Earlier, in the turret’s playroom the two human sacrifices combined with the coven’s sexual rituals had pumped up Stoyanova’s power, as if her batteries had been overcharged, allowing her to store up for this solo outing. The statue would have been theirs, if the operators on-site hadn’t screwed up. Now that the statue was on the move, she needed to expend more of her own energy to first locate and then track the artifact.
The first statue Kessler coveted had been handed to them, as it were, and torturing the witness had granted her a full charge. Now they were involved in cutting off any loose ends. But there was a troubling presence on the board she wasn’t quite sure she could outfox. She would need a fresh ritual and perhaps multiple sacrifices to manage more than creating an occasional nuisance. Her lack of success so far was disturbing, because her subject was so hazy and ill-defined. Normally the work Stoyanova did was clear as crystal, but this was more like glass block and it frustrated her.
She’d been ordered by Kessler to crash a plane, a private jet no less, but something—or someone—had interfered and she’d used up her stored power but had ultimately failed. The other had started late, when the plane was in a full dive, but perhaps that one possessed more power. She couldn’t help but wonder who had opposed her, who had managed to wrest a victory from her, handing her such an embarrassment instead.
Kessler had been furious, but she’d made it up to him.
Oh yes, she had.
He was a man of many and varied needs, and his needs and hers meshed perfectly.
If she fretted at all about needing sacrifices in order to fulfill her purposes for Kessler—and for herself—she gave no indication. She’d been raised to become an Adept, initiated into ritual magick at an early age, and had grown into an advanced state of knowledge that often required little outside input. However, for the difficult jobs—such as those for her patron (and lover) Kessler—she required much more power and energy than she could safely store in her own body. Hence the rituals to amp up energy and its storage, then the discharge of energy as she fulfilled the purpose, and then the recovery—which could be minutes to weeks depending on how much was done and how distant the results from where she happened to be.
The private jet had been an uncharacteristic failure. She wondered how many such failures she could afford before Kessler…
No, she refused to go there. He needed her too much.
Now, since she had already stored the statue’s characteristic—evil, twisted—aura in her own psyche, all she needed was a signal boost. The earlier ritual and this solo warming session were providing all she needed to “see” the statue and the two who had taken it from the sea’s clutches.
She rode the waves of pleasure and power boosting produced by the solo ritual and used each wave to enhance her field of vision, to widen its view and at the same time to narrow its focus. The tingles that worked their way through her body also served to amp up her vision and soon she was looking down as if through a bird’s eye. In her mind, she was a bird of prey floating high above the curved horizon, her eyes roving to and fro, surveying…
And then she was sure the artifact was in her view, and she rode the orgasm that brought the vision and cast out her senses to include the others.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…
In a few pleasant moments she floated outside her body, really between her body and wherever her eyes were located, high above the earth, and watched them—caught them unaware—and she licked her lips unconsciously.
Kessler would be pleased. Very pleased.
There they were: Straker, muscular and stubbornly loyal, and his “angel,” Bella, who seemed to carry with her a bit more aura than would have seemed possible. They had the statue, and now she knew where they were.
And where they were going…
Yes.
Chapter 29
Outside Miss Ella’s Diner
Queens, New York
They staggered to their feet and backed away from the heat of the blaze, which they could feel from the street. Around the corner, the waitress from the diner and a couple customers were on the sidewalk, gaping.
“Shit!” Vandenberg blinked hard, trying to get dust out of his red eyes. He held his ears—undoubtedly the blast had damaged his ear drums.
Simon shook his head to clear it, his ears ringing with the blast’s echo. He looked down—a six-inch length of rebar protruded from his side. There was blood pooling around the metal bar, but he felt little pain. He grasped the visible portion and slowly extracted it out of the wound, which tried to suck it back. He twisted and pulled stubbornly, managing to do it without the cop seeing him, then tossed the metal into the gutter with the rest of the debris. Vandenberg was still clearing his eyes.
“Hey, looks like you’re bleeding,” he said, pointing unsteadily.
“It’s nothing,” said Simon. By the time he’d have to show it, the wound would be closed. He lied, “Maybe it’s someone else’s blood.”
“Damn it to hell!” Vandenberg growled, tilting his head, clearly still in pain. He led the way into the hotel doorway, out of which streamed a few stragglers. He held up his badge. “Clear out, NYPD! Clear out!”
Simon was behind him, but they were being jostled backwards. They gave up, backed out of the doorway, and waited for them all to jog past to the street. There wasn’t much panic, but the people’s eyes were glazed. They heard sirens approaching, not far away. Simon pulled the cop back. “No chance, up there.”
“Your nut-jobs did this?”
“Probably. I doubt we’ll get anything out of your witness now. No one could have survived. Who was with him?”
“A cop friend of mine. Damn good guy. Shit!”
Simon was about to express some sort of sentiment as they headed back toward the curb, when across the street he saw a head turn away just as his eyes swung past. It was a tall guy who had been hanging on the fringe of the fast-growing crowd, but as soon as Simon’s glance grazed him he faded back among the gawkers and strode away quickly.
