An Apple for the Creature Page 6

  And there was nowhere to go with that except out, so Trey left them all sitting in the desolation of his room.

  --7--

  The cops picked him up at ten the next morning. They said he didn’t need a lawyer, they just wanted to ask questions. Trey didn’t have a lawyer anyway, so he answered every single question they asked. Even when they asked the same questions six and seven times.

  They let him go at eight thirty that night. They didn’t seem happy about it.

  Neither was Trey.

  --8--

  The funeral was the following day. They all went. It didn’t rain because it only rains at funerals in the movies. They stood under an impossibly blue sky that was littered with cotton candy clouds. Trey stood apart from the others and listened with contempt to the ritual bullshit the priest read out of his book. Kidd had been as much of an atheist as Trey was, and this was a mockery. He’d have skipped it if that wouldn’t have made him look even more suspicious.

  After the service, Trey took the bus home alone.

  He tried several times to call Davidoff, but the professor didn’t return calls or emails.

  The day ground on.

  The Spellcaster premiere was tomorrow. Trey spent the whole day double- and triple-checking the data. He found nothing in any of the files he opened, but in the time he had he was only able to view about 1 percent of the data.

  Trey sent twenty emails recommending that the premiere be postponed. He got no answers from the professor. Bird, Jonesy and Anthem said as little to him as possible, but they all kept at it, going about their jobs like worker bees as the premiere drew closer.

  --9--

  Professor Davidoff finally called him.

  “Sir,” said Trey, “I’ve been trying to—”

  “We’re going ahead with the premiere.”

  Trey sighed. “Sir, I don’t think that’s—”

  “It’s for Michael.”

  Michael. Not Mr. Kidd. The professor had never called Kidd by his first name. Ever. Trey waited for the other shoe.

  “It’ll be a tribute to him,” continued Davidoff, his pomposity modulated to a funereal hush. “He devoted the last months of his life to this project. He deserves it.”

  Great, thought Trey, everyone thinks I’m a psycho killer, and he’s practicing sound bites.

  “Professor, we have to stop for a minute to consider the possibility that the sabotage of the project is connected to what happened to Kidd.”

  “Yes,” Davidoff said heavily, “we do.”

  Silence washed back and forth across the cellular ocean.

  “I cannot imagine why anyone would do such a thing,” said the professor. “Can you, Mr. LaSalle?”

  “Professor, you don’t think I—”

  “I expect everything to go by the numbers tomorrow, Mr. LaSalle.”

  Before Trey could organize a reply, Professor Davidoff disconnected.

  --10--

  And it all went by the numbers.

  More or less.

  Drawn by the gruesome news story and the maudlin PR spin Davidoff gave it, the Annenberg was filling to capacity, with lines wrapped halfway around the block. Three times the expected number of reporters were there. There was even a picket by a right-wing religious group who wanted the Spellcaster project stopped before it started because it was “ungodly,” “blasphemous,” “satanic” and a bunch of other words that Trey felt ranged between absurd and silly. The picketers drew media attention and that put even more people in line for the dwindling supply of tickets.

  Bird, Jonesy and Anthem showed up in very nice clothes. Bird wore a tie for the first time since Trey had known him. The girls both wore dresses. Jonesy transformed from mouse to wow in a black strapless number that Trey would have never bet she could pull off. Anthem was in green silk that matched her eyes and she looked like a movie star. She even had nail tips over the gnarled nubs of her fingers. Trey was in a black turtleneck and pants. It was as close to being invisible as he could manage.

  Davidoff was the ringmaster of the circus. He wore an outrageously gorgeous Glen Urquhart plaid three-piece and even with his ursine bulk he looked like God’s richer cousin.

  Even the university dons were nodding in approval, happy with the positive media attention following so closely on the heels of the murder.

  The as yet unsolved murder, mused Trey. The cops were nowhere with it. Trey was pretty sure he was being followed now. He was a person of interest.

  God.

