Incubi

“Michael Bari, the deacon spy? No, he wasn’t lying. He was living in the middle of a delusion he didn’t understand, that’s all. He was intimidated to believe by a simple but repetitive exposure to an antithetical force. The Catholic church believed in demons; it still does. That’s one part of Christian thesis that never changes: to believe in God, one must also believe in the devil. It’s also pretty likely that Michael Bari was under the influence of narcotics; the aorists routinely used drugs to heighten their religious experiences. Bari could never have maintained his credibility as a sect member without taking part. I have no doubt that he believed he witnessed an incarnation. And as for the sacrifices, the rituals and descriptions — all that stuff was definitely true.”

“It makes me think about how much mankind has progressed.”

“Or hasn’t progressed,” Faye said.

“God, you’re pessimistic.”

“Am I really? Michael Bari’s account of the aorist ritual is six hundred years old. You’ve got people practicing the exact same ritual, in this city, right now.”

“I guess you got me on that one.” Jack slugged back the rest of his Fiddich and flagged Craig for another. “That reminds me — what you were saying about drugs. My TSD chief found an herbal extract of some kind in the first victim’s blood, but it’s not in the books. Find out everything you can about drug use among the aorists. And find out more about…what’s his name?”

“Baalzephon,” Faye replied.

Even Craig winced when Jack put his empty up for a refill. He’d just downed two drinks like they were shooters. Great, Faye thought. She’d need a wheelbarrow to get him out of here. Again, she began to revert to the lack of compassion she always felt when she was disappointed.

“Haven’t you had enough?” she suggested.

“There’s never enough, and there’s an old saying by a very famous person that I subscribe to wholeheartedly. ‘If I don’t drink it, someone else will.’”

“We got here less than a half hour ago and you’re already ordering your third drink!”

“I like odd numbers,” Jack said.

“Jack’s favorite number, by the way, is thirteen,” Craig joked.

But before Faye could further complain. Jack said, “Be right back,” and excused himself for the obvious.

“He tries,” Craig said when Jack went up the stairs.

“Tries? He’s ruining himself.”

“Why don’t you give him a break? He’s got some problems.”

“Everybody’s got problems, Craig. Getting drunk is the weakest way to deal with them.”

“Well, Faye, you must care about him despite his weaknesses, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“I work for him, that’s all,” Faye insisted.

“You sure that’s all?”

Even if it wasn’t, what business was it of his? “Are you trying to piss me off on purpose?”

Craig grinned, chewing on a bar straw. “Only for the sake of practicality. Offhand, I can’t think of anyone who’s perfect. Can you? I mean, besides yourself, of course.”

Faye glared at him. She had a mind to slap him but didn’t for fear that he would probably slap back a lot harder.

“He used to be famous, sort of — I mean locally. Couple of years ago he solved a bunch of really bad murders.”

“What’s that got to do with what we’re talking about?” Faye said.

“A lot. Jack’s devoted his career to helping people in need and making the world a little bit better. He always got the worst murder cases because he was the best investigator in the county. Every day he was neck-deep in the worst crimes you could imagine. He had to look at all that — all that tragedy, all that evil — and somehow hold up enough to get the job done. Could you, Faye? Could you work on a case where some slob is raping kids to death and burying them in his basement? Could you work on a case where crackheads are kidnaping babies for ransom and then killing the babies? Could you do that and hold up, year after year?”

“No,” Faye said.

“Jack did, and there are a lot of people alive today because of it, and there are a lot of scumbags and murders sitting in the can because Jack had the strength to hold up.”

Faye didn’t know what to say. If Craig was trying to make her feel like shit, he was doing a fine job. “So what happened?”

“He burned out, used himself up. About a year ago he was working on a pedophile case. He followed up a bunch of long-shot leads and got a line on a suspect, some rich guy, president of some big company. Jack’s superiors told him to lay off or else. But Jack didn’t lay off. He bamboozled a warrant to search the guy’s house. He found dozens of videotapes of the rich guy and his friends sodomizing little kids. The guy’s doing life in the state pen now. But that was it for Jack. He was never the same.”

Faye felt a lump in her throat. “And now you think I’m a shitty person for not taking Jack’s problems to heart.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re a shitty person, Faye. Just not a very considerate one.” With that, then, Craig loaded up a tray of Heinekens and Rocks and took them to a table.

I guess he’s right, Faye thought, though she didn’t like the idea of being outpsychologized by a brash, cocky bartender. When Jack came back from the men’s room, Faye tried to smile but it didn’t come off. I’m sorry, Jack, she thought.

“Baalzephon,” he muttered, jiggling the ice in his glass. She watched this blank and tragic futility — fleeing one form of hell through the inundation of another. She felt helpless.

He was getting drunk already, but his eyes looked keen, or ruminant in some displaced wisdom. “Baalzephon,” he muttered again. He signaled Craig for drink number four.

Baalzephon, Faye thought. Madness. Devils. He’s right. They gave him a real winner this time.

And for the next hour she watched Jack Cordesman disappear into his own impresa, not one of triads or satanic rites, but the universal impresa: alcohol.

Chapter 18

Passion for everything, the strange words seemed to lilt in her head; they were like a shadow peering over her shoulder as she sketched. Veronica looked at the clock now for the first time since noon and saw that it was midnight. She’d worked twelve hours without even being aware of it.

Delve into your passion, whispered Khoronos’ words.

Veronica felt stunned.

She rubbed her eyes and stretched. Prototypical sketches lay all over her worktable. She pictured herself sitting here all day and night, a blonde oblivione maniacally wearing out one charcoal pencil after the next. The block was gone; Khoronos’ wisdom had inspired her into a creative tempest. At last, Veronica had begun to see her passion.

She examined her work in the bleary lamplight. Most of the sketches failed to convey the eye of her dream. They seemed compressed by structure; she knew the failure at once. True art must never be bound by structure. The dream, the fire-lover, was an image, not a concept. It was up to her to give the image meaning, to release it from structure into aesthetic truth.

Blake and Klimt had advised that the artist must always work until he or she dropped. Faulkner had recommended stopping when the going got good, to protect the creative elan from becoming famished. She tried again, reconstructing the fire-lover on a fresh sheet of Lanaquarelle pH-neutral paper. The figure must make the viewer feel the same impassioned heat that Veronica felt in the dreams. She gave it a new poise and put it further