by Aiden James
“With Viktor Kaslow, anything is possible,” said Roderick, as we headed back to the vehicle. “Deviousness is always a delicacy on the menu for him, as you know. He might be laughing this very moment at our foolishness, since we have little choice but to follow any wild goose chase he decides to throw our way.... But let’s make sure that’s the case before we assume anything.”
Rather than get into a full-on discussion about a possible cruel joke at our expense, I announced to Beatrice and the others that this monument wasn’t the right one, and that we could tell it was a dud once we got a closer look at it. Not a complete lie, and hopefully not something that could come back to haunt me later.
“We’re going to take one of the tour routes we passed over, on the other side of the Visitor Center, and if it doesn’t lead us to pay dirt, then we’ll give up on the search for now,” I said, engendering disappointed looks from everyone, including Roderick. Surely he was opposed to giving up completely beyond this afternoon.
As I feared, another route that looked somewhat promising from a distance proved to be a poor choice once we drove past the first few markers. We ended up taking three more scenic detours before heading back toward the park’s exit, with less than five minutes to spare. Ironically, or at least to me it was ironic, we ended up driving past the glorious Iowa memorial once more.
“Holy shit!” I blurted out as we came up on the side featuring the woman writing the names of the fallen on the monument’s obelisk. “Stop the car, Rod!”
“I see it,” he said, swerving to pull over far enough for the line of cars exiting the park to get around us. A park ranger would surely be on the way soon. “Let’s go get your coin!”
Beatrice frowned. “I thought you said this was the wrong monument?” She asked, accusingly.
“I’m sorry, Babe—let me explain what happened when we get back....”
A sudden chill crept into the Escalade, seizing my entire being. I could tell from everyone else’s expression they all felt it, too.
“Quick, William—let’s go now!” Roderick urged, when I hesitated. “Let’s go get your coin and get the hell out of here!”
I followed him out and we ran back to the statue, all the while our gazes were fixed upon the very spot we had probed fruitlessly earlier, near the base of the bronze woman’s gown. But this time, the crevice between the gown and granite step wasn’t empty. The second to last of my cursed blood coins’ sapphire glow radiated toward us, and the pain that had seized my left arm a moment ago in the Escalade now intensified.
Roderick motioned for me to remove my coin from what looked like a piece of frayed linen that might’ve come from a dress like the one depicted on the statue. The shekel’s outline was plainly visible, and the linen’s transparency made it possible to see Caesar’s beak of a nose, too.
“I can’t... I can’t deal with the vision. Not today.”
I motioned for him to pick it up instead, since after the last time I had done this, I decided that holding my coins to endure the subsequent vision of the real Passion Play reenacted before my mind’s eye was needless pain. Surely by now the Lord understood I regretted my terrible misdeed from two millennia ago more than any other sin I had committed in this world. Roderick nodded graciously and scooped the coin out of its hideout, just as a ranger pulled up behind our vehicle. He handed me the linen while he pocketed the still-glowing shekel. Then we jogged over to the ranger’s squad car together.
“The park’s closed,” the middle-aged officer announced, as he emerged from his vehicle.
“I’m so sorry,” said Roderick, laying on the thickest Irish accent I had heard from him in years. “Just having a wee bit of trouble with me camera, but I’ve got a great shot of the missus, now.” He pointed back to the statue.
The ranger studied Roderick, as if unsure what to think of the giant of a man whose latest layering of makeup was glistening from the heat and exertion, and no doubt a dose of nervousness from our present predicament. Then he looked beyond us to the monument. For a moment, I had the sinking fear that he had seen the damned coin’s glow, too!
“Just be on your way, and remember to read the signs next time,” he said, smiling slightly as if he suddenly remembered his first job was to be cordial to all the park’s visitors, unless warranted to do otherwise. Running a few minutes past curfew should be a minor infraction, I’d think. “Good evenin’.”
He tipped his hat and returned to his car, while we moved purposefully to our vehicle and climbed in.
“Rod has it,” I said, when all three barraged him and me with questions.
