"Where he shows up as Black John Balsam, the local weirdo. But what was he up to? Why the coins? And the human sacrifice? Cagliostro was a fraud, a con man.
All he ever wanted was the good life. Murder just doesn't sound like his style."
Fortunato handed her Daraul's Witches and Sorcerers. "Let's find out. Unless you've got something better to do?"
"England," Eileen said. "1777. That's when it happened. He got inducted into the Masons on April twelfth, in Soho. After that Masonry takes over his life. He invents the Egyptian Freemasons as some kind of higher order, starts giving away money, inducting every high-ranking Mason he can."
"So what brought all that on?"
"Supposedly he took some kind of tour of the English countryside and came back from it a--quote--changed man--endquote. His magic powers increased. He went from an adventurer to a genuine mystic."
"Okay," Fortunato said. "Now listen to this. This is Tolstoy on Freemasonry:
`The first and chief object of our Order . . . is the preservation and handing-on to posterity of a certain important mystery .. a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends."'
"This is starting to scare the hell out of me," Eileen said. "There's one more piece. The thing that's on the back of the Balsam penny is a Sumerian deity called TIAMAT It's what Lovecraft took Cthulu from. Some kind of huge, shapeless monster from beyond the stars. Lovecraft supposedly got his mythology from his father's secret papers. Lovecraft's father was a Mason."
"So you think that's what it's all about. This TIAMAT thing."
"Put it together," Fortunato said. "Suppose the Masonic secret has something to do with controlling TIAMAT Cagliostro learns the secret. His brother Masons won't use their knowledge for evil, so Cagliostro forms his own order, for his own ends."
"To bring this thing to Earth."
"Yes," Fortunato said. "To bring it to Earth." Eileen had finally stopped smiling.
It had gotten dark while they talked. The night was cold and clear and Fortuanto could see stars through the skylights in the front room. He wished he could shut them out.
"It's late," Eileen said. "I have to go."
He hadn't thought of her leaving. The day's work had left him full of nervous energy, the thrill of the hunt. Her mind excited him and he wanted her to open up to him-her secrets, her emotions, her body. "Stay," he said, careful not to use his powers, not to make it a command. "Please." His stomach felt cold when he asked.
She got up, put on the sweater she'd left on the arm of the couch. "I have to .
. . digest all this," she said. "There's just been too much happening at once.
I'm sorry." She wouldn't look at him. "I need more time."
"I'll walk you down to Eighth Avenue," he said. "You can catch a cab there."
Cold seemed to radiate out of the stars, a kind of hatred for life itself. He hunched his shoulders and put his hands deep in his pockets. A few seconds later he felt Eileen's arm around his waist and he held her close as they walked. They stopped at the corner of Eighth and 19th and a cab pulled up almost immediately.
"Don't say it," Eileen told him. "I'll be careful."
Fortunato's throat was too tight for him to talk if he'd wanted to. He put a hand behind her neck and kissed her. Her lips were so gentle that he had started to turn away before he realized how good they felt. He turned back and she was still standing there. He kissed her again, harder, and she swayed toward him for a second and then pulled away.
"I'll call you," she said.
He watched the cab until it turned the corner and disappeared.
The police woke him at seven the next morning. "We've got a dead kid in the morgue," the first cop said. "Somebody broke his neck up at the Cloisters about a week ago. You know anything about it?"
Fortunato shook his head. He stood by the door, holding his robe closed with one hand. If they came in they would see the pentagram painted on the hardwood floor, the human skull on the bookcase, the joints on the coffee table.
"Some of his pals say they saw you there," the second cop said.
Fortunato locked eyes with him. "I wasn't there," he said. "You want to believe that."
The second cop nodded and the first one started to reach for his gun. "No,"
Fortunato said. The first cop didn't manage to look away in time. "You believe it too. I wasn't there. I'm clean. "
"Clean," the first cop said.
"Go now," Fortunato said, and they left.
He sat on the couch, hands shaking. They would be back. Or more likely they'd send somebody from the Jokertown division who wouldn't be affected by his powers.
He wouldn't be getting back to sleep. Not that he'd been sleeping that well anyway. His dreams had been full of tentacled things as large as the moon, blocking the sky, swallowing the city.
