Smoke and Dagger Read online

  “Rise, my child.”

  Her knees had gone numb from the cold, and she wavered as she came up on her feet. Hildebrand offered a steadying hand. When she met his eyes, she was surprised to see his bearded face smiling back at her. The mask and sword were gone. They were alone, the two of them, beneath the boughs of the great oak. Alone in moonlight, with no sign on the ground that any others had been in attendance, or that a pagan initiation rite had reached its climax just a moment ago.

  “Where…”

  “Home. Back to their lives. In the outer circle, you will only know the one who brought you in. Later, when you’ve passed the second gate, you will meet them again without their masks.”

  “You knew I would follow you.”

  “I hoped you would.”

  “It was a test.”

  “Only the brave and curious are granted entrance.”

  “I wasn’t brave when you approached me at the museum.”

  “You were cautious. The meteorite is a measure of sensitivity, the first requirement. There are other locations and objects that serve the same function, but it is the most powerful, and I have the honor of watching it. Sometimes it draws moths. Of those, some possess the daring to become butterflies.”

  “I think it’s caterpillars that become butterflies, professor.”

  His beard twitched with a grin. “I’m not a professor. Just a curator.”

  “Well, you remind me of one. Even if you don’t know much about butterflies.”

  This earned her a raised eyebrow. They were back on a paved footpath by now, lit by intermittent lamps. “They’re not brave,” she said. “Mostly, they just sort of meander around.”

  Striding ahead with purpose, Hildebrand spoke without looking back at her. “Monarchs from New England fly all the way to Mexico, where they are welcomed on the Day of the Dead. Now that’s daring.”

  She paused at a fork in the path. “Where are you going?” He had taken the branch that led deeper into the park. “It’s this way back to the street.”

  “Follow and find out, if you dare.”

  Catherine watched his gray coat dissolve into a patch of shadows. An old hermetic axiom surfaced in her mind: To know, to will, to dare, and to keep silent. She was cold. It was late. The park was closed, a haunt for the criminal and transgressive until sunrise. But she had already shouted at a coven of masked men and knelt beneath a sword tonight. Maybe the risky part of her evening was behind her. She tucked her scarf into her coat and followed, unaware that the biggest risk she underestimated was that of her own impulsiveness, and that she might yet agree to further adventure.

  3

  Hildebrand moved fast, and Catherine’s initial hesitation allowed a good distance to unspool between them as she trailed his silhouette along the winding path that skirted the Turtle Pond. By the time she‘d lost sight of him, the lights of the Metropolitan Museum of Art glimmered through the trees, and she guessed where he must be leading her. Sure enough, when she crested the knoll and arrived at the Egyptian obelisk, she found him sitting on the iron railing that surrounded it, his back to the path.

  His posture was meditative, his head level, not tilted up toward the towering stone monument. Approaching him, she was startled to find his coat draped over the railing at his side, his fingers interlaced in a mudra in his lap, and his white dress shirt streaming vapor into the brisk air. Stepping over the railing, she saw that the shirt was soaked through with sweat. His eyes remained closed, though he must have heard her. His chest rose and fell in a slow, deep rhythm. As she sat beside him, she felt a tingle of deja vu. Or was it just symmetry? Here they were again, sitting on a bench of sorts, looking at a giant, ancient rock. But really, she was looking at him, and he was looking within.

  He broke the intricate hand gesture and patted the folded overcoat. “Put this on, please. You could use another layer.”

  She unfolded the coat and slipped it over her shoulders. They’d been outside long enough that the cold had crept under her skin, but it helped. Watching the steam rise from his shirt, she opened her mouth, but he answered the question before she could ask it.

  “It’s a modified Tibetan technique. Tum-mo, the yoga of inner fire. First taught among men at Nalanda University in India, around the second century.”

  “Among men?” It seemed like an odd qualifier. Few of the ancient mysteries were ever taught to women. She’d learned that in grade school when she expressed an interest in the Masonic temple in Newburyport.

