Evil Ways (35 page)

"I don't think I've ever come across his work," she said with something like disapproval. Clearly, if she hadn't read Lovecraft, he wasn't worth reading.

"Good to know that there are some gaps even in a Vassar education," Stark said. "My roommate in college got me interested in the guy. Lovecraft wrote a lot of stories, and some novels, back in the Twenties and Thirties. Pulp fiction, I guess you could call it, but well done, nonetheless."

"That's interesting." Clearly, she did not really think so.

"In some ways, yeah." Stark ignored her sarcasm. "Lovecraft wrote a lot of his stories about this race of creatures he called the Great Old Ones."

"Sounds like the Foreign Relations Committee," she said, smiling slightly.

"Lovecraft's guys were even older than some of my esteemed colleagues," he said. "The Old Ones were supposedly on Earth long before man. They were immensely powerful, almost like gods. Eventually, some savvy humans found a way to control them, to lock them away where they couldn't do us any harm. But in Lovecraft's stories, the damn things keep getting loose."

Mary Margaret Doyle drove on in silence for half a mile or so, then asked her boss, "Is there a moral in there somewhere? Some point you're trying to make, however obliquely?"

"No, I don't think so," Stark said.

"I mean, if you don't want to go through with this, I can take the next exit and turn around. We can stop for coffee somewhere and then head back to Boston. Believe me, I'd understand. I'm a little frightened at the prospect of doing this, myself."

Frightened
did it. "No, keep going, damn it," he said gruffly. "We started this, we'll see it through. If this guy turns out to be a fraud, it'll be something we can laugh about later, maybe."

"Maybe," she said softly. "Maybe we will."

They got off Interstate 95 a little south of Warwick. After that, it was all secondary roads through mostly open country, the fields bordered by the low stone walls for which rural Rhode Island is famous. The frost covering the plots of farmland twinkled and sparkled in the moonlight.

There were few road signs to guide them, but Mary Margaret Doyle never hesitated at any intersections or forks in the road. After a while, Stark asked, "I don't mean this the way it sounds, but are you sure you know where you're going?"

"Absolutely," she replied. "El-Ghaffar sent me a map. It was really quite detailed."

"Where is it?"

"I shredded it. After committing it to memory, of course."

"Of course." Stark shook his head slightly.

Finally, a little west of Kingston, Mary Margaret Doyle slowed the car and began peering at the road's right shoulder, as it searching for something. A few moments later, she murmured, "Ah, there we are," and braked again before making a right turn that took the car down a narrow dirt road, tall pine trees lining both sides like sentinels.

"We're almost there," she said.

"Good," Stark replied, and almost sounded as if he meant it.

Another quarter-mile brought them to the clearing, and the house that stood within it. If Stark was expecting Castle Dracula, he was disappointed. The place looked like it might have once been a farmhouse, although what there was to farm in the middle of this forest Stark could not begin to guess. In the abundant light from the full moon, he could see that the building was not quite ramshackle
—the outside walls badly needed re-staining, but were all upright nonetheless; the roof appeared to be missing a few shingles, but was still intact; the porch steps groaned when subjected to Stark's weight, but they did not break.

Since Mary Margaret Doyle had been the one to set this meeting up, he let her do the knocking at the weathered front door. It was opened almost immediately, as if someone had been standing behind it, waiting for them to seek admittance.

The man in the doorway smiled. "Miss Doyle, I presume," he said smoothly. "What a pleasure to meet you in person, at last. Please
— come in."

He ushered them in with a gesture as economical as it was graceful. They entered what seemed to be a living room, its rugs faded, the furniture old and a little shabby. As their host turned back from closing
the door, Mary Margaret Doyle said, "Dr. Hassan el-Ghaffar, I'd like you to meet Senator Howard Stark."

The two shook hands. Since he'd known the man he was going to meet was an Arab, Stark found little that was surprising in the man's appearance. Hassan el-Ghaffar, who looked to be about fifty, was over six feet tall with a build that was slim bordering on skinny. His hair, black with a few touches of gray, was combed straight back from his forehead. The dark complexion bore a few tiny craters that spoke of an early acquaintance with chicken pox, or maybe smallpox. A carefully trimmed goatee covered el-Ghaffar's chin and upper lip. The only incongruity was the pale blue eyes, which are the hallmark of the Berbers of Northern Africa.

"I am delighted you could be here this evening, Senator," el-Ghaffar was saying. "And Miss Doyle, too, of course." The last was said almost as an afterthought, which led Stark to suspect that the Arab had not entirely shaken off his culture's traditional attitudes toward women. Too bad for him, Stark thought. Any man who underestimated Mary Margaret Doyle usually regretted it sooner or later.

"I'm not entirely sure if 'delight' describes my own feelings about this evening, Doctor," Stark said. "I suppose that will depend on what you have to show us."

"Ah, a skeptic!" el-Ghaffar said with enthusiasm that Stark suspected was rehearsed. "I derive great satisfaction from introducing skeptics to the mysteries of the Nether World. It is always interesting to watch them readjust their
Weltanschauung
to the new reality that is revealed to them."

"Readjust their
what?"
Stark was not going to be intimidated by some intellectual's command of ten-dollar words.

"Worldview," Mary Margaret Doyle explained. "Literally, it refers to a comprehensive way of seeing the world, as well as humanity's place within it."

"Well, whether my worldview is due for adjusting remains to be seen, Doctor." Stark said. "But if you're willing to make the attempt, I'm willing to observe."

