"I know how busy you students are, but it's often just these busy times when students need to take a break from the frenzy of the semester and refocus on something spiritual and calming. We have a surprisingly large congregation."
"Oh."
"I'd like you to have something."
Father Paul pushed something into Allen's hand. He looked down into his open palm and saw a velvet jewelry box. He opened it and saw a silver crucifix.
"That's a little welcome gift we present to all of our Catholic students," the priest told him. "We want people to know we're here and that we care."
Allen took the crucifix from the box. It wasn't small; it was heavy, maybe solid silver. Allen had a hard time believing they gave out one of these to every Catholic on campus. He started to hand it back to the priest. "I think this might be too much. I don't feel right."
"No, no, please don't worry," Father Paul said. "We pay for them out of the orphan fund."
Allen blinked.
"That's a joke, Allen."
Allen smiled weakly. "Sorry."
"There's no obligation," Father Paul said. "Why don't you wear it?"
"Well, I don't generally-"
"Wear it, Allen." The priest put a firm hand on Allen's shoulder, and an abrupt gravity descended upon the conversation. "You'd be surprised how such a simple gesture can bring... comfort."
Father Paul's firm gaze held him a second, and Allen's mouth fell open, speechless. What the hell's going on here?
Allen was about to firmly insist he didn't want the crucifix when a piercing scream split the night.
"Penny!" Allen dropped his wine and ran for the line of trees. He plunged into the woods along the narrow hiking path. "Penny!"
Thin branches slapped his face in the darkness. Allen winced but kept running. He turned a corner and smacked into somebody coming fast from the other direction. They both tumbled, went into the bushes. Allen stood, reached for the person with whom he'd collided, and pulled her to her feet.
Blanche threw herself on Allen. "Oh, my God, oh, my God." Hysterical. Gulping for breath.
Allen shook her by the shoulders. "Where's Penny?"
"My God, it's awful. He's dead. He's-he's been-it's-" She shook her head frantically, the sobbing coming back double.
He's dead, she'd said. Not Penny. Allen shook her again by the shoulders, thought about slapping her like he'd seen people do in the movies. "Who's dead, Blanche?"
Blanche made a new, even shriller, panicked sound, pushed away from Allen, and ran back in the direction of the party.
Allen followed the path in the other direction, but he didn't run now. His feet felt leaden. Fear sweat broke out on his forehead, and silver moonlight filtered through the thin canopy of leaves overhead. With Blanche's hysterical keening fading into the background, an eerie silence blanketed the woods. The bird chirps, the rustle of leaves, and the scurrying of squirrels had all been swallowed by the pall of dread that had suddenly sunk its claws into the landscape.
Allen stopped walking, his breathing coming shallow. He looked back over his shoulder.
No. Keep going. Penny is still out here someplace.
He made himself jog forward, his footfalls crunching leaves so loudly that the sound seemed obscene. A smallish clearing opened before him, and he immediately saw the body lying on the ground, looking waxlike and unreal in the moonlight. Allen took three quick steps toward the body and froze.
The head was missing.
Allen approached more slowly, fighting down a wave of nausea. A bit of spine stuck out from the ragged neck hole, as if the head had been twisted off savagely and suddenly. Blood still oozed like raspberry syrup. A thick, wet coppery smell permeated the air. Allen didn't need the man's face to identify the body. The bomber jacket told the story.
Kurt Ramis, Blanche's loudmouthed boyfriend.
Allen briefly fantasized about Blanche flying into a rage at Kurt's infidelity, wrapping her arms around his neck, and wrenching Kurt's head free of his body.
Unlikely.
Who the hell could do such a thing?
Allen heard a rustling in the bushes to his left. His head jerked around to see, and his body froze. He heard it before he saw it, a breathing and snorting, and then the low growl. Something in Allen's bowels went watery.
It poked its head through the bushes. Eyes glowed like green fire; he saw a muzzle and pointed ears, red-brown fur standing out in spikes. A dog, an enormous dog of some kind, growling, drool dripping from gigantic fangs. No. Not a dog.
A wolf.
It was gigantic, dwarfed any wolf he'd ever seen at the zoo. It snarled, lips peeled back to display two rows of yellow teeth. It crouched low, and Allen could almost feel its muscles tense, the powerful creature poised to spring.
He remembered his grandfather saying never to run from a dog. They sense fear. Make eye contact. Back it down.
Allen very much doubted his grandfather's advice applied in this situation.
It's going to jump on me now. It's going to eat me. Holy shit, I've got two seconds to live what the hell am I going to-
Voices from back down the path, several coming toward him. A group, many talking in frantic voices.
The wolf cocked its head toward the sound, listened a split second, then turned tail and vanished into the woods, departing with impressive speed.
