by Rob Swigart
Two men in jeans and T-shirts interrupted these thoughts. They were loudly discussing the proper training of hunting dogs. The taller, whose shirt advertised a Belgian beer, insisted that strict discipline was needed to teach the dog not to maul the bird. The other patted the chest of his camouflage shirt and protested that kindness and incentives worked better. They stopped talking abruptly, stared for a moment, and quickly left. The door swung closed behind them.
“Do you know why the snake is the most important animal in the Book of Genesis?” Ibrahim asked.
“I think you’re going to tell me.”
A brief, appreciative grin passed over Ibrahim’s lips. “The snake is of the earth, and holds the earth’s secrets, from which all others come. A great king named Gilgamesh had found the secret of immortality, a plant. He stopped on his journey home to bathe. While he was swimming, a snake ate the plant, shed its skin, and crawled away. The only thing the poor king had left for his trouble was that cast-off skin. The snake is, among other things, the keeper of immortality.”
“We humans have outgrown the snake, M. Ibrahim, along with visions of immortality. Don’t mistake story for fact.”
“Story is fact, Dr. Emmer. You of all people should know that.”
The door opened again and three men came in. They were dressed alike in dark suits and darker looks. They glared at Lisa in silence.
She named them Tall, Lean, and Wide. “Friends of yours?” She leaned back against the railing.
“The tablet, Ms. Emmer,” Ibrahim said, switching to English.
She replied in the same language. “Why would I bring it with me?”
“Hmph.” He signaled the men. “Check her bag.”
Tall lifted it off her shoulder and held it open for Lean. After rummaging through it, he looked at Ibrahim and shook his head. Wide— the thick, heavily muscled, alert one— stood near the door, hands clasped over his belt. Sentry, guard, or jailer?
Ibrahim waved and Tall returned the bag to her. She put the strap over her shoulder and settled back against the railing.
“Very well,” Ibrahim said with a tight, unhappy smile. “We don’t have the tablet yet, but we have you.”
Tall and Lean closed in on her.
“I have friends, too,” she said lightly. “As you know.”
“Of no consequence.” Ibrahim closed his hand into a fist and with one quick jab shattered the glass of the cage, sending the snakes thrashing to life.
Without hesitation he reached into the cage and seized the nearest viper with thumb and forefinger behind the head and held it up close to her face. The snake writhed, small tongue darting between down-curving fangs. She imagined she could see drops of venom at their tips.
Ibrahim was a small, slim man, but she saw now how well he hid his strength, and his abilities. Some kind of karate, she thought; this man is a trained killer. The hand did not waver, despite the thick reptile curling over his extended forearm, scales hissing together. Even if she wanted to pull away, she was backed against the railing, so she stared into the snake’s eyes.
This thing at her face was not the sole possessor of the secret of immortality. Quite the opposite, it possessed the secret of death.
Somewhere far away in another building an alarm was warbling.
Ibrahim was enjoying himself. “We’re going for a walk. These men will accompany us. You will be in front between these two. My other friend and I will be behind you. You are to remember what I hold behind your neck.” He shook the snake. “As you know, the saw-scaled viper has a quick temper and extremely toxic bite. You’ve already seen that. Of course, it takes longer to kill a human than a rat, up to twelve hours before hemolysis is complete and the victim hemorrhages out. Since this snake was intended for you, perhaps you will still have a chance to get acquainted.”
“I hope not,” she said, pleased her voice did not shake.
He opened the door. “We will be just another group of visitors. You will make no moves, no sounds. You will do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Very well.” He held the snake away from his body, and bowed courteously. “Ladies first.”
Father Colmillo Prepares
Father Colmillo glared at the enormous stone mass across the ravine. Brooding, he thought; there was no other word for that hideous pile of gray stone on a flinty ridge. Even on those rare days when sunlight sparkled off a distant sea, the three huge semi-detached buildings were enveloped in gloom. That gloom, he believed, resulted from centuries of hidden pain. His own was lost in a maelstrom of suffering.
Today was not one of the rare clear days. No, today was yet another when gray cloud raced low overhead. Onslaughts of gusting winds, hard, sharp rain, and small hailstones obscured the monastery of San Akakio. For the past two days a violent Atlantic storm had been rolling southeast across the Bay of Biscay, bypassing the continent. Through the night the Tormenta del Diablo, so named by the Madrid media, had been pushing thick fog up the slopes of the Picos de Europa. Only in the last hour had it begun to vent its fury on the buildings.
Father Colmillo stood at an open window in the former stables converted to guest rooms. Thick walls protected him from the gusts, though a few stray droplets dampened his forehead. Between him and the main buildings rushed a torrent of freezing water from the snow pack on the bare ridge not far above. By summer the creek would be empty, but for now the only way across was a narrow stone footbridge, treacherous even in the dry season, scandalous now.
Father Colmillo thought of those buildings, altogether a hundred meters long, as the three monstrous heads of the ancient guardian of Hell Cerberus, spawn of Echidne, half woman and half snake, and Typhon, the towering storm giant even now pounding the ridge. To the priest, that impassive mass across that swollen torrent signified a life of trial, patience, and unfailing devotion.
