Son of the Endless Night, page 44
The prisoner, still twisted from his efforts to be rid of the straitjacket, began to slide on his back up the basement wall, writhing and hissing. His nose seemed to disappear. His tongue, divided, flickered from his mouth like streaks of lightning. His eyes were so cloudy they were like pustular pits, sore spots of hate.
Edith watched this display with a pulse visible in the side of her throat but no emotion showing in her narrowed eyes.
"Yes," Edith said. "The Serpent. It's an old fear, never quite subdued. But I assure you, Zarach', you will not win with tactics like this."
The prisoner continued to writhe along the wall, now going sideways about three feet off the floor. The single light in the room had dimmed to amber.
Edith walked slowly toward the prisoner, who froze in place. Only his head, his abominable tongue moved.
"Edith," Merlo said warningly.
"It's all right," she assured him, not looking around. She studied the prisoner with an intensity that seemed to bring heat to her eyes, a glow of purity from which he cringed and hissed deafeningly.
Then he jumped off the wall, landing at her feet. His mouth opened wider, the jaws cracking from strain. Instead of a tongue a second head appeared, the head of a snake. The prisoner's body was rigid, the heart of him outlined stressfully against the naked chest wall.
The Serpent spoke.
"OPPOSE ME— AND I WILL TAKE HIS WRETCHED LIFE."
Edith continued to gaze penetratingly at the two-headed creature, one head scaly and luminous, the other distended and darkened by blood.
"I think not. He was not so easy to come by in the first place."
The body leaped from the floor and clung to a large rusty pipe overhead, hanging down toward her, the head in the mouth gliding to within inches of her face. She wouldn't flinch.
Edith and Merlo said together, "Richard's soul is of God, not of you!"
The Serpent responded with scornful obscenities.
"You are commanded by the Lord!"
More obscenity.
"Your powers are weak compared to His!"
"I WILL KILL YOU BOTH!"
"Obey the commands of God, Son of the Endless Night!"
The Serpent hissed, but futilely.
"Release Richard Devon, and leave him in peace!"
Instantly the Serpent's head exploded like flame from the mouth of a cannon and the body of the prisoner came crashing limply to the floor. Merlo rolled him over, with difficulty. He was rigid, out cold. After a few moments he began to breathe, and the color of life returned to his waxen flesh, slow-stealing warmth. His eyelids fluttered.
He looked up at the faces of the priest and the retired Queen's Counsel.
Richard Devon began to sob in terror and pain, as if he were still half stranded in a nightmare.
"Help me— help me!"
Edith kneeled and placed a spread hand lightly on his breastbone. Her eyes closed for several moments; she trembled. The heartshocks diminished.
"Help is here, Richard. But you also have to help yourself."
"I killed her. I killed Karyn. I deserve to die for what I did!"
Edith Leighton remained kneeling for several minutes longer, her right hand still on his chest, the other at his right wrist. His violated body found ease. Edith rose, a little staggered, a little grayer, as if she'd tired herself badly, draining a sink of pollution; her hands hung at her sides. There was a small frown on her face.
"There are worse crimes than murder," she said. "Murder was only the beginning."
85
Gary Cleves was on the telephone to Tommie Harkrider as soon as he had been told about the addition to the defense team. "Do you know who she is?"
Tommie chewed on an unlit cigar. "The name is familiar; I'll have to inquire of some of my barrister friends in London."
In forty-eight hours he had a full report on the former Queen's Counsel. After he'd heard all there was to tell of Edith Leighton, a certain bleakness set in. Gary Cleves against Adam Kurland in a courtroom was one thing. But when Gary stooped to seize the gauntlet and that battle-tough warhorse from the Old Bailey came cantering in, he would be trampled before he knew what hit him.
