The Serpent's Curse

by Tony Abbott

  “Oh, my gosh, are they—”

  “They are fine, and waiting nearby.”

  The car drove smoothly from street to street.

  “You were following us, tracking me from the beginning,” Wade said, feeling more and more brain coming back to him. “How did you know to do that?”

  Chief Inspector Yazinsky cleared his throat. “The Circle of Athos has been aware of you since your arrival at Sheremetyevo airport.”

  Wade thought back. “The guard who stopped me at the passport control? What was her name . . . I. Lyubov?”

  “Cousin Irina,” he said, smiling under his mustache. “Carlo Nuovenuto—you know him—sent encrypted pictures to the Guardians in Europe and elsewhere. The clearest image from the fencing school in Bologna was of you. We have eluded our pursuers, and here we are.”

  The building with the tower reappeared once again, and this time Wade saw its blazing letters.

  ЛЕНИНГРАДСКИЙ ВОКЗАЛ

  The driver pulled up to it. “The train to Saint Petersburg,” Inspector Yazinsky said. “The station is quaintly still named Leningradskiy.” He leaned across the seat to Wade, and his voice went low. “The Circle of Athos comprises a handful only, while the Order is a kraken of great size, a monster. Even with our precautions, we must be careful when we enter.” The inspector reached across Wade and opened his door. It swung out into the cold. Wade stumbled out, then followed the man into the station.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Wade was bewildered by the massive, brilliantly lit hall. It was elegant and insufferably loud. His father was not visible; neither were Becca, Darrell, and Lily. He didn’t like it. The roar of noise and movement could drown out any number of dangers.

  “Be careful,” the inspector repeated. “This way.”

  His senses on high alert, Wade followed the inspector, hugging close to the side of the huge open room. They went under one of the two large arches to an office door. “Railroad security,” the inspector whispered.

  “Are they Guardians, too?” he asked.

  “Guardians? No. But they are friends, even if they do not know exactly why we’re here.” The inspector knocked three times, paused a moment, and then knocked twice more. The door opened, Wade entered, and his shoulder thudded with a series of blows from behind. He went into an immediate crouch, but hands were suddenly all over him, spinning him around.

  “Wade, Wade, Wade!”

  Darrell, Becca, and Lily wouldn’t let go of him, as if he’d been missing for a year. He coughed out, “I’m okay, I’m okay,” a hundred times, but they barely let him breathe.

  When he finally pulled away, his father wrapped him in his arms. “Wade, we were worried sick about you!”

  “Really, I’m okay,” he said. “I heard there was a bomb.”

  They told him about their last-second rescue from the safe house, then that Terence was on a jet flying to them right now. It was several minutes before Wade could properly introduce them to Chief Inspector Yazinsky.

  “I apologize for all the secrecy,” the inspector said to them, nodding at a short, smiling security officer. “The reason you are here is twofold. As I told young Wade on the way over, the Red Brotherhood has closed in, and you must leave Moscow. But this is what you might wish to do anyway. Dmitri?”

  The short officer stepped forward. “One hour ago, we arrested someone at the station, coming in on the train from Saint Petersburg. No identification, no story. A vagrant, we thought. Or worse. She was armed—”

  “She?” said Darrell. “A woman?”

  “Not your mother,” said Inspector Yazinsky. “We are certain. Continue, Dmitri.”

  “She was armed,” the officer continued. “And she bears bruises on her face and hands. She is dehydrated, weak. She is being treated right now for shock, exposure to extreme cold, exhaustion, cuts, bruises, frostbite—”

  “Oh, my gosh,” said Becca.

  “Who is she?” Roald asked.

  Dmitri lowered his head. “The woman will not speak to us. She will say nothing.”

  Roald looked at the inspector, then back at the short officer. “Then, I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with us?”

  “She will say nothing, sir,” the officer continued, “but your name. Roald Kaplan.”

  “Dad!” said Wade. “Who is it?”

  “Allow me to bring you to her,” the officer said. “The station clinic is this way.”

  The inspector motioned them through the door, and they hurried down a very narrow corridor toward a white circular sign beaming with a flickering neon red cross. The short officer turned the knob, then bowed at the doorway.

