Incubi

Chapter 31

When Jack awoke, he thought he must be dreaming. He wanted a drink bad — certainly. Nevertheless, he felt wonderful. He felt…bright.

Faye was not in bed with him, but her scent lingered in the sheets. Whatever shampoo she used, or soap, made him dizzy. He pressed his face in the pillow and breathed. It was almost erotic. It was almost like…

Veronica, he thought.

Last night replayed in his mind like a forbidden film. She had let him pretend, to help him feel better, and that now made him feel bad. He knew that Faye liked him, and he knew that he liked her. But he’d used her to be someone else. He’d method-acted a lie. Feeling false was one thing he couldn’t stand.

The shower purged him. The cool water took some of the bite out of his need for a drink. “I haven’t had all I want,” he said to the mirror, toweling dry, “but I’ve had all I can take.”

He put on slacks and a decent shirt, and skipped the tie. Why should he wear a tie if he wasn’t working? His enthusiasm slowed, though, as he descended the stairs. What would he say to Faye? He didn’t even want to think about it. When he walked into the kitchen, she was hanging up the phone.

“Morning,” he said ineptly. “Who was that?”

“I gave LOC your number,” she said, and sat down to a cup of steaming tea. “They’ve been trying to locate a rare book for me, about the aorists. They found it.”

But Jack didn’t know if Noyle even wanted her on the case.

“It’s what they call ‘precaution printed material.’ It’s rare and not in good shape, so you have to make an appointment to see it. You have to wear gloves and stuff. My appointment’s at noon.”

“Before you waste your time…” Jack began.

“I already called that guy Noyle. He said, ‘The county very much appreciates the expenditure of your time and efforts, Miss Rowland. However, your services are no longer required, and we’ve terminated the subcontract with your department.’”

“The dick,” Jack muttered. “I’d like to kick his prim and proper ass right off the city dock.”

“I’m going to read the book anyway,” Faye said.

“Why?”

“Curiosity, I guess. It would be like not finishing the end of a story. Oh, and some guy from the National Enquirer called. He wanted to talk to you about the ‘Satanic Murderers.’”

“He can talk to my middle finger,” Jack remarked.

“I told him you’d been kidnaped by aliens with Elvis tattoos and were presently indisposed.”

“Outstanding,” Jack approved, and started for the Mr. Coffee.

“And don’t look at the newspapers if you’re in a bad mood.”

Asking first would’ve been redundant. His frown spread as he glanced at each paper. The front page of the Sun blared: “Ritual Slayings Plague Historic District.” The state section of the Post: “Satanic Cult Kills Three So Far in Bay Area. And the Capital: County Captain Fumbles Ritual Murder Spree, Three Dead in a Week.”

Jack didn’t bother outbursting: he’d done enough of that in Olsher’s office. Instead, he sat down with Faye, and sighed.

“You forgot to shave,” she observed.

“I didn’t forget. I remembered not to. Why should I shave — I’ve been relieved of active duty. Shaving’s a big pain in the ass. Women have no idea.”

“Tell that to our legs and armpits. And what’s this?”

She was holding up the $25,000 receipt Stewie got from the two guys who’d picked up Veronica’s painting. “Stewie thought I might be able to get a line on where Veronica was by running the signature. Can’t make out the name, though. It looks like Philip something.”

“Philippe,” she corrected, pronouncing it fee-leep.

“Can you make out the last name?”

“Faux,” she said. Fo. “It’s French. And a little bit odd. Faux means false or fake. Some name.”

Jack lit up and popped a brow. Philippe Fake, he thought. “Stewie thinks he works for the guy who invited Veronica to the retreat.”

“What happens if you can’t locate her?”

“It’ll mean bad news for her career. Stewie’s got a bunch of galleries wanting to do shows of her work. If you jerk those kinds of people around you get a bad name for yourself. Stewie’s afraid her credibility will be damaged if he can’t confirm the shows, and he can’t confirm the shows until he talks to her. And the funny thing is the phone number on the invitation was a transfer through a message service to a portable phone.”

“That doesn’t make much sense, does it? Why wouldn’t this rich guy just use his home number?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Jack admitted. He glanced at his watch; it was going on ten. “You’re going to LOC at noon? Let’s get something to eat, then you can come to the courthouse with me.”

“What do you need there?”

To see how far my lack of ethics goes, he thought.

It was only a two-minute walk to the City Dock. Jack got his usual cop’s breakfast: a big foil of fried chicken livers. Faye got a hot dog. They sat on the dock and ate, watching the boats.

