The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) (31 page)

The current speaker was talking about New Age Nazis in California, linking the Fourth Reich to McDonald’s. When he left, the crowd swelled to an impressive size. No one arrived at the podium until five minutes after six, when a bulky, red-faced Scot stepped up and greeted the crowd with a booming hello.

Though pleasant enough, his voice possessed the myopic tone of conviction that immediately turned Grey off. To Grey, anyone who saw the world in black-and-white wasn’t taking a hard enough look.

The speaker announced himself as Alan Lancaster and proceeded to give the crowd a similar spiel Grey had heard from Simon Azar, though with less eloquence. How the old ways of thinking about the world had failed, yet everyone in power was clinging to the old ways because, well, why wouldn’t they? Some cheered, some jeered, most listened with hands in their pockets for a few minutes and then returned to their tourist maps.

Was this how all movements started, Grey wondered? Spread from street corners by simple-minded blusterers, scorned by most, gobbled up by the gullible few?

Was this how his mother had succumbed?

Grey felt eyes on him during the speech, and he saw various men sprinkled in the crowd, subtly scanning the onlookers. After the speech a line formed to talk to the speaker. Grey joined in. When he reached the front, Alan Lancaster’s eyes locked on to his, hand extended in greeting.

He gave Grey his full attention, one thing at which zealots excelled. “Welcome, friend. Can I give ye this pamphlet?”

Grey took a loose-leaf pamphlet with a picture of the cosmos on the front, people of varying skin colors standing hand in hand beneath a starry sky.

“I’d like to invite ye to one of our Saturday services. Yer an American on holiday?”

Grey had to work to understand his accent. “This is home for now.”

“Well, then. Let me suggest the Kensington and Chelsea Chapter House, in Earls Court. Services are Saturday mornings at ten. We’d love to have ye. Bring a guest or two.”

“Appreciated,” Grey said. “Who’s the pastor there—or do you have pastors?”

“We have directors, and we just use names, no better or worse than ye. Just call me Alan, and the Earls Court director is Thomas Greene. He brought me into the Order.”

“Is that right?” Grey said. “How long ago did you join?”

“Been a couple of months now.”

“And you’re already a speaker? Impressive.”

“The training only takes a few weeks,” Alan said. “Might ye be interested?”

“I liked what you had to say,” Grey said. “Let me sleep on it.”

“It’s a new way of thinking. No more false prophets or cryptic prophecies or silly codes of conduct, just human beings helping each other around the world.”

“Sounds pretty good to me,” Grey said.

“Aye, why don’t ye talk to Thomas? He’s at the chapter house most mornings, ye can tell him I sent ye.”

Grey had what he needed, and he felt multiple stares on his back. “Sure. Looks like you’ve got plenty of people to talk to, so thanks again.”

Grey stepped past him and kept walking. Step one had been easy, but he wondered how many starry-eyed handshakers he’d have to wade through to find someone who knew what was going on behind closed doors at the Order of New Enlightenment.

He debated trying to isolate one of the three flint-eyed men now following him through the park, all of whom looked like ex-convicts who had put on a nice shirt for the gathering. He decided they didn’t look like decision makers, and there were too many people around. After exiting the park he turned left on Piccadilly, skirting Green Park on his right. He let them follow him for a while, so when he gave them the slip it would look natural, and so whoever sent them would keep searching for him in the West End. When he reached Leicester Square he kept on slipping, and out of the corner of his eye he saw them trying to keep up, unshaven faces walking a step too quickly, inexperienced with the subtle art of following someone in a crowd.

Grey wove in and out of the narrow lanes between Leicester and Piccadilly, then doubled back to the labyrinthine streets of Soho. By the time he reached Charing Cross he was sure no one was still following him, but he scanned the crowds down the long escalator to the Underground just in case, disappearing into the bowels of the city as he pondered how to approach Thomas Greene in the morning.

YORK

B
y the time Viktor cleaned up and had brunch in his suite, it was nearly noon. Thirty-six hours before the alleged hour of Gareth’s execution.

Viktor had a few things to do.

First he searched for a pest-control company that used Vikane. Fortunately for the citizens of York and unfortunately for Viktor, termites were not a problem in northeast England. Viktor had to persuade a London company that manufactured devices measuring sulfuryl fluoride to overnight one to his hotel. The company balked at the request until Viktor suggested a four-figure delivery fee. There was silence, and then acquiescence.

The sulfuryl fluoride device would let him know instantly if Vikane was present in the room, but just to be safe, he procured two gas masks from a local military supply store. Gareth agreed to seal off all ventilation to the room, and to check the walls and windows for cracks. Viktor was guessing that poison gas would be the weapon of choice, since Gareth would not be in a public place and there was less opportunity for deception.

