The Devil Will Come (7 page)

It appeared to be a stick-figure, the trunk a vertical line, the arms C-shaped upwards as if raised, the legs C-shaped downwards. The vertical line extended above the arms to create a head or neck but it also extended below the legs.

‘It’s surely the symbol for Pisces, but it’s traditionally portrayed on its side. Vertically, it looks more like a man, doesn’t it? My original wall had the same variant. And if it’s meant to be a man, what do you suppose that is?’ Elisabetta asked, pointing at the segment between the legs. ‘A phallus?’

The archeologists seemed embarrassed at hearing a nun utter the word and De Stefano quickly rejoindered, ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘What, then?’ she asked.

The old professor paused a moment and told Trapani, ‘All right, pull back the ground tarps.’

The men worked quickly, almost theatrically to accomplish their version of a dramatic reveal, exposing the length and breadth of the debris-strewn floor.

Elisabetta put her hand to her mouth to stifle an oath. ‘My God!’ she whispered. ‘How many?’

De Stefano sighed. ‘As you can see, our excavations have been hasty and there’s undoubtedly jumble and stackage from the cave-in, but there are approximately eighty-five adults and twelve children.’

The bodies were mostly skeletal, but because of the sealed atmosphere some were partially mummified, retaining tan patches of adherent skin, bits of hair and fragments of clothing. Elisabetta made out a few faces with their mouths agape – fixed, it almost seemed, in mid-gasp.

The remains were only incompletely exposed; hundreds of man-hours would be required to extricate them thoroughly and carefully from the rubble. There were so many that she found it hard to focus on one at a time.

Then, out of the tangle of arms, legs, ribs, skulls and spines one singular feature emerged, crashing into Elisabetta’s consciousness like a huge wave pounding against a rock. Her eyes darted from one to another until she felt her vision blur and her knees go liquid.

Holy father, give me strength
.

It was undeniable.

Every body, every man, woman and child stretched out before her possessed a bony tail.

JANKO MULEJ HABITUALLY
cracked his knuckles when he became impatient. The gesture wasn’t lost on Krek.

‘What’s the matter?’ Krek demanded.

Mulej was in his forties, a decade younger than his host, ugly as the back of a bus, as Krek liked to say, even to Mulej’s face. He was almost twice Krek’s size, a giant of a man who would have had to go around in tracksuits were it not for his excellent tailor in Ljubljana. ‘Perhaps we should pack it in for the night.’

The great room at Castle Krek never got warm even in the height of summer and on this spring night Krek had deemed a fire to be in order. He liked his flames to leap high and throughout the evening he liberally piled on fresh logs to keep the massive fireplace roaring hotly.

The medieval manor had been in his family for four hundred years though it was nominally out of Krek hands during the unpleasant decades of Communist rule. Nestled in several hundred hectares of Slovenian woodlands, a few kilometers from Lake Bled, its original
squared-off
keep dated from the thirteenth century. The deep moat was stocked with carp and from outward appearances the ragged stonework of the castle suggested a certain shabbiness and disrepair.

That impression was obliterated upon entry. Krek’s father had been a reclusive man who had rarely left the grounds. Throughout his life he lavished greater attention on his basement-to-parapet renovation of the castle than on his son. Ivo Krek had concentrated on the guts of the house, the masonry, the plumbing, furnace, wiring. His son shared his father’s devotion to the castle but turned his keen eye toward furnishings and trappings of modernity. The reception rooms with their Romanesque arches were lavishly appointed with period antiques but Krek blended in contemporary overstuffed pieces to make the rooms inhabitable. Flat-panel televisions coexisted with medieval walnut carvings. A sixteenth-century cabinet with painted hunting scenes contained a €400,000 Danish audio system. The state-of-the-art chef’s kitchen could have sprung from the pages of a decorating magazine.

He chose to receive Mulej and others in the great room. Its magnificent scale dwarfed men, even one of Mulej’s size, and Krek liked his people to feel small in his presence.

Krek glanced at the grandfather clock. It was ten o’clock. ‘I’ve been up since four and you’re the one who’s tired?’ he asked Mulej, his voice rising. ‘Don’t you know what’s at stake here? Don’t you realize how little time we have?’

