The Darkening Dream (13 page)

Parris didn’t expect to learn his true name, if the creature even remembered it after all these centuries.

“Here in America I’m known as Alan Hammil Nasir. You may call me Mr. Nasir, or just Nasir if we’re to become friends.” His smile revealed small pointy teeth. “But we’re not friends yet, are we? Colleagues of a sort, perhaps.”

“No, not friends, Mr. Nasir, not at all,” Parris said.

“I think we could be in time. We’ve much in common.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

The barmaid materialized. “Gentlemen, what can I get you?”

“Nothing for me,” Mr. Nasir said,
but my handsome friend would like a pint
. Parris was sure the man’s lips had not finished the sentence.

The barmaid smiled at Parris, gave his shoulder a squeeze, and left.

Women never smiled at him, much less squeezed body parts.

“You brought the Eye?” Nasir said. “My partner would like to observe the discussion.”

The silky voice was hypnotic, which made Parris all the warier.

“I have it.”

He brought out the leather bag, sewn from the buttock skin of a human boy — if the seller hadn’t cheated him. A week had now passed since he’d received the amulet, yet he’d not dared examine it, instead opting to leave it wrapped in black silk and tucked inside the bag. With such nonchalance as he could summon, he uncovered the gold and blue
Wadjet
Eye and placed it on the table.

“That bag smells delightful,” Mr. Nasir said. “It must have been expensive.”

The Eye blinked once from its place between the salt shaker and the menu. Mr. Nasir tipped his hat to it. Parris tried not to meet its gaze. The object was pretty enough, gold and lapis, with a curved brow above and two distinctive swirls below. Egyptian. Parris had researched the probable owner, and his skin crawled thinking about it.

“You called him the Painted Man. I’ve never heard that name, but I assume you’re referring to the immortal Egyptian?”

Mr. Nasir nodded again at the Eye. “The Immortal, the Secret Advisor, Son of the Earth, the Painted Man, all one and the same.”

Parris tried to swallow, but his throat felt dry. He was startled by a warm hand on his. The smiling barmaid settled a pint of ale in front of him.

Mr. Nasir continued. “My partner is, as you may know, a great locator and collector of unusual and powerful objects. He has recently — what he might consider recently — come into reliable information that something we want is here in Salem. We seek a man of your talents to aid us in obtaining it.”

“Why would I help you?” Parris said.

“Out of the kindness of your heart?” The man’s smile was disarming. He reached under the table and brought out a satchel, opening it to reveal a gnarled leather-bound tome. The book looked ancient.

“If you help us, you may have this.” The man unlocked it to reveal a vellum page covered in dark scrawl.

Parris recognized the handwriting but scanned the text anyway.

“The last Knittlingen treatise?” These gentlemen knew him too well. “I thought it was lost or destroyed.”

“What is lost can be found,” Mr. Nasir whispered. “My partner acquired this not long after Dr. Faustus’ death. It can be yours.”

Parris reached for the book. Mr. Nasir snapped it shut and put it back in the bag.

“This thing you seek,” the pastor said. “What is it?”

“A ram’s horn.” Mr. Nasir leaned across the table. “If we’re agreed, I’ll tell you more.” His breath smelled of the grave.

“This horn. You and I would have to retrieve it from its present owner?”

“Your talents and associations can help with the arcane aspects, and I’ll handle the guardians.”

Mr. Nasir settled back into his side of the booth.

“After we retrieve the item I’ll give you the grimoire.” He patted the bulky satchel. “Then my partner and I will require you to use it. If accepted, this is an obligation of the contract. We seek to negotiate with a certain… personage.”

He’d been staring unblinkingly at Parris for most of the conversation. Now he glanced across the room at the hearth fire.

“Do not name a demon!” Parris said. “Even you should think twice about that.”

“I’m not a fool. Diodorus Siculus spoke of this individual.” Mr. Nasir offered his toothy smile.

“What is your purpose in this?”

“Only my partner is free to reveal that.” Mr. Nasir glanced at the Eye again. It blinked. “Rest assured, he has considered every eventuality.”

“This all sounds quite dangerous,” Parris said.

“Your line of work is not without certain hazards.”

“I’ll need time to think about you proposal.”

“Of course, the centuries have taught me patience. When you’re ready, tell the Eye. I’ll find you.”

“Are we done for now?” Parris asked. “Shall I put away your partner?”

“By all means, return him to that lovely little purse.”

Paris glanced down to retrieve the amulet. When he looked up, the small man was gone.

Pastor Parris’ house near the church was dark. Electric lights disturbed him, and his funds were meager, so he’d never installed any. He lit a single candle at the door.

He needed to ensure the Eye couldn’t observe him at work. He placed the boy-skin bag inside a small lead coffer he’d procured for this purpose, draped a black sheet over one arm, and chanted:

Give me the power.

Give me the dark.

I call on you, the laughing gods.

Let your blackness crawl beneath my skin.

