Occult Assassin 4: Soul Jacker (3 page)

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

CASCA PERKED UP as he leafed through the age-worn pages of the Grimoire, fingers trembling with excitement. His awed expression made Talon think of a little kid unwrapping his first present on Christmas morning.

Thirty-six hours had passed since Talon had battled the mysterious Order of the Flayed Prince for the occult object in question. He now sat across from his benefactor in a quaint café in the Italian city of Cuneo. Located at the foot of the Maritime Alps, it had been nicknamed the “City of Seven Sieges” and still bore the marks of its military history. The ruins of the fortress walls that once ringed the area were visible everywhere. The twelfth-century fortified town had once been a strategic military center. Now Cuneo was better known for its
Cuneesi al Rhum
, chocolates with a rum-based filling.
 

Funny how the world turns
, Talon thought. Eying Casca, he wondered how much his own perception of the billionaire had changed since their last mission. Back in Ohio, when they’d faced the Reaper, Talon had learned that Casca was not just trying to understand metaphysical forces but was also practicing magic himself. His benefactor justified his actions by claiming that he was tapping into the
light
, not the
darkness.
 

Or at least so he believed.
 

Talon had witnessed enough horrors during his military career to be skeptical. How often had men with good intention set the tragedies of history in motion? Could the billionaire continue on his current path without being corrupted by forces he was trying to control? Only time would answer that question.
 

Almost as if Casca guessed what Talon was thinking, he said, “Sergeant, you look like someone who just handed a kid a loaded gun.”

Talon warily met Casca’s gaze. Had the billionaire actually learned to read minds?

“I know you’re worried I might turn into some magical big bad,” Casca continued, “but I’m on your side.”

Talon nodded. His benefactor had a point. On the surface, a billionaire and former Delta Force Operator might seem to share little in common, but what connected them was a shared sense of mission. They’d both declared war against the forces of darkness after losing loved ones to the occult. Together they would do their best to make sure no one else suffered a similar fate.
 

Casca leaned closer and said, “To battle terrorists, you and your men needed to get into their heads. Figure out what made them tick. My studies of the occult are not so different. You’ve seen yourself how important some of the magical weapons have been in our recent battles.”

Casca was referring to the demon slayer blade Talon carried and the pentagram amulet draped around his neck, which could alert him of approaching black magic dangers.
 

“All I’m saying is be careful,” Talon said.

Casca flashed him a grin. “I’m touched by your concern.”

Talon decided it might be better to change the subject for now. The billionaire had offered up few details about the Order of the Flayed Prince when he sent him after the Grimoire, and Talon was hungry for answers. “So what do we know about this cult besides their interest in classic literature?”

“Not much, unfortunately,” Casca replied in a sober voice. Talon detected a trace of hesitation, and he suddenly wondered if his benefactor might know more about this mysterious cabal than he had let on. “They’ve been recruiting wealthy people into their ranks. To what specific purpose, I don’t know.”

Casca raised the Grimoire. “The loss of the
Incatrix
marks a blow against them, but it won’t end their activities. You took out a cell and eliminated their latest wave of recruits but the larger organization remains.”

An organization that now knows someone is gunning for them
, Talon mentally added. Aloud, he asked, “How do we proceed?”
 

“Their agenda is to recruit members of the economic elite. Influencers. I doubt that’s going to change. So why not let them come to us?”

Talon studied Casca carefully, his curiosity building.

“
Forbes
is doing an interview with me next week, and I plan to mention my interest in the occult.”

Realization hit Talon. Instead of tracking down the cult, Casca would let them come to him.

“What if they don’t take the bait?” he asked.

“Considering we just thinned their numbers, I’m sure I’ll be hearing from them soon enough.” The billionaire’s eyes glittered with a confidence that bordered on cockiness. The events in Ohio had definitely changed him. Talon still wasn’t quite sure what to make of this new Casca.

“What do we do while we wait?”
 

