Demon in Lace - Recap

It was Goethe who said, “We love girls for what they are.” Well, even the great Goethe could have learned something from the tale that took place on the campus of Illinois State Tech.

Late on the evening of May tenth Don Rhiner, star running back and possible All-American, is driving along when a young and very beautiful woman steps in front of his car. Rhiner stops to let the woman in. A few moments later they’re kissing, running along the lake and finally kissing passionately. Then Don sees what he’s really kissing – a thing with blackened flesh pulled tight over its skull, red rimmed eyes and a horrible toothless mouth, all crowned by a bird’s nest of greenish hair – still in the clothes of the hitchhiker. Don screams and screams…

The next day Carl is en route to an alderman’s press conference. Anticipating boredom, he detours immediately when he catches the report that two bodies were found on the IST campus. The police and medical examiner have gathered near the shore of the small lake where two bodies lie on the ground. One is Don Rhiner and the other is the young hitchhiker, once again beautiful. Carl overhears the coroner talking to Captain “Mad Dog” Siska about the similarities to another recent death. Rhiner’s horrified expression reminded the coroner of a similar expression on the face of the other victim, Burdett. The expression suggested the young men had been scared to death. Siska cautions the coroner to keep a lid on that detail.

About then Siska notices Carl on the fringes of the scene. The idea that Carl might have overheard his conversation sours his mood thoroughly. Adding to his misery is the presence of Rosalind Winters, reporter for campus weekly The Blue Monitor. She asks for a comment and Siska tells her she couldn’t print what he has to say. Then he escorts a man named Mark Hansen to a police car, gets in himself, and drives off, followed by Carl’s taunts.

Carl ran out of gas getting to campus so he enlists Winters to ferry him to a filling station. In exchange she demands Carl help her write her story. She offers a tidbit Carl didn’t know: Pete Burdett’s body was also found next to a dead girl. But she can’t offer much more and when Carl criticizes her she leaves him to walk the mile back to his car.

Back on campus Carl talks to the coach. Once again Carl misrepresents himself, this time as a representative of the “Coaches Association” there to research cases of unusual heart disease. The coach claims Rhiner and Burdett were in perfect health and that both had perfect EKGs. The coach’s theorizes that Rhiner’s playboy antics caught up with him and he succumbed to a disease.

That night, Craig Donnelly and Betty Walker return to Donnelly’s apartment after dinner and drinks. Walker drunkenly climbs the steps, misses one, and cartwheels back down to the first floor. Donnelly summons help from a pay phone. Behind him, Betty opens her eyes; by the time he’s done with his call, she has vanished. A powerful stench doubles Connelly over with retching coughs.

Elsewhere, archaeology professor and Pace Institute grantee C. Evan Spate and his assistant Mark Hansen attempt to tease meaning from a 10,000 year old clay tablet. Spate notices Hansen is still upset by Rhiner’s death and urges him to knock off for the evening. Spate continues to work, translating one particular symbol to mean “death.”

Betty Walker knocks on Mark Hansen’s door; she tells him she wanted to meet him and didn’t know anyone to introduce her. Across the hall, Hansen’s neighbor watches through his half open door for a moment. Hansen invites her in and she tells him she wants to touch his face…

The next morning Siska questions the neighbor about timing of the visit and the visitor’s identity but learns little. The coroner reports Walker has a severe contusion at the base of the skull; her death was caused by a sharp blow to the head. Hansen’s face bears the same terrified look Burdett and Rhiner wore. Carl watches all of this through a door barely open until Rosalind Winters bulls through it, tripping Carl into the room and drawing Siska’s attention. Siska manhandles the tape away from Carl. As far as Carl’s concerned Rosalind Winters just cost him this story and that squares them for the information she’d provided earlier.

Carl’s next stop is Betty’s apartment. There he learns about Craig Donnelly and where to find him. Donnelly tells him about the fall and that he’s sure Betty was dead. Three years in Vietnam taught him how to tell the dead from the living. Donnelly’s equally sure no one carted off the body; the place was deserted save for two of them. And after Betty disappeared there was a stench like a smell of death.

