The Medusa Amulet

by Robert Masello

The marquis slipped behind Octave. The sound of his boots was swallowed by the cries of the prisoners, many more of whom were now pressed against the bars, their hands clutching the grate, their eyes bulging with wonder. Whatever strange miracle was occurring outside their bars, they wholeheartedly approved.

  “So, you like your souvenirs?” Sant’Angelo murmured as he ripped the bloody feather from Octave’s cap.

  He made the feather bob and dance in the empty air, until Octave took a wild shot at it. The marquis felt the heat of the bullet as it passed below his arm. Then he raised his sword and, in one fell swoop, sliced the man’s hand off altogether.

  Still clutching the pistol, the hand fell, and Octave didn’t seem to understand what had just happened. He stood stock-still, looking down at his own spurting wrist, before suddenly howling in pain, wedging the stump under his armpit and fleeing down the concourse.

  The prisoners, delighted with the show so far, banged on the bars with tin spoons and closed fists.

  The chief backed away, his sword probing the darkness in every direction.

  “Where are you?” Hebert cried out. “Who are you?”

  But for this last act, the marquis did not want to be invisible. He wanted Hebert to know who was about to kill him. Taking off the garland, he slowly came into view, like an image coalescing from the moonbeams themselves.

  “The priest?” Hebert said.

  The black cassock whipped around Sant’Angelo’s legs, blown by the wind from the river. The bloody sword glittered at his side.

  “Guards!” Hebert shouted at the top of his lungs. “Guards!”

  Wordlessly, the marquis moved closer.

  Hebert swung wildly with his rapier, all the while retreating, but when a blow came close enough, Sant’Angelo parried it with the edge of his own sword. The clang of the steel rang out through the night air.

  The prisoners shouted, “Kill him, Father! Kill him!”

  Hebert’s tricornered hat fell from his head and blew along the stones. His face was white with terror, and suddenly he found himself so close to the bars that the frenzied hands of the inmates were clutching at his sleeves and collar. He whipped around, slashing at the arms extended through the grate, then turned again to confront the marquis.

  There was the clatter of hooves, as mounted gendarmes, aroused by the commotion, appeared at the end of the concourse.

  “Who’s down there?” the captain cried. “What’s going on?”

  “Shoot him!” Hebert called out to them. “I order you! Shoot the priest!”

  Sant’Angelo saw a musket lowered, and a puff of smoke. The bullet whizzed over his head and clanged off the iron bars.

  With a sweep of his blade, he knocked the sword from Hebert’s hand, but a fusillade of shots suddenly ricocheted around him; the gendarmes were galloping down the concourse. Putting a hand on Hebert’s chest, he thrust him up against the seething wall of fingers and hands, hundreds of them, all intent on tearing him to pieces. Like a pack of harpies, they grabbed hold of him, rending his clothes and ripping out his hair, scratching at his flesh, digging in their nails like claws. An old man gnawed ferociously at one arm. A hollow-eyed girl inserted a knitting needle into the back of his neck as delicately as if she were making lace.

  Slipping the garland back onto his brow, and holding his arms out as if in surrender to the coming soldiers, the marquis left the prisoners to their deadly work. In seconds, he had melted back into the night.

  And as the horses whinnied around him, and the gendarmes swung their muskets this way and that-“Where’s the priest?” their captain cried, waving his sword, “Where did he go?”-Sant’Angelo turned toward home. The streets now were dark and silent, and most of the day’s celebrants were asleep, or lying drunk in the gutter. For the moment, their bloodlust had been sated.

  Chapter 30

  As he had watched their mysterious stranger descend into the Metro station across the street, David’s first impulse had been to run after him and force him to explain himself, to tell them something concrete about their adversaries. Otherwise, what use were these cryptic warnings?

  But he sensed that the doctor-if that’s what he really was-had already taken as much of a chance as he was willing to.

  “So what’s next?” Olivia asked. “We could camp out on the marquis’s doorstep, which might get cold, or go back to the hotel.”

