“It’s a little crowded in here already, don’t you think?” Grace said.
Shah turned to Grace. “Agreed. The situation is not ideal. But we’re concerned about a visible increase in security outside the Archives, even within the Vatican. We don’t want to alarm people unnecessarily.”
Grace nodded. “That’s fair,” she said.
“I’ll ask you to brief these men on the important details,” Shah said. “Please let me know if I can help you in any other way.” She looked back up toward the stairs.
“Thank you, Shah,” Menchú said.
Shah left. The three soldiers looked at Team Three. Team Three looked back. There was a tiny—and, to Sal, very uncomfortable—pause.
“Have you ever fought monsters before?” Grace said.
Vaz nodded. The two Swiss Guard soldiers didn’t move.
“Good luck,” Grace said to them.
“How many . . .” Schaffner said. “How many monsters are you expecting?”
Asanti shrugged. “It’s hard to say,” she said. “It’s my understanding that the demons have always preferred to stay away from this place. The things we have here may be interesting to us—to people—but they’re not as interesting to them. At least, not interesting enough to justify the trouble of getting in here.”
“Until now?” said Huegin.
“We seem to have collected something that’s suddenly worth the trouble,” Liam said.
“The Codex Umbra,” Vaz said.
“Good,” Asanti said. “You did your homework.”
“What is so interesting to the demons about this book?” Vaz said.
Asanti shrugged. “I haven’t found a good answer to that question.”
Sal wanted to ask Asanti the same thing. She wanted to get a couple steps ahead of the Hand. To let the demon know that she had something on him, some kind of advantage. But she found she couldn’t talk. Couldn’t move at all.
Let me go, Sal said to the Hand.
Not until you promise to behave, the Hand said.
If you don’t let me go, everyone will notice that I’m not moving.
Look around you, dear, the Hand said. No one notices.
Why do you want the Codex Umbra? What does it do?
Somewhere in the middle of her skull, she could hear the Hand snicker.
All in due time, it said.
Sal grimaced.
Menchú cleared his throat. “Let’s hope we don’t find out,” he said. “I think that we cannot wait for a fourth or fifth attack. If the answer is not here, then it is out there. Somewhere, someone knows.” He turned to Liam. “Do you know who we might talk to?” Menchú said.
Liam allowed himself a small smile. “I might have a couple promising leads,” he said.
“Your underground people,” Grace said.
“I don’t think they’d call themselves that, but yes,” Liam said.
“When can we see them?” Menchú said.
“Anytime,” Liam said. “No time like now, right?”
“Good,” Menchú said. “Lead the way. Sal, I’d like you to come with us. Asanti, call us if there’s anything more from the Orb.”
Liam got up from the couch, already making calls.
Menchú turned to Grace. “Now that we have these soldiers here, let’s get you some rest, okay?” he said.
Sal could tell Grace didn’t like it. But there was nothing else for her to do.
2.
The café was like a hundred others in Rome. Sal freely admitted that when she had first come to Rome, the romance of it got to her a little bit. In the web of her American associations with all things Roman, those cafés were either for stopping in while on your honeymoon or for hiding in plain sight from Interpol because you were on the lam due to some elite crime, like robbing a casino. She realized, stepping into this one with Liam and Menchú, that she’d spent enough time in Rome for places like this to just become coffee shops. And even though they were bathed in slanting afternoon light, the two men waiting for them at a glass table weren’t romantic in the least.
“Liam,” one of them said, nodding. It was unclear how he’d recognized Liam, since the man had dirty white bandages wrapped over his eyes. As though he’d had an operation a month ago and spent the time since then walking around next to a highway.
“Is Liam here already?” the other one said. He wore large circular glasses that made his eyes look even bigger than they were.
“Pardon him,” the one with the bandages said. “He doesn’t see very well.”
“Gentlemen,” Liam said. “These are two of my colleagues, Father Menchú and Sal Brooks.”
The one with the bandages stood up and extended his hand. “A pleasure,” he said. “I am Cosmin Nicolescu. This is Hasan Marangoz.”
Marangoz nodded in their general direction. “Good to see you, Liam.”
He nodded toward Sal too, she noticed. As if he recognized her.
The waiter came over with three coffees for them.
“We ordered for you,” said Nicolescu. “We thought you could use a little lift.”
“You’re going to need it,” said Marangoz.
“What do you mean?” Menchú said.
Nicolescu and Marangoz looked at each other, then at Liam.
“Is this a setup?” Nicolescu said.
Liam shook his head. “You’re safe here.”
“We need some reassurance,” Marangoz said.
Menchú nodded and handed them each a small stack of bills.
“There,” he said. “Now we’re complicit. At least for the moment.”
Nicolescu looked at Menchú approvingly. “It’s best when we all have a skeleton in the closet.”
“Yes,” Menchú said. “Now, tell us what you know.”
Nicolescu took a sip of coffee. “You’ve become famous.”
“I thought we were always famous,” Liam said.
Nicolescu gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Among the likes of us, yes. Among demons themselves, no. I understand that you believe your job is important and that the Church has devoted considerable resources to it for a few centuries. But you have merely been collecting the objects that humans might use to bring magic into the world.”