  When the audience was packed in, Davidoff walked onto center stage amid thunderous applause. He even contrived to look surprised at the adoration before eventually waving everyone into an expectant silence.

  “Before we begin, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I would like us all to share in a moment of silence. Earlier this week, one of my best and brightest students was killed in a savage and senseless act that still has authorities baffled. No one can make sense of the death of so wonderful a young man as Michael Kidd, Jr. He was on the very verge of a brilliant career, he was about to step into the company of such legendary folklorists as Stetson Kennedy, Archie Green and John Francis Campbell.”

  Trey very nearly burst out laughing. He cut a look at Bird, who gave him a weary head shake and a half smile, momentarily stunned out of all consideration by the absurdity of that claim.

  “I would like to dedicate this evening to Mr. Kidd,” continued Davidoff. “He will be remembered, he will be missed.”

  “Christ,” muttered Trey. The stage manager scowled at him.

  The whole place dropped into a weird, reverential silence that lasted a full by-the-clock minute. Davidoff raised his arms and a spotlight bathed him in a white glow as the houselights dimmed.

  “Magic!” he said ominously in a voice that was filtered through a soundboard that gave it a mysterious-sounding reverb. The crowd ooohed and aaahed. “We have always believed in a larger world. Call it religion, call it superstition, call it the eternal mystery . . . we all believe in something. Even those of us who claim to believe in nothing—we will still knock on wood and pick up a penny only if it is heads up. Somewhere, past the conscious will and the civilized mind, the primitive in us remembers cowering in caves or crouching in the tall grass, or perching apelike on the limb of a tree as the wheel of night turned above and darkness covered the world.”

  Trey mouthed the words along with the professor. Having written them he knew the whole speech by heart.

  “But what is magic? Is magic the belief that we live in a universe of infinite possibilities? Yes, but it’s also more than that. It’s the belief that we can control the forces of that universe. That we are not flotsam in the stream of cosmic events, but rather that we are creators ourselves. Cocreators with the infinite. Our sentience—the beautiful, impossible fact of human self-awareness and intelligence—lifts us above all other creatures in our natural world and connects us to the boundless powers of what we call the supernatural.”

  From there Davidoff segued into an explanation of the Spellcaster project. Trey had to admit that his script sounded pretty good. He’d taken what could have been dry material and given it richness by an infusion of some pop-culture phrasing and a few juicy superlatives. The audience loved it, and they were carried along by a multimedia show that flashed images on a dozen screens. Pictures from illuminated texts. Great works of sacred art. Churches and temples, tombs and crypts, along with hundreds of photos of everything from Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice to Gandalf the Grey. And there were images of holy people from around the world: Maori with their tattooed faces, Navajo shamans singing over complex sand paintings, medicine men from tiny tribes deep in the heart of the Amazon, and singers of sacred songs from among the Bushmen of Africa. It was deliberate sensory overload, accompanied by a remix mash-up of musical pieces ranging from Ozzy Osbourne to Mozart to Loreena McKennitt.

  Then the floor opened and a gleaming computer rose into the light. It wasn’t the department mainframe, of
course, but a prop with lots of polished metal fixtures that did nothing except look cool. A laptop was positioned inside, out of sight of the audience. Smoke began rising with it, setting the stage for the evocation to come.

  Suddenly four figures, two men and two women in black robes lined with red satin swirling around them, stepped onto the stage. Juniors from the dance department. They did a few seconds of complex choreography that was, somehow, supposed to symbolize a ritual, and then they produced items from within their cloaks and began drawing a conjuring circle on the floor. Other dancers came out and lit candles, placing them at key points. The floor was discreetly marked so the dancers could do everything just so. Even though this was all for show, it had to be done right. This was still college.

  The conjurer’s circle was six feet across, and this was surrounded by three smaller circles. Davidoff explained that the center circle represented Earth, the smaller circle at the apex of the design represented the unknown, the circle to his right was the safe haven of the conjurer; and the circle to the left represented the realm of the demon who was to be conjured.

