by Brett King
“We have not been this close to possessing it in over five hundred years,” the Knight agreed.
“As brothers in the order”—Starr clamped his hands on McKibbon’s shoulder—“we must use every resource to regain it. The Knights will once again possess the Radix.”
3:15 P.M.
Afternoon shadows stretched across the rolling lawns of Mount Olivet Cemetery as Cori Cassidy slipped into a huddle of mourners. She found John Brynstone, running her hand along his back as he embraced her. Holding their toddler, Kaylyn gave a one-armed hug. Nicolette Bettencourt stood beside her father. She nodded at Cori. That chilling night at Notre-Dame last week had forged an unlikely friendship between her and the French woman.
Gnarled oaks framed the Wurm mausoleum. Edgar Wurm’s coffin rested inside the crypt, but the priest—a stern-looking man in his fifties—officiated the closed-casket service outside. The sun made an uncharacteristic appearance, cutting the winter gloom. Cori reached for her sunglasses, feeling numb. After Mack Shaw’s, this was the second funeral this week. His death haunted her with guilt. After a visit from CIA agents, Baltimore police stopped investigating her role in the homicides of Mack and Perez. The best news was that Tessa would make a full recovery.
After heated negotiation, French officials released Wurm’s body for burial in his family’s mausoleum. Wurm could be intimidating and moody, but she’d walked away respecting his passion and intelligence. The thing that troubled her about that night at Notre-Dame? Nicolette had shot Adriana’s brother, but his body had disappeared. She had seen blood spatter on the floor when Paris police dragged her into the spire, but there was no sign of him. She couldn’t duck the thought of Santo Borgia out there in the world.
Nearby, a grieving couple adorned a child’s grave site with decorations. The woman arranged flowers as her husband planted colorful pinwheels. A fuzzy duckling and a sad-faced bear cuddled against the heart-shaped monument, stuffed companions sharing time with a lost child. Crumbling in sorrow, the couple dropped to their knees in the snow.
A tear emerged from beneath Cori’s sunglasses and crawled down her cheek. She opened her purse and unfolded a handkerchief that had belonged to her mother. Seemed like a handful of yesterdays since Ariel Cassidy’s passing. Cori wept as bittersweet memories flooded back.
Shay Brynstone reached for her father. Leaning on John’s shoulder now, the toddler stared at her reflection in Cori’s sunglasses. She was a beautiful child, dressed in white tights and a velvet dress under a black winter coat. John had quit his government job, hoping to patch up his marriage. Kaylyn had agreed to attend today after John explained how Wurm had saved Shay’s life by finding the Scintilla. Shay gurgled and gave a funny smile. Cori grinned as the child nuzzled her freshly scrubbed pink rabbit.
Knowing Shay had died was creepy. John confided that his daughter had been dead at least twenty minutes before he brought her back. What would that do to a person? Shay looked beautiful now, but what changes did the Radix produce inside her tiny body? Cori’s mind flashed to middle school, when she’d read W. W. Jacob’s chilling story, “The Monkey’s Paw.” Was it like that? Sure, you get your child back from the dead. Only problem? It’s not the same child.
As she tucked the handkerchief in her purse, she noticed a lanky African-American man dressed in a dark turtleneck, pants, and a tattered coat. Wearing a dingy Nationals baseball cap, the homeless man stood beside an angel monument. He was staring at John and Shay. Cori’s gaze dropped to the man’s leather shoes. Black and polished, like the kind she’d noticed on CIA agents. The disquieting figure caught her eyes. They stared, locked in wary curiosity.
Brynstone had worked for a government agency. Would he recognize the stranger? She tugged on his arm, whispering in his ear. He looked over, lowering Shay to the ground.
“What guy?” he asked.
She turned back, pointing at the angel monument. The stranger was nowhere in sight.
Shay tottered away from the mourners. John reached for her, but Cori grabbed his arm. “I’ll get her,” she whispered. Kaylyn nodded and thanked her.
Shay was unsteady on her feet, but she maneuvered around patches of snow clumped on the brown grass. Looking adorable in her black coat and matching wool beret, she headed for the heart-shaped monument. After arranging colorful pinwheels and flowers and stuffed animals, the parents had returned to their car.
