Judgment Stone (9781401687359)

by Liparulo, Robert

  The new angel joined the first, swinging at the beast, snapping at it with the instant confluence of their embers. The demon lurched toward one, then the other, its huge jaws opening and shutting like a shark at seals. It pulled back away from the angels, less of its body coming through the wall now.

  The angels and demon were fading—Jagger realized they had been for ten, fifteen seconds. They drove the beast back until it completely disappeared beyond the wall. The two spiritual beings continued slashing with their swords, moving forward. And before they walked through the wall in pursuit of the retreating beast, they faded away.

  Jagger blinked. Nothing there but a wall. The framed photograph of Beth’s parents that she had hung there when they first arrived. Closer, the window, its curtains hanging on either side, undisturbed. Not even the slightest ripple. He looked at Tyler’s door. Nothing there either. Looking at the spot where Tyler’s protective angel had stood, he whispered, “Thank you.” Then: “Beth, you can open your eyes.”

  Lips moving, she shook her head.

  “The vision’s gone. It wore off.” He hoped it had for her as well.

  She opened one eye, then the other. She stared at the wall, the front door, around the room. She clutched Jagger’s shoulder. “Jagger—”

  “Honey, I’m so sorry . . .” Searching for something to say. “Did you at least see the angel?”

  “For about two seconds. I couldn’t take my eyes off that . . . thing. Why, Jag? Why was it here, trying to get in?”

  “I think that’s what they do.” He remembered something from Scripture, one of Peter’s letters, he thought: Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

  “Are they all like . . . that?”

  “They’re all different, as far as I’ve seen. All of them hideous, but that . . .” He shook his head. “It was like a Chinese lion, but a lot worse. The fangs and claws, reptile scales . . . did you see that brow? Looked like the edge of a cliff . . . What?”

  She was scowling at him, puzzled. “Where were the scales?”

  “All over,” he said. “Instead of fur. Over its face and legs . . .”

  “The thing I saw was lion-like, definitely, but it was skeletal. It didn’t have fur or scales or a covering of any kind. It was like a big lion’s skeleton, but . . . burnt. And there was no brow. A ridge over the eyes, which were set in big, gaping holes. Black . . . I don’t know, sludge, kept pouring out of its nostrils, or holes in its skeleton-face, and its mouth. It was all over the floor. Things like maggots with faces were squirming around in it.” She closed her eyes, lowered her forehead to his bicep. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  The two of them had seen a similar demon. No, it was the same demon, but what each had seen was different. The one Beth had witnessed was obviously more grotesque. The difference went beyond opinion, the way one person might call a mountain range majestic and beautiful while another called it forlorn and ugly. This went to matters of fact, as if one person said a mountain range had three peaks, while the other said it had six.

  Jagger didn’t know what to say . . . or think.

  [ 25 ]

  It was just after midnight local time when Nevaeh landed the Tribe’s corporate jet at Palermo’s Falcone-Borsellino Airport. Named after two judges who were murdered by the Mafia, it seemed to her a subtle way of reminding people of the city’s most famous export: organized crime. She taxied into their private hangar and drove out in the white panel van Sebastian had secured for shuttling them around the city. She cranked up her favorite “going on a mission” playlist—fast-paced orchestral music, the kind used in action movie trailers and video games to get the blood pumping—and got on the A29.

  She drove automatically, thinking of getting to St. Catherine’s, grabbing Jagger’s wife, hoping it wasn’t already too late. Who were the people attacking the place? Were they after Beth? Even if they weren’t, their assault could easily foil Nevaeh’s plans: it could be the impetus that drove Jagger to hustle his family away, or implement tighter security that would make kidnapping her next to impossible. Or worse, she could be killed. Then how would Nevaeh know what Beth had told Ben that ended his punishment, that finally earned him God’s forgiveness? It couldn’t be that the situation was as the others suggested, that Beth’s presence at the time Ben went home was merely a coincidence. God didn’t do coincidences. God must have put in the woman the gift of drawing souls to Him; it was an elixir Nevaeh wanted, needed to taste.

