by Anton Strout
Desmond Locke folded his hands together, the gun still in his right one, but lowered now. “And what do you think this is, Mr. Blackmoore?”
“I think you have a whole lot of what you say . . . mysteries. But if the Church caught wind of this collection of yours, it could go one of two ways.”
“And those would be . . . ?” Locke smiled.
“If I go by history,” Marshall continued, “one perception would be that anything of power could be seen to be tools of the Devil by your Church, the types of things that got people burned at the stake or flayed alive.”
“What other way would the Church react?” Rory asked. “Going with that strategy seemed to get them through the Salem witch trials just fine.”
Marshall stepped to the restricted area, raised his hands, and looped his fingers through the gate itself, eyes looking at the contents behind it. “Well, some might see all this and reckon it as definitive proof of God. Technically, everything ‘magic’ here is a miracle. Either way, I’m pretty sure the Church wouldn’t want the world to know about any of this.”
“Marsh, you’re sounding conspiracy-crazy,” Rory said. “Like tinfoil-hat territory.”
Was it, though? I turned my attention back to Desmond Locke, who was standing there looking like he was almost enjoying all of this.
“Who are your people?” I asked. “What is a Libra Concordia?”
“We are the Libra Concordia,” he said, gesturing to indicate the entirety of the activity within the church. “Long ago, the Church decided in its wisdom that while much of its trade was invested in the idea of ‘miracles,’ there was much in the world that didn’t fit with the Church itself that could also be called ‘miraculous.’”
“Magic,” I said.
“As clever as your friend here,” Locke said with a nod. “So while some thought it best to burn witches and warlocks—their books, charms—there were also those in the fold who thought it best to keep track of such things instead of destroying them. Thus was the Libra Concordia born.”
Rory laughed, but there was bitterness in it. “And the powers that be are just fine with all this? Doesn’t it amount to blasphemy in their eyes?”
Desmond Locke gave a tight smile. “Let’s just say that the ideology of some of our members does not fall in line with many of the current administrations; I hear we are quite unpopular in Vatican City.”
“So you’re outlaws,” I said. “Tsk, tsk, Mr. Locke.”
“Such an ugly word,” he said. “The early members of the Libra Concordia set about going underground centuries ago, men and women with a more . . . long-term view of what may or may not be gained by having such arcane knowledge.”
I smiled at that. I had always dismissed Desmond Locke as a religious fanatic, doing what he was told within the confines of the religion with which he held sway over my father, but it seemed there was more to him than just that. Desmond Locke was a freethinker and, in the eyes of his own religion, a bit of a heretic.
Locke raised his gun once again, but not at us, the barrel instead pointed straight up into the air. He wagged the firearm back and forth. “I trust I can dispense with this, Miss Belarus?”
“Preferably,” I said.
“Good,” he said, sliding the gun inside his jacket. “Dreadful things. Necessary at times, I suppose, but dreadful nonetheless.” He turned away from us without looking back and once more started down the center aisle of the church.
I looked to Rory, then Marshall, who half looked like he was ready to run for the doors. I raised my hands out in front of me, palms down.
“Steady,” I whispered. “Whatever these people are, we need to see this through.”
Marshall made to argue, but Rory elbowed him.
“Relax,” she said. “I’ve got your back.”
“You didn’t a second ago when there was a gun pointed at us,” he grumbled.
Rory went to argue back, but I laid a hand on her shoulder. “Save the bickering for home,” I said. “The gun’s put away. That’s a step in the right direction, yes?”
This seemed convincing enough for Marshall, and he walked off after Desmond Locke, Rory and I falling in behind him as quick as we could.
Marshall’s eyes fixed on the rows and rows of shelves off to our right as we continued down the aisle.
“So is there, like, an Arc of the Covenant down here?” Marshall asked.
Mr. Locke turned to look back at him. “I’ll have to check,” he said, “but I doubt it.”
Halfway down the waist-high wall of dark wood to our left, Locke swung open a hinged half door and ushered us into an area beyond it that was fill with a desk, several plush leather chairs, and a couch that sat to our right. He stepped behind the desk, gesturing to the empty chairs directly across from it. Marshall and I took the chairs while Rory sat on the edge of the couch, perched and ready for action at a moment’s notice.
“So why have you brought us here?” I asked.
“Do you know how your father and I met?”
I shrugged. “Bible study camp?”
Locke laughed. “No, not that young, I’m afraid,” he said. “I was already in my late twenties and working for this organization when we he and I met. I learned of him because the Libra Concordia keeps its ears to the ground when they hear rumors of strange things happening in the world.”
“Like when the image of Christ appears in a tortilla out in New Mexico?” Marshall asked.
Locke nodded. “Or a weeping statue of Mary or any variety of such things reported to us, yes.”
“Sounds tedious,” I said.
“Truthfully?” he said. “It is. But if discovering the great mysteries of the world were easy, everyone would take to our calling. Sadly, our numbers are few.”
