…Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds....
36
Paris: Present Day
AFTER THE MAGNIFICENT ISLAMIC MOSAICS, AFTER THE muezzins’ calls to prayer, after the lush gardens and spectacular palaces, the delicious chaos of the open-air souks, the steamy hammams and the exotic spices and herbs perfuming the air of Istanbul, Paris looked drab and wan under ruffled gray clouds.
It’s as if all the life has been sucked out of it by the EU, Lilith thought. In truth, she did not want to be here, was edgy about bringing Emma with her. Paris was, after all, Obarton’s territory. It was the city from which he wielded most power, where he had the most allies, if not friends; she could not imagine Obarton tolerating anyone long enough to be considered a friend. But it was also the place where Hugh was being held captive.
Paris, sinister, shadowed, overlooked by legions of medieval gargoyles, was where, for all the reasons previously enumerated, Obarton felt most comfortable, most at home. Therefore, a certain edge would be taken off his concentration, especially when it came to decisions in the field that needed to be made on the spot. All this Emma had argued. Or had it been Beleth? She couldn’t remember now, and this sent a dagger of fear through her heart. What would she do if Beleth and Emma were permanently joined? What if no exorcism on earth could rid her of the Fallen Angel without killing her as well?
This conundrum had gnawed at her all during their time in Turkey, caused her to ache body and soul. It distorted her days, making of them a colossal hourglass through which sand dribbled one agonizing grain at a time. And at night she was assailed by horrifying nightmares: lakes of mercury out of which Emma arose time and again transformed into a siren whose segmented tail stung her as they kissed or, alternatively, a beast with snake eyes and a forked tongue that pursued her through forests dark and tangled.
And now, after days of this torture, Lilith was returned to Paris’s sidewalks, caged by smart cars and metal stanchions. The spoken language seemed alien to her, loose and unintelligible compared to the musical torrent of Arabic in which she had been submerged.
It was the first time in her life she did not love Paris. Rather, she feared it, as if it had been a beloved pet that might at any moment rip off her face.
*
CARDINAL FELIX Duchamp was a fastidious man of the cloth, who nevertheless could rationalize the hell out of any situation, especially when it came to abetting the illicit activities of the Knights. He was also a man, it was said, who could hold a grudge until Judgment Day. When he ventured outside the precincts of Vatican City, not to mention Rome, it was always for an important reason, for he was not fond of either travel or foreign lands. And for him, Paris was a foreign land, the capital of a country that by and large had forsaken Christ, taking advantage of all the Catholic holidays yet ignoring their parish churches. In Paris, he felt, the magnificent cathedrals had been ceded to the invading tourists. As far as he was concerned, they might as well be deconsecrated. His holy righteousness was a cloak he wore, to hide from himself the increasing list of his transgressions and sins in the cause of lining his own pockets.
Obarton, having received a curt call from the cardinal’s secretary announcing Duchamp’s immediate visitation, knowing full well what it portended, set about exacting his pound of flesh to the full extent of his abilities. In Lilith’s absence, he had gone about the business of shoring up the allegiances her abrupt and horrifying action at the last Circle Council had rent asunder. In fact, his power had consolidated to the extent that he was confident of defeating Lilith, now that the GPS on her mobile told him that she had returned to Paris.
To this end, in a spasm of spite, he had sent a car to transport the cardinal directly from the airport to the Knights’ secret Reliquary, the one to which he had taken Lilith, below Père Lachaise Cemetery. If he was to be castigated it would be in the place of his choosing, inconvenient and unpleasant for everyone save himself. He knew the cardinal would find it thoroughly distasteful to see the coffins of incinerated corpses, which Obarton’s team would lead him past in order to arrive at the Reliquary, and was glad of it. That these people—and so many of them!—were not properly buried as Catholicism dictated would infuriate Duchamp. So much the better, Obarton thought.
