Atone

By Roger Lhooms

What if magic really worked?

If all the absurd words in all the grimoires purporting to be centuries older than they really are, actually did what is claimed of them?

What if christianity had not corrupted all that came before it?

Perhaps our world view would be quite different today. Perhaps it would include Pre-human giants with tremendous powers, as all other cultures and lands do.

Perhaps we would believe in magic.

Could it be possible that the combination of certain sounds can work magic?

That by being able to control these sounds we ourselves can become as powerful as Giants? That a byproduct of this magical evolution would be eternal life, just as gold was A byproduct of alchemy?

Join three friends who accept all of the above as a matter of course. They are Traveling west across America to meet three other students of the occult. A lot happens In between. Perhaps you will enjoy this idle tale.

Roger Lhooms

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 24, 2003
• ISBN: 9781469108414

Roger Lhooms

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Book preview

Copyright © 2003 by Roger Lhooms.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

The Mesa

CHAPTER TWO

The Dumpster

CHAPTER ONE-A

Mesa Reprise

CHAPTER THREE

The News Office

CHAPTER FOUR

The Recreation Room

CHAPTER FIVE

Philadelphia

CHAPTER SIX

Wisconsin

CHAPTER SEVEN

San Francisco

CHAPTER EIGHT

Santa Fe

CHAPTER NINE

Miami

CHAPTER TEN

The Sweat Lodge

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Starship Omega

CHAPTER TWELVE

Departing Filthadelphia

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

By the Numbers

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Interlude

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A Sunday Outing

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Men in Black

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Taking Possession

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A Slight Side Trip

CHAPTER SIXTEEN-A

The Men in Black Reprise

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN-A

A Slight Side Trip Reprise

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A Price to Pay

CHAPTER TWENTY

On Wisconsin

CHAPTER NINETEEN-A

A Price to Pay Reprise

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A Reconciliation

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Compulsion

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A Parting Shot

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Another Slight Detour

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Yin

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Police Station

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Yang

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Word

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Timing

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Inn Parking Lot

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Total Chaos

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Forty-Ninth Call

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Alliance of Convenience

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

To Vulcan

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Team Spirit

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

A Night on the Town

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

A Sum Total

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Morning of a Magician

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Persuasion

CHAPTER FORTY

A Short Hop

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Opportunity

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

To the Rescue

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

An Introduction

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Motel Inquiries

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Progress

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Evocation

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Closing In

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The Goal in Sight

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Ginger Snaps

CHAPTER FIFTY-A

Atonement-Insistent

CHAPTER FIFTY-B

Atonement-Immediate

CHAPTER FIFTY-C

Atonement-Impending

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

The Vigil Ends

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Avoidance

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Atonement Unfulfilled

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

A Final Tally

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Conjecture

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Limited Alternatives

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Networking

CHAPTER ONE

The Mesa

[Soft scruffing of plastic on fiberboard] "That’s a ‘Z’ . . . god, it’s so cold!"

Golf-Tee Mesa was much easier to climb by using the handholds on the northern face provided by parties unknown in the distant past, but Charlotte had insisted on full climbing gear, including pitons and alpine hats. That last was pure affectation, considering the fact that they were in the desert of New Mexico. At night. The climb had been very difficult.

[More scruffing—faster now] "That’s ‘O’, followed by ‘D’.

There was only a whisper of night breeze, but the chill was penetrating their clothing now that they did not have the heat generated by their climb to keep them warm.