  “I take my leave of you here. She has been sedated, but is awake.”

  The clinic inside was clean and spacious for a railway station. It smelled of chemicals and food. In a cubicle surrounded by thin curtains sat a low hospital cot. A woman lay on it, her arms connected to tubes, her hands and feet and cheeks bandaged. No, it was not Sara. It was, in fact, no one Wade recognized, but his father let out a gasp.

  “Isabella! Isabella Mercanti!” He knelt to the cot and gently took her hand. Her eyes flicked open, then closed again. “Isabella,” he said, “it’s Roald. . . .”

  The children watched as the woman slowly turned her face to him. “Roald? Roald!” She reached for him, but the tubes held her back. She started to cry.

  Isabella Mercanti was the Italian professor Wade’s father had told the children to meet in Bologna last week. She was the widow of Silvio Mercanti, a member of his father’s old college circle, Asterias. When she had gone missing, and even her university hadn’t heard from her, they had all presumed the worst.

  Wade felt his knees give way. He plopped into a chair next to a rolling cart. On the cart were instruments, bloodied gauze bandages, and, strangely, a kitchen knife. Why was Isabella Mercanti in Russia, of all places? And on a train originating in Saint Petersburg, four hundred miles from here?

  Was this anything but another weird layer of the onion?

  “Some water, please,” his father said, and the inspector stepped into the next room. “Isabella, tell me what happened to you? Why are you in Moscow?”

  “I saw her,” she whispered. “I saw Sara . . .”

  Darrell knelt to the cot. “My mother? Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “She did not escape, not like me,” she said, taking a sip of water. “But yes. Alive. In a horrifying castle many kilometers outside Saint Petersburg.”

  “When did you see her?” Becca asked.

  “It is after midnight now? Then yesterday,” she said. “Yes, yesterday. She was captive. In a tower. I could not get her out of the thing. I wounded a soldier. No, not a soldier. A brute, an animal. Maybe he died. I do not know. I stab him and escape.”

  Wade glanced back at the knife on the cart, then at Becca. She was staring at it, too, wiping her cheeks.

  “I run barefoot to a small city. Far, many hours away. People pity me, get me to train in Saint Petersburg, pay for me. I come here. I have friend in Moscow. Sara”— she paused, looked at Darrell—“your mother is in a . . . device. Horrible. Big device.”

  Darrell stood and pounded the nearest wall. “What kind of device? Tell us!”

  “Let her speak,” Roald said softly, cradling Isabella by her shoulders.

  She sat up, her eyes wild. “I only caught a glimpse of the machine. Then a man comes in. I have to run. Sara is a prisoner of clockwork. Something happens at midnight some days from now. No, not some days. Sooner. It is Saturday in the early morning, yes? Then tomorrow. Sunday at midnight. That is what I heard them say.”

  “Mom is being tortured?” Darrell slammed his fist once more on the wall.

  “No, not tortured. It is clockwork. Gears and wheels.”

  “What does the machine do?” asked Lily.

  “I don’t know!” Isabella answered.

  “Do you know where the place is exactly?” Roald asked.

  Isabella sh
ook her head. “I hear some things. A German woman. Young.”

  “Galina Krause,” muttered Wade.

  She nodded. “I hear her voice. She say, ‘Der Hölle Rache’? It is German, but what is this?”

  No one knew. Becca asked for Lily’s computer.

  “And I hear one word. The name of the horrible place where we are held. A fortress. It is called . . . Greywolf.”

  “Greywolf.” Roald rose to his feet and began to pace around the cot. “Inspector?”

  “I do not know of it,” he murmured, dragging his phone from his pocket. “I will find out.”

  “Dad, we’re going to get Mom right now,” Darrell said slowly and in a whisper. “It’s nearly three a.m. Saturday morning. Only forty-something hours to Sunday midnight. We have to go get Mom before that machine does anything to her.”

  “We will,” Roald said firmly, looking deeply into Darrell’s eyes. “We will. We’ll find out where this Greywolf is, and we’ll go for her. I’ll phone Terence to change his flight plans and meet us in Saint Petersburg.”

