Of Saints and Shadows (1994) Read online

  Two young women passed by, hand in hand, and he silently wished them luck. A burly man proudly bore a cross on his chest, and Henri shook his head with pity. Down the sun-starved alleys of this old city, the homeless thrived in ever-increasing numbers, and they were the only ones who had escaped the machinations of church and state. The dark-suited and skirted businesspeople strutted by, strong in their belief in their own freedom—yet it was painfully obvious that their government had been manipulating them, lying to them for decades.

  He should talk, though, eh?

  He had readily swallowed deception, had taken faith like a miracle elixir that does nothing but confirm your illness, inspiring further consumption.

  “And who is the fool?” he whispered to himself. The greatest fool is the one who sees the truth and still believes in his own free will and power to act.

  But act he had, and he was certain he had not gone unnoticed. The keepers of the book would surely be on his trail, might even now be tracking him. He looked around from time to time, but nothing seemed amiss.

  As if he, an old man who’d seen one too many Alfred Hitchcock films, would actually know if he was being followed. He smiled at himself. Better, of course, to be as cautious as possible. He knew well the tendrils of Vatican power that snaked around this Earth.

  Another block of hotels and restaurants, screaming horns and shouting cabdrivers. Brakes squealed as those dark suits hurried toward lunch meetings, and Guiscard heard bits of nonsense conversation as they rushed past.

  The buildings created a valley through which the icy wind whipped, angrily buffeting the crowd with their backs turned toward it. Henri’s eyes watered and his teeth clenched and he shivered as he brushed the hair from his eyes. Above him, the sky was swollen and gray, a warning of the storm to come.

  He walked down a block, then turned and made his way back to the Park Plaza. He had made one huge circle, walking in the direction of Beacon Hill, then doubling back in an amateurish attempt to smoke out any predators.

  Inside, patrons and employees of all religions gave him a kind of deference that had always fascinated him but that he now found repulsive. It was the collar, he knew; it had once meant something to him, and for these people it symbolized the fact that something else was out there. That there was a plan and therefore a being or beings who had devised this plan.

  Well, he had good news and bad news for them. The good news was they were right. The bad news was they were right. Never wish too hard for something or you might just get it. He had heard that statement several times and only just recognized its humor.

  Across the lobby, doors opened into Legal Sea Food, where a hostess led him on a winding path through an ocean of business lunches, to arrive at a table where Daniel Benedict sat. The attorney had arrived early enough to gel a table in the busy restaurant, and Henri was glad to sit down. Time for business, though. Daniel’s face was grave.

  “Your waiter will be along shortly,” the hostess chirped before gliding away.

  “Good afternoon, Your Eminence.”

  “Please, Dan. I appreciate the respect and your sense of propriety, but it is unnecessary. Call me Henri, or Father Guiscard if you must.”

  “Sure, Father, sorry. To business then?”

  “To business,” he affirmed, but paused when he noticed how distracted Benedict was. “What’s wrong, Daniel? Something gone wrong with our business plan?” he asked, though he could see it was something more serious.

  “No, Father, nothing like that.” He sighed, letting his breath out slowly, so slowly. “A good friend of mine—you’ve met her actually, Janet Harris, the paralegal who works with me—she’s disappeared. Just gone. Thin air. And nobody knows where to even begin looking.”

  “How awful.”

  “I’m sorry, Father, I guess the collar brings out the confession in us old Catholic-school boys.”

  That damn collar again!

  “It’s not like we were dating or anything, but, well, I was pretty taken with her. Sorry, I’ll shut up now.”

  “No, Daniel,” he said sincerely. “Please don’t shut up on my account. You’ve every reason to be upset.”

  “Well, let’s get to work so I can stop thinking about her.”

  The waiter arrived, giving Henri a chance to take a good look at his friend. He was overworked and under stress, but a good man. He began to wonder whether this business would cause trouble for Dan, but his involvement had been unavoidable. After all, how much trouble could there be in setting up a nonprofit church organization? Of course, that might depend on what that organization was preaching . . . or publishing for that matter.