“Then what’s that?” Beatrice pointed to the piece of linen I clutched tightly.
“Oh, this? The coin was wrapped inside....”
There was a message written with what looked like charcoal on the ragged cloth... like what the poorer folks in the nineteenth century were wont to use when feather tips and inkwells weren’t handy or affordable. The message contained three words that were only considered as such when the phrase written was employed.
Tit For Tat
That was it, and unlike the letter we received yesterday from Kaslow, this short message was written in an indefinable script. But I had no doubt the author was him.
The message simple, the implied threat was not. The offering of the coin came with a price, and I prayed fervently in silence that this was for a past debt... and not a new one yet to come.
Chapter Four
The subject of the tattered strip of linen remained the hot topic of the night long after Beatrice and the Golden Eagles had retired. If not for the exhaustion that comes easily for my wife in her current state, she surely would be lying awake thinking about what ‘Tit For Tat’ was intended to mean. For that matter, Amy and Jeremy could well be carrying on a whispered debate, despite their room’s immersion in darkness. At least that’s how things appeared to Roderick and me from the front porch, as we shared brandy that the innkeeper generously offered to us when we told him we both shared chronic insomnia. No need to tell him it was an attendant side effect of our immortality, since both of our bodies healed continuously and sleep was mostly a luxury to be enjoyed during peaceful times.
Roderick and I sat in matching wooden rockers that were recent additions to the house built two decades before the onset of the Civil War. According to Harry Spence, the owner and gracious innkeeper of the General Johnson House, some of the fighting that took place in the Battle of Corinth happened in clear view of this very spot. Meanwhile, as for Kaslow’s message... all we had to go by was the fiend’s supreme love of games and an even deeper affection for administering cruelty.
“Don’t beat yourself over the head trying to figure it out, Judas,” said Roderick, commenting on what had dominated my thoughts since the moment I laid eyes on the crudely crafted message. “You know as well as I do that we can expect the meaning of the phrase to be made manifest very soon. It might behoove us to pay for our remaining nights at the inn and leave early. Even though Kaslow can find us anywhere in the world from Bochicha’s realm, I feel it would be prudent to not linger here in Corinth.”
“Agreed... but what about Beatrice and Amy? They have their hearts set on visiting a dozen antique stores, beginning in the morning. We don’t have the selection of Civil War memorabilia they wish to rummage through back home in Abingdon.”
“On the contrary, we do have suitable stores back in Virginia. Our ladies are merely hoping for something exotic to show up here in Corinth.... Like buried treasure that either a storekeeper has miss-marked or other customers haven’t been savvy enough to catch.” He added a wry grin.
One of the better aspects that residing at Roderick’s Abingdon estate had afforded us was the opportunity to spend time chatting intimately on a regular basis. His addressing me by my real name of Judas had sometimes been jarring for the others to adjust to in the past, and now he no longer called me anything other than ‘William’ when in the presence of my wife, Cedric, and the Golden Eagl
es. Judas was reserved for moments of the heart... and most often during our midnight conversations.
“Good luck on convincing either one to leave here without first allowing them most of Saturday to shop,” I said, chuckling at the thought of Roderick going toe to toe with our gals right after breakfast, as he tried to derail their plans for the day. “We might as well wait to check out Monday, as previously decided.”
“And if Kaslow shows up before we leave... what then?”
I had no answer for that. In truth, neither did Roderick. We had been at the mercy of Kaslow and Krontos, waiting for either one—or both—to resurface for the better part of two years... until Thursday evening, when Kaslow dropped back into our lives. In the past, his presence had always been for the worst, and that was all we had to go on for now.
Tit For Tat.... What in the hell kind of message is that?
“Did you notice the scent on the linen?” Roderick asked.
“Not really... just a little pine and some kind of flower... like jasmine, perhaps,” I replied. “Why?”
“It might not be important,” he said. “But it appears from the evidence—mainly from when I examined the grade of the linen material—it’s authentic. By my guess, 1850’s or 1860’s. Yet, the scent seems fresh—not aged. Even the charcoal appears fresh....”