He tried to look at her without being obvious. The morning lit up her nearly waist-long hair. She was pretty in her silence and faded jeans. Randy had told him she was in her early twenties, but just then, with the sun on her face, she looked like a precocious teenager. He remembered how beautiful she was nude, how soft her skin felt, how warm she was.

“The aorists were very methodized murderers,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Everything they did they did for a specific reason. Not like all this satanist stuff today, mostly disgruntled kids looking for a sense of identity. The aorists believed that faith was strength. Murder was a gesture of faith. They believed that the more severely they disserviced God, the more powerful they’d become in recompense from Satan.”

“But I thought you said they worshiped lower demons.”

“Yes, apostate demons is the term. Satan’s brethren, Satan’s sons. They were like antithetical patron saints. It was all oblatory.”

Jack ate a liver. “Faye, I don’t know what oblatory means.”

“It means that everything they did was a homage to the apostate demons, which, transitively, was a homage to Satan.”

Transitively, Jack thought.

“They were big on acts of offering is what I mean. Lots of the sects, particularly the ones that worshiped Baalzephon, were fixated on the idea of transposition. It means one thing trading places with another. Transposition was the basis of their offering. Murder for grace. Atrocity for power. They were also big on incarnation. Flesh for spirit.”

All these big words and inferences made Jack’s head spin. Apostates. Oblatory. Transposition. Jesus. “I’m a cop, Faye, you know, scrambled eggs for brains? Could you put all this in police terms?”

“Sure. The aorists were hardcore motherfuckers.”

“Ah, now, that I can relate to.”

“The leaders of the sects were called ‘prelates.’ They supposedly had psychic and necromantic powers. You want talk about hardcore? These guys would think nothing of hanging a priest upside down by a meat hook through the rectum and gutting him alive. They’d force deacons to have sex with prostitutes, or sodomize each other on the altar, stuff like that. These prelate guys meant business. In fact, their final initiation was a self-mutilatory act.”

“A what?”

“They cut off their own penises as an offering to be apostate,” Faye said, and bit into her hot dog.

Jack tossed his livers in the waste can. “Come on,” he muttered. He didn’t need to hear any more of this.

They cut through Fleet Street to the State House, and went to the basement. “Office of Land Records,” the milky sign read. When property was owned under a company name, you could sometimes find out if the company was legit by running the name through IRS. Jack’s first big tip on the Henry Longford case, in fact, had come from this office. Longford had bought land as a business expense; the business had turned out to be a wash. The guy who appeared at the counter looked almost proverbial: heavy, elderly, balding, and he wore one of those banker visors. Jack could tell by looking at him that he might not be averse to a little grease.

“You the recorder of deeds?”

“That’s me,” the guy said. “Whadaya want?”

I like him already. “I’m trying to locate the taxpayer on a piece of land.”

“You gotta give me a liber number or a folio. That’s the only way I can get the plat number of the individual plot.”

“How about the address?”

The recorder gave him the eye. “This a sham? If you got the address, whadaya need me for?”

“Actually I thought there might be a phone number in the file. There’s a dwelling on the plot. It’s a friend of mine I need to get ahold of. Can you help me out?”

“Look it up in the reverse directory.”

“I already did. It’s unlisted.”

“If ya got the address, why don’t ya just drive to the house?”

“This is easier. And besides, have you ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act?”

“Sure, son. Write me up a standard request and I’ll process it. Takes a month, sometimes longer if you piss off the recorder.”

“Come on, man. Help me out.”

“Can’t do it for ya, son.”

Jack frowned. Too many ballbreakers in this world. This was public information. “You think you could do it for Ulysses S. Grant?”

The old man got the picture straight off. “No, but I might be able to do it for Benjamin Franklin.”

“That’s a big piece of paper, pal.”

“So’s a FOIA request. Your choice, son.”

Jack gave the recorder a hundred-dollar bill and Khoronos’ address.

“Course, there’s no guarantee there’ll be a phone number in the file. Might just be names and tax dates. And there’s no refunds here.” The old man held up the bill, brows raised. “Yes or no?”

“Just get the file,” Jack said.

“What are you doing!” Faye whispered when the man went in back.

“Lubing a palm to cut through some red tape. Every plot of land in the state is filed here, along with the name of whoever pays the property tax. If there’s a dwelling, there’s usually a phone number too.”

“You’re bribing a public employee, Jack. Aren’t you in enough trouble as it is?”

Baby, there’s never enough trouble, Jack felt like saying.

The recorder returned from the stacks. “Tough luck, son. Like I said, no refunds.”

“There’s no phone number in the file?” Jack asked.