  It was all done correctly.

  Then to spook things up, Davidoff explained how this could all go horribly, horribly wrong.

  “A careless magician summons his own death,” he said in his stentorian voice. “All of the materials need to be pure. Vital essences—blood, sweat or tears—must never be allowed within the demon’s circle, for these form a bridge between the worlds of spirit and flesh.”

  The crowd gasped in horror as images from The Exorcist flashed onto the screens.

  “A good magician is a scholar of surpassing skill. He does not make errors . . . or, rather, he makes only one error.”

  He paused for laughter and got it.

  “A learned magician is a quiet and solitary person. All of his learning, all of his preparation for this ritual, must be played out in his head. He cannot practice his invocations because magical words each have its special power. To casually speak a spell is to open a doorway that might never be shut.”

  More images from horror movies emphasized his point. The dancer-magicians took up positions at key points around the circle.

  “If everything is done just right,” continued Davidoff, “the evocation can begin. This is the moment for which a magician prepares his entire life. This is the end result of thousands of hours of study, of sacrifice, of purification and preparation. The magician hopes to draw into this world—into the confined and contained protection of a magic circle—a demon of immeasurable wisdom and terrible power. Contained within the circle, the demon must obey the sorcerer. Cosmic laws decree that this is so!”

  The audience was spellbound, which Trey thought very appropriate. He found himself caught up in the magic that Davidoff was weaving. It was all going wonderfully so far. He cut looks at the others and they were all smiling, the horrors of their real world momentarily forgotten.

  Davidoff stepped into the Earth circle. “Tonight we will conjure Azeziz—the demon of spells and magic. The demon of belief in the larger world! It is he who holds all knowledge of the ways of sorcery that the dark forces lent to mankind in the dawn of our reign on Earth. Azeziz will share with us the secrets of magic, and will then guide us toward the discovery of the perfect spell. The spell that may well be the core magical ritual from which all of our world’s religions have sprung.”

  He paused to let that sink in. Trey replayed the spell in his head, verifying that it was the correct wording and not any version of the mistakes that kept showing up in Anthem’s computer. It all seemed correct, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Azeziz will first appear to us as a sphere of pure energy and will then coalesce into a more familiar form. A form that all of us here will recognize, and one in which we will take comfort.” He smiled. “Join me now as we open the doorway to knowledge that belongs jointly to all of mankind—the knowledge that we do, in truth, live in a larger world.”

  As he began the spell, Davidoff’s voice was greatly amplified so that it echoed off the walls. “Come forth, Azeziz! O great demon, hear my plea. I call thee up by the power of this circle! By thine own glyph inscribed with thy name I summon thee.”

  Suddenly a ball of light burst into being inside the demon’s circle. Trey blinked and gasped along with the audience. It was so bright, much brighter than what he had expected. The lighting guys were really into the moment. The ball hung in the midst of the rising smoke, pulsing with energy, changing colors like a tumbling prism, filling the air with the smell of ozone and sulfur.

  Trey frowned.

  Sulfur?

  He shot a look at the others. Which one of those idiots added that to the special effects menu? But they were frowning, too. Bird turned to him and they studied one another for a moment. Then Bird sniffed almost comically and mouthed: Kidd?

  Shit, thought Trey. If that vermin had worked some surprises into the show, then he swore he would dig him up and kick his dead ass.

  Onstage, Davidoff’s smile flickered as he smelled it, too. He blasted a withering and accusatory look at the darkness offstage. Right where he knew Trey would be standing.

  Davidoff reclaimed his game face. “Come forth, Azeziz! Appear now that I may have counsel with thee. I conjure thee, ancient demon, without fear and trembling. I am not afraid as I stand within the Circle of the Earth. Come forth and manifest thyself in the circle of protection that is prepared for thee.”

  The globe of light pulsed and pulsed. Then there was a white-hot flash of light and suddenly a figure stood in the center of the conjuring circle.

