Chapter 1:
Hercules Mulligan
&
The Case of the Skyscraper Sacrifice
Imagine a seven-foot-tall, 350 pound, bald gorilla of a burglar in desperate shape and to whom stealth is an abstraction. Consider, he has climbed some fifty odd flights of stairs over the course of about a half-an-hour to get to the rooftop of one of the oldest–and tallest–skyscrapers in the city. His perfidious heart pounds against his chest. His lungs wheeze. He sweats buckets out of the pits of his white button up shirt. His palm slips around on the sweaty metal knob of the cane he uses for support. The thought of that poor girl murdered according to the elements of a ritual he knows all too well, push him forward. He can help solve this crime.
As he reaches the door, he rips away police do-not-cross tape and takes out his lock-picking kit. Sausage link fingers fumble the jiggler into the lock. He slows his breath; steadies his hands and works the pick more adeptly. Click. The door opens. He catches a glimpse of an altar. He smells a hint of sulfur, candle wax, a distinct sooty grease like burned tallow and rubber—he has never smelled this before—and then it all gives way to the iron scent of blood, lots of blood.
He takes a step back to clear his nose and hears, “You there. Freeze.”
Oh deus. That burglar is me and I’ve just been caught.
Allow me to explain. I can smell evil.
The pituitary gland dangling low at the base of my brain may be among the most unique organs in human history. Ordinarily, that modest gland governs the hormones that make us big or small. Mine, however, harbored a tumor that stimulated such a violent overproduction of growth hormones my body outgrew itself as unrestrainedly as the cancer cells inhabiting it. Doctors declared removing the tumor would destroy my brain. Doing nothing would allow me to continue my monstrous ascent until my heart failed.
Brain or heart? Brain or heart?
In the end, my desperate parents found another way to save me, but despite their intervention nothing could restore me to a normal size. I am preternaturally large. An earlier century might have seen me in sideshow chains exhibited between Thumbelina and Tom Thumb.
And yet, though cursed, I became equally blessed.
That same tumor distorting my body compressed the nearby olfactory brain tissue. Doctors call it a sensory processing disorder but in effect, my nose can follow the scent trail of any man or beast. I can taste a soufflé from a mile away, smell a rose long after Valentine’s Day, and distinguish copper from iron in a single drop of blood. But most particularly–and most inconveniently–I can smell evil.
Rather I should say souls, for it’s from the soul that the scent of evil emanates. I read souls like powdered fingerprints. I can tell where one has been and what it’s done–the more sinister the easier–though most every soul remains somewhat tainted, for as the famous poet said: “fairly examined, truly understood, no man is wholly bad, nor wholly good.” But the worst and darkest of evils–the ancient, deliberate, ritual kind–reeks unmistakably of sulphur, of brimstone, of rotten eggs left out in the sun, and I had smelled it seeping through the rooftop door of the Burnham Building moments before being hauled away.
Two police officers burst out of the door to the floor below me. Their scents now filled my nostrils—a pungent, fermenting detritus from one, boiling lye from the other, neither more evil than most.
“Sorry Herc,” came the voice of my assistant, Cedric, being dragged along behind them.
He was already in handcuffs.
“I’m only going to say this once. Put your hands up,” the officer yelled.
“I can explain,” I said.
“No you can’t,” he replied.
I did as he asked. The second officer came up behind me holding a set of handcuffs. He looked at my wrists.
“These cuffs ain’t gonna fit him.”
The first officer ran his hands over his face. “No funny business, big guy. Just come with us.”
I nodded.
“And take his cane,” the first officer said to the second.
Twenty minutes later, we entered the city of Chicago’s Bureau of Detectives. I almost choked on the overwhelming stink of the place. Rancid beer, stale cigarettes, sweat, and saccharin imposter perfumes or colognes designed to cover up the most obvious of sins wafted from every corner. But beyond these more normal scents, I also caught the tar and rubber of fear, the copper taste of anger, the dry, burned licorice of hate, and the putrid, citrus smell of envy. It seemed as though the worst effluvium of human suffering had been well-pickled in the hot, air condition-less room.
We were brought to the front desk for booking. Cedric kept quiet. He’d been arrested as a juvenile but had recently had everything expunged. I tilted my head forward with an apologetic smile. He nodded back.
On the other hand, I had never set foot in a police station, let alone the Bureau of Detectives, and so despite the stink, I could not help but feel enamored with the place.
