Authors: John Hornor Jacobs
Standing, she moved around the desk, toward the bookcases.
“Wait a second…”
Bending down, she rapped on the wooden foot panels of the bookcases, listening. She went around the room knocking each wooden rectangle. She couldn’t tell any difference between the sound of one panel to the other. She stood, rolled up her sleeves, and turned to the bar. There she pulled each bottle out of the enclosed space and put them on the green blotter of the desk. Scotch, gin, whiskey. Mimi’s port. The virulent green bottle of Creme de Menthe. Le Roi’s Peppermint Schnapps.
Jesus. Who drinks this stuff?
The dry-bar mirror glared at her, mocking. She went to the kitchen, and, surprised to find Alice gone, dug through the junk drawer, returning to the library with a flat-head screwdriver. Carefully, Sarah popped the mirror off the back of the bar, its silvered hide coming away with a ripping sound. The adhesive that fixed it left an ugly curlicue on the wall. She propped it against the paneling by the door.
Sarah put her hands on her hips and huffed in exasperation, riffling her bangs. Even though the air in the Big House was cool, her forehead beaded with sweat. Going to the far left wall, closest to the window, she pulled the stepladder to the bookcase.
Very carefully, she removed each volume, turning each book over and fanning the pages so that any paper, string, or thread fell from the book. Soon, a confetti of bookmarks, playing cards, ribbons, and flakes of old parchment littered the library floor. She made individual stacks of books around the room’s baseboards, each stack a small tower of arcane knowledge.
On the shelf that held the massive volume titled
Quanoon-e-Islam
she found the sword, wrapped in a chamois and twine and stored in the empty space behind the row of books, out of sight but not exactly hidden.
What had Andrez said? Hiding in plain sight?
She knew she had found it the moment her hands touched the covering, fingers rapping on the steel even through the chamois. She brought it down and untied the twine, holding the bundle to the light. As the chamois fell away, Sarah looked at the sharp metal leaf of steel jutting from the darker, leather-wrapped hilt. The base of the blade, where the thin cross guard met sharp edges and center ridge, was covered with a black grime.
Old blood.
A sense of dread washed over her. She carefully put the sword on the desk, full of reverence and loathing for such a deadly thing. All weapons hold the possibility of violence but this one had a history of it, and Sarah found herself uncomfortable and wary of its potential.
Standing on back on the stool, she groped behind the books remaining on the shelf, afraid of what more she might find. And then she felt it—tucked away in the corner, a small packet of papers wrapped with a strip of leather. The letters crackled in her hands as she lifted them, filling her nose with a scent of tobacco and vinegar.
She brought them to the desk and gingerly untied the leather strip. She turned the small stack over in her hand.
Gregor’s script, she’d know it anywhere. Taking off a sheet and unfolding it, she read the letter.
1923 - Salzburg, Austria
Brother Ware,
I’m writing you now from the courtyard of an inn outside Salzburg where Beethoven reputedly wrote one of his symphonies. They serve rich wine here, and as I write this, I sit in a sun-dappled nook of the tabled courtyard, the trellis above me covered in ripening grapes and leaves. Truly, an idyllic little spot. I plan on getting drunk, drunk as sin, drunk as a lord, drunk as Cooter Brown sitting on the fence. I have found the item that we have often spoken of, lusted after, and dreaded finding. The mad Arab’s treatise, Quanoon-e-Islam.
I’ve spent the last month combing through the estate of one Frau Kuester, who responded to our ad in the Kronen Zeitung regarding books. Her husband, who disappeared walking in the Tyrolean foothills—very mysteriously, Adala assures me—seemed to have a fondness for the blacker arts. I’ve found various books from that boorish English “magician” and sodomite which are pure bullshit, as they say back in Arkansas. In the Kuester shelves I’ve found a very early version of the Key of Solomon—a proto-version maybe, I haven’t finished the translation and the manuscript is in very poor condition so a comparative read is impossible currently.
