by John
‘If he gets into another painting, Vaughn’ll have our hides,’ said Em as Matt shook the feeling back into his wrist and hand.
Matt groaned. ‘We should have trusted our instincts the first time,’
‘Ha! You mean, you shouldn’t have let your hormones run amok and flirted with him so shamelessly. He may be great to look at but he’s dangerous.’ Em jabbed the air above Matt with her finger. ‘You knew two months ago when Vaughn gave us our first case.’
Matt flushed and pulled out his sketchbook.
‘Whatever. We should have bound him like Vaughn told us to, even if his information was good. How are we going to find him now? As sources go, he’s a pain in the—’
Em pulled Matt’s sketchbook from his hands and began to draw, glancing from Matt to Titian’s nearby painting of the Angel Gabriel and back again.
Matt’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t do this to me, Em…’
‘This mess is not my fault,’ Em reminded him tartly. Using the heel of her hands, she smudged the drawing, creating the texture of feathers.
A golden glow washed out from the painting and enveloped Matt. He dropped to his knees, his jacket ripping from his shoulders as if he was the Hulk, his eyes tearing with pain for the second time in as many minutes.
Em kneeled beside him. ‘I didn’t think it would hurt that much, Mattie. I’m sorry. But it’s the best way we have of catching him, OK? Try to stand. We’ve only about two minutes left.’
Matt stood, wobbled, and dropped to his knees again. His centre of gravity was off. Em rubbed out a line here, one there, and thickened some shading in the background of the drawing. This time when Matt stood up, although the crushing weight on his back felt like he was carrying someone on his shoulders wrapped in barbed wire, he was mobile at least.
He opened and closed Titian’s wings. The air rushed across Em’s face. ‘Go!’ she shouted.
Matt jumped.
At first he thought he would face-plant into the marble, but then he found his balance and soared. He glided between the statues and down the long hallway to the European wing, exulting in the feeling. In a matter of seconds, he was crash-landing on top of the man in the tunic, knocking his sword from his hand.
‘And so we meet again,’ grinned the man, catching his breath. ‘Gods preserve me!’
‘They gave up on you a long time ago, Caravaggio. This is for these bloody wings.’Matt punched him in the nose.
26.
OLD FRIENDS
With as much grace as he could muster, Matt folded his wings against his back and stood up.
‘That was uncalled for,’ Caravaggio complained, cupping his bloody nose.
‘You shouldn’t have run off last time then, should you?’ Matt’s wings were heavy and reeked of oil and aniseed. Under his shirt, blood trickled from beneath his shoulder blades where the wings had burst through his skin. He kicked the sword out of Caravaggio’s reach.
The artist’s eyes glinted. ‘Are we going to play a game again?’
‘I’m tired of playing games with you, man,’ said Matt. ‘You promised us, no more jumping into the world from your art. We can’t keep covering for your actions. Sooner or later someone other than a well-bribed guard will notice your comings and goings, and when that happens we will all be bound for good.’
‘The information I gave Orion about that animation in Venice paid dividends, did it not?’
Matt had to admit, Vaughn had been impressed with the way he and Em had dealt with the Venice mission, their first one. But Caravaggio’s fondness for a fight had made him a little too visible in Venice, and Vaughn had tasked the twins with catching him and bringing him into Orion’s HQ. It was proving harder than expected. The last time they had met, Caravaggio charmed Matt a little too much and Matt had let him – against Em’s better judgement. If it happened again, Matt could only imagine what Vaughn would say.
‘I don’t see why I can’t remain your little secret,’ Caravaggio said, grinning at Matt. ‘We could be very good together. I’m quite sure I can be helpful again.’
Caravaggio combed his shaggy brown hair from his eyes with his fingers, and attempted to sneak a small step towards his sword. Matt was quicker, grabbing the artist’s arm and twisting him to the ground, crashing him against a plinth displaying a naked statue of Bacchus. Caravaggio lifted his eyes at the statue’s glory hanging directly above his head, then winked at Matt.
Matt couldn’t help himself. He cracked up.