Behind the front desk was a brightly lit room, hectic with people and marked off in rows by paper-strewn cubicles where the detectives held court. These men—these black suited saints—oblivious to the common chaos, looking weary from carrying the weight of solving murders on their broad-shouldered consciences sat hunched over their desks with brows furrowed, or snarled into their phones, or questioned their suspects with skeptical, fox-like expressions. I might have counted among them if the gods had been fairer.
“Hey Wayne, we caught these two breaking onto the Burnham building roof,” the first officer said.
“Who is he?” Wayne asked.
“I.D. says Hercules Mulligan. Ain’t got a record. Thought Chief Sharp might want to talk to him,” said the second officer.
I interrupted them.
“Is he the detective in charge? I’d very much like to speak with him.”
“What? Are you going to confess?” Wayne asked.
“No. I have important information about the case.”
“Get a load of this guy,” said a second officer. Who appeared to be new to the police department.
“You think he might be the sicko who killed that girl last night?” asked Wayne.
“Looks like Frankenstein, don’t he?” said the first officer.
All the officers laughed.
“You can’t talk to him like that,” Cedric said, coming to my defense.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Wayne shouted back.
“Enough!” I pounded my fist on the counter. The whole room started in disbelief. “You will treat me with respect, at least until I’m accused of something.”
The three officers backed away.
“Do that again, and we’ll lock you up and throw away the key,” Wayne muttered, but he went to get the Chief without another word.
A few minutes later he reappeared followed by a six-foot tall, wiry man, wearing a black suit tailored to fit but too short at the wrists. He had dark, serious eyes teetering over cascading cheekbones and a nose extending towards his chin in the general slope of a face looking as if it might slide off at any moment. In short, he was every bit the personification of his name.
He showed no reaction at seeing me and got straight to the point.
“I’m Chief of Detectives John Sharp. What exactly, Mister Mulligan, were you doing at the Burnham building?”
I caught his scent: stale whiskey, cigarette smoke, moldering limes, a hint of spoiled butter.
“Could we speak more privately?” I asked.
“Look, I don’t have all day. Come into my office, but this better not take long,” the Chief replied.
He looked at the officer charged with Cedric, adding, “Take the cuffs off the kid and let him go.”
The officer nodded.
“Go home Cedric. I’ll be fine,” I said.
Cedric reluctantly agreed, though I know he could not get out of the precinct fast enough.
I took my cane from the officer who had been holding it.
“What’s that made of anyway?” he asked. “It feels like a barbell.”
I ignored him and followed Chief Sharp.
His small office looked as if he had just moved in. Banker’s boxes of what looked like files lay stacked one on top of the other but haphazardly in two of the four corners of the room, some with their lids off. I smelled a variety of residual scents on the files and yes, the brimstone stink of evil. He had at least three case files scattered open on his desk. A foul cup of burned black coffee rested at the corner. Making me cringe. His wrinkled police uniform, tartan hat, and a long, black trench coat hung on wall hooks within arm’s reach. But no personal effects other than a diploma in criminology hanging on the wall and a dated, printed picture of the detective smiling next to a very pretty brunette marked the office as belonging to anyone special.
Chief Sharp took a seat behind the desk. I sat in a too small chair opposite him, knees nearly to my chin.
“You do know breaking into a murder scene is a crime, right?” he began.
“Perhaps, but I had to see it, that ritual and…”
“Stop right there. What do you know about this ritual?” he asked.
“Ah yes, you don’t quite understand how the girl died,” I said, handing him my card.
| Hercules A. Mulligan, B.A., A.M. Mulligan’s Occult Books and Artifacts of the Arcane 4777 1/2 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL 60615 www.herculesamulligan.com |
He read it.
“You own a bookstore?”
“I specialize in knowledge and methods based on the occult sciences.”
“Like crystal balls and tarot cards?”
“I deal in paradosis, detective, secret knowledge handed down since the beginning of mankind.”
“Mister Mulligan, I don’t believe in any of that…stuff.”
“Not every aspect of the universe is beholden to your five senses.”
“Look, like I said, I’m busy. Now tell me what you know before I have you booked for the murder.”
“I’m no murderer.” I protested. “I came to the crime scene to help. According to the article in this morning’s Tribune a woman was murdered last night on an altar on the roof of one of the most famous buildings in Chicago. I believe those circumstances could be considered, well, strange, and my knowledge of these matters could prove useful to you.”
That got his attention, but in the wrong way.