“But why come after my father?” I asked, steering him back to the point of his original question.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Forgive me. I first came to New York decades ago, chasing down a particular story that was passing in hushed whispers throughout the churches here—that of a young boy who claimed he had seen an angel.”
I tried to hide any reaction to his words. “My father’s gone on and on about that all my life,” I said. I left out the part where only this past year I learned it had been the work of Stanis saving him from Kejetan’s cronies. Still, Locke definitely had my interest. What I needed to know was how much he and his Libra Concordia knew about the truth of it all. “Forgive me if I seem a bit bored hearing about my father’s angel again.”
“Your father was a persuasive man,” he said. “More so back then. By the time I tracked him down, and he told me his tale, I knew I had met someone special.”
“I won’t argue that,” I said. “Every girl thinks her daddy is special, after all.”
“Naturally,” he said with a patient smile. “But the Church’s official stance on miracles such as a visitation by the divine is a bit dismissive. They know there are those among their flock who simply make up stories or, in their fervor, believe they have actually seen such things. The Church doesn’t usually move on something until a whole village has seen a weeping statue or some such thing. But with my grander interests, well . . . I like to give even the craziest of tales due diligence. See how they play out.”
“You don’t sound like you believe in miracles,” I said.
Desmond Locke shrugged. “In my profession, you see proof of what falls in line with the arcane more than you do the divine.”
“And you don’t consider any of that miraculous?” I asked.
Locke shook his head.
Marshall cleared his throat and spoke. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” he said.
I turned to look at him. “Did you just make that up?”
“Afraid not,” he said. “That honor belongs to Arthur C. Clarke.”
“But Mr. Blackmoore is more or less correct,” Locke pointed out.
“Care to explain?” I asked.
Marshall paused for a moment in thought before speaking. “Back in the good ole witch-burning days, people took the things they couldn’t explain and called them magic. Eclipses, magnetism, earthquakes. But over time, as we’ve discovered the how and why of things through science, the magical mystery of it all is sort of rolled back.”
“Precisely,” Locke said. “To my way of thinking, magic is simply a science we have yet to fully understand.”
“But what does that have to do with my father and angels?” I asked. “Angels still fall in the miracle category, right? Divine servants of God and all that?”
“And there’s the thing,” Locke said, leaning forward in his chair, whispering conspiratorially to me. “I don’t think your father saw an angel. I think it might have been something else.”
“Such as . . . ?” I said, holding on to the arms of my chair, my stomach clenching as I feared hearing Stanis’s name come from his lips.
“Of that I am not quite sure,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “That is where you come in.”
“If you’re so concerned about Alexandra’s father and what he saw, why not ask him?” Rory asked.
“Religion is an easy way to find the unexplainable at times,” Locke said. “I studied your father for years as we became friends. His belief in this divine angel was so strong that I was always reluctant to broach discussion of magic with him. I thought that if it was magic that was surely at hand, it would reveal itself over time, but your father never spoke of it.”
I laughed at the idea of my father’s having any working knowledge of the arcane world.
“But then,” Locke continued, “strange things started happening around him. The death of your brother, Devon, in that building collapse, the damage to the burial site beneath your family home, the damage tonight in your great-great-grandfather’s studio, and I thought to myself that perhaps your father wasn’t the best person in the family to be asking questions to.”
I shrugged and put on my best innocent face. “I know even less about my father and angels than you probably do,” I replied.
Desmond Locke’s eyes ran slowly over my face, no doubt looking for some hint of deception, but I didn’t think he’d find one. Technically, I knew nothing of my father and an actual angel. Had Desmond Locke been asking specifically about a gargoyle, my face might have told a different story, but I simply stared back at the man.
“Really, now,” he said. “I find it hard to believe that you, Alexandra—named for your great-great-grandfather—know nothing.”
I held up a finger and smiled. “I didn’t say I knew nothing.”
“So . . . what can you tell me?”
I held my tongue. If one of the rules set upon Stanis centuries ago had been to keep his gargoyle form hidden from humanity, who was I to screw that up? It was impressive Stanis had managed to pull it off for all this time in a city of millions, with security cameras and iPhones.
At that point, I wasn’t convinced that telling Desmond Locke or his Libra Concordia anything about the gargoyle was a smart idea. At least not on a first date.
Desmond Locke looked to Marshall, then to Rory, but as I suspected, neither of them was offering up anything either. He sighed.
“Very well,” he said. “I can perhaps understand your reluctance. These are dark and important matters, not to be taken lightly. But think of this: Something destroyed your family’s catacombs and your great-great-grandfather’s studio. If you’re as smart a girl as I think you to be, then you’re probably smart enough to be scared. The Libra Concordia has ways to help you with that.” He gestured to the caged-off area behind us. “We have the resources to help you, Alexandra, but you have to give me something.”
“How can I trust you?” I asked. “You claim to be a man of God yet you pulled a gun on us. You also know about the arcane world. How can I believe you when you’re a man of conflicting ideologies?”
