Darkness Calls (15 page)

“That wasn’t so bad,” I said, trying not to sound so breathless.

Grant gave me a sideways look. “Those men were members of the secret police. They had the authority to arrest us. Take us in for questioning, at the very least. Religious tolerance is growing, but the government is mindful of people who come here trying to politicize the situation.”

“So you play like some rich boy showing off to his girl, and pretend you’ve done nothing wrong? Nice.”

“I learned from my father,” Grant said. “Same thing you learned from your mother, I suppose. Power is transient. Power can flow from one person to another. The most powerful person in a room isn’t the wealthiest or the one with the most connections. It’s the person who
believes
the strongest, the one who has the most confidence. And, sometimes, it’s the person who can make everyone else feel like
less
of themselves.”

“My mother wasn’t big on emotional politics,” I replied, as somewhere behind us the iron gate clanged. “She just had . . . a quality.”

“Like you.”

“I wasn’t bluffing anyone back there.”

“Sure you were. You were a beautiful woman without a clue. That was a better act than mine, any day.”

He was teasing, but his words hit closer to home than I would have liked. Still, I smiled, trying to act like I got the joke—but my face felt like plastic and rubber.

Grant searched my eyes, humor fading—sliding into compassion, concern. His arm slid around my waist. He bent to kiss me, very gently, but I held the sides of his face and pushed closer, hungry for him. Afraid, suddenly, that I would never have another chance to taste him.

I heard voices, dimly. Grant stopped kissing me and pressed his bristled cheek to mine—our breathing ragged, his palm sweaty against the back of my neck. Dek and Mal rolled over his hand, holding him to me.

“Later,” he murmured in my ear, fingers tightening as two sets of purrs got louder in my ears. “We’ll be okay, Maxine. We’re going to be fine.”

And then he turned, just slightly. Father Cribari stood close, watching us—rather like a voyeur, I thought. Which made my stomach turn over.

“You think you are going someplace?” he asked Grant.

Grant smiled coldly. “I believe there was a man who requested my presence. Unless you lied and brought me here for another reason.”

Father Lawrence frowned, bits of him jiggling as he bounced up and down on his toes. He very briefly glanced at me—a strangely significant look, as though he wanted to say something private—but then the odd light in his eyes died, and he became bumbling and soft, murmuring, “Father Ross is not ready. He was—”

“He’s not talking,” interrupted Father Cribari smoothly. “I doubt he can, anymore.”

Something deadly passed through Grant’s eyes. “What did you do to him, Antony?”

“Nothing.”

“You said it was ‘nothing’ ten years ago, when you tried to convince the others to execute me. Or lock me up. What was it you said? There are cellars in the Vatican that run all the way to Hell?”

“You imagine things,” Cribari replied. “They only run
halfway
.”

Father Lawrence made a small sound of distress. “Please, the two of you, this is unnecessary. Not one of us would ever hurt another—”

“The various offices in the Vatican operate independently of each other,” Grant said, none too gently. “You know this, Father Lawrence. There is bureaucracy, and there is, occasionally, bungling of that bureaucracy, but for the most part there are no conspiracies, and all too few secrets—because no one in a bureaucracy can
keep
a secret. But there are exceptions. Aren’t there, Antony?”

The priest’s gaze slipped from Grant to me. “If you like.”

Grant edged sideways, so that he partially blocked me from Cribari’s sight. “Take us to Father Ross.”

But the man still held my gaze and would not let go. “I am confirmed in my beliefs of you, Grant Cooperon. Even more so now, with the company you keep.”

“Yes,” I said, smiling dangerously. “That’s something you and I should discuss.”

Father Cribari paled, but he did not back away, or visibly flinch. Grant squeezed my hand. “No games, Antony. You brought me here for a reason. Let’s finish it.”

Father Lawrence gripped his hands even tighter, uneasiness in his eyes—whether from the tension surrounding him or something he knew, I could not tell. But Cribari gestured at the brick building we had been walking toward. “See for yourself.”