  “What can I get you, Father?”

  “Hmm?” Guiscard smiled up at the waiter. “Oh, I’ll have whatever he’s having.”

  The hostess led Liam Mulkerrin to his table, two away from the renegade Guiscard and the lawyer Benedict. He sat with his back to them.

  Benedict’s appearance was deceiving, he thought as he sipped his water. The man was of medium height, only about five-eight or nine at the most, yet stocky and muscular from lifting weights, and his sandy blond hair was clipped in almost military fashion. His smooth skin would have given his face an almost boyish appearance had it not been for his square, jutting jaw and gravely serious eyes.

  He looked like a man of action, Mulkerrin thought. But looks are nearly always deceiving. He had been following the man for several days, in court, in bars, listening to him argue and simply converse. Benedict was a thinker, a general among common soldiers.

  Which made it necessary to kill him as quickly as possible.

  The cardinal, on the other hand, had to be kept alive at least long enough, just long enough, to reveal where he had hidden the book. Though Mulkerrin had sworn his fealty, it was not the wishes of his Vatican superior that nurtured his dedication. No, more his own power, his own plans. These were pushing him on. He was the only living being to have mastered the skills taught from that book, to have memorized its every word. Certainly there were others who had begun to train, whom he had begun to tutor, but they had far to go and the older masters were long dead.

  His acolytes, his pupils, his disciples (if he allowed himself that small sin) must finish their training. He could not by himself command all the forces described in the book. But by commanding his disciples, who in turn would command the darkness, he would be power. Power incarnate.

  The Blessed Event, which he had so carefully coaxed his superior, Garbarino, into orchestrating, was only the beginning of Mulkerrin’s plan. The prelude to the Blessed Event was already taking place in many locations around the world, but before that wondrous day arrived, he had to recover the book.

  As he waited for a waitress to take his order, his fingers drummed a soft rhythm on the table. Any of the restaurant’s patrons, glancing at him, would have seen a man deep in thought. And indeed, he was concentrating, but his appearance was a facade. Mulkerrin listened very carefully to the conversation two tables away.

  Much of what he heard he already knew, but he was still angered by it. Guiscard’s plans were moving faster than he anticipated. Benedict was partly to blame; in a nation of idiots, Guiscard had found a competent lawyer. Mulkerrin reminded himself of the need for expediency in the attorney’s termination.

  Perhaps the mist-wraiths, he thought, and smiled to himself. Sorcery, it once was called, but that was when the world believed in such things.

  By the time Mulkerrin had finished his lunch of bay shrimp and salad, the conversation at the next table had long since turned personal. He lost interest as Guiscard and Benedict talked of family and friends and offered opinions on politics and the weather. He was elated by the knowledge that the lawyer lived alone.

  He noticed that neither man broached the subject of religion.

  He paid his bill and sat sipping coffee without tasting it as the two men rose and donned their coats. As they began to walk away Mulkerrin put down his coffee, and followed quickly after them.
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br />   A mother scolded her little boy for not finishing his lobster. The boy smiled violently at her, and she shut up quickly, unnerved. The friendly hostess was being harassed by a couple complaining about the long wait, and as Mulkerrin passed she suggested they fuck off and die.

  He barely paid attention to the hostess as he went through the door. He stood in the Park Plaza and watched as Benedict and Guiscard said their good-byes, the cardinal heading for the elevator and Benedict crossing the lobby toward the door. Liam started after him.

  Outside, the wind had died down a bit and snow was falling silently. Not much had accumulated in the hour since it had begun, but the sky was bleached white, promising quite a storm. The lawyer was headed toward Government Center, back to his firm, Claremont, Miller & Moore, and Father Liam Mulkerrin followed with practiced nonchalance.

