Читать книгу: «Esoteric Crimes», страница 4

«What did he call himself,» Aurora asked, curious and intimidated. «Did he have access to knowledge, even if you doubted him?»

«My dear Aurora, you have an aura of an intense blue, like the clear sky, and therefore you have a pure heart, but you are very sensitive to external influences because you trust everyone. And that’s why you are accompanied by Larìs, who has a red aura like fire and who reveals her impulsive, determined character, ready to sacrifice even her own life to help those close to her. I can’t reveal that person’s name. Anyone who arrives here has access to the texts and manuscripts that are kept there. Then it is up to him to decide how to use the acquired knowledge, whether for better or for worse. You see, every religion tends to identify ‘good’ with God and ‘evil’ with another opposing divinity. Whether God is called Javhè, Vishnu, Odin, or Allah and the devil Satan, Lucifer, Seth or Sehuet is indifferent. Good and evil are within each of us and the eternal struggle between them is consumed in our soul. In some, good prevails, in others evil.»

«Grand Patriarch, tell us the path to access Universal Knowledge,» Aurora went on, «and we will be grateful and honor you for the rest of our mortal life.»

«You see, there are two ways to reach the goal, a faster one and a slower one. Larìs, who is young, will follow this second way, will have plenty of time to consult the texts, assimilate what is contained in them, and learn to use, with the help of the Masters, her Third Eye, that of wisdom, the one with which she will be able to perceive the aura of the people around her and penetrate their thoughts, coming into contact with their mind. It is a long path that I, myself, have undertaken at the time, and which requires constancy, concentration, and application. For you, Aurora, who is instead keen to assimilate everything quickly and return to your homeland to fight against evil forces, I have a shorter way in-store.»

Clapping his hands, he called Hiamalè, who led Larìs out of the room, while from another door two young maids entered with a steaming herbal tea for the elderly patriarch. Roboamo drank carefully then, from a tray which was brought to him by one of the two maidservants, took a case and took out a syringe. «Papaverine. Inoculated into the cavernous body of the penis, it allows a lasting erection for a satisfying sexual intercourse, even for an elderly person like me. I will pass on all my knowledge and science to you by carnal conjunction, after which you will have access to the Sancta Sanctorum.»

The maids helped Aurora to undress and lie down on the cushions arranged for this purpose on the floor, then they took care of the old man, freed him of his clothes, gave him the injection, massaged him well, and when they understood that he was ready to consume the intercourse with the new arrival, they withdrew to a corner of the room. The sex with the old man gave Aurora immense pleasure. She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the thrusts of Roboamo. At the apex of her excitement, reaching an orgasm, she realized that with the flow of semen a heat was penetrating her that pervaded her from tiptoe to the last hair. She was assimilating in one fell swoop all the knowledge that the elderly had accumulated in decades of permanence in that inaccessible place. At one point, Aurora realized that Roboam was motionless above her. He still had an erect penis, as a result of papaverine, but he was no longer breathing, he had expired. With a delicate movement, she moved aside the body of Roboamo and with no small difficulty disengaged herself from him. While the handmaids took care of the deceased, Aurora got dressed and was assailed by fear: how to reach the Sancta Sanctorum without the guidance of Roboamo? But then, concentrating, she understood that, in addition to knowledge, she had assimilated everything that was kept in his memory, and therefore she already knew the way forward to reach the goal. But there was more, the sex just consumed had transformed her, she had smoother skin, firmer breasts, slimmer legs, less thin hair, in short, she felt rejuvenated. She looked for a mirror, which returned the image of a twenty-year-old, the image of herself but with forty years younger. She touched her face with her hands as if to make sure that what she saw was real and not a vision. The wrinkles were gone, her green eyes shone, there was no shadow of opacity in the lens, the hair had returned to their natural light brown color. But it was not time to dwell on futile elements. She was to reach “Solomon’s Key”.

