The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) (38 page)

So where had the Tutori gone? Had they disbanded, returned to Rome, settled in Palermo? If they had acquired the Ahriman Grimoire, what had they done with it? The obvious choice was that they had sent it to the Vatican’s secret archives, but if that were the case, then Viktor didn’t see how Darius would have acquired it, if he indeed had.

And why lead Viktor down this path? Viktor knew he was being toyed with, but Viktor had learned to trust his instincts, and his instincts told him there was something on this journey he needed to find, some important piece of knowledge to be gained.

The problem was, not all of his instincts concerned solving cases.

Viktor had just enough time to drop his bags and make his two p.m. appointment with Scarlet Alexander, Magister Templi of the Cefalù chapter of the Thelema Lodge. The rise of occultism in the last few decades had ignited a recent interest in Crowley, and a modern-day derivation of the Order of Thelema had sprung up in Cefalù, to the consternation of the locals.

According to Gareth, who had arranged the appointment for Viktor in the hours before he was burned, Scarlet Alexander possessed more knowledge on Aleister Crowley than anyone else alive.

After a brisk stop in the villa Viktor had rented he made the short walk to the medieval town center, dodging scooters as sweat poured down his collar. He zigzagged through the constricted cobblestone streets, church bells clanging in the background, relishing the pungent smell of fresh sardines heaped onto the trays of street vendors, catching glimpses of the sea down alleyways thick with hanging laundry.

He found the designated trattoria on Corso Ruggiero, the main thoroughfare lined with gas lamps and wrought iron balconies, shade from the handsome marble and stone buildings providing relief from the sun.

The restaurant was a rustic gem in the Piazza del Duomo. A few courtyard tables and palm trees were sprinkled around a fountain, a grapevine thick as Viktor’s forearm snaked across a trellis, and he had views of both the honey-colored Duomo and La Rocca looming overhead.

Viktor normally would have relished a seven-course lunch of Sicilian culinary perfection, but instead he ordered a glass of Nero D’Avola to calm his nerves, and a simple pasta
con le sarde
for fuel. Halfway through his meal, Scarlet Alexander arrived in a green silk dress, her brown wrists covered in bracelets, a necklace studded with multicolored crystals draping her slender neck.

Viktor’s brief research had disclosed that Scarlet was an African-American woman from Los Angeles, a former professor of sociology at UCLA, and a member of the Thelema Lodge since the late seventies. She didn’t look a day older than forty, but Viktor knew she must be nearing sixty.

Viktor rose to greet her after she addressed the host in flawless Italian. They sat, and Viktor pushed his plate to the side. “Forgive my manners. I’m rather pressed for time.”

She waved a hand in dismissal. “I was going to apologize because I can’t stay long.” Her eyes clouded. “I assume you’ve heard about Gareth?”

“I was in the room.”

A spasm of fear twitched her face. “Dear God. It must’ve been terrible.”

“It was.”

She took a moment to compose herself. “Gareth was my mentor for a brief period when I was an adept,” she said. “A wise man. A good man.”

“He said the same of you. He thought you might be able to help me with a bit of research on Aleister.”

The waiter brought Scarlet a glass of sparkling water. “I can try,” she said.

“How much do you know of Crowley’s quest for the Ahriman Grimoire?”

She hesitated for the briefest of moments, a reaction that spoke volumes. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that grimoire.”

“It’s come to my attention that not only was Aleister in pursuit of this grimoire, but that he might have devoted a significant portion of his life in pursuit of it.”

She scoffed. “I’m very familiar with his life. Where did you get this information?”

“From a number of sources, including Aleister’s personal copy of
The Ahriman Heresy
, which I found among his possessions in Whitby.”

She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “It appears your scholarship exceeds mine.”

“I doubt that. Gareth mentioned you’re the world’s foremost expert on Crowley.”

Her bracelets tinkled as she raised her wrist to check the time. “It appears not.”

Viktor folded his arms and met her gaze, the gurgle of the fountain drowning out the street noise. She seemed a strong and intelligent woman, but she had been compromised. Viktor couldn’t blame her for not talking, but more lives than their own depended on the information he needed.

“Are you familiar with the Tutori?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “It’s Italian for—”

“I’m aware of the Italian meaning, as well as the Latin. The Tutori were also a small group of priests tasked by the Vatican with flushing out the members of the Ahriman Heresy.”

“I’m truly sorry,” she said, “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

She started to push her chair back, and Viktor caught her wrist. “Please. Just another moment of your time.”

She swallowed and sank back down. “A moment.”

“Is there anyone in Cefalù who was intimate with the original Order?” Viktor said.

“That was ninety years ago.”

“Perhaps a descendant of someone with personal knowledge of Crowley?”

“There was one,” she said, “living in a retirement home outside Palermo. His mother was one of Crowley’s adepts. We were friends.”

“Was?”

“He died recently.” She looked Viktor in the eye. “In a fire.”

His lips compressed. “I see.”

“To my knowledge, there’s no one else in Sicily connected to the original Order. After Mussolini ordered them off the island, it wasn’t very healthy to admit to an association with Thelema.”

“I understand the Lodge still stands, now as a private villa.”

“It’s less than a mile from here,” she said. “I can assure you the owner has no interest in magic, and no ties to the villa’s past.”