‘A-C-A-R’, stop. ‘E-C-A’, stop. ‘O-D’, stop. Ginger’s soft blonde hair escaped from beneath the brim of her hat. Both hands were occupied—one with a small flashlight, the other with a hand microphone of the tape recorder slung around her neck and under her left arm. Her complete concentration was centered on the activity before her. Three feet away, a ouija board was suspended between two crossed pairs of legs belonging to her companions. The board was about eight inches off the mesa top. The scruffing sounds were made by a planchette, or reading device, which moved over the board and centered its ‘viewfinder’ on letters printed below. There were also a few simple, time-saving phrases grouped at the edges. The planchette did not move entirely by itself. Two pairs of fingertips helped to ‘guide’ it through its messages. One pair had beautifully manicured, medium-long nails, in spite of the climb, and belonged to Charlotte, the undisputed leader in this endeavor. The other pair of fingertips were spatulate, and connected to large square male hands. Like the others, however, Timothy’s hands were smooth and, except for a blister or two from the climb, uncalloused. These hands belonged to students. For the most part, socially-driven students at the college, career-oriented and anxious to make their mark with a fortune five hundred corporation in their field. Tonight, however, they were students of a knowledge far older—a power less readily apparent that the shrill blare of media publicity and the insistence of suburban goal attainment. Tonight they were crouched in a cup-shaped depression at the top of a column of eroded rock hundreds of feet above the desert floor. The column widened towards its apex, which made for a difficult climb, except on the northern face, where the rock had eroded to the point where the climb was nearly vertical. That same climb had brought them face to face with fossils of plants and animals millions of years old embedded in the rock strata. They knew the whole region had once been a sea bed, but it was still unnerving to feel the remains of ancient creatures hard and unyielding beneath their hands during the ascent—disturbing to realize that they had ceased to exist milleniae before mankind existed even in its rudest form. And still the moon washed everything in its reflective sheen. Their faces were deceptive masks hiding atavistic fears. But the fears were vague—formless as yet and without meaning.

(Nearby but unseen, Something immense stirred in a Place barely large enough to contain it) "‘Z-O-D-A-M-R-A-N’, stop. Charlotte, we’ve recorded twenty minutes’ worth of this crap. I’m cold. The tape is running out. I feel ridiculous. Throw in the fact that this is not helping me study for my business law exam . . ."

I don’t appreciate your interruption, Ginger. We spent weeks talking all this out. The agreed amount of time was a full hour. One hour to get a shot at finding out if the occult can put us on the cutting edge of life’s competition or not, and before it’s half over, you’re whining like a stuck pig . . .

Ginger is right, Charlotte. We took forever getting up here and it will be a long climb down, not to mention the hike back to the jeep. Timothy, who was normally passive where Charlotte was concerned, narrowed his dark eyes and frowned. Even if we take the handholds on the northern face, it will be at least three hours before we are back on the road. That means we won’t hit campus until four in the morning. I admire your choice of location—it has atmosphere. But we didn’t bring any food, or even water—and we could have picked a better night, after all. Exam week is coming up. So far, this effort does not seem to be cost effective to me.

Charlotte tipped the ouija board and planchette from her legs in one sinuous motion, rising to her feet directly from the lotus position and tumbling the divinatory apparatus to the dust. Her short red hair seemed to bristle. Her eyes flashed in anger from one to the other of her companions as she pulled soft calfskin gloves over her hands in angry, efficient motions. "You wimps! I spent months of research reading library books on the sly, taking notes, writing to source references, corresponding with lunatics, and collecting the proper materials. You are supposed to be my friends. All I asked of you was your support this one time, and you couldn’t even do that. Well, you’re going to whether you like it or not! If twenty minutes is all you can handle at a time, then this is going to be done in three-count ‘em, three-sessions. Next time, Tim, you can bring the food. Ginger, you can lug a canteen of water in addition to all our other baggage. I shall be responsible for the first aid kit, so that you don’t feel put upon. As for studies, I have just as many responsibilities as you—probably more—but, unlike you, I was willing to put in the extra hours necessary to get caught up so that I could do this tonight. And now we leave—by the north face, since this little climb obviously wore you out."

They gathered their gear and prepared for the descent. Ginger sighed in resignation. Charlotte was so hard to please.

