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Chapter 14

 
"Once you have set yourself a goal, why should a little thing like slaughter deter you?"
—Conrad Bland

 

Once he was ashore and out of sight of the ship, Jericho shed his wet clothing and donned a workingman's outfit he had placed in the watertight bag. Then he went to work, giving himself a large scar on his right cheekbone and another, somewhat smaller one, above his left eye. Within a few minutes his eyebrows were bushier, his complexion more sallow, his hairline in a distinctive widow's peak, his age somewhere between thirty-five and fifty.

He began walking toward Kether, keeping away from the few roads he saw, and pausing when he was perhaps ten miles from the city to brush the dust from his shoes and clothes. He then sought out a major thoroughfare, waited unseen beside it until a truck from one of the nearby farms went by, and flung himself at the back of it. His fingers closed on the wooden panels that kept the produce from spilling out the sides, and shortly thereafter he entered Kether, crouched in the back of the truck. He took the opportunity to put a pair of apples in his pockets; he disliked them intensely, but at least he wouldn't have to waste any time in a restaurant until well past nightfall.

Jericho waited for the truck to turn onto an almost-empty street, then jumped off. He landed lightly, made sure he hadn't drawn any undue notice, and quickly began walking in the opposite direction.

After he had proceeded for three short blocks, he came to a large intersection. He crossed the street, paused leisurely for a moment as if trying to remember something, turned left, and repeated the process until he wound up where he had started. As best he could tell no one was following him.

Still unconvinced, he went two more blocks, then walked between two buildings, found himself in an alley, and stood motionless, hidden by shadows, for almost ten minutes. No one came after him, and he then returned to the street, confident that if anyone had been tracking him they would now be waiting for him to emerge one block over.

Jericho had never seen a map of Kether, but it didn't take much imagination to piece together an idea of the city's layout from what little he had seen of it. It seemed to be laid out in a pattern of concentric circles—he supposed there would be nine of them, if only for religious reasons—with a number of major boulevards that would intersect at its center. Since he didn't know exactly how far from the center of the city he was, he couldn't be sure how many boulevards formed the spokes of the wheel, but he guessed at either eight or twelve, since Dorcas had told him that Kether was not a large city, housing something less than 100,000 people.

The architecture was quite different from Amaymon's. It owned no debt whatsoever to Gothic churches or Victorian haunted houses. Kether was all steel and glass and angles, and as he began walking toward the heart of the city he saw why: All of the buildings were solar-powered, which made a great deal of sense, since Kether, like most of the other cities on Walpurgis, was quite isolated from its neighbors and probably couldn't have afforded the money for a fusion plant when it had been settled. As the city grew and spread over the landscape, the city fathers had probably seen no reason to erect a plant when all the houses and businesses were already being powered by sunlight.

He wanted to buy a newspaper, the quickest way he knew of learning about a city, but he decided against it since he didn't know what currency was in popular use in Kether. As he passed through a small commercial area he paused for a moment to look at a video display in a store window, but they were showing the endless soap operas that seemed so popular on Walpurgis and from which he could learn nothing further; indeed, some exterior scenes convinced him that they weren't even set in Kether.

He passed a crippled beggar, reclining legless in a handmade cart, hat in hands, and took a quick look at the hat, hoping to get a handle on the local currency. It didn't help much: the beggar was having a poor morning, and he couldn't identify the few coins in the hat without drawing undue attention to himself.

As he continued walking, he saw a large crowd gathered on the street about two blocks ahead of him. His first inclination was to turn up a side street and avoid them, but then he decided that he might learn a little more about the city by listening to snatches of conversation and picking a few pockets. As he drew nearer, he heard the screams and shrieks of a child emanating from the center of the crowd.

Suddenly he heard a gong, and, looking up, he saw enough Satanic designs on the building next to the crowd to convince him that it was a church. He reached the outskirts of the mass of humanity, lifted two wallets in a matter of seconds, then realized that he was standing in a rather ragged line.

He didn't know where the line led or what was expected of him, but he decided that he was less likely to expose himself by doing what everyone ahead of him did rather than attempting to leave. In a few minutes he was able to see clearly what was going on.

A black-robed priest and priestess, both hooded, stood before the door of the church on a large pentagonal platform that was raised about six inches off the ground. Before them was an obsidian altar, and strapped onto the altar was a nude boy whose age Jericho estimated to be between ten and twelve. Each citizen in line, as he or she reached the altar, took a knife from the priestess and pressed it into the boy's belly, while the priest intoned a chant which Jericho couldn't understand, in a tongue which he guessed was either Latin or Enochian.

At first he thought he had stumbled onto a ritual killing, but as he moved up in line he realized that if that were the case the boy should long since have been dead. He was ignorant of Satanism, but killing was his business, and he knew that not one man in fifty was capable of inflicting an abdominal wound designed to maim but not kill.

