The Solomon Key (18 page)

And then restlessness began attacking his legs, forcing him to concentrate on not tapping his foot. But images of people on fire began playing in his mind’s theatre, and he couldn’t take sitting there anymore. He got up, pins and needles jabbing his legs, and reached down for the bag. Crossing the room, and not even glancing in Mayhew’s direction, he left.

Loudon Road was quiet. There were no houses around that he could see, and only an occasional car busied the road. He didn’t know where he was walking to, but the walking itself was his end so he didn’t really care. Didn’t care that he may have just walked out on Mayhew for good.

Without knowing how much time had passed, he eventually found himself standing in front of a diner, its big flickering neon sign peering down at him.
Danielle’s
.
Feeling the weight of the bag hanging from his shoulder, he figured he could use somewhere to sit, to discover just what nonsense it might contain.

It took him three seconds from the time he opened the door to process the whole layout and everyone in the place. It was relatively small for a diner. The seating area was shaped like an L with bar stools wrapping around the front counter, and the kitchen was through the doors behind the register. There were three people in the diner. One guy was sitting alone in a booth next to the window at the bottom of the L, and a man and a woman were sitting facing each other at the top. The guy sitting by himself had his back to the door. Balding, broad shoulders, slightly slouched posture. He looked like he was around two hundred pounds. Out of shape, older. He was reading a paper, sipping a coffee. Hadn’t touched his half-eaten burger in a while. He was holding the coffee in his right hand, empty sugar wrappers and creamers on the table to his right. So he was right handed. He was all the way against the wall, his right shoulder leaning against it. Which meant he didn’t have a gun. A gun holder would have sat on the side of the table facing the door, in a position where he could use it. He wasn’t a threat and definitely wasn’t interested in Scott’s presence.

The couple was younger, and the guy was too busy trying to sneak a peek down his date’s shirt to even notice him. Both of his hands were holding hers on top of the table while they waited for their food.

Three seconds. That’s all it took. And then he was standing at the counter, waiting for someone to tell him to be seated. There was no one there managing the storefront, and he was about to seat himself when a guy wearing a dirty apron opened one of the kitchen doors and peaked out.

“Take a seat. She’ll be with you in a second.” And then he disappeared again.

But not before Scott got a glimpse into the kitchen. It was empty, no police lying in wait.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. Turning away from the counter, he went for the last booth in the room where the young girl would be the only one that could see him. Pulling the bag off his shoulder, he dropped it onto the table and sat down. He was facing the door, the window beside him giving him a panorama of the parking lot and a good portion of Loudon Road. After eavesdropping on the conversation ahead of him for a few moments, he leaned back against the bench and scanned the ceiling. He couldn’t find any cameras, but he knew they were there.

The waitress came out through the kitchen doors. She didn’t have a notepad in her hand or in her apron, so either she’d been working here for a while, or the menu was pretty simple. He didn’t care. He wasn’t buying anything.

“Good evening, sir.” Her voice matched her face. Friendly and soft. She was an attractive woman, tall in heels, brown hair, great eyes. About thirty-three, give or take a couple of years. No wedding band.

Scott smiled politely. “Hi.”

“What can I get for you?”

He was instantly attracted to her. “If it’s all the same to you, miss, I’d just like to sit here.”

She eyed him over with a curious smile. “No money?” Her smile was seductive, and her eyes couldn’t hide their teasing.

Scott figured that in a small town like this any guy that was even remotely attractive would earn such attention from the likes of her. He shrugged. “I lost my wallet.”

“Well, since we’re so busy…” She looked around and laughed. “You can stay as long as you’d like.”

He smiled. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

She smiled back and turned away in a manner that tempted him to follow. He was sure it was planned that way. He sighed, wanting to follow and hoping that Edward couldn’t read minds from his heavenly abode.

