Judgment Stone (9781401687359)

by Robert Liparulo

  Children scampered around on the patio, laughing and chattering in Portuguese. The boys wore tattered cutoffs and colored tees, the girls bright sun dresses trimmed with lace. Local kids.

  Nevaeh spotted what had drawn them: pastéis de nata, palm-sized pies of baked egg custard, half eaten in their hands, a few left on a platter that rested on a round glass-topped table.

  Two little girls stood talking to an old man seated at the table. Slightly hunched, mostly bald but for short white patches above his ears and wispy strands arching over the spotted crown of his skull; his face was gaunt, his skin like a salvaged piece of crumpled parchment, but his nose was straight and regal, his eyes bright as they darted between the girls and the other children. He flashed a set of teeth that seemed too large for his shrunken face, and he laughed, a hacking sound that couldn’t quite compete—in volume or level of merriment—with the children’s voices.

  She had found the man she had come for.

  [ 7 ]

  Jagger caught up with the monks in the courtyard of the burning bush, between the back of the basilica and the refectory. The massive bush itself billowed up from an eight-foot-high, semicircular stone planter built into the back of a building. Its leafy stems hung over half the courtyard like a shabby weeping willow. Standing upright on the stone ground beside the burning bush, in a gesture that Jagger had never figured out whether it was meant to be humorous or serious, was a fire extinguisher. A bulb cast jaundiced light over the area, making everyone look sick.

  Leo stared at Jagger, who was holding RoboHand as if it were injured flesh and blood.

  “It’s nothing,” Jagger said, releasing his hook. “They’re tough buggers, these Cobras—I think that’s what they’re called. I shot one of them at least four times. It didn’t even pause.” He turned toward the short flight of stairs he’d descended to reach the court. At the landing on top, another flight led down to the tunnel. “The stairs might slow them down, but not for long.”

  Rrrrrrrrrrrrr—behind them. The men spun, guns coming up. Not yet visible, a Cobra was heading toward them from the alley between the basilica and the front wall, where the monks had been killed.

  The sound of another motor reached them, this one reverberating off the walls of the alley on the other side of the basilica. The burning bush courtyard had three entrances, one on each side of the basilica and a third the way they’d reached it, down the stairs. The Cobras had all three covered.

  “They must’ve backtracked,” Leo said. “We have to go back through the tunnel.”

  “No way the one in the tunnel could have gotten out of there so fast,” Jagger said. “They must have sent in another.”

  “At least one more,” Antoine said.

  “The rooftops,” Corban said in a thick Irish accent and darted for the stairs. When he passed the alley, three quick shots rang out, the bullets striking the wall of the refectory. The monk bounded up the steps, and Jagger realized what he was doing: at the landing, one flight went down to the tunnel, another went up to the rooftops and terraces. Getting there would buy them a little time and give them the high ground.

  “Come on,” he said, pulling at Leo’s arm. A second later he froze.

  Corban reached the landing, and machine gun fire threw him into a wall. He tumbled down into the court. He rose, holding his shoulder, blood spilling out between his fingers. “It’s coming . . . up the stairs,” he said, groaning. “From the tunnel.” He staggered toward them.

  “No!” Jagger said, raising his hand.

  Gunfire from the alley ripped the night open, and Corban jerked and twitched as bullets sliced through him. He stumbled back and fell onto the stairs. He lay there motionless, gazing at the moon, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Two seconds, that’s all it had taken.

  The monks yelled out, began mumbling, weeping.

  “Shhhh . . . shhhh,” Leo said, raising his hands.

  The Cobras’ motors churned, all of them still out of sight. From the stairs . . . the back alley . . . Leo turned toward the loudest, closest of the three and ran toward the front alley.

  “Leo!” Jagger said.

  Leo stopped inches from the corner and pressed himself against the wall. To his credit, he didn’t take a peek, just listened.

  He’s going to grab it, Jagger thought. Just grab the thing, lift it, and point the barrel in any safe direction. He knew it could be done—he felt sure the attackers had carried them in backpacks. They couldn’t be that heavy.

