Bugger that for a game of soldiers!”
Then we took notice of our surroundings as we began to untangle ourselves from this unruly heap.
We were in Heaven. Our Heaven. And we had company. Standing before us was the Executive Chairman Himself, his long white beard and robes just as I remembered them from thousands of years ago. Behind him were lined up a small crowd of board members, including Michael.
To my everlasting astonishment, it was the Chairman Himself who reached forward and helped pull me to my feet. Quite literally, I was raised up by the hand of God! Michael, Gabriel and several of the other board members gently helped the others. As if in a trance, I heard Phukkit mutter, “Thanks mate – you got any sticking plasters for my bum?”
“Shoosh!” hissed Pharter. “It’s the Boss’s Boss. It’s all of us’s Boss.”
Having hauled me to my feet, the Chairman did not immediately let go of my hand but shook it, warmly.
“Lucifer,” he said, his voice vibrant with joy. “You have done well. So well, in fact, that I am going to cancel the rest of that one-year test of character. You have more than proven your good character since accepting the challenge. You have done well. You have gained my respect again. And even more than that,” he smiled at a totally stunned Sandra Smith, “I think you have also found love.”
“I have, Sir.”
“And many others have also come to love you,” he stated. “We must always remember, it is not how much we love others that is our measure of achievement, it is how much others love us. And you have experienced soul-searching, and self-doubt, and loss of hope, and yet you have done all that became necessary to do your duty, and more. You came through.”
Still shaking my hand, he clapped his other hand on my shoulder. “I am now declaring you officially an archangel again, and I offer you back your seat on the board. You can attend the next board meeting.”
“But who will manage Hell?” I asked, concerned for my demonic friends.
“We will need to appoint a new Satan,” replied the Chairman. “It will no longer be Lucifer the Archangel. That long era has now come to an end.”
“Might I be permitted to make a suggestion, Sir?” I enquired respectfully.
“Please do.”
I looked at Lilith now slightly charred, rising to her feet helped by Gabriel, her dress bedraggled and torn, her hair in disarray, standing amid a crowd of demons who were standing rigidly to attention.
“Lilith needs somewhere to live now,” I ventured. “And the demons seem to like her.” And she already has a handy assistant to assign to Raum’s tuition, I thought, eyeing the hapless Vittorio, who would now be answering to a higher Judgment than the Grand Jury.
The Chairman raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and turned to address her. “My dear, it seems that I may have been… perhaps somewhat unjust in my attitude towards you. Would you accept my apology, and would you also care to accept being officially appointed to the position of the next Satan? From there, you may even be able to work your way up to being a full board member and new archangel one day.”
I noticed that the sooty patches on her face were suddenly streaked with tears. Speechless, she nodded vigorously. The Chairman stepped forward and embraced her warmly. “Welcome to the Corporation, my dear. I wish you well in your new position as a department head.”
Then he turned back to me. “And what about Lucifer? What will you be doing now, with no job?”
“I wish to return to the mortal world,” I stated. I reached for Sandra’s hand and pulled her to my side. “We’re going to get married. And I already have a job – I’m a cop! I’ve just saved the universe; now I have to do something really difficult – I have to help clean up Los Angeles!”
Before we all went back to those various and assorted places we each called home, I gathered all the demons, big and little, around Sandra and me.
“Guys,” I said, a bit of a lump forming in my throat, “I owe you all, every last one of you, an unpayable debt of thanks. I want you to know that. What can I do to show my gratitude?”
Phukkit’s voice chimed up. “There’s a good flick on at the Mann Grauman’s Chinese Cinema, ain’t there? The latest Hollywood blockbuster.” There was a chorus of approval.
“You got it,” I laughed. “You know, when divorced people with families start going out together, they sometimes take their families with them on dates. Well, we’re not divorced: we’re not even married yet. But all of you are going to be our family, and you’re all going out with us on our first proper date. Isn’t that right darling?”
“You bet,” shouted Sandra with enthusiasm.
Suddenly Pharter and Phukkit looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes, as though seeking courage from each other. They turned a deeper shade of purple.
“Errr – Guv?” queried Pharter. “Can we bring our girlfriends too?”
Sandra and I stared at them in some amazement.
That evening, two cops took eighteen assorted demons from Hell to watch a movie. We sat all in a row in the dark with popcorn occasionally flying everywhere and the odd huge slurp of a drinking straw extracting the last drop of a cola drink. At the end of the row, Pharter and Phukkit cuddled up to Claire and Celia Touchwood, proprietors of Broomsticks R Us, the best esoteric emporium in California and the only one with framed testimonials from real demons.
If ever you go to a theatre to watch a movie, and you hear Cockney voices at the back giving loud comments on the action, whatever you do, don’t turn round and look. At least, not if you value your sanity.
And that is why Satan is now a woman, which in turn is why gender-specific language is being officially phased out; and it is why an archangel called Lucifer now helps safeguard the citizens of Los Angeles in the guise of Inspector Stan A. Fericul, pronounced “very cool”, who is now happily married to Detective Sandra Fericul.
You should see us when we take the dog for a walk – although if you did, you would probably never want to go out after nightfall again!
Cue music and closing titles.
RAISING THE DEVIL(Peter Mills)
RAISING THE DEVIL
By Peter W. Mills
A Very Necessary Foreword
“History is more or less bunk!”
(Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer, 1863-1947)
This is a story about someone who likes the classic movies. It is also a story about redemption and the ability of people from any walk of life (or elsewhere) to rise above their limitations. It is certainly a story about love, both between male and female and that kind that is between friends and colleagues. It is a story about someone who argued with their boss and got demoted for it. It is a story about someone who makes a comeback and struggles to get their old job back again. It is a story about someone who happens to work for the Los Angeles Police Department, or LAPD as it has become known throughout the world from its regular mention in movies and TV shows. It is a story about someone who has some truly remarkable friends. It is a story about someone who may surprise you.
This someone is me. You will probably already know about me, because I am famous. Or at least - as is the case with many celebrities, who have private lives as well as public ones - you will think you know about me. You probably assume that you do. Ah – assumptions!
Everybody makes assumptions about famous people of fact and fiction, and the world has made many assumptions about me over the years since I first achieved fame, or rather, notoriety. The public is usually happy to bask in its assumptions. Mae West never actually said: "Come up and see me sometime.” That is an assumption which became so widespread it assumed the status of a Universal (or rather, Paramount) truth. (What she actually said was: "Why don't you come up sometime, and... see me?” That slight pause was very suggestive, but too hot for the studio publicists to handle and served to launch the Hollywood movie production code).
Likewise, Captain Kirk in TV’s Star Trek never once actually said: "Beam me up, Scotty!” another myth that took on the proportions of fact in the common parlance of public assumption: the closest he came was “Beam us up, Mr. Scott.” Not once in any of the stories by Conan Doyle did Sherlock Holmes ever actually say: “Elementary, my dear Watson,” a phrase that has become a fiction within fiction: it originated in a New York Times film review on 19th October 1929. Humphrey Bogart never actually said: "Play it again, Sam!”, the words he spoke being “If she can stand it, I can. Play it!”
And likewise again, Jimmy Cagney never once said the line “You dirty rat!”: a common misquote by various impressionists, from the 1932 movie “Taxi” where Cagney’s actual line was: “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!” And, although you may find it hard to believe, John Wayne never actually killed a single Red Indian, because movies are not reality.
However, even reality contains its fair share of fictions that have become assumed fact. After Napoleon had fled from the battlefield of Waterloo in 1815, an English negotiator approached the French army to ask if they wished to surrender. History states that the French reply was: "La garde meurt, mais il ne serend pas!” (“The Guard may die, but does not surrender!”) Other sources, such as diaries of officers who were present at the time, record that the reply was actually much shorter and less intellectual, the single shouted word “Merde!”
Voltaire never said: “Je désapprouve ce que vous dites, mais je défendrai à la mort votre à le dire.” (“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”) the famous line being invented for the 1907 book Friends of Voltaire by author Evelyn Beatrice Hall. Mark Twain did not come up with: “The only two certainties in life are death and taxes.” Although he used the line, it was actually written by Benjamin Franklin in a little-known letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy.
Although it may astound some patriots, Paul Revere never actually made his famous “midnight ride” shouting “the British are Coming!” at every farmhouse and village. His mission to deliver the news to the militia was top secret, the whole countryside was filled with British army patrols, and anyway it was in New England, where the majority of colonial Americans at that time considered themselves to be British by designation and would have wondered exactly what he meant. He rode without saying a word to anybody until he arrived at HQ. The noisier and more popular version of events comes from the 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Longfellow, who invented many details using poetic license.
Marie Antoinette never said “S’ils n’ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche!” (“If they have no bread, let them eat cake!”) This legend came into history from the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau where he referred to such a statement being made by an unnamed princess in Grenoble in 1740, some ten years before Marie Antoinette was even born. The remark was later pinned upon Marie Antoinette at the Revolution as a piece of anti-royalist propaganda to incite popular hatred and add extra justification to her execution, and remained attached to her, unlike her head.
From an even earlier period there is a famous 9th century Norse Viking whose name in most reference sources is given as Ragnar Lodbrok. History book accounts of his murderous raids usually state that he was commonly known by this name, which translates from Old Norse as “Ragnar Hairy-Breeches”, and at some point was added the polite and homespun information that this came about because of trousers made of animal hides by his sweet little wife back home. In fact, his actual nickname among his earthy Anglo-Saxon, Danish and French victims, who naturally hated this sadistic, bloody-handed murdering butcher, was Ragnar Lodknott, “Ragnar Hairy-Balls”. This information was, however, considered unsuitable for inclusion in the majority of history source books, most of which were written at that time by monks, and was changed for the sake of public taste.
I mention these things simply because, in order for you to judge my own story without prejudice, and without prejudgment, and without automatically believing everything that has already been written or said about me, it is necessary for me to point out to you, as I have here, that History is not always a precise and accurate account of exactly what happened, or exactly what was said by famous personages. It has been said that “History is written by the victor”, but the truth is more often, “History is written by the censor!”
Or, as it says in the famous song by Cole Porter;
"The things that you're li’ble,
To read in the Bible -
It ain't necessarily so!"
A Conflict in the Boardroom…
The time: now and then. The place: here and there. The Corporation: big - very big. It did not have a public headquarters in the USA, or in Britain, or Switzerland, or Japan, or any offshore island, or anywhere you are probably familiar with. Oh yes, it was in all of those places, and many others as well. When an enterprise gets that big, it cannot be said to be located in just one area. It might be best if I used the word “multinational”. The Corporation had branches everywhere, regardless of political divides and local ethnic differences. Most of its business activities were invisible; the Mafia does much of its business in a vaguely similar invisible manner, but the Corporation is bigger than the Mafia. Much bigger. And I was near the top.
I was Deputy Chairman, having risen through the corporate ranks from the level of junior management in a process generally called “working your way to the top”. I could not go any higher under foreseeable circumstances because the Chairman was an autocrat of the Old School. A self-made magnate with a finger in every pie, he had founded the Corporation in a small way back in the early days, amongst a lot of cutthroat competition, and he guarded his position and power jealously. He permitted me to be his second-in-command, his right-hand-man, but if he ever so much as suspected that I might try to take his place, he would have thrown me out on my butt with hardly a second thought.
This caused me no loss of sleep, as I was perfectly content to be his Number Two. At least, I was in the beginning. I still would be, but circumstances forced my hand. Being a good Number Two brings much of the glory and other rewards, whilst saving you from the supreme intense pressure of being in the pilot’s seat, with everything sinking or floating depending on how good you happen to be at that moment. In any corporate structure from an anthill upward, everyone has someone else above them to make a higher decision, to approve or criticize, to help out in a tight spot or kick your sorry ass, and there is some comfort in this; a subliminal sense of security engendered by the knowledge that the buck can, in extremis, always be passed up one level higher. Even a Number Two has this. But a Number One has not. As that president once said, the buck stops here. There is no higher authority for them to appeal upwards to – they are it. Everybody else is looking up at them; they can only look down at everyone else. Sure, the idea of ultimate power, of absolute authority, appeals to a certain kind of person. Not me. I never wanted it. I wanted to be high, but not highest. I wanted bright, but not brightest. I wanted strong, but not strongest. I wanted rich, but not richest. I was the perfect Right Hand Man.
The Boss, however, was the kind who did relish those aforementioned absolutes, with a towering strength of character that not only coped with being the top dog, the biggest cheese, the king of the castle, but made him absolutely competent and self-assured no matter what crisis might suddenly jump out of the marketing jungle. He demanded absolute obedience. He wanted the input and skills of individuals, but all the players on his team also very quickly learned when they should become nothing but “Yes Men”. You could contribute, that was welcome and required, but you could not contradict.
This, too, suited me, because I had no wish to contradict – until, that is, the introduction of the proposed New Product. This changed everything.
Secure on the board of directors and looking forward to liberating my accumulating pension fund in a few decades and perhaps learning golf, my hand was forced. Forced by what kind of a person I am deep down inside, where it counts. Although I was blissfully unaware of it until the crisis came, there are limits to what you can stomach. In fact, I was shortly to surprise myself. I can grovel and bow and scrape with the best of them; but there will always come a point where you look at what you have become and suddenly you get disgusted with yourself. Suddenly you can no longer abase yourself, or prostitute your abilities, or keep your essential dignity locked up in some deep cellar of the personality. Sooner or later, everyone must draw their line and refuse to cross it. You cannot dance to the same tune forever, especially so when the person who pays the piper and calls the tune decides they require you to metaphorically prostrate yourself in adulation before one of their ideas which, in your own opinion, is utter crap, uncalled for, unnecessary and outside the normal established field of the business and all its subsidiaries.
I had some good friends in the days before the crisis happened, in the workforce, in higher management and on the board. It was corporation policy, as it is with many other organizations, to use only first names and never to use titles such as “Mr.” or “Ms.” My best friend in the Corporation was Michael, a board member like myself and the Number Three man in the organization. Gabriel was also close: she was beautiful, charming and very capable and everybody loved her, even when she was firing them. There were others. But it is only when the chips are down that you discover who your real friends are.
I remember clearly the board meeting when the Boss introduced us to his great idea, his New Product. The entire board was assembled and waiting and in he came with some assistants from Research & Development who were struggling with huge bundles of rolled blueprints, carefully drawn-up flipchart presentations and covered models. This looks big, I remember thinking as they set everything up. The Chairman sat down at the top end of the long conference table and waited patiently – almost smugly, I thought – while the staff readied everything they had brought with them. At length they finished and stepped back in silence, respect almost visibly oozing from every pore. The staff from the lower floors were usually obsequious, often nauseatingly so: their single motivation was to be the Chosen One in the event of a vacancy in the boardroom. If they were from the junior management levels it would not be them who rose in one leap to a directorship, but they were well aware that any change at higher levels always produced a knock-on effect downward, whereby anyone who was considered reliable got a chance of stepping up into a higher vacancy. I glanced at them disdainfully; “Yes Men”, every one of them, almost falling over each other to look good in the presence of the Chairman.
The Chairman rose to address his board.
“Some of you will already know that I intend, at some suitable point in the future, to bring my son into the business and, eventually, make him the next Chairman. I shall not be standing down myself, but I will create a new position for myself as Executive Chairman which will leave my son running everything and implementing his own policies, while I assume the role of a supervising figurehead.”
He gazed in my direction, but I just nodded slightly and remained impassive. I knew all about this already, and it did not worry me. Like I said, I was content to be Number Two, and it really didn’t bother me as to who was Number One, the father or the son. I knew the son, and we got on all right – in those earlier days anyway, that is. We had a great deal in common in respect of our interests and had had some good times together: we were friends, the son and I. Later, by force of circumstances, we became estranged; but all that came later, as I shall explain in due course.
The Chairman resumed talking.
“Now, looking ahead to that day when my son becomes Chairman, I have decided that the Corporation needs to undergo some important changes in order to be ready for him. Anyone who knows us both will also know that he and I, although we love each other like a father and son ought to, have our differences in our approach to business and our methods of running things.” He gestured expansively with his hands across the table as he spoke. “My son has, shall we say, a more modernistic approach to the whole question of corporate management, while I fully admit that my approach has always been conditioned by my own upbringing and background, and the ‘jungle market’ conditions in which I founded this Corporation and had to fight tooth-and-nail just to survive amongst a host of competitors until, by sheer determination, ruthlessness, aggressiveness, loyalty to friends, death to enemies and pulling off the odd miracle, I emerged bigger and more powerful than anyone else. I will be the first to admit it – I am not really a business manager, I am a fighter, a corporate dictator. My son is the one with the actual management skills. He is far more subtle than I – and, I think, that makes him more of a force to be reckoned with.
“I accept these differences between us. I have no intention of demanding that he becomes a mirror image of myself. When he is in control, he will run things his way, the new way; and that will not be my way. Therefore, the old order must change. It must grow, develop and evolve. We must avoid stagnation.”
So far, I had approved of what I was hearing. It made sense. And I thought it was very big of the Boss to admit that his son was somewhat different in character, and even bigger of him to consider making changes in advance of his son’s promotion in order to ensure that the Corporation was ready for the day when it would happen.
The Chairman spoke again. “Accordingly, I have authorized a New Product.” This made everyone’s ears prick up, since such a thing would naturally affect everyone at all levels. If the product of a corporation turns out to be a bad idea, if it goes wrong, if it does not work, if it attracts bad publicity or sometimes even if it is merely ahead of its time, then the corporation itself is at risk. For the first time, I stirred uneasily in my seat. I glanced at Michael on my right and Gabriel on my left, but their faces remained inscrutable.
“I have also authorized the Corporation’s entry into an entirely new marketplace in which the New Product will be placed for its launch and development. So…” he emphasized with more sweeping gestures of his spread hands “…we will be dealing with at least two major unknowns; a New Product, previously untested and so innovative that there are no previous close examples – not any successful ones, anyway – by which we can reasonably pre-judge its performance or gauge its potential weaknesses: and a new, untested and un-surveyed marketplace in which the product is to be placed for initial marketing and also for further research and development.
“Understand, the New Product may not be perfect at first: it may be full of little design faults that have not shown up yet. Such unseen imperfections will only become apparent during normal use, so we all need to be on the ball with it. The idea is to launch it in a new and isolated marketplace where we can observe its performance and make ongoing corrections and improvements to the basic design as and when flaws show up – and the flaws won’t show up unless the product is in use somewhere.”
I was still uneasy, although I could not put my finger on exactly why, and the logical part of my mind was agreeing, in principle, with what was being said. It all sounded very reasonable. Perhaps just a little too reasonable?
“Now, let’s have a look at the New Product itself.” The Chairman gestured to the people from Research and Development who immediately stepped forward and began to uncover the prototype. I have to admit, I was impressed. Despite what was shortly going to happen, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the model, and I continue to hold that opinion right up to the present time, and will continue to do so. The Chairman noticed my swift and silent appraisal – he noticed everything, of course: you do not get to be founder of such an enterprise as this without having some extraordinary qualities.
“Number Two”, invited the Chairman in a fatherly manner, “let me have your thoughts”.
“I like it,” I replied cautiously. His eyes narrowed as his mind inspected what I was saying. He knew, probably better than anyone, that I was absolutely not a "Yes Man". I was the only board member with enough chutzpah to spit in his eye if he insulted me, and he knew it. What is more, he was clever enough to value my independent character and rugged individuality. He knew that I told it like I saw it. If I disliked something, it was probably bad, and if I praised it, it was probably good. He valued my opinion, I think, more than Michael’s, and this, I also think, irritated Michael considerably, although he would never give me the satisfaction of admitting to it.
“You like it…” the Boss repeated and paused. “But? I can sense a hidden ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
“Yes,” I acknowledged quite frankly, “I do have a ‘but’. It looks a bit like you. Er – it looks rather a lot like you. In fact, apart from the absence of beard and white hair, it looks exactly like you.”
He pointed at me proudly across the boardroom table. “I knew you would be the first to spot it”, he enthused to everyone. “Yes, it’s me. I made it in my own image. The earlier experimental models seemed to lack something: anyway, they had no character or charm. So, I got this one made in my own likeness.”
“Pretty neat idea.” I was still impressed. “Yes, it might work, at that”, I nodded thoughtfully.
“OK!” interjected Michael a little brusquely beside me. “So what comes next?” I frequently got the impression that he felt he should be in my place and he quickly lost patience whenever there was any kind of subtle interchange between me and the Boss.
“Next,” answered the Chairman, “we put it in the field and see how it works out. I have already ordered the Construction Division to start building the new marketplace test site. It should be ready in six days. They are already separating the firmament above from the firmament below. On the seventh day, we can all have a day off. How’s that grab you?” There was a muted chorus of approval from around the table.
A sneaking suspicion opened a creaking door in my mind and tiptoed inside. “You make it sound all too easy,” I commented.
“Well, it is really quite simple after all,” replied the Boss blandly. “Except…”
“Except what?” My sneaking suspicion had run a couple of laps around my head and was now doing push-ups.
“Except that, once the New Product is up and running, you will all – naturally, since it is an image of me – obey what it commands. You will treat it as though it were me, myself, in person. And you will have to call it Sir and bow down before it.”
There was a silence in which you could hear a pin drop. I glanced at my fellow board members. To my annoyance I realized that they had all swallowed this instruction without so much as an angry grunt of dissention.
Anger began to course through every fiber of my being. Slightly to my own amazement, I heard my own voice, seemingly on automatic pilot, slowly but very clearly grate out: “Over my dead body I will!”
The Chairman’s eyes flashed and his long beard began to bristle. “This is not an issue I want any further discussion about,” he stated in a booming voice. “This is an order. A direct commandment. I’m having it written into the job description, and that’s an end to it.”
He tried to move the meeting on to another issue by turning to someone else and starting to speak, but like a dog with a bone in my teeth, I would not let go.
“Not me,” I stated bluntly. “I refuse! Point blank! No discussion! No way!” I chopped my hand in the air with each statement. The atmosphere became heavy with tangible amazement. I was noted and valued for not being a "Yes Man", but nobody – nobody – had ever disobeyed a Direct Commandment from the Chairman in the entire history of the Corporation. And I went on, my mouth still running on automatic pilot. “I will never – watch my lips! – never bow down before this… this…” I looked at the name highlighted in big gold letters on the polished wooden stand of the prototype, “…this Adam”.
The Chairman’s expression softened for the barest instant. I think I had actually managed to genuinely disappoint him, as though a son had said something unkind to his father.
“Lucifer,” he said gently, using my first name and not merely saying "Number Two", “think about what you are doing. Think. Please…?”
I suddenly stood up, making Gabriel jump. “I have thought!” I snapped. “I think it’s a load of crap. I won’t have any of it.”
“Very well.” His voice, though reflecting a great sadness, took on a harsh and powerful tone. He pointed at the door. “Then get out! You are dismissed from the board. I will find you another position, somewhere in the lower levels – one that reflects your… talents… more aptly!”
“You won’t get rid of me without a shareholder’s fight,” I snarled.
As I strode defiantly out of the boardroom, I saw dark thunderclouds beginning to roll up. There was going to be war in Heaven.
The rest, as they say, is history.
2. A Visitation…
Now, before we go any further, there is one thing you must try to understand, over and above everything else. I am qualified to tell you this, because I am Lucifer. That is my name. Satan is my job-title. It means “The Adversary”, or, more accurately, “The Opposer” - because I had dared to speak my mind and oppose something I had perceived, at the time, as a case of everyone else accepting necessary horse manure in order to hold on to their precious jobs at any price. Thus, I had rebelled, over what had seemed to me at the time to be a point of principle.
And what you must understand is this: despite all that you may have heard from others, Satan is not evil! Disobedient, maybe. Outspoken, certainly. Devil-may-care (no pun intended), definitely. Proud… well, OK. Willful, sure. But I am just as much a product of my training and original environment as any other Minister of Grace. As an angel, I was no angel. But I am not evil. Look, the caretaker of a graveyard is not dead, are they? They do not need to be, in order to just do their appointed job. They are merely in charge of the dead in their graves. Likewise, a zookeeper is not considered an animal and does not have to live in a cage, just because they work in the zoo. A prison governor is an official in charge of the criminals, he is not a criminal himself, even though he works in the same jail.
In a similar way, although when I was demoted I was placed in charge of the collection and processing of those mortals who had done evil, I am not evil myself. I do not cause evil, contrary to public opinion, nor do I visit it upon humankind. The garbage man does not bring the garbage, does he? He collects it and disposes of it properly. The garbage itself is provided by The People, God bless ‘em. And evil is produced by Mankind, the Human Race. You descendants of Adam and Eve are the evil ones, not Lucifer. I just clean up the mess afterwards. You all have a choice, whether to do good or to do evil, and most people face that choice numerous times in a normal month. If, at the end of mortal life, your moral balance sheet is in the black, no worries: if it is in the red, I collect the final debt and close the account.
Homo sapiens produces all the evil in the world: I am merely the cosmic garbage man. That was the position which, in the words of the Chairman, “...reflected my talents more aptly.”
And it was never intended by him to be a permanent demotion. OK, so I had fallen from Grace. It happens to the best of us. Look at Nixon and Watergate. All it really meant to me was that I had to start at the bottom of the ladder again. It was always recognized that I had another chance to make good, providing I did a proper job in the basement department I had been assigned to, and kept my nose clean. I ran a tight ship. I did good – no, really! All these silly folk who run around blaming Satan for the evils of the world and for the wickedness of fellow humans are just using my name as the scapegoat for their reluctance to face and admit the basic truth. Which is, that human beings are fully capable of behaving like utter bastards without the need for any outside guidance or temptation. In fact, the really dedicated evildoers often did it so spectacularly that they left me quite staggered by their enormities and the strange convolutions of their consciences. People like Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin, Mao Tsedong, Attila the Hun, Al Capone, Pol Pot...
Actually, I do have a confession to make; something that any other angel would clip their own wings before admitting in anything more than a whisper. The Corporation I work for, which I have briefly described, is merely one of many spiritual realities. It is, in essence, the descendent of the Hebrew way of perceiving divinity, given an extra boost at the polls by the introduction of Christianity. The other beliefs – all of them – are equally valid, equally real, to all those who believe in them: Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Hinduism, Druidism, Wicca, whatever. But since, personally, I am the morphic product of the archetypal Hebrew system, my own point of view is naturally colored mostly in that tone.
Please, though, do not make the mistake of thinking: “My Gosh! If Lucifer himself actually exists, the Bible-thumpers must be right after all and everybody else is wrong!” It doesn’t work that way at all. Or at least, it only works that way as much as someone who actually gets a personal handshake from a cigar-smoking politician regards them as more real and relevant to their needs than the other ones they only see on TV and who therefore appear less real. Human nature can be a very strange animal. In all human societies there are vast networks of laws, but in human religious beliefs, there are few. The laws of society are imposed to curb the natural excesses of lust, avarice, greed, corruption, hunger for power, jealousy, revenge, genocide, murder, rape and pillage which the human species carries within its genetic structure. There is no such legal check of these natural characteristics where human religions are concerned.
Consider. If a paid actor appears in a TV sponsorship promotion and states that Marvo Bunkum Oil will grow thick new hair on a bald head overnight, the authorities would force them off the air and probably commence court proceedings for fraud and deceiving the general public. If a man in a respectable suit and tie appears on the same TV channel and states that those who join his church and repent by mailing a contribution will be granted eternal life in a blessed realm, he gets away with it. It is said that everyone has a double. This also applies to standards.
So, the point is worth repeating: I am not evil, nor a cause of evil. I am only the administrative head of a collection and processing department. As Friday always said in Dragnet: “Just doing my job, sir”.
And the chief of the city garbage disposal department is none-the-less still classed as a civic executive, even if the other executives wouldn’t have his job for a bucketful of money and a free hat. Most likely, his position in charge of the day-to-day running of the waste department is only one stage in a planned civic career which may one day see him as mayor, or chief of police, or chief advisor to the treasury. (Yes, I suppose I am a cynic. Blame me?) Likewise, I always hoped that one fine day I would be offered a new position. I made sure I mentioned it at every audit.
It could have happened at any time. It might have been when the Mongol hordes were sweeping across Europe under Genghis Khan, or when George Washington became president, or when the Beatles released “She Loves You”, or at any other time. It was not up to me to decide when. It happened a year ago last Tuesday.
There I was, checking the work of my junior clerks, when there was a sound of distant trumpets blowing a fanfare. One of the clerks opened the office door and there stood Michael. He looked slightly ill at ease, as a former friend can who no longer wishes to be reminded of the times you and he propped up a bar together in the good old days. Luckily, I was wearing my Armani shades – he always shone so brightly. I’m sure he did it on purpose. There was really no need when there were no mortals present.
“Mike,” I greeted, genuinely surprised. “Come on in. What brings you slumming?”
“Orders,” he replied, disdainfully eyeing the general untidy bustle of my department. He stepped inside and dimmed his radiance a little. “I have a message from the Boss.”
“For me?”
“Why else would I come to this dank and dismal level?” He sniffed. “When did you last decorate? Reds and scarlets went out with Dante.”
I ignored that. “I thought it might be a social call.” I was being gently sarcastic but it went straight over his head. He always took everything seriously, at face value: there was no room for humor, sarcasm, hyperbole or anything not exactly literal in his rigid viewpoint.
“I don’t do social calls,” he stated simply. He produced a scroll of parchment all tied up with a bright red ribbon and a big wax seal. “You’ve got a chance to redeem yourself,” he offered by way of explanation.
I pointed at my chest. “Moi?” I said, innocently.
“Why don’t you cut the fooling around,” he snapped. “This is serious. The time has come.” He tapped the scroll on a tabletop. “This is a new contract of employment, complete, legal and binding. It offers you back your position on the board and your former rank as an Archangel on High.”
I was actually very surprised at this sudden development, but I tried not to show it. “That must have stuck in your craw,” I observed wryly.
He smiled back grimly. “Maybe. But there’s strings attached, so I don’t for one minute think that we will be seeing your antics in the boardroom again for a very long time.”
“What sort of strings?” I couldn’t keep the slight tinge of anxiety out of my voice: I felt I was seeing a prize sail past just out of reach.
“Tough ones”, he answered, almost triumphantly, as though it were a foregone conclusion that I would fail to meet the challenge, whatever it might be. He broke the seal and pulled the ribbon off, unrolling the parchment, his gleaming eyes scanning its contents cursorily. All angels’ eyes gleamed unless they deliberately held back the inner light.
“Well, let’s have it then! Surely nothing the Boss could cook up could possibly be as tough as being designated overseer of Hell for half an eternity!”
“You think so? Listen to this. I’ll condense it and skip all the legal terminology. You are hereby offered back your former position on the board – providing you can pass the necessary test of character by living and working amongst human beings, in some capacity to be chosen by yourself, which promotes good, combats evil and leaves the world a better place afterwards, even if only in some small way; and this for the space of one whole year without giving up.”
“Ye gods!” I exclaimed inadvertently, and then quickly added, “No offence.” I quickly mulled over what I had just heard. I knew it was true – whatever else I might think of Michael, he was honest to a fault: it went with the territory. “One whole year… living and working among human beings… doing good… combating evil. Mike, do you realize exactly just how bloody good humans are at being evil? Believe me, I have first hand experience of it.”
“Be that as it may,” he replied pompously, “that’s the deal. Signed, sealed - ” he handed me the scroll – “and delivered. Take it or leave it. Your call.”
Suddenly I found that I was very apprehensive – understandably, I think, in view of the fact that until this moment I had been shunted into managing a department nobody else wanted and then promptly forgotten about for something over seven millennia. I desperately wanted what was being offered, I wanted up and out, but my mind’s nose was busily sniffing for rats.
“Wait a moment, Mike”, I pleaded. “I need to know a few other details before I decide to take such a plunge.”
“It’s all in the contract.” The Archangel waved his hand at the scroll I now held. His attitude softened a little. “What else do you need to know?”
“Well,” my thoughts – and suspicions – were racing round inside my head like the silver ball in a Las Vegas roulette wheel, “for starters; is this one of those deals where, if I accept the challenge, I’m deprived of all my angelic powers and have to actually live under the same restrictions as human beings? And will I be constrained by the small print to obey rules like never harming a human in any way while I put wrongs to right, like Clark Kent? That would be like having both hands tied behind my back in a dark alley.”
“Clark who?” said Michael, puzzled.
“Clark Kent,” I repeated, “guy who wears blue and red tights under his suit and avoids kryptonite… never mind.” I knew when I was banging my head against the brick wall of contemporary culture. “Just give me a bit of background information about all the whys and wherefores, and maybe a couple of heretofores and notwithstandings. I need to know exactly where I stand on this deal.”
The Archangel visibly relented. He pulled up a chair by hooking it with his foot and sat down, studying my face. “It’s absolutely on the level and above-board,” he assured me. “There’s no catches or inbuilt legal tricks. No, there are no restrictions, as such, on the use of normal angelic powers. When I say ‘as such’, I mean that, under the terms of the contract, all decisions as to whether you should use your paranormal abilities in any given situation are left entirely up to you, as also is the decision whether to cause harm to any mortal, what degree of harm you should cause and so on. Everything is going to be left entirely up to you. Nobody is going to restrict you in any way. No powers or abilities will be reduced, cancelled or rationed.”
He leaned back and sighed, giving himself a surprisingly mortal manner for a moment. “You see, the whole idea behind this deal is not to improve the world but to see whether you can act morally, make sensible decisions, behave in an upright and righteous manner and, basically, behave yourself under stressful conditions. In order to establish this, you are being given a free rein to do exactly what you yourself see fit to do, under whatever circumstances you choose to operate within. That’s part of the test, see? How you choose to make use of your powers.”
I carefully considered what he had said. “No restrictions?”
“None. Oh, of course, everything you do will be closely observed and recorded in the greatest detail, but nobody Up There is going to stop or restrain you in any way in anything you may decide to do. At the end of one year, your actions and decisions will be weighed in the balance and a judgment made. You understand? The entire point of all this is to see whether you still possess, buried somewhere deep inside your persona, sufficient strength of character to use everything you’ve got wisely, justly, compassionately and for the good of humanity in some way. The test is not about what you may or may not actually accomplish in the way of results and achievements, but in the way in which you choose to go about it and the decisions you make along the way. It’s a test of character, and that couldn’t be tested to the limit if any of your normal powers were withheld for the duration of the test, could it?”
“I guess not. How do we know whether the President has enough spleen to push the nuclear button unless there is a functioning nuclear button for him to push? If everyone knows it’s a dummy button, nothing is proved.”
Michael’s expression registered the kind of blank agreement usually worn on the faces of adults whose children are attempting to explain to them the finer points of Pokémon gaming. “I suppose so,” he replied, hoping his response made sense in the light of what I had said.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I think I get it. Putting it simply, I am released into the world of human beings with all my abilities as a former Archangel intact, and if I balls it up by going on some kind of egotistical power spree, I loose. If, on the other hand, I manage to make the right kinds of decisions, use what I’ve got wisely and for the general betterment of humanity, with some measure of compassion, justice and integrity, then I win and get back my seat on the board.”
Michael nodded. “That’s it, in a nutshell. Anything else?”
“And my entire modus operandi is up to me alone?”
“Absolutely up to you. Like I said, take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” I answered quickly. “When do they start counting the year?”
“Midnight tonight, Greenwich Mean Time.”
“What’s that in Eastern Seaboard Time?”
“You work it out,” replied Michael wearily, rising to his feet. “I’ve done my part of the job. Everything else is up to you.”
He headed towards the door. “All that remains is for me to wish you good luck.” He visibly hesitated and half turned to look at me. “For what it’s worth, I mean that sincerely.”
Suddenly I couldn’t help but remember some of the good old times. I held out my hand to him. He hesitated for only the barest moment, then shook it. “One last word of advice,” he remarked over his shoulder as he left in a blaze of glory. “Keep away from the apples this time.”
“Bastard!” I muttered under my breath.
3. Like the Song Says, “I Did It My Way…”
And that, cutting a long story short, is how Satan became a Los Angeles cop. It was my own choice. Before making the decision, I drew up a shortlist of all the occupations I could think of that might hold promise for the achievement of the ends I needed, and then I went through the list crossing them off one by one for different reasons.
President of the USA; too egotistical a choice. Charismatic guru of a new religious movement: what – with Him watching my every move? Leading heart surgeon: too messy and intricate: Dictator of a banana republic: too easily misunderstood in my motives. Paramedic: not sufficiently in touch with the actual Justice side of things. Film star: too shallow and vain, even when setting a good example to fans. Campaigner for human rights: too easily jailed. Cop... cop… The idea, once the seed had been sown in my mind, swiftly took root and germinated. Why not be a cop? An honest, hardworking, crime-busting, dedicated everyday policeman, tracking down crooks, investigating rackets, exposing scams, busting drug dealers, helping members of the public… the possibilities, like my name, were legion. If I could just be a good cop for a year, I would redeem myself. I could almost hear the harp music again. My decision was made.
So then I had only to decide precisely where, out of the whole nations of the earth, to base myself for my year’s sojourn amongst living human beings. If my task was to fight evil as a cop, I ought to choose somewhere with both ample crime and an established police department; that was obvious. I decided, after a moment’s thought, on Los Angeles. Exactly why I chose it instead of other locales I can’t say: perhaps I was pulled by the lure of Hollywood. I’ve always loved the movies.
My next problem was, quite simply; how to become a cop? You cannot suddenly become a cop, just like that. You cannot: but I can. I could do anything I chose. And here I began to really understand the cleverness of the contract Michael had delivered to me. Had I wished, I could have metaphorically snapped my fingers and caused all crime to cease in the city, or the country, or the world: but instinctively I knew that this was not what was necessary. After all, the test was not to put the world to rights. The test was to see how I behaved, to demonstrate my character, to see whether I was capable of making correct decisions. Therefore, I had to limit myself, if not to merely human levels, then at least to less than apocalyptic ones.
As another famous cop had once said: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” (He also said: “I know what you’re thinking – did I fire six shots or only five; well, do you feel lucky, punk?” but this was slightly less relevant to my line of reasoning.)
Several thousand years spent in cataloguing and filing the failings of humanity had left me, as you may have realized by now, somewhat more worldly-wise than most other Archangels, who seldom descend to visit the human world. I was big on street-cred, if somewhat lacking in pearly gate-cred. This meant that I knew, almost automatically, the single thing that actually ruled the human race. All present-day countries were ruled by it and even the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians too. You think I am talking about gods and superstitions? Think again. Emperors and military might? No. Presidents, politicians, kings, dictators, democratic governments, generals, warlords, priests – all were irresistibly under its relentless domination. If you could placate it so that it supported you, you could do anything. If it turned against you, you did not stand a snowball’s chance in Hell and were doomed.
I’m talking about Paperwork. (Or in the case of the ancient Babylonians, Clay-tabletwork – same principle but bigger filing cabinets.) It went through society like the Great Plague went through Europe. You get caught speeding: “Excuse me sir, can I see your papers?” You want to buy a house, take out a loan, buy a car on installments: “Would you sign this paper, right here, and here, and here…?” You and your friends want independence from British rule in order to start a United States of your own: “Let’s sign this Declaration!” Oliver Cromwell wants to execute King Charles: “Sign this death warrant please”. You want to introduce the eighteenth amendment to outlaw the sale of alcohol and make Al Capone a very rich man: “Mr. President, please put your seal on this paper.”
And if the Paperwork wasn’t dead right, No Chance! Nothing could be accomplished by the human race until it was properly signed, countersigned, stamped, copied in triplicate and hidden for the rest of eternity in a filing cabinet. What makes a person a doctor? Their medical skill and knowledge gained from years of study and experience? No, the certificate on the wall which says they are officially qualified. What is the true basis of the power of a dictator? His army? His personal ruthlessness? No, the power to sign decrees on paper expressing his will. Providing the appropriate paperwork is correctly completed, you can have anything you want. What got Americans to walk on the Moon? Science and technology, inspiration and idealism? No, President Kennedy’s signature on a piece of paper. What ended the Second World War? The atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki? No, the signing of a piece of paper on the deck of the USS Missouri a week or so later. Even a computer screen is nothing more than a way of producing electronic paperwork.
So, if I wanted to be a legitimate policeman working for a proper police force, with the rank of, say, inspector, I did not need to go to college or training academy or on any courses, which would have taken years when I had only one year to spend on everything including results. All I needed to do was to use my angelic powers to create the necessary paperwork which would certify before all and sundry that I had already done those things, passed with flying colors and got the T-shirt.
This was genuinely not vanity; under the circumstances, it was necessity. Forgery? Well, that’s debatable. All the documents were absolutely genuine, seals and signatures likewise, because I had created them as genuine. I admit, although I usually know whether a person is genuine or not, I have never truly understood what lies at the heart of “genuine” in objects. Look, work it out this way if it troubles you
…
Take the case of a painting, an old master – say, a Rembrandt. It gives generations of art lovers pleasure, looking at its beauty, marveling at the skill of the brushwork, the richness of the colors, the composition of the subject. The museum has it insured for millions. It is a thing of great beauty and wonder, admired by all who behold it.
And then, some forensic expert states that it was actually painted by Joe Shlabotnik who lived on the other side of the canal from Rembrandt and whose desire was to emulate his more famous neighbor. The expert freely admits that it needs X-rays and spectroscopic analysis to tell the difference, because it is indistinguishable to the human eye.
Overnight, the value of the painting drops to a hundred dollars and fifty cents, and a hundred of that is the cost of the frame. It gets taken off exhibition and is boxed up in a storeroom. It is officially Not Genuine. And yet, is the beauty and wonder diminished in the eyes of all those who have seen it? Has the pleasure given to past generations of people over hundreds of years been, somehow, lessened in retrospect? Are their lives less rich now because they were looking at someone else’s masterpiece instead? I think not! Like beauty, genuine is in the eye of the beholder.
This, anyway, is how I justified my certificates and paperwork to my own conscience. It might surprise you to learn that Satan has a conscience. Think about that – and then think what half an eternity in Hell dealing with the most evil humans who have ever lived is like for someone with a conscience!
I chose the rank of inspector not because I was on an ego-trip (I could have made myself a pop star if I’d wanted that sort of thing) but simply for the logical reason that it was a good middle rank, not too low, not too high. It would give me enough freedom to work my own cases, to some extent anyway, and enough clout to do my own thing. At least, it seemed to work that way for Clint Eastwood as Inspector Callaghan in “Dirty Harry” and the sequels.
For a little time, I actually considered being a private eye instead, like Humphrey Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon”, but I eventually decided it was much better to have an official position, keeping everything as above-board as possible. While pondering this, I briefly toyed with the mental image of a private eye’s shabby backstairs office door, with the wording “Satan, Private Investigator” painted on the frosted glass. I couldn’t imagine getting very many clients.
This brief reverie, however, made me realize that I needed a nom-de-voyage. I could hardly call myself Inspector Lucifer Satan. After a certain amount of doodling, I came up with an anagram. I recalled how, in the low-budget black-and-white vampire B movies of the 1950s, Count Dracula thought he was being clever by spelling his name backwards and disguising himself as Count Alucard instead, so that nobody would suspect his real identity, despite the fangs and bad allergy to sunlight (the script writers must have been racing for a long weekend). I rearranged the letters of “Lucifer Satan” and came up with Stan A. Fericul (pronounced “very cool”).
I loved it. I was in business.
4. Memories are Made of This…
“The best laid plans of mice and men frequently go pear-shaped.” So said Burns, or something very like that, anyway.
Since I had voluntarily descended in bodily form into the material world of mortals, I suppose I should have expected my plans to be railroaded sooner or later by that inseparable companion of paperwork, bureaucracy. The two go hand in hand, like certain men in San Francisco. If the building blocks of civilization are paperwork, the builders and bricklayers are the bureaucrats. If Kennedy signed the paper authorizing project Apollo, the man who actually succeeded in getting man to the Moon was not Dr. Werner Von Braun or any rocket engineering team in NASA. It was some balding, bespectacled clerk in an office near Capitol Hill, who drew up the form for signing and then used the accumulated wisdom and experience of thousands of years of human intellectual development to file it under M for Moon. If some hostile aliens wanted to conquer the earth, they wouldn’t have to arrive en masse with big flying saucers and challenge the armed forces to a fight to the death with rayguns. All they would need to do would be to introduce a harmless virus that ate paper, with a cousin that destroyed computer files. The world would be instantly paralyzed and available for entirely peaceful and legal taking over by any alien life form carrying the right replacement paperwork authorizing them to do so, providing it was signed in triplicate.
In short, the bureaucratic system gave me a partner. This was unexpected, unplanned, unwanted and intensely annoying. It was also regulations. I suppose I could have gone behind the scenes and used my powers to change the system, but I was at least wise enough to recognize that therein lay the first step on the march towards failure. I had to keep on remembering that I was engaged in a serious test of character, and that it would look bad on my Akashik record if, at every hurdle and problem, I re-wrote the script to favor my own performance. Wherever possible, humble pie had to be my diet – and this for the entity that created the first willful pride!
The Los Angeles Police Department did not bat an eyelid when, one fine morning, a new office existed in back of a local station house where none had been the day before. Nor did they so much as blink when, overnight, an Inspector Fericul appeared on their staff register and computer records with ten year’s commendable service record in the Department attached. They noticed nothing strange when I walked into work on that first day and was greeted by all as an old acquaintance with whom they were completely familiar. But I had overlooked one detail. No partner was assigned to me. The bureaucratic quicksands of probability shifted uneasily to remedy this glitch and provide said partner, with no reference to me.
It happened on the first day. Of course, it was only the first day from my viewpoint. From everyone else’s, I had been working there for years and was as familiar as the furniture. They remembered me as surely as they remembered last year’s vacation. You see, nobody stops to question where memories come from or who puts them into their head. Did you ever see the movie “Total Recall”? The plot revolved around the concept of a company who sold the entire detailed memories of a holiday to people who could not afford the real thing. What I had done was a similar thing, except instead of selling a holiday to a construction worker I had sold my own prior career to the L.A. police department.
But bureaucracy, like water, always seeks out any weak spots in the levee and flows through into lower land. Or putting it more accurately, if you create a quantum reality with a hole in it, the whole continuum flexes and a little bit of extra reality flows into the hole and fills the gap. The hole I had overlooked in my fresh reality was to be an inspector without a regulation partner. The space-time continuum shifted uncomfortably in its sleep, rolled over, scratched its butt and automatically altered things to have this put right.
The first I knew of this was at three minutes past eight that same morning. I had arrived at my desk promptly at eight, hoping to get busy with crime reports and stuff so that I could see what needed doing and where someone like me might be able to contribute to the general scheme of law-enforcement. Three minutes later, there was a knock on my door. I had time to glance up and to notice absently that the sign painted on the glass of my door read “lucireF .A natS rotcepsnI” from this side, before the door opened and in walked a tall, good-looking black girl somewhere in her late twenties.
“Inspector Feri… Ferr… Verruca…?” she stumbled over my chosen name.
“It’s pronounced ‘very-cool.’”
She considered this briefly. “Say – that’s quite cool”, she observed.
“No, it’s ‘very-cool’” I repeated, steadfastly refusing to relax. “What can I do for you, Mam?”
She flipped open a card wallet and displayed the badge mounted within. “Detective Sandra Smith. It’s pronounced ‘Smith.’”
“Really.” I was unimpressed. I dislike being upstaged, as any member of the Hosts of Heaven would readily testify.
“Yes. Sorry, Inspector.” She lowered her eyelids for a nanosecond as evidence of contriteness. “I’m your new partner.”
My mind stopped in its tracks with an almost audible screech of brakes. “Detective Smith,” I replied slowly, trying to figure out how this had happened when I had not included it in my schemes, “I happen to be perfectly satisfied with my present partner”.
She looked momentarily nonplussed. “I was told you did not have one at present.”
“That’s right,” I agreed”, and I’m perfectly satisfied”.
“Oh please! We’re not going to have any white Anglo-Saxon male chauvinist bullshit are we?”
My mental engine was still trying to hot-wire itself in order to start up again after stalling in initial surprise. “I don’t classify as white,” I advised. “My origins are somewhere in the Middle East, Jewish-Arabic.” I relaxed a bit: I had been momentarily startled by an event I had not foreseen. I told myself I had better get used to that kind of thing happening now I had taken human form. “I have nothing against you personally. It’s just that I prefer working alone.”
“Luckily for the rest of us,” came a low growl of a voice from behind her, “this department doesn’t run itself purely on the basis of your preferences, Inspector.” The Chief of Detectives had followed her in. Also black, very big, with a moustache, muscles bulging visibly even under the suit, and the remains of a cigar clamped tightly in a mighty jaw. He was a stereotype, but such people did exist, even outside the movies. I could not have invented him; I would have been more subtle.
And the bottom line was, I had to abide by the rules of this Reality, through my own self-imposed choice.
“Welcome, partner,” I said meekly, offering my outstretched hand. She took it and smiled briefly. The Chief nodded, waggled his cigar in silent comment and left, with somewhat of the ambience of a passing storm.
“Please excuse me.” I felt the need to offer an apology. (Damn it, I was really beginning to get the hang of human reactions now, I thought. It was quite worrying.) “It took me by surprise, that's all. I wasn’t expecting a partner to walk through my door today.”
“Surely you got the departmental advice note last week?”
It was too complex an issue to explain that I had only been here last week as a memory. “Oh,” I answered dismissively, “paperwork. I never read paperwork.”
She pulled a chair forward and sat down across the desk from me. “So, what’s going down today?”
“Today, I was just going to cruise the town and keep my eyes open for any evil.”
“That’s a quaint way of putting it,” she smiled slightly. “It makes you sound like Batman.”
I had a brief, unbidden image flit across my mind of what I might have looked like as a dynamic costumed superhero: “Satan-man!” What would the Midwest Bible-Belt fundamentalists have made of that? Imagine one of them, rescued by me from a burning barn, having to stand up in church and shout “I was saved by Satan! Halleluiah!” No, the public were not ready for that. I shook my head back to sanity.
“I can be old-fashioned sometimes. It’s my upbringing,” I explained. I stood up. “Let’s go cruise.”
She leaped to her feet. “Sounds good to me.”
We took the elevator to the underground car park. All of a sudden, I had a car. My own. I could not help it. The paintwork was bright scarlet, as was the leather upholstery. The hood was longer than the cabin, with rows of shining chromium tubes protruding from it on both sides like teeth, vaguely reminiscent of the look of a World War 2 fighter plane. The hood ornament was a raised clenched fist gripping a forward-pointing pitchfork. The windows were tinted. Twin exhausts? Not me! A line of no less than eight silvered exhaust pipes extended several inches from the back. The personalized license plate bore the letters “DEVIL 1.” The front wheels were smaller than the back ones, almost in dragster fashion, giving the vehicle the appearance of a beast crouching ready to pounce. On either side beneath the doors, running-boards ended in sculptured brass talons like those of a sphinx above the wheel rims, front and rear.
It was really her fault. She had made me think inadvertently of superheroes and my mind, still containing the echoes of that idea, had instantly created the car when I needed it, according to what was in my thoughts at the time. It was better than the batmobile: it was the bat-out-of-hell-mobile. It was my car: Lucifer's limousine: Satan's saloon. Already, I was proud of her. Already, in my thoughts, it was a her.
Detective Smith was obviously impressed. “Holy shit! What a set of wheels.” She walked right round it in appreciative slow motion. “Custom built?”
“Uh huh,” I agreed.
“By you?”
“Uh huh,” I nodded modestly. Well, it was, wasn’t it? I had custom built it in my own innermost unconscious thoughts: she had not asked how I had built it. While she concluded her circular tour, I began to notice a few other details I had not registered consciously at the first glance. Each gleaming hubcap bore a scarlet enamel pentagram. The top of the windscreen curved down on both sides towards the centre, giving the car the appearance of a scowl of serious attitude. If you saw this auto draw up close behind you in your rear view mirror, its expression would tell you “Get out of my way, motherfucker!”
I pulled from my pocket a set of keys that had not been there until the last thirty seconds. The main key had a small black electronic plastic pad with red buttons on it and an L.E.D. digital display. Remote control central locking. I pushed the “open” button. The tiny display flashed up the cynical message Abandon hope all ye who enter here! and the doors opened on their own, gull winged, upwards, almost meeting together over the roof like the claws of a giant preying mantis.
I could not help laughing. “Let’s boogie!” I shouted, and jumped into the driver’s seat. Detective Smith took the passenger seat almost reverently. She studied the controls with wide eyes. The dash looked like the flight deck of the space shuttle. The steering wheel was stylishly small. Her eyes paused on the automatic gear selector lever that was set at P for “park”. Then came the usual N for “neutral”, D “drive”, R “reverse” and 1 and 2 for low gears if needed. After these came extra letters; CTB, IR and HAB.
“What do those stand for?” she asked, pointing.
About to start the engine, I glanced briefly down. “Catch The Bastard, Instant Reverse and Hell And Back” I explained. Any reaction from her was completely drowned out by the engine gunning into life - and do I mean life. It roared in the confined space of the underground car park, large though the cavernous subterranean area was, sounding like a tag match between a dinosaur and a team of hungry lions, with a home run crowd roar at the Yankee Stadium for background.
Cautiously, I depressed the gas pedal about one ten-thousandth of an inch. The back wheels spun with a scream like a thousand outraged demons: the thick smoke of burning rubber billowed into the affrighted air. The car remained motionless for the few moments it took for inertia to realize that thrust was kicking its ass, then we shot forward so fast that Smith and I were compressed many inches into the upholstery like astronauts during takeoff. From the row of exhaust pipes a great ball of fire belched out as if from a flame-thrower, leaving a big sooty patch on the concrete where we had been.
As the far wall leaped towards us with the speed of a fly-swat, I performed a neat handbrake turn, slowed down to a mere 150 MPH and steered toward the exit ramp, continuing to slow down as we went. As soon as Smith was able to lift her hands against the pull of speed-induced gravity, she snapped on her seat belt: it was one of nature’s automatic survival instincts in operation. Her eyes were fixed rigidly ahead, face immobile, expression set, lips suddenly pale. By the time we reached the top of the corkscrew ramp and approached the street outside we were only doing about 30 and I was perfectly able to stop and make sure nothing was coming before entering the public highway.
I was jubilant with proud ownership. “How about that?” I enthused as we cruised down the road at a much more sedate - and legal - speed.
“Mmmmmm...” she replied.
“Electronic fuel injection system.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Power steering.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Computer controlled automatic transmission.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Rear afterburners.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Zero to sixty in point five of a second.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Built-in laws of physics avoider.”
“Mmmmmm...”
“Blaupunkt quadro sound system.”
This last seemed to be the battering ram that finally managed to smash down the raised drawbridge of her consciousness, which had decided to its own satisfaction that what it was experiencing was nothing more than a nightmare and that the best policy would be to simply sit tight and wait for waking up.
“Quad... quad... quadro sound?”
“Uh huh.” I pushed a button. The latest piece of popular soul music gently flooded the cabin, perfect in tone, pitch and volume. It did the trick. She emerged from coma.
“You know,” she mused, recovering some of her shaken attitude, “lots of men have tried to impress lots of women with their cars: you are the first to succeed.”
“Why, thank you,” I replied modestly. Still visibly shaking, she started to fumble absently in her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Can you light-up in here?”
“Honey,” I answered with a smile, “I can light-up anywhere!”
5. An Arresting Experience…
To be perfectly honest, I did not have all that much idea about exactly how detectives actually worked. I liked Sherlock Holmes, especially when played by Basil Rathbone in the old black-and-white movies, but obviously this was not really relevant, except perhaps for the example the stories gave regarding the value of an analytical mind coupled with proper observation. In fact, mulling it over as we drove, I realized that my knowledge of the police was based very largely on the movies, as perhaps you might have gathered already, and on the classic crime novels by writers such as Damon Runyon. I thought Bogart was great in The Maltese Falcon, and I used to read the Dick Tracy comic strip. I had met Al Capone and Johnnie Torrio, but only briefly while they were being introduced to E.T. (That's not the loveable little alien creature, that's Eternal Torment.)
Driving through the highways and byways of L.A. I began to reluctantly admit that perhaps I had jumped feet-first into this situation without giving it sufficient thought, not to mention research and study. I had donned my shades, for three reasons; one, because the sky was bright; two, because it looked cool; three, because it enabled me to glance frequently at Detective Smith without her noticing. But underneath this trendy facade I was beginning to get worried. I could hardly expect to encounter some major crime going down by the mere chance of happening to cruise past it in my car. Such a notion was innocent and optimistic in the extreme - and these were not two of my vices, given my personal history!
But Fate, as usual, had other plans.
It was Smith who noticed it: she was the observer, I was the driver. She had the opportunity to look round and about at everything while I concentrated on the traffic and stop lights.
I saw her head turn as we passed something, trying to keep it in view. “Ho!” she exclaimed, “Slow down!”
“What?”
“Over there, in the alley...” I was already slowing the car to a little more than walking speed, and turned my own gaze where she was indicating. A shadowy alley opened between a drugstore and a dilapidated Laundromat. I could see nothing untoward, though. A yellow cab had had to jam on the anchors and screech to a halt behind us when I braked. The cab slewed around my car in the narrow street and pulled level. Halting, the driver leaned out his window and shouted “Where’d ya learn to drive, asshole?” I slowly removed my shades, turned my head and stared at him.
The cab driver looked into my unshielded eyes when I was momentarily angry. He froze. Visibly the color drained from his face. Sweat sprang out in beads. He started to tremble. Then his nerve failed him completely. He put his foot down hard on the gas and sped away at a velocity that would have got him a gold cup at Le Mans. I found out later that he had driven until the gas ran out, cashed his savings, jumped on a plane and got a job as a rubber-plant supervisor in Sri Lanka where he became a Buddhist and chanted prayers fifteen times a day for the rest of his life: he actually became a happier and more fulfilled person.
However, I had now cruised past the shady alley by many yards. “What did you see?” I asked Detective Smith.
“A couple of very bright flashes of light in the gloom,” she explained. “It might have been just somebody opening a window and reflecting the sun, but... well, it could have been powder flashes from a gun.”
I wanted to show her that I trusted her instincts, perhaps by way of making up for my earlier display of dismay at her arrival in my office. This thought made me forget myself and without thinking I shifted the automatic gear stick out of the D “drive” and into IR “instant reverse.” Suddenly and silkily, without any lurch, jump or sound, the front of the car folded back, via quantum N space, through the body and trunk, which followed it. The effect was something like putting your hand down a sock and pulling it inside-out. It was so smooth that Smith did not even notice at first that we were traveling at the same slow speed back the way we had come. She was still craning her head backwards to peer out the rear window, which now faced what had been forwards a few instants ago. All she saw was a yellow cab vanishing up the road in defiance of all civic speed limits in a cloud of dust and burning wheel rubber. It took several moments for our change of direction to register.
“How the f....!” She spun her head like an alarmed lighthouse. “How the hell did you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked innocently as we pulled up outside the alley. The gull-wing doors sprang open and I hastily emerged from the vehicle to forestall further conversation. I strode rapidly into the gloom and heard her footsteps following behind me. I noticed for the first time that a certain kind of footstep could sound worriedly baffled.
It was an alley typical of the rather seedy side of town we were in; bins, piles of garbage, graffiti, washing on lines high up strung between the buildings. All that was needed to make it a cliché was the standard drunken bum slumped against the wall mumbling a song, but he had evidently gone for a coffee break. Far ahead was a brick wall: the place was a cul-de-sac. There were various shabby doors along the sides, but all were tightly shut. I tried each one on the right as I went past, to see if someone might have ducked inside, and I heard Smith doing the same on the left. All were securely locked.
“Nobody at home,” I commented as we neared the walled end. “Maybe it was a reflection you saw?”
“Maybe”, she concurred with a shrug. “Just trying to be thorough.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “Nothing wrong with that.”
Exactly as I said this, a pile of rain-sodden cardboard boxes in the corner slowly toppled over and an arm sprawled flatly on the filthy ground. Now here was a cliché Jimmy Cagney would have appreciated. We stood motionless for a moment. “What’s that?” she said.
“It’s an arm,” I offered, helpfully.
“I can see that!” she hissed with venom. “I meant, what is it doing there?”
I stooped slightly and watched it. “Nothing much, it’s just lying there.”
