by T. Frohock
Karl dismissed his brother’s criticism. “You don’t know anything about what I’m trying to do.”
“I saw the rejection letter you received yesterday.”
Karl hit the table with his fist. The table settings jumped, as did Diago.
Rudi flinched as if Karl had struck him.
Because he probably has. It was the kind of reflex commonly seen in abused children, one that Diago knew well from his own experiences. One that Miquel helped me overcome.
Nor was he naive enough to think that Karl initiated the abuse. He had probably learned it from their father or mother, whichever one ruled with the heaviest hand.
Rudi glared back at Karl in open rebellion.
He is balking at Karl’s tyranny. The argument was merely one small sign. The possession of the magazine with tiny black hearts beside the actor’s picture was another; openly flirting with a man at dinner constituted a third. How far will Karl let him go?
Karl slowly unclenched his fist.
Because striking your sibling in front of guests is so gauche.
Karl cleared his throat and made an effort to modulate his voice. “I’m sure Herr Alvarez is not interested in Ordo Novi Templi. He and I have a much more ancient affiliation.”
Rudi threw his napkin into his plate. “Christ, I wish you could hear yourself.”
Obviously not caring about appearances any longer, Karl rose and struck his brother hard enough to knock him from his chair. The violence began and ended so quickly, Diago had little time to react. He shot to his feet, prepared to intervene while recalling a similar incident—in my last incarnation—when George stood in the castle’s main hall, the dagger and summons in his hands. His rage billows around him like a cloak. I try to calm him with a touch, and he spins, striking out with his fist, knocking me to the floor.
It was a lifetime ago. It felt like yesterday.
Rudi’s perfectly sculpted hair fell across his brow in an oily mess. He daubed his bloodied mouth and lowered his head to hide his tears.
Karl ran his hand over his chest and smoothed his rumpled shirt. “Now look at what you’ve made me do. Get out. Go to bed.”
Rudi’s lip trembled. It was clear he wanted to deliver a verbal slap of his own, some harsh riposte that would save his damaged dignity.
Diago went to the youth and offered his hand. “Are you all right?”
Averting his gaze, Rudi rose and fled from the room without looking back. Diago easily imagined his humiliation.
An uncomfortable silence remained in Rudi’s wake.
Karl moved first. He righted Rudi’s chair and took his seat again. “I apologize for my brother’s conduct. Rudi is emotionally ill. I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
Twice Karl had sent Rudi to escort Diago to and from his room—not the kind of responsibility given to someone who was emotionally ill. Then a thought dawned on him: Or does Karl believe Rudi is emotionally ill because he is homosexual? That type of bourgeoisie mentality would fit. With enough money and influence, Spanish nobility had entered their young men into asylums on the pretext of insanity when their only crime involved loving another man.
Diago, who thought himself quite numb to those atrocities, found himself beginning to feel a measure of empathy for Rudi.
Be careful. He recalled Rudi’s response to his earlier questions about Harvey. Until I can ascertain differently, he might very well have murdered, or participated in the murder of, Harvey Lucas. No matter what, this is not a house of innocence. And it’s clearly a place accustomed to violence.
“Please, Herr Alvarez, sit.”
Diago glanced at the door again.
“Please,” Karl said again, gesturing to Diago’s empty chair.
Diago wanted nothing more than to be done with Karl so he could flee the mortal’s presence. But I have a job to do and part of that job is listening.
With a resigned sigh, he returned to his seat, but he didn’t place his napkin on his lap; he was done with any pretense of eating.
Karl watched him carefully, evaluating Diago’s every move. “Thank you,” he said after Diago sat. “Rudi’s doctor and I thought we had his medication regulated. He was very attached to our mother. When she died, he began to rebel in various ways, pushing against the rules that were in place to protect him. Father managed him much better than I do.” He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. “I see you’re married. Do you and your wife have a family?”
“I have a son.”
“How old?”
“Seven.”
“And his mother?”
“She is dead.”
“I’m sure he still longs for her.”
“Every day.”
“Then you see how hard it is.”
No, he didn’t. The differences between Rafael’s and Rudi’s ages were ten years and a great deal of maturity. Still, he let the comment go with a nod.
Karl exhaled a cloud of blue smoke over the table. “Rudi is a talented musician, and though it vexes me to say this, I feel his power is greater than mine.”
Although Diago had made no move to speak, Karl lifted his hand as if to ward off protests to the contrary. “I think that getting a message to Don Guillermo and his nefilim will help Rudi more than all the medications in the world. He has this incredible talent and power that he simply doesn’t know how to channel. I need your help.”
Stunned by the mortal’s audacity, as well as his callous willingness to use his brother to further his own agenda, Diago wasn’t sure what to say. They’re not my responsibility. I need the violin and then I must escape their madness so I can report to Guillermo. At this point, his best course of action was to play along with Karl’s conceits. “I will speak to Don Guillermo on your behalf.”
Karl crushed his cigarette in his plate. “Thank you.”
“But two things must happen first: I must see the violin, and I must have a phone.”
“Tomorrow. You may examine the violin, and then we will go into Offenburg.”
