Judgment Stone (9781401687359)

by Robert Liparulo

  “Like what?”

  She wasn’t going to use the word decapitation. “Just . . . a lot more than it would take to kill someone else.”

  Tyler wasn’t satisfied, but she could tell he realized that was the best he was going to get. He said, “He hasn’t died yet. Three thousand, five hundred years.”

  “Right,” she said. “He’s too stubborn to die, and he loves us too much.” It constantly amazed her, the dynamic between parent and child. It wasn’t merely about the older nurturing, protecting, and teaching the younger. It went both ways: from Tyler she remembered her youthful wonderment of the world, and in remembering, regained it. By instilling hope in him, she felt it herself.

  Leo appeared again and crouched in front of Tyler, his cassock piling up on the gravel as though he were melting. “What’s that you have there?” He pointed at an item Tyler was turning over and over in his fingers.

  Tyler showed him: a spent bullet cartridge.

  Leo nodded, frowning. He said, “The other monks are preparing a memorial service in the basilica. We need someone to put charcoal in the thuribles. Could you do that for us?”

  Tyler cocked an eye at him. “Thurible?”

  Leo grinned. “It sounds like the way Elmer Fudd would say terrible, doesn’t it? ‘That cwazy wabbit is thurible!’”

  Tyler laughed, and it warmed Beth’s heart.

  “Actually,” Leo went on, “they’re those round metal balls the monks walk around with, swinging at the end of a chain.”

  “They smoke and smell like flowers,” Tyler said.

  “That’s them. Well, they smoke because there’s charcoal inside, and incense on top of the charcoal. Dried rose petals, stuff like that. Could you fill them for us?”

  “Swing them around too?”

  Leo made a face. “Not that, I’m afraid. It takes practice to keep from hitting people with them. That’s why they won’t let me do it. I knocked out three monks last time I tried.” He winked.

  Tyler laughed again.

  “Whaddaya say?” He stood and extended a hand to Tyler.

  Tyler took it and stood. Beth slapped at his rump, brushing off the gravel. Leo helped her up and said, “We can find things for you to do too.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.” Thankful for the opportunity to turn her mind away from grief and worry. “Sound good, Ty?” But he was already running ahead toward the stairs.

  [ 39 ]

  They’d been in the air two and a half hours, flying over the Black Sea now. Owen had set the autopilot and watched Jagger at the computer researching Bronson Radcliff for twenty minutes before heading back to the bathroom. Jagger knew more than he ever wanted to about the billionaire head of Ice Temple Enterprises: he’d had four wives, each one younger than the last; he’d made his first few million developing what only the most naïve or forgiving person would call what it called itself: “an online dating service.” An online brothel was closer to the truth, as far as Jagger could tell. The man had parlayed that into a fortune through investments in real estate, oil derivatives, and biotech companies. Most disturbing: he’d been accused of child molestation, rape, and kidnapping, using his household staff to procure young girls for him. The news agencies that reported the allegations had followed up with news of the prosecutor’s case falling apart as one by one the witnesses recanted their statements and moved away—more than a few into nice new homes in tropical locales. The man had bought his way out of jail in plain view of everyone, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  Where were the Tribe when you needed them?

  This wasn’t a guy who funded archaeological digs for altruistic or religious reasons. Either he suspected that relics held power, power that he could use to advance or mask his hedonistic lifestyle, or he thought they could be used to expand his empire. Or he was merely a front for someone else. Jagger’s money was on that one.

  He was mapping the quickest routes from the Stockholm-Bromma Airport to Ice Temple’s headquarters in Stureplan, the city’s financial district, and to Radcliff’s private residence in the affluent suburb of Östermalm, when an alarm sounded. He jumped and looked toward the cockpit, expecting smoke or a view of the ocean as the jet plunged toward it.

  Owen came hustling out of the bathroom, zipping his fly and adding to Jagger’s anxiety. “What is it?” Owen asked.

  “You’re asking me?” But then he realized the blaring tones came from the computer under the desk, and the second screen was flashing a red banner with the words Match Found. “I think your scanner found a match.”