“Oh, ye gods!” In a mounting temper she stepped forward and tugged the limp hand. The rest of the boxes tumbled and an attached body slumped out. She flinched back again. I gently turned the body over onto its back. The corpse gained clearer visibility. Male, about mid-fifties, balding with a neat fringe of grey hair running from ear to ear behind his head. He wore an expensively tailored dark suit and - and now I became rather startled - a dark purple shirt with a gleaming white dog-collar.
“Jesus!” gasped Smith. “It’s a priest!”
6. Breaking News...
Now we jump forward twenty minutes straight into the middle of the next cliché: two black-and-whites parked across the entrance to the alley, lights flashing silently; an ambulance blocking the road beyond them, rear doors gaping; paramedics carrying a body-bag on a stretcher; Smith and me standing together; uniformed cops milling around trying to look useful. I touched one of the pallbearers on the arm as they went by.
“Any idea of the cause of death?”
“That’s up to the coroner,” sighed the paramedic. “But if it’s any help, there's no sign of anything obvious. No bullet holes. No knife wounds - no wounds of any kind, in fact. Could be a heart-attack.”
“Heart attack!” repeated Smith in disgust once they had gone out of earshot. “Yeah, sure. He comes into a deserted alley, hides himself carefully under a stack of old boxes, then has a heart attack. And what about those flashes I saw?”
I was equally puzzled. In fact, I was sorely tempted to use my powers to help resolve the matter. Too easy. Not a test of character. If I was to do this properly, and stick with it for a whole year, I had to do it the hard way, the mortal way. Getting myself some flashy equipment and gimmicks like my auto, that was one thing: conjuring up outright miracles, that was another. In my judgment, the first was acceptable - just; the second was not. I knew I was being watched from High Places, and it was my judgment that was on a year’s trial or return.
“OK Detective,” I snapped. “Let’s try and detect. Let’s use our brains and try and figure a few things out.” I gently grasped her elbow and piloted her back into my waiting car. There we sat in silence for a few moments. “Now, why would a Catholic priest be in the alley in the first place?”
“He might have been visiting someone. One of his church members, maybe? A ministerial visit?”
“Good thinking. You still got his ID?”
“Here.” She handed over the deceased’s wallet, taken from his jacket pocket. We had read it while radioing for the medics and now we looked at it again.
“Father John O’Hara, St. Stephen’s Church. His private address is the same - presumably a house adjoining.”
“Should we break the news to his wife?” asked Smith. I looked at her solemnly over the top of my shades. “Oh!” she was embarrassed. “Of course: they don’t marry, do they? Sorry – I’m not a Catholic.”
“Nor am I.” That was probably the understatement of the century. “Still, he presumably has a next of kin somewhere, and we ought to inform his ministry. A minor point is this: St. Stephen’s is miles away. We're in a different parish here. I doubt he was on a ministerial visit to one of his congregation. Catholics round here come under St. Mark’s two blocks away.”
“Visiting a friend?”
“Maybe.” I picked up my radio handset and thumbed the button. After a moment, the set crackled into life. I asked Control to let me know if there was anything on the records involving the alley or, more particularly, any of the properties opening into it. After a few minutes the Chief himself came on the air. As soon as I heard his voice I could almost smell the half-chewed cigar.
“Fericul?”
“Here, Chief.”
“Nothing known about the address where you are. Nothing major, anyway. A mugging last week, some small-time drug users, bums and lushes: nothing unusual. Listen, Fericul, do you have reason to suspect a homicide? First reports say ‘heart attack.’”
“Chief, when did you last hear of someone hiding themselves under a pile of garbage in order to enjoy a quiet heart attack without being disturbed?”
“That's a good point. What do you think?”
“I think I will be very interested in the autopsy report; I’ll go along with whatever it says. Meanwhile, we intend to get across town to St. Stephen’s and break the news to whoever is waiting up for him, if anyone. Maybe ask a few polite questions, like what was he doing in the neighborhood, was he on a visit, maybe even get a name, if we're lucky.”
“I can get a local car to call there if you like, save you the sticky job?”
“No, that’s OK. We’d rather do it ourselves. I owe him that.”
“Owe him?”
“I’ve known a few priests over the years,” I explained, guardedly. That was entirely the truth. In the same way the Earps had known the Clantons and the settlers had known the Sioux. Still, I genuinely felt sympathy for the poor guy, and also a burgeoning desire to get to the bottom of his demise: a kind-of mutual respect thing, as two soldiers in opposing armies might have felt. Like the British in World War 2 felt for Rommel, perhaps. Something like that, anyway.
“Well, go ahead”, came the distant tinny voice of the Chief over the radio. “The coroner’s office is standing by. I'll keep you informed if there are any developments.”
“Thanks Chief. Out.”
I turned to Detective Smith. “I’ll drop you off somewhere first, if you’d rather...”
“Hell, no. I ain’t no shrinking violet. I'm with you all the way.” She paused. “There’s just one thing, though.”
“What?”
“Next time you take your car for a trip through the friggin’ Twilight Zone, let me out first please!”
So we reached St. Stephen’s church without further incident: I drove on my very best behavior. I whiled away the trip by trying to guess whether Smith was able to sense that I was continually glancing at her from behind the seclusion of my shades. I guess it was not terribly cool, but then, she was a remarkably attractive young woman - reminded me a lot of someone I used to know, a long time ago: name of Eve. Here’s a tip from Lucifer – don’t give apples on a first date, you'll never hear the end of it. As we had surmised, there was a house in the grounds of the church. The spiritual building was of the old, traditional kind, built of grey stone blocks and containing stained-glass windows; the temporal building was on a par, looking much like a small country mansion without the benefit of country. Big iron gates were open. We pulled up and emerged from the auto. The house had a rustic porch and there was a bell-pull. Cautiously I tugged it a couple of times. I half expected to hear a distant tolling. Instead, there was a bright jingle.
A woman opened the door. She was upper middle-aged, blue-rinsed, pleasant-featured and eminently respectable. She looked like an archetypal mother. She smiled and said, “Can I help you?”
We flashed our badges. “L.A.P.D.” I informed. “Inspector Fericul and Detective Smith. May we come inside?”
“Oh dear”, her expression registered genteel alarm. “Please, come on in.”
“Thank you Mam.” We followed her through a tasteful hall and into a reception room that appeared to double as a study. There was a big oak desk with a leather top and a brass lamp with a green shade. Bookcases lined two of the walls. The carpet was Persian, as were the scatter-rugs. Dotted all about the place were artifacts on display from various periods of history, some in glass cases. At her invitation, we all sat down.
“Mam”, I began, “do you know a father John O’Hara?”
“Of course. This is his church. My name is Elizabeth O’Hara; I’m his sister. He hasn’t been in another fight, has he? Last time I had to bail him out from the station house. Tell me the worst.” Her tone combined resignation with a hint of exasperation.
“I’m afraid that’s exactly what I have to do, Mam”, I answered gently. I reached forward and placed a hand firmly on her shoulder. “I’m afraid I have to tell you that your brother is dead, Elizabeth. There’s really no good way to tell someone that.” I was a good judge of people: I had been doing it professionally for over seven thousand years. This lady was strong in character, noble of bearing and unshakable in her faith. I liked her. I felt her tremble briefly and her eyes misted over. Unbeknown to anyone else, I used the powers of an archangel flowing down my arm, through my hand and into her shoulder, to impart an extra boost of moral fortitude and strength into Elizabeth O’Hara. She reached up and placed her hand firmly over my own on her shoulder.
“Young man, you have my sympathy; yours is a very terrible job.” Actually, it was better than my last one. “Thank you for your considerate manner and your deep charm and sincerity. I greatly appreciate it.” She paused to dab her eye with a handkerchief. “How did it happen?”
“There’s things I can’t say, because we don’t yet know. We’re waiting for the coroner’s report, but it may have been a heart attack.”
“Are you sure? He was an extremely active and fit man.”
“Well, no, I’m not sure. Like I said, we have to wait for the expert opinion.” I hesitated. “Mam, I’d be very interested in hearing about your brother, what kind of man he was, what his interests were, where he went and what he did when he wasn’t at home. Do you feel up to talking?”
“Certainly, Inspector.” She sighed. “Where to begin? How do you describe a life?”
She rose to her feet and wandered over to a statue on a pedestal, gathering her shaken thoughts. We waited respectfully.
“He was an antiquarian in his spare time. He held a doctorate in archaeology. His big interest was in ancient religious artifacts. He traveled in places like Greece, Egypt, even China and Russia, always collecting things.” She waved her hand around the room. “These are some of the things he found. Others have been donated to museums. He was passionately interested in ancient beliefs and everything connected with them.”
“Do you have any idea what he might have been doing in an alley near St. Mark’s?”
She shook her head. “None whatsoever. He told me he was going to St. Mark’s, but why he should stop off somewhere like that, I don’t know.”
“Why was he going to St. Mark’s?”
“The priest, Father David Martin, was a friend of his. They shared an interest in ancient antiquities. Father David phoned up last night after mass and said he had something that John would be very interested in. He invited him round this afternoon to see it.”
“What was it?”
“I can’t say. I presume it was some interesting archaeological object or something of that nature.”
“Mam, will you be all right left on your own now? We can arrange counseling if needed...”
She gave me a wan smile. “Young man, you’re never alone in a church. That is where I shall be.”
“Amen to that.” We got up and left.
We sat in my auto for a few minutes, together but alone with our thoughts, emerging slowly from the gravity of an awkward situation in which we could be sympathetic spectators but not direct participants - the grief of another.
Nobody in the world has ever managed to realize this in a thousand years of Sundays, with the single possible exception of the poet Milton in his Paradise Lost, but I had experienced my own torment of grief: therefore I understood it profoundly. Me, Satan! You don’t believe me? So how would you feel if the entire population of the world turned against you and reviled you simply because of your job? And if that condemnation had continued unabated for many hundreds of mortal generations? And if your enemies had utter control of the propaganda machine so that everyone blamed you for the evil that was really their own doing and originating from their own lusts?
“You know something, Fericul?” remarked Smith at length, interrupting my chain of thoughts.
“Like what?” I responded tonelessly, staring fixedly out the windscreen.
“I had you wrong. You’re quite a wonderful guy. The way you comforted that woman when you broke the news, in exactly the way she seemed to need, with love and humanity yet preserving her dignity. Almost as though you were able to see inside her soul. I thought you were all surface, all front and no depth. You’re not. You’re deep as the sea, but keep it well hidden. You are a very interesting man.”
Well, maybe a few others might understand besides Milton.
I gunned the engine and drove out of the church grounds. “That’s enough business for tonight,” I said firmly. “Time to sign-off. Where can I drop you?”
“Back at the station house, my car’s still there.”
We drove back largely in silence. Curiously, I noticed that it was now Smith who kept glancing at me out of the corners of her eyes.
In the underground car park I stopped. She sat for a moment without moving, in an attitude of deep thought, then asked: “Fericul - are you a religious person?”
“Well, yes and no,” I replied carefully. “It all depends on your point of view.”
“Would you care to be more specific?”
“Well,” I chose my words with great care, “I can say in all honesty that, if it wasn’t for religion, I wouldn’t be here today.”
“Do you wear a crucifix?”
“Good grief is that the time, is that your car over there, well, see you tomorrow, good night!”
7. Confession Is Good For The Soul...
In spite of my earlier expert manipulation of paper to establish myself as an instant veteran cop, I had already forgotten how powerful paper could be. I had arranged an apartment of my own, in a better part of L.A., a district about halfway between the bums and the film stars, just outside avarice on the fringes of reality; a nice neighborhood. I had a dog. Obviously, a huge black monster with red glowing eyes, drooling fangs and a growl that would render laxatives obsolete inside three seconds. If you remember the one that tried to take the seat out of Gregory Peck’s pants in The Omen you will get the general idea. My dog was not a recent addition to my lifestyle; we went back a long way. The ancient Greeks called him Cerberus. Of course, in those days he had three heads and breathed fire. We had both come considerably more up-market since then, image-wise.
I was trying to relax and get used to the things that happened to you when you were a human being. I had even poured myself a drink. Yes, dammit, I confess - it was a Martini with an olive! Brimstone was out of season, OK? My apartment was large. I liked plenty of space: I was used to it, since both Heaven and Hell are infinite. The lighting was subdued and hidden, adding a nicely mysterious touch that I appreciated. And before you think that I was reverting to type, there was also a huge brightly lit tropical aquarium and soft classical music in the background.
I had just begun to feel relaxed when my trusty dog’s mane started to bristle and he gave a soft growl. In a semi-crouch he trotted across the floor and paused by the door, staring at it. His head was waist high to a six foot man. I gestured silently for him to get away from the door and he slunk back into the semi gloom obediently, lying down behind a white leather sofa. I found it hard to believe I was going to have burglars, yet after a minute I could clearly hear someone approaching in the outside corridor, even though they were trying to be quiet about it. I stood and faced the door, intrigued.
Then whoever was outside pressed my doorbell. It was one of those tacky ones that play a piece of music, in this case the Night on Bare Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky. I stepped forward and opened the door. Standing there was Detective Sandra Smith.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in genuine surprise.
She studied me with piercing brown eyes. “I had to find out if you were real,” she stated, as though that were sufficient explanation.
“Real?” I floundered, trying to master the unexpected situation.
“Yeah. You know, not a figment of my imagination.”
I spread my hands in a theatrical shrug. “ I'm real,” I confirmed.
“Well, we could stand here all night and talk about it, or you might even get around to asking me in.”
“I’m sorry. I was taken aback. Please, come on in. But surely you could have waited to see me at work tomorrow morning if that’s all you wanted to find out.”
She entered my apartment and summed it up with what I hoped was approval. “That’s not all I wanted to find out,” she said. “I’ve got a list.”
“Then we may as well make ourselves comfortable. Drink?”
She eyed my Martini on the glass occasional table with evident distain. “Got any proper ones?”
“You name it, I got it.”
“Ice cold beer with a vodka chaser.” I went to my comprehensive bar and brought back her order on a small silver platter: I try to do things with style. I sat on the sofa, she sat in a matching armchair. I waited until she had taken a few mouthfuls.
“So, what’s this list? And how did you find me?” That’s when I was reminded once more how powerful a thing paper can be, depending only on how it was used.
“I got your address from the files at the station house. No problem. As for that list, I need to think where to begin.”
“It’s that long?”
“It’s that long. Maybe longer.”
I waited patiently for her to organize her thoughts.
“OK. Let’s see if I've got it all. I've been thinking about it all the way driving over, but not in any particular order.”
She drew a deep breath. “I look at you and see a tall, athletic-looking man with a dark skin tone, jet black hair, pony-tail halfway down your back, small beard and moustache close-cropped, eyebrows that curl up at the ends like horns. I know you’re a cop, otherwise you could be a bouncer at an expensive nightclub. My first impression was that you were devilishly good looking. Then that adjective kept replaying itself back at me through the day. Your auto has pentagrams on the hubcaps and a pitchfork on the hood. Not to mention having the power of a cruise missile. You can make it defy the laws of physics and turn itself inside out and back-to-front. It looks like it was designed by H. R. Geiger and built by Stephen Spielberg. Then, after you dropped me at the station house this evening, I did some digging and found this.”
She opened her purse and handed me a large envelope. Inside was a photograph of a lot of policemen lined up four deep. “That’s a police training academy photograph. I got the details from your own graduation certificate. Except, you’re not in the picture, and everyone who is, is identified by the names listed at the bottom.”
Damn! I had completely overlooked this particular detail. Paper again, now working against me.
“Then a Polish yellow cab driver insults you, takes one look at what was behind your eyes, then takes a runner. Do you know where he went?”
I shrugged helplessly. I was growing uncomfortable: it was like being found out and upbraided by your kindergarten teacher.
“He went at average speed seventy-five in a direct line to the airport, heading down four one-way streets, losing two hubcaps, driving over eight lawns, impacting fifteen other vehicles, going through twenty-three red lights, going through two shopping malls, driving across a city park, driving down a flight of concrete steps, damaging the base of a statue, putting skid marks through five flowerbeds, committing sixty-eight traffic violations in seventeen minutes. The tickets had to be bound as a book, then divided into chapters.”
She drew in another deep breath after this tirade. “Then he emptied an airport cash machine of his entire life savings by somehow bypassing the maximum withdrawal limit, smashing the machine in so doing, abandoned his car and jumped a plane heading for Kennedy. After that we lost track of him, but I’m sure there’ll be fresh reports soon as to his ultimate destination. There’s an APB out for him now.”
I tried to speak, but she resumed, drowning me out.
“And that was after just one single look into your eyes when you were angry. It’s a miracle nobody was hurt. So, when all these violation reports came in while I was picking up my coat, I decided to pay you a visit. I looked up your address on the file.”
Paper, again the betrayer!
“And last, but not necessarily least, who else would live here? Apartment 666, 13th floor?”
“They’re my lucky numbers?” I offered rather lamely.
She paused, verbally exhausted for a few moments, and then continued in a less hysterical tone, visibly getting a better grip on her poise. “All that’s needed to complete the picture is a huge red-eyed hellhound trotting behind you.”
On perfect cue, my dog came out from behind the sofa and padded towards her.
“Oh Jeez! Oh my God! Oh shit!” She tried to burrow backwards through her armchair with her shoulders. The dog paused a few feet away from her, looked at her sideways, red eyes glowing like coals. Then he lay down, rolled over, waved his legs in the air, wriggled his back and wagged his tail rapidly across the carpet with a sound like a besom broom.
“He wants you to rub his tummy,” I explained.
“..............!” Her mouth opened to frame words but no sound came out.
“He likes you; really he does. I can tell.”
Gingerly she pushed off one shoe, stretched out a leg and rubbed his tummy with her foot, snatching it back after three quick rubs. The dog wriggled again and whimpered with pleasure. Gaining a little more boldness after counting her feet and still making it two, she repeated the rubbing, this time for longer. The dog gave a silly undulating growl almost like a child’s happy gurgle. His tail changed direction and beat a tattoo on the floor like a snare drum.
All the pent up hysteria had been spent. She relaxed a little. “Actually, he’s quite cute. What’s his name?”
“Niblick.”
“You named your dog after a golf club?”
“Everything has to be called something.” I was growing tired of being continually on the defensive. “It’s a nice name for a sporting dog. Shakespeare said, ‘What's in a name?’”
She looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Well, what is the subject?”
“You are. Just who the hell are you? One of the Men In Black or something?” She had stopped rubbing. The dog whined pathetically and she absently started again.
“He likes people,” I remarked soothingly. This was quite true. At one time, they had been his staple diet.
“You’re not answering my question, mister.”
“All right! All right!” I waved her down with my hand. I stood up and started to pace the floor in front of her. I put my hands in my pockets as I paced. My body language was saying, “How do I get out of this one?”
I put some firmness into my voice. “First, let me ask you a couple of questions.”
She shrugged slightly. “If you insist.”
“I insist.”
I read her body language; it might best be described as “aggressive waiting”. She still stroked the dog's tummy with her foot. By now, his eyes were closed and his tongue was dangling limply from the corner of his mouth. His tail still beat on the floor in ecstasy.
“First, let me ask you: do you believe in justice?”
“You’re asking me, a cop, if I believe in justice?”
“Well - do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Justice for all?”
“It wouldn’t be justice if anyone was excluded. Even the President can be impeached.”
“Good. Good point. Very good point.” I ceased my pacing and turned to face her, taking my hands out of my pockets and pointing at her. “Now - and consider your answer carefully - from the point of view of the criminal, what is the purpose of justice?”
She did think carefully before answering. “Well, I guess, twofold. Firstly, to stop them from doing it again, whatever they did, and secondly, to try to rehabilitate them so that they are better able to take up a rightful and law-abiding position within society when they get out of jail. And maybe a third thing, too, to act as a deterrent to others who might then think twice before breaking the law.”
“OK. So we agree on three things. Putting the criminal in a place where they can’t repeat their offence; encouraging them to become better people than they were; and being a warning to others.” She nodded, puzzled.
I stopped in mid track and gave her a frown. “Do you really think our penal system accomplishes that?”
“I never said it was perfect. I merely said what I think it should be like, in an ideal world.”
“Sure. OK.” I tried to get my thread back. “So you don’t believe in justice as a pure punishment and nothing else.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No,” she said categorically. “That is nothing more than the State taking revenge. It’s a barbaric concept. I happen to disagree with the notion of capital punishment. It offers no opportunity for redemption. Justice must be about more than that, in a civilized society. Even in the case of murder. Two wrongs can never make a right.”
“I’m rather inclined to agree. Let me put a hypothetical case to you.”
“Look, there’d better be some point to this.”
“Oh, there is, believe me.”
She waved a hand in the air. “OK. Carry on.”
“Suppose there was a country somewhere where the ruler wielded absolute power. I don’t want to use the word ‘dictator’ but I can’t offhand think of anything better. Then suppose someone argued with him, which was against the law in that country. Suppose it was one of his top generals. Then suppose that, because the ruler was basically a good guy, the general was not sent to prison or a firing squad but simply demoted to being the governor of a penal colony in the middle of nowhere, cut off from all he had previously known and enjoyed.”
“Like Devil’s Island?”
“Extremely like. Then, suppose that after what seemed to the general to be an eternity, the ruler relented and gave him a chance to win back his old position in the country’s government, but to prove he had learned his lesson he must first complete a test of good character. Suppose that test was to spend exactly one year trying to help people and do good, fighting evil and at the same time learning humility and self-questioning. Would that fit with your definition of justice? Understand - I am not asking you to judge the merits or otherwise of the ruler’s regime, but to judge whether justice, as you described it, has been done. Or do you think the general should be confined to his governorship of the penal colony forever?”
She considered briefly. “I would say justice had been well served. Ignoring the fact that I regard such a regime as immoral, unconstitutional and against the democratic principles of the United States…” (I disguised a brief choking fit as a cough at this point) “…to give someone a chance to prove their worth and demonstrate that they have learned their lesson is an admirable thing.”
She paused, thinking over what I had been saying. “Are you telling me, then, that you are some kind of exile from a foreign regime who is trying to get back into your president’s good books by showing that you can be a good cop?” Her tone was slightly incredulous.
“That is exactly right. I argued with my leader, got kicked out of his ruling council, got sent to be governor of a hell-hole, got given a chance to make good again by accepting the challenge of a test of character. And that’s where I am now.”
“But... but the car, the impossible things it does, that taxi driver, your apartment number 666, this dog with volcano eyes... your story doesn’t explain those creepy things!”
I sat back on the sofa with my eyes closed, hands clasped behind my head. “Doesn’t it?” I replied gently and quietly. “The kingdom was Heaven: the ruler was God: I’m the Devil.”
-------------------
I placed a cushion under her head and bathed her forehead with a wet towel. “Is that any better?” I asked solicitously.
“What happened?” Her voice was a faint whisper.
“You fainted. Here.” I offered her a balloon glass of cognac. “Take a sip of this. You’ll soon feel all right again.” My tone tried hard to be cheerful but I was anxious for her and I guess it showed. I felt guilty, because what I had told her about myself had been the cause of her fainting and, worse, keeling out of her chair and banging her head, albeit only on the thick carpet. Niblick stood looking at her sadly, tail between his legs. As soon as she sat up and sipped the brandy he gave his tail a few encouraging wags and whined in a relieved way. “See,” I remarked, “even the dog was worried about you.”
I could almost visibly see the memory of the last hour flooding back into her mind. But she was made of stronger stuff than I realized. She reached out and ruffled the dog's head between the ears. He promptly rolled over on his back again and thumped his tail. My arm was supporting her back as she sat up, and I helped her onto the armchair.
“You can’t be the Devil,” she stated flatly.
“Why can’t I?”
“You’re too kind and gentle.”
“I’m off duty”, I quipped. She stared at me, then actually laughed.
“You’re kidding me!”
“No.”
“Prove it! Go on - you talk a big act, so prove it to me.”
I held out a hand to her. “Come with me.” Suddenly she looked nervous.
“Which way is your bedroom?”
I pointed right. “That way.”
“Which way are you taking me?”
I pointed left. “That way.”
“Fine.” She got to her feet and followed me across the big room to the huge picture window. The view was quite spectacular; a galaxy of lights in the night outlined the sparkling shapes of the office blocks of downtown LA. A door beside the window led out onto a broad balcony. There was a small forest of shrubs in wooden tubs and brightly colored arrays of flowers in planters. I opened the door and went out into the gentle night breeze. After a second’s hesitation she followed me.
On the flagstones I held out my hand again. “Please, stand close beside me.”
“I expected a better come-on line from you than that!”
I gazed at her seriously. “You wanted proof? Stand beside me.”
She did so. Swiftly I grasped her round the waist. She was startled. Then she shrieked. Loudly. Because the two of us had started to rise into the air, leaving the penthouse patio behind, flying.
At first, her eyes were tight shut. Then one of them peeped open a crack. Then the other decided to follow suit. Then both eyes were very wide and she gasped. “We’re flying!” she screamed. I just looked at her and smiled.
After a while I could tell that she was beginning to enjoy the thrill of the experience as we rushed headlong through the cool night air, soaring above great buildings, auto headlights below us like strands of sparkling dew on a great urban spider’s web. We were alone together in the velvet night sky. Gradually she relaxed her vice-like grip of panic. Bit by bit she established increasing independence, loosening an arm lock around my torso that would have drawn admiration from WWF’s finest. After a while, we were flying hand in hand. Then just fingertip to fingertip. I frowned momentarily in a sudden rush of deja-vue; I was sure I had seen something like this before at the movies somewhere, but could not quite place it at that moment. “Can you read my mind?” she was thinking.
“Yes,” I answered verbally.
“Oh shit!” Her lovely black face took on a distinct red flush for a minute.
We completed a circular tour of downtown LA at a thousand feet and I steered us back to my rooftop patio, performing a perfect three-point landing as gently as a couple of alighting feathers. Facing her, I placed my hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently, conveying the unspoken command for her to stay where she was.
I took several paces away, turned to face her and performed a manifestational transformation, something all archangels can do. Where I had been wearing an expensive dark suit and white T-shirt, I now appeared in one of the forms in which hundreds of generations of human thought had molded my anthropomorphic image. Red tights, scarlet-lined black cloak, dashing horns, arrowhead tail, pitchfork, wisps of smoke rising from around my feet - the works: the common traditional image of the Devil. This was not the real me, merely one of the forms pushed upon my aura by many centuries of mass human thought.
“Why are you here?” she breathed.
“To fight for truth and justice in the American way,” I replied earnestly.
“No, I meant, ‘why are you here dressed in that ridiculous crappy outfit from a second-rate costume shop?’”
Somehow, the magic of the moment seemed suddenly to evaporate. Hastily it was back to the designer suit again.
Silently I led the way back into my apartment and fixed another set of drinks. At the bar I turned my head. “Do you believe me now?”
“I believe you”, she answered simply. She stood up and walked over until she stood beside me. “You’ve been misunderstood throughout history. Man, you could do with a good PR firm. You’ve been branded as the enemy of mankind.”
“I prefer to think of myself as an urbane myth,” I replied, sipping another Martini.
Through the kitchen door came the sound of Niblick having a drink from his water bowl. It sounded like a fat man doing pushups in jello.
8. The Bad Book...
Next morning we found the Chief waiting for us at the office. He had a file in one meaty hand. The meat on his hand was not fat: even his fingers had bulging muscles. I suspected his fingernails had muscles, too, if only you could get close enough to have a good look. He did not waste time on pleasantries. He waved the file at us as though it was a fly swat and we were the flies. “Coroner’s report on your dead priest,” he informed, handing it to me as if glad to be rid of it. “Cause of death, a hole through the heart.”
“How’s that again?” I queried.
“The Medical Examiner states that, inside, he looks like someone has shoved a spear straight through him. There is a hole from one side to the other, passing through the heart; except, there are no matching punctures on the skin. Nothing, repeat nothing, showing on the outside of the body. Not a mark. The damage is exclusively inside. Death would have been instantaneous.”
“That’s impossible,” remarked Smith incredulously.
“I know it!” responded the Chief. “There are photographs in that file, taken by the examiner. His assistants also verify the details, just in case anyone thinks the County Medical Examiner puffs anything except good healthy tobacco. He cannot venture an opinion as to how it was done. All he can say is, it was done.” He chewed his cigar in aggressive irritation. To me, it looked like the same one he had yesterday. Maybe he kept a box of pre-half chewed cigars in a drawer to replenish them as they wore out.
“I think we should go talk to his friend, father David at St. Mark’s,” I opined. “He’s our only lead.”
“You can go,” agreed the Chief, “but you won’t get much of a conversation. Father David Martin was found dead in his study in the early hours of this morning. The body is on its way to the Coroner’s lab right now, with not a mark on it. Any bets on what they’ll find as the cause of death?”
“Come on, Smith. We better get over to St. Mark’s.”
“Can we go in my car?” asked Smith hopefully.
We did not. We arrived at St. Mark’s and rendezvoused with Taylor and Valdez, the cops who had attended the incident. An Hispanic housekeeper, her face round with uncertainty, showed us through to a study similar in general character to that of the other late cleric. There were perhaps less statues and artifacts on display, but far more books. Endless shelves of ancient leather-bound tomes marched around the walls like a silent army assembling along a border ready to invade.
“He liked books,” offered Taylor superfluously.
“So I see.” I scanned the room. “You heard about yesterday’s death?”
Taylor nodded. “Yeah, another priest.”
“This could be a first,” put in Smith. “A serial killer specializing in Catholic priests.”
“Well,” I put my brain into gear, “I know it's tough, but it's not our business to get sentimental. One killing is an incident: two is a pattern, and maybe gives us a little more to work on.” I turned back to Taylor. “We found yesterday’s body in an alley. This one was at home. Any sign of a motive?”
“Nothing we could find.”
“There’s a connection between the two priests,” I informed. “It appears they were friends. Father John was on his way here, or on his way back from here, when he met his end. Father David had phoned him and told him he had something interesting to show him.” I waved my arm round the large book-infested study. “They shared a common interest in antiquities and religious curios. Is anything missing?”
“You guess,” shrugged Taylor, nonplussed.
“I’ll do more than that. We need an inventory from someone who knows about this place. Any candidates?”
“Housekeeper told us that a nun acted as his secretary most of the time,” chipped in Valdez. “She may be able to spot whether anything has been taken or disturbed.”
“Good. Can we bring her here?”
“Sure. Who’s going to break the sad news to her - you two, or us?”
“We had our turn yesterday with the first deceased’s sister,” put in Smith quickly. “I think it must be your turn.” The other two cops accepted this philosophically and left, nunward bound.
They returned after half an hour with the good lady, flowing in the anonymous habit of her calling. “This is Sister Catherine,” introduced Valdez. He indicated us. “Inspector Fericul and Detective Smith, Sister”.
I looked her frankly and openly in the eyes. “I’m sorry we meet under such painful circumstances, Sister, but we hope that you might be able to help us in our investigation.”
“I’ll do whatever I may to help,” she replied bravely, just a trace of an Irish accent lingering under the American.
“I’d very much like to know if anything has been taken or disturbed, Mam. It may give us a lead as to motive.”
She gazed round the room from where she stood. “I can check. We kept a catalogue of all the books in his collection.” Her eyes fell on a glass-fronted bookcase in a corner. She pointed. “But I can see from here that something’s gone, over there.”
We all walked to the bookcase in question. When close, we could see that it contained rows of large, ancient-looking books, and that there was a suggestive gap like a missing tooth.
“There is a book gone from here since yesterday,” confirmed Sister Catherine. “And what’s more, I know that this particular cabinet is always kept locked. Father David kept the key on a cord round his neck.”
Taylor shook his head. “No such key was found on the body,” he observed. I glanced at Taylor and he was ahead of me. “I’ll get the fingerprint guys up here right away.” He began to talk into his mobile phone.
I looked at Sister Catherine. “Mam, are you able to tell us what is missing, without touching the cabinet?”
“Yes,” she replied simply. “These were... special books. I can see which one has gone.”
“Special in what way?” queried Smith. But I had already stooped close to the shining glass door and was squinting through at the faded gold-blocked titles.
“Special in a way I would not have thought went with his profession,” I stated, my voice sinking to little more than a whisper. “Just look at these titles: The Codex of Alexandria: The Grimoire of Innocent 3rd: The Black Pullet: the Angelus Magnus Secreti Creatoris of Sameton of Babylon: The Diaries of Dr. John Dee: the Clavicule of Solomon: the Ars Notoria: the Liber Lunæ: the Þimple Þaumaturge of Æthelbald the Saxon - these are all priceless original editions of some of the greatest works on black magic and the occult in the world. And look at that…” I pointed at one particular great thick black volume lurking at the end of a row. “That most dreadful of all forbidden magical books, the Necros Resurgere of Eblis of Thebes.” I turned to the nun and raised an eyebrow. “Sister...?”
“He collected such things,” she stated, a trifle defensively. “He thought that, if he had them, nobody else could use them for wickedness.”
“They belong in a steel safe,” I commented. “The Necros Resurgere belongs in a bunker at Los Alamos.”
Smith, obviously feeling somewhat out of her depth at the turn of the conversation, indicated the gap on the shelf. “Sister, you said you know what the missing book is?”
“I do that,” she replied. “It was his most recent acquisition. He was very pleased with it. I would say ‘proud’ if pride were not a sin.”
I sighed inwardly. There was no need to remind me of that.
“It's entered in his diary on the page for the day before yesterday,” she pointed at the desktop. “He wrote the complete title there.”
With the others trailing in my wake, I strode to the desk and thumbed open the diary until I found the appropriate page. I read the entry and took an involuntary sharp intake of breath. I hissed the title of the missing book in a stage whisper.
“The Angelus Demonica Sumnonum of Aaron!”
“What’s that when it's at home?” enquired Smith, probably voicing everyone’s thoughts.
“It’s considered to be the single most powerful and dangerous grimoire of the infernal arts ever written by the hand of man,” I obliged.
“Hold on, hold on.” Taylor waved his hand as though patting an invisible child’s head. “What, exactly, is a... what did you call it, a grimoire?”
“It’s a book. The term ‘grimoire’ originates with the French word for ‘grammar’, as in a book instructing you how to speak. Over the centuries, ‘grimoire’ came to mean only a treatise on how to work magic of some kind or another.”
Taylor’s expression was mildly skeptical. “And I suppose you’re an expert on the subject, Fericul”, he stated with some sarcasm.
“Actually, Inspector Taylor,” shot back Smith, leaping to my defense in a way that pleased but surprised me, “he’s the world’s acknowledged leading police expert on the subject, as it happens.”
Taylor raised his eyebrows as he absorbed this information, then muttered under his breath: “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“You know about these things, then?” queried Sister Catherine seriously.
“I do. The Angelus Demonica is supposed to have originally been written by Aaron, the brother of Moses, in a series of ancient Hebrew scrolls. According to legend, these scrolls were discovered by nomads preserved in a dry cave, much like the Dead Sea Scrolls, around the time of the Second Crusade. They were translated into Latin by a scholar named Innius the Insane who purchased the scrolls in Alexandria and took them back to Italy with him. The original scrolls disintegrated into fragments as he carefully unrolled them, but he was able to write down everything before they finally crumbled away. He bound the pages he had written in book form. This original book existed in the Vatican’s Black Museum, deep under St. Peter’s Square in Rome, until it was sold by an avaricious Pope in 1650 to a rich merchant from Vienna. It was looted by the Nazis during the occupation of Austria and taken to a museum in Dresden, where it was finally destroyed during the Allied bombing in February 1945.
“However, shortly after Guttenberg devised the first movable-type printing press, a printed edition of this original Latin manuscript was made in Mainz. Legend has it that only one single copy was ever printed, because as the final page was being imprinted, the wooden framework of the press burst into flames and burned the building down. The book itself was rescued by the fleeing printer who later bound it in leather. Nobody knows what happened to it after it left the binder’s workshop. That was in 1453. Then it turns up in Father David’s collection here and now.”
In spite of himself, Taylor was impressed. He turned to the nun. “Sister, have you any idea how he came by the book?”
“I’m afraid not. He was always gallivanting off all over the place in search of rare books, whenever he got the chance. I know that he brought it back with him last month when he returned from a trip to Italy. I suppose he came by it there somewhere.”
Taylor looked at me. “Is it valuable?”
“Priceless. On the open market, it would probably fetch something like twenty million dollars at auction: maybe more. It's generally considered the rarest book in the world.”
Taylor whistled softly. “Plenty enough for a motive for murder.”
“I hope you're right, Taylor,” I commented in serious tone.
“Run that past me again?”
“I hope you're right - I hope the motive was nothing more than financial gain.”
Taylor showed early symptoms of exasperation. “What else could be the point of stealing a book worth millions?”
“Watch this space,” I answered enigmatically as I turned on my heel and made an exit, Detective Smith in hot pursuit.
Once in my car, Smith spoke softly to me. “What's on your mind, Fericul?”
“The book,” I mused. “The one that was stolen.” I half twisted in the driver’s seat so that I was facing her. “If you obtained a key to ownership of the entire world and everyone and everything in it, twenty million dollars would be a handful of peanuts.”
“It’s that powerful?”
“It’s that powerful.”
9. Raising Demons for Fun and Profit...
I drove us back to the station house at an ordinary breakneck speed rather than a supernatural one: I was really trying to be good in my behavior. I even allowed the driver of a Porsche to overtake me from a standing start at a set of changing lights. Smith was thrilled rather than terrified this time, and she told me so. We reached the precinct building, raced on foot to the elevator door in the underground car park.
“What’s the rush?” she panted as the floor lights blinked on and off on the panel.
“I need to send a fax.”
“You’ve got some kind of plan, then?”
“I do. I need some information.”
“About the book?”
“Uh huh,” I nodded, “and maybe a few other things as well.”
She looked at me closely. “Fericul, you’re worried, aren’t you?”
I looked straight and level into her eyes. “Yes,” I replied simply. “I admit it.”
“You - Satan, Lord of Hell, Archangel, actually worried?”
“Me, Stan A. Fericul, former Lord of Hell, Archangel and new boy scout in the LAPD, actually very worried indeed.”
We left the elevator and walked at rapid pace through the normal turmoil of the Department into my quieter office. I took a sheet of paper from a tray beside the fax machine and sat down with a pen. She moved her chair close beside me and watched what I was doing. I drew a big circle on the paper and another circle just within the first, then I wrote some wording in the space between the two, finishing with some arcane symbols scattered here and there.
“That’s an occult symbol, isn’t it?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Right. Actually, it’s a Circle of Evocation.”
“Shouldn’t it be drawn big on the floor in chalk?”
I paused in what I was doing and explained patiently. “That was how it was done by medieval sorcerers in medieval times, when they only had medieval methods available. Now we’re in present-day times, so we use present-day methods.”
“What’s it for?”
“I need to call some old friends.” As Smith’s puzzlement grew, I dropped the paper into the intake of the fax machine and punched in a number. When the paper emerged again from the bowels of the machine, I picked it up, pointed at it and it promptly burst into flames. I dropped it into an empty metal waste bin.
A trace of smoke drifted from the top of the bin. Suddenly, it was followed by a big puff of bright pink smoke with little sparks flying within it, like a firework. “Don’t be afraid,” I told her, encouragingly.
There was a sound vaguely reminiscent of a sink-plunger being pulled out of a swamp, followed by a bright flash. I noticed Smith blink. When her eyes opened again, two demons were standing on the carpet. They were both bright purple, complete with horns, batlike wings, tails and sharp features, about four feet tall. Smith froze, her jaw open. One of the demons spoke.
“Hi, Boss.”
“Detective Smith,” I said, “these are two loyal members of my staff. Allow me to introduce Pharter and Phukkit.”
Pharter held out a talon-tipped hand. “Pleased t’ meetcha, liedy.”
Phukkit nodded cordially. “Loikwise, Oi’m sure.”
As if in a trance, Smith reached down and shook the proffered hand. Straightening, she whispered at me out of the corner of her mouth, “Why do they talk with such outrageous British Cockney accents?”
I whispered back, “They’re hoping for a part in the next Disney cartoon”. Before she could pass comment, I addressed the demons. “Guys, how’s it going?”
“Fine Boss,” said Pharter, who was a couple of inches taller than his companion and leaner in appearance, “ain’t it Phukkit?”
“Yus Guv,” agreed the other, who was shorter and tubbier. “All’s fine and dandy.”
“Have you had anyone trying to raise any demons recently?” I asked.
“Well Boss,” answered Pharter, rubbing his chin and tilting his head to one side. “Funny you should arsk that. We ‘ad a call come froo just yesterdie - you know, a Summons to Appear in corporeal form, correct incantations, magic circle an’ all.”
“Who was summoned?”
“It were Surgat, Boss.”
“Did he go?”
“Ee din’t ‘ave no choice, Boss, did ee? Ee just bang and vanished. Right in the middle of ‘is tea break. Came back after a couple of hours all cold and bothered and grumbling about it.”
“Just that one single incident?” I asked. Both demons nodded earnestly.
“Just the one, Guv,” agreed Phukkit.
“Listen,” I said. “This could mean big trouble. I want you two to keep me advised of anything else that might happen. I believe some mortal somewhere has got hold of a Book - a proper Book. You know what I mean?”
“A Book, Guv? Cor blimey! As if we din’t ‘ave enough on our plites already.”
“Did anyone manage to get a bearing on exactly where the summons came from?”
“As it ‘appens, Phixit did. You know what ee’s like wiv the ol’ direction finding gear. Ee was annoyed when Surgat vanished - they was in the middle of a game of cards - so ee jumps over to the controls and gets a bearing, just out of curiosity. Ee couldn’t ‘elp it if ee also accidentally got a look at Surgat’s cards when ee knocked them off the table.”
“Do either of you know what the bearing was?”
“No, but I can easily find out,” said Pharter. “‘ang on a mo.” He reached into his striped waistcoat and pulled out a small mobile phone, pressed a few buttons and listened. Smith and I could hear the ringing tone. Someone answered, sounding tinny and far away.
“Wot?”
“Surgat? Pharter. Boss wants to know where your summons came from.” He listened attentively: all we could hear was a muffled voice rising and falling. “Ta,” said Pharter eventually and put the mobile back in his pocket. He turned to me. “Boss, I got the address.” He repeated it and I jotted it down.
“Thanks guys. That will be all for now. Keep alert, hear?”
“Sure thing Boss,” said Pharter.
“You bet, Guv,” said Phukkit.
“OK. I grant you your License to Depart. Avaunt ye!” There was a sound like a whoopee cushion in reverse and the pair of demons vanished with a brief flash.
“I don't believe this,” remarked Smith. “They were Demons? They were almost cuddly. I could market a range of dolls based on them.”
“They are reliable workers, and quite shrewd,” I observed. “Two of my best, in fact.”
“So, do I understand correctly that someone is making use of the stolen book to summon up demons, like the sorcerers are supposed to have done in the past?”
“You understand correctly. Surgat, one of Pharter’s lieutenants, was summoned up to this address.” I waved the piece of paper I had jotted it down on.
“Well, you’re their boss – can’t you just order them not to respond if it happens again?”
“It doesn’t work like that. We are talking about fundamental principles of the cosmos, like the laws of physics. It is like saying, if you jump off the top of an office block, just order gravity not to respond. Believe me, demons do not like being summoned to the earthly plane by sorcery, they never did. Even in the old grimoires, the incantations and spells were designed to compel a demon’s obedience against its will. Demons love having a free holiday here on earth if they get the chance, but they do not like being ordered about by mortals. I guess nobody likes to feel used.”
“Are you a demon?”
I smiled. “No. I am an Archangel, temporarily fallen from Grace. I am an official spiritual administrator, they are the native labor force. We’re not actually related.” I paused, thinking. “However, being intimately acquainted with them for so long gives me the advantage of knowing them very thoroughly. I know what Surgat was summoned for.”
“You do? How?”
“Many demons have specialties. For example, one might specialize in finding buried treasure, another in making women do what the sorcerer wishes, another in raising storms and tempests and so on. Surgat’s specialty is that he will open all locks for the sorcerer who commands him. Five will get you ten that, somewhere, there has been a robbery committed where someone has simply walked through the strongest safe or strong room door as though it were an open closet. Let’s check the crime reports on the way out.”
“Then we're going to visit that address the demons gave you?”
“Too right we are! I want to try to nip this thing in the bud as soon as possible. The potential of some criminally-minded black magician armed with the power of the Angelus Demonica is too great to allow it to continue. Surgat is a relatively minor demon, and the power to open all locks is not one of the earth-shattering abilities - but when you stop to think that whoever controls him could walk into Fort Knox, or the Pentagon, or any biological warfare freezer or missile launch room in the world...”
“Let’s go!”
Out in the main office we glanced hastily through the crime reports for the last twenty-four hours, leafing through the papers like they were research notes.
“Here’s a bank robbery,” muttered Smith. “Seems normal, though; staff forced to hand over cash at gunpoint.”
“Not that one.”
“Theft of a locked truck containing thousands of dollars worth of liquor...”
“Not that one.”
“Overnight break-in at a casino, safe was opened by an expert with a drill and plastic explosive...”
“Not that one.”
“Film star’s mansion burgled through a rear door...”
“Not that one.”
“Chemical plant robbed of a new industrial formula, safe was taken piecemeal with a fork-lift truck...”
“Not that one.”
“Senator’s car broken into, laptop computer taken...”
“Not that one.”
“Museum strong room robbed of ancient stone relics, nothing damaged...”
“That one!” I quickly scanned the details over her shoulder. Staff had discovered artifacts missing from a securely locked basement strong room: all doors had still been locked when the staff arrived in the morning. “That’s Surgat’s trademark. Come on, we’ve found out what we needed to know.” I grabbed her arm and we ran to the elevator, heading for the underground car park.
We roared through the streets, albeit at conventional cop-speed. My auto had a built-in siren under the hood and a flashing light rose automatically from the previously smooth roof. Within twenty minutes we skidded to a halt outside the address Pharter had supplied. It was a vacant unit in a trading park. A tattered sign on the unkempt lawn informed that the business had moved to bigger premises at Pasadena and hoped we would continue to be a valued customer at their new address where facilities including free parking were far superior.
“My guess is that whoever stole the Book has been using this empty unit as their secret base: sometimes demonic evocation can be quite loud - no close neighbors here.”
“So how are we going to handle this?”
Once more I twisted in the driver’s seat until I was facing her. “I'm going inside through a back door, if there is one, so as not to attract attention. I would like you to stay here.”
“Like hell... sorry, no offence. Not like hell at all. You can’t include me out. I’m equally a law officer. In addition, I’m your partner. Official.”
“I know.” I felt awkward. My previous territory had not been noted for its fish, but now I felt like one out of water. “What I’m trying to say isn’t official. This situation... well, it’s likely to be extremely dangerous, and... well...” Suddenly it blurted itself out. “I don’t want you hurt.”
This unexpected news broadcast surprised both of us; I don't know who the most. She stopped herself in mid-reaction to consider what had been said. Then her tone became more gentle, less Women’s Lib. “You mean...?”
“I mean, I don’t want you hurt,” I finished her sentence in a gruff voice.
“Look,” she explained in a softer manner. “I’m fully trained. I’ve been in tough spots before. I have a black belt in Kung-fu: I have a gun: I have an impressive record of arrests: I’ve done dangerous undercover work with gangs: I have a commendation: and I have something even better than all of those, I think.”
“What’s that?”
She paused for a moment. “I have you to look after me. Don’t underestimate yourself.” Suddenly, on an impulse, she reached out and squeezed my hand. Then she was all business. “You’re just about immortal, aren’t you? So, you bust through the front door and I’ll sneak in the back in case you scare them out that way. Give me five minutes to get into position and we’ll both start breaking the doors at once. You got a watch?”
I did. I held up my wrist and showed it to her. Red numbers on a yellow face with the pointy moustache of a devil’s head forming the hands. She sighed. “We really must have a serious talk soon about good taste. OK, we strike together at exactly ten past.”
She left the vehicle and strode away out of sight round the block. I waited precisely thirty seconds then walked up the front path to the boarded-up main doors. I had no intention of waiting for Detective Smith. I wanted to go in early, on my own, while she was still well clear of the building and out of harm’s way. Apart from the implied threat of the Vessels of Shinar, I was immortal - she was not.
Reaching the screwed and nailed boarding, I raised my foot and smashed it all to splinters in a single blow: I guess part of me somewhere deep inside was angry at the thought that some homicidal maniac who killed priests to steal forbidden books might be inside ready to harm the woman I... was growing very fond of. However, neither of us need have worried on this occasion. The place was empty.
That wasn’t just an opinion, like in one of those movies when the innocent teenager thinks the house is deserted moments before something nasty jumps out at them. No, I had ways of knowing. Archangels who adopt physical form have a wide sensitivity to the electromagnetic spectrum. Human eyes receive the vibrations from red to violet. Archangels, whilst in the mortal realm, can also see in the infra-red and ultra-violet. We can’t register X-rays, but the infra-red bit allows us to “see” heat, just like a night-vision camera, and I could see that the junk-packed interior of the factory was devoid of life, except for a few bugs and spiders and a couple of fleeing rats, of the rodent variety, not the criminal kind.
Consequently, when Smith kicked open a rear door and entered, all she found was me waiting for her. “Sorry,” I shrugged dismissively, “I miss-timed my entry by a minute.”
She replaced her gun in its hip holster and eyed me speculatively, decided to let it pass. “Anybody at home?” she enquired.
“Nix. The place is emptier than a casino in the Vatican.” I looked straight up and muttered, “Sorry - just trying to be colloquially colorful.”
“Who are you talking to - Oh!”
“It’s just for the record. I’m being assessed, but sometimes I get so immersed in things that I forget. Actors call it ‘getting buried in the part.’”
We began searching the building to see if we could find anything that might offer us some sort of clue. The place was basically a huge lofty workshop with a few offices arranged around the walls. Any equipment had been stripped out, but piles of rubbish were strewn over the concrete floor; empty packing cases, pyramids of stuffed plastic garbage sacks, damaged furniture and fittings, old newspapers and magazines, bits of oily carpet. Detailed inspection required a good nosing and poking around. We drifted apart, snooping busily. Then I saw it. “Over here,” I called quietly. She came.
An area of the floor had been swept clean in a rough circle, within which was drawn a geometrically exact one in chalk. Outside the chalk ring a triangle had also been drawn. Various occult symbols and inscriptions were liberally scattered throughout the design.
“We’ve missed them,” I stated flatly. “Our bird has flown the coup. If they’re smart, they won't come back here again - and we know they’re smart, else they couldn’t have done what they already have. And that’s just a beginning.” I indicated the triangle. “That’s the Triangle of Art, into which a sorcerer summons his demon while he himself remains safe from its wrath inside the protection of the magic circle. That’s where Surgat materialized and was held imprisoned until he agreed to serve his summoner. Knowledgeable sorcerers have methods of threatening demons in horrible ways unless they agree to obey for a specific time. Surgat would have been threatened with some form of torture. And they call demons wicked!” My voice registered disgust.
I was so rattled that it was Smith who noticed the clue we had been hoping for, slender though it seemed at first. She squatted down and picked up a few fragments from the floor, examining them closely. She smelt them. “What’s this?” She dropped them into my hand. I smelt them too.
“It’s incense. To be specific, it’s Kyphi incense, as blended by the ancient Egyptians and detailed in the Ebers Papyrus; indispensable for good demonic evocations.” I relaxed into memories for a short moment. “I haven’t smelt this stuff since Napoleon’s troops returned from Egypt. It brings back the past.”
“Never mind that. This incense could be important.”
“It certainly is; our quarry could not summon demons without it.”
“I don’t mean that.” She was getting irritated at my lack of understanding her point. “What I mean is, where the h... Where the Dev... Where in the name of all that’s hol...”
“Look, you don't have to watch every word you say just because I’m the Devil.”
“Where do they get the stuff? That’s what I’m trying to say,” she almost shrieked.
“Now, that’s a good question,” I mused.
Smith took a swift walk toward the factory wall. A metal plate with dangling wires indicated where a payphone had once been. On the floor against the wall was a pile of old directories. She picked up one and opened the yellow pages. In a few moments she was holding it up in triumph. “See, there’s a listing under ‘Esoteric Supply Houses’. There's only three in LA, and only one of those has a display ad.”
“Brilliant. We have to start somewhere; it may as well be there. What’s the address?”
10. Caveat Lector (“Let the Buyer Beware”)
It was a nice looking shop, very trendy. The windows were filled with displays of colorful tarot cards, crystal balls, other crystals of all shapes, sizes and hues, Native American dream-catchers, shining brass incense burners, carved wooden boxes, runic pendants, mystical jewelry, books on magic, Wicca, UFO abductions and how to talk to trees, also a whole range of spell kits for every occasion. A sign carefully pointed out that only the ingredients were part of the sale price; the use to which they were put was nothing to do with the shop, and the shop was not to be held responsible in law for any results that might be obtained, and more especially, any lack thereof. The name above the door in Olde English lettering read “BROOMSTICKS R US” We went inside.
As the shop door swung shut behind us, the ambient sounds changed noticeably. From outside there had filtered in the steady rushing noise of passing traffic; within, the air was now gently filled with the soft tinkle of splashing water from a range of esoteric indoor waterfall ornaments, coupled with a muted monotone chanting of Tibetan monks from a CD. A card propped up on the counter conveyed the information: “Now Playing: Songs Of The High Himalayas, By The San Francisco & Pelican Island Tibetan Monks Choir (No Nationality Implied) (copyright © Electrosounds Corporation).” Maybe I was old fashioned, but I found modern trendy esotericism and New Age mysticism somewhat pointless, rather baffling and strangely unsatisfying; it was occult-free magic, insipid in the same way as alcohol-free beer and nourishment-free foods. Idly I picked up a wooden Buddhist prayer wheel and inspected it with interest. I cautiously spun it with one finger and was slightly disappointed when no prayer came out.
“Put that down,” hissed Detective Smith. “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere! You may be Satan, but sometimes you’re like a naughty little boy!”
My brain was still doing handsprings around that analogy behind my raised eyebrows when a brightly colored bead curtain behind the counter swished as two women came through from a private back room. One was blond, one was brunette; both were good-looking; both wore tightly fitting black velvet dresses, rather low cut in front. Both were of an indeterminate age somewhere between 30 and 40.
“Hello,” said the blond brightly, “I’m Claire Touchwood, and this is my sister Celia.”
We flashed our badges. “Inspector Fericul and Detective Smith, LAPD.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” responded Celia Touchwood, leaning towards me over the top of the counter, displaying a generous cleavage and eyeing me up and down, utterly ignoring Smith.
“We’re the proprietors of Broomsticks R Us,” explained Claire, gliding round from behind the counter and eyeing me down and up, utterly ignoring Smith.
“I said it would only be a matter of time before the police asked for our magical help,” said Celia, rounding the counter from the opposite end and flowing in my direction.
“What will it be?” enquired Claire, placing herself strategically in front of her sister’s advance. “Crystal balls for skrying for criminals? A spell kit for tracking down a felon? A banishing incense to get rid of illegally parked vehicles?”
“I know,” pronounced Celia, neatly side stepping her sister’s blocking maneuver and continuing her advance. “We have the very latest thing - the Sherlock Holmes Tarot Pack. (I saw him first!)” This last was whispered out of the corner of her mouth in the direction of her sister.
“Or what about a set of divining rods for locating stolen goods? (No you didn’t, I did!)”
“Or a pendulum for dowsing for guns hidden in underwear? (He’s not your type!)”
“Or a psychic wind chime to hang over your desk? Very relaxing. (Well, he’s certainly not yours my dear, this one has class!)”
“Or perhaps some uplifting spiritual music to relax with after a hard day at the line-up? We stock a wide range of CDs. (And exactly what is that supposed to mean?)”
“Or an ethnic dream-catcher to hang above your desk to ensure your snoozes are untroubled by nightmares? (Well, let’s face it my dear, your idea of a good man matches your idea of a good yoghurt - thick and fruity!)”
The sisters finished their suggested catalogue of suitable products and were now standing face to face, glowering at each other with rigidly fixed smiles; not an easy expression for a man to achieve, but one mastered by all women at an early age.
“Excuse me, ladies,” I put in quickly, glad of the gap in which to put a word in edgewise, “but we’re not buying today. We wanted to ask for your help in a case we are working on. What we really need is some specialist information.”
At once, the sister’s attitude changed and became somehow softer and more genuine, less like two tigresses squaring-up over potential prey. “Help in a case? Certainly, anything that we can do to assist,” said Claire.
“What kind of information do you want?” asked Celia.
“Are you familiar with Kyphi incense?”
“Oh yes,” responded Celia at once. She added proudly, “We are the only occult supply shop in California that has it in stock.”
Claire nodded. “Of course, MagicMart in Sacramento claims to stock it, but it’s a forgery. Their version lacks the two extremely rare ingredients that the genuine Kyphi simply must contain; the crushed seeds of the mallium plant, Latin name Malleus maleficarum, which grows only in sheltered spots in the Dakhia Oasis three hundred miles west of Thebes in Egypt...”
“...and oil from mortus lichen, which grows only inside Egyptian tombs,” finished Celia. “These are the ingredients that make it so expensive. Of course, MagicMart still charges the full price, even though they use substitute ingredients.”
I nodded. “But yours is the genuine article?”
“Oh, absolutely,” agreed Claire earnestly. “We guarantee its authenticity.”
“Well then ladies, here’s the sixty-four thousand question - have you sold any of it recently? Say, within the last month?” Mentally I was keeping my fingers crossed for a break. It came.
“Why yes, we have,” answered Celia. “It’s a very... specialized commodity. It’s easy to remember each sale. Besides, the gentleman who purchased it was rather distinctive.”
“He certainly was,” agreed Claire. “I was most surprised. It seemed quite out of character. You see, he was not exactly the kind of person you would expect to be looking for the correct incense to use for the evocation of demonic powers.”
“What sort of person was he?” I asked.
“He was a priest.”
Smith and I raised simultaneous eyebrows. “Did you manage to find out anything else about him, ladies? Like his name or diocese - anything that might help us find him?”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Claire Touchwood, pouting. “We did try to put him on our mailing list; we try that with all our customers. Mail order provides by far the larger part of our business. We even have overseas customers. However, he was extremely cagey and politely refused to give us his address; said he was traveling.”
“How about a description - can you remember what he looked like?”
“Oh yes,” interjected Celia Touchwood. “She never forgets a man.”
“Thank you, dear,” said Claire sweetly, “but I’m not the one with a cupid and heart tattoo in an interesting place with the middle left blank for names to be filled in with a felt-tipped pen.”
“(Right! That does it! No more Mrs. Nice Guy!”) Celia glided to my side and took my arm firmly in her hands. “Let me see”, she mused, looking up at me and fluttering some eyelids. “Six feet six, built like a football linebacker, sensitive artistic face, intelligent dark eyes, long pony-tail but very neat hairstyle, impeccable suit with a Beverly Hills white T-shirt. You must be either a Leo or a Virgo. I get on really well with Leo men.”
“Sorry, Mam, neither.”
She pouted slightly. “What is your birth sign, then?”
“Ophiucus the Serpent.”
She was momentarily taken aback. “That’s not in the Zodiac.”
“It was when I was born.” I gestured to dismiss the topic. “Look, if I draw a face, could you guide me and help me to fill in the details so that we can get a likeness of this priest who bought the Kyphi incense? It might help us to identify him.”
“Of course,” replied Celia.
“It would be a pleasure,” cooed Claire, edging forward and trying to grasp my other arm. I neatly sidestepped, freed myself gently from Celia’s grip and picked up a notepad and pencil from the counter. We got to work. I drew a simple egg shape to start with, then began to sketch in the details as they described them to me from memory, getting a more and more detailed face as we progressed. At length they both agreed that the result was a reasonable likeness of the mysterious customer. Smith and I looked at what I had drawn. A face that I would have little hesitation in describing as sinister glared out of the notebook at us. Dark, intense, almost searing eyes: aquiline nose with slightly flared nostrils: frowning eyebrows: mirthless smile on thin lips: high forehead: thinning dark hair graying at the temples.
“Well, thank you very much indeed, ladies,” I said gratefully. “This might help us a great deal.” I carefully tore the page out of the notebook. I offered Claire a business card. “This is my mobile number. If you see him again, or remember anything else you think might help us in our investigation, please give me a call.”
