Operation Chaos

XXII

The indrawn breath returned as a guttural sigh that edged toward a growl. The nearest males took a step or two in our direction. Barney waved his flag. “Wait!” he called, a thunderous basso overriding any other sound. “Truce! Let’s talk this over! Take your leader to me!”

“Nothing to talk about, you murderers!” screamed a pimply girl. She swung her sign at me. I glimpsed upon it PEACE AND BROTHERHOOD before I had to get busy protecting my scalp. Someone began a chant that was quickly taken up by more and more: “Down with Diotrephes, down with Diotrephes, down with Diotrephes—”

Alarm stabbed through me. Though Diotrephes is barely mentioned in John’s third epistle, the Johannines of today made him a symbol of the churches that opposed their movement. (No doubt he also meant other things to their initiates and adepts.) The unbelieving majority of the purely rebellious hadn’t bothered to understand this. To them, Diotrephes became a name for the hated secular authority, or anyone else that got in their way. Those words had hypnotized more than one crowd into destructive frenzy.

I took her sign away from the girl, defended my eyes from her fingernails, and reached for my flash. But abruptly everything changed. A bell sounded. A voice cried. Both were low, both somehow penetrated the rising racket.

“Peace. Hold love in your hearts, children. Be still in the presence of the Holy Spirit.”

My attacker retreated. The others who hemmed us in withdrew. Individuals started falling on their knees. A moan went through the mob, growing almost orgasmic before it died away into silence. Looking up, I saw the priest approach.

He traveled with bell in one hand, holding onto the upright of his tau crucifix while standing on its pedestal. Thus Christ nailed to the Cross of Mystery went before him. Nothing strange about that, I thought wildly, except that other churches would call it sacrilegious to give the central sign of their faith yonder shape, put an antigrav spell on it and use it like any broomstick. Yet the spectacle was weirdly impressive. It was like an embodiment of that Something Else on which Gnosticism is focused.

I’d regarded the Johnnies’ “ineffable secrets” as unspeakable twaddle. Tonight I knew better. More was here than the ordinary paranatural emanations. Every nerve of my werewolf heritage sensed it. I didn’t think the Power was of the Highest. But whence, then?

As the priest landed in front of us, though, he looked entirely human. He was short and skinny, his robe didn’t fit too well, glasses perched precariously on his button nose, his graying hair was so thin I could hardly follow the course of his tonsure—the strip shaven from ear to ear, across the top of the head, that was said to have originated with Simon Magus.

He turned to the crowd first. “Let me speak with these gentlemen out of love, not hatred, and righteousness may prevail,” he said in his oddly carrying tone. “ ‘He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.’ ”

“Amen,” mumbled across the grounds.

As the little man faced back toward us, I had a sudden belief that he really meant that dear quotation. It didn’t drive away the miasma. The Adversary knows well how to use single-minded sincerity. But I felt less hostile to this priest as a person.

He smiled at us and bobbed his head. “Good evening,” he said. “I am Initiate Fifth Class Marmiadon, at your service.”

“Your, uh, ecclesiastical name?” Barney asked.

“Why, of course. The old name is the first of the things of this world that must be left behind at the Gate of Passage. I’m not afraid of a hex, if that is what you mean, sir.”

“No, I suppose not.” Barney introduced us, a cheap token of amity since we were both easily identifiable. “We came out hoping to negotiate a settlement.”

Marmiadon beamed. “Wonderful! Blessings! I’m not an official spokesman, you realize. The Committee for National Righteousness called for this demonstration. However, I be glad to use my good offices.”

“The trouble is,” Barney said, we can’t do much about their basic demands. We’re not against world peace and universal disarmament ourselves, you understand; but those are matters for international diplomacy. In the same way, the President and Congress have to decide whether to end the occupation formerly hostile countries and spend the money social uplift at home. Amnesty for rioters is up to our city governments. School courses in Gnostic philosophy and history have to be decided on by elect authorities. As for total income equalization and phasing out of materialism, hypocrisy, injustice ” He shrugged. “That needs a Constitutional amendment at least.

“You can, however, lend your not inconsiderable influence to forwarding those ends,” Marmiadon said. “For example, you can contribute to the Committee’s public education fund. You can urge the election of the proper candidates and help finance their campaigns. You can allow proselytizers to circulate among your employees. You can stop doing business with merchants who remain obstinate.” He spread his arms. “In the course of so doing my children, you can rescue yourselves from eternal damnation!”

“Well, maybe; though Pastor Karlslund over at St. Olaf’s Lutheran might give me a different opinion on that,” Barney said. “In any case, it’s too big a list to check off in one day.”

