The Arcanum (13 page)

Doyle reached out, but Lovecraft just turned away and tossed the Book onto the fire.

“What are you doing?” Houdini exclaimed, lunging for the fireplace.

“Howard, have you taken leave of your senses?” Doyle spluttered.

“It’s useless. All lies.”

The Book burst into flames.

Houdini whirled on Lovecraft and shook him by the shoulders. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?”

Lovecraft sighed. “Konstantin Duvall was James Bruce, you imbeciles.” He shook off the stunned Houdini. “Or Bruce was Duvall. Take your pick.”

“But that’s impossible,” Doyle breathed. “That would make Duvall—”

“Very old, yes. Yet it doesn’t seem to bother you that this one”—Lovecraft gestured to Marie—“was supposedly born in 1827, does it? The Children of the Mysteries live by different rules, Arthur. You should know that now.”

Houdini had regained his composure. “The translations were faked?”

Lovecraft nodded. “There is only one Book of Enoch. Think of it from Duvall’s standpoint. For Heaven’s sake, we all knew the man. He lusted for secrets. And here were the words of God, denied to civilization for millennia, and they were in his possession. But how could he take credit? How could he gloat if no one knew of his triumph? The answer: fakery. Give out enough information to whet appetites, but keep the real secrets to himself.”

“And how do you know all this?” Houdini demanded.

“How do you free yourself from handcuffs?” Lovecraft parried.

“But Duvall went to the kaiser and the tsar and told them—” Doyle began.

“Yes, he did. The final, unutterable truths of the Enochian scriptures forced Duvall into action. For he understood at last what he held in his possession . . . and it horrified him.”

Houdini approached Lovecraft, fists balled. “And that is?”

Lovecraft held up his hands. “We are now in the realm of conjecture—educated, of course, but still conjecture.”

“Duly noted.” Doyle’s voice was grim.

“There is a school of Enochian magic based, in part, on the writings of the magician John Dee, court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth the First. Dee claimed to have been taught the language of the angels through his medium Edward Kelly. It is that school’s contention that the Book of Enoch is a gigantic cipher, that its true contents lie hidden, encoded in a secret language.”

“But what does it say?” Marie asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not a student of Enochian magic.”

“You’re a magnificent piece of work, Howard, and I’ve missed you terribly. Please give a call while you’re in town, if you’re not in the booby hatch. Doyle, if you need me I’ll be at home, sleeping.” Houdini rose and vanished into the shadows.

“Hold,” Doyle commanded.

Houdini paused halfway to the door. “I’ve heard quite enough, thank you.”

Doyle stepped toward Lovecraft, who shrank back. “What did you mean by ‘the fog of war,’ Howard?”

“It’s only a theory,” he stammered, holding up his hands.

“It’s anything but, and you know it. Now, Duvall had a map in his office, a detailed map of the world, charting the travels of a group he referred to only as the ‘lost tribe.’ Who are they?”

Lovecraft winced as he drew closer to the fire. “I told you. Armies of angels were dispatched to every corner of the Earth.”

“Yes. And?” Doyle said grimly.

“Well, not all of them made it back to Heaven. Nor did every angel fall. That’s what I’m saying.” And Lovecraft folded his arms.

“Are you suggesting that this ‘lost tribe’ is actually a lost tribe of angels?” Doyle’s voice grew softer as he finished.

“Every war has its refugees, Arthur,” Lovecraft said, just as softly.

“What a load of spectacular bullshit,” Houdini spat. He stalked back into the firelight. “Sunday school claptrap.”

Lovecraft seemed to crumple in on himself.

“Here endeth the lesson, Howard?” Doyle asked.

“I’ve told you all I know . . . honestly. But my knowledge only scratches the surface. The Book of Enoch is one of the most potent relics in the world. As I said, an entire school of magic was built around its secrets.”

“You’ve done well, Howard. You’ve taken us this far. Now, it seems, we need an expert in the field of Enochian magic. We need a name.”

Lovecraft laughed, but the sound had a maniacal edge. “Oh, I’ll give you a name, all right . . . but you won’t like it.”

“Try us,” Doyle suggested.

“Short of John Dee himself, he’s the unquestioned master. Maybe even better than Duvall.”

“Who?” Houdini asked, now interested.

“Crowley.”

Marie’s eyes widened. “You got to be jokin’, Howard!”

Doyle was aghast. “Aleister Crowley?” His lips could barely form the name.

“You honestly have gone mad,” Houdini said, with grave seriousness.

“You wanted a name and I gave you one,” Lovecraft retorted.

“I’d sooner trust a scorpion.” Houdini shook his head, looking to Doyle for support. “Well, Arthur?”

“Where is he?” Doyle asked Lovecraft.

“Here,” Lovecraft responded. “In New York.”

“Don’t tell me you’re even considering this,” Houdini barked at Doyle.

“Can we get to him?” Doyle pressed.