  Twenty minutes later she exited onto Via Calatafimi. She could see the pyramidal, majolica-tiled roof of la Porta Nuova, which in the sixteenth century marked the city’s entrance, before turning and driving under its tunnel-like arch. She wound through still-bustling streets and into the quieter Kalsa quarter, then took Via Pindemonte to the Piazza Cappuccini, where she parked.

  The square’s dominant structure, painted the color of a fall leaf, looked more like a dilapidated apartment building than what it was: a monastery for the Capuchin monks. A sign over one door read Ingresso Catacombe. That was the tourists’ entrance to the macabre crypts beneath the monastery. Instead, Nevaeh slipped through the gates behind the building into a cemetery, disused for centuries. She entered a mausoleum, pushed aside a stone sarcophagus, and descended a long flight of narrow steps hiding beneath it.

  She used the flashlight on her phone to navigate several long, sloping tunnels, barely wide enough to accommodate a human, and turned into a gloomy corridor. Bare bulbs, newly tacked to the ceiling, did little to dispel the ancient darkness. Forty yards away, in the brighter light coming through their bedroom door, Jordan and Alexa appeared to be trying to lift something. She realized they were stuffing a corpse into a recess carved into the wall.

  “Don’t mess with that,” she called.

  They snapped guilty faces toward her.

  “Jordan pulled it out!” Alexa said, her six-year-old voice sounding like a cartoon character’s.

  “It was an accident!”

  “I’m sure,” Nevaeh said.

  Jordan was forever stuck in that curious-playful-mischievous stage of an eleven-year-old boy. Most times Nevaeh found this refreshing and sweet.

  Alexa dropped the skeletal feet, causing Jordan to loose his grip on the upper half. The body fell, and the head—nothing more than a leathery skin-covered skull—snapped off and rolled down the hall. Jordan pushed Alexa and called her stupid.

  Sometimes it wasn’t so sweet.

  Nevaeh proceeded toward them, her rubber-soled boots crunching bits of rock and plaster into the marble tile of their new home. They had already tapped into the electricity of the buildings above and rigged the necessary cables, transponders, and routers for Sebastian’s computers, but they were still sweeping and scrubbing away four centuries of disuse. She said to Jordan, “Why are you still in your pajamas? We have to go.”

  “Where?” Jordan said.

  “Elias didn’t tell you? I called him from—”

  Ahead of her, Elias stepped into the doorway of his room and leaned against the jamb. A three-inch cylinder of ash clung to the ever-present cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He bore no trace of the bullet that had put him out of commission in Paris. It had entered his head right above his left eyebrow, but in the course of three weeks the wound had scabbed over, scarred, become a small pock, and then vanished completely. Now that area wrinkled as he squinted at her.

  “Elias,” she said, “why isn’t he ready?”

  “What’s the rush?” he said, his pleasant voice at odds with his appearance—long, scraggly hair, mustache and goatee, three-day growth on his cheeks, all of it forever gray, with hints of the brown all of it was eons ago. The ash dropped off, and he caught it expertly in the palm of his hand, which he then rubbed on his jeans-clad thigh.

  She stopped in her tracks, spread her palms. “Someone attacked St. Catherine’s.”

  “So?”

  “You know I need the woman. I’d th
ink you’d be as interested in getting hold of her as I am.”

  He watched her with impassive eyes. His mellowness about drove her nuts.

  “Think about it,” he said. He plucked the stub of his cigarette out of his mouth, seemed to talk to it. “If she was their target, she’s already gone. If not, shouldn’t we go in at night? We’ll get there too early if we leave now.”

  “We can go in anytime,” she said, and he looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

  Nighttime would be better, fewer witnesses, scant or no security—except Jagger—the element of surprise, the cover of darkness. But she was more anxious than ever to grab Beth. The attack had made Nevaeh realize that anything could happen before she had a chance. She said, “Toby said he used the boots to go straight up the back wall, so we can get in without a lot of eyes on us.” She tilted her head and conceded, “Better after closing, when the monks are less watchful.”

