Kolchak The Night Strangler (9 page)

“Vampires, I think we can rule out. As you said, the amounts of blood drawn from the victims were consistent but minor in terms of supplying a vampire with his needs.”

“Okay. Vampires are out. Tell me about walking dead men.”

“Dead men don’t walk.
Un
dead men, perhaps. But not
dead
dead men.” And
this
from a Ph.D. no less!

“Well, then, what about zombies?”

She smiled a mirthless grin. “Not indigenous to Seattle.”

“Can a man more than a hundred years old, who’s
not
a vampire, still retain his vitality?” I reached for my tape recorder to turn up the volume.

“Plato and Galen both maintained…
shut
that damn thing off!”

“Yes,
ma’am!
”

“You derail my train of thought once more and out you go! Now… where was I?”

“Plato and Galen both maintained…”

“… that aging is caused by imbalance of the body’s component elements. An invisible substance known as Mumia—M-U-M-I-A—can be created in a so-called elixir which can restore the body elements to a state of balance and check the aging process for an indefinite period of time. This Archidoxa Medicinae, or “Elixir of Life,’ was the goal of those known as ‘hermetic scientists’ or, more commonly, ‘alchemists.’ The main ingredient of this elixir is what the alchemists referred to as ‘The Philosopher’s Stone.’ End of lecture. Questions?”

“Dozens. First… is it possible?”

“If it were possible, don’t you think I’d be an eighty-year-old sexpot sitting here instead of a moldering crone?

“It’s a side issue anyway. Staying young was not their purpose. Alchemy was conceived as an exalted notion—man at one with the universe which, you must admit, is not such a bad or outlandish idea at all.”

I nodded in agreement. If man were truly at one with the universe, there would be no need for cops like Schubert or for reporters like me. A lovely dream.

“’Authentic alchemy is possible only if there is perfect knowledge of metaphysical principles.’ Unquote. Claude d’Yge, a well-known adept.”

“Adept?”

“Adept.
Adept!
Don’t you understand English? One who has attained proficiency.

“These men lived Spartan lives; most abstaining from all human concourse, living in the most humble of quarters, eating the most humble of foods. The Comte de St. Germain… well, he isn’t the best of examples… too much a lover of life at court but, well anyway, St. Germain subsisted on a diet of oatmeal, groats, the white meat of chicken, and a little wine.”

“Yummy.”

“Don’t be fresh.”

I lit up a cigar.

“And you can put
that
out at once!”

“Oatmeal and groats. Yech! A diet like that would make him old before his time.”

“You would do well to follow his example. He did rather nicely with his diet. Not only did he remain youthful for many years, but he was said to possess almost superhuman strength and several other amazing abilities.”

“Really! What
other
ingredients did this elixir have?”

“That’s an interesting question. It depends on
who
was doing the mixing. Those books on the table have been arranged with markers to show you the pertinent areas of research. Adepts used certain ingredients. With the ‘puffers,’ however, it was a different story.”

“Puffers?”

“Pretenders. Fake alchemists who were definitely
not
dedicated to the notion of man being at one with the universe. They tried to transmute lead to gold for no reason save profit and power. And they dabbled in what might commonly be called ‘black magic.’ Some achieved amazing results… and most, if caught, were quickly and painfully put to death.”

“Then, perhaps, since I’m tracking a known murderer who draws blood from his victims, I’m really after one of these… uh… ‘puffers.’”

“Not at all unlikely, since we have gone this far.”

“Which brings me back to my original question. What other ingredients might this elixir have?”

“Well, assuming the alchemist doing the preparing is, indeed, a man of evil intent… milk… or meat… celandine… sometimes honey. Red wine vinegar. Hair, Sweat. Blood.”

I dreaded to ask. “What kind of blood?” I already knew the answer.

“Why, human blood, of course.”

She explained that while alchemists, as a whole, were distrusted, it was largely through the efforts of these puffers or pretenders to the hermetic art that alchemists came to be feared as disciples of the devil. Then she told me to read the books and make whatever notes or tapes I liked and handed me a hefty volume of her own:
Alchemy and Avarice
, all 432 pages of it, devoted largely to the efforts of these pseudo-adepts.

Chapter Ten

I don’t pretend to understand half of what I read, but i became clear that much of the basis of modern chemistry stems directly from alchemy (the discovery of phosphorus being an example that comes readily to mind) and that the alchemists have been with us practically since the first of recorded history. From ancient Egypt eastward to China, and westward to equally ancient Greece, alchemists and their activities have been well and lovingly recorded. They were prominent in Europe throughout the last years of the twelfth century and well into the thirteenth. The University of Montpellier, founded in 1181, numbered among its pupils two saints—Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus—as well as Roger Bacon, Raymond Lully, Michel de Nostredeme (better known as Nostradamus), Erasmus and Rabelais. All of them practiced the hermetic art.

The list of names is impressive. There were Jewish adepts like Mary of Alexandria in the fourth century (women’s libbers, please note); Jabir the Arab in the eighth century; and the tenth century is graced by the name of Pope Sylvester II, who was born Gerbert, and was a known French alchemist (Catholics, please note).

The thirteenth century produced not only Roger Bacon, a recognized adept
and
a Franciscan monk, but several others as well.

In the fourteenth century there was the famous Nicholas Flamel, a French adept and public “scrivener” (journalists, please note). And there was also Pope John XXII, who denounced what he practiced. Basil Valentine was active in the fifteenth century. He was a Benedictine monk. Bernard of Treviso was a contemporary of his.