He smiled across the desk at me. “You can be a man of God and believe in magic,” he said. “Or, as your friend Marshall called it, a science we do not yet fully grasp. After all, who gave science to us but God?”
It made a sort of sense, and I wanted to believe him, especially if it meant he might be of some help in getting Stanis back.
“I need some time to think,” I said. “I’m not the trusting sort.”
“He could have already shot us,” Rory whispered from behind me.
I spun around and glared at her over on the couch. “Not a compelling argument there, Ror.”
“Perhaps this will help,” Locke said, standing up. He walked to the edge of his office area and called out toward an area filled with other workers farther down the aisle. “Caleb!”
A figure rose from a shadowy corner of the offices farther along and stepped forward, heading down the aisle toward us. This Caleb stepped into a pool of light, revealing his muss of blond hair and long brown coat. They hadn’t changed much since I had last seen him in my great-great-grandfather’s guild hall.
The potion thief.
“You!” I shouted, only to get looks from the other people working around the office.
The strange man paused in the aisle, looking both sheepish and panicked at the same time. The hesitation lasted only for a second, but then he hurried down the aisle toward me, rolling his legs over the low wall and stepping into Locke’s office space. Rory was on her feet in an instant, but Marshall was taking his time, not having actually seen the man that night.
Mr. Locke gave him a raised eyebrow. “You two know each other, Mr. Kennedy?”
“We’ve met,” he shouted out before I could get an answer out. “Big fan of her great-grandfather’s work.”
He moved across the space quickly as he came to join us.
“Great-great-grandfather,” I corrected.
“Yes, of course,” he said, not missing a beat, laying his hands on my shoulders. “Great-great-grandfather. She and I met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were both studying some of his statues there. So good to see you again.”
Caleb Kennedy’s eyes stayed with mine, locked, the smile on his face wide and forced, wavering slightly. His hands on my shoulders dug in hard, almost causing me to cry out, but I held it in, trying to read this man who—last time I had seen him—had knocked Rory unconscious.
Examining his face as best I could in our short reintroduction, I decided to play along. We were both of us in mixed company at the moment, and I doubted much could happen that was harmful this time, so I went along with whatever he was doing.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. I remember.” I turned to my friends. “Rory, Marshall. This is . . .”
“Caleb,” he said to them. The blond’s face washed with relief, and he let go of my shoulders to vigorously shake hands with both my friends. Marshall, who had never seen him before, took Caleb’s hand and shook first, but Rory only did so reluctantly, and when she did, there was a burning fire set deep in her eyes.
Caleb mouthed the word “sorry” to her, but it did nothing to change her expression, and he quickly dropped his hand away from her before stepping back toward Desmond Locke.
Locke eyed Caleb with a hint of suspicion, but the blond’s face didn’t falter. He simply stared at his boss, waiting.
“As a token of trust,” Locke said, “I want you to help Miss Belarus here in one of the reference rooms with anything pertaining to her family.”
Caleb’s eyes went wide like those of a child. “Really?”
“You can handle that, can’t you?”
“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation, and turned. “Please follow me.”
Rory, Marshall, and I fell in behind him, but Desmond Locke’s words stopped us all.
“Just Miss Belarus,
” he said. “For now.”
I looked over at him. “Why not all of us?” I asked.
Caleb stopped as well and turned back to Desmond Locke.
“The things we keep record of are precious to us,” Locke said. “And since you’re being a bit tight-lipped with me about your father’s angel, Miss Belarus, I will do the same in return. As I said, this is a token of our trust, one that may turn into a mutually beneficial arrangement, but it is just that. A token. So for now, only Miss Belarus may have access to our records. If things go well, I promise your friends will be welcome in the future.”
Rory shook her head and stepped up to Locke. “I’m not leaving Lexi alone with him,” she said.
I laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be fine,” I said, pulling her away from him, then lowered my voice. “Do you really think blondie’s going to start trouble here?”
Rory didn’t look convinced, but she relented and went to stand by Marshall.
Caleb turned and again started off down the main aisle of the converted church, and I followed him all the way to the back of it, leaving my friends and Desmond Locke behind us. I only hoped they would be safe with him.
Past the caged-off area to our right lay a series of doors, and Caleb headed for the one farthest back. I remained silent as we stepped in, and he shut the door behind us, which left the two of us alone in a stylish one-room book-lined library with a wide reading table at the center.
Locke’s man smiled at me with such a level of smugness that I couldn’t help but run to him and slam him up against the wall until I was pressing my forearm across his throat. “You want to tell me why you lied to Desmond Locke and his Libra Concordia about how we previously met?” I asked. “Or maybe why you attacked us?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” he croaked out, already trying to struggle his way out from under my arm, but I wouldn’t let up. He was probably stronger than me, but I was riled and pushed even harder as he tried to wrench my arm away from his throat.
“So that wasn’t you who gave my good friend Rory a concussion, then?” I asked.
“Okay, fine, yes,” he said. His hands slid between my arm and his throat, and he pried himself free with a mighty shove, forcing me back from him. He held his hands up in the air. “But I can explain!”