Famous last words,
I thought, searching the shadows—and not just for the boys. We needed to go, run fast, but I knew Grant too well. This might be a trap, but if there was a possibility that his old friend was somewhere near, he would never rest easy knowing he had abandoned the man. He had to see for himself what was fact or fiction. Dek and Mal, little more than shadows beneath my hair, began humming Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” inside my ears.

We entered a quiet building that was a maze of narrow halls: long, plain, and poorly lit. The ceilings were so low I felt the urge to stoop. Even Grant hunched over, leaning harder on his cane. Worse, I saw no one else. I
heard
no one else. Even the sounds of our passage were muted, swallowed, each click and scuff dulled into death. A claustrophobic atmosphere, oppressive; like a cage of white straitjackets. Made my skin crawl.

We rode an elevator to the sixth floor. Each of us took a corner. I stood across from Cribari. He watched me, his gaze hooded and dark, and Grant watched him. Father Lawrence stared at the floor, his shoulders round and hunched. I considered the benefits of breathing.

The little priest led us to the end of the hall and removed a single key from his pocket. He hesitated, looking to Cribari for confirmation, then unlocked the door.

Grant started to enter. I was faster, and slipped in first. The room was small and lit by only one lamp that gave off a weak yellow light. I saw a narrow window draped in a thin pale curtain. The ceiling felt very low, and the air was cold and smelled like plaster.

There was the bed, and a man who lay in it. Father Ross.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. A zombie would have made sense, or no man at all—just guns pointed at us, or tranquilizers, or whatever Cribari had in mind, eventually, to subdue our sorry asses. But there was a man, and all it took was one look at Grant’s face to see that it was the right man.

Father Ross had red hair. Freckles dashed across his nose. He might have looked like a nice, wholesome individual, once upon a time—but his cheeks were gaunt, and his body was so bony he seemed little better than a corpse. Bones jutted through the sheet that had been pulled up to his neck, and atop the sheet, black leather straps pressed down, restraining his hollow frame from shoulder to ankle.

His eyes were closed. He looked asleep. Grant stood very still, staring at him.

“Luke,” he murmured.

“He disappeared for several days, and when he returned . . . when he returned, he was quite different,” Father Lawrence said, hovering by the door. “He is very sick. He must have been, of course, to do . . . what he did. But there have been . . . other changes in him.”

“What did you do with the bodies of the nuns?” I asked, feeling rather uneasy about the priest’s careful choice of words. Remembering Franco and the changes that had been done to him.

“We made arrangements,” Father Cribari answered, and Father Lawrence, standing just behind him, shot the priest a look so full of venom I wondered if it was my imagination.

I raised my brow. “Making arrangements for the dead, especially when you don’t want anyone to
know
about the dead, is quite a feat. Not entirely a legal one, I imagine.”

“You judge us?” Cribari said softly. “You, of all people? What would
you
sacrifice in order to preserve what you consider dear? What
wouldn’t
you give?”

I would sacrifice everything,
I told him silently. But that was between me and myself, and me and the people I loved.

Grant said, “Father Ross’s brain has been damaged. And his body.”

Father Lawrence frowned. “He was hit during the initial struggle, but not on the head.”

Grant looked at Cribari. “You know what I can do.”

“You don’t deny it?”

“I never did.” He reached for his flute. “Both of you, out.”

“I think not,” said Cribari.

“I won’t work in your presence.”

The priest bared his teeth in a terrible smile. “You seem to be under the impression that you have a choice.”

“And he would be right,” I muttered. “But first things first.”

I grabbed his arm, and shoved him hard against the wall. He was strong. He resisted. But I was tougher than most men. I had to be, in order to bear the weight of the boys on my body—my boys who weighed the same, whether tattoo or flesh. Like Superman, surpassing earth’s weak gravity. Fly, man, fly.

Father Lawrence was already in the hall, staring. Not in astonishment; but something else in his eyes that made me uneasy. I slammed the door in his face and added a kick for good measure. No lock, but I waited a moment, and the small priest did not try to come back in.

“You,” I said to Cribari softly, “have been a very bad man.”

“Take your hands off me,” he whispered.

“I don’t think so.” I leaned in, close enough to kiss, and he shied away from me like my breath was going to burn his face off. “You were surprised to see me. You thought I was going to be dead. Poor little Franco.”