  “Legend has it that the first yogi to master the technique learned it from the nagas—snake people from a submarine kingdom in the Indian Ocean.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  He took one of her hands in his. Heat poured through her thin wool gloves and she almost pulled them back in shock. But it felt good, and she relaxed, allowing herself to soak up both the heat and the tactile evidence of a minor miracle.

  “I have no reason to doubt it,” he said. “There are more things in heaven and earth—and under the sea I dare say…”

  “Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” she finished, and released his hands.

  He nodded at the obelisk. “What do you know about it?”

  “It was a gift to New York from Egypt, brought here in 1880 to much fanfare. It stands sixty-nine feet tall, and the inscription is the usual sort of thing—praise to the king who commissioned it. Thutmosis the third. ‘He is god incarnate and the scythe in his hand slew the enemies of Egypt and expanded the kingdom, etcetera.’”

  Hildebrand gave her a sidelong glance. “Not bad.”

  “I’m pursuing a minor in ancient languages.”

  He acknowledged this with a nod.

  “And I read the brochure when I visited the Met.”

  Was that a smile in the dark? Hildebrand rolled a hand, an invitation for more, if she had it.

  She gathered what little else she knew and delivered it in one long breath. “It originally had a twin. That one is now installed in London. The name, Cleopatra’s Needle, has no basis in Egyptian history. It was picked up along the way when the Romans moved the obelisk to Alexandria, where it languished in the dirty trade port until a corrupt politician decided making a gift of it might improve trade relations with America.”

  “Impressive. But again, not much more than you could find in a brochure.”

  “I’ve always wondered about the crabs,” Catherine said. Giant iron crabs braced the eroded lower corners of the obelisk where it met the stone base.

  “These crabs are replicas of a set forged by the Romans, apparently in reference to the sun god, Apollo,” he said. “I’ve never found that to be a very satisfying explanation for them.”

  “Why not?”

  Hildebrand shrugged. “I’m unable to find other references to crabs as sacred to Apollo. Dolphins would make more sense.”

  She squeezed her hands between her thighs to warm them. “So tell me: why are we here at midnight on the darkest day of the year?”

  “You’re right about Thutmosis, the third. He commissioned it. But an additional inscription was added on the north side under Ramses the Great: The crowned Horus, Bull of Victory, Son of Khephra.”

  Catherine thought of the bull mask Hildebrand had worn earlier and decided to try and coax him out of obscurity with willful ignorance. “That may be in praise of a different pharaoh, but it’s the same old song. Identification with the sun god.”

  “Perhaps. And who is Khephra?”

  “The scarab beetle who carries the sun through the underworld.”

  “There is a legend of an artifact, a golden scarab that holds a fiery red gem in its pincers.”

  “And gems are your area of expertise…” Catherine had spent little time in the Hall of Minerals and Gems. Just enough to come away convinced that anyone who visited the museum owed it to themselves to see the Star of India sapphire and the DeLong star ruby. They were wonders of nature.

  “This jewel has given birth to countless legends. It
is said to be a weapon against dark gods, creatures from the stars whose presence on earth predated the emergence of man. Some accounts claim it was last used during the reign of Ramses the Great, and that the ancient adepts may have hid it away in the base of an obelisk for a day when those forces would pierce the veil and walk the earth again. One of those dark gods even bears the claws of a crab.”

  Hildebrand walked to the north face of the obelisk. “The Ramses inscription continues: Like the orb of the Sun, when he shines in the horizon, the lord of the Two Lands.”

  “Upper and Lower Egypt,” Catherine said.

  “That would be the obvious interpretation—the exoteric, so to speak. The esoteric reading, favored by our order, is that this refers to two adjacent worlds, planes of existence, or dimensions. The scarab, the Fire of Cairo, could travel between these worlds, like the ‘orb of the sun.’ and burn the dark gods with its rays.”