  He considered positioning himself at the other corner, doing the same with the Cobra that had killed Corban. But then there was the Cobra coming up the stairs. If they didn’t get out of the courtyard fast, it would wipe them all out. No, it would be better to join Leo, go around the corner when he grabbed it, figure out what to do with it and the others after they were out of the kill zone.

  “Let’s go,” he said to the two monks standing on either side of him. They ran to the wall beside Leo and crouched.

  The Cobra’s engine was loud now. Where was it?

  Come on, come on, Jagger thought, eyeing the stairs. A semicircle jutting from the basilica’s back wall kept him from seeing the other corner.

  A shadow stretched out from the alley nearest them. Leo leapt before Jagger could see the Cobra, but it was there—he saw it now—spinning toward them. Leo grabbed the barrel and the rear of its chassis, rose with it in his hands. It spat out a half-second burst of bullets, shattering a window three floors up. Leo began shaking it violently, as though trying to rattle it out of commission. Then Jagger saw blue lightning bolts, thin as wires, streaking over the Cobra’s body: it was electrified.

  Leo spasmed and turned toward Jagger, eyes pinched shut, lips curled back from gritting teeth, cords of muscles in his neck bulging, quivering.

  Jagger heaved his shoulder into Leo’s ribs, knocking him down, falling on top of him. The Cobra clattered over the stones and crashed against the front wall, resting on its side. The wheels began turning and it rotated, the barrel coming around.

  Jagger scrambled up, grabbed the barrel with RoboHand. He couldn’t squeeze the hooks into a strong grip, but it was enough to lift the Cobra. Electricity licked at the stub of his arm, just below the elbow, where the prosthetic forearm cupped his flesh. He felt it jittering up his biceps into his shoulder, but he was sure that, filtered through the artificial limb, it was static electricity compared to the lightning storm that had hit Leo.

  Gunfire erupted, bullets slammed into the front wall. He jerked his head away from the muzzle but realized the firing didn’t come from the Cobra he was holding. He turned and saw starbursts of flame erupting from a Cobra on the landing.

  “Grab Leo!” he yelled.

  The monk was pressing a hand against the wall, trying to stand. Father Mattieu ran to him, helped him up. Jagger carried the Cobra into the alley toward the main courtyard. He braced his other hand under the fake forearm, taking some of the weight off the muscles on his left side. The barrel began sliding through his grip, the Cobra slipping closer to the ground. His knees banged into it. The tank tracks spun, and the Cobra began firing. Bullets caused little explosions at the top of the wall; spent shells zinged out of an ejection port by his face.

  The firing stopped, but another sound right on its heels froze Jagger in his tracks. A loud crack! Then another: gunshots. They came from the other side of the compound, near the apartments—

  Beth! Tyler!

  Someone screamed, a man.

  The Cobras had been a ruse, a feint. The attackers had used them to push the monastery’s defenders away from their real objective.

  “Go! Go!” Jagger said, running into the front courtyard. The bodies of Bardas and Luca lay sprawled near opposite walls, horrific bundles of bleeding brown cloth. He glanced up at the top of the wall, where the Cobras had come over, expecting a line of snipers waiting to pick them off, but it was clear. He used his head to gesture at the structure directly ahead of them. “There! Go!”

  Fathe
r Antoine sprinted ahead.

  Jagger tried to get a look at his apartment, but there were too many buildings in the way.

  Be safe, he thought. Please.

  He reached Antoine, who was swinging open large barn doors.

  “The cover!” Jagger yelled, and Antoine brushed past him and hoisted open a hatch-like lid.

  Jagger strained to lift the Cobra, moved forward, and dropped it into the Well of Moses.

  [ 8 ]

  The old man was Vasco de Sousa.

  Nevaeh couldn’t approach him now, not with the kids all around. It wouldn’t be right. But standing on the beach, only thirty yards and a barrier of low hedges between them, she was exposed. She decided her best option was to walk to the surf, stare out at the water and sunset, just another tourist happy to be away from her workaday life—now Nevaeh wished she’d dressed the part. As she turned, the man’s eyes caught her. She paused, only a second, to gaze back. She took a step toward the ocean and heard a metallic crash behind her. She looked again, and the man was standing, hunched, gripping the table edge. His chair was lying on its back behind him. His eyes had widened, old skin stretching taut around them.