“The truly powerful objects,” Marangoz said, “the ones that demons would want to use to wield magic—have almost never made it here. Why would they? The demons want them and they keep them.”
“Except for . . . what we have,” Menchú said.
Now both Nicolescu and Marangoz smiled.
“You don’t have to be vague,” Marangoz said. “We know what you have. Everyone is talking about the Codex Umbra. And the word is, the demons are too. They say the news has swept across the world already, and a wide variety of supernatural beings are very, very interested in what you have there in the Vatican Library.”
“How many are we talking about?” Sal said. Against her will, she realized. She sounded like that poor Swiss Guard in the Archives.
“In the world, or coming for you?”
“Coming for us,” Sal said.
Nicolescu looked at the ceiling. “There are at least a dozen in Rome right now.”
She heard the Hand snicker again. I would ask them who specifically, but that would arouse suspicion, wouldn’t it?
Don’t gloat, Sal said.
But it’s so much fun, the Hand said.
“You should lower your dozen to nine,” Liam said.
“We’re not counting the ones who have already tried to get it,” Nicolescu said.
“Fine. A dozen, then.”
“And more are arriving,” Nicolescu said. “You can assume they will keep coming until you get rid of it. Which reminds me.” He took a sip of coffee and looked at Menchú. “You know, Father, if you were willing to part with it, you could make a great deal of money. Even after our standard commission. Enough that you and your team could retire from this game for good.”
“We’re not interested,” Menchú said.
“I appreciate that,” Nicolescu said. “But I should warn you that those three were little ones. Stupid ones. Some of the demons will be bigger. And smarter. Much smarter. And there are a lot of them. No matter how secure you think you can make it—I assume you’ve, what is the English phrase, beefed up security? It doesn’t matter. One of them will still get in, one of these days. Probably one of these days this week.”
Somewhere behind her right ear, Sal could hear the Hand laughing.
If only they knew, he said.
“In other words,” Liam said, “you’re telling us your offer will stand if we change our minds because we decide we can’t handle it.”
“Of course,” Nicolescu said. “Though the price will drop some—perhaps drastically—when everyone realizes how dangerous the book is. The time to sell is now.”
“Nice pitch,” Liam said.
Nicolescu shrugged. “It’s a living,” he said. “But business interests aside, I am trying to tell you that you have only seen the beginning of your problems. To my knowledge you have never had a book like this before. You have avoided, to a large extent, seeing what magic really looks like.”
Father Menchú bristled. “We know what magic looks like.”
“Begging your pardon, Father,” Marangoz said, “but no, you don’t. You have only seen its manifestation in our world. You have never seen beyond that. But you will. Soon.”
Sooner than you think, said the Hand inside Sal’s head.
“You seem to know these demons personally,” Menchú said. “Can you tell us anything about them?”
“What can we say?” Marangoz said. “They don’t tell us what they’re planning, or even what they can do.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “Though I can say that some of them seem to be working together, cooperating, forming alliances. So the next attack you see, there will likely be more than one of them at once.”
“They’re teaming up?” Sal said.
Nicolescu smiled. “It’s only fair. You did it first.”
3.
The streetlights came on outside the bar where two men and a woman sat at a table near the window. One man had been there all day drinking beer, but he was still sober. The other man had arrived a half hour ago and ordered an aperitivo. The woman had just sat down, hadn’t even taken her jacket off yet. She ordered a ginger ale.
“Lightweight,” the drinker said.
“Gorogor,” said the one with the aperitivo, “be quiet. Eriath can drink what she wants.”
“You be quiet, Resketel,” said Gorgor.
“Both of you be quiet,” Eriath said. “Don’t let your nervousness make you run at the mouth.”
“I am not nervous,” Gorogor said.
Eriath sighed. “It’s like you forget that I can read minds.”
“Whatever you are reading, it is not nervousness,” Gorogor said.
“Then what is it?” Resketel said.
“Excitement,” Gorogor said.
“So do we go over the plan one more time?” Resketel said.
“One moment,” Eriath said. She had the woman she was inhabiting close her eyes. It made it easier for her to sweep the minds in the room. She learned that the woman sitting in the corner in the green skirt was about to break up with the man at the bar in the black shirt. The man in the black shirt, meanwhile, was about to ask the woman in the green skirt whether she would consider a threesome. The five people gathered two tables over from them all worked at the same company, Eriath learned. They were sitting there laughing and talking about nothing. Of the five, four were unaware that the fifth one was about to fire them. At the table right next to them, a woman and a man, both with streaks of gray in their hair, were talking about their favorite movies. They were both divorced, Eriath learned, and had only met once before at the party of a mutual friend. Both of them were playing it cool. Both of them were crawling out of their skin with lust for each other. Eriath hoped it worked out for them. But from her perspective, the only thing that mattered was that nobody was eavesdropping on them.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
“Let’s walk through the plan backward,” said Resketel. “When we are in the library, the plan is straightforward. Eriath, you read the librarian’s mind to know where the Codex Umbra is. You put this information in my mind, and any other information I may need to get there.”