“No phone number. Just the taxpayer’s name.”

“I already know his name. It’s Khor—”

“Herren,” the recorder said.

“What?” Jack said.

“Fraus Herren, Line 2.” The recorder scanned the open file. “Funny, though. You say there’s a dwelling on the plot?”

“Of course. They don’t put addresses on vacant lots.”

“I know that. But there’s no construction date. Date of the building license should be here, and the closing date, tax dates. When you put a house on a piece of land, the prop tax goes up. All that should be here, but it ain’t. Someone forgot to amend the file.”

“Fraus Herren, you say?”

The recorder showed him the file. “Fraus Herren. Sounds kraut. Lotta German developers buying up the waterfront around here.”

Who the hell is Fraus Herren? Jack wondered. Why isn’t the deed in Khoronos’ name? “Thanks for your time,” he grumbled.

“Don’t thank me, thank Ben Franklin.”

Yeah. He took Faye back out. “I just paid a ball note for goddamn nothing,” he complained.

But Faye was looking at him funny, shaking her head.

“What’s the matter?”

“Jack, someone’s really pulling your leg here,” she said. “First you got a guy named Philippe Faux, and now you’ve got another named Fraus Herren.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I already told you. Faux, in French, means false. Fraus Herren, that’s German. You know what it means in German?”

“What?” Jack asked.

“It means false man.”

False man, Jack thought. He got out of his unmarked and headed into the city district station. Philippe Faux. Fraus Herren. Both mean fake. It was almost like a deliberate joke, and the joke was on Jack.

Faye had left for LOC already. Jack thought he’d stop by the office and see how Randy was doing. He also wanted a little more time to decide what to do about Khoronos. Should I go there myself, or just give Stewie the address and forget about it?

Randy was hanging up the phone when Jack walked in the office. “This place hasn’t collapsed without me?” he said.

“I miss the lingering aroma of Camel smoke,” Randy told him. “Really. We’ve been grilling Susan Lynn’s boyfriends all morning. Not a weirdo in the bunch, and they all had alibis that washed. Jan Beck came in earlier with the TSD workup.”

“What’s she got?”

“First place, the pubes. We got two different kinds of pubes. Unusually long, she said.”

“Just like the first two,” Jack added.

“Not like. They were the first two. The hairs matched and the semen matched. They also wrote the word — Aorista — twice this time.”

“In their own blood, right? Not hers?”

“You got it. And the subtypes matched the first two 64s. In other words, one guy did Shanna Barrington, the other guy did Rebecca Black, and they both did Susan Lynn.”

Jack poured coffee, contemplating this.

“And they really did the job this time,” Randy went on. “It takes a lot to turn Jan Beck’s stomach, but this did it. Says she never found so much jizz in a 64 in her life. Her whole repro tract was ruptured with it. Says the whole bed was a wetspot, and they gave it to her up the ass too. Beck was talking cc’s; she said she pulled the equivalent of eight nuts just out of her tail. These guys left more wax than a twenty-man gang bang.”

Jan Beck’s stomach wasn’t the only one turning.

“There’s more,” Randy said. “Beck thinks this is the last one.”

“Why?”

“First two, the perps went out of their way to disguise themselves. They wore the black wig. Beck didn’t find a single wig hair this time.”

“Which means they don’t give a shit anymore about being recognized. And that means they’re either ready to stop or they’re ready to leave town, just like Karla Panzram said they would. But I don’t think Susan Lynn is the last one. I think there’ll be one more murder.”

Randy looked at him inquisitively.

“Faye, the state researcher, found out a lot more about the ritual protocol. These guys worship some medieval demon called Baalzephon, some sex demon or something, an incubus, she called it. Once a year this cult would try to incarnate Baalzephon by a specific rite. They’d sacrifice three girls, one for each point of the triangle, then they’d do a fourth, to finish the rite. Everything she’s dug up so far syncs with what’s already happened. So that’s my guess. There’ll be one more 64 before these guys book.”

“That’s very imaginative, Captain Cordesman.”

Jack knew the voice at once. How long had he been standing here listening? “Ah, Noyle,” Jack said. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your face buried in the commissioner’s ass.”

Noyle frowned in the doorway. “I’m a trifle concerned that you haven’t yet enrolled yourself in the county alcohol program. Please do yourself a favor, Captain. Posthaste.”

Posthaste. What a dickbrain. “Why’d you shitcan Faye Rowland?”

“Because her services are no longer integral to this case.”

“They’re not, huh? Well, what have you come up with, besides handfuls of your own shit?”

“You’re a very profane man, Captain.”

