'Who is Julian?' I asked as I started my second examination of the script. 'He's one of those guys with the Hindu background, isn't he?'
'Yes.'
'He's also the Master of the Temple?'
'Yes.'
Good news, that. It meant there wasn't another magus waiting in the wings. Julian and Antoine were more than enough. I didn't need a third adept to deal with. Doug had some skills, but they weren't anything I needed to worry about. 'What about Bernard?'
'He's an alchemist and a craftsman.'
'Do you know anything about what he's talking about?'
Kat hugged herself, staring into the darkness beyond the lantern's glow. 'No,' she said softly.
I believed her. Her function in the Hollow Men ritual gave sense to the memories I had lifted from Doug. Kat was their Anima, the spirit avatar that allowed them to sever their meat ties. She taught them how to attain a pure energy state. But they hadn't told her what they planned to do with this psychoanimist knowledge. And, as she had realized by now with their casual dismissal of her safety, they no longer had any use for her.
'What happens after you teach them to break free?' I asked.
'It's a test for advancement. They are awarded the rank of Ascendant.'
'What comes after Ascendant?'
'Anointed. It's the last rank.'
'How many have you Ascended?'
'Doug was the seventh.'
Seven. Shit. Okay, maybe there were a few I needed to worry about. 'What about Julian? You do him too?'
She took the question wrong for a second and, in that glimpse of her naked emotions, I realized something about our relationship, about how the ugly severance that night in the forest had left us both raw. Unfinished. 'Yes,' she said, hiding herself from me. 'I Ascended him. He was the first.'
'Okay,' I said, moving past what I had seen. 'That means there are five guys who can body-jack that I don't know about.' Five spirits who could be in anyone, who could surprise me at any time. More reasons to take advantage of Bernard's momentary insecurity and get the hell out of the container. More reasons to figure out a way to undermine the ward and get out of jail. The world, rushing back in now, filling us with the urgency of time.
As I examined a likely spot in the back corner where I might try my idea, the lock on the container clanged and the hinges groaned. I walked away from the section I was inspecting and quietly waited for our captors to return. Fortuna wasn't inclined to give me much of a break today.
This time, there were five gunmen-sporting an assortment of pistols and Tasers-who accompanied Julian and Bernard. Julian wasn't surprised to see me with the lantern while Bernard's mouth screwed itself tight. His mouth got even thinner when Julian leaned toward the bearded man and said something too quiet for me to hear.
'Put the lantern down, Markham,' Julian called out after Bernard gave him a terse nod. He put his fingers on the metal plates on either side of him, completing the circuit broken by the open door. The letters along the wall flared white-hot. 'Now,' Julian said. 'I'm not really in the mood.'
The base of the lantern clicked on the metal floor when I set it down. I took two steps back, signaling compliance with his wishes. Julian was most likely bluffing with his threat to ignite the ward but I didn't see the return on pressing him now. And, judging by the ease with which he had sacrificed one of his soldiers at the barn, he just might not be bluffing. I wasn't about to wager our lives.
Julian nodded to his men and they approached me carefully. The two with Tasers raised their weapons. 'Is this really-' That was all I managed. The first pair of darts hit my bare chest and my body locked up. The current from the second hit went right into my brain and switched everything off.
As a means of sowing discord and spreading propaganda, torture has been co-opted by a number of governmental intelligence organizations, imbedding the images and ideas into the mainstream social consciousness. But, like everything dragged into the shallow end of the pool, the practice has lost a great deal of its magico- religious refinements.
While the obvious intent was to break the flesh and Will, torture could also be used to break the soul. Hermetic thought-and the thread runs through most of the Gnostic literature and philosophy-argued there are two aspects of humanity: the gross mortal aspect of the body and the immortal, immutable aspect of the soul. While both were still part of the Ineffable-by whatever name you like to call it, it was that which resided in everything and which everything resided within-it was the body that was cast as the villain. The body dragged the soul down to the world of matter and decay. Only through purification and prurient separation from the decadent and materialistic nature of the body could the soul remember its divine origin.
The Zen Buddhists encapsulated all of this in the simple koan of asking you to remember the face you had before you were born. That was the high road.
Hermeticism-the fragmented thoughts and writings of Hermes Trismegistus-didn't condone torture. The work didn't even mention it. Very few of the old texts do. It was only the black cancer of the Middle Ages that infected esoteric thought with the concept of scourging the flesh-assisted by the whips and devices invented by the Catholic Church during the heyday of the Inquisition.
Breaking a man was an act of subjugation, of bending his Will to the desires of his interrogator. Those who couldn't create, turned to domination. The shortcut of the diabolists. Mankind was always on the lookout for a good shortcut.
The Iron Maiden was one such subjugation tool. A large cabinet topped with a sculpted head of the Madonna, the device had long iron spikes mounted on the inside of the door panels. When it was closed, the poor bastard inside was strategically pierced to ensure maximum non-lethal agony. The victims of the Maiden's embrace would die slowly, in a great deal of pain. Compounded by persistent needling from their interrogators about the need for repentance. Before the blood loss killed them, damning them to the hell reserved for heretics.
Maidens were unwieldy and a nuisance to transport. Few were made and, other than one found in Iraq a few years ago, they've been out of favor for a long time. Which isn't to say that the concept has lost its appeal.
When I woke up from being Tasered again, I found myself inside an Iron Maiden, the porcupine tickle of its spikes against my skin. I tried to not squirm too much as I tried to make sense of my new surroundings.
At the very least, I wasn't in the shipping container any longer.
My wrists were restrained again, held in place by thick leather straps. My bare feet were resting on a cold piece of metal, and I was in a partially reclined position, leaning against a curved chair back. A large breastplate attached to the frame of the chair held me down at this awkward angle. Studded with metal spikes, the interior of the plate was lowered close enough that the points pressed against my flesh. They weren't penetrating. Not yet. As long as I kept still.
Behind me, I could see an insulated cable descending from the ceiling. It split into thick cords terminating in metal posts attached to the peak of the chair. The chair (what I could see of it) was a massive piece of work: heavy oak pieces, worn smooth from years of attention; pitted iron bands wrapping the arms and legs. There were stains on the wood and dark oxidation scars on the metal.
It was an old electric chair, and the purpose of the thick cable suddenly made sense.
What were the odds of me holding still when they flipped the switch and threw a lot of juice into the chair? Not only would I be quaking and baking, but every heaving twitch of my chest would impale me more and more on the spikes of the Maiden.
My own fear was going to get me killed. And, before I thought about it more than that, I tried to redirect my active mind into a meditative state.
I felt my chest relax. Some of the pressure from the spikes eased, and I could focus on the area beyond the electric chair and its sadistic breastplate.
The room was long and white, a coat of industrial paint on the walls and ceiling. A trio of floor lamps made round pools on the ceiling, the ambient scatter reflecting off the white walls. Directly in front of me was a tall object
