He could make out just a fragment of an image, the tail of a symbol. That fraction was enough, and he dropped the paper quickly, unwilling to hold it longer.
The forbidden symbols had been taught to him only for the sake of recognition. For a moment he could not believe what he was seeing, but there was no denying it. The vibrations of the magic which emanated from it were too strong. It was definitely evil magic, the most evil.
The symbol was one of the dark runes. It came from
The Red Book
, the book that long ago had been stolen.
Stolen from hell itself.
Slowly, Simon let Althea sit up on the bed. With his hand still at her throat, he looked into her eyes, his own gaze boring into her soul.
"Do you know who I am?"
"I have an idea."
"I am the one who brought the demons. I am the one who controls the darkness. I could feed you to the demons right now if I chose."
Althea looked back at him without flinching, showing him she would not give in to his intimidation.
Her defiance only made a grim smile spread across his features. "You think you can stand against me?" He tilted his head toward her. "What do you fear most?"
She didn't answer.
His continuing smile showed that he didn't need her reply. He loosened his grip, caressing her throat with his thumb.
"You fear violation."
She couldn't keep her eyes from betraying her.
His smile continued. "Your experiences, they were harsh. You never enjoyed the love of your husband." Realization spread through his eyes. "Each time he filled you, you recalled what happened. It was more agony than pleasure."
She shook her head.
"I can show you what it would be like in other worlds," the magician said. "Would you like that?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" she shouted.
"You've seen the
Gnelfs
. There are others that might also touch you, caress you, enjoy you."
"No." She felt hot tears flowing.
"Dark angels, the love of dark angels."
“You bastard."
"Imagine an eternity of it, or just an hour.”
“Damn you."
"Prepare yourself. You can endure it for as long as you can, or you can help me."
Tears filled Althea's eyes. She wanted to spit at him, to curse him more, but her fear was taking over. She couldn't face the abuse he was threatening. Not even the stamina she had built up over the years would allow her to stand up against worse tortures than she had endured before. She couldn't go through it.
She wept, trembling, her arms drawn up in front of her chest. "I won't help you," she said.
At a wave of his hand, the shadows in the corner of the room seemed to flicker, and slowly the small stooped figures began to step forward. Their mouths gaped open in grins that revealed yellowed teeth on which their tongues played, and their eyes were filled with lust.
Simon's laugh provided sick background music for their approach, and as one of the
Gnelfs
reached out for her, Althea relived the moments from her childhood, cowering from an unwanted touch, whimpering as it drew near her.
She felt the oily hand brush her arm, and then, without warning, her face was jerked to the side. Simon's hand had shot up to her jaw, closing over it, to sharply turn her head.
"Do you want them to go away?"
She nodded, swallowing, feeling her throat muscles press against his palm.
He only seemed to blink, and the oily fingertips were gone.
"I can bring them back at any time," he warned. `Understand that?"
He shifted his weight off her and slid to his feet, roughly gripping Althea's arm and pulling her up as well. "Get dressed," he demanded.
She hesitated, and his eyes almost seemed to glow. His anger was evident. She had worked with many people on the brink, and she sensed that he was dangerously close to losing control, to dipping over into total madness.
~*~
The cab driver cruised to a slow stop in front of Martin's house. It was a red brick with large columns in front and a driveway that wound across rolling green lawn to a hidden carport at the back.
"You want me to wait?" the cabbie asked.
"I suggest you cruise for a while," Danube said. "Circle back to see if I am waiting. Otherwise keep moving. A cab parked here would be too conspicuous."
"Especially with a big black man behind the wheel. Got ya," Wilson said. Danube watched the car pull away through the gray afternoon haze before turning to walk across the damp rye grass.
Ignoring the front door, he went up the driveway and spotted the Lincoln parked under the carport beside a more extravagant MG roadster.
He eased past that car and crept to the back door. He could again sense the traces of magic in the air, but they were not as strong as he had expected. Martin's magician was not here. That was no surprise.
Gently, he pressed his ear against the door, listening. He could hear the faint sound of Martin's voice, apparently raised in anger although his words were not clear through the wood.
He tried the door and found it unlocked, so he eased it open and stepped inside. In the next room Martin's voice still roared.
"Well, tell him if he shows up there I want him over at my house immediately. He has questions to answer."
The phone was slammed down. Danube stood on the tiled floor in what proved to be the kitchen, listening as Martin clomped around in the next room.
Only a few seconds passed before the businessman entered the kitchen, stopping fast when he saw Danube waiting for him.
"Have you lost your sorcerer?" Danube asked.
Martin's reaction went from surprise to anger, then outrage. He jabbed a finger at Danube and spoke through clenched teeth.
"I thought I told you to get the hell away from me. I don't know anything about any sorcerers. You must be deranged."
"That accusation might fall more appropriately on your shoulders," Danube said.
A nerve jumped involuntarily in Martin's cheek.
"A powerful man who resorts to magic over something so simple as a love affair gone wrong. Is revenge that important?"
"She shouldn't have left me. She didn't give me a chance."
"Was it worth what you have wrought?”
“Everything's all right."
