Lady Sativa (8 page)

Maxwell came up beside them. “Nice work,” he said. His smile was grudging. “Perhaps Owen’s talent will help us reach Carl tonight.” He pulled at his ruffled lace cuffs.

Orient felt Lily shiver slightly against his arm. “I hope it goes well,” she said.

Lily sat between Maxwell and Orient, but during dinner Andersen kept drawing her attention, talking in muted, intimate tones.

“There could be only one winner of the prize,” Germaine announced during dessert. “However, according to Carl’s wishes, we are pleased to welcome both Lily and Owen as members of SEE.” He looked around the table. “Welcome.”

Orient smiled. “Thank you.”

Lily looked up from her conversation with Maxwell.

“I’m honored to be in such distinguished company,” she said, glancing at Orient.

Neilson cleared his throat. “Then there’s only one service remaining for SEE to perform,” he said, extending his bullet head and peering around the table. “Are we all ready?”

They adjourned to the library and gathered around the prepared table. While Sybelle removed her sparkling rings, bracelets, necklaces, and brooches, Germaine burned a small bowl of incense, salt, and herbs to purify the elements in the room. Orient found it heartening that SEE’s members were thoroughly professional and respectful of the energy they intended to call up.

“After appropriate preliminaries,” Germaine explained to Neilson, “we will form a circle around the table, join hands, and concentrate while Sybelle engages her control. The control is a spirit messenger who helps find Carl’s soul.” He smiled. “When and if contact with Carl is established, Hannah will speak.”

“I hope Victor is feeling cooperative tonight,” Sybelle confided. “He was a great stage actor in his former life and he’s still quite temperamental.”

Germaine struck a match and fired the wick of a tapered candle in the center of the table. “We pray to the powers of the positive light to guide our undertaking,” he intoned.

Orient knew the prayer. He had heard it used once before in Marrakech. It was an invocation from the books of Pythagoras. Germaine went to the wall and switched off the lights.

“Be seated,” Sybelle said crisply. Her cherubic features were set with determination. Orient knew that her candy-sweet exterior obscured the fact that she was a skilled medium.

She bent her head low over the table in concentration. Orient fixed his eyes on the point of flame balanced in the candlewick. He inhaled and charged his awareness.

“Join hands,” Sybelle said softly, lifting her arms.

Orient gripped Hazer’s blunt hairy hand on his right and, gently took Lily’s fingers with his left hand. Her long, warm fingers caressed his skin. ,..

As his concentration expanded, Orient began to sense a running current of tension, raising the pulse rate in his left wrist. He fixed his awareness on the flickering flame and felt the energy building around the table.

Germaine’s vibration was massive, Sybelle’s balanced and immovable, Maxwell’s restrained; even Hannah and Neilson radiated steady elements of empathy and concentration.

Then he felt the tension within Lily, pulsing rapidly through his wrist. She was straining to keep her consciousness in focus.

“Are we welcome?” Sybelle whispered.

Orient looked at her face across the table. Her eyes were closed and her chin hung down, dangling as if a bolt in the hinge of her jaw had been pulled out.

“Vic... tor... greets... you all. “

The sound rasped from her slack, unmoving mouth. Her lips puckered. “Will you guide... me tonight?”

There was a long pause.

“Cannot... go there....”

Sybelle moved her lips. “Why Victor?”

“Cannot cross... go back....”

“Why?” she persisted.

“Cannot... go back….”

Victor’s voice became a moan that faded into Sybelle’s heaving chest.

“Why Victor?” she called. As Sybelle spoke, Orient felt the energy in the room intensify.

Every vibration in his awareness began to hum and he saw Sybelle begin rocking back and forth.

Lily’s hand trembled in his as she fought down the rush of tension that was crackling through her body.

Orient felt his own control waver and pitch dangerously. Something behind the table fell, splintering noisily against the floor.

A sputtering, electric wind began to whirl around the table, sending tiny sparks against the ceiling.

“Leave us,” Sybelle commanded, her voice loud and harsh.

The candle flame blinked out, plunging the room into total darkness.

Orient felt both Lily and Hazer tighten their grip on his hands as the wind buffeted the room. His arms and legs began to jerk as soft shocks of energy shot through his body. He closed his concentration around the pinpoint memory of the candle flame and from that image forged a loop-topped cross of light. He fixed the picture of the luminous Ankh, the loop-topped symbol of the life force, in his mind and tried to remember the words of dismissal. Heavy thumps and the metallic crash of shattering glass exploded against his concentration. Orient held the image of the Ankh behind his closed eyes and called out the formula through the increasing static of the wind.

“Buldumech. Thou art commanded by the God of Abram and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob— leave this house in peace.” He repeated it slowly.

He felt the table shift and heard the candle roll off the table.

“Leave us,” Sybelle whispered, her voice hoarse.

Lily’s voice rose. She was shivering uncontrollably and mumbling indistinct singsong sounds.

“In the powerful name Agla,” a calm, melodious voice intoned, “go in peace.”

Abruptly, the wind faded and the only sound in the stillness was the rising and falling of Lily’s straining voice.

There are three no more...
 

in one is the key
 

find the drawer...
 

there are three no more…
 

in one is the key…

She sobbed, repeating the meaningless rhyme over and over in the blackness.

5

Orient pulled his hand away from Hazer’s grip, and broke the circle. He put his arms around Lily and held her tight.

“... find the drawer... she continued, her head against his chest.”... there are three....”

“Easy, it’s over,” he said softly. He opened his awareness and tried to absorb the fear that was squeezing her throat. He held her close and whispered reassuringly as the rigid tremors in her body ceased.

