George Martin: Aces High

"I'm not trying to manipulate you," Fortuanto said. "If it looks like I'm interested in you, it's because I'm interested in you."

"Are you always this intense?"

"Yeah. I guess I am. I look over at you and you're smiling all the time. It drives me crazy."

"I'll try to stop."

"Don't."

He'd come on too strong, he realized. She set her silverware neatly on her plate and dropped her folded napkin next to it. Fortuanto pushed the rest of his salad away. Suddenly something bubbled up in his mind.

"What did you say the name of the journal was? Where Balsam was publishing?"

She got a folded scrap of paper out of her purse. "Nectanebus. Why?"

Fortunato signaled for the check. "Listen. Can you come back to my apartment? No funny business. This is important."

"I suppose."

The waiter bowed and looked at Eileen. "Mr. Worchester is… unavoidably detained. But he asked me to tell you that your lunch is compliments of the house."

"Thank him for me," Eileen said. "Tell him… just tell him thank you."

Caroline was still asleep when they got to the apartment. She made a point of leaving the bedroom door open while she walked naked to the bathroom, then sat on the edge of the bed and slowly put her clothes on, starting with stockings and a garter belt.

Fortunato ignored her, sorting through the stacks of books that had grown to fill an entire wall of the front room. Either she'd learn to control her jealousy or she'd find another line of work.

Eileen smiled at her as she clomped out on her four-inch heels. "She's beautiful," she said.

"So are you."

"Don't start. "

"You brought it up." He handed her Budge's Egyptian Magic. "There you go. Nectanebus."

"… famous as a magician and a sage, and he was deeply learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."

"This is coming together. Remember Black John's dog mask? I'm wondering if Balsam's cult isn't the Egyptian Freemasons."

"Oh my god. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking that the name Balsam could be an Americanization of Balsamo."

"As in Guiseppe Balsamo of Palermo," Eileen said. She sat down hard on the couch.

"Better known to the world," Fortunato said, "as Count Cagliostro.

"

Fortuanto pulled up a chair across from her and sat with his elbows on his knees. "The Inquistion arrested him when?"

"Around 1790, wasn't it? They put him in some kind of dungeon. But his body was never found."

"He's supposed to be connected with the Illuminati. Suppose they broke him out of jail and smuggled him to America. "

"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."