As he moved closer still, the nature of what he was seeing was finally made clear to him. The boy had various cabalistic signs drawn on his chest and stomach with black paint and the congregation—as he now took it to be—was painfully tattooing the design onto him by means of the dagger. It was probably some painful but normal rite of passage into manhood, since no one seemed very surprised or upset by the boy's cries.

When only two people remained in line ahead of him, he concentrated on their actions. Each pressed the blade to his lips, murmured some words that he couldn't quite make out, and traced the pattern for perhaps an inch. Now he saw that as the dagger was returned to the priestess, the priest quickly rubbed some sort of salve over the freshly lacerated flesh.

Finally it was his turn. Jericho stepped out onto the five-sided platform, took the dagger from the priestess, murmured something so softly no one could hear it, and added another inch of mutilation to the boy's belly. Then he returned the blade, stepped off the platform, and continued on his way to the center of Kether.

He had gone two blocks when a firm hand gripped his shoulder. He turned and found himself looking into the cold blue eyes of a tall, well-dressed, balding man.

"Nice show you put on there," said the man.

"What do you mean?" replied Jericho.

"The Ceremony of Belphegor," said the man. "You even fooled the priest."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you'd better come with me," said the man.

He grabbed Jericho's left arm. Jericho resisted for a moment, checking the street to make sure no one was within thirty or forty yards. Then he reached forward with his right hand, stabbing the man's eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Startled, the man released his grip and threw back his head, exposing his throat. Jericho caught his Adams's apple with the edge of his hand once as he stood that way, again as he was falling. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Jericho looked around, saw a number of people beginning to whisper and point, and raced into a building. He found a back exit, hit it at full speed, ran down an alley for almost two hundred yards, then entered the back entrance of another building. He found a service lift, took it to the fifth floor, and picked the lock of the first door he came to. It was a small apartment, and he quickly found a closet filled with a man's clothes. He removed his outfit, appropriated a cheap suit and shirt, and was on the verge of leaving when he heard a toilet flush. He waited outside the bathroom, killed the man quickly and painlessly when he emerged, and took a few extra minutes to give himself a new face and a head of short, curly, black hair.

Then he walked down the hallway to the tenant's lift, descended to the main floor, and walked out into the street. He heard the sirens of the police vehicles a quarter mile away, but no one hindered or even noticed him as he continued toward the heart of the city.

At last he reached it, a huge circular plaza perhaps a half mile in diameter, housing the tallest office buildings in the city, though none of them approached the larger buildings of Amaymon in size. He walked the perimeter of the circle until he came to a huge shopping complex. There was a statue of a man with a long beard sitting astride a horse and holding a spear in his right hand. A plaque told him that this was a representation of Forras, also known as Forcas or Furcas, a Knight of Satan and the Grand President of Hell, who commanded twenty-nine legions of demons in the defense of the Infernal Empire.

He paused for a moment, as if admiring the artistry of the sculptor, then began walking in and out of various shops and stores, finally stopping at a sign advertising Madame Cybele's.

He looked around, found a flight of stairs leading to a dingy little basement room, and followed them down. As he entered a cat hissed and scuttled into the shadows, and a tall dark-haired woman dressed all in white approached him.

"Please be seated," she said, pointing to a chair beside a small ivory table.

He did as she told him, and she joined him a moment later, placing a crystal ball between them."

"What do you wish to know from Madame Cybele?" she asked.

"You're the fortune-teller," he said. "You tell me. Start with my name."

She stared into the crystal ball.

"I don't know your name, but the White, Lucy says that you are to be called Jericho. She also says that you are in more trouble than you realize."

"I've taken care of it."

"You have not. The first man you killed was one of Bland's agents."

"How did he spot me?"

"You handed back the dagger hilt first."

"Damn!" he muttered. "As little a thing as that!"

She nodded. "The priestess was too intent upon the boy's agony to notice at the time, but the White Lucy says that when she concentrates upon it she will remember, and then Conrad Bland will know not just that there is a killer loose in Kether, but that the killer is unfamiliar with our customs. From this he will deduce that it is the same killer John Sable has warned him about."

"Then I guess I'd better be going. How much time does the White Lucy think I've got?"

"A few hours. No more."

"That fast?"

"You were seen killing him. They may not connect it with your second murder, but they don't have to. Someone will remember that both of you were at the Ceremony at Belphegor. They will question the priest and priestess, and they will then know why he accosted you and why you had to kill him. It will not take long."

"How far away is the next town on the road to Tifereth?"

"Almost two hundred miles," replied Cybele.

"And who is my contact there?"

"You have none."

"I thought the White Lucy had agents in all the cities," said Jericho.

"She did. This one is dead."

Jericho nodded. "I see."

"I doubt that," said Cybele. "But if you make it to Yesod, you will see."

"Yesod? That's the name of the city?"

"Yes."

"Ask the White Lucy what my chances are of getting to Yesod in a stolen vehicle."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "She says that even trucks are not allowed on the roads north of here, that nothing may travel between cities except authorized vehicles."

He shrugged. Then I guess I'll have to borrow a police car, won't I?"

He stood up and left the shop.

 

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Framed