Graham Masterton - Mirror

They went downstairs to Mr Capelli's apartment, leaving Boofuls on his own. 'Come in and have coffee,' Mrs Capelli begged Father Lucas. 'I have some beautiful polenta.'

Martin said, 'Go ahead, Father, please. There's something I want to show you.'

'All right, all right,' Father Lucas agreed. He took out his handkerchief and gave his reddened cheek yet another rub. 'But I can only stay for a quarter of an hour.'

'It won't take any longer,' Martin assured him.

While Mr and Mrs Capelli took Father Lucas through to the parlor, Martin ran downstairs and out into the street. He unlocked the trunk of his Mustang and carefully lifted out the black-tissue package that he and Ramone had discovered at the Hollywood Divine. Then he returned to the house with it and carried it upstairs.

Mrs Capelli was setting the table with plates and cups. She looked fretful and unsettled, and her braided hair was coming loose on one side. Father Lucas was talking to Mr Capelli about the mirror. They obviously hadn't told Mrs Capelli that it had ejaculated in Father Lucas' face. But Father Lucas looked extremely worried.

'You always associate this kind of demonic event with the Middle Ages,' he was saying, 'but the truth is that the devil never rests, any more than the Lord Almighty.'

'Amen, amen,' put in Mrs Capelli, clattering coffee spoons.

Martin came in and laid the black-tissue package on the lace tablecloth. Father Lucas shifted his chair around to examine it. 'What's this?' he wanted to know. 'Is it anything to do with the mirror?'

'I think so, but I don't know what. Let me tell you something, Father, before you open it. A man was killed yesterday, helping me to find this stuff. Whether it was an accident or not, I can't say. He might just have hemorrhaged. But I don't really think so.'

Mrs Capelli crossed herself. 'Holy Mother of God, what is it?'

Father Lucas untied the braided hair and teased open the tissue paper. He lifted one sheet up, and the black claws tumbled out onto the table with a rattling sound.

'God protect us,' Mr Capelli said hoarsely.

'Where did you get these?' Father Lucas asked, picking one of the claws up and turning it over.

Martin said, 'Just at the moment, I don't want to tell you. Well, I want to tell you, but I can't. It's all to do with protecting Emilio. But they do seem to have some connection with the mirror. A very strong connection.'

Father Lucas wrinkled up his nose as he took out the piece of dried scalp. Then he found the key.

'Do you have any idea what this opens?'

'A safe-deposit box, I think, in the same place where we found all this stuff. But there are dozens of them, and we don't know the number.'

'What was the number of the box you found these in?'

Martin dug into the pocket of his jeans and took out the key that Sister Boniface had given him. 'Here it is, 531.'

Father Lucas examined it carefully. 'Well .. .' he said. 'I know only a little about occult numerology, but I know enough to recognize the Number of the Beast when I see it.'

'The Number of the Beast?'

'Satan's number, 666. Don't you remember that film The Omen? They made great play of it in that.'

'Oh, yes . . .' said Martin. 'Wasn't it tattoed on Damien's scalp or something? I mean, is that real? Is that really the number of the devil?'

Father Lucas looked almost embarrassed. 'The story was fiction, of course, but the number was real. As far as I know it came from biblical times. But, you know, it used to be disguised by Satanists . . . split into quarters or tenths or halves or whatever. This is one of the things they taught us at Bible college. You see — what is the reverse of 531?'

Martin said without hesitation, '135.'

'Quite right . . . but if you add them together? 135 and 531?'

Martin said nothing. Mrs Capelli stood in the doorway with a dangerously tilting plate of polenta with pine nuts and stared at Father Lucas openmouthed, even though she didn't have the slightest idea what was going on.

Father Lucas gestured toward the claws. 'It would appear to me that what you have come across here is half of the artifacts used in the satanic Sabbat. It doesn't take a genius to guess that the other half can be found in locker number 135.'

Martin slowly sat down. He picked up one of the claws and held it up to the light. It was jet black, opaque, and extraordinarily heavy. 'So what are these things? What are they used for?'

Father Lucas said, 'I'm not an exorcist.'

'But?' asked Martin, catching the implication in his voice that he probably knew more.

'Well,' said Father Lucas, 'they used to tell us at St Patrick's that there were relics of Satan, just as there were relics of the True Cross, and the Holy Shroud, and the crown of thorns.'

'And that's what you think these are? Relics of Satan?'

'Well, now, who can tell? It could all be nonsense.'

'But it isn't nonsense, is it?' said Martin. 'You saw that mirror for yourself. You threw the holy water and it went right through. You know that something evil is going down here, just as well as we do.'

Father Lucas sat and stared for a long time at the scattered claws. Then he said, 'They taught us at St Patrick's that the beast had been beaten, years ago, and that his body had been torn to pieces and scattered to the ends of the earth.'

'And?' asked Mr Capelli impatiently.

'And that's all,' said Father Lucas. 'Except that what you have here - these claws, this skin, this hair - they are all pieces of the beast. And whoever left them in that locker was obviously determined to bring them back together again - all the pieces, no matter where they were scattered - and re-create the creature that the Bible calls Satan. The true Satan, the very core of all evil - in the flesh.'

Martin rearranged the claws by nudging them with the tips of his fingers; but he didn't feel like holding them as tightly as he had before. Satan may be an oldfashioned concept, but it was still frightening.

Father Lucas asked, 'You really can't tell me where you found these, or where the remaining pieces might be?'

Martin thought about it for a while, but then he shook his head. He wanted to know more about Boofuls' monthly meetings at the Hollywood Divine before he let Father Lucas get involved. He wanted to know more about Boofuls himself. He had a feeling that if Father Lucas realized who Boofuls was, he would be back at the house within the hour with a busload of exorcists; and that their chances of getting Emilio back whole and undistorted would be put at serious risk.

What would be worse, the slightest hint of an exorcism would bring out the newspaper reporters and the television cameras, and Boofuls' appearance would be turned into a three-ring media circus.

Maybe there was another reason why Martin didn't want to divulge everything to Father Lucas just yet, a selfish reason. Maybe he wanted to see through this proposed remake of Sweet Chariot. If it could ever be filmed, it would be the sensation of all time — the only motion picture to star a reincarnated murder victim - and Martin would have his name on it.

There would be no stopping his career after that. He would become a movie legend. Notorious, perhaps, but never forgotten.

Father Lucas cut himself a slice of polenta and ate it thoughtfully. Martin found it rather dry, with too many pine nuts in it. At length, wiping his hands on one of Mrs Capelli's best white embroidered napkins, Father Lucas said, 'That boy upstairs; your grandson's friend, Lejeune. Does he have anything to do with this in any way?'

'What makes you say that?' asked Martin before Mr Capelli could answer.

'He has a presence about him, that's all. I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it's nothing more than a freshness of youth.'