The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) (5 page)

“I urge you to name a single religion where this is not the case,” Simon said.

The blond reporter opened and then closed her mouth, and Grey smiled to himself. Veronica would have found a clever response.

There were a few more exchanges, then the news switched to a suicide blast in Karachi. Grey removed the headphones. The woman next to him, a tawnier blond than the reporter, said, “He’s not what he seems.”

He started, surprised she had spoken. When he turned his head towards her, the first thing he noticed was the luminosity of her green eyes, which enhanced the mystery of her statement.

After her eyes he noticed creamy skin and an oval face so symmetrical and compelling Grey couldn’t stop staring at it. She was wearing a fitted white blouse, and when she shifted he could see the contours of a trim and compact body. She was not elongated like a model, but well proportioned, an everything-in-the-right-place kind of woman.

“Sorry?” Grey said. “Who, Simon Azar?”

She bit into her lower lip, then glanced down the aisle. “It’s important that you believe me.”

Her accent sounded like a mix between Spanish and a Slavic language. Grey’s guess was Romanian. “Do I know you?”

“I know how this sounds. Just remember what I said, because you’ll hear things that will make you doubt.”

Grey chuckled. “Okay. Did Viktor send you? Is he on this flight?”

The intensity of her stare never wavered. She took his hand in both of hers and held it, while Grey sat there dumbly. “I have to return,” she said, then rose and walked down the aisle, passing through the curtain to first class.

At this point Grey imagined Viktor lounging with a bottle of absinthe in the front of the plane, having a good laugh at Grey’s expense.

Except Viktor didn’t joke.

Grey’s next thought was that she left off “to my seat” in her statement. Why hadn’t she said she had to return to her seat? After ten minutes passed, and then twenty, Grey frowned and rose. He walked to first class, checking every seat and restroom along the way. When he didn’t find her, he stood by the door to the cabin with folded arms.

A flight attendant approached, and Grey said, “Excuse me, did you see a woman come through first class a few minutes ago? Dark blond hair, white blouse, very attractive?”

“Sorry, no.”

“She was sitting next to me and walked up here maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

Her head cocked. “Honey, I’ve been here the whole flight, and no passenger except you has come through that curtain.”

“I just saw her come up here,” Grey said. “You had to have seen her.”

She patted his hand. “Did you fall asleep, have a bad dream?” She giggled. “Or maybe that was a good dream. How about some coffee?”

“I was awake,” Grey muttered, although his voice lacked conviction.

He returned to his seat and engaged a male flight attendant standing in the rear of the plane, just behind his seat. Grey asked the same questions.

“I can tell you no one’s come back here in the last twenty minutes except a seven-year-old boy.”

Grey mumbled his thanks and leaned towards the businessman across the aisle, the only other potential witness to a conversation Grey was starting to wonder if he had ever had.

The businessman was still snoring, face buried into a courtesy pillow.

SAN FRANCISCO

G
rey relished the crisp San Francisco air, a welcome respite from the asphalt-choked swelter of New York in late summer. After dropping off his backpack at the hotel, he had time for a quick run and a shower before meeting Viktor. Grey worked in his jogs whenever possible, his way of clearing the thoughts crowding his head.

The strange encounter with the girl presided over his run. Before deplaning, Grey had worked his way to the front of the flight and had waited outside the gate as the passengers and then the crew left.

No sign of the girl. He could accept the fact that she had tricked him, but why?

Now clad in cargo pants, boots, sweater, and a black Windbreaker, Grey felt underdressed and out of place in the posh hotel. When Grey met Viktor under the canopied entrance to the Fairmont, country flags snapping in the wind, the sweep of San Francisco on the hills below, he felt relief at seeing a friendly face, as if he had been at sea for months and had just spotted land.

Grey knew he was one of those men both blessed and cursed to live on the hinterlands of society, able to see the machinations of his era in their true light, yet unable to erase the part of himself that wanted to be embraced by them. He was also well aware of his isolating dichotomies: a born fighter who abhorred violence, a wanderer who yearned for a place to call home, someone trying to accomplish the Sisyphean task of creating a future while still erasing the past.

Viktor clasped him on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Grey. Come. We have some time before we meet with the detective.”

Grey felt silly telling Viktor about the girl, so he made idle chitchat as he followed Viktor downhill to an upscale French coffee bar just off Union Square. A chill seeped through his Windbreaker as they walked. He always underestimated the city’s stiff breeze.

Viktor wore his familiar dark suit, looking the part of the stodgy professor, but Grey knew better. Viktor carried a
kris
, a curved dagger from Indonesia, underneath that suit, and he knew Viktor had traveled to as many of the world’s unsavory places as Grey himself, which was saying something. He also knew Viktor had an unhealthy fondness for absinthe, and that he had not just an encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s religions and sects, but more firsthand experience with pathological cult behavior than perhaps anyone alive.

No, a stodgy professor he was not.

The café, full of polished brass and exposed brick, was across the street from the red-and-green pagoda heralding the entrance to Chinatown. Grey inhaled the aroma of fresh pastries and gourmet coffee. Knowing the best places around the world to eat and drink was another of Viktor’s talents. Grey had stayed with Viktor in Prague for a week after the insanity of the biotech case, and had dined in more fine restaurants in one week than the rest of his life combined.

Viktor stirred his cappuccino and relayed what he knew about the murder of Matthias Gregory, high priest of the House of Lucifer. Grey had not yet worked on a case involving a Satanic cult and found himself both wary and intrigued.

“Judging from the identity of the other victim,” Viktor continued, “which we shall discuss in a moment, and the fact that the murder was committed at midnight on September 21, a day of feast and sacrifice on the Luciferian calendar, it appears someone has a vendetta against Satanists.”