So it was that when Duchamp was delivered to him in the Reliquary Obarton observed with quiet fury and secret delight the cardinal’s pasty complexion, the handkerchief held up against his nose and mouth, as if inhaling a single ash from the dead might pollute him. You’re quite polluted enough, Obarton longed to say, but wisely kept his mouth shut, though the fury rose up in him like a black wind. He had already hated Duchamp before the meeting at the Vatican; now he despised him almost as much as he did Lilith Swan. She had made a fool of him; thus she had to die, proof that the cardinal wasn’t the only one to rationalize the hell out of a situation.
“Cardinal,” he said, as Duchamp picked his way toward him across the stone-block floor.
“Such a pleasure.”
“Good thing I wasn’t expecting an apology,” Duchamp snapped curtly. “Cut the sideshow. There are important matters to discuss.”
“Tea?” Obarton said, refusing to be drawn out by the cardinal’s tone. He led Duchamp into a smallish side room, one of a number of chambers Lilith hadn’t been made privy to on her visit. “Or perhaps something a bit stronger, for fortification after your tiring journey.”
The chamber was small, barely comfortable. It contained wooden furniture—a table, four chairs, a sideboard within which could be seen a half refrigerator. No windows, of course, but a plethora of sconces from within which electric candles inelegantly threw light onto a large crucifix and an oversized crest of the Knights of St. Clement affixed to the stone walls. In all, the chamber fairly shouted its utilitarian design.
“It took me longer to get here from the airport than the entire flight from Rome,” Duchamp grumbled. He had taken away the handkerchief, which was now crushed in one fist.
“Apologies, Cardinal, but pressing business required my presence here.” Obarton crossed to the sideboard. “And since your secretary said your visitation was urgent...” He spread his arms wide. “Well, here we are. For better or worse.”
“Indeed.” Duchamp glanced around, the distasteful expression never leaving his face. He was dressed in all the scarlet finery of his lofty status within the Church. A large pectoral cross made itself at home on his stole, symbol of both God’s power and Duchamp’s earthly power granted to him by the pope. “Sherry. Oloroso, should you have it.”
“Your wish is my command,” Obarton said without a trace of irony. “But do take a seat, Cardinal.”
He poured the dark, scented sherry into fine crystal glasses, handed one to Duchamp where he sat on one of the straight-backed chairs. Obarton sat on another, took a sip, nodded, put the glass down on a corner of the table nearest him.
“I have my doubts, Obarton.”
Obarton stared at him with a neutral expression, offering nothing.
“Grave doubts—”
“Quite an amusing phrase, considering our present location.”
The cardinal looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Grave doubts, not only about you, monsieur, but about the Knights of St. Clement of the Holy Land in toto.” He paused, taking a judicious sip of the sherry. “One accusation that can never be leveled at you is an undeveloped palate for wines.” He took another sip, set his glass down. “Yes, accusations, explanations, excuses. I have a rather violent aversion to all three.” He shrugged. “But life doesn’t often—I
would say, rarely—give you what you want.” His eye caught Obarton’s. “Isn’t that so?”
Obarton remained mute, inscrutable as a stone.
The cardinal shrugged again. “This statement is true in my experience and I’m quite certain in yours, as well.” He folded the crushed handkerchief very carefully, laid it beside his glass, causing Obarton to involuntarily alter the direction of his glance.
“ ‘Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.’ Do you know this passage from Matthew, monsieur?”
“I do now,” Obarton said.
“I tried to do this with you, monsieur, but you refused all offerings, great and small.” The cardinal shifted from one buttock to the other. “In fact, you did more than refuse. First you took advantage of my assistance; then the moment you believed someone else in your Circle Council met with me, you assumed the worst and sought to destroy my power and my influence. You sought, not to put too fine a point on it, to destroy me.”
Obarton considered a number of explanations, but they all sounded absurd, even to him. He then moved on to excuses, a number of which it was possible to put forward, until he recalled they would have the opposite effect on the cardinal. The safest choice—the only choice—was to keep silent and let Duchamp’s gambit play out.
