The Jealous God Read online

  “Do not lie to me, friend,” he muttered and began to walk around and around the thing in a clockwise circle as had become his custom when communing with the spirit of the crystal.

  As he walked, colors and lights began to swirl in front of his face and though his vision was soon completely blurred and obscured by these shapes, his feet carried him around it without stumbling or missing a step. Soon he heard the serene voice singing the hauntingly beautiful lullaby of the skull and his mind drifted in a warm sea of brilliant colors and soft lights. Soothing. Entrancing. All-consuming. A very dangerous and vulnerable state. Anything could have happened to him while he was thus enraptured.

  “Show me your sisters, my lovely siren,” he said softly and allowed the visions to take form in his mind.

  The incoherent swirls and eddies coalesced into recognizable shapes. Sparkling mounds, which would become the hollow-eyed faces of the other skulls… her sisters. And they would join their voices to hers and the music they made was correctly described by the word siren. There were no discernible words, but the voices blended, ebbed and flowed with a fascinating tonal quality that seemed to concentrate directly on a spot in the center of his brain and then he would see them. He would see the insides of the boxes, bathed in pinks, yellows, blues and greens. Dim, warm places.

  And then he saw them from the point of view of the skull on the floor at the center of his circle. Eleven skulls. Five boxes of approximately the same size, but of different appearance. Some very old and bound with iron straps. Some of the casks carved with intricate designs and wrapped in brass and copper. One or two were made of very black wood or covered with ancient leather. On top of the two stacks of five was a more modern box made of quilted aluminum or stainless steel, slightly larger than the others and centered on them. This one being the most recent addition. He tried to focus on it. So far, the skull inside had remained silent, but today there was something different about the song he was hearing. Something he could not quite focus his mind on.

  He concentrated his attention on the surroundings. Around the small caskets, scattered about, was old furniture, chairs with broken legs, tables, crates, boxes and piles of junk that one usually found in an attic. The singing continued. The light entered through a small octagonal window under the eaves at the peak of the roof. He was quite positive this was Ramsay’s attic. He concentrated his efforts and moved toward the window in order to look out on the land below.

  A rolling green meadow full of blue wildflowers stretched away to the horizon. A pair of shaggy deerhounds raced through the grass. And a woman in a long dress walked casually in the sunshine with a basket hanging from the crook of her arm. This was the first time he had seen anyone in these visions. He urged the skull to show him more and he felt as if he were falling from the window and then traveling very rapidly across the meadow just above the waving stalks of grass. He could hear the dogs barking now. He drew up short, very near the woman. Her long skirt seemed made of satin or crinoline and it brushed the grass as she walked. Her ruffled petticoat peeked from beneath the full skirt of the dress.

  He raised his eyes and saw she wore her dark hair in a twisted French braid under a wide-brimmed straw hat. She was quite lovely. Her eyes were deep blue. She looked up at the sky as an eagle or hawk circled overhead and then bent to pluck some of the violets, placing them in the basket she carried. Her face was radiant with simple joy at the sight of the bird against the clear blue sky. A beautiful woman. Striking eyes, deep intellectual and curious.

  Very familiar eyes looking up toward the heavens. The straight nose and full lips bespoke a woman of breeding. She clapped her hands and called the dogs… in old Gaelic. The song of the skulls! A masculine voice! Deep and resounding. One of the skulls was male!

  Eduord snapped back to reality and the vision was gone. He was back in his room, walking around the skull. He stopped and pressed his hand against his forehead. This was not right! There were no dark-haired women at the Ramsay estate. Not since the wife of Father John had departed for parts unknown. As far as he knew, almost all of the females that might have come there were blondes with the exception of the one they called Anna and this was not Anna or an occasional visitor.