Viktor signaled for two espressos, then said, “Darius was here, wasn’t he?”

The question caught her off guard. She recovered quickly, again asserting her ignorance, but Viktor knew he had hit a nerve.

“I understand your reluctance,” he said. “He’s a very dangerous individual. But he’s corrupted your art and is a defiler of people.”

“Magic corrupts, but cannot itself be corrupted. You’d be wise to remember that.”

Viktor leaned forward. “This has nothing to do with magic. He killed Gareth, he killed your friend, and he’ll continue killing until someone stops him.”

She downed her espresso, dropped her napkin on the table, and rose. “Then you should be talking to the Italian police, not me. A pleasure meeting you, Viktor.”

She left the courtyard, and Viktor resisted the urge to bang his fist on the table. He asked for the check, acutely aware that his options were melting away like gelato in the midday sun. As he took the bill, his eyes caught the side of Scarlet’s napkin, which she had dropped in the center of the table instead of in her chair.

She had written something in pencil on a fold of the napkin, in a tight feminine scrawl.

84 Corso Montera, Sant’Ambroggio
.

Viktor wet his finger and smeared the address on the napkin. He paid double the bill, unwilling to wait for change.

G
rey followed the courier to three more mail stores within walking distance, then sixteen more across east-central London. For the most part the small man kept his head down and did his job, and Grey had an easy time tracking him. But after twenty stops in just a few hours, Grey wondered how many were on the full route.

How far did the reach of the Order of New Enlightenment already extend?

Though he had kept his wig, Grey’s larger worry was that one of Dante’s hired thugs would spot him among the crowds. At least the incessant rain allowed him to shrink into his waterproof jacket.

Midday came and went without trouble, but as evening approached, a few things gave Grey cause for concern: The cessation of the rain left Grey more exposed, the courier had stopped delivering envelopes, and Grey was now following him on the London Overground deeper into the East End.

At Dalston Junction the courier picked up a bus heading southeast. Grey took a seat near the driver, where he could keep an eye on the courier in the rearview and not arouse suspicion. The courier had his head buried in a newspaper, and Grey kept one eye on the courier and one on his surroundings.

As the bus wound through Hackney Central, the streets reverted to the warren of brick alleys Grey remembered, damp and crowded. A swarm of downtrodden white faces filled the streets, mingling with hijab- and burka-clad
immigrants. Pawn and kebab shops lined the larger thoroughfares, along with a shocking amount of drab public housing. The nonpublic housing consisted of decrepit Victorians with front doors set ten feet apart, crowding out the sunlight in true Dickensian fashion.

Fifteen minutes later Grey began to worry. The crowd on the bus had thinned considerably, and he knew the environs only got worse the farther south or east they went, until they hit Canary Wharf.

Before they reached the Docklands, the courier exited on a potholed street running alongside a canal lined with warehouses, most of them graffiti-covered and abandoned. Grey asked the driver to let him off a block down the road, then hurried back to find the courier, spying him at the end of the street.

Grey stayed half a block behind as they paralleled the swampy canal. The courier kept his head down and maintained a fast clip. Grey suspected he was returning home. If so, Grey would have to make a decision. He couldn’t afford another half-day wait while the courier caught up on sleep.

A few high-rises appeared in the distance, and Grey guessed they were finally nearing the Docklands. Then he saw a strange sight: a beautiful cylindrical glass building, five stories high and capped by a crystal dome, surrounded by barbed wire and sandwiched between a pair of weed-filled lots. The building looked new, a gleaming anomaly in the gutted neighborhood. Grey noticed the courier’s gaze lingering on the building as he passed.

At the next intersection, Grey could see the Millennium Dome in the distance, a gaudy bauble squatting above the brackish crawl of the Thames. A few blocks later the package stores and corner shops returned, and the courier entered a seedy two-story pub painted entirely in black, including the windows. Grey saw the name of the place scrawled in red on the front door.

BAR
666.

Lovely
.

Before Grey had a chance to decide what to do, five patrons spilled out of the front door, just after the courier entered. All five were blocky young men with creased stares, three of them sucking on cigarettes, all wearing West Ham United hoodies or jackets.

Grey tensed, though none of them was looking at him. They were talking in thick Cockney accents, and they started down the street in Grey’s direction. His only chance to avoid attention was to keep walking.

As they passed, Grey kept his head down, hands in his pockets, disappearing into his jacket. No one said a word, but then four more patrons spilled into the street, holding pints and smoking.

Damn
. Five behind him, four in front, buildings on either side of the street. Grey did the only thing he could, which was to act natural and keep walking with his head down, hoping no one noticed him.

When he was twenty feet away he saw one of the men outside the bar pointing at him. The chatter ceased, and the man who had pointed, a rangy man with a shaved head, flicked his cigarette at Grey.

“Hey, mate!”

Grey kept walking, head down.

He stepped into the street ten feet from Grey, the other three behind him. “I said,
Hey, mate
. Are you Dominic Grey?”

“Sorry,” Grey said. “Wrong guy.”

Grey kept walking, but no one moved. One of the men in back whistled and waved at the men who had just passed Grey in the other direction. Grey knew his window had just closed.

The man with the shaved head dipped a hand into his coat and pulled out a two-foot piece of metal piping. “There’s someone wants to have a chat with you.”