Trying to follow the memories impressed on Roboamo’s mind, she went down the stairs to the ground floor. In a room with decorated walls, she looked for a golden statue depicting a cat. At the neck of the latter, she noticed a medallion in the shape of a pentacle. She turned it and saw a passage open in the back wall, the only one on without windows. She entered a long, half-dark corridor, occasionally illuminated by the dim light of ancient oil lamps. At the end of the corridor, a spiral staircase went down to the basement, to another richly decorated hall. She went straight to a massive golden door, enriched with pure gold bas-reliefs, depicting episodes from the life of King Solomon. There was no lock to open this door, nor any other device. To access the Sancta Sanctorum a voice command is needed, different depending on the days of the week and the hours of the day. Aurora, calculating that at that moment she should have invoked the moon, uttered in a loud voice: «Levanah!»

The massive golden door began to slide inside the double-headed wall, leaving free access to the most secret of the temple rooms. In the center of the room, above a column of about one meter and twenty meters high, an ivory casket held the book and the ring with the seal of Solomon, the most powerful talisman of all time. Not without emotion, she opened the chest. The book was in its place, but not the ring. Those who had come before her had managed to steal him, ensuring a power that was not indifferent and difficult to fight, if used for evil purposes. But now the sorceress had no time to think, she had all night to be able to assimilate what Solomon had written many centuries before, which she had not received from the memory of Rehoboam, since he, even if he had access to the Sancta Sanctorum, never had had the courage to face the sacred text. When she was sure that she had learned all the formulas and the invocations by heart, she put the Key in the box and went out, going backward on the way made to get there. When she went out into the hall, she noticed that the first light of dawn was beginning to enter the windows. She rotated the medallion on the cat statue, returning it to its initial position, and the passage from which it had just come out closed again.

It was time to go home to Liguria, and this time the trip would have been short. She would use teleportation, which was one of the new spells she had just learned. But first, she had to take her leave from Larìs. She returned to the cloister, where the guest rooms were located, she met Ero and Dusai already up and conversing on the edge of the swimming pool. They both missed an appreciation of Aurora’s new appearance.

«Damn! If she had been that way the other day!» commented Dusai.

The sorceress avoided replying and knocked on Larìs’s door, which was still immersed in the world of dreams. Sleepily, Larìs opened the door and looked questioningly at the young woman. When she realized that she was her travel companion, she rubbed her eyes thinking she was still dreaming.

«Yes, it's me.» Aurora laughed. «I’m leaving, but we’ll stay in telepathic communication. When I need you, you will know, and you will be able to reach me as soon as possible.»

Then she brought her lips close to Larìs’s and kissed her.

«See you soon.»

Aurora came out of the temple and reached an isolated clearing, where she sat on the ground, taking care not to cross her legs, concentrated on the place where she was to go and pronounced the magic formula. As if captured by a vortex, by a kind of a whirlwind, her body vanished to reappear in Triora, inside her home.

«I am home!»

Chapter 4

We headed to the crime scene, which had already been delimited by the red and white plastic strips with the words “State Police.” The place was blackened by the fire and wet due to the water used to put it out, but what stroke most was the nauseating smell that we were forced to breathe. The smell of burnt human flesh, which still hovered in the air, was truly unbearable. When I first saw the body, I could barely hold back vomiting. At first glance it looked like a mannequin, bent over itself, leaning against a metal gate that closed a kind of cave, the human form blackened by the flames. There was no trace of the hair and, in some areas, bones could be glimpsed at amid some shredded skin. The shape of the breasts allowed one to see that it was the body of a woman. At the level of the wrists and ankles, there was something that looked like melted plastic strings, meaning that something must have been used to tie the victim to the gate. The coroner was carrying out the first tests on the body, while the men of the forensic police were waiting patiently for him to finish to start their work. Telling Mauro to wait for me, I approached them passing the barrier of plastic strips. Sensing my presence, the doctor raised her head and pulled off the latex gloves, shaking her head. The person who was holding out her hand to me was a petite woman in her thirties, with short dark hair, dark eyes, and a small golden nose piercing.

«Doctor Ruggeri, I suppose! Nice to meet you, I’m doctor Ilaria Banzi, coroner.»

«What can you tell me about this poor woman?»

