Beneath the Hallowed Hill (22 page)

That night they were initiated into a secret group within the Masons, one with a long history. Two nights a week, the new crop of initiates would attend hush-hush classes together. They would take separate, circuitous routes to the don’s quarters, where they sat in a tight circle listening to instruction and then putting that night’s lesson to work in meditation or ritual. Cagliostro grasped the lessons as if he were just reviewing them. His visions stunned the class, but the professor remained aloof. They took to calling Professor Forrester names to make up for his snubs. “Doctor Dolt’s jealous. He plods along. Magic by numbers,” Cagliostro sneered.

Abernathy wondered about Forrester’s attitude. Whenever Cagliostro had a particularly spectacular experience, Forrester lectured them about how “colorful experiences,” as he called them, were not in and of themselves proof of advanced ability. “They must be tempered by wisdom.” He would fix Cagliostro with a look. “Sometimes it is better if this type of clarity comes later in life.”

Cagliostro had a way of looking down his aristocratic nose at him that made Forrester’s mouth tighten. He collected a group of admirers that practiced and studied together. With the classes came access to the special metaphysical collection in a private room in one of the libraries. All Cagliostro had to do was wonder about something aloud, and someone would stay up all night pouring over arcane texts to find the answer. They would appear bleary-eyed at breakfast, elbowing people away so they could sit by Cagliostro and brag about what they found. Abernathy became Cagliostro’s right hand man, a position coveted by all the others.

In their second year, the group was ushered with due ceremony into a closet in their chemistry lab. The front part of the room was indeed a closet, but behind the brooms and mops, another door opened to a spacious and well stocked alchemical laboratory. They worked among boiling beakers and test tubes full of oddly colored liquids. Abernathy preferred mental workings, but Cagliostro excelled here as well, once making a temperamental potion that took an entire lunar cycle to complete. He won grudging praise. All the Masons who taught them seemed to resent Cagliostro except one, Cornelius Waldman, a man who inspired fear in everyone except his chosen apprentice.

Over the summer before their third year, Waldman invited Cagliostro to his home. When Cagliostro returned, he moved to the front of the class and then started studying with a more advanced group. The Masonic teachers grew hesitant to criticize him. He won initiation into the secret order that next summer.

Abernathy stopped his narrative and sat staring into the fire. After a long pause, he continued. “That’s when Cagliostro became a teacher. He helped with the first year classes. He handpicked three others—I was one—for what he called special instruction.” The words were bitter in his mouth. He remembered his own pride, how he rubbed a friend’s face in it. “We read Crowley and replicated some of his more daring experiments, but Cagliostro had to outshine even him.” Abernathy groped for his glass of sherry, took two gulps, and set it down again. A log on the fire sizzled. The ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs reached them in the quiet.

“What do you know about his life before Oxford?” Michael’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Did you ever meet his family? He changed his name, didn’t he?”

Grateful that Michael spared him a walk down the entire path of his regrettable association with Alexander Cagliostro, Abernathy gave himself a slight shake. “Yes, the family name is Ravenscroft…at least they took that name when they moved to England, probably in the late eighteenth century. Cagliostro reclaimed his lineage and took the original last name when he declared his independence from his father.”

“They were in conflict?” Michael asked.

“Oh, indeed.” Abernathy’s laugh was bitter. “He hated the old man. Not a shred of magic in his body, he used to say. Spent all his time doing business. He rebuilt the family fortune, though.”

“Doing what?”

Abernathy narrowed his eyes, trying to remember. “Oil and gas, gold, diamonds during the second war.”

“I figured. Sounds like he was involved in some pretty shady business.”

Abernathy nodded. “They had it out his senior year. He moved in with Waldman and changed his name.” The fire died down. He looked over at Michael, who was only an outline in the darkness. He reached up to switch on the light, but changed his mind. The dark suited his mood.

“Were they lovers?”

“Who?”

“Waldman and Cagliostro?”

He snorted. “Probably, but Cagliostro devoured women as fast as he went through his basic studies, and with the same relish. He never fell in love. He seemed to be looking for someone special. An equal. Never found one, though. He slept with his share of men, but he seemed to do that for form, maybe out of his devotion to Crowley.”

“Did he ever meet him?”

“Crowley died in 1947. Sixty years ago.”

“What about his mother?”

“Beautiful woman. She wore the family jewels well, he used to say. They were never close.”

“Poor little rich boy.”

Abernathy yanked his head around at Michael’s tone. “I’ve often wondered what turned him. I’m not sure it was his parents, although he certainly had a lonely childhood on that huge country manor. No brothers or sisters, father off on business, mother in London…no, Cagliostro damned himself.”

Michael sat forward. “How do you mean?”

Now they had come to it. “Cagliostro took a trip to San Francisco. He had to experience the summer of love for himself. Afterwards, he and Waldman traveled to South America. He came home with some
ayahuasca
, said it put acid to shame.”

“Doctor Abernathy!” Michael sounded scandalized.

Abernathy smiled at Michael’s tone. “We took the drug and waited for it to come on, then cast a circle. Cagliostro said he was going to conjure up some demon he read about, one that was bound long ago. I didn’t take him very seriously. I didn’t believe in demons, not in the way people think of them nowadays.”

“Neither do I,” Michael said.

“Yes, well.” Abernathy paused. “Let’s just say I was surprised.”

* * * *

He surfaced from restful sleep to another memory.

The drug rushed through his system, opening his vision to what hung in the air around him. Faces pushed up against the circle they just cast. Again, he dipped the athame into the chalice filled with sheep’s blood and drew another backwards pentagram in the east. “I conjure you, Semiazas, chief of the fallen angels. Appear before us.” He heard Abernathy shift his feet and briefly wondered if he would hold up the north, but he didn’t have time to worry. More faces pushed against the sphere, demanding entrance. Cagliostro sent a stream of energy to strengthen the circle behind him then called again, “Semiazas. Appear.”