And sin. He could not forget the burden of sin.
His life; his sin!
Father Colmillo knew he was no saint. San Akakio was a model of patience and obedience in the face of abuse. This did not describe Father Colmillo. He bowed his head. Contrition. He needed contrition. Sin was a viper in his bosom.
He and one or two other visiting monks lived here in the Guest House. Another dozen monks, permanent residents, as well the Prior and Abbot when they were here, lived in the South Wing. They ran the Refectory, tended the gardens, and managed the administration. Some twenty-seven nuns, including Sister Mary Lamiana, lived in the North Wing and tended a fluctuating population of orphans and runaways, lost girls, unmarried and unloved, in the Children’s Hall.
He sighed. San Akakio had been fulfilling its mission for over nine hundred years. Surely, it would continue for another nine hundred.
Like those buildings over there, Father Colmillo had endured a life of hardship and constant struggle against the armies of Satan, armies that, no matter how many of its soldiers he destroyed, never diminished, never retreated, never showed a glimmer of mercy.
At times he grew confused which side he was on. He knew these were the torments of doubt, but this confusion never moved very far away.
Was he Cerberus himself, guarding Hell, keeping the dead inside and intruders out? Or was he, as he hoped, a righteous warrior of God, fighting to bring light to the darkness? Or was he, as he sometimes feared, just another deluded foot soldier in the Army of Night, believing he brought light but unwittingly serving darkness?
It was true he lacked the patience and humility of Saint Akakios, whose simplicity and faith made him immortal. Perhaps it has always been thus: expectation always disappointed, hope always dashed. Perhaps he was, after all, just one in a long line of isolated sentries waiting for the end without hope, mired in the corruptions of the flesh. Perhaps, he told himself, he should just let go and yield to the temptation of despair.
No! He was no dupe of the devil, but a righteous man of known rectitude; his path was holy, correct, unswerving. He thrust his doubts aside.
Only five or six times in the past two decades had he been forced to use them, praise God. To drive Evil from the benighted, the credulous, the deceived, this was more terrifying than he could have imagined when he set out on this path. Each time the recovery grew longer, more painful. Each time he feared it would kill him if he had to do it again. And this time, ah, this time, would be the last.
No, despair was not for him! He was a soldier and must set doubt aside.
One thing was certain: this one girl, the one named Celia, was the lance wound in his side, his crown of thorns, and one day, if he didn’t succeed, he would die.
The swollen creek a few meters from the window surged and heaved between gray limestone banks, drenching the footbridge. If he listened carefully he thought he could just make out beneath the wind and rain the comforting sounds of the Refectory, Kitchens, and Buttery.
Lightning snapped and threw a momentary sheen over slate tile, sweating crenellations, the rough stone hide of the beast. Typhon was one of Satan’s minions (and they are legion). Today it lashed and pounded in its fury, its impotence. The buildings did not move, did not cower; they endured.
He, Father Colmillo, would also endure. He must. One last time.
At first he examined the girl with detached curiosity. Her name, Celia, came from the caelum of Rome, place of Heaven, home of resurrection and triumph over death. Mute and placid as she was, this celestial daughter of the sky attracted him against his will. With time he came to know her, if only a little. She was intractable, impervious to argument, and mute, but her stubborn taciturnity crept over him and trapped him like a fly in amber. That implacable calm, that sinful recalcitrance, drove him to reveal to her his silver hammer, leather-bound Bible, beeswax candles, and pointed tongs. Then she shrank back in horror. He had told her not to be afraid: after all, it was for her own good.
He could smell her fear, and that gave him hope.
She was stubborn and seemed simple, yes, but trapped within her… ah, within her was a great secret. This he knew. He had suggested Sister Mary Lamiana take a special interest in the girl. More than once, he had asked her to question her, to probe and test. The results of those interviews were inconclusive. The girl retreated farther into herself.
For Father Colmillo, this was both a blessing and a curse.
Nothing would stop the fetus growing in her, but that was the merely physical. What mattered was the secret. When the child came, for the demon would come out as well, and the world, his world, would change. The question he never dared address, the question he pushed aside whenever it arose, was how the world would change. Within the girl was the answer, but it might not be one a person of faith such as himself or Sister Mary Lamiana would like, so he set the question aside and clung tenaciously to his faith.
He must do his part. He must drive forth the demon and purify her. He closed the window and turned away from the tempest. His simple cell was still and calm, orderly, clean, dependable. The whitewashed walls, the crucifix of the tortured Christ over the narrow cot, his black case, this was the calm eye of the storm, and from it he would draw strength.
Lightning filled the room with a series of harsh white strobes. Moments later a peal of thunder crashed, but the thick walls muffled the sound.
As soon as the peal rolled away there came a tap at his door.
“Come,” he said.
A novice put her head inside. “Sister Mary says it’s time.”
“Tell her I will be there as soon as I have taken confession.”
The novice disappeared.
Confession in the guesthouse did not take long. The priest on duty was sleepy, and said little. The sins Father Colmillo’s confessed were small and easily absolved.
He returned to his room to pick up his bag. It dragged at his arm. He let out a slow, reluctant sigh.
