The man blinked and gazed around. “Mephistopheles?” His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed.
“Cornelius Valdes,” he told the unconscious form. “You are…Doctor Faustus, I presume?”
***
Transportation delays with Ralph and his Cessna, along with some weather problems, meant Donovan wasn’t able to get a flight back to Newark until ten-thirty Sunday night.
For most of his time in the air he stared out at the black mirror of night, trying to put things into some kind of order. He’d told Wissex he could believe anything the big man said, but did he?
Could
he?
A bonfire turned into a portal? Something coming from it and possessing him? I know ritual magic done “right” is
supposed
to work—whatever that means—but Wissex’s story just sounds…nuts.
He thought about his conversation with Father Carroll, about candles made of ghosts.
Get into the spirit of things. Ha.
Wissex’s sketch sat on the tray-table in front of him, and every once in a while he picked it up, glanced at the symbols, and put it down. After some thought he identified one that looked like a cross, with two T-bars atop three step-like lines, as the cross of the archangels, or the Golgata cross. It was representative of messengers.
But from whom? Mister Fizz, who or whatever he is?
Since he only had his carry-on bag, he came off the plane at Newark and headed for the taxi line. It was almost one a.m. The terminal was quiet and uncrowded. As he approached the sliding glass doors, a large, well-dressed black man intercepted him.
“Donovan Graham?”
Donovan stopped. “Yeah?”
The black man showed an NYPD shield. “Detective Marcus Wright. Chief Yarborough would like a word.” He gestured ahead of himself with a large hand marred by scars and rough fingernails. “This way, sir.”
Donovan wondered how many suspects Wright had ushered with less cordiality. “Sure.” He followed the detective to a dark gray Lincoln parked in the No Parking Zone. A black man with a close-cut Afro and neatly trimmed moustache sat in the back seat. Hints of salt were beginning to mix with the pepper, lending him a distinguished air augmented by his clothing: dark gray Brooks Brothers suit, white Christian Dior shirt, red-and-white striped Yves St. Laurent tie, and buffed Florsheim shoes. His style reminded Donovan of the sergeant except that his things were more expensive. Even sitting down he was short, but he held himself with a cockiness that said, no matter the situation, he was in charge.
Now what?
“Mister Graham. I am Chief of Detectives Hugh Yarborough, of the NYPD.” Yarborough’s soft Southern accent made Donovan’s last name two distinct syllables—Gray-yum. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Chief Yarborough. I didn’t know you wanted to.”
Yarborough waited for Detective Wright to climb behind the steering wheel. “Mister Graham has had a long flight, Marcus. Let’s get him home quickly.” He gave Wright the address to Donovan’s apartment. Donovan wasn’t surprised the Chief of Detectives of the NYPD knew where he lived, but it was a little disquieting to hear it rattled off so casually.
The car moved smoothly towards the New Jersey Turnpike. “I heard what you did at the aquarium,” Yarborough went on. “The NYPD is always grateful for assistance from the public, although if I’m not mistaken, you did apply for the Academy. If I may ask, why didn’t you pursue that option?”
“School. Life.”
“If the change in your circumstances causes you to reconsider a future with the NYPD, I may be able to help you out. Congratulations on receiving your degree, by the way. Philosophical hermeneutics, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
He knows where I live, he knows what my degree is in
. “I appreciate your interest in my life, sir, but I’ve got some plans in mind.”
“Fair enough,” Yarborough conceded with a slight nod. “Now, about your trip—did you learn anything useful to Sergeant Fullam’s investigation?”
Donovan didn’t answer right away. Whether it was because he didn’t want to give the information to Yarborough or because he wasn’t sure
how
to, he didn’t know.
“You went to Michigan on the NYPD’s dime. That makes me your boss. All I’m asking is, did you learn anything for his investigation into these so-called satanic murders?”
“So-called?”
“This is not the first time Sergeant Fullam has gone out on a limb with an investigation that holds the potential to severely embarrass the NYPD. A few years ago he was involved in a situation with one of your professors, Father Maurice Carroll, and could have not only embarrassed the department but also set NYPD relations with the city’s Hispanic community back twenty years. As a student of philosophical hermeneutics, you understand the dangers of misinterpretation, particularly involving the deaths small children.”
