Black Madonna

by Carl Sargent

  “I don’t know how you got away with that.” Michael said, shaking his bead.

  “Got away with it?” the elf hooted. “Police, my arse. They were local slints. Disguised as coppers. Gets them in the door and that’s half the battle when they’re out on a job, steaming a flat or thrashing some poor tosser senseless. There’s been a rash of it lately. Good outfits though. Not bad gear. Probably bought it as knock-off from some sub-station somewhere.”

  Geraint shook his head ruefully. The ork’s attempt at posh English had been so absurd, but he simply hadn’t thought of the possibility. Understandable, really. Few people, exiting from the scene of a murder, would have thought of it.

  “Funny thing is, one look at a real toff and they go all slobbery and weak at the knees. The old hand starts tugging at the forelock before they know it.” Streak said, still chuckling. They knew you were class, Your Lordship. Tangling with you would be trouble. Get the real cops in, right? Not what they wanted at all.”

  “Makes two of us.” Geraint said.

  “Come on, let’s get to the van, get those pictures for you,’ Streak said to Michael, “and then our cash. It’s been a long night.”

  “It certainly has” Michael said in fervent agreement. Too long by half.

  * * *

  By five AM., back in Mayfair and with their unexpected guests long gone back into the anonymous dawn. Geraint and Michael sat down to a brandy and waited for their over-stimulated systems to calm down to where sleep might be a possibility. Michael was painfully stiff across the shoulders and of course there was the permanent weakness in the small of his back. Whenever he exerted himself too much, he felt as if he’d spend a day on a rack. An image flitted across his tired mind of being tortured by devilish hooded figures from some historical Inquisition. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was psychic, but he dismissed it at the time.

  Then he remembered the package he’d picked up in the apartment. lie took a dagger-shaped paper knife from Geraint’s desk and slit it open. Inside was a slim, leather-bound volume whose contents was written in Latin. He took in the long-winded title and shook his head slowly.

  “Don’t tell me, it’s a book of fairy tales.” Geraint said.

  “Actually, you’re not so far off. It’s a treatise on undines.”

  Geraint looked thoughtful. “Go on. Refresh my memory.”

  “I’m not sure myself.” Michael admitted. “Some kind of water spirit or something. Let me check.”

  A few quick recourses to dictionaries and a database had the answer before too long. Michael summarized the spew of words. “Yes, nature spirits in watery form. Often female. The Rhine maidens, that sort of thing. Want me to go press some macros and call up more detail?”

  “I think it can wait.” Geraint said, yawning at last. Finally, his body was telling him that it might be able to sleep after all. “But what does a–”

  “...cultural attaché want with a book on undines?” Michael finished his sentence for him. “Indeed. What does it mean?”

  “Maybe it was intended for Serrault?” Geraint suggested. “His mage frend? The one absent from public records?”

  “Could be.” Michael said. “Only one thing to do. Find out who sent it.” His rubbed his hands together with the smug grin that prefaced any decking activity he expected to be very straightforward. “I think we’ve got to go trawling through the databases again.”

  “You do that, old man.” Geraint said as he got up, rubbing his eyes. “I need some sleep like the Conservationist party chairman needs a punch in the face. Let me know what you find.” He knew the expression in Michael’s eyes from old, and guessed his friend would be busy for some time yet. Whenever they gambled with cards, or just played some game for the fun of it, Michael would always want one more. One more hand, one more twist, one more puzzle or riddle to crack. Because you couldn’t have too much of a good thing. Geraint was just a couple of years older, and much less prone to riding waves.

  “Later.” Michael said, but his back was already turned and he barely registered the Welshman trooping off to the bathroom. The Matrix beckoned like a warm swimming pool after a long, dusty day. He dived in.

  8

  Breakfast stretched into an extended brunch as people woke, bathed, gathered their wits, and exchanged tales over a series of mugs of coffee throughout the morning. Geraint’s kitchen became a virtual coffee fountain. His original claims for the excellence of his favored brand hadn’t been exaggerated, which encouraged everyone to drink too much. A caffeine buzz settled on them well before noon.