  “Você,” he said, too quietly to hear, but she read his lips. You.

  She nodded and headed for him.

  He watched her come, touching his fingers to a gold cross hanging around his neck. He waved a hand at the children. “Funcione ausente agora, crianças. Funcione ausente.”

  Run along now, children. Run along.

  They awwwed but maintained the momentum of their joy, some of them spinning in tight circles, others grabbing the remaining pastéis, then running and skipping away, vanishing around the corner of the villa like fairies surprised by discovery. Their laughter and giggling voices left with them, a void the sound of the surf rushed in to fill.

  Nevaeh found an opening in the hedge, stepped onto the patio, and paused. The old man, Vasco, was trembling: his twiggy arms, coming out of the openings of short sleeves too large for them; his bony hips, making his black slacks quiver down to his sandals; his chin.

  She approached him slowly, taking him in.

  Speaking Portuguese, he said, “I knew you would come.”

  She stopped a step away. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long.”

  He shrugged with one shoulder. “What’s a hundred and three years to one who lives forever?”

  “Too long.”

  Vasco released the table and reached out for her. She stepped into his arms and he embraced her, all bones, so little meat. He whispered, “Mamãe.”

  Mommy, not “mother,” as she’d expected, if he called her anything at all. Mommy, and it broke her heart. It told her he remembered her, had wanted her, needed her. Time had not soured him on her; age and independence had not made him bitter by her absence. She squeezed him, as firmly as she dared, as she had done when he was a baby. His clutching arms loosened and he nearly collapsed. She held him, righted his chair, and eased him into it. She pulled out the one next to his, angled it toward him, and sat.

  His eyes were wet, and he made no attempt to wipe away the tears that didn’t so much slide over his cheeks as they did fill the wrinkles and trickle slowly through them.

  “All these years . . . ,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d recognize me.”

  “No child ever forgets his mother’s face.” His eyes lingered, and he chuckled. “Especially when that face never changes.”

  She’d told him since he was old enough to listen about her immortality, as she’d done with all her children—not as many as you’d think, given her three and half millennia of existence. She’d planned on playing the role of wife and mother until Vasco’s father, her beautiful Reinaldo, grew old and died. But with Reinaldo by her side, she had meddled in Lisbon’s politics—how could she not, with an antichristian dictator trying to take power? It had ultimately led to Reinaldo’s imprisonment, torture, and death. She would have been next, along with her young son, so she’d kissed him one last time, gathered the Tribe—living in the village, waiting out her distraction—and left.

  She lowered her eyes, said, “After the king and his son were killed, the country was in chaos . . .”

  Vasco stretched to cup his hand over hers on the table.

  She focused on it, long fingers, yellow nails, a cosmic explosion of liver spots. “We, your father and I, thought we could help, we got involved. We offered our counsel, our . . . our . . .”

  What had she offered? What had she pulled poor Reinaldo into? They had tracked down the king’s and prince’s assassins, killed them, used stealthy violence to keep the rebels and their irreligious leaders from overthrowing the monarchy. They’d succeeded for two years until . . .

  “The Revolution of 1910,” she said. “It was wicked, bloody. More so than anyone knows.”

  “History books are written by the victors,” Vasco said.

  She looked at him, wiped away a tear that had formed at the corner of her eye. This was the danger she wanted to avoid: the ache of missing his life. Beyond his old-man face she saw the eleven-year-old she’d left, round cheeks, laughing eyes. “I couldn’t take you with me.” She shook her head. “The things I do . . .”

  “There’s no need to explain,” he said, patting her hand.

  She smiled, and was surprised to realize it was genuine. It was just so good to see him, to know any grudges he’d felt toward her he’d worked out. He’d forgiven her. She turned her head away. If only God would forgive as readily.

  “Would you like a pastel de nata?” he asked. “I have a few more inside.” He started to rise, and she stopped him.