“Hispanic community?” Donovan raised his eyebrows. “Santeria?”
“He claimed involvement by one of the city’s practitioners of an alternative form of worship in the deaths of a group at a day care center in Brooklyn. But that’s not the issue at hand,” Yarborough said, waving it away. “What I’m currently concerned with is his investigation into these ‘zodiac murders.’ What did you learn out there?”
Donovan considered how he could respond. Through chain of command, Yarborough was technically accurate when he said he was Donovan’s boss. Donovan had taken money from him, he owed the man his best (unless he wanted to return the money, which he’d already used to make a payment on Joann’s ring). By the same token, he knew the man who doubted Santeria wouldn’t want to hear about opened portals and the thing that possessed Wissex and turned him into a butcher.
Not sure I blame him…
He told him about his time with Talling and Wissex, leaving out the esoteric elements of the big man’s story. On Forty-Eighth Street, Detective Wright pulled over in front of his building. Yarborough stopped Donovan before he could leave the car.
“Awful thing, the death of a child,” he said. “Did you find any clue in the case or in Wissex’s story that might help Sergeant Fullam with his current investigation?”
Donovan felt the folded paper in his pocket, the one with the symbols Wissex had seen. He left it where it was. “Probably not, but I’m not a cop, so I’ll let him decide when I tell him what I just told you.”
“No.” The chief eyed him before sitting back. He dismissed Donovan with a brief wave. “Thank you for your help, Mister Graham. However—” he pronounced it “ha-evuh”— “I believe your usefulness has run its course. I’ll inform Sergeant Fullam you and Father Carroll will no longer be required to offer your, ah, research expertise.”
“You’re the chief.”
“Yes,” Yarborough said dryly. “I am.”
Donovan got out and pulled his bag behind him. “Thanks for the ride.” He watched them drive away before turning to his building.
“Probably not?”
A slow smile curled his lips.
Semantic games with people who can put me in jail. What am I, high?
He chuckled and went inside.
Not yet…
THIRTEEN
DINNER AT THE BAR
D
onovan wanted to smoke a joint and drift off, but his conversation with Yarborough bothered him. Joann would already be asleep; Father Carroll, like himself, was a night owl.
“
Hello?
”
“Hey, Father. It’s Donovan.”
“
Oh, hello, Donovan. Is everything all right?
”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Sorry to call you so late, but I just got back from Michigan.”
“
Ah, the fingerprints. Did you learn anything useful?
”
“More than I can go into now. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow, after I have a chance to process it, but there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“
What’s that?
”
“What I found out in Michigan… I think I believe most of it, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“
I don’t understand.
”
Donovan paused.
How to phrase this?
“Look, you know I’ve read about this kind of thing—demons, possession, all this stuff—since I was a kid. I read
The Exorcist
when I was eight, for crying out loud.”
“
So you’ve told me.
”
“And as I got older, and started to learn about the mythologies and the religions and the philosophies behind these weird things, I wanted to know more.”
“
Yes.
”
“And I know I’m a big, tough guy, but this? This is…a lot.”
Father Carroll considered this. “
Do you remember at graduation, when I told you God has a greater destiny in mind for you than ‘research assistant’? I truly believe that, and I believe that involving you in this is part of His plan.
”
“Metaphysics is not reassuring to me right now.”
“
Then consider reality: if you hadn’t been at the aquarium, I might have been fed to the sharks. Your concern is certainly valid when you wonder about the things we face, but you’re not sure you can handle it?
” The priest chuckled warmly.
“
Don’t you see you already are?
”
***
For now we see through a glass, darkly.
The morning after he’d done the impossible, Valdes stared at himself in the mirror of his private bathroom. He looked into his reflected eyes, and a smile grew across his face.
We like the view just fine.
He dressed quickly, took the
Vade Mecum Flagellum Dei
book and left his room.