It suddenly occurred to him that the apartment was empty. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spent the night alone. He almost picked up the phone to call Caroline. It was only a reflex and he fought it o$: What he wanted was to be with Eileen.
Two days later she called again. In those two days he'd been to her museum in Long Island twice, in his astral form. He'd hovered across the room 'invisible to her' just watching. He'd have gone more often, stayed longer, but he was taking too much pleasure in it. "It's Eileen," she said. "They want to initiate me."
It was three-thirty in the afternoon. Caroline was at Berlitz, learning Japanese. She hadn't been around much lately.
"You went back," he said.
"I had to. We've been over this."
"When is it?"
"Tonight. I'm supposed to be there at eleven. It's this old church in Jokertown."
"Can I see you?"
"I guess so. I could come over if you want."
"Please. As soon as you can."
He sat by the window and watched until her car pulled up. He buzzed the door for her and then waited for her on the landing. She walked ahead of him into the apartment and turned around. He didn't know what to expect from her. He closed the door and she held out her hands. He put his arms around her and she turned her face up to him. He kissed her and then he kissed her again. Her arms went around his neck and tightened.
"I want you," he said. "I want you too."
"Come to bed."
"I want to. But I can't. It's ... it's just a lousy idea. It's been a long time for me. I can't just climb into bed with you and perform all kinds of weird Tantric sex acts. It's not what I want. You can't even come, for crissake!"
He combed through her hair with his fingers. "All right." He held her a while longer, then let her go. "Do you want anything? A drink?"
"Some coffee, if you have any."
He put water on the stove and ground a handful of beans, watching her over the breakfast bar. "What I can't understand," he said, "is why I can't get anything from these people's minds."
"You don't think I'm making all this up?"
"I know you're not," Fortunato said. "I could tell if you were lying."
She shook her head. "You take a lot of getting used to."
"Some things are more important than social niceties." The water boiled.
Fortunato made two cups and took them to the couch.
"If they're as big as you think they are," Eileen said, "they're bound to have aces working with them. Somebody who could set up blocks for them, blocks against other people with mental powers."
"I guess."
She drank a little of the coffee. "I met Balsam this afternoon. We all got together at the bookstore."
"What's he like?"
"Smooth. He looked like a banker or something. Threepiece suit, glasses. But tanned, like he plays a lot of tennis on weekends."
"What did he say?"
"They finally mentioned the word `Mason.' Like it was the last test, to see if it would freak me out. Then Balsam gave me a history lesson. How the Scottish and York Rite Masons were just offshoots of the Speculative Masons, and that they only went back to the eighteenth century."
Fortunato nodded. "That's all true."
"Then he started talking about Solomon, and how the architect of his temple was actually an Egyptian. That Masonry started with Solomon, and all the other rites had lost the original meaning. But they say they've still got it. Just like you figured."
"I have to go with you tonight."
"There's no way you could get in. Not even if you disguised yourself. They'd know you.",
"I could send my astral body. I could still see and hear everything. "
"If somebody else came here in their astral body, could you see them?"
"Of course."
"Well? It's a hell of chance to take, isn't it?"
"All right, okay."
"It has to be just me. There's no other way."
"Unless ."
"Unless what?"
"Unless I went inside you," he said. "What are you talking about?"
"The power is in my sperm. If you were carrying-"
"Oh, come on," she said. "Of all the lame excuses to get somebody into bed . .
." She stared at him. "You're not kidding, are you?"
"You cant go in there alone. Not just because of the danger. Because you can't do enough by yourself. You can't read their minds. I can."
"Even if you're just-hitching a ride?" Fortunato nodded.
"Oh God," she said. "This is-there's so many reasons not to--I'm having my period, for one thing."
"So much the better."
She grabbed her left wrist and held it close to her chest. "I told myself if I ever went to bed with a man again-and I said if-it would have to be romantic.
Candlelight and flowers and everything. And look at me."
Fortunato knelt in front of her and gently moved her hands away. "Eileen," he said. "I love you."
"That's easy for you to say. I'm sure you mean it and everything, but I'm also sure you say it all the time. There's only two men I've ever said it to in my life, and one of them was my father."