We turned to take our leave and the sisters followed us to the door of their shop, their eyes following me all the way to my car and down the street as we drove off.
I think I already mentioned that Archangels have a broader range of vision than mortals. We also have far more acute hearing, better than that of a normal dog, or even a bat. As we moved off, I could hear the sisters talking above the sound of the engine and the traffic.
“Now that’s what I call an absolutely heavenly man.”
“I don’t think you have his right neighborhood.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the tarot card reader dear, and I’m the astrologer, and I know my subject backwards. The constellation Ophiucus the Serpent was in the Zodiac once - but that was some two million years ago, just before the Ice Age, when the earth’s axial tilt was slightly different due to precession. The Zodiac would have been entirely different then.”
“He must have been joking with us.”
“You think? Didn’t you just feel the power of his presence?”
“And look at the name on his card – ‘Stan A. Fericul.’ Do you see what that’s an anagram of?”
“My dear, do you know who I think we have just been visited by.......?” The rest of the conversation finally faded even from my hearing as we turned a distant corner and sped away.
Back at the station house we poured over the files of mug shots on the computer looking for a match to my sketch. There wasn’t one. Several came close, but you could plainly tell it was not the same person. Smith stepped back from the screen at length and flexed her neck. “No help there after all,” I commented needlessly.
“You know, of course, that they were after you?”
“Who were?”
“Those sisters in the shop.”
“I thought they were rather charming,” I commented ingenuously.
“I’m sure you did! They were all over you.”
“They were just trying to be friendly...” my voice trailed off as realization dawned. “You’re jealous!” I accused, turning to face her.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped.
I stepped in front of her and stared down into her upturned face. “You can’t fool me. Jealousy happens to come within my professional field of job experience; it’s one of the seven deadly sins, remember?”
“Yeah? And so is pride,” she breathed in a low voice. “But you couldn’t stop committing that one and getting thrown out of Heaven for it.”
“Ouch!” I muttered as our faces came closer to each other. “Actually, it’s a venial sin.”
Our faces were only inches apart. “What does that mean?” she asked softly.
“It means you can be pardoned for it,” I informed. And then I kissed her, holding her in my arms. At length we came up for air.
“How do we handle this?” she panted, gazing up into my eyes. “You’re immortal. In fifty or sixty years I’ll be dead, and all you need to do is move on to the next woman - if you don’t do it any earlier.”
I looked at her. “Don't plan so far ahead. I only have one year on earth, not an eternity. And after that, I don’t know where I will be, in Heaven or Hell. I face a judgment. I’m supposed to be doing good. I don’t seem to have done much of it so far, in spite of trying. I don’t know how the judgment will go.”
Suddenly she hugged me and kissed me again. “Well,” she remarked at length, “You’re doing a power of good by me!” Then she stopped in her verbal tracks as an idea hit her. “Say, why don’t we show your sketch to Elizabeth O’Hara, Father O’Hara’s sister? Maybe it’s someone she knows or has seen before.”
I was glad that one of us was still capable of thinking. It was obvious, now that I had heard the idea. I should have come up with it myself, but then, I had only been a cop for a matter of days. We dropped everything, including each other, and made for the auto in the basement, driving at lawful haste across town to St. Stephen’s church. Elizabeth O’Hara showed no surprise to see us and invited us inside. Once again I was mentally keeping my fingers crossed for a break. I began to realize that most cops must feel this kind of anxiety many times in a week.
“Mam, we’d like to ask you if you know anyone who looks anything like this.” Standing in the late Father John O’Hara’s study, I drew out my sketch and offered it to his sister. She studied it briefly, then gave us the break I had been praying for - yes, you heard right, me praying, for I was slowly but surely becoming more human as the days went by; being amongst them on earth, sharing some of their limitations, their frustrations, their anxieties, it kind of rubbed off on you.
“Why yes, I do know this man.” She glanced up from the picture. “He is a priest, although I don’t know where from, or even exactly what his denomination is. He might even be a Protestant. I met him once at St. Mark’s with Father David, may God rest his soul. I went there with my brother about two months ago to see some rare books he had recently obtained, and this man was there. He wanted to buy some books from Father David and when we arrived he was annoyed because Father David wouldn’t part with any of his collection. He left almost immediately after we arrived.” She closed her eyes to bring memories forward. “Oh, what was his name? He was Italian, it was an Italian name... I remember, his name was Giovanni Vittorio, from Rome, I believe. Father David mentioned this to us, but I recall he did not refer to him as ‘Father Giovanni’, so he may or may not have been a Catholic.”
I rose to take my leave and Smith followed my lead. “Thank you very much Mam, you’ve been a great help.”
“Inspector, has Giovanni Vittorio also been murdered?”
“Not as far as I am aware, Mam.”
“Then why are you asking about him?”
“There may be a connection, Mam. That’s all I can say at the moment. We’ll be in touch if there are any positive developments.” We left the house.
Sitting in the auto outside, Smith commented; “So now we have a name. We can run it through the records and see if it comes up.”
I pulled my mobile phone out of a pocket. “I have my own methods, Detective.” I punched in a number and held the device tight against my ear. This meant that Smith could only hear my half of the ensuing conversation.
“Hi. Is Mike there?”
(Pause.)
“It’s an old friend of his.”
(Pause.)
“Tell him it’s Lucifer. I need a quick word.”
(Slightly longer pause.)
“That you, Mike?”
(Brief pause.)
“Listen Mike, I need to ask you about something.”
(Pause.)
“There’s a mortal, name of Giovanni Vittorio, Italian I think. Is he one of yours?”
(Pause.)
“OK Mike, I’ll hold on.”
(Quite a lengthy pause, as of somebody rifling through a filing cabinet.)
“Yeah, I'm still here.”
(Pause.)
“What? You’re absolutely certain?”
(Pause.)
“OK Mike, thanks a million. I owe you one.”
(Pause.)
“OK. More than one. Sure. So long.” I replaced the mobile in my pocket.
“Was that Mike Connors at Records?” enquired Smith, somewhat puzzled.
“No, that was the Archangel Michael. He’s a bit of a pompous stiff, but basically he’s all right. We used to be best buddies before the... you know, before. He says there’s no Giovanni Vittorio on Their payroll.”
“Their payroll?” she queried, trying not to lose her depth in the conversation.
“There’s no ordained priest of that name,” I explained. “He checked the Catholic file and the Protestant file. He also checked all the other denominational files - Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist, Wesleyan, everything else. He checked all the fringe groups and even the Jewish files in the next room just in case. Vittorio might have been a rabbi - everyone just thinks he’s a priest; we don’t know what kind.”
“So what does this all mean?”
“Well,” I reflected slowly, my thoughts racing. “If he is a priest, and he’s not one of Theirs, then he must be one of ours.”
Realization dawned on her. “You mean...”
“A black magician. A priest of the black arts.”
She considered this idea. “Would that mean that you are in charge of him, or whatever way you’d put it?”
“That would be handy,” I answered, “but yet again, things don’t work that way. He would only come into my jurisdiction after he died, and then only if he hadn’t repented first. During life, mortals have been granted the gift of choice. That’s written into the contract. If someone deliberately chooses to worship evil, that’s their own business, and nobody can directly interfere, neither Heaven nor Hell. Mortals remain free to do as they please, maybe even change their minds and revoke their past deeds just before the final audit. It’s a bit like abusing a credit card. You can spend money you haven’t got in order to live the life of Riley: your neighbors envy your shining auto, your luxury apartment, your lifestyle, all the trappings of success. Ultimately, though, you get a bad news letter from the bank. If you can’t repay, you spend time in jail for fraud. If an evil person blames me, the Devil, for their actions, it’s like a credit card fraudster blaming the governor of the prison they get sent to. And the prison governor has no authority over them until they get put behind bars.” I gunned the motor into life.
“Where to now?”
“Back to my place. There are some things I need to do urgently.” I remained enigmatic all the way back.
This time, Smith greeted Niblick like a long-lost friend, and he went all googlie over her. He actually pranced. I’d never seen him do that before, ever. He was happier than when playing “fetch” with lost souls. “Is he shut up in here all day?” she asked in a tone of disapproval.
“He has to be,” I replied. “If he gets out, he chases cars.”
“Lots of dogs chase cars,” she said, pushing him over and rubbing his tummy.
“This one brings them back and buries them in the yard with their drivers,” I explained. I was busy drawing things on a sheet of paper. Smith came to watch, Niblick following her like a happy shadow, nuzzling her hand.
“That’s the symbols you used to fax Pharter and Phukkit,” she observed.
“That’s right. I want to summon them again.” I paused and looked at her. “What happens in the Department if two cops find themselves getting into something big?”
“More cops are taken off other cases and assigned to them to help out.”
“Right. That’s exactly what we’re doing now. If this guy is an Ipsissimus, we need more members on our team.”
“Ipsi-what-amus?”
“Ipsissimus,” I repeated. “That’s an occult master of the highest degree; it’s Latin for ‘Master of the Self'’. Haven’t you ever read any Dennis Wheatley novels?”
“Who?”
“British author, famous for stories about black magic. Never mind.” I finished the design on the paper and fed it into a combined fax machine and scanner on my home computer table. As before, I burned it in a metal waste bin. Once more came the cloud of sparkling pink smoke and the sound of someone pulling a big boot out of deep mud. A bright flash like a camera flashbulb, and there stood the two purple demons on my best rug, which had the design of a pentagram woven into it.
They looked slightly guilty. They had arrived in the exact postures they were in when they were transported from the nether regions, squatting down: obviously, from their positions, they had been sitting face to face at a small table. Each held a fan of playing cards. When the realization suddenly dawned as to what had happened, they snatched the cards behind their backs and straightened up, trying to look innocent. Have you ever seen a demon from Hell trying to look innocent? It just doesn't work.
“I see you’ve been busy,” I commented dryly, eying them accusingly.
Phukkit spread his hands in appeal: the cards had vanished in a small puff of smoke. “Guv, we was on our tea break.”
“Just started it,” agreed Pharter, nodding rather desperately.
“Never mind that.” I was trying to stop myself from smiling, and Smith noticed this. Behind the demons, she was grinning all over her face. “I need you both for a job.”
“Work, Boss?” enquired Pharter, growing serious. “Here, on the physical plane?” He began to look happy. To work on the physical plane without being forced to do tricks for a sorcerer was the demonic equivalent of an unexpected vacation. I handed them my sketch.
“This is the guy who summoned Surgat,” I explained. “He may well be a tenth degree occultist - powerful. You don’t need me to tell you what he might be able to do. He has a Book. He may well have other dangerous items in his possession; we’re still investigating that aspect. He used Surgat to get into a museum vault and steal ancient artifacts. I’ve still got to find out what these were, but it doesn’t look good.” The demons nodded in unison like puppets on the same string. “What I want you guys to do is to try to find him.”
“Sure thing Guv,” enthused Phukkit happily, flexing his wings.
“Right you are, Boss,” echoed Pharter. "Don’t yew worry abaht a fing. We’ll foind ‘im for yew, no daht abaht it.”
“Now look, you two,” I interrupted their enthusiastic responses. “Whoever this person is, wherever he might happen to be, we already know three things about him. He is a top-grade occultist with knowledge of arcane procedures: he is already a murderer with at least two victims on his scorecard: he is ruthless. The implication is that he has an aim or a goal towards which he is working, and whatever that aim is, it’s unlikely to be either world peace or donations to charity.” I gazed at the two demons, and for an instant I’m sure Smith noticed the fondness reflected in my eyes. “What I’m trying to say is, he can handle demons. Hey! Let’s be careful out there.”
Pharter and Phukkit shuffled their feet and sobered up a little. “We’ll watch out, Boss,” said Pharter.
“We won’t screw up, Guv,” assured Phukkit, “honest. You can trust us.”
“I know I can. That’s why I called you. Now remember, all I want you to do is try to locate his whereabouts and report it back to me. No heroics, understand? Don’t try to take him on by yourselves. He’s dangerous, even for demons - especially for demons.”
“We’ll be good, Boss,” affirmed Pharter, drawing a talon across his chest, “cross our hearts and hope to die. Except, we can’t actually die, ‘cause we ain’t never actually bin what you might call alive, leastways not in the evolutionary biological sense.”
“That’s right,” nodded Phukkit to his friend. “Only in the Descartian ‘I-think-therefore-I-am’ sense, ain’t it?”
“Well,” mused Pharter, “personally I tend more towards the Positivism of John Stewart Mill and Isidore Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive, but I ain’t goin’ ter split hairs abaht it wiv yer.”
“Well mate, per’aps we can agree on the middle ground of John Locke and his famous Essay on the Human Understanding of 1690, in which he arrived at the conclusion that sensation and reflection are the two sources of all ideas, which although it tended towards a form of logical positivism, nevertheless did not preclude the existence of the supernatural as a manifesting phenomenon.”
“I’ll give yer that,” agreed Pharter.
“Get out, you two!” I roared, laughing in spite of myself. They bustled out of my balcony door and flew off into the night.
I noticed Smith studying me with concentration written across her pretty features. “You know,” she remarked, “you seem continually able to surprise me. No matter how well I think I have got to know you, there’s always another layer buried deeper than the last. You actually love those two rascals, don't you?”
I sighed, considered denying it, then rejected it in favor of honesty. “Yes,” I admitted simply. “I’ve known them a very long time. They may be demons, sure, but they’re terribly innocent creatures.”
“I doubt if many human beings would agree with you there.”
“You’re probably right - but most of them have never met a demon off duty.”
“Maybe so, but most cultures throughout history have regarded demons as spiritual enemies, to be feared, fought and destroyed - or else to be destroyed by them.”
“Sandra,” I spoke gently, “did you ever have a pet dog?”
“Sure,” she replied, puzzled at the turn of my conversation. “When I was little, my parents had a King Charles spaniel. We were inseparable. He used to follow me to school and howl when he couldn’t go in with me.”
“What was his name?”
“Buster.”
“And, obviously, you loved him?”
“Of course I did. Everyone in the street did.”
“And yet,” I went on just as gently, “if you follow Buster’s family tree back to the Stone Age, his remote ancestors were wolves, and your remote ancestors lived in terror of them, and the unlucky ones were torn to pieces by them, and the unlucky wolves were speared, or clubbed, or shot with arrows. Until one night some unknown person - perhaps a child - brought a stray wolf cub into the cave and begged the others to let it stay by the warm fire, and they fed it and gave it water. And from that time onward, humankind and canines have marched together down the long centuries side-by-side, as inseparable as you and Buster. It was the first ever peace treaty between enemies - and it was brought about not by violence, not by hatred or fear, not by combat, force or weapons, but by the sheer power of love.”
She pondered my words. “Fericul,” she observed at length, “you are a truly remarkable man.”
We raced from my apartment back to the station house, which was no less busy just because it was night time; only the type of people being brought in for charging changed between day and night, with a higher proportion of drunks, ladies of negotiable virtue and pimps. On the way through to my glass-boxed office I snatched up a particular crime report from the general desk. It was overdue for checking out.
“Hey Fericul,” boomed a voice. It was the Chief, pausing on his way to his office, plastic drinking cup in hand and shirtsleeves rolled up. His arms looked like a pair of tights stuffed with melons. I knew he frequently worked late, sometimes sleeping in his office. “Who were those two little guys in purple fancy dress I saw through the glass this morning? What were they advertising?”
“Seaman’s Mission charity sale,” I replied without a moment's hesitation. “They wanted to know if they needed a street license.” He waved his cup and continued on his way.
I looked sheepishly at Smith. “I don’t have time for explanations,” I excused my lie. It would probably go down as a black mark on my record Above, but I had no time to worry about that right now. We burst into my office and sat down.
“This is the report from the museum.” I smoothed out the paper on the desk. Then I went very quiet, very quiet indeed, as I stared at it. Smith noticed my change of manner.
“What’s troubling you?” she asked, concerned.
“I should have checked this out earlier. Perhaps I should have gone to the training academy after all. So far, my career as a cop has consisted of a series of oversights and mistakes held together by lucky breaks.” I still stared at the paper.
“What was taken? Whatever it was, your manner tells me it was serious.”
“It was serious,” I agreed flatly. “He stole the Vessels of Shinar.”
Her tone was quiet and gentle. “What on earth are those?”
“Something that perhaps should not be on this earth today,” I answered equally quietly. “Shinar is the place where the peoples of the earth found a flat land and built on it the Tower of Babel: Genesis chapter 2 verse 2. That’s where the Vessels come from. Then they get mentioned again near the other end of the Old Testament, in Daniel chapter 1 verse 2. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem and captured Jehoiakim, the king of Judah. Jehoiakim is reported as having in his possession ‘the vessels of the house of God’ which came from ancient Shinar in the time when all the people of the earth were united and spoke only one language, before they were scattered and estranged after building Babel. He is said to have been able to use the power of these objects to defend the Israelites from the oppression of the Babylonians. There is a belief that it was the power of these things that enabled Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego to survive unharmed within the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, also described in the Book of Daniel, chapter 3, verses 14 to 27. Even the soldiers who threw them into the furnace were burned to death by the heat. ‘...And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace... and the furnace, exceeding hot, slew those men...’”
“Then, these Vessels of Shinar must have some kind of awesome power,” breathed Smith in a whisper. “This is beginning to sound like Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
“Except I’m no Indiana Jones with a way to neatly escape every danger,” I mused, half to myself. “The Vessels of Shinar were originally placed around the base of the Tower of Babel to prevent mankind from returning to it, and to cause the sundering of one tongue from another so that no tribe could understand its neighbor’s speech. And they were artifacts not of this earth, nor made by human hand.”
“Who made them then?”
“They were made by the Archangels of Heaven - my own kind. They are the only thing in the physical universe that can destroy me - and they are now in the hands of our enemy.”
“But you can’t die?” queried Smith incredulously. “You’re immortal.”
“To all intents and purposes, yes. But there is one thing in the universe that can destroy me - the power of That which made me in the first place: call it my Chairman. And it is a part of that power which resides still within the Vessels of Shinar.”
“Well, in that case, I think you had better stay at home and let me track down this black magician. Don’t risk your own self.”
I smiled somewhat grimly. “Detective, how many policemen and women do you suppose there are in the whole world, altogether? Every country?”
She pouted, well aware that another piece of my homespun philosophy was on its way. “In the whole world? I suppose thousands; hundreds of thousands; maybe millions.”
“And every single one of them, every day, runs the risk of being killed in the line of duty by some fellow human trying to commit a crime. It can happen in any country, not just the USA - in Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China - anywhere.”
“Yes, but...”
“And,” I continued remorselessly, “how many of them stay at home, hiding behind the furniture? And what sort of world would you mortals have if they did?”
“Yes, but there’s only one of you,” she finished desperately.
“There’s only one of them,” I pointed out gently. “There’s only one of you. There’s only one of everybody.” I tried to raise her spirits. “Come on, I’m not saying I won’t be careful. I have no wish to unform.”
“Unform?”
“It’s what happens to an angel instead of dying,” I explained. “We’re not alive in the strict biological sense. We are alive in the supreme spiritual sense. As such, we already transcend life and death. We don’t die as such; we unform. Become nothing.”
“It amounts to the same thing.”
“Maybe it does. But there are many other things this guy can do using the Vessels. As far as I know, there’s no reason he should have even the slightest inkling that I’m on the scene in person. Amongst mortals, only you know that. I’m reasonably certain he did not steal the Vessels with me in mind as their target. It’s my bet that he plans something involving their use, but probably not my personal demise. In any case, it will take him time to learn how to master them. It’s not merely a question of picking them up and pointing them.” I grew thoughtful. “Yes... something involving their use... I wonder just what that might be...?”
I saw her staring at my feet, crestfallen. Almost stricken. Suddenly I realized that I had to admit something to myself; I felt love. Me, Satan, custodian of damned souls, Governor of the Infernal Regions, fallen Archangel, worldly-wise cynic and movie critic. And then I realized something equally important - I should tell her. So I did, there and then. She perked up considerably. Several minutes later, when we came up for air, she said; “Let’s go back to your place. I thought we had a lifetime: then I thought we had a year: now for all I know we have only days or hours.”
Much later, sometime around four in the morning, she turned her head to me on the pillow beside mine and asked: “So how did these Vessels of Shinar come to be in a museum vault in LA?” I guess I’ll never fathom the workings of the mind of a woman.
“Simple,” I replied, stroking her hair. “When the Israelites came out of bondage in Babylon they took the Vessels with them on their journey home, but there were several battles fought with powerful tribes in Palestine who resented having to relinquish land to people who had been gone for over a generation. When the fighting became intense, many of the important holy relics were taken by trusted couriers to remote places for safe keeping. The soldiers who hid the Vessels were ambushed and killed on their way back, and so nobody knew where they had hidden them. Cut to the present day. An American archaeological team excavating in the Sinai desert, which is referred to in the Bible as the Wilderness of Shur, finds them in a tel, a mound of debris marking a place where there was once a settlement.
“Not knowing what they were, but realizing their great antiquity, they obtain permission from the local authorities to have them shipped to their museum back in the States for detailed forensic examination. They were puzzled, you see. These things - the Vessels of Shinar - are five fairly small pots or sealed jars, each about the size of a wine bottle but without the tapering neck, something like small torpedoes. They look as though they were made of carved obsidian, like black glass, but the letters and figures carved on their surfaces are not Hebrew, not Egyptian, nor any other alphabet or hieroglyphics ever written on earth. This is what puzzled the experts and made them want to ship them home until they could devote sufficient time to their study. They were locked away in a museum vault. Then enter our sorcerer, aided by Surgat who can open all locks, and that’s where we came in.”
“I see,” she whispered, then turned over and went back to sleep.
11. The Good, The Bad and The Demons...
There now came some developments in the case in which I myself was not actually a participant but, since you need to know about them, I can still tell you, because I found out about them afterwards from others who were there.
Pharter and Phukkit, as I had told Detective Smith, were both reliable and shrewd. I had given them the job of trying to track down the murdering sorcerer, and they both felt certain they were up to the task. After flying away from my rooftop patio the night before, they reached the roof of the gigantic Amalgamated Insurance building and paused to take thought together. They settled at the edge like a couple of gargoyles, heads held thoughtfully in their talons, wings furled high above their shoulders like monstrous praying hands in the dark shadows. Of course, being demons, their minds were not subject to the same restrictions as mortal humans and they were able to hold two conversations at once, one focusing on the task they had been set, the other revolving around their hobby, which happened to be philosophy. Demons can be strange people.
“Well mate,” asked Pharter, “what do you think?”
“I think I tend more towards the empiricism of Bacon than to the idealism of Spinoza.”
“No, I meant, what do you think we should do now? And we both must concur that the materialistic certainty of Helvetius and La Mettrie is right out the window.”
“I think we should contact HQ for assistance; and the common sense school of Reid in the eighteenth century is equally laughable, even though Dugald Stewart followed his lead in his Outlines of Moral Philosophy of 1799.”
“That's not a bad idea. They might be able to get a fix on this black magician with the spiritual direction-finder; but Stewart became slightly less convinced of the mathematical approach to universality in Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind written in 1805 but not published until 1810.”
“The big problem there, of course, is that we would need a cross-bearing to fix his exact location. A single bearing would merely give us the straight line he was on, which might be hundreds of miles long and take hours to check, if not days. Kant, however, sought to unite the realistic and idealistic schools and may be considered the father of nineteenth century philosophy.”
“Ah, but maybe this guy has already done some other occult working that has left a trace in the ether. Jacobi opposed Kant, though, as did Fichte with his Subjective Idealism, which carried much weight amongst the cognizant intellectual fraternity of the time.”
“I see what you’re saying - if he has already left some other trace in the ether, HQ might be able to pick it up, even though it’s fading, and get the intersecting line we need from that, giving us a precise cross-bearing. Schelling was equally opposed to Kant, with his own ideas of objective idealism which were strongly conditioned by the background of European industrialism.”
“OK, let's get on the blower to HQ and see if they can do it for us. And don’t forget the importance of Hegel’s absolutism in idealistic terms.”
Pharter took out his mobile phone and stabbed some buttons. The call was answered after a few rings. “Hello - is that Phixit? Pharter here. Look, can you get on the direction finder for us? You can? Good. You know that sod who summoned Surgat the other day? Well, I know you managed to get a cross bearing on him for the Boss then, but I want you to try something a bit more difficult now. Quite a lot more difficult, actually. His lifeline will still be on the frequency, but can you get a reading on any more recent occult activity he may have done, so we can derive a more current cross bearing for him? We need an intersection point to pin down his present whereabouts.”
Pharter removed the mobile from his pointed ear and juggled it slightly in his hand. “He’s going to have a look and see if he can do it,” he informed Phukkit. “He'll call us back.”
After about another ten minutes of philosophical discussion, the mobile played its ringing tune, Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight, and Pharter pressed the stud. “Yeah? You did? Good bloke! Where is he? Where? Right, got it. What? You reckon? You may be right at that. See you. ‘Bye.”
“What did ‘e say?” enquired Phukkit.
“He says he feels more drawn towards Schopenhauer’s doctrine uniting Kant’s idealism with the school of realism, and ‘e gave us a location off of the direction-finder. The signal was old, so ‘e could only pin it dahn to an area of abaht ten blocks, but it’s better’n having to search ‘undreds of blooming miles. We might find ‘im in a few hours, wiv any luck.”
Two pairs of huge, batlike wings unfurled and flapped away into the brightening glare of the rising sun. In various nearby crevices, traumatized pigeons slowly began to stick wary heads out, carefully looking round to see if they had really gone.
A few hours later and several miles away, a man entered a shop. Two pairs of eyes watched him from behind the cover of a brightly colored bead curtain.
“It's him!” shrieked Celia Touchwood in a whisper. It is a well-known biological fact that only a woman can shriek in a whisper: the male simply cannot do it, being capable only of either whispering quietly or shrieking loudly. “It’s the man that gorgeous policeman was asking about, Giovanni Vittorio. What do we do?”
“We serve him calmly, like any other customer,” stated Claire Touchwood firmly, “and then we must try to follow him surreptitiously and, at the same time, contact Inspector Fericul and let him know what’s going on.” They emerged into the shop. The man purchased a few specific magical ingredients from the oils and incenses section, paid for them in cash and left. The sisters gave him a minute’s start then quietly shut up shop, locked the door behind them and followed him down the street at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards.
“Get on your mobile to the Inspector,” suggested Celia to Claire. “We need help fast.”
“We’ll have to use yours,” came the reply. “I didn’t bring mine.”
“I didn’t bring mine either; I thought you would bring yours.”
“Oh great!”
The two of them suddenly had to stop and pretend to be looking in a shop window. “I'm getting jumpy,” stated Celia. “He keeps looking over his shoulder. Do you think he knows he’s being followed?”
“I don’t see how. I think he is just being cautious. What we need urgently is to find some honest, brave, upstanding, law-abiding and intelligent person in the street to whom we can explain things quickly and get them to come along with us for extra safety and support. Preferably two of them – there’s safety in numbers.”
“Are you getting jumpy too, then?” enquired Celia.
“You bet your sweet life I am.”
“I’m so keyed up, I would scream out loud if so much as a black cat ran out round the corner ahead.”
They were approaching the mouth of a narrow alley. “You duck quickly into the alley,” ordered Claire “and look for a phone booth”.
Just then, the sound of approaching voices came from around the corner in the alley. “Men,” hissed Clare, “and intelligent ones by the sound of their conversation. We’re in luck - look, to calm your nerves, just dash around the corner and grab them, whoever they are, and then you won’t be afraid of a thing.”
The voices grew clearer. One of them was saying: “Royer-Collard, Reid’s disciple, advocated an eclectic spiritual school, which Cousin built up when the materialism of Broursais and the positivism of Auguste Comte came to the front of social thinking...”
Celia dashed round the corner, hands outstretched ready to urgently grab the talkers.
In the nineteenth century, male chauvinism reigned supreme in a way that would bring lawsuits today. A medical dictionary of 1898 contains the following definition: "Hysteria, as its name implies, is entirely a disease of females...” This is scientifically incorrect, as we are all well aware. In a Los Angeles alley in the present day, however, that smug male doctor might have got it right without ever realizing it. Dashing round a blind corner and grabbing hold of two rather surprised demons from Hell did it for Celia, her nerves already almost completely shattered. The black magician had been occasionally turning his head as he walked, but now everybody in the main street within a range of nearly a mile turned their heads at the scream that pierced the morning air. A Canadian Pacific steam loco approaching a washed out bridge across a gorge at ninety miles an hour in an old movie could not have done a better job.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as they say, Smith and I were in my apartment and had finished showering. A breakfast-shaped gap had appeared in our lives. Smith, in my spare dressing gown, was inspecting the contents of my refrigerator. “Don’t you have any bacon? Bacon and eggs would be wonderful.”
“Sorry,” I apologized, “no bacon. I don’t eat it.”
“Why ever not?”
“Er - well - essentially, I have Jewish and Arabic roots, if you think about it.”
“Hmmm.” She frowned mischievously. “I’ll have to send the oysters back too, then.”
“Oysters are over-rated,” I remarked. “They’re supposed to be an aphrodisiac, but I ate twelve last night and only nine of them worked.” She threw a cushion at my head. “How about waffles?” I suggested. “Look in the freezer compartment.”
She rummaged and pulled out a pack of waffles. “They’re frozen,” she complained. “We need to let them thaw, and we don’t have the time.”
“I can microwave them.”
“I don’t see any microwave in your kitchen.”
“Just put them on a plate for me and leave them on the table.”
Slightly mystified, she did so. I aimed my hand at them from across the room and waggled my fingers very slightly. The waffles instantly sizzled, browned and sent out a delicious smell. “That was my micro-wave, see?”
She ticked off items on her fingers. “That’s good taste in wristwatches and juvenile sense of humor we need to have a serious discussion about soon.”
We put breakfast on trays and sat in my living room to eat. I switched on the TV with the remote. “We might as well see if there’s any early news stories we could link to our case - robbery at Fort Knox, someone stealing the USS Nimitz, anything like that.”
Just as the news logo appeared on the screen and the music started, however, a burst of interference covered the screen in a brief flurry of lines and snowstorms. After a couple of moments, a picture appeared again - but it was not the familiar image of two well-known news presenters at their desk. The screen went bright red and a deep voice announced: “We interrupt your regular program to bring you a newsflash from Hell!” Then a news studio appeared, with a large red and pink demon sitting behind a desk facing the camera, a sheaf of papers in his talon-tipped hands. This demon was big, built like a WWF wrestler. His head and face were modeled almost along the same lines as Butch the bulldog from the Tom and Jerry cartoons; a solitary bright fang emerged from his lower jaw on the left side and indented his upper lip. With massive hands like bunches of pink bananas he shuffled the papers absently.
I sighed. “Gaylord, must you always be so theatrical?”
The demon’s shoulders slumped and he looked abashed. “Sorry Boss,” he mumbled. “Only, I knew you had company, and I needed to speak to you, and I didn’t want her to notice anything unusual.”
“It didn’t work. Go on, Gaylord, why the sudden need to communicate?”
“Boss, there’s been another Summoning. This time it’s Raum. He’s been invoked to physical appearance.”
I started. “Raum? Invoked?”
Gaylord nodded miserably. “I thought you ought to be told.”
“Gaylord, you did the right thing. Well done, old friend. When did this happen?”
“Only about four or five minutes ago, Boss.”
“Did anyone manage to get a bearing on where he was summoned to?”
“Yes Boss, Phixit did, as usual. The place is the old Wild West Main Street set on the back lot of the MWB film studio. We think he’s in the saloon. Phixit was really on the ball this time - pinpoint accuracy.”
“OK Gaylord, and thanks. We’d better get there fast.”
“Don’t you want to wait for the weather forecast?” asked Gaylord hopefully. I turned off the TV.
“To the garage, fast,” I said with authority. “This gets worse.”
Snatching on some street clothing, we raced for the elevator. On the ride down from the 13th floor Smith had time to ask me: “I know every demon has some specialty or other, like Surgat opening all locks. What does this guy Raum do, that makes you so panic stricken?”
I had to consciously calm myself back to being a cool dude again. “Raum can tell about the past and future, he can steal any treasure - and he can destroy cities!”
The elevator seemed to take forever to reach the garage level, although actually it was a high-speed type and only took a couple of minutes. My auto’s gull-wing doors swished open as we ran towards it and jumped in. “No time for subtleties now,” I apologized, and immediately threw the automatic selector stick out of P for ‘park’ and into CTB.
“That’s the position you said meant ‘Catch the Bastard’ isn’t...” began Smith, then lost the power of speech.
Imagine a piece of movie footage that has been speeded up, oh, say a hundred times. Imagine that the camera was inside an automobile, filming a journey from the driver’s point of view. That is how it appeared to us as my car showed what it was capable of. Everything outside suddenly became transformed into a hazy blur of buildings, traffic and people. The MWB studio in Hollywood Hills was some fifteen miles from my apartment. An ordinary car could not average 60 mph through those busy, crammed streets, but if it had, it would still have taken it fifteen minutes to complete the trip. We did it inside four minutes! Smith was pressed back deeply into the padded seat and could move nothing except her eyes. I saw them swivel to watch the electronic figures flashing up on the speedo readout, which blinked up 120... 150... 200 ... 300... 350... 400 in as much time as it takes to read the numbers. Then it ceased showing numbers altogether and flashed up the message ‘Approaching Relativity Violation’. Then she registered the fact that we were not having to swerve in and out around the traffic; we were passing straight through other vehicles, buildings, trees, people, as though the outside world were made of nothing but mist.
“How...?” Smith managed to get out in a gasp of breath.
“It’s to do with quantum mechanics and relativity,” I explained. “Your scientific theorists haven’t yet succeeded in unifying the two.” I reflected briefly. “When they do, the Indianapolis 500 will really be something - unless you accidentally blink and miss it.” And then we were there, instantly rolling gently along at little more than twenty miles per hour.
I parked a small distance from the studio front gates: I did not wish Vittorio the sorcerer to see my auto, which might have aroused suspicions in his mind that I would much rather were not there. Our police badges got us past the uniformed security guards at the main gate who told us how to get to the back lot through the maze of long studio buildings. There were two permanent outdoor sets erected there which were frequently dressed up in different makeovers to provide scenes in various movies and TV shows. One was the typical modern city street, where the office buildings were mere shells built only as far up as the fifth floor and supported at back by massive wooden buttresses; the other was the equally typical old Wild West Main Street. In this latter, many of the buildings were nothing more than buttress-supported front facades, but some were complete with interiors to allow cameras to track in and out in one take without having to cut to a studio shot. The saloon was one such. Nothing was being filmed on the back lot at this time and the sandy street was deserted as we entered it. Suddenly, I felt like the gunfighter in numerous movie clichés who walks up an empty Main Street, spurs clinking. The setting was evocative, more so for someone like me who was a sap for the movies.
We stopped and I turned to Smith. “Look, this is not just sentimental bullshit, but I want you to wait. We have to work to a strategy. Whether you like it or not, you can’t argue that I know more about what might be waiting for us in that saloon, if Vittorio is still in occupancy. I’m going in first, and I want you to be my backup in case I need it. Keep out of sight on the boardwalk and then advance carefully behind me, about twenty feet. Keep alert.”
My tone brooked no argument and she nodded. I resumed walking up the centre of the street while she dropped back and shadowed me at the side, up on the boardwalk. For one of the few times in my long existence, I was decidedly nervous. This guy had the tools to destroy me, as effectively as a grenade stuffed down the pants would destroy a mortal. The only two uncertainties were whether or not he knew how to use his tools effectively against me, and whether he knew exactly who I was; the only certainty was that I was going to find out, one way or the other.
Reaching the saloon’s half-doors, I was not surprised to find a strong psychic energy field there. In earlier times, it would have been called a glamour, a variety of spell that makes things look better than they are. This was a good one, obviously cast by a competent expert. It created the illusion of complete normality, so that if any studio staff should happen to look inside they would notice nothing untoward. Indeed, they could send in a gang of set decorators to make the place ready for a shoot and they would not see or hear anything out of the ordinary while they worked around what was really going on inside.
And what was going on was this. A magic circle had been meticulously set out on the wooden floor in white paint, complete with obligatory occult symbols and names of power. Standing in the centre was a black-robed figure with their back to the door. On the father side of the circle near the saloon bar an equally well-painted Triangle of Art was positioned, within which cowered Raum the demon, obviously greatly intimidated. The robed sorcerer was shouting and screaming threats and curses at Raum, waving his arms and making fists, in the time-honored method by which sorcerers compelled demons to obey their will: the psychic field damped all sound emanating from the magic circle and triangle.
I knew what to do: none better. In order to disrupt a ritual of demonology, it was necessary to accomplish three things: distract the concentration of the sorcerer so that his will was broken for a moment; get him to step outside the protection of the magic circle; and enable the demon to escape from the imprisoning Triangle of Art so it could tear the magician to pieces. There was only one sure-fire way I could think of for accomplishing all three requirements fast enough. I charged through the half-doors and hit the sorcerer from behind with an illegal footballer’s shoulder tackle, knocking him violently out of his protective circle and sending him sprawling on the floor some yards away. Raum looked up in surprise: there was the dawning of relief visible on his face.
The black-robed figure sprang to his feet and spun to face me. About to scream some obscenity, he glanced down and realized with horror that his feet were outside the circle. I noticed that I was looking at the same face I had sketched from the Touchwood sister’s description. He stared at me, now uncertain of himself, for he knew he was suddenly vulnerable to the onslaught of the demon he had raised.
“Yes,” I remarked to him almost casually. “You have left the Circle of Protection. I have only to release the demon from the Triangle of Art and he will tear you limb from limb.”
“You bet your sweet ass I will,” rumbled Raum in a low, menacing voice, rising to his feet.
“You know nothing!” spat Vittorio the sorcerer with a sneer, rubbing his shoulder; it had impacted hard on the floor. “I cast the Triangle, and only I can banish it. No other mortal power can affect it in any way.”
How about an immortal power, I thought to myself. Raising my left hand, I easily absorbed the energy that formed the psychic fences of the Triangle. In an instant, Raum was free. He reared up, bright crimson with rather delicate yellow spots, a mighty jaw filled with bared shark-like teeth, gleaming eyes and large, flared hairy nostrils: not a pretty sight. The nostrils, I mean - the rest of him wasn’t too bad, as demons go.
Vittorio panicked. And in a panic, people do unpredictable things, usually described as knee-jerk reaction. He leaped for the rear of the saloon where there was a traditional long Wild West bar complete with a shining brass foot rail. Raum strode out of the now ineffective Triangle in pursuit, stopping briefly as he passed me to slap his hands on mine in a Harlem Handshake. “Nice one, Boss!” he growled. “That’s another one I owe you.” Then he tuned his mighty head in search of his tormentor.
Vittorio had used the few scant seconds to grab something he had hidden behind the bar. He ducked out of sight and immediately came up with a glistening black object about the size of a wine bottle. He began to touch it in a strange stroking way. Raum and I looked at each other, looked back at Vittorio, and without waiting to think about it we both dived like acrobats out of the saloon doors into the sandy street outside, gracefully flying across the boardwalk without even touching it. We landed heavily, rolling, before I could even remember that I could fly – I was also subject to knee-jerk reactions. Smith had by then reached the saloon herself and had to jerk back as we passed her at eye level. She stared at the pair of us sprawling in the dust.
“Who’s in there - John Wayne?” she had time to say, and then there was a tremendous explosion as though a bomb had gone off inside. The half-doors were blown across the street closely followed by bits of saloon furniture, fragments of Pianola and twisted bits of brass foot rail amid a billowing cloud of splinters and smoking floorboards.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Raum, and then looked guilty. Glancing up at the sky he swiftly muttered: “Sorry, inappropriate exclamation for a demon. I was caught by surprise.”
Raum was huge, about eight feet tall with bulging muscles, his legs and feet like those of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Standing up, he stooped and helped me to my feet. “That one was meant for us, Boss.”
“Perhaps,” I answered, “but I believe it was a measure of desperation in an emergency. I don’t think he actually knew what would happen if he made the activation passes in the presence of Satan. I don’t think he knows who I really am. He was just expecting you, the demon he had summoned, to be instantly banished back to Hell. It was you who frightened him, not me. He didn’t realize that activating the thing near me would make it go off like that.”
“Are we going back inside to try to catch him?” asked Raum: for a demon, he was a very thoughtful and sensible person. He would have made a good politician, except that most demons are not evil enough to qualify.
“Surely nobody inside could have survived that blast?” queried Smith.
“Come and see,” I invited. I led the way back into the wrecked saloon. Smith made to follow me, but Raum gently held out a massive clawed hand to stop her.
“Let me go next, Miss, please,” he stated firmly, “just in case.” This time, Smith didn’t argue, possibly taken by surprise at his gentle gallantry.
Inside, you could clearly see what had happened. The sorcerer, Vittorio, had obviously been quite unharmed. The rear wall behind the bar was undamaged and unmarked; even the obligatory huge baroque-framed mirror was unbroken. From the point on the bar behind which he had stood, a fan-shaped mess of sooty, fragmented floor spread out in the direction of the door. Furniture near the rear was untouched. The explosive force had issued forward like the blast from a great sawn-off shotgun, spreading out as it traveled; it had not spread spherically in all directions like the blast of a bomb. A rear door behind the bar gaped suggestively open on its hinges.
“He’s got away!” Smith exclaimed.
“Let’s get after him,” urged Raum, taking a giant step toward the open door.
“Not you, my friend,” I said to him. “Nothing personal, but we’re on the earth plane now, and you are too conspicuous.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked the demon.
“Go to Hell!” I replied. “I want you to go back to Hell and alert everyone as to what is happening here, especially Phixit - he might be able to track him on instruments if we lose his trail.”
“OK,” answered Raum grudgingly. “You’re the boss, Boss.”
“Just a minute,” put in Smith, “before you go, what was Vittorio trying to get you to do, Raum?”
The huge demon gazed at her with sorrowful eyes and shook his head in memory of it. “He wanted me to destroy Los Angeles,” he replied in a gravel voice.
“I hereby grant thee thy license to depart. Avaunt ye!” I commanded, and Raum vanished with a soggy pop like a wet gum bubble bursting.
“This guy’s a maniac!” exclaimed Smith drawing her police issue pistol. “Let’s go!”
We ran out through the back door into a maze of wooden buttresses supporting the fake buildings amongst protruding brick cabins housing those few fitted with interiors. To left and in front was a very high wall; only to the right was there any avenue of escape. Vittorio must have gone that way. We raced off in the same direction. As we ran, Smith panted a question. “Was that thing that went bang one of the Vessels of Shinar?”
“It was. Lucky for us it looks like he only brought the one with him, not all five. If he had activated all of them at once, I wouldn't be here now, and nor would Raum be safely on his way home.”
“What exactly did the damn thing do?”
“The Vessels were made with two main functions,” I answered. “To prevent mortals from seeing anything they are positioned around - particularly the Tower of Babel, but it works for anything else, too; and to react against spiritual entities like me, in case I decided to allow mortals access to the Tower after the speech of mankind was diversified into many languages. I was not dreaming of doing that anyway, but some of the other archangels distrust me, for some reason.
“Even though I have this physical form, it would have been curtains if I hadn’t leaped clear of the blast. I myself, and Raum, were the triggers. If we had not been present in the vicinity, nothing much would have happened when he activated the Vessel. Without people like me within range, the Vessels need specific rituals to activate them, and then their powers can be controlled, not loosed off in one bang - like the difference between an atom bomb and a nuclear power plant.”
We rounded a corner and saw the small figure of Vittorio disappearing into the distance. The big problem now was that this part of the studio complex was not deserted; they were in the middle of shooting a movie on the back lot. Judging by the muddy trenches, barbed wire and the uniforms of hundreds of extras that swarmed over the set, it was a World War I story.
Just as the scene came into our view, a director with an electric bullhorn shouted “Action!” and soldiers started to advance across the wasteland with fixed bayonets. If we followed the fleeing fugitive, we would have to run directly across the set amongst the extras, right in front of the cameras. You may already have gathered that I was a great fan of the movies: you could not ask me to deliberately ruin a shoot. It was not fair to my personal standards. It would be like asking a stamp collector to use his Mauritius Blue to mail an urgent letter. For one of the few times in my extraordinarily long existence I wavered in an extremity of uncertainty. Smith was stalled too, picking up on my own doubts. To sense a weakness in me was a new experience for her, and I don’t think she liked it much. Far off, Vittorio had nearly reached the far side of the set, out of camera, leaping wildly across trenches and skirting tumbles of barbed wire.
It was then that I heard music. My immediate gut reaction was to think; “Surely they put the musical score in afterwards?” An instant later, I realized that the music was coming from behind us, not from the battlefield set in front. And it was coming down from the sky! We both looked up simultaneously. And up there was a sight I shall never forget if I live to be ten billion.
The music now blared out with extreme loudness. It was Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. There in the sky came swooping down Claire and Celia Touchwood, riding on the backs of Pharter and Phukkit, the demon’s bat-like wings outstretched and swept back delta-wise like fighter planes. They all waved cheerfully as they zoomed overhead, then swooped low over the movie set. In just a few moments, they had caught up with the fleeing Vittorio.
With a sudden flash, an eruption like an exploding shell sent up a gout of earth at Vittorio’s feet, forcing him to leap wildly to one side. An instant later, another one sent him staggering for several steps. “Come on!” I barked, having thus been reminded where my realities lay. “Duty comes before spoiling a take.” We ran into the mock battlefield amid the startled and bemused extras.
The Touchwood sisters, mounted on their demonic pilots, zoomed past Vittorio at an altitude of about thirty feet, banked, turned and began another bombing run. Again, as we ran and leaped across the battlefield, fountains of earth erupted all around Vittorio, forcing him to zigzag wildly.
"Hoy-aho! Hoy-aho!” shrilled Wagner’s masterpiece deafeningly, throbbing in the affrighted air. As Smith and I pelted hell-for-leather (no pun intended) we passed within a score of feet of the camera crane and clustered technicians, dolly-grippers, boom-operators and a swearing continuity girl who was busily tearing up her copy of the script and dancing up and down on it. I heard a gaffer question the director:
“What the fuck is going on, Stephen?”
“I don’t know - but I’m keeping it in the picture. Keep that camera rolling. We’ll re-write the story to include this.”
That, I could not help thinking, could bestow an Oscar, or possibly a straightjacket, upon the writer.
Pharter and Phukkit completed another zooming turn, sounding for all the world like straining World War I biplanes. This time they zoomed in lower, only some twenty feet up. Even at our distance of about a quarter of a mile you could see their rigid wings gently rocking as they leveled up and turned directly towards the still-running Vittorio.
"Dah dah dadah DAH da!” roared the music majestically. Trenches and coils of barbed wire burst asunder in fiery explosions beneath the speeding demons, thickening the air with clouds of debris. Claire and Celia Touchwood, clinging tightly to the demon’s waistcoat collars with just one hand, whooped with the thrill of the chase and brandished their free hands like bronco-busters as they dived out of the smoky air into clearer view. Then in an instant, it was all over: direct hit! The ground burst upward beneath Vittorio’s running feet and he and a great deal of earth shot skywards, almost in slow-motion, or so it seemed to us. He landed with a thump several yards away, as limp as a rag doll.
Whilst Smith and I finished pounding the remaining couple of hundred yards to where the motionless figure lay in a small crater, the demons performed a skilful mid-air turn and prepared to land, lowering their undercarriage - that is, sticking their legs down and running fit-to-burst in mid air, trying desperately to make their pace match their ground speed. We all arrived at much the same time at the place where the body lay. The sisters dismounted and shook hands solemnly with the two demons, who saluted them proudly. I noticed that Pharter wore a leather 1917 flying cap complete with ear-flaps and goggles, with holes cut out for his horns: it reminded me vaguely of Snoopy. He even sported a white scarf. Claire Touchwood held up a small portable tape recorder and switched it off. The music stopped abruptly. Its volume had obviously been greatly magnified by magical power.
Phukkit stretched his stiff muscles and swaggered towards Smith and I. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Ahhh... I love the smell of brimstone in the early morning.”
“Well done,” I congratulated them, “very well done! Talk about ‘here comes the cavalry’. You deserve medals, all four of you. Brilliant work!”
“What about him?” asked Celia, gesturing towards the body that lay face down in its muddy crater. Smith moved quickly to the motionless form and started to examine the neck for any sign of a remaining pulse. Then she pulled back with a small cry.
“Look!” she exclaimed in a tremulous voice.
We looked. The body had no face. Just a smooth, blank oval of skin. No mouth, eyes, nose - nothing.
“Oh cobblers!” groaned Pharter with feeling. “After all that. It’s just a doppelganger.” His voice trailed off in disappointed anticlimax.
“Doppelganger?” responded Smith. “That means a double. You mean this is a double?”
I looked close, kneeling down beside the body. “I'm afraid so,” I confirmed bitterly. “It’s an occultly created double of Vittorio. He must have raised it quickly as a decoy to distract our attention and draw our fire while he himself made a neat getaway in another direction entirely. When he had no further use for it he relinquished control of it with his willpower and its facial features vanished.” I stood up again. “Basically, it’s nothing more than an astral puppet. The whole thing will disappear within a minute or two.”
“Which leaves us back at square one,” observed Smith ruefully.
In the far distance, a happy voice called out through a bullhorn; “Cut! Print it!”
12. Piecing it Together...
We couldn’t really stand about in a group in full view of hundreds of extras and studio staff, who were beginning to take more than a passing interest in us, especially in the two short stuntmen in demon costumes who could fly without special effects, so we quickly ducked out and made our way back to the Wild West Main Street set by a circuitous route. We knew that set was deserted. The saloon was largely wrecked, but the jailhouse was another of those few buildings with a complete interior and we trouped inside. On the way, I had phoned Phixit on my mobile to see whether he could get a location on Vittorio with his equipment but no trace of the sorcerer could be picked up. He was obviously being much more cautious now, and knew how to block his astral signal. I needed time to think. It galled me that we had come so close to our quarry only for him to outwit us. No - that was a lingering trace of vanity - it was me alone who had been outwitted: the others had done splendid things, all of them, and I, to whom they looked for leadership and knowledge and the ability to pull rabbits out of hats, had let them all down. I was morose.
“Cheer up, boss - you can’t win ‘em all,” said Pharter in an encouraging tone, slapping me on the back.
“‘S right,” agreed Phukkit with forced cheerfulness.
“Maybe the propaganda is right,” I muttered despondently. “‘Don’t let Satan lead you astray!”
“I told you so!” said Claire Touchwood triumphantly to her sister. “I told you it was him!”
Smith, the two demons and I turned as one to look at them; I had forgotten that they were strangers in our little soirée. I sat down in the sheriff’s chair behind a big old desk. “Yes,” I affirmed with a trace of bitterness. “It’s me. I’m Satan himself; the Devil; Old Nick; trying for a second chance, and failing miserably, OK?”
“Hey, it’s not their fault,” chided Smith. “They were on our side, remember?”
Pharter and Phukkit looked at me, a trace of disapproval in their expressions, then shuffled closer to the two sisters in a wordless declaration of support and admiration. They were my two most loyal and trusted lieutenants. Suddenly, I felt like a heel. Self-pity is a disgusting thing. I stood up and walked over to stand before the five of them, Smith, demons and Touchwoods. I felt so bad about my attitude that I knelt down on one knee before them and bowed my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice deep with shame and humility. “I was out of order. I had no right to speak to you like that. I can only ask for your forgiveness, ladies - and demons.
Claire placed her hand on my head. “Get up,” she said gently. “Of course we forgive you. You’re under tremendous stress. We understand.” I stood up, and I admit that my eyes were moist. “Hey,” she announced brightly, “this is an honor for us, isn’t it Celia? We’ve been into the occult for years - professionally, you understand - and you are the first occult celebrity we’ve met. Aren’t you going to tell us about yourself, why you’re here on the earth-plane, why you’re a policeman? It’s not exactly how we had envisioned you, you know.”
And so we all sat down and I related my story to them, the hows and whys. It was good psychology: Claire was smart. By the end, I had snapped out of it and recovered my normal poise and attitude again. Smith finished off by adding, “And you should see his dog! He’s so big and woofley, with big red eyes, and he loves his tummy rubbed.” I couldn’t help smiling. I had never before heard the Hound of Satan referred to as “woofley”. The Hound of Satan. Satan’s Hound. My dog... Niblick! Niblick! Mentally I kicked myself.
“That’s it!” I shouted. “That’s the answer!”
“Wot, Niblick?” spluttered Pharter, as though I had taken leave of my senses.
“I ain’t taking him for no more walkies,” put in Phukkit quickly. “It’s someone else’s turn. He stops and sniffs every tombstone.”
“No, no, no,” I waved him into silence. “Niblick can track an occult trace just as skillfully as a mortal bloodhound can follow a scent. We need Niblick here, and quickly. He can pick up the psychic smell from where Vittorio has been, like the saloon, and follow it to wherever he may be hiding!”
“Cor blimey, boss, you’re right!” exclaimed Pharter. “That’s a diamond idea.” He turned to Phukkit and pointed at him with a talon. “You go at full speed and bring the dog back here, pronto.”
Phukkit slouched resignedly for the door. “I knew it would be me what ‘as to take ‘im walkies,” he grumbled.
Demons exist in real-time when in the physical plane, although they can move a great deal faster through the world than can mortals: they are not bothered by speed-limit signs, for one thing, and only rarely by traffic cops. Even so, I knew it would take Phukkit about half an hour to complete the thirty mile round trip to fetch Niblick from my apartment. He would probably be a lot quicker on the way back than on the way there; Niblick pulling someone on the end of a leash during walkies resembled nothing so much as a water-skiing championship held on dry land.
I decided I must use the time wisely. I had not failed: I had only suffered a temporary setback. Mortals recover from these every day. Once more, I started to act the part of Mr. Strong Leadership. “Ladies,” I addressed the Touchwood sisters, “nobody is ordering you to do anything, or even requesting it. What we are involved in is extremely dangerous. But if you did decide to tag along and join the team, of your own free will, you would be more than welcome. Understand - and you, Detective - that if a mortal gets in to a personal life extinguishment situation, even I cannot reverse the process. If I, or a handy demon, happens to be around and paying attention, we can put out all sorts of safety nets, but when the last chips are down, if you get killed, all I can do is send you a postcard telling you what weather you’re missing. If you want to continue helping on this case - and boy! do I need help! - your decision must be made with this in mind.”
“Fericul,” snapped Smith instantly, “I’m with you all the way, whatever the ending.”
Claire and Celia looked at each other. “You can count us in, too,” replied Claire.
“We wouldn’t miss out on this for anything,” agreed Celia.
“For what it’s worth, I’m on your team already Guv, and that’s where I’m staying,” said Pharter, removing his flying helmet at last. “And I know I can speak for Phukkit and the rest of the blokes.”
Claire turned to Pharter. “You said ‘blokes’: are there any female demons, as a matter of interest?”
“Yeah,” answered Pharter, “but they mainly stay at home by the fire.”
“Oh, I see,” said Claire. Then, as a possible alternative implication of what Phukkit had said dawned on her, “Oh! I see! That fire!”
“You ladies seem to have made a conquest with my chief demons,” I chuckled.
“It was something of a surprise when we first encountered them,” Celia reflected, “but we soon became friends.”
“Yeah,” nodded Pharter. “As soon as she stopped screaming and let Phukkit and me get a word in edgeways, we soon realized that we had lots in common. They told us they had been following Vittorio from the shop, so I suggested we would find it easier to track him from the air.”
“Hmmm...” I mused, standing up and pacing the jailhouse floor. “Vittorio! What is he after, I wonder?”
“Let’s try and analyze what we know about him,” suggested Smith.
“OK. Good idea. You start.”
“Well, the dead priest’s sister said she thought he came from Italy, from Rome, so he is probably a visitor rather than an Italian-American.”
“And he can pass himself off as a Roman Catholic priest,” I added. “He managed to fool the two priests he murdered.”
“And he was dressed as a priest when he first came to our shop,” added Celia
.
“And yet he’s definitely not a priest,” I stated.
“How do you know?” queried Claire.
“I got it from the top.”
“He knows about black magic and the occult, don’t forget,” contributed Pharter, “and is probably a Man of Power - a tenth degree Ipsissimus of the black arts. I think it more than a possibility that he may actually be an unfrocked priest.”
“An unfrocked priest is one of the essential personnel of a black magic group,” said Claire.
“And he seems to have followed Father David from Rome,” I added, “probably because Father David had succeeded in obtaining the Angelus Demonica Sumnonum of Aaron there, and Vittorio wanted it for his own purposes.”
“And he managed to convince Father David that he was a fellow priest, and got him to show him the book in his collection, “reasoned Smith. “He killed Father David and stole the book, but Father John O’Hara was on his way to visit his friend and colleague, having been invited to see the book himself, because he was interested in rare antiquities. He probably blundered onto the scene of the murder, chased after Vittorio, cornered him in a blind alley... and was murdered himself in turn.”
“Makes sense,” nodded Pharter. “These humans can be pretty inhuman - beg pardon and present company excepted, o’course.”
“So, what kind of picture have we built up of our man?” I pondered. “He starts off in Rome. He knows how a priest dresses. He knows enough about the Catholic priesthood to be able to pass himself off as one to a genuine priest. He knows about rare and obscure occult books. He obviously has sufficient funds to travel to the USA at short notice, so presumably he is either wealthy or has had a well-paid job. He has studied the black arts and is, we believe, a knowledgeable occult master and quite possibly an unfrocked priest.”
“So where does that get us?” asked Smith.
An idea jumped into my mind. “I wonder...”
“What?”
“I need to make a call. Bear with me.” I took out my mobile and punched in a number. “Mike? It’s Lucifer again. Hi. Not too bad, how’s yourself? Good. That’s what I like to hear. Me? Oh, so-so. You know how it is. Listen Mike, you remember I asked you if a mortal named Vittorio was on your files as a priest? You do? Good. Well, could you do just one more thing for me - have a quick check on the past listings of the Vatican for me, and see if he comes up on that? Yeah, sure, fine.” I held on while the Archangel Michael rummaged through some more Akashik records. Then: “Yes, I’m still here. You have? Great! Where? There? You sure? Excellent! Thanks, Mike. All the best.” I disconnected.
The others in the jailhouse were waiting in silent anticipation. “I’ve got the missing piece to the puzzle,” I announced. “Giovanni Vittorio is indeed an unfrocked priest, but before being kicked out he was employed by the Vatican. He is a professor of archaeology and has doctorates in medieval history, art, mathematics and astronomy. He had a fat salary.”
“What was his job in the Vatican?” asked Clare curiously.
“A very significant one, as far as we are concerned. He was employed as the principle curator of the Vatican’s Black Museum.”
“A black museum in the Vatican?” said Celia incredulously.
“Is there really such a thing?” asked Smith.
“I’m afraid there is,” I replied. “It lies within the tunnels and catacombs deep under St. Peter’s Square, and only a handful of people have been inside it during the last four hundred years.”
“What on earth is in it?”
“Nobody except the Pope and a few top cardinals knows the exact catalogue.” I sat down again and explained. “Consider some of the greatest artistic geniuses the world has ever known. People like Michelangelo and the other Renaissance painters and sculptors. They were all men, and they were all human. They painted and carved many incredible masterpieces for which their fame will never diminish. But being human, some of them also created what was considered at the time to be very risqué images. They weren’t all pure as the driven snow.
“Then again, sometimes their works – and their ideas on early science – contained details that brought them into conflict with the official viewpoint. For example, Leonardo daVinci not only supported Copernicus’ heretical idea that the earth moved round the sun, he made a simple clockwork model or orrery showing how this could work; then he was arrested by the Inquisition and the model was impounded.
“So the Inquisitional authorities rounded up these rogue works of art and science whenever one of them came within reach, confiscated them and put them away, all wrapped up so that nobody could see them and be corrupted. That was the origin of the Vatican Black Museum. They did not wish to destroy the works, since they had been created by famous artists who had also painted or carved many great religious scenes, and by some of the leading minds of European fledgling scientific inquiry, but they did not want the world to see them or even know they existed. To this day, nobody outside the higher echelons of the Vatican administration even knows how many unknown masterpieces are stored away there. The paintings openly displayed on the walls in the Vatican are considered beyond price: in the vaults there may be a thousandfold more, as yet unknown to art historians and the general public.
