placed myself in its hands, allowed myself to be consciously molded by its bearer into his own image.' Sparks looked again at Doyle; he seemed youthful and open and filled by the black wind of his terror.
'What if I was like him? I had to ask that, Doyle, do you see? What if the same vile, twisted spirit that drove him to these unspeakable crimes was alive in me? I was twelve years old!'
Tears filled Doyle's eyes in sudden comprehension of the boy the man who stood beseechingly before him must have been. To face such grief, to suffer such a loss, was unimaginable. He could offer his friend no comfort, there was none to be given, other than his silent, heartfelt tears.
'I had to believe that the skills my brother instilled in me I had learned for a purpose,' Sparks said, throaty with determination. 'They had no innate moral property; they were tools, neutral, still useful. I had to believe that, I had to demonstrate to myself that this was true: There could be more than one sort of Superior Man. The salient point with which I aligned my compass was my choice alone; justice would be my North Star, not mendacity and deluded self-worship. I would stand for the bringing of life, not death. If it was my fate to share his blood, then it was my obligation to balance the scales his presence here disrupted; I would deliver into this world a force to counter the darkness to which my brother had succumbed. I would redeem my family name or die trying. That was my mission. To stand opposed, to set myself in his way. To become his nemesis.'
His words revived the faltering pulse of hope in Doyle's chest. They stood in silence for a time and watched the river.
THE NIGHT TURNED BITTER COLD. THE WALK BACK TO THE Hotel was one of the longest miles in Doyle's memory. Sparks withdrew; he seemed hollowed out, emptied. Doyle felt equally flattered that Sparks entrusted him sufficiently to confide and burdened by the weight he would now to some degree have to shoulder. Never had the turning of the New Year left such a feeble impression on him. They made their way past drunks, lovers, hordes of young celebrants cheering and carousing because of this dimly conceived passing—the death of the 'old,' and birth of the 'new,' the charade of quickly forsaken resolutions to transform one's petty vices into virtues. Man's arbitrary attempts to demarcate time with this imposed significance seemed as profitless as the scratching of hen's feet in the dirt. And how could one presume that man's essential character was capable of change when a being the likes of Alexander Sparks testified prima facie to the contrary?
Entering the hotel by a discreet rear entrance, they settled into their rooms, lit a fire, and broke open a bottle of cognac. Doyle felt his defiled system balk at the infusion of new liquor, then warm to its heat and welcome the soporific soothing. Sparks stared at the fire, the dancing flames reflecting in his dark eyes.
'When were you next aware of his hand at work?' asked Doyle, breaking the long silence.
'He left England, spent time in Paris, then drifted south. From Marseilles he sailed to Morocco and then crossed Northern Africa to Egypt. He arrived in Cairo less than a year after the killings.'
'He left a trail.'
'Having committed the Original Crimes—patricide, matricide: Shall we call these the Original Crimes, Doyle? I think in all fairness that we may—the last obstacle to the wholesale indulgence of any wanton or dissolute impulse he might suffer was permanently removed. Having achieved absolute dominance of family and school, his original environment, his intention was now to establish himself in the world. His first task was the amassing of capital toward financial independence. The night of my parents' murders, before setting the fire, he stole from my father's collection of Egyptiana the most priceless treasures—there were a great number of them. Alexander went to Cairo to peddle them. The returns he garnered became the foundation for his soon-to-be considerable fortune.'
'Other crimes were committed as well,' Doyle surmised.
'There were a series of distinctive murders that year in Cairo. My father had kept a mistress there, an Englishwoman, a colleague in the foreign service. Soon after Alexander arrived, she disappeared. A week later her head was found in the souk, the marketplace. Beheading is customary with adulteresses in Muslim cultures, which naturally threw suspicion toward a local. Except that a red letter A had been sewn into the skin of her forehead. By the way, the woman's name was Hester.'