“Mister Mulligan, the CPD doesn’t hire psychics or whatever you call yourself…”
“I’m not looking for employment. After reading the article, I can tell you’re at a loss….”
“I don’t think so…”
“I consider it my duty as a member of the occult community to clarify these mysteries…”
“Not interested…”
“If you’d just allow me…”
“Enough Mister Mulligan! I don’t need your help and I don’t want it!”
I went quiet.
Chief Sharp exhaled. “Now, the boys out there say you don’t have any priors and that you’ve been mostly compliant. I understand you want to help, but you need to leave these matters to the police. That’s what we’re paid for. I’m going to let you go. But I’m warning you. If I ever see you again. You’ll pay for it.”
“Please, detective, just one more thing…”
“I said, I’m done,” he pushed his chair back to stand.
“Can you at least tell me if you saw this symbol?”
I unfolded the crude drawing I’d made as I spoke, laying it down on the desk, face up so he had to see it. He furrowed his brow. What I’d dreaded appeared to be true.
“Where’d you get this? The papers shouldn’t have any photos of it,” he asked.
“It’s a secret symbol, one known only to a few, and representing an order which disappeared decades ago. That order wrote a description of a ritual like the one you’re investigating. I put two and two together.”
“And you know this, how? Because you run a bookstore?”
“No. Because my parents were members of that order.”
Chief Sharp pointed at the chair across from his desk and returned to his own seat.
“Assuming any of this is true, what do you think it has to do with the Burnham building murder?”
“If the order has returned and it’s performing rituals like this, our city is in grave danger. It would mean there is a group of practitioners working together, and it suggests this might not have been the first time the ritual was performed.
“What you’re suggesting Mister Mulligan sounds like the plot to a bad thriller.”
“I understand your skepticism,” I replied, more calmly than I felt. “You want your crimes to have simpler reasons. Murder under any circumstance is dark enough. But I assume you’re a logical man or you wouldn’t be the chief. The mundane does not fit here. Certainly, you’ve seen things before that you can’t explain?”
“What can’t be explained just needs to be better understood,” the Detective replied.
“Well, from what the newspaper said and what I’ve deduced so far, you have a murdered woman on an altar in a temple with a secret symbol–a symbol I’ve just shown you–on the top of a skyscraper in downtown Chicago. All that points to a set of knowledge I understand much better than you.”
“I don’t deal in magic or supernatural nonsense.”
“You don’t have to, but whoever murdered that woman does.”
“And why do you want to help me solve this case so badly?” Chief Sharp asked.
“As I said, I have an obligation as one of the keepers of occult knowledge in this city to assist in solving a heinous crime, but it’s also that symbol. It should have stayed dead. I want to know why it has been resurrected.”
“Fine.”
“Fine?” I replied.
“Yes, fine, but this is how it’s going to play out. I need to go over to the murder scene anyway to sign off that it’s clean and note a few more things for my report. It’s already been photographed, and forensics has collected what it could, so it’s not like you can mess anything up….”
“Thank you, Chief Sharp…” I interjected.
“No. I’m not done.” His tone changed. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re my lead suspect. You seem to know way too much about what happened last night. So, you get to get your wish. I’m going to bring you along. You’ll look around. You’ll tell me what you notice, and you’ll answer my questions. If I think you’re lying to me about anything, I’ll book you for the murder. If you refuse to answer any of my questions, I’ll book you for murder. Hell, if you explain what happened to me and it sounds too convenient, I’ll book you for murder. You’re going to have to give me a good reason to think you’re not the murderer or you’re going to want to call a lawyer.”
I nodded, solemnly.
Twenty minutes later, and after a very cramped ride in the back of the Chief’s patrol car, we arrived at the Burnham Building, an 1880’s historic landmark on the corner of Clark and Adams. Made from gray limestone blocks and yellow bricks with neo-gothic friezes of lions marching around the base of every story, the building exemplified what Daniel Burnham, one of Chicago’s greatest architects so humbly called a “skyscraper”. At one time, it served as his headquarters. I nearly saluted it with admiration surrounded as it was by the unoriginal, blue steel and glass high rises, all identical and shining with the polish of plate gold. Meant to impress, beneath their veneer they represented well the soullessness plaguing Chicago’s financial district.
The financial district stretched west from the lake to the river and was bounded to the north and south by El tracks. These lines marked off what could be called a metaphysical temenos or sacred precinct devoted to Ceres, Goddess of abundance, fecundity, and prosperity, but whose powers had been turned toward greed, rapacity and avarice.
