The Edge Of The Cemetery (14 page)

A demon as old as Gilles would be able to expedite a victim's death, especially if his victims were already frail or sick. If Gilles wanted to stack the deck of power, that would be the quickest route.

“Instead of being concerned for the kid's wellbeing, Vokkel is excited about this information and instructs Sam not to interfere with Calvin's relationship with Gilles. Sam's really suspicious now, because this isn't the sort of reaction he was expecting. Vokkel had always treated Calvin in a caring, grandfatherly way. Sam's scared of Vokkel and Edgar though, so he decides to just do as he's told, and does that for another year. But then in early 2014, he has a conversation with Gail regarding Calvin's father. She told him that the father's name was Drew Adler, they met in Canada in late 1996, and that he was dead. She even showed him a picture of Drew, which Sam copied.” Phil's eyes had become engorged at this point. He pulled the second diary toward him and flipped to the back.

Laying the diary flat, Phil said, “Here's the picture that Gail gave him.”

It was a black and white photocopy, and even though the picture it was taken from was almost twenty years old, it was crisp and clear. An unknown cityscape was in the background. The foreground showed a smiling younger and happier version of Gail Brelong, standing next to a handsome but stone-faced man about fifteen years her senior.

Phil grabbed the loose sheets and shuffled through them. “The newspaper folks in Albany came through and I got this by email right before I went to bed last night…this morning, I mean.” It was a newspaper article with a photograph of a man in handcuffs being escorted up an exterior staircase, probably the jail or the courthouse in Albany where he was arrested. Phil had enlarged it so that the photograph took up most of the page. Although it was taken in the 1970s and was a bit grainy, the man's face was clearly captured. Both photos were of the man Gail called Drew Adler.

“Sam writes that it's not just Calvin's father, it's also the guy he was sub-contracted to find for Vokkel in 1997, and he suddenly realizes that it was Gail he saw with Aaron all those years ago. Now he's really worried, because he remembers all the details about Drew/Aaron, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Plus, if the rumors he heard are true, Edgar killed Aaron, most likely by Vokkel's orders. But there's more! The next significant entry is in mid-2014, and it's the last one. Sam says that he's sure the boy is a monster and Gilles is making things worse,
with
Vokkel's blessing. He's decided that whatever plans Vokkel and Gilles have for Calvin, they aren't good, and he can't allow it, so he was going to San Francisco the next day, where he knew there was a Watcher group who could help.”

I leaned back in my chair and said, “Wow, so what are you thinking? That Drew and Aaron are the same person, meaning Aaron was a longaevus that got converged with Gilles, and then Edgar—for some reason—killed Aaron? Well, if he was Calvin's father, I guess he was going by Drew at that point.”

Phil said, “Well yeah, it's all making sense now.”

Billy frowned. “It is?”

Phil shook his head and laughed. “Damn. Sorry, I forgot the other part, hold on.” He rushed out of the room again, returning with a few more sheets of paper. “Okay, I told you guys about the journal with the weird writing and pictures in it?” We nodded in unison. “And I mentioned that I sent some of the pages to my buddy, Boyd?” He didn't wait for our reply. “He specializes in languages, and as a hobby, he's really into supernatural literature, and I figured this might fall into that. So he shot me an email around 3 a.m. this morning, saying he'd analyzed part of the stuff I gave him.

“Here's what he wrote. '
Some of the writings are a combo—well, more like a bastardization—of Enochian and prisca Latinitas, (Enochian is the magical language used in satanic rituals, and prisca Latinitas is Archaic Latin, generally used in the period before 75 B.C., but we find it sometimes in supernatural related writings too). It was a little difficult to interpret because the author combined words from each language, creating new words…and some of these combined words don't make sense, but analyzing the combinations, I was able to extract what I assume they mean. I believe it's some sort of prophecy, it says, 'A cambion shall be born on all souls day. He will be a child of great power, born to the risen dead. The dead will die once again and haunt the earth, when the child becomes aware, the dead shall seek it and guide it until the anniversary of the child's 18
^th
year. On the day His faithful honor their beloved dead, the cambion shall merge forever with his father and become one, upon which my ever faithful servant shall be alive once again and with his new power, he shall release the imprisoned souls and give them new life, a life which they will dedicate to my faithful servant who serves me directly
.' ”

Eric and Carol simultaneously asked, “What's a cambion?”