A great roaring, then something flung him to the ground. He struggled to get up, pushed his hair out of his eyes, and saw hooves standing in fire. The smell overwhelmed him. Was it burnt tires? He coughed, trying to clear his lungs. His eyes streamed. Cagliostro felt the circle sag and was dimly aware of running feet. “No,” he croaked, and sent another blast of energy into the now empty north. The ritual space held.

Thank God
, he thought.

“You invoke God now?” the being asked, and spat at Cagliostro. The spittle smoldered, burning into the wood parquet floor, then turned into a snake that slithered back to the demon, leaving a trail of smoke.

Cagliostro staggered to his feet. “Semiazas?” He shook his head against the question in his voice. Cornelius said never to show weakness.

“He sent me because I know you. I know what you are.”

The voice caressed him, leaving behind a wave of revulsion. He took a shaking breath. If the teaching was correct, that the true name of the being would control it, then he was in trouble. “How do you know me?”

“We started it, you and I.”

“Started what?”
Damn, Cornelius said never to ask, always to command.

The demon lifted up his sharp, red face and wailed.

Cagliostro covered his ears, blind terror replacing thought for a full minute, then he realized the thing was laughing.

“How could you forget, Alexander?”

His mind raced. He saw a list, he had to memorize it. Finally it came. “Thamuz,” he said. “The Inquisition.”

The demon laughed again and somehow he withstood the sound. “What do you want?” it asked. The question somehow contained the suggestion that he was an insect in the great hierarchy of beings, not worthy of any boon…and yet, the being appeared.

He forced himself to look into Thamuz’s face. It roiled like a furnace. Images floated to the top—men pleading, burning and stretched on racks, screaming as their entrails were torn from their body. Cagliostro looked into the demon’s eyes and his bowels turned to water. He panted for a minute, then said, “I bind you—”

“You bind me? What comic book have you been reading?”

“—to serve me—”

“You inconsequential—”

A blast of fire burned Cagliostro’s eyelashes. “—in this life,” he gasped out.

There was a blast of rage. Cagliostro came back to consciousness and found himself laying flat on the floor. Did it leave? He sighed in relief, but then he heard something ponderous shift its weight.

“Look at me when I talk to you.”

The voice alone picked him up off the floor. He looked again into those fathomless eyes.

“My master bids me remind you of your task. When the time comes, I will aid you, but only because He commands it.” There was a burst of flames and the sound of gale force winds, and Thamuz was gone.

“No!” Cagliostro screamed as if his lungs were raw. Footsteps sounded from the hall. The door opened. “No.” He held his hands in front of his face. He didn’t want to see it again. Someone grabbed his arm and he felt a sharp prick. Another drug, cool in his veins, seeped through his system, sending him back into dreamless sleep.

The morning nurse found him sitting in bed, lucid and self-contained, as dangerous as a King cobra. She stopped short, then quickly gathered her wits. “Sir, how are you feeling?”

“How many days?” he asked.

What he really wondered was how many days, how many lifetimes, he wasted serving the power-hungry world elite, using his talents to conduct rituals to control the masses and influence world events, to find and activate ancient technology. He thought this was his own desire as well, but now the time had come to turn the tables and use the shadow government for his own ends. Now, Cagliostro knew what he truly wanted.

Chapter Thirteen

Govannan sat in an undignified heap holding his thigh, trying not to groan. The sharp, stabbing pain gradually receded, and he nodded to Herasto, one of the pod members, to help him to his feet. Govannan took a tentative step. Pain stabbed deep into his thigh. He stood, a thin line of sweat on his lip. The Pleiadian ambassador, still fastening her deep rose jumpsuit, ran over to him. Her piercing blue eyes were filled with concern. “Are you injured?”

He nodded. “Something brushed against me. It was only a light touch, but it seems to have torn a muscle. What did you see?”

She looked him up and down then said something in a low voice.

Govannan leaned closer. “Excuse me?”

She shook her head. “Someone out of his proper time.”

Govannan stepped toward her in alarm and his leg buckled. Herasto grabbed him before he fell. Govannan spoke through tight lips, “Someone else was in there with you?”

She nodded.

“How could that be? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” He looked around at his pod of workers who stood in a tight knot, some whispering, others listening intently to the conversation.

“It happens from time to time.”

The comment reminded Govannan of the lengthy life spans of the Pleiadians, as she probably meant it to. “What should we do? I never had a slip up like this. We could have endangered your life.”

She waved a hand in dismissal. “I was in no danger.”

“If it would not be too much of an imposition,” his head was clearing enough to remember that one had to treat the Pleiadian matriarchy with utmost respect, “I would appreciate hearing about any other times you’ve experienced this.”

She studied him for a moment, her head cocked to one side.

“I would learn from you.” He bowed his head slightly.

“The time to talk is approaching.” She looked around the group.

One of the pod members stepped forward. “I will escort you.”

The ambassador nodded and followed the pod member out of the chamber.

Govannan looked around at the group. “Let’s get this crystal settled, then we’ll meet.” Ianara, a leader of one of the pod, stepped forward, a frown on her face. “What?” he snapped.

She ignored his tone. “You need to go to the healers.”

“First we need to figure out what happened.”

“Once you’ve seen the healer.”

Govannan took a breath to object, and she raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, all right.” He tried to take another step. Pain shot up his leg into his hip. He bit his lip to swallow an involuntary gasp. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said in a subdued voice. He looked around at the group, then back to Ianara. “Will you lead the debriefing?”