  “That’s why you perform initiations near the obelisk. The Golden Bough considers it a sacred site because you believe a magic jewel lies hidden in the foundation.” She could scarcely believe she was articulating such an outlandish theory, but his intimations all pointed to that one conclusion.

  “Many members of our fraternity through the ages have also been Brothers of the Craft. The obelisk itself was transported across the ocean and raised here by Freemasons. Henry Hurlbolt Gorringe, the brother in charge of that herculean endeavor, arranged for a small box to be included in a time capsule set into the base of the monument. The other contents of the capsule are well documented, but Gorringe alone knew the contents of the box.”

  “And you think the scarab is in there. As you believe it was in Egypt.”

  He met her eyes. “I hope it is. I want to believe, to know.”

  “Was Gorringe also a member of the Golden Bough?”

  Hildebrand let his gaze climb the pillar of stone, relying on silence to maintain his vow.

  “If the scarab was such a vital weapon… Didn’t he tell anyone in the order? Or leave a written record of what was in the box?”

  Hildebrand sighed. “None we can find. He was trying to protect something that had remained hidden for centuries, and may have placed it where it might only be retrieved in the event of an apocalypse. But I don’t believe he would have taken that secret to the grave willingly. He thought there would be time. He was wrong. He survived a shipwreck and lived as a castaway as a boy, served in the navy, and lived a lifetime of adventures abroad, but was killed in a freak accident at the age of forty-four trying to board a moving train. Of course, we’ve always suspected he was the victim of a curse.”

  Catherine scoffed. She couldn’t help it. “An ancient Egyptian curse, like the death of Lord Carnarvon? The curse of King Tut’s tomb? It was a mosquito bite that got him, you know.”

  “Not an ancient curse. A modern one, by a rival group who would like for the amulet to remain lost to history. The Starry Wisdom Church.”

  All her life, Catherine had heard rumors of the cult. They were said to have chapters in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and some affiliation with the Esoteric Order of Dagon in her own ancestral neck of the woods. She remembered a priestess’ diadem, still on display in a glass case at the Newburyport Historical Society on High Street. It has always fascinated her as a rare relic of feminine spiritual leadership.

  “All this talk about brotherhoods,” she said. “The masked figures were men tonight. Are there other women in the order?”

  “You are the first.”

  She had suspected as much, but didn’t know if she should feel honored or afraid now that he’d confirmed it. “Why me? Why now?”

  Hildebrand’s dark eyes swept over her. “If you wish to proceed to the next gate, you must perform a task for the order. Like the Monarch, you must fly to a far away land.”

  “Mexico?”

  “California. We’ve heard reports of Starry Wisdom activity there that concern us. There is a man, a mage who may have acquired dangerous materials. We have reason to hope he might spill his secrets to you, if you can earn his trust.”

  “Again: Why me?”

  Hildebrand shrugged. “He has a thing for redheads.”

  She shook her head. “So it’s biology, then. Not anthropology. I should have known.”

  “You decline?”

  “I didn’t say that. What’s his specialty?”

  “Rocketry.”

  4

  Catherine had never heard of Jack Parsons. A thirty-four-year-old engineer living in Redondo Beach, California, he’d made headlines in the west coast papers ten years ago for providing expert testimony in a Los Angeles car bombing trial. His life’s work—building rocket engines—had earned him little fame outside of Cal Tech and the Department of Defense, where he was a pioneer. But if widespread recognition for his accomplishments had eluded him, notoriety had not. The man who’d developed the first solid-fuel jet engine to enable high-speed lift-off from tropical island airfields during the war was better known for his obsessions with sex, drugs, and black magic.

  Hildebrand briefed Catherine on their subject over tea and pie at a diner on the park after their visit to Cleopatra’s Needle. Most of his information came from a member of the Golden Bough who had infiltrated the Ordo Templi Orientis—the rival order to which Parsons belonged, presided over until recently by the now deceased British magician, Aleister Crowley.