“To whom shall I compare you, monsieur? You are the observer of the children sitting in the marketplace, who call out to you and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ You, monsieur, have done nothing for either the Church or the Knights. You have, instead, created a rogue nation that marches to the sound of your voice.” Duchamp shook his head. “This cannot continue. This cannot be tolerated. Not a moment longer.”
Worse than I thought, Obarton said to himself. But, he supposed, only to be expected. “And what do you propose, Cardinal?”
“Propose, monsieur? I propose nothing.” The cardinal, in his immense wrath, rose to his feet. High color had come to his cheeks, wiping away their former pallor. His neck was as red as a wet rooster’s. “I order you to stand down. As of this moment and forever going forward, you are no longer eligible to be Nauarchus, you will no longer sit at the Circle Council, you are no longer a member of the Order of the Knights of St. Clement of the Holy Land. By order of the pope and the College of Cardinals all your dictums, all your plans, are henceforth null and void.”
*
“WHAT IS it?” Emma asked, after they had exited the taxi in the Marais. “You look like someone just walked over your grave.”
That was precisely the feeling that gripped Lilith. It had started as they passed through Immigration at Charles de Gaulle, had increased during the taxi ride to the Périphérique, the city’s ring road, thence through the Porte de la Chappelle, into the heart of Paris.
The feeling escalated as soon as the taxi dropped them off and they stood on the sidewalk three blocks from rue des Archives. And yet even this far away, her nostrils flared.
“What is that?” She turned from Emma, wheeling in a complete circle. “Do you smell smoke?”
“A building has had a fire,” Beleth said gruffly. “And believe me, I’m familiar with every form of smoke there is.”
“Jesus God!” Lilith cried. “Hugh!”
She began to run, but Emma grabbed her arm, held her back. “Listen, listen,” she or Beleth said—in her anxiety Lilith could not tell which—“even if it is Highstreet’s flat, especially if it is, we have to be careful. Obarton would be smart to post a stakeout just in case you came back.” She stared hard into Lilith’s face as Lilith tried to free herself. “Isn’t that what you would do if you were him?”
The wild look in Lilith’s eyes slowly subsided. “But Emma, if it is, if that’s what happened, then I’m to blame. I put him squarely in harm’s way.”
“Hugh’s an adult, a very smart one, according to you,” Emma said levelly, and now Lilith knew it was her speaking. “He went into this venture with his eyes open. He knew the consequences.”
“And you think that absolves me?”
“I think,” Emma said, in Beleth’s deep timbre, “we would do well to stop speculating and find out what’s what.”
They headed off toward the block of rue des Archives where Highstreet lived. At first, Lilith took the lead as she knew where the building was, but soon enough the Power suggested it take over. “I can see things you cannot.”
“But if people are watching they’ll see Emma.”
Emma smiled with Beleth’s dark eyes. “Recall the bridge in Istanbul,” was all it needed to say.
And, though reluctantly, Lilith gave Beleth Highstreet’s address and flat number, understanding it was the prudent way to proceed.
She hung back while Beleth, looking out through Emma’s eyes, turned the corner and scanned the block. “The fire was in his building, in his flat,” the Power reported.
Tears glittered in Lilith’s eyes. Ashamed of her display of emotion, she wiped them angrily away. Crossing the street, she entered a tobacconist’s shop, bought the day’s newspaper. Back out on the street she riffled through it. A small mention of the fire, a good sign, since if Hugh had been home, a larger news story would surely have reported his injury or death.
Feeling a bit better, she tossed the paper, went back to her position behind Emma. “Anyone watching?”
“One man,” Emma said with Beleth’s voice.
“Show me.”
“Behind the wheel of the green Fiat. I think it would be better if I took care—”
“No,” Lilith said sharply. “I want to save you for later, if things go pear-shaped.”
