Lucifer's Crown (36 page)

Frenzied blows rang against the door and shouts filtered through its metal panels.
I must look a treat
, Mick thought,
playing at Rambo
. He spat out the sheath, replaced the knife, and jammed both into his waistband. The shouts and blows stopped. They were coming round the other way.

A crumpled crisp packet skidded across the deserted car park. So did a flurry of snowflakes. Mick took the steps in one leap and raced toward his borrowed car, his cousin Rennie's Fiat, parked at the corner of the building. As he threw himself behind the wheel he saw a green Jaguar and something small and shabby parked in the visitor's spaces at the front.

The Fiat's engine wouldn't start. Here came Mountjoy out the front, followed by Armstrong's peculiar hirple beneath the weight of the parcel, and Robin trotting behind in his own good time.

Mick told himself to send Amy round to reset the alarms. And a word in Rennie's ear about automotive maintenance wouldn't go amiss ... The engine roared. He threw the car into gear and screeched across the car park just ahead of Mountjoy's lunge.

The light at the street was against him. With a frantic look to both sides he turned anyway. A glance in the mirror. Here came the shabby wee car, and behind it the green Jaguar. Which of them had the parcel?

It didn't matter. What mattered was that he didn't have it. He'd led that smirking demon himself straight to it. All he could do now was protect the knife. If Robin got the knife, he'd have the Stone, too. Dad died for the Stone, he'd never known it was the Book actually in his hands.

God help me
, Mick thought,
I put the boot in this time—I should've done something, anything different ...
Snowflakes dotted the windscreen. The sky was low and leaden. The headlamps of the cars glinted in the mirror and Mick winced. But the Jaguar was falling behind. Robin had the Book. Why bother himself to chase down the knife? He'd won this round, why not the next as well?
God help us
.

There, a short one-way street led to the Queensferry Road. Mick went round the corner on two wheels, accelerated the wrong way up the street, turned again, and shot onto Queensferry well past the speed limit.

The dreich day, the thickening snow, the lights of the other cars—it was a grand time to be making an escape. Within minutes Mick lost himself in the flow of traffic and started breathing again. Now he'd have to own up to his failure, to Thomas, to Maggie, to Rose-not that Rose could be more than a friend, the e-mail she'd meant to send her sister proved that. Unless Robin...

All he could do the night was go where Thomas had told him to go. The flat was right out, and Mountjoy had likely taken the Fiat's number plate—though Robin might not stoop to calling out the Lothian constabulary ... Mick sped on, towards the A9 and Schiehallion, the fairy hill that his father had remembered there, at the end.

Rose peered out into the gathering darkness. Below the highway Loch Tay was the same dull metallic gray as the overcast sky. A thick fog veiled the hills. Back home SMU's red brick buildings glowed in the sunlight. Her friends were hanging out in the Starbucks or checking out the new videos at Blockbuster. They thought thirties-era Snider Plaza was old and quaint.

Dallas seemed long ago and far away, not quite real. Real was the cold, dark trip from Glastonbury. Real was Sunday night with Professor and Mrs. Llewellyn in Durham, where the great cathedral on its hill was as much fortress as church.

She could still hear Thomas's voice, resonant beneath the heavy Norman columns that tied heaven to earth and brooked no nonsense about it. “The Book rested in Durham's treasury until the Reformation, when it was looted and carried south. Unlike too many other relics, I was able to prevent it from being burned as an idolatrous object or melted down as treasure. I gave it into the hands of the Keeper of Records of the Tower of London. Some years later it went into the foundation collection of the British Museum."

Mick had called them at the Llewellyn's house. He'd found the Book, yes! And no! he'd lost it again, ambushed by Robin, Mountjoy, and P. C. Armstrong. He was crushed.
Well
, Rose told herself firmly,
he can still use a friend, can't he?

A sign read, “Fortingall 1.” Maggie glanced over her shoulder. “Rose, it's not my business, I know, but what's with you and Mick?"

"I got an e-mail he intended for a girlfriend in Glasgow. I didn't know he already had a girlfriend."

"Are you sure it wasn't Robin, messing with your mind?"

"No, I'm not sure. I should have asked Mick the night Bess died, but it all seemed so petty then. I guess tonight's my chance to ask, even though I'm not sure I want to know."

"No relationship,” said Thomas, “is without its moments of doubt."

