Good. This ought to be interesting.
• • •
Liam wasn’t surprised that the Book of the Hand was missing. Would have been too easy to just leave it for us to find. On the other hand, storing such a dangerous artifact anywhere other than the Archives’ vault smacked of the kind of moronic decision-making that generally required either a dedicated committee or a truly clueless superior. Possibly both.
He let Asanti and Menchú worry about the book. He plugged into the network, let his programs loose on Team Two’s intranet—always felt a nice bit of guilty pleasure breaking out the black hat—and turned to his main objective. He hadn’t sold Sal out, but they’d learned somehow. Liam didn’t think any of the others would have let the information slip even by accident. Which left one possibility: they had all told Balloon and Stretch about Sal’s little problem, because Balloon and Stretch were listening to their private conversations. We don’t have a leak problem. We have a bug problem.
• • •
In the convent’s shower room, there was a small wooden hatch that allowed access to the pipes, drains, and emergency shutoff valves. These centuries-old buildings didn’t have central heat or air conditioning, so convenient and illogically load-bearing air ducts connecting every room of the convent would have been too much to hope for, but a person who didn’t mind a tight squeeze could force their way from the drain access up to a storage space below the roof-ridge that extended down the entire wing—a storage area wider than the corridor below it. Grace counted steps to the room at the end of the hall. Then, she pressed down as close to the eaves as she could, and with a swift kick, broke a hole through the ceiling of her bedroom.
Now was not the time for subtlety. If Grace was lucky, the woman in the hallway would pause for a moment to summon help before going inside to investigate the cause of the noise in what was supposed to be an empty room. If she wasn’t lucky, there would be another guard inside. In either case, her best chance was to grab her candle quickly and take any resistance by surprise.
First piece of luck: no one in the bedroom. Second: her candle was still burning on her bedside table where she had left it . . . how long ago? Grace forced herself not to notice how far it had burned since they’d gone on the run. She reached for a glass chimney to protect the flame . . .
The door from her sitting room burst in, revealing three men in ill-fitting clerical collars. Grace grabbed the book sitting beside her bed and threw it into the face of the first man through the door, which granted her an extra moment to slam the hurricane chimney over her candle, pick it up, and launch herself at him. The man blocked the door—his buddies couldn’t get through, and the three-to-one matchup turned head to head.
Even one-handed, it was hardly a fair fight.
Grace knocked the first man cold and sent him tumbling into the second just as the “sister” from the hallway burst in on the scene. The third man had a knife, and a gun he didn’t have time to aim before Grace kicked it from his grip. The second man was still trying to throw off the unconscious first, which Grace judged would keep him busy long enough for her to knock out the one with the knife. If she was fast, she could then deal with the woman, followed by the last man, and be back on the roof with her candle and on her way before the couple at the café could cross the street or summon reinforcements. If they had reinforcements. Balloon and Stretch were supposed to be a faction within Team Two, not the whole damn team—how many goons could they field?
The man with the knife fell to a quick kick to the temple, underestimating how far she could reach while holding a lit candle in one hand. Grace used her momentum to whip around and face the woman from the hall—who was carrying a fire extinguisher.
“Try me,” she told Grace. “Let’s see who goes down first.”
“We can talk about this . . .” Grace began, and then—while the woman hesitated—flung her candle in its glass lamp straight up into the air. The ceiling was just high enough that she’d have a few seconds to disarm the false nun and still have time to catch the candle on the way down.
The woman gaped, fishlike, as Grace hurled herself at her. With both hands free it was a simple matter for Grace to yank the false nun’s robes over her face, tangling her in her unaccustomed habit.
Grace turned back, reaching out for the candle which was now falling, just where she wanted it, right into her waiting hand . . .
. . . not her waiting hand. The last man had freed himself faster than Grace had anticipated. He plucked the candle from the air, jerking it from her reach even as her fingers brushed against the protective glass of the chimney. A swing of his arm and the lamp shattered against the wall.
