Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  Sophia, her inspection of the building and reverie at its rich ornamentation interrupted, looked startled but grasped Magdalena’s hand. As the two women’s hands touched, Sophia also flashed a comforting smile and Magdalena sensed that she could be as pastoral and caring as Father Dmitri.

  They must be related, given their common surname. Brother and sister? But the hand-holding seemed more brazen or even perverse in that case.

  Sophia and Father Dmitri seemed to sense something was troubling Magdalena and the three faced each other awkwardly for a few seconds until the priest burst into laughter.

  “Sophia is my wife, Miss Magdalena,” he explained, holding up his hand to display his wedding ring, which Magdalena had not even thought to look for. “We Orthodox priests can marry. At least, before we are ordained. Two of the more obvious ways we Orthodox clergy differ from our brother Roman Catholic clergy. We can be married and our parishioners generally call us by our first names.”

  Sophia laughed as well. “I’m surprised you had to explain that,” she said to her husband. “I expect that, all the time, in the United States,” she said to Magdalena, “but I thought that more people would be more aware of Orthodox practice in Europe. Especially here in Central Europe.” Her words, which could have sounded arrogant or rude, struck Magdalena instead as a statement of fact, an explanation tinged with a blush of disappointment.

  “There is a very important Orthodox cathedral here in Prague, the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, where the first waves of the Czech Resistance to the Nazi occupation hid in the crypt before they were discovered and murdered. Everyone here knows that building. But I really don’t know much of Orthodox Church practice.” Magdalena blushed. “Sorry,” she offered.

  “Not to worry, not to worry,” Father Dmitri quickly put her at ease again. He turned to his wife. “Shall we join the others before the conference session begins?” His put his stack of e-mails and the portfolio Magdalena had given him in his attaché and offered his free arm to his wife. Holding her own portfolio under one arm, she linked her other around her husband’s, and smiled at Magdalena as they moved towards the room down the hall full of chattering academics.

  Watching them walk away, Magdalena had a dim memory of an early e-mail from Father Dmitri asking to register Sophia at the conference so she could attend the sessions even though she was not giving a paper. At the time, Magdalena had simply processed the request without much thought; she had assumed Sophia must be a graduate student or somehow related to the priest. It had never occurred to her that he might have a wife.

  More conference delegates appeared, causing Magdalena to give up further musings on the Orthodox priest and whether he might be one of those she was awaiting. A rather handsome young man stood at the registration desk, blond and deeply tanned, a broad smile stretched across his rakishly unshaven face. He winked as he shook Magdalena’s hand and introduced himself.

  “Alessandro DiFrancesco.” He gestured towards the T-shirt and jeans he was wearing, a strikingly different outfit from the suits and more formal wear that the other registrants wore. “I’m from Australia. University of Sydney. The airline lost my luggage.” Simple and straightforward explanation. Magdalena nodded.

  “Happens every year,” she said. “Which conference are you registering for?”

  “Monsters. The conference on monsters.”

  Magdalena got his welcome portfolio. “At least one conference delegate from Australia gets his suitcase lost every year.” She had heard Lida mention this in previous years. “The worst case was a conference we had a year ago in mid-February. The fellow boarded the plane in Australia in warm, sunny weather wearing shorts and T-shirt and landed here in Prague during a snowstorm. It took three days for his luggage to catch up with him, but the airline kept promising it was about to be delivered at any moment so he kept postponing going to the store to buy himself new clothes. He nearly froze.” She and Alessandro both enjoyed a good laugh at the poor professor’s plight.

  “At least it’s summer here now,” Alessandro replied. “Even though it’s winter back home, it’s still like summer most places. And it’s even hotter and stickier here than I expected. Just hope it doesn’t take three days to get my suitcase, in any case!”

