The Seal of Solomon (29 page)

“This isn't going to work,” I said after a hundred miles had slid by and the words on the page had become black blobs swimming before my eyes.

“You should try to sleep,” he said.

I shook my head. “What I'd really like to do is brush my teeth. I can't remember the last time I brushed them. You know, they're the one thing about my personal appearance I actually took pride in.” I ran my tongue over the front ones and my left incisor jiggled. Knowing what was going to happen didn't calm me any as I reached into my mouth and gave the tooth a gentle push. It broke off in my mouth. I spat the tooth into my palm.

“What is it?” Op Nine asked.

The coppery taste of blood in my mouth. The broken tooth in my hand. The weeping sores all over my body.

“Alfred?”

I flung the tooth to the floorboards and, knowing I shouldn't, reached back into my mouth and tugged at one of my molars. I heard a squishing sound as it pulled free from the gum.

“Jerks,” I breathed. “Those dirty, demonic jerks!”

I hurled the molar against the windshield. Op Nine whipped his head in my direction as I began to stamp my foot as hard as I could, throwing such a fit he must have thought this time I had really lost it. He took his foot off the accelerator and I screamed at him to speed up.

My hissy fit didn't last long; hissy fits take energy, and I didn't have much left. In fact, I didn't have much of anything left: I ran my hands through my hair and huge wads of it came away in my fists. By this point the fact that my hair was falling out left me numb.

Bit by bit since that night in the Sahara, they had been chipping away at me and I thought I would be just a nub of myself by the time we reached the devil's door. Nub-o'-Kropp. The skin felt loose on my body and I wondered if it might start sloughing off like a snake's, leaving my muscles and tendons exposed like those 3-D models they use in science class to teach human anatomy.

I sat back in the seat, gasping and snuffling, and Op Nine didn't say anything but kept his hands tight on the wheel and his eyes fixed on the tiny black hole straight ahead, and after a while I noticed the tunnel's walls had changed color from cotton white to deep yellow. After a few more miles the yellow had darkened to a dusky orange.

“What's going on?” I asked. Op Nine didn't answer. I said, “You talked more before you knew who you were. What is it— too dangerous to talk? Something classified might slip out?”

“My memory returned at the cabin. I was in the back when I heard the fight by the front door. I followed the sound and saw you and Mike rolling down the hill. At that moment it all came back to me.”

“When it came back to me, it hit like a freight train.”

“Yes. My experience was similar.”

I flipped the book back open to the incantations, and tore the page containing the Words of Constraint from the binding. He winced at the sound. Then I folded the page into quarters and jammed it into the front pocket of my Dockers.

“You realize there will be very little oxygen,” he said. “There is a strong likelihood you will pass out.”

I thought about telling him there was a strong likelihood I would take the heavy book in my lap and smack him over the head with it, but I didn't say anything.

“Or freeze to death.”

“
Okay
. . .”

“And your entire plan hinges on the assumption of anthropomorphism.”

“Yeah, I was worried about that,” I said. “The anthropomorphism.” “They do not think as we do, Alfred. Paimon may decide to find another way to the Seal.”

“Then why send me to find it in the first place? They had the chance to kill me in that house in Evanston. Why didn't they?”

He pursed his lips, his eyes glued to the road.

“You know why, don't you?” I asked.

“I have a theory.”

“I'd love to hear it.”

“I don't know if that would be wise.”

“Right. Not wise. Like taking my blood from me was.”

“You know why we didn't tell you.”

“The First Protocol?”

He nodded. I said, “But you can supersede the First Protocol, right? You're the SPA; you can ignore all of them if you want. Anyway, it makes sense now, why you kept me so close afterward. Had to protect your source of the active agent, didn't you?”

My teeth jiggled in their sockets as I talked, so I tried to move my tongue as little as possible, which slurred my words and made me sound like a dental patient, my mouth stuffed with cotton.

“For years, Alfred, I worked to build a weapon that had the potential to control an intrusion agent, but the difficulty was finding an active agent—until Dr. Smith showed me your dossier immediately following Mike's theft of the Seals. It occurred to me your blood might have certain properties . . .”

“So once you had me on the
Pandora
, you drained my blood through my armpit and stuck it into the bullets.”

“We were desperate.”

He betrayed thee once! He will betray thee again!

The walls of the tunnel had darkened to bloodred. I figured we were getting close to the door.

“I'm going to get one of these cars when this is over,” I said. I figured maybe if I kept talking the voice inside my head would shut up. “Girls might notice me then. But I'd have to follow the speed limit and I'm thinking that would seem really slow now that I've taken it to the max. I think I would resent them. I mean traffic laws, not girls. Is that what happens once you start ignoring the rules, Samuel? I've got this feeling that when I'm back in school I'm going to laugh in the face of my math teacher when she hands out the tests. I used to sweat buckets before a test, get sick to my stomach, get the shakes. I don't think that's going to happen now. And I was scared to death of girls, especially the pretty ones, but after this, girls are cake. Except it might be hard getting a date with no teeth and smelling like a sewer pipe.”

Op Nine took a deep breath and said, “There is always tension, Alfred, between the life we want and the life we find.” He eased off the accelerator and added, “The tunnel veers to the right ahead. I think we have reached the exit.”

53

I checked the time as Op Nine bore right onto the exit ramp.

“About thirty minutes to spare,” I said. “That's good. I'm not usually this punctual.”

The car shook suddenly as thunder crashed overhead.