I saw her image crowning the peak of the Chicago Board of Trade. Her temples had become the Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank, and a dozen other major financial houses.
I imagined the thousands of downtown office dwellers clamoring every day to reach that mythical mountaintop of money, prestige, and material success, never quite making it, and living in a morass of discontented greed. It smelled like a cesspool. I keep a tin of snuff tobacco in my pocket to cut this kind of stench. I wanted a pinch, but I had to have a clean palette to smell the murder scene.
We entered the building. Around twenty reporters had overtaken the lobby. When he saw them, Chief Sharp turned to me and said, “Not a word, Mister Mulligan. I don’t want the papers getting the idea that we need help from psychics.”
They began to circle.
“Before you get started, I’ve got no new information. We’re still trying to figure out what is going on. I’ll have more information for you this evening,” Chief Sharp announced.
The reporters began packing up to leave.
The same two officers who had caught me breaking into the crime scene that morning greeted us at the elevator. Chief Sharp took a moment to explain that he had invited me along this time. They eyed me with suspicion.
Chief Sharp placed a little key he had gotten from the front desk into a control panel slot, turned it, and pressed the button for the fortieth floor. At least this time, I get to take the elevator. We got out, walked up the three remaining flights of stairs to the top, and I was right back where I had started from.
We exited the building.
Where we should have met fresh air, we instead entered a marvel of glistening glass in the shape of a massive pyramid covering the entire top of the building. I thought of the Pei entrance to the Louvre, in Paris. Looking out at the clouds, I imagined myself floating among the gods.
Chief Sharp interrupted my revelry to fill me in on what he had already learned about it: “According to the original plans—I looked at them this morning—this pyramid isn’t supposed to be here. The people at the Chicago Architectural Foundation say they’ve never heard of it. The building owner and management say they didn’t know it existed either.”
“There are ways to obfuscate,” I said.
“Do you have to talk like a college professor?” he asked.
“What else does a man who looks like me do except study?” I replied sardonically.
“Well, then have a look around and un-obfuscate.”
I began pacing out the interior of the pyramid, my cane clicking with each step on the white tiled floor. I smelled many things, but the scents were distant. Then, I caught the acidy burn of cleaning chemicals.
“The room was cleaned?”
“Yeah. Our forensic officers noticed that too. Only the body remained. It was wrapped in plastic. I assume they meant to dispose of it right before we showed up.”
I looked up, my eyes tracing the steel beams. The whole pyramid stood about sixty-ish meters from floor to peak (about thirty cubits, a significant occult number) and looked old. Spots had been rewelded where rust had corroded. Diamond shaped panels of glass filled in the framework. I wondered how they had survived what must have been many seasons of Chicago weather, and then I saw their thickness—nearly two inches. That also explained why I could not hear the traffic backed up on every city block below. I ran my hand over what should have been sun heated glass, but it remained cool. I could tell it had to be reflective on the opposite side. And then I saw each panel also had a set of small magical symbols made from metal wire, like that used for stained glass, embedded in its corners. They stood for protection, concealment, confusion, and containment, and radiated power.
“Mirror glass,” said the Chief.
“Not just, but similar enough,” I replied. “Like a magician’s disappearing box.”
“Yeah, it kept the pyramid impossible to see. It just looks like part of the sky from the surrounding buildings,” he explained. “We figured that out pretty quick. I hope you can offer more than that.”
At that a fat, black crow with oily-sheened wings broke the illusion. It cast a brief shadow over the Chief’s face as it alighted on the pyramid’s peak then flew off again.
“How did you even know to come here?” I asked.
“Anonymous tip,” the Chief said.
“Someone with a conscience,” I added.
My attention turned to the ritual requirements of the temple. A copper pyramidon the size of the capstone from Khufu and echoing the entire structure to about one-thirtieth the scale dangled by an iron chain from the apex of the pyramid. It had been made to amplify the effects of magic. On this bright and cloudless day what sunlight entered bounced off its polished surface in orange and gold flashes around the room.
Below it, on a raised platform stood the altar.