All at once, Cori had a terrible sense that the stranger from behind the angel monument was hiding somewhere out here, waiting to snatch the toddler.
As Shay hurried to the little girl’s grave, her ankle boot slipped on the snow, forcing her leg into an awkward twist. The child toppled, striking her knee on the headstone. She crumpled on her back, collecting snow on her dark coat.
Cori sprinted after her. “Shay, are you all right?”
The toddler made a face, her mouth tight. Her blonde, almost invisible eyebrows furrowed. A single tear clutched her eyelash. Shay didn’t make a whimper as she grabbed at her shiny black boot. Cori glanced at the mourners. Kaylyn and John were listening to the priest. They hadn’t seen their daughter’s accident.
Cori bent down and curled Shay against her, examining the child’s leg. Mud smeared her white tights. Blood ran bright from a gash beneath her torn knee. Beneath a flap of skin, the jagged cut ran a couple inches in length. She guessed the child would need stitches.
“Sorry I didn’t catch you, sweetie.” Raising Shay’s knee, she dabbed at the blood with her mother’s handkerchief. The pressure made the child wince. “You’re such a brave girl.”
Hoping for distraction, Cori pointed at stuffed animals braced against the monument. The child trained her gaze on the bear and duckling. She held out her bunny, dancing it in a jumble of floppy ears as she shared a bubbling conversation with the other creatures.
While using the handkerchief as a compress, Cori dusted snow off the beret. She pulled it atop the toddler’s head. “Bet your mommy has a bandage we can put on your owie.”
Balancing Shay on her leg, Cori noticed a tuft of gray fur resting behind the monument. A bushy-tailed squirrel curled on a crust of snow, the flat look of death in its eye. It was unsettling. She hoped Shay hadn’t seen the dead creature.
Cori turned her attention to the handkerchief, raising it for a look at the wound. She blinked, staring at the child’s knee.
The jagged cut had vanished.
Doubting her eyes, she glanced at Shay’s other knee. The tights stretching over her left leg were pristine and white. She studied the bloodstained handkerchief in her hand, then looked at the ripped hose beneath the child’s right knee. The tights were flecked with dirt and blood. Even the underside of Shay’s dress showed a smear of blood. But there was no sign of the gash that had marred her soft skin.
Shay looked up with clear blue eyes. A serene look crossed her face. Her small lips parted as she said, “Auw gone.” The little girl giggled.
Heart drumming in her ears, she scooped up Shay, her chin riding on Cori’s shoulder. She returned to the mourners, unable to believe what she had witnessed. With the White Chrism inside of her, Shay Brynstone had become the ultimate realization of the alchemical dream.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Potomac
10:57 P.M.
The Knight awakened with a coughing spasm, blood spilling down his chin. He didn’t want to black out again. Both wrists were pulled tight behind his back. He couldn’t budge. The tall metal stake braced his body in an upright position.
His left eye wouldn’t open. Too swollen. His head burned with a fever. He coughed more blood. He glanced around the room and recognized the walls. The studio. He was home. He squinted. A man was seated behind the easel, his legs visible beneath an oversized linen canvas on the crossbar. Small flames darted across the frame.
He knew that Brynstone would return someday for his revenge.
The Knight’s voice rasped, “John?”
Hard laughter erupted from behind the fiery
canvas.
“Answer me, John. Answer, damn you.”
“Were you expecting Dr. Brynstone?” the man asked, a metallic German accent coloring his words. He stepped from behind the burning canvas. His small, terrible eyes fixed on the Knight. Erich Metzger was a contradiction. Slight but powerful. Tranquil but fierce.
The assassin crossed his arms. “I warned you about becoming my enemy.”
“Where are my security personnel?”
“Now? In hell, perhaps.” He smiled. “Look at your feet.”
The Knight rolled his head, blinking his swollen eye. He was perched atop a mound composed of smashed antique tables and chairs, draperies, and rare volumes from his library. Five canvases were scattered around his feet. His cherished paintings. Saint Peter. Saint James the Greater. Saint Sebastian. Saint George. And Saint Andrew.