“I can,” Lovecraft answered.

“Doyle! For all we know he’s behind this entire thing,” Houdini exclaimed.

“All the more reason we should go to him,” Doyle said firmly. “Whoever the killer is believes he’s working in a vacuum; that no authority exists to bring him to justice. Well, he’s wrong.” Doyle leveled his steely gaze on the others. “It’s time for the important players in the game to know the Arcanum has returned.”

20

AS LOVECRAFT PULLED up his jacket’s threadbare collar, he gritted his teeth against the bone-chilling wind. He recrossed his thin legs and shifted his position on the bench in Washington Square Park. Lovecraft hated the cold, and was unmoved by the dusky oranges of the turning leaves and the collage of autumn scents. His palate favored the dry musk of parchment and the stale stillness of library corridors. Were it not for the mysteries of the beckoning night sky, he would never leave his room. But these grousing thoughts fled in the rush of his building apprehension.

His eyes were fixed on a rust-colored building at 63 Washington Square South, the current address of the self-proclaimed Great Beast, Aleister Crowley.

Lovecraft half prayed that Crowley would fail to appear, or would dismiss Lovecraft on the spot. A prolonged interaction was what he dreaded most—not merely because of the obvious dangers it presented, but also for the temptations. For if there was an equator in Lovecraft’s life, it was a line drawn by the influence of two men: Konstantin Duvall and Aleister Crowley. The Sun and the Moon. One a sage to kings, the other a pox on society. One fated to legend, the other doomed to infamy. Both tragically flawed, yet gifted beyond their time. And their saga was so intertwined, it seemed, from a distance, like a paradoxical love affair. But the contradictions only multiplied under closer examination.

In his time, Duvall sought to provide leadership and give structure to the occult world, gathering the world’s secrets under a protective net.

Crowley, meanwhile, through vanity and a hunger for power, subverted and destroyed every mystical association to which he lent his name.

Publicly, Crowley was seen as a deviant poseur. Privately— and among the informed—he was feared. And the deeper one probed, the greater that fear grew, along with a grudging respect.

Crowley, like Duvall, had had his eye on Lovecraft from the start of the young demonologist’s career, seeing in the boy a kindred seeker, an adept worthy of learning at the sorcerer’s knee.

But Lovecraft chose Duvall and the Arcanum, and that choice had set like an undigested meal in Lovecraft’s stomach ever since. Unlike the Arcanum with its rigid moral compass, Lovecraft approached the occult like a scientist, recognizing that the only truths worth acquiring came at a cost—be it of the mind, heart, or soul. This was an easy price to pay for a man with few, if any, close relations, but put him at odds with people like Houdini and Doyle: men with families, reputations, and a solid Judeo-Christian belief system. This philosophical prejudice nudged him nearer to Crowley, a man who had never met a social convention he didn’t violate or revile. But Lovecraft suspected that was merely the outward consequence of a mind dedicated fully, perhaps madly, to the exploration of darkness in all its forms.

As Lovecraft mused on the road not taken, a tall man in a Chesterfield overcoat and a seal-skin cap exited 63 Washington Square South. He strolled into the park and headed north toward Fifth Avenue. His gait was deliberate, his posture erect. He carried an umbrella that he tapped on the ground with every third step.

Lovecraft was halfway to Crowley before he realized he’d left the bench at all. Crowley’s influence over him was deeper than he’d expected, and Lovecraft’s fear was matched by a perverse fascination. He tried to think of Duvall to dispel the gnawing doubts, but the weight of the moment pressed down on him like a stone.

When they were ten feet apart, Crowley stopped. So did Lovecraft.

“Brave of you to come alone,” Crowley said, gazing north.

Lovecraft, too, dispensed with formalities. “We need your help.”

Crowley turned to face him. His eyes were as black as ink and too large for his face, bulging from under wrinkled lids with froggish strain. There was a coldness to their gaze, like that of a dead man. “You certainly do,” he answered, with a curl of his lip.

DOYLE HELD HIS hat in his hand as he stood in the center aisle of a hushed and empty St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The smell of the stone brought him back to the Sunday mornings of his Roman Catholic upbringing, and he felt a twinge of guilt for turning his back on that religion. But until the Church changed its ways and opened to the mysteries of Spiritualism, Doyle would not return.

It was a Tuesday, and no Mass was in progress. Doyle was here for an appointment instead. Footsteps sounded in the distance, and a balding priest with spectacles emerged from the shadows of the sacristy to the right of the altar. “Sir Arthur?”

“Your Eminence. Congratulations are in order,” Doyle said as he walked to meet Patrick J. Hayes, the newly anointed archbishop of New York City.

Hayes smiled. “Thank you, and it’s a pleasure to meet you after all this time, the writer of my favorite sleuth.”

Doyle smiled in return as they shook hands. “Thank you for your time.”