Yes, I know of your opinion of the Lemegeton. But I went ahead and acquired the volume just in case.
That was the first week.
The enormous amount of books to sort through and the private papers of Herr Kuester—a very successful engraver—have occupied my time almost constantly. I spent two weeks more rifling through them until I found the volume. Strangely, it’s not titled Necronomicon. The content is not the Arabic but a Greek translation so the Quanoon-e-Islam is somewhat of a misnomer. And slanderous to the noble Bedouin tribes. That old argument between us.
It’s hand-lettered and illuminated, if you can call it that, illumination. It is a good stroke of fortune to have found a Greek translation of that vile treatise; I’ve arranged for an expatriated Macedonian scholar in Vienna to take a look at it and give me a quote for translation. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been in Arabic.
I’m uncomfortable with the Quanoon in my room. I sleep poorly and have bad dreams. Last night, after beginning my translation of the Lemegeton, I fancied something was at the window, peering in at me. Of course, this was silly; I’ve taken rooms on the second floor. But the feeling persisted, all because of the book. The illustrations alone are like windows into the worst hells imaginable. Tomorrow I will take it to the Austrian National Bank and place it in a safety box there and maybe I can get some rest.
I placed an advert in the Venice paper regarding the acquisition of old tomes of historical and occult bent, and I hope we can make some headway though I fear it might be expensive. I’ve found no other volumes, pamphlets, scrolls that might help us determine what happened to, or became of, our unknown murderous kin.
I need more money, brother. Adverts don’t grow on trees, and everything here in Austria is getting more expensive now that the League of Nations have set up shop in Vienna. Send the funds to the Salzburg branch of the Austrian National Bank, where I’ll be storing the Quanoon. Five hundred dollars should suffice.
I’ve been contacted by a priest, recently, who says he has some volumes of interest. I must travel to Florence next week to meet him. I have high hopes for the meeting. He tells me the work is called Opusculis Noctis. And another called the Book Eibon. I’ve never heard of either of these works before, so I am excited. Maybe it will hold a clue as to what happened to Wilhelm.
I will write again soon. I should be home by the end of the summer, gods willing, just in time for harvest. Kiss young Baird and little Sar for me and tell them I’ll be bringing presents.
Gregor
Sarah put down the letter and walked over to the stack that held the
Quanoon
. She picked up the dense book, weighing it in her hand. A wisp of her hair crept into her mouth, and she began to chew.
She opened the book to a random page, and her breath caught in her throat.
She lurched over to the desk and set the book down, pages open to the illustration, a picture rendered in simple brush-strokes with the faintest of coloration: black outlines, red gore, brown background. The illustration depicted a woman or a girl—her age was indeterminate—lying spread eagle on a poorly drawn table while two men assaulted her, one ramming a disproportionate horned phallus in her mouth and the other ejaculating onto—no, into—the bloody expanse of what once might have been stomach but was now, in the rough yet expressive way the illustrator had with line, a mass of guts. They’d split the girl open like gutting a fish, splayed her across the table, spilling roughly drawn entrails and innards outward from her torso. The men possessed faces—illustrated in the same rudimentary yet detailed fashion—resembling wolves. And in the gaping wound of the woman’s stomach and chest, a demonic face and hands appeared. The hands held a scepter and a crown. Blocks of Greek text surrounded the picture.
As she looked at the illustration she felt herself becoming divorced from the person she had been only moments before. The person she had been when she took down the sword.
She shook her head.
I don’t understand
, she thought madly.
I thought it was all just crazy people, crazy talk
.
I don’t even have to be able to read the Greek to understand what’s going on here
. The knowledge of the image suffused her, possessed her.
What other ways are there of making bargains?
Opusculus Noctis
said innocence and the will to do what was necessary was all you need to deal with …with… the Prodigium. If I took Fisk or Lenora and the sword down to the river…
She shuddered, horrified at what she’d been thinking. She walked to the phone and picked it up.