Maxwell struck a match. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you bloody incompetent?” he snarled. He picked up the candle and relit the wick.

Sybelle was slumped in her chair, eyes half-closed.

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to break contact during a séance?” Maxwell persisted.

Orient stroked Lily’s hair, ignoring Maxwell’s fury.

“Dr. Orient broke contact well after the disturbance had passed,” Hazer said, his voice unnaturally tight. “Please control yourself, Andersen.”

“Hazer’s right.” Germaine went to the wall and snapped on the electric lights. “There’s been enough confusion. Someone get Lily and Sybelle some brandy.”

Maxwell compressed his lips into a pouting scowl and went for the brandy.

In a few moments, Lily was able to sit up in her chair by herself.

“Thats
never happened before,” Sybelle announced, lifting the glass Maxwell handed her and taking a long swallow. She looked across the table. “Is Lily all right?”

Lily opened her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said. “Sorry if I... upset your concentration. I don’t know quite what happened.”

“Don’t apologize,” Germaine said gently, “none of us know what it was. But it’s obvious that we’ve been under some kind of psychic attack.”

Orient looked across the room. The library was strewn with broken glass and overturned furniture. Books had ‘ been pulled from their shelves and flung to the floor. The floor was littered with debris as if a huge balloon had suddenly expanded inside the room and burst, scattering ‘ everything before it evaporated. “Someone called out a command of dismissal,” he mused as he gazed at the damage, “from the Testament of Solomon, I believe.”

Germaine smiled and bent his head in a mock bow. “Correct doctor, you’re most discerning. And
you
used the words from The Book of Demons. The command to Buldumech, the cause of discord between married couples. An apt choice. Who is to know, however, which of our formulas helped cast out the disturbance?”

Sybelle got up from the table and waded through the papers, books, broken glass, and upset objects on the carpet. “Look!” she cried, bending down and picking up something. “One of the Skrying glasses Carl left me is still whole. That’s a small relief, anyway. But this place is a wreck. I hope the other rooms are all right. I
must
find a more reasonable control,” she said as she came back to her chair. “Victor is positively wicked.”

“It’s not important,” Hannah murmured, staring down at her clasped hands. “But we couldn’t find Carl.”

“Perhaps we’re misreading what went on,” Hazer grunted. “As I recall, Victor didn’t sound angry. He was scared.” He looked around the table. “He told us to go back.”

Hannah looked up. “Yes, that’s right. He said he couldn’t cross.” “And
then
the wind blew up,” Hazer pointed out,

“And we did contact Carl, I think. Lily, do you remember what you were saying?”

“All I remember is chaos,” she whispered.

“Well, I do.” He lit his pipe. “One, two, three, no more, find the key, open the door,” he repeated, brushing the ashes from his vest. “Isn’t that it?”

Germaine’s wide brow furrowed. “That’s right.”

“Does that mean anything to you, Hannah?” Hazer asked.

“I don’t know.” She clasped her hands tighter. “Could mean anything.”

“One, two, three, no more...” Maxwell repeated. “Must be a set of three, obviously.”

Neilson cleared his throat and extended his bullet head toward Hannah. “But there is a set of three here,” he rumbled. “Don’t you remember? Carl always kept three photographs of you on his desk. Framed. He showed it to me one day.” He nodded his head at the litter of papers around the desk. “It must be there somewhere.” He got up, walked over to the desk, and started rummaging through the debris. He found something and brought it back to the table. “Isn’t this it?” he said, his lips pursed expectantly.

Hannah nodded.

He took the soft leather frame he was holding and held it close to his face. Then he turned it upside down and poked his finger inside the brace flap. In a moment, he extracted a metallic object. He tossed it on the table.

“And there’s the key,” Maxwell said, “now where’s the door?”

Hannah’s eyes were fixed on the key lying on the table. “It might be the key to that locked cabinet in the. lab,” she said slowly. “Carl never told me what he kept there.”

“His thesis perhaps,” Hazer suggested. “It was the one thing he kept from all of us. Perhaps he finally wants us to have it.”

Neilson picked up the key. “Will you show me to the cabinet, Hannah? As your attorney, you should have told me about it sooner. Carl may have important documents there.”

Hannah shrugged. “I just don’t know, Nels. Come, I’ll take you there now.”

As they left the room, Maxwell leaned over next to Lily. “Feel all right, love?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said, turning to Orient, “and thanks for your help. I was scared.”

Orient smiled. “Happen often?”

“Not for a few years.” Her amber eyes became smoky as she looked at him. She wet her parted lips with the tip of her tongue. “It’s only the third time ever, in fact. The first time was when my father died.”

“The lunar phase is a risky time for you to participate in a séance.”

She smiled. “Almost everything is risky when I’m at full tide.” She kept her eyes on Orient’s face. “But perhaps that can be changed.”

“I agree with Hazer that Carl contacted us through you Lily!” Maxwell snapped. “You were the most sensitive link. I’m sure Neilson will find something.”

“Yes,” Germaine said, “perhaps Lily has led us to Carl’s research thesis.”

“She also predicted that a black wind was approaching the house,” Maxwell observed. “That’s something telepathy couldn’t do. Maybe we made the wrong choice, after all.”

“Please Maxwell.” Lily’s eyes flashed with yellow streaks as she turned. “I don’t think that’s very funny.”

“Lily is right,” Germaine put in gravely. “You’re compromising all of us with your humor.”

Orient felt cold anger push through his calm. He was just about to speak when Neilson and Hannah came back into the room.

“Empty,” the lawyer rumbled. “The key fit all right but there was nothing there.” He drew his head in between his hunched shoulders and peered around the table.