Palming a campus security badge, Carl visits the registrar’s office. There he cozens the registrar into retrieving the files of Burdett, Rhiner and Hansen. She gives him a bit of a Kafkaesque runaround but eventually parts with the papers.

Carl returns to the office and digs through the newspaper files. He learns that the girl who died with Rhiner was Marlene Franks, a junkie who died eight hours before Rhiner of an overdose. Burdett’s date also predeceased him – a brain aneurysm claimed her life well before she found her way into Burdett’s arms.

Carl has learned of Hansen’s connection to Professor Spate and that the pair was deciphering a tablet found in the near east but Dr. Julius Whitehead. Sometime after discovering the tablet, Whitehead became insane. Carl takes this to Tony, but before he can even get into what happened to Whitehead’s assistants, Tony cuts him off. He’s considering a policy change; he wants to make the news less grim. Carl is to finish the story in an uplifting way, and then Tony will find him an upbeat and happy assignment!

Carl returns to campus to see Professor Spate. Whitehead, Spate reveals, found this tablet in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers – and the symbols on it are Sumerian. That makes it far older and definitely not part of the Dead Sea find. Spate’s translation is about twenty-five percent complete and he has only vague ideas what it says. It could be a religious rite, a formula, or even a recipe. It calls for certain items and specifies certain procedures. Carl spots the word mint and misinterprets it, suggesting some other symbol most mean “lamb.” This gives him away, for this particular use of mint refers to the rendering of precious metals by divine means. Spate realizes Carl does not work for the Archaeological Quarterly as he’d claimed and orders him to leave, threatening to contact Tony. Carl’s not quite ready to go; he casually lobs out a relationship between the victims. All of them were either in one of Spate’s classes or good friends with someone who was. Carl manages to snap a picture of Spate’s partial translation, further irritating the man. As usual, Carl leaves an interview with the subject fuming.

Late the next day Maria Vanegas puts some coffee on the burner and stretches out to rest. But the pilot wasn’t lit and the woman’s apartment fills with gas. Her coffee never gets hot but she gets very cold... The manager smells the gas too late to help; she throws open the windows and discovers Maria’s body on the couch. She races out of Maria’s apartment yelling for Carlos but by the time they return Maria is gone…

Carl reads from a book on demons. He learns that the chief of demons Asmodeus created all other demons. Like him they can take other forms. But all of them stink of corruption and noxious brimstone when they’re active. Tony emerges from his office; it seems New York really likes his idea for upbeat and dignified stories. Meanwhile, Carl mutters about Arhu Manu, Iblis, and the Prince of Fiends. Carl’s photograph of the tablet suggests that “she shall have reign,” and he’s trying to figure out who “she” might be. Tony fumes. He tells Carl the story must be closed. It’s morbid and unsuited to Tony’s new direction. Then Ron pipes up with an anecdote that starts dignified then quickly turns lurid. Tony’s disgust is evident but a police radio call interrupts his retort – it’s notification of Maria’s accidental death along with the fact that her body cannot now be located.

Carl races out, happy at learning of another vanishing corpse. At the scene Carl talks to the landlord’s wife. The always irascible Siska tries to convince her that the air revived the woman who then walked away but the witness does not agree. After ten years working in a hospital she knows what dead people look like. And just like Donnelly, she smelled a horrible smell, not gas but something much worse.

Siska’s trying to tie these murders together but his threads are weak; he believes the heart attacks were the work of a killer using cyanide. A series of mob killings happened that way. He can’t really tie the women into it, finally and irritably suggesting a psychopath must be involved. Carl tears the theory to pieces and Siska has a uniform throw Carl out.

Mike Thompson enters Spate’s lab. Hansen’s death is a tragedy but life must go on and Spate needs a new assistant. Mike accepts the position and Spate begins assigning him research tasks when Maria enters the room. It seems Mike just met her at the bookstore. Spate offers the lady his hand, she takes it and begins to giggle insanely. Mike dismisses her unhappily. Spate hears the laughter again. A strange wind picks up and Spate grabs the kerchief from around his neck and uses it as a mask. A powerful stench has him choking and reeling.