“Why not focus on a more immediate problem for now? There’s a situation developing in Paris which requires our attention.”

Talon perked up. “You’re referring to the recent string of terror attacks orchestrated by North Africans and Algerians?”
 

Casca nodded. “I’m glad you’re keeping up with the news.”

Even though Talon was busy fighting a different war these days, he still shared a keen interest in world affairs. Battling demons and cults hadn’t made him forget that evil came in many forms—and that earth-bound enemies could cause as much harm as supernatural ones. His thoughts often turned to his Delta brothers on the frontline in the battle against terrorism. Part of him still felt like he’d abandoned his unit by stepping away from his military duties but what choice did he have after what had happened in San Francisco? If not for him, who would stand against the darkness?

“How much do you know about the ‘banlieues’?” Casca inquired.

There was no hesitation as Talon answered. “Since the 1970s, the phrase
banlieues
has been used to describe the grim high-rise housing estates in the suburbs that ring many French cities. They are the home of many immigrants and French citizens of foreign descent, mostly of Algerian and North African origin.”

“I’m impressed. Go on.”

“French Muslims often straddle two worlds. Unlike immigrants in the US, the descendents of foreigners aren’t well integrated into mainstream French society. They have little economic upward mobility and feel that secular France is at war with Islam. Consequently, it doesn’t come as a surprise that France has supplied more jihadists to the Islamic state than any other Western country.”

Talon recalled a nearly three-week riot in 2005, which illustrated the potential of conflict in the area. And then there was the recent attack on the magazine
Charlie Hebdo
by Islamist extremists offended by their satirical portrayal of Muslims. The killers were all Frenchmen born of Algerian and North-African descent who had grown up in the impoverished Paris suburbs. Their attack had ratcheted up ethnic tensions in Europe, igniting social problems that had been simmering away since the 1950s when the first Algerian immigrants arrived. Many Parisians feared the banlieues could become incubators for future acts of terrorism, and this fear was unfortunately turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
 

“What makes you think these attacks have an occult explanation?” Talon asked.

Casca answered by turning his laptop toward Talon. “The following video was taken by a witness two days earlier on the Metro.” Casca pressed play, and a chilling scene began to unfold. Onscreen, a young Algerian man exploded into violent motion as he whipped out a knife and launched a terrifying attack at the stunned commuters. Shouts of panic rang out as blood flowed freely. At one point, the camera zoomed in on the knife-wielding killer, the attacker’s voice growing audible over the screams on the train. The man was mumbling strange words in an exotic language. There was no fanatical glee on the young man’s face, nor did he display the aloof, removed quality found among most mass murderers. In fact, he appeared even more terrified than the commuters.
 

It hit Talon then. This attack wasn’t inspired by hatred but by
fear
.
 

Before the young man exited the subway, he drew a symbol, which resembled the letter M, on one of train’s windows. The video went dark and was replaced with a surveillance shot of a train station. It showed the killer facing down a police officer. Bullets lashed into the crazed man and hurled him to the ground. Despite the violent hail of lead, the man picked himself up and lurched toward the cop, his knife finding the hapless officer. How could he be displaying such freakish strength after taking multiple bullets? He had to be on PCP or some other drug, Talon thought. More cops appeared, and this time, the power of their firearms dropped the madman.
 

In the end, he was only human.

The video ended and Casca’s eyes locked on him. “As you can see, the attacker was gunned down by the French police shortly after the attack on the Metro.”

“Did you observe anything unusual about our attacker?”

“He looks terrified. And he appears to be on some kind of drug, if he could take a few bullets and keep on coming.”

“My feeling exactly. Could be just a symptom of psychosis, but there’s more. Let me replay the scene without the background sound.”
 

A moment later, the scene of violence unspooled again, this time with he background noise stripped out. The man’s words were clearly audible. Talon possessed a working knowledge of Arabic and would have recognized the language, but this was gibberish to him.
 

“What language is he speaking?”