“How dare you touch my work?”
“You are now my work,” Metzger answered. “You adore martyrs. Don’t you wish to become one?”
“You can’t do this.”
“When I kill a killer, I utilize his methodology. Your victims died recreating martyrdom. But your saints hold no fascination for me.”
“And a miscreant like you would hold no fascination for my saints.”
“Have you heard about a Dominican friar named Giordano Bruno?” Metzger asked. “He claimed the universe held innumerable suns. For him, living beings inhabited worlds beyond our own. He believed Jesus was not divine, but a clever magician. The Church imprisoned Bruno in a dungeon. The Inquisition branded him a heretic. In 1600, he was burned at the stake.”
“I suppose a lunatic like Bruno is your kind of saint. A scientific martyr.”
“Bruno wasn’t much of a scientist,” Metzger admitted. He grabbed the burning canvas, then pitched it onto the pyre. “I respect him because he was radical. He died for an idea.”
“So did my saints.”
“Hardly. They died for salvation. Then learned there is no salvation. Certainly not for you.”
Delgado glowered as fire crawled toward his beloved painting of Saint James. Metzger snatched the canvas from the pyre. He studied the painting. A king slashing a martyr.
“An early work,” Metzger observed. “Different style. Not as controlled or defined.”
“My first in the series,” he said. “King Herod Agrippa stabbing Saint James the Greater. He was the first apostle to be martyred.”
“Before I killed your man Cress, he told me you painted your models as they were dying,” Metzger said. “But I recognize this man. He is still alive.”
“You are wrong. He is long dead. He is the only saint whose face I painted from memory.”
“I’ll hang onto this one. I have a friend who might find it compelling.”
The Knight sensed warmth on his bare feet. Between gritted teeth, he said, “I have a safe in my library. Free me and I’ll pay—”
“I don’t need money,” Metzger interrupted. “Because of Jordan Rayne, I am quite wealthy. Besides, your library will not survive to see the new year.”
The Knight looked out the studio door. A woman appeared in the doorway. Behind her, flickering light danced across the walls near the atrium. “You’re burning my home?”
“No, that responsibility rests with Franka. I’ve never had an appetite for arson.”
“My possessions,” he pleaded. “Will they burn?”
“It all dies with you.” Metzger raised a vial. Removing the lid, he slid a greenish stock onto his palm. “This is the Radix. Or at least, Brynstone claimed so when he surrendered it.”
“Give it to me.”
The assassin kicked aside a burning canvas and climbed on the pyre. The Knight opened his mouth. Metzger placed the root on his tongue. The Knight swallowed it.
Metzger leaped from the pyre. “Tonight, we’ll pit my blaze against your little plant,” he smiled. “Herr Delgado, how strong is your faith in Dr. Brynstone’s root?”
11:15 P.M.
In a fury, Brynstone turned off the Beltway and raced his rental Lexus onto Maryland’s River Road. After Kaylyn and Shayna had drifted to sleep back at their Washington, D.C., hotel, he had pulled up the closed-circuit television at Delgado’s Potomac home. After some tinkering, he had accessed security cams, including one mounted in the studio. Back at the hotel, he had tuned in as a man strapped an unconscious James Delgado to a tall metal stake. Brynstone had grabbed a visual on the intruder. He had jumped up when he saw Metzger’s face. He had grabbed the computer along with his Glock before hurrying out of the hotel. Metzger and Delgado were in the same room at the same time. He had to get there. Fast.
While in the car, he had overheard Metzger’s conversation with Delgado, listening to the feed streaming in from Delgado’s studio. Now minutes away, he gave a quick glance at the computer on the seat. Metzger fed the counterfeit Radix to Delgado. Jumping off the pyre, Metzger spotted the studio surveillance cam. The assassin raised a gun and fired.
The screen went black.
Brynstone cursed as he slapped down the cover of the notebook computer. He was close. Turning into the Bradley Farms neighborhood, he punched the accelerator. He wanted to kill Delgado. Then he’d make Metzger pay.
