I stood up. “I know where it is.”
“What?”
“The Lumen Dei. The final pieces. Are you coming?”
“Why bother?” she asked. “You heard the Hledači guy. Even if you find something, it can’t help us.”
“What happened to ‘We go after them and take it all back’?”
“We went after them,” she said flatly. “It didn’t work.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“We have the files we grabbed. We can give them to the cops.”
“And then what? Cross our fingers and hope that’s the end of it? Wait for them to come?”
Adriane stretched again, sighing as she spread her arms to the corners of the mattress, as if what we were discussing had no consequence and was keeping her from a pressing nap. “You want to know what that guy whispered in my ear?”
“You told Eli he was speaking in Czech.”
“And now I’m telling you the truth. He said, ‘Go home and forget this, and we will not follow. We have what we want.’ It means we get our lives back, Nora. It means if we drop this, and just go quietly, maybe we can leave here with something left.”
I didn’t ask her what it was we had left, because the only answer was: each other. I didn’t know if it was enough.
“And you believe them?” I said. “What about all the ‘chosen one’ stuff?”
“Isn’t that more reason to get the hell out? We can’t fight them, Nora. I thought we could, but once I saw them all together—” She shook her head. “There’s too many of them, and they’re too crazy. I’m done. You go do what you need to do, but I’m staying.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself. It’s not safe.”
“And it’s going to be safe with you? The ‘chosen one,’ out poking the bear that’s already pretty eager to eat you? I think I’ll take my chances with the cockroaches and the guy at the front desk.”
“Are you sure this isn’t about something else? Because nothing has changed, except that we’re so close.”
“Nora, you know how you don’t want to talk about what happened, and I’m respecting that and giving you your weird distance, just like I always do?”
“My weird distance?”
“How about you give me some? You finish your scavenger hunt. Then we’ll go home.”
“I can stay with you.”
“No, you can’t.” She didn’t sound angry, just decided. “So you might as well go find your treasure. Maybe you’re even right. Maybe it’ll help.”
“Okay, I get it,” I said, and tried to.
“I hope you find it, Nora,” she said as I was almost out the door.
“Why do you even care?”
“Because you do.”
“I thought we both did,” I said—then, without asking, reached behind her and took Max’s jacket.
“It’s not that cold out.”
“Cold enough.”
14
Eli was waiting in the lobby, sprawled across the one ratty couch, his eyes half-closed, doing an excellent job of pretending not to watch the door. He jumped up as I passed.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“ ‘We’?”
“I’m obviously not letting you out that door by yourself. It’s not safe.”
“And you are?”
“There was another clue, wasn’t there?” he said. “And you figured it out. It’s the only reason you’d risk leaving.”
“Maybe I’m out of conditioner. It’s a mistake to overlook the value of moisturizing.”
“You know either we go together, or I follow you.”
“Under other circumstances, screw you.”
“But …”
“But in this particular case, you might be useful.”
“So what I’m hearing is: Please, Eli, would you be so kind as to lend your assistance, because I desperately need you.”
“Trust me, you’re still hearing screw you,” I said.
“Good enough. So do we wait for Adriane?”
“No. We do not.”
15
“And what makes you think I can get us down to the crypt?” Eli asked, staring up at the gray exterior of the church. The Kostel sv Boethia, where a priest had woven us our first Hledači tale. The Kostel sv Boethia, where Thomas had confessed the worst of himself to the woman he loved; where Elizabeth had loved him enough to forgive.
Sometimes a coincidence was just a coincidence. Sometimes not.
“Maybe if you ask nicely, your priest friend will give us permission,” I said.
“We’re talking about a sacred crypt where they’ve buried the bones of their martyrs. I don’t think a pretty please is going to do it,” Eli said.
“And he’s not your friend,” I said. “You forgot that part.”
He didn’t rise to it. “We should try the back.”
Behind the church: an empty street, a long stone wall with two half-empty plastic cups of beer, a locked door.
“Not a problem.” Eli scouted several feet of gutter and returned with a bent piece of metal wire, which slipped easily into the lock and twisted beneath his sure fingers. Something clicked.
“That easy?”
The door slipped open. “That easy.”
We tiptoed inside and down a narrow flight of stairs, burrowing into the earth. A dim bulb, like a holy night-light, cast a glow on the rust-colored walls and low, arched ceiling. There were unlit candelabras, stone faces howling from pillars, mysterious stains spreading from tombs set into the floor. All the makings of a low-budget horror movie, complete with idiot teens blundering around in the dark, hunting and hunted.
And, carved in bas-relief at the apex of a stone arch, a dove, with an olive branch dangling from its beak.
I pointed at the stone bird. “This is the place.”
“It’s a Catholic symbol of the Holy Spirit. Finding a dove in a crypt is like finding a beer in a baseball stadium. Not to mention you don’t even know if you solved the code correctly.”
“Yes. I do.” I wedged my fingers into the darkness between the stones directly below the dove. Something shifted. “It’s loose,” I said. “This has to be it.”
Eli stayed my hand. “You sure about this?”