Grace could still reach the candle. She hadn’t lost yet.
The man’s eyes met hers as he pinched out the flame.
Grace was gone before her body, or the candle, hit the floor.
• • •
Liam’s first guess was that Balloon and Stretch had compromised one of Team Three’s computers. Not his—after getting sucker-punched and possessed through his laptop, Liam was more than a little obsessive about security—but the older Vatican machines weren’t such hard targets. An email link, a keylogger— Then again, out of the rest of his teammates, Sal was the only one who regularly used technology more advanced than a flip phone, and she didn’t have her own machine in the office.
If I were a bug in the archives, where would I be? In the center of the room probably, near Asanti’s desk, where they gathered when they had anything important to discuss. Except that was out, because anything tech-based would be fried by its proximity to the Orb. (Liam had learned that the hard way, having lost more than one piece of scanning equipment trying to figure out how the damn glowy Magic 8 Ball worked.)
Across the room, he heard Sal ask, “How long before Grace assumes we’ve all been taken and starts on Plan B: bloody vengeance?”
Menchú pulled out his pocket watch. “About ten more minutes.”
Sal looked at Aaron, still leaning against the stair railing.
“Can you get us out?” Sal asked him.
Aaron nodded.
“We can’t leave without the Book of the Hand.” Menchú slipped the watch back into his pocket. It was an antique, encased in silver, which—as far as Liam could tell—was the only reason it was still working. Because by rights, nothing that complex should still keep accurate time when surrounded by the amount of magical backwash the team was exposed to on a regular basis.
And then Liam’s eye fell on the antique pen case resting in its usual spot on Asanti’s desk. His own desk had been thoroughly tossed, Menchú’s too. So had Asanti’s files and cabinets. So why was her pen case still there? Completely undisturbed. Or, perhaps, returned. Because Team Two, for all of their confidence, would want to hedge their bets in case Team Three found a way to sneak back into the Archives. And if we did, we might just say something worth hearing.
A new voice sounded from the top of the stairs, and Liam knew he had come to this conclusion just a moment too late.
Cardinal Varano looked down at them like God the Father. “You won’t be leaving at all.”
4.
“Your Eminence,” Menchú said, though the term seemed out of place addressed to a man flanked by machine-gun-wielding toughs. “I can explain.”
“I’m not here for explanations, Arturo.” The man in the red robes sounded sad more than angry. “I warned Asanti there was nothing I could do until you dealt with the problem of Ms. Brooks. And your response to that was to break into the Vatican. Looking for this, I expect.” The Cardinal gestured, and one of the guards opened a leather case to reveal the Book of the Hand.
It was still wrapped in a protective shroud, and seeing it, Menchú muttered, “Thank God.”
“If I were in your position, Arturo,” said the Cardinal, “I would pray for mercy and forgiveness, not in thanks.”
“Your Eminence, we need that book to free Sal.”
“An exorcism? But th
ose are quite beyond your bailiwick, Arturo. They’re Team Two’s responsibility. And you attacked Team Two’s operatives, with magic, no less, to free her. De Vos, or Desmet—I can never remember which is which—anyway, he’s been grievously injured. Surely you understand the predicament you’ve left me.”
“Desmet and De Vos are killing people.” Menchú’s voice shook with rage. “They’re torturers and thugs.”
“And they are efficient,” the Cardinal said. Which was when Menchú started to worry.
• • •
Sal trusted her teammates, but she’d never felt altogether comfortable around the Society higher-ups—so as soon as Varano entered with the machine guns, she jumped straight to: Holy fuck, the Cardinal’s selling us out.
But she hadn’t gotten much further when she felt Aaron’s hand at her elbow. “Don’t talk,” he whispered. “Just follow me. And whatever you do, be very, very quiet.”
And bail on the others? Fuck that noise.
