The Seal of Solomon (Alfred Kropp 2)

It came alone, three feet tall, wearing a pointy red cap, a green shirt, blue suspenders, and brown shoes, with a smile frozen on its face, and I knew without knowing how I knew that this was the same creature that had posed as Mike’s mom and my mom. The same eyeless creature that had blocked my way out at the front door.

I held up my hands.

“I’m unarmed!” I called over to it. It stopped about fifty feet away and cocked its little gnome head at me.

“I’ve had enough!” I continued. “You win. I’ll get you the Vessel, but you gotta stop harassing me like this!”

I paused, waiting for the gnome to say something. It didn’t.

“Just tell me where to find you once I have it.”

The lips didn’t move; I heard the voice inside my head.

Meet us at the gate.

“The gate?” I shouted. I wasn’t sure why I was shouting.

“What gate?”

The gateway to hell. The devil’s door.

“And where’s that? Where’s the devil’s door?”

Two days, Alfred Kropp.

“Two days or what?”

It didn’t answer. It didn’t need to. Op Nine had already told me: They will consume us.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. But I’m not sure where—”

And then the gnome disappeared, vanishing with a loud pop! and I was alone on the highway.

Well, not completely alone. I took a deep breath and hopped back into the car. Op Nine hadn’t moved, but his jaw muscles were working overtime and his eyes were rolling behind his charcoal-colored eyelids. Maybe he was dreaming. I had hoped I was dreaming back in the Arnold house, and that’s what will get you in trouble. Not the hoping. The dreaming.

41

I managed to get us off the interstate and back to the Drake in one piece. It wasn’t easy. The highway was littered with chunks of asphalt and abandoned cars, and once I got off the interstate I inched along, weaving through a massive traffic jam, every street clogged with cars and bicycles, and people dodging between them carrying suitcases. I passed broken storefront windows and could see people milling about inside, looting.

I didn’t see any valets in front of the hotel, so I double-parked about two blocks away. The wind howled and swirled and little flecks of burning ice stung my cheeks and I worried one would land in my eye and blind me. Op Nine’s head lay in the crook of my neck as I dragged him into the lobby. Nobody paid any attention to us because the place was crazy, the front counter packed ten people deep and cell phones ringing and people mingling about either talking very fast or talking not at all but walking around with dazed expressions, and I thought, Hang on, people, ’cause you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Back in our room, I threw Op Nine on the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. He was shivering pretty badly, muttering under his breath, and his right eyelid twitched. I’d figured out by this point what was wrong with him, so I grabbed a towel from the bathroom, rolled him onto his side, and tied his hands behind his back. The towel was too thick and the knot too big to hold him for long, but it might give me a few seconds to get to him once he woke up.

Then I searched his pockets.

A handkerchief, a travel-sized plastic bottle of Visine, nose spray, a comb, and a crucifix. Then I found his cell phone and clicked through the address book. I highlighted the entry called “HQ” and was rewarded with a recording that all circuits were busy and to try my call again later. I didn’t have much “later” left, nobody did, but I slipped the phone into my pocket to try later or in case it rang.

I went into the main room and booted up the laptop. This time I tried to crack the code, but nothing worked, including such attempts as “SPA,” “NINE,” “9,” and “OUR FATHER.”

I went back into the bedroom and sat beside him.

“The phone lines are out,” I told him as he lay there, muttering and sweating. “I can’t get into your computer and we have forty-eight hours till they consume us. Well, more like forty-six hours. I know you’re hurting right now, but sometimes you have to suck it up and just push through. Take it from me; I’ve done more sucking it up than your average NFL quarterback.

“I need the access code to your computer, Nine. We’ve got to get in touch with headquarters, let them know what’s happened, and come up with some kind of plan. It would also be helpful to know what and where the devil’s door is, and you’re the expert. I’m just a kid mucking around with these demons, and I’m losing my grip. I mean, I think I’m going insane. I’ve been having these hallucinations about killing you, so I’m starting to not trust myself when it comes to homicidal impulses. I’ve got to get a grip on this situation because right now it’s got a grip on me—both of us, I guess.”

He probably couldn’t hear a word I said. I got a wet washcloth from the john and wiped his face with it and shouted right in his ear, but nothing worked.

Back in the main room, I opened up the minibar (I figured we were traveling on the corporate tab) and ate a chocolate bar, drank a Coke, then brought a bottle of Evian back into the bedroom and dumped the contents over his hound-dog head. He still didn’t wake up. I felt pretty bad about doing that, so I fetched a towel from the bathroom and dried him off the best I could.