Doyle felt his gorge rise again. He realized that to be of any value to Jack in the struggle against his brother, he would have to harden his emotional resolve. If there were no limits to what the man could do, which seemed evident, it would prove no advantage to be left reeling with horror in reaction to his every outrage.
'The following week he dispatched a prominent art dealer, an Egyptian man, along with his wife and children. My conclusion: The man extended negotiation on a piece of my father's collection beyond the limits of Alexander's patience. The item in question, a ceremonial dagger, was the murder weapon. Alexander was not above embellishing his handiwork with macabre flourishes. There had been a spat of hysteria in Cairo about the curse of the mummy's tomb, from whence this dagger and a number of other items in the dealer's possession had been plundered. The man's apartment was trampled over with bare, dusty footprints and littered with
strips of decaying linen. Threads of this linen were found lodged in the necks of the wife and children, whom he had strangled, and encrusted on the handle of the knife, with which he had cut out the art dealer's heart. They discovered the missing organ beside the body in a ceremonial bowl covered with the ashes of tannis leaves, believed to be the key ingredient in the ritual formulated by priests of the pharaohs for resurrection from the mummified state. Can you detect the touch of Alexander's hand in all of this?'
'Yes,' said Doyle, remembering the death of the London streetwalker.
'The next month an archaeological site in the desert was raided in similar fashion, a tomb only partly uncovered. Two guards were found inside, strangled, and many of the inventoried artifacts inside the crypt were missing, including the mummified remains of the tomb's principal inhabitant. Again the locals found it provident to attribute the killings to a vindictive corpse, risen to exact revenge for the defiling of his grave.'
'Alexander was developing an interest in the occult.'
'As his mastery of the physical world grew more accomplished, his interest moved naturally toward magic and the immaterial plane. Egypt has had that effect on more than a few Europeans. There's a dread power in those ancient temples. This is where Alexander received his first taste of what dedicated study of the black arts could deliver. Once that hunger was awakened in him, it became the center of his existence. And a hunger fueled by greed is never satisfied by feeding; it only increases the rapacity of the appetite.'
·'Where did he go from there?'
'From what I was able to reconstruct, the next few years Alexander drifted throughout the Middle East, seeking entrance to various Mystery schools: Zoroastrians, the Sufis, lashishims—assassins—the murderous cult of the Old Man :f the Mountain—'
'But they were eradicated centuries ago.'
'According to official history, yes, their fortress stormed by the Ottomans, their numbers decimated. But some highly placed Turks will tell you that small sects of devotees have survived, in Syria and Persia, secreted in remote mountain freeholds. They also say that the unsurpassed killing techniques of the hashishims are still evidenced in enough unsolved politically motivated murders to lend that theory considerable authenticity. If they do still exist in any form, be assured Alexander was most capable of not only seeking them out, but extracting from them their most treacherous death-dealing secrets.'
'When he tame after me, I'm thankful I didn't know then what I know now,' said Doyle, with halfhearted levity. 'I might have dropped dead at the sight of him.'
Sparks's look suggested that possibility was a good deal more than a joke.
'India was Alexander's next destination,' said Sparks, 'where I believe he infiltrated the Thuggee murder cult, a much more immanent and verifiable band of terrorists. Not easy work for an Englishman, their avowed enemy, but by this point he had mastered languages and the art of disguise. The Thugs are particularly adept at garroting. The double-weighted scarf you so admired on the night of our escape in Cambridge is one of their specialties de la maison.'
'You've learned a good number of these techniques yourself.'
Sparks shrugged. 'As a consequence of tracking Alexander's movements over the years, a rather extensive body of ... profane knowledge has come into my possession. Does that trouble you, Doctor?'
'On the contrary. I shall sleep much more soundly.' 'Good man,' said Sparks, almost allowing himself to smile.
Doyle had that feeling once again of being in a cage with a dangerous animal. God forbid his skills should ever be turned against me, he thought. 'And so during these years in the East, Alexander's passion for the occult grew more obsessive.'