“Wait for the cops,” Simon told Vandenberg and before the detective could protest he took off running after the tall guy, who looked back and saw him and stepped on the gas.
Simon felt the flesh around his wound tightening, closing, the skin knitting itself together. Good thing, because otherwise running would have been too painful. He crossed the street in advance of the arriving fire brigades, conscious of being seen as a runner from the scene but unwilling to let the guy get away. He was either the bomber, or someone who knew something, because there was no other reason for him to run.
The guy pounded around the next corner, legs pumping, and Simon gave chase knowing he was probably heading into a trap.
How had they found Vandenberg’s safe house? Were they following the cop, or were they tracking him? He had only told Cat’s voicemail about the meet, so was there a leak at the VSS? Was it just a coincidence? Maybe the nut-jobs weren’t so nutty, maybe they were very good at what they did.
Now that the last witness was gone, blown to bits like the others, they probably thought they were free to continue gathering statuettes from the list. But why was the first witness killed so elaborately, while the others blown up?
Ritual aspect?
As he chased his rabbit, Simon considered that the unfortunate guy over whose body he had met Vandenberg was probably tortured, but he was also used—utilized as a powering up for the fanatics, or more likely their Adept.
Maybe the very same one who had tried to bring down the plane.
His quarry zipped off the sidewalk ahead and sped into an alley.
Oh sure, like I’m not aware of how this plays out, he thought.
He continued headlong into the alley.
Chapter 30
An alley
Queens, New York
Simon caught the flash of a door opening twenty yards down the alley, one of those prototypical New York film-noir alleys with trash bins stacked along the old brick walls and rusted
steel fire escape stairs hanging overhead like modern art mobiles fashioned from junk metal.
The light from inside was the giveaway. He dodged upended trash cans and spilled bags to reach the door, presumably where the guy had disappeared.
Instead of being one of those doors that only open from inside, there was a large industrial size knob and he grasped it and of course it turned much too easily.
Well, there you are.
He reached down for the compact SIG in the ankle holster and went in rather loudly, expecting some sort of restaurant kitchen—a crew armed with cleavers and butcher knives?—but finding instead a long, narrow and dimly-lit hallway with doors on either side of its chipped gray walls.
No one in the hallway, but Simon was invited to try door number one, number two, and number three, without a doubt.
He heard a clatter behind the second door, and smiled cruelly.
Twisting the knob and pushing while flattening himself close to the cracked tile flooring, he managed to avoid being shot by any of the four rounds from a suppressed handgun that smacked into the hallway wall. Feeling safely invisible in the hazy yellow light, he came up shooting—three rounds then a double-tap. His special built-in suppressor kept the noise down.
One body flew backward, arms windmilling, and a second spun around as if merely winged, so Simon double-tapped him again. The body stayed down.
Simon turned forty-five degrees and saw a third guy, the one he’d chased originally, coming at him with a large blade.
There’s that butcher knife!
Well, not really—it was more of a Bowie knife, an efficient-looking hunter with a huge brass guard. The hand that held it trembled, and Simon considered just shooting him like the other two, but he wanted the guy alive to question. Vandenberg would want him—he was likely connected to the first bombing as well.
The man’s pupils were wide, but not with fear. It was some kind of narcotic, as if he’d been turned into a berserker. And indeed, he screamed something intelligible and lunged at Simon, the knife suddenly raised to plunge into his unprotected chest.
There’s a good little fanatic!
Simon held his position until the last second, then sidestepped rather too easily, and only then did he realize the attacker wanted himself taken out.
He snapped off a shot, hit his upper thigh, and the guy went into a heap on the floor, landing in his fellows’ slick blood.
Simon stood over the attacker, aware that at any time the door behind him might burst open and more wacked-out fanatics could rush in and surround him—shades of Chuck Heston’s The Omega Man—and then even his near-immortality might not save him.
Blood poured from the guy’s wound, but Simon didn’t think he’d nicked a major artery. He reached out to snatch the knife away, but the guy surprised him by opening his weird eyes and, instead of trying to slice at Simon, turning the blade on himself. Without a moment’s hesitation he slit his own throat by sawing rapidly through flesh before weakening too much.
“No!”
Simon tried to get pressure on the wound to stanch the bleeding.
But by now the guy’s eyes were already flipping upward and glazing and all Simon got for his trouble was blood-soaked hands.
“Damn it!”
The storage room connected to a kitchen like the one he’d originally imagined, but deserted. He rinsed his hands in a huge sink, then stepped back into the death room.
Working quickly, he snapped photos of the three dead fanatics’ faces, including the one whose head was near-severed, and emailed them to Cat. VSS databases, some of them secret, would probably yield something. She could do magic as well as magick, that girl!
He called his archdiocese contact number and requested a local clean-up, alerting them they’d have to beat the police cordon that was sure to spring up soon. Not his problem, plus they’d have the appropriate credentials. A fair amount of dirty work got done under allies’ noses in every country, and the United States was no different.
Simon wiped his hands again, then set about rejoining Vandenberg.
