Lucifer's Crown (33 page)

"That it is."

"You don't want to lecture us on how Neolithic people would interpret a tornado as a male fertility principle? You know, Sky Father, Earth Mother?"

He looked at her, his eyes pale gold. “Would you like me to do so?"

"Never mind.” Maggie laid her face on her forearm and reminded herself to breathe, until at last the wind died down and the thunder faded. Creaks and rustles sounded from the woods. Feeling furtive, like a cockroach in God's kitchen, she stood up and took inventory. Did her eyes look as much like porcelain saucers as everyone else's?

A bit of leaf mold clung to Thomas's cheek. She wiped it away. Ellen's face was dirty, streaked with tears. Sean, wearing his best, “Shucks, tweren't nothing” expression, put his arm around her. Anna brushed leaves and dirt off her jacket while Rose brushed them off her jeans. “No,” she said, her voice quavering, “he can't control the weather."

"Not a bit of it,” said Thomas, “but he appreciates special effects as much as any film director. Shall we go?"

No one argued. They felt their way down the path and across the field, now scattered with debris that had probably been a barn. The sky was the color of tarnished silver. The wind blew raindrops into Maggie's face. She expected to see the sheep laid out with heart attacks, but no, they were huddled in a corner of the pasture, baaing their grievances.

Ellen babbled about Judgment Day, Armageddon, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Sean and Anna between them kept up a soothing commentary. Rose trudged through the puddles, her shoes muddy. “Rats. I thought we could deprogram her."

"Have faith,” Thomas told her, and, to Maggie, “Before you ask, a natural disaster is not evil, but chaos."

Chaos
, Maggie thought. The romantic poets used nature to reflect emotion. Her emotions had been chaotic—seven deadly sins and psychological dysfunctions and the story with its kaleidoscopic patterns—but the story wasn't chaos, just complicated ... No, she couldn't control the weather either. “Right,” she said, and opened the gate for the others.

A broken tree limb lay alongside the green, but only one hail ding blemished the van. Maggie was about to prescribe food and drink in the pub when a green Jaguar came down the street, swishing through the carpet of leaves like the death coach from a nightmare. The car passed so close beside the van she had to press herself against the door, but all she could see through the tinted windows was a dim shape in the driver's seat.

With a squeak of terror, Ellen scrambled into the van. Thomas stepped up beside Maggie and watched as the car turned a corner and disappeared. A few more raindrops fell, and thickened, and became a steady rain.

Right
. “That's the lesson for the day,” Maggie said. “Let's go home."

Ellen stopped at the top of the stairs and pressed her fingertips into her temples. She'd taken aspirin after lunch and pinched Bess's Xanax after dinner, but still her head beat like a bloody drum.

Time was running out. She'd seen the wrath of God on a sinful world, two days ago at the place called Camelot. She'd seen Robin standing there, all calm and quiet like, whilst the heavens went to pieces about him. That was just a hint of what was to come, soon, at the end of the year. At the end of the world. If she did what Robin told her, she'd be saved.

Hard as it was to go about with the unbelievers, she had to be strong. They were only pretending to be kind, they were laughing at her behind her back. But then, people of faith were always persecuted, weren't they?

Sean came out of his bedroom. “How's it going?"

She tried to shrug, but her shoulders were too stiff.

"Here.” He started rubbing her back. “Just relax."

He was always going on at her about relaxing. She'd never get past her sexual issues, he said, until she learned to relax. He understood why she'd been coming on to him so strong at first. She was acting out, expressing the abused inner child.

Rubbish, all of it. Still, Sean wasn't a bad sort, considering the company he kept. Even considering what he'd said about Robin's speech. A pity, that he was condemned to hell.

"Maggie's watching TV,” Sean whispered, his breath tickling her ear. “Let's get her laptop and go web-surfing. There's an awesome new interactive game. Or we could hit the Torrid Tales site again, remember that one?"

Ellen remembered. His probing fingertips made her tighten up all the further. She pulled away. “I've got a whacking great headache."

Once or twice he'd looked at her like she was having him on when she said that, but this time he said, “I'm sorry."

"Later, eh?” Ellen patted Sean's bum. Odd, how good her hand felt against the back pocket of his jeans.

"Okay. Hope you get to feeling better.” He kissed her forehead and for half a tick her headache eased off. Maybe in time she'd learn to like this sex rubbish ... That was just it. There was no time.

