Of course, as the tickle at the back of her mind reminded her, if she did nothing, she would soon be swallowed up by something else entirely.
Grace sank into a crouch across the supplies from Sal. “Are you going to try to make a deal with Aaron so that you can save your brother?”
Whatever Grace’s talents were, they did not include telepathy, no matter how much it might seem like it sometimes. “No. Menchú’s right, we can’t trust—”
Grace cut her off. “You should do it.”
“What?”
“—But only if you take me with you.”
“Why?”
“Beyond the fact that you can’t go out for a walk in an olive grove at night without getting ambushed?”
Sal crossed her arms. “Yes.”
Grace frowned. “Count the light sources in this room.”
“What?”
“Sources of light. In this room. Get your head out of your own problems for two seconds; look around and think about what you aren’t seeing.”
Sal frowned but obeyed. “There’s an oil lamp. A glow stick. What looks like one of Liam’s screens . . .” she trailed off. “Your candle isn’t here.”
“I didn’t have a chance to take it when we ran. Sooner or later, our enemies will realize what they have, and when they do . . .” She mimed pinching out a flame. “I have to get it back. I won’t let them make me abandon the rest of you. So make the deal with Aaron, and take me along.”
Sal pulled out two tiny whiskey bottles and cracked the caps. She offered one to Grace, and after a silent toast, the two women wordlessly downed the drinks. Sal relished the burning rush of alcohol and resolve. Time to move.
“Let’s do this, then.”
3.
Of course, Asanti caught on. No matter how quiet Sal and Grace were, which was pretty damn quiet, they were trying to conduct a whispered negotiation with a supernatural creature while the people they were trying to hide from slept nearby. Even if it was a rather large space, in the silence of the cave, voices carried.
But still, when Asanti hissed, “What are you doing?” Sal felt like a teenager caught sneaking out after curfew.
Grace was less easily cowed. “Getting back into the Archives.”
Asanti’s lips narrowed. “We don’t need to make a deal—”
Sal cut her off. “If you, or Menchú, had another plan, we would be on our way to Rome by now, not huddling in the dark. My brother’s in there.”
“My life is in there,” said Grace.
“Menchú is the field leader,” Asanti said.
Menchú has been stabbed in the back by the Church he gave his life to, and now he’s bleeding out before our eyes, Sal thought. What she said was, “Menchú has a lot on his plate right now.”
“Then that leaves me in charge,” said Asanti. “We’re a team, you can’t—”
A soft light fell over the scene, and they all turned to see Menchú standing behind them, holding the oil lantern. He looked tired, but determined. “We’re a team,” he said. “We need to start acting like one. And that includes me.” He cleared his throat. “After all, if we can’t stop the Hand, my ecclesiastical career will be the least of our worries.”
He turned to Aaron, still tied to the chair, who had been observing this entire exchange with seemingly detached interest. “What do you want?” Menchú asked him.
“I told you,” said Aaron. “Nothing that you haven’t—”
Menchú cut him off. “I’ve dealt with your kind before. Pardon me if I insist on the details.”
Aaron looked sad again. “The boy in the village wasn’t me.”
“I know he wasn’t. His name was Jose and he was nine years old when he slit his own throat. As for the thing inside him, I didn’t ask if it was you, and I don’t care. If you don’t want to set your own terms, this is the deal I offer: You want to help us reach the Archives for purposes of your own. I will allow it on the condition that in your mission and your aid to us you will not cause any living creature harm, or allow them to be harmed by your inaction.”
Sal thought she saw Grace hide a smile at that. Why, she had no idea.
Aaron considered the proposal. “That’s not a small thing to ask.”
“If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to refuse,” said Menchú. “You can wait here, take your chances, see whether we can contain the Hand or if the Society tracks us down first. Whatever happens will certainly be interesting.”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
Menchú held up a hand. “There’s one more thing,” he said.
“One more thing?”