  Owen sat beside him. “It only sounds an alarm when more than sixty percent of the search terms match. Otherwise it only beeps.”

  “It’s beeped a few times since we left Sharm.”

  Owen nodded. “I ignore those, or I’d be running back here every ten minutes. This is something, though.” He slid the keyboard in front of him and began typing. The alarm stopped, and the banner was replaced by lines of text, most in a language Jagger didn’t understand.

  Owen said, “Varna, Bulgaria.” He turned toward Jagger’s screen, clicking keys, and the map of Stockholm disappeared. A different map appeared, showing an icon of a plane over a field of blue. Owen zoomed out until land appeared on the left. “We’d have passed it in twenty minutes.”

  “Passed what? What’s the match?”

  Owen’s gaze went back to the other screen. “Homicide. Multiple suspects, one with black makeup or a tattoo streaked over his eyes. Did you add that to the keyword list?”

  “Yeah, I just thought—”

  “Good job.” He laughed. “I see some others you added.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Somebody encountered the suspects at the harbor. They think he’s unreliable, though. He was rambling about seeing demons.” Owen kept reading.

  “Why would someone other than the Clan see demons?” Jagger said. “I thought—?”

  “Here,” Owen interrupted. “A couple, tourists, called the cops. They saw the man—he was panhandling, had approached them first, then he went to a group of people. ‘Creepy bunch’ is the term they used. Two or three women, three or four men. One of them looked like a wrestler and had black eye makeup. One of the men—dark hair, black clothes, a fedora—”

  “Bale had on a fedora last night.”

  “It looked like this guy punched the beggar, and that’s when the beggar went crazy. That’s what the witnesses said—‘went crazy.’ He started running, screaming. They thought the guy injected him with something, that’s why they called the police.” He continued scanning the screen, scrolling it down. “The cops started searching for this group and found a nightclub door with what looked like blood on it. Someone had apparently done a shoddy job cleaning it up. Inside they found a massacre.”

  “Massacre?”

  “Twelve bodies.”

  Jagger felt sick, and a bit of the doubt he had about traipsing off with Owen fell away.

  Owen scrolled back to the top, said, “This is a transcript of police communications. The scanner began monitoring it fifteen minutes ago. It reached enough matches to set off the alarm six minutes ago.” He stood and brushed past him, heading for the cockpit. “We can be at the crime scene in forty, fifty minutes.”

  “We’re going there?”

  “The Clan was there less than an hour ago.”

  “What if it’s not them?”

  Owen turned to give a look that said, you’re kidding, right? “Massacre. Eye makeup. Fedora. Demons.”

  “I’m just saying if it’s not, we’ll miss them in Stockholm.”

  “I’m willing to risk it,” Owen said, ducking into the cockpit.

  Jagger called, “They’re obviously not there anymore, not at the crime scene. Shouldn’t we stake out the airport?”

  “Now you’re thinking,” Owen said. “But if we don’t see their plane, it doesn’t mean they’re not there. They usually rent private hangar space, keep it locked up. Besides, Varna h
as . . .” He paused and through the cockpit door Jagger saw him pick up the iPad from the copilot seat. Fifteen seconds later he said, “Varna has two airports and at least another half dozen nearby. I think our best bet is to go to where we know they are . . . or were recently.”

  Jagger watched the little plane on the monitor. It stayed in the center, aimed northwest now, as a mass of land slid in from the left edge of the screen toward it. A label for Varna appeared over a large city situated at the apex of a natural harbor. A series of canals linked the Black Sea to a lake. Varna appeared nestled in the crook where they all converged.

  “Come up here, would you, please?” Owen said. When Jagger got to the cockpit, Owen said, “You have the Stone, the fragment Ollie gave you?”

  “Yeah, it’s in my pocket. Why?”

  “I want you to have a look.” He nodded toward the city through the windshield.

  “You want me to touch the fragment?”

  “See what you can see—in the spiritual realm.”

  “But it lets you see angels and demons, blue beams of light—from pray-ers, I think. How will it help us find the Clan?”

  Owen rolled his head, threw a smile at Jagger. “I don’t know. Neither do you. If it can show us something, now’s the time to try.”