“You’re fucking right I’m profane, especially when a no-experience little IAD weasel yanks my homicide investigation and fucks up a week’s worth of hard work. Faye Rowland found out more about these assholes in three days than you’ll find out in a year of hobnobbing around, running rap checks on a bunch of dance-club scumbags and bar cockhounds. Don’t you even want to see the information she’s compiled on the aorist cult?”

“The aorist cult,” Noyle repeated with a reserved smile. “I’ve read your preliminary reports, Captain. They’re quite…amusing. Fortunately we’re a modern police department; we have no interest in devils. What we’re concerned with are two highly dangerous chronic psychopaths, and we will proceed in the effort of their apprehension by following the standard investigative procedures, and maybe if you had adhered to the same standards you would not have turned this case into the biggest embarrassment in the history of the department.”

Jack stood up. Randy rolled his eyes.

“Listen to me, you little buttplug,” Jack said. “These guys are not psychopaths. If they were psychopaths, we could’ve caught them by now. They’re rational, calculated devil-worshipers. The only thing crazy about them is their beliefs and the only way you’re going to bust them is to research their beliefs.”

“Sit down, Jack,” Randy suggested.

“Their beliefs are irrelevant, Captain,” Noyle said. “We don’t investigate beliefs, we investigate crime and the perpetrators thereof. You might’ve solved this case by now if you’d spent more time on the suspects and less in the bars.”

“There are no suspects, you idiot!” Jack yelled.

Noyle stepped back without a change of expression. “And I repeat. You are officially advised to enroll yourself in the county alcohol program.”

“Posthaste, right?”

“That’s correct, Captain. Posthaste. A police department is no place for a drunk.”

Jack stood grinding his teeth. Noyle was wearing suspenders, the new craze. Jack was very tempted to give them a good hard snap.

Noyle left.

“You better watch yourself, Jack,” Randy counseled. “Noyle is one guy you don’t want to fuck with.”

“He can bugger himself,” Jack suggested, and sat back down.

“And you better take care of that rehab stuff too. He’ll ax you, Jack. He’s done it to a lot of guys.”

Jack mumbled something not very complimentary under his breath. He couldn’t argue, though. Randy was right.

“Beck left something else too.” Randy picked up a chromatography analysis report. “Whatever you and Faye gave her to go on checked out.”

“The tox screen?”

“Yeah. It turned out to be exactly what you said it was.” Randy squinted at the writing in the comments box. “‘Cantharadine suphate, endorphic stimulant, derived via series-distillation of Taxodium lyrata tubers. Indigenous to central Europe. Produces aggregant aphrodisiac affect through hyperstimulation of libidinal receptors. An oil-soluble colloid, will suspend microscopically in alcohol. Colorless, odorless, tasteless. No field in NADDIS. No record of criminal use in U.S.’”

“Great,” Jack griped. “Indigenous to central Europe. You’ll have to run a CDS trace through goddamn Interpol to find out where this shit’s used. That’ll take months.”

“But what the hell is it?”

“Something like Spanish fly, I think, gets you horny. The aorists used it in the Middle Ages for orgies and rituals. Beck found traces of it in the bloodstreams of the first two 64s. It mixes with alcohol, she says. The postmortems said Barrington, Black, and Lynn were all in heightened sexual states then they died. That’s how our guys picked them up so easy. They were probably putting this shit in their drinks.”

“All this weird stuff”—Randy gestured at his desk—“and I don’t know what to do with any of it.”

“You know one thing, though,” Jack cautioned, “and mark my words. You can bet there’s gonna be one more murder before this is over.”

“Here it is,” the librarian said. “Be very careful; it may be the only copy in existence, and it’s in bad condition. Turn the pages with the stylus, and I’m afraid you’ll have to wear these gloves. The amino acids on your fingers will damage the paper if you touch it.”

Faye donned the nylon gloves. “What about photocopies?”

“It’s illegal to photocopy any Class D precaution printed material. You can photograph the pages if you have a camera. If not—”

“I’ll use the copy machine I was born with,” Faye finished, indicating her right hand. “Thank you for finding this. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

The librarian left Faye to her cove. The book had been brought out in a lidded aluminum box, and rested in an acetate cover. It wasn’t thick; it looked more like a brochure than a book. The binding had been removed to reduce page wear. Its faded title in black ink on red seemed to look back at her.

No publication date, no copyright. The only printing information read: Morakis Enterprises. Translated from Greek by Monseigneur Timothy McGinnis. No author was listed either, and no contributors or bibliographic data.

The page after the title had a dedication:

Faye Rowland opened the book and began to read.