Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (40 page)

He surged forward and secured his contact with Argyle before drawing back, breaking the momentum gradually so the sudden change in speed wouldn’t disconnect their synchronization. The density coiled around his consciousness like a weightless snake, and an atonal twist of panic crushed his will, weakening the steady pulse of their communication.
 

He pulled back as slowly as he could, until he realized that their communication had snapped and he was alone. He heaved back toward the solid gravitation of his entry point, thrashing desperately against the tendrils of the alien mist...
 

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Argyle was bending over him. Orient’s temples throbbed with exhaustion and he sensed the odor of the presence clinging to his brain, like slime over his thoughts. He saw from the anxious expression on Argyle’s face that he’d been out for some time.
 

"You all right, Doc?" Argyle was saying.
 

"Yeah, fine." Orient took a deep breath. He felt very drowsy and the air seemed thick and damp in his throat.
 

"You were in suspension a long time. Much longer than I was. I thought something happened."
 

"I think I pulled back too soon," Orient said. He remembered the oozing panic that shattered the rhythm. The pressing fear.
 

"Not too soon for me," Argyle said woodenly. "All I felt when I got in there was that choking stuff. I lost my direction. You pulled out steady and sure. I was scrambling." He shook his head and stood
 

up. "She was waiting for us all right. Without a guide factor it would have been all over."
 

Orient didn’t answer. He couldn’t seem to focus on Argyle’s words. He just wanted to go to sleep for a few hours. It seemed like weeks since he’d had any rest.
 

Argyle looked at him. "You’re right, Doc. There is some force being generated. I could taste it."
 

"Yes," Orient looked at his wrinkled hands. "But what kind of force?"
 

"I know one thing about it. It eats away energy. We’ve got to get to Julian. If that bitch is responsible for the force, she’s predatory. That stuff starts to kill as soon as it touches you."
 

"But Julian’s still alive," Orient mused as he fumbled with his weary thoughts, sifting through possibilities. "Maybe there’s some special reason why."
 

"We just got to find him while he’s still okay," Argyle said.
 

Orient looked up at the large terrace window. A crescent sliver of moon shone bright in the black sky. He went back over the timing. Janice. A month later Presto. And Alistar Six. A month had passed since that night on Ischia. "That’s it," he said.
 

"What’s it?"
 

Orient looked at Argyle. "Pia’s following some kind of cycle. If Julian’s alive it’s only because she’s waiting for the proper time. That’s probably why she didn’t kill the others right away. Perhaps some lunar cycle. Some ritual period." He yawned and clumsily tried to get up.
 

Argyle held out his hand and pulled him up to a standing position. Orient leaned against a chair. He was dizzy and unable to think about anything anymore except getting to sleep. Every thought he formed was forced to plod wearily through the drowsiness to completion.
 

"Do we try again this morning like we planned?" Argyle asked.
 

Orient shook his head. "I don’t think I can cut it. I’m going to get a couple hours’ sleep. I can’t seem to function right now."
 

Argyle nodded. "Just as well. I don’t feel too sure we can get to Julian unless we find the girl first."

 
"We’ll comb the city for her," Orient promised. "First thing in the morning. All I need is a little rest."
 

Orient’s estimation of the time he needed to recover was optimistic. He was awakened briefly by Raga the next morning. She was kissing him gently, rousing him from a deep dreamless sleep. "I’m going out with Sun Girl and Argyle," she whispered. "I’ll be back soon. Rest until then. You were so exhausted last night, you fell asleep with your clothes on."
 

Orient tried to understand what she was saying but he was still half asleep. He had a blurred recollection of her yellow eyes and white skin near his face and her silver hair brushing his neck.
 

"Wake me up when you get back," he mumbled. He was asleep again before she had left the bed.
 