  Jagger let out a heavy breath, not sure he wanted to peel back the veil, afraid—okay, yes, afraid—of what he might see. But he pulled the cloth from his pants pocket and sat in the copilot seat. Holding the cloth in his real hand, he lifted the layers off with his hook. Then he touched the hook to the Stone, just a tap. When nothing happened he clamped it with the twin hooks and put the cloth on the wide armrest next to him. He stood and leaned close to the windshield and touched the Stone.

  After a blinding flash, the first things he saw were angels. They were flying with the jet, in front of it, on the sides. Their embers like wings, but not flapping; they were splayed out from the angels’ shoulder blades back past their heels. They reminded Jagger of jet engines spewing out flames, and he almost laughed.

  “What do you see?” Owen said.

  “Angels. Five of them are with us, flying outside the plane.”

  “Ha ha!” Owen said, delighted. “What else?”

  Jagger looked past the angels to the approaching city. “More angels,” he said. “And demons. They’re flying all around the city, over it. Hundreds of them, if not thousands. Blue lights everywhere, coming out of rooftops, ships, looks like a couple parks.” Most of the beams were thread-thin, a few were a bit thicker. One appeared to be a lot more substantial, a rope to the others’ threads. As they drew closer, he saw it was coming out of a steeply pitched roof from which rose a steeple.

  Good for you, he thought.

  “Nothing that indicates where the Clan is,” he said. Despite his objections to Owen, he’d half expected something to flag the Clan for them: a gathering of angels or demons—if there was a concentration of either down there, he couldn’t detect it; a red instead of blue light, maybe, or darkness, shadows where there shouldn’t be any. Why wouldn’t such concentrated evil be reflected in the spiritual world?

  “Wait a minute,” he said. Away from the city, on the other side of the big river, a blue beam thick as two or three entwined ropes shot into the sky—or down from it, he still wasn’t sure. Not the Clan, surely, but if the blue light signified what he thought it did . . . “There’s some heavy spiritual activity over there.” Pointing at it. “Something good. It’s not in the city. Looks kind of far away, a small town or village. Owen, you hear me?”

  He turned to see Owen and screamed. Owen was praying, his lips moving silently. From not just his head, but his shoulders and chest as well, flowed the brightest beam he’d seen yet—the far-off cord of light coming from the village, factoring in the distance, was possibly thicker and brighter, but not by much. Standing behind him, in a space too small to accommodate him, was an angel. His head was bowed and his hands rested on Owen’s shoulders. The embers flowed lightning fast around the angel and Owen, staying a few inches from their bodies. They swirled around Owen’s torso, down and up his legs, over his arms, reminding Jagger of documentaries that showed the circulatory system, the constant flow of blood through the body. The overall effect was that the two of them were glowing and sparking, and more: that the two were one, connected through prayer, joined by the angel’s glowing cocoon.

  Owen’s eyes snapped open. “What? I only closed my eyes for a few seconds. I got it covered, Jag. Right on course.”

  The beam faded and disappeared. The angel raised his head, smiling down on Owen. The embers streamed off of Owen and gathered behind the angel, who seemed to step back through the plane. Before vanishing into the air beyond the cockpit’s wall, he smiled at Jagger.

  “Jag?”

  Jagger could only stare at the spot where the angel had been. Finally he told Owen what he’d seen.

  Owen said, “Good to know”—a little simply for Jagger’s taste, given how extraordinary the sight had been. But then, maybe it wasn’t so extraordinary. The vision of it, yes, but not the fact of it. Not to Owen. “Do you feel it?” Jagger asked.

  “I always feel God’s presence, but never so much as when I pray.” He nodded toward the city. “Nothing?”

  Jagger turned back to the windshield. “Oh, I wouldn’t say nothing. A lot. But nothing that gives away the Clan’s location.”

  “Then we’ll do it the hard way.” He grinned at Jagger’s puzzled expression. “Footwork,” he said. “We get to play detective.”

  [ 40 ]

  The Tribe sat in the clearing behind the outcropping Toby used to surveil the monastery, putting on their Austin boots. They faced each other in a circle, each with an open black suitcase beside him or her. The pieces of the Future Warrior System exoskeleton fit into recesses molded into the suitcases’ polyurethane interiors: the hip clamps, battery, belt, wiring, leg braces, knee joints, and the boots themselves.