  Magdalena agreed. “It is unusually hot and sticky for this time of year. Not a typical Prague summer. Hope your luggage arrives soon.” He stepped aside so the next registrant could step forward and Magdalena couldn’t help but notice how his tight jeans hugged his hips. Another shiver, despite the heat, ran up her spine. She wondered, “Is he one? That would be a dream come true. Imagine working with him!” She sighed. With difficulty, she wrenched her attention back to the next delegate at hand.

  Professors Hron and Theo stood before the assembled participants in the Conference on Evil and Human Wickedness and the Conference on Monsters and the Monstrous in the lush principal meeting room of the mansion called the “Angel House” that contained the Department of Languages and Literature of Charles University. Theo caught his breath and turned to Hron.

  “You know, when I was in Oxford and first imagined organizing these interdisciplinary conferences on the subjects of evil and monsters,” he whispered, “I never in my wildest dreams anticipated such a response. I hoped for—maybe—forty submissions and thought I would be lucky if as many as thirty papers were finally presented. But look at this!” Nearly a hundred and fifty academics assembled from around the world sat waiting for them to open the conferences.

  Hron and Theo strode to the front of the room. Theo cleared his throat and began his introductory remarks. “We have come together in this beautiful place in this most beautiful of cities to debate the most ugly incidents in our common history as human beings and the most hideous ideas humans have spawned. I am gratified that so many have come to wrestle with my favorite and most vexing subjects: Why evil? Why wickedness? What do our imaginings of monsters say about us who imagine them? We will examine the questions of evil and monstrosity, reality and metaphor, wickedness and its shadow, virtue.”

  Heads nodded as voices murmured in agreement. He continued.

  “Because we are an interdisciplinary gathering of scholars—and I believe no authentic scholarship can call itself credible any longer if it is not interdisciplinary—it is important that we avoid the use of jargon and code words, language that builds walls and divides us rather than unites us in our struggles to deal with the human predicament. Every field has its own vocabulary, a shorthand to ease communication, but I ask all our speakers to remember that not everyone listening to their papers is familiar with the shorthand vocabulary of each field. It is important therefore that we all use language that is clear and sharp and to the point.”

  Nearly everyone looked relieved at that. Many who had little experience of conferences other than those sponsored by their own professional organizations had been worried about following the papers of others in fields they were not familiar with.

  Theo made his next point. “We will not always agree. It is possible to have serious discussions, close examination of texts and images that come to very different conclusions. But this is not a place to ‘score points’ by ‘shooting down’ a speaker or to show off by asking a question that is a speech in its own right. Civility need not take a back seat to passion and expertise.” Theo knew this might be the most difficult part of his vision to establish. Too often, academic gatherings were precisely that: places to shoot down and show off, opportunities to score points at the expense of others, venues to advance one’s career and reputation without thought for those trampled in the intellectual melee.

  Warm, appreciative grins spread across some faces even as a scowls of disapproval clouded others. Those scowling were not even the oldest faces in the room. Some were the youngest, most newly appointed professors, who had come precisely to advance themselves in their struggle to win tenure at their home institutions.

  “Another distinction between these conferences and others tha
t advertise themselves as ‘international’ is that we are truly an international gathering of scholars,” Theo pointed out. “We have participants from the world over. All five continents are represented, as are the four corners of the globe, from Canada to the Republic of Korea. From Australia to Denmark. One hundred and fifty participants from thirty-seven countries.”

  Theo introduced Professor Hron, the representative of the local host institution. Hron greeted the scholars before him.

  “Welcome to Prague,” he began. “It is our joy to welcome you to these conferences here in ‘Angel House,’ which was originally the home of an apothecary in the 1350s; the palace we see today was built in the 1870s. We will make every effort to make your stay in Prague an enjoyable one. Please do not hesitate to speak with Magdalena, my administrative assistant, if you have any questions about either the conferences or the city. In addition to the conferences, we are hosting a wine reception following the sessions this afternoon and will sponsor a series of tours of Prague this evening following the reception. Prague, known as the home of the ‘Beautiful Style,’ is also the home of Kafka, the home of Mozart and Don Giovanni, the home of the Golem as well as numerous other ghosts and sprites. We hope to introduce you to all these aspects of Prague during your stay. It is my joy to cosponsor these conferences with my friend Theo from Oxford, and I hope to become friends with many of you as well.”