  Isabella was breathing more easily now. “I cannot go back there and I do not know the way. Roald, I am sorry. But I must return to Italy as soon as possible. My husband discovered a secret before he was murdered. That is why the Order took me. The clue is in our apartment in Bologna. I must go there as soon as possible to protect it.”

  “Oh, man . . .” Becca stood, Lily’s computer tablet quivering in her hands. “Boris’s ticket . . .”

  Wade turned to her. “Ticket? You mean to the opera in Italy? What about it?”

  “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,” she said. “What Galina said. It means ‘Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart.’ It’s a line from The Magic Flute. The opera in Venice that Boris had a ticket to see. He was going there Saturday night. Tonight! Galina is going there, too! That’s what she meant when she said those words. She must have heard that Boris was going to meet someone, and now she’s going! We have to go to Venice!”

  Wade felt the tooth in his pocket. Aleksandr. Boris. Andreas. Nicolaus. The connection between brothers. “A message for Boris. It was about the relic. A message about Serpens, maybe. We need to know what someone wanted to tell Boris—”

  Darrell shook his head vehemently. “No we don’t. We’re going to Greywolf. Dad, I don’t care where Galina’s going. Mom is tied up in some death machine, and we’re going to save her. We’re not leaving Russia!”

  “Darrell, calm down,” his stepfather said. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re not.”

  “Dr. Kaplan.” The inspector cleared his throat. “May I make a suggestion? I feel responsible and will make the trip to Italy to escort Dr. Mercanti home. If you approve, I will also escort anyone who wishes to go to Venice for the rendezvous. I will protect them as if they are my own. Clearly the Circle of Athos cannot keep you safe against the Order here. I suggest you continue to Saint Petersburg. I will personally provide all assistance to ensure Dr. Mercanti’s safety. Perhaps Wade and another of the children should accompany us, to follow through on the meeting at the opera house. We will then return together. I leave it to you.”

  Wade knew the gears were moving in his father’s head. His dad would never want to split the family apart. But now that there was a deadline in one place and a clue in another, they might have to. “Dad,” he said, “the inspector might be right.”

  His father looked at him, then at the others, and finally at Isabella. “What do we think?” he asked softly. “Isabella, I know it’s a lot to ask, but what do you think about stopping in Venice before you go home to Bologna? With some of us. I think we need to know what will happen in Venice tonight. Can you—”

  “Yes,” Isabella said quietly. She sat up more firmly, her bandaged feet resting on the floor. She teetered a little, but took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Yes, Roald, of course. Thank you, Inspector. I will help as much as I can. It is my place to do so. My husband was a Guardian. This makes me one, too.”

  “Wade, girls?” his father asked.

  “Venice,” said Lily.

  Becca nodded. “Venice.”

  Darrell looked at Wade. “Dude, go. We’ll have Terence. Plus, you’re kind of klutzy and will probably slow us down.”

  Wade knew it was Darrell’s attempt—a weak one—at humor. But it allowed him to say what he felt he should say. “All right, then. Venice.”

  Becca passed the tablet back to Lily. “Airlines . . .”

  “Oh, I know,” she said, smiling over the screen. “Five tickets to Venice. Trust me. We’ll be there in plenty of time for the opera.”

  “Darrell and I will go to Saint Petersburg,” Roald said. “We’ll find out where Greywolf is. And we’ll find Sara. We will.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Saint Petersburg; Venice

  Later that morning, following the appearance of Isabella Mercanti, Darrell and his stepfather sleeplessly took the train to Saint Petersburg.

  After Chief Inspector Yazinsky had seen to it that Roald’s cell phone was returned to him, the first call he made was to Terence Ackroyd, who said he would meet them in Saint Petersburg. The investigator Paul Ferrere and a colleague from Paris were on their way there, too.

  For his part, Chief Inspector Yazinsky searched but could discover nothing about Greywolf from official sources. Neither could he promise much Guardian help in the northern city, beyond the offer of the name of a low-level aide at the seldom-visited Railway Museum, “because of their extensive maps of the Russian frontier. Pray you find Greywolf listed on one of them.”