‘Will you two get a grip?’ Em said, running breathlessly down the corridor towards them. ‘We have one minute, and counting!’
‘Stay put,’ said Matt, trying hard not to admire the man’s flair. In his tight breeches and a tunic open in a long V at his chest, Caravaggio looked every part the rake that history depicted. Matt could well believe the stories he’d heard about the artist’s love affairs. Like the story of the time he’d been rustled in the night from a countess’s bed, only to sneak along the gilded hallway to enter the chambers of the count later.
For God’s sake, stop lusting after him, Mattie. That’s what got us in trouble the last time.
‘Let me go,’ said Caravaggio. ‘I have not caught the villain who slew my lover and laid the blame at my feet. How is it fair that I should remain a wanted man for all time for a murder I did not commit?’
‘No one cares about a murder that happened 400 years ago,’ Matt said.
Caravaggio pouted. ‘I have not been hiding in my own paintings for 400 years to be denied now. And I’m close, I know it. There is a painting at Les Invalides—’
‘Thirty seconds,’ Em said helplessly.
‘I would be happy to accompany you from this place,’ said Caravaggio, pulling himself to his feet. ‘In return for my freedom, I have fresh information of vital importance to Orion. The Camarilla is back.’
‘Who?’ Em asked.
‘Let me go and I will tell you more. You will not find them by yourselves. They are too good at hiding in the shadows.’ Caravaggio looked smug. ‘But I am a master of shadows, as any critic will tell you, and they cannot hide from me. My genius is a heavy burden to bear.’
‘You’re a heavy burden to bear,’ said Matt, checking his phone. ‘Where’s the closest painting for fading, Em?’
‘Somewhere in the European wing. We need to split up. We’ll find the painting faster. Can you handle him alone?’
‘Go.’
Em darted up the stairs and out to another wing. Caravaggio took advantage of the moment, kicking his sword up from the ground and into his hands in one fluid moment.
‘You’re too easily distracted, dear boy.’
Matt sidestepped, avoiding Caravaggio’s sword by millimetres.
‘We should make these meetings a regular event,’ said Caravaggio, lunging at Matt again.
Matt darted backwards. ‘Seriously, we’re doing this here? And now?’
‘I cannot have you and your sister taking me in. You know the Councils will vote to have me bound back in one of my paintings, this time forever, and I hate to leave unfinished business.’
Caravaggio’s footwork and sword skills were far superior to Matt’s sidestepping.
‘Or Em and I could just bind you ourselves,’ said Matt, ducking. ‘We’re strong enough. No one would ever know.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you, my friend.’ Caravaggio sighed, slicing across the arm of Matt’s jacket before pivoting and tearing a gash in Matt’s jeans. ‘All I ask is you forget you ran into me here. Let me take care of my business and disappear as I planned.’
Matt tackled the artist, charging into his legs, taking them both down. Their momentum careened them against the marble plinth, where Caravaggio’s forehead took the brunt of the collision, knocking him out cold.
Alarms screamed. Lights flashed. Voices yelled. Vault-like doors began slamming down, closing off distant galleries. Thank God Em hadn’t torn up his wings.
Groaning at the weight, every muscle in his back screaming, M
att managed to lift Caravaggio from the floor. Cradling the artist in his arms, Matt summoned all his strength and took two bold steps, opened his wings and bounded into the air.
The gawking, terrified guards stared as an angel in leather sideswiped the lights above the wide stairs, flew across the vaulted ceiling and vanished into French history paintings of 1650–1750.
*
Minutes after leaving Paris, Em emerged in a mist of melancholy and a cloud of green on to the floor of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, in a clumsy fade from William Orchardson’s The Marriage of Convenience. Moments later, wings gone, Matt faded out of the same painting, dragging Caravaggio behind him.
His shoulders ached. It didn’t help that he’d had to fade through a Vermeer in London before the Orchardson, each time with Caravaggio like a sack of coal on his back.
‘Do you think he’s concussed?’ Em asked, staring at the unconscious figure on the gallery floor by their feet.