“If you make this deal and then betray either the letter or spirit of our agreement, I will end you, even if that task takes all eternity.”
Sal blinked.
Menchú didn’t move. “What is your decision?”
Aaron nodded. “I will abide by your terms.”
“Excellent,” said Menchú. “Now that we’re all going to hell, let’s get this over with. Someone wake Liam.”
In spite of everything, Sal couldn’t help smiling. She’d already been to hell once this week. Finally, she was on familiar ground.
• • •
The team arrived in Rome in their “borrowed” vehicle and parked in an alley near the Vatican, just as dawn washed the city in rosy light.
Liam—not exactly happy about the deal with Aaron but accepting its necessity—quickly got down to the heart of the matter. “Okay, whatever you are, what’s the plan?”
“We move, and quickly,” said Aaron. “The new guards are in place around the clock, but the fewer other employees we encounter, the better for our chances of secrecy.”
Menchú accepted this with a small of course gesture. “Our first priority is to get the Book of the Hand. I’m sorry, Sal, but if the Hand unleashes a flood of demons into the world—”
“Perry will be screwed anyway. Understood.”
Menchú continued, “Aaron says he can get us into the Archives undetected. Once there, Asanti and I will secure the book.”
“While I find more evidence to convince the Cardinal that Balloon and Stretch have gone off the reservation,” said Liam. “They can’t have hidden their work entirely. A pull of Team Two’s internal databases should have everything I need.”
“And I assist Sal in seeing to her brother’s safety,” said Aaron.
Menchú blinked. “I see you’ve all given this some thought.” He turned to Asanti. “Anything to add?”
She shook her head. “The plan makes sense to me.”
“Me too,” said Sal.
“And while you are doing all that,” said Grace, “I’ll get my candle.”
Menchú shook his head. “I don’t want us to split up more than we have to. Your candle is outside the main complex, in a lighter security zone. We can pick it up on our way out.”
“Assuming we aren’t leaving under hot pursuit,” said Grace.
“All the more reason why we need you with us,” said Menchú.
“But if we don’t control my candle, I can drop at any time—I’ll be more of a liability than an asset,” Grace pointed out. “Since the candle is still lit, there are two possibilities for what’s going on. One is that Balloon and Stretch don’t know about the candle, or haven’t realized it’s important. In which case, it won’t be guarded and I can easily get it, then cover you from the outside. The other is that, our enemies know exactly what the candle is and why I have to come back for it, so they’re using it to bait a trap.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t go alone,” said Asanti.
Grace shook her head. “That’s exactly why I should go by myself. If our enemies wanted to kill me, they would have destroyed the candle by now. Anything non-lethal they want to throw at me, I can cope with, but not if I have to worry about protecting the rest of you at the same time. Even if they do take me down, I’ll be safely comatose until you can destroy the Hand, prove your innocence, and rescue me.”
Menchú didn’t look happy. “I don’t want you becoming a hostage.”
Grace leaned in and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’ve always been a hostage. Look on the bright side: If things go horribly wrong on the main raid, I’ll still be free and will avenge you all with bloody death that will turn even Balloon and Stretch’s stomachs for violence.”
“That’s not exactly a comfort,” he told her.
“Don’t lose hope,” Grace said. Then she slipped away down a narrow side street. In seconds, she was gone.
• • •
Not being entirely willing to trust Aaron’s assessment of the situation on the ground, the team took the time to confirm that security around the Vatican had been locked down to “pope in peril” levels not seen since the assassination attempt against John Paul II.
Menchú looked neither happy nor surprised. “All right,” he said. “Aaron, how can you sneak us in?”
“Wait here,” Aaron said.
With that, he left the alley where they had been hiding, walked straight up to one of the Vatican guards, and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Shit,” Sal breathed. “He’s going to sell us out.”
In a show of admirable restraint, Liam did not say, “I told you so.”
Menchú held up a hand to keep the others in place. “If he betrays us, regroup in Alexandria. Don’t try to return to the villa.”