"I'm not talking about how you feel. I'm not talking about forever. I'm talking about me, right now. And I love you." He. picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
It was cold in there and her teeth started to chatter. Fortunato lit the gas heater and sat down next to her on the bed. She took his right hand in both of hers and held it to her mouth. He kissed her and felt her respond, almost against her will. He took his clothes off and pulled the covers over the two of them and began to unbutton her blouse. Her breasts were large and soft, the nipples tightening under his tongue as he kissed them.
"Wait," she said. "I have to . . . I have to go to the bathroom."
When she came back she had taken the rest of her clothes off. She was holding a towel in front of her. "To save your sheets," she said. There was a smear of blood on the inside of one thigh.
He took the towel away from her. "Don't worry about the sheets." She stood naked in front of him. She looked like she was afraid he would send her away. He put his head between her breasts and pulled her toward him.
She got under the covers again and kissed him and her tongue flickered into his mouth. He kissed her shoulders, her breasts, the underside of her chin. Then he rolled onto his hands and knees above her.
"No," she whispered, "I'm not ready yet . . "
He held his penis in one hand and moved the head of it against her labia, slowly, gently, feeling the brittle flesh turn warm and wet. She bit her lower lip, her eyes closed. Slowly he slipped inside her, the friction sending waves of pleasure up his spine.
He kissed her again. He could feel her lips moving against his, mouthing inaudible words. His hands moved up her sides, around her back. He remembered that he was used to making love for hours at a time and the thought amazed him.
It was all too intense. He was full of heat and light; he couldn't contain it all.
"Aren't you supposed to say something?" Eileen whispered, breathing raggedly around the words. "Some kind of magic spell or something?"
Fortunato kissed her again, his lips tingling like they'd been asleep and were just now coming back to life. "I love you," he said.
"Oh God," she said, and started to cry. Tears rolled down into her hair and at the same time her hips moved faster against him. Their bodies were flushed and hot and sweat ran down Fortunato's chest. Eileen stiffened and kicked. A second later Fortunato's own brain went white and he fought off ten years of training and let it happen, let the power spurt out of him and into the woman and for an instant he was both of them at once, hermaphroditic and all-encompassing, and he felt himself expand to the ends of the universe in a giant nuclear blaze.
And then he was back in bed with Eileen, feeling her breasts rise and fall under him as she cried.
The only light came from the gas heater. He must have slept. The pillowcase felt like sandpaper against his cheek. It took all his strength to roll over onto his back.
Eileen was putting on her shoes. "It's almost time," she said.
"How do you feel?" he said.
"Unbelievable. Strong. Powerful." She laughed. "I've never felt like this."
He closed his eyes, slid into her mind. He could see himself lying on the bed, skeletal, his dark golden skin disappearing into the shadows, his forehead shrunken to where it blended smoothly into his hairless scalp.
"And you," she said. He could feel her voice echoing in her chest. "Are you all right?"
He drifted back to his own body. "Weak," he said. "But I'll be okay."
"Should I . . . call somebody for you?"
He knew what she was offering, knew he should agree to it. Caroline, or one of the others, would be the fastest way to get his power back. But it would also weaken his bond to Eileen. "No," he said.
She finished dressing and bent over to kiss him lingeringly. "Thank you," she said.
"Don't," he said. "Don't thank me."
"I'd better go." Her impatience, her strength and vitality, were a physical force in the room. He was too distant from it to be jealous of her. Then she was gone, and he slept again.
He watched through Eileen's eyes as she stood by the front door of the bookstore, waiting for Clarke to close up. He could have moved all the way into her mind, but it would have used up what little strength he was slowly getting back. Besides, he was warm and comfortable where he was. Until the hands grabbed him and shook him awake and he was looking into a pair of gold shields. "Get your clothes on," a voice said. "You're under arrest."
They gave him a holding cell to himself. It had a gray tile floor and gray-painted cement walls. He squatted in the corner and shivered, too weak to stand. On the wall next to him somebody had scratched a stick figure with a giant dripping prick and balls.
For an hour he'd been unable to concentrate long enough to make contact with Eileen. He was sure Balsam's Masons had killed her.
He shut his eyes. A cell door banged closed down the hall and brought him back.
Concentrate, goddamn it, he thought. He was in a long room with a high ceiling.