  The keynote speaker came to the front of the room to begin the first session, a joint session with a lecture touching on themes of both the evil and monsters conferences. The man, a professor at a small university in Mexico, spoke thickly accented English.

  Magdalena stood near the door into the meeting room from the hallway. It stood ajar, diminishing the extraneous noise of the building from disturbing the session while allowing latecomers to slip into the room without causing much of an interruption. She was listening to the speaker as she kept an eye on the registration desk, aware that nearly a dozen names still waited to be checked off.

  Given the half-closed door and the speaker’s accent, as well as her divided attention, it was difficult for Magdalena to follow the details of the lecture. As she waited for the late arriving academics, however, she could not help but catch occasional sentences from the talk.

  “Excuse me.” A woman had come up to Magdalena while she had been trying to follow a particularly intriguing point the speaker was making about the journalistic use of vampiric blood-sucking as a description of certain politicians’ policies.

  Magdalena quickly stepped back to the registration table to locate the woman’s name on the checklists and hand over the appropriate welcome materials. From the corner of one eye, Magdalena became aware that Lida was peering out the office door. Had Lida noticed that Magdalena had stepped away from the registration table to eavesdrop on the keynote speaker? Would it be a problem that came back to haunt Magdalena? She remained at the registration desk for the remainder of the keynote lecture.

  Participants mingled over coffee and pastries in the hallway after the keynote lecture before breaking into the smaller sessions of the two conferences that were scheduled prior to the wine reception. Magdalena answered a variety of questions put to her, from last-minute requests for audiovisual equipment to which restaurants she would recommend for dinner. When the sessions began and the academics seeped into the other rooms on the floor, she joined the waiters setting up for the wine reception. She needed to be sure everything flowed smoothly. There were wine glasses to set out, corkscrews to locate, bottles to open, platters of hors d’oeuvres to unwrap and place in strategic locations around the room. She was surprised at how comfortable she felt as she gave direction and supervised the preparations for the reception. Maybe Victoria was right. Maybe she really had finally usurped Lida as Professor Hron’s principal assistant. Maybe she had been too curt with Victoria after all.

  But as she moved about the room, directing the young men and women hired to serve at the reception, Magdalena was also concerned about the two conference attendees she was especially anxious to meet: the two whom she had summoned with the aid of Flauros and Halphas to win justice for Fen’ka. There had been no obvious sign during registration that any of the academics she had met thus far were there in response to her summons. What if she never identified who the spirits had brought? A handful of latecomers had yet to appear. Were the two she was expecting among those who still had not arrived? Her stomach was beginning to tie itself in knots.

  The last few days, she had been trying to recall her visions in the fragrant smoke when she had conjured the spirits. Sorry that she had not taken notes to preserve the details, she could only recall her general impressions of the two people she had commanded the spirits to bring to Prague. One was a woman. A young woman who had become old and haggard as Magdalena watched. The other was a man, probably from New York. There had been several registrants from New York. Both the woman and the man had apparently killed others. But the man in her vision seemed to be a member of the clergy. How many clergymen from New York had registered that afternoon? How many might still be arriving tomorrow?

  She froze in her steps. The handsome movie-actor priest she had met that afternoon was from New York. What had he said? That he taught in the Bronx and lived in Manhattan. That certainly accorded with her vision. But he was so handsome. So suave. A gentleman, she was sure. How could he be the ruthless killer of her vision? She blushed, remembering how she had flirted with him as he registered. Could she bring herself to speak with him again?