  The crowd stared goggle-eyed at the tall, portly figure with the wisps of hair drifting down from a bald pate. Laser lights sparkled from the tiny glasses perched on the bulbous nose.

  Benjamin Franklin. Founder of the University of Pennsylvania.

  The demon smiled.

  The audience gaped and then they got the joke and burst out laughing. The hall echoed with thunderous applause as Benjamin Franklin took a bow.

  Trey frowned again. He didn’t remember there being a bow. Not until the end.

  “Speak, O demon!” cried Davidoff as the applause drifted down to an expectant and jovial silence. “Teach us wisdom.”

  “Wisdom, is it?” asked Franklin. There was something a little off with the prerecorded sound. The voice was oddly rough, gravelly. “What wisdom would a mortal ask of a demon?”

  Davidoff was right on cue. “We seek the truth of magic,” he said. “We seek to understand the mystery of faith. We seek to understand why man believes.”

  “Ah, but wisdom is costly,” said Franklin, and Trey could see Davidoff’s half smirk. That comment was a little hook for when the fees to access Spellcaster were presented. Wisdom is costly. Cute.

  “We are willing to pay whatever fee you ask, O mighty demon.”

  “Are you indeed?” asked Franklin, and once more that was something off-script. “How much would you truly pay to understand belief?”

  None of that was in the script.

  Goddamn you, Kidd, thought Trey darkly, and he wondered what other surprises were laid like land mines into the program. Anthem, Bird and Jonesy moved toward him, the four of them reconnecting, however briefly, in what they all now thought was going to be a frigging disaster. If Davidoff was made a fool of, then they were cooked. They were done.

  Davidoff soldiered on, fighting to stay ahead of these new twists. “Um, yes, O demon. What is the cost of the knowledge we seek?”

  “Oh, I believe you have already paid me my fee,” said the demon Ben Franklin, and he smiled. “My fee was offered up by vow if not by deed.”

  He rummaged inside his coat for something.

  “What’s he doing?” whispered Jonesy.

  Bird leaned close. “Please, God, do not let him bring out a doobie or a copy of Hustler.”

  But that’s not what Franklin pulled out from under his coat flaps. He extended his arm and turned his hand palm upward to show Davidoff
and everyone what he held.

  Davidoff’s face went slack, his eyes flaring wide.

  A few people, the ones who were closest, gasped.

  Then someone screamed.

  The thing Franklin held was a human heart.

  --11--

  Davidoff said, “W-what—?”

  Bird gagged.

  Jonesy screamed.

  Anthem said, “No . . .”

  Trey felt as if he were falling.

  --12--

  The demon laughed.

  It was not the polite, cultured laughter of an eighteenth-century scientist and statesman. It was not anything they had recorded for the event.

  The laughter was so loud that the dancers staggered backward, blood erupting from nostrils and ears. It buffeted the audience and the sheer force of it knocked Davidoff to his knees, cupping his hands to his ears.

  The audience screamed.

  Then the lights went out, plunging the whole place into shrieking darkness.

  And came back on a moment later with a brilliance so shocking that everyone froze in place.

  The demon turned his palm and let the heart fall to the floor with a wet plop.

  No one moved.

  The demon adjusted his glasses and smiled.

  Trey whirled and ran to the tech boards. “Shut it down,” he yelled. “Shut it all down. Kill the projectors. Come on—do it!”

  The techs hit rows of switches and turned dials.

  Absolutely nothing changed onstage.

  “Stop that, Trey,” said Ben Franklin. His voice echoed everywhere.

  Trey whirled.

  “W-what?” he stammered.

  “I said, stop it.” The demon smiled. “In fact, come out here. All of you. I want everyone to see you. The four bright lights. My helpers. My facilitators.”

  Trey tried to laugh. Tried to curse. Tried to say something witty.

  But his legs were moving without his control, carrying him out onto the stage. Jonesy and Anthem came with him, all in a terrified row. They came to the very edge of the circle in which the demon stood.