Evil Ways (27 page)

The next morning, after a mostly sleepless night, Morris heard from Fenton.

"Looks like we finally caught a break," he told Morris.

"Good, we could fucking use one. What happened?"

"While I was brushing my teeth this morning, I remembered that at the last reunion I attended, a college buddy of mine said he'd gone into the Air Force not long after graduation. Officer Candidate School, and all that. Told me he was one of the top guys in the Idaho Air National Guard, now. Well, I got him on the phone, and he's still there. In fact, he's been moving up pretty good
—Deputy Commander of the whole fuckin' air wing."

"I guess that's good," Morris said, "but I'm not sure I see exactly how, unless you can get him to drop a few tons of bombs on Grobius's place out there and call it a training exercise."

"No, can't do that. But there's more than one kind of training exercise, and Charlie
is
willing to send one of their reconnaissance aircraft over the place, with its cameras running."

Morris sat up straighten "Okay, that is good news. Maybe we'll learn what the hell Grobius and his pet wizard have in mind for tomorrow night. Wait, though. Shit!"

"What's wrong?"

"If Grobius and his boys figure out that they're under surveillance, they might decide to cut their losses and close down operations. That would probably include disposing of all potential witnesses, including Libby."

"Don't sweat it, man. Charlie tells me the plane'll be at fifty thousand feet
—maybe higher, depending on the cloud cover. And it'll be over Grobius's place and gone before anyone even notices it's there. With the kinds of cameras and shit they've got today, apparently one pass is all you need to get a whole bunch of good pictures of anything on the ground bigger than a gopher."

"Okay, then. Not bad, Fenton. Not bad, at all. But the sooner we get this done, the better. When's your pal gonna send the plane over?"

"What time is it now?"

"About eight forty-seven, Eastern."

"It's already airborne."

"Have you got it, Ellie?"

"It's loading now. My Internet connection is kind of slow, so this may take a minute."

Morris sat in front of his laptop, the mouse in one hand, his phone in the other. After a short wait, he heard Ellie Robb's voice again.

"Yes, all right. I've got it."

"I'm sending another one, now. It can be loading while we talk."

"I'm looking, Quincey, but I'm not sure what it is I'm seeing. I'm not trained in aerial photo interpretation, you know."

"Me, neither," Morris told her. "But, fortunately, I just spent twenty minutes on the phone with an Air Force tech sergeant who is. He worked with me, and I'll work with you. What does the image look like?"

"Well, clearly it's a stretch of land. Most of it looks like it's been landscaped, but some of it appears to be wild. I also see what I suppose are buildings
—one large one, more or less in the center, and several smaller ones, in different places around the area."

"Anything else?"

"I don't know
—there are some other things spaced between the buildings, at what look like regular intervals. They're just dots in the photo, although one them appears a tad larger than the rest."

"All right, good. As I'm sure you've figured out, Ellie, you're looking at an aerial photo, taken by a military aircraft, of the Coeur d'Alene estate of one Walter Grobius, reclusive zillionaire."

"That's all very well, Quincey, but this is the best the Air Force can do
—"

"It's not. They've got state-of-the-art magnification equipment, as well as computer programs that can fill in the gaps, based on mathematical probability. Or something like that. Go to the next photo, please, while I send you a third one."

"All right, it's loading."

Half a minute or so later, Eleanor Robb said, "Okay, I can tell that it's the same image, but blown up. Quite an improvement."

"Good. So, what are you looking at now?"

"Well, the buildings are much clearer. The big one looks to be a house, quite a large one. The others appear to be outbuildings."

"What about the dots?"

"Hmmm. They look like excavations of some sort. Similar in size, if I'm any judge, and evenly spaced around the grounds."

"Okay. Now, what about the thing you described as the bigger dot?"

"I can see now that it's some kind of structure, not one of the excavations. Hard to say how big it is, but it's smaller than the outbuildings, I can tell that much."

"All right, then," Morris said. "I'm sending the third photo, which is an even better enlargement. Once it loads, tell me what you see."

"Will do."

Morris clicked "Send," and waited. Thirty seconds went by, but he did not hear from Eleanor Robb. He waited another half minute before speaking.

"Ellie? What's wrong? Didn't it load?"

"No, Quincey. It loaded fine." Morris thought there was an odd note in Eleanor Robb's voice.