  “And after the bulk of the tourists have come off the mountain,” he said. The rear of the monastery was in plain view of the two trails leading from the peak.

  She nodded. “Okay, anytime after two or three, then.”

  “We’ll leave in the morning.” He nodded toward Jordan. “Give the boy a chance to catch some shut-eye. You too.”

  “Can I go too?” Alexa said, hopeful.

  “Not this time, honey. It’s going to be real quick, there and gone.”

  Alexa made an exaggerated frown, big pouty lips. She said, “It’s always that way.”

  “Maybe next time. Now get to bed, both of you.”

  “But—” Jordan said, pointing at the corpse at his feet.

  “Leave it.”

  Heads lowered, they skulked into their room and shut the door, plunging the corridor back into twilight. Immediately their laughs and giggles reached her, and Nevaeh couldn’t help but smile. Elias clicked his lighter and dipped his head, touching a fresh cigarette to the flame.

  “Sebastian back?” she asked.

  He squinted against the smoke and nodded. “Got himself a hammerhead. Went to bed a couple hours ago. Phin’s out.”

  “Where?”

  “He heard about some dude round Ballarò mugging tourists. Went to talk to him.”

  “Talk or kill?”

  Elias shrugged.

  “In Palermo.” Killing in their home city was against their rules. But who was she to complain? She had been guilty of it as well. It was probably how Jagger and Owen had tracked them to Paris six months ago. And the urge was stronger now than ever. She, Phin, Sebastian, and Toby and been severely injured in the plane crash Owen had orchestrated to stop them. Concussions, broken bones, ripped flesh. It had taken them a long time to recover, and now that they were well, everyone was itching to catch up on their kill quota. She hoped it didn’t make them sloppy, and she wondered how Ben would have handled it. He’d always been the restrained, rational one. She was more devil-may-care. She supposed she’d have to adjust to make up for his absence, but how did you change your personality after millennia?

  You didn’t. You simply made do, and that’s what she was doing. It might mean not having Ben counterbalancing her impulsiveness, that the Tribe’s collective behavior would shift to be more like hers, but what was so wrong with that? Maybe he’d been holding them back all this time, not allowing them to achieve forgiveness as quickly as they would have without him. Guess they’d find out.

  Elias blew out a stream of smoke and smiled at her, making her suspect he knew her thoughts. He had that way about him. It reminded her of something Mark Twain had said: it is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. She returned the smile, expecting him to say something. But he stepped back into his room and shut the door.

  [ 26 ]

  Nevaeh went to the kids’ door and opened it, holding the handle and letting her body swing in with it. Having left all but their most meaningful toys in Paris, they were rebuilding their supply here. Empty toy boxes were scattered among the actual products, and at the moment Jordan seemed to be checking Alexa’s ability to be stuffed into one. The little girl’s laughter signaled her consent, so all Nevaeh said was, “I’ll be back in ten minutes to tuck you in. Brush your teeth.”

  Jordan nodded, and Nevaeh shut the door. She continued toward the end of the corridor, considering the bedrooms as she passed each door. Toby’s. Phin’s. Hers. She’d worked herself up so much about going after Beth, there was no way she could sleep. She’d try to catch a few winks later.

  She stopped in front of Sebastian’s door. He’d stay here tomorrow, using his computer and connections to line up the Tribe’s needs: a helicopter and a discreet pilot for the trip from Sharm El Sheikh to the monastery and back; jet refueling; any interference necessary with Egyptian police or aviation authorities; medical care, if it came to that. Through decades of acting as a one-man operational support team, he’d become as essential as the boots on the ground. More times than she could remember, he’d anticipated their needs before they did, saving a mission or preventing their capture.

  With Alexa and Sebastian here, that left her, Elias, Phin, Toby, and Jordan in the hot zone. More than enough under normal circumstances. But this wasn’t normal. They would be breaching a fortified position with armed defenders—on high alert because of tonight’s assault—to kidnap the wife of one of the few men in the world who stood a chance against them. Not only was Jagger—that stupid new name of his—one of them, an Immortal, but he possessed an almost supernaturally fierce determination to protect his family at all costs. Nevaeh had learned that the hard way.