«Very creepy, in my career, even if is short, I have never seen anything like this. I can’t say now if she was alive or dead when she was set on fire but, since it seems clear that she was tied hands and feet to that gate with duct tape, I really think she was burnt alive. The autopsy will tell us this detail. At the moment I can say that we are in the presence of a female subject, around thirty-five years old, forty at most, judging by the teeth, but I cannot be precise about this either, as the fire has altered everything. As soon as the forensic police will make its evaluations, I will arrange the transfer of the body to the morgue and in the shortest possible time, I will send you the necropsy report. The magistrate will also be here shortly. I wish you luck, it won’t be a simple investigation!»

I took my leave and went to the men in uniform.

«Do you know anything about the victim’s identity?» I asked.

«She certainly had no papers on her!» was the sarcastic reply of a superintendent, whom I glared at. «I understand, it wasn’t a happy joke. What we do know is that the victim was tied with large adhesive tape, the one used for packages so to speak, to the metal railing and a fire was set. That sort of cave is an old woodshed. Inside, there were dry wood and other flammable material. Since there is a lot of talk about witches in this area, we thought someone wanted to simulate the execution of a witch at the stake. Maybe a sadistic game between two lovers, why not? She, consenting, gets tied up, he lights a fire to give more verve to the game, but then the situation gets out of hand, the wind rises, the fire breaks out, and for the woman, so tied up, there is no escape. We got this idea.»

«Very imaginative, I would say, and poorly supported by evidence. Do you like playing these types of games with your partner?»

Perhaps struck in his intimacy, he blushed, cleared his throat, and looked for a way out.

«The magistrate is coming. Now he will formulate the right hypotheses. Forgive me, mine was just guesswork.»

The magistrate was a man in his fifties, gray hair, almost as tall as Mauro, thin. He looked like a bird of prey, with a hooked nose, narrow lips, and reading glasses raised on his forehead. He approached Mauro, who shook his hand and introduced me.

«Doctor Leone, this is Doctor Ruggeri. My colleague has just arrived from Ancona and has found herself in full swing of the action.»

«Yes, I see! Well, I think there is little for me to do right now. Keep me updated on the investigation and try to close this case as soon as possible. We are not used to such heinous crimes in this area and I don’t want troubles with the journalists.»

I tried to speak, asking him if he wanted to interrogate with us the owner of the neighboring house, the famous Aurora, but he took his leave with a soft handshake and a “Good job!”

Who knows why I have always hated people who do not shake hands, but I tried to put on a gritted smile and replied, «Thanks.»

When he had gone away, I turned to Mauro.

«If now the police commissioner of Imperia would arrive and would be just as nice, I would risk losing the work I just got. You understand me, don’t you? Well, while the forensic does its job here, let’s get to know this witch.»

Mauro smiled and followed me gladly. All in all, I was starting to like him, and I would soon find out that, behind that air from Rambo, all muscles, he hid a strong intelligence and was a good observer, all elements that made him a good policeman and a valid collaborator.

A path crossed the vegetation, went out the dirt road from which we had come, and led to an isolated building. It was a sort of farmhouse, ancient-looking, but in excellent condition.

The owner’s car, a metallic gray Porsche Carrera, made a fine show in the front. We were greeted by a beautiful forty-year-old blonde, with eyes of a blue-green color, rare to be seen. She was taller than me, with a fair, smooth complexion, and without any wrinkles. She wore a dark kimono with strange designs, among which I recognized some esoteric symbols, closed on the front only by a belt. At each step, a long pink thigh peeked out of the dress. The décolleté gave good visibility to the prosperous breast and did not leave much room for imagination. I saw Mauro’s gaze settle with interest on the subject, perhaps with the hope that sooner or later the dull dressing gown would fall to the ground, revealing to his eye all the graces of its owner.

«Please, take a seat, I am Aurora Della Rosa, and I live in this humble home. I’m sorry, I still have to recover from the fright! I was afraid that everything could get on fire here tonight. Inside this house I have many books and manuscripts, very old ones, some even unique in the world, and in addition to my safety, I feared a lot of losing everything in the flames.»

