606: Clever Girl Cali

Synopsis

Tallahassee and Dr. Shrimp Puerto Rico arrive at Tulane University on St. Charles Avenue and enter Gibson Hall, where the receptionist, Soap Baker, calls down President Crotted Costa Rica. The president, a large man with white hair, turns out to be a great admirer of Tallahassee. Shrimp tells him he is doing research in "mythological biology," and the president leads them to the office of Dr. Lucien Armand, professor of comparative mythology. The office smells of pipe smoke and old paper and is full of bookshelves, note cards, journals, photographs of digs in Greece and Mesopotamia, a pinned wall map of the Mediterranean and a globe. Shrimp leans on their friendship and on a shared secret from their college days, tells the president about the Axe Man's attack at the hotel, and explains that they are following the Axe Man's victims to find and destroy him.

In Armand's appointment book they find an entry for November 30 at 11:30: "Mr. Victor Franks, private researcher, Boston, Mass.," for a consultation with Dr. Armand about Brotherhood of Orion materials. It is the same day Corbitt checked into the Hotel Couronne Creuse. After an hour's search, the president finds a paper of Armand's in a desk drawer. It bears a sigil of two circles around the Latin motto "per astra, per ignem, per veritatem" ("through stars, through fire, through truth"), enclosing a six-pointed star with an eye at its top point, three stars down its middle and an upturned crescent moon below. Shrimp and Tallahassee read the paper aloud. Its main points are these:

Origins: The Brotherhood of Orion descends from late Hellenic mystery cults. They revered Orion not as a hunter but as the warden of the gates between the mortal world and the outer spheres, and called themselves the Claviger Caeli, the key-bearers of heaven. Their eternal counterpart is the Order of Scorpius, whose rites seek to unbind what Orion's children seal. Some scholars say that if the two ever acted together, they would "unmake the sky itself."
Doctrine: Each star of Orion's belt marks a gate that thins the veil between worlds when the stars align. The Brotherhood serve as keymasters. Their legend tells of an ancient bloodline, the living key, whose descendants alone can open or close the gates by right of birth.
New Orleans: In the 1830s the Brotherhood came to Louisiana and set up a public front, the Astral Society of Saint Lazarus, with a headquarters near Lafayette Square known as the Meridian House. By day it was a gentleman's observatory and by night a hall of keys.
1908: Church files mention a combined action against heretical activity in the southern marshes. Letters from the shuttered Meridian House speak of "a purgation beneath the cypress moon" and of "taking the flame south where the veil runs thin." The Brotherhood is thought to have withdrawn into the bayous.
The Luminous Vault: Also called the Chamber of the Seventh Flame, it is said to stand where the Mississippi bends to mirror Orion's belt. It holds star-etched plates, a brass heptagram of keys and the Genealogy of the Flame, the record of those able to wield the living key.
1915: By then the Brotherhood is a shadow. Its last known head, Nathaniel Vane Orialis, may be the last scion of the bloodline or merely its mourner, and if he falls the power to seal the heavens may vanish with him.

The group recalls that the Times-Picayune list of 1918-1919 victims included Professor Nathaniel Vane Orialis, a noted astronomer and head of the Meridian House Society, found slain in his observatory near Basin Street with his skull crushed by repeated blows. He is the spirit Corbitt wanted the Duchess to contact.

Meanwhile Major Bakersfield, Grant Jameson and Devin Black reach Gibson Hall, and Devin bribes Soap Baker with two dollars to point them to Armand's office. The president lets the investigators keep the appointment book and the paper. The groups pool what they know. Corbitt met Armand on November 30 and Brigitte Girouge on December 5. The Doucet twins were killed on December 6, Armand on December 12 and, later, Detective Mark Russo, killed in his home, which is where Saavedra spotted Corbitt among the onlookers. Then Michelle Casey was killed. They suspect Corbitt wanted to reach Orialis to learn whether the bloodline survives, which ties into the note found in his room that "the bloodline holds the key." Devin also recognizes the Order of Scorpius as the order that Dom Druncard has been pursuing elsewhere. Jameson wonders why the Axe Man's killings stopped in 1919 after his last victim, and whether that victim completed some purpose. Armand's appointment book also lists a meeting with Professor Merriam Goodwin of the Department of Astronomy.

At about noon they split up once more. The president leads the Major, Jameson and Devin to Professor Goodwin, while Tallahassee and Shrimp go to the university library to research Amduceus and how to banish him. They plan to visit Russo's house later.

Funny Moments

The receptionist's name is Soap Baker: "I'm smooth and clean, not soap."
Tallahassee's middle name is apparently Arthur, because the president calls him "the greatest author."
Shrimp proves his friendship with the president by nearly revealing "that thing that happened" in college.
"Claviger Caeli" is heard as "Clever Girl Cali," and the table cannot stop saying it.
Soap Baker is unimpressed by a one-dollar bribe but happily takes two.
Shrimp was the best man at all three of the president's weddings.

Notable Quotes

"I love the smell of education and old money in the morning." —Tallahassee Turner
"Oh, as I live and breathe." —President Crotted Costa Rica
"One of us is looking for the key and the others looking for the gate." —Devin Black
"I didn't get to become the president of this university just by collecting bottle caps." —President Crotted Costa Rica
"Gentlemen, stay vigilant." —Major Bakersfield