He couldn't find a holster, so assumed the dead man had kept this gun purely for home defence. Not that it had proved much use, locked in a metal container two rooms away from where he'd died. Dantalion loaded the revolver, then slipped it into his jacket pocket alongside the spare rapid loader.
Then he saw to the most pressing task of all.
His book.
When he opened it, he found that the sea water miraculously hadn't invaded the interior beyond a broad margin. Most of his lists of numbers were still legible. The ink had spread a little, causing an auric light effect around the figures, but that made the numbers seem ethereal and magical and somewhat to his liking. Only the final numbers troubled him. They told a lie. The three he'd written down pertaining to Bradley, Marianne, and Hunter held no power. He could offset that by entering the numbers of those he'd killed since: Petre Jorgenson, Gabe Wellborn and upward of half-a-dozen bodyguards, but that could throw off the value of the figures. The numerology system he used demanded that he be exact at all times. The three he'd already written down must die before he could tally the others' numbers.
In the pantheon of the Fallen, Dantalion is the seventy-first spirit. He is a great and mighty duke, who governs thirty-six legions of spirits. A legion is a subjective figure, whichever way you look at it. In ancient Rome, a legion was a division of soldiers numbering between three and six thousand. That would give Dantalion dominion over the spirits of between 108,000 and 216,000 people. However you approached those figures, it was an unattainable sum for any single killer without the power of an army behind him, or his finger on the button of a nuclear arsenal.
But numerology is flexible. Dantalion had found that by adding up each victim's personally calculated three- digit number, he was quickly approaching those kinds of figures. Once his targets were dead, and he added those from earlier, he'd only need another few victims to be truly treading in the original Dantalion's shoes.
He used a hairdryer from the bathroom to dry the book off. Inevitably the paper had warped along the edges, but again it added to the esoteric look of the book. He swathed it in cling film — just in case. The silver chain was tarnished, but that was OK. The antique look was all the rage. He clipped the free end of the chain to a belt loop and fed the book into his opposite jacket pocket.
Then he lay down on the bed next to the dead man and fell asleep. When he awoke, he ate food from the refrigerator. Not that he was hungry, but he had to keep up his strength. He chose some fast and some slow release carbohydrates and munched them without tasting them. Afterwards he couldn't recall what he'd eaten, but he had a full stomach and was ready to go.
He checked himself out in the mirror again. His clothes were rumpled from the nap, but that made them look like authentic work clothes, and not some he'd taken fully pressed from a storage chest.
He left the lug wrench and screwdriver, but the knife could still prove handy, so he wrapped it in a cloth and took it with him when he left the house. He went out the same way he entered, and was surprised to find that it was dawn, and mist was rising from the surrounding fields and swamps as the early-morning sunshine set to burning off the dew.
He crossed the yard past the outbuildings and approached the truck where he'd abandoned it in the lane. Checking inside, he found that some of his supplies were still there — not everything had been dumped during his assault on Neptune Island — and saw that his plan for taking Bradley Jorgenson was even more viable than before.
The truck started first try. Rather than trying to reverse it the length of the rutted trail, he drove into the rear courtyard of the farm, turned round, then headed out the way he'd come, making his way back through Aurora Village and seeking the highway.
As far as Bradley Jorgenson knew, yesterday's attacker was now sleeping with the fishes and no further threat. Under those circumstances, the man would want to return home to survey the damage caused and to murmur condolences to the families and friends of those killed. He'd also have to face the questions of the police investigators on the scene. Dantalion would be waiting for him.
He picked up the Dixie Highway, then the coast road and approached the island from the north. The roadblocks he anticipated weren't there. In all likelihood, they were busy looking for him at the crash scene. Cautious though, he watched for anyone following behind, anyone in front of him. He also looked for a silver sedan, skimming his eyes over vehicles parked on layovers along the way, watching for unmarked police cars. He didn't see anything. A black Audi A8 parked on a wide layover caught his eye, but it looked too immaculate to be a government-financed vehicle. Probably belonged to a businessman on the commute to Miami who'd stopped to enjoy a few minutes of peace and quiet before joining the Babel of the big city.
He continued south, driving adjacent to the wall that enclosed the estate. Parked opposite the main entrance was a group of assorted vehicles. They reminded him of newsreel footage he'd seen of hippy caravans that traversed the country in the late 1960s. Vans back then were decorated with flowers and 'peace' symbols and antiwar slogans. These vehicles were equally emblazoned, but the signs on these vans and cars declared affiliation to a greater movement than flower power. These were agents of the new media-hungry age, and the writing showed the names of their respective TV or radio stations.
Turning off the road, he wound his way through the assembled vehicles, parking up furthest away from the highway. Stepping out of the truck he settled his hat on his head, shadowing his face with a tilt of the brim. No one took much notice of him, and no one questioned why he hadn't arrived in an official vehicle.
A TV crew were passing the time of day in sarcastic banter while awaiting entry to the estate and he touched the brim of his hat in greeting. Eyes skimmed over him, but no one approached him for a comment. Leaving the throng behind, he approached the highway and started directing other arriving vehicles on to the layover, looking fully part of the scene in his Florida National Parks Warden's uniform. The cops guarding entry to the Jorgenson estate didn't give him as much as a sour look.
Within fifteen minutes he was just background, and went unnoticed as he walked away along the road, seeking a way into the grounds. When he'd checked out the area yesterday morning, he'd been concerned about CCTV cameras and motion detectors and pressure pads, but with the exception of the cameras all would now have been isolated. There were too many interlopers present for the security devices to be viable. Also, no one would be expecting him to wander inside among dozens of police officers, so the cameras wouldn't be scrutinised as thoroughly as before. In fact, anyone watching the cameras would be concentrating on recordings from the previous evening.
A five-minute stroll found him a good distance along the wall. He found an empty oil drum partly concealed in the long grass on the untended no man's land between the wall and the highway. He dragged it upright, then rolled it end over end so that the accumulated sand and vegetation spilled out. Then he set the drum upright against the wall. Just a warden looking after the countryside. He waited for a break in the traffic. When it came, he hopped up on to the drum, then reached upwards and got a grip on the top of the wall. He was over it in seconds.
Striking out across the grounds, he headed for Bradley Jorgenson's house. He strolled like he was at home there and he went unchallenged.
He touched the book in his pocket.
Keen to rebalance the total.
34
Pushing on down the coast road, I quickly discovered that the next layover was full to capacity with TV and radio crews. Space was at such a premium that a State Park warden had been drafted in to keep the traffic in order. Any vehicles that did not belong to the media were waved on by the curt man in the stupid hat.
Driving south, I looked for somewhere to park in solitude.
There were plenty of wide, sandy parking bays along the way, but each one had an abundance of tourists' vehicles already encamped on the parking lots, their occupants disgorged across the saw-grass above the beach, or walking on the sands themselves. A regatta of boats made its way through the Inter-Coastal Waterway and I understood why there was so much activity. The crowds had turned out to watch some sort of big boat race.
I finally found a spot to myself. I drove off the road and on to the grass itself. The Audi was equipped with a four-wheel-drive function, so I wasn't concerned about bogging down in the soft ground.