I stared at him. “The dove. The church—the same church. How much more do you need?”
“No, I mean …” He looked away. “This is hallowed ground. We can’t just rip up the floorboards like it’s your parents’ basement.”
“That’s not what we’re doing.”
“You would never have dug up the cemetery. You said that.”
“Okay, but—”
“There are people buried here, too.”
I was trying very hard not to think about that. “I’m not digging them up.”
He looked unconvinced.
“Look, you insisted on coming with me. If you want to go, go. But I’m doing this.”
“I just—” He closed his eyes and lowered his head, moving his lips soundlessly. Only for a moment, and then he faced me again. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
I didn’t ask if he had been praying, or to whom, for what. Nor did I allow myself to ask for forgiveness of my own as I pried the stones loose from their hallowed home. It’s not like God had ever asked forgiveness from me.
A dark layer of earth and grime lay beneath the stones. Nestled in it, coffinlike, was a wood and iron box, three times the size of the one we’d excavated beneath the Mihulka. I had known I was right; it wasn’t until I wrapped my hands around the box that I actually believed it. This was it, the blood and guts of the Lumen Dei—not just a handful of earth or a promise of alchemical transmutation, but the actual building blocks of the machine, the iron or wood or gold that would give it a shape and form.
Silence blanketed us.
Eli nodded. Go ahead.
Four hundred years ago, Elizabeth had sealed her birthright inside this box. She had turned her back on the wealth and power the Lumen Dei promised to
deliver—even if it was nothing but useless gears and sticks, she could have traded it for a home, a future, a life independent of a man she didn’t love. And if it was the golden ticket they all believed it to be, if it could illuminate men’s minds with a divine light, deliver on its promise, grant omniscience, omnipotence, the ultimate answer … she had turned from that as well. Left it behind, for the one person she trusted, for a brother who’d committed a single, final, unforgivable betrayal, for a ghost.
Or maybe for me.
I opened the box.
16
Václav Kysely, to the sorceress Elizabeth Weston.
What did you think? That you could have your wealthy court dog throw me in debtors’ prison and I would rot there? That you could bury your secrets in the dirt and no one would ever dig them up?
I followed you, as you should have known I would. I watched you dig your hole and bury your stolen treasure, and I waited until the time was right. Now I have the most important piece of the device, and soon I will discover where you have hidden the others. I will succeed where my master failed. And when I do, I will rid the earth of its scourge of usurpers. I will begin with you.
This is your warning, Westonia, as you please to call yourself, putting on airs as if no one will know the mud you crawled out of, no one will smell the stench of shit that still clings to you. I know. I remember.
I will revive the Lumen Dei, and I will escape my master’s mistakes. He believed the Lumen Dei to be a part of you, and thus insisted it be surrendered willingly. But I have long believed it was not the device that need be surrendered. It was your blood. And your blood I shall have.
Be sure of this, little girl, as you can be sure that I will make whole what you have torn asunder. Someday, you will hear the call of the machine, and you will return to this dark coward’s hole in search of it, and you will find only my words filling the emptiness.
Hear my words now, and hear them in the dark, night after night. I am coming for your machine. And when I find it, I am coming for you.
The symbol inscribed beneath the signature was the color of rust, and all too familiar. The Hledači—the first Hledači—had gotten here first. Aside from the letter, the box was empty; the Lumen Dei was gone.
“They’ve had it all this time?” I said, unwilling to believe it. “We went chasing after astronomical calculations and dirt, and all this time they’ve had it practically built and ready to go? And we basically gave them everything else they needed.”
We had failed—failed before we even began. And not just failed, but helped them succeed. Whether Max had given them the other components willingly, or whether they’d taken them by force, that didn’t change the fact that we’d probably delivered the whole Lumen Dei into the Hledači’s open arms. I’d expected Elizabeth to somehow save me from beyond the grave—instead, I had managed, four hundred years after her death, to help the people who’d ruined her life. I’d helped the people who murdered Chris. They took him from me, they took Max from me—and in return, I gave them everything.
“Not everything.” The heavily accented voice came from behind us. “Not you.”
When I turned, the image was so incongruous it took me a moment to process what was happening. A priest. Holding a gun.
“On your knees,” he said, raising the weapon. “Both of you.”
“I thought you didn’t speak English,” I said. In the dark of the crypt Father Hájek looked older than he had before. Ancient. But the gun was a shiny piece of modern technology, and his hand didn’t tremble.
His crinkled smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I make do. When convenient.”
Eli said something in Czech.
The priest shook his head and gestured with the gun. “Down. I’m waiting.”
I lowered myself to my knees. A breath later, Eli followed suit. The empty box sat between us.
“No,” Eli murmured, answering the question I hadn’t bothered to ask. “I didn’t. I swear.”
But it didn’t matter anymore, did it, whether Eli had led us into ambush or not. Here we were. Lost.
“Like I told your friends, I can’t help you. I’m not your vyvolená. I’m nobody. So you might as well just go ahead and shoot.” I couldn’t believe how easy it was to say. Maybe because none of this could possibly be real. Somehow, after all this time, I was still waiting to wake up.