Tommie already was an appointee to the Haden County state's attorney's staff (of five) at no pay; ideally he knew he should be matched against Edith Leighton. But he knew also that Gary Cleves would never accept the implied insult to his competence. Gary was competent, all right: at assembling the facts and nailing them down for the jury like so many planks in a bridge. But this trial apparently would span some murky and uncharted waters before it was concluded. The jury would be asked to respond to matters that were purely theoretical, and the lawyer wasn't thinking only of psychiatric testimony. The ability to choose a jury that would be charged with reaching a momentous verdict, and directing it toward the right verdict, required the talents of (Tommie slighted humility in favor of the plain truth) a courtroom genius. Darrow. Nizer. Harkrider. And Tommie wanted it. His blood was surging. He would teach them all a lesson, while banishing the specter of demonic possession pleas from further trials. He was sincerely worried about what might happen to the already abused and overworked system of criminal justice in the United States if he didn't win in Vermont.
Gary, he felt, could be made to relinquish his chief prosecutor's role only if, somehow, he were overwhelmed by public appeal and sentiment in favor of his colleague Tommie. If, pretrial, his confidence was shaken to the point where he realized he didn't stand a chance of winning. It was monkeyshines time in Dayton, Tennessee, all over again; unfortunately just seven weeks remained before the scheduled start of the trial.
But Thomas Horatio Harkrider, friend and confidant of presidents, statesmen, and media kings, could call in favors; he was adept at exploiting those exploiters who created or enhanced popular opinion in this country.
A cover story in Time magazine might be an excellent way to start, Tommie thought; and he reached for his telephone.
86
Richard Devon sent word that he wanted to meet with his brother. They had had no contact with each other for more than five weeks.
The request made Conor unreasonably nervous. He talked it over with Gina but not with Adam Kurland or Edith Leighton. Gina said that he should go, as long as the jailers took pains to see that nothing potentially tragic could happen to Conor.
"And I'll be praying while you're there," she told him.
At the Haden County jail the ground rules were explained to Conor. Rich could not be removed from his cell. Conor must talk to him through the bars, and maintain an arm's-length distance from the prisoner at all times. He had ten minutes.
Rich was sitting on the edge of his bunk when the guards escorted Conor down the cellblock corridor. The guards withdrew to one end of the corridor and stood there, eyes on Conor.
"Hello, Conor," Rich said, not moving or looking up.
"You wanted to see me, kid?"
"Yeah."
"Tell me one thing. Are you alone in there?"
"It's me, Conor. It's really me." He showed his face to his brother then. And Conor felt a surge of happiness, looking into the younger man's eyes.
Rich's face trembled with emotion, pinched tight at the eyes and then at the corners of his mouth.
"Oh, Conor. I'm a dead man."
"No!"
"I want you to believe this. I don't know why it happened. I only wanted to help Polly. Well, it's done. And here I am. I miss you. I miss Gina and the kids. There's only one thing I want anymore. Maybe I'm asking too much."
"Tell me."
"I want your forgiveness!" And Rich began to sob, tearing at his hair in remorse, beating his naked heels on the concrete floor, rolling from one side of the bunk to the other.
Conor gripped the cell bars and was warned away by one of the guards watching him. He backed off, his own eyes streaming.
"Rich, you've got to hang on. We'll get you out of this."
"Oh, no. You can't. Because— you don't know him. I hope nobody else on this earth ever knows what he's like."
"Hang on, kid, hang on," Conor mumbled, chewing his beard.
"Forgive me, forgive me."
"I forgive you. I know God does too."
Nothing else passed between them. Conor stood staring at his anguished brother until one of the guards called time on him and he was compelled to walk away.
After what had amounted to a reunion with Rich at the jail, Conor went straight to Edith Leighton with tears of jubilation on his cheeks.
"He's not possessed anymore!"
Edith sat him down in her office at Kurland Bates Harpold and spent a quarter of an hour soberly trying to explain that this wasn't the case.
"Zarach' has simply retreated for a little while. There should be frequent periods of, let us say, remission, as we approach the trial. But Zarach' has not given up his hold on your brother. As long as this demonic entity is unbound, unexorcised, the protocol of possession must be observed. Zarach' is a monster of indescribable proportions; he is also a wily strategist, and we have begun the final phase of his hoped-for conquest."
"But— when I'm talking to Rich— the Rich I know— where is Zarach'?"