  Catherine was intellectually prepared for the information she was now privy to, but felt emotionally out of her depth. Drinking tea with a man who had donned an animal mask and held a sword above her head mere hours ago, listening to his tales of the orgies and explosives engineered by the madman he wanted her to get close to…it was as if she’d turned a page of her life expecting to find a society of academics enacting dramatic rituals only to find herself hip-deep in a spy novel where real magicians could heat their bodies like coals and amulets forged for ancient pharaohs lay buried under Central Park. As the story unfolded, it occurred to her that maybe the obelisk was aptly named after all. The thread of her life had passed through its eye tonight—and now it was pulling her into a tapestry she could never have imagined a year ago.

  Parsons had recently been investigated by the FBI for communist affiliations going back to his early days at Cal Tech. Such scrutiny was not unusual for engineers involved in military work. Anyone who owned a television knew that the House Committee on Un-American Activities was busy stoking the fires of suspicion, scouring Hollywood for potential traitors. The national perception of Russia had shifted from wartime ally to global aggressor in the wake of Stalin’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, and for Parsons—whose social circles were a three-ring circus of bohemians, science-fiction writers, and occultists—the investigation resulted in the loss of his job on the Navaho Missile Program when his security clearance was revoked. Soon after, his wife returned from a trip to Europe where she’d learned of Crowley’s death and found Parsons pumping gas to make ends meet. She responded by running off to join an artist’s colony in Mexico.

  The lost security clearance turned out to be a temporary setback. A friend petitioned for reinstatement while Parsons made the case that the OTO was a non-political religious organization. When the government restored his credentials, he found employment at the Hughes Aircraft Corporation.

  “Are you sure you don’t work for the FBI, Mr. Hildebrand? For a Manhattan gemologist, you know an awful lot about this rocketeer from Pasadena. Or does the order have spies everywhere?”

  Hildebrand smiled and refilled his cup from the small steel kettle the waitress had left on the table. “Our numbers are few, though we maintain lodges in several countries.”

  “You’d have to be as big as the Freemasons to zero in on a single individual on the other side of the country.”

  “We’ve been very resourceful where Mr. Parsons is concerned. He is of the utmost interest to us.”

  “Resourceful enough even to recruit a girl.”

  “Other women have helped us
learn of his activities.”

  Catherine raised an eyebrow.

  “Since his wife’s departure, Jack has employed prostitutes to aid in his sex magic operations.”

  Catherine gathered her purse and slid out from behind the table, her face flushed with heat. “I’m afraid I misjudged you and your associates. You’ve certainly misjudged me.”

  Hildebrand reached for her arm, but withdrew his hand at the sight of her withering glare. “Please, Catherine. I didn’t mean to imply… Please, sit and hear me out.”

  “What, exactly, didn’t you mean to imply? You told me plainly that he likes redheads. You initiated me for my gender. I’m so stupid. I let your little body heat trick dazzle me into thinking you had wisdom to offer, but I should have known better. Your secrets are the usual tawdry kind.”

  “That’s not true. You’re the first woman ever admitted past the first gate. You were selected for your sensitivity, your talent. And you have no idea what it took for me to convince them.”

  “Them?”

  “My superiors.”

  “How am I the first if you have Hollywood call girls in your ranks?”

  Hildebrand looked aghast. It would have been comical if she weren’t so furious. “Not as initiates. Dear God, no. We’ve merely paid some of Jack’s ladies for whatever details we can glean from their testimony. The content of his rituals and what they’ve seen at his house—books and artifacts we fear he may have acquired. But they lack the knowledge to recognize or retain most of the details we’re interested in. They’re mostly good for reporting on pillow talk about his mundane life, his career, and marital woes. We might get lucky if one can draw a symbol he painted on her body, or remember a word he taught her to chant until the sun came up, but that’s not enough to reconstruct his operations. For anything more esoteric, we’ve had to rely on whatever Parsons has been willing to share with our primary contact, an exiled high priest of the OTO. And that’s not enough. Will you please sit? People will think I’m accosting you.”