‘Fine by me if he wakes up with a thumping good headache,’ Matt said darkly.
‘What are we going to do with him?’
Matt gazed at the artist, chewing his lip.
‘You’re thinking about letting him go again,’ Em said. ‘Aren’t you? I’d love to hear that conversation. “I’m sure you won’t mind, Vaughn, but we’ve disobeyed orders and let a rogue Animare go free because I fancied him.”’
‘I want to know what the Camarilla is,’ said Matt.
‘Caravaggio wasn’t born in the age of the Internet, or he would never have given us the name,’ said Em. ‘Look it up.’
Matt ran a quick check on his phone. Nothing came up.
‘The man’s a loose cannon, Matt,’ Em warned. ‘We can’t just let him go. He’s lovely to look at, but totally unmanageable.’
Matt made a decision. ‘Let’s hide him for a while until we decide on a more permanent solution.’
‘Vaughn has a permanent solution. Binding!’
‘Caravaggio made it sound like this Camarilla were bad news. It would be nice to have a little advance warning on an enemy for a change,’ said Matt stubbornly. ‘He won’t tell us who they are if we bind him, will he?’
Em sighed, but helped Matt to drag Caravaggio, sword clanking against the wooden floors, through the gallery to the nearest storage room. Matt shoved the artist inside, propping him against a mop and bucket. Locking the door behind them, they went in search of a better hiding place.
‘We need somewhere nice,’ Em said, scanning the walls.
‘Now who’s being soft?’ Matt enquired. ‘A jailer would be better.’
They headed into a gallery displaying many of the paintings of the Glasgow Boys. One painting was glowing, a pale blue light only an Animare or Guardian could detect.
‘James Guthrie was an Animare,’ said Em, staring at Guthrie’s A Funeral Service in the Highlands. ‘We could use that one.’
‘I don’t think a gathering of auld grieving Scotsmen would take kindly to an Italian rogue,’ Matt observed. ‘Although, it might be a laugh to imagine Caravaggio talking himself out of a thumping from a scowl of crofters. What about Hard At It instead? It’s one of Zach’s—’
Matt stopped.
‘He’s not dead,’ Em said after a moment. ‘You can talk about him, you know.’
In Hard At It the artist had set himself up on a windy Scottish beach, shielded from the elements by a white umbrella, and painted himself painting on a windy Scottish beach behind a white umbrella. During their studies at the Abbey, the twins had learned that many Animare had created paintings of themselves in paintings.
‘Hard At It it is,’ Em decided. ‘Caravaggio will appreciate Guthrie’s style. Plus he’ll be safe from civilization – and himself. I remember reading that Guthrie carried a pistol among his painting supplies. He used it to shoot his dinner on his walk home.’
FOURTH MOVEMENT
‘And, behold, I am alive for evermore; and have the keys of hell and of death.’
Revelation 1:18
27.
A HIGHER CAUSE
LONDON
PRESENT DAY
With efficiency, sawhorses cordoned off the perimeter of the square. A crowd gathered behind the barricades, mobile phones pointed at the chaos surrounding the statue of Shakespeare, which had been tented. Some witnesses were staunching bloody noses, a handful wearing oxygen masks, and one or two were in the arms of paramedics, staggering towards ambulances.
The police commander pushed his way through a group of officers inside the tent.
‘What the hell just happened here? Tell me this isn’t all just for a punter stealing cigarettes.’
Patrol Officer Lakshmi Misra stood quietly to one side of the tent, watching her sergeant talking angrily on his mobile phone, waiting for her chance to duck out. Hired as part of a community policing initiative formed to advance minorities more quickly through the ranks, Lakshmi wasn’t popular among the old guard, but she had talents and connections they couldn’t begin to imagine. She was biding her time. She had big plans.
Lakshmi was the first female in her family to graduate from secondary school, never mind university and elite police training (a feat of obstinacy as much as hard work and intelligence). Lakshmi had always known what she wanted to do with her life. Year after year of doggedness, of working with her papa in the family’s antique restoration business, of trying his patience with her questions, annoying him with what she’d learned at school or read in her many true-crime and mystery books, had eventually paid off with her papa’s agreement to fund her education in criminology.
