The 37th mandala : a novel (5 page)

"I appreciate that but—"

"You took ten dollars a head and I expect my cut."

"But that was a donation—it goes toward development of the Incarnation Institute." She shook her head and changed her tack, as if shame would work better than a bid for sympathy. "None of our other speakers asked any kind of fee."

Derek had to laugh. "You mean Dr. Spondle doesn't charge through the nose for his endless discourses on Atlantean astrology?"

The Sister looked slighted. "Everett Spondle is a very popular speaker here. His wife is one of our founders."

"
You
work it out." Derek turned away.

Two old women stood nearby, smiling in his direction and waiting to be noticed. He practiced a form of tunnel vision while wondering how to turn their irritating presence to his advantage. They'd been chatting about him for several minutes, just within his hearing: "Should I?—no, you go first—oh no, I'm too shy—he looks just like his pictures—oh, he doesn't look at all like I imagined—you can almost see the mysteries in his eyes."

Such women, all alike, were a redundant human type replicated endlessly across the continent, right down to their pride in how unique they were.

My fans, he thought.

He normally despised such creatures, but tonight they provided a welcome opportunity to demonstrate why the Sisters had attracted any crowd at all. They had come not to gather Atlantean wool but to glean the wisdom of Derek Crowe, occultist and author, direct from the source.

Both women carried books under their arms—books he'd once cringed at the sight of, despite being their author. He was used to them now. They were his stock-in-trade, the secret of his success—such as it was.

"Would you ladies like an autograph?" he said, snubbing the whining Sister. She went off, presumably to help find the superior who had yet to materialize.

"If you would, Mr. Crowe/' said one, leaning forward as if to offer her wattles for inspection. She held a stack of his books. He reached for the sculpted silver fountain pen he kept in his shirt pocket—a gift from Lilith, with a small crystal ball mounted in a taloned claw at one end.

The other said, in rather harsh mountain tones, "We loved your talk, Mr. Crowe, it was so
penetrating
? Lately I do feel the—the ones you spoke of—or I think I do ... the
mandalas
? I believe they're watching over us, you know, like guardian
angels
?"

Every stammered phrase was open-ended, hesitant. He didn't think this was entirely the product of the local inflection, which twisted up the last word to make even the plainest statement sound like a question. No doubt this sad woman was used to meeting ridicule or contempt when bringing up these subjects. But Derek smiled sublimely, her instant confidant.

"I understand you perfectly," he said. "It's not easy to be open to such perceptions, is it? It can be a tremendous burden on the chosen one, the sensitive soul. But we must accept these gifts and put them to work for the spiritual improvement, and not the impoverishment, of humanity."

The second lady turned to the first. "Isn't that marvelous? I find such beautiful messages in your books, Mr. Crowe. So many of the mystics these days are concerned with darkness and evil and casting out everything they don't
understand
?" She reached out and lightly tapped him on the wrist. "But I think you must be blessed. You're a channel for the higher things."

"I'm not even that," he said with all humility. "I am merely their secretary." He pretended to jot on the air with his pen. "I take notes."

The women's eyes widened. "Now, that Miz A? The one who channeled the messages? Has she spoken any more? Do the mandalas ever get back in touch?"

Derek put a finger to his lip. "Some things shouldn't be spoken of. I hesitate to upset a delicate balance ..."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"... but yes, they do continue to speak through her occasionally, and they have hinted there may be more revelations in the future. More teachings."

"Another book, you mean? Oh, how wonderful!"

"Well, I hope so. Their visits have meant a great deal to me. More than I can ever put across in words. Thank you so much." He finished signing off the last of her copies and cleared his throat to interrupt her before she could start in again. He turned his full attention, and an apologetic smile, to the meeker woman.

"Now, to whom should I inscribe these?"

"Oh, goodness, to Opal," she said. "Thank you very much."

"That's a lovely name. Very charming."

He scrawled "For Opal" across one of her books, a dog-eared copy of
Your Psychognostic Powers
! That exclamation mark still made him wince whenever he saw it. As he closed the book, his reflection swam up through the coils of a silver-foil spiral embossed on the fluorescent orange cover. It was his first book, and he could never regard it without a tiny prick of shame, no matter how callused and scabbed.