  Truth be told, neither of those was what David wanted to do; what he wanted to do was climb the wall around the town house, break in through the first window he could find, and scour Sant’Angelo’s collection himself, from top to bottom.

  Taking out his cell phone, he checked for messages, but there were none of any consequence. He tried Sarah, got her voice mail, then tried Gary and got his voice mail, too. Every time he called, or spoke to them, his heart was in his mouth, afraid that Sarah might have taken a turn for the worse. Although he hoped for the best, he was always-secretly, and to his own dismay-expecting the worst.

  “The hotel,” David conceded, as he pulled his coat off the back of his chair. “You can fill in some of the blanks on Cagliostro on the way.”

  Outside, the street was nearly deserted, but on the train platform he felt oddly exposed. There were a couple of men loitering near the tracks, reading papers, or studying their BlackBerries, and though there was nothing overtly menacing about them, David got a strange vibe. He was starting to wonder if the good doctor had given him the willies, or worse yet, dropped something into his drink again. But glancing at Olivia, he could tell she was feeling edgy, too.

  “Maybe we should splurge on a taxi?”

  “If we can get one,” she said.

  They had no sooner emerged from the station than a pair of headlights approached them from down the street. David noticed that the light on the top of the cab suddenly went from Off to On, but it was only when it stopped at the curb that he saw it was a rusty old heap, the same one that had been cruising the block an hour ago. Inside, he saw a swarthy, foreign driver, with a string of wooden beads hanging from the rearview mirror, and caught the sweet scent of Turkish tobacco.

  Olivia had her hand on the door when David backed off and said, “No thanks.”

  Cranking the window lower, the driver said, “What’s the problem? Anywhere you want to go.”

  David tapped the door politely, and said, “Changed my mind. Thanks, anyway.”

  Olivia looked confused as the driver, sneering, pulled away from the curb and drove, slowly, toward the corner.

  “What was wrong with that cab?” Olivia asked.

  “Didn’t feel right,” David replied, and after all they had been through already, Olivia knew enough to respect a hunch.

  David waited until the taxi was just out of sight, then took Olivia’s hand, saying, “Let’s take a walk,” and ducking into the park. “We’ll catch a cab on the other side.”

  It was a cloudy night, with almost no moon, but the pathway was marked every fifty yards or so by old-fashioned lampposts. The gravel crunched under their feet as they walked, and the wind stirred the barren branches of the great old elms. No one else was on the walkway, the green metal benches were empty, and the few concession stands that they passed were sealed up behind accordion gates. A separate path sloped down on their left, toward a man-made lake and a ramshackle boathouse. A wooden sign on a shingle advertised rowboats for rent.

  Olivia pulled her collar up around her neck and stuck her bare hands deep into her pockets. David wondered if she was questioning his decision.

  With the leather valise slung over one shoulder, he kept an eye out, looking into the shadows on either side and occasionally turning to stare into the darkness behind them. Even he was starting to wonder if he hadn’t made the wrong call.

  But then she surprised him, as she often did. “You know,” she said, launching into what she’d actually been brooding over, “Cagliostro was said to have initiated Napoleon into the secret mysteries of Rosicrucianism, among other things. And after t
he count was murdered in 1795, legend has it that the Emperor ordered his soldiers to find the count’s grave, dig up the body, and bring him the skull.”

  “What for?”

  “A drinking cup.”

  “Sounds more like something Hitler would do.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” she said. “All dictators are madmen. But they shared something else, too. Napoleon was determined to uncover knowledge, in any form, from any source, and assimilate it into his growing empire.”

  “Like the Rosetta Stone.”

  “Exactly. That was why he sent scientists and scholars like Champollion off in the first place-to decipher the ancient wisdom of the East.”

  David saw a movement in the trees, and relaxed only when a fat gray squirrel came the rest of the way around the trunk.