Phil smiled. “I had to look that one up too. A cambion is the offspring of a demon and a human.”

“If this Aaron person really did converge with Gilles, and he's Calvin's father, that fits…,” Eric said offhandedly.

“Well, there's more. I only sent random pages to Boyd, but he said the tail end of one page had symbols on it, and the beginnings of a prayer or incantation. He said other parts were written in Archaic Latin, which he didn't have any trouble with. He said they were like diary entries. The guy who wrote them talked about fleeing to a place where he thought he'd be safe, but the demon showed up again and he isn't strong enough anymore, that the devil's influence was breaking him down. That particular journal wasn't very thick and I'd already digitized the pages because I knew I was going to need help interpreting them, so I emailed the whole thing to Boyd early this morning, and hopefully he can get back to me soon with the translations.”

Eric asked, “So you think Vokkel came across this prophecy thing and decided that Calvin was part of it. How did he know Gilles was part of it?”

Phil's head bobbed up and down. “I do, here's why. Remember last night, I initially asked you guys to search Vokkel's papers for references to Drew, then I asked you to stop?”

They all nodded and Eric said, “Yeah, you asked us to start looking for 'A' instead.”

“Right, and you found quite a few references, and I took a look at it before I went to bed. The Switzerland notes list an 'A15.' That's a high-level ghost killer and a lower-level longaevus combo, according to Vokkel's coding system. Vokkel says the patient was sent to him because he'd been found wandering around London and was thought to be insane…the ghost-talk insane. Vokkel notes the guy was pretty quiet and reserved most of the time, but had said that he was fleeing a demon created by Satan. Vokkel writes that eventually a demon does show up, and he says….” Phil ruffled through some of his papers. “'
A15 is quite insane. It is unfortunate, as I am told he has a demon by his side at all times now. It would be advantageous if I could communicate with this demon. I would like to know more, and have instructed the nurse to administer a sedative so that I may read his diary, which he keeps close to his person at all times.
'

“So Vokkel gets his hands on this guy's diary and notes some stuff. He says, '
I have read parts of his diary. He writes in a dead language, which I can interpret, but some passages are a language I do not know. A15 states that he performed his duties in San Francisco under God's orders from 1850 until 1910, when he was forced to flee because he was being pursued by Satan's own. Is this the demon that shadows him now?
'

“Vokkel writes more later on about this guy. He says he believes this is the priest in a legend he heard long ago, and now believes it might be true based on the diary writings. He noted that A15 had become very fond of the opiates they'd been giving him, and Vokkel believed he had become an addict. He also said that some of the other GKs thought the demon was haunting, and maybe even possessing A15 on occasion. You guys also tagged the 'A' reference in a couple of Vokkel's journals. One note says that A15 escaped the school and Vokkel was actively looking for him. Then he says that A15 had been found in New York and he believed he'd been converged with his demon. Of course, Vokkel didn't date the journals, but it's too coincidental not to assume he's talking about Aaron and Gilles. Another entry says that A15 had been located again under another name and was fulfilling the prophecy.”

Phil paused to drink his coffee. “All right, now there's this story I heard years ago, more like folklore actually, and all of this reminds me of that.” He looked around the room and I nodded.

“Okay, by the time the gold rush was in full swing, the city was an intolerable den of iniquity.” He winked. “Back in those days, San Francisco was known as the most wicked town in the United States. Anyway, there was a priest who had come to the city to minister to the growing population, but he was distraught by what he saw, because he knew the source. The city was overrun by ghosts and demons. Some haunted people and killed them, but the more powerful were possessing people, turning them into murderous monsters. And of course, since the city had a bad reputation, it attracted all kinds of miscreants, but they weren't haunted or possessed, they were just bad dudes doing bad stuff.

