The Descent

Parsifal  mentioned  several  other  events,  including  a  fire  at  the  Cambridge  Library housing the ancient Cairo genizah fragments.

'Gone,' he said. 'Burned to the ground. Defaced. Blown to pieces.'

'Those are all places we've  visited over  the last year.'

'Someone  has  been  erasing  our  information  for  some  time  now,'  said  Parsifal.  'Until recently  they've  been  small  erasures  mostly,  an  altered  manuscript  here,  a  photo negative   disappearing   there.   Now   the   destruction   seems   more   wholesale   and spectacular. It's  like someone's trying  to finish business before clearing out of town.'

'A  coincidence,'  said  de  l'Orme.  'Book  burners.  A  pogrom.  Anti-intellectuals.  The lumpen are rampant these  days.'

'It's no coincidence. He used us.  Like  bloodhounds.  Turned  us  loose  on  his  own  trail. Had us hunt him. And now he's backtracking.'

'He?'

'Who do you think?'

'But  what   does  it  accomplish?  Even   if  you   were   right,   he   merely   erases   our footnotes, not our conclusions.'

'He erases  his own image.'

'Then he defaces  himself.  What  does  that  change?'  But  even  as  he  spoke,  de  l'Orme felt wrong. Were those distant sirens or alarms tripping in his own head?

'It destroys  our memory,' said Parsifal. 'It  wipes clean his presence.'

'But  we  know  him  now.  At  least  we  know  everything  the  evidence  has  already shown. Our memory  is fixed.'

'We're the last testimony,' said Parsifal. 'After  us, it's back to tabula rasa.'

De l'Orme was  missing  pieces  of  the  puzzle.  A  week  behind  closed  doors,  and  it  was as if the world had changed orbit. Or Parsifal had.

De l'Orme tried to arrange the information. 'You're suggesting we've  led our  foe  on  a tour of his own clues. That  it's an inside job. That  Satan is one of  us.  That  he  –  or  she?

– is now revisiting our evidence and  spoiling  it.  Again,  why?  What  does  he  accomplish by  destroying  all  the  past  images  of  himself?  If  our  theory  of  a  reincarnated  line  of hadal kings is true,  then he'll reappear  next  time with a different face.'

'But  with  all  his  same  subconscious  patterns,'  said  Parsifal.  'Remember?  We  talked about  that.  You  can't  change  your  fundamental  nature.  It's  like  a  fingerprint.  He  can try  to  alter  his  behavior,  but  five  thousand  years  of  human  evidence  has  made  him identifiable.  If  not  to  us,  then  to  the  next  Beowulf  gang,  or  the  next.  No  evidence,  no discovery.  He becomes the invisible man. Whatever  the hell he is.'

'Let him rampage,' de l'Orme said. He was speaking as much to Parsifal's agitation as about  their  hadal  prey.  'By  the  time  he  finishes  his  vandalism,  we'll  know  him  better than he knows himself. We're close.'

He  listened  to  Parsifal's  hard  breathing  on  the  other  end.  The  astronaut  muttered inaudibly.  De  l'Orme   could  hear   wind  lashing   the   telephone   booth.   Close   by,   a sixteen-wheel  truck  blatted  down  through  lower  gears.  He  pictured  Parsifal  at  some forlorn pit stop along an interstate.

'Go home,' de l'Orme counseled.

'Whose side are you on? That's  what I really  called about. Whose side are you on?'

'Whose side am I on?'

'That's  what  this  whole  thing  is  about,  isn't  it?'  Parsifal's  voice  trailed  off.  The  wind invaded. He sounded like a man losing mind and body to the storm.

'Your wife has to be wondering where  you are.'

'And have  her end up like Mustafah? We've said goodbye. She'll  never  see  me  again. It's  for her own good.'

There  was  a  bump,  and  then  scratching  at  de  l'Orme's  window.  He  drew  back  into his  presumption  of  darkness,  put  his  spine  against  the  corduroy  sofa.  He  listened. Claws  raked  at  the  glass.  And  there,  he  tracked  it,  the  beat  of  wings.  A  bird.  Or  an angel. Lost among the skyscrapers.

'What about Mustafah?'

'You have  to know.'

'I don't.'

'He  was  found  last  Friday,  in  Istanbul.  What  was  left  of  him  was  floating  in  the underground reservoir  at Yerebatan  Sarayi. You really  don't  know?  He  was  killed  the same day  a  bomb  was  found  in  the  Hagia  Sofia.  We're  part  of  the  evidence,  don't  you see?'

With  great,  concentrated  precision,  de  l'Orme  laid  his  glasses  on  the  side  table.  He felt dizzy.  He  wanted  to  resist,  to  challenge  Parsifal,  to  make  him  retract  this  terrible news.

'There's  only one person who can be doing this,' said Parsifal.  'You  know  it  as  well  as

I do.'

There  was a minute  of  relative  silence,  neither  man  speaking.  The  phone  filled  with blizzard  gales   and  the   beep-beep   of  snowplows  setting   off  to  battle   the   drifted highways. Then Parsifal spoke again. 'I know how close you two were.'  His  lucidity,  his compassion, cemented the revelation.

'Yes,' de l'Orme said.