“I do not understand.”
“Fucked up, how’s that,” she said in Emma’s ear, “better?”
”No.” The demon under Emma’s skin gripped her arm so hard she bared her teeth. “You will stay here, where you will be safe.”
No sign of Emma at all; this frightened her, but she tamped it down, nodded. What else was she to do?
Brushing past her, Emma strode down the block at precisely the same pace as all the other pedestrians. Nothing about her set her apart, except, that is, if you were looking for her. And even if that were the case, Beleth made sure you’d miss her.
Hidden, Lilith watched, heart in her throat. The man in the green Fiat was on surveillance; she was certain of it. She recognized him as one of the goons who had wrapped the bodies of the three former Circle Council members and taken them out to the waiting trucks downstairs.
Obarton would have been incensed that she broke protocol, cut off communication with him. Of course she had taken this into account when Hugh had played her the incriminating video of Obarton and his underage boy toys Hugh’s wonderful gadget she had planted on Obarton had recorded. That would keep him safe, she’d thought; once Hugh showed it to him Obarton wouldn’t dare make a move again him. But she was wrong. Between bouts of formulating the plan with Emma and Beleth, she had finally worked out the flaw in her thinking: Killing Hugh would trigger the release of the video. Whereas if Obarton abducted him, kept him isolated, well, then Hugh couldn’t call his lawyer; Obarton would be safe.
And yet he wasn’t safe, not at all. As soon as they were finished here, they would take care of that.
The man sat behind the wheel of the old, battered Fiat, windows down, smoking idly, as if waiting for his wife or mistress to put on the last of her makeup in their flat. Emma walked up beside the passenger’s door, lifted the lock button, and slid into the seat in one smooth motion.
As the man turned in her direction, his eyes opened wide. Instead of reaching for his handgun, he jabbed the glowing tip of his cigarette butt toward her left eye.
Beleth evaded the shaky attack, brought the man’s head down until his forehead met Emma’s raised knee with a satisfying crack. His body lost its tension, the muscles slackening, a
nd Beleth throttled him, squeezing tighter and tighter, cutting off all oxygen. And, then, because it was really pissed off, because it had not tasted the thrill of killing in some time, the Power struck a blow so forceful it jammed the man’s nose up into his brain.
He was dead before his head hit the steering wheel. Beleth guided it away from the horn in the center, treating his head gently now that he was dead and its spasm of rage expended. Beleth breathed slowly and deeply, willing the mind to calm the host body. For a time, then, it sat quite still in the passenger’s seat, inhaling the aftermath of the fire.
“Why did you kill him?” Lilith said as she leaned in the open window.
“He was a threat.” Its voice had taken on a new thick and throaty tone.
“We could have squeezed him for information. Maybe he knew where Obarton is keeping Hugh.”
“We’ll find him through—what do you call it?”
“The GPS.”
“Right.” Beleth inhaled deeply.
“Well, that’s blood under the bridge now.” Lilith watched Beleth in Emma’s eyes. “Turned on by death, are you?”
“Always.” Emma licked her lips. “Should I feel ashamed?” A rhetorical question. “I don’t feel shame.”
“But your host does.” Lilith took Emma’s hand, looked into her lover’s dark eyes. “Let her speak, Beleth, if only for a little while.”
“For you, Lilith, anything.” Again the curious thick and throaty tone.
And then Emma’s eyes lightened, along with her expression.
“Look what he’s made you do,” Lilith said softly. “Are you—?”
“Let’s have no more talk of that.” Emma smiled. “Now for God’s sake let me get out of the car, so we can get out of here.”
Emma exited the Fiat, but not before taking the man’s mobile and rolling up the windows.
“I have no intention of leaving just yet,” Lilith said. “He looks like he’s asleep. Or drunk. Besides, check out the sidewalk side windows. The sunlight is turning them opaque. I figure we have about fifteen minutes. Plenty of time for what we planned.”
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