As soon as he stepped outside a gust pushed him roughly against the wall, bruising his shoulder. He shrugged, relishing the pain, clutched his case to his chest, and hurried across the rain-swept bridge. Angry water swirled against its central support and lurched over the lip, drowning his shoes and soaking his socks. He struggled across to the main door of the central building.
Inside all was quiet again. To his right, the corridor led to the offices, beyond which he could see the connecting corridor to the East Building and the Chapter House. To his left was the West Building, which contained minor administrative offices, refectory, kitchens, and buttery. Many of the rooms were now used for storage, locked and forgotten.
A small door flanked by narrow rectangular windows led through the narrow cloisters to the Paradise Garden, a central court of meager soil and stunted vegetables. He could see squalls of rain sweep the length of the garden, which filled the space between the buildings and passed through heavy arches connecting their inner ends. The North Wing contained Children’s Hall, four corridors with twenty cells each. The numbers of residents fluctuated between sixty and one hundred and eighty. At this moment, he knew, there were over a hundred. Only one was his concern.
Beside the door a narrow staircase rose to a landing, turned right, and spiraled up. This staircase, the only access to the upper floors, broke every modern fire safety regulation, but in all the centuries since the founding there had been no fire in this stone pile. The walls may have sweated moisture but they had been untouched by flame. It didn’t matter; few of the rooms above were in use.
He proceeded down a corridor of deep brown carpeting, through a short hall to the West Building, and stopped outside the next to last door before the refectory. A hand-written sign beside the door said, “Sr. Mary Lamiana, Acting Prior.”
He knocked.
“Come!”
The first thing Father Colmillo always noticed when he visited Sister Mary Lamiana’s office was the absence of natural light. In the early sixteenth century the administration divided a much larger room into a series of small ones, only two of which had windows. When he asked if Sister Mary liked being shut off from the outside, she replied she preferred to work without the distractions of the Paradise Garden. Her children, for she believed in some personal way they were hers, did not need the outdoors either. Their destiny was to toil at San Akakio all their days and spend their nights in devotion. As outcasts of God, that slim opportunity of redemption was more than they deserved.
Father Colmillo entered and sat in the hard, straight-backed chair beside Sister’s desk. He folded his hands on the handle of his case and waited in silence.
Sister spoke. “They’re taking her to the Chapter House.”
He nodded once, slowly.
“For the preliminaries, you understand.”
“She’s due any day,” he said. “Not much time.”
“Yes.” Sister sat back and counted her rosary beads one by one with terrific deliberation. The large crucifix lay on the desk, and Father Colmillo noticed the silver was covered with a patina of corrosion. Why had he never before noticed she did not polish it? Perhaps, he thought, because his own crucifix was made of ebony, and also black. Always his attention was caught by the way she stabbed with it when she wanted to drive home a point.
“Yes,” she agreed, and repeated, “Not much time.” She stared into him. “What is within must come out.” In the subdued light of the office her complexion matched the somber gray of the stone behind her.
“Must come out, yes,” he began. “Be destroyed.”
She smacked her hand on the desk. “I didn’t mean the baby!”
“Of course not.” He spoke softly, eyes resting thoughtfully on the handle of his black case. “Of course not,” he repeated. “You refer to the demons possessing her. She is possessed, Sister, as you well know. Only a demon could inspire such implacable disobedience.”
He thought, but did not ask: who would want to kill the infant?
Who indeed.
Sister Lamiana glared, but he was looking do
wn, deep in thought. When he looked up again, his face was twisted in pain.
Concern flowed over her face. “Are you all right, Father?”
He lowered his head, raised it, and pushed himself to his feet. “Shall we?” he croaked.
“Very well.” She stood in a rustle of stiff cloth and, holding her tarnished crucifix before her, swept from the room, gathering him into her wake.
Surveillance
Fifteen minutes after Lisa and Ibrahim entered the Viper Room at the Menagerie, Steve and Frédo were observing from an alligator pit near the entrance. “I like it even less,” Steve grumbled.
Frédo, occupied with reading stern warnings about visitor safety and behavior on the wall, said absently, “Like what less?” He kept patting his pocket and shifting from one foot to the other.
Steve knew his companion was more eager than nervous. For a sedentary scholar in possession of a firearm, action was a welcome novelty.
Occasional small groups of visitors surged through the building, leaving in their wakes the muddled echoes of footsteps and voices rising to the high ceilings like swirls of vapor.
Frédo wrinkled his nose. It didn’t help. This building was either warm and humid or dry and flinty, with nothing comfortable in between.
Two men in jeans and t-shirts entered the Viper Room and almost immediately came back out.
“I like it less than I did before,” Steve explained, squinting at the men’s t-shirts: Beer and Camouflage, he noted. They seemed harmless. “I warned her this plan was dangerous.”
“But nothing’s happened.” Frédo was struggling to sound happy about it, but he clearly wanted something to happen.
Steve gave him a sharp look. “Not yet.” One thing he didn’t need was an over-enthusiastic helper.
Frédo stopped twitching with an effort. A moment later he stopped patting his gun as well. Walid’s gun, he reminded himself.