Incubi

“Uh-huh. That’s interesting. I found out some more stuff today. The aorists believed they were the devil’s greatest disciples. Satan supposedly blessed the faithful. The sects even had litanies and prayers of protection that they recited before they went out and did their deeds. There’s a lot of documentation that you might find amusing.”

“Why?”

“From what you just said, Craig can’t make a description of the killers, even though he was in the same room with them for hours. Remember our deacon spy, Michael Bari? He lived with the aorists for weeks, but after he escaped, he couldn’t remember any of their names, descriptions, where they lived. He couldn’t even remember which church they used for their rituals. There’s a lot of similar testimony in the Catholic archival records of the late 1400s, when Rome made a serious effort to infiltrate the sects.”

Jack tapped an ash. “Kind of makes you wonder.”

“And there’s more. Several of the Slavic cults, like the one Michael Bari infiltrated, worshiped the incubus Baalzephon, the demon of passion and creativity. Baalzephon seems to have direct counterparts in other demonologies, some dating as far back as 3500 B.C. You name it, the Aztecs, the Burmese, the Assyrian Ashipus, even the American Indians and the Druids — they all recognized an incubus demon who presided over human passion and creativity, just like Baalzephon. It says somewhere in the Bible that evil is relative. Well…they weren’t kidding.”

Jack seemed depressed now, either by the complexities of Faye’s research or by the fact that he’d been dropped from the Triangle case. Perhaps she shouldn’t even be mentioning it now. “Baalzephon,” he muttered, indeed half amused. “The Father of the Earth. I wonder where these people came up with this stuff.”

“It was all counter-worship,” she said. “Stuff they invented as a spiritual revolt against their oppressors, the same old story told different ways down through the ages. Same thing as Santa Claus.”

“Yeah, but Santa doesn’t generally eviscerate women,” Jack pointed out. “What about this incarnation business? Did you find out anything more about that?”

“A little. The aorists paid homage to their apostate demons by sacrifice and incarnation — in other words, substituting themselves through surrogates. This gave the demon a momentary opportunity to be flesh on earth. Baalzephon’s sects went further, though. They practiced sacrificial incarnation rites year round as a general homage. But once a year they executed a more specific rite that involved selective sacrifices. They believed that the triangle was a doorway, or something like an interplanar dumbwaiter. They’d do three incarnation sacrifices first, girls who would please Baalzephon specifically — passionate, attractive, and creative girls — then they’d sacrifice a fourth girl right in the triangle. This possibly triggered a nonsurrogotic incarnation—”

“Baalzephon himself makes an appearance, you mean.”

“Yes, to bless his worshipers in the flesh and to have intercourse outside the territory he’d been condemned to for eternity. This was the ultimate slight to God, a demonological loophole. The end of the rite was called the ‘transposition,’ where the fourth victim transposes into Baalzephon’s space.”

“You mean…”

“The fourth victim physically enters Hell through the impresa. I haven’t found out exactly why, but one of the texts mentioned that Baalzephon likes to take a human wife on a yearly basis.”

Jack winced. “This is some crazy shit, Faye.”

“Sure it is. And the craziest part is that your killers are doing the same things that Baalzephon’s sects did six hundred years ago. It’s almost to a tee.”

Jack brewed on it awhile. Then, perhaps unconsciously, he mumbled, “Devils.”

“What?”

“We had a second witness, a dock bum. He said the killers leaving Susan Lynn’s condo were devils. Not men. Devils.”

“I wouldn’t put much stock in a bum’s observations.”

“I’m not. It’s just that this case gets freakier and freakier.”

He was brooding again, rubbing his face in what he felt was his failure. But that wasn’t all; Faye knew that. She’d known it the instant she stepped into the kitchen.

“But there’s something else bothering you, isn’t there?” she asked. “It’s not just the murders, and your being dropped from the investigation. There’s something else.”

Jack looked up at her.

“Tell me,” she said.

He told her everything then, and the details he’d never mentioned. He told her how this Stewie person had come to him with his worries, how Veronica had seemingly disappeared. He told her about this “retreat” she’d gone on at some rich dilettante’s estate, and how he’d broken into Veronica’s apartment, and a friend’s, to try to find out exactly where they were. He told her about the directions he’d found.

“And you’re going to go there,” Faye said rather than asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not my business, really. I should just give the directions to Stewie, let him go.”

“You should go,” Faye said. It was very abrupt. But what would possess her to say that, to encourage this man, who she possibly loved, to seek out a woman who had rejected him? The past always hurt — this Faye knew from experience. Perhaps she felt complicit with him.

The following silence made her uncomfortable. An inkling told her to leave. Just get up, say goodbye and good luck, and leave. But she couldn’t. Veronica had left him. Faye would not, even if her presence meant nothing.

All she wanted was to do something for him.

What, though?

“What do you want out of life, Jack?” she asked.

“I don’t know. A drink would be a good start.”

“I’m serious.”

Here came back the doleful smile, mirth in the face of defeat. “I have no idea. What about you?”

Faye couldn’t tell him. She said good night and went to bed.

The brittle yellow streetlight from Main Street seeped into her room. She lay awake on her bed. What did she think she was going to do? The ceiling extended as a grainy, infinite terrain, just as her mind felt.

She heard Jack go up the stairs. She waited awhile, a half hour, perhaps, to give him time. Next, she herself glided barefoot up the steps, her nightgown like mist about her body. She quietly opened his door and stepped in. She skimmed off her nightgown and felt licked by the tinted dark.

“Jack?” she whispered. She leaned over, shook him gently. He snapped awake, frightened for a moment, then gazed up.

“Faye?”

“Shh,” she said. “Don’t say anything.” She pulled the covers off. She sat on his belly and opened her hands on his chest.

Oh, God. What now? What would he think of this? Had she come in here just to fuck him? That might only make him feel worse.

Give him something, anything. Something he can’t have anymore.

Even in the dark his eyes shone plainly with uncertainty.

She ran her hands up his chest. “You can pretend,” she said.

“What do you m—”

“You can pretend that I’m her.”

His eyes stared up.

“You can pretend that I’m Veronica.”

“No—”

“Shh.” She took his hands and placed them on her breasts. “Pretend that I’m Veronica. Call me her name.”

“No. That would hurt you.”

She leaned down and kissed him. “I’m Veronica.” She kissed him again and he kissed back. She reached behind and felt him.

Was this so false? What else could she do for him? Sure, it was a fantasy that would be dust in the morning,