He dropped the cloth over the chest, making sure no portion of the container was visible. He extracted a knife from his pocket, made a tiny cut on one finger, and squeezed a drop of blood onto the black silk.

“Accept my sacrifice. Feed!”

He walked into the small living room and built up a good fire in the hearth. This whole Mr. Nasir business had him agitated. He’d been constipated since first meeting the man, and that always disturbed him, reminding him as it did of what’d happened to Grandmother Grace.

Perhaps he should call Betty. He needed to unwind.

After their time together, she left him tied to the chair in his bedroom. He wasn’t comfortable, but he knew that pleased her. He felt relaxed for the first time in days, even though his wrists and ankles were covered in bloody ligatures, even though he felt wet and raw below. He couldn’t check from his current position, but he hoped she hadn’t done too much damage. It was going to be a busy week.

Betty lounged naked on his bed. The candlelight played over her bluish breasts and her dark red areola.

“My dear Toy, you had something serious to talk about?” Her thin blue tail danced above the mattress like a snake charmer’s cobra.

“I’ve a choice to make.” He told her about his meeting in the tavern.

“This man, he’s a practitioner like you?” Betty asked.

“He’s not exactly a man, my dear. He hasn’t breathed in a long time.”

“Older than me?” She was vain about her age.

“Aren’t you nine years old?”

“Liar!” Her tail lashed him across his naked chest, leaving a red welt. Tied as he was, he could only wince. She wasn’t really angry, just playful. “I was nine at the trial with my father,
your
— or shall I say
our
— ancestor. Aren’t we naughty?”

She rolled over on her stomach, kicking her legs and waving her tail above her bare buttocks. She was 231 this year, his great-great-great-grandmother or maybe there were more greats.

“The one I met tonight is older,” Parris said. “I saw him fly in the church.”

She clacked her teeth. “I don’t think they can do that unless they’re very old, He has to be from before Luther at least, and few of them survived those years.”

“At least several centuries old,” he said.

“Strong, then, and clever. Is this book worth it?” she asked.

“It could mean everything. Johann Georg Faust made a deal with the devil, and his missing grimoire purports to explain how.”

Her tail tickled him under his chin. “Surely you aren’t foolish enough to try and follow in his footsteps.”

He chuckled, from fear or her touch he wasn’t sure. His relationship with Betty gave him certain advantages in the infernal realms, but with the book, he might be strong enough to command even a Duke of Hell. He shuddered. And if all went according to plan, that was what Mr. Nasir meant him to do.

“I’m a little lynx.” She crouched like a cat. “We know in our bones not to mess with the big game. Do you know this Mr. Nasir’s partner, the one behind the Eye?”

Despite the fire, Parris felt cold. “The undead calls him the Painted Man, but no credible tale of him exists after the French Revolution. He probably died in 1784.”

Betty grew very still and didn’t speak for a long moment.

“I met him once.”

“Truly?”

“It was at Versailles, in 1757, I think. He called himself the Comte de Saint-Germain.”

Parris nodded. “Legend has him taking that and countless other names, shadowy advisor to centuries of kings.”

She slapped a buttock. “I’d seduced one of the younger sons of the Duc d’Orleans. It didn’t end well for him, let that be a lesson to you.”

“You’re such a wicked whore, Betty. It’s your infernal nature.”

She wagged her tail at him.

“What was this
comte
like?” Parris asked. “I thought he was Egyptian, not French.”

Now she used her tail to tease him, probing this place and that.

“He claimed to have existed longer than the world,” she said. “And to have lived in Egypt and even China. On this occasion, he was talking to
le Roi
, Louis XV. This I remember, because he excused himself — who does that when talking to a king? — and came over to me. He had this peculiar walk, as if he floated above the surface of the floor. He warned me off.”

“Why?”

“I think he knew what I was. He wanted me to leave. There was a brightness and a translucency to him, as if he’d been painted into the world with watercolors instead of oils.”

“You think he had real power? Many believe he was a fraud.”

“Let me put it this way,” she said. “I and the young d’Orleans left that night for one of his estates. I wouldn’t even allow the servants to pack.”

This from Betty, who was more fearless than any man he knew.

“Why’d this Painted Man send a vampire to raise a demon?” she said. “Undead can’t wager their souls. Goods that damaged are poor collateral.”

Parris shrugged as best he could. “At least there’s a market for our talents.”

“What’s in it for this little girl?”

“I think we can find something to please you,” he said.

“We’ll see about that.”

She stood, bent over to retrieve her clothes, holding the pose to give him a good view, and crossed the room to the hearth. Only a few coals smoldered.

“What about me?” He shrugged his bound shoulders.

“A warlock of your repute shouldn’t have any trouble with a wee bit of rope. Next time, let’s play with that little pet of yours. Until then…”

Still naked, she blew him a kiss, stepped barefoot onto the hot coals, and in a flash of flame, vanished.

Fourteen:

Grist for the Mill