famous cenotes of Assyrian and Mayan cultures were actually incarnation temples, where Ashipu and Toltec priests would surrogate themselves with demons and attempt to inseminate human women. Female bangomas of the African Bantu tribes allegedly incarnated war demons into the bodies of soldiers during battles with hostile tribes, and the Dandis of ancient India used incarnation rites to give flesh to the legion of Asura, demons of vampirism and lycantropy. Apparently demons, regardless of geography, liked to have a little walking-around time on earth. But, Come on, Faye thought impatiently. What about the aorists? A little more skimming and she found:
numerous records attest that aorists near what is now Erlangen routinely incarnated Narazel with apostate surrogoti, to oversee Black Mass, witness the murder of priests, and participate in orgiastic rites. A Slavic sect regularly incarnated the demon Baalzephon, an incubus, who yearly took a human wife. Baalzephon, who closely parallels many demons of passion and creativity [see SAKTA, Hindu; TII, Polynesia; LUR, American Indian], was known as “The Father of the Earth.” Here the student will discern ritual incarnation at its greatest extremity. The Sect of Baalzephon existed solely to surfeit the demon’s thirst for 1) creative stimuli, 2) the visualization of the beauty of women, and 3) intercourse. Baalzephon’s passion was apparently unlimited. His impresa, the starred trine or triangle, was said to serve as a lacuna, or physical ingress, which opened annually via a series of precursory sacrifices. Generally three such sacrifices (one for each point of the trine) were implemented as prelude to the final rite, all of which were discharged by Baalzephon himself, incarnated through trained surrogates. Baalzephon could even be incarnated multiply, to increase his stimulus. A fourth sacrifice was later executed upon the trine itself, which allegedly effected a bodily supplantation and granted Baalzephon an actual moment of nonsurrogated existence on earth. This rite, the ultimate form of incarnation, was known to the aorists as transposition.
Faye felt mentally washed out; all this demon stuff was beginning to get under her skin. Precursory sacrifices, she thought, depressed. Transposition. The aorists believed that their rituals were never-ending. How many people had they murdered through the ages? Probably thousands. It was madness.
She went up to the small cafeteria and got a cup of strong coffee, trying to free her mind of the undertow of her reading. The librarians still hadn’t found the one book she wanted most, The Synod of the Aorists, which had evidently been misplaced during recent renovations. It was the only book on file devoted solely to the practice of aorism and hence probably the only title of its kind in the world. Thus far, though, all this dark stuff — murder, sacrifice, incarnation — made her feel like a mop in a wringer. Part of her hoped the librarians never found that last book.
* * * Patterns, Jack pondered.
The vital element in solving any unusual homicide was pattern. A pattern must be established in order to pursue the perpetrator. Two types of patterns seemed the most viable. Patterns of modus and patterns of psychology. They’d examined the patterns of modus in the Triangle case and had gotten nowhere. The psychological pattern he found much more useful; when you understood the killer, it was easier to get on his tracks. But I’ve got two killers, he thought at the desk. Maybe four. Maybe more than that. And they all seemed to be committing the same crime not only through the same modus pattern but also through the same psychological pattern. Intuition was important too, but actually all intuitions were preformed through their own pattern of assessment. Jack was good at assessing things; that’s the only reason he wasn’t still driving a sector beat and shooting jive with the other uniforms at Mister Donut. He could maturate a workable pattern of intuition out of the assessment of facts.
But neither pattern was working here. What about victim patterns? In his mind he saw triangles, glyphs, and the scarlet word Aorista. The victims had patterns too. Unstructured moral behavior, promiscuity, erotomania, as Dr. Panzram called it — sexual patterns. All three 64s were successful, well-educated single women. And still another; they were all looking for the same thing when they died, which meant they lacked the same thing.
Passion. They had everything in their lives but passion.
Now a new pattern had alighted. Susan Lynn wrote poetry. Rebecca Black wrote poetry. Shanna Barrington was an art director. A creative pattern. A general artistic pattern of shared interest. And stranger, the evidence proved that none of them had ever worked together, gone to school together, or knew the same people. Nor at any time had they ever known each other. Yet the patterns remained.
Bizarre words occurred to him. Similitude. Homology. Parity.
Parallelism, he thought. The patterns of the perpetrators adjoined with the patterns of the victims. Karla Panzram’s graphological diagnoses indicated a general artistic pattern motivating the killers. All of a sudden Jack felt inhumed by patterns.
Gods, he thought next. Devils. He wondered what the old dock bum Carlson had really seen last night. Two things scaling down a six-story condo. Large and naked but not human. Many dock bums were alcoholics, many hallucinated. “Faceless things,” he’d told Jack and Randy. “Nothing on their faces but eyes, big yellow eyes. Stubby little horns too.” “Horns?” Jack had asked. “Yeah, son. Horns, little horns in their heads. Like I told you. Devils.” Jack thought it would’ve been too rude to ask if they’d also had pronged tails.
Give yourself a breather. Brainstorming and hangovers did not mix well. His head felt like a jammed computer. Overload. Thinking too much could often be worse than thinking too little. The perceptions fizzed out. A pink Post-It on his desk lamp flagged his eye. Farmer’s National Bank, he’d written on it. He’d stopped by during lunch to talk to the assistant branch manager, a beautiful green-eyed redhead. “All cash deposits over ten thousand dollars are serialed,” she’d told him. “It’s part of the new DEA laundering bill. We have a machine called a serial scanner. You stack the cash in the bin and the serial numbers are photographed and entered into the deposit computer automatically. Size of the bills doesn’t matter.” “Can you trace the bills to the point of withdrawal?” he’d inquired. “Sure. That’s what the system exists for. It takes five minutes if the withdrawal came from one of our branches, a couple of hours for a different bank.” “What about a foreign exchange bank?” “Couple of days.” He’d handed her Stewie’s deposit date. “Will you trace this for me?” “I’d be happy to, Captain, but first you have to either bring in a records warrant from the state magistrate, or subpoena the bank registrar with a writ of duces tecum.”
Jack had walked out, swearing under his breath.
Should he even be worrying about Veronica now? Does Veronica worry about me? He retrieved a mental picture of her from the past and tried to insert it into the present. Where was she? What was she doing, what was she thinking? When was the last time she thought about me?
“Jack,” came a morose voice. Randy appeared in the doorway. “Larrel wants us in his office.”
“What for?”
Randy only gave a shrug.
“Anyone told him that we’re a little busy today?”
“IAD’s here,” Randy said. “And someone from the comm’s office.”
I haven’t taken any pad money lately, have I? Jack tried to joke to himself. But this was no joke. IAD was the department ball-cutting crew; they didn’t fool around. Jack put on a tie and sports jacket, and groaned when he looked in the mirror.
“Too bad there’s not a barbershop on the way,” Randy commented as they went down the hall. “Comb your hair or something, man.”
“I could use a dry cleaner too,” Jack said, combing frantically, “and an electric razor.”
“I got a bad feeling, Jack. Sometimes you can smell the shit before it hits the fan, you know what I mean?”
“Tell me about it. Why do you think I’ve been wearing a clothespin on my nose for the last ten years? What could IAD want with us?”
“We’ll find out in about two seconds.”
Larrel Olsher’s office felt cramped, like a smoking room at a funeral home. Olsher, the black golem, sat stolid and huge behind his desk. To his right sat deputy Commissioner Joseph Gentzel, fiftyish, lean face, short graying hair, and a smirk like he’d just taken a swig of lemon juice. Beside him stood a meticulously dressed stuffed shirt,
