The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) (21 page)

But Viktor still didn’t believe.

Eve took his arm.
Shall we finish that brandy when this is over?

Darius walked over to them, glowering.
This isn’t a game, Eve. We’re conjuring dark powers, perhaps the darkest, and none of us knows what will happen. If your mind isn’t one hundred percent on task, you have to leave. The ritual can be satisfied by one person alone, in case either of you isn’t up to the task.

Viktor barely concealed his amusement, but Eve licked her lips and brushed a stray blond hair from her eyes.
Ready for a fag,
she mouthed. Viktor
should have paid more attention to her mental state, the fear simmering just beneath the surface.

Lying open on the table in front of them was the ancient scroll they had procured from the Oxford library, hiding in an uncatalogued room in the rare books section. Darius’s and Viktor’s search for black magic had taken them deep into the guts of history. They had put aside their differences long enough to explore the range of Satanic cults, the Gnostic heresies, the devils of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian origin. They probed the gods of the Aztecs and the African tribes, they studied the witchcraft of the shamans and gypsies, they learned about the frightening gods on the fringes of Hinduism and Daoism. Then they looked harder and found the devil that was older than all the others, the one called Angra Mainyu.

Ahriman.

Though half-Persian with a Baha’i mother and a Protestant father, his parents did not raise Darius in a religious household. He knew of Zoroaster and Ahura Mazda, but Ahriman was not a name known to those outside the faith. But as Darius and Viktor explored the Persian origins of Solomon’s knowledge of the black arts, Darius became convinced that occult secrets lay with the elusive followers of Ahriman, the black mages of Zoroastrianism that lurked deep in the barrows of history.

They searched far and near for information on the Ahriman priests, coming up shockingly short. As if all mention of them had been erased from history. Viktor knew enough about history to know that happened only when a greater historical force expended the effort to do so.

The scroll they had found was written in Avestan and contained an actual ritual designed to call upon Ahriman. They compared it to demon summoning rituals from various sources, and once satisfied of its authenticity, they spent weeks in preparation, gathering the required ingredients, memorizing the Avestan inscriptions, researching the protection spells, preparing themselves mentally. Viktor may not have been a believer, but he respected the potential of the unknown enough to proceed with caution.

Incense poured forth from charcoal braziers, rolling through the forgotten basement they had discovered beneath the college of religion.
Light the candles
, Darius said to Viktor, scroll in hand.
Eve, start the invocation
.

A cold breeze passed across Viktor’s face, and he started. It was May in England, and the weather was still quite cool—but not that cool. Moreover, he knew he had shut the cellar door. Had he read one too many novels by Dennis Wheatley, imagined the breeze?

As practiced, they began to chant in unison, each of them reading from an exact copy of the scroll to ensure no missteps. Vials of mercury in hand, they stood on previously drawn extensions of the three greater points of the pentagram, forming a triangle just outside the protection spells, each extension inscribed with one of the three words of power—
Primeumatun, Anexhexeton, Tetragrammaton
. Resting on the two lesser extension points were human skulls they had stolen from the med school, each of the skulls bearing, like the three living souls in attendance, different markings symbolizing one of the five elements.

Darius took out the ritual knife he had prepared with the proper runes, actually using a soldering iron to carve the characters into the blade. Continuing to chant, Darius walked around the circle and made a shallow cut on each of their arms. They held their arms over the chalked pentagram for a count of three, infusing the circle with life. The pentagram was not to be crossed again, lest the summoned entity escape.

Viktor felt a mixture of annoyance and nostalgia. This was to be his last foray into black magic: He was graduating in three weeks, and for some time had been ready to move on from the practice of magic to the pursuit of greater truths, the search for other hidden doorways. Darius, he knew, was far from finished, still convinced that real power simmered in that mysterious nexus of magic and faith.

And Eve, his eccentric and beautiful Eve: For the first time, Viktor had moved away from the shallows of youthful romance and stepped into the deep and turbulent waters of love. Whenever he thought about leaving Eve for graduate school in Paris he felt as if one of those American mechanical
bulls had been loosed in his stomach, twisting and kicking his insides. He had decided to ask for her hand after graduation, and he relished her surprise.

Did anyone feel that breeze?
Eve asked.

I did
, Viktor said.
There must be a crack somewhere
.

Silence
, Darius hissed.
The forces are stirring. From this point forward there can be no more chatter, or we risk breaking concentration. And I needn’t repeat that under
no
circumstance can anyone enter the circle. Eve, do you understand? I’m quite serious about this. No matter what you hear or see, or how he tempts you
, you must not break the circle.

And just exactly what will happen
, she asked with her usual world-weary sarcasm, though the quiver in her voice belied her cool tone. Viktor knew Eve harbored religious beliefs ingrained in her from childhood, and that a sense of spiritual trespass into the realm of evil, more than any belief in ancient sorcery, was the source of her anxiety.

You don’t want to know
, Darius said, though without his typical smugness. The statement had been uttered with respect but also with a trace of fear, which surprised Viktor. He had never seen Darius afraid of magic.

The ritual began in earnest. As set forth in the scroll, the middle of the pentagram was stuffed with Persian inscriptions and numerology that comprised the bulk of the spell. Darius and Viktor had worked hard to translate the Avestan, even consulting experts at the college. They knew it was designed to call to Ahriman, but still did not understand the full meaning of the scroll. The symbology reminded Viktor of something out of the kabbalah, especially the use of the pentagram.