  The snow became heavier, the flakes huge and falling fast. Two blocks from Benedict’s destination, Mulkerrin began to weave the spell. His hands moved in small Jolts at his side, his fingers pointing and bending, drawing circles in the air. He whispered a few guttural words under his breath. Though complicated, the spell had become simple for him. A block from the building it was complete; when Daniel Benedict entered the building, Mulkerrin was there. Though a small part of his conscious mind stayed with his body, standing there on the street corner with his eyes closed as the snow fell in his hair, it was there only to alert him if anyone disturbed his corporeal form. The rest of his mind rode up the elevator with Benedict, concentrating on the job at hand.

  Looking out through Daniel Benedict’s eyes, Liam Mulkerrin saw a pretty woman approaching; through the lawyer’s ears, he heard her say hello. What Mulkerrin most enjoyed about this spell was that the host had no idea he or she was being violated. He could intrude upon a person’s life for hours, and only the most spiritually attuned would ever feel the invasion. His only regret was that being inside a person’s mind did not allow him to read it.

  Mulkerrin relaxed in Dan Benedict’s mind. He was looking for anything; any bit of information could be the clue to the book’s whereabouts. The woman was in her thirties, jet-black hair and gray eyes.

  “Martina.” He waved. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been looking for you, Danny.”

  “If it’s a problem, I don’t want to hear about it. I’m cutting out early. I need to get some rest.”

  “It’s about Janet,” she said, and Mulkerrin felt the lawyer start.

  “What happened?” he asked, the hope in his voice undisguisable.

  “Well, it’s sort of weird. It seems her father hired a PI, and he’s got Meaghan helping him out.

  “Meaghan came in today and wanted a rundown on Janet’s recent cases. I gave her some stuff—files, notes, Jan’s calendar. But I told her you were the lawyer on most of those cases and she should talk to you for details. She left her work number on your desk.”

  Dan was silent for a moment.

  “I hope that was okay,” Martina added. “I mean she said she’d have the stuff back by Monday.”

  “Huh. Oh, yeah, that’s fine. Thanks.”

  Mulkerrin was angry. This mission was starting to get complicated and he hated complicated. As Benedict headed for his desk the priest contemplated his next move.

  On the desk, Dan found Meaghan’s number and picked up the phone as he dropped into his leather chair. Mulkerrin memorized the number immediately. Benedict was nervous and dialed too quickly, making a mistake. On the second try, it went through.

  “Chaykin and O’Neil.”

  “Meaghan Gallagher, please.”

  “I’m sorry, Meaghan’s left for the day. As a matter of fact, we’re closing due to the storm. Is there someone else who could help you?”

  “No, no. I’ll try her tomorrow.”

  The lawyer hung up, then spun through his Rolodex, stopping at Janet Harris: 685-2033. Mulkerrin memorized this number as well, and out on the street, snow blanketing his hair, a sneering smile crossed the priest’s face.

  Benedict wrote the number on a piece of scrap paper and put it into his right-hand pocket. He grabbed his briefcase and left. He had never removed his coat.

  Mulkerrin let himself drift out of Benedict’s head and blinked as his vision came back into focus. A young man smoking a cigarette stood and stared at him as he opened his eyes. Obviously he had piqued the man’s curiosity.

  A few moments later Benedict came out. He began to walk away from the building in the heavy snow. Mulkerrin watched him go, frustrated. Now he would have to dispose of this private eye, whoever he was, and this Gallagher woman. He had no idea what they knew, but there was no room for security risks in this situation.

  As he watched the lawyer disappear into the blinding white, he smiled in spite of his annoyance as he thought about what was in store for Daniel Benedict later that evening.

  4

  IT WAS STILL EARLY MORNING, YET PETER Octavian sat up in his bed. He stared into the darkness, not seeing his apartment but something else. He was not truly awake, yet neither was he dreaming.

  Through the darkness of his room, across the city and the ocean and halfway across another continent, his mind’s eye looked upon a small room in southern Germany. A room in which his friend and onetime mentor, Karl Von Reinman, slept peacefully. Across his chest lay a young female Peter had never seen before.