A human-sized white marble slab rested on a bronze, lion-footed frame on a platform at the center of an enormous room-sized pentagram in a circle marking the floor below it. Within the rays of the pentagram were all the symbols needed to complete what was called the Cor Sanguine ritual. I approached the altar and smelled the stench of sacrifice in waves: the blood, the sour scent of the victim, the honeyed smoke of bee’s wax candles, the sweat and longing, and lastly, the sulfur tinge that accompanies all black rituals. Beneath it all, I caught hints of saltiness and something ancient and cthulian coming from the altar stone. It had to have originated from the original, cosmic ocean floor, a material of great power. All those smells together overwhelmed me and I coughed, choking on a bit of bile.
“You alright?” asked the Chief.
“Just a whiff of something bad,” I replied, an understatement to be sure.
“I don’t smell anything,” muttered the Chief, sniffing at the air.
I stepped onto the platform to look more closely at the altar. That was when I saw the symbol. It still struck me cold. The triangle within which rested a blazing sun and a crescent moon had been carved into the stone of the altar top.
“The Order of the Sun and Moon,” I said aloud, and which unfortunately prompted the need for an explanation.
“The what?” asked Chief Sharp.
“The Order of the Sun and Moon, the single most powerful magical order in the history of mankind. For over a century it challenged the boundaries of the occult sciences until its members disappeared without a trace twenty years ago.”
I didn’t tell the Chief that my parents had led the order and that I had learned everything I knew about the occult from their set of books I kept hidden away at my bookshop.
“The symbol here is not for the ritual. It’s a sign of the order to which the altar belonged. Another order would never dare to use it without suffering the wrath of some curse or other magical attack.”
“I’m supposed to believe in secret magical orders?” Sharp asked.
“Detective, dozens of magical orders call Chicago home. Some well-known in the occult community; some who remain hidden except to the most powerful practitioners.”
Detective Sharp rolled his eyes.
He then took a recent social media photo of the victim from a manila envelope that he had brought with him and tossed it onto the altar. It landed at the center. An image of how the sacrifice must have occurred ran through my brain like a bright flash of light in the eyes.
“Her name was Felicia Morgan,” he said.
I noticed a glow encircling her. A normal detective would have missed it. She emitted an extraordinary amount of life energy—too much. Her cheeks were flush with life. Her eyes sparkled. Her hair shined. Such vigor in what should have been the subdued colors of a photograph suggested a great deal to me what evil that had been committed in that iniquitous temple. Yet, at the same time, I could not help but admire how it added to her beauty. No woman could ever consider a late Brando-esque man like me a match, much less one so beautiful. I blushed for thinking it.
“She came to Chicago from Iowa five years ago and got a job at Lasalle Bank. We investigated her house. Nothing indicated her involvement in anything like a cult or whatever you call this crazy ritual stuff. We have people going through her financial and legal records now. Her parents said she broke off communication with them about a year ago, never giving them any reason except that she wanted some space.”
“What did you find when you got here?”
“The victim was wearing a simple, white gown, lying prone, dead on the altar. Forensics says the murder weapon had a curved blade—we haven’t located it yet—and the single stab wound went between her ribs and into her heart. She bled to death, slowly, if you can imagine that. The real surprise: there was no blood other than on her gown. Whoever killed her must have collected it, but we don’t know why.”
The Chief then laid out a new set of more gruesome photographs on the altar. The vigorous young woman looked like a translucent husk from blood loss, her life force gone. I had to look away.
“Hard to see?”
I didn’t respond.
The photographs proved what I suspected. The sacrifice was a dark but voluntary one.
“So what happened? In your so knowledgeable opinion,” Sharp asked sarcastically.
I did not back down.
“Of course, you already know it was a human sacrifice. The convex shape and traps at each of the four corners were meant to collect the vital fluid.”
“Yeah we figured that,” the Chief said. “We already gathered the victim’s blood would drain into the holes on the altar. We assumed it was to make disposing of the body, well, less messy.”
“Ah…then I can clarify some things for you.”
I pointed to the floor.
“You see there. Those are twenty-three symbols for transmutation, transference, and regeneration in a pattern aligned with the planets at specific junctures. They are only used for one ritual. It’s called the Cor Sanguine ritual—except.”
The core symbols looked exactly as they should. It could be no other ritual. But at the edges I noticed two additional and unfamiliar symbols. I couldn’t name them. It gave me pause, but I continued.
“Except…”
“Except nothing. As I was saying, the Cor Sanguine Ritual or ‘the heart’s blood ritual’ is held at the height of the full moon. Certainly, whoever built the temple did so to track celestial movements. As the moon rose the sacrifice would be made. The symbols and the ritual are would draw in power as well as prepare the the life force for release at the culmination of the sacrifice. No one performing such a ritual would just dispose of the blood. The power it contained is the whole point of the ritual. That blood would be passed among everyone partaking of the rite in order to drink it.”