Mulej shifted his considerable weight on the armless leather sofa. He was seated uncomfortably close to the fire and was sweating profusely but he would never move from the spot because this was where Krek had placed him. The table between them was piled high with corporate folios, financial reports and a selection of newspapers.

‘Of course I do, K,’ Mulej said, wiping his damp forehead with his soaked handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll go on as long as you like.’

Krek threw a log down hard onto the pile, making the fire spark wildly. An ember landed on his trousers. He swore and when he flicked it off he continued swearing at Mulej. The man’s apology was having little effect. ‘The Conclave is in less than a week, there’s going to be a new Pope and now we’ve got this problem at St Callixtus! We have an enormous amount of work to do! You’ll sleep when I tell you to sleep, you’ll eat when I tell you to eat! Do you understand?’

To the outside world Mulej was Krek’s Cerberus, the menacing beast guarding the gates of hell, the managing director of his conglomerate. But when his boss raged at him the hellhound became a small, frightened mutt.

Krek looked upwards as if he could see through the ceilings to the constellations of the night sky. ‘Why the hell did Bruno Ottinger have to die? I miss the old goat. I trusted him.’

‘You can trust me too,’ Mulej said meekly.

‘Yes, I suppose I can trust you,’ Krek said, calming
down
. ‘But you’re rather stupid. Ottinger was a genius, almost my equal.’

Mulej quickly picked up the copy of the daily newspaper,
Delo
, and dropped it back on the stack, as if anxious to change the subject. ‘So what do you want me to do about this?’

The editorial-and-opinions page sported a good-sized photo of Krek, a flattering if somewhat brooding treatment, emerging dramatically from blackness with the headline:
DAMJAN KREK – WHY WON’T HE RUN FOR PRESIDENT
? A political commentator they knew well, a gadfly of the right, was stirring the pot again.

‘We should ignore it,’ Krek sighed. ‘Why won’t this guy leave me alone?’

Mulej answered his question with another. ‘How many billionaires are there in Slovenia?’

‘The disadvantage of being a large fish in a small lake,’ Krek said. ‘We do best when we work in the shadows. Politicians!’ He spat the word out.

‘We’ve had our share,’ Mulej said.

Krek’s voice was full of contempt. ‘Moths to the flame.’

The phone on the internal line from the gatehouse rang. Krek answered it. ‘I’d forgotten,’ he said. ‘Send her up.’

‘Do you want me to stay?’ Mulej asked.

‘I’ll be no more than an hour,’ Krek said. ‘Yes, stay! Don’t you dare leave. When I get back I want to see a proposal of the trades we’re going to set up between now and next week.’

‘I know what to do, K,’ Mulej said wearily.

‘And I want you to make sure the statement is checked by one of our Arabic speakers. It has to appear authentic.’

‘It’s being done.’

‘And draw up a press release expressing the company’s outrage on behalf of myself and, of course, our Catholic employees. Got it?’

‘Got it.’

‘And, most importantly, I want a plan for dealing with the catacombs. I can’t believe this happened at the worst possible moment. I want our people in Italy to know this is my highest priority. I want the best information, the best plan and the best execution.’ He had been gradually creeping closer to Mulej and now he stood over him. He stabbed a finger into his shoulder. ‘Got it?’

The big man nodded obediently. ‘Yes, K.’

The doorbell chimed and Krek responded personally.

One of his security men was escorting a young woman. Krek welcomed her into the hall with a smile. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My name is Aleida, Mister Krek.’ She had a Dutch accent.

‘My friends call me K,’ he said. ‘I was told you were lovely. I’m not disappointed.’

‘It’s an honor to meet you. Surely one of the great events of my life.’ Aleida was a brunette with a film-star face. Her cheeks were flushed with the excitement of the moment.

‘Come with me,’ Krek said. ‘My time is limited.’

‘Of course, Mister Krek – K – a man like you has many responsibilities, I’m sure.’

He led her up an ornately carved staircase past a succession of bygone Kreks frozen in portraiture. ‘You have no idea.’

Both sides of the hallway were lined with stag antlers, a dangerous gauntlet to run if one stumbled through in a drunken stupor. The residential areas of the castle were also uncontaminated by any traces of femininity. Krek’s wife had died of a swiftly moving neurological condition years earlier and what frills of hers he had tolerated were purged when she was gone. His estate was feral, populated with wild boar and roe deer. It was a hunting castle. A man’s house.

