Black Easter (3 page)

While he waited for the monster’s nausea to settle out, Jack went through his rituals, stroking his cheeks for stubble, resettling his creases, running through last week’s accounts, and thinking above all, as he usually did most of all in such interims, of what the new girl might look like squatting in her
stockings. Nothing special, probably; the reality was almost always hedged around with fleshy inconveniences and piddling little preferences that he could flense away at will from the clean vision.

When the chief had left and Ware had come back to his desk, however, Jack was ready for business and thoroughly on top of it. He prided himself upon an absolute self-control.

‘Questions?’ Ware said, leaning back easily.

‘A few, Dr Ware. You mentioned expenses. What expenses?’

‘Chiefly travel,’ Ware said. ‘I have to see the patient, personally. In the case Dr Baines posed, that involves a trip to California, which is a vast inconvenience to me, and goes on the bill. It includes air fare, hotels, meals, other out-of-pocket expenses, which I’ll itemize when the mission is over. Then there’s the question of getting to see the governor. I have colleagues in California, but there’s a certain amount of influence I’ll have to buy, even with the help of Consolidated Warfare – munitions and magic are circles that don’t intersect very effectively. On the whole, I think a draft for ten thousand would be none too small.’

All that for magic. Disgusting. But the chief believed in it, at least provisionally. It made Jack feel very queasy.

‘That sounds satisfactory,’ he said, but he made no move towards the corporate chequebook; he was not about to issue any Valentines to strangers yet, not until there was more love touring about the landscape than he had felt in his crew-cut antennae. ‘We’re naturally a little bit wondering, sir, why all this expense is necessary. We understand that you’d rather not ride a demon when you can fly a jet with less effort –’

‘I’m not sure you do,’ Ware said, ‘but stop simpering about it and ask me about the money.’

‘Argh … well, sir, then, just why do you live outside the United States? We know you’re still a citizen. And after all, we have freedom of religion in the States still. Why does the chief have to pay to ship you back home for one job?’

‘Because I’m not a common gunman,’ Ware said. ‘Because I don’t care to pay income taxes, or even report my income to anybody. There are two reasons. For the benefit of your ever-attentive dispatch case there – since you’re a deaf ear if ever I
saw one – if I lived in the United States and advertised myself as a magician, I would be charged with fraud, and if I successfully defended myself – proved I was what I said I was – I’d wind up in a gas chamber. If I failed to defend myself, I’d be just one more charlatan. In Europe, I can say I’m a magician, and be left alone if I can satisfy my clients –
caveat emptor
. Otherwise, I’d have to be constantly killing off petty politicians and accountants, which isn’t worth the work, and sooner or later runs into the law of diminishing returns. Now you can turn that thing off.’

Aha; there was something wrong with this joker. He was preying upon superstition. As a reformed Orthodox Agnostic, Jack Ginsberg knew all the ins and outs of that, especially the double-entry sides. He said smoothly:

‘I quite understand. But don’t you perhaps have almost as much trouble with the Church, here in Italy, as you would with the government back home?’

‘No, not under a liberal pontificate. The modern Church discourages what it calls superstition among its adherents. I haven’t encountered a prelate in decades who believes in the
literal
existence of demons – though of course some of the Orders know better.’

‘To be sure,’ Jack said, springing his trap exultantly. ‘So I think, sir, that you may be overcharging us – and haven’t been quite candid with us. If you do indeed control all these great princes and presidents, you could as easily bring the chief a woman as you could bring him a treasure or a murder.’

‘So I could,’ the magician said, a little wearily. ‘I see you’ve done a little reading. But I explained to Dr Baines, and I explain again to you, that I specialize only in crimes of violence. Now, Mr Ginsberg, I think you were about to write me an expense cheque.’

‘So I was.’ But still he hesitated. At last Ware said with delicate politeness:

‘Is there some other doubt I could resolve for you, Mr Ginsberg? I am, after all, a Doctor of Theology. Or perhaps you have a private commission you wish to broach to me?’

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘No, not exactly.’