“I’m not following where you’re going with this,” I confessed. “You think it’s all significant, somehow?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, pausing to drink the rest of his brandy. “But until we know for certain what Kaslow intends, we need to look at everything with the highest level of scrutiny. The linen, for instance, seems fresh despite its obvious age. To me this indicates him traveling to the past and procuring it in order to create a specific presentation for the coin. In all likelihood he visited someplace off the beaten path, such as Appalachia, based especially on the pine and jasmine. Not everyone in the nineteenth century could afford charcoal pencils, and I have heard of using charcoal pieces to write, although rarely in a message form such as this.”
“Okay... I guess I can buy that,” I said. “But why would Kaslow go to the trouble to do it? It seems too concocted for his brutal nature.”
“Maybe because the act of doing so is also part of the message.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, not enjoying this process of trying to steal a peek inside a demonic man’s mind.
“Here’s the thing that bothers me most,” said Roderick, eyeing me seriously. “What’s the first definition that comes to mind for ‘tit-for-tat’?”
“Payback.” That’s all this phrase has ever meant for me.
“Precisely... and it’s always used in reference to repayment for a deed done in the past. To right an injury that has happened.”
“What in the hell have we done to him, Rod?” I started to feel indignant. “Seriously, man—if anything, we should be the enforcer of some ‘tit-for-tat’ bullshit against Kaslow. Not him against us!”
He studied me in the way I have always loathed the most in heated discussions: with compassion. As if he could clearly see my soul at its most naked and vulnerable state, along with my inherent weaknesses as a human being.
“As I stated earlier, Judas, what Kaslow means by his message will be revealed in time—as is always the case with him,” said Roderick. “But I firmly believe we shouldn’t dilly-dally here needlessly. Getting our ladies to leave early and willingly will be a challenge... and maybe we’ll be fine by leaving first thing Sunday. However, what comes to me right now is ‘don’t linger beyond what is prudent’. It’s the strongest impression upon my heart and soul, my brother.”
He didn’t need to say anything else for me to get the point. In fact, afterward our entire conversation repeated on a loop in my head, growing stronger for me once I returned to my room and I watched my beloved wife sleep with hollow breaths that made me wonder if on a subconscious level Beatrice felt the same thing as Roderick. If so, I prayed she would be receptive to his and my urging to leave this place and head home... immediately.
* * * * *
Getting Beatrice and Amy to leave earlier than our Monday scheduled departure proved much more difficult than I anticipated, as both Saturday and Sunday were filled with ‘fun’ places in the area that they were determined to visit. Namely, more antique stores, a local museum, and an eatery widely considered to be the best Italian restaurant in the south: The Pizza Grocery. Not only was I unimpressed with the restaurant’s name, but I was further dismayed that Amy intended to commandeer Roderick’s Cadillac for both days.
It turned into a tug-o-war debate that finally ended with the compromise of picking the best shops to visit Saturday and we would visit this grocery serving pizza that night. Then, in return for Roderick, Jeremy, and myself being good sports about everything Amy and Beatrice desired to do that Saturday, we would leave to go home Sunday morning—basically what Roderick and I had decided was the last safe departure time from Corinth.
“Oh, come now, William—it will be more enjoyable than what you’re used to having to deal with when ‘antiquing’ with me,” said Beatrice; and to be honest, seeing her excitement lifted my heart. Her happiness—even in something as insignificant as being allowed to browse freely through discarded items from yesteryear—reigned supreme with me. It always would. “And, Rod is more interested than he thought he’d be, since there is supposedly an entire floor of Chippendale pieces from the late eighteenth century displayed in a shop called The Sorrel Gelding.”
Roderick stepped into the front parlor of the B&B, where the rest of us had been waiting for him to get the show on the road. I shot him an annoyed look, and he motioned for me to step aside from everyone else, pointing to his phone. I excused myself from Beatrice and the others and joined him in an alcove leading to a small swimming pool in back of the main house.
