Cities of the Red Night (15 page)

“Todos nudos ahora.”

Kiki was wearing red shiny boxer shorts, and when he slipped them off he was half-hard. Jim was stiff and lubricating. I drew a circle around our bodies. We were facing south for the noon ritual and I had set up a red candle for fire, which was Jerry's element. The amulet was on the altar and there was a tube of KY by the unguent jar.

“When I say
ahora,
fuck him.”

Kiki picked up the KY and moved behind Jim, who leaned forward over the altar, hands braced on knees. Kiki rubbed KY up Jim's ass and hitched his hands around Jim's hips, contracting his body as his cock slid in. Jim gasped and bared his teeth. His head and neck turned bright red and the cartilage behind his right ear swelled into a pulsing knot.

Holding the amulet, I took a position on the other side of the altar. Jerry's face was in front of me now, as the red color spread down Jim's chest and his nipples pulsed erect. His stomach, crotch and thighs were bright red now, and the rash spread down his calves to his toes and the fever smell reeked out of him. His head twisted to the right as I touched the amulet to the crown of his head, to the forehead between the eyes, and to the cartilage behind both ears.

“Back to earth. Back to air. Back to fire. Back to water.”

For a split second Jerry's face hung there, eyes blazing green light. A reek of decay filled the room. Someone said “Shit” in a loud voice. We carried Jim to a couch. Kiki got a wet towel and rubbed his chest, face, and neck. He opened his eyes, sat up, and smiled. The decay smell was gone. So was the fever smell.

*   *   *

At two o'clock O'Brien called: “Well, I think we've found your head for you—or what's left of it. Can't be sure until we check the dental work.…”

“Where did you find it?”

“At the airport. Crate labeled
MACHINE PARTS
sent by air freight and addressed to a broker in Lima, Peru, to be picked up by Juan Mateos. The crate was being loaded onto the plane when the workmen accidentally dropped it and it split open. It was airtight and strongly built … it just happened to fall right on a seam. They tell me the stink was enough to knock a man down. One of them puked all over the crate.”

“When did this happen?”

“At noon. We sent along a duplicate crate and contacted the Lima police to tail anyone who calls for it.”

“Was the crate lined with magnetized iron?”

“Yes. We duplicated that too. The Lima police have two men planted in the customs broker's to watch anyone who calls for other crates in case he tries to check out the head crate in any way. A compass would tell him it is magnetized. We've got a wax head inside, so even with X-ray equipment…”

“Very good. You seem to have thought of everything. But just one more point: an object like that gives out very strong psychic vibrations that a sensitive could pick up on.… You might tell them to watch especially for an adolescent who comes for another crate and touches or brushes up against the head crate.”

“That's already been done. Captain Graywood told them to watch for an errand boy who might brush against the crate, especially with his ass or his crotch.”

O'Brien said this in a matter-of-fact voice, as if it were routine procedure. Dimitri, Graywood, and now O'Brien. Who the hell were these so-called cops?

FIRECRACKERS

There are about thirty boys staying in Skipper Nordenholz's “Palace,” as we call it. The number fluctuates from day to day as people come in from other settlements or set out on various missions. Mr. Thomas has taken
The Great White
and sailed with a small crew. His assignment is, as always, to recruit people with special skills.

The boys cook in the communal kitchen or on the patio. Here the Arab boys roast meat over charcoal fires and bake bread in clay ovens. Food is plentiful. We set traps for fish in the river and in the bay. A short walk into the jungle and I can shoot wild turkey and grouse and occasionally a deer. River fish can also be kept in the fishpond until needed.

We are all up at dawn for a breakfast of eggs, fruit, and bread. Then after a short rest there is instruction in bare-hand fighting given by Japanese and Chinese youths: the use of stick, chain, and staff, different styles of swordsmanship, and knife fighting. An Indian Thuggee gives lessons in the strangling cord. He belongs to a dissident magical brotherhood known as the Secret Stranglers who have separated themselves from the worship of Kali.