"Yeah,” Maggie said under her breath. Rose could make a pretty good guess what she was thinking, but her relationship with Thomas was her own.

Houses lined the road, their windows feeble gleams in the fog-thickened twilight. A huge yew tree stood beside a church, branches gnarled beyond all comprehension of time. Fortingall. Just past an Arts and Crafts style hotel, Thomas turned onto a gravel driveway. The house at its end was painted white. Each crow-stepped gable made a shelf of snow beside the slick black slate of the roof. Smoke curled from the chimney. The front door opened, light drove back the gloom, and Mick came down the walk looking like one of General Custer's scouts.

Fixing a smile on her face, Rose climbed out of the car. “Hi."

"Hello yourself.” His smile didn't quite work.

"Hello, Mick,” said Maggie.

"Thomas, Maggie, I'm sorry I dinna have better news for you. You trusted me, and I let you down. I made a right good show of running away is all."

"You didn't let us down,” said Thomas.

"You did the right thing,” Rose told him, imagining his body lying in a trench like his father's. “You saved the knife."

"Well then.” Clearing his throat, Mick went on, “I was expecting the mini-bus."

"I thought we should have a vehicle with four-wheel drive,” explained Thomas, “so I hired this Range Rover. I don't suppose Fiona is preparing the tea?"

"That she is.” Mick scooped up Thomas's satchel and Maggie's backpack, leaving Rose to shoulder her own.

Two people waited in the doorway of the house. “Come in, come in,” said a man's voice. A woman's added, “It's cold as a witch's teat out there."

Rose shook hands with Stavros and Fiona Paleologos. He was short and stout, and most of his black hair had migrated downward to an amazing moustache. She was tall and thin, with a forelock of gray hair and prominent front teeth. “Mick,” she said, “could you take the bags upstairs?"

Rose followed Mick while he dropped Thomas's bag in one room and Maggie's in another, decorated in flowery chintz. Throwing her backpack onto one of the beds, she gritted her teeth and turned to face him. Lines scored his forehead. His eyes glinted a hard steel-gray, like armor. He was wearing a blue Celtic cross. She tried, “Are you okay?"

He was looking her over, too. “Oh aye. Just. And you, with Bess and all? I reckon she was murdered, like Dad and Vivian, only not so direct."

"Ellen freaked out after the tornado and kept trying to convert her and she freaked out over Ellen...” Rose looked down at her feet, slightly pigeon-toed as though recoiling from Mick's feet a few inches away. “I'm trying to be compassionate, really I am, but it's not easy."

"What is?” Mick asked. “And the others—Anna and Sean?"

Rose looked back up, meeting his sober but non-judgmental eyes. “Sean decided to spend a couple of days with one of his buddies whose class is doing Boadicea's Rebellion. Anna's still at Temple Manor. She wanted to hear a concert at the Assembly Rooms, and she's taking Ellen to a doctor—she's got an infected hand. Mind, too, I'd say."

"Robin, he's like a plague, spreading distrust instead of disease.” Tentatively Mick brushed Rose's hair back from her face.

She leaned into the touch, suddenly hopeful, still afraid to come right out and ask. “Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent. It's almost Christmas, New Year's, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, whatever. I have to go home the first week of January, assuming there's a home to go to, but right now home seems less real than—than Camelot."

"Real as e-mail?” he murmured, his hand retreating.

"E-mail, yeah.”
Let's get this over with
. “Mick, I got a message you meant for a girl named Jennie."

"What? Bloody hell!” His eyes flashed from bewilderment to anger. “I got a message you meant for your sister, telling her I was a dead loss, that you'd rather have Sean."

Rose went dizzy with relief. She set her fingertips against Mick's necklace—like swearing on the Bible. “Sean was coming on to me at first. But nothing clicked, and then you came along."

"Jennie is a lass at university I'd have asked out if all this hadn't started up. If I'd not met you."

"So Robin
was
messing with our minds! Why couldn't I have trusted you?"

"And I you?” he asked with a grimace.

"Mick...” The name welled up from deep in Rose's chest.

From downstairs Maggie called, “Mick, Rose, food's on!"

Exchanging pained smiles, they walked side by side down the stairs. A calico cat greeted them with a meow. “Meet Ariadne,” said Mick.

"Hello there. Got any balls of string to guide us through the maze?” Rose bent to stroke Ariadne's silky head. The cat purred.