Sal felt the Hand’s itch at the back of her brain grow stronger at the thought. If this went south, she wouldn’t have time to get to Egypt. She wondered what would happen to the Hand if she simply blew her brains out. Maybe it would pop back to the demon world. Or maybe she’d wind up a possessed, headless corpse. That seemed more in keeping with her recent luck.
The guard Aaron had approached nodded, left his post, and walked straight for them.
“Arturo?” Asanti asked.
Sal was ready to grab the archivist by the collar and force her to run, hoping that Liam would do the same for Menchú, when she noticed Aaron was still standing where he had tapped the guard. Blinking, as though dazzled by a bright light, or confused. After a few seconds, he pulled himself together and walked purposefully toward a nearby metro station.
Sal looked at the approaching guard again. Now that he was closer, she could see his face more clearly. There was something about his eyes. They were . . . familiar. “It’s Aaron,” she said.
Liam blinked. “What?”
Sal remembered how the Hand had prepared to leave her body for another one. There hadn’t been an aura when Aaron had touched the guard, but maybe it looked different when her body wasn’t the host in question.
“He jumped bodies, took over the guard. That’s how he’s going to sneak us into the Archives. We’re just going to walk in the front doors.”
Liam looked incredulous. “Like Chewbacca?”
The guard arrived, lips now twisted in an all too familiar smirk. “Ready to go?” he asked. The body was different, the voice unchanged.
“A little warning could have saved us a lot of stress,” Menchú said.
Aaron shrugged. Sal couldn’t help but notice he seemed to be breathing heavily after the short walk.
“You left me tied to a chair for hours,” Aaron said. “I think I’m entitled to a joke or two.” He gestured toward the doors that would, eventually, lead to the Archives’ hidden entrance, and offered a mocking bow. “If you would come this way . . .”
• • •
Liam wasn’t sure which of his poor life choices had led to him walking into the Vatican under the supposed supervision of a demon-possessed guard—or angel-possessed, to credit Sal’s optimism for a tick—but he felt certain God’s plan had gone seriously off-course somewhere along the way.
The most obvious choice for “somewhere” would be right around the time he was possessed by a demon himself, and lost two years of his life. Liam was a God-fearing man, but if that particular twist of his fucked-up existence had been intended as part of God’s larger tapestry, he had grave reservations about the nature of the final design.
At the moment, however, his choices were simple and limited. He could either trust the demon, or run like a coward and leave his teammates in the shit. Put that way, it was hardly a choice at all.
That didn’t stop Liam from sweating bullets as Aaron made small talk with one of the new, heavily armed guards. He waited for the man at the door to notice his colleague’s voice had changed, or that he had four people following behind him. But the conversation concluded without incident and they walked quickly past. No one gave the group a second look.
As he passed the guard on the door, Liam risked a glance at his face. The man’s expression was impassive, but his eyes were covered by a filmy gray mist. Liam swallowed, and sent up a silent prayer that he was still working for the good guys.
• • •
Grace slipped over the rooftops toward her quarters in Saint Catherine’s. After years of near-invulnerability, she rarely worried about fights anymore, but now, her pulse thrummed and she had a distinct impression she was about to walk the line between near-invulnerability and the actual sort.
Grace found she had to consciously slow her breathing. Her muscles were tense, and she felt a sharp pain in her palms. The last seven decades hadn’t left her a stranger to fear. She felt it often: the dread when the others were at risk, the sharp pang as she put out her candle and had to trust that Menchú would be back as he had promised—to light it for her again. But she rarely feared for herself. Now, with the others gone, she felt the weight of her enemy’s malevolence pointed at her. And this enemy knew how to hit her where it hurt.
Good thing she knew how to hit back.
Grace was alone on a rooftop, heading into an ambush where she would almost certainly be outnumbered and outgunned. For the first time in nearly a century, she was walking into a fair fight, and she couldn’t help relishing the prospect.