Father Cribari began trembling. “He was a chosen warrior. As we all are. He knew the sacrifices.”

A strong hand caught at my waist and held tight. I looked over my shoulder and found Grant staring at the priest with terrible fury.

“How could you?” he whispered. “How could you orchestrate this . . . violation . . . against Father Ross?”

Violation.
I gave Grant a sharp look, but his focus was entirely on the priest. Cribari stared back with the same intensity, and not a hint of remorse in his pale face. “He was an opportunity. I knew you would come for him.”

Grant narrowed his eyes. “Why me? Because of what I can do? You
had
me, ten years ago. You could have had me in Seattle. None of this was necessary.”

Cribari made no reply. His back curled tight against the wall. His eyes burned with feverish light, and his dry, cracked lips moved in silent prayer—which stopped when our gazes met.

“He was told,” I said quietly, instinct guiding my words. “He believes he was given a decree from a higher power.”

“Gabriel,” Cribari breathed. “The archangel who will blow the final trumpet on the Day of Judgment came to me, in flesh, as the spirit of truth, and passed to me his knowledge. He told me how to stop you both; you demons, you children of the Nephilim.”

Comparing us to the half-breed offspring of humans and angels made an odd sort of sense, but I shook my head. “You knew about me before that. You
knew
.”

Any fear that had been in his face faded into defiance. “We have always known. We have watched, and waited. Dark Mother. Dark Queen. From your blood will pour the armies of the Last Battle, and the night will descend in your eyes. Your heart will murder this world.”

Your heart.
I could not laugh it off. I could not pretend his words did not affect me. But the cruelty in his voice made me sick. I could see history in that moment, a glimpse of zealots and Inquisitors, men who struck fire to women, preaching brimstone to witches; suicide bombers and word twisters; ages upon ages of men wearing violence as religion, born again in his eyes. Then and now were all the same. The circle never ended.

“Enough,” I said. “You’re done.”

“No,” Cribari whispered. “You and I. We are
not
done, no matter what may come. You are an abomination.” His gaze flicked past me to Grant. “Both of you, against the natural order. Our Lord will take you.
I
will take you, as charged. You will be destroyed.”

Anger uncoiled in Grant’s eyes. “You won’t touch her.” “I will not stop.” Cribari jerked forward, cheeks reddening, long pale fingers digging into the wall behind him like claws. “It ends here, before she breeds like the rest of those bitch queens and passes on the filth of her blood. All these centuries spent watching her lineage, leaving our marks so that our warnings would not be forgotten—”

Cribari kept talking, but I no longer heard him. Grant was quivering, his face so stony, so furious—utterly white with rage—that a great wash of heat flowed over me, and it was fear: stinking, bowel-loosening fear. I looked back, and saw Zee and the others peering out from under the bed.

Grant’s flute was in its case, but his hand grabbed mine, squeezing like a sunlit vise, and I heard a rising rumble in his chest, felt power rolling off his skin, and when he opened his mouth, it was like hearing the sob of a mountain in winter, low and gray and aching with age.

Cribari’s mouth snapped shut, and he swayed against the wall, clutching at his collar. He raked his nails across his throat, opening and closing his mouth like a dying fish—squeezing shut his eyes as though in terrible pain. He tried to speak, but all I heard was a hiss, and he clapped his hands over his ears. Grant showed nothing—no mercy, no compassion—just cold detachment, determination. He never paused to take a breath. His voice shed its humanity, undulating like the back of a dragon, and the air rippled with it, moving against me as though a great wind was being born, or a mighty fist clenched.

The priest screamed. Blood trickled from his ears. I felt, more than saw, Zee and the others creeping free from the shadows, staring, and I tugged hard on Grant’s hand, calling his name. He did not look at me. In his eyes—in his eyes—I imagined a faint glow.

“Grant!” I shouted, and punched him in the face.

His voice finally broke, and the silence created a physical vacuum that made my ears pop and sucked all the air out of my lungs. He staggered, and fell to his knees. I went down with him, still holding his hand, trying to keep him from hitting the floor too hard. He was a big man, and I got dragged down.