The Mona Lisa Sacrifice

by Peter Roman

  “I’ll help you,” I said. “We’ll find it and kill it together.”

  She put her hand in mine but didn’t say anything else on that subject.

  We finished our wine and then left the café. I wanted to find the angel as quickly as possible. I wanted to find any angel as quickly as possible. I needed grace before I got too hungry. I needed grace before I couldn’t help myself and turned on Penelope now that I knew she had it.

  I took her to Montparnasse Cemetery. It’s where many of my friends have wound up. More of them have found less respectable graves, in trenches or stormy seas, but such is the way of history. The cemetery is also a favourite haunt of the angels. I’d found more than one here over the years and chased or followed them to somewhere I could kill them in private.

  But the cemetery was empty of anything except for the dead and us. Someone else had been here though. The stone angels that marked tombs throughout the place all held postcards: in their hands, tucked into their wings, jammed into cracks in the stone.

  When I pulled the first one out of an angel’s broken eye socket, I thought perhaps it was just someone being romantic or having a lark. It was a crumpled card depicting chrysanthemums. When I pulled the next one out from underneath an angel’s broken wing that had fallen to the ground, I began to wonder. It was a photo of a Shinto shrine. When I took the third one from the hands of the angel looking down on Baudelaire’s grave, I knew something was up. It was a photo of Mount Fuji.

  “I don’t suppose you’re behind this, are you?” I said to the stone rendering of Baudelaire at my feet, but like most of the dead, he had nothing to say to me.

  “What is it?” Penelope asked, looking at the postcards. “What do they mean?”

  “Check all the other angels,” I said, “and bring me back their postcards.”

  We separated and moved through the cemetery, collecting the cards that had been tucked into each statue and marker that held an angel. We met back at Baudelaire’s tomb, with handfuls of them. I tossed all my cards on the ground and looked at them.

  Samurai warriors.

  Japanese sailors.

  The rising sun flag.

  Cherry blossom trees.

  Penelope added her cards to my pile.

  A street scene from Tokyo.

  A woman in a kimono.

  An ink painting of trees done in the suibokuga style.

  “They’re a message,” I said, finally answering Penelope’s question.

  “There’s something in Japan,” she said.

  “The angels have all gone to Japan,” I said, nodding. Which explained why we hadn’t come across any since my most recent encounter with Gabriel.

  “What is there for them in Japan?” Penelope asked, and I shook my head.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The war, maybe. But if that’s where they are, then that’s where we’ll have to go.”

  She studied me. “Something bothers you about Japan,” she said.

  “No,” I said, looking around the graveyard. “What bothers me is I don’t know who left us this message, or why.”

  As if on cue, a gust of wind picked up the postcards and blew them into the far corners of the cemetery and out of sight.

  A MOST UNIQUE OPTION

  I wasn’t surprised I’d found White and freed him—in a manner of speaking—just in time for the annual meeting of the secret group he knew about. There was definitely something or someone working to guide me along the path I was taking. So be it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the centuries, it’s that everything gets revealed in due time. And if it doesn’t, well, it wasn’t that important then.

  I made my flight at the airport with minutes to spare and settled in to sleep as much as I could. I didn’t even notice the turbulence the pilot apologized for when we landed in Detroit.

  I hit the first coffee stand I came across in the airport and washed down a croissant and a muffin with a double espresso. I was feeling drained again because of all the grace I’d been burning lately. I was going to have to find another angel soon. It’s a shame the essence of demons was the farthest thing imaginable from grace. Carver would have filled me up if he’d been a seraphim.

  After my breakfast on the run I found the car rental desks and obtained a car. A Ford, it being Detroit and all. I looked at a tourist road map while the rental agent filled out the forms, but I couldn’t find the address White had told me. I asked the agent if she knew where it was, and she circled a blank spot on the map.

  “There’s nothing there but some abandoned auto factories,” she said. “They don’t like to put it on the tourist maps.” She looked at me. “Are you one of those photographers who likes ruins?”

  “I’m not a photographer,” I told her. “I wish I had that kind of eye.”

  I gave her the latest ID and credit cards I’d stolen, from a man in a suit checking his phone for messages at the coffee shop, and then inspected the car with her. Hopefully this one would lead me to better places than the last car I’d rented.

  Once I left the airport I headed straight for the area on the map the agent had circled. I was hours early, but I wanted to scout out the place first to check for any potential surprises. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d be the only one doing that. Maybe I’d even run into the person I needed to find and manage to skip the entire meeting.

  The problem was I couldn’t find the address White had given me. The area was an industrial park, and all the buildings had been abandoned, their windows boarded up and their overgrown parking lots fenced off with chain link topped with razor coil. But the street signs were still there, and I couldn’t find my destination anywhere, no matter how much I drove around.

  I finally pulled over to the side of one of the streets and got out to look around. There was no one else in sight to ask for directions, not even a bird. The only thing moving was a plastic bag that blew down the street past the car.

  Well, when all else fails, sometimes the direct approach is best.

  “Hello!” I yelled. “I’m here for the meeting!”

  No one answered but the wind. So much for the direct approach.

