Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (41 page)

The vibration of the presence drew back farther from the aura of the fountain.
 

It seemed as though years had passed since he had boarded the Trabik. He looked at the contact sheet in his hand and tried to remember anything that was significant. He reconstructed the details of the voyage, searching for a connection to Presto’s photographs.
 

Then he remembered someone. The man who shared Presto’s interest in photography. Lew Wallet. Wallet had said he was heading for Rome.
 

When he first met Wallet and his family, his wife had told Orient that Wallet’s psychopictography exhibit contained unusual things that appeared when they were exposed to infrared processing—Wallet’s process. He also recalled that some people had claimed that they were photographs of supernatural forces. Perhaps Wallet could find something on film that he couldn’t see.
 

Reluctant to move away from the protective influence, Orient nonetheless left the fountain and began walking to a public telephone. He found a coffee bar and after three attempts finally found an information operator who could give him Wallet’s telephone number.
 

A girl’s voice answered the number and informed Orient that Wallet was still out. She gave him the address and told him to try again in half an hour.
 

Orient walked slowly to the address the girl had given him, giving Wallet time to return and conserving his dwindling supply of strength. He kept his senses alert for any sign of the presence, but the dense vibration was still far off.
 

He found Wallet’s studio on the Piazza Navona. It was at one end of the plaza facing the three sculptured fountains that rose up from the center of the large, open square.
 

Wallet’s place of business was a small, elegantly simple photograph gallery called POSITIVE ART. Through the window Orient could see framed studies on the wall ranging from the work of Lartigue to that of Stock and Capa. All of the photographs were poster-sized and were perfectly printed on heavy paper.
 

As Orient entered, he immediately recognized the bearded, heavyset man with dark glasses who was standing in the rear of the gallery, deep in conversation with a young girl at the desk.
 

"Well, look who’s here." Lew Wallet smiled and extended his hand as he crossed the room. "I didn’t know you’d be coming to Rome, Doc."
 

Orient shook his hand. "I was just pondering a problem and decided to ask your advice." He found that it was an effort to keep his voice casual.
 

Wallet scratched his beard. "Well, advice I’ve always got. And plenty of pictures."
 

Orient hesitated. "This is a nice gallery," he said, looking around. He was stalling for time, trying to decide how to ask Wallet to use his process without going into an explanation.
 

"Yeah, thanks." Wallet waved a hand toward the wall. "I felt more people could afford great photographs than could buy great paintings. So I made up some good reproductions and mounted them on custom paper. I had doubts at first but people seem to like the idea. And it gives me time to perfect my new developing process."
 

"That’s what I came to ask you about. The infrared process."
 

Wallet frowned above his dark glasses. "Sorry, Doc, but that’s all tied up right now. Still working out the patents. Just what did you want to know?"
 

Orient decided to lie. "Presto asked me to take a set of photographs along to you for exposure to your process. He thought it would help his film. He’s in Morocco and mail service is slow."
 

"Presto?" Wallet beamed. "Well, why the hell didn’t you say so? You saw him, eh, Doc? How’s the boy doing? You know, I see a great future for him in the business."
 

"Well, his film is still being shot. I’m leaving Rome tomorrow so I thought I could drop the film off to him. He asked me to do him the favor."
 

"That fast, huh?" Wallet shook his head. "I don’t know. I’ve got other film ready now."

 
"Well, he seems to need the developing right away." Orient handed Wallet the negatives. "If you could do it for him, I’d be willing to wait."
 

"Well, if Presto needs it—" Wallet opened the envelope and squinted at the negatives. "I guess I can run them through and see what happens."
 

Orient was relieved. There wasn’t much time left to explore possibilities. Now that Pia knew he was fighting back, she would increase the force of her attack. And she would kill Julian.
 

"I’ll go get a cup of coffee while I wait," Orient said. "Thanks for your help."
 

Wallet grunted. "You tell Presto I was glad to help out. But you tell him I expect a letter once in a while." He turned toward his darkroom, then paused. "You better make that cup of coffee a gallon because it’s going to take a few hours."
 

Orient walked slowly across the square to a bar and ordered a glass of mineral water. As he drank, he stared out through the glass doors at the magnificent trio of fountains on the plaza. The sunset pink and violet sky shaded the huge carved stone figures with deepening reflections.
 

Then he felt the oppressiveness swirling around him. The air in the bar became stale and stuffy. He began moving quickly to the door.
 

The drowsiness hit him before he had taken more than a few steps toward the fountain outside. He formed the images of protection in his mind and staggered across the square. As he neared the white, carved fountain, however, the cloying weight of the presence didn’t retreat as it had done before. It resisted.
 

Traces of the vibration’s stench lingered stubbornly in his mind and surged angrily around his thoughts, threatening to collapse the neutralizing wall provided by the running water. Each image he invoked to protect himself from the numbness was tumbled by the pressing, unseen mist. He washed the water over his flushed face and continued to squeeze his will against the vibration.
 

Time had run out. Orient realized that the sun was going down and the force was gathering strength. Unless he could find the key to its power, he wouldn’t last until morning. And Julian would be dead. Orient could feel the lust to consume driving the presence. If Julian was being kept alive for some ritual, the cycle was at hand. As the shadows settled over the plaza, Orient sensed the rabid urgency of the vibration hunting him. It had a need to kill.
 

A whirling gust of dizziness shook his thoughts. He took a sip of water from his cupped hand and tried to control the pattern of his breathing. As his body eased into the calm pulse of the pattern, his mind slowly unclenched and opened to absorb pure energy. He concentrated on the word
AIKN
, using the invocation of Adb-el-Kadir, the servant of the powerful, the Babylonian formula for overcoming all enemies.
 