  “And even though his motives were less benign, Hitler did precisely the same thing. He sent zealots like Dieter Mainz to Paris to track down any arcane knowledge that might help him to erect the Reich.”

  The squirrel scampered across the pathway, which circled a classical fountain-a triton rising from the deep. While David listened to Olivia expound, he tried to gauge where they were in the park and how much farther it might be before they got to the other side.

  “But I wonder what Dieter Mainz was able to make of those ravings that Cagliostro left behind? I’m no Champollion, but I’d love to show some of those hieroglyphs to one of my old professors in Bologna. Is there anyone at your library in Chicago who specializes in Egyptian texts?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “David?”

  His attention was firmly concentrated on a figure in the trees, up ahead. All he could make out was the hint of a black leather jacket.

  “There’s someone in the trees on the right,” David said, slowing his pace but purposely not stopping. He didn’t want to let on yet that he’d seen him.

  Olivia looked, too, and murmured, “Maybe this is the gay pickup spot.”

  Possible, David thought, especially as he could now make out a second man, even farther into the shadows, with the collar of a peacoat turned up.

  “Do you want to turn around?” Olivia said.

  And David wasn’t sure-until the wind carried the faintest scent of cigarette smoke his way.

  Sweet and aromatic.

  “Yes,” he said, stopping in his tracks.

  The two men were moving closer together-for a hookup?-as David slipped his arm through Olivia’s and steered them back toward the triton fountain. He resisted turning around for several seconds, leaning in like a lover, but when he listened hard, he could hear the sound of footsteps on gravel.

  And when he did turn, he could see the two men casually sauntering after them. It was no time to take a chance.

  “Run,” he said, releasing Olivia’s hand. “Run!”

  They both took off, racing around the fountain and down the darkened path.

  When David glanced back, he couldn’t see the pursuers anymore. But he could hear the sound of twigs snapping, leaves crumbling, and footsteps pounding on the cold, hard soil near the trail.

  Olivia, in her sneakers, was running at a good clip, and David made sure to stay close by her side.

  But he had the feeling that the guys chasing them were loping along on either side, hidden by the trees and brush, and intent only on blocking their exit from the park.

  “Where to?” Olivia panted.

  And that was when David spotted the separate trail leading down to the boathouse and pointed at it.

  Olivia abruptly veered off, down the sloping path to the lake, her arms spread out to maintain her balance, and David followed her. He didn’t see anyone behind them, but he was sure that they would figure out what had happened in a few seconds-if they hadn’t already.

  A string of forlorn white lights dangled around the eaves of the boathouse, but the door was shut and the shutters drawn. A little wooden gate blocked the pier; Olivia vaulted it easily, with David hot on her heels. Three or four old rowboats bobbed in the black water.

  “Get in the boat!” David said. “The one at the end!”

  Without missing a step, Olivia ran down the wooden pier and jumped into the boat. As David hastily untied the rope, she straightened out the oars. He thought about untying the other boats and setting them adrift, but before he could do it he saw the man in the peacoat skittering down the hill, with something that looked suspiciously like a gun glinting in his hand.

  “Row!” David said, and she had no sooner dipped the oars in the water than David leapt off the pier, landing with a thud and knocking her backwards off the thwart. The boat careened away from the dock with the two of them tangled on its floor.

  David heard one of the men shout to the other.

  Slinging the valise off his shoulder, he scrambled over Olivia, and grabbed for the oars.

  He could hear the thumping of feet racing down the pier.

  Bending low, he put his back into it, and pulled hard. The boat skimmed forward into the dark, the oars creaking in their locks. As soon as he’d managed to raise them from the water, he pulled again, starting to get the rhythm of it. The two men were shouting at each other, in a language he didn’t understand, and although it was too dark to see what they were doing, he could hear the splash of a rope being flung into the water and the hollow clunk of a prow banging against the pier.

  He dipped the paddles again, wishing he could somehow do it more quietly, and saw an orange spark ignite from the direction of the dock. A bullet plowed into the water near the stern. Olivia, crouching low, said, “David, keep your head down!”

