Now that same odor was coming from inside Emma Shaw, and her lower belly tightened in instinctive response. She was gripped by a strange anxiety, as if somewhere in the far distance she heard a clock ticking down. To what? she asked herself. To what?
“Are you all right?” Emma rubbed her upper arm. “You went pale for a moment.”
“Sure. I’m fine.” Think of something, she told herself. “Suddenly the image of that animal popped into my head.”
“The golden jackal.”
“Is that what it was?” She was sure that the less information she gave Emma the better. “Well, it was quite a sight, torn to shreds.” She glanced around. “What predator did that?”
“Maybe a bear.”
A bear would have eaten the jackal, but again she didn’t want Emma to become aware that she knew this.
Emma shrugged. “I didn’t see. It was there when I came upon it, just like you.”
Lilith nodded.
“This way.” Emma pointed toward the natural bridge that spanned the waterfall.
As Emma turned, Lilith saw a bit of pink embedded under one thumbnail. Stepping forward, closing the gap between them, Lilith caught a closer look, and knew immediately what it was: a bloody fragment of one of the golden jackal’s bones.
20
Lalibela, Ethiopia: 1918
WHEN CONRAD BROKE ON THROUGH TO THE OTHER SIDE HE found himself in a place that eclipsed any he had ever reached before. From a very early age, Conrad had been an inveterate explorer, had nagged his father with such incessant zeal that Gideon had had no choice but to take him with him. Conrad first saw Cairo when he was four years old, and if you asked him nicely and he liked you he would describe to you every detail of that trip from his first view of Egypt to his adventure alone inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops when he wandered away while the adults’ backs were turned.
Perhaps “wandered” is the wrong word, because even at the tender age of four Conrad was beset by inner impulses that drove him to think and do things others of his age could not even conceive of. There was something he needed to find inside the Great Pyramid. This was not at all unusual; there was always something little Conrad needed to find. In the case of Cheops’s final resting place it was a small opening—too small to accommodate the bulk of a modern-day adult, but just about right for an ancient Egyptian. Though small, the passage was not long. Soon enough it gave out on to a chamber of perfectly square proportions. Conrad sensed this, though the darkness was so absolute he was as good as blind. Nevertheless, he crawled his way to the rear wall, picked up the object he was meant to have, and retraced his steps without any problem. His mother liked to boast that he was born without fear, though Gideon felt that sort of talk was nonsense. Diantha knew her son better than Gideon did, knew the truth of her observation.
In any event, even at four years of age Conrad had the presence of mind not to show anyone what he had found in the great Pharaoh’s tomb. It was meant only for him, as were all his other finds. Of this he had no doubt.
What he had been meant to find was this: a small sculpture of a most curious animal. It had the body, legs, and hooves of a horse, but its head was that of a lion. Moreover, it had a tail not of hair but of a serpent’s scales. Though it was small, it was intricately detailed in every way, down to the thorned legs and eyes that seemed to blaze out of its leonine head. Such a monstrosity might have frightened the bejeezus out of a normal four-year-old, but Conrad was anything but. Stashing the tiny beast in his pocket, he returned to his father’s side. So engrossed was Gideon in the guide’s descriptions of Cheops’s life and what his religion demanded he surround himself with to guide him into the afterlife that he never registered his son’s silent departure and stealthy return. Late at night, when no one could observe him, Conrad brought the animal out, held it close to the gas lamp, which his father had turned down low before tucking him in, examining every feature of the exquisitely crafted sculpture, his eyes blazing in just the same way as the beast’s.
This memory came back to him in a flash as he picked his way past the shards of the wall he had shattered, which now looked even more glass-like. Straight ahead of him, glistening in the flickering beam of his torch, was a life-size version of the eerie mount he had found that blazing hot afternoon in Cairo so many years ago.
His breath caught in his throat. Everything in life is a lie, he thought. Everything you think you know, you don’t.
Out from behind the monstrous beast stepped a figure. He tensed, assuming it was his father, but as he played the faltering beam of light onto it he saw his mother.
“Seeing you gladdens my heart, my son,” Diantha said.
He tried to keep the surprise out his voice. “You knew I would be here.”
“The future is never fully known; time is too fluid.” Diantha took a step toward him, opened her arms, and he entered her embrace.
He kissed her on both cheeks before stepping back. He had always thought of her as the utter paradigm of beauty. Like the god-flower after which she was named, she was at once stately and womanly. Skin like porcelain, mouth like Cupid’s bow, nose straight and strong, thrusting forward like the prow of a clipper ship. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a cascade of black hair that shimmered around the edges like the sun in eclipse. Her large, luminous eyes, the color of oiled olives, searched his, looking to identify the little boy he used to be. “This is one of those times, Conny, when I don’t know what will transpire.... We have come to one of those crucial forks in time’s path... the knife-edge.” She had fallen into the habit of using this diminutive when he was a toddler
“Mother, where is Gideon? I followed him here.” He peered around, following the sweep of his torch beam. “He has to be here somewhere.”
“He’s gone, Conny. Gone.”
“Where? I’ll follow him.”
“You can’t. You know you can’t.”