“My pleasure, my pleasure. What can I do for you?” Hayes pulled his round glasses down to the tip of his nose, and peered over their rims at Doyle. “Returning to the flock, I hope?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Alas. That would’ve earned me high marks from the council.” But Hayes’s expression was easy and trusting.

“I hate to disappoint, Your Eminence.”

“Eminence? Nonsense. Come.” Hayes led him to a pew beneath the pulpit. They sat.

“I need your guidance on something,” Doyle began, cautiously.

“A personal matter?”

“Religious, actually. And, in a way, historical, too.”

“Oh.” Hayes brightened. “Certainly. I do hope it’s research for a new novel. I’d love to feel I’d played a part.”

“In a way it is, yes. What is the Church’s position on the Book of Enoch?” Doyle studied Hayes’s expression.

Hayes frowned. “I don’t know if I’ve heard of that. There was a prophet Enoch in the Old Testament.”

“That’s the one,” Doyle responded. “According to some . . . scholars, I’m told this book formed the third testament of the original Bible.”

“Well, I assure you that isn’t the position of the Catholic Church. Fringe groups and amateur historians often claim possession of ancient writings or biblical secrets, but most are writings the original Church fathers dismissed centuries before as Apocrypha. In other words, it was material deemed unsuitable for the Holy Scripture.”

“So what would have been the criteria for such exclusion?”

“Well, there were probably a variety of factors the Church fathers needed to contend with. Firstly, many early writings made outlandish claims about mythical beings still walking the Earth. Which is unsettling content for the laity.”

“Creatures like the Nephilim?” Doyle queried.

“Am I being lured into some sort of debate on Spiritualism?” Hayes countered with a wry smile.

“Hardly.”

“And if I answer, may I rely on your discretion?”

“Of course.”

“Goliath was a Nephilim. And of course the Bible talks of miracles and magical creatures. It was mostly a question of discriminating between folklore and supportable history. The type of material that would ensure noninclusion, however, would be anything that suggested flaws in God’s design. Fissures, if you will, in the fabric of Creation.”

“The Fall of Lucifer,” Doyle interjected.

“You presume that occurred without God’s sanction,” Hayes said.

“So why would God allow it?” Doyle asked, more bitterly than he had wished. It was a question that had plagued him throughout a lifetime of senseless loss.

“Yes, exactly. Why?” Hayes folded his hands in his lap. “I am of the belief that without free will there is no love. A father who dominates his children, who doesn’t allow them to grow and choose their own way, is not a father but a dictator. But God wants us to join Him out of love, not fear. To do that, we must be allowed to choose our fate.”

“My son, Kingsley, my eldest, who died at the Somme—”

“I’m so sorry,” Hayes offered.

“Thank you. He used to ask me why God didn’t show Himself, to give the faithful hope, a reassurance of His presence.”

“That’s a good question. My answer is this: were God to appear suddenly on Fifth Avenue, in all His Heavenly splendor, we would fall to our knees in awe. And, I believe, we would become slaves. For in the wake of such magnificence, how could we react in any other way? Again, choice. Free will. We are His children, and a loving father lets his children make their own decisions.”

“And Satan?” Doyle asked. “What of his followers?”

“Earth is a battleground. It is the position of the Church that he must function through emissaries, that he has no special powers. He must influence others to do his bidding, just as God comes to our aid in the most unexpected ways.”

“Your Eminence,” Doyle said hesitantly, “do you believe in angels?”

“Certainly I do.”

“Are they here? Among us?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And who protects them?” Doyle asked, again with more emotion than he’d intended.

Hayes chuckled. “You have it turned around. They protect us, Sir Arthur.”

Doyle rubbed the back of his neck and squeezed his eyes shut, fatigued.

“But what if they’re lost? What if they’ve been lost for so long that they’ve forgotten the way home?”

“There are no lost angels, Sir Arthur. God wouldn’t allow it.”

“But if there were and Satan somehow knew this, could somehow find them . . .” Doyle faltered.

Hayes shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“How would he take his vengeance on God?”

“Well, that was the point of banishment, you see, to deny Satan access to the spiritual. There is no way he could gain revenge.”

“For the sake of argument, then,” Doyle suggested.

Hayes frowned. “Angels are pure spirit. And Lucifer was damned to the material world. So I suppose you could argue that if he somehow had access to creatures of the spirit, then . . .” Hayes hesitated, thinking it through. “There might be some mechanism for corruption to take hold once more in Heaven. The material might overtake the spiritual, and we could see the second Fall of Man, as foretold in the Book of Revelations. But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”

Doyle stood up and buttoned his jacket. He offered his hand again. “Thank you. And I hope you’re right.”

Archbishop Hayes rose as well, clasping hands with Doyle. “I hope so, too. Did you get what you needed?”

“You’ve been a great help, Your Eminence.”

“Then, let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”

“I shall,” Doyle replied, suspecting he’d be calling upon the archbishop far sooner than he liked.