And she had blasted Tim for speaking what they all felt. What did they feel? Uneasy, Ginger decided, as she stowed the rest of her gear in her rucksack. Something about this put all of them on edge for some reason. It went beyond all of Timothy’s logical arguments. Could it be fear? But fear, Ginger thought, always had to have a specific cause. She shrugged mentally, putting the thought aside as she adjusted her pack straps to balance the load she had to carry on the way down. She noted that Charlotte was already standing near the northern edge, tightlipped with unspoken anger and impatience. Such loads they had to carry while climbing had also been distributed by her. Tall, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, Charlotte apportioned the heavier burden of the two women to herself. Timothy was, at slightly under six feet, almost as tall as Charlotte, with well developed muscles and a somewhat stocky build. His share, therefore, was largest. Ginger hefted her rather light pack once again. At just over five feet, she nonetheless had a slender, almost boyish figure, with a pointed chin and slightly oblique eyes of a startling deep blue. At the moment, she was staring in concern at the cause of Charlotte’s all too obvious impatience.

Timothy had frozen in the act of squatting down to pick up and pack away the ouija board and planchette. Stepping closer to see what he was staring at, Ginger herself became amazed. Held in Timothy’s almost nerveless hand, the divinatory apparatus had once again become active. The planchette, unaided and at an angle defying gravity, flew over the board, barely stopping at each letter of a word and the ‘stops’ separating them. Stranger still was the way the moon seemed to pick out the board’s surface with crystal clarity, so that each letter was clearly defined in the viewer’s eye no matter how fast the planchette flew. Moreover, the letters seemed to almost glow as they were revealed, and easily imprinted themselves on the viewer’s minds without having to resort to a pad and pencil or tape recorder.

"If I had known you wanted to stay, we could have had and I leave without you." It was an idle threat, but Charlotte had broken the tableau. The planchette fell off the board. Timothy and Ginger blinked at each other stupidly, then nearly bumped heads as they reached to pack the last items away. Their movements bordered on panic. Each of them was trying desperately to ignore the insistent but incomprehensible message etched into their memories by the impossible incident they had witnessed. It was as if they were each two people—one performing and thinking in the mundane way of humans, and the other solely dedicated to playing and replaying a series of glowing letters in their minds eye.

Charlotte had already started confidently down the handholds on the northern face. Ginger watched as Timothy’s dark, curly hair disappeared below the mesa’s rim. Now it was her turn. Spinning to face the way she had come, she quickly dropped to all fours, gripping the rock of the cliff edge with her hands as she eased her feet down the face toward the first deep and secure handholds cut there. As she did so, the other part of her mind registered the final series of letters imprinted on her consciousness shortly before. They glowed fiercely.

[The Call was unvoiced, so the Way remained closed. But here the illusion separating time/place was thin. Thought could pass through, and so the Words had been seen. Now a Window could be opened so that Sight could follow—until there was a voice. Something immense moved more purposefully in a Place that could barely contain It . . . ]

Ginger’s low moan rose quickly to a shrieking scream, then broke off in sobbing gasps as she clung automatically to the cliff face just below the upper rim. Tim and Charlotte, concentrating on the downward climb, had been aware only of a momentary flash of light from above and Ginger’s apparent distress. They both moved back up to assist her. Tim arrived and braced his body in the same handholds Ginger’s limbs were occupying, thinking to save her from falling. Some instinct told Charlotte to observe and listen rather than vocalize her displeasure at the incident. Instead she averted her gaze

A silent compulsion was urging Timothy to ascend to the mesa once more. Ginger’s body was rigid, stretched tight between handholds that the others reached more easily. Her open and unseeing eyes were less than an inch away from the cliff wall. Her jaw was clenched, and a small trickle of blood showed where she had bitten through her lower lip to avoid another outburst. She was completely occupied with some internal struggle—oblivious to any other presence. The tug on Tim’s mind became stronger. All it asked was that he lift his head above the level of the mesa rim and look—not such a difficult feat, as the goal was only two feet higher. Tim began moving almost without conscious volition.