He let all form drop away as he intensified the pattern, and just as he suspended thought at the formula of the word, he felt his body lighten and the presence draw back.
 

He sat at the edge of the fountain for a long time, holding the balance of his meditation and remaining within the confines of its generating influence.
 

When he opened his eyes, the drowsiness was gone and he felt physically alert again. But he also felt weak from the strain of fighting Pia. His alertness was dulled by fear. He didn’t know how long the invocation would keep the presence back. And it was very strong now, becoming more reckless as it sensed his helplessness.
 

He waited another hour before leaving the fountain. As he walked away from the direct protection of the water, his mind sniffed for a scent of the presence. There was nothing. He knew it was only a temporary lull. He cut across the square to Wallet’s gallery.
 

When he went inside, he saw that the girl was gone and Lew Wallet was sitting at the small desk. Wallet looked up as Orient opened the door, removed his sunglasses and began to wipe them with a tissue, his small eyes regarding Orient thoughtfully as he approached.
 

"Any results?" Orient asked lightly. He noticed that Wallet wasn’t smiling.
 

Wallet replaced the sunglasses over his eyes. "Maybe," he growled. He paused and looked at Orient. "Are you sure Presto wanted these things processed?"
 

"That’s what he told me," Orient said.
 

"Well, I don’t know what the hell to make of it." Wallet picked up the film and an enlargement and tossed them across the desk toward Orient. "Maybe you better tell me what you see there. It looks like something, but it could be a heat reaction."
 

Orient reached for the photograph and felt the air in the gallery becoming stagnant. The presence was preparing for another attempt to smother his mind. He fought back the slight dizziness and tried to remain calm. He looked at the photograph and a careening glacier of shock froze the blood in his stomach and sent a chill stream of nausea spurting into his throat.
 

"You can see a definite figure there. All the other shots of the boat were clear except that one," Wallet was saying. "Happens sometimes. But I don’t know why Presto would need that shot."
 

The vibration pounded at his brain. Orient’s hand shook and his vision wavered as he stared at the pink-tinted photograph of himself.
 

He wasn’t alone in the picture. He was seated, looking at a greenish, blurry figure on the chair next to him. The blur formed the swirling outline of an old, old woman. Her pinched features were gnarled with wrinkles and her thick, cracked mouth was distorted by two protruding, fanglike teeth. But even through the blurred, twisted teeth and the onrushing dizziness, he could recognize the outline of the mouth. It was the delicate line of Raga’s lips.

CHAPTER 25

He was struggling—trying to move against a swirling current of massed density—not able to make any progress against the liquidy fog—the increasing pressure was choking off his respiration—drowning out his thoughts...
 

"Look here, Orient," Wallet was shouting. "What is this all about? Presto didn’t send you here. Are you sick or something?"
 

Orient stumbled out of the gallery, unable to talk or think of anything except getting to the fountain far away, across the dusk-shadowed square. When he reached the street, he moved a few more feet, then paused as the drowsiness caressed the base of his brain, lulling him to rest. He stopped and let the pleasant lethargy massage his spine. He twisted his will and forced himself to take a step forward, then another, straining to make it through the stroking vibration that was sucking at his life.
 

He was dimly aware that people were stopping to stare at him as he staggered drunkenly toward the protection of the water. He closed his eyes as a spurt of pure delight spattered against his mind. He blinked and pushed his pleasure-soaked eyelids open, moving blindly through the howling exhaustion. The howl rose to a piercing, mocking roar when he reached the edge of the fountain and realized that the water’s mild influence wasn’t enough against the reckless power of the force.
 

His mind started drifting with the tumultuous flow instead of resisting it, floating away to accept the soothing embrace of the vibration.
 

He groaned and opened his eyes. He pushed himself away from the rail and started weaving across the plaza to the street. As he reached the corner he saw a cab letring off passengers and lurched for the door. He crawled into the back and fell against the seat. He managed to give the driver his address before he gave himself over fully to the insistent pulse of the pressure—and drifted faster—farther out into the sweet, crooning current...
 

"You’re here." Something was pulling at him. Orient tried to focus. The driver was shaking him. "You’re here. You’re here," he kept repeating.
 

Orient fumbled with his wallet and gave the driver a bill. The man helped Orient to the door of the hotel and the desk clerk assisted Orient into the elevator. When they reached his room, Orient asked that a box of salt and some bottled water be sent up. The clerk unlocked the door and hurried away, muttering about the strange requests of drunken guests.
 

Orient shook his head and tried to keep moving as the silken drowsiness pressed against his consciousness. He went into the bathroom and turned on all the water taps, struggling to stay on his feet and stay alive despite the certainty that his death would be the only blessed thing in his cursed reality. He made his way into the living room, using the walls to support his limp weight. He found a felt pen on the writing desk and clutched it in his fist. He dropped to the floor and began to scrawl the words:
 

PRMC

DHTR

MMPM

in large letters on the gray rug.
 

He hadn’t finished drawing the words when the waiter arrived, but he ignored the persistent buzzer until he had completed the square. When he was finished, he slowly got to his feet and stumbled to the door. He took the tray from the waiter and carried it very carefully to the square. He sat down in the center of the square of protective words and poured the salt and water into the glass. He tried
 

to concentrate on the words he had drawn as he repeated the Formula of Exorcism. The drowsiness lingered, reluctant to leave, but its weight became lighter on his lungs. As he sat cross-legged, crouching over the glass of clouded water, he felt his mind lifting against the oppressive exhaustion.
 

 
But as his thoughts opened, the fear chilled his concentration. Even after he had regained his breathing the anxiety splintered his consciousness with sharp, icy shafts of depression. For a moment he wanted to tear away his defenses and let his life be consumed.