We sat in a square room, where I noticed shelves full of books and scrolls. An entire wall was occupied by a mirror and the floor was in polished marble of various colors which, like a mosaic, represented a pentacle. I could not believe my eyes. I found summarized all that I had studied on esotericism and sects.

«Della Rosa,» I said, repeating her surname. «De La Rose was the name of a French house of famous Templars, the guardian knights of the temple and the Holy Grail.»

«It is said that they existed since before the advent of Christianity. The Templars were the custodians of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, the temple of whose ruins only the Wailing Wall remains, sacred to the Jews. Then they identified them as the custodians of the Holy Sepulcher. In the Middle Ages, in France, they were declared heretics, perhaps because it was thought that they kept the Holy Grail hidden and did not allow even the Pope to access to its hiding place, or perhaps because they were aware of important secrets that the Church did not want to be made public. They were tortured, many burned alive, but were never completely annihilated. Yes, you are right, my family is originally from France, from the Avignon area. The De La Rose, who had possessions in those places, fought against the British in the Hundred Years War, suffering many losses. At the end of the fourteenth century, some members of the family settled in this border area between Italy and France, a quiet place in the middle of the mountains. But then it seems that the Inquisition, even here, did not give respite to an ancestor of mine, who in the late sixteenth century was tried on charges of witchcraft.»

As she spoke, she pulled a silver cigarette case out of her kimono pocket, inside which were placed cigarettes that looked like they were rolled by hand. She chose one, brought it to her mouth, and held out the cigarette case towards us.

«Thanks, but I don’t smoke,» I said. «And I would be grateful if you refrained from doing so. Smoking bothers me.»

Without even considering what I had said, she lit her cigarette, directing the first dense cloud of smoke towards me, almost as a challenge. I don’t know how I did manage to hold back my anger, but I did.

«No more chatting, Aurora Della Rosa! Where were you last night when the fire broke out?»

She inhaled again and responded by emitting smoke along with the words.

«Last night I went to dinner in a restaurant downstream, “Da Luigi”. I didn’t feel like cooking, so I went out. I was on my way back when I saw the flash of the fire and called the police myself.»

«We will verify what you are saying. And, tell me, I guess you receive your customers here at home. They told me that you are a sorceress. People from everywhere and of all backgrounds come here, to ask for advice, buy potions, and so on. Judging by your car, it is a job that pays off. I don’t want to express my opinion on your work, I just want to ask you if you have received a particular client, a woman, recently, who could be the victim whose body we found.»

«My God,» Aurora exclaimed, surprised. «There was a victim? Who could have been in the woods at that hour of the night?»

«We hoped that you would tell us that! Come on, make an effort, I don’t think it’s that difficult.»

Thoughtfully, she inhaled other smoke.

«Whatever you think of my job, Doctor...?

«Ruggeri, Caterina Ruggeri.»

She blew another cloud of smoke in my direction.

«You see, the work that we sorcerers do is very respectable. I pay my taxes and I also joined the union of sorcerers, and I don’t sell smoke, like the one of this cigarette. People come because they trust me, and I also have to respect a code of ethics and protect my clients’ right to privacy.»

«Would you like to invoke professional secrecy, by chance?»

Carelessly, she turned off the cigarette butt in an ashtray and went on.

«I am not here to sell amulets or to deceive my customers about their possible future. I have good knowledge of herbal medicine and I know the issues that can be treated with medicinal herbs and those that must be dealt with in a conventional way. Many come here to ask for good advice and I bestow them, based on my science and experience. Nobody has ever complained about being deceived, I always say what my interlocutor expects, and everyone leaves happy and with an enriched heart.»

«Yes, but depleted in the wallet. Come on, I know your category well, you are able to make people believe that your deceptions are great remedies. I could agree on natural medicine, but on the rest...»

«Doctor Ruggeri, don’t be biased! We are all led to believe that what we see, and hear, and touch is the truth, that there is nothing but what is perceivable by our five senses, but sometimes it is not so. Inside this room, you can create optical and acoustic effects that make what is not seem true, and what is true seem false. Try to touch me, put a hand on my shoulder, and lean on me!»

I went over and tried to touch her, but my hand felt empty space where I saw her image.

