Cover Him with Darkness (16 page)

“Will you open the safe for us?”

He was so cute and warm and gentle. Any middle-aged woman would trust him on sight.

Vera looked him in the eye and bared bloody teeth in a snarl.

“Please, just open the safe. We'll go, and you'll never see us again.”

She spat full in his face. I saw the crimson splatter across his cheek.

Egan's expression didn't change. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder though, and I saw the weight of it press her down.

“No!” I cried, launching myself across the bed. “Egan, don't! Don't!” I grabbed his shirt and pulled at him wildly. “Stop it! Just leave her alone!”

He glanced up at me. I couldn't read his face at all; I was just hypnotized by the patina of blood flecks. “You need that passport.”

“And what are you going to do—beat her up? You can't! For God's sake Egan, she's my cousin!”

“She'll open it if we make her.”

“No, she won't!” I could see the rage in Vera's eyes and I knew she'd rather die. She'd always had a thing for the Holy Martyrs. “And you're not going to try!”

He stood up. “Your choice, Milja.” His voice was still mild, but there was a gravity to it. “You know what it means. Your choice.”

It meant I would be trapped in the country with an armed gang after me and no route out. I shook my head. “Just leave her alone. Let's go. Let's go.”

He stooped and reached for Vera again. For a moment my heart was in my mouth, but he only snagged the lace handkerchief she always carried in the pocket of her cardigan. Taking my arm, he helped me off the bed. He was wiping his face as he headed for the door.

Vera made a noise behind us as we left: a noise of pain and pure hatred.

“Quickly.” It was the only word Egan said to me as we clattered down the stairs. Until we got almost to the front door and, looking out through the glass, saw a man lounging against our rental car, smoking.

“Oh hell. Is that—is that one of them?”

“Out the back,” Egan announced. He had hold of my elbow and he wasn't letting go. We marched back through the lobby and the bar and out through the pool area. There was no one waiting out the back so we
hustled down a side road and hailed a cab.

“I don't think you're getting your rental deposit back,” I said shakily.

“Huh.” He shrugged, opening the door for me. “It's on the business account.”

We took the taxicab right to the busiest part of the town center, paid it off and went for a long, random walk. We hardly spoke. Everything I felt when I looked at Egan was so conflicted—gratitude and anxiety and guilt all mixed up together—that I didn't know where to start.

“We should go to church,” he said, suddenly.

That shook me from the dumb contemplation of the hot dog in my hand. I realized I hadn't been tasting it anyway. “What?”

“If it's priests that are after you, like you say, then where's the last place they'll expect us to hide?” He pointed across the street at a church facade where people were drifting in and out, then added, “And we need a place to talk.”

I clenched my jaw, girding myself inwardly. It would not, I imagined, be a very pleasant conversation.

It made me nervous to approach the church, to ascend the stairs past the beggars and slip inside. Once upon a time the brightly painted interior with its lush frescoes and warm banks of candle-glow and its gleam of gold would have felt embracing, like entering bodily into a familiar story-book from childhood. It would have closed out the outside world with all its rush and complexity and grime, and instantly put me in a place of serenity. Not anymore.

I steered us to the first and most obvious icon near the door and kissed the picture of St. Basil. “Cross yourself,” I muttered to Egan. He followed my example clumsily and I winced. “Wrong way round—
right to left
,” I hissed. “And
three fingers
.”

“Oops.” He did it again, properly this time.

We were lucky—this was an Orthodox church that had pews, something I hadn't seen before outside the States. Traditionally the people of my faith stand for services. Egan and I settled ourselves in at the back, well away from the iconostasis screen before the altar. I tried not to look around us too suspiciously. And I kept my voice as low as possible as I spoke.

“Who do you really work for, Egan?”

He was pulling up the knees of his jeans to get more comfortable; he stopped moving as my words sank in. “What do you mean?”

“This stuff you do. The kicking in doors and the evasive driving and the
beating people up
at the drop of a hat. Don't tell me you learned to do that by playing too much
Call of Duty
.”

“Well, no.” Egan wrinkled his nose sheepishly. “I haven't always had a desk job, you know.” He sighed. “I went into the armed forces straight from school.”

I glowered at him. “In Ireland?”

“Ah…”

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

“I am not.”

“I see.”

He smiled, to mollify me. “But I do work for a bank now, honest.”

“Would you have hurt Vera?”

His eyebrows met in the center as he looked pained. “No, of course not. I might have…scared her, that's all.”

I wondered if I believed him. I really wanted to.

He shook his head, ruefully. “It would have solved a lot of your problems, getting that passport back. Now we're stuck looking for alternatives.”

There was a tap on the bench beside me and I jumped.

Proot
said the tiniest voice. A fuzzy gray kitten stood on the pew at my side, looking up at me with big amber eyes. I'd never seen a cat allowed inside a church before, but I'm a sucker for them in any situation. I put my hand out to pet it and it wound itself enthusiastically in circles, starting to purr. I could feel its small bones under the soft fur and I wondered if Suzana was feeding Senka properly.

“I'm assuming you
don't
have an alternative plan right now,” Egan said, recalling me to the matter at hand.

“No.”

“Right, well then, before we go any farther, are you going to be honest with me?”

I felt cold creep along my spine. I kept my head down, watching the kitten. “What do you mean?”