They had filled the other portions of the pentagram, the triangular tops of the five points, with the required ingredients, such as the clay golem and pillar of salt at Viktor’s feet, representative of the element of earth. Darius stood on fire, Eve on spirit, and the two skulls guarded air and water.

All that remained was to chant and stay the course. They had no idea how long it would take, though Darius had suggested hours, perhaps the entire night. Nor did they know what to expect. Would Ahriman appear as a
disembodied voice, a burning bush, a whirling djinn ready to grant their every desire?

Viktor, of course, expected nothing. If there were truth to magic, Viktor thought, then it did not involve three college kids summoning an antediluvian Persian god from a cellar.

As time dragged on and the minutes became hours, something happened they hadn’t planned on: The incense smoke from the five braziers clouded the air, creating a dense and aromatic fog that made Viktor light-headed. He hadn’t thought it possible for the braziers to put out that much smoke, but the lack of ventilation added to the effect.

After another hour Viktor could see Eve shifting back and forth, and he knew she was weakening. How long would this nonsense go on before they put a stop to it? He knew Darius would continue until he dropped, but Eve was nearing her limit.

I feel something.

Eve’s words so startled Viktor that he took a step backwards. He saw her slap at her arm, and then her leg.
Something’s pricking me. There must be an insect in here.

There’s no insect,
Darius said evenly.
Ahriman is coming forth, and he will test us to see if we’re worthy. He’ll concentrate on the weakest link.

Thanks for telling me that beforehand
.

There’s no cause for alarm. You’re strong.

I’m tired.

Eve! Continue chanting, or we risk disruption of the ritual. Remember, under no circumstances do you break the circle. Quit or leave if you must, but don’t cross the barrier.

Eve resumed chanting. The cadence of their combined voices returned, a steady current of words in a forgotten language. In rituals such as these, Viktor knew the alleged power of magical incantation lay not just in the content of the words but with the repetition, the continuous beseeching to the astral plane that was supposed to unlock or awaken certain forces. He would later
learn, from studying various religions around the world, that the effect of such a ritual was to induce the participants into a somnolent state, thus producing the reputedly magical effects or visions. But standing in that smoke-occluded room without the benefit of years of phenomenological study, feet standing at the point of a pentagram filled with occult symbology from an Avestan scroll, mind numbed by the unceasing chanting, Viktor found himself fully in the moment. With a sense of increasing dread, he had to keep reminding himself his fear was a product of his imagination.

Viktor had been staring off to the side, and his head jerked up when Eve screamed. His eyes focused on her across the obscured pentagram. She was hugging herself with her arms, eyes locked in the center of the circle as if she could see something inside the chalked barrier.

She screamed again, and Darius’s voice rose in volume, his chanting cutting through her scream.

Eve,
Viktor said.
What’s wrong?

She started rubbing her arms, and her voice cracked when she spoke.
Make it stop, Viktor. I can’t bear it
.

Viktor could feel Darius seething at the interruption.
What is it?

The things in the circle, they’re terrible.

I don’t see a thing,
he said. When she screamed again he said,
Just step back. Shut it off
.

I can’t
.

Eve!
Darius’s voice rang loud and clear. No one was chanting now, and Viktor was surprised Darius would risk disrupting the ritual, knowing he would have done so only for Eve.

You must be strong
, Darius said.
We’re at the endgame. We have Him
.

Her hands went to the sides of her head, her screams becoming little bursts of jagged sound. Viktor felt nothing, could see nothing. At first he thought she might be mocking Darius, but her voice held genuine terror. Had the incense and the uninterrupted chanting gotten inside her mind, had she taken one too many pharmaceutical concoctions?

Darius was no longer looking at Eve, his fierce gaze trained on the circle, his frail body somehow commanding as he stood with raised arms, now shouting the words of the ritual.

The incense obscured the air, Eve’s svelte frame barely visible in the gloom. Her screams turned to whimpers, and she put a hand towards the circle, as if reaching in supplication.

Darius’s voice grew louder still, ringing off the walls, enunciating each syllable with his powerful will. Viktor saw Eve wobbling as if she were going to faint, and both outstretched arms reached towards the circle.

Enough!
Viktor roared, and started towards Eve. She wobbled and started to tumble forward into the circle. He lunged for her.

His hands just missed her as she fell, her feet scuffing the chalk. She landed in a crumpled heap in the middle of the pentagram. Viktor scooped her in his arms, holding her and stroking her hair.

It’s over
, he said.
It’s over for good, my love. No more rituals, no more magic. Just you and me.

Darius approached through the fog of incense, staring in shock at the broken circle. He looked to Viktor and then to Eve, then slowly backed away from the circle, eyes wide.

Viktor carried Eve out of the basement in his arms, and she peered up at him with a tired smile. It was then when he noticed that her irises, once as blue as the glacial lake beside his parents’ house in the Alps, had turned black as oil.

A voice whispered his name.
“Viktor.”

At first he thought he was still in the past, but then he realized he was on the couch in his suite in San Francisco, the lights from the city a neon glare outside the window. The voice came to him again, two mocking, drawn out syllables that cut through the fog in his brain. “Vik-tor.”

He knew he was very drunk, and of course he knew about the hallucinogenic effects of drinking too much absinthe. He did not feel like he was hallucinating, but then again, one never did.

“Viktor… Viktor… Viktor….”

Darius’s voice.

Viktor lowered his head in his hands, uncaring if Darius was somehow whispering his name or if he was imagining it, because in his mind, after what had happened next, the terrible thing, he deserved the torture.