"With the two of you. Waiting. Perhaps testing you in ways you may not be aware of, looking for weaknesses to exploit. Think of a hurricane, swilling thermally on its own energy. Think of Zarach' as a primal force, but more devastating than anything wrought by nature: when conditions are right for him, Zarach' may easily possess a thousand souls in the blink of an eye. He will wait, because time as we know it is meaningless to him. He has all the time he needs or wants. But we have only a little time in which to stop him, in circumstances he will dictate."
"Do you mean the trial?"
Edith nodded. "Zarach' wants Richard to take the stand. And this your brother must do, or we have no case. Only Richard can tell us of the events that led up to the murder: his involvement with Polly Windross and the others of that unholy coven who drew him in so skillfully. This is the bargain Zarach' has struck with me. I may have Richard, but only if I can control him."
"Can you control Zarach'?"
"God only knows," Edith replied calmly.
87
Edith turned down two invitations to have dinner with Tommie Harkrider, pleading overwork, and accepted a third only when he showed up at her office with an armload of flowers, loosing salvos of extravagant charm. They were chauffeured to a French restaurant in a woodland setting rosy with dogwood and wild rhododendron in bloom, and had their candlelight meal on a porch that overlooked a gorge through which a millrace tumbled.
He was curious about the little sundial which she wore ornamentally; Edith explained its significance.
"The sundial is both light and shadow; it is cosmic, it is temporal; it is eternity, or the freedom from time; it is mortality, or the conquest of time. Our origins are Gnostic, dualist in nature, partaking of the cults of both Sol Invictus and the Essenes; a society that began in Alexandria in the first century A.D. and survived the tyrannies of Bishop Clement and the Council of Nicea."
"A highly mystical society, I presume."
"Mysticism is a thoroughly impractical state; it tends to enslave the mind. Unlike the Masons, the Pneure de Sion, or the Rose-Croix, we have a minimum of doctrines, no secrets to veil in metaphor. We have no vested interests, moral or political, and no member has ever aspired to kingship. We believe that the will of God is the supreme power of the universe, and the will of man is the supreme power on earth. Yet there is a force bound by law to continually attempt to subvert that will. The results throughout history have been epic and obscene. Masada. Languedoc. Byzantium. Is there a territory of this earth that has gone unravaged in its time? We believe, as did the Egyptians before Christ, in the positive power of the cross as a force of, and arising from, nature. Our sole ritual, if you want to call it that, is the ongoing work of prayer, which reinforces this power through community effort. I represent, shall we say, a focal point of that belief, and its underlying spirit."
"Plus, you happen to be a damned good trial lawyer." He twinkled. "I was told to watch out for you, Edith."
"I thought Mr. Gary Cleves was to be the prosecutor."
"Oh, he is. He will be. I've been working closely with the boy, and I like him. I have a lot of confidence in Gary."
"But more confidence in yourself. Quite naturally."
"That goes without saying. Experience is what really counts. The two of us, we've been around practically forever."
Edith said, pretending to be miffed, "I rather feel I should be on some sort of life-support system."
Tommie laughed. "Well, speaking of knighthood, and societies and all that, it must have been one hell of a chivalric impulse that brought you this far. I do understand it a little better, now that we've had this chance to talk. But I can tell you, the quest is hopeless." He shook his large uncombed head, a display of magisterial severity. "Hopeless, Edith."
"Why?"
"There is no way that boy is going to be acquitted by a jury, no matter what the plea. The people in this country are plain sick of rapes of justice."
Edith separated a small oyster from her seafood crepe, and cut it neatly in half with the side of her fork.
"Acquittal," she said, "may be the least important resolution of this trial."
88
Eleven days before the start of the trial, two events of significance took place. Time magazine appeared with a profile of Tommie Harkrider, which also included a lengthy indictment of the criminal court system in the United States, most of it from Tommie's viewpoint. The upcoming case of Vermont v. Devon received a page and a half of coverage.
And Gary Cleves, thinking to apprehend a prowler which turned out to be a raccoon, accidentally shot himself in the left foot with his Police Special.