"Of course, of course," el-Ghaffar said. "I think you will find it an interesting experience. Rather like that enjoyed by those observing the first test of the Manhattan Project, I would think." He
gestured toward a door in the living room's far wall. "Come, let us descend."

…Stark hoped that the use of
descend
was incidental, and not prophetic.

As el-Ghaffar led them down the creaking basement stairs, Stark said, "It's interesting you should mention the Manhattan Project. I saw a documentary about it last month on the Discovery Channel or someplace. I hadn't realized before then just how much uncertainty there was about the test explosion, out there in New Mexico."

"Really?" el-Ghaffar said politely. "They didn't know what would happen when they set off the bomb?"

"Apparently not. I gather there were serious disagreements among the scientists. Enrico Fermi, I think it was, was betting that the nuclear blast would set the atmosphere on fire and burn up all the planet's oxygen."

"I hope the others were smart enough to take his bet," Mary Margaret Doyle said, stepping gingerly in her two-inch heels.

"Why 'smart'?" Stark asked. "You figure they should have known Fermi was wrong?"

"No," she said. "They should have known that if they lost, they wouldn't have to worry about paying up."

The two men laughed, perhaps a little louder than the witticism' deserved.

"Well, you need have no such fears about this little demonstration, Senator," el-Ghaffar said. They had reached the bottom of the stairs now. "This is not the first time I have performed a summoning, and there is no real danger involved, as long as we follow a few elementary safety procedures."

The basement, which consisted of one room, was larger than Stark would have guessed. It might have been designed as a "rec room" by the architect long ago, but it was clear that whatever went on in there now would not be considered "recreation" by anyone
—except maybe Johannes Faustus.

There was the pentagram, of course. Stark had done enough reading recently to recognize one when he saw it, and this specimen was hard to miss, since the damn thing was at least ten feet across. The five-pointed star had been drawn on the concrete floor using a liquid that
appeared brown in the uncertain light. It was probably paint or some kind of special ink, although Stark kept remembering that blood, whether animal or human, will turn brown when it dries. At each point of the star was a squat red candle, unlit, about eight inches high.

The altar was off to the right, covered with a scarlet cloth upon which a variety of symbols had been drawn in black. Stark thought he recognized a few of them, like the figure eight on its side that was the Greek symbol for infinity, but most of the rest were a mystery. Several appeared to be words written in Arabic, a language that Stark did not read, and which had always looked like incomprehensible squiggles to him.

Atop the altar were a small charcoal brazier, a copper bell, several small ceramic bowls, an old-looking book bound in cracked leather, two candles similar to those surrounding the pentagram, and a long sword with a curved blade. Because of a boyhood fascination with edged weapons, Stark recognized the sword as an Arab implement called a scimitar.

On the floor directly behind the altar was a circle about three feet in diameter, the same color as the pentagram. Ten feet to the left, two more circles were inscribed on the concrete, similar to the one behind the altar, but slightly smaller. It was to these that Hassan el-Ghaffar, led his guests.

"Senator, if you will take your position within this circle here," he said, gesturing. "And Miss Doyle, inside this one, if you please."

Stark waited for his companion to correct the man's use of "Miss" instead of "Ms.," but Mary Margaret Doyle said nothing. Apparently there were things more important than etiquette on her mind tonight.

Dr. el-Ghaffar stepped back a couple of paces. "Very good," he said. "Now, in a moment I will seal each of your circles." He held up a cautionary hand. "Nothing that will induce claustrophobia, I assure you. But you will each be effectively protected against the demon that I will summon. It will not be able to escape from the confines of the pentagram in any case, but one always takes extra precautions when playing with fire, so to speak." He grinned briefly, the gleaming white teeth an odd contrast with the black goatee and caf
é-au-lait complexion.
If that smile's meant to be reassuring,
Stark thought,
then I
think it needs a little work. He's as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

From a nearby shelf, el-Ghaffar picked up a canvas sack about the size of a ten-pound bag of flour. Bending at the waist, he carefully poured what looked like sand around the perimeter of Stark's circle, then Mary Margaret Doyle's, before repeating the procedure on the larger circle behind the altar. The sand, if that's what it was, appeared to Stark to be shot through with small bits of blue stone. He noticed that el-Ghaffar was careful to create an unbroken circle each time he laid the sand down on the concrete floor.

"Once I start the summoning," el-Ghaffar said, straightening up, "do not leave your circle for any reason, until the ritual is completed, the demon has been dismissed, and I tell you it is safe. This is vitally important." He looked each of them in the eyes, in turn. "If you disregard my instructions, you will place yourselves in very great hazard."

"What kind of hazard?" Stark demanded. "You just said that this demon that's supposedly going to show up will be trapped inside the pentagram, right? So what does it matter whether I stay inside the circle or walk around the room on my hands, holding a rose between my teeth?"

Stark saw the pupils of el-Ghaffar's eyes suddenly dilate. He guessed that the man was furious, but making a determined effort to control himself.

"I am a cautious man, Senator," el-Ghaffar said. The patience in his voice was clearly forced. "It is true that this work involves some risks, but they are always calculated risks, which means I employ every protection available."

"That's what I don't get," Stark said. "What
are
the risks? What's the worst that could happen if something goes wrong?"

"The worst that could happen?" The Arab shook his head. "Senator, I ask you to believe me when I tell you this: you do not want to know."