“Granted, granted.” Marmiadon quivered with eagerness. “We reach our ends a step at a time. ‘While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.’ The present dispute is over a single issue.”

“The trouble is,” Barney said, “you want us to cancel contracts we’ve signed and taken money for. You want us to break our word and let down those who trust us.”

His joy dropped from Marmiadon. He drew himself to his full meager height, looked hard and straight at us, and stated: “These soldiers of the Holy Spirit demand that you stop making equipment for the armed forces, oppressors abroad, and for the police, oppressors at home. Nothing more is asked of you at this time, and nothing less. The question is not negotiable.”

“I see. I didn’t expect anything else,” Barney said. “But I wanted to put the situation in plain language before witnesses. Now I’m going to warn you.”

Those who heard whispered to the rest, a hissing from mouth to mouth. I saw tension mount anew.

“If you employ violence upon those who came simply to remonstrate,” Marmiadon declared, “they will either have the law upon you, or see final proof that the law is a creature of the vested interests . . . which I tell you in turn are the creatures of Satan.”

“Oh, no, no,” Barney answered. “We’re mild sorts, whether you believe it or not. But you are trespassing. You have interfered with our work to the point where we’re delayed and shorthanded. We must carry on as best we can, trying to meet our contractual obligations. We’re about to run an experiment. You could be endangered. Please clear the grounds for your own safety.”

Marmiadon grew rigid. “If you think you can get away with a deadly spell—”

“Nothing like. I’ll tell you precisely what we have in mind. We’re thinking about a new method of transporting liquid freight. Before going further, we have to run a safety check on it. If the system fails, unprotected persons could be hurt.” Barney raised his volume, though we knew some of the police officers would have owls’ ears tuned in. “I order you, I warn you, I beg you to stop trespassing, and get off company properly. You have half an hour.

We wheeled and were back inside before the noise broke loose. Curses, taunts, obscenities, and animal howls followed us down the halls until we reached the blessed isolation of the main alchemy lab.

The dozen scientists, technicians, and blue-collar men whom Barney had picked out of the volunteers to stay with him, were gathered there. They sat smoking, drinking coffee brewed on Bunsen burners, talking in low voices. When we entered, a small cheer came from them. They’d watched the confrontation on a closed-loop ball. I sought out Ike Abrams, the warehouse foreman. Ever since we soldiered together, I’d known him as a good man, and had gotten him his job here. “All in order?” I asked.

He made a swab-O sign. “By me, Cap’n, she’s clear and on green. I can’t wait.”

I considered him for a second. “You really have it in for those characters, don’t you?”

“In my position, wouldn’t you?” He looked as if he were about to spit.

In your position, I thought, or in any of a lot of other positions, but especially in yours, Ike-yes.

As a rationalist, I detested the irrationality at the heart of Gnosticism. Were I a devout Christian, I’d have more counts against the Johannine Church: its claim to be the successor of all others, denying them any further right to exist; worse, probably, its esotericism, that would deny God’s grace to nearly the whole of mankind. Rationalist and religionist alike could revolt against its perversion of the Gospel According to St. John, perhaps the most beautiful and gentle if the most mystical book in Holy Writ.

But if you were Jewish, the Johnnies would pluck out of context and throw at you texts like “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” You would see reviving around you the ancient nightmare of anti-Semitism.

A little embarrassed, I turned to Bill Hardy, our chief paracelsus, who sat swinging his legs from a lab bench. “How much stuff did you produce?” I asked.

“About fifty gallons,” he said, pointing.

“Wow! With no alchemy?”

“Absolutely not. Pure, honest-to-Berzelius molecular interaction. I admit we were lucky to have a large supply of the basic ingredients on hand.”

I winced, recalling the awful sample he’d whipped up when our scheme was first discussed. “How on Midgard did that happen?”

“Well, the production department is—was—filling some big orders,” he said. “For instance, a dairy chain wanted a lot of rancidity preventers. You know the process, inhibit the reaction you don’t want in a test tube, and cast a sympathetic spell to get the same effect in ton lots of your product. Then the government is trying to control the skunk population in the Western states, and—” He broke off as Ginny came in.

Her eyes glistened. She held her wand like a Valkyrie’s sword. “We’re set, boys.” The words clanged.

“Let’s go.” Barney heaved his bulk erect. We followed him to the containers. They were ordinary flat one-gallon cans such as you buy paint thinner in, but Solomon’s seal marked the wax that closed each screw top and I could subliminally feel the paranatural forces straining around them. It seemed out of keeping for the scientists to load them on a cart and trundle them off.