“Aside from you not sticking to our plan to get Beatrice and Amy to agree to leave Corinth this morning, what else have you got for me?” I was joking a little, although admittedly his apparent wavering on what we had discussed the night before irritated me.
“Well... although I still feel antsy about being here, Kaslow has moved on,” he said. “Bennevento called and left an urgent message for me about an hour ago, and I finally was able to reach him while you and Bea were in your room.”
“Where has the bastard flitted to next?”
“Italy... first to Florence and then to Rome,” Roderick replied. “According to Bennevento, Kaslow’s presence was picked up by the Vatican’s security system early this morning. But it didn’t prevent his abducting one of their finest historians, Adlelberto Cirillo.”
“What in the hell?...”
I was stunned, as well as angry with myself. Although my mind was just beginning to wrap itself around the scope of what was happening, I knew immediately the kidnapping of this historian on the Vatican’s staff was not an unfortunate and unrelated event to what had taken place for us in Vicksburg and Shiloh. Hell, even without my gut confirming this connection, it seemed quite obvious.
“Oh, but there’s more,” said Roderick, waiting for me to give him my full attention again. I stopped him from going on until I could offer a warm smile and ‘we’ll be there in a moment’ signal to Beatrice and the Golden Eagles. They watched us curiously, and I mouthed that ‘everything’s okay’, to which my wife pointed to her watch and gave me a playfully perturbed look.
“Okay, we’ve only got a moment, Rod, so give me the important shit quickly!” I said, while moving closer to allow him to whisper the details if he was concerned about anyone listening in on our conversation from nearby.
“Another historian associated with the Holy See’s staff was taken Thursday from his villa in Florence. Dr. Geoffrey Anderson.”
“The guy who last wrote about the Damascus Coin—that Dr. Anderson?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “He was taken sometime between seven and nine that morning. Dr. Cirillo was taken early this morning, just after midnight in Rome a
ccording to his security profile being accessed and then disabled.... Apparently, Kaslow became impatient with this older gentleman, as there was blood found in one of the older archive sections, and authorities in Rome believe it to be Cirillo’s. He and Kaslow were briefly caught on camera after emerging from the main library, and then the pair suddenly disappeared.”
I was struck most by the coinciding timeline between when the champagne and letter showed up in Vicksburg, and the coin showed up at Shiloh, as both incidents related to when the Vatican’s trusted historians were kidnapped. In particular, we discovered the coin just before Shiloh’s five o’clock closing time, which had to have taken place within fifteen minutes of Cirillo’s unpleasant encounter with Viktor Kaslow five thousand miles away, given that Italy’s time zone is exactly seven hours ahead of America’s central standard time.
“Kaslow has probably taken them both to his lair in Bochicha’s realm,” I said.
“That would be my assumption, as well.” Roderick looked beyond me toward the others, smiling slightly.
“Guys? Can we get going please?” urged Beatrice from the parlor. I turned in time to see her body language that revealed more impatience than before, and she drummed her right hand’s fingers across her left arm resting above her distended belly.... Roderick and I would have to discuss the details of what took place in Italy later on.
“Kaslow gave us what is likely the Stutthof-Auschwitz Coin, correct?”
“Yes, it certainly is, Judas. When I unwrapped it and placed it in my pocket yesterday, I received another vision of Simon Lieberman’s last moments before the Nazi’s killed him,” he advised. “You were right in not handling this one.”
“Then it means the only coin left is the Damascus Coin.”
“So it seems... but we’ll need to discuss this later, I’m afraid.” He waved to our impatient ‘antique enthusiasts’ “We’re coming!”
Hard to keep a smile genuine by the time we reached the third antique shop, where many items seemed identical to the discarded junk sold in the previous two stores. Not that everything from the distant past was unpleasant to my eyes, as Beatrice was right about some articles being true finds, and as such were rarities that alone would justify a trip to Corinth to procure them. Also, as predicted by my wife, Roderick seemed pleased to have been dragged along—especially when we arrived at The Sorrel Gelding.