I take particular interest in archery since the bow can deliver more projectiles in less time than the guns we are making. I have made a number of crossbows to sell in the store so that the Indians will be able to duplicate the design. These bows are not as heavy as the usual crossbows and it is quite easy to pull and cock the bow by hand. I am more interested in speed of fire than in armor-piercing strength.

Dink Rivers excels at the martial arts. After a few lessons he is able to equal his instructors in proficiency. He explains that once general body control is mastered, any physical skill can be learned almost at once. He has promised to show me the secrets of body control but he says that the time has not yet come. “I get my orders in dreams and whatever happens in my dreams then has to happen when I wake up.” Often he does not sleep in the Palace and Hans tells me he has a hut about half a mile down the coast.

One night I dream I am sitting with Dink when he looks at me and says, “I think you should see this,” pulling down his shorts to reveal his half-erect phallus. I wake up in a state of great excitement and Dink says that the time is approaching. In preparation I must abstain from sex for three days.

At the end of this period, during which I had not seen him, he appeared in my room during the siesta hour and led the way out through the gate and along a path by the sea. We are quite close to the hut before I can see it, built in a clump of trees and shrubs, painted green and blending with the surroundings. The house is built of parts salvaged from grounded ships.

Inside it is cool and dark, smelling of pitch. The house consists of a single room furnished like a ship's cabin, containing a chest, a rolled-up pallet, and two low stools of driftwood. We take off our clothes, hanging them on wooden pegs and he indicates that I am to sit opposite him on one of the stools, our knees touching. He looks silently into my eyes and I feel a tightness and weakness in the chest.

He is getting stiff and so am I, the feeling of weakness now like death in the throat as we both are fully erect. Silver spots boil in front of my eyes and I have a feeling of squeezing into his nuts and cock as I lie on the pallet and Dink fucks me.

Afterwards we lie down side by side. He is talking in his clear grave young voice. I have rarely seen him smile and there is something very sad and remote about him like a faint sign or signal from a distant star.

“Middletown isn't like the town where you came from. There are no Mrs. Nortons sniffing around for the scent of whiskey and sin. We do not allow people like her in Middletown. To an outsider, Middletown is just a pretty little place, stone houses along a clear river. Nice friendly folk. But strangers don't stay unless we can adjust them to our ways. For those who must remain outside there is no land for sale and no work.

“Middletown is run by a magical brotherhood. You will hear about white and black lodges, the right-hand path and the left-hand path. Believe me, there is no such sharp line. However, the Middletown Brothers would not allow themselves to be placed in a position where they would need to use the usual methods of black magic. Once you achieve body control you don't need that.

“There is no formal initiation into the Brotherhood. Initiation comes through dream guides. At the age of fourteen, when I began to have dreams that culminated in ejaculation, I decided to learn control of the sexual energy. If I could achieve orgasm at will in the waking state, I could do the same in dreams and control my dreams instead of being controlled by them.

“To accomplish sexual control, I abstained from masturbation. In order to achieve orgasm, it is simply necessary to relive a previous orgasm. So while awake, I would endeavor to project myself into sexual dreams, which I was now having several times a week. It was some months before I acquired sufficient concentration to get results.

“One day I was lying naked on my bed, feeling a warm spring wind on my body and watching leaf shadows dance on the wall. I ran through a sex dream like reciting my ABCs when suddenly silver spots boiled in front of my eyes and I experienced a feeling of weakness in the chest—the dying feeling—and I am slipping into my self in the dream and go off.

“Having brought sexual energy under control I now had the key to body control. Errors, fumbles, and ineptitudes are caused by uncontrolled sexual energy which then lays one open to any sort of psychic or physical attack. I went on to bring speech under control, to be used when I want it, not yammering in my ear at all times or twisting tunes and jingles in my brain.

“I used the same method of projecting myself into a time when my mind seemed empty of words. This I would do while walking in the woods or paddling on the lake. Once again, I waited some time for results. One day as I was paddling on the lake and about to put out fishlines, I felt the weakness in my chest, silver spots appeared in front of my eyes with a vertiginous sensation of being sucked into a vast empty space where words do not exist.”