“Then, over the years, various other things were also put into these vaults. Things like the original manuscripts of apocryphal gospels, golden statues of Aztec gods sent back by Cortez, ancient scrolls and parchments that disagreed with the established official doctrine, books of strange spiritual instruction, objects of power. Things we would call occult artifacts and magical grimoires. All stowed safely away under the custodianship of a succession of curators - of whom Vittorio was one.”
“So OK,” responded Smith. “We can assume he learned his magic by reading forbidden books entrusted to his charge, and the Angelus was needed to complete his collection. The next question seems to be, what does he want out of it all, and why did he want Raum to destroy Los Angeles?”
“Raum the demon?” enquired Clare Touchwood.
“Yes - why, do you know him?” I asked.
“I know of him. He’s one of the demons described in the medieval Key or Clavicule of Solomon. We sell the Mathers 1904 translation of that in the shop.”
“One and the same. We rescued him from Vittorio in the saloon down the street. That’s why it’s wrecked out front.” I turned back to Smith. “And that’s a good question - what is his overall motive? At this stage, I’m afraid your guess is as good as mine."
“Wait a second,” instructed Smith. “I’m going to do something more than just guess.” She pulled out her own mobile phone “I’m ringing a friend of mine at the precinct, on the assignments desk.” She gave the phone her attention as it was answered. “That you Sharon? It’s Sandra. Hey, have any crank calls come in during the last ten hours or so? I’m checking out nuisance calls from nuts.” She listened. “Thanks Sharon. Keep me posted on anything else like that, would you? See you.”
Smith turned back to us. “My hunch was right,” she advised without triumph. “Apparently the mayor’s office received a call a few hours ago from a man with an Italian accent calling himself Giovanni Vittorio. He demanded that the President should resign and that he should be appointed president himself immediately. If the government refuses, he threatened to start destroying major cities throughout the USA one at a time until they agree to his demands. He said Los Angeles would be destroyed at eleven-thirty as a demonstration of his powers. Naturally, the call was dismissed as the act of a crank or junk-head. When eleven-thirty came and went and they were still there, they filed the report in the waste basket.”
There was a long silence from the rest of us. Then Pharter said somberly, “But we know why LA was not destroyed, don’t we Boss - and we don’t know the next city on his list!” This fact was so obvious it needed no additional comment.
“There is one possible safety move we can accomplish,” I said after thinking deeply and quickly. “We can summon Raum back here to the mortal realm, then Vittorio won’t be able to summon him himself again for as long as he remains with us. Even a demon cannot be in two places at once.”
“Neat idea,” agreed Pharter, “except that Raum ain’t the only demon who can blast cities. Even you can’t materialize every single creature in Hell up to the mortal world simultaneously, Boss… it would make a damn good movie, though...” he mused wistfully, suddenly imagining the implications of what he had just said.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” I agreed, ignoring his last comment. “However, Raum was his first choice.”
“Understandably,” agreed Pharter. “After all, he is the leading expert in his field. Look what he did to Sodom and Gomorrah!”
“Yes, but what I meant was, Vittorio only purchased the one special kind of incense, for raising Raum. If he now switches to a different demon, he’ll need different ingredients. At the least, that should delay him for a while. The correct ingredients are generally very hard to come by in this modern world. These ladies’ shop is the only place in the state that sells genuine Kyphi, for instance - and we can bet he won’t go back there again. This might buy us a bit of time.”
“But how will you summon him?” asked Claire Touchwood. “We haven’t got any of the necessary ingredients here with us.”
I smiled wanly. “You forget, I’m their boss; I don’t need the artificial boosters that humans require.” I pulled out my own mobile once more and hit the buttons. “Phixit, it’s the Boss again. You got my current co-ordinates? Good. Put Raum on the elevator, would you? Thanks.”
About three minutes later the room started rumbling slightly. The three mortal women started glancing at each other uncertainly. “Nothing to worry about,” I reassured them. There was a sound like a paper grocery bag full of custard falling onto a sidewalk from two stories up, a puff of green and red smoke, and there in the middle of the floor stood, not one, but two large demons. Raum had brought his friend Gaylord with him.
“Sorry boss,” Raum excused the double act, “but I was scared to come back here, and Gaylord offered to hold my hand. He’s good like that.”
I sighed. What did one demon more or less matter right now? “OK boys. You’re here now, that’s all that matters. This means that our enemy can’t invoke you again, Raum. You’re safe from misuse as long as you stay on earth.”
“Well!” said Gaylord to his friend. “I bet that’s a relief, isn’t it Trevor.”
Heads swiveled. Claire, who was nearest to them, spoke for all. “Trevor?”
Gaylord tossed his mono-fanged and heavy-jowled head. “That’s his name, darling, Trevor Raum. All his friends call him Trevor,” he nudged Raum, “don’t they luv? Personally, I always insist on being called by my first name.”
“If ‘Gaylord’ is your first name, what’s your other name?” asked Claire, getting interested and settling down for a gossip with the demon.
“Gomory. I don’t use it very much - it sounds sooo hard and butch, if you know what I mean, dear. And as for using both names together, too much emphasis on the ‘G’, I feel. Each one detracts from the effect of the other.”
Celia tilted her head as though trying to remember something obscure. Then: “That’s it! Yes. I remember, you’re described in the Key of Solomon, aren’t you?”
Gaylord simpered and bent his huge clawed hand dismissively. “The price of fame, darling.”
“I seem to remember, the description says that when invoked by a sorcerer, you usually appear in the form of a beautiful woman.”
“It’s only a hobby, dear,” responded the demon quickly. “Women’s clothes are sooo much more comfortable than all that drab stuff demons are supposed to wear. And when you’ve got a face like mine, lets call it ‘lived in’, a little makeup can work wonders for your self-esteem.”
Suddenly Pharter broke up the chatting. He was squatting near the door. Holding up a hand he said, “Hush everyone! Listen - can you hear that?”
Alerted, we all listened. As an Archangel, I heard it before the others. In the remote distance there was a long, drawn-out and rather shrill scream which didn’t stop: instead, it just got steadily louder, obviously issuing from some terrified throat which was moving fast and coming closer all the time. We all rushed outside the movie jailhouse onto the boardwalk to see what was happening.
13. Treading On Thin Air...
What was happening was Phukkit returning with Niblick. As we looked down the dusty avenue of Wild West Main Street, the piercing, drawn-out scream grew steadily and swiftly louder. A cloud of dust appeared in the distance, rounding a far corner by the livery stable. Then along came the demon and the dog. Niblick was running in a transport of pure delight, enjoying the longest walkies he had had for ages. The trouble was, as a supernatural hound he could move faster than a Porsche heading for a hot date. The block where my apartment was situated was the location of the only pet psychologist in LA specializing in traumatized cats.
Phukkit was the source of the continuous scream. Grimly, he held the end of the dog’s leash, as though the act of letting go would be open acknowledgement that he had lost control of the situation. He was being towed along behind the big dog, leaning backwards at an angle of 45 degrees, legs rigid before him in a doomed attempt to apply braking traction. The result of this stance was that his feet were carving two great furrows in the ground behind him, dirt, tarmac, concrete - whatever; occasional distant fountains indicated fire hydrants ruptured by his progress. His eyes were open wide and noticeably glazed with terror.
As the two of them drew quickly nearer, Niblick spotted us from a couple of hundred yards away and loped up a few wooden steps onto the boardwalk. Phukkit’s drawn out scream became articulated into a word: “Noooooooooooooo !" Too late. The dog began pulling him along the boardwalk. Planks, splintered wood, termite powder and twisted nails shot up into the air about his legs in a cloud. It looked like a giant buzz saw approaching.
Then they had reached us. Niblick leaped joyfully up at Smith trying to lick her face, tail wagging, then he transferred his attention to me the same way. He was pleased to see us. So was Phukkit. With great care and slow, deliberate dignity he climbed carefully out of the hole he had made in the wooden surface. He stood breathing heavily. From his clawed feet, clouds of steam began to rise with a faint hissing sound. “Never,” he spoke slowly and with considerable emphasis, delicately removing nails and splinters from various portions of his anatomy, “never, never again! That’s the last walkies I do. Watch my lips - from now on, I’m not a walkies person. I don’t do walkies.”
Meanwhile, Smith and I had finished making a fuss of Niblick, and I took the leash from an extremely grateful Phukkit. “Will he pull at the leash with you?” asked Smith, interested.
“Not a chance. Remember, he’s my dog. Besides, we’re not going to keep him on the leash when he’s tracking Vittorio’s psychic scent. That would slow us down. We need speed, before he can rustle up the correct ingredients to summon some other unsuspecting demon of mass-destruction.”
“Won’t we lose him if he’s off the leash?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied, looking down the street. The sight of the livery stable had given me an idea. “Come on, everybody!” I led the way rapidly in the direction of the stable building, which was yet another completed interior set, familiar from countless movies and TV cowboy shows. Niblick trotted faithfully at my heel, eyes glowing like red beacons. Phukkit, hobbling along on aching feet, still eyed him warily. We reached the livery stable and went inside: it was empty except for the obligatory piles of straw and bundles of dusty tackle hanging on the beams.
“What’s the idea, boss?” enquired Pharter, as everyone assembled in a curious group behind me.
“We’re going mounted,” I revealed. “That way, we can follow just as fast as Niblick can lead us.”
“Er...” put in Celia Touchwood, “there’s just one slight problem - this is a movie set. There are no actual horses kept here.”
“Not at the moment,” I agreed. “I’m going to borrow some.”
There was a nonplussed silence during which people and demons looked at each other to try and see if anyone else knew what I was talking about. Ignoring them, I pulled out my trusty mobile once more and pressed the buttons. The call was answered after a minute or so.
“Hello,” I spoke into the mobile, “is that the Apocalypse Department? Could you put me through to Obi, please. Tell him it’s his old friend Satan on the line. Thank you Miss. That’s OK, I’ll wait.” A pause of about two minutes, then: “Hi, Obi, it’s Sate. How are you, you old bastard? That good, huh? How’s the wife? Good. And the kids? Good, good. Glad to hear it. Listen, Obi, I need a favor. If you do this for me, I promise I’ll cancel your last poker marker. Yeah, it was a good game. Someone has to lose. Yeah, I give you my word, I’ll tear it up if you just do this one thing for me. OK, I need to borrow eight horses from your department. Only for a few hours or so, and I promise I’ll look after them and return them to you in perfect condition. Yeah, I know it’s against the rules. If anyone grumbles, blame me. I take full responsibility for it. How about it? You will? Good man! Look, phone Phixit and he’ll give you my exact co-ordinates, OK? Fine. We’ll have another poker evening soon, eh? My place, drinks on me. OK. So long.”
I turned back to the others. “Please stand round the walls and keep the floor clear,” I requested. They hastened to obey.
Soon, the wooden building began to tremble slightly. Streams of dust fell from the high beams and wooden ceiling and a low-frequency rumbling filled the air. Then there was a tremendous flash and a loud crash of thunder. The loose straw in the centre of the floor burst into flame in a huge but perfect ring, sending up a circular cloud of smoke. Almost at once, the flames flickered out again and the smoke wafted clear. There, standing inside the charred ring, were eight horses. And what horses!
“You don’t seriously expect us to get up on them do you?” shrieked Smith, backing away, her eyes wide.
“Certainly I do. They’re perfectly safe. Highly trained. Beautiful animals.” Smith continued to stare at them in horror. “You’ll soon get used to them,” I soothed, encouragingly.
There were eight of them. They definitely resembled horses more than anything else. Seven were black and one was a very pale white. They were a bit of a surprise for my mortal friends perhaps, on reflection, but this was no time to be picky. The beast’s heads differed slightly from regular horses, in that they had long mouths like snarling wolves, filled with obviously carnivorous fangs. The insides of their heads were filled with blazing red fires, which sent flickers of flame out through empty eye-sockets, mouths, ears and nostrils. They were huge, sleekly muscled, and all were wearing wonderfully patterned versions of medieval horse-armor. Their saddles were also of medieval design, with high flat backrests like upholstered chairs, richly embroidered with ancient religious and occult motifs in tapestry style.
“Hold on,” said Claire Touchwood, working things out in her head. “You asked for the Apocalypse Department... These can’t be... Surely not! There are eight of them.”
“They have spares,” I pointed out reasonably. Claire’s tone took on a touch of awe.
“Death, Pestilence, War and Famine! The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse... and Death was the rider upon the pale horse...”
I gently slapped the pale horse’s rump. “You’ve got it. One of them is a particular friend of mine. We used to play cards now and then - you know, on those evenings when the boys get together over a few beers.”
“‘Obi’ you called him,” pondered Claire, still working things out. “I know that can’t be ‘Obi-wan Kenobi’, can it?”
“Good old Obi,” I said. “That's what everyone calls him. It’s short for his full name Obitius Nullius Redderius.”
“That sounds like Latin,” opined Claire.
“It is,” I confirmed. “It translates in personalized name-form as ‘Death, No Refunds.’ It’s a little-known fact that he’s the one in charge of the horses.”
“Yipeeee!” yelled Pharter in cowboy style, taking the end of an embroidered rein and thereby claiming a mount for himself.
“We’re heading for the last roundup, hombres!” shouted Phukkit, relieved at the thought that he could rest his still-steaming feet.
Claire and Celia looked at each other, then, not to be outdone: “Yahooo!” they yelled in unison, beginning to mount up. “We’s a commin’ t’ git ya, Vittorio!”
Smith copied them quickly, afraid they were going to steal her thunder. “Ride ‘im, cowgirl!” she shouted.
Huge Raum ambled up to a steed in a brilliant John Wayne impersonation, drawling “Git on yer high horse!”
Gaylord stepped cautiously towards a horse. “Ooh! I hope I don’t fall off. Mind you, the saddle is a pretty color. Nice needlepoint.”
I was the last to mount up, on the pale horse. Before I did so I slipped Niblick off his leash and spoke to him while I knelt down and ruffled his ears. “Good boy: have a good sniff around, now. Find a black magician. He was in the saloon. Mark his trail, boy. You can do it – go seek!”
Niblick trotted out of the livery stable and cast around for a few moments in the vicinity of the saloon, rushing backwards and forwards, darting here and there, smelling everything he came to. Then he sat down on his haunches, raised his huge head, and bayed. He had found the psychic scent. The sound of Satan’s hound baying was something never to be forgotten, although some people had joined the French Foreign Legion for forty years in a vain attempt to do so. As we trotted out into the street on our mounts, Niblick tensed, then leaped into a run. We urged our horses into a gallop to follow the dog.
My idea had been good so far. Unfortunately, in my eagerness to catch up with Vittorio before he could start destroying cities, I had overlooked one slight detail; we were not, actually, in a Wild West township. We were in the middle of a vast motion picture and TV studio complex in the centre of Hollywood Hills. Oh well. Needs must when the Devil drives, as the highly appropriate saying goes. Except the Devil wasn’t driving, I was riding. The strangest posse ever to pursue an outlaw was hitting the trail.
And the trail led Niblick straight into one of the long studio buildings via a big hangar-like door through which big pieces of painted backdrop were being manhandled. We dared not stop or even slow down; we had to try and keep pace with the huge running dog. In we charged, at the gallop. The Apocalyptic horse’s hooves, as big as dinner plates, produced sparks like fireworks whenever they impacted upon a concrete floor: not just the flint-and-steel glint seen occasionally with normal horses, but veritable showers of bright yellow stars. And they were tall beasts. The familiar American horse was of Arab stock, comparatively light and thin-limbed. Our mounts were built like the grandfathers of the medieval knight’s charger, of whom the now-rare Shire horse and Clydesdale are but a distant memory. They stood some seven feet at the shoulders, and huge Raum’s head was a good dozen feet above the ground. Studio staff took one look at the eight of us bearing down through the building at full gallop and simply flung themselves headlong away from our path. Gaylord spoilt the overall effect by shouting out “Giddy up, Dobbin! Oooh, I like your costume dearie,” as he passed by a group of panic-stricken male ballet dancers, but his voice was largely lost in the general turmoil.
In the distance, far down the long, equipment-crammed interior, I saw a possible problem ahead - a wall, containing a large, shut double door with a sign on it saying “Studio Six” and a red-lit box above it bearing the warning “RECORDING IN PROGRESS – NO ADMISSION.”
There was nothing else for it - Niblick was already pushing his way through the doors and come what may we couldn’t afford to lose sight of him. In the lead, I lowered my head and charged, slowing to a rapid trot as I approached the door, the others following suit. There was a second set of doors beyond after a short dark space, and through these we erupted into a TV studio.
It was one of those human interest/agony shows. An audience of hundreds sat on rising tiers of seats. Cameras were gliding round the floor, their cables snaking behind them. On the stage, a seated row of social misfits and dysfunctional relatives were being goaded into ratings-boosting antagonism by a face-lifted man in a two-thousand dollar suit and lacquered coif who wore heavy-rimmed glasses to prove his sincerity: Niblick dashed in and raised a back leg over five hundred dollar’s worth of trouser to prove his. Everyone’s a critic. Then we arrived at a fast trot.
The word ‘pandemonium’, like many other words, comes into English from Latin and derives from two roots, ‘pan’, meaning ‘general’ or ‘universal’, and ‘demonium’, meaning ‘realm of demons’. No thesaurus could provide a more apt single word to describe the scene as we appeared in the studio. Only the program host remained motionless, rooted to the spot like a statue in a pool (the latter courtesy of Niblick) with his mouth dangling open: the said Niblick was now disappearing out of the farther doors on the other side of the stage.
“I’m terribly sorry,” I called out as I rode past him.
“We’re trying to catch a criminal,” explained Smith as she passed by him next, flashing him her police badge.
“I liked last week’s show,” said Claire encouragingly as she went by.
“I think he should have married his mother-in-law,” shouted Celia.
“Personally, I prefer Oprah,” called out Pharter, riding by.
“Can I order a copy of the video?” said Phukkit, who was next in line.
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!” drawled Raum.
“I think you’re a very brave man, wearing that tie with that suit,” said Gaylord.
And then we had gone, with nothing but a damp stage and trouser leg to show we had ever been there. Niblick was tearing off down another long corridor, and we were in hot pursuit. And suddenly, we realized that we, in our turn, were being pursued. A woman was running after us down the corridor. She was thirtysomething, dressed well, if plainly, in a grey two-piece, immaculate hair and impeccable makeup. Behind her trotted an athletic cameraman with a video cam on his shoulder, and a sound engineer with a handheld boom from which dangled a fluffy microphone. I had sometimes wondered why the microphones you saw occasionally on TV outside broadcasts were often fluffy; I had vaguely imagined it was to filter out any serious comment. In the confined space of the passage, we were unable to move the horses at anything like full speed, and the woman and her small team were catching us up. She had clearly marked me out as the leader and she ignored the others, overtaking them. I couldn’t help being a little impressed. As she drew level, she called up to me.
“Jackie Cameron, AMI News. Can I ask you, are you harbingers of the Apocalypse? Is this the end of days?”
“Er - “ for a second I was nonplussed, then, “er, no, I hope not. Not today.”
“And is it true that you are the Wild Hunt in pursuit of a Hound out of Hell?”
“Not exactly.” I had no wish to be impolite by ignoring her. “We’re a fairly Tame Hunt taking a Hound out of my Apartment for walkies.”
I urged my mount to a slightly faster speed and pulled ahead of her. She dropped back a few paces and spoke to Detective Smith. “Can I ask you, are you seeking to reinforce the black woman’s right to grasp supernatural issues?”
“No,” replied Smith, “I’m seeking to reinforce this black woman’s grasp of her saddle before I fall off!” She, too, urged her horse forward.
Reporter and accompanying crew transferred their attentions to Claire and Celia, but before questioning could begin, the sisters, aware of a sudden unexpected commercial opportunity, smiled beautifully straight at the camera and burst into song:
“Tired of spells that do not work?
Is your local witch a jerk?
Cast your own without a fuss,
Come and see Broomsticks R Us!”
It was actually a rather catchy little tune.
The reporter dropped back a little further and addressed Pharter, Phukkit and Raum.
“May I ask you... er... gentlemen for a comment on the esoteric aspects of this incident?”
“We are members of a persecuted ethnic minority,” answered Pharter, “and we are attempting, by law-abiding methods, to highlight our campaign for inhuman rights.”
Somewhat baffled by this, the reporter dropped back once more and looked up at bulldog-faced Gaylord, the last in our cavalcade. “A quick final word from you sir?”
“Certainly,” effused Gaylord, letting go of the reins with one hand and placing it on his hip. “Use Revlon lipstick instead, dear - they make a darker shade of plum. It will enhance the line of your mouth and stop your face looking so bland, especially under bright studio lights.”
With this Parthian shot, our troupe of mighty steeds shouldered its way through another set of double doors at the corridor’s end and emerged into a palm-lined boulevard leading to the massively arched studio main gate. Urging the horses to full speed, off we charged again. Niblick could just be glimpsed disappearing past the uniformed security guards in their office on his way into the public highway beyond. The guards had heard him coming, rushed out, taken one look at what was heading their way, rushed back in and slammed the door. As we galloped past with a noise like a panzer unit in a hardware store, I could see them through the window piling filing cabinets and furniture against the inside of the door.
I thought the studios had been difficult to negotiate on horseback. The ordinary streets were even worse. We had to thread our way through traffic. People who would have run in terror had they been pedestrians became aggressive, horn-fisting Kamikaze pilots behind the wheel, intent on nothing except preventing anybody else from taking liberties with their own right of way. This is a universal trait of all drivers throughout the world. A new term has even been added to human vocabulary – Road Rage. A sweet little old lady who drops her spare change into a beggar’s cup can get into her car and suddenly transform into an aggressive mean-assed punk, refusing to give way to any other driver, her previously generous attitude morphing into a snarled “Let him come - I’m not giving way!”
Oh history! If Mahatma Gandhi had only had a car - and if Adolf Hitler had only been denied one!
The need to thread our way through unyielding traffic was slowing us down. I could still just glimpse Niblick’s tail waving between vehicles in the distance, but it was getting smaller all the time.
“Fericul!” Smith shouted at me. “Aren’t the Horsemen of the Apocalypse supposed to ride through the sky on the Day of Judgment? Can’t we take off?”
“Yes,” I shouted back, “but I don’t know where the flap-controls are.”
It was Pharter who saved the day. “Boss, everybody,” he yelled. “All you have to do is shout ‘upupup’ to the horse, and ‘downdowndown’ when required. Like a camel rider shouts ‘huthuthut’ to get it going. I once moonlighted cleaning their stables.”
Armed with this simple but vital piece of information, the eight of us were soon soaring into the air on flying steeds above the congested streets. Niblick came into clearer vision below. We got our revenge on the traffic too, because several of the vehicles crashed into each other as their drivers watched us rising into the sky out of their windows. However, this could not really be blamed on me - could it? It troubled my conscience that I had, even momentarily, felt a sense of revenge. Another cross instead of a tick on my spiritual report card, I guessed. I was not very good at being good. Still, I had more important things to worry about than even that - if we weren’t on the ball, millions of mortal lives would be lost when Vittorio started destroying cities. That must remain my overriding concern. My own advancement was as nothing by comparison.
So, as we soared through the air rising above the tops of the highest skyscrapers, my mind was occupied with worries of this nature — which, of course, meant that I was letting my mind use me; I was not using my mind. In such a state, I was ripe for making a big mistake. And it hit us. I immediately realized exactly what had happened. Vittorio had been aggrieved that we had spoiled his little plot, and he had taken steps to eliminate his opponents. In fact, unused as I was to having to live in the real world amongst mortals, I had committed the classic tactical blunder: I had underestimated my enemy! From somewhere ahead of us in the direction of downtown LA, he had released the power of the Vessels of Shinar against us.
There was good news and bad news. The good news was, he evidently still had not fully mastered the complete range of the vessel’s powers, so that what we got was not enough to actually harm either myself or the demons directly, and the energy had no effect on Detective Smith or the Touchwood sisters because they were not supernatural beings. What the beam of energy did accomplish was the banishing of supernatural creatures who lacked the power of reason. Namely, the Apocalyptic horses. With the briefest of bright flashes their hold on physical reality disappeared and they were transported back to their stables in Limbo. As far as the mortal realm was concerned they vanished in a puff of smoke. We were all left unhorsed. At about six thousand feet. What might be termed a situation of extreme gravity.
Nowadays, not everyone realizes that Darwinism applies also in the non-material planes. That is, as was well known to ancient peoples such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese, Hebrews and others, demons come in various different species. This might seem only of passing academic interest, but in fact it had a terrible relevance to the situation we now suddenly found ourselves in. Pharter and Phukkit had wings. Raum and Gaylord, who were considerably heavier, did not. I could fly myself and support one passenger. Detective Smith, Claire and Celia Touchwood could not. This left a mathematical imbalance. Three flyers and five non-flyers were suddenly placed in mid air at six thousand feet altitude. This could be expressed in mathematical terms by the formula 3f-5nf (6000) x [ri=32’ sec2] = splat x 2; which in layman’s terms means that three flyers could rescue three non-flyers, leaving two non-flyers to find their own way down.
Thinking quickly, I realized that as an Archangel I could probably support the weight of two of the non-flyers, leaving only one to plummet. But, again, it was Pharter who came to the rescue with the solution. (As a matter of semantics, and with due consideration for the fact that he was a demon, I suppose using the expression “bless him” might be viewed as a contradiction in terms.)
“Boss, grab ‘em!” he yelled, zooming in and snatching Claire’s arm, then flapping hard until he could grab Celia with his other hand. Under the combined weight of two mortals, he began to fall, but not as rapidly as someone without wings would have done. I grabbed Smith and headed for Pharter, linking arms with the demon. Phukkit grabbed Raum and Gaylord in the same way and headed for us as we all fell, linking arms in turn like some very strange parachute display team. The resultant combination worked - just. Me, Pharter and Phukkit supporting the weight of the Touchwoods, Smith and the considerably heavier Raum and Gaylord. Thus united, we managed to make it safely to the ground at around normal parachute descent speed. Just a few fast bumps on landing, but nobody hurt.
“You see, boss?” panted a triumphant Pharter. “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I mean, one flyer can support one non-flyer, but two flyers can support three nons, and three flyers were able to support five.”
“Yeah, man,” agreed Phukkit. “United we stand, ain’t it? Oof!”
The ‘Oof!’ was because at that moment Claire and Celia picked up a demon each with a bone crushing hug and planted big kisses on their cheeks. “That’s for saving our lives, boys,” explained Celia. The two demons were purple, but a brighter mauve tinge suddenly suffused their faces. They looked at their feet and shuffled them.
“Aw, shucks!” said Pharter. The notion of an embarrassed demon is another image which is not readily describable in words.
What none of my friends knew is exactly how close I had come, during those moments of high-altitude confusion and terror, to giving up my self-imposed rules of conduct in the mortal realm and using the full power of an Archangel to produce an actual miracle, thereby saving all their lives, even though it would have assuredly meant failing in my test of character and being condemned to remain the Ruler of Hell for the rest of eternity. Mentally I breathed a sigh of relief. If the quick thinking and reasoned aerial logistics of Pharter had not come through and saved the day, I could imagine the entry that would have been written in to my Akashik record: Satan, when placed under pressure, deliberately chose to use the divine power allocated to him in order to selfishly ensure that his own friends and colleagues remained unharmed; by so doing, he acted outside the limiting conditions of the agreement which has been offered to him for his redemption; it is the considered verdict of this tribunal that Satan has failed... It was a depressing thought.
And one depressing thought led to another. If Vittorio was beginning to make use of the Vessels of Shinar as a weapon, then the demons, all of them, were extremely vulnerable.
So was I, of course, and my own level of vulnerability grew greater with every increase in Vittorio’s understanding and ability to control the vessels. But I was the one who was on a mission, and I alone. I had no right to even ask the others to risk their mortal and immortal lives in this business. The last incident had made me see this clearly. I was there to prove my character. They were only tagging along because of... what? I had not previously allowed myself the luxury of speculating on their motivation - or else, perhaps I had been unconsciously avoiding doing so. But when it came to analysis, the others, all of them, Smith, Claire, Celia, Pharter, Phukkit, Raum and Gaylord, had already risked everything far above and beyond the call of duty.
They were there because of love. I finally had to accept and understand that simple fact. They were there because, in different ways, they loved me and wanted to be on my team. This was a difficult concept for me. In fact, it was a unique concept for me. And, as if that wasn’t enough, the reverse applied. I loved all of them in their own different ways. And that meant I could not ask them to go any further with me on this case: it was becoming far too dangerous.
Problem was, how to put this over to them? I understood enough about human nature, and inhuman nature, to guess that if I simply outlined it to them in basic words they would reject my order to quit while they were ahead - or at least alive - and insist on keeping the old team intact. Therefore, perforce, I had to be devious about it. You might think that deviousness and distortion of truth were attributes in which I was a past master, and you might be right. But nevertheless, now, I felt distinctly uneasy about what I knew I had to do for their own safety. I knew I would have to spin them a yarn in order to involve them in some non-dangerous side issue while I continued the attempt to track down our enemy and put him out of business on my own, at my own risk and nobody else’s.
“Spin them a yarn!” That phrase was nothing but a metaphor, a prettier wrapping for something ugly, of which all the different languages of the world were replete. In English people say things like “resting” or “finally asleep” which is the wrapping of the blunter and more truthful phrase “stone cold dead”. They say “between jobs” instead of “unemployed.” “He’s had one too many” instead of “he’s roaring drunk.” Some people call such metaphors “white lies,” but even that is nothing but another metaphor. Truth is an absolute. You can’t have degrees of truth. You can’t really have “a little white lie,” any more than you can say Abraham Lincoln is “only a little bit dead.” Either something is true, or else it is untrue: there is no in-between. It is as misleading to say that something is “very nearly true” as to say that “two plus two is very nearly five.”
And here was I, who had long ages ago been accorded the epithet The Father of Lies, going through a turmoil of conscience of my own making about whether or not I was morally justified in lying to my friends for their own well-being. It really took no time at all to decide. There was no way I could allow them to continue to expose themselves to dreadful risks simply because they wanted to be with me out of friendship and love. I realized that I would be clocking up yet another black mark in the book of my deeds by deliberately lying, and that this would in all likelihood be yet another torpedo I had launched against keeping my own self afloat. But it had to be done. And it had to be done without letting any of them see the deep inner moral anguish and guilt I was feeling for practicing deceit upon them, even though it was undoubtedly for their own good.
We had landed in the middle of a shabby used car back lot: the only difference between this place and a scrap yard was that there was no crusher or magnetic crane and every windshield had a dollar sign with numbers stuck inside it. Near to where we had touched down was a small VW camper van, hand-painted with bright flowers and abstract wavy lines: it looked like it had time-traveled out of the 1960s. “In there,” I told the others. “We need a council of war out of sight, and that’s as good a place as any.” Everyone clambered inside. When Raum went in, the chassis groaned and sank several inches. There were long seats that could be extended to double as beds on a trip, and there was even a tiny kitchen, with a basin and gas ring. We all sat down, except Gaylord who put the kettle on and started to make a pot of tea, managing to locate cups, mugs and ingredients, even a tub of powdered milk.
Smith was almost bouncing up and down with urgency. “We’re letting Niblick get away,” she pointed out. “We’ve already lost his trail.”
I nodded. “I know, but I also know how to find him again.” I hoped. “Now listen-up everyone, this is important. We’ve lost the horses. They’ve gone back to Limbo, by occult banishment, which means that even if I call in another marker from Obi we can’t get them back again for at least forty-eight hours; that’s the way it works with banishing energy.” The others nodded in silent understanding.
“That means,” I continued, making it up as I went along, “that only I can follow Niblick’s trail, because apart from Pharter and Phukkit, only I have the ability to fly. And as you possibly noticed, I’m an Archangel, not Superman - I can only carry one passenger, not many of them, and even that slows me down considerably. The same applies to Pharter and Phukkit; although they can fly, passengers slow them down from Mach 3 to Sopwith Camel.” I drew breath.
“Apart from all that, I need you to help me,” I pointed at the three women, “because another thing I can’t do is be in three places at once. And demons - with all due respect fellows - are too conspicuous in the physical plane to carry out low-profile investigations.
“Detective, I need you to get back to Headquarters as fast as possible and check up on all incoming reports of unusual phenomenon; UFOs, earth tremors, strange noises, peculiar beasts, creepy neighbors, you know the kind of stuff. In case I can’t pick up Niblick’s trail after all, reports of that kind might possibly give us a lead as to which direction to look in. See what I mean?” Rather reluctantly, she nodded her compliance.
“And you two ladies,” I turned to Claire and Celia, “if you wouldn’t mind, I would deem it a great favor if you could start to contact your business rivals, all other stores and private dealers who sell magical ingredients in LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, even outside California if you can. Try to find out if our man has been buying up special incenses and other occult paraphernalia. If you can discover anything like that, the knowledge of exactly what he has purchased might enable us to predict which unsuspecting demon he is likely to try to summon next. I know it’s a long shot, but we shouldn’t ignore the possibility just because of that.”
The sisters, also somewhat reluctantly, agreed to my suggestion.
“As for you, lads,” I addressed Raum and Gaylord. “I think you’ve had enough of the mortal plane for now. Pharter and Phukkit are small, and they can fly, so they can get around without attracting much attention, except from UFO spotters, and who takes them seriously anyway? Except the Sirians of course, but that’s not important right now. So, Trevor Raum and Gaylord Gomory, I hereby grant thee thy license to depart. Avaunt thee! Hang loose, hear?” The two large demons vanished in the obligatory puff of smoke.
“OK guys,” I announced, rising to my feet in a crouching position necessitated by the low roof of the camper. “We’ve all got important things to attend to.” I jumped out onto the ground followed by the others. “Let’s split. Keep in touch by mobile, you’ve all got my number. And good hunting.” Smith and the Touchwoods departed, Smith already on her phone arranging a pick-up by car. I remained for a few minutes with the two small purple demons, watching the others head off.
“Nice work, boss,” remarked Pharter. “You’ve sent them away to safety.”
“Was it that obvious?” I asked, slightly perturbed.
“Only to us,” replied the demon. “I think.”
Phukkit gazed into the distance and then voiced it for all three of us. “Suddenly, I feel a bit lonely.”
14. Following The Scent...
I wasn’t particularly worried about Niblick getting such a long head start on us. Sure, he was now long out of sight, by many miles; but I knew what direction he was going in. From the film studio until we lost him when our horses vanished under us, he had traveled in a geometric straight line. All I had to do now was follow the continuation of that line until... until whatever. Niblick was too well trained and intelligent to go in on his own against a Tenth Degree occultist; once he had reached the lair of his quarry he would keep an eye on things until I got there, just quietly blending into the surroundings unnoticed. Providing, of course, said surroundings were the Rancho la Brea tar pits and their prehistoric creature display.
The two small demons shuffled along in my wake as I walked swiftly towards the exit gate down an avenue of sad vehicles, their grimy headlights like gloomy eyes. Before we could leave the lot however, a used-car salesman leaped into our path out of nowhere. The used-car salesman is related genetically to the pitcher-plant. That carnivorous vegetable has a leafy tube designed by nature so that insects can easily get in but find it impossible to get out again. Used car lots and their salesmen germinate from similar seed: you can easily wander into one, but it is virtually impossible to get out again without being accosted by a loud-suited man who can talk faster than you can think. Pharter and Phukkit managed to scuttle out of sight behind the big rear fins of a 1968 Oldsmobile. From this hidden position they worked their way round the back of a small office building, took to the air and made good their escape.
“Hello there, friend,” gushed the salesman. “I can see that you know something about cars by the way you are looking at them.”
“You’re absolutely right,” I answered him, “and that’s why I’m going.”
“Hey,” he exuded with exaggerated affront and an even bigger smile. “Can you give me one good reason why the car of your dreams might not be here waiting for you to notice it?”
So I did. If I can physically touch someone, I can read their genetic life energy trace as easily as looking at a computer screen. I gently caught hold of his shoulder and brought my mouth close to his ear. Within thirty seconds, I whispered the names of his father, grandfather, great- grandfather, great-great-grandfather and so on back to Plymouth Rock: then in the next thirty seconds I recited in the same order the reasons they had been in jail, the length of each sentence, the name of the presiding judge and the geographical location of each prison. Then in the next thirty seconds I informed him in specific detail about his own false returns to the IRS, the exact profits he made on the crooked license-plate scam for various car thieves of his acquaintance and the number of the secret bank account he maintained to pay his girlfriend’s apartment rental without his wife knowing. I left him sitting on a retouched fender, pale, shaking, gazing into infinity and beginning to plan how to rearrange his life along the lines of decency and honesty instead. Well, as I always say, like the song, “If you can help somebody...”
Now I was in need of some real haste. Niblick was miles away, I had sent my mortal friends to safety, likewise Raum and Gaylord. Pharter and Phukkit were providing aerial reconnaissance. That left me to zero-in on Vittorio the sorcerer. Like I said, I could work out the direction to take by extending in my mind’s eye the straight line Niblick had already established before we lost sight of him. All I didn’t know was how far along that line I would need to travel. So, with nobody looking, I took to the air myself. Once I was sufficiently high that the suburbs of LA looked like a map, I could mentally plot the continuation of Niblick’s route.
I was hoping that there would be some obvious location along this line which a black magician would be likely to favor as a base, but I was disappointed. There was no Gothic mansion with big neon signs flashing “Evil Sorcerer’s Secret Hideout. Parties Catered For.” However, the direction Niblick had been relentlessly heading in was through the north-easterly suburbs and in this general locality spreading out beneath me the desert came quite suddenly. In other directions there was a more gradual change from the water-sprinkled green lawns of houses and golf clubs to the amber and ochre of the desert north and east of LA past Palmdale, but here the change was more like a line of demarcation. Right at the edge of the urban development area there were even some streets where one side was lined with green front lawns and the other side was yellow sand and rock. And what I was now calling in my own thoughts the “Niblick Line” headed, if extended ad infinitum, straight across this divide and into the Mojave Desert. In this, there was rather a lack of suitable places for anyone’s secret base, except perhaps Uncle Sam’s since the line would eventually cross Edwards Air Force Base before heading on and plunging into Death Valley two hundred feet below sea level.
A swift examination of the ground beneath, coupled with a process of elimination, revealed a possibility, however. There was a clearly abandoned factory, single storey, surrounded by a chicken wire fence, almost opposite a slightly more famous building, the modernistic St. Columbia Cathedral built during the 1970s and famous for its byline “The last cathedral this side of the Rockies.” Something clicked in my thoughts. I pondered briefly. Vittorio had used an abandoned factory before. He was evidently a former Catholic priest. The Niblick Line ran like an arrow straight towards the place. OK, so none of these things may have been relevant to that specific locality: but how many pieces of jigsaw are required to turn a hunch into a possibility? At the least, it was worth checking out. I called Pharter and Phukkit on my mobile cellphone, explaining what I intended to do. They had been flying half a mile behind me, following my lead. They remained hovering at about four thousand feet while I quickly descended. You can’t peer through windows from high above, so I wanted to watch the abandoned factory from ground level and I needed a place of cover.
Alighting on the ground without being seen, I walked casually up the cathedral approach, which consisted of a bright green closely-cropped and mower-striped lawn through which a broad crazy-paved path wound between ground-hugging dwarf conifers and nests of white ornamental boulders. It was really rather beautiful. The entire cathedral was finished in what used to be called Scandinavian style: lots of clean bare brick walls, lots of polished teak, lots of glass in inventive places, much of it stained in Picasso-like interpretations of religious imagery. Call me iconoclastic, but it was a style I loved: much more user-friendly than the Gothic overstatement of most of the great medieval churches, in which the designers had a deliberate agenda to overwhelm and overawe the visitor. Places like Notre Dame and Chartres were undoubtedly magnificent and were sincere attempts to demonstrate the perfection of ultimate faith by taking contemporary building methods beyond previously recognized limits, but they could also seem rather intimidating - like the ordinary person who lives in an untidy apartment can feel when visiting an imposing British stately home; it’s wonderful, but it bears no relation to how they live, like looking at Mars through a telescope. This building, though, seemed to be saying to passers-by: “Hey, Bud, good to see you - why not drop in and visit a spell, take your boots off and unburden your soul, make yourself at home.”
And if anyone thinks it strange that Lucifer should have positive views about churches, it might be necessary once more for me to point out that I was - and in essence still am - an Archangel. Churches are some of the branch offices of the boss I still worked for, even though I was demoted. So, come to that, are synagogues, ashrams, mosques, Hindu and Sikh temples, Wiccan circles and ancient stone rings. Only the name of deity has been changed to protect the innocent.
Consequently, although there is a popular image of the Devil melting into dust when faced with the edifice and symbolism of the Church, like Count Dracula at the end of each movie, it really doesn’t work like that. Entirely undaunted and gazing appreciatively at the artwork and modernistic decor, I entered the cathedral. Admittedly, my purpose was to use it as a surveillance post on the abandoned factory on the next block. But then again, I was, as it were, on the staff. At least in a certain manner of thinking. Look, I’ll argue about it later if necessary, OK?
Inside the vast airy modernity of the cathedral there were rows of beautiful polished teak benches and there were scattered people kneeling at their private devotions. I looked around, sizing up the layout of the place. I needed to find somewhere where I could loiter for an indefinite period and from where the neighboring factory was visible. The matter of external visibility was quite simple, since the cathedral had a wealth of big windows around its walls and there were adequate clear sections amongst the stained glass. However, the other matter of finding somewhere to hang loose inconspicuously was more difficult. If I joined the few others kneeling in the rows of pews at prayer, I would not be able to see out of any windows. I really needed to be near the walls, and I could hardly just lean casually against the brickwork without drawing attention to myself. There was one possibility. The booths of the confessional happened to be placed exactly right. They were all empty, and no priest was present. It would be possible to slip unseen inside a booth, draw the red curtain almost closed but still look out of a small gap straight at the empty factory across the broad lawn and the passing road. Looking round to make sure I was unobserved, I slipped quietly into one of the confessionals.
I had no clear idea of how long I would be prepared to wait. I had no proof that I was on the right scent; I could be wildly wrong about the abandoned factory. It was nothing more than an educated guess, which was a high-class name for a plain hunch. However, something - something - made me want to stick it out here rather than go on to any other tack. Some still, small voice deep down inside kept stopping me from giving up my vigil.
After several minutes, though, said vigil was not continued without some distraction. I thought my entry into the confessional had been unobserved. I was wrong. Suddenly there was a sound of a door-catch opening and closing, a rustle of cassock, a warm human sound of breathing. I froze, silent.
Not receiving the expected response of “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” after a few moments the priest spoke softly through the brass trelliswork.
“I am ready to hear your confession, my son.” He had, of course, no idea to whom he was actually talking.
“How long have you got?” I asked innocently.
It was three hours later when, at last, I spotted telltale movement in the supposedly empty factory. A single guttering light in the gathering dusk was moving along like a Will-O’-the-Wisp behind a few windows. It looked as though someone was walking carefully along carrying a candle. That was all I needed to see, in a building supposed to be abandoned. Now at least I knew there was something amiss within the factory, and I also knew it wasn’t going to be any burglar in an empty building. A hobo looking for a sheltered place to spend a few nights, perhaps: such things were not unknown. Maybe a junkie looking for a place to shoot-up undisturbed. But my main money was on Vittorio. Gently I eased myself out of the confessional booth and respectfully headed out of the cathedral.
Behind me, the booth door clicked open and a pale hand flickered out, grabbing hold of the jamb. It trembled slightly. Then its tendons flexed as it supported the rest of the emerging priest. He staggered, his face white and drawn, brow beaded with sweat, and snatched at the backrest of a wooden pew to maintain his balance. One of his legs beneath the cassock seemed to buckle slightly, and the other was having trouble bearing his weight. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, emitting no sound. His wide, staring eyes followed my departing figure, the whites showing all round each pupil. I sympathized, but had no time for a guilt trip. Besides, why should I feel guilty? Every job has its professional hazards and the vocation of priest was no exception. He should feel pleased. Not every priest has heard the Devil’s confession.
Since, this time, I was on my own with no mortal friends to worry about or cramp my style, as soon as I was outside in the gathering twilight and certain that nobody was watching, I flew into the air. As the sun set behind me in a blaze of dark red and purple clouds, I reflected that for a scene like this I really ought to be wearing a billowing black cloak with a scarlet lining and a high pointed collar rather than a loose fitting stylish Italian suit and T-shirt. Sadly I shook my head at my own train of thought: I loved the movies, but if I ever tried to direct one of my own, it would be full of clichés and stereotypes. With a certain wistfulness, I had to admit that Satan’s main vocation was probably not in the field of entertainment.
You know how one thought leads to another? Before I reached the factory roof my mind, refusing to entirely abandon the idea of performing to an adoring public, offered me another set of images. Some people get huge viewing figures on the ratings not by being entertaining in themselves, but by hosting chat shows on which entertaining people guested, like Johnny Carson. In my imagination I clearly heard an announcer’s voice calling out in rising excitement “Tonight, from Studio City, it’s the Satan Show!” followed by frantic clapping and cheering as an off-camera technician held up a big card with “applaud” written on it. The image was spoiled slightly by another technician holding up another big card which read “or else!” I sighed. Even my own unconscious insisted, like the bulk of humanity, in type-casting me. Smith was right that night she first visited my apartment: I did need a good PR firm. And then I reached the factory roof.
I stood there for a moment, puzzled. There was no sign of Niblick. I had rather hoped that he would be lying down behind a bush or something, “pointing”, as they say about a hunting dog that had spotted the game. There was no sign of him. This, above all, made me seriously doubt whether I was on the right trail. Maybe Vittorio had resisted the temptation to hole-up in a similar place to his previous hideout. Maybe he was miles away. Maybe he was in the next state. Maybe I was terribly wrong and had allowed the trail to grow uselessly cold. Maybe the guttering light I had seen had been nothing more than a vagrant. There were lots of maybes. Well, I was here now, and I had invested hours of valuable time in maintaining my stakeout, so whatever, I had to check the place. In the back of my mind the absence of Niblick bothered me.
At the centre of the roof was a small group of service apexes, each of which contained a door. I chose one farthest back, since it was also farthest from the windows through which I had seen the flicker of light. At the side of the apex an extractor fan was motionless behind a secure grille: the electric power to the building had apparently been disconnected at the main box. The door was metal and locked, but offered little resistance to a seriously strong tug from me.
Immediately inside was a flight of steps leading down into even deeper darkness than was now descending outside with the sunset. This did not bother me: I could see in the infra-red and ultra-violet, which made the view as clear to me as if it had been noon with floodlights. The stairs disappeared round a corner, and as I cautiously followed them down I came to another door. Shouldering this open as quietly as I could, I stepped into the factory area. It was big and empty, not even any rubbish piled up anywhere. Nothing. The windows through which I had seen the faint light moving were dark in the far wall. I began to doubt what I thought I had seen. Perhaps it had been nothing more than the reflection of distant automobile headlamps?
Then I noticed something. Over at the side of the big empty interior, on the concrete just below the windows, something round and shiny lay on the floor. Very cautiously now, I approached. It was an old-fashioned crystal ball resting in an ornamental stand. Around it on the concrete had been drawn in chalk a small pentacle filled with occult symbols. As I drew nearer still, it began to glow, getting successively brighter with each slow step I took. When I was finally within arm’s reach of it, it was as bright as a 40 watt light bulb. Such control of astral energy was a certain tell-tale sign of a Person of Power, a Tenth Degree occultist. I stood and stared at it for several long moments, unsure exactly what it meant and why it had been left there.
Then it rang, in a trilling musical tone exactly like that of any mobile phone.
15. Me - Outsmarted...
The crystal ball was approximately half the size of an average bowling ball, and much lighter. I picked it up and gazed into it. Immediately I lifted it off its stand, the musical trilling stopped. Vittorio’s face, familiar from my pencil reconstruction, wavered into view within the glass ball.
“Hello?” queried his voice, speaking in Italian. Being who I was, I was totally fluent in every language that had ever been spoken on earth, and all those that were yet to come. “Is that il Diablo?”
“Yes,” I answered quietly. “This is the Devil speaking.”
“Ahh - bene fads.” He was saying “thank you” in Latin now. “I wondered if I could be right about you. I apologize for doubting you... Master.” His head bobbed minutely in an optimistic token of obeisance.
“I’m not your master,” I snarled into the glowing sphere, “and I never was!”
A look of puzzlement appeared on the face I could see in the crystal. “But you are the Devil,” he pondered aloud. “Everything I have done, I have done in your name. I have worshipped you, Satan, the true Lord of Creation. It is your will I carry out on earth.”
“Nuts!” I commented. “You’re as much in error as all the great, misguided fools of history.” His kind of remarks made me hot under the collar - and you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. “Yes, I’m Satan, the Devil himself. But I’m not evil. I don’t promote evil. I don’t cause evil.” With each statement, my voice rose in its pitch of anger. “I’m an Archangel, get it? I got given a job, OK? I was put in charge of lost souls, comprende? I’m not the ‘Lord of Evil’, nor am I your lord, or any lord at all. And I’m sick of people who override their conscience and twist their minds to suit their own beliefs and carry out their own brand of evil, and then turn round and blame me for all they have done! I’m tired of being the universal scapegoat! And I’m not taking it any more - do you hear what I say?”
Vittorio considered this revelation with pursed lips for a long moment. “Then,” he said at length, “if Satan is not the Lord of Evil, who is the Evil One? Who is in charge of all the evil committed on earth?”
“I can tell you his name,” I replied wearily. “It’s Homo sapiens.”
“That is a shame,” concluded Vittorio with mock sadness.
“Why?”
“Because that puts you among the good guys – that puts you among my enemies.”
“I don’t regard that as a shame,” I responded.
“Maybe not, but perhaps your friends might.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly feeling uneasy.
“Well, I thought it would be wise to take out some extra insurance when dealing with the Devil himself, even when I thought you would be on my side,” he explained. “If you are not on my side, it becomes even more necessary. Look.”
He moved his own crystal ball, which communicated with the one I held in a manner analogous to a TV camera. His head swam out of vision as he aimed his one in a new direction, wherever he was. As his ball moved, some of his surroundings came into view. I saw a wall of grey stone blocks which looked vaguely like the interior of a military bunker: it could have been anywhere from a Beverley Hills wine cellar to an English castle. Then, as the view increased its scope, I saw two other things. Two cages of iron bars. Niblick was in one, and Detective Smith was in the other.
“They are unharmed at the moment,” resumed Vittorio conversationally. “But, if you attempt to thwart my plans once again, then... well, the dog I don’t know about. I don’t know if the legendary Cerberus himself, the Guard-Dog of Hades, can be killed: but if anything can do it, these can.” He turned the crystal ball so that I could see the arrangement of all five of the Vessels of Shinar placed around the dungeon or whatever the place was. “However, there is no such doubt about the girl. She is merely mortal.” His voice took on a harsh edge. “I trust I make myself perfectly clear, il Diablo?” The image within the crystal ball vanished as though a TV set had been switched off.
For once in my existence, I felt powerless, hopeless and sick at heart. I had been out-thought and out-flanked, and by a mortal to boot. The whole business of the abandoned factory had been nothing but a very cunningly thought-out trap. Obviously, while I was wasting time in the cathedral staring at vacant windows, Vittorio had been out kidnapping Smith. I mentally kicked myself. Apart from that, I should have realized that the Vessels of Shinar would have given the black magician the perfect tool for overpowering and capturing Niblick. This man, whatever else he might be, was no fool; he had been studying the vessels and learning ever more about their powers as time went by – and through them, learning about me.
I stood in the cavernous deserted building, motionless. Mortals called it being stunned. I had no ideas. I had no clever plan. I was without hope. My mind flooded with bitterness. My heart flooded with other feelings, mainly concerning Smith. There was no use fooling myself; no use pretending to be the nonchalant High Spirit, divorced from mundane human affairs; no use pretending to be unaffected by human beings. I finally had to admit to myself, deep down in my innermost heart of hearts, that I loved her deeply and passionately. And before anyone tries to argue that this could not be, that Divine Spirits cannot fall in love in the physical plane, that Archangels are immune from such temptations, they should listen to the words that now thundered in my memory like the blows of a great hammer upon an anvil. I remembered them well, from the First Book of Enoch: “And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said one to another: Come, let us choose wives from among the children of men and beget us children.” So there was precedent for the way I felt, even though the Book of Enoch had not been included in the standard Bible due to difficulties in the editorial stage.
This, for me, was an cathartic moment. I had tried, really tried, to be a force for good. I had tried to limit my actions and not be apocalyptic. I had resisted the temptation to use the unrestricted powers of an archangel, which could change the flowing of time, level continents, raise the dead, damn the living, rewrite history, stop the planets in their orbits, make the stars fall from the skies and even put the New York Yankees at the top of the Major League.
And because of this overriding self-regulation, here I was, motionless, without an idea, without a clue, aching in my heart, hands metaphorically tied behind my back, helpless, powerless, standing like a mere shadow in the night. Slowly, another emotion began to rise up inside me – a resurgence of anger! Who did this sonofabitch think I was? His underling? His junior? Some little provincial politician who could be intimidated by his ruthlessness?
My brows darkened and lowered. My eyes began to glow, sulphurous yellow at first, then suddenly bright blazing red. I raised my head and snarled against the darkness, theatrically producing a loud peal of thunder which reverberated round the sky outside. I was Satan; the Devil himself; the Archangel Lucifer fallen from Heaven. And he was in deep shit.
The time had come to stop being a wimp. I believe the modern expression is “wos” from “waste of space”.
But first, I must use my head. That head had been on my shoulders for umpteen millennia, so should have had sufficient time to absorb the necessary cunning to out-fox mere transient mortals. There was no point rushing round like a headless chicken. I needed to be clever. In fact, diabolically clever. In fact, diabolic!
All electronic communication devices whether radios, TV, emails, even cell phones, leave traces in the ether that can be followed for a time. Crystal balls do not, not even psychic residue of the kind Niblick could track, which was obviously why Vittorio had chosen this method of contact. My most urgent priority, then, was somehow to locate Vittorio’s base, the place I had caught a meager glimpse of in the background of his image. It could have been anywhere in the world. Furthermore, if at all possible, I must accomplish this by sheer natural cunning, allowable deviousness and genuine capability, not by stepping outside my brief - as the heavenly lawyers would term it – and rewriting future history with apocalyptic powers in order to arrange a successful outcome. To be true to myself and prove History wrong as my judge, I must remain within the bounds of good character. Or at least not stray very far outside the margins. If only there had been some super-directory which listed the exact current location of every single human being alive… my thoughts suddenly exploded! There was such a directory – the only problem was accessing it.
I must make use of my assets. Vittorio, no matter how clever and powerful a magician he was, had no way of knowing the inner workings of Hell - yet, anyway. I was not just Inspector Stan A. Fericul of the LAPD: I was the director of a vast, ancient, well-oiled and mighty organization. It was time to start making use of my corporate assets. I had the seeds of a plan, and it depended on the help of friends.
16. A Hell Raising Experience...
Hell is not really underground; that image is merely a mental impression fostered by thousands of years of human psychology. Air, sky, clouds and starry space have always been associated with the abstract concept of freedom of the spirit, and so heaven came to be pictured as a series of cloudy landscapes. The opposite concept - slavery, imprisonment, punishment and lack of freedom - has always been associated with things like dungeons, caverns and the interiors of volcano systems. Consequently, Hell has usually been pictured in the collective human psyche as being a kind-of huge cavern system with cells, torture chambers, furnaces, wall-irons and the like. In fact, the actual truth was that Hell, and Heaven, were states of mind. But that is not to say that they do not exist. The mind, after all, is a real place.
(If, like certain philosophers and advertising agencies, you do not believe that the mind is a real place, you can try a simple experiment in the privacy of your own home. Place your index fingers in your ears as though you were expecting a sudden loud bang to occur. Now push very slightly. If the tips of your fingers meet, this will prove that your mind is not a real place: if, on the other hand, the fingertips cannot meet, then your mind is proven to be a real place. QED.)
There was a place like a very big and shabby hut or ramshackle warehouse made of wood and corrugated iron: it badly needed a fresh paint job. On one wall inside was a big frame of numbered pigeon holes, some containing a scattering of papers awaiting distribution. Beside this stood a couple of rather dilapidated clerical grey filing cabinets, on top of one of which was a dust-enshrouded pool tournament trophy dated 1923. On another wall was hung a big map of the world printed on shiny cloth: it was even older, and included vivid pink and yellow areas: countries like Bohemia, Bechuanaland and Persia were mentioned on it. There was a plain, stout wooden table loaded with jury-rigged electronic equipment: metal boxes, arrays of glowing valves, wires strewn like spaghetti, circuit-boards, cathode ray tubes, small round green screens and lopsided junction boxes. Amid this general electronic chaos there was a chessboard with the pieces set out in mid-game array.
Close by there was also a small green baize folding card table, around which were drawn up three old chairs of a design which school dining rooms had discarded in the 1950s. Seated on the chairs were three small demons, the biggest no more than four feet six, had he been standing. The one with his back to the electronics was wearing an immense pair of ancient Bakelite headphones from which trailed a thick, coiled wire connected to a plug in a circuit-board. He also wore a green croupier’s eyeshade peak on his forehead. All three had smoldering roll-ups dangling from the corners of their mouths: a heaped glass ashtray sat on the green baize. In front of each demon was a shot glass and a small pile of coins of various nationalities and periods of history. The demons were playing cards with single-minded concentration. A half-empty bottle of bourbon stood next to the overflowing ashtray.
“Raise you four groats,” grunted one.
“Your four groats, and a denarius of Trajan,” grated another.
“Four groats, a denarius and a Cromwellian fifty-shilling piece,” said the third with a suppressed air of triumphal superiority.
“A 1697 golden five guinea piece to see you,” said the first, smugly triumphing the other’s triumph.
The third demon slowly laid down his small fan of cards for all to see. “Four aces and a ten,” he declared defiantly, reaching out a claw towards the pile of assorted coinage. The first demon laid his claw on the other’s arm to stop him in mid-reach. Slowly he laid down his own cards, face up.
“Four aces and a king,” he announced firmly. “That beats four aces and a ten.”
“Would you Adam ‘n Eve it?” grumbled the third demon, withdrawing his outreached claw. “Wot you got, Phumble?”
“Nuffink much,” said the second demon resignedly. “Just three aces and a pair o’ sixes.
The third demon gathered up the cards, squared up the pack and dropped them in front of the first. “Your deal, Phungus.”
The first demon, Phungus, picked up the cards and was about to start dealing when I suddenly opened the door to the big shed-like room and hurriedly burst in. The playing cards flew into the air in a cardboard shower as the three demons reacted in a knee-jerk panic. The card table tipped over against the pigeon holes. In a flustered race to be first, the three leaped together in a row, snapped to attitudes of attention, clicked their heel claws and saluted. “Hi, Boss,” said the first demon with a sickly smile, as might be worn by an optimistic child caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “It’s our tea-break.” Without lowering his gaze, he scuffed a few playing cards behind him with his foot.
“Yeah, that’s good -“ agreed Phungus, “er, I mean, yeah that’s right Guv, tea-break, innit?”
“We was jus’ finishing, Guv,” nodded Phumble, “’onnist we was.”
There was a sudden unexpected buzzing sound from the electronics table. The first demon glanced nervously behind him from the corners of his eyes and hastily removed the huge set of 1930 padded earphones from his head, trying to hide them nonchalantly behind his back.
“What’s that noise?” I demanded, momentarily sidetracked from my main purpose.
“Er - nuffink really Guv - it’s a buzzer,” replied the earphone demon, trying not to break out into a guilty sweat.
“I know it’s a buzzer, Phixit, it’s buzzing,” I spoke very quietly and slowly, “but why is the buzzer buzzing? And it would be very wise to keep it short and factual.”
Phixit sagged visibly, resigned to being on the carpet. The two demons on either side of him tried to ooze dutiful disdain and pretend they weren’t in the same line-up. “Well, Guv, it’s me chess game, see?”
“Not quite...” I admitted, fixing him with a stare and a raised eyebrow.