“Nora—”
“What? I’m tired of running, and I’m tired of waiting. Chris is dead because of me. Max is dead. Because they wanted me. Now they’ve got me. I’m just speeding us to the logical conclusion.”
The priest’s smile widened. “You have not told her.”
“Nora.” Eli swallowed. “He’s not part of the Hledači.”
The thick gold chain hanging around the priest’s neck had probably been there the first time I met him, but of course that day I’d had no reason to notice the spiked golden cross that dangled from it, a cross that looked more like a sword. And when I’d seen that cross painted across Eli’s heart, I hadn’t made the connection. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to.
“Fidei Defensor,” I said, my eyes fixed on Eli’s face. I saw something there I’d never seen before: the bare truth.
I’m sorry. His lips formed the words. No sound came out.
Nothing more useless than a prayer for forgiveness.
“If she knows this much, she knows too much,” the priest said.
I couldn’t help it: I laughed. “Seriously?”
Father Hájek tilted his head, confused.
“The murderous psychopaths, the God phone, the vyvolená—fine. Crazy, but I’m in. I accept it. This? You’re a priest. With a gun. Talking like you’re in a Mob movie.”
“Nora, don’t.”
“Or what, he’ll fit me for some cement shoes? Schedule me for a meeting with the fishes?” The laughter bubbled out, and some small voice in the back of my head was timidly suggesting that hysteria was probably a less-than-helpful survival reflex, but as it had no more useful suggestions, I told it to shut up. “Why not ask your friend up there to strike me with lightning—less muss and fuss.”
“You didn’t tell me about the mouth,” the priest said.
No wonder Eli had worked so hard to convince me that Max was playing the part of Thomas the betrayer in our little Renaissance revival. So what did it say about me that I’d so readily believed him? “You tore the letter yourself, didn’t you?” I asked. “Why? You just wanted more time to watch me squirm before you delivered me to him?”
“I told you, I swear I didn’t—”
“The Kostel sv Boethia marks the end of the path for those who seek the Lumen Dei,” Father Hájek said. “And so we wait here, and we watch, and they deliver themselves into our hands. As have you.”
Eli asked a question in Czech.
The priest shook his head. “English, please. You must forgive his rudeness, vyvolená. He is young.”
Eli cleared his throat. “I said, ‘What’s with the gun?’ ”
“I warned you that this would end as necessary. You chose not to listen. She is a danger.”
“You think I know too much? Trust me, I know nothing,” I said. “And definitely nothing about you. Or any of this. I’m happy to keep it that way.”
“It is what you know. It is also what you are.”
“The vyvolená.”
He nodded. “You are an innocent, and for what I must do I beg His forgiveness—”
“Feel free to beg mine, too.”
“—but it must be done.”
“We get her out of the country,” Eli said. “You know you can pull some strings, hide her where they can never find her.”
“Until the day she goes to them. Kdo je moc zvědavý, bude brzo starý.”
“Curiosity will kill you,” I murmured.
“You see? You know much.” The priest sighed. “Lie down, please. You may wish to close your eyes.”
Do something.
Do anything.
“Assist
her,” the priest said.
Eli put his hands on my shoulders. The grip was gentle, the pressure firm. I let him push me to the stone floor. Stretch my arms out to the sides, press my cheek into the cold grime. The priest wore mud-spattered sneakers under his cassock. Beneath a sculptured saint, a spider skittered across its web. The stones butted each other with jagged edges, sharp and rough as the day they’d been laid—no foot traffic to smooth them down over the centuries. No visitors to this crypt, except the few who came to worship, the few who came to hide, the few who came to die.
I would not close my eyes.
“Please,” I said. “I hate the Hledači. I hate the Lumen Dei. I don’t believe in any of this—I don’t have any curiosity. You let me go, I will leave and never, ever, ever come back.”
“There is always a chance. And this we cannot risk.”
“Because it would be so wrong for us to finally know?” Eli asked. “We’ve been throwing away our lives for centuries, for what? Because we’re so afraid what would happen if someone finally asked the question and got an answer? Aren’t you ever curious? Don’t you ever wonder if we might be wrong?”
“She has corrupted you.”
“It’s not her,” Eli said angrily. His hands tightened on my shoulders. “It’s me, it’s this, all of this.”
“God demands faith, son. Some knowledge is not yours to pursue. God wills us to preserve his sanctity.”
“Then she’s right. Let God kill her,” Eli said. “It’s not our job.”
“You are young, and there are allowances to be made,” the priest said. Then his voice went cold. “But you will remember your oath. Hold her down.”
Father Hájek knelt before me and drew a small vial from beneath his vestments. He poured a clear liquid into his hand, then brushed two wet fingers against my forehead. “Per istam sanctan unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum.”
Through this holy unction and His own most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed by sight.
He pressed his oil-slick fingers to my ear. “Per istam sanctan unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per audtiotum.”
The Book of Blood and Shadow Page 34