  “I’m fine.”

  “They’re your recipe,” he said. “Best in Portugal, better even than the Casa Pastéis de Belém’s.” The insanely popular bakery in Lisbon that, since 1837, claimed to use the original recipe created by the Catholic monks at the Jerónimos Monastery of Belém.

  “The children certainly appreciate them,” she said.

  He grinned, and she saw that those big teeth were too imperfect—stained and a bit crooked—to be anything but his own. He said, “The pastéis are my bait. I love their company, the kids. Their energy and enthusiasm, the way they move so gracefully, not a single aching joint or tired muscle, their optimism, their hope. You know what they say: children are proof God hasn’t given up on us yet.”

  Blessings, she thought. The few times she’d found true happiness—in a man’s arms, becoming a mother—she thought they were signs of God’s approval, His love for her, His forgiveness. But then she’d remember that “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” And sure enough, God would take away His blessings; husbands and children would die, and even their headstones would age, crack, and crumble. And she’d live on, apparently still unrighteous in His eyes, despite her eternal quest for forgiveness.

  She realized Vasco had said something. “I’m sorry?”

  “You came along the beach.”

  “I wanted to see the place.” Needed to, she thought. Since losing Ben, she’d felt a bit . . . unhinged. She had grown weary—of life, of trying to please God, of everything. She’d become distracted, short-tempered, and more willing to pronounce death sentences on apparent sinners without studying all the evidence, without praying. Sometimes she was afraid she was losing her mind. She needed touchstones of better times to keep her steady. Touchstones like Sesimbra . . . and Vasco.

  She said, “It’s like the Disneyland version of the old village.” She glanced around at the villa. “You kept it.”

  “The land, anyway. Had the old cottage torn down and this one put up. My son designed it. He . . . passed last year. He was eighty-nine, an architect.” He smiled and seemed to get lost in the memory for a moment. “When I was in Lisbon, at the university—did you know I was a professor there? Philosophy. Fifty-two years.”

  She nodded. “I kept tabs.” But not enough. It was too painful, what she’d lo
st.

  “I wondered,” he said. “Even thought about tracking you down.”

  “You would have failed.”

  His eyes flicked around as he thought, and she knew he believed she was wrong about that. She wasn’t.

  “I was saying,” he said, “when I lived in Lisbon, I’d come here on weekends, bring the family. So many times I’d sit here, watch the waves and wonder about you, where you were, what you were doing. I wondered if what you told me about your living forever, if it was only a story, a fable like the Easter bunny. Then I saw—”

  He held up his hands, remembering something. He rose, patting the air now to keep her in her seat. He shuffled toward an open French door.

  “Vasco?”

  He held up his index finger and disappeared into the villa.

  She leaned back in the metal chair, feeling her muscles relax, not realizing until then that she’d been so tense. She sighed, at once happy and heavyhearted to see her son. He had received a taste of the activated telomerase genes that made her immortal, just enough to give him a long, healthy life. But he wouldn’t be around much longer. She hoped she wouldn’t be either.

  She fished her mobile phone out of a coat pocket. Six missed calls, all within the last fifteen minutes. She checked the call list: four from Toby, two from the Tribe’s main satphone. She was about to listen to one of the voice mail messages when Vasco emerged from the villa. She flipped the ringer on and set the phone on the table’s glass top.

  He shuffled over, holding a magazine. He sat and placed it on the table. An aged, torn copy of Avanta!, a Portuguese magazine comparable to the former Life in the United States. He leaned over it and used his fingernail to hook a page flagged with a yellowing bookmark advertising Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22. She instantly recognized the photo on the page—it had been syndicated seemingly everywhere: a glow coming from behind the photographer illuminated a crowd of people, their arms raised in victory, their faces showing expressions of elation and empowerment. It was night, and they filled a residential city street. Another, smaller photograph revealed the object of their attention: a smoking, burning building. It had been occupied by a group of thugs who ran an operation dealing drugs, pimping prostitutes, extorting businesses, and generally terrorizing and corrupting a good chunk of the Bronx. Someone had firebombed it.