When they’d returned from the
resurrectus maledicat
, Coeus brought the sorcerer’s unconscious form down to where they’d held the CYA executives. Keeping Faustus sequestered seemed the smartest bet. Whatever he’d been in contact with since he’d disappeared that stormy night in Germany, it couldn’t have been humanity. Who knew how he would react to people now?
“A man of uncontrolled appetites” is how Marlowe described him,
Valdes thought.
Will he be a slob, interested only in food, sex and material things? Did Hell—whatever that is—burn his appetites away?
Or did the writers get it wrong? Was the real Faustus a scatterbrained scholar in over his head? Was he a professor who snapped under pressure? And how did the
resurrectus maledicat
affect him? Is he normal, conscious and capable? Or is he an unstable aggregate of twelve personalities nominally controlled by the spirit of a long-dead magician?
Valdes chuckled.
Does it matter? He’s
real
.
At the door, he knocked twice and entered.
“
Herr
Doktor
?”
He seemed to have walked into the guest room of a medieval castle, complete with working fireplace. A pointed arch framed the doorway and the room’s plasterboard walls had been replaced by solid gray stone, displaying rich red velvet tapestries and dozens of shelves groaning with books. A small table held a chest the size of a portable TV. Next to it stood a life-sized marble statue of a man in a toga, who looked to one side in appreciation of the four-foot wrought-iron crucifix hanging in an alcove on his flank. Three standing candelabras formed a triangle around the room, casting overlapping illumination, while a smaller fourth sat on the long table occupying the room’s center. The table served as a desk to hold an inkwell and quill, parchment paper, a rough-edged, translucent, sky-blue crystal paperweight as big as a softball, more books of all sizes and textures, and a wreath of laurels crowning a human skull.
A log dropped in the fireplace, burping a cloud of sparks that died on the stone floor. Although it was June the fire felt appropriate; something chilled the air more effectively than an air conditioner.
A man emerged from shadows. “
Wer ist es? Was wünschen Sie?
”
One look told Valdes there was nothing unstable about the man. Contrary to the image suggested by Marlowe’s description he wasn’t fat—just the opposite. Standing about five-ten, Faustus had a slim, sinewy build given the illusion of bulk by the scholarly robes he wore. His ruler-straight posture suggested self-assurance bordering on arrogance, and as he approached Valdes his movements and demeanor described control, not indulgence. Only in the sorcerer’s face did Valdes get a sense of what the writers sought to convey—beneath his smooth scalp, Faustus’s chiseled Teutonic features glowed with intelligence. Disciplined, cobalt-blue eyes saw and recorded everything around him. He had presence to burn and Valdes felt the intensity of his focus. For an instant he felt privileged to be its subject until his own suspicious nature warned him not to fall victim to star-struck manipulation.
Faustus stared, waiting for an answer. Questions filled Valdes’ mind. He maintained a friendly, low-key demeanor. “My name is Cornelius Valdes. I brought you here.”
Faustus’s eyes narrowed. “Valdes?
Ist diese irgendeine Art vom Trick, Mephistopheles? Denken Sie mich sind noch so dumm?
”
“My apologies,
Herr
Doktor
. I don’t speak German.”
“
Nein?
Sie wirklich sprechen nicht Deutsches?
”
“But…you seem to understand English?”
“Conjuring requireth an enrichment of tongues,” the sorcerer’s features hardened, not giving an inch, “which thou, evidently, hath not. And without tongue to conjure, how dost thou command the presence of Faustus?” Without waiting for an answer, he peered about the room and said, “Loathe am I to understand how it is I am free of Hell and its torments,” he shot Valdes with another look, “unless I am
not
free? A new twist to an old game, eh?
Feh!
A poor jest. Faustus doth recognize the hand of Mephistopheles.” He circled the table before knocking his knuckles on it impatiently. “Show thyself, devil!” He glanced around the dark corners of the ceiling. “Pray end this round of amusement and begin anew the persecution of a sinner!”
“This isn’t Hell. At least, not as you understand it.”
Faustus peered at him suspiciously.
“My name
is
Cornelius Valdes, and yes,” he acknowledged, “‘Cornelius’ and ‘Valdes’ were the names of the sorcerers who taught you. An amusing irony, but nothing more.”