“You mean they murdered this woman to drink her blood?” Chief Sharp asked, horrified.
“Yes. I’m afraid so.”
“But why?”
“To gain power!”
“That’s crazy. Who would believe that?” he asked.
The truth staggered him. He took a step back then looked at me as if I might try to drink his blood.
“How do you know this?” he pushed.
“Please Chief Sharp. I would never. I wouldn’t say this ritual is common occult knowledge, but remember, I spend a good deal of my time studying. What you should really be concerned with is finding these people. Such a large space suggests numerous practitioners and just because their temple has been vacated doesn’t mean they’ll stop the ritual. This kind of magic acts like an opiate, and again it can be performed every full moon.”
At that, an ear-splitting crackow interrupted us. It came from the crow we had seen atop the pyramid. Somehow it had found a way inside the temple. It hopped along the floor towards us, black head bobbing crookedly as if curious about our presence.
It was then I smelled the sooty grease, burned tallow, and rubber, I had smelled when I first cracked the temple door. I had pretty much forgotten the scent, having not noticed it in the air when we entered the temple. Now it seemed to spread like a cloud, growing more and more overpowering.
The crow flew up to the altar and seemed to do a dance on it. We both stared at it in consternation unsure what to do.
“Where’d this damn bird come from?” Chief Sharp questioned.
And then its shining, bottomless eyes locked onto mine.
In the next instant I no longer stood in the sunlit glass pyramid atop the Burnham building but had been transported to a place of shifting darkness. A shadow rippled towards me then took shape, solidifying into a human form. I heard a whisper in my head.
“Hercules Mulligan…”
“Who are you?” I shouted.
The form moved closer. I had a feeling like icy fingers wrapping around my mind. In an instant, I became paralyzed except to watch flashes from memory pass across my inner-eye. I saw my childhood, my moments in the hospital, my parent’s fear as they learned about my cursed physiology. I remembered the horror of finding out about their disappearance, the difficulty of resolving that loss with my own survival. All of these were bleak memories full of failure, regret, and loneliness until finally, the shadow came to what it wanted. One word, MEMORIA, and the image of an unlocked vault.
“You have them! You have the Books of the Sun and Moon!” the voice hissed.
If I stayed in that realm any longer the phantasm would learn all my secrets. I pushed the pain aside and called out a sacred prayer.
“In the name of the universal ALL, I deny you from my mind! Be gone!”
In the blink of an eye, I stood back in the pyramid.
No time had passed.
The crow remained where it stood on the altar. It crackow-ed again then flew up to the pyramidon. It began to strut along its edge, letting out more of the unnerving crackows and pyramidon began to swing. Chief Sharp looked up, mesmerized.
“We need to leave…,” I got out the words too late as the crow disappeared only to reappear diving down at Chief Sharp’s face.
The sharp talons of the sizable bird sunk into his arms raised for protection. The clawing and scraping drove him against the edge of the altar. He swung at the bird to no avail then tried to reach for his gun.
I don’t just carry my cane to help me move about. Inside the oak sheath is a solid silver sabre released by twisting the diamond studded pommel. I stepped to the side, drew it, and in one flick of my massive wrist slashed the crow diagonally from wing to foot.
I reacted almost too late. The iron chain holding the heavy pyramidon swayed one last time then snapped.
“Look out!” I cried.
I shouldered the Chief off the platform, following with my own massive body. The bronze weight came crashing down upon the spot where he and I had last stood and the altar was smashed to oblivion.
The Chief and I got to our feet. Me taking a little longer, and certain I would have bruises for a week. Nothing remained of the crow but a black, sooty puddle deliquescing into air and water.
“What the hell was that thing?” he asked.
He had meant it rhetorically. I answered with the truth.
“The attack of a spirit familiar sent by a powerful, black magician,” I replied.
“Hold on…,” he muttered.
I had held my tongue long enough. How could the man remain so ignorant?
“Oh deus! What do you think it was then?” I asked.
He paused as he thumped his brain for an answer then looked down at my sword.
“You know that’s illegal, right?” He snapped.
“Self-defense,” I replied, more sheepishly than I would have liked, and put the sword back in its sheath.
I went on, “You see now. This murder is about much more than you imagined.”