"I can't help noticing that you have all but my latest," he said.

She turned away, one hand to her mouth, blushing like a schoolgirl. "I'm so embarrassed. I've been meaning to buy a copy, it's just—"

"Never fear, it's on sale near the door. I'll give you a special dedication."

She looked even more embarrassed now. At forty-five dollars for the deluxe edition—all he had carried—he couldn't blame her. Neither could he resist rubbing her nose in her foolishness.

Taking her by the elbow, he helped her across the room to a table staffed by one of the volunteer Sisters. Her friend tagged along with nothing to say. Copies of the deluxe, collector's first edition of The Mandala Rites, in its red cloth binding, were stacked in a small pile; all but a few had sold, he was happy to see. Acquired at cost from Phantom Press, which had arranged with his regular publisher to produce the special limited edition, the books turned a good profit.

He opened one of the remaining copies to the title page and started to write across the top, "Dearest Opal:"

"Oh, no, I really couldn't ask you—"

"You enjoyed my talk, didn't you?"

"Well, I—"

"The mandalas will open your life to powers beyond your imagining. My other books simply lead up to this. They opened me to the mandalas—brought me to their attention, so to speak. This is the text I was chosen to bring to public consciousness. I'm sure you won't be disappointed."

She watched him with an expression of total despair as he finished signing his name below the frontispiece, an ornate red and black symbol that looked like a hood ornament from Hell. The book was full of these designs, intertwined arrow and dagger shapes enclosed in rings, somehow familiar but never quite the shapes one expected from studying traditional mandalas. Some were more reminiscent of Basque symbols or the vevers of Voudoun ritual than of Asian figures—but such familiarity was an illusion. They were wholly unique. That was a big selling point. It was also his chief weapon against the Club Mandala sleazebags, who had ripped off his designs for their nightclub without the slightest authorization and persisted in blithely inviting him to openings, as if he would be delighted to see his creations strobing on the walls for all the world to see.

Angry at the thought of the money he was about to waste on attorneys, he snapped the volume shut and set it in the woman's tissue-soft palms. For a moment he trapped her hands between his own, holding them clasped around the book.

"I hope you enjoy it," he said. "This lovely Sister will be happy to take your check."

"Oh!" Her eyes lit up with relief as she found her escape. "You take checks! I'm so glad."

But he was already spinning away, certain he heard urgent whispering behind him; and yes, here she came, the Valkyrie who spearheaded the Sisterhood of Incarnate Light. An enormous pale woman with long colorless hair and beet-bright cheeks, watery blue eyes, and no lipstick, she came rubbing pudgy hands together—pudgy but powerful. She could easily break his neck in the crook of her elbow. Well, it wouldn't come to that. She was smiling, still off balance, quite confident of correcting this little problem—and at his expense.

"Mr. Crowe? I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself earlier. I'm Cerridwen Dunsinane." She was out of breath from hurrying to fight this threat to her nonprofits. Not a trace of the local accent. No doubt a sworn enemy of the local Baptists.

He bowed slightly at the waist, harking back to a time of courtly manners. Such gestures always seemed to please these social anachronisms, who, while remaining champions for Equal Rights, had retreated from the complexities of the modern world into an idealized fantasy of "medieval" times, from which the Black Death and other discomforts of that age had been conveniently purged. Her real name was probably something like Carrie Dunn.

"Ms. Dunsinane," he said. "A pleasure."

"Why don't we find a quieter place?" She nodded toward a door near the entrance to the meeting hall, and he followed her into a small room where the Sisters shed their street clothes and locked up their purses when they put on the lavender robes of their order. Cerridwen was perspiring heavily, a light mist of sweat on her lips. He found himself wanting to wipe it away like steam from a shaving mirror. Before she could summon the breath to speak, he cut off what was clearly going to be another bid for charity.

"I gather there's been a misunderstanding," he said.

"I know, I—"

"Not on my part, though. It was clear in my letter of acceptance, when I agreed to do this lecture, that I take a flat fee plus a percentage of the audience."