  “And so I found out the package came from Clermont-Ferrand, France.” Michael finished. “It must have been delivered to the main office. The address is a false one. There isn’t such a number on the street. And the name of the guy who sent it isn’t in any provincial register.”

  “Rather remiss of them.” Geraint said.

  “Not really. I mean, what the hell, as long as someone isn’t trying to send a bomb it’s hardly feasible to run a retina-scan on every customer.” Michael protested. “Anyway, Jean-Marie Muenières doesn’t exist. Not in the area, anyway. So all we have is the topic.” He looked at the elf.

  “Its a genuine historical article as far as I can tell.” Serrin said. “But in terms of content it’s mostly a collection of fairy stories.”

  “What did I tell you?” Geraint grinned, another mug of fragrant Jamaican in his hand.

  “Though it does have some rituals for summoning undines in an appendix.” the mage continued. “Oddly enough, they’re not all that different from some shamanic rituals. Or so I’d say.”

  “Are undines spirits or elementals?” Michael asked.

  “I think the question is, are spirits or elementals what were know as undines?” Serrin said.

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” said Kristen. She was bored, fidgety with a coffee buzz and fully recovered from the tiring travel the day before. Too much talk and inaction was making her restless. Michael noticed, but ignored it. He had one surprise up his sleeve, but he was biding his time. Serrin set it up beautifully.

  “I’m still not certain why you asked me here.” he said doubtfully.

  “To cover anything magical.” Michael said. “There’s an occult angle to this.”

  “You mean, you think there is.”

  “No, I mean there definitely is.” Michael paused. In the end it was Geraint who fell for the lure and asked the question that pressed the button.

  “The assassin.” Michael said.

  “You got an ID on him?”

  “Not as such. Not an individual ID, that is. Of all things, he had face blacking.” Michael said. “Such an old trick, but it stiffs any hope of a photofit even with the best enhancing programs I’ve got, because it really messes up all the face contouring. But there was something else. He was slashed, as our friends put it.”

  “So?”

  “The knife cut his jacket and shirt. Judging by the lack of a real trail of blood–or so we were told–it must have been a superficial wound. No real harm done. But it did cut through his clothing and exposed some of his torso.”

  “So?” Geraint repeated.

  “So.” Michael said, retreating to the lounge and retrieving a glossy photo, here’s what the download of the head-camera film showed. Of course, I’ve enhanced it some, but the program says it’s a ninety-nine point nine percent match with the library image, which are certainly odds I wouldn’t bet against.”

  The photo was grainy and plainly an extrapolated enlargement of a small body area. The sternum was protruding in part; the man must have been somewhat shallow-chested. Lithe and swift rather than muscular. But the marking, revealed except for the extreme right side where the material of his shirt still covered it, was quite distinctive. Two hands clasped together at an angle of perhaps thirty degrees from the vertical, the right hand in foreground covering the left; seemingly cut off at the wrist, disembodied, eerie.

  “What on earth
is that?” Geraint said, peering intently, but Serrin’s sudden paleness revealed that he, at least, already knew.

  “Those, my friend.” Michael said with relish, “are the hands of Ignatius Loyola, as rendered in the famous portrait of him. Poor dead Monsignor Seratini’s nocturnal visitor was a member of the New Order of Jesuits, that enthusiastic body of fellows sometimes known vulgarly as the New Inquisition.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Geraint said.

  “Well, absolutely.” Michael laughed.

  “Was Seratini some kind of heretic?” Geraint said. “Oh, I wish I knew more about these people. Even the FO doesn’t say anything more about these Jesuits than it positively has to.”

  “There’s nothing in Seratini’s history that I’ve been able to find to possibly explain why the NOJ would be after him. Oh, and don’t just say ‘Jesuits.’ There are Jesuits and Jesuits, as I’m sure you know. The NOJ is, shall we say, the hardline faction.”

  “So how come they had him killed?”