  Another spark ignited, with only the slightest phht, and this time a splinter of wood exploded off the rim of the boat.

  David knew they were just shooting at the sound of the oars-out here on the lake, it was almost pitch-black-but if he didn’t keep moving, they might catch up.

  “David, what can I do?” Olivia said. “How can I help?” In her voice, he heard more anger than fear.

  He didn’t know what to tell her. He pulled again, but it was hard to row without sitting up and exposing himself to another wild shot. And no matter how carefully he dipped the oars, they squeaked in their locks and came up dripping.

  There was another flash in the night, that one closer, and the bullet cracked into the back of the boat, flinging a powdery dust into the air. David wondered when they might lower their sights enough to put a bullet into the boat below the waterline.

  “David, let me row for a while!” Olivia whispered. “I can do it.”

  But David shook his head and asked her if she could swim.

  “Of course I can swim.”

  “Then take off your coat-it will weigh you down-and get ready to.”

  He let go of the oars-already his hands were starting to ache-fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone, and turned it on.

  “You see the boathouse?” he said. From the lake, they were the only lights visible. “Swim back there.”

  But she paused. “Only if you will, too.”

  “I’ll be right behind you. Get going!”

  Dropping her coat and kicking off her sneakers, she rolled over the edge of the boat and into the water. Once he was sure she was well away, he bent double and quickly pulled the oars through the water three or four times, putting some distance between them and their pursuers.

  The gun blazed again, and the bullet clanged off the oarlock with a shower of white sparks before ricocheting into the darkness.

  He heard a laugh of exultation-the shooter must have guessed how close he’d come-and he prayed that Olivia would be able to slip past them unnoticed.

  The white lights of the boathouse were still visible, but that was all. Thick clouds covered the moon and stars.

  David dropped the oars, pulled off his shoes, and shrugged his coat from his shoulders. And then he groped for his valise under the thwart. He couldn’t leave it behind, but he thanked God the original papers were still hidden away in Chicago.<
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  The gunman shouted something that was plainly a taunt, and fired again. The bullet sizzled into the water by the bow.

  David slung the valise over his shoulder, then bunched his coat on the seat and tucked his open cell phone on top of it, with just a hint of its light shining clear. Let them follow that, like a beacon, farther into the lake, he thought.

  And then he slipped overboard.

  The water was so frigid it took his breath away, but he put both hands on the stern of the rowboat and shoved it off as hard as he could. In seconds, it was invisible even to him.

  Then, using the breast stroke to minimize any splashing, he started back toward the dock. His clothes, plastered to his body, were heavier and more cumbersome than he’d imagined, and the valise acted like a drag.

  But when he heard the other boat come near, he stopped swimming altogether and let himself drift on the water. All he could make out was the shape of the boat, a black hulk moving through the black water, and the silhouette of a man hunched in the bow, who was talking-and no doubt issuing directions-to the rower whose back was turned. David was no more than five or six feet away, so near that the blade of one paddle almost smacked him as he ducked his head below the water. He felt the ripple of the boat’s wake lapping the surface above him.

  But once it had gone by, he raised his head, clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering, and started swimming in earnest, eager to get his blood pumping again.

  But where was Olivia? He didn’t dare call out to her, and he heard nothing at all.

  He swam on, the lights of the boathouse glimmering fuzzy and white behind the lenses of his soaking glasses. What he wouldn’t give right now for just a sliver of moonlight on the water, enough to give him a glimpse of Olivia moving safely toward the shore.

  In the distance, he heard the phht of the silencer again, followed by the pop of something exploding-the end of his cell phone-and then a cry of joy. The shot must have caught the thing dead center and blown it to smithereens. They probably thought at least one of them, whoever had been holding it, was injured or dead.

  He kept swimming, though it was increasingly hard to tell if his feet and legs were cooperating. His whole body was starting to go numb, and the valise felt like a millstone.