“You haven’t explained anything. Secret societies? Magic? Blood rituals? All of its nonsense.”
“And what about the bird? What about the pyramidon falling right where you were standing?”
“What about the bird? It must have flown off. And that pyramid? Poor timing. Anyway, we’re leaving. This was obviously a mistake,” he concluded.
I made no further argument. I had learned what I wanted. We left the temple shaken, but alive, Chief Sharp leading the way.
When we reached the first floor, the elevator doors opened, and we started across the lobby. Suddenly my nose picked up the same unnatural smells of sacrifice I had just left. Candlewax, the iron bite of fresh blood, and the sulfur stink that would follow anyone who partook of the Cor Sanguine ritual, yet somehow these smells also tasted tinged with the stink of guilt and regret. I stopped in my tracks searching for the source.
Chief Sharp noticed me on point, straight and still like an English-Setter.
“What now?” He asked.
I followed the trail to a young man, in his twenties, well-groomed, and wearing a black business suit but with a loose tie and collar sitting on a bench near the door. He sipped from a cup of coffee but did not seem to need it. Besides appearing suspiciously healthy–bright eyed and rosy in the cheeks even–he looked agitated. His knee bounced like a jackhammer. He stared at his hands and then looked up at me and Chief Sharp.
“Him,” I said, pointing to the man. “You’ll want to talk to him.”
“About what?” Chief Sharp asked obliviously.
“The murder,” I replied. “He was there.”
“How do you know that…?” Chief Sharp asked.
Before he could finish the question, the man stood and walked up to us.
“My name is Robert McQueen. I’m a witness. I saw Felicia Morgan killed.”
The few remaining reporters heard McQueen’s pronouncement and swarmed. Camera flashes went off. Microphones dangled in Chief Sharp’s face and a thousand questions thundered forth. Chief Sharp looked at me, and then at McQueen, and exhaled with exasperation. He called over the officers guarding the lobby.
“Put these two in my car.”
I would see myself in the papers the following day with the caption, Has the CPD hired a strange, new consultant below the photo.
The officers did as they were told.
I heard Chief Sharp behind us yelling, “no comment. The Police are still investigating. We have no comment. Give us some room people.”
The officers shoved us into the back seat of Chief Sharp’s patrol car while he slipped into the front seat. He revved the engine, turned on his lights, and hit the siren to drive off the reporters. After a quick left and a right we had lost them.
A few more blocks and Chief Sharp pulled up and parked against the curb.
I know now, he thought it better to learn what Robert McQueen knew before taking him to the police station. There, it would be difficult to question him about secret orders and rituals. We both turned to face McQueen. Guilt weighed on his soul, smelling sickeningly sweet but cleansing, like putrid flower petals or a burning, spiced oil. He wanted to talk. He also looked terrified. He kept peering outside as if expecting to see someone or something. A tap on the window might have sent him out of his skin.
“Now, what happened at the Burnham building last night?” Chief Sharp asked.
“I’ll tell you for Felicia’s sake. He won’t let me live anyway. Not after what I’ve done—not after calling the police.”
“You called the police?” Chief Sharp asked, confused.
“I had to. I couldn’t live with her death.”
“Start from the beginning,” Sharp said.
McQueen took a deep breath and began, “There were five of us, including Felicia. We were friends, fresh out of business school, high achievers, each of us trying to climb the corporate ladder, you know? But we weren’t getting anywhere. We felt like we were treading water. One night over drinks one of us–I can’t remember who–happened to have found a book on magic at a local bookstore and showed it to us.”
I gulped, hoping that the bookstore had not been mine.
“We all thought it was funny, but the book promised power. We tried a simple spell to get rid of obstacles. It wasn’t supposed to work—but it did. We tried another spell and it seemed to work too. About a month later–it’s all my fault–I found a group of people on the internet who met to perform magic rituals. I emailed them and we were invited to a meeting. We learned even more about magic and started going regularly. It was all pretty basic stuff, but our lives seemed to change. Things started to look up.”
“Then one evening we were introduced to the temple. There were others, like us. Some we even recognized as business leaders, entrepreneurs, financial chief officers. We all wanted the same thing, power. Seeing them made us feel like we had found the secret to success. We were told once we gained enough influence we might one day join the adepts, a group of the most powerful magicians in the city. Supposedly they were the real movers and shakers. They kept their identities hidden behind black hooded robes and Guy Fawkes masks. But someone told me—and I saw it too, when one of their sleeves slipped up—that they all had the symbol of the sun and moon branded into their forearms. Rumor said it was to prove their loyalty.”