“Right,” said Eriath.
“Then your job is essentially done,” Resketel said.
Eriath made her possessed subject smile.
“Then it’s my job to go get the book itself,” Resketel said. “Yes?”
“Are you sure you can do it by yourself?” Gorogor said.
“Positive,” said Resketel. “As long the obstacles are merely physical, there are no obstacles.”
“And Gorogor, you remember your job, right?”
“Excuse me?” Gorogor said. He had taken another long swig of beer and was now staring at the ceiling. “Oh. Yes. My job is to create havoc.”
“The important part of this being?” said Resketel, as though they were reciting a catechism.
“That I cannot remain in this human form and still sow chaos,” Gorogor said. “I must . . . burst free of it first.”
“Right,” Resketel said. “Which means?”
“That I must not do this until we have no use for our disguises.”
“Correct,” Resketel said. “And who decides when we have no use for our disguises?”
“When Eriath detects that someone knows we are . . . not what we seem to be.”
Resketel nodded. “Good. You got it.”
“I have been studying,” Gorogor said with a smile.
“It shows,” Resketel said.
“You do not have to be condescending about it,” Gorogor said.
“I’m not,” Resketel said. “I promise.” Resketel’s eyes flicked toward Eriath, just to let Eriath know that he knew that she knew he was lying.
“So before that,” Eriath said to Gorogor, “all you have to do is be quiet and follow us. Resketel and I will talk our way in. Until we can’t anymore.”
Gorogor nodded. “Do you think you can do it?” he said.
“Yes,” Resketel and Eriath answered together.
“Good,” Gorogor said. “Because I do not want to destroy the entire Vatican Library for one book. That would be tiring. But I will do it if I have to.”
“You won’t have to,” Eriath said.
Gorogor fidgeted in his chair.
“Would you like to go home now, Gorogor?” Resketel said.
“Yes,” Gorogor said, with relief.
“All right. Tomorrow morning, then. Outside Vatican City.”
“Yes,” Gorogor said. “Tomorrow morning. I cannot wait to have the book in our possession.”
Gorogor got up from the table and gave them a little bow, then headed out the door. They smiled and waited until he was gone.
“So we agree that we don’t really care what happens to him?” Eriath said.
“Of course,” Resketel said. “I’ll make sure he never touches the Codex. Once we have it, we’ll be able to do away with him in the blink of an eye.”
“He wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway,” Eriath said.
“Really, we’re doing the worlds a service,” Resketel said.
Eriath nodded. “I’m looking forward to ruling with you.”
“And I you,” Resketel said.
Eriath tried to look into Resketel’s head but couldn’t. She had never been able to. It must be part of his power as a shape-shifter, she thought. He can hide what he looks like, make himself look like something else. Why not hide what he’s thinking, too? Following the logic of that, though, didn’t make her feel better. He’d only hide his thoughts from me if he didn’t want me to see them.
They turned their smiles on each other. They didn’t trust each other at all.
4.
Sal unlocked the door to her apartment. She didn’t want to be
there. At all. She’d tried to resist the Hand. She had fought him, exerted all the will she had to keep him from using her as his puppet. But the Hand was too strong for her. He’d made her say that she was tired and needed a few hours’ rest in her own bed, even though she wasn’t tired at all. He’d made her come all the way back to the apartment, take out her keys, turn the lock, and walk in.
What are we doing here? Sal said.
She heard the Hand sigh.
This talking to yourself has become awkward, he said.
Sal felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.
It was Perry, following her inside.
“Hey,” Perry said.
“Oh, my God,” Sal said. “Is it really you?”
“Nope,” Perry said. “There is, in fact, no one else here at all. This is just a demonstration of the things I can make you see. The things I can make you feel.”
“You asshole,” Sal said.
“Suit yourself,” Perry said. He melted in front of her, right into the floor. Sal felt a rush of wind behind her, from inside the apartment. She heard two feet alight on the floor. It was her mother.
“Stop fucking around,” Sal said.
“Fine,” the Hand said in mock exasperation. Her mother reached into her own chest and threw off her skin in one dramatic gesture. It flew into the air behind her and turned to smoke. Underneath that was an almost perfect replica of Sal, except for the eyes, which were like negatives of her own: white pupils, gray irises, floating in little black pools between her eyelids.
“Get it?” the doppelgänger Hand said. “It’s like you’re talking to yourself.”
“Except I’m not talking out loud,” Sal said.
“You can sense that?” the Hand said. “That’s good. You’re strong. I knew I picked the right host.”
“Don’t be so sure how right I am,” Sal said.
The doppelgänger looked around her apartment. “True. Perhaps I should have taken over Father Menchú instead. Then I would already have the Codex, instead of having to watch while that sad little priest stuffed it into that . . . magic sack, or whatever it is. On the other hand, that I now simply have to wait until someone unearths it from your Archives is a mere question of patience. And from the sound of things, I won’t have to wait long at all. Sooner or later—and probably much sooner—some clever creature will do the tricky work of extracting the book from the Archives. And I will be there when it happens.”
Bookburners: Season One Volume Two Page 13