  Because of Isabella’s condition, it was several hours before she felt well enough to fly. Once she gave the go-ahead, Lily booked them all—the inspector, Isabella, Becca, Wade, and herself—on the earliest nonstop to Venice. It would leave at two p.m. Given the time difference, Venice being three hours earlier than Moscow, the three-and-a-half-hour flight was scheduled to arrive midafternoon. That would leave them five solid hours before the opera performance on Saturday evening.

  “Venice is quite different from Rome or Bologna,” Isabella said as they took their seats on the flight. “But I have always loved it there. So will you.”

  Lily felt they could trust Isabella. One of the marks of Guardians seemed to be that they didn’t press, they didn’t force, they didn’t make you feel as if you had to do or feel or tell them something. That was plain in Copernicus’s conversation with Maxim. He asked; he didn’t force. Maxim agreed anyway.

  Upon my life I will.

  “The relic we’re searching for in Russia is called Serpens,” she told Isabella. Remembering that Isabella’s husband, Silvio, was a friend of Uncle Roald’s, she added, “I’m so sorry your husband passed away.”

  Isabella shook her head. “Silvio’s murder was disguised as a skiing mishap. He was murdered by an agent named Markus Wolff. I know you know him. It was Silvio’s obsession with what he called ‘number twelve’ that got him killed. There is a mystery about the twelfth—the final—relic. It is somehow odd and unlike the others.”

  “Wolff hinted at the same thing in San Francisco,” Lily said. “He said that what the twelfth relic is, is the answer to everything. What did Mr. Mercanti find out?”

  Isabella frowned. “I know little, but he was close to discovering something. The Order thinks I know what it is. The answer lies hidden in our apartment in Bologna. I will find it. For Silvio, I will find it.”

  “We know how terrible the Order is,” said Wade. “The death of my uncle Henry—Heinrich Vogel—pulled us into the relic hunt in the first place.”

  “Heinrich was a good man,” she said. “I was calling him when I was kidnapped.”

  “Thanks to him, we have one relic so far,” said Becca. “But Serpens is in two parts, and we have neither, which isn’t good.”

  “But neither does Galina, yes?” said the inspector.

  “Right,” said Lily. “And that is good. Really good.”

  “Maybe having lots of layers to the
onion are all right, after all,” Becca said.

  It was warm and sunny when they arrived at Marco Polo Airport, a small and clean affair built out over the water six and a half miles north of the city. Lily shed her coat at the earliest opportunity. Though brisk in late March, Italy was already showing signs of spring, and after so much cold Lily began to feel, as they all did, thawed out, rejuvenated, alive. “No more hunching against the cold,” she said. “I can stand straight up for the first time in days. No more windburn, either. Or frozen fingers.”

  Maybe best of all, they weren’t being followed yet. Galina might already be there, but likely didn’t know that they were.

  Becca seemed to be beaming. The attention to her wound by an intern at the railway clinic where they first saw Isabella, and a set of fresh bandages, had obviously made her feel better. And hopeful. They all felt that, too.

  “The south,” Becca said. “The sun feels so amazing.”

  Isabella was feeling better, too. She had eaten two large meals since they’d found her in the clinic, had called her friends in Bologna, had slept like a stone, and was anxious to return home as soon as possible. Chief Inspector Yazinsky tried to persuade her to take a police escort back to Bologna, but two friends from her university met her at the airport. After a long round of good-byes and tears and hugs, Wade said, “Thank you for everything you are doing. You are the most amazing person. . . .”

  “So are you,” Isabella said. “So are you all. I will call your father, Wade, when I reach Bologna. You will all see me again.”

  They left Isabella with her friends to await a connecting flight.

  Then, at a little after three o’clock, after using Terence’s Ackroyd’s credit card to withdraw euros from an airport ATM, the kids and Inspector Yazinsky climbed aboard a launch called a vaporetto for the hour-long water ride into Venice. They settled into seats by the windows facing east and were soon motoring past long strips of land that Lily’s maps told them surrounded and formed the giant Venice lagoon.