“So this priest decided he had to do something. He prayed to God and God responded by telling him to build a chamber with an inner vault. God told him to lure the ghosts and demons to the chamber with promises of the convergence. At the same time he was to lure the worst of the evil criminals with promises of some sort of riches. He'd take them into the vault, perform the convergence, and kill the combined ghost/criminal on the spot, therefore locking up their eternal souls. A two for one you could say. In addition, the vault served as a place where the souls could repent, and if they did so, God promised to one day release them to Purgatory, where God would decide their eternal fate.

“At some point Satan got wind of all of this and decided he didn't want all those deliciously wicked evil souls to repent, he wanted them back in the general population. So he sent his most powerful demon, one that was capable of possessing someone as powerful as the priest, who was obviously a damn powerful ghost killer. So the demon does what he's supposed to do and tries to force the priest to open the chamber, but God had anticipated this, and He'd had the priest carve a combination of symbols into the vault door that could only be opened by using a special key to read the right combination. Then he had the priest hide the key.”

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Well, that's where it gets murky. So, God gives the priest some guidelines as to who can open the vault using the key, but God gets busy and isn't paying attention when the priest writes it all down. And apparently Satan
was
paying attention, so he personally possessed the priest and wrote the guidelines himself, therefore insuring that it would be one of his minions that eventually opened the vault.”

“What are these guidelines?” Billy asked.

Phil shrugged. “No one knows. The priest went a bit nutty after Satan's little visit and disappeared.”

She frowned, and asked, “Where's this chamber?” He shrugged again. “And you think all of this ties together and that's what Calvin, Gilles, and Edgar want, to find this chamber and open it?”

Phil nodded at her. “Well, that story has been around for a long time, and Vokkel lived for this sort of stuff, so I think we can assume he'd probably heard the tale. Then he comes across this priest and reads his diaries and sees the connection.”

Billy looked thoughtful. I asked, “What?”

“Well, I think it's safe to say Edgar knew all about this prophecy stuff too, and Vokkel says that Calvin and Gilles are 'to become one,' and according to what your friend translated, so did this journal.” She paused. “Is it possible that journal is actually Aaron's and not Vokkel's?”

Phil's face scrunched up a bit. “You know, I guess it could be. The whole thing is written in these foreign languages and the ink varies, so I just assumed it was one of Vokkel's, but now that I think about it, the journal isn't quite the same as the other ones Vokkel used.”

“Okay, well let's assume its Aaron's and it has the combination to the vault in it. That's what Gilles and Edgar really want…they want that combination so they can open the vault and release the demon souls.” She looked around. “That would be Edgar's ultimate revenge, to unleash a whole bunch of angry demons on us.” Billy had a sour look on her face, then she snapped her fingers. “The text message on Calvin's phone…the one that said 'they're here.' I bet Calvin was letting Edgar know we had the journals.”

I frowned, “How would he know? I thought he just got a quick glance at the library room.”

She was shaking her head. “It was quick, but he still walked into the room and had a minute to look around. Some of the journals were stacked on Phil's table. If Vokkel had any of them with him when he was visiting Calvin, maybe he recognized them.”

“But you just said Aaron's journal was different.” I looked at Phil.

Phil nodded. “It's a little different…the cover was probably a medium grey at one time, but it's darkened from age and handling. It's also just a bit smaller. But if Calvin only got a quick glance at a stack that looked familiar, he might not have noticed.”

Billy said, “He sent that text after he grilled Jonas. Maybe he decided Jonas's denial really meant the opposite.”

I was shaking my head. We were stepping into a realm of supernatural myths of God-versus-Satan-meets-reality sort of stuff, and I was having difficulty getting my head around it.

Phil said, “What?”

I shook myself and said, “You said it earlier, that story is more like folklore. This is supernatural God versus Satan stuff, and I'm just having trouble buying it. Besides, if Gilles really did converge with Aaron, why wouldn't he already know what's in the journal and therefore know the combination?”

Billy grinned and said, “Really, George? You're okay with ghosts and demons and people that live a long time, and people like us that kill ghosts and demons, or can turn them back into human form, but you're having trouble with other supernatural possibilities?”