“I figured they'd pull out all the stops: thunder and lightning, ice and fire from the sky, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, you name it. It's very biblical, but you read the Bible and half the catastrophes are caused by God. You were a priest. What's that about?”

After about half a mile, the tunnel made a sharp left, then a right, and coming out of this turn we saw it, a spinning mass of orange flecked with white, directly ahead. Where the red walls of the tunnel met this light was a ring of pure white flame, and I thought of the circus and the flaming rings they made those poor big cats jump through.

Op Nine slowed to a crawl, and maybe a hundred yards from this burning mouth before the devil's door, he brought the car to a full stop and turned off the engine.

“This is folly, Alfred,” he murmured.

“Shut up,” I said.

“Madness.”

“Cut it out, will ya? What kind of pep talk is this?” I started to shiver, though it was warm inside the car. My lower jaw was jerking up and down as I shook and I was afraid the rest of my teeth would shatter. “You're supposed to be comfor—comforty—
comforting
me. You must have been a lousy priest.”

“I
was
a lousy priest.”

I looked over at him. He was staring into the mouth of fire.

“Samuel,” I said. “What did you see in Abalam's eyes?”

“You know what I saw.”

“Abkhazia?”

He nodded. I could see the orange and white fire reflected in his dark eyes.

“Abkhazia, near the Black Sea, and home to Krubera, the deepest cave on earth. The Company had received reports of . . . unusual phenomenon in that region, the most compelling of which came from a team of
National Geographic
explorers, who had descended to the five-thousand-foot mark of the cave before abruptly returning to the surface. You know the area of my expertise, Alfred, so I needn't tell you the nature of those most unusual reports and what drove a team of experienced, highly regarded scientists to abandon their quest to reach the deepest recesses of Krubera. There are some things deep within the belly of the earth that should never be disturbed.

“On July 18, 1983, two of us were inserted into Krubera. Myself and the very best operative the Company had at the time—a young man with a brilliant future, a protégé of mine who idolized me and who would obey any order I gave, no matter how ridiculous. These are the kind of agents OIPEP looks for, Alfred. Men and women who are willing to challenge the very gates of hell itself for the sake of the mission.” He gave a bitter laugh. “The mission!”

“On the third day of our descent, as we reached the four-thousand-foot mark, an earthquake struck, as is common in that region. I would like to say it was borne of natural causes . . . but I cannot say that; even to this day, I cannot say that. The cave collapsed a thousand feet above us, burying us under three tons of rock. We had carried in enough water and rations to sustain two people for seven days.”

He swallowed hard, and I watched his prominent Adam's apple bob up and down.

“Or one person for fourteen days,” he added.

“So your friend was killed in the earthquake?” I asked.

“No. No, Alfred. We survived the quake with only minor injuries.”

“But Ashley said you were the only one to come out alive.”

He nodded. “The Company dispatched a rescue team at once, for our communications to the surface had not been lost. They radioed down to us an estimate of the time it would take to dig us out . . . thirty days.”

He fell silent. The silence went on and on. I was shaking so badly by this point, my neck had begun to hurt.

“So . . . so he starved to death? But if you were down there for a month, how did you keep from starving too?”

“He did not starve, Alfred.”

“Well, if he didn't starve, then . . .” I stopped. “Oh, God. You didn't.”

“You said before that I supersede the First Protocol. It is more accurate to say that I
am
the First Protocol. I am the personification of it. I am the Superseding Protocol Agent, the Operative Nine. I am the mission, and the mission must survive.”

He looked at me then, the first he had looked at me since he began his story.

“And I did that which must be done to preserve the mission.” I cleared my throat. “It still doesn't add up. Thirty days to get you out and you had rations for only two weeks. How did you . . . ?”

I waited for an answer, but I already knew the answer and it struck me suddenly how cruel I was being, asking him to give it.

“So you see, Alfred, sometimes it is a good thing to be a Section Nine operative. To have no name and no past and no . . . barriers. It is codified absolution. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I read the section over and over, like a dying man reads the Scriptures to quell his terror. But the comfort it gives is fleeting. For whatever remained of Father Sam before Abkhazia died in the abyss called Krubera.”

54

He was staring at the juncture where the tunnel of smoke met the rings of fire.

“Samuel,” I said. “Time's up. We have to go.”

“I can't go with you, Alfred,” he said.

“What do you mean you can't go with me?”

He turned to me and tears were in his eyes. “You spoke of that place—the point between desperation and despair. I know that place well, Alfred. And we have been there, you and I, since the Seal was lost.”

“This isn't you,” I said. “It's them. Don't let them do this to you, Samuel. I need you. I don't think I can do this without you.”

“We have been fools, Alfred. It was over the moment Paimon obtained the ring. It is Krubera repeating itself, except this time there is no hope of rescue. There is no hope at all.”

He leaned in and whispered, “Do you know why they hate us so much, Alfred? Because of hope. They have none, and so they hate us for it. But I think they hate you most of all, for the power of heaven itself courses through your veins. Their hatred of you is only exceeded by their fear. It was fear that stayed their hand in Evanston, fear of what might be released should they kill you.”

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out the same metal flask he had used in the desert, before our assault on the demon hordes. He unscrewed the top and shook some of the water onto his trembling fingers. His voice was shaking too, as he traced the sign of the cross on my forehead.

“
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.
God bless and keep you, Alfred Kropp, last son of Lancelot, Master of the Holy Sword, favored of Saint Michael the Archangel, Prince of Light, God's champion who hurled the outcasts from heaven—may he guard and bring you safely through this trial.”