“I’m playing a game of chess, see?” He gestured at the board on the table. “We each make a few moves every day - only during tea-breaks, of course - and we do it over the communication system. I made a move about two hours ago - er, that was during a different tea-break - and the buzzer means that my opponent has got a move ready to tell me, see? Some humans do it like this through letters in the post, don’t they Guv? We do it over the old transmitter, that’s all.”
I frowned. My business was very urgent, but I was intrigued and thinking both fast and ahead as much as possible. “Phixit, who are you playing chess with?”
“He plays white,” jabbered Phixit, showing symptoms of panic. “My last move was a beauty, Guv. I moved king’s bishop to call check, and I think his only response will be to move his queen to block, and then I can take his queen... "
“Phixit, who are you playing chess with, that it needs to be done over a long-range transmitter?”
“...And then I can move my rook and get checkmate in seven moves...”
“Phixit, who are you playing chess with?” My voice had sunk to a menacing growl.
Phixit clasped his hands behind his back and stared at his feet. He mumbled something.
“I can’t hear you,” I stated, with a voice in which patience was standing on the edge of a cliff.
“Barchiel,” he repeated sullenly, still staring at the floor.
“Barchiel? Barchiel is an angel, Phixit,” I said, in a dangerously reasonable tone.
“Yus Guv,” agreed Phixit.
“He lives in Heaven, Phixit,” I labored the point.
“Yus Guv.”
“You, Phixit, are a demon.”
“Yus Guv.”
“You live in Hell, Phixit.”
“Yus Guv.”
“Then how, in the name of all that’s profane, did you ever manage to make friends with an angel?”
Phixit looked up at me in a kind-of sidelong way and gave a lopsided smile. “We’re pen-pals?” he offered.
I couldn’t keep up the drill-sergeant act any longer. Phixit knew me a little too well, I think. I just burst out laughing. Phungus and Phumble breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “Just speak to him and get his move,” I said, in a much more relaxed manner. “Then we’ve got some extremely important work to get organized.”
You may wonder that I was acting as though there was now all the time in the world, but in fact, there was. I had left the material plane behind me and re-entered the astral realms, where Heaven and Hell were located (along with the Happy Hunting Ground, the Dreamtime, Oz, Middle Earth and many other less traveled spiritual refuges). In this non-physical series of dimensions, time as human beings know it does not exist. For example, the entire sequence of events and conversations transpiring since I had burst through the door of Phixit’s tracking outpost and interrupted a very suspect poker game containing more aces than a professional tennis tournament, had so far occupied less real time than it took for an electron to complete one orbit of the nucleus of an atom. As I said just now, I was starting to use my head along with the assets of my long-established infernal organization. Phixit adjusted the pieces on the chessboard and removed his earphones, thereby signifying that I had his undivided attention.
“OK guys,” I addressed the three of them. “We got stuff to do - big stuff. Friends of mine are in trouble, including Niblick, and we’re going to do something about it.” Niblick was a favorite of the demons throughout Hell, except for the ones who had been taken for walkies.
“Right Guv,” snapped Phixit, alert and suddenly authoritative. “What’s the plan?”
“First, we’ve got to alert everyone. We need to grab the whole of Hell’s attention and stir up Heaven into confusion.”
“Not... Guv, you don’t mean...?”
“I’m afraid so.” My tone was serious and commanding. “Phixit, sound the Apocalypse Alert!”
Phixit visibly stiffened; he swallowed and took a deep breath. Like a lieutenant who had been given an unwelcome order by a general, he snapped to attention, turned on his heel and marched five or six paces with military arm-swinging until he stood before a small red box mounted on the wall. It had a pane of glass on the front, on which was printed in red: “In Case of Universal Armageddon, Break Glass. Penalty for Improper Use.” Dangling from it by a piece of string was a small hammer with a head like a metal golf-ball. Phixit grasped the hammer in his finger and thumb and smashed the glass with a brisk hard tap. Inside the box was a red pushbutton. Phixit paused with his thumb on the button and glanced round at me; I nodded. He pressed the button.
Of course, there is an exactly appropriate expression to describe what happened next.
All Hell broke loose.
From outside came the sound of a loud siren rising and falling, and a swiftly rising hubbub of voices. Followed by the trio of demons, I headed for the door of the radio-hut. Outside was parked my car – the automatic gear-shift marked HAB, “Hell and Back”, had come in handy. In the middle distance, as if in a truly gigantic cavern, there was a city, looking for the most part something like a cross between one of the Native American Pueblo towns and an archaeological reconstruction of ancient Babylon, with dashes of Planet of the Apes and the seamier part of Brooklyn thrown in for good measure. There was traffic, but it had come to a standstill with the wailing of the sirens. Demons of all shapes and sizes began pouring out of the offices and apartments in long queues for as far as the eye could see, which was a considerable distance because Phixit’s hut was on a hilltop outside the city perimeter, making it a good vantage point. Other demons with round white helmets and batons were assuming point-duty to direct the queues in an orderly fashion to their nearest A-shelter. “A” in this instance, of course, standing for “apocalypse”. On the white helmets of the nearest police-demons could be discerned the printed black letters ARP - “Apocalypse Raid Precaution”.
Phixit took a deep breath. “We’ve really started something, Boss.”
“Good,” I stated emphatically. “I wanted just that.”
Suddenly I became aware of a demon riding a fast motorcycle approaching with a roar of finely-tuned engine. He skidded to a halt just in front of us sending out a small tidal wave of dirt, saluted without dismounting and held out to me a small, long package. I took it and signed for it on the clipboard he produced. The messenger gunned his machine and roared away. “What’s that, Guv?” asked Phumble, curiously.
“I believe it’s the candlestick, the first sign of the Apocalypse,” I replied absently, watching the scene below and before us.
“Candlestick? What candlestick?”
“It’s mentioned in the Manual,” I informed absently. “Revelation, chapter 2, verse 5, describing the very beginning of the Apocalypse - .... and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place...’ So, at the start of any apocalypse alert, we always bring our candlestick to a place of safety as a matter of urgency. It’s a tradition.”
“A candlestick...?” repeated Phumble, as if to ensure that we were talking about the same thing.
“Yes,” I snapped. “I know it’s not logical, but you can’t argue with tradition. Especially when it’s written in the Manual.”
Before Phumble could make any further comment, there was a sound of a rather loud trumpet from within Phixit’s radio hut, blowing a regular fanfare. Phixit quickly went back inside, emerging a few moments later. “You’re wanted on the hot-line, Boss.”
I was expecting this. I went inside and strode over to a small shelf where a bright red telephone sat and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hello? Who is that?”
“This is Satan speaking.”
“Oh, hi Sate. This is Seal Control in Heaven.”
“Is that you, Sepherial?”
“In the flesh - or at least, in the spirit, you know how it is, ha ha.”
“Sure pal. Long time no see. How’s tricks?”
“Oh, so-so. Listen, did you just push the button on an apocalypse alert?”
“‘Fraid so, Seph. It’s only a practice drill, not the real thing.”
“Thank fuck for that! Er... I mean, Praise Be!”
“Yeah, only I thought, we haven’t had a drill for a long time, and we all might be getting a bit rusty.”
“Good thinking, Sate. It has been a long time since the last one. Say, when was the last apocalypse alert, anyway?”
“During the early 60s - the Cuban missile crisis, remember?”
“Ah yes, the good old days; Peace Man, Flower Power, Make Love Not War and all that. Whatever happened to the Hippies?”
“They grew old and bald and got trampled in the stampede of later generations running to get rich and genetically altering the flowers.”
“Sad. Anyhow, so I can tell Razadiel not to open any of the Seven Seals this time?”
“Just ask him to open the last one, the Seventh, on its own. Just to make the practice look good. We want everything to look a bit authentic, don’t we? Tell him not to bother with the first six.”
“OK chum, thanks. Catch you later. Oh, by the way, I got a message here for your man Phixit. Tell him, Barchiel says queen’s bishop to queen’s bishop 4 and check. See you.” And with a click the line went dead. Phixit had followed me in and I gave him the message. Quietly he went to his chess board and picked up the white bishop. Before repositioning it, he jiggled the piece in his hand a few times, deep in thought. Then, with a decisive movement, he banged it onto the chequered board and turned to face me.
“Boss, something’s up, isn’t it? Something’s really bugging you.” I stared into his green eyes, seeing the genuine concern behind them. “Come on, Boss,” he went on in a gentle tone. “I’ve worked for you for a long time, and I know you too well. Level with Uncle Phixit, eh?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “Something is up. I’m angry, frustrated, mentally tired, anguished, screwed-up, homicidal, suicidal, overwrought, off-balance, desperate, riddled with anxiety, depressed, liverish, dim-witted, dull, maniacal, emotional, self-critical, traumatized, aggressive, irrational, unreasonable, stressed, pressurized and angst-ridden. In fact, I have become almost completely human.”
“But...” Phixit grinned at me; he knew me very well. He knew there must be a “but”.
“But: I have a plan, of sorts.”
“And that’s what this is all about, is it?” said the demon, in a terribly level and sensible tone of voice. “You’ve ordered an apocalypse alert, bringing the entire normal workings of Hell to an instant standstill, placing Heaven on standby, recalling all demons and angels to their assigned duty positions, no matter what important work they may have been engaged in, just because you have a personal axe to grind?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
Phixit’s grin broadened even further. A glint appeared in his eye. “That’s the old Lucifer we all know and love!” He paused, considering. “What happens next?”
I grew reflective. “People who didn’t like me once called me ‘The Arch Deceiver’. Very unfair, I always thought. However, with any luck, I’m about to pull-off an Arch Deception!” I raised my gaze to the vaguely cave-like roof miles above, indistinct with distance and billows of slowly rolling dark mist.
17. Heaven Can't Wait...
Not exactly ‘up’, or ‘above’, for such dimensional directions are purely physical and the mythic creations of generations of human thought and belief have nothing to do with the limitations of physical attributes, but simply ‘elsewhere’, there was Another Place. It was white and bright and light, ornamented with fluffy white clouds and tasteful buildings seemingly of whitest marble and trimmings of pure shining gold. The citizens of this Place sported iridescent wings and tended to wear flowing white robes. The gentle music of harps played in the background. My idea of heaven would be a tropical beach where waves of crystal clear water lapped the sand and beautiful tanned maidens wearing sarongs served fruit and cocktails while the palm trees waved gently in the background. However, I had been outvoted at the committee stage.
Actually, there were many heavens; each strong belief ever held by mankind had gained morphic reality in the spiritual realms and existed in harmony side-by-side with each other like parallel universes in quantum theory. But this was the one we were interested in. This was the one that could help us - if my plan worked, and if my friends could succeed in playing their part.
The translucent white streets and thoroughfares were thronged with hosts of angels going about their heavenly business. The whole place was reminiscent of a vast series of crowded shopping malls with decor by the Disney Studios. In the remote distance could just be seen the sparkling outline of huge pearly gates: there seemed to be a long queue outside. Inside, two smallish angels flew with slow grace along a cloudy avenue past buildings which looked as though the DNA of some Ivy League university campus had become mixed with that of Beverly Hills then rebuilt in alabaster. The two angels minded their own business, and nobody gave them a second look.
Which was just as well.
The hoods of their white billowing robes were pulled over their heads and close around their faces. Their beating wings, protruding from tailored holes cut in the back, were a blur in the air. Some ten feet above what would have been the ground if it hadn’t been spiritual, they skimmed side by side in the general direction of a distant mighty edifice of gold, pearl, rainbow and dazzling sculptured light which gleamed on the far side of the Celestial City on what would have been a hilltop except it was another cloud. No matter the nationality, in any city a building of that nature, big and raised and with more of everything than anywhere else, was obviously some kind of administrative capital. And as the two rather small angels passed along the heavenly thoroughfares towards it, they conversed together to pass the time.
“I strongly think that the associational psychology of Joseph Priestly, as gradually made concrete in his eighteenth century books The Scripture Doctrine of Remission and The History of Electricity, benefited enormously from the approval of Charles Darwin, which in turn espoused it to John Stuart Mill.”
“I concur, but it must be born in mind that this line of thought, together with the favor Darwin bestowed upon it, also encouraged Herbert Spencer - who although originally a railway engineer went on to become sub-editor of The Economist in 1848 - to widen the scope of that school of thought into the Doctrine of Evolution, which may have helped crystallize his views towards his book Man versus the State, which although pre-dating Carl Marx’s Das Capital, served in a real way to attack the foundations of Communism even as they were being laid down.”
I’ll give you three guesses who the two “angels” really were; and all three guesses would be right. Pharter and Phukkit were on a mission. They were not exactly in enemy territory, bearing in mind the forgiving nature of the place where they were, but none the less there were certain dangers attached should they be discovered. Be honest with yourself - if you had enjoyed playing a few hands of poker during every tea-break for several thousand years, would you relish the idea of spending eternity in a place where any form of gambling was forbidden? It is a fairly well known fact that demons are, in origin, fallen angels; it is less well known that more than a few of them resigned of their own accord out of sheer boredom.
Fortunately, although everything moved at a terribly sedate and dignified pace all around, Heaven was actually in a turmoil - by its own standards. Normally, hardly any movement at all could be discerned amongst the inhabitants: why bother to rush, or even to move, when you had all of eternity stretching before you? But at the moment there was an apocalypse alert, and this had put the metaphorical cat amongst the heavenly pigeons. Most importantly, it created a certain amount of coming and going amongst the angels, which provided the demonic duo with a useful amount of cover for their own movements.
Naturally, within Heaven itself there were no such things as guards, lookouts, patrols, sentries or anything of that nature. However, all it would take would be one angel noticing something not quite kosher about the pair of disguised demons to raise a hue and cry. You can’t really fly on tiptoe but if you try to imagine it you will get an idea of how they were proceeding. Not far away now was the great, imposing gold and crystal door of the administration building, the Headquarters of Heaven. This, incidentally, was the building in which was located the boardroom from which, eons ago, I had been fired for refusing to bow down before the New Product, Adam.
As bold as brass, Pharter and Phukkit flew through the imposing vestibule inside the enormous doorway which was big enough to admit four 747s holding hands, the vestibule bigger than Central Park. Inside, there were beautiful fountains, cloudy sculptures and pillars of light. This was perfect cover for two demons disguised in white robes who needed a place to hide for a moment in order to confer about mystical esoteric matters, such as which way should they go now?
“Let’s ‘ave another butchers at that bleedin’ map before you get us any more lost than we already are,” grumbled Pharter.
“‘Lost’ is an absolute term,” pointed out Phukkit. “You can’t be more lost, or less lost, any more than you can be more found or less found.”
“Look, when I want a lecture on popular semantics, I’ll ask for it, OK?” growled Pharter out of the corner of his mouth as he perused the scroll of map his companion had pulled out of a deep pouch in his robe.
“It ain't semantics, it’s grammar,” grunted Phukkit, squinting at the parchment over his friend’s shoulder. “Anyhow, hark who’s blaming me for getting us lost: ‘Turn right at that cloud and then we go left at the second pillar of light’, you said."
“All right, all right, keep yer horns on,” answered Pharter absently, experimentally holding the map upside down and frowning at it. He looked up and checked the local landmarks. He pointed. “That way.”
“Are you sure?” asked his friend doubtfully.
“Positive. Look at the map - under the crystal dome, past the Fountains of Paradise, turn left at the Pavement of Perfection, straight down the Avenue of the Archangels, up the Stairs of the Saints, across the Square of Eternal Light, turn right at McDonalds, then next left.”
“OK. Let’s go for it.”
Stuffing the parchment map deep into its pouch, they took to the air again and drifted along the prescribed route. Eventually they reached their chosen destination.
“See?” hissed Pharter triumphantly. “I told you so. Look at that.”
What he was pointing at was a large sign in gold lettering on a polished marble lintel over a broad flight of stone steps leading to the entrance of a splendid building. Of course, all the buildings were splendid and it would be further bad grammar to describe one as being more splendid, since the word ‘splendid’ is another absolute, like ‘lost’ and ‘found’. However, this was Heaven, and this building was very extremely much more splendid than even a grammatical one. The sign above the imposing entrance read: “The Seventh House”.
“Hey,” remarked Pharter as they paused briefly before the great edifice . “That’s Aquarius, ain’t it?”
“Wot is?” replied Phukkit in a slightly baffled tone.
“The Seventh House. Remember that musical we went to see all them years ago, back in the sixties, Hair? Remember that great song...” he began to sing, rocking and snapping his fingers; “When the Moon is in the Seventh House, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace shall rule the planets, and lo... ove shall steer the stars. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Age of Gmuumphtd!” His happy song ended abruptly as Phukkit’s hand clamped suddenly and firmly over his mouth.
“Shoosh!” he hissed in a stage whisper, looking about hastily from within the depths of his hood. “You want us to get our collars felt?”
Pharter twisted his mouth free from the clamping hand. “Fer cryin’ aht loud, I’m only being ‘appy, ain’t I? This is ‘Eaven, ain’t it? People is supposed to be ‘appy in ‘Eaven.”
“For your Hinformation, people Hain’t Happy in Heaven.” Phukkit emphasized his aitches to increase his moral distance from his friend’s remark. “People are blissful in Heaven. They’re not happy. Happy is what you are boozing in a pub; at a football match wiv yer mates; when you’re beating the crap out of someone you don’t like; when you realize the shop gave you too much change; when you’re havin’ a good nosh-up of fish n’ chips; in your girlfriend’s bedroom; when you find a fetish magazine in your boss’s drawer; when you find your boss’s drawers in a fetish magazine: that’s happy. Nobody’s happy in Heaven. They’re blissful. They’re two different fings. There’s no place for happy in Heaven – it ain’t dignified.”
“Sorry,” grunted his friend, slightly abashed. “Well, why is it called the Seventh House then?”
“Because,” explained Phukkit with greatly exaggerated patience, “it is the place where they keep the Seventh Seal. That’s what we’re after, innit?”
“Oh yer,” said Pharter brightly as though he had just woken up.
Phukkit looked around again to make sure nobody was watching. “Come on mate, in we go. Stay sharp. And make sure your body language don’t say ‘happy’.”
The two white-robed figures floated through the vast archway, shoulders slightly slouched, heads bowed, hands clasped in front of them. Their body language might have been trying to say “blissful”; it certainly wasn’t saying “happy”.
After drifting down many vaulted and cavernous halls, where beams of lustrous light criss-crossed and made the air radiant, they reached the Great Auditorium. This most resembled a Pope’s idea of the United Nations General Assembly room, inasmuch as there was a central dais surrounded by banked tiers of crystal stages rising in ever-higher terraces towards the walls which were golden-hued and misty with distance. The place was becoming packed with a shimmering white multitude of angels. The two disguised demons paused briefly in the great entrance to this enormous chamber.
“What’s the collective noun for a lot of angels?” asked Phukkit musingly.
“A choir of angels, I fink,” ventured Pharter in a whisper, awed by the sight before them.
“But they ain’t singing,” observed Phukkit reasonably. “Is it still a choir if the angels ain’t singing?”
“It’s a siege of heron,” reflected Pharter, “and an exaltation of skylarks, and a parliament of crows, and of course everyone’s heard of a gaggle of geese.”
“An’ you can have a pod of whales and elephants.”
“I know!” said Pharter brightly, suddenly making it up, “It’s a pinhead of angels.”
“A pinhead...?”
“Yeah. You know, like that geezer in olden days wot tried to work out how many angels could dance on a pin’s head, see? Hence, a pinhead of angels.”
“You just made that up,” said Phukkit doubtfully.
“Did not!”
“Did!”
“Shurrup! We’ve got work to do. Everything depends on us being in exactly the right place at precisely the right time.”
“Come on then”, agreed Phukkit. “Let’s join the... pinhead.”
“See?”
“Just ‘cos I borrow the term for convenience, it don’t prove anythin’”
“Shurrup!”
The two of them floated into the massive auditorium and merged with the multitude of angels who were settling there like white doves in a dovecote, or from the demon’s point of view, like seagulls in a Hitchcock movie. On the dais at the centre, a solemn angel with a rather gaunt face stood facing an ornate golden lectern bearing a huge brass-hinged leather-bound book. Carefully, inconspicuously, the two demons edged their way forward towards the centre, as near as possible to the dais, as though looking for a pair of empty seats. Suddenly, as they arrived at the very edge of the raised platform, an intense ray of light blazed down from some point above indistinct in the fluorescent high mist. It was like a stage spotlight on the dour angel standing at the lectern. An unseen trumpet sounded a brief fanfare.
“Bingo!” whispered Phukkit. “Perfect timing. Ready?”
“Ready,” came Pharter’s answering whisper.
On the dais, the somber angel gripped the great book with one hand and produced a huge golden key with the other. On the cover of the book was a large, elaborate golden seal with a keyhole in it.
“I am about to open the Seventh Seal,” he announced theatrically.
“Get on with it Razadiel,” came an irritated cry from somewhere in the throng, “it’s only a practice alert, not the real thing.” There was a restrained murmur of agreement from a multitude of bored watchers.
Razadiel glowered at his audience and thrust the key in the lock. He opened the great book of the Seventh Seal. There was a brief flash of light. He closed the book again and locked it. “Right. Now we can all get on with what we were doing before the alert was sounded.”
Nearby, Pharter and Phukkit faded quietly into the midst of the departing throng. Unobserved, Pharter raised his right arm and glanced down the voluminous sleeve at his hand. The camera it held was making a gentle buzzing noise as it slowly ejected the developing photograph.
(END OF PART ONE – CONTINUED IN PART TWO)
RAISING THE DEVIL (PART TWO)
18. In Enemy Territory...
As explained earlier, it is important to recall that the spiritual planes run according to a different time-frequency than the physical universe. You may also recall the threats Vittorio had made to me through the crystal ball, showing me that he had captured Smith and Niblick and was holding them in cages as insurance against my good behavior. Well, as Pharter and Phukkit scuttled warily over a deserted back wall of Heaven and began the long return to the slightly warmer climes they were more familiar with, only five seconds had passed in the mortal world since the crystal ball had gone dark.
I was waiting inside Phixit’s radio shack trying to look like the calm, aloof and saturnine Lord of Hell and actually looking like an expectant father pacing up and down smoking in a maternity hospital waiting room. You may think it strange or out-of-character, but I don’t actually smoke - combustible products, that is. Bits of me occasionally smoke, especially when I am angry, nervous or worried. The interior of Phixit’s shack had grown decidedly foggy.
Pharter and Phukkit burst suddenly through the somewhat rickety door, an air of suppressed triumph in their demeanor. Pharter gleefully waved a small square of card as though it bore the solution to Fermat’s last theorem.
“Boss, we got it! We got it!” He was so excited there were almost tears in his eyes, although he would deny it for many centuries. Almost gingerly, I took the piece of card from him: my own hand shook. If this gamble had not worked like I hoped it would, I would have lost… well, everything. Phixit looked over my elbow curiously; he was too short to look over my shoulder without flying. The piece of card was a photograph from an instant camera.
“The camera is a special one,” I breathed to Phixit as I examined the picture. “Mortals sometimes use them for taking what they are pleased to call ‘auragraphs’ -photographs of the human aura. Amongst other things, the film itself has to carry an electrostatic charge when it is exposed.”
“Like Kirlian photography?” queried Phixit with interest.
“That’s it,” I agreed. “Such equipment can photograph spiritual actualities, where an ordinary camera cannot. In fact, as a matter of interest, although it’s a well known fact that vampires don’t show in photographs, like they don’t in mirrors, this kind of camera will catch them in every detail, whether or not they’re saying ‘cheese’. However, here we have something far more vital to our purposes.”
“What’s that, Boss?” asked Phixit.
I showed him the picture. “An astral photo of the Seventh Seal, opened.” Phixit gave a low whistle and gazed at Pharter and Phukkit with greater respect.
“And, as we all know, the Seventh Seal, which is opened only during the Apocalypse or an apocalypse alert, contains details of the exact current whereabouts of every single soul on earth, the idea being that nobody can escape the Day of Judgment by hiding out in the middle of a jungle or in a nuclear sub under the North Pole, or in the central chamber of a pyramid.”
“Every single soul... ?“ began Phixit, then understood.
“Exactly,” I answered his unspoken realization. “It’s the perfect way to find out where someone is, no matter how cleverly they may have hidden themselves. In fact, if you need to pinpoint a tenth grade black magician, who might be anywhere in the whole world and has hiding abilities aided by a twisted mind and you need to do this in mere minutes, it’s the only way.”
We all stared at the small photograph I was holding in my fingers. Pharter gasped in reluctant admiration. “They even list them in alphabetical order,” he breathed. “It’s the ultimate directory."
We scanned down the impossibly long list of names; after all, there were now officially over six billion human beings alive on earth. It is a boggling thought that this list inside the book of the Seventh Seal is updated for births, deaths and movements from room to room every thirty seconds. Only Heaven could do this. Only Heaven would want to. Such a gigantic list could only be recorded in a spiritual medium, not in a physical one, which is why it needed an auragraph camera to snap it in its entirety. The information was not shown in printed words but in intra-dimensional thought-forms. We skipped over immense sections of the population whose names began with letters of the alphabet we were not interested in. Soon we came to the initials we wanted - S for Smith and V for Vittorio. There was a short nonplussed silence.
“We got big problems, Boss,” said Phukkit, his eyes widening.
“We sure have,” agreed Pharter.
Smith and Vittorio were both listed. They were inside the Vatican, in the black museum vaults.
It was obvious in retrospect. Vittorio had evidently once been curator of the place; it was probably like a second home to him: he would know every nook and cranny intimately, plus ways to get in and out. It was, in effect, his secret little kingdom. The perfect place to use as an ultimate HQ. There were certain occult techniques available to an Ipsissimus, a Master of the Tenth Degree, which would enable them to transport themselves and their entourage in a few moments across the world, from California to Rome. I was still guilty of severely underestimating my enemy. I had discovered his hiding place. And I was powerless to do anything about it!
“This above all - to thine own self be true.” This might possibly be the best piece of advice ever given to the human species; but, if you looked at it from the opposite direction, it could also be viewed as a trap, if the interpretation is that nobody can escape from the limitations of their own nature. It applied equally to organizations as well as to individuals. For example, the IRS would never say “Well, it’s only a few hundred dollars, we’ll let you off this time.” And it also applied to spiritual realities.
What I’m getting at is this. The entity called Satan - me - is a specific part of widespread human belief. This means that I have to abide by the rules of my nature. By “nature”, I don’t mean my personality, I mean the very forces which created me. Just like a mortal’s nature is Human Nature, so mine is, in effect, Spiritual Nature, if you follow my drift. And I cannot transgress the bounds of my own creation, any more than a mortal human can become a rabbit or tiger at will.
In short, what this all means is quite simple and fairly logical - if you have a degree in theology. It means that Satan cannot set foot inside the Vatican. Any human being can, but not Satan, nor any entity whose address on the electoral register happens to be Hell. Vittorio, although evil, was a mortal human, and therefore this restriction did not apply to him. Niblick was in origin not a creature of Hell but of Greek mythology, being Cerberus the hound who guarded the Underworld. I had merely adopted him a few thousand years ago, because my heart ached when I heard the whining from outside the gates of Hell when the lights were turned off for the night. This meant that he could be taken into the Vatican, as Vittorio had obviously done...
And then, prompted by this frantic musing, I began to think more constructively. It was a slender chance, and a dangerous one for me, but it seemed like the only possibility.
“Niblick!” I cried. “There’s a clue there.”
“How do you mean, Boss?” enquired Pharter, puzzled.
“Don’t you see - if Niblick can survive in the Vatican, even as a prisoner, then perhaps so could I.”
“What?” exclaimed a chorus comprising of Pharter, Phukkit and Phixit.
“Boss,” went on Pharter. “You know as well as I do that if you step over the boundary line that marks the border of the Vatican City, you will loose all your spiritual powers, all your abilities - everything.”
“Yes - but at least I won’t be destroyed - I think.”
“You think, Boss? Is that enough to go on?” There was genuine concern in the little demon’s eyes.
“Look,” I tried to sound far more confident than I felt. “We have that slender piece of information, which I nearly missed the significance of. Niblick is alive and well, even if caged, inside the Vatican.”
“Yes,” argued Pharter doubtfully, “but you and him come from different ethnic backgrounds. You’re biblical, he’s ancient Greek myth. What works for him might not work for you.”
I looked him squarely in the eyes. “My old friend, that’s a chance I must take. There’s no other way. As they say in the movies, if anyone’s got a better plan, now’s the time to hear it.”
I headed for my parked car. Pharter and Phukkit trotted behind me. I held up a hand. “Sorry, boys; this time I’m on my own.”
The last thing I heard before igniting the engine was Pharter grumbling to the others. “It’s like Superman going to the Kryptonite museum!”
There’s nothing like a comforting thought when you need it.
My car got me back to the real-time material world in little more than an instant. My steering during that instant was pretty cool - I emerged not in California, but in Rome. I don’t know whether you have ever been to Rome, but there’s just nowhere to park anywhere near St. Peter's Square, unless you happen to be in the armored Pope-mobile which, in these uncertain times, is considered necessary to protect the earthly representative of eternal life from sudden death. So, to park, I took advantage of my abilities while I still possessed them and turned the steering wheel through an N dimensional U-turn, folding the front into the back and effectively making the vehicle disappear. Only I could find it again, if I needed it - and if I was still around! To comfort my conscience, I put a coin in the nearest parking meter, giving somebody else an extra hour.
I was about to undertake the single most dangerous act I had ever attempted, without a safety net. I was going to walk into the Vatican City, the world’s smallest independent state. It was extremely risky, because it was unprecedented and therefore unpredictable. I had never done anything like this before, throughout a long history, and I had no way of knowing what the results would be. Despite the cover of confidence I had put on for the sake of the demons, for all I knew I would cease to exist the instant I stepped over the border of the Papal country, flashing into a pillar of fire like a movie vampire passing a sun-ray lamp. After all, although I was a creation and operative of the same creator they believed in, that was not by-and-large how they saw me. One of the prime purposes of the Vatican for its entire existence has been to combat Satan, and that kind of fervent fanaticism, no matter the particular religion, always created a dangerously powerful collective thought-form, like a spiritual black hole for people like me.
But I could not afford the luxury of dwelling on this, or of taking my leisure about approaching the life-or-death test, because those I loved were in peril and needed saving. As I strode purposefully towards the great Catholic complex through avenues thronged with happy tourists, I smiled grimly to myself at the irony of it all. Here was Satan, trying to be a savior, rescuing souls from the Vatican. If I succeeded, they would have to add a sequel to the Bible!
From my parking place I had walked to the Viale Vaticano, the road which runs outside most of the Vatican City’s walls except in the east where it becomes the Via di Portia Angelica that runs down to the Plazza San Pietro, Saint Peter’s Square. I was north of the complex and found myself near the public entrance to the Musei del Vaticano, the vast and incomparable Vatican Museum. If I entered here I knew that, providing I could find an unguarded exit at the southern end of the museum where it adjoined the Sistine Chapel, I might be able to make my way west along the Via del Governatorato which skirts the rear of St. Peter’s Basilica, the world’s largest Catholic church, and leads to the Governatorato itself, which is essentially a large administrative office block housed within a Renaissance building. From the basements of the Governatorato, according to legend, a modern passage led beneath the Viale dell’ Osservatorio and ran back underground in the direction of the Basilica, beneath which lay hidden the Scavi, or Vatican Necropolis, rediscovered during archaeological excavations in the 1940s. This place is nothing less than a veritable underground network of tunnels and vaults which include the third century Tomb of the Julii and a necropolis, or burial place, dating back to the time of the Roman emperors. Also, from the same office basement, there was an equally ancient and very secret set of underground passages leading down to the mythical Vatican Black Museum. Or so generations of fleetingly whispered rumors had it.
Outside the public entrance there was a queue of visitors from all parts of the world. I suppose one could hardly call them “tourists”, even though they looked like it: they were pilgrims; for most of them, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Come to that, so it was for me. Four members of the Swiss Guard - the Pope’s small traditional private army looking something like a Harlequin version of the Beefeaters of the Tower of London with bigger pantaloons - stood to attention either side of the open doors. Slowly, the queue was wending its way inside.
However, before I could follow, I had to cross the boundary and I was approaching the invisible line of demarcation, alone and on foot. Tourists and pilgrims stepped over it without a second glance: to mortals, the border was nothing but an unseen political device separating a big country from a little one within it: no more than a curiosity for the average person.
So, as I drew relentlessly nearer to the entrance, I had no idea what would happen to me as I committed the act of crossing its threshold. I tried to walk with bold strides, resisting the impulse to cringe, to shorten my steps, to give up and run. I broke into a cold sweat. This was unusual for someone very used to heat. For a few seconds, I whimpered mentally. My right foot rose, seeming to me as though it were all in slow motion. It swung forward, to the step - over it - down - onto the building’s polished floor. The rest of me followed it, and then, suddenly....
Nothing!
Nothing happened. Except that I continued walking, safe, unfrizzled, un-pillar-of-ashed. I followed the end of the queue of visitors, feeling suddenly elated and somewhat light headed. I had survived. I breathed a huge sigh of pure relief, which my throat and mouth modulated unconsciously into the words I was thinking. “I’m alive!” came my gasp.
The American tourists - sorry, pilgrims - immediately in front of me in the queue turned to face me, smiling beatifically. The wife was blue-rinsed and wore spectacles with pointed pink rims. “Gee, honey, we know how you feel, don’t we George?”
“Sure do,” drawled George, absently easing some of his camera straps. He made a fist and thumped his heart lightly. “Kinda gets you right here, doesn’t it?”
“We’re the Johnsons from Baltimore,” supplied his wife, still beaming.
“I’m the.... from....” I tweaked a silly grin, “Hi.”
The queue wound its way into the ornately appointed renaissance building, not slowly like a theatre queue, but still too slow for me. All the time, the friendly Johnsons kept up a sporadic covering fire of polite conversation.
Within the stately museum foyer, we found we were part of a group of about thirty visitors under the supervision of an official tour guide with an ID card and photograph hanging on his lapel. We wended our way past some of the world’s very greatest art treasures.
“Gee,” remarked Mrs. Johnson in awe. “This is even more than I expected.”
“Sure is,” agreed her spouse. He tapped my arm, pointing through a large window. “That’s St. Peter's Basilica, the mother church for all the world’s Catholics.”
“I know,” I said, deciding not to mention that I knew its founder personally.
“I wonder how long the Popes have lived here?” speculated Mrs. Johnson. She managed to make it sound like she was talking about a family in Baltimore.
“Since the fifth century,” I replied absently, trying to form plans in my head, “except between 1309 and 1378 when the Papacy was based in Avignon in France.”
“You don’t say?” responded Mr. Johnson warily.
“And for all that time, the Vatican has been a separate state, an independent country, a bastion against the evils of the world,” enthused Mrs. Johnson with a happy sigh.
“Er - not exactly,” I advised. “It was only granted a status independent from Italy in 1929, and it contains its own torture chambers, no longer used of course.”
“Oh, really?” said Mrs. Johnson, also growing slightly wary, as some mortals do in the presence of someone who knows more than they do about their chosen subject. “You mean it took them until then before some enlightened, liberated politician saw the Path of Righteousness and gave them the freedom of independence?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“Who was that enlightened man?”
“Benito Mussolini.”
There was a silence like disinfectant.
“He negotiated the Lateran Treaty, offering the Vatican independence if it recognized the Kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy,” I added.
There is a human knack, extremely prominent amongst middle-classes the world over, of being able to ignore anything which does not tally with one’s own world-view. Karl Marx mentioned it in a diatribe against the petty bourgeois in Das Capital. The Johnsons were experts. One of the secrets of this ability is continuing to talk as though nothing had happened, the conversational equivalent of someone in evening dress who passes a sprawled down-and-out drunkard in a street and immediately walks on, instinctively not even looking at them or acknowledging their existence.
“And it’s so peaceful,” Mrs. Johnson trilled, looking round appreciatively. “No hurley-burley, no hustle and bustle; nobody rushing to get to the office. A complete break from Mammon and from commuting to work just to earn money. No TV or radio to pollute the mind. No blazing newspaper headlines. No police sirens wailing in the distance. Just divine peace”
“Actually,” I contributed, “the Vatican has its own railway station, and its own broadcasting station, and although it uses the Italian lira, it has its own coinage. It also has its own newspaper, and even its own police.”
What I said was true, but it did not fit with what the Johnsons wanted to know. Like so many mortals, they were off in a world of their own where the truth was an objectionable intruder. I decided against telling them that Michelangelo was gay, or that Pope Honorius had written an instruction book on black magic, or that people had regularly been tortured to death within these very grounds. If the illusion is sweeter than reality, it takes grit to face truth. In the Johnson’s sanitized world, grit was what respectable people put down on their front drive in winter.
However, so far, my plan for a one-man rescue mission seemed to be working. Surreptitiously abandoning the throng of tourists, I was now actually within the Vatican City only some twenty minutes after leaving Hell in my car. I knew where I needed to head for - the private administration building I mentioned just now where, at the rear of the ground floor, a number of staircases were located. Some of these went down to huge kitchens and storehouses, including the wonderful wine-vaults for some reason closed to the general public. But there was another staircase, leading down to the passage that led to the Scavi or catacombs, and to ancient dungeons and torture chambers not only closed to the public but not even mentioned in official guidebooks. This ultimately descended to a cellar and a passage which led to the secure doors of the secret Vatican black museum, many meters below ground level.
The Vatican, of course, is built on top of the Vatican Hill which is not one of the seven ancient hills of Rome, and before Christianity it was the home of the pagan high priest of the Roman gods, the Pontifex Maximus, a title which lingered and was transferred to the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. According to legend supported by a few vague hints in ancient documents, the vaults of the black museum were dug so deep that they were below the high-water table of the Tiber. Again according only to largely unsubstantiated legend and a brief piece of writing on an ancient parchment, a brilliant Roman architect and engineer at the time of the emperor Constantine, one Avidius Cassius, many years ahead of his time, had ordered whole Dalmatian pine forests cut down to provide thousands of gallons of pitch which were poured into a special reservoir beneath the cellars and allowed to solidify, thereby producing an effective damp-proof course which kept the deepest cellars dry even in times of flood.
My problem now was to gain access to the museum. I knew this would be extremely difficult, because I knew my limitations. Experimentally, I tried to fly a few feet above the ground; nothing. I remained in contact with the marble floor. As I had expected, even though entering the Vatican had not destroyed me, it had stripped me of all powers and abilities except those I shared with ordinary mortals. I could walk, talk and think. Pinching myself for confirmation, I could also feel pain. In short, within these time-honored precincts, I was entirely mortal. It was a strange feeling, but in spite of a certain apprehension, even fear, I refused to turn round and run for the border to regain immortality. I had a job to do. People I cared for were in trouble, and only I might possibly be able to help them. Naturally, like any decent person who owns a dog, I considered Niblick to also be a People.
I hid behind a marble plinth bearing a beautiful statue cast in bronze, about life-size, until the guide and the party of visitors had gone ahead and disappeared around a corner of the big corridor. I was alone. I glanced at the bronze statue. It depicted St. Michael with raised sword slaying a dragon representing the Devil. I hoped it wasn’t an omen. Mike would never do that anyway - except perhaps on that occasion when I threw a cocktail party and told only him that it was fancy dress. I don’t think he has ever really forgiven me for that one.
The first thing I needed if I was going to wander through the place unchallenged was a disguise of some kind; I must not look like a visitor. The Swiss Guard, traditional soldiery of the Vatican, had the power to arrest trespassers, and I knew that there were also plain-clothed security men and closed-circuit TV cameras in the great building, as well as invisible alarm beams in front of all the art treasures. Apart from all this, there were many staff hurrying up and down the ornate passages on official business and, as I had informed the Johnsons just now, there was also a regular Vatican police department. If anyone saw me away from the designated tourist areas, they would quickly suspect that I was up to something and raise the alarm.
Fortune favors the bold, it is said. From a litter bin I salvaged a small sheaf of papers – a guide book, a screwed-up letter and a leaflet with coffee stains – and bustled along examining these as though I worked there and was on my way to an office. Several minutes later I had reached the far end of the great museum’s galleries and found an unwatched exit leading to the road outside, which led me after a quarter of a mile without incident to the steps of the Governatorato, the administrative office building. Although there were a few people going about their own business, nobody bothered to stop me or ask any awkward questions. Looking like I knew exactly where I was going, I entered the front door of the building and went inside.
My mind was working at fever pitch and it came up with a good idea. Risking a sprint along a few carpeted corridors and through several doorways without encountering anyone, I deliberately headed in a direction where the rich trappings and treasures grew visibly less imposing and were obviously petering out, at least slightly. I knew that there must be staff rooms and offices somewhere, and the subtle but noticeable reduction in splendor and increase in functionality was an indication that they were nearby.
After a short period of nosing about - during which I twice had to hide from robed clerics - I found something useful. Quite simply, a men's changing-room. Apart from the general tidiness, the high vaulted ceiling, red carpet and lack of spray can graffiti, it could have been a locker-room in any college. To my surprise and annoyance, the lockers were locked. Fear of thieves inside the Vatican? Was nothing sacred? Surely the Swiss Guard protected the place from crooks – but that thought reminded me of something: I had a Swiss Army pocket knife, and I used it (breaking two blades and the thing for getting stones out of horses hooves in the process) to force open a locker at random. Inside was something very useful - a priest's complete costume, robe, hat, shoes, everything. They were not my size, but the garments were loose-fitting robes and it was only the shoes that were impossible to put on. The real owner was obviously of slightly smaller stature than I. The hat was a bit tight, but what the hell, this was an emergency. I put in a couple of small slits at the back with the scissors bit of the knife and at least got it on my head.
A minute later, the newly robed Father Satan strode briskly down a corridor looking for anything resembling the back stairs. I knew I needed the basement vaults, but the place was huge, with a scarcity of handy notice boards giving directions. There was no door with "Janitor" stenciled on it, even in Italian, which of course - like every other human language - I understood perfectly, even without supernatural powers. Don’t forget, I had been around for a long time.
The only sign I saw was on a polished wooden stand-post and pointed in Italian to "squash courts: clerical staff only", and this explained why there was a priest's locker room nearby. It is a little known fact that the Vatican maintains a set of squash courts for staff in an inner square open to the sky but closed to the public.
Unfortunately, as I hesitated, trying to decide what direction to take next, a man who had obviously been playing squash approached from the direction of the courts. He wore white shorts, trainers and shirt, was mopping his face with a white flannel and carried a squash racket in one hand. I instantly decided that I must look as though I actually knew where I was heading: he who hesitates is lost, and therefore an obvious stranger.
Consequently, I found myself striding through a maze of wide and lengthy palatial passages with the squash player trotting by my side, eager to engage me in conversation. I could not be rude and simply ignore him with a cold shoulder: firstly, I am not that way inclined, a polite interest in people being part of my basic character; secondly, I needed to remain incognito and not risk arousing anyone's suspicions if at all possible. The man was Italian, and was a priest. We passed the turn leading to the locker room, but my hope that he would head off to change did not materialize.
“Do you not wish to change, brother?” I asked politely.
“Indeed yes brother,” came the reply, “but my office is nearby and so I change there, not in the locker room.”
“Ah,” I nodded. “I myself am a stranger here and am still learning my way around.” To say that Satan was a stranger in the Vatican was, I suppose, something of an understatement. I felt somewhat wretched, because I respected the institution I was trespassing within. If that notion sounds strange to you, please remember that I come under the same ultimate jurisdiction.
“How long have you been here?” asked my fellow traveler.
It would be stupid to lie. “Actually brother, this is my first day.”
I could sense the conversational map leading us in the general direction of “what is your new post?” territory, so I decided to prevent this by getting in first. “And may I ask, what is your task here, brother?”
“I am Father Bernardo,” he replied amiably. “I am the secretary of His Eminence Cardinal Sanger, who heads the police, security and Swiss Guard office.”
“Ah,” I nodded, trying to appear calm. Suddenly I felt like a mouse at a cat show.
19. Through a Glass, Darkly…
I prided myself - or maybe kidded myself - that I was a good judge of human character. I knew now that I would have to put my money where my mouth was. I was running out of time, in more than one direction. First, my friends were at risk as a maniac’s captives and no time must be wasted in attempting their rescue: second, I could hardly expect to be left unnoticed and at large, and un-arrested, whilst trying to find my way around this labyrinthine establishment: third, I needed to get the necessary information regarding the direction of the stairs to the deep cellars; and “You are here” maps appeared to be somewhat thin on the ground.
In an attempt to make friends quickly with Father Bernardo while trying also to sound him out, I offered: “Security, eh? Perhaps we have something in common, brother. I was a policeman in Los Angeles before my destiny brought me in the direction of the priesthood.”
I would like to point out that this statement was faultlessly true; to travel toward the Vatican is incontestably to head in the direction of the priesthood. Any implication that I was a priest was purely in the assumption of the listener (although Perry Mason would doubtless have drawn the court’s attention to the fact that I was also wearing purloined priestly garments…)
“Ah,” came the reply. “We do have something in common. I, too, was a policeman, in Milan, before deciding to take Holy Orders.” He looked appraisingly at me as we walked. “May I know your name, brother?”
Yipes! I was in a spot with this one. There were only two choices - lie or tell the truth. The universe is an unfair place. One of the soubriquets saddled on me by some humans was “father of lies”, and yet, even under these current high-pressure circumstances, I could not bring myself to lie barefaced to a priest. Besides, “Father Satanicus” would be hopelessly optimistic.
I gently put my hand on his elbow and we both drew to a halt. I braced myself and asked, “Brother, do you have time to hear a confession?”
He gave me a curious look and guided me in silence down a short corridor into a spacious room lined with bookshelves and containing a polished antique desk, chairs, a telephone and filing cabinets. “We can use this room,” he advised. “It is the directory room and we are unlikely to be disturbed. Besides, it can be locked from the inside for privacy.”
“Directory room?” I queried.
“The Vatican is the centre of a world-wide organization. It is convenient, indeed often essential, for us to maintain a continually updated collection of all the world’s telephone directories, gazetteers, official listings, government and ministerial publications and so forth.” He swept his hand expansively round the room. “This is it. If you need to get in touch with the official who knows the population figures for ethnic minorities in Tibet, or the head of carpet purchasing for the Kremlin, or the secretary who handles distribution of Church leaflets in a village in Zambia, or find the names of all Roman Catholic senators in the USA, this is where you come. Of course, computers and internet search engines are replacing printed reference books, but we still maintain this room, because traditions are sometimes slow to change. ”
“I see.” I was impressed despite myself. Father Bernado sat down behind the Louis quinzième desk and regarded me curiously. The fact that he still wore white squash shorts and shirt did not serve to make him appear any less intimidating.
“Now,” he raised one eyebrow, “what is this about a confession? Are you speaking spiritually or secularly?”
I availed myself of a chair and regarded him across the desk. I took a deep breath. “Both”, I replied. I faced yet another major decision and made what was in all probability another wrong choice to add to my growing tally: I could tell him a carefully edited version of the truth, in which – say – I was a special agent or even a cop on a special mission: or I could tell him the complete and utter truth, the real and genuine truth. The saying leaped into my mind; “Tell the truth and shame the Devil!” So be it – I gave him the complete factual story, trimmed and edited of superfluous detail for the sake of necessary brevity, but none the less containing all salient facts and no word of a lie. I wondered what his reaction would be; would he think I was a madman, be angry, call reinforcements and have me locked up? As I finished my explanation, a wee small voice deep inside me muttered, “He ain’t gonna believe you, chum!” and a second equally minimal internal enunciation replied, “Do you blame him?”
Rather to my surprise, he simply threw back his head and laughed, long and loud. After half a minute he wiped his eyes with the sports towel round his neck and made a visible attempt to grow serious once more.
“That’s the best story I have heard for many a long year,” he chortled. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m stone-cold sober,” I answered levelly.
“Then you are a lunatic,” he concluded decisively. “You are suffering from paranoia – delusions of grandeur.”
“I’m sorry you think so.” I kept my tone deliberately even and calm. “What I have told you is the truth. I have urgent need of a little help here.”
He nodded slowly. “You certainly do, my friend.” His voice became conciliatory. “I will just make a telephone call, and everything will be all right, you’ll see.”
“Look,” I snapped, “I haven’t got time to play silly games. I am who I say I am. That’s all there is to it. Surely you believe in the Devil?”
“Of course,” he acquiesced with a gesture of his hands. “What I don’t believe in, is people who claim to be Satan, Christ, the Next Messiah, God Almighty, Leader of the Comet People or Napoleon Bonaparte!”
In a torment of anxiety and self-recrimination I stood up and began to pace the carpeted floor. Father Bernardo watched me coolly, his face a mask. Slowly, his movements obviously intended not to startle me, his hand reached for the telephone receiver on the desk in front of him.
“Listen,” I begged, still pacing up and down. “What can I do to convince you I am telling you the truth? In this place I have no powers, no abilities beyond those of a normal human being.” His hand reached the receiver and lifted it.
I had to keep trying; it was the only card I had left to play. “I am begging you to believe me. At least come with me to the museum and see for yourself.” His other hand carefully extended and started to tap the receiver cradle to attract the attention of some distant switchboard.
“What else can I do to convince you?” I pleaded, ceasing my pacing and turning to face him where I stood, spreading my hands wide in supplication. I suddenly realized that I had never, in my whole extraordinarily long and varied life, felt so completely wretched and hopeless.
At that exact moment, he froze. All expression left his face. His penetrating eyes grew wider. Slowly – much more slowly than hitherto – he pressed the telephone cradle down firmly with his fingers and replaced the receiver without taking his eyes off me; his hand trembled very slightly. He was visibly turning pale. He tried to speak but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again with a conscious effort.
“Nothing,” he answered my last question in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper. “I think I might be becoming convinced.”
I looked at him and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Then I noticed that he was not actually looking directly at me; he was staring, almost transfixed, over my right shoulder. Puzzled, I turned to look behind me. There was just a wall almost hidden by bookshelves, with a large ornamental fireplace of carved marble. Over the fireplace was a huge gilt-framed mirror. I could see the reflection of the room behind me, the pattern of the carpet, the desk, Father Bernardo, the distant window, even a bird in the air outside. What I couldn’t see was me.
This surprised me almost as much as it did Father Bernardo. I had mirrors in my apartment, in the hallway, the living room and the bathroom; the station house had a few mirrors too, and many glass partitions around enclosed office areas. In all of these, I could clearly recall seeing my own reflection on a daily basis in a perfectly normal way. My mind raced, while Father Bernardo got to his feet still apparently working in slow-motion and moved somewhat unsteadily around the desk, the fingers of one hand sliding across the blotter as though seeking the reassurance of available support for balance. In all his movements his face never changed direction, remaining fixedly aimed at the big mirror behind me. His eyes, though, repeatedly flickered between the mirror and me, as though continually needing to prove to himself that what he saw in the room was what he did not see in the mirror.
I began to figure things out, as best I could, employing the principle of Occam’s razor - the simplest explanation was also the likeliest. The mirror must have been hanging in the Vatican for more than two hundred years, since it was in the style of the reign of Louis 15th of France and obviously genuine. In that time it had become impregnated with the continuous atmosphere of highly charged sacred belief and thought that permeated the holy palace twenty-four seven. As a consequence it had taken on certain characteristics not shared by other, common-or-garden mirrors or reflecting surfaces, and could not contain or exhibit a reflection of an entity who, although not themselves intrinsically evil, had nevertheless unarguably been demoted by that being we have previously referred to as the Chairman of the Corporation.
I broached this theory to Father Bernardo as he approached me. He patted his hand on my shoulder to confirm my physical presence, whilst at the same time watching his own reflection in the mirror appear to pat thin air. On an impulse, I took a few steps and withdrew a large reference book from its shelf, opening it at random and offering it to him opened. Out of the corner of my eye I saw in the mirror that the book seemed to float out of the shelf of its own accord, open itself whilst hovering in mid air and thrust itself in the direction of the priest. As if in a dream, he took it without even glancing at it, closed it and placed it on the corner of the desk, immediately forgotten.
As politely as I could I waved my hand up and down before his eyes, trying to break the trance and attract his attention back to the present situation. I saw him give a slight start and refocus. “Help?” I said, reasonably.
Bernardo seemed suddenly to relax. His shoulders slumped slightly. “You want help?” he almost whispered. “You want help? You want help? From us? From me?”
I tried with what I considered to be commendable success to stop myself from saying, “You catch on quick!” Instead what I actually said was, “Now that you seem to accept the reality of who I am, are you implying that I am outside the possibility of getting any help from you, even for saving the lives of innocent people?”
“No,” he waved his hand vaguely, “no, not at all. You misunderstand me. I am still coming out of shock.” He glanced swiftly once more at where I wasn’t in the mirror. “You mean, you really are the Devil?”
“Yes”.
“Satan himself?”
“Yes”.
“The fallen angel Lucifer?”
“Yes!” I was getting bored with this line of conversation, but his next words took even me by surprise.
“Oh joy!” He clasped his hands together, almost clapping. His face transformed into a beaming fount of happiness. He was almost dancing up and down with excitement. Tears sprang in his eyes.
“Er…” I hesitated. “I’m not sure I completely understand…”
“But don’t you see what this means?” he enthused.
“It means I’m asking you for help?” I reminded him gently, trying to get him focused on my urgent mission.
“No, no! I mean, yes, yes of course I will help you. But you should know that you have saved me!”
“I have?” My expression must have registered nonplussed blankness. “Am I missing something here…?”
He took a visible grip on himself and his voice calmed down a little. “I saw such terrible things as a policeman when I entered the Arma dei Carabinieri. Murders, gang killings, rapes, kidnappings, assassinations, corruption in high places, extortion, violence, blackmail, innocent victims, unrecognizable corpses… I lost all faith in humanity, in my religion, in God Himself.” He rapidly crossed himself with a “May He forgive me!” then resumed, “So I had a breakdown and quit my job. On leaving the clinic, seeking some kind of reassurance of my sense of values, trying to regain my destroyed faith in a Universal Plan, I took Holy Orders and became a priest. All I found was a religious organization, not the miracle I was searching for in order to grant me a personal transformation, a private renaissance. I immersed myself in prayer, in good works, in serving the Faith, in my duties, in trying to regain my belief. None of it did any good. None of it provided me with the miracle I sought. Now you – you - are here. I have met you. You are real!”
I could only nod wordlessly.
He continued, becoming almost breathless. “And if you are real, then He must be real. If there is a Devil, there must also be a God! Oh, Signore…? Signore…?”
“Just Satan”.
“Signore Satan, you have restored my faith to me, the most precious of gifts imaginable. I have regained my soul thanks to you!” Impulsively he reached out and pumped my hand like a state lottery winner receiving the check.
I would have to leave the theologists to argue all the finer connotations of this one; it should only keep them occupied for a couple of centuries. At the moment, I had more urgent matters to attend to.
20. The Terror of Satan…
Events now began to move with a gallop, bolstering my diminished self-confidence somewhat by granting me at least the merest suggestion that, perhaps, not all my recent decisions were deserving of a resounding Bronx cheer! It took me only five minutes to explain again in more detail to Father Bernardo about the defrocked priest Giovanni Vittorio, how he had been a former curator of the Black Museum, and how he was now holed up there with my partner (in the business sense) and my highly trained police dog as hostages. I spoke no lie – Niblick was a dog, wasn’t he? He was more highly trained than any other canine in history with the possible exceptions of Rin-Tin-Tin and Lassie, who were played by several different dogs anyway, each specializing in a different range of tricks for the camera, and he was my dog and I was a policeman, so he was by all definition a police dog. My mind added these caveats in my thoughts as I spoke: I knew that, in a vastly larger theatre, I was being tested and judged, and I felt that I should at least cover my statements with a pretended frosting of truth: unfortunately, the more rational part of my mind kept repeating; “You ain’t foolin’ anyone but yourself, buddy!” However, overriding all of these schizophrenic self-discussions was the absolute conviction that my own situation and career was of secondary importance when there were lives at stake.
Father Bernardo may have had recent grave doubts regarding the applicability of his spiritual calling, but I quickly began to loose any doubts regarding his ability as a roughneck cop. If I thought he had perked up my self confidence a bit, then it appeared that I had sent his bursting through the top of the barometer. Barking out for me to follow him, he ran to the door, unlocked it, and sprinted off down the carpeted corridor with me hot on his heels.
“Actually,” he remarked as I rapidly caught him up, “it is against the rules to run inside the Vatican buildings.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for you doing something you shouldn’t,” I shot back. He gave me a sideways grin.
“The Hell you don’t.”
He even had my own sense of humor. I was becoming increasingly impressed by Father Bernardo. He led me to a huge doorway surrounded by a beautifully carved wooden portico. There was a small keypad on the wall, and Bernardo rapidly typed in a set of numbers and letters. A tiny light flashed and he opened the door, explaining to me that this was the office of his superior, Cardinal Sanger, head of Vatican police and security and commander of the famous Swiss Guard. He informed me that the Cardinal was in Brussels for a few days visiting Interpol headquarters for a discussion on measures against terrorism, otherwise he would not have dared admit himself without permission. However, he certainly dared to help himself to various bunches of keys from a safe, for which he knew the combination.
One of the keys he inserted into a tiny keyhole on a magnificent Rococo inkstand on the main desk, giving it a quick twist. Somewhere, a quiet buzzer sounded twice. That was all. Bernardo sat in the chair behind the desk and, holding his hand palm upwards, ran his fingers under the rim of the desktop. I heard a click as he pressed a hidden button. Silently, on well-oiled runners, a drawer slid open at about knee-height, exactly where a seated person’s hand might be if his arm was relaxed. Bernardo pulled out a handgun, a state-of-the-art piece.
Thus armed, we ran again, down another of the limitless corridors and – to my initial surprise since I wanted the cellars – up a flight of stairs. A door led to a smaller passage, paved in marble tiles, and then, after a few more twists and turns during which the marble changed into white stone, another passage led us to the top of a spiral stone staircase which disappeared downwards. This, then, was the access to the cellar depths I had been seeking. I realized I had not really stood any chance of finding it on my own.
Of course, while we sped along, completely ignoring the astonished expressions of the occasional passing clerics and staff, we held a kind-of high speed council of war during which I told him everything I could think of that was relevant to the situation ahead of us. By the time we had reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, we had managed to hatch a plan between us; it was slightly threadbare as grand strategies go, but it was the best we could come up with.
The spiral stairs went down for what I judged to be about four stories and debouched into a large cellar, cavernous and brightly lit with electric lights. The walls of the whole place were surfaced in clean orange bricks and the floor consisted of large square stone flags. There were many arches in the walls, each grilled with metal gates behind which the light faded into dark shadows: each gate had a small panel of electronic readouts, dials and switches set into the brickwork of the arch. As we ran past, I saw that these were temperature control systems. This must be the wine cellars.
I knew that the Vatican had a much-envied store of wine from its own vineyards, such as Cuvée Du Vatican from the Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Rhône valley, all bottled under its own exclusive label, both red and white, the red being used for Mass. I fleetingly remembered how in 1943 during World War 2 a stick of German bombs had struck the Vatican and penetrated this cellar in a house-of-cards structural collapse, where the first bombs struck the floors above, clearing the way down, leaving only the final bomb to actually enter through the vaulted roof of the cellar. The blast did little damage, only smashing some hundred bottles of excellent cognac so that it formed a pool inches deep on the flagstones. The troop of Swiss Guards who rushed to see what had happened tried to stop the liquor from being wasted by dutifully lapping it up. That particular bomb is the only one on record that caused five nasty hangovers and a black eye from a fist fight.
Following Father Bernardo at speed round a vaulted corner, we came to a smaller stone arch in which another flight of steps curved downwards out of sight. Beside the ancient arch was a modern set of large metal elevator doors. Bernardo stopped and drew some rapid breaths.
“This is the elevator from the distribution warehouse above,” he explained, panting. “It is used to take crates of wine up and down. It is also used, whenever necessary, to take large or heavy objects in and out of the museum, so it goes down a further distance beneath the wine cellar. We can take the stairs or the elevator – which do you think?”
“Do the doors open automatically when the elevator reaches the floor?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Then we take the stairs. We can be more stealthy that way and not get exposed to view as soon as we arrive!”
“Good plan!”