Reaching into the bag, he pulled out the two books and set them on the table in front of him. Their covers, brown calfskin leather, the smell of which had faded long ago, were beaten from constant attention, and the pages they contained were yellow with age. There was a long piece of twine in the bag, the books having once been tied together. Whatever was written on these pages were things the priest hadn’t trusted Daniel or Mayhew with.

He noticed the waitress watching him from behind the counter and smiled. She smiled back. And then he turned one of the covers back, bringing the diner’s light across a loose piece of paper. It was folded up and resting against the first page. Gently removing the loose paper, he unfolded it and discovered a drawing of North America with what appeared to be the spirit of a man whimsically floating up out of its center like some genie or ghost. He was holding scrolls in his hands and over his head was an eye enclosed within a triangle. And then Scott noticed a rose and a cross on his cloak.
A rose.
Scott stared at it for a moment, but there were no other markings on it to explain its meaning. Folding it back up and replacing it, he looked instead to page one of the mysterious book.

The page had no lines, and the priest (presumably) had filled the blank page with the sketch of a strange symbol — Christ on the cross, a double-headed phoenix behind Him, and a Bible passage in Latin encircling the whole thing. He wasn’t sure what it meant and so turned the page.

THE TESTAMENT OF SOLOMON

Scott had never heard of it and wondered if it was the title of the priest’s own work, or if it was an actual piece of history. There were notes scribbled beneath the title that seemed to answer his question.

Old Testament pseudepigraphical work. It is considered a haggadic-type folktale and is commonly dated between the 1st and 3rd century AD. The standard Greek text contains comments on fourteen Greek manuscripts written in Koine Greek and is generally not believed to be a translation document — though it was believed by some in 1896 to have been translated from the Hebrew. Other scholars think it to be a Christian revision of a Jewish document, the original document actually being the very collection of incantations which, according to Josephus, was composed by Solomon himself. Still others believe it to have been edited by a Greek-speaking Christian if written by a Greek-speaking Jew. Most, however, attribute the Testament to a Greek-speaking Christian. Its origin is unknown, but the common candidates include: Galilee, Egypt, Asia Minor, or Palestine. In 1945, Coptic translations of fifty-one tractates were discovered in Egypt. One of them entitled “On the Origin of the World” mentions “The Book of Solomon” and seems to refer to the eighth chapter of the Testament’s demonology. However, it is also possible that it refers instead to the 1st century BC “Hygromancie of Solomon.” If, however, it is referring to the Testament, then it would provide further proof of it coming from 3rd century Alexandria…

He looked up from the page, turning his attention out the window and into the parking lot.
Demonology?
He felt like he was trapped inside a bad joke. First Roswell, now demons? He turned the page anyway.

Chapter 1:5-7.

Moving his eyes over the penned words, a strange sensation swept over him.

When I, Solomon, heard these things, I went into the Temple of God and, praising him day and night, begged with all my soul that the demon might be delivered into my hands and that I might gain authority over him. And it came about through prayer that grace was given to me from the Lord of Sabaoth* through Michael his archangel. He brought me a ring, having a seal consisting of an engraved stone. He said to me, “Take, O Solomon, king, son of David, the gift which the Lord God, the highest Sabaoth, has sent you. With it you shall imprison all the demons, male and female, and with their help you shall build Jerusalem. But thou must wear this seal of God. And this engraving of the seal of the ring sent thee is a Pentalpha.**

*transliteration of Heb.
Sabah
(army): the Lord of (heavenly) armies.

**“some manuscripts include this. Pentalpha being a 31 letter word written in the 2nd and 3rd of a series of concentric circles, an engraving with ‘O Lord our God’ plus a group of Semitic-sounding names.” — DC Duling

Scott turned the page to find verses from the next chapter, this time with more drawings in the margins. Among the doodles was a cross wrapped with a single rose. He flipped through the rest of the book, and it was all more of the same — selected verses from
Testament of Solomon
.

Leaning back against the seat and staring up at the ceiling, he wondered if what he just read could possibly be speaking of the same ring Mayhew now had in his pocket. He tried not to care. Instead, he watched the waitress walk over to the young couple and ask how everything was. Then he watched her walk over to him.