When he awoke again, he could hear the telephone ringing. He blinked and looked around. He was alone. His brain was still numb and his body ached. The phone continued to ring. He tried to take a deep breath and reach across the few feet to the receiver but he couldn’t complete either act. A wave of dizziness forced his head back onto the pillow. He made an effort to move but it felt as if someone were sitting on his chest, pinning him against the mattress. What little air he got into his lungs was stale and oppressive. The phone stopped ringing.
 

He closed his eyes and began drifting back into the yearning sleep when a realization of what was happening to him splashed against his mind.
 

Orient opened his eyes and rolled over, pushing himself up with both arms against the ponderous weight on his body. He grabbed for the telephone, knocking it over. When he finally picked up the dangling receiver, he falteringly asked the clerk to send up a bottle of mineral water and saltshaker.
 

It took a great strain of will to get himself out of the bed, stumble to the window, and open it wide. It didn’t help. The air was still inert and heavy on his lungs. He leaned against the wall, waiting for the waiter to arrive and charging his drained will to fight back against the enclosing numbness. He understood that Pia was directing her influence on him as she had on the others, attacking him with the full force of the parasitic mist. He had to defend himself against the relentless vibration that was sapping his last ebbs of energy.
 

He dozed off on his feet but the door buzzer nudged him awake. He started weaving to the next room, using the furniture to support himself as he moved painfully toward the door.
 

The waiter handed Orient the tray with a puzzled expression and asked him twice if he was sure that was his correct order. Orient assured him it was, and shut the door. As he carried the tray to the table, he felt the dizziness pounding at his balance again and barely managed to place the tray down before falling back onto the couch.
 

His only defense against Pia’s psychic attack was the ancient formulas handed down from races that existed before the first civilization of Egypt. And the simple ingredients on the tray, salt and water, were the chemistry of those formulas.
 

It seemed to take him a long time to pour the water into a glass and unscrew the cap from the saltshaker and dump the contents into the water. He was using the simplest and most effective agents for purifying the room of unnatural energy. Water, for its electrical properties, and salt because as a crystalline earth element it had the ability to absorb excess magnetism, the same way that onions absorb poisonous gas when placed in a coal mine.
 

He stood up and put his hand over the glass of water. "I exorcise thee creature of earth, by the omnipotent good," he rasped, "that thou may be purified of all evil influence in the name of Adonai."
 

Then he extended his arm and pointed the first and second fingers of his right hand. He traced the outline of the five-pointed star, the pentagram, in the air. At each point he invoked the names of Ra, Anubis, Osiris, Isis, and Rama. This was the second phase of the Formulary of Protection according to the alchemist Agrippa.
 

Immediately the dense aura pressing on his chest and limbs dispersed, leaving him free. The weariness fell away and a fresh breeze seemed to enter the room, washing out his congested lungs. He stretched his arms and yawned. He felt almost normal. He could sense the presence somewhere nearby but it was at a distance, not inside his body consuming him. At least he was able to think clearly again.
 

He moved easily to the bedroom, somewhat surprised at the quick recovery of his faculties.
 

As he dressed, his thoughts whirled around one certainty. If he didn’t find the nature of Pia’s force, it would kill Julian and him too. He opened the dresser and looked for a clean shirt. He had to find the key to stop her.
 

He noticed the cameras in the drawer and something jumped in the corner of his memory. He recalled that Presto had tried to say something. The XXX message he had written. He stared at the cameras as he buttoned his shirt. One was a Nikon, the other a Pentax. He speculated as to whether Presto was delirious or had somehow realized what was happening to him.
 

He picked up each camera and examined it closely. Presto may have had some intuition and tried to write it down. He opened the backs of the cameras. There was a roll of film still inside the Pentax. He put the cameras down and wondered what had happened to the rest of Presto’s equipment. Then he saw something that rushed through his mind, pushing all his questions aside.
 

The film in the camera was Kodak Tri-X Black and White. That was what he had meant by XXX. Whatever Presto was trying to say before he died was on that roll of film.

CHAPTER 24

It was mid afternoon and the Roman streets were almost empty. All the store windows were covered with iron grille gates. The only activity outside was the occasional cluster of workmen sitting at the small fountains in the sun, eating sandwiches, and drinking wine.
 

