Fire and brimstone, this phrase can still strike fear into mortal man, the stories of Lucifer, and man making packs with the devil, selling our souls for a few years of , of , what, fame, notoriety, wealth, a woman. Yes apparently more men then women have sold their souls to the devil, and have paid the price. Some of us are still paying the price, and suffering for it, no not from the devil, from the women.
Have you ever noticed that on TV, it is mostly the male contingent of the human race that find themselves in turmoil from performing some “heroic” act. Have you ever wondered why?
It’s the guys who tend to wind up in bandages, and leg braces, or arm casts, it is difficult to breath when you have you’re ribs wrapped up to aid in mending those o so brittle and fragile bones, have you witnessed a girl trying to drive a jeep up a steep mountain side only to have it tumble back down to the bottom? I think not, you won’t see any girls piling up inside the jeep to “go for the ride” either, but every seat in that jeep will have the drivers buddies ready for the thrill, yessir, a full house, or jeep, or whatever.You’re buddies will be there every step of the way, be it a jeep up a hill, or a toboggan down a hill toward a forest at the bottom, or trying to go airborne in your parents car on a country road, no, alcohol is not always a factor, we just believe that we will miss the tree, and we believe in the strength of the human spirit and the strength of our bones to mend and be as good a new.
The truth is, the men were built for adventure, speed, daring, ok, not speed so much, not originally anyway, but we were built for endurance, and cunning, ok not cunning so much as brute force and ignorance, and not ignorance so much as adaptability. It was up to the men to bring home the meat, and we had to be tough, rugged, strong, and we had to be daring, and we had to risk, risk everything, risk getting hurt, to bring home dinner.
We would first whack a girl over the head, drag her back to the cave, get a fire going, and while she was still out cold, we had to set the table and light the oil lamp, then we would have to go out into the cold, un-yielding world and hunt down a ferocious Woolly Mammoth, smack it over the head and drag it back to the cave, make some Mammoth chops, cook them and when they were almost done, the afore mentioned girl would wake up and take over the cooking, and make a salad, because the man was tired from a days slaving, and cleaning, and shopping, and dragging stuff back to the dam cave. Then after dinner the man would go back out into the cold, un-yielding world, catch a saber tooth tiger by the tail, then ride the thing up the side of mountain.
So, you see it is because of the women, that we do these stupid things, sometimes we do them to relax after a strenuous day in the wild, some times we do them to attract the girls, but mostly we do them because it just feels right.
In Brimstone, we have our illustrious FBI agent Pendergast back once again, this is book 5, in the series of 12 books that I am re-reading.
Pendergast is going up against, old money and an old family, as well as a few adults, who as young boys, (yes the male once again) while traveling abroad, in between school semesters, took part in an evening of worship where they gave their souls to the devil.
These boys grew up into men, some with money some with less, but all had brains, and all begun to die. Fire and Brimstone, surrounded the bodies, the devils mark upon them, horrible, a totally horrible way to go, screaming while you are essentially burned from within. Nothing else in the room, or in the area would be burnt, nothing smoldering other than the victim, and not all of the victim, there were usually feet or hands or things like that left un touched. What manner of device could do this if not the devil himself.
Pendergast teams up with an old friend from a previous adventure, then Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta NYPD, now Sergeant D’Agosta, due to his retiring, then getting back into the policing game a few years after.
Pendergast and D’Agosta, wind up traveling back to the scene of the original conjuring to look for clues as to why these people were in harms way, and why was the devil after them. Pendergast, true to his form makes no friends along the way, his methods are unorthodox, to say the least, they are effective to say the most. In this novel, Pendergast again pulls a rabbit out of his bag of tricks, twice, once to save himself from a would be professional shooter, lying in wait, and again later when he and D’Agosta are about to be thrown into an old un-used mine shaft, with a bit of extra lead above their shoulders, someone wants them out of the way, once and for all. Alas, the would be perpetrators find themselves where they would like to have seen Pendergast and D’Agosta, someone will have a surprised look upon their face when they show up, un announced at the castle, and home of the killer.
Ahh, but it does not stop there Dear Reader, you will have to find out for your selves how the victims seemed to burst into flames without burning anything else in the room and behind locked doors, what does a priceless, missing Stradivarius violin have to do with the killer, or killers, how does Alfred Nobel fit into the equasion.
The ending of this book leaves our FBI Special Agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast, in a bit of a pickle I’m afraid, one that even he, with all his talents might not be able to free himself from… Without help.
Remember Dear Reader, when you make a pact with the devil, she has the right to change the rules.
bfn Brian