Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (12 page)

Sybelle was cringing next to Orient but she managed to keep the rhythm of the chant... "and those things which prohibit revolt—" she continued, her voice stronger—"Those things which order that..."
 

Isis stood up. Her eyes were closed and her arms stretched out blindly in front of her. She took a step forward.
 

Gregory’s body jackknifed shut and flew open, twisting closer to the circle. Some glasses on the bar collided against each other, shattering on impact and sending a spray of glass splinters across the room. A trickle of mustard-colored vomit trickled down the side of Gregory’s chin. Isis took another step and opened her eyes. They were crossed almost completely back into their sockets; only the blank white eyeballs showed, swollen and streaked with blood.
 

She lifted her foot over the bowl of burning incense as if to smash it. Orient’s fingers seemed to be crushing the soft wood fibers of the cross as he pushed his concentration against something that was trying to batter away his thoughts.
 

"Return to your place! Now! ASTAROTH!" Sybelle shouted out the last words of the Prayer of Exorcism. Isis swayed, her foot still upraised, then fell to the floor, sobbing desperately. Suddenly all resistance to Orient’s thought collapsed, and his body experienced an abrupt sense of gliding weightlessness.
 

Gregory and Isis lay still in the silence that filled the room.
 

Orient saw Isis’s jaw flap open. Her tongue dropped out of her slack mouth like a body falling through a gallow’s trap. It hung straight down, almost touching the floor. A long brown centipede crawled across the girl’s tongue, its matted wet fur gleaming in the candlelight. As it scuttled wildly across the floor and entered the triangle, a shaft of blue flame flared up above the design, engulfing the insect.
 

When Orient’s vision cleared of flash spots, he saw that the centipede was gone.
 

He felt Sybelle slump heavily against him, and he helped her over to the couch. "Never mind that," she whispered hoarsely. "Just get me a drink."
 

Orient found a still unbroken glass among the jagged remains of Sybelle’s crystal collection and looked for a whole bottle. Almost everything around the bar had been broken, shattered or overturned. He saw a bottle of Scotch lying on its side and picked it up. It was still a quarter full. He filled the glass and brought it over to Sybelle. By the time she’d gotten half of it down, Gregory and Isis began to recover consciousness.
 

Orient checked them out for physical injuries and, finding none, waited until they were able to sit up and talk before explaining what he and Sybelle had done.
 

"We decided to take it upon ourselves to exorcise you," Orient concluded, "but if you want to continue your exploration there’s very little I can do." He said it casually, but he watched their faces intently. He had to know if they’d been accidental victims of Astaroth, or had consciously willed his negative influence.
 

Gregory blinked and slowly shook his head. "Not me," he muttered, sounding oddly boyish. The feline magnetism Orient had noticed the day before had been replaced by a bewildered air of wonder. "It was too insane. My head was really messed up."
 

Isis nodded in agreement. "I couldn’t sleep at all. Sometimes I thought I was asleep and in a dream, but then I would know it was real. I just want to go to sleep for a long time."
 

"It seemed fine when we started. I got hold of an old Grimoire of Honorius and got into it. For a while money was coming in, and we were having a good time helping people. But then it got freaky. And we didn’t know how to turn it off."
 

"It just wasn’t real. It was crazy," Isis said.

 
"It was certainly real," Orient murmured, lifting the hem of her white dress. "Astaroth even left behind a souvenir."
 

Gregory, Isis, and Sybelle peered intently at the dark, scorched smudge on the cloth. Sybelle reached down and rubbed it gingerly with her thumb.
 

"Why, it’s a finger print burned into the dress," she exclaimed. She looked up at Orient, her forehead furrowed with confusion.
 

"There’s a museum of marks like these at the Sacred Heart Church in Rome," Orient told her. "All made by departing demons."
 

"You know," Sybelle mused as they continued to stare at the charred imprint, "you two must have natural psychic ability. Or you wouldn’t have been able to get so far. Maybe I can show you how to avoid the dangers of occult power."
 