Orient walked quickly through the cobblestone alleyways, enjoying the renewed vigor of his physical energy as he checked the various photographic establishments on his list. Eventually he came to a shop that was open. There was a thin young man inside, sitting at the counter drinking espresso and reading a Mickey Mouse comic book.
 

It took Orient some time to convince the man to give up his reading and develop the roll of film but he finally persuaded him by offering to pay triple for the service. The man took the money and the roll and told him to come back in an hour.
 

Orient decided to take a stroll. His mind whirred with nervous anticipation as he wandered through the streets, waiting to see the positives of Presto’s undeveloped film. He didn’t have much time. Apparently Pia felt that he was coming too close and was directing the predatory force against him. He had blocked her with the Formulary of Protection but he knew it was merely a temporary measure. His only real chance was to find the key to the nature of her power. And the only clue he had right now was that roll of film.
 

When he walked back to the shop, he found the man waiting for him with the developed film and a contact sheet of pictures. Orient scanned the uneven rows of small photographs. Most of them were shots of various sections of a boat. Orient recognized the superstructure of the Trabik. There was just one picture on the sheet that was different. The picture of a man. Orient looked closer. It was a photograph of himself. He asked the man behind the counter for a magnifying glass.
 

The photograph showed Orient sitting in an armchair looking down at an empty chair next to him. He didn’t seem aware of the fact that Presto was taking his photograph.
 

Orient left the shop and started walking slowly back to the hotel, pondering the possible significance of the roll of film. There was nothing interfering with his thoughts but he was unable to see anything in the photographs that made sense. Thirty-five scenes of a Yugoslavian freighter and one picture of himself. Looking at an empty chair.
 

As he walked, his senses began to tingle with anxiety and his muscles tensed automatically. Suddenly his reflexes froze, like those of a man who unexpectedly meets a wild animal in the forest. His thoughts stood still, balanced on the knowledge that every move he made was important. The presence was circling and coming closer. He could feel the tainted scent of its vibration as it gathered itself for another assault. He realized that he had left one of his weapons, the absorbing salt, back in his room. He still had some resources available, but he had to act quickly and without error. He began walking faster. He felt the presence becoming denser, weighing down his arms and legs as it stalked him. He headed for a small fountain at the end of the street, forcing his will to move against the drowsiness that was coming over him. Then the vibration was inside his lungs, choking off his thoughts. Halfway to the fountain he became very tired, but he pushed through the numbness and fixed a picture of the Triangle of Imhotep in his mind.
 

When he neared the fountain, he felt the hovering presence draw back from his mind and his lungs opened. The area just around the spraying water of the fountain was fresh and clear. Orient dipped his hand into the water and invoked the Formula of Imhotep, the great physician of Egypt’s Third Dynasty.
 

He washed off his face. The moving water had the property of neutralizing psychic forces and he felt his limbs recovering their lightness and vitality. Right now the water was all he had to keep the relentless appearance of Pia’s attack at bay. Unless he found a way to stop her it would break through and consume him. And each time he invoked the basic Formulas of Practice the presence would become more adept at penetrating the defense. He had to keep varying his defenses. The most potent ritual, the one given him by Ahmehmet, was useless without the key to the number. The correct words of the object of his judgment. He felt the density swirling nearby. He had to keep his mind functioning while it was still at a distance. Unless he found the secret of the force while he was under the brief influence of his protection he would eventually succumb. He couldn’t keep it away indefinitely. He sat at the edge of the fountain and controlled his breathing. He relaxed his mind and went into a defensive meditation, concentrating his thoughts on the formula of Imhotep’s Triangle, the knowledge and forces tapped by the mystical physician and architect of the great Step Pyramid of Saqqara. Forces invoked three thousand years before the birth of Christ. The same forces understood by Moses, Pythagoras, and Rama. His mind drifted back and forth between the harmonies of that ancient force and the confusion of the present.