Unless I find that violin tonight. Diago rose. “I hope you will excuse me, then. It’s been a rather long day.”
“Of course.” Karl stood and bowed.
Diago made it to the door before Karl spoke.
“Oh, and Herr Alvarez—one more thing.”
Diago paused, one hand on the doorframe.
“The house is old. You might hear noises in the night. Think nothing of them. Just don’t leave your room to investigate. You might be hurt, stumbling around in the dark.”
18
Diago left the dining room and wandered into the corridor, where yellow light glowed from the second-story landing. He gave the staircase a longing glance, wanting to do nothing more than to retreat to his room and fall into the bed. But if he did, he wouldn’t awaken until morning, thereby losing any opportunity to search for the violin.
I can sleep when this is over. He turned away from the temptation.
The clink of china drifted down the hall as Karl cleared the table. Hoping Rudi was upstairs in his room, Diago decided to explore the lower level. If there is a phone to be found, it will be somewhere down here.
He paused by the music room, and after a moment’s hesitation, ducked inside. His daimonic lineage gave him superior night vision, so he didn’t bother with the lights.
Moving like a wraith, he retraced his path through the cluttered furniture. Rudi said Karl hated their father, but the photographs indicated nothing but familial harmony.
A snapshot—a freeze in time. Anyone can feign joy for a moment. Diago turned in a slow circle. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
He left the room and continued to a set of closed pocket doors. Pushing one door aside, he gave himself just enough room to slip through. It was a parlor.
Even in the dim light, Diago could see how the elegant furnishings showed their age. An afghan disguised the threadbare condition of the couch, and the furniture was arranged to mask the frayed ar
eas of the carpet.
Diago circled the room, searching for a phone. All he found were pictures of Karl.
On the mantel there was a photo of Karl posing with the body of a slain hart, his gun proudly clasped in his hands, and beside it was another with him standing over a bear, and yet another with a different hart . . . Karl apparently liked killing things.
Continuing his circuit, Diago found a framed photo in the back of the room. In it, Karl worked at a table with two refined gentlemen, one on either side of him, watching his movements with interest.
Diago recognized the mortals. The man on the left was Herbert Reichstein, a known publisher of German occult publications, and on the right was Ernst Issberner-Haldane—author of the renowned rejection letter on Karl’s desk. Both were known members of the Nazi Party.
And so is our friend Sturmführer Heines. Were they all somehow connected? He examined the photo more closely, wondering how deeply members of Die Nephilim were involved with these mortals and their occult activities. That was a question Guillermo’s spies would need to answer.
Returning his attention to the photograph, Diago noticed that Karl held a pen and was obviously in the process of drawing a sigil. On its face, the act was harmless. The mortal couldn’t possibly bring the glyph to life since he lacked the nefilim’s fire in his voice.
Still, this isn’t some mortal parody of an angelic glyph. Karl had drawn an actual ward.
Turning the picture upside down, Diago peered at the sigil beneath Karl’s pen. The camera had captured three loops and eight . . . maybe nine . . . lines over the rune Fehu.
Diago considered the meaning behind the rune. It signified freedom.
But freedom from what? he wondered. The angle of the camera obscured the rest of the sigil, so Diago couldn’t get a clear idea of what Karl was trying to achieve, other than to impress Reichstein and Haldane with his arcane knowledge.
Startled by the sound of footsteps, Diago almost dropped the picture. The pace was clipped and nothing like Rudi’s soft tread. Karl.
Diago’s heartbeat picked up speed. He hadn’t pulled the doors completely shut. Shit.
The footsteps stopped outside the parlor doors. Karl grasped the handles and closed the doors. Then his footsteps receded.
Diago waited for a slow count of sixty and then went to the pocket doors. When he heard no hint of movement from the other side, he slipped back into the hallway.
The corridor was empty. He had no idea where Karl had gone. Directly opposite was another set of doors. Like the parlor, the room was unlocked. It was a library.
Diago stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Outside the storm lashed the house. The rain changed to sleet.
A couch and three Georgian library chairs were placed around an imposing coffee table fashioned from the same period. A dry bar stood in one corner. Squatting before a pair of tall windows was a desk with a phone perched on one corner.
Dare I hope the brothers are lying and it works? He dared. Turning to the door, he traced a sigil of silence over the panels. With the power of his voice, he charged the glyph to life in shades of black and jade. The spell allowed sound to enter the library, but if Karl was still out there, he would hear nothing.
When Diago finished, he went to the desk and picked up the handset. A dial tone met his ear. He dialed the operator.
When she came on the line, he said, “I need to make a collect call.” He gave her Guillermo’s number. Within seconds he heard the phone ringing in Santuari.
“Ramírez residence.”
A flush of relief went through him at the sound of Miquel’s voice and left him weak. Moving around the desk, he sank into the chair, barely able to wait for the operator to establish that Miquel would accept the charges before he spoke.
Miquel must have felt the same way, because he cut the operator off before she could finish. “I’ll accept the charges.” She rang off and Miquel said, “Where are you?”
“I’m at the Grier house. I haven’t seen the Stradivarius yet. Karl is cagey about the whereabouts and the younger brother probably doesn’t know. There is some kind of anomaly here.”