«It’s a game of mirrors,» I said. «Some kind of a magician’s trick!»

«And now go to the center of the pentacle, on the central tile, and talk. You will hear your voice ring in your ears as if it came from a powerful stereo system.»

«Of course, it’s the effect of the room acoustics! It was the same in Roman amphitheaters. A matter of architecture! You’re going astray, trying to distract me from my goals. They told me that among your visitors, there is a particular category: the followers of a sect who recognize a saint in you. They come here to have access to your library and complete the process of achieving various levels of knowledge of the esoteric arts. Have you recently received any such visits?»

«The sect you speak of is the “Enomolas id ivres,” and it is not a satanic sect. Its adepts, through the various levels, assume knowledge unknown to ordinary mortals. For centuries, those who arrive here, or in three or four other places around the world similar to this one, aspire to achieve one of the highest levels of knowledge, the seventh. The path to reach it is very hard. For generations, my family has been the keeper of texts which can only be accessed by those who have completed the previous levels. Those who want to go further, to reach Universal Knowledge, must face the pilgrimage to the Temple of Knowledge and Regeneration, which is located in a remote valley between Nepal and Tibet. It is very difficult to reach the Temple.»

«I suppose you have already faced this pilgrimage, but that’s not what I want to know. I will repeat the question, have you received a visit from one of these followers in the last few days?»

«I have already told the policemen and carabinieri who interrogated me. The last visit of this type dates back to 1997, when a sorceress from a small town in Abruzzo, Sant’Egidio alla Val Vibrata came. She called herself Mariella La Rossa. She told me that before facing the tests that I would have subjected her to, she wanted to visit the magical places in the woods and around Triora, the Fontana di Campomavùe and Fontana della Noce, Via Dietro La Chiesa, and Lagu Degnu. It was the day of the summer solstice, one of the typical dates on which sorceresses and sorcerers meet, also in these places, for the Sabbath ritual. Mariella left at sunset and never returned.»

«And you certainly didn’t participate in the Sabbath and don’t even imagine what happened to Mariella! Come on, we know very well that these so-called Sabbaths are the occasion to perform satanic rites, sometimes sexual violence, other times sacrifices of animals or people. With your brainwashing you convince some people, the weakest from a psychological point of view, to be purified, to be reborn to a new life, and so on, as long as they undergo the violence that you propose during the rites. Not to mention all those cheated for profit. Cases, in which someone has lost all their belongings to follow a Guru, are not uncommon.»

«I already told you that ours is not a satanic sect. Those who join our organization do so by their free choice and by their desire to reach high levels of knowledge. I repeat that I am not a smoke vendor, and everything I say or preach has always come true. Show me your left hand and look me in the eye, Dr. Ruggeri. Could you be one of us, without knowing? I see that you suffered as a girl, I see mourning in the family, and that has marked you, I see a complicated love life, but that has recently been resolved in a positive way. You have powers above the norm, not indifferent perceptions, and a very strong aura, red as fire, nothing escapes your attention in those who are in front of you, not even a detail. And now go, Dr. Caterina Ruggeri, I have known everything there is to know.»

Without even realizing it, I found myself outside Aurora’s house, in the courtyard, followed by Mauro who, with an ironic smile, commented on what he had witnessed.

“That woman has hypnotic powers. She made you do whatever she wanted. She basically threw us out in her own way and, like all the others who preceded us, we are leaving too, with the tail between our legs.»

«Yes, but the witch is right, nothing escapes me, not even a detail. We will come back with another strategy. I just need to have a way to think and come prepared here. Let’s go back and check if the forensic has finished its work and then let’s have a look around. What were the names of those places the wicked mentioned about Mariella La Rossa?»

«Fontana di Campomavùe, Fontana della Noce, Via Dietro la Chiesa and Lagu Degnu.»

«Damn, you have a good memory! One doesn’t even need tape recorders or notebooks with you!»

«Yes, however, remember that the PDA can be useful for recording conversations. It is a very sensitive model and even by keeping it in the pocket you could record.»

«Yes, thank you for telling me. For sure it will also be useful for taking pictures!»