“Mother,” he said, his voice defiant, “he has something he took from the Sphinx.”
“From the mouth. The gold rood. I know. And you have to get it back, Conny.” She shook her head. “But not now.”
And then, out of nowhere, her face registered pain and she clutched at him.
“Mother, what is it?” When he took her into his arms he felt the wetness seeping from her side. “What...” Craning his neck while he gently turned her, he saw the bloom of blood like a crimson flower staining her white silk shirt. “Mother!” He pressed his hand against the wound.
“It’s all right, Conny. Truly.” She smiled as she peeled his hand from her side, replaced it with hers. Within moments the bleeding had stopped.
“Show me,” he said.
The concern in his voice compelled her to lift that side of her shirt out of her waistband just high enough to show him that not only had the wound closed, but it also had shrunk to the size of his thumbnail. Then it vanished altogether.
“You see?” she said, tucking her shirt back in. “Good as new.”
Conrad’s eyes narrowed. “He knew that would stop me in my tracks.” He was speaking of his father, whose name he now refused to utter, after this unspeakable attack. “It’s the only reason he would stab you.”
“Well, that and the fact that he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you, Mother,” Conrad said. “He’s afraid of you.”
Her smile broadened and she touched his face gently. “Oh, Conny, if only it were so.”
“Hate breeds contempt. Fear only becomes more fear.”
“And what has he to fear from me?”
“Besides this”—he touched her side where the knife had gone in—“it’s your vast storehouse of occult knowledge. Who told me the names of all Four Sphinxes? You should have seen his face when I summoned Typhos.” He gestured to the looming statue behind him, the mount of lost souls, as he thought of it. “And who told me about his steed?”
“I never should have done that,” Diantha said.
“You had to do it, Mother. What
other choice did you have?”
“I could have kept the knowledge to myself.”
“Which was just what he wanted.”
Her smile was knowing, lustrous. “You always provide the wisest truths. One of the many reasons to love you.”
Conrad pressed his lips to his mother’s cheek, then drew away again. The bond between mother and son was as deep as it was powerful. “There are things about this monstrous creature that I needed to know. When the end times come, the Fallen will mount these beasts in their final assault on mankind.”
“It all seemed so far away.” Diantha’s eyes welled up. “Once upon a time.”
“I was drawn to the miniature a long time ago,” Conrad said. “But now we have this.”
They both turned to stare at the beast with a horse’s body, lion’s head, and serpent’s tail.
“The Orus is a creature conjured by Lucifer,” Diantha said with epic distaste.
“But why is it in such close proximity to the Sphinx?”
His mother turned to him. “You know the specters of the infernal are most often seen at the Vatican, drawn by the long history of sins, deceit, and treachery. It’s the same here, so far from Christ and yet so near.”
Conrad took a step toward the creature, but his mother caught hold of him. “Stop! What are you doing?”
“You know very well.”
“You can’t, Conny. I won’t have this argument with you again.”
“He disappeared into the beast. You know it, but you wouldn’t tell me when I’d asked you where he’d gone.”
For the first time, Diantha’s face showed real fear. “You can’t mean to follow him. He’s more than you are.”
“And less.” Conrad took another step toward the infernal beast. “Far less.”
“Which makes him able to withstand the terrible sin of crossing God’s first great law.” She clutched him more tightly. “But you—”
“But me what?” he demanded.
“If you go after him you’ll risk damning your soul, as his has been since the moment of insemination.”
“Mother—”
“No. Listen to me, my beloved child. Chynna, poor thing, was bewitched. One of the Fallen that had taken a human male form mesmerized her. It raped her repeatedly, though, God bless her soul, she never knew or understood what was happening to her. The thing planted that horrible seed in her womb before it was hunted down by one of its own and annihilated.”
“I come from that seed, Mother.”
“And you lay in a womb for nine months, not three.” Diantha’s eyes blazed with motherly protection and pride. “My womb, Conny. Mine. You have my blood running through you, the long and astonishing heritage of my family. You were made within me. You are my child, not his.”
Tears spilled from Conrad’s eyes. “I know the risks, Mother. You have engraved them into my bones.”
“And yet you would—”
“Don’t you see that I must! Look what he did to you. He’s never attacked you physically before, has he?”
“No.”
“He’s out of control, and you know as well as I do that I’m the only one who can stop him.”
They were both weeping now, soft in each other’s arms. And yet just below the surface a steely resolve would not be denied.
“He wants you to come after him, Conny. It’s why he waited to take the gold rood until he knew you were nearby. He discovered its hiding place some time ago. Now that you’ve come of age, he knows what you can do. He means to destroy you.”
“I won’t give him the chance.”
“No, Conrad!” For the first time in living memory, in extremis, she called him by his proper name. “I forbid it!”
“This is what I was meant to do.”
“What?” Tears streamed down her face, and she was the more beautiful for them. “Sacrifice yourself?”
“If that’s what is needed to exterminate him, then yes, I’m ready for that.”
“And if he kills you. If he is victorious. If he remains alive?”
Conrad smiled through his tears. “I won’t contemplate such questions.” He broke away from her, perhaps for the last time; he couldn’t know. “They won’t require answers because they don’t exist.”