The word brought a chill to Grey, despite his personal lack of faith. His devout mother had possessed a very real belief in God and Satan, and had
tried to impress upon Grey the seriousness of their existence. As much as Grey had loved and respected his mother, the circumstances of her terrible death—the failure of her faith after her refusal to seek medical care—had undone any convictions she might have imparted.

“Given the note to the victim,” Grey said, “I assume we’re talking some kind of religious zealot, maybe a fundamentalist Christian?”

“The obvious answer,” Viktor agreed. “And burning to death is a traditional punishment for heretics.”

Grey sipped his coffee. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“I hesitate to speculate too much at this stage, but fundamentalists are not exactly known for such exotic circumstances.” He checked his watch. “We’re to meet with Detective Chin at the House of Lucifer at four. I’d like to educate you on the cult aspects before we arrive. I assume you have little familiarity with Satanism?”

“I wasn’t even allowed to listen to Ozzy Osbourne.”

A waiter arrived to check on them; Grey had never been in a coffee bar with servers. Viktor continued, “Many misconceptions about the Satanic cults have endured over the centuries, and some truths as well. The reality is, as usual, far more complex.”

“You mentioned cults, as in plural—I didn’t realize there was more than one type of Satanic cult.”

“There haven’t been quite as many Satanic cults, schisms, and heresies over the years as their Christian counterparts, but the number would shock you. Hundreds, if not thousands. Most, of course, were eradicated by the Catholic Church or angry mobs. But plenty exist today, the House of Lucifer being the largest and most well-known.”

Grey cupped his coffee mug in his hands. “I’ve always taken this for granted, and maybe it’s an ignorant question, but are Satan and Lucifer the same… being?”

“It’s an astute inquiry. While Satan and Lucifer are used interchangeably today, historically there was a difference. Many names have been used for the
Christian Devil, though the concept itself is derivative of an ancient Persian deity.”

“You’re talking about Zoroastrianism?”

“I see you’ve been doing some reading in your downtime,” Viktor said.

“This is my profession now, and I don’t like being in the dark. I may never have your knowledge, but I don’t need to swim in ignorance.”

Viktor gave a crisp nod of approval. “The evolution of the Devil from Zoroastrianism is a story for another day. But Christianity’s and Zoroastrianism’s version of the Devil, as well as the original Jewish concept of a Satan—which simply means
adversary
in Hebrew—all beg the same question: From where did evil arise?”

“Assuming a belief in God,” Grey said slowly, “then either it came from God, which makes evil a part of God’s nature, or it came from somewhere else. Thus the concept of the Devil.”

Viktor opened the palm of his left hand. “But if the Devil is responsible for evil, then who or what is responsible for the creation of the Devil?

Grey contemplated the question. “On the one hand you have a Devil created by God, which means that even if evil stems from the free will of man or from the Devil, God is ultimately responsible.”

Viktor stirred his cappuccino. “And on the other hand?”

“If God is not ultimately responsible for evil, the only other logical explanation is that the Devil is equal to, or was at least created separately from—and by whom?—God.”

“Good,” Viktor said. “You’ve just outlined the problem of evil, otherwise known as the dilemma of theodicy: Either God is responsible for evil, or someone else is and God is not omnipotent. Theologians have bent over backwards for centuries trying to resolve this issue.”

“I imagine God’s a hard guy to figure out,” Grey said.

“Back to your original question: The figure of Satan gained strength as monotheism came into being, as a convenient way to explain the presence of evil. If there’s a Bible in your hotel room, study the two differing accounts of
King David’s ordering of a divine census, a practice forbidden in the Torah. In Second Samuel, God becomes angry with His people and incites David to take the census, then sends a plague to punish the people of Israel, killing seventy thousand. Yet in the parallel account in First Chronicles, written centuries later, it’s Satan, not God, who persuades David to take the census and invoke the wrath of God. It’s a stunning theological change.”

“What about the story of Genesis?” Grey said. “Didn’t Satan tempt Eve from the beginning?”

“In the original Hebrew Bible, there was no connection between Satan and the serpent in the garden. The link to Satan was added centuries later, likely deriving from creation stories from other cultures, notably Babylonian. Satan wasn’t even an important figure in the Old Testament.”

“And Lucifer?”

“Mentioned only once in the Bible,” Viktor said, “and not in reference to the Devil. The idea of a Lucifer, or Morning Star, cast out of heaven for his role as the leader of an angelic rebellion against God gained currency much later in history, helped not in small part by Dante and Milton.”

Grey shifted in his seat. He knew better than to ask Viktor a theological question before breakfast. “So what do I need to know about the House of Lucifer, and the high priest who was murdered?”

“First: the misconception that the House of Lucifer worships Lucifer.”

“You’ve got me,” Grey said. “I admit to that misconception.”

“Most of the Satanic cults that arose in the sixties and seventies were products of a fashionable obsession with the occult. Novelties, if you will. Anton LaVey pioneered the modern Satanic movement, and his Church of Satan still exists and thrives today, sharing a similar ideology to the House of Lucifer. I once met both Anton and Matthias Gregory, when I was just out of university.”

Somehow Grey wasn’t surprised that Viktor had personally known two of the world’s most renowned Satanists. He also knew Viktor well enough to know that if he wanted to elaborate on his past, then he would.

“Had you spoken to Matthias recently?”

“Not in thirty years,” Viktor said. “While Matthias understood he would never be a national hero, he was a man of intelligence and resolve. Anton was a man of appetite. What Anton and Matthias shared in common was purpose: Modern Satanism was a backlash against traditional religion, which they viewed as a holdover from the Dark Ages.”