He read the account of his misadventure in the local papers along with the Time spread on Harkrider while lying in a hospital bed after surgery to repair his foot. He was mentioned once, in the eight pages of profile in Time as "the able young prosecutor of Haden County." He was pictured on the front page of the Braxton Call (an old news photo) as looking somewhat dimwitted. His confidence, which had been slowly eroding since the appearance of Edith Leighton for the defense, now reached a crisis point of nonsupport. He would be out of the hospital in a couple of days but on crutches for five weeks, which would severely limit his mobility in a courtroom. It was clear that if he made any serious mistakes in his handling of Vermont v. Devon, then what Time and now the TV networks were hyping as the "most important and most closely watched trial of the century" would be lost. And it would be nobody's fault but his.
But how could he lose?
But if he did . . .
The gunshot foot developed an infection, which kept him in the hospital for another four days, with plenty of time to brood alone. His wife and a couple of aides came faithfully, so he was able to keep up with pretrial preparations, which were going smoothly. Tommie Harkrider had brought nine members of his staff to Vermont three weeks previously to assist the prosecutor, and by now they were doing almost all the work. Tommie had commissioned a telephone survey and learned that sixty-six percent of the people interviewed thought that Richard Devon was guilty of murder, and scoffed at the idea of supernatural intervention. He had hired, at a cost of sixteen hundred dollars a day, two professional "jury pickers" to interview prospective jurors. Gary's staff, all of whom were more than a little in awe of the high-powered talent that had moved in on them, had no complaints that would not have made them sound foolish and provincial. It was, after all, a very big case. Gary was informed that 337 representatives of the world's press had applied for credentials to the trial; the courtroom could accommodate only 150 spectators. Knox Winford had rejected live TV coverage for the trial, and banned still photographers.
Gary finally got out of the hospital, hobbling on crutches, and discovered that a media carnival had come trooping into town. Mobile television units were everywhere. He was interviewed on the steps of the hospital, outside his office, and in front of his home. His wife had already been interviewed twice, and had asked him if she could buy a couple of new dresses for the trial. Gary sat down with Tommie and tried to figure out what was going on, but he felt hopelessly left behind. His foot hurt and his nerves were frayed. He had slept badly in the hospital and had trouble keeping his eyes open, his mind focused.
"Won't all this pretrial publicity make it difficult to choose a jury?" he asked Tommie.
"In this instance I believe it will work in our favor. Awareness doesn't necessarily signify predjudice. I want every jury-eligible man and woman in the county aware of the great significance of this trial even before the voir dire."
That night Gary didn't sleep at all, and in the morning he arose to find that he had lost his voice.
His doctors, including a throat specialist, could find nothing organically wrong with his larynx. The condition was blamed on a side effect of the painkillers and antibiotic treatment he'd received for his foot. His voice might return in a day or two. Or it might take much longer.
"Gary," Tommie said, "don't worry. You've done a hell of a job on this case, your entire team has been incredible. I feel privileged to have this opportunity to carry the standard for you in court until you're well enough to handle it yourself. You're a fine young fella, and we'll win this one together."
Tommie was certain that Gary's problem was purely psychological, and one of the psychiatrists he had hired to examine the accused confirmed his hunch.
"Gary's self-image has been maintained by his success as a county prosecutor in what is essentially a rural area, where the cases he has prosecuted have not been particularly complex or demanding. He has serviced a mild paranoia by further refining his image in terms of the gun-toting, straight-shooting law and order figure, an aggressive champion of truth and justice. His childhood hero may well have been the Lone Ranger. Appear in the nick of time; do good for the world; vanish mysteriously into the comforting, shadowy realm of the psyche. The attention he has lately received has been like a very strong searchlight focused on that psyche. He finds it painful, potentially disastrous. It aggravates basic fears of incompetence and persecution by a belligerent and intimidating authority figure collectively known as the press. In the case of Vermont v. Devon Gary was handed a sword the equivalent of Excalibur: should he wield it with heroic vigor, he might then ascend to godlike heights. But Gary knows in his heart he is no hero. Symbolically he dropped the sword on himself by shooting off two toes of his left foot. By standing mute, abdicating all responsibility while maintaining an image of responsibility in the courtroom, he will have ample time to repair the psychological damage. The toes, of course, he can get along without, and a slight limp is often thought to be romantic."