And almost fell! Somehow, Ginger had turned completely around in her handholds, and now faced outward and away from the cliff face. Her hands were steel claws that dug into his biceps. She had thrown her full weight into dragging his arms down from the lip’s edge, and had succeeded. His feet had slipped from their holds, and he scrambled for purchase. Ginger, still silent, not only inhibited his efforts to save himself, but was a dead weight pulling him to the desert floor below. At the last moment, his desperately running feet found a single hold for both. But now his upper torso began to swing out from the cliff, pulling Ginger with him to their deaths.

That was when Charlotte arrived with the pickax. With her feet firmly braced, she used her right arm to drive the ax deeply into the open cliff face just to the right of the falling couple. This gave her the leverage necessary to unbend her knees and rise from the crouch she had assumed while hastily positioning herself earlier. Most of her strength then went into her left arm, as she placed her left hand into the small of Tim’s back and shoved hard. It was barely enough. With agonizing slowness, her companions above swung back toward the handholds. More tense moments passed as Tim, breathing a shaky thanks, found secure purchase. At this point, Ginger seemed to come out of her state of apparent possession and become alive and frightened, pressing close to Tim’s body. Her shocked face suddenly tilted back from his chest to look up at him. Her eyes were brimming with tears and spoke earnest apology. There was a smear of blood on her chin from her cut lip. She immediately removed her weight from him and carefully jockeyed around to face the wall once more.

I’m s—sorry . . .

"Sorry? You almost killed . . ."

Both of you shut up and follow me down now!" Charlotte’s controlled voice cut through the yelps of the others like ice water. She had returned to her former position, but still held the pickax ready as her voice thrummed with a repressed bloodlust which warned against any further nonsense during the descent. Momentarily ignoring all other thoughts, the other two began to carefully follow her as she climbed down.

[On the mesa top, a Window closed with ancient patience, ready to reopen if either of the two Keys returned . . . ]

CHAPTER TWO

The Dumpster

Dom was having a waking dream. He was stoned on crank, and spending the evening in a dumpster in a back alley of Miami. He was surrounded by garbage—most of it edible, as the dumpster was being rented by a restaurant. The rats knew this, too, but feared Dom’s knife. Ida, Dom’s whore, was curled in a twitching ball near his crossed legs. He was seated, knife at the ready—his hand thrust deep within the squelching contents of a garbage bag to close unerringly around a whole orange. Then the waking dream took him. He was back in Haiti. He was in the hut of the papaloi out in the cane fields. On the east wall, as always before, was the altar, crowded with the saints and candles burning. At the base of the altar table were gifts of food and drink as offerings, some in brightly wrapped packages with ribbons tied around them. On the hard-packed dirt floor between Dom and the altar was a veve, a colored chalk dust sigil—this one dedicated to the Great Snake. As he stared at it, the Holy Serpent came alive and reared up from the sigil to sway and stare back with unwinking reptilian eyes into Dom’s own dilated brown ones. Then the Great One slipped its strong coils about Dom’s body, holding him in place while it whispered horrible secrets into his ear. He could feel the cold, yet dry and scaly body. He could smell the ophidian musk. Most of all, he could understand what the sibilant hissing speech was telling him. He was told what had happened and why. How a Door was opening and at whose hands. That Door must be kept closed at all costs. That the price of this was four deaths and the deaths of all who stood in the way of this. He listened as the Great Snake, his patron god, called upon Sister Erzuli, the goddess of the Moon, to show him with his eyes everything he had been told. She came to them in silvery brightness, and was terrible to behold. Through her, Dom saw three young people and a flat-topped tower of rock. Then he saw an old man hiding papers in a cabin near a river delta. One last insistent hissing, a promise of more drugs than his wildest dreams could encompass, and the dream ended.