  This woman looked as if she had walked off the pages of a history book or a romance novel… a historical romance novel like Catharine loved to read. What the hell had Ramsay done? Generally, he would have ended the session at that point, but he wanted to know if Ramsay’s latest acquisition was a male skull. If so, it would be the first he had heard of since all the others were female. These visions took a toll on him mentally and physically, draining him of his strength and making him sleep for hours afterwards, but he began to walk again, asking the skull spirit to show him more. The colors ebbed and flowed and then receded.

  “No!” he shouted and then impulsively reached down to pick up the skull. He held it up in front of him and looked into the slightly blue depths of its eye sockets. “No! I want to see more!”

  He was knocked backwards by a powerful beam of pure blue light that almost blinded him. He sat down heavily in an armchair situated behind him, but managed to hold onto the skull. Suddenly, he saw the face of Mark Ramsay in front of him. Smiling at him from under his brows.

  “You want to see more?” Ramsay asked him.

  “No!” he shouted and tried to look away, but he could not tear his eyes off the vision.

  “Seeking may be more dangerous than finding, my friend.” The face loomed closer and the world faded from around him.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “Master!” Schweikert shook Jozsef’s shoulder rudely. “Wake up!”

  Jozsef Daniel snapped his head back and then focused on Abaddon’s worried expression. He felt something very warm on his cheek and reached up slowly to feel his face.

  “What happened?” He pulled his hand away and stared at the liquid on his fingers. It was not blood.

  “You fell into your soup,” Ernst told him.

  They were sitting in the crowded little restaurant in the heart of Port-au-Prince where they had come to get a bite to eat before going back to the hotel.

  “So I have!” He laughed and Ernst frowned at him.

  “Are you all right, sir?” the General asked and handed him a linen napkin to wipe the broth from his face.

  “I’m perfectly fine. Couldn’t be better!” Jozsef wiped at his face and his hair while glancing around at the other diners who watched him with great curiosity. “I saw him!”

  “Who?”

  “De Goth!” Jozsef’s smiled broadened. “He is desperate…” His face changed and he tapped his thumbnail against his bottom teeth thoughtfully.

  “What is he doing?”

  “He’s trying to find the skulls. He’s using the one he has to search for the others.”

  “Can he find them like that?” Abaddon was somewhat alarmed.

  “He can see them, but he can’t find them.” Jozsef pushed back his hair and signaled the waiter for the check. “He can’t go where they are.”

  “Then you know where they are?” The General’s face lit up with excitement.

  “I do now. De Goth has shown them to me.” Jozsef stood up and pulled a roll of bills from his pocket. “Very clever! Adar is very, very clever. I would never have thought of it.”

  The General followed his Master out into the crowded street. They attracted a great deal of attention from the local inhabitants, but none approached them.

  “Then we should go and get them,” Ernst urged him.

  “It’s not that simple, my friend.”

  Jozsef stuck his hands in his pockets and walked leisurely down the street, stopping at the first booth on the sidewalk. He picked out several pieces of fruit and Ernst paid for them.

  “Why not?” Abaddon growled in disappointment. Their little trip to New York had been a complete waste of time in his opinion and he’d not even had the pleasure of killing anyone. He had especially wanted to throttle the cowering
little Tuathan healer and then roast him over an open fire! He never had any fun any more.

  “Because they are in the Abyss, Abaddon,” Jozsef said lightly as he peeled an orange. “In fact, they are in the Seventh Gate.”

  “Adar’s Gate!” The dark angel’s eyes narrowed sharply. “I know the place.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Jozsef nodded. “It would be no small undertaking to go there and it would be very dangerous. Too close to the Sixth Gate for my liking. I would not want to run into Marduk so soon again. He might be more prepared next time.”

  “He cannot harm you Master.” Abaddon was startled by Jozsef’s words.

  “He knows things.” Jozsef glanced at him and he shuddered. “Many things. He is simply afraid to use his knowledge. He is what they say: a coward!”

  “I would not want to seem impudent, Your Grace, but I have never seen fear in him and I have been in his service for a long, long time.”

