Incubi - Edward Lee.wps (32 page)

"Veronica," and kissed her.

She had given him her gift. She wished she could give him something more real, but what else was there? This was all. She would give it to him again and again, for as long as he wanted. She would be someone else for him all night, and

"Veronica," he moaned again.

and she would not allow herself to cry.

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Creation often came to her as a trance, an autohypnotic removal of conscious things from the subconscious. Veronica thought of it as a veil, opened by the pure, raw energy of her muse.

Frequently she remembered nothing of a day's work...

Like now.

"My God," she whispered to herself. "I...I'm done."

The painting was done.

It lay before her on the canted table, a découpage of melded colors murkily dark and vivid bright. The Ecstasy of the Flames, she mused. The Fire-Lover. The canvas encompassed everything she knew as an artist: the relief-like abstraction of the background and its dimensionality, the splotch-and-line details of the id grotto. She had re-created herself using photo-realistic techniques mixed with Braquesque expressionism. In her glinting nakedness, she looked real, yet more than real, more than herself. She'd painted not only her flesh but her spirit too.

The burning man stood by her side, wavering between pointillistic bright fire and cubist geometries. Something lurked beneath its fiery beauty, something she'd never quite seen in the dreams. Flesh, perhaps. Flesh made perfect by fire.

Veronica couldn't look away. The painting, her creation, captured her. She was looking at the work's point of juncture, where her own hand joined with the hand of the burning man. This was the painting's focal point, its thematic nexus. It rose to be more than the joining of two beings. It was the joining of ideals and spirit, of desire and passion. It was the joining of worlds.

"You're finished."

The sudden voice jerked Veronica's head around. It was Khoronos at the door, dressed in white and hair shining like light.

"I'm not ready for you to see it yet," she said.

"I understand. Your colleagues are also finished with their projects. Tomorrow, perhaps, you will all show your creations."

"All right," she replied. Even though she was looking away now, the painting seemed to nag her, as if jealous for her attention. "It was funny. I barely remember anything all day. It was almost like I woke up and the painting was done."

Khoronos' eyes seemed brighter as he looked at her. "The call of the Sisters of the Heavenly Spring," he said.

Dante, she remembered. The Muse. But he was right. This entrenchment of creative focus felt like a higher state of consciousness.

Khoronos continued as if speaking above her, or addressing an unseen entity. "There is synergy, Ms. Polk, between the artist's physicality and her spirit. The equipostition of both is the ultimate achievement. Most artists spend their lives looking for this viaduct between body and mind. Most only touch upon it. But great artists live in it, become one with it. As you have."

"How do you know?" she countered. "You haven't even seen it."

"I don't need to see it to see your triumph. All I need to see is you." The words drifted. "I can see it in your aura."

Veronica didn't believe in auras. This was just Khoronos' way of telling her that her happiness was obvious.

"You have a beautiful aura," he said. "Such is the power of creation, such a blessed state, yes?"

"Yes," she said, not quite knowing why. But it was. It was a blessed state.

"I'm very proud of you."

Suddenly she wanted to cry. Did his acceptance mean that much to her? All she knew was that for the first time in her life she felt she had truly succeeded, and she knew that she owed it to him. She tried to look at him objectively. He must be in his fifties, yet the wisdom of all those years had kept him young in another more truthful way. He was beautiful she could not deny that.

He was beautiful the first time she saw him at the gallery. She'd stayed her attraction to him for so long. Perhaps she felt inferior, or unworthy. That was it. She felt unworthy of such a man of knowledge. But now she wanted him. She wanted him to come over to her right now and make love to her, to penetrate her at the foot of her creation.

She started to get up.

"No," he said. He knew. He knew what she wanted. Was her desire that easy to see? "There are still some ruminations that remain. Am I right?"

"You're always right," she said.

"I'll leave you now, but first I have a question."

She sat back down, looking at him in wait.

"It's preeminence that we're talking about, isn't it? Not just great art, but preeminent art."

"I..."

"Ms. Polk, anyone can create a work of art that succeeds. But few can create a work that..."

Transposes, she knew. He didn't even have to say it.

His voice darkened. "Ms. Polk? Does your painting transpose?"

She was shivering. "Yes. It does. I know it does."

This was the first time she'd ever really seen him smile. Just the faint, if not sarcastic, half-smiles only gestures of smiles. But this... He was smiling at her now, smiling with her glory and her happiness. His smile made her feel bathed in sunlight.

"May I ask its title?" he said.

"The Ecstasy of " but something severed her answer. She'd thought about this for days, hadn't she? The Ecstasy of the Flames or The Fire-Lover. But these weren't titles, they were frivolities.

At once she recognized that they were trite and stupid and inferior, not true titles at all.

She stared fixedly at the painting, and then she knew.

"It's called Veronica Betrothed," she said.

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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.