Incubi

“Here’s another way of looking at it, and stop me if I’m getting on your nerves.”

“You’re getting on my nerves.”

Craig grinned. “First, look at yourself. You’re drinking too much, you feel dismal, and you’re depressed. Since the minute Veronica broke up with you, you’ve been miserable.”

“I don’t need to hear this, Craig.”

“Yes, you do. Okay, we’ve established that you’re miserable.” Craig paused, probably for dramatic effect. “Is Veronica miserable?”

The question sunk deep. Was Craig trying to make him feel worse? The answer was obvious.

Veronica is not miserable. Right now she’s partying it up with Khoronos. I’m miserable and she’s probably having the time of her life. She’s happier…without me.

“See?” Craig said, pouring a Betsey Bomber and Bloody Mary at the same time. “It hurts, sure. It’s the last thing in the world you want to think. But you have to face it, and get on with your life.”

“I know,” Jack whispered.

“And you’re better than all that shit.”

Craig walked away, taking beer lists to some newcomers. Am I really? Jack thought.

He went upstairs to the men’s room, where the walls proved more of the Undercroft’s diversity. No phone numbers or cuss words — the ’Croft sported highbrow graffiti only. “Loss of love equals loss of self,” someone had written. Jack frowned as he whizzed. “The sleep of reason breeds monsters.” Better, he thought. “The test of will is man’s ultimate power,” read another.

I don’t feel very powerful today. He went back down with full intention of ordering another drink.

“Captain Cordesman?” Craig was inquiring. “See that guy there, with the long hair and off-duty gun in his pocket? That’s him.”

A girl, either timid or annoyed, came around the bar. There was some kind of plainness about her; she was attractive through no overt kind of beauty. Her roundish face lent her a cast of frayed innocence; her gray eyes seemed extant. She was neither fat nor skinny in simple faded jeans. A plain print blouse accommodated a plenteous bosom, and a straw-colored ponytail hung nearly to her waist. She was carrying a briefcase.

“Captain Cordesman?”

“At your service.”

“I’m Faye Rowland. Lieutenant Eliot said I might find you here.”

“Jack lives here,” Craig cut in. “He sleeps on the bar after we close. We let him shave in the men’s room.”

Faye Rowland frowned at the jokes. “I’m an information systems technician for the state public service commission.”

“Oh, you must be my researcher.”

“That’s right. Someone named Olsher made the arrangements with my department head. I’m on loan as long as you need me.”

Jack had hoped for an associate prof or at least a T. A. from the university. Instead they’d sent him a systems jockey.

“All I know about your case is what your office faxed me this morning,” she went on. “They said there’s a big rush on it so I thought maybe you could brief me tonight. Save time.”

Jack wasn’t used to people hunting him down in bars on business. At least she was dedicated. He took her to a corner table. From her briefcase she withdrew color dot-matrix prints of Shanna Barrington’s walls, and Jack’s initial 64 summary.

“The very first thing you have to do is find out what aorista means,” he told her. “That’s the—”

“Aorista is an exclamatory form of the noun aorist. It indicates an intransitive verb tense. It’s in the Oxford dictionary.”

Jack felt dumbly impressed.

“Denotatively, it’s a grammatical inflection from Greek and Sanskrit, a set of inflectional verb forms which denotes action without specific reference to duration. In this case, though, I think you’re probably looking for the common connotation.”

“Which is?”

“A process which doesn’t end.”

The possibilities pricked him at once. He ordered another drink and a pint of Wild Goose for the girl. The girl, he thought. What did she say her name was? Faye? Faye something?

“A process,” he said. “Could it be a ritual that doesn’t end?”

“Sure. It’s a connotation. It could apply to anything.”

A ritual that doesn’t end, Jack pondered.

“How was the girl murdered?” Faye Rowland asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“No, but I need to know once I start digging into current U.S. cult activities. Any detail you can give me might help make a tie.”

Jack hesitated. It was one image he’d never clean from his head. “She was eviscerated,” he said.

Faye Rowland didn’t flinch. “Was her heart missing?”

“No,” Jack replied with raised brow.

“Were any of her organs missing?”

“No. Some of her organs were removed and placed around her on the bed. But none of them were taken.”

“What about her head? Was her head missing?”

Jesus. “No. Nothing was missing. Why?”

“Organs and heads are big with several devil-worship cults in this country, particularly heads. They believe the heads of their adversaries give them power. Was the murder victim baptized?”

“I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

“Unsanctified sacrifices are big too. There was one group in Texas a few years ago — they murdered six unbaptized babies before the FBI busted them. They’d make good-luck charms out of their fingers and toes. Severed pudenda, particularly those of infants, were considered a supreme protection from enemies.”

Jack ordered yet another drink. He had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

Chapter 8

“What is this shit?” Ginny whispered.

Veronica didn’t know. Gilles and Marzen served “dinner” at the long linened table. Khoronos sat appropriately at the head.

“It’s sashimi,” he said.

Plates of pale strips of meat were placed before them, white pieces, reddish pieces, and yellow lumps. A smell wafted up.

“This is raw fish,” Veronica whispered.

Ginny nearly spat out her Evian. “I refuse to eat r—”

“Optimum sustenance for the artist,” Khoronos explained. “Eka, toro, and uni—rich in nutrients, amino acids, and omega lipids. Recent studies have concluded that sashimi increases intelligence, memory and creative thought.”

“Yeah, but it’s raw fish,” Ginny complained aloud.