  “But you have not been in my service for long.” Jozsef smiled at him as he sucked one of the orange segments dry. “How do you suppose that I became trapped in the Abyss for… so long?”

  “I’m not sure.” Abaddon said quietly.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Luke Andrew faltered and then apparently stumbled over nothing.

  Little Barry d’Ornan who was not so very little, caught him and then frowned at him. Luke was making all the apprentices waiting in the hall nervous with his incessant pacing. He was worse than his father had ever been about pacing the floor when he was nervous.

  “What was that?” Luke looked about, ignoring the dirty looks from his fellow apprentices.

  “What was what?” Zeb glanced about and his brother, Little Barry, shrugged.

  “Something happened!” Luke insisted and then ran down the hall to the windows. Pressing his face against the leaded stained glass panel, he looked outside into the late afternoon gloom. He had been walking and slapping one fist against the other and then he’d been falling as if the floor had lurched under him.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Vallen Martin answered him from where he sat on the floor leaning against the wall.

  “Not hear! Feel! Feel?” Luke turned around and scanned their faces. They all shook their heads. Luke was beside himself.

  There had been talk of the skulls again. His father and the Grand Master were convinced that Eduord de Goth had been after the skulls. It was only when the subject had surfaced in the Council that Luke thought of the head he had found in the attic inside one of Mark’s little caskets; the horrible withered head of a woman had bled when he had tried to remove the skin from it. The skull he had taken to the chapel and hidden in the secret compartment inside one of the pillars beside the altar. He had forgotten about it. Everything had happened so quickly then and so much muddy water had run under the bridge. One skull associated with an incident he would just as soon forget had totally escaped his memory. He slapped his forehead again. He should have told his father long ago about the thing! He knew his father had taken the eleven skulls he owned out of the crypts and to another, safer place, but he’d made a terrible oversight in not telling him of the twelfth skull. His father would most likely beat him quite soundly and deservedly so.

  “I didn’t feel anything but your boot on my instep,” Barry d’Ornan grumbled. “Won’t you please sit down?! You are driving me crazy.”

  Luke dutifully ignored the Grand Master’s apprentice. He didn’t know whether to tell his father or try to check on the thing first and then tell him. Or just check on the thing and not tell him or… Besides, where had it come from? He assumed that his father had brought the head to the house and put it in the attic. If that had been the case, he would have certainly demanded to know what had happened to it. His father had never said anything about it. The skull's absence would have surely precipitated a great uproar had it been discovered missing.

  Luke turned and sat down abruptly next to Thaddeus Champlain. Galen Zachary sat across from him dressed in his Sinclair red kilt.

  Galen smiled at him only with his eyes. Lucio's young son still wore a stark white bandage on his left cheek where the blade of one of the raiders had cut him from the outside corner of his eye all the way to his jaw. A nasty wound and quite painful. Luke grimaced and looked away. He had offered to take him to Switzerland as soon as it was healed in order to have it repaired by the cosmetic surgeons in Berne, but Galen had told him that it was a hard-earned battle scar and he intended to wear it proudly just as his father wore his. Luke had been appalled and Galen had almost laughed, albeit one-sided, and reminded him of the sinfulness of vanity even though pride was no less a sin than vanity. A Catch 22, apparently. If he wore the scar with pride, a sin. If he had it covered up, a sin. Lucio had told his son, upon hearing of the dilemma, he should wear it with humility and give thanks he still had a head, but Galen was not much on humility.

  The door of the Council Room opened and Philip d’Ornan waved them inside. The secret part of the meeting was over. They all got up and filed into the room, followed closely by Edgard d’Brouchart’s personal valet, Remy Touchet, a red-haired sprite of about twelve who suffered the jests of the d’Ornan brothers by being called everything from Fleche to Parry and Fetch to Carry, but never Remy. The apprentices drew up short at the sight of the overturned chairs in the apprentice gallery. Only one chair was upright in the back section and upon it, Omar Kadif sat holding an empty golden goblet, looking at them innocently. There was wine on the floor under the chairs and smudges all over the mirror finish of the dark table. Luke frowned at the wine and then at the smudges, footprints! Someone without shoes had been on the table! Someone with very large feet. His first impulse was to ask his father if they’d had a visit from a Yeti, but he restrained himself and sat down.