*   *   *

My time is divided between the library and the gun shop. The library is well stocked with books on weapons, fortifications, shipbuilding, and navigation and has also a large number of maps indicating the number of Spanish troops stationed in different locations, the nature of fortifications, and the Spanish sea routes with approximate times when they are in use.

It often happens that quite practical inventions are for some reason not developed. Here are plans for a repeating gun with a number of barrels rotating by means of a hand-turned crank. A repeating gun is one of my dreams but first there is some basic improvement required in the gun itself.

Hans and I, wearing only shorts, are reading the same book, our knees touching. Here are plans for a grenade—simply a metal sphere filled with powder ignited by a fuse, and a mortar that shoots large grenades for a considerable distance. I feel a sudden quickening of interest and a prickling sensation in the back of my neck. Hans seems equally affected. He is breathing through his teeth, eyes boring into the paper as if he were studying an erotic drawing.

We look at each other and stand up, our shorts sticking out at the crotch. We strip off our shorts and Hans grins and brings his finger up in three jerks. I prop the book against the wall on the far side of the desk and bend over a chair. As Hans fucks me, the drawings seem to come alive belching red fire and just as I go off, Chinese children set off a string of firecrackers against the door and I see a huge firecracker blow the library to atoms as a gob of sperm hits the book six feet away.

We sit down naked and Hans wipes his brow with one hand and says:
“Wheeeeoooo!”

I say: “
Firecracker!
That's the basic exploding weapon. It's all here, but they didn't see how far it can be carried.
Firecrackers
 … they can be of any size. Why not exploding cannonballs? One such projectile could sink a galleon.”

*   *   *

“Waring is expecting us.”

Dink leads the way up a steep path. Waring's house is on top of a hill in a grove of trees, concealed by vines. He receives us most cordially in a cool room furnished in the Moroccan style with a low table and settees. A tall aloof black serves mint tea, and Waring passes around a hashish pipe. Dink declines, since he never touches alcohol or any other drug.

At a sign from Dink, Waring gets up and leads us into his studio.

“While there is still light…”

His paintings are unlike any I have ever seen, containing not one but many scenes, figures, and landscapes that flicker in and out of the canvas. I can see
The Great White,
Harbor Point, fleeting faces, islands, flying fish, and Indians rowing across the bay.

Back in the sitting room candles have been lit, and there is a partridge pie with flaky pastry and a wild turkey
tagine
on a low table. I do not remember much of what was said during dinner.

At one point, Waring looked at me quizzically and said: “What you are doing is against the rules. Be careful you don't get caught.”

It was quite late when we left. Back in the hut, Dink rolled out the pallet and I fell into a deep sleep.

In a dream I see Dink standing over me with the most perfectly formed erect phallus I have ever seen. Now he is fucking me with my legs up and as I wake up ejaculating, I find that he
is
fucking me. I can feel his face in mine and for a split second he disappears and I hear his fourteen-year-old voice in my throat: “It's me! It's me! It's me! I made it! I landed!”

*   *   *

We can hardly wait to get back to the shop and set all hands to work. In a week, we have several different devices ready for testing. I have made a number of arrows, the heads of hollow iron filled with powder; grenades, with a shaft to be launched from a flintlock rifle; several mortars; and a projectile for a cannon, designed to explode on contact. The nose of this projectile, which is not round but shaped like a short cylinder, is of softer metal packed with flint chips and iron filings so that, being violently depressed on contact with ship or rigging, it explodes the powder charge. Inside, the cylinder is lined with Greek fire—that is, pitch mixed with finely powdered metal, this being separated from the powder charge by a layer of paper.

The time is now ready for testing. There is a stranded ship two hundred yards off the coast a mile down from our station. We proceed to the testing site with our bows and rifle grenades, mortars, and one cannon. Everyone is there: Strobe, the Iguana twins, Nordenholz, even Waring.