“There's something you're not telling me about this.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The priest. He said, when he saw me, ‘
Is that him?'
And I swear he nearly peed his pants.”

I shook my head. “No… He said ‘
Who is that?'
”

“Milja, I've picked up enough Serbo-Croat to know that's just not true.”

“Don't call it Serbo-Croat,” I muttered. “We don't use that term anymore.”

“Fine. Montenegrin.” Egan cleared his throat pointedly and waited for a real answer, and when I kept quiet he pressed on; “What did he mean? Who did he think I was?”

The kitten hopped up into my lap and lay down, staring up at Egan as I stroked its furry back and chewed my lip. It was a fair question, I admitted. Egan had the right to ask what sort of trouble he was getting involved in. For all he knew it could be drugs or people-trafficking or some organized-crime vendetta.

“I… There's this…” My brain felt like it had flatlined. “I don't know how to explain.”

“Well, start at the beginning.”

“I can't. You won't believe me.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you're…sensible.” I looked helplessly toward the altar. “Really really sensible. And normal. And not from round here. And I wouldn't believe it if I were you, and you were me.”

“Okay…that's some buildup. Should I be flattered by the
sensible
bit, then?”

“Oh yes.”

“You make it sound like I'm a turnip farmer.”

I snorted, covering my nose. The kitten dug tiny claws into my lap.

“Just take it bit by bit.”

“The antiquities I told you about…” I started, realized that was a dead end and then began groping for some sort of agnostic gloss on the story. “The priests…think…that I've done something really bad.”

“Uh-huh?”

“They think there was something kept in the church in our village.
Some
one
. Like, a prisoner.” I paused, waited for Egan's response, whether encouraging or derisory, but he made not a sound and did not stir, and I didn't dare look at him so I blurted, in a rush, “An angel. A fallen one. They think I let it out.”

The silence was excruciating. I made myself look at him at last. He was staring down the nave as if he hadn't heard me, his face expressionless, but when I turned my gaze to him he met it.

“And what do you think, Milja?”

I felt myself crumbling inside. “What do you mean?”

“Do you believe they've got it right? Did you see an angel? Did you let it out?” His voice was so gentle that I wanted to cry, but there was a bead of sweat on his temple that caught the candlelight like gold.

He thought I was delusional.

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to tell him,
Oh no, it's just some crazy local superstition and this old man Father Velimir has taken it way too seriously, but how do I prove that?
Yet the thought of lying to Egan made me ache. I'd already lied by omission, over and over again. It weighed on me like slabs of rock.

I looked away. “Am I a crazy-ass religious nutcase then?”

“I don't think so. That's not the impression you've given so far.”

He had his cautious, sensible voice on again, and all of a sudden, quite perversely, I wanted to break that. “There was an angel,” I said flatly. “Tied up in a cave. He'd been there five thousand years, he said. I let him go free.”

Egan kept quiet this time.

I started to count, wondering how long it would be before he laughed, or stood up and walked out.
One…two…three…four…five…

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you let him go?”

I blinked. “I felt sorry for him.” That was so woefully inadequate that I had to follow it up. “He was in pain, and it was so cruel, and so unfair…” I broke off abruptly. Where was he leading me in this?

Egan was sitting with his hands steepled together before his face, fingers pressed against his mouth, frowning at me.

“Do you believe me then?”

He tapped his fingertips against his lips, thoughtfully. “I don't think you're lying. And those priests believe it, presumably.”
Tap, tap
. “I'll tell you something else…”

“What?”

“They're trying to take you alive.”

I pulled a face, uncomprehending.

“If they'd been trying to execute you as some sort of act of revenge, or punishment, they'd have had you shot in the drugstore, without hesitation. And it'd only take one man to do it. Or they'd have shot out our tires at speed afterward and killed us both in the crash. They're trying to bring you in alive. Why do you think that is?”

“I don't know!” My voice rose a little too loudly and the kitten needled me again. “To put me on trial? To punish me more?”

“Maybe. It's interesting, don't you think?”

“
Interesting?
”

“Ah now, I'm sorry…that was a bit thoughtless of me.” He smiled in self-deprecation. “Look, Milja, I think I need to make a phone call.”

“Who to?”

“I have…contacts who might be able to get us out of the country. Through unofficial channels. I think we might need them.”

Army people? Special Forces? CIA? Irish Republican terrorists?
Maybe I really was going crazy.

“I can't ring from in here. You just stay for a moment, Milja.”

“No!” I grabbed his arm. “Don't leave me!”

“I'm not leaving you.” His hand on mine was firm. “Not ever. I will keep you safe, I promise, Milja. But you need to stay out of sight. I will be five minutes, no more.”

I looked into his eyes and I believed him. I stayed, with the gray kitten nestled on my lap, and I tried to pray. But the traditional words were like dead leaves on my tongue and the only prayer in my heart was
Please keep him safe. Please don't let him leave without me
.

There was a creak as someone sat on the pew in front of me.

“Hello.”

My eyes flashed open. If it had been anybody I recognized as a pursuer, I think I would have screamed my head off, but it was someone totally unknown to me. An older man: little lines creased around his eyes as he
smiled. Silver hair, but black brows that denied he was truly aged. Deepset, hauntingly wonderful blue eyes. A bit George Clooney. But better looking.