  It was late afternoon, the sun heading for a false dusk behind a range of mountains. But it was still light out, the sky above them the color of denim. An empty candy bar wrapper tumbled on a soft breeze into Nevaeh’s leg. She picked it up, saw more spilling out of the little cave Toby had been living in, and held it up to him, one eyebrow raised.

  He smiled, shrugged.

  “I can’t wait,” Jordan said, pulling a boot over a red water bootie on his foot.

  “For what?” Toby said, leaning against a cliff wall. He hadn’t taken his boots off since arriving on the mountain. “You’re just the lookout.”

  “But Nevaeh said—”

  She held up her hand to stop him. “Toby, I need you to take his place in that role today.”

  “What?” he said, pushing off the wall. “I’ve been here four days. You said I could go in.”

  “I know, but I think Jordan can help with Tyler.”

  “The kid? I thought you were just going to knock him out and take his mom.”

  “Do you know where he is now? Is he with Beth?”

  “Now? I don’t know. I’ve been with you.”

  Nevaeh nodded. “He explores the monastery a lot, right? On his own?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If we can’t get to Beth right away, we may need him to draw her out. If he’s on his own, wandering, he’s more likely to trust another kid about his age than one of us, than you.”

  “Any kid down there after closing’s going to be suspicious.”

  “Jordan less so. If a monk approaches him, he got separated from his parents.”

  “I can be separated from my parents.” Toby bent his knees, jumped, and landed on a rock five feet high.

  “Look,” Nevaeh said, “I’ll make it up to you. But every mission needs to be evaluated to determine which resources are best to ensure success.”

  “You sound like Ben.”

  “I’m trying to fill his shoes. You know that.”

  “This is garbage,” Toby said, jumping off the rock. “Don’t you think, Ph
in? You’re going to inject the kid and be done with him, right?”

  Phin clamped a lower leg brace into a boot. He said, “If he’s where I can get him. If not”—he shrugged—“Jordan’s the man for the job.”

  “Ah!” Toby said, and spat on the ground. “Elias?”

  Elias squinted up at him through smoke drifting off the end of his cigarette. “Next time, kid.” He had finished getting on the Austin boots and now sat there with a duffel bag resting on his lap. He drew on the cig, plucked it out of his mouth to blow out a stream of smoke, and returned it to his lips. He unzipped the duffel and began fishing out machined-metal parts: a long barrel with a flanged and ported end, a trigger assembly, tubing . . .

  “You brought Betsy?” Nevaeh said. His favorite flamethrower.

  Elias didn’t say anything, just continued pulling out pieces: a valve, a flat plastic backpack with straps.

  “We’re in and out, you know?” Nevaeh said. She should have known he’d bring it; he’d bring it grocery shopping if he could.

  “I think Elias is going to hell,” Phin said, tossing a balled-up sock at him. “That’s why he likes fire so much.”

  Elias swatted away the sock and glared. “Not funny, Phin.” He struggled to free something big, and Nevaeh realized it was a tank—two tanks. One contained propane, the other homemade napalm—gasoline and a polymeric thickening agent. Ash from the cigarette fell on a tank. It was no good mentioning the health hazards of assembling a flamethrower while smoking. He’d been doing it for decades and hadn’t blown up. Yet.

  Nevaeh stood, flexing her legs, watching the way the braces moved with her. She picked up a long case made of soft black material and started unzipping it. “Come here, Toby. I have a present for you.” She handed him a black rifle.

  “No!” he said, grinning now. “It’s a Barrett M82”—looking puzzled—“isn’t it?”

  “Barrett XM500,” she said. “Prototype. Same as the M82 but with a bullpup design.”

  The M82 was a .50-cal sniper rifle; the “bullpup” meant its firing and cartridge-ejection action was behind the trigger mechanism, essentially in the stock, making it forty-seven inches long instead of the M82’s fifty-nine inches. It was lighter, more accurate, and easier to handle than the standard M82.