Krek’s bedroom was large but austere. A planked floor with a few small rugs. A huge spiral-carved oak post in the center of the room supporting enormous beams. A medieval chest against a wall. A tapestry. A large bed with a half-canopy covered in striped damask.

Krek sat at the foot of the bed and removed his necktie.

‘I was told you’re altered,’ he said.

Aleida lowered her eyes and whispered something by way of apology.

‘I don’t ordinarily accept altered women but I was advised I should make an exception.’

‘My parents sent me to a boarding school where the girls showered together,’ she said softly. ‘I didn’t want to lose it but they sent me for the operation.’

‘It’s a common story. I wish these things didn’t happen but I accept that they do. Show me.’

Obediently, Aleida began to remove her clothes. First her coat, then her high-heeled shoes, her blouse, her tight skirt. There was no furniture nearby. She let the items drop to the floor.

Krek told her to stop to allow him to feast his eyes on the way she looked in her lingerie. He didn’t want her to turn around, not for the moment. ‘Keep going,’ he finally said.

Aleida unclipped her black stockings from their garters and peeled them off, then deftly shed her bra and slowly pulled down her black thong. She was shaved and smooth.

‘Very nice,’ Krek said, leaning back on one arm. ‘Now turn around.’

She did. There it was: a pale thin midline scar over her sacral spine running about six centimeters.

‘Come closer.’

He inspected the scar and traced it with his finger. ‘Who did it?’

‘Dr Zweens,’ she said. ‘In Utrecht.’

‘I know him. He does good work. So, Aleida, you’re quite beautiful. I see no problems here.’

He turned her by the hips to face him. She looked down at him gratefully.

Krek stood, undid his belt and let his trousers fall to the floor. She finished the job and pulled down his shorts.

He guided her hands around his waist. Aleida did
the
rest, moving them slowly and sensually to his lower back where she grabbed hold of the thick shaft at the base of his spine. She ran her fingers down its length. It was as meaty as his cock and every bit as hard.

‘Pull it,’ Krek moaned. ‘Pull it hard.’

ELISABETTA’S SMALL OFFICE
was on the third floor of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Archeology on the Via Napoleone, a bustling Roman street on a gentle hill. Outside, everything was moving at speed – cars, motorbikes and pedestrians – and the cacophony of engines and people made the city seem vibrant. Inside, the pace was languid. The staff shuffled through the halls at a crawl. The catacombs and monuments had been there for centuries, they reckoned, so what was the rush?

Elisabetta didn’t share this sense of torpor. Over at Piazza Mastai her classes were being taught without her! Sister Marilena had taken them over so the children were being well-served – that wasn’t the biggest problem. This assignment was a schism, a rip through the fabric of her soul, for all the sinister fascination it held for her now. The patterns of her day had a purpose, all to serve God. For the first time in a dozen years she’d been tipped from her gently rocking lifeboat and cast into an unfamiliar sea.

The books and papers on her desk were from a
different
time, a different Elisabetta. She recognized her own handwriting, remembered the marginalia she’d made but they seemed alien to her. She resented them, resented Professor De Stefano and resented the staff at the Institute. To her mind, they were players in a conspiracy to pluck her away from the things she loved. Even the clergy at the Institute seemed like inhabitants of a parallel universe with missions different from her own. The nuns were more like clock-watching secretaries, the priests smelled of cigarettes and talked about TV shows in the lunch room. She had to finish this job of hers, whatever it was, and return to precious normalcy.

Elisabetta was thumbing through her old copy of Manilius’s
Astronomica
when she felt a sudden need to shut everything out and pray silently.

She closed her eyes and clutched the cross hanging from her neck, hard enough to hurt her hand which already ached frequently from her old palm laceration. ‘Dear Lord, I lost all thoughts of myself and that of my old life when I abandoned myself to your divine spirit. I yielded my heart to the power of your love. That heart which was almost pierced by an assassin’s knife, that heart now belongs to you. I offer up my actions, my trials, my sufferings that my entire being may be employed in loving, honoring and glorifying you. It is my irrevocable will to belong entirely to you, to live and die as one of your devoted servants. Please let nothing disturb my deep peace. Heal my heart from impurity. Amen.’