“Phyllis?” She clicked the receiver twice. “Phyllis?”
“Yeah, honey? That you, Sarah?”
“Yes. Please connect me to Father Andrez in Stuttgart.”
“Oh? You two hit it off? I guess you just got back.”
Sarah looked down at the
Quanoon
, staring at the hideous illustration.
Has it only been a few hours since I left Andrez?
She ground her teeth and could feel the muscles in her cheek tightening, her jaw locking down. She growled, “Whatever I’ve done or said is none of your business. I would like to remind you that my father was a major shareholder in the Bell Corporation, who I believe is your employer. If I look around here hard enough, I might be able to find the schedule for the next shareholders meeting. From there it will be an easy matter to make sure you never pick up a call again. Do you understand, Phyllis? From this moment on, you will neither listen in, nor repeat anything that I say, or any other person on this circuit.”
“Well, Sarah, I just can’t see why—”
“Do you understand? I will make sure that you lose your job if I ever hear that you’ve repeated anything said on this party line.”
“Sarah… I—”
“All you need to say is, ‘I understand.’ And then connect me to Father Andrez.”
“I… I understand.”
Sarah breathed into the phone, staring at the gruesome rendering. She turned the page. And gasped again. Another illustration, this time of two toddlers, each one gouging out the eyes of the other. Men and women watched the gory combat, their faces like gargoyles. Blood ran from the children’s eyes, down their bodies, pooling on the floor. One gargoyle-faced man used the blood to draw an enormous picture of a clawed hand with thirty coins in the palm. Sarah turned another page. A woman standing at a bench, a knife in her fist and her own severed hand lying on the floor. A horrible silent O for a mouth, as if she was singing. Through the door, a field. On the field, a black figure, watching. Sarah turned the page. A gigantic face with a dog in its gaping mouth. The dog’s maw held a serpent, and the serpent’s tail punched a hole in the back of the face, curved around underneath and became a gigantic phallus with a miniature face at the tip. In the face’s mouth stood a dog. Sarah turned the page. A monstrous octopus-like creature looking up from the bottom of a well, eyes black and liquid. Around the rim of the well, tiny people hurled children into the abyss, to plummet to their deaths.
Sarah felt uneasy on her feet, and the room began to distort and skew perspective. Her stomach tightened and her limbs ached as if she had a fever.
The phone clicked twice and in the receiver, she could hear the buzzing to indicate a ring. After a long time, he came on the line.
“Yes? This is Father Andrez.”
Sarah remained silent, breathing heavy. Trembling, she reached forward—her limbs like lead—and slowly shut the book. She took a deep breath.
“Sarah?” Andrez’s worried voice came through the receiver.
She swallowed and pushed the book away from her.
“Sarah? Are you all right? Please tell me you haven’t been translating any more of the
Opusculis
.”
She nodded. Her body shook as if a tremor passed through it, and she gasped one last time.
“Andrez. Andrez… I—” Sarah’s voice sounded raw, even to herself.
“Sarah! Are you all right? What is the matter?”
“I… I need your help. You were right… I believe you now. You must come—”
“Sarah, listen to me. I don’t know what has happened, but I will come—somehow. One of my parishioners will give me a ride. But where are you?”
“Gethsemane. Just get to Gethsemane and ask for me, or the Big House. Everybody knows where we are.”
“Yes, I will. Don’t read or translate any more. Promise me.”
She nodded again, then gave a rueful smile, realizing he couldn’t see her gestures through the telephone line.
“I just… I looked into the
Quanoon
.”
“What? What was the name?”
“
Quanoon-e-Islam
. I looked into it and… I…
What’s happening to me?
”
“
Bodanstvo
,” Andrez whispered under his breath. “Where in the world did you get that foul book? No. I am coming. Now. I will be there as soon as I can. Do not touch either of the books.”