Ike and his gang went with me to my section. The apparatus I’d thrown together didn’t look especially impressive either. In fact, it was a haywire monstrosity of coils and wires enclosing a big gasoline-driven electric generator. Sometimes you need more juice for an experiment than the carefully screened public power lines can deliver.

To cobble that stuff on, I’d have to remove the generator’s own magnetic screens. Therefore, what we had was a mass of cold free iron; no spell would work in its immediate vicinity. Ike had been in his element this afternoon, mounting the huge weight and awkward bulk on wheels for me. He was again, now, as he directed it along the halls and skidded it over the stairs.

No doubt he sometimes wished people had never found how to degauss the influences that had held paranatural forces in check since the Bronze Age ended. He wasn’t Orthodox; his faith didn’t prohibit him having anything whatsoever to do with goetics. But neither was he Reform or Neo-Chassidic. He was a Conservative Jew, who could make use of objects that others had put under obedience but who mustn’t originate any cantrips himself. It’s a tribute to him that he was nonetheless a successful and popular foreman.

He’d rigged a husky block—and-tackle arrangement in the garage. The others had already flitted to the flat roof. Ginny had launched the canisters from there. They bobbed about in the air, out of range of the magnetic distortions caused by the generator when we hoisted its iron to their level. Barney swung the machine around until we could ease it down beside the skylight. That made it impossible for us to rise on brooms or a word. We joined our friends via rope ladder.

“Ready?” Barney asked. In the restless pale glow, I saw sweat gleam on his face. If this failed, he’d be responsible for unforeseeable consequences.

I checked the connections. “Yeah, nothing’s come loose. But let me first have a look around.”

I joined Ginny at the parapet. Beneath us roiled the mob, faces and placards turned upward to hate us. They had spied the floating containers and knew a climax was at hand. Behind his altar, Initiate Marmiadon worked at what I took to be reinforcement of his defensive field. Unknown phrases drifted to me: “. . . Heliphomar Mabon Saruth Gefutha Enunnas Sacinos . . .” above the sullen mumble of our besiegers.

The elflight flickered brighter. The air seethed and crackled with energies. I caught a thunderstorm whiff of ozone.

My darling wore a slight, wistful smile. “How Svartalf would love this,” she said.

Barney lumbered to our side. “Might as well start,” he said. “I’ll give them one last chance.” He shouted the same warning as before. Yells drowned him out. Rocks and offal flew against our walls. “Okay,” he growled. “Let ’er rip!”

I went back to the generator and started the motor, leaving the circuits open. It stuttered and shivered. The vile fumes made me glad we’d escaped depending on internal combustion engines. I’ve seen automobiles, as they were called, built around 1900, shortly before the first broomstick flights. Believe me, museums are where they belong—a chamber of horrors, to be exact.

Ginny’s clear call snapped my attention back. She’d directed the canisters into position. I could no longer see them, for they floated ten feet over the heads of the crowd, evenly spaced. She made a chopping gesture with her wand. I threw the main switch.

No, we didn’t use spells to clear Nornwell’s property. We used the absence of spells. The surge of current through the coils on the generator threw out enough magnetism to cancel every charm, ours and theirs alike, within a hundred-yard radius.

We’d stowed whatever gear might be damaged in safe conductive-shell rooms. We’d repeatedly cautioned the mob that we were about to experiment with the transportation of possibly dangerous liquids. No law required us to add that these liquids were in super-pressurized cans which were bound to explode and spray their contents the moment that the wall-strengthening force was annulled.

We’d actually exaggerated the hazard . . . in an attempt to avoid any slightest harm to trespassers. Nothing vicious was in those containers. Whatever might be slightly toxic was present in concentrations too small to matter, although a normal sense of smell would give ample warning regardless. Just a harmless mixture of materials like butyl mercaptan, butyric acid, methanethiol, skatole, cadaverine, putrescine ... well, yes, the organic binder did have penetrative properties; if you got a few drops on your skin, the odor wouldn’t disappear for a week or two . . .

The screams reached me first. I had a moment to gloat. Then the stench arrived. I’d forgotten to don my gas mask, and even when I’m human my nose is quite sensitive. The slight whiff I got sent me gasping and retching backward across the roof. It was skunk, it was spoiled butter, it was used asparagus, it was corruption and doom and the wheels of juggernaut lubricated with Limburger cheese, it was beyond imagining. I barely got my protection on in time.

“Poor dear. Poor Steve.” Ginny held me close.