Carl returns and Spate isn’t happy to see him, immediately calling security. He claims his dog sometimes brings home dead prey and this stench is what Carl smells. Carl shoots back his own question: does the dog bring home demons? Then Carl sports a new translation on the tablet: succubus. Is “succubus” the “she” the Sumerians referred to? Is it what drove Whitehead insane while he was in the Iraqi desert? Spate replies with an impassioned speech about what he does and doesn’t believe in which boils down to total disbelief in the supernatural. Carl asks him what a succubus is, but the security car arrives and Carl must depart before Spate can answer.

Carl calls around for his answer without success until he discovers Dr. Salem Mozart and the Department of Classical Ethnology – no longer accredited. Mozart (after pitching magazine subscriptions) tells Carl a succubus is a female demon. It animates the bodies of “ripe young women” and uses them to lure handsome young men into amorous situations. While embracing its prey it changes into a ghoul so horrible the sight of it stops the man’s heart. But it’s only a legend of course. Mozart seems to suffer from narcolepsy; he nods off from time to time. In between naps Mozart notes similarities between the Whitehead tablet and a tablet mentioned by Pigofeta, an Italian traveler of the 1500’s. That tablet describes a Mesopotamian empire presided over by a succubus. The Pigofeta tablet was lost long ago; it appears that Whitehead discovered it again. Mozart suggests that breaking the tablet will destroy the creature, but Carl demurs; the tablet is tremendously expensive, possibly priceless. There must be another way. Mozart nods off a final time before he can answer. Carl decides not to wake him, instead slipping out with the reference material.

Back on campus Carl enlists Rosalind to help him trace Spake’s assistant whom Carl knows only as “Mike.” Carl’s also looking for help translating the tablet; he can’t help but note the irony that what he wants to know is written in a dead language. Carl reads enough to learn that several scholars of ancient Jerusalem attempted to destroy “the hated object” but someone named Yusef al Mahmoudi spirited it away and buried it for later retrieval. Carl also finds a reference from the period of the crusades accompanied by the reported deaths of several knights and maidens. Carl’s sure he’s onto the right tablet. Rosalind’s contacts finally come through: “Mike” is Mike Thompson and lives in Brannon Hall. Carl races off trailing Rosalind’s questions.

Mike Thompson is in the archaeology library working on his assignment. Maria walks down the halls towards him. Meanwhile, Carl returns to Spake’s laboratory with a crowbar. Maria is working her way back into Mike’s good graces, telling him she didn’t mean to embarrass him with her nervous laughter. Carl seizes a hammer and chisel from a shelf and turns to the tablet, only to confront Spake, who absolutely won’t allow the destruction of the tablet. Maria kisses Mike as Carl throws Spake aside and begins hammering at the tablet. Pieces break off and Maria screams. She briefly shows her demonic form but her power is fading and she can no longer kill that way. Then she collapses, once again human and once again dead. Thunder cracks outside Spake’s home and the doors burst open as Carl continues to chisel pieces off the tablet. The succubus races in and attempts to embrace Carl as he continues to hammer the tablet. He fights her off and turns to the stone again; she leaps on his back but a final blow of the chisel shatters the tablet and kills the monster. It rolls off Carl already nothing but skull and tattered robes. Moments later even that has turned to dust.

The campus security force insisted on calling the Chicago police to press charges against me, but they found a sudden surprising resistance from Dr. C. Evan Spate, who claimed the tablet had been broken accidentally. And despite verification by a confused and frightened Michael Thompson, neither reporter Ms. Rosalind Winters nor I had enough hard evidence to file a story. It had all turned to dust. However, published story or not, I can only say to you that should you ever meet a young woman who seems to be just too lovely to be realty of this world well just remember – there’s a very good chance that she isn’t.

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