“We stood around the altar waiting to see what sort of ritual would follow. At some point the sacrifice was explained to us. We’d draw a card from a Tarot deck. The person who chose the Wheel of Fortune card submitted to the ritual. They became the victim. You had to be willing to be the sacrifice to partake of it. It horrified us—at first—but everyone put us at ease. They had all done it, and since it was our first time, we didn’t have to draw a card. They promised the ritual would bestow so much power we might get whatever we wanted. Our reticence washed away with a drink from the bowl. It felt unbelievable. I could not help but want more. The risk became worth it.”
McQueen paused, closed his eyes for a moment, and continued.
“This went on for about a year before I noticed something suspicious. I saw one of the adepts pull a card from his sleeve instead of the deck. What could I say? Who could I tell? I told Felicia.”
“She didn’t believe me. But then last night, Felicia drew the Wheel of Fortune Card,” he said, leaning his head back against the seat.
“Felicia didn’t fight her fate. But I had to do something. Trying to leave before the sacrifice ended would have gotten me killed too, so I called the police when I got to my car. You know the rest.”
I could see the difficulty Chief Sharp faced. What McQueen described must have seemed so alien, so bizarre, so unbelievable. The Chief had probably solved countless murders, but ritual murder in the numbers and method McQueen described would make any detective question his sanity. And how could he write an official report about it?
“Who was in charge?” Sharp demanded.
“I can’t say his name. When I try, my tongue gets tied up. I can’t even describe him. He’s like a shadow in my head. It’s always been that way.”
“Do you want to do right by your friend or not? You watched her die,” the chief pushed.
“There was nothing I could do.”
“You could have stopped it. You didn’t want to.”
“That’s not true.
“You stood there and let her die.”
“I called the police as soon as I could…”
“Did you drink her blood too?”
McQueen went silent for a moment then said in a whisper, “I had too. They would have killed me if I turned it away.”
“Tell me who it was so I can stop this.”
“I can’t…”
I could tell the Chief was deliberately trying to make McQueen angry so he might divulge more, but his face began turning white. Sweat beaded on his forehead. I tried to interject, “Chief Sharp…”
“Shut up Mulligan.”
“Say it! What was his name!” Chief Sharp pushed.
McQueen closed his eyes. He began to hyperventilate. His lips went blue.
And then, he shouted with all he had left, “Roy…Gamial. He called himself Roy Gamial.”
McQueen barely got the words out before he went from ghostly white to gray. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. His teeth clenched and his body started convulsing. Blood trickled out of his nose and ears.
“God damn it!” Chief Sharp said he turned on his siren and sped towards Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
At the emergency room he explained to the very confused staff what he knew about Robert McQueen and what had transpired between his healthy state and his now unresponsive condition. They moved him from the back seat to a wheeled stretcher. He died an hour later of a cerebral aneurism.
Chief Sharp and I parted ways at the hospital.
“Mister Mulligan, If I ever see you again, I will find a reason to lock you up—whether I have one or not.”
I did not think it prudent to argue, so I took the bus home.
Not a week later the murder had been declared solved. The powers that be had blamed it on the dark machinations of Robert McQueen. Never mind the massive temple on the roof of the Burnham building. Never mind the strange circumstances in which he had died. I imagined Chief Sharp shared my skepticism, but I avoided seeking him out.
Everything in my life culminated in that one day. What darkness had surfaced to seal the once proud name of a great magical order? The answer would only be found with Roy Gamial.
That name struck me as strange. I wrote it down, shifted the letters around. It spelled out, R-O-Y-A-L M-A-G-I. I knew the Order of the Sun and Moon had three covens, each with its own head. The Royal Archon led the white coven, the Royal Diviner led the gold coven, and the Royal Magi had been the title reserved for the black coven. There could be no doubt.
I have one more incident to add: the following day, I opened my shop to find a red, wax sealed envelope with the impression of a Sun and Moon in the mail slot.
I felt my heart jump.
I opened the envelope to find a curtly worded letter. Scrawled in black ink on vellum it read:
Hercules Mulligan,
I will be coming soon to take back the Books of the Sun and Moon.
—R.G.
The letter and envelope turned to dust in my hands.
Chapter 2:
Hercules Mulligan
&
The Case of the Haunted Suburb
(Coming Soon)
Hercules Mulligan: Occult Detective 