Gregory shook his head and smiled. "Not right now. We need a rest before we can think straight about anything. I’m going to take Isis back to the Coast. She’s been through a lot these past few months."
 

"I think you can stop calling me Isis," his wife yawned. "My real name will do for a while."
 

When the couple had fully recovered, they decided to leave, declining Sybelle’s offer of a place to sleep. After they were gone, Sybelle rummaged around the bar, found another unbroken bottle, poured herself a drink, and came over to the couch.
 

"I think Gregory and Is—I mean Linda—will be fine," she said, frowning at him. "But I’m not so sure about you, Owen."
 

Orient smiled. "Ohm, I’m fine. And I want to thank you for your help." He looked across the room at the debris and overturned furniture around the bar. "I’m sorry it cost you a chunk of your pride and joy."
 

Sybelle dismissed the rubble with a wave of her plump fingers. "That’s easy to straighten out," she said. "But don’t think you’re going to change the subject again." She took a sip of her drink. "You’re being strangely evasive with me, Owen. You haven’t fooled me a bit with this vague research business. There’s a lot you’re not telling me."
 

Orient shifted uncomfortably. "I just really haven’t worked it out yet. Hard to explain right now."
 

"I see." Sybelle took another sip and set the glass down. "Well then, I won’t pry, of course. Still, I remember when you told me almost everything about your work," she added hopefully.
 

Orient sighed, and wondered what he could say that would make sense to her. Sybelle leaned forward. "I want you to do something for me," she said. "Let me give you a reading. I feel something troubling you."
 

Orient agreed, but he wasn’t enthusiastic as he watched Sybelle go for her tarot cards. In his unsettled state the reading wouldn’t be of much use to either of them.
 

"My cards were scattered all over the drawer," Sybelle muttered in exasperation. "And the bedroom’s a mess." She glared at Orient and thrust the deck into his hands. "Here, you skinny clam," she grunted, "shuffle these."
 

Orient ruffled the cards carefully through his fingers as he mixed them. He knew that, unlike most seers, Sybelle used the cards in a special way. Instead of just reading fortunes, Sybelle also drew impressions from the cards themselves, reading the vibrations left on the deck after it had been shuffled.
 

He handed her the cards and waited as she took them in both her hands and closed her eyes. For a long time she was silent. When she opened her eyes again, Orient saw a tear streaking the makeup on her fleshy cheek. Without saying a word she put three cards face down in front of him. She turned over the first and studied it. "The Fool," she said softly. "It’s the first card in the tarot deck, the Joker. It’s a spiritual card, a card of quests. You are on a long journey but you’ll reach a fork. A friend will betray you," she added, with emotion in her voice. She looked at him.
 

Orient didn’t say anything. Sybelle looked down and turned over the second card. "The Queen of Wands," she whispered, "the card of Venus." She put her finger on the first card. "When she joins the Fool she becomes spiteful. But it also means a very deep love." She turned over the last card.
 

For a few seconds she didn’t speak. "It’s—it’s very confusing. The knight of Swords is the card of heroism and honor, but it has a negative aspect with the Fool." She looked up. "It’s very difficult to read. I suppose I shouldn’t have insisted." She started to pick up the cards.
 

"Now you’re clamming up," Orient said. "Out with it, don’t let it disturb you."
 

Sybelle’s voice was flat. "It means death, Owen."
 

Orient hesitated. "We all die, you know," he said smiling, "and the cards don’t specify when." But he felt a blanket of ice settle across his brain as he saw Sybelle open her mouth to say something, and stop. Something was burdening Sybelle, something she didn’t want to tell him.
 

Orient tried to keep the conversation light for the next half hour, but he could see that Sybelle was still depressed from her reading. He decided to let her sleep it off.
 

"Cheer up," he told her at the door, "and if you don’t hear from me for a while, don’t hold any séances for me."
 

"Be careful, Owen," Sybelle said, trying to force a smile. She gave it up and looked at him gravely. "When I held your cards, I felt that you were lost somehow, trying to find your way. Lost and confused." She shook her head. "It made me sad to think of you that way."
 