The isolated studio was located at the rear of Delgado’s mansion. Brynstone had visited the house countless times, but had seen the studio only once. Like Delgado, Kaylyn was an artist, and he had given them a tour a few years ago. All other times, he kept the studio locked.
He swerved the black Lexus off the driveway, then tore across the vast lawn, spinning dead grass and snow as he pulled behind Delgado’s mansion. Smoke boiled from a window on the three-level Colonial. Although situated on secluded land, neighbors would notice and make an emergency call soon.
Bringing out his Glock, he rushed into the fiery building. He knew the home, knew the fastest way to find the general. The sweltering blaze overpowered the atrium.
He had the sense someone was watching him. Swinging around with his handgun, he aimed at a figure standing behind crisscrossed burning timber. Dressed all in black, a ghostly woman studied him. Her gaunt face was lined by chin-length hair, disheveled and purple. She darted away from the main hall, moving back toward the fire.
Ignoring her, he sprinted to the studio. He kept watch for Metzger as he headed into the room. Delgado was positioned in the center of the studio, fire crawling the wall behind him. The man squirmed as flames seethed at the base around his bare feet. He wheezed, taking in smoke as Brynstone hurried to him. Delgado’s head snapped up.
“I know you’re the Knight. I know you hired Metzger. Why’d you try to kill me?”
“You knew too much, John. I had ambitious plans. It was only a matter of time before you ruined things. I knew that sooner or later, you would stand in my way.” His eyes narrowed. “Last week wasn’t the first time I tried to kill you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Think back twenty years. At your summer cottage. Remember when you found me on the floor of your father’s study?”
“A man broke into our home. You warned me to get out before he found me.”
“There was no one else, John. I acted like I had been attacked. When you wheeled down the hallway, I came after you. I planned to stab you with the dagger I’d used to kill your father.”
“You killed my dad?”
“Jayson was my friend, but he wanted to pull Wurm off his Voynich work. I tried talking him out of it. He was too stubborn. Murder was a consequence he brought on himself.”
Brynstone growled, “That means you pushed me down the stairs.”
Delgado strained to rise on his toes as flames licked his feet. The metal stake was drawing in heat, blistering his back. “You can thank Wurm for that. He interrupted everything.”
“What about the lacerations? You had multiple stab wounds.”
“What’s the best way to avoid suspicion, John? Self-inflicted injuries. A facial gash can be quite convincing.” Delgado choked, his
face bright from the firelight. “I bled that evening for the grace of God, but it was worth the pain. That night, I transformed into the Knight.” Perspiration rolled down his face. “I’m the Knight and you’re a pawn. So was your father. Pawns are easy to kill. I loved killing your father.”
Brynstone raised the handgun, aiming it at the general. His finger quivered on the trigger. Then it hit him. He knew what the man was doing. Delgado wanted to bait him into firing the weapon. He wanted to die before the flames consumed him.
“What’s wrong?” Delgado asked, wincing as fire burned his flesh. “Lose your nerve?”
Brynstone lowered the Glock. “Told you before. I don’t believe in wasting bullets.”
As fire curled around Delgado, he screamed, “I am the Knight!”
An explosion rocked the north wing of the mansion, cutting off his words. Sirens accompanied the roar. A column of flame engulfed Lieutenant General James Delgado. His face contorted in agony, making a death mask more haunting than the martyred souls in his paintings.
Brynstone had minutes—maybe seconds—to escape the inferno. He raced out of the studio, leaping through flames spreading across the atrium. Glancing out the window, he saw three fire teams arrive. An exterior crew of firefighters ran hose lines around the front, responding to the structure fire. They were preparing to execute rescue ops, but it was too late. The fire had progressed and the main hall collapsed along with the studio.
Brynstone darted out the back of the burning structure, staying away from police and firefighters. He had a documented record of conflict with Delgado, making him an immediate suspect. Overhead, a news helicopter blasted a searchlight across Delgado’s estate. Ducking into the shadows, he glanced around, hoping to find Metzger. The searchlight blurred past, running a sweep of the area. This was turning bad. He wanted Metzger, but now wasn’t the time. Fighting instinct, Brynstone rushed for the Lexus.