“Then take this.” She placed something cold and hard in his palm, carefully closed his fingers around it. “God bless you here and now, because God cannot help you when you cross over.”
21
Malta: Present Day
THEY ARRIVED BACK AT THE CASTLE RUINS AT SUNSET, JUST as Bravo wanted. This time he came prepared.
When Ayla asked him why they had come at this particular time rather than at, say, sunrise, Bravo tapped his ear.
“I want to hear the wind through the stones,” he said. “I want to hear Conrad’s voice.”
Hands on hips, Ayla said, “Do you really think he’ll talk to us?”
“He did before,” Elias pointed out as he pulled gear from one of the two duffels they had carried from the Jeep they hired. “I have no doubt he’ll speak again.”
“But why here?” Ayla asked. “For centuries this has been the Knights’ main stronghold.” She gestured. “And now there’s nothing here but charred and tumbled stones.”
“It’s not what we can see,” Bravo told her. “It’s what we can’t see.”
“More riddles? I’m tired of riddles.”
“Then you’re with the wrong people.” Bravo accepted an LED flashlight from Elias. “Riddles are my stock-in-trade.”
“Okay. I get that.” She reached for another flashlight the boy held out to her. “But I still get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Bravo nodded. “Last year, I thought I had found the way to remove a Fallen without harming the human host, but clearly I was wrong. With Emma’s life hanging in the balance, I can’t afford to be wrong again.”
“And you think we’ll find the answer here?”
“Et ignis ibi est!” Let there be light! Bravo cried, and Elias set about building a fire.
Bravo unzipped the second duffel, laid out the shovels, pickaxes, and other earth-moving tools they had brought. “Conrad is here because of what’s been under the castle for far longer than the Knights’ reign.”
Ayla glanced down. “Hence the picks and shovels.”
“That’s right.”
Elias had gotten the fire going. Flames leapt up, licking the evening air, sparks dancing above their tips.
“Et ignis ibi est!” the boy called, leaping as joyfully as the flames.
Bravo laughed. “Well done, Elias!”
“Are we ready to dig?” the boy asked as he approached Bravo.
“How are we going to know... ?” Ayla began, and then, as Bravo looked at her, her eyes widened. “Ah, my father is going to tell us.”
“Though it might sound crazy, that is my hope.” Bravo sat down on a stone.
“Two years ago I would have thought it crazy.” Ayla sat down beside him. “Not now.”
The sky was darkening, sunset’s fire already failing, oranges and yellows turning to cobalt. Not far away, the light-streaked Mediterranean was turning black. Insects whirred and whistled; moths self-immolated, brought by the light, caught in the flames.
Night was coming.
“Listen, listen!” Elias called to them excitedly. “The wind is rising.”
And so it was. Clouds raced above their heads, only to be torn to shreds by the increasingly violent gusts. The wind distorted the writhing tips of the flames, pushed them farther toward the center of the ruined castle. Sparks leapt after them, like hunting dogs loosed on the scent. The flames bent to the will of the wind, scoured the top of what was left of the great room wall, now only waist high.
Ecce! the wind cried. Behold!
The three of them ran to where the flames had scorched the rocks and now had drawn back as the wind changed direction. On the top of the stone, the fire had etched two letters: W C.
&n
bsp; “What the hell does that mean?” Ayla said, hands on hips. It was becoming clear that her encounter with evil had left a residue of brittle impatience.
“The water closet!” Elias shouted. “But there are so many here. Which one—”
“None of them.” Bravo’s finger traced the letters. “This doesn’t mean ‘water closet.’ It means ‘wine cellar.’ ” He turned to Elias. “Do you know where it is?”
The boy nodded and, grinning hugely, windmilled his arm. “This way! Follow me!”
Within the jumbled labyrinth of the castle the staircase down to the wine cellar was completely blocked by a stone fall of mammoth proportions. Luckily, Elias, having had months to explore every nook and cranny of the place, knew an alternate route.
He took them down what seemed to be a winding servants’ staircase, so narrow they had to proceed in single file, so damaged they had to move slowly and carefully over rubble and treads that had been ripped away from the staircase as if by a giant hand. Near the top, the odor of the fire was almost overwhelming, and this spoke to Bravo of the occult nature of the attack on the castle, for after a year the smell of a fire would be long gone.
They proceeded in this way until the fire stink had been left behind. The scent of dry rot now came to them, along with the odor of small rodents nesting and foraging. Tiny ruby eyes followed them during the last section of their descent. Little squeaks and scurryings preceded their arrival in the cellar. Even here, evidence of the ferocious fire was strewn across the stone-block floor: sprays of charcoaled beams, metal twisted into bizarre shapes or melted down altogether.
“This way!” Elias called as he sprinted, leaping over the fallen beams and structural braces.
The enormous stone fall was off to their right, and so complete was the damage if they hadn’t known there had been a staircase there they never would have suspected it. The wine cellar, a huge stone edifice in the middle of the cellar itself, was directly ahead of them as they picked their way, following the boy’s lead. An odd thing about the overall cellar, as Bravo played the beam of his flashlight around, was that it seemed distinctly smaller than he would have imagined.
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