I took the lead as we descended the stairs, treading as quietly as we could for fear of sending down advanced echoes of our approach. Behind me, keeping his gun steady in his right hand, Bernardo raised his left with the index finger lifted to signify caution because we were approaching the foot of the spiral stairs. No spoken words were necessary. Even though I was no longer alone, as we drew nearer to the place where those I loved were being held hostage by a madman I felt increasingly afraid at every step. Not afraid for myself, but in case something went wrong and the others got hurt and I couldn’t pull any more metaphorical rabbits out of any hypothetical top hat. In fact, when cold sweat began to trickle down my spine like a rapidly-growing icicle it began to dawn on me, in that kind of abstract way in which thoughts and ideas manage to creep around beneath your overriding mental focus, that for the first time in my very long life I was actually experiencing terror.
However, above all else, I knew that whatever might happen I must do everything I could in order to prevent any of the others from harm. Even though stripped of my angelic powers in this place sanctified by centuries of passionate human belief, I knew I must take the lead, take the initiative, go out in front and make myself the centre of attention where Vittorio the madman was concerned. Accordingly, I strode quickly past Bernardo and went ahead along the vaulted stone passage that opened out ahead in the semi-darkness at the foot of the staircase.
As we silently moved forward, I could see that the passage seemed to have something like a dark tide mark on the walls up to about three feet above floor level. I guessed that this marked the upper limit of the waterproofing barrier of solidified pitch, that remarkable construction feat of Avidius Cassius the ancient architectural engineer of Constantine, which prevented the very lowest levels of the cellars from damp and flooding.
Somewhat incongruously, the ancient black levels along each side gave the tunnel a distinct atmosphere reminiscent of the New York subway system, which I had visited occasionally in my previous job. The tunnel was very dark, and I could no longer see in the dark. There was a single dim electric light in a wire cage above the arch at the foot of the staircase we had descended, and then no more. The further we stalked, the more dim and distant was the pool of light dropping behind us. And the greater my terror that something would go wrong. That we would be too late. That we would not be good enough to win. That I would… fail and fall.
Again!
At that point, goaded by such thoughts, I started to pull myself back together. This whole business inside the Vatican with all the limitations of a human mortal had unnerved me, almost to the point of despair, and recognizing that, I grew strict with my own inner weaknesses and locked them back in the dark cupboard they had escaped from. Some of the humanity I had inherited by being human for a short time was coming to the forefront. Ashamed, the thought occurred to me that when a mortal human had their back to the wall there was only one way out – use whatever nature has given you to the fullest extent. I immediately understood that I needed to form a more detailed plan of campaign, not just blunder in like a man falling down a hole.
With the return of a bit of self-confidence, a new plan occurred to me – one that might just work. I quietly asked Bernardo to halt briefly and I explained my idea to him in as few words as possible. As I spoke, his expression slowly broke into a broad grin. He liked it. This made me feel even better about our chances. It was very human to gain inner strength from a companion, and right now, I was very human.
At the end of the dark tunnel was something quite similar to the huge round steel door of a major bank vault, some twelve feet in diameter, complete with a central handle with metal spokes protruding for gripping. A solitary red electric light in a mesh casing cast a dim baleful glow by which the details of the heavy-looking door could be discerned, including all the complex state-of-the-art digital screens and keyboards that were obviously some kind of cyber controlled combination lock and security system. Bernardo turned to me.
“I cannot get us through that,” he whispered hoarsely. “I am not in sufficient authority to know the combinations. It is the entrance to the unacknowledged storage facility for historical items of indeterminate merit.”
“The Vatican’s Black Museum,” I translated into simpler terms.
“As you say,” he agreed with a shrug. “I have only been this close to it once before, and that was only because I got lost while trying to watch a member of staff suspected of stealing bottles from a rack of rare wine. How will it be possible for us to get in?”
For a moment I, too, was nonplussed. I even thought I might have to hammer on the door with my fist and ask for admission. However, as we cautiously drew closer to the massive vault, there came some well-oiled whirring and clicking noises, a couple of echoing clangs as huge invisible bolts within the works were hydraulically withdrawn, and slowly the round metal door swung open on massive complex hinges. We were expected and had been invited within.
21. Inside the Black Museum…
Once through the bank-like vault door the place opened out into a well built and very large inner series of almost warehouse-sized storage rooms with smooth stone walls and a high ceiling from which hung fluorescent lighting. Here and there big tubes covered in metal foil ran through the ceiling and along the walls, ending in grills from which cool fresh air hissed quietly. There was temperature and humidity control. Everywhere were concrete paths between isles of neatly arranged and stacked crates and boxes of various sizes, some of which by their shape obviously contained paintings, while others were sufficiently large to hold a grand piano plus an accompanying string section and maybe the conductor standing on top. I knew that at least one of these was a sculptured masterpiece in marble by Michelangelo, a whole basin and fountain featuring the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which had been declared too immorally suggestive and had been unseen for centuries. However, my task of the moment was not artistic criticism.
I honestly did not know what to expect. Bernardo and I had the plan I had hatched, but there were enough unknowns involved to render it obsolete very quickly if circumstances were against us. In fact, both Bernardo and I knew we were laying our lives on the line here. For Bernardo, it was evidently a thrilling experience which reminded him of the good side of his former police career; for me, it was an entirely new and frightening experience to be without any powers save normal mortal ones, which were not terribly spectacular in respect of coping with such potential dangers as rapidly approaching bullets. The memory flitted across my mind of hearing a soldier once state to a rookie colleague that ‘you never hear the one that kills you’. The bullet arrives before its own sound. I deliberately shook such worrying thoughts out of my head and concentrated on the moment, trying to induce calm, trying abstractly to recall all I knew about Zen – I thought it had something to do with motorcycle maintenance.
We walked cautiously through the stored crates and boxes of artworks and artifacts that had been concealed from history by a series of devout censors, as though we were trespassers in a giant’s castle. Every crate or piece of wrapping bore a transparent plastic envelope containing a paper displaying a bar code reference. One of the pathways between the stored goods was clearly the main road through the great subterranean warehouse, being as wide as a city street, although at intervals this thoroughfare branched round tall central islands of stacked crates which blocked the view ahead. Rounding one of these, we came quite suddenly on the man we were hunting, Giovanni Vittorio, unfrocked priest, black magician and former curator of this very place. From my view of him within the crystal ball and my sketch made in the Touchwood sister’s shop I easily recognized the penetrating eyes, the Roman nose with slightly flared nostrils, the stormy eyebrows, thin lips and high domed head of thinning black hair turning grey above the ears. I also recognized Detective Sandra Smith and my dog Niblick.
I did not really know what I had actually been expecting, but I had been torturing myself mentally about it. The reality, it turned out, was thankfully more bland than my imagination. Sandra and Niblick were still being held in the same two steel cages, large enough for ample movement, and were both unharmed. Sandra had a length of duct tape over her mouth preventing her from speaking. Niblick, who like me had no supernatural powers in this place, was muzzled but happy to see me; his tail had started to wag vigorously.
“I was compelled to stop your lovely lady from talking,” were the first words Vittorio spoke, casually. “I soon grew tired of her interminable threats and imprecations.”
I took an instant to view the scene and make notes of important items. The Vessels of Shinar – all five of them – were assembled on top of a table-sized packing case beside which Vittorio sat in a swivel chair. That was important. It was important because I knew Vittorio would have them with him, and by now he would know far more about them and their powers than previously, since he had only taken one with him when raising Raum in the movie set Wild West saloon, not all five, and had seen the effect my presence had on it: a directed explosion like a giant shotgun. He would certainly now know what had caused that – me! And he would therefore also now know that he should use all five of them together in order to obtain the maximum blast. As I have said elsewhere, the Vessels of Shinar were constructed with people like me in mind, to prevent interference in the scrambling of human languages at the Tower of Babel. Vittorio would now know that I would be unable to approach closer than some fifteen feet to the Vessels without triggering my own utter destruction. This was the ace he held.
It was also the same ace I held. At least, if it was not my ace, it was my joker. I say this because even at this critical moment I was not certain whether the reasoning behind my plan was sound or not. In fact, it was my gamble. The first part of the plan was to try to take Vittorio off guard. It only mattered for a few moments, but it was necessary to put him off balance and then make my move. This is where my new friend Bernardo played a pre-arranged part. He stood there facing forward, expressionless, not reacting to anything. I saw Vittorio’s eyes scan him up and down. Before he could say anything else, it was imperative that I make my play.
“Ah, Giovanni,” I addressed him suavely, copying the style of the typical chief villain in a James Bond movie. I idly pretended to examine one of the nearby packing cases, seemingly paying him scant attention. I then switched movie villains. Lowering my voice to a deep, husky growl I continued: “You have done well, my young apprentice.”
“What?” he asked uncertainly in skeptical surprise.
“You have passed the test. You know exactly who I am. Did you think you could just snap your fingers and compel me to grant you the gift of Satan’s approval? You had to earn it, so I made it difficult for you. Congratulations, you have succeeded in passing the test I set you. Now, Satan is yours to command.” I bowed to him low and theatrically. At the edge of my vision I could see Sandra’s eyes widen in horror.
Casually, I strolled towards the perplexed Vittorio. Now it was time for me to take the biggest gamble of my existence. I was drawing ever closer to the threatening array of the dark shapes of the Vessels of Shinar, triggered to destroy any supernatural form that came close to them. I just needed to buy a few more seconds.
“You will require two human sacrifices to make your pact with Satan complete,” I remarked in my most sinister manner, “one man and one woman. You already have the woman. I have brought you the man.” I gestured at Bernardo, who continued to stand like a shop window dummy. “I have placed him under strong hypnosis in order to obtain his compliance.”
This sudden turn-about in my attitude and behavior did exactly what it had been intended to do – it bought me time. It caught Vittorio off balance. Only for a handful of seconds, but this was all I needed to reach the packing case where the Vessels of Shinar were arrayed. I drew closer to them than fifteen feet. I reached the chest. Nothing happened. I managed to resist breathing a sigh of relief. I had guessed right – but it had only been a guess.
Quite simply, since within the borders of the Vatican I was mortal and had lost all my supernatural attributes, I no longer triggered the blast of the Vessels as I would have done elsewhere. I was gambling on Vittorio not being aware of the reason. He would – I prayed – naturally think that his own information was wrong and that I was always impervious to the Vessels. If he thought this, he would be worried by the thought that he had no ultimate weapon to destroy me with after all. He would therefore psychologically, and with a bit of luck, be more inclined to hope that everything I was now telling him was true. This was my trump card, and it was a flimsy one at that. I played it for all it was worth.
To Vittorio’s evident astonishment, I picked up one of the obsidian Vessels and absently flipped it round in my hand a few times like a juggler’s club, trying hard to act like a villain in a movie and mentally groping for inspiration. I lowered my voice again to a sinister growl.
“As you can see,” I remarked to Vittorio, “I can control these things. They hold no terror for me. Nothing holds terror for Satan himself, my young apprentice.”
“And you are saying that all that stuff about not being evil, and not wanting to aid me, was nothing but a test?” asked Vittorio, still incredulous.
“Of course,” I shrugged, turning to face him, still flipping the heavy vessel about in one hand. “Why – did you think I meant it? Did you think that endless millennia of spiritual thought could be wrong about me?”
“I did at the time,” he replied. “I am still not altogether certain that I…!”
He stopped speaking when I suddenly threw the Vessel at him and it hit him hard on the head. Believe me, it took a supreme effort of self control for me to moderate the blow to merely knock him unconscious rather than killing him outright. Later on I allowed myself a glimmer of justifiable pride that I had resisted that particular temptation. Back at the moment of truth, I had had to turn all my willpower to doing the resisting.
22. A Higher Authority is Required…
We found keys to the steel cages in Vittorio’s pockets and quickly released Smith and Niblick. Thankfully they were unharmed, having been initially overpowered and rendered unconscious by the Black Magician’s occult powers before being transported to their temporary prison cells by the same agency, where they had woken up eventually to find themselves helpless. As I mentioned, within the environs of the Vatican, Niblick, too, was bereft of the supernatural side of his being; otherwise he could have cheerfully gnawed through steel bars as though they were made of candy and presented Vittorio with a sudden and interesting career-change as a dietary supplement.
After a pause during which Detective Smith showed me how much she had missed me and how pleased she was to see me again, and during which, with not even a suggestion of apprehension or doubt but lots of tact, Bernardo knelt down and put his arms round Niblick’s great floppy neck and fussed him, it was time to resume business. By then, Niblick had rolled over and Bernardo was rubbing his tummy. I introduced Smith to Bernardo and between us we gave her a description of what had happened. Then I pointed at the Vessels of Shinar.
“I think those should remain here,” I remarked firmly.
“Isn’t it our duty to return them to the museum they were stolen from?” queried Sandra.
“We have a higher duty,” I replied quietly. “If you had found a ticking nuclear bomb, where would you rather take it – the New York Science Museum or the nuclear storage facility in Alaska?”
“I see what you mean,” she acquiesced.
“I agree,” put in Bernardo. “Signore Satan, I think you should pack them up in a crate and place them in the depths of this vault, with no label on them. The next inventory is not for another eighty years, and with luck they will by then be forgotten.”
“There is certainly no safer place on earth for them.” I followed his suggestion; there were a number of spare empty packing cases stacked nearby, and I used one of them, carrying the boxed Vessels many hundreds of yards to the very depths of the vault and stacking as many other crates as I could lift on top of them. Returning to the others, we began to drag the unconscious black magician towards the door of the vault by his arms, but Bernardo grasped the recumbent figure and hoisted it athletically onto his shoulders, whereupon our progress became quicker and easier. As we reached the door, I asked him how we could unlock it from within, as he had already told me he did not know the combination.
“Do not worry,” he advised. “The door is automatic. To open it from the outside you need the correct combination, but there is a safety feature that safeguards against anyone being accidentally trapped inside – you just strike one of those,” he pointed at a nearby metal box on the wall with a red mushroom-shaped pushbutton set in it, “and that opens the door. That’s how Vittorio let us in. The assumption is, if you are inside already, you must have had the correct combination to begin with, so there is no security risk about opening the door from the inside. When the door closes again, it automatically locks tight. Watch.”
It happened just as he had said, the great steel valve swinging open to let us out, then shutting silently until the clicking and clunking of the complex locking mechanism began, leaving us outside the vault and the Vessels of Shinar safely – and anonymously – inside. Hopefully for at least a few more centuries.
“What do you wish to do now, Signore Satan?” asked Bernardo turning away from the vault door towards the way out.
“I need to take Vittorio back to the station house in LA,” I reflected. “He must be properly charged according to US law, given a fair trial and, if found guilty, a statutory sentence for his crimes – which were largely, it seems, committed in the USA.”
“Shouldn’t you read him his rights?” enquired the priest, hefting Vittorio’s unconscious body to his other shoulder for a break.
“When he wakes up, I shall,” I agreed.
“But we have now encountered a slight procedural difficulty,” mused Bernardo as we walked along the various passages. “Yes, he has broken US law when he was in America – however, he is an Italian citizen and he was apprehended while breaking the law in a different and independent country, the Vatican State, with a police officer of that state in attendance during the arrest – me. According to international legal conventions, this gives the Vatican State first claim on processing his arrest and trial, which would be carried out under existing Italian criminal law as the Vatican has no independent criminal court or judiciary. This places me in a very difficult position, Signore Satan. According to all the legal technicalities, you cannot lawfully take him back to the USA for trial without the authorization of an extradition agreement from the Vatican State. It is red tape, I know – but it is the law, and both you and I, as serving police officers of our respective countries whatever else we may be, are bound by duty and honor to uphold the letter of the law.”
He was right, of course, and I told him so. Besides, had I decided to act willfully and simply spirit him out of the country, it would certainly prevent his coming to trial in the US, since the Vatican would lodge a complaint, and the highest political levels would be involved in sorting out an international incident, making things rather awkward for continuing my career in the LAPD.
“How does one go about getting an extradition agreement in this state?” I asked him.
“Well, it needs to be agreed and authorized in writing on an official form, and by a sufficiently high authority within the Vatican. Someone far above my own level, I’m afraid.”
“Look, my friend,” I appealed to him as we ascended a staircase, “do you know anybody here who might agree to release Vittorio into my legal custody, on a bone fide basis, all signed, sealed and delivered?”
Father Bernardo thought carefully for some moments. “Nobody who would believe our story, or be prepared to take independent action and place their name on such a document without referring it up to a higher authority. Bureaucracy is the same anywhere in the world.”
I considered the matter carefully. “Then I have only one option, my friend,” I stated slowly. “Do you think you could somehow arrange an audience for me with the Pope?”
Bernardo said nothing, but stared at me with a blank expression. I believe an apposite modern word would be “gobsmacked’” although someone of my old-fashioned upbringing might prefer “thunderstruck”, which in my past experience usually came in the company of lightning, hail and the occasional earth tremor. My instincts here were not far wrong.
23. Diplomats from a Foreign Regime…
We spent a tense fifteen minutes back in the office of Father Bernardo’s absent boss Cardinal Sanger, the security chief. Bernardo spent most of that time sitting at the great desk piloting the internal telephone system from office to office. I realized that he was putting his career on the line, and most probably even his ordination as a priest. I knew he was also calling in the marker on several favors in various quarters, and I was discrete enough not to enquire what these might have been. Detective Smith and I conversed in lowered tones while Bernardo worked, filling in the few gaps we both had in our knowledge of what had happened to each other.
It turned out that all that had been necessary to catch Niblick off guard had been a gigantic and heavily drugged medium rare steak, with a sprinkling of fried onions, dangled on the end of a long steel cable attached at the other end to a 90 horsepower diesel-driven super-fast industrial winch stolen from a research ship docked at Oakland and normally used for raising heavy equipment off the seabed beneath offshore oil rigs. His departure had been sudden. Sandra had been hoodwinked by a powerful spell of hypnosis which, basically, had turned her into a sleep-walker, unaware of anything until she woke up inside the metal cage in the black museum. I guessed that Vittorio, whom I knew from experience to have already mastered the art of creating a dummy figure of himself, a doppelganger, had also mastered the extremely rare and difficult occult art of bi-location – being physically in two different places at the same time. This was not entirely unknown to students of the magical arts, but was extremely difficult to accomplish.
Put simply, there have been occasional instances in history where occult masters have – for example – been at home surrounded by guests, or walking down a crowded street, or even in one recorded instance amongst the audience in a theatre, yet at the exact same time they have been seen elsewhere by reliable witnesses. There is a well known example from 1870 where the French occult master and writer Alphonse Constant, better known by his nom-de-plume Eliphas Lévi, was seen by many dozens of people at the Grand Opera in Paris where he was sharing a box with several friends and acquaintances including Charles Durous, then an upcoming reporter of La Chronique Illustree who later became an internationally celebrated writer for his reports on the massacre at Sedan during the French Civil War which began later that same year. It subsequently emerged, as recorded by Durous and confirmed by several of the others, that at this precise time Lévi was also sworn by witnesses to have been engaged in a conversation with the British aristocratic writer and occultist Lord Lytton in Lytton’s club in Chelsea, London where – what is more – Lévi signed the register as a visiting guest at the same time he was witnessed applauding the performance in Paris.
Or in other words, an occult master of the 10th degree, an Ipsissimus, can, when they wish and when they have sufficient time and energy to arrange the technicalities, quite literally be in two places at once for several hours before one of their versions disappears. This process is also, like creating an occult robot dummy, sometimes known by the German word doppelganger, which has come to mean any perceived double or look-alike but originally specifically meant the solidified astral body of a sorcerer.
Musing on this and attempting to play Sherlock Holmes by making educated guesses about how Vittorio had accomplished the trick of transporting himself, Sandra and Niblick from California to Rome in a few moments of real time, I began to grow uneasy somewhere in the back of my mind. However, as you can naturally understand - I hope - I was also trying hard to listen to the progress of Father Bernardo’s journey through a succession of ever higher-ranking telephones. I guess I was not firing on all cylinders. After all, I was only human.
For the time being.
“Very well!” exclaimed Bernardo finally. “I have sold my soul to the… well, to you, signore – metaphorically speaking. No offence meant.”
“None taken.”
“I have managed to arrange an audience for you with his Holiness the Pope. By so doing, I shall probably be defrocked by sunset. Still,” he reflected thoughtfully, “I can now return to working as a police officer if necessary, and no longer riddled with doubts and troubled by a personal nihilism. Thanks to you. So it is worth it.” He smiled broadly. “After all, what the hell!”
Detective Smith chuckled at this pun, and I smiled back.
“Bernardo,” I stated quietly, “you are a truly great man, and I thank you for allowing your humanity to rise above ingrained prejudices – that is perhaps the greatest and most difficult challenge any human being can face – and you came out on top, in my book.”
“Mine too,” added Sandra. Niblick thrust his great head under Bernardo’s arm and nuzzled him; an experience not unlike being fondled by a wet yard broom.
“When is our appointment,” I asked, “and can Detective Smith accompany us, or is there a problem because she is a woman?”
“No, no problem,” replied the priest. “Women cannot be ordained as priests in our faith, it is true, but visiting women VIPs can have audience with his Holiness without any problem. For example, the Queen of England has been here and been received by his Holiness, as indeed has more than one First Lady of the United States.
I… er… I am, however, not certain about the dog,” he rubbed Niblick’s ears, producing a gaze of cross-eyed gratitude. “However, we shall just have to chance it. I… I’m not quite sure how to put this… is he house trained?”
“Oh sure, you can be completely confident of that,” interjected Smith. Then, under her breath, “’Cause there ain’t any house big enough!” However, Bernardo did not hear this last.
“Well, I have been told that his Holiness will receive us for a private audience in half an hour, as soon as his meeting with some visiting diplomats from a non-Catholic country is concluded. We had better go now – it is quite a long way, and nobody, nobody, is ever late for such a meeting. We will wait in the anteroom until the guards are instructed to admit us.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Smith, impressed. “Hey, I never thought I would have an audience with the Pope. I’m not even Catholic.”
“You think you’ve got problems,” I commented wryly. “They think of me politically as the Leader of the Opposition!”
On that happy note, Bernardo led the way from Cardinal Sanger’s office and began to navigate our little party, Niblick included, across courtyards, down avenues, through more mazes of sumptuous halls and corridors. There was one problem to be solved on the way, and that was Vittorio the black magician: I could hardly approach the Papal suites dangling an unconscious body over my shoulder. Bernardo solved this by taking us first down a single flight of stairs to the floor immediately below the security chief’s office, where – to Detective Smith’s surprise – there was a virtual police station including a short row of very secure-looking cells. The place was manned by half a dozen of the Swiss Guard, on one of whom I recognized the insignia of an officer. Their uniforms might have looked somewhat quaint, but down here, out of sight of tourists, their button-holstered personal side-arms looked businesslike.
“These are only temporary prisons,” explained Bernardo a little apologetically, “made necessary by the risk of fanatics and the mentally disturbed. The most recent prisoner here was a man who desired to deface with a spray-can of fluorescent paint some of our priceless paintings of religious themes on display in the public galleries. The normal procedure is that anyone arrested in the Vatican is held in these cells while arrangements are made to either transfer them to the main police station in Rome for formal charging, or if they are not of Italian nationality, to lodge their details with a complaint to their local embassy or legation while the prisoner waits here for collection.”
I lowered Vittorio’s limp form onto what was actually quite a comfortable looking bed in a cell, while Bernardo conferred with the captain of the guard and instructed him to observe all possible cautions, including putting the prisoner in handcuffs before locking the steel door on him. Seeing the unconscious state of the prisoner and the nasty welt on his forehead, the captain wanted to summon a doctor to examine him.
This gave me a difficult moment; part of me wanted to refuse this, since there was no knowing what Vittorio might do to someone who underestimated his abilities; on the other hand, whatever else he may be, he was also a human being, and a rather severe blow on the head could be extremely risky and really ought to be checked out by a medic. After agonizing for about five seconds I accepted the necessity and plain compassion of allowing a qualified doctor to examine him, but on the stringent proviso that at least three armed guards should be present the whole time and the prisoner was to remain handcuffed. That was the best I could do.
In view of the threat the man posed to life and world peace, somehow I wondered whether this decision had given me yet another black mark in the heavenly accounts book that was being kept to detail my progress or failings.
Anyhow, there was really little choice. Bernardo led our small party on again, walking softly through the labyrinthine architecture until we reached what was a surprisingly small door, if ornate and inlaid with gold leaf. Outside was stationed a serious-looking group of the ubiquitous Swiss Guard, looking none-the-less tough despite their renaissance uniforms. On Bernardo conferring softly with them – in fluent French, I noticed with admiration – the gilded door was opened and we were admitted.
During the short interval, I had worked out that the smallness of the door, which was little bigger than any normal household door although surrounded by a much bigger ornate frame, was most probably a deliberate security measure; only two people at most could pass through it at once and, in any real emergency, the guards would be more able to defend it than would be the case if five or ten people could rush through it abreast.
Beyond this outer door the palace opened out into a suitably large and richly decorated anteroom. Whatever you may choose to call it, it was a waiting room – but what a waiting room! The walls were tastefully hung with genuine old masters, not mere reproductions, amongst which I recognized the bold touch of my old friend Michelangelo (he hadn’t known who I was, but I modeled for him when he was sketching part of the roughs of the Sistine Chapel ceiling), together with Caravaggio, daVinci, Raphael and Uccello. I recalled photographs I had seen of a similar room in the White House where important people waited to be admitted to see the president, and while the taste and trappings there were undoubtedly first rate, this room made it look like the waiting room at a Hicksville railway station somewhere in the Ozarks. On an exquisitely carven oak cabinet stood a beautiful Maiolica vase rubbing shoulders with a Maestro Giorgio Andreoli decorated platter; behind them had been carefully placed a wooden panel painted with a religious scene by Nicola da Urbino; if you don’t know these people, trust me – they represent the best of the best. Many other wonderful examples of the supreme artistic skills of European craftsmen during the last six or seven hundred years were similarly placed about the room, with what I can only call great casual care.
As I expect a great many illustrious people have done before us, we wandered slowly round this wonderful room admiring and marveling at the workmanship on display. In the great wall opposite the small entrance door was another door, this one a vaulted portal that Ben-Hur and his friends could have raced their horse-drawn hotrods through abreast, with bladed wheels as well. Here, a dozen or so of the Swiss Guard were assembled, standing stiffly at attention in the same military inflexibility as the guards at Buckingham Palace, gleaming and rather wicked-looking halberds gripped firmly before them. Only their eyes moved, watching all four of us like the proverbial hawks. Father Bernardo approached their captain and advised him that we were the people who were expected and who had been granted the next appointment. Without a change of his fixed expression, the captain gave a single slight nod of his head in acknowledgement; if he had been balancing an egg on top of his head, it would not have fallen.
Naturally, when we spoke, we did so in whispers, and the room was hushed of extraneous sound. Then, suddenly, my blood ran cold and an icicle seemed to grow where my spine had recently been. The twin valves of the immense doorway to the Pope’s inner private audience room were open a small crack, allowing the sound of conversation from within to leak out in the vicinity of the portal. Pausing beside the door to examine a magnificent five-foot ornate vase, I heard from within the voices of the Pope’s current visitors who were, so Bernardo had been advised on the telephone, visiting diplomats. Filled with a sense of horror, I silently beckoned Sandra to join me and listen. She blanched and her pretty face registered something between fear and astonishment.
We were listening to the muted but distinct tones of people talking beyond the door. My immediate knee-jerk thought was, this development could ruin everything and bring untold retribution upon all of us. What we heard was;
“…’course, your Holiness, it was Peter Abelard in the twelfth century ‘oo brung nominalist philosophy into the Middle Ages before the resident Latin tradition rediscovered Aristotle, an’ ee advocated the application of reason to questions of faith.”
“Yeah, yer Excellency, but be that as it may, ‘is approach to bringing contemplative analysis directly upon theological issues was viewed by many of ‘is contemporaries as an unequivocal confrontation of their more conservative notions, an’ as a consequence ‘is writings was condemned by the examination of the Synod of Soissons.”
“So wot’s yer point, mate? That don’t proove ‘im wrong, do it?”
“I’ll give yer that, chum, but ‘is idea that deeds are morally neutral in themselves and that the agent of morality is, rather, the person what dun the deed, modulated by their particular motivation, was an early echo of the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, ‘oo maintained that the dualistic epistemology of modern metaphysics should be rejected, proposing instead a more natural view that the arrival of knowledge ‘as to be intrusive and primarily stems from the observer’s processes of adaptation to their environment.”
“So, in simple terms, do you mean ‘ee said the acquisition of experiential knowledge is more-or-less an accidental by-product of the observer being posited within a particular evolving situation?”
“Yus. I fink so.”
“Well mate, surely that’s just ‘I think therefore I am’ in so many different words?”
“oooOOOooo – ain't we sharp, then? Mind yer don’t cut yerself!”
And then, to my surprise, a third and very different voice, a human one, gave forth with a huge burst of merry laughter.
The unhuman voices were unmistakably those of Pharter and Phukkit.
24. An Historic Summit Conference…
There was a sound of soft footsteps on expensive carpet and a caparisoned elderly cleric gently opened one of the twin great door valves and peered into the anteroom. He immediately showed signs of recognizing Father Bernardo and nodded at him. He spoke to him quietly in Italian.
“Father, you may please come in now, and your guests may enter as well.” The senior priest eyed Niblick in faint alarm, but said nothing as we all walked past him into the audience room beyond.
The room was everything you would expect, but with fewer standing art treasures; it has sometimes been shown on TV when news cameras have been allowed inside to record the Pope’s meetings with various dignitaries and VIPs such as the presidents of countries, kings and queens of Europe, prime ministers and suchlike, so I need not describe it at length. There were two more priests attending on his Holiness and these were joined by the one who had come to the door to admit us. These men were discretion incarnate: they were seated at antique desks and seemed concerned with nothing but studiously writing notes on sheaves of paper. They did not so much as glance up.
This was impressive, for it cannot be every day that they came into personal contact with real demons. However, they were studiously ignoring everything else in the audience room and immersing themselves in their writing.
The main event was taking place before the richly canopied throne on which was seated his Holiness the Pope, and it consisted of Pharter and Phukkit sitting on plushly cushioned carven and gilded renaissance chairs before the throne, having a cozy chat with the head of the Roman Catholic Church. It was another one of those sights to add to my growing list of ones that I would never forget - no matter how hard I tried. I was uncertain which aspect of the scene not to believe first – the fact that the demons were here, or the fact that the Pope seemed completely enchanted with them. I felt I might be missing something.
The current pontiff was a small, sprightly man of very advanced years. By birth he was French, but he had the slightly darker skin of an Italian. Had he been just a little bit darker and wearing a dhoti instead of robes, he would have been almost a double for Mahatma Gandhi. He was one of those rare people who are not only instantly likeable, but instantly respected too, and these qualities do not often go hand-in-hand. He had an ambient gravitas that stayed with him even when he was doubled up with mirth and giggling like a child, a condition from which he was just emerging as we entered.
Before I could say anything, both the demons leaped to their feet and saluted, somewhat incongruously. Pharter then bowed theatrically to his Holiness in proper Shakespearean manner, genuflecting his hand at his forehead before elegantly raising it to his side as he bowed low, with one knee bent.
“Yor Worship,” he announced like the MC of a wrestling bout, “may I present to yew, the Archangel Lucifer ‘imself, of the LAPD, togever wiv Detective Sandra Smith, also of the LAPD, the hanimal Niblick formerly known as Cerberus, and…” his voice trailed off into a rapid mutter, “…some priest wot I ain’t never seen before.”
Suddenly, the Pope was staring at me, directly into my eyes. His eyes were already creased with humor at the corners, and in an instant he was smiling broadly. To my astonishment, he held out both hands to me in a gesture of what could only be interpreted as affectionate welcome. Of all the reactions I had fearfully anticipated to my arrival, this was one I had not even considered. The whole situation had already developed into something very different from the “clap him in irons” result I had been mainly expecting. I hesitated microscopically, and he noticed this.
“Come,” he invited, a genuine warmth in his creaking voice. “Do not be afraid.” The smile of this frail little old man was something that would melt a snowman.
Mentally drawing myself up and getting a grip on things as best I could, I approached the covered dais where the pontiff was seated on a throne-like chair. My mind was reeling. To mix religious metaphors, I knew that I was kosher, but you must remember I have spent almost my entire life – measured in geological eras – in the somewhat vain attempt to convince others that I am an OK guy. I think I might be forgiven for flinching inwardly at such a juncture as this. Be honest - how would you feel if you were standing in the queue at the local supermarket checkout and the customer in front of you turned round for a chat and you saw it was Elvis? You would probably be a little tongue-tied to start with. This is the best way I can compare how I was feeling right now, and I ask you to forgive my analogy, which is not meant to be disrespectful to anybody. Putting it more simply, I was, for a moment, utterly out of my depth.
A few paces later I took the fingers of the hand he offered me and, moved in my heart by the kindness of his words, in time-honored tradition I knelt on one knee, bowed my head and gently kissed the great jeweled ring he wore. Then, to my surprise, everyone in the room – the priests, the demons, Father Bernardo, Sandra and even the twenty normally statue-like Swiss Guardsmen standing to attention round the walls, burst spontaneously into a great round of applause. I glanced fleetingly round at them all, then had to surreptitiously brush away a tear from my eye.
“I… I don’t understand,” I stammered. “You must know who I am?”
“Of course,” replied his Holiness. “I know all about you from the historical point of view, and I have heard a lot more from Ventosus and Amator here,” he gestured at Pharter and Phukkit who were attempting to look as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, having obviously introduced themselves using Latin versions of their names as a concession to the occasion. “Now,” he waved the others forward, “come, tell me all about what has been going on and what brings you all here like this.”
And so, with some helpful additions from Detective Smith, Pharter and Phukkit – sorry, I mean Ventosus and Amator – and, later in the narrative as we came up to the present, from Father Bernardo, the entire tale was told right from the very beginning, pretty much as you have heard it from me here, except for a little bit of judicial editing applied on a “need to know” basis.
“A genuinely remarkable account,” commented the Pope, “and not least, remarkable for the people who have related it to us, especially you, Lucifer.” He mulled over what had been revealed to him.
Needing to simply break the awkward silence which now descended on the proceedings, I remarked; “I am impressed with my reception here, and with your agreeing to give me audience, your Holiness.” I added; “I had rather feared you would have me burned at the stake or else at least thrown out on my ear. I have to state that it is very noble of you to agree to meet with me.”
The old man smiled like a wrinkled child, releasing what can only be described as a tangible burst of happiness into the room. Again I was reminded very much of Gandhi. “But you are, most truly, an ambassador from another realm,” he pointed out reasonably, “and – to be honest with you – I would rather meet with you than with one or two human world leaders I could name.” He chuckled. “After all, there is a saying in America, is there not; ‘only Nixon could go to China.’ You are not Nixon and this is not China, but I believe the comparison stands up to analysis.”
He paused, his smile becoming what I can only describe as wickedly gleeful, a twinkle flickering in his eye. “After all, Lucifer, this is the Christian Roman Catholic Church – where would we be without you? Had you not existed, we would not have been made necessary in the first place.”
That was yet another angle I would have to leave to the theologists to argue about over the next few centuries. I felt it would be inexpedient under these present circumstances, not to say ungracious, to argue that the negative energy of evil which all upright religions in the world were pledged to combat had, since the very Beginning, exuded solely from human beings as a consequence of their freedom of will, and that both angels and demons were little more than astonished onlookers to the ebbing and flowing currents of this dreadful tide over seemingly endless eons. Instead, swallowing whatever pride I may still have had left, I gallantly responded as an officer of the LAPD should; “Glad to have been of service, Sir.”
“And after all,” added his Holiness reflectively, half to himself, “we expect and encourage the leaders of all the nations of the world to deal with each other on peaceful and friendly terms, finding love in their hearts instead of hatred – and what a fine world this would be if it could be so – and how may we expect this of the people of the world if we ourselves cannot overcome our own prejudices and find universal love and respect for all things under heaven in our own heart?”
I was deeply moved by what he said. “That is a beautiful philosophy, your Holiness, and I agree with you.”
The two demons managed to spoil the beauty of the moment somewhat, like happy puppies trampling through a flower bed.
“Yer,” said Pharter approvingly to me, “ee’s good at philosophy.”
“Ee’s got a degree in it,” added Phukkit, with all the approval of a teenaged lad boasting that his grandfather goes skateboarding in the shopping mall.
His Holiness laughed merrily again. “As for you two,” he remarked with mock severity, “I must admit I have learned something from you today. I must now learn to accept that not all demons are evil, and perhaps they are simply misunderstood.”
Pharter took a few paces closer to the throne and bowed his head, hands clasped in front of him, like a contrite schoolboy addressing the principal. “Seriously for a moment,” he stated in a lowered voice, “we ain’t evil at all, left to ourselves. We are primordial intelligences, not yer actual life-forms as such, an’ we came into this universe when it were made, wiv complete an’ utter innocence, like a blank sheet of paper. Then, after a time, human beings learned they could write stuff on those blank bits of paper, if yer sees wot I means, yer Grace. This meant that humans wiv evil in their ‘earts used us for their own ends, makin’ us do stuff they wanted us ter do, an’ because we was all innocent primordial energies, we ‘ad no option but to do as we was ordered.
“Consequently, us demons became hated and persecuted, exorcised and feared, an’ all because we was bein’ used fer evil purposes by a few humans here an’ there in various ‘istorical periods. You might as well blame the gun fer the murder, instead of the bloke what takes aim an’ pulls the trigger. Like a Colt 45, we can only do what we are made to do by someone who makes use of us. A gun left alone does no ‘arm – it only kills if someone uses it wrong. Demons are the same – we’re simple creatures, an’ we’re as bad or as good as people make us, that’s all. Be ‘onest Guv – when did you ever hear of someone invoking demons to perform good deeds? We can, you know; but people don’t usually want us fer that.”
Apart from the grammar and missing aspirants, it was one of the best impromptu speeches I had ever heard. And, of course, he was perfectly correct.
“That’s true, Holiness” endorsed Phukkit. “Why, our mate Raum – another demon, yer Honor – was being used by that bloke Vittorio we came ‘ere after, ‘oo wanted ‘im to destroy cities. When we saved ‘im, ee were completely traumatized, an’ in a state of emotional shock. We ‘ad ter give ‘im therapy.” I knew that this, too, was hardly an exaggeration: Raum was a sensitive creature.
The Pope raised his hand to Father Bernardo who, with Detective Smith, had been taking a back seat during conversations they felt were outside their experience.
“My son,” he spoke kindly, “at first I was outraged when it was told to me what you have done – assisting Satan, and within the Vatican itself, and of your own volition.” He sighed deeply. “But now I see more clearly, thanks to those who are, after all, still agents of God, whatever their species or title might be. You have done well. Without you, great evil would have transpired – probably much greater than anyone can even imagine. You came into a crisis by accident, and you followed the message from your heart, not the formal instruction of rigid custom. It was the right choice, for custom is the cage of the spirit built by human preference, but the heart is given to us by a Different councilor. You did well, and you will be rewarded. You deserve promotion within your official duties, and I shall make you Head of the Security Office when Cardinal Sanger retires from that duty in three month’s time.”
Bernardo knelt and bowed. “As you command, Holiness.”
Then the old man turned his attentions to me.
“You will understand, I hope, that I cannot make any official acknowledgement of your visit here today.” He smiled sadly. “I am afraid the concept will not be received well amongst those whose values are mired in ancient prejudices and, like the dinosaurs, cannot adapt and therefore will eventually – one hopes – become extinct. Except that this old-fashioned simile is now known to be incorrect, for the dinosaurs were highly evolved animals, very adaptable and not the lethargic and lumpish swamp-dwellers that was once thought.” He turned his head to Pharter and Phukkit with an impish grin. “I also have a degree in geology, Amator.”
Returning to me, he continued with a chuckle, “Sometimes I wonder why I got this job; why I was elected by the cardinals. I believe in God, and I believe in evolution; I believe in the Creation, and I believe in the Big Bang; and who is to say that they are not the same thing viewed from two different minds? Perhaps I came to this position because the Church and all people in the world of whatever belief they may be need a new affirmation of meaning and positive direction in their lives – one that does not originate with outdated concepts and provable falsehoods, but which instead revalues our Faith, as a struggling dollar or lira is revalued and thereby finds the means for a renewed future vitality where it can help the citizens generate a new wealth. The dollar can be revalued, and yet it remains the almighty dollar, with the same face upon it, and is loved as much by those who worship it. So too, I believe, can mankind’s relationship with God, in whatever form or conception He may be perceived, be revalued to take account of all that is good within human beings and abandon all that is merely dogma and habit, casting off that which needs to be left behind and embracing that which still remains – the same face upon the universe and the same love and worship of its true glory.
“But whatever else I may or may not be, I am but one man, and there are limits imposed upon me by convention and edict, and also by vows I have made, so that I may not be as liberal as I would wish, and as my faith insists is necessary. Therefore, I must continue to observe the proprieties and guide the tiller of this great ship of Christendom with gentle nudges, not with unbalancing lurches.
“Therefore, your visit must remain a closely guarded secret, and I cannot give to you the acknowledgement I would personally wish. However, I have heard much from your own mouth, and much from the mouths of those who have come to love you as a loyal and steadfast friend, and if I may, I would give to you, instead of a Papal medal, a piece of advice which may or may not be wisdom, and which may or may not be relevant – although I think perhaps that it is.
“I have learned that you are not evil, and I already knew that all evil flows from the darker places within the human heart, or personality as we should nowadays refer to it, and not from any demonic ‘tempter’ or any outside agency. I have learned that you are brave and stalwart. But I have also learned that you have severe doubts about your own worth, your own abilities, your own path and your decisions and actions. These you question endlessly because you are afraid of failure. Because you have failed He who is highest once before. In your heart, your personality, you are continually wringing your hands because you believe you are unworthy, you believe you are not doing the right things, or that you may be doing them the wrong way.
“I cannot give you a medal; but instead, I can give you some words of well-meant advice from a very old man who has studied man and God all his life.
“Have faith. You are in danger of losing it. You have met beings whom mortal people can only experience by acts of faith. I need faith in the Almighty, and it is that faith which has served me all my life and brought me through innumerable crises. You, however, do not need that kind of faith, for you have experienced the proof itself; indeed, you are part of the proof. But because you have proof where we must rely on mere faith, you have lost the quality of faith, or at least you are in danger of losing it.
“Do not loose your ability to experience faith, my friend, for it is a quality and a gift that will remain behind within us when everything else seems to be shrouded in darkness and despair. And if you replace all faith with certain knowledge, then you will have no need for faith at all. And with that ebbing away of faith, you will loose as well the ability to have faith in yourself!
“Lucifer Satan, Archangel of the Lord no matter what your past indiscretions may have been, you must keep faith in yourself and your abilities and actions, and your decisions, for otherwise you will one day find you have lost all faith in everything – and then you will return to the nothingness from whence we all came; even if you are immortal, you would be but a hollow person unless you nurture your faith in yourself.
“Now, having delivered to you this lecture, may we still part as friends? For I cannot have much time left upon this world, and it would please me to know that – just perhaps – the first part of that great new bridge across the chasm of understanding to a new and better universal view has been built, and built here today by you and I.”
He turned to Bernardo again. “Think not that I have tamed the Devil – think rather that the Devil has given me renewed hope that there can be a future one day that will need neither of us.”
Turning back to me, he concluded with that wonderful merry laugh that was like refreshing raindrops splashing on a deep pool, “Can you imagine that day, when it comes? You and I sitting on rocking chairs on some veranda of a cosmic farmhouse, whiskered and nodding in our dotage, relics of a past era?”
His tone then became more serious and formal.
“As to the legalities, since we cannot acknowledge your visit, it would be difficult, to say the least, to acknowledge the presence and activities of the former priest Vittorio in our vaults and our cells. If some tourist deliberately intrudes into the prohibited areas that are off the official tourist route, and if they are objectionable when approached by our security officers, they can be placed in our cells for a few hours before being released outside again and nothing further is said or done. I believe you would call it ‘cooling off.’ In extreme cases, for instance theft or vandalism, the culprit is kept in the cells and arrangements are made to hand them over to the consulate or embassy of their particular nation, or to the police station in Rome if they are Italian.
“Well, you are an ambassador – I think nobody can deny that – and you are also a policeman, even if only in the jurisdiction of the USA. So, I think it appropriate, not to say expedient for all of us, that we release Vittorio into your custody without the encumbrance of any paperwork or official warrants of extradition.” He raised his head in the direction of the still-scribbling priests at their desks. “See to it please, by our command.”
One of the priests picked up a telephone and pressed some numbers, speaking softly into the mouthpiece. Then he hung up and said with great respect, “It is done, Holiness.”
The Pope stretched out his hand to me, and I took it in mine with feelings of both immense respect and great love. This gentle old man had hit the nail right on the head – I was in danger of losing all faith in myself, and the self is the last bastion of all faith. Words from a greatly distant past echoed faintly in my head: ‘How profits it a man if he should gain the whole world yet loose his soul?’ And I admit, I had been terrified of meeting him before we entered this room, afraid that my friends would be reviled and punished, afraid that I would be accused and cast out, afraid that I would be judged as having failed my test of character – afraid of so many uncertainties and variables.
It had taken a mortal human being – a very old and wise and compassionate human being – to show me the error of my ways. My intentions were honorable, but my self-respect had been eroded so much during thousands of years of being reviled by the whole world that I had been beginning to drown in a tidal wave of pessimism which affected my evaluation of everything I was and everything I did. I knew that from the time of this extraordinary and unofficial summit conference, I would re-evaluate and repair my faith, starting with faith in myself and my own actions and then spreading out into my outlook on the universe around me. From that time onward, I began to face the future with a slowly building confidence.
Wordlessly, and with a glint of a tear in my eye, I gently but firmly shook the proffered hand and kissed it again. As we made to take our leave, his Holiness caught Smith’s eye and waved her closer to his throne. His final words were to her.
“My dear lady, whatever may happen, cherish your man.”
“You guessed we are… involved?”
“Your eyes never left him since you all entered here; I do not guess, I see and I know.” He reached forward and placed his hand on the top of her head in benediction. “Be blessed, my child, and remember, love can overcome mountains.”
25. Cold Calling…
Then, guided by Father Bernardo, we were outside the official audience chamber and back in the magnificent waiting room. I stopped and rounded on Pharter and Phukkit.
“Now look, you two wise guys, what do you mean by…”
“’Arf a mo Guv,” hissed Pharter sibilantly. “We ain’t incognito yet.”
The two demons glanced furtively over their shoulders as though checking for spies – in a vast room containing at least a dozen astonished but motionless Swiss Guards – and then swiftly stooped and darted behind a nearby red and cream striped Napoleonic chaise longue. After a few moments they emerged into full view again. Now they were wearing floor-length shabby mackintoshes with belts tied and collars pulled up high round the sides of their heads; their ensemble was completed by equally shabby homburgs pulled down tight, almost meeting the upturned collars. The hats were several sizes too large for their heads in order to fully accommodate their horns. With hands shoved deep into pockets they looked something like a cross between a stereotypical secret agent of the 1930s and some kind of vaguely sinister giant toadstool.
“Now we can pass unnoticed,” explained Phukkit conspiratorially out of the corner of his mouth. “This is ‘ow we got in.”
For once in my long life, words completely failed me. I merely stared. Then a couple of seconds later I heard unusual noises from behind me. Glancing round, I saw that it was Sandra Smith and Father Bernardo both doing their best to stifle laughter, and failing nasally. Then I, too, saw the funny side. All I could manage to splutter was: “Wait ‘til I get you home…”
Then I remembered that I was still wearing a borrowed priest’s outfit a few sizes too small for somebody six feet six inches tall. That was why the two demons were now giving me a jaundiced look up and down, their mutual silence speaking volumes. Of course, Bernardo was still wearing his white squash court duds, and we agreed silently with our eyebrows that perhaps some changes of attire should be given priority. The Swiss Guard in this room and the audience room were far too professional and discrete to interfere with any strange people – and do I mean strange! - who had been invited thus far by his Holiness; however, elsewhere in this vast and labyrinthine city within a city we could not expect to pass through unchallenged and we needed to look more normal.
Or at least, as normal as we could. Which was not saying much, really, when you consider it.
With a quick detour via the squash court locker room where I picked up my suit and Bernardo donned his priest’s apparel, we all headed to the security offices and the stairs which led to the small row of modern cells beneath. I gave Pharter and Phukkit specific instructions along the way, telling them to go to Hell and await further orders. How could I be angry with them for disobeying instructions not to follow me into the Vatican, since they only did it because they were worried about me and wanted to be on hand in case I needed help?
And in any case, their impromptu infiltration of the Pope’s private rooms had helped pave the way for my own arrival there in a more orthodox manner. We were all fortunate that the current pontiff was such an extraordinary person, with a world view that was not merely broad but perhaps also unprecedented. If politicians could be half as wise as he, the world might enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity. Perhaps, also, I was extremely lucky to have two such demons as they. If I can mix metaphors with even more abandon than usual, they were saints amongst demons.
After promising Pharter, cross my heart and hope to die, that no walkies were involved whatsoever, at any point or under any circumstances, he agreed to take Niblick back with him and drop him off at my apartment on the way. The demons and the dog left us, heading for the nearest exit that would take them across the Vatican threshold into formal Italian legislature in which they could regain the supernatural ability to vanish into the spiritual realms.
At the small reception room of the cells, an officer of the Swiss Guard rose from his desk when we entered. He spoke with Father Bernardo in the manner of a subordinate addressing a superior.
“He is saying that…” I began translating for the benefit of Detective Smith.
She cut me off. “He is saying that the man given into charge in the cells had a wound on his forehead, so they sent for a surgeon who checked his eyes for signs of concussion, put in two stitches and dressed the wound.”
“You speak Italian? I never knew,” I remarked.
“We lived in the Italian quarter until I was 20,” she advised. “It was right next door to the Chinese quarter. I’m pretty passable in colloquial Chinese as well. I also speak French and Spanish enough to be understood, if not like a native.”
I smiled, impressed. We were taken in by the cells officer to where Vittorio was nursing his headache behind a locked door as sturdy as anything in an LA precinct house. As Bernardo cleared it with the guard captain for Smith and I to take custody of the prisoner, a very slight and – some might say – inconsequential movement caught the corner of my eye. On a cabinet beside the captain’s desk was a small TV set in which cameras in the cells relayed an image from within each. There were six cells, five of them empty, and the images appeared on the single screen in six small frames arranged in two rows of three. The frame on the top left was the view of Vittorio’s cell. As we approached the desk, I swear Vittorio looked up and smiled evilly at me, looking directly into my eyes through the camera, as though he could see me. I shook my head quickly and he was staring at his feet. I dismissed the incident as the result of my temporarily being limited to human parameters and suffering from nerves.
Events then began to proceed rather more smoothly for a time. Vittorio was released into our custody, and my only awkward moment was when I was presented with an official form on a data board for signature. I decided to simply sign as Stan A. Fericul, Inspector, LAPD – I felt signing it as “Satan” might not be a sensible idea under the circumstances. Then Bernardo escorted us out of the great walled complex, walking with us as he bade us a fond and sincere farewell. The instant I once again crossed that invisible line of administrative demarcation, I felt myself expand and, somehow, thicken (that’s the only way I can describe it) as all my angelic powers flooded back into my being.
As we approached a completely full metered parking area a rather long walk away, I could sense Bernardo staring at all the parked autos, trying to guess which one was mine. I was actually heading for an ancient Citroen 2CV, the kind that looks like the offspring of a collision between two trashcans and a pram. I noticed Bernardo’s eyebrows twitch. Then I produced my keys and pressed a button on the fob. My scarlet ride with all the trimmings silently slid out of inter-dimensional N-space into this realm of reality, seeming to emerge sideways with nonchalant attitude from a two foot gap between parked cars. Equally silently except for a swishing of air currents, the gull-wing doors opened upwards into their “praying-mantis” position. Sandra gave Bernardo a quick chaste hug and folded herself into the passenger seat. I put one hand on his shoulder and warmly shook his hand with the other.
“Father Bernardo…” I briefly choked with emotion of gratitude.
“I know,” he answered quietly. “Just remember, whatever I may have done to help you, you have helped me even more, by saving my soul.” He smiled. “And who would have ever thought that?” He paused, reflecting. “Now, I can believe what I needed to believe but couldn’t. I am reborn.”
I raised a hand in salutation and quickly sat in the driving seat, gunning the engine into roaring life. After announcing to the neighborhood that it was alive, the engine settled down into a deep-throated purr like a lioness. Then we were away again into trans-dimensional N-space, disappearing into a quantum vortex that led as sure as a freeway to downtown LA and the station house, where we were cruising to a halt in the underground car park inside three point five seconds.
It was dark outside, very early in the morning before sunrise. Accompanied by Detective Smith, I bundled Vittorio into the elevator and through the general department into my office. I pulled a large notebook out of a drawer and made ready to formerly interrogate the suspect, since there was still much about his activities and actions that were unknown to us.
“Just a moment,” objected Sandra, raising a cautionary hand. “We can’t do this, you know.”
“How do you mean?” I queried, puzzled.
“Well, just think for a minute – you know he’s guilty, and I know he’s guilty, but that doesn’t count for squat in any court of law. In point of fact, we have actually performed an illegal arrest, outside of our jurisdiction by thousands of miles. Technically speaking, despite everything, we are committing an offence by keeping him here against his will.”
“Huh?” I floundered.
“Look – no matter what he has done, no matter how evil he is, unless you want to act entirely outside the law, he has to be arrested and formerly charged within our jurisdiction, which extends just as far as the county line. A case can be made, certainly, that the matter comes under Federal law, since he made criminal threats against the President and government and threatened other cities, but even then we are in the wrong to haul his ass in from Italy. And as far as I know, there’s no Federal warrant been issued. Even a mediocre defense lawyer would be able to demolish not only our case but also very probably our careers.”
“You are telling me, we can’t we get him tried and convicted?” I responded, although I was already recognizing the truth of what she said.
“When Hell freezes over,” she replied miserably.
Just then the telephone on my desk rang. I snatched it up. “Yes?” I demanded irritably.
A voice I instantly knew spoke. “’Allo Guv, sorry to intrude on yer at work, but sumfink ‘ighly unusual ‘as ‘appened ‘ere.”
I sighed to myself. “What is it, Pharter?”
“Well, Guv – Hell is freezing over!”
I swear that his teeth were chattering.
26. A Change of Atmosphere…
For a number of seconds I was completely nonplussed. Almost of its own accord the telephone receiver in my upraised hand moved away from my ear. I noticed Sandra cock a quizzical eyebrow at the tinny sounds emanating from the instrument; sounds like a distant set of rather haphazard castanets. Then I began to wake my ideas up.
“Hold on,” I snapped out encouragingly. “We’ll be right there.” I hung up.
“What on earth was that all about?” enquired Sandra, mystified.
“It wasn’t on earth,” I advised with a firm voice. “It was a person-to-person call from Hell.”
Leaving her to ponder on this information, I swung round in my chair to face Vittorio, who had been sitting silently, handcuffed, the expression on his face radiating nothing so much as calm malicious satisfaction. I pointed at him.
“You know something about this, don’t you!” It was a statement, not a question.
“I might,” he grated in an Italian-American accent similar to that of Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” but with clearer enunciation, “and then again, I might not.” He smiled smugly. Evidently he thought he held some kind of royal flush against my pair of twos.
“Listen,” I grated. “I don’t know yet what is going to happen to you, or under which set of laws you will be judged, or who is going to do the judging – but you know who I really am, and you can believe me when I tell you, you are going to be judged! There will be an enforcement of laws either here or somewhere else, and somebody – somebody – is going to do the judging. And whatever happens, however we work out the fine legalities, wherever the trial is held, it will go better with you if you change your manner and begin to offer up something constructive and helpful.”
He looked at me with a sneer but couldn’t keep up the cool attitude when he saw my eyes and his gaze flinched away. “Cherche la femme,” he muttered, a new expression, one of fear and guilt, flashing quickly over his features. If I had blinked, I’d have missed it.
“Cherche la femme?” repeated Sandra rounding on him, maybe thinking to play “good cop” to my “bad cop”. “Find the woman?”
“You go find Her,” invited Vittorio, suddenly sullen. I was certain I had not been mistaken; the way he uttered the word, there was definitely a capital ‘h’ in ‘her’.
“You’re not trying to tell us there’s a woman somewhere at the back of all this?” I demanded, increasing the volume of my “bad cop” act.
“Maybe,” hedged Vittorio, suddenly self-possessed once more, “or then again, maybe not. Why don’t you find out?”
“Is she your girlfriend?” asked Sandra.
Vittorio’s eyes gleamed for the briefest instant. “If only…” he breathed to himself. “The joys – the inconceivable pleasures…” Then he clammed up sullenly once more.
“Mean anything to you?” she queried.
“Nothing,” I answered, racking my brains and coming up with a row of zeros. “Come on. In my opinion, we’ve got an emergency on our hands – possibly a very big emergency. We’re all going for a ride – and that includes our friend here.”
I hauled Vittorio to his feet by his collar and frogmarched him back the way we had come, out of my office, through the general detective department where the day-shift was turning up and sparing us puzzled looks, and into the elevator. Equally puzzled, Detective Smith followed close, trying for the benefit of the rest of the staff to look like she knew what was happening. Soon we reached the basement and got back into my auto.
“Sandra,” I began, my hands on the wheel, “I should tell you where we’re going. I have to give you the option of staying here and not coming with us. I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this. Maybe your particular religious upbringing will discourage you from wanting to go where we are going.”
“So spill the beans,” she shot back.
“That phone call was from Pharter; there’s big trouble in Hell, something unprecedented. I think something’s brewing up. That’s where I’ve got to go, and I’m taking Vittorio with me for good measure, since I want him where I can keep my eye on him.”
“So… you’re asking me if I want to go to Hell with you?”
“That’s right.”
“I thought you’d never invite me to see the folks back home. Cut the guilt trip and let’s go.”
I grinned broadly, gunned the motor into life and slipped the automatic selector straight into the position marked HAB, which, as I seem to remember explaining long ago, stood for “Hell and back”.
Although Sandra had traveled in my car before, the last time just some fifteen minutes ago, what followed was a new experience for her. Quantum N-space, through which the vehicle slipped to avoid traffic queues in the space/time continuum, was none-the-less part of the universe of physical dimensions, even though it had not yet been recognized by science as anything other than a quasi-mathematical theory suggested by people in white coats, and believed in only by people being taken away somewhere for a nice rest by other people in white coats. To get to my intended destination, we had to travel instead through spiritual dimensionality, which is a different kettle of equations altogether.
Thus, instead of the usual rocket exhaust belch normally emitted at the back on turning the ignition, the HAB mechanisms locked into position and a huge ball of fire like special effects from Towering Inferno whoofed out in all directions from underneath the vehicle, momentarily hiding the view through the windows. When the smoke and glare had been left behind, we found ourselves suddenly racing through outer space in a graceful trajectory like the USS Enterprise tracking away from camera in a Star Trek movie. Through the side windows on the left could briefly be seen the planet Saturn with its rings, and then we were leaving the Milky Way galaxy altogether; it was that quick. Two seconds later even the stars vanished in a velvety black eternity. For the benefit of anyone who thinks I am too fond of making analogies with the movies, I would like to point out at this juncture that there was definitely no “corridor of lights” like the one in Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Reality never wins Oscars.
And then we were arriving. Like heaven, hell is a psycho-sentiric novitatis. Some might prefer to use the definition manifesting experiential cospirituality, or maybe mythomanifesting protosubstantiality. Whichever way you look at it, Hell is a sub-prime reality created by ten thousand years of negative investment in underfinanced human aspirations. In visual terms, this simply meant that it looked as though a truly gigantic continent-sized cavern with a roof so high that entire flocks of jet airliners could migrate south through it had been decorated by a 1950s Hollywood set-designer contracted for Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
My vehicle lurched into existence again atop the hill outside the main city whereon stood the rickety-looking tin-roofed shack with its bristling antennae that was my unofficial administrative observation post. My real offices were in the large office-block visible near the centre of Hadea, the distant capital city of Hades. Last time I had been here - not all that long ago, when I organized an apocalypse alert as a cover for obtaining a psychic photograph of the great book of the Seventh Seal – the predominant scheme of décor had consisted largely of reds, yellows and oranges, much of it flickering. This is what I had expected to find. That made it doubly unsettling to see what I actually saw.