There was more silence on the line. "Ellie? Hello?"

She cleared her throat before speaking. "The smaller excavations are fire pits, of a very particular kind. I've seen these before, but never more than one at a time. I have never even imagined, wait… twenty-five of them in one place."

"What are they for, Ellie?"

"They are used in conjurations
—black magic rituals for calling up demons."

"So, someone is planning to call up twenty demons at once, you think?"

"Perhaps… but probably not."

"Why do you say that?"

"That
thing
in the middle of it all. Quincey, it's an altar. The most elaborate, complex black altar I have ever seen. And for those of the Left-Hand Path, altars are places of sacrifice."

"Sure, Ellie, but Catholics do the same thing. Episcopalians too, I guess."

"True, but those sacrifices are purely symbolic. In black magic, the sacrifices are very real, and invariably bloody. Usually, it's some kind of animal. But not always. The sacrifice is designed to please the Infernal Powers. The bigger and more important the sacrifice, the greater the favor to be gained from the other side, and hence the more power present in the conjuration. And having multiple rituals going on at once would
further
increase that power."

"All right, Ellie. Given what you're looking at, give me your best guess as to what these people intend."

Silence.

"Ellie?"

Still silence.

"Ellie? Are you there?"

"Quincey I can only come to one reasonable conclusion, and it hurts my head just to have the thought in there. It's just… inconceivable
—except the evidence is right in front of me that someone
has
actually conceived it, and intends to carry it out. Or try to."

"I need to hear you say it, Ellie. Carry
what
out?"

"A conjuration that will, Goddess save us, bring Satan himself to Earth."

It is not known for certain either when or why Walpurgis Night became the night of the Witches' Sabbath. Its name derives from Saint Walpurga, whose feast day occurs on May 1. There is nothing sinister about the reputation of this good and pious woman, who in her lifetime was known for speaking out against witchcraft and sorcery. Some say the date was first chosen because it is the mirror of Halloween, being exactly six months away from that other night held sacred by followers of the Left-Hand Path.

Reports that the night of April 30 was being used for revels in worship of the Evil One began to surface in the Middle Ages, although some scholars claim this dark observance goes back to the Roman Empire. The first Walpurgis Night revels probably took place on The Brocken, the name given to the highest peak of the Germany's Hartz Mountains, although they have also been known to occur in other places throughout Western and Central Europe and, more recently, North America.

These days, The Brocken is a tourist attraction on Walpurgis Night. But there is another peak in the Hartz Mountains from which strange lights and even stranger noises emanate on the night of April 30. The good Germans who live near there stay indoors on Walpurgis Night,
and there are no tourists at all
—not after what happened to the first group who tried to crash the party, some thirty years ago.

Their charred remains were eventually identified, through dental records.

Every year, the daylight hours preceding Walpurgis Night are occasions for frenetic activity in certain circles, although this is rarely noticed by the public. This year, the forces aligned with the Light
—as well as their counterparts, the Children of Darkness—were even busier than usual.

A few hundred yards away, Walter Grobius lay in his immense bed, waiting for the pain medication to start working before he got up. Although this usually made him grumpy, Grobius consoled himself with the knowledge that this was the last morning for a very long time that he would have to worry about pain. Starting tomorrow, everything was going to be different.

Outside, Pardee looked up at the sky, imagining it filled with the brooms and other conveyances by which his guests would arrive after dark, although some were planning to employ more mundane means of transport.

Beginning tomorrow, everything was going to be different.

He was working out a battle plan.

Six rows behind Morris sat a tall, slim woman dressed all in black. She was attractive by most standards, barring the long scar on one side of her face, which she had made no attempt whatsoever to cover with makeup. The woman, like Morris, had a window seat, and she was taking in the view, although the set of her face suggested that it did not please her. The seat next to her was empty, and the man sitting on the aisle had tried to make pleasant conversation precisely once. The look the woman in black gave him had guaranteed that he would not try again.

When the beverage service came around, she declined the flight attendant's offer of champagne and instead asked for black coffee. Ellie needed to work, even though she had been up all night, and the prospects for sleep tonight were uncertain, at best. Of course, if she and her allies failed in their task, they would have all eternity to rest in
—along with, quite possibly, most of mankind.