“Everything okay?” she asked, an inquisitive smile across her lips.

Scott shrugged, and she squinted playfully. He was about to say something that would ensure him spending the night with her, when a sudden twinge of guilt erupted from his dead conscious. Though his wife was probably remarried or maybe even dead, he had still left her, and this feeling something for a stranger only fanned those flames of shame. “Are you Danielle?” he asked instead.

She leaned against the booth, putting her hand on her hip. “Nope. I’m Cindy.”

“Would you care to join me, Cindy?” He didn’t know what he was doing anymore, his morality on and off the merry-go-round faster than he could keep up with it.

She laughed, flashed him another killer smile, and turned away from him, confident as to how this game would end.

He forced his attention back to the book, though with a bit less interest than he’d had a moment ago. Images of what could be were flashing through his mind while his wife came riding around the carousel, condemning them. Before he could purge it all from his head and settle into reading, something in the parking lot caught his eye.

A police car.

He swore under his breath, all thoughts of the girl and the books in front of him gone. He glanced away from the cop making his way across the lot and found the waitress. She was looking at the cop, and then she was looking at him. She wasn’t stupid. Bored with little self-respect, but not stupid. She disappeared into the kitchen.

Grabbing the menu from the table, he opened it, pretending to read as the cop entered the diner. Scott could feel the cold gaze of authority sweeping over him, processing him. He forced himself to focus on the menu, the prices.

A shadow stretched over the menu, someone standing over him.

He looked up to see Cindy’s pretty face smiling down at him with a reassuring look gleaming forth from those amazing eyes.

She poured him a cup of coffee and whispered, “On the house.” She winked at him. And then she began talking loud enough so that the cop could hear her. “Indecisive tonight, huh? Well, I think I’d personally recommend the club sandwich with a side of French onion soup.”

“Sounds great, Cindy. Thanks.” And he mouthed the words, “I mean it.”

She bent over, the smell of her perfume tickling his senses, and her lips touched his ear. “If you need to, there’s an exit in the back.” Then she quickly kissed his ear before retreating back into the kitchen. “It’ll be right up, Frank.”

Scott lowered the menu, noticing that the cop was now on a barstool at the counter. He didn’t seem too interested in anything but the menu. Scott sipped the coffee and watched Cindy come back out through the kitchen doors and lean on the counter facing the officer. She started talking to him like she knew him.

Willing his eyes back down to the priest’s book and setting the menu aside, he went back to the page he had been reading.

“At the moment the demon appears to you, fling this ring into his chest, and say to him: ‘In the name of God, King Solomon summons you,’ and come running back to me as fast as you can without having any misgivings or fear in respect of what you may hear on the part of the demon.”

Having enough of the stuff, he closed the book and reached for the other one. But as he stretched out his arm, his elbow knocked over the coffee. He was fast as lightning in rescuing most of the cup’s contents, but he wasn’t fast enough to keep the rest of it from reaching the
Testament of Solomon.
He swore loudly, picking the book up and shaking it off. He grabbed a handful of napkins and threw them on the puddle before it could reach the other book. He could feel the cop’s eyes on him again, and he silently cursed his stupidity. He could hear the cop ask Cindy about him, who he was. He said that he didn’t recognize him, and she told him that it didn’t surprise her, that he wasn’t the sharpest cop on the block.

Scott looked up, trying to feign embarrassment, and the officer established eye contact with him. Scott tried a sheepish smile that might disarm the cop, but the guy turned to look into the parking lot. Scott sighed and watched him get up from the bar.

The law sat down in the booth across from him, dressed in black and a haughty look stuck to its face.

“Hi there,” the man said while smiling that classic patronizing smile.

Scott looked up from the wet napkins, annoyed now. “Can I help you, officer?” There was an edge to his voice that he didn’t mean to let slip.

“Never seen you before,” he said.