His hand clutched the orange. A rat was biting his left thumb, contesting him for the garbage. Without even thinking, he skewered it with the knife in his other hand. Ida was sitting up and staring into his eyes with knowing purpose and understanding. Then Dom remembered that, although Brazilian, her patron was Erzuli of the Moon. He returned her stare as he broke the orange into rough halves. Their meal complete, they both arose with one accord. They would need three things. First, a lot of money—as much as they could get as fast as they could get it. Then they would need enough drugs to keep them going and free from withdrawal until the task was completed. After that, they knew they would have all the drugs they would ever need for the rest of their lives. Lastly, they would need a car dependable enough to carry them all the way from Miami to New Mexico, with a short stopover in one of the southern states first. They were certain of obtaining these things, for they had been promised they would. Nor did they scruple over methods. Ida would sell her body in the alleys, unless a man were foolish enough to approach her alone. Then she would help restrain him as Dom used the knife from behind. Ida would have all the money by the time the body started to fall, and together they would carry it to concealment in some refuse heap—sometimes laughing at the amazed looks on the faces of the corpses. Strange how they rarely ever raised a hand or even cried out. It was as if they were ashamed of anyone knowing they were dying in this manner. The risk was exciting, but now it was tempered by harsh necessity. No more lazing and ‘living off the land’ to support their habits only. They must move quickly. They must take risks they had never taken before. They would kill drunks and passersby. They would kill hookers and their pimps. They would even kill dealers and their clients. Then they would buy a car. No sense in taking unnecessary risks. Far easier to hide a thousand corpses than to hide the computerized story told by the wrong license plate.

Now they stood outside the dumpster, ignoring their squalid surroundings and trying to sense the subtle messages of the night around them. Dom was taller and darker than Ida, with shaven head and a gauntness of face and limb that contrasted sharply with her alluring curves, long wavy hair, and caramel complexion on a face of almost angelic innocence. Dom’s knife was back in his leather gris-gris bag strung to the small of his back by a chain around his neck. On silent feet, they stalked off together to achieve their goal. A passing car radio encouraged them, in snatches, to walk on gilded splinters.

CHAPTER ONE-A

Mesa Reprise

Tim was driving the jeep as Charlotte and Ginger rode in the back. All three were weary and dust-covered, but their uneasiness was slipping away rapidly as the vehicle put miles between them and the mesa. Tim concentrated on the road. Charlotte’s mind obsessively projected the article she would send in to Good Magic Only, a monthly new age/pagan publication read by anyone who mattered in the mainstream of the occult.

If there was anything to be gained by being associated with the ‘hidden’ underworld, her article on divination concerning the events of the evening should bring her an answer. With any luck at all, among the fan letters from the lunatic fringe would be at least one nibble from a passive male flunky for a major corporation. He might even be in a field in which she was interested, and she would be more than willing to use his timid, adoring face as a stepping stone to higher things. After all, the occult was just like anything else she had ever done for herself. First, you research what you are getting into—to see if it is worth it. Then you do the footwork and put in the time and effort necessary to be recognized in that particular endeavor. Fortunately, the occult wasn’t too demanding on this part. The main ingredients seemed to be some claim (however nebulous) to pseudo-legitimacy, witnesses (hence the two bimbos, although she was quite willing to pass contact information along to them, as well—as long as it was useless. After all, loyalty always looked good to a potential business associate or employer), and a flare for drama (like the atmosphere and climb at Golf-Tee Mesa in the wee hours with a full moon over the desert floor). Add the time-honored, more than pseudo-legitimate ouija board, and voila—instant acceptance. All she had to do was announce their ‘findings’ to the world, sit back, and wait. Her upper lip curled vindictively as she thought of what she had narrowly prevented earlier that evening. Too much drama. No witnesses. Police reports. Angry parents. A non-receptive society forever after. Her next endeavor would see her researching the people she used in it more carefully. Idiots like these could ruin everything in a heartbeat, although they all had their