“Diago—”
“Listen to me, Miquel. I don’t know how long I have before I’m discovered. Karl unearthed a set of foundation stones on the property from the twelfth century. As he told me about this, I recovered memories of a previous incarnation with a Sir George Abellio.”
A thin buzz interrupted the line.
Miquel must have heard it, too, because he asked, “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Listen to me. We know about . . .” The buzz grew louder, masking Miquel’s words.
Know about what? Jordi? It was possible they were remembering, too. If that was the case, then Guillermo knew about Jordi and could take precautions.
The receiver crackled in Diago’s ear. Maybe Karl hadn’t lied about the phones after all. “Miquel? I didn’t hear you.” Christ, not now, please, there is so much he must know. He gripped the receiver so hard his hand ached. “Please, operator, the connection is deteriorating.”
She didn’t return to the line. Diago waited but the connection didn’t clear. Damn it. “Miquel, I can’t hear you. I can only hope you can hear me. I’m going to get the violin and get out of here as soon as I can.”
“No . . .” The whine butchered Miquel’s response into random words. “. . . the violin, you’ve got to get . . . Diago?” Then the buzz became a roar.
Diago winced. When the noise abated somewhat, he said, “I’ll call you tomorrow with a full report.”
Miquel’s voice came through clearly once more—“Get . . .”—the buzz saw whine intensified again.
“Give my love to Rafael.” Whether Miquel heard him or not, he didn’t know. “I love you.”
Miquel didn’t answer.
Instead, the static growled through the earpiece. Diago thought he detected voices beneath the hum—a multitude of people speaking in a strident racket of different languages and dialects.
There couldn’t be that many voices, not even on a party line. It’s an auditory hallucination. He hung up.
Outside, the rain came down and the night wore on.
19
Santuari, Spain
Miquel sat behind Guillermo’s desk and pressed the receiver against his ear. “No. Forget the violin. You’ve got to get out of there. Diago? Get out of that house tonight.”
A loud hiss crackled across the line before it rose in pitch and squealed, like a radio dial crashing through the frequencies. The receiver suddenly went dead.
“Diago?” He’d lost the connection, and he still had no idea if his husband had heard him. “Christ. Come on. Diago, are you there?”
A low murmur was his answer. Maybe I haven’t lost him after all. “Diago, please.”
The murmur rose to a clamor, and several voices suddenly spoke at once. “Michel?”
The hair on Miquel’s arms rose. “That’s not my name,” he said.
“But it was,” murmured the macabre chorus. “In that incarnation, you were Michel, and Yago betrayed you. Do you remember? You rode into the courtyard at Guillaume’s side. Yago stood with George and Frauja—he sang with them against you.”
Miquel shook his head. No. That is a lie.
But it wasn’t.
The moment was a snapshot in his brain. He remembered looking up and seeing Yago at the window, using the lyra’s bow to punch the strings—quick jabs: strike, strike, strike—then what?
Then my horse panicked, turning in a tight circle. Miquel tried to reconcile Yago’s betrayal with the man he loved in this incarnation. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Diago, can you hear me?”
The murmuring voices continued, “Yago made no move to save you. Do you know why? Because he doesn’t love you. He never loved you. He is here with us now.”
The dial tone suddenly buzzed in Miquel’s ear. He stood perfectly still, waiting for his heart to stop beating so fast
—it’s too fast, everything is happening too fast and I can’t control it, not from Santuari.
Miquel suddenly understood Guillermo’s desperate need to go after Diago. He wished he could hand the reins over to another nefil and fly after both of them, but that was wishful thinking. Guillermo was right: love was a powerful force, but it wouldn’t save him against creatures like Frauja.
“Miquel?”
Startled, he dropped the handset. It thumped on a stack of files and landed on its side.
Juanita stood in the doorway. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” She came to the desk and placed the handset on the cradle. “Who was that?”
“It was Diago. At first. He tried to call, but we had . . .” What? What the hell caused interference like that? He swallowed hard and started again. “On the phone, just now, I heard Diago’s voice. He was trying to brief me on what he’d found when the line erupted with interference, and then voices. It began as a hissing sound and then turned into a Greek chorus. Is this what Guillermo heard on the radio?”
Her frown did nothing to reassure him. “It’s similar. The difference is that Frauja used the phone lines from the Grier house to get into ours.”
“Can he do that?”
“The phones were warded. He shouldn’t have gotten through.” She paused and considered the handset. “Unless the old sigils trapping Frauja are more damaged than we thought. Somehow he must have tapped into the Griers’ wiring. Try calling back.”
Miquel dialed the Griers’ number. The steady pulse of a busy signal was all they heard.
Juanita traced a new glyph over the transmitter and hummed an ethereal note. The bright lines wiggled into the handset and then disappeared. “That should prevent him from getting through again.”
Should. Miquel scowled and sat in Guillermo’s chair. “Should” wasn’t nearly good enough to set his mind at ease, but he didn’t question Juanita’s judgment. Instead he occupied himself with shuffling the stacks of folders until he found his cigarettes.