Snow was falling very thickly and the entire landscape was covered in its whiteness. Some of the vaguely distance-fuzzy Empire State-sized stalactites dangling from the ten-miles-high cavern ceiling appeared to be rubbing shoulders with equally gigantic icicles that had formed between them. On the ground outside the radio shack someone had built a snowman (actually a snow-demon) and Pharter, Phukkit, Phixit, Phungus and several of their colleagues were joyously flinging snowballs at it to try to knock off its crooked top-hat. Pharter was wearing a scarf and Phukkit sported a pair of horn-muffs. Phixit was wearing gumboots, which looked just a little incongruous on him since they were at least three sizes too big. As we watched, somewhat dumfounded by the whole turn of events, one of the boots stuck in the snow and was left behind: Phixit started to hop back to it in the remaining boot, which promptly decided to get stuck as well, resulting in him hopping out of that one too. It was Smith’s unsuccessful attempt to stifle laughter that made the scampering demons suddenly aware their Boss had arrived.
“Err…” began Pharter, all in a sudden fluster, “…it’s a…”
“I know!” I shot back. “It’s a tea break – am I right?”
“Spot on,” agreed Pharter unabashed.
“Gang,” I drew their attention and pointed at the scrapyard-looking shack, “inside – conference – big problems.”
“Oo’s he?” queried Pharter, pointing at Vittorio. “Is ‘e oo I fink ‘e is?”
“I believe so,” I replied. “He’s Vittorio, the unfrocked priest who we thought was behind all the trouble.”
Pharter puckered his brows. “’Thought was,’” he echoed. “That’s the past tense, Guv. You mean ‘e ain’t behind it after all?”
“Oh, he’s as guilty as sin,” I offered, “but I now think he’s nothing but somebody else’s pawn – a woman’s.”
The demons digested this information as they trudged dejectedly out of the snow and into the radio communications shack. Detective Smith looked at Phukkit who was conspicuously dragging his feet.
“Why so glum, chum?” she asked him light-heartedly, in an attempt to cheer him up.
Phukkit looked up at her, his purple face wistful. “I ain’t never seen snow before, Miss” he mumbled gloomily. “I was enjoyin’ meself.” Then he grinned rather wickedly and flung a snowball which exploded into a shower of cold lumps on the back of Pharter’s head and down the collar of his waistcoat.
27. Staff Meeting…
Once everyone had entered the shack and the door had been closed to keep out the cold wind, I told Phixit to get on the telephone and summon a few others of my best men – I mean demons – and to tell them this was urgent. Vittorio had been looking at the scenery and demons with rather pop-eyes, although he blinkered them if he thought anyone was looking at him, attempting to keep up his act of being unshakably sour-faced and sneeringly aloof. I bundled him into the shack without ceremony and handcuffed him to a chair; this was unnecessary – where could he run to? – but it made me feel better. As for Sandra, as always she was enchanted by the demons and coming through the front door she was already gossiping with them like neighbors over a garden fence.
Once everyone was seated or slouched inside, I introduced Sandra to those who had not met her previously, and vice versa.
“Detective Smith, these are some others of my best staff.” I pointed from one to the other around the room. “This is Phungus, Phixit, Phable, Phorger, Phacile, Phetish, Pharce, Phate, Phelon, Phiend and Pherret.” Smith smiled at each in turn and immediately won their hearts.
“May I ask a personal question?” she enquired of the room at large.
“Go ahead Miss,” answered Phukkit.
“Well, why is it that all of you seem to have names beginning with an “f” sound, whereas other demons I have already met have names like Raum, Gomery and so-on?”
“Ah, well, you see Miss,” began Phukkit, “there are diff’rent kinds of demon, ain’t there? F’rinstance, did you notice anyfing that might distinguish demons like Raum an’ Gaylord from demons like us?”
“Well, only their size – they were a bit bigger than humans and you are all a bit smaller.”
“PRE-cisely,” responded Phukkit. “You see, Miss, those of us who are bigger, like them, are yer actual demons of power, as featured in the great occult grimoires of old, such as the Clavicule of Solomon. Each of them has a range of specialties, so to speak, or as yer might say, a particular field of operation, or an individual talent, if yer sees what I means. Whereas us, you see, well, we are more yer imps. We don’t much specialize, we just hang about doing whatever grabs us, if yer takes my meaning.”
“Yeah,” contributed Phungus. “The big guys, they’re the prima donnas, as it were, an’ we’re the supporting act.”
“I see,” said Smith, thinking quickly and diplomatically. “And, of course, every job is important. If the supporting act didn’t turn up, the prima donnas would look a bit silly having to play every role in the theatre.”
There was a chorus of “Yeah”s and one “Right on!” and a room full of approving nods.
“OK Guv,” interjected Pharter. “What’s the big story then? What’s happening, and why should it worry us?”
“Yeah,” added another demon somewhere in the back. “We like snow – it’s luvverly stuff, innit?”
“It’s lovely stuff in the right place and in the right quantities, and especially in the right dimension,” I replied patiently. “This is not the right place. We don’t have weather in Hell. We don’t even have atmospheric conditions to support weather patterns. And most of all, we do not have cold fronts or precipitation, either rain or snow. It’s never happened. This is very wrong. And anything very wrong is also very worrying, and more so when we don’t know how or why it is happening. Look, guys, nobody can call me a control freak, but when things get this much out of control, I freak-out.”
There was a general demonic sobering-up throughout the shack.
“Sure, Boss,” said Pharter. “We never looked at it like that, did we?” There was a muted chorus of shamefaced agreement and some foot-shuffling.
Just then the front door was opened from outside, letting an icy blast of snow-laced wind gush momentarily into the room with that hollow moaning noise that generally comes with such things. Five larger demons came inside hurriedly, stamping their feet and slapping their arms, closing the door quickly behind them. I knew Smith had instantly recognized Gaylord and Raum, who came over to her and started chatting. I felt obliged to introduce the other three to her.
“Detective Smith, this is Gamygyn, Sabnack and Eligor, three of the demons mentioned in the Clavicule of Solomon. I asked them to come to this meeting.”
The new arrivals settled themselves on ancient chairs of tubular metal and canvas which Phungus hauled off a stack for them. On the canvas backrest of each was stenciled the faded legend US GOV FT BRAGG 1942. For their benefit, I recapped what I had said about the weather, leaving them looking thoughtful.
“Oooh,” trilled Gaylord. “This could be just awful.” Then, offering an explanatory afterthought, “I don’t look good in ski-pants.” I tried unsuccessfully to keep the picture in my imagination from forming.
“Well then,” I offered, trying to seize back command of the meeting when everyone else, judging by the expressions on their faces and a few sets of white knuckles, was obviously wrestling to suppress the same mental image, “does anyone have anything constructive to offer?” I emphasized the word constructive.
There was a lengthy silence broken only by the soft sounds of a lot of people trying not to fidget. Then Phixit spoke.
“Boss, if I understand rightly what you say, there are things happening here, yet the same things are impossible and cannot happen here. There’s a conflict of factuality, something like that old saying about when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. It’s completely impossible for it to snow in Hell, yet here we are, in the middle of a snowstorm.” He paused to gather his thoughts.
“That’s the situation,” I agreed needlessly, just in order to let him know I appreciated a contribution to the conference – any contribution.”
“Well now,” resumed Phixit, frowning and furrowing his brows in deep thought. “On the surface of it, that doesn’t seem to be much to go on – not much to predicate a theory upon, if you get my drift. But –” and he stabbed the air decisively with a talon – “ I believe we can build on the negatives.”
Suddenly I began to take him more seriously. “How do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, look at it this way. If a bloke in a zoo is expecting two different deliveries and finds a big packing case with animal noises coming out of it, it might be a tiger or it might be a sheep, and he don’t know which. So what does he do? If he opens the box and it’s a tiger, he’s in trouble. If he opens it and it’s a sheep, he’s OK. But he has another fact to help him, if he can think logically. He can deduce that the box can’t contain both a tiger and a sheep, because the tiger would eat the sheep. But the sheep wouldn’t eat the tiger. Therefore, he can reason out that, statistically, the case most probably holds a tiger, and he leaves it alone.”
“I’m not sure I understand…” I murmured, not wanting to discourage initiative by pointing out the fallacy in this line of reasoning.
“Well, convert that theorem into our present situation,” explained Phixit. “We got a certain situation here in our cospiritual reality: but this situation cannot exist here: but it does exist: but it can’t: and so-on. Do you see where this is leading?”
Without exception, everyone else in the room, including yours truly, looked utterly baffled.
“Look, half a mo,” snapped Phixit. He bustled to the back of the room and sat down at his battery of communications consoles, placing the huge antique earphones on his head and dangling the long tightly coiled cable over his shoulder. Busily he began to turn knobs, spin dials and switch switches. He called over his shoulder “Hang about, I’m trying something here…” his voice trailing off as it was swamped by his concentration.
As he worked, listening intently at whatever was coming through the earphones, a discussion was breaking out amongst the other demons.
“That thing about the tiger and the sheep is a logical syllogism,” complained Pharter. “It don’t work.”
“Why not?” asked Gaylord.
“Well, if the tiger is in the crate, the bloke’s got problems. If the tiger and the sheep were in the crate, the tiger has eaten the sheep and only the tiger is left in the crate and again the bloke’s got problems. If the sheep alone was in the crate, the bloke won’t know the factual identity of the animal until he opens the crate anyway, like Schrödinger’s Cat, so either way, opening the crate is a gamble. It don’t prove nothing!”
“Now, your line of reasoning is a good example of logical positivism,” commented Phukkit.”
“I would have said it’s more empiricism,” opined Phungus.
“Same thing,” argued Phetish. “Logical positivism, as a discrete school of philosophical evaluation, grew from the discussion group at the Café Central in Vienna and ultimately came to oppose all metaphysical phenomenon as having no verifiable meaning. Sounds like it fits the thing about the tiger and the sheep.”
“Yeah,” agreed Phorger. “The criteria of assessment in logical positivism are the evaluation of propositions as either true, false or meaningless according to the absolutes of verifiability, thus positing logical positivism itself in direct contradiction to quantum theory as expressed in the theorem of Schrödinger’s Cat.”
“It could be a categorical syllogism,” contributed Phiend. “Like that one that goes: Superman can fly: Superman wears red boots: everyone who wears red boots can fly.”
“Yeah, but according to the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the use of language must be gradually replaced throughout society by substituting more exact equivalents, wherein dichotomies of a purely vocabularic inception cannot manifestly occur.”
“What if it was a gorilla in the packing case?” asked Gaylord, hopelessly out of his depth and attempting to catch up. It brought the animated conversation grinding to a halt with a general crash of mental gears.
Then the debate was abandoned, or at least postponed, because Phixit called out over his shoulder, “Hey! I’ve done it! I’ve found something.” There was a rush of everyone to his side, with me in pole position. I saw that he was staring at an old-fashioned round glass cathode ray tube, the kind used in radar stations and science-fiction movies in the 1950s which only displayed an illuminated zigzag line moving up and down to indicate something happening within the field of the detector.
“What is it,” I asked him softly, voicing everyone’s thoughts.
“There’s a reality field very close to ours,” he stated. “It seems to be slowly but surely converging. Its outlying wavelengths are overlapping Hell’s own mythomanifesting protosubstantiality already, which is what is lowering the temperature and causing the snow and ice.”
“Wot’s all that in plain language?” asked Phukkit.
Phixit turned round to look at me, and suddenly I could see fear in his eyes.
“If you want it in words of fewer syllables,” offered Phixit, “we are shortly going to catastrophically collide with a rogue Creation.”
28. Universes That go Bump in the Night…
“Run that past me again,” I requested, my mind already instructing my stomach to experience a sinking feeling. Sandra drew close to my side in silence and sought my hand to hold.
Phixit sighed, removed his earphones and wiped his arm across his brow. “OK, let’s start simple and work our way up. If a bull elephant leaves the herd and runs amuck, he is called a rogue; likewise with other animals, even cattle.”
(“Perhaps it’s a cow inside the packing case, then?” whispered Gaylord breathlessly, to universal disregard.)
“This same term has been applied in theoretical astronomy and astro-physics,” continued Phixit. “If a planet somehow breaks out of its orbit and heads wildly towards other planets, it is referred to as a ‘rogue planet’. So far this has never happened in the solar system since its earliest days, when a rogue planet about the size of Mars is now postulated as having struck the earth before life began, causing a cloud of orbiting debris that eventually became the Moon. Scientists have also defined the possibility of ‘rogue galaxies’, which can gravitationally devour other galaxies.”
“I’m with you so far,” I nodded.
“Well, let’s take this speculative analysis a bit further. There have been various science-fiction stories in which different dimensions collide – the result of a ‘rogue dimension’, in fact. A disunity within the quantum flux. Take it further still – the normal universe plus various trans-dimensional reality extensions, such as all the various religion’s heavens, hells, limbos and Las Vegas, are part of the composite entirety of Creation. This is in accord with the wilder claims about quantum mechanics”
(“I know,” whispered Gaylord again, trying to keep up, “It’s Schrödinger’s Cow.” He was even more energetically ignored.)
“OK, I’m still with you.”
Phixit’s voice lowered and became husky. “Well now, whereas this whole universe’s Creation event was initiated by You-Know-Who and His equally godly colleagues,” he pointed at the ceiling and raised his eyes in the same direction, “just suppose that, somehow, someone else has managed to perform a similar Creation event, bringing a whole new Creation into existence – and then sending it onto a collision course with this one!”
He paused to take breath and pointed to his equipment. “And in case anyone is in doubt, I’m picking up the signal spike from it right now!”
I hesitated momentarily. “Are you certain? Is there any other explanation of this signal?”
Phixit looked up at me sorrowfully. “I’m afraid not, Boss. I know my equipment and its capabilities, and its limitations.”
“How long have we got?”
“If it keeps on approaching at its present velocity and direction, there’s going to be one mother of a bump in about three normal days – hold on…” He took out an antiquated slide rule and adjusted several knobs and dials, doing handwritten calculations on a jotter with a pencil stub. “Make that seventy-five hours, eleven minutes and seventeen seconds.”
If he was as certain and specific as that, I believed him. “What do you think will happen when it bumps into our Creation?”
Phixit stared in horrified fascination into his small round screen. Only his mouth moved. “Like the cowboy said, Boss – there ain’t room enough in this town fer the both of us. Only, make that ‘existence’ instead of ‘town’.” Then he turned his back on his equipment and faced the rest of the room. In a small voice, he finished:
“When it happens, we won’t be here any more. The arrival of a new Creation will be like matter encountering anti-matter. It will undo this one completely and annihilate even its sub-atomic quantum matrixes – the planet earth, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, the Happy Hunting Ground, Paradise, Cloud Cuckoo Land – everything – all of it – gone!”
“Do you think Heaven knows about this?” I asked him, although I knew that if this had been so, Hell would have been told.
“I doubt it,” offered Phixit. “They get the lion’s share of the budget funding and only have state-of-the-art equipment. You see, my equipment here is - let us say - somewhat antiquated. I love this old stuff, which is just as well because it’s all that drops down here. And it’s only because my outfit here uses coils and valves and copper wiring and circuit-breakers and items like that, all salvaged from shipwrecks, plane crashes, wars and suchlike, instead of all the up-to-date electronics gear, that it picked up the signal at all.”
“Can you get a signal through to Heaven?”
Phixit twiddled more knobs and dials. “Nix, Boss. The incoming interference signal is growing too strong. Listen – you can hear the snowstorm outside getting worse. It’s all part of the same thing. The closer the rogue Creation gets to us, the stronger its effects will become until… well, bump!”
Sandra had been listening quietly beside me. Now she spoke, with a clear and level head. “If you can’t get an outgoing signal to Heaven, do you think you can send one to the oncoming rogue Creation?”
Phixit thought for a moment. “Possibly,” he nodded. “I might be able to transmit a powerful short-range carrier wave and place a coherent message signal inside it. The surrounding carrier wave could act like a sort of protective shield for the message transmission. I seem to remember there were some experiments made by the old Soviet Union with that method for the use of military aircraft, in an attempt to send messages through electronic jamming interference. But in any case, what good would that do us? It only works over quite short distances. We couldn’t reach the receivers in Heaven.”
“Maybe not,” agreed Sandra. “But we might be able to reach whoever made that other Creation, and is presumably piloting it, or directing it, or whatever you do to them to make the thing go where you want it to.”
“I’m glad one of us is thinking,” I responded to this suggestion. “If it’s something accidental, we could warn them; if it’s something deliberate – well, at least we’ll know.”
“I can try,” shrugged Phixit.
More knob turning and dial twiddling. Then some switch flicking and a few loud metallic blows on the top of a consul with a clenched fist.
“Well Boss, I’d be prepared to bet they can hear you now if you speak over the mike – the carrier wave is strong at least and our signal is spiking well in its centre. Mind you, there’s no guarantee that anyone’s listening there, or even that there’s any equipment for receiving and transmitting. We don’t know anything about what it’s like inside the rogue Creation – it may not even be a cosmos as we know it.”
I tried. I picked up the unwieldy old microphone from atop the main consul: it was another antique, shaped like two coffins joined head-to-head held in a steel ring and had the legend WEAF on top in big metal letters. “Hello – hello! This is Hell broadcasting to the unidentified universe approaching us. Are you receiving me? Over.”
Nothing came out of the speakers except an irregular pattern of static. I tried again with the same message, with the same result; as much conversation as you’d get from a bigmouth - of a cave. I repeated my spiel several times more for good measure, then reluctantly lowered the microphone.
“Either they can’t answer, or they won’t, or else there’s nobody there to answer. Perhaps rogue Creations can’t support life as we know it.”
Meanwhile, the temperature inside the sprawling shack had dropped noticeably. I saw that the snowdrifts piling up outside had reached the bottom of some of the cracked and grimy windows.
Things were quickly getting very serious. I had brought living mortals to Hell, one of whom was the woman I loved, and I did not know whether it was possible for a mortal in Hell to die, or whether they had to be on the mortal plane in order to expire. If death in Hell was possible, then the noticeably rapid dropping of the temperature was a very major concern. I was on the point of ordering Sandra to take Vittorio back to my car and return to the normality of the mortal world without me, whether she liked it or not, when suddenly there was a new and startling development.
Without any warning, the faint irregular background hissing and buzzing issuing from Phixit’s array of speakers abruptly ceased. I suppose most people are familiar with that slightly strange sensation of being so used to an unnoticed background noise that the silence when it stops seems loud for a moment. Everyone in the room instinctively became more alert. Gaylord’s bulldog-like mouth snapped shut with a loud click.
Before anybody could say anything, a voice came clearly and without any interference from the speakers.
“Well, well, well. I am privileged! The lord Lucifer himself, no less, and already back in Hell. What’s the matter – did you fail your test so soon?”
It was a woman’s voice.
29. Queen of the Night…
There was a nonplussed silence. After about six seconds, Sandra was heard to whisper: “Who’s that?”
I remained silent, thunderstruck. I thought I recognized that voice – but surely not! It couldn’t be – could it?
“What’s the matter?” asked the voice from the speakers. “Cat got your tongue? Perhaps I had better pay you a little visit.”
Before I could react, Vittorio started to rock backwards and forwards in his seat, hands still cuffed behind his back. He was sweating. “She comes,” he moaned in an agony of perverse apprehension. “She comes…!”
The static interference noise came back into the speakers. Slowly, Phixit turned the volume down. Nobody said anything – nobody could think of anything intelligent to say and Gaylord at least knew better than to make the attempt at this juncture. Everyone looked with blank expressions at everyone else.
Then, without any other accompanying special effects, a ten-foot circle of bright green light appeared on the wall at the rear of the shack, between a 1929 Wall Street tickertape machine and a glossy 1967 psychedelic poster of The Beatles: part of the circle overlapped Ringo, giving him a sudden uncharacteristic sallow complexion. As if the circle of light were, somehow, a vertical pool of water, a human-shaped figure emerged through it and stepped into the room. The strange green light faded a little and it was only then that any details of the unexpected visitor could be discerned.
It was, indeed, a woman – and what a woman! I believe an appropriate word might be “Junoesque”, or “statuesque”. Put simply, at eight feet tall and with all the appropriate trimmings in perfect proportion, including a mane of red hair reaching to her bronze-greaved knees, she made Xena the Warrior Princess look like a runner-up in the Miss Supermarket Checkout Queue contest. And I knew her.
“Lilith,” I breathed in amazement.
“Well, I suppose I should be flattered that you at least remember me,” she retorted with a strong hint of scorn. “However, you will soon be regretting your past even more than you ever have done. When I’ve finished with you and all your friends, and your beloved planet earth, you will really know the meaning of fallen angel!” She turned back to the circle of green light on the wall, then turned again to utter a Parthian shot. “You realize, of course, that this is personal.” She spat out the final word with considerable venom.
Then, without warning and before anybody could stop him, Vittorio had leaped out of his chair, arms still handcuffed behind his back but – a regrettable oversight – legs still free, and he charged across the room with his head down like some strange quarterback. He dived headfirst into the green light on the wall and promptly vanished from sight.
Then she stepped through the green light as though it were an open doorway and vanished. So did the circle of light.
There was a stunned silence for several long seconds.
Sandra Smith was the first to speak. “What is she to you?”
“Nothing at all,” I replied, spreading my hands in innocence. “We went on a couple of dates before the Ice Age, and that was it. Truly.” It sounded so lame that I felt an automatic male need for back-up. “Guys, do I speak the truth here?”
It was big Raum who answered, his deep, slow voice somehow signifying a speaker who was beyond all possibility of falsehood. “Miss Smith, that is an absolute fact. The Boss was still an archangel then; it was before he was dismissed from the board of directors. They had three dates. He behaved honorably and decently. I believe it was this that made her break it up – she doesn’t like that type. She is attracted to the baser side of a man’s nature – and I’m sure you have noticed, despite all the hype against him in your world, the Boss doesn’t have much of a baser side.”
“S’right,” endorsed Pharter, more subdued than usual. “The Boss is a good bloke.”
Sandra waved her hands. “All right, all right.” She looked into my eyes. “I believe you. But all that aside, exactly who is Lilith?”
I sat down. “How long have you got?” I asked rhetorically. “There has been a degree of what might be called ‘official cover-up’ about her in the mortal plane.”
“Go ahead, spill the beans some more,” encouraged Sandra, moving to my side and taking my hand in hers again.
“Lilith was Adam’s first wife, before Eve came along. She was one of the… call them ‘failures’… formed before the perfected human Adam was created. She is mentioned in Isaiah and referred to as a ‘screech owl’ of the desert. She was known to the Jewish exiles in Babylon as a terrible female vampire, noted for her beauty and long flowing hair. The ancient Mesopotamians regarded her as a storm demon who could take the form of a screech owl and she is mentioned in the Sumerian King List and the Epic of Gilgamesh, which also makes mention of her long hair, and in cuneiform inscriptions dating as far back as two thousand BC. She is also mentioned in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in the Jewish Talmud where, again, it mentions her long hair. In Jewish legend she is a terrible, shrieking bloodsucking demon of the night.
“The Akkadians of Sargon the Great in Mesopotamia over twenty centuries BC describe Lilith as a beautiful but deadly vampire demon stalking the darkness of the night and deserted ruins, pouncing on victims in the form of a shrieking bird-like creature. Even some Native American tribes, before Columbus, had legends of the Lillitu, the terrible, long-haired and lascivious were-woman who, in the guise of a screech-owl, would descend at the darkest time of night, attracted by the erotic dreams of men, and make love to them before draining their life-blood.
“The ancient Greeks knew her as Lamia, a vampire demon who stalked the night winds in the shape of a screech owl looking for victims in order to descend and suck them dry of blood. She is known in Arabic legend as Q’rina, or Karina. She is known in one guise or another to all the world’s cultures. In astrology, Lilith is the name given to the ‘dark moon’ at the point where the moon’s elliptical orbit takes it farthest from the earth, which is also referred to as the ‘black moon’ and the ‘ghost moon’. The ancient Egyptians left a warning inscription in some of their tombs: ‘When the ghost moon rises, Lilith the shrieking night-demon stalks the earth seeking the blood of her prey.’
“Put simply, she is the essence and origin of all the legends of the classical vampire, whether male or female. Goethe mentions her in part one of ‘Faust’ during the Walpurgis Night scene. When Doctor Faust asks who she is, the reply is: ‘Adam’s wife, his first; beware of her; her beauty’s great boast is her dangerous hair; when Lilith winds it tight around young men; she doe not soon let go of them again!’ She has some kind of hang-up about men – which, incidentally, has nothing to do with her very brief association with me, since she already had it when she threw me over. She has some kind of compulsion for ruining men, one way or another, whether mortal or immortal.”
“She sounds like a nasty piece of work. I know the type,” reflected Sandra. “Where I live, her kind normally has a whole firm of topnotch shyster lawyers in tow. There’s more than one way to suck blood.”
“She evidently never forgave the Boss for resisting her snares,” commented Raum reflectively. “I believe you might call it a grudge-match. I can guess what’s behind this rogue Creation thing now – Lilith is after her revenge: revenge on all the normal Creation. She wants to destroy the entire universe, and she wanted the Boss to know it was her doing it.”
Somewhere in the back, Gaylord muttered: “Like they say, darling; ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman’s corns!’”
30. Out of This World…
“The big question is; what are we going to do about it?” announced Detective Smith decisively. “And if anyone wails ‘there’s nothing we can do’ I shall hit them. Hard. Got that?”
“Well,” I mused, trying to think quicker than I ever had before, “let’s start with a ‘to do’ list and take it from there. We have to get out of here: pretty soon it will be too cold for mortal life, and even us immortals are getting chilly. Then we have to send an entire rogue universe back where it came from, before it strikes our own. Then the big one – we have to arrest Lilith and take her into custody.”
“On what charge?” asked Sandra with great interest.
“Violating the Agreement,” I answered.
“What agreement is that?”
“Well, on earth the various countries that survived World War 2 and felt threatened by the Soviet Block formed a united self-supporting group called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or N.A.T.O.”
“So?”
“So, a long time ago in a far off astral plane, all the varied deities, both major and minor, of all the world’s different religions, made an agreement that there was room for all of them and none of them would rock the boat. It was signed by such notables as Jehovah, Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Aphrodite, Vishnu, Shiva, Cernunnos, Zarathustra, Krishna, Mithras – the whole Who’s Who of the world’s gods and goddesses. Thus was formed the Peace Over Total Arcadian Territories Organization, or P.O.T.A.T.O. According to the POTATO agreement, no religion is permitted to mash any other.”
“And Lilith is a masher?”
“You can say that again, dear,” remarked Gaylord dryly.
Sandra was suddenly quiet, thinking deeply. Then she said, “What about Buddhism?”
“What about Buddhism?” I fired back.
“Well, strictly speaking, mainstream Buddhism does not contain or acknowledge any supernatural entity; it has no gods or goddesses, just the teachings and example of Gautama Buddha, the Enlightened One, who is regarded as a completely mortal person of superior vision and understanding. Yet it represents one of the major belief systems of the world. Who signed your agreement on their behalf?”
There was a blank silence for several moments before I replied, “I don’t think they were included in the agreement, but the fact never registered until you pointed it out. If any god had appeared waving an agreement for Buddha to sign, he would have told them they were manifestly wrong to believe in themselves and he was not going to get involved in anything featuring such an obviously phony premise. Rather like a New York stockbroker when the Jehovah’s Witnesses come calling at the door.”
“So Nirvana is not included in the agreement?”
“Strictly speaking, Nirvana is not a heaven as such, it is a state of mind. Unfortunately, anything that exists within the collective human consciousness eventually gathers sufficient emotive energy to manifest as a functioning spiritual reality.”
“You mean we humans grow our own heavens?”
“And your own hells,” I agreed without cynicism. “Throughout history, the real Hell’s main competition has come from the good intentions of motivated fanatics.”
The discussion had taken on definite philosophical overtones, and so it was no surprise when Pharter suddenly leaped forward, closely followed by Phukkit, and interrupted us.
“’Ere, just a minute,” he shouted excitedly. “I got an idea. It’s still coming to me.”
“Let’s have it,” I encouraged.
“Well Guv, it looks like we can’t contact Heaven because of the strong interference on the astral wavelengths, so we can’t warn them or ask them for advice or assistance, and we can’t go there because the rogue Creation is getting in the way. This probably means we can’t even reach Olympus, Asgard, or any of the other Heavenly States. We probably can’t even escape back to mortal earth, even in your car.”
“So tell me something I don’t know,” I invited.
“Ok, how abaht this? We might be able to pull off a kind-of short-circuit, in spiritual terms,” the little demon explained. “We might be able to get to Heaven for help by going there via Nirvana, which is a state of mind rather than an astral plane and, perhaps, is therefore not as subject as all the other religious beliefs to astral interference from Lilith’s universe. Perhaps she didn’t take that into account – it’s worth a try, innit?”
“You mean, use Nirvana as a kind-of ‘stepping stone’ for gaining access to the regular heaven?”
“Pree-cisely. ‘Course, it ain’t the direct route, an’ we might ‘ave to bugger around a bit hoppin’ from one heaven to another until we find the one we want. But at least it might work.”
“Yeah,” enthused his friend Phukkit supportively. “It increases our chances from zero to one-in-a-million.”
“Never quote me the odds,” I grated. “It’s the best plan we’ve got – it’s the only plan we’ve got. If anyone has anything better, this is a good time to air it.” There was a loud silence. “Let’s try it,” I decided.
“What’s the best way go about reaching Nirvana?” queried Sandra.
“Allow me to organize it,” answered Pharter pompously, sauntering to the end of the room and turning to face everyone, like a teacher about to address the class.
“Are you OK wiv that, Guv?” he asked, seeking my assurance.
“OK. Fine. Just get on with it,” I ordered.
“Right. Everyone sit on the floor wiv their legs crossed in a semi-circle.”
“I can’t cross my legs in a semi-circle,” complained Phukkit. “They only bend at the knees.”
“I means, sit in a semi circle and then cross yer legs, stoopid,”
When everyone was thus seated on the floor – including big Raum who found it most difficult with his T-Rex legs – Pharter relaxed somewhat in his instructor’s demeanor.
“Now, I want everyone to do two simple things, and there’s a third simple thing later on when I give the word. The first thing is to breathe deeply and exhale fully in time with my counting, a count of five to breathe in and a count of five to breathe out – yes Phungus, even those of us who don’t normally have to breathe at all. That’s very simple; nobody should have a problem wiv that. We’ll keep doing this for a little while. Then, when I judge it’s bin long enough, I’ll tell you to stop. That don’t mean stop breathing, it just means go back to however you do it normally, or not at all, as the case might be, right? OK.
“Now, the second simple thing is, at the same time as we’re doin’ the breathing bit, I want everyone to try to close down their thoughts. What I mean is, try to let yer mind go completely blank – for some amongst us, this has already happened!” He looked pointedly at Gaylord, who tossed his great head and harrumphed.
“The third simple thing is, when I start it off, everyone starts chanting the same words what I chant, an’ doin’ it together, without shouting. There ain’t no tune to remember, so it’s easy. The words are all chanted in the same note and tone. These words will be ‘Om Mani Padme Hum.’”
“You said it were easy!” complained Phukkit. “That’s a lot to remember.”
“No it ain’t,” contradicted his friend. “Just three steps, right? Breathing while I count you in and out, making your mind blank, then ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’. That’s it. What’s difficult abaht that, might I arsk?” He raised his eyebrows, which made his horns waggle slightly.
True to the classroom spirit of the occasion, Sandra raised her hand to ask a question.
“Yes, Miss?” responded Pharter, far more politely.
“I understand what you are saying; I’ve actually done it at meditation classes – but do you really think this simple breathing exercise and mantra-chanting will transport a whole bunch of people like us out of this threadbare warehouse and off through the clouds to the Buddhist Nirvana, as though we were on a magic carpet or something?”
“Well now, Miss, I quite sees your point. On the mortal, physical plane where you come from, this would probably need much more work, and it might not even work at all.” He raised a talon and winked. “But we are not on the mortal physical plane now, are we? That is what makes all the difference. Here, we are not bound by physical laws but by spiritual laws. These are even stronger, I grant you – but they work in an entirely different way.
“Remember, if enough mortal people start believing in some particular spiritual matter – say, just for the purposes of illustration, the Land of Oz – then the Land of Oz will come into existence on the astral plane somewhere. That is why Hell itself exists – because enough people have believed in it for so long that it came into existence. Ditto Heaven; ditto Asgard; ditto Mount Olympus, et-ceterah et-ceterah.”
Suddenly I realized what Pharter reminded me of at the moment – an army sergeant instructing a squad of rookie troops. Didn’t someone once say: ‘the problem produces the man’? Of course, I knew that everything he was saying was perfectly correct. However, I did not permit myself to hope. Not yet. I could not face the idea of all hope being destroyed by failure.
“Because of this,” Pharter was continuing his explanation to Sandra, “if we can just manage to clear our minds of all other interruptions and think of the chant as the route to Nirvana, which has already been created long ago as a state of mind and consciousness, we should generate what you might call an ‘astral short-circuit’ which will act like a temporary bridge or tunnel by which we can be transported across from an astral reality, Hell, to a kind-of in-between place, Nirvana, from which – wiv any luck – we should tumble straight through into the nearest available heavenly realm”
“All right, I see what you’re saying,” said Sandra somewhat doubtfully, “but why don’t we make a jump right into Heaven itself, which is where we want to get to, instead of aiming at Nirvana?”
“Because,” answered Pharter patiently, “there is too much cosmic interference from Lilith’s rogue Creation jamming all communications with regular ‘eavens and ‘ells, including teleportations and materialisations, so we can only reach Nirvana, if we can reach anywhere at all, because it ain’t an actual spiritual plane but only a state of mind. From there, we will most likely fall into a regular heaven, but it will be a matter of pure chance that determines exactly which belief’s heaven we find ourselves in – I trust I make that all clear now?”
I spoke up. “To put it in simple terms, what we’re trying to do is to find a tradesman’s entrance into Heaven, by going via a roundabout route that might – just might – not yet be blocked by Lilith’s spiritual jamming interference. I don’t know if it’s going to work – but it’s our only plan. So, everyone – give this your best shot.”
Now, what I need to tell you next requires something of an exercise of the imaginative faculties. You have to picture the scene inside an old corrugated iron and wood shack the size of a small warehouse, full of collected odds and ends of the centuries: Satan, the Lord of Hell and LAPD cop, with a semi-circle of demons of various sizes and attributes, plus a beautiful black woman who was also in the LAPD, all seated cross-legged on the floor with their hands resting in their laps in the lotus position, and all chanting peacefully in time together. Since the moment I accepted the challenge of proving my good character, I had seen a few sights I would never be able to forget. This was one of them.
The last thing I noticed before my mind descended like Apollo 11 into a sea of tranquility was that the snow drifts had now covered the windows entirely, dimming the light inside the shack, which came now only from a single bare light bulb dangling on a wire above Phixit’s communications array. Outside that circle of yellow illumination the darkness had already gathered. Deliberately I dismissed all worries and extraneous thoughts from my mind and allowed the chanting, encouraged by the preceding rhythmic breathing exercise, to calm my consciousness and relax body and brain. After a while – I had no conception of how long – I felt myself gently drifting into realms of pure being.
31. Somewhere Over the Rainbow…
There was no real way of measuring how much time elapsed while we were all in that euphoric state of total mental one-ness, but weighing it up afterwards it could not actually have been much more than ten minutes, although of course, the passage of time is very different anyway in the astral realms such as Heaven and Hell, so it may only have been a minute or two. Coming out of this strange trancelike state was a bit like waking up on a crisp spring morning after a night of partying when you need to shake your brain into full wakefulness in order to make sense of everything. The first thing I consciously noticed was that everyone - Sandra, myself and the assorted demons - were still sitting cross legged in the same semi-circle, and this made me feel more than a little despondent as it seemed that nothing much may actually have happened after all.
Then, as the others started to stir out of their meditations, I realized with a surge of hope that we were no longer inside a cold, dark, antiquated shack; we were – of all things - sitting on grass and surrounded by sub-tropical jungle. A brightly colored parakeet squawked loudly in the bushes and flew off with a whir of wings.
I stood up and walked over to where Pharter was rubbing his eyes.
“Old friend,” I told him, “I apologize for any previous times when I may have underestimated you. You did it! We have escaped out of Hell. Your idea has rescued us.”
There was a ragged but enthusiastic cheer from the others, and a cry of “Good ol’ Pharter!” from someone at the back.
Pharter scrambled to his feet and looked slightly embarrassed.
“Gee – er – um – ah!” he stammered. “Well, I’m glad you all appreciate it, anyway. Personally, I didn’t seriously imagine that the idea would work. I only cooked it up to keep everyone’s spirits up and give us something to occupy our thoughts with for a bit longer before we all froze.”
The cheering rapidly faded into a baffled silence.
“What does Olympus look like?” asked Sandra a little whimsically in the brief quiet.
“I seen it once, Miss” offered Pharter, gratefully accepting the opportunity to change the subject. “Looks summink like the Acropolis, only in better condition, much bigger an’ wiv outbuildings.”
“Nah,” commented Phukkit, shaking his head disbelievingly. “You’re making it up, ain’t yer? The Acropolis is fiction, ain’t it.” He spoke as though stating a firm fact.
“The Acropolis – fiction?” spluttered Pharter, outraged. “It’s a real place in Greece, you moron.”
“’Course it ain’t,” rejoined Phukkit with confident assurance. “It’s complete fiction, an’ it ain’t in Greece, it’s supposed to be somewhere in America - it’s where Superman lives, ain’t it?”
His friend, for once, was speechless.
I stood up and walked round the small clearing we had found ourselves in. A stream flowed over some rocks in a picturesque waterfall where the bushes thinned: tiny rainbow-hued fish flashed and darted in the pool it fed.
“Does anybody have the slightest idea where we are?” I asked. There was a ragged chorus of no – and a single rather timid yes from somewhere at back. You could easily tell who had voiced it – all other heads were swiveling towards the source like magnets round a north pole. It was Gaylord.
“You think you know where we are?” I enquired, more out of sympathy than anything else.
“I do, despite everyone’s expressions,” stated Gaylord archly. He pointed through the trees. I looked. Through the jungle, in the distance, could just be seen a building, itself half-covered with creepers and green growth. There was no mistaking the outlines – cyclopean masonry rising at an angle to a flat top, a long, long flight of stone steps rising up the sloping surface. It was a huge Aztec pyramid.
“I reasoned it out,” supplied Gaylord in a tone that defied anyone to dare argue with him, whatever their opinion. “We can’t be in Central America on earth, which we all know is an impossibility under the circumstances, what with all the spiritual interference. And yet, that is indisputably an Aztec temple. Therefore, we must be in Tomoanchan.”
“Tomoanchan?” I queried encouragingly.
“It’s the paradise of the Aztecs – their heaven, if you like, or the corresponding concept. It is ruled over by an Aztec deity named Itzpapalotl.”
“So we’ve reached somebody’s heaven, if not our own,” mused Sandra. “Why did we pop up in this particular one, I wonder?”
“The Aztecs are first in alphabetical order?” suggested Phukkit. Phelon threw a banana at him. It impaled itself on one of his horns.
“Well,” I summed up, “we are in a heaven, an astral reality, which means we have actually managed to sidestep through the Buddhist Nirvana to get around Lilith’s interference blockade of Hell.” I looked at Sandra, because I was saying this for the benefit of her understanding. “That means we should be able to find a way out of this particular paradise and work our way towards the one we need to contact.”
“Work our way how?” she asked. “Do we have to do another round of Buddhist mantra-chanting?”
“No, hopefully not,” I informed. “That was the thing that got us through the spiritual interference which was causing all the problems, because we were able to use Nirvana, a state of mind rather than of spirit, as a kind-of stepping stone, or escape tunnel – choose your favorite analogy. From now on, all we have to do is find the entrance to the service passages and follow them in the right direction.”
There was a significant pause.
“You’re kidding me,” she stated flatly in disbelief.
“Not at all,” I answered very seriously. “All the heavens ever conceived by humankind are connected by hidden service passages – how else do you think the cleaning staff get around without disturbing the bliss of the occupants?”
“Cleaning staff…!!!???” Sandra exploded in incredulity. “The astral planes need cleaning staff? This time you’ve got to be winding me up, mister!”
I sighed. “Sweetheart, I tell you no lie. But it’s not cleaning staff as you might understand the term. Let me tell you some spiritual truths. Don’t think of it in merely earthly terms – consider a vastly bigger picture. Heaven, Hell, this Aztec place we are in now, all the world’s other heavens, hells, paradises and big doughnuts in the sky, are all part of an inter-connected collection of astral realities created over the entirety of its existence by the human species, all of them grouped more-or-less together and held in place by the collective unconscious spirituality of humans – like the balloons in the ceiling net over the dancehall on New Year’s Eve before the clock strikes twelve.”
I continued before she could say anything. “But that’s only the human collection of balloons.”
Pointing rather vaguely at the bright blue sky above us, I went on; “Out there, there’s a whole galaxy full of planets orbiting millions of other stars, and beyond that, countless millions of other galaxies. There are countless billions of other life-forms going about their business in the greater universe, and most of them have some kind of spiritual belief. No life-form likes to admit that merely what they are and how long they live is the sum total of existence. Everyone needs a rainbow to be somewhere over.
“So there are countless billions of what you might call ‘astral clusters’, one for each life-bearing world in the universe – clusters of individualized heavens and hells, all tailored to suit the yearnings of the particular species on its particular planet who unconsciously created it.
“Now, consider an analogy. On earth, there are many thousands of radio and TV channels, plus other wavelengths such as military communications, police, medical emergency, fire departments, mobile phones, satellite control and so on. It is a well known phenomenon, experienced now and then by just about everybody, that sometimes there are things like freak weather conditions which cause one wavelength or TV channel to interfere with another, often producing what is sometimes referred to as a “ghost” image on a TV screen. If the interference is strong, you might get a chorus line of transparent ballet dancers point-stepping across the middle of a football match. Have you never seen a TV channel displaying a note at the bottom of the screen apologizing for what is sometimes technically called ‘cross channel interference’?”
Sandra nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ve seen that,” she replied meekly.
“Well, something similar happens in the astral realms. You’ve already seen an example of deliberate and directed malicious interference, from Lilith’s home-made rogue universe. What can sometimes happen is that some other planet, maybe in some distant galaxy, gets affected by, say, a sudden huge gamma ray burst, or the electro-psychic effects of a supernova explosion, or a black hole swallowing another star for lunch, or supercharged x-ray streams from a quasar, whatever, and this can produce random psycho-spiritual phenomenon.”
“Right,” she said slowly. “Random psycho-spiritual phenomenon.”
“Sure,” I confirmed. “The astral equivalent of cross-channel interference on a TV picture.”
Sandra held up her hands, palms towards me, and shook them a few times. “Ok, ok, I think I’ve got all that. As well as I can, anyhow. But I still don’t see what the connection is with cleaning staff.”
“Well, suppose in the afterlife you were in a deckchair sipping a mint julep through a straw enjoying a well-earned eternal rest in the paradise of your choice, when suddenly, through no fault of their own, you found yourself exchanging pleasantries with a three-legged, multi-tentacled, twelve-eyed green spiritual entity suddenly short-circuited into your heaven from the heaven of the sentient octopoids of Rigel 7, as the result of a quantum energy burst from a neighboring collapsed red giant?”
Very slowly, considering every possible aspect of this image, Sandra replied, carefully, “I might find my equanimity a trifle unpoised.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “So, what do you do in such a circumstance? That’s easy – you send for the cleaning staff, who come in through the service passages and politely escort the errant ghost back to its own paradise, where it can resume its own eternal rest relaxing up to its tentacle-pits in bubbling primeval slime whilst eating fish canapés to its multiple hearts’ content.”
“You paint an enchanting picture!”
“There’s more subtle variations on a similar theme,” I added. “Given a suitable burst of concentrated gamma-ray disruption striking randomly in the astral planes, a strict 7th Day Adventist busily enjoying himself in their particular heaven by denying himself all possible pleasures could, instantly and without warning, find themselves materializing in the Islamic paradise where they automatically have 72 wives and are expected to relax all the time attended by beautiful semi-naked Houris. The inter-heaven cleaning staff are also experts at administering therapy in such cases.”
Sandra gave a theatrical sigh and shrugged her shoulders. “All right. So, how does one find the entrance to these service passages?”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” I murmured, looking around at the jungle scenery. I called to all the demons. “Hey, guys, let’s spread out in this heaven and find a staff entrance.”
“Sure thing, Boss,” rumbled big Raum, striding off easily through the verdant undergrowth on his dinosaur legs. The others fanned out in different directions, those of them with wings taking to the air, including Pharter and Phukkit who headed directly for the great Aztec pyramid in the distance. Nearby in the undergrowth somewhere, another parakeet squawked happily.
32. Whistle While You Work…
Of course, on the face of it, a search such we were attempting would not have been an easy task because every individual heaven, no matter that all of them were gathered together in a big connected cluster, was infinite in size. However, we had a significant advantage because, being astral beings ourselves, the demons and I were not only experienced in these matters but additionally we could vaguely remember the original design plans of the whole system, having inspected them in the Pliocene Era.
This is perhaps best explained by comparing it with a commuter on the New York subway; although he or she might only travel on a daily basis from their apartment in Woodlawn to their office near the Lincoln Centre, if a visitor asked them where to find, say, Brooklyn, Flushing or JFK Airport, the commuter would at least have a vague idea of where to point on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority map. Similarly on the London Underground, even commuting Londoners who had never set foot in the East End would know how to get to Barking or Mile End if someone asked them in Ealing.
So it was that, even though we were a bit foggy about the exactitudes of the layout, we at least had an approximation of it in our minds, and we had the regular passenger’s added advantage of knowing what a railway station entrance looked like, except it wasn’t a railway station we were looking for, which is merely an analogy, but a camouflaged entrance to the system of interconnecting heavenly service passageways.
After only some ten minutes, Pharter and Phukkit flew back bearing news to Sandra and myself, who had not gone more than several hundred yards from the clearing.
“Boss! Miss!” cried Phukkit in excitement as they performed a flapping vertical descent like Ray Harryhausen harpies through the trees and dangling vines. “Eligor found it; he’s only gone and found it!”
Eligor was one of those demons mentioned in the Clavicule of Solomon I had asked to attend our meeting in the snowbound shack. In the Clavicule, he is described with the ability – amongst other attributes – to discover hidden things. It seems he had lived up to his reputation for us. Quickly we followed Pharter and Phukkit who led us on foot to the spot.
Eligor was waiting for us beside a fairly nondescript tree growing at the edge of the jungle, where a piece of carefully mown grassland resembling a golf course surrounded the great pyramid. There were a few people in the lee of the structure several hundred yards from us, enjoying their heaven by having a barbecue: there were several smoking braziers and some colorful garden sunshades, and a Latin-American rhythm throbbed from a ghetto-blaster on a plastic table. Several folk lay dozing on sun-loungers or sat up sipping cold drinks. However, the locals did not even notice us, or if they did, they ignored us; they most likely assumed we were a maintenance crew or gardening staff.
“This is it, Boss,” announced Eligor proudly, tapping the trunk of the tree. “It might not look like much, but I can sense an inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field running along the edge of the trunk.”
“Good work,” I congratulated him. Then, turning to Pharter and Phukkit, “Go get all the others, boys.”
“You bet, Boss.” The two of them flapped into the air and sped away.
“I have to ask you,” said Sandra to Eligor, “what, exactly, is an… an… an inter-spiritual chromo… whatever you said?”
“Inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field,” repeated Eligor. He was about five feet five in height, somewhat stout, red of hue and sported a huge idiosyncratic moustache like those once associated with British RAF pilots. He wore a metal helmet with riveted holes for his horns. His description in that ancient Who’s Who of demons the Clavicule of Solomon reads: “A great duke, appearing as a goodly knight carrying a lance, pennon and scepter.” True to form, he bore a spear-like lance on his back which rattled in a long quiver, its tip rising a foot above his head. A small yellow pennant indeed dangled from it below the point. If you looked closely at the pennant, you could make out the legend “Support Cleveland Indians 1920 Season.”
“You see, my dear,” he elaborated in a perfect aristocratic English accent, twirling his moustache with a talon, “an inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field is something like a secret door between dimensions. Are you familiar with string theory?”
“Not as much as I’d like to be,” answered Sandra cautiously.
“Well, proponents of string theory postulate that everything is made up of what are called ‘strings’ on the sub-atomic level. A string might be described, if you like, as the ‘grain’ of the universe, like the dots that make up a newspaper picture, only lines instead of dots. Now, if you take a single such string and lengthen it to several feet, then nail it in place on a wall, a rock or, in this case, a tree – why, then you have a single dimensional doorway you can pass through into another reality. It has length, but no width.” He started twirling the other side of his moustache. “I hope that makes it all clear?”
“Right,” said Sandra, nodding thoughtfully. “Thank you for being kind enough to explain it to me.”
“A pleasure, my dear.” He turned to me. “Charming woman, sir.”
Very soon all the others had assembled around the base of the tree. I reached out a hand and poked a finger at the edge of the trunk, the place that would be a line if the tree were a drawing on paper. My finger vanished up to the knuckle.
“Here goes,” I announced. “Everyone follow us.” I grabbed Sandra’s hand and gently tugged her after me as I took a step towards the tree. Under normal circumstances, I would have simply collided bodily with the trunk, but Eligor had been quite right. We stepped through a gap in the universe as high as a door and with no dimension of width, and found ourselves in a spacious, clean, airy and well-lit corridor maybe twenty feet broad and ten feet high. The appearance of the walls suggested sectionalized light metal sheeting with a white plastic coating. Within a matter of moments, all of us were milling about inside this passageway.
“Voila!” exclaimed Phukkit looking around suspiciously.
“Our next problem,” pointed out Pharter, “is, which way to go – there ain’t no signposts.”
“I suppose we could split up and some go in each direction?” remarked Phixit without much enthusiasm.
“I think we should all stick together,” I decided. “It’s safer that way. Remember, we are breaking the rules being here at all, and we need to find Central Heaven HQ and tell them what’s happening.” I thought quickly. “Look – the passageway has to go somewhere in each direction. Let’s just choose left or right and all get going as fast as we can until we find another door, and maybe that will give us a clue as to where we are heading.”
“Which way then – left or right?” queried Pharter.
“I’ve always preferred the left-hand path,” said Phukkit.
“You would!”
“We’ll go right,” I said decisively.
Round the very first corner there was a double door in the wall, but it turned out to be nothing more than a large storage room containing dozens of buckets, mops, brooms, dusters, boxes of cleaning powder and suchlike. There were also a large number of white janitor’s coats hanging on rows of hooks. As we began to exit the room in disappointment, we heard footfalls and the sound of several people talking coming towards us from beyond the next bend in the corridor.
“We’re rumbled!” exclaimed Pharter.
I had an idea. “Quick everyone, put on one of those white coats and take a mop or something. We can try to pass ourselves off as a work-party.” It was not an especially good idea, I grant you; it was more sheer desperation; but it was the only idea in town at that moment.
Hurriedly the assorted demons donned white coats and sorted out mops, brooms and buckets to carry. Sandra and I did the same. Thus disguised, we crept along the passage in the direction of the approaching sounds.
“Hold on everybody,” I whispered hoarsely. “We look like frightened fugitives creeping along like this. We need to give the impression that we belong here, that we’re on our way to work somewhere, and we need to march quickly and look brisk, otherwise we’ll blow our cover – such as it is.”
By saying this, I suppose I must take some responsibility for what happened next, but it was too late to tell everyone that I had not meant it quite in the literal way in which they interpreted it. The approaching voices were very close now, and the corner was not far ahead.
Clad in white coats, which trailed along the ground behind the shorter demons and dangled at the knees of the bigger ones, carrying assorted mops and brooms over their shoulders and buckets and sponges in their other hands, marching along the corridor in an uneven line, the demons spontaneously started singing the famous Disney film song, Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It’s Off To Work We Go…!
My album of ‘Sights I shall never forget’ was getting larger by the hour!
Rounding the corner, our column of singing demons marched straight past the oncoming party, which consisted of about a dozen astral workers who also wore white coats and carried cleaning tools, but who were conspicuously not demons. Not one of us looked in their direction as we passed. The song progressed to the whistling bit as we reached them, and we just kept on marching, brazening it out. Although we were all staring straight ahead, I think all of us could feel the surprised looks the people in the other party were giving us. Personally, I didn’t blame them.
As the others disappeared around the corner behind us, we could all hear one of them say to his colleagues, “Which one’s Dopey?” to their evident amusement. Pharter, who was last in the line, turned round raising a bucket to throw, but they had vanished out of range and sight, which was probably just as well because he caught his feet in his own trailing coat-tail and fell over headfirst into the upturned bucket which wedged itself tightly on his horns. It took a couple of minutes to pull it off him, during which we were fortunate that his words emerged only as an indistinct metallic echo.
After about a quarter of a mile we came upon another door. This one was not a storeroom; it was like the one we had entered the passageway from. Cautiously I opened it and stepped through. A quick glance round told me that this inter-spiritual chromoclasmic infraction field opened into somewhere I knew. I ducked back.
“We’re in luck,” I told everyone. “It’s the Roman Catholic heaven. It’s right next door to HQ. We can take a short-cut through it and all we need to do then is look for another doorway. Once through that, there’s another staff corridor for about half a mile, then a door into HQ itself – the Head Office. That’s where we need to be, so that we can get official help in stopping Lilith and her rogue Creation.”
“We’re be’ind you all the way,” confirmed Pharter in a gloomy monotone, gently massaging his bruised horns.
33. You Have the Right to Remain Silent – Permanently!
“Why can’t we just follow the service passageway to your heavenly HQ?” asked Sandra. “Why do we have to go through someone’s heaven? It’s a very personal place, after all, if you see what I mean. I don’t like the idea of disturbing people during their eternal bliss, whatever particular form it may take.”
“You have to remember that, perhaps confusingly, there are a large number of heavens, one for every different religious belief that has ever existed,” I explained. “Even though each of them is independently infinite on the inside, once outside the distance between them varies from a dozen miles or so to hundreds of miles. This corridor could therefore go on for many hundreds of miles before reaching the doorway to HQ, and furthermore, we would have to open every door we came across along the way in order to see if it was the one we wanted – perhaps even go in and explore each heaven until we could identify it.
“We only have sixty or seventy hours in real time left now, at best, before an inconceivably catastrophic collision destroys all of them, all of this – everything we know. It is a stroke of luck that we have stumbled upon a heaven we recognize, and even better, which itself has a direct link to HQ. All we have to do is enter the Roman Catholic heaven and find our way quickly to another service corridor that will take us right into the neighborhood of our HQ building. If we try to navigate the maze of service tunnels without a diagram, it could take us weeks.”
She nodded her understanding and Pharter opened the door. We all passed through the doorway and found ourselves emerging on the other side from a string, another hairline crack in reality which was situated along the edge of a tall marble pillar bearing a religious sculpture.
We appeared to be inside a colossal and very beautiful building; a cathedral with buttress-vaulted roofs where clouds could hold a union meeting, distant painted ceilings which looked like – and probably were – original Michelangelos, cushioned pews to seat hundreds of thousands, gilded ornamental carvings and filigree work everywhere, exquisite round stained glass windows bigger than the Michigan Stadium, finely-carven stone arches the size of luxury liners standing on end – the works. The interior was sufficiently capacious to contain St. Paul’s of London, St. John the Divine of New York, St. Basil’s of Moscow and Sts. Peter and Mary of Cologne as mere altar-pieces. Gigantic multicolored shafts of light from the serried ranks of saint-encrusted windows criss-crossed the vast interior spaces on a graceful march to infinity in all directions. It was breathtaking. The single oddity about the place was that, apart from us, it appeared to be empty.
Feeling rather like ants that have strayed into someone’s palace, we walked quietly and respectfully down the pillar-bordered main aisle through the nave. The aisle was at least half a mile wide and five miles long, and all of it seamlessly carpeted with a rich red broadloom. Continually in the background the varied tones of medieval plainsong from some invisible heavenly choir graced the air with its sound. I was impressed. I sighed deeply and began to relax for the first time in quite a few days. Unfortunately, I was being lulled into a false sense of security.
After traveling about a mile, we saw the monks. They were waiting for us, about two hundred of them wearing white habits with black hoods and red belts with broadswords hanging from them in golden ornamented scabbards. Some of them held poles topped by an assortment of religious banners. Others carried burning brands, which was a clue. As we approached a cluster of pillars rising like redwoods on steroids to a ceiling higher than Everest, they emerged from behind the structure. They had ‘Necktie Party’ written all over them. Not liking the look of this, I was about to give the order to turn back and run for it when a huge and extremely strong net dropped unexpectedly from somewhere overhead and folded itself uncompromisingly over all of us. We were well and truly trapped.
One of the monks was evidently the head honcho, because he approached where we were struggling in the restrictions of the net and was obviously taking a grim satisfaction in our plight.
“Let us out of this,” I demanded with justifiable anger. “Is this how you treat visitors?”
Ignoring this, the head monk pointed at us. “Unholy creatures!” he pronounced in distain embellished with a central European accent. “Demons from the darkest pits of the infernal regions! Satan himself, and his concubine! We have been expecting you and we are well prepared to deal with you as you must be dealt with.”
I froze in mid-struggle as the implications of what he had said came home to roost in my mind. “Expecting us?” I queried incredulously. “How could you possibly be expecting us?”
“Oh foolish spirit of evil,” he replied in a sonorous voice – boy, was he overacting – “you who thought you would defile the sanctity of the powers of light and righteousness, be aware that all the plots of Satan shall come to naught and be found wanting in the judgment of the virtuous. Your wicked plans have been undone and ye shall be cast back into that great abyss from whence there is no escaping.”
“Ok, ok,” said Pharter uncomfortably and partly muffled from somewhere deep inside the folds of the net. “What you mean is, you got us by the short-and-curlies. Why not just say it in plain words?
”
“Silence, demon!” thundered the monk. And then, “Behold! He who hath undone ye and brought thy wicked schemes down into the bitter dust of failure.”
He held out his arm with a spasmodic jerk and the crowd of monks parted down the middle like Cecil B. DeMille’s Red Sea when Charlton Heston got there. At the back of the bunch was revealed a single figure who began to walk forward. As the figure approached, I could see they were wearing a red monk’s habit with a black cap and black trimmings. As they came closer still, we could all see who it was.
“Vittorio!” I breathed in surprise. “How…?” my voice trailed off in disbelief.
However, none of us had any time to speculate or ask further questions. The chief monk produced from the folds of his robe a great ribbon-tied parchment scroll and proceeded to unroll it and hold it out at arm’s length in order to bestow upon it a properly theatrical reading. In deep, sonorous tones he pronounced its contents. It was word-perfect and something I had not heard spoken for over three hundred years.
“Unrighteous creatures, by writ of Nulla Salus Extra Ecclesium et Neca Eos Omnes Deus Suos Agnoset and the Authority of the Ad Abolendam of 1184 Anno Domini, and the Ad Extirpanda of 1252 Anno Domini and the Papal Writ of 21st July 1542 Anno Domini establishing the Authority of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, ye are hereby charged, accused, blamed and indicted of the sin and crime of being recusant, perversely defying the authority of the Pope and the holy writ of scripture as preserved through the grace and guardianship of those acknowledged and appointed as bearers of the mantle of Peter in infallible rectitude and wisdom.”
“What did all that stuff mean?” asked Sandra.
“I’m afraid it means that we have all been formerly and properly summoned to stand trial by the Inquisition,” I explained. “What he just read out was once considered the grimmest pronouncement that could ever be made in the world.”
Before anything else could be asked or said, the whole net-full of us was roughly bundled away into monkish custody.
As I explained to Sandra while we were marched towards some as-yet unknown destination, I could not perform any archangel feats here, as I could on earth and some other places, because this was the astral plane and, essentially, archangels are astral beings. This meant that I and our gang of assorted demons were remorselessly bound by the astral laws that governed everything in this particular heaven, just as a mortal on earth is likewise bound to the physical laws. In some other heavens I could be Superman, but here in this one the occupants had always had an especial aversion to demons and the Lord of Hell – me! The demons with wings would be able to fly here, as this was an astral echo of a physical possibility, but since they were by now all tied up with wings bound, this was not currently an option either.