Sal set her heels as Aaron tried to guide her backward. His grip on her arm, although shaking, was surprisingly strong.
“I can get us all out of this, but you have to come with me. Now,” he hissed.
Sal risked a glance at the Cardinal. He wasn’t even glancing in Sal’s direction. Neither were his guards. And sure, Aaron was quiet, but someone should have noticed him moving around, right?
Magic. Dammit.
“We have to help them,” Sal said.
“We have to save your brother first. We’ll come back, but only if we survive—which will only happen if you shut up and walk.”
Sal weighed her options. Go with a demon (or angel) who had helped them so far, versus stay in the machine gun sights, then get herself thrown into a cell subject to the tender mercies of Balloon and Stretch. Somehow she didn’t think the maiming the Hand inflicted on Balloon would put him in a kind mood. Aaron pulled at her arm again, and this time, Sal followed.
Aaron guided her backward at first, taking tiny steps into the ruined stacks. Once they were out of the Cardinal’s direct line of sight, they turned, and—locking her hand in his—he towed her out of the Archives through a back door, up a narrow hallway, all the way to . . .
Perry’s room.
Sal froze as they crossed the threshold, and Aaron released her hand. Even in the short time since her last visit, Perry had visibly deteriorated: skin pale and slack, cheeks hollow. A forest of machines surrounded him. He was breathing on his own, but the sound had a broken, rasping quality.
“Did they do this?” Sal asked. No need to elaborate on who “they” were.
“No, this is the Hand’s work.”
Sal poked at the buzzing at the back of her brain. Had it done something to Perry while she was possessed . . . ? “When? He was fine . . . not fine,” Sal foundered for words, “but he was stable.” Sal reached for her brother’s hand, felt his skin, dry and soft like paper. “What changed?” she asked, not caring if she got an answer from the demon inside, or the one by her brother’s bed.
“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “But I have a theory. Possession is a swap, of sorts—a soul dragged into the other world for a soul forced into this. But the Hand’s larger than Perry, or you—most of its being remains in the other world. It merely . . . extended itself into this domain, through Perry, and through you. But when the Hand broke free, its use of power taxed this vessel—like power through a filament.”
“Then why wasn’t I hurt?”
“My best guess is that the Hand wanted you mobile; Perry, not so much. But you should have both been hurt when it began to use its power. Why you’re fine and Perry’s not—well, it’s not important now.”
As Aaron continued to talk, Sal felt the itch of the Hand in her mind, and her eyes slid, unbidden, up to Perry’s left ear. Something was different about it. But what? And then it hit her: she could see Perry’s ear . . . because the lock of hair that normally covered it had been cut off. A lock of hair, folded into a scrap of paper, and given to the Oracle at Delphi, who had demanded a sacrifice.
“Interesting choice,” the Pythia had said.
Oh, God, what had she done?
Aaron leaned forward, demanding Sal’s attention again. “This is what I need from you. Why I brought all of you here. I can save him. But I need your permission.”
“Why would you need my permission to save my brother?”
“Menchú made me promise not to harm anyone living.”
“He’s alive, then?” Perry’s soul, hunched in a demon dimension in a cell of glass and briars. “He’s not gone?” I haven’t lost him.
“He is not . . . entirely gone. But the man you knew as your brother will not fit in a body so used as this. The Hand has scoured him clean.” Aaron gestured to the bed, to her brother. “But if I take his body, I can give him life.”
“You said harm.”
“I’ll have to make a little more room for myself.” Aaron faltered. “And rewire him from the inside, somewhat, which might be construed as . . . It— He won’t work quite like a human anymore. But he will leave this place.”
The buzzing at the back of Sal’s skull throbbed and pulsed. Sal asked the only question that mattered.
“Why?”