A mob formed behind Allen. A girl screamed. Allen recognized Father Paul's voice saying, "Dear God!"
A heavy hand on his shoulder. Dr. Evergreen. "Jesus, what the hell happened here?"
Allen's head was spinning, his gaze still fixed on the patch of bushes where he'd seen the beast. "I have absolutely no idea."
FIVE
Let us leave Gothic State University and its people and environs a moment, and let us travel across the country, across time zones, the Atlantic Ocean, to Europe, and a small cobblestone street in the Jewish Quarter of Prague in the Czech Republic.
A side note: An alarming number of people still refer to it as Czechoslovakia. It's a republic now. I digress.
The Jewish Quarter, or Josefov. Full of old-world charm and souvenir stands. Tourists simply went apeshit for old-world charm and souvenir stands, and nothing said "old-world charm" like a plastic replica of the Old-New Synagogue perched atop a plastic base with little Czech flags around the edges and a hole on one side for sharpening pencils. The Old-New Synagogue on Maiselova Street was the oldest in Europe still actively used as a house of prayer. The spiritual zeal of the Quarter was probably best expressed by a T-shirt that read, "Prague Oy!" and was available in all sizes at a nearby kiosk. In a narrow house next to a jewelry store, mere steps from this temple of worship, lived the disgraced rabbi, Abraham Zabel.
Zabel was something of a wizard, and he sold his occult powers to the highest bidder.
There was good money in this.
Zabel is about to entertain an unhappy client.
Let's watch.
Abraham Zabel sat at the old scratched desk in the small office of his Josefov house. It was going on evening, and the steady din from the street of hucksters roping in tourists had relented somewhat. He thought often of giving up the house for someplace quieter in the suburbs, but the Jewish Quarter was too perfect, too close to places he needed to visit, people he needed to stay in contact with for his business. The tourists would remain a minor annoyance.
He poured himself a glass of port and returned his attention to his journal, a combination diary and appointment book. On Thursday he had a demon banishing, but then he was free for the weekend. He relished the time off but was concerned that business had been slow. Well, no worry. It would eventually pick up again. It always did.
The dark arts were ever in demand.
He opened an intricately carved wooden desktop humidor and removed a thin cigar, lit it with a thin silver lighter. The humidor was carved with symbols from ancient Hebrew-various warding spells and protections. Zabel doubted the spells retained any potency, but the box looked nice, and it was convenient for the cigars.
A knock at his office door startled him. It meant someone had let themselves into his locked home. Zabel thought briefly of the small revolver in his bottom desk drawer but decided to leave it. He was well protected in the little office. Zabel was a cautious man.
He was about to tell his visitor to enter when the door swung open and a man entered. Zabel knew him: Pascal Worshamn, a client. He had bright blue eyes, alert and energetic, and a smooth pink face that made him look youngish, although the dusting of gray over his ears told his real age.
"Hello, Pascal." Zabel motioned to the small chair on the other side of his desk. "A seat?"
Pascal didn't sit. "We haven't concluded our business, Zabel."
Zabel spoke good Czech and passable German, but he'd been born in Brooklyn to Czech immigrants. Pascal was from some upper-crust place in London, so the conversation went on in English.
"I told you on the phone," Zabel said. "You get what you pay for."
"It didn't work."
Zabel sighed. "It worked as well as it could. It killed the wrong man, I admit, but that must be because Evergreen caused some distraction. He's not without his own skills."
"Can't you control the thing? Tell it to try again."
"It can't," Zabel insisted. "It was commanded to destroy itself after the kill. It wouldn't do to have a golem lumbering around attracting unwanted attention. It probably threw itself off a cliff into the ocean."
"Make another one," Pascal said.
"Pay me, and I will. You cheaped out the first time. You should have sent me along, to make the thing on the spot, so I could control the situation, allow for changes and surprises. My resources are not unlimited."
"Neither are the Society's." Pascal pulled a small automatic from his jacket pocket, aimed it at Zabel's chest. "I must insist the Society get its money's worth. You'll make another golem."
"Only if you pay me."
"I don't think you appreciate the implications of this 9 mm pistol." Pascal stepped forward, trying to appear menacing.
"Threats, is it? Fine, let's trade threats. You're not going to leave here alive, Pascal. That's my promise to you."
"Are you deluded? Drunk? Too much port for you, my dear Zabel. I'll draw your attention to the obvious one last time. I'm the one with the pistol."
"Shoot then."
"What?"
"Go on," Zabel said. "Shoot."
Pascal lifted the pistol, stood pointing it for five seconds. Ten seconds. A light sweat broke out on his forehead. The hand holding the pistol developed a subtle tremor. Pascal laughed, embarrassed and nervous. "I can't seem to pull the trigger."
"See the tapestry behind me? The paintings on either side of you?"