  “That has to be the reason.” Michael said, pointing to the treatise sitting under Serrin’s hands. “Or at least a pointer to the reason”

  The elf pulled his hands off the book with a jerk, as if in some gesture of guilt or attempted expiation. “We need to know why it was sent, who sent it, who it was intended for, and what it means. I think this is out of my league. Serrin?”

  “Yes, I can ask around.” Serrin said thoughtfully. “I’ve got some contacts who should know about this general area. I did some field work with an Amazonian guy once, he’d know. Can I use your phone?”

  “All day.” Geraint told him.

  “We get Joan of Arc, and our term with an interest in tracking you gets the Inquisition.” Michael smiled grimly at Geraint, “Reckon there’s some kind of occult angle?”

  “Point made.” Geraint said. “I think I need to rattle some cages at the FO about the New Order bods. The Templars?” The last term was used questioningly.

  “Somehow I don’t think so.” Michaei said. “Seeing that the Inquisition had the real Templars burned alive for a variety of sins, real or imagined, and wiped them out almost to the last man. Burned nearly fifty of them in one day alone in Paris, I seem to recall. I know the term is sometimes used mockingly, but it couldn’t be wider of the mark. A bit like calling the Pope a Satanist.”

  “You haven’t been keeping up with affairs in Ulster lately, have you? There are plenty of people there who’d tell you he most certainly is.” Geraint shot back with a rueful smile. “Anyway, give me the afternoon to see what I can pick up. I also have certain feathers to unruffle about last night. You can make your own fun while I’m away?”

  Michael looked over at the glum Azanian girl and nodded after a moment. As Geraint went through the ritual of putting on his overcoat and adjusting the hat he’d taken to wearing, and then calling his limo, Michael turned to Kristen.

  “Serrin’s going to be busy.” he said. “I can’t do much until he gets some leads for me. But I guess you’ve seen the sights of London, haven’t you?”

  “Some.” she said, but it was an invitation of sorts, and being confined within the four walls of the apartment, luxuriously appointed as it was, was beginning to lose its fascination.

  “Then let’s go out and see some more.” he said.

  * * *

  “You mean they didn’t bring you here?” he said as they munched the free samples in the food hall. taking in the sights and sounds around them. That was remiss. I’m disappointed in Geraint, really I am.”

  They stood in the middle of Selfridges, consuming a new almost-caviar, which, in truth, had little to recommend it other than the fact that it was free as part of some promotion or other and was accompanied by tiny, thimble-sized crystal glasses of a very good frozen lemon vodka. The high-class emporium did its utmost in a world of synth-this and fake-that to sell only food that hadn’t been forced into existence with steroids or boosters, on one hand, nor laced with pesticides or pollutants, on the other, and it almost invariably succeeded. The cost to the credstick was correspondingly high.

  Then he realized he’d put his foot in it. It was Serrin, her husband, who should have been showing her around town. Furthermore not mentioning Serrin was an implicit criticism that he wouldn’t be thoughtful enough to do so. Irritated at his clumsiness Michael tried to extricate himself from the faux pas.

  “After all, he knows this city a lot better then old Serrin.” he continued. “He’s lived here eight years or so. Knows it inside out.”

  “It’s all right, I know what you meant.” Kristen said coolly. “Serrin’s not a very worldly person, not really, for all he thinks he knows about things. But I saw a lot of the museums and galleries and I’d never been to places like that, and I did get to go to the best bagel shop in the universe.”

  Her face cracked in a grin, and Michael reflected that when she smiled she did look very pretty, not because her smile might have graced the cover of some fashion tridzine, but because every gram of her spirit was in it.

  “Better than the mock caviar.” he said ruefully.

  “The vodka’s great though.” she said, the smile taking on a wicked aspect. “Can we get another?”

  Michael looked at the bags he was carrying. He’d spent enough to make a return to the freebie counter entirely reasonable.

