***
A cluster of figures emerged from the darkness near the stage; all of them save one immediately ran off; the last—Valdes—approached, brisk and all business. His good humor, so infuriating, was muted by an edge of tension and excitement. “Everything is going well,
Herr Doktor
? Is our lovely Vessel all ready?”
“I have anointed her.”
“Excellent.” Valdes inspected Faustus’s work. Joann twisted her head away from his touch. “Mephistopheles is laying the groundwork for my deal. My people are finishing gathering the necessary blood for the Amaranthine Gateway. If you’ve prepared
Joann
,” he stressed her name with a smile, “I think we’re all ready.”
“
Nein
.” Faustus reached into his wooden box and produced a rolled sheet of parchment. “Thou hast not completed thine end of thy bargain to offer.”
Valdes took it, scanned the writing on it and laughed. “A
contract
? You’re not serious?”
“As did Faustus, so must Valdes.”
“But Mephistopheles just made a joke about Marlowe—”
“If thou hast wish to enter the world of Faustus,” the sorcerer spoke as though to a child, a smug note creeping in, “thou must attend the rules. The Universe is thus structured, to maintain order amidst chaos.”
“I told Mephistopheles my plan, and he said nothing about this.”
“Nevertheless.”
Valdes pursed his lips, reached into his suit coat’s inside pocket and took out the knife he’d used earlier. A scab of blood crusted the hilt. “Allow me.”
Joann watched as he took the knife in his left hand, held up his right, and, with agonizing and deliberate slowness, sliced through the tip of his index finger. He didn’t change expression, holding her eyes even when he had to saw a bit to get through the bone. Blood sprayed up to grotesque comedic effect, speckling her skin. Horrified, she couldn’t look away as he held the severed joint in his hand while wrapping a handkerchief over the wound. Red immediately seeped through the white cloth, soaking it and running down his wrist. He turned to Faustus, braced the parchment and signed in blood with the mutilated digit.
“There.” He could have been an author autographing a newly purchased copy of a bestseller. Peeling the bloody cloth from his finger, he handed Faustus the nub of flesh and bone. “If you please,
Herr Doktor
.”
Faustus regarded him with disturbed eyes but repeated the healing procedure with which he’d saved Joann’s finger.
When he’d finished, Valdes turned back to Joann. His pleasant manner had returned, but with it also came the edge she’d seen when he’d first come over. “I don’t care what you think you know,” he said. “I don’t care what you think you’ve seen or experienced so far.
Nothing
will stop me from getting what I want. And if I’m willing to do this to myself,” he brandished his hand at her, “imagine what I’m going to do to you.”
***
Five minutes later, Donovan and Father Carroll were inside the South Gate House.
“Make sure all the lines connect,” the priest cautioned, carefully completing a star. “If I recall the remainder of the passage I cited earlier, it runs along these lines:
“Faustus:
‘The pentagram distresses you? Then, son of Hell, explain to me:
How could you enter here without ado?’
“Mephistopheles:
Behold it well, it is not quite completed;
One angle—that which points outside—
Is open just a bit.’
“If there are any gaps, he’ll be able to slip out.”
“Got it.” Donovan gazed about the room, double-checking their handiwork. The interior of the South Gate House was roughly the size of a grade-school classroom and had the dingy, dusty quality of a government office—yellowed walls filled with posted regulations, aged file cabinets, triplicate forms, a couple of worn desks and chairs, and a standing closet/locker. Every wall had tall, narrow windows. In front they looked out onto the jogging path, while in the back and on the sides they displayed the vast, dark pool of the reservoir. Each opening now sported a bright orange pentagram, including the back of the door they’d entered. In one rear corner, a spiral staircase of steel steps led down into the dimly lit bowels of the reservoir monitoring station, to runoff chambers and storage rooms.
“Looks good.”
He turned and saw the priest had gone to the doorway. Beyond was darkness, but they could both hear the cries of pain and madness.
“What is it?”
Father Carroll spoke without looking at him. “If Valdes is, as we believe, following in the footsteps of Faustus, he will eventually deal with Lucifer. All of this,” he nodded in the direction of the Great Lawn, “is quite a bit of pageantry. Are we sure it’s for the Prince of Darkness, and not the King of Hell?”