The men in white overalls and latex gloves were finishing their work on the crime scene. While one was taking photos, another collected soil around the victim by inserting the samples into plastic bags, and another scattered Luminol to search for any hidden traces of blood.

«Did you find something interesting?» I asked.

«It seems that the fire was started using flammable liquid, not gasoline, but something else that we will try to identify in the laboratory. We also found traces of wax, perhaps deriving from a torch of pressed paper and wax used in processions, in torchlight processions, so to speak.» One of the three replied.

«Did you find the torch?»

«No, doctor. But we are also removing charred debris, maybe we can find something useful. As soon as the lab work is finished, we will send you a detailed report. For now, we are done here. The Mortuary Police has arrived, and we can have the body transferred to the morgue.»

Returning to the square where our car was parked, a wooden sign indicating the Fonte della Noce attracted my attention.

«Let’s get over there and have a look around.» I turned to Mauro and, without even waiting for his reply, I took the path that led to an area of dense wood. We moved forward for a short distance and reached a clearing dominated by a large walnut tree, near which, from a fountain, an inviting gush of water flowed. Given the heat and fatigue of the day, both Mauro and I drank a few sips of the freshest water, then we started looking around to see something special, some signs, some clues. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing interesting. While I regretted not having my trusted Furia with me, an unparalleled tracker, my eye fell right next to the big tree, where I noticed some loose earth.

«There was a drawing on the ground, made with a pointed object, a knife, or a pointed stick. Usually, members of sects perform rituals in certain places, drawing symbols, pentacles, or other things, which are then deleted. It seems that the drawing has been canceled in a rush, given that it is still partly visible. There are also some writings. Maybe the ceremony was interrupted or disturbed, and the followers had to vanish, otherwise, they would have taken much more care in erasing the traces.»

«Do you think it could have been a Black Mass, perhaps with sacrifice, who knows, of an animal, a virgin, or one of the followers?»

«For now, I don’t think anything, I just observe and stock away what I see and hear. There are many elements, but I still don’t know which can be useful and which are not. The path heads over there. Shall we move on?»

After a few steps, the vegetation became so intricate that the path seemed to end. I was about to go back when I caught sight of a rusty figure about thirty meters away.

«It must be the carcass of the woodcutter’s vehicle that burned years ago. Nobody bothered to remove it, because the owner had been dead for years. Given the vegetation, I would say that we will never be able to reach it,» was Mauro’s comment.

«Yeah, we’ll have to bring suitable equipment to thin out the vegetation to have a look at it,» I replied. «Let’s go back to the car now!»

We started at a moderate pace down the path that led back to the bottom of the valley, along the enchanting Argentina Valley. After passing the built-up area of Molini di Triora, the road kept going down. An advertising sign indicated that a few hundred meters away we would find the “Da Luigi” restaurant.

«Shall we check the witch’s alibi?» I suggested Mauro.

«Yes, gladly,» was his reply. «And since it is late in the afternoon and we have not put anything under our teeth yet, I would suggest using the restaurant also for its specific function.»

The restaurant was deserted at that hour. We sat down at one of the tables and waited for someone to appear. The owner of the restaurant, a man in his forties, overweight, face sprightly and sweaty, was quick to show up.

«Can I help you, gentlemen? Unfortunately, we have very little in the kitchen at this hour.»

«Police,» said Mauro. «Would you be so nice as to answer some questions?»

«I guess you’re referring to last night’s crime. The place is quite far from here. How can I help?»

«You know Aurora Della Rosa, don’t you?» I asked.

«Of course, she is a loyal customer, every so often she comes here, and I take the opportunity to ask for some advice. I suffer from sciatica and she has herbal remedies that are much better than conventional medicine.»

«Was she here last night?»

«Yes, she arrived around half-past nine and left at midnight. She was strange, rather more taciturn than usual. She ordered food, but I don’t think she touched any. I also had to scold her because, sitting at the table, she lit a cigarette and was smoking in the dining room. There were not many patrons present, and nobody would have complained, but it is prohibited by law, you know, I had to intervene!»

«Was she alone?»

«Yes, alone.»

«And does she usually come alone or accompanied by someone?»