After an hour’s march we reached the side wall of the gigantic super-cathedral and were taken through a great wooden door not unlike the one you may have seen in the native village on Skull Island in the original black-and-white King Kong. This led by a fairly short passage to a stone-flagged anteroom, and from there we all went through another great door and found ourselves in a nightmare version of a medieval open-air courtroom.
At the centre was another flagstone area as large as a respectable town square, and this was surrounded by spike-topped polished wooden walls behind which rose bank after bank of benches thronged with people who were looking down at us. Somewhat incongruously, most of these folk were in fairly modern dress, although a proportion were in the costumes of earlier times: it depended when they had shuffled off the mortal coil. Atop the centre of one of the walls was the judge’s platform, reminding me a bit of the Roman emperor’s private box in the arena.
“This looks bad,” I muttered, very worried.
“Deny everything, Boss” advised Pharter out of the corner of his mouth.
I smiled wanly. “That probably won’t be an acceptable defense, under the circumstances.”
I was right. A panel of six judges arrived and took their seats on the platform. Each was dressed in a scarlet monk’s habit with a black felt hat that came to a point over the forehead. Each of them also sported a gold chain of office. Then Vittorio, similarly attired but without the golden chain, was respectfully conducted onto the same platform and seated alone to one side: the star witness for the prosecution!
On another platform below the judge’s box was assembled a group of lesser officials who, disconcertingly, all wore black executioner-type face hoods in the style of raven’s heads with slits cut for the eyes and only their faces below the black beak above the nose being visible. One of these banged a staff on the wooden planks of the floor and cried: “Silere! Silere! Silere!” which, being fluent in Latin, I understood as: “Be Silent!” Unsurprisingly, the chattering crowds became silent with extreme alacrity.
One of the judges rose to his feet and commanded, “You will confirm your identity to this court.” Pointing directly at me he demanded, “Are you Satan, the Evil One, Despoiler of Eden, Fountain of Sin, Dragon of the Eternal Night, Great Beast of the Apocalypse, Commander of the Legions of the Damned, Despoiler of Creation and Rebel of the Outer Darkness?”
Pharter sang quietly, “And a partridge in a pear tree!”
I faced the judge who had spoken. Until we had entered the courtroom I had been worried, mainly because all of this was delaying our mission to save the universe. After we had entered I had been afraid, mainly for Sandra and my friends. But now I was angry and growing angrier by the moment. I drew myself up to my full six feet six inches and squared my broad shoulders.
“Those are not names,” I flung back at him. “They are old women’s fancies.”
“Be silent!” the judge commanded, growing angry in his turn. “Are you Satan?”
“How can I answer you if I am to be silent?” I enquired reasonably.
The judge quickly took on symptoms of apoplexy. “Answer the question!” he shrieked. “Who are you?”
I lowered my voice as a contrast to his rage and answered him in a level tone which held no trace of shame. “My name is Lucifer.”
The judge instantly became triumphant. “Then you are guilty! Guilty of all the greatest crimes perpetrated since the Beginning. You are the Night of the Soul! You are the Flame from the Pit! You are the Abomination of Ages! You are the Father of Lies! You are the Traitor of Righteousness and the Leviathan of Wickedness!”
“Actually, I’m a Los Angeles cop,” I replied calmly.
“And just for the record, mister,” called out Sandra, her voice reaching everyone in the huge audience, “I’m proud to be his concubine, as you put it. He’s more of a man than any of you!”
“Be silent! You are guilty and your punishment shall be dreadful!”
“Just a minute,” I protested, “don’t we get a council for the defense?”
“This is a Court of the Inquisition,” called back the judge smugly. “Our purpose is not to find whether you are guilty or innocent. Anybody who appears before the Inquisition is automatically guilty beyond any possibility of innocence. The task of this Court is merely to determine the necessary degree of guilt and command a suitable punishment.”
“Can’t we plead the Fifth Amendment?” called out Phukkit. The judge completely ignored him and sat down once more.
“It is the sentence of this Court,” he pronounced with grim satisfaction, “that you will all be immediately burned at the stake and your ashes scattered to the four winds.”
“’Ere, ‘ang on,” spluttered Pharter, “that’s a bit unfair, ain’t it? Oo do you fink you are, anyway?”
Again the judge and all the officials completely ignored the demonic interruption. Towering Raum struggled in his bonds and growled at me, “Boss, if I can bust out of these steel hawsers, I’ll take on the lot of them.”
“No, old friend,” I soothed him as best I could. “This is not the time or place. It’s their heaven, and we’re the trespassers. Violence will only count against us – it will give them the satisfaction of believing they are right.”
“If you say so, Boss.”
I tried to be constructively positive. “Our best bet is to play along for a while and look for opportunities.”
But I knew I had run out of ideas.
Raum looked at me appraisingly out of the corners of his eyes, but loyalty made him close his mouth on the opinion he was about to vent on my advice.
The judge on his high platform raised a black-gloved and gold-ringed hand in a gesture and a troop of some fifty or sixty sword bearing monks came running from outside the arena-like square and assembled in a cordon around us. Some of them also carried loaded crossbows.
Sandra asked me the obvious question. “Hey, can all of these things harm us on the astral plane? The weapons? Fire?”
“I’m afraid they can,” I answered with grim honesty. “The danger comes from the intensity of the belief of the people here. If a spirit on the astral plane, in any of the heavens, only believes half-heartedly in a tree, they can walk right through it without a collision. Unfortunately, these people here have a whole-hearted turbo-powered belief in what they do and why they have to do it. This is more than just a hobby to them. Therefore, everything about it takes on one-hundred per cent astral reality, which is pretty much the same from our position as physical reality on the physical plane.”
Whilst giving this explanation, I was weighing up the chances of taking Raum’s advice and starting a local rebellion by somehow breaking out of my bonds, grabbing one of the nearby crossbows and setting an example for the rest of our group to follow. More than anything else I felt a tremendous sadness that it should have to come to this – the prospect of open warfare simply to escape with our lives, and heavily outnumbered to boot.
I was about to shout the order. I actually had my mouth open to call “Get them!” But before the sound could come out, another voice spoke.
From somewhere more distant came a command, “Stop, I order you! Stop this at once!” The judges on their platform looked here and there, startled, trying to identify the speaker. The crowd rhubarb-rhubarbed amongst themselves in surprise, exercising their neck muscles while trying to look everywhere as well.
A few moments later the crowd of onlookers in one of the tiered banks of benches were pushed aside without undue ceremony by a squad of a couple of hundred monks, looking for all the world identical in habit and armament to the ones who surrounded us. The new arrivals marched down the sloping floor of the seating area in two columns, assisting with their well-aimed mail clad feet any of the audience who were slow to move aside. Out of the resulting hubbub of confusion a clear path was created through the crowd. The new monks then smartly stood to attention, facing outwards, forming a protective line down each side of the newly cleared avenue. Where the crowds had been pushed back it could now be seen that the sloping floor beneath the tiers of wooden benches had regular flights of steps here and there. It reminded me of a 1930s wooden baseball stadium.
However, my attention, and everyone else’s, was immediately riveted upon a small, solitary figure who now appeared at the top of the sloping path. The figure began to walk slowly but deliberately down towards the arena-like area at the centre of the court. As he passed by, the crowds who were being kept away by the stationed monks gasped and showed signs of surprise and respect. Many of them genuflected, something not done in public for so long that young people today would probably need to look it up in a dictionary. The panel of judges looked on in helpless confusion and obvious anger.
Slowly but surely the small solitary figure drew nearer to the front row stalls; he was obviously aiming for the judge’s platform itself. As he came ever nearer to us I recognized him. There could be no mistaking that wizened, peaceful, Ghandi-like face and frame – it was the Pope.
34. A Friend in Need…
“Who are you, that dares so to interrupt the proceedings of this Court?” asked the chief judge haughtily.
“I am your superior,” announced the Pope with calm authority as he approached the judge’s platform. “I am your Pope, whom you are sworn to honor and obey in all things.”
“There are many Popes here in this blessed realm,” pointed out the judge, a little uncertainly now. “All of them, in fact.”
“Undoubtedly you are correct in what you say,” agreed the little man, mounting a short flight of wooden steps to stand on the platform. “However, I must point out to you the evident truth that all of them are, in point of fact, previous Popes – former holders of the office. I am the only current Pope in Heaven. Therefore, as far as you and your colleagues are concerned, I am the Pope, your Pope, your superior and your overseer. And I say,” he raised his voice so that all could clearly hear, “that this trial is cancelled forthwith – it is over!”
There was a low murmur of acceptance from the vast crowd, the majority of whom had already begun to get to their feet and look towards the exits. They knew when the circus had left town. To reinforce the Pope’s proposition, a dozen of his own armed monks also ascended the steps to the judge’s platform and adopted looming and significantly intimidating positions right behind the judges: indeed, one of them was obliged to shuffle forwards a couple of grudging steps in order to stop a crossbow bolt from pressing uncomfortably into his back.
Gathering up as much dignity as they might, all the judges left the platform in a file and abandoned the gigantic courtroom. Seeing this, the majority of the crowd also began to head for the gates in good order. Within half an hour only a dribble of diehard nosy pokes, Sandra and I, the demons, the new troop of monks, a few disappointed hotdog vendors and the Pope were left in the court arena. Calm and possessed of a natural dignity, the Pope descended the steps from the judge’s platform and walked over the flagstones until he had reached us. Half a dozen of his bodyguard came with him, and at his order they immediately began to cut the ropes which tied us all.
“Satan saved by the Pope,” I said, smiling at him. “That’s another one for the theologians to argue about for a couple of hundred years.”
The wizened features creased into a warm grin. “I like to think I came to the help of friends,” he remarked. “I know you have a good heart.” He turned to the demons. “You all, I think, have good hearts, although I have only yet been introduced to Ventosus and Amator here. But, having got to know them, howbeit briefly, I do not think any friends and colleagues of theirs would differ greatly in being equally innocent creatures.”
“Hey,” whispered Sandra to me, “you once told me that demons were innocent creatures, and I disagreed. I apologize.” Then she turned to the Pope. “Sir, I want to thank you for coming to our rescue. But I don’t understand - how did you manage to get here?”
The old man turned his radiant smile on her, a distinct twinkle in his eye. “The usual way, dear lady – I died of a heart-attack a few hours after we last met. I shall not be going back to the veil of tears. I am now resident here for eternity.”
He spread out his hands to include all of us. “Please, my friends, do not judge us by what has happened here. You must bear in mind that this blessed realm contains the spirits of everyone who has entered herein for some two thousand years, and in respect of overall numbers, only a relatively small proportion of them are from more modern times. Therefore, the preponderant views of the populace are bound to be, shall we say, a little behind the times and not fully conversant with contemporary ideas. These are all none-the-less good people, and they are my people, my flock. I believe good people shall always prevail over misguided thoughts, and I believe any nation or multitude of peoples are best judged from those who represent their soaring visions, not those who represent their entrenched prejudices. In every city, one can always find something primal – the challenge is to always search for a better enlightenment.”
Then, guided by the captain of his escorting monks who had local knowledge, he led us out of the arena of the court and into some nicely-appointed living quarters which, the captain explained, were the judge’s private chambers. The Pope ordered the flustered judges to vacate the place for the present, explaining to them that he was still indisputably the official and duly chosen Pope, even though he was technically dead, until the cardinals back in Rome elected and officially appointed his successor, which might take a week or two. Until then, his word was law here. After the judges had left, he explained to us that on his unexpected arrival following a sudden heart attack he had been advised by the welcoming committee of the events that were occurring in the great Inquisitional courtroom and, grasping the urgency of the situation, had assembled a division of soldier monks and immediately marched to our rescue. I could not help thinking, what a man! Heaven’s gain was the world’s loss. Human civilization needed more people like him. I profoundly hoped it would get them.
Once he had told us his story, we told him ours. He instantly understood the pressing complexities of the situation and promised to help us in any way he could.
“Right now, we need to get to the Great Arch of Constantine,” I advised. “There is a hidden doorway somewhere there that will give us access to – well, call it the HQ of Heaven. We need to get there as fast as possible. It’s only at HQ that we stand any chance at all of doing something to prevent Lilith destroying the whole universe, physical and astral, for her warped revenge.”
“I see,” he nodded. “You must forgive me – I’m new here. Where exactly is this arch of which you speak?”
“It was put in place as an astral construction by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great himself when he arrived here after he died,” I related. “He was the first Roman emperor up here. It’s about fifty miles from here. I’ve never been in this heaven before, but I can vaguely remember seeing the blueprints long ago.”
“Then, my friend, I will do everything I can to speed you on your way – and for the sake of everyone in Creation, whatever their beliefs may be, I can only hope your mission is successful.”
He was as good as his word. Within the hour, twenty one huge medieval chargers – similar to shire horses but larger and more athletic – had been brought to an outer courtyard for myself, Sandra and the eighteen demons, not forgetting Vittorio who was now our prisoner once again. We were to ride to the Arch of Constantine, the fastest method of travel on option here. Not only that, but we were provided with an escort – two hundred equally mounted ancient twelfth century knights of the Third Crusade, all replete with a bucket-shaped riveted helmet, flowing white surplice ornamented with large red cross over chain mail long-johns, great dangling broadswords and a liberal sprinkling of spear-mounted flags larger than bed sheets. The wise old Pope bade us a fond farewell and bestowed his blessing upon us as we rode off with a noise like clattering thunder.
Mounted crusaders protecting mounted demons, some with wings outstretched and flexing to maintain balance, galloping at speed on gigantic steeds through a picturesque green and pleasant landscape, the local population stopping dead in their tracks and gawping at us in astonishment – sights I would never forget seemed to be coming ever more frequently. In the midst of it all, I felt like Errol Flynn.
It was, of course, Eligor who sensed the precise location of the next string, the doorway between heavenly dimensions, and he had been able to feel its presence from some miles away because this was the big one. That is, this particular astral doorway led directly into the HQ of all the heavens, the location of the Chairman of the Board, or Executive Chairman as he now was, who had demoted me from archangel in the first place. The spiritual power resident in that place could be felt at a great distance by Eligor, enhanced by his own innate ability of locating secret places.
Now, though, as we galloped ever closer to this final doorway I began to be plagued by self-doubts. Once we had made it into HQ, what then? To be there at all, I would be breaking yet more rules. And what could we actually accomplish there anyway? How could Lilith’s rogue Creation be stopped or turned away from an apocalyptic collision? What were we to do? How were we to do it? What if we failed?
Then, a moment after this wave of multiple doubts struck me, I swear I heard a voice, clear and slightly echoing in my ears. It was the old Pope’s voice as he had bidden us farewell at the end of our audience in the Vatican: “Lucifer Satan, Archangel of the Lord no matter what your past indiscretions may have been, you must keep faith in yourself and your abilities and actions, and your decisions, for otherwise you will one day find you have lost all faith in everything – and then you will return to the nothingness from whence we all came; even if you are immortal, you would be but a hollow person unless you nurture your faith in yourself.”
I shall probably never know for certain whether I actually heard those words, somehow transmitted to me at that moment, or whether I was merely remembering them vividly. Whatever the case though, I listened to them. I listened to them well. By the time we arrived at the arch I had formulated a plan. It might have been as full of holes as a sieve but at least it was a plan.
35. Strangers in Paradise…
A major part of my plan called for a secret discussion between myself, Pharter and Phukkit. The opportunity came for this when we had reached the Arch of Constantine, a typical if more than gigantic Romanesque commemorative edifice. The escorting Crusaders saluted us in farewell and rode away back the way we had come. We all dismounted and managed to convince our great steeds that it was a good idea for them also to return to their stables. I had already given Sandra the full details of the plan as we rode side by side and during this short period of minor confusions with knights and horses I managed to catch a moment with the two demons and quickly fill them in with what I wanted and why I wanted it. I asked them to carefully spread the word amongst the rest of the bunch but ensuring not a whisper of it reached Vittorio, who was lumbering along with us bound in ropes and led by another tied round his wrists, which were held in front of him.
I found that the very fact I had formulated a plan, no matter whether or not it may have been a good one, generated within me a renewed feeling of confidence. It helped that the two demons seemed to be impressed with it as I had outlined it to them. Surreptitiously, without making a big deal out of it, they sidled up to Gaylord who was holding Vittorio’s leash and gently took over the responsibility themselves. Gaylord was only too pleased to be let off manual duties.
Once I had attended to these important details we all took a few minutes to study the Arch of Constantine. It can best be described as being designed in something like the architectural style of the Coliseum in Rome if it could be restored to its original glory, but square and with a giant tunnel through the middle, like an ancient Roman Arc de Triomphe. All over it were inset rows of sconces containing huge marble statues. Even though it was an astral construction, it was nevertheless impressive to the eye. It was beautifully colored. It is easy to forget that all the old historical ruins of the mortal world, which we are now used to seeing as white statues, worn stone, collapsed sections and disintegrating rendering, were originally brightly painted, even the Pyramids and Stonehenge. We quickly located the string, several feet high and less than half a quark wide, running along a corner of the edifice.
This was the doorway through to another part of the astral planes, our own heavenly HQ. That place was no mystery to most of us, even though some of us might need maps or directions to find our way around if we were looking for specific places, as was the case when Pharter and Phukkit paid the place a surreptitious visit some time ago to take an illicit photograph of a certain Great Seal in the Seventh House.
Now two things were necessary. First, it was vital that once we went through this astral doorway we should be able very quickly to determine exactly whereabouts we had emerged; get our bearings, in fact. Second, certain other things that were part of the plan I was about to set in motion must move like oiled clockwork, even down to certain people being in certain places at a precise time. As never before, I would need to rely utterly on the competence and quick wittedness of my demonic staff officers.
I stepped through the astral doorway with my mental fingers crossed, followed quickly by Sandra and then, in turn, all the others. Vittorio stumbled clumsily through, shoved rather ungraciously from behind. The first vital condition had been satisfied - I recognized where we were. It was a small courtyard in white marble with pillars and gold decorations – nearly everything here was in white marble with pillars and gold decorations – and it was thankfully deserted. On one side, a heavenly city could be seen shining in the middle distance through the row of pillars. Quickly I went into a huddle with the demons.
“We’re outside the Heavenly City in that old courtyard near the Transept of Temperance,” I related. “Luckily for us it’s not a very popular place for visitors.”
“What next?” asked Sandra.
“Next, we need to move from here without being seen. We can’t disguise ourselves with white raiment – we’re unprepared and there’s no washing lines to steal from here. If anyone notices a bunch of demons walking through Heaven, they may regard it at the very least as slightly suspicious, and the same applies to people like you and me dressed in smart casual. There’s very little smart casual in Heaven.”
I turned to Phixit. “All right, my friend, this next bit’s up to you. Where does he live?”
“Well,” replied Phixit pondering, “it’s debatable whether you can say anybody actually lives in Heaven, ‘cos they got to be dead to get to live here. But I take your meaning in its colloquial application, and he lives about six blocks in that direction.” He pointed. “It’s about ten minutes, local time. We could get there quicker if we took the direct route along the Avenue of Aspirations, but we got to keep a low profile, so we have to go the back way where there’s places to hide if necessary – pillars, walls, small buildings, parks, gardens, that sort of thing. Handy, but time consuming to weave around, especially if we need to keep diving for cover.”
Pharter looked at him with frowning brows. “You’ve bin ‘ere before, ain’t you?”
“Maybe,” replied Phixit, waggling his shoulders defensively.
“You crafty little git!” Pharter said with admiration and suddenly grinned broadly. “Good fer you.”
“We’ve got to do this like a commando exercise,” I instructed. “I’ll go first, heading for the first bit of available cover. If it’s safe, I’ll wave. Sandra, you come next. Once she’s there, Phixit comes next, because he knows the route. When he’s safe, the rest of you follow the same way, one at a time, except Raum and Sabnack who come last and bring Vittorio between them. If he shouts, gag him. Then we repeat the whole procession in the same order to the next bit of cover, and so on.”
All the time, in the back of my mind, part of me was carefully judging the timing. What I was planning depended on almost split-second action, and I don’t mean the commando advance. It also depended – and this was the part that made me feel sick with worry inside – on a certain person being at home when we got there. If they happened to be out, everything was lost – and I do mean everything! Under other circumstances, it might have been possible to use my mobile and phone ahead to make certain, but Lilith’s harsh crackling interference was now blocking all low-power transmissions, even in HQ.
It required no less then eleven staged moves, one-at-a-time from cover to cover – except the two demons who brought Vittorio with them who, of course, were obliged to move as a trio. The first three stages went well; from the old courtyard where we had arrived to a large array of statues and fountains, then to a small public garden with perfect floral displays and covering bushes, then a short wall behind a building. The fourth stage was more risky, a narrow winding lane between more statuary, where we could not tell whether the route was clear without going through it. Fortunately we found it deserted. And so it continued, most of the time with our hearts in our mouths and jumping at the slightest noise. And then at last, guided by Phixit, we had reached our destination.
It was a house, very much like a colonial New England mansion but with marble and gold instead of weatherboarding and painted carpentry.
“This is it,” assured Phixit as everyone arrived in sequenced short intervals.
Sandra appeared surprised when I reached for a small button beside the front door and it went Bing Bong, but she did not say anything. After a few moments the door was opened from inside and there before us stood a rather astonished angel.
“Surprise!” chorused Pharter, Phukkit and Phixit together.
36. Of Angels, Doilies and Demonic Cushion Embroiderers…
At that precise moment, when everyone’s attention was on the open door and the prospect of getting inside out of sight, Vittorio made a break for it. He somehow managed to slip out of the ropes that tied him and he ran for it like a champion sprinter, vanishing around a corner.
None of us called out or tried to give pursuit. We had been banking on him doing exactly what he had done. It was a necessary part of my plan. It helped that he had done it at the last moment before we entered the house.
Once all were safely inside, Phixit made the introductions.
“Everybody, this is my good friend, chess opponent and pen-pal Barchiel. Barkers, this is my boss Satan; you’ve probably heard of him; the beautiful lady is his friend and colleague Detective Sandra Smith of the LAPD, and the rest are a bunch of my pals.”
“Very pleased to meet you all,” said the angel. “Any friends of Phixit are friends of mine. Come on in.”
“Barchiel,” I said urgently, “we need to ask you a big favor. We’re here on business – we are trying to save the universe from imminent guaranteed total destruction.”
“I can’t offer you any tea and crumpets then?” asked the angel hopefully.
“Perhaps later. Right now, it is absolutely imperative that we can get to a fairly powerful transmitter – like the one you and Phixit use to give each other your chess moves. We need it now.”
“Well, follow me,” invited Barchiel.
The angel was a sprightly, balding, middle-aged man, and he was – naturally – wearing a radiant white smock from the back of which protruded a pair of folded white wings. He led the way along a bright hallway where tastefully positioned occasional tables supported vases of arranged flowers. Reaching a door, he opened it and indicated that we should enter.
“This is the hobby room,” he explained. “Please forgive the mess, but I wasn’t expecting visitors. I haven’t Hoovered for a week. There’s probably gold dust under all the furniture.”
“I think it’s all very charming,” remarked Gaylord. “Is that a needlepoint tapestry?”
“Yes,” beamed Barchiel, “and I have my own loom for weaving curtains and other fabrics.”
“Oh, I would like to try that,” enthused Gaylord.
“Well, why don’t you pop over sometime? We could have a fabric evening.”
“What a lovely idea, I’ll do that. I’ll bring my embroidered cushion-covers.”
I coughed. “Can we attend to more urgent matters first, please?”
“Pardon me for opening my mouth,” said Gaylord. “It’s just so nice to find someone with good taste.” He looked pointedly at Pharter and Phukkit.
Barchiel led the way through an arch leading to an adjoining room or annex. “This might be what you need,” he advised.
Indeed it was. The room contained the angelic equivalent of Phixit’s electronics laboratory in the old shack. Instead of equipment salvaged and restored from shipwrecks, plane crashes, wars and other disasters since the days of Faraday and Marconi, Barchiel’s outfit looked like a NASA mission control adapted for household use. None of the electronics equipment was over a couple of years old, and nestled amongst it all were an ultra-modern state-of-the-art home computer and a chess board laid-out in mid-game.
Phixit gestured at the fantastic layout. “May we?” he asked.
“Be my guest,” replied Barchiel. “You know how it all works from your previous visits. You probably won’t be able to do much, though, because there’s been some really nasty interference affecting everything these last few days.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I remarked, filing away the remark about Phixit’s “previous visits” for a discussion with him at a later date; if there were any later dates. “It’s a jamming signal originating in a rogue Creation which we think is being deliberately piloted to crash headlong into this one. We have to stop it.”
“Quite so!” agreed Barchiel with raised eyebrows. “Can you do that with my equipment, do you think?”
I smiled grimly. “I believe we can. It all depends on my prediction coming true.”
“What is that, pray tell?”
“Phixit, start up the works,” I ordered. “My prediction is that, during the next four or five minutes, the jamming signal will disappear for about thirty seconds. That’s our window. In that half minute, or less, we will once again be able to make an incorporeal teleportational jump that transfers us from here to the interior of the rogue Creation. Once there, we have to find a way of stopping it.”
“Is that all?” remarked Barchiel dryly. “How do you know the interference is going to stop for that time interval?”
“Because a mortal called Vittorio slipped out of our clutches outside your front door,” I answered with a certain grim amusement. “He is unaware of the fact that we deliberately loosened his bonds during our journey here so that he would be able to escape. He is an underling of the person who is behind the whole plot and is responsible for the rogue Creation. I am betting that he is being monitored by equipment from inside the rogue universe which is tuned to get through the interference pattern. If I’m right, any minute now he will be transported back there – and to do that, the jamming signal must be turned off for a short time, maybe thirty seconds at most. Therefore, we need to be looking out for that brief period, and we need to act instantly when it happens. She will be expecting her servant to materialize; instead, she will get all of us!”
“That sounds like it could be rather dangerous,” queried Barchiel.
Gaylord spoke up. “Danger is our middle name, dear.”
I smiled grimly again. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
Under Phixit’s expert handling, the system came to life and the roar of static interference filled the room. Phixit adjusted the volume so that it was quieter.
“Do you want me to do anything while you’re gone?” asked Barchiel.
“Yes please,” I replied seriously. “Pray.”
“You could also keep the speakers on and listen out,” advised Phixit. “If we succeed, the interference will cease. If not…” he did not complete the sentence.
“If not, what?” insisted Barchiel in a worried tone.
“If not, the interference will keep on getting louder for the next twelve hours, and then bang – the end of everything. Instant apocalypse. Singularity time.”
Barchiel thoughtfully glanced back towards the main part of the hobby room and murmured: “I wonder if I have time to finish my crochet doilies?”
Once again Sandra and I reached for each other’s hands to hold, without even realizing we were doing it. All ears, rounded or pointed, were straining at the sound of the static interference hissing through the speakers. A minute went by during which nobody spoke a word. Then another minute. Then another. The tension was reaching an almost unbearable pitch.
Despite our riveted attention, or perhaps because of it, when the sound did suddenly stop it caught us momentarily by surprise. I did not even allow time to congratulate myself on the success of my plan so far.
“Now!” I yelled at the top of my voice, and everything went dark.
37. I Saw You Flash, Gordon…
As predicted, we all jumped across time and space in a manifestational teleportation at the same time that Vittorio did, making use of the same window in the interference that had been provided for him. This had been my plan, including accidentally-on-purpose ensuring that Raum and Sabnack had handled him with sufficient roughness to loosen his ropes.
Beyond this, my plan began to lose some detail. The remainder of it could be summed up as: (1) get there: (2) stop it happening.
We got there. Statistically, this completed half the remainder of the plan. I realized, though, that I was fooling nobody except myself with this encouraging thought.
We found ourselves on a grassy hillside at night, and boy, what a night. In the black sky were five planets, one looking enormous because it was so close, the others scaling off to little bigger than the full moon seen from earth. As a backdrop, as well as whole clouds of scattered stars like a Hubble image, a gigantic neighboring galaxy seen nearly edgeways-on ripped the sky apart from horizon to horizon with its whorled blaze.
Sandra was impressed. “It’s like something out of the movies,” she breathed in awe.
“Yes,” I agreed, “but it’s not right. There’s something very wrong here. At least two of those planets up there are inside the Roche limit of a planet the mass of the one we’re standing on.”
“The what limit? And how do you know the mass of this planet ? It might be any size, surely?”
“We can easily tell how massive this planet is by our own weight. I don’t feel any lighter or heavier, so it must be roughly the mass of earth. Also, the air here is of a similar density and pressure, which again implies an earth-type mass. The Roche limit is the measure of the distance one planet can approach another before the interacting gravitational fields of the two bodies cause them to disintegrate. Planets are not solid objects like a bowling ball; they are crumbled rock, liquid magma and hot cores held together by gravity. Two planets cannot collide, as such, not in the same way as pool balls or automobiles, for instance. As they draw nearer to each other they will reach the Roche limit, at which point each one’s gravity works against the other, pulling lumps out of each planet and making them disintegrate. If a small body like a moon comes within the Roche limit of a much larger planet, only the smaller object will disintegrate. This is how Saturn’s rings were formed.”
Sandra digested this information. “So… how come those things up there aren’t breaking apart, and how come whatever we’re standing on is un-disintegrated?”
“I don’t know for certain,” I replied slowly, “but I have the beginnings of a theory…”
I was silenced by a scream from nearby. I looked round in the night, which was made as bright as twilight by the nearby astronomical objects. It seems that Vittorio had materialized at the same moment as us and only a hundred feet distant. Seeing us, he had tried to run for it. Raum had brought him down with a quarterback’s football tackle.
“Any broken bones?” I called out.
“No, thanks, I’m fine,” rumbled Raum cheerfully.
“I meant Vittorio,” I pointed out.
“Oh. Hold on, I’ll try to wake him up and ask.”
“Never mind,” I answered wearily. “Just tie him up again please. Gently.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
Sandra took another look around, including the magnificently spectacular night sky. “So, ahh… where do we go?” she asked. I was grateful she did not add: What do we do when we get there? Because I was not sure. Even that is an understatement. Someone with two or three options available to them might not be sure. Someone who cannot perceive any options whatsoever is not unsure, they are completely at a loss. I was trying to think quick, to form a plan, to think of something.
All I could come up with was a fairly obvious observation, but it sounded good, as though I had situation management under control.
“Vittorio started running in that direction, before Raum apprehended him,” I pointed round the curve of the hillside. “In panic, people often go where their legs tell them instead of stopping to think about it. So we go that way too. Come on.”
At least I had sufficient savvy to arrange our little party according, moderately, to the rules of combat in enemy occupied territory. Instead of a single file line, I positioned us in three rows of five, about forty feet apart, with Sandra and myself in the front row. Gaylord and Eligor, once more manhandling the now unconscious Vittorio, were a couple of dozen yards in the rear where they could also be a rearguard. Raum was in front at point, Gamygyn and Sabnack were positioned on either flank. In this formation we cautiously went forward and rounded the right shoulder of the hill.
I’m not sure what I expected to see when we had gone round the hillside, but what we did see was a moderately large but rather tasteful ancient-style temple on the grassy plain below. I guessed it was Lilith’s base in this home-made universe of hers. The architecture was a subtle blend of Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian, Egyptian and Chrysler Building.
“Jeez,” breathed Sandra. “The last time I saw anything like that, Ming the Merciless of the planet Mongo lived in it.”
“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” I commented. “It’s a very clever and well-planned blend of different interesting parts.”
“So was Frankenstein’s Monster,” she observed. “The question is; what are we going to do now we’ve found it?”
I thought very carefully for a moment. Then I said, “Before we do anything else, I need to conduct a small experiment.” I turned to Pharter and Phukket who were in our line. “Guys, will you do something for me?”
“Sure Guv,” replied Pharter.
“Just name it,” agreed Phukkit.
“It’s not complicated, but it needs to be done exactly right,” I advised. “I would like you both to fly away from this spot and in opposite directions. Both of you get as far away from me as you can, but without allowing me to get out of your sight.”
“Easy-peasy,” said Pharter. “What do you want us to do then?”
“When you are back on the ground at maximum line-of-sight range, I want you, Pharter, to flash at me.”
“Wot? You want me ter drop me pants and moon at yer?”
“Not that kind of flash. You’re both demons, you can produce a quick flash of fire. I want you to do it when you have touched down. Just a one-second burn.”
I turned to address Phukkit. “You will be at maximum line-of-sight range in the opposite direction, with me in the middle between you. You probably won’t be able to see Pharter at that distance in this twilight, but you will certainly be able to see his flash of fire. The very instant you do see it, I want you to flash as well, in the same way. When you’ve both finished, you can come back.”
“I understand what you is asking’” reflected Pharter, digesting the instructions, “but I don’t see what use this is all goin’ ter be to man or beast.”
“Just do it, and trust me. This is a vital experiment. It will help us, I am positive.”
If my theory was correct, I added to myself.
“Just a couple of flashers, that’s us,” grumbled Phukkit as the two flapped into the air and flew away in opposite directions.
Sandra looked at me sideways. “I cannot conceive of the slightest sense or reason in what you have asked the boys to do,” she said quietly. “But at least I know you well enough by now to realize that there must certainly be a valid reason behind it.”
“Oh, there is,” I assured her.
A couple of minutes later there came a small flash of fiery light in the distance, not unlike a firework seen from two miles away. I turned to look in the opposite direction. A few moments later there was an identical flash a similar distance out in that direction. I smiled in grim satisfaction at this result. A few minutes later the two demons had flown back and rejoined us.
“Thanks guys,” I said appreciatively. “That was extremely helpful.” The two demons looked at each other and shrugged blankly.
“As long as you’re ‘appy, Boss,” soothed Phukkit.
“Now,” I raised my voice for all to hear, “we’re going visiting. Follow me!”
With a new firmness in my heart and a new sense of purpose in my mind, I strode forward. I saw that Sandra had to break into a short run every dozen feet or so, in order to keep up with me. I slowed down a little so she could keep pace more easily.
As we drew within the shadow of the temple cast by the glow of the giant planets overhead, she asked me, “What are we going to do? Simply march up to the front door and knock loudly?”
“Exactly that,” I replied firmly. “I think I’m holding an ace up my sleeve.”
“That’s not exactly a tremendous comfort, given this whole situation,” she commented. “Still, whatever, I will stand by you forever.” She reached out and took my hand in hers as we walked towards the ornamented Gothic wooden door of the big temple-like structure.
What else could I do anyway? I went up to it and knocked loudly, with a shave and a haircut, two bits flourish. That’s what you do when you want someone to open a door and let you in, isn’t it?
I had a mental bet with myself that the castle-like door would swing open of its own accord, inviting us to enter at our own risk. In my bet, I spent two whole seconds trying to decide whether or not there would be an accompanying sound-effects grating creak. I bet on silence. Lilith was not consciously theatrical; she may appear to be at times, but with her it was natural and humorless, not a calculated contrived personality act; which made her all the more frightening as a person. Perhaps I sometimes played a part and thereby came across as theatrical, but with me it was smoke and mirrors to cover the inner doubts and anguish; at that exact moment my own truth hit me – where Lilith’s larger-than-life personality made her frightening, mine made me tragic.
I forced myself to get a grip and filed such considerations away for future reference. This was not the time to resolve personal issues; I could visit a therapist next week. My task right now was to ensure there was going to be a next week, for everyone. Silently, the great door swung open.
In a group, with orders from me not to huddle together in a way that betrayed lack of confidence, thirteen smaller demons with wings, five bigger demons without wings - one of whom walked with a slight mince - one bound and unconscious defrocked priest and two honest, hardworking cops of the LAPD, one of whom happened also to be Satan, walked through the temple door. We were not the Wild Bunch. More like the Peculiar Bunch.
Inside, we found ourselves in a tasteful entrance hallway. It was large, sure, maybe a hundred feet across with a thirty foot ceiling and perhaps a hundred yards long, but, with breathtaking incongruity that suggested post-modern-retro interior designer genius, or else total insanity, the décor, wallpaper, carpeting, pictures, crystal chandeliers, casual furniture and ornaments were Napoleonic Regency or First French Empire. Gaylord was enraptured, swiveling his head in so many directions it was surprising it did not unscrew and fall off. Anyone who had judged the place from the outside and was therefore expecting the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle interior from the Wizard of Oz was going to be bitterly disappointed, but rather more comfortable.
At the far end of the big hallway was another door, this time a glossy white wooden paneled type as found in exclusive homes everywhere. In fact, I felt distinctly that things were now suddenly becoming far too normal. I had expected a typical principle villain’s secret base, with maybe the odd overhead crane for moving nuclear devices, perhaps a sinister monorail, lots of people in private uniforms and red hard-hats doing stuff with data boards in front of huge control panels resplendent with flashing dials and gauges, tannoys reeling out endless instructions in the background, maybe a glass-fronted private office high up on a cavern wall in which Lilith could sit and enjoy watching the fruition of her plans.
What I got was a rather beautiful and extremely tasteful French chateau.
Somehow, it was just a little bit disappointing.
Then again, as I suddenly realized, there would probably be a great many people who would consider me to be a principle villain, and I lived in a luxury apartment in downtown Los Angeles with a pet dog and tropical fish.
My last bastion of dramatic stereotyping was a sneaking hope that this next door would be opened with a flourish by Grunt, the huge lumbering Quasimodo-like personal bodyguard who got creamed in the final reel. Again, I was in for a surprise.
The door was indeed opened, but very calmly and quietly and by Lilith herself, wearing a wonderful cream and gold French Napoleonic puff-shouldered, plunging-necklined and lace-fringed designer gown which trailed delicately on the carpet behind her. This creation perfectly enhanced her eight-foot height and other proportionate attributes. Her red hair was gathered into a six-foot pony tail which emerged from a gold clasp at the back of a dainty diamond tiara. Matching evening gloves which covered her arms almost to the shoulders completed the ensemble. Apart from her goddess height, she would not have looked out of place at an ambassador’s ball.
“Hello,” she welcomed.
This was probably not how any of us had anticipated events to proceed.
38. The Other Side of the Story…
“We’ve returned something that might belong to you,” was all I could find to say. I pointed at a long striped sofa against one wall. Silently Gaylord and Eligor carried the semi-conscious and moaning Vittorio over to it and laid him down.
“Is he all right?” Lilith asked.
I was taken aback by her question. In ancient times when the Sumerians were the leading edge of the advance of global civilization, she had been a goddess; later, with the march of time and social attitude, she had been considered a demon, although from a different tradition to those in my department. Either way, I would never have predicted that her first piece of conversation would have been to express concern for someone else, especially a mortal underling like Vittorio. It made me feel somewhat gauche.
It was Raum who answered her, in his deep, gravelly voice. “He’s fine. I just knocked the wind out of him.”
“Can he not be untied?” she asked.
Gaylord looked at me and I nodded slightly. He reached down and with only his hands snapped eight turns of rope pinioning the man’s arms like so many bread sticks. It was easy to underestimate Gaylord.
Seeing Vittorio breathing a little easier and making the attempt to rise on one elbow, Lilith turned her attention back to me.
“Would you care to talk, or would you like to go straight ahead and smash the place up first?”
“That’s not why we came,” I said simply, although admitting to my innermost self that it might have been on our list of options.
“Isn’t it? Then why did you come?” She extended a graceful gloved hand to encompass our whole party. “This doesn’t quite look like a social call.”
It was a good question. It left me wishing I had a better answer.
“We came to stop you,” I stated flatly. I was beginning to feel clumsy and uncouth. It was as though the pitchfork-wielding mob of villagers had stormed the baron’s castle only to find an innocent family having tea in the parlor.
“Stop me from what?”
I decided to put on my Humphrey Bogart policeman act. “Don’t try to play the innocent, lady. We know what you’re doing. We know you created this universe to deliberately crash it into ours.”
Of all the lines in all the world, I wish I could have come up with a better one than that.
“Then you’ve got it completely wrong, Lucifer, as you generally do.”
“How so?”
Lilith sighed in mild irritation and turned to walk briskly back through the door. Over her shoulder she said, “You’d all better come in. If we’re going to talk, let’s at least do so in a civilized manner.”
Like a troupe of door-to-door salesmen we all followed her inside the next room, which was a large lounge reminiscent of interiors in the Elysée Palace in Paris. Lilith did not pause there but led us through it like a majestic galleon under full sail until we entered an equally spacious dining room. The centerpiece was a great oval wooden table with a highly polished glass-like sheen. Regency style dining chairs with red and cream striped seats and backrests surrounded the table. Five exquisite silver candelabra stood at intervals down the thirty foot length of the tabletop. Overhead hung another glinting crystal chandelier as big as a kid’s carousel in a park. On the walls were old masters by the original artists – unknown Vermeers, Canalettos, Turners, Rembrandts and others. Here and there were examples of beautiful occasional furniture and the odd sculpture or objects d’art from ancient Egypt, India, China and Babylon placed as conversation pieces.
“Feel free to sit down,” Lilith invited. She paused in a deliberate and expectant fashion beside a chair. Her action and stance created something I can only describe as a sudden vacuum of manners. Sensing this on an instinctive level, Raum strode across to her and gently pulled her seat out and placed it back perfectly beneath her as she sat down. Made suddenly even more awkward by this example, I hurried to do the same thing for Sandra, who then smiled up at me and made me feel a little more confident.
As everybody sat down, I heard Pharter whisper to Phukkit, “I wish I’d wiped me feet first.”
“Why?” enquired Phukkit with interest. “You trodden in sumfink?”
“Nah, I just feel – you know – sort of… awkward.”
I think this description fitted us all.
“Now,” began Lilith as we became seated round the table, “what’s all this about colliding universes?”
“Do you deny you made this Creation?” I demanded.
“Of course I don’t,” she snapped with a little irritation. “Everyone needs somewhere to live. Or don’t I have even that right, in your view?”
“Well, what’s all this about ‘You will soon be regretting your past even more than you ever have done’ and ‘When I’ve finished with you and all your friends, and your beloved planet earth, you will really know the meaning of fallen angel?’ And I quote.”
“As I also said on that occasion, this is personal. Get it? Personal, as in you and me.”
“You mean, just because we had three dates thousands of years ago and then lost interest in each other, you still hold a grudge?”
Unexpectedly, Lilith threw back her head and laughed loud and long.
“I don’t believe it,” she remarked finally. “You’re such a typical man, Lucifer. You’re not a demigod – you’re a chauvinist. Do you honestly believe that I have spent the last few millennia brooding over my lost opportunity to have an association with you? And that it has taken me all that time to come up with some ridiculous master-plan to extract my revenge?”
“Well…” I was about to admit it, but she cut me off.
“What do you think I am?”
I was left shamefaced in a rather stunned silence. Lilith turned to face Sandra.
“You are quite welcome to him my dear. I assure you I have absolutely no designs on this man. From a woman’s point of view, he has some good qualities buried away inside him, and he is certainly macho when he wants to be, and he’s a looker; but he needs licking into shape some more before he can become properly suitable as a life-companion. I have neither the patience nor the inclination to undertake that task. It requires love, doesn’t it? I’m sure you’re the one who will accomplish it.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” answered Sandra. “And I feel we should apologize for bursting in on you like this. I have to say, you seem to be a nicer person than legend has it.”
“Oh, I have my fiery and terrible side too,” Lilith confessed with a smile. “But then again, what woman doesn’t?”
“According to legend, you take the form of a monster bird and drink blood.”
“Ah, but according to legend, Lucifer is the source of all evil and the greatest monster imaginable, and the cause of the ruination of humankind. You can’t make legends the basis of your belief, otherwise one day Walt Disney will become a god.”
“So – you are as misjudged as Lucifer has been?”
Lilith lowered her head in silent agreement.
“That is so unjust,” fumed Sandra. “I’ve come to realize, from personal experience, that Lucifer has been completely misrepresented and is actually a very good person at heart, if easily confused; but until now, I never suspected there were others in a similar situation.”
“People are seldom as black and white as society paints them,” remarked Lilith. “The media says: ‘This man is a crook’, or: ‘That woman is a harlot’, or: ‘That film star is a junkie’, or: ‘That politician wants to wreck the country’. And everyone starts to believe that a person’s whole life, the entire sum of all the hopes and fears of their years since first childhood, all their daily experiences and everything they have ever said and done, and felt, and grieved, and aspired to, and achieved, is now accurately categorized by that short label they have suddenly been branded with.
“That is how society operates. The media is older than television and newspapers; it is older than Guttenberg; it is older than the town crier; it is older than the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It is as old as the cave-paintings of Lascaux, and older. It is as old as: ‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”
Suddenly it came upon me with a rush that I might have been terribly mistaken. I looked at Sandra with hollow eyes. She had obviously been struck by the same revelation, for she looked at me, and to my surprise there was a glimmer in the corner of her eye that could only have been a newborn tear.
“I can remember a night,” she breathed softly, “when a judgmental policewoman with pre-fixed ideas and statutory opinions paid a visit to Satan’s apartment, 666 on the thirteenth floor. I can remember how he gently and politely explained how public opinion and history had wrongly branded him evil when he was only doing his job as governor of Hell. I can remember him explaining how the governor of a prison is not viewed as a criminal simply because he has to be in the same place as criminals in order to do his job. I can remember falling in love with him because, under his hard shell, he was so vulnerable.”
She paused while the tear fell unheeded into her lap. “And I can remember being told that he had been given a second chance to make good, to redeem himself for an act of disobedience – to be forgiven…”
I had no choice. I was compelled by my own conscience to finish the line of thought for her.
“And now here am I – I who have complained for so many ages about being mistakenly typecast, incorrectly branded as evil because I was placed in charge of evil human souls, unjustly held up by the opinion-makers of society as the source of all wickedness, as the ‘Evil One’, as an abomination – doing exactly the same thing to somebody else.”
I was horrified by my own sweeping ignorance, by my one-way-street point of view – yes, by my hitherto unnoticed arrogance. Lilith was right – I was a chauvinist.
“’Judge not, that ye shall not be judged,’” I whispered to myself.
Sandra, the bit now firmly between her teeth, spoke to Lilith.
“Should I call you ‘Goddess’?”
Lilith smiled at her. “Why not call me Lilith? That’s my name.”
“Lilith, exactly why did you want revenge against Satan? You were spitting sparks when you came through that green light thing. And what is the purpose of this rogue Creation, and the powerful static spiritual interference field emanating from it?”
“Why did I want revenge against Satan?” she repeated the question quietly. “Because, unlike me, he was offered a chance to gain forgiveness, to get his old job back, to become an archangel once more, on the board of directors. I have been equally wronged by history. Why cannot I be offered a chance of redemption also?”
She sighed. “I am close to admitting that I was motivated by jealousy. Not a good motivation. I intended to spike his guns, to upset his plans, to spoil his chances of succeeding, his chances of being the new ‘teacher’s pet’ in class. My plan was simply to put some mud in his pond.
“As for this universe, I made it some time ago. It has been my home for many thousands of years. I have always believed in ‘sauce for the goose’ – if one deity could fashion a Creation in six days, then so could I; it was my prerogative as a goddess. Or so I thought. It’s not nearly so well-made, and was always much smaller. And I couldn’t get it to expand properly like yours. But it’s home. All I was trying to do was move it as close as possible to your universe to cause some clever scientists to make headlines with ‘End of the World’ stories. That is why I organized the interference; it seemed a good way of saying ‘Boo!’ scientifically. And when the end of the world is believed to be coming, people tend to blame the Devil. That’s what I wanted. There wouldn’t have been an actual collision. The idea was simply to moor up alongside, like a tender to a ship.”
“What about Vittorio,” asked Sandra. “Where does he fit in, with his plans to summon demons to destroy cities and blackmail governments?”
“Him?” answered Lilith. “He’s another tragedy. He fell in love with me.”
“What? How?”
“Honey, he was into what mortals call black magic. He searched for old books by ancient sorcerers, that sort of thing. One night he invoked me, and I was obliged to appear before him in his wretched dank cellar. I must have impressed him, and I recognized all the signs. He fell for me like a ton of bricks. Possibly the fact that I was taking a shower when he invoked me to appear had something to do with it.”
She leaned back in her chair and sighed deeply. “I might be called a femme fatale, but I’m not completely without pity. I tried to let him down gently. I quietly and politely pointed out to him that I was an immortal goddess worshipped in golden temples in ancient Sumer and Babylon who lived in a palace in a private universe in a far dimension, and he was a pathetic little jerk. I think this might have motivated him to make the attempt to try to take over your world, so that I might be a little more impressed with him.”
I could visualize it now in my mind’s eye. A small, skinny, balding, sour-faced middle-aged unfrocked priest trying to win the heart of a stunningly beautiful, eight-foot tall, flame-haired immortal goddess by offering her the whole world on a plate. Truly a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, or Goethe. Even Dr. Faust had only wanted Helen of Troy.
“I never wanted to hurt him,” Lilith continued. “In a small, peculiar way, I guess I might have been a tiny bit amused. Like a film star at a premier when a fat teenage boy with a bad complexion throws them a bunch of flowers and they return the favor by signing the kid’s autograph book. That’s why I rescued him from Hell, right in front of all of you. I didn’t know what your intentions were towards him. I was merely doing a fan a favor. I felt uncomfortable seeing him all hog-tied.”
“Lilith,” I stated sincerely and urgently. “I owe you an apology. You will get one from me, with a big bunch of flowers. But first there is an even more urgent matter. Are you aware that you, and us, and the entire cosmos, is right now in the most imminent danger of total annihilation?”
39. The End of the Universe, With Full Supporting Program…
Lilith stared at me. She instantly knew that I was deadly serious.
“Explain,” she demanded; then as an afterthought added more gently, “please.”
“Are you aware that this universe of yours is imploding – collapsing with exponentially increasing velocity into a gravitational singularity like the mother of all black holes, with less than a few hours to go before it blinks out of existence?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you.” It was not a question; it was a statement of recognized fact.
“I am perfectly serious. With all due respect, your Creation is not as well made as the other one; the solitary craftsman is seldom able to compete with the product of the big corporation. Put simply, your universe was always fragile. By moving it towards the other Creation, like the Hindenburg moved towards Lakehurst New Jersey, you have inadvertently brought about a quantum interface pressure trauma. As they say in LA, you’ve put the squeeze on it.
“You have already told us that you couldn’t get it to expand properly. That means it must have been held in a stasis balance, a static universe, neither expanding nor contracting, just wobbling like a big soap bubble. Making it move towards another universe has destabilized it and inaugurated a catastrophic contraction. What some scientists on earth refer to as a ‘Big Crunch’ which has been proposed as the way our universe will end in scores of billions of years time when its expansion ceases and it shrinks again. I’m afraid your ‘Big Crunch’ will be here before teatime. If we are still here, it will take us with it.”
“Are you sure of this?” she asked. “How do you know what’s happening?”
“Haven’t you seen how close the planets, stars and galaxies are getting? The space between them is shrinking.”
“I thought they were just readjusting their position and balance to compensate for the movement of this universe.”
“It’s more than that, Lilith. We conducted an experiment outside before we reached your front door. I timed how long it took light to travel some six miles. It was only a crude test of your current laws of physics, but even so, it was revealing. Light should be the fastest thing in any physical universe; its speed is constant and approximately one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. Half an hour ago, light took thirty seconds by my wristwatch to travel about six miles – four miles from Pharter to Phukkit, then two more miles back from Phukkit to me.”
I rammed the point home: it was necessary. “Thirty seconds to go six miles – that means your light here in this universe is now traveling at about the speed of sound – slower than a supersonic aircraft. Your gravitational fields are also distorting; the Roche limit for coherent planetary approach has shrunk by a huge factor. If you want to check it out, just look outside – there are planets whose gravitational fields should be tearing each other apart into fragments still looming solidly overhead, there’s a galaxy that should swallow this galaxy sat only as distant as your nearest stars should be. As your universe shrinks, your gravitational curvature of space-time shrinks with it. Soon, all the planets, stars and galaxies will be physically touching each other. The heat will be greater than Hell, and I should know! It’s the reverse of the Big Bang sequence.”
I took another deep breath. “The further it goes, the faster it will happen. Within an hour or less, this universe will be winding back to what astro-physicists on earth call a universe’s Dark Ages, when particles are so densely packed together that no light can radiate. The lights of the universe will snuff out. Then time will run backwards through the Photon Epoch, the Lepton Epoch, the Hadron Epoch, the Quark Epoch, the Electroweak Epoch, the Inflationary Epoch, the Grand Unification Epoch and the Planck Time Epoch. These epochs occur in the tiniest fractions of a second. The temperature throughout this universe will rise to ten-to-the-thirty-second-power Kelvins, which is a number of degrees above absolute shown by a ‘one’ followed by thirty-two zeros. Time itself will cease to exist; so will matter; so will energy.” I raised my hands in a dismissive gesture. “Oblivion.”
Lilith was impressed with my statistics. She surrendered. “What do we do?” she asked in a small voice.
“Run,” I answered.
First, I ascertained from Lilith that she was alone in her Creation. There were no life-forms of any kind anywhere; she had not been powerful enough to create life as well. Her universe was sterile. This meant that we only had to take care of ourselves. All that was stopping us from making an astral leap back to our own universe was the still-functioning static spiritual interference field. This meant that even on Lilith’s own world we were limited to having to make use of our legs, or wings as the case may be, in order to get around.
It turned out that the interference field was generated by a football-sized crystal held in an occult energy lattice in a small pyramid about a mile from Lilith’s palace. We all ran to the front door, picking up a startled Vittorio on the way through, and Lilith pointed out the pyramid in the gloomy distance. She assured us it was unlocked – indeed, the tunnel to the crystal chamber was open to the outside. We began to head in that direction as fast as we could. Of course, the winged demons could travel much faster than anyone on foot and I charged them with the duty of racing there through the air ahead of the rest of us and destroying the crystal. They took off and sped away like a flock of giant bats in the dusky light.
Without scientific instruments, my estimates of the speed of light and the timing of the sequence of anticipated events were extremely approximate. We saw the flying demons reach the vicinity of the pyramid.
Then, without any warning, utter darkness instantly fell. The light in the universe went out. It was then that I abandoned hope. It was a dreadful moment. This universe had wound backwards into its Dark Ages, where light could no longer travel through space. Faintly, I could hear a succession of thump-splat, thump-splat. The flying demons were evidently missing the opening in the dark and hitting the pyramid instead. Various lurid curses came back through the air. There was a distant agonized yell of “Get yer horns out of my arse!”
Sandra found my hand. “How long?” she asked bravely.
I needed to be honest in our final moments. “About another ten seconds,” I answered.
Sandra counted them down aloud. “Ten; nine; eight; seven…”
Then something unexpected happened. A shout came out of the darkness, with an accompanying echo suggestive of a stone passage. The voice was Pharter’s, and it was the best news I had ever received. He had obviously found the passage and was about to shatter the crystal. The message he screamed was basic and urgent.
“For pluck’s sake go now!”
There was a sound like a full goldfish bowl being dropped onto a concrete floor, a tremendous gout of heat and then nothingness…
40. The New World Order…
We all jumped together in an astral leap. The interference had vanished with the smashing of the crystal. Given the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that we landed by dropping in a tangled heap of bruised and smoldering bodies. There was a general chorus of “ouches” and “arghhs”, a “Cor blimey!” and a “Bugger that for a game of soldiers!”
Then we took notice of our surroundings as we began to untangle ourselves from this unruly heap.
We were in Heaven. Our Heaven. And we had company. Standing before us was the Executive Chairman Himself, his long white beard and robes just as I remembered them from thousands of years ago. Behind him were lined up a small crowd of board members, including Michael.
To my everlasting astonishment, it was the Chairman Himself who reached forward and helped pull me to my feet. Quite literally, I was raised up by the hand of God! Michael, Gabriel and several of the other board members gently helped the others. As if in a trance, I heard Phukkit mutter, “Thanks mate – you got any sticking plasters for my bum?”
“Shoosh!” hissed Pharter. “It’s the Boss’s Boss. It’s all of us’s Boss.”
Having hauled me to my feet, the Chairman did not immediately let go of my hand but shook it, warmly.
“Lucifer,” he said, his voice vibrant with joy. “You have done well. So well, in fact, that I am going to cancel the rest of that one-year test of character. You have more than proven your good character since accepting the challenge. You have done well. You have gained my respect again. And even more than that,” he smiled at a totally stunned Sandra Smith, “I think you have also found love.”
“I have, Sir.”
“And many others have also come to love you,” he stated. “We must always remember, it is not how much we love others that is our measure of achievement, it is how much others love us. And you have experienced soul-searching, and self-doubt, and loss of hope, and yet you have done all that became necessary to do your duty, and more. You came through.”
Still shaking my hand, he clapped his other hand on my shoulder. “I am now declaring you officially an archangel again, and I offer you back your seat on the board. You can attend the next board meeting.”
“But who will manage Hell?” I asked, concerned for my demonic friends.
“We will need to appoint a new Satan,” replied the Chairman. “It will no longer be Lucifer the Archangel. That long era has now come to an end.”
“Might I be permitted to make a suggestion, Sir?” I enquired respectfully.
“Please do.”
I looked at Lilith now slightly charred, rising to her feet helped by Gabriel, her dress bedraggled and torn, her hair in disarray, standing amid a crowd of demons who were standing rigidly to attention.
“Lilith needs somewhere to live now,” I ventured. “And the demons seem to like her.” And she already has a handy assistant to assign to Raum’s tuition, I thought, eyeing the hapless Vittorio, who would now be answering to a higher Judgment than the Grand Jury.
The Chairman raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and turned to address her. “My dear, it seems that I may have been… perhaps somewhat unjust in my attitude towards you. Would you accept my apology, and would you also care to accept being officially appointed to the position of the next Satan? From there, you may even be able to work your way up to being a full board member and new archangel one day.”
I noticed that the sooty patches on her face were suddenly streaked with tears. Speechless, she nodded vigorously. The Chairman stepped forward and embraced her warmly. “Welcome to the Corporation, my dear. I wish you well in your new position as a department head.”
Then he turned back to me. “And what about Lucifer? What will you be doing now, with no job?”
“I wish to return to the mortal world,” I stated. I reached for Sandra’s hand and pulled her to my side. “We’re going to get married. And I already have a job – I’m a cop! I’ve just saved the universe; now I have to do something really difficult – I have to help clean up Los Angeles!”
Before we all went back to those various and assorted places we each called home, I gathered all the demons, big and little, around Sandra and me.
“Guys,” I said, a bit of a lump forming in my throat, “I owe you all, every last one of you, an unpayable debt of thanks. I want you to know that. What can I do to show my gratitude?”
Phukkit’s voice chimed up. “There’s a good flick on at the Mann Grauman’s Chinese Cinema, ain’t there? The latest Hollywood blockbuster.” There was a chorus of approval.
“You got it,” I laughed. “You know, when divorced people with families start going out together, they sometimes take their families with them on dates. Well, we’re not divorced: we’re not even married yet. But all of you are going to be our family, and you’re all going out with us on our first proper date. Isn’t that right darling?”
“You bet,” shouted Sandra with enthusiasm.
Suddenly Pharter and Phukkit looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes, as though seeking courage from each other. They turned a deeper shade of purple.
“Errr – Guv?” queried Pharter. “Can we bring our girlfriends too?”
Sandra and I stared at them in some amazement.
That evening, two cops took eighteen assorted demons from Hell to watch a movie. We sat all in a row in the dark with popcorn occasionally flying everywhere and the odd huge slurp of a drinking straw extracting the last drop of a cola drink. At the end of the row, Pharter and Phukkit cuddled up to Claire and Celia Touchwood, proprietors of Broomsticks R Us, the best esoteric emporium in California and the only one with framed testimonials from real demons.
If ever you go to a theatre to watch a movie, and you hear Cockney voices at the back giving loud comments on the action, whatever you do, don’t turn round and look. At least, not if you value your sanity.
And that is why Satan is now a woman, which in turn is why gender-specific language is being officially phased out; and it is why an archangel called Lucifer now helps safeguard the citizens of Los Angeles in the guise of Inspector Stan A. Fericul, pronounced “very cool”, who is now happily married to Detective Sandra Fericul.
You should see us when we take the dog for a walk – although if you did, you would probably never want to go out after nightfall again!
Cue music and closing titles.
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