“What?” The prospect stopped Donovan cold. He forced himself to think rationally. “No, it can’t be. Everything Valdes has done so far has been very by-the-numbers. First the zodiac murders, then the
resurrectus maledicat
, now summoning Mephistopheles. I don’t think he’d jump to the next step without knowing what was going on. Rushing in could ruin everything. He’s too methodical to do that.”
“As he gets closer to what he wants, he may be more anxious. And less cautious.”
The concept was unfathomable.
The King. Of Hell.
“How could we tell if…?”
Father Carroll also struggled with the reality that Lucifer might be involved, and so retreated into a professorial stance. “Without seeing the ceremonial accoutrements it’s difficult to say. The pageantry is one indication. This is the King of Hell, after all. One cannot make contact with such a being using shopping mall candles and playing a record backwards. Royalty demands so much more, from a specific hue of the Infernal portal to a proscribed number of sacrifices upon arrival. In Lucifer’s case, that color is a shade of amaranth purple—the exact one is unknown and almost impossible to discover. Amaranth symbolizes the eternal; purple stands for royalty. The number of sacrifices is, of course, six hundred-sixty-six.”
“If the hostages they have are supposed to be offerings, there’s nowhere near that many.” Donovan let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “There were maybe half that.” A humorless half-smile formed on his lips as the absurdity struck him. “Guess that means we’re
only
facing the Prince of Darkness.”
“As odd as it sounds,” Father Carroll said with a rueful shake of his head, “we
are
better off. For all the earthly danger Mephistopheles represents, his domain is desire and want. He may succeed on a physical level but spiritually can be stalemated by faith or will. Lucifer, conversely, gains his greatest satisfaction from twisting man’s noblest efforts into something that serves the Infernal. Faith and will are tools in his hands. I’m at a loss to comprehend what it would take to
survive
, let alone fight, that.” He crossed his forehead. “I pray we never have to.”
Donovan’s heart still pounded. He went to a window to touch up a pentagram before slipping the small can of spray paint into his jacket pocket. The surface of the reservoir lay placid, as smooth and black as volcanic glass. An idea occurred to him, so strong an image that his head jerked.
Father Carroll noticed. “Something?”
Donovan took Fullam’s “skeleton key”—a large pair of bolt cutters to sever the chains holding the Gate House doors closed—and started outside. “Come on.”
Infernal energy trembled so strongly in the air it made leaves sway. All around them, the raspy voices of the possessed filled the blackness. Father Carroll walked around to the chain-link fence but Donovan stopped. Four hundred yards away from the Great Lawn, through a line of trees and brush, he felt the pull of the dark. It repulsed him because it was impossible
not
to wonder, even for a second, what you could accomplish with that kind of influence on your side. The lure Faustus had felt centuries before reached out to him…
He shrugged it off with barely a thought.
Faustus didn’t have Joann.
Father Carroll’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “What do you have in mind?”
“Most of what we’re about to do is going to be physical. Hand-to-hand.” Donovan snipped links, working the bolt cutters like he was trimming hedges. “Do you think it’d be to our advantage if they couldn’t touch us?”
“I don’t follow.”
“What if we were soaked in holy water? The possessed couldn’t touch us, at least not without enough pain to even the odds a little.”
“Soaked in…how could we accomplish that?” The idea intrigued him, but its practicality left him unsure. “By blessing the reservoir so we might go for a swim?”
“Absolutely.” Donovan set the bolt cutters aside. There was now a man-sized hole in the fence. “You just blessed some water for Frank. What’s different here?”
“
That
water supply was bit smaller than this. I don’t think the same Prayer for the Blessing of Water would have the effect you want here.”
“Then what about the Orison? You said it purifies.” Donovan stepped through the hole. “Why not recite
it
over the water?”
“It seems so…mundane a purpose for so powerful a prayer.” Father Carroll followed him, still doubtful. “Still…I would not have thought of that.”
From far to the south came gunfire. Donovan looked at him urgently.
“I’ll try.”