Pascal turned his head, looked at them. Abstract images with intricate patterns.
"The patterns are subtle, but woven into the mix are hypnotic suggestions reinforced by powerful spells," Zabel explained. "Right now, your subconscious is being told that I am your best friend in the world and that you would never harm me. Every second you look at the pattern, the subliminal command grows stronger."
Pascal jerked his gaze away from the painting, redoubled his efforts to shoot Zabel.
"It's no use, Pascal. Even a glance is enough."
"This isn't over, Zabel. The Society won't stand for it. They'll dog your every step."
"Lars!" Zabel raised his voice. "Lars, come here."
The floor shook with heavy footsteps. The thing that appeared in the office doorway made Pascal wince and step back, a surprised gasp leaking out of him.
The wooden man was six and a half feet tall, put together with mismatched pieces of wood. He smelled like pine. The face was an agonized grimace, wide, hollow eyes carved in dark wood, the mouth slightly open, the corner of a folded piece of parchment stuck out from between the thickly carved lips.
"Lars, please dispose of our friend Pascal."
The golem advanced on Pascal, who screamed and backed against the wall. This time the pistol fired. Pascal squeezed the trigger until he emptied the magazine, the shots scarring the golem's chest, woodchips and splinters flying.
The golem didn't flinch; it grabbed the wrist of Pascal's gun hand and twisted. Snap. Pascal screamed again, and the gun fell to the floor. One of the golem's powerful arms went around Pascal's neck. The man squirmed and tried to pull free, panic aflame in his eyes. "Zabel, please. Zabel!"
The golem squeezed with one arm, put a gigantic hand on top of Pascal's head, and twisted. Pascal screamed in raw agony, and the golem twisted again and pulled. A wet snap and a crunch. Pascal's body went limp. The golem continued to wrench at the head, Pascal's limbs flopping around like a rag doll's.
With a final, mighty tug, the golem pulled off Pascal's head with a wet pop. Blood sprayed.
Zabel looked at his servant, who was cradling the head in the crook of his arm like a football. Perhaps he'd been hasty. Information was never a bad idea. Zabel took a large serving tray from his small closet and set it on his desk. He instructed Lars to set the head there. "Clean up the body in the usual manner, please, Lars."
The golem threw the corpse over his shoulder and carried it away.
Zabel sat at his desk, facing Pascal's head. He pulled a small velvet bag from his desk drawer, spilled the materials in front of him. He took a polished, dark red stone and placed it into Pascal's mouth. He lit a candle, mixed some powders and herbs in a small bowl, then mumbled a few syllables and blew the mixture into Pascal's face.
The head's eyes fluttered and opened. "Wha hammpned?"
"Move the stone to the side of your mouth with your tongue," Zabel instructed. "You'll be able to talk."
"What happened?" Pascal asked. His eyes darted to either side. "Good God! What's happened to me?"
"Did you tell anyone else in the Society you'd hired me to construct the golem?"
"No," Pascal said. "I was ordered to eliminate Evergreen. That's all. How I went about it was my own business. Damn, why did I tell you that?"
"You're a Truth Head now," Zabel said. "You can't lie. Who ordered you to eliminate Evergreen?"
"Jackson Fay," said the head.
Zabel sucked in breath. Jackson Fay. The name was not unknown to him. A very dangerous spellcaster. "Why eliminate Evergreen?"
"I was told he'd persisted with unholy associations and would cause trouble if not handled. Fay did not elaborate. He simply trusted me to get the job done without going through the bureaucracy of a full Council vote."
Zabel's lip curled into a mocking grin. "It seems Fay's trust was misplaced."
"The Society will still be suspicious when I don't report in," Pascal said. "They have ways. They will find you and avenge me."
"Perhaps, but not anytime soon."
"What the hell is this in my mouth?"
"A bloodstone," Zabel said. "If you spit it out, you'll break the spell."
"Then I will spit it out and damn your spell, you son of a bitch."
"Go ahead. Spit."
Pascal shifted the stone from one side of his mouth to the other but didn't spit.
Zabel laughed. "You see? It's not so easy to give up life, is it? To resign yourself to oblivion. How we do cling to hope, we pitiful human creatures. Even now you're thinking there must be some way out of this, some way to reverse what has happened. Some do, in fact, spit out the bloodstone, but not you, Pascal. Oh no, not you."
"Damn you to hell, Zabel."
"Lars!"
The golem returned carrying a mop and a bucket.
Zabel said, "Before you clean up the blood, take Pascal's head to the cupboard with the others."
The golem scooped up the head, then carried it out of the room under its arm.
"This isn't over!" Pascal screamed back at Zabel. "Do you hear me, you bastard? I might just be a head, but I'll get you. I'll get you, Zabel. I'll see you rot in hell!"