• • •
Aaron paused after he closed the door to the Archives, as if listening for pursuit, but Asanti caught the way that he let the wood take his weight, the way he closed his eyes for a moment and fought to regain his breath. He was trying to hide it, but the man was exhausted. How much does shifting from one body to another cost him? Then he opened his eyes again, and caught her watching.
“Hiding four people in plain sight must be a strain,” she offered.
Aaron’s new lips thinned, but he didn’t try to deny it. “A bit.”
Then they were descending into the Archives, and Asanti didn’t have attention for anything else. She paused on the stairs while she was still high enough to see over most of the shelves. She had still been reassembling the collections after the techno-cultist’s whirlwind hacking when the Hand broke out and started eating invading demons. The damage from the latter had eradicated all signs of the former, but as far as silver linings went, that was definitely a thin one.
Still, there were signs that others had been here since Team Three left. For instance, she was sure the Hand hadn’t ransacked her desk and filing cabinets. That was Desmet and De Vos, no doubt. And somehow that violation of trust by her erstwhile colleagues felt even worse than the demon’s.
Menchú’s hand settled on her shoulder, a comforting weight.
“First, find the Book of the Hand,” he said.
Asanti nodded. One step at a time. Stop a demon from breaking out of Sal’s head and ending the world. Then worry about the damage done to her catalogue system.
Liam peeled off to see if any of his computers had survived the Hand and subsequent ransacking. Asanti pulled out her keys and led Menchú back to the third point of the star—the most secure of the Archive’s vaults—where they’d stored the Book of the Hand.
Menchú continued giving instructions as they crossed the charred floor to the vault. “Sal, watch Aaron and the door. Liam, when you’re done, help her. Asanti—”
But his words were lost in the thunderous pounding of blood in Asa
nti’s ears, overwhelming all thought.
The vault door stood open.
And things had been going so well . . .
• • •
The people watching the convent from the café across the street were trying to look nonchalant, but their lack of conversation made them easy to identify, and their fixation on the door made them even easier to evade. A tree growing over the courtyard of the neighboring building provided Grace with both a route to her own roof and a vantage point to check for surveillance above street level.
There wasn’t any. Which meant that either their enemies were idiots, or this was definitely a trap. And while setting a trap for her was not the smartest idea, Grace was certain that given Desmet and De Vos’s treatment of Sal—who was merely possessed—they weren’t likely to let her waltz in and reassume control of her own life if they thought they could prevent it.
Better to be prepared. If she was wrong, the job would be easy, and she could be pleasantly surprised. If not, being ready might make the difference between ending up comatose in a box at the end of the mission or not. Win-win.
It was more fun to imagine she was walking into a trap, anyway.
Grace cautiously let herself down to the roof’s peaked ridgeline from the tree. No alarms. A quick look showed no activity from the watchers at the café. She picked her way over to where the chimney blocked most views of the gutter, and swung down. Her toe just found purchase on the window ledge of the nuns’ communal bathroom. At this hour, the sisters would all be at morning prayers, and unless someone was ill or playing hooky, she should have the place to herself.
Grace’s luck held. All of the good nuns were where they were supposed to be, and once she had squeezed herself onto the ledge above the sinks, she slipped to the floor unobserved. She didn’t even knock over anyone’s toothbrush, which she imagined the sisters would appreciate if they knew. Once she found her feet, Grace slowly cracked the door to the hallway. Her rooms were at the far end of the corridor, close to the stairs and the linen closet. Outside her door sat a woman in a habit. It would have to be a woman. The only man allowed into the residential areas would be a priest, and someone would ask questions if a member of the clergy just sat around all day. Grace was also certain that “woman in a habit” was a more accurate description of the person she was looking at than “nun.” Sisters possessed many skills. Hand-to-hand fighting wasn’t generally one of them. And this particular individual had swollen knuckles and a nose that knew how it felt to break.
Bookburners: Season One Volume Two Page 24