‘I see no reason why you should be shy. It’s clear that you
like my lamia. And in fact, she’s quite free of the nuisances of human women that so annoy you –’

‘Damn you. I
thought
you read minds! You lied about that, too.’

‘I don’t read minds, and I never lie,’ Ware said. ‘But I’m adept at reading faces and somatotypes. It saves me a lot of trouble, and a lot of unnecessary magic. Do you want the creature or don’t you? I could have her sent to you invisibly if you like.’

‘No.’

‘Not invisibly. I’m sorry for you. Well then, my godless and lustless friend, speak up for yourself. What
would
you like? Your business is long since done. Spit it out. What is it?’

For a breathless instant, Jack almost said what it was, but the God in which he no longer believed was at his back. He made out the cheque and handed it over. The girl (no, not a girl) came in and took it away.

‘Good-bye,’ Theron Ware said.

He had missed the boat again.

Father Domenico read the letter again, hopefully. Father Uccello affected an Augustinian style, after his name saint, full of rare words and outright neologisms embedded in medieval syntax – as a stylist, Father Domenico much preferred Roger Bacon, but that eminent anti-magician, not being a Father of the Church, tempted few imitators – and it was possible that Father Domenico had misread him. But no; involuted though the Latin of the letter was, the sense, this time, was all too plain.

Father Domenico sighed. The practice of Ceremonial magic, at least of the white kind which was the monastery’s sole concern, seemed to be becoming increasingly unrewarding. Part of the difficulty, of course, lay in the fact that the chiefest traditional use (for profit) of white magic was the finding of
buried treasure; and after centuries of unremitting practice by centuries of sorcerers black and white, plus the irruption into the field of such modern devices as the mine detector, there was very little buried treasure left to find. Of late, the troves revealed by those under the governments of Och and Bethor – with the former of whom in particular lay the bestowal of ‘a purse springing with gold’ – had increasingly turned out to be underseas, or in places like Fort Knox or a Swiss bank, making the recovery of them enterprises so colossal and mischancy as to remove all possibility of profit for client and monastery alike.

On the whole, black magicians had an easier time of it – at least in this life; one must never forget, Father Domenico reminded himself hastily, that they were also damned eternally. It was as mysterious as it had always been that such infernal spirits as L
UCIFUGE
R
OFOCALE
should be willing to lend so much power to a mortal whose soul Hell would almost inevitably have won anyhow, considering the character of the average sorcerer, and considering how easily such pacts could be voided at the last instant; and that God would allow so much demonic malice to be vented through the sorcerer upon the innocent. But that was simply another version of the Problem of Evil, for which the Church had long had the answer (or, the dual answer) of free will and original sin.

It had to be recalled, too, that even the practice of white or Transcendental magic was officially a mortal sin, for the modern Church held that all trafficking with spirits – including the un-Fallen, since such dealings inevitably assumed the angels to be demiurges and other kabbalistic semi-deities – was an abomination, regardless of intent. Once upon a time, it had been recognized that (barring the undertaking of an actual pact) only a man of the highest piety, of the highest purpose, and in the highest state of ritual and spiritual purification, could hope to summon and control a demon, let alone an angel; but there had been too many lapses of intent, and then of act, and in both practicality and compassion the Church had declared all Theurgy to be anathema, reserving unto itself only one negative aspect of magic – exorcism – and that only under the strictest of canonical limitations.

Monte Albano had a special dispensation, to be sure – partly since the monks had at one time been so spectacularly successful in nourishing the coffers of St Peter’s; partly because the knowledge to be won through the Transcendental rituals might sometimes be said to have nourished the soul of the Rock; and, in small part, because under the rarest of circumstances white magic had been known to prolong the life of the body. But these fountains (to shift the image) were now showing every sign of running dry, and hence the dispensation might be withdrawn at any time – thus closing out the last sanctuary of white magic in the world.

That would leave the field to the black magicians. There were no black sanctuaries, except for the Parisian Brothers of the Left-Hand Way, who were romantics of the school of Éliphas Lévi and were more to be pitied for folly than condemned for evil. But of solitary black sorcerers there were still a disconcerting number – though even one would be far too many.