He wasn’t at all sure anything had been gained by either side. All this effort to take out the witnesses of the statuette find…but why? Just to keep the VSS off the track? Hadn’t worked, and Martin already knew about the other four artifacts. It all just made him wonder.
Was the endgame the ritual, or were they targeting the VSS?
Or were they targeting him, Simon Pound?
Once known as Judas Iscariot. But did they know that?
Chapter 31
The Pinnacle (Kessler Building)
Pinnacle Industries International Headquarters
Manhattan, New York
Curtis found Kessler in the Round Room, sitting at the great oaken table. The other chairs were empty, but Curtis figured they would soon be filled. He lusted for one of the seats, an intricately carved wooden throne that meant he had reached knighthood in Kessler’s army—and his organization, as well. He would be incalculably rich when this happened, gifted a stake in the corporation in the form of incredibly valuable stock. Pinnacle had already surpassed Apple and Microsoft and Amazon as the most valuable company in America, and soon it would do the same on the world stage.
The great man—his employer and patron, his commander and his guide—was in a pensive mood, but he turned to watch Curtis enter. He was expected, and Curtis saw the expectation in Kessler’s eyes.
This will balance out his anger regarding the screw-up with the Florida statue. That bitch Stoyanova will succeed where my men failed, and she’ll think she has the upper hand. But right now I have her checkmated.
Curtis beamed, unabashedly happy to have brought Kessler a success to cancel his earlier hiccup—for that was all it was, really—and he couldn’t wait to bask in the boss’s good graces.
Today a pat on the head, tomorrow millions in stock and a seat at the Round Table.
And I’ll be able to fuck Stoyanova in the ass, if I want.
He looked forward to the day with equal amounts of lust and arrogance.
“You have it?” Kessler said. He didn’t ask his commander to sit, Curtis noted. But he would, and soon.
“Yes, sir. Here it is.”
Kessler’s intense gaze was riveted on what the soldier carried cradled in his arms.
Curtis placed his heavy burden on the table, making sure to avoid scratching the surface. It was very heavy, but by all accounts not as heavy as the Florida thing that had gotten away. He removed the royal blue velvet cloth covering.
“Ahhhh…”
Kessler’s mouth had opened and the soft exclamation escaped perhaps unintentionally. His eyelids fluttered and his breathing rate increased just perceptibly enough that Curtis knew he had scored big points.
Watch out, Stoyanova.
The relatively small, solid gold figurine was clearly the serpent-god Quetzalcoatl, perched behind a roughly-rendered primitive Christ on all fours. The savior was receiving the apparently unpleasant attentions of the excited serpent-god, and flecks of some kind of red pigment were intended to show exactly how unpleasant.
“It’s beautiful,” Kessler whispered.
Curtis said nothing—the words were clearly not aimed at him.
Kessler continued. “It’s primitive, but provocative.” Finally his eyes sought out Curtis’s. “One can sense the power emanating from the hate depicted, the power of the profane.”
“Yes, sir, one can.” Curtis hated being a yes-man, but he knew where his checks came from.
Kessler reached out and caressed the statuette as if it were luscious female flesh. His fingers stroked the feathers on the serpent’s back, and explored the space where the two figures’ genitalia were united. His pointed nails traced the red flecks.
Curtis imagined his boss’s erection and kept a straight face.
“It was in the museum, as our source indicated?”
“Yes, sir, two hours north of Chicago, in Wisconsin. An unlikely place…”
“I’m glad we found it for you,” Curtis added, hoping it didn’t sound too sycophantic.
Kessler threw back his head and laughed. “You fool! You think it was your sources who led you to this necessary find? You are glad? You think you’ve managed to please me by bringing it to me like a rival’s severed head?”
Curtis felt the blood drain from his face, his hands, his very brain.
“It was Stoyanova who found it for me! It was Stoyanova who has once again pleased me where everyone else has only infuriated and annoyed me.”
“But, sir, I—”
“Make sure the next phase doesn’t become a giant clusterfuck, Curtis. Leave now. Leave the statue with me. Soon there will be a fourth to deal with.”
Curtis felt lightheaded. “Yes, sir.”
“I shall thank Stoyanova for her efforts,” Kessler said. “She will be rewarded handsomely.”
When Curtis left the chamber, he could still hear Kessler chuckling obscenely over the statuette.
His hands curled into fists and he squeezed until his muscles hurt.
Chapter 32
Edificio Nuovo, Comitato per Interventi
Vatican City, Rome
Father Martin rarely ventured to other floors of the headquarters building. Neither his security detail nor Cat liked it. They preferred he stuck to the secret tunnels, the secret elevators, and the secret garage.
But today he was visiting a newly remodeled secure floor on which he had staked his own legacy as VSS head.
Flak-jacketed Swiss Guards flanked the door, where he used the retina recognition and palm-print electronic lock. Inside, three rows of tan cubicles stretched across his view, heads bobbing inside some—the night shift. He walked through the center aisle and stood outside one cubicle, observing.
THE JUDAS HIT Page 9