  Octavian had first met the German on the night of his own death, well over five hundred years earlier. Truth be told, Karl was his murderer, though it had been the result of a contract between the two men. Afterward, Peter became part of Von Reinman’s coven, following him all over the world with the other eleven. It was Karl who named him Octavian, the eighth.

  Gradually something began to change between them. Peter was learning and growing, and though born to the life of a warrior, he had grown tired of it. He abandoned the coven in Boston on the eve of the twentieth century and struck out on his own to learn as much as he could about their kind. He did learn, and changed. He tried to convince Karl that he and the others were destroying themselves, that they were both far less and far more human than They cared to believe . . . or were able to believe. But it was hard for his old friend to listen. Though his mind had forgiven Peter, his heart still fell that betrayal.

  Now Peter sat completely still, staring blankly at the walls of his Boston apartment, entranced by this vision of an old friend. He and the German shared a psychic rapport, a consequence of Peter’s initial transformation. He could see exactly what Karl was doing at any time, if he cared to look. This time, however, he had not looked. This was being shown to him and he had no idea why. He was a helpless witness.

  It wasn’t a question of waking up. One moment Karl was asleep and the next he was simply wide-awake. He had sensed, far too late, the presence outside the front door. An ax crunched thick wood, the door. Quietly, he tried to wake the girl, Una. She was replacing number one, who had been brutally killed less than six months ago. Rut the new Una, formerly Maria Hernandez,, had been transformed less than a week earlier. Now she was too blood drunk to wake, and Karl’s silent prodding was useless.

  He left her there.

  There were no windows in the bedroom, a safety measure. If there was but one intruder, he need only wail in the dark room and kill them as they entered. Rut he knew instinctively who they were, and was certain they would not be foolish enough to send only one or two.

  Karl grabbed the bedspread that was balled up at Una’s feet. He threw it over his head, wrapping it around his face like a cloak. Just in case. He ran into the front hallway. The ax fell again, letting a stream of daylight into the house. Light stabbed across the room and a flaming scar appeared on Karl’s face. He moved quickly from the spot.

  What had Octavian told him, half a century ago?

  Believe, he had said, and you will burn.

  It was difficult to concentrate. In the hall he put a hand and foot on either wall and scuttled up a few feet. He pushed up on the wooden square that ser
ved as a door to the attic and moved it to the side. Quietly, he pulled himself in, and slowly replaced the trapdoor as a larger portion of the heavy front door splintered away, allowing a hand to reach in and work the locks.

  Poor Una.

  As he heard the invaders make their way into the house, he turned to the attic window. Bars inside the glass, shutters outside. He crept toward it, completely silent as he had taught all of them to he over the years. He thought again of Octavian. Believe and you will burn, he insisted. Karl tried to convince himself he did not believe in Christian legend, in myth. It was so hard to know what was true when you were a part of that myth.

  Somehow, some way, Octavian claimed, the church had fabricated the legendary physical constraints of the immortals and had somehow convinced these poor creatures, his ancestors, that those constraints were real. Hence, though they were capable of wonderful and terrible things, they were also capable of their own destruction. Self-immolation, a sort of suicide.

  Believe and you will burn.

  The screaming began below. It seemed Una was awake, and unfortunately she believed in the legends. He moved over the bedroom. The light fixture in the bedroom, an old thing with a slowly rotating fan, had been installed by someone with very little skill, and there was space around the fixture through which Karl could see the goings-on in the room.

  He wished he hadn’t. Una’s flesh was singed and scarred—the scars the shape of the silver cross wielded by a black-haired man. As others held her back with their own crosses, the man held the Christian symbol against her eyes, each in turn bursting in her skull. Her breasts were next, the nipples with their delicate pink areolae charred black by the crucifix, and if Octavian were to he believed, her own faith in its power.

  Believe and you will burn.

  Karl wanted to go back down and destroy them, make them suffer as she now suffered. But there were too many of them and who knew how many more might wait outside ?