  She mingled with the professors during the reception, the wine glass in her hand constantly refilled by either the attentive waiters or the older professors who so enjoyed chatting with the young secretary who had handled all the preliminary arrangements for the conferences. Many of the academics—male and female, younger as well as older—made a point of expressing their gratitude for her e-mails and assistance over the last few weeks. She was flattered and embarrassed by all the attention. But she enjoyed it. She had never been shown so much attention by such high-ranking intellectuals from around the world. She imagined this might rank as the most wonderful day in her life.

  A man hovered behind her, waiting his turn to speak with her. When the older Pakistani woman she had given sightseeing suggestions to withdrew, gushing her thanks and admiring Magdalena’s skill at speaking English, Magdalena began to turn around to the man just beyond her vision when a voice hissed in her ear.

  “Do not think that I have come here because of your paltry conjurations,” he whispered. “Your meager power could never compel one such as myself. I have come here out of curiosity, wondering what could seem so important and make you think that one such as I would be interested in helping you. How did you dare to think that I would deign to respond to your bothersome request?”

  Magdalena blinked rapidly. She swallowed. This must be the man she had been waiting for! She realized he must be avoiding being seen speaking with her and fought her impulse to turn and look at his face. But he was hardly offering the supportive assistance she had been expecting. She stammered in response, hardly daring to do more than whisper herself.

  “I… I asked Flauros and Halphas, as Fen’ka had told me to do and they… they showed me that you… were the best among those to whom I should turn for help.” It was only a slight exaggeration but seemed warranted. The man’s breath was warm on her neck. She so wanted to turn and face him, discover the identity of the man sent by the demons to assist her. Did she dare? Who was he?

  “You summoned others as well, I understand. Have they arrived yet?”

  “I… I’m not sure. There was one other that I summoned. A woman.” If this man was as powerful as he claimed, why did he not already know this? Magdalena swallowed and then raised her wine glass to her lips and glanced around the room. Her eyes darted from cluster to cluster of academics happily chatting or busily striking up new associations. The room filled with the loud buzz of conversation, but she felt isolated from the energy and activity o
f the room, as if an invisible wall had sprung up around her. Hron and Theo were in opposite corners of the room, each with a handful of conference participants. No one seemed to be looking for or even noticing Magdalena now.

  “Only one other?” The man seemed surprised. “Very well. We will discover her identity later this evening and speak with her then. Until then, however, you must maintain the façade of cheerful assistant to the conference organizers.” He paused. “Which you do very well, I might add.” A smile flickered across Magdalena’s lips. The presence behind her slipped away.

  The invisible barrier around her seemed to crumble and the room burst back into life. Another cluster of visitors came up to her with questions about the tours Hron had mentioned would be conducted that evening.

  About ninety minutes later, Magdalena stood at her post outside the Estates Theatre Opera House where the various tours all began. There were four tour guides, each prepared to lead a group through the Old and New Towns and point out sites related by theme: the conference participants could choose from a Ghost Tour, an Architectural Styles Tour, a Jewish History Tour, or an Old Town Square Tour that focused on the nearby square and some of the alleyways that opened onto it. Magdalena’s job was to make sure the academics found the right tour guide, and there were a large number of them milling about, waiting for the tours to begin. They gradually broke into groups gathered around each of the guides and set out into the dusk. Magdalena watched them each turn a different corner and disappear.

  The last group to set out was the Ghost Tour, the one she had joined. There had been about fifteen or twenty participants in the other tour groups and this one was no different, a microcosm of the conferences as a whole: professors and intellectuals from every continent, skin tones of every hue, and accents of every description. The other tour guides were local guides hired by Professor Hron for the evening, but he was leading the Ghost Tour. Magdalena had been looking forward to this tour precisely for a chance to hear Hron tell the stories of hauntings and spirits associated with the corners and alleys of the Old Town. She knew he had also hired a local tarot card reader to do readings for the group at one of the pubs afterwards, a party entertainment aligned with the theme of the evening.