“Are they gone?” I sputtered.

“Yes. Along with the policemen and, if we don’t get busy, half this postal district.”

I relaxed. The uncertain point in our plan had been whether the opposition would break or would come through our now undefended doors in search of our lives. After my experience I didn’t see how the latter would have been possible. Our chemists had builded better than they knew.

We need hardly expect a return visit, I thought in rising glee. If you suffer arrest or a broken head for the Cause, you’re a hero who inspires others. But if you merely acquire for a while a condition your best friends won’t tell you about because they can’t come within earshot of you-hasn’t the Cause taken a setback?

I grabbed Ginny to me and started to kiss her. Damn, I’d forgotten my gas mask again! She disentangled our snouts. “I’d better help Barney and the rest hex away those molecules before they spread,” she told me. “Switch off your machine and screen it.”

“Uh, yes,” I must agree. “We want our staff returning to work in the morning.”

What with one thing and another, we were busy for a couple of hours. After we finished, Barney produced some bottles, and the celebration lasted till well nigh dawn. The eastern sky blushed pink when Ginny and I wobbled aboard our broom and hiccoughed, “Home, James.”

The air blew cool, heaven reached high. “Know something?” I said over my, shoulder. “I love you.”

“Purr-rr-rr.” She leaned forward to rub her cheek against mine. Her hands wandered.

“Shameless hussy,” I said.

“You prefer some other kind?” she asked.

“Well, no,” I said “but you might wait a while. Here I am in front of you, feeling more lecherous every minute but without any way to lech.”

“Oh, there are ways,” she murmured dreamily. “On a broomstick yet. Have you forgotten?”

“No. But dammit, the local airlanes are going to be crowded with commuter traffic pretty soon, and I’d rather not fly several miles looking for solitude when we’ve got a perfectly good bedroom nearby.”

“Right. I like that thought. Only fifteen minutes away, in the privacy of your own home—Pour on the coal, James.”

The stick accelerated.

I was full of glory and the glory that was her. She caught the paranatural traces first. My indication was that her head lifted from between my shoulder blades, her arms loosened around my waist while the finger nails bit through my shirt. “What the Moloch?” I exclaimed.

“Hsh!” she breathed. We flew in silence through the thin chill dawn wind. The city spread darkling beneath us. Her voice came at last, tense, but some how dwindled and lost:-“I said I didn’t like the scent of the time-stream. In the excitement and everything, I forgot.”

My guts crawled, as if I were about to turn wolf. Senses and extrasenses strained forth. I’ve scant thaumaturgic skill—the standard cantrips, plus a few from the Army and more from engineering training but a lycanthrope has inborn instincts and awarenesses. Presently I also knew.

Dreadfulness was about.

As we flitted downward, we knew that it was in our house.

We left the broomstick on the front lawn. I turned my key in the door and hurled myself through. “Val!” I yelled into the dim rooms. “Svartalf!”

No lock had been forced or picked, no glass had been broken, the steel and stone guarding every paranatural entry were unmoved. But chairs lay tumbled, vases smashed where they had fallen off shaken tables, blood was spattered over walls, floors, carpets, from end to end of the building.

We stormed into Valeria’s room. When we saw that little shape quietly asleep in her crib, we held each other and wept.

Finally Ginny could ask, “Where’s Svartalf? What happened?”

“I’ll look around,” I said. “He gave an epic account of himself, at least.”

“Yes—” She wiped her eyes. As she looked around the wreckage in the nursery, that green gaze hardened. She stared down into the crib. “Why didn’t you wake up?” she said in a tone I’d never heard before.

I was already on my way to search. I found Svartalf in the kitchen. His blood had about covered the linoleum. In spite of broken bones, tattered hide, belly gashed open, the breath rattled faintly in and out of him. Before I could examine the damage further, a shriek brought me galloping back to Ginny.

She held the child. Blue eyes gazed dully at me from under tangled gold curls. Ginny’s face, above, was drawn so tight it seemed the skin must rip on the cheekbones. “Something’s wrong with her,” she told me. “I can’t tell what, but something’s wrong.”

I stood for an instant feeling my universe break apart. Then I went into the closet. Dusk was giving place to day, and I needed darkness. I shucked my outer clothes and used my flash. Emerging, I went to those two female figures. My wolf nose drank their odors.

I sat on my haunches and howled.

Ginny laid down what she was holding. She stayed completely motionless by the crib while I changed back.

“I’ll call the police,” I heard my voice, say to her. “That thing isn’t Val. It isn’t even human.”