  I got back in my car and checked the time on the clock. A little before noon. I had a lot of time to kill before the secret meeting in the invisible place started. So I did the only thing I could do in the situation. I closed my eyes and tried to nap.

  I’d like to tell you I dreamed of better times, of Penelope and me living back in the shack in the woods, or in Paris, but I didn’t. Instead, I dreamed I was back in the pub in Ireland. In Morgana’s realm. I stood at the bar and drank an ale that tasted of honey and ocean air. The people all around me welcomed me back by lifting their own drinks in salute. They bore the marks of their fight with the mummy: black eyes and bruised faces and arms in slings made from bar towels. I drank my drink and tapped my foot to the music and saw Morgana come down the stairs, making the entrance like the queen she was. The band struck up a number I didn’t recognize, somehow coaxing the sounds of lutes and harps from their guitars and microphones, and the crowd cheered.

  Morgana paused on the stairs and smiled at me, and I felt that hollowed-out pain again at being so far away from her. I wanted to go to her, to kneel at her feet, to wait for her touch, even though it was just a dream. Then she patted her stomach, and I noticed for the first time she was pregnant. Very pregnant. She looked as if she were ready to give birth right there on the stairs.

  A car driving past woke me. I sat up in my seat in time to see the tail lights disappear behind a building at the intersection down the street. Somehow it was night now. I’d slept for hours, but I could still feel the hollowness inside me. I could still taste the sea on my lips. So perhaps it hadn’t been a dream after all. Well, no time for that now. I started the car and followed the other one without turning the lights on, but by the time I hit the intersection it was gone.

  I idled
there for a moment, wondering whether I was still dreaming or whatever it was I’d been doing, and then another car, a Jaguar, passed me. I took that as a sign I was awake. I followed it before it could disappear too.

  The Jaguar turned down a side street I hadn’t noticed before and I smiled and cursed myself simultaneously. It had been the street I’d been unable to find. Unless it hadn’t existed before now, it had been here all along, hidden by a sleight. I hadn’t even thought to check for illusions. I was getting sloppy in my old age.

  The Jaguar went through an open gate into another overgrown parking lot, but this one had a dozen other cars in it. My rental was the cheapest in the lot by a factor of about ten, I guessed. I noticed none of the other cars were parked particularly close to each other, so I gave them all a wide berth and parked underneath a streetlight that somehow still worked. I figured you couldn’t be too safe in this neighbourhood.

  The driver of the Jaguar, a man in a suit and tie, got out and looked at me as I walked up to him.

  “I hope there’s not a dress code,” I said. “The airline lost my luggage.”

  He stared at me with incomprehension, and I realized he was the type who’d probably never flown on anything but a private jet and thus didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. But then he smiled as he came to the conclusion I had to be joking. Although the smile did falter a little when he looked over my shoulder at the rental car.

  “I’m trying to keep a low profile,” I said, and his smile came back.

  “I also,” he said in an accent that couldn’t be anything but German. I looked at the Jag and wondered what his regular vehicle was.

  He turned and headed for the entrance of the building, which looked to be some sort of older auto factory. I followed him and he didn’t object. So far everything was going smoothly. I didn’t expect it too last.

  The doors to the building were open, and there were lights on inside to welcome us—the kind on metal stands, with cables snaking off to some unseen generator. I figured the factory probably wasn’t even connected to the power grid anymore. Judging from the dirt on the floor and the peeling paint on the walls, the place hadn’t been in operation for decades.

  We went down a hall and into the factory proper. There were more lights in a circle in the centre of the chamber, with folding chairs set up facing a temporary stage with a podium on it. I was surprised to see the factory equipment still largely in place, albeit rusting. There were wide conveyer belts on platforms leading off into the darkness, with chains hanging from tracks on the ceiling overhead. Metal arms hung from bases lining the walls. A forklift was parked in the shadows behind the stage. The sound of dripping water echoed through the room. Very homey.

  It looked like we were the last to arrive, because the chairs were mostly occupied. There were only two left empty. Jaguar took one, I sat in the other. Everyone turned to look at me, including the man who stepped up to stand at the podium. I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t wearing a suit, but I had a feeling my entire outfit cost less than the socks on most of this bunch. I looked around at them. A couple women, the rest of them men. I didn’t recognize any of them.

  The man at the podium cleared his throat. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” he said to me.

  I smiled at him. “We haven’t,” I said. “I’m here on behalf of Mr. White.”

  A couple of them raised their eyebrows, but most of them didn’t react at all. They were a reserved bunch. I began to worry they might be connected to the Royal Family somehow.

  The man at the podium smiled back at me, but it was one of those smiles you see on people who don’t actually know how to smile.

  “We are glad to see Mr. White back in the business,” he said. “His chair has been empty too long. I trust he has finally freed himself from his personal commitments?”

  “He’s so free you’re never going to see him again,” I said. “He’s retired and I’ve taken over his gallery.” It seemed as good a cover story as any, and I doubted they were going to take this moment to check it out.

  Now they all studied me, and none of them were smiling.