  “If I bring you back drunk in the middle of the day Serrin will never let me hear the end of it.” he chuckled. “Can’t have you consorting with an ex, you know. Even one who only existed as a technical formality”

  “Actually.” she said archly, “I think that’s a very English thing.”

  He laughed out loud. The Cape Town Street kid was doing a creditable impression of being very worldly indeed, even if her husband wasn’t, despite his many years of traveling the globe.

  Just before the second vodka, as they stood inhaling the splendid, biting aroma that rose even from the near-frozen liquid. Kristen finally decided to confide her concern.

  “I can see why Serrin’s here, but I don’t feel very useful.” she said. “I don’t even really understand exactly what’s happening, you know?”

  “Neither do we.”

  “Yes, but I don’t even know why I don’t know why.”

  Michael looked at her standing there for all the world like a very serious child who has gazed up at the stars and thought to herself, “What is it with all this infinity and eternity stuff?” He wasn’t in love with her and never had been, but he could easily understand how any other man might be.

  “In a nutshell.” he began, taking a deep breath, “some joker–some extraordinarily talented joker–says he’s going to frag up every computer system on the planet and gives every indication that he’s more than capable of fulfilling such a threat. He leaves an icon, a calling card, which is the most famous fraud in Christianity. He names himself after the greatest genius in the world’s history. I’m asked to find out all I can and maybe find him. I no sooner start making attempts to do so than an awful lot of people start getting very interested in that. One of them sends our party guest last night. One of them tracks Geraint and ends up dead at the hands of jesuits. At first I didn’t know what the image meant, the face of a black woman, but now it looks as if some very weird occult or religious stuff is involved. And that’s what Serrin’s helping me with. And, oh, we have seven days before our joker pulls his party piece–the systems crash and the world grinds to a halt. Okay?”

  He had hardly paused for breath and did so now, gulping down big lungfuls prior to swallowing the vodka. It hurt the throat and brought tears to his eyes and he shook himself in a shivery spasm right afterward, but ten seconds later his throat was warm, his stomach glowed, and he felt wonderful. Kristen had done the same, but somehow managed the operation without the cough and sharp intake of breath.

  “All right.” she said with that same serious-child look. “I don’t know much about Jesuits. Where I came from there were Sunnis and Shi’as, and a few Rastas, and the D
utch Reformed Church, of course, and some Hindus, and a few others as well. But I never heard of any black woman in Christianity.”

  Just for an instant a chill ran down Michael’s spine, and if he’d been the kind to pay more attention to intuitions–endowed with Geraint’s Celtic genes, perhaps–he’d have stayed with the sensation. But he put it down to the vodka, which had made him just a little light-headed, and he missed it. People do sometimes. They miss things because what they know prevents them from seeing what else is there. Brains are designed to keep information out, and they’re good at that.

  Besides that, his stomach was running interference on his brain in any event. Being the last to get up meant scrounging up breakfast from what little was left by the time he got to the kitchen, so he hadn’t really eaten, save the tiny scraps of caviar with some sour cream and crackers. He rummnaged in one of the bags.

  “Let’s wander outside and eat these saffron biscuits.” he said conspiratorially, and the serious child he’d been looking at turned into the larder-raiding variety. They made a swift exit back out into the bustling street to open the packet.

  * * *

  It was half-past four and Geraint had already retrieved his overcoat from the antique hatstand and was ready to leave with his familiar red box, when a bulky figure entered his office. Since he came in without knocking, it could only be one person.

  “Llanfrechfa, glad I caught you.” the portly man grunted. He parked his spreading rear in Geraint’s own chair in an appropriating gesture. Geraint knew at once that this was going to be bad news. His boss, the Earl of Manchester, usually summoned him to his own offices. If he came to Geraint’s, then there was trouble to be shared or delegated, It might be gout, it might be one of his wives demanding more maintenance for the noble offspring, it might be anything–but it would be trouble. Geraint sat down opposite him, dutifully.

  “Wanted a word.” the man continued. Geraint’s heart sank. That was a code, long-established through use. It meant it was serious trouble and he was the cause.