Alexander Seton, known as Alexander the Cosmopolite, was active in the sixteenth century.

The seventeenth century produced Eirenaeus Philponos, who, despite his fancy-sounding name, was an Englishman, nonetheless. It has been written that he was
also
the Comte de St. Garmain, who, from what I read, really got around and was anywhere from 85 to 150 years old when he “died,” although witnesses to this death were not considered reliable.

Adepts, alchemists, and puffers have been with us right up to the present and, interestingly enough, a certain Armand Barbault is reported to have spent more than 20 years conducting experiments with a scant four pounds of ordinary earth and early morning dew (gathered with bedsheets), along with the rising sap of young plants, to produce a compound or elixir that defied analysis in the most modern of German laboratories but was found to be good for heart ailments. This, in the early 1960’s!

He could not be contacted for comment, but as far as is known he is still at work and his preparation has been impossible to either analyze or reproduce on a commercial basis, because 1. it takes much too long to prepare the materials, and synthetics do not produce the same results; and 2. his elixir apparently contains elements (which he is said to have claimed to produce himself) that are as yet
undiscovered
and
unknown
.

As to the ingredients of the Elixir of Life, there seems to be much disagreement as to exactly what they are and in what combination they must be used to produce the life-prolonging substance. Some say the two “germinative” substances are gold (the “male” principle) and “philosopher’s mercury,” the “prime agent” (and “female” principle).

Others claim the so-called prime matter consists of silver and gold, combined with mercury and using quicksilver as a unifying agent.

Preparing this Elixir of Life is only the first step in making the Philosopher’s Stone, which is not a stone at all, but yet another preparation that may take an entire (albeit ordinary) lifetime. Some of the materials are arsenic pyrites, iron, lead, silver, mercury, and acids like citric acid. These elements are combined over months and years by pulverizing, heating and dissolving with still more acids.

Then follows a process of drawing off all toxic gases, certain liquids as well, and a recalcining process for the remaining solids. All this takes years and years, according to what I read. And, I imagine, great patience. Oxidizers are added, and then more dissolutions, calcinations, ad infinitum.

As I said, I don’t even pretend to understand most of what I read. However, after these many laborious steps, whatever liquid mixture remains is put into a rock crystal container, which is hermetically sealed, and heated very, very slowly.

The whole idea is to produce, by heating and cooling continuously, and then distilling, time and time again, a water, often ruby in color, which has incredible chemical and medicinal qualities. This substance, whatever it is, (and I have never tasted it but have, as you will see, discovered what happens when it is
not
taken)
is
the Elixir of Life.

The one thing I did get a clear picture of from the texts Dr. Helms left with me (especially from her own writings) was that the so-called puffers were men of little patience, often greedy and occasionally evidencing Messianic tendencies which almost invariably seemed to go hand in hand with delusions of grandeur and the right to take human life indiscriminately.

As for St. Germain, whom Dr. Helms had mentioned so pointedly, his history was rather disturbingly similar in many ways to that of my late acquaintance, Janos Skorzeny. Although eyewitness accounts differ as to his eating habits (some opting for the oatmeal and groats theory, while others contend he ate nothing at all, yet another power attributed to true adepts), he seems to have had the quaint habit of turning up in several centuries, under different names, but almost always with the same description: medium height, dark, slim, with remarkable vitality, a copious amount of charm, the strange ability to transmute lead to gold, an affinity for night life, and the equally quaint habit of disappearing at will, only to turn up again in another time and another country.

In 1645, Eiranaeus Philalethes is supposed to have written: “glory to be God, Alone.” He was identified as a member of the Rose-Croix, a secret society supposedly founded in the fourteenth century by one Christian Rosenkreutz.

Soon after Philalethes is supposed to have written this megalomaniacal phrase, he disappeared and a fellow known as Giraldi showed up in Austria looking exactly like him. He practiced alchemy, to the consternation of the locals in Vienna, and after a few years disappeared. His disappearance is listed as having taken place around 1690-1692—a good 50 year spread from 1645. By about 1695 a certain “Lascaris” or “The Lascar” began traveling across Europe and he, too, answered Philalethes’ general description. In time, somewhere near the French coast, according to some sources, he, too, disappeared. The dates given range from 1731 to 1739.

Enter Count St. Germain in England around 1745. Again, the same description, the same practices; odd eating habits; transmuting base metals into precious ones. However, he became interesting to the law and so enlightened and renowned a personage as Horace Walpole himself stated St. Germain had been in England nearly two years and no one really knew anything about him except that he had no past and that his name was a phony one.

St. Germain left England and showed up in France in 1758 at the court of Louis XV, who came to depend upon his services for diplomatic missions. St. Germain was involved in countless political intrigues. He was a charmer and a great talker and there is mention of at least one eyewitness who, in her late fifties, remembered a love affair with him thirty years before but was greatly amazed—and disturbed—to discover that while she had aged, he had not!

St. Germain had a full bag of tricks, including increasing the size of pearls and diamonds, as well as their worth, and he was known to be something of a lover, too; at least enough of one to be the envy and target of spite from no less than Casanova himself.

In the 1780’s he suddenly “retired” to the castle of the Landgrave of Hesse where he called himself Sanctus Germanus, the Holy Brother. His “death” occurred conveniently at a time when the Landgrave was absent and the only “witnesses” were said to have been bribed. His body, however, was never available for examination.