Which brought Father Domenico directly back to the problem of the letter. He sighed again, turned away from his lectrum and padded off – the Brothers of Monte Albano were discalced – towards the office of the Director, letter in hand. Father Umberto was in (of course he was always
physically
in, like all the rest of them, since the Mount could not be left once entered, except by the laity and they only by muleback), and Father Domenico got to the point directly.

‘I’ve had another impassioned screed from our witch smeller,’ he said. ‘I am beginning to consider, reluctantly, that the matter is at least as serious as he’s been saying all along.’

‘You mean the matter of Theron Ware, I presume.’

‘Yes, of course. The American gunmaker we saw went directly from the Mount to Ware, as seemed all too likely even at the time, and Father Uccello says that there’s now every sign of another series of sendings being prepared in Positano.’

‘I wish you would avoid these alliterations. They make it difficult to discover what you’re talking about. I often feel that a lapse into alliteration or other grammatical tricks is a sure sign that the speaker isn’t himself quite sure of what he means to say, and is trying to blind me to the fact. Never mind. As for
the demonolater Ware, we are in no position to interfere with him, whatever he’s preparing.’

‘The style is Father Uccello’s. Anyhow, he insists that we
must
interfere. He has been practising divination – so you can see how seriously
he
takes this, the old purist – and he says that his principal, whom he takes great pains not to identify, told him that the meeting of Ware and Baines presages something truly monstrous for the world at large. According to his information, all Hell has been waiting for this meeting since the two of them were born.’

‘I suppose he’s sure his principal wasn’t in fact a demon and didn’t slip a lie past him, or at least one of their usual brags? As you’ve just indirectly pointed out, Father Uccello is way out of practice.’

Father Domenico spread his hands. ‘Of course I can’t answer that. Though if you wish, Father, I’ll try to summon Whatever it was myself, and put the problem to It. But you know how good the chances are that I’ll get the wrong one – and how hard it is to ask the right question. The great Governors seem to have no time sense as we understand the term, and as for demons, well, even when compelled they often really don’t seem to know what’s going on outside their own jurisdictions.’

‘Quite so,’ said the Director, who had not himself practised in many years. He had been greatly talented once, but the loss of gifted experimenters to administrative posts was the curse of all research organizations. ‘I think it best that you don’t jeopardize your own usefulness, and your own soul, of course, in calling up some spirit you can’t name. Father Uccello in turn ought to know that there’s nothing we can do about Ware. Or does he have some proposal?’

‘He wants us,’ Father Domenico said in a slightly shaky vouce, ‘to impose an observer on Ware. To send one directly to Positano, someone who’ll stick to Ware until we know what the deed is going to be. We’re just barely empowered to do this – whereas, of course, Father Uccello can’t. The question is, do
we
want to?’

‘Hmm, hmm,’ the Director said. ‘Obviously not. That would bankrupt us – oh, not financially, of course, though it would be difficult enough. But we couldn’t afford to send a novice, or
indeed anyone less than the best we have, and after the good Lord only knows how many months in that infernal atmosphere …’

The sentence trailed off, as the Director’s sentences often did, but Father Domenico no longer had any difficulty in completing them. Obviously the Mount could not afford to have even one of its best operators incapacitated – the word, in fact, was ‘contaminated’ – by prolonged contact with the person and effects of Theron Ware. Similarly, Father Domenico was reasonably certain that the Director would in fact send somebody to Positano; otherwise he would not have mounted the obvious objections, but simply dismissed the proposal. For all their usual amusement with Father Uccello, both men knew that there were occasions when one had to take him with the utmost seriousness, and that this was one of them.

‘Nevertheless the matter will need to be explored,’ the Director resumed after a moment, fingering his beads. ‘I had better give Ware the usual formal notification. We’re not obligated to follow up on it, but …’

‘Quite,’ Father Domenico said. He put the letter into his scrip and arose. ‘I’ll hear from you, then, when a reply’s been received from Ware. I’m glad you agree that the matter is serious.’