Ellen walked down the stairs, her boots thudding on each tread, her head throbbing at each thud. She found Bess sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of sherry close to hand. Her garden magazine was open to the same page as an hour ago, when Ellen had cried off drying the dinner dishes because of her headache, and Rose with her flowery perfume stepped in.

She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Where's Alf, Mum?"

"In town. Lodge meeting.” Bess took Ellen's hand. “That plaster is filthy. And your skin's red—that cut's gone septic."

"Mum, don't fuss.” Ellen pulled her hand away.

"I've only ever wanted what's best for you."

"I only want what's best for you. If you believe in Robin, he'll save you. Just as it says in Holy Scripture, he's the redeemer who's come in the last days."

"Have you actually read the Bible, Ellen?"

"I've one of the Foundation editions, haven't I, updated for the End Times. And Robin explains a passage in every newsletter...” Suddenly Ellen saw how to bring her mother round. She lowered her voice. “I'm not to tell anyone this, Mum, but you're not just anyone are you? I'm the chosen one. Me, of all women. I'm to be Robin's bride."

"Bride? You haven't gone and slept with him? And him always going on about morality?” Bess's face squashed up like an apple kept too long in the cupboard. “I never raised you this way. I did my best with you, but now—now you're scaring me to death.” She hid her face in her hands.

Ellen stared at her mother's bowed head, the light glinting off the gray hairs amongst the brown. The stinks of sherry and disinfectant gummed her throat. At least she couldn't smell Rose's scent, not now. “Mum, please, you have to come round before it's too late. I don't want to lose you."

"I've already lost you,” Bess said, her voice smothered.

Ellen's hand hurt. Her head hurt. Neither hurt as cruelly as her heart. She blundered away, leaving her mother, the unbeliever, behind.

Rose scurried through the rain toward Thomas's cottage, Maggie at her side. At least this Sunday it was only raining. “You know, we've only been here for three weeks."

"If we were cats, we'd be down several lives by now.” Maggie pushed open the door of the chapel.

Thomas stood by the rood screen, haloed by his light bulb, his cell phone pressed to his ear. “
Merci beaucoup. A bientot,
Genevieve.” The off button chirped. “Rose, Maggie, good evening!"

"My French doesn't go much farther than
hors-d'oeuvre
,” said Maggie, “but I gather by your tone of voice she couldn't help."

"Very few of my friends and fellow guardians can help with anything other than their prayers, but I have gleaned some important information."

"Which you'll tell us when you're good and ready,” Maggie said.

"So I shall.” Smiling inscrutably, Thomas picked up a brush.

The ancient chapel was a safe place, a sanctuary in a storm. Rose genuflected before the carved Jesus. His eyes were alive with wisdom and pity. The eyes of the saints in their niches below glowed with a serenity she envied. Had Bridget or the Virgin ever been tempted, not by the senses but by the brink of darkness just beyond? Or was that the story of Mary Magdalene? “You're working on the Blessed Mother today,” she said.

"November twenty-first, the Presentation of the Virgin.” Thomas applied another gold flake to the portrait's background. “To say Our Lord was born of a virgin is a symbolic way of saying he was born of compassion."

"He was born of the heart chakra,” a voice added from the outer door. Closing his umbrella, Inspector Gupta picked his way past the extension cords and the space heater. “Am I late?"

"We're early,” Rose told him, grateful to get the topic away from virginity. “Are you all right? Thomas told us last night someone painted racial stuff on your garden fence."

"I'm afraid so. Calling my daughter a ‘mongrel’ was over the top."

Maggie shared an outraged glare with Rose. Thomas put down his brush. “I'm sorry, Jivan."

"I'd rather have the threatening phone calls—they're directed at me personally. The last one called me a ‘godless jack-booted thug.’”

"Because you want to question Robin?” asked Maggie.

"He's playing silly beggars with us. We've taken out warrants, searched Foundation offices ... I can't explain to the chief constable why he keeps giving us the slip. And Mountjoy in Hexham keeps telling us to leave Fitzroy alone, he has important work to do."

"Perhaps he's visiting his co-workers in Russia,” said Thomas, “where the Orthodox church is celebrating its liberation from Communist exclusion by warning their congregations off evildoers such as Jesuits, Baptists, and Seventh Day Adventists."