He lowered himself to the reservoir, which at this spot came up past the knees of his black pants. “It feel likes there’s a steep drop off just beyond this point.” He swirled his hands in the water, shifted his feet, raised his arms to Heaven and began to speak in a strong, clear voice:
“‘By the power of Christ!
Listen and submit yourselves to God! Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you! Draw nigh unto God, and he will draw nigh
unto you! Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your
hearts!’”
The prayer went into Latin at that point, so Donovan glanced around to make sure they hadn’t been spotted. The lights ringing the reservoir’s running path glowed dimly. Way up one side of the reservoir, he could see a figure jogging towards them.
Damn!
“
In nomine Saint Michael et Jesus Christ,
consummatum est
. Amen.”
Donovan kept his eyes on the figure. It kept coming, a flicker of white shifting and dancing in the shadows. He registered that Father Carroll had finished speaking, and after a few seconds he called, “Is that it?”
“I could do it again, to be sure—”
“No time.” He set Fullam’s Glock on the wall, took a few steps back and launched himself in a dive over the priest’s head. He hit the water with a sizable splash, and his clothing, leather jacket and boots immediately began to soak up water. Combined with the weight of the iron spires up his sleeves, they dragged him down into the cool, murky depths. Adrenaline charged his muscle and he pushed up, gasping for air.
Father Carroll had lunged out to him and was treading water. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Donovan clumsily stroked to the shallow area where the priest had recited the Orison. He swept his wet hair back from his forehead and hoisted himself out of the reservoir. “I don’t really feel anything. Should I?” He extended a hand to help the priest. “A tingling or something?”
“Do you normally feel anything when you touch holy water?”
“Well no, but—”
The scuffling of The Jogger’s sneakers grew closer. Donovan wondered if he’d seen them. He ducked back through the hole in the fence, leaving a trail that became a puddle as he stopped in The Jogger’s path. With a quick snap of his arms the spires slid into his hands. He blinked once and suddenly The Jogger was on him, swinging his right arm high. Donovan heard a wet cutting sound, and he gaped at the scythe-like blade that unfolded from The Jogger’s forearm.
The Jogger chopped the blade at Donovan’s head. Donovan caught the blade in an “X” of crossed spires. The Jogger growled as he tried to bear his weight down. Donovan swung their arms in a circle, forcing the scythe down. He slammed his elbow back into the derelict’s face. A white light flashed when his holy water-soaked jacket made contact. The Jogger grunted, stumbling before attacking again. Donovan ducked the scythe and whipped one spire. It cracked The Jogger’s shin, buckling his leg and dropping him awkwardly. Donovan slammed the other spire down, snapping the scythe blade off. The Jogger cried out in his creepy, warped voice and grabbed Donovan’s leg. Another flash lit the path when he touched the dripping fabric and The Jogger screamed. Donovan kicked at his face. His boot glanced off the side of The Jogger’s head. The Jogger threw a handful of gravel in his face. Donovan staggered and fell back, swiping dust from his eyes. The Jogger lunged. Donovan rolled along the chain links, grunting as the derelict jumped on his back. Its claws stabbed through the back of his jacket, drawing blood and thrusting his face into the fence.
“
The power of Christ commands you—depart from the soul of this man!
”
Father Carroll’s voice boomed in Donovan’s ear. Before Donovan could react he saw a peripheral flash of light and felt the weight of the derelict pulled from him. He spun, ready to attack. The priest held The Jogger in a full nelson, his knobby hands laced behind the derelict’s head to hoist him off the ground. Constant contact between holy water and possessed flesh made a hissing, spitting sound like frying bacon, and gave them an otherworldly glow.
Donovan raised one spire in both hands for the killing blow.
“No! He still has a soul!”
“That’s crazy! You can’t hold him for long!” Donovan looked towards the Great Lawn. “We
have
to go!”
The priest turned away, lurching back to the hole in the fence. “
Get thee behind me, thou unclean!
” he roared. Staggering mightily he fought the derelict to the edge of the reservoir. “
Begone from that to which you have no claim!
” He jumped, taking them both over the shallow ledge. They hit the water with a tremendous splash and vanished.
“
Father Carroll!
”
***
Fullam retraced his drive back down Fifth Avenue and across Central Park South to Columbus Circle. When he saw the man he was looking for he gave a tight smile.