‘Don’t give me a reason to regret my decision to let you do this, Lakshmi,’ her papa had said after the fast-tracked police training that had forced her to be in the best mental and physical shape of her life.
‘I won’t, Papa.’
He pulled her into a rare embrace.
‘And never forget, my dear child, that our family serves a much higher cause than this,’ he had whispered before releasing her into the embrace of her fellow recruits and the scowling handshake of her newly assigned division commander. ‘Because one day you’ll be called to take up arms for it.’
That higher cause was testing her loyalties more quickly than she had anticipated. Here she was, slinking away from a crime scene and ducking behind a set of stairs to an emergency exit for the National Portrait Gallery, dialling a mobile number she had never dialled before. With a flash of doubt, she wondered if the number was even valid.
The phone rang a long time before the call was answered.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve seen something,’ whispered Lakshmi. ‘I mean someone. He disappeared… Into a statue. It seemed to come alive right before—’
The voice on the other end was sharp. ‘He animated in public?’
‘He didn’t draw – I mean, animate. He sang.’
There was a pause.
‘Sang?’ repeated the voice.
‘Yes. It happened a few minutes ago. Behind the National Portrait Gallery… Hello? Hello?’
She’d been cut off.
Ungrateful bastard. You could’ve at least said thanks.
Back in the tent, her commander caught her eye with a scowl.
‘I want units fanning out across London’s theatre district, the Tube, the train stations,’ he said. ‘Suspect is a black male, approximately eighteen years of age, tall, lean build, shaved head, wearing a bluish-black jacket and dark jeans. Approach with caution, people. As you all know, we’ve been tracking these jewel thieves for weeks. He fits the profile. And if he is one of them, he could be dangerous.’
‘Especially when singing,’ Lakshmi muttered under her breath. ‘I’ll head back to the shop, sir, see if I can get any more information,’ she said aloud.
‘Didn’t get enough last time round, Misra?’ said her commander sarcastically. ‘You may have got away with cutting corners on that high-speed training of yours, but we won’t stand for it on the job.’
Lakshmi sw
allowed a retort and made her escape back towards the Strand. It was hard to stay positive sometimes.
At Old Worm’s, she used the sleeve of her uniform to rub grime from the front window and peered inside. All she could discern were shadows. It looked like the clerks had got their precious key in the end. Not that she ever believed they didn’t have it in the first place. Given how the young man had disappeared into the statue, this was no ordinary break-in, and the kid certainly wasn’t a jewel thief as her commander believed. Insights she’d keep from any of her official reports.
She hit the number for the shop on her phone. Someone inside picked up the receiver and promptly set it down again. Lakshmi stared in through the window for a few more minutes, then banged on the door.
‘Police,’ she said through the letter box. ‘I just want a word.’
Nothing.
Lakshmi was about to turn away when the lock turned and the door creaked open.
‘What d’you want?’
It was the dishevelled clerk, the one with the cardigan and the bushy eyebrows.
‘I’m sorry to trouble you again today, sir,’ said Lakshmi, in her politest voice, ‘but if you could give me a few more details on what happened in here this morning—’
‘He was never inside this shop,’ the clerk said, keeping his foot firmly against the bottom of the door to prevent Lakshmi from coming in. ‘None of us were. And nothing has been stolen. We’d like the police to back off and leave us alone. Good day.’
He slammed the door, barely missing her feet and fingers. Her phone rang. It was the number she’d called earlier. Lakshmi jogged round the corner before answering. This time she told the person all that she knew.
‘Whatever the kid was doing in the Little Shop of Horrors, it’s sent the clerks into lock-down mode,’ she said without preamble. ‘Do you want me to stick around and see what happens next?’
‘Let’s shake them up a little. Try to gauge what’s going on. Can you take the head clerk in for questioning? See what he has to say for himself under a little duress. Then let him go and watch him. Can you do that?’