"Of course,” Maggie said sarcastically.

Rose felt less sarcastic than sad. “Mick says the inquest on his father's death brought in a verdict of murder by persons unknown—Mountjoy kept going on and on about ‘just the facts,’ and they never even considered a Foundation connection."

"Now Mountjoy's asked me to take your finger and footprints to compare with those at the crime scene, Thomas. Sorry,” Gupta apologized, although he sure wasn't Mountjoy's keeper.

"I did walk about the crime scene,” said Thomas. “I'll stop by the station tomorrow."

"But what about Calum's journal?” Maggie asked. “All that with Robin and Vivian?"

"I take it as evidence against Fitzroy. Mountjoy takes it as evidence Calum was cracked. The Foundation's solicitors had most of the material disallowed as hearsay, but D. S. Mackenzie in Edinburgh is keeping an open mind."

Gupta eyed the paintings but didn't quite see them. “We've asked Inland Revenue for an audit of the Foundation's books—Fitzroy's pulling down a huge salary, for one thing. The governing board says he deserves that, for his contribution to the Foundation, and is threatening to sue the Somerset Constabulary for official repression."

"Tax evasion is better than nothing,” said Maggie with a sigh, “but it's awfully small beans, considering."

"Ah, but even Goliath fell in the end to David's pebble,” Thomas said.

Rose looked again at the figure on the cross. Calum and Vivian were sacrificed, in a way. Not that they'd volunteered, the way Jesus had. “There are parts of the Story that just don't seem fair."

"In the words of my fictional brother Cadfael,” said Thomas, “'every now and then I like to place a grain of doubt in the oyster of my faith.’”

"By now I have a string of pearls as tall as you are,” Maggie returned.

Rose was up to at least a pair of earrings. She assured herself she just didn't have the big picture. Only God had the big picture.

"Do you have news of the Book?” Thomas asked Gupta.

"In a way, yes. The removal man who gave in his notice the day after it went missing, Stan Felton, is now working at a Newcastle warehouse owned by Reginald Soulis, a Foundation official. He was part of the Halloween pagan-bashing here in Glastonbury."

"Soulis.” Maggie made the name a hiss. “Please tell me the Book wasn't at Holystone. Couldn't you have smelled it or something, Thomas?"

"Not a bit of it, sorry."

Rose crossed her arms over her chest, fending off memory. “Robin wouldn't leave the Book there, would he? That hateful old woman would burn it or something. Which is what he wants, but not yet."

"Fitzroy wants it close to hand. I expect. Mountjoy says there's no point to interviewing either Soulis or Felton, though.” Gupta sighed heavily. “I must be off. Cheers."

"Bless you,” Thomas said to his departing back. He picked up his brush and turned toward the Blessed Mother's tranquil face, even though his own face was more grim than tranquil. “I'm making inquiries where I can, but just now we seem to have no other options other than allowing the secular authorities to search for the Book."

The corners of Maggie's mouth were tucked into vertical creases that hadn't been there three weeks ago. “I think I'll stay here awhile,” she said to Rose. “Go ahead and use my laptop. Send Mick a cyber-hello."

"And one from me as well,” Thomas told her.

"Sure,” Rose returned, without adding that a cyber-hello was cold comfort. She plunged back out into the rain.

In the gloom and wet, the house with its lighted windows looked like a huge submarine. Her head down, Rose went straight inside and up the stairs. From the third floor, the Puckles’ private territory, came Bess's voice. “I might could understand if she was on drugs—she had a rough time of it—Alf, she's scaring me to death...” A door slammed.

Poor Bess. Since the tornado Ellen had relapsed into fanatic mode. Rose would have wanted to save her own mother from a terrible fate, yeah, but still ... Shaking her head, she went into Maggie's room and plugged the laptop into the phone line.

She hadn't heard from Mick for a couple of days. He'd dropped his classes for the rest of the term, so he could work things out with the business, and God only knew the itinerary of the guilt trip he was on. Plus he'd e-mailed last week that someone was harassing him, knocking on his door in the middle of the night and stuff like that. Mackenzie was on the case, but wasn't getting anywhere. Go figure.

Rose decided she'd send him a note to let him know she was thinking of him. She booted up and accessed her e-mail account to find three new messages, one from Grace, one from a friend at SMU, one from Mick.
All right
! She opened his first.