Still, Viktor urged Gareth to install a fire extinguisher, to avoid wearing any clothing that might have been tampered with, and not to let anyone enter the room besides the two of them. There would be other members of the Circle nearby, armed and ready, and Gareth had agreed to install a camera and make his chamber off-limits to anyone but himself before the next night.

Viktor felt prepared.

Of course, there was the black-magic angle, but Viktor did not believe for a second there was anything behind these murders other than the devious mind and barren soul of a human being he once called friend.

Defenses in place, Viktor turned to the task of finding Darius. To the clue he had uncovered in Crowley’s copy of
The Ahriman Heresy
.

Tutori
.

Viktor spoke Italian and knew Latin, and while he found plenty of references to
tutori
on the Internet, he found nothing that intrigued him as a possible link to Crowley. He spent the rest of the afternoon sifting through books at the library and making calls to various sources in academia. Still coming up empty, he decided to mull over the problem over a late afternoon lunch at a gastro pub on Goodramgate.

While working on his braised ox cheek with red onion chutney, he realized there was one place in town he had yet to try. He couldn’t put his finger on why, perhaps because he just had a feel for this sort of thing after decades of experience, but
tutori
seemed to have a religious ring. York was slathered with churches, but none as grandiose as the York Minster, built in the thirteenth century to rival the grandeur of Canterbury. The York diocese was a hugely important one for the Church of England and would have learned priests. It was worth a try.

He made the short walk up Goodramgate to the Minster, the limestone of the Gothic cathedral casting a silver glow in the failing evening light. Despite the beauty of the town, Viktor couldn’t believe the atrocity of the late September weather, the sky thick as gravy with clouds, a perpetual drizzle, temperature close to freezing, and a biting wind that lashed at Viktor like a vengeful pugilist.

The Minster imposed its will on the town, the cathedral itself comprising most of a city block, its parklike grounds stretching over several. His hand caught the door to the main entrance just as a red-faced man in a sweater was locking up.

Viktor flashed his Interpol ID. “Is there a priest still on hand? I apologize for the hour.”

The man’s eyes lingered on the badge. “I’m one of the vicars.”

“I have a few quick questions,” Viktor said, “if you have a moment.”

“I suppose I do.”

“I’m investigating a matter with some rather… arcane… elements. My research has produced a term with which I’m unfamiliar, and I was wondering if someone at the church might help.”

“What is it?” the vicar said.

“
Tutori
.”

He ushered Viktor inside but didn’t close the door. “Latin?”

“Probably,” Viktor said. “It translates roughly to ‘the guardians.’ Have you heard of an organization with this name associated with the church?”

His jowls bounced as he shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Do you have a library?” Viktor said.

“The largest cathedral library in the country.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose this can wait until tomorrow? We have a church historian on hand during the day.”

“Not unless it has to,” Viktor said. “If you have a catalog, that could expedite the process.”

“It’s digital now. Typically you find the book you want online, reserve the book, and claim it the next day.”

“But if the book is there,” Viktor said, “you could help me now.”

“I suppose.”

“Interpol sincerely appreciates your cooperation.”

The vicar muttered a reply, locked the huge door and led Viktor down a hallway to the cramped administrative portion of the Minster, then into a carpeted office. “The library’s in another building, but we can check the catalog from here.”

Viktor waited with folded arms as the computer warmed up. If the York Minster had the largest cathedral library in England, then outside of the
Vatican this should be one of the best places in the world to find a reference to the
tutori
.

The online catalog filled the screen. The vicar entered his registration information, confirmed the spelling of the word with Viktor, and typed the word into the title database.

Nothing.

“Let’s try a broader search,” the vicar said, “for text within the documents.”

The search produced a few results in Italian, which Viktor scanned and disregarded as irrelevant. Viktor’s weight shifted to his heels. He had gotten his hopes up. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“Are there any books that haven’t been cataloged,” Viktor said, “perhaps a storeroom or a rare records room?”

“I’m afraid not.”

It was late, and Viktor decided to stop in for a pint at one of York’s countless pubs. His emerald potion awaited him at his suite, and he knew at some point in the evening he would not be able to resist. But for the first time in a very long time, he feared what the absinthe would drag to the surface more than he feared the clarity of his thoughts without it.

A velvety darkness cloaked the town. Viktor bypassed bar after bar, each more beguiling and full of character than the last, with names like the Gimcrack, the Hansom Cab, the Three-Legged Mare, and the House of the Trembling Madness.

He continued down Petergate to the Shambles, a stone lane once littered with blood and offal from its many butcher shops, now lined with contiguous timber-framed houses and specialty shops, the tops of which jutted drunkenly over the constricted street. Viktor decided on the Golden Fleece, a somber pub with an entrance just off the Shambles.