"We do not know that at this point," Danube said. "You have no way of knowing what your magician is doing."
"He does what I tell him."
"Is that why you have been so frantic to find him this afternoon? He was doing experiments last night. He might still be."
"Why the hell did you follow me?"
"I thought he might come here. He has to be stopped.”
“I'll stop him."
"He is not motivated by your cash. He is motivated by power. You only granted him time and an opportunity to test his skills. He needs you no longer. Your support is past."
"How do you know all this?"
"I know the corruption magic brings. There is only one true source of dark magic of the nature he uses, and it exacts a powerful price."
The businessman shifted nervously in the doorway. His tie was already loosened, but his hand went up to tug at it as if it were strangling him.
"You can't prove anything against me."
"That is not my purpose. I seek to end this. Let me. He will come here. This has to be where his conjuring was done. I searched his apartment, and the markings and magic traces there were rudimentary."
"You're trying to trick me, make me reveal something. Are you wired? It'll never stand up in court."
"My interest is not in courts. Show me where he performed his sorcery. He is very, very dangerous, and there is little time." For the first time urgency was evident in Danube's voice.
"I think you should get out of my house before I call the police."
"What happened last night? Heaven almost died. What happened here?"
Martin's silence indicated the evening had not been uneventful.
"I need to see where he has been working. It might give me an idea of what he has planned. I don't know where he is right now, but he will have to come back here before he does anything else to prepare himself."
Martin still hesitated. Danube crossed the room to him before he could draw another breath. Gripping the lapels of his coat, Danube pulled Martin's face close to his own.
"Show me where he worked or we could all wind up dead."
He shoved Martin away but continued to stare at him. A lock of his red hair fell down across his forehead, making him appear wild, dangerous.
"It was in the basement," Martin said.
"Take me there."
Martin hesitated. Taking him there would be a final admission of what he had done. It would reveal the strange markings and the other paraphernalia down there.
"Now," Danube said.
Martin led him through the kitchen to the stairway that led to the room beneath the house. He flipped a switch on so that the lamps he'd had installed in the side walls flickered on. Their stark white light flooded through the room, creating eerie shadows from the platform and floor.
Danube walked past the raised stand to look at the markings on the floor. Some matched those in the
Gnelfs
storybook. Others were from
The Book of
Raziel
. A few others he did not recognize. Those he found most frightening.
The ones he did not recognize immediately must have come from
The Red Book
, he decided. They resembled the markings he had read about, and the fragments he'd found as well. The potential they exuded was frightening.
He knelt beside one of the runes, running his hand slowly across the surface. It had been drawn with chalk, and the powdery substance stuck to his fingers. When he got back to his feet, he looked at the edge of the platform, where a brazier sat. He walked to it, looking down into the black ashes.
Though he picked through the residue, letting the gray crumbs slide through his fingers, they revealed no clue he could interpret. But the burning must have been conducted for a reason.
Near the edge of the platform, he noticed the brown, drying bloodstains. He turned back to Martin. "He cut himself?"
"Used his own finger to appease the fire demon you sent here."
"He's resourceful. That's bad."
"Why?"
"Because he's experimenting. He's trying to take magic and sorcery to new limits. What he might unleash in the effort could be devastating."
An ashen color spread across Martin's face, as if someone were stroking it on with an invisible paintbrush. "What do you mean?"
"Death for us. Destruction. Some of the great terrors of history were not created by nature alone. Earthquakes, famines, madness. They are the price frequently exacted."
Martin raised a hand to his brow, bowing his head slightly and blinking his eyes. "What have I caused?”
“So far, nothing that cannot be stopped," Danube said. "Help me. Has he spoken of anything to you?”
“He's just been promising that he could deliver what I wanted."
"He has given you no indication of what else he might have in mind?"
"No."
Danube ran a hand through his hair. He was frustrated, but had no outlet for his anger. He could not strike Martin, and he could do little to prepare for a confrontation with the magician.
"What is his name?" Danube asked.
"Simon. That's all he's ever told me."
"Not surprising. He considers himself the greatest of witches."
~*~
The greatest of witches sat silently in the passenger seat of Althea's car. He had stowed the dagger beneath his coat, but Althea could not bring herself to defy his will. In addition to his threats, she could feel some impelling force urging compliance. She suspected she must be touched by some spell in addition to his fear tactics.
She kept trying to force some way of resisting to develop in her imagination, but her thoughts would not serve her. Instead, images of the slobbering
Gnelfs
kept fighting their way to center stage, re-enforcing her apprehension.
She didn't want to be violated by the little creatures, dammit. He'd found her weakness, her unwillingness to endure the tortures she'd known before.
Her hatred of what she had been put through deepened her desire to thwart his efforts to terrorize Heaven, however. She thought about wrecking the car, but when the notion entered her brain, he turned to her with a wry smile, as if he knew everything she was thinking.
Some familiar was probably sitting on her shoulder, telling him every time her brain fired an electrical impulse. She wanted to drag her fingernails across the chalk-pale skin of the bastard's face, then spit in his eyes; but she knew she wouldn't move an inch before he knew what she was about to do.