“Good question. Some of the words sounded familiar, and I had a linguist verify my suspicion. He is using Suryaniyya, or ancient Syriac, which is a dialect of Aramaic. It’s an offshoot of the ancestral language of the Semites.”

“Why is a French-born Algerian using an ancient language?” Talon asked.

“I’m getting to that. Could you make out the symbol he painted on the window in the train?”

“An M?”

“An M to us. If we separate it down the middle, we get two opposite Vs. An inverted ‘V’ means ‘eight’ in Arabic. So this symbol may look like an ‘M’ but is a double eight or eighty-eight. In the Islamic world, 88 holds the same dark power as 666 does for a Christians. The holy Quran states that the Devil has eighty-eight Jinn tribes.”

Talon searched Casca’s face. Had he really said
jinn
? “Don’t tell me they’ve spotted a flying carpet in Paris too.”

Casca barely cracked a smile. “I know how it sounds to a Western sensibility. Jinns are associated with fairy tales in our collective consciousness, but the Muslim world regards them quite differently. According to Arabian and later Islamic mythology, Jinns are entities that can take on animal form and possess humans. Evil spirits that can whisper into people’s souls and tell them to submit to evil desires.”

Manifestations of the darkness
, Talon thought. He recalled Casca’s explanation of how myths were just a culture’s way of making sense of forces beyond their understanding. Two forces coursed through the universe: the darkness and the light. Cultural sensibilities filtered these forces, and man’s imagination and myths determined how they might materialize on the earthly plane.

“Recent surveys reveal that over half of the Muslim world believes in their existence,” Casca said. “In 2010, East London resident Shayma Ali stabbed her four-year old daughter forty times and cut out her liver while Quranic verses played in the background. She was convinced that the child was possessed by an evil Jinn. The year before, in Birmingham, England, twenty-one-year-old Naila Mumtaz was murdered by her in-laws and husband when they attempted to drive out a Jinn spirit. Naila was six months pregnant when she was assaulted, smothered, and suffocated during the exorcism.”

“Alright, I get it. Genies—”

“Jinns,” Casca corrected him.

 
“Jinns…are serious business.”

“More interestingly, according to legend, Jinns could converse in many human languages but chose to use Syriac among themselves.”

“So what’s going on here? This guy was possessed by a Jinn?”

The frozen video on the laptop was replaced with autopsy pictures of the killer. Talon didn’t bother to ask how he’d gotten them. Casca had contacts in many police departments across the globe; his vast fortune could be quite persuasive. In the photos, the knife-wielding attacker was laid out on a stainless steel operating table. Casca clicked through a series of morgue shots until he found a close-up of the dead man’s outstretched hand. A strange symbol was visible across his palm. Upon closer inspection, Talon realized it was an M. Correction, a double inverted V.

88.
 

The mark of the Jinn.

“According to my source at the Paris police department, the image wasn’t a tattoo but was caused from hemorrhaging blood vessels under the skin.”
 

Talon mulled this over. He wasn’t laughing any longer. The more he found out about these
jinns
, the spookier it was all starting to sound to him.
 

“There’s been more than one attack?”

“Unfortunately. In addition to the Metro attack, there have been six similar incidents recently in the Paris area. All the attackers came from the banlieues, all the assaults displayed a high degree of brutality. In two instances the cases even echoed the Miami cannibal attacks of 2012.”

 
Talon cocked an eyebrow. “Some of these crazies have been chewing people’s faces off?”

Casca nodded grimly

“What do the French make of all of this?” Talon asked.

“As expected, the press is speculating about homegrown Islamic jihadists. But I have a feeling there’s more going on.”

When Casca had a
feeling
, Talon paid attention. “Sounds like you want me to head out to Paris.”

“Might as well keep yourself busy while we wait for the Order of the Flayed Prince to make their next move.”
 

Here we go again
, Talon thought. With a sigh he replied, “Time to brush up on my French.”