  When they were seated and Remy had taken over the job of filling everyone’s cups and wiping up the wine and smudges with white linen cloth, Edgard d’Brouchart cleared his throat after a few moments.

  “Sons… and daughters.” He nodded to the apprentices. “Brothers and Sisters. I would have you welcome the newest member of the Order of the Red Cross of Gold and welcome him with open arms and good cheer.”

  The apprentices looked about the room, expecting to see the new candidate, but saw no one new. Luke thought that the big-footed one might crawl out from under the table wearing a Templar mantle, but nothing happened. Only John Paul’s presence and that of Omar Kadif was out of the ordinary and John Paul was, technically, still a member in good standing, although they were not sure if he was alive or dead. Another thing that led to some discomfort among them. John Paul turned slightly to look back at them.

  “I present to you, Omar Adam Kadif, apprentice to Sir Philip d’Ornan by majority vote of the Council. He will not be staying with us overlong, however, but will continue his duties in New Babylon. We will, of course, expect him to attend the meetings and abide by the same rules and regulations governing the members of the Order of the Poor Knights of Solomon’s Temple and those special rules and ordinances governing the behavior of the apprentices to the Knights of the Council of Twelve.”

  This was not the usual manner of inducting new members, nor was it the usual manner of appointing new apprentices, but these were not normal circumstances. Most of them simply nodded their heads in acknowledgment of the Master’s words and he continued to the next item on the agenda.

  “We have determined that the raid on the Villa in Italy was most certainly perpetrated by members of the Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary of Jerusalem under the direction of their esteemed Grand Master, Eduord de Goth. His intentions: an attempt to prove that he knew who we were and where we were. I believe that he also had a secondary motive and that was the ransacking of the Chapel which would not only demoralize and enrage, but allow him to take stock of the contents of the Chapel. The artifacts that were stolen were of no great consequence though we would like to have them bac
k at any rate and we will take them back at first opportunity.”

  A murmur circulated through the room in general agreement.

  “It is very regrettable and grievous that we have lost two venerated members of Sir Barry’s Academy as well as a valuable member of our medical staff. A thorough investigation has shown that Francois Bernadette made a valiant effort to halt the invasion completely unarmed before he was unmercifully cut down; and he will be remembered with honor and prayers. Funeral services for Peter d’Anjou and Robert Ludwig will be held on St. Patrick’s Island at St. Germaine’s Cathedral on Sunday. I would like for all who can manage it to attend these services out of respect for the surviving family members.” D’Brouchart glanced around the room. “They were very young, but brave souls and I believe they are resting in the Arms of God.”

  “Amen,” Louis spoke up and a round of Amens followed with the traditional heart crossing signs.

  “Now I am sure you are all wondering about the results of my contemplation concerning the context of the Emerald Tablet translations. After consulting with the Chevalier du Morte, Sir de Bleu and Sir Stewart, it is my considered opinion that the words contained on the tablet are of genuine importance in regards to our present mission and are not of fraudulent origin, but truly the inspired words of a great master. The identity of that master being none other than Hermes Trismegistus or as some would call him, Thoth, the so-called Ibis-headed god of Egyptian mythology. We all know that the representation of the master with a bird head is purely symbolic and typical of the ancient Egyptians. Thoth was also known as Chequetet, Arelich and Volmalites.”

  Edgard glanced pointedly at Mark Andrew and the Knight stiffened visibly as if in pain. The Grand Master chuckled and then cleared his throat again. “These were his Atlantean names, if you believe in Atlantis.”