Along the wall of the dining room were arranged several icons, the faces of Mary, Jesus, and various saints looking out from coronas of embossed silver and gold. Under the calm gaze of those eyes Rose sat down at the table and ate her tea, daring to hope that she'd find calm eventually.

Mick filled them in on his escape, concluding, “I wanted to help my dad by saving the Book."

"You are helping your father,” Thomas told him.

Fiona and Stavros exchanged nods. Maybe they didn't know who Thomas or Robin really were, but they knew the Story, like the Llewellyns at Durham and the Shaws at Otterburn. Swallowing her last bite of toast, butter, and jam, Rose asked, “Can I help with the dishes?"

"Not at all. You have yourselves a rest,” Fiona answered.

In the sitting room, Stavros poked the smoldering peats in the tiny grate until they flared into flame. Light danced across shelf after shelf, where photos of children and grandchildren nestled among stacks of books. Ariadne sauntered in and sat down on the hearth. Then Fiona clinked through the doorway with a bottle of whiskey, a pitcher of water, and six glasses. “Here's a wee doch and dorris to see you on your way the morn.” She poured and passed. Rose held her glass to the light, admiring the whiskey's gold glints, like captured sunlight. The morning, yes.

Thomas offered the toast. “May Mick's courage of yesterday inspire us all in the days to come."

"Courage? Well then, thank you kindly.” Mick drank deep.

Rose sipped. Her mouth filled with the sharp-sweet flavor of sunshine, grain, mist, and smoke. Her cheeks burned and her stomach glowed.

"We'll get on with the clearing up,” said Stavros.

"Thank you,” Maggie called after them, and the others echoed her words.

Rose sat on the couch, Mick beside her. The tingle reached her toes.

"I knew Robin wanted me to lead him to the Stone,” Mick said, “but I never thought he wanted me to lead him to the Book."

"So confident was he of his hold over Calum he imagined he could have both Stone and Book conveniently together,” said Thomas.

Maggie stretched her feet out to the fire. Ariadne sniffed at her toe. The firelight reflected off the glass in Thomas's hands and the glasses on his face, reminding Rose of the silver and gold decorations on the icons in the dining room. She asked, “Are you surprised about Mountjoy?"

"I was afraid some shadowed corner of the man's heart would lead him into Robin's hands. It's Armstrong who surprises me."

"I reckon Mountjoy told him I'd tried to kill him, and brought him along as muscle,” said Mick. “But he didna seem at all hateful, not like the other two, and I'm not so sure he didna help me escape."

Thomas nodded. “Then we shall keep an open mind. As for Mountjoy, I got onto Kay Dunnet last night. She'll have a word with the chief constable of Northumbria, so that he can set Mountjoy straight. That should help us, but will do little to heal his fear and pride."

"Who?” Rose asked.

"Kay Dunnet is a judge. She is also the guardian of the Brecbennoch of St. Columba, the reliquary that was just given a place of honor in the new Museum of Scotland."

"Bruce had the Brecbennoch at Bannockburn,” said Mick.

"It was carried into battle by the Abbot of Arbroath, an abbey that is important in the history of the Stone."

"I suppose,” Maggie said, “it's no coincidence that Arbroath Abbey was founded by King William the Lion in your honor."

"Neither is it a coincidence that the English defeated William the same day Henry did penance for the murder at Canterbury."

"God having a sense of humor."

"I should distrust a deity without one,” Thomas said with a smile.

Mick shifted uneasily. “Mountjoy'll not be doing me for assault?"

"Not unless he wants to be charged with aiding and abetting a criminal posing as a police officer."

With a long exhalation, Mick slumped toward Rose. Ariadne dozed, her eyes bits of ancient amber, exuding tranquility. Crockery jingled in the kitchen. A clock chimed seven. Thomas said, “We must make an early start tomorrow."

Maggie's eyes were half-closed, like the cat's. The cross resting on her sweater rose and fell, gleaming in the light. “Dawn patrol. Over the top."

"The calm before the storm. The eye of the hurricane."

Rose's mind surfed down the flames in the fireplace and the glow in her body. Tomorrow. Outside this house waited fog, death, and the Devil. She'd expected Thomas to deliver another of his sermons, lectures, whatever, steeling them to face their—no sense in mincing words—dangerous quest. Not that anyone thought it was safe. Thomas trusted their intelligence and their courage ... She drained her whiskey, wondering if its courage was any more false than any other kind. But no. You just had to choose courage, didn't you?