Mumbo Jumbo

Chapter 14 introduces the novel’s antagonist, Hinckle Von Vampton. He works in the copy room of the New York Sun, which is run by the Wallflower Order to propagate Atonist views. Von Vampton is currently down on his luck. He has started drinking on the job, and his coworkers believe that “the old man is losing his grip” (56).

Von Vampton comes home to find his apartment ransacked. He questions his housekeeper, but she knows nothing. She has been spying on him and inviting friends to watch him through a skylight as he displays erratic behavior. Dressed up in his Knights Templar garb, he drinks and brandishes a sword.

This chapter is interspersed with italicized paragraphs detailing the historical background and formation of the Knights Templar.

The New York Sun’s management team is debating what they can do to help eradicate Jes Grew, which is now in Chicago. The managing editor then notices a massive headline error in that day’s newspaper, thousands of copies of which are already in circulation. A low-level employee tells the managing editor that Von Vampton is to blame for the error.