Orient put his arm around her shoulder. "Everything is as it should be," he said. "And no reason to worry." But that night, not even Sun Girl’s body, close against his, was enough to warm the doubts that were chilling his restless sleep.

CHAPTER 7

As Orient became more adept at dealing with his daily tasks, he slowly recovered the confidence he had lost during Project Judy. He had to agree that Joker was right about the fringe benefits of the gambling profession. It put him in touch with people of all kinds, and he came to understand many things. Including Doctor Ferrari’s arrogance at having fought his way from the ghetto to a place of eminence in the medical profession.
 

However, he still held off making any attempt to develop Joker’s telepathic potential. And the experience with Gregory and his wife had made him more cautious than usual. The one thing Joker didn’t control was his ego. He wasn’t sure that the cowboy would use his powers objectively. He was addicted to instant gratification. And then there was the feeling, lately, that Joker was holding something back. He remembered the first card that Sybelle had turned over. The Fool. The Joker in the deck.
 

But even though Sybelle’s sobering impression of his situation returned to disturb his thoughts from time to time, like a mosquito stinging a peaceful slumberer, Orient was busy, and content.
 

It didn’t last long.
 

Exactly a week after he’d gone to see Sybelle, his routine was shattered. He had just finished his meditations and was starting to tally up the daily receipts when the telephone interrupted him. He waited to see if it would stop after four rings, the prearranged code for bets, but it persisted and he picked up the receiver.
 

"Owen?" Sun Girl’s voice was unusually agitated. "Owen, can you meet me right away?"
 

"I don’t know. Joker’s not back and I should be here to take calls."
 

"Forget the calls. This is special."
 

"What’s up?"
 

"Kind of a surprise," Sun Girl said. She didn’t sound enthusiastic. "Please come." She gave him the address and hung up.
 

On his way to meet Sun Girl, he took a deep pleasure in the blinking store windows, the neon posters, and the flow of style and color in the streets. A fresh breeze was rising to cool the fire in the hearts of men. And he was a real element in the movement of that breeze. He’d found his contact with the human condition. For the first time he understood the simple, elusive lesson of the life of the Siddharta/Rama.
 

As he approached his destination, Orient’s thoughts were distracted by a familiar flash at the base of his brain. For a moment he was confused. Then the picture formed and cleared away the disturbance.
 

An African witch doctor dancing in the dust. The image faded and Orient knew the nature of Sun Girl’s surprise. He quickened his pace.
 

In a few minutes he was standing in front of a small brick building that looked like a garage. A sign on the door read: BLACK ARTS MESSAGE SERVICE. He went inside.
 

"Argyle?" he called, trying to adjust his eyes to the dim light.
 

"Right on, Doc." Argyle Simpson’s voice boomed through the gloom and Orient saw the tall figure of his friend coming toward him, arms outstretched.
 

Argyle grabbed his shoulders, pulled him into a quick embrace, then held him out at arm’s length.
 

"Well, look at this," Simpson laughed. "The prodigal professor." He pulled Orient into the center of the room. "You look terrific, Doc. You’re even getting to be some kind of dude in your old age."
 

"Now all your secrets are out," Sun Girl called from somewhere behind him.
 

"Wah, wah, wah!" Julian hopped around Orient and Argyle. "I’m a witch doctor too!"
 

Orient grinned with happiness and confusion. "Seems like I’m being put on by the whole neighborhood," he said.
 

"Listen to that. Put on, the man says." Argyle hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked back and forth on his heels. "Doe, you’re the king of put-ons. Just when I thought I had you figured as a respectable, quiet kind of nut, you melt into the night and then pop up as the reincarnation of Jack Kerouac."
 

Sun Girl jumped off the apron of a small stage at the end of the room and came over to where they were standing. "That’s right," she said reprovingly. "Here I thought you were a poor wandering medic and now I find out you’re a mad scientist of the occult."