Name of the Devil -  Andrew Mayne

Name of the Devil (eBook)

(Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB
2015 | 1. Auflage
432 Seiten
Faber & Faber (Verlag)
978-0-571-32763-8 (ISBN)
8,99 € inkl. MwSt
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West Virginia: A church congregation vanishes in mysterious circumstances, only to be found dead some miles away. The evidence on the ground appears to indicate a ritual killing and the work of demonic forces. Enter Jessica Blackwood, the FBI's specialist in all things unusual. A former illusionist, Jessica's talent and experience enable her to see what others cannot, as she proved in the infamous 'Warlock' case. Maybe now, once again, the devil will be in the details. Following the trail from West Virginia to Mexico and Miami, Jessica uncovers a deadly conspiracy that might lead all the way to the Vatican itself. Only with her unique understanding of the powers of deception can they hope to stop a ruthless killer from exacting a revenge that's been thirty years in the planning . . .

Andrew Mayne is the star of A&E's magic reality show Don't Trust Andrew Mayne, and has worked with David Copperfield, Penn & Teller, and David Blaine. He lives in Los Angeles. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram via: @AndrewMayne.
West Virginia: A church congregation vanishes in mysterious circumstances, only to be found dead some miles away. The evidence on the ground appears to indicate a ritual killing and the work of demonic forces. Enter Jessica Blackwood, the FBI's specialist in all things unusual. A former illusionist, Jessica's talent and experience enable her to see what others cannot, as she proved in the infamous 'Warlock' case. Maybe now, once again, the devil will be in the details. Following the trail from West Virginia to Mexico and Miami, Jessica uncovers a deadly conspiracy that might lead all the way to the Vatican itself. Only with her unique understanding of the powers of deception can they hope to stop a ruthless killer from exacting a revenge that's been thirty years in the planning . . .

lt;p>Andrew Mayne is the star of A&E's magic reality show Don't Trust Andrew Mayne, and has worked with David Copperfield, Penn & Teller, and David Blaine. He lives in Los Angeles.

He can be found on Twitter and Instagram via: @AndrewMayne.

1


YOU KNOW WHAT you have to do,” said the distant voice at the other end of the phone.

Sheriff Jessup nodded. Moonlight glinted off the cars parked in front of the small church: the Alsops’ rusted Jeep, Bear McKnight’s new pickup truck, Reverend Curtis’s Cadillac that had been a bequest from Elena Partridge when she passed. All of them were here.

He was here.

Jessup was a powerful man. Six-foot-three, weighing close to three hundred pounds, he was more muscle than fat. The teenagers and wise-asses in town gave him a wide berth. His handcuffs usually stayed on his belt. One grip of his iron fingers on your collar and you knew you were up against a force of nature.

The occasional fool who tried to outrun the sheriff found out the former high school football player who could sprint with the best of the track team hadn’t lost much speed with age.

Jessup walked up the stone steps to the church and entered the doorway. Adam Alsop turned in the pew where he was sitting next to his wife and watched with confusion as Jessup bolted the door shut.

“Carson?” asked Adam, calling the sheriff by his first name.

Natalie Alsop, with her gray hair pulled back in a bun and the same tired eyes as everyone else, froze when she saw the ferocity of the sheriff’s expression.

Reverend Curtis and Bear McKnight were huddled at the lectern turning the pages of the church’s oversized Bible.

“Christ,” McKnight said as he saw the sheriff.

Jessup walked first toward the Alsops. Adam was paralyzed with panic as the sheriff clenched his neck, thick fingers stabbing into his throat. His wife tried pulling at Jessup’s thickly corded arm, but was backhanded so hard her head cracked against the wooden pew, knocking her out cold.

McKnight ran toward Jessup to intervene. His heavy footsteps were the only other sound in the hall besides the gurgling noise coming from Adam Alsop’s mouth as he tried to breathe.

Reverend Curtis hurried to the back of the church, toward the fire exit he’d reluctantly installed after the fire marshal had demanded it. His frantic hands pulled at the crossbar. The door wouldn’t open. Something was blocking it from the outside.

Curtis turned back as Sheriff Jessup grabbed McKnight by the arms and bit into his shoulder, tearing away a mouthful of flesh. Even more shocking than the savage act was the cold dispassionate look in the sheriff’s eyes. It was the lifeless stare of a great white shark on the hunt. A predator that didn’t see another life, only something to be eaten.

McKnight screamed and dropped, falling next to Adam’s body. He tried to cover the wound with his hand, but the blood kept pumping relentlessly through his fingers until the cold, tingling sensation of consciousness fading overcame him.

Jessup kicked him aside and strode down the aisle dividing the pews. His boots left prints in the growing puddle of blood. Shreds of McKnight’s shoulder muscles and skin still hung from his mouth, his face misted with arterial spray.

“Carson … Carson,” pleaded the reverend. “I can help you. I can help you rid yourself of this … this thing.” He fell onto his knees, hands grasped over his head in prayer.

Sheriff Jessup looked down. “Rid me of the thing? Rid me?” His vacant expression broke for a moment. He grabbed the reverend by the back of the jacket and pulled him to his feet. “I am the cleansing fire! I’m the one ridding you of the evil!” Spittle flew from his mouth, a sputtering teakettle on the verge of exploding.

Reverend Curtis futilely kicked and punched. In an act of desperation he clawed at the large man’s cheek. But the deep gouges didn’t even faze Carson Jessup.