  “Interesting,” the man at the podium said, although I had a feeling it wasn’t the word he wanted to use. “Well then, an introduction perhaps?”

  “Clement Greenberg,” I told them. An art joke. A couple of them chuckled but the rest didn’t seem to get it. I didn’t know whether or not I should be concerned by that.

  “Very well, Mr. Greenberg,” the man at the podium said, his face as reserved as ever. Can a face be reserved? Well, his was. “I trust you know how our auction works?”

  I nodded. Sure, what the hell. “Let’s get on with it,” I said.

  He looked down at his podium and shuffled some index cards there. “Indeed,” he said. “Our first item is a unicorn horn,” he said, and two men wearing black stepped out of the shadows and onto the stage. I hadn’t noticed them there at all. They were carrying the horn and held it up for the audience to see.

  It was an average enough unicorn horn. It shimmered with its own light and left rifts in the air where it tore its way into other realms. The rifts only lasted a few seconds before they faded, but everyone leaned forward to peer at them. Everyone but me and one of the others. I wasn’t interested because I’d seen enough of this sort of thing to know there wasn’t much on the other side—usually a meadow with that realm’s equivalent of grass and trees, maybe the inside of a building like this one. With any luck, that was it. But sometimes your luck ran out and you found something looking back at you. Something just as curious. That’s how some of the demons crossed over into our world in the first place. Best not to make eye contact.

  The other member of our little group who wasn’t looking at the unicorn horn was looking at me like I was a unicorn horn. A short, bald man whose suit was the plainest of the bunch, and whose shoes were actually scuffed. I suppose he thought he looked inconspicuous, but if you’re going to mingle with rich people the best way to stand out is by not looking rich. I say just go for it—throw on the tailored suit and the socks you wear only once and the glasses that cost more than the GDP of some Pacific Ocean island states. Enjoy it while you can.

  I nodded at the unicorn horn and rolled my eyes at the bald man, as if to say “This is what they’re offering? Who doesn’t already have a couple of these acting as night lights in their bathrooms?”

  He just kept looking at me without changing his expression. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but my vast experience with getting beaten and killed told me that kind of look meant something.

  I was a little distracted then, because the people around me started bidding for the unicorn horn.

  “A yeti fur,” a man with unnaturally perfect teeth said.

  “One of the lost books of Atlantis,” a woman with unnaturally perfect hair said.

  “The jawbone of Moses,” a man with an unnaturally perfect build said.

  I’d been expecting them to bid cash, but I guess if you already have too much money to know what to do with, you need other excitements. Me, I’ll take money over magic and the exotic any day. Only one of those can keep you warm and drunk on a rainy evening.

  The man at the podium—the auctioneer, I guess—looked at me, but I shook my head and gave him a smile that said show me something worth my time.

  “Fair exchange,” he said. “A lost book of Atlantis for the unicorn horn.” Everyone nodded but no one said anything. It seemed he was the arbiter as well as the auctioneer. Well, I guess you’d need someone to make decisions at an event like this.

  The men in black disappeared back into the shadows with the horn and its light faded away. Not your normal shadows then. The auctioneer looked back down at his podium.

  “Our next item has been off the market for two centuries,” he said. “A leprechaun’s foot.”

  One of the men in black reappeared to hold up the mummified specimen. I w
inced and looked away. The leprechauns had been a harmless bunch who liked shiny things. Sort of like addled cousins of the faerie. Things went bad for them after the Normans got them confused with lucky rabbits.

  There were only two bids this time, a strand of Rapunzel’s hair that continued to grow and a goblin’s heart, still beating, on a stick. Tough choice. The hair won the day. I tried not to shake my head. It was like trading a stomachache for a headache.

  When they brought the third item out, I figured it was time to make my play. I didn’t have anything to trade, so I was just wasting time sitting here. That and I was growing bored.

  “The real Kennedy assassination tape,” the auctioneer said, and the other man in black stepped out of the shadows and held up a roll of film, the kind that needed one of those old projectors.

  “A lost tentacle of one of the Deep Ones,” Jaguar said, in a way that implied the capitalization. “Still living.” We all stared at him. How had he managed to get that?

  Well, no matter. It was time to do what I’d come here for.

  “Mona Lisa,” I said, and now everyone looked at me. I smiled at them. “The real one, of course,” I said.

  I waited as they glanced at each other, trying to figure out if I was bluffing or not. Or maybe just mad. Then they all looked at the bald man. Which told me what I needed to know.

  The bald man finally changed expression. Now he smiled a little. Never a good sign in those you suspect of murderous inclinations.

  “Gentlemen, I’m afraid we’re going to have to end this meeting rather prematurely,” he said. “I have some matters to discuss with my friend here, and I’ll need to do that in private. We’ll put everything on hold until next year.”

  I was expecting an outcry—these were rich people, after all, and we hadn’t settled the assassination tape bid yet—but they all just nodded and sighed as they stood up. Even the auctioneer picked up his podium and stepped back into the shadows with it. So that settled who was in charge here. Jaguar frowned at me as he headed for the exit, but personally I thought I’d saved him a fleecing, given that Kennedy hadn’t really been killed. Not permanently, anyway.