The Seal of Solomon (Alfred Kropp #2)(29)

“What if I need to scratch my nose?”

“Does your nose itch?”

“No, but just in case . . . I’m not sure I remember your name, ma’am, but your face is familiar, or at least this fuzzy image I’m getting of your face. Where am I?”

“You are in Company headquarters, Alfred.”

“What company?”

“OIPEP. Do you remember OIPEP?”

“Should I?”

“You should, though you might not wish to.”

“Oh, well, I’d rather not remember anything I don’t wish to. Who’s the big guy standing behind you?”

“His name is Operative Nine.”

“Weird. Why am I lying in this bed? Am I sick?”

“You have suffered . . . an attack.”

“Like a seizure or something like that?”

“Something like that.”

The lady called Abigail Smith smiled. She had very bright teeth. Mom always said you could tell a lot about a person by their teeth.

“Where is my mom?”

The lady glanced at the weird guy she called Operative Nine. “Alfred,” she said. “Your mother passed away four years ago.”

“She did?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I’m supposed to know that, right?”

“We’re hoping your memory will return in time.”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

The big guy stepped forward and I said, “You’re probably the ugliest man I’ve ever seen in my life. What’s the deal with the long earlobes?”

He didn’t say anything. He just smiled.

“Your teeth aren’t as nice as Dr. OIPEP’s here. Are you both dressed in black because my mom died?”

“Alfred,” he said. “I’m going to say a name to you now and I want you to tell me if you recognize it.”

“Perhaps this is too soon,” Abigail Smith said to him.

He ignored her. He bent very low over my face and whispered, “Alfred, the name is Paimon.”

My arms jerked in their bindings. My fingers clawed at the metal poles of the bed, trying to reach my eyes. My mouth came open but no sound came out: the howl stayed locked inside my head. My gut heaved and I vomited greenish brown puke onto the crisp, white pillowcase.

Abigail Smith sighed. “I told you it was too soon. Get somebody in here to clean this up.”

He left and she was leaning over me, cupping my face in her hands, forcing me to look into her eyes. Her breath was sweet-smelling, like licorice.

“Alfred, Alfred, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right. Stay with me, Alfred—I won’t let you go, I promise. I won’t let you go. Focus on my eyes, Alfred, my eyes. It can’t find you now, do you understand? Do you understand me, Alfred?” I nodded. I slowly relaxed, but the smell of my own puke was getting to me. She let go of my face long enough to grab a towel from somewhere. She lifted my head and wiped the pillowcase clean, then flipped the pillow over, puke side down. Then she lowered my head.

“You’re safe now, Alfred, perfectly safe. It’s not here.”

I shook my head. “You’re wrong. It is here. It’ll always be here.”

26

The big guy with the long earlobes came back with a fresh pillow, a man in a white lab coat right behind him.

“Another doctor,” I said. “Great. How sick am I?”

Abigail Smith pulled out the pukey pillow and Operative Nine slid the new one under my head.

The doctor took my pulse and prodded my torso and stared into my cavities with a penlight. He measured my blood pressure and drew some blood. Except when he shone the light into them, he avoided looking into my eyes. He nodded to Operative Nine and left the room without a word. Abigail Smith came back to hover over me. I looked over her shoulder at the droopy-eared Operative Nine. “What’s his story?”

“Op Nine is a demonologist, conversant in history, characteristics, classification, and possession. Best in the field.”

“So that’s why I’m here—I’m possessed?”

“Not precisely,” he answered. “You have been—pried open. You cast your eyes into the very windows of hell, Alfred. Not the fabled or poetic visions of hell, of fire and brimstone and souls writhing in eternal agony, but the true vision of hell: the absolute and irreparable separation from heaven. What that experience is like I cannot say and hope you cannot remember.”

Abigail Smith said to him, “Alfred told me it’s still with him.”

“Perhaps it is,” Operative Nine said. “The Hiroshima bomb seared the very shadows of its victims into the pavement.”

“This is not good,” I said.

“On the contrary,” he said. “This is extraordinarily good.

You survived with your body and mind intact. That is more than can be said for the majority of our party.”

“Well,” I said. “Everybody’s definition of the word may be a little different, but seeing that my memory’s shot, I’m covered head to toe in bandages, tied down to a hospital bed, and talking very calmly about demons like they were the most natural thing in the world, like butterflies or Honda Preludes. I’m not sure I would call that intact.”