Jessup punched back, breaking the smaller man’s nose. He pounded again and again until the entire bridge collapsed, sharp fragments of bone embedded into his raw fist like pieces of coral.

The reverend fell to the ground in a bloody heap. The whistling sound of his breath through what was left of his nose faded.

Sheriff Jessup pulled the phone from his pocket. “It’s done.”

The phone had been dead for days, yet the sheriff heard a voice tell him, “Good, my son.”

He closed his eyes and waited for the fire to cleanse away the wickedness and evil.

On his knees, he folded his hands and thanked the guiding archangel for showing him a clear path. He thanked the Lord for the strength to do His bidding. He thanked God for bringing this long nightmare to an end.

*

WHEN THE EXPLOSION ripped through the church, a sleep-deprived grad student at the Seismology Lab at the University of West Virginia jerked upright in his chair, spilling his coffee as his computer sounded an alarm. His first reaction to the sudden spike was that there had been a plane crash, or a meteor strike.

The residents of rural Hawkton ran outside to see the source of the explosion and were horrified to see the huge ball of flame rise from the direction of the old church, a bright orange plume against a plum-colored evening sky. Some felt it was an end to the darkness that had enveloped the town. Others suspected that the darkness had only just begun.

*

A CONTINENT AWAY, Father Carmichael sat lost in thought as he studied a nineteenth-century letter from a cavalry officer serving in Napoleon’s North African campaign. The officer had found an inscription assumed to have been archaic Hebrew. The location of the inscription, Carmichael deduced, was now lost, very likely under a parking lot or apartment building. He turned the page, and as the paper disturbed the stale air of his basement reading room he noticed the smell of cigarette smoke.

Carmichael looked up and saw a man perched in the corner, watching him. Behind the orange glow of the man’s cigarette was a tan face worn with wrinkles, and intense, piercing eyes. Gray hair at his temples blended into blue-black. Dressed in a dark suit, suitable for a Brussels banker, he was clearly not a visiting priest. He had the presence of someone who cared little about smoke alarms or the effect the smoke had on old books.

How the man had been able to find him down here in the labyrinth was a feat unto itself. Carmichael liked the old reading room below the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze in Florence, Italy, because it wasn’t on any map.

He felt himself a kindred spirit of the man who had founded it some three hundred years prior. Antonio Magliabechi lived and breathed words. He was reputed to have read every one of his forty thousand books and been able to recall them in great detail, yet he paid so little attention to worldly matters that his threadbare clothes would fall apart on his body.

It was through this lens of history that French Lieutenant Chambliss was speaking to Carmichael, after a fact. The library’s surroundings gave him a different context to examine these letters. Touching them was like stepping into the past.

Like his hero, Carmichael could be entirely oblivious to the world beyond the page. He’d no idea when the man had entered the room, but attributed the apparition to his mindlessness and not any stealthy intent on the man’s behalf.

“You’re the Mandean scholar,” the man stated in English.

Carmichael had written some papers on the language and belief system of the ancient Gnostics of the Middle East. While he didn’t consider himself an expert, he wasn’t going to argue with his strange visitor. “Yes. I guess.”

The man nodded. He reached his hand inside his jacket and pulled out an envelope and placed it on Carmichael’s table. His raised eyebrow indicated Carmichael should look inside.

Carmichael slid the photograph out of the envelope. His cheeks flushed. Bottle-blond hair, a mischievous smile; he recognized the girl immediately. She was a friend of his cousin. A girl he’d met a few months ago in Austria. Carmichael had been drinking heavily that day. The innocent flirtation had turned into something more …

Shame wracked his guilt-trained mind. He’d confessed a week later, after much anguish. Not to his usual confessor, but to a priest in a small parish near San Marino. He didn’t fear divine wrath as much as he did the long ears of the Vatican.

“I …” Carmichael began, not sure where the words would lead him.

The man in the corner raised a finger and wiped away the words with a gesture. His large hand reached out and landed on the photograph, concealing it from view as he slipped it back into his pocket and away from Carmichael’s conscience.

There was something symbolic about the gesture. Carmichael vaguely understood there was to be no more discussion on the matter of the girl. He waited.

“Discretion can be a virtue,” the man said.

Carmichael nodded.

“You have mine, and I would like yours.”

“Of course.” Carmichael’s knee began to shake under the table.

The man reached into his other jacket pocket and removed a portable cassette recorder. He set it on the table next to Carmichael’s pad of paper and pencil.

“I need the words,” said the man. “Just the words. After the words, you’re to forget about this. Understood?”

“Yes …” Carmichael said, hesitantly.

The man’s stare lingered, turning Carmichael’s acquiescence into a verbal contract.

Carmichael pressed the play button and held the speaker to his ear. The voice seemed half asleep, or in a trance. The words at first sounded like Hebrew, but they...

Erscheint lt. Verlag 14.7.2015
Reihe/Serie Jessica Blackwood
Jessica Blackwood
Verlagsort London
Sprache englisch
Themenwelt Literatur Krimi / Thriller / Horror Krimi / Thriller
Literatur Romane / Erzählungen
Geisteswissenschaften Religion / Theologie
Recht / Steuern EU / Internationales Recht
Recht / Steuern Strafrecht Kriminologie
Recht / Steuern Strafrecht Strafverfahrensrecht
Schlagworte FBI • Illusionist • Jessica Blackwood • The Exorcist • The Mentalist • the pope • Vatican
ISBN-10 0-571-32763-X / 057132763X
ISBN-13 978-0-571-32763-8 / 9780571327638
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