All this she had heard from her minions. She nodded vigorously, determined to point out some flaw in his judgment. "I know when we got your letter—and I didn't handle that myself, I have to admit, that was Sister Storm and she came down with the flu tonight—we thought it was clear that we would pay your basic fee and you would waive the percentage. This is a benefit, after all, and once we've paid for the hall, there's little enough left as it is. I know ten dollars a head may seem like a lot..."

"I'm only asking a fragment of that."

"But Mr. Crowe, you were one of four speakers. If you all took your fragment—"

"Who else would dare to ask? Dr. Spondle, like all good Atlantean High Priests, has forsworn money. And your other guests appeared to be facing their first audience tonight."

She took on a puffed, indignant expression. "They may be inexperienced as lecturers, but they have a great deal of insight to offer."

He decided that she must have chosen the speakers personally. Still, she had been sloppy about the financial arrangements, and she was going to pay for it.

"Look, Carrie—"

"Cerri
dwen
," she said flatly, glaring now. He gauged the threat of those enormous arms, decided to risk it.

"Sister—Lady—whatever you are, I'm not going to
waive
a goddamn thing. You accepted my terms, but I didn't agree to yours."

"We paid for your ticket—"

"Which I plan to use as soon as you pay what you owe me."

"—and we offered accommodations—"

"No amount of money could convince me to stay overnight in this backwoods hellhole, where no one has anything better to do than listen to crap about the thirteenth sign of the zodiac."

"And you!" she screamed quietly, her voice muffled among the overcoats. "They came to hear you!"

"And they
paid
for the privilege. I could have drawn that crowd without your Church of White Light bullshit. If anything, your reputation probably repelled more people than mine attracted."

It had taken a few moments, but Cerridwen Dunsinane now understood him on the level at which he preferred to be understood—at least in material matters. Her comprehension came with a complementary portion of disgust.

"I'm a businessman," he said soothingly. "No offense. It's a free country and you can run your church however you like, but—"

"Get out," she whispered, her dismay white-hot, bending the air.

"I know it's not much money, but the principle—"

"Just—get—out!"

Her beamlike arm swung imperiously toward the door. He was inclined to follow the lead.

"I'll have my lawyer call your office in the next day or two, when you've cooled down, and make the final arrangements."

She couldn't speak a third time, but her eyes clearly repeated her demand:
Out
.

The last deluxe copy was just selling as he returned to the table near the door. The crowd had thinned to half a dozen diehards waiting for a look, a touch, a few words, an autograph. One young couple looked truly out of place for a hick town. Both had long hair, the woman's dark and uncombed and streaked with henna, her eyes ringed with fatigue circles black as mascara; they were dressed in ripped black leather, black jeans, silver skulls and daggers dangling from their ears, and a gold ring piercing the male's nostril. They were skinny as speed freaks, pitiful as a pair of wet alleycats huddling together for warmth and security in an almost visible aura of nicotine. Out-of-style punks, anachronisms in a time-warped town; far too young to have been real punks, they had evolved from the dregs of the old punk culture, much as Haight Ashbury continued to breed twelve-year-old hippies while twentyish Beatniks spawned in North Beach cafes. And these were occult punks ... a more rarefied and less predictable breed than the ones who were merely into the modern holy trinity of sex, drugs, and music.

What kind of people read Derek Crowe?

He laughed sardonically to himself, but the male of the pair, a pale and skinny kid, picked up on it and also began chuckling. Then he shoved an open copy of
The Mandala Rites
at Derek.

"Read the regular edition already," he said. "Wrecked it up already. It gets like a car repair manual, you know? With candle wax and wine stains instead of motor oil? My working copy. But I'm gonna take good care of this one."

His accent was as vague and untethered as TV had made all things; he could have been from anywhere. It occurred to Derek that maybe only a local would feel comfortable enough to dress this way in a redneck town, knowing his folks would protect him. He imagined feuds in the hills going on for generations thanks to freaks like this. Of course, all he really knew about hick towns was what he'd learned from TV.