  She continued walking, reached the end of the corridor, turned left, and found herself facing the reason she had chosen this place: corpses, hundreds of them in this hall alone. On the floor along each wall, the bodies lay reposed in glass-topped coffins. Upon many of them was another body, using the coffin lid as an eternal bed. Above them, the mummified remains had been mounted vertically, like rows of floating soldiers. Some wore what was once their finest clothes, suits and dresses; others came to rest wearing their workaday outfits, pants and shirts, skirts and blouses, habits and vestments. All the clothes, like their wearers, showed varying signs of decay, from near disintegration to off-the-rack perfection—not many of those.

  In the Paris catacombs she’d had miles of skulls and long bones to feed her fascination with—her craving for—death. Here she had whole bodies, most of them still in possession of their hair and skin—dry, leathery stuff clinging in patches to bone; the Capuchin monks were famous for the effectiveness of their embalming and mummification techniques. The catacombs—or necropolis, as the Sicilians preferred—were a major tourist attraction. Fortunately for the Tribe, only the top level, in the basement of the Capuchin monastery, was open to the public. As far as Nevaeh could tell, no one, not even the monks, knew about the lower depths. In fact, many puzzled over the discrepancy between the eight thousand recorded interments and the considerably fewer bodies on display. The Tribe now resided in that discrepancy.

  She paused in front of a body lying prone on a coffin. Her fingers ran over what was left of the flesh on its cheeks, traced the oval of its gaping mouth. Nevaeh slipped her fingernail under a patch of paperthin skin on the mummy’s forehead and peeled off a piece. Rubbing it between finger and thumb, she continued along the hallway.

  She stopped again to look at a corpse mounted vertically on the wall. It was dressed in the tattered remains of a monk’s habit and hood. He had been from the Capuchin order, designated by the habit’s brown coloring, from which cappuccino gets its name. His nose was gone, but not his eyes: they looked like dehydrated olives glaring out from slits in skin that seemed to have melted over the sockets. His mouth was a black Edvard Munch scream. It was funny how so many of the corpses down here had frozen expressions of surprise, as if eternally shocked to find themselves dead—or hanging on walls for the amusement of those still living.

  Farther on, she stopped to stare
at another body on the wall, the only one she had put here herself. Despite a dazed expression—the unfocused eyes, the slack jaw—he looked good, Ben did. His skin had taken on a mottled sheen, but it hadn’t turned gray, not yet. She’d wired his thumbs together in front, and that along with his bowed head gave his corpse an air of humility he had never displayed in life.

  But what really made him look snazzy was his attire. She had dressed him in clothes from the time he’d said was his favorite for men’s fashion: coat made of velvet, silk, and satin, long and flared in back; white shirt with ruffles at the cuffs and chest; a finely embroidered waistcoat, adorned with gold buttons; knee breeches, stockings, and high-heeled shoes. A white wig with curls in all the right places hid his bald head. A regular Georgian-era gentleman, Mozart or King George II.

  He had often complained that masculine style had gone downhill from the turn of the nineteenth century, culminating in T-shirts and jeans. No imagination, no creativity or flare.

  “So there you go,” she said, bowing her head. “I hope you’re happy.”

  In her mind, Ben answered: Eternally, my dear.

  Nevaeh: Don’t rub it in.

  Ben: You sound bitter.

  Nevaeh: Why shouldn’t I be? God forgave you, you. We lived the same lives, did the same things for millennia. So why you?

  Ben didn’t answer.

  Nevaeh: It was Beth, wasn’t it? Something she said?

  Ben: You mean, a secret?

  Nevaeh: Yes, a key we’ve overlooked all these years.

  Ben: There is no secret, dear. God has spelled it all out for us.

  Nevaeh: So, what? You were smart enough to finally understand. And I’m not?

  More silence from Ben.

  Nevaeh: Don’t look so smug. Well, we’ll see what Beth has to say.

  Ben: What are you planning?

  It was Nevaeh’s turn to hold her tongue.