Aaron did not speak until she met his eyes. “Because I can. He is one life, and each life is everything.” He pressed both hands against the edge of Perry’s bed, and Sal realized he was using it to support his weight. “I am careful. I do not vandalize the bodies I visit. The man you know as a tour guide will return to his life none the worse for wear, and without knowledge or memory of his time with me. But if I stay in one body for too long, I cannot help doing irreparable harm, as the Hand has done here. I shift back and forth as I must, to save my hosts. But with each shift I lose a piece of myself. Your brother has been . . . hollowed. Hallowed, you might say. There is space for me in the empty places within him, until the one who owns my service finally calls me home.”
Sal shook her head. “I can’t make that decision for him.”
Aaron lifted Perry’s other hand, holding it carefully so as not to disturb the tubes and wires that gave him a semblance of life. “There is no one else who can.”
• • •
“Have you ever wondered,” the Cardinal continued, “how this whole edifice functions? We have operatives on all continents; we protect the world from threats no one else admits exist. We all have to be on the same page. We need efficiency, and loyalty.”
“Desmet and De Vos are not efficient. They’re not loyal.”
“Judged by what standard, Arturo? They have their messes, yes, but they clean them up. They’ve been honest with me about the situation, and I’ve repaid their honesty with trust. Killing the possessed—”
“Or those they claim to be possessed.”
The Cardinal shrugged. “You have to admit, it’s clean. Compare that to your team—chasing all over the world after magic, trying to save everyone, generating headlines and expense reports and paperwork. It’s a sickness. You try to save the un-savable—right down to Ms. Brooks, who is literally possessed by a demon.”
“That’s our mission,” Menchú said. “Our calling.”
“Your job is to protect the Society and keep the monsters contained! Instead you’ve gone around . . . recruiting them. It’s a nightmare. The other teams see what you get away with, and grow bolder. The mission of the Society is to keep order. You’ve made your entire division an anathema.”
“You’re honestly saying we should let people die.”
“A small town in the southern United States disappears—nice and neat. The authorities there deal with that sort of thing all the time. Certainly to be preferred over calling in a strike team and costing us a team leader. We searched high and low but could not find a better replacement for Bouchard than Thavani Shah, who I’m sure you’d agree is hardly an ideal candidate—”
“I don’t know,” Menchu said, voice tight and vicious, “what you’re implying.”
> “It’s a question of . . . cultural fit. Anyway, if I were in your position, Arturo—”
Menchú did not look away from the book as he said, “If you were in my position, Your Excellency, how many hundreds more would be dead?”
His words were greeted by thunderous silence.
Finally, the Cardinal rasped: “How dare you? You’ve disobeyed orders. You’ve stolen into the Vatican by who knows what black arts. You’ve broken faith, Arturo.”
Menchú raised his eyes to meet Cardinal Varano’s.
“I have never broken faith with the Church. But if the Church wishes to break faith with me, I will protect myself, and my people.”
The Cardinal’s face had darkened to a red so deep it was nearly purple. He closed his eyes, and breathed deeply until he paled again. “You’re a sickness at our heart, Arturo. A cancer, building a team of cancers.” Varano’s gesture took in Asanti and Liam as well. “The weak and the possessed, squawking about virtue. Once I’ve made an example of you, the other teams will fall in line. It won’t even be difficult to turn them against you. Your people are barely even human!”
At this cue, a guard at the back shoved Grace forward to fall at Cardinal Varano’s feet. She crumpled, careless and limp, like a puppet with cut strings. Menchú felt his heart stop. The Cardinal noticed his flinch.
“Fortunately, De Vos and Desmet kept me informed of your illicit activities. You have given me trouble for years, but that ends now. Surrender, and cooperate. Confess what you are told to confess and affirm what you are told to affirm.” He held up Grace’s unlit candle. “And I will not have this—thing—destroyed.”
Menchú swallowed. “Would you let her live?”
The Cardinal smiled, sensing